Time Travel 101: Huxley's Leap

So, here's the beginning of a time travel tourism idea that I have been playing around with lately. I've decided to rewrite it to be a lot darker (surprise, surprise) but enjoyed playing with the paradox problems!

Huxley’s Leap

“This way please for the Battle of Hastings Time Tour. Yes madam, this way. Please take a seat and secure any belongings. No sir, the Building of Stonehenge Spectacular is just down the corridor to your right, just after the 13.15 to The Shakespeare Experience. Yes, thank you. Please sit in your ticketed seats.”

Once the pod was full, Huxley went through the general safety procedures; customers must remain in their seats at all time, customers may take photos but please, no flash, customers are to use the supplied vomit-bags if affected by G-sickness during the leap.

“Are there any questions?”

An older lady in the middle row raised her hand. A virgin-leaper, he could tell.

“What if I faint, on account of all the blood?”

A fair question, admitted Huxley, and one that often came up.

“Well, you are strapped in so you won’t have to worry about falling. Other than that, we do keep supplies to revive people if they do lose consciousness. Most leapers are completely fine, if you do start to feel queasy, just pretend you’re watching a film or tubebox programme. That seems to help.”

There weren’t any more questions after that. He went round each leaper, sixteen in total, checking their straps, mouth compressors (which, as he explained, prevented a person biting on their tongue during the leap) and heart rates. Everything looked to be in order.

“Ok, as we’re all ready. Please remember to stay calm during the leap, everything is under control and you are completely safe.”

He nodded to the whitecoat who gave him the thumbs up. Huxley took his own seat, strapped himself in, and pressed the button in front of him. They leapt.

He had grown used to the sensation during his six years working at Time Tours™ but he was still left with a flutter in the lower stomach and a certain sparkling behind the eyes. Occasionally he’d open one eye, just a slit, to see what it looked like. He’d soon squeeze it shut again though, the sensation of looking out from behind a waterfall and up from the bottom of a well at the same time was too much to handle. He preferred to live the sensation inside his head.

 When the swirling came to an abrupt stop, Huxley knew they had arrived. He released his straps and pulled out his compressor. Below him, the shouting and clashing of metal rose up from the battlefield. He turned down the volume control in the pod and switched its walls to total clarity.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see by the timer we have reached October 14^th 1066, and are currently approximately seven miles north-west of modern-day Hastings,” Huxley announced, “Here you can see the army of Duke William II of Normandy, with the kite-shaped shields, advancing on the Anglo-Saxons, led by King Harold. There you can see Senlac Ridge...” He continued his narration without needing to refer to his notes, he had been on the Hastings tour four times this week alone.

He let the leapers gaze through the concave walls as he talked, the pod floating in its pre-ordained route over the field. A man in the front row jumped in his seat as an arrow whistled past, feet from his face.

“It’s ok sir,” said Huxley, “Researches have calculated a completely safe route for the pod to materialise, one which is safe for it to travel in, without a bird, missile or even arrow bouncing off it.” He treated the man to a reassuring smile.

The Past-Timers could not be given even the slightest clue that the pod was there so every precaution was taken to ensure that their presence remained a secret. The pods had been made semi-permeable which meant that vapour and gas, such as clouds, could pass right through. Without this, substances such as smoke would gather underneath and show their form, but it also gave the added advantage of experiencing the smells of the age. Leapers loved the clean, fresh air of pre-industrial revolution eras and the roasting scent of real meat at the Elizabethan banquets. The porous material could of course be closed up, an essential adaptation for visits to 60s Vietnam or gas battles, like the Somme.

 You don’t get that on the tubebox.

“Please, do take pictures.”

The pod slowly span in its seemingly erratic but computerised path. His favourite bit was coming up, when an Anglo-Saxon is run through (armour and all) by a Norman sword and falls to the ground, only to show unexpected strength by scrambling to his feet and jabbing his spear right through the neck of the Norman. Huxley did not draw the leaper’s attention to the happening, but chose to enjoy it privately. It was his special event, he had his moments on all his tours.

The highlight for many was the death of Harold, by an arrow to an eye. It was nice for the pioneering t-travellers to be able to confirm that, after so much speculation throughout the centuries. There was an optional add-on to the Hastings tour, which was the final few stitches of the Bayeux Tapestry, but it was proving to be unpopular. It turns out that watching embroidery in real-time was not that interesting, even if it was during the 1070s. Huxley had strongly suggested that Kristeva cut it from the package. She was considering it.

 

 

The Hastings tour took about three hours, from start to finish, encompassing the more dramatic parts of the battle, swooping in and out for perspective when the Past-time action would allow. They didn’t hang around for the clean-up.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of the tour for today. Thank you so much for choosing to time travel with Time Tours. Don’t forget to check out our extensive catalogue of tours for you to pick and enjoy, if you book today you’ll receive a 25% discount. I can definitely recommend the ‘Wright Flight’ Special, it’s a perfect winter-warmer. I do hope you enjoyed your tour today, and we’ll see you again soon. Thanks.”

Huxley had one more Hastings before the end of his shift, which went off without any hitches. Apart from a vommer on the leap, but he was used to that. He turned off the lights behind him, securing the lab and leaving the machines humming quietly. He chatted with Security Simon on the front desk for a few minutes before registering his Time Tours™ ID card with the drone stationed at the door, then stepping out into the night. The doors hissed shut behind him, slicing in half the drone’s monotone, ‘Goodnight, Mr. Len’.

The neon colours reflected mutely in the frozen puddles which beaded the kerb. Huxley stuffed his hands into his pockets, turned up his jacket to 26° and crossed the road to the 25 hour shop to pick up the things he’d promised Sara he would. Once outside, bag in hand, he lit a cigabetter before heading down the street toward the nearest chute stop.

“Good evening sir or madam, what is your destination?”

“Huxley Len, 00624039, Home.”

“Very well, Mr Len.”

The chute veered off towards the Len residence. Huxley used the down time to think about ways to improve his tour sales. Kristeva had been going on at him about the low uptake numbers on the World War packages, previously their biggest. The problem with history, as he had explained, was that it didn’t change. There was only so many times you could go on a tour before you wanted to see something else. The World Wars had been popular at the beginning but now customers were becoming more eclectic, they wanted to see the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the first man on the moon, Beethoven live, the eruption of Krakatoa.

There had also been a significant rise in the number of personal, tailored tours; much more expensive and completely private. There were the usual; the wedding of the leaper’s parents, their first birthday, assorted happy times before death and disease had elbowed their way in. And also a worrying trend for older leaper’s travelling back to go and see their own birth. There was something weird about that, incestuous almost, Huxley thought. He could definitely be completely fine without ever seeing another greyish, slippery blob being wrenched out of a screaming woman. It was too old school, too graphic – he was glad technology had eradicated that inconvenience once and for all.

There was always the JFK assassination, Huxley thought as he pressed his eye to the cornea lock, that tour was still as popular as ever