The talk went well now I’m ready for Christmas

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 24/12/08 at 01:12:21 pm

Well I gave a talk to the Lesbian, Gay and Transgender Pagan Society of Birmingham the night before last, it was the first talk that I had given on my own so I was more than a little aprehensive. Dave is normally standing next to me and we work well as a team, if one of us dries up the other steps in.  I met up with the main organiser known as “sleepy owl” a regular of the selfsufficientish web forum who showed me around Birmingham as I was six hours early.

Anyway, the talk went very well and the group were very friendly. Part of the talk mentions energy saving and the group seemed to find the part when I spoke about running a cooker hob more efficiently most entertaining. I do say that you need a flat bottom (pan) and make sure you don’t have a crusty ring.

So another good acheviement to finish off the year, next time I have to speak alone to a group of people I at least know I can do it.

Now feels that I can relax and really enjoy Christmas. Have a really good one anyone that reads this! Now, I have to work out if 12 noon is a little too early to nip down the local and start the festivities.

At Teather’s End

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 19/12/08 at 01:12:27 pm

The other night I had an amazing experience; I was in a play. I don’t mean performed, I mean I was part of the play.

The play was a wonder club production called at Teathers end. Unfortunately it looks like it won’t tour as it is specifically written using the space in which it was performed namely the Trinity Centre a converted church just outside of the centre of Bristol. If it does then buy a ticket!

It is set in the Old Market area of Bristol in 1869 described as “A place of vice, poverty and grim hope” a description which would befit old Market today.

The audience gathered outside the old church drinking mulled cider. The doors of the church were slung open, mist bellowed out and haunting Latin choral melodies were heard increasing in volume as a funeral procession slowly proceeded out of the building. Without taking a cue we all followed as we were now active members of the play. We walked up stairs and the true and rather tragic story of how William Pullin was driven to the murder of his best friend PC Richard Hill starts to unfold.

Sitting as if we were in the congregation of a church we then move downstairs to celebrate the forthcoming marriage of Richard Hill. A scruffy looking bloke invites us to the three crowns pub claiming that he is the landlord. We walked down stairs and entered 19th Century Bristol. I was amazed at how much effort and detail had been put into the sets of this place. Everything was made from cardboard and as the lights were low and people were in 18th Century costume milling about the place, pickpocketing, begging and generally having a chit chat (in character) it really did have the feel of what it would have been like – I am sure the smells were very different. It almost reminded me of how Dr Who does Victorian but somehow a little more believable (I guess as their were no aliens). They must have spent hours on this area and even if you miss the play I would try and get in to the Trinity Centre just to see the set.

The play did confuse me at times as events were going on across this small square and you were not really told where the action was going to be. You could stay in the pub, visit the Doctor (who told everyone they had VD) or go to the butchers to name a few. After sinking a few pints and having my pockets picked twice I got a bit of the hang of the play and realised that you needed to listen out for clues as to where the action would be and as in any real life event everyone was going to leave with a different viewing of the events. As a hint though try following the lead (played by Malcolm Hamilton, no relation) who you might recognise from a certain lager advert and also follow the Police man.

I am not an avid play goer, in fact I can count the number of plays I have seen on just over one hand. I would say however, that this was the most moving and perhaps the best I have seen. I would urge anyone in Bristol or even near to Bristol to go and watch it. It really did move me to tears due to the extremely high standard of acting by all involved, the understated yet very appropriate music and the believability of the whole set. Again I would urge you to go and see it, ot is worth seeing just to watch the vicar get carried away with his role and to have your gloves stolen by a hobbit like street urchin.

