What Kind of a Month It's Been Part 1

A lot, a lot, a lot has happened in the past few weeks. Most likely, more will happen in the coming days and if I were being smart about this, which I'm not (why start now?), I would probably wait until everything's done to write about it all, but I'm not really sure when everything will be done. Joss Whedon once wrote

"you keep waiting for the dust to settle and then you realize this is it; the dust is your life going on"

and that just struck me as very profound. So I started paraphrasing it and just letting people I'd thought of it then and there. I'm so bad.

Anyway, my sister's here to visit: she's out for a trip to a nearby town right now and I elected to stay where it is air conditioned, i.e. the hermetic bubble of my room. Moi's visit has given an unexpected but not entirely unwelcome enema to the latter half of August, i.e. The Month When I Moved to Japan. The visit was perfectly timed, really, as it has extended the honeymoon period of my upheaval and encouraged to go out and visit more parts of this new country, whereas otherwise I might have been inclined to just rest a while and get my metaphorical breath back.

But before Moi arrived, there was still some fun stuff going on, although honestly I'll probably get the order wrong and forget to tag a bunch of people cos I'm shit but oh well. I'll use headers to try and remember to write everything.

We went the the Pokémon Centre

'We' being myself, Louis and Brittany. It's a massive shop where they only sell Pokémon merchandise.

And sometimes real life Pokémon turn up. Because.

And they have a couple of Pokémon games. And I don't mean for the gameboy.

I'm mentioning this mainly to explain the sudden insertion of this guy

into my life. His name is Rorlax and you will be seeing a lot more of him.

I Went to Arcades

I've been to a lot of arcades recently: they're a big thing in Japan, you see. My current jams are Mario Kart, at which I have always sucked, and a new game called Pokken Tournament, where you get to have Pokémon battles from the point of view of a Pokémon. Sadly, you can't play as this guy

but it's still pretty cool. I vary at this game depending on whether or not the wind is blowing East. Or something. I dunno.

At an arcade in Osaka

 though, I tried something entirely different: a 4D horror simulation.
It was brilliant.
I was shown around a bunch of different crime scenes (there was some kind of backstory about a video of a girl killing herself or something- I dunno, it was in Japanese) and someone was chasing us and I had to put down orchids at the right time and pay my respects or they would kill me and at one point, I had to run through a bunch of dead bodies strung from the ceiling like cow carcasses and it was actually pretty scary. Would definitely scream again.

We Went to a Beer Garden

'We' being all the JETs in Hyogo, who met in Himeji at a beer garden- which does not mean the same thing as it does in the UK; it's a seasonal rooftop BBQ all-you-can-drink thing

(and, yes, this is way better than British beer gardens)- and I mingled and met a bunch of new people (pretty much all of whose names I have now forgotten, alack). Lovely view from the roof, though.

Afterwards, we went to karaoke then left and then we went back to karaoke and did it again. It was odd. But very enjoyable, and I got to try my hand at rapping which went as well as I think we're all imagining.

We Went to Kobe

'We' being the municipal ALTs in Hyogo. We didn't have much time there, sadly, because we had to attend this rather perfunctory talk where they told us how to do a job that we've been employed in for two and a half weeks and reiterated a bunch of stuff that was on the website when we first applied for this job, nine months ago. Time well spent.

I Went on Walks

As I'm still very often a prisoner of the sun, I've been exploring Himeji mainly by moonlight, strolling around the various neighbourhoods at night, sometimes accompanied, sometimes not. Louis and I had an illuminating conversation about imagining our lives as TV shows and Brittany and I tried our hands at herding feral cats, of which there are a tonne in Himeji.
I also found my new favourite shop in Himeji, which is called 'books and coffee' despite not selling coffee or books BUT they have this Power Rangers aisle, arranged by the year and corresponding team and it just made my heart melt.

We Went to a Water Park

'We' being the inhabitants of my building- or, at least, some of them. There is a waterpark in Himeji called...something Japanese and we went on one of the days where you could actually go outside but it was still hot enough to go to a water park, i.e. a where the sun might possibly hide behind the cloud for a couple of minutes.
We cycled there, because I haven't fallen over enough since I've come to Japan and I just want to put up my personal evidence to refute the received wisdom about the riding of bicycles and memorability thereof.
The park itself was alright: there was an extremely lazy Lazy River, see: a donut shaped pool with two, count 'em two, jets not-so-strategically placed about three meters apart. We had to flap most of the time to stay afloat, and even then we only moved at a pace akin to a caterpillar on a travellator, but it was still surprisingly fun.
The flumes, however, were amazing.
I rocketed down there like a friggin' fox whose just heard 'view halloo' and crashed out the other side like an anvil on Wile E. Coyote and then I rushed back up and did it again. It was amazing and just a little bit painful, like any experience involving pipes and wetness should be.

