21 Days

Tanvir Naomi BushUncategorized 10 Comments

I am home after 21 days in a hotel room with a large canine.

Pic of me trying out dog-bed in hotel room for potential river escape the night before the beast arrived.
It’s a bit disconcerting being home….I am horrified to find that when I leave my bedroom no one sneaks in and makes my bed. No one has changed the towels I threw into the bath tub. I sit down at my table and there is no waiter service…there is no chef. I have lost the ability to even wash up my own coffee mug.
I am worried I may starve to death in a sea of filthy crockery and dog grooming gear waiting like the Lady Of Shallot for room service. Tirra lirra.

And such a beautiful hotel….such veiws of the carpark..(Actually hotel did brilliantly and everyone was very kind considering we took four dogs into their restauant twice a day…)

Grace however is settling in well. £54 worth of dog toys and we arrived back to find a 9’ by 6’ concrete base had been put down for the dog run in the corner of the garden where the tent had been for me birthday. (This wasn’t a shock. I had asked for it.)
The dogs are taught to pee and poo on command and on concrete in order to ensure that the handler knows at all times when and where the dog has done its ‘do’.
This means that handler and dog can then go out for several hours hopeful that the dog need not do the ‘do’ again out in public or somewhere hard to …errr..find it… (remember the handler is a bit short on sight..)

Plus of course concrete is easier to clean then grass. .
Unfortunately the command to do the ‘do’ or ‘spend’ as they say in the trade is ‘busy, busy’ to be spoken in a bright and upbeat kind of a voice even at 5:30 am (Grace’s preferred time of day)
‘Busy busy’.

Oh yep.
Apparently used because it is nigh near impossible to sound miserable when saying it. The dog’s need to know they are loved during this particular maneuver as they would much prefer to go on grass and are really doing you a massive ..favour….
Hmmm

You will note (some of you) that I removed my last post. It was written when I was tired and scared but that isn’t an excuse to have been mean to my fellow students. We were all tired and scared. None of us were getting more then two hours consecutive sleep a night with the dogs in the rooms. We were having to cope with isolation,fear, loneliness, confusion, bone-grinding boredom in between moments of nerve-wracking dog in traffic and group (dis)obedience training, a set hotel menu that didn’t change for 21 days and really hard water. And I mean hard. March is also Very Highly Chlorinated. My skin was a rash of nasty and my hair stared falling out. (The old guys didn’t have much hair to begin with so even worse for them…)

I wrote every minute I could and will post a couple of bits and pieces over the next week but for the moment just nice to be home and finally almost on top of the landslide of bills and worse I found waiting for me on my dining room table.

And now I am a dog handler.
A visually impaired dog handler who at some point is going to probably forget the dog tho’remember to hang onto the shopping or grab the dog and forget her house keys…

I still don’t know about this. Do I still have too much sight to really need all this? Could I actually cope with all this with LESS sight? Cripes Scooby! What kind of a fix have I got us into now?

But I know about Grace. She is smart as a chimp and funny and daft and knows her left from her right. She memorises a route after one single walk. At night when I am almost totally blind she makes me feel like I am flying.

So ..we’ll see. Or not (arf arf…did you see what I did there?)

Also folks I do apologise for getting out of touch with all blogs. The sodding hotel had no internet access?! March is just like being in 1985. they even played early Michael Jackson at breakfast and 10cc every evening….anyway..promise to read up on you all pronto!

Dog’s Life apparently…

(All photos (C) Tanvir Bush 2009)

Rabid

Tanvir Naomi BushUncategorized 2 Comments

What is it with people? The next person who puts on a baby voice and asks me if I am ‘excited about getting my doggie-woggie’ I shall bite on the nose. Savagely.

I presume you don’t get this kind of patronisation when you first get a wheel chair ‘Ohhh you must be sooo excited about getting your wheelie-beelie.’

In case you may still be confused about why taking on a guide dog is emotionally more complex then just ‘getting a doggie- woggie’ please imagine being suddenly handed a toddler to care for over several years. Then cover your eyes with several layers of cling film, Vaseline and glitter and try changing a nappy. In fact the next person who even thinks ‘doggie woggie’ near me I shall wrap in cling film and dirty nappies… breathing out…feeling better….

