Tales from a newly-wed: Laughing till your drink squirts out of your nose!

 Generally speaking, I’m not someone who sneers at other people’s physical appearance.

Glass houses, etc. 

There's a remarkably persistent belief among some people that our looks are somehow a signifier of our personality.  Good Disney princesses are always picture-perfect – young, slender, doe-eyed, straight-toothed. A century ago, photographs existed of different physical types denoting the characteristics of criminals – eyes too close together, lips too thin, monobrows, etc. And let’s face it, we all know wicked witches are always old with hairy warts and hooked noses, clutching broomsticks they never use to sweep the floor. And all grannies who are both old and good are also plump and pretty with sweet smiles and hands covered in flour from all that baking.

People can’t help how they look, after all. I’m short, fat, wear glasses and have an unattractive overbite, but I don’t think I deserve mockery for these things (there are plenty of other things about me that are eminently mockable). I also don’t think I should go into debt to pay for laser eye surgery and expensive dentistry, just so I don’t scare the horses. Yes, being overweight is technically self-inflicted, but in reality its causes are complex and multi-faceted, and its cure is long and difficult. Why add to someone’s misery? No one likes being unattractive, and outer appearance says little if anything about inner beauty – talent, intelligence, kindness, compassion. Or inner nastiness, if it comes to that!

So, I don’t usually find critical comments about other people’s appearance very amusing. Unless, of course, the object of the criticism is Donald Trump or Boris Johnson (but even then, I think there are much more serious and important things to criticize, and laughing at their hair just dilutes the point).

              Despite this disclaimer, I was shaken out of my current fug of mild depression yesterday by P making a very out-of-character remark.

              He returned from answering the door, holding a package.

              ‘It’s for you,’ he said. ‘It was delivered by a morlock.’

              A morlock, for those of you who don’t know, is the subterranean creature invented by H.G.Wells in his classic novella The Time Machine. In the book, humans have evolved into two sub-species – the delicate, innocent, beautiful Eloi who spend their days making daisy chains as far as I can remember (it’s forty years since I read it, so cut me some slack!), and the ugly, stocky, pale [they were actually blue in the original film version], monstrous, cannibalistic morlocks.

              You also have to appreciate the context. P rarely makes jokes about other people’s appearances. He is a kind man who would hate to hurt anyone’s feelings. He gets upset if he inadvertently says something that offends someone (as when he once asked one of his female students what she’d done to her hair and she ran off crying – he had no idea what he’d done to upset her. He’s an innocent let loose upon the world). So having him casually call a stranger a ‘morlock’ just struck me as particularly funny.

              In fact, let’s be honest, I thought it was hysterically funny. I hadn’t laughed in quite a while and I think the word ‘morlock’ triggered something deep in my soul. I was crying with laughter, almost wetting myself (which isn’t so difficult these days – you’ll know what I mean when you get to my age) – every time I calmed down, I would think of it again and set myself off. And, of course, that set P off too, as there are few things as infectious as a fit of the giggles.

              Giggling is a weird experience, isn’t it? Unlike ordinary laughter, which you can fake quite easily, giggling is beyond your control, and feels almost like something has broken inside you, releasing this crazy tsunami of laughter. You generally feel good afterwards, but it can also be incredibly embarrassing – and of course the ones that are most difficult to control are when you get a fit of the giggles at inappropriate moments.

Very often, the trigger for such laughter is not obvious to others, or seems out of proportion in its comic potential. Onlookers stare at you disapprovingly, wondering whether such a modestly humorous thing could really produce this wash of unruly abandon. Phrases like ‘my sides ached’ and ‘I laughed till I cried’ are not hyperbolic either. Giggling is sometimes painful. Like uncontrolled weeping, you can end up with red puffy eyes, aches and pains from the physical shaking, a sore throat. Both activities release stress and eventually make you feel better, however. And, while both crying and giggling can be triggered by minor things, their true root cause is often deeper and more profound. Giggling does feel like hysteria sometimes – out of control, out of proportion, often incomprehensible.

