School tomorrow.....School today

Saturday. 9.45. Pooped. Off to bed now. Just for the record! Damn fine half-term.

Hmm: Sunday. 9.30. This is a ghost blog. Posted it last night. BlogPublish went funny. Entry disappeared. I went off to bed. Found it in directory today, apparently live. Add this. See what happens.

In the intervening 23 hours and 45 minutes: Reset 6 a.m. alarm for 6.15 then ignored it til 6.45. Back to school.
Grade 9s working on melodrama.
Grade 11s starting GCSE assessment.
Scaffolding rep coming in tomorrow re: building Merry Wives stage.
Tired old canvas on flats to be replaced ready for painting after school on Wed and Thurs.
Paint ordered.
Update from props guy.
Students invited to make props, paint set after school Tues/Wed/Thurs
Department meeting with stellar new colleague sharing excellent ideas born of long experience. (Every week I am happier about how the department will continue after I move on.)
First outdoor Merry Wives rehearsal: kids in much better form than at yesterday's lack-lustre rehearsal. All coming together with a fortnight to go.
Lighting plan revised.
Home to Habibi; gin & tonic; delicious light dinner of potatoes, onions, red & green peppers and ham roasted in olive oil with plenty of black pepper; snooze; taxi to panto pirate rehearsal (past Sheikh Z. road accident); Arr! Arr!! ARRRR!!; taxi home past fresh Sheikh Z. road accident.
And NOW it's 9.45. Kiefer Sullivan neverhas this much fun in 24 hours.
Gonna build some fairy wings.
Random image of beautiful raspberries purloined from ?
Wonder if this will really post this time, or be secret joke at own expense.

Men Who Read Terry Pratchett

Strangely, most of the Men (of my acquaintance) Who Cook also Read Pratchett: father, husband, son, friend, and now several of the Pirates!

It was Friend who started it, arriving to stay in 1997 with his well-thumbed collection of the then twelve or so titles.

Habibi succumbed first, followed rapidly by Habibibaba, then aged about ten. Suddenly, all three were hooked, falling over each other to read and re-read The Colour of Magic, Light Fantastic, Wyrd Sisters, Pyramids, Equal Rites, Small Gods et cetera, et cetera, et cetera! They shared favourite lines, discussed favourite characters, renamed landmarks - I could direct you to the Dwarf Bread Factory in Al Quoz. Wha-wha-wha?!

So I joined the party, or tried to. The trouble was that, while I enjoyed Pyramids and Wyrd Sisters, and was entertained by the idea of some of the characters, like the Librarian, The Luggage, and Death (ok - I loved Death! and Binky!) I was put off by the writing style, and over-exposure to that tedious loser, Rincewind. Rincewind! Gimme a break! So I gave up, wrote it all off as a bloke thing, and left them to it, apart from buying new copies of favourites as they fell apart, worn to pieces by their devoted readers. After the second paperback copy of Colour of Magic disintegrated, I started buying hardbacks, on the basis that it would save money in the long run!

(But the Truckers trilogy, Johnny and the Bomb, and THE NAC MAC FEEGLE! Fabulous! There's no greater enthusiast than the late convert.

As to the research. Dad's due for a Christmas angel this year, and although I made a Scottish (He's a Scot!) Perfect Little Angel for his big sister a couple of years ago, resplendent in scarlet and green tartan, she's too feminine to repeat for a man. Hm. Puzzle. And then I remembered something about The Wee Free Men. Pictsies. Promising. Al-RIGHT! I would read a Pratchett!

The first couple of pages left me cold. I've just finished Philip Pullman's marvellous trilogy, 'His Dark Materials' and I'm still mulling it over, so the jump from Lyra Belacqua to Perspicacia Tick took some adjusting to, especially as other other parallels began to emerge: daemon and familiar; parallel and crashing worlds. A couple of pages later, well, I was cackling!

So Dad's getting a Nac Mac Feegle this year, six inches tall, blue skinned, red-haired, bearded, kilted, and heavily tattooed...... How on earth am I going to do this?!

Here's what these guys look like.

Just brimming with Christmas spirit, aren't they? Calico Gal? Not really. Perfect Li......??? Naaah!

















Then I remembered this little book, which I bought in a library sale when we still lived near Bolton, in England. Translated from the German by Christian Albrecht and published in 1969, it is now, I think, out of print. Until quite recently, I think that German craft books and French craft magazines set the standard for everyone else: in the 1970s and early 80s, most of the really imaginative craft books were translated from the German.




















These figures are small, only 7 inches tall (17.5 cm) and modelled from papier mache and clay on wire armatures. That would be the next stage after pipe cleaners, methinks. It's a sign!



This is actually the technique for the baby Jesus, who's about three inches long before he's posed.

The adults have wire and papier mache hands with fingers and thumbs. They also have whittled balsa wood torsos, and I'm not even sure I can get balsa wood here. Possibly at Art Stop in Jumeirah Plaza, or Elves and Fairies in Jumeirah Centre. Possibly an offcut of thick MDF from one of the hardware stores in Satwa. Otherwise it's going to be wire.







I'll let you know how I get on.

Crivens!!

What shall we do today?

Fun with National Geographic
Kimberley, northwestern Australia, 1991
... no it's not us...sigh....
But it's an idea! =D

Men Who Cook

MasterChef is a British television cooking competition which has been going for decades. It was also what my youngest sister, who appreciated the important things in life, called Habibi.

I am fortunate - being only an average cook myself - to have been surrounded for most of my life by Men Who Cook. First there was my father. Of course, it was my mother who cooked every day for a family of nine, in between everything else that goes into looking after seven children and a husband who works shifts. And she loved to bake beautiful sultana scones, and vanilla buns - golden yellow scallops that came moist and sweet out of the tray. But on high days and holidays, it was Dad who cooked.

Of course, this may be one of those tricks of memory. It is quite possible that Mother usually did Christmas dinner, but because she usually cooked anyway, I only remember the times my father did it. Kids!

Like the baby who spends umpteen hours a day with Mama, but whose first word is 'Dada!'

But I shall always remember the Christmas that Dad cooked the eight-legged turkey (which must have been 1971, when my youngest brother was old enough to eat Christmas dinner, but my youngest sister wasn't). In the backs of our minds, we understood that our parents had gone for a catering pack of legs because everyone liked leg, no-one was bothered about breast, and - I suspect - the oven simply could not accommodate an entire bird of the requisite magnitude. But who cared? That year, we had an eight-legged turkey!

These days, while Mother really enjoys her meals, she's definitely more of an assembler of good things - cold meats and salad and such, or beautifully presented plain cooking. (I'm much the same, but with a penchant for making single dishes - casseroles and pies - that don't require the management of several pans at once. ) Mother pours her creativity into her garden, her knitting, and her tapestries.

Dad, on the other hand, cooks. He knows his chefs, his cooking programmes, and his cookbooks. In a kitchen smaller than ours, whenever we get over to stay, he pulls out all the stops to present starters, main courses and desserts, always accompanied by the right wine (bonus feature: he was once a wine waiter at a rather swish establishment in London, and knows his wines too - hm... at this rate I could run a raffle: Dinner for two, anyone?). And it's all to die for. In fact by the third day of splendour I think it might be to die from - but what a way to go!

As for the rest of the Men Who Cook: my eldest brother trained as a chef; my youngest brother draws on the flavours of the world for his stews and curries; Habibi is self-taught and loves to experiment with recipes - quite possibly even more than he enjoys eating the results; a friend who stayed with us for several months (and with whom we later stayed for several months!) was just as enthusiastic - to the point where he and Habibi were all but competing for kitchen time.

This was great during the week, when we sat down to a fine evening meal; but at the weekend, one of them would prepare a huge cooked breakfast, and the other would cook a wonderful dinner, and it began to feel like a sustained campaign to fatten me up for slaughter.

Yes indeed, it is possible to have too much of a good thing!

Meanwhile, I was the envy of my girlfriends, who all went home from work and cooked dinner for their families: You mean they both cook? They won't let you in the kitchen? Can we have them after you?!

And now Habibibaba has discovered the culinary arts. The signs are unmistakeable: detailed, happy descriptions over the phone of what he's cooked, how he's cooked it, and who for; the phone call to Habibi to find out how, exactly, you roast a chicken; the deeply satisfying announcements of the acquisition of an excellent knife, a good set of pans; and the walk down from The High Place at Petra, where I was taking in the gob-smacking (er.... I mean awe inspiring...) vista and astonishingly varied rock strata, while Habibibaba quizzed his father on how to make a proper Bolognese sauce, all the way down. It was lovely to see the pair of them so absorbed in a shared passion.

