meish dot org: life, unfolding

OK, Shauny wants to know what kecks are.

In my family, at least, kecks are trousers, or more usually underwear, depending on the context. I think it’s a scouse thing, or at least a northern thing. My maternal grandfather was scouse, as was my paternal grandmother.

[Tangent: someone asked me the other day how I define my heritage. Well, let’s see. My maternal grandparents were generic northern and scouse, paternal ones were geordie and lancashire. My dad’s from Newcastle, and his entire family have been based in the north-east for yonks, mining and in the church (my brother did an extensive family tree a few years ago, going back thirteen generations to 1647 and so wide it fitted on a scroll thirty sheets across). My mum grew up in nottinghamshire, and her family has roots among the Lancashire sandgrounders, during the last century. Teachers, chemists and fishermen, all. Every single person in my family for the last four generations has been to university, and each to different ones, with only one overlap - my dad and my mum, who met at Cambridge when my dad was directing a production of A man for all seasons, in which my mum played the lead female character, Meg.

The entire family is fairly classically anglo-celtic looking - dark hair, blue or brown eyes, fair skin, tallish, strong bones. The men are built to withstand harsh north winds, and the women have childbearing hips. My heritage is classic northern british shabby intellectual, I’d say. And here I am, breaking the mould daaahn saaarf.

When living in Bolivia, my friend C and I quickly figured out that we had to develop a way of talking that couldn’t be understood by those around us. For the most part, English was fine, but when we met up with a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers in Cochabamba, it became obvious that we’d have to go one better. So we started slipping into a disturbing OTT scouse accent when talking to each other in front of others - running all words together, raising the pitch an octave or so, dropping the beginnings and ends of words (and sometimes even the middles), squeezing the words into a steady scouse stream. There was no need to go sotto voce, since no-one could understand, so we continued at normal volume, a pair of chittering scally banshees, whenever we needed to gossip or exchange private information in public.

This worked fine, until we met up in Liverpool, the year after. Walking down Bold Street one afternoon, we passed a woman teetering on the most ridiculous platform trainers I’d ever seen (bearing in mind that any platform trainers are inherently ridiculous, and that I’d been out of the country for nearly two years) and with hair that looked as if she’d been dragged through a bush backwards, massively teased and sprayed to within an inch of its life.

C, who is from Harrogate, clocked her first, then turned to me, and in a horrified and clearly fake scally screech, declared “Eywillyoulooookatthe’urron’er! Worraslappa!”

Cue outraged and murderous stares from the entire Liverpudlian population in the surrounding area. Oops.

Funny thing is, I can manage passable scouse, scottish (all parts), lanky, derbyshire and manc, but I can’t do geordie at all. There must be a vital chromosone missing from my DNA or something.

I threw loads of stuff away - or rather, more accurately, I took it all down to Oxfam, where the grumpy sales assistants’ little faces lit up when they saw me heaving under the weight of two huge binbags in a downpour. I feel wetter, more solid than I did before.

I’ve been on a Burns kick recently, though I don’t know why. I caught myself singing Ye Banks and Braes in the shower earlier, and now I’ve got Ae fond kiss running through my head. Or should that be heid?

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever
Ae fareweel, alas forever
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.

Which, in a strange and not altogether pleasant way, reminds me of my ex boyfriend (universally referred to (well, within my family and friends - my mum started it, blame her) as T**-The-Bastard, TTB for short - it’s a long story, remind me to regale you with it sometime) who used to serenade me with Burns (sounds abusive; it wasn’t) and with whom I once duetted at a Scottish ex-pats supper performance in New York. We got up on stage, him in his kilt looking foxy (it’s the legs, I tells ya), me in my frock looking posh, and gave the perfomance of a lifetime, to rapturous applause. And then we sat down and he told me in no uncertain terms that I’d mispronounced a word, and that if I ever embarrassed him like that again, he’d leave me. You know, as you do when you’ve just had a standing ovation.

Of course, that was before the throwing-the-luggage-out-of-the-window-at-4am-on-thanksgiving incident, but we’ll skip past that for the moment - it’s not a story best guaranteed to make me feel chipper and positive about the world, relationships, life, etc, etc.

