week of work work of week

by the end of today i will have clocked up 74 hours in work in total. eek. that's like two work weeks in one week. no wonder i kept falling asleep after work. to be fair, most of it doesn't seem like work. chapter still feels like somewhere i go to hang out, although i do work hard i tend to think about it like i'm volunteering somewhere. i'd do a lot of this for free, but don't tell that to dark mavis...

the first "work" thing i did that was good fun was to usher for the turkish film THREE MONKEYS. it was the story of a rich politician who kills someone in a hit and run one dark night and convinces his chauffeur to take the blame for it, reasoning that he would be out in a year and would get a nice cash payout. the driver takes it and his wife and son get his wages for the time he is in prison. whilst there his son gets involved with some kids he shouldn't and his wife gets involved with someone she shouldn't: the rich businessman. it was a really great film, beautifully shot. it was claustrophobic and you could feel the heat coming off the camera, many shots were so tight on the actors that you could see the sweat drip from their skins and each dark folicle of facial hair. it was very atmospheric. it was part of the WALES ONE WORLD film festival we have at CHAPTER and every year we get a bunch of films that stick in my brain and never leave but don't get much publicity and small audiences because they're "foreign". i think things have changed quite a bit over the years but you still don't get enough people going to these films.

tuesday was a different story. tuesday was massively over-subscribed. EVERYMAN were putting on PEER GYNT and had a cast of thousands and an audience of about 6 people for every cast member wanting to see their sister / father / friend on stage and it sold out every night. everyman are an amateur company with huge ambitions. to put on peer gynt (a play that was written not to be performed but to be read) and keep it to the 3 1/4 hour length is a mammouth task and i think to a large extent they were successful. unfortunately the first night was a bit of a disaster because to peer #1 getting shitfaced prior to going on stage due to nerves. they had to rewrite dialogue and replace him after he intially left the stage in the first half hour. i, being naive, didn't realise he was drunk, i just thought he was a terrible actor. he was throwing himself around the stage and messing up the dialogue and just looked a mess. thankfully everyman has a team of good actors, a couple of which have clearly missed their calling to become lawyers and civil servants. i must admit that i didn't really enjoy it. i'd seen peer gynt when i was at school and completely hated it but since then had studied it and saw it as ibsen's most interesting play. however, i do HATE ibsen. maybe its better in norweigan? for me i think his plays are leaden and every staging i've seen of them has been unintentionally hilarious. i often quote the heavy handed "torvald, i've changed" bit from A DOLLS HOUSE and still think its a bit of a stretch that many people compare GHOSTS to HAMLET. at least shakespear was playful in his language. my friend mja was in the play and i enjoyed seeing her in it. it did feel like it was never going to end and a few of the oldies (it had a majority elderly audience) left in the interval.

wednesday "work" was watching CHE: PART 2. unfortunately i hadn't seen CHE: PART 1 and this felt like an extended battle scene. you could tell it was technically perfect; every character, however minor, was named; each location authentic. but i didn't feel it had much story to it. i did find out a little more about che guevara and thought benicio del toro was truly brilliant in it but it just didn't penetrate my brain very well. i think this is probably my fault for coming into the story mid-through, like complaining about a film when you've missed the first hour, it did make me want to see part one, i think there may be more talking and story in that one.

on thursday we saw DOUBT which was purely recreational. i went to catholic brownies (long story) and wanted to be a catholic for years. i loved the idea that if you did something wrong you could just go to confession, have some cool bread circles and jesus juice and it would go away. guilt gone! of course, its not that simple. the catholics are the guiltmeisters and tell you what to do all the time. my pre-teen OCD love of rituals would not make up for being guilty for being born. but hey, the movie was great. meryl streep was amazing, terrifying and unforgiving like nature and phillip seymore hoffman creepily charismatic. i loved the way that everything that was mentioned, even incidentally was concerned with doubt and faith: lessons about roosevelt's "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" and believing in yourself and not gossips, it was stunning.

last night we went out for my friend casey's birthday drinks. in the end there were something ridiculous like 5 birthdays this week. an expensive week in cards! lovely rhodri had some birthday drinks with us as well, humble little chap didn't make a fuss of it and went somewhere quieter since it had got mad busy in chapter. casey got for his birthday a cross stitch of jesus from caroline, a weird bloody prosthetic hand from ewan and a card made from a sexually abused children's report from amy. i occasionally think me and casey have the same brain.

tonight there are a bunch of gigs and films and things but i just want to go home with my cat. i haven't got a plan today and i just want to cwtch with my cat and watch him playing. casey's film night is, again, on the list. cross fingers i don't fall asleep...

breathe, vaughan, breathe!

