An excerpt from Vague’s new tumblr blog. Read more online here.

16 October 2010

“One thing I am realising out here is just how much of our modern lifestyle is built on compromise. This is brought into stark reality by the facts of existence out here. There can be no compromise…

Never compromise. Certainly make choices based on the bigger picture, but never lose sight of your vision.”

I was to elaborate on this little snippet of journal in a blog piece I crafted later in the day, once the sun had set and the owls came out to hoot.

To see more of David’s photography, visit his website here.

I’ve been thinking for the last thirty-three days that it’s about time I took on another challenge to liven things up a bit, and a recent microfiction session I attended has inspired me to undertake Microfiction May. On Sunday I emailed my nearest, dearest and weirdest requesting ‘nudges’ which would inspire me to write a ten-word or less piece of microfiction each and every day throughout the month of May. I also posted the request on my facebook account, and publicly on tumblr and Twitter. I received twenty-eight nudges in the first thirty-six hours and now have well over thirty: which means I have enough to see me through May and beyond. I will create something for each and every nudge I’m given, so if you’d still like to provide me with a little something to inspire a little something else, then get in touch.

I’ll post all of my Microfiction May (even-shorter-than-usual) shorts on the ShiverWriggle facebook page and via the ShiverWriggle Twitter account. Once I’ve completed them all, I’ll also post them here on the ShiverWriggle website.

And, as ever, if you’d like to join in and write your own then get in touch!

An excerpt from Vague’s new tumblr blog. Read more online here.

Another day with no photographs, and my journal also records I was conscious of the fact I was letting my recording of events slip slightly. I had been busy, thatching, tidying and sorting the shelter, hanging food and equipment from paracord tied to the shelter. I had also ensured I had a good supply of dry firewood – a task that takes time and, as the old woodsman’s saying goes, keeps you warm three times; first when collected and carried, second when sawn, chopped and processed and finally when burnt.

This was a good thing, the weather had been cold and damp all week, with rain soaking everything. In my shelter, with a fire and my layers of wool, I was warm, if not entirely dry all the time. When I went out to relieve myself, or collected wood or water, I often came back very wet indeed. Yet this was the west coast of Scotland, an area of temperate rainforest where water was everywhere and intrinsic to the landscape.

Even when I was within the wood and heather walls of my shelter the wildlife still came to visit. I have already mentioned the wood mouse, the robin and the wren and my journal from this day records the visit of a noisy family of shrews, moving together along the base of the walls, shrieking, calling, squeaking. My camera was hung up and in its case to protect against the damp and the smoke, and I did not dare move, lest I frighten the tiny creatures. Instead I sat and watched as they rushed around catching spiders, cranefly and anything else that seemed like a tasty morsel. They were enchanting little creatures – although sitting observing them showed just why they have such a reputation for ill manners.

On this day I also levelled the area of the floor where I was now sleeping, and began to design a better bed. I wove a neck sheath for my main knife, as having it on my belt was proving impractical. I also sharpened all my tools – something that is often forgotten by those who only play at “survival skills”. Indeed, I have known people who have bought a new knife rather than bother to learn to sharpen. This behaviour is alien to me – I have had one of my knives for nearly twenty years now, my main sheath knife for over a dozen and my axe for six.

When I was younger (much younger) I was not allowed knives, my Mum hates the things, equating them with violence, as many of the population of the UK sadly do these days. I got around this by making a knife for myself, using an old Sheffield steel butter knife I found at my Granny’s, in a shed. I laboriously ground this with a piece of sandstone to reshape the blade, then learnt to sharpen it, also using a piece of stone. I then made a sheath from an old belt and used the leather from an old moccasin slipper to make the bone handled grip larger. I still have this knife today, and it is still kept razor sharp, the leather well oiled. A blunt blade is a disaster waiting to happen – more force is applied than should be used for a cut, exponentially increasing the chances of slipping and cutting oneself.

If children were routinely taught to appreciate a knife as a tool, learn to handle them, care for them, reshape them for their own needs, I wonder; how they would view them? Everyone I know who was brought up using blades as tools would never think of using them as a weapon.

Although no photos were taken on this day, I would more than make up for it on the 16th, and I am currently wondering which of the 126 I should upload tomorrow…

Originally posted on Lydia Crow’s tumblr page.

