Monkey Monday

Flickr blog talks about personal projects as a way of keeping going. They're talking about photo creativity, but given this is a blog, then let's stuff it into a metaphor shaped sock with motivation on the side.

I think I've having an extended Monkey Monday myself. Except it's been going on for weeks now.

No running. No practice. Missing classes of all types. Stress. Not much laughing.

I was intending to post this as a gee ain't that funny cheer up post but it's gone the other way. Hmm.

To Monkey, the opera

so I finally saw Monkey the Opera!

Proper title Monkey: Journey to the West. The west here is India, to the west of the western desert, but it could also been construed as here in London. Based on the pillar of Chinese literature, the Monkey King whatever whatever. For those not familiar, think of a cross between Don Quixote, Buffy (only with more actual sex), the Young Ones and the Gospel according to Luke. The famous novel is thoroughly comi-serious. Mallory and Python in one sprawling package.

How could I not be a fan? This first came to my notice before its premiere in Manchester in 2007. Fascinated! Why? let's see : arrrt (Hewlitt), martial and otherwise, cheeky monkeys, Chinese culture, Blur-y musical wildness, Mandarin.

Organisational crapness, and not wanting to sit in a crowded Pendolino all the way to Manc, prevented me from joining in. If my monkey-brain is right, I was probably tragically over-involved in the usual tussles, so come the weekend, phuh!

The show has now productionised itself, and is in the middle of a stint at the do.. er O2. Well not quite, a shaky tent just outside. So think circus-style wobbly bleachers and slightly dodgy canvas walls. All black though, to set off Jamie Hewlitt's art and the red lanterns, emblazoned with the ever-present monkey glyph.

en passant, I quite liked the whole Brit-cit 2000 AD scenario of train, tube, dome. More or less what I had imagined aged 12, less any flying cars.

What we saw then, was quite brilliant, though not the totally immersive spectacle that I'd imagined. Each of the set-pieces was great, and there was music and action and emotion in each one. The various scenes followed the genesis of each character, drawing on various elements and forces as a result. The Dalian circus performers were marvellous, spinning and flipping and posing, either in specific characters or fighters or as part of a background fantastic world. Costumes and props were clever, witty and stunning.

The music was weird and jangly (Damon Albarn does this very well), just how I like it. We had a good view of the band, which was a nice bonus.

Sung, yelped, growled and shouted in Mandarin, the words were probably incomprehensible to most (though maybe not, lots of Chinese faces in the audience) but I managed to grasp the odd word, e.g. DA SI NI MEN !! Quite encouraging really.

The main linking device between scenes was a closing of the screens and a chance to drool over a Hewlitt animation. These were often delightfully linked to the live-action through lighting effects. Maybe the links were a bit long, there was obviously quite a bit of scene shifting and re-costuming to be done, but somehow it felt like 9 lumps (of course, 9! the final scene being in heaven) and not a single great story all wound together as one, like.

Why was that? Limits of the medium? Not being in the front? Monkey's numb bum?

Still, there was so much to look at and think about, that the normally rip-off program was a bargain, stuffed as it was it gorgeous illustrations and nerdy details. Even a proper bibliography.

The soundtrack, which I've had for a few months now without making sense of, linguistically or otherwise, is now going to get a good rummage.

Out for a ride

Ouch! I banged my toe at Liam's wedding, on the dance floor.



It was great to see Jon and Liam in particular, but also Joe. Remember, we did the Three Peaks together, couple of years back.

Joe must have been keeping up with some of my recent escapades on Flickr, because his girlfriend came straight out with:

She: So, Matt, are you actually a naturist then?
Me: Well, yes, I suppose so, in a free range sort of way.

Anyway, that's not the point (though it was a rather amusing conversation, and as usual led to all sorts of confessions and philosophical ramblings), I banged it again in Oxford, and my nice hemp and recycled rubber loafers couldn't cushion it enough to stop me swearing at the top my voice and throwing my hat at strangers (the floppy peak stopped me from seeing the kerb). I got a new hat, and a very bruised toe.

A week later, I don't think I'll be losing the nail, but I did notice soreness after running. So instead of a long run today I went round the block (12 miles, via some nice hills) on the old tourer, trying out some new clipless shoes. btw, new folder now has clipless pedals, which are to bikes as indoor plumbing or electricity is to houses. As in, essential if you want to get anywhere without messing about.

