TheGillspatch

“Heal”

And guess the music.

It’s been well over a year since there’s been any activity on this blog. Well over a year. That’s decades in Internet-time: the blog’s old, defunct and forming detritus. It creaks and groans as it strains to emerge from its reverie, new material grinding and choking, gears jamming with the accumulated years of the dust of neglect.

And for what? Like a duck’s quack, its voice echoes around its empty auditorium, even though it isn’t supposed to. Truly, if there were anything “dead” on the Internet, you are reading its pages.

But I didn’t pass my first year of university dead. I was “dead-on” the Maths pass mark (no more, no less); “dead-wrong” about doing one-too-many questions in the Pharmacology exam, and “dead-cool” about my Caixa snare wires breaking during my Samba band’s performance in the summer ball, but never was I dead. (Though it would solve a lot of my problems.)

I went to the wedding of a devoutly Christian friend, whom I met at University, in the summer. It’s no secret that I hold religion in no higher regard than I hold several-week-old milk (hold at arm’s length; hold nose), however the reason I mention this is not that I’m desperate for you to know what I got up to over the summer. If I did, I’d have a Twitter account. No, the reason I mention it is because religions, in general, have odd views about death. Whether it’s ascension or rebirth, I don’t subscribe to any of that bullshit, but the idea of my blog becoming some loner’s Twitter account repulses me.

So, while I’m paying less for my web hosting package, I’m on more drugs, and the second year of university will certainly require me to work it harder, I’ll endeavour to make it better and do it faster. I can only get stronger than I am now.

Edit: Aforementioned video is here.

He complimented me on my T-shirt, oddly enough, before casually handing me the next five years of my future.
“Did you get everything you wanted, Adam?”

I ignored him. Never had a bloody manilla envelope been so difficult to open. I retreated to the car, wishing the back of my T-shirt said “bugger off, I’m opening my A-level results”.

You see, I try not to think about the future. As Einstein said, it comes soon enough. So I wasn’t much more than vaguely aware, in the preceding days, that I needed to pick up my A-level results that morning. I certainly didn’t wake up at 6 am to check online. I got up at half ten, and cursed the gap in my curtains.

Keeping a cool head when others around you are losing theirs, though, contrary to what Mr. Kipling would have you believe, may well be a sign of simply not understanding the gravity of the situation. I was reminded of this fact when, having opened, read, digested and been fully satisfied by my results, a phone was thrust into my hand and a familiar accent greeted me.
“Hi, Adam, you might not remember me, it’s Shaun, from the Guernsey Press.“

I was quite pleased when I arrived at school to pick up my results and saw the TV camera just packing up. I wasn’t going to have to give some asinine soundbite, broadcasting my results and what I’d be doing with them to those unfortunate enough to be watching BBC Guernsey. Apparently unsatisfied with this retention of dignity, my mum called the press. So there I sat this afternoon, having a chat about my epilepsy, cancer and future with Shaun “not-a-reporter,-promise” Shackleton, and trying to ignore his mate, Mr. “FastFlash” Photographer. Thankfully I’m not photosensitive. I mean, I’m not exactly photogenic, either, but it could be worse.

Because epilepsy sucks – there’s no two ways about that. But I have heard my train a comin’, and I am gonna leave this town. Thank fuck for that.

I’m going to the University of Bath, to study Natural Sciences.

If anyone has any better ideas for what LIYSF should stand for, please, let me know.

You may have guessed the topic of this post by now. Yup, I’ve just returned from the boringly-named-but-amazingly-amazing London International Youth Science Forum. And I’m feeling good. (You know the song. I know it seems a bit random but I had to find a better way to end the paragraph than with the word “Forum”.)

Above irony realised and retrospectively intentional

Anyhoo, the affectionately christened “geek camp” of 2009 was one of the most incredible two weeks of my life. My eyelids drooped during the unending and falsely advertised mobile phone lecture; slammed shut as my head hit the pillow after so many knackering days; but were ultimately, and I think permanently, locked wide open.

