Oh My

While clearing out the garden shed (ex-pigeon loft) this weekend an empty marmalade jar from god-knows how long ago was unearthed. The sight of it took me back to my childhood and breakfast dreams of saving up enough tokens for a Golliwog badge. Did you know some Athena Art shops still sell Golly-centric gifts such as fridge magnets and keychains. Bonza.

We debated sending off the token featured on this label for it to have a journey of its own...I imagine being cooped up in a pigeon loft for five years could send one a little loopy? It could be my very own Amelie-style "thing". The badges and pins themselves are now collectibles, unfortunately I don't think a scrappy piece of paper from a jar would peak much interest. Nonetheless I find the fact that we have unintentionally preserved this empty jar comforting, so, I have peeled and posted it for all to see!

Skier Golly Token

The Lid.

On My 22nd Year of Life

I ate scallops for the first time.

These things that bring a pleasurable glistening-over of my eyeballs, that I find... aesthetically pleasing (a term coined during GSCE graphics that was used prolifically and with relish).

I have just this second found out that the taking of out of focus images, especially of lights, actually has a technical term. It has been dubbed Bokeh. I love how exotic this sounds. Saying it aloud (or just forming the word with my mouth because everyone is asleep and I'm working mouse-like with the lights and volume bar dimmed) harks back to laborious days stuck in the textiles block making batik prints, pretending I was a penniless Indian girl working in a factory for a pittance.

My senses tingle with the heat of the room and that particular smell it had, not quite masked by the hot wax we were working with, drizzling it significantly, or not, over bits of dyed calico cloth. I usually hated getting involved in messy textiles techniques (paper mache was particularly dreaded, I still have a 'thing' about the texture) but I remember Batik-making as a lengthy, seemingly moot, and thus totally therapeutic exercise.

I have been collecting images of blurred lights (bit weird?) since watching Brokeback Mountain - it was produced by Focus Features. As far as production and distribution company logos go most are already looking dated, either in the image, sound, or typography used. I recently saw Ridley Scott's Robin Hood produced by his Scott Free company which has this short as its logo:

In short it went on for too long feeling like an unnecessary mini-film, was completely irrelevant and frankly, unsettled me a little!

Icons and logos are extremely powerful marketing tools and Focus Features short and sweet logo has the right amount of technicality, it is inoffensive and beautifully simple.

Here are the best of the rest from my collection so far...

Courtesy of Photobucket.com

It is now June.

Because I have a tendency towards tardiness it's taken me til June to get round to this years spring clean. Extending the top-to-bottom clean into the nooks and crannies of virtual spaces I have finally addressed my issue with pictures and videos posted on this blog being squashed into an unaccommodating column so I have forgone the oh so very last month layout and opted for this boring but functional w i d e angle one. I hope this is a welcome change, if only for those of you with macular degeneration.

Being the month of my birth, despite rain unfailingly blighting the blessed day every year, June is a happy month. Officially the start of summer; holidays, hot weather, bbq's, drinks and nibbles on the patio, evenings stretched out to justify the use of the chiminea - ah, the chiminea. Chim chim cha roo. Unfortunately all the open windows and aforementioned spring clean flushed out the spiders. I actually found the beginnings of a funnel web attached to my window.

I have killed two large house spiders today. Although I won't entertain the option of letting them live it doesn't bring me pleasure to kill them. I think this is only because it's rarely a quick or painless event. Hairspray and other aerosols are commonly implemented because they are effective from a safe distance, although I admit these are the rare occasions my hypocrisy comes into play - I won't use aerosol deodorant because they contribute to greenhouse gases but I will use a whole can if necessary on a spider that just won't die. I end up watching in horror and disgust as their their legs twitch helplessly, silently begging me to release my trigger finger, and worry that every brutality brings me one gate closer to the pit of hell.

I killed one the other day that was trying its best to stay incognito half under my bathroom door, it was the half that I almost trod on that gave it away. The incident went something like this:

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The sound echoed the frenzied force in which I attacked it. One of its limbs detached and stuck to the bashing implement as I withdrew it. I had just killed - mutilated and decapitated a house spider. My chest heaved in shock and I let out a sort of half-sob. I realised I was filled with equal hatred and pity, both for myself and the black smudge on the linoleum floor.

I can't tell you how the one earlier met its end. You'll never look at me the same way again.

I Really Enjoyed That

Thanks to my mysterious musical source, I have just been introduced officially to The Local Natives.

And guess what...they're playing at Glastonbury!!!