Thursday, September 29, 2005

Last Day Of Summer

What a difference a day makes - tuesday evening I'm enjoying beautiful sunlit views out across the Severn estuary, wednesday evening I'm struggling to keep up to 50mph on the same bridge, and worrying whether the gusts of wind blowing rain into my car's engine are going to make it cut out completely. Last night I saw Tom Russell, someone I knew more by reputation than by firsthand acquaintance with hs music. And while this week's festival of Dylanology has briefly pushed the history of folk back towards the front of the public consciousness, it's a great time to be reminded that folk n country n Americana, however you want to pigeonhole it, is still alive and kicking. Russell's new album 'Hotwalker' and either of Nanci Griffith's 'Other Voices, Other Rooms' albums is a great place to start, if you want a broad introduction without going to Alan Lomax levels of effort. Although you've missed seeing Tom Russell on this particular UK tour, unless you can get to Devon in time for this evening's show! You can easily find out more about Tom Russell but be warned he has one of those annoying flash websites, so don't be surprised that it comes with sound, resizes your browser window and generally is a pain...

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Roll Up For The Magical History Tour

My journey yesterday evening was interrupted by the closure of a road which meant my normal route was drastically altered. Which is ok, I knew beforehand that was the case, and the detour I took enabled me to see a lovely buzzard which I would otherwise have missed.

Leaving out the extra time pressure of not knowing exactly where I'm going, driving is good relaxing thinking time and it occurred to me that next week sees the tenth anniversary of me having an address in this city. I've always been good at keeping track of what happened when, and it's a good sign that this just popped up rather than being something I'd been counting down to.

Realising quite how far ago that is, I felt suitably comfortable with a very minor diversion past where I once lived, my first school and a couple of other little places of note, and my journey home was made on a closer approximation of the route I used to use when I first started travelling up this way.

There's nothing wrong with knowing where you're from, and plenty of good in appreciating where you're at.


Sunday, September 25, 2005

A Grand Day Out - Wheeeeeee!

Yesterday I did forty seven miles of cycling with yet another bunch of strangers off the internet, of whom I'd met precisely none before. There were a couple more than two dozen of us at the start, although we lost a few on the way round an extended circuit starting and ending a little way away from the centre of Brum. As you'd expect, where there's that many people riding around together who are not in the habit of riding with each other, communication is a major issue and potential problem. The group split up a number of times - in my haste I took someone else off down the wrong hill where we had the fun of setting off the speed camera at 40mph - and the more serious offroad bits turned out to be plenty of fun, and except in one case no real harm was done. Riding on what is essentially a road bike with almost everyone else on decent spec mountain bikes turned out to be great fun - on the roads and where the canal towpath surface is decent enough to make a good turn of speed, it's a hell of a lot easier on my skinny tyres, and even racing the others uphill on loose surfaces is easier than some of them were expecting. And while I have a fairly robust sense of adventure on a bike, I knew better than to chance it on the sort of feature where someone else came a cropper and his bike ride turned into an ambulance ride to get a broken collarbone dealt with. Splendid stuff also to have a decent day's weather, to be reminded of the heritage of Brum from the days when this was a manufacturing nation, and to revisit a section of canal that I have previously passed on a canal boat, albeit twenty-something years ago. A lot has changed in the meantime!

Friday, September 23, 2005

Old Friends, New Toys

This evening I've watched a whole load of Loudon Wainwright III on BBC4, including some stuff I'd never seen from many years ago and it was flaming great. That sort of thing is exactly what I pay my licence fee for. And I appear to have taken temporary custody of a digital camcorder, which means I also have the temporary means to take digital still photos instead of having to mess about scanning my own prints. Meanwhile, tomorrow is going to be a long and interesting day for which I need to get on with getting ready.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Of privacy and anonymity

It's been quite a day, and there's a few people out there who have every right to feel rather aggrieved, to say the least, about stuff that's been said under the relative privacy of an anonymous talkboard username which has 'found' its way to national print media, with pretty devastating consequences in certain areas. I sleep soundly knowing I've done a pretty good job of protecting myself, and having been told I can be impenetrable even when I'm trying to spell something out, I do feel safe enough. I'm ashamed of nothing about who I am, and I'm big enough to take whatever comes my way, but I'd still have been pretty shocked to find anything of mine in the paper without warning. So I can hardly imagine how rough that was for one poor sod in particular, and how much trouble that's caused. He's most unlikely to see this, but I wish him well in his damage limitation efforts. Regardless of applicable terms and conditions, I can see how a breach of trust like that can take a lot to come back from, and it'll be interesting to see what effects it has in the longer term. For once I'm pleased to recognise that talking a lot about myself exposes nobody but myself - and for how much my life has been enriched by all the lovely internet people I've come into contact with, I still consider the definite benefits dwarf the potential risks. And you can quote me on that. Though I'll be thinking just a little harder about exactly what I say for a while.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Lighting Up Time

Summer's gone then. The longest day was quite some time ago, there's a definite chill in the air at times and evenings are predominantly in darkness. I've already got a rear light on my commuting bike, and the addition of the floodlight for the front is high on my list of things to do today. But last night I was in the right place at the right time to see the most fantastic clear skies and the most amazing light as the sun went down over my favourite piece of civil engineering. Here's a few pictures, though these are from a few weeks ago.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

I Live In This House Over Here, Have My World Outside It

It's that day of adding up what I've achieved this year, what I've learned and whether I am any wiser for the experience. And while there's a couple of things which happened this year I'd change without hesitation, I can only say that I really am pretty happy with my life.

