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An Extra Large Spotted Dick
I’ve just remembered that it’s Blog Tuesday, and do I have something to talk about today? Do I buggery.However, I have some vague thinkings that were circulating my head and in want of anything useful to write, I’ll stick those down instead. Someone asked me if I considered myself an “Englishwoman”, and if I was a patriotic person. The English as opposed to British question bores me a little bit, as I have never particularly cared either way. If I were filling out a form I would probably put down British, although I couldn’t really tell you why. Technically, I am English as I was born in England. Fine. In truth, if I feel like anything, it’s a Londoner, even though I grew up on the weird outskirts of the city, where no one is sure if they’re in Kent or not.
Am I patriotic? Well, I’m not sure. I’m no flag waving Royalist, that’s for sure, and I don’t watch the Queen’s Speech at Christmas (my Dad would be most annoyed at this. He made us stand up for the National Anthem). But in my own small, quiet way, I do love Britain; it’s lands and it’s people. And I started thinking about why.1) I like our weather. YES, I said it, I like our crazy sunny one minute pissing down the next climate, because in truth, it’s not actually that crazy. We have marvellously moderate weather here, no matter how over excited we get about four inches of snow, or those two days in July where it’s unbelievably hot. It’s rarely so extreme that it causes problems, and on those odd occasions when it does, we get fantastically excited about it. Seriously, the snow we had last year that meant no one could get anywhere for one whole day, was the most excited I’ve seen this country in… well, ever.
Our weather is never likely to kill us, and I like that. I like chilly autumn days, and lazy warm summer evenings, and London rain. 2) Sense of humour goes without saying, doesn’t it? But I think it’s worth pointing out that it goes deeper than the obvious things, such as Monty Python and the Goons, Not the Nine O’Clock News and Alternative Comedy… British people just can’t help making jokes. In any conversation at all. Even if they’re bad ones- especially if they're bad ones. If you listen to any two British people talking, one of them will inevitably try to make the other one laugh. Maybe it is that stereotypical British reserve turned on it’s head; we don’t feel comfortable talking about important things, so we’ll make a joke instead.
In the car going to my Dad’s funeral we couldn’t help joking with each other. And once we’d noticed that my Uncle Alan’s leather jacket made a farting noise every time he moved on the seat, we were well away (oh, the British, how we love our fart gags). I clambered out of the car in the midst of a giggling fit, much to the disapproval of the vicar. 3) An appreciation of small pleasures. In my experience, you will only ever hear a British person say, “Oh, we’ll have a nice cup of tea when we get home,” and you know they are genuinely looking forward to it. And if there’s a biscuit with that tea, they’ll be over the moon. A chocolate biscuit?! TRUE FACT: There is no higher pleasure. I remember Bill Bryson writing something like this in his Notes from a Small Island, about how only the British could be truly excited about an extra large raisin in their spotted dick. When I read that I knew it was true; I don’t need any more evidence than the level of hysteria caused by a fresh tin of biscuits at work. So those are a few of my reasons. If there are any small things you love about your place of birth, tell me; this Tuesday could do with a bit more love.
Am I patriotic? Well, I’m not sure. I’m no flag waving Royalist, that’s for sure, and I don’t watch the Queen’s Speech at Christmas (my Dad would be most annoyed at this. He made us stand up for the National Anthem). But in my own small, quiet way, I do love Britain; it’s lands and it’s people. And I started thinking about why.1) I like our weather. YES, I said it, I like our crazy sunny one minute pissing down the next climate, because in truth, it’s not actually that crazy. We have marvellously moderate weather here, no matter how over excited we get about four inches of snow, or those two days in July where it’s unbelievably hot. It’s rarely so extreme that it causes problems, and on those odd occasions when it does, we get fantastically excited about it. Seriously, the snow we had last year that meant no one could get anywhere for one whole day, was the most excited I’ve seen this country in… well, ever.