this week i did things that scared me. i didn't mean for lots of challenges to happen all in one week, they just presented themselves and it was up to me to slay the dragon or let it turn me to flames. the first happened on monday afternoon. my lovely friend paul asked me to cut his hair. i warned him that i'd never cut hair before but was willing to give it a go. he bought a sharp pair of scissors and away we went. it was only about 3 minutes in that i suddenly froze with panic. he'd asked for a very simple "same length all over" cut and i was taking huge chunks off and realised that i can't cut hair. not only am i not qualified, i have no idea what i'm doing. i've cut my own hair often and trimmed other people's hair before but i don't know how to take someone's hair and fashion it into some sort of sexy do and this point had escaped my attention till this very moment. i'd started on the side and the back and it was too late to go back. "its ok," reassured paul, "if its really bad i'll shave it off". he dropped into conversation that wedding that he was being best man at. it was this coming weekend. the haircut i was giving him was going to be in someone's wedding album for the rest of their lives. eek. i had to just keep going and developed a reliable method of sort of brushing my fingers through the hair, snipping as i went. i realised how much we take for granted when we go to the hairdressers, like going to the doctors, you just assume that this person knows exactly what they are doing and is blessed with magical powers. it aint true. they might just be making it up as they go along just like you. it was ok though, paul was pleased with it, although i know it wasn't a real haircut, i knew it was pretty much the same all over, which is what he wanted. it was OK and that was good enough for me.

i then had to confront someone on a work issue. i hate confrontations but i'm not afraid to just do them and get them over with because i know that if you leave things to fester then they can infect all sorts of things, a stone left unturned can hide nasty diseases. so i had a little chat and felt an awful lot better for it and it made lots of work things go a lot better subsequently. i have ideas form plans and i can get defeatist about a thing unless i'm sure it is worth seeing through. i can take my job a little too seriously but its because i care about it so much. i feel the weight of the responsibility in my hand, here is this precious thing and it needs to be nurtured in order to grow and succeed. in our meeting on wednesday we were talking about the future of chapter again and i found myself getting so excited, seeing all the possibilities. its already my favourite place in the world and its only going to get better.

the last thing i did was the biggie. on wednesday, after i'd finished my ushering shift in the cinema, graham the projectionist asked me if i'd be available to do a meet and greet with someone coming to speak at the film on friday "get him a cup of tea, make sure he's ok till he has to go on". obviously, this didn't present a problem. then sally the lovely new cinema programmer bounded over to ask if i "didn't mind hosting the Q&A session too". full of confidence that i cannot fathom the source of, i said yes. i think it was due to the sudden influx of vitamin A from all this recent unexpected sunshine. it was only the next day, when i spoke to carol, head of marketing, who went over my duties for that evening that i started to get a little nervous. the speaker was MARK LYNAS, a climate change expert who had contributed to the making of THE AGE OF STUPID, a documentary-cum-fiction film staring pete postlethwaite about the effects of climate change. i'd seen it in a preview screening the week before and enjoyed it, if it did frighten me a little. i'm quite careful with my carbon footprint (i have a bicycle, not a car; i buy ecologically sound cleaning products and organic food; i never put shopping in plastic bags; turn the light / heating off when not needed; etc) but i know others are not so careful and i know that there is shit going on all over the world in other countries that i have no power of controlling. you get the picture. carol warned me that i may get the odd nutter in the audience (it is chapter after all, i'm used to nutters) and an e-mail from dan, the WALES ONE WORLD FILM FESTIVAL organiser advised me that mark has had a lot of problems with audiences recently due to coming out as pro-nuclear, which he likened to coming out as gay to your wife. suddenly these images flashed into my head of dreadlocked tie-dye wearing hippies spitting at him on stage and a whole room full of people shouting at him and it being *all my fault*. nerves. shaking. waaah! i spent the afternoon researching the subject and went on mark's website to try and get an idea of who he is. i was terrified of cocking up. i went in at 5pm to check the mics were working and got reassured by the amazing rob and graham that i'd be fine. lots of people heard what i was doing and told me i'd be great. it kind of made me worse, thinking "all these people believe in me, they don't know i'm going to cock i up". of course, it wouldn't be the end of the world, its only one bloke coming to chapter, its only a small thing really. but the fear was gripping me. the voices in my head started "no-one would blame you if you pulled out, you're not really qualified to do this, they'd understand"... "you could lie and pretend to be ill, then it wouldn't be your fault"... "maybe if you get yourself so worked up you will genuinely be ill and they won't let you do it anyway"... its very hard to ignore the voices of doubt in your head. i was determined to do it. i remember when i was about 13 i was asked to accompany my friend for a national youth theatre audition. i had to sing, although i couldn't sing, i wanted to do backstage things. i got so nervous and worked up i had a bad tum that day and my mum said it was probably best i didn't go. i am still so ashamed that i allowed myself to get so nervous that i made myself ill and missed the chance of doing something i loved. i sat in the house that day and felt numb with relief and disappointment. i thought about that time when i was 13 quite a lot on friday before the talk and determined that it wouldn't happen again. for goodness sake, i'm almost 30, i've done plenty of public speaking before and have to speak at meetings and things, for some reason this felt like that audition all over again.

