The Puddy Diaries - Nov 24

Several people have mentioned that I am my most endearing here when I write about the cat. The converse is probably something I should think more about more often, that I am clearly not normally very endearing. But, no, I think I can live with that… mostly.

But this week… well… maybe it’s high time I was endearing again. It’s been quite a while, after all. Time to update the Puddy Log.

Puddy is the semi-feral cat that came into both of our lives just as the boys were largely going out. I named her Puddy because that’s how I referred to her. That as well as Pussy, Pusscat Pussy-Pussy and Puddledy-Puddledy, much to the late night consternation of my next door neighbours, I’m sure.

So, yes, a Puddy update is perhaps in order, if only to redeem my public persona. The only trouble is… well, there isn’t all that much to update. No earth-shattering developments, no startling revelations. Life with Puddy simply goes on.

Puddy spent her Summer and early Autumn out of doors. She would come into the sitting room every evening and ignore the television for three or four hours but as bedtime approached, she would need to be off and would not be encouraged into her normal overnight accommodation in the front hall. For those months, it was like the comfy fur basket in the hall did not exist or, at best, had committed some deep and personal affront to the cat. 

But now, as the Winter draws ever inward, Puddy is once more happy to overnight in the hall. She has everything she needs there. Munchies, water, and litter tray. But she cannot get out until I come and let her out in the morning. For the first few revisits of this season, I was up at five to see if she needed to go out and, indeed, when I opened the door, out she popped. But as the days get darker, colder, and wetter, she has had no continuing enthusiasm for an early departure. Seven forty-five will do nicely, thank you. She will only visit the litter-tray when caught short and that is a rare event. So I would imagine the rapid 7.45 departure is straight to the nearest bush convenience. She does a high speed ‘slink’ through the door as soon as the opening is more than a crack and then she is gone. Until she is back again ten minutes later demanding breakfast.

It’s Sunday morning, around eight, and I’ve just been out in the back garden with a foil sachet of food, waving it in the breeze. The crinkly sound of the packet usually brings Puddy along from whatever she is doing. Last night, she refrained from overnighting in the hall. She had been in there for most of the day, in fairness, assessing the electoral candidate’s representatives as they came and went. This morning, my sachet-waving has also failed to get her to materialise. I’m not worried though. She’ll turn up when she’s good and ready.

Puddy doesn’t make a lot of noise. She has a Meow in reserve for when she’s hangry but it’s a very quiet one. We’ve got used to it now but for a while we were very surprised at how quiet a cat she is. She purrs when Patricia strokes her and when she’s chasing Dreamies around the room. Patricia won her over with patience and kindness and gets to have a daily 'fuss' on Puddy’s strict terms. In this regard, Puddy and I remain in a permanent stand-off. She follows me around with interest whenever I’m doing stuff in the garden and weaves in and out between my shins when she’s of a mind but we both seem clear that any further PDA activity is firmly off the cards.

Puddy largely ignores the television when she resides in the biggest armchair in the room in the evenings. All manners of shouts, screams, and loud noises are equally ignored. Trying to get her hooked, I went to YouTube to see if there are any videos designed to intrigue cats. Surprise surprise, there are many and, now that I’d selected one or two, the algorithm has made this my first choice of things to see. They all follow a similar theme. A log in the forest or a feeder in a garden, some food laid out on it, and hours and hours of birds coming and going. No music, no narration, no murder to solve. Just an endless stream of our winged friends, eating and leaving, like 66% Pandas. One riff on these cat videos features a combination of birds and tiny frenetic rodents who shoot in and out of various crevasses. Without having any visible aversion to either of these genera, this video has populated my nightmares on several occasions now.

As for Puddy, when one of these videos comes on, she studiously ignores it for a while but, gradually, the fascination grows. She doesn’t move in her armchair but her demeanour becomes infinitely more engaged and alert. Whenever a bird flies off screen, her head moves to follow its flight around the room. Failing to find it, she returns attention to the screen and waits to track the next departure. It’s fun to watch Puddy watching the birds and the rat-things on YouTube but the fun can never continue for too long. Sooner or later, Puddy will graduate from casual viewer status to wild hunter mode. You can almost see her mind go, “Feck it, I am gonna eat one of those Mudders.” Then she’s up and on her way to the telly, all purpose and death. It’s a sudden switch back to Match of the Day then or the telly will be shredded. Puddy always needs to go out the window and into the garden, then, just to check and see if all the birds and things are congregating out there in the bushes.

Puddy has brought a new dimension to our lives. Not quite a pet, not quite a visitor, we don’t really know what she is. We just know we care about her and will look out for her in whatever way she needs.