Our weather is never likely to kill us, and I like that. I like chilly autumn days, and lazy warm summer evenings, and London rain. 2) Sense of humour goes without saying, doesn’t it? But I think it’s worth pointing out that it goes deeper than the obvious things, such as Monty Python and the Goons, Not the Nine O’Clock News and Alternative Comedy… British people just can’t help making jokes. In any conversation at all. Even if they’re bad ones- especially if they're bad ones. If you listen to any two British people talking, one of them will inevitably try to make the other one laugh. Maybe it is that stereotypical British reserve turned on it’s head; we don’t feel comfortable talking about important things, so we’ll make a joke instead.
In the car going to my Dad’s funeral we couldn’t help joking with each other. And once we’d noticed that my Uncle Alan’s leather jacket made a farting noise every time he moved on the seat, we were well away (oh, the British, how we love our fart gags). I clambered out of the car in the midst of a giggling fit, much to the disapproval of the vicar. 3) An appreciation of small pleasures. In my experience, you will only ever hear a British person say, “Oh, we’ll have a nice cup of tea when we get home,” and you know they are genuinely looking forward to it. And if there’s a biscuit with that tea, they’ll be over the moon. A chocolate biscuit?! TRUE FACT: There is no higher pleasure. I remember Bill Bryson writing something like this in his Notes from a Small Island, about how only the British could be truly excited about an extra large raisin in their spotted dick. When I read that I knew it was true; I don’t need any more evidence than the level of hysteria caused by a fresh tin of biscuits at work. So those are a few of my reasons. If there are any small things you love about your place of birth, tell me; this Tuesday could do with a bit more love.
Blogging Keeps You Regular
Blogging once a week should be pretty easy, or at least that’s what I thought when I decided recently that my blog needed a good kick up the bum. I had read in various places that writers should blog, and as often as possible, and it sounded like a good plan. Some suggested updating every day, but that seems, quite frankly, a bit unhinged. If you are a jet setting author with a mind-crushingly glamorous and exciting life, and the ability to get more done in one day than any human person, like Neil Gaiman for example, no doubt this makes sense. But I’ve no clue what I’d begin to tell you about if I were writing this every day. I think, to be quite honest, I’d bore myself. However, as it is time for my weekly blog (now sounding like a bowel movement of some kind) and I have absolutely no clue what to talk about, I shall regale you with the sort of inconsequential details I might tell you if I were writing everyday:Our floorboards are being ripped up. Yes, when I get home, I expect to have to employ some stilts or the Force to propel myself around the flat. The alarmingly manky carpet has gone, along with its red wine and birthing fluid stains (yes, really) and supposedly something else will be taking it’s place. Not sure what.I’m reading Magician by Raymond E. Feist. I am enjoying it very much, even if it is a dramatic change of tone from the Song of Ice and Fire series. I keep expecting people to be sleeping with their sisters and pushing people out of windows, but everyone in Magician is much too nice. We finished watching Supernatural series one, alas. I have decided it is a Series Worth Following, and I’m particularly fond of the central relationship between Sam, Dean and Daddy Winchester. It is ever so manly and angsty.The new book is puttering along, just starting to form into a proper story with a beginning, middle and end; as long as I don’t look at it directly or anything. In fact, I find if I turn my head to one side and squint at it with one eye shut, it appears to have vampires, witches, zombies AND pirates in it. This amuses me.That’s it for now. Tomorrow I shall update you with whether or not that milk we bought at the weekend will last for the evening’s tea, and if I’ve managed to buy a new pair of jeans.
Life sits on the writer and squashes her a bit
Alright, I've been rubbish at updating this thing lately (I wonder how many blogs across the blogosphere begin with that?) so it's time for a quick sum up of recent weeks. If that's possible.In my last entry I was very excited about my week off, and all the tremendously writerly things I was going to do. Every day. Yep, every day, I would do writerly things.