i met mark at 5.30pm and he was a very nice man. it was a little bit awkward, meeting a stranger and pretty much babysitting him for half an hour. i was relieved that he wanted to watch the film before the talk, he said he'd seen it in so many different incarnations during the years it was being made he wanted a refresher on which one this was, it meant i would have it fresh in my mind too and i wouldn't have to make awkward chit chat for an hour and a half. we chatted about cardiff and i told him about chapter. i'm proud of my city and where i work, i had no problem filling the time. we chatted about the film's subject matter, he wasn't as militant green as i was expecting, he was professional and sensible but just had a lot of integrity. he was really kind to me, i told him it was my first Q&A and he said he'd help me out if he thought i needed it, he'd done hundreds! it was fine. i completely garbled the introduction, i'd rehearsed it a few times in my head but still managed to come accross as nervous. once the film was over and i'd helped put the chairs out i felt at home, it was fine. it was quite enjoyable and though there were dissenters in the audience, the pass-the-mic work by my friend rose was perfect and i did the whole "yes, the man in the blue jumper" bit ok. mark was quite comfortable and i managed to come up with some interesting questions for him (obama and the current economic climate and its impact on the issues, the severn barrage etc). i felt really proud of myself by the end and was on a massive grinny high for the next couple of hours.

this week i also saw the czech film BOOGIE which was about a man going back to his home town and having a night out with the boys when he should have been at home with his wife and son and took him outside of his normal life and back to a world of heavy drinking, prostitutes and bad nightclubs. i was underwhelmed. it was a bit dull and reinforced the stereotypes of machismo in the eastern european countries, it made me a bit depressed but films like this are always worth a punt. i also watched the last episode of RED RIDING on channel 4. i've really liked getting into an event like this, watching something live on tv but it has made me realise again how much i hate adverts, iplayer / tv on demand is so much better. its been such a beautifully shot, well executed drama, full of filth and corruption. the final episode tied up a lot of loose ends but still left you full of the suspicion that the community was rotten to the core and so riddled with dirty old secrets and trauma that it would never be properly well again.

tonight we go to see THEO in buffalo. woo! he is a boy genius. i love his two eps so much, they are full of magic and sadness. if possible we will try and make it over to gwdihw for casey's film night that i have shamefully missed these past two weeks previous. its ridiculous that CLUBFOOTFOOT shows pretty much exactly on-the-button stuff that i love and hold dear yet i haven't made it to all his nights yet. shame on me but sleep often overtakes me on a sunday.

saying something stoopid like i wuv wooo

this week started off with the best gig of the year so far with ponytail and comenechi making me dance like that woman in flashdance in tommy's bar. we began the night by going for a supposed romantic meal in pizza express (nothing says romance like a 2-4-1 voucher) and had to move tables due to the 10 excited tweens at the next table making it hard to think let alone hear ourselves talk. it was good eating: my pizza had an egg on it, i require nothing more in this life. steen was worried we'd be late but we were first there and the bands hadn't finished soundchecking. we found a anxious looking john from FORECAST who was putting on the gig. someone had also scheduled casiokids to play in clwb the same night. ouch. and one of the support bands hadn't turned up. owee. subsequently there was a big time delay in getting started but it gave ample time to chat to mates charlotte and ashli about our beautiful cat and get a pint of old rosie in before the bands started. COMENECHI were a japanese girl and lanky britguiarist in a skeleton mask. she drummed and yelled into the mic things like "you are retard! i was your lovely sunshine!" and did ace confused stage banter and they were amazing fun. throughout the gig there was a petit, dykey lass with cropped hair and a pixie face in the crowd. "she's new", noticed perv claire, is there a student in tommy's bar? heavens to betsy! but no, she turned out to be the winning lady from PONYTAIL. she came onstage, went into what looked like a spiritualist trace and yelped and chirruped and danced like she'd taken some strong peyote. behind her were noodley post rock guitars and an unerring beat. i started dancing and clapping and grinning and didn't stop till the music did. i turned to john, who was dancing next to me "gig of the year!" i said excitedly. thankfully it wasn't just me but a whole bunch of lovelies were all a bit rapt.

this was also a week of catching up with some old mates. on tuesday me and my long lost friend paul (who has not so much been lost as "living in bristol") had a couple of bottles of wine and a catch up, vowing to never leave it so long again, and i bloody hope we don't. then thursday i met my friend elena for a less boozey version of the same thing. last night i was yurt-bound for nims and kats birthdays and a girlie winefest. its wonderful realise that even though you haven't had a proper conversation with your mates for a few months you can slip back into it so easily and get it all off your chest.