Yes sisters, they've got me surrounded to the third generation. Does it get any better?!

Well actually, yes.

A few months ago, Habibi came across HalfManHalfBeer's blog.... and his recipes. A new adventure begins! Chilli con Carne made with cocoa and smoked pepper. Chicken Tikka Masala. Chicken sort-of-Kiev-but-much-better. Classic Chish 'n' Fips. Oh yes.

Go to this man's recipe collection, people!

One day he mentioned that some of his favourite recipes are from Gordon Ramsay. With Habibi's birthday coming up, I camped out in Magrudy's for an hour or so, with a stack of Gordon Ramsay cookbooks, and picked Secrets, which focuses on techniques as well as recipes: right up Habibi's street.

Yesterday we had - beef fillet with a gratin of wild mushrooms.

See?

Man returns from supermarket with interesting goodies











Man preserves Aura of Mystery










Man substitutes available tame Shitake mushrooms, for unavailable wild mushrooms.








Man chops green things and pokes brown things in pan







Man shows large pieces of cow what a frying pan looks like





Man lets cow pieces get their breath back (definitely still mooing on arrival on dinner plates some time later)





Man prepares prettily coloured heaps to please Woman







Man adds extremely yummy brown stuff and yellow stuff, before putting cow pieces in hot oven in case they're feeling cold




Man presents feast to suitably appreciative Woman, who will love him forever.
(Apologies for poor pic.... It looked so much better in real life.....)






There. Did you enjoy that? I hope so. This is a delicious dish! Oh yeah!


P.S. Woman does her bit:

.










So worth it =D

Meanwhile, down in the engine room......

I thought I'd see if there was a comparative time zone table, so I'd know when PDT is, and stay away from the laptop for the duration of Blogger's planned maintenance.

There wasn't one, but they did have this log.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Wow. Ok. So it hasn’t been Blogger’s weekend. Blogger was down for a little over three hours this evening, due to the near-simultaneous failure of a critical component and its backup. This outage also impacted the loading of many Blog*Spot blogs, which rely on Blogger for a CSS file.

We apologize profusely for this outage. Blogger should be working as normal now. The new version of Blogger in beta was not affected.

Posted by Pete at 20:23 PDT

Friday, October 20, 2006

We’ve been having a bit of slowness this morning. Technicians are on the scene. Update, 11:15: Most of the problems are resolved. Thanks for sticking with us through the maintenance. Blogger will be running a bit slower than normal for a short time (possibly for the rest of today) as we have a handful of servers out of commission. If you see any error pages, please just wait a sec and try again. Posted by Pete at 09:11 PDT

Thank you Pete (and Pal, who logged other jobs).

See, guys? They are doing their best, and they tell us what they're doing.
Don't you wish more companies would try this approach to customer service!

Bloody Hell!

Good grief! I don't know how I did it, but I certainly have done it. I thought it was bad in Firefox, but mein gott! Look at it in Internet Explorer - now that's how you kick out a sidebar.

I'd like to call this a learning curve, but all I've learnt is to be veeeeery wary of the font options!

I expect I'll get a nice new page in November, and I'll try not to break it......... :(

Firefox v Internet Explorer

Oooeee! (She's been on the coffee again...) Oi loiks Firefox, oi duz.

Part the First:
While she was working on my blog to make it more beautiful and practical (as per William Morris's dictum that everything in your home should be both.) NZM directed me to Firefox, as Blogger's recommended er... web-thingy....

Isn't it fast and crisp? It's also much more tolerant of my tendency to post stuff that's too wide for the field: where Internet Explorer shows the ghost of where the borders are supposed to be, Firefox does something clever that keeps everything tidily ghost-free. Yay!

What IE does better is hold onto the text. In an earlier entry, I wrote about Christmas and
'the whole carolsingingmassattendingpantomimecheering-roastgoosestuffingtreedecoratngfairylightpopping-stockingfillingcrackerpullingQueenupstanding-JamesBondwatchingDelboychortling- thing.'

IE coped once I put the hyphens in (after the original entry took up the whole screen! LOL!!) but in Firefox the line of text goes streaming across the screen.

So, time for an experiment. Let's see if this the latest entry, which will appear at the top of the page, will fit - or kick my sidebar down to the bottom of the page. I'm rather enjoying this!

Part the Second
And the result is: a draw!
Yes, Ladies and Gentleman, Firefox and Internet Explorer both carry the post, and leave the sidebar where it is. However, while IE is not as sharp, and (next time I break the border again) will show a ghost, it does contain the text. Firefox, on the other hand (crystalline) has the text skedaddling across the sidebar, like a stream of lemmings heading for the nearest cliff. Well, it makes me laugh.

OK. Back to the dollies. I'm having such fun with this, though I've learnt to upload my pics into drafts, for as long as Blogger.Photo's up and running, then come back later and post text. Much less frustrating than trying to do the lot at once, and sitting waiting to see whether it will, work, or do almost everything, or crash and take the lot with it.

BTW I lost a post last night as I was saving it.....Aaaaaarghhh!.....Noooooooo!!!! Not only did the entry disappear, but Blogger crashed completely. After a couple of days of Blogger-wrangling I had learnt NOT to let it get to me (Pain...... Gain..... It works.). When I could get back in again, the entry was not in the directory, so I clicked on Create New Post, and then on Recover Post. The prompt came up, and I clicked to continue since I had nothing to lose, but my temper. And lo! There appearethed on my screen the entire entry, fully formatted, with all pics in glorious colour.
ThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyou....whimper.... (Testing Firefox again....heeheehee...)

So, chums, remember Recover Post. And if you're familiar with Pacific Daylight Time, don't bother blogging at 2pm, because there's a Scheduled outage at 2PM PDT. Blogger's got a headache...

P.S. I do get frustrated with Blogger, but on the other hand (as I've mentioned elsewhere) I suspect that it's become a victim of its own success. How many millions of us use this facility at any given time? I don't know how many staff or computers they've got, but I don't see how it could ever be enough. Me, I'm a fan of Blogger, warts and all (No - not me! Blogger!) So I have no problems with a scheduled outage if it's going to improve the service that keeps me in touch with so many interesting people.

Part the Third.
Hmm. Back Again. Slight technical hitch with font size stuck in Large. Can't fix it in Firefox. Going to try in IE.

Less amusing than earlier. Is this Firefox's revenge for the wind-up? Hmph!

Part the Last
I think I've fixed it, by taking one para at a time, and going back to check. If this entry is still shouting at you, please accept my apologies. I didn't mean to push the formatting to critical mass...

Sarah

Visiting my eldest brother's family a couple of years ago, I told Princess Alice that I was going to make her a doll, and asked her what she should look like - and so we have Sarah, with curly brown hair, and dressed in pink. Now, I don't go for Barbie pink, which is what we're talking about here, but Alice just loves pink. And Barbie! Upshot? An assortment of clothes, including pink pyjamas!

This is also from Alicia Merrett's Book of Doll Making - quite possibly the only book on designing and making dolls that you will ever need. Such range, and so well written and illustrated that it makes learning as satisfying as seeing the end result.

However, I don't care for the expression on 'Beth's' face. And I like embroidered faces, for reasons both aesthetic (lively texture and colour) and pragmatic (A wrong stitch is easily unstitched, but once you've taken up your permanent pen, and inadvertently made your doll wall-eyed, cross-eyed or terrified, there's no way back to that promising blank face!)

So I followed the instructions for Joe, a toddler doll. Look at the sparkle in those eyes! Don't you love him!



So, this is Sarah. The head and body are made separately, and stuffed firmly. The arms and legs are cleverly designed to bend at knee and elbow. I confess to a mishap: I stitched the knees the wrong way, so that her legs bent sideways. Now Sarah is a traditional ragdoll, so there was no way I was going to get away with it; but I'd stitched them too strongly to unpick without ruining them. (I thought about it!) So Sarah has traditional legs, and I've got a pair of spares for something less..... traditional...





In dress, pinafore and felt shoes.





In a playsuit from a crazy patchwork experiment gone wrong. I knew it would come in handy eventually!


She'll be wearing pink pyjamas.... Even I have to admit, she does look pretty in pink!





The hat's from a different pattern again. This book will keep me going for years.


























And I still cannot quite believe that I made something as beautiful as this.

Sybil - just a pretty trifle

This pattern is from a terrific book, the imaginatively titled Book of Doll Making, by Alicia Merrett, which I bought at Book Corner in the Dune Centre, Al Diyafah Street. (Do look at her site, which is mostly mouth-watering patchwork.)


Hepzibah has button-jointed limbs and a needle-sculpted face - less challenging than it sounds! I love the reversible hat, and used it for Sarah, too.



