That's all I have time for right now and this is already a very long post, but part two, detailing places I went with Moi as well as maybe some other stuff, is coming soon. 

An Englishman in Japan

I am safe in Japan; as for being sound, well, that's for the courts to decide.
I arrived at the airport twenty minutes before I was meant to, even though we'd actually planned to arrive about an hour ahead of time, which says bad things about my time management skills. I said goodbye to my parents who, true to form, seemed much more concerned with getting back to the car before the half-hour £3.50 parking ran out than seeing me off. They left before anyone else's parents (yes, I was keeping score) and the last thing my dad said to me was 'download Whatsapp'. Truly, the art of valedictoriation is dead.
The flight was split into two: one lap to Amsterdam then on to Tokyo. I was out like a light on the way to Amsterdam; I slept through the entire flight, just woke up in time for them to give me cookies and then we landed. The perfect journey if you ask me.
The flight to Tokyo was hell in the skies. I didn't sleep at all. We were on the plane for eleven hours. I felt nauteous and hot and stressed and grumpy. And the TV kept on stalling so I couldn't watch Shaun the Sheep all the way through in one go.
Then we alighted the train and were hit with a wall of heat. Fun fact: Japan has no atmosphere, just steam. So far, whenever I've stepped outside I've felt like I'm being waterboarded in a sauna. It's horrible. Thankfully, most indoor structures so far have had air conditioning and everyone says that at the end of September it gets more bearable, so that's only two months.
Yay.
However, not for me the furrowed brow. The vast majority of the other JETs were lovely and sympathetic and laughed at my pathetic attempts at humor. I was sharing with two other Brits, and I made some friends during the various workshops and lectures (most of which were almost entirely, but not quite, pointless). On the first night, I went out for sushi and ended up eating raw octopus and then ordering more when I tried to ask for the bill. We live and learn.
Other good things: the hotel breakfast was amazing,

and it we got to go a couple of posh parties hosted by the British embassy. I tried traditional Japanese drumming

which was, naturally, set to 'Yellow Submarine'.

I went to karaoke with some other jets and ruined my voicebox singing to Sweet Dreams Are Made of This and Copacabana and, most triumphantly, Hey Jude. It was All-You-Can-Drink, which means the edges of the memories in my head are fuzzy but tinted with joy. I climbed a government skyscraper which had an observatorium on top, where I finally began to realise just how much of Tokyo there actually is, and they cleverly thwarted my efforts to break their copyright on this view by photographing it by erecting a sheet of glass between me and the air, thus rendering my reflection my own worst enemy. This was the best I could do:

Yeah, it's not so much the window that trounced me as the fact that I'm awful at photography.
'But, Rory!' you cry, hoping I'll hear you all the way across the ocean, 'What about the place you're actually living in Japan?!!' To which I say A) Don't shout and B) I'm getting to that, jeez. So, yes, early on Wednesday, I left Tokyo and the fanciest hotel in which I will ever stay, and headed to Himeji. The journey was quite long, but I got to go on a bullet train, which I photographed from the outside instead of any of the beautiful countryside through which we rocketed because I am an aesthetic genius.

The bullet train goes fast, that is all I have to say on the matter.
So, we got to Himeji, and I met my supervisor, who is lovely but who asked me if I wanted to be called 'Lawley' or 'Lolly' and then said 'obvious-ry', so I know he can get the rhotic but just seems not to with my name. I also met Brittany and Louis, the other JETs (though from Canada and New Zealand, respectively, not Britain) who are stationed in Himeji. Though we are the only JETs, there are other English speakers here, through the Sister Cities programme which I think is bullshit, because I've don't even know where my hometown is twinned with and have certainly never been invited to teach there. Yes, I'm bitter.
Anyway, Sister Cities means that there are lot of Aussies and Yanks and I have experience with both of those groups, so it's all good.
Himeji seems lovely, if a little incredibly unbelievably mind-staggeringly hot and humid. This is the city mascot:

Her name is Round Castle Princess and they're really lucky they got there before Adventure Time did.