this weeks' ushering shift was an interesting one, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED with anne hathaway. i was quite excited about seeing it as she was nominated for awards and i do love american indie but i was quite disappointed. it was all right, the script was quite sharp and the acting was good (debra winger as her mother had a small but powerful role) but i really hated the smug family. i can't stand wedding films at the best of times. i find it hard to empathise with any of that stressful "the petals for the bridesmaids to throw don't go with the tablecloth!" nonsense and this indian themed wedding a capella singing and electric guitar "here comes the bride" the family had was especially irritating. apparently the screenwriter who is the daughter of sidney lumet based it on her family and it was very annoying having all these self congratulatory people around ("and now a speech from our close family friend fab five freddy...."). but then afterwards i was thinking about it and maybe you're meant to hate the family as much as rachel, maybe they are irritatingly smug so you feel more sympathy for her. all i knew is that i'd probably be off my face on drugs if i was a teenager in that family too.

mid week we stayed in and watched CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS as steen had not seen it before and i'd not seen it since i saw it in the cinema many years ago. i was slightly disappointed as they had done a new version of the movie for the dvd which cut out the beginning bit where it looks like you're there to watch a PBS film about childrens entertainers in new york and it unexpectedly turns a bit dark when they talk to the most popular clown david friedman. this is actually what happened, the director was making an innocuous film and discovered this huge story about friedman's fucked up family in a nearby suburb. instead the dvd version went straight into the story about how david's father and little brother ended up in prison after being accused of sexually assaulting a group of boys at the computer club. i felt it lost a little in going straight into the story, you didn't get a sense of the director's journey into the story so much, but its still bloody fascinating. it turns into a salem witch hunt in this town with the stories getting increasingly incredible and no-one sure what happened for real and what people are being selective about. the friedmans filmed themselves on videocameras during this time, thinking that it would just blow over and they'd look back and laugh so it becomes a film about reliable memories. i watched some of the extras from when the cast and crew took the film around the film festivals and these were like car crash tv, david and his brother almost doing a stand up routine about it, the only way they can deal with it. disturbing.

we also went around to see the patti girls to watch RED RIDING on thursday, armed with biscuits and ready to drink lots of tea. the episode featured the yorkshire ripper and we saw how much further the police corruption had sunk. steen and i were too young to remember the ripper really but helen told us some of the fear that was around at the time and we reminded each other to all go on the RECLAIM THE NIGHT march on tuesday to show our support for the cause.

on friday steen and i went to see THE AGE OF STUPID with my friend anne. it was suitably frightening and steen and i vowed that we would not take any unneccessary flights. i want to go and visit my brother in germany but we have to stop thinking of these things as cheap and convenient, according to the scientists we don't have long before we can stop global warming and there are enough ignorant people out there using up fuel and pumping shit into the air without us adding to it. train to rostock please! it only takes about 24 hours....

tonight i'm looking forward to seeing one of casey's films in gwdihw (which i seem unable to pronounce without doing it in a camp comedy high pitched tone). today i am tired and its beautiful and i'm stuck inside. booo for work!

one for the ladies

this was a week of two halves. the first half was dominated by work and food and i was generally exhausted, having worked for about two weeks doing cover shifts on my days off and seeing chapter be busier than we've been for a year truly took its toll. sunday i missed both the aforementioned poetry and casey's film night and then monday missed ipso facto at clwb then tuesday missed stalker paul barnett's birthday. we missed barnett's birthday for a pathetically middle aged reason: we fell asleep in front of a documentary about disraeli and gladstone after eating a christmas dinner size portion of bangers and mash. rock and roll. well done steen for the amazing sweet potato mash, well done to me for the amazing red wine gravy. top hole. we had a little sit down after such a massive meal and the next thing i knew i could hear steen snoring on my shoulder and the time had long gone to go and play skittles. this week i also spent time watching MARGARET: THE ROAD TO FINCHLEY on iplayer. god bless iplayer, i'm actually watching good tv again. it was very enjoyable and silly, hinting at sexual tension between ted heath and mrs t and demonstrating how frighteningly ambitious she was and scared everyone she crossed. i quite enjoyed all the little comedic irony moments of "carol, when are you ever going to go to the jungle?!" and little mark thatcher getting lost in the sand dunes. i am a bit of a sucker for all politics programmes, dramatised or otherwise.

but i was keeping this to remind myself of the exciting things i did in the week so i should get a move on.

i started doing my ushering shifts in the cinema this week. i can't believe its taken me so long to actually get around to asking graham for these shifts as it is the cushiest number in chapter, which is pretty cushy already. i am on hand for any emergencies and the beginning 20 minutes of any film is disturbed by showing latecomers to their seats, this is true, but to have the privilege of watching all these fantastic films and getting to know the oldies who come in to watch them is wonderful. the first film i ushered for was THE READER. now, i've seen this before and wrote about it on my blog but it was a different experience watching it with a group of retirees who actually remember these days and talking to them afterwards. despite having a lot of nudity, none of them seem to be shocked and all were coming out misty eyed and telling me how beautiful they thought it was.