Here you can see how the doll is constructed. Because I used satin, I had to stuff her quite softly or risk shredding the seams. If you want your doll to sit up without support, you should go for a good quality cotton (dress weight for a decoration, sheet weight for playing with). A cotton will support the head, withstand firm stuffing, and keep its shape when you stitch your buttons through body and limbs.






Twenty one inches of classic Hollywood glamour!








I want a coat like this! But I'll try and get the collar right next time....











As with Sarah, I preferred an embroidered face to drawn-on features. Also, because I made her for myself, which means that safety isn't a factor, I used white seed beads to highlight her eyes - literally, since they reflect light in a way that white silk (floss) can't.


I always knew I wanted her to have green hair to match her eyes, but it took me a while to decide on the style. Meanwhile, Sybil sat on a shelf, green-eyed, pensive, and quite bald under that hat. She put me in mind of the sybils, the female seers of classical times, hence her name.

A bald doll is simply work in progress, but this one disturbed me. She was disconcertingly real, regardless of the particoloured body. I couldn't just leave her on a table, any old how: she had to be up, elegant, with her collar turned up and her hat turned down. If she hadn't got hair, she at least had her dignity.

On reflection, I realised that the other dolls were archetypes or children; their features sweetly neutral, their expressions uncomplicated; but Sybil has an extra, unmistakeably adult, dimension - a suggestion of wisdom gleaned from experience - which turned my pretty trifle into something else entirely. Maybe it's the glass beads in the eyes? The arch of her brow or eyelids? I expect that a psychologist could make some suggestions, but me, I don't know.

I have always understood that the human race responds very powerfully to its own human image, and that this is not simply a matter of aesthetics or vanity; we need to represent ourselves to ourselves. I know where my increasing fascination with dolls comes from, but I'll spare you that. Ah, tis a grand thing, the human psyche!

Anyway, this particular pretty trifle will always put me in mind of women who face down cancer and the wretchedness of chemotherapy with quiet courage and a show of stylish aplomb. I've known some. Bring on the green wig, the snazzy hat, the silk scarf and the huge brooch: someone's got a life to live.

Doodle

I believe I mentioned doodling faces as a useful exercise. It's also fun! I did these a couple of years back, and keep them for reference.

I cannot draw for toffee, as all my students can attest, so I copied most of them from somewhere else before cutting loose and experimenting. Certainly, if you want to make a doll with an identifiable race, age, character or personality, you're going to need more than two beads and a stitch of pink!

Good sources, depending on whether you're aiming for fantasy, cosy, satirical or portraiture, include newspaper cartoons such as Eb & Flo, Dilbert, Garfield, Andy Capp; - children's comics and the likes of Marvel comics; political cartoons; children's picture books; books for older children - especially if they have line drawings; and magazine adverts. That's just off the top of my head!

Incidentally, while the Perfect Little Angel and Calico Gals are presented as female, the faces and bodies are androgynous, so you can do what you like really. (I know I keep saying this, but it's true!)

Both patterns are intended for hanging, or sitting, but if you alter the leg pattern to give them feet and/or insert thick wire into the legs and body, you can pose them to strengthen the sense of age, character or situation. (Good grief! Who let the drama teacher in here?)

Going now!

Angel Variations

More challenging than the Calico Gals (9 pattern pieces instead of 5), the Perfect Little Angel is also a more stimulating and versatile pattern. Here are some of the things I've done, with the pattern at the bottom, in case inspiration strikes!














My eldest brother and his wife produced their own personal little princess - Alice, by name - so I made a medieval princess for them. They now have Princess Clara too, equally gorgeous, though completely different from her big sister.

As the eldest of seven, I know and rejoice in the individuality we're all born with. I may hardly ever see my fambly, but I love 'em, and next summer, we're moving back to Europe - Wheeeeeeee!

The medieval angel is the closest to the original pattern, although that specifies double fairy wings, and I prefer a single pair.

This one I kept!
I spotted a cheapo imported Chinese wreath in a bargain shop on Rolla Road in Bur Dubai; stripped off the decrepit robin and other tat, but kept the little sacks tied with red ribbon, and some of the artificial greenery; and repainted the lettering, added cones, star anise and the little bell.
Jo - let's call her that after Jo March, who knew how to do Christmas properly! - Jo is not wired, and cannot balance on this shallow, curved surface; but I didn't want to glue her in place, so I resorted to two carefully place safety pins, and that has worked a treat.



Here's her back view. Without the wings, you can see that the skirt is a gathered rectangle, and the bodice another rectangle, masking the skirt gathers, and stitched into place.









The bloomers are part of the doll: they are stuffed less fully than the torso and head, allowing the doll to sit. The dress sleeves are also 'built in'. If you use cotton rather than felt, and give her a secure hairstyle, such as braids stitched firmly in place, I think that this pattern gives you a doll sturdy enough to be played with, and survive washing. No bead eyes though!






Serafina is just for me, and has nothing to do with Christmas. She's wearing what was once a beautiful Indian brocade trouser suit from Splash, plus an earring I've had since my twenties - I hate the way I always lose one earring, but at least it gives me an interesting collection of odd ones for odd projects!




I've made other variations too, but I have no photos, unfortunately, because it was a while before I thought to record what I'd made, and who for.

One Christmas angel was for a seven year old who had admired another one I'd made. I was going to warn her mother, before Christmas morning, that it was less a toy than a pretty ornament - but they didn't wait til Christmas to open the wrappings. Oops. Next time I saw that doll, she was in need of a tailor, a hairdresser, and a week in intensive care! Be realistic about how children play with dolls.... sob!

Another was for a friend with considerable knowledge of Maori culture, who was returning to her beloved New Zealand. I had a dark green shalwa khameez that looked wonderful at my third brother's wedding, but was now faded in places, and put away just in case. ;P The gold block print on the hem and dupatta had always reminded me of traditional Maori patterns: perfect!
I used a mid-brown felt for the doll (any darker would have been too much with the dark dress, even with lots of gold blocking), mother-of-pearl buttons buttons (Satwa again), and peacock feathers for the wings, angled so that they swept up and out, taller than the doll herself.
Damn, I wish I had a photo of that one!

Ditto for another South African friend: I went for satin and gauze in cream and antique gold - fabulous against dark brown felt - and crowned her with orange and yellow flowers like the bouquet that Serafina is holding. Never mind having a photo, I wish I'd made her a little cousin!

Anyway, here's the pattern, if you'd like to have a go yourself.





Finally, another variation, for a Palestinian friend who absolutely loves colour, and is always a delight to the eye in vivid complementary and contrasting colours - and she has the vivacity, warmth and style to carry them off. This time I bought the wings and simply stitched them on: a spread of real feathers, shaped like a butterfly.

I've included Laila separately, because she does not follow the pattern exactly: the separate head, plus turban would have been huge - out of proportion to the rest of her - so I made the head all of a piece with the torso as for the Calico Gals.


Once you get started, there's no end to the flow of ideas, and what keeps it fresh and interesting for me is working with other people's colours: I don't know about you, but there are some colours, and combinations, that I really don't get on with, and the challenge is to come up with something that works for both of us.

If you can do that, then it becomes almost as much your friend's gift to you as yours to him or her, because you have all those days of pleasurable anticipation as the gift came together in your hands, in colours which from now on will always have a happy resonance for you - even if you still wouldn't be seen dead in them!

Enjoy. And post pictures!

Perfect Little Angel - the pattern I use most

Here she is, Her Angelic Loveliness, the best Christmas angel pattern of them all, in my opinion.

She appeared in Woman's Weekly, several years back. You can buy the kit online from the Christmas section of Candle House Crafts which has plenty more charming designs.

The post that should appear between Canadian Quirky and Calico Gals! (Don't ask.)

While Margi Hennen was the catalyst for tossing out convention, I took the pipe cleaner bods - obviously more sophisticated than those for the felt dolls, from Hannelore Wernhard's enchanting (and very practical) book, The Knitted Farmyard. (My farmyard consists of lots of separate knitted bits, none of which I have actually made up - I rather missed the boat with Habibibaba, but there are always the nieces and nephews to finish it for.

So, this is the basic structure for the Gin Fairy (Sorry Mother - I don't think she even likes gin..... so I guess I get that from my dad!), Harriet, and TFFKAP (The Fairy Formerly Known As Psycho).

And if you can get a copy of Hannelore's book, you can make these:


or...this!

What greater incentive could you ask for?

Calico Gals

I think these came from Prima magazine - but I'm not sure! It's a practical magazine full of gardening, cooking and making ideas, and features well-designed pull-out garment and craft patterns, which I think anyone can follow successfully.

