I really adore them. They are also the means through which I’ve developed, rightly or wrongly, my view of Japanese, and to some degree Korean, culture!
I’m a fangirl, so I love shoujo – the girly manga! I love the ones set in schools; the drama between the school president and the yankee, or the shy girl and the cool guy.
In Korean ‘shoujo’ manhwa there’s always (ALWAYS) a jjang (leader of the gang), in the story. Sometimes it’s the girl, and sometimes it’s the boy. So again, I know I’m misguided, but I just assume in every Korean high-school there are warring factions of gangs, and everyone can fight and kick-ass! And everyone is angry… so angry!
I wouldn’t be able to hide my disappointment if I turned up (very randomly) at a Korean high-school and I wasn’t caught in a show-down between two rival gangs from opposing schools. Even though I don’t speak the language, I’d know… I’d just know what was going on. I’d know the first jjang had kissed the other jjang’s sister, or belittled her… and I’d stand there fists waving in the air screaming.
“Oh it’s on! FIGHTING”
Then if I ended up at a Japanese high-school, I’d be looking for the yankee (the bad boy, delinquent) and the bookish girl – or the tsundere (initially cold character who shows their good side in time – a staple of the shoujo!) school president and the silly, but kind-hearted girl… and I’d be chuckling to myself thinking; “Oh how is this going to turn out!”
It’s Yank-mee!! Nani TEME!!
Ah, manga (and manhwa), you really distort reality for me (but in a way that makes me so happy)! Reading them is a roller-coaster ride of emotions!
Pandora Hearts, confuses me, makes me gasp in awe, then confuses me again…
Naruto always makes me emotional – it’s the best manga for making you empathize with the baddies, because they were good once… or they have these tear-inducing back-stories…
Kamisama Hajimemashita makes my fangirl squee – such a lovely romance story!
Tomoe is a Kitsune (fox) demon – not a vampire (though it looks that way here!) …. Anyway, I’m off on Cloud Squee!
Anything by Minami Maki will make me laugh and wait desperately for the next chapter; her stories and artwork are sweet and cute and hilarious…
Then, recently (and as it’s a week for pets!), I came across this webcomic (they seem to be v.popular in Korean – at least to my untrained eye). It’s called My Young Cat and My Old Dog (by Cho) and it is… wonderful…
If you have a pet, it will make you cry.
At times the issue/episode/chapter is about the young playful pet and all the silly things they do. Then at times it’s about the old pet, who isn’t quite as fast as they used to be, or sleeps more than they used to. It’s those one’s that grab your heart and squeeze the feels out, leaving you gasping and in tears (I am an emotional being!).
I have an old, old dog, and those episodes make me pause and think of him 😦
Well, but there’s lots of joy to be had in the series too, things that make you remember how wonderful your pet is. How selfless and how they love you unconditionally; they love you for you, no other reason and we love them too..
Ah, manga and manhwa, you give me so many different feelings – and I love you for it 🙂
Latimer: As a nineties kid, I always felt like we had the best cartoons – all the Marvel cartoons, Gargoyles, Animals of Farthing Wood, Mummy’s Alive, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Batman… the list goes on!
Those cartoons had proper, involved story-lines.
But somewhere in the late nineties cartoons got fixed on this one episode, one story, structure, that I never liked. I always missed the ‘larger picture’, the big story arcs.
Then, around this time, I more or less stopped watching cartoons – so they remained, in my mind, fixed in that ‘one episode, one unconnected story’ structure.
In slightly later life, I swapped Western cartoons for Eastern ones. This would be around the time my obsession with anime kicked in. In anime, big story-lines never went out of style!!
I noticed early in the naughties Western cartoons started to taken on this East-meets-West style; an almost ‘anime but not quite, style’. I think it was due to the popularity of anime at the time.
That was probably what brought me slightly back to Western cartoons.
I think out of all those new ‘East-meets-West’ cartoon series, Avatar, has got to be one of the best.
Forget that terrible movie version. The cartoon is where it’s at!
Avatar is a great show. I was late to the game – I haven’t seen all of Avatar: The Last Airbender, but am a pretty big follower of Avatar: Legend of Korra.
I love the style, music and feel of Avatar… It’s a well-thought out story-line, with interesting characters, with interesting ethnic backgrounds. Basically the story is focused on a world where people have the power of controlling (bending) elements; water, fire, earth and air. The avatar is the one person in the world that can do all four and is sort of the, near as I can tell, spiritual and bending guide of the people. A big figure-head basically.
