A largely quiet week at Cosmic Mansions which ended well with the warmest weekend of the year so far which meant mowing the lawn and a certain amount of reading of newspapers on a lounger in the sun.
Friday saw the final episode of Ashes to Ashes on BBC. I stuck with A2A through three series and enjoyed it, but the final series was the best of the three and the final episode was beautifully judged. Although the show stood on its own feet, in some respects it reminded me of the best of Twin Peaks in that it was not afraid to get weird and especially it did not patronise its audience by trying to be too expository. It told a story and, for the most part, left it to the audience’s intelligence and imagination to work out what was going on.
And A2A and its predecessor Life on Mars gave rise to some great characters, especially the iconic Gene Hunt about whom both series revolved.
On Saturday Mons Meg toured Rose Street. Thanks to a tweak to my neck a couple of weeks ago which still hasn’t quite settled down I was Tommying rather than dancing. It was a lovely night to be out too and as you might expect the place was heaving with nights out, Stag Nights and Hen Parties which all added to the jollity of the occasion.
It was a good night but not, for me, as good as other we have done even though we completed nine dances during the evening. On a really good tour I have a feeling that we build a kind of momentum and the the tour takes on a life of its own in a strange bubble which describes an eccentric orbit around the real world (a bit life Ashes to Ashes now I come to think of it). I didn’t get that feeling on Saturday. There are a number of reasons for that which need to be looked at, but the early part of the evening didn’t get into its stride because so many pubs had football on the telly (European Champions’ League final).
Has there ever, incidentally, been a worse notion than to have TVs in pubs showing continuous sports? They completely kill atmosphere stone dead as conversation and relationships take a back seat to glassy eyed staring at the box of tricks on the wall.
Last night things took a turn for the worse: I left work feeling that I had a sore throat coming on but kept it together to cycle down to Trina’s where we were practicing last night. Unfortunately, part way there I moved in towards the kerb to keep out of the way of cars and in the process the front wheel clipped the kerb, throwing me off the bike. Aside from some bumps and bruises, I have a particularly unpleasant graze on my left side just above my waist band from which gravel had to be cleaned. And by the time I got home later the sore throat had emerged as a really heavy cold – stinging eyes, stuffed up nose and general crappy feeling was the order of the night.
So this morning I was sore, stuffed up and very tired. Oh Joy.
We travelled down to Derby on Friday arriving to register around 7.30 in the evening giving us plenty of time to find where we were camping and set up and then head back to a pub to meet up with friends from other sides.
It was a good night – although it had consequences which I shall relate shortly. At this point I hadn’t eaten much beyond a large baguette in the mid afternoon and so I’d hoped to find a chippy for supper but there were only kebab shops which I didn’t fancy. The net result was that I didn’t have anything to eat.
After a not very wonderful night’s sleep (inflatable mattress in hall surrounded by people snoring) it was up to face the world and get ready to dance. It was a lovely day and it was a nice warm walk as we headed for the pub where we were due to practice – thankfully grabbing a sandwich and an apple on the way in an attempt to get some decent nutrition into me.
A welcome cup of tea set me up for the practice dance which went really well and did our confidence no end of good, as did the genuine words of encouragement from the sides with which we where touring – particularly Sallyport.
And then it was off to The Brewery Tap where we were due to have our first competitive dance. The dance was not the best we’ve done (and not as good, I thought, as our practice dance) but was fine none the less and you can see the evidence, if you wish, on YouTube.
See what you think:
The rest of the day went pretty well and our dancing was quite good although I was feeling oddly disengaged from the process. I was particularly pleased with our dancing of Winlaton in the Traditional Dance competition which we did on the basis of a quick run through in a pub beer garden. I had been drinking tea and orange juice all day and it was only after this dance that I had a beer and then went to eat a reasonable meal in a cafe nearby.
Earlier we had watched Phil Heaton and Aubs O’Brien being interviewed by a BBC crew who were making a documentary on traditional dance and had been filming extensively through the day. Phil and Aubs were playing everything deadpan while telling the most outrageous stories – and all around the rest of us were trying hard not to laugh so loud as to be picked up by the boom mic. The Sallyport dancers on stage were seriously corpsing (left). I’m still not sure whether the crew realised just how much was being extracted.
After an exhibition dance we were done and I permitted myself another beer but by this time I was feeling distinctly odd and once, when standing up too quickly from sitting, felt as though I were about to faint. We went along to another pub where everyone was settling in for an end of competition party but I was feeling well out of it, despite drinking more orange juice, and so I called it a night early and went back to try and sleep off whatever was wrong.
