if i was ever approached by a magic genie and offered a couple of wishes, one of them surely would be to be able to sing. at the age of about 11 i remember being humiliated by nasty mrs van ordt, our choir mistress at school. she did one of those "someone is off-key" numbers and proceeded to make everyone sing a couple of lines on their own. being the tall one in the middle of the back row she eventually got to me, the evil offender, and threw me out of the class. since that day i have never been able to sing in front of people (unless after a few tequilas on a friday night kareoke at stokers pub in newlands in the '80's). however, i love singing on my own and personally think that my rendition of the bangles "eternal flame" is up there with the best. i also have the ability to remember lyrics, and if i lived in the usa i would be brilliant at that tv game "lock in those lyrics". for some reason i can still remember all the words of "knock three times" by the delians, "the times they are a-changing" by bob dylan, all pete starstedt's songs....for what? wasted knowledge taking up valuable space in my little brain that could be used for something else.
michael loves to sing, he can sing but is useless at lyrics. his taste in music is also a bit suspect and he was devastated the other morning when i agreed with the dj on the radio that "ebony and ivory" is one of the worst songs of all time. the beatles were amazing, their melodies, voices and timing are legendary but the lyrics?? oh my word - just take a look at this:-
Love, love me do
You know I love you
I'll always be true
So please love me do
Wo ho love me do
Love, love me do
You know I love you
I'll always be true
So please love me do
Wo ho love me do
Someone to love
Somebody new
Someone to love
Someone like you
Love,love me do
You know I love you
I'll always be true
So please love me do
Wo ho love me do
to this:-
In the chilly hours and minutes,
Of uncertainty, I want to be,
In the warm hold of your loving mind.
To feel you all around me,
And to take your hand, along the sand,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.
When sundown pales the sky,
I wanna hide a while, behind your smile,
And everywhere I'd look, your eyes I'd find.
For me to love you now,
Would be the sweetest thing, 'twould make me sing,
Ah, but I may as well, try and catch the wind.
When rain has hung the leaves with tears,
I want you near, to kill my fears
To help me to leave all my blues behind.
For standin' in your heart,
Is where I want to be, and I long to be,
Ah, but I may as well, try and catch the wind.
also simplistic but it says something. the busiest brother used to sing in the chamber choir at rondebosch, he has a great voice but is continually ripped off by my boys because he once commented "a song is not a song unless it has a chorus".
don't get me wrong. the beatles were the best place to begin to learn to love music. the boys still have an old fashioned cassette tape that francois delivered to them early one morning when we did pre-school lift club "beatles for the okes". this must have been the "most played" cassette ever. i love the fact that they love and still listen to cat stevens and bob dylan. we have seen counting crows, ub40 and u2 together. they have introduced me to mason jennings, ryan adams and arcade fire. they don't enjoy damien rice and adele. i am trying very hard to appreciate sigur ross. this is what makes us all different.
are you a lyrics or melody person? does it really matter? did mrs van ordt damage me forever or was that moment of terrible embarrassment only a moment that would save me a lifetime of further embarrassment?does that make sense?
Sunday, 15 May 2011
quite a fun day
wow, why has anyone ever told me how wonderful a general anaesthetic is? i have not slept as well since forever and somehow even managed to sleep nearly through the night last night as well. once up for 2 painkillers and straight back to bed. all went well except that he had to take bone out of my palate and back gum to fill in for some bone loss. the titanium pin is now in the mouth and I have lots of stitches and everything fine EXCEPT for the fact that the false cap (have to use it for 6 – 12 weeks until the bone regenerates) does not fit properly because of all the stitches. not really a train smash but no big smiles for me until the stitches are out, i suppose. i also cannot understand why they have stopped making chicklet chewing gum – remember those pearly white squared gum? – every bloomin chewing gum is now a colour. 1 chicklet would have been ideal to fill the gap.
i had the most interesting time in the ward waiting to be taken into theatre. nothing to eat or drink since 9.30 the night before, told to get there at 7.45 and only ended up going into theatre at 11.45. anyway i was in the ward for so long and heard everyone’s medical history. just up my street.
1. young girl next to me needs to have her wisdom teeth out – nothing unusual there except she confesses to the anaesthetist that she does use recreational drugs and has a problem with her nose (serious sniffer). he did not bat an eyelid to her confession and went straight on to the next question. quite interesting is that she was having her wisdom teeth out and had one rotten molar which they took out as well and replaced with a wisdom tooth that was in perfect condition but too cramped - a tooth transplant - amazing.
