New Words from New Wordsmiths
I haven’t posted this week but not because I haven’t anything to write about. I do but it’ll have to wait because I’ve been spending the week seeking out new Scottish bloggers. Well new to me anyway…
This week I am the guest editor of the Scottish Roundup and I set myself the mission of making the roundup as diverse as I could with at least fifty percent of the blogs to be featured to be ones that have never been included in the Roundup before. I think I managed. In fact, I know I did. Hurrah!
This exercise has been important to me for a number of reasons:
1. I think that you need to refresh your blogroll regularly- too many bloggers give up, get fed up, or just lose their mojo- you’ve got to seek out new stuff.
2. I like a political blog as much as the next naked ape, but the Roundup is often exclusively political and I like to shake it up a little when I edit.
3. I like meeting new bloggers because on the whole they are an interesting bunch, so hello to everyone I met online this week. I’ve come away from the whole thing with some firm new favourites.
4. Sometimes people put pics of their dogs up and that’s always good.
Read the Round Up here and if you own, rent, have feudal rights to or have a freehold on a Scottish blog then nominate yourself for next weeks roundup.
The Scottish Blog Roundup is up here: http://scottishroundup.co.uk/2010/06/06/50-new-blogs-or-your-money-back/
And here’s a pic of my dog.
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Love
It’s a silly day, this day, isn’t it? But I just want to show you than sometimes it can prompt people to do lovely things. Here’s my daughter helping make a Valentine’s day photo for her Mum.
Better than a box of chocs and a naff card any day.
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Scotblog Awards Results
The huge and copious Scottish Roundup blog awards are up. The Misssives came third in their category of Best Personal Blog and I’m delighted despite noting the lack of cash prize (only kidding…)
Apparently over 1,500 votes were cast which is pretty great. There are loads of blogs I had previously never heard of and I suggest if you’re thinking that your blog reading list is a little tired that you get over there and check out some of the winners/runners up. I’m certainly going to, (even just to leave rude messages on the two blogs that beat me into third place).
The categories were wide- there are photography blogs, hyper local blogs, technology blogs, art blogs, newcomers’ blogs- the lot. And if you’re a Scottish blogger who wasn’t nominated this year, then maybe get in about and start commenting on the Scottish Roundup-or start nominating your own posts for inclusion every week on the forum and you’ll start to get noticed. Duncan Stephen (the blogger, Dr Vee) runs the site with a few regular volunteers and has done a huge amount to give a platform to Scottish bloggers. He’s always looking for new blogs to highlight.
And remember chums, let’s not let 140 character quips kill blogging. Paragraphs rule!
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Scottish Roundup Awards
For a long time I have been a reader of the Scottish Roundup. A while back I even had a hand in suggesting that sometimes Scottish people write blogs that aren’t political and the horribly named (by me, sorry) ScoNoPoBlo roundup would appear every couple of months to highlight non-political blogs. Now the roundup embraces both equally and tries not to make a distinction.
Now they want to hand out some awards. Tomorrow at 6pm is the deadline for nominations of the best Scottish blogs. If you read any Scottish blogs and I can suggest a few (other than my own but obviously if you feel moved …etc..very grateful…thank you for your kindness..etc) get over there and nominate like mad. You don’t have to be Scottish.
I apologise for not bringing this your attention to this sooner, but it completely slipped my mind due to other things involving my husband being attacked by a cat (blog to follow), one foot of snow outside my door and Christmas and stuff.
Here are some blogs made in Scotland that I like, if it helps you to decide which ones you’d like to nominate. Also if you’ve got or know a blog made in Scotland that you think I should like, then please let me and Missives readers know so we can check it out. I am particularity keen to hear from blogger who only started blogging in 2009/10 as there is a Newcomer award. So don’t be shy.
I like this lot:
The Cat Girl Speaks
Better Oot than In
The Ben Lomond Free Press
Phil and Gabi’s Typeface a Week
The Prickly Side of Life
Punch it Chewie
Mr Eugenides
Taexalia
ShopaHolly
You can email your nominations to scottishroundup+awards@gmail.com or fill in the form in the sidebar here.
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Misssy In the City
“Hey, I’m WALKING Heeere!”
So I said I’d tell you some New York Stories and I realise that I said this over a week ago. Here are a couple of events in a week full of events.
Meeester will be dining out on this for years
As many of you know my husband is in a delightful band called The Lorelei. They can mostly be described as “Where the Wild Things Are” but on stage and with musical instruments. You need to know this before I tell you the story.
