By: Patrick

I rarely feel strong bonds to people I have never met, especially not those who were dead before I had even heard of them. Yet the other night, I got this lovely image in my head of the late comedian Bill Hicks and the late writer David Foster Wallace sat in a bar together drinking and laughing. I found this a very comforting image. I think they would have been good friends. Both were very funny people in their different ways, both were very spiritual people in their different ways, both were profoundly courageous moral thinkers in their different ways. Slavoj Zizek wrote that film directors Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky had offices in the same building towards the end of Tarkovsky’s life. Yet he writes that: ‘Although the two directors had deep respect and supreme mutual admiration, they never met, but carefully avoided each other, as if their direct encounter would have been too painful and doomed to failure on account of the very proximity of their universes’. My feeling is that Hicks and Wallace would not have engaged in this paradoxical avoidance strategy were they to have crossed paths. They would have got on. They would have got drunk and put the world to rights in between tears of laughter. They really seemed to care about people. From their hearts. This seems to me to be so rare. I remain deeply touched by both of them. I feel something like love for them although strangely enough this is rarely motivated directly by their artistic output, so much as the details that emerge in photos, interviews, biographies. Two tormented souls struggling to find love and compassion in a cynical and inauthentic world. I feel so sad that neither are still with us. Yet the image of the two of them giggling like children over a beer in the corner of a smoky Texan bar fills me with utter joy. And sadness.

By: Patrick

It seems that as a society we do not take boredom very seriously. I recently went to a conference on the theme of boredom, and when I mentioned it to other people, most of them chuckled. “Was it boring?” was the standard response. Fair enough. For most people, boredom as a mood is of a similar status to minor moods such as frustration or awkwardness. It does not hold the same status as moods like depression or happiness, which keep academics and self-help gurus busy. And yet David Foster Wallace, referred to by many as the greatest mind of his generation, has just had his final unfinished work, The Pale King, published posthumously. It is a book about boredom. Why would such a great mind be so focused on boredom? Wallace even went so far as to say that: “To be, in a word, unborable…. It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish”. This is just a preliminary piece to try and place boredom in context. I hope to expand upon this theme, looking at questions like: what can boredom teach us? Are we living in an age of boredom? Is boredom a ‘pathological’ mood? Is boredom a taboo subject? I am hoping to explore some books and movies that touch on the theme of boredom in order to try and make my own ideas clearer to myself. I hope shortly to submit a few thoughts on a book I am reading at the moment called The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. It is considered a boredom classic!

By: Patrick

Written 25 April 2012

Fernando Torres broke his long-standing goal drought last night, scoring Chelsea’s winner in a crucial European match. It was interesting to hear the discussions afterwards on the radio. Apparently some psychologists had suggested that his goal drought may be ‘fatal’. It seems interesting that psychologists feel able to make such comments. Their opinions only have any authority as they are supposed to be scientific (psychology is, after all, the science of mind/behaviour), but it is difficult to work out how scientific the claim that Torres’ goal drought is ‘fatal’ can be. As irrelevant as much of what psychologists say in the media can be, there do yield plenty of power. What if Torres had heard a supposed scientific expert tell him that his goal drought may be fatal, that he may as well just give up, that it is basically all over for him? This may well have led to a self-fulfilling prophecy and only lowered his confidence levels and expectations of himself. We can see similar things in the field of mental health – professionals have often suggested that certain forms of mental health problems are chronic or incurable, in effect ‘fatal’. This must have a devastating effect on people who are told this (numerous patient narratives suggest that this is the case). Many contemporary accounts of recovery from mental health problems force us to question these rather pessimistic statements. The thing that troubles me is that statements from experts, especially scientists, have power to shape how we think about ourselves – experts increasingly have come to govern our souls, to use Nikolas Rose’s phrase. Fortunately one suspects that Torres would not take too much notice of such nonsense, but I find it troubling that such statements continue to be made by people who make claims from a supposedly scientific perspective. Psychologists, psychiatrists and other similar professions wield great power in determining how we think about ourselves and each other. Yet there is good reason to be suspicious of much that is taken to be scientific orthodoxy. Robert Whitaker’s recent book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, is an extraordinary piece of investigative journalism that exposes the corruption and deception at the heart of the modern psychiatric project. Ivan Illich suggested that we should take less notice of professionals, that we should de-school society. People may find it re-assuring to have professionals guiding their decisions from the cradle to the grave, but I find this quite depressing, especially when most it is bad science. Torres’ goal last night made a mockery of opportunistic psychologists offering their supposedly scientific perspective on the fatality of his goal drought. Yet most of the rest of us probably care a lot more about what scientists tell us about ourselves than Torres does. That’s the worrying part of it.

