Category Archives: Autobiographical

Wonders will never cease.

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I once taught a boy called Roque (Pron. ‘Rrro – keh’) He insisted, as did his mother too, that it was to be pronounced ‘Rocky’ (as in ‘Balboa’  – Stallone, you remember?  The film about the boxer … the one with the music) Well this lad Roque was a real shit. Very bright, but extremely disruptive.  He was skilled at orchestrating chaos. I had loads of bust ups with him over the years and had to withdraw him from numerous lessons in the department. He was always in trouble, and it was always something unpleasant: like bullying, or swearing at a member of staff. He was no Artful Dodger, no ‘loveable’ villain. He was a nasty piece of work; and from the ‘knowing glances’ he would now and again shoot you, he knew it and revelled in it

He wasn’t my favourite character, I have to say. I didn’t like teaching him or as a result, sadly, the class he was in. I just grit my teeth before every lesson and went into battle, trying never to lose my sense of humour. The Parkinson’s was begining to ‘bite’ by then, so it was difficult. I wasn’t what I once was. However, I do remember on his last day at school, he insisted on having a picture taken with me – much to his friends’ astonishment (and mine!)

When they sneeringly asked why, he just said ‘Oh he’s alright he is …’

Anyway, it comes up just before Christmas time that I am at the local petrol station. I’ve just put my twenty quids worth in (They don’t bother with the pumps nowadays – they just leave a thimble next to the tank and let you get on with it ) when I noticed said Roque (pron ‘Rocky’) inside the shop. He had just paid and was about to leave. I was very self-conscious because I was a bit ‘Dyskinetic’ (fidgety uncontrolled movements; a Parkinson’s drug, Leva-Dopa side effect,) nevertheless I plough on.

“How’re you doing?” He says, genuinely pleased to see me “You’ll never guess what I’m doing” He was right. I couldn’t. “I’m at uni” He said proudly. “Good for you” I said, genuinely pleased, which I was.

“Yeah” He says, “It’s really hard, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stick it out, but I’m going to try” (I’m not altogether sure to what he was referring here – the work, the drinking, the late nights …) He asked about me, so I told him about the Parkinson’s, the early retirement, the battles with drug side effects People only ever ask me  once. He listens intently.

“That’s bad news, I’m really sorry. You know, you were alright, you. I’m really sorry”

Then suddenly out of the blue, he hugs me! … Not a limp, insipid hug – like a wet raincoat, but a robust, manly, thumping on the back to signal It’s ‘Time To Release’ sort of hug.

And with that he was gone! The cashier had to come out from behind the till, slap my fallen jaw back up into place and take my twenty quid. It was a good five minutes before I could move. Amazing!

Wonders will never cease.

© Andy Daly  2010

Staff Football

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A snippet from the Queensmead School Staff Bulletin 1994

Queensmead 4. Douay Martyrs 1.  

Queensmead are back and back in style. Despite going behind 0-1, Queensmead fought back and played some excellent football to convincingly defeat the Douay Martyrs School Staff Team 4-1.

Forget all that media talk about Shearer and Cole, EI Tel needs to come to West London and take a good look at Cosby and Daly,  probably the best combination seen in Britain since Torville and Dean. Poise, balance, natural skills and grace: C and D have got the lot.

The Queensmead victory would have been even greater if Pete Chadwick  from the Maths department had not missed a penalty.   Apart from that one blemish, Chopper, as he is affectionately known by his team-mates for the obvious reasons, had a smashing game in midfield.

The nasty head injury sustained by one of the Queensmead strikers (Me as it happens!) on closer inspection revealed nothing more serious than a few emerging black roots and some split ends. (And an evening in casualty having it stitched)

He should be fit for Friday’s game, against Haydon School Staff, 21/10/94.

(With thanks to Paul Simpson)

C and D

 Phwwoar! look at that fine collection of beefcake!