After a seven hour flight on Air France with NO BLOODY IN FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT except watching my husband insist on speaking chronic French to the bilingual and extremely patient French air hostess, we arrive in John F Kennedy International Airport. The last time I landed in this airport was when I was twenty one and on my way to New Orleans. I remember Immigration being scary and intimidating, full of unsmiling guys that looked like the Twinkie eating beat cop in Die Hard but without the charisma. Of course this was before the Americans realised the rest of the world was hell bent on their destruction, so I was expecting far worse this time around.
We join a big queue and delight in the fact that out normally queuing-averse French traveling companions are forced to do the same. We are just about at the head of our particular queue when we both notice that a group of people keep looking at us. I am already paranoid about the JFK Immigration Experience and immediately think they know something about us that we don’t. Like some French joker has pinned an “I Heart the Taliban” badge on my back or stuck a note onto Meeester’s back that says “Frisk Me! I’m packing!”. Turns out it’s neither.
“Excuse me, are you the lead singer of the Lorelei?” the chief starer ventures, eventually.
“Ye-ess?” says Meeester to the accompaniment of his wife shrieking with jet-lagged Inflight Entertainment starved manic laughter.
“We’re big fans. Aren’t we?” the lady is excited. Her husband nods reluctantly. Something tells me she’s more keen than he is, but we’ll take what we can get.
So there we are, Meeester gets recognised in US Immigration. OK they were also from Aberdeen as it turns out, and despite pressing she didn’t want her photograph taken with Meeester OR her cleavage signed, but it was a lovely moment nonetheless. And the recent memory of it kept Meeester warm ten minutes later as he was interrogated in a small room for having “too common a name”; American Immigration speak for “You look dodgy”.
Recognised in a foreign airport baby! And not from a photofit this time, neither!
Carrie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
This is a photo story.
All you need to know are the following facts:
1. The exterior shots for Sex in the City‘s Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment are shot in Perry Street in the West Village, NY.
2. Despite the residents probably getting a shedload of cash for this, they are now sick of the apartment being a shrine for fans of the show and have erected a chain across the front steps (or stoop, as they call it) with a sign saying “Keep off the Step”.
Exhibit A
Location: 66, Perry Street, Greenwich Village
Subject: Misssy M
Time: 16.41
Exhibit B
Location: 66, Perry Street, Greenwich Village
Subject: Misssy M and angry resident (not Carrie- she’s a puppet!)
Time: 16.42
By the time she could scream “This is private property!” I had legged it down the street and was ordering a cupcake in The Magnolia Bakery confident that Meeester had the snaps.
“”He!He!”
Which made me think, “Is disobeying the rules the new sex?”
*****************************
The Missives have been full of breaks in the last few months, which is not usual for this blog, but a result of circumstances outwith my control, blah blah blah. I’m usually a very regular poster. However, I’m about to take another break. I promised myself at the start of the year that I would do the National Novel Writing Month,or NaNoWriMo as it’s known, even though I’ve chickened out the last two years when I said I would do it. The question is how someone with a full time job, two kids and a Black Menace can fit writing a 50,000 word (minimum) novel into a month. The answer is stop blogging, stop gadding about on the internet, stop watching telly (luckily Masterchef is finished, whew!)and stop sitting about in dressing gowns with cold flannels on her forehead and gin in her glass pretending to need some personal space. I’ve had a plot idea for a wee while and I’m going to give it a go and see how I get on. See you in December. Let me know if you are doing or have done NaNoWriMo in the comments box. Grateful for any tips, grateful to get to know any others that are doing it too.
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An Apology to the US
Now I don’t want to wade in and upset anyone but I feel dutybound to confess that I have had a little fun at the expense of some American citizens in the past. Some fun of the type that may no longer be possible now that Scotland is firmly on America’s radar. Before my confession begins, I want to stress that I only made fun of the really stupid ones and I do realise that stupidity has no nationality, as a quick look at the initial auditions of the UK X Factor will swiftly back up.
All of these conversations happened when I was a cocktail waitress in New Orleans in 1990, where stupid teenage boys go to drink til they pass out on a holiday weekend, particularly in the bar I worked in which was one of the few non-transvestite/gay disco type establishments on Bourbon Street and which also was fairly lax in the checking of ID.
Him: Wow what’s that accent? Where ya from?
Me: Scotland
Him: Wow. I know Scotland! Do they really have ghosts and shit there.
Me: Oh yes, my dad’s one.
