And the Winner is . . .

Best Thing

You have to understand that most of the people, and all of the children attending our overstuffed Christmas Day celebrations come from SO's side. At present-unwrapping time, the form for demonstrating one's gratitude consists of remaining on the sofa, waving the received present until gaining the atttention of the giver, mouthing 'Thank you', then moving swiftly on to the next parcel.

My favourite eight-year-old, see Fri Dec 15th, on unwrapping the gift from his other grandmother hurled himself shrieking across the length of the sitting room to hug his thanks. (A home baked chocolate cake decorated with five £1 coins, since you ask.)

Most Hilarious Thing

An eleven-year-old cousin playing 'Frosty the Snowman' on his sax, getting crosser and crosser, and finally throwing the most glorious tantrum because his younger sister wasn't taking him seriously enough. I know this makes me a bad person, I really do.

Worst Thing

A present. I kid you not. Did you see the price? And given by a bloke whose major topic of conversation over the coming months is going to the damned thing, how lovely it is, how genuinely crafted, and does it keep good time usw usw usw. Argh.

Just for me

Hugh Macleod, the blogging GOD over at Gaping Void rules that a successful blogger blogs for his/her readers, not for him/herself. Well shucks and anchors aweigh, here's a post that is just Just JUST for me.

BiB asked for lists of people of the 'wrong' gender that you could see yourself . . . *ahem*. Go look at the post. Bless him, he has worn his fingertips bloody Googling images of everyone's suggestions, but had little luck with mine. So here most of them are. Won't do ex-girlfriend, coz she's real life.

One thing I notice, is that if they're a character, then the character is clever. If they're a sleb, then in RL they're - well, clever. Clever has always floated my boat. On those grounds alone, here in Blogland I am surrounded by examples of unparalleled human pulchritude. I love it here.

Oh - not forgetting the funnies!
Andrew Marr and Stephen Merchant. Cannot for the life of me understand why I can't publish pics of these beautiful men, so they have to be links.

Jude Law? Really?

I just don't get it. I don't deny that the man has some acting talent, but good-looking? Surely not. His eyes are too small, as is his mouth, his face is flat, and square, and his hair is a cartoon. None of which matters in the slightest, except that he keeps being cast as someone really handsome, and that, to my way of thinking, contravenes the Trades Descriptions Act. I have never seen him in a movie where being handsome wasn't part of the deal, but put him in a movie where he also gets to be slightly creepy and he does actually score. Think Talented Mr Ripley, and Gattaca.

So, last night's movie outing was The Holiday. Well, I hadn't expected it to be quite such a chick-flick. Also unexpectedly badly-written. Winslet and Diaz faxed in their performances, and Jude Law and Jack Black as the love interests? Puh-lease. Rufus Sewell was, as ever, cracking, and Eli Wallach was a treat. But honestly? You can wait until it gets shown on telly, and then you must really not have anything better to do.

(I also don't get Brad Pitt.)

Carols by Candlelight

. . .was, I'm sure, no different from a thousand other carol services across the country. From the startled thrill at hearing those few small treble voices bring the hubbub of a large congregation to an instant halt, through the familiar freshness of the readings (my favourites are Isaiah* and John**) and the exultation of the carols themselves, it's the closest I get to Christmas.

I'm very sure that in the next few days at least one post is going to be titled 'Bloody Christmas' or 'Five Things I Hate About Christmas' or 'Christmas? No Thanks, We Did That Last Year' or somesuch, but not tonight.

*Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

**John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Boys will be boys

In his diary, for which he was being paid, a deal he had struck to finance his expedition to the South Pole, Ernest Shackleton, on the occasion of the final destruction of his only means of transport, and therefore his means of ever getting home from the South Pole, his ship Endeavour, wrote

27 October 1915. The end came at last about 5pm . she was doomed, no ship built by human hands could have withstood the strain . I ordered all hands on to the floe and as the floe near us was cracking we started to sledge all the gear .