Glimmers of understanding

Hey groovy, someone just sent me an email in Mandarin that didn't take me more than a day to understand.

不知道你是否还记得我。我是你以前在UCL语言中心的汉语老师， X XX。你现在还在UCL学习汉语吗？还是你转道SOAS学习去了？。

我刚刚在flickr找找关于UCL的照片，没想到看见好多你拍的照片，句话我们以前去中国成吃饭的照片，还有很多我的照片！你的照片都拍的很好。

你还在UCL工作吗？你有个好消息, 我要回来ucl工作了！！我8月初开始工作。希望能在跟你见面。我想你现在中文一定很棒！

I only had to look up about 5 words, but I got the gist straight away. I just spent half an hour re-typing it (this means I have to know what the pinyin is for each character) and I'm well on my way to composing a reply (我当然记得你, 我汉语水平还可以 。。。） turn-around time a fortnight. I'm starting to feel borderline literate.

Poking around with the sword

At James' class today, bumbled through the lao jia and the Chen sword. Good crew there, about 8 students in all. Nice day for once, so we cracked open the doors for a bit of breeze. Off to youtube now to look for Chen Zheng Lei performing the sword form for reference.

Probably shopping tomorrow (a wedding next weekend, so want to look decent), so I put in a longish run (1:20) this evening. Then back to HQ to catch the last of Wimbledon in between cooking operations.

Cycling in London

I've been waiting for ages for my folding bike to arrive. At last, here it is:



I'm really pleased with this. It can be folded in under a minute, and I can carry it round the block without my fingers going numb. The purpose of this is to whizz up from my mainline station in town to where I work. This could be a 25 minute tube journey or a fairly random amount of time on the bus. It's 10-15 minutes on the new toy.

I've found cycling in London perversely a lot easier than in Surrey. There are more paths and stop areas, and most drivers have by now seen a cyclist, and understand why we sometimes do odd things. We like to keep moving, and out of harm's way, so we don't always keep to the left where we can get squashed. So the taxis and buses all nod me through. Contrast this to leafy Surrey, where the 4x4 crowd think they have every right to blare their horns if I so much as think about using the road creatively.

And now for something completely different ...

Although Mayor Bozza is (was?) a cyclist, I fear that we have to fight for our space. So I was up there again for the weekend's naked bike ride, as reported in Londonist. This is partly a pro-cycle jamboree, but also somewhat an anti-petrol patrol and a little bit plain old naturist party. At least a couple of my hobbies represented then.



I took a small number of photos, but not as much as the gleeful spectators or some of the other riders. Have a look at the other Flickr WNBR groups (e.g. here and here) if you want confirmation of just how beautiful and funny the human race can be when it gets naked on a bike!

Obvious warning: depictions of nudity, blah, blah.

Back to it

Quick report on last week. Lots of gym, a run OUTSIDE, bit of swimming.

James' saturday tai chi. Great to be back in class. Bumbled through the lao jia (manageable with others. totally impossible on my tod). Bit of push hands. No I don't remember any of the two-hand push hands patterns. Got introduced to Chen style sword (jian). Interesting!

Mandarin classes started up again. The momentum seems to be building there, more conversations. I think our teacher should force us to speak autonomously a bit more, we can handle it. I've tried to be systematic in the week, in terms of pushing the vocab and han zi (i.e. characters). Lost track of cpod though.

This week wasn't so great. Missed lots of gym "slots" due to random social gatherings and late working. I should just have a Rule. Six o clock, down tools, phones, pens, mice.

Ploddy re-start

I'm quite glad not to be running London today. Just saw the finish of the elite Women and elite men, and sure enough, it was chucking it down. Same thing 30 miles away, rain, hail everything.

An hour before, during the day's spell of nice weather, I went out for what, in the usual scheme of things, would be my 1-2 hour easy run. This time it was 45 minutes of slow stiff plodding. My legs felt unwilling and the shoes felt tired too. Effects of yesterday's gym? Unused to the feel of pavement? I tried to remember last time I did any outdoor running. The scenery was beautiful though. Along the Wey path, I was chased along by a pair of geese being chased by a swan. So the birds are getting their routines together too.