When the avatar dies, the next avatar is born and so on….
So, when the new Avatar Korra takes centre-stage, you know that the previous Avatar, Aang, is dead.
Which is pretty sad actually, given that the last time we see him is as this chipper 12 year old kid who saved the world. We don’t really get time to grieve over that, we just have to accept it, which is… yeah kind of rough!
But there’s lots of cool, funny characters in Legend of Korra too (and Korra is a very strong female lead, so that’s pretty cool!)
My favourite characters are Bolin and his little red panda Pabu – Bolin is just brilliant…
Okay, so maybe the best cartoons didn’t end with the 90s, maybe there are lots more to come! 🙂
Latimer: Lately I’ve been trying to get my ‘reading groove’ back on. Yup, it was gone for a while.
For me, the serious ‘groove’ comes on a little randomly – the urge to read more and more and MORE books!
My problem is, I buy too many books, then don’t get around to reading them. I have a serious backlog of books.
There are more…. there’s always more; like Highlander
Like you would not believe – and yes, I have since ordered more! I don’t learn, but I have decided that I will stop buying and clear the backlog in the lead up to Christmas.
(she says, but this turned up on her doorstep today!)
His name is Clod Iremonger, and he is an Iremonger… HOW CAN I NOT READ THIS? I’m so intrigued…. I have a problem!
Ridley, I know, has a similar reading backlog, which I aim to make worse for her, because I have a bag of seven books for her (that she must read)! Ha 🙂
Now though, I am accountable, because I’ve put this in writing – ‘I will clear my reading backlog!’ – I will succeed! If you have a backlog, join me in my crusade of reading-before-buying-more! How is this going to end for me? Not well I don’t think.
But seriously, I have started to make an… effort.
Like I finally finished Qi: The Book of the Dead by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson (and it was brilliant)
and I’m going to finish Bill Bryson’s At Home, which I have been reading on and off again for too long! (Bill Bryson’s books are fantastic really, but take forever to read!)
I vow to finish this one before the end of October (oh, what have I done!).
When I finished The Book of the Dead a dam broke inside me and I felt inspired to get out and read all my poor abandoned books, because they’re all full of interesting things 🙂
The Book of the Dead is a book filled with brief stories about lots of different people, people you know like Thomas Edison and Casanova, to people you don’t like, Moll Cutpurse, a bear-baiting cross-dressing pickpocket and James Barry, a famous doctor in the early 1800s, who gave Florence Nightingale the worst dressing-down of her life, and … oh yea and he was actually a woman (though no one found out until she died!).
It has to be one of the most interesting books I’ve read in a while.
I got emotionally caught up in peoples stories; like Nikola Tesla.
He invented the radio (although Marconi was awarded the honour and won a Nobel Prize for it).
Tesla was known as the ‘Father of the 20th Century’ and the master of electricity (more so than Edison). He was inventing things that were light-years ahead of his time; he even foresaw/wanted to make the internet – the man was a genius.
And he died in debt with no money, living with crippling OCD, though he should have been a millionaire.
But I came to realise that for some people, it isn’t about what their knowledge can give them, what monetary rewards, some people are just driven to answer questions and solve problems, because that’s where they get their joy.
Tesla’s business partner George Westinghouse was in financial ruin after a stock market crash, so Tesla dissolved the contract between them that was costing Westinghouse so much. He said;
‘You have been my friend, you believed in me when others had no faith; you were brave enough to go ahead… when others lacked courage; you supported me when even your own engineers lacked vision… you have stood by me as a friend… Here is your contract, and here is my contract. I will tear both of them to pieces, and you will no longer have any troubles from my royalties. Is that sufficient?’
It’s pretty special, and wonderful, that a person, who stood to gain 12 million dollars from those royalties, which would have made him one of the richest men in the world at that time, would do something so noble as to brush it all aside to help a friend.
Imagine that. It makes me feel pretty good about the world; we can be so good to one another sometimes.
The book also taught me that real genius is a rare and beautiful thing; and if you haven’t shown a spark by the age of 10, kiss the notion goodbye! Ha. Reading the stories, I’d have to pause and stare into the distance thinking; ‘yup, that ship’s sailed!’
Dr John Dee, one of Queen Elizabeth I’s most trusted advisors, would spend 18 hours studying everyday; 4 hours sleeping and 2 hours were set aside for meals. I can’t do that!
