Tag Archives: me

Double Selfie

Posted on by

I’m not much of one for a selfie, I generally prefer to stay on the other side of the camera lens, although I noticed I have taken more in recent months while going through my cancer treatment (no idea why, just have). I did like this one though – Stephanie and I were enjoying the annual West End Craft Fair, which is in the burial ground of Saint John’s Church (buy some nice, handmade earrings next to the tomb of Ebeneezer McCurdie, died 1838!).

Double Selfie

Stephanie realised she had bought something from this crafter the year before, and they were chatting away. I noticed the oval mirror hanging to the side and just thought we could get a double mirror selfie with that. I couldn’t really see the camera screen properly and look at the mirror at the same time, so the framing is a bit off, but nonetheless, I like this pic.

Emotional rollercoaster (aka Fuck Cancer)

Posted on by

So, the horrible cancer treatment is ongoing, and ye gods, it is bloody wearing me down; relentless, like waves pounding on the rocky shore. It’s bitterly ironic that as I approach what I hope to god is the final stages of this nightmare treatment, I have struggled more and more to try to be positive than I have since the bloody start of this horrendous fucking year. I have, hopefully, one more of the god-awful, medieval poison torture sessions they call chemotherapy to go. Part of me thinks, thank smeg, only one more, the other part is just recoiling because each session has left me feeling worse than the last and thinking of god, they are going to make me go through this horrific experience again, aren’t they?

And I know it will make me feel sick and awful and wiped out and depressed and miserable. And I know I have to fucking well do it anyway, because life is that bloody cruel and doesn’t care. Since the most recent chemo poisoning, I have felt awful – previously I would start to slowly get better a few days after. This time, more than a week on from the fucking torture (am I using the word “fucking” too much? I don’t care. I have fucking cancer and I feel awful, so fuck you if me swearing upsets you, because there are worse things to be angry about), I still felt awful.

I had no energy, it wasn’t bouncing back, the side effects lingered longer and nastier than before, and between the horrible fatigue and the feeling of not getting anywhere it destroyed my morale and left me miserably depressed, isolated, disconnected from the world. You are in a weird limbo – you’re not dead but you’re not living your life, and the things that give your normal life structure are all undone while you deal with the betrayal of the very cells of your own body.

Today was the first time in ten days that I didn’t feel exhausted since the most recent chemo torture. I went for a walk with a friend, not too far in case the fatigue manifested itself again, then we stopped to do that most ordinary of things, friends going for a drink and a natter. And another drink and more chat. It felt good to do something so normal again. But then on the walk home my emotions went all over the place,

It had started raining, but I didn’t mind – even the rain felt good on my face, like I could feel the breeze, the droplets, I felt alive, for want of a better description, even pausing to take a couple of photographs in the rain, just because I could. And then my emotional dial started tilting all over the bloody place. I went from almost wanting to laugh and scream at the world “I AM ALIVE!!!!”, then suddenly veering towards not being able to stop myself crying buckets. I barely got myself home and the emotional rollecoaster went on, up and down and sideways and every which goddamned way. Laughing, crying, laughing again, crying, then wanting to scream with rage at the entire fucking world for doing this to me.

(rare selfie – I don’t like selfies, franky, but for some reason have taken more during recovery from surgery and chemo than I have in the last ten year – taken during a recuperation walk)

It’s not helped by the fact that this bastard cancer year has swallowed most of the actual year already. I knew there was something wrong with me by the start of the year, the doctor was investigating why my my blood work was so off (I had put down increasing fatigue and the fact trying to walk uphill to work was now suddenly so much more effort to just being older, as I turned 58 on Hogmanay. And it wasn’t that, I was ill, so much more ill than anyone knew).

By February we had the shock of diagnosis – it is not easy or simple thing when your doctor tells you that you have cancer, and that they don’t know how bad it is yet. Then wait for more scans and then… wait for results. Is it treatable? If it is, how treatable, can you cure me, or is this one of those we can save you but you’re going to have to take major changes to your life as we cut out bits and pieces and leave what’s left to try and work out how to live after? Or are you going to tell me it is too late, it is in my organs, and all you can offer is pain relief as my body slowly allows itself to succumb painfully and horribaly?

