unlock my heart?
Whilst we are searching the less salubrious parts of South Aberdeenshire for somewhere to live, our belongings are inhabiting a secure storage unit on the outskirts of the big town, this is not dissimilar to a 'Big Yellow self-store' as found in southern parts. Each occupier has a storage space, rented by size, alarmed and secured by a padlock.
When we were unloading, and as we wheeled our trolleys full of stuff through the anonymous corridors; the fluourescent lights flicking eerily on as we entered each section, and with nothing but the muted sound of Radio 2 to disturb our thoughts, our attention was drawn to an adjacent unit, whose occupiers evidently don't trust much, or each other perhaps, as there are 'his and hers' padlocks on the door. Nuff said, really.
but is it art?
The establishment at The Deep North, where we are temporarily abiding, includes among the inhabitants an elderly black labrador, a retired gun dog in fact. There is also a small lake or large pond, depending on ones point of view. The combination of dog and lake is frequent, and quite enthusiastic (on her part at least), but lately she has developed a new game. She goes diving into the lake, and truffles about in the muddy shallows, her head fully submerged, and her fore-paws raking through the mud. At first the general consensus was that she was turning over rocks in search of crayfish or perhaps some delicious morsels of carrion (labradors have depraved tastes, I will spare you the incident with the not-quite dead yet pigeon). Closer observation has revealed that she is in fact collecting stones, bringing them to the surface and arranging them in carefully chosen places. It is only stones she does this with, sometimes she will emerge from the water with a mouthfull of weed, or a decaying stick, these are contemptuously discarded, and subsequently ignored. Her stone installations, however, are revisited and inspected, presumably in case an art critic has been passing. I can offer no explanation for this behaviour, perhaps, in a household buzzing with creative energy, a little has rubbed off on her.
politics
I suppose I'm going to miss the bye-election, my poll card arrived too late for me to register for a postal vote and I'm not planning to drive down from Aberdeen to exercise my franchise!
This has become a very silly election, the parties are all throwing everything they've got at it, with the cons and the libs being particularly desperate and annoying. I think I've had most of a small tree shoved through the door in the past few days. Ealing/Southall being a mainly asian constituency, politics has a different tone. The one certainty is that whatever party wins, the MP will only be interested in representing the interests of his constituents (the only female candidate is a Green, Labour was going to select from an all-woman shortlist, but bottled out when they realised they would lose). Our recently deceased MP was not one of the more assiduous attenders at Westminster and certainly did little in the way of voting.
The con candidate (party member for less than ten days) was at a labour party fundraising dinner a month ago (and made a donation), five labour councillors have defected to the cons in a fit of pique because the party didn't select a Sikh candidate (it was their turn apparently), the cons are suing the libs for plagiarising their election literature. It's all a farce, in less than two years the boundaries will change, and a whole lot of tories will discover that their vote might mean something again!
This makes scottish politics appear to be relatively straightforward by comparison, no doubt I'll be disabused at some point, but for now I'll stick with that naiive view.
The narrow road...
Just a quick post to update on the big move; not without effort, we have transferred most of the contents of both our establishments to a self-store on the outskirts of Aberdeen.
The Nottingham correspondent and I will be making the final journey on Monday; a small convoy, accompanied by the muted wails of the cat will be heading North at last. I can't pretend that I have enjoyed packing up a flat that I have lived in for more than fifteen years, but it was and is time to move on. We have nowhere to live as yet, and will be staying at The Deep North until this is sorted out.
Hug a Hoody!!! - the musical
There are a great many forgettable old movies, when, at some point in the proceedings a toothy bimbo will propose that the solution to their improbable predicament is to put on a show. This idea will be enthusiastically received by all and sundry until some sceptic will ask: 'where are we going to do this?'
'Why, let's do the show right here,' comes the response, and suddenly the barn/railway station/mortuary will transform into a functional theatre, with painted cloths and colourful lighting as part of the package. This cretinous optimism has found a new home in the dubious world of issue based 'yoof' theatre.
Today I went to talk to a theatre company about doing a lighting design for them, unfortunately they hadn't put any information about the production on the listing, or I would have chosen to continue my mundane task of putting things into boxes. My heart sank when I discovered that my meeting was being held in a youth/drug rehab centre, a sterile environment distinguishable instantly by the vast number of printed notices on every available flat surface. My interview panel consisted of the producer (a podgy middle-aged, hand-knitted beardy). and three yoof. The director was the oldest, was in his early twenties, his bloodshot eyes revealing his liking for the weed, the other two (the author and someone whose function was never explained) were in their mid to late teens. What united this trio was a complete lack of knowledge about what is involved in putting on a show, they weren't able to remember what they were interviewing me about, and their collective attention span was slightly superior to that of a goldfish. Indeed for a moment there I thought I was back working with an opera director again.
They did have a desperate enthusiasm for their project, even though they weren't very sure what it was about. Nor did they know anything about their venue: the local town hall. They claimed a vast amount of support form local and community based organisations, including, they announced proudly, the local police. The cynical part of me (surely not!), immediately thought, the feds are probably delighted, they'll think they know where some of their regular clients are for several days at a time. This is a flawed theory, I did a ghastly d-day celebratory show a few years back, and five eleven year olds were arrested for trying to steal cars during the interval. I can't quite bring myself to believe that there is much of an audience for a show about how hard it is to grow up in Fulham, there's only so much teenage introspection that a person can stand; and I think I've already paid my dues on that score.
While I'm sure that David Cameron would thoroughly approve, and might even be persuaded to turn up, after all there's a bye-election pending, and if he does, then I wish him joy. As for me, to quote Sam Goldwyn, you can include me out.