(The rest of you don’t look too bad either …)

  © Andy Daly  2010

Learning to Drive

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Me? My dad gave me lessons on the beautiful country lanes (deathtraps) round Seascale  In the Lake District. One day, after sitting in the car for a few minutes, looking out of the windshield at clear blue skies, listening to a grinding, whirring sound as it slowed and faded: The sound (I think you’re there before me) of  front wheels that no longer have contact with a road surface, but which are running free and gradually losing momentum. They were able to do this as the fuschia Hillman Avenger .. It was the 70’s! ..  that we were sitting in had come to rest, yours truly behind the controls, at an angle of 45 degrees after taking on a dry stone wall and fence. My Dad turned to me, stiffly – It may have been the whiplash – and said. “Right! I think that’s enough of that!” We swapped places, he reversed it back onto the road and he never mentioned it again. It was however the end of my father’s tuition.

Avenger – almost the same colour!

 So it was at the age of 26 while living in Bromley by Bow in the East End of London that  I eventually learned to drive. The streets of Whitechapel, Mile End, Old Ford and Stepney being my training ground. I must confess, I had my doubts about my instructor: not because she was a woman, but because one memorable lesson she told me (This is true!) to drive up the off-slip of the A12, Blackwall Tunnel road just to the north of East India Dock road. All my instincts said ‘This doesn’t look right’ and I voiced my concern but she wouldn’t have it; till we got to the apex of the tight loop that the road makes to find two lanes of traffic bearing down on us. I think it probably prompted the quickest three point turn I’ve ever done.

My first car was a 1971 1.8 Marina coupe: GLD 967J. It was like shit off a shovel that car…. I tuned it: well fiddled with the carb jet and float – as if it made any difference. It still did what it wanted. I remember the day I bought it and went to pick it up. An icy December morning, I was also moving flats from Bow to Sudbury Town, Wembley. I had to tube it at what seemed like the crack of dawn, from Bow to Ickenham to collect it, then drive (my first solo drive!) down the A40 into and through central London back to Bow to load up, then back  through central London and A40 again to Wembley.

Look at that! 1.8 Coupe. Like poetry in motion. Sorry that should read pottery in motion

Incidentally, you know the stretch of road that runs from Kings Cross, past Euston, Baker Street and finally onto the flyover at Edgware Road? Well I’d not been driving long when one night, coming back from Hackney I managed to get from King’s Cross onto the A40, without a single red light! (Okay some were a bit amber, even slightly red-tinted…) But, honestly I stayed within the law. Mind you, I didn’t look at my speed. Couldn’t do it now of course. Too many new sets of lights. Like I said: shit off a shovel.

© Andy Daly  2010

Marc Forni

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Congratulations to Marc and his wife on the birth of a baby girl at 2:10pm today.

To mark the occasion, published here, for the first time – giving a real insight into the complex dynamic between Newly Qualified Teacher, Observer, and Students is a copy of the observation record of Marc’s groundbreaking Art lesson 15/07/04

Lesson Observation Form for Newly Qualified Teachers

 Name              MARC FORNI

Date    15/7/04                   Subject: Art                                   Lesson/Class  P.1

Teaching Group          YEAR 8 M/A

Planning and preparation

Good. Your lesson was meticulously planned and prepared. Your written documentation clearly highlighted the importance of making sure I got a cup of tea beforehand. (The omission of brandy is put down to pre-observation nerves: but remember, this could happen for real with ofsted. So be prepared)

The lesson was divided into 3 parts and involved

  •  Looking into the kiln (at a temperature of close to 300 degrees C) and forlornly exclaiming ‘We didn’t have enough time! They are a bit hot’
  • Making paper folders
  • Looking at students wandering around aimlessly.

The objectives were met and satisfy the school’s criteria for an ‘excellent’ lesson.

Seating plan would have been used had there had been enough stools.

Teaching content – style and strategies

The first 25/30 minutes was taken up with trying to clear mess left by the Head of Department, which although impressive, was over – long and meant that many students lost interest. You did not take the opportunity to pose questions or allow the students to question you. Try to break this aspect of the lesson down into smaller ‘chunks.’

