warm and fuzzy

the week started quietly well. on tuesday i ushered for the dance double bill, PERIPHERAL LANDSCAPES performed by eeva marie mutka and titta court (in collaboration with gaby agis) and TOUCHED performed by gaby agis and douglas hart. there was a video playing in the foyer to give some background to the pieces, a facinating exploration of the skinner release method of dance practice, which is to be as fluid as possible and creates improvised unstructured movement very different to the usual disciplines of hard lines and routines of traditional dance. we saw the dancers (one finnish one from north wales) work on internal and external landscapes. as i have not studied dance but go to see a lot of performances it was really interesting to see how the work evolved. the dance piece itself was truly beautiful. eeva and titta were like twinned souls, beginning a slow, drone-like prescriptive ballroom dance and then finding each other and becoming light and moulding into each other. one would raise an arm and the other would fall into her and they would swap over, joyously. at the end something happened to stop this organic flowing movement and they were both alone again, calling out for their other half. it reminded me of my wife, erin. ah, how i miss her. it was a really moving work. the second seemed to be about the connection between the body and music. doug hart (who help found the jesus and mary chain. fact!) played a bass line and gaby agis, dressed in rock chick fur coat and boots flung off her clothes and moved to the music. this was less effective for me, they added a backing track that i found unneccessary and there was not enough variety in the movements but it was still a interesting work.

on wednesday our friend filmryan was making a video for race horses (the new project from people wot was in radio luxembourg). the big idea was a wild west bar brawl with loads of cake. i tried to get free cake from the local greggs, tescos, hotels etc but found myself up against health and safety law (ALL CAKE MUST BE DESTROYED!) so raced out to get the cheapest, nastiest looking sponges (who knew that you could get a "raspberry sponge"* (*doesn't contain any raspberries) for 45p?! i wasn't needed for much techie work (booo) so helped lovely sara do wardrobe stuff. the golden cross is such a lovely building, so beautiful inside it was a joy to be somewhere so ornate.

i had to race away to work for i was ushering for PUBLIC ENEMIES the new film by michael mann about the bank robber john dillinger. i remember passing over the dillinger notoriety when i was studying american popular culture in university and as i recall he was one of those public anti-heroes popular in the 1930s when gangster culture was rife. unfortunately the film did not really tell me an awful lot more about him. johnny depp was brilliant as dillinger, it was nice to see him playing straight (no cap'n jack campness or creepy jacko impersonations) and certainly made you believe in this man's charisma but it was lacking in back story and still very long. it detailed the end of his career when he was being chased by the FBI and mann took it in fairly predictible territory by showing the cop and the robber as two sides of the same coin, both career hungry and competitive. it was well made but left me a bit cold. it was nice to see british actor stephen graham as psycho "babyface" nelson.

dashing straight from one thing to another i played with the cat and then sped off to have tea with steen in the rummer and then to splott library for the BOOK GROUP. we were discussing angela carter and charlotte perkins gilman. i'd actually not read the angela carter book but have read most of hers (i'm a big fan) and studied the perkins gilman in university so didn't have it fresh in my mind but it was great talking about it and hearing other people's reactions. the other women in the book group had not read any feminist literature before and really enjoyed it and i was really relieved to hear that. there was a report in the times on monday about the end of feminism and it is something that worries me a lot, it seems only the older generations seem to care about preserving a feminist dialogue and younger girls are disgusted by it and are obsessed with consumerism and reading magazines that criticise their bodies. i have now started "nights in the circus" and am greatly enjoying it. angela carter, i missed you!

