Creative Writing: "Arguments"

You know the drill by now. Folktales (3pm every Sunday, LSRfm.com) gave me a song. I wrote to it. This week it was "Arguments" by Handmade Hands and here is the result. Incidentally, the story in the first paragraph is entirely true, given a touch of artistic license.
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When I was small, the biggest argument I ever had was over a backwards roll. I was six and my best friend, a budding gymnast, thought I was silly for not being able to do one. I remember the day clearly. We were playing in her back garden in the beating sun, barefooted and barelegged. The sprinklers were on and there had just been ice-cream. She was performing a series of perfect gymnastic manoeuvres, cartwheels and handstands and, of course, backwards rolls. I whooped and clapped like the perfect audience, in awe of my talented friend until she, flushed with her success, suggested I join in. I was less than keen. This was not my forte and I was scared of hurting myself. Undeterred and ignoring my protests, she gave me an almighty shove and my feet went up over my head and the world was turned upside down. I had, unwillingly, executed a perfect backwards roll, and I was not happy about it. Furious and teary with shock, I stomped off to find my Wellington boots, threatening to go home. It wasn’t until my friend, distraught that I was leaving, burst into tears too that everything was reconciled. We went back outside into the garden and began a new game, tears and trauma all forgotten.

Now I’m older, I often wish that all arguments could be solved so simply. But adults don’t care when you threaten to leave, and children are too carefree to hold grudges.

Life is circular these days, isn’t it? There’ll be something tedious little incident, something so unimportant and insignificant that we’ll wonder, later on, why we even noticed. But it’ll cause grinding nerves and grinding teeth and suddenly we’ll be red in the face and screaming blue murder. Every past wrong will be dredged up and wrung out over and over again. Every little thing that you do that infuriates me I will throw in your face with relish and you’ll delight in informing me of all the little things that I do that make your skin crawl.

I'm sure I’ve said these things before. Why aren’t you listening? Why aren’t you listening??

Listen to me!

And then you snap. And then I snap. And then there’s a resounding crack and this relationship is held together by splinters.

No one will speak now for a while now. We’re too busy listening to the harsh words still ringing in our ears. We’ll say later that we didn’t mean them, but we did, and we know we’ll say them all again and mean them just as much. Words don’t just cut, they pierce and burrow and crawl under your skin, burning and sniping and etching themselves on your memory for ever.

Soon, we’ll kiss and make up. Everything will be peaches and cream. Until the next time, that is, because we’re repeating ourselves, repeating ourselves. And, when the shouting begins once more, when we say those things we’ve said a million times over, I will sigh and wish I was six years old again when it was so easy to forgive and forget. 

Creative Writing: "Sorry"

Inspired by "Sorry" by Karine Polwart (a beautiful track and proper folk, check it out) and written for Folktales,  LSRfm.com's answer to soothing Sunday storytime.
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Dear Liar,

I’m writing to tell you that you’ve really done it this time. I’ve taken a lot over the past few months, years, but this… this is the final straw.

You have, frankly, been a consistently awful boyfriend. My mum hates you. My friends hate you. You’re rude and obnoxious and last year you forgot my birthday. You spend your week nights in the pub and you weekends watching football and you certainly don’t give a damn about anything I’ve got to say. You never clean the flat or offer to cook dinner and the last time you did something remotely nice it was to erect that shelving unit that collapsed three weeks later anyway. I’ve thought of leaving you a million times, but then you’d say something nice or tell me I looked pretty and I’d convince myself that the man I fell in love with must still be in there somewhere, hiding, and one day he’d come back to me. So I’d stay, all for that one, flimsy hope.

A shame, then, that when I was able to overlook all your faults, you ruined it all by being an underhanded, cheating scumbag. You thought you’d covered your tracks nicely, didn’t you, with all those tall stories and all that deceit? Well, let me tell you that those stories won’t wash any more. You’ve been caught red-handed. You’re busted.

I won’t say I wasn’t suspicious before. There’s only so much overtime one person can do. But I bit my tongue because I trusted you. I overlooked the late nights when you stumbled in drunk, lipstick on your cheek, the smell of perfume on your skin. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, didn’t make a big thing of it. After all, I know what a lad’s night out is like and no one likes a jealous girlfriend. But when the weekend “courses” started, the “business trips” abroad, I knew that trusting you any longer would only make me look like the idiot. So, I read your emails. I opened your credit card bills. One night I even followed you out. I wanted to see your treachery with my own eyes so I could stop loving you and start hating you instead.

