Comfort Blanket

Mindless, or not so mindless, distractions

Picture by r.j.wagner

Now lets get one thing clear right out of the starting gate - I'm not talking about drinking yourself into oblivion or anything of that ilk. This is altogether more wholesome so don't panic, I'm not diverging from the principles of the blog.

I think its very easy in the day to day all-pervading atmosphere of never-ending news (almost all bad and depressing, and as if that were not enough, repeated, analysed and predicted over and over to really emphasise the badness of it and make sure you have no chance of forgetting or escaping), it is very easy to feel as if you are drowning in the worst aspects of human nature. Anyone looking in from outer space could be forgiven for giving the human species a miss and quietly moving on to galaxies new. Who would want to know us if the non-stop news was the only truth about us? I think we need to regularly give ourselves permission to disconnect ourselves from the endless babble of the news and allow our minds to float free, to let other kinds of thoughts wash over us.

One way of doing this is to listen to some music - loud, quiet, bouncy or restful. Anything to change the soundtrack. This is all fine and dandy on its own but sometimes it also helps to keep one part of our minds active and engaged, and that way you can't drift back so easily to all the depressing stuff - it does act like a magnet sometimes. There are many good ways to achieve this. Doing a crossword or a sudoku puzzle is one approach. In this manner your mind is completely absorbed in the task of getting the solution and so cannot easily find itself taken up with the grimness beyond. Just escaping for a short while can do you the power of good. You break the pattern, you remind yourself there are other, better things out there.

Christmas time is often the time when a jigsaw puzzle is dragged out. I find these a great way of occupying my mind, and a good way to train your eye to observe and see what you can otherwise miss. I love to do puzzles of the great paintings, as this is a way to become really intimate with even the tiniest of brush strokes, and you begin to see fine inflections of colour that otherwise pass you by.

Knitting is another variant, providing you can get relatively proficient. You are either concentrating very hard to keep up with an intricate pattern - and the intrusion of any other thought would turn it into a random splodge of wool - or you can switch off to the repetitive rhythm of knit and purl rows. I have a lovely little book which is basically a sort of Zen and the art of knitting which promotes exactly this and it paints a seductive picture of knitting in a zen like state, mind clear and blissful ... and lo, at the end you have a useful dishcloth. Two birds with ... two knitting needles. 

So, instead of thinking that jigsaw puzzles are a childish waste of time, or feeling guilty about picking up the crossword, throw yourself into it knowing that you are giving your mind a well earned rest and allowing it to not think at all for a while. You owe it that much. And you will do yourself a power of good, refresh a tired brain and come back to whatever you need to achieve with some renewed vigour and enthusiasm.

... Perchance to dream ...

Picture by Aaron Escobar

It struck me that the ideal follow up from the last posting on fabulous beds and at one and the same time the ideal thing to write about on New Years Eve would be dreams. Day dreams, the things you hope to do and the places you hope to visit in the coming year or further ahead. You could look at day dreams in a rather pessimistic way as an idle waste of time lost thinking about things you may never get to do, hoping for things out of your reach. But I disagree. I think they are all part and parcel of the weft and weave of your own comfort blanket.

Sometimes it is just the language we use that loads a concept down with all sorts of unhelpful baggage. Calling something a daydream brings to mind a wistful longing, lying around wasting the hours in front of you in pipe dreams. But you can call it other things and the very same thing becomes a healthy pursuit in moderation. Call it visualisation instead and it becomes a powerful psychological tool, a way of imagining yourself doing something that also helps you to achieve it. If you can see yourself in your minds eye already acting in a confident manner, having a better job or being on that dream holiday, it is now well accepted that you are that little bit closer to achieving it. Call it planning and it starts to become even more mundane, and even becomes practical and sensible. But what is planning other than directed and purposeful, focused day dreaming? 

Don't forget that old adage "it is better to travel than arrive". Often the anticipation and expectation is one of the best parts of the whole experience. Maybe one of the nicesst things to do over the next day or two would be to plan something, maybe a holiday, or redecorating your house or finding a more interesting job (or maybe any job at all in this climate). Traditionally this is the time of year for holiday adverts. Maybe you won't be able to afford your dream trip, or even any trip at all this year, but you could still get plenty of pleasure from looking on the internet and in books and planning the places you'd visit, how long you'd stay and the special attractions you'd make sure you'd see. Maybe you will feel a bit frustrated that you can't afford it now, but work out a rough budget and see how much you'd need to save if you want to go in 3 years or 5 years. It may be a long wait but the amount you have to put by might be attainable if you have that long to save up.

