Hot on the heels of Litter Lunatic came Telephone Tosser.
Ring ring
Hello.
Who's that? (foreign accent)
It's Connor.
Oh yea, James tell me about you. You like bit of fun.
Sorry, you must have the wrong number.
No, no. He tell me you like play with your wife while other people watch. (or maybe it was the other way round)
You've got the wrong number.
Hang up
Ring ring
Brian picks up
Hey Connor, why you cut me off?
You have got the wrong number.
Tell me name your wife I tell you if is wrong number.
I don't have a wife.
Can I come play with you?
No, and if you call me again I'll get the police to you.
What the police do with this?
Hang up
Ring 1471
The caller withheld their number (surprise, surprise)
Ring ring
Brian picks up
Hello.
Employs recommended nuisance caller procedure by remaining silent then hanging up
Ring ring
Brian picks up
Hello. (different voice but still a species of johnny foreigner)
Same tactic employed, no further calls.
I hope my mobile never rings while I'm in the lift.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
From what was found in the lift yesterday it appears that our Litter Lunatic is truly a nutcase. Even I hesitate to put a picture of a blood-stained towel and a condom draped artistically on the lift floor into public view so you will just have to imagine it.
It's a new one on the factor, used as he is to the odd goings on in common stairs, but pro tem I'm keeping a watch and he's considering how to approach the matter.
Connor suggested it might be a disgruntled ex hassling their former partner. But if so I and many others in the stair, not to mention visiting clergymen, are suffering collateral damage.
It's a new one on the factor, used as he is to the odd goings on in common stairs, but pro tem I'm keeping a watch and he's considering how to approach the matter.
Connor suggested it might be a disgruntled ex hassling their former partner. But if so I and many others in the stair, not to mention visiting clergymen, are suffering collateral damage.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The Litter Lunatic has been at work again. I came home tonight from seeing a play (The Persian Revolution) to find this in the lift.To add to the effrontery it contained some liquid so after I had removed it here's what was left on the floor.
It's hard to know what to do but I think I will have to engage the factor and the residents' association in reviewing possibilities.
The impossibility I personally favour can't be described on a family blog but would be familiar to Persian revolutionaries.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
That our civil liberties are being unduly curtailed was the proposition put forward by Helena Kennedy in a debate in the form of a mock trial at the Royal Society of Edinburgh last night. The audience jury agreed with her in the proportion of two to one despite a well argued defence of Labour's record and intentions by Tony's old flatmate Charlie Falconer.
The debate was lively, at times fierce, but even though the topic is on the serious side all the speakers managed a wee joke from time to time.
One of the concerns put forward by David Blunkett whom I heard speak on Sunday fits quite nicely into the curtailment of liberties scenario. He said what we all know; that fewer and fewer people are voting.
He went on to say that those who will continue to vote are the older members of society, that they vote in their own interests (who doesn't?) and are likely to bring into power more authoritarian governments. He meant non-labour governments of course but labour or tory the fear is that the politicians will bow to the greybeards' desire to bring back flogging and send yobs to the saltmines.
So be warned.
The debate was lively, at times fierce, but even though the topic is on the serious side all the speakers managed a wee joke from time to time.
One of the concerns put forward by David Blunkett whom I heard speak on Sunday fits quite nicely into the curtailment of liberties scenario. He said what we all know; that fewer and fewer people are voting.
He went on to say that those who will continue to vote are the older members of society, that they vote in their own interests (who doesn't?) and are likely to bring into power more authoritarian governments. He meant non-labour governments of course but labour or tory the fear is that the politicians will bow to the greybeards' desire to bring back flogging and send yobs to the saltmines.
So be warned.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Wild Honey opened on Wednesday to a pretty good house and was well received by the audience. The press was there in the shape of Thom Dibdin from The Evening News and he was slightly less enthusiastic but two stars after all are better than none. The News print alongside their review the opinions of three punters (not included on-line) and all of them praised the show.
I ended up having a late night.
The second night was typically a bit less sharp and we had an entertaining few minutes early on when we skipped a page or two and then fought our way back to fill in the blanks. Two down two to go.
Filling in time in the dressing room with a newspaper I came across an article about face morphing software developed at the psychology department of St Andrews university. Here's what it turned me into when I chose to be Afro-Caribbean.
