Easter Weekend

Overheard as I stood in Thornton's getting a nice (ok, very nearly forgotten) chocolate egg inscribed for Anita:
[choclatier ]- (it's an Art you know, capital_A_Art) "right love what can I get you?"
older_Lady_probably_grandma] "can I have these eggs written on please? "
[Ch] "of course lovey, just give me the names whilst I unwrap them and get ready"
[O_L] "Paul ... Clare - with no "i" .. Anatasia, ooh , thats a bit long that one? " (apologising for her son or daughters wild flight of fancy with one of their offspring)
[Ch] "well I'm sure we can do that lovey, one 'n' and 'Sia" at the end?"

And she did , it sort of curled round the egg but Anatasia will have got her egg just like her siblings (old name, newly popular again?).
Choclatiers of Thorntons with your bag- of- icing-cream stuff-that-you-have-to-let-go-hard-for-two-hours-so-keep-the-box-safe : I salute you!

Smoking Man

Smoking Man
Originally uploaded by :mrMark:.

Part of our recent (wedding anniversary) weekender to Amsterdam:
The old Brown bars in Amsterdam are full of character - and quite a few smokers. I really don't like the smell of smoke (brought up by one to two packs a day parents all my childhood - you either love it or hate it after that) - but it adds to the olde worlde dark and atmospheric feel of these places. Long may they continue and not be cleaned up or sanitised by any pub chains.
We went in an other one of these bars the night before this photo and I didn't quite close the door properly behind me, the locals (about 20 people squashed into a really tiny bar) couldn't get to the door quick enough to keep the fresh air out. heehee. All very friendly though - these bars are all 'gezellig', which means 'cosy' or 'home-like' I think. Certainly like the home of my youth anyway (though we had a 1970's upwardly mobile drinks cabinet not beer on tap).

Time flies

We were out last night celebrating 20 years of marriage (and it being 20 years, were more practical than romantic and had the boys with us also) and I remarked that the last few years had gone really quickly.
Joe (nearly 18) said he thought his life was speeding up compared to his perception as a child.
It is a phenomenon that seems to be universal.. the older you get the quicker it appears to zoom along. We were watching a programme about Stephen Hawkins the other night and there was something on it about time being distorted around planetary masses.. maybe time also distorts (accelerates) around the accumulation of memories and experiences we gather as we age? Or - maybe the older you get , the fatter you get and therefore more your mass distorts time and space – haha.
Anyway – it is genuinely surprising to a part of me to be at my 20th anniversary, about to celebrate my toddler son’s 18th birthday and late-twenties-early-thirties-world-view-me’s 44th Birthday. Blimey. Gosh golly. Oo er.

We're off to Amsterdam (not with the boys though) for an anniversary weekend ater today. I've never been but Anita has and I'm really looking forward to it.

When I get back I'm going to get back in touch with some newly-found Kelly family members I managed to uncover recently and who have also been looking at genealogy stuff - very exciting and also satisfying in that it opens up my sense of heritage/clan-ship (if that makes sense) knowing I have an extended family that until recently consisted (of those alive of course) of just my bother, my dad and my auntie (from the kelly side). Now I have a couple of 2nd cousins, some twice removed (I think thats the right term) and a whole set of new (for me) family anecdotes and historical memories. A lovely thing.

Where to start after so long off the blog?

I am writing this in the bar at a gig and realised I had been day dreaming about where exactly a shed could fit at the top of the garden. This, whilst watching the very loud yet melodic biffy clyro (who are supporting linkin park at the somewhat soulless Manchester Arena.)
Good a place as any to hanker after a shed and testament to my inbetweeny age?
A headbanging horticulturist. Even the word headbanging carbon dates me.

And now I am (now being next day) sat in departures at Manchester airport waiting for the flight to Milan.. Heading off to a euro and middle east group digital jamboree (all part of the same marcomms (marcomms also probably carbon dates and industry tags me) empire). 'Learn new skills and service offerings, start a new biz fire with just two sticks!' etc. You know, jamboree stuff.
The flight is delayed so I can spend time musing and conclude that the Milan business traveler genuinely does look a little more chic than his or her warsaw-bound colleague last week.
Only a little bit but the Warsaw travellers favoured the big coat more and the jaunty multi striped scarf and business jeans less.
Get me, name checking cities I have recently been to in the pursuit of multinational partner agency collaboration opportunities. Indeed.