So lets hear it for dreams, for looking ahead and thinking of what might be, what could be. Lets hear it for planning ahead and helping ourselves to realise our dreams.

Nothing beats bedtime

Picture by tarraleah media

There are few more comforting things than snuggling down in a warm cosy comfy bed and drifting off to sleep at the end of a tiring day. I realise that for some people a bed is just a bed and it is nothing more than a practical device to keep you flat and comfortable while you are asleep. But for me and many others a bed is so much more. Childrens beds these days show a great deal more imagination than they used to. Little girls who dream of being princesses can have a bed like a fairy castle, complete with turret. Boys can have beds shaped like racing cars or space rockets. If you have the money, beds for grown ups can also be far from mundane. I found the following wonderful site of (very expensive) beds designed to be different, imaginative, and amazing. OK, so I would be slightly nervous of the private cloud rocking bed. One sudden move to rescue a tissue disappearing behind your pillow and you could be rocking violently for 10 minutes by the looks of things. On a similar vein, and with a few repetitions, here are what this site describes as "extreme beds". Interesting!

An A to Z of comforting things

A is for apple pie (motherhood and apple pie; crisp crust with steaming hot apples and drenched in cold cream), April (all the bold new green shoots bringing hope and joy), and Autumn (autumn golds and reds, autumn sunshine)

B is for Barefoot Contessa, blankets, books, biscuits and blackbirds

C is for cooking (all afternoon until the windows are all steamed up and every bowl has been used), colour (bold, loud zaps of colour), chocolate and Christmas carols

D is for duvets (underneath a duvet is the safest place in all the world), dreams (while under the duvet) and ducks (nothing at all to do with the duvet)

E is for eggs and Elgar

F is for films (especially French films), felt and fabric, a warm glowing fire and friends

G is for glow (the warm orangey glow inside all those living rooms in the early evening), and the pink glow of cheeks

H is for home and happiness and holidays

I  is for imagining (imagining what might be, and imagining your wildest dreams)

J is for jigsaws, John Betjeman and Joyce Grenfell

K is for kitchens (warm smell of baking, and the eager expectation of the arrival of the food) and knitting

L is for ... love and laughter of course!

M is for music

N is for nasturtiums and nirvana, and nice things

O is for the colour orange

P is for pie, pink, purple, Paris, pictures and painting

Q is for quilts (making them and hiding under them)

R is for rain (as long as it is outside and you are inside, preferably under a duvet or quilt), ribbons, ribena and Ribstone pippin

S is for soup and seaside

T is for toffee and teacakes

U is for under (the duvet) and utopia

V is for Venice

W is for weekends and wool

X, Y and Z are for not quite finishing something

Food nostalgia

 

Picture by kasiaflickr

I love food, and I like to wallow in a bit of nostalgia from time to time, and sometimes throwing the two things together creates an irresistable confection. Do you have happy memories of wonderful food or perfect times that are evoked by the smell of baking bread or maybe melting chocolate? This is similar to the moment recounted by Marcel Proust in  A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) and the memories invoked as he bites into the madeleine cake.

What do I remember? I remember Sunday lunchtimes at my grandmothers house and the thick, heavy smells of Sunday lunch - winter and summer just the same, no quarter given for heatwaves. What I recall most intensely is picking fresh mint from the garden and helping to chop it up and prepare the mint sauce for the lamb. The mouth watering tang of the vinegar as it hit the back of my throat and then slooshing yet more sugar in to counteract it. Quite how anyone else stomached eating it I'll never know now. Maybe I was the only one who ladled onto their plate.

I'll also never forget the many puddings my grandmother made to finish Sunday lunch (quite why we needed a huge pudding after the main course I don't know). She had a set repertoire which I can't recall her deviating from - there was something religious about the hallowed few dishes that were allowed, all others being somehow sinful. It included lemon meringue pie, queen of puddings and apple crumble. There were a few others that I can't call to mind any more but not enough for a cookbook. It was something else I often used to help her with, mixing in the flour and the eggs, whipping up egg whites and peeling apples. Best of all was scraping out the mixing bowl at the end until you were forced to hand back the bowl for fear of removing the glaze.

