I used to be apathetic...

...but these days I just can't be bothered.

We had a lovely weekend - the one just gone - spending time with some good friends who were in town to attend Corriefest at the Lass O'Gowrie. Friday night, a double-handed episode from the 1970s re-enacted in the pub by a bunch of really talented actors (some of whom look uncannily similar to the original characters they portray, but ALL of whom had their mannerisms off to a tee), followed by a full day programme of events on Saturday featuring actors, a famous scriptwriter and casting director, and the showing of some "lost" Coronation Street-related TV footage. It was all Corrie gold, and a really enjoyable series of events.

In among all this, the subject of our blogs came up. This one, and the one our friend writes. We had both connected our blogs up to Facebook through a clever widget that copies each blog post into a Facebook post, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately it turned out that for both of us, there was an unexpected downside that had hit us squarely between the eyes.

Writing here, on a personal blog with a small but friendly audience who know what to expect, and come here to read exactly that, feels comfortable. Not in a bullish "it's my blog and I'll write what I like" kind of way, but - well - it IS my blog, and I write about anything I find interesting, whether it's worldly comments on the state of the nation, or using a potato to prevent leaks. But opening the blog up to facebook, where an audience of "friends of friends" not only could be several thousand people but also is likely to comprise mainly those who would think "what on EARTH is he on about now" felt distinctly... less comfortable. We ended up feeling inhibited about the topics we could write about, because there was a kind of implied impetus, or requirement, for them to be somehow more interesting.

It's all in the mind, this, and we both recognised that. Even so, it was coincidentally how we both felt about it. In my case, I was quite happy doing the 100 Themes Writing Challenge and having them posted to Facebook because it was literary. It was "proper" writing. Not just random stuff about the garden, or the cat, or the decorating.

My friend unlinked her blog from Facebook this week and I unlinked mine yesterday, so now I feel liberated from the (probably totally imagined) expectations of people I don't know, and I'm sincerely hoping I'll get back to more regular updates. Lots has been happening both inside and out. And there's a whole weekend coming up for me to write about it :o)

Wedding of the Year

Can't be many happier occasions than witnessing two of your best friends getting spliced, and that's exactly where we were yesterday afternoon, in the company of most of the rest of our best friends, their friends, family and a bunch of very energetic small people. The kind that make weddings... um... loud. No, fun. That's it. Fun.

Starting as we meant to go on with a glass of bubbly at Phil & Vicky's (excellent hosts as always), we wended our slightly circuitous way (on account of an overturned lorry on the A617) to Mansfield Registry office for the ceremony and then, with the day's official business out of the way, we settled down to the more important business of celebrating the nuptials with further champagne, and related (and unrelated) beverages, relieved on occasion by the odd sausage roll (really nice ones, as it happened) and dollop of coleslaw.

Called upon - owing to my acclaimed position as "resident wordsmith" - to pen something in the wedding book on behalf of the mates, I can't help feeling I disgraced myself somewhat, on account of the evening's overindulgences and the ebullient flavour of the day, but what's done is done, and whatever I wrote it was written from the heart, with feeling, and with relatively little time for reflection or composition, so f**k it. As long as it's not the last thing I write in a public place, I'll be alright. I think.

Anyway many, many congratulations to Ritchie & Helena (or Helena and Ritchie as they are in the above photo). May your days be long and your troubles few, your friendship strong and your love stay true, and if things go wrong and the air turns blue, just bite your tongue and have a damn good screw.

E.J.Thribb has got nothing on me.

The absurdity of following

Bearing in mind that we've recently been to Toronto and, as always with holidays, have therefore been spending more time "out and about" than usual - shopping, drinking, eating, watching the unfamiliar TV - it's as if the culture was thrown into a kind of relief by virtue of it being (only slightly, agreed) alien.

Somehow the brand names on the clothes, the celebrity magazines telling you how to be like someone, the adverts exhorting you to drink the same vodka, or coke, or juice as your "hero", all seemed more than usually visible, and definitely more than usually intrusive.

Isn't it the ultimate in sad that there are people who really believe aping the products that someone successful uses will give them their life or in some ill-defined and abstract way make the wannabes more like the... bes?

Free advertising, reflected cool. It's all shit, really.

Wyrd or Woubt?

Chorlton Players' latest effort - a dramatisation (by Stephen Briggs) of Pratchett's sixth Discworld novel - that I spent Wednesday evening struggling to take photos of, at their dress rehearsal. It'll be the second (of three) nights tonight.

I say struggling, because being at least in part a spoof of Hamlet, it's all medieval and witchy, so the set is very dark to start with. When you combine that with the fact that  they've chosen (quite resourcefully, I thought) to handle the multiple scene changes using a series of slides projected onto the rear of the set, which means flash is out at least for shots taken head-on, and it all adds up to one big headache as far as photography is concerned.

So I threw away pretty much half of the ~300 shots, and wasn't all that happy with quite a few of the rest, but in the end I managed to salvage 98 half-decent ones which you can now see in the gallery.

There aren't any pics of the last five minutes or so, as my battery light started flashing red and I'm still a bit paranoid about continuing to shoot from that point on after that "memorable" night when I corrupted the card on the last photo and lost every one of the shots I'd taken. I keep threatening to invest in a second battery, but I only ever think about it on dress rehearsal night and by then it's too late.