I knew I shouldn’t have gone. There were signs – many signs – suggesting that I shouldn’t go back to the gym tonight. I hadn’t been in weeks due to Things, and I was looking forward to going (that was sign one: unnatural desire to attend gym). I had to pack for my flight in the morning and do umpteen other things before I went to bed (sign two: I had too much to do). My gym partner (that is, the person I’ve bullied into coming along with me) didn’t want to go (sign three).

But I really wanted to get back there. I wanted to get back into a routine, to push myself, to take it seriously for once. So I went to the gym.

Even when we arrived there were problems. Gym Partner (let’s call her Bunny) had lost her card. But still we persevered: we would do this!

On the machines everything felt too easy: it had all gone too smoothly. I was back! I was running!*

After a few minutes running I hit the ‘walk’ button, which I had set to a nice brisk walk, so I could grab some water. So far, so good. Only as I pulled my hand back I caught the wire to my headphones. I snatched my hand back too quickly, which unplugged the headphones from my old battered iPhone and also simultaneously sent said phone spinning onto the treadmill.

If I was the type of person to get embarrassed I would have done. The treadmills were directly in front of a row of cross-trainers and exercise bikes and every single one of them was in use. I spun round to look at the phone and smile at the people behind me with a conspirative “you can’t take me anywhere!” grin. The phone had continued its journey to the end of the treadmill and slid off in a rather dignified manner. It lay there on the floor, patiently waiting for me to retrieve it.

I can’t run without headphones and music. Well, I probably could if I had to, but I don’t really have any intention to give it a go. I pulled out the emergency stop and hopped off the treadmill to retrieve my phone.

Only that’s not exactly how it happened. Clearly, the Universe was bored and decided that it fancied a giggle. I did reach to pull out the emergency stop, but somehow it didn’t come out: my brain, however, didn’t register this. So it was with some surprise I found myself speeding (if brisk walking is speeding) along to the end of the treadmill. In trying to keep my balance, my brain being a little slow on the uptake and not quite understanding what was going on, I somehow slipped and ended up sitting on the treadmill. I let out a squeal but, before I could take another breath, the treadmill had shot me off the end and deposited me on my backside on the floor by my phone, and left me there looking up at the confused faces on the exercise bikes above me.

To be fair, most people tried to look away or weren’t sure what to do or say. All of them without fail kept cycling or cross-training or whatever they were doing. One guy, a legend, let out such a fantastic laugh that I, my body finally having caught up with what had just happened, descended into a fit of giggles. I couldn’t move from the floor for at least two minutes whilst I sat there laughing. Even after that, when I crawled back onto the running machine, I collapsed over the controls and giggled for another five solid minutes, unable to do anything but that potentially deadly brisk walk. And, just as I’d calmed down, another friend appeared on the running machine beside me to let me know that, though she hadn’t seen me actually fall, she had heard the bang when I fell over and had seen me sat on the floor in stitches.

To her dismay, Bunny had been mid-run and missed the entire thing. Bemused, she just saw me disappear and then reappear a couple of minutes later crying with laughter.
On our way out we did check at the reception to see whether there was any CCTV in that part of the gym, so I could perhaps get a copy to share with you all, but sadly there was not. I tried, though, comrades.

Earlier in the day I’d posted on Twitter: “Right then, gym: let’s do this thing. It’s you versus me. And I never lose… #famouslastwords #seeyouontheotherside” I refuse to believe I lost, but I’m willing to concede that my first visit back to the gym in several weeks could probably be classified as a draw.

*Not actually running though, to be honest. Jogging, really. But it counts.

An excerpt from Vague’s new tumblr blog. Read more online here.

14 October 2010

“There’s a little wood mouse in the SW corner near my head, I have seen him already this morning, he seems to know no fear. I may feed him peanut butter and take some photos.”

This entry was recorded before I discovered that the mouse had chewed holes in the new dry bags I had bought as part of my resupply a couple of days earlier. These bags had been bought to replace the others that mice had chewed at an earlier camp. Despite being suspended on paracord, they were clearly too close to the horizontal shelter beams – a luxurious walkway for a mouse. I learnt from this experience and ensured the paracord length was much longer. Fortunately I lost little food this time.

These mistakes are irritating, but they always serve to remind me I am but a small part of the overall picture. The wren that flew in as I prepared breakfast, was another reminder of this (Troglodytes troglodytes, she was at home in my artificial cave). She alighted on the bench beside me, about three inches from my hand, tiny dark eye fixed on mine for a moment, then off she went to catch another spider from the heather thatching above our heads. Both mouse and wren are good for keeping down the insect population.