These days I am a vegetarian but I do have a particularly fond memory of a plate of steak and chips in France. My friend and I went on one of those cycling holidays in the middle of France and on the next to last day I woke up feeling like I was coming down with flu, all shivery and achy. I don't remember what I did all day but I do remember sitting in my bed in the early evening, with a glorious view of the wide sweep of the river down below, and the lady who kept the pensione bringing up a tray of food. Its simplicity made it totally perfect and I can still taste every last mouthful of the twig thin frites and the moist steak. Probably I was already shaking off whatever virus had tried to shoulder its way in but it did feel as if the food made cured me.

I remember too my first experience of a Chinese take away. I had a very sheltered upbringing, and especially so when it came to food. My mother had a boundless distrust of anything foreign and would not have even contemplated anything as obviously dangerous as a Chinese take away. In all probability she was quite right in those days, before health inspectors and all that safety legislation. I went round to my friends house, and her parents were much more libertarian when it came to such things, and they decided to get a take away. I dare say that gave me a moment of panic quickly followed by a feeling of bravado and daring. And so it came to pass that I experienced my very first sweet and sour pork balls. The memory is of a magical moment of new flavours, a whole unexplored territory opening up. I expect that in reality they were just lumpen grease balls but I loved them, and they were the first of many.

I've already made a whole post dedicated to hot chocolate, but I need to go there again. I have three particularly great memories of hot chocolate, all strongly linked with places and people of importance. The first was back in sixth form days and my best friend and I, feeling as sophisticated as you do when you are 17, used to meet up in Hawkins Wine bar and order ourselves a decadent Viennoise Chocolate with an alpine peak of whipped cream and sit in the window planning our future lives. I seem to recall they always involved red sports cars. Quite how we managed to wax so lyrical when the wine bar was situated overlooking a large roundabout next to the Queensway expressway, is an eternal testament to strong imaginations and a grammar school education.

Two other fabulous hot chocolate memories are firstly on a Cornish beach,with the sun going down and what I recall to be little more than a hut that conjured up the most devine hot chocolate. Mix that with a perfect view of the sunset on the surf ... I'm back there now. The final one is the record for the most solid hot chocolate, hot chocolate so strong and thick it can hold up a teaspoon standing vertically without support from the edges of the cup. I have heard other tales of such solid liquid, but this was in Bardonecchia in Italy and the combination of white snow and skiers makes the last piece of this memory jigsaw.

Sunday afternoon at the French Cinema

 

Picture by pedrosimoes7

Picture the scene, a dull grey November Sunday afternoon. It's cold and damp out there and about as inviting a prospect as revising for a physics test you don't understand. The weather and all its cohorts have turned the outside world into lumpy grey semolina, so you have to look elsewhere for joy and sparkly bits. You pile your fluffiest cushions and pillows all around you and grab your softest blanket (oh most treasured and loved possession), you make a steaming hot cup of something (insert here what you will: hot chocolate, hot toddy, red wine smelling of bruised blackberries, one of those devilish champagne, whisky and framboise cocktails), gather something to nibble on and settle in for an afternoon of the best French cinema can offer up for your delectation and delight.

Why French cinema? No, no, no, not for that reason, they are not THAT sort of French cinema (come on, this is the Comfort Blanket after all). It is my choice because it takes you a million miles away from the semolina outside. The best of French cinema combines the style and class that only the French can truly pull off, with many flamboyant Gallic twists of surrealism and leftfield-ness. It feels like you have taken part in something sophisticated instead of just whiled away a few idle hours watching dvds.

My first choice to be offered up for your delectation and delight is "Diva". This is the story of a young French postman who lives in Paris in a funky apartment (not posh, not classy, not expensive) and who adores opera. He makes a bootleg tape recording of his favourite opera singer singing the aria from Catalina's La Wally (yes it really is called that). If you have never heard it do not be put off by either the name or the fact that it is opera - it is sublime. Long story short and to avoid giving away too much of the plot, there are exciting chases across Paris, a crooked policeman, some underworld thugs, more funky apartments, some offbeat French philosophy, a Vietnamese girl with a liking for shoplifting  and a Zen artist who cooks with a scuba diving mask on his face (helps guard against 'les ognions' I suppose). It is acknowledged to be a cult classic and incredibly stylish (for its time, its a little dated now, but I'm sure you can make allowance for that).

