Latimer: I bet the saga of my kamikaze laptop has gotten old at this point! But this is just an insight into what I’ve been doing without one!
Well, first off time’s ticking by… the clock is running down, getting closer and closer to ‘MLR-day’ haha. We’ve been busy editing our book and what not. Editing using Ridley’s lovely laptop (I’m getting envious now! she’ll wake up one day and it’ll be gone, a Latimer shaped hole in her wall… me running across the green outside her house, screaming ‘my precious!’!!).
I’m due to get my new replacement soon (two weeks or so). So I’m getting jittery.
My old hard-drive has gone completely mental and is shutting down the IT guy’s laptops… it’s gone kamikaze, it’s dying and it’s going to take everyone with it! Every time I get an update, it’s like the situation is getting more and more hopeless…
Moving on from all that nastiness…
I’ve been unwinding in the meantime, doing some artwork… this is an insight into Latimer’s chillax time!
I decided to make my brother a birthday card (ha, and his birthday was in July! God… you see this is what happens when I have a laptop, other things fall by the wayside… yes, that includes the birthdays of loved ones!!).
He lives in Australia, so about all he’s going to get off me is a card, so I figured it better show I put some effort into it!! He’s a massive comic book fan, specifically batman, so I made him a Batman inspired card.
I edited and redrew some chibi’s I found (a Hermonie chibi, a Batman Chibi and a Catwoman chibi) and put them together to form a ‘Latimer’ card. I also finally used the other Japanese art-stuff I bought… cutting mat, cutting knife and Deleter high-lighter paint and brush. So, without a laptop to distract me, I had a chance to use the stuff..
The magical box where I keep my copic markers. It’s a biscuit box (from Bruges in Belgium). It’s a little creepy with that girls face on it!!Latimer Potter
The idea is magical, Potter me, transforming my brother and his wife into Batman and Catwoman, so they can fight crime in Australia (haha)!
Brother as BatmanWife as CatwomanPutting the cover togetherBrother and wife inside the card… and crazy me!!
It was fun putting it together… a job done you could say!! I gave myself a tick on my list of ‘outdated things that may never get done’… that’s a long list let me tell you… people get things off me years later, confused they go ‘what’s this for?!’ I will smile, ‘your birthday… last year…I’ll get you something next year for your birthday this year!!’.
Randomly, at the weekend, I also got it into my head that I would like to make a stop-motion model of myself and Ridley (after watching the making of Paranorman character ‘Norman’).
There’s more to it than I thought.. haha (stupid me of course there is!), rigs and stuff that are expensive… and to do it properly would take a lot of skill and time. Maybe in the future I’ll have a go, but for now, I settled for drawing what I would like the stop-motion model me and Ridley to look like… (maybe one day someone will make them for us!! I would go to Laika and say, ‘build us! build us!’)
Latimer and Ridley… as stop motion models!!
It’s random I know, but these are the things I think about! Things I get into my head. What would stop-motion me and Ridley look like? Can I make them? They would look great in the office… haha.
While I was doing all of this, I was listening to the Tell em Steve-Dave podcasts (staring Bryan Johnston, Walt Flanagan, Brian Quinn, Ming Chen and sometimes Mike Zapcic and the great, Sunday Jeff, who only works on sundays 🙂 ).
I love them! They are friends of the director and writer Kevin Smith (of Jay and Silent Bob- he’s Bob). The podcasts are part of the fantastic Smodcast network. Which since I’ve found it, I’m fascinated by it (I get obsessed very quickly)!! I love how Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier have built this empire; a new empire for a new age, the age of podcasting! It’s such a brilliant idea, but I love his thoughts on it.
Kevin is like, these are conversations I can have with all my friends, I can listen back to them, I can have them forever. It’s such a brilliant idea; and Kevin Smith is actually a very cool interesting guy (as are all his friends!).
I never realised this was all going on, I love finding new corridors in the hotel of life.
This video was made by an Irish fan of the Tell em Steve-Dave boys (and they were so in awe of it; so amazed and happy that someone would have made it for them for no reason other than he was a fan). He animated it all based on a conversation the guys had about Walt delivering comics to a guy that couldn’t come to the shop (Jay and Bob’s Secret Stash on Broad St, Red Bank, NJ- Walt is the manager and runs the shop which is owned by Kevin Smith).
The guys of Tell em Steve-Dave kept me company as I drew!
Well, without the laptop I’ve managed to draw some pictures and actually make my brother a birthday card, so it’s been good.
Ridley: I adored the nineties. My brother says I’m stuck in a nineties time warp. The TV shows, the movies, the music, I still love it all. I definitely think I have a bit of that ‘back in my day’ syndrome. Who knows what I’ll be like later in life when I’m already like this in my twenties!
I’ve watched two films that were made in the nineties in the last few days, I have to say, I never grow tired of them. Even though it’s been many years since they were first released, people still sit down and become enthralled by them again. There were numerous epic thrillers and disaster films made during that time, but they also had heart. In the middle of the attacking aliens, stomping giant monsters and reincarnated mummies, there were also well told touching stories which centred around the characters. The heroes were flawed, damaged and vulnerable. The relationships were fantastic and over came all the odds.
What was not to love?
Does anyone remember these:
My my, did my obsession with dinosaurs ever start after I watched this film. It was just fantastic, wasn’t it? With the velociraptors learning to open doors; ‘Clever girl,’ to the scene where the giant T-Rex bursts out of the trees to storm after the Jeep? As Ron Weasley would say, ‘Bloody Hell’!
The funny thing is, I have the television on as I’m writing this and Twister is on on Sky Modern Greats. I’ve seen this film dozens of times, if I notice it’s on, I’ll grab a cup of tea, change over and watch it. It’s one of my favourites, with the rekindled love between the two main characters, the epic tornadoes and the team’s pursuit to gain information about them so they can save lives. This need is particularly heightened and made more personal for the audience when the main character’s loveable aunt, who we’ve already met, is caught unaware by a tornado and nearly killed. The ending, while more than likely quite unrealistic, is still fantastic!
Anna and the King is such a heart wrenching tale, but definitely one to watch. Plus Tom Felton (the guy who plays Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter) is Anna’s son in it! He’s so young looking!
Ah, surely everyone knows Braveheart? The quotes from it are brilliant.
“Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you’ll live… at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin’ to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take… OUR FREEDOM!”
Who knew a board game could be so dangerous. If you hear those drums, run, especially if they’re coming from a Monopoly box, who knows what would happen if you were pulled in there! Haha. No, seriously, think about it, it’s quite a unique storyline, isn’t it? (this is where about a dozen people tell me there’s a hundred other ‘the board game came to life’ stories out there!) Again, there’s action, adventure, overcoming the odds and a love story in the middle of it all. It may be fantastical with crazy knife throwing monkeys (i loved them), hunters and monsoons, but fundamentally we can all relate to the characters and how they’re feeling. The feelings we have are just because of more mundane less dangerous reasons, we generally don’t have stampeding wild animals bursting through our houses.
Godzilla, he fed into my dinosaur obsession! I used to watch the old old Godzilla films too, where you could see the strings attached to the flying monsters! Haha.
Ah, Will Smith and Tommy Lee, could you ever fault a combination like that??
Magical tiny creatures fight against the giant, human loggers trying to destroy their home. Really great!