I vowed never to like Burns again. I tossed him mentally into the pile of unreadable, undigestable wank. I quietly switched my affections to Atwood and cummings and Jennings. Poncey wank, sure, but at least not Scottish. Throughout the remainder of that relationship I refused to sing with TTB. He’d pick up the guitar, and solo, while I sat there, stoicly silent. Oh, the symbolism.

And now suddenly, it’s back in my head again. What’s that about, I wonder? Hmm.

Had a very odd experience this morning. I had a frenzied dream about standing in the middle of the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, making a long-distance call on my mobile to the US, talking to the owner of a website. I had to give a justification as to why I should be included on her list of links, only I was getting a bit irate and confused about the whole thing. The name of the site? DebbieCollins.com.

So when I woke up and logged on, late morning, I thought what the hell, I’ll try it. I typed in DebbieCollins.com, and nothing came up. Phew. So I tried DeborahCollins.com on the off-chance, and lo and behold, a weblog I haven’t seen before. It must have got lodged in my subconscious, somehow. Weird. And there I am, already on the links list, without needing to do a telephone interview. Even weirder.

So I had a little poke around her site, and then I stumbled over her about page, which bears a striking similarity to mine, not in terms of design, but in the facts listed down the left hand side. I think Debbie and I would get on alarmingly well, considering we have so very much in common. Interests, passions, things that get us into trouble. Hell, even some of the words are the same. Uncanny. Hmm.

Anyway, this got me thinking about revamping my own about page, because it’s a bit tired and besides, why not? I was thinking about doing a MEGFAQ, if possible, so can I ask for your help, please, in submitting questions you would like answered? Thank you….

I find eHow a bit disconcerting. I mean, some of the information is useful and practical, and some of it makes you think “jeez, if I managed to switch on my computer and kickstart the browser, I think I might be able to blow my nose, maybe.”

Current topics worthy of investigation:

• How to evaluate a sneeze
• How to introduce people
• How to create a “Guy That Got Run Over by a Car” costume (not really, but that’s just genius…)
• How to wear a hawaiian shirt

What I would really like eHow (or in fact anyone) to tell me is the following:

• How to spot a doomed relationship from far far away
• How to reconcile a busy life with a stressful job and sufficient sleep
• How to prevent bedhair
• How to actually finish reading a book rather than ending up with six on the go at once and no clear understanding of storyline
• How to take a holiday or a sick day and not feel guilty
• How to not just be friends
• How to respond to the comment “you look great - what’s up?”
• How to tell someone you like them but not in that way
• How to walk to work comfortably but without having to lug a change of shoes
• How to remind myself to buy batteries
• How to stop all my clothes turning into one enormous ball of static
• How to find the mythical perfect shoes that every girl dreams of
• How to avoid cancelling dates/lunches/appointments/dinners out of a fear of commitment, lack of organisation, over-tiredness, lack of clarity, workload, etc.

If you’ve got any answers, do let me know. And what would you like to know how to do? You never know - I might be able to help. Maybe.

Waiting for marmite on toast in the deli-from-helli this morning, I was standing next to an old man, who asked for a toasted bagel and a strong cappuccino. He was about 5′3″, wrinkly and pink, in a typically English kind of way, wearing a cravat and a heavy coat, though it was a delicious spring morning for the first time in weeks. He greeted the serving staff (this morning: DishPig and BadCop) amiably and with familiarity. His accent was pure Kensington. They chatted for a while.

Then BadCop asked him if he wanted chocolate sprinkles and he said

“Si, por favor.”

She looked at him twice.

When DishPig handed him the coffee he said

“Gracias”

in a completely Englishman-speaking-foreign accent. Grassy-arse.

DishPig said “I’m not Spanish. I’m Armenian.”

“Oh,” said the man, looking utterly crestfallen.

BadCop gave him his change and he pocketed it, with a concerned expression on his face, thinking, thinking.

And then, as he left the shop, he pipped a cheery “Arrivaderci!”

BadCop rolled her eyes in contempt at his departing figure, and I waited for my breakfast.

In 1996 I was living in a tiny community in Bolivia, doing fieldwork for my dissertation. That’s another story in itself – if not a whole book – but not for now. This story concerns itself with learning valuable cultural lessons, dancing on the roof of the world, and the reason I will never have a second helping of potatoes ever again as long as I live.