And what was wrong? Well last week my BP medication was changed from 10mg per day of Lisinopril to 20mg a day of Enalapril. Only when I checked the leaflet again did I spot the stuff about avoiding alcohol which, in sufficient quantity, increases the effects of the medication. So double the dosage and then have a few pints which increase the effect et voila! the welcoming party on the Friday night had almost certainly thrown my system completely out of balance.
A good night’s sleep and I was fine and was much bouncier on Sunday! In fact I would much rather have danced on Sunday than Saturday. Mind you “good” in the context of that sleep is relative – I slept well until the rest of the revellers returned just after 03.00 at which point I put earphones in to cut out the noise and get back to sleep!
I don’t want to downplay this – we had a great weekend and did well in the competition. I enjoyed the company a great deal and came away buzzing with ideas about directions in which we might travel as Mons Meg, but it was also all a bit weird. Lys has a much bouncier account of our travels on her blog here (part 1) and here (part 2).
Since getting home I have caught up with excellent episodes of Ashes to Ashes and Dr. Who but the return to work was less happy – not because of the work but because the increased dosage of the meds. is still affecting me. Ho-hum.
I bought a bike today. I went along to check them out but found one that I liked and had the money sitting in a Building Society account so I bought it. I’m very pleased with it and will no doubt take some photos tomorrow to post here – when it has stopped raining.
Things have changed a bit though. The last time I rode a cycle regularly was when I first came to Edinburgh. It was heavy with drop handlebars and a whole 5 gears: this one is relatively light with flat handlebars and 24 gears (count ’em)
Meanwhile I have been re-reading Jan Siegel’s “Prospero’s Children” trilogy which I had left to lie for a while in the attic. They are fantasy novels but hit two or three sweet spots for me – well written with that intangible quality which I think of as being a classic British rhythm and cadence to the sentence structure. She wrote three later novels which are tangentially linked under her real name of Amanda Hemingway and I hear rumours of something else in the pipeline which would be a good thing.
They are a useful reminder that in the sci-fi/fantasy world there are some decent writers lurking behind the blood and thunder of hard sci-fi and space opera. I have a high hope that some if this will bleed through into the new series of Doctor Who which began last night here in the UK. Last night’s programme had the principal aim of introducing the new Doctor and companion and setting the tone of the series and in this it succeeded admirably I think. And I am smitten by Karen Gillan who plays the companion – Amy Pond.
However I shall miss next week’s episode when it goes out because I shall be in Derby for DERT. On the whole I can live with this – and as you may have guessed from this and the previous post, I’m really looking forward to DERT. We have one practice to go to take of some remaining rough edges and that happens tomorrow evening and then it is time to iron the white shirts, polish the shoes, practice stepping whenever the opportunity arises and enter into that special meditative state which is necessary when you know that there is a brewery in Derby which has created a special beer just for the event…
I had a strange couple of days on Tuesday and Wednesday – I went down to London for a meeting by train (and the excitement level of the meeting can be seen from the extract of my notes reproduced to the right!). Overnight Monday/Tuesday and Tuesday morning had been extremely wet and I knew bad weather was coming in but it was only when we got south of Edinburgh that I began to realise how bad.
There were impressively heavy, grey seas all down the east coast through the Borders and into Northumberland with lots of standing water in the fields. Streams and rivers were in spate and from their colour a lot of topsoil was being washed downstream. As I watched the seas along the Northumberland coast I thought, perversely, that it would be a great day to be wrapped up and walking along the coastal path, the salt lash and stinging wind giving testimony to the joys of being alive.
And then a train in front of us broke down. We were already late leaving Edinburgh because we waited for connecting trains which had been delayed by bad weather further north and in some respects I wasn’t too worried because I had plenty to keep me occupied but as time rolled on it became clear that the train ahead of us was going nowhere and neither were we. We eventually got to London 2 hours late.
Overnight there was heavy snow in Edinburgh and the Borders and a landslide on the railway line so when I got to Kings Cross for my train north I was redirected to Euston where our tickets were being recognised by competing train companies going up the West coast. In fact the journey was without incident, albeit crowded, but because of the delay in London I was still 2 hours late getting home.
Rapper practice on Monday was ace. We were pretty sharp anyway from having an extended practice and mini tour on Saturday in St. Andrews. The pic on the left is some of the team practicing really hard for the upcoming competition in Derby for which we have one remaining practice.
You will find my report on last year’s DERT in my entry for 18 March 2009 here. The difference this year is that we are a better side and, with a bit of luck, a more confident side as well.