By: Patrick

I am thirty-one years old. I seem to have reached a stage in my life where I am struggling to find meaning in a lot of things that once seemed so important. Not all things. I do not feel depressed, but rather I am finding that in most crucial areas of my life, things just do not feel quite right. I am often bored, and if I am not bored then I am busy and distracted, which is basically the same thing. So I guess I am trying to connect/re-connect with those things that nurture and feed my soul. I like words like soul and find it (along with others that are increasingly under attack by scientific materialism) comforting and important. Lots of people and ideas nurture my soul, while others do harm to it. This blog is an attempt to explore these people and their ideas. I hope to focus on the former much more often than the latter! I also hope to explore some personal ideas and experiences so that it is not exclusively about other people and their ideas. I look forward to seeing how it shapes up and what directions it will end up going in. I feel very excited about writing it. It is something that I have been wanting to do for a long time. For some reason, I am at last ready to do it.

By: Elysia

Leave it there, my love,
Lest you disturb far more
Than dust and bones
And corpses of flies
Who withered in the attic there
During long, hot summers
When the room’s dead air
Was still and thick,
Yet safe.

Leave it there, my love,
Lest you lie in bed
Awake at night
Scared and alone
As her voice wails high
Through the summer air
Long after dark, and dry
Creaking wings beat
The night.

Leave it there, my love,
Lest I wake in the morning
And find you gone,
Switched for a changeling
Of grass and straw
And though I’ll weep
I will see you no more.

Leave it there,
My love.

Concealed shoes: Australian settlers and an old superstition

By: Elysia

Spring is more than just loitering in the air. She was here on the ground today too. She was everywhere, but always one step ahead. It was like entering a room through one door just as she left through the door opposite. You only caught a glimpse of the long train of her pale ethereal dress, perhaps with a daisy caught in the grass-stained hem. Her perfume lingered on the barely-there breeze. Despite knowing it wasn’t time to catch her just yet, you knew you’d only just missed her, wherever you went. She was so close.

Spring might not quite be here yet, but it’s creeping closer with every day. I walked home in a strapless top this afternoon in pale sunshine. No jumper, no coat. The air was filled with that sweet smell of cut grass even though there was no evidence of a lawnmower anywhere. Then, in the fading light this evening, I sat and typed at the desk before my bedroom window. The warmth of the room and the slight tingling chill coming in through the window, slightly ajar, felt so perfectly like early spring that I wasn’t sure whether to warm myself with a mug of raspberry leaf tea or cool myself with a glass of iced water.

It’s less than three weeks to go now until spring officially springs. I would say I was more than ready for it, but there’s something to be said for these dregs of winter too. The mellowing of the cruellest season is always something that I love but, despite looking forward to spring, summer and the future, it’s always a little sad to bid adieu to winter. I almost feel sorry for her. She is welcomed in with bells, holly, celebrations and rejoicing, and three months later everyone’s sick of her. She lingers, almost apologetically, like an unwanted guest.

No other season suffers the same. Most people are sad to see summer disappear into memory, whereas spring and autumn bid farewell with the promise of something more: summer adventures and winter celebrations. No-one ever accuses them of having gone on too long: they hang around for just the right amount of time. In contrast, most of winter’s celebrations are over before she’s even reached her second trimester. Only the hangover remains and the memory of good times early in the season. Yet, as the trees start to bud and blossom, I’ll miss the stark beauty of the winter countryside. There’s something so brutally honest about it.

It was with this in mind that I poured myself a cup of raspberry leaf tea and sat there for a moment absorbing the evening as it closed about me. There would be plenty of times for iced water throughout the coming spring and summer evenings, for sitting on the decking outside and watching for bats and moths in the dying light. Now, though, is the time to toast winter in an appropriate manner; to raise a mug in her honour and pay respect to the one season so breathlessly flawless and viciously beautiful that she knows that she doesn’t need to clothe herself in anything at all.

