paint box

Today I discovered that I prefer painting in watercolours to painting in acrylics. I like the subtlety and delicacy of watercolours to the brashness of acrylics. With watercolours, you can lay down washes and build up colour slowly, or let colours seep into one another. You don't have to be definite, if you don't want to, and you can easily wash one colour off your brush and pick up a new one.

I used to paint a lot in watercolours, usually drawing an outline in pencil and then colouring it in with paint. Today, that seems too definite. I'd rather start with the brush and a pale colour and see what happens. I can always make it darker, or wash it into even paler, or even wait until it's dry and paint over the top.

I am wondering what this says about me. Perhaps that I like subtlety. That I like starting small and getting bigger. That I like to be sure of the direction before I move, rather than jumping in with both feet. Hmm.

hmm

Might have spoken too soon about the back. It's hurting again. But something was happening when I was being prayed for.

Work's OK, though I often feel like I'm bluffing my way through. Still, it's going well. Someone told me today they were bit a scared because they'd heard I was very efficient. So I must be doing something right. The people thinking I'm efficient bit, not the people being scared of me bit. I'd rather people weren't scared of me.

I do need more sleep. Is it too early to sleep yet? Maybe I'll curl up in bed with a book. Or a radio play. Or a DVD. Or some knitting.

what a girl wants, what a girl needs

Things Bekki needs:

sleep

a haircut

food to take to a picnic (indoor obv.) tomorrow night


Things Bekki wants:

her cold to go away

her throat/ear/head to stop hurting

snow at Christmas

everything to go well at work tomorrow

chocolate

musings on Morse

Last night I was watching Inspector Morse on ITV.com catchup. I had very vivid memories of this episode (Cherubim and Seraphim), from the opening image of a girl dancing in front of flashing lights to the final rave scene in a country house. As I watched, I tried to work out why I remembered it so well. It was originally aired in 1992, when I was 12, nearly 13. I think it represented to me a teenage culture I didn't like the look of and which scared me. Rave culture and acid house was frightening to me. Loud music, too many people, drugs. Not that I actually ever experienced it, but it was in the air. Or perhaps it's just in retrospect that I project what I know now onto my memories.

Rave is just as baffling to Morse. It's amusing how naive the ordinary policeman seems about dance parties in this story. Even the drug squad are under-resourced and short of information. But there's also an innocence to the ravers. They just want to dance. The drugs are about having a good time, feeling blissed out and loving the world. The tragedy of the story is that the ultimate high leaves people feeling empty and pointless, as if after they've experienced the most wonderful thing in life, there's nothing left to live for.

Perhaps the episode is a snapshot capturing a particular moment when rave was young and innocent, when the police were interested, but not concerned, before the crackdowns and mass arrests. Or perhaps Julian Mitchell and Danny Boyle who respectively wrote and directed the episode were painting an overly innocent picture. I don't know. Raves have never been my thing, though I can see the attraction of just losing yourself in music and dancing for hours.

I was happy to see this episode again and see different things in it: the fragments of baroque music sampled in the dance tracks stood out more, I could appreciate the subtleties of Morse's musings on parents and children. Marilyn, the girl who commits suicide, isn't his child (though I did spend quite a lot of the episode wondering whether it was being hinted that she was. Since her mother is Morse's step-sister or half-sister, that seems unlikely), but she is the nearest equivalent he has and his recollections of their conversations about literature suggest a close relationship and shared personality traits.

Some TV programmes I enjoyed when I was younger don't stand up to repeat viewing or only serve as nostalgia triggers. Morse is an exception. Even if I've seen it before and remember who did what to whom, there's usually something I didn't notice the first time around or a new subtlety to be appreciated.

(I have never, however, been able to spot any of Colin Dexter's Hitchcock-like cameos.)

windows

What does this blog say about me? I'm not too sure. There's not been much intellectual content to it for a while. Mind you, there's not been much intellectual content to me for a while either. I'm reading, but mostly silly things (in the last couple of weeks, The Vesuvius Club by Mark Gatiss and The Titian Committee by Iain Pears). I put so much of my identity into being clever and reading intelligent literature that when I can't do either, I don't know who I am. How sad is that? So, right now, the blog's not a book review page or a place of cultural comment.

I am taking and posting photos. I've got a new digital camera, so I expect there'll be a lot more of that happening. They aren't brilliant photos, just OK, occasionally good by a fluke. I like speaking in visuals.

I am endeavouring not to moan too much on the blog. It's boring and achieves nothing. Sometimes there are happy things to say and I say them.

Blog readers (anyone out there?) what would you like to know? Maybe if you ask me questions I'll answer them (no promises, mind).

sleep, busy, sleep

That's not how life is supposed to be going, but sometimes it feels like it. How did it get to be Wednesday? I'm trying not to do too much, but still end up feeling exhausted by the end of the day. Sleep isn't exactly refreshing when you dream that you keep being woken up or beaten up by random people. (I think last night it was Billie Piper demanding that I tell her where to find the Doctor. Weird).

Today I went to the UL, which is a little energy-sapping in itself. At least it didn't nearly make me cry this time. I had a bit more of a clue about how the classmarks worked and managed to find what I needed first go. And I found the photocopiers and bought a card and copied the articles I wanted, so that's an achievement. Now I actually have to read what I've copied. Maybe not tonight though. Tonight I flop.

the trouble with Austen

I do love a good costume drama romance. The current BBC adaptation of Sense and Sensibility being a case in point. I wonder though, whether they're quite good for one. However tangled and supense-filled the romantic upsets and twists and turns, there's always a happy ending, the heroine always finds her man, although she usually learns some important lessons on the way. Do they paint a picture that's too neat, too hopeful, too much certainty of finding love and marriage? Perhaps. But the process of learning is important too. Jane Austen's heroines don't get their husbands on a plate, they must learn and change first, whether that means leaving behind sily notions of gothic romance or wrong first impressions. It's the humanity of the process that makes the novels more than silly romances and that makes them last, as well as Austen's wit and narrative voice. Perhaps they're not a bad impression of finding love after all. I think it's just the apparent inevitabilty of the process that worries me. Hmm.

a little more time

I asked, I got an extension 'til Monday. I've been in bed all day, too woozy to read, so knitting. I hope an early night tonight will help too and I'll be able to do a bit of work tomorrow.