Another one up there on the pedestal with Twister. I’ve seen this a million times and I still get a bit teary-eyed when the president gives his speech as the soldiers are off to begin their aerial attack.
“Mankind.” That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences any more. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom… Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: “We will not go quietly into the night!” We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!
This is played EVERY Christmas in my house, particularly as we’re putting up the Christmas tree. I love the music and the Muppets! Bit early in the year for this I know, still a great song though!
So creepy, the black rider’s teeth are like a shark’s fangs, he always made my skin crawl! Absolutely great though and while it’s another Gothic type film from Johnny Depp, it’s a good one.
Honestly I got a bit tired of these films after awhile, but I still loved the first one when it came out. Da Da dada da….
The Lion King, need I say more? And every other Disney film that came out in the nineties should go here, I just figured it didn’t need to be said. 🙂
A Bruce Willis film, quite scifi-y and very different from his other movies, but brilliant nonetheless and a great ending!
The Mummy, I’ll include two and three in this, who doesn’t love them? They have an ancient love story, a modern one, magic, Egyptian everything (both Latimer and I at one point-separately too, we didn’t know each other at the time-both wanted to be Egyptianologists when we were younger! Crazy, eh?). There were also gun fights and handsome sword-wielding Medjai in these movies! While I’m aware they made four films, I only count the three with Rachel Weisz playing the mother as the proper ones, that last one, while it had Yetis, I didn’t really like it.
Cult classic. If you haven’t seen this, then you’re really missing out. It’s a skilfully made stop motion animation, Tim Burton is behind it (another one he also produced in the nineties was James and the Giant Peach). Nightmare Before Christmas also had catchy songs!
Loved the first film….I got lost though when I watched the rest of them 😀
Like Twister, but with a volcano!
Ah Pixar, I’ve loved all their films. This was the start of a fantastic trilogy.
‘Yippie-kai-yay….’ I love all of them.
Brilliant sound track by Aerosmith came along with this. The end of the world is upon us and we follow the struggles of the oil drilling team to save us all. This film is fantastic, I still well up in parts when I watch it too. Another great Bruce Willis film!
Even though everyone knew the ending going in, the ship sinks, it’s quite a touching film. You couldn’t help but be moved, knowing that ultimately it’s a true story. Obviously not the part with Leo and Kate falling in love and her throwing off the shackles of her class, no it’s the bit where hundreds of people perished in the horrific accident all those years ago. Absolutely heart-wrenching.
Once my favourite Bond, Pierce Brosnan has since been replace by Daniel Craig, how fickle I am! Still, fun films to watch!
Ah Nick Cage, personally I think it’s one of his best films! And John Malkovich is in this, you couldn’t go wrong with him!
And that’s just scratching the surface of what we used to watch in the 90s! (there was also My Neighbor Totoro, The Rescuers Down Under, Dragonheart, My Girl, Home Alone)
As you scroll down through the movie posters, for the ones you’ve seen, you remember them, don’t you? You remember the people, the story, how it made you feel, where you were when you first watched it? I know I do!
I’m not saying there aren’t good films being made now, there are, numerous ones, but for some of them these days, it looks like (not even trained!) monkeys pushed buttons and that was how they decided on what would happen in them. A lot of them really don’t feel like they’ll endure as long as some of the films made in the nineties have done-most of which have become modern greats.
Am I wrong? Do other people love these as much as me? No?
Latimer and Ridley hit the ‘beautification button’ and got dolled up for a photoshoot… no seriously… they did!
Ridley: We’ve been doing exciting things the last little while. Busy, busy! We got our structural edits back from our editor. So the last two and a half weekends, Friday night to Sunday evening, (with many cups of tea), in between colds and broken laptops, we’ve been working away through his notes. We’ve been changing, adding, rewriting and generally whimpering. The words, ‘location description’, have become despised at MLR central! Haha! It seems while we’re decent enough at the ole characters, setting them into a specific location and describing it is something we forget to do. (Sure, why do we need to do this, it’s in our heads, we see it, surely you all have telepathic powers and can see it too, no?? Haha.)
Latimer: It’s going really well. We feel pretty positive. Although writing a story is fun, it’s a lot of hard work, but every time we edit the story gets tighter. We are now nearing the ‘we are happy’ point! So onward, onward we go!
Ridley: Other than that, the second exciting thing we’ve been getting up to is we did a joint photo shoot a few weeks ago (I love saying this, we sound so professional! ‘I can’t do Saturday, I have a photo shoot to attend, shall I check my diary and I’ll get back to you?’ Ha!) Anyway, yes a photo shoot and before I run away with a massive hot air balloon sized head, it was a groupon voucher deal (a company that gives fantastic discounts on different things, from hotel breaks away, bean bags to teeth whitening!) Anyway, we jumped at the chance to do the photo shoot, not only was it something completely different, we wanted a nice author biography picture for both the Amazon author page and our blog.
Latimer: I’ve never been properly done up so this was great fun! My constant thought was, ‘well, however I look, it will be the best I can ever look, so, please God don’t let it be bad!’.
Ridley: Now, getting my picture taken is not one of my favourite past times. I think we were both worried that we’d be stiff and awkward in front of the camera. (Smile with your eyes people!) However, going in we’d decided we wanted it to be as natural as possible, no posing.
Latimer: I was worried it would take ages for us to warm up and then it would be over and we would be left with some very awkward photos!
Ridley: When we arrived at the studio (MFK on Dame Street, in Dublin), it was in an old building on the second floor. However, to get up there we had to walk through a Chinese herbal shop (I know, really weird, right?) The shop also happened to be closed. So it was dark when we walked in. Expecting to be met by glamorous studio people with flawless skin and high stilettos, we stopped and stared around at the giant jars filled with dried who knows what.
There was this little white door just in on the right with a black arrow and the words MFK studio. I reached out thinking that we had to duck in through it and maybe twist up some narrow winding stairs. I swung it open and tried to walk into an electric box. We burst out laughing. Eventually, we found the lift just around the corner.
Once upstairs, we had our makeup done and our hair styled for us. Then we were ushered up to a small room with a white backdrop (and a black one to the side) and giant spot lights (my eyes started watering at one point from them). The photographer was very welcoming. When we explained we had cups that we wanted in the photo (we wanted it to appear as if we’d been having a cup of tea and a chat).
I think she thought we were crazy, but then she said a few weeks ago, there was a woman who wanted to have tea cakes in her picture. (*Sigh* That would have been a great addition with the cup of tea! Haha.)
We had so much fun. The two of us and the photographer basically spent the whole time giggling, you should see some of the rejected photos, we’re bent over (we were telling her about how I walked into the cupboard downstairs). She let us in on the old trick of extras in the background of Fair City (Dublin based TV show) use the word, ‘rhubarb’, to appear as if they’re talking about something.
That cracked us up; the idea of all these people wandering around a television studio set mumbling rhubarb at each other while the main actors said their lines. So, of course, we started saying it. Anyway, by the end and shots later, here’s the two we picked!
Latimer: Hopefully they look like we are having a laugh and a bit of craic, Irish stylie!
Ridley: The only other time we had so much fun with a camera was when we were in Tokyo and we discovered the photo booths in their arcade centres, there’s loads of them (in the same building as the infamous pachinko parlours).
Latimer: These photos are called ‘purikura’ and are very popular with the ‘kids’.
