On writing & listening to music

My iPod is rather like a vortex manipulator; the most primitive transport through time and space. Music can make me feel most like myself, my secret cool self, the self where all things are possible and then again, music can make me feel most like someone else entirely. Music in an effective way of changing gears. Music is an effective way of changing masks.

If you know what sort of music a person likes and particularly, the way they hear it, you know an awful lot about them. I find it really useful to give distinct musical tastes to characters. Outside fiction, of course, you nearly never know how other people hear music, which is why it can be so reassuring that Barrack Obama cited Ready or Not as his favourite track, yet so devastating when David Cameron professed to love the Smiths. Yet, try to consider just how David Cameron actually might listen to the Smiths. The lyrics change their meaning. The colours of the music are completely altered. Can you imagine? He hears “It’s so easy to laugh, it’s so easy to hate; it takes strength to be gentle and kind.” and is moved to demolish the welfare state while vilifying the poor.

The article I linked to documenting Cameron’s love for the Smiths quotes him as saying, "The lyrics – even the ones I disagree with – are great, and often amusing.”

That's interesting, because not everyone listens to pop music thinking, "Now, that's an ideological point of view I disagree with, but that cat sure be laying down some the phat rhymes."  So that's another thing to consider, when using music to tune into fictional characters; Charles Manson thought that the Beatles' White Album was all about race war. People hear and interpret lyrics differently; sometimes they don't matter and sometimes they're everything.

Tragically, David Cameron is not a fictional character, but if he were, understanding how he enjoyed the Smiths would be very useful to his creator. Playing the Smiths while writing about him would be useful. No reader need know about any of this - the subject need never be raised. But it's co-ordinates in time and space.

That having said, there's no harm in musical references. A detective with an eccentric taste in music has become a cliche in British detective fiction, but that's only because it worked so well with Morse (classical, particularly Wagner) or Rebus (rock, particularly The Rolling Stones). I’m really excited in movies and TV shows when they pick distinct music which a character actively chooses to listen to - McNulty listening to The Tokens' version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight while tailing Stringer Bell or Walter White racing along the desert highway to A Horse With No Name.

There are people – and therefore there must be fictional characters – who either can’t or don’t appreciate music (I have known a few extremely lovely and poetic people who are either deaf or just not bothered for music). In these cases, it may be necessary to plug into some other piece of culture that a character is into; a favourite movie, TV programme, a favourite painting or whatever. Only naturally, you can’t do that while writing, and it often takes more time and consideration.

Beyond the matter of character, I use music as an aid to concentration. I can only work for short spells and time, energy and peace arrive at fairly random intervals. I have to get in there as quick as I can.

This music is not music that I would particularly enjoy in other circumstances, because it has to meet the following criteria:

1. A track has to be at least four minutes long. Longer is good.
2. A track can't have a lot of variation - the classical music I love provides long movements, but often with too much going on.  
3. I must be very familiar with this track for some reason, even if that reason isn't love for the music.

There's a fair amount of classic music that's good for this, as is goth music; Bauhaus' Bela Legosi's Dead goes on forever. Red Lorry Yellow Lorry's Talk About The Weather is shorter but you can play it on repeat and not notice that it's ended and started again. Dance tracks from the 1990s which became numbingly familiar on the bus to and from high school are also very useful; Adamski & Seal's Killer or What is love? by Haddaway. That kind of nonsense. 

I don't dislike this music, but if I were a fictional character, it would not be mine.  

There are dangers listening to music when writing, apart from obvious things like singing, dancing and spending half an hour rearranging a playlist before you’ve even got started.

The first is feeling it too much. When I was younger, I treated fiction-writing much as I treated dramatic performance, as if, should I only feel everything a fictional character feels, the reader would too. Only actually, feeling it all makes it impossible to write. Your tears may short the keyboard but that doesn't make for articulate prose. As music is such a catalyst to strong emotion, it’s sometimes best to listen to a tune before writing in silence. You can take notes. No, don't just copy down the lyrics - what are you? Twelve?

The second is feeling hampered by the fact that nothing you can write in words can ever be as expressive and exciting as music, because music is the bomb. You’re thinking about the way a character feels, you listen to a track and know that you cannot express their feeling better than what you just heard. It’s true, you really can’t. But music cannot tell complex narratives with all the richness that entails. It's different. You can practice your guitar later on.

The third is the temptation to nerd out about music in writing, which is always unwise when one's purpose is to get on and tell a story. There are exceptions - here is one, from Howards End. 

Peak Beard & The Universal Principles of Body-Shaming.

I began to write this post some weeks ago, when the world was shaken by the news that we (or at least white Westerners) had reached Peak Beard. I was busy and it got abandoned. Then this weekend was Eurovision and I decided to return to the subject.

We watched Eurovision with my folks this year, and thus were subject to my mother's beard commentary. My mother doesn't like facial hair. She seems particularly offended by a beard on a good-looking young man because it's such a waste. Eurovision featured lots of good-looking young people with beards; beards remain very fashionable. And thus we sat through two hours of

"I like this song but not the beard!"
"I'd vote for him if he'd only shave!"

and inevitably,

"But she'd be so beautiful if she didn't have that beard!"

Then yesterday, I heard of Russian male homophobes shaving their beards off in order to defend their fragile masculinity against the full-bearded influence of Eurovision victor Conchita Wurst.

One of several fascinating facts about men's facial hair (or lack thereof) is that the subject, when raised, provokes just as much alarm and disdain as discussion of women's grooming and appearance.

Every week, newspapers and magazines will have a news story or opinion piece about women's pubic, underarm or leg hair, women's body-shape, fitness or fatness, make-up, cosmetic surgery, bras, high-heels, corsetry and so forth. Every week, newspapers and magazines can guarantee a hoard of men and women clicking through to confirm and often share their opinions about the disgusting, unfeminine, unfeminist, shallow and lazy choices that women make about their appearance.

We've talked about this a lot - many of those articles talk about this, despite the fact that they often repeat the same messages (don't judge me for behaving as everyone should!) and play host to the same vitriol below the line. However, while there's no doubt that there's a massive gender imbalance in whose bodies and choices are being scrutinised, men's facial hair shows us that there's also something universal and ungendered going on.

Looking through the articles, comments and Twitter chat about Peak Beard (the idea that beardless men appear more attractive in a world of beard ubiquity and vice versa) we see that

1. Exactly the same arguments are used for and against facial hair as are used for and against any choice a woman might make about her own appearance. You'd think that that an argument about beards would be dynamically different from, for example, an argument about high heeled shoes. But they're not. The only difference is that there's no unfeminist choice to be made about beards, although feminism is blamed for men shaving - apparently, men who shave have been rendered fearful of their own masculinity (apart from Russian homophobes). Men who don't shave have the more rational fear of sharp objects.

2. The same arguments are made both for and against any given behaviour. Shaving isn't healthy; it causes rashes, nicks and dryness, whereas beards are breeding ground for deadly bacteria. Shaving is part of being a real man, a rite of passage to young men, the minimal requirement for smartness, whereas beards are a sign of masculinity; a real man is a bearded man and men who shave are afraid of growing up. See also women's pubic hair, dieting, bras etc..