I had no fucking idea and by the time they met me to talk about the scan results I was literally shaking in fear. It was treatable, but it was bad, worse than they had expected from the first exploration. Surgery followed very soon after (god bless the NHS, they moved fast to take care of me). Then the slow, slow, painful recovery from five hours of being gutted, surgically dismebowled like the man under the pendulum in Poe. Would the cuts and repairs work? They had done all the skilled surgeons could, now we wait. After a few days, rumblings, then, oh my god, actually needing to go to the loo – yes, those insides they pulled apart, stripped of the fucking evil cancerous tumours, then stitched together again, were actually trying to work again.

Weeks of recovering after eight days stuck in hospital, weak, sore, tired, trying to walk somewewhere every day to try and rebuild my broken strength, and not to dwell on the massive trauma dealt to my body. And when I did so slowly get some strength back? Oh goody, not it is time to fuck your poor body over all over again with chemotherapy…

I am several courses through of that evil, brutal, primitive treatment. Yes, I am glad to live in an era where there is at least a treatment, but let’s be fucking honest, this is a horrible, brutal medication. It is, in effect, a chemical fucking blunderbuss compared to a sniper rifle. It may hit the target, but the bastard obliterates everything else around it, and destroys your white blood cells, immune system and your central nervous system too while it is attacking the cancer cells.

It is bloody horrible, leaves you feeling drained, sore, and with various side effects. Then there is the combination therapy of pills that are so nasty they advise you not to touch them when taking them (but you are meant to ingest the bastards?!?!). Basically there is no part of this treatment that doesn’t involve administering toxic poisons to your body. Is it for your own good? Yes, but it will make a mess of you while doing so, because it is a horrible, poorly targeted, awful remedy. We will try to cure you by making you feel awful and destroying even more of your body. Yes, it is that fucking brutal.

On previous treatments I felt awful, but a few days later started to slowly bounce back, I was even going in and doing partial days at the bookshop. This latest one was worse – maybe it is the cumulative effect of them poisoning my body repeatedly, but I took so much longer to get over it, ten days of being constantly sick and tired and having to stop after the slightest thing. I walked more to recover after the bloody surgery, for god’s sake, than I could manage after this fucking chemo. And as well as making me feel physically bad, it left my morale in the drainage pit. I had struggled to try to stay positive through all of this (with a huge amount of help), but now I felt miserable, useless, exhausted and that I wasn’t getting anywhere, as well as feeling isolated and disconnected from everything.

It’s a strange place to be – you’re not dead but you aren’t living your life. You are in-between, not at normal work or other regular things, everything is broken and disconnected and leaves you feeling isolated and adrift from the world. None of which helps your mental health when facing this kind of crisis. And this has been going on since 2026 first showed its evil fucking face . And here it was clicking over into July – July, seven months and I was still dealing with this relentless, horrible situation.

Cancer had swallowed two thirds of the year, and I felt like I had hardly touched or lived that year, it was all subsumed into this nightmare, days and weeks merging, no real sense of time. And that just made me more miserable. There is only so long you can fight this nightmare with postiive thoughts befor it wears you down, more and more and more, like the evil, rentless bastard that it is. With only (hopefully) one more treatment scheduled I hit the lowest fucking point in this whole utter horror of a fucking year.

Then today, feeling a bit better for the first time in ten days, had a decent day for the first time since the last treatment… and then that emotional crash, high, crash, high. Jesus, this is me on a GOOD day??? But it is the cumulative effect of months of enduring this nightmare, and knowing I am not out of it yet, and even if they say in a few weeks it is done, I know it isn’t bloody done, because the shadow of it will always hang over me. They will check me regularly in case it manifests again – good they are looking after me, but it also means the rest of my life is marked by worrying each time they check me, has it come back and oh, god, what do we do if it does come back, because yes, it may be okay, but we all know people who have gone through this, gotten better, then it bloody well comes back again, worse, because, well cancer is an evil fucking bastard. So even when this is hopefully over, it really isn’t ever quite over. And that just all overflowed tonight like a river bursting its banks.

I have no idea how I feel tonight. I have laughed and cried and screamed and laughed again then cried more and asked “why me?” and there is no answer. I’m very, very tired of it all and trying to get through these last weeks of horrible chemotherapy without falling apart emotionally and physically, and I am managing both only partially at best.

Fuck cancer.