2. older lady diagonally opposite having plastic surgery to remove a cyst on her hand. quite a luscious young plastic surgeon in to examine her and questions her as to who did her breast implants “they look great”. she then went on to praise dr d and gave all details of this operation to this new kid on the block. then her anaesthetist arrives and she gives him her medical background. she only takes 2 valium a day.
3. lady on the other side of me is having liposuction done on her double chin. does not chat much and is not gone for very long. comes back into the ward with bandages and ice pack covering her head and shoulders.
4. lady directly opposite me – around 40 – having a melanoma removed from her shoulder. very quietly spoken so i could not hear all her details and she was very involved in the “dragon tattoo” and not very friendly.
5. this is the lady that was just the best. 83 years old, botanist, lives in rondebosch has a growth on her nose. refuses to take her clothes off (an entire patchwork outfit - jacket (with hood), pants and knitted cap) until she gets extra blankets “once i start shivering i cannot stop”. she gives loretta, the admittance nurse and my new best friend (she grew up at 9 st denis road and needed a run down on all the neighbours) a hard time but nothing compared to the poor lady from security who locks away your valuables. the security lady came in with a plastic courier bag (“where the hell are you posting my stuff to?”), she opens your purse and lists every single card (“you don’t need to write that one down, throw it away it is a used gift card”) and counts your money. this all became a bit much for her and she called for her daughter. she snatched everything away from the security lady and told her daughter to look after her purse (“don’t spend anything , i know how much is there”).
the daughter needs mention too (wild curly hair, rucksack on her back, 54 years old). doing her doctorate – nutty professor type, “i don’t have time to sit here all the time mummy, i have to study”. but i am about to hear more about her because after giving loretta a couple of tips about what to feed her mother when she comes around she leaves in a huff. mother shouts out to daughter as she leaves “ok go, i love you darling and remember not to let michael get hold of my car keys”
loretta now has her clipboard and starts asking the questions. it took me about 5 minutes before i realised that if I did not take notes i would never be able to remember these answers and would miss out completely on some interesting stuff. so i am now referring to my little orange diary (quite the journo, hey?):-
after taking her blood pressure and being told it was on the low side but not abnormally low:-
“that is good, last week it was 55/33 and my chemist would not let me walk home”
on telling her that she would be taking her temperature in her ear:-
“in my ear? that's a new one but better than having it up my bum!!”
allergies (and sorry i could not get these all down):-
“bread, milk, nuts, ……… just bring me black tea with lots of sugar. i am not supposed to have lots of sugar but i need it. i have a tin of condensed milk every day.”
drug allergies?:-
“oh my god asprin, don’t let it anywhere near me. if i take it, 2 minutes later it is out of my system, rushes through my body, straight out – i have a damaged rectal nerve so do not have good control”
“pencillin is not good for my stomach either”
any psychiatric medication?:-
“lucky not me, my daughter who was here, she is psychotic. we have a whole cupboard full of medication that she is on.”
make-up, nail polish, piercings?:- (this question she is asking a woman who has bright orange lipstick which is bleeding in her wrinkles up to her nose and onto her chin)
“i did put on some lipstick this morning, is it still on? nail polish – my husband died 10 years ago and i have not bothered since. piercings – only my ears, one on my nose closed up ages ago.”
other illnesses?:-
diverticulitis, pacemaker, low blood sugar, deformed colon, rectal nerve damage, hiatus hernia – please keep me propped up when i come out of theatre or i will be vomiting phlegm... i often vomit up phlegm in the night..................”
operations?:-
“pacemaker, one of those things where they scrape out your womb and a trigger thumb operation”
smoke?:-
“yes only 10 a day. was 30 a day but far too expensive now”
i then missed the rest but when i woke up she was already getting dressed to leave, she was given a hot lunch “meat loaf, very bland and rice, not basmati but ok. i live on rice you know, chop my home grown spinach into it, lasts me for a week”. she had her operation done under conscious sedation “you know that stuff they use for date rape – wonderful stuff”. when michael came to fetch me at about 3.30 she was fully dressed on her bed waiting for her daughter to come and fetch her. i was tempted to offer her a lift home but thought it would complicate things as her daughter had left rondebosch to fetch her in claremont “over an hour ago”. very "o double d". wish i had taken a picture of her for you.
