Babies

Interesting, is it not, that the human urge to protect extends not only to our own young but to the babies of many other creatures. I say 'many' because you don't see a lot of us cooing over baby jellyfish, for example. I've been trying to work out what it is then that determines that paternal response. Mammals? (But baby birds are so cute.) Warm-blooded? (Ever gone gooey over a little crocodile?) Land-dwelling? (Ditto and dolphin-ettes.) There's obviously a point where we draw the line, as with the jellyfish, but I couldn't put it in the sand for you. Is this only a human thing? I wonder too if other animals can feel protective towards the young of other species - you read about baby animals that have been 'raised' by parents not of their own kind. Does it represent a leap forward in compassion, or is it an all-pervading instinct that we might actually have managed to smother a bit over the millennia?

Shocking

I think I'm beginning to understand how laboratory mice must feel in those conditioned response experiments. You know - the mouse learns by way of a small electric shock not to go through certain doors, eat certain food, blah blah. IT WORKS, DAMMIT! Almost everything I touch at offline a the moment gives me a shock.

In the past hour I've been zapped by:
- the door catch
- my headphones
- the frame of a whiteboard
- the television remote
AND THE SINK, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!

My responses are well and truly conditioned. I'm scared to touch ANYTHING.

I know already that I'm a reasonably charged person - you know I stop most watches. But it's entering 'debilitating' when, even though I'm moisturised to the gills, I stop and think seriously about whether I really want to use a stapler... Help!

Tom Bass

Wonderful Australian sculptor born in 1916. Refused to have any of his work exhibited in galleries because he wanted to have them out in public view. (Irritatingly it means there are precious few photos to link to. Have an explore for yourself and visit his sculpture school here.)

Anyway, in an interview I've just seen he came out with a quote (from Eric Gill, British artist) that really struck a chord with me: An artist is not a special kind of man. Every man is a special kind of artist.

If only everybody could see that in themselves.

Night Floods

Blessed are the night floods, those strange soothing pools of cool air that sink through the window over my head in the last hours of darkness and bathe my racing brain to sleep.

I Work in Television

Note to self: regardless of what anyone tells you, today is not Sunday, it's Wednesday. Even though Wednesday was actually a public holiday - although you were technically at work while you were at the coast - disregard the surroudning onset of Mondayitis - you've already HAD yours. Welcome back to shift work, Trout.

It's comforting to remember that, no matter how imposing the setting, the basics of starting a new job are always the same. This is where you park, this is how you get in and out (straight on at Van Gogh, left at Daryl Somers, up to the orange floor and DON'T ACCIDENTALLY WALK INTO MAKE-UP AGAIN), this is where the tea and coffee and vending machines are, these are the things to avoid in the canteen, these are the people who are ALWAYS pissed off, so don't worry, it's not you. You make your own discoveries about the building - it's quicker to cut down this corridor, this hand-dryer won't work unless you physically try to stuff your fists into the spout, this door won't shut properly unless you kick it once on each side. After that, once you've got a handle of the new terminology, you're pretty much set. Now I've unravelled the mysteries of VT, MOS, VOSOT, UPSOT, TAKE VIZ, PTC, ENPS, and CG, I feel quite at home.

And I LOVE online. I love the adrenaline of immoveable deadlines, the constantly changing running order, the arrival of scripts and having to juggle several stories at once. I love listening in to the studio and seeing vision come through the router on its way up from the edit suites, I love my three seconds of fame on the microphone, and I love cueing out a caption and seeing it come through on air. I've a way to go before it's second nature (and I get blase about it all) but the first signs are good :)

I Don't Want to Walk Around No More

by The Lucksmiths

I don’t want to walk around alone no more
In sleepytown, no fun no more
It’s silent till the breeze
Strips bark from the trees

I don’t want to lie tonight in bed alone
Or light a fire when no-one else is home
Here’s a picture of a skeleton
I drew when I missed my friends

I send them all my photographs
Cecilia St down to old St Mary’s Pass
Some double exposure shots
Of pelicans in polka dots

I’ve got horizons
I’ve got my licence
But this truck’s all broken down
And nothing can shake this now
Stuck here in sleepytown

Oh, that's a beauty!