Chemo

Posted on by

So, after several weeks of walking and exercising a bit more each day since I was released from hospital, after the cancer surgery, I have been feeling stronger, appetite back (what a relief to not just be able to eat again without pain, but actually want to enjoy food, something I couldn’t do increasingly before the surgery, the tumours had blocked so much of my digestive system). I was starting to think maybe I could do a few hours back at work, cover some busy spells, ease myself back into things…

… But then it was time to start the chemotherapy, which, of course, knocks me back a bit physically. The irony of getting myself stronger and fitter after the heavy surgery, only to then get knocked back again by more treatment. Of course they had to wait for me to recover a bit before starting this, as the medication is, basically, toxic, and damaging to healthy cells, blood and nerves as well as any cancerous ones, I understand it, but it still feels bitterly ironic to get healthier to then undergo more that makes me feel worse.

Who Was That Masked Man?
(since the toxic meds of chemo can bugger up the immune response, it is time to mask up again on public transport, just to be safe)

It’s been a week now since the first full treatment, plugged in as the drugs are fed into you for a few hours, and then started the daily, very heavy pill regime too (also coming with its own list of side effects, from common and minor to terrifying, but fortunately rare). So far I have felt several side effects, but thankfully not the worst, and have still been able to continue to get out each day, although I tire more quickly (again – sigh, was just over that!). Has to be done, and will be months of this now, although fortunately only a few of the hours long version where I am plugged in, but the sad thing is it simply has to be done and endured.

To go through all the scariness, pain and trauma of major surgery than not take the chemo, well, would be basically gambling that it was all gone and never coming back. And you can’t take that risk, not with bloody cancer. So it’s this for the next few months. What a bloody awful year it has been so far. If it wasn’t for my family and friends being so damned supportive and protective I wouldn’t be able to cope with it, I’d just retreat into myself. I don’t know how anyone could get through this sort of thing without that vital support, it’s as important as the actual medical care.

On the other side…

Posted on by

So, that was quite the experience: towards the end of March I went in for major cancer surgery. It was thought if it all went to plan I would have a night in high dependency after the surgery, then several days in the ward being monitored to make sure everything was starting to work again after being taken apart and put back together (complete with very large scar across my body).

Hospital Sunset
(view of the older part of the hospital, surrounded by modern extensions, taken on one of my recuperation exercise walks around the hospital corridors)

With some wrinkles it ended up being 8 days in hospital before finally going home. The staff were wonderful, supportive, friendly, we were well looked after, but you still yearn to go home.

Rather than return to my own flat by myself, my family picked me up and we drove back through to Glasgow so I could stay at the parental mansion with dad. It just felt like the more sensible thing to do, being very weak and tired and sore (and scarred and bruised), no bad thing to have someone there to keep an eye on me, just in case. It was good to be out though after 8 days, even though first day out it was windy, cold and raining, but dammit, it was outside and it felt good.

Dad and I took short excursions and walks each day, pacing ourselves (at the moment I don’t have to slow my walk to match dad, because I am so bloody slow). After a week staying back home, slowly getting better, I decided it was time to move back to Edinburgh, so last night was my first sleep in my own flat in my own bed in about 16 days. It felt a bit odd to be back, although also good. Out for another short walk today to try and build myself back up, slow walk to Harrison Park to the old boathouse, where I met up with a chum, and also, crucially, where I could sit down for a while to get my strength back for the walk home.

Shadow Patterns
(early morning light casting shadows and light beams across a hospital corridor, taken during my hospital stay during an exercise walk)

I’m not out of the woods yet, and there is more than likely more treatment to come, most likely some form of chemo, which of course I am less than happy about – feels like my poor body has been violated enough already, frankly. But if it needs done, it needs done, and at least the major surgery part is now in my rear view mirror. It’s still going to be weeks of getting my strength back though, but taking it one day at a time. And still taking photos, of course. Even managed a couple of pics while walking around the hospital for exercise.

Freedom
(I rarely do selfies, but this was my first, full day out of hospital after 8 days, and the relief of standing outside, even in rain and wind, was just wonderful)

Praise for To End All Wars…

Posted on by

“Possibly the most moving piece is the final one of the book, Joe Gordon’s impassioned prose ‘Memorial to the Mothers‘ illustrated by Kate Charlesworth. A simple reminder that for every male name we see on a war memorial there was at least one other wounded person, the mothers and wives who bore the terrible brunt of the criminal throwing away of their loved ones’ lives. Apart from this there was nothing in the volume that quite reached the heights of Mills and Colquhoun’s Charley’s War, or Jacques Tardi’s It was the War of the Trenches for me.”