 

I want to genetically engineer a real one and have it round around my back garden eating the grass. She is frickin' adorable.
We went out for noodles with the other English teachers in Himeji, and it was great- everyone was so welcoming and positive and I just hope I can be the same when more new teachers arrive (later this month and in December).
So far I haven't done any actual work, but I've been told a lot about what I'll be doing and how to comport myself in Japan (I've had to alter how I write 7s and 1s, because Japanese people can't recognise them: my handwriting is also too big for Japanese forms. Also, I put down my basket in a supermarket the other day and a woman looked at me as though I'd just spat at a baby, so there is so much I have to learn.

Lots of folks have asked me what the weirdest thing I've seen so far is, and I'll answer with this:

That's the Coco Pops monkey shilling Weetos. Weetos aren't even a Kellog's product! TRAITOR!

Last Seen

I'm always interested in the last times we see characters in fiction: not the main characters, usually, cos their fates are normally spelt out pretty clearly and are often quite boring. But, for example, the last time we see Esme Squalor in A Series of Unfortunate Events, she's on the second floor of a hotel that's on fire. The last time we see Ludo Bagman in Harry Potter, he's on the run from the Goblin Mafia. And the final time we see Screwy Squirrel on Looney Tunes, he's just been crushed by a dog he'd been tormenting for what seemed like time immemorial. Fun fact: they originally planned to make more Screwy Squirrel but the animators were afraid of him and so we are left to assume he died.
Those are all rather morbid, or at least perilous, examples and I hope to God none of the people mentioned in this post find themselves in the situations above but whenever I'm about to move, I'm powerfully aware that I won't see some people again, even if I want to. When I came back from Australia, I just honestly presumed I'd see Moe again, but even after I acquired his phone number, he never reappeared in my life. Sometimes, people get lost.

Anyway, that was a rather indulgent and ultimately tangential introduction to a pretty long post about the 'goodbye period' before my move to Japan. I haven't been updating this blog due to a mixture of indolence and preoccupation, so I'm going to have to get through a lot in a short time.
First off, I went to visit my sister in her new flat and new job just before she left both of them. Not much happened during that trip because the town where she was living, Bottesford, was boring as hell and smelt faintly of dog poo. Still, it's always nice to see Moi and we watched a lot of documentaries so at least I came away smarter.

Then, the day I arrived back from Bottesford, Grace came to stay and it was just magical. We talked for two days straight and never ran out of conversational material. We cooked, went for walks, gave each other nicknames and drew each other.

My picture of Grace, as she pointed out, ended up looking slightly...Quasimodoish. But then she left it at my house anyway so we both hurt each others' feelings.

A few days later, Tom Lee (who has previously been referred to in the narrative as just Tom, but now there's another one, so I've given him a surname, and chosen to honour late actor Christopher Lee) and I went to see The Merchant of Venice by the RSC. It was great but I actually saw Tom Lee again, so won't describe it here.

Then, Tom Jennings (who was, of course, named after Alex Jennings, who played Prince Charles in The Queen)- an old school friend who now works in the village- and I went for drinks. It was strange, catching up with someone after nine years; he knew me before I was out and before uni took its various tolls on my personality and general outlook, so I can only imagine how I appeared to him. But Tom Jennings seemed quite unchanged- he was still high-spirited, analytical and with his finger on the cultural pulse: he recommended a Netflix series which I have been rabidly devouring instead of packing, much to the chagrin of my parents.

Next I said goodbye to Husnain, Ella and Patrick, at a small gathering at Ella's which was ostensibly to celebrate Paddy's birthday but really just involved lots of cake, booze and random in-jokes between us. This is, I think, the perfect way to sum up my friendship with these guys (well, ok, not the booze for Husnain): Ella was cool and calming, Husnain was mellow and considered and Patrick was somewhere on Mars, waving down at us earthlings. I stayed the night at Ella's and then went shopping around Shrewsbury's finest tat shops looking for gifts to give my Japanese colleagues. This is what I got:

All of English culture for under £5.

They're gonna love me.

The day after that, I went to the zoo with my parents. I'm not gonna lie, I know it's not a hip thing to say but I freakin' love zoos. And Chester zoo, where we went, is huge and conservationistic, so one doesn't have to feel guilty. What I love about it especially is there's always something new to see: for example, this time the two animals that stole the show were the chameleons- surprisingly active and cute- and the birds- amazingly up close and personal. I never usually spend that long watching either of those two animals, but this time they held my attention for a really long time. Sadly, this meant there was less time to fawn over the penguins, but I'll make up for that in the future when I own several of my own and keep them all in my house like that film with that guy that no one saw.

