I think it’s finally time to admit what I’ve secretly known for a while now: the people who live in the area we now live in have terrible reading habits, and a forty minute round-trip walk up to the second-hand book shops of Cotteridge, simply isn’t worth it.
Also, Pershore Road, post recession, is just about the most depressing place on earth.
Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I thought I’d get the blog up to date on the events of the last two weeks. Namely, Lucy’s autumn half-term, a time of year which always means the nice hard-working routine that we somehow manage to re-establish after the lengthy summer holidays, being completely destroyed again, and reduced to a fortnight of pure, unadulterated laziness and fun!
As it happens, having spent the week before half-term finally seeing the elusive through-line of my new novel emerge out of the subconscious wilderness, and knowing now exactly where the story is going and what I am trying to do with it, it was great to have a two-week break from writing to let the new ideas percolate and grow. Monday this week marked the return to writing after the vacation, and I am incredibly happy with where this new novel is now heading…
But back to half-term. Beginning with a nice visit from Lucy’s parents, the theme of this holiday – although we didn’t know it yet – was clearly established with a lovely trip to Birmingham’s Botanical Gardens. Even in the rain, and with very little in flower, this is a really great place to visit if you like taking nice long leisurely walks through some very pretty surroundings. We not only got to explore the gardens for the first time – having only previously been, very briefly, for a friend’s wedding reception that served drinks out on the patio before going inside to a function room – but we also got to use some of our leftover wedding umbrellas too, to protect us from the drizzle!
Following the gardens, not yet ready to go home, we decided to check out the little nature reserve we always pass on the Pershore Road, to and from the city centre. Again, we had never been there before, and neither Lucy, nor I, had any idea whether it would be any good…but it was something to do with her parents, and it was local, so we thought: what the hell?
This was a good decision, because, it turns out, this nature reserve, a mere ten minutes or so away from our house, has a fantastic array of animals, and despite it’s small-scale appearance from the outside of the road, actually has quite an expansive grounds, and features wallabies, otters, meerkats, snakes, lizards, lemurs, and even a couple of big cats! We spent several hours enjoying the animals, before finally returning home for an evening of take-out pizza and the movie, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which I really enjoyed.
The next day we went on a little walk around the local areas, and then, after a lunch of scrambled eggs, the in-laws returned to Ipswich, and Lucy and I raced off to the cinema to indulge in our now annual Halloween tradition of watching the new Saw film.
This year, it was Saw VI. And though I was dismayed to hear that both a Saw VII and Saw VIII have already been announced (the original plans had been to end the franchise with number six), the film was really enjoyable. Due to the horrifically violent nature of much of the Saw premise (people put in terrifying torture-traps that usually involve some form of limb-removal or blood-loss to escape), the films often get a bad rap as being the sort of “torture porn” movies one associates with dross like Hostel, or BTK. In reality, the Saw films are much cleverer than the simple sadisms of the many copy-cat thrillers that they have spawned. Mainly, because they actually feature a compelling plot, and twisted rationale for why “Jigsaw” puts his victims through the tortures that he does – they are tests meant to make their few survivors grow a new appreciation for their lives. Furthermore, the reason Lucy and I keep going back to them year after year after year, is because they are actually cleverly written, with an ongoing narrative arc stretched across each of the movies, that unravels each year like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Thus, some events in the third film, are not explained until film five, and things revealed in Saw IV, did not find their conclusion until Saw VI. Although I kind of hoped that it would all be over this year, as soon as I saw John Kramer’s wife deliver an unexplained envelope to an undisclosed location, I knew there had to be another film on the way, because, in Saw, things like that don’t just happen without a reason.
For all it’s gore and gristle, the Saw franchise is actually one of the most intelligently written episodic horror stories I have ever seen, so I guess I’ll keep watching until the story gets too ridiculous. As I hear Saw VII is going to be in 3D, that’ll probably be next Halloween…
The first weekend successfully conquered, we foolishly decided to try and do what we normally do during holidays backwards this time, and get all the marking and lesson planning that Luce has to do (and which she usually does, in a stressful rush, on the last few days of her break) at the start of the holiday, so that our second week would be unburdened by the looming pile of work still “to do”.
This did not work, however. Because, it turns out, holidays are there for a reason: after the first half of the longest term of the year, Lucy was understandably knackered, and just wanted to relax and unwind instead of confront piles and piles of marking.
We soldiered through anyway, because the lure of an unfettered second week was great, but will not do it this way again. While she worked, I caught up on various housework that needed to be done, and also on some reading, finishing a few magazines I’d not yet completed and, eventually, finishing John Irving’s excellent new novel, Last Night at Twisted River.
