Word up!

In 2004 I was standing in Cardiff Central Railway Station's branch of WH Smiths. I was hungover and readying myself for a four-and-a-half hour train journey home. I had my sarnie, my water and I needed some reading material. The men's magazines looked as terrible as usual but, just I was about to give up the hunt, I spied the headline "Jeff Buckley lives!".

Now, during my first year at university I had become somewhat obsessed with the drowned-warbler that was Mr Jeff Buckley, after the recommendation of the album Grace from a friend, and so to see this headline, staring out at me among the sea of other "look at me" cover lines, felt somewhat serendipitous.

It was a magazine called "Word", something I was vaguely aware of but not really. Anyway, I bought it, I read the article, I very much enjoyed it. The rest of the magazine was equally compelling with intelligent, interesting, well-written, articles, reviews, interviews and so forth. Ever since I have enjoyed Word - mentioning it in my interview for the Cardiff Magazine course - texting Radio 2 when Mark Ellen was on the show asking for advice for aspiring journalists when I was in my university days, reading the blog of David Hepworth, having a subscription in the boom times (on the Christmas list for this year too) and so on.

Then, in October, I won a competition hosted by Word (by submitting this video), to play with the JD session group the New Silver Cornet Band - made of up musicians who have played with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, and so on. The day itself passed in a blur of nerves, missed notes, and a flurry of a guitar solo. Afterwards though, during the little interview I did with The Word's Andrew Harrison I offered (because you have to take advantage of the weird ways life can work out and play into your hands) to write something about the gig that was taking place two nights later, featuring Brett Anderson, Jon McClure and Carl Barat, and - perhaps because I had oh-so-subtly mentioned some of my other freelance work including The Guardian, and plenty of music reviewing - he said, "Okay, sure."

Much agonising over words later I emailed the copy off and sat back, waiting to see what would happen. Fast forward to today...after much peering at shelves in various corner shops in Pimlico (if they're not on a corner, what are they?) I found the December issue and there on page 49 is my review in full, complete with a small picture of me and the band from the rehearsal day, complete with a little, in-bold byline. Pretty cool.

Okay, so I got to write it via a competition entry I saw on Twitter (yet another tick in the pro-Twitter column) but hey, I can now say I've written for Word Magazine.

The age of Auster

In September both my housemates urged me to read The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. So I did. And thoroughly enjoyed it; a strange, hyper-meta-fiction work that subverts the crime fiction genre, while also being very compelling and confusing in equal measures. A cheap airport thriller it is not. After that I read Man in the the Dark, also lent by my housemate, and enjoyed that too.

Glancing down a list of other books by Auster I spied one called Music of Chance. I went into a book shop and, not only found it straightaway, but next to it was another Auster called Leviathan - it was clearly a sign. I read both of these while on my flights to and from Slovakia (see post below) and returned home eager for more. I found The Brooklyn Follies for £2 in a charity shop, and then bought Mr Vertigo, Timbuktu, Moon Palace, and The Book of Illusions from Amazon, while someone at work lent me Travels in the Scriptorium. I finished the last of these - Moon Palace - last night. Ten Auster's in two months.

Of these my favourites were Timbuktu, Mr Vertigo, Leviathan and Music of Chance. Timbuktu is told from the perspective of a dog, Mr Vertigo is about a boy who can fly - what's not to be intrigued about? Travels in the Scriptorium was my least favourite - a poor man's New York Trilogy - and the rest a mixture of the very good and some slightly flater moments - The Book of Illusions, for instance, starts off very strongly but fades off somewhat towards the end.

There are a lot of reoccurring themes, motifs and plots elements in a lot of these works. Many character come into money in different ways (inheritance mainly), eliminating Auster having to worry about what his character do to get by, instead having them spend time in long, strange periods of isolation, often retelling, or writing, stories, or spending time sat in rooms writing in notebooks. In both Moon Palace and Book of Illusions the central character spends a great deal of the novel - almost a third or a half - hearing the life story of another central character - thus the books are essentially two stories bound up in one.

Furthermore character names and historical figures crop up all the time too - Zimmer, Blume, Quinn, while Nathaniel Hawthorne and other Hawthorne family members are frequently referenced. There is always a section in which a character either goes to live in France, or has lived in France in the past - something Auster himself did - while they are almost always set exclusively in and around New York. Lots of characters start off intending to destroy themselves - "I was looking for a quiet place to die" - first line, The Brooklyn Follies - only to find themselves in a strange, quirky story which ultimately saves them - not in a Hollywood happy-ever-after way, more in a dark, life-goes-on way. Sometimes these repetitions of plot are irritating, and other times they are not. It's hard to explain that but although each time it happens it's easy to reference to the other book(s) where it happens it's more important when read within the context of the book and the story as to how noticeably it sticks out as another Austerism.

