Moanday

Tanvir Naomi BushVisual Impairment, Writing Leave a Comment

It’s Monday and I have lost the will to live. I have had no response at all from the last lot of job applications. Not even one of those ‘thank you SO very much for your application BUT ’ letters. I haven’t the energy to do another lot (although I will, I will..) and I have a deadline for a short story competition that I am nearing and here I sit, plucking out all the fruity bits from my trail mix and whimpering along to the Smiths. It doesn’t bode particularly well for the rest of the week.

No paparrazzi please!

Tanvir Naomi BushDisability, Photography, Visual Impairment 2 Comments

Last Monday night I staggered off the train in the dark and began the weary trudge home. It was rubbish collection day and my cane got tangled up in the first of the many hundreds of large black bins that were hulking over the pavement. I was vaguely aware of people impatiently pushing past me as it was rush hour. A scruffy man in jeans and some kind of huge jumper brushed past me as I hissed and swore at the second black recycling bin I had just put my foot into and walked quickly ahead..
And then there was a bang.
I looked up, startled, squinting ahead down the long road.
Again, ‘bang’!’ Bang!’ And then I saw that the scruffy man was bashing the black bins, smashing them off the pavement one by one as he walked past them…for me. He didn’t look back or slow down but just kept on solidly smashing the bins off the pavement. I watched him disappear into the night leaving just the sound of slightly dented black bins in the air and everything was suddenly possible as it had been when I was a child….good triumphing over evil, peace and magic and talking pigs, pixies, princes and love. The world shifted slightly and I felt like someone had just given me a huge hug.
Just thought I should share that with you.

Opps They Did It Again.

Tanvir Naomi BushDisability, Film, Visual Impairment 1 Comment

How is it possible that today’s national TV headline, over and above the meltdown in Kenya or the stabbing of two teenagers in Kent, was Britney Spear’s …again?? How does her self-destruction matter on the global scale, eh? What is wrong with us? Wasn’t anyone listening when that brave and inspiring anchorwomen tore up and then burnt the Paris Hilton story on live TV last year? Sure, tell us about it at some point so we can ooh and ahh and say ‘I told you so’ as if it matters..but don’t lead the national !!!ing news with it! Stop the madness!

Detox

Tanvir Naomi BushDisability, Visual Impairment, Zambia Leave a Comment

It was a good party thanks to the lovely S and her feats with a saucepan and yes, at midnight in kilt and accompanied by a surfer dude on an Irish drum, my buddy the piper led a surreal, random crowd of drunken dancers into the soggy night. We collected about 30 people from various houses in the estate – mostly holding fags and tins of larger ( and that was just the children) and wound our way leaping and bobbing like deranged elves up and down the street. It was quite a sight, even for me!

Happy New Year Folks!

Tanvir Naomi BushFilm, Writing 3 Comments

And here we perch, right on the edge of the year..about to leap off into 2008 and not sure if there will be rocks or sweet, deep water. Probably a bit of both. Annie is shrilly whining the song, ‘Tomorrow’ on my TV with a little dog on her lap and the fake snow in her hair. ‘The sun will come out tomorrow!’ I am a cynical old cow but it still makes me well up and get all jazz hands.

Wild Christmas Rabbits

Tanvir Naomi BushVisual Impairment, Writing Leave a Comment

The sign outside the butcher’s on the way to Cranfield read ‘English wild rabbits on sale here…’ and underneath had been added in big red letters, ‘Really, REALLY wild rabbits!’
What does that mean? This sign has been intriguing me since I got picked up on Christmas Eve. I have pictures of half crazed rabbit gangs smoking crack and waving flick knives.

Plastic Jesus

Tanvir Naomi BushVisual Impairment, Writing Leave a Comment

Last night after several pints of ‘Steaming Ale’ (I kid you not) I staggered into my kitchen ravenous and bleary eyed as one is after a glass of ale. A piece of toast and some camembert went down so well I, slightly less woozily, headed back for another round only to realise that the bread I was about to scoff was completely covered in purpley-blue stuff. .. I had just stuffed my face with mouldy mucor encrusted bread….I knew it was mucor having previously grown it ON PURPOSE whilst an o’level biology student wanting to see if I would develop ergotism (St Antony’s Fire..or don’t you remember the 1039 outbreak in France? Oh for goodness sake…!) Luckily the twitching and hallucinatuions were purely down to the Steaming Ale and shock of eating deeply mouldy bread. Now let this incident be a Xmas warning to all of you out there who like a nip of sherry over the holidays! Prepare food with the lights on and always double check the bread!

Nearly

Tanvir Naomi BushDisability, Visual Impairment 3 Comments

I met a friend today from another life. I hadn’t seen her in over 15 years and there she was in the café with a new addition, her 4-year-old son, George. She looked exactly the same..well better actually then she had back then. Tall and willowy, she had the same humour and gentleness and it was quite wonderful to see her but with her she bought a slew of names and memories that quite overwhelmed me. All those people we were at university with…all the friends we knew together in the early 90’s…including my ex fiancé who is still a close friend to her and her husband. He is alive. He even learnt French. He got married…he got divorced. For some reason this all makes me feel a little anxious. I loved him very much and he hurt me very much and it was all a long, long time ago and buried …and now.. …he learnt French???? Holy shit…. Life is bananas.

Saturday night and Sunday morning

Tanvir Naomi BushDisability, Visual Impairment 1 Comment

There was a woman in the pub toilet with a moustache. It was a huge black hairy one and behind it she was apparently Australian and called Audrey. At the same pub bar were women with legwarmers and spandex and a lot of men in long curly black wigs. They were supposed to resemble something from the glam rock scene but incongruously looked more like they were a debauched entity of the court of King Charles 1.