A Prestigious Review

Apparently there is some debate raging about whether blogger’s have the required qualifications to review. It certainly seems to have inspired some witty fiction, vitriolic debate and a backstage look at reviewing. Anyway here’s my contribution:

I don’t know if I mentioned this but this is how 2006 started. Myself, Colleen and Siobhan were stood in front of Sacre Coeur and as the midnight hour chimed out two German Magicians wished us Happy New Year and performed a small trick for us. For one tiny second my face slackened and that look of childish wonder crossed my face.

I’ve just been to see The Prestige. Why? Well, because I like Christopher Nolan. What has he done? Memento and Batman Begins. Why do I like those films? Well, because Memento was a clever way of presenting a story and Batman Begins finally presented the Batman I know and love. What have these two films got in common with The Prestige? Well, it’s clever and Batman and Alfred are in it, except Batman is Alfred and Alfred is someone else, but really the same person he always is. Confused? Well that’s kind of the way the film leaves you.

I went to see it with Claire. Before hand she had sent me two reviews. Quite amusing really; one was in the Guardian, one in the Observer, one hated and reviled it, the other loved it (actually I skimmed over the second, but I think that was the gist of it).

So I left the cinema undecided and wondered. I skirted past the hordes of tourists quickly to reach that piece of open sky above the cemetery. The bit of the walk where you can appreciate the stars and the moon and that’s when I understood and a smile crossed my face. Ah, so that’s what it was all about. So I’ve decided I liked it.

Forty Three Days

On October 16^th 2006 my phone was cut off for some bizarre reason or other. So according to my journal this is what I was up to:

· I spent hours on the phone to France Telecom and was consistently given different information from different people who were pretty consistently god damned rude;

· I lost my temper many times with various people at France Telecom and shouted and swore more in French than I have done in the last six years;

· Over a very nice glass of red wine, Colleen, Siobhan and I wrote a poem for Minx’s Samhain competition (never got the chance to post that);

· I reworked the spirituality story for Skint’s competition (never got a chance to post that, but you see there was hope there at first);

· I wrote a list of things that I couldn’t do without a telephone or the internet.

· Floppy moo pissed me off (see previous post);

· The dentist got pissed off with me because I had smoked in the three intervening weeks since he had begun cleaning my teeth and salt blasted my face as he did the rest of my teeth (but I do have clean teeth);

· I thought of a way to rewrite Sirens;

· I got stood up for the first time in my life;

· I became infatuated with a man who parks his bike down the road (I am now intimately acquainted with his battered silver bicycle, but have not seen him since);

· I joined/went to a writing group and turned up like a keeny with Heart Attack to share and discovered I had to read it aloud. On later reflection I realised that when I said that the inspiration for the story was a dream that I probably came across as completely bonkers;

· I wrote three versions of the same story, this story actually makes up the vast majority of the last month’s notes and for some bizarre reason it only came out right last night;

· I missed trains (nothing new there);

· There was a Europe wide power cut and I sat wrapped up in my sleeping bag bathed in candle light writing (there is now candle wax all over my phone);

· I decided to quit my Masters course (although that decision was kind of taken out of my hands as I missed all the e mails asking me what I was up to and they kicked me off);

· I took to wandering around Montmartre before ending up on the steps opposite Sacre Coeur and viewing the city;

· I had writer’s block for thirteen days

· I got plastered on bad Beaujolais Nouveau and discovered that my porn star name was Goldie Heythorp, although we all agreed that Goldie Nelson was better;

· I had a bad experience in a Chinese Karaoke restaurant;

· I went to my first ever opera, although it was an opera/spectacle. I liked the opera bit, but wasn’t sure about the random balls of fire that kept being shot into the air;

· I reviewed the book shops of Paris;

· I tried to inhabit the skin of my brother and discovered that I didn’t really know too much about him;

· I went to see The Prestige, which I loved for various reasons (I wrote it down somewhere);

· And finally in the writer’s group last week I sat through the worst story I have ever heard in my entire life, while the group leader sat opposite me trying to make me laugh (bastard – I probably had nail marks imprinted in my cheeks by the end of that).