I saw you hold that tramp’s hand in the restaurant where we had out first date. I saw you stoke her cheek, kiss her goodnight. And it did make me hate you, but it hurt me too.

Does she know about me, I wonder?

Don’t bother to try and fix it this time. Don’t bother with the over blown romantic gestures. Don’t call. Don’t send me flowers. Don’t come around to my house to stand and plead forgiveness under my bedroom window. This isn’t like the other times, you know. “Sorry” isn’t going to cut it. How could you possibly think that a mere apology would give me back the dignity you stole so unthinkingly from me? You’ve broken my heart and demolished my pride. “Sorry” isn’t good enough and it’s never going to be good enough, ever again.

I hate you for making a fool of me. I hate you for taking the best years of my life and not even making it worth it. I will never forgive you for this.

Please find all you possessions on the front lawn.

Regards,

A Better Person Than You.

YA: Being Just As Busy As A Bee Can Be.

Look, OK, I really do have an excuse for my absence this time. In fact I have several. Would you like to hear about them?

Firstly, there's my stonking social life -  prepare to be utterly overwhelmed by jealousy as I launch into a detailed and adjectivally-stuffed description of my fabulous existence!

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You're right, that is going too far (and erring on the arrogant). Saying that, I can't deny that recent times have been pretty damn good. I've had a guest to stay in the form of a certain Miss Pearson and I had a great time giving her a wee tour of my adoptive Bundesland. The long anticipated Fort Day took place, though with considerably less fort building than face-packs (which Matt refused to partake in) and bacon sandwiches. We had an en masse trip to Ikea and Gelsenkirchen's new Primark in order to stock up on cheep accessories and household furnishings. I also went to a tip top gig, my first proper small gig since being in Germany; Tubelord and Shoes And Socks Off were brilliant, and hopefully there'll be a somewhat belated live review on this very blog soon. Then, on top of all that, there's been the numerous trips to the ol' Kneipe and various nights out in different cities (Münster, Düsseldorf, Essen, Duisburg) not to mention the past three weekends spent outside of Germany...

No, actually, let's mention those. First, there was Amsterdam. Oh, my beloved Amsterdam, how I had missed thee! We only went for a short time, taking advantage of Deutsche Bahn's cheapy-cheap saving train fares and for 38Euro there and back it was thoroughly worth it. I mean, it wasn't an entirely hitch-free trip; the hostel we wanted to stay in ran out of walk-in rooms (they wouldn't take a phone reservation) and we had a nerve wracking couple of hours where we all tried to put a brave face on the fact that we could possibly be sleeping rough in the Dutch capital. Fortunately, a very lovely woman (whom I want to adopt as a member of my family) in the tourist information centre hooked us up with a three-star hotel at 33Euro each for the night and we were saved. Other than me dropping my chips, everything else went swimmingly. We took in the delights of the flower market and the sex museum, got some Dutch food and wandered off into the night. Obviously, we took a turn down the red light district, though the prostitutes weren't nearly as interesting as all the ducks and swans lining the canal which Carol decided to feed. Then it was pub time. Several long strolls and numerous beers later, it was suddenly 4am in we were in a jazz bar and Kelsey was falling asleep against the wall. We decided it was probably time to hit the sheets. The next morning we stocked up (and I mean stocked up) on the hotel's free breakfast before heading to the Anne Frank House. I'd been before, but I didn't find it any the less moving and I thoroughly recommend going if you haven't yet had the chance to visit. Finally, there was time for a quick photo-shoot on the I Amsterdam sign before boarding the train back to Duisburg, and frankly, crashing right out. 

