Bloody religion!

Yesterday I had an accident which has resulted, like I knew it would, in my arm hurting today.

There’s an old derelict church near to where I live which has a cemetery around the back. The church is completely walled and fenced off so you cannot gain entrance (the back has an old wall and the front has some recent (last ten years or so) 7ft tall steel fence around it)

Until recently, this cemetery has been neglected and has become overgrown with an assortment of foliage. Recently though, it’s been getting some attention. People have been in to cut the grass and tidy up. There’ s been one of those makeshift carparks set up adjacent to the cemetary which might be the reason why the foliage was tidied up as it overhanging and overgrowing into this previously unused area.

As I was walking I came upon the church and decided to walk across the grass to peep over the wall to see what I could see. I saw this:

Not only has all the previously jungle like greenery gone but so have the gravestones which NG informs me stood here.

I decided to jump over the 5ft wall I was looking over and take some pictures of the church. I carefully placed my bag on the wall to collect when I had gotten over but thought I should keep my leather coat on. I don’t know how it would look to see a red haired woman wearing a full length black leather coat climbing over a church wall, but still, I pretended to take pictures until no one was around then made my move.

I jumped up the wall, had my arms straight and then put my right leg on top of the wall ready to put myself in a straddling the wall, sitting position, ready to swing my left leg over and then jumper down – this is what I meant to do anyhow. As I moved my right leg on top of the wall, I felt my right shoulder socket bone do a kind of dull crack, followed immediately by intense pain. I stumbled back and found that my arm was hanging limp and I couldn’t move it or move my fingers. At first I thought I’d dislocated it as it was incredibly painful. I began to get that dizzy and sick feeling that accompanies accidents and thought that I might pass out.

Following my recent first aid training, which surprisingly, I remembered, I sat down and tried to calm myself and breath steadily and try to forget about the pain. After about five minutes, I began to be able to move my fingers a little and was able to bend my arm a little and so it was no longer hanging limp.

Today, I’ve gotten up and it’s hurting a little, although I’m not in pain.

I do make me laugh. What other woman in her 40th year would think of scaling a church wall?

I’m a comical figure at times, but hey, I’m a happy comical figure.

Steer clear of religion kids! Learn from my mistake! If you do learn, let me know because I haven’t. As soon as my arm is better, I’m going straight back and going over that wall!

Watch this space for triumphant church pics! In fact, I think I’ll name that new Post ‘Triumphant Church Pics’

You old London bag!

One thing that has struck me since moving to London is that men all have handbags. Well, I should say that every man has a bag, not a handbag, but there’s no doubt that many of the men I see every week carry bags that a lot of women would consider carrying, and I’m not talking about backpacks. I’m not quite sure why this is but it seems to be mostly Londoners. I say mostly, because I’ve begun to see other men/boys carrying (sometimes tiny) shoulder bags in Birmingham, Coventry and Solihull. I think it’s more prevalent in London as a lot of people travel from farther afield than any other city and need to be more prepared in terms of say, clothing for possible rain and a place to carry a topcoat when on the hot tube. In addition to this, perhaps peoples’ increasing reliance on laptops, phones, mp3 players etc have something to do with it.

This doesn’t account though for the style of bags that some men carry. Personally, I don’t know how anyone can do without a bag. I use two bags – a backpack for weekday travelling to and from work which houses my purse, book, mp3, miscellaneous items and on certain days, my running gear. Then at weekends I switch to my shoulder bag:

Okay, not exactly a girly bag, but I’ve seen both men and women carrying them.

I’m not sure if there is a general blurring of the gender boundaries in London or whether it’s the rather clever marketing by Dunlop. I know a lot of men where I used to live and work would not even consider carrying a bag of any kind, but in London, it’s entirely acceptable. I’ll be looking with interest in the future to see if this is one of those things where London leads the way, with the rest of the country following suit.

It’s the Milky-Bar Cock!

Well, I had a surprise this week. No, it wasn’t that the LA scumbag press had left Britney Spears alone; it was biting into my first love in the chocolate world – white chocolate. Mmmmmm!

I love white chocolate and usually buy a Milky Bar at least once a week, even though they’re incredibly over priced seeing as how paper thin they are!

I curled up on the sofa with a cuppa and my chocolate. (hey, it’s my routine and it makes me happy, don’t knock it! Go and chase Britney or something, scumbag!)