An excerpt from Vague’s new tumblr blog. Read more online here.

13 October 2010

“I have now rigged up the tarp inside the shelter and moved in. This evening there was a stag just down the hill from where I am. I had a go at roaring at him, and he answered.”

Although the thatching was not completely waterproof (yet), I decided to tie up my tarp under the side opposite the doorway.  This way I could be totally weatherproof, centrally heated and cook over the fire.  My hammock was rigged up on the ground, so I could use the midge and mosquito net around my sleeping bag.  This first night it was not too comfortable, as I had only decided to move in as the sun was setting – the rest of the day had been taken up by thatching.

I was surprised the stag had roared back at me, given that my red deer roar is pretty rubbish!  When I went out for a look he ran off at full tilt, although as recompense for not getting a photo I found a deer skull instead.  This was placed outside the shelter on the top of the boulder, by the doorway.  I now had a name for my new home.

One Skull Shack.

It may be that the supposed virtue of being open-minded enough to change one’s mind is a relatively modern phenomenon. I often feel slightly repelled by small-minded people who have lived in small villages all their lives and have rather blunt opinions about outsiders, whether in relation to gender, class, sexuality, or race. But how are they so different from most people in history? Or even from our liberal cosmopolitan types, who have simply been exposed to a sufficient diversity of views at a critical period of their lives such that they came to be who they are and think what they think? This is not to say that racism is preferable to openness to racial diversity, but rather, as suggested above, that people in general do not seem to change their minds based on reasoned argumentation. Instead they tend to hold moral or immoral positions for non-moral reasons, for example loyalty to one’s family or tribe. Perhaps deep down we are so fragile that we cannot face the possibility of our beliefs being anything other than ‘the truth’. In light of this, no wonder religions have created such destruction in the name of truth. The question is whether science will fare any better in the long-run. The human desire for truth, however noble, too often seems to culminate in tyranny, as Paul Feyerabend said. It seems that the problem is not the nature of the truth – whether a God or a scientific theory – so much as the actual human need for truth. Perhaps the problems related to truth emerge when we refuse to accept the contingency of our beliefs or affiliations or sense of self, so we then feels obliged to impose these views on others (presumably in order to allay anxiety). What is contingent becomes seen as transcendental – the difference of the other is then often understood as evil in order to protect a precarious faith in an intrinsic identity or order.

This would seem to be counteracted by a greater ethical generosity, but this, it seems, is no easy task, as Nietzsche makes clear when he writes that all the virtues and efficiency of body and soul are acquired laboriously and little by little, through much industry, self-constraint, limitation, through much obstinate, faithful repetition of the same labours, the same renunciations. For someone who dubbed himself the antichrist, Nietzsche sounds more than a little religious when he writes this. This should come as no surprise, as the religions, which are seen by people like Jackie as the greatest violators of this principle of ethical generosity when it comes to acknowledging the value of other modes of thinking, have also developed the best techniques and exercises for cultivating it. From my own perspective, most of the best people I know are religious. This should come as no surprise, as they spend their lives devoted to the cultivation of moral sentiments, while the rest of us just assume that we are good simply by virtue of being human. However it seems that it is rarely the best religious people who have any impact on religion. I guess the same is probably true in philosophy too, which is a slightly depressing thought.

As soon as the unsold Christmas items are off the supermarket shelves, the chocolate eggs appear for Easter. Theologically, I can see a link – but I suspect that God has very little to do with this commercial venture. I’m not pretending that I don’t get excited when I give and receive Easter eggs. They are still a treat for this wean of an adult. Some parents carefully hide small eggs in their gardens so that their offspring can have the fun of finding them. Weather permitting. Traditionally, children would go around their communities asking for eggs – but not chocolate ones. Hens’ eggs were a treat, especially as the church decreed that they shouldn’t be eaten during Lent. Hens didn’t appreciate that their eggs weren’t needed so they kept on laying, and people were pleased to share their stored eggs with anyone who asked for them at Easter.

We always buy free range hens’ eggs from the butcher around the corner. We consider them to be of really good value. Recently we have been given a generous number of eggs by a friend who has a smallholding. A princely gift. Holding each one in my hand, while washing it, I consider the chicken and the egg conundrum. The answer is beyond me. Some are able to use scientific knowledge and skill to fertilize eggs but we cannot answer the chicken/egg question. A hen’s egg is pleasing to hold- it is as if one is taking in some small part of its magic. What powerful magic.