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
sharing is caring....
remember the saying "her skin is as soft as a babies bum". sure you do. well you know how sometimes you ask someone what they use on their skin expecting to instantly dismiss the information gathered because the price of the product will burst your budget? young working girls spend a fortune on perfumes, hair and skin products, pamper themselves with spa treatments whenever they need it. sad how things so often work in reverse. when i started working and the skin needed minimum care, i shopped at stuttafords, had the full range of juvena products (what happened to them? probably died along with harriet hubbard ayer, helena rubenstein and max factor). i had facemasks for night time and pep-up one for before a special date, eye-gels and serums, day creams and night creams. along came marriage and children and the cosmetics were bought at pick n pay along with the washing powder and vegetables. nivea has always been there, it is fairly cheap and kind-of works but my dressing table has never looked the same since the old days when i had all those wonderfully packaged beauty products (oooh and the free gifts that you used to get as well). the way it goes i suppose.
anyway point of this story is that i asked my soon-to-be-scottish-sister-in-law's-sister, aimee what she used on her skin. she confessed that both she and lucie had discovered baby bottom butter at the local waitrose supermarket. this they used as a night cream. she shared a jar between bs and myself and we promptly instructed the bb to bring back bottles of the stuff for his rapidly wrinkling sisters.
it is pretty amazing stuff. feels soft and waxy, rather oily when you first apply it but is soaks into your skin very quickly. i won't exaggerate and tell you that you will wake up looking amazingly beautiful and wrinkle- free but it smells divine and it does make you skin feel super-soft. and it costs only 2.50 pounds (what has happened to the "pound sign" on the keyboard?)
and here was a write up in the daily mail in january 2011
It was designed to protect babies bottoms, keeping them smooth, free from infection and sores, but it has become an anti-aging phenomenon. Baby Bottom Butter, which is priced at just £2.54, has become the top selling skincare product for people of all ages, particularly women, at Waitrose.
The pots now out-sell every skin cream, moisturiser and anti-ageing lotion sold at the chain. Waitrose's Baby Bottom Butter is now being used by women as a face cream and is currently the company's number one skincare product.
This means they are even more popular with the supermarket’s shoppers than beauty brands at four or five times the price, which are sold to help women hold back their wrinkles. The Baby Bottom Butter’s surprise position as Waitrose’s number one skincare product comes nearly three years after it achieved cult status thanks to glowing reviews on parenting websites.
Mothers across Britain praised the budget butter for making their own faces feel soft and youthful, triggering a surge in demand that saw Waitrose sell a 14-year supply of the own-brand baby product in the space of just 12 months.
One contributor to parenting website, mumsnet.com, wrote: 'I can't even remember what made me put it on my face one day but OMG - it is fab.
'I have been using it constantly for two weeks now and my skin now has the smoothest texture, which I don't think it's had since prepubescence.
'And it makes my foundation look super dewy and youthful too. It is SO much better than all the expensive face creams I have tried - including Creme de la Mer.' A 100ml pot of Creme de La Mer moisturising cream, which contains extracts of sea kelp, can cost as much as £970.
The £2.54 tubs of the Baby Bottom Butter bear the slogan: ‘Naturally pure for relaxed and pampered babies’. It is a camomile-scented blend of olive oil and gentle lavender essential oil that is believed to nourish the skin and help protect against irritation. Baby Bottom Butter was launched at Waitrose in 2005 following the supermarket’s decision to remove parabens, petrochemicals and colours from its own-label baby toiletries. The sales success has continued despite some scepticism from beauty industy experts.
Waitrose Babycare Buyer Gemma Wright said: 'This butter for babies’ bottoms has become the top choice for mums who also love using it on their own faces. 'Its consistent popularity and affordable price tag have proved this product is no fad – in fact it now out-sells every body and face cream that
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1348125/Baby-Bottom-Butter-creme-la-creme-face-creams.html#ixzz1LwXj3iVq
friend lesley went over on holiday earlier this year and as i was getting worried that i was now down to my last 3 bottles, i asked her to see if she could get her hands on some. she came back with the most divine coconut massage oil for babies in the same jar
but reported that the baby bum butter was out of stock. it is also great but does not feel as nourishing as the bum butter.
then an announcement from waitrose:-
"We are currently experiencing some supply issues with Waitrose Baby Bottom Butter because of the recent increase in demand. I can confirm that the product will be available again shortly.
Apologies for any inconvenience caused in the meantime."
so please don't say i never tell you any secrets. those of you with family in the uk ask them to buy you an early birthday present. aimee, perhaps there is a business opportunity here for you?
please don't miss me too much tomorrow. the skin wrinkles, the bits and bobs sag and bloomin hell the teeth also start disintegrating. last year i had a run of root canal treatments. i was told that this affects the blood supply to the teeth so they do become brittle. well one year down the line a tooth has fractured. would have been fine to remove it if it was not just two doors away from a front tooth. so heading off for an implant. not a cheap exercise and holding thumbs the hospital plan will pick up some of the tab. will keep you posted. but for now a picture.............
anyway point of this story is that i asked my soon-to-be-scottish-sister-in-law's-sister, aimee what she used on her skin. she confessed that both she and lucie had discovered baby bottom butter at the local waitrose supermarket. this they used as a night cream. she shared a jar between bs and myself and we promptly instructed the bb to bring back bottles of the stuff for his rapidly wrinkling sisters.
and here was a write up in the daily mail in january 2011
The creme de la creme of face creams... that's designed for babies' bottoms
By Sean PoulterIt was designed to protect babies bottoms, keeping them smooth, free from infection and sores, but it has become an anti-aging phenomenon. Baby Bottom Butter, which is priced at just £2.54, has become the top selling skincare product for people of all ages, particularly women, at Waitrose.