By: Elysia

Dig, dig, scrape, dig, dig.

Bark, bark, bark, BARK. Bark. Bark. Bark.

“Bugger.” (In Spanish.)

Paraguay: Stray dog’s barking foils prison break

By: Hugin

We went to see Noises Off at the Old Vic for all the wrong reasons.  In actual fact, the sole reason we opted for that play in that location was because it starred an actor we all admire greatly: Robert Glenister.  The decision to travel 500 miles in the middle of winter was made before we even knew anything about the play.  It was only weeks after we had booked our travel, accommodation and (determined to “do the theatre experience properly”) tickets for the best seats in the house, that I began to wonder if maybe we hadn’t done things the wrong way around.

Our trip to London started off brilliantly, watching a film at the cinema in Inverness (a luxury at any time of the year but particularly in winter when the 215 mile round trip is not to be recommended), a beautiful train journey down the length of the country, and meeting my friend in the Royal Navy for the first time (which also doubled up as a fantastic – if speedy – tour of London!).  By the time Lydia, Ginny, Clemency and I had tucked into a delicious meal at our hotel, returned up to our eighth floor rooms, admired our sterling view of London At Night and dressed for the theatre, the play had a lot to live up to.

As anyone who has been to the Old Vic will know, the interior of the theatre is exquisite and, although our seats were hardly worth the extra £25 (each) we paid for them, we were pleased to have such a good view of the stage.  The play was immediately amusing, although the first act saw more restrained tittering than out-and-out belly laughing.  I was particularly pleased by the director’s decision to have members of the cast coming out of the audience, something that took me back to my days as an A Level drama student, although here it was done to far greater effect.

The interval came at the end of a promising first act which, although it provided a lot of entertainment, was also slightly too close to home for anyone who has been involved in amateur or small-time dramatics.  Ginny confided in me later that too many of the things in the first act reminded her of moments during her time with various amateur dramatics groups and I can’t help but agree with her.  During the interval we also sampled some extremely delicious ice-cream which can’t be faulted in any way other than that: a) it just didn’t last long enough, and; b) I was unsure as to how I was supposed to access the spoon!

It was really during the second act that the play ‘got going’ as far as I was concerned.  So many moments of pure comedy genius, delivered with fantastic timing by the cast, had me screaming with laughter, unable to stop myself breaking into spontaneous applause at the parts that appealed to me the most.  The play really went from strength to strength: the sequence with the flowers was hysterical, and Ginny had tears in her eyes from laughing so much when a cactus came in contact with Mr Glenister’s posterior.  (She’s a lovely girl.)  It really was a stroke of genius to set the second act backstage, especially as the set then reverted to its earlier layout for the third and final act, which was also so full of humour that we couldn’t stop laughing.

Every single member of the cast was superb in their roles, but I must admit to being particularly impressed by Jamie Glover.  Not only was his comic timing impeccable, but his excellent and untiring physical performance was both hilarious and inspiring.  I suppose I had previously identified him as “the son of Julian Glover” and so potentially it was for that reason that I was particularly impressed by his performance.  But I am henceforth far less cynical about his identity, having been more than convinced by his competence as an actor.

As Noises Off is still running at the Old Vic until the 10^th March, I won’t go into too much detail about exact moments in it, in case I ruin someone’s viewing experience!  However, what I will say is this: go and see this production of the play.  If you watch nothing else this year, watch Noises Off at the Old Vic.  It’s just the thing to beat off those vicious winter blues and set you thinking about just how many things in your life are actually a farce just waiting to be written!!!

By Elysia

A silence in the corridors,
A silence in the halls.
Then: whispering masses out of sight,
Out beyond the walls.

A low thrum of humming
Echoes from the lawn,
Ever getting louder:
The battleline is drawn.

The songs are almost deafening now,
The walls begin to crack.
Finally they start to see:
They are not turning back.

Gold-encrusted mannequins
Are shaken and they’re stirred:
Power to the people,
Voices must be heard.