Eamonn Clarke writing about World War One comics anthology To End All Wars in Everything Comes Back to 2000 AD, and, in the above quote, more specifically on my own story in that collection, edited by Jonathan Clode and Brick. I’ve fiddled with stories pretty much all my life, on and off, but after we lost my mum so suddenly several years ago I lost any urge to write narratives. I was still writing professionally with articles, interviews and reviews, but the spark that made me want to write stories, even if they never went anywhere other than my own blog, had gone out. Two years ago Brick asked me if I would put out a call on the Forbidden Planet Blog that they were looking for writers and artists to submit stories for consideration for a charity anthology they were compiling, as an antidote to some of the bollocks we all knew we would be said in relation to the centenary of the start of the Great War. During this Brick saw one of my many photos I snap around town, this one of an unusual war grave, just moments from my flat in Edinburgh, a father and son, father fallen in the War to End All Wars, his lad in the world war that followed it…

Brick commented there was a story behind that and maybe I should try my hand at submitting something for consideration myself. At first all that sprang to mind were fairly cliched stories, and I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted something different and above all I wanted emotion. If I couldn’t make at least some of the readers feel chocked up reading it then I wasn’t inteersting in writing it. What good is a story that doesn’t evoke an emotional response? All art should create emotion. And given I was using real people and their loss as inspiration, it had to evoke emotion or it simply wouldn’t be right. An idea came to me, that apart from the father and son there was another name that should be on there, as much a casualty as any soldier: the wife and mother. Her husband then her boy taken from her by this insatiable beast of War that even supposedly “civilised” nations consider an adequate way to conduct themselves. And from that, by extension, every war memorial in the world with their engraved names also should have behind them the names of the mothers of the fallen.

memorial to the mothers joe gordon kate charlesworth to end all wars

And there was my emotional ‘in’ to the story. I started writing, for the first time since we lost mum I started writing a story and I think I poured my own sense of loss and grief into it. But to be honest I wasn’t sure if it would mean much to anyone other than me, but Brick and Jonathan liked the emotion in it (in fact among their editorial notes they said don’t hold back, pour it all in, so I did). The collection was published this summer by Indy comics folks Soaring Penguin Press, with £2 from each sale going to Medecins Sans Frontieres, the medical charity (currently dealing with victims of war zones and Ebola, so let’s face it, they need every pound they can get) and I have been pleased at its reception. Also as someone who has been involved with the Edinburgh International Book Festival for years it was pleasing to be there chairing talks and see, for the first time, a book I had a part in being on sale in their bookstore. And I loved the art my partner in crime Kate Charlesworth came up with for the story (Kate also did the art for one of my favourite books of 2014 with Mary and Bryan Talbot, Sally Heathcote, Suffragette). Have seen some nice mentions for the collection but have to say I’m pretty damned happy at Eamonn’s comments on mine and Kate’s piece in the collection. It’s not why we do these things, but it’s still pretty nice to see we reached someone. Several moths ago Pat Mills commented to me that he enjoyed the emotional depth of the story, and since I have been reading Pat’s stories since I was a kid that pretty much made my week, and now seeing it compared to the emotional impact of Pat’s astonishing Charley’s War and Tardi (another of my comics gods) and his WWI stories is pretty damned pleasing.

 

To End All Wars

Posted on by

This month sees the publication of To End All Wars, a graphic anthology of twenty six tales by over fifty writers and artists from thirteen countries, all marking the centenary of the start of the First World War – the ‘war to end all wars’ – this year, edited by Jonathan Clode and John Stuart Clark (who cartoons under the pen-name Brick). With this centenary year, while there have been some good documentaries and personal histories we all feared there would also be those who overlook the mud, the blood, the millions slaughtered and mutilated in mind and body on a scale of warfare no-one could have imagined before… So the brief was for stories that would take in all sides, different fields of conflict and service, from the early U-Boats to the trenches to the nurses who travelled all the way to Russia to give aid to the animals who were used in the war. Linking all of them was a desire to avoid those monsters, jingoism and nationalism, which have fueled (and still fuel) so much bloodshed, to, as the poet said, show our contempt for “the old lie – dulce est decorum est, pro patri mori” (how sweet it is to die for one’s country). Yes, Mr Gove, with your ill-informed public views on history and the Great War, we are looking at you and your ilk…


(end papers by Bern Campbell)


(Between the Darkness by Patri Hanninen and Neil McClements)

The subjects are diverse, taking in all sorts of fields of conflict from the First World War and all sides, even the role of animals, and there’s a wonderfully satirical piece by Brick which imagines all the leaders of the nations in that war on trial at the Hague for their war crimes, being cross examined by the Good Soldier Svejk, but all are inspired in one way or another by actual characters or events.


