Being Me

A Facebook status from poet friend Martin Hodges  (thanks, Martin!) inspired this posting.  It's a poem written as the result of a poetry exercise I did somewhere, in some place, at some point, with someone. It may have been the result of a session on memory or reminiscence but I don't remember that either. Errrr - what did I come upstairs for? Martin was saying there are many things he likes the idea of doing, such as climbing Kilamanjaro.  I'm the same. List  (I also fancied borrowing an idea from Piaf and calling this Je Regret Loads, but it's not really a comedy poem.) I have never worn a ball-gown which sparkled under chandeliers or eaten grilled sardines while watching a Mediterranean sunset. Nor have I dived. I have never climbed a snowy slope while attached to a rope and friend or danced the quick-step, the tango, the waltz or the rumba. Nor have I read ‘Gigi’. I have never climbed into the basket of an air balloon or thrown

I had an O'level Domestic Science teacher in the 1970s called Mrs Gough.  She's one of the reasons I love cooking pastry, puddings and cakes, although she owes me about £596.00 in weekly fees to Slimming World and Weightwatchers as a result. This was before Domestic Science, in wihch you learned to cook real food, became Food Technology, in which you learn to make a cake from cornflakes and melted chocolate, then write a year-long project for GCSE about its nutritional value and how you would market it.   One day, Mrs Gough taught us to make bread, but because there were so many of us in the class, some had to put their loaves on the middle shelf.  Half-way through the cooking, I noticed that Pauline Brown's loaf, at the top of the oven, was rising triumphantly whereas mine, in the middle, was as flat as Norfolk.  I opened the oven and switched them over.  Pauline, if you're reading, I'm really sorry about your loaf, and while I'm here, I also apologise abou

You don't have to be 'a writer' to do this exercise.  You do, though, have to be prepared to discover some truths about yourself.   1. Choose an object which is important to you (or to a character in a story you are writing). 2. Ask it these questions (or any others you devise) and write down its answers.  You may find the object unwilling to speak.  In this case (where's a chatty object when you need one?!!!) imagine what it would have said, and in what kind of voice.   When did you first meet your owner? What physical contact do you have with your owner? Where are you kept? How do you think your owner feels about you? What do you think you represent for your owner? In what ways are you like your owner? I interviewed my teacher's planner, made notes on the replies, and then wrote these up in the planner's voice.  Here is the result. The teacher's planner speaks.   She hugs me to herself because she knows what

One of my favourite things to do is type random half-questions into the Google search bar and see what other people have been asking. I said ONE of my favourite things.  Don't judge me. Here's my first search today, and its results.  What happens if you ...... What happens if you .... swallow gum What happens if you .... miss a pill What happens if you .... don't eat What happens if you .... eat weed What happens if you ....drink on antibiotics Here's a short matching game for you.  Don't get too excited - there are no prizes except, as I tell the kids at school, a deep sense of personal satisfaction and pride.  Match the question below to the people above. Which person has a chest infection but also a vodka habit? Which person is a teenager whose teacher spotted them chewing in a lesson? Which person missed all the nutrition modules in their Human Biology lessons and is near death? Which person has just eaten some very strange cookies? Which perso