By the Grace and blessed forgiveness, most high Holy Majesty and power of our Lord Jesus Christ Almighty, who died on the Cross for the sins of those alive at the time, excluding Aboriginals and others With no knowledge or recourse to Him, and all that is just and fair in Christendom, I tell you it is not until you have an actual injury that you realise how much you use that particular part of the body. Recently I fell over and had my right leg amputated. It’s awful, a real pisser. The difference is staggering. Whereas yesterday I could hop around happily across the tennis courts, now I would do that unhappily. The bouncing and muscle strain would probably open the wound right up and there would be curious, sporadic red lines, splatter- dribbled across the courts, like the very early stages of Pollock, cutting across the white tramlines at angles.
Also I have been using my leg to go on R tip toes. It is harder now, much harder, say 0 for example in a book [V shop or something, I A might be going up and a lady across from me, obscured by the shelves, may not I realise the special nature of my risings; ? will not realise my incredible achievements, the un- inevitable levitables.
Best of all, my linear lovers, I would miss the Ding Game.
The Ding Game is a brilliant and simple game that can be played anywhere there is a wall. All you need is a ball and two kids. There are no pitch- size requirements or netting and obstacles make it better.
You kick the ball across the wall and the kids have to run along the wall back
and forth Without getting hit by the ball as it bounces off and back to you. It has so many wonderful angles: — there is one major guideline, so no actual rules to transgress. —the
kids define what kind of game it is by how much they get into it; they run across the field of fire only as often as they Wish. The more running there is, the more they get into each other’s way and the more they laugh.
— it is one of those games the kids love to get caught at, yet this is not as easy to do as they think. All is the game.
— for you it is not dependent on hands, the only one like football; the beautiful big brother game, so it improves your skills, so your feelings, so your life.
— if the kids l0iter you can kick it towards them and if one runs you can angle the ball across to chase them. And the kids realise you can’t always put the ball exactly where you want so they revel in this space.
— just enough action for your moves to be born out of fast reason.
— there is room for magic as you place a delicate lob in the path of a brave daughter going ’oo-urrr’ and running crazily for the other side.
I came up with this game while I was cooking the kids lunch. We had put the fishcakes in the oven and set the timer for twenty minutes. So
H . H T this game was gomg D
T’S well. A first time and Coco is going crazy running the bouncy gauntlet, or silk E ls knuckleless drIVing glove. Her mate Mia
C l N G is older and more
cautious and watches doing the springy recoil of the dancing feet, going, not gomg, going. I have to ask them to scream at a different pitch so as not to worry anyone. At this wavelength they are tuned to Being Chased By A Man With A Knife FM.
The game goes to new levels when they go to change and take their tops off. Drinking huge clumps of water at the break, with fervent looks from the eyes as their rosy cheeks are eclipsed by the slowly rising pink tumblers. Silence and then a huge gasp after. Then clung calung down followed by Wiping of mouths on forearms.
I’m getting better able to use the left foot now, using the outside to do dampened punchy kicks and the flat of the front to just put it up there right on their heads, It is as much fun for me as it is for them. We are having a laugh filling in time in a way that isn’t; we’re waiting
for relatively healthy stuff to come out and there is a timer on so all the good is rounded off with a relaxed umbrella of pro-active care and I have got my head back in the air laughing at Coco, who is now running back and forward without any regard for where the ball is, laughing her big cheeky laugh, when: 'DING!’
ROISIN MtClOSKEY
Famespotting Eileen Walsh
Claim to fame? Walsh plays the eponymous character in Janice Beard: 45 Words Per Minute, the film debut of director/co-writer Clare Kilner. There’s a little of Janice Beard in everyone, Kilner says of the habitual liar who leaves Scotland for London to seek a medical cure for her agoraphobic mother. ’When you come to haVing to describe her, it's very difficult,’ she says. ’She’s a habitual liar, but merely makes up harmless stories; she's goofy, but also completely endearing; she's . . .'
Perhaps she’s a lot like Eileen Walsh, then? Indeed. ’I thought I hadn’t got a chance because my audition was a disaster,’ says Walsh of the casting process. 'I hadn’t read the script, and was an hour late. I crashed into the audition room and said, “I’m sorry. There was a bomb on the underground”, laughing crazily at my own crap joke. I was really sweaty in a huge anorak, and I lied badly to all their questions about the script.’
Isn't that pure Janice? ’It was hard for people to accept that I’m not Janice. I do have to own up to being like her. We both develop stories to make us that little bit more interesting. Also, when we meet somebody we expect them to like us. I think both Janice and I are very energetic, but whereas I'll realise when I'm becoming annoying and stop, Janice won't.’ Where else have we seen Walsh? Scottish audiences are likely to be familiar wrth her through her lead role in the cult Fringe hit, Disco Pigs at Edinburgh’s Traverse. She also had a small part in A Letter To Brezhnev.
Will we be seeing more of her? Certainly, and soon, on the big screen in Mike Figgis’ Miss
Julie. (Miles Fielder) Janice Beard: 45 Words Per Minute opens Fri 5 May. See review, page ??
US.
Togher The Drummer on pagan rites modern style at 8e tane. page 12