During my time as an infant teacher I had lots of fun teaching the little ones simple songs and rhymes. The simpler they were, the better to remember. Irene Pawsey’s short poem for children, “An Egg For Easter”, is one such :

“I want an egg for Easter,
A browny egg for Easter;
I want an egg for Easter,
So I’ll tell my browny hen.
I’ll take her corn and water,
And show her what I’ve brought her,
And she’ll lay my egg for Easter,
Inside her little pen.”

This ditty is an early lesson for children. Feed and water your hen and you will have your reward.

Even now, after several decades of cooking and baking with eggs, I still feel privileged when I crack open an egg with a double yolk. Or should that be two yolks? The puzzle reminds me of my studies in child development – should one refer to “the twins” or NEVER mention the word “twin” to those two people conceived at the same time?

When the sperm has fertilized the egg, there is the wonderful circle of life in evidence. But which came first?

As children, my brother and I were interested in birds’ eggs but it was really considered a boy’s hobby. Sexism was rife in the good old days. Michael was given someone’s collection of birds’ eggs, carefully preserved in sawdust-filled “Snowcem” tins. This, like a grown-up friend’s butterfly collection, is frowned upon now and I fully understand the thinking behind such condemnation. I have to say, though, that such collections were part and parcel of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s and they passed on an awareness and respect for the natural world.

The Willett and Hall “Pocket Book of Common British Birds” has descriptions of the eggs produced by each bird. This book is now considered outdated and many identification guides which are published today, omit the eggs completely – as if the birds give birth to live young. Well I, for one, am not going to steal eggs, I am just interested. Edith Holden captures my imagination with her observations of Nature and her ability to conjure up a vibrant tableau with what is very simple vocabulary, always surprises me:

“April 29th. Gathered some Wild Geranium and Wild Hyacinth. Saw a lovely little Hedge-sparrow’s nest in a Whin-bush with four eggs in it. The Gorse was in full bloom and made a glowing contrast with the blue eggs in the mossy nest. ”

In our house we have many books. We have some very beautiful books which require care but one of my favourites is a tiny tan-coloured book measuring nine cms. by fourteen and a half cms.. I have the dust cover in pieces. “The Observer’s Book Of Birds’ Eggs “. In it you are able to find details of the eggs of just about every bird to breed in Britain – and a sensible list of dont’s :

* don’t handle the eggs or disarrange the nest

* don’t spend more than a minute at the nest

* don’t disturb the natural cover

* don’t leave a track for others to follow

* don’t visit a nest more than once in twenty four hours

and

* never try to hunt for the nests of rare birds.

There are many casualties in the springtime. Birds like the magpie will make a meal of other birds’ eggs. We don’t have magpies here in Caithness but there is plenty of marauding going on along the sea cliffs. The herring gull is one such marauder. Guillemots, shags and cormorants should know the danger of leaving their eggs unprotected. And everyone knows what little killers the baby cuckoos are. They push all of the chicks and unhatched eggs out of their foster-parents’ home so that the fat little cuckoo creature gets the undivided attention of the dunnocks or reed warblers. These are the birds chosen as host by the female cuckoo. Sometimes meadow pipits may be chosen. Whichever bird is chosen to foster the cuckoo’s egg and, later, the chick, the cuckoo’s egg will match that bird’s own egg. Cuckoos have small eggs for their size so that the victims do not realise there is a new egg in the nest. Not only that, but the female cuckoo will remove an egg from the nest and eat it before laying her own egg there.

Eggs are not, exclusively, birds’. You and I are here to prove that. We tend to refer to the human egg as ovum (being Latin for egg) but, whatever label we give to it, these tiny, tiny eggs, once fertilised, give our kaleidoscope world its saints and sinners. Little thought is given to the how and why when a new baby is born, but those first moments of a child’s life normally produce a sense, in the mother, of having been the bearer of a new order. There has been nothing like this before – this little person is exactly what the world has been needing. Here is the answer to all the questions ever asked.

Offering less potential for world peace is the little tadpole developing from the frog spawn which is floating about in jellied masses in ponds and streams around now. Tiny black dots in the jelly turn into tadpoles after a couple of weeks and then, after about three months, they develop into baby frogs. Few of the tadpoles get that far, however, as many are eaten whilst in the pond. We had a pond in our cottage garden in Lincolnshire and each Spring there would be something of a competition to be the first person to spot the frog spawn. The female frog is capable of laying up to three thousand eggs. Not SO bad then that the infant mortality rate is high. Cutting the grass was always a problem once the little perishers had left the water.