Then, I saw Tom again and this was actually our final rendez-vous. We drank and discussed the woes and being young and creative in an area which is not designed for either of those categories. Tom is at least finding an outlet in his work: I have not updated my writing blog for several days, and I imagine it will be a while yet due to my impending move.

And then finally today I said goodbye to my neighbour Norma, who is something of a surrogate grandmother for me (I'm not sure she'd appreciate me saying that). Norma is the way I want to be when I'm seventy- she's fun and funny, with a twinkle in her eye and a lust for life. She went to the same RSC production as Tom and I and we had a very spirited discussion about art and realism and accents and acting: I hope these are still things that concern me when I'm older.

And so yeah, that's pretty much it. It'll be August in a couple of minutes and then I move to Japan.
Holy shit.
Wish me luck.

Londinium

I headed down to London on Wednesday for a pre-departure training session for the new job I'll be starting in just under three weeks' time- just enough time to completely forget everything they told me.

I arrived a day early, partially because the thing started ridiculously early (and there was a planned tube strike) but it also afforded me the opportunity to see my eldest sister one more time before I leave for a year. I was also meant to get to see Laurel, but sadly this did not work out (bloody tube strike).
However, someone had organised a pre-pre-departure meet-up for folks who will be doing the same teaching scheme as me. Since I was in London, I decided to tag along. It was a scavenger hunt, and I arrived on the sixth clue in the dead heat of the day. We galloped through galleries, breezed over bridges and circled around sun dials, in the pursuit of miscellany and digital validation from an unseen but all-seeing Big Brother, doling out rewards and penalties to the citizens who dared to play its deadly game. By the end, we just resorted to guessing and were actually fractionally more successful. Sadly, there were a lot of names said to me over a long period of time and I only remember three: Will, Josh and Nick. Still, it was nice to meet new people and see parts of London I hadn't glimpsed before.

After this, I went to meet my elder sister at Oxford circus: earlier in the day, I'd scored (i.e. bought) tickets to Death of a Salesman. We went to get a bite to eat and then to the play. I think Orla was quite taken with my new haircut and suit: she said after years of trying I'd finally achieved a 'smart casual' vibe and seemed generally less ashamed to be seen with me.
Death of a Salesman was terrific, but I don't advise seeing it with your much more financially successful older sibling. Sadly, the tube strike ruined the evening as we had to wait forty five minutes for a bus that was then too full to take on new passengers, meaning that by the time we got back, we had time only for the must summary goodbyes before we both had to go to bed.

The next day, I actually managed to reach the venue without too much trouble (one of the overground trains I tried to get was too full to allow people on, but that was all.) However, once I got to the venue, I was really in trouble because the place was massive and we were needed in one specific part. Luckily, I ran into Josh, who'd had the presence of mind to bring a map; we got there at 9.20 but didn't manage to register until 10.10, such a queue was there. Another twenty minutes and we would've been thrown off the programme, according to the official literature.
I'm not going to describe the various lectures and workshops we attended there, I'll just say that it was very hot and some of the talks seemed honestly unnecessary (Will remarked that we' just given two days to being told not to do drugs).
However, in the evening after the first day, we all went out for drinks. It was a bit like Freshers' Week only this time I had some semblance of social skills: I kept meeting new people and asking where they were going and what they'd studied and making jokes about the programme and drinking vodka. It was terrific. At one point we actually left the pub and went back to the accommodation (we were staying in student halls, heightening the Fresher vibe) to play the Pokemon drinking game, which is possibly the most student-y thing one can do.

After the second day finished, I went to see War Horse: I'd seen it before, years ago, on a school trip with Tom, and it was at the time the best piece of theatre I'd ever seen. I don't know if I've changed or the production has- actually, I know for a fact that we've both changed- but this time it didn't hold the same frisson of excitement. It's still a good show, but it felt much more staid this time around; maybe it's because I knew what was going to happen, or maybe I've just experienced so much more theatre- both fore- and back- stage- that it takes more to impress me. The horse remains amazing, though: I think the National Theatre has actually just discovered the secret of Golemry and the 'puppeteers' are just there to maintain the illusion. It's too lifelike. Naturally, Spielberg's decision to eschew this dark wizardry in favour of CGI was part of what doomed the film version.

On the Saturday, I met Poppy and oh, the time we wasted. Eleven hours, all told, and all of it gloriously, extravagantly meaningless. We talked about so much- politics and the human condition and psychology and culture- but with such childish interjections and sophomorish tangents that it was a bit like a PPE syllabus as dictated by a toddler. We also wondered all around the covent gardens area, popping into Forbidden Planet and taking I think the definitive picture of Poppy Dillon:

You're just jealous cos I'm a genuine freak and you have to wear a mask.

