April 2003

April 30th, 2003. Ritual

Oh, more interestingly, there are also local council elections.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "interestingly? interestingly?"

The reason it's interesting is that tonight is Beltane. Well, it's supposed to be Beltane. However, this year the Beltane festival has been effectively banned by an evangelical christian clique on the city council, who think that it's nasty and pagan and satanic and should be banned. They're going as far as hiring security guards to guard its traditional venue overnight, to make sure noone tries to, well, have fun, or anything like that.

(Most of the people involved in Beltane aren't pagan at all; they're just performers who like putting on a good show. So I've been told, anyway. Of course, to a frothing-mouth evangelical, that's not the point.)

17:31 Comments (4)

April 30th, 2003. Political

Politicians really get on my nerves. All of them. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I can never see anything other than self-interest in their actions. All the prominant ones will put self-promotion before ideals; that's why they're at the top.

Regardless of that, though, I have to think of politicians at the moment, because tomorrow is the Scottish Parliament elections. The whole country, from Livingston to Lerwick, is filled with excitement disinterest, so I thought I'd write the Top Of The Stairs Guide To The Election.

I quickly realised, though, that I don't know much about the parties other than the obvious. This is the best I could come up with:

The Labour Party: the ones who are going to win again, despite all the various expense-fiddling scandals they've been involved in.

The Scottish Nationalist Party: the ones who won't win, and who don't seem to say anything other than "The government's a bit rubbish, isn't it." They might try to make Scotland independant, but they don't like people reminding them about it in case it upsets all the English-born voters.

The Liberal Democrats: the ones who will come third, and therefore will end up in the government too. They keep stressing that the parliament has increased the differences between Scotland and England, unlike the Nationalists.

The Socialist Party: have good benefit gigs (see below) but rubbish TV adverts. The one I saw was five minutes of their party leader ranting about how they will make Scotland a poverty-free socialist paradise. And that was it. Presumably he was doing it to an audience, but you wouldn't tell; the camera never left his face. They have modernised themselves, though; every sentence he would shout "BROTHERS AND SISTERS!" where a few years ago it would have been "COMRADES!"

There are other, minority parties, like the Greens, the Conservatives and the People's Alliance; but none of them are going to get very far so I can't be bothered to mention them. You can tell the Conservatives aren't feeling optimistic, because their main campaigning point is that they will get rid of as many political jobs as they can. Politicians have to be really desperate before they'll offer to sack themselves.

17:26 Comments (3)

April 28th, 2003. Bussing it

Travel sickness is a pain.

It means I forget how nice it is, on a bright sunny day, to go off in a bus, sitting at the front with a good view, bowling away across the countryside. It's so relaxing; you don't have to worry about driving, keeping on the road and not hitting anything. You can just lie back and enjoy the scenery.

The problem comes when I get on a bus and find that all the seats with good views are taken. Then, I quickly start to feel queasy. It's even worse at night, when looking out of the window I get nothing back but my own reflection. Yup, travel sickness is a right pain.

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April 24th, 2003. It's that time of the month again...

It's that time of the month again, when I start wondering whether or not it's worth going to Glasgow.

It's the National Pop League on Friday, you see. I've not been for months now - not since before Christmas, in fact. Every month I start thinking: "hmm, should I go this month," and end up not doing.

I probably won't go in the end, but you all should because it's dead good, even if it does get a bit hot and sweaty. It's tomorrow night at the Woodside Social Club, near Kelvinbridge station, Glasgow.

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April 23rd, 2003. Medical

It's my second visit to the hospital consultant this afternoon. I've deliberately avoided telling my parents about it this time, because they would only panic and worry.

They want me to cancel any appointments with her, and go and see a psychiatrist instead. I've already explained that she is a psychiatrist, but that didn't seem to help them.

11:34 Comments (1)

April 22nd, 2003. In the depths of the countryside

[written yesterday morning, at Owen's family's house]

It hasn't rained for at least a month, I'm told. It's raining now and making up for it, pattering heavy on the windows and running down the lane. The plants are all very happy and excited to see it. I'm not, because soon I have a half-hour walk to the bus stop for home.

The weekend weather has timed itself well. Saturday and Sunday were warm and sunny. It's only today, when I have to go home, that greyness has set in.

From the sitting room window I can see almost all the village, at the level of its grey slate-roofed cottages. The spire of the church is poking behind chimneys, and across the lane cows are grazing despite the weather. The rain looks to be coming to a stop, and the sky is clearing. Noone can be seen, but smoke is puffing from a cottage chimney.

My eye keeps gettng drawn to the sitting-room bookshelves. Susan Cooper, Patrick O'Brian, C. Hamilton Ellis, Iain Banks and Common-Sense Compost Making.

[end entry]

18:07 Comments (0)

April 22nd, 2003. Holiday!