The second choice is "The Belleville Rendevous", a charming and wierd cartoon that couldn't be further from 'Monsieur Dees-knee' and his little black mice. There is the tiny but determined grandmother, the large thighed grandson, Champion, who she is training to be a top cyclist, and a dog called Bruno. In the mountain stage of the Tour de France Champion is kidnapped so of course Granny and Bruno have to give chase to rescue him. Cue some brilliant and inventive adventures including a pedalo trip across the ocean - Granny naturally being the one pedalling with Bruno keeping lookout. This is funny, surreal, offbeat and endearing in liberal French doses and I think you will be missing something if you don't see this at least once in your life.

My final choice is a vey short film I remember seeing as a child. It is "The Red Balloon". There is very little speech in this film but in its brief 34 minutes you take a tour around the Paris of the 50's with Pascal and the red balloon that has befriended him. It is a lovely story and a great way to see how Paris looked 50 years ago. I shall say no more as there is no more to say. Watch and be entranced. 

All three films will, in their own way, take you elsewhere and allow you to escape for a while and to recharge your emotional batteries for that uncertain world out there.

Vintage railway posters - tracks leading to another country

 

Picture by paulpod

I love vintage railway posters from the 20's, 30's and 40's. I get a great deal of pleasure looking at them and even have two books about them. Is this just nostalgia for a time I did not even know or live through? I began to think about this the other day and to try and work out whether their appeal is broader than this (or am I just a hopeless case with a desperate need to escape to a past that never really was and hide there until all the bad stuff has blown itself out?). These posters are definitely part of my comfort blanket, a place for a few moments of happy escapism but why?

Nostalgia for more simple and straightforward times is of course a part of it. These posters were produced at a time of difficulty and hardship, in the years after the First World War, during the depression of the 30's and in the years of the Second World War. The railway companies had to encourage people to get on the trains for leisure as well as necessity and so had to create enticing visions of ideal destinations, easily accessible by train.

Early posters were overly busy, squeezing in six, seven, eight pictures of local attractions like a pictorial guidebook crammed onto one large page. They often issued as many instructions as your mother on the first day of term, and visually were more like an advert for the local typographer displaying every font that he could lay his hands on. Something more effective was called for.

New artists were engaged and the posters they began to produce were more simple and yet also much more sophisticated. The best of these posters are excellent examples of graphic art and as such they are a delight to study in their own right. There are the GWR posters of the 20's depicting the west country as the equal of the Meditteranean. Southern Railway introduced some avant gard and colourful impressionist and art deco posters that gave pre-eminence to the trains. In the 30's they had beautiful bucolic scenes with happy healthy country people garlanded with animals, fruits and flowers. And the LNER made use of the spare simple style of Tom Purvis, who used the bare minimum of detail and least number of colours he could get away with.

There were many styles and the work of individual designers is distinctively, recognisably their own. If you are interested in art and especially in design and composition, and in the use of colour to achieve particular atmosphere, these posters are well worth close study. Some of my favourite posters are rich and unusual palettes - a gorgeous green/orange/purple palette advertising Tintern Abbey, the rich brick reds, dusky mauves and pale yellows for the LNER of Whitby, the bright clear light of Cornwall shown in turquoise blue and yellowy green, the intense palettes - using only 5 or 6 colours - by Tom Purvis of East Anglian scenes.

Two ways to get hold of copies and pictures of these posters is to look on ebay, (although some caution is necessary as many are just cheap photocopies) or perhaps to buy yourself one of the calendars that are produced each year by the National Railway Musuem. A quick search on Google images brings up plenty to look at too. But the very best option if you want to see a huge range of the posters and if you want to buy one or more is to visit the Science and Society Picture Library. They seem to have nearly 2,500 to choose from (incredibly - I had no idea there were quite so many!), in addition to a whole range of other vintage photographs, old and new photographs of the natural world and an amazing range of astronomical pictures. You can find them by following this next link:

One of the best books out there is "Railway Posters 1923 - 1947". It is full of examples of posters from the four big railway companies in Britain, and as it is a large sized book and also has lots of enlargements you get a great opportunity to really study the techniques and styles of the various artists.

So am I sad and needing a bit more to occupy me, or am I enjoying an art form that was left forgotten up a siding because it was advertising rather than "fine art". Why don't you see for yourself and then decide?

I dare you not to smile

Cartoons can be the best therapy. OK, there are many, many truly awful, or at best truly mediocre cartoons out there, playing and replaying endlessly on all those seemingly infinite tv channels. But scuff around in the sand for a while and there are some beautiful gems to be found, whose imagination and artistic brilliance shine through. I want to recommend three of my favourite cartoons that really deserve to be explored. I want to write you a prescription for 10 minutes of joy and happiness. Rediscover your inner 7 year old, reconnect with the unself-conscious you and ignore what anyone else says. Good cartoons are a brilliant tonic, a proper 10 minute pick-me-up, the ideal bit of escapism.