Communication skills

Good classroom presence. Clear voice. I particularly thought you got through to the students in a very special way with the middle finger to Student X and the no-nonesense ‘Yes girls, I’ve got 4 earrings, now piss off’ comment. Sadly however, these are both approaches which although effective, are not fashionable these days.

Learning environment and use of resources

No resources were prepared in advance: A sign that you have truly found your feet at this school.

Classroom organisation and management

Students lined up outside the room and took off their coats in an orderly manner on entering the room. (I think, I was still drinking my tea)

Pupil response

  •  Minimal. Their response to your lesson did, frankly not reflect the time and effort you put into it. (Why was this?)
  •  You have reservations about your ability to meet the needs of all pupils. You are right. On the whole you don’t meet any.
  •  However, you are teaching Art, so no one gives a toss.

 Use of prior assessment to support pupils’ learning

What?

Subject specific comments

 You clearly have good subject knowledge in Art and are confident with it.

Recommendations

  •  Try to make your teaching a little less didactic. Encourage more active learning. For instance, students could have been given the initiative to use blue, or even black paper for their folders.
  • Use questioning more. For instance: ‘Why am I here?’
  • Finally have you thought of teaching a more popular subject, say RE or ethics for example?

NQT signature………………………………                                       Date……………….

Scruckshelishelcquerlup

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It is morning, and whilst lying in bed, awake waiting for my tablets to kick in, I hear my youngest son in the bathroom (next door) going through his daily gargling routine, This lasts for about 4 minutes:

“scruckshelishelcquerlupwaschushashushscruckshelishelcquerlupwaschushas hushscruckshelishelcquerlupwaschushashushscruckshelishelcquerlupwas chushashushscruckshelishelcquerlupwaschushashushscruckshelishelcquer

lupwaschushas hushscruckshelishelcquerlupwaschushashushscruckshelishe

lcquerlupwaschushashush  …..aaaahhhhgglllleee aaaahhhhgglllleee

aaaahhhhgglllleee  (this is the back of the throat bit)

Wuwwulllmmnllleeeaaaahhhhggwuwwulllmmnlllleeeaaaahhhhgglwuwwulllmmnlll

Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!…………..pwryyyrrtt! (this is the spit)

……………….Heeeeeeeuuuugh! …. pwryyyrrtt!” (another spit)

I am thinking, I’ve got a drum and bass line that would go perfectly with that!

He’s got a routine for everything: a brushing teeth routine, the mouthwash routine (as you now know) the anti-perspirant spray routine (not one to be caught in the middle of !)  The ‘don’t care hair’ routine. You know, I never knew it took so long to perfect that ‘Just dragged through a hedge’ look. Still, …. He is worth it!

Meanwhile, back in bed, I practise my rigorous exercise routine. I open and close my right eye five times, then repeat with the left. As they say: No pain, no gain. That done, I cast one of the aforesaid eyes (the left – as it happens) to the other side of the room and it alights on my walking frame. Okay, it’s a zimmer frame, but it has got ‘Go Faster’ stripes, metallic paint and polished chrome.  I don’t use it much; as you can see by all the washing hanging off it.

I can just imagine it:  The Harrow and Hillingdon Area Health Authority enquiry:

“Mr Daly, would you care to explain to us once again, exactly how you came to break your hip. On the day in question you didn’t use the walking frame that The Health Authority provide you with, because it was (He refers to his notes) ‘Full of washing’ “

“Yes Sir, that is correct, Sir, I …………”

 © Andy Daly  2010

Dub-cutaneous injections: Aswad and the man who….

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I have spoken elsewhere about how I’m continually fascinated at how the brain reacts and adapts to the collection of miseries that is Parkinson’s.  Of particular interest and importance in my case is the role that Music plays in my daily life. Not as mere ‘background noise’ but as ‘brainfood.’