We also at one point broke into Somerset House, curious about a random string of numbers glaring at us from the front facade in neon pink. Sadly, no one in there could assuage our curiosity and they all seemed to want us to leave ASAPP- As Soon As Plebbishly Possible.
I commented to Poppy at the end of the day that I thought that this would be the form into which our friendship solidified: we'd meet semi-annually, spend an entire day together, doing nothing and conversing everything and then part, feet aching and hearts lightened. I hope I'm right.

I did nothing of note on the Sunday and then returned to my life, much as it ever was. Still, it was a fun diversion.

No One Is Alone

My parents went away for a week to sunny Spain, coming back this Thursday. During that time, I had the house to myself, which is always a bittersweet affair: on the plus side, I can eat what I want when I want and hang around in my pyjamas all day; on the down side, there can be days at a time where I don't talk to anyone and I often get nothing done (when my parents are here, I still don't accomplish anything, but this is different from doing something.)

However, I wasn't alone the entire time, as I have friends who will travel vast differences and brave the indignity of travelling with Arriva just to come and salve my aching breast.
First up was Jari, who arrived early on Friday and departed late on Saturday. As ever with Jari, he was completely taken aback by the verdancy of the surroundings, even though he lives in Edinburgh, where there is a lot of greenery to be found, if one knows where to look. He arrived with a smile, a giggle and, that most precious of commodities, gossip from my extended friendship circle. We went to get lunch at a posh cafe, a treat from me as he's put me up so often in his flat, and then for walk. Jari's always had a thing for the cooling towers of the power station, so we walked up to the base and gazed to the alpine peak, and I remembered one of my trademark Barely Interesting Factoids: the cooling towers are orange because when they were erected they were painted to camouflage

Like in this picture, where you somehow magically can't see them.

and the landscape was scarred and barren due to all the industrial work; however, in these lush, modern times when most of the valley is forest, they stick out like a carotenaeic thumb.
After this, we returned to my house and spent some time dilly-dallying in the woods (foolishness can happen in the woods) and then cooked dinner and watched Paddington, which Jari enjoyed almost as much as my mother, who I think would actually go to live with the little bear if he Purple Rose of Cairo'd her.
The next day, we went for an even longer walk, taking in a lot of the valley, including the bit that's slowly sinking into the river, and then had cream tea in the village. After this, we went to watch some of the boat race that was happening on the river and returned to my house for an early dinner. Eventually, Jari had to leave and I was on my lonely ownio once more.

But then, two days later, Patrick, Ella and Husnain arrived en masse, despite assurances that they'd be staggered. It was fine though as, after some misorientation hijinks involving frantic phone calls and a good deal of hill-walking, we were all united and so decided to get our drink on, except Husnain, of course. Patrick and Ella had bought some lovely Champagne from Shrewsbury and we drank this in the wood, while I lit a fire using the dried grass that I'd cut from the garden the week before; we sat in the sunshine and ate Ferrero Rocher and posh crisps and joked and chatted and it felt beautifully estival. After this, I still had the Champagne that I was given as a leaving present in France, and we drank it in the front garden, feeling blissfully hedonistic and not a little Gatsbyesque. We sat on the grass and drank and afterwards, we left the champagne bottle sitting in the middle of the lawn to remind ourselves of our glorious excess.
Patrick and Ella had promised to cook and as they made a bolognaise the kitchen was filled with music and laughter and dancing and photographs and supping, just as kitchens always should be.

Some of the aforementioned photographs. All credit (including the one of the valley above) to Ella Ruth Cowperthwaite.

Once we were done with dinner, we started playing Cranium, which always involves a lot of animation on the part of the players and is best played fairly drunk and not really paying attention to the rules. We rocked it, is what I'm saying. Halfway through, the men felt restless, so we decided to go for a walk while Ella stayed in and lounged on the sofa. We walked in the dark, discussing, bizarrely, the sociopolitical implications of name orthography as we crashed through the crepuscular overgrowth. We then returned and played long hours of charades before finally retiring to bed, with Patrick insisting on taking my sister's old high bed before becoming that kid at the sleepover who's never spent a night away from home and has to stay in someone else's room.
The next morning, we went out for breakfast and then down to a little secluded beach on the river severn, where we threw stones in the water, with Patrick scoring many skims when no one else was looking. Ella gave me a henna tattoo and we baked in the heat. Finally, they all had to depart and I was left alone once more.