(Above: Il Gatto by Stuart Richardssees a curious feline running between the lines in the Alpine war between the Austrian and Italian lines in the frozen mountains; below: Dead in the Water by Ian Douglas and SM shows the chill brutality of a new form of warfare, the U-Boat campaign, from above and below the cold, dark seas)

My own story is the only prose piece rather than comic, but Memorial to the Mothers boasts some gorgeous, touching illustrations by Kate Charlesworth (who recently created the art for Mary and Bryan Talbot’s superb Sally Heathcote, Suffragette), and it closes the collection. Memorial to the Mothers was inspired by one of my own photographs, which I took of an unusual war grave in Dalry Cemetery near Haymarket in Edinburgh, one which remembers a father and a son, both the same regiment, eerily both the same age at death, the father killed in the First World War, the son in the Second World War. I often wondered if the father consoled himself during his trials by thinking at least his wee boy, when he grew up, would never have to endure the mud, the blood, the screaming of young men dying on the wire in No Man’s Land, because how could anyone ever, ever think about starting another war after this slaughter of nations? And yet here is a memorial to both of them, the son killed only a couple of decades later in the war which came after the “war to end all wars…”

Brick had seen that photo after I had put a call out for contributors for the book over a year back, and he commented there was a story in there and perhaps I should think about doing one myself instead of just spreading the word about for contributors to try out. And looking at it I suddenly realised there was another casualty who wasn’t on this memorial, the mother and wife. And by extension all of those war memorials in counties all over the world which list the names of the fallen too, behind each of them a veriable regiment, a division, an entire corps of mothers, wounded in soul and spirit and heart, casualties as surely as their loved ones who were mown down on the battlefields. That gave me the angle I needed to tell a story, not so much of this sad father and son memorial, but for all the mothers of all the fallen, from that war and all others, and I poured as much emotion into it as I could, drawing, I suspect, without thinking, on my own ever-present sense of loss and grief and trying to channel it into empathy (something our world needs more of), for those legions of mothers, and Kate created some wonderful illustrations, from little items mothers keep, like baby boots, to some haunting images of the mothers left behind, with their loss etched into their hearts eternally, feeling the pain of loss of their young lads as surely as the maimed soldier feels phantom pain from a limb long since left in the mud of the battlefield. Hopefully readers find it as emotional.


(the father and son war grave in Dalry Cemetery, Edinburgh, which inspired my story Memorial to the Mothers)

To End All Wars is published this month in the UK by Soaring Penguin Press and money from each sale is going to help Medecins Sans Frontiers, who offer medical help in many countries, in war zones, disaster hit areas and more, and goodness knows they could use all the donations they can get to continue their work, so I hope that we raise some money for them and that readers find our stories interesting. Jonathan and Brick have accomplished a great feat in herding the cats that are numerous writers and artists (from many countries) to bring this book from idea to actual finished work, and I’m proud of the work of my fellow contributors and myself. We weren’t there, none are left now after the death of Harry Patch a couple of years ago, who served in that dreadful, industrial slaughter, but I think I can say we all approached this with a sense of respect and deep emotional empathy. And with the last veteran now gone to well-earned rest it is all the more important we remember, that we never allow politicians and others to glorify war, because that makes it far, far too easy to for those same so-called leaders – different century, but same sorts of people seemingly in charge, always, too quick to find excuses for war but themselves never in the line of fire, always other people’s sons and daughters, all too often sacrificed to propaganda and political or economic reasons, not the principles they tell the soldiers they are fighting for. Never trust the bastard who speaks of glory in war, never let a leader try to drag us into another conflict without questioning them (yes, Mr Blair, we mean you, you two-faced Judas with your blood-soaked hands).