This is a sleeve from the binder where I keep my patterns. Tracing paper can be hard to find, but I use airmail paper to trace doll patterns, and paste it onto cardboard for strength. They stay in the file from year to year, and if I tear something, I can retrace it.

Here's my Calico Gal. My youngest brother's twin boys were six when I made her: I thought they'd rather have a funky angel than an airy fairy.

She's a traditional soft-bodied doll with no awkward corners, darts or gussets to contend with; her face is done with felt tip; and that's the easiest head of hair I've ever done! If you'd like to do something similar, look out for a pattern with a keyhole-shaped head and body section, and long slim arms and legs. Or be brave, and make your own paper cut-outs, trimming them until the arm and leg sausage shapes are in proportion to the head and body shape. This naive style has spread into shaped and painted tin (Magrudy's have stocked them for a couple of years now.) so a little window shopping will help you to clarify the style you're looking for.

There are only two potentially tricky areas:

1. When you've sewn the arm and leg seams, you'll need to take the wrong end of a pencil or knitting needle, and first poke them inside-out (actually inside-in! - so that the seams are turned inside), and then poke stuffing in, and tease it out til it's evenly spread. This may sound silly, but don't make the legs too thin, or you'll never turn them or stuff them!

2. With the keyhole shape, the narrowest point is the neck, and tight curves are quite challenging: make it easy on yourself: keep the curve shallow, and snip little 'v's out of the finished seam allowance after sewing; that way, when you turn the head and body inside out, the side seams will be smooth.

If you look at the photo - and at the pattern piece in my file, you can see the shallow curve from shoulder to head. Mind you, if you get it wrong, you can always tell your children that you've made them the Hunchback of Notre Dame. If they're so impressed that they beg for an Esmeralda, remember that she has long hair which can hide any little neck problems - though of course, you'll know exactly what you're doing by then!
As I said, practice makes perfect - or confident, at least!

Canadian Quirky

This feature on Canadian maker Margi Hennendolls is from the same issue of DOLL as the little felt dolls.

I was inspired by the alliance of wit, warmth, and modern artistic opportunity, with an old-fashioned ingenuity that recalls pioneer women reworking old sheets and clothing into wonderful quilts to soften the rough edges of pioneer life. (We had all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books at home when I was a child. Caroline Ingalls was a remarkable woman. Whatever you made of the (syrupy!) Little House on the Prairie TV series, I would strongly recommend the first book, Little House in the Big Woods....and then there's On the Banks of Plum Creek, Little House on the Prairie, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter..... you get the picture?!)

Anyway - Here's a Christmas angel I made years ago, from samples of furnishing fabric. Basically, as you can see, I just stitched some squares together, made a head (drawing round something circular to get it right) wrapped it up, stitched and stuffed and stitched again. I don't recommend velvet for small work - too bulky on corners - but I'm fond of this Miss.

The pearl bead halo is wired on, and has to be straightened every year when it comes out of the the Christmas deckie box. Ahhh!



















Do you see the influence of Margi Hennen in this wild vision in silver? I made her for my mother's Christmas tree: a fairy (definitely no angel!) for the more mature woman!

She has a pipe-cleaner body, with legs encased in woven ribbon.
Instead of felt, I used soft cream cotton for body and hands - which means a seam allowance to allow them to be turned inside out - otherwise she'll fray!
I cut two keyhole shapes for her head and torso, seamed, turned and stuffed them, and stitched them to the pipe cleaner armature. Getting technical now! See next entry ;P

The silver dress is one big rectangle with gathers around the neck slit; seamed down the sides, and sewn around the hands (on their pipe cleaner ends). It's a kaftan really, tied at the waist, with the upper part pulled up to create a bosom, and the bottom edge deeply frayed.

I may have drawn her face before making up the body: there are two advantages to this approach: 1 - you're drawing on a flat surface, and 2 - if you make a mistake, you can just turn over and start again! However, you need to pick pens that will not bleed ink, to remember that the stuffed face will curve, and to think about where her hairline will be. Practice makes perfect, but mistakes can be hilarious, or result in unexpected depths; bottom line - Do it your way!
P.S. The wand is a cocktail stirrer, just to complete the Gin Fairy image!


Next up, the formerly stoned/psychotic angel I mentioned before. She's actually a variation on the felt dolls.

I reset her eyes (felt tip, though you can buy fabric crayons and school-tag permanent pens) but the smudges indicate where I first stitched the beads - so far apart that she was more wasp than fairy.


The head is a gathered circle of felt, as for the felt dolls, with lengths of gold braid stitched on.
The body is a rectangle of felt, wrapped and stitched around padded pipe cleaners. (Again, see next entry.) As you can see, the head is attached at a right angle to the torso.
Her legs are pipe cleaners in the same woven ribbon as Mother's 'Angel'.
The arms are different. I threaded wire through this really thick multi-coloured braid, turned back the ends with pliers because vicious scratches have no place in my Christmas experience, and frayed the ends to suggest fingers.
The dress is a rectangle, not a cone; hemmed at the bottom and gathered at the neck on the doll herself, with a ribbon sash to add fulness and keep it in place.


And this is Harriet. I love Harriet: she's so optimistic, and nothing surprises her. She was my first Margi Hennen-inspired doll.

Keyhole face and torso on a pipe cleaner armature, just as for the Gin Fairy, and as you can see, the pipe cleaners mean that you can pose her.
The terracotta tabard is all that remains of a once splendid silk suit that Habibi had years ago. The under-tunic is a longer piece of fabric, hemmed and doubled over, with a neck slit. Those are beads of semi-precious stone at her wrists and collar, bought in a tiny packet from a haberdasher.

I don't usually buy variegated yarn because I don't like the effect when it's knitted up, but it's perfect for suggesting the various hints and tones of a head of hair. Here, though, I used yarn in two different colours, to get the balance I wanted. I cut a piece of card for length, and wound the yarn round and round until I had the fulness I was aiming for, then stitched the hair in place, without cutting the ends, and used contrasting thread to prevent tangles.





And the moral of the story is, whether you go for nursery felts, pink fur, black leather, purple satin, foil, crepe paper or - whatever! - from a basic model, you can do pretty well anything you like, and if your angel doesn't turn out quite as you expected, you can always sit her amongst the foliage of your Christmas tree, positioned to show her best feature!

Christmas angels from the felt doll pattern

I think these are gorgeous. They make me happy every time I unpack them. I followed the felt doll pattern, but only used felt for the faces and hands: the dresses and wings are made of fabric scraps, sewn together with a running stitch. Since these are decorative and naive, no hemming or finishing is required.

I started off with the idea of making a trio to hang outside the front door of our apartment, largely to appeal to the children on our floor. I placed various felts, fabrics and embroidery silks together until I liked what I saw, and then worked each one out as I went along. Common sense meets happy afternoon in!


I used cheap white pipe cleaners for the arms and legs, colouring the legs with felt-tip pen.




These angels are airborne, so no big boots!

Before drawing or stitching the face, I suggest you try out different faces on paper, to balance the features, and find the expression you like. I spaced the eyes of my first Christmas angel too far apart, making her look either stoned or psychotic, depending on which angle you saw her from - most disconcerting on top of the tree!

I wanted more delicate features than in the original, so I used coloured sead beads instead of large black beads, and left out the nose stitch. You can buy small packets of seed beads from FIDA, or most other haberdashers in Satwa, though if you are planning a project that requires lots and lots of beads, crystals or artificial flowers, the little shops around Naif Square in Shindagha sell larger quantities more cheaply.

For me, the most challenging aspect is often the hair. I fold hanks of six-strand embroidery silk (called floss in the States, I believe) and wrap and pin them around the head until I'm happy, before stitching them down with matching sewing thread. These dolls are so small that you can afford to be generous. Since the stitches for mouth and eyes start from the back of the head, the hair will cover the start and finish knots, and the gather in the back of the head.

If you are making a dark-skinned doll, the eyes tend to disappear into the face; so however you make the eyes - French Knot, bead or marker pen - if you start with a dot of white-out, it really brings the face to life. I learnt this after I'd finished the angel on the left!

The banners are rectangles folded over to hide the backs of the large straight-stitched letters - I imagine that Stem Stitch or Chain Stitch plus French Knots would be better for the curves of Arabic.
The pipe-cleaner arms are stiff enough to hold the banners taut.
The wings are two circles of metallic cloth folded over to give a little stiffness, overlapped and stitched to the dresses, and frayed a little to suggest feathers.
The three angels are tied together with gold thread, with a hanging loop at the top.
Definitely not rocket science!