the next day was THE CLASS, the film about a parisian inner city high school that won the palm d'or last year at cannes. i'd heard that it had very good reviews and praise should certainly be heaped upon the cast of 14 year olds, who were utterly convincing. at the beginning i was thinking "i should really tell my teacher friends to see this" but by the end thought better of it, it felt a bit too real, do they really need to see more of that? it reminded me of all the reasons why i wanted to go into teaching and the reasons i didn't.

i also emersed myself in the lives of the characters of REVOLUTIONARY ROAD for a second time. i only saw it about a month ago but really wanted to see it again and it was just as powerful. i was reminded how claustrophobic it was, how the house they live in seems to act like a pressure cooker for their arguments, the character of april is always keen to escape to the outside, to get out. i've seen it twice, i'll see it again!

on wednesday i was actually convinced to leave the house by PENS and WAVVES in buffalo. it was a relatively late gig, it didn't start until about 10pm and we're so used to early gigs and can't afford to waste our money in buffalo since all the drinks are about £5 each so were on the water. i was a bit worried as one of PENS was sleeping on the sofa before the gig but she completely defied my expectations by being full of energy on stage. the sight of three young girls (one clearly not wearing a bra) was quite, um, stimulating for many of the people in buffalo but they soon backed off once they realised it would be a chaotic lo-fi shambles. i was in the minority of people who thought it was brilliant fun, most muttered "amateurish" like it was a bad thing and just stared at the bra-less girl's shimmying chest. philistines. WAVVES are apparently one of those "band of the moment" bands who i have not heard about but someone in london likes them so they're getting loads of noise made about them, or so i presume. they weren't terrible, just overrated. i was a bit disturbed when i saw their merch stall had t-shirts with massive cannabis leaves on them, who finds this funny after the age of 12? uh oh. the lead singer looks like someone from the OC. he was an arrogant little tyke who needs to have his heart broken or something to give these songs some oomph cos i was pretty bored in a "heard it all before" way through most of the set although the last one was spikey enough to make me dance quite a lot, if only the whole set had been like this and not songs about getting fucked and playing computer games. but PENS signed our 7" by drawing porno pictures and writing "merry christmas" so the night ended well.

thursday the tv was in my diary. RED RIDING on channel 4. i was a bit nervous about this, as i'd heard it was going to be a triumph and thought it would only disappoint if it had been talked up so much by the guardian. but there was no need to be worried, i was thoroughly gripped. it was sort of an anti- life on mars. there has been so much 70s nostalgia programming going on about how much better things were then, that life was simpler: women knew their place and men were men. i get really sick of that, people writing "i am gene hunt" in their status updates and women denying being feminists and sending photos in to nuts magazine. in RED RIDING the police are brutal and corrupt and the women are there to prop up the egos of men, be mothers or lovers and racism is accepted and expected... or else. this village in yorkshire was more LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN than HEARTBEAT, everyone was dirtied by some kind of pay off. it was shot beautifully, like the lens was smeared with grime. the cast was amazing, it was like all the best actors in the country had signed up, even for a couple of lines of dialogue. its in three parts and i can't wait to see the other two.

saturday saw the start of the INTERNATIONAL WOMAN'S DAY celebrations in chapter and clwb ifor bach. upstairs in the llofft we had LOVECHILD by the theatre group blunt instrument, showing the a woman who was put up for adoption go to find her birth mother. anne is a woman elegantly and tidily dressed in sharp tailored grey, beige and white, her ordered personality reflected back to her in the sparse, clean elegant set. into this walks billie: chaotic, emotional, dressed in bright billowy clothes. she is about to turn her life upside down. when the play first started i was afraid it would be too wordy for me, i've been so used to physically demanding theatre recently and it was to be over an hour of these two women talking but very quickly it drew you in, you developed an understanding of these people and where they had been and wanted to know what they were going to do now they were reunited. the ending was devestating. billie picked and picked at anne, taking apart her life, digging into her past until she cracked. anne's slow, cathartic breakdown, superbly played by polly kilpatrick, where she admitted having dreams about the baby she gave away just got me in the gut. the baby that can never be comforted, memory's scream that can not be silenced, i have experienced that emotion and down the tears fell. i was ushering for this and had to gather myself together but i had butterflies in my stomach for a long time afterward.

