life – University & Unicorns

1 September 2023

Believe In Better

For as defeated and melancholy I was feeling yesterday, I just wanted to be kind to myself and allow myself to “ride it out.” Let the storm pass. Hope for a better tomorrow. Because it does happen!

It did happen. Today is better. Still not 100% and it would take the slightest thing of something to topple me over again. There are things that if I dwell on them will bring me down. Jim. The Minds fandom. The state and future of my blog (the Priptona one). How mentally prepared (or otherwise) I am for the recommencement of uni next month. My partner’s mental health (always a VERY big cloud hanging over things, if I am being incredibly open and frank). Finances (or lack thereof).

But…I’ve had a shower today and I’ve washed my hair. I know there are many people that won’t get that. People that don’t understand the kind of effort that can take sometimes. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I get very angry with myself. A lot of the time, in fact. I was angry with myself yesterday. I wasn’t comfortable with posting what I posted on my blog yesterday. I sounded like I was just wallowing in self-pity. At the same time and as much as I tried to push myself, I tried being kind. Allow myself the time to hope that the bad would pass.

Some of the feeling also is dictated by having someone else living in my home. A person that makes me feel like a tenant in my own home. I am very mindful of accommodating them and working my day around theirs. They are moving out in a couple of weeks and I am looking forward to being “liberated” and being able to return to doing things in my house when I want to. From when I begin my study day to when I go to the toilet in the middle of the night. All of that! All of that has weighed on my mind for 21 months. Silly little accommodations, you know?

For instance…I’ll settle into bed around 11pm. I’ll listen to The Arches and a couple of podcasts, then be ready to settle to sleep around midnight. My brain and body are ALWAYS insistent that I need one last trip to the loo. But I’ll try not to go. I’ll ignore it. But that invariably means I’ll awake again a couple of hours later with a more urgent need to go, which I’ll also try and ignore. I feel like I am having the most interrupted sleep. These days, once I do get up and go to the loo in the wee hours I find it very hard to get back to sleep.

I’m just looking forward to getting up and going as and when I need to without having to consider someone else. I’m looking forward to a better sleep pattern once again. Maybe it won’t happen? Maybe I’m in a menopausal phase and that’s what’s disrupting my sleep pattern? I feel as though I will be less stressed anyway and that will help me.

My study days will begin earlier too. I will most likely begin my days between 9-9.30am, whereas currently I feel compelled to wait until after 10am (when my lodger’s work day begins). I know that doesn’t sound like much – but when you’re a morning thinker and you have ideas and things pop into your head and you want to get going with your day – thoughts pinging in left, right and centre but you feel like it would be rude to just get up and go and start your day, then yes – it makes a BIG difference.

I tried again with the Too Good To Go app and have a couple of new surprise bags to collect today. My Other Half will collect one (taking advantage of the free “old gits” travel she gets on the bus network) this afternoon and I’ll get the other one early this evening. I was able to secure a collection with the George Street Oaka, which is much more handy and easier to get to. A train to Queen Street, a quarter mile walk up George Street and I’m right there. I can collect and get the next train home. It can all be done within the space of an hour. Hurray! And this time I am prepared. Showered and ready to go in later today.

Finally, I realise that I haven’t even shared much from the time away in Blackpool last week. Although elements of it were stressful, in particular the journey back home to Glasgow, we did have some fun while we were away and really enjoyed aspects of the trip. I’d like to share select photos of the time away.

Thanks for listening. I know it’s not easy to read bad stuff and I am guilty as anyone else in trying to give off this air that I am fine and dandy all the time and life’s a peach every single day but the cold, hard truth is…it isn’t. It gets the better of me. I can get very low and dark and I have spent a long time trying to shield people from that.

I have a love/hate relationship with that “it’s okay not to be okay” phraseology, because although it is inherently true…I myself do NOT feel ‘okay’ with not feeling okay – if you get me?

Having said that – today is better.

*Panoramic views of Blackpool North pier and the tower*

Ziggy’s Cafe Bar in Blackpool. The owner let us in while he was cleaning so we could take photos of the decor. He’s been open for seven years. Some of the memorabilia was donated to him by cafe patrons and Bowie fans.

*Various photos of Blackpool, Fleetwood and sights in between.*

13 August 2023

Winched To Safety (aka Special View)

I haven’t worked on it for several months. It got pushed aside once I started working on The Gudmut for my uni assignment. It had been a potential frontrunner but the The Gudmut just grew legs and ran.

