I've softened a little towards Doctor Who. This is mostly because I'm a softie and a gullible fangirl who, at the end of the day, will sit through anything with a diamond logo on it. The chief problem is, Doctor Who's classic episodes boil down to five men in a bunker or four men in a cave. So why they keep "treating" us to huge episodes on special occasions I do not know.
This morning, I took advantage of the empty house to get in some quality time with my piano. Specifically, to get practicing at "The Curse of Millhaven". It's a Nick Cave song about a sweet teen girl who goes on a killing spree in her little town. I think it reminded Calypso of me - it certainly reminded me of me, and so I am attempting to cover it in my sweetest and most adorable choirgirl voice. There's nothing like transforming your greatest weakness (years of choir training barring any attempts at rock and pop) into your greatest strength.
As an album, "Murder Ballads" has a confirmed death count of 64 - that's an average of 7 per song. "Millhaven" itself is 9 verses long, and I'm having trouble and fun in equal measure trying to vary my playing to keep it interesting. I've got bits here and there sorted, but it's mainly tricky raining in the crazy for verses one to four, and not getting bored or losing momentum before it's time to let rip half way through. I can't match Nick Cave's villainous enthusiasm and heroic tuneless not-really-in-time ranting, but what I am doing sounds fine some of the time. My voice is ripped to shreds, as if I've been chugging alcohol or paint stripper all morning, and it feels great.
In other news, not a night has gone by that I have not dreamt about travelling. My shrink would have a field day with this one, suggesting perhaps I do not feel settled. I keep dreaming about the Tube, although it's more like the DLR. Gorgeous prog-rock vistas with golden monorails weaving between sandy towers and pink clouds, all TFL: Atlantis branch. Nothing like the real Tube, which is a grubby nightmare. And then last night I dreamed about the airport for the third or fourth time, but it was huge like an underground city.
Despite the trauma dreams, it wasn't as bad as all that. As everyone was delayed, there was a rush on the Wetherspoons - but you were only allowed food if you had a table. I ended up on an eight seaters with a motley crew. Three French students, one who ran a vegan restaurant, a second who ran an animal shelter (and was married, which made me wonder if they were older than they seemed) and a third who was makingmovies in London and spent the whole time tetchy because he couldn't smoke. Two old friends from Guernsey who talked about the homeless. One Irish woman who grinned and maintained she hadn't wanted to go home for Christmas anyway, and was happy so long as the Guinness didn't run out. And as for me? Well, the gal with the restaurant explained that bars are traditionally decorated with books because in the past, a place which had books but no music was classified as "a library" and thus came under licensing restrictions. Nowadays, the books are decorative, but the trend started due to this loophole. This Wetherspoons had lots of antiquey books, so once I'd shown everyone some origami and played several competitive games of squares, I raided the bookshelf. Xenophon, The Count of Monte Cristo and Virgil in Latin. So frankly, I was happy.
One of the things that Kept Me Going on my epic airport Odyssey was how much it reminded me of Blake's 7 locations. That's the marvellous thing about all-encompassing obsessions - you can't concieve of how it changes your perceptions unless you've had one. Say, I feel my understanding of the word "compassion" is fundamentally deeper due to my Doctor Who viewing, and that my definition of "interference" is now seriously different. I even got chirrupy and cheerful about the "year-1999" functionality of the railway carriage toilet, because it looked like one of the TARDIS rooms. Certainly there's a running joke that Gallifrey always resembled an airport departure lounge.
But after this morning's dream, I had a horrible thought. It occured to me that, if sci-fi cities tend to look a bit like airport departure lounges, then airport departure lounges must look like sci-fi cities. And if that is the case, how depressing must the future be! All white and shiney and functional. Anonymous, apersonal - seemingly very easy to keep clean, but actually with an all-around grubbiness, like the scuff on airport floors. Euch. Time travel, it turns out, must be as much fun as any other mode of travel...
This morning, I took advantage of the empty house to get in some quality time with my piano. Specifically, to get practicing at "The Curse of Millhaven". It's a Nick Cave song about a sweet teen girl who goes on a killing spree in her little town. I think it reminded Calypso of me - it certainly reminded me of me, and so I am attempting to cover it in my sweetest and most adorable choirgirl voice. There's nothing like transforming your greatest weakness (years of choir training barring any attempts at rock and pop) into your greatest strength.
As an album, "Murder Ballads" has a confirmed death count of 64 - that's an average of 7 per song. "Millhaven" itself is 9 verses long, and I'm having trouble and fun in equal measure trying to vary my playing to keep it interesting. I've got bits here and there sorted, but it's mainly tricky raining in the crazy for verses one to four, and not getting bored or losing momentum before it's time to let rip half way through. I can't match Nick Cave's villainous enthusiasm and heroic tuneless not-really-in-time ranting, but what I am doing sounds fine some of the time. My voice is ripped to shreds, as if I've been chugging alcohol or paint stripper all morning, and it feels great.
In other news, not a night has gone by that I have not dreamt about travelling. My shrink would have a field day with this one, suggesting perhaps I do not feel settled. I keep dreaming about the Tube, although it's more like the DLR. Gorgeous prog-rock vistas with golden monorails weaving between sandy towers and pink clouds, all TFL: Atlantis branch. Nothing like the real Tube, which is a grubby nightmare. And then last night I dreamed about the airport for the third or fourth time, but it was huge like an underground city.
Despite the trauma dreams, it wasn't as bad as all that. As everyone was delayed, there was a rush on the Wetherspoons - but you were only allowed food if you had a table. I ended up on an eight seaters with a motley crew. Three French students, one who ran a vegan restaurant, a second who ran an animal shelter (and was married, which made me wonder if they were older than they seemed) and a third who was makingmovies in London and spent the whole time tetchy because he couldn't smoke. Two old friends from Guernsey who talked about the homeless. One Irish woman who grinned and maintained she hadn't wanted to go home for Christmas anyway, and was happy so long as the Guinness didn't run out. And as for me? Well, the gal with the restaurant explained that bars are traditionally decorated with books because in the past, a place which had books but no music was classified as "a library" and thus came under licensing restrictions. Nowadays, the books are decorative, but the trend started due to this loophole. This Wetherspoons had lots of antiquey books, so once I'd shown everyone some origami and played several competitive games of squares, I raided the bookshelf. Xenophon, The Count of Monte Cristo and Virgil in Latin. So frankly, I was happy.
One of the things that Kept Me Going on my epic airport Odyssey was how much it reminded me of Blake's 7 locations. That's the marvellous thing about all-encompassing obsessions - you can't concieve of how it changes your perceptions unless you've had one. Say, I feel my understanding of the word "compassion" is fundamentally deeper due to my Doctor Who viewing, and that my definition of "interference" is now seriously different. I even got chirrupy and cheerful about the "year-1999" functionality of the railway carriage toilet, because it looked like one of the TARDIS rooms. Certainly there's a running joke that Gallifrey always resembled an airport departure lounge.
But after this morning's dream, I had a horrible thought. It occured to me that, if sci-fi cities tend to look a bit like airport departure lounges, then airport departure lounges must look like sci-fi cities. And if that is the case, how depressing must the future be! All white and shiney and functional. Anonymous, apersonal - seemingly very easy to keep clean, but actually with an all-around grubbiness, like the scuff on airport floors. Euch. Time travel, it turns out, must be as much fun as any other mode of travel...
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