Of course there have been many more of you, thank god, who have been incredibly astute and useful with your insights – and with your silent support ….and I certainly don’t mind the barrage of canine related and ap-paw-ing puns flooding my phone (a horrendous amount may I say from my dad) and I can only say thank you. Your support is essential and I am so grateful.

On an entirely different note, …well its not at all entirely. Only if I am grumpy this woman is f++=ing furious. This is a fascinating opening gambit in the equality debate from Disability Bitch’s Blog. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/opinion/b1tch/db_vs_negative_politicians.shtml

Disability Bitch logo (BBC)

 

It’s about Obama’s recent speech on equality and disability. She ain’t impressed….

 

Remember that chances are we will all be disabled in our lives at one point or another..even if that is just a leg in a cast for several weeks, temporary deafness from an ear infection, chronic back pain from a slipped disc, old age…or various forms of blindness to the rest of humanity.

It comes to all of us. ‘Twist’ Self Portrait: (c) T. Bush 2008

Hardly Sex for the Superconcious

Tanvir Naomi BushUncategorized 7 Comments

 

My good buddy sends me a link to an article by the BBC entitled ‘Dirty Talk for Blind People’. In the hope this may be a new government benefit cobbled onto my income support, I read it eagerly. It is however a discussion about what kinds of erotica and pornography are available for people with disabilities….. ’discerning’ people with disabilities that is (this being a BBC article) …and it turns out not a lot.

‘Society’s reluctance to accept disabled peoples sexuality is perhaps based on a deep-rooted but unspoken belief that they should not reproduce.’

Yeah well and ho hum…

Having already posted here of my murky albeit brief slide into selling phone sex https://tanvirbush.com/2009/01/phoney-sex/ I am not surprised by the lack of imagination when it comes to erotica for women let alone disabled people. (oh hell..just realised you probably don’t know about this Dad…errr.. opps. It just paid better then the bingo calling…Goodness, I must make you so proud!)

I worked once with a brilliant young and very sexy TV presenter who, due to his being stuck in a wheelchair, was not able to find any kind of serious presenting work outside of ‘Disability Rights shows in UK. He was in constant pain but said he had discovered a remarkable way of controlling and converting the pain through a form of Japanese bondage. I believe he eventually made it to the States and is fronting a show on cable about such things. Now THAT would be a more watchable form of ‘The X Factor’ surely

 

Personally I think there would be a fantastic market for erotic tactile pop-up books. They could have plug in audio although might be tricky reading them subtly on the train……

Attaining Grace

Tanvir Naomi BushGuide Dogs 14 Comments

‘How many times have you been shat on by a bird?’ My friend M is gingerly swiping the top of his head with his hand. Its only water dripping from the overhead pub awning but still he looks across at me, his eyes darkening.

‘Well, how many?’ He is insistent and I note his fist is clenched.

Startled I shake my head. ‘Errr …nefariously onceI think. Splashed in passing. ‘

‘Yes yes,’ M leans forward. ‘That’s the usual response.’
His breath comes out in a hiss. ‘And how many times do you think I have been shat on..? ‘

‘Err …’

‘Eighteen!’ He blurts out wildly.

‘What!!’

‘Eighteen times! ‘

‘But… surely that’s not possible…. ?’

 

He slumps back on the bench, his handsome face pale, his terrible secret out. ‘Once it even happened twice…. in the same day.’

I gasp. That’s less the odds on a lightning strike!

We sit silently for a moment sucking on warm beer. I glance, with a phoney casual pretend flicking of my hair, at the sky over his head. Its empty but I still feel we are being watched.

Could it be the same bird every time? I am imagining some serious starling vendetta or a love-sick tern but he tells me that it started way back when he was a child and a bird managed to spatter him through the open roof of a car. (That takes some serious co-ordination and aim.) Ever since then he has been regularly ‘blessed’. Its even been caught on camera, on film.

Birds poo on this man.

‘Its lucky.’ I am trying to be up beat. He sighs. I think he has heard that one before.
‘Good thing pigs can’t fly..’ I think.

M has taken me out to this London pub after a long day’s photographic workshop and he is actually doing a very fine job of distracting me from my current state of emotional stir-fry as I have just made a decision that might completely change my already rather baffling life. I am going with the Guide Dog.