During the second month of my fieldwork, as the local foreigner, I was invited to the inaugural blessing of a new tree nursery in a tiny hamlet about four hours drive into the mountains called Inka Katurapi. With foreign aid, the village of about fifty people was experimenting with planting trees to prevent harmful erosion of the topsoil.

I didn’t think they were going to feed me when I got there so before I left my fieldwork site, I had a hearty Andean breakfast, consisting of potatoes. Now, potatoes in the UK come in three basic types: new, medium and baking. Potatoes in Bolivia however come in about 39 variations, with different colours and sizes and even tastes. Yes, amazingly, all potatoes do not taste the same. Anyway, beans (or even potatoes). I scoffed about a pound of potatoes before I left the village because I figured that would last me until the next meal (whenever that was going to be).

Driving over the Andes towards the village took about a couple of hours (there was impressive scenery, there were llamas). When I got to the village, nestled high in Los Valles, the party was about to kick off. This was not a fiesta, the other typical kind of Andean celebration, which involves drinking so much chicha (maize beer) that you go blind and waking up in a pool of your own (or worse, someone else’s) vaguely maize-smelling vomit three days later limbs aching from dancing the cueca, which is basically the Bolivian equivalent of Morris dancing and involves a lot of hanky-waving. This celebration was to be a rather more staid affair. There was to be a visit to the alpaca herd, a look at the nursery, a feast and then some speeches, they told me as soon as I arrived. Woah, hang on a minute, did someone say feast? Even though I’d eaten a few hours ago, appetite in the Andes is a funny thing and a little goes a long way, so my breakfast of potatoes was still weighing heavily on my stomach. A feast sounded like something I wasn’t prepared for, in an appetite kind of way.

So off we went to look at the alpacas and then at the nursery (yawn) and then there was the feast. In the middle of a muddy field on a steep slope, the entire village of about 45 people gathered around, bringing ingredients for the picnic. One person from each family brought an aguayu (a woven cloth used as a sort of backpack, if you tie it right (ask me to demonstrate sometime)) wrapped neatly around their contribution to the feast. Laying them down in the middle of the circle, one by one, they were unfolded to display the yummy contents within.

Quick caveat: I swear I am not making this up. Everything here actually happened, and I still have the scars (mental, physical and emotional) to prove it. Oh, and the photos.

Every single person brought potatoes. Every single one. Okay, a few people had also thoughtfully brought some llahua which is a scary foaming spicy tomato and chilli sauce that looks like the kind of spit you only ever see after a long dental operation, and tastes like burning. But aside from that, potatoes and lots of them. About twenty blankets worth. That, in case you hadn’t figured it out, is a lot of potatoes.

As the village guest, I got the village chair while everyone else sat on the ground. When I moved to sit with them, the head of the village, a man who wore a symbolic whip tied diagonally over his shoulder, shouted at me and gave me a guirnalda (a stiff floral garland that fits around the neck and over the shoulders and makes it impossible to move your arms from elbows up). So I sat on the village chair, higher than everyone and feeling uncomfortable. One of the women gave me an empty tin plate and indicated that I should help myself from the blanket. I quickly cottoned on that no-one was going to start on the food before I’d at least made a token effort so I headed over to the blanket, grabbed a few smallish spuds and a bit of red-spit sauce and plonked myself back down on the chair. My plate was immediately whisked away and the next time I saw it, mere seconds later, it was piled high with potatoes of every shape and hue.

There is one kind of potato in the Andes which deserves special mention here. Its name is the ch’uño and it is pure evil. It’s basically a freeze-dried potato which starts life sort of medium-sized and juicy and via a lengthy process of freezing and thawing in the open air, becomes a small black nugget which keeps for up to three years, usually in a sack in the animal shed, and tastes rather like the insole of a particularly sweaty hiker’s boot. It’s the kind of food that could only make sense in a region where shortages are common and something that is cheap, filling and easily-reconstituted is a valuable commodity. But it still tastes like shit.