I chose to add the photo of myself at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to this post as it was exactly the beach that I had envisaged all the years I’d been conjuring up a particular image of a beach when listening to the Simple Minds song “Special View”. I always saw young lovers meeting up at a beachfront by a wave-breaker and so Winched To Safety was my attempt to write out a scene involving these two young lovers I saw in my mind’s eye when listening to the song.

So…here goes nothing! As I say, I’ve not worked on it since late April or early May so there’s probably aspects of it I’d change now if I read it before posting it but I wanted to keep it as it was when I left, if for no other reason than to log just how much my writing has changed within the space of a few months. (P.S. You may need to be a Glaswegian or au fait with your Scots vernacular to get the pun intended with the title of the story.)

Winched To Safety

Caught in a reverie she is only vaguely conscious of the sound of the waves lapping at the shore edge. Little gurgling gulps that clap at the already wet and compacted sand. There is a crisp chill to the air. She sits upon the concrete windbreaker that stretches along the beach for hundreds of yards. She told him she’d meet him here at this part of the wall near where it juts out and has a row of bench seats for the sand-weary beachgoers to sit on. Some people that come here just like to walk the promenade and take in the view and never actually walk along the shore or pitch up on the sand. Fewer still take a swim in the ocean. That’s for the gallus and gleakits. Alicia is not one of them. She is among the majority that enjoys the view and the sea air but never sits on the sand. She rarely takes off her shoes and walks along the shoreline. It needs to be particularly warm weather for that to happen and today is not one of those days. Besides, she’s waiting for John and he won’t know where to meet her if she is walking along the shoreline or the promenade.

Taking a second to lift her head from being sunk down and almost buried between her clavicles, she spots him walking towards her. He’s looking out to sea as he strides along. He called her this morning and asked her to meet him at the beach at five o’clock. He had work until four and needed an hour to get from work to here. He sounded tense when he called. It was one of those ‘can we talk?’ calls. Why do people do that? Make a call in which they ask ‘can we talk?’, only to arrange a time for a meeting in which this talk will take place? Why not just say it there and then? Why make such a mystery of it? God, people are bloody weird, Alicia concluded. John was just her kind of weird though. Sort of exotic to her. Not exactly a man’s man. He didnae do the usual guy things. She liked the way he could be both gallus and shoogly at the same time. There was a strange kind of beauty in the way he carried himself. She thought he was stunning and every time she saw him her heart melted away just a little bit mair. It would melt even mair if he smiled his uneven smile at her. It was not his teeth that were crooked. It was the shape of his mouth. The way his lips curled slightly upwards at the sides so that even if his face appeared otherwise expressionless, his mouth always belied a smile of some kind.
As he neared closer Alicia could see he wasn’t smiling but his mouthed always smiled in spite of itself. Her stomach churned into a somersault. Her insides tensed as he reached her. Why did he look so gloomy? He took a seat beside her.

“Hey.”
“What’s up? I’ve been fretting about this ‘can we talk’ all day.”
“Oh, ah didnae mean to make you worry. It’s nothing really. Well, ah hope it’s nothing.”
“Okay. So, what is it?”
“Kenny said he saw you with Dougie the other day. He said you looked ‘cosy’. He reckons you were winching him.”

From her bowed-head position in which she had barely been acknowledging John or her surroundings, she twists her head to face him and stares in furrowed incredulity.

“Whit you aon aboot? With Dougie? Why would I? And not even with Dougie but with anyone for that matter?”
“Ah dunno. That’s whit he told me. He swatched you and Dougie winching.”
“And…you believe him?”
“Naw. That’s why ah’m asking.”
“Well, if you’re asking then you must believe him.”
“So, you deny it?”
“Of course ah deny it! It never happened! Ah mean…mon! It’s DOUGIE. He’s a pal and all and ah like him but DEFINITELY naw like THAT! Why would you even HINK I’d get with him?”
“People talk.”
“Whit ‘people’? Whit is this, John? Is this your way of breaking up with me? ‘It’s not me, it’s you’. Is that it?”
“No. Ah widnae do that. Ah dinnae wanna break up with you. Ah…ah…Ah’m sorry, okay. Ah messed up.”
“Aye. You did. A dunno whit Kenny hinks he saw but he didnae swatch me winching Dougie bloody Maguire. IAh’d never do that to you. Ever. Not to you. Not to any guy ah was with. Jeez-o!”
“Ah’m sorry.”

