Journal Entries
SEDUCING RICH HALL
Posted Dec 7, 2005
American comedian Rich Hall
came to our own little backwater as part of his latest tour of the British Isles. The night we were due to see him, I poured myself into a pair of buttock-hugging trousers and a very tight top, and I let my hair swing loose from my cowboy hat to my waist in freshly-washed waves.
"Do you think he'll like me?" I asked Gothly.
"He'll love you," said Gothly, refusing to bite. "Don't forget to put on some of that posh perfume. That should make him hot for you."
So I put on my perfume and pocketed my autograph book and ran through a few possible chat-up lines in case I met Him. When I say "a few," I mean one. I could only think of one: "that's a hell of an itinerary you've got there." (Well, it's been a long time.)
The theatre was crowded, and very warm. Gothly and I found a table in the bar and observed our fellow audience members till it was time to go in. As some of you will know, one of our local reservoirs has been contaminated, resulting in a small epidemic of cryptosporidiosis; so we entertained ourselves by spotting the convalescents. They could be identified by their anxious, stiff-legged scuttle and their proximity to the theatre toilets, which were already developing queues. (Comedians being thin on the ground in Wales, we've learned to take our laughs where we can get them.)
Our seats were right at the back of the auditorium, too far for me to make out the performers' facial expressions with my useless spectacles (shouldn't've gone to Specsavers). I guess Rich Hall has a similar problem with his eyesight, because he didn't seem to notice my tight top and my glorious head of hair, and he didn't display any signs of having fallen madly in love with me the moment he clapped eyes on me. In fact, he didn't seem to notice me at all.
To my left sat a boy-racer-looking guy, about twice my height and half my width, which worked out nicely in terms of sharing the arm rest, because I was able to tuck my elbow comfortably behind his, without even touching arms. Gothly wasn't so lucky, being stuck between me and a guy who was half Gothly's height but three times as wide, and who took up the whole arm rest and part of Gothly's lap.
Rich Hall's supporting act was an Irishman called David O'Doherty, whom Gothly likes; I'd never heard of the guy, but he was pretty damn funny. I actually guffawed. I've never guffawed in a public place before. (Except for one very stoned evening at the all-night garage, but the less said about that incident, the better.) David O'Doherty, having warmed up the audience with a ridiculous musical interlude on a children's synthesiser, proceeded to tell us all about his technophobic mother, who had recently acquired a mobile phone and taken up text messaging: "...and you know, she has taken to text messaging like a duck to text messaging."
His mastery of timing is something I wish I could do justice to, because I think it was this, more than the words he spoke, which made him so very funny. His vitriolic attack on lads who play loud bass music from their souped-up second-hand cars with blue lights fixed to the undercarriages had the tall boy racer next to me weeping with laughter.
Trying to draw the audience in, he mentioned the signs he kept seeing all over the place, telling him NOT TO DRINK THE WATER! "What do you *have* in your water round here?" he asked.
"Cryptosporidiosis!" we shouted, but we were not in unison and it came out as, "crypripocspirosdictoridispordiosdisosisosis!"
He looked blankly at us, which was enough to make us fall about, and then he asked, "what are the symptoms?"
There was a long pause. Nobody wanted to be the first one to shout "diarrhoea" at the top of our lungs, in case we ended up being the only one, so we all waited for somebody else to shout, "d...!" so that we could then yell, "iarrhoea!" Only, nobody did.
"You don't know, do you!" O'Doherty taunted. This was too much for one guy down near the front: "the screaming shits!" he bawled, with real feeling. We all laughed at him, relieved that it hadn't been us. O'Doherty decided that shits that can scream must be really scary.
His only duff joke was this one: "who are the coolest people in a hospital? The ULTRA SOUND specialists!"
"And by tomorrow," he added, "that's the only joke any of you will remember.
And you'll ALL pass it on to your mates."
Since we had to leave as soon as the show was over, I went hunting for Rich Hall during the interval. I got as far as the ice cream vendor. She told me she didn't think Mr Hall would want to be disturbed while he was preparing for a show, and that I'd be better off buying an ice cream. An acceptable alternative, the ice cream was tasty and felt good on my tongue.
Listening to Rich Hall talking onstage was like being tickled in the ribs, mercilessly, for a good hour. I could hardly catch my breath from laughing so hard. The shrieks and gargles I was uttering were more than embarrassing, but I couldn't stop. I took comfort in the fact that the people sitting around me were in a similar state.
He picked out a couple in the front row, who didn't seem to know whether they were an item or not, and he spent most of his act being an unofficial marriage guidance counsellor for them, between his other jokes. Having interrogated the man on his name and career, he sat at a grand piano and ad-libbed a song about how the man heroically saves the day and wins the love of the woman; unfortunately, the guy had a name that's unpronouncable outside of Wales, and his job was retinal photography. Not a lot of things rhyme with 'retinal photographer', as Rich discovered; but he ploughed on, digging himself into an ever deeper and more surreal hole as, in his song, escapee retinal photographs began to take over North Wales, with the refrain, 
"no-one wants to look that deeply into someone else's eyes."