My plate was piled high with ch’uño, of course, and I valiantly picked my way around them, trying to smother their minging taste in dentist spit as best I could. Like the polite girl that I am, I struggled but eventually managed to finish everything on my plate though I felt dangerously heavy. Bear in mind that there was also nothing to drink: no liquid to wash down the massive quantities of starch that were currently coagulating like a large boulder inside me.

They say that it only takes a pound of potatoes to kill a baby but I reckon you’d have to throw them very accurately indeed. Feeling full to bursting, I wondered what the equivalent starch tolerance level was for an adult female. I felt I was rapidly approaching that level. In fact, I FELT LIKE I HAD ROSEMARY’S POTATO BABY GESTATING INSIDE ME. Gah.

I turned to the head honcho with a strained but satisfied look on my face (I always was a good actress) and said, “Que rica! – most delicious” When I turned back, there was a woman standing in front of me holding a plate of potatoes dotted with ch’uno and red sauce. Hang on a minute. Is this Groundhog Day? Whatthefuck? I took the plate with a smile and a bilious lurch and started to eat. Again.

I did the best I could. All I can say in my defence was that as a well brought up young lady, my mummy taught me to eat whatever I was given. And so I did, even though I thought the effort would kill me, if the starch didn’t cripple me first. Once you’ve eaten a pound of potatoes, you feel full. Once you’ve eaten two pounds of potatoes, you begin to think you’ll never move again. By the middle of the third pound, you’re starting to wonder whether it would be easier to try and swallow one whole and choke yourself to death.

I handed the clean plate to the honcho, said “Thank you, but if I eat any more, I’m going to explode.” He laughed, took the plate and said words which I struggled to translate, but which I was sure involved the words “next course”. Sure enough, there was a second course … another traditional Andean dish – potato and pasta soup, which is basically another way of saying boiled potatoes and boiled pasta with the water left in the pan. They handed me a shallow bowl. I took one bite and blanched (no pun intended). I put the plate down on the ground, unsteadily and apologising profusely to everyone around. I’m sorry. I cannot eat another thing. I’m so sorry.

The relief on the faces of the villagers was obvious. I was confused, then suddenly, it clicked. In the UK and much of the western world, it’s considered polite to finish everything on your plate. In rural Bolivia however, if you lick your plate clean it implies that you’re still hungry, and so out of courtesy they will keep feeding you until you stop asking for more. The head honcho nodded at my apology, said sagely “You must have been very hungry indeed,” and then proceeded to give a lengthy speech in Quechua about the new nursery and all the benefits it would bring. I was extremely glad that the political tradition of long speeches was upheld equally in the Andes because it gave me a chance to digest.

My speech was not quite so lengthy and relied almost entirely on the artful use of sign language, stilted Quechua and a smattering of burps. No-one in the audience spoke English, and only a few spoke Spanish, which made orating problematic – though I think I came up with a crowd-pleaser when I rubbed my heaving stomach and declared “Mmmm … potatoes yummy”. Everyone smiled. On reflection, perhaps they were just relieved that I’d finally stopped eating. More speeches were made and then the honcho summoned for the band to start to play.

Have you ever heard an Andean band play? No, not those guys with the bright ponchos and the pan-pipes playing “El Condor Pasa” in Leicester Square … the real thing. Paul Simon wouldn’t recognise it, I can assure you. The village band consisted of five men with flute-like objects (quinos), one bloke with an enormous bass drum and a small child with a snare drum and a bad sense of rhythm. They played breathless synchopated tooting to a pounding rhythm. Everyone listened.

Then suddenly the head honcho stood up and said something in Quechua, waving in my direction. I fought my way through the layers of starch that had invaded my brain to translate it. Now…our visitor….to dance…future gerund…reflexive first person plural….

No wait, that can’t be right. I must have got that reflexive bit the wrong way around. Bloody grammar. He must have said, “Now we will dance for our visitor”. Surely. Surely. Oh god. Please. No.

He gestured again and indicated that I should stand up. Ah. Apparently my translation was right the first time: “Now our guest will dance for us”. And so, on wobbly legs and full of potato, I did the universal embarrassed uncle/Nelson Mandela dance, aided by the tight garland around my upper arms, making it impossible to move too much, and accompanied by sharp tooting and an urgent drum.

