Blue Is The Colour

 

Blue Monday? Wasn’t it just? My day at work felt like a 20-hour day. Absolute nightmare. I cheered myself up by remembering all the blue stuff I love. When I look at my paintings, I’m always surprised at how prevalent the colour blue is. So, sucks to Monday being blue, I love all things blue. There’s the amazing album by The Beautiful South. It’s a genius album with some of the most depressing lyrics I’ve ever heard set to jaunty, lilting music:

Liitle Blue:

You don’t back a horse called Striding Snail
You don’t name your boat Titanic II
So why when I see your happy smiling face
Do I always end up singing Little Blue

Little Blue, how do you do
Your smile looks like heaven
But your eyes hold a storm about to brew
Little Blue
How can a flower so pretty
Be so laden down with dew
Little Blue

Then there are my boys Elvis Costello & The Attractions and their equally wonderful Country album, ‘Almost Blue’:

Brown To Blue:

We stood there in the courthouse room so close but far apart
You brought along the lawyer and I brought a broken heart
The judge pronounced the words the way you wanted him to do
You changed your name from Brown to Jones and mine from Brown to Blue

I couldn’t help my tears from falling on the courtroom floor
My love, they took away my right to love you anymore
My world just seemed to stop as I stood there so close to you
You changed your name from Brown to Jones and mine from Brown to Blue

Pure genius. How can I leave out ‘Starry Night’ by Van Gogh? It’s an amazing painting. When you look at it. you can hardly breathe – or maybe that’s just me. I also love Yves Klein Blue, the colour. Those tables of his are truly beautiful but they are some ridiculous price so I’ll have to DIY one some fine day.

No paean to the colour blue can exclude the sea and the sky. I bring you Coconut Beach in Badagry, Lagos. The sand, the palm trees, the Atlantic ocean, and that big, big, sky in both that picture and the one of Montana. AlaraApothecary, we colour you beautiful. Have a fabulous weekend.

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Winter Solstice: Fake News!

Winter solstice, we just had it right? December 21st; shortest day of every year. Can anyone explain to me why we are then currently getting only 6 or 7 minutes of daylight at the moment? I am so over winter, I can’t tell you. Meanwhile my electricity supplier is sending out random bills with figures they’ve made up; I suppose it’s a bit of a lark just to see if I’m crazy enough to pay them, no questions asked. It snowed in the Sahara…. what is wrong with this picture? This of course affords me a wonderful opportunity to taunt the global-warmists in a very childish way. It’s not global warming anymore, you say? It’s climate change now, is it? Ever since the world’s temperature plunged and polar bears are now roaming the streets of London? Tee hee. What easy marks.

So, how to survive this crazy weather? First of all, you need to start watching ‘Death in Paradise’. Yes, the plots are preposterous, it’s basically Agatha Christie in Guadeloupe. But, have you seen the views? It’s pure eye-candy for a sun-starved populace, and it’s silly, funny, and utterly unrealistic. It’s totally tropical in a way that makes Lilt look like Irn Bru. Secondly, do not start some insane detox programme. Siberia is warmer that England, have you lost your mind? Suet, and lots of it, that’s what we need. As a healthcare professional, I should insert some healthy living stuff at this point. I offer this below:

That is an actual fact, if you don’t take into account that it is completely untrue. I leave you with the fabulous W.C Fields in ‘The Fatal Glass of Beer’; I love this silly skit. It  always makes me laugh, it’s so ridiculous. I bet you feel warmer already. Have a good one.

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Happy New Year

Thank God that’s all over. 2017 sucked majorly; a year of stress, bereavement, and what felt very much like running to stand still. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve spoken with who found last year really difficult. So, goodbye 2017, don’t let the door hit you in the  derrière on the way out. I actually developed a cold at 5pm on New Year’s Eve. Cough, cough, splutter, splutter. What the helling hell??? A final punch in the guts from 2017. Luckily, ample consumption of pharmaceuticals (legal ones, thank you! 🙂 ) and Jack Daniels (also legal), put paid to that. 2017, the year that just kept on giving and giving……

Welcome, 2018, and thank you Father, that I survived to see it. It’s going to be a terrific year. How do I know? I’m on a promise, baby. To God be the glory, as always. Firstly, I woke up sans cold although I wasn’t fooled by that, I took the meds anyway. Secondly, I’ve started painting again. 2017 was so blooming stressful, I was unable to so much as put a scrap of paint on canvas. I had the canvas in my living room for the whole of 2017 and could not even make myself draw a single line. I put paint to canvas this morning, and it felt wonderful. Clouds are my thing at the moment so I’ll probably paint them obsessively for a few months. It’s as though the world has turned on a hinge, I can feel it me water. So, to the children of light who helped to make 2017 a bearable year, blessings and hugs and kisses. To the sons and daughters of Belial who helped to make 2017 such an ordeal, a smack in the back of the head, and a big fat raspberry.

In the interest of détente, I have wiped the slate clean of all wrongs and I’m starting 2018 sharing the love. I’m starting with some of my favourite images from 2017; hope you like them. Plus, I have jokes. First, a terrible one:

A Roman walks into a bar and holds up two fingers, “Sir can I have five beers please.”

Then, one of my all-time favourites:

A man walks into a bar and says, “Ouch!”

Plus:

Someone stole my Microsoft Office and they’re gonna pay.
You have my Word.

I cannot start the year without offering you some Ogden Nash (sounds like a trending new superfood: Ogden Nash with Chai berries and Harissa……) :

The Octopus

Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I’d call me Us.

Wishing you all a veritable year of blessings and grace and favour. 2018, it’s gonna be good ‘un. And the people of God say……..

 

 

 

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