I believe that music, something  I consider (and I speak as a Visual Artist) the highest, purest artform engages in a subtle and sophisticated dynamic with the brain that we are often unaware of.

“We listen to music with our muscles” Nietzche. Sacks (2007) p. xi

 Indeed as I write this, I am coming out of an ‘off’ spell.* I am coaxing this return to a state of relative fluidity by swinging my good right leg in time with the off-beat accentuation of Reggae and Dub music. As it happens today, big favourites Aswad.

 Of course, you could say all that is happening here is that the drugs are finally kicking in, bringing an increased feeling of well-being,  CD happens to be playing and so I’m swinging along to it: End of story.

But how does that explain many occasions I have been able to fight away, or bring myself out of a particularly deep ‘off’ spell by listening and dancing to music.? (Okay, ‘dancing’ may be stretching it a bit … Let’s call it ‘moving’) when in theory I shouldn’t have been able to walk? No, something far more profound is happening here.  I have a confidence, a freedom and range of movement normally absent. Plus I am able to dance – sorry ‘move’ – for longer periods than my medication would normally allow.

I’m not the only one of course:

“Some of them could not initiate a single step, but could be drawn into dancing and could dance fluidly” Oliver Sacks in his book ‘Musicophelia’ (2007) on post-encephalitic/Parkinson’s patients encountered in 1960s.

And what about the task I am hopefully about to accomplish? Which is insert the needle of a Graseby Winged Infusion set into my leg. The needle, which is 2cm in length (doesn’t  sound much does it?) is attached by a short tube to a syringe, set in a battery-powered pump which I wear round my waist and gives me a constant, measured dose of the Dopamine Agonist drug, Apomorphine. The needle has to go up to the hilt into the sub-cutaneous (Fatty layer) beneath the skin at a 45 degree angle. It’s something I have to steel myself to do every morning, and is a task which is always accompanied by music: Music of power, dignity, self-belief: hence Aswad.

* ‘Off’ (or in our house ‘offline’) describes the periods (between 4  and 6 times a day, 30 minutes to 3 hours in duration when my anti-Parkinson’s drugs are not effective for whatever reason.

© Andy Daly  2010

Quotations from Sacks, O: ‘Musicophelia’ (Picador) 2007 by kind permission of the author.

Happy Birthday

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On this day during the course of the 1960s (No, I’m not going to tell you which year) a little girl was born in an imposing ‘finca’ close to the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (or town hall square) in Valencia, that glittering jewel in the Spanish crown. The youngest of five children, born into the family of a hardworking and respected couple, from Alcoy near Alicante. She grew up resilient and resourceful: hardly surprising considering the competition – three brothers, the eldest of which was 15 when she was born.

To have an apartment in such a sought-after area of the city was a measure of how far her parents had come as individuals, and then as a family since the end of the unbearably bitter Civil War. They had known hardship, privation, hunger, internment, forced labour, the pain of loss, not least,  a brother commited to the opposition in the miserable frozen wastes of Teruel. Yes, this is Spain, everybody’s sunny summer playground. We tend to forget …

Of course, I knew none of this, when I made my first hapless attempts to get to know her better in the staffroom of a West London school.  In contrast, yours truly was born later that same year in a particularly grim area of the industrial North of England. Our respective environments could not have been more different. Around the corner from the ‘finca’ the graceful Plaza with its palm trees and fountains, site of the ‘mascleta’ (You have to see and feel this. Calling it a ‘display of firecrackers’ or somesuch really doesn’t  do it justice. It is immense) You don’t need to walk too far before you come upon the old dry river course, its bridges and boat moorings still intact. Quite different from the ribbon of brown slurry that passed for a river and was such a feature of my journey to school as a child. Then there is the ‘Micalet’ and the handsome central market and the smells!  Of sea, the earth, the orange blossom.

The smells which characterised 1960s Huddersfield? I think we’ll draw a graceful  curtain over that.

