It's getting dark outside. It's 5.46pm. There's a thick, beefy, grey night hanging around outside waiting to knock me off my still-summer-shoe-clad feet when I step out of the office in 10 minutes. Not cool.
The clocks will go back an hour on Sunday, signalling the onset of British Winter 2011 brrrr...making way for...mmm mulled wine, red wine, mulled wine, mmm repeat etc.
Incidentally, why is David Cameron trying to mess with time itself? In my opinion, nobody should be allowed to do this except God, Hiro Nakamura (from 'Heroes') and Bernard (from 'Bernard's Watch'). I don't think David is quite on a par with any of these guys. I'm not David-bashing as such, just wandering why he's thinking about long summers when we're about to enter winter? Live in the present, seize the day and all that.
Perhaps he has just been watching too many 'Bernard's Watch' repeats? In which case I don't blame him. But then why doesn't he just issue similar magic pocket watches to every Briton and we can decide Time for ourselves, "each to their own" style?
This may sound naive and silly, but this is very probably the next step in our technology-obsessed, power-hungry modern world...you heard it here first...watch this space...(didn't even intend a cringey time-based pun there oops.)
Thursday 27 October 2011
Wednesday 5 October 2011
A Day in the Life of....A Scarf
Yes..that's right. A scarf.
I am currently attending a weekly writing class at The Institute and I love it. The teacher is fantastic and puts everyone at ease and we have a great group of people so it's lots of fun. Our task this week was to hold out our hands with our eyes closed. The teacher placed a different object in each of our hands. All of these objects were everyday, boring, and obviously inanimate. We had to feel them and describe them through the sense of touch alone. Although for most of us, it was easy to tell what the object was we still had to really hone in on this sense. With our eyes open, we then wrote descriptions of the object through each of the other senses. I got a pashmina-type scarf so I did feel a little creepy holding it to my face and inhaling the scarf like I was trying to breathe in the scent of my teacher. I refrained from tasting the scarf, as I thought this may be taking it a step too far on the creepy scale...I like her, but not in a stalker-eat-her-scarf kind of way.
We then had to think of memories evoked by the object and it's texture, smell, sight, sound and taste. It was surprising and fun what some of us came up with and we learnt a lot about each other too through our stories and relationships with the objects.
For homework we have been set the task of taking this exploration further and writing 'A Day in the Life of' our object. I actually really enjoyed doing this.
The point behind this whole exercise was to learn to look at familiar objects and the world with new eyes. We have labels and such familiarity with the everyday world as we view it, so rarely find reason to stop and think about the qualities of things we see everyday.
It is also very hard to sit down and 'decide' to write something interesting and profound off the top of your head. Our teacher Elizabeth explained that by starting with something everyday and mundane and writing about it in detail, we find new ways to engage with these subjects and they often provide a path to something more interesting/ profound when we are not even trying.
If you would like to see what an animated inanimate scarf does during a typical day please read on:
I am currently attending a weekly writing class at The Institute and I love it. The teacher is fantastic and puts everyone at ease and we have a great group of people so it's lots of fun. Our task this week was to hold out our hands with our eyes closed. The teacher placed a different object in each of our hands. All of these objects were everyday, boring, and obviously inanimate. We had to feel them and describe them through the sense of touch alone. Although for most of us, it was easy to tell what the object was we still had to really hone in on this sense. With our eyes open, we then wrote descriptions of the object through each of the other senses. I got a pashmina-type scarf so I did feel a little creepy holding it to my face and inhaling the scarf like I was trying to breathe in the scent of my teacher. I refrained from tasting the scarf, as I thought this may be taking it a step too far on the creepy scale...I like her, but not in a stalker-eat-her-scarf kind of way.
We then had to think of memories evoked by the object and it's texture, smell, sight, sound and taste. It was surprising and fun what some of us came up with and we learnt a lot about each other too through our stories and relationships with the objects.
For homework we have been set the task of taking this exploration further and writing 'A Day in the Life of' our object. I actually really enjoyed doing this.
The point behind this whole exercise was to learn to look at familiar objects and the world with new eyes. We have labels and such familiarity with the everyday world as we view it, so rarely find reason to stop and think about the qualities of things we see everyday.
It is also very hard to sit down and 'decide' to write something interesting and profound off the top of your head. Our teacher Elizabeth explained that by starting with something everyday and mundane and writing about it in detail, we find new ways to engage with these subjects and they often provide a path to something more interesting/ profound when we are not even trying.