As happens every so often, time has no time to spare and before you know it two weeks have gone by and no blogging.
In my last entry I talked about the visit of Snark Rapper to Edinburgh: last Saturday Mons Meg went off to enjoy one of our intermittent trips to the East End of Glasgow. This was the third time we’ve done this particular tour and easily the best of the Glasgow tours which we have done in terms of enjoyment and “buzz” I think. We had almost a full team, we had a melodeon as our main instrument (louder in pubs) and we are a better dancing side able to give a better “performance”.
It was also a first for me because, due to some tired ankles, I opted out of dancing leaving Andy to dance number one for the first time while I donned the top hat and gladrags and Tommied (effectively MC-ing for the evening). We found a couple of pubs in which we hadn’t danced before – and in which we were very well received – and generally just had a great time.
It was interesting being part of the tour and not actually dancing. For one thing the perspiration levels were lower! More seriously, although my preference is always to dance, it was good to play a different role and to know that the team has the flexibility to restructure and dance well as needs must.
We did have one very lucky escape, mind you. In the Scotia Bar when Dot tumbled she inadvertently kicked the pint glass out of a bloke’s hand. The glass went straight up and shattered on the ceiling sending beer and glass tumbling down. Everyone was good about it but had the angle been slightly different that could have been very nasty. We carry insurance just in case but still…
After many years of not reading him, I finally succumbed to the lure of Terry Pratchett and read Guards! Guards! and Mort (and am currently reading Reaper Man). I have found them enjoyably entertaining, though not as laugh-at-loud funny as others report, and clearly infused with a keen literary intelligence at a deeper level (in Guards! Guards I picked up sly references to The Lord of the Rings, Beowulf and The Third Policeman all within four pages). I’m not an instant convert of the fanatical kind, but since Lindsay has many of the books in the house I shall probably work my way through them over a period of time
In the meantime, my friend Michel Ameline commented here a while ago (in a note to this post) that my thoughts arising from a reading of Hesse’s “Siddhartha” reminded him of reading Andre Gide’s Journals. I think I’m flattered but as I do not know anything by Gide am not sure! So in a second hand bookshop on the southside of Edinburgh this afternoon I saw a copy of the Journals 1889 to 1949 in good condition and it is my next serious read. Looking at it, though, I did wonder how many of the literary journals handed down would, in modern times, be written as blogs!
The pocket watches photographed at the head of this post are mine, by the way, and I’m currently trying to get them running to good time. I picked them up over the years in junk shops because I like the classic artisanal Smith’s Empire type rather than the fancier ones. Thousands of them will have been thrown out and hence – I discovered to my surprise yesterday – they are beginning to attract a collector’s market. Of the three pictured two have “pristine” movements according to the horologist who oiled them for me yesterday for less than a tenner and one needs a good clean but is otherwise fine. I don’t plan to sell them but rather, once they are in fully working condition, to use them even if only as part of my Tommy gear.
Should anyone, especially outside the UK, spot good looking cheap working pocket watches lurking in junk shops, by the way, feel free to send me them! I am more interested in what would have been working men’s watches. Similarly with fob chains and medals, especially if connected to mining or railways.
The chill continues although there is something of a thaw in progress at present. Aside from my return to work this week, I have taken advantage of the time to do a lot of reading after a lengthy period during which I seemed to read very little. For the most part it has been science fiction of one kind or another, notably catching up with where things are with Charles Stross’s Merchant Princes sequence but other stuff as well. And there is a newish Malcolm Prior novel –From Abersytwyth With Love to enjoy.
Highlight of the week, though, was the Mons Meg soirée last night. The idea was simple enough – invite friends and family along to our normal practice venue – The Village Inn in Leith – but make sure that a decent number of those attending were content to sing some songs or tell some stories or play some tunes or even dance. Although the weather and other factors limited numbers a bit, it turned into a really enjoyable informal evening.
It was all the better for being spontaneous and because enough people were happy to chip in with something to keep things going all night. We broke up around eleven and ended up round at Trina’s house where music making continued into the early hours.
It was a good night but not, for me, as good as other we have done even though we completed nine dances during the evening. On a really good tour I have a feeling that we build a kind of momentum and the the tour takes on a life of its own in a strange bubble which describes an eccentric orbit around the real world (a bit life Ashes to Ashes now I come to think of it). I didn’t get that feeling on Saturday. There are a number of reasons for that which need to be looked at, but the early part of the evening didn’t get into its stride because so many pubs had football on the telly (European Champions’ League final).
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