3. Almost all arguments originate from a personal preference; I like my beard, I like my smooth face, I prefer a bearded man, I prefer a smooth face. But it has to be extrapolated to some universal truth; "Sorry guys, but women just don't fancy men with beards. None of the men I've dated in the past yea had beards. So if you ever want to get laid again, have a shave!"

And here, we begin to see what's going on. Folks are anxious. Folks are defensive about their own behaviour or preferences. There must be a right way. Newspaper columns, magazines and advertisers of all variety certainly suggest this: Do things the right way. Buy our products to avoid humiliation. The recent Veet advert suggested that if a thin female model has 24 hour's hair growth on her legs, she might as well be an overweight, hirsute bloke with a high-pitched feminine voice. Which brings me to

4. Cultural tropes around nature, gender and sexuality are then wheeled in as if they were facts. There are real men, and real women - all straight and cis gender. Real men and real women behave in a certain way and desire certain things in their partners. People who deviate are not real; women who don't fancy bearded men are lesbians, are afraid of real men and will die alone. Some men (with or without beards) talk with utter disdain about women who might not fancy them, as if any pognophobe is going to think, "Brian from Skegness thinks I'm a silly bitch for not fancying men like him. How could I have been so wrong?!"

Some straight women are compelled to share fairly graphic detail about how they like to tug on a beard during sex, or ask their boyfriends to shave mid-way because they can feel the hairs growing. Worse are the ones who are effectively negging; "Most women run screaming when they see a bearded man, but I'm able to see past that. What do looks matter? Leave all those scornful women who will laugh at you, humiliate you in front of your friends and be rude to your mother to those cleanly shaven men! Come here, beardy!"

Exactly the same thing happens with women's appearance. There's no shortage of straight men lining up for medals for their courageous tolerance of slight variations from our cultural model of conventional beauty (for a recent essay-length cringe-athon, see In Defence of Hairy Women).

It's quite easy for me to write about beards because (a) I cannot grow one, (b) nobody would expect me to and (c) I really have no particular opinion about them. Some beards look good, some not so much (a fashionable shape on an unfashionable face*) and some are quite funny (our Latin teacher, an eccentric and very skeletal-looking man had a long goatie beard that curved dramatically to one side, despite constant ponderous smoothing). People should do what they like - or what they can; some men cannot grow a beard, others struggle to shave.

It would be much harder for me to talk about female grooming. It shouldn't be too hard for me as a woman who, in being attracted to other women, knows that there are few universal turn-offs around these matters. It shouldn't be too hard for me as woman who, being a conscientious feminist hippie-type, has conducted long-term experiments in things like growing or removing leg, underarm and pubic hair. I have worn a lot of make-up and none at all for many years. I even stopped using any commercial products on my person (apart from soap for handwashing) for about eighteen months.

The only thing I've ever dismissed outright are those Spanx-type magic pants that squeeze everything together? I bought some, I put them on and then I cut them off. 

However, it is almost impossible to talk about these issues in complete neutrality. And in the absence of such neutrality, it seems that culture has primed us to get defensive (I wouldn't leave the house without my Spanx. But you can't expect miracles, you whale!). And I think the beard thing demonstrates that this is nothing inherent to women, or even women's conditioning. We all need to get over the fact that other people like, want and do different things to ourselves and it's all perfectly okay.

(yeah, but if I work harder on that last sentence, I'll never post this).


* By an unfashionable face, I don't mean an ugly face, just one that hasn't got this week's bone-structure and colouring. Vaguely related to this, here is a great piece about being a young brown guy whose now-fashionable beardedness has previously been a factor in his experience of racism.

On Hamlet and Hip Hop

Oh dear! Tory Conference: Hip-hop Hamlet "racist and evil"

Curiously-bearded Lindsay Johnson has been speaking at the Conservative Party Conference about a strawman school production of Hamlet with a Hip Hop soundtrack.

"Hamlet doesn't need a hip-hop sound track for young people to enjoy it." 

Mr Johns added: "It's been doing just fine for the last 400 years." 

Same production, same costumes, same accents, same set.  All the women played by men in dresses. As Tara tweeted, "we know exactly how it was staged due to Shakespeare’s excellent notes." Johnson goes on:

"It's not only incredibly patronising, but also viciously racist to think that black and brown kids in the inner cities will only 'get Shakespeare' if it's set to a hip-hop beat and presented in three-minute, MTV-Base-style chunks." 

"It is positively evil to deny inner city kids access to the manifold joys of hearing their national poet's true voice, in essence their birthright, simply because of a culture of low expectations."

Presumably, our national poet's true voice had a Midlands accent. Lawrence Olivier could never pull it off.

Right. There are reasons for teaching Shakespeare in school other than it's always been that way. Shakespeare is a major part of our metatext. Shakespeare's plots are much older than Shakespeare, but they're still present in our books and movies. Shakespeare's language is not ours, but it is familiar. Learning Shakespeare teaches us a lot about the effective and expressive use of language.

If all of this is being taught, however it's being taught, then everything is fine.

Next. Johnson, who looks about my age, accuses teaches of "genuflecting at the alter of youth."

I'm thirty two - old enough to have a kid in high school, plenty old enough to be a high school teacher and yet younger than Hip Hop. As a white kid writing poems in primary school, I called them raps. Teachers liked poems, but raps had credibility. I wrote a rap about my class and it was, by popular demand, blue-tacked to the classroom door. Everyone was impressed. Oddly, the kids in the other classes said I couldn't have written it because I was girl and girls didn't rap.

Okay, so, I didn't - I had to ask a boy to perform it. I always had a slow calm voice, more suited to recite Tennyson than 2 Pak. But rap is no more removed from the modern grammatically-correct British English I express myself in than Shakespeare. In fact, rap is much closer to Shakespeare because of adhering to meter and the fact it often rhymes. For example:

I pour a sip on the concrete for the deceased
But no, don't weep. Wyclef's in a state of sleep
Thinking 'bout the robbery that I did last week.
Money in the bag; banker looked like a drag
I want to play with pellet guns from here to Baghdad.
Gun blast, think fast - I think I'm hit.
My girl pinched my hips to see if I still exist
I think not. I'll send a letter to my friends
A born again hooligan, only to be king again.

 Ready or Not - The Fugees. 

This is not Shakespeare, but it has much in common with Shakespeare. And like Hamlet, Wyclef Jean, who in this context speaks with the indifference and self-centredness of youth, considers the violence of his world, his desire to be in charge and the eternal sleep of death. Now, my heart has an indie beat, but if I can think of that off the top of my head, someone who actually knows this music could come up with much better evidence.

If you can't connect Shakespeare with Hip Hop, the poetry of all our pop music, movies plots, soap opera or something that exists in 2013, then what is the point?  Hamlet is not about a prince in medieval Denmark, it is a play about young angry masculinity. Some kind of pop music soundtrack is entirely apt, but perhaps especially Hip Hop; Hamlet's world is absorbed in a violent power struggle, he has a love/hate relationship with the women in his life, all the people he respects are in show-business and he believes that the arts - in this case, the dramatic arts - have the power to retrieve the truth and finally set him free.