rushing from that to clwb in the rain and wind did me good, it blasted me out of that room and into the night. LOOSE and PEPPERMINT PATTI were co-promoting this gig of KING ALEXANDER, THE DULOKS and THEORETICAL GIRL. i missed king alexander, for shame! but they're playing another loose night on the 7th may so i'll not miss that. i entered clwb only to have THE DULOKS make fun of me for being late. if there is a prize for best banter, these ladies would win big. they were very very entertaining on stage, it was like watching punk stand up. they dragged up on stage people taking pictures of themselves rather than the band and outed them as an incestuous couple (they weren't), they made fun of the old men sat on chairs at the front and did some ace song and dance numbers about being pirates and bad vegetarians. big grin throughout. a quick trip to the merch stall to say hello to one half of the promotion team and buy a duloks album and an interesting looking zine by colette rosa. then THEORETICAL GIRL took to the stage, a bit nervous but looking fabulous in understated neon (is that possible? yes, its possible). 50% of the crowd had left (don't get me started on how much seeing your mates' band then fucking off annoys me) but those that stayed got treated to perky pop songs about heartbreak. she explained how she had brought a giant keyboard as a backing track to play her songs and it worked really well, the crunchy guitar numbers were my favourite, a good foil to her sweet home counties voice. the piano numbers made victoria wood pop into my head though, once there it was hard to get out.

today is officially international woman's day and SCRABBLE SUNDAY! wooop! i've also been getting excited about my birthday plans in a month as this year is a big birthday and it coincides with easter weekend and the loose all dayer and a twisted night out AND a scrabble sunday. very fortuitous! i feel like some god of good things is treating me for my birthday to distract me from how momentous a day it is. can i really be in my 30s in a month? golly.

steen's way with cakes from pans

right, on with the show. i have to keep doing this diary otherwise i will forget things like i did last year. last year was so wonderful but when i came to do the review of the year for the JOY COLLECTIVE i'd forgotten most of it. i want to keep my notebook for stream of consciousness thoughts, my filofax for work hours and gigs and this for what i think about the everyday. god, i compartmentalise, don't i?!

i work more at weekends than any other time of the week. when other people are winding down i am speeding up, fridays are like my mondays. the trouble is a lot of good stuff goes on at weekends and by sunday i'm usually burnt out and finish work after 9pm and sit and stroke the cat (that's not a euphemism) for an hour before falling asleep. however, this week i was determined to get into town to see PEDIGREE FALCON put on ROCK OF TRAVOLTA in dempseys, especially since STRAY BORDERS were doing their last ever gig. we had a very busy night in chapter and i had run around apologising for late food (including BUSINESSMAN keith lerego, who was very nice and understanding), dealing with the mounds of people coming in to see some oscar nominated films and trying to keep my head. an easy shift before the gig this was not to be. so i cycled into town like lightning and got there just as STRAY BORDERS were due to do their set. woohoo! i was sure i'd missed them and was ready to do a strop face and have a drink. they are one of my favourite local bands who give us lovely solid post rock, filling the room with a warm sound. when i watch them i close my eyes and imagine scenes from a film i will one day write where the heroine falls in love, their music has the ability to make my heart flutter a little. this feeling of falling was enhanced by the tears in the eyes of the band. they just can't get in the same place long enough to play gig together any more "life has got in the way" one of them said to me. they were excellent and i bought two of their eps (one for a gift but i think it was mainly because i had just about enough money for two once i'd borrowed 20p from deans and i wanted to just fling all the money i had at them). ROCK OF TRAVOLTA were fantastic. they had a big sound but were occasionally twiddly and had samples. i was thinking whilst watching them that it felt like i was watching a piece of classical music, i didn't know where it was going or how it was going to end, it just built up and up and twisted and turned and lifted me and brought me falling again. sweet baby jeebus, i do love post rock. they were really nice at the end too. steen bought some merch and i had no money left, having spent it on stray borders but the nice bassist gave me his badge. they were really happy about the reaction they got in dempseys, saying that most crowds are just there to hang out and look cool and pull girls but we all looked like we were LISTENING. god, we're a bunch of geeks in cardiff, arn't we?! it made me proud.

monday i was too tired for anything so missed UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, which i was a bit annoyed about cos they were great last time and i'd convinced my friend noel to go along too. rubbish. instead we stayed in and watched TRANSAMERICA on dvd. it is a film about a pre-op male to female transsexual who is travelling across america with her newly found son. it came to chapter a couple of years ago and i missed it but found a copy in splott library. felicity huffman was very convincing as bree, but the film really came to life when she went to visit her flamboyant parents. it was an example of that great american independent cinema that i've spent my lifetime enjoying. it was quite light and felt like a romantic comedy in places, but about a subject that many studios would bat away like an irritating insect. it made me realise that the last 3 dvds have been about unconventional comments on sexuality: incest (savage grace), old age (venus) and transgender (transamerica). i didn't do this on purpose to freak steen out.