Where the Wild Things Still Are

I grew up with Maurice Sendak's 'Where the Wild Things are'. There's probably a little or a lot of Max in me. I love the Wild Rumpus, but I also love the coming home to the hot dinner. When did I fall in love with the line: 'and he sailed off thorugh night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are'? Was I five or twenty five? I was without the book for many years, but I always remebered that the last five words were: 'and it was still hot'.

So Floppy Moo. Well the other day she was in here with her reading group and they were reading it. Did she read it because she had heard me claiming it was my favourite book of all time a couple of days before? I don't know, but the group sat and read it and pulled it apart to reconstruct meaning and then she did it, she ruined it. The book has been around all my life and never has anyone asked: 'What happened to Max?'. She asked with such persistence over and over that finally she provided her own answer. And every cell in my body screamed out NO!

As a child with big eyes and slightly open mouth, I just believed. As an adult I still believe in Max. Maybe I believe now more than ever. Maybe as a writer I have to believe. So my plea is just believe in Max.

And would someone somewhere please end my nightmare with France Telecom. I am at work using their phone and their internet connection in the hope of sorting out this rubbish SOON.

Beware the Phone Snatchers

For Your Information...

Miss V will be unavailable until further notice as someone has stolen her phone line. She has spent the morning going round in circles being passed from France Telecom to Orange and back again only to discover that Free have taken liberties and freely stolen her line. She is now feeling emotional and exhausted and really should be doing some work but is unable to concentrate as she contemplates the full weight of the possibility of a week without a phone line, no internet, no MSN, not being able to check the weather forecast during this tricky autumnal season so that she is not over or underdressed, no...

Miss V has been disconnected.

Shop till you drop

2nd August 2006

Ubud is definitely the place to do this, but first we spent the morning trying to plan our next move. Wayan – Ketut’s wife – informed me that our route via Gunung Batur (a volcano which will feature more later) was not the best. We ummed and ahhhed and booked things and cancelled things. Estrella came up with some alternative routes and then Ketut turned up and sorted out our Bali light trip. Driver to Amed with a wee tour thrown in, a hotel booked and all this in time for us to go and sample another of the restaurants down cheap street. The toilet was out back through this labyrinthine family compound and you needed a guide to find it, but man the food was good.

So with full stomachs and wallets we hit the streets of Ubud. Shopping tally? Estrella? Well this could be difficult cos boy that girl can shop: there was definitely a skirt, some trousers, a couple of tops and then I start to lose count. Kim: wedding present, a couple of pictures and a wedding outfit which was a whole experience of wrapping her up, unwrapping her, pinning her up, tying knots here and there and then just to make sure she gets it right on the day a whole step by step photo shoot. The shop assistant was well into the step by tiny step so in the end I had to pretend I was taking the shots. Me: two barong pictures, some cushion covers, a pair of trousers which could probably fit me and a couple of friends in and a nice new ring to replace the one that got too big and the one where the stone fell out.

Exhausted by the last few hours Estrella and I stopped for a fruit juice and a few moments to plan how we were going to pack all this shit, sorry I meant stuff. Meanwhile Kim went all the way down Monkey Forest Road to the Monkey Forest to commune with the nice friendly monkeys. She returned a wee while later with two more sarongs and the promise of two for one mojitos. It turns out they were a drink and snack all in one, lovely bits of mango and lashings of rum (yum). The girls had ginger ones.

So after our penultimate running of the gauntlet with the barking dogs of Ubud, we packed, checked our departure time, settled the bill and somehow ended up in the same restaurant as lunchtime. Well you know you can never get enough of a good thing...

Unexpected Expectorant

I may have mentioned in one of these past posts that I have a cold. Or rather, had a cold, it has now developed into a humourless hacking cough. I may also have mentioned (in more subtle tones) my ongoing love affair with Julian Barnes. I suppose it could be described as inevitably tragic as eventually I know I will be left wanting more, but soon the last page will have been turned. So you may be wandering what colds and Julian Barnes have in common. Well, as the narrator described the feeling of losing his virginity: ‘And why didn’t they tell you about the football fan in the back of your skull, the man with the rattle and the scarf who shouts Yippee and stamps his feet on the terraces?’ I began laughing so hard that I nearly phlegmed up on the rather dishy passenger who had got on an empty carriage and smiled and sat next to ME, who I was discretely pretending not to eye up.