Auster's writing style is one thing I am a great fan of. There are some wonderful descriptions in each and every book - some sentence are so intriguing or well-written it make you stop and re-read them; often they are so evocative as to conjure up another entire story, as if they could be the first line of another complete novel. He has an uncanny ability to philosophise on ideas of chance and fate (in his characters voices') without it sounding trite or clichéd but fresh and original. There is also a great emphasis placed on detail for details sake, rather than merely to fill paragraphs with descriptions. Indeed, since reading Auster I have rediscovered my creative writing bug and written one short story - and put online here - and have a couple of others bubbling away on my Google Documents.

So yeah, Paul Auster. There you go.

From Slovakia with thoughts

At the end of September I went to Slovakia on a work trip - part of which involved a flight in a Hind Military Attack Helicopter (video), which was awesome - and I realise I never wrote anything on this. So now I will. Stand back...

Slovakia was a very interesting, pretty country - I saw the cities of Presov and Košice, the second and third largest, as well as a bit of the countryside as we travelled about by coach, and above from the air. The streets were classic Eastern European - covered in tram lines, little cafes, bistros, odd looking alleyways heading here and there and so forth. But there were clear signs of modernism too with Tesco, Pizza Huts and M&S all to be found in among the old gothic facades of the local shops. There were plenty of pinks, yellows and blues on the fronts of buildings too, giving it that chocolate-box (cliche?) feel you often get in quaint European cities and while there was little clear evidence of the Cold War or the Second World War there was a definite sense of history among the streets; the church in Kosice for example had that air of the old world, of the dates 1759 or 1816. The women were mostly stunning, the men, less so.

A few days in either town would probably suffice I imagine, but it was nice to have seen a couple of interesting places in Europe I doubt I would otherwise ever visit. It was strange to realise too that we were just 70km from the Ukraine.

Muppets

So it's been 40 years of Sesame Street; I can't think of much to say about it really except that I was absolutely terrified of Big Bird when I was a child. I think it's understandable really; this massive, yellow, huge nosed creature peering down at the camera with the slightly gorky, fluish voice saying 'ooh hello children, today's letter is the letter Ttttt' is terrifying. Ho hum.

London aboveground

In the last ten days I've had the luck to fly in over London twice. Once around 3.30pm, as a low winter sun bounced off the Thames and the buildings, and then again last night, on a clear moonlight skied night, with every electricity-burning piece of equipment shining brightly below.

Both times it was absolutely stunning. The day time flight was incredible to see so clearly buildings like the Gherkin, St Pauls, the colours of the trees in the parks, especially my local Finsbury Park, or the winding Thames from such a unique perspective, as we flew into London City Airport. I didn't think much could top that but last night was even more spectacular.

Something about seeing the city so brightly lit, the cars, buses, trains and tubes hurtling this way and that, each famous monument bathed in assorted shades of colours, the parks' outlines clearly visible by their darkness in among the light - there Green Park, on to Hyde Park, up to Regents, then Hampstead, across to Finsbury Park, below the Emirates football stadium clearly visible - was just utterly beguiling. The boats on the river causing trails of white water, the city stretching away to the horizon, the idea of so many people out and about below us, barely acknowledging just another plane arriving from another party of the globe, all of it so mesmerising. We even did our flight holding path out over the city, and banked at Canary Wharf (ha!), making those towers of money seem beautiful.

Back on the tube, chugging slowly home, it's hard to appreciate the reality of London. But from above, the whole spectacle splayed out before you, it really is quite breathtaking. For a fantastic set of images (takes a while to load mind) taken by a photographer for the Boston Globe, check here (number 15 is my favourite).

Z is for...

Zzz

Why are Zzzs representative of sleep? Is it the shape, the three layered positioning that could resemble the head, body and legs of a person in bed. Or is it meant to be snoring that makes a sound akin to zzz - because, if it is, it's not very accurate is it? A snore is more guttural, more nasally, than the soft, sounds of a Zzz. Make the snoring noise and you'll agree it's far more like this: 'Ckkkkkkk'. Or perhaps you have a better interpretation? Trying to write out sounds that don't easily fit into the sounds of letters is strange.

Did you enjoy the alphabet blogs then? I don't know why I started them, I just thought it would give me a good reason to blog (almost) every day and might through up some random / diverse / interesting topics. I hope it did at least.

A blog on London from above tomorrow. Pencil that in your diary.

Y is for...

Yachting.

Coming from Cornwall I've done a bit of sailing in my time - possible not enough in some respects, but I've been in to the Carrick Roads several times, to the Scilly Isles and back, and so on, and it's much fun, as long as you can get a nice bit of speed up.