I loved Hamlet as a young person because it seemed to be about teenage angst.  I felt as miserable and misunderstood as the next person, but noticed that this was an irritating quality, taken to extreme in some of the boys around me. I had a massive crush on an older boy who became suddenly ridiculous in my eyes when he stated he would kill himself before he turned twenty, because after that, what was the point of going on?  It seemed to me that Hamlet was the story of such young men, who didn't want to die at all, but indulged themselves in petty jealousies and rage towards their parents, and wore self-pity like a beat up leather trench coat. Hamlet moved me deeply, because it is a tragedy; Hamlet is a twit, and his failure to pull himself together (learn guitar, put it down in writing, join the Elsinore Amateur Dramatic Society) results in his destruction.

There's plenty else going on of course, but the point is I saw that it was relevant to my life. Of course, I wasn't typical. We never studied Hamlet - I read Shakespeare for fun. It was on at the local theatre with a bloke in from The Bill and I asked to my Mum to take me to see it. If other kids need a few extra pointers, then hand them over. We were studying Romeo and Juliet for GCSE and saw two theatrical productions; one in a converted warehouse in Norwich, one by the RSC at the Barbican, with lavish sets and Elizabethan Costume. We chatted, fidgeted and sniggered at the Barbican: Juliet was an eminent actor, but she was thirty-five and had the voice of a cut-glass chain-smoker. In Norwich, with younger actors, looser annunciation, plain costumes and minimal sets, we were transfixed. Had we seen Baz Lurman's Romeo + Juliet, which came out at the cinema around this time, "Do you bite your thumb at me?" would have replaced "What're you staring at?" in form-room fracas.

Shakespeare lies dead and decomposing in the adolescent memories of so many adults, because it didn't seem relevant and was never presented as relevant. If we truly believe in its relevance to the modern world, as opposed to a mere source for quotations and self-congratulations, we need to show the kids. A Hip Hop soundtrack doesn't sound like a gimmick, but the placing of a play in a living context.

Heart-Shaped Plectrum

(Click the CC button for Closed Captions).

I wanted to write a blog post about ukuleles, so Stephen and I spoke about what photographs we could take to accompany the post - ukuleles being very beautiful instruments.  This conversation evolved into a great deal of messing about and all of a sudden (many weeks later) we had produced a music video. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I'm still going to publish the ukulele post, but for your information, the first ukulele is a concert uke, the second is a soprano we made ourselves in the summer of 2010 from a kit like this and the third is a tenor.

The great picture of the rock-hopper penguins is by Liam Quinn.

Heart-Shaped Ukuelele Plectrums can be bought from this eBay shop.


Stephen says: Love's a funny thing. It can drive you to do all manner of strange things.

 I think the thing about true love, though, is that once you've done that thing (even if it's taken weeks) and you've had time to look back at it and understand the mind-boggling oddness of it all, you still feel proud. It still warms your heart and gives you a sense of completeness.

That said, if you haven't yet made your peace with the infinite, then I suggest you think twice before pressing play.

So, I hope that whoever you are, and whatever it is that you love (a special person, pet, food-stuff, view, group of people, artwork etc), that you spend the day cuddled up with a comfortable... comforting... sense of the oddness of all things and the truly humanising effect of affection.

In bed with my paintbrush

I've been rather quiet here lately due to a combination of computer problems, minor but disruptive health problems and a fair amount of stuff going on. Life, however, is rather wonderful.

As anyone who is anyone in the art world knows, I won first prize in the Aberaeron Holy Trinity Church Summer Craft Fair Painting Competition (Painting of a Flower). It cost 50p to enter and the prestigious prize was £1. And there were, like, twenty other paintings. As far as I am concerned, this makes me a prize-winning artist. Like Tracey Emin, but with better personal hygiene*.

Stephen's Dad made me a device so that I can paint in bed. This is wonderful and has revolutionised the way I paint. No longer must I wait until I'm well enough to sit up in a chair for a while, then paint against the clock with increasing levels of pain, trying to get to a certain point before I have to stop and wait for another window. I can take my time. I can rearrange myself and my pillows. I can take breaks and carry on looking at what I've done while I'm resting, able to reach for a brush if I see that something needs touching up.

Thus my painting has become more relaxed and brave. I'm experimenting much more. I seem to be painting faster, although that's probably just that I can do it for longer at a stretch. And that's much better for me. No more angst about a picture I've been fiddling with for five minutes a day for weeks and have now spent so long looking at the thing that I'm never going to be happy with it.

I didn't think this was possible; of course people can paint in bed (Frida Kahlo did) but only when you can't get out of bed at all. I didn't think anyone would let me. But apparently I can do whatever I like! Almost.

This is a painting of my nephew Alexander (5) and my Granny Kelly (87) and I reckon the best painting I have ever painted.

I've also been writing a very great deal, made some tentative steps into learning British Sign Language and I've been teaching Stephen both Latin and the ukelele. We have four ukeleles now. Imagine! Two at my folks' place, two at Stephen's, so we don't have to transport them backwards and forwards. It's another disability accommodation. When we're in one place for good, we'll downsize the collection. Maybe.

[Image description: Top - a photograph of brown-haired white youngish woman smiling and holding a picture of a slightly decaying hydranga. Middle - a painting of the same white woman with an extremely handsome dair-haired and bespectacled young white man. Bottom - a painting of a young blond white boy cuddling an elderly white-haired white woman, both smiling. ]

* This is a reference to her famous installation My Bed which won the Turner Prize and made her famous - I didn't mean to imply that the lady doesn't clean her teeth or something. Except perhaps for artistic purposes.

Your Kicks For Free

Censorship, within the arts, is almost always a very bad thing. Art not only makes our lives much more enjoyable; we use art as a mirror in whose reflection we can better understand ourselves, our lives and the world around us. I don't really need to defend art or variation within it. Where art is stifled by censorship, life itself is stifled.

And alas, art has to mean everything. Everything anybody calls art, music, drama, creative writing, even if to our own eyes it lacks all merit. This is not to say all art must be revered or indeed given any time or space at all, but it must be protected from interference. And freedom of expression is always a too way thing – we have both the freedom to express ourselves and the freedom to access those expressions.

A far more worthy post than this one would be about budget cuts to the arts in the UK, both in direct arts funding and in education, as well as the closure of libraries and all sorts of other heinous crimes against our culture being committed at this time. But I feel I am a blogger in rehabilitation and I need to pace myself. So let me start with Dire Straits.

When I first heard that Canadian radio stations will now only be allowed to play a censored version of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits, I thought it was a bit ridiculous. The song (unedited version here) is about a removals gang who envy and mock the easy and hedonistic life of rock musicians, referring to one of the musicians as a faggot. This context is self-evident from the lyrics. It's rock musicians mocking their own self-image; the irony is not at all subtle. And it is a classic song.

Sparky wrote about this and has been quite upset. Some folk who are against the censorship have used the opportunity to use the offending word repeatedly and mockingly. Others have attempted to defend the word as inoffensive and still others have used the events to attack gay men as tyrannous and over-sensitive - all those classic rants about political correctness. And reading Sparky's considerable discomfort at the debate (if it can be called a debate), I swung towards his position.