Ridley: Each one have different effects, in the one we picked we had five seconds to copy different random J-pop poses before the camera flashed, then you can basically add loads of effects and random clip art to the resulting photos. This was the result.
Latimer: Very crazy pictures you have been warned! The people on the screen suggest the poses- we didn’t do them randomly… ah sigh well, here they are!
Latimer: A series of unfortunate events leads me to writing this entry. It’s basically a more somber version of Ridley’s.
Firstly, the number one thing you need to understand is my laptop is not a thing. It is actually an extension of myself; and so, I am currently suffering from phantom limb syndrome, because said extension has been removed from my person.
I should preface what comes below by stating emphatically I am a laptop addict. That’s a fact. And even though, I will often say this in a joking manner, I am in fact deadly serious. It’s not as insidious as a blatant addiction to say, alcohol or drugs, but actually it’s just as real. The scary thing, and the thing I often ignore, because it’s not something I like to dwell on, is that I am in fact addicted to my laptop and the internet. However, I think this is an expected addiction of the modern age (you can tell I’ve had a lot of time to dwell on it, in light of being separated from my laptop). The edge has been taken off by virtue of the fact that I own a smart-phone and therefore have an internet-based outlet.
The whole event started on Monday night.
I tried to turn on my laptop and it wouldn’t start. I tried again, and again and again. But my beloved was having none of it. I wasn’t as concerned as I expected I would be. Usually such an event is followed by nervous lip and finger biting, and heart palpitations (this, is what my naïve mind assumes is a very, very, very mild form of withdrawl symptoms!).
When things happen to my laptop, on this scale, my find is filled with white noise… a blankness as if someone has stuffed cotton wool into my brain, leaving me to float in a cloud of despair.
This despair was present but at very low, semi-undetectable, levels. I was able to breathe and knew there was nothing I could do. So I stopped trying and decided I would go to the ‘IT crowd’ in my college the next day and see what they could do.
I slept well that night. I was in the ‘acceptance of powerlessness’ stage!
The next day I handed it over to the IT crowd. That was like walking into a wondrous world I didn’t understand- the world of hope for the uninitiated! I know what technology can give me, but when it fails (as badly as it had) I’m lost, baffled, confuddled. It was like I was a child, handing over my laptop to God, going; ‘Pluh-ezz Mister, can you fix it?’
I left it with them and went to work. As I muddled around the lab, time ticked by and I thought; ‘this is not good’. Picture me, staring into space, pouring acid into beakers, a dazed expression on my face; ‘Pluh-ezz’.
The more time that passed, the more I slowly came to terms with the fact that I would be laptop-less for a while. I back-up my file regularly (I cannot stress the importance of this!), most recently that weekend, so I wasn’t getting as worried as I would have otherwise. I use my laptop for work; it has lots of project data on it. So, this is very serious!
To add injury to insult, my lab-based machinery broke down at a critical point in my experiment! I couldn’t help but laugh (though inside a tiny part of me died- this is not the first time this has happened either and it always seems to happen when I really need it to work- Murphy’s Law in play).
The whole day got me thinking on the importance of technology.
We need it for everything nowadays.
I need it for my work. I need it in so many ways to look at data and very importantly to find information. It’s like a giant library. Old school scientists used to talk about how ‘in my day I had to go through catalogues and mark out all the papers I wanted to read, then go to the library and get them to order the papers for me! It could take months!’ whereas today you go online and have access to everything and anything in seconds. If you are sitting somewhere and someone asks a mundane question, you can just google it and find the answer.
I started writing a blog post on a piece of paper- full of misspellings and so on. Holding the pen like it was an alien tool, staring at it, ‘how does one write?’.
It got me thinking on my, our, dependence on technology and how your vast world shrinks to a tiny spec in its absence.
As I wrote my blog post, I slowly realized; ‘if I don’t have a laptop, how the hell does this even get out there? Who’s going to read this?’
And more and more the world shrank around me.
And you know what else- I lost that bloody piece of paper! My words and thoughts were gone. Much like my laptop.
The long and short of it is this; my laptop is gone for good (that was something I did not expect on Monday!). Amazing how surprising a week can be!
I don’t know how it happened or why, but there it is. My hard-drive is possibly salvageable but I don’t know yet. I’ve lost some things that weren’t backed up, little parts of myself that I’ll forget until I wonder about them and realize they aren’t there anymore. My laptop was like a second brain or something; Cyber Latimer, my me-bot.
It will be replaced by another laptop that will subsequently also become a part of me. My data will, possibly, be transferred (that’s something I’ll let you know about)… but I am left thinking I have become something of a cyborg in my later years. I remember getting my first laptop and not knowing what to do with it (I hardly used it at all- and another fact is I’ve only ever had two laptops in my life, the first was secondhand).
I remember going on the internet for the first time thinking, ‘what the hell can I use this for? It’s boring I don’t see the point’
And I remember when I didn’t have any of these things. When I had to go to the encyclopedia, which never changed or updated, and had been written in the 80s, to find out things; then Encarta was the new big thing (God, what ever happened to damn Encarta? It was a big thing when I was a kid. All those expensive CDs that would tell you everything… and eventually nothing)… Ah, that was when the world was small.
Did you see in the Olympic Opening ceremony this year when Sir Tim Berners-Lee (who invented the internet) appeared near the giant house?… when he sent that message out into the crowd; This (the internet) is for everyone….? It gave me chills. It was fantastic.
The world’s great, free, web of connection; the thing that I now use to connect to you all, people I don’t know, people I’ve never seen before, but people who I now speak to; who I now share my thoughts with.
Being disconnected from it (in a proper sense without my laptop) for a few days made me think how much it connected me to things.
Ridley wrote an entry and posted it; while I was writing on a scrap of paper thinking; ‘how am I going to post this anyways? Who’s going to ever read this?’ No one as it turns out because I lost it.
But the point is, I felt powerless.
Of course, I’m writing this now, so you’ve realized that I have other methods of connection. I’m writing on my family’s laptop. But it’s like being in someone else’s house; I could fly around my own desktop and files like flying around my own mind. This is a disjointed, confusing environment.
My old baby is gone; the only one that was with me from her first days! My first real laptop that had only ever belonged to me; she’s gone.
We watched so many things together; we learned so much, we wrote so much, all together, me and cyber-me. I really will miss her.
Ridley: Apologies for the radio silence recently, we’ve been a little absent from the blogging and twittering world. Mainly because I’m down with a cold (What’s new! I’ve the immune system of a dead person!) and Latimer is currently banned from the internet. Well…her laptop is broken. Yes, I heard the collective wince. I winced even as I typed that. I will readily admit I’m an internet addict (and a chocolate and caffeine one, we all have our vices!) so that would be hell on earth for me (and it is for her too!). You really don’t realise how often you turn on your computer until you no longer have it!
Now, you’ll have to picture her pulling out her hair and pacing furiously, while simultaneously pleading and threatening her silent blank screen. I’m just hoping the IT peoples she brought it to can recover the information on it! I’d say she’d have had to hold back the urge to not punch the IT man as he dithered over whether he could fix it. I imagine it could have gone like this, (but for the fact that she’s a nice, polite self-restrained individual):
Latimer slams in through the glass door of the shop. It’s still fairly empty, having just opened a minute and a half ago. Her feet make a scratching sound as she scurries across their grey carpet, zipping in between the aisles of empty boxes advertising anti-viral software and straight to customer service. When she reaches the white counter, a man in a yellow t-shirt has his back to her. She swings her laptop bag around and slides onto the counter top.