He was the original 007 too. He used to sign his letters to the queen ‘007’; it was a symbol that meant he was the Queen’s eyes, or that the letter was for her eyes only.
That’s Dee, Mr Dee… Mystery? Ha.
Dee was known for his mysticism but actually he was a man of science too (though the word ‘science’ didn’t exist at the time and was essentially known as witchcraft). He used geometry to successfully map the globe and was the greatest book-collector of his day (with books on mathematics, earthquakes, dreams, women, Islam, games, botany, pharmacology and veterinary science, to name a few).
By the end of his life, plague had stolen almost all of his family away from him and he lived in desperate poverty (he fell out of favour with the Queen), with his daughter Katherine, having to sell his books one at a time so he could eat (he was 82 years old).
Now that really breaks my heart.
But the beautiful thing is, a girl who lived in the area described him as…
‘He was a great peacemaker; if any of the neighbours fell out, he would never let them alone till he had made them friends. A mighty good man he was.’
Again the survival of a few kind words about a good person, from a good person, it makes you feel pretty good again.
There’s something really up-lifting about this book. It does make you feel like you haven’t had much of an adventure yet, or you’re not very smart and never will be, but it also makes you feel like isn’t it great how many weird and wonderful people there have been in the world?
We’re silly and vain, stupid and clever, wacky and weird, and we always have been, and that’s pretty great 🙂
I wouldn’t say I was a real gamer, because I know what it is to be obsessed about stuff and I didn’t qualify for this one!
I do have a bit of a history with gaming though.
We used to have an Amstrad in our house, when I was young. I say we, but that’s a lie, my big brother owned it and it got passed down to us young’ens over time.
It was a clunky, beautiful beast.
Games came on cassettes and you had to wait for it to ‘load’ whereby the title image would appear on the screen, one painful, pixelated line at a time.
Games took a very, very, long time to load. I remember we had a game called ‘Run the Gauntlet’ that was a series of different races; boats, cars and a final cross-country level – that was impossible to pass!
I always wondered what came after that, as the computer AI’s whizzed past my character… I would sigh, thinking, ‘I’ll never know’. And I never did. The joy of being denied content because you have no talent for gaming – that was my lot!
I used to beg my parents to buy me a console.
A Sega Mega Drive?
NO!
A Dreamcast (what happened to them!?)?
NO!
A Playstation –
No – look how are you not getting this by now? Stop asking!
Sometimes we would rent consoles from the video shop (I wonder do people do that at all anymore?) – it was about 10 pounds (back before the euro!) a night, and you’d get a game. Usually the console was a Sega. And it would be the best night ever and I’d wake up early the next day to get all the enjoyment I could before the console was pried away from me, never to be touched by my crappy, but loving, gaming hands again.
My brother somehow managed to wrangle a Gameboy out of my parents one year.
That was brilliant… that’s when I met Kirby, in Kirby’s Dream Land. Oh what a game! The premise – you are Kirby, loveable vacuum-powered ball of joy, protecting his homeland from an evil dragon-creature.
Sssss… POW evil tree!
This was one of the few I cleared and I still take it as a badge of pride. Ridley has this honour too I believe!
We did have games for the PC though. That’s where I met Lara Croft and I decided I wanted to be an archaeologist – ah, yeah, I was easily swayed!
When my sister got a real job, she bought herself a Playstation and that was my first look into having a games console on demand. She bought Kingdom Hearts and to this day I will say that it’s my favourite game to play.
I’m a Keyblade Master!! I AM!!!!
Here’s the thing, the ending made me cry and the whole game made me love Disney again. Yup, that’s the power of Kingdom Hearts – I won’t have a bad word said about Sora and the boys (Donald Duck and Goofy)!
If I still had my young heart today, I would buy a console; a Playstation 3 or 4… or 5,000 – whatever it is now. But, truth is, being denied the content of a story because I couldn’t figure out the puzzle or beat the boss (which would be inevitable) would kill me. I remember telling Ridley once (as I was playing Kingdom Hearts 2) that I got a stabbing pain in my eye and had to lie down, because I couldn’t beat a boss (the one with the water guitar – ARGH!) – I got so frustrated I literately had to go lie down and sleep away the anger.
So I know that I couldn’t handle the stress.
That’s why today, I don’t play games. I’ve moved from recreational gamer, to avid games watcher. You see I love watching games trailers and game cutscenes.
That might seem weird, but computer games combine two of my loves, art and story-telling. Games are beautiful pieces of art and they’re getting smarter and bigger all the time – and this means the stories can get more complex and involved too. Games are like books; they draw you in.
