...you find it isn't.
It's been a long, long day. I think I probably will get round to talking about what has just happened, at some point and in some regard, but tonight I am shattered. A different shattered to where I was when meningitis was in full swing, I must say, because I have concentrated on the idea of keeping perspective in a wider picture, and it does actually work. We are fine. The kids are fine. The dog is fine.
But it has been a day to teach you that things you quietly bank on having can - CAN - suddenly be taken away by, well, shall we say Nasty-Gnomes? That some people honestly, seriously, wish you ill. And that the ill that they wish upon you can be completely unexplained and undeserved. And and AND... that there is not a jot you can do about it.
And does it matter? In our case, no, probably not, actually. We are not, after all in Haiti.
Sometimes I crave the stabilising effect of a certain piece of music but tonight Jerome K Jerome has come rushing to aid. Now if there was EVER a ghost to have a pint with in the pub, for me, it would be him. With George and Harris and a canine-ghost of Montmorency at our feet.
We had this read at our wedding. And today I think it has waxed more relevant than ever before.
For those of you I've bumped into today, I Am SO sorry for looking grumpy.
"George said:‘You know we are on the wrong track altogether. We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can’t do without.’
"George comes out really quite sensible at times. You’d be surprised. I call that downright wisdom, not merely as regards the present case, but with reference to our trip up the river of life generally. How many people, on that voyage, load up the boat till it is ever in danger of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think essential to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless lumber.
"How they pile the poor little craft mast-high with fine clothes and big houses; with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that do not care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha’pence for; with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with—oh, heaviest, maddest lumber of all!—the dread of what will my neighbour think, with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, with empty show that, like the criminal’s iron crown of yore, makes to bleed and swoon the aching head that wears it!
"It is lumber, man—all lumber! Throw it overboard. It makes the boat so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment’s freedom from anxiety and care, never gain a moment’s rest for dreamy laziness—no time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly o’er the shallows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, or the great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods all green and golden, or the lilies white and yellow, or the sombrewaving rushes, or the sedges, or the orchis, or the blue forget- me-nots.
"Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need—a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.
Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome
Thirst IS a dangerous thing indeed. Now, whose idea was it to have a dry January? Dramatic sigh.
Friday 15 January 2010
Monday 11 January 2010
The hills are alive, with the sound of tutting...
See? SEE? Music will always ALWAYS make you feel better!
I have just stumbled on the phenomenon of the Complaints Choir. And it's a fascinating thing. It seems that all you have to do is get together with a few tra-la-la-ing friends, a piano (or accordion if you are east of Prague), find a bit of space in a street, on a roof top, in a theatre and so on...and then you all sing heartily about things that annoy you.
I have found quite a bit of diversion this evening in looking around the performances of international complaints choirs, and discovering what's bugging them. The Germans are annoyed by a road and complex tax calculations. The Russians about queues and salaries, the Finns about trees being chopped down for loo paper (when there STILL isn't enough loo paper, they warble) and the Chicagoans about all the single men being insane. The Hungarians seem to me to be having the most fun with their rousing recitals about the annoyingness of Hungary (and why us foreignors use the word goulash. Well, hold on a moment here, I thought it was Hungarian; it sounds Hungarian...maybe I'll write a song about sneaky words which sound Hungarian and aren't, and sing it right back atcha...) but that the Hungarians would have the most fun is no surprise, as I have long been of the suspicion that the Hungarians ALWAYS have a lot more fun than us (and that's another post).
Of COURSE we have one here and of course it's in Birmingham. I wondered at first whether that might be in Alabama, but no, the first line of Sung-Brummy makes it very clear where they are... They don't seem to be enjoying themselves - Birmingham's changed, you know, and they don't get paid enough, they sing- but I hope they are having some fun really, as the whole thing strikes me as a splendid idea.
So much is being said recently about the physical and psychological benefits of singing, and herewith a triple whammy. You get together with a whole lot of other people (check), get to sing your head off with no real requirement for Talent Proper (check) and you get to let a few moans out into the open (check).
All I need now is for a Proper Psychologist to say it's a great thing, and I'd try and get one going myself. Why does my milkman sometimes come at 9am when it's too late for cereal and coffee? Why does he sometimes come at 5am and clash around and make the dog bark? Why do people get prosecuted for fighting off burglars in their own homes? We didn't vote for Gordon, why is he there? Why does the place round the corner think it can charge 4 quid for two foul tomatoes stuffed with a lump of feta and doused in tabasco? And so on and so on...
Am off to the piano to compose.
I have just stumbled on the phenomenon of the Complaints Choir. And it's a fascinating thing. It seems that all you have to do is get together with a few tra-la-la-ing friends, a piano (or accordion if you are east of Prague), find a bit of space in a street, on a roof top, in a theatre and so on...and then you all sing heartily about things that annoy you.
I have found quite a bit of diversion this evening in looking around the performances of international complaints choirs, and discovering what's bugging them. The Germans are annoyed by a road and complex tax calculations. The Russians about queues and salaries, the Finns about trees being chopped down for loo paper (when there STILL isn't enough loo paper, they warble) and the Chicagoans about all the single men being insane. The Hungarians seem to me to be having the most fun with their rousing recitals about the annoyingness of Hungary (and why us foreignors use the word goulash. Well, hold on a moment here, I thought it was Hungarian; it sounds Hungarian...maybe I'll write a song about sneaky words which sound Hungarian and aren't, and sing it right back atcha...) but that the Hungarians would have the most fun is no surprise, as I have long been of the suspicion that the Hungarians ALWAYS have a lot more fun than us (and that's another post).
Of COURSE we have one here and of course it's in Birmingham. I wondered at first whether that might be in Alabama, but no, the first line of Sung-Brummy makes it very clear where they are... They don't seem to be enjoying themselves - Birmingham's changed, you know, and they don't get paid enough, they sing- but I hope they are having some fun really, as the whole thing strikes me as a splendid idea.
So much is being said recently about the physical and psychological benefits of singing, and herewith a triple whammy. You get together with a whole lot of other people (check), get to sing your head off with no real requirement for Talent Proper (check) and you get to let a few moans out into the open (check).
All I need now is for a Proper Psychologist to say it's a great thing, and I'd try and get one going myself. Why does my milkman sometimes come at 9am when it's too late for cereal and coffee? Why does he sometimes come at 5am and clash around and make the dog bark? Why do people get prosecuted for fighting off burglars in their own homes? We didn't vote for Gordon, why is he there? Why does the place round the corner think it can charge 4 quid for two foul tomatoes stuffed with a lump of feta and doused in tabasco? And so on and so on...
Am off to the piano to compose.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