From the vampire movie I'm editing...

"He's unstoppable...unless we stop him!"

This Week's Band Name

Is 'Assorted Spaceships'.

(From a sign outside a toy shop.)

Like, literally - literally!

Most of you will sadly be aware of my pet rant against the (mainly American) misuse of the word 'literally'. We captioners talk about these things, you see. I think it's time to share some of the pearlers that have drifted through our headphones in the last couple of months. In order of favouritism...

1. "I'm, like, literally breaking my ass getting the screwdriver, getting the extension cord."
2. "I feel like a shit in my mouth, literally."
3. "I was literally sick at my stomach." *
4. "The two made a brilliant couple, literally." (No, they were not shiny.)

One of our captioners, an ex-journalist, fondly remembers typing out the copy for a phoned-in story about a man who had OD'd on sherbert. We kid you not - "He was literally fizzing at the butt." Beautiful use of the word!

And a couple of our favourite tautologies:

1. "The animals are losing their habitats and the places where they live." Shame on you, 'Totally Wild'!
2. "I was in tears and I was crying."
3. "And in my mind, I'm thinking..."

We are none of us perfect, but most of us aren't being broadcast!

* How you can throw up at your own stomach I don't know, unless you've had it forcibly extracted first.

Hooray, I'm a Hybrid!

And there was great rejoicing.

I'm going to be an offliner-onliner. (Now at parties I'll be able to say I work in television without having to dodge the resulting lightning bolt.) It means that as well as pre-recorded stuff I now get to sit in a little office at the TV station and caption the news and other... ahem... 'live' programs - I'd dob them in but I'd be breaking my confidentiality agreement - as they go to air. I'm not a steno - they do the live, live stuff that hasn't been pre-scripted - and nor would I want to be. This is quite enough excitement for now. Yippeee!

Time for Tea

Wherever you are, whatever time of the day or night it happens to be, go out and get yourself some Yorkshire Tea NOW. It is, quite simply, grand.

Retail Therapy

I love going clothes shopping... UNLESS, that is, I'm looking for something in particular. As soon as I have a mental picture of the sort of thing I might like to buy, all hope of success is catapulted over the fence to be gnawed and spat out by the dog next door. Of course, the whole process might be made slightly less teeth-grindingly painful if retailers would take more account of the needs of the consumer, rather than trying to bend the consumer to fit the dreck on offer.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Just because something is in fashion doesn't mean you can sell that only and nothing else. So, boho is in? Fantastic. But I still don't want to sleep in a beaded fucking kaftan. Has it occured to you, the merchant, that if you sell something different from every other thing around you might actually attract MORE customers, the ones who are totally sick of buying the same tar-green crinkled frou-frou skirt with TULLE STICKING OUT THE BOTTOM, FOR GOD'S SAKE as everybody else?

Flourescent lights in a change room are OUT. Being able to see ALL of my bum is also out. If your lighting makes me look anaemic, prematurely-varicose veined and like I'm suffering from a case of terminal acne (even if I AM), I AM NOT GOING TO BUY ANYTHING. Make me feel good about myself. The cubicle should be big enough so that I can see myself side on, but for arse opinions I'd rather rely on my friend, dragged kicking and screaming into the shop for moral support, or the salesgirl, who I least EXPECT to lie to me. I KNOW the walls aren't quite straight and therefore the mirror angle is a bit off and that's why I look like I've got a backside that the world's refugees could pitch their tents on, but it's still going to upset me.

We, the people...

Someone Moved My Chicken

I refuse to believe it's been bought.

In the display window of a hardware-cum-antique shop in my neck of the woods there's a display of twee stained glass stuff - mock-Tiffany lamps and the like - and a couple of months ago my heart was captured by an almost sublimely ugly stained glass light-up chicken. Powered poultry. Love at first sight. Just the sort of totally inappropriate purchase that I get excited about. It could sit next to the porn lamp. They could share illuminating stories. (Everyone's a comedian.)

But it's gone. I can barely believe my eyes. There's now a small and not nearly as hideous ladybug lamp in its place. Perhaps it was vandalised or stolen as a favour to the sensitive among us. Who else but your devoted author would buy a chicken lamp?