Happy birthday to me

On By Laura MorganIn Navel gazing

Gladallover is one today.  In the last year I’ve made 197 posts, you’ve made 56 comments and there have been 6,375 page views, which averages out at just under seventeen and a half posts per day, though this average is fairly meaningless since in the first month of its life  there were 289 views and this month there have been 2,993.  Although it means very little in reality, I do find it gratifying when traffic goes up, so if you are reading this then thank you and do please come again.

As it enters its second year, I expect gladallover to become more mature and reflective and perhaps a little wiser, like an elderly maiden aunt who has seen it all already.

Small pleasures for January

On By Laura MorganIn Small pleasures

This month, I have been mainly enjoying camomile tea, mashed potatoes, the smell of hyacinths, series 4 of Lost and roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.  I unreservedly recommend them all.

(I’ve two long books posts waiting to go up, except I’ve lost the instructions for linking to Amazon in such a way that if anyone buys a book from them via me, I get cash money.  As soon as this position is rectified, I will be back with more to say.)

Snooker loopy

On By Laura MorganIn Sport

I am following Palace’s progress as keenly as ever – we are doing our usual trick of starting off badly and then suddenly starting to do well when the season is half over, putting paid to any chances of automatic promotion but keeping the agonising possibility of a playoff place open for as long as possible before it all ends in disappointment.

But I haven’t been to a game all season, which makes it hard to write about much which the papers and bloggers haven’t already given a better-informed view on.  As soon as there’s a hint of spring in the air I will do what I can to rectify this omission.

And in the meantime, there’s snooker!  I have been a fan ever since I used the 1997 World Championship as a distraction from revising for my finals and happened to be watching when Ronnie O’Sullivan made the fastest-ever maximum break against Mick Price.  I was hooked instantly, and I’ve watched as much of each subsequent televised tournament as I’ve been able to fit the rest of my life around (snooker is not always on at the most convenient times for those of us with jobs).

But it’s taken me nearly twelve years to actually go and watch a game, and on Sunday I finally managed it at the opening sessions of the Masters at Wembley Arena.  Brilliantly, tickets for the early games only cost £10, and for that we got a full day’s play, Stephen Maguire beating wee Graeme Dott (“the pocket dynamo!”) in the morning session and Ronnie beating Joe Perry in the afternoon.  Both games were good, but the crowd were obviously more excited about the second game, something about the way Ronnie plays inviting a passion and a loyalty that the other players don’t seem to arouse.  True to form, he gave his fans an agonising wait for his eventual victory, conceding a frame when he only needed one snooker and dropping behind more than once.  The final frame, at 5-5, was very tense and great fun to watch.

Football will always be my first love, and I will never be able to feel about a player the way I can about a team, but £10 for seven hours’ play in the warm indoors is bargainously good compared to £25 for ninety minutes in the cold outdoors, not to mention how much closer to the action one can be at the snooker (we were even on TV).

I enjoyed it so much I’m going back for the evening session in Sunday’s final (less bargainously cheap, more exciting).  Look out for me on BBC2.  If I see you I’ll wave.

Observations made in the course of a walk in St. James’s Park

On By Laura MorganIn Small pleasures
  • The lake is almost completely frozen over.  If you stand on the bridge and peer down into the water, you glimpse some interesting objects suspended in partial cryogenesis: twigs, leaves and feathers are to be expected; Starbucks’ cups and biros less so.
  • The birds are, for the most part, unconcerned by the frozen lake.  They perch on the ice looking mildly bemused, occasionally pecking at something on the surface in the hope that it’s edible.  One seagull stood in the same place for so long that I worried her feet had been frozen to the spot, but it turned out she was just stopping for a think, and soon moved on.
  • St James’s Park is as pretty in winter as it is in summer, and less busy (though not by much)
  • Somebody somewhere is making a fortune selling black woolly hats with “LONDON” emblazoned across them.  Every other person I passed was wearing one, having presumably miscalculated the amount of clothing necessary to sustain life in this weather.

New year’s resolutions

On By Laura MorganIn Navel gazing

In order of priority:

  1. I will start doing a job I like, or at the very least I will begin some training that will equip me to do a job I like.
  2. I will resurrect last year’s resolution to read new books instead of re-reading old ones – by which I mean books which are new to me rather than newly bought, since last year’s other resolution was to stop buying brand new books, and that has worked out very well.  I have joined a library, bought books in charity shops and borrowed them from people with libraries more extensive than mine, and I’ve saved plenty of ££ and read things I wouldn’t otherwise have thought of.
  3. I will drink less wine and more Guinness (my doctor told me it was good for me).
  4. To counteract the effects of the Guinness, I will  go back to some form of organised exercise.  I’ll have a think about that one; it’s too cold to contemplate it today.
  5. I will make tea in the office rather than buying it from the café on the way to work.  The amount I spend on things I could make myself is unforgivable.

I think five is enough.  Happy new year!

A joke

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Small pleasures

Q. Why is Christmas the best time to buy philosophy books?

A. Because the Schopenhauers are longer.

(I apologise.  That wasn’t in a cracker, but it could have been.  One of the more upmarket sorts of cracker, perhaps.)

Activity fail

On By Laura MorganIn Navel gazing

I’ve been at home alone all afternoon and evening, with grand plans to make inroads into the pile of DVDs I’ve amassed over the last few weeks.  They are all things I want to watch, and most of them are things which my regular viewing companion isn’t interested in, limiting the times I can watch them to those when he is, as today, otherwise engaged (at the pub).

So what have I done?  Nothing at all, of course.  I’ve had Alibi on for some of the day, without really paying it any attention, and I’ve got the Big Fat Quiz of the Year on right now but I’m barely watching it.  I’ve read half of two different Miss Marple books, both of which I have read before.  I’ve eaten four slices of toast.

So my question is:  how do I motivate myself to engage in activities which – and here’s the thing – I’m only supposed to be doing for fun in the first place?  Or maybe a better question is: if I can’t, does it matter?  Maybe eating toast and reading bits of books I’ve read before is a valuable way of spending time.  As valuable, anyway, as watching The Fox and the Hound or season 4 of Lost.  That’s probably the answer.

Advent song for December 24

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

I’ve enjoyed doing this so much, and there are so many songs I had to leave out, that I’m almost tempted just to keep going and make gladallover a 365-day-a-year Christmas music blog.  But by January I’ll be feeling austere and spartan and bloated, so I’ll stick to tradition and bring it to a close today.  I’ve spent quite a lot of time wondering which songs to include, but there was never any real doubt in my mind as to what today’s song would be, because it has my favourite Christmas pop video ever.  There are so many good things about it that I shan’t point them all out, but I would like you to make a particular appreciation of Cliff’s dancing from 2’25” onwards. It’s really quite something.  Also note the fake snow, which is almost as convincing as my own snow (which will no longer be visible if you’re reading this after January 3 2009).

Happy Christmas!