An Ame Weather Update

Ame's been a bit worried about the weather over here, what with the airports being closed yesterday for England's brief flirtation with winter.
This morning I was dicking around with my notes from last night's Japanese class when I realised something …
(other than that まゆこせんせいはかわいいです。) …

This is the kanji for "rain".

It is pronounced "Amé".

I think we have an omen on our hands here …

Dear Prudence's Lyrical Challenge

Excellent post over at the Lakes today.
Dear Prudence challenges us:
"Here is the assignment, list five lyrics that stick out in your mind and their significance to you. It can be as zany, quirky or catchy to having had an influence or impact on some aspect of your life."

This is a real toughie, as my list of favourite lyrics runs to several hundred pages. Just about all of Dylan, Joni, John Hiatt, The Handsome Family, Zappa, Tom Waits … well, everyone on my profile page …

1: I'll start with Joni.
As I can't really write out ALL the lyrics to her "Blue" and "Hejira" albums, I'll stick to a couple of snippets from "Hejira" itself:

"There's comfort in melancholy
When there's no need to explain
It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today …

… I Know - No-one's gonna show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
between the forceps and the stone.
Well I looked at the granite markers
Those tributes to finality - to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken-scratching for my immortality."

Story of my life. Nuff said.

2: A complete change of mood.
The incomparable Bongwater, with Ann Magnusson going off on one as she does. This is the start of "Chicken Pussy", from the album "The Power Of Pussy".

"I'm in a one-room apartment located in the basement under the Polish National Church.
It used to be a club.
And then, a mental health outpatient clinic.
Now I call it home.

There's a king-size mattress in the middle of the room where me and the big fat lead singer from Canned Heat finish up an afternoon of incredibly hot sex.

Boy … Does he have a big one!

Joining us for late afternoon tea and a four-way is my old next-door neighbour Jimbo and his wife, who is a chicken.
As I'm the only woman there with hands, I soon find myself fully occupied.
I can't help but wonder how Jimbo and his wife had their baby, who had been sleeping next to us but had since fallen onto the floor.
She must be able to change forms back and forth … and what about chicken pussy?
Is it enticing?
I mean, what's the story?"

Just go buy it. There's no significance to my life there except that it makes me laugh.

3: Dylan …
Holy crap! Where do I start?
Okay. Sadboy Dive has every album, bootleg and demo known to Dylankind (at least up to Street Legal … after that he just wasn't Dylan anymore). But choosing a favourite? Bugger all round that.
Let's just settle on the first verse of "Highway 61 Revisited".

"God says to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on!"
God say, "No." … Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but …
The next time you see me comin', you better run!"
Well Abe says, "Where d'you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."

Heh-heh … Reminds me of all the arguments and abuse me and God hurled at one another before we stalked off in opposite directions.

4: Hokay. Time for a Paul Simon one.
The first verse of "Jonah", from "One Trick Pony".

"Half an hour to change my strings and tune up.
Sizing the room up.
Checking the bar.

Local girls, unspoken conversations.
Misinformation …
Plays guitar."

It doesn't matter if I'm playing to twenty-five thousand people or twenty-five. It's like that every single time.

5: God! This is SO FRUSTRATING, Prudence!
Only FIVE? I want to list ten thousand!
I wanted so much to put Tom Waits' "Burma Shave" here, but it just got pipped at the post by a couple of snippets from REM's "Nightswimming", off "Automatic For The People".

"The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago,
Turned around backwards so the windshield shows.
Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse.
Still, it's so much clearer …

You, I thought I knew you.
You I cannot judge.
You, I thought you knew me,
this one laughing quietly underneath my breath.

The photograph reflects,
Every streetlight a reminder."

It went curly at the edges. Then it faded. But it was there for a long, long time.

So there you go.
Five from Dive.

Thank you, Prudence for a doozy of a challenge.
The rest of you (other than Sassy, who's already done it), go to it.

Bless His Pointy Little Head

Sometimes I really like my pointy-haired boss.
This morning, he bullied IT into ordering me a hoopy new top of the range widescreen MacBook Pro, so not only can I start working from home three days a week (instead of my current one day), I can also do it from my favourite armchair in front of the fire.
It'll take a while to get hold of one with all the bells and whistles I need, but when it comes, I'll have an extra fifteen hours a week to lay in bed and not commute.
Yip and indeed Pee!