I met her on Tuesday. I went out to the car to greet her expecting the usual gorgeous, dewy-eyed beast and out lolloped a stocky, black and brown grinning mutt acutely resembling a small rottweiller.
I sat on the pavement and we bashed heads in greeting. The trainer, a stern woman with a skin tanned to leather, was all action and within seconds I took up the handle on the dog’s harness. The dog confused, looked around a couple of times for the trainer who insisted, in that ghastly British way, on calling herself the dog’s ‘mum’ as in; ‘ she’ll keep looking for her ‘mum’ so you will have to use your voice to push her forward.’ I do and the dog shrugs and we are off.

We walk the block passing interested neighbours and disinterested cats and the dog happily snuffles and galumphs and tail wags her way ahead of me. Later back at the flat she is splayed out on the floor and my feet. Her ears are soft and cool, dark brown. She snores.

Taking on a working dog is incredibly tough. There will be three weeks immersion training in a crumbling hotel in darkest fenland with visitors restricted and no access to a decent pub to start with. If I survive the training, then there will be six months adjusting to my local routes..except there isn’t time because I start my MA course in October. She will have to commute back and forth to Bath with me and sit under formica tables on nylon carpets bored out of her mind whilst I attend lectures and indulge in endless conversations about composition and structure.

She will need feeding, cleaning, pooper scooping, walking every day.

And she’s not a pet. She’s a working dog. I won’t be able to nip off for a few days. I won’t be able to stay in bed all Sundays. And I will have to think twice about all my plans for the rest of my life.

And my blindness will be ‘official’.
Bollocks.

Interestingly several people including M, are confused. ‘Do you really need a guide dog?’ they ask. ‘You seem to get around fine with chutzpah and cane. ‘

Then, ‘ Won’t you stop using your useful vision as you start relying on the dog?’

And I can’t answer either of those questions and I suppose all these things will become apparent during the training.

But I do know I need help and could certainly do with some animal magic and am immensely lucky to have been even given the chance to learn a new skill and find a new route through the world.

So I just say ‘lets do it.’

You will not find your mission by standing still. The way to find it is by challenging yourself in something – I would almost say it does not matter what. Then by making consistent effort, the direction you should take will open up before you quite naturally, just as wide new horizons before someone walking up a hill. Little by little you will come to understand your mission. That is why it is so important to have the courage to ask yourself what it is you should really be doing now, at this very moment.
Daisaku Ikeda; President of the Sokka Gakkai International
‘Prayer Flags’ (c) T. Bush
And by the way, the brown dog with the small, smiling, gold eyes, dodgy eyebrows and velvet ears is called Grace and I know I could always do with more of that!

‘Saving Grace’ (c) T. Bush ’09

Out of Stock.

Tanvir Naomi BushUncategorized 10 Comments

I started off today with a skip to my step Tonight I cook paella for some friends. I love the stuff and as I I was given a paella pan for my birthday am keen to experiment

The shopping list is long and I have already failed with the prawns and am having to improvise with frozen seafood cocktail. I came early to this huge supermarket to avoid the crowds but my sight is blurry and I am can’t find anything and consequently I run over time. The supermarket fills with fretting families and fast-walking weekly-shop wannabies. I have my cane out but no one understands its significance and it just gets in the way of pushing a trolley. I am beginning to bash people.

Sorry sorry

Opps

Oh you go..no me. Oh ok..oh shit …

Sorry..

I need to get out now and am scanning frantically trying to find someone who can help. Unfortunately this bloody supermarket has kindly chosen to dress their stuff in understated grey and blue fleeces with the tiny logos embroidered discreetly on their chests. I can’t tell who is staff and who is shopper.

I hit the bread aisle at about 20mph and knock several stacks of prebake bagels to the floor. A woman tutts so loudly more bagels slide to the floor.
By the cheese aisle I am flagging, consider abandoning it all and cancelling supper but finally there is someone who looks morose enough to be staff and is wearing a set of key cards around their neck. I ask for chicken stock.

‘Aisle 4,’ she says and then asks if I need any more help.

‘No, no absolutely fine thanks.’ My upper lip quivers then stiffens.

I turn away with purpose but am immediately confused. I scan and scan for aisle numbers and then start running, shoving and dodging past people thinking ‘I know- I’ll just count from Aisle 1.’

Not in this shop sister.
I try being logical twice and only succeed in finding deodorant and bath gel.

And then I see the chicken aisle.
I rush forward thinking that I can grab the stock and be out of here in five blurred minutes.

