So endeth the second Elizabethan age

 

So endeth the second Elizabethan age 

And just like that,

your life is history.

The new old king

can don the crown as if forever,

and already fading memories--

many decades of postage stamps,

coins and badges,

demands for tax returns,

souvenir tea towels, legal decrees,

and fashionable comedy skits--

are tagged for a museum,

as pronouns of routine and in that song

are overwritten in one missing heartbeat,

hardening understated feminine

into the ages-old patriarchy.

So today your life is yesterday

in scratched vinyl like a Beatles tune--

or maybe today was always this way,

but you were so busy that you did not see.

Long live your life.

Author website

 "Quomondo sedet sola civitas. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
- Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited 

Maybe this quotation should be at the top of every author website.

Nevertheless, every author training course everywhere says every author should have a website, so at last, A Bit of Bruce proudly presents ... The Author Website!

For the manually inclined, just type brucemarsland.com into that bar at the top of your screen, and press enter.

For the mousers, click the image.  You know the drill.

Crazy golf

Whitby

Whitby was one of my favourite towns in England when I was growing up.

My school class did geography fieldwork there.  For one assignment, I stood on a remote side street, where I had to count passing cars for an hour.  I think there were six.  Maybe I added a couple out of boredom.

At least we got to make lots of colourful charts and maps using the combined data, and I suppose our teachers got a free hour in the pub.

The main thing, though, was that Whitby was one of the seaside towns that we used for family outings when we were living in North Yorkshire.  Each time, we had to do all the sights: the fishing boats bobbing at the quay, the whalebone arch over the footpath, the 199 steps up to the churchyard following the route Dracula had taken.

Then we'd stroll back along the cobbled streets, where my mother would disapprove of the smell of fish and chips and my father would look disappointed.

Our route home took us up from the town centre and along the cliff-top.  Up there, above the lingering aroma of cooking fat and malt vinegar, there was a weather-beaten crazy golf course of 12 holes or so.  I used to love crazy golf (well, who didn't), but this was a set-up that I particularly liked.   The last hole was one of those affairs arranged so that you could only have one attempt.  The ball would go past a net of some sort and drop into one of a series of holes out of reach of the player.  There it could be collected by the ticket seller, marking the end of the round.   There was a sign above the last hole that said "ring the bell and win a free game". 

The free game was such a child's objective.  I fantasised that one day I would be able to get my little ball up the ramp and between the windmill sails at just the right angle to fall into the correct hole to make the bell ring.  Like a parrot wanting a cracker, I suppose. 

Finally, one day, after many visits in the stinging salt-air wind, I actually managed it!   I got the ball into the one hole in a dozen that would ring the tinny little bell.  Then, full of excitement, I ran up to the wooden ticket booth, all peeling paint and splinters, to claim my free game.

The free game was, of course, another round of crazy golf.  I don't know what I imagined the free game would be otherwise.   Something that wasn't a round of crazy golf.  My chagrin knew no bounds, made worse by the fact that my father was a bit pressed for time that day (or so he claimed), so I didn't get to savour every last moment of my unwanted free round of crazy golf. 

I'm sure this taught me a lesson in expectation management, but I am reminded of it now by a round of medical tests that I'm currently taking.  Each test so far has been a success in that it has been negative, but each test points to the possibility of a further test.

With each test result, I ring the bell and win a free game that I find I didn't really want.

And so it was

One of those old Facebook memes has been doing the rounds again. You probably know the one: a picture of an audio cassette tape next to a picture of a pencil. The text is something like: "Do you know the connection?"

It's a no-brainer for Generation X. But although the times have been a-changin', members of Generation X don't age. (Do we?) 

It's other things that age. Things that a youngster like me has little trouble recalling. So here's my top five "I remember when...".

5. Commercial scheduled aircraft had a smoking section.

(So much for health and safety. On Balkan Airlines, smoking was to the right of the aisle, and non-smoking to the left.)

4. Telephones rang using bells.

(Actual metal bells, yes. We were advanced, so they were hidden inside a Bakelite box. But metal they were.)