On the BBC

Posted on by

To End All Wars, the World War One comics anthology I have a short story in, has a nice, big feature on the BBC site today, and yours truly’s contribution, alongside that of Kate Charlesworth who created the wonderful art for the story, is about two thirds of the way down the article. The book itself, edited by Jonathan Clode and and Stuart Clark (who cartoons under the pen-name Brick), is published by Soaring Penguin Press towards the end of this month (so I’ll have my copy in time to ‘casually’ tuck under my arm as I stroll around the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August, where I am chairing a couple of author talks again this year). Two pounds from the sale of each book will got to benefit Médecins Sans Frontières medical charity, so I hope folks will give it some support.

to-end-all-wars-cover-Lizzy-Waterhouse

The stories take in a large number of creators from different countries, with many tales inspired by real events or people and telling stories from all sides of that awful conflict which, even in this centenary year of it’s commencement, still echoes down to us, even after the last of the elderly veterans from that war have faded into history and gone to their rest, and takes in the war in the trenches, the seas, the mountains and the air, the humans and the animals who were used in the war effort, the front line and the home. I strongly suspect Michael Gove will not appreciate the sentiment of most of the stories and also suspect that most of my fellow contributors would be quite happy that he would hate it (I certainly would be). My own story is inspired by one of my photographs, of a war memorial in a cemetery just a few moments walk from my flat, a father and son war grave, the father killed in the Great War, his son in the fall of France in 1940. You can also read a special guest post by the editors talking about how the book came together over on the Forbidden Planet blog.

Ten thousand photos

Posted on by

A few days ago I passed something of a fairly major personal milestone on my Flickr site, uploading image number ten thousand. Yep, the Woolamaloo Flickr, which I started back in March 2007, has now passed the ten thousand photographs line. I may have a bit of a camera addiction… Here is the picture that was number ten thousand, a shot taken at night on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, by the City Chambers where a bronze plaque stands as memorial to where the last home used to stand that Mary Queen of Scots, that most unfortunate of ladies, stayed in during her very final night in her capital city, in 1567:

Over the years I’ve posted all sorts of photos – architecture, modern and ancient, memorials, street scenes, Fringe performers, family, friends, cats, dogs, jellyfish, shots of villages, shots of cities, panoramas taking in swathes of cityscape from tall structures like the Scott Monument of Eiffel Tower, or detailed close ups of a fascinating little corner that took my eye, photos of famous authors, photos of pubs, shots taken in the bright light of day, or in the swirl of snow, shots taken at night, in colour or luminous, silvery black and white. The camera lives in my bag and so goes everywhere with me, pretty much, many of those thousands of pics are opportunistic shots, taken as I saw something interesting on the walk home from work, and Edinburgh offers up many potential subjects for my camera, be it the Castle silhouetted by the setting sun, snow covering the Royal Mile, the moon over the Old Town or performers from the Fringe performing on the street or something as simple as the wonderful colour the old stone buildings turn as the setting sun bathes them. And one of the nice things about being in this habit is that part of my brain is always looking at the city and the people around me with an eye to something that makes an interesting shot. And I say interesting rather than good, as I make no claim to be a great photographer, I simply like catching moments and sharing them online, and sometimes I get lucky with those shots and they come out fairly well.

I’ve had a camera since I was a very young boy – my Uncle Jim, my dad’s big brother, was a keen amateur photographer and as a primary school kid he got me my first real camera (other than getting to use one of dad’s, I mean, my own actual camera), one of those very 1970s, oh so neat Kodak 110 cameras. Remember those? Tiny little oblongs, the small 110 film dropped into the back onto the sprockets easily, unlike the hassle of unwinding a bit of 35MM film then trying to attach it to one reel and sprocket and wind on properly. Perfect for a kid to use. A few years later he got me my first 35MM, a Ricoh compact. Not like the ones that became popular in the late 80s and early 90s which were all automatic and self contained, this was a proper compact where you had built in light meter and used your F stop settings and so on, basically almost everything you would do with a full scale 35MM SLR camera, except for being able to change lenses – a training camera. After that proper 35MM SLRs, of which we had several at home – nothing fancy, just good, solid workhorses like the old Praktica. Came in damned handy at college, I didn’t have to borrow one from the department, I used my own and I knew what I was doing so could spend more time doing work at the processing end in the dark room (always loved that part – semi gloom, quiet, you never knew what you had till developed, was it good, was it blurred, too dark? And then that magical moment when onto a blank piece of paper an image would fade into reality).