Actually, a seven-and-a-half hour lie-in every day is probably a bit much. And as I won't need to be in bed by nine every night of the week, I'll have the time to do a bit of blogging, or even (gasp) to GO OUT occasionally, looking for weemen or even having a social life.
The possibilities are endless … well, if not actually endless, there are at least two things I could do with all those extra hours.

So, any ideas how I can spend an extra seven-and-a-half hours a day (other than commuting)?

Decorating An Ugly Building

This one's for Vic.

A few more shots of Norwich, but not like the pretty ones I posted over the weekend; these are of the back end of the overspill car park to one of Britain's pig-ugliest buildings, the HMSO building in Norwich.
Some kids with a damned sight more taste than the Architect have had a spray-fest in the car park.
As much as I hate no-brainer tagging (DUH!), I love graffiti when it's done well, especially good colour work like this and stencil work like Banksy or the great stuff going on in Melbourne.

Anyway … Click on 'em for biggies.
Enjoy.





Nice …

It's The Monday Melee Again

It's monday, so it must be:
- Over-running engineering works fucking up the trains.
- An office full of grumpy bastards.
- The Fracas Monday Melee. Yaaay!

Last Monday I dealt with such boring subjects as politics, religion and death.
This week:

1: The Misanthropic.
(Name something you absolutely hate).
This week I have been mostly hating myself.

2: The Meretricious:
(Expose someone or something that's phony, fraudulent or bogus).
Insurance companies.
Q - What's the difference between an insurance company and the Mafia?
A - If you pay money to the Mafia, they'll protect you.

… Oh, and they dress better, too …

3: The Malcontent:
(Name something you're unhappy with).
The stupid trapped nerve in my shoulder. It keeps waking me up in the middle of the night. Bastard!

4: The Meritorious.
(Give someone credit for something and name it if you can).
This week, I give credit to Japanese womanhood, for being so cute it hurts.

5: The Mirror.
(See something good about yourself and name it).
I've stopped wearing Hawaiian shirts.

6: The Make-Believe:
(Name something you wish for).
All the chocolate in the world.

Tune in next Monday for another installment of carefully targeted hatred and bile.

Making Peahen Homesick. Pt.2

And so we walk through the little archway under the drunken building that was the last photo in yesterday's post (oh, do keep up … Go and have another look at it if you can't remember).

Standing under the arch, we look across to the Erpingham Gate at the west end of the Cathedral Close.
But we're not going that way. Oh, no. We're turning right, past lovely Nicki's newsagents and the scrummy, musty labyrinth that is Tombland Books (a Dive haunt … old book heaven) and across the cobbled acre of Tombland itself.

Tombland is the old Saxon marketplace outside the Cathedral precincts.
We peasants were fairly resentful of authority back then (we haven't changed; see Kett's Rebellion … and the fact that we were a Socialist Workers Party City in the sixties and seventies and are now the only city run by the Greens) and we didn't like the Normans lording it over us, so we kicked the crap out of them and burned their places to the ground (quite justifiably in the view of this old Marxist).
As penance, the peasants were made to build the rather splendid gate below:

This is Ethelbert Gate (sadly not named after Ethel and Bert), my favourite of the Cathedral gates. It's got a lovely dragon on it, a recurring theme in Norwich houses of the time.

Do click on these pictures as they're a lot nicer viewed larger.

So anyway … through the gate we have the Cathedral Close, full of yummy little streets of mediæval houses. Don't even THINK about it. You can't buy them and the waiting list to rent is several hundred years long (true … you have to plan dynastically to have your descendants live there).

It can get pretty cutesy in places but it's a lovely place for a stroll and I used to come this way on my walk into the office (I think it's even nicer than my current walk along the Thames).

Right down on the river is Pull's Ferry.
When the Cathedral was being built, all the stone came by water from Caen in Normandy. It was rowed up the river to this point, where a canal was cut which led to the contruction site.
Pull's Ferry was built a couple of hundred years later to take people across to the Cathedral.

Below is Pull's Ferry from the river. It's somewhat gorgeous though it does get overrun with tourists in the summer, and geese in the winter. In front of it is what's left of the canal cut.