At Tethers End

15th – 20th December 2008
8pm @ The Trinity Centre, Bristol, BS2 ONW

Book tickets @ the
Tobacco Factory Box Office – 0117 9020344

For more information – Michelle 0777 303 8570 or Nick 07533 633 308

At Teather’s end

Public speaking preperations

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 17/12/08 at 04:12:41 pm

I agreed to give a talk months ago in Birmingham to a LGBT pagan group in Birmingham. I was starting to wish I never as this sort of thing always puts me in a strange sort of mood for the week preceding it. Thankfully after a long chat with the organiser I feel pretty good about it, well ok about it anyhow.

I have a love hate relationship with public speaking, I hate it before hand and always want to run off and not do it. I get very, very nervous which in turn makes me a little short tempered at times, even during the talk at times. It is most odd. Afterwards I am walking on air for a couple of days, so it does seem worth it in the end. Especially after a good talk. (We did give one very bad talk, and I won’t mention it here needless to say I still shudder about it now)

The thing with this one is that it will be the first that I have done by myself. This makes the preparation slightly different that usual. What usually happens is that Dave and I will argue about who’s house we practice in. When we finally decide we go through the talk together, taking the subjects that we both know the best to talk about. This means that Dave has become more of an expert than I have in certain areas and visa versa and that when either of us flounder the other helps them out. So what happens when I flounder here, well I guess I have to muddle through. It is both an exhillarating and terrifying thought.

I was very glad to have Dave sitting next to me when we spoke on Radio 4’s today program and on BBC Breakfast earlier in the year as I was white with fright.  That was certainaly the single most terrifying moment of my life. Since then I have spoken on live radio a few times. The last time I got an hour long slot on local station BCFM. On a side note I notice that Ed Stourton has been sacked from the Today program, I met him when we went on there and I can’t say that I feel sorry for him. He did not even look up when we entered the room, let alone say hello in short I thought he was a self centred twat.  John Humphies did and he even came out of the studio to say good bye, the other bloke their did at least nod his head too. I wonder if the fickle media world is not entriely that fickle, I hear rumours that the nice people tend to stay.

Well I am putting off preparing the talk just to write this so I had better get on and bloody well write it instead of adding to the already flooded pool of showbiz gossip.

Oh and the talk well if you are interested it is happening on the 22nd of December from 8pm at the Wellington Hotel Bristol Street Birmingham. It cost nothing, I promise to try and be interesting and it won’t be like the talk I try not mention – the mistake I made with that one was thinking I could talk off the top of my head. I learnt the hard way, you can’t.

Merry Ishmas

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 09/12/08 at 07:12:59 pm

We created a word with “selfsufficientish” and so what’s to stop us creating another one with Ishmas? So what is ishmas? What does it mean? Well it’s like Christmas; in fact it really is what Christmas future will have to be as it is sustainable and thoughtful.

Ishmas is celebrated on the 25th December and has one message and one alone and that is to really think before you do anything for Ishmas day. Think about what you buy and think about your loved ones, don’t allow any of them to go hungry and don’t get tricked into thinking that the more money you spend on them the happier they will be.

So many people tend to forget their morals and consuming habits at Christmas time, this was very apparent when I went to a Christmas market in Bath at the weekend; hundreds of people were trying to push through the narrow streets, ladened with arms full of wrapping paper, decorations and presents. All things that I am cutting back on buying this year. In fact the only presents I am buying are copies of my own book, and I am only giving out one of those. So think ishmas, think don’t spend money.

I might sound like a humbug, but I think I am giving people far more thoughtful and individual presents than I could get was I too trudge around an out of town shopping monstrosity. My shop is the local common, the wood and well I do also need to buy the odd ingredient from a health food shop. Oh and I think, like James Strawbridge of It’s not easy being green fame, there is no harm in buying just one book – The Selfsufficientish Bible.

Decorations and trees

Ishmas starts with decorations, we still have some left from Christmas past the odd bit of tinsle and the plastic tree but as ever bits get broken and go missing and there always seems to be half as much as the year before. So for decorations for Ishmas this year I decided that we would weed our friends allotment, he has a holly tree and having the corner plot he has ivy growing all over the surrounding walls. We filled up to bags with this holly and ivy and it now adorns our living room, it really does make the room feel cosy too. According to the Druids by bringing in evergreens we are giving the natural spirits somewhere safe to stay, nice one always good to have spirits at Christmas.

