Journal Entries
c_el_c_nth
Posted Aug 25, 2016
Blood group A, O or B? Do something amazing, please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5TehHfYD6o&feature=youtu.be
http://www.blood.co.uk/news-and-campaigns/campaigns/missing-type/
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Latest reply: Aug 25, 2016
coelacanth's NaJoPoMo 2015
Posted Nov 1, 2015
I was starting to bore myself last year, so goodness only knows what any of my readers thought, if I had any left by the time I gave up on the 13th. But I managed the whole month in 2013, so here goes.
As before I'm keeping it my journal, but as requested I've also created an A page: A87862332 and will link to the relevant bit, as long as I can remember how to do GuideML. It's been a while.
#2 November 1st entry, an update on me.
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Latest reply: Nov 1, 2015
coelacanth's NaJoPoMo 2014
Posted Nov 1, 2014
I managed it last year, a journal a day for a month seemed quite daunting for someone who hardly ever writes on, but here we are again!
I'll stick to one thread, 1st November in #2, which will in fact be a tale of what I was doing a week ago.
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Latest reply: Nov 1, 2014
Fourteen years!
Posted Jan 1, 2014
Happy h2g2 birthday to me! 
It's longer really, as I lurked from October 1999, when I read an article in the Guardian about websites worth visiting. One was h2g2 and I lurked from October until late December when I finally signed up but I didn't activate my page straight away, which is why it shows up as January.
Happy New Year!
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Latest reply: Jan 1, 2014
coelacanth's NaJoPoMo 2013 - 30th November - For Sol
Posted Nov 30, 2013
For Solnushka, as promised more than a year ago.
1978 - a tale from ye
Part 1 - background to 70s Essex (some repetition from previous journal entries to set the scene)
I've explained how my amazing daughters, Sunshine and Moonlight refer to my childhood in the 60s and 70s as being "back in ye", when life was black and white and everyone did dangerous things They use phrases like "Times were simpler back in ye" or ask questions that begin "Mum, did you have _____ back in ye?" inserting any idea that amuses them. It's a family joke that can be revived at any time by text, email or in person and it doesn't matter how long since the last "ye" comment, it's always funny. I think they are secretly jealous of the experiences, freedom and total lack of health and safety concerns.
From the age of about 14 I was out and about, no one knew where, but we all did it back in ye. I wasn't getting in trouble, I was just getting on. School was grim, home was grimmer and the intellectual frustration was stifling.
At 14 or 15 I joined a Youth Theatre group, we had weekly meetings, put on some quite ambitious productions at the proper theatre in Basildon, under the guidance of drama teachers who worked by day in schools and in the evenings with those of us who really did want to be there. It was a great equaliser and I loved it. Sometimes we had weekends away with other Youth Theatre, occasionally some of our group tried out for the National Youth Theatre, or went on to find fame in the music scene that was such a major part of life for anyone in 70s Essex. I watched the rise of punk, DIY and had friend in bands. Every week I went to see something somewhere, usually a room in a pub or the back of a social club. Sweaty, smoky, loud and full of others just like me. I don't recall any trouble at all. We knew where to go without phones or social networking (this aspect of ye is particularly fascinating to Sunshine and Moonlight!) I don't recall ever telling my mum where I was or when I would return.
Pubs weren't denied to us if we were 15 and looked like we would behave ourselves. We wanted to fit into this adult world so we watched and learned and under the careful scrutiny of the real adults and especially the publicans we sat at tables, talked intensely about music, politics and drama, put money in a glass in the middle to buy our rounds and never ever drew attention to ourselves. We knew we'd be asked to leave if we behaved like children. So we didn't. Best educational experience ever.
At 16 I went to technical college, life was better and Youth Theatre continued to be a major part. I made good friends, my confidence increased and I belonged. Productions were experimental, I still have a lot of the flyers and programmes from those days and they show that nothing was considered out of our zone. Musicals, gritty "kitchen sink" realism, panto, Pirandello or improvised pieces about teenage angst that went on to be in competitions taking place in exciting places such as the Roundhouse.
Bubbling under all of this was the issue of racism. If we were the cool kids, there was a lot of unrest elsewhere...
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Latest reply: Nov 30, 2013
coelacanth
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