I could go on (and on)

And the point of all this? I just wanted to say that despite everything, I never forget, and

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

© Andy Daly  2010

Wildlife Photography

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In which a family of kingfishers manage to trick a former Art teacher into rejecting a process-led model as a metanarrative of a discredited Modernist formal orthodoxy. It also features some spectacular stunt flying, courtesy of the Red Sparrows.

It has slowly become apparent to me that I’ve been had. Done over.  Hook, line and sinker, I have been stitched up like a kipper by … a family of kingfishers

Why? Because I have failed to listen to my own best advice and have allowed myself to be seduced by Product at the expense of Process. I know! …  Me! The Process Kid! ….Me! who has spent a lifetime  teaching a process-based model (I’m getting more and more angry as I write this) Me! a signed and fully paid up champion of a process-led aesthetic. I can’t believe it. Tricked, out-witted and out-manouvered … by a family of bloody kingfishers. I mean, they’re only 6 inches tall with a brain the size of a pea!

The Readers Digest Book of British Birds describes them as ‘mainly sedentary’ and confines the bulk of its entry to an almost obsessive interest in the spectacular colouring, superlative flying, and dramatic diving. Ha! Where are the warnings that this orange and blue – alright – ‘turquoise’ critter will quite happily lead the unwary out onto one of the most treacherous visual arts battlefields of the Modernist era and leave you beaten and bloodied for your troubles? Where does it suggest that it might be wise to re-aquaint yourself with Walter Benjamin before you go birdwatching?

Here is my story.

I take my bike from out of the shed and leave the house I share with my wife and two children, at work and school respectively. And why do I do this? … well … it’s because  we’ve got the bloody builders in. They have just ‘knocked through’. Any sign of a dustsheet? No! Any respect for personal space? No! Any interest in the fact that I too may have some objectives I’d like to acomplish –  preferably before sunset and so therefore really cannot  spare the time to make another cup of tea and listen to another ‘Clumsy Tony’ anecdote. No!

So I’m going for a bike ride to escape, because if I hear that fucking dopey roofer sing ‘Karma bloody Chameleon’ one more time I swear I’m going to pound his brains to mush with one of his own roofing tiles.

And so to the park (tip) at the end of our road.

Just listen to that … Silence! … (Well silence that  is if you filter out the playground noise from the school, the trains passing on the Met. line, the plane landing at Northolt, the coarse chatter of the jackhammer from … Oh gawd!..  Our house by the sound of it)

And so I’m off. A quick three lap burn up of the ‘Nature Reserve’ This presents a major test of skill and nerve as you try to avoid the dog crap everywhere, and today? … well, let’s head off down past the park and along the brook (sewer) and back again.

I’ve got to say, all joking apart, that in the dappled sunlight under a flaming canopy of Horse Chestnut, Ash, Hazel and a couple of Oak and Beech, it is extraordinarily beautiful down here … and quiet. The Parrots look a bit out of place though. There’s a … (collective noun for parrots? a squawk? –  sounds alright) There’s a squawk of parrots, about 6 in total who divide their time between the park and the big old tree behind our house. Escapees, I guess. A novelty at first, they are now right up there with the dopey roofer on my hate list courtesy of the bloody awful racket they make: that’s all seven of them.

I am just imagining what roast parrot might taste like and indeed how it might compare with roast roofer (I suspect a parrot, no matter how well fed might present a challenge in feeding a family of four. The roofer, on the other hand has been nicely looked after and …)

Bloody Hell! See that? A kingfisher! Brilliant!

Wonderful! One of my favourite birds as a child. Not that I ever saw more than about three. Seeing a kingfisher gave me an electric thrill (and still does) as the streak of sapphire and orange flashed past, seemingly unconcerned, but busy nevertheless.

Who would have thought it?  On smelly Yeading Brook. I saw it again the following day and again and again. I was surprised talking to local dogwalkers, regulars along the brookside path, that although ‘vaguely aware’ of the bird’s existence at some time or other, no-one had seen it (or them) this season. Yet I, having begun to observe the bird’s pattern of behaviour and favourite branches on which to perch, saw it two, sometimes three times a visit.