The pots now out-sell every skin cream, moisturiser and anti-ageing lotion sold at the chain. Waitrose's Baby Bottom Butter is now being used by women as a face cream and is currently the company's number one skincare product.
This means they are even more popular with the supermarket’s shoppers than beauty brands at four or five times the price, which are sold to help women hold back their wrinkles. The Baby Bottom Butter’s surprise position as Waitrose’s number one skincare product comes nearly three years after it achieved cult status thanks to glowing reviews on parenting websites.
Mothers across Britain praised the budget butter for making their own faces feel soft and youthful, triggering a surge in demand that saw Waitrose sell a 14-year supply of the own-brand baby product in the space of just 12 months.
One contributor to parenting website, mumsnet.com, wrote: 'I can't even remember what made me put it on my face one day but OMG - it is fab.
'I have been using it constantly for two weeks now and my skin now has the smoothest texture, which I don't think it's had since prepubescence.
The £2.54 tubs of the Baby Bottom Butter bear the slogan: ‘Naturally pure for relaxed and pampered babies’. It is a camomile-scented blend of olive oil and gentle lavender essential oil that is believed to nourish the skin and help protect against irritation. Baby Bottom Butter was launched at Waitrose in 2005 following the supermarket’s decision to remove parabens, petrochemicals and colours from its own-label baby toiletries. The sales success has continued despite some scepticism from beauty industy experts.
Waitrose Babycare Buyer Gemma Wright said: 'This butter for babies’ bottoms has become the top choice for mums who also love using it on their own faces. 'Its consistent popularity and affordable price tag have proved this product is no fad – in fact it now out-sells every body and face cream that
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1348125/Baby-Bottom-Butter-creme-la-creme-face-creams.html#ixzz1LwXj3iVq
friend lesley went over on holiday earlier this year and as i was getting worried that i was now down to my last 3 bottles, i asked her to see if she could get her hands on some. she came back with the most divine coconut massage oil for babies in the same jar
then an announcement from waitrose:-
"We are currently experiencing some supply issues with Waitrose Baby Bottom Butter because of the recent increase in demand. I can confirm that the product will be available again shortly.
Apologies for any inconvenience caused in the meantime."
so please don't say i never tell you any secrets. those of you with family in the uk ask them to buy you an early birthday present. aimee, perhaps there is a business opportunity here for you?
please don't miss me too much tomorrow. the skin wrinkles, the bits and bobs sag and bloomin hell the teeth also start disintegrating. last year i had a run of root canal treatments. i was told that this affects the blood supply to the teeth so they do become brittle. well one year down the line a tooth has fractured. would have been fine to remove it if it was not just two doors away from a front tooth. so heading off for an implant. not a cheap exercise and holding thumbs the hospital plan will pick up some of the tab. will keep you posted. but for now a picture.............
Monday, 9 May 2011
oh dear morbid me....
this is so sad... imagine preparing your last blog to be published after your death.
http://penmachine-bu.appspot.com/
derek miller has written this in such an unemotional, matter-of-fact way it is pretty weird.
morbid me got a little caught up in his life and death last night. i read a couple of his posts but this one hit a nerve. there are not many female vocalists who i enjoy but adele is something very special. take a listen to this song "someone like you" and then read below what he posted a couple of weeks ago...
"Last night, at bedtime, I put the new Adele album 21 in my headphones and settled down to sleep. Within three songs, I was crying hot tears, my face scrunched up so I couldn't see. I couldn't stop. I didn't want to. I sobbed silently through nine more tracks and 40 minutes in the dark (weeping with laryngitis is one more weird experience), enough that I was worried I'd short out one of the earbuds.
Music, that most human of instincts and inventions, can do that at its very best: reach past our rational minds, through any analysis or cynicism, beyond any physical pain or discomfort, directly to our emotions. Then it can draw those feelings out and tap them to the surface, even (especially?) when we didn't know just what was in there. I've had it happen: listening to the astounding student choir in the auditorium at the high school where my wife works, hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan play "Little Wing" by Jimi Hendrix, a few transcendent moments onstage with my own band in front of crowds big or small.