3. The toolbox in the car included a crank.

(This was just a back-up in case the automatic ignition failed. I saw my dad use it once, I think. But there it was.)

2. Television was black and white.

(I certainly remember the fuss when the old black-and-white set was replaced with one of the new colour miracles. The wonders of technology.)

1. There were no calculators in maths lessons. 

(And we were too modern for slide rules. How the heck did we manage? Oh yes ... pen and paper ... and log tables.)

Crisis and catharsis at the fleamarket

Helluva year so far.

Let me recap the blogless months. I visited the States and got engaged to a lovely Statesian lady. My father passed away. I got married, in Scotland, in a kilt, to said lovely lady. I visited the States again. Now I'm waiting on the outcome of a petition for a visa to be able to live with my wife stateside. All while trying to breathe life into my start-up company and keep the pennies flowing in, while stopping too many pennies from flowing out.

Helluva year so far.

One of the issues with moving (and moving in) after 44 years of singledom and 12 years in the same flat is that I have stuff. Too much stuff. And it can't all cross the pond and fit into the new flat apartment.

Solution: fleamarket.

I could just try to tip all my stuff into the big communal bin, of course, but that (a) wouldn't bring in any pennies and (b) isn't very socially/environmentally sound. I like money and recycling.

The problem is what to sell and what not to sell. Some stuff is a relief to get rid of, in the manner of baggage that you never knew you didn't need. In other cases, if you decide to heart-wrenchingly part with an item, and a week later it still hasn't been sold, what the heck is wrong with it anyway?

Plus, my living-room is full of plastic stackable boxes, and likely to be so for a few months.

Ah! Life, eh?

Who's in awe of the IT guy?

So. Two stories.

The first story takes place in the coastal town of St Annes-on-Sea in north-western England. I have my mini-laptop with me, with its built-in webcam, but need a headset to go with Skype. One possible port available: USB.

So I walk into a self-proclaimed computer shop. There's a guy doing something technical in the workshop at the back. I decide to not waste his time and get straight to the point: "Hi, I'm looking for a USB headset."

"Pfirrrrpp," replies the guy, inhaling through his teeth in the manner of a middle-aged man caught masquerading as a specialist. "I've never seen one of those in the catalogue."

I resist the obvious reply ("Have you ever looked?") and believe his assurances that such fanciful technology doesn't exist.

Except that I don't. Instead I go to the shop over the road.

This place is different. Not much on the shelves, but two eager looking chaps behind the counter. I try a different approach. "Hi. Look, I've got this headset with the audio in/out jacks but my laptop only has a USB port. What do you think I should do?"

Hardly a moment's pause from the younger of the two techies. Then: "Have you thought about getting a USB headset?"

I play the part of the naïve technovirgin. Oh, does such a thing exist? How wonderful and how clever you are. Yes, if you can get me one by tomorrow morning, that would be perfect.

Job done.

Now, before all the Finns start laughing at how backward the British Isles can be in matters technical, let's cross-cut to Espoo, Finland.

Second story. Having got all Skype-happy on the young upstart mini-laptop, it would be nice to do the same on good ol' desktop. Headphones are no problem. I've got the ones with the audio in/out jacks, you know. But how about a webcam?

Hmmm. Webcam.

I walk into an electronics shop (expert [sic!], with a wonderfully web-savvy lower-case logo, for those who know) and find a USB plug-and-play webcam, no software necessary, no requirement specifications listed on the packet. I wander over to the counter and ask casually if this will work on Windows 2000.

The look the sales assistant shoots at his colleague tells me instantly that I am a contemptible technocaveman.

"Pfirrrrpp," the young guy inhales. Here we go again. No, he doesn't reckon it will. He has the schadenfreude smile of someone who senses that a painful clean install of Vista is imminent.

"Is there a webcam for Windows 2000," I persist, wielding my brontosaurus bone in self-defence. No, no. You need Windows XP or ... (significant pause) ... newer. So I believe his assurances.

