Milking it.

You know when you listen to your recorded voice..if you hear yourself on an answer phone or on an old cassette…and it sounds daft or just odd? Well, I feel the same way when I catch sight of my reflection or see myself in photos. 'Who is that ridiculous woman?' I hiss. 'What a funny face. What an odd shape.'

It has always been this way..ever since I was a child. I feel like this face and body are nothing to do with the internal me. Not a good representation and I don’t recognise myself. Inside, on my good days, I am sleeker, taller, fearsome! Inside on my good days I am Riply AND the Alien. I am the Angela Carter werewolf who wears her fur on the inside.

On my bad days I am much smaller and old, brittle, fragile and sad, sad, sad but the less said about them days the better…

The idea behind being ‘aware’, ‘alive’ in its deepest sense was explored in the eye-opening film by Julian Schnabel ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’. It is extraordinary, profoundly moving…the story of the French editor of Elle Magazine, Jean- Dominique Bauby who at the age of 42 had a massive stroke and woke up 20 days later paralysed except for his one eye with which he somehow managed to dictate a book about what he was going through, about his deep love for his family and huge appetite for life.

I remembered hearing about the publication of his book back in the '90s and had been meaning to buy it for years but baulked when I heard it was to be made into a film. How could this man’s inner journey be filmed for Gods Sake without making it excruciatingly sentimental and phoney? Schnabel however came from inside out – you will know what I mean when you see it – and crafted with light, colour, soundtrack and point of view a film moving, funny and ultimately hopeful. He does not suck up to Bauby does not make this vain but charming man a saint and this somehow makes his story and the end of his life more deeply affecting.

Also downloaded this week's 'Dr Who' (BBC One). Holy crap it was great!!! So gripping, disturbing and some real skin of teeth performances from Bernard Cribbins (aww what a coup of a casting!) and Catherine Tate. Near perfect apart from the very large plastic stag beetle that the effects department came up with. The original must have bust at the last minute and some poor runner had had to dash to Toys R Us. The writer Russell T. Davis is just beginning to become brilliant as opposed to bloody annoyingly clever. What next, what next??

I am hiding behind TV criticism. As way of apology I give you one of me favourite poems written some years ago…on a fearsome day!


Got MILK?

Got Milk?

Only blood and water
Plasma and piss

But boiling and bubbling
and coiling and spluttering
Souped up gizmo
I should coco
Whole new mojo

Milk?

Give it to the babies
And Witches' tit me,
Shakespeare!