And now I am writing this in my hotel room after an hour of work email catchups, a quite nice room service meal of posh sounding stuff which was essentially chicken and chips and an hour of TV channel hopping. And a few minutes looking out of the very wide open window (no safety catch! On the 14th floor! Haven't these guys heard of health and safety cosseting?) at a really lovely view of religious monuments and grand buildings. I will have to find out what they are.
This was one of them I could see:


Speaking of religious, I had a moment of the soul on the flight as we crossed the Alps at sunset. The pinks and degrees of gold playing over the blue shadowed, snow dusted crags and peaks was beautiful. Dusting may be too sparse a word but the mountains didn't look totally snow and ice encrusted.. Should they, in January? Have the years of business trips like this contributed to the amount of rock on display through global warming?
Very possibly. Oh crap, my moment of the soul has ended in a guilt trip.

Doris Lessing announced this week that she found the blogging
phenomenon to be banal and a barrier to creative writing and it
essentially watered down the value of words ..
is that because the thoughts shared come wrapped not in paper and illustrated tactile form (so having a 'weighty' value, but in 'transient' pixel form perhaps?
That came out a bit gibberish-like but I'm too tired to retype.

I get some of that and agree to an extent but witness my friend mr
Augarde and his ability to write both great engaging books and a
great, engaging blog.

Nothing banal about the insight provided in his blog on his views and recollections.
Banal better describes my ramblings perhaps ;)

I haven't (again) written for sometime, due to workload and
distraction of family tree research and a general running out of
observational steam.

It might be better to really, truly pack it in perhaps blog a niche
area such as 'art work or installations I may someday make' , complete
with drawings to illustrate the various things that occasionally occur
to me - that I then drop based on the fact I have no time, little talent, no
team of do-ers to make my ideas happen.
And you do need a team I think, a la Hirst. Not for me the fine art
approach, but instead, the project manager artist approach, where doodle (and I
don't mean that pejoratively) becomes 7 foot high vinyl illuminated
sculpture. Or something.
hmm, is a bit banal isn't it ? .... [cough] .... goodnight.

Mikron Film Moment

Mikron Film Moment
Originally uploaded by :mrMark:.

So, this was the scene just before I pulled myself out of the cold autumnal waters of the river Colne (or is it Redbrook Clough at this part?) above Marsden,. I was there with (luckily), my old, not-so-great camera in hand to document Mikron Theatre Company's new project - an interactive CD/DVD for schools related to life as it used to be on the canals .. including how the horses would cross the moors to rejoin the boats once they had gone through standedge tunnel.
Anyway - I took some photos of the crew and actors who were around for this particular scene (inclluding son Ronan who has a mani part). Then I crossd the old packhorse bridge (at Easter gate for the locals out there) , then I saw the chance to get a great shot up the valley with the crew in the foreground.
Then I stepped across the top of the little weir and crouched down, then I slipped on the frictionless algae that covers all the stones that span the river, then I found myself up to my chest in the surprisingly deep, unsurprisingly cold, rusty coloured water.
oh crap. add this moment to the other oh-crap-I'm-falling moments I have had over the years. Out of trees (documented by blog and flickr as the quest to get a really great shot of the dog amongst woodland bluebells), off a quayside wall in Cornwall (up to neck depth in briny water that time), down 900 feet (yep, tis true) of icy mountainside when I was a teen.

The camera is dead (except for the memory card thankfully) , the clothes now washed and dried and the little finger on my left hand really hurts. I'm only annoyed I couldn't get more photos. The actual watery mishap was really funny, I wouldn't recommend it, but it was funny.

check out Mikron here : www.mikron.org.uk/index.php

Curry Constituents for a Jazz Jury

Curry Constituents for a Jazz Jury
Originally uploaded by :mrMark:.

I have been making curry (in its loosest sense, not a specific type you would recognise) for the local, annual jazz festival for the last 3 years.
This entails buying (actually, Anita buying, as I got out of it - pleading overwork and stuck in the office excuses) VAST amounts of vegetables, lentils and tinned (sorry, bit lazy) tomatoes.
Then adding spices and even pesto (oh yes) and magicking up enough spicey niceness for 40+ jazz enthusiasts who saw bands over saturday evening and sunday at Marsden's (http://www.flickr.com/groups/marsden_west_yorkshire/) 13th (I think) Jazz festival.