I peer up at the top shelf and can see the large plastic containers and exuberantly grab the first. What I do not see is that the first is attached to the second and the second to the third and so on.

I bring down an entire shelf of chicken stock.

Three of the plastic containers burst open splashing their yellow brown contents all over the floor, the shelves, my legs and the trainers of the man standing ..now leaping backwards..next to me.

I look at him aghast and only then discover that he is absolutely gorgeous. Tall, dark intelligent eyes, shoulders to lean on and damn him, damn him..a dimple. He has said something like ‘oh dear’ quietly and kindly and looks to see if I am all right. There is my opportunity to make contact, to start something beautiful and what do I do..
I look down at our legs dripping chicken broth and say with a ghastly giggle (it’s the one I do when I meet someone I am attracted to. It is unfailingly unnerving)
‘We’re going to smell really ‘fowl’.
And then I do a kind of eye brow ‘taa daa!’.

The man’s face freezes slightly and I turn pink with embarrassment spinning around to try and wave down a helpful staff member ..when I turn back I see he has escaped. I catch a fleeting glance of his back disappearing into the veggie aisle.

I stick by the mess I have made, feeling anxious as hordes of people keep pushing their trollies through it. I don’t know why I don’t walk away ..but I don’t and moronically stand for over ten minutes directing people around the pooling mess suddenly realising that the chicken stock looks suspiciously pee like and with guilt written all over my sweaty face people are drawing their own conclusions. Eventually a man with a blue fleece, a sour expression and a yellow ‘spillage’ notice comes into my vision and I nod politely and flee.

‘Can you go slowly? I’m visually impaired’, I ask at the check out. My hands are shaking.

‘Do you want help packing then?’ Whinges the man. ‘See there is a queue and we can’t have you holding other people up….’

 

Blackbird in Blue

Tanvir Naomi BushZambia 6 Comments

I am watching a juvenile blackbird. She is incredibly excited having recently discovered the concept of flying and launches herself at everything with huge enthusiasm but seems to have still a bit of a problem with depth perception. She doesn’t care though. She’s just kind of..well …‘plummeted’ from the roof, smacking into the top of the fence and whammed down onto the grass popping back up, yellow beak high, with a Russian gymnast’s flourish Ta daaa! . It’s bloody glorious!

It makes me feel better which is good as I am sore. At 8:30 this morning, I, a woman with a truly pathological fear of needles, find myself desperately trying to console a near hysterical Irish nurse called Maureen.

‘Its okay.’ I say soothingly. ‘ Really. I had a riding accident when I was nine. My veins are tricky on that arm… ‘Here you go..’.
I slowly and without making direct eye, in case she bolts like a lunatic horse, lower my right arm to within range of her glinting needles, twitching in her shaking hands. .

‘Here you are Maureen..how about this arm. There you go…’ I proffer my remaining arm hoping my relaxed and expansive attitude will stop her hyperventilating.

20 minutes later I am forced to suggest I lie down to stop myself from passing out. Strangely I am still relatively calm.

‘OK..got all you need now?’ I ask kindly not looking at the bruising spreading up to my armpits. ‘Please stop apologising..please. Your weeping is shaking the examination table. ‘

Seriously the worst blood lett..I mean ‘taking’ I have had in many years. She even managed to put the sticky plaster on the wrong parts of both elbows.. I didn’t even get a sodding lollipop. At home I had to lie down for 45 mins until I could raise my arms above my head again. Thank goodness I don’t earn a wage as a shot putter.

It’s nothing serious. I am still trying to figure out why I am always so knackered and am sure it is not just that my eyesight makes things ‘soooo’ much harder. I mean for Gawds sake! Other people cope with much more then this…and only a few years ago I was bloody running my own charity in Zambia..so come on! I am hopeful for a strange and exotic Zambian parasite feeding on my guts… or a strange brain fever. How about consumption? That’s relatively romantic. But NOT bloody ‘ tired eye syndrome’.. Hell!

Anyway..on the very up side , I have had a call about a potential guide dog. It is all very coy. I get to meet her (she’s a black and tan Retriever/Labrador bitch) in a couple of weeks with a chaperon on hand (for the dog…not me) and then make a decision if I want to carry on to the three week immersion training in August.
She will have to like me too- after all she is worth a hell of a lot more then I. Guide dogs are specially bred for smarts and wit and start training at 6 weeks old. They start professional guiding at 2 years old and have to have the best food and vet treatment until and during their retirement five years later. I on the other hand was a rubbish toddler,..well lets not even mention potty training..bad student, fail every mathematical test I’ve taken and spell sideways..plus I have dodgy medical treatment and self medicate with gin and tonic. I don’t have a pension.

