Insomnia

Tags

Cheryl Cole, Cinderella, Claudius, drawbridge, Faust, Harvey Nichols, insomnia, Judas, Land of Nod, magic lantern, Marcel Proust, Mephistopheles, Potiphar, Samaritans, Swann's Way, World Service

Recently I’ve been having trouble sleeping, Clammie confessed.

Perhaps it is down to excessive caffeine intake, I suggested.

Oh, it’s just that Scheherezade and Isolde have given me their

Christmas lists..

Don’t let your kids blackmail you into overspending.  You could

follow, no, wait!-‘channel’ their desires into the latest Harvey

Nichols’ ploy.

What’s that?

You give them a small gift, such as an eraser, or a toothpick and

spend on yourself.  As  Cheryl Cole keeps reminding her viewers-

‘You’re worth it!’

Hmm..but I think my anxiety is getting worse.  I try to count

backwards from three hundred in threes, but I’m really good at

it now.  I then choose a category, like Antique Furniture, and find

examples for every letter in the alphabet.

How does that work? I enquired.

Well, ‘a’ is for ‘armoire’; ‘b’ is for..

Okay. I get it.  What about ‘x’?

I just leave the difficult letters out.  Sometimes I have to put the

light on and read Proust.  He knew all about the problem.  But reading

in the night annoys Tristram.  So I go downstairs and make a cup

of tea and angst about how I’m going to face the next day, sleep-

deprived.

I remember the opening of Swann’s Way, I sympathised. Proust is

brilliant on night terrors, sleeping in snatches and disorientation on

waking.  But at least you don’t have to create a nest of materials to

keep out the draughts, as he did.

No, but it is cold at three o’clock when I go to the kitchen and the

central heating is off.

Maybe you are just not tired out enough during the day.  Proust

described the agonies of being sent to bed in the summer when he

wasn’t sleepy.  You could buy yourself a Magic Lantern to entertain

yourself.  He had one, I reflected. Or you could write some poetry.

That’s what I do.

Really?  Is that when the Muse descends?

Absolutely.  Look- here’s what I wrote last week, at four am.

I unfolded some lined paper and she put on her spectacles

and read:

A HARD DAY’S NIGHT

It was that time when Mephistopheles

returned to claim the pledged Faustian soul.

It was that time of night when Judas left;

went to Potiphar’s field to hang himself.

It was that time of night when Jesus wept

and sweated drops of blood, in agony.

It was the time of night when heart monitors fail

and the felonious will seize on swag-

when Claudius’ prayers returned to him;

Cinderella’s coach reverted to squash.

That is the time I wake, squint at the clock,

dread the hours of insomnia to come

in a chilled house, when the heating clicks off;

my partner is in a different world.

Instead of counting sheep, dim shooting stars

zip across my night vision for a while.

There is no one to talk to at that time,

save a Samaritan’s listening ear.

(One leaves that organ for the desperate.)

I wonder how this siege is going to end:

an enemy has poisoned all my wells;

my fields have been scorched and fire approaches.

They’re going to find my hidden strongbox.

Tapestries have already become shrouds.

The drawbridge is my only protection.

Once it is breached, vile hordes will fly inside.

And so I rise and reach for dressing gown;

seek with my soles for ice-cold slippers;

fold back my guilt and exit black bedroom,

step by step, unloading hell with each tread,

searching the comfort of a warm kettle,

The World Service, the fridge’s quiet thrum.

Blue standby lights pinpoint where I am;

the oven clock tells me the precise time.

It’s time I was far in the Land of Nod.

.

In the Eye of the Beholder?

Tags

Beckhams, Body modification, Cheryl Cole, Dejeuner sur L'Herbe, Edmund Spenser, Girl with Pearl Ear-ring, hepatitis, HIV, Impressionist, oxymoron, Personal and Social Education, rite of passage, Tattoo, twerking

Gisela Boothroyd-Smythe, single parent, was distraught.  She had knocked

on her daughter Juniper’s bedroom door and, on hearing no reply, had

turned the door handle in order to gain access to pick up some laundry.

She did not discover her child twerking at the mirror, but, instead caught

her out admiring herself in her wardrobe mirror.

Mum!  Get out!

Juniper!  What on earth have you done?

Chillax, mater-it’s only a body modification.

Gisela was filled with revulsion.  Yes, but a permanent one, no

doubt.