Sailing around the world seems to be a challenge of human existence that remains a significant feat of endurance and ability. Of course, GPS and Sat Phones make it possible for people to be far safer by allowing them to keep up to date with the weather, and stay in direct contact with the outside world, but like climbing Everest, while lots of people have now done it, it still requires a level of dedication that goes beyond the everyday. I found out about the clipper yacht race in which people of all abilities, starting from no sailing experience at all, take boats around the world over nine months as part of a race. I thought, that sounds like fun. Cost to enter? £40,000. Shame.

This video of one of the Volvo Ocean Yacht race boats skimming over the waves, surfing at one point (20-23 seconds), is a great example of the speed and excitement sailing can provide (and has the Pirates of the Caribbean theme music too):

X is for...

Xs marks the spot.

One of my favourite all time Simpsons moments is when, and I forget why, someone is imagining pirates burying treasure. One, slightly foppish, pirate speaks up and says "Why are we burying the treasure, why don't we use it to buy things? Things we like." He's then shot but the lead pirate.

One of my other absolute favourite moments is when Homer visits a strange, edge-of-town car lot run by an eastern-European chap. Homer struggles to fit in the tiny, three-wheeled car as the sales man pronounces "It gets 400 hectares on a single tank of kerosene." Then, as Homer stalls the car and we see a shot of foreign symbols on the dashboard that might as well be Tetris pieces, the man shouts "Put it in H!" (I think you can watch all this here.)

One more: In the episode where Bart becomes the 'I Didn't Do It Boy' Homer is led to believe Bart has been crushed to death and turned into a box. We see him outside practicising various ways to break this news to Marge in that classic sitcom way that characters do. When Homer finally does break the news his exact words are: "Marge, I have some horrible, bone-chilling, news." Brilliant.

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When I did Ten Tors training me and my 'tent' buddy used to keep our spirits up during the damp, boring nights in our cramp, uncomfortable tent by reciting our favourite Simpsons moments. Works well for other similar situations. Such a shame it had to jump the shark though.

W is for...

Whisky.

Whisky. Foxtrot. Tango. A bloody good night out.

I was in Scotland earlier this week for work and as part of the keeping-us-sweet part of the trip we got to do some whisky tasting with information and advice from a top whisky expert - who was German. He loved whisky so much he had moved to Scotland wound up ambassador of the society which I think is bloody fantastic. Take that Griffin.

It was interesting to hear him explain that watering down whiskey is perfectly acceptable - although not with ice - until the whisky gives off an aroma that your palette senses it will like: much like you inhale wine you do with whisky. If you use ice you can't tell how much water is actually in the whisky and you have to wait for it to melt down and so forth. So with this advice we tried some unique cask example of 40%+ strength, sufficiently watered down, to be a nice, mellow drink; I think I get the whisky thing now. It was very nice.

Oh and the notion of using coke, apple juice, lemonade with whisky is most definitely made clear to be Not On.

V is for...

Vinter

No, not a put-on German accent pronunciation of winter but the name of one of the four school teams at my secondary school. The others were Wickett, Smith and, confusingly, School. Each team had a very definite and distinct personality.

School (green) were the top level athletes, the captain of the first XI, the rugger boys, the century scoring cricketers. They were the team to beat and most years came away with the overall sports day crown.

Smith (blue) were the renegades, the wild, unpredictable mavericks. One year they'd lose 6-0 to School in the football, the next year, with everyone expecting another cake walk, they'd produce an inspired display of attacking flair and verve and win 2-1, throwing the competition wide open; but they almost always finished fourth.

Vinter (yellow) were, for the most part, those who considered themselves good at sport, but in reality were not that good. They were full of bluster, over the top pronouncements of how good they were, why this year they would win the football / rugby / cricket / sports day. When it came down to it though they crumbled, turned on one another, and always finished third.

Wickett (red) were School-lite. Each team member was a suitable talented sportsman, able to pass, catch, throw and so forth with competence, but never quite to the level of School. However, if they functioned as a team they were hard to beat, and once or twice came away with a win in the annual round-robin sporting events.

I won't tell you which team I was in, but you can probably work it out.

U is for...

Underwater

Living underwater is often portrayed as a sublime, peaceful existence in movies or books - living in and among the fishes, using crustaceans as musical instruments, grabbing on to passing dolphins fins and riding along, but I'm not convinced it would be good. Sharks and conger eels, and manta rays and sea snakes also live underwater. I wouldn't like that.

Ringo Starr (stage name yeah?) wanted to cohabit with octopi, but I don't know why; the others had the right idea with their yellow submarine. "Out you go Ringo, you wanted to try it!" "Youse guys are having a laugh if you think I'm going out there."

Atlantis; that definitely didn't exist. We came from the water, why would we want to go back? Space, that's where we want to go next.

T is for...

Twitter.