What does the future hold? Who on earth knows?

And am I just referring to Puddy? What do you think?

Some Previous Puddy Posts - In Order: (The Cat Act III might be the best)

Speaking French to the Cats

Desenchante par le Chat

The Cat - Act III

The Cat - Full Circle

Puddy in the Hall

Cat Dancing

Falling for All the Cats

Gladiator II – A Sort of a Review

There is a sort of a tradition, here on the blog, that if I see a movie on the first night it comes out, I might try to write a sort of a review of it. 

In the last decade, the only way I’ve seen movies on the day they come out is when the local Rotary Club host a premiere evening in the local cinema for local charities. It’s a local thing. Such was the case last night and many thanks to Castlebar Rotary for an excellent evening of old friends spotted, super canapes, nice wine, and a worrying number of warnings that we all better head to the toilet before the movie starts. I guess we are knocking on a bit.

Gladiator is knocking on a bit too. I went to see the first one with my young godson in this self-same cinema and he’s a grown-assed married man now. Trish and I went to Gladiator II last night and, yes, it was a fun night out and, no, the film didn’t quite do it for me. Sorry.

So, mostly for my own benefit, as most of these blog posts are, I thought I’d sit down on this Saturday morning and try to set down some thoughts on why it didn’t do it for me. So, if you want to slope away early this week, that’s okay, ‘cos that’s all you’re going to get.

So…

The opening titles of Gladiator II are great. A surreal animation of key scenes from the original movie where the characters appear stretched, distorted and almost agonised. Very striking and very promising. Less promising is when the title of the original movie appears on screen, and the word Gladiator gets two capital ‘I’s dropped into the centre to make the II of the title. GladIIiator, or something like that. Even at that moment, before everything unfolded, it seemed like a mission statement. Let’s take the original and drop a load of stuff in on top of it. That will be our movie.

And that is indeed our movie. It is the first movie, dialled up. The rhythm of the film is uncannily close to that of the original. Every beat the nostalgic movie pilgrim might wish for is amply catered-for here. 

That might be entirely forgivable, in a commercial/entertainment venture such as this, but the effect is spoiled by the magnification of every trope we meet. Here's just one, as an example. In the original, Maximus liked to take a little earth from the ground on which he is about to do battle, be it the forests of Germania or the blood soaked sands of the arena. It was rather an engaging mannerism, in my opinion. It showed the character to be grounded in the earth and respectful of where he stood and of where he may fall. Enter Lucius in the new movie and, from minute one, he is grabbing stuff, sniffing it, and rolling it around in his palm. It seems he can’t pass an allotment without doing an impromptu soil analysis. That’s the pattern in the movie, trope covered, trope elevated, trope devalued.

Paul Mescal acquits himself very well. Okay, I would say that. I’m Irish and we’re all proud of him because he seems humble and real and he represents us with aplomb and he is out there beating the world. And, yes, I probably would say it except, in this case, I mean it too. He is convincing as a beefed up captive returning immigrant. He looks the part. He is written a little strange. We constantly hear that it is his rage that drives him onward through the narrative but he loves a little downtime from his rage to have a bit of ‘craic’ with his fellow captives. He is also constantly speaking in absolutes, he will never do this and will never do that, in this life or the next, but five minutes later, there he is, doing it. Plus the things he is given to say are just not as catchy as the ones that Russell had. Perhaps the battle was lost because the soldiers were pre-occupied by wondering what he had been on about.

Paul Mescal reminds me of Daniel Craig but only in that they both have taken on a cinematic icon and willed themselves to seriously act the part rather than just be iconic. Paul is working very hard to make Lucius believable and relatable and one can see the nuanced work he is bringing to the role. But he is in at the centre of an absolute machine, where everyone is too busy looking over their shoulders at what went before to really get their teeth into what needs to happen now. He is largely alone in his craft.

And let’s not pretend that the original was the absolute bee’s knees either. I loved it but could also recognise that its strength was in the two enormous central characters. Back then, rage really did drive them both on and we lapped it all up along with all the spilled blood. When the central characters were not engaging, the sappy politics and general grape-eating was all a bit tedious, to be frank. But, boy, when it was mano-a-mano in the Colosseum, we were there for it.

