The blame game

I wonder if it is actually possible for me to write an entertaining blog without finding fault or engaging in a bit of casual character assassination. Of course, nothing is ‘perfect’ – whatever that means– and it’s a mug’s game expecting it to be. As soon as one realises that, there’s not a lot more to say…

...unless one can somehow say it better, which I will try.

My problem, beneath all the literary subterfuge, can really be illustrated by a Google search, which currently returns:

No results found for "how to make sure you have sex on tap everyday"

and one or two others, involving cuddles, a social life, my sense of gaudy, guilty personal inadequacy. I admit it.

Okay, back in the saddle.

Monday

Enjoyed Laura’s child lit lecture and dropped a line to tell her so. She didn’t reply. She may have thought I was winding her up, but it touched on themes that interested me, like the child ‘falling out of love’ with the parent and the novel, Charlie and the chocolate factory. She also did a make up lecture on ‘Junk’ later on, which I think I’m supposed to have read. I was worried about my shopping thawing out, so I sat in the coldest part of the room I could find. Goodbye Monday, it was nice knowing you.

Tuesday

The most memorable thing about today was probably the writers meeting in the evening. It didn’t start auspiciously because the two writers who turned up last week were absent and this week there were three new ones. Oooo, change, I don’t like it. We were working on the murder mystery idea again and it was slightly too many cooksy but it doesn’t matter. It’ll be written by students for students and I expect the audience will be very indulgent with whatever’s served up.

So far the fundamental structure of our play is mostly based on my reportedly dark inspirations. The setting is a slowly sinking cruise ship and starts with a twenty year old girl who openly admits that she went to prison for murder and served four years as a juvenile. She then retires to her cabin with her rich eighty year old husband who wants to play a game of ‘stab me with the knife’. Unfortunately the game goes wrong and he is stabbed. Realising that the finger will be pointed at her she comes up with an alibi. However, somebody knows the alibi isn’t true and that person is murdered. Is it her? We don’t know. After that the self-appointed detective is pushed overboard and the murder suspect, returns disguised as him, wearing his clothes. I’m not sure how, I guess she got involved in some kind of sex game and they swapped.

Nathan included ideas from the others about the murdered all being entertainers and character ideas. A girl called Sian has this thing about there being lots of complete idiots.

I wanted the play to be set in various locations around the ship but I was out-voted. Sian wants it all set in one room and to me that doesn’t make a lot of sense. For instance, we now have to convey the cabin stabbing through audio and are missing out on the visual comedy, as we will be by not showing the deck scene visually. You obviously have certain creative possibilities by making it audio only and one room only but I don’t think we actually need them.

Am I right? I don’t know. Do I want to be? Not particularly, it’s all good. When I submit my own play I will have total control over that, if it's accepted and that is the one that I wouldn’t want to see compromised by ideas I don’t agree with. And when my play fails you can be sure I’ll find someone else to blame.

Today I discovered that Nicholas has been at Bangor seven years and is not even a student any more. It explains why he seemed so mature for eighteen or nineteen, he must actually be in his mid-twenties. I ended Tuesday wiser for that reason, if none other that will consciously stay with me.

Wednesday

Good ole Wednesday. I’ve mentioned before that the university has a left wing bias. I don’t really detail all the ways it manifests in my blog, I guess because I’ve got better things to do, but I’ll include an anecdote today.

It’s hard to summarise my own politics. I’ve always been a bit of both spectrums, certainly not inclined to accept the whole left wing package. And it’s not an emotive subject for me. No party promises me a girlfriend in its manifesto, so why should it be? So anyway, Matthew Durham has asked us before if we think women still get a raw deal in publishing and today he asked us if we considered ourselves feminists. I said, “No, but then I don’t consider myself a masculinist either.” (We were discussing The Magic Toyshop, which I happened to like, so much so that I’ve bought Carter’s first book). Matthew said that feminism just means equality for women and if that’s the case then yes, I’m a feminist. But honestly, who would say, ‘no I don’t believe in equality for women’? So really, the question must mean something more. Perhaps it means, ‘do you believe that consciousness is created by the brain?’ No, I believe it is facilitated by it and funnily enough, most career feminists probably don’t. (Discuss).

Anyway, Matthew said the English language is biased in favour of men. We walk into a room and say ‘hello guys’ and we could be saying hello to men exclusively, or to men and women. The word man exists independent of woman, but the word woman defines woman by her not being a man. That seems reasonable and I agree we need to look at the language we use. I’ve never liked the word ‘slut’. Why do we honour men for promiscuity but berate women for it? I say ‘we’ actually meaning other men, because I’ve never done that. But to me it was ironic that Matthew was arguing that words shouldn’t be biased and the very word- which is supposed to be about fairness- is about women. Fairness cannot just be about women and therefore I’d rather be called a fairest. Interestingly, on my weekendly browse of women’s dating profiles I came across one woman saying that she was ‘decidedly not a feminist’. Why is that, I wonder? (Discuss).

And of course, on Wednesday I went to spiritualist church looking for clues about getting my life on track. Preferably an electrified one. It was chucking it down and I figured I had a decent chance of a reading, due to low attendance. How right I was. I think there were about seven people, and they were all old. Two fell asleep. We had to sing hymns and without an organ so everyone sang their own tune. The medium described herself as ‘moderately awful’, and I agree and yet...and yet...was she? I got my reading and it’s hard to say if it was made up or what it was. She said that when I came to Bangor I had higher expectations and that is true. That is the one thing I can say which I in no way fed to her. No earth shattering revelations, just that I will start to put a small social life together at some point. Dots will connect.

On the way back I drove into a traffic island. It was the weather and my steamed up windows. Could hardly see where I was going.

Thursday

Catherine presented a poem of mine in class, I think because she thought it rather good and assumed the others would think so, but I don’t think they did particularly. It was a reply to Philip Larkin’s Auerbach. I would paste here but when I submit my portfolio Turnit In will find anything on the web and shout, “Plagiarism!” Of course, I can prove it’s mine, but for the sake of simplicity...

Friday

I met a discus thrower on online dating. Probably nothing will come of it but you never know.

Saturday

Depressed all day. Cheered up a bit in the evening. A bit, mind. I definitely know how to unsteam my windows, now. Fear not. They were as clear as the cold air on the way to Morrisons.

Sunday

And so to Sunday. Not an especially eventful week. I should say thanks to James and Lorane for keeping me cyber company, because otherwise it’s mostly me talking to myself.