“Help me…please.” She whispers. “It’s broken.”
The man jumps and twists round, dropping his pen. He blinks at her sudden appearance. “Wel-welcome to the IT help desk.” He stumbles and then swoops down under the desk to pick up his biro. “How can I help you?”
Latimer frowns at him and points at the black square bag. “It’s broken. I don’t know what happened. It won’t turn on.”
“Of course, well then you’ve come to the right place. Let me take a look.” He slides the laptop out and peers at the underside of it.
“So it won’t turn on…now, you did plug it in, right?” He asks.
Latimer’s hands drop down to her sides, her fingers twitch. She narrows her eyes. “Yes.”
He nods and opens it up. “Intel pentium core processor…good…”
“Hmm hmm…” Latimer’s fingers begin to drum against her thigh.
He examines it, there’s silence for a little while. Latimer bounces on the balls of her feet.
“So…” She bites her lip. “Does it look bad, can you fix it?”
He starts mumbling to himself. ‘Well…I suppose, I could try to…but then I don’t know if that would work. Hmm…’ He scratches his head with his blue pen. Latimer’s hands curl into fists. ‘I wonder if I…’
He turns the laptop round. He jams his pen behind his ear and jabs at a few keys, frowning down in intense concentration. Latimer leans in nodding, her eyes widen. “Yes?”
After a few moments, he draws back with a shake of his head. “No, the power button isn’t the answer anyway…”
*SMACK* Latimer throws down her laptop case.
“I’ll kill you!” She leaps over the counter and shakes the man by his collar. “Fix it! Fix it, god damnit!”
“No Latimer! It’s not worth it!” (Some random person who happens to know her shouts-as I’m not there, but if I was, ’tis what I would say! haha.)
People haul her off of him. He’s unscathed, but the same can’t be said for her. The police are called. It all ends up with her rocking in the corner of a damp mouldy cell, giggling and muttering to herself. “Fix it…fix…fix…fix….I’ll fix it…”
Her one phone call is made to Ridley-not a good idea this time (is it ever a good idea? haha).
Ridley is at home, her flowery covers have been tugged up to her chin. She’s shivering and sweating in bed. There are empty tubes of Tyrozet throat lozenges littering the floor in amongst scrunched up tissue paper and tatty brown cardboard toilet rolls.
She’s randomly hollering out words in her delirium.
“Nurofen!”
“Batman!”
Ridley often gets up and wanders to the kitchen like a grumpy Lurch, peering in the cupboard for things to make her feel better and making endless cups of tea.
When she returns to her room, she peers around.
“Who put these little flashing lights in my room, they won’t turn off!”
Then she realises they’re in her eyes.
A distinct overpowering whiff of TCP wafts from her to join the smell of cooking chicken that’s drifting up from downstairs. Her mother is in the kitchen, she’s like a witch over a cauldron with a big wooden spoon. Churning and churning a bubbling broth in a large saucepan. She’s making Chicken Penicillin and she’s tossing in vegetables, spices, whole chicken carcasses and chanting about, “Bone marrow and antibodies!”
Ridley gladly accepts anything to relieve the misery. She really doesn’t remember when she swallowed the barbed wire that is now stuck in her throat.
As she feasts on her soup, and having taken more drowsy medication, her mobile beside her rings.
“Hello?” She whispers in a hoarse voice.
“Ridley! Help me, my laptop is broken! And I’m in jail!”
Ridley pulls back and peers at the number on the screen. She puts the phone back to her ear. “Who is this?”
“What do you mean, who is this? It’s Latimer! You need to get me out of here, I need to fix my computer!”
Ridley yawns, her tablets begin to kick in. “I don’t understand…my brain it’s not…Lat I can’t help right now, ‘m sorry…ring back later.”
“What!? No, wait…”
Ridley hangs up and immediately nods off.
When she wakes up. She begins to remember the dream, which involved chicken soup and a phone call. She shuffles downstairs, trying to recall its ending. There’s a reporter in the kitchen. There are also two scientists in white coats, huddling over the grubby silver saucepan and poking at a raw onion.
“I’ve just won a prize!” Her mother beams. “I found the cure to the common cold!”
“Your mother’s made a massive break through.” The man at the kitchen table says with his head bent over his notepad.
“Has she.” Ridley nods to her mother. “Well done. Always said your soup was some good stuff.”
“Your phone keeps ringing, I just took it out of your room, as you were fast asleep and I didn’t want it to wake you.” Her mother hands her back her mobile.
“I’m sure it probably wasn’t important.” Ridley shrugs and scrolls down through the missed calls, the log shows numbers that get longer and more foreign with each hour. There are numerous text messages too.
“Ridley, I’m now in Panama. It’s quite hot here.”
2 hours later: “The Spanish is confusing me, amigo.”
7 hours later: “Could you send me sun cream?”
7 hours and 2 minutes: “Rid, how do you cure burns?”
8 hours later: “Slowly rising up the ranks, turns out one of the main mob bosses likes Lord of the Rings too. Lots in common.”
10 hours later: “Am now his right hand man…woman. Thinking of getting a tattoo. Ideas?“
12 hours later: “It’s a bit loco here at the moment, we’ve decided to stage a break out. I told them all about that one episode of ‘Prison Break’, I watched. It seemed to give them all ideas.“
15 hours later: “Success! On the way home, can you pick me up from the airport? I’ll show you my new tattoo! Arriving at 5.”
Ridley sighs and glances at the clock, it’s 4.30. Lights from a camera flash blind her. The reporter has started taking pictures of her mother holding up a soup bowl and a spoon.
“I’m going to go change. Gotta pick up Latimer.” Ridley turns to go climb back up the stairs and texts: “Fine. Going to be a little late though.”
She gets an immediate reply.
“No problem. BTW I’ve brought friends. See you in a bit 🙂 ”
And that, my friends, is how it all went down, in my head. Haha. Who knows what happens when I got to that airport. I was probably insanely jealous of Latimer’s great tan and cool tattoo (or horrific sun burn and hodge-podge black smudge?) Either way, fun times!
Need more sleep I think! 🙂
Thanks to freedigitalphotos.com for my pictures (except the TCP one,that’s all mine)
Ridley: We’ve been to the musical, Phantom of the Opera. Both Latimer and I went to see this in the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin (now renamed the Bord Gais Theatre, though everyone refuses to call it that!)
Latimer: It’s a real shame that the theatre was renamed, because the ‘Grand Canal’ makes it sound very opulent and grand, but the Bord Gais (‘Gas board’ in Irish.. because the Irish Gas Board sponsor it now) makes it cringe-worthy.
Ridley: It was really fantastic going though, name choice aside! I don’t often go to the theatre, but when I do go, I always wonder why I don’t do it more often, as I feel quite cultured! 🙂 The costumes were so vibrant, the set design was clever and the music just swept you along. If you ever get a chance to see this in theatres, go, you won’t be disappointed! Your eyes will just want to drink it all in!