And this brings us to an often neglected but vital part of freedom of expression. Part of the freedom to express oneself is the freedom to be silent. Artists have the right not to make art, the media have the right not to publish or broadcast things. And part of the freedom to access art is, for lack of a better way of putting it, the freedom to remove oneself from the experience.

Nobody has a right not to be offended, but people do have a right to opt out, within reason, of listening to or looking at things which offend them. This is why what is allowed on a billboard is quite different to what is allowed between the covers of a magazine – most people who pass have no choice but to at least glimpse the billboard, whereas a magazine must be bought and a page can be easily and swiftly turned to hide offending words or images. All mediums have different responsibilities according to how active or passive a person has to be in order to access the art.

There are lots of situations where you can't opt out of listening to a radio. In various places of work, in stores and restaurants, in taxis, even in the streets in the summer when folk have the volume up and their windows open. So where a word is well-established as being both offensive and discriminatory, then maybe it is fair enough to keep it off the radio? It is extremely easy to access uncensored music, so nobody is really missing out.

But I'm not entirely happy with this. The biggest problem with this kind of censorship is inconsistency. Sparky wrote a bit about this too, and lists some bizarre examples of words which have been deemed unpalatable. It's a very small list of words which are totally offensiveness in any context *. One of the more difficult words for me to hear is bitch, which is often used in deeply unpleasant contexts, but I've never been upset by Elton John or Meredith Brooks singing it, where it is self-referential. Context does matter with many offensive words, if not all of them.

It isn't such a challenge to edit out individual words, but there are songs where the entire lyric is homophobic or misogynistic or otherwise hateful. This is both far more problematic and usually very difficult to define - at what point does a song about a heartbroken man cursing all womankind slip into actual misogyny? Homophobic songs, at least all the ones I can think of, tend to have such a profound lack of subtlety that they are swiftly identified and more or less removed from radio playlists. There are entire genres of music where misogynist lyrics come as standard.

I have to say that I would distinguish between these arguments, about offensive discriminatory words or content, and arguments about art encouraging certain behaviour - like Money for Nothing encouraging people to use the slur within it. I think the argument that some people can't understand the ironic usage and would think it gives them license to use such language is the top of a very slippery slope.

Art is often about emotional extremes, including hate and violent inclination. There have been lots of popular songs about romanticised murder coming through from folk music, sometimes sung from the perpetrator's point of view. Violence has always featured in gripping and moving narratives, without calling us to violence. That issue is not uncomplicated of course, but this issue of art corrupting our minds is more dangerous when it comes to our freedoms of expression.

Anyway, I don't have a particular conclusion here because I'm still pondering it all myself.

Incidentally, this matter is a million billion miles from the nonsense about taking the N word out of Huckleberry Finn, which has been written about very eloquently elsewhere (such as here). In summary, when a book is being used in education, context is everything, and removing the word dilutes a vitally important context

* My wee nephew was singing a somewhat illegible nursery rhyme and I tried to identify it using Spotify. On one album of nursery rhymes I spotted P*ssy's in the Well. Which did make me giggle. Proving that censorship itself can corrupt young minds – chiefly my own.

Messing about on the river

Yesterday was a really good day, after a good few weeks of rough. It was the half-way point of the year and my Dad's birthday, and my folks were looking after Alexander whilst Rosie was off singing on the South Bank. And it was probably the hottest day of the year, at least down South. So my folks, [ex], Alex and I went for a picnic in the woods before going rowing on the River Little Ouse. It was absolutely gorgeous and a splendid time was had by all!

The river is runs roughly along some of the border between Norfolk and Suffolk, but it's kind of tucked away from everything. And we didn't see another soul that afternoon - nobody on the river, nobody on the bank. Lots of horses, waterfowl and absolute swarms of electric blue and black damson flies. Did you know that when two damson flies mate, they make the shape of a heart with their bodies? I didn't, now I do.

Alexander is talking much more than even a few months ago and making a really conscientious effort to learn new words and concepts – for ages, he was speaking, but wasn't really interested in conversation. Now, he's asking lots of questions and often whispers a word someone has said back to himself to help it sink in. And he has some long words, including a disturbing variety of car makes and models.

He was very impressed with my powerchair and said it just like a helicopter. I think this is because it has a joystick, not because it can fly (I don't like to fly it in public; people get complacent about accessibility when they know you could just fly between floors if you wanted to).

Incidentally, my sister was singing at the South Bank Centre with a group called the Celestial Sirens, who did the music for this week's and next week's Woman's Hour Drama Sacred Hearts on Radio 4 - you can still catch up listening to this over the weekend if you like.

Will blog properly really soon, I promise!

On Being Moved Without Moving

Everyone has to have seen or heard this Youtube clip of Susan Boyle singing on Britain's Got Talent and even I am blogging about it.

But something bugs me in the thousands of articles that have been written about this event. People are going to great lengths to tell of how very moved they were. Not because she sang an rather lovely song extremely well. But because she surprised everybody who imagined that the physical appearance of a person related to what talents they might have. But Dennis Palumbo speaks my thoughts when he asks What if Susan Boyle Couldn't Sing?

“The unspoken message of this whole episode is that, since Susan Boyle has a wonderful talent, we were wrong to judge her based on her looks and demeanor. Meaning what? That if she couldn't sing so well, we were correct to judge her on that basis? That demeaning someone whose looks don't match our impossible, media-reinforced standards of beauty is perfectly okay, unless some mitigating circumstance makes us re-think our opinion?”

Lisybabe calls this disablism, which I am not entirely convinced about – although you ought to read her post on it anyway. However, it is fair to say that the same thing happens to other disabled people all the time. We aren't admired for the talents we happen to have or the things we happen to do, and we aren't respected just for ourselves. We are admired and respected because we defy expectations. Expectations being so low, most of us defy them at least some of the time. When we fail to do so for some reason, we are no longer afforded the basic respect to which everyone is entitled.

There is this awful phenomenon where people talk about how they have been moved by some event, to demonstrate what a sensitive person they are, as if the sheer strength of an emotional response makes them good. This is especially the case when a member of a minority group has achieved something. A lot of what was said in the UK about Barack Obama before he took office was along these lines - especially given our usually poisonous levels of cynicism about politicians. People seemed to forgot that the reason the election of a black president was not about the novelty of a black man being highly intelligent and charismatic, but about the US electorate doing the right thing for a change (apologies to my American readers; I know you have been doing the right thing all along, but your countrymen have not).

Last summer I heard a certain famous person say on the telly, in all seriousness, “I love the Paralympics, I genuinely do and I cry buckets every time one of them gets a medal.” This is a ridiculous thing to confess to. It is kind of groovy when someone who is into sport declares an interest in the Paralympics, because it is taken much less seriously than other events - it suggests that they consider disabled athletes as legitimate as non-disabled athletes. But then crying when inevitably, some of them get medals? No athlete, disabled or not, trains as they do in order to compete for our tears.