Thankfully, once the laughter had subsided, the women of the village got up to dance too, dragging me with them.

The dance consisted of holding hands in a circle and running round in a clockwise direction, then suddenly changing direction and running the other way for a bit. Meanwhile, two women would get into the middle of the circle and spin each other around. I was breathless, being 12,000 feet above sea level; full, having eaten three pounds of potatoes; thirsty, having not drunken anything since breakfast; and most of all clumsy, although that may have had something to do with the fact that we were dancing on a 45 degree ploughed field. The dance continued this way for a good ten minutes. Suddenly, I was grabbed by a short, fierce-looking woman in a bowler hat.

Now, many Bolivian women wear felt bowler hats, and some are fierce looking. But almost all of them are beneath five feet tall. I am not. I’m 5’9” and I towered over this woman as she grabbed my hands and we started to spin each other, one arm over the head. Because she was so short, spinning her presented no problem, and her wide colourful skirts spread out into a bell shape and brushed my legs as she span. But every time she tried to spin me, I ended up being smacked in the face by my own forearm. Repeatedly, with every turn. Not very graceful. And all to the sound of complex, breathy music, which after a while, sort of made sense.

So picture the scene. I was 12,000 feet up in the Andes, full to bursting, vowing never to eat another potato as long as I live, being smacked repeatedly in the head and tripping over my own muddy boots in a field full of people I could barely communicate with. I was breathless, dizzy and dancing on the roof of the world. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

Asked for: hummus and roasted vegetable on a brown baguette, no butter.

Got: White buttered baguette. That’s it.

So I had to go back and complain, especially because the latte I asked for was actually dishwater or camel spit or something, as well. So I wait in the queue again, and who do I get to serve me? Bad Cop. Of course.

So after I explained the problem, this is what happened….

Bad Cop: So what you want lady?
Me: ….
[Bad Cop turns away and shouts at the DishPig in Armenian for two minutes]
Bad Cop: What you want lady?
Me: Roasted vegetable and….
Bad Cop: No roasted vegetable lady. What you want?
Me: I’ll have chicken tikka with salad instead
Bad Cop: Which one lady?
Me: Er…chicken tikka?
Bad Cop: Which one lady?
Me: What?
[She points at the solitary dish of chicken tikka in the cold cabinet. There is no Chicken Schnitzel for miles.]
Bad Cop: Chicken Schnitzel?
Me: Chicken Tikka?
Bad Cop: Yes I know, which one lady?
Me: What?
Bad Cop: Which one lady?
[I point to the exact same metal dish of Chicken Tikka, just stuck there looking lonely in the middle of the nearly-empty cabinet]
Bad Cop: Yes lady, yes [in a tone that implies that I am five years old, foreign, deaf and very very stupid]
[She puts it in the empty baguette hands it over. No salad, of course, and she charges me twice.]

So apparently it now appears she has some sort of double vision thing going on as well as the forgetfulness and surrealism that usually make up her personality.

In The Road Ahead, Bill Gates described his idea of “virtual dating,” wherein a couple could go out on dates even if they were separated by georgaphy. As long as they co-existed in the same timeframe, they could share an evening of company, enabled by mobile phones and other gadgetry.

Well, that’s a bit sad, and you certainly wouldn’t get much tongue-sarnie action at the end of the evening (just a sort of wet licking sound) but the idea brings up an important point. People don’t need to be in the same place to share an experience.

Think solar eclipse. Think Diana’s funeral. Think Online Coffee Morning?

On a scale of one to crack, Isaac Hayes is Robert Downey Jnr. I’m not talking about the South Park Salty Chocolate Balls episode. That’s a novelty record, and therefore naturally outside the limits of understandable taste. I’m talking specifically about the nine-and-a-half-minute mini funk symphony (with utterly irresistable bassline and super stereo effects, even if it is just Isaac going “HUH!” loudly in alternate ears) that is Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic, a title which apparently means “no wank, all groove”, which are words to live by, I think you’ll agree. Well, sometimes.

Through a haze of Lemsip and Tixylix, I’ve been listening to Hot Buttered Soul all morning, and it’s gradually started to seep in how utterly messed up this track is. It contains classic musical phrases like modus operandi and medula oblongata, for Pete’s sake.