The weekend after I hit up another European capital: Copenhagen. Since my oldest friend in the world, Jennie, currently resides there I thought it only right and proper that I should pay her a visit. She was a tremendous host, talking me drinking at cool bars and for dinner at a restaurant shaped like an old-fashioned tram (and I can still taste the awesome-osity of that burger). I took the night train up on the Thursday night, arriving in the middle of Friday, the rest of which was pretty much taken up with the aforementioned burger and a Hoegarden in a tumbler that must have previously belonged to a giant it was so big. On Saturday we were tourists, heading out to the Little Mermaid statue and then into Christiania, the crazy hippy commune in the middle of town with it's own a rules and a bar with a fish-tank celling in the toilets. Then, after fabulous home cooked lasagne (thanks, Jennie's flatmate) we got changed and went to the most international flat party I've ever had the privilege to attend. There was only about eleven people but we spanned six different nationalities: British, Turkish, Danish, Norwegian, American and Polish. Crazy. Even crazier, then, that I spent the rest of my night getting well and truly trollied on extremely cheap Turborg at a Balkan Music night in a disused factory turned club. Needless to say, the hangover the next day was considerable and the ten hours of training back to Germany unwelcome, but I had a completely awesome weekend and I'd do it all again tomorrow if not sooner. 

Then (last one now) last weekend Kelsey and I made another trip to Holland in order to help Lyndsay move her shed-loads of stuff across to Groningen. We had said goodbye the night before in typical student style, with a meal and a bout of karaoke and several well-liquored cocktails (also, me and Kelsey, having accidentally bought the same outfit without knowing a few weeks previously decided it would be the perfect farewell gift to go out dressed completely identically, an act which inspired great hilarity). Therefore, the next day should have been a gruelling and grumble-filled trip consisting of crap food and five trains and a hangover to boot, but was actually just one big laugh. We played "That's What She Said" relentlessly for seven hours without getting bored and filmed our adventure. We even wrote a soundtrack and any second now I expect a phone call from Simon Cowell offering us a six-figure advance on a record deal. The only rubbish aspect of the whole thing was that we had to leave Lyndsay behind when we left. I will miss her very much; Germany won't quite be the same and I'm already very much looking forward to fourth year cups of tea and the promise of being introduced to Dempsy's.  

I should say at this point that it hasn't been all play and no work. In fact, it's been very much the opposite, in that work's gone equally crackers and I've found my weeks just as jam-packed as the weekends. This is largely because two of the projects I've been working on at school are coming to a close soon. The first, a play about Robin Hood with Klasse 6, is in full rehearsal mode, with lines to be learnt, costumes to be found and sets to be made. Everything has to be done and dusted by opening night next Thursday; the pupils are performing at the bilingual night as well as to the visiting Grundschule kids who are considering HHG as their Gymnasium of choice for the next nine years of their academic existence. The other is the FCE and CAE voluntary English exams that I have been tutoring for. With less than three weeks until the speaking exams and the written papers the week after that (both events, I might add, which will demand my attendance at school at 8am on a SATURDAY), I've found myself trying to cram even more activities into my thrice weekly lessons as well as spending my evenings trawling the internet and trying to knock together revision packs. This Thursday I have to go additional training of some description in the next town, though I have no idea what that will entail. In addition to this, the Klasse 7 bilingual-politics class that I assist in have just started work on their final  courtroom role-play project and my level of Nachhilfestunden has increased to three per week with the promise of one more should I choose to call the number given to me today.   

So, you see, I haven't been ignoring my blogging duties on purpose! I really have been a very busy bumble bee. I've succeeded in filling my weeks so well that I've barely noticed I've been back six weeks already. Christ, there's only eight weeks to go and it's Easter, and then when that's done I've only got four more weeks before I'm done for good.

Shucks. Just when I was starting to get into it.   

Creative Writing: "We Are The Battery Human"

This piece was written for "Folktales", LSR.fm's very own slice of folky story time goodness every Sunday at 3pm. It was inspired by one of my ultimate favourite songs, "We Are The Battery Human" by Stornoway. If you do not have Stornoway's spectacular album "Beachcomber's Windowsill" in you life, what the hell are you playing at? Get on that album, get on this song, listen and fall in love. 

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Listen up. I’ve got an idea and I think you’ll like it.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I can take any more of these power suits or that insipid water-cooler small talk. My life has become all meetings and meaningless figures, stocks, shares and staplers, scraps of information fastened together with paper clips, and I’m working though my lunch break again. I feel trapped, trapped inside a six-billion air-conditioned prison, barricading myself further inside my paper dungeon with every passing memo. It’s an origami Fort Knox in here and every time I move I hear the clanking of the shackles that chain me to this desk. This is a world of straight lines and square corners: square envelopes, square windows, square people, desks sitting in neat little rows, symmetrical beige carpet tiles stretching from here to infinity. Neat and ordered and dull and suffocating and… I want out. I want outside.