And therein lies the biggest loss in the Gladiator II. Only at one moment, does that mano-a-mano confrontation evolve and that is a good moment. Two men, facing off in front of the baying hoard. That’s what I think I needed. Alas, instead, every time the doors of the arena opened and the gladiators steeled themselves for battle, it was not a person who came out. And, be assured, we didn’t need a man. An overstimulated hoard of Amazonian Harpies would have been just as welcome. But what we actually got was a parade of ludicrous CGI creations that had about as much actual physical threat or stakes as my tired old ass. Every time the gate opened, we wondered, “what in the good Christ is going to come out this time?” And we were never disappointed in our disappointment. We didn’t want a crossbred monkey or a fucking Hippo or whatever it was. Like the baying hoard, we craved flesh and blood. And, incidentally, the Hippo (yes, I know it was a Rhino... I'm being facetious) was immediately no threat whatsoever because we’d seen his brother’s head decorating the banquet table a few scenes earlier.

I think lots of people will like this movie, mostly because they’re not as tired as I am. Denzel is smilingly strong in this. Derek Jacobi is woefully underused but I pray he got a big cheque. The evil emperor twins were a horrible non-event. Rather than giving omnipotent despot energy they instead could only muster a sort of a tired post-show Ed Sheeran vibe.

Only one revived trope succeeds entirely. I’m no massive fan of Hans Zimmer but, with Gladiator, he created a score for the ages and when it swells once again as this new action unfolds, for a moment, everything seems all right.

I generally like Ridley Scott movies. He commandeers vast resources into engaging work. I put The Last Duel a country mile ahead of this one. Perhaps it was just that it wasn’t looking over its shoulder and applying ECG paddles to ideas that had died dramatically some decades before.

I hope you enjoy it. The more I think about it, the more I think the problem was mostly with me. I’m getting old and the things I once admired in cinema are no longer the things I crave. I just don’t think I needed another Gladiator movie in my little life and, looking back, there is perhaps not a single thing that could have been done to make me love it. Perhaps Maximus' big line holds the key.

What they did in life, echoed in the sequel.

Driving with Una

I was driving to Dublin, early one weekday morning, and I had Marty Whelan on, as I often do if I’m on the road at that time. I like Marty. He keeps it positive, no matter what, and he runs seat-of-the-pants interviews that can’t help but make you twitch. Also, he plays good tunes and that is the point, really.

Marty was playing one of his good tunes. It was by Elena Kats-Chernin and was called Eliza Aria. You’ll probably know it better as the music from the Lloyds TSB animated telly ads that started way back in 2008. Click here for a link to the tune in case it helps you relate to this post.  

The ads showed a series of distinctively animated characters on their everyday life journeys and suggested how Lloyds TSB might help. You’d know it if you saw it or heard it again.

It’s a funny thing but, back in the day, these ads always made my think of my wife’s sister Una, who I was extremely fond of. Although Una was the older sister, and a few years ahead of Patricia and me, we often seemed to be a little further down the road in some ways. Patricia and I had met before Una met her lovely Frank and we also had our kids before Una went on to have her three lovely daughters. We also settled in London a few years before Una arrived to do the same. Una was ahead of us in many, many ways but in these matters of life and young families, we seemed to take the lead.

And, because one of the characters in the animated advert reminded me a little of Una, the adverts came to mean a little more to me than just commericials. They were like a pictorial representation of Una’s life, as she settled down in London, met the love of her life, bought her own house, pursued her career as a GP and had her wonderful children. In a funny, light-hearted way, the adverts made me think of Una whenever I caught sight of one of them. Nothing remarkable, just another of my diverse passing thoughts.

The other day, when that distinctive tune from the adverts came on my car radio at about 7.30 in the morning, with the sun just crawling up, it evoked Una for me in a rather surprising way.

I remembered the last time I drove with Una in my car. How she sat in the passenger seat next to me. The seat that was now empty. She was coming over on her own for a day or two, staying in Ballinrobe. I picked her up from her London flight at Knock Airport. I was a bit late and Una was standing outside the terminal doors waiting when I pulled up. I regretted that greatly because Una was not well at the time and I hated the idea of her waiting in the cold for me. She didn’t mind though; she was smiling and glad to see me and we set off on the road to Ballinrobe in fine spirits, Una riding shotgun with her bags on the back seat.

Una and me always got on really well. We could always chat effortlessly about lots of things, but we particularly enjoyed taking about movies. We had seen quite a few together over the years. When I was working in Dublin for a few months and Trish had to stay in London, we went to the Savoy a few times and, even in London, we went a few times ourselves when Trish was busy studying. And, of course, we went as a party of three many, many times. On our drive from the airport we talked about ‘Saving Mr. Banks’ and how I had liked it and how I thought Una and her kids might like it too. The journey was not long, and maybe I’m projecting here, but I think we both knew that this would be the last time we would ever drive in a car together.