OK. Can't persuade Blogger.Photo to upload the other front and back views, but you can probably enlarge the trio photo with a click of your mouse. Have fun! I did!

60-something days

The other day I wandered onto a blog with a big banner announcing

'65 days to Christmas!'

Now, before you groan because you really didn't want to know that, I'll tell you that

1. I just love Christmas, and we really go for it at our house.................. but................
2. I absolutely hate the September-October-November 'festive' frenzy that sets cash tills playing Jingle Bells and perky elves popping up being teeth-gnashingly jolly when all I want is to buy a newspaper.
3. I have always loved Christmas here because you can do it in your own time (December's good for me.) and your own way, be that a video and a packet of turkey flavoured crisps or the whole carolsingingmassattendingpantomimecheering-roastgoosestuffingtreedecoratngfairylightpopping-stockingfillingcrackerpullingQueenupstanding-JamesBondwatchingDelboychortling- thing.

Buuuuut I love a home-made Christmas, and that's something you can't pull off at 11pm on Christmas Eve. (And that's the voice of experience: deadlines are not my strong point!)

I love to bake, but I only do it at Christmas, so one of our family traditions is mis-shapen and interestingly textured biscuits. They taste good, and they all get eaten, but I usually buy Spinney's mincepies when friends come round....

I love decorating with the accumulated treasures of years, such as the glitter-and-foil star that Habibibaba made at nursery school 16 years ago; the salt-dough mobile he made 15 years ago (Good stuff, salt-dough.!); the one special ornament we'd go out and choose together each year (preferably at THE One, so as to combine it with a cake-testing mission), the daintily plump pirouetting fairy that recalls our pantomime fairies of 2000-1; and the glorious glass and feather confection Mme Cyn gave us two years ago.

And I get endless pleasure from making Christmas angels for the tree - oh - and everywhere! I started making dolls four or five years ago, starting with simple patterns that lent themselves to adaptation, progressed to Christmas angels for my far-distant parents, brothers, sisters and nephews, and on to more complex patterns.

So if anyone else wants to play, (on the basis that if I can do it, anyone can!) here's what I've done from magazines and books. (Ahhh... so that's where she's going with this........)

The November issues of women's general interest and craft magazines frequently feature an angel pattern. If you want to make a doll that will survive being played with, you may find pattern books in the craft section of a Magrudy's branch; but in my experience the upper floor of Book Corner on Al Diyafah Street is the place to go: pull down a book, pull up a stool, and whether you're looking for recipes or craft guide, I defy you to leave empty-handed!

This is from DOLL magazine, Issue 44, June 2001. I bought it from the ground-floor bookshop in Jumeirah Centre, which probably has the broadest range of magazines anywhere. Another very good shop is Dar Al Hikmah on Al Diyafah Street, near Haagen-Dasz. (sp?) DOLL is for collectors as well as makers.

Definitely not intimidating. If you click on the images, they'll scale up so that you can print them.

I'll put my adaptations in the next entry, just in case Blogger falls over partway through uploading the photos!

GOOD Wives - 1955

You may have seen this before: it's certainly done the rounds; and yes - it's authentic, though I've never seen a by-line.

(As a professional educator, I feel that it is part of my responsibility to instil a proper understanding of the world in the young men and women in my care.)

The Good Wife's Guide from a 1955 issue of Housekeeping Monthly
1. Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready, on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favorite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.

2. Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.

3. Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.

4. Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives.

5. Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc. and then run a dust cloth over the tables. Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.

6. Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children's hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair and, if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part. Minimize all the noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet.

7. Be happy to see him.

8. Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first – remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.

9. Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner, or other places of entertainment without you. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his very real need to be at home and relax.

10. Your goal: Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquillity where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.

11. Don't greet him with complaints and problems.

12. Don't complain if he's late home for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through that day.

13. Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.

14. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.

15. Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.

16. A good wife always knows her place.

.. I suppose I could try this for a week, but I think that Habibi would be frightened..

If this has made you feel all trembly inside, you might want to read this - um - variation.

Merry Wives

I spent some pleasurable hours in Satwa yesterday, buying fabric for our upcoming school production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, a Shakespeare romp full of masculine folly, and female virtue, intelligence and wit. They don't write plays like that any more!

The original intention was to take the show to Delhi, where we had been invited to participate in a Schools' Shakespeare Festival. Unfortunately, our hosts had to cancel, but in the meantime, my students had spent their summer vacation learning their lines - in some cases, several hundred lines, and in a totally unfamiliar idiom. So the show must go on!

This is all tied into an IB Theatre Arts course, so we are going for fairly authentic staging: outdoors, under a canopy, though with the audience seated facing the stage, rather than either standing on three sides of the stage, or seated in encircling galleries (Shakespeare's 'wooden O') .

Accordingly, though the shows will be in the evening, rather than during daylight hours as they would have been in Shakespeare's day, we will simply have a 'daylight' wash of light throughout both play and interval, and not a microphone anywhere.

The Globe Theatre website features a very helpful virtual tour. I stood right in front of the stage for an entire performance a couple of years ago: it is a unique experience which I would love to repeat - and outside my day job, for which I'm on my feet most of the time, I don't usually stand up for anything!

However, Shakespeare does not have to be all crinolines and codpieces - we're going for authenticity, not a living museum exhibit! There is also the matter of making it accessible to a high school audience more used to rapid-action movies and TV than live theatre, and for many of whom English is their second language. Hmm.

So our production unfolds in a sort of timewarp of the 1590s and the 1950s. And just as our IB students have brainstormed staging and lighting which marries 16th Century and contemporary conditions and technology, so too our student designers have come up with a cross between crinolines and poodle skirts, and between slashed doublets and draped jackets. (Have I ever mentioned my immense admiration and affection for our students?)

Unfortunately, I backspaced over the Tudor image, and can't re-insert it, so I'll do it separately, but here are some 50s styles, and the colour combinations.


Sir John Falstaff, middle-aged reprobate (lovable rogue) will be in the drape jacket and narrow trousers of a much younger (and slimmer!) man, as will his three mismatched hangers-on. Add the slashed sleeves of several centuries earlier, and we get our crossover - but no-one's singing The Timewarp in this show!











Look at the skirts on these! The square neckline was almost as popular in the 1950s as in the 1590s.











Some creative decisions on layers, sleeves, hemlines and fabrics have stirred considerable anticipation of the final results!













These are the fabrics for our rogues: brown denim (to be distressed as befits a total slob with one outfit to his name); muted green cotton for someone with philosophical pretensions; royal blue velvet for our knight aberrant; and black leather (ok - the budget only runs to PVC.) for the girl who's more dangerous than the guys.

I only wish I'd photographed the green and yellow plaid furnishing fabric for the Welsh parson, and the banana yellow blazer fabric for the hopelessly over-eager gentleman-suitor. Damn!

For garrulous Mistress Quickly, excitable meddler and malapropeller par excelsis, we have this tasteful combination - and a fab outfit for Act 5, when she dresses up as Queen of the Fairies!





Argh! I just lost one of the Merry Wives! Mistress Ford, plagued with a jealous husband (in grey), wears a trim style in modest navy blue crepe and sky blue cotton.
Mistress Page, whose husband (in warm brown) knows her qualities and her merit, is peachy and glowing in warm orange cotton and satin, with ample sleeves in translucent cream. (The colours are not quite true here, photographed under fluorescent lights).

Mine Hostess of the Garter Tavern (a role originally written for a man - er - in a male role, unlike the actual female roles, which were also played by men!) will be splendid in satins of vivid cherry, rich lavender and caramel. Perhaps we could name a dessert after her?


Which leaves sweet Anne Page, a breath away from her seventeeth birthday, and her inheritance from Grandfather. Pretty in pink and white, and bridal in lilac. No wonder three men are competing to steal her away to the chapel.

The costume sources here are from Unicorn hire and the http://www.fiftiesweb.com/ .

The costumes are being made by the meticulous and extraordinarily talented Alevtina Mylnikova at Unicorn Events Management (unicorne@eim.ae)

Celebration!

It's Half-Term and Diwali and Eid this week, so nearly everyone has cause for celebration. Happy Everything, folks!

(This image is actually a backdrop.)

Habibi Bthuthdthuth

It's Habibi's birthday today. Yay!

He and I were born a month apart, which means that each year, for one month only, he's muuuuuuch older than moi.

Happy Birthday Sugar Daddy!















P.S. Thanks to this blog-loony for the picture. If you can read Italian, s/he'll show you how to make blue spaghetti.

Peace, Poverty and the Nobel Peace Prize

Interesting 7DAYS article by Benedict Paramand on microcredit:

Mahatma Gandhi said: “Poverty is the worst form of violence.” This implies that any effort that reduces poverty could bring down violence thereby increasing the chances of peace. If this is the case then why is The Economist peeved at the idea of a banker and an economist being given this year’s Nobel Peace Prize?