Try it yourself here.
I ended up having a late night.
The second night was typically a bit less sharp and we had an entertaining few minutes early on when we skipped a page or two and then fought our way back to fill in the blanks. Two down two to go.
Filling in time in the dressing room with a newspaper I came across an article about face morphing software developed at the psychology department of St Andrews university. Here's what it turned me into when I chose to be Afro-Caribbean.
Try it yourself here.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
I had an "X wants you to be their friend" email from Facebook the other day. It wasn't a name that meant much to me straightaway but I have since realised who it is. I think she must have let Facebook run through her email contacts and fire off invitations to all and sundry. I just haven't been deleted from the list during the last five years; some people never tidy things up.
It was a pleasant reminder of life in Paris though so I have been gracious enough to accept. But does she really know who I am?
I don't think you could call the film I saw this afternoon pleasant but it was French and I enjoyed it thoroughly - a cracking thriller called The Serpent. There were only five of us in the house, all supping our free coffee supplied as part of the Cameo's Silver Screen offering. They can't make money that way but I suppose the cinema is open anyway. When you add their Wednesday Specials and their Cheap Mondays you arrive at help the aged in cinemascope and surround sound. It's pure dead brilliant.
It was a pleasant reminder of life in Paris though so I have been gracious enough to accept. But does she really know who I am?
I don't think you could call the film I saw this afternoon pleasant but it was French and I enjoyed it thoroughly - a cracking thriller called The Serpent. There were only five of us in the house, all supping our free coffee supplied as part of the Cameo's Silver Screen offering. They can't make money that way but I suppose the cinema is open anyway. When you add their Wednesday Specials and their Cheap Mondays you arrive at help the aged in cinemascope and surround sound. It's pure dead brilliant.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Because of the Wild Honey schedule, today was my last chance to see Brian Friel's Living Quarters at the Lyceum and I took it. I'm never sure that it's a good idea to go to a matinee. Almost invariably there is a sweetie paper rustler somewhere and today she sat next to me. That old wifie was almost as distracting as the young lady who flashed her fashionably skimpy underwear periodically as she leant forward to get a better view.
However I managed to keep enough of my attention on the stage to be able to state categorically that it is an excellent production: super set, very good acting and magisterial direction. It's also apparently the play's UK premiere although it was written 30 years ago. I remember reading it in Kitwe with a view to putting it on there. I don't remember why we didn't
The play is structured in such a way that there is a narrator character who interacts with the others, bringing them periodically out of a fictional space that excludes him into one that includes him. He also addresses explanations to the audience and like a Greek Chorus foretells, or at least hints at, the tragedy to come. Well that may have whipped up the ancient Greeks but it didn't work for me. I admired it but resented having my emotional involvement in the drama interrupted. The Guardian's critic suggests that may be why the play has been neglected here for so long.
I shall have to get to the Citz to see if Desire Under The Elms suits me better. It is after all the same myth - as explained fully in this somewhat dry article.
I dashed out as soon as the show ended and distributed Wild Honey flyers to the audience as they emerged. I did the same thing this evening but chose the audience leaving a production of The Crucible on the grounds that as it was an amateur production the audience might be a better target for us. However the Lyceum audience seemed much more interested. God knows if it will bring anyone in. How to attract an audience is the great unsolved theatrical mystery.
However I managed to keep enough of my attention on the stage to be able to state categorically that it is an excellent production: super set, very good acting and magisterial direction. It's also apparently the play's UK premiere although it was written 30 years ago. I remember reading it in Kitwe with a view to putting it on there. I don't remember why we didn't
The play is structured in such a way that there is a narrator character who interacts with the others, bringing them periodically out of a fictional space that excludes him into one that includes him. He also addresses explanations to the audience and like a Greek Chorus foretells, or at least hints at, the tragedy to come. Well that may have whipped up the ancient Greeks but it didn't work for me. I admired it but resented having my emotional involvement in the drama interrupted. The Guardian's critic suggests that may be why the play has been neglected here for so long.
I shall have to get to the Citz to see if Desire Under The Elms suits me better. It is after all the same myth - as explained fully in this somewhat dry article.