Hmm, this is a really boring blog at the moment, isn't it? Sorry.

trying to be sensible

This has never been a very sensible blog, has it? It's such a random mixture of moans and pictures and thoughts and questions. I wonder what it's for. Perhaps I should have more of a vision for what I want to do with it. Perhaps I should start a new blog for the sensible stuff (assuming I have something sensible to say about anything, which I'm not entirely sure I will). Perhaps I should just post things here.

I'll have a think. Does anyone have any comments? Why do you read pigwotflies? Is it because you've met me and/or are related to me and want to see what I'm up to? Because you find it amusing/intriguing/are dazzled by my insightful writing (I think not somehow)? Adrian got me blogging because he thought I'd like the intellectual discussion side of things. I've stayed out of the theological discussions he gets into, mostly because I don't think I've got much to add. But there are things I like talking about, books, art, science, philosophy. The discipline of turning a random thought into a short, coherent blog post might be useful.

Perhaps it's time to raise the bar of what makes the blog, rather than waffling on. And then, paradoxically, I might write more. Or I might intimidate myself and write less. Either way, I'd like to blog to some purpose, I think.

underestimate

I've just been asked for ID buying wine (and other things) at the Co-op. To be asked whether one is over 18, a week or so before one turns 28, is flattering, I suppose. But I was feeling all grown up and sophisticated in my new coat and favourite boots. The woman at the cash desk was apologetic and decided it was a sign she was getting old.

black swan

I've just come back from seeing Atonement which is beautiful and sad. Which is all I can think to say about it at the moment.

Except that the music is wonderful in the way it draws together atmosphere and sound and the feelings of the moment and the sound of the typewriter, drumming away at the beginning and returning again and again and the sound of repeated notes in the piano and the buzzing of a fly creating the oppressive heat of a summer afternoon.

I think it's got into my prose style a little. All that brittle wartime dialogue in cut glass accents.

I came the long and scenic way home, feeling the need for sunshine and air and the wind in my face. It had rained while I was in the cinema and the sky was fresh and full of crepuscular clouds. Dashing along the river, I saw a black swan. I stopped, it cried, just once, and swam on. I remembered how as a child I thought all swans were black because the ones in the park were and how excited I would be to see white swans. Today, to see a black swan was somehow thrilling and alive-making. On home, as fast I could across the common, past the cows and the evening sun dazzling straight in my face.

Now home, where it's warmer, a little and the pears next door are hanging heavy. Are they ripe yet?

can anyone tell me..

...why the BBC's standard pronunciation for Manuel de Falla's surname is "de FAL-li-ya" rather than "de FI-ya"?
Radio 3 have been doing it all week and now Counterpoint on Radio 4 are doing it too. Although the contestant pronunced it "de FI-ya".

moving the furniture

It's obviously a week for spring cleaning. I've got a couple of weeks holiday from work, which I'm mostly spending pottering round the house. Over Easter I was home with my family in London. Now I'm back in Cambridge and tidying stuff up, while my housemate clears out her room. It's a beautifully sunny day. What shall I do?

Oh and I've rearranged the blog. Let me know if anything looks odd.

coruscating

It was something Nathan said about "Beatrice and Benedick and how we all want to be them but in real life we often aren't." Last night I watched Becoming Jane and was reminded. It's a fun film, pretty preposterous (my housemate Sophia was amused to learn a new word, she hadn't come across it before) and sentimental, but good for a girls' night out. There's an early scene in which Jane (Anne Hathaway, what is it with getting Americans to play Brits? She did it very well though) and the love interest Tom LeFroy (the very pretty James McAvoy) are dancing and sparring verbal points off each other as they dance. It's fun to watch them, knowing that they're as much fascinated by each other as they are irritated.

What is it that we love about witty pairs of lovers? Historically, Beatrice and Benedick have always been the favourite characters of Much Ado About Nothing. They're so much more interesting and human than the rather sappy Hero, who hardly says anything (I liked the production I saw once in which she was always trying to speak and being cut off by her father or uncle) and the idiotic Claudio. I think it's that we want to be witty, to have clever things to say and win the argument, but also that we want to have relationships that are alive and sparkling, where the other person provokes us, draws us out, makes us more alive.

They're a dangerous pair to emulate. It would be easy to look only at their verbal sparring and build relationships that are nothing but fine words. Perhaps more crucial than their friends' trickery in showing them their true feelings is the moment of testing provided by Claudio's rejection of Hero. In the chilling moment when Beatrice tells Benedick to "Kill Claudio", he must decide whether love for his friend or love for Beatrice is more important. Not that asking your boyfriend to kill his best friend is a good test for whether he loves you, but at the time where it matters, Benedick proves that there is more to their relationship than words and argument.

So why aren't we like Beatice and Benedick? Or Elizabeth and Darcy or any other pair of literary lovers? We aren't scripted by a genius for a start. We live in the real world, where arguments about silly petty things or big ones can hurt and wit can wound more than it means. Love is in the mundane and quotidian as much as in the sparkling and the heat. But it's also in the fizz as much as in the everyday. Either without the other would be incomplete.