universal truths

Let it be agreed: the loveliest men are the bald men. It is a great pity for the men that are not bald, to always know they are not the loveliest. But it is the way of things, and they will simply have to get over it.

If you are unlucky enough not to have one of these lovely specimens in your life, you may not know the following fact: every bald man secretly, deep deep down, wishes this were him:

This is Harry Manx, and if he is not the coolest cat that ever existed in the history of the entire planet, then he is at the very least in the top, say, three.

Note the Hat.

The reason the bald men want to be Harry Manx is because this Hat is the way to rock bald like nobody ever rocked bald before.

If, as a bald man, you were to wear the Harry Manx Hat, you would be at least 25% cooler. It would confer upon you the aura of one who feels, thinks and kisses more deeply than other men; one who is sexier, more skilful and more imaginative; and one who might be about to hunker down with any one of about fourteen different instruments and oh-so-casually do something way cooler than anyone in a four hundred mile radius could hope to do even if he were trying really, really, hard and had a head start and the wind in his favour.

You can imagine, then, the combination of bald man plus Harry Manx Hat, would be a pretty freaking magnificent fortress of lovelitude. Beautiful ladies would almost certainly do things for that fortress. (The rest of us would, too, but the fortress would not need to look any farther than the beautiful ones).

So, if you are a person who does have a lovely bald man around somewhere in the recesses of your life, you should probably do him a solid and start looking into providing him with The Hat.

The first step to bringing the Hat into being, is observing the Actual Original Hat. It looks quite like it is made of felt, which is a problem in itself, because felting a hat – never mind The Hat – is a serious business that involves one of those head-shaped busts and is very, very easy to bugger up spectacularly. Felting slippers is one thing; you wear them on your feet and nobody really looks and it doesn’t much matter if they are a bit creative, but a hat is out there before everyone and it would be deeply unfair to make a man wear a crap hat, especially if he is supposed to be wearing The Hat and getting all its attendant benefits, viz., the fortress, the beautiful ladies etc.

But on closer inspection – that is, at a discreet distance of about eight or nine feet, because even I draw the line at approaching Harry Manx post-gig and saying “nice music, dude, but I really came to check out your Hat” – it’s definitely sorta stretchier than felt (a relief) but also has a bit of structure to it. Like it’s got a top and sides, rather than being more of a stocking cap affair.

That is awkward, because tops of hats are round, and knitting round things is hard.

Cue a yarn shop trip, Harry Manx album covers and bald man story in hand, and three of us figuring out a conglomeration of bits of three patterns, plus my usual hefty dose of making it up.

As with so many things, when you are told what something will measure in inches, you should remain sceptical until the thing you’re told will measure a certain number of inches is actually in your hands. The yarn lied and lied and lied to me, and the upshot was one false start that was too big, one that was too small, and finally, a baby bear one that was just on the small side of right. The Prototype Hat was born:

The Hat was not earmarked for the Aged Parent, but look: even the Aged P looks cool in the Hat. It’s infallible. (Also, hands up who else thinks Harry Manx might look like my dad when he grows up?)

It's not a bad start, but I learnt a lot from the first go and the Hat now requires some modifications. It will be evolving into a more accurate representation over the coming weeks. Bald (or not-bald) men and those who love them, you'd better start emailing me with your Hat requirements (address up there at top left; replace the AT and the DOT with symbols). You don't want to miss out. Your fortress might depend upon it.

Song the Third

And why this especial video, with all the quality of someone’s cameraphone quite literally pointed at their telly?

For God so loved the Mandolin, that She gave it unto the handsomest Boy upon the Earth, and said unto him, play thou upon it, and thou shalt be a Fisher of Women.

How to Make Gravy (Paul Kelly)

(Get this to see it properly. And go here for the legit downloads and stuff.)

dear singers

If there’s one thing I absolutely. Freaking. Hate in a singer, it’s a mid-Atlantic accent.

I hate “I”s that become “Ah”s, “like”s that become “lahke”s, people who ordinarily enunciate a ‘t’ making it into a ‘d’ – making something “better” into something “bedder”.