I dashed out as soon as the show ended and distributed Wild Honey flyers to the audience as they emerged. I did the same thing this evening but chose the audience leaving a production of The Crucible on the grounds that as it was an amateur production the audience might be a better target for us. However the Lyceum audience seemed much more interested. God knows if it will bring anyone in. How to attract an audience is the great unsolved theatrical mystery.
Friday, November 09, 2007
It could have been an ABC Minors session circa 1950. There was the same incessant chatter drowning out the ads, the same clapping and cheering as the hero appeared on screen, the same whoops of appreciation during action sequences. Only the slightly raunchy comments revealed that these were adult cinemagoers, almost exclusively female who were letting their fantasies fly free at a late night screening of Dirty Dancing.
I should have had a big girl along to look after me but I didn’t know.
Friday, November 02, 2007
The next time I go swimming I'll wear a hat; not in the pool you understand but to keep my head warm on the walk home.
Leith Victoria just down the road is one of the numerous pools built here over a hundred years ago. I don't know whether the idea was leisure or cleanliness but given that most of them were originally referred to as public baths you'd have to suspect the latter. However it's all leisure nowadays and this one is in the throes of redevelopment. The pool has already been refurbished; there's a gym and a sauna and they are building an extension to accommodate aerobics and the like. They even have a creche where little non-swimmers can be dumped at certain times.
At the time the pool was built Leith was a separate entity from Edinburgh but was absorbed in 1920 much to the disgust of many of the citizenry, and to this day Leithers regard themselves as a race apart. As usual Wikipedia is a good source of information (I used it to check on the date of the merger) and it even led me to the explanation for the street sign I noticed recently declaring Leith to be twinned with Rio de Janiero.
I haven't noticed Rio's samba dancers around but Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly were magnificent in the 1949 film version of Bernstein's On The Town showing this week and the Indian A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Kings had some splendid dance routines which you can get a taste of here.
Capping both of those though was Matthew Bourne's The Car Man. It's a steamy tale of lust and murder set in a car repair shop somewhere in the endless plains of the mid-west danced to Bizet's music for Carmen by a brilliant cast who throw themselves around and bend their bodies into seemingly impossible but beautiful shapes.
If I do catch a cold through my hatless walk home I should, on the evidence of Michael Moore's Sicko, thank my lucky stars that it was in Leith Scotland and not Leith North Dakota. For the film paints a pretty black picture of healthcare in the USA. Of course Moore is a polemicist who gives no quarter so there is no attempt at balance. All the same when you see it (and I insist you do because it is an excellent and superbly crafted movie) you will come out giving three rousing cheers for the NHS despite its inadequacies. I don't think Rudi Giuliano can have seen it.
Leith Victoria just down the road is one of the numerous pools built here over a hundred years ago. I don't know whether the idea was leisure or cleanliness but given that most of them were originally referred to as public baths you'd have to suspect the latter. However it's all leisure nowadays and this one is in the throes of redevelopment. The pool has already been refurbished; there's a gym and a sauna and they are building an extension to accommodate aerobics and the like. They even have a creche where little non-swimmers can be dumped at certain times.
At the time the pool was built Leith was a separate entity from Edinburgh but was absorbed in 1920 much to the disgust of many of the citizenry, and to this day Leithers regard themselves as a race apart. As usual Wikipedia is a good source of information (I used it to check on the date of the merger) and it even led me to the explanation for the street sign I noticed recently declaring Leith to be twinned with Rio de Janiero.
I haven't noticed Rio's samba dancers around but Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly were magnificent in the 1949 film version of Bernstein's On The Town showing this week and the Indian A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Kings had some splendid dance routines which you can get a taste of here.
Capping both of those though was Matthew Bourne's The Car Man. It's a steamy tale of lust and murder set in a car repair shop somewhere in the endless plains of the mid-west danced to Bizet's music for Carmen by a brilliant cast who throw themselves around and bend their bodies into seemingly impossible but beautiful shapes.
If I do catch a cold through my hatless walk home I should, on the evidence of Michael Moore's Sicko, thank my lucky stars that it was in Leith Scotland and not Leith North Dakota. For the film paints a pretty black picture of healthcare in the USA. Of course Moore is a polemicist who gives no quarter so there is no attempt at balance. All the same when you see it (and I insist you do because it is an excellent and superbly crafted movie) you will come out giving three rousing cheers for the NHS despite its inadequacies. I don't think Rudi Giuliano can have seen it.
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