It’s to mark a rite of passage, innit?  This was not so much an

interrogative as a bolshie declarative, or statement of all-out war.

What does it say?

Don’t stop me: I’m a runaway.

Gisela flopped onto the futon.  I fail to understand how..

Aw mum, the positive version was what plantation owners used to brand on

their slaves, so fugitives could be identified. I just wanted to blazon the idea

of Liberty in a personal fashion.

Fashion just about sums it up, groaned Gisela.  Look, I fail to see how you

are deprived of your Freedom.  Frankly, whoever did this to you should be

deprived of theirs.  Did you lie about your age?

Yeah, grinned Juniper.  They only get fined about forty quid for marking

minors.  They didn’t exactly run a den of inkwitty. 

She laughed and Gisela wanted to shake her, but exercised restraint.

though she felt needled herself.

Gisela winced at the colloquialism and the barefaced cheek, which was

almost as bad to her as the tramp stamp.  She tried to put her objections

into a rank order of those worthy of protest, down to those over which it

simply wasn’t worth making a scene.

The embellishment was a high scorer.

Wait till your father sees it.  I blame the Beckhams for this craze.  I hope

you don’t get hepatitis or HIV.  And, I don’t know what your Form Teacher is

going to say about it.  Miss Fotheringay-Syylk isn’t going to be impressed.

Oh, she’s got one too, Juniper crowed.  She showed us hers in Personal and

Social Education.

Well, I despair about teachers nowadays, Gisela sighed.  They are either on

strike or setting a bad example to pupils.  I’m going to speak to the Head

about it.

But Miss Syylk’s is classy, protested the Bad Girl.

A classy tattoo?!  An oxymoron if ever I heard one.

No, Mum.  Hers is a quotation from Edmund Spenser.  She had it done

to mark the end of a relationship. 

Too much information! snorted Gisela.

Juniper carried on.

It says:

One day I wrote his name upon the strand,

but came the waves and washed it far away

and so I had it tattooed on my back

where t’will endure till Doom doth sound its crack.

How obscene! remarked Gisela.  I hope it isn’t too low down on her torso,

or there will be an unfortunate juxtaposition if she bends over when sporting

low slung jeans.

Mum!

John, Juniper’s evil little brother made his entrance, seizing the

opportunity of the unbolted door.

Hey!  What’s that, sis?   He read the motto in a flash. Yuck! I wish you

would run away and then I could get your room.  It’s bigger than mine.

Out! snapped Gisela.

Whoa, Tiger! breathed John, beating a hasty retreat as he could see that

his mother was in earnest for once.

I just hope that you don’t get an allergy from the metal dyes, Gisela ranted.

Mum, if Cheryl Cole can survive her exposure to chemical dyes, then I

suppose I will survive.  She obviously thought she was worth it.

John stuck his head back round the door.

I’d never fancy a girl with all that chavvy decoration! he sneered.

No, you’re so untrendy that you’d probably only be attracted to a girl with

a pearl ear-ring! Juniper screeched and slammed the door on his finger.

And it was then that she had a brilliant idea for her AS Art project.

She would download pictures of famous beauties by Old Masters and

Impressionist painters and would add body decoration to their nudity.

Dejeuner sur L’Herbe with Olympia, or whoever she was, would exhibit

the female flesh as blank canvas for a riot of scribbles.  She’d entitle her

portfolio: Beauty- in the Eye of the Beholder?

Are you listening to me, Juniper? seethed Gisela.

Whatever, shrugged that very difficult young lady.

Some Animals Are More Equal

Tags

Animal Farm, Botticelli, Cheryl Cole, commissario, Davide Camarrone, Golding, greasy pole, Jessie and Bluebell, Lolita, Lord of Flies, Michel Riondino, Montalbano, Napoleon, Old Major, Orwellian, Russell Group, Snowball, Sophia Loren, Squealer, totalitarian

Mum!  Tiger-Lily raised her voice.  Mum!

Oh, eh, what is it, Tiger?

Mum, do you think you could stop salivating over The Young Montalbano

and tell me where you put my lacrosse shirt?

Carrie replied, In the utility room, I think, without taking her eyes off

the screen.

Duh! expostulated the teenager.  And dad…

Mmm? Gyles made a kind of non-committed non-verbal response.

