Centenary Weekend - best and worst case scenarios

It's the 100th birthday of my library this weekend, with John Hegley tonight and an afternoon of delights tomorrow including Cream Tea, Wirrral Ukulele Orchestra and The Mayor.

Best case scenario:

Hegley's a sell-out sensation, we've bought enough wine and, unlike last time I have money for the tunnel fare if I give him a lift back to Liverpool.

On Saturday, the Mayor arrives at the right moment, says the right things, we've made enough scones, we can actually fit 30 Ukulele players by the counter, the glaziers have removed all the scaffolding and the plumbers have finished installing the central heating or at least made it safe. The 'great' and the 'good' of Wallasey arrive, having spontaneously decided to dress as 1911 gentry, photographers from the local paper capture our finest moments and the library is filled with LOVE which lingers through the winter like your favourite scent.

Worst case scenario:

I have horribly miscalculated dates and Hegley thinks it's next year, the wine is left unattended and 'evaporates' before everyone has arrived, as people file away disappointed one of them falls down a hole the plumbers forgot.

On Saturday the Mayor arrives early just as someone is withdrawing that book with all the penises in the inside cover and the scaffolders are re-enacting Laurel and Hardy scenarios with long poles. It is ridiculously hot. The fire alarm has gone off for no reason so we are ignoring it. The Mayor has some kind of phobia of cucumber sandwiches. The ‘ok’ and the ‘mediocre’ of Wallasey turn up in shell suits and complain about the sandwiches. They have dried out in the heat (the sandwiches, that is) so we call them 'toasted'.

It turns out you can't fit 30 sweaty Ukulele players next to the counter – so they have to use the vertical space. My boss loses her speech and has to improvise – all she can remember is the inappropriate jokes about early 20th Century facial hair that I thought of but we discarded. There are grumblings amongst facial hair present. I have inadvertently bollocksed up the certificates of the writing competition prize winners - a fight breaks out and someone is fatally stabbed with a bic 9mm.

The untested plumbing system, combined with unseasonal temperatures, begins to overheat, starting a small fire in an untrampled corridor of dried out poetry. Within minutes, Rabbie Burns is up in flames. The fire alarm has been going off all afternoon so no-one pays any attention. Anyway you can’t hear yourself think for ukuleles. I realise I have spelt Ukulele wrong on every piece of publicity and invitation. So does the Ukulele leader.

The boss of our department comes after all and chooses this moment to announce changes in staffing... 3 library assistants leave in tears. The fire spreads through Humour and Sport. A small child notices it but is told to ‘Shhhhhh’. Within minutes it has taken hold and there is a stampede to the door. The plumbers have disguised a hole with carpet, into which the Mayor falls, dislodging her coccyx and some piping which fountains water into the reading room. People only escape by surfing out on oversize books about maritime disasters. The photographer arrives in time to get a picture of the bedraggled Mayor lying in a pool of soggy Mills & Boons and scones.

The scent of roasted cucumber sandwiches lingers all winter...

Wirral library to celebrate centenary - What the Wirral Globe says... I think they're banking on the Best Case Scenario, but John looks a bit worried

Bucket List

I've been putting some thought into a bucket list, lately. You can't put some thought into an actual bucket - it just spills over the edges and makes the idea of a mess on the floor.

I have actually done a lot of the things which might be on the average bucket list: I've performed in Vegas, done stand-up, written a novel (ok, I haven't had one published - picky, picky!). I've back-packed, flat-packed, rat-trapped. I've had several interesting jobs... and I just walked away from some of them. I've set up a charity, had an expense account, been offered food by beggars near the Alhambra. I've been on a camel, in a helicopter, lost at sea in an open boat. I've swum with dolphins, heli-hiked on a glacier, walked on a volcano...

...you all hate me now, don't you?

The trouble is, I can't think of anything much I am burning to do. World peace? Yeah, but I'm realistic. Win a million? Yeah, but I'm not really sure what I'd do with it. (I wouldn't say 'No!' - that would be churlish - but I don't want it enough to get off my bum and go and get it.) I mean what's the point of anything?

Maybe it isn't that I don't want anything in the world, I just rationalise myself into thinking I don't. I know people who do this really well and it's certainly a strategy to avoid disappointment.

But I respect the idea of a list as an impetus to provoke action, so here it is so far:

The List

• see the Northern Lights
• jump out of a plane ... preferably with a parachute and someone attached to me who knows how to use one
• fly a plane
• drive across the USA
• write a best-selling novel
• go on some kind of retreat
• get invited to the Oscars
• win a major writing competition
• eat at a Michelin starred restaurant
• jump fully clothed into a swimming pool
• get thrown out of a pub for bad behaviour (I'm not nearly bad enough)

What's on your list that I could steal for mine?

