Happy Halloween! Tonight is the actual night, though all the activity seems to be on the weekend either side. I did see one lone trick-or-treater out with her mother earlier in the evening but no one has come knocking at our door so the silver chocolate coins are sitting in the cupboard looking rather forlorn. (They had run out of gold coins at the store, so I had to make do with silver ones. They were the same price and it’s bound to be the same rubbish chocolate underneath but I feel slightly cheated, as if they are somehow less valuable).
As a child I remember going trick-or-treating in groups of children without adult supervision. We didn’t go when we were really small but I went from the age of eight sometimes with younger kids in tow, like my cousin Kim. Halloween wasn’t massive in Sydney in the 1980s so a lot of people weren’t really expecting us. Despite this we always managed a good haul of yummy stuff to eat – it’s amazing how many people still had sweets or biscuits in the house as a matter of course. I remember one year there were just four of us and only my friend Jenny and I wanted to try a particular house – we were so delighted when they gave us a little clown doll each and of course, the other two were very jealous.
Halloween is often billed as an American festival but it isn’t really. All Hallow’s Eve is a pagan festival that was celebrated in Britain until relatively recently but more or less fell out favour, and is now coming back via our trans-Atlantic cousins. Also the tradition of trick or treating has a lot in common with the tradition of dressing up the Guy and wheeling him around in a barrow asking for pennies on the day before Guy Fawkes Night.
Guy Fawkes Night is a great festival, involving bonfire parties and firework displays. My aunt in Cardiff holds a bonfire party for Guy Fawkes Night every year – unfortunately I can’t go this year as it’s on a Sunday night and I need to work in London the next day.
I love Halloween but I hope it doesn’t replace Guy Fawkes Night. The retailers have figured out they can sell more junk food and cheap costumes for Halloween so it’s got more of a marketing backing and everyone seems to be going for Halloween in a big way this year. I’ve been invited to three different parties (two were last Saturday and I only made one and the third is our neighbour’s party this coming Saturday), there are Jack-O-Lanterns on the window ledges of the house opposite, and the shops seem to be full of Halloween stuff (at least it delays the onset of Christmas). However, I think it’s a bit of a temporary fad and the bonfire night tradition will remain strong. Ultimately it will be a mix of both. It’s just a shame they are only five days apart as it means they tend to merge together.
Last week’s party was at the house of my friend Liz, who I used to work with in Australia. She’s been over here for a year and working at The Times but I’ve managed to miss seeing her until now. It was a great night. I knew Liz and Sophie, another colleague, and I met lots of other nice and interesting people. I went as a Dark Angel, my boyfriend as a skeleton in a pin-stripe suit, our two hostesses were also skeletons, and we also had witches, fairies, pumpkins, zombie doctors, and euthanasia doctor Harold Shipman. The best costume was a close run between a guy dressed as Wolverine in the original comic book outfit and Sophie as Amy Winehouse – but I think the Amy costume won. My boyfriend took along his Tarot cards and did some readings, and there was also dancing and much eating, drinking and merriment.
I defy anyone to watch this video of James Blunt singing about triangles on Sesame Street and not smile. And kudos to Blunt for taking the piss out of himself so brilliantly.
Check out this freaky optical illusion of a woman dancing. Apparently, if you see her spinning anti-clockwise you are a left-brain dominated person – that is, someone dominated by logic, facts and details. This is the way most people apparently see it. However, if you see her spinning clockwise, then you are right-brain person – a creative person led more by the big picture.
I have to say that I’m sceptical. On every other test I score as left brain and I’m good at logic puzzles such as Sudoku. However, I can’t for the life of me, get her to spin anti-clockwise. I only see her as spinning clockwise, which supposedly makes me right brain.
I should also add that I’m sceptical of left brain / right brain theory as well. As far as I understand it, the whole notion has been largely discredited – though it seems to persist in the popular imagination, along with notions about men being from Mars and women from Venus. My belief is that every human being has a capacity for both imagination and rational thought and the two things are not polar opposites.
It’s still a cool optical illusion though. Which way do you see the dancer turning? Can you get her to change direction? I haven’t managed so far, though others can so I know it’s possible.
The art fair has galleries exhibiting from all over the world and it’s absolutely enormous. We wandered fairly randomly, stopping when we saw something interesting. There was lots to see but nothing I fell in love with.
I left Emme there at lunch time and headed over to Hyde Park for the Sunday Stroll. Today we headed west to Parsons Green, via Chelsea and back via Earls Court. Many of the roads were recently resurfaced and were lovely and smooth. It was still a good work-out but just lovely to be outside and enjoying London in autumn.