Guernsey is a small place. I’ve had to come to terms with that before – the tour guide for Disney Land in Florida announcing it was 48 square miles, and thus twice the size of Guernsey, drove that home a while ago. What I hadn’t realised, though, was just how isolated it was. That was driven home as I sat in the Royal Geographic Society for the opening ceremony, surrounded by 300 students from something like 60 countries (www.liysf.org for those screaming “CITATION NEEDED!”); listening and hearing so many different languages; looking around and not recognising a single face; and yet all calmly, but excitedly, sat in the theatre for the same reason. Science.

I hate melodramatacism as much as the next guy, but until you’ve sat in a massive lecture theatre looking at a huge screen showing a Google Earth globe spinning, music crescendoing, chatter rising, and flag-bearers…bearing, then you don’t know what it’s like. Professor Lord Winston (affectionately known as “Bob”, I’m sure) gave the opening speech, followed by Professor John Ellis from CERN detailing us on the latest magic going on in Switzerland. The reason I say “magic” is this image. Spot the difference.

But although the fortnight is named after the science that brought us all there, and although you could throw any geeky joke at any of us and we’d all get it (my “May the m×a be with you” T-shirt was a good buy), I think the memories we all took away from it were of each other. Memories of tasting Vegemite for the first time, of learning how to shake hands in Jamaica, of learning Greek swear words, and of the sense of relief when I no longer had to explain where Guernsey was geographically. Winning a game of bowling wasn’t bad either ;].

Although there were some bad times, like getting the ‘flu or discovering that the pavement in London is indeed harder than my teeth the hard way (literally. But it had to be done! For Science!), I couldn’t list all the good times simply because there were so many. Flight of the Conchords (and there you were thinking I would quote you John Lennon or someone) sang “Brown paper, white paper, stick it together with the tape, the tape of love.” I reckon “love” and “science” are interchangeable.

So there you have it. The power of sticking 300 youngsters from all over the world with a common interest in the same place, at the same time. If only politics was more like this.

…you know the rest

Those of you who still read this thing will have noticed that everything broke for a while, followed by everything being gone. Those are technical terms.

‘Twas my fault: I tried to upgrade to a newer version of my blogging software, and things turned out more complicated than I foresaw. Not an uncommon occurrence, so I guess I should have seen it coming. But hindsight is a wonderful thing when you’re on the side looking hindward.

In other news, I’ve finished my AS levels, hit the arbitrary age of adulthood (and annoying alliteration and/or assonance) and bought five novelty ties, including one with a load of TIE fighters on the front. I got a giggle out of that.

I also got a hydrogen fuel cell car (not a “hydrogen cell fuel car”, David ), a new MP3 player in the form of a Cowon S9, and I’ve pre-ordered a Palm Pre (alliteration’s just coming thick and fast today. In fact, the other day I wrote a haiku in a text message, on the spot. I was quite proud of that. Anyway, enough parenthetical remarks, however poetic they may be.)

So, in the absence of an obvious way of restoring all my previous posts, it looks like a fresh start for my blog. Jolly hockey sticks.

EDIT: Actually, scratch that, looks like I managed to get the previous posts back on. Life resumes as normal

Before today (and since my last post), life was generally gloriously, extravagantly, shatteringly boring. And then today, this happened:

Yup, snow. Day off school, my interview for the LIYSF suffered a similar fate, and so I was left to not do the schoolwork I’m supposed to, and take photographic monstrosities like the one above. More insults to photography can be found on my Flickr stream, if you’re so inclined.

Also, I’ve discovered a pretty groovy program called Spotify, that’s like internet radio, except you search for the songs you want. Here’s the link to download.

And that’s pretty much that from me. Oh, and kudos if you get the yet another obscure song lyric in the title .

Welcome back. Miss me?