Except that I don't. Instead I go upstairs to the department store (Anttila, for those who care). Avoiding the look of the sales assistant, which isn't too difficult as he's browsing facebook or something, I scan the shelves. Clearance offer on a webcam, special low price. Suits ... *drum roll* ... Windows 2000.

Thank goodness there's always an IT guy around when you need one, eh?

Miles and miles and miles

The BBC reported today that, in 2009, air passenger traffic declined by its largest amount since 1945.

Whoa, there! I certainly didn't notice many empty seats on my travels, and I wasn't even flying with budget airlines. So maybe there have been fewer flights operated, through airline codeshares and so on. And that would surely be a good thing, environmentally speaking.

Which brings me to this: air miles. I just calculated my travel mileage for 2009. With Helsinki as my base, that involved a round-the-world ticket, a return to Bangkok, a return to Cincinnati, and a couple of visits to the UK.

Total air travel for 2009: 58,425 air miles (94,034 km).

2010 has already kicked off with a round trip to Washington DC, and the question people are asking is ... where next?

Watch this space! But meanwhile, maybe I'd better get out there and plant a tree or two. I think I have carbon debt.

Seeking John Thomas

Five weeks of sick leave gives one time to fiddle. To do some of those things that have been at the back of one's mind for a while.

Oh, stop it. You know what I mean.

My current project is genealogy. In the last few years, a good number of Internet search engines and databases have sprung up to make this easier than, say, ten years ago. With such assistance, so far I have been relatively successful [sic!], and in one case have got back as far as the 16th Century.

The good dude keltanen asked me yesterday what I get out of it. One thing, I said, was a sense of identity.

Let me reconsider that. What I mean, I think, is a sense of connection: with people, with history, with a culture.

For example, Charles Dickens published Nicholas Nickleby in 1838-1839. I now know with a high degree of probability that, at that time, my great-great grandfather James was a teenage woolsorter in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The genealogy gives me a personal context to a whole set of historical and literary images and allusions that I have accumulated over the years. I can now do this to some extent all the way back to Shakespeare.

Another bonus is being able to see how a cultural identity has developed over time, and to be able to get a personal reference point in that as well. For example, although I haven't yet found an actual John Thomas among my ancestors, it is certain that Thomas begat John and John begat Thomas. And with the amount of begetting that went on in those times, it becomes easy to see how certain expressions arose.

Up and at 'em

I went outside today.

Not much news in that, maybe, and I only went to post letters and buy stamps from the corner shop. But my world in the last few days has consisted of Facebook, 19th century census sheets, DVDs of Hercule Poirot, and packets of painkillers. Yes, it's post-operative recuperation, part the first.

The irony of the medics immobilising one arm and then telling the patient to change their own dressings is still playing on my mind. Now add to that the daily complications that, when fully fit, seem so ridiculously simple not to be worth mentioning.

Getting up, making tea, unscrewing and drinking a bottle of yoghurt, brushing teeth, shaving, getting dressed, putting on shoes, putting on a coat, locking the door, fiddling with the post box, finding loose change, and then unlocking the door and taking the coat and shoes off again. Not many things there that I would normally do with just one arm. And we haven't even started on other things that happen in bathrooms.

My right shoulder is stitched back and front, and has been probed internally and fixed with things called Lupine anchors. (I'm debating with myself whether to look that up on the Internet or not.)

But today I stepped outside. The world was still there, albeit dark and damp. One small step for mankind; one giant leap for the newly implanted bits of Bruce.

Accentuate the positive

I was wrong. I realise it now. I was mistaken.

It's nothing at all to do with the cobra woman. It's not that the hits keep on coming. It's something else entirely. And now I know, Candide-like, that nothing could possibly be better in this best of all possible worlds.

The year had been going swimmingly. A super Easter break in Ljubljana, a fantastically feel-good production of The Bald Prima Donna, and a fabulous adventure in India with a most delightful companion. So what happened on the way round Rajasthan that changed things, then?

It's well obvious, innit? In Jodhpur, I bought myself a camel-bone Ganesha. This particular deity is known to be the remover of obstacles. So let us consider.

