Best of 2009 Blog #29
Challenge topic: biggest laugh.
This year was my first proper exposure to The Thick of It, first through In the Loop and then in the series that was on this autumn. The Thick of It was the most important viewing for me this year by a mile and I’m now really keen to see the earlier series I missed out on, as well as greatly looking forward to the next series. “She’s got a job with Yale.” “The key people?”
I saw Frisky and Mannish, a musical comedy duo, at a gig in college, and they were my live comedy highlight of the year. I bought their CD afterward but I actually feel their YouTube videos are more effective — the visual part of their performance is very important too.
I went mad for this Peter Serafinowicz video, playing it multiple times a day for about a fortnight, but I can’t for the life of me embed it in this post, so here’s the link.
And finally, many of my biggest laughs came from my siblings’ kids, who are hilarious. Most of them are just typical “kids say the funniest things”, but I do think this story’s quite good. One nephew, then aged three, and my brother were going to see Ice Age 3 at the cinema, and I was asking him about the other Ice Age films, Ice Age 1 and 2. “No, no, Lala,” he said, fetching the DVD box to prove it, “there is no Ice Age One, it’s just Ice Age [i.e., no number, thicko]. See?”
Best of 2009 Blog #28
Challenge topic: stationery.
There is no other contestant here — it’s my Moleskine notebook. Beautiful paper, hard-wearing construction, handy size and weight. It goes everywhere with me and holds my life: my millions of to-do lists, lists of present ideas, notes for blog ideas, shopping lists, reminders for membership renewals here and there, etc etc. Stephen Fry has a line in The Hippopotamus about making a list being like “setting out a garden in the rubbishy wilderness of my mind” — that’s exactly how I feel about this notebook. I get anxious when someone else picks it up, despite the fact that there is nothing remotely interesting to anyone else in there (a few random samples from the same page: “LIB: Roland Greene, ‘Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalms …’”, “repair hole in duvet cover” and “oven glove??”). But it’d be too much like having someone see inside my head if they were to open the covers.
I’ve just spent ten minutes trying to photograph it in an interesting way — nothing doing here, folks. It is a plain black notebook and I simply don’t know what to do to make it visually interesting.
Best of 2009 Blog #25
Challenge topic: gift.
I’ve just said goodbye to the BF at the airport this evening, having spent my Christmas with him. This was my best Christmas yet — lots of nice food, cosy fire, plenty of telly and cuddles. His visit was the best gift I could have got, even with him falling asleep when I was trying to get him to watch A Matter of Life and Death and then, having woken up for the last 15 minutes, picking holes in the dénouement; or with him clutching at straws trying to tell me that the Beatles’ version of “Money (That’s What I Want)” is better than the Barrett Strong version which is EMPIRICALLY WRONG.
Edible presents
Here’s what I did with those chocolate-covered marshmallows from earlier this week: boxed up in boxes made by own fair hand*, on a layer of greaseproof.
This morning, I created some chocolate truffles, using this Nigel Slater recipe. Making truffles is the easiest thing in the world, but it’s also ridiculously messy and sticky hands precluded me from taking photos — if you want guidance on how to do it, Oola Moola did a post on it recently, which illustrates the process well. Form the truffle centre, roll in melted chocolate and then cover in whatever you like! I covered a handful with crushed hazelnuts, but unfortunately they ran out very quickly, so the rest are in cocoa. I put a rectangle of card in between the base layer of marshmallows and the upper layer of truffles.
Add a bow …
… and Bob’s your uncle!
* Making these boxes was a mug’s game, though I am pleased with how they turned out, as they’re just the right size for what I wanted. I specially adapted this pattern to produce boxes measuring 5 ½” x 7 ½” x 3″. But really, it’s not as if anyone’s going to appreciate the couple of hours I put into these; if I had thought of it in time, I would definitely have bought them ready-made. Know when it’s worth the effort to slave your guts out!
Best of 2009 Blog #23
Today’s challenge topic: best web tool.
I was stumped by this one, till I realised that podcasts simply wouldn’t be around without the net. Podcasts are amazing. They make standing at a bus stop in the freezing cold for ages (welcome to Dublin!) bearable, and I do that a lot. I love Adam and Joe (and am desolate that they’re off for a break for the foreseeable) and, though I don’t love it quite so much as I used, I still listen to Kermode’s film podcast every week; but, seeing as this is a 2009 prompt, I should recommend a podcast that I discovered this year. In that case, the one I really want to pass on to others is Answer Me This! Their shtick is that listeners call or write in with a question, which Helen and Olly (with interjections from helper Martin the soundman) then amusingly answer. It’s an hilarious, amiable half-hour each week for free. You can’t say fairer than that.
Best of 2009 Blog #22
Today’s challenge topic: startup.
