Benwell`s Big Houses (Mike Greatbatch)

Heavy Metal

Someone gave me a toffee, knew I shouldn`t have taken it, greedy cow! Felt something inside it, my crown. Now I have a black peg of an old tooth showing until my appointment at the dentists. I look like one of the owld hags that stood around the guilotine, knitting. I`ve asked for another silver crown to be taken out at the same time and a white one to replace. The existing one is like a bullet, huge bloody thing. I was told that they are apparently ordered from China, one size fits all and made up from old keys and scrap metal. Hope it doesn`t hurt too much, I`m a dreadful coward where pain is concerned!! Still,I`ve got until the 12th to prepare myself.

Very good session this morning. I read from Great Expectations, Miss Haversham and Pip, they loved it and lots of discussion arose regarding their experiences of past feelings of being left out and made to feel inadequate. Stories from evacuation and large families.

Straight to Discovery Museum and a meeting to discuss the possibility of my being able to borrow equipment to enhance my sessions. Met some great people who are just as keen as me to share resources. I was given a tour behind the scenes, they have dozens of fab boxes with everything from Greek, Roman, Victorian and war time. Mediatheque is the most fabulous thing I have experienced for a long time. Little booths with up to three headphones, you can access any film from their archive. This will be on my list for places to go!

Spent a little time afterwards at 4.30 in a charity shop which has boxes of photos, selected a dozen and also bought a few cd`s.

The smell of smoke was still evident when I got home at 5.30. This morning, cooked chicken, but being clever decided to boil potatoes and carrots just before I left the house. Forgot didn`t I? Caught the carrots, but the potatoes were a chisle job to remove from the pan. It looked like a little moonscape, blackened with peaks of white peeping through. Windows opened and air freshner don`t do it!

Decided to put my name down for Improv session at the Jazz Cafe on 25th August. £5 and cheap at double the price.

And All that Jazz

Spent a lovely week in St Ives, apart from the fact that I was expecting a log cabin and ended up in little more than a shed. The bedroom had a circle light above the door and no bedside lamp. Wardrobe, home made and painted white was closed, but on putting clothes inside refused to once more. It was right next to the bedroom door. So when I got up to visit the bathroom during the night, unable to shed light on the situation I wandered inside the wardrobe.

Bathroom with sliding door which was just as well because bath, toilet and hand basin were all fighting for space. You would have been able to turn on the taps while sitting on the loo if you`d a mind to. The bath was an old scratched ceramic type and it was necessary to get dried standing in the bath as there was no space.

However, it was set in woods with ancient trees with squirrels and rabbits running around. Not that we were in there much as we went into St Ives town most days, Newquay, St Austell and Zennor. Favourite place was Gwithian where Godrevy lighthouse (on which Virgia Woolf based her novel To the Lighthouse) is situated. We did take a peek at Talland House, but it`s quite expensive to stay there, one day!

I took part in a painting session with St Ives Artists, £5 to paint to Jazz music which was very satisfying. It must be great to go on a week painting holiday, but there`s not much chance of that when D waited at the harbour until I`d finished, couldn`t be persuaded to join in. One lady had difficulty getting started "I don`t understand the music!" I remember years ago when I ran a creative group. A group of older women who had been through the system where everything had to be kept within the lines. They`d asked for a session making something for children so I took some silk, paints and as an example a clown drawing which I`d done at home. They all wanted to make a clown, although there were other designs. They even chose the exact colours I`d used. When I pointed out that they could choose their own colours, they said "We want to do it properly" They were of a generation where anyone showing innovation or individuality would be classed as "Well up themselves."

Don`t get me started on the press, police and politicians steeped in it up to their eyebrows. Slap them all with shaving foam I say!

Quote of the day by David Icke

""Politics, now there`s a funny thing. It comes from the word "poly" meaning many and "tics" meaning blood sucking insects, ironic isn`t it?"

Northern Pride 2011

The weather was appalling, but that didn`t put off the party animals at Northern Pride. The cabaret tent put on a fabulous show, there were tea , beer arts and crafts tents, healthworks, bands, fair ground entertainment and much more.

Take Ten. Cumberland Arms Thursday 28th July

Take Ten will be back at the Cumberland Arms on 28th July with ten artists, each with ten minutes to entertain you with spoken word and acoustic music.

July will feature the seductive Radikal Queen, the thought-provoking Amina Evans, delightfully funny Yvonne Young, slam winning Ian Williams, accomplished poet Mark Corcoran-Lettice, with special visitors from Middlesbrough King Ink.

King Ink was born out of the gutters of Teesside and the disturbed minds of Michael Hann, Tim Marshall and John Chadwick. Together they produce award winning short films, write zines, make merry multi media murder with poetry and prose and take part in various performance events around the North East and UK.

We are delighted to welcome poetry newcomers Richard Want and Gene Groves, and the return of Take Ten’s favourite strum maestro Robby Thinman, and musical newcomers Alix and Justin. Your host for the evening is Poetry Jack.