The dog is younger then me better looking and probably has more friends on her Facebook page. Bitch. Yes. Quite.

My first thought was, would you believe… ‘Is it going to impact on my love life?’

Oh stop bloody laughing. I did ONCE have one..a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. It is still possible, I’ve seen ‘How Stella Got he Groove Back.’ I’ve seen ‘Amalie’..more appropriately I’ve seen all the ‘Shrek’s’ and all the ‘Aliens’. However pitching up led by a Guide Dog..?
Relatives – especially those still gunning for grandchildren – say ‘Oh Tanvi, the right man will look PAST the dog.’
Yeah right.
Us ‘disableds’ (to coin a Zambian expression of note) know that that right man doesn’t exist. Many blokes (sorry..he/she or transgendered) are going to be put off by
1. a fear that others will see them as ‘lesser’ for going out with a ‘lesser’ person or even see it as a way of getting other women (men/ transgendered) by being seen as ‘compassionate’. (I’m not being daft here.. Sadly I talk from direct experience) ,
2. a fear that they might have to keep plucking the ‘disabled person’ from burning buildings, traffic accidents, exploding toilets blah blah.
3. or worse want to rescue us from our own cynical angst. Me? Cynical angst? C’est moi mojo n’est pas?
4. or ..and unfortunately (and yes I know I haven’t had much luck with blokes –) be rather too interested in the dog.

‘Noir’ (c) T. Bush (all other images from internet)

But strangely and out of the blue I still want to be open for the possibility. It’s partly the weather: concrete-cracking heat, humidity at 60% and storms like tiny, black smoke signals gathering on the horizon. Its also in part the fact that I have absolutely no idea what might happen next in my life. I am totally free falling. And i love the feeling and I bloody love storms! And that’s the problem. Stormy heat and a completely unreadable future does up my level of erotic greediness and that addictive and bizarre compulsion for romance. Call it the ‘Year of Living Dangerously’ syndrome.

Oh – the lovely ‘Lemonade Award’ from marvellous Val from Monkeys On the Roof.. I need to nominate ten blogs with attitude and gratitude.
Therefore the following blogs are officially nominated:
Tinku Tales
Velo Gubbed Legs
Siren Voices
Epicblogue
Fleeing Muses
Fush and Chips
123 I Love You
Up The Hill Backwards
The Gold Puppy
The Times Of Miranda
I want to wish my blogger friend The Gold Puppy much much love and strength. And she of Times Of Miranda much joy with the new baby.

When the party’s over…

Tanvir Naomi BushUncategorized 7 Comments

My birthday weekend was lovely, remarkably sweet and chock full of splendid people, venison burgers, vegan salads and Cava by the bucket. Massive thanks to the inebriated vicar who provided all the scrumptious food and the calm and careful Mum and John who helped me set up the garden and did the never-ending Sunday brunch.

‘Sally on Sunday’ (c) T. Bush

On Monday, the remnants of the guests staggered blearily off to catch trains and buses and I took out the last bag of rubbish and by Tuesday I wanted everyone to come back again.
Post party depression they call it.

On the train home from London yesterday the evening sky was moody blue and punch drunk with early summer storms. I was feeling sad and shy, evading the commuter’s incurious cow like gaze behind my dark glasses and wondering, as always when I feel so scared by my overindulgent English spinsterhood, if there was anywhere in the world I might actually be of use.

What if I used my birthday money (supposedly set aside for my dental surgery) and jumped ship to join forces with some romantic cause like the dark Lord Byron, Che, Lorca, Sampson or Sacajawarea …you won’t have heard of the last two..they’re a chicks and we know most history was written by men; some with remarkably small penii and huge imaginations..(The Trojan army was HOW big?)

Then again you might only have heard of Sacajawea because of the film ‘Night at the Museum’. If this is true I cannot judge…I am also this culturally inadequate but I am losing my drift net-all rubbish line of thought.

What can I really offer with no technical skills and no languages? Would I be useful getting a flight to Tehran and offering hugging ‘aww let it all out’ services to the Guardians in the hope that they suddenly feel less uptight and nuclear and more prepared to chat about it all. Or a quick dash across the border to North Korea to see if there is anyone in the militia who want to try permaculture, sustainable living and local trading systems. It’s really very good for drought proof vegetables. .