Him: You’re kidding me right?
Him: So what age can y’all drink over there?
Me: Eighteen
Him: That’s awesome. So what age are you?
Me: Well I’m twenty-two back home but I’m twenty one over here because of the time difference.
Him: Awesome! Scenario 3: Fight the Power
Him: So where are you from?
Me: Scotland
Him: Scotland, eh? So you guys still bombing the English?
Me: Not really. I think you’re thinking of the IRA in Northern Ireland (this was 1990)
Him: So you guys ain’t doing that. I thought you were.
Me: No we’re not doing that.
Him: Well, you should.
Me: OK then. Scenario 4: Landed Gentry
Him: So do you live in a castle in Scotland?
Me: Yes, we all do.
Him: Awesome.
Me: Yes it is. Scenario 5: Life in the dark ages
Drunken boy: So all this must be different for you guys coming from Scotland.
Me: Well, New Orleans is different all right.
Drunken boy: More modern and stuff
Me (clocking where he was going with this): Oh yes! You’ve got telephones and everything!
Drunken boy: Man, you don’t have telephones?
Me: Well, the whole town shares one.
Drunken boy: That’s fucked up.
Me: I write my parents a letter to let them know when I’ll be calling and they book an appointment at the phone to take my call.
Summer of Bleurgh
For Black Menace fansHello I’m back, those of you who noticed. (Thanks to all who got in touch to say, “Where the Hell are you, Misssy?” That was nice.) This is a short one just to get me back in and catch you all up.
It’s been a crappy summer really and that’s why I’ve not been posting. My husband’s dad died a month ago as the summer holidays started. It’s been sad, weird and complicated. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.*
We also cancelled our holiday which could have been full of bloggable material since we had been going to Loch Lomond and had bought a dinghy for the occasion. We, however were never going to call it Dignity, since that song, Misssives readers of old will remember, is the first song on the personalised playlist waiting for me on Beelzebub’s Jukebox in Purgatory, should I ever end up there. We’ve called it Unmashable, because there’s nothing like a name like that to tempt ye Gods. Also it’s orange…and no-one looks dignified in orange.
Another reason for being light on the blog front is the fact that I’ve been busy with a project that’s been ongoing for about six months. I have written a humour book with super-blogger Emma Kaufmann about being a mum. We’ve finally finished it, we’re very happy with it and we think it’s pretty damn funny. But doing something that big has squeezed all the creative juice out of me like a Kiwi Fruit in the path of a steamroller carjacked by a toddler. I thought about telling you all about it before, but it seemed a bit jinxy. It still does if I’m honest. But there, I’ve done it now. Emma’s probably going to kill me for hexing it. But she’s over in the US and can’t reach over to slap me, so I’m safe.
So I’m back, and I’ll be posting regularly again soon. Forthcoming attractions are: How I Nearly Got Involved in the Space Race and David Bowie, Snaggletooth and Me.
Also I’m off to New York in two months so something humiliating involving mugging, airport security or cultural misunderstanding is bound to happen to Meeester and I, so I’d stick around if I were you.
Ahhh, I’ve misssed this….
*I’d also like to point out that Michael Jackson is not my husband’s dad, just in case anyone thought they were on to something with that.
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Dementia and a Dog’s Bum
At least I remembered to put on pants…Junior Misssy is a nanosummer away from starting school and so things are being demanded of me left, right and centre. Things that I cannot forget about or I will come across as the Britney Spears of the parenting tribe. If I don’t come across as that already.
This week she brings home a learning pack which has various items which must be played with, learnt from and returned without having to be retrieved in broken pieces from the dog’s digestive system. Having a dog whose turds recently have included some yellow Lego, a small key and a Polly Pocket head and foot, I’m preparing to rinse, scrub, boil, disinfect and superglue*.
I am on tenterhooks about the whole sorry enterprise and am obsessive about keeping the pack together to the point at screaming at the kids if they so much as go near it. Come Monday the pack is to be returned, no matter how intact or dog saliva coated it is. The UK’s leading betting concern, William Hill, is giving current odds of 1-10 that I will leave it at the front door unreturned anyway.
These odds are based on past remembering-important-stuff form. Form, and my recent fetlock injury.