My choice is not exactly a startup, having been around in some form for at least a year or two, but A Rubanesque (no website, though they are on Facebook) moved into their beautiful new premises in the Powerscourt Centre in Dublin this summer, and I’m sure that qualifies them. I feel like I’m forever complaining about the lack of decent craft suppliers in Dublin: A Rubanesque is one of the few exceptions to the rule. They have a very wide range of stock in terms of colours, finishes, prices, you name it, and they’re scrupulously pleasant to everyone — I appreciate this when all I’m getting is a metre or two of a very simple ribbon; no-one likes the snooty treatment. They also carry a few other items, such as eye-wateringly expensive Scandinavian craft fabric and buttons (which they sell by weight, like sweets); I must try them out for something other than ribbon one of these days.
Best of 2009 Blog #21
Challenge topic: project. Let’s make this one plural, because I have a number of small-scale things bubbling away that I’d like to talk about.
Firstly, volunteering. This year the contact hours for my college course are way down, yet I still need to give a lot of time to class preparation. I’m not too keen on getting myself a paid term-time job, because I’m pretty sure that would cause my mind to melt, but I still really want to do something worthwhile outside college. This is where the volunteering comes in. Fighting Words is a creative writing centre in Dublin. They provide writing workshops for primary and secondary school kids (they’re working on gettings adult workshops up and running). So far my involvement has been minimal — I had to wait a few weeks to take part in a training session, which I had to do before I could volunteer, and then they have so many volunteers that they get booked out weeks and weeks in advance. In addition, I’ve had two sessions scheduled already that were cancelled at the last minute. But the couple of sessions that I have taken part in, have been wonderful (and so worth the 90-minute journey in rush-hour traffic in the morning); all the volunteers I’ve encountered are lovely, and the kids are hilarious. This is definitely something I wish to continue into the New Year.
Secondly, a silly but extremely enjoyable one: making a CD. I am in the process of finishing off the CD I’ve recorded for the BF’s birthday, the second time I have done this. I can’t say too much here — he knows that’s in the works, but otherwise details are TOP SECRET. And there’s no way I will be posting mp3s to the blog or anything (not that you’d want that). But the process is tremendous fun and really satisfying. I’ve a diploma in the piano and yet I don’t make the time to use my skills in any regular way; the CD goes some way to redressing that. Just to clarify, I don’t write my own songs — that would be a step too far — but I try to choose existing songs that are meaningful to us in some way — and by “meaningful”, I don’t necessarily mean “vomit-inducing”. For instance, on the last CD, I recorded a version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “At the Zoo”, because months before the BF and I had had a disagreement about the lyrics in it, and now there is a recording in the world that has my version of the lyrics so that means I’m right NO RETURNS.
Choosing the songs is a real challenge, trying to get a nice balance between fun and upbeat and slower tempi; getting to grips with how I’ll arrange and perform them, another. It’s funny how it changes from beginning to completion — I just couldn’t make some songs work in reality as they sounded in my head, and that’s okay; other songs I mightn’t otherwise have considered have turned out to be quite successful. And this year I’ve upped my game from simple piano and voice arrangements; I’ve invested in two handheld percussive instruments and I’m spending hours fiddling with free audio software package Audacity. It is certainly time-intensive (I’ve been working on this since the start of November, if not before then) and can be a bit stressful (particularly when the BF pours scorn over the fact that I use the built-in microphone in my laptop, which he describes as “almost certainly the worst microphone in the world”), but I have enjoyed making it, and I’m pretty sure he’ll like it too. I’m now contemplating the myriad possibilities for artwork.
Thirdly, yoga. I’m hesitant to mention it here as this one is brand-new, but I may as well (I bought myself a yoga mat yesterday, so it feels a bit more real). I’ve been attempting to do a YogaDownload podcast most days for the past month, and I’ve enjoyed it so much I’m very keen to continue and improve. The YogaDownload podcasts are ideal for easing you into a pattern because they’re only 20 minutes long, and everyone can find 20 mins in their day, most days; also quite importantly, you can do it in whatever years-old clothes you have to hand and you can flail about helplessly in the privacy of your own home, with no-one else to see. That said, I’m now hoping to start a class regularly in the New Year.
Best of 2009 Blog #20
Challenge topic: unsung hero.
Even when I originally posted this photo, the BF complained that I had put a photo of him up on the blog. This despite the fact that a) he was not identified in the original posting, b) it’s a photo showing only his back and from which there’s no way he could be recognised and c) I was clearly using the photo to illustrate the grounds, Mr Swelled Head. But in spite of his protestations, there, ladies and gentlemen, in the blue shirt, is the BF, who gets a lot of stick (here and in real life) but bloody loves it and wouldn’t have it any other way.
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