I resolved to bring my camera, which I did (oh how I rue the day!) There was a lot of activity that morning: I’d seen it two or three times – It had of course occurred to me that there could be more than one: a pair? I was on the verge of leaving when right out of the blue/turquoise/saphhire whatever you want to call it, close by the lower entrance to the park it landed on a branch overlooking a bend in the brook. It was about 70 yards away. Against all odds, which included a standard 50mm lens – no telephoto and uncontrollable shaking as I tried to focus (In fact, if the truth be known, I had a quite incomplete grasp of the procedures for focussing my Canon 450D for having had it for two months, I was too lazy to have read the instruction manual) The shot was an accident: I was pressing the button for a meter reading and overdid it. I got another one in, but with a shutter sound like a skoda car door slamming – that was it. The kingfisher was off!

 

Can you spot it?

 But I had it! After thoroughly testing the image manipulation giant that is Photoshop CS3 (Extended) I had it!  Okay, it wasn’t exactly David Attenborough: but then I wasn’t on his kind of money.You had to look hard deep into a mess of trees, riverbank, undergrowth but there it was the unmistakeable shape of a kingfisher. Ha! I was about to prove to everyone that this was no fig roll of my imagination…

But it was also to prove my undoing … My dissatisfaction with the quality of my kingfisher picture,  which despite all the power of Photoshop was still grainy and fuzzy, began to be replaced by a growing conviction that here was an opportunity to extend my range as a budding photographer. Yes! It was time to move on from those interminable artsy ‘coffee table book’ guitar pictures( http://www.andydalyphotography.co.uk/  in case you’re interested. I accept Pay Pal and all major credit cards) Let’s face it, any clot with a serviceable camera and a spotlamp could do them – you just had to remember, Do ‘em in black and white and don’t forget: Loads of shadows! No: this was real photography: wildlife photography.

And here, dear reader is where the wheels began to come off. I can hear myself thinking, althoughI never actually uttered the words, but sure enough, like so many of my wayward students over the years I thought them. Words which are enough plunge even the most experienced, hard-bitten, battle-scarred Art teacher into a trough of despair:

“But I know exactly what it’s going to look like”

I know, I know …. Me, the Process Kid! As I sit now staring at words on the screen I can barely believe it. But there I was, a week later, armed with a telephoto lens (courtesy of E Bay. Incidentally, I picked up a delightful plaster cast of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and a complete Morris Marina workhop manual at the same time. Who says it’s a Global Car Boot Sale eh?) and assorted camouflage garments, more usually associated with members of fanatical paramilitary active service cells: ready to do battle with the kingfishers for the ultimate Kingfisher photograph ….

[A small hollow in a sandy bank overlooking Yeading Brook and a family of Kingfishers are sitting around, reading the morning papers and childrens’ comic supplements]

Oh God! Here he is again!

Who’s here again, Darling?

That idiot. You know, the one with the camera.

The one with the wooly hat? You’re too hard on him. You should stop teasing him and leave him in peace.

Leave him in peace? What about us? What about him leaving us in peace? I’ll leave him alone when he stops invading our privacy. Three times last week…three times. You know what I’m like about my fishing –

[The children pipe up] Oh yes! We all know what you’re like about your fishing. We’re not allowed to talk..

We’re not even allowed to breathe!

Now, you two, come on…What your father is saying is that he just enjoys his privacy..

Exactly! Alone. So I can think and unwind and relax. Without having some half-baked would-be ‘wildlife photographer’ sticking his zoom lenses into my beak. And anyway, where do you think your meals would come from if I weren’t allowed to ‘dip this beak’ unhindered?

I caught one yesterday!

That was not a Minnow.

What was it then?

Well, it wasn’t a fish … Now let’s leave it at that … Oh God!

What is it now? You’re ever so tetchy these days…

It’s those bloody parrots, again. I wish someone would sort them out…send them back to where they came from.

