Men are from Mars, women are from … ah forget it!

Bought this pair of kitchen tongs, with a royal Dutch flavour, a while ago as I believed them to be quite handy around the kitchen. Needless to say, this purchase took place PC (pre-carer;  the time before I had a regular team of amazing carers).

It came fully akimbo, with its tong-prongs all open wide for want of a more salubrious description. And I haven’t been able to actually use the shiny new implement as I never figured out how to close the prongs and open them again at will so as to actually pick up an item of food, let’s say an Arancini or a shapely broad bean, and drop it again somewhere else.

Yet now, after once again having some sensible organised ladies around the place, I found the long lost thing again.

Neatly closed.

Just don’t know how to open them ..

#whatshelikeproductions

 

 

UP Yours Parkinson’s!

I know the man is 77 and even without PD would have been more than entitled to hang up his stand-up mic and retire.

But to me, on a very personal level it signalled yet one more instance of a powerful larger than life communicator being thwarted from doing what they love most by this insidious and utterly sinister disease.

And while his particular brand of stand-up comedy wasn’t always my cup of tea, I loved how this most Glaswegian of gentle  giants  – even with his infernal start in life – never seemed to show any overt bitterness or spite in his life’s work. Perhaps that’s the definition of choosing not to be a victim, no matter what?

But to give him his due, let’s just have an irreverent laugh in the face of Mr. Bloody Parkinson’s in the way only he can (present tense, he ain’t goin’ nowhere just yet!) ..

 

 

Celtic Refresher

Came across this beautiful little film. Really really loved it, although of course i did notice it has that predictable Down with Us bias, in this case of the variety which lazily assumes modern Western ways have been horrible to our lovely happy Pagan ancestors.

Moreover, I would have been interested to hear this fascinating gent’s take on some  of the less prosaic elements within the Celtic ceremonial life, particularly as evidenced by certain archaeological finds on the Continent including that of La Tene.

But either he wasn’t asked or the producers decided to quickly gloss over this aspect by letting a reassuring voice-over briefly touching on it.

After all, the Romans – not exactly known for their aversion to the bizarre or for being in any way overly squeamish themselves – opted to make an exception to their policy of easily accepting and absorbing the many cults and religions of those conquered, singling out the Celtic worship for immediate and total suppression.

In fact, while Boudicca, the famous female Britannic leader, led her devastating assault on the Roman stronghold Londinium, the Romans had an altogether – at least in their view – more pressing engagement. While Boudicca was taking her revenge on the invaders in the South-East, most of the Imperial might was in Wales, at the Celtic religious centre of Anglesey. Here, in one fell swoop, they thought it was imperative to wipe out almost every single Druid of note assembled there for a national gathering of some sort.

However, the film is thoroughly enjoyable.. I adore his connection to the elements, animals, woods. Watch out for about 7 or 10 minutes in, when he – in a lovely Franciscan manner – feeds a little bird (could it be a Robin?) from his hand.

A strange sense of affinity

Sometimes I find myself strangely drawn to people, artists or personalities I have not known personally at all. One of these was the actor Peter Sellers. And I can’t quite explain why something about him strikes such a chord with me.

One of my favourite anecdotes relates to how this undisputed genius, in his private life was something of a monster. While it was very sad how he treated his spouses and children as a sort of afterthought, it did also yield a few startling gems. He proposed to his first wife, thus: ‘How would you like to be the first Mrs Sellers?’

At least she knew where she stood from day one, I suppose.

I think in many ways ‘Being There’ , the film adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski’s remarkable novel summed him up in an ironic way, and it’s quite amazing to hear Shirley Maclaine reminisce about working with him.

For others,  it’s his bewildering display of insane versatility in ‘Dr Strangelove’ that left a permanent impression. But for me it has to be the enigmatic and eerily disturbing multi-faceted Clare Quilty in ‘Lolita’ – one of his earlier films, an adaptation of Nabokov’s controversial bestseller.