After a hard day’s unwilling marking, luckily we still had some fun to do in the evenings, with a Jeremy Warmsley gig in Kings Heath on the Tuesday night, and Green Day at the LG Arena on the Wednesday.
As you may have read elsewhere, in my review for Scanner Webzine, Green Day were amazing.
Lucy finally threw in the towel on work somewhere around 3pm on Thursday afternoon, and conceded to her time off with gusto. We enjoyed the comfort of a warm sofa and a good book as the newly changed winter clocks let darkness steal the daylight early, then on Friday, we went into town for our first “shopping” trip in forever, and when we got home I made us a romantic Tuscan dinner, after receiving a box full of Italian culinary delights as a belated wedding present from my Aunt and Uncle in America.
Unfortunately, the weird blockage I’d felt in my throat all day began to swell and hurt as the night went on, and as we watched a shitty movie on DVD – Grand Canyon; I absolutely don’t recommend it, despite it once being one of my favourite films growing up, for apparently no reason – I realised, with dismay, that I was getting a fully-blown cold.
Of course, I should have been expecting such a thing, as not a first week in November has gone by in my life without me contracting some sort of disease or virus…but I refused to let it put a dampener on our newly wrested holiday, and simply ignored the scratchy-throat and stuffed nose I was developing, telling myself over and over: it’s not swine flue, it’s not swine flu...
For Halloween this year, we didn’t really do anything. We had a nice Saturday, watched a few scary movies and some Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD, and we made sure there were some sweets around for any trick-or-treaters that managed to get our attention with our non-functioning doorbell. Sadly for our teeth and waistlines, no such trick-or-treaters did turn up, and so, by ten o’clock, we were devouring the bucket of sweets for ourselves. Oops.
The reason our halloween was a non-event, was because our original plan of having Simon come round for a night ‘o’ horror on the Friday before fell through due to a conflict with gig and band practice schedules for the Woe Betides. We re-arranged the visit for Sunday November 1st instead, but though we had a good time, and watched 30 Days of Night and Repo: The Genetic Opera, we all knew that the vibe of the day was no longer scary enough to make the horror-a-thon feel right. It was “all-saints” day now, not Halloween; all the evil spirits and zombie vampires had gone back into their caves for another year and the damn world was now filled with angels!
Seeing Si was cool though. The new Woebies stuff is sounding really good, and the band’s plan to vie for Christmas number one seems like a fairly good gimmick to get them noticed (though I’m not sure if they picked the right song for the job. Whilst “Natwest Tower” is certainly my favourite out of the originally proposed double A side, I think “Little Beliefs” had a more “Christmassy” feel and seasonal relevance; it also could have tied in nicely with the variety of atheist Christmas campaigns and celebrations that are going on in December, and got them a ready-made market… They missed a trick there, but time will tell.) Unfortunately, we weren’t able to go to the West Midlands Safari Park with him the following day, due to an early dentist’s appointment and unreliable Tesco home delivery appointment (in the 12pm to 2pm slot, if they came at the earliest, twelve noon, we could still get to the park in good time; if they came late, at two pm, due to the clocks going back, it’d be dark pretty soon after we got there and not worth the trip).
As it happens, although Simon had already left, Tesco came early – 11:45am – and we could have made it pretty easily. But I’m pretty sure if we had taken the gamble, we would have still been waiting impatiently for them at gone two o’clock.
Sadly, the dentists was much less lucky than the early Tesco drop-off: after years of defying all medical logic – neglecting my teeth for years, not seeing the dentist, and then, after several years of little brushing and no check-ups, being told that my teeth were alright, time and time again – this time (after looking after my teeth better than I have in a decade) I was told I needed a filling!
Quite frankly, I’m pretty sure my completely non-scientific and purely born out of laziness theories of dentistry are correct, and the entire business is a scam. My belief has long been that, by not brushing your teeth with ridiculous dental products as often as we are told to, your teeth develop a natural layer of protection against decay and bacteria (as opposed to an artificial and aesthetically pleasant one, reliant on buying expensive dentistry products), and ever since my dental hygienist gave me my first “professional” clean in about fifteen years six months ago – removing that natural layer – my teeth have felt weaker and more vulnerable.
Still, I decided to ignore my gut instinct and follow proper dental advice regardless, and so, after six months of brushing my teeth two times a day and swilling mouthwash, here I am with a filling needed for the first time since I was sixteen (the last time I took “proper” care of my teeth).
