Walking in the Dark

I'm just back from a walk over to my old house and back, about two miles each way - I came back along the river, and had the opportunity to take photos of swans with a flash. Flash at night can have interesting results, but the subject has to be just far enough away to look mysterious - any closer and the usual flash glare takes over, any further away and the picture dissolves into low-light CCD fuzz.

I think the reason I love walking outdoors at night so much, is because most of my favourite memories of the last decade are of spending time wandering after dark with friends, drinking cider and talking. Any weather is good, in any season - perhaps some wouldn't enjoy it, but one night sitting talking on the footbridge behind the old Diglis industrial estate (now yuppified) in the pouring November rain (Nooooo, I curse you Guns'n'Roses!), is the best memory I have of L. On the other hand, T and I both know that a bottle of gin and a deep February freeze can sometimes mix badly - "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, it's too cooooold, my fingers are numb," etc etc etc in gin-sodden fashion.

Although I sometimes feel like I've gone through a spacetime warp into some kind of Jamie Oliver version of Midsomer Murders, Worcester is wonderful for night-time walking - in Manchester I had to get a bus out to Alderley Edge or wherever, but here I'm two minutes away from the river, and fifteen minutes away from fields and the edge of town. Night-time in the city is public; in the country, it's private.

Speaking of fields, I must start to plan this year's mushroom-picking. There's a field quite close that's grazed by cattle; in a few weeks time when it's colder, and there's rain overnight, it'll be time for a dawn mission.

It's odd how long you can spend programming, seemingly suspended in (caffeine-)time, when you've got a task in hand. I got up this morning at about 9am, and started work on a web database application I'm doing for the Worcester Citizens' Advice Bureau; the next time I looked at the clock, it was nearly 5pm. If I could have a job like this that'd pay (it's voluntary), I might actually stick at it (although I'd rather be freelance - dancing like a puppet to the hands of the clock is not a way of life I consider justifiable).

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Syllabically-spoonerised word of the day:

Phaustroclobia

Soundtrack:

Chopin's Nocturnes, played by Maria João Pires

Pool Under Black Moon

ZOW!

I think I was quite stoned at the time (discovered in an old notebook).

6 Seconds of Wind

Top of Worcestershire Beacon, 27th February 2007

Hurrah for Flaming Blobs

Nothing much but fragments today - my brain has not been helped by all-day TV, although I must admit that thinking was at the bottom of my agenda (or rather, not thinking was at the top of it).

1) Excellent television watched today:

The Quatermass Experiment (1955 Hammer film version) - pre-Sputnik wonder at "what lies on the other side of the sky..."; a blatant 'monster-meets-little-girl-by-river- but-retains-some-shreds-of-humanity-and-can't-harm-her' reference to the James Whale Frankenstein; a huge flaming blob enveloped in lightning, perched on scaffolding in Westminster Abbey; and any number of absurdly classic scripting moments, such as "But these fingerprints aren't even - human..!"

Animal Park - as ever. Animals can't be fake, ambitious, stagey, vapid, otiose, sarcastic, sycophantic, patronising, or otherwise TV presenter-like. Actually Kate Humble's not bad.

Doctor Who & The Daleks - the slightly (sometimes very) comic remake with Peter Cushing as the Doctor, some kid as his physics-spouting Shirley Temple-meets-Velma from Scooby Doo granddaughter, a lot of very gay-looking elves, and Roy Castle as an unforgettable Dalek impostor (just imagine a Dalek with the voice of Roy Castle).

2) Things I need to buy/do/investigate/somehow find:

Oil paints, brushes, turps & canvas.

Life-drawing at local gallery for £5.

A muse, dammit (cf. Beatrice Portinari, Lizzie Siddal, Jeanne Duval etc).

Online dating, re: above item.

3) Things that are messing with my mind at present:

Upcoming medical exam in order to keep benefits, and thus not lose the best opportunity I've had in years if not ever (occupation therapy art course) to start "rebuilding my life", as TV presenters would doubtless describe it.

Lack of artistic muse - see item 2).

Dreams. I dreamt an artist who didn't exist, whose paintings of imaginary women were beautiful enough to make one cry - but whose entire oeuvre was lost in that annoying way that, upon waking, what sometimes seemed like a month of real life ceases ever to have existed.

4) Chosen Verse from Baudelaire for Today

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La très-chère était nue, et, connaissant mon cœur,
Elle n'avait gardé que ses bijoux sonores,
Dont le riche attirail lui donnait l'air vainqueur
Qu'ont dans leurs jours heureux les esclaves des Mores

- Les Bijoux

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O..!

Criminy Gibbets

Not much to say really. Am a few cans drunk, just got back from brother's birthday soirée in mate's car, arranged to go walking with her up the Hallow side of the Severn later in the week - it's all pretty mellow round my end, no theatrics, thank god.

Did my first oil painting on Wednesday/Thursday, below (more online here )


Not bad for a first attempt, many faults in it, and not quite the standard I'd demand. Still, with practice I'll get better. I hope I can be arsed, i.e. not get bored in the process of getting good.

Am teaching myself trigonometry to make up for lack of education (went to art college instead, where, I might add, I learnt nothing about art except that you need to be a prize wanker to succeed).

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Optimism 7/10

Thoughts of death and/or madness 2/10

Frustration 10/10 as usual