I cry rather easily - I would have cried if it had been a clip Lily Allen singing I dreamed a dream (though for perhaps slightly different reasons) and I would have cried during Obama's inaugural address if he had recited On The Ning Nang Nong (which, let's face it, would still have raised the bar for US presidential eloquence). But this doesn't reflect very much on me or my values.

And this is my worry. Everyone is saying that the Susan Boyle story just goes to prove all that stuff about books and their covers, but if everyone who says this or nods their head really means it, a social revolution must now be taking place. Not that people will stop judging by appearances, just that we'll start acting on the obvious premise that it's not just very young and pretty people who have talents in the performing arts. We don't enjoy music with our eyes.

But in order to do this, we have to realise that the surprise isn't the point. The point is that there ought not to have been any surprise. Susan Boyle's novelty is her great singing voice, not her talent in contrast to our expectations of her.

Incidentally, the article that amused me most about Susan Boyle, mostly on the grounds of its title (although it's analysis is reasonably sound) is Susan Boyle: The New Face - and Voice! - of the "Spinster Cat Lady". I'm just wondering who the old face of the Spinster Cat Lady was...

Tell me now how do I feel

Well that was some cold. It wasn't the flu or anything like that, but it didn't half drag its heels. I'm still coughing a bit, but did manage to leave the house for the first time since Christmas yesterday and am generally coming back to life. I should post something worth reading at some point this week, I'm sure.

Today is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year, whatever that means, and thus I guess this song is in everybody's head by now.

I went to the shops and I bought...

...a ukelele! Isn't it a thing of beauty? Most importantly, it sounds beautiful and within a matter of weeks, I daresay I should be able to do this sort of thing.

The guy in the music shop tried to sell us a mandolin case to put it in. I suggested that having a ukelele in a mandolin case was a little like keeping your machine gun in a violin case. The guy looked kind of nervous.

We bought it in Cambridge where we also had a look the new clock at Corpus Christi. It is almost five feet wide and has an evil-looking grasshopper on top, which is munching up the time.

A lady who was standing by the clock said, "I'm sure the grasshopper is supposed to do something on the hour, like light up or wave its arm in the air."

To which [...] responded, "It climbs down and bites your leg off. At least that's what happened to her." and he nods towards the wheelchair.

Later I wheeled into a tree, although I was pretty knackered by that point and it was a tree coming out of the floor in a shopping centre. And I lost our parking ticket. And my computer died. But today I am too busy rearranging Linkin Park songs for ukelele to care!

What would you do if I sang out of tune?

This is a portrait of my friend Vic, whose thirtieth birthday we've been at this weekend. She is the first person I have painted who isn't a blood relative and thus could conceivable disown me if my painting compared to my cake-decorating skills. As she was still talking to me a full 48 hours after seeing it, fingers crossed.

We had a very good weekend. Vic rented out an enormous house called Black Dyke Barns, not far from here, where a small gang of us hung out and lounged about for a few days. Apparently (according to the guest book) the place has been used for filming by the adult entertainment industry. This knowledge haunted us throughout the weekend.

Other highlights included our performance of With a Little Help From My Friends on guitar, ukelele, tin whistle and a string instrument which is possible a zither (we weren't sure), played in a key that none of us could consistently sing at. There were also sparklers (see below), my decisive victory at Bagpuss, the boardgame and the formation of a top secret underworld organisation of as yet indeterminate purpose. We came up with a really good name but it is top secret.

Having borrowed and learned to play Don't look back in anger on aformentioned ukelele I have fallen in love. It only has four strings! My guitar is broody! And I've already seen a purple one on eBay!

Anyway, had a really good weekend, made new friends and probably didn't knacker myself too badly.

A belated Happy Bastille Day. Vive la France!

Mon amie la rose

We've got a rose in our garden. I had noticed the beginnings of a bush but I don't think it flowered last year. It is a big fat gorgeous rose, the size of my fist.

We've also been watching bats in the evening. When I first saw them I hurriedly closed all the windows to stop them coming in the house and nesting in our underwear.

Incidentally, the best version of Mon amie la rose is by Natacha Atlas, who gives a little more welly than the original.

I am off partying for the rest of the weekend (seriously). Hope you all have a good one.

Man and Supery-dooperyman

(Emma's theme for next week's Disability Blog Carnival is Superman. I found it hard to connect this theme to disability, so the hurried and somewhat tardy result is a little odd. One of those it's my blog, it's up to me how silly it gets posts.)

I've never got on with Nietzsche. He is a basically a 19th century gangsta rapper; he thinks he's really hard, he's brimming over with contempt for his fellow man, but ultimately he is so inadequate that he probably thought that sportswear and chunky gold jewellery were a stylish combination (and 19th century European sportswear, the effect would be far worse). In case you are unfamiliar with his work, Nietzsche's rap would have gone a little like this;

I'm a moustachioed mother from the mean streets of Röcken,
My old man was a pastor but my faith in God got broken.
I'm not hanging in the Ghetto as I'm not too keen on Jews,
Basically, my ethics are whatever I choose.

What they call "morality" is all born out of fear,
Love and compassion can kiss me on the rear.
Human beings aren't equal; that's obvious to see,
And guess who is the best of all? That's obviously me!

I matter more than others, because I am so great,
Most people live in suffering because they're second-rate.
Whereas I am really clever and I am really strong,
And nothing that I do or say could ever be wrong.

Even if I'm violent, and shoot up all my foes,
Even if I beat up my bitch and sleep around with hos
(Although to be quite honest, my love-life is a farce,
And when I talk of women, I am talking through my arse.)

I'm sorry about the language, but foul words like arse crop up all too often in the rap music I listen to - that hardcore rural English rap as opposed to the effete American urban variety. I mean, drive-by shootings in anything that goes faster than a tractor is for sissies.

Betrand Russell said in his History of Western Philosophy in 1946 that, despite his own distaste for the chap, Nietzsche's philosophy had come into force in Europe as much as those of his liberal and socialist peers. On the positive side, Nietzsche's ideas did influence various artists and philosophers - notably the Existentialists. The assertion that God is dead was a pretty amazing one, however banal it may appear as a sentence.

However, Hitler had the hots for Nietzsche, and whilst you can't say that Nietzsche was a Nazi, he might be seen to beckon in that direction. Anyway, this was about Superman. And disability. Somehow.

Nietzsche strongly believed in hierarchy, valuing those qualities associated with being a good warrior-hero; strength of will, a certain sort of courage, physical qualities as well as ruthlessness and guile. Romanticised if not actually romantic. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a tedious rant which I recommend you avoid, he talks about the Übermensch, translated as Superman or Overman. He writes;

The most cautious people ask today: "How may man still be preserved?" Zarathustra, however, asks as the sole and first one to do so: "How shall man be overcome?"

Man is weak and we must rise above weakness. Thus begins an idea which has persisted in medical science and cultural attitudes ever since. It's not just about saving life and making life more comfortable, it is about making man himself better.

A desire to improve oneself, one's life and one's society is ancient and widespread and entirely commendable. The only controversy is about how this might be achieved. The Superman is one particular take on this; he is innately superior, without weakness of any physical, psychological or intellectual variety. He is an uncomplicated product of what we would now call eugenics and the triumph of the will which Nietzsche is always harking on about; people doing what they want to do as opposed to what they feel to be right.