Rhetorical question, don’t worry. I’m yawning as I type this, absolutely knackered from doing absolutely nothing all day. At least I’m multitasking. You’d be surprised at the amount of effort there is involved in a yawn. I was planning on producing some impressive statistic on the number of muscles used in the average yawn/pandiculation; or even better, the amount of energy used in Joules. But that requires Googling (which is a word), and therefore effort, and, well…*yawn*. Apparently even reading about yawning can make you yawn. I bet some of you are yawning now. But I digest.

You may be wondering which mysterious, powerful force of nature has managed to coax me out of my blogging sabbatical and write this post. Well, if you’ve walked past a stationery shop lately you’ll know. As if every parent and child didn’t already know, and weren’t already depressed about it, it’s “Back to school!” time. Although, I’ve never been sure if the parents read those signs as the kids do. Maybe they just see “You made it! Respite time!”.

Though, me going back to school is perhaps more significant than for many (aside from the obvious reason that it’s me; that goes without saying). It was 15 months, or thereabouts, since I last was in school, and so I think it will come as more of a shock to the system (both mine and theirs ). I’m not sure how I feel about it really. I have an induction day tomorrow, which I did last year (so, Mr. le Sauvage and co., I will soon find out if you do merely recycle your “welcome back” talks); and then wham-bam-merci-danke-thank-a-you-ma’am, back into the timetable I go (much as I’d like to, I can’t claim credit for that – look up Flight of the Conchords).

Other than that, not much else to say really. Flickr’s been updated, I’ve been hanging around with a couple of musicians at band practice (well, one musician – bassists don’t count ), saw some friends in England, relatives in Guernsey.

Oh, and I have one question for you that’s been bugging me for the last few days. Where has the summer gone?

…in the paper. What, I like Elliott Smith lyric references, they make me sound intelligent. Anyway, ’twas 34 days since I last posted, and since I figured you’d all be getting drunk and merry yesterday, I thought I’d post today.

Anyway, the actual point of the post. Last week I got a phone call from some random number.
“Hi, Shaun Shackleton here, from the Guernsey Press”
Trying to keep the words “Oh”, “Fuck”, “Rita” and “Skeeter” out of my head, I agreed to “have a chat” with him yesterday. Well, he wasn’t actually how I expected a Press guy to be on the phone – the first thing we talked about was Queens of the Stone Age, and he not only did he know them, but he knew the lead singer’s name. So I figured it wouldn’t be too bad.

I knew this blog has had a non-negligible number (whey, alliteration) of hits, but I didn’t realise that its humble and rather-too-long URL had reached the offices of the local paper. Now I must admit that I don’t actually read the paper (newspapers are so 20th century), so to hear that someone from there had read some of my writing came as a bit of a surprise. I suppose I should feel honoured, though I suppose that it could also be a sign of their desperation for stuff to fill column inches (gripping headlines such as “Mrs. le Pelley outraged at missing milk delivery” are not unheard of).

Anyway, yesterday, a bearded bloke rang our front doorbell, a smile on his face and a notebook in his hand. I’d say “it was business time” but the additional connotations that Flight of the Conchords have given the phrase make me refrain from using it. We sat down, had a cup of tea and he asked me some questions. It was almost like an interview.

And today, he returned with a guy with a camera, who took various photos of me doing various things. I’ve not actually seen the photos, so I have no idea what it’ll look like, and I’m not entirely sure if I want to know. Anyway, those of you reading this who are priveliged enough to be within the Guernsey Press’s circulation may see my ugly mug wasting otherwise perfectly good newspaper some time in the near future.

That isn’t all though. The eagle-eyed of you may have spotted Tricia’s comment on my previous blog post (essentially, the QOTSA concert tickets didn’t constitute my “wish”, so I could still wish for something. Don’t ask why, because I don’t know). I thought she was joking, but the forms actually did arrive in the post, so I “wished” for a new camera, not expecting to hear from The Powers That Be for a while. But along with Shaun and his photographer buddy (sorry, didn’t catch your name) someone arrived with a carrier bag containing a brand new camera. That, along with the fact that I only have one more chemo trip to Southampton to go (on April fools’ day…not worked out the significance of that) certainly means the future’s looking bright, if not orange.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, the reporter also brought round a local band’s album that he thought I’d like. He was right, so if you’re into Kyuss, QOTSA, Unida or similar bands, check out Teaspoonriverneck.