Walking further round the Close, there are lots of nice views of the Cathedral; this one showing some Dutch gables.

Below is the Cathedral in all its glory (do click on this one at least).
Justifiably (at least by Pevsner, and nobody argues with the Man) one of the finest half-dozen Cathedrals in Britain, and my second favourite after Durham.

It has these gorgeous flying buttresses around the east end (at least they're gorgeous to architectural historians and me).
Down there, nestled under the round chapel, is Edith Cavell's grave. She was a nurse in the Great War and was martyred; executed by the Germans. She's worth further reading, so look her up on Google. I'm only slightly biased by the fact that I was in Cavell House at grammar school.

Let's go inside, shall we?
This place was built by Bishop Herbert de Losinga (actually, it was built by hundreds of skilled craftsmen, but de Losinga had to raise the groats for it). He was Bishop of Thetford after the Norman Conquest but was a very naughty boy, so the Pope had him do penance by building Norwich Cathedral.
I've never been able to establish just what he did wrong, but judging by the Cathedral he must have been very naughty indeed!

I love this picture (below). It's stained glass lighting up one of the monumental Norman pillars supporting the arcading and clerestory.
None of your wussy Gothic frippery here; this is the full power and glory of High Romanesque architecture. Mighty and monolithic. I love it!

There are lots of lovely little nooks and corners in the Cathedral. This next picture is the chancel aisle, circling almost furtively around the east end and out of sight of the main body of the nave.
It has lots of tiny side chapels leading off it.

Below is the chancel itself. That's the naughty Bishop's tomb over there on the far side.

Look up from this spot and you're rewarded with some fabulous fan vaulting.

And this is the east end, wonderful windows lighting that vaulting and those strong Romanesque arches.

Look the other way from there and you'll get the view below.
This is the mighty organ seen from the choir stalls (I sung there once with the school, over on the far right).

The Cathedral Choir has a very high reputation. Composers such as Arvo Pärt premier their works here. The acoustics are breathtaking.
Choir and orchestra do a surprising amount of modern, "avant garde" works (happy Dive), as well as heartstoppingly beautiful evenings of Bach chorale.
Go there for concerts. It's worth the trip from anywhere on the planet.

Below is the fan vaulting above the nave. Each of those bosses is an intricately carved, painted and gilded scene from the Bible. Luckily for your neck, they've now installed a machine with a touch screen so you can view close-ups and commentary on each one.

Outside is the cloisters. More fan vaulting and more bosses, but on a much more intimate scale.

This is the view of the spire from the cloisters.
Pretty, isn't it?

Before we leave the Cathedral, here's the west window.

And this last one (below) is the view of the Cathedral from the river.

So there you have it. Dive's little Saturday morning wander around a few parts of Norwich.
Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Making Peahen Homesick. Pt.1

Having posted a couple of photos of Norwich last Thursday, and having made Peahen really homesick for her native Norfolk (and perhaps made Lynn think about coming in to Norwich next time she visits her parents), I took my camera into the city this morning to make poor Pea feel even worse.
So after my usual non-date breakfast, these are a few of this morning's photos.

To really, really pile on the pain, this is a photo of Peahen's old office.
The lovely Dutch-gabled house on St. Andrew's Plain is where Pea worked before she buggered off to hillier climes.
The shop next door is a particularly splendid cake shop. Remember, Pea? Mmmm …


And just a few yards further up the road is this old pale yellow building with a wonderful, thirteenth century undercroft and huge oak beams.
This was Old Dive's place of architectural dicking-about before I came to my senses and got a job in London.
At the end of the street is the Cathedral, which I'll post about another time, maybe tomorrow if I'm stuck for ideas.

If anyone remembers last Thursday's post, I talked about the park next to the Castle.
Well this is my shadow in that park this morning, looking at the Castle.
In the dip to the left is the glass roof of my favourite mall. It goes down several stories and the park is built on top of it so it's almost invisible from the outside.
The bit on the right of the Castle is the Tate In The East art gallery. Well spiffy!

Castle Blanchfleur was built by the Normans just after the Conquest, to keep us revolting peasants in order. Started in 1086, the same time as the Cathedral, it's built of Caen stone, rafted over from France. The inside of the keep is all original and with the museum and the art gallery makes for a great day out.
It's a good place to find Dive on a rainy Saturday.