I am horrifically forgetful and as I sail full-steam into the middle part of my adulthood, I realise what a curse the forgetfulness really is and how it affect my daily life. Here’s a list of stuff I have forgotten this week or will forget in the near future:
- A dentist appointment with The Money Grabbing Tooth Jockey this Monday which I even programmed into my mobile phone. Genius! It would have all been so sweet if I hadn’t forgotten to take my mobile phone home from my desk at work. I will have to wait months before I get another appointment and I really want my front tooth de-squiffed. The Snaggle Tooth look really isn’t in this season, no matter what Kate Moss’s agent says. Even Bowie has his teeth fixed these days. Where Bowie leads, I follow.
- I will forget to let the holidaymakers into my Mum’s holiday cottage tomorrow. It’s a guarantee. I have “4pm cottage” written on my, now unwashable, hand in black ink but even if I were to get it tattooed on my chest I would still forget. My mum is out of the country, currently invading the US in old lady shorts (come on you know the ones- knee length and beige with an elasticated high waist), but I know that she will call me to ask if I remembered. As soon as I hear her voice, I will remember what it is I forgot.
Given her proximity to the power seat of the US, she may get George Bush to order an air attack on my house as a result. Hey, he’s done worse for less.
- Junior Misssy is invited to a kid’s party on Thursday. I will not remember until the following Friday when she comes home crying from hearing all the stories of the partygoers who enjoyed the festivities and whose Mums aren’t suffering from early on-set dementia.
- I forgot to get my passport photograph taken for the India visa application which is supposed to be sent off this week. Meeester was not happy. So I rushed out with no makeup, hair like a monkey’s butt and a bad attitude to have the worst passport photo of all time taken. I look like Myra’s Hindley’s more aggressive sister snapped whilst suffering from trapped wind.
I don’t get it. In my work I am pretty efficient and well, quite good at stuff. Why is the personal life so completely haphazard? And once I hit actual pensionerhood and real clinical dementia takes hold, will anyone notice the difference?
* For the purposes of any school board members reading, of course I’m not. I will refund or replace with dog turd taint free items. Your children are safe. (Hehe, that’ll fool ‘em…)
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Red Carpet Burns
Best picture: I’m calling it.
Look at the bloke behind sniggering.
Beautiful Bardem:
Is it wrong of me to love a man other than my husband?
Despite having heaps of cash from the licence fee, the BBC let the Oscars go over to Sky and decided to spend their cash on rehashing 70s TV formats instead. 
That sound you hear is Lord Reith
birling in his grave like a top.
Now that Sky have it they have decided to show it only for people who aren’t arsed about movies instead. On their Sky Movies channel.
I am a subscriber to Sky but not to their movies channel. Why do I assert that people who have Sky movies can’t be arsed about movies? Well, bear with me.
As far as I’m concerned Sky Movies are for people that don’t bother to go and see movies in cinemas when they come out. They are also for people who don’t rent movies as soon as they are released on DVD. They are also for people who don’t mind seeing fairly low quality mainstream movies. And to cap it all, they are also for people who don’t mind paying £20 to be offered the SAME low quality movies for a six month period with no change in programme.
So, yes, it makes perfect sense to put the Academy Awards on the channel for people who really couldn’t give a stuff about any of the movies nominated, because they won’t have seen any of them. In fact they won’t be appearing on Sky movies until the NEXT Oscars ceremony is upon us. If at all.
Titanic; now appearing on Sky movies, film fans
Can you tell I’m upset?
Anyway, look out for my podcasts about the Oscars on the side bar in the next day or so from Original where I audibly lay down predictions. Mmmm, I wonder how many I’ll get right. I did predict “Crash” as a shock Best Picture before, so I’m fairly confident.
Of course, as usual didn’t put any money on “Crash” because betting shops scare the bejesus out of me.
But that’s another story.
We invaded France in a T Reg Audi…and lived!
Doubtless this will be my last post before I go to Paris this weekend.
I am meeting up with my two most excellent chums as Paris is a conveniently exotic half-way point between our respective homes in Surrey, Aberdeen and Strasbourg. We are celebrating 21 years since we met. Any comparisons to Sex in the City will be met with derision.
I haven’t been to Paris before but I have been to France. This next story will tell you the story of how I went to France.
The story breaks down into four notable points of interest, which I’ll summarise for you now:
- We packed seven people into an Audi 80 and whinged them across the UK, France and the Pyrenees.
- Excuse me, has Mum only put one cassette tape in the car for this two day journey?
- We all nearly die through misadventure.
- We all nearly die again. But my mum predicts it, so we’re OK.
Cast and location
So the story concerns our first family holiday abroad. My mum and dad had rented a villa in St Jean de Luz, the first town in France after crossing the Spanish border. Or if you are a Basque separatist, one of the towns in the Basque Country.