Somehow, he made the song work and be very funny, but it was a close call. The man's a genius.
Welsh pronunciation came back to haunt him in a pun he made about the name of the local town. He didn't understand why it didn't raise a laugh, and spent about five minutes hilariously explaining, justifying and defending the joke; but we hadn't laughed because we simply hadn't got the pun. The town's name is not pronounced the way he thought it was.
The highlight of my evening was probably Rich's love song about a mad bag lady. Those of you who follow my journal will appreciate why such a song would warm my cockles. I began to think maybe he *had* noticed me and fallen in love with me after all, and this was his oblique way of showing me.
Towards the end of his session, the fatigue of travelling all over Britain in the dead of winter to do daily shows began to show through the cracks. He launched into a monologue about London's preparations for the Olympic Games, then suddenly said, "I forgot. This is Wales. You guys don't give a shit about London, do you."
There was a pause, one which didn't seem staged. My heart went out to him. He looked exhausted. He looked as though what he really needed was to lay his head on the soft, yielding thighs of a beautiful woman in tight, buttock-hugging trousers, and have gentle fingers run repeatedly through his curls. He pulled himself together and asked the audience if we had any questions.
We shuffled our feet and glanced at each other: nobody had told us we'd have to be *spontaneous*. Had somebody *told* us, we could have *prepared*. But suddenly, I realised that this was my chance to dazzle and woo the great Rich Hall. This was my moment to speak to him, and I had to do it *now*. What the hell was that chat-up line? Ah, yes: the itinerary. But Rich had already covered the hellishness of his itinerary in his routine. That was all my ideas used up, and some guy in front of me stole my thunder by asking him where he'd bought his shirt.
Nebraska, if you're wondering.
Rich got on a roll again, and tickled our ribs with jokes and songs till it was time to go home. Now I'm left with a Rich-shaped hole (I won't say where) and a powerful urge to listen to music by Tom Waits.
Discuss this Journal entry [49]
Latest reply: Dec 7, 2005
DOPPELGANGER
Posted Nov 17, 2005
Christmas is one of those things which Gothly and I generally go along with because it's expected of us. If we didn't buy presents for certain family members, they'd be terribly hurt and bewildered. My father and brother view Christmas in much the same bah-humbug way, and my grandmother bowed gracefully out of the whole palaver in the early Nineties; she was forgiven this act, because she is an old lady and she wears purple.
So I was rather taken aback when Gothly announced that we will be having a Proper Christmas this year. It seems that we will be getting a tree, complete with fairy-lights and a pile of presents round the bottom; and Gothly will be cooking an actual Christmas roast dinner on Christmas Day.
"What have you done with Gothly!" I demanded of the doppelganger, but the doppelganger just smiled and instructed me to invite my dad to stay for Christmas.
"My *dad*? What on Earth for
"
"Because Christmas is a family occasion," explained the doppelganger defensively, "and we've never spent a single Christmas with him."
"
" I replied, trying to picture my dad doing a Family Christmas with us. But I dutifully, and with some embarrassment, phoned him up and invited him, and he, with some embarrassment, declined. Then I smoothed the doppelganger's ruffled feathers.
I do not know what has happened to Gothly, but I'm hoping that, if I quietly go along with the doppelganger's wishes for now, I'll be able to piece together enough information to form a rescue plan.
Discuss this Journal entry [64]
Latest reply: Nov 17, 2005
FIVE FIELDS
Posted Nov 16, 2005
According to the Welsh NHS, the current treatments for CFS/ME are graded exercise, a nutritious diet, and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
The behavioural therapy is supposed to help you cope with the fact that you've got to live with an illness for which there is no test and no cure; but after you've been ill for a few years, you inevitably get used to it, because the alternative is being miserable the whole time. Sod that for a lark.
The diet and exercise really help. Without them and osteopathy, Gothly and I would probably both be in wheelchairs by now. The idea of graded exercise is that you gradually increase the amount you do, in Rizla-thin increments. So you might walk 50 yards a day for a month, then increase it to 55 yards for another month, and so on. If you wake up to find yourself brimming with energy, you still mustn't walk further than your schedule permits--otherwise, you might not be able to walk anywhere at all the next day, while your muscles fix themselves. Ideally, graded exercise leads to perfect fitness after a few years. But this is not an ideal world. Every time we get laid up with 'flu or whatever, our bodies are weakened by it and we have to very slowly build ourselves back up. Three steps forward, two steps back. It can feel as though our fitness level never gets beyond a certain point, but if we look back at how we were a year ago, it's clear that we do improve, in Rizla-thin increments, each year.
So every day that we can, we do our stretches and we go for a walk. We now know all the streets around our house; all the footpaths and short cuts; the little corner shop and the pub and the cafe and the bakery where we stop for victuals; we know the habits of the cats and dogs, the cows and sheep and horses, the songbirds and the waterbirds; we know the clockwork routines of village life and the seasonal changes of the surrounding countryside. Every walk is a little different from the last. There's a cross-country circuit called the Five Fields, which the local schoolchildren run for P.E. (or jog the first half-mile of, then smoke spliffs in the woods before ambling back to school). You go along a road, then follow a leafy footpath up through five fields separated by kissing-gates, then onto a main road which leads back towards our house. Gothly and I are working our way towards doing the whole circuit. We celebrated the day we reached the first field, by kissing over the kissing-gate; and did so again the day we reached the second field. Currently, I can only get halfway to the first field. Three steps forward, two steps back. Rizla-thin increments.