But Dear, you can’t say that…

I just did. Okay! So who’s coming to have a bit of fun with old ‘David Attenborough’ then?

Me!

Me!

Me!

Daaad?

Yes, sunshine?

Do you think he knows there’s five of us?

Hmmmmm…Difficult to say… I think he knows there are at least two.

Remember yesterday, when you and Mum had already gone up to bend in the river with the wooden platform, but when I flew past, he went in the opposite direction?

Yes, that was odd. I just don’t think he’s very observant.

…He’s always half asleep

Yes, I’ve noticed that, Dear. I don’t think he gets enough rest…

Rest?! Oh for pity’s sake woman, we need to get rid of him, not mother him. I want my peace and quiet back.

Dad! Let’s try and get him to drop his big camera into the river

Yeeeaah!

And how are you going to do that?

Oh it’ll be well easy … Did you see when he dropped his hat in the river?

That’s right:  So far …Let’s see …  His gloves went in….

… his hat …

… (Twice) …

… His lens cap …

… and he got bitten by a dog! …

[Together] Twice!

It is easy! All you’ve got to do is make him wait till he starts to get tired…

It’s best to sit quite high up

… and behind him. He still thinks we only ever fly or perch low along the course of the river.

Watch him. Watch his shoulders.  After a while he starts to go into this position and his shoulders hunch over.

What’s ‘hunch’?

Y’know, go all rounded

Then it’s time to fly… Straight at him if you can

Yeaaaah!

He goes all shaky! It’s dead funny.

Okay? We all ready? You staying here, Love?  Oh! Before I forget, I’ve left an article out for you… might like to read it. I thought it was quite good. It’s a frank new appraisal of Benjamin’s ‘Work of Art In An Age Of Mechanical Reproduction’ In fact, I think it will throw more light onto the near polarisation of the visual arts and the acendency of a Post Modern,  pluralist aesthetic for the end of the twentieth century. See what you think. Okay kids? We off?

Chocks away!

[Some weeks later. The Builders have now gone]

                                                               …. ready to do battle with the kingfishers for the ultimate Kingfisher photograph.

 [Reader]: So?

What?

[Reader]: So where is it?

What?

[Reader]: The ‘Ultimate Kingfisher Photograph’?

You see, people don’t realise just how difficult wildlife photography is. They just think that the photographer turns up, whips out their camera, Click! Click! Home in time for tea and crumpets. No way! It requires methodical planning, deep knowledge of the habits and environment of the subject and consumate camera skills. Never mind thinking … aperture?… exposure?… focus? … ooops, lens cap off … when there’s a kingfisher flying at you. It needs to be instinctive … it’s raw!…It’s man versus beast in an extreme and hostile environment.

[Reader]: ‘Extreme and hostile’? What? Yeading Brook? In Roxborne Park?

Yeah … err … it’s pretty hostile. I came close to losing my hat in the drink on one occasion.

***   Kingfishers 1 ‘David Attenborough’ 0   *** 

 [Reader]: So how long have you been waiting for this ‘ultimate photograph?

Let’s see, where are we now? March .. That will make it uhmm …  Five months … it’ll be five months

***   Kingfishers 2 ‘David Attenborough’ 0   ***

 [Reader]: And how many pictures have you taken?

Oooooohhhh loads!

[Reader]: Of kingfishers?

Two

***   Kingfishers 3 ‘David Attenborough’ 0   *** 

[Reader]: So your original image and two new ones?

Ahhh ..  No. My … errr…original shot and one new one.

***   Kingfishers 4 ‘David Attenborough’ 0   ***

 [Reader]:  It must be spectacular … the other one? It must be if it’s your ‘ultmate kingfisher photo’ Can you describe it? I’m fascinated by the notion of it being a battle between man and nature in order to wrest the image you want exactly as you thought it was going to look. That must be some result eh? The suspense is killing me … Thanks … No, don’t see it. Ahhh! That’s because I’ve got it upside down … no wait …. No, Still don’t see it ……..what the hell am I looking at?