I don't feel there's anything missing, and my parenthood ambitions have slunk back into the shadows for now while I've been busy getting on with living. The ghosts of the past know where they belong, and they are at my mercy, not me at theirs.

Over a couple of great trips I've achieved plenty more than I would have considered satisfactory before I left, and in that regard I feel I'm making the most of what is my peak condition. I'm not going to get any younger, and I don't have the discipline to get that much fitter, barring a complete personality transplant, so it doesn't get any better than this.

On the TV-specific, this has been a real breakthrough year that's probably worth summing up on its own. At some other point. My house increasingly looks like a home, though it's always felt like one, and I'm as settled and well adjusted (don't laugh!) as I've ever been. I feel blessed and very lucky - things could be a hell of a lot worse, and then some.

Happy birthday? Yes, it is, and having people to share my thoughts with makes a big difference in that, so thanks for being here - it wouldn't have been the same without you.


Monday, September 12, 2005

Social Dis-Ease

I'm not a fan of big crowds, I'm known to be not much of a drinker (the odd bottle of wine at home aside), I don't like loud noise and I sometimes struggle to follow conversation against its background. I couldn't answer the question as what I consider my local, and in the getting on for three years that I've lived in this house, I can count one lemonade in a beer garden a couple of miles away as my sole contribution to the publican's trade. Sure, on my travels last month I ended up catching up with some of my friends who'd travelled from different places in the pub, but there's a fair chance half the folk who may read this were there the last time I was out anywhere except for the purpose of live music. That was in the Pitcher And Thingy off Trafalgar Square. Time before that? Night the last Pope died. And the time before that, well I'm struggling to recall exactly. I grew up around no sort of social activity whatsoever, and when my peers started drinking at 16 or thereabouts, I found it easy enough to not join in. Not because I have any objection, not because I stand in judgement of those who do, just because the question what's in it for me? comes up with a big fat nothing there. If I had a point when I brought this up, it's most likely the vague hope that if you've been around me in person and my body language and/or my lack of talkativeness have made me look like I'm uncomfortable or not interested in what's going on, that this is some sort of explanation as to how far out of my normal territory I may be. Now, doing new things is good for me, but in this case it's not necessarily easy for anyone to get to know me better. And I have plenty to gain if I can make it easier - I'm trying.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

They Have Though (*part two)

* details to follow, maybe - here they are Ok, take the tinted moisturiser, the liquid foundation compact, eyebrow pencil in blonde, eyeshadows in a natural skin tone, a very pale purple and a not quite slate grey. Add a sparkly pink blusher, brown/black mascara and a neutral but glossy lipstick. Put together with my lovely boots, my new skirt, my cream sleeveless top and my new sawn-off cardigan. Add a very big smile, and you get me right now. I've just been a very out kind of out and had a very nice time, even if I wasn't there very long for reasons that don't much matter right now. I'll come back what 'going out' actually is for me, but it's a very, very long time since I was out on a saturday night anywhere for anything other than live music, regardless of wardrobe choices. And right now I have a bottle of wine to deal with.

Indian Summer

My favourite month sees summer take its leave, A birthday landmark lurking in its midst Like winter stealing forward to deceive The evening sun whose rays can scarce resist October's chills, whose glints of baby teeth Will glide away, content for now with threats Like braves defer before their fading chief And wait to stake their claim once his sun sets Transition times, when leaves get brown and blown Together just to gather in one place, The wind through naked branches sets the tone: This thirty step routine's gusts scour my face I feel September ache through every day And strain, like me, to keep the frost at bay

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

They Have Though!

Just got in from a discussion evening that was billed as TRANNY TALK !!! – A space to talk and share experiences and ideas about gender beyond the male/female binary gender system we are squeezed into from birth. I spent the better part of three hours with a couple of dozen people, all of whom had their own different stories and something interesting to say on various subjects. Naturally, I said little and listened lots, and came away reminded that life is out there for the taking. I'm not about to dedicate my entire life exclusively to the advancement of the queer politics agenda any more than I'm about chop off a leg, but it is another step in getting to know unfamiliar parts of the world I live in a little better, and maybe letting it in a bit more.

You Ain't Seen Me, Roight?

Here is a not so nice reminder why I've grown up cagey, and feel justified in not unashamedly spreading the word everywhere. Yes, it's true that I haven't invited Phil Daniels to come and make a documentary about me which makes me look ridiculous, been exposed as a fraud (on the ten year old antiques expert thing, which was completely bogus), and still had the nerve and/or desperation to attempt to trade on all that. There's a lot more to me than the interesting wardrobe. And I don't need a spraypaint-handed mob decorating the front of my house with the word paediatrician, should they be able to spell it.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Catching Up

It's been a pretty busy few days, so there hasn't been much time for new posting. But I have been busy having a great time - I took the train back to my birth-town for the first time in a few years, which gave me a whole load of thinking time while being transported through places where I've not been that way for ages. Sure I drive down there often enough, but there's a bit more latitude for taking in the scenery when you're not in control of the vehicle. On the way I realised I'm just coming up to the tenth anniversary of first moving to this city - in the time I've been here I've come a very long way, from having no idea what might possibly happen to make me employable beyond casual manual labour to having a job I'm very happy with and my own little house. The train goes through the area where I used to live when I first moved here and all that feels like lifetimes ago, and that's a good sign. It does no harm to be reminded how far I've come, and how much I have to be grateful for. And I am.
_