But Adele's "furious tornado of a voice" (as Pitchfork's Tom Breihan called it) pierces me. She's half my age, British, and likes to hit the pub with her friends, but that voice and the conviction behind it are why she's also a number-one selling artist in countries around the world right now. She's the queen of heartbreak. Every time she comes on with little but piano as backing, like on "Turning Tables" or "Someone Like You," and "Hometown Glory" or Bob Dylan's "Make You Feel My Love" from her previous collection, 19, I completely lose it...
Hang on. Have to take a break here for a second..."
thought that i had best break off now as well before i make everyone's monday morbid... but then i found out that he carried on about adele and love and loss and i was just finished......
"For Adele, that moment, right there, the one line—"Don't forget me, I beg"—is the focus of the song, the crux of the album, the very keen point of the ice pick when it first hits the diamond and shatters it, the moment of heartbreak.
And here's why it, and the rest of Adele's songs, made me cry like that last night. There's the heartbreak of rejection, of unrequited love. There's the heartbreak of breaking up, of losing love. There's the heartbreak of getting dumped, of not being loved anymore. They ache, they seethe, they're horrible. That's what Adele makes her business singing about.
But worst of all is the heartbreak of having been in love, for years, and both of you still being in love. But one of you is going to die. And no one, neither of you, not anyone else, can do anything about it.
That's not what Adele is singing about, not directly. I hope she never knows how it feels, or if she does, that it's many, many years away. I didn't invite her voice there, but it seems to know, so when it breaks down my barriers and taps the depths, that's where it goes, and what comes out."
sorry but i thought this was worth sharing. how amazing is the last paragraph? and i am going off to buy her cd at lunchtime.
http://penmachine-bu.appspot.com/
derek miller has written this in such an unemotional, matter-of-fact way it is pretty weird.
morbid me got a little caught up in his life and death last night. i read a couple of his posts but this one hit a nerve. there are not many female vocalists who i enjoy but adele is something very special. take a listen to this song "someone like you" and then read below what he posted a couple of weeks ago...
"Last night, at bedtime, I put the new Adele album 21 in my headphones and settled down to sleep. Within three songs, I was crying hot tears, my face scrunched up so I couldn't see. I couldn't stop. I didn't want to. I sobbed silently through nine more tracks and 40 minutes in the dark (weeping with laryngitis is one more weird experience), enough that I was worried I'd short out one of the earbuds.
Music, that most human of instincts and inventions, can do that at its very best: reach past our rational minds, through any analysis or cynicism, beyond any physical pain or discomfort, directly to our emotions. Then it can draw those feelings out and tap them to the surface, even (especially?) when we didn't know just what was in there. I've had it happen: listening to the astounding student choir in the auditorium at the high school where my wife works, hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan play "Little Wing" by Jimi Hendrix, a few transcendent moments onstage with my own band in front of crowds big or small.
But Adele's "furious tornado of a voice" (as Pitchfork's Tom Breihan called it) pierces me. She's half my age, British, and likes to hit the pub with her friends, but that voice and the conviction behind it are why she's also a number-one selling artist in countries around the world right now. She's the queen of heartbreak. Every time she comes on with little but piano as backing, like on "Turning Tables" or "Someone Like You," and "Hometown Glory" or Bob Dylan's "Make You Feel My Love" from her previous collection, 19, I completely lose it...
Hang on. Have to take a break here for a second..."
thought that i had best break off now as well before i make everyone's monday morbid... but then i found out that he carried on about adele and love and loss and i was just finished......
"For Adele, that moment, right there, the one line—"Don't forget me, I beg"—is the focus of the song, the crux of the album, the very keen point of the ice pick when it first hits the diamond and shatters it, the moment of heartbreak.
And here's why it, and the rest of Adele's songs, made me cry like that last night. There's the heartbreak of rejection, of unrequited love. There's the heartbreak of breaking up, of losing love. There's the heartbreak of getting dumped, of not being loved anymore. They ache, they seethe, they're horrible. That's what Adele makes her business singing about.
But worst of all is the heartbreak of having been in love, for years, and both of you still being in love. But one of you is going to die. And no one, neither of you, not anyone else, can do anything about it.
That's not what Adele is singing about, not directly. I hope she never knows how it feels, or if she does, that it's many, many years away. I didn't invite her voice there, but it seems to know, so when it breaks down my barriers and taps the depths, that's where it goes, and what comes out."
sorry but i thought this was worth sharing. how amazing is the last paragraph? and i am going off to buy her cd at lunchtime.
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