By: Elysia

Taking the Piff
Saturday afternoon, ‘Taking the Piff’ by Stream of Piffle. In terms of consistency throughout the entire show, this had to be one of the best comedy shows I saw at the Fringe this year. It was topical and current, and didn’t patronise. Alright, I accept that meant that some of the audience probably didn’t get all the jokes, but I do like a good comedy show which assumes a certain level of intelligence. The football commentary which interspersed the show was slick. Goodness knows how long it took them to get it running that smoothly (though admittedly two or three weeks at the Fringe would mean any chinks had been ironed out by the time we saw it). There were plenty of sketches that left me smiling, but perhaps the controversial Macbeth denouement, delivered during a duel on Space Hoppers, was the most memorable. After all, we’ve all queried the rather dodgy ground of Macduff’s assertion that he was “from his mother’s womb/ Untimely ripped” as meaning he was not of a woman born. Haven’t we? No, just me then? Fair enough, but at least Stream of Piffle agreed with me that semantics at that point in the venture must have irritated and dismayed Macbeth somewhat.

The Warm Up Show
The Warm Up Show, at the White Horse on Cannongate, was a fair enough way to spend an hour though it has to be said that the compère was funnier than all the other performers. It also has to be said that I can’t remember too much about the content of some of the acts, except the bits I wish I couldn’t remember, though I do recall it did produce some laughter. Unfortunately, as the show before had been so funny, the humour was somewhat overshadowed. Nevertheless the comedians who performed did a good enough job though I have to confess I’ve seen better comedy, and better free comedy too.

Magpie and Stump
After a delicious meal at David Bann on St Mary’s Street (oh my, the chilli margaritas made to taste (hot, in my case) were divine), we headed to The Space in the Radisson to see ‘Magpie and Stump’. Despite there being a handful of jokes which you can imagine would have gone down better with their home crowd of University of Cambridge students, it was a good, solid show; the best by far being the individual who was more political in his material (even though, when asked, only myself and a couple of other audience members apparently knew who Charles Kennedy was). It was hard to follow one of the acts, who suddenly jumped into talking about himself as getting on a bit when he probably only started shaving two years previously; and the only female act was funny, even if the material would probably be more amusing for intelligent but repressed posh kids (oh, she’s talking about sex in a manner typically associated with how men are perceived to talk about sex, fair enough then): she also managed to put the back up of the only man in our group, but she was quite amusing and, generally, I found the whole show to be intelligent and genuinely funny. At one point, when a joke about the importance of punctuation was made (‘no fliers are double-sided’), all three of my companions did a slow head-turn to stare knowingly and sympathetically at me. I did notice, but was also busy screaming ‘exactly!’ at the stage and the audience in general. In any case, a fabulous time was had by all, and it was nice to bump into a couple of the lads at the end and discover that for the most part they genuinely seemed like lovely people. I do so like a comedian in waiting who isn’t a tortured soul.

Hey, Piano Bar Lady!
The following evening, after being undecided about what to watch in the afternoon for so long that by the time we’d decided the tickets had sold out, we headed to Henderson’s on Hanover/Thistle Street for a truly delicious meal (as you may have guessed from reference to this particular eatery and David Bann, two of our company were vegetarians). Afterwards, we disappeared downstairs to the wine bar to watch ‘Hey, Piano Bar Lady!’ by Linn Lorkin.

The odd show out in our comedy-influenced jaunt, the show was based on Lorkin’s years in New York and featured original music interspersed with stories of her ventures and years spent kipping on sofas and in accommodation where much was to be desired. Though none of the songs except the title piece (oft-repeated) really stuck in my mind afterwards, it was thoroughly enjoyable and as an entire event was fabulous fun and a great way to spend our last night in Edinburgh.

It certainly set my mind in motion, thinking of possibilities. By bed I’d sketched in my head an entire piano and vocal show based upon my own loves (so far), featuring stories of some of the men who over the years have been fortunate and unfortunate enough to accompany me along some of my travels in life. Before breakfast, I’d even met with one to pitch the idea (in rough theory) to him.

It’s still there, my idea, bubbling away. I like to judge when the time’s right to pursue certain projects and, right now, it’s not right for me: but, at some point in the future, don’t be surprised if it’s me you find singing in a cellar bar at the Edinburgh Fringe.

After all, at the end of the day, that’s what I love most about the Fringe. It always stirs something in you, and leaves it simmering away for the future. It may be over come September each year, but it never really leaves you.