My ultimate goal is to climb Tryfan. You remember Tryfan, my favourite mountain:
http://www.wales.worldweb.com/Photos/MountainsLakesRivers/10-4533.html
http://www.mountainart.co.uk/pages/frames/tryfan_body.html
http://www.touchingthelight.co.uk/lightfor/coldridge.htm
Perhaps eventually, we'll climb Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales. That's Gothly's dream.
This month, we've been walking out after dark, taking advantage of the fact that we now have energy to do stuff in the evenings. Our different responses to our surroundings makes me laugh. The night before last, we had an Expressionist sky, with the moon breaking through wild, swirling clouds, and the trees were soughing in the wind like shipwrecked souls. We gazed upward and both started waxing lyrical.
"The wind was a torrent of darkness," I quoted, "among the gusty trees,
"The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
"The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the...."
"Hell of a lot of processing power to render clouds like that," mused Gothly in awe. "It's no wonder programmers cheat."
The other day, we drove to a lonely beach, and strolled along it together in the bright, cold sunshine. The mountains were reflected in the glassy water, punctuated by the occasional sailboat. Gothly was spellbound by a series of standing waves in a rivulet that ran down to the sea, and extolled the wonders of fluid dynamics to me. I was busy collecting handfuls of Interesting Rocks, so Gothly pointed out one that was riddled with holes.
"What about that one?"
"Nah, I've got loads of those," I said; and added, by way of explanation, "boring bivalves."
"Well, you said it," replied Gothly.
Discuss this Journal entry [36]
Latest reply: Nov 16, 2005
BEATING THE ALL-BLACKS
Posted Nov 12, 2005
Ireland is playing the All-Blacks today. They'll lose.
For all you non-rugby fans out there, The All-Blacks are New Zealand's rugby team, and they are nigh-on invincible. They are like a crack team of assassins. Once they have the ball, there's no getting it back, and you might as well sit down on the pitch and have a cup of tea until half-time. Many people put the All-Blacks' success down to the psychological impact of their Haka. The Haka is a Maori war-dance, accompanied by chanting, and they do it before every game. Now, I don't know what the words mean, but the implication is unquestionably this:
FIRST WE'RE GONNA RIP YOUR HEADS OFF!
THEN WE'RE GONNA YANK YOUR GUTS OUT!
THEN WE'RE GONNA STAMP ON YOUR CORPSES!
COME AND GIVE IT A GO IF YOU THINK YOU'RE HARD ENOUGH!
It's the best warm-up for a match you're ever likely to see. It puts them in fighting spirit, pumps their muscles, their adrenaline, their testosterone--and the other team has to just stand there quietly and take it. That's got to be demoralising.
The very first time the All-Blacks played Wales and did the Haka, the Welsh fans were so affronted that they spontaneously burst into song, and sang our national anthem defiantly back at the New Zealanders. It thus became a tradition for nations to sing their national anthem before every match.
So now we get:
"FIRST WE'RE GONNA RIP YOUR GUTS OUT! (Etc.)"
"Oh yeah? Well, Land of My Fathers!"
"Ah! But, God Defend New Zealand AND God Save the Queen, because we're from New Zealand and we have TWO national anthems!"
"Aw, hell. Sospan Fach... we're gonna die. Again."
Sospan Fach is a traditional Welsh rugby song about a little saucepan. We don't need no stupid saucepan songs, we need a Haka. Why have the British teams not got Hakas? Hell, the English even have a traditional war-dance: morris dancing. Ah yes, you may scoff; you may think morris-dancing is all camp hanky-waving and bell-ringing, but what about those bloody great sticks they wield? And the antler-horns? Morris dancing could be made to be scary.
The ancient Scots roared and flailed and lifted up their kilts and jiggled their genitals at their enemy. Who would not want to run away from a big, strapping man who was doing that? Who would not be scared witless by a whole *row* of big, strapping men doing that?
We Welsh and the poor old Irish have more of a problem there. Clog-dancng and Riverdance just wouldn't cut it. We're doomed. They're doomed. We might as well all give up now. 
Half-time score: Ireland 0, New Zealand 25.
Discuss this Journal entry [20]
Latest reply: Nov 12, 2005
STRAW POLL: THE RETURN
Posted Nov 3, 2005
We're doing ballads tomorrow. I've got Christians and Buddhists in my group. I thought the following poem might go down well, as it's quite spititual and animaly. But what do the the rest of you think of it? Is it easy to make sense of, and does it matter to you if it isn't? Do you like it?
THE DONKEY
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
[G. K. Chesterton]
Discuss this Journal entry [117]
Latest reply: Nov 3, 2005
Snailrind
Researcher U516766
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."