We were to go by ferry and car as planes weren’t invented yet. The von Schneider Family as we were known, were five individuals: Mama von Schneider, Papa von Schneider, RedBellyButtonBoy, Misssy M and CheekyMonkey.
We had a green Audi 80, as befitting our Germanic heritage and were destined for France, also befitting our Germanic heritage.
Oh, and did I mention Aunt R and Uncle T were being shoehorned in too? So, imagining a Sesame Street counting animation, let’s count! 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 people in a family saloon.
This all took place in the days before people-carriers, but funnily enough not in the days before 7 people legally should have been split between two cars.
So now let’s look at what was involved in this journey with two adults in the front, two in the back and three children sat wherever they could get purchase.
- Aberdeen to Plymouth: 14 hours
- Overnight stay in car waiting for ferry to leave: 6 hours (yes, we all slept in the car!!! I know!!!)
- Ferry crossing to Santander (thankfully outwith the confines of the car): 12 hours
- Santander to St Jean de Luz (over the Pyrenees): 5 hours*
Should I call Guiness?
A quick footnote on the Santander-St Jean de Luz stretch. You know that bit at the end of the italian job with the truck hanging over the side of mountain…that’s the kind of thing that is par for the course on that stretch of road.
for this 2 day journey and two week holiday?
So we’ve got everything stuffed in the Audi. Miraculously we’ve managed to fit enough luggage to serve four adults and three kids for two weeks into the car. There was probably a roof rack, there might have even been one us kids strapped to it at one point. So have we got everything, then?
No. It’s not long before we realise that we’ve only one cassette tape in the car. It is a homemade tape. Worse; it’s one of Mum’s.
Side One: The Long Run by the Eagles
Side Two (and this is going to hurt): Rock and Roll Juvenile by Cliff Richard
To this day, each of us three kids would be able to sing along perfectly to either of those albums without one single lyrical mistake. We’re not proud of this.
The tape just got played and played and played. If I go to hell, that same tape will be playing in the purgatorial waiting room. And the Devil will look like Cliff Richard circa 1979.
Nobody buy me this.
Well two of us do. I’m jumping past the whole holiday and back to the return ferry journey.
My parents, Aunt R. and Uncle T. take my five year old sister, CheekyMonkey, to arrange our ferry tickets, leaving me and my brother Red BellyButtonBoy* in the car alone (alone except for Glenn Frey, Don Henley and Cliff). Their biggest mistake here, is thinking that CheekyMonkey is the root of all trouble.
As soon as they are out of sight, we jump into the front seat and start messing about with the car controls, and generally arsing about.
It’s important for you to know at this point, that the car is parked facing the water at the quayside of St. Malo harbour. There is a chain across the quayside but this is merely for decoration, as it is not high enough to stop anyone falling in. It merely signifies the end of the quay and makes the place look finished.
Whose idea was it to start the car up whilst it was in gear? Accounts vary. But let’s just say, for argument’s sake that it was RedBellyButtonBoy in case my parents are reading. This close to going in the Channel, we were. THIS close.
My parents only remark on the terrible smell inside the car on their return.
The reason we’re in St Malo is that the original return ferry was cancelled in Santander due to mechanical failure. The ferry company offered us an alternative route.
They would fly mothers and children home, leaving Dads to drive their car back across the Pyrenees and across the whole of France to Northern port, St Malo. My dad, Aunt and Uncle looked forward to the Cliff and Eagle-filled two day trip with no kids on knees. But one thing stood in their way. My Mum.
My Mum didn’t want to fly on her own with us kids. Maybe it’s not surprising given that we were the kind of kids that would drive a car over a quayside like in this road-sign which was designed after us.
I really don’t know why she didn’t want to go on that flight, but something made her nervous. That “something” is now confirmation of my mother’soothsayer status. Six hundred years ago in France she’d have been thrown on a bonfire alongside Joan D’Arc for that kind of stuff.
That plane had to crashland in Kent. Actual fact.
Mechanical failure, apparently. Some engines stopped working or something, much like what happened in Heathrow the other day. No one was hurt. But my God, can you imagine? You’d never board a plane again.
I look forward to a speedy and uneventful two hour flight to Paris on Friday.
(And blogging about Paris on my return)
*When you are 9 and your brother gets a mosquito bite slap bang in his bellybutton, the nickname is inevitable. What we didn’t realise was that it would stick for the next thirty years.