tuesday was shrove tuesday, or more universally recognised as PANCAKE DAY!!!! i really like the fact that a lot of these celebrations have the religion stripped out of them and just leave gorging on food (christmas, easter, pancake day...). a muslim friend of mine asked why we have pancake day so i explained it was about jesus going into the dessert for 40 days and 40 nights and how this has translated into monks fasting for that long. before the fasting the monks used up all the ingredients they had in their larder which was flour, fat and eggs and made pancakes(convenient, non?) so this was the last meal before we can start eating again at easter. "oh, yeah, like ramadan." exactly. i won't start going on about how all the religions are basically the same and why can't we just all get along but it is bloody stupid sometimes how similar things are when you step back.

we were going to have a pancake party. it was quite hastily organised but we were going to have the patti girls over for pancakes and that quickly turned into me inviting everyone i spoke to that day. by the end of the working day i was actually quite scared so bought enough for about 15 people. the patti girls had to drop out as well as a couple of others so steen and i started cooking, thinking it was only going to be us. then casey and rich turned up at the door and my housemate chris and his boyfriend ian and our small amount of mixture had to be stretched. i was busy arranging drinks and steen started making pancakes. he was very very good at them (nice flipping action) and they were very tasty. we had sweet potato and spinach pancakes for savoury and good old fashioned lemon and sugar for sweet. it was damned tasty. then we had to dash out to see MILK at chapter. it had won an oscar for sean penn the day before and its a gus van sant film so i had high hopes. it was good, i felt it was a bit safe for van sant, it was very standard biopic where i was expecting more flourishes, the best thing about it was that i came out of it feeling militant and ready for fight. seeing the 30,000 people marching through san francisco at the end was really inspiring. it made me think a lot about the year i was in america and when i came out there and started to feel really comfortable with myself. my friend libby took me to the castro and i remember meeting a few people there who had owned businesses for years and one lady was talking to me about the castro for a long time and wishing me luck in my life in a really knowing way. we take so much for granted these days. these days most people know someone who is gay. when i was a kid i always felt like i'd have to move to london to find other gay people. i told steen how i'd gone to swansea uni on a rumour that they had gay people there, that it was a lot more likely i'd find gay people in swansea than hull and nottingham, the other places i'd applied. its amusing to think that i was so naive but when i was a teenager growing up gay i knew there were some interesting people on channel 4 who probably lived in london, there was that man from eastenders but that was about it. in the 90s it seemed to explode but i still didn't know anyone who was gay till i was 20, i probably DID of course - we're everywhere, in everyone! - but the closet door was still only creaking open then, things are so different now.

wednesday we had the book group at splott and then we were meant to be going to see mark e smith and gindrinker but he'd broken his hip (smith, not dc gates) so we went to the PANEL 9 FROM OUTER SPACE comedy night in buffalo instead. we had some very good food in buffalo first, including some of elis' freebie tapas, then sat in the front row for the charming clint and dan mitchell drones duo hosting a panel game with local comedians. it was very much fun, the stage decorated in cardboard planets and aliens and laura bryon wearing a fetching afro wig.

thursday i have no memory of, apart from us sitting down to watch the two videos casey had brought over by FUTURE OF THE LEFT and TRUCKERS OF HUSK and eating the rest of the pancake mixture. chocolate, bananas and strawberries - i felt a bit sick. the videos were very good though, we'd helped out in both and were pleased that they had turned out not just ok but brilliant. my favourite bit in the truckers video were the bits with the boys playing trumpets, will and rosie turning into foliage and caroline getting stabbed by a medieval sword. i declared it the "sledgehammer for our time" i hope they settle their differences and it gets lots of play. the future of the left video looks gorgeous. now i know what all that smoke was about! it has a really nice sheen, a warm brown look. my favourite bit in that is when it focuses on ed's pretty eyes when he's holding a fish. casey and ewan are very clever lads.

friday i had the night off to celebrate hell's bent's birthday. this was not to be, as i have ranted about further down the page. but instead we went to see GINDRINKER, PAUL HAWKINS AND THE AWKWARD SILENCE and the ALEX DINGLEY BAND do an acoustic set. alex dingley was excellent as usual, really engaging even with no-band-bar-the-keyboardist. i am always taken aback by the power he has on stage. PAUL HAWKINS was an odd bunch. they had a short shaggy haired lead singer wearing a suit jacket and a guitarist-cum-keyboardist wearing a balaclava. if you ignored the rest of the band it was like that scene in shaun of the dead where they meet their parallel selves. it was very gindrinker-esque. good though, i really enjoyed the bitter stories he had to tell. but onto the headliners and GINDRINKER were fantastic as usual. they have grown so much in the past year and are one of the most exciting bands to watch in cardiff.

we then headed down to DIG in GWDIHW. i only recently found out that this means owl in welsh. its a good word. carl played ace psyche tunes as usual but we were all distracted by our loss of the point and what it meant for our friends who worked there and cardiff's culture. the night that was due to be a big celebration ended up subdued and mournful.