Out of the Blue

I've scheduled this post to be published while I'm away for the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

I wanted to share this link to: 'Out of the Blue' - a poem/film written by one of my favourite poets Simon Armitage and performed her by the excellent Rufus Sewell as a British office worker in one of the twin towers. It's in four parts on YouTube and about half an hour in total but well worth sitting through, or even just dipping into.

Excerpt from '10'
...
We are making our calls.
They are tightropes, strung

from the end of the phone
to a place called home
so our words can escape,

our voices trapeze
for mile after mile
or in my case traverse

the width of the sea.
My beautiful wife,
sit down in the chair,

put the phone to your ear.
Let me say.
Let me hear.

We are spinning a web.
But such delicate threads,
the links so brittle,

too little, too late.
Not one can save us
or bear our weight.

© Simon Armitage

I was coming home from Greece the day it happened. The taxi driver from the airport was babbling about the end of the world but I thought he was a bit mad or something. I went to a supermarket to get bread and milk and noticed a crowd in the electronics section. I saw the image and thought it must be some new disaster movie. It takes a while to sink in.

Where were you?

Excerpt from '13'

what false alarm can be trusted again?
What case or bag can be left unclaimed?
What flight can be sure to steer its course?
What building can claim to own its form?
...
What future can promise to keep the faith?

Everything changed. Nothing is safe.

© Simon Armitage

Top 10 job titles

I'm always envious of people with great job titles, or even just funny or unusual ones. So here's my list of the 10 best or funniest job titles I've heard of.

If you work your way up diplomatic circles* you could be Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.

Not high-falutin' enough? My friend's great uncle helped to design the building of British ambassadorial buildings for the Empire** in the East Indies. His job title was: Chief Architect of the Eastern Hemisphere

But why on earth limit yourself to, well... Earth? NASA employ a Planetary Protection Officer. You may be wondering whether their role is to protect us from aliens or aliens from us. The answer is: both!

In a similar vein, Apple allegedly have this post: Senior Armageddon Avoidance Engineer. (It sounds scary, but having survived Armageddon once and accidentally missing it another time, I could be just the person!)

Back down to earth, a local authority in mid-Wales made the news last year by renaming lifeguards 'Wet Leisure Assistants.'

Councils are fond of strange projects, teams and persons. Mine has a Teengage Pregancy Strategy Group (who must sit in meetings where someone says: ''I know, let's get them drunk on alcopops and play Justin Beiber songs...") and the Older People's Modernisation Team - which presumably retro-fits grannies with gang tattoos and USB ports. But someone must be in charge. An Older People's Modernisation Team Leader perhaps?

Another council worker has done prize-winning work providing support to the victims of various kinds of intimidation. She's the Domestic Violence Co-ordinator.

A friend of mine was Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge - it made him sound rather dashing but I was very disappointed on attending one of their 'Ladies' Night' dinners when no virgins were sacrificed.

Applicants for the job of S&M Administrator might be disappointed, too, to find it refers to Sales & Marketing. I got that from Worst Job in the World.

I have never had a job with a particularly unusual or amusing title. I suppose I could cross out 'Library Assistant' on my badge and write something more off the wall: 'Senior Junior Under-lender' perhaps. What do you think?

If you DON'T have, and have never had, a groovy-sounding job title, you can generate one using this handy Job Title Generator

If you DO have (or have had) a groovy-sounding job title ... or can convince us that you have ... I want to hear about it!

* Not a euphemism... then again...

** Before they started on the Death Star, that is

Nominative determinism

Nominative de-WHAT-ism? Nominative determinism

We've all had a dentist called Mr Paine, haven't we? Or come across Mr Bun the baker (ok, maybe not that last one.)

I used to work in a bank where there was a business account for Messrs Costall and Deer - I never found out what they did, but they sound pricey.

There's an article at The Behaviour Effect about whether people are influenced by their names.

A well-documented example of the phenomena is a legendary article in the British Journal of Urology by Splatt and Weedon.

I was on the lookout for books to illustrate what I'm talking about here, and came across: ‘A journey around the world' a cycling memoir, by David Sore.

We have a borrower who is always after Star Wars books (there's lots of them, you know!). His name is Luke Walker. I asked him if his middle name was 'Sky'. It isn't. It ought to be. I wonder if it is just co-incidence or he was influenced towards Star Wars because his name was so similar to the hero.

I've recall reading this post from the Inky Fool about cardinals and it reminded me of the aptly named Cardinal Sin of Manila - who I already mentioned in this post - which only one person read at the time. 8-( *sad face*

Anyway, it got me wondering if it would be possible to rise above your station through the clever choice of name? A sort of elective nominative determinism - which I'll be writing more about at some point, once I've collected enough silly names.