The Castle is a traditional motte and bailey type. Given a couple of weeks, the mound will be a mass of yellow daffodils. Right now, it's just muddy grass.


Down at the bottom of the Castle mound is the lovely Art Nouveau Royal Arcade.
Oh, nearly forgot: click on any of these to get a much bigger pic.

Inside the arcade.
Down there on the right is the inestimable Digby's of Holt, a local, hand-made confectioners, who, amongst many splendid and exotic delights, make Dive's favourite licorice fudge (only available under the counter to regulars … Ha!).

When our delightfully box-like, nineteen-sixties library burnt down (a mercy killing), they built a new one. This is the Forum, home to part of the library and the BBC.

It looks out at St.Peter Mancroft, a particularly fine church. There's usually a market or exhibition going on inside, as well as all the normal touristy stuff. Another good place to hide from the rain.
This is St.Peter Mancroft again, from the square outside the Forum.

And again, from the square with the cone man in it (so named because he's usually found wearing a traffic cone on Sunday mornings … which perhaps explains his fed-up pose).

Down the hill, just out the back of Peahen's old office is the thatched, fourteenth century Britons Arms.
This is a coffee shop now, but in mediæval times was the City's most notorious whorehouse. The monastery is just off to the right and it was kind of convenient for the monks.

Plenty of gnarly old buildings in Norwich. This is Elm Hill. A bit touristy, but nice out of season.
Another bit of Elm Hill.
Yes I know it's a plane tree, not an elm, but all the elms in the region died of Dutch Elm Disease in the sixties and it's still about, so we can't plant elms at the moment.
I really like the shadow of the tree on the pale blue house.

This is the slightly drunken old building between my old office and the Cathedral. I used to walk this way to work. Nice.
I took a load of pics of the Cathedral this morning, but my broadband is so crap it's taken me hours to load even these ones up, so that'll have to wait for another day.


I'll finish with some hopeful news for Rich.
As you all know, we are grieving with him for the loss of Rosa from his coffee shop.
Well, Rich … about a year ago, the lovely Emmy disappeared in similar circumstances from my regular Saturday breakfast spot. I later found out that she'd been promoted to assistant manageress in another branch.
Well today, there she was back again, good as new, and squeaky and shouty and overexcitedly happy to see me and Phil walk in. She's been promoted again and is now manageress of the old branch (she even remembered our exact order and how we like it served … we're fussy buggers).
So, young Rich. Give it a year and Rosa could be back as the boss! And you can live happily ever after with your free lattes.
Aah … Wouldn't that be nice?

A Boring Self-Censor Writes …

Well there I was writing a nice juicy post when I realised that it would very likely be read by someone who shouldn't read it.
So duh … Bye-bye post.
This is the trouble with letting friends and family read your blog. You can't do the dirty on people.
Dammit!

Oh well …
So. As I've got too many verboten thoughts running around inside my head, I'll play safe and do an old meme.
Boring, but there you go. I've got to look people in the eye.

This is the old meme about the first ten songs on iTunes on random play.
I was going to make it into a quiz by giving you the first lines and making you guess, but most of them are too easy and one is an instrumental, which would involve me typing "Dang … da-da-Dang … etc", so bugger all round that.

My iTunes seems to be in a mellow "old man's music" mood today.
No Steve Albini, no metal, prog, opera, rap; bebop; no Dylan or Bowie, Zappa or Beefheart …
Being honest instead of being cool is kind of a pain, but here goes:
These are the first ten toons my iTunes coughed out at me when I just hit "shuffle":

1. Black Cow, by Steely Dan, from Aja.
"In the corner of my eye, I saw you in Rudy's; you were very high" …
Hardly a surprise, as Apple seem to have programmed iPods to play at least one Steely Dan song every time you hit "shuffle" (even if you don't have any Steely Dan tracks)!

2. Coyote, by Joni Mitchell, from Hejira.
"No regrets, Coyote; We just come from some such different sets of circumstance" …
Hmm … Two tracks; two "track one"s. And another iTunes shuffle stalwart. I'm beginning to think the conspiracy nuts who accuse Apple of "non-random randomness" are on to something.
Boffo song, though.