saturday was meant to be the LOOSE gig for me but i was too tired after a really hectic day in chapter so i missed it but apparently it was quiet and beautiful, as expected. liz and ryan do put on some great nights. i hope i don't miss the next one. instead i was the usher at dance production SOFT MURDERS. the first half was about gilbert and george's exploitation of working class gay men and really effective, sharp and sexy and muscular. the second part was about francis bacon's set in soho and i think it worked less well, my concentration waned a bit although it had some nice ideas. the stage was full of people and the landlady greeted everyone with "hello cunties" and stood there suspended, colourful and proud like a circus ringmaster. the famous line by bacon was repeated "champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends", it is great but makes him seem like more of an oscar wilde figure whilst i think he was more complicated and shyer than that.

so that's it for a week. i dunno what i'll do later. casey is showing films in GWDIHW tonight and i also want to go to mab jones' poetry evening D DAY in chapter. we'll see if i have the ability for both.

we have a point

i interrupt my dear diary to allow myself to rant for a little while about cardiff council and the closure of the point. the point is a music venue in an old church and has hosted all kinds of things over the years. for big manly rock gigs we have the millennium stadium, for big orchestrated shows we have the millennium stadium, for cult bands who are quite big we have the point, for bands on the up we have clwb and for smaller bands we have a few different venues such as the resdesigned buffalo, dempseys etc. the point just slots in there: 500 capacity, decent stage, good sound, pretty windows, high ceilings, a balcony... its just a great venue, its a bit special and its always a treat to go down and see a gig there. recently they have branched out in other things such as the little christmas / bounceathon events and hosted discos such as boogiez and hells bent. last year it was threatened with closure as two (TWO) residents from the recently built flats complained about noise levels. what are they doing moving next to an established venue if they are worried about noise levels? etc. we've all marvelled at the stupidity of these people for a year and i don't really need to get into that argument. the council did nothing to help the point fight these complaints (helpful might have been not granting flats in that area in the first place) but agreed that if they soundproofed it further then they would not shut it down. they did not give money to help this. so the owners of the point forked out a big chunk of money and closed it down for months to facilitate this change. in the meantime banks collapsed and people's social lives were scaled back. i noticed that there did not seem to be a lot of good gigs on at the point but that started last year when forecast temporarily stopped and didn't pay it much more attention than that. mark e smith was meant to play on wednesday but broke his hip. i don't know whether this pull out was the last straw but on friday me and will were due to celebrate getting together a year ago at hells bent (we were attracted to each other like magnets on the first ever hells bent and have been inseperable ever since so it was due to be a special night) but then a message came out that hells bent was cancelled. i assumed that it was due to a wiring problem or something banal but then went to the link and there was a statement in stark black and white from the receivers declaring it bankrupt.

my housemate jon came back and reminded me that our friends were due to have their wedding there in 6 weeks. we both sat there and got angier and angrier. that was friday afternoon and i've been growing angrier each hour. on friday night we saw a friend who informed us about the application for flats near clwb and a hostel opposite (signalling the same process happening all over again) and brains brewery putting the squeeze on their pubs to allow a brains entertainment officer to take over rather than the hard working promoters who grow bands and create cardiff's music scene. cardiff's music scene has always been one of my favourite things about the city. for somewhere relatively small there is so much happening here and this alone has kept me in the city. the arts in cardiff is famously undersupported, the senedd favouring applications from sporting institutions and big business. we have few galleries and not enough affordable studio spaces for artists to work and build and create. the one area we have always succeeded in against the odds is the music scene. we have musicians coming here from all over the country to start bands and we have some excellent music coming out of cardiff. it says a lot when most of my favourite bands are not from some far off city in america but here, in the city i live in. it makes cardiff an exciting city every day of the week and draws other people here. we have enough cutbacks all over the country with the olympics drawing funding away, any help the council can be with funding or just allowing these places to exist will help. st davids 2 will be finished soon enough and our city centre will be full of high street chains and i am not against this in principal, we all can surely recognise that cardiff wants to attract this sort of business, but it needs to support local businesses such as spillers and smaller venues and promoters so we can grow our culture and not just import it and make the city a blander, unidentifiable place.

despite my interest in politics and involvement in chapter i am relatively ignorant with what i exactly have to do to get this issue aired in government but i am endeavouring this week to find people sympathetic to the issue of our cultural life in cardiff and how we can stop cardiff from turning into just another provincial town. i have been irritable and pissed off ever since i found out about the point, an emotion i am unwilling to repress and just hope that someone does something. i want to do something, i don't want to just look to someone else because there might be no-one else who tries. anyway, i'm going to see if i can do anything, even if it turns out to be a fruitless task at least i would have tried.