Good Grief! The Comedian's a Bear!

I was listening to an old radio programme this week, Word of Mouth from February 2024. They were talking about things that families say, snippets and phrases that become original family sayings. I tried in vain to think of something original that my own family have created but ours all seem to be cliché phrases like, 'It's a bit black over Bill's mother's.' I'd love to know the derivation of that, who Bill is and why his mum always has storm clouds over her house. After much thought I came up with a few that I thought were originals but which turn out to be well-known phrases.

My mother-in-law was forever suspicious of new technology and her stock line was, 'We're getting far too clever by half.' She'd shake her head and fold her arms as she said it. She died many years ago but whenever we hear of a new technological development we chorus the words, 'We're getting far too clever.' Who knows, maybe we are getting far too clever.

When I was a child my mum would always say, 'It'll end in tears.' whenever I was too silly. Again, it's not original but I often hear her voice in my head, even now, if I get the giggles. That's rather sad but I know that Mum would never have meant to impose such a forever reaction on me.

I like to think that a phrase adopted by my son and myself is fairly original, even if we did copy it from a television show. The title of this blog may give you a clue. We were fanatical Muppet viewers and every time anyone said... and still to this day says... 'Good grief!' My son, me and family chant in chorus, 'The comedian's a bear. No he's a-not he's a-wearing a neck-a-tie!'

This is my only contribution to clichéd sayings. It's not very highbrow but it makes us laugh every time we say it and no, it doesn't end in tears. For those who have never seen the Muppets, it's a Fozzie the Bear joke. He was and still is my favourite Muppet character.

For those who are still wondering what on earth I'm talking about, here is the excerpt. It makes me laugh every time. Enjoy:    Muppet Show excerpt

The Train from Leicester to Manchester but…

…there is no train from Leicester to Manchester. 

The track is there but it ceased to be in service way back in the 1960s. The only way to get to Manchester by train these days is a tortuous challenge of timetable checks and clashes. 

We took on this very challenge last week to visit our lovely granddaughter and family. We declined the Birmingham option because it takes about an hour longer and we declined the Sheffield option which involves the Trans-Pennine Express as it is anything but express. We opted for Nuneaton but our connection was almost an hour late and the waiting room had an ‘Out of Order’ sign on the locked door. How can a waiting room be out of order? It was cold on that platform. There was an evil wind whipping at my ears no matter which part of the platform I paced along.  What a shame they haven't yet developed the technology so I could be like Captain Kirk in Star-Trek and cry, “Beam me up, Scotty!”

The Manchester train departs from platform 3 but platform 3 is the route taken by an almost continual barrage of non-stop bullet-like trains. The woman over the loudspeaker kept warning us to stand well clear and to hold onto bags and pushchairs. She wasn’t kidding. I could almost feel my hair tugging at the roots. How do they avoid daily or even hourly fatalities? There should be protective screens. They have them on the new London Underground lines... at least I think they do... but there was not a screen in sight at Nuneaton.

I tried to take photos of one of the offending high speed monsters but my phone couldn't cope wih the velocity so I've created a cartoon instead. 

Getting to Manchester by train was stressful but perhaps marginally better than the stress of me driving, Mind you, the sight of our granddaughter and husband waiting on the platform for us when we arrived made it all worth while.

My London Grip Poem...

...and some editing notes

London Grip New Poetry has been publishing a quarterly online magazine of new poetry for over ten years. It was last month that I heard from the editor to say that they would be publishing my poem, 'Driving Home from Work' in their Winter 2025 issue. A few of you messaged me to ask for the link on publication. I've attached the link below. 

It is a packed magazine and I'm sure you'll enjoy having a read through some of the other poems, but if you want to jump to mine first then click on my name in the list at the top of the site.

I had the idea for this poem a few years ago. I was driving home through Leicester when the traffic slowed near a small Tesco food store. The O in the Tesco sign was flashing... annoyingly flashing, yet no one else seemed to notice it. I reflected on my irritation. Maybe I'm obsessive compulsive, I thought. I mulled over what else irritated me. The poem emerged from those ruminations, but it was only recently that I retrieved it from the pending file, tightened it up and reworked a more satisfying conclusion. Writing is like that sometimes. It needs to sit in a computer file and settle before it can be completed.

I hope you enjoy reading it at London Grip New Poetry.

My Top 5 Motoring Moans...

...an excuse for a good grumble!

1 Too many cars: Is this simply because there are more people in the world and they all want to drive a car or is it caused by all the delivery vans cruising the streets with parcels or boxes of food? I don't know the answer.

2 Rush hour: Not so long ago there was a rush hour in the morning and another at teatime as people went to and from work. Now it feels as if we have a constant daily rush hour and yet since Covid there are many people who continue to work from home at least a few days a week. Makes no sense.

3 Roadworks and potholes: In our City it seems as if every other road has cones and barriers and copious diversion signs and yet there are still many potholes that threaten our cars' suspension systems. What are all the workmen doing?

4 Parking: When I was young Dad would park his car beside any kerb, even in the centre of town. Now street parking is almost impossible and paying to park is becoming more expensive by the month, or so it seems. It now costs £5 for three hours in the multi-storey car park in town and the local shopping areas have all put a charge on parking. No wonder local shops are struggling to survive. 

5 Delivery bikes and scooters: Only yesterday a young food delivery driver cut in front of me and several other cars on his bike as we were moving at a steady speed along a main road in town. Is delivering a pizza to someone more important than his life? And this doesn't only happen on the roads. I've almost been swept off my feet by electric scooter drivers while walking along the pavement. That's just plain rude!

