Katie Butcher

Every working day I park the car at New Pudsey station car park and hop on the train to Leeds. On Monday I arrived at the usual time of around 7:50am and was somewhat surprised to see a duck stood in the middle of the car park.There’s nothing really that strange about a duck, but it just looked so odd standing in the middle of the carpark, it made me smile. There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with it, it just looked a bit bewildered by all the cars gradually coming in and parking around it (the car park is about half full when I get there, but by 9am there are no spaces left at all). I sat in the car for a few minutes because the train wasn’t due just yet and quite a few of the arriving drivers were raising eyebrows at the duck. I thought – ‘Ah, my first opportunity to make use of the camera feature on my phone which I’ve never used’, but then remembered I’d left my phone at home so was a bit annoyed.

Then on Tuesday, I arrived at the station and there were 2 ducks stood in the middle of the car park! I managed to take a picture but didn’t realise there was a zoom feature so it was basically two dots in a car park.

On Wednesday I was going to work later but managed to park in one of the last spaces at 8:50am. I was surprised to see that there were 2 ducks again, they’d moved into the corner of the car park as it had filled up.

Then…. Thursday morning there were 3 ducks in the middle of the car park! They were sleeping as in one of the spaces as cars filled up the spaces around them.

Bazaar! I wonder how many more mornings they’ll be there?

Okay so I’ve pinched these amusing points off a forum entry on www.grumpieroldmen.co.uk, but they’re so true, I had to add them to a blog.

Songs that don’t know when to finish.
The song is four minutes long. Two of those minutes are taken up with the chorus being repeated. And repeated. And repeated. And if the singer is female then you might get her warbling over the top of all this.

Mariah Carey Syndrome
Look at my amazing range. Marvel as I turn each line into scale exercise. The Tune? Oh, I left it over there. Let me show you how passionate I feel about this subject by trilling meaninglessly while the song plods to its end.

Rap Interludes
Also known as: “Let’s see if we can get the hip-hop crowd to buy this too.”
This has never yet made a bad song better and usually manages to sit as comfortably with the rest of the song as a rhino turd in a salad bar.

Spoken Word bits
Always embarrassing. Without fail.

Random Growling and Screaming
One specific to the current crop of Metal/Metalcore bands where there are an awful lot of vocalists out there with split personalities. Sometimes the repressed Death Metal vocalist takes over and they start screaming in the middle of the sentence for no apparent reason.

The Truck Driver’s Gearchange
When a songwriter is a bit stuck for ideas, so changes key a tone up and then repeats the chorus. Some are done well (Michael Jackson’s “Man In The Mirror” is saved by the fact the gearchange is done by a Gospel Choir) but some are just terrible (Kyrie Eleison by Mr Mister).

Ripping off a song and adding a rap
If you want respect from your “homies” but simply can’t be arsed to write a song, then shamelessly plagiarise someone else’s, adding maybe a different beat and a rap in the middle – but here’s the trick – name the song after a different line in the original track – that way people may not make the connection. An example is “Missing You” by Puff Daddy (ripped off “Every Breath You Take) – this is a good example because it’s exactly what I described, but also a bad example as it’s actually quite a good track.

Rudebwoy Bhangra Tracks
The component parts are ALWAYS the same. The beat will be a dhol-influenced indian beat, but with some western “unce unce” thrown in, the bass line is more often than not the bassline to the Knightrider theme, and that single note indian-banjo thing (I forget the name) going “rinka-dinka-dinka-dinka-rinka-dinka-dinka-dinka” etc

At the moment I’m rehearsing to play in the orchestra for West Riding Opera’s production of Mozart’s ‘Die Zauberflöte’ or ‘The Magic Flute’ in English. It’ll be the first time I’ll have been in the new ‘Carriageworks’ theatre on Millennium Square in Leeds. Until this year West Riding Opera’s performances have been in ‘Leeds Civic Theatre’ but that has closed down and is being turned into a museum due to open in 2008.

This is the fourth opera I’ve played in, and although the orchestra hasn’t yet rehearsed with the singers, I sure it’s going to be my favourite so far. The bad thing about playing in the orchestra is that you don’t get to see what is happening on the stage, as you’re too busy playing/reading the music/watching the conductor. Most opera storylines are a bit weird and this one is no exception, but it’s probably one of the more accessible operas is a good opera for the opera novice. It’s got some great Mozart tunes that almost everybody knows.

I’m so excited that author Christine Aziz has commented on the review I made of her book. I never imagined that a book review post would actually be found by the author. I sort of wish I’d put a bit more thought into my review now and not written it over a month after I actually finished reading it. When you’re a bit short of time you tend get a bit lazy and think ‘oh well hardly anyone will really read it anyway so it doesn’t matter too much what I write’. I think I’ll try and not do that from now on.

This weekend I started reading Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ since I thought I seemed to be one of the only people left who hasn’t read it. Apparently I’m not the only person who’s not read it, as when I got on the train this morning a lady sat down one row in front of me and just like me, opened up ‘The Da Vinci Code’. But not only that, she opened it up on the start of chapter 9, exactly the page I was on! How much of a coincidence is that? Then when we stopped at Bramley and a lady sat down next to me and what book did she start reading? ‘The Da Vinci Code’! How weird, everybody I could see reading on the train was reading the same book.

And by the way, I’m really enjoying it, after reading a few really boring books lately, this is a complete change.

Since it’s the first Sunday of the month we thought we’d go down to Leeds Farmer’s market this morning as we’ve not been since before Christmas. It’s getting very popular, there were loads of people, and lots of new stalls that we’d not seen before. We bought lots of meat for the freezer. Ostrich sausages (we love the ostrich burgers but haven’t tried the sausages yet), wild boar sausages (which we got last time and were the nicest sausages ever – like pork but nicer), buffalo burgers, and some venison and sweet chilli burgers and also some minced beef. We also bought some cheese and olives and garlic. Both ostrich and buffalo are a lot like beef but a lot leaner. We did get some ostrich steaks a bit back though but weren’t too mad on them, but the burgers are really nice and have hardly any fat (and I’m not even usually really a fan of burgers!).

Also had to go to Morrisons to get some other bits; we got some nice crusty rolls and salad and tonight we’ll have the venison and sweet chilli burgers. I’m looking forward to it!

Yesterday I met up with my old university friend Laura for lunch in Saltaire. We had lunch in a very small but very nice café-bistro type place (sadly I can’t remember what it was called); I had smoked salmon and cream cheese on foccacia with salad and Laura had swordfish salad with parsley and lemon. It was lovely and reasonably priced and great to chat and catch up.

After lunch we wandered down to Salts Mill and had a look around. On the ground floor is a gallery of art by Bradford born artist David Hockney. It was huge and there were a lot of pieces of art, but unfortunately I have little understanding of Hockney’s art so didn’t really appreciate it. We quickly went down a floor and wandered around a store which had lots nice rugs and fabrics, then up to a bookshop. There was also a home store which was nice, but everything in it was ‘designer’ and had absolutely ridiculous prices – e.g (and I’m not exaggerating here) £125 for a colander and £50 for an egg cup! You would have to be the Beckhams to buy stuff from there. The £125 colander didn’t look any better than my £3 one.

I had only paid for two hours parking and since the time was nearly up Laura came back to our house for a coffee. Then a bit later Nigel drove us back over to Laura’s house in Wilsden to take her back. We met her new(ish) boyfriend Lee, who she now lives with, and he seemed really nice. An enjoyable afternoon. I’ve promised myself that I really must not leave it so long in between catching up with Laura from now on.