my life as a artist
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tits and balls
Friday 24th April 2009 7:10 PM
Feed the birds, £1.50 a bag, £1.50, £1.50, £1.50 a bag. Dangling fat balls (less sniggering at the back, please) cost 28p each on Broadway, and because the lights are bright, you can see why birds think they're magic in the air. They look a lot like an energy ball, but in place of the organic dark tahini they use condemned rancid pig fat instead, and to be fair there's probably more linseed in them than you'd normally get in your average hippy snack. They come attractively packaged in an easy-dangle, small, green, nylon mesh bag and I hang them off my new-fangled, home-made fat-ball dangler next to the bird table.
The reason I imperil my already shaky vegetarian principles, and pay 28p for the privilege, is because I want to see a wider variety of birds visiting the garden, and indeed, since my investment, my tit-bored table is often brightened by the cheery breast of a fiery robin or the dark under-stated beauty of a bead-eyed blackbird.
I've always thought that the deal was that I put out food for them and they hang around long enough for me to appreciate their outrageous, iridescent beauty, but today I put out a fat-ball and ten minutes later the whole thing had completely disappeared, along with the small, green, easy-dangle nylon mesh bag, and what's more, I didn't see a thing.
I don't mind spending 28p on seeing a fabulous bird of prey swoop off with a little plastic shopping bag, but for it to do it when I'm not there is, in my lightly-held opinion, the height of rudeness. Most birds, in my experience, are capable of being perfectly civilised and only choose to be wild when it suits them.
There are a couple of suspects but obviously I have no proof. There's been a psychedelic pheasant foraging for bird-table over-spill but it looks too ungainly for a controlled fat-ball snatch. A much more likely candidate is a sinister large black bird that I saw earlier trying to take off from the field with a stray golf-ball in its beak. I'm not sure what sort of bird it is, but according to my book it's either a crow, a jackdaw or Death, but whatever it is, it's already shown a callous disregard for other peoples property. I've taken a photo of it and sent it to the R.S.P.B. with an explanatory note and I'm hoping they might refund me the price of a fat-ball or at least offer some sort of apology. After all, good manners cost nothing, whereas fat-balls cost 28p.
Posted 7:10 PM | 7 Comments | Permalink
i have a dream
Friday 10th April 2009 1:38 AM
Last night I travelled to the wild, wind-pummelled western flanks of Ben More Assynt in Northern Scotland to have a word with my internet providers, Kate and Sidney Pi, about the non-functioning of the comment box. Kate was away, rioting in London, and Sidney admitted that he was finding it difficult to run things on his own, so he's arranged to call in his senior blog-buster from Lochinver. Thank you for all your kindly alerts.
This evening I played for the Corinthians afternoon team, and by dint of the inclusion of four other morning team players we became a sort of Corinthians late-elevenses eleven. The game was away against Old Manstonians in Leeds, and after the long journey back from the highlands I was still a bit dazed, my mind a swirling maelstrom of tartan, shortbread and ptarmigan.
After five minutes I have this beautiful dream where I cut inside the full-back on the edge of the box and rifle /spear /smash /crash /arrow the ball into the top corner of the net, and amazingly, when I wake up, it's all true.
There I am, on this great big green grass bed, rubbing sleep out of my eyes, wearing my Corinthian away-strip pyjamas and snuggling under the rough, hairy blanket of male approval, and the referee, who I'm beginning to look upon as a father, is pointing to the centre circle and awarding a goal. Later, Manstonians equalise, but some of their younger boys are so naughty that Dad has to show one of them a yellow card.
In the crepuscule, the light and the game fades. The light fades into a sodium and mushroom soup, a special delicacy often served in this part of Leeds, while the game fades into a scrappy one-all draw. Although at no point during the game do we have a mountain to climb, nevertheless, at some point in the second-half I come across a small hillock, and when I get to the top of it I have another dream. When I wake up I can't remember the dream but I think it has something to do with not judging a person by the colour of their away strip.
Posted 1:38 AM | 5 Comments | Permalink
all swell alls well
Saturday 4th April 2009 9:30 PM
Despite being offered a pensioner's meal at Wackers fish and chip restaurant last week I can't help feeling a certain youthful vigour creeping back into the old frame. Spring uncoils and there's a bit of bounce about. The willow-catkins that sway outside my window are especially pneumatic and they make me feel so gay, in an old-fashioned way, that I'm not going to apologise for the recent blog drought. Sorry.
On Wednesday night I went round to my Mums and watched England beat Ukraine 2-1, thanks to a winning goal from our inspirational and sometimes quite violent captain, John Terry. Although my Mum can't understand why a man who earns £150,000 a week insists on cutting his own hair with a knife and fork, she does recognise a crunching tackle when she sees one, and we were both in admiration of his poise and belligerence. When asked about up-coming fixtures and England's chances of qualification he said, 'We've got Khazakstan away and Andorra at home, which are two tough games.'
My Mum, who actually played a couple of games for Andorra in the late 70's, pointed out that by international standards this statement was not strictly true. Being a tiny village of 238 souls, cowering in the icy fastness of the high Pyrenees, Andorra is spectacularly ill-equipped to offer any meaningful resistance to most international teams. Such is the paucity of their resources that on one famous occasion in 1953, in a World Cup qualifier against Finland, two of the Andorran substitutes were Pyrenean mountain dogs. Their first success of any kind came in 1968 against a weakened Lichenstein team, when they managed to win a corner and two throw-ins. John Terry needs to know that when he plays against teams like Andorra or Lichenstein, he's not just wrestling with flesh and blood, but fighting principalities.
At half-time we were urged by Jamie Oliver to go to Sainsburys and buy hot-cross buns in celebration of Christ's victory over matter, but in light of the adverts use of smut and Jamie 'nice buns' Oliver's brazen lying, we decided to ignore him. The worst thing you can do to an egomaniac is ignore them, so in celebration of our 'victory over Jamie Oliver' we made the sign of the cross over some of my mum's walnut and beige biscuits. Luvverly jubberly!
Posted 9:30 PM | 4 Comments | Permalink