However, my parents returned on Thursday, and the next day I went to see Mel in Wales, for some conversation and light Godfathering. This time, Travis was in school, so I actually got to talk to Mel and catch-up on what had been happening. Then, we went to pick the munchkin up, and the school fair was on, so we watched as he jumped on a bouncy castle and then clamboured into a Police van (Mel and I both silently prayed that this would be the only time he'd be in a Police vehicle). In the van, they were kind enough to let Travis ink his thumb and then press it onto some paper- what Travis called his 'PingerFrint'- and then put in on a keychain for him, so he now carries his identity on his schoolbag.
I must now confess a small bit of sadness: when I tried to say goodbye to Travis, knowing I might not see him for a long time (possibly five years!), he wouldn't even look at me and kept brushing off my attempts to hug him. I know he doesn't understand and doesn't intend to be cruel, but it still hurt- I wanted a moment with him before I left and the most I got out of him was 'bye!'- less valedictory and more frustrated- but when I asked him where he thought I was going, he answered 'Australia' (quite smugly, I might add), so I guess he occasionally pays attention to what I'm saying. 

And finally, last night I saw Daniel for the first time since Christmas and met his girlfriend for the first time ever. Daniel is as Daniel ever will be- nerdy, intelligent, just this side of being a mad scientist (he certainly has the hair); seeing him is always slightly like stepping back in time, we talk about people I haven't thought of in years and laugh about things that happened eons ago. I imagine the next time I see him, it will be exactly the same, as will every time after that. And I'm very glad about that.

All in all, it was a lovely week and even though I was actually alone for a lot of it, I haven't felt so flushed with friends for a long time. It was really nice to be able to host some of my closest buddies in my house and feel beloved, if not especially by Travis; may that champagne bottle rest there eternally.

The Godfather: Part II

Yesterday, I went to visit Mel and Travis. But before I get into that, I want to recount this little gem: Travis, as he kept proudly recounting, turned five last week. In the build up to his birthday, the following exchange took place:

MEL: Your favourite uncle's coming to your party.

TRAVIS: Rory?!

I cannot describe to you the swell of emotions I felt when Mel told me that. The fact that I then missed his party is beside the point.
I'm his favourite.

When I arrived, Travis immediately recognised me- a miracle in itself- and knew my name without prompting. Later in the day, he occasionally would call me 'Tommy', the name of Mel's new man, but I've learnt to take what I can get.
He immediately dragged me upstairs to show me his room and play a version of catch wherein every action he took won him a point, as did anything I did. There was no way for me to get points, but I evidently still had a tally on his mental scoreboard because:

MEL (From downstairs): Who's winning?

TRAVIS: Me! Travis!

ME: I think she can tell our voices apart.

TRAVIS: No!

When I protested the game wasn't fair, he said he was tired and didn't want to play anymore. He'd make a good politician.

Later, Mel had to go to lunch with her new beau and her new beau's father, so I heroically took on the role of babysitter; this mainly consisted of blowing bubbles into a spider's web, which was strong enough to hold them but not to pop them. I thought this was a beautiful metaphor for the ephemeral nature of parenthood and youth, Travis thought it made them easier to pop. I think the spider thought that ragnarok had come.
After this, we played 'Guess Who' and I taught Travis about the process of elimination, which he described as 'cra-zy.'

Mel eventually returned and Travis wanted to do some crafting, and there were pipecleaners. Maybe it was just Ironbridge, but when I was younger, pipecleaners were a rare commodity- a treat of the highest order, akin to eating orlotan or holding a baby panda. I remember when Blue Peter used to call on us to have pipecleaners, they might as well have asked us to make sure we had our gold filigree ready.
But lo and behold, there was an entire pack of them in the house and better yet, Travis wasn't interested in them, so Tom and I went a little nuts:

Cthulhu and Fu Manchu, teaming up at last.

 

If young Rory could have see the way I was wearing pipe cleaners on my face, he would have thought I was some kind of hedonistic millionaire.

 

After crafting, we watched Moshi Monsters, which had to be the laziest film I have seen in a long time. At one point, one of the characters proclaimed something to be 'monsterrific', which confused me no end since we don't call things 'humanrific'. At another, some characters were described as 'voodoo', which obviously meant they ate people. And then one of the half-rendered blobs quoted Mae West and I nearly lost it, because leave Mae West and her beautiful amorality out of your deplorable excuse for art. Monsterrible.

 

And then it was time to go. Despite me being his favourite uncle, Travis didn't seem to really regret my leaving. When I went to hug him, he hid beneath a towel and instructed me that this meant I couldn't touch him. I know he's only five but his callousness still stings a little.