Gym card useful at last

Two visits to local exercise facilities this weekend, but no running, and only reading about tai chi rather than doing it.

Along with doing fiddly painting jobs around the house, and sporadic bass-playing (both good for knotting up muscles) I managed to get two uses out of my scandalously expensive gym membership card.

To the local leisure centre for some weights/rowing/treadmill on Saturday. Pretty good, but no heroic achievements.

Yesterday evening, I went along to Alton Leisure centre's weekly naturist swim (handy for sauna, steam room and jacuzzi too). (Every Sunday, 730 - 930 pm, GU34 1ST, Tel: 01420 540040). Both these leisure centres are run by the same company, so I got a little discount on entry to Alton, which offset the travel costs.

I've been meaning to go along to this session for some time. To date, I've been a naturist on beaches (UK and foreign) and open spaces only, and haven't been to clubs or swims. I'm glad I did, but regret not being able to persuade Mrs. Monkey on this occasion. It was relatively quiet by all accounts, less than twenty users I'd guess, and only a couple of women. Because it was uncrowded, and people seemed to know each other, there was a nice village pump vibe.

In my ideal world, every swimming pool would be clothing optional, all the time, not to mention all the beaches. As it is, it's increasingly hard, i.e. they are being discontinued, to find an open (not club-based) session in the UK (Netherlands, Germany, Austria are more like the ideal) so this session is worth supporting.

I put in about half an hour of solid swimming, and a few iterations of the hot stuff. Result: Mentally energised by the occasion of being an official UK naturist facility user for the first time, and bodily de-knotted.

Trying to keep up

I've got this sensation of falling off the back of the treadmill. Metaphorically of course, my running is comparatively fine.

Troublesome day at work (not enough time!! MSc administrators panicking!! Both of them!!) then felt exhausted, so planned to drift back to the sofa. Mrs Monkey rang up, with troubling developments on the Felix front. A card from the RSPCA (danmn, they're out, must call first thing tomorrow) and explanatory voicemail from the (helpful, understanding) vets. Message to irritatingly anonymous worried neighbours : No, we. are. not. neglecting. our. cat. OK??

She was going to the gym anyway, so I grabbed a Jaffa cake and joined in. Felt ok actually, despite initial lethargy. 15 mins running, various weights and floor contortions, 15 mins x-trainer. Lots of punters (though not as many as in Bloomsbury, which is constantly packed).

Back home to find Felix out somewhere. I update my twitter, in case M wants to follow the plot, and then he chooses that moment to wander back in. Has the panicky old lady fed him, or not? Anyway, he gets another dinner. And another wash.

Because of the wonderful new Pet Porte (photo) , we can do clever things like keep everybody in at night.

Missed Chinese tonight obviously. Read the book, highlighting new words. Pleasantly surprised at the level of comprehension, though I'm making no regular effort to update my vocab. Resolve to try and catch up with Chinesepod. Though not tonight. And so to bed.

Oh Hi, how's it going?

As I was about to start another Monday night Chinese class, I bumped into a (very) erstwhile classmate, who was about to teach her Hebrew class. She's awfully clever, and fantastically good at picking up languages, so is probably is at my level with about a tenth of the instruction. Both agreed that present UCL offerings probably not immersive enough. She also recommended Chinesepod (hang on, didn't I recommend that to her ages ago?) and I learnt her name there. Thought I recognised it, but the new hairdo had prevented me from making the connection.

Bound up with the technology

I was bravely adding high Frequency characters to my Treo, using PlecoDict. Will I ever learn these things?

It's good to find helfpul tools and resources, and better to combine them. I experimented for a while with an online flashcard sharing tool (I bet their number has grown now, so I won't even bother linking). It tied me the the machine, and doesn't give me that waiting-for-the-train learning opportunity that the handheld does.

I really like PlecoDict though, with its embedded Oxford dictionary (I now use the paper version as a paperweight), and it's one of the reasons I'm sticking with the greasy old Palm, rather than lusting after the lovely iPhone. I'm definitely iCurious though, and would gladly flash my gadget cash that way if Pleco was there.

Dictionary of the 500 Most Frequently Used Words Yong Ho, Hippocrene Books, 2001
PlecoDict Chinese dictionary and study aid for handheld computers and smartphones