John takes Alicia’s left hand. She tries to resist at first but then relaxes and allows him to take hold. He wraps it into both of his and gently begins stroking the back of her hand with his left hand. Alicia returns to her sunken-head position, outcasting all external distractions and stimuli. It takes a while for her to simmer down. She begins to calm from the feeling of her hand nestling in John’s and from his stroking. Her racing heart is slowly returning to normal. He really doesn’t know, does he? He has absolutely no idea how much she loves him. She fears he doesn’t care but given what has been said maybe he does? No, that’s just jealousy. That’s not love, surely?

John looks away and out to shore, his inner thoughts a mangle of words swirling around inside his head. Oh, man. I’ve blown it. I really like Alicia. Actually, the hing is, I hink I love her. Naw. I mean I actually DO love her. She’ll think it’s pish if I tell her the noo. Why did I listen to that gleakit? What would Kenny know anyway? He’s a bam.

He looks down, gazing at Alicia’s hand in his, then looks up wanting to see her face. She’s looking down at her lap. Loosening his grip on her hand he motions to get up off the wall.
“Ah’m gonna go.”
Grabbing on to his right hand as he starts to pull away, Alicia pleads, “Wait! Please! Can we take a donder along the promenade? I have something to say. Ah just needed a minute.”
“Sure.”

They walk a little way along the promenade. All the time Alicia has been trying to conjure up the courage to say what she wants to say to him. The breeze has picked up since she arrived and it carries the saltiness of the sea in its strength. As she wets her lips to speak, the saltiness reaches her mouth and brings with it a brief attack of nausea. Her nerves almost get the better of her. Nothing can be gained by remaining silent. Still holding John’s right hand in her left, she slows her pace and leans upon the windbreaker. He stands beside her. She turns to stand in front of him.
“The first time ah keeked you, ah knew. You were so different to any guy I’d met before. The way you can be so… Gallus but shy. The way you are with your pals. The way you smile at strangers, even the jakies and the bams. The way you treat your maw and da. Everything. Your hair, your face, your eyes. I feel boak saying it but I pure love everything about you. The way your ears stick out. The way you laugh. You cackle like a wee hyena. You melt my heart. I adore you. And I would never, EVER kiss someone else while I’m with you. I’d never want to. You’re everything. The whole package. I love you.”

He smiles that proper smile. Broad and brilliant.
“Ah thought I fucked this up. Ah dinnae know why ah paid any notice of Kenny, the shite wee bawbag. Ah wanted to say it after. Ah wanted to tell you that ah love you but ah thought you’d hink it was me just saying it for the hell of it. That you’d be too fumin’ to care or think ah was being real. You’re braw, you are, Alicia. Ah love you n aww.”

They lean into each other. Sweeping strands of hair away with gentle fingers, John looks into Alicia’s eyes. She’s got eyes the colour of Bucky bottles. Bucky gives him the boak, but he loves her eyes. Their lips meet. Now the salt tastes good, Alicia’s inner voice whispers to her.

She remembers the first time they met and the first time they kissed. Now that was a winch! Not an accused winch. Not a winch that didn’t actually happen but a real one. She’s sure that the thing she loves most about John is his lips. Those ones that permanently curl into that fixed smile of his. John ‘luscious lips’ Lachlan. That’s what he’d been from that day on.

“Ah was never going to stay angry with you. Kenny’s a bolt and ah cannae believe that you actually took anything he said for real. I was fumin’, aye. But if you didnae care, why would you be jealous? That’s what I was hinking anyway,” Alicia said once they stopped winching.

“Can I come back to your bit?” he asks her.
“Aye. You might even get a lumber…mabbies.” Now it’s her time to smile.

6 July 2023

How’s That Summer Break Going?

Hello! It’s been a wee while. I was hoping that I would be posting here a little more than I have during the summer break away from uni.

I guess June was kinda crazy. Busy here and there. A few gigs and one that I couldn’t make due to Glasgow receiving a downpour of biblical proportions. I set out to go and made it as far as Buchanan Street then spent 45 minutes sheltered under a shop frontage before trying to continue on to the venue before finally and swiftly admitting defeat and heading home.

Towards the end of June I started getting my teeth into writing. I’ve taken out a subscription to a writing magazine and an online membership to their website. I’ve compiled a list of writing competitions that I am interested in entering over the next few months and have already been busying myself with researching and writing down ideas and actual fictional content and short stories.

I’m also reading as well. I read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and am currently around a quarter of the way through reading Thackery’s Vanity Fair.

I am also still a consumer of podcasts and have recently been enjoying series two of Uncanny, as well as a few documentary style podcasts – one called Shiny Bob about the Edinburgh judicial system. Another titled A Very British Cult, about a life coaching ‘company’ called Lighthouse – which I’m quite bloody scared to mention here to be honest, given how they were portrayed.