First digital camera was the rather basic but cute looking Fuji Q1 – very simple, tiny memory (even with the added memory card – a whole 64 megabytes! Nothing by modern standards, what a difference even a few years makes) so that I had to ’empty out’ the memory card frequently to keep space in it. I think the first card was actually only something like 16MB, but to be honest to someone who came from a film background this wasn’t a problem, I was used to having maximum of 36 exposures then time to change film, so being able to take a hundred wasn’t a restriction (these days it would be, so used to having huge amounts of memory cheap and accessible). I think, as my dad has observed sometimes at his camera club, those who never learned on film have a blaze away and hope something works approach. And while I will use the bags of memory you get today to take some extra shots of something if I have time, in order to cover myself (in case one or two don’t work), most of the time I line up a shot and take it. Sniper, not spray it around Tommy Gun approach. And unlike a lot at my dad’s camera club, I don’t spend hours in PhotoShop then tweaking and changing that image until it is as they want – I do most of my editing actually in camera, lining up and framing the shot, subject and angle I want so afterwards in processing all I really do is the odd bit of cropping, maybe fine tune contrast, brightness or colour balance, nothing I wouldn’t have done in the dark room in the film days.

I don’t monkey around altering my photos, I want to get as close to showing what I saw as I can, no fakery or touch ups. To my mind that is photography. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against digital imagery and manipulation, I see some great pics that way and like them, but to my mind that is digital imagery, not photography. Photography is a discipline as well as art and medium, and my version of it involves not reworking images in the computer later until I have something that wasn’t what I saw. Like I said I like capturing moments, be it someone laughing at the Fringe or the play of sun on an old building. I’ve moved through a couple more digital cameras since that first basic one (which cost more back then than a good compact would now). My previous camera reminded me of that advanced compact Uncle Jim got me as a boy, bit chunkier than most compacts because it had more features – like being able to do decent night shots and long exposures on the tripod, and I think I worked the poor thing to death, it actually packed in. Replaced with bigger, more advanced kit, what they call a bridge camera, much like a digital SLR but slightly smaller and you can’t change lenses, but other than that very similar. Full SLR and various lenses would not be as handy for me as I like to keep this in my bag so even during regular day I can just whip it out and get a shot if one presents itself, but also have it be advanced enough that I can work it. Of course as always there’s a newer, better, fancier one, and after several years with this very good one I have an eye on the new version of the same range, but due to advanced EPS (Empty Pockets Syndrome) it will be quiet a while before I can afford it, which is okay as the one I have is absolutely fine and certainly does me well.

So as I pass ten thousand pics and hundreds of thousands of views of my photos online I find myself looking back at it. Some of those pics I’ve allowed to be re-used – some charities have used them, some teaching projects have borrowed them, as have some graduate students for their work, couple got borrowed for a community arts project, some have appeared on the BBC and BoingBoing sites, even the New Yorker’s book blog, one was used for the poster for a science conference, a few have even appeared in books – one for a charity publication, couple of author pics I took were loaned to creators I know to use (the most recent one just appeared a couple of weeks ago, author using my pic as his headshot). Maybe one of these days someone will actually license on for real money! I doubt it, but you never know…

But every time I think of all those pics, the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views of them I’ve had so far I think about Uncle Jim, wonder what he would have made of the digital age of photography, what he might have done with some of this kit (or would he rather have stuck to film?). And I also mentally thank him for those first cameras and and encouragement, and my dad too for his or maybe I wouldn’t be doing more than the odd holiday snap today. I also find myself looking back over it and it forms a kind of visual diary for me, preserving moments and places, and I often look through the archives and tweet pics that were shot on this day in previous years. Feels nice to be able to capture these scenes and even better to be able to share them online, and with that many views I must be doing something right…

Weird dreams…

Posted on by

For the last two nights I have very odd dreams – also unusual in that I actually remembered them fairly clearly, probably because I woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night, slightly discombobulated for a few moments sitting up in the dark with the dream still foremost in my mind, before becoming awake enough to realise it was just a dream. Then back to sleep and the dream continues – similarly when I actually woke up the dream was still running through my head.

Last night for some peculiar reason I dreamed I was making a documentary – said documentary involved, for no obvious reason I can think of, old folk artists the Alexander Brothers who we were filming on a kayak expedition. This kayak expedition started along the Scottish coast but soon moved inland where, due to severe floods, the towns nearby had been utterly flooded and we all paddled our canoes through the streets and, at several points, right through several houses, paddling along halls and into someone’s deluged living room, filming the brothers discussing climate change and the pleasures of both sea and the new urban kayaking in Scotland.