If our “normal” decorations start to fall apart next year then they will be totally replaced with holly, ivy and other evergreens that I will get from the local area. Thus being a carbon free and highly sustainable way of decorating the house. I will have to point out that you should be careful with this approach if you have small children or animals as many everygreen berries are poisonus.

I will keep the plastic tree though as I don’t see any need of growing one when a fake one does the job. This tree on the left belongs to an old lady in Chippenham and it is thought to be the oldest christmas tree in use. It is still being used after 120 christmases. I am not sure if ours will last that long. This must be the most sustainable christmas tree in the world too as only one tree has been used instead of 120, imagine if every tree was fake and lasted this long we would all save a fortune on the yearly cost of trees which stands at £20 million just here in the UK.

Presents

I have to be careful with what I write here about presents as I know that some of the recipents read my blog, so no clues here Mum! Needless to say it the thought that counts with presents. I had to start to make some of my presents months ago and so they will have lots of thought put into them. One that I can talk about is my hop pillow, for my insomniac friend. I cut up a very tatty old white shirt into one big square. Then I sewed up each side of it leaving a big gap. I filled it with hops from my allotment, a few sprigs of lavender and the rest of the shirt to pad it out a little. Then I sowed up the final side to make a pillow.

I have also dug up feverfew from my allotment to give to a friend who gets a lot of migranes. For other friends I have a big barrel of beer on the brew and they are going to get a bottle each with a personalised label. For example, “blue moon ale” will be written on the label of a mate who only drinks every few months.

Lastly I am putting together herbal kits including ointments made from ingredients I have foraged and dried herbs that I have foraged. These are for the people that you would normally buy soap for as you don’t have a clue what to get them.

I hope that everyone will be happy with what they are given and I am very thankful that I don’t have any teenagers to but for. Well I guess I would just give them booze and I am sure they would be happy. Not so sure their parents would be though.

Wrapping paper

So what do you use for ishmas wrapping paper? Last year I used old magazines, but I used these wisely only using pages that I thought relivant to the recipent of the gift. So my big mouthed friend got pictures of Jade goody, my political friend got picture of MP’s and Dave got pictures of dog’s playing cards.

I will also be making paper this year from mushrooms but if I said more it might spoil the surprise of one of my gifts.

Transport

I decided too that I might not spend any money on transport this year either and am seriously contemplating cycling home. Home is up in Northampton which is about 102 according to google maps. This I could be done in a day if I was feeling very fit, in reality 2 days would mean I could do it all in daylight which does sound like a better plan. I would stay at a mates house, certainly would mean that I would not have to worry about the crowds at the train and bus stations.

If the weather is bad though I will scrub this idea and try for a liftshare.

Ishmas

So that would be an ishmas, I hope you agree that instead of a Christmas full of stress and spending it is one full of joy and love. Merry Ishmas everyone.

Colds, manflu and herbs

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 04/12/08 at 03:12:25 pm

I have been feeling sorry for myself all week as I have been suffering from what is these days termed as Manflu, no longer can I call it a cold. I am debating if “manflu” help matters. It’s almost living up to a sterotype, “right I am ill, I am a man ergo I must be incapable of doing anything and must whine”.

Anyway it will teach me to boast, at the weekend during the “free feast” I announced that I was so healthy at the moment I would not catch my mates cold. Well, how wrong I am.

I think perhaps drinking for two evenings did not help. It might also be that I am not used to being surrounded by over 100 people; as there were at the free feast. Pretty amazing that really, feeding 100 people without spending any money, makes you realise how wealthy we really are in the west.

Well that’s if for the short blog as my head can’t cope with anymore, I also have to go out and forage my next dose if cold relief.

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