Latimer: Myself and Ridley went to see Lord of the Rings, the soundtrack score in this theatre (‘Grand Canal’ at that point). I remember complaining that the seating was bad (we were about three rows from the front). And the layout felt very cramped.
But this time I was sitting on the upper circle and it was pretty fantastic. I recommend that seating area now! I went with my Mam and Aunt, and my Aunt has been to this theatre lots of times and she knows what seats to book now.
Ha. I suppose it’s trial and error.
And in introducing my Aunt, I introduce an old, old fact from the Grand Canal’s medieval past- a detour through time now if you will!
Outside the theatre, there are many red poles (as you see above).
Ridley, did you ponder, what these meant? I didn’t give them a second thought, only thinking; ‘oh, some arty poles’.
Ridley: I have asked before ‘what’s with the red sticks’ but no one ever knows! I’m sensing you do…
Latimer: Ah, my Aunt told me that they mean something…
There’s a street opposite the theatre called Forbes Street. And in medieval Dublin this was were the lepers were sectioned (it was known as ‘Misery Hill’).
The red poles are symbolic of the saying, ‘I would not touch them with a barge pole’ in reference to the lepers.
Very eerie now in that respect eh?
By night the poles are lit. The above picture is them after the show was finished!
Well now… back to the Phantom! I agree that the set-design was fantabulous! My god I couldn’t get over it. Ridley, please, explain the story if you will…
Ridley: Well, most people know the story of Phantom of the Opera. For those that don’t, it’s basically a tragic love story. The phantom is a deformed man, a ghost who lives in the depths of a theatre. He falls in the love with the young and beautiful Christine Daaé. He watches her from the shadows and teaches her to sing without revealing himself. She believes he is her Angel of Music, a being from heaven sent by her father to watch over her. It is the phantom that arranges for Christine to get her first big break in the theatre. He bullies and forces the owners to feature her as their star. While she is singing as the lead in the play, her childhood friend Raoul sees her and they reconnect. Thus begins the dangerous love triangle, where Christine must decide between her old friend and her Angel of Music.
The 2004 movie with Gerard Butler is the version that I know best. Not a bad version of the phantom to love, Gerard Butler, eh? Teehee. It’s a bit like Doctor Who, everyone has their favourite Doctor and everyone has their favourite phantom! Gerard is mine! (I also have the soundtrack from this version of the Phantom of the Opera and I play it often. It’s really beautiful.)
Now, I’ve always thought Christine should have chosen the phantom over Raoul. My view on this has never changed, no matter how many times I’ve seen the musical-either in the theatre or in the cinema. Raoul’s affections always seemed so fleeting and shallow. He only remembers his love for her when he hears her singing at the opera-after she’s become the lead performer. Whereas the phantom has loved her all this time, helping her and protecting her…
Dramatic, mysterious, passionate and powerful, that is what the phantom is for me. I’ve always found myself drawn to him. I suppose I’ve always liked the bad boy, the evil genius. The phantom had the swirling black cape, a mask framing eyes that captivated and a hidden lair that he filled with haunting music. At the same time, he was damaged and vulnerable in some ways. Raoul was always pathetic compared to him. He also certainly didn’t get the massive swells of music from the organ at his sudden appearance.
With regards to Christine, I don’t think I’ve ever liked her as a character. On one hand, I can understand that she’d be terrified of the phantom, having been suddenly kidnapped by him. He is quite menacing. But I can’t seem to shake the soft spot I have for him, despite being a kidnapper and a murderer (I seemed to have glossed over this part in past versions, I’d forgotten about it but I was abruptly reminded he killed a stage hand, when I watched the musical in the theatre the other day! The sympathy I feel for the phantom is certainly diminished when I take this into account, so I generally have to forget this happens!)
I think that Christine uses the phantom. She preys on his vulnerable side, the side that has never seen friendship or love. He’s had only hatred, disgust and fear thrown at him. Without him, her career wouldn’t have progressed as far as it did, nor would she have been able to sing like she does. She plays on his affections for her and then betrays him in the end.
Latimer: Actually watching it all again, in this form, I can understand her not loving the Phantom though. Because he wasn’t sympathic and he was pretty ruthless. I remember in the movie thinking, ah she should have picked the Phantom (I was annoyed that she didn’t to be honest!).
Yet in this musical version (possibly the real version- aside from the book!), I felt it was all mixed up, I didn’t like the Phantom. The characters I really liked were the two men who buy the theatre at the start. I found them funny and enjoyable (light-hearted among the grimness). My Aunt saw it in London and said that this Dublin version has been cut down alot, so we missed out on some backstory etc
Ridley: The funny thing is that all changes in the sequel to Phantom of the Opera, which I never realised existed! It’s called Love Never Dies, and I have some major problems with it. (Spoiler alert here)
Latimer: This is beyond ridiculous…!
Ten years after the events of Phantom of the Opera, the phantom tricks Christine and Raoul into coming to New York, where he wants to hear Christine sing once again (I’d like to point out, his love for her still hasn’t faded!) Christine has a son, Gustave. It turns out that this is the phantom’s son! (My jaw dropped at this! Latimer: what the Dicken’s? haha, this is just so bad!) Never, not once is there ever any hint that Christine and the phantom were in anyway intimate in the musical or the films. Perhaps this occurs in the book? (which i’ll admit I haven’t read, so i’m very open to being corrected on this) Not only this, through the phantom’s scheming, he convinces Raoul to leave Christine, which he does-without any fighting to save their marriage! Then suddenly it seems Christine has always loved the phantom and she finally stops fighting against this love. Based on the musicals I’ve seen, I would have always said she’d felt nothing but pity and disgust for him. Perhaps at most, she had an affection for her Angel of Music, but no this undying love.
Latimer: She found this false, undying love very quickly, considering how she left things in the Opera house in Phantom of the Opera. I’m still shaking my head at this. It was obviously fabricated in light of creating another cash cow.
Incidentally, he’s (the Phantom) running a theme park in Coney Island when we meet him again in ‘Love Never Dies’. And it’s called Phantasma… oh my…. oh my…
Ridley: Well, also, the other final thing I have a problem with is when Gustave finds out the phantom is his father. He decides to stay and join him at the theme park in New York, instead of following after Raoul when he leaves. Raoul is the man he’s known all his life, the one he’s always considered his father and yet he wanders off with this random stranger instead? What? Would that really happen? I don’t think so! Hmm…
All the same, despite all my nit-picking and wish to change the ending, I still love the story! I think there are quite a number of people out there that love it too, or am I wrong? 🙂
Latimer: While I really enjoyed my trip to the theatre and also, the set design and experience of the musical was just amazing, I don’t actually like the story of Phantom of the Opera.
But still, it was a nice night! Also, random that we both attended separately, but we have joined together, like bubbles caught in an updraft to write this post. After-which we’ll pop, likely never to speak of it again! Ha 🙂
Latimer: Okay, so in this post I well and truly get my nerd on. What follows is an indulgence of my science fetish!
It might come as a surprise that I am a factual being, when my dreams are so rooted in the fantastical. But sometimes the truth is just as mysterious and awe-inspiring as the dream. I think that science is the great dream; the greatest mystery.
Recently I went to a general science conference, covering everything under the sun. It was the European Science Open Forum (ESOF) which was held in Dublin this year (Dublin is the City of Science for 2012 🙂 ).
This conference was incredible; for a start the program included five Nobel Laureates. Heavy-hitters as I was calling them.