(a) Contracting salmonella. This prevented me from going to Japan, and thereby (1) gave me an extra week's holiday; (2) gave me time to post my India photos on Flickr; and (3) saved me money for (b1).

(b) Dislocating my shoulder. This (1) gave me the opportunity to go to Finland's leading shoulder surgeon and arrange for a problem that has been bugging me for years to be fixed; (2) gave me time to sit back and consider the direction of my life; and (3) forced me to step down from acting in the autumn, thus giving me a chance to learn something new and fill a gaping hole in the backstage crew.

(c) Finding tiles lifting from my bathroom walls. This (1) persuaded me to tackle the problem of a couple of other tiles that were troublesome; (2) confirmed my bathroom walls as properly dry; and (3) gave me half a bathroom wall that looks almost new.

(d) Having my 40th birthday occupational health check. This (1) helped me to identify a previously undiagnosed ear infection; (2) gave me the opportunity for a free blood-test check-up; and (3) allowed my doctor to decide to hack some bits off to prove that I'm healthy.

Points (b1), (d2), and (d3) are still in the future. More on those later, maybe. But, hey, no more negative thinking. What can possibly go wrong when Ganesha is removing one's obstacles in this best of all possible years in this best of all possible worlds?

A parade of puzzled men in overalls

It never rains, but it pours.

Now my bathroom is in need of attention. I'm no Mr Fix-It, but even I can see that if tiles start to lift off moisture-proof walls then there might be a problem.

I have been visited by a whole bevy of handymen, and the pattern is now familiar. Look puzzled, tap the walls, check for damp, mutter, look worried, leave.

Apparently my walls are dry. There is no damp. There is no reason for the tiles to be extracting themselves, shoulder-like, from their allocated sockets. But they are.

The game is going through the ranks of the housing association. The owner's husband asks the caretaker. The caretaker asks the repairman. The repairman asks the owner's husband. Much scratching of heads all round.

I see it now. Mr Blue Overalls, in the bathroom, with a pile of loose masonry.

Dog's vomit and the apprentice radiologist

Warning: This is a thinly disguised whinge. If you do not want to read a medical whinge, leave now. Go on, click! There are many better things to read. You have been warned.

Oh good, you are at least a little bit interested.

Dammit, though, I didn't want to be blogging entry after tedious entry on my even more tedious health. But bits of Bruce happen and my current misgivings with the medical service, any medical service, need to go on public record. I have grown from a child who always trusted that adults knew best, into an adult who realises that, no, actually, we don't.

It's not just that, in Britain, my shoulder complaint was seen simply as an emergency procedure, with little or no follow-up. It's not just that there seems to be so little understanding of the anxiety that goes with recurrent dislocation. (And I mean real anxiety, like lying in bed worrying that you might fall out.) No, this time around, two small incidents have crystallised my suspicion that, actually, things are in complete chaos.

I thought I was treated relatively well in the emergency room in Helsinki. The whole thing took hours, of course. And to be left lying on a trolley in a corridor like that is what you expect these days. But when, later that week, I presented myself at my own doctor's surgery with the handwritten instructions from the trauma unit, I did not expect his reaction: "This is the specialist university hospital. Why have they given you this dog's vomit?"

Presumably the question was rhetorical. Sometimes I have difficulty telling. But my worthy, retirement-age Finnish doctor then proceeded to lecture me on my rights as a tax-paying European citizen in Finland. The scrawled note from the small hours of the morning and the lack of official records were, apparently, enough to convince him that I'd been treated as a shabby foreigner and chucked out onto the street.

Next up, my MRI scan results. Again, I was happy. I trusted. I believed what the radiologist's report said. And then I spoke to my specialist. With images of my shoulders on his computer screen, he was straight on the phone to the head of radiology. After a few minutes' conversation, he turned back to me: "The radiologist who wrote the report is new here. I think they will have some discussion." The report was, apparently, missing a crucial observation. In fact, it was missing an observation that was the main reason for my having the scan in the first place. An observation that means that I have now, after all these years, finally been recommended to surgery.