Because I don’t play, I like watching people like Pewdiepie playing for me – because it’s fun to have the shock moments during the game and Pewds is fun!
The new games today are amazing feats of world-building.
Bioshock Infinite had this massively involved story set in this epic world. It was a stunning place – a city in the clouds.
My ultimate favourite game to watch though is the Uncharted series! Oh how brilliant are they! It’s basically modern-day Indiana Jones treasure hunting.
Damn it’s hot out in the desert…
Uncharted 2 is a major reason for me wanting to go visit Nepal! I want to stand on a mountain surrounded by temples and prayer-wheels and flags… one day…one day!
I often wonder if there are other people out there who love to watch games as much as I do – other games watchers.
We should come up with a name for ourselves – unless it exists already, in which case… what are we? 🙂
Latimer: Recently I’ve been taking a lot of notice of street art. To the point where, as I walk down the street and come face-to-face with an empty wall, I start to daydream about what maybe I could put there…
I imagine images weaving across the concrete. And I start to think, leaning back and getting some perspective on the wall – ‘That would be fun!’
My daydream then takes me to the street at night-time, wearing dark clothes and carrying a bag of spray-paint cans. I’m going to unfold my masterpiece image. I’m going to fix it to the wall, by climbing a steep rickety old ladder that stretches up six floors to the roof. And I’m not afraid to do it (this would never happen, I’d be crying if I had to climb a ladder).
I spray-paint the stencil. I scramble down the ladder and race across the road.
Girl in an egg, Barcelona
No police catch me.
I admire my mural, and then, I fade into the darkness like a thief in the night. A wispy shadowy creature of the witching hour; in the morning people will pass the image, wondering – who did that? How’d they do that? And I’ll pass by, smile a secret smile, and walk on.
Then my daydream ends with the harsh whack from the reality stick. I don’t go down that street at night-time, because it’s too dark and could be full of people baying for my blood; like gangs of New York.
I don’t dress in all black, because if I remember correctly I don’t have a black hat and I threw out those black jeans the other day. Where would I find the stencil? That’s a big wall, the perspective would be too much; I mean drawing on an A3 page is the most I’ve ever done. And I’ve never made a stencil…
No. I’d get caught! Definitely; if anyone would I would. The police would catch me. I’d get in trouble.
It’s too risky!!
Where do you get the spray paint anyway… is it expensive… etc. etc.
Yup, the dream fades pretty fast.
So, I’m left as a voyeur on the street art of others. I like the secret pictures and I like the mysterious people that flit in the night, spicing up the streets with quirky images. Their work waves at me as I pass the streets, from time-to-time, and I smile thinking, “Well, hello there piece of art!” Like it’s a secret discovery, belonging to just me and the street.
After you see one, as with all things, a door opens and suddenly they’re everywhere. It used to be a Dublin thing, now it’s a world thing. The images from people I’ll never know, waving across countries at me, a little Latimer they’ll never know.
Here are some I found in Barcelona.
Keep an eye out on whatever streets you’re walking! There are cool secret artists out there! Thank you for sharing your art!
—-
I’m not sure who the artists are, so if anyone knows, drop us a message and we’ll tag the photos etc!
Latimer: This week Ridley gets grilled with questions with too many caveats!
Ridley: My grilling…do I smell something burning!? Well here goes…!
1.Let’s break the ice (because it will get so involved later!)
A favourite book – why?Pride and Prejudice, just because no matter how many books come and go, and how many I’ve become obsessed over and loved, nothing really every reaches P&P’s pedestal to knock it off. Though Persuasion has always been a close second. A favourite movie – why?Technically I have two favourite movies, Hot Fuzz and Zoolander, no matter how many times I’ve watched them, and it’s been a lot, I still laugh at all the same jokes. If you quote anything from either of these movies, or you get my random mutterings of things like ‘Mer-man,*cough* Mer-man’, then I’m pretty certain we could instantly become great friends. 😀 Surely I’m not the only person who absolutely loves these? Also, I (am ashamed to admit) have not seen The World’s End yet, I’ve heard it’s good, so it could possibly become another top contender. Stay tuned!
Comfort food that you love: Chocolate, particularly Cadbury’s and anything with caramel, oh and I adore Reese’s peanut butter cups. I will readily say I’m probably addicted to the sugary goodness, add in a hot cup of tea and it’s heaven! Though, the last few weeks, I’ve banned myself from eating anything sugary (or basically fun), which includes Cadbury’s. Sad times. 😀
Currently what are you’re listening to:Hmm, right at this moment? Phantom radio on the television, it has a good oldie playing! Anyone remember this one? Loved this song when I was younger.