There was a rather attractive girl, a cross between Cheryl Cole and the

young Sophia Loren, being fed forkfuls of food in a prison cell by the

eponymous hero of the programme.

Though she appeared to have learning disabilities and had tried to shoot

the nouveau inspector, or commissario, he of the Botticelli curls did not

look as if he was deterred.  In fact, he had given the girl the dress his

girlfriend had asked him to buy her from the local market.  It seemed to be

an incentive to talk, or do something else.  It wouldn’t earn him any

promotion with his enamorato, you wouldn’t think!  But somehow he

seemed to get away with it, though the girlfriend recommended the

recipient for a cleaning job.

Gyles was riveted.

Carrie thought being banged up in a cell with Michele Riondino would

be anything but a punishment.  Where could she get a gun?

Dad!  Did you hear me?  Have you got a spare battery?

Gyles reluctantly raised himself from the sofa and interacted with his own

Lolita-in-the-making.

Glad to have some parental attention, Tiger became fairly chatty.

Dad, you know John Boothroyd-Smythe, or B-S, as Mr Snodbury calls

him?

The naughty boy?

Yeah.  Well, he is in Big Trouble this time.

What’s he been up to now?

He set up a website called Squealer’s Trash Blog and criticised the

management of St Birinus’ and said that Mr Snodbury was Napoleon

and Mr Poskett, the choirmaster, was Snowball.

Did he say the Headmaster was Old Major? laughed Gyles.

How do you know, Dad?  Tiger was amazed by her father’s acuity.

John used big words like ‘totalitarian’ when discussing the first rugby

team and how it was chosen.

Sour grapes then? Gyles remarked.

He said the places on the team were allocated by a nepotistic dictator.

So the headmaster’s nephew is in the First team then?  The rugby coach

stole Bluebell and Jessie’s prime puppies for himself?!

Dad, John defaced the sports fixture list on the criss-cross board and

when the class were challenged to admit who the culprit had been, six

boys confessed and had to run round the sports field at break.

Excellent!  Just like the hens in Animal Farm!

Tiger didn’t understand her father’s Orwellian comments.  She was

going to be studying Lord of The Flies this year instead.  Let’s just hope

that John, or B-S, isn’t in a group that is going to study Golding for GCSE.

On the other hand, that particular author had been a schoolmaster himself,

so there wouldn’t have been any flies on him either.  Tiger is sure to be

enlightened as to human nature and political systems and their hierarchies.

V

Well, a bit of exercise is better than having your neck wrung, I suppose,

quipped Gyles. I’m amazed that Old Snod hasn’t been sent to the knackers’

yard by now.  He’s been doing something in Education for aeons and must be

past his sell-by date.  He’s probably constructed more metaphorical windmills

than I have had hot dinners.  He would produce a fair bit of glue, I am sure,

given that ample paunch.

Tiger thought her father was slightly mad.

Dad, Castor and Pollux confessed just to get the Headmaster to leave

everyone alone.  They were accused of being anarchists.  The Headmaster

wrote to their parents and said that they would never get into a Russell

Group university if they continued to misbehave.

Hah! I don’t think he went to one himself, grinned Gyles.  His eyes strayed

to the screen again.  He didn’t think that the young Montalbano was doing

too badly, in spite of his waywardness and unorthodox approach to crime

detection and force discipline.  Probably B-S would triumph in life, in spite of,

or indeed because of, his individualistic approach.  After all, some animals are

simply more successful than others.  Even in a police cell, some folks will

manage a dalliance with a dumb goddess. Jammy devils!

He watched the credits go up.  Politics is ubiquitous, he mused.  And human

nature involves getting one over the Joneses.

How daft of the Headmaster not to recognise that the jockeying for position

and fight to get to the top of the greasy pole is par for the course of any

aspiring bratlet and its progenitors.

It was then that Gyles noticed that the lyrics to the programme’s

theme music had been accredited to a Davide Camarrone.

Case proven.  Politicians get into everything!  Some animals are simply

more versatile and more equipped than others.  Especially if they have

had the benefit of a private education, such as Jessie and Bluebell’s

puppies!

Skincare

Tags

Amy Winehouse, Andrew Motion, Bradley Wiggins, Carol Ann Duffy, Champs Elysees, Cheryl Cole, Dan Snow, Johnny Depp, Kirstie Allsopp, L'Oreal, Mahalia Jackson, Mother Teresa, Olympics, Phil Spencer, Radio 4, Rango, Samuel Beckett, Sarah Vaughan, Shar Pei, Sophie Raworth, St Kilda, Tour de France, W H Auden

Monday, 23^rd July.