I'm back again.

I went away to Nithsdale for the weekend. Now I'm back at work, and I feel completely exhausted. I'm sure that's not the way holidays are supposed to work.

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April 17th, 2003. Getting on the telly

You know those emails you get where it might be spam, but it also might not be and you're not really sure? This came up in my mailbox today:

Dear Caitlin,
We are creating a TV pilot about blogging. We want to bring this phenomenon of personal expression to television for the very first time, and have been scouring the web for appropriate sites. Your web site seems like a potentially great fit for the show.

Looking into it a bit more, it's from a company who say they bridge the gap between film/television and games. Has anyone else heard of this project? Has anyone done anything about it?

If I wanted to participate, I'd have to record a MiniDV video of myself wittering on about something (a la this blog, you see) and send it off to an address in Santa Monica, California. As I don't even know what a MiniDV video is, still less the ability to make one, I can't see myself getting involved.

Last night, incidentally, Belle & Sebastian did a political benefit gig in Glasgow. I wrote a rather sketchy review on the train on my way home and posted it to Sinister; you can read it here.

15:05 Comments (5)

April 16th, 2003. Me and the letting agency

So, I paid the rent. Then I started by asking about the suite:

Caitlin: I was a little worried that I hadn't been told to expect a new suite coming.

Agent: No, that was the landlord that did that. He didn't tell us about it either.

Caitlin: Hmmm. The letter you sent said he'd be inspecting the flat again, but it was a bit vague about when.

Agent goes to the Big Chief Agent's office for a chat, then comes back

Agent: We're going to phone him, and we'll let you know when it is going to be.

Caitlin: I was also worried that you told me I had to get rid of the cat...

Agent: That was what the landlord told us.

Caitlin: ... and particularly, you said that you'd told me that before. I'm positive that you've never told me anything like that before, so it made me a little puzzled.

Agent goes off to see the Big Chief again, and comes back

Agent: The cat wouldn't be such an issue if the flat had been a bit tidier.

[and we discussed how the flat wasn't really any messier than when the agency last did an inspection.]

Caitlin: Isn't there a rule that you always have to send me written notice before doing an inspection.

Agent: Yes! We always do; we've always written to you before visiting.

Caitlin: But the landlord...

Agent: I just said, we'll let you know before the next inspection.

Caitlin: ... didn't give me any notice before the last inspection he did.

Agent: But I told you, that was nothing to do with us! It was him that decided to do that!

Caitlin: Presumably that same rule applies to him too, though?

Agent: Well, he must have thought it didn't apply to him.

And that was more or less it. I'm hoping that they are going to point out gently to the landlord that he can't just visit when he feels like it, because I'm sure they wouldn't want me to make any official complaints over this. I'm also wondering who I would make any official complaints to. The council? The police? Who deals with this sort of thing?

11:17 Comments (5)

April 15th, 2003. Flashback to the ovicaprids

I have to go and pay the rent today, which means I have to go and speak to the agents about the cat and everything. I'm really not looking forward to this, as you can probably guess. Wish me luck.

Walking to work this morning, I think I saw SJ playing golf on the links. SJ was an archaeologist I knew at university, one of the few people I got along with. I'm not sure if it was her - too far away to see properly - but she had the right hair and the right clothes. In fact, it was an outfit I remember her wearing. I kept looking over at her, and she kept looking back at me again, probably wondering the same.

11:18 Comments (1)

April 14th, 2003. Art

Gordon doesn't get photography, he told me. I'm not entirely sure why. I wasn't entirely sure what he meant, in fact.

We were at the Glasgow Art Fair, in a big George Square tent. We prowled its booths trying to look like we had a few hundred quid to spare on Art. Gordon, in his tweed three-piece suit, managed it quite well. There wasn't much photography on sale, but there were plenty of paintings. Most seemed much-of-a-muchness, but a few caught my eye.

There were probably too many to take in completely. Every so often I would drift off into a haze whilst Gordon studied something carefully; I'd stand around looking at a loose end, planning how to describe the fair when I got back to a computer. When I snapped out of it again, I'd see things that I would want to buy if I had the money. A contour map of Marilyn Monroe's head (Gordon: "You could camp out on a nostril!"). A set of small, square, flat paintings each done in two or three pastel shades of household gloss. Menacing watercolours of Highland skylines. Small sculptures of maps of the oceans leaking from tiny tin buckets. A lovely, big painting of grey and white clouds (price tag: £1000). Gordon liked a couple of the paintings on the Glasgow Art School stand, even though their painter's grasp of perspective was a bit shaky: his ceilings didn't fit on top of the walls properly, and his windows weren't quite square.