After that, this song has really caught my attention.I think it’s more the video, I sit there trying to work it out. I know it’s based on Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, but the ending confusts me something awful. Explanations are most welcome (though I suppose I could google it!).
Current/recent obsession:Not so much an obsession, but my new show is (or was) Orange is the New Black, I watched the whole series, I finished it Friday night with mixed thoughts. An interesting take on prison, really loved seeing why and how each of the characters ended up in jail. For some of them, it was really purely just wrong place and wrong time, or just one small wrong decision, other times it was wandering down a dark road from where there was really no return. I did start to really not like the main character, Piper, by the end of it though. Despite starting out looking like she was angelic and good and just didn’t belong in prison compared to the hardened criminals in there, the character developments were so fantastic we ended up seeing that a lot of the other inmates had far more good in them, were less selfish and more caring than she turned out to be. Looks can be deceiving! But that’s just my take! I look forward to season two to see what happens. (Netflix really has revolutionised my life, how could you ever be bored with it? (or get any work done with it!))
2. What was the very first profession you wanted to be when you were a wee nipper?
Ridley: Like you Lat, I wanted to be an archaeologist for the longest time, but I think when Jurassic Park came out it switched to ‘dinosaur digging up’ (a palaeontologist). Then I become obsessed with Egypt and I settled on becoming an Egyptologist. After a time I realised though if I did become one there’d be a lot crawling around in dirty spaces, hot sand, hot sun, sunburn, blistering, dust, dry throat, scorpions, beetles…and very low likelihood of ever finding anything, so one or two of those things might have turned me off the idea. Now I just feed the small Egyptologist-wannabe in me by watching the Discovery channel, with this guy, Zahi Hawass presenting
(he turns up in everything and anything to do with Egypt…it could have been me you know, he obviously just had less of a fear of bugs…*sigh*) 3. You are shipped to a desert island with no internet – you must stay for 2 months – you have food and clothes and all the necessaries, but you can only take two items to really pass the time – what do you take?
Ridley: A notepad and a pencil. I was going to say a pen, but could you imagine how frustrating that would be running out of ink half way through the first month!? I’d have to go fishing for a squid and try and steal some of its ink or something. But with a notepad and pencil, you can draw, you can write (imagine all the work you’d get done), you can start a little diary, with the paper you could make origami friends to keep you company and then play little paper games (of some type, I’m sure before I go to the island, I’ll have looked up all the games there are to play with a piece of paper). Though…do I have a little knife to sharpen my pencil if it breaks? O_O ….I’m sure I do, she does say ‘all necessaries’, that leaves a lot of things open, maybe I can bring my phone as well, though somehow I don’t think there’d be any sockets for charging it in the palm trees. 😦
4. I can tell you for 100% that one of the following is real, which one do you want to be real (and why)?
Werewolves and shapeshifters(Ridley: I’m thinking this one is my choice, mainly (and being selfish here) as all the rest, even if they’re real, I can’t really become part of the world-unless that’s part of it becoming real, can i suddenly be one of these things??- anyway assuming that’s not the case, at least if shapeshifters and werewolves were real, I could join them- werewolf love bite anyone? Haha…)
Hogwarts and magic(Ridley: ah…if only, but if it was real, I still wouldn’t be apart of it, I’m too old for my letter. I’m possibly a Squib though! 😀 )
The Doctor and all that world(Ridley: Be so hard to pin him down, it would become a very unhealthy search for him on my part. So probably best not…)
Angels and Demons, and demon and angel hunters(Ridley: So cool. I imagine they’d wear cool boots and leather jackets. And moody striking frowns. They’d never want me tagging along asking questions and grinning like a fool.)
Superheroes, mutants, X-men and Batman etc.(Ridley: All special people in groups of which I would not be a member, see option B for further explanations. Though if I thought I could become a superhero if this world was real…then possibly this one…god this question is too hard, and now I’m not playing the game right, changing and adding rules, Latimer is going to rap me on my knuckles. RUN! :D)
5. Well, it’s ghosts that are real for this question. Now, you have a choice… hehe…(Ridley: I dread seeing that ‘hehe’ it sends shivers of horror and unease through me…)
Spend 1.5 months in a one bed, really filthy hotel, with no internet access and a shared toilet that has never been cleaned and will never be cleaned. The location of the hotel is nowhere exciting, and you have to stay there too. You can’t get internet anywhere in the town
Spend 1 week in Mary King’s Close and 1 week in the Vaults. The alleged ghosts are definitely real (but they can’t physically hurt you). You will have blankets and you can choose where to sleep – but it must be in both places, you can’t hang around the visitor stairwells or anything!