In a recent article..., the magazine said: “The purpose of the prize has become muddled. There is a risk that its worth is being eroded as the Nobel Institute scrambles to find an eye-catching recipient every year.”

.....Muhammad Yunus, 66, of Bangladesh and the Grameen Bank he founded, were given the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006. Yunus pioneered the concept of lending to the poorest, who live on under a dollar a day, to make a marked difference to their livelihood. Yunus has shown that this unconventional strategy is sustainable and can be implemented on a massive scale.

... Peace is not necessarily absence of war or conflict. The tribal wars in much of Africa are more to do with the absence of economic opportunities than mutual hatred. Therefore, there is a need to widen the definition of peace. While it’s true that absence of war encourages commerce, it’s also true that vibrant communities find little reason to squabble.

... Microfinance consists of providing small loans, usually less than $200, to individuals, usually women, to establish or expand a small, self-sustaining business. For example, a woman may borrow $50 to start a small poultry business. As the chickens multiply, she will have more eggs to sell. Soon she can sell the chicks. Each expansion pulls her further from the devastation of poverty.

... Microfinance is not just lending. The providers offer business advice and counseling, while clients provide peer support for each other through solidarity circles. For example, if a client falls ill, her circle helps with her business until she is well. If a client gets discouraged, the support group pulls her through. This contributes substantially to the extremely high repayment rate of loans made to microfinance entrepreneurs.

Here's the article in full.

Bookshelves 2

Thank you once again to NZM for rescuing me whenever my blog ambitions outstrip my understanding!

A couple of days ago I asked if anyone knew how to sort the links in a sidebar, or how to add books.

NZM came back with these results for me, so may I share them with you: (Elle, get a load of this!)

"You either do it manually or you can set up a semi-automatic list that can be generated from an Amazon Wishlist etc. Some can take referrals from any online links or eshops.But you can look at this site MyMediaList.com to see if it will help you. You just need to find website link URLs to the books, music, dvds that you wish to display and add them onto the list, as well as place Your Personal List html code into your blog template - this will be generated and sent to you in an email when you register for the free service. Another that can generate a list from an Amazon Wishlist is Blogfuel.com (you have to choose a version depending on whether you are using a Wishlist from the Amazon US or the UK site) or Edazzle.net.

"Here's another one that only does books: LibraryThing. You can see what it looks like on a Blogger blog here in the right column.

"Or!

"You can sign up to become an Amazon Associate and show an Amazon list like on the lower left hand side of Tainted's blog. In short, an Amazon Associate is a Web site owner who places links to the Amazon.com Web site on his or her site and earns referral fees through sales of Amazon.com products."

Wow! Now that's helping your fellow blogger! So, from hero (NZM) to zero (MamaD.), here's my experience:

I started with MyMediaList.com, which is a very user-friendly site. (All the links are above.) I set up an account, a profile and a list, and embedded the code in my template with no problem; but when I made a mistake in an entry, I could not work out how to correct it so in the end I removed it. (Also, the colour choices clashed something wicked with my template, and not everyone has a website whizz Habibi to fix it with Corel Photopaint and HTML!) I shall write and tell Zaeem Maqsood about this, because I can't be the only duffer out here! Please note, this reflects my limitations: I'm sure someone more experienced and confident could have worked things out. I do recommend the service.

Blogfuel provides an intimidating table which you have to do something with, but I'm blowed if I could figure out either how to complete it, or what to do with it if I accomplished that much. The Help link took me to definitions, not instructions. Sinking souffles! I need Delia Smith, not Raymond Blanc! Utterly cowed, away I slunk.

I Left LibraryThing til last, because I wanted to list music and movies too, but when I got there I thought it was great - the world's biggest book club! If you click on one of the book covers in my sidebar, it links to a hideous page of in-yer-face buzzwords, but the Amazon link and others (top left), will take you to pages with proper synopses and reviews.

There is much more to LibraryThing. If you love reading and discussing books, but don't have time or opportunity to join a reading club, I recommend you go to the Library Thing homepage: it's a good Thing!

So, I'm all set up. Thank you soooo much to NZM!

ITsyBITSy

I've been trying to work out how to split my blogroll into sections, e.g. Spanish links, local links, craft links. No can do. If anyone knows how, and can explain it for the non-HTML-minded, I would be very grateful.

Also, can anyone tell me how to do a book link? I've seen how book links take you straight to a seller, but haven't found any code or tags for myself.

Ta!

BTW: my venerable but battered Vaio laptop has just about had it. Either the mouse works, or I get Internet access. Actually, I had both for a while today but then the whole thing froze and hung, and the only way to switch it off was to pull out the plug and remove the battery. Every time..... It started this a couple of days ago, so I guess its remaining days are numbered. It would be nice to know the number. Honestly, just as I start enjoying a completely IT-dependent way of life, IT falls apart! Yeah, I know, time to upgrade...... cackle....

All files now on memory sticks. Just wait for me to lose them.

Rehearsing wi' a wanion

September 19th is my mother's birthday. It's also Karamah's birthday and Elaine's father's birthday. September 19th is a good day!














But I didn't know it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day til it was too late, alas!

It turns out that the reason I'd never heard of it was that two complete loonies, John Baur and Mark Summers, only started it this year - tho' it's been yeeeeeeears in the makin', aharr! Way to go, guys!

We read through the panto script yesterday afternoon, and then we pirates went back for more yo ho ho in the evening. We were doing just fine til we got to 'wi' a wanion'. Eh? I thought it was a really gross boil, but no - 'wi' a wanion' means wi' a vengeance (aharr!!).

Furthermore, the script calls for some piratey cursing, and we were at a bit of a loss, what with being fine, upstanding citizens of delicate breeding, so I was so grateful when Trailing Spouse left a link in a comment to the Captain Pugwash site, where I had lots of fun, before doing a little more browsing.

Which took me to the following Wikipedia Pugwashisms :

"Dollopping doubloons!"
"Coddling catfish!"
"Lolloping landlubbers!"
"Suffering seagulls!"
"Staggering stalactites!"
"Nautical nitwits!"
"Plundering porpoises!"
"Kipper me capstans!"
"Tottering turtles!"

Obviously, I was shocked, what with my delicate breeding 'n' all, but, for the sake of Art, I have wrestled with my feelings, and resolved to share these terms with my fellow thespians.

But I'd better not direct them to the TLAP site, for fear of the moral depredation which exposure to piratey pick-up lines such as the following might wreak upon their characters:

Come on up and see me urchins.

and

I'd love to drop anchor in your lagoon.

(for the boys)

.................and for the girls:

Come show me how ye bury yer treasure, lad!

and

C'mon, lad, shiver me timbers!

Shocking really.

On the other hand, if we all do our homework, next year's International Talk Like a Pirate Day could be a blast! Here's a little something to get you started:

.........................and if you want some more, there's plenty here!

Arrrr!

P.S. Even Word Verification's getting into it. What to make of himshggp?

Bookshelves

I go through phases. Enthusiasms come and go - and then come again.

A lot depends on what's happening at work. When things are routine I will pick up books and embroidery, and focus on detailed craft projects with lots of colour and texture. I wake up at weekends wanting to garden and write in equal measure. On the other hand, when we're busy-busy-busy I rarely read anything I haven't read before, but occasionally I'll disappear into a favourite for a day.

I go for children's and teenage fiction from the likes of Elizabeth Enright, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Joan Aiken, Michelle Magorian, Geraldine McCaughrean, Cynthia Voigt and Gillian Cross; action thrillers involving a central character with a history, like A. J. Quinnell's Creasy or Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (I still haven't got round to Clive Cussler and good ol' Dirk Thingy!); or storytelling that involves a quirky individual shaking up someone else's dull but comfortable existence, and everyone coming out better off. Most Sandra Bullock films operate on that premise, though she tends to play women whose lives have never taken off, while I'm reading about older people who have not so much settled down as got stuck in a rut, as in Fannie Flagg's A Redbird Christmas, or Annette Sandford's Eleanor and Abel. I must blog on the fiction of the 'Deep South' one of these days, but this is almost all tangent already, so I'm exercising a little restraint tonight!