[Tangent: When I was a little kid, my parents used to take me to church. I was convinced for years and years that god had a name, and that his name was Peter. Why? Because after the readings, someone would always go "This is the word of the Lord" and everyone else would say "Thanks Peter God." Yeah, cheers Pete, mate.]

On a completely different note, can there be any song much finer than Love Will Tear Us Apart by the mighty mighty Joy Division? I’ve had it on permaloop in my head since last night (fell asleep listening to Permanent). Damn, it’s good. It’s not the lyrics or the tune or the musicality or whatever. It’s not the greatest song ever recorded or anything. I just can’t see how it could be improved.

1. Watching the Open University last night at about two, I discovered (on a programme about civic design, as you do) that Terry Hall (ex Specials) moved out to the country to become sane. He moved, in fact, to Hayfield, which is a tiny weeny little village in the Derbyshire Peak District near where I used to live. Blimey. Never saw him for last orders down at the George. Who knew? I could have bored him rigid about the fact that he recorded the first single I ever bought as I tried to procrastinate my dissertation write-up over a pint. Hang on, dangling modifier. I was neither a child prodigy nor a late musical developer. Curses to grammar!
2. I am drowning in mucus. Sorry, TMI. Suffice to say, cold has moved on to a whole new level - surprising and powerful sneezes that feel reeeeeeeeally good. Oh yes, and it’s definitely a cold. I’m not going to be a man about this and pretend it’s flu, pneumonia, the plague, miximatosis, creeping death or anything else. I feel grim and horrid, but it’s a cold and I will recover. So there.
3. Flash of inspiration: those kids on the platform at Willesden Junction the other night? The ones with all the spit? They must have been eating Sainsbury’s Cola Lances. Otherwise, how else were they able to produce so much saliva? Problem solved.
4. I had to go to an important meeting this afternoon, which is why I dragged myself into the office feeling so rat shit. When I got back after two hours of waffle, I found a post-it-note stuck to my monitor from Scally saying
   

   “GO HOME YOU STUPID WOMAN OR I WILL HAVE TO SPANK YOU”

   only in really big letters. He has since hypothesised that I could, in fact, be replaced by a complex cardboard cutout with rolling eyes and a moving jaw, with a built-in random speech generator that says “oh kill me now” “gah” “ming” “old lady cat wee” “resistance is futile” and “why are men endowed with such vast quantities of vagueness and such a high propensity for fucktardery?” when you pull a little string (so, in fact, more like a robot). That way, he reckons, he could come down to my desk and wibble at me without me actually needing to be present. Why thank you, Scally, think you’ve summed me up to a tee, there.

5. You know when people have “our song”? The song that they fall in love to, or the song that was playing on the radio the summer they met, or the song that basically helped them through the hard times? The song that they saunter up the aisle to? The song that Simon Bates would read out lengthy stories beforehand and then play with a tear in his eye and a croak in his throat? What would be the suckiest or most unfortunate possible our song to have? Songs that conjour up entirely the wrong emotion, but yet some poor bastards could well be stuck with that as their song for all eternity (or until that nice Mrs Davies at number 38 invites you in for coffee)? Some suggestions include….
   • Ever fallen in love with someone (you shouldn’t've fallen in love with)? - Buzzcocks
   • You’re So Vain - Carly Simon
   • Whatsamatter you? (Hey!) (Shaddupayaface) - Joe Dolce
   • C is for Cookie - Cookie Monster
   • I hate everything about you - Ugly Kid Joe
   • Love will tear us apart - Joy Division
   • I hate myself for loving you - Joan Jett
   • No more I love yous - Annie Lennox
   • I hate you - Christian Death
   • It’ll never last (nah-nah-han) - Meg and the Cynics
   • Is she really going out with him? - Joe Jackson
   • Pencil Skirt - Pulp (but only for the line “I’ve kissed your mother twice and I’m working on your dad”)
   • If that’s your girlfriend (she wasn’t last night) - Queen Pen
   • Unbearable - Wonderstuff
   • Baby I love your cunt - S*M*A*S*H
   • Not if you were the last junkie on earth - Dandy Warhols
   • Caught out there (I hate you so much right now) - Kelis