The conference had two speakers that without a doubt I had to see: Prof. James Watson and Dr. Craig Venter. They’re like celebrities in science.
Now, you may or may not know who these men are. If you don’t, let me explain…
A conversation with James Watson
Professor James Watson, co-discoverer of the struture of DNA
Prof. James Watson co-discovered the structure of DNA in the 50’s with Dr. Frances Crick. He is quite an incredible man- at 84yrs of age, he is still active in research today!
The talk was a ‘conversation with James Watson’. It was very interesting. He can be quite controversal though.
He wrote a book called How to Avoid Boring People; one interest thing he said was to avoid being in a room with more than 2 Nobel Laureates (you have to laugh at the likelihood of that happening).
Watson said he hated going to the Nobel meetings because you end up with 10 Nobel Laureates in a room and they are incredibly boring. He snorted thinking you’d have to be boring to be one and that he was the exception.
It was amazing to get the opportunity to see him.
Dr. Craig Venter: ‘From Reading to Writing the Genetic Code’
Dr. Craig Venter, the background shows the cover of Science, the journal in which his group published their sequencing of the human genome in 2000
Dr. Craig Venter, sometimes called the ‘bad boy’ of science, was involved in the sequencing of the human genome. There were two groups racing to sequence the human genome at the time; the public group led by Dr. Frances Collins and the private group lead by Venter.
Venter had declared to the public group that his company could sequence the genome faster and for cheaper than they could. This kicked off the race between the two groups, leading to the genome being sequenced far faster than the public group had estimated it would be (3yrs ahead of the expected time-frame).
Craig Venter’s synthetic micro-organism, a bacteria called Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0
In recent years, more famously perhaps, Venter’s research group made the first synthetic organism.
It was very interesting to hear what his group (or an assembly of many groups) was up to and also to hear his thoughts on the future of science.
He believes, for example, that in the future, during disease outbreaks, it will be possible for people to download vaccines from the internet and use boxes, containing his technology, to synthesize the vaccines themselves.
What an amazing thought eh? And not that farfetched.
Prof. Brian Greene: ‘The State of String Theory’
Professor Brian Greene
This was an incredible talk (even though I don’t do or understand Physics!). I am fascinated by the science of the universe.
Did you know- the heavy elements in our body came from the heart of an exploding star? All the particles that make up this universe have always been and always will be; how incredible is that?
It leaves you with a sense of belonging to the universe.
Prof. Greene also mentioned the multiverse- the notion that we are only one of many universes.
If these multple universes exist, it is believed that they would collide with one another and cause ripples to pass through each universe.
Prof. Greene said, if we could detect these ripples, we could prove the existence of other universes. He said people were working on searching for these ripples (and they would be possible to find, if they exist).
Wow.
The infamous strings of String Theory… hypothecially!
Specifically though, Prof. Greene was talking about String Theory.
The idea behind it is that, if proven, it would be the unifying theory of physics- explaining all the parts that make up the whole universe and the energy in it.
It is a very complicated idea, and one that I can’t explain- so I found this brilliant TED talk that Prof. Greene gave (and it’s very similar, down to the letter in some parts, to the talk I heard). It’s about 20mins long, but it’s fascinating and he explains it in a clear way, so it’s easy to follow, if you are interested, I highly recommend it!
I left his talk feeling invigorated, awed and amazed. I had to jot down all I could remember.
Prof. Rolf-Dieter Heuer: The search for a deeper understanding of our universe at the Large Haldron Collider: the world’s largest particle accelerator
Large Haldron Collider at CERN
I couldn’t miss this talk. CERN is all over the media at the moment.
Prof. Rolf-Dieter Heuer (a particle physicist and Director General of CERN) was talking about the Higgs Boson. Which he said, if you ask him professionally he would say, ‘we have probably found it’, if you ask him personally he would say, ‘we have found it’.
Scientists, we are always so careful!
Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN
He was a brilliant speaker, very funny and very interesting.
Professor Peter Higgs, Theoretical Physicist who first predicted the existence of the Higgs boson
Briefly (and in a very simple way, because I am no physicist!), the Higgs Boson, when found (as it likely has been), would prove the existence of the Higgs field.
The Higgs field is the way a particle gains mass (by interacting with the field). The stronger the interaction with the field, the larger the mass of the particle.
The field also has a peculiarity, in that, it can interact with itself.
So, again, a particle gains mass by interacting with the Higgs field, in theory, but in order to prove that the field exists at all- you must find the Higgs boson.
But why?
Why would finding the Higgs boson prove the existence of the Higgs field?
Prof. Heuer had a brilliant way of explaining the reason why:
He used this analogy: if he walked into a room full of journalists (representing the Higgs field). He could pass through the crowd, unnoticed, because they don’t know who he is.
The journalists don’t react to him.
Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN… pointing!
However, if Einstein passes through the crowd, the journalists will react and crowd in on him.
And so Einstein gains mass (which is what the Higgs field does to particles).
The more known to the journalists, the more massive that person becomes (as they are all crowding in on them).
This is an explanation of how a particle gets mass in the Higgs field.
But, Prof. Heuer said, if for example he whispers a rumour into the room of journalists. They start to crowd in on each other, saying, “what did he say? Oh? Who?”.
This is a self-interaction of the field.
This forms the Higgs boson- self-interaction of the Higgs field= Higgs boson!
WOW! We all cheered. What a perfectly simple explanation of something I did not understand at all.
Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN “So, particle physics is really easy!!”
After he explained this, Prof. Heuer said: “So, particle physics is really easy!” (His wry smile implied he was making a funny; everyone laughed).
You might wonder, this is all very well and good, but how does the Higgs boson help us really?
Well, Prof. Heuer made this point; the internet was developed in the 80s at CERN. It was developed by the scientists so they could transmit their research to one another in a quick manner. At the time, they didn’t envisage any other purpose for the internet. But in later years, obviously they realised it could be used for other things. And it was only later that other uses became known.
Prof. Heuer doesn’t know yet what the Higgs boson can be used for, but in the future who knows?
I really loved this talk.
Prof. Heuer is amazing. I want to go to CERN and follow him around and have cups of tea with him and get him to tell me about the universe!
Would it freak him out? If I was in his shadow, with a cup of tea in one hand and a notepad in the other, going:
“Okay Rolf, tell me about the universe!” Latimer
“How did you get in here?!” Rolf
“I live here now…” Latimer
“Security!” Rolf
“Shush; I locked them in the Large Hadron Collider- anyway, let’s talk physics!” Latimer.
Ha…
‘What does Art bring to Science?’
Moving away from Physics now, I also went to a series of talks on; ‘What does art bring to science?’
The most interesting of these was the story of an American painter, William Utermohlen, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. This of course is incredibly sad, but Mr. Utermohlen gave a valuable, as before unseen insight into this progressive, destructive disease, by charting its progression with his self-portraits:
I found them haunting and somewhat disturbing to be honest, particularly the final portrait. It does illustrate a clear decline though, in a media that had not previously been shown.
It gaves the disease a very human element.
This was a very interesting talk; Mr. Utermohlen’s story really stuck with me.
Prof. Christian Keysers: ‘The Empathic Brain’
Professor Christain Keysers
Carrying on from this, I delved a bit more into the brain.