thursday we spent the day in swansea. it was bloody lovely. after stressing about rain macs for green man and the death of summer it was truly a beautiful sunny day. we went to the GLYNN VIVIAN museum to see the mark wallinger curated "THE RUSSIAN LINESMAN". it was amazing, it was so well thought out, one of the best shows i've ever seen and a real coup to have it in swansea. the idea was that in the 1966 world cup the england goal was on the line and it had to be called out by a russian linesman. they had a photo of it there as an example. it was far too close to call but he gave it to england therefore facilitating one of the big myths about the golden age of british football. we've been riding on that wave for years. it was a moment where there was a clear alternate reality and this is what the show was about: mirror images, alternate realities, optical illusions. it was wonderful. the signature piece was by wallinger, his mirrored tardis that seems to blend in as if it is just about to disappear and carry on its journey through time and space. there were so many things that i just can't stop thinking about though: bertelli's continous profile of mussolini; the footage from the helicopter that was sent up to take pictures of phillip petit tightrope walking between the twin towers; the muybridge photographs... i could go on, it was full of amazing small things. afterwards we met my old chum boo for lunch. we went to verdis (why ruin a wonderful tradition?) and had lovely pasta meal served in seconds and then the most amazing ice cream in the world served in a chocolate wafer cone with millions of nuts on top. oof. boo had to go into mumbles shops to get a present and steen and i went on the "beach". i don't know if this constitutes a beach cos it was mainly mud and stones and detrius but we had fun trying not to get muddy and looking into dark holes. boo then took us for a little drive up to clyne to see the new flats built on top of my old dorm room (i did hate that place, i hope they toiled the ground with salt first) and then back to her flat for a quick drink. my plan was to try and go back into town and meet our friend joan but we started drinking gin and catching up and suddenly it was after 9pm. we completely missed the sweet baboo gig we'd planned to see and missed meeting up with the patti ladies. oops! but it was a lovely day and i really appreciated catching up with lovey boo.

saturday was quiet, i got angry in town in the morning trying to buy mum tickets at spillers. nothing to do with spillers or the lovely nick who sold them to me, i hate being in town when its busy and they have added traffic problems didn't help. i was running a bit late anyway due to spending almost an hour in the "up and under" outdoor pursuits store near victoria park talking to a really nice man about raincoats. i'd been researching them online all week, trying to decide what to get and how much to spend. i've had a few since getting my bike (pointless trying to exist without a raincoat when you ride a bike) but none have stayed waterproof for long. the bike shed recommended ones that are over £100 so i thought i'd get some proper advice. since i'm going to green man in a few weeks i had it in mind to make sure my rainproof wardrobe was sorted by then. it turns out the coat for me, the best one you can get that will last for years and is breathable so won't make you sweaty and annoyed is... £144. ah. right. he was a really nice man, not out for the hard sell but he said i'll probably just keep buying cheaper coats every winter and its a bit of a false economy. of course he is right but i don't have that sort of money. another one for the "save up" list. instead i found a long yellow coat that is in no way breathable but looks at least waterproof on ebay for £10 incl p&p. i will look like a rubber duck in green man but at least it'll get me through.

sunday i was ushering for MONSTERS VERSUS ALIENS which was ok, a bit too flash in that way that a lot of modern cgi cartoons can be but it had a great central female character. the message was very much "accept yourself" and "freaks are ace". which is a message i wholly endorse. after work i zipped off to meet steen and deans at the BIG WEEKEND. we watched a mightily powerful EBONY BONES do her thing and make all the teenage boys shake their booty and take photos of her and then had a look around and got ready for CAMERA OBSCURA. they were great when we saw them last year but i was a bit disappointed this time. they seemed miserable, the weather turned a bit drizzly and the sound was appalling. my friends rich and pete turned up and we ended up going at the back and having a natter for a bit before decamping to dempseys to get warm and drunk. all in a good week of catching up with old buddies.

quiet is the new loud

oh dearie, i seem to be turning into some sort of hibernating creature obsessed with my cat. i am working at getting this winter out of my system somehow, maybe by going to some good gigs... by all accounts the pedigree falcon gigs this month have been good but i've not been able to attend due to too much bloody work on a sunday but this week sees loose and forecast putting stuff on midweek: hooray for february!

on saturday 24th i was an usher at the mr and mrs clarke production CABBA HEY! which was a big load of pretentious fun. how to describe mr and mrs clarke? have you ever seen that bit in chitty chitty bang bang when dick van dyke and his girlfriend pretend to be dolls for the king? mr and mrs clarke are like the raggy doll version of that. childish, sexual, extroverted, they perform dance pieces and sing songs and tell jokes like those dirty kids from down the estate who were cleverer than they let on. with a fantastic turn from jayde adams as a post-christmas christmas tree it was a great show that didn't let itself get taken too seriously.