Tonight we’re gonna make love. You know how I know? It’s Wednesday, and Wednesday is the night that we usually make lurve.

Wait…uh, what? Sorry, just that song makes me laugh (it just came on…shuffle mode…never mind). If you don’t know the song in question, well, you should. Anyway, that has nothing to do with the content of this blog post, but it is Wednesday.

This, however, does:

Yes, that is a genuine ticket to see Queens of the Stone Age (arguably the best band around today ) live at the Guildhall in Southampton. How did a humble, bald cancer patient come to be in possession of such a coveted and valuable item, I hear you cry. Well, it’s a long (er, kind of) story, that all revolves around those two words: “cancer patient” (not humble and bald >_>).

Indeed, believe it or not, if you’re a “young person” and get cancer, you get to “make a wish” (sorry Mum and Dad, you’ll have to do with your cheap Saga car insurance). So besides the pain, the chemotherapy, the nausea, the diarrhoea, the hospital visits, the surgery and the physio, there is actually a perk to getting cancer. You can probably see where I’m going with this, but I’ll continue, otherwise I’ll be berated for not writing a long enough blog post.

Anyway, along with the nurses and doctors etc. in Piam Brown, there’s a “social worker” called Trish (I hope that’s right). The reason “social worker” is in inverted commas is that she’s actually a ringleader in the Russian Mafiya, and just uses this social worker guise to avoid suspicion. The reason I make such bold claims? Well, you can guess what my wish was (to see QOTSA in concert), and a few weeks after those words had left my lips a concert of theirs suddenly appeared in Southampton. If that wasn’t suspicious enough, the concert was sold out, as you might expect – and yet, after an enigmatic “I’ll see what I can do,” and the unexplained disappearance of a known ticket tout, I was told a few days before the concert that she’d managed to get hold of a ticket. Coincidence?

If anything other than the words “I think not!” are running through your head, then you need to reconsider. Because unfounded conspiracy theories such as mine (actually, scratch that, especially mine) are always right. Full stop (or “Period.” as some of you Americans say (you know who you are). We Brits tend to avoid this, because ending an emphatic statement with the word “menstruation” tends to detract from the effect.).

Other people that should be mentioned are the people that work at CLIC Haven, which is a charity house run by the childrens’ cancer charity CLIC (oh yeah, donate, damnit!) right next to the hospital. It’s been a real godsend over the past 9 months, and they agreed to let my dad (I know, bringing my dad to a rock concert…oh well, it could have been worse. It could have been Mum. Or even my sister, heaven forbid…) and I stay the night there. Without them we’d have had to find some accommodation somewhere else, and it would have been a real hassle, not to mention expensive.

Anyway, when we arrived, we got a cab straight to the Guildhall, negotiated the supposedly wheelchair friendly steps and amused onlookers with mohawks, picked up our tickets and headed for the nearest KFC. I think I heard a faint sonic boom as the food disappeared down my dad’s gullet. Back to the Guildhall, where the supporting act, called “In Case of Fire” (imagine the confusion as my mum tried to find out who it was over the phone) pummelled our eardrums, and then the main act arrived on stage and blew us all away with (and I’m not exaggerating; I’ve seen a lot of their gigs recorded) I think the best live performance I’ve heard them do, or at least the best one for a while. The only downside, other than the fact I wasn’t playing drums for them, was that we were sat at the back, albeit on a raised platform. We got a good view over everyone’s heads, but we were around 15 or 16 metres from the stage at least, so we didn’t get an up-close view of the band, nor could we take any decent photos (partly due to the measly 18-55mm lens we have *hint*). We did, however, get an up-close view of the band the day after in the airport. We were waiting for our flight, and who should queue up for boarding right next to us but Josh Homme and co.

I think I may base my choice of university on how many QOTSA gigs are performed near there per year.