This may seem a scary and radical prospect, but are these ideas so far outside our experience? Certainly there is a strong argument that much of ante-natal screening and the elective abortions that result is not about the elevation of suffering, but the elimination of (perceived) weakness. Healthy people try to make themselves better than they really are with cosmetic "corrective" surgery and treatments and self-help gurus who promise them a competitive edge in every conceivable area of life. Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, there is increasing talk of genetic "causes" for mental and physical ill health - or being responsible for "intelligence" and personality traits. Meanwhile, this is what we're concentrating in schools all the time; to be valued, one must have a very narrow version of intelligence that allows you to pass exams and which everyone will pretend you were born with.

Naturally, disabled people are left behind in this project for all manner of reasons. It is also a futile project, however seductive it has been for some. You cannot be a better person for being intelligent, or being able to run fast, or for being beautiful. These aren't things you (or your parents, or doctors or anyone) ever get to choose, but neither do they do you or those around you any favours without your own intervention.

So I have an alternative; the Supery-dooperyman (or in German, the Über-DüberMensch).

Thus spoke the Goldfish. Strength is not a thing that the Supery-dooperyman is born with, but something he develops through experience and demonstrates through his actions. Being clever or having physical advantages counts for nothing, but the Supery-dooperyman takes whatever talents or attributes he happens to have - however modest, however great - and makes the best use he can. The Supery-dooperyman realises that fear is not at the root of compassion, but often at the root of contempt; sometimes the greatest test of our courage comes in considering another person's point of view. The only valuable hierarchies are, as they are in nature, in a constant state of flux; the Supery-dooperyman understands the transient nature of all things, including himself. The Supery-dooperyman may do whatever he likes, but in order to do so, he knows he must not always do exactly as he feels - if you punch everyone who deserves it, you're unlikely to be in a physical state to enjoy more long-term interests.

If we could all manage that, we would have overcome a great deal.

Oddly enough, the only musical reference I can think of to Nietzsche is at the end of the chorus of Blur's noisy classic Song 2, when Damon Alburn sings "All of the time, 'cause I'm never sure why I need you/ 'Cause I, Nietzsche." Go listen; I don't tell a lie.

Babe in the Woods

Alexander, frontman of Tinker and the Taylors has had a diverse career since his rock debut at just one week old. Having explored both Classical and Glam Rock genres, as well as a stint in Hollywood, Alexander returns to music in a reflective mood. The Goldfish caught up with the infant prodigy to talk about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Photographs by Mummy.

Tinker and the Taylor's new album, Babes in the Wood has a lighter, folkier feel to previous recordings with far more giggling than wailing. Alexander plays the piano on several tracks and whilst it soon becomes an intolerable din, he does at least try to play just one note with one finger at a time.

I ask whether this departure indicates that Alexander remains very grounded, despite the temptations that accompany international stardom at such a young age?

"I think it's hard enough being one year old, let alone when you're famous. I suppose can plead guilty to one or two showbiz mealtime tantrums and, if I'm totally honest, there have been one or two toys that I've treated like mere playthings. But at the end of the day, I want to be known for my music, not because I've been photographed leaving some seedy crèche, or mainlining Calpol."

During the last six months, Alexander has gone from being unable to sit up or crawl to being able to walk confidently. How has this changed Alexander's perspective on the world?

"I've been told that when you first fall in love, you suddenly understand what all those soppy songs were about; similarly, learning to walk has given me a greater appreciation for the work of Nancy Sinatra and Aerosmith. But most significantly, it has helped me cope with my fans. Before I could walk, strange women would just pick me up and cuddle me whether I liked it or not, but now I can run away."

We talk about the album, and the highly political nature of many of his lyrics. In the unashamed protest song, The Nappies, They Need a Changin', Alexander revisits familiar territory when he sings (roughly translated)

Come gather round people, wherever you roam
And admit that the babies around you have grown
Our toe-nails need cutting, our hair needs a comb
Our clothes, they are rapidly straining,
And you better not think that smell's our new cologne
For the nappies, they need a changin'.

With such thinly-veiled comment on the Special Relationship with the US government and the subsequent effect on UK foreign policy, does Alexander have no concerns that fans might be turned off by his polemic lyrics? He may be only one year old, but is he still rock'n'roll enough?

"Well, Granddad says I need a haircut. I'd say that so long as you can get someone older than you to disapprove of you in some way, you've still got it."




Come on, much cuter than a cat or a cat or a squirrel. And Rosie is getting to be a superb photographer.

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.

The problem isn't religion as such, at least it isn't the preserve of religion. I guess the problem can be summarised as

Political belief in the absence of reason.

Where political means of citizens or the state.

Holding some beliefs which cannot be justified with cold logic is inevitable. There are things about our world and ourselves we don’t know for sure and then there are choices we make where our feelings are as important as anything else; our personal codes about sex, marriage and family relationships, for example, the clothes we wear, the food we eat and so on.

The problems arise when we start interfering with one another. It’s not fair to say that people shouldn’t interfere with one another at all, because we are social animals, we live in society and we have a degree of responsibility for one another. We have to make rules. But these rules have to be established on the base of reason.

God has nothing to do with reason - not because God or any other supernatural force is an unreasonable concept, but because we have no consensus on the issue and no consensus can be achieved through argument. It is a matter of faith. Even if we believed that the Bible (for example) was entirely true, people have to translate and interpret and people have never ever agreed on what exactly it is He wants us to do. For every person who argues that we must do X because it is God's will, there will be a dozen people who feel sure He wants us to do Y.

Fortunately, most people with religion don't need to do this. Most of us are capable of coming up with some ground rules for society without reference to the supernatural, even if the supernatural might underpin why it is all so very important. For the Humanist, the consequence of bad behaviour is human suffering on Earth which is a terrible thing because we each only have one life, one shot, one short period of existence and that makes it very precious. For the Theist, the consequence of bad behaviour is human suffering on Earth which is a terrible thing because it upsets God. I simplify of course, but most of the conversations we have about politics needn't mention our religious beliefs if you and I both agree that human suffering is to be avoided wherever possible. And thus, religious diversity has existed for hundreds of years in the United Kingdom and elsewhere without too many major hitches.

Unfortunately, some people do have political beliefs which are not grounded in reason. Blasphemy must be by far the silliest example which remains on our statute books and is a concept which really, really makes me cross. Honestly folks, blasphemy is complete and utter nonsense and we really ought to have scrapped it by 2007.

God might well be offended by a book, a play, a poem, or some cartoons - he might even be preoccupied by these matters when elsewhere people are busy torturing and killing their neighbours in His name, but how would we know about it? So I recall, following his reaction to that business with the goat, the Semetic God hasn’t actually issued any specific complaint. And anyway, surely claiming to know the mind of God is the biggest blasphemy there is? Surely that would be taking the Lord's name in vain?

But beyond the shakey theological basis for the concept, anybody can claim that anything is blasphemous in the context of their personal belief system. Certainly, there has never been consensus among members of a given religion where some members have cried blasphemy – indeed, the alleged blaspheme is usually a member of said religion (if you don't know that the God or supernatural force you're insulting exists, one wonders whether you can truly insult Them). And there's no reason involved; it's just mere mortals getting cross and supposing that their God is as petty and insecure as they are. Which is a casual dismissal for something which has led and continues to lead to people torturing and killing one another and for some people living in liberal democracies fearing for their lives.

Like I say, it is not exclusive to religion; the expression of descent in totalitarian states is criminalised in a very similar way, using very similar language, since the leader or the ruling party tends to take on divine status. And it's not that I believe in dismissing or insulting people for the sake of it. What I object to is treating one particular set of people special protection from being offended under the law. I also object to the Race and Religious Hatred Bill for similar reasons.

So, did you want to see some blasphemy? I must say I'm always fascinated by controversial works simply because these are pieces of art which have been felt to have extraordinary power. Unfortunately, this awesome power is often wasted on me; I don't usually get it. I can see shocking, but that's not power. If all the Devil needed to do was shock people he'd just need to stop all the zips working in the House of Commons. I'll start with the worst offending item.

The only 'blasphemous' poem I know of in English is The Love That Dares Not Speak Its Name by James Kirkup which lead to the successful prosecution of Gay News, when it was first published in 1976 (Mary Whitehouse brought the case as a blasphemous libel). This poem is not to be confused with the 1894 poem, Two Loves by Lord Alfred Douglas, which concludes with the line "I am the love that dares not speak its name." which was quoted and analysed at the trial of Oscar Wilde.

A few years ago, The Love... was read out in public on the steps of St. Martin in the Field by a number of literary figures and activists in a protest specifically against the blasphemy law. No arrests were made, no legal action taken but the law remains. I must admit that I was rather shocked when I got round to reading the text; by its reputation I had kind of imagined something like

Jesus was gay!
Hip hip hooray!
Simon fancied Peter
And James like musical theatre.
And Andrew was a nudist,
Who had a thing for Judas!

and so on and so forth. The actual poem has far more artistic merit than that and as a result is really very shocking and extremely distasteful, if ultimately somewhat silly. One can fully understand why it upset people, so be warned. However, I would still argue that adults should be allowed to find it, read it and judge it for themselves if they want to. So here it is.

The blog Sepia Mutiny shows the paintings of Mugbool Fida Hussein, who was attacked for blasphemy within the Hindu religion; I really don't know enough about Hinduism to put this in any context, but there is a debate in the comments section which provides some insight.

On Wikipedia, you can see Piss Christ, which is... I mean, why? Sister Wendy Beckett refused to see it as blasphemous. Wikipedia also has a low-resolution image of the Jyllands-Posten Muhmmad cartoons, which resulted in much flag-burning and the death of at least 139 people in protests worldwide. I consider them offensive because they play on some of the most inflammatory racist stereotypes you can think of, but they weren't worth anybody's life.

YouTube has various extracts from Jerry Springer the Opera, which met with great controversy when it was screened on BBC television last year. I've not seen the whole thing; it doesn't have much appeal to me but I would argue for the right for others to see it if they wanted.

For other examples of blasphemy, check out your record collection. The current Pope, in his capacity as a cardinal, condemned pretty much every pop song since the Beatles (and yeah, he did mention the Beatles specifically) as being the music of the devil. I think he probably confused the music of the Beatles with some of Paul McCartney's later output.

Mother says I was a dancer before I could walk

We spent much of Sunday with Alexander and my folks, which was nice. He wanted another nine re-reads, in groups of three, of That's not my Robot and seemed to find it more amusing every time. But he loves to dance, above all things. This is really quite curious. Very early on, R observed that he would smile and wriggle about whenever he heard music and you just need to sing him a song, even an improvisation, and he'll start jigggling and waving his arms about. He has various toys which play awfully tinny tunes and he loves to set them off, dance, then set them off again as soon as the music stops.

This can't be unique to Alex, although he's probably been exposed to more music than the average baby. And it can't be purely immitation; he'll have seen his Daddy conducting choirs, but it seems unlikely he would be quite so obsessed with this behaviour. It's not a performance thing either, as he does it when he doesn't realise anyone's looking. So it's something qutie basic and wonderful.

In other news, we finally got the piano tuned. It remains a quarter of a note out, but it is at least now in tune with itself. Meanwhile, my health seems to be gradually picking up again.

Thank you very much to whoever sent me a card. It was very much appreciated but since it wasn't signed and it was posted somewhere I don't know anybody, it has created somewhat of a mystery...

Baby, remember my name

Following a rollercoaster nine months in which Alexander, of Tinker & The Taylors, has taken the world by storm with his death metal, classical music and Glam Rock, the young star has been taking some time out from rock'n'roll to launch a career in the movies. Our reporter talks to Alex about this change in direction. Photographs by Mummy.

Alexander's acting talents were first noticed by critics when he took a crawl-on part in a remake of the Hitchcock classic, The Baby Vanishes. A further cameo proved to be the highlight of the otherwise tedious Sleepless in Southampton and Alex is now taking a break from touring with the band in order to pursue his first major role.

I catch up with the star on the set of his latest movie, The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Behind, in which he stars as a baby who has nappy rash, which is cleared up with the help of Kate Winslet. I ask Alex whether he has any formal dramatic training.

“None at all," he replies with a giggle, "Everyone knows that once you’ve been a rock’n’roll star, you can do anything; end world poverty, stop global warming, whatever you like! Some of our finest living actors started off in rock’n’roll – such as Johnny Depp, Jack Black and Will Smith, my co-star in The Pursuit of Nappyness. All were very serious and critically acclaimed musicians at some point.”

Alexander famously admits he has never been to the theatre or cinema and he doesn't pay a lot of attention to the television - although he has managed to turn it on and play a DVD when nobody was watching. So how did his interest in acting begin?

"Last Christmas - which was, of course, my first Christmas - I played the part of Baby Jesus in the carol service at Church. The part was offered to me at the last minute, I barely had a chance to look at the script, but it all seemed to come to me quite naturally. If you can pull off the role of the Saviour to several billion people around the world, I figure you can do romantic comedy.

“Also, being a baby, so I am used to being dressed up in all sorts of silly clothes, which I think helps. My own auntie, for example, having been asked to dress me after my nappy had been changed, attached my socks to my ears and put my trousers on top of my head. I was very confused about it all until Mummy came back and put it right. It seems my grown-up audience has a real appetite for visual comedy, whereas I prefer more subtle cerebral humour. Like when someone blows a raspberry at me. That’s so funny! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!”

Alexander continues to laugh for some minutes. When I can finally get a word in edgeways, I ask Alexander how he approaches a role. In his latest project, he plays a baby with nappy rash. Is this something that he has found particularly challenging?

"Naturally, I have great sympathy for babies who have nappy rash," Alex gurgles, "When I think about what it must be like to have an itchy bottom, I can summon up my serious face. Do you like it? It involves far more work than you'd imagine. I think I look rather like a young James Dean. Or at least the expression James Dean would have made, had he ever had nappy rash."

Alexander has a hectic summer schedule ahead of him, with his first birthday in August and, in just six weeks time, his Christening. I ask him how he feels his spirtual faith impacts on his work.

"I think some of my fans are worried that my getting Christened is likely to have a detrimental effect on my music in particular. But I have a very simple answer to that; there are lots of Christians in the world, but there's only one Cliff Richard."

And what about the future, is there any danger that the call of the silver screen may draw Alex away from his rock'n'roll roots entirely?

"I am not yet nine months old," he says, "I am growing all the time and soon I am probably going to be speak and walk and perhaps even sing in tune. I think it is entirely sensible to explore a wide range of possibilities at this stage in one's career.

"I would like to get back in the recording studio, but I would also love to do some theatre work, perhaps some Shakespeare. I am sure there are several parts simply made for me; Baby Macbeth, Pramlet and I intend to put the cute back into Mercutio."

One each end and steady as we go

Am gradually recovering from Blogging Against Disablism Day. I really want to say thank you to those people who did get about and leave comments places; you know who you are, I do too and I very much appreciate that. It felt rather as if I had made the horrendous mistake of hosting an enormous party when I wasn't very well, but a handful guests kept the party going whilst I passed out under the pile of coats. Thank you very much.

I counted 170 posts on Wednesday morning. Since then I have added several more. I'll perhaps wait until after the weekend and do a final count, but it's certainly an increase on last year. Which is great; I didn’t really expect or hope for it to be bigger and I certainly didn’t do anything to make it so. I was rather bitter at not being able to post anything myself, or get round and leave as many appreciative comments as I might have done, but it was, um, everso slightly taxing. And thank you very much to Vic for sending me a video full of Doctor Who for me to watch just when I needed it. I do love Doctor Who!

Meanwhile three things have happened. The remarkable luck of Lucky the fish finally ran out and she died on Tuesday, but Schmuck appears to be recovering. Later that day we gave the old brown car away to a young man who had the tenacity to knock on our door and ask if he could have it for banger-racing. And the piano arrived!

The piano’s arrival is a very good thing. We weren’t hugely confident of it fitting in here; we thought we might have to take windows out and suchlike to get it in but three burly men (who took lots of sugar in their tea), managed to get it round an impossible corner and into the room where we wanted it. And it makes a gorgeous sound even though it’s full of dust, hasn’t been tuned in seven years and I can’t only remember the first sixteen bars of Moonlight Sonata. It needs to settle for a few days, to the new temperature and humidity and then we’ll get it tuned.

I surmise with my little blue eyes

After Monday’s post, I've been thinking about ancestors. The idea of some sort of social or cultural heritage tied up with our genes is one which amuses and interests me. It especially amuses me when people – often those with a basically xenophobic agenda – like to talk about being indigenous to the UK, or England specifically. As if any of us are.

Yet even I can succumb to a degree of fantasy about my own supposed genetic past. Talking about this with one Scottish friend, he said (I'll try to do the accent),

“Ach well, that’s the Celt in ye, lassie. Them Saxon Sassenachs see the past as something which is gone and irrelevant. Whereas us Celts see the past as inextricably linked with the present, the noo. History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals.”

Which I thought was Malcolm X, but perhaps Malcolm X had some Celt in him too; he was somewhat ginger. Actually, he did have reddish hair apparently (not evident from what photos and footage I’ve seen, but I read mention of it somewhere and added him to my list for Alexander, who seems to be heading in that direction). My limited understanding of genetics suggests that Malcolm X could not have got his gingerness from genes of European origin. However, he could well have had some Celt in him; he did have a white grandfather, and in any case, very many African American men carry a Y chromosome of European origin because of what is sanitarily described as the sexual dynamic of slavery. So Malcolm X could well have had some Celt in him.

Which kind of illustrates the nonsense of what my friend said. Whilst people and peoples do have a history and a heritage, it has very little to do with our blood, but rather who we are in this life, our social and political experiences and how they came about.

I don't know much about my family tree, but there are at least thirty different characters from whom I am directly descended, between me and the beginning of the twentieth century. By which point they are living lives quite different from mine, some in other countries and there is very little information about them. I know that many couldn’t sign their own name on the 1901 Census, leading to several different spellings of each of the relevant surnames.

However, like I say, I am very susceptible to fantasy. For example, I know at least one of my kin was a member of the IRA (freedom-fighters, unlike the Provisional IRA who were terrorists – important differential). He was executed for his troubles; I picture him as Cillian Murphy in The Wind that Shakes The Barley. Meanwhile, another of my kin was an Irish member of the British Army around the same time, who shot himself dead by accident (I fear this man is the character with whom I have most in common). And already at that point, those from whom I am directly descended had eloped to England because of a forbidden romance from either side of the political and religious divide. A story which I paint all shades of romantic in my mind.

My maternal grandmother’s family were Gypsies or Roma. The information surrounding this is rather messy, being conveyed as it is through my Gran, whose most frequent references to this heritage include the fact that her grandfather had an earring (well, I don’t suppose many chaps had earrings in the 1920s’ England, when she was growing up) and the fact that she is herself the victim of a jinx, a Gypsy Curse. My grandmother is not an especially unlucky person, but she has had some misfortune in her life, the greatest of which is an inability to appreciate what she’s got. However, she thinks she is jinxed. By the Gypsies from whom she is descended.

I like to think that there is actually a story behind this, that there was a curse that she was told about as a child. However, I suspect this was something my Gran made up. After all, I make things up about the Roma. Like about my blue eyes...

Blue-eyed people are really a very small minority, only about 8% of the world have blue eyes. Most but not all blue-eyed people are pale-skinned and fair-haired. But for example, in Northern India it is not uncommon for folks to have green or blue eyes.

The Roma are originally refugees (a status resumed several times over, including in some parts of twenty-first century Europe, alas). They left India, the Punjab in fact, in the eleventh century and made their way across the Middle East and into Europe. A lot of the Roma traditional beliefs carry echos of Hinduism, although Europeans often mistook these for the occult, black magic or whatever. Thus my Gran and her jinx.

So anyway, I decide, I must have got my blue eyes from the Roma. Forget all that ubiquitous Celt; my eyes belong to India!

Gets better. Because of course our neighbours across the North Sea, the Vikings, were also very well travelled. We know they made it as far West North America and as far East as India. And it is speculated that it is the Scandinavians who settled there at this time who injected blue into the local pallet.

Thus my theory goes that my blue eyes are very well travelled. They went half way round the world and back over the course of 1300 years.

Whereas in reality, well, it really doesn't matter. In truth, my eyes have only been as far as I have which, possibly mirroring the passage of the relevant genes, is only as far as Ireland and back.

To celebrate my extraordinarily dilute Indian heritage, here is a song. Also, my proposal of what we need to do about the railways in this country. Bare in mind that at this point in the movie Dil Se, we know this particular train is eight hours late. Don’t you think we could cope with a forty-five minute delay if everybody had a good old singsong? Especially one the like of this.

Chaiyya Chaiyya by Sukhinder Singh and Sapna Awasthi (that's not them, this is Bollywood; the chap is actor Shah Rukh Khan, the lady is Malaika Arora).