The other weekend I had a little love-fest all by myself (Habibi was busy!) and read a Mills & Boon trilogy. Oooh it was grand! I met 'Kate Walker' years ago when I had a Saturday job in a children's library. I read her first Mills & Boon manuscript, 'The Chalk Line' while babysitting for her then-toddler-now-English-teacher son, and when Habibi and I got married she gave us (ok - me!) a complete set of her novels - presumably to keep me going through the interesting early stages of married life?! I don't know how far she or I looked into the future, but this was an ongoing wedding present, and she recently published her fiftieth novel for a devoted 'Kate Walker' readership. We hadn't seen each other for a couple of years, so this summer I came back with nine novels! I have to say that as a rule I can't be doing with Mills and Boon, and most sagas leave me cold, but I do enjoy these, and I really enjoyed 'The Alcolar Trilogy'! Furthermore, in about six months time, when all my senior students are up to their nerve-ends in performance exams, I shall probably climb right back in there again!

Incidentally, our bookshelves are full, stuffed, packed. What doesn't fit gets poked on top. In theory there should be some gaps now that Habibibaba is off on his own, but somehow, it just hasn't happened. Habibi and I are resolutely not buying any more books between now and next July ...... except it's his birthday this month...... and mine next month...... and then there's Christmas....... ooooooooooooh! We're going to have to do our 'expat leaving sale' next summer. That's going to hurt........ =/

Iftar

Last year, all the Muslim staff held an Iftar on our school field, and invited everyone and their partners and families. We all gathered just before sunset, to find big circular tables set with cloths and lanterns, plus dishes of dates and cups of water for the breaking of the fast. After the call to prayer and the short sunset prayers, we all helped ourselves to a very good buffet, and then the adults ate and chatted in the deepening dusk, while the children scooted about in all that open grassy space. Very relaxed and mellow. A lovely departure from the general busy-ness.

This year, the senior students held an Iftar on Monday, raising funds for their prom, with due proportion to charity. Staff were invited, and we were all proud of how well they organised this event: I'm not good at estimating crowds, but there were probably 300 people there, and it all went perfectly. (This time the round tables were on the basketball court!) A bonus was seeing former students back to visit. Good food and plenty of it, and every senior student on hand to set up, serve, help and clear up. Way to go.

And yesterday (Tuesday) the Muslim staff repeated last year's lovely evening. The evening was perfect, with a light breeze to lift the humidity. Habibi came, and staff brought visiting parents, brothers and sisters, and introduced them all round. I saw children I haven't seen for a year - babies now toddlers, toddlers now able to kick a ball without over-balancing, shy little ones now romping confidently with all comers. Former colleagues came to visit, and new staff saw new colleagues in civvies and without responsibilities. You can't put a price on the thoughtfulness and generosity that goes into something like this.

Oh - and before I forget- there was an interesting mix of music coming over the speakers: religious songs in Arabic and English, including some Islamic Hip-Hop from a Pakistani band (I think). I can't say that the Hip-Hop did much for me, but I like the progressions of Islamic music, and I also liked the little English song that started 'The sky is blue like blue bubblegum......' Doesn't that just sum up the feeling of a carefree summer morning?

(Another first last year was the 'Festive Tea' when Christian staff returned the compliment in December. I missed it =( because I had a rehearsal, but I'll be there this year!)

Ha Harr!!

Yay! We're gonna be pirates! Read-through on Friday, me hearties.

Never heard of a female pirate? Take a look at this page on Defiant Women!

(These images pillaged from the Pirates! Store)

Panto!

Habibi and I have been out past our bedtime tonight, auditioning for the Dubai Drama Group pantomime.

If you've never been to a panto, a great English Christmas tradition, then this is a side of the English character that might surprise you. (Ohhhhhh no it won't! Ohhhhh yes it will!)

As long as you remember that the Principal Boy is always played by a girl, the Dame (often the mother of the principal boy) is always played by a man, that the baddies are always behind you, the jokes are meant to be that corny, and you have to join in to make sure that everyone lives happily ever after..... then you should be ok!

OK?

This year's show is Treasure Island, rudely wrested from the ghostly grip of that natty nautical narrator Robert Louis Stevenson, and triumphantly travestied translated into a splendid stage production for discerning theatre-goers from 6 to 106 by an 'umble hauthor of our hacquaintance. Are we getting a flavour here?

Habibi tried out for a Welsh pirate long marooned on a desert island, and basically completely gaga.
I tried out for the baddie, (Ha Harrrr!) - and will be looking for recognition from the Guinness Book of Records for the most ham acting ever crammed into one paragraph. It was such fun!

We had a great time singing a well-known piratical nursery rhyme and learning a dance routine to a seasonally camp naval pop song. (If you want any more, you'll have to buy a ticket!)

Whether we get the parts or not, the 40 or so of us who went down all had a really good time strutting our stuff and cheering each others' audition pieces. On-stage or in the audience, we're definitely going to the panto this year!

Good things

I just caught the tail end of a BBC World report on The World Challenge.

It's a competition to reward (invest in) groups or individuals who are working to make a difference in their own backyard.

In Swaziland a group called Gone Rural have organised themselves into a collective which seeks out foreign markets for the beautiful artefacts of local female heads of households, so that they can support and educate their children. There was a box marked DUBAI, so the next time you see richly coloured woven grass mats and baskets, or handsome glossy riverclay bowls, look for the label.

Then there was Maxitech, a computer recycling company in Haringey, London, founded by a one-time Bosnian refugee, which takes the old IT hardware from big companies, strips it down, and then sells reconditioned PCs to small businesses, provides training for local long-term unemployed people, and gives PCs to the local council so that they can train elderly people to use them. In addition to training, elderly people living alone can also get a reconditioned PC, to help them stay in touch with the outside world.

There are ten other finalists too. Next time the world is getting you down, go and see the good things that are being done by people like you and me. And you can vote.

The Big Five

No, not Dubai's annual construction exhibition but the most widely accepted personality test with credentials dating back to the 50s. (See Real Me entry for links.)

Just out of curiosity, I gave it a go, and I think that the result is about right. I was conscious as I was doing the test that my answers would have been rather different ten years ago. Must try it again ten years hence!

I wonder how many of these you can do before they come back with 'narcissistic loser'?

Counter balance

I am quite pathetically pleased with myself. I deleted my visitor panels a few weeks ago after they got squeezed out of the sidebar again, but I really like seeing where people have come from, so today I thought I'd go back to the Neoworx site and try again. I hadn't noticed that you can adjust the width of the panels. I took it down from 200 (mm) to 170, and hey presto! It fits! It's out of date, but that's ok- it's handsome and interesting. I may even remember some of the flags.

Aaand I changed the default colour on my desktop to silver, made a particularly fab photo of Habibi the new desktop image on my laptop and changed the font so that I could read it against the new background. Yay! There were a few hair-raising moments with large print and high contrast (Don't do it! Though it might be good for your Grandad, Trailing Spouse - a black background with monster white letters - Have you seen it?)

It may not be much to you clever people, but I think I might be getting almost competent. Yay again!

The real me.

In the light of the preceding entries, I'd better show you the results of the Famous Leader Personality Test that Habibi just found. I am

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Frighteningly possible, don't you think? Be grateful for all the things I don't say here!
Go see what Habibi got!

OK. Off to do the If I Were a Classic Movie test. Same link.

And the result is:

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

I've only seen the last 15 minutes, when they all die. Don't ask!

P.S. I agree that I want all of the above, but achieving it.... well.....

When Habibi did his Famous Leader test, he got the same result twice. I did the Classic Movie again and got this:

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Let me share my experience of schizophrenia.....

Go play!

P.S. There are some serious tests too, but it's Saturday afternoon and I'm just about at the end of a nice long glass of Mothers' Ruin, (gratuitous educational link) so
1) I'll do them another time,
and
2) I ain't telling you nothin' because although
a) I don't worry too much about appearances and what people think of me*
b) I'm very secretive!

*What makes being over 40 a psychological Garden of Eden for women is that if you get that far without screwing up completely, and you realise that the people you love still love you after all this time - then you can't be that bad!

Ramadan Kareem: 7DAYS

This is the second bit of my deep thoughts for the weekend, or tirade, lecture, therapy - as you will! If you're going to plough through this, you might as well do the other bit first. See below ;P

I must salute the management and editorial team of 7DAYS for their success in providing UAE readers with the closest thing we have to Britain's Daily Mirror - your campaigning newspaper. With its gung-ho editorial style, its tireless self-promotion as the people's champion against - ohhhh - anything at all really - and its dedication to testing the limits of sensationalism in this socio-political context, 7DAYS has consistently coaxed and nurtured dissatisfaction and applauded self-righteousness in its readership since its inception.

The letters page has become a byword for complaint and frustration, attack and counter-attack. And now, in Ramadan, they've hit the motherlode: intercultural respect; societal norms; standards of public decency; personal codes of behaviour; and lots and lots and lots of name-calling. All that this sniping and self-righteous grandstanding does is erode goodwill and create bitterness. Ramadan Kareem. It is so sad.

