Emma Kennedy

Once I was watching television. This was in the days before smartphones and box sets of whatever. There was a lot of channels on cable TV at thus time, but a lot of them were Russian news, pornography or promoting Christianity.

I chanced across a TV show about Germany of the 1930s. Nowadays there are practically 24 hour channels dedicated entirely to the salacious exposing of Nazi evils but not so much then.

Anyway, on this particular show they showed the communists marching singing a jolly song about the evils of capitalism or whatever and then showed the Nazis marching along singing a jolly song about the evils of Jews or whatever.

To my disgust, I found myself a few days later, humming the nazi tune whilst doing the washing up.

It was quite catchy, I recall, although I wouldn't be able to sing it for you right now.

I'm guessing there's probably some people who first got into fascism that way. 

Petroleum Will Prevail

People who talk at great length about their dreams are notoriusly boring, despite this I have always been jealous of them, as I very rarely recall my dreams. Sometimes I will wake up with a feeling, which I assume to be left over from the dream: anxiety, happiness, disgust or something similar. 

Articles about dream journals advise keeping a notebook by your bed so that you can write down your dreams upon waking when you hopefully will remember everything in great detail. Then you can review your dreams at a later date and look for patterns.

I'm not a person who takes great significance in dreams: they're most often just brain detritus in my opinion. Even detritus can be interesting and useful though, so it shouldn't be written off for that reason alone.

It's even easier these days with smartphones as you can tap the details of your dreams straight on and you don't even need to turn on the light.

Last night, I woke up having had a very strange dream. Surprised and delighted I remembered something I resolved to make a note on my phone to remind me in the morning.

In the morning I completely forgot about this whole episode until I looked at the phone notes & saw the following, created at 4.28am

Poke him in the whor bot

Of course I have no recollection of what that meant. I need to write fuller mores in the future. Oddly I do recall when writing it wanting to be very careful in spelling "whor bot". It was very important for reasons I have now forgotten, for it to be spelt like that.

The whole thing puts me in mind of this:

William James describea a man who got the experience from laughing-gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered he rushed to see what he had written. It was: 'the smell of petroleum prevails throughout.'

No laughing gas was involved and I can't smell petrol.

If Men Had Periods

As we all know, advertising aimed at men is amongst the funniest, especially if you are a man. You might wryly watch an advertisement on the television for something firmly aiming itself at men and smugly laugh to yourself: do they really think we are like this? Then you think: what if we really are like this? Then you think: well they can't be aiming this advert at me, I'm sure I'm not so, for want of a better word, basic. But maybe we are. Or more likely, this is easiest thing to assume. After all, like most things, you have assume the people in power, the people running things, are generally male.  Maybe we are all this basic, including me & I've just failed to notice this all of this time*

But of course of all kinds of advertising, the best is that aimed at men, advertising something that might be described as girly. Such over compensating!

Imagine if men got periods. Theyd definately give tampons some stupidly macho name and design.

* there are so many things I've somehow missed in all my years & am only just discovering. It's quite scary.

Not so smart

When I was about eight years old, a school friend told me this story right where he was having a wee and he somehow knocked a toilet roll into the toilet and got wee on it and his dad came in because he had caused such commotion and his dad was eating an apple and that fell in the toilet and there was wee on the apple and I thought this was the funniest thing I had ever heard.

Then a short while ago I nearly dropped my phone in the toilet to avoid knocking a toilet roll and a can of air freshener in the toilet. The phone fell on the floor and I was releaved but the floor was wet, not with wee I hasten to ads, and the phone was okay for a short while but then the whole screen went red which was clearly not a good thing and then it wouldn't turn on at all.

I don't know if it was because I'd dropped it or something else I'd unknowingly done, or if the phone was just faulty but I now did not have a phone. I was able to book myself in at the nearest Apple Store (Brent Cross) Genius Bar (a name that always makes me gringe, and since the phone was not very old I suspected they would just replace it. 

The Masque of the Red Screen took place on Sunday and my Genius Bar Waltz was scheduled for Wednesday evening.

I had three days without a phone. What would I do?

Wake up in the morning, what's the time? No idea, I don't have a watch, I use my phone.