Edinburgh Canal Festival 2012 013

No, I have no idea where this came from, I haven’t been in a canoe since I was in the Boy’s Brigade at an outdoor centre (and that wasn’t yesterday!) and quite why this documentary was about the Alexander Brothers and kayaks I have no idea…

The night before that I dreamed my work told me that they were expanding the store above into the basement, so my desk down under the depths of the Bridges had to be moved even deeper down. I was taken on a long walk down a dark tunnel even deeper into the undercity below, where after a good half hour’s walk from my old desk we came to a floodlit area in one of the deep stone tunnels. It’s a bit of a walk to your desk, I’m afraid, they told me, then also added that I would have to put up with some noise and coming and going as there was an archaeological excavation going on just a few feet from where they had set up my desk. When I woke up in the middle of the night the dream was so strong in my head I was sitting there for a few moments thinking I’m not letting them treat me like this, must call my union rep… Oh, hold on, dream… And like last night, when I fell asleep again the same dream ran again. Not unusual for me to have odd dreams, we all have those, and the amount I read it’s not surprising I get a lot of them, but very unusual to remember them so clearly well into waking. And really, what the smeg was the canoeing through houses with a pair of old folk musician documentary about??

42

Posted on by

Today marks my ‘Douglas Adams’ birthday – 42. This, of course, means I now am perfectly at one with The Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything. Mind you, as anyone who knows where their towel is can probably guess, I still don’t understand the bloody Great Question, rendering it all pretty pointless (an apt metaphor for life, really – puzzling, frustrating, disappointing and pointless). At least I know my Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster from my Old Janx Spirit. I’m not really sure how I come to find myself at this age. On the one hand it seems like just the other year I was a happy mid 20s student drinking my way through college and quite happy, other days it feels like a lifetime ago. I suppose it was. Can’t say I especially feel like celebrating; truth be told I don’t really give a damn about my birthday, its on such an awkward day its a bit of an afterthought so it hasn’t really meant much to me in my adult years, different when you are a kid. And these days it doesn’t feel like there’s much reason to celebrate.

Gift ideas

Posted on by

‘Tis the season when every second bloody advert is from celebs from A to Z list hawking their wares: perfumes, endless comedy DVDs and books which are instantly sold at half price in the chain bookstores and supermarkets. I’m so utterly disgusted by the crass, obvious commercialism of all of this that I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon and endorse my own scent, Eau de Joe. Why buy a perfume that allegedly makes you smell like some Hollywood slapper when you could have Eau de Joe, with its peaty, single malt mixed with hints of 80% coco chocolate, must books and cat fur aroma.

And for that other perfect gift for Christmas why not select my new special Joe Stands Up comedy DVD. Its an hour long of me standing up in different poses, from bolt upright to nonchalantly leaning against the fireplace in my smoking jacket as I tap out my pipe. Order now and get the bonus extra disc Joe Also Sits Down. Truly something for everyone.

Okay, I’ll admit, these are shoddy, inferior goods designed simply to be bought by folks desperate for gift ideas for relatives whose tastes they don’t really know that well, just like every other shameless celebrity endorsed bag of crap, but at least I’m honest about it. And my comedy DVD would still be funnier than bloody Peter Kaye or Gavin and bloody Stacey. Hmm, maybe I should think on a range of action figures for next year…

Fog in Channel

Posted on by

Quite a while back I was asked by Tom and Simon Sykes if I’d like to contribute to a book they were putting together on British attitudes to Europe; its taken some time to get to print but its now finally been released (I just received my complimentary copy). It was quite nice to be asked (they had come across the Woolamaloo after the infamous ‘Bastardstone’s’ incident and liked my writing style) and it was unusual for me to be asked to write on something other than my regular subjects of books, comics or films (much as I do enjoy writing and talking about those). I’m also rather chuffed to think I’m in there with company such as Bill Deedes, Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell and Tony Benn (my late uncle, a solid socialist to the day he died, would have been delighted to see his nephew in a book alongside Benn). The guys wanted to have a spread of people and so a variety of thoughts and opinion and not just the ‘usual suspects’, hence why I was also approached; I drew on my own experience of an earlier Union to describe my feeling towards European Union, looking at the notion of being Scottish and British against the idea of being British but also European. Fog in Channel (the title inspired by the old weather report on the radio) is published now by Shoehorn Publishing.