The worse thing, was being told afterwards that it was probably due to my using mouthwash alongside my toothpaste.
“Oh, if you brush your teeth first and then use mouthwash,” the dentist told me, “the two products often cancel each other out and leave your teeth unprotected. What you need to do is brush your teeth, without mouthwash, in the morning and at night, and then use mouthwash on its own after lunch and after dinner, so you’re cleaning your teeth four times a day.”
Well…I don’t believe a word of it, but since last Monday, that’s what I’ve been doing. I had the filling on Monday morning – my straightedge resistance to drugs causing him to have to give me two doses of the anaesthetic because I could heroically still feel through the numbness of the first (he seemed concerned; I wasn’t. I didn’t tell him that, when I was sixteen, I had my last filling completely without anaesthetic, by choice) – and I plan on continuing this ridiculous regime of proper dental care until my next appointment. But, if six months from now there is another cavity, after so many years – often drinking four or five cans of fizzy Coke a day during that neglectful time – of very little brushing and absolutely no dental problems, I think it’s time to quit this dental hygiene lark and return to the McKee Method of apathy and laziness.
Anyway, with Tesco coming and going in plenty of time, and the whole afternoon now ahead of us, we decided to continue the theme of exploring our local area and went for a drive into Harborne, to see what was on offer, because Lucy had never been there, and I had only been there once in my life: to see my French teacher, Mr. Horton, in a play many moons ago. (Simon and I had asked him what the deal was with his moustache that often came and went…he revealed that he grew it – and shaved it – for various roles in an amateur dramatics group he was a part of, and we decided to go see him in The Odd Couple).
What was on offer, in turned out, was a really cool collection of second hand bookshops and a Caffe Nero, that led to a really nice (and vaguely expensive) afternoon of second-hand book-shopping and drinking coffee, which we decided to culminate in a spontaneous trip to Solihull, to see the Michael Jackson documentary This Is It at the cinema.
The film was pretty good, for what it was: a concert rehearsal documentary clearly rushed out by AEG to show that the performer who died on them, and left a lot of ticket-buying fans feeling cheated, really was fit enough to do the tour he had promised to do shortly before his death.
Having seen the movie now, there is no denying that, had he of lived, the Michael Jackson live show would have been amazing, and it was great to see not only how well the old guy could still sing and dance, but also to see him at work creatively, collaborating with his band and fellow musicians and working out bits of the show on stage.
I know that there’s a group out there – This Is Not It – who claim that the film is a disgraceful lie because it doesn’t show how much of a drug-dependant wreck Michael Jackson was in those last months of his life. They claim that Sony and AEG are only putting out the film to make money (which is clearly true) and that it was this desire to make money which ultimately killed Michael Jackson as they pushed him to extend his original ten date tour into a fifty-date impossibility. Personally though, I think they kind of just missed the point of what this film is. It was never meant to be an investigative piece of journalism into the death of Michael Jackson, it was meant to be a celebration of his talents, put out by his management, that would show the fans who felt ripped off after buying tickets for a show that never happened, that MJ would have been able to do it had he not died. And yes, though it – and the 50 date tour – has – and would have – made Sony and AEG lots of money, it was also going to make Michael Jackson a lot of money before he died too. Money that he needed, because he was completely bankrupt.
It is true when they say that moments when Jackson was whacked out on drugs and physically unable to walk without assistance are not in the documentary, but I think they fail to see Michael Jackson’s own culpability in the lifestyle that he chose, and commitment made to do a fifty date tour. The hugely rich pop performer could have called it quits years ago, or curbed his excessive spending and lived a “normal” life somewhere that wasn’t a ludicrous fairground/mansion/lunatic’s dream…but he didn’t. He wanted to be the “king of pop”, and he lived his media image and took the drugs, etc, that were needed to keep his talents up with his body. Sure, Sony and AEG profited off that…but Jackson could have pulled the plug anytime he wanted and retired gracefully decades ago.
Regardless, the film was fun, and after watching it there is no doubt in my mind that Michael Jackson was 100% bat-shit crazy. It was so clear as he danced and sang around his hand-selected entourage of sycophants and enablers that he lived in a crazy little bubble of his own mad creation, and a part of me couldn’t help but wonder if the real reason his heart gave out that fateful day, was because he had suddenly realized the massive contradictions between his impassioned and sensible pleas to save the planet during the newly re-staged version of “Earthsong”, and his own unjustifiable carbon footprint for such an over-the-top and energy-heavy live show?