So here we are again. More doctors' appointments, more therapists. Time to gather the fragments of remaining trust in the system and decide how best to be sent to cutting, as a literal translation from Finnish would so happily have it.

Head first into the big, big magnet

Yesterday, in the context of India, I blogged about how crowds can be intimidating. It's time to flip the coin and ramble on for a bit about how solitude can be intimidating. Am I never free of intimidation? I begin to wonder....

Anyway, this involves things medical, with apologies to anyone getting tired of reading about my health difficulties. Though I'm not blogging about having a stinking cold right now. (D'oh! ... just go and look up the word 'apophasis', right?) In fact, the context is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Even with Vivaldi's The Four Seasons piped into earphones, spending 25 minutes lying still and alone in what seems like a big metal coffin, while bits of machinery chug and vibrate around your head, is not the most pleasant of experiences. The first time around I was mentally in control and almost fell asleep while they scanned my left shoulder. But the pre-scan injection put my right shoulder into spasm, so my second insertion into the tube was of a more disturbing order, as I was unable to either stretch or relax. Instead, I spent my time worrying about how I was going to get out of the box without straining my two aching shoulders.

At least that's over now. I will get my own CD-ROM of the results, for those long winter evenings when I want to examine the scarred inner mechanism of my own joints. Meanwhile, it's back to the specialist for the verdict.

A statistic in medical progress

I first dislocated a shoulder back in 1985, at the age of 17. Seeing a shoulder specialist now, 22 years later, I learn that with a first injury at that age, the chance of further dislocation is around 100%. Which means that with current knowledge, under my circumstances of 22 years ago, surgery to repair the damage would almost certainly follow the first incident. In my case, in spite of seven such occurrences affecting both sides, surgery has not yet been performed. This time, it looks more likely.

My shoulder trouble, over the years, has forced me to give up racquet and team sports, has seriously disrupted my theatre ambitions and participation, and has strained a number of relationships. Some people have never quite grasped that it has significantly restricted my lifestyle.

I can't help thinking that all this may have been different if I had had surgery for my first injury, as is recommended practice now. I can't help reflecting that I am a statistic in medical progress, with my experience helping others after me to avoid the same restrictions. I guess that is a good thing.

It's impossible to feel too bitter about it, though. After all, if I had been born in a less advanced age, I may simply have been left outside the cave as food for wolves.

That's medical progress. Feeding on the pain of experience.

Satisfaction in little things

I am right-handed. Today I made a cup of tea with my right hand. That means filling the kettle, pouring water into the teapot, and stirring the sugar in the cup. All that stuff. Nothing special.

Except when one's right arm has been pretty much out of use for a month.

I still have only 90 degrees of movement in my shoulder, where the normal expectation is 180 degrees, and that's without holding any weight. Tomorrow I see a specialist who will decide whether I need surgery.

When someone falls over during a sports event or in a film on television, I immediately wonder how they can do it without injuring themselves, and then remember that it's something that I couldn't manage. A couple of weeks ago I watched a DVD of a David Attenborough documentary featuring orang-utans, and could hardly bear to see all the swinging through trees. How are shoulders like that possible?

But one thing that all this does: it gives a new sense of just how remarkable the everyday life that we often take for granted really is. Opposable thumbs and all.

The curse of the cobra woman

So here I am. It's been a while.

The summer trip to India was stunning. Normal western terms of reference do not apply. The entire experience was so intense, so out-of-the-ordinary, that I'm still mentally processing. No doubt things will emerge here in dribs and drabs. For starters, check out Flickr.

The first week was a real high: heading into the Thar Desert surrounded by goatherds, camel carts, and the amazing forts of the Rajputs; discovering the incredible Golden City of Jaisalmer. The second week started on a similar high, in the dreamy white (well, off-white) city of romance, Udaipur, and the country retreat of Deogarh.