You can leave both places at 9AM everyday but must return at 7PM.
Ridley: I think it would have to be ‘B’, you know me too well, that last line in ‘A’ got me. It was a hard choice, don’t like the idea of not sleep for a week due to all the bumps in the night I’d end up hearing. I was actually verging on picking ‘A’ but then no internet anywhere in town either? So cruel, that was the final straw – oh no, not the horrible bathroom, no no, it was limiting of my computers ability to check facebook, email and google…good to know I’ve my priorities right!! 😀
That was part 1, part 2 will come along….eventually!! By the by, join in if you want, we’d love to hear your answers!!
Latimer: Hope you guys liked Ridley’s grilling – hehe 🙂
Latimer: I think my first real obsession was with My Little Pony. I adored them.
Recently, My Little Ponies have made an amazing comeback in the form of a cartoon; My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
There was a cartoon in the 90’s too, that I used to watch. There were a few different ones. The one I remember most is the My Little Pony Tales, which is possibly what the new cartoon is based on?
Seriously though… how are those Ponies grabbing anything! They have no fingers!
The return of the Ponies is a complete shock to me, because they disappeared years ago without a trace. They were popular in the early 90’s, and then they just vanished – cartoons and toys.
When the toys came back, very briefly, I bought them, but I was getting older and I couldn’t squeeze myself back into the fangirl suit I used to own. But I tried… lord I tried.
I tried but couldn’t love them again!
They didn’t stay around long.
I’m going to hit the nostalgia button now and bring you back to my My Little Ponies…
Yeah, I still have them. It’s because of all my old toys, these meant the most. I couldn’t toss them out or give them away.
Taking them out of the bag was weird because I remember actually getting a lot of them. My birthdays always involved getting a My Little Pony.
They are chunky, clunky beasts, but they have this beautiful old familiar weight to them. The more I took out the more I remembered.
The bride Pony (with a cake, her veil is missing but I remember she had one, I think I gave it to Barbie) – with no bridegroom!
Poor girl, you have no one to marry!!
The ballerina young Ponies. They were novel because you could move their legs. We were very impressed at the time!
I had two teacher Ponies (Pony groups came in sets of 4 generally). I still have their school bags and their combs (all Pony groups had specific combs).
The Beach Ponies where my very first set. I remembered that their hair was all matted and could never be brushed out, because of the carpets we used to have in my old playroom in the garage (I used to drag them over the carpet).
Memories!
I got this beauty Pony after being in hospital for an operation during Halloween one year.
This Pony smelt like sweets (that was her ‘thing’) – and she still does.
These were tiny baby Ponies, so cute (they have massive heads and are weirdly-distorted).
This is a funny one – maternity Pony. You flick the heart…
and her babies drop out.
Yup…
This baby Pony was an interesting one; not because it did anything, but because of what my sister used to say it could do.
The Pony came with a baby’s plate. My sister would put crackers and coffee grains in the little sections, then she’d tell me;
“I can get your Pony to eat these.”
I was wide-eyed, “Really?”
She’d nod; “But you have to wait outside.”
So out I went (happy, believing) and I’d come back in and the food was gone – except the coffee grains.
“The Pony didn’t like them.”
I was astounded at the time. I wondered why I couldn’t make my Pony eat like my sister could.
The way I packed away the Ponies was also kind of sweet. I packed up all the combs in little bags and the accessories in another. It was like I fully expected to play with them again someday.
I vividly remember thinking, “What do grown-ups do without toys? What do they do all day?” Thankfully you realize people never grow up and toys of childhood morph into those of adulthood and it’s a relief.
I’m happy to see my old obsession has reinvented itself and flown off to another generation 🙂
Latimer: As summer draws to an end (NOO :(!), I’m plagued by the last remaining wasps. And I hate wasps!
I mean I really hate them.
But my hate is based on fear, pure fear. If a wasp is in the area I warn people with; ‘Listen, listen guys, there’s a wasp over there, now I might jump up and run away screaming and kicking at the air, but don’t mind me!’ This warning more often than not becomes reality.