2009 has been the year of Twitter. Any end of year review surely needs to reference it. It should. As such I will touch on Twitter here in general sense but save my experience with it for the end of the year (another thing besides Christmas to get excited about). Needless to say though the site has, for those who have involved themselves in it (not all things are for all people of course), been something of a new dawn of internet usage. I say this with a straight face.

People are open, honest, engaging, friendly, argumentative without being ridiculously over the top (see Youtube), endlessly hilarious (in fact if Twitter has proven anything it's just how many staggeringly quick, clever, funny, creative people there in the world who work as everything from paramedics to students and back again) and above all, real. The idea of reality is what the naysayers use to discredit Twitter, suggesting it's for people who don't interact with the world, who sit at a computer all day rather than engage - but nothing could be further from the truth. It's for people who actively do engage with the world, who are happy to meet up with random strangers on the basis of conversing through a few 140 character messages on everything from cupcakes to the London Marathon. I'll touch on my own experience of this in future (as mentioned) but the Twestivals of February and September proved that there is nothing socially inept about the people on Twitter.

Here's an example today of something I saw on Twitter that I thought showed what the site has done to change the internet. David Mitchell, having appeared in the last episode of Peep Show series six on Friday was obviously sent several messages on 1) would there be a seventh series? and b) was an opinion expressed on the TV show about The Wire, his own view. Thanks to Twitter people were not only able to ask these questions in a way that wasn't intrusive or time consuming, but they were able to get answers instantly, straight from the man himself. The site has helped the internet become personable, human, interactive; a real time reaction to what people are thinking; not 'heavily orchestrated campaigns' as those of a certain intelligence believe it to be so, proving they don't understand.

Anyway, I could go on. Graham Linehan (aka @glinner), who's become something of an unlikely champion of the site, the man behind the #welovethenhs hashtag, wrote all the above on this excellent post The Conversation. I couldn't have put it better myself.

And, when something goes wrong, it has a picture of a whale (known as the Fail Whale by those on the site) to indicate this. What's not to like about that? 2009 was also the year of the whale it seems, in my world at least.

S is for...

Stream of Consciousness

You know, that idea of writing whatever enters your head at that moment, in an effort to replicate the way in which the human brain flits around all over the place, and was popular with writers like Joyce and Woolf. I once thought about renting Ulysses from a library to read it but I never did. I remember I was in Cardiff University library with a friend called Gareth, and I was hungover, and we were going to creative writing, which I did for two years, but for some reason I never did actually rent Ulysses out. We were the only two males in that creative classing, I think, so it was an odd set up but good fun. The first thing we were ever asked to write for that course was a piece of steam of consciousness prose and I did mine on a train journey I had done, when I went home from Cardiff to Cornwall. I can still remember it now, the train journey, the sun piercing the carriage, the mild hangover emanating from my skull, the cold, damp BLT sandwich I had bought, listening to Grace by Jeff Buckley on my CD player. CD players? A different era.

Written steam of consciousness still doesn't capture the true reality of the human mind as really it's unconsciousness that happens to you as you're wandering around, sitting on a bus, or whatever because that's when you don't even know where your mind is, why it's jumping from one subject to another; like that moment when you say 'oh what was I talking about?' or when you dimly try to remember something you've just been thinking about, that has passed on, but you don't feel you full got to the bottom of, often something that was a bad thing, a worrying thing, that you needed to think about more fully.

Have I Got News For You?

Yes I do. Last night I went to the recording of
Have I Got News For You. Such wit!

The guest host was David Mitchell, with guests Ed Byrne and Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry. Interestingly, these two, I felt, were funnier than Merton and Hislop, who while being very good of course, didn't seem to be on top form. Bryne, Grayson and Mitchell (isn't that a law firm?) more than made up for this though.

The show's set is strange as it looks very small in real-life (as opposed to the unreality of a television screen), and it's only when the lights are set to the traditional colour tints that it resembles the set so well-known to millions across the land. Hopefully that picture gives some idea of this

There were only a few re-recordings to be done after the 'end' of the show, which was a blessing as two hours sat in small, uncomfortable seats, having drunk two beers beforehand, plays havoc with your sense of priorities. Mitchell was a consummate host though (as he is on every panel show he appears on) and with only three bits to re-do, and a couple of 'watch this show' clips (including a brilliantly withering put down of a joke he had to read out that referenced the Ronseal advert that I hope makes the final cuts), we were on our way before the clocks had even reached 10pm.

Outside the studios there's a wonderfully 'ITV' piece of television indulgence in the form of a series of hand prints and signatures from such luminaries as Ant McPartlin, Vernon Kay, and Justin Lee Collins, alongside more high-brow members of the television fraternity, such as Lord Melvyn Bragg and Stephen Fry.

Overall, it's great to have been to see such an institution of television comedy, and with Harry Hill's TV Burp to attend in November (which I saw last year in Teddington as well) I have to say live TV recording of quality shows are definitely worth attending.