Eggs and Springtime. Easter in Spring. Eggs and Easter. In Scandinavian countries, branches of flowering trees may be brought indoors in advance of Easter so that the little flower buds will open out for Easter Day. My granny used to do that – we have no Scandinavian roots as far as I am aware – except for the “Vikings-got-everywhere” thing. Eggs would be hung on these branches – sometimes hens’ eggs but often today they will be chocolate eggs.

As a child, it was very exciting and special to be given the opportunity to collect hens’ eggs and I don’t remember ever breaking one. Perhaps that is because I didn’t do it very often. It was equally thrilling to find a nest with the greenish-blue speckled eggs of a blackbird. We knew the parent bird would come back if we returned promptly so we didn’t linger, but the image stayed with us and we wondered if the blackbirds singing in the lane the next season had been growing inside those little turquoise gems. We expected to keep them and their own family as neighbours. Eggs and expectations seem to go together so well. This poem points to the new beginning within the egg and the hope which accompanies it :

EGGS AND EXPECTATIONS (Janet Mackintosh Cayley)

Beginning with rarity
Whose advent is the starting point
Of the others’ maturity,
This genesis gives form to the infant dawn
When a new nucleus
Becomes the source of initiation,
Giving rise to the opening chapter
At the outset of the original voyage.

The commencement of this rudimentary journey
Is marked by a single bud
Which, after its nativity,
Emerges from its spheroidal
To await infancy.
A suckling.
Ripening. Mellowing.
Contemporaneously instituting curiosities.

Suppose the world was originally an egg and the Supreme Being cracked it open to reveal the yolk – life itself and all that is needed to sustain it, and the white – to cushion us when we fall. Now imagine that we are fast using up our yolk – not difficult when we take note of what is happening to this planet. How close can the world come to consuming all of its yolk? What amount of albumen will then be required to bolster us? Where will we find it?

Troubling questions with some frightening answers – and worse – no answers at all. But the human race strives to survive. Fear and uncertainty may set in, yet, as the land warms and the daylight is extended each springtime, we eat our Easter eggs; we roll our hard-boiled eggs down steep hills or, as in America, across the President’s lawn; we make little nests for the Easter hare to fill with eggs and we remember that, two thousand years ago, a few friends of a nobody found that a boulder (symbolised by the egg), which had stoppered his tomb, had been rolled away. He was on their side of the tomb.

RUSSIAN EASTER CAROL

Easter eggs! Easter eggs!
Give to him that begs!
For Christ the Lord is arisen.

To the poor, open door,
something give from your store!
For Christ the Lord is arisen.

Those who hoard, can’t afford -
moth and rust their reward!
For Christ the Lord is arisen.

Those who love freely give -
long and well may they live!
For Christ the Lord is arisen.

Eastertide, like a bride,
comes, and won’t be denied.
For Christ the Lord is arisen.

ShiverWrigglers may recall Lydia Crow’s letter of complaint to the O2 Academy, Brixton in early December 2012. You can read it online here. Well, Nigel Downs, General Manager at the O2 Academy Brixton, has replied. Here is his response in full:

Dear Lydia,

I can only apologise for not replying to your most elegantly written of complaints dated the 5^th December 2012.

Whilst I’m pleased that you enjoyed a fabulous evening with Ben Folds Five, I can only apologise if perhaps your evening was slightly tarnished by what at best can be called an over enthusiastic member of our security team who possibly had good intentions but stretched these a little too far.  I have reiterated that perhaps security staff should allow audiences to find their own spots and only help if requested.

The venues policy is that people of all colour, race, sex, sexuality….and height be treated equally and enjoy the shows together.  My hope is that everyone attending shows at the venue will be made to feel welcome.

I hope that your experience at the hands of one of our maybe overzealous members of security won’t put you off attending shows at the O2 Academy Brixton and that maybe you can find it within your soul to forgive and maybe accept two pairs of complimentary tickets to a show or shows of your choice.  If I can entice you to perhaps give us another chance, perhaps you would like peruse our website (http://www.o2academybrixton.co.uk) and see if there are any shows you might like to attend.

Best Regards

Nigel Downs
General Manager
O2 Academy Brixton