So let’s bunk off. Think about it. We could leave our suits in the wardrobe and our briefcases on the kitchen table, skip the bus journey and that lead-stomach Monday morning feeling. Let’s instead dig out our comfy old jeans and warmest woolly jumpers, don our sturdiest boots; wrap a picnic in that red-check table cloth and take to the hills. We’ll drive for miles and miles, away from the city and the smoke and then just stop, somewhere, anywhere. It’ll be deserted. And then we’ll walk. Walk and walk and walk until our feet hurt and our muscles ache and we feel alive. We can cross valleys, ford rivers, climb to the highest peak where the wind blisters faces and lungs fill with the freshest of air. We’ll bask in the glory of ancient oaks, the mothers of that paper fortress we’ve been building and as we feel the rough bark beneath our finger tips we’ll appreciate that the original is always better than the cover version.

Look at the sky today. Just look at it. Aquamarine and not a cloud, nothing but a pure bottomless blue.  I want to float with the dandelion puffs on the breeze, drift like an autumn leaf on a mountain stream. I want to lie flat on my back in the long grass and feel like I’m the only person in the whole world. I want to scramble up muddy banks and then roll down them again on my side, just like we did when we were kids. I want to eat lunch sat on a rock, not sat at desk and afterwards I want to feed the ducks and marvel at nature’s clumsy and chaotic grace. There’s the lark, ascending, soaring through the blue and I want to soar with him, up and away from this stale, concrete life. I want to simply sit and watch the birds. It’s time to break out and immerse ourselves in all of this. The Great Outdoors. It’s not right that a picture on a screen should be the closest we ever get…

So what do you say? Are you in? Here’s the phone, call work and say you’re sick. Sick of drowning. And then, when that’s done, we’ll go see the world.

Let’s cut those shackles and feel the sun on our skin. Let’s be free.  

Creative Writing: "Films"

Needless to say, this was written for Folktales, broadcast 3-4.30pm on LSRfm.com every Sunday. It was written to "Films" by Pengilly's.
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It’s dark in here, all black walls and dim lighting but for the silver story sheet that hangs, semi-concealed, behind swathes of red velvet. The floor is sticky from generations of spilt drinks and dropped popcorn, the carpet worn through by the tramping feet of a million clumsy fantasists. Tiny pinpricks guide our way into the rafters towards the formerly plush cushioned seats; they’re now threadbare through years of hard labour, though the rows remain as neat. Soft, unrecognisable music drifts from a hidden speaker, murmuring words we can almost catch from songs we almost remember. We are quiet; something in the air demands hushed tones.

Amongst this we huddle, we dreamers and escape artists. Waiting, waiting. Those romantics and realists, sceptics and visionaries united in one, dramatic, over-reaching desire: 

“Hope it’s a good film.”

It feels good to be here, in this room, amongst stifled giggles and the covert holding of hands. It’s cosy. Safe. 

Suddenly, the cessation of noise. Music stops, lights doused, the curtains drawn back. Hushed voices die in throats and silence descends, punctuated only by the odd cough or low whisper. We rustle our expensive sweet papers and think that that’s what anticipation must sound like. 

Waiting, still waiting. Any second now...

A burst of sound, a stream of light. Gems flood the silver, creating pictures from jewels: rubies, emeralds, sapphires - all spiralling into each other with blinding clarity. Is there anything more beautiful than this? 

"Please remember to turn off your mobile phone."

Oh. Well, that killed the mood a little bit. 

Advertisements drip on and unrelentingly on. Cars, sofas, energy drinks - all troop depressingly by in a haze of high definition colour. We dreamers all agree that this was not what we had in mind. We were promised another world, and not one sold to us at half-price. Where is the adventure, the soul scorching emotion, that bit that makes everyone cry? Our rubies and emeralds are being transformed into something plastic and worthless. What a tragic waste of magic. 

We’ll just have to wait a bit longer, that’s all. 

Look! The director’s signature, in all it’s six-foot scrawled glory, signalling the end of this hellish corporate interlude. Signalling the beginning of something wonderful. Something bright and perfect and alive. It’s the one we’ve all been waiting for. Let’s give those gem-stones back their value. 

Cue music. Marker. Places, people!

Are we rolling? Good. Ok, then. 

Lights. 

Camera. 

Action.