Anakana Schofield

Rhotic: 2.2

It’s the belting heart I remember most acutely.

Bang, Bang, Bang — in threes.

Therefore it is not possible that the departure of sweat presented as an announcement.

It’s not possible because nothing can announce over Bang, Bang, Bang.

Rhotic 2.1

Did my face really feel like a bubbling like butter on a hot pan? What was it more accurately?

Didn’t it begin at the roots of my hair and travel up to the surface of my skin like water on a slow rising boil?

I try to recall the moment of recognition.

It was the sense that it was on the surface of my skin, that sweat had formed itself.  It was an announcement.

I think that is what happened when I laid down on the floor 3 nights ago.

Two major items to report. The first the non appearance of the BBC promised colour coded Grey clouds. Where were they? Did you see them? If spotted — report immediately to Mrsokana’s weather centre here. I remember today as a stunning sunny day. Or was that yesterday? Watch it BBC weather, I’m on ya…  There is a fantastic clip on youtube of the famous storm the woman phoned in about that Michael Fish insisted would not occur and…

Secondly, I have finally secured a potato masher and it was a narrow victory. Meet the contemporary Canadian potato masher, in case you aren’t acquainted: it does not say it’s a potato masher, but a tiny slice of lettering on the shelf that could be detected only by a ladybird said it. Technically it

is half a masher….

I explained my turbulent lack of potato masher and onset of acquisition of this one (waving it) to the man in front of me at the check out who declared his own masher insubstantial and thanked me for acquainting him with this modern masher. I think Gordon Campbell’s resignation has made people at check outs rosy round the cheeks. We all had a good old laugh.

Rhotic 2.0

Tumbling last night to the Foo Fighters, good musical bounce.

Tumbling or bumbling tumbling?

Did my face pour sweat? It was more a bubbling like butter on a hot pan.

There are some nights that are God awful nights. Nights are short and should not be God awful. They should be a few hours of puttering and bliss.

***

My garden is beyond invaded by slugs they have hole punched every inch of green in it.

Tonight someone who knows about gardening pointed out that I am in dream realm. Nothing grows, she said. It’s too cold.  It’s BC, she said.

Yes I wailed, yes it’s BC and that means a ten month gardening cycle. Doesn’t it?

Born again defeat

Had it, lost it, had it, lost it, had it, lost it — bust.

Laid on the floor, my heart beat and beat and beat. My face poured sweat. I didn’t return. I just lay and lay. It was over.

So here’s something curious a Timeline of Events in today’s student protest in Dublin, from The Irish Times which protestors “clashed” with Gardai.

Note the Sherlock Holmes tone in the list. The …we must uncover the menace who are not officially angry about student fees but have somehow infiltrated and hijacked the protest. It’s an interesting literary technique that attempts to play down the matter that any anger is legitimate about anything. A coralling effect. Get in the correct line, with the correct line. I am surprised they do not suggest the protestors were corrupted by watching French telly channels.

I’d also point out the man who drove his cement mixer into the gates of Dail Eireann recently.  Good thing he did it on his own, else they’d be insisting the SWP and the anarchists forced him into it over his teapot.

Tonight is the big night. The purple Tiger Paws have arrived and we shall see whether they work.

They’re very handsome, I think you’ll agree.

I was thinking the other day about the enormous amount of literature generated by the various Tribunals that have taken place in Ireland over the past 10 years. I had cause to go in search of a transcript because it concerned a place I had once worked briefly. Man were there hundreds and hundreds of witnesses and pages and pages of transcriptions to scroll through before I found the individual I sought.

The transcription I read went on and on in a similar manner: judge seemed to go through every line of a statement to which the witness responded very little other than “correct” at the end of a long paragraph read aloud. Then the barrister (I think) began cross examination. Again endless, endless repeating of long lines to very single word or single sentence replies.

The written and verbal equivalent of pigeon steps along a line of a never ending spool of thread.  I was trying to imagine whether in a hundred years people would pour over these kinds of papers in bound books or be able to pull them up on a flatscreen on the fridge door and what would it tell them about today?

All I really learnt was a few tidbits about the person that could probably be gathered on a Facebook query. I don’t know what I thought I’d find, I think I was mostly interested in the performative recording, of how the individual responded and dealt with being queried on a time and place I could visualize, in front of a room of people and the six pm news.

I wonder if Tribunals would ever spawn board games or reality tv shows along the lines of So you think you can cross examine? Or where the contestant has to recall minutae of xmas day 25 years ago and their family are in the audience disputing the colour of the wrapping paper.

I still have no potato masher in my life. Each Tuesday comes and with it a hot pan of potatoes to mash and no masher. I have managed to cultivate two topics of key interest that do no elicit the same level of excitement in others my age: gymnastics and penguins. I begin to comprehend train spotters and people who collect those John Deere tractors.

I give you this. They’re so clever: go limp, rather than fight, then out of the jaws they bolt….

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6wYy-YBkE0&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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