At the time, Sellers had only recently made the move from radio and theatre into cinema. ‘Lolita’ – another Kubrick directed stand-out – starred James Mason, at that time in his prime as a sought after international film star.

Apparently, Mason felt outshone at every turn by the sheer power of Sellers’ mimicry and improvisation talent, and often withdrew to his quarters depressed and forlorn, being acutely aware of the huge chasm between the two performances.

Shelley Winters, as Dolores Haze’s mother, plays a blinder too.  Quite a stunning role in itself. By the way, another related anecdote or fun fact is how Sue Lyons, the risque film’s starlet found she was told she couldn’t see the film in the cinema because she wasn’t yet 18 years old.

Of course, Sellers once famously answered a journo’s question as to the reason behind his astounding impersonations: ‘Well, it’s not that difficult, I am able to inhabit the entire character of whichever role I’m playing. It’s quite easy because there is no real me..’ *

And it was just the other day that i realised or read somewhere again that his real first name was Richard.

His fellow-Goon Spike Milligan had the following epitaph chiseled in Gaelic on his tombstone, ‘I told you I was ill!’

I thought that was pretty good until the other day I read how Sellers had a particularly inappropriate song played quite loud during his actual funeral. As the mourners gathered mournfully, to mourn their mournings, the moronic upbeat tune ‘In the Mood’ accompanied the coffin on its final journey.

*) paraphrased

Blancmange the Builder

I’ve been following this British artist for a while because i’m intrigued by (what I think) she’s trying to do, also she’s got quite a quirky sense of humour and I’m a sucker for her accent or some reason.

Introducing Naked Building – Naked Building – Episode#01 from Lucy Muse on Vimeo.

Stand by me

For an explanation on why I have decided, now my time is seriously running down and it’s clear so many of my hopes and dreams will not materialise, to no longer pull any punches of any kind please see the updated ‘My Mission’ page.

I hope it may enlighten those of my readers who are shocked by nudity or who don’t understand how important it is to me to try – one last time – to convey something about how for me at least, nude bathing is in itself not connected to some other more troublesome and for most of course quite unpalatable side effects of the way in which my personal version of PD is playing out.

But Seriously

This is what I really need to tackle (pun intended), the way in which no one bothered to tell my wife and me about a little pesky potential side effect of most, if not all, PD medications. In my case, it was hyper-sexuality, which compounded an already downward spiralling car crash of circumstances.

I will be taking my time working on this page as it matters greatly to me. I hope I can prevent any one else from falling victim to the same casual attitude on the part of some parts of the medical establishment. And yes, I might be naming some names..

For now, if anyone prescribes SIFROL to you or your loved-ones, make damn sure they tell you EVERYTHING about the possible side effects!

 

Some soothing bedtime reading:

To be continued..

*

Wow.. seems like yours truly never stood a chance.

Last attempt at demonstrating benefits of nudism for PD sufferers

That’s it. I think that’s pretty clear. I’ve wasted so many words trying to explain the sense of liberation and near-freedom, those all-too-fleeting moments when I almost – just almost – can forget about PD and my body –  having to drag around that exhausting, nagging, cumbersome and unruly frame.

I have taken to avoid the regular clothing optional beaches because while my main purpose is always as described above, being invariably on my own I always leave half-depressed as it’s almost inevitable not to end up feeling like a freak, a creep and what-have-you.

Once again, here too, having a healthy gender mix makes for a much better atmosphere. So yes, the civilising influence of the presence of women. Some beaches are pretty good in this respect, others while stunning in their locations or natural beauty seem to be frequented by the type of creepy solitary male with obvious ulterior motives. (Backpack, dark sunglasses, paunch and mini-polla with or without Prince Albert ‘in a can’..)

Came across someone arguing for body positivism and social nudity saying, ‘we can’t allow the creeps to dominate the nude beaches anymore.’ Quite so..