March 21st - March 27th 2005
Sunday Incontournable
Saturday Who?
Friday Two weddings
Thursday Inculcate
Wednesday Equinox and after
Tuesday Searching
Monday A wedding
Sunday 27th March 2005
"Blogadoon, brave héritier de l'esprit fin d'Oscar Wilde"?
Oh, stop. People will talk.
(As to being incontournable, I shall insist on translating it as 'indispensable' as opposed to 'inescapable' - your views may differ.)
Saturday 26th March 2005
I bet I'm the only one of you lot who can claim to have seen the very first episode of Doctor Who - and not from behind a sofa, either: English preparatory schools don't generally run to such fripperies.
(For many years I've insisted that I also remember that first episode being repeated the following week, a Little Known Fact which, only recently, I've learnt to attribute to an unforeseen scheduling clash with the Kennedy assassination.)
And I may well be the only one of you who has had the pleasure of welcoming one of the Doctors to his dinner table. (Not saying which one but it wasn't Sylvester McCoy thank you.)
So I reckon I'm entitled to a view on the Doctor's latest incarnation. And my view is: Jolly Good.
Casting Christopher Eccleston is a stroke little short of genius, and especially gratifying for those of us who fell out of the habit of watching the show because of a run of truly lame Doctors (Colin Baker? Oh please.)
Which leads to the thought: given that the character of the actor seems to inevitably flavour the whole tone of the show, what Doctor Who would you like to see?
My current list in progress escalates from Jim Broadbent (traditional, eccentric) through Alan Rickman (acerbic, impatient) up to: Sting, of all people (an eco-Doctor with a feather in his nose, why not?)
And beyond that: Imelda Staunton. With scripts by Jeanette Winterson.
Friday 25th March 2005
In a rare moment of familial curiousity, I once asked my father, "Was the family upset about Auntie Jo marrying a black man?"
He snorted. "They were too busy being chuffed she was marrying a doctor." (As you can see, he wasn't that black.)
That was the first wedding I ever attended, as far as I know.That's me, the smug little bastard in the duffle coat and bow tie. I guess I must be about six or seven, because my mother's there, lurking behind her mother, and looking fairly healthy.
After my mum died, Auntie Jo and Uncle Anton emigrated to Australia, closely followed by Auntie Jean (hovering over Anton's left shoulder, and curiously bereft of her husband Keith).
The family, such as it ever was, was steadily shrinking. I didn't get to go to many weddings after that: the next one I remember was when my father finally remarried, in the Hague of all places, with me sixteen and sulking.
No more family weddings after that (no more family). My friends Barbara and Ian got married, at a highly Polish affair in Balham. Jonathan and Mark had their partnership registered a year or so ago, though I only made it to the reception. And that's pretty much it for weddings, as far as I recall.
And now this year, not one wedding invitation but two:
On the left, my friends Matthew and Richard: not, strictly speaking, a wedding but a damn good excuse for a party nonetheless.
On the right, the woman that I lived with for over sixteen years, the girl whom I have known since before she was a twinkle in her parents' eyes.
Two weddings, two wonderful days out? Not quite. Vada the dates.
Thursday 24th March 2005
I know what it means;
I know what it ought to mean:
Inculcate - So trashed that you don't even notice the noise your skull makes when it hits the surface of the bar
Wednesday 23rd March 2005
When's Easter this year?
Easter Sunday?
Whenever.
The same as usual - the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. As agreed at the Council of Niacea. In 325 AD.
Remind me what an equinox is.
Equi-nox, equal night. When day and night are of equal length. Which only happens twice a year. Once in spring and once in autumn.
Vernal.
Spring.
So this year's Spring Equinox is..?
The same as usual - the day on which the earth is tilted towards the Sun such that the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west.
Which will be when, precisely?
Precisely? 12:33, March 20th.
GMT.
UT. Universal Time. GMT's a few nano-seconds out apparently.
But back to Easter. The Spring Equinox is March 20th...
This year it is. If you're an astronomer.
Which I'm not. Patently.
The planets don't move like clockwork. The Spring Equinox doesn't happen at the same time every year. But priests - modern priests - don't have time to keep popping out to measure the movements of the planets. So the Church fixed the date of the Spring Equinox as March 21st.
Which church?
Most churches. Although the Armenians...
Move on! Where does the moon come into it?
Spring, the season of rebirth - in the northern hemisphere at least - starts at the vernal equinox, yes?
I guess.
So if you're looking for a good night to celebrate the arrival of Spring, which night do you nominate?
The nearest Saturday after payday?
The first full moon following the vernal equinox.
Better lighting!
Amongst other things, yes. This year it's March 25th.
The last Friday of the month. Payday!
Not this year. It's a bank holiday.
Because of Easter.
Precisely.
So Easter is March 25th this year?
No. Easter is March 27th this year. Sunday.
Because..
Because Christ rose from the grave on the Sabbath.
But the Jewish Sabbath starts on Friday evening!
Easter is not a Jewish holiday. They have Passover.
So when's Passover this year? No! Don't answer that.
Tuesday 22nd March 2005
Time for another version of that hardy perennial, a leaf through our search requests:
People arrive at Blogadoon, it seems, with a wide variety of needs and enquiries, ranging from the predictable - Frederic Michalak gay, Disney hidden messages, London gay sauna fucking - through quirky - lesbians wearing pyjamas, Coronation Street naked, description of rubbish chute - up to the downright odd: Spalding sauna suits, Mandelson naked gay, fancy dress invitation black people.
There are good questions (which, to my lasting shame, I've never attempted to answer): pronounce Sartre, who sings "hello, how do you do"?, what day of the week Achilles was name.
Questions which, whilst perfectly valid, are never, ever, going to be addressed on this blog: how to manage a teenage girl, lesbian valentines day made simple, how did Princess Diana change fashion, and, my favourite, interesting people in Herts.
And then there are the questions that you can't help thinking shouldn't be asked, ever: Karol Wojtyla gay, Tim Henman chest hair, Tyler Brule age.
Sometimes, you can't help but imagine the look on the faces of people who've fetched up here under what is, quite plainly, false pretences: 1873 marmalade jar, swedish vagina, sexy schoolgirls knickers, Iraq mud wrestling girl, Daisy Duck Donald Duck having sex.
But for every one of those, there's a small horde of people who've mysteriously been pushed in exactly the right direction, even though the exact phrase they're looking for has never appeared here: cute boy fresh faces, inappropriate behaviour party, oops naked, rubbish in london, simple homilies, "footballer" AND "wife" AND "fur coat".
And then there's this. And this. And, dear god, this.
Monday 21st March 2005
Sadly, there's no date on this wedding photograph - and all of the people in it are long dead - so I have no way of knowing when or where it happened: my guess is Enfield Registry Office, some time shortly after the war, maybe 1946?
On the right, my mother's father and mother. On the left, my father's father (holding his hat) and my uncle Bob (presumably the best man).
Centre stage: my parents.
Offstage, a gleam in someone's eye (hopefully): me.
......previous week