To stop myself drifting into a haze, I tried to treat all the other people as if they were art too. This was especially easy with the art dealers, because they all had little tags just like the paintings. I could treat "Duncan Miller", "Lindsey Goring" or any of the rest just like the other exhibits. There were two groups of visitors: the old, rich people, who were actually considering buying stuff; and the young, studenty types, who were there to look at the pictures. The moneyed set wore lots of tweed or were very twinset-and-pearls; the students all seemed to go for legwarmers over fishnets. One girl, ginger-haired, saw my NPL badges and smiled.

There was one thing within my price range. "Postcard. Edition of 500. £3." I couldn't get excited about them. I half-wanted to buy one, just to go through the whole routine of putting my name down with the dealer and having a little red spot added to the caption card. It didn't really seem worthwhile, though. Maybe in the future I'll be rich, and the lovely painting of the clouds will still be there on Lindsey Goring's stand. And I'll have a thousand pounds to spend on it.

15:27 Comments (1)

April 11th, 2003. More feline worrying

See, I don't have to think up a theme to avoid talking about politics or the war, because there's just one thing on my mind right now.

Things are looking a bit bleak today: The Boss's girlfriend has sneezed twice this morning. This must be the cat's fault, apparently, so it looks like he's going to have to find somewhere else to stay.

13:48 Comments (2)

April 10th, 2003. Bluebottle flavour

Thanks to everyone who commented on the last entry. I still haven't got in touch with the landlord's agency, but I have to see them on Monday to pay the rent anyway.

Today, the cat came with me to work. The Boss and his girlfriend want to get one to keep the mice away, but they can be allergic to them; so he's here to see if they start sneezing or not. If not, then hopefully they'll look after him for me until everything gets sorted out. He's not very happy at the moment; he's been hiding underneath a throw in their living room all morning. Being a cat, he quickly found the warmest hiding place in the room.

This all led to a classic Boss Conversation about pet food:

The Boss: Have I told you about my meat book?

Caitlin: raised eyebrows

TB: No? I'm probably one of the world's foremost experts on the social significance of meat.

Caitlin: Really? more raised eyebrows

TB: Yes, and one of the chapters in the book I wrote on it was about pet food, and why it's always in flavours like lamb, rabbit or tuna, when cats would much prefer things like mouse or bluebottle. A cat could never catch a tuna!

We ended up talking about Van cats, and whether they can catch fish or not. Random conversations like this are one of the things I love about my job.

14:42 Comments (1)

April 7th, 2003. Desperate

I'm so angry and upset right now. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm writing about it here to maybe work it out from me and let me relax and maybe sleep tonight.

Last week, as I said, a new suite came. It was completely unexpected - no letter from the landlord, no phone calls or anything.

About an hour ago, I came home from work, and found a letter from the landlord's agents on the doormat.

"The landlord came to inspect your new suite, and was shocked with the untidiness of your flat ... He was insistant that you remove the cat from the property, as we have told you to do previously ... He will reinspect the property in two weeks."

I just don't know what to do. For one thing, they have never told me I can't have a cat in the building, and I'm going to ask them to back up their claim that they have. I'm so upset because I don't know what I'm going to do and how I'm going to manage with myself if I'm going to have to live on my own without him. I don't even know how I might try and find somewhere else for him to live.

I ran around and phoned everyone I could think of who might be able to think of a magic solution. I'm full of vicious angry, desperate energy. I feel so horribly powerless. Last year, there were some really dark low points I reached - they didn't get mentioned here, because I didn't want to look back on them - and I'm pretty sure that without the cat I wouldn't have got through them. I wouldn't be here.

19:52 Comments (14)

April 7th, 2003. New Eyes

When I'm walking round the city, I try to force myself to look at everything properly and not get complacent. I like to try to keep viewing everything freshly, if I can. It helps a lot with photography, because it helps you spot small things. It helps with writing too, of course, because all writers need to be able to spot the small details that can be the key to a person or scene.

Regular readers will know that I enjoy people-watching. My head is always noting how people are dressed, and how they are posed. The down-side to this is that I tend towards snap judgements about people, based on things like their t-shirts and their socks.

This can be a bad thing, especially in the Internet World where you often find a picture of someone long before you meet them. It's not so bad when you know somebody through their words first, but that doesn't always happen.

I should, I know, try to stop making these snap judgements about people. I shouldn't assume someone is a football thug just because I see one photo which seems to show a lager-belly and an unshaved chin. Especially as the only convicted football fan I've known (he was a mature student who dropped out of university because of a 6-month prison sentence) looked nothing like that stereotype. Even so, when I see a person like that I always get an itch to cross the street to avoid them.

I'm so glad I can see each building and street with an open mind every day, because it stops things getting stale. It helps me see that the slightest thing - a sunlit treestump, or a sign painted on the pavement - can be turned into an image. Just sometimes, though, I wish that I could see new people with a new set of eyes too.