Yes, I'm leaving soon. No, I don't like it here very much. Yes, there are issues to be resolved, progress can seem painfully slow, I strongly disagree with certain things, and sometimes I'd like to poke someone in the eye. The traffic sucks, the cost of living is rising faster than the hundreds of tower blocks, and you can't sunbathe naked as roast suckling pig on Jumeirah Beach with your Tequila Sunrise (not that I would want to!) But look at this place in the context of the rest of the Middle East. And in the span of time. Some countries are centuries old: this one's very young, and arguably trying to run before it can walk, but is home perfect?

And let us briefly consider the behaviour of the human race as a whole...... hmmmmm...... We're really good at getting on with each other, aren't we?

So maybe we should just sigh and get on with it. And make the most of the good stuff?

As for the press, I believe that press freedom is utterly essential to the development of a civilised and cultured society. I've said that before.
BUT. (I've said this before too!)

But.

How many times does it have to be said that with freedom comes responsibility?

Those of us who live in Dubai are all caught in the maelstrom of apparently unreined development. Many expats are reconsidering their presence here. Many Emiratis are bewildered at the way their home - both physically and culturally - is evolving into something unknowable. We need to keep our sense of perspective and our sense of humour, or hug a pillow, or moan at our friends, or gnash our teeth, or play squash, go hashing, eat chocolate, drink wine, jump up and down on a mattress yelling "GNEEEAAARGHGH!!!!"

Then again, there's always the option of writing an open letter to the moron in the silver 4x4 who cut you up at the junction, for publication in a national newspaper. Because this is what we have national newspapers for, yes?

Forgive me if I disagree. This isn't a democracy. We knew that when we came here, but of course, knowing it and living with it are rather different things!
(Of course, when you look at democracy at work in Britain and the US - ohhhhh - that's why you left....?! Ahhhhh... Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah...)

Most of us don't know who's in charge of what, and we're reluctant to write to anyone with real authority because we're not entirely confident that criticism won't have repercussions. The press is the vox populi. Free, fearless and objective, dedicated to the dissemination of truth and the encouragement of open debate in pursuit of a civilised society.

Yes, I know. I live in the real world too. I'm not suggesting for one moment that it's easy, but it is important, isn't it? The press here is freer now than it has ever been, certainly than in some neighbouring countries, and it has an important role to play in this developing nation.

And the letters page is important for all us anonymous drones who have a point of view on the place we live and times we live in: it's our forum for debate (not a whinge-fest); our direct and secure line to distant policy makers and executives; and a heads-up to the editorial staff on what we care about, good and bad.

Three months of letters from fed-up motorists is boring, depressing, and may ultimately encourage road-rage. An editorial brainstorm identifying the underlying issue in response to half a dozen similar letters, followed by an indepth investigation, interviews with the appropriate people, and follow-up features a month, and six months, and a year, down the line, with a view to getting something done - now that sounds useful. Both in tackling the immediate issue, and in countering the us-and-them mentality so easily engendered in a diverse society.

Where repercussions are a factor, the letters page is there for the lone voice, the whistle-blower. From time to time The Gulf News has carried letters from parents regarding, for example, inhumane or unsafe school transport or something equally unacceptable at a particular school, addressing their letter to 'the concerned authority' and with the tagline 'Name and address withheld by request'. They daren't complain to the school directly, out of anxiety that their child will be removed from the register for a spurious reason which will then appear on his school record. In the letters page, David has his weapon against Goliath.

In short (ok- medium) we need balanced and clear-headed reporting of local and international news; we need responsible investigative and campaigning journalism. We need a forum where the general public, the business sector, health and welfare professionals, government ministers and executive officers can find out what everyone else thinks and feels about plans, events, decisions and actions that affect them, and engage in the exchange of views. Bravo 7DAYS for tackling Etisalat over YouTube, Hi5 etc.

What we do not need, especially in this place, at this time, with the human race apparently hurtling scarlet-faced and screaming towards Armageddon, is a national newspaper sponsoring the polarisation of our society.

Ramadan Kareem: Emirates Today

It is now the middle of Ramadan. I have lived here for many years now, and Ramadan is part of the rhythm of the year: I know that it is about submission to Allah, and celebrating faith, family and community; I also know that, as with all things in Dubai, there is the private face and the commercial version (as there is for Christmas in developed Christian countries). I appreciate the difficulties of the devout of any denomination, who have to maintain their balance on a wire strung between the opposing poles of God and Mammon - thus has it ever been - but I don't really know about Ramadan. I thought I did, but really, as an outsider, I just put up with it.

Moreover, since my brain is hard-wired to my stomach, I can't get past the fact that my fasting colleagues (especially the wives and mothers, who I know have got their families up and out to school before work, and will be preparing Iftar and dinner for family and friends when they get home) must be dead-beat by the end of a day's teaching, so I don't like to bother them with questions, like some kind of religious tourist. So I don't know much beyond the obvious, except that two people have said the same thing to me about fasting: that normally they would not be able to do it, but that in Ramadan, Allah helps them. And everyone (even the weary cooks!) says how special this time is for friends and families.

Last year Emirates Today ran a Ramadan Diary written by Zarina Khan, journalist and Muslim daughter of a Pakistani father and an American mother. It was both illuminating and entertaining, and I never missed it.

This year's coverage has been expanded to a formal double-page feature of Ramadan news and photos from around the UAE; and Zarina's diary alternates with that of Adrian Murphy, a non-Muslim expat who has decided to observe the fast, actively engage with Ramadan, and report and reflect on his experience and conversation for us non-Muslim residents.

The Ramadan Special is sponsored by a property company whose billboards I first noticed in May; and is, I think, the culmination of a multi-headed campaign to establish its presence in the consciousness of potential customers, Arab, western - and probably NRIs too: I don't read the Khaleej Times, but I'll bet their green ink is there! The company has evidently spent hundreds of thousands of dirhams on their campaign which, I think, has been building to this current phase. However, while it may be strategic, it is not a gimmick. Good luck to them.

Certainly, there's nothing gimmicky or superficial about Adrian's diary. He's sincere, human, and doesn't take himself too seriously, in which he has much in common with Zarina. And like Zarina, he writes in a way that takes you there. His friends were obviously baffled by this at the outset, but they might be getting it now!

What got me thinking about this was the Fanoos link from M and J Adventures to www.ramadan.co.uk. Yes, I went for the cute icon, but it's a really interesting site that starts with an introduction to what Ramadan is all about, and links to other sites like a public science site called Moonwatch which begins with a fine picture of the new crescent moon in Oxfordshire at the beginning of Ramadan.

I think the Ramadan Special is timely too. There has surely never been such a bitter undercurrent to Ramadan before. With the whole of the UAE changing so fast, and Dubai fastest of all, there are more people, and under greater stress, than ever before. Oh yes, and the world's gone mad.

So there is plenty of scope for frustration and irritation, and there's probably never been a more pressing need for consideration and tolerance. Or objective journalism dedicated to the pursuit of high truth, not top dollar.

Shades of God and Mammon again?

Oh dear. You might want to get yourself a cup of tea before the next bit......

A Doll's House

I've been doing up a dolls' house to take to Spain, for when our nieces and nephews come to visit.
I painted it, except for two rooms, put in some window boxes and bought some little room sets. This was months ago. Since then I've been busy with other things, and the dolls' house has sat neglected in a corner, with all the bits tucked away inside.

Yesterday I came home to surprise visitors, and this is what 9 year-old Sacha had done. Isn't it bonny? Habibi says she played with it for hours, rearranging things and doing all the voices of the motley collection of dolls. I'm thrilled that she enjoyed it so much. (Sometimes I get these ideas - it's good when they work....)





A Georgian house with the roof off. The blue is left-over emulsion from Habibibaba's bedroom, and reminds me of him (long-gone now - sniff!) and wisteria-covered mews cottages in Chelsea.





Roof garden
















....and Interior, with Chimney Pots and Welsh Dresser.

I especially love her chimney pot four-poster, the Welsh dresser full of chessmen, and the teeny doll sitting among the climbers and rose trees in the roof garden. And now I know what happened to the 'Arabian rug' coasters Dad gave me!

(When I get round to it, I'm going to papier mache the matchbox into a bed. And do some covers. And rugs. And curtains. Oh yes, and repaint the bathroom suite. All good fun!)
The house is a flat-pack from The Early Learning Centre, and the bathroom and dining room suites are from Magrudy's.

P.S. It's 1.20 in the ratting a.m. I went to bed. I got up again. Maybe I'll play for a bit..... :D