If you would like to see what an animated inanimate scarf does during a typical day please read on:
A Day in the Life of A Scarf
I am rudely woken from my slumber by sharp rays of sunshine pouring in all over my body. Sunshine is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, I love the warmth and the brightness. However, I think it is simply bad etiquette to force the transition from clammy dark slumber to the brightness of the morning upon anyone. My wearer has never learned to refrain from this habit. In my younger years, this was easier to live with, but as I grow older I worry about my colours fading in the light. I prefer the preservation and peace of the darkness. Here I can nestle amongst other scarves, socks and knickers. The drawer always smells of fresh sweet apples. When I sleep I feel like someone has draped me around the boughs of an apple tree and left me here to rest.
After abruptly pulling open our communal wooden bed, the wearer continues her inconsiderate routine by plucking me out of the drawer. My body is still limp and numb with sleep. Her touch is rough. Can she not see that I am getting old? Sometimes when I am working for the day and I leave the house with her in the morning, I see thick brown cardboard boxes of various sizes being carted gently to front doors by delivery men. I often wonder why the wearer does not touch me like this, with caring hands. Eventually I decipher that the delivery men touch the packages gently due to giant labels taped to the boxes reading ‘FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE’. I often think at a certain age, we clothing items should also get a similar label sewn to our skin. My tassles are untwizzling you see, my rainbow coloured stripes are dusty now and I have a small hole in my left corner, where someone burned through me with a cigarette at a dinner party. There is also a tea stain on the pale, cream coloured part of my body. I remember the occasion when this occurred all too well, and how could I forget? The stain is a constant reminder and has not come out despite three hand washes and one, dare I say it, machine wash since. I had been delighted that the wearer had picked me from the drawer that day to adorn her classically cut black office dress. Despite picking a lovely dress however, the wearer was clearly sleep deprived herself, and running late. We stopped on the way to work so that she could buy a styrofoam cup of tea from a street vendor by St Johns Wood tube station. Once on the train, the wearer lifted the lid from the cup to let the tea cool. Steam rose from the milky liquid and harassed me. It was hot enough on the tube without this added wet heat. Now that I have since encountered the dreaded machine with all of the common clothes, I could liken the steam to the shock of heat that rose from my skin by the end of this terrifying fiasco, when I was finally removed from the machine in a giant heap with all of the other clothes. Although my care label is now faded, the wearer knows that I am a ‘hand wash only’ item. To add insult to injury on this particular tube ride, after receiving an unwanted sauna, the tube carriage halted at Baker Street station sending scolding hot tea jolting out of the cup and all over me. Needless to say, this was ‘one of those days’ at work for both of us.
There are younger scarves in the drawer that I used to be jealous of, but now hardly care to notice. One is particularly attractive. She is made of red and pink silk and gold threads pattern her luxurious body with delicate roses. These younger scarves do get picked more often than me these days, and I am often discarded at the back of the drawer. But as I said, it is cool and dark and peaceful in here so that suits me just fine.
It is still nice to be worn occasionally and despite my annoyance at such a wake-up call I do find that I feel a hint of pride that I am the chosen one today. The wearer drapes me around her neck. My top half is always pleased to be nestled against her warm, delicate, soft skin. But the trailing bottom half of my body is disgruntled with the wearer’s outfit. She is wearing that stiff, itchy navy blue blazer and we do not get on well. There is a sterling silver butterfly brooch attached to the top lapel of the blazer and I always scratch up uncomfortably against him and get stuck. The delicate strings of my netted middle stripe get caught on the butterfly antennae today. I am not best pleased. The wearer swirls around and parades herself in front of the full length mirror. She fidgets with me and pulls my ends this way and that. I try to cry out as she pulls me at one end and the strings wrap tighter on the antennae, the metal poking through the larger holes in my weave. The wearer ignores my discomfort. She sighs and her shoulders drop. She rips me from her warm pulsating throat violently and throws me to the bed. I flutter through the air as gracefully as I can and land on the unmade bed. “Get off” comes a gruff angry voice, muffled by the duvet. I look to my left and realise I am lying over a thick brown cracked leather belt. He’s also been discarded today by the wearer and we know we’ll be laying like this all day until she clears us off the bed later when she returns home.
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