Currently I am nearing the end of a podcast on the K-pop sex scandal. It’s called Burning Sun and is a series aired as part of the Intrigue podcast series on BBC Sounds. It’s really a very disturbing listen. The systemic sexual abuse of women in South Korea is absolutely abhorrent. And the fact that these outwardly looking ‘shiny, clean’ male K-pop stars behaved this criminally and disgustingly behind closed doors is beyond alarming. It’s truly frightening what lurks behind some country’s cultures – how we believe we see them and how they outwardly project themselves to be compared to how they truly are. How these kinds of behaviours can somehow be regarded as mere “cultural differences” is shocking.

If you can deal with the darkness of this podcast – for there are very stressing details on sexual assults and incidences of suicide discussed – then I recommend you listen to Burning Sun. You can find it on BBC Sounds – Link to the podcast HERE

I have another couple of weeks to wait before I get the result for my previous module and find out how well (or otherwise!) I did on my final assignment. Of course, I will let you know here (as much as I can) about it – bearing in mind that I will need to be careful just how much I can share about my mark and pass.

I’m also hoping to write here a little bit more often, in between writing work for the writing comps I’d like to enter.

For now, take care.

31 May 2023

And In My Downtime…(Downtime? What downtime?)

I’ve been meaning to catch up with you, but by gawd, I’ve been busy! Jeez-o. I feel like I’ve hardly stopped since uni officially ended on 18 May.

I went to Pollok Park and the Burrell Collection with my partner the following day (Friday, 19 May). Knackered myself by walking nearly 20,000 steps and just over 13.5km that day. I spent the weekend recovering from that. Then on Monday 22 May, I did a massive spring clean of my bedroom, which took me most of the day – stripping my bed, vacuuming the floor and walls, making the bed back up with fresh bed linen, etc, etc. Knackered myself again.

On Tuesday (Tuesday week) in the evening I went to the Mitchell Library to attend a creative writing workshop that was being run in partnership with the University of Strathclyde and conducted by one of their CW lecturers. It was titled ‘What You Need to Know about Point of View’. I thought it would be beneficial to me in the hope it would provide me with clear definitions of how point-of-view within a narrative works. It was really good and I am SO glad I went. Even more so for the fact that I didn’t pre-book as I was unsure whether to go or not or whether I should go to one of the other CW workshops that was happening later in the week. I read in the Aye Write brochure that you could buy a ticket from the Mitchell Library on the day, so I decided to just turn up and buy a ticket then. What will be, will be kind of thing. Long story short, they couldn’t work out how to issue me with a ticket without a lot of faffing about, so they decided that because they hadn’t made the process very straight forward at all, to let me attend the workshop for free. Yes! Part of my ‘should I, shouldn’t I?’ dithering was about whether I could afford to go or not, so I was quite pleased to end up being allowed to attend for free. And it was really very good and cleared up some things about point-of-view that just weren’t sticking in my brain.

On Wednesday, a voluntary work colleague of my partner’s gave us tickets to see him perform as an extra in the Theatre Royal production of An Inspector Calls. It was a great show and we really enjoyed ourselves.

Thursday I did some writing and caught up with laundry. Friday it was the Sparks gig at the Armadillo. Sunday I caught up with a friend that was on holiday in Scotland from the U.S. We met up at the Barras market and wandered around there for a while. Visited the Blitzkrieg Shop, Glickman’s and then had lunch at Mono before perusing Missing Records. It was a full day and I had walked another 10km.

Monday, I went to see The Lemon Twigs at SWG3. Then yesterday I went and got my haircut. So, today feels like PROPERLY the first day I’ve had to just take a chill pill and rest up a bit – and do a post here.

Even just going over what I’ve been doing for the past (almost) two weeks is exhausting me! Lol. Lots of sight-seeing, writing, theatre, gigs – LOADS of walking and some dancing too. It has felt absolutely non-stop. I’m giving myself a quiet one today though.

The weather has been AMAZING! So warm and dry. Yesterday it was 25 degrees in Glasgow! It’s not quite as warm and sunny today but it’s still into the 20s and ahm still roastin’!

I’ll probably get out and go for a wander tomorrow, just so the old bones and legs don’t clam up on me completely. I don’t have anything pre-planned until Hamish Hawk on 9 June (then Ian Moss the next night) but I want to keep active and make sure I do some things and make good use of the fabulous weather. But today I definitely need to allow myself to just chill and relax.

This has been the main reason for the radio silence since the break-up of uni is just…I’ve been as busy since the end of uni as I am during it! I mean, it’s great. I’m glad I have so much to do. I’m looking into being able to do some other things while on summer break. I’ve been looking into taking a trip on the Waverley ‘doon the watter’ sometime in the summer. One trip takes you all the way out for a circuit around Ailsa Craig which would be AMAZING! I’d love to do that! I’ve spoken to my partner about it, but the decision is hers. We’ll see. It won’t be until August but we’ll need to book early to secure a place.

We’ll have another night away in Newcastle in around five weeks time so that’ll be fun. Other than the odd gig here and there, my calendar is now pretty free. I’ll still keep creating and writing during the summer, that’s for sure.

Anything of worth that I write, I’ll share here. I just wanted to check-in for now and show off my new locks. I tried a new salon yesterday. They’re just five minutes away around the corner but I had been scared to try them until now. The lady who cut my hair did a grand job and I’ve already booked to have a trim in the second week of July.

One thing I’d like to do within the next week is go to the Kelvingrove and see the Mary Quant exhibition. Possibly over the weekend. If not then early next week. We’ll see…

P.S. You can read gig reviews at the Priptona Weird blog.

4 July 2009

Photos From The Archives – 193 Birchen Grove

birchengrove001, originally uploaded by Larelle_M_R.

I have only lived in three houses in all my life. This was the second. After living for 28 years in my mum’s house, I moved to the UK to be with Em on July 21st, 1999.

We lived here until August 2003 when we moved on to Cheslyn Close.

Birchen Grove was a lovely place to live. It was a long street (hence we were number 193 – and that wasn’t the end of the street!) and was very busy. Most of the houses were maisonettes, so there were cars parked ALL THE WAY down the street.

Em’s parents Mozzy and Gilly only lived two streets away, so were within walking distance of our house.

We lived close to Stopsley village which was also within walking distance, as was Luton town centre. We certainly felt more involved in the community there. Wigmore (the area of Luton we live in now) is quite a way from town, so you tend to feel more remote and segregated.

We knew our neighbours at Birchen Grove. In the houses opposite lived Mark (we didn’t know him so well) and Harry. Harry lived in the downstairs maisonette. He was quite old, but was still very sprightly. His son would visit regularly, and they’d take day trips, go out to eat, see theatre shows. They even went to the Edinburgh military tattoo one year together!

Below us we had a real crackpot when we first moved in. Didn’t even know his name. Didn’t WANT to know! He was an alcoholic and would verbally abuse himself – and sometimes would seemingly be physically violent to himself. We had some sleepless nights while he lived below us. After about 6 months though, he moved out and the maisonette was bought by Eddie. He was a young, single guy. Quite a hippy type, but despite his age was quite a quiet neighbour and was good to have living below us.

Across the road from us was Ted, or Super Ted as we sometimes referred to him (not to his face). He was ALWAYS on the go, gardening, mowing lawns, putting the bins out each week, feeding the stray cats. I think he was quite frugal too, for at night, even in the dead of winter, he would appear to sit in total darkness. He never had a light on at night. And most nights it appeared he didn’t even watch telly.

The house itself had its pluses and minuses. It was near the end of the road, so it wasn’t quite so busy at our end. We could peer at the posh houses opposite on Sunset Drive and wonder how on earth the people there afforded their mortgages. Some of their garages were bigger than our maisonette!

The rooms were of good size – minus the kitchen which was a box! Well, a rectangle to be precise. But a very small rectangle. It was also quite cold in winter and warm in summer. The coldness was due to having old Economy 7 heating (brick block heaters that heat up overnight and are off during the day). We used to have to have additional heating during the winter months. We also had only secondary double glazed windows (removable second panes of windows), so there was a constant problem of condensation.

But overall, we loved living there and still miss it sometimes.

30 June 2009

It Ain’t ‘Alf Hot Mum. Heatwave Alert!

The UK is on Level 2 heatwave alert. I kid you not! This is really real!
Here is the guidelines for the alert levels from the Department of Health.

Heatwave Plan for England http://d.scribd.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=16953929&access_key=key-1rzunppkhw94pbd69s8x&page=1&version=1&viewMode=

I was listening to the radio last night. A talkback programme with a guy Em likes to listen to called Clive Bull on the London station LBC. A lady called in talking about the heatwave warning levels. Clive wasn’t sure what the levels represented, so the lady was setting him straight…

She said “Well, level 2 is two consecutive days of temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius and level 3 is death…”. At this point Clive, somewhat shocked interrupted and said, “Level 3 is DEATH?!”

I’m not sure where this lady got her facts from, but level 3 is NOT death! lol She went on to elaborate that she meant “potential of death” – still incorrect. Clive’s reaction to the lady’s interpretation of the meaning of level 3 DID make me giggle though!

It *IS* making me laugh that there is a contingency plan in place for the weather to get hotter than any Brit is used to. Coming from a country where the average summertime temperature is rarely BELOW 30 degrees Celsius, makes the Brit contingency plan seem somewhat alarmist.

LEVEL 3 = DEATH!!!!!!

Be warned people!
LOL

23 May 2009

Where Has Morality Gone?

There is a big story in Australia at the moment regarding sex scandals between groups of professional, high profile sportsmen and young women who participate in “consensual” group sex with these sportsmen.

Not all incidents are evidently consensual though. The ABC’s current affairs programme Four Corners looked into the way NRL (National Rugby League) players conduct themselves off-field and their attitudes to alcohol and women.

I’ve been reading the transcript of the Four Corners programme and my word, some of the reading is disgusting.

Some of the behaviour highlighted is beyond belief. One of the teams season launches (the Manly Sea Eagles) was so fuelled with bad drunken behaviour, I found myself slack-jawed reading about it. There was an incident involving Sea Eagles player Anthony Watmough in which he was at the ceremony badly intoxicated and was abusive to one young lady – apparently for the appalling reason that she couldn’t remember his name and didn’t recognise him as the “famous footy player” he so believed he is! He then went on to verbally abuse her to her own father, saying “How could you let her leave the house dressed like that?” (for obviously Mr Watmough believed her to be scantily clad) and then proceeded to punch him!!

Another incident highlighted saw team members from a different club behave in a disorderly fashion at a University campus. What’s wrong with that? I hear you ask. Well, not anything especially, other than the players had absolutely no reason to be AT the campus, and one helped himself to trying to sexually abuse a young woman who was sleeping in her dorm. Yes, she was intoxicated herself, but she was in her OWN private dorm, asleep! She didn’t invite him back to her dorm, she didn’t consent to anything. She was asleep in her dorm, and this player just walked into her room and assaulted her!

Another incident saw a group of players take back a “footy groupie” to a hotel room and forced her to perform oral sex on several players whilst being filmed on mobile phones. She was actually told to say that she’d given her consent to the sex acts, TO camera!!

A woman who was involved in arranging “groupy” meetings with footballers on Facebook said that one of the men present told her about the incident. She wanted to know if she knew the woman and so asked the player who she was. He replied “oh, just some slurry from around Cronulla.” (Cronulla is a suburb in Sydney’s south.)

One of the biggest stories to surface in recent years was an incident that happened with members of the Canterbury Bulldogs team in 2004. It was during an away game which saw players staying at a Coffs Harbour resort involved in a group sex act with a young woman. There was an investigation. Team members were interviewed, but no charges were laid. There didn’t appear to be any indication the group sex was consensual, and the woman in question was insulted by the players and discarded.

Roy Masters, sports writer and former NRL coach, seemed to believe that players participated in group sex activities as part of a “bonding exercise”. That is the most unbelievably disgusting excuse I’ve ever heard. By way of airing that opinion it is tantamount to condoning it!

Four Corners revealed that two years before the Bulldogs sex scandal, there was another sex scandal that took place while (surprise, surprise, given their high regard for women) the Cronulla Sharks team were on tour in New Zealand.

Four Corners spoke to a woman they referred to as “Clare”. She told the programme she was invited back to one of the players rooms. She was initially accompanied by two players. What was to follow was (in her testimony) NON-consensual group sex. She described aspects of the incident in detail, including mauling and mass fondling of her body and having players sexual organs probed and rammed into her face. Players were either having intercourse with her, sexually abusing her in some other way, or in the room masturbating over what was taking place. Clare was 19 years old at the time.

Over the last seven years she has had a severe alcohol problem, has been suicidal and now has to bare the brunt of Australian public opinion, in which a vast swathe just believe her to be a whore, a trouble-maker and someone who, quite frankly, deserved what she got!

I think that is absolutely disgusting. Clare named one player in particular that she remembered from the ordeal, Matthew Johns. Given what I’ve seen in the past, not the brightest colour in the crayon set. He is now an ex-player and has a role in presenting a tawdry television programme, called The Footy Show, based loosely on discussing the weeks football (NRL), but more about juvenile antics and supposed “funny” segments. Johns has an alter ego on the show called Reg Reagan. From what I’ve seen he’s as about as funny as a tooth canal. What classes for humour in my country of birth sometimes leaves me in despair. But to each their own, I suppose.

Mr Johns doesn’t deny being involved in the incident. In fact, he admits to having sex with her! And he’s a married man, but that’s okay, all is forgiven. But if he had a modicum of decency, he’d at least reveal who the other team members were in the room with him. Oh, but no, he’s keeping schtum, so is his team-mate Brett Firman, who also admits to having sex with Clare. But in a rather un-team-like manner, all other members are keeping quiet and not revealing their involvement.

There was a police investigation at the time in New Zealand, and no charges were laid.

Last week Mr Johns made some pathetic statement about the accusations raised in the Four Corners programme and subsequently through the rest of the TV and print media.

You can’t say sorry enough. Maybe to your family, but absolutely nothing to Clare. Nothing like “If I have caused upset, anguish and pain to the lady involved, I unreservedly apologise”. No, nothing like that. What a man, eh?! What a hero!! Co-host Paul “Fatty” Vautin goes on to say, after the statement, “Alright mate, well said. Alright, let’s get on with the show”. FFS! That’s disgusting.

Channel Nine (makers of the Footy Show) then stood Johns down from his presenting role. Some sanity prevailed.

Sadly, you only have to see the comments on the YouTube clip, and the numerous Facebook groups to know that the tide of support is behind Johns.

One of the most eye-opening things in this whole Four Corners report was the attitude the younger players were shown to have in reference to sexual abuse on woman and men. Shown two video clips in which in the first incident a woman goes to a hotel room with two players, has consensual sex with one, but gets raped by the other, the general consensus by the players was “She put out first”. So the fact that she had consensual sex with the first man didn’t justify her saying “NO” to the second. Other comments went “She flirted with them both.” That, basically, she asked for it! Nice! Asked whether they thought the players might face consequences, the opinion of the players was that male number two (the rapist) might, but male number one (the seemingly consensual participant) might “get away with it” depending “how good his lawyer is” says one player!! My word!

Given a second video to watch in which a drunken man is raped by a member of the same sex, the opinions and views of the young players changes somewhat. I don’t think I need to explain that in this incidence all the players realise that what happened was unjustified, immorally wrong, and actually WAS rape. One player, having a particular epiphany says “You don’t really ask for trouble if you have too much to drink and get raped by a bloke. You don’t ask for that.”

REALLY?

One of the older players there, showing the videos says to the young men “Can we see that there’s some sort of double standard that may apply here? The girl’s gone out to have a drink. No one said that she didn’t ask for it but yet the male goes out and has a drink and it’s crystal clear that he didn’t ask for it.”

Lord help me I can hear the groans of realisation and epiphanies as I type.

I rest my case.

5 February 2009

99 Things – It Was Meant To Be 100, but the last was for tagging.

You know I’m a sucker for a list. Saw this on Facebook, wasn’t tagged to do it, so thought I’d do it here instead.

001. Real name → Larelle Read (ne McInnes)
002. Nickname(s) → Loz, Lozzy, Teds, Teddy
003. Zodiac sign → Scorpio
004. Male or female → Female
005. Elementary School → Busby Infants School
006. Middle School → Busby Primary School
007. High School → Miller Technology H.S./Hoxton Park H.S.
008. Hair color → natural brown, atm
009. Long or short → v. short
010. Loud or Quiet → (in ref to what? My hair? My state of mind?) Quiet
011. Sweats or Jeans → Sweats at home, jeans when out.
012. Phone or Camera → Camera phone
013. Health freak → No, but trying to improve my health.
014. Drink or Smoke? → Drink on the rare occasion. Smoked in the past, but not now.
015. Do you have a crush on someone? → Yes, but he’s completely unobtainable.
016. Eat or Drink → (Pardon? What? As a vice? What do I prefer in general? Who asks these stupid questions?) Both, in moderation…
017. Piercings → 2 in left ear, one in right – all closed over now though.
018. Tattoos → 1 of a rose bud on my left shoulder.

HAVE YOU EVER?
019. Been in an aeroplane → Hell yes, too many times!
020. Been in a relationship → Yes
021. Been in a car accident → A very minor accident – no one was hurt.
022. Been in a fist fight → A very, VERY long time ago.

FIRSTS:
023. First piercing → Ears when I was around 7/8 years old.
024. First best friend → John and Louise
025. First award → Can’t remember
026. First crush → Only remember his first name – David
027. First big vacation→ A trip to Perth, WA to stay with my Uncle in the summer of 1979/1980.

LASTS:
029. Last person you talked to → Em
030. Last person you texted → Em (again)
031. Last person you watched a movie with → Em (yet again)
032. Last food you ate → Cinnamon grahams for breakfast.
033. Last movie you watched → Lars and The Real Girl
034. Last song you listened to → Love Shack – B52’s
035. Last thing you bought → Clothes for Em
036. Last person you hugged → (erm) Em

FAVES:
037. Food → Thai
038. Drinks → Pepsi Max (which I hardly ever have now), milkshakes – proper ones
039. Clothing → Jeans, long tunic tops, cardigans, cotton clothes.
040. Flower → Gerberas, Hyacinths and Frangipani
041. Animal → Birds, big cats and British wildlife (hedgehogs, badgers, foxes)
042. Colours → Pink (I do choose it a lot for things), pastels, and black
043. Movies → Anything really, but mostly comedies, rom coms, zom coms/horror and dramas.
044. Subjects → Science (biology, chemistry) and history

IN 2008….. I

045. [x] kissed someone
046. [] celebrated Halloween
047. [] had your heart broken
048. [x] went over the minutes on your cell phone
049. [] questioned someone’s sexual orientation
050. [] came out of the closet
051. [] gotten pregnant/got someone pregnant- lost it
052. [] had an abortion
053. [x] done something you’ve regretted
054. [] broke a promise
055. [] hid a secret
056. [x] pretended to be happy
057. [] met someone who changed your life
058. [] pretended to be sick
059. [] left the country
060. [] tried something you normally wouldn’t try and liked it
061. [] cried over the silliest thing
062. [] ran a mile
063. [] went to the beach with your best friend(s)
064. [x] got into an argument with your friends
065. [] hated someone
066. [] stayed single the whole year

CURRENTLY:
067. Eating → Nothing
068. Drinking → Tea
069. I’m about to → browse about and check online orders
070. Listening to → Nothing
071. Plans for today → web browsing, tweeting, hopefully knit a little, watch TV, etc (it’s an exciting life!)
072. Waiting for → more online shopping to arrive and the snow to melt

YOUR FUTURE:
073. Want kids? → no
074. Want to get married? → already married
075. Careers in mind → pipedream – vet or vetinery nurse

WHICH IS BETTER WITH GIRL/BOY?
076. Lips or eyes → eyes
077. Shorter or taller? → taller
078. Romantic or spontaneous → romantic
079. Nice stomach or nice arms → not fussed about the arms, don’t want abs either, as long as there’s no beer-belly.
080. Sensitive or loud → sensitive, mostly…loud can be annoying
081. Hook-up or relationship → booty call!!
082. Trouble-maker or hesitant → hesitant (not when it comes to the booty call tho)

HAVE YOU EVER:
083. Lost glasses/contacts → yes, sunglasses
084. Ran away from home → yes, in a very crap way, when I was 10yrs old.
085. Hold a gun/knife for self defence → no
086. Killed somebody → no
087. Broken someone’s heart → I think I have
088. Been arrested → no
089. Cried when someone died → yes (you’d have to be one cold, heartless bastard if you didn’t – I’m sure I know a few ppl who wouldn’t)

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:
090. Yourself → no a lot
091. Miracles → maybe, I think
092. Love at first sight → No, lust is what it is, not love.
093. Heaven → A kind of heaven
094. Santa Claus → Yes!
095. Sex on the first date → Hell yes, if they are fit and all, and willing…
096. Kiss on the first date → Yes.

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY:
097. Is there one person you want to be with right now?→ yes
098. Are you seriously happy with where you are in life? → not really, but who is? I know it could be worse. I’m not complaining…
099. Do you believe in God? → no

I’ve left 100 off, ‘cos it wasn’t a question, it said “tag 10 ppl”. I’m not tagging this time.

25 January 2009

5 Projects (+1)

Thanks Wendishness, I’ll try and do this. Not sure if I can generate 5 projects, might have to cheat an include ones already started.

1. Knit a scarf (that I can actually wear outside, in front of people!).
2. Continue on my diet which started as a NYR.
3. Start an exercise regime (help!).
4. Plan a Spring of day trips utilising the free regional bus travel we won late last year.
5. Take a day trip to London in the spring and do something different to the normal scene while there.

(+1) Live happier and healthier.

My five tags (if I can come up with 5 – maybe one of my projects should be “make more friends”?)…

Kelly
Em Squared
Cheryl (aka Hussey)
Barbs (Bec)

Erm…struggling for a fifth. I might have to pike out on four. Should there not be a time-frame for these things? Well, anyway, number 2 on my list I have to do for some time to come anyway. If it is AT ALL possible in the next 18 months to 2 years, I want to get back to being in a healthy weight range. Or at least just be overweight rather than MORBIDLY OBESE!!