Then tonight, drinks at the pub with my boy, followed by roast autumn vegetables and quiche.
I should probably see a psychiatrist. I’m obviously insane since I’ve gone and pledged my November to the task of writing a novel in 30 days.
I’ve signed up to NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month, except it’s actually international. The idea is that you have to write a novel in a month – a minimum of 50,000 words in order to qualify. There are 30 days in November so that averages out at around about 1667 words per day. Every day.
It can be done, apparently. Last year 13,000 people finished their novels. Okay, so 79,000 people started, meaning 66,000 people didn’t finish, but I prefer to look on the bright side.
The idea is not to create a work of art – as the website says, “you will be writing a lot of crap”. The focus is on output – quantity, not quality. Maybe I’ll create something worth editing, or maybe I’ll throw it away.
What I hope to achieve is that I’ll teach myself how to write a novel and I’ll give myself confidence that I can do it. One of my goals this year was to write a novel and since it’s mid October and I haven’t started, this seems like the only way it’s going to get done. I’m a great procrastinator and this should hopefully help me overcome the hurdle of starting, which is sometimes the hardest bit. I need to give myself permission to write crap, otherwise I’ll never start. Since it’s almost inevitable that I’ll write crap during NaNoWriMo, it seems like a reasonable way to start.
I can start at midnight on November 1 and I have to reach the 50,000 word mark by midnight on November 30. I imagine there will be many times when I’ll want to give up – apparently week two is particularly bad for most people. But I also hope that, by going public and telling all of you that I’m doing this, I’ll be less likely to give up. Feel free to contact me in November and ask me how I’m going. Fear of public failure and ridicule may be all that keeps me going.
In these days of budget airlines and crammed economy class seats, it’s hard to remember that in the 1960s flying was deeply glamorous. A trans-Atlantic flight cost about half the price of a modest house with an outdoor loo in suburban London and even the cheapest fares had reclining seats. And of course flight attendants – or rather air hostesses or ‘hosties’ – were a major sex symbol.
This is the setting for Boeing Boeing, a comedy about a man three-timing three air hostesses with the help of the airline timetable to track their comings and goings. One is from Italy, one from America and one from Germany. Added to the mix are a much put-upon maid who has to cook spaghetti for lunch and frankfurters with sauerkraut for dinner and a friend from the provinces who is appalled and intrigued by the goings on. The play is set in Paris and the friend is from Provence – but the French characters are played with British accents, and the provincial friend is quite funny with a West Country accent and a dowdy brown suit. Of course, flights get delayed and cancelled and hilarity ensues as the men resort to increasingly ridiculous techniques to try to keep the deception alive.
It was great to see a comedy that was actually funny. All the characters were wonderful, particularly Gretchen the German played by Tracy-Ann Oberman and Bertha the maid played by Jean Marsh. The timing was sharp and the production and costuming beautifully done, especially the aesthetic of the three hostesses and their dinky uniforms and flight bags. Fantastic stuff!
Yesterday I met up with Emme and went to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in London for three and a half years and this was the first time!
We had a great time. We started on the mezzanine level where they have created quite a clever display with a range of rocks – from a fragment of moon rock bought back by Apollo 16 to rocks that glowed with fluorescent colours under ultraviolet light – overseen by various figures such as Atlas. At the back of the gallery is a long escalator rising into a simulation of the centre of the Earth – a large globe of molten rock with flashing lights and sound effects. It was quite well done.
We did not make it to all the galleries but from what we saw, one of my favourite parts was the earthquake display. You step into a room kitted out like a Japanese supermarket and without warning the ground suddenly starts to shake beneath your feet and it really looks as though objects could come flying off the walls as well.
Emme is an artist and she was very taken by the beauty of the rocks. She commented that when people ask her to draw in “natural colours” they always mean greens and browns, but in reality all sorts of colours occur in nature – even fluorescents!
I missed the game between England and Australia today. I’m kind of glad as it would have been a little depressing to watch. Even as it is, I’m still getting messages from gloating Poms.
This evening we went to see Superbad, which was an okay and somewhat amusing comedy about two high school seniors trying to get laid. Then we made it back to the pub to catch the second half of the France v New Zealand game.
I never thought I would be an All Blacks supporter but so far from home and with Australia already out of the tournament it was only natural. To see them down against the Blues really tugged at my heart strings. France admittedly played really well – they are mercurial but they can really pull it out when they want to. There was one player – a guy with shoulder-length brown hair who really looked like something out of Asterix.
So now I’m going for Fiji – but I fear they don’t stand much chance against South Africa tomorrow.