Then, on the road to Jaipur, our karma seemed to change. Waiting in our car at a railway crossing, we drew the usual attention of the local beggars. This time, it was an old woman with very few teeth and a cobra in a basket. Even if we hadn't been urged not to hand out money in the streets, opening the car window to a cobra seemed like a bad idea, so we ignored the woman as much as we could until the train passed and we drove on. I get the feeling that this left us with some sort of shadow. Since that encounter, a couple of old traumas have re-awoken.

Firstly, in Jaipur and Agra, my companion and I started to become unwell, which, on the last day, culminated in a homeward journey dominated by several hours of unremitting stomach cramps. On return to Helsinki, this was confirmed as salmonella. At 7 years old, I was hospitalised with salmonella and complications, so this ailment already carries enough bad karma in my mind. In any case, I was unfit for travel to Japan, so that leg of the summer didn't happen.

Secondly, on returning to the autumn season of theatre rehearsals, I fell awkwardly and triggered another complaint that has figured large in my medical history: a dislocated shoulder. The repetition does not make the injury less painful, and I needed a double dose of two different types of hard stuff to knock me out enough to get the joint back in place. Further surgery may be necessary to stabilise the condition at last. I am typing now slowly and left-handed.

So, as I said, here I am. Sitting at home with my second successive sick-note, remembering the highs and lows, the ups and downs, the rights and wrongs since my last blog entry. Arm in a sling, about to take my final dose of anti-malarial medicine, and hoping that simple passage of time will lift the bad karma of the beggarwoman with the cobra.

Hmph

Thanks for the link, Anna MR. Not quite what I was expecting, but remarkably apt.

After all, anyone at The Finn-Brit Players knows that I don't look good in hats. So the Blue Pyramid jury says:

You're Alice's Adventures in Wonderland!
by Lewis Carroll

After stumbling down the wrong turn in life, you've had your mind opened to a number of strange and curious things. As life grows curiouser and curiouser, you have to ask yourself what's real and what's the picture of illusion. Little is coming to your aid in discerning fantasy from fact, but the line between them is so blurry that it's starting not to matter. Be careful around rabbit holes and those who smile too much, and just avoid hat shops altogether.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Random numbers

By 19:30 on 11 July 2007, my blog had been viewed 4,065 times.

By 19:30 on 11 July 2007, my Flickr stream had been viewed 5,514 times.

By 31 December 2006, 15,512 copies of my book had been sold.

On 10 October 2000, The Washington Post claimed that 1 in 140 people react severely enough to have to stop taking mefloquine, the malaria prophylaxis that I have just started.

On 11 July 2007, the BBC 24-hour weather forecast for Udaipur in Rajasthan, India, was 35°C maximum temperature with 100% relative humidity.

The 2007 eniro telephone directory online lists 193 hairdressers in Espoo and 825 in Helsinki.

Domestic stress

Here we go again. Proof positive that I am not a domestic animal.

In Finland, where men seem to carry at least three power tools and an adjustable spanner around with them at all times, I feel exceptionally unhandy. I can usually change a light bulb. I can sometimes replace a fuse. I can very occasionally wire a plug. And that's about it for DIY. Except for the rare weekends spent fixing, unfixing, and refixing jigsaw furniture from Ikea.

So now I'm stuck. This month, not only has the safety lock on my front door decided to jam*, but I have a wasps' nest on my balcony. Like, uh oh! That's not good, right? My balcony refuses to blossom with soothing, scented flowering plants, and has started to churn out vicious stinging insects.

I've read a lot of advice. Get the right spray. Only approach at night. Do not stand directly underneath. Wear protective clothing with gloves and elasticated wrists. Um.

The wasps' nest looks small. Even smaller than my domestic ego, in fact. Nevertheless, I think I'll pay a real man and be rid of both of them.

*Addendum
The lock has been successfully replaced by a hideously healthy looking man, younger than me, wearing smart overalls, and driving a very shiny van. My bank account is now minus an arm and a leg for the pleasure.

Pathos is not a holiday destination

In the film The Full Monty, one of the guys is told that one way to lose inches from the waistline is to wrap up in cling film.

We see him sitting in the garden shed, wearing cling film round his belly, and eating a Mars bar.

That is how I feel today.