In the north rain; in the south: sunny.

Everyone is being urged to cease whining and to look forward to enjoying the great spectacle of the Olympics.  But the goodwill lasts for about two seconds and then someone phones in to Radio 4 to detract from Team Sky’s victory.  The Language Police can’t refrain from pointing out that the “p” in Champs Elysees is silent.  A better suggestion was that it should be re-named The Road to Wiggins’ Peerage!

Meanwhile the backlog of people requiring investigation for being illegally resident in the U.K. – criminals included- is equivalent in number to the population of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  It may well be more efficient to round up all Geordies, starting with that annoyingly accented Ruth in The Archers. Cheryl Cole would be next.  Another on the list who never would be missed. She thinks she is worth it, but is she?

Maybe the super-rich who have thirteen trillion hidden offshore could be persuaded to put their bodies where their money is, leaving space for those who have lost their pension funds.

I was watching Sophie Raworth, the newsreader, popping up in a fetching red dress and ballet pumps, all over Stratford – or virtually and graphically so.  We were being advised who to look out for in the coming weeks, but all that I could think of was how the Aquatic Centre looked like an architectural panty pad.

Impatiently, I flicked the remote.  There appeared Dan Snow, with his rower’s chest, stripping off his outdoor gear and racing up some chimney gully on St Kilda.  That was riveting eye-candy.

It was unfortunate that Phil Spencer came on next.  I immediately thought that you could call that a paradox.  I wouldn’t go as far as an oxymoron.   It was certainly unfortunate.  I couldn’t imagine him shinning up a literal chimney- not even if Kirstie had left her designer handbag on top of its cowl.  Anyway, what knight would want to risk derring-do for someone who appeared in a purple tie-dye marquee with a turquoise belt and puce espadrilles?

Normally I would have approved of Kirstie’s comfort in her own skin, but I did think that she must have scoffed rather too many cupcakes recently.

That left an Arena programme on BBC4 about the time that Amy Winehouse went to sing in a church in Dingle, some remote coastal dot in Ireland.  I expected Neil Oliver to pop up since it was his territory, as it were, and thought that he and Amy might have got on well. They could have stayed in and had a girlie night, backcombing each other’s hair.

Amy interviewed well, but I had difficulty with her diction when she was singing.  When clips of Mahalia Jackson or Sarah Vaughan were played, I understood every word they uttered.  It was sad when Amy sang about not wanting to go-o-o to rehab.

Also sad was the news report with the tragic weirdo in a ginger wig who had massacred all those innocent people in the cinema in Colorado.  I didn’t want to think about that too much before bedtime, so opted for Horizon and its exploration of sun damage on skin.  A glamorous female surgeon simply had to visit Sharm el-Sheikh, Berlin and Paris, to promote current research on care for our body’s biggest organ and to pick up a few L’Oreal free samples on the way.

I considered rushing out a.s.a.p. to the chemist and stocking up on their entire stock of anti-UVA creams, not to mention the Unilever pill which might just be available.  I didn’t want to develop the W.H.Auden look, which someone had described as being like a Xmas pudding left out in the rain.   He should have used moisturiser and have spent as much time on his skincare regime than on poetry.  He had been worth it, even if he did look more like Rango than Johnny Depp.  I hoped that Carol Ann Duffy was taking note.  She needs to look good in her lofty bardic position.  Andrew Motion did.  He was probably no stranger to E45.

W. H.  What did the initials stand for? – I seemed to remember that it was Wystan, not Winston.  Always good to file away for the General Knowledge round of Mastermind.  Also the name of that wrinkly canine breed- Shar Pei: commit to memory.  If I don’t pass the audition to fill the black chair, I will just have to apply to Alexander Armstrong, to see if he will have me on Pointless.

Winston had had a face like a baby’s bottom, everyone used to say.  He used to smoke cigars, so it was maybe just ciggies that contributed to Auden’s complexion, or perhaps it was his personal involvement with the Age of Anxiety.

Of course, Mother Teresa and Samuel Beckett were both wrinklies. They probably wouldn’t have had the time to spend on a cleanse/ tone/ moisturise regime.  Their value was not dependent on their dermis. They were truly worth it.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012