Is my train going to be on time? Hang on, I'll boot up the laptop...

Shall I listen to some music on the train? Erm... no can do.

It went on like this. To be honest, the worst part was where I might, given an idle few minutes, browse the Internet aimlessly or whatever, I no longer had the choice.

I did a lot of reading, which was very pleasing, but I do like when reading in public to have the earphones in to block out and make me concentrate more. This wasn't an option.

And when I went to Brent Cross I didn't know if there were bus issues, couldn't listen to music or browse the Internet on the way there.

(the bus to Brent Cross is one of those terrible tiny local bus things that literally goes round the houses to get there)

And when I got there I had no idea what the time was so I had no idea when I was due to meet my Genius.

As predicted as I was within warranty I got a new phone and all was well with the world again.

The only plus point is that I'm too old to be a digital native. The thought of being one of them and without a phone terrifies me.

Stick Them Up "Punks" It's The Antiques Roadshow

As you may or may not know, the Antiques Roadshow is filmed all over the country. This is no good to me, as I live in the South East, specifically the outskirts of London and therefore I have a misguided assumption that everything interesting should happen near me.

So when I heard that the "Roadshow" was coming to the mighty Walthamstow aka E17 and the visit coincided with my birthday, well the weekend afterwards, I thought, well I have to go. It would be RUDE not to.

So I did.

I didn't take any antiques with me, mainly because I don't have any. I pondered the possibility of asking around, seeing if anyone had anything they wanted me to take, but common sense prevailed and I didn't bother.

Joining the queue slightly back from a man in a Swans t-shirt and massive ginger beard made my thoughts alternate between "gosh the audience has changed" to "blooming  hipsters innit" at the drop of a hat.

After realising that we didn't have to queue as we hadn't bought anything we were allowed to join the revelling antique fans, and mill freely. Here are some highlights (and lowlights)

1. A man serving coffee out of the back of a can. He had a wide stance.

2. When it is shown on telly, you may see me, awkwardly laughing as a funeral urn is inspected.

3. No Munn.

4. The queues man! You should have seen them! I was so glad I didn't bring anything to be appraised.

5. They do the valuation twice, if your stuff looks good they bring the cameras over.

6. Fiona Bruce did a bit to camera where I'm in the crowd. I muttered in a disdainful manner, "that looks like an antique biscuit" only to be absolutely correct.

7. You can't buy a commerative paperweight. 

8. Walthamstow town hall is an amazing looking place.

9. A lot of people bring paintings. Or is it just that paintings are easily recognised.

10. The kind of people you see wandering around are EXACTLY as you might imagine— although the Swans t-shirt was unexpected.

Extract From A Work In Progress

"So many things in the modern world have secret, hidden meanings," he said.

"Like what?" I said. I could accept some of what he was saying, true, but some of this stuff seemed to fantastic to be true.

"Roundabouts," he said. "They are almost without exception built on sites of long-established evil. The roundabout was always there, long before it was actually built."

I decided to show off some of my local knowledge at this point: "I know the first roundabout in Britain was built in Letchworth Garden City."

"Very true," he said. "This is why I avoid going there. Very ancient things lurk there. Things not to be invoked."

"What do you make Milton Keynes?" I asked. "Lots of roundabouts there. Including, if memory serves, a 'magic' one."

"Oh you must never go to Milton Keynes!" he said.

I was shocked at his vehemence: "Because of the ancient evils that lurk there now manifesting themselves as roundabouts?"

"No," he replied. "It's just really fucking boring there."

Triple Action

Apparently William S Burroughs used to keep a notebook where the pages were divided into three.

1. What you are seeing/hearing

2. What you are thinking

3. What you are reading

I like this idea, although it sounds very tricky in theory. Must give it a go.

On the other hand Buckminster supposedly wore three wristwatches* which were set to the following times:

1. Where you started from

2. Where you are going 

3. The time at home 

It's hard to believe anyone in this day and age was bother with writing right across a notebook page or having one watch in, like some kind of LOSER.

* I do like the term "wristwatch". It sounds so overdone. Like saying "omnibus" for "bus" and so on.