If you are not from North America, in the name of sanity, stop doing this when you sing. You do not sound like yourself. You just sound weird. Long live the Sara Storers and Kate Rusbys of the world, for they know how it should be done.

snowmageddon

Gripped by a Deadly Storm!! The ploughs are doing their best, but the wind is whistling round like a film sound effect and the drifts are building (another new thing encountered recently: snow fencing. Temporary fences rolled out across open land alongside roads, so the snow drifts against the fence instead of on the highway.)

Some people, who are clearly mad as a bag of snakes, are actually still making their way out in it – including, bless them, the post office vans. The people walking by my window all look like Shackleton. I say, unless you are on your way to hospital with major organ failure – or on your way to hospital to perform surgery on someone having major organ failure – today, you stay indoors.

Song the Second

No, it's not the solstice yet.



But I have not seen the sun in over a week, and I don't know about you, but it's starting to get me right down. Unpleasantness and malfeasance lurk in this Dark.



Take yourselves hither at once:


Solstice Bells (Jethro Tull)

Feel better? I do.

youth and age

At the doctor’s office this morning, two girls sitting next to me, with mobile phones, reading their messages.

GIRL 1: Omigoooodddd, Melanie and Josh totally got engaged.
GIRL 2: Gross!!!
GIRL 1: Claire. Is going. To FREAK.
GIRL 2: I’m going to text her right now!!
GIRL 1: You’re such a bitch.
GIRL 2: I know.

Then, a man of about seventy walked in, and all the chairs were full. So I got up to give him my seat, but he said no. And then I felt kind of weird. What’s the right thing to do there?

Because to be sure, today’s men of seventy are nothing like seventy-year-old men of, say, the seventies, when being old was actually old. Today’s men of eighty aren’t even as old as yesterday’s men of seventy. You know? God. Nobody even gets half going till they’re sixty now. Compounded with, men of seventy are also of the generation who would give up their seat for a woman, regardless of whether she were older or younger. So maybe he was kind of pissed off with what I was implying by offering him my seat.

The young and the old are a mystery to me.

In other news, I did this last week, with hand-spun Saskatchewan alpaca:

But I fear I may be too late with my talk about what happens when two socks love each other very, very much, because then this happened:

By the way, I absolutely agree that socks is a crap gift for a soon-to-be-four-year-old, but let it be announced here that he specifically requested socks be made for him. Weird kid. But I am an obliging aunty, so here we are.

Song the First

No, you're quite right...I can't figure out 'embed' (that is, putting in a wee video thing so you can watch it right here instead of going somewhere else to watch it. You know)?

So now I have to send you somewhere else.

Click the link and be off with you, but you might as well check in your cynicism and leave it here before you go.

Song for a Winter's Night (Gordon Lightfoot)

*waits*

Told you.

This is the song that makes me homesick for Canada...even when I am in Canada.

once more in Canadian

Welcome back, language barrier. It's been a while. I've missed you.

1. Apparently, North Americans don’t ‘reckon’. I ‘reckon’ things all the time. I ask people what they ‘reckon’. I did it the other day. And everyone fell about. Apparently, the only North Americans who ‘reckon’ things are people who might ‘reckon’ they’ll go outside and skin them a small amphibian from the swamp for breakfast before cracking open their first morning beer with their teeth, or something. Brits and Kiwis reckon things; Canadians Do Not.

2. The only correct response to ‘thank you’ is ‘you’re welcome.’ It is not ‘not at all.’ This is a very hard thing for me to learn. When I am on the phone to a library, either performing or having performed some useful service such as finding them a book, they say thank you, because library people are nice like that. And I say, “not at all.” It’s automatic. I have tried changing it to ‘you’re welcome’ and tripped over it. But they don’t get ‘not at all’. There’s always a suspicious pause at the other end of the line, during which time they are plainly Not Getting It. Then they uncertainly go, “um, okay then, so...never mind,” and hang up.

memos

To: My Ability to Write
From: Amber


You seem to have gone missing. In fact I become more and more convinced that you were never here in the first place. Please send news of your whereabouts, if you do in fact exist.

Yours sincerely,
Amber


To: People Who Read News
From: Amber

I apologise for the drop in quality of certain news articles you may chance to read this week. They will be factually accurate, but that’s about all I can give you. This is despite excellent source material, cf. the Australian Plague Locust Commission’s monthly locust bulletins, which I have been reading with great interest.

You may be returned to your regularly scheduled standard of news articles next week. Also, you may not.

Yours sincerely,
Amber