Anyway – just so you know I got for my birthday – amongst other marvellous things from jewellery to paella pans, sunflowers, martini glasses and Buddhist prayer bead – a subscription to a ‘blog redecoration service’. They are going to help make my blog site funky and more enticing which is a good thing because you may have noticed I have been slacking off badly and indeed was thinking of pulling the plug – this will be the much needed ‘re-boot in the behind’ to get me writing consistently again! It may take a few weeks but please do let me know what you think!

Also before I go to closing party photos – do check out ‘Siren Voices’. http://sirenvoices.blogspot.com He is a paramedic who writes up his strange encounters with such tender, mesmerising prose his blog quickly becomes addictive. Real modest, melancholy genius.


And thank you VAL from ‘Monkeys on the Roof’ for passing to me the Lemonade blog award! Whoo hoo! More on that next time.

And lastly farewell to the deeply troubled, brilliant and tragic Mr. Jackson. My childhood would have been strangely empty without some of your music.

Summer of ’69

Tanvir Naomi BushZambia 12 Comments

I was born on Midsummer’s Day in 1969, which makes this Sunday a rather large birthday. I think I am finally on top of the dizzying G-force effect of hurtling through time towards an age which tops Zambia’s life expectancy….which occurs the first time you actually realise that no one will ever call you ‘young woman’ again ….and which gets you ‘that look’ when people ask you if you have children and you reply ‘not yet.’

I did initially decide to hide under my bed weeping for the year but luckily have been convinced a celebration of survival, friendship and family might be appropriate and would certainly involve more sparkling wine.

I had wonderful birthdays as a pre boarding school child. My mum and dad would organise amazing fancy dress parties with themed food and remarkable cakes. Once – when I was obsessed with The Arabian Nights – we had a party with Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, Sheherezade (my own personal spelling) , Turkish delight, storytellers and pink and blue rice. My pal Sasha, dressed as Sinbad had a long wooden recorder attached to a huge stuffed snake in a man sized reed basket. He would play the recorder and gradually pull the string and therefore pull up the snake and we would all fall about with hysterics.

Sadly I don’t have those photos but as a teenager in the late Madonna infested ’80’s there was the infamous ‘Poseur and Tart Party’ we threw one holiday….’High School Musical’ it was most DEFINITELY not..but the less said about that the better…

ehmm…moving swiftly on…

Later my birthday was always mid exams…until my third year and my 21st birthday when my beautiful friend (she of the barge) bought tickets for Glastonbury. My parents sent a side of smoked salmon and two bottle of champagne and we guzzled them in most unhippy fashion in the Fiat Panda stuck in the three hour-long queue to the entrance. We arrived in the dark and I, desperate for a pee, leapt out and ran to a corner of the field and squatted down just as the battalion of parking attendants directed the next slew of cars to my very spot. In a thousand headlights my bare bottom was lit up like the full moon. My friend nearly stopped breathing she was laughing so hard….

When I turned 30 there was a total eclipse of the sun. In Zambia, in the bush on dad’s hill, with a motley collective of marvellous friends and several tourists weighted down with binoculars, cameras and special glasses, we waited and sure enough at 3pm in the afternoon a huge eagle and flocks of birds suddenly flew towards us to roost and the sun was eaten. It was a mind blowing, terrifying, humbling three full minutes of unearthly shadows and the strangest silence and even the dogs stopped howling. As we gazed at the blackened sun with its flaming, exploding aura there was a slight coughing sound and then a man behind us started singing ‘Happy Birthday.’ Dad had chosen that very moment to light the candles of my melting birthday cake.

The sun came back (phew) and the euphoria carried us for weeks.

Tomorrow my big sister is preparing lovely food, my Mum and John will be over from France and the garden will be full of friends and family. In the evening those still standing will go to the pub.

I will, at some point, toast Teelo and other absent friends and have a bit of a wail but someone will pick me up, brush me down and hand me a shot of tequila and onwards and upwards to more adventures, more love and maybe many more birthdays! A toast to all my readers and if any of you are near Cambridge this weekend do come along!
All images (c) T. Bush and family

Polls and Poles.