Charlie and Lola - (www.charlieandlola.com)

Charlie and Lola started out as the most imaginative and lovely books, and then due to their popularity turned into the equally lovely cartoon. Reasons to love Charlie and Lola:

1. The drawings and the art work are exquisite. In the books the author, the awesomely talented Lauren Child, has used fabric and paper to make collage pictures and then added so much imagination that you could cry.
2. The music is just beautiful and evokes the joy of the cartoons perfectly.
3. The characters: Charlie is the best big brother ever, so good he could never exist in real life! Lola is the cute 5 year old who knows her own mind and often gets her words about face. And Lola has an imaginary friend called Soren Lorensen (well, didn't you? maybe he or she wasn't called Soren Lorensen but you and I know they were there...).

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

Talking of imaginary friends, and not that I want you to think I'm a bit obsessed or in need of real folk to talk to ... You can have a peek at Foster's Home here: www.cartoonnetwork.lt/tv_shows/fosters/index.html

Foster's Home is where imaginary friends go when the children who brought them into existence don't need them anymore. I love this cartoon because it is so different and a million miles from your average run of the mill cartoon churned out by the bucket full. The graphics are great, the characters are as kooky as your great aunt Clara and the storylines have been well knitted into a surreal but warm jumper. The two main characters are a boy called Mac, who is 8 and his imaginary friend Bloo (who is, I think, a blue ghost). Mac's mum thinks Mac is too old for an imaginary friend but luckily they can both spend time together at Foster's. My favorite character is Wilt, a tall gangly ... er ... red thing who plays basketball and has a missing arm.

Watch it and you will be taken to a far more imaginative world, which is surreal, fascinating and uplifting at the same time.

Rex the Runt

Rex the Runt (www.aardman.com/rextherunt/window.html) comes from the same stable as Wallace and Gromit, and yes he and his friends are made of plasticine. (Now wouldn't life be so much better if adults were encouraged to play with plasticine on at least one official plasticine day a year? Mmm that smell - wouldn't leave you for hours). Well there's the ever optimistic and resourceful Rex, always a bit of a chancer with another scheme under his collar for fame and fortune. As for the ever necessary sidekicks, there's Rex's girlfriend Wendy and there's Vince, who's not really the full ticket and has a strange disease that makes him sing opera at inappropriate moments and say "Tuesday" rather randomly (in fact, apart from the singing, if I remember correctly Tuesday may be Vince's only word). Only a couple of short series were ever made, but perhaps the highlight is the song that Rex and his friends sang to try and win a competition: "Come into the kitchen of love and bake a happiness cake".

Take me to a HAPPY place!

This is a blog about healthy escapism (with the occasional sensible bit). This is about finding relief from the credit crunch and happiness despite the downturn. It is here to cheer you up, to cheer me up, to escape the gloom for five minutes and remember the good times, the best times. I'm not advocating you hide in your comfort blanket and never show your face again to natural daylight - that would solve little in the long run. But a short bit of respite will do us all some good.

So, we're all going to hell in a handcart. At least let me show you what I'd shove into my handcart as it careers helplessly down the hill of no return. Let me you show you how I'd decorate it. Then maybe you can take some time out to think about your own personal handcart.

Some of my "comfort blankets" are, in no particular order:

1. Watching "Barefoot Contessa" on UKTV Food. American comfort food by the lovely cuddly Ina Garten.
2. Looking back to a time when life was more simple. Look at those old Ladybird books showing Janet and John and their happy smiling mother. The perfect book was brought out a while back called "Boys and Girls", which has just the right mix of those glorious illustrations and irony.
3. The simplest thing like a hot water bottle on a cold winter night, listening to the rain and wind beat against the window while you are safe and warm inside.
4. Bright colours - try pink, orange and lilac together and how could you not feel better?
5. Curling up with a good book. "The Time Travellers Wife" has probably been read by everybody by now, but if you haven't yet you have to - it's the best book I've read in years.
6. Stroking the guinea pigs and listening to them wheeking appreciatively.
7. Watching a film and being taken to another place. Try the Pink Panther films by Peter Sellers for laugh out loud therapy, or some of the more gentle Japanese Manga cartoons such as "Howl's Moving Castle" or "Kiki's Delivery Service". The world is a better, kinder place there.