 

Sadly, I didn't get to speak to Mel too much this time, as Travis was so full of beans. But, we got a couple of quick conversations and some hugs in and I'll hopefully get to see her again before I go. To paraphrase David Nicholls in One Day:

"Another big day in the life of a godfather."



Hay Festival

I present the above pictures without comment because sometimes context destroys the beautiful.

I spent the Bank Holiday weekend at the Hay Festival, rubbing elbows with the unkindled masses and spotting the odd celebrity far off in the distance.

I swear to God that's Stephen Fry up there, glowing like a Monacan traffic light. That's also the last of the photos I took because this was a festival of words not images and I quite clearly suck at it (see above).
Instead, I'm going to list the various talks and events I went to, especially the ones that involved famous people, who will be denoted in bold so you know to be impressed.

SATURDAY, 23RD MAY
14.00- 14.45
Live recording of The Verb: this was pretty fun, though I mainly booked cos it was a chance to see Stephen Fry for free. He was very good, and read a poem about Englishness and then spoke a little about his favourite words, which were admittedly delightful to the ear. Irvine Welsh was also there and struck me as a surprisingly soft-spoken man given his oeuvre; he read from his new novel and answered questions about writing naturalistic speech which appealed to as both a linguist and a writer incapable of sounding natural even when he's just talking naturally.

14.45-15.30
Live recording of some scenes from a Radio 4 drama: not a scheduled event, just something that happened after they were done recording The Verb. I sat and listened to them perform the scenes and then actually got to say a line because they needed someone in the audience to ask a question. So, yeah, I'm making my Radio 4 debut on Friday at 2.15, in a play that's also starring Ian McMillan and Simon Armitage, making them the most famous people I've acted with, ousting Sportacus.

16.00-17.00
Get Creative and Write a Poem: This was a lot of fun and also lead by Ian McMillan; the poem we wrote, altogether as an audience, was nonsense but at least it rhymed, so it was a lot better than some of the crap I've heard over the years.

20.30-21.30
Stephen Fry, Sandi Toksvig and Guests: Firstly, I object to the title of this show- it seems to suggest a lovely alternate universe where Stephen Fry and Sandi Toksvig have set up home and now regularly invite interesting speakers (and hordes of onlookers) into their living room. Instead, Fry was the host with Toksvig and one other person. So you know, the pluralisation is wrong and also I feel really sorry for that other guy- Mark Goldring- who isn't special enough to get his name in the title. Apart from this, it was actually a very interesting talk about Magna Carta and how to legislate for the rights we want and the changes we so desperately need. Fry was avuncular and delicious as ever, Goldring more or less held his own, at least in terms of delivering information but Toksvig absolutely stole the show- something that would become a habit of hers as the weekend developed. She was warm, she was witty, she was incisive- she even put the Hay festival staff in their place by pointing out how none of their lecterns were tall enough for her. Top marks.

SUNDAY, 24TH MAY
9.30- 10.15
What the Paper Said: A brief look at a newspaper from the same date, eighty one years prior. Relatively interesting, in terms of seeing how reporting has changed, especially in terms of language and presentation, but not delivered in a striking or decisive manner. However, it did give me my new favourite epigram:

"Mainly Dull in Tendency"

The headline pertaining to the stocks on that day.  The image of it as an actual newspaper topper was superb: it was written all fancy and bold and just looked a treat. Sadly I can't find it reproduced anywhere online and I don't want to pay for access to that newspaper's archives just for this one, admittedly splendid, turn of phrase. I was tempted to ask the presenter to send me a copy: I want to put it on my business cards.

11.30-12.30
Andrew Solomon: I'll admit I booked this only to see Stephen Fry once more, as he was interviewing the eponymous speaker. And, yet again, Fry was upstaged by his guest. Andrew Solomon might not be famous enough to earn the bold typography but he should be. He was brilliant- his work was brilliant, his speech was brilliant, his entire outlook on everything seemed to be just brilliant. If everything else at Hay had turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, it would have been worth it to go just to discover him because I plan to track down as much of his work as I can. An absolutely captivating lecture on children who are in some way radically different from their parents, told from the perspective of the parents. If you can find it online, please do; it really was inspiring and opened up so many questions about ideas of genetics and culture and how one may influence the other.