3. Tiny Dancer, by Elton John, from Madman Across The Water.
"Bluejean baby; LA lady; Seamstress for the band" …
That's more like it! Where the hell did THAT one come from?
I know I've got a bunch of early Elton buried somewhere deep in my sixty gigabytes of dross, but I haven't heard Tiny Dancer for years. Now it's gonna be stuck in my head all day (and in yours).

4. Diamond Dust, by Jeff Beck, from Blow By Blow.
"Dang … da-da-Dang … etc" …
Ahhh … A lovely instrumental written by Max Middleton (now a fat old man playing in a pub not far from me), starring Jeff, Max and good old George Martin.
This is one of the songs I want played at my funeral (the others being Tom Waits singing Somewhere [from West Side Story], and either Sid Vicious' version of My Way or the Banana Splits theme tune, I haven't decided yet).

5. Poor Mans' Shangri-la, by Ry Cooder, from the utterly brilliant Chavéz Ravine.
"Tell you 'bout a friend of mine that you don't know" …
Ooh YES! Now I'll be dancing all day!

6. Bless You, by John Lennon, from Walls And Bridges.
"Bless you, wherever you are; Windswept, child of a shooting star" …
Not the Lennon song I would choose were I trying to be cool, but utterly lovely anyhoo.

7. Monkey Gone To Heaven, by Pixies, from Doolittle.
"There was a guy, an under water guy who controlled the sea, Got killed by ten million pounds of sludge from New York and New Jersey" … (sorry … Noo Joyzee).
Again, if I were to choose a Pixies track, it would have been Gigantic or Caribou. Never mind. Sing along with Frank … and talking of Frank;

8. Frank's Wild Years, by Tom Waits, from Swordfishtrombones.
"Well Frank settled down in the Valley, and hung his wild years on a nail that he drove through his wife's forehead" …
I love this track, especially the "little chihuahua named Carlos, that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind".

9. Things That Scare Me, by Neko Case, from Blacklisted.
"Fluorescent lights engage, like birds fryin' on a wire" …
That's gotta be one of the best first lines ever written. And the nearest thing to a country song on my list. And where's all the Americana? I've got acres of the stuff, but iTunes obviously doesn't like it.

10. Preaching Blues, by Robert Johnson, from The Complete Robert Johnson.
"M … Mmmmmm … Woke up this morning … ah … Blues walkin' like a man" …
Cool! I've got so many boxed sets of Delta Blues; Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Son House, etc.
I'm glad one of 'em came up.

So. Yet another boring old meme.
I'll try to write something worth reading over the weekend, but don't wait up.
I won't tag anyone as this one's a lot less fun to read than it is to listen to.

… And no Hall and Oates, Rich!

Alas, Poor Rich …

Now Old Dive's had a lifetime's bitter experience of heartbreak, rejection and loneliness, so reading Rich's series of posts on the loss of the lovely Rosa from his coffee shop really brings a lump to my throat.

Hang in there, bud.

Today's heartrending post, however, brings home to me just how devastating this whole episode has been to our caffeine-dependent chum.

There's hurt …
Then there's real, deep, heart-achey hurt …
Then, if things things get beyond desperate, a woman could hurt you so bad you end up singing Hall and Oates songs …

Alas, Poor Rich … All alone, crying into his latte and wailing "She's Gone" …

My old and tattered heart goes out to you my friend.

Click on this to make it big enough to read.

Apologies to the wonderful Frank Cho for nicking one of his Liberty Meadows strips. And apologies to Rich for reminding me of how much it cracked me up …

Stuck For Ideas

Okay. Enough already with pictures of London.
I'm working from home today, so you get a couple of pictures of Norwich.

This is the mediæval Guildhall on the north side of the market, with City Hall clocktower behind it.
This was actually last saturday breakfast-time (today's sky is the colour of a student's underpants).


And this one's Norwich Castle, or Castle Blanchefleur as it was when the Normans built it.
The appalling glass lift on the left takes you down to the open air theatre in the moat.
The castle is a brilliant museum and has a big art gallery, "Tate In The East" growing out of its backside.
There's a nice park off to the right with a view down to the river and the Cathedral.
Oh, and that's my old Mum and our mate Richard doing catalogue poses.

I might do some more Norwich posts the next time I'm stuck for ideas. But then again I might not.
Don't wait up.