I was about to put the chocolate in my mouth when I noticed the impression in the chocolate. It wasn’t the usual would-be recipient of a flicked elastic band, the Milky Bar Kid, it was this:

I’m sure a description isn’t needed at this juncture?

After gleefully showing NG, who shouted ‘It’s a penis!’ She suggested putting it together with the rest of the bar to see what the full picture was.

So, turning said piece 180 degrees and reuniting it with the rest of the bar, yielded this picture:

I’m lost for words.

NG suggested telling the scumbag press. Well, at least they’ll leave Britney alone for .004 seconds.

Random pics from random walks

Here’s a few pics from the walks I’ve had in the last few months.

Muller-lyer illusion

How many times have you visited people personal web sites and the first line is something like this:

‘Welcome to my corner of the web’ ?

Corner? CORNER? Where does this deeply inappropriate saying come from? It’s not as though there’s a precedent is there?

It’s irritating. According to these people, the web should be a pan-dimensional conglomeration of nooks, crevices and alcoves.

At this point, I want to swear. In fact I think I will.

KNICKERS!

Not really a classic swear-word but hey, it takes me back to the 70’s, when the internet was just a pip in the apple of some geek’s eye.

Butch and Patrick – on Art!

Hello there.

Welcome to, what it is hoped, will be a series of posts by performance artists, social commentators and good friends of Lix – Butch and Patrick (BaP)

Although they rarely talk (to anyone, they like their work to do the talking), they have given me permission to showcase their work on this forum.

Let us then, begin:

Rene Magritte – The Son of Man – 1964

Magritte’s painting refers to temptation and hidden desires. The apple is thought to represent the apple on the tree in the garden of Eden (even though an apple is never alluded to or mentioned in any way in this little domestic melodrama) suggesting temptation – the man in the suit is Adam. Everything else in the picture refers to hidden things – The suit hiding the flesh, the wall hiding whatever it is that lies behind it, the water hiding its depths and the clouds hiding the sky – and of course the apple.

Butch (on the left) and Patrick take this one step further with the obscuration of Butch’s face, and therein, facial features – by the apple whilst at the same time displaying bare flesh. This pose is suggestive of openess of physical expression but with motives unknown – as depicted by hidden facial features. The unclothed torso forms a stark juxtaposition of the clothed Man.

One forms the impression that the apple is soon to be devoured. This is compounded by the presence of a second apple in the background, unfettered and inviting anyone to give in to temptation.

Other work by BaP:

BaP – Repression of temptation – 2008

Randomiser

Sounds like a name for a pimply rock band doesn’t it? Starting out in their dad’s garage next to oily tools (not the band members) and old tyres. In fact, I just typed it in because I couldn’t think what to type in as my title for this post. This is mainly because I have nothing specific to say and just wanted to mention some various miscellany (Hmm! ‘various miscellany – is that a tautology?)

Last Wesnesday I went running with my running club. What? You didn’t know that I’d joined a running club? Ooh yeah, get me! I’m a member of a running club! With a membership card to boot!

I hadn’t been running prior to running with the Club for about 12 ish years so for the first two months – Jan and Feb ( I joined on Jan 3rd) I’d work up to three miles and then review after Feb and decide whether or not to increase the mileage.

On my first run I surprised myself by doing three miles, although I paid the price for it immediately afterwards. I struggled getting home (from Camden) negoitating the stairs on the tube and the morning after I was very very stiff. I’ve been doing three miles for a month now and not overdoing it, however, in time-honoured Lix tradition I don’t know when to stop and last Wednesday I ran up Primrose Hill and then around the three mile circuit – ready to go back to the gym and shower but at the end of the three mile circuit I found that I had a little bit more to give and so decided to do as much of another circuit as I could, with the intention of stopping if I got tired and walk back to the gym but I ended up doing another complete circuit resulting in my running six miles in the end. May not seem like much to you but I’ve never run six miles before and so it was a little bit of an achievement for me.

I went for a whistle-stop tour of the Midlands at the weekend to collect some things from E and visit my parents. It took me approximately 90 minutes to get from Angel to Euston and then on to Coventry. Great!

On the way back on Sunday – it took me about 4 hrs 45 minutes. Why?

‘TRAINS, TRAINS, IT’S THE DAMN TRAINS, TOOOOOT TOOOOOT!’