End of grumble, but if you have any motoring moans that I haven't mentioned do please share.

The night AI freaked me out

There has been a lot of hype about AI recently. Some of it is bad with people predicting that AI will take over the world and we will become surplus to requirements. It's quite enough me worrying about things I can change. I'm afraid AI and world domination is not one of them.

On the plus side, AI helps people everyday with their report/essay/email writing and that can be useful, especially for those who have trouble expressing themselves in writing, but in order to do that AI has scanned all published work - and I mean all. It has scanned the entire contents of works from Shakespeare to Dickens to Enid Blyton... even to the words I'm typing on this screen right now. Here is proof if proof were needed:

Last night I conducted a little experiment. I asked AI if it could suggest new blog posts that I might write in the style of my existing blog posts. Literally within seconds it had produced a screen full of ideas. Its ideas were sorted into topic sections. Each section had a numbered list of suggested posts that were varied and, indeed, the kind of thing that I might write. It ended by asking if I would like it to produce a detailed weekly schedule of work for me to follow. At that point I closed it down. It totally freaked me out. 

The speed and accuracy of its response was not what I was expecting, but I can assure you that I will not be producing posts written by AI. Sometimes the content of my posts even surprises me, so I don't rate AI's chances of dong it. It might be able to replicate and reconstruct past ideas but it can't predict future thoughts, events or trips. 

Talking of future trips, I have to admit to being in something of a rut right now. Before she died my sister said, 'You won't forget me, will you?" I knew I never would and I told her as much, with great emphasis. What I didn't expect was the overwhelming feeling of loss that has, for want of a better phrase, stopped me in my tracks for the last five months. So I won't be writing about trips or holidays, not just yet, maybe next year.

On a more positive note, have you had any experiences with AI either positive or negative? I'd be fascinated to hear about them. I've changed the blog comment setting back to allowing anyone to post without me having to moderate. I know some people had problems with it, so please feel free to contribute to an AI discussion in the comment box below. Hope to hear from you soon.

Art reduce stress? Not the way I paint!

The other day I saw an article in the newspaper claiming that art can improve your mental health. It said that we should stand and gaze at a famous piece of art and take in every little detail. Over the years I’ve visited a number of the large art galleries in London and the main outcome was aching feet not reduced stress. Leicester can’t compete with London’s galleries but we do have the New Walk Museum which, in addition to dinosaur skeletons and Egyptian Mummies, has several rooms of artwork. I haven’t been for a while. I really must return and take note of my stress levels before and after the visit.

The article got me wondering about the mental health values of producing my own pieces of art. I’ve been going to weekly art classes at Leicester’s Adult Education Centre for years. I’ve tried all manner of genres, from water colour with pen and ink to experimental painting with acrylics. The most challenging was line drawing using a pen. We weren’t even allowed to sketch out a plan in pencil first – scary! Once I got over the fear of the white page, I found it quite liberating. 

This is a pen drawing I did from a photograph. I added water colour touches. Apologies if the lettering is incorrect and, as you can see, the angles are all wrong but once the pen line is made there's no going back:

My favourite genre is pencil sketching. I copied this boot from a book for beginner artists, pencil in one hand and rubber in the other:

On reflection, I’ve decided that producing my own pieces of art does very little for my mental health. It might even make me more stressed as I make too many mistakes. My paintings often end up a mass of muddy brown.

Going back to the newspaper article, it reminded me how much satisfaction I got from the module on ekphrastic writing which was part of my Creative Writing MA. I blogged about it in 2019 and explained how our amazing tutor, Jonathan Taylor, took us to the Museum, told us to find a piece of art that caught our eye and write either about what we saw or how it made us feel. I became fascinated by the German Expressionist Exhibition and have since returned a number of times to that gallery. I wrote a whole raft of poems inspired by those paintings.  Most have now been published in some form or another and so I’ve decided that the article is correct. Looking at those paintings in that exhibition helped my mental health in more ways than one. I even got paid for several of those poems.

Below is the link to the page in the Ekphrastic Review with my first published ekphrastic poem called Youth. 

Youth by Rosalind Adam

Mellow fruitfulness...

...or should that read 'Apple Glut'

Anyone fancy some apples? 

stewed apple? 

baked apple? 

apple crumble? 

If any locals are reading this then do please message me and I'll gladly bag some up for you... although you'll have to make your own crumble.

It was an incredibly dry summer but the September rains certainly made up for it. Our apple tree is still producing as you can see below... 

I dare say the first hard frost will put a stop to this year's apple production and yes, winter will soon be upon us, but there is something rather cosy about a sharp frost on a day when I don't have to go out and I can spend the time snuggling up by the fire reading, or writing, or more likely trying to beat Daughter at Wordle. We swap our results every day. I suspect she's doing it to keep my brain cells active. They say that as you get older you need to exercise your mind as well as your body. 

I'm working on the mind but I have to admit that the body is becoming a tad neglected. I used to go swimming but can't face that shivery getting-into-cold-water bit these days so I try to do a ten minute Youtube 'Exercise for the Older Woman' a few times a week and I occasionally do a lone dance when they play an old song on the radio. The beauty of lone dancing is you can be as daft as you like, arms waving, legs stomping...

Oh dear, am I turning into an old purple-wearing woman? Please don't reply to that. I already know the answer!

p.s. For anyone who doesn't know the purple reference, it's from the 'growing old disgracefully' type of poem called 'Warning' by Jenny Joseph which begins, 'When I am old I shall wear purple...'