Well, as often happens, life intervened that week, and I ended up not doing quite as many of the little jaunts that I had planned. Pyra, our small and cheerfully destructive cat had to be taken to the vets to have stitches removed, and this turned out to be more traumatic than I expected. She had a bubble of fluid under the scar, which the vet proceeded to remove with a needle (much to the combined horror of both Pyra and I. Having to hold her down while he carried out this procedure meant I felt like the evilest cat-mummy that has ever lived). It wasn't the cleanest scar, and I spent the next couple of days watching Pye constantly, convinced she would start leaking or something.Also that week, the electrics in the flat started to play up wildly, resulting in a few days of electrician visits, a further traumatized cat, furniture turned upside down and ripped up floorboards. Oh, and me being stuck in the flat making tea for electrician chaps (who were very nice but, you know, I sorted of wanted to be elsewhere).All this meant that my writerly trips were rather cut short, but, I got enough done to feel like I had a good week off. I went for a wander up Ludgate Hill, where an important scene happens in A Boy of Blood and Clay, and actually went all the way up to St Paul's (I've never been close enough to touch it before). I walked down Cannon Street to look at the London Stone, which is both tiny and largely unremarked- I peered through the grill to look at it only to find a man looking back at me from behind it; apparently it's just in front of an office window. I went to Monument, looked at some old street names (Fish Street Hill, Pudding Lane) and spent a long time in some pubs writing and writing and writing (the London Stone pub has it's toilets hidden behind a fake bookcase, if you happen to end up in there).I also had a few trips to our local pub, which is becoming one of my favourite places to write; it's light, spacious and usually quiet, with an "interestingly" arty clientele. I find that I get much more done away from the flat, where the temptation is to watch telly, read or listen to the radio.So that was my week off. In the week since then, we've had builders in to rip out our bathroom (*sigh*) and having been chucked out the flat early every morning, I have been spending a couple of hours before work writing (in another pub) and consequently, A Boy of Blood and Clay is coming along nicely. Now, if only I had the discipline to get out of bed early every day to do that. Oh, and blog regularly.
Well, as often happens, life intervened that week, and I ended up not doing quite as many of the little jaunts that I had planned. Pyra, our small and cheerfully destructive cat had to be taken to the vets to have stitches removed, and this turned out to be more traumatic than I expected. She had a bubble of fluid under the scar, which the vet proceeded to remove with a needle (much to the combined horror of both Pyra and I. Having to hold her down while he carried out this procedure meant I felt like the evilest cat-mummy that has ever lived). It wasn't the cleanest scar, and I spent the next couple of days watching Pye constantly, convinced she would start leaking or something.Also that week, the electrics in the flat started to play up wildly, resulting in a few days of electrician visits, a further traumatized cat, furniture turned upside down and ripped up floorboards. Oh, and me being stuck in the flat making tea for electrician chaps (who were very nice but, you know, I sorted of wanted to be elsewhere).All this meant that my writerly trips were rather cut short, but, I got enough done to feel like I had a good week off. I went for a wander up Ludgate Hill, where an important scene happens in A Boy of Blood and Clay, and actually went all the way up to St Paul's (I've never been close enough to touch it before). I walked down Cannon Street to look at the London Stone, which is both tiny and largely unremarked- I peered through the grill to look at it only to find a man looking back at me from behind it; apparently it's just in front of an office window. I went to Monument, looked at some old street names (Fish Street Hill, Pudding Lane) and spent a long time in some pubs writing and writing and writing (the London Stone pub has it's toilets hidden behind a fake bookcase, if you happen to end up in there).I also had a few trips to our local pub, which is becoming one of my favourite places to write; it's light, spacious and usually quiet, with an "interestingly" arty clientele. I find that I get much more done away from the flat, where the temptation is to watch telly, read or listen to the radio.So that was my week off. In the week since then, we've had builders in to rip out our bathroom (*sigh*) and having been chucked out the flat early every morning, I have been spending a couple of hours before work writing (in another pub) and consequently, A Boy of Blood and Clay is coming along nicely. Now, if only I had the discipline to get out of bed early every day to do that. Oh, and blog regularly.
If this works, here are a few pictures of the London excursion:
