happy cat, poorly cat, bloody cat, sad cat

this has been a long week of no sleep. our lad frankie has not been well and it has dominated all our thinking time, any time off i've had. ugh. anyway, i'll moan about that a bit later. at the start of the week he was healthy and well and all was good and i took steen to see my friend gerald tyler's new play THERES SOMETHING WRONG WITH ABEL. gerald is a bloody lovely man who just happens to be an amazing performer and writer. i was lucky enough to be asked to usher for his previous play BIG HANDS in its two incarnations and its a joy to watch him work. his plays are thought provoking and beautiful but still retain the ability to have a universal appeal, anyone could enjoy them they are sublime without being pretentious. he works completely with his surroundings, the music in the show is not just a poorly thought out loop but music but in an organic way, it is an integral part of the show and uses a band called LIMBO during the performance like a greek chorus. the set in THERES SOMETHING WRONG WITH ABEL is a garden shed on a patch of lawn and the whole stage is used, nothing in this play is unneccessary. as with BIG HANDS (a beautiful play about a private detective who is given charge of a renegade angel) ABEL had a religious theme. gerald plays a man who at first appears to be a mad old bastard who lives in a shed and talks to himself but after the play is over you are not sure whether he is in fact cain, one of the twin brothers who started humanity and murdered his brother and has been placed in this present as pergatory by god to relive the murderous argument that ended his companions' life. in moments of comic genius and an attempt to contact god more directly he dials his number and finds himself on the end of a frustrating automated message giving him options to "if you are having problems accessing your faith dial 3". then he seems to re-enact his brother's murder, the initiation of evil in the world over and over again, in different ways, like groundhog day. these scenes are darkly comic. he is trying to spend some time day dreaming and is interrupted by a never seen and never heard presence in the shed that makes him vitrolic and he powers up his black and dekker making you sure that the other person hasn't come off so well. but is there really anyone else there at all? after these episodes he leaps up onto the top of his shed and convenes with god. in these moments cain is sad, measured and serene. we hear how cain thinks he has seen other biblical characters like judith on the bus but she seemed to not recognise him, he is always a heartbeat away from pleading with god to end this repetition and confusion. the play was tantilisingly short, leaving me wondering what had happened to cain. is he ok? is he really a biblical character or just a character in his head? it was very funny and fascinating study of madness.

on sunday the first film was ICE AGE 3, that we were showing partly for a kids party. it was a bloody awful experience, too many kids not enough adults and the adults who were there seemed not to care about them or the cinema. ugh. i won't dwell on this but i was very glad that the next film was ADVENTURELAND. i had liked the poster depicting two attractive looking indie kids in 80s ringer t-shirts and wasn't too put off by the fact that it was a new film by the man that did SUPERBAD. i thought it had michael cera in it. it didn't, it had jesse eisenberg in it, who is the kid from the ROGER DODGER movie that i enjoyed years ago and couldn't remember the name of till i imdb'd it a moment ago. in roger dodger he was fittingly irritating in that teenage precocious way, but he was still pretty irritating in adventureland and annoyed me all the way through. after being irritated immediately by jesse eisenberg i was then irritated by the 80s setting which seemed completely needless. why was it set in the 80s? i was hoping for some sort of plot development which meant it was essential to be the summer of '87 but none came. the effect made me wonder if it was just a cash in for the 80s nostalgia racket that leaves modern 10 year olds dressing a bit like i did when i was 10, which leaves me feeling a little like i'm wondering around in a sort of mass fancy dress party every time i'm on queens street. i'm not sure how relevant the 80s were as a setting but because the film was so good though, it put me in mind of those really brilliant 80s john cusack and john hughes teen dramas such as SAY ANYTHING, THE SURE THING, BETTER OFF DEAD, SIXTEEN CANDLES, SOME KINDA WONDERFUL, PRETTY IN PINK. i know i don't need to list them but i love the memories they evoke. as a introverted lass blessed with a tv in her room from a young age (thank you, rich relatives) i poured over these and thought i was the only one watching them till the internet nostalgia boom made me realise how popular they really were. this film stands up with them, which is massively to its credit. james (eisenberg) is a young rich kid who is planning a post-university trip with his pals in europe then told on the eve of the off that his parents can't afford it and he needs to get a job finds himself trudging up to the gates of the adventureland theme park to join a bunch of fellow poor outsiders. for a film set in the 80s these characters are pleasingly devoid of overdressing in every sense, they do not look like fancy dress characters, like the poor sods in THE WEDDING SINGER but seem like real people. james falls for emily, but she seems reluctant to fall for him, as she is otherwise engaged in a sleazy affair. he makes friends with the nerds that litter the park and gains some much needed humility. my irritation abated gradually during the film and by the end i was left with a feeling of what a lovely and quite old fashioned film it seemed, no gross out moments in a teen comedy is quite refreshing.

the next film i had a look at was the sumptious COCO BEFORE CHANEL. it was on my brilliant oldies shift and they bloody loved it. the film stock seemed to be printed on silk, it seemed to have such an expensive sheen. at first it seemed to have a bit too much in common with the previous big expensive french period drama LA VIE EN ROSE, a poor orphan and scenes in a dirty turn of the century bar being a bit too close to the previous story. but coco did not have the little sparrow's common touch. she quickly escaped to be the kept woman of a local landowner and made him fully aware that she did not wish him to ever mention that she once worked in such a place. it is made clear that coco always knew her own mind and although she was clearly using the landowner for status, her upkeep and power her honesty in the matter difficult to judge her poorly on it. audrey tatou is gorgeous to watch, those deep dark eyes of hers always hint at her glowering at those in her path but the film was a little dull. gorgeous but dull, like a lot of fashion.

the rest of the week was taken up with cat-ness. on tuesday afternoon frankie leapt up into my lap (very uncharacteristic, he usually just wants to play fight) and just wanted to be held and stroked. i looked at him and saw he had a little scratch under his chin. no problem, thought i. but then it was bedtime and frankie came up to the pillow and we saw this massive bloody bald patch where he had been scratching. initially i was worried it was fleas again and we gave him a treatment and went to bed with plans to take him to the vet. frankie slept next to me completely still all night, i had my hand over his fur to feel for fleas but there was no twitching. the next morning, having been awake most of the night a bit worried i too him to the vet. i expected him to say "there is nothing the matter with him, ms vaughan. please give me £25 for taking a look at laughing at you" but instead he said he had an abcess and needed an operation. wah! i was a bit upset, he said he could do it straight away and that i could pick him up after 4.30pm. because we'd failed to get insurance (he's only been going outside for a month!) it would cost about £90. ouch. needs must. i went home and paced about the house with a lumpy throat until i went to work for a bit and dashed out phoning the vet to hear he was ok and went to pick him up. the vet said to keep an eye on him but he should be ok now. ace! that night he was still very poorly and again slept next to us silently all night. the next morning he was a bit more awake and as i went to do a big tidy up of the house he played with me and then sat down and scratched at his neck. aaaaghgh! it was gross. big gross pussfilled wound oozing blood. i rushed him back down to the vet and we fitted a plastic cone (which i now know to be called an "elizabethan collar". i want ruffs next time). he hated it and hissed and growled at the nice lady vet. he's going to be very unpopular since he scrammed the one who diagnosed him, leaving blood trickling down his face. we did it eventually and i was putting the blanket back on the carry case in the waiting room when... he pulled the collar right back off. back in the vets' office she and the nurse then put bandages on his feet and the collar back on. he won't be doing that again. he sat there and glared at me. sorry, frank. we got home and he sat in my lap and didn't move. in fact, he didn't move for the next day or so. he looked severely pissed off. we had another night of interrupted sleep as he couldn't walk easily in his new weird bandaged feet we had to get up to put him in the litter tray as he was trying to shit the bed. friday night i was at work so steen had to look after him and when i came back he announced that frankie had managed to take off the bandages. but he did keep the cone on. by saturday evening he was trying to run around and be normal again and since he'd taken the bandages off anyway we took him outside with the harness on. he walks around like a gangster, head heavy with cone and still a little pissed off but learning to live with this new weird element to his body.

thursday night my parents had bought me tickets to see JOAN BAEZ at st davids' hall. as steen had other plans that night i put out a call and found that no-one wanted to go to see joan baez. stupid sods. well, no-one apart from the lovely willy downie who stepped in last minute and braved the vaughans, my mum's hippie dancing (hard to do in your seat) and my dad's anxiety that we will be late for anything. it was a great show. i saw her here a couple of years ago and she was very regal and the show seemed sort of sedate but tonight she seemed to be really having fun. she and her band did a few accapella numbers and it was themed with many appalacian gospel numbers, which happens to be one of my favourite things. she even did a dylan impression in the verse of a cover of one of his songs which shows was a lot more relaxed at this show that previously. her voice is still very strong and her age rather than making it a big nostalgia fest, brings even more pathos to the murder ballads and folk numbers. brilliant.

quite different from joan baez was the fantastic trio of acts at the barfly on saturday night. GINDRINKER were wonderful as always and thanks to their dark themes and the lighting at the newly opened up barfly stage, could have easily been the house band at the black lodge in TWIN PEAKS. there were a lot of people there that night who i never see at gigs and they all loved GINDRINKER, calling them genius and a great and inkeeping addition to the line up. next up was the very funny and slightly frightening FRANK SIDEBOTTOM. i haven't seen frank come up on the "things we liked in the 80s and 90s" programmes and i think he still remains uniquely northern, a lot of people still haven't heard of him. i remember him from kids programme THE 8:15 FROM MANCHESTER on a saturday morning. even then i knew he didn't fit in and that there was a joke somewhere i was too young to get but still found him brilliant and though he was the best thing about telly at the time. i haven't youtubed or googled him or anything since so it was truly a sort of weird forgotten memory from childhood that i saw in the flesh (and the papier mache) that night in barfly. he sung medleys of manchester songs, punk songs, always ending with the catchy ending he employs for showbiz effect (and as he rightly points out, a lot better than a lazy fade out). it is hard to describe what is brilliant about frank, he is like a showbiz entertainer from another time, part childrens entertainer part blue northern comic but never offensive. but there is something unnerving about that head. ending the evening was JOHN COOPER CLARKE. i saw him at the coal exchange a few years ago supporting THE FALL and for a poet he still has that rock star haze about him, he is far more jagger than he is andrew motion. his stuff is funny and true and it feels very much like a stand up gig, some of the jokes are bloody old and creaky but its how he tells them, it seems impossible to tut and not laugh. it was a really nice mix in the audience, a lot of men in their 40s reliving old days and telling me afterwards that they first saw frank / johnny clarke in 1980something a really great night. if we weren't so tired from all this cat worry then we'd be drinking all night with everyone instead we flew off home to sleep and sleep and sleep.