This was a brilliant talk about the biological basis of empathy. Prof. Keysers gave an overview of empathy research.
He explained to us that empathy is not localised in a single area of the brain, rather empathy for different things is localised in different areas of the brain.
So, people with damage to the brain, could loose the ability to feel certain types of empathy, but retain the ability to feel other types.
In terms of loosing the ability to feel empathy, Prof. Keysers said, if you loose the ability to feel e.g. disgusted, then you also loose the ability to feel the empathic disgust of others.
There was an interesting study carried out, where two groups, one male one female, were shown a card game. While they watched, the researchers monitored their brain activity.
The groups were shown a person playing fair and a person cheating, and winning. The cheater was punished and given an electric shock.
While watching the fair plays, both men and women had the same empathy levels. While watching the cheater being shocked, women had slightly reduced empathy, but they still had some empathy (sharing the cheater’s pain at being shocked).
However, men had no empathy while watching the cheater being shocked- in fact, it had activated a reward sensation in the brain! Indicating that the men were happy to see the cheater being punished, while the women were still empathising with the pain the cheater felt!
This begged the question of men and war, versus women and war. That perhaps there might be more psychological impact on women and this perhaps should be monitored more carefully.
Interesting right?
There was also a study carried out on ‘reading about emotions’. This study showed that people could empathise by reading; for example, they had a paragraph describing something disgusting and people felt disgusted by reading it.
The study suggested that people who read more may have more heightened empathy; but the reason why is not known.
Is it because people read more, that they have more empathy? Or is that they get more out of reading because they have the ability to empathise more with the characters (and that’s why they read more)?
Prof. Keyser mentioned something his old poetry teacher, from school, told him and it sort of stuck with me in terms of writing.
The teacher said that if you want to describe a person sailing on the ocean for the first time, don’t tell your readers what the ocean looks like, they already know- tell them about the person.
Tell them about their expressions. This is more informative, because this way they empathise more.
And in a scientific sense, you are activating the right parts of a person’s brain to feel attachment to your characters. So talk about the person, not the scenery.
Prof. Keyser wrote a book called The Empathic Brainand it’s a self-published one.
It describes an overview of empathy studies (not just his own). I haven’t read it, I did buy it though, it’s waiting on the Kindle- with many others, ha. But he said it was for everyone, so it’s not written in an overly scientific way.
Well, the conference was absolutely amazing.
I wanted to share some of the things I learned, though I appreciate that I might have rambled on a little. I hope it was clear and maybe a bit interesting in some way!
Being at this conference reaffirmed my love for science 🙂
Latimer: I’m not a festival goer- let’s just say that straightaway.
I’ve been enjoying a few gigs, here and there. I like the intimate setting of a small venue. But the first and only major music event I attended was when I was a wee child of fifteen. Ridley was there too. It was Slane castle; we went to see The Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
Myself and Ridley were well out of our depth. We were lost on a hill with heavy drinkers, heavy party-ers, no tea and most importantly no creature comforts.
She won’t like me saying this, but we spent hours on that parched hill, in the blistering sun, wondering, when, when could we just go home! It was torture. While our other friends swayed, we guarded bags. I remember someone actually came into our protective circle, picked up my friend’s bag and walked away. Determined I plunge after her, and nabbed it back (sounds more forceful than it was, I literally just took it back!).
The sad thing about this is, we actually got so annoyed by being there that we both left before the ‘Chilli’s’ even started. Ridley does find this a bit cringe-worthy to this day. It’s not a story that would make music-lovers treat you well!
So, the Phoenix Park was, ‘ding-ding’, round 2 for me.
First off, the Phoenix Park is a very nice park in Dublin. Though Sunday was a very grey and rainy day, so picture quality was limited.
Phoenix Park is where our President lives, in Áras an Uachtaráin (‘house of the president’). As we walked in, I was asking ‘is this the Áras? Is that the Áras? Where is the damn Áras?’ to which a mutual friend of mine and Ridley’s, Orbie, said, ‘it’s over there! I was in the Áras once, I shook Mary Robinson’s hand.’
I gaped at her, I had known her years and never once heard this story. Why I pressed? Why was she in the Áras?
‘I was at a Saw Doctors concert in the garden’. That was plain weird. Now, I wanted to know why were the Saw Doctors playing a concert in Mary Robinson’s garden?
It was a pretty rainy day. We were kitted out in cheap welly-boots bought in the Irish retailer of Primark goods (Pennys) (probably the equivalent of Wall-MART, though I’m only guessing at that, as I’ve never been inside a Wall-MART before… though for some reason, I want to go to one!).
We were all moving in a pack. It seemed like everyone was going to the concert. Everyone knew each other by their wellys and rain-jackets- basically everyone was a walking Penny’s advertisement. I saw my boots repeated too many times to count over the course of the day.
By the time we got to the concert, we were already talking about how great our wellys were and how we were ready for muck-war. And muck-war we got. I have never experience such a vast amount of muck before in my life. We were herded into the main arena, through cattle gates. Patted down and checked for alcohol. I snapped a picture of a girl dressed as a cow going through the gates.
I found out later that said girl was stowing lots of bottles of vodka in her udders, and was subsequently ejected from the arena.
Once inside the arena, I scouted the field- food, check, toilets, yuck, check… massive stage dominating the skyline check! Hurrah, we’d made it!
We staked out a spot by one of the massive hoists near the stage. A meeting spot if anyone got lost. The concert started with The Temper Trap- they were good, but not as good as I thought they’d be. Somehow I don’t think I’m feeling their new stuff.
But I love the old album… when they played Fader, the crowd surged!
Afterward, we waited for Florence and the Machine to set up. That was taking a while; Orbie decided she wanted a drink. So I went with her to the O’Brien’s sandwich trailer. As we waited to be served- Florence appeared on stage.
Orbie looked back at me, her face panicked, “NO!” she mouthed as Flo started singing. I waded back into the mud, to look up at the stage.
When Orbie got her drink, we struggled back to the stage. But people were surging forward now, a massive crowd. We ducked and wove through them; we couldn’t move too quickly because the muck was sticky and I was panicking over what would happen if I fell out of my boots!
I wove through a huddled circle of people- protecting their drinks between them.
I overstepped them, Orbie hot on my tails. Orbie raced up behind me; “They were so mad at you! They pushed me back!”
“Stupid place to leave their drinks!” I declared continuing onward. No one would stop me from seeing Florence! Bah, I thought, Bah to them… (yet, I’m still thinking, oooppss maybe i shouldn’t have done that!)
Florence was an angel. She jumped, and floated around the stage like a force of nature. There was something very ethereal about her. She’s a free spirit. She wore a flowing dress and gliding down to slap the hands of her adoring fans, who were straining to reach her.
One banner read ‘Hey Flo, want to shake it out with me later?’ another stated ‘Flo! Marry me!’.
When Florence asked people to get up on each other’s shoulders and sway- they did. When she asked people to jump, to sing- they did! It was like for that split moment we were her giant, multi-person-ed, puppet.
And of course when she sung Dog Days the crowd almost imploded in on itself…
Her set reminded me how great her Ceremonials album is… wow..