I run based on what might happen to me, because, I have never in my life been stung. Well, up until last weekend that is…
I was moving bags of clothes from downstairs to upstairs and I got a sudden pain in my foot and thought initially – ‘argh a splinter’ but then the pain got worse and I lifted my foot and screamed…
– ‘Oh JAYSUS!’
There was a wasp stuck to my foot! Still I am screaming, because now one part of me is thinking, ‘oh no I have to touch it to get it off! NO! I don’t want to touch it!’ and the other part is just shrieking.
Now, my hatred-fear of wasps is complete. It is warranted. I don’t want to be stung. But wasps are angry, vicious creatures (hence the term ‘waspish’). I don’t bat at them, I just run away, because batting them makes them angrier and they come at you!
Sharing my experience resulted in people telling me all sorts of stories about their experiences of wasps.
First there was the boy…
He told me a story about when he was a young carefree lad, he used to play in the bushes at the back of his house – where randomly, mid-way through this wasp story he drops; ‘the bushes were Ian Paisley told me off for being one time’ ha.
The bushes had been cut and piles of leaves had been left on the ground. The young boy got excited and raced over to the piles and started playing. Then a swarm of wasps crawled up his chest out of the pile of leaves (he’d stood on a hive).
– Poor Boy!!
Naturally he ran shrieking to his mother (covered in wasps). His clothes were ripped off, and a wasp flew out of his underpants. Yep, the wasps got him everywhere.
– …everywhere…
The boy then tells us how he was staying with a friend once and one morning the friend decides, ‘today will be the one day of the year I will be a real man and cut the hedges’. The friend was then confronted by…
– ‘I’m gonna get you bub!’
– ‘And I got ALOT of friends!!’
And he runs into the house screaming; ‘get me vinegar!’ And in front of everyone in the house, the friend starts ripping off his clothes, getting naked and running into the bathroom, still screaming for vinegar. He got stung a lot.
We then hear how the boy and his friends were outside one day, enjoying the sun and having some drinks, when the sky went black as a swarm of bees descended on them; ‘hundreds of thousands, they eclipsed the sun briefly’ he said. They all ran into the house, screaming; ‘CLOSE THE WINDOWS! CLOSE THE WINDOWS!’
– ‘Close the window, the boy’s getting flashbacks!!’
Now my story of being stung is so boring! But give me time, I feel like another story is on the horizon for me! The last few weeks I’ve been plagued by wasps; now I’m even more afraid – I’m under-siege!
Ridley: A Robin Round actually stems from maths class in secondary school. My teacher used to do ‘Robin Rounds’, he’d skip around the class and fire out hard questions at individual students, giving only seconds for the person to try work it out before he’d shout, ‘next!’. Very rarely did anyone ever get it right when they were the first person asked. I did once, there was an impressed stir throughout the room, I had to duck my head though, knowing full well if anyone really looked at me they’d see my mouth hanging open in surprise and be able to tell I’d just guessed the answer! 🙂
Anywho, the whole point of these quick fire Robin Round (sounds dangerous, ja? It surely, isn’t…) this time is to have a little bit of fun, to scatter a few information crumbs about us (if anyone cares!) and for us to get to know anyone that may be out there and cares to share.*points at you*
I’ve numbered this post, so I’m presuming I’ve the intention of doing more than one of these… do I, Brain? (‘I don’t know Pinky, do you? Never mind though, now it’s time to try take over the world!’…..sometimes I’m ashamed of myself….but not today! 🙂 Pinky and the Brain, if you’ve never watched them, your life is just not complete! Get thee to youtube peeps.)
Latimer: 6pm, the day is more or less over and I know that I can look forward to relaxing 🙂
2. What was your last dream about?
Latimer: I was cycling along the motorway, trying to get home, and fell asleep on the side of the road. When I woke up someone was stealing my bike! What the Dickens?! “Come back with my bike thief!”
3. I have a puffalump, what do you think it is? (I don’t think I’ve ever shown you…and no, it’s not a disease or injury. Don’t google it!)
Latimer: It sounds like what a child might call a boil… hmm, I’m going to say some sort of soft toy… now I look it up… And so it is… They had a name? I think I used to have coats made out of that material when I was in primary school!