Anyway, it was a fun almost-concert film. Even if it rather creepily never quite mentioned that he died!
Tuesday we saw the film An Education, which was really rather fantastic. Peter Sarsgaard was amazing in it (though I can never hear his name without thinking of the SNL sketch for the “Peter Sarsgaard, SARS Guard”), Emma Thompson provided an almost perfect audition for the future role of Mrs. Thatcher with her portrayal of the world-weary headmistress, and Carey Mulligan is someone I want to see a lot more of!
On Wednesday we continued our explorations of Birmingham by driving – via the Jewellery Quarter – to Moseley and Kings Heath. Not exactly Harborne, Moseley was a huge disappointment, as I’d remembered from growing up in the area – and occasionally helping out with Badger Promotions, who were based there – that Moseley was a really cool town. This memory was wrong: Moseley was one Oxfam shop, a Sainsburys, and a Wetherspoon’s pub lunch.
Kings Heath faired a little better in our estimation (a couple more second hand book-stops at the various charity shops, and, of course, the Kitchen Garden Cafe, where we used to watch the Improlympians before they – apparently – disappeared off the face of the earth after Edinburgh) but still, nothing to write home about, and we were both extremely glad that we chose to live where we did: it isn’t perfect, but at least it isn’t Moseley!
Our explorations of Birmingham were still not finished, however, as, on Thursday, we decided to finally take a walk along the canal.
We’d been meaning to do this for ages, as the train journey into the city centre runs parallel with the canal, and we’ve always thought it looked like a nice walk. The plan, therefore, was simple: walk to the canal, walk a couple of train stops down the canal until we got the the “University” area, then leave the canal and walk home via Edgbaston, and then Cannon Hill parks.
This did not happen.
Oh, we walked along the canal up to University (which was lovely, and has possibly inspired my first oil-painting with the set of oils Lucy got me for Christmas last year), but when we got to the Uni, we couldn’t quite seem to find our way into Edgbaston Park. Instead, we walked up the “Vale Village” area of the university’s halls of residences and walked around the lake area they have there. Then, kind of lost, we walked the wrong way at a roundabout and found ourselves coming out at the top end of the Bristol Road, about a ten minute walk away from the city centre, and a million miles away from our house!
Somehow, we had walked all the way into Birmingham!
So we figured fuck it, and walked the rest of the way into town, grabbed a sandwich and a coffee (my first Starbucks Christmas Eggnog Latte of the season!) and then took the train home instead.
Our legs destroyed by the unintended hike, we hung out on the sofa for the rest of the afternoon, but decided to brave a trip to the cinema in Solihull that evening to see the dreadful animated film, 9.
Of course, we didn’t know it would be dreadful before we left the house. If we had, we would have stayed in and watched Question Time. But alas, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and though the plot of 9 was dreadful, it did have possibly some of the most fucked up sequences of animation I have ever seen in a mainstream Hollywood cartoon – real nightmare stuff!
It thought it was much smarter than it was, but, undeniably, it was, visually, almost like a horror film in its use of imagery and tension.
Friday, we recovered from Thursday. Much reading and watching of TV. But Saturday we regained our will to walk and ventured out to Cannon Hill Park by car this time, to ensure we didn’t wind up in the city by mistake!
The park is lovely, lots of water and greenery. It’s a shame it’s not closer…though it’s still easy enough to walk to, the long walk to and from the park will always overshadow any time actually spent in the park. Still, we had a great time there, and will walk there occasionally in future, when we don’t mind the time it’ll take to get there and back.
Finally, on Sunday, we reintroduced ourselves slowly into society, by having a lovely long lunch with Rob at the aforementioned Kitchen Garden Cafe in Kings Heath, and then an equally lovely cuppa and cake with my father back in Balsall Common.
All in all, a pretty fantastic holiday – our first without having either a wedding to plan, or a wedding to recover from – but the fun didn’t all end on Monday with Lucy going back to school and me having needles and drills in my teeth…Tuesday night we went to the NIA and saw an astounding live show from Muse.
With a laser and light show unmatched by anybody, and a heaviness that was largely missing from their (still fantastic) new album, the show was as good, if not better, than the last time we saw them live, in Cardiff. The new songs were sounding amazing, and the three-riser stage was a brilliant spectacle (with the creepiest intro to any live gig I have ever seen, as faceless lines of people climb ever up these three tower blocks before they, and the buildings, come tumbling down in an eerie nod to 9/11). Truly astounding theatre rock!
And there you have it – much joy and happiness!
Now I’d better get back to work…
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