So this tune came on the radio the other morning and it evoked Una for me. And, as it did so, A wealth of memories came flooding back, all in a rush, as the music played. Everyday moments. Remarkable one-off moments. Una at our front door, smiling. Una skiing in Colorado. Una on her Wedding Day. Una locked out of her house. Una being sad in the curry house. Una giving the famous runner a lift home from the tube station. Una at the last night of the proms when we sneaked in at the last minute. Unforgettable things that we sometimes tend to forget. And, yes, I may have shed a tear or two, which I don’t very often do, and I don’t mind saying it.

And perhaps it was a form of self-hypnosis, with the music and the empty pre-dawn road, but these memories were more vivid and ‘coloured-in’ than they had ever seemed to be before. They were 4K Ultra HD memories that you could almost reach out and touch. For a moment, it was almost like Una was riding shotgun once more.

We are the keepers of the memories of the friends and the family who are no longer with us. Evoking these memories can sometimes make them spring up once more, vibrant, and three-dimensional inside of our minds. 

Even when our loved ones are still alive and right there in front of us, they really only ever exist for us inside our own minds. We can’t ever 'inhabit' them or ‘become’ them, we can only really know of them what we think of them. Granted, we can touch them and hug them and talk to them and these things are obviously vital. But the 'mind' part is very important too and it is the only part that doesn’t go away after the person dies. The person who has gone is still there, inside of our minds.

Sometimes it takes an unexpected tune to bring them back.

Young Playwrights - Showing and Learning

This day next week, the final beat of the busiest two months of my year will be struck and I will return to my burrow in the deep dark forest and sleep until Spring arrives. (Some hope).

For the past number of years, at this time of year, I’ve been part of a wonderful mentoring programme for young playwrights at my beloved Linenhall Arts Centre, run under the auspices of Fighting Words by the inestimable Paul Soye and aided and abetted by the wonderful Ernestine Duffy and, um, me.

Yesterday, we had our final three-hour session, poring over the scripts, reading them, assessing them, offering sincere reactions and advice, encouraging each other. If it sounds boring to you then you may not be a writer. It has been a complete buzz from start to finish. We have our plays now. Final polishes are being applied today and they will be dispatched to poor Paul tomorrow, who will collate them and get them off to the directorial and actorial (that’s not a word, is it?) talent.

In these sessions, I tell the young writers what I think, and I don’t really pull very many punches. I’m the Craig at the end of the Strictly judging panel. Slightly pernickety, picky, wanting everything to be ‘just so’ but always on your side, really.  But for all my mouthing-off and nit-picking, one thing is always true of these valued interactions and it’s this: I always learn far more than I teach. Always.

Young people know stuff. They always have and they always will. They know what counts with them and they know to exclude what doesn’t count for them. They have incredibly busy lives, and they are accosted from all sides by input, input, input. Yet they parse it all, get it all into its correct compartment and move on. I think that’s the main reason why I do okay at these playwriting sessions, I have such respect for young people. How much they carry; how much they know.

The joy of the last few months in these writing and learning sessions is how nobody has ever seemed to act like they didn’t want to be there. Hard work has been put in and the writers have all shown the necessary willingness to not settle for the first words on the page but to work them and work them and work them again, until they are right.

And what do I learn from all this? What do I get? It’s hard to pin down. It’s a myriad of things. Perhaps it can be summarised that all of us people who aspire to write are on a journey to a place where we will never arrive. You can be sixteen or sixty-two, the journey is the same. The truths we know are the same and the vast number of things we have all yet to learn are the same. It sounds hopeless but it is the opposite of that because, along the way, there are glorious oases (yes, that is a word) to stop at. These oases (yes, it is) are formed when we complete a piece of writing. We linger there before we strike out again, across the desert, to try to form our next resting place.

Next Sunday, 10^th November, will be the first oasis for many of these young writers. They will have written a brand new play, which never existed before and which will always be theirs. They conjured it from nothing more than imagination and passion and a question to be answered. I’m proud of them. I’m proud of myself for helping a little but also proud for the things I’ve learned while watching them do it.

The Young Playwrights are Jack Joyce, N.J. McDonnell, Ruby Moran, Yvonne Heneghan, Lily-Marie Buddy McBride, Hannah Thornton, Diana Tipane, and Billy Hutchinson.

The Directors are Bob Kelly and Joy Nesbitt and the Actors are Ian O'Reilly, Aoife Fitzpatrick, Seán Landau and Meadhbh Maxwell.

And me? I’m Ken. My part is done now. It’s over to the writers and the pros to do theirs.

I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.