4. If you had all the time and money in the world, where would you be and what would you be doing?
Latimer: Travelling the world and writing – 🙂
5. One of the best things (helpful, inspirational, funny) that someone has ever said to you? (It was me of course, I’m sure…it better have been! Haha….seriously 😛 )
Latimer: Eat the elephant one bite at a time, before you know it, it will be gone! Huzzah! (basically take everything one step at a time). Also, another one; ‘everyone is afraid in the dark, wait until you turn the light on before you start to worry’; I get wound up about the unknown, but you should really wait until you know what’s going on before you start to worry!
6. The first video game you ever played was? And your favourite game now is?
Latimer: my first game was this really, really REALLY old game; it was on an old ass computer, we are talking very pixelated. The game was 2D; think old fashioned snake:It was a box and you had to ‘herd’ a single elephant into the box. I was probably only three or four playing it.
In childhood I used to play a game called Toejam and Earl 2… haha, that game was weirdly brilliant. You played two aliens trying to protect their planet (called Funk-o-tron!) from these humans that had invaded it… You had to trap the humans in jars by.. well pelting them with jars… it was really weird!
My favourite game now… hmm, Kingdom Hearts (I fecking love that series!! SOORA!!)
(Disney and Square Enix… jaysus I died and went to heaven!!)
7. Favourite flavour?
Latimer: RED! Haha. You know me!
8. What actor would you most like to….meet? 🙂
Latimer: I don’t know really… that’s a hard one, while not really an answer you know I would love to go to the BAFTAs one day!
9. Where are you right now? And what’s the weirdest thing in or about the place you’re in?
Latimer: My room *turns around… what is the weirdest thing here, aside from me! mwaha*
Well these are pretty weird…
They are the shell from clams, or something, that me and my mam collected on an aboriginal shore walk in Cairns, AUStralia! We ate what was inside and I pocketed the shells. Yep. (Latimer= hoarder and eater of the strange)
10. If you could send something to your future self, what would it be?
Latimer: future self… oh dear. Hmm. I would send my worries haha. Though future me would be like; ‘damn it! Why you doing that?! I got my own worries!’
11. What pops into your mind when you hear the words:
Pink- Dolls Glue- Art
Tree- Elves! Cup- Tea
Pen- Drawing! Puddle- Jemima Puddleduck haha
12. A portal opened right now, you didn’t know where it ended up or if you could come back, would you walk through it?
Latimer: Argh… no! I can’t take the chance, sure if I ended up in Hogwarts that’s great but if I ended up in Nightmare before Christmas Hallow’een Town I don’t know what I would do (cry… a lot)
13. What super power would you love?
Latimer: Teleportion! Do you see how I can pick a power? Ridley never plays this game right!
14. Batman, Superman or Spiderman?
Latimer: Batman; the hero that Gotham needs but doesn’t deserve… or needs right now, but doesn’t have… or something, he’s awesome!
15. Vampire vs werewolves?
Latimer: there was a time it would have been vampires, but no you have swayed me through the years Pidley… it would have to be werewolves!
16. If you had to choose between thunderstorm or snowstorm?
Latimer: Ohh, I like the after look of a snowstorm, but I pick thunderstorm… so dramatic and sitting in the dark (cos the lights usually seem to go) and seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder… oh too cool for school, yea!
17. An unusual pet hate of yours?
Latimer: People walking too slowly in front of me – is that unusual? I really hate it…
18. You’re reading a book, the one thing you’d love to find in it is?
Latimer: Characters I love. A bit quirky, or just interesting.
19. Favourite soundtrack?
Latimer: Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring
20. You’re only allowed one: films, books or music, which would you choose?
Latimer: are we talking infinite amounts here? Hmmm…Books then!
21. If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
Latimer: By the sea
Antrim coast – glorious
22. The best thing you’ve done or read or seen in the last year is?
Latimer: Publishing the book 🙂 and going to Japan again 🙂 (technically last year… hmm, well going on holidays and publishing the other book will still be this year too!!)
23. The creepiest thing ever would be…?
Latimer: Zombie Apocalypse! AHHH!!!
24. You see a camera crew filming in front of you on the street, what do you do?
Latimer: walk around it! *inches close and whispers fearfully* cameras steal your sooouuuulll!!
25. I’m sure I’ll be getting a question or two now…or maybe a new game will be a-foot! We shall see. Did you like the questions Latimer?
Latimer: That was fun… I promise a Pidley Wren Wround in the near future!
Why not share your answers to the questions above with us, we’d love to read them!!
I have an old, old dog, and those episodes make me pause and think of him 😦
It was a box and you had to ‘herd’ a single elephant into the box. I was probably only three or four playing it. 
Carwicky 