13.00-14.00
Jude Law, Louise Brealey, Sarah Lancashire, Sandi Toksvig, Colm Tóibín, Andrew O’Hagan, Kelvin Jones, Lisa Dwan and Stephen Fry: This is how the title was written on my ticket and so that's how I'll present it although I imagine it was actually called something more appropriate like Letters Live, rather than the title I gave which suggests I somehow managed to score a front-row seat for one of the most star-studded and improbable orgies of all time. No such luck. No, the above were instead reading letters from history (and one from this year, and another from a work of fiction, so they were more just reading letters of any description they fancied). This was an interesting idea and, when executed well, worked fantastically. Jude Law showed off his wit, verve and not inconsiderable acting chops when reading a letter from a Jew exiled from Nazi Germany to the man now occupying his house. Stephen Fry nearly burst into tears when reading the coming out letter of a gay son to his mother who had just joined a campaign for "Decency". And Sandi Toksvig took another cake by reading a two line correspondence about the Suffragette movement:

"There are two, and only two, ways in which this can be done. Both will be effectual. 1. Kill every woman in the United Kingdom. 2. Give women the vote. "

-Bertha Brewster

Sadly, sometimes the format didn't work so well: there was an actress- I don't remember which she was from the melange of names above, and she had the dual misfortunes of having picked the most angsty and therefore alienating pieces and then rather overperforming them. Still, most of the readers were excellent- there is definitely something to be said for short, elegant writings when delivered with a lovely, crisp accent and diction.

14.30-15.30

The Essay: This is the event I remember least. I know it was two people talking about what inspires them to write because the info on the website tells me so. I don't remember who they were or why they write. Oh well.

20.30-21.30

Jo Caulfield: Jo Caulfield is a stand-up comedian; she's apparently been on TV, but I'd never heard of her before I booked this ticket. In her blurb, she claimed her show was about the literary characters with whom she'd fallen in love but it really wasn't. Still, she was funny and that's what really matter with stand-up, I feel.

22.00-23.00

Eric Lampaert's Comedians' Cinema: This was not a show to see with one's parents. That was our first mistake. Our second was to sit in the front row so my parents had to get involved in the show's proceedings. This was an improve troupe trying to act out a movie- in this case, Mary Poppins: there was a lot of potential there, especially in extemporised musical numbers (a la Bert in the beginning of the film) and some of it was met. Some of it was emphatically not. They had the rather inspired idea that the woman playing Mary hadn't seen the film- this could've been brilliantly bizarre and out-of-joint, instead she just sort of shouted that she was 'the best nanny ever' all the time. Not so much satire as character assassination. Still, as with all but the worst improv, the off-the-cuff nature lead to some wonderfully unique one liners, the best of which I have documented below and no, you don't get context because, as I already said, it can be the enemy of splendour.

 "Look, it's the sexy, uncomfortable bird; I remember that from the film!"

MONDAY, 25TH MAY
10.00-11.00
Tom Holland, Bettany Hughes, Peter Stothard Fictions – Mary Renault: In this talk, Bettany Hughes, who was a witty and eloquent woman, spoke out in favour of historical inaccuracy in the service of a better narrative and the power that fiction has to transport, transform and transcend. Great, right? Well, Peter Stothard, who gets no bold font as a punishment for tedium, was a boring old sod who kept on manterrupting her and whining about preserving the truth. I wanted to slap him. Tom Holland was also there, but I don't remember him talking, so, y'know, no bold for him either because he may well have been a mannequin.

14:30-15.30
Nicola Clayton and Clive Wilkins Memory and Mental Time Travel: Definitive proof that speaking about something interesting in an interesting way is not the same as being interesting. Clayton and Wilkins deployed every trick imaginable- staged readings, play acting, blue jays, magic tricks and, I'm not kidding, an actual five minute argentine tango- to try and balance out their own innate monotony. It didn't work. I really wanted to retain more of this lecture than I did- after all, memory defines us in a very concrete way and I like to know about how my self comes to be- but, somewhat ironically, it was very unmemorable.

16.00-17.00
Sandi Toksvig: By now I was wise to Sandi Toksvig's tricks of being effervescent, forthcoming, cutting, informative and welcoming all at the same time and so I was ready, but somehow she still managed to completely blindside me and convince me that she would make absolutely the best Prime Minister ever. Much like Jo Caulfield, she purported to structure her talk around the books that have shaped her- unlike Caulfield, she delivered. She was utterly magnificent and her speech, which I presume she wrote, was some of the best politic rhetoric I have ever heard and that was just when she was talking about Little Women. Please God, Ms. Toksvig, follow your political aspirations and put the country right. We need you.

So, that was my experience of Hay- overall, a very expensive way to make yourself feel stupid. I can't reccommend it highly enough.