I'm not a massive jazz fan.. I was brought up on it so rebelled and went down the diverging paths of celtic/folksy and guitary-loud-rockness, but I really enjoy the live music and party atmosphere in all the pubs and clubs.

The canvas bag, whist a useful backdrop prop was actually used to carry the veg and does come from India. Unlike most of the things it carried , that went in the pot for cooking up.

self portrait with relatives

self portrait with relatives
Originally uploaded by :mrMark:.

I was given a photo recently of my granddad and it had a profound affect on me in that I never thought i really looked like anyone in my family on the male side. My brother, Dad and Granddad all looked similar with their architectural dimensioned noses and brows. But this photo of my granddad (on the right on the piano) from his late teens/early twenties does look kind of like me at that age. I'm a lot older now so not a great comparison but it still is similar I think?
I look a bit serious because, I felt a bit serious I also wanted to get a look a bit like his in the Photo. Also my wife and oldest boy are away for the weekend (he's looking at possible university places) so the house was too quiet and that made me a bit low this weekend. I did up my top button to emulate granddad's outfit, I'm a bit more relaxed around the house usually ;-)
Straight after this my youngest son (who stayed at home) came downstairs and and we messed about trying to sort out the ethernet link and sharing files between the eMac and PC upstairs. Being geeky cheered me up. =)

India Business Trip

What do you write about your first trip to India that won’t have been said in a thousand other blogs, travel sites, books, films and TV series?

My abiding impression: it’s a complex, confusing, dense (air, scents, bodies, noise, traffic) wonderful place.

It would be lazy and simplistic to talk in terms of haves and have-nots, corporate affluence and street poverty. Yes, that is there on a stark surface level. But something our host for most of the week, ( the very interesting and also himself complex, in what I think is a typically modern Indian way?) Chetan, was keen to point out; was that the slums are not the end of the line but the beginning for some and to others an acceptable , not hopeless way of life.

Myself and one of the other guys from our agency (Richard) were out there to talk about partnering (‘off shore’ is so Financial Services, 5 years ago you know) – I was uncomfortable with the term ‘outsourcing’ not so much for the implications for our place as all businesses have to adapt in changing markets - but more because it implies a one way, imposing approach to collaboration. What we were there to discuss was, to my mind, genuine partnership - in that a lot, if not all the skills sets my team have in web site design, programming, animation etc were available in greater depth than we have in our office.

That doesn’t mean ‘right sizing’ within the UK team, it means a real chance to expand the throughput of work, cost effectively for us and with people who have the same approach to client service and professional results. With the chance to work with intelligent, urbane, educated skilled guys; to boot.

This cocooned middle class white man felt relieved to discover there was no place for the talk-a-bit-louder-about-what-we-expect-from-you post colonial nonsense that I guess may have prevailed up to the least few years (I would never have done that anyway, I love meeting people form different backgrounds and cultures but I’m sure that parochial view did exist in the spearheading UK brigade initially?).
Anything like that approach would have been a source of both irritation and amusement to the skilled professional in India already collaborating with Australia, Asia Pacific region and the USA. Another cliché but to my mind , increasingly and where they are placed on the world stage - ‘They don’t need us, we need them’.



Things that delighted me:

- The friendliness of the drivers we were provided with, with a real pride in showing us all the monuments and parks we went past.

- The hopitality of the guys in the various offices we visited – they shared their time and enthusiasm for their work with real pleasure

- The sheer joyous, encouraging, random craziness of a thousand vehicles within earshot; all constantly beeping their horns to ensure 6 and half widths of traffic fitted through 3 lanes of road. Aural lubricant that actually seems to work. And works even better if you accept your vehicle will always be forever scratched and multi-dented.

Things that perturbed me :

- Peeing in an office toilet about 3 inches below what I think was a rats nest in the ceiling space, complete with loud scratchings..

- looking to my left and right in the constant traffic jams and seeing spumes of Beetel nut (I think?) spit flobbed out of taxis, motor bikes and rickshaws.

- opening a packet of (what I thought) was after dinner (chocolate) mints and finding an assortment of nuts and seeds collectively called ‘after mint’.
Actually really nice and I’ve bene eating it at home snce ;-)

So .. India (okay, city centre Delhi and Mumbai) : loved it and would go back again tomorrow.

If this works - and it should - then I will moblog happily from now on
Random photo of Ronan added as test