Tanvir Naomi BushUncategorized 6 Comments

 

Wonder what’s going to happen in Iran. It would seem the encrusted sandal of the religious right is about to crush any spark of reform. Do we hope for revolution or do we wish for people to stay safe and hide inside? Image from internet
From the Sunday sunshine of a Cambridge morning with doves cooing and church bells in the distance, a country fair on the green with the sweet smell of fried onions and burnt sugar on the breeze, riots, rage, death and demonic demagogues seem far, far away….

 

 

Having wafted off into an advert for the English tourism board I do have to pull back and have a rather serious perturbed winge about the state of play here in UK. After all how can we stand up against the sleaze and toothless, pink faced sweaty stupidity of the British National Party, shake fists at the greed of the banks, demand equality for all when at the same time condoning the vast gluttonous indulgence of the football industry. Ronaldo is transferred for 80 million and on a salary of £500,000 a week. This vain, young man may well be a great athlete, he may well have come from a tin hut in some mosquito ridden favela but please don’t fall for the line that this gross amount of money is a ‘symbol’ of hope for the oppressed masses hoping that they too one day will rise from their hovels to kick a ball in Manchester, marry some botoxed apparition, get embroiled in some ugly rape scandal, and disappear off at the age of 35 into broadcasting obscurity and alcoholism. That gross amount of money is purely that. Gross.
Image from internet

 

Anyway I withdraw growling and fully aware that greed is what makes the West go around and around and my firm belief that no one in the world should be able to earn more then £100,000 a year is never going to be popular..

And it’s sunny…
So quit thy harridan’s witter woman.

Actually there were a couple of endings this week. On Tuesday the photographic workshops came to the close of the first phase. The participants had selected a photo and we had made them each posters and the ensuing exhibition was joyful in the extreme. Their friends, family and colleagues wandered around the room continuously saying how astounded they were. how they had never imagined that blind and visually impaired people could take such remarkable shots (sorry i can’t show you yet but I hope soon some will be on an on -line exhibition!)
‘This is my photo of a thrown away piece of wood,’ said Mr. O. ‘When I saw the photo I realised it had bought out something beautiful in the wood and it made me think that all thrown away things have something beautiful still to be found. I have called this photo ‘Hope’. ‘

‘Nuff said.

My beginner’s pole dancing class also came to an end and there will sadly be no whipping around shouting ‘wheeee’ on poles until the intermediate class starts up next month. Just so you know this class wasn’t about sex..nope..this class was not even about grace and style..oh no oh no! This class, being beginners, was just lunatic gymnastics mixed in with the child-like memories of climbing trees..OK that was me. I shall have to take it more seriously for the intermediate class….point toes and stuff. …..but for now…‘WHEEEEEE!’
‘ pole’ (c) T. Bush

Prattle

Tanvir Naomi BushUncategorized 6 Comments

There is no getting away from the endless prattle and waspish cynicism seeping septic from the news. Government implodes and flights disappear and French students are tortured to death.

Thank goodness for the historic and remarkable speech by Obama in Saudi Arabia. At that point all across UK there was a rush on green cards. He is like an outstanding professor, Armani model and Gandalf combined. I wish he would invade England.

I can’t concentrate and time is ticking but instead I sit empty and stupid watching the yobbish starlings decimate the suet balls on the bird feeder. They shriek and peck at each other; like the Labour party really. It would be a better metaphor if they were a ‘parliament’ of owls… wonder what is collective noun for starlings..hang about. .Ahhh Google! A ‘scourge’ of starlings..a ‘murmuration’ of starlings. Personally I would go for a ‘UKIP’ of starlings…but that’s just me…
Starlings (c) Machrihaniol birds
I am fascinated by their rough pecking. I am riveted by everyone eating actually. I become still and attentive when I see people chewing gum as they walk past. I drift off and drool horribly when food adverts come on to the TV; the reason being that I am only a couple of days into a ten-day detox. The first three fast days are worst and I’m already dreaming of melting cheese, chips and dirty martinis. The detox is just to reboot my liver before my birthday in couple of weeks and I know once I am on the raw food bit I shall feel marvellous but right now I ache for Bounty ice cream.

So this post is short and full of prattle and no substance because neither am I (full of substance that is.) I leave you with a photo I took in Trafalgar Square the other day, which I feel expresses my current mood exactly.
T x

‘Girl on a Pole.’ (c) Tanvir Bush ’09