For example, who could resist promoting a Sergeant de Sturbance to Major, Private Punishment to Corporal or an Able Seaman T. Arch to Admiral?

What Masonic Lodge wouldn't be tempted to make Mr Flash their Grand Master?

And then there's the other side of the coin - have any of us been compelled to take up certain jobs or course of action because our names decreed it? Would someone called Mr East feel compelled to live in East Anglia? Would someone called Mr Naylor feel drawn to the hammer as weapon of choice?

More examples can be found at Ampers& but first, here's a bit of nominative determinism fun below from the 'I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue team' with late arrivals to the Vicar's Ball.

You can watch it while I contemplate whether to B. Silly with any of my characters names.

On Writing

Four things that happened last week have got me back into finishing my novel.

1.
Having been accepted for Flashmob - one of Lancaster Litfest's publications I was invited to a professional development workshop for writers, which reminded me what my own priorities are, helped me set goals and reinvigorated me.

2.
Before going there, I re-read the 60,000 words I've written so far of my novel (untouched for months) to see if it was worth pursuing. It was funny (it's ok, it's supposed to be) and readable and I got excited about it again.

3.
Then, on the train to Lancaster I finished Stephen King's 'On Writing' - a book that is often highly recommended to writers by other writers.

It's a curiosity - part interesting autobiography, part no frills 'how to write' guide from someone who's work I find very readable. Like many writing manuals, the author has strong ideas on the best way to produce a novel, things you must or mustn't do. Fine if it works for him, but it's best to take from writing guides the advice you recognise as appropriate for your own way of working. Some great common sense hints and tips.

Key tips:

1. Write
   
2. Read
3. Assiduously avoid adverbs.
   

These first two are pretty obvious but plenty of 'writers' don't do that much of either - I've been guilty myself.

4.
And fourthly, I've been reading Elmore Leonard's 'When The Women Come Out To Dance' - an inpsiring masterclass in short fiction packed with sparely-written mini dramas, fascinating characters, evocative locations. (Elmore Leonard's top tips - which also have it in for adverbs - are at the top of this excellent Guardian list of Top Tips from Authors)

So that's what I'm doing when I'm not doing this.

Popcorn post

There's this movie meme going about - I got it from Dave who got it from Tim who got it from Annie - be sure to wash your hands or you'll be doing it too!

This sort of thing is a terrible chore when you're as indecisive as me. I started it after going to the pictures on Saturday night to see the last Harry Potter (ho hum) and just gave up on it now...

1 Movie you love with a passion.
This changes - it has been Pulp Fiction and Brazil, but I'm going to plump for Love Actually *blushes*

2. Movie you vow to never watch.
'Jackass - the Movie'

3. Movie that literally left you speechless.
'Threads' - unutterably harrowing

4. Movie you always recommend.
'Galaxy Quest' - it's a hoot, especially if you're a fan of sci fi. I've been recommending 'In Bruges' a lot lately, too - I didn't think I'd like it but it won me over. And 'Fargo'

5. Actor/actress you always watch, no matter how crappy the movie.
There are a few: Anthony Hopkins, Katherine Hepburn, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Al Pacino, Hugh Jakeman, Robert Downey Jr, Christopher Walken, Ciaron Hinds, Jean Reno - they just rise above the subject/setting/script

6. Actor/actress you don’t get the appeal for.
All those shiny rom-com types

7. Actor/actress, living or dead, you’d love to meet.
Not keen on the idea of dead actors and actresses turning up! And wouldn't turn away any living ones.

8. Sexiest actor/actress you’ve seen. (Picture required!)
I used to have a big thing for Richard Burton when I was 13 (what was that all about?) This is where my formatting goes to pot as I attempt to add several pics for your/my delectation.

People I've found surprisingly sexy: Al Pacino (in 'Sea of Love'), Ciaron Hinds (not that famous but he's got 'something' for me).

Plus the usual suspects: Antonio, George, Hugh

9. Dream cast.
See above. I love spotting all my fave Brit charcater actors in Harry Potter too - though seeing Cairon Hinds as Dumbledore's brother in the last one put me off him a bit!

10. Favorite actor pairing.
Can't think - maybe Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs (which they're remaking in Liverpool as 'Shut Up Ewes')

12. Favorite decade for movies
I refuse to choose


13. Chick flick or action movie?
Which do Coen Brothers come under? I hate action sequences for the sake of them but I like both if done well. The script is the important thing, not the genre.

14. Hero, villain or anti-hero?
Because none of this is real, I can choose the villain without anything bad happening can't I? They're often more interesting characters and I'm a sucker for the possible redemption at the end. So yes, I tend to side with Darth Vader, Phantom of the Opera, Hannibal Lector.

15. Black and white or color?
Either - depends on the movie. I've been known to turn the colour off if I'm watching something scary (also the sound).