15:22 Comments (1)

April 6th, 2003. Cry For Help

Incidentally, my computer has finally keeled over and is refusing to start. I'll probably be able to scrape the data off it eventually, but in the meantime I've lost my address book and the long list of emails I've been meaning to reply to. If you think your data should be in my address book, can you drop me an email and I'll write it down with pen and paper this time.

13:50 Comments (0)

April 6th, 2003. Popularity Contest

On Saturday the BBC launched The Big Read, its latest big "let's get the public to vote on something" idea. The idea is to find the nation's favourite book, in exactly the same format as last year's Great Britons series. So, later in the year we'll have a series of documentaries where celebs try to persuade us that their favourite book is the best. First, though, we had a similar thing with seventy-five soundbites squeezed into eighty minutes, complete with teenage popstars saying things like "[foo] is definitely my all-time favourite book, 'cos it's the only one I've ever read."

I couldn't help noticing that, conveniently for a TV show, nearly all the books mentioned were ones which had been filmed at one time or another. Books that hadn't been were quickly skipped over to ones with plenty of footage available. In some cases - The Hound Of The Baskervilles, for example - this only showed up the changes the filmmakers had made to the original story. In others, though, it was definitely a Good Thing, such as the clips from the 1930 film of All Quiet On The Western Front.

Popularity contests are never a good way to discover the "best" of something in a field where there is no objective best. JK Rowling, I imagine, is bound to get many of the top 10 places, and many, many books which I think are better are unlikely to get near the top 100. Nevertheless, if it means we're going to get eight or ten hours of TV which consists of people talking passionately about books they love, it can't be all bad.

13:48 Comments (4)

April 4th, 2003. I don't normally feel sorry for tourists, but...

The latest issue of the French magazine VSD has just arrived in the office. It includes a page on places you might want to go in Edinburgh, and pubs and bars you might like to visit. It's part of an article about the Beltane event at the start of May, so it starts off with fairly obvious places like Sandy Bell's and the Holyrood Tavern. And then...

CC Bloom's: De l'extérieur, l'endroit ne paie pas de mine. L'interieur n'a rien d'exceptionnel non plus. Mais il n'ya pas mieux pour faire rencontres...

(Fade up the voice of the translator, drowning out the original.)

CC Bloom's: Outside, the place is nothing special. The interior doesn't have anything exceptional either. But there's nowhere better for meeting people. Singles (including strangers) are always welcome. Make a move on the dancefloor - the ambience is so sexy, you will ask yourself whether all this is quite real.

Hmm. I wonder if anyone's told them that CC's is more or less the cheesiest gay club in the city. I wonder if someone is trying to pull a practical joke on them.

12:09 Comments (1)

April 2nd, 2003. Day Off

It was a good thing it was my day off, because I had a bit of a shock. I was quietly sat on my sofa reading a book, when someone knocked on my front door - and then unlocked and opened it.

I jumped up in terror, thinking it must be the mad ex-flatmate who owes me lots of money still. It wasn't, though. "We've brought your new suite," said a hairy-armed delivery man. They had, apparently, been trying to deliver it for a week, and had finally given up and got the keys off the landlord. If I'd known I was getting a new suite I'd have stayed in, of course, but it was a complete surprise. The new one seems huge, and looks awfully like the one my gran used to have.

In the afternoon I calmed down a bit and met up with Wee Lucy from Dumfriesshire. We sat at a window table in Favorit, ate cake and watched the world (and at least one local blogger) walk past. The men at the next table were having a conversation about the RAF; one (in a rubgy shirt) seemed to be trying to persuade the other (blue shirt and tie) to join up.

Rugby shirt: "You can't crash the Eurofighter, it just won't let you. If you're going to crash or something you hear a woman's voice in your head telling you what to do."

I got out my camera and shot my half-finished waffle, my cup of tea, and the pavement outside the window. Lucy looked a little nervous.

18:22 Comments (4)

April 1st, 2003. Vermeer (again)

Vermeer has been one of my favourite artists ever since I started looking at pictures as art rather than documentation. Naturally, therefore, when I was wittering on about him the other day I forgot that most of you probably have no idea what the painting I was talking about looks like, apart from the couple of little details I posted. So it makes more sense, I've put up the entire thing.

The other thing I liked about the Vermeer documentary, which I forgot to mention, was that over the closing credits they played Gary Jules' cover of "Mad World", originally by Tears For Fears. And it's a lovely song.

Update: I didn't bother coming up with an April Fools' Day entry, but a lot of people did - Richard Bloomfield, for example. The best, though, has to be Sue Bailey's homepage - look fast, because I expect it'll be back to normal tomorrow.

Update 2: Sue has archived her April 1st page here. I said to Mark W that it was just like when I first got on the web, and he pointed out that a huge number of websites still look just like that, and with no irony intended at all.

10:39 Comments (3)