Well … can you just see behind that branch…?

[Reader]: You mean that blurry brown line?

Hmmmmm…It’s that spot of blue …. Juuuusssssst ……. there!

*** Game Set and Match: Kingfishers ***    

Epilogue

Never has the pursuit of artistic endeavour so exausted me. Never has so much time been invested for such little reward. How could I let myself walk into such an obvious trap? One which, because of my training and experience I should have spotted from the outset.

My ‘Ultimate Kingfisher Photograph’ hangs on the chimney breast (I tell people it’s one of a series of abstract paintings I’m working on – sort of diffused spatial enquiries … ‘Yes, they can sometimes look like out of focus photographs. I’m glad you spotted that’) My misery is complete when the Dopey Roofer decides he likes it and offers to buy it.  It reminds him of the lighting effects used at last year’s Ministry of Sound New Year Party. ‘It was sick man, I’m tellin’ yah I was well out of it’.

I let it go for £5:49 with which I buy a new wooly hat. The house is cold and lonely, the wind whistles through the gap in the front door, making a sound like a maddened wailing banshee. I’m beginning to miss the builders … they weren’t that bad after all.

 

Cause of all the trouble

  

‘The Ultimate Kingfisher Photograph’

 HELPLINE

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this post, call 0800 4746 4746 to talk in confidence

© Andy Daly  2010

Know it all

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Now if anybody tells you that these days, Parkinson’s is not so terrible and that it can be easily managed with drugs, you can say nothing, but just punch them as hard as you like on the ‘Philtrum’ (Its the vertical groove or ‘channel’ we all have which runs – literally in the cases of some people – from the nose to the top lip) There are lots of nerve endings here which make it extremely painful when bopped.

With any luck, fragments of bone will be shattered away and lodge themselves in the ‘Know-It-All’s brain too.

© Andy Daly  2010

‘Timeless Classics’ present Double Brainfreeze

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You know Brainfreeze? It’s that awful feeling when you’ve got something cold
in your mouth which seems to go right through your fillings. I’m assuming you
have some. If not you are a jammy so-and-so. Perfectly healthy teeth are but the vaguest of memories for me, probably the result of a minor addiction to Liquorice Allsorts  or more likely being too drunk or incapable to be in possession of a toothbrush. I get excessively envious of those who don’t have a mouthful of mercury and other toxic metals or resins.

Well, anyway, Brainfreeze sends the raw nerves behind those unsightly
nuggets of amalgam a-jingling and
a-jangling right up through your jaw and into your head, send your brain
into a maddening tailspin until you can put up with it no more and have to
jetison the the offending source of cold, or if it is small enough, swallow
it. It’s great fun watching the facial contortions of afflicted
unfortunates.

Not so cool if it’s you, though …

Well I had double brainfreeze the other day. I had  a FAB ice lolly (As in
“F. A. B. Virgil” You remember! … Thunderbirds) In fact, those of you who
want to kill two birds with one stone and experience a bit of childhood TV
nostalgia, along with the kind of refreshment experience that can only be
offered by a drink on a stick, would do well to try a FAB. Just be careful
where you consume it: because as I was about to say, we’ve just had oak flooring put
down. I am guzzling my FAB more than somewhat, when horror of horrors the
top half breaks off in my mouth. I stand in the centre of the living room: a
sea of oak around me as far as the eye can see. Nowhere, but nowhere to
jetison/spit/or otherwise get rid of this particular slab of frozen-over
Hell in my mouth, let alone dribble or drip!

I experience what seems like an eternity of agony, I reckon something
equivalent to 5 minutes of having all my original  drilling operations
performed at once – without the anesthetic this time or sitting through a debate in the London  Assembly: it’s about the same really, until I could finally
chomp up the chunk of now not-so- FAB and swallow it, just before passing out.

See? Double Brainfreeze. I have warned you.

© Andy Daly  2010