How matter-of-fact is that. I couldn't help but feel that the newspaper which was paying for this was short-changed. Wasn't his heart breaking along with his ship? There's absolutely no inkling of it.*

This afternoon I witnessed the return of an eight-year-old boy from his day at school. I like this boy - he's articulate and clever, and has recently - September I guess - started guitar lessons. As that's my instrument, I have to be careful not to be over-enthusiastic and risk putting him off. I gather that he is picking it up like a good'un, and by his own self-motivation finds himself very far ahead of the pack. He greets Fridays with a song on his lips, primarily because it's music-lesson day. I asked how his day had been, and he told me, 'Fine'.

His mother, who was surprised to find herself pregnant at all, and staggered to find it was a boy, has since opined that any woman who wants to make a successful marriage really needs to bring up a small boy first, as it explains so much.

* There's always Beryl Bainbridge's The Birthday Boys, if you want heartbreak.

Why did I bother doing the '5 things' meme when I could have done this?

Thanks so-oo-ooo much CB!

Heavens to Betsy, look at the time . . .

I didn't have time for a Sunday post - too busy finally filling newly-built shelves with books which have been crated for years. I thought it was still Monday until I looked at the time. So here's one I prepared earlier.

Funny Church Bulletin Mistakes

The service will close with "Little Drops of Water." One of the ladies will start quietly and the rest of the congregation will join in

This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South and North ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends.

The eighth graders will be presenting Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in the church basement on Friday at 7 p.m. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

Thursday night - Potluck supper. Prayer and medication to follow.

Tuesday at 4:00 PM there will be an ice cream social. All ladies giving milk will please come early.

This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.

Next Sunday a special collection will be taken to defray the cost of the new carpet. All those wishing to do something on the new carpet will come forward and do so.

Bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

The rosebud on the altar this morning is to announce the birth of David Alan Belzer, the sin of Rev. and Mrs. Julius Belzer.

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

The preacher will preach his farewell message, after which the choir will sing, "Break Forth With Joy."

During the absence of our pastor, we enjoyed the rare privilege of hearing a good sermon when A. B. Doe supplied our pulpit.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.

The church is glad to have with us today as our guest minister the Rev. Shirley Green who has Mrs. Green with him. After the service, we request that all remain in the sanctuary for the Hanging of the Greens.

Thursday at 5:00 PM there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers Club. All ladies wishing to be "Little Mothers" will meet with the Pastor in his private study.

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

The Rev. Adams spoke briefly, much to the delight of his audience.

Don't let worry kill you -- let the church help.

Wednesday the ladies liturgy will meet. Mrs. Johnson will sing "Put me in my little bed" accompanied by the pastor.

The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind. They can be seen in the church basement Saturday.

Thanks to the Salvation Army in Addlestone!

The pressure, the pressure

My sister, whose judgement is, in my opinion, second to none, tells me I put far too much pressure on friends, acquaintances and occasionally passing strangers by my enthusiasm for whatever book or movie or whatnot has grabbed my imagination. By recommending it so glowingly, I make it hard for the hapless enthusee to judge it on its own merits, as I have raised expectations so high, and of course really hard to tell me that they didn't like it all that much.

So when I discoverd to my horror that two friends of mine had never seen Singin' in the Rain I invited them over for supper and the movie. Because everyone should see this movie, it's an absolute cracker. Isn't it just? I braised a shoulder of lamb, and served it with rice and peas, with Luxemburgerli for afters.

Well. Rachael opined that Gene Kelly's outfits, with the wide trousers and high waistbands, and the shirtsleeves rolled up high and tight, made him look - well, gay. And Jill had spent the entire flick wondering why Kelly exhibited absolutely no VPL*, even though some of the dancing gets pretty athletic.

Did we just have a total bust of an evening? Have I just sent hours of my friends' lives down the tubes? But it's a terrific movie! How can anyone not like it!