Anyway, an hour after the parcel delivery, P and I were in the car, and I kept thinking about morlocks – and, inevitably, this kept setting me off again. P was enjoying having made me laugh and he clearly wanted to do it again. At a junction, a car pulled onto the road where we were waiting and the middle-aged male driver was sticking his head out of the window as he turned the corner like someone leaning to one side for stability on a motorbike. This in itself was a source of amusement, but it was the man’s face that struck us both as funny. He was one of those older men who don’t have an ounce of spare fat on them but who aren’t weak-looking.  You know the type – they either spend every spare minute in the gym (every American actor in a long-running TV series after Season Three), or they work on a building site or a fishing boat. Their faces are weather-beaten, craggy, and look like they’ve been chiselled out of granite.

‘He must be in a rush to get back to the bridge,’ said P., then - seeing my mystified expression - he added: ‘to see if any billy-goats have turned up.’

Yes, my kind-hearted sensitive husband was making a troll-joke about a complete stranger!

This, of course, layered on top of the morlock comment, sent me into paroxysms.

What the hell was the matter with both of us?

‘At this very moment, people might be making insulting comments about the way we look,’ I pointed out, once I’d got myself back under control.

‘Yeah, they might be saying “Look at that owl driving that Hyundai”!’

Ok, I admit it. I once told P that his dad reminded me of an owl. He had a slightly beaky nose and big eyes. He was actually like a more heavily-built version of the actor Robert Donat (think The 39 Steps and The Winslow Boy). P’s dad died in 2016, but I have commented several times recently on how P is growing to resemble him more each year.

‘Maybe,’ continued P, ‘they might classify me as a new breed – the Northern Grey Scrawny Owl.’

                We laughed, but the urge to giggle like inebriated characters on Family Guy had passed, as mysteriously as it had arrived.  

                

                Maybe, sometimes, you just have to laugh at the outside of things, just to keep yourself sane.

Publication news

My flash fiction piece, 'Misunderstood', has been accepted for publication in Issue 4 of Pine Cone Review.

Writing 'Found' Poems

My most recent published poem is called ‘Blue…’ and it can be viewed in Issue 53 of Silver Blade Magazine:

 

https://www.silverblade.net/2022/05/blue/?fbclid=IwAR0zw3A48KnDdnwOTaaKsu-bLi2LyDzBTQYcBrQHxkmNeJsg9CCIK60MFKU

 

‘Blue…’ is what is known as a ‘found’ poem. It consists entirely of lines and phrases taken from popular songs, poetry by other people and pieces of prose fiction. There is nothing original in this poem except for the way these excerpts are placed on the page. It is a kind of literary collage, where the interest for the reader comes from:

    a) the specific extracts selected by the poet,

     and 

     b) the way they are set out on the page.

 

‘Found’ poetry is an interesting genre for poets to attempt as it enhances understanding of the meanings of lines and phrases that stick in your mind, and how they work together when juxtaposed. The reader’s pleasure and understanding can come from their familiarity with the original source material, but even if they don’t recognize the excerpts selected, they should get some pleasure from the way the choices resonate. There should be some satisfaction from the poet’s choice of which lines to put together, which to leave on their own, how much of a line or sentence to include, where to gather their material, whether to echo or repeat, or to contrast and contradict.  Sometimes, random lines can be put together in such a way that they produce meaningful new sentences; often, the lines don’t fit quite so fluently as this, but have a metaphorical, symbolic or linguistic connection. Poets can experiment with changing the emotional atmosphere of the original works.

You don’t have to use ‘literary’ extracts in your ‘found’ poetry. You could gather material from any sort of written or heard discourse: road signs, nursery rhymes, pop songs, graffitti, newspaper articles, films, radio interviews, advertisements, guidebooks, instruction manuals, biographies, diaries, notes, even from your own past works. It is great fun to experiment.

