we're not happy till we're choking

I can't quite work out if this sounds completely bonkers in the good way, or just completely bonkers. (reading the menu/map doesn't help)

Life's a laugh and death's a joke it's true

So what did you do today, brain?



Well, after work I wandered out into the street, and surrounded myself with a miscellaneous bunch of four and half thousand people in search of silliness, and - really - that was a good choice.



I have participated in an exceedingly silly world record - woot! Well, sort of.



I arrived too late, and was still in the queue they ran out of coconuts, so I'm not officially a participant. And my camera was out of battery so there are no photos (at least, none from me). And trying to find people amongst four and a half thousand other people is kind of hard, so I didn't (sorry Nikki!) But I was there ;p And really, the addition of the threat of rain, queues, and the expectation of failure implied by having less coconuts than people just makes it more English, really.



Not quite as awesome as the flashmob pillow fight, but I did wander off afterwards humming Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, with a smile on my face, so I count that as a win.



And now I'm back home with a soft, sweet, Williams pear, and a crisp, honeyed Elstar apple, (thanks to Abel and Cole), and the positively decadent two-year-old unpasteurised farm-made cheddar I treated myself to at Borough Market this weekend, which seems like a good feast for things English to me.

For life is quite absurd

I'm English. I'm also the sort of person who finds nationalism a really uncomfortable subject, so much so that I find it hard to write 'I'm proud of being English'. It's more or less an accident of birth, so - why is proud the relevant emotion? (1)

But with St George's day on the horizon, the subject's on my mind.

It's going to be on my doorstep tomorrow, with the events being laid on in Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden, and it's probably stupid that I'd be much more enthusiastic about a screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and a Coconut Orchestra world record attempt if it *wasn't* associated with St George's and Being English TM.

That said, if they're still taking registrations when I finish work, I might have to go join in. There's something very pleasing about the public foregrounding of something so patently ridiculous, silly, and fun. Way to undercut the bombast of nationalism!

In other news, the silent film screenings at The Globe in honour of Shakespeare's birthday also sound good.

(1) In fact, I most identify as British rather than English, and nationality is a fair way down my self-definition list. Being English only really impinges when I'm being ashamed of of English people being spectacularly stupid, violent, and/or drunk, and I have to actively remember that most of the time the St George's flag being flown/worn/displayed has less to do with violent nationalism and more to do with, say, supporting a sports team.

Lay down, play dead for Di and Fergie

16th April 2007
I cannot begin to tell you how much I don't care. Or how angry I am that editors are telling me that this is the most important thing that's happened in the world today.

And to cricket those ten same rules shall apply.

Cricket's a wonderful creature. Now, I grew up with the sport. My dad and my brother both played at town level, my sister at school inter-county level, and even I once represented my form. I still couldn't explain all the intricacies of the three-day Test variant. But it is a common-or-garden game here. Really.

I took a walk in the park yesterday, taking advantage of the beautiful weather, and it was bustling - swarming may even be the word for the kids' play areas.

There were joggers, and dog walkers, and people with prams, and people of all ages enjoying the space. There were a few people playing frisbee, a couple of groups of people practising poi, people on the tennis courts, and people in the bowling nets, working on their (cricket) delivery.

And there were a hundred and one pick-up football games - soccer, for the US readers

And at least the same number of games of rough and ready cricket.

The kind with a tree or a bag as wickets, and a jumper for the other end, and maybe four people catching. The kind you play with a tennis ball and a three-ninety-nine bat from a toyshop. Or a bright orange plastic bat from Woolworths. There were adults, and teenagers, and kids, and three utterly adorable toddlers playing clumsily through the middle of a family picnic.

And then, earlier today, my neighbours' kids were playing out. They were playing cricket, with one of the traffic bollards that stops people driving through the end of my culd-e-sac as their wicket, and a very familiar sounding set of 'home' rules. If they hit parked car, they were out. If they got the ball into one of the front gardens across the way - that was a four. (When I was a kid, playing in my back garden, the pond was an immediate out, the hedge and house roof were fours, and the chimney stack or over the house was a six. All of those things happened enough to have rules for them.)

So when I hear people talking about cricket as if it's a weird esoteric thing that only wealthy people play, it always throws me. That's - polo or something, surely? Not cricket.

What's that shadow on the wall

Friday Late : Animate @ the VandA - that was a whole lot of fun.

Partly the truly excellent company, to be fair, but also a good part because the VandA know's what they're doing. The Shadow Monster's interactive doobrie just didn't stop being *cool* every time we looped back past it, the show reels were suitable impressive, and while the filmed stop-motion collaborations were a bit too audience-participatory for me, I did make a flip book, and collaborated on a zeotrope.

But mostly it was just pleasing to me to spend time with friends in this amazing building (the re-opened Poynter Room cafe is still just beautiful) surrounded by music and people and shiny things. The atmosphere is totally different to visiting the museum at any other time. I think it is the music - a really crowded day would probably be as loud, but the music being played gives the sound shape. That and the fact that everyone's there for the same thing, even if they're doing different parts of it.

The next one's on the 27th. Ritual.