monday is pub quiz day in our 'ouse. i am not naturally competitive or ambitious until it comes to board games and quizzes. we do the pub quiz in the halfway on cathedral road with our friends gary, markie, liam, ol and lyns. every week i aim to win and it was looking good for the first few rounds until we came to the always-tricky round 4, where the questions are toughies and the sinking feeling of loserdom comes creeping in. happily, however, the only really important thing at the pub quiz is if there are too many people and we have to split into two teams, that i beat gary. and gary was beat HA! this all depended pretty much on me remembering the names of the children of jr and bobby ewing in dallas, who sat impishly on the tip of my tongue, a very difficult task and the pressure was on since i LOVED dallas and had public expressed so on facebook this week. all eyes on me for those names. i didn't get em all but my friend anna's gibb spotting won us the round. woohoo!

wednesday was an exciting day. chapter arts centre is having a refurb, which is painfully obvious to the freezing staff who work there and have to listen to drilling through most of the day. but a part of it has been completed: cinema 2! the staff had a free screening to test out the new seats and very nice it is too. it has twinkly fairy lights that look like stars and very comfy seats, a big contrast to what went before. but it has less capacity, which i was slightly disappointed with, but it does make for a more intimate feel. we saw les liens du sang - rivals, a french film about two brothers in the 1970s. it was all right but i wouldn't have seeked it out myself. the nicest thing was sitting there with my colleagues and feeling all warm and fuzzy that SOMETHING was finished and that the end of the project was in sight. lovely.

it was also book group day! the STAR centre in splott does an excellent little book group in the library at 7pm the last wednesday of the month. its a good way of getting into some things i wouldn't normally read. this month was the woman in black by susan hill. i read this on new year's day and bloody scary it was too. its quite deftly written, fantastic descriptions of the weather and she builds the tension to make it really creepy. apparently its been on the stage for 20 years and on the tv lots but i've never seen it so didn't know what to expect, just that it was a classic ghost story. happily most people in the book group loved it and we had a nice little discussion about it and the recent guardian "books you must read" list.

after that we dashed like lightening over to clwb to see max tundra. as the group didn't finish till 8pm we missed pagan wanderer lu's set, which was a shame but we caught ben butler and mousepad's fantastic synth jibes. close your eyes and you'll feel like you're riding a chopper in an 80s kids movie. my friends were insanely happy since it was joe from gay against you's new project and they are massive fans. i was feeling a bit unwell and stuck to water which was quite a good thing since i got horribly ill all the way through max tundra's set. £8 in clwb (bloody expensive too!) and i heard it from the toilet. never mind. what i did see was a very good little mix of yelps and squelchy electro and it was very good. he told a few good jokes too. but hey ho, home for me and my stupid belly.

luckily i got over my illness by.... going to newport, not everyone's ideal cure-all. we wanted to check out the museum and art gallery. the museum was ok, bits of it were shut and the art gallery was in change over period so no art. harumph. it was odd for me as i was a teenager in newport and found it difficult to get my bearings. this was never more apparent than when i proudly took my boyfriend to diverse record shop. well, tried to. i bought many albums in diverse with my babysitting money and haven't been there for about 13 years. i marched determinedly up to where it should be, then spent the good part of an hour trudging around newport confused and lost. diverse has MOVED. i asked the man in a music shop nearby and he told me it moved 10 years previous. has it been that long since i've been back? evidently. we had a good time talking to the very lovely matt and scanning the racks for treasure. i was overjoyed to see the sale rack, where i purchased my first throwing muses album and got all kinds of flashbacks about shyly asking the man at the counter his opinion about pavement and tom waits albums, it was really nice to go back there. i bought the kitty, daisy and lewis album and had a punt on a tom verlaine cd i hadn't heard of and an art of noise lp, as well as buying a big selection of vinyl for the wife. a good day all in. and dodgy tum seems to have calmed down.

this week promises much. gigs! matinees in cinema 2! unfortunately no scrabble sunday, as i'm working again but i will try and play some at home instead once i've finished. word!