Once Florence disappeared, telling us repeatedly how much she loved Ireland, and therefore us (we took it with solemn nods, with accepting, slight shrugs, ‘but of course Florence, of course’). Orbie and I raced off to Wok n’ Fry for some Pad Thai noodles- for which we waited at least 40mins. By which time Snow Patrol (who I was repeatedly referring to as Snow Play) had appeared on stage. I looked at Orbie and said, “I want my Pad Thai though!”
Pad Thai in tow, we stumbled back to the stage; mud wrestling had started up and various drunken girls and boys had started to toss each other around the field.
Myself and Orbie stood with our Pad Thai and watched Snow Patrol, happy smiles on our faces as the world turned to muck around us.
Snow Patrol were brilliant. While I preferred Florence’s music, I found that Snow Patrol got the crowd going in a way Flo hadn’t. But then, maybe she had warmed us up?
I’m not a massive Snow Patrol fan- I don’t even have one of their albums, however, everyone knows Chasing Cars, and when it started, I swayed, gobbling down my yummy noodles (with wedge of lime and heap of coriander- the ‘crowd divider herb’ I’m starting to realise- Orbie despises it- but I think it’s KING of herbs).
We had been in the park since 5pm. It took us about 2hours all in all to get to the stage from town. It was Sunday evening, my back and feet were killing me. The rain had left us in a murky haze for the entire day. But it was all somehow very cool.
Like a crowd of confused zombies, we waded out of the muck and started the walk out of the Park at 11pm. By this time, the crowd was full of drunk people- to be honest a lot of people were drunk going in- well, listening to people talking got to be very funny… one conversation;
Man: “Stop talking to me like I’m stupid… I’m not stupid… I pick up languages like a tick picks up *BLEEHH!*” (wherein he, well, got sick)
Woman to the above man: “AHHH! I thought we’d gotten rid of you!” Which begged the question, had they come to the Park just to lose him?
The woman and her friends started singing a song; like they were racing on horses, the ‘na na na nananananananahhh nanananana ananah’. It has no words, it’s just sounds.
Man (same as before) chirps up again: “Ah, is that Spanish? Are you’s speaking Spanish?”
I nearly died laughing.
We finally plodded out of the park and passed this interesting piece of graffiti on the way. The book spines were left blank and a message had been left on the bottom, stating ‘add your own’. So people had written their favourite books names on the spines- there was even a Chinese one there, which was pretty cool.
When we got home again, we debated what to do with our mucky boots as we have no outdoor space. We left them soaking in a basin and went to bed at 1am.
The following day, the dreaded Monday, I was so tired I wanted to cry.
Ridley: I’ve been wandering Ireland and I’m back from Yeats country (Yeats country being Sligo, in the West of Ireland!).
Latimer and I have decided we’d like to see more of our own country, we’ve such amazing landscapes and tourist attractions but we really don’t appreciate them. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t been to a lot of our most famous spots. So we decided to change the record this year. We’re lining up a few mini-adventures in the coming weeks, which we will, of course, be sharing with you!
Starting this was a solo adventure of my own to my fantastic relatives in Sligo, who put me up for the weekend. We all socialised into the wee hours. They have an absolutely entrancing view of the sea; I caught myself staring out the window quite a number of times at the continuously changing landscape. It’s completely solidified my desire to one day live by the sea!
While we were there we took a detour to Drumcliffe, which is just a ten minute drive from Sligo itself. This beautiful church yard rests within the large shadow of the arresting mountain that can be seen no matter where you are in Sligo. This of course is Ben Bulben, which is immortalised in Yeat’s poem ‘Under Ben Bulben’. At this church site, you will find three things of interest, well four if you count the church! There is a magnificent High Cross, the ruins of a Round Tower and the resting place of W.B. Yeats.
In a grassy cemetery filled with mossy ancient graves is one of the finest examples left in Ireland of an 11th Century High Cross.
It is truly beautiful, magnificent even. I’ve always wanted to visit one. The West shaft of the cross holds scenes from the New Testament, a camel and two unknown figures in high relief. The East side shows Adam and Eve, Cain slaying Abel, Daniel in the Lions’ Den and Christ in Glory.
They are often known as Preaching crosses as they had ‘sermons carved in stone’ on them; these crosses enabled people to tell stories from the bible. Almost like stone books. Even if you aren’t remotely religious, visit it for the pure craftsmanship of these engravings, the intricate designs and also to marvel at its height. It’s 3.38 meters high and it towers over the rest of the graveyard, which once belonged to a former abbey. Couldn’t you imagine the tales that old engraved stone could tell? Of monks gliding by it in their brown habits, with their arms wrapped around precious books filled with ornately decorated manuscripts.
The Round Tower nearby is even older than the cross; it was built in the 10th century.
It would have even more stories to tell; perhaps it could whisper of chaotic Viking attacks as it sheltered the monks safely within its thick walls. It would have witnessed so much as it stood for so long, high above the landscape observing the sea, the mountains and of course Sligo, where it is the only known example of a Round Tower to have existed in the county. Now though it is a ruin, barely half of it is still there, as in 1396 it was struck by lightning (Thor, a god worshipped by the Vikings, exacting his revenge for thwarting his people perhaps!) and then most of the tower was dismantled to build a nearby bridge.
There is a local legend that the last of the tower will fall on top of the wisest person who passes under it- so I kept well clear of it, naturally! 😛
The third thing of interest there is the grave of W.B. Yeats, one of Ireland’s most famous poets. His grandfather was Rector of Drumcliffe and despite Yeats being born in Dublin, his heart belonged to Sligo.
He was buried right next to the stone church, which I might add is beautiful inside. Even the doors to the building are decorated. The bronze swan handles are a nod to Yeat’s poem ‘The Wild Swans at Coole.’ Inside, the back wall over the altar immediately draws the eye.
Though before entering there was this charming poster, they seem to have a problem with pious pigeons! There were a number of stone plaques along the walls, not to mention the arched stone glass windows and the organ up above in the gallery.
Yeats wrote very inspiring poetry and it’s not surprising when he had landscapes, like those found in Sligo, surrounding him.
He also drew a lot of ideas for his works from Irish mythology and folklore, which are filled with rich tales of warrior maidens, Chieftains, druids and ancient magic (another burial place in Sligo is the cairn of Queen Maeve. One day I will walk to the top of that particular ‘hill’ to see it!).
Also a powerful inspiration for his poetry was the Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne. He met her in 1889, and proposed to her four times over a ten year period. He was turned down each time. His unrequited love for Maud has always been a source of fascination for me. She is forever immortalised in his words, made famous by them, however she was never able to return his affections despite his efforts. Rather sad for a man who seemed to have spent his life searching; searching for love, the meaning to his existence, for things ‘not of this world’- Yeats was extremely interested in the occult and the supernatural, something else that can be seen in his writing. In his book ‘The Identity of Yeats’ Richard Ellmann states that Yeats ‘does not offer a fixed set of positions at the end of his life.’ It seemed he was always questioning, always searching and never definite on anything.
Perhaps this is why so many people connect with his poetry, aren’t we all searching for something? Meaning? Love? Happiness?
Perhaps this is why despite his death in 1939, his memory still endures and his words still inspire people?
If you want a thought provoking day out, one filled with beautiful poetry, magnificent crosses and fabulous views, pop on over by way of Sligo and visit Drumcliffe! You’ll feel all the wiser for it but then don’t go strolling passed any Round Towers afterwards!
What does Latimer do without a laptop?
Carwicky 