After they left, I tidied up, and had a game of Scrabble with a woman born and raised in Cardiff, who currently lives in the Bahamas and owns the local radio station. She asked me to tune in, and what I wanted to hear, and blimey if a DJ half way across the world with the voice like chocolate didn't play It Never Rains in Southern California and dedicated it to li'l ol' ME! She also told me that, until he died, she was good friends with Count Basie who lived round the corner from her. COUNT BASIE! *lots of little squeeking noises!* Please please shoot me the day that I start finding this ordinary.

* Visible Panty Line

Sunday. Here's why

I watched my mother being baptised by the Bishop of Jerusalem. I was quite small at the time, and in them thar days the travel restrictions around the Middle East were Byzantine. Suffice it to say, some border official somewhere needed paper proof that we were a Christian family (Ma, Pa, me, li'l sis), and the easiest way to do this was to find a baptismal certificate quickly. Pa's, if it wasn't lost, was in Hoch Deutsch, mine was in Spanish, sis had never been done, so Ma offered herself up. She thought, what the hell, and started taking it all seriously. So belief and the Church were an integral part of my growing up.

I never questioned any of it - it meant a bunch of friends and activities different from the school usuals, membership of choirs, starting with the Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin, Johannesburg (then a hotbed of political sedition - I remember a young curate called Desmond Tutu) where I learned the fabulousness of liturgical music, and a standard bunch of certainties.

Then in my second year at Uni, I had to have small operation on my eye. I hadn't had a particularly Godly few terms, but hey - who does? Nevertheless, I asked for communion on the eve of the op. So there we were - I had the whole ward to myself, empty beds stretching either side, shafts of sunlight making the long room glow, me in a simple white hospital gown, a black-robed priest made anonymous by his office. At the highest point of the celebration, I suddenly thought - 'ooh! I'm starring in the most fabulous piece of theatre!'

And, just like that, it was gone. And I want it back.

Context is Everything

The exhibition in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall is currently these wonderful slides. They're not just for looking at, you can go down them as well. As the tallest one is five floors high, it's quite a ride.

But is it Art? If these slides were in a swimming pool or in a park, no, of course not. But they are in the Turbine Hall, which makes them, by definition, Art.

Condensing an obscene amount of intellectualising, academic back-and-forth, and general erudition, Art reflects, emphasises and amplifies life. So, why Slides? Well, last time I passed a playground with a helter-skelter slide I thought, 'how elegant'. The artist's work was done.

So, there I was, in the middle of reading The Swimming Pool Library, which, surprisingly for a novel set so firmly in the gay milieu had been very well received by the mainstream press, and enthusing about it to a gay (relevant, OK?) friend. He hadn't come across the Hollinghurst, but suggested that I might also enjoy Slaves of the Empire, by Aaron Travis, which he lent me at the next opportunity.

It's a slim volume, but as we all know, size really matters - it has to be the right size. I started reading. I couldn't make it out. I understood the words, and the order they came in, but I could not for the life of me grasp what the author was aiming at. Was the tone ironic? Was it a pastiche? Was it allegorical, with the gladiator slaves standing for the honest hard-working sons of toil, and the slave-masters being AIDS or summat?

And then I got it. It was Porn. Badly written porn. Exploitative, voyeuristic, improbable porn. And none of the last three adjective would have applied if it hadn't been so-oo-oo badly written. I was reading the Travis in the context of the Hollinghurst and came completely unglued. With that burden of unnecessary expectation lifted, I could finish reading the thing with a light heart, laughing, crying and cheering the travails of our various (extremly well-oiled) heroes.

And now I have a yardstick for homosexual pornography, hooray. Nothing so far to measure against it though. As to whether it's Art? . . .


UPDATE - I took out the picture that should have been at the top of this post. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get Blogger to insert the pic. - the Add Image pane looked like it was working, but the post wasn't updated. I coded the HTML manually, but it seemed that it just worked for me and no-one else. Argh.