If you want to find out more, try:

https://poets.org/glossary/found-poem

https://anthonywilsonpoetry.com/2016/08/26/a-list-of-found-poems/

I haven’t written many ‘found’ poems myself but I have occasionally used ‘found’ extracts in my work. In the following piece, I used quotations from some of Kate Rusby’s songs plus quotations from previous poems I had written myself:

At Kate Rusby's Christmas Concert, Sheffield City Hall, 2018

dry ice drifts
at the mike, Kate talking about Christmas shoes
mum beside me, behind her shield
frost and barbed wire

send the old year out on the rolling tide *

why are you sitting so hunched and worn,
crouched in your seat with your reading glasses on?

arms up and swaying
the beat stamped through the stalls

this isn’t your thing; you prefer Take That.

unease seeps
cold as midnight breath
fiddle and banjo bee-stings in my veins

coloured lights shift
in her seat, mum talking of the daily News
red-hot sparks in my gut, concealed
white noise and fire

rolling downward through the midnight
comes a glorious burst of heavenly song.** 

why do you scowl and look so forlorn,
while everybody else is singing along?

eyes roll, silently praying
the music that seeps out through the walls

this isn’t your thing but you could give it a shot.

laughter leaps
you, joyless as death
sweet chiming bells through the lanes

  

*Let the bells ring, by Kate Rusby

**Rolling Downward, Rusby and traditional carol

 

 

 

Publication update

 Just heard that my poem 'Blue...', a 'found' poem, will be published in Issue 53 of Silver Blade, and they have also accepted my terza rima poem, 'The Immigrants', for ADR, an off-shoot magazine about diversity.

I also earned $8, proving that you can make money from poetry, but only very small amounts!

Everyday Tales of A Unsuccessful Writer's Life: Living It Up!

 An MP in York recently complained that stag and hen do’s were ‘devastating’ the city. 

Of course, my mind being what it is, I immediately conjured up mental images of the venerable city looking like downtown Kyiv.

I pictured screaming drunken women dressed in pink tutus and penis shaped deely-boppers, weaving arm-in-arm through the smoking ruins of the Minster; gangs of young men wearing bright pink artificial breasts and glugging cans of Stella while gesturing rudely at passing artisan bakers as they stepped through the now-derelict herbalists and honey shops of the Shambles; naked stockbrokers handcuffed to broken lamp-posts; a single weeping woman wearing an L plate, sitting atop a pile of rubble that was once Betty’s Tearoom. All accompanied by a backdrop of screaming sirens and distant explosions.

 

The last time I visited York was in December just before the Covid pandemic, and then it seemed like its familiar cosy, Christmassy, cheerful, sedate self, reminding me of Harry Potter and Jonathon Strange & Mr Norrell. A colleague of mine, when I lived in Kent, once referred to the city as ‘the Tunbridge Wells of Yorkshire’.  But maybe its popularity as a hen and stag party magnet is in fact ‘devastating’ the historic streets of the city centre, if only in terms of its reputation (I tend to think the word ‘devastation’ is over-used and rather distastefully emotive when set against the genuine devastation of places like Mariupol).  

There is no doubt that our towns and cities are not what they were before Covid. When I last visited Sheffield, for instance, it seemed broken, full of traffic cones, depressed-looking pedestrians, and empty buildings. But, in fairness,  I doubt that hen and stag do’s are the cause of these doldrums.

              I’m not a fan of the traditional, stereotypical stag and hen do myself. I mean, even the names are offensive. Stags represent virility, masculine power and dominance. There is something kingly and mysterious about a stag – it’s fabulous horned head silhouetted mystically through the woodland mists (have you never seen Bambi?). In reality, male deer are mostly famous for fighting off sexual rivals and making a loud grunty mooing noise – so actually stag do’s are quite appropriately named. But why do women’s pre-marital get-togethers have to be called ‘hen’ parties? Hens are famous for comical head-bobbing, an inability to do the quintessential bird-thing that is flying, and being egg-producing machines. They have connotations of fussy grandmothers (Old Mother Hen) and nagging wives (‘henpecked husbands’). Why aren’t women’s pre-nuptial gatherings named after animals famous for their matriarchies? Women should have lioness parties or meerkat do’s. They could dress up as powerful women - Joan of Arc, Boudicca, Buffy The Vampire Slayer – instead of in little-girl pink.

Yes, I know. Stag and hen do’s are not like this nowadays. Young people have informed me of this on numerous occasions. These days, I’m told, people celebrating the upcoming marriage of their friends tend to go out for a nice meal, or a weekend wandering round museums and art galleries, soaking up the cultural magnificence of famous cities or lounging in a spa hotel sipping cucumber water. Over-consumption of alcohol isn’t a major feature apparently, and many even eschew the traditional strippagram. They’re often not gender-segregated either. The stories about stag-do’s ruining the rep of British tourists abroad in cities like Prague and Dublin are overblown, apparently – propaganda to blame our national woes on a tiny minority of mindless yobs. The gangs of gobby girls in short skirts, low-cut tops and high heels, bottles of bud in hand, pub-crawling their way through our city streets are a thing of the past.

But I don’t think that MP in York was complaining about the sort of hen or stag do that visits the latest exhibition at the V & A followed by a meal in Pizza Express and an evening watching the new production of Oklahoma at the Young Vic. I think Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central, was referring to groups who rent airbnbs, use them as party hubs, and go on benders in the city centre. So she’s either misinformed, or the traditional pre-wedding night of debauchery is still going strong.

              That kind of hen or stag do has never appealed to me. I went on a few hen-do’s in my youth, but I can’t remember ever enjoying one. I got the impression that most of the women there got drunk mainly so they could tolerate the inane artificial-jollity of the whole event. It’s a weird idea, in this day and age, that women should go out en masse to make fun of men, tease and terrify the bride-to-be with crass sexual comedy (ignoring the fact that few brides in western society are virgins these days, and marriage consists of far more than having a convenient sexual partner), scream and cackle at ear-splitting volume, and get so drunk they can barely walk. Or, now I come to think of the women I know, maybe it’s not so weird…

              My view is, if that’s what people – men or women – want to do, then why not? God knows, people need to be let off the leash sometimes, particularly when they’re young, and particularly after two years of Covid. We all need to act like idiots now and then. As long as they don’t hurt themselves or others, damage property, or invite me, I don’t have any serious objection.

              If you’re an MP receiving lots of complaints about such parties destroying the reputation of your city, however, I can understand your feeling that you need to try to do something about it. Only I’m not sure what you can do. Hen and stag parties presumably bring in lots of dosh for the beleaguered hospitality sector (though presumably they also cost a lot in damage-repair, and cost the emergency services time and money dealing with drink-related accidents and violence). You can try to promote more family-friendly activities – rides for the kids, international street markets (or has Brexit buggered these up?), street entertainers, carnivals, festivals, free parking, pedestrianized squares, street art – but these things tend to happen at different times from the times the hen and stag parties get going, so they aren’t an alternative.

              What do you think? Are hen and stag do’s a blight on our great cities and towns, or are they merely a harmless letting off of steam? And what, if anything, can our towns and cities do to lessen their negative impact on the lives of locals?    

Book review: A writer’s opinion on The Chronicles Of St Mary's by Jodi Taylor

 The Chronicles Of St Mary’s by Jodie Taylor

I have mentioned this series before but I thought I would add some further comments as I have been re-reading them over the past month.

I first read them more than a decade ago, but abandoned them around Book Five due to getting confused by all the characters and bored by what felt like the increasingly contrived plot twists.

This time round, I found that I was easily able to differentiate between characters and keep them all in my head. Either I have become more skilled at doing this (unlikely!), or I just wasn’t concentrating when I first read them. I am also continuing to enjoy the episodes when the historians of St Mary’s go back in time to revisit key events. Last time, I was beginning to grow a little bored with these adventures, mainly because of the stress of knowing they always seem to go wrong. Though Jodi Taylor takes some liberties with the known facts now and then, in general I have actually learned a lot about many historical events about which I only had a sketchy knowledge previously.

The plot twists are still mildly irritating, but this is a problem for all writers of novel series. You get new ideas which have to be woven into the existing books, and sometimes that requires some major rejigging of the narrative. This can lead to stretching the reader’s suspension of disbelief a little in places.

Time travel stories are always tricksy, and writers often have to disguise bloop-holes with a lot of camouflage. In Taylor’s universe, historians can only visit a specific place in time once – multiple versions of one individual cannot exist simultaneously, though it is unclear what would actually happen if they did. This doesn’t explain however why they can’t travel back to a slightly earlier point in time in order to put right the various catastrophes that happen to St Mary’s staff when they go back in time. Surely, their ongoing search for Clive Ronan could be resolved rapidly if they just went back to an hour before he committed his first crime and shot him dead then?  Yes, yes, I know. Time paradoxes. The moral conundrum of whether it is right to kill someone who hasn’t committed a crime as yet. Blah di blah. Writers have to come up with increasingly arcane and convoluted reasons for why time travellers like Dr Who  or Michael Burnham can’t just go back in time and put right their own mistakes. I tend to take the line taken by Terry Pratchett’s fabulously arrogant wizards – if they are here in the past and stand on a butterfly, then they had always been here in the past in order to stand on the butterfly, even when they were in the present. They changed nothing, because it had already been changed by them. Yeah, thinking about time-travel does give you a headache.

And anyway, in Taylor’s stories, Leon Farrell and Dr Bairstow are from the future anyway but have settled in the past, and Max visits a future St Mary’s several times (and some of them visit the older St Mary’s), and the Time Police are based in the future…

My only other niggle is the character of the central protagonist and narrator, Dr Madeleine ‘Max’ Maxwell. Someone said to me a while back that she found Max irritating, and that made me realise that so did I.  Max is undoubtedly a lively, witty, cynical, brave, self-deprecating, good-natured woman, so why would I find her irritating? Taylor does an excellent job of conveying her personality, which is consistent throughout. She makes her vulnerable, a survivor of child abuse, a damaged woman with supposedly low self-esteem, who is something of a disaster-magnet, but who survives due to her strength of character and intelligence. I ought to love her!  But in fact, she often annoys me to hell. Her constant misunderstanding of what other characters mean or say, particularly her significant other, Leon, often feels like a plot contrivance. I find myself thinking ‘Oh, for god’s sake, Maxwell, just have a proper conversation, then you would avoid a lot of heart-ache and I wouldn’t have to read about it for the next ten pages’. I’m also uncomfortable with her apparent ability to let her son Matthew be more or less brought up by the Time Police, after he has been lost to her for seven years in horrendous circumstances. I find it slightly irritating that her best friends are all men – Leon, Peterson, Markham (she is close friends with Kal for two books but then she goes off to join Thirsk University) – though I’m not sure exactly why this annoys me. And I am deeply irritated by the fact that she always surprised when men find her attractive, when clearly she is a woman men fancy – she is short, but curvy, with masses of gorgeous red hair. But these are silly niggles as Taylor has written Max accurately and plausibly, and also readers don’t have to adore a character to enjoy a story.

So, overall, if I ignore the wish-fulfilment sex scenes between Max and Leon (which are certainly not the worst sex scenes I’ve ever read by a long way, but they are slightly excruciating to me nevertheless), the slightly irritating aspects of the protagonist’s personality, and the sometimes implausible plot shenanigans, I am enjoying the books this time round. Oh, and some of the set-piece ‘comic’ scenes are becoming wearisome as the novels progress, but that’s in the nature of such things and Taylor does a good job of them on the whole. I can see why this series has been so successful and I think they deserve their success.

 

Updated rating:   **** [well worth a read if you like entertaining comic-fantasy and disreputable heroines]

Update on publication

 Four of my five-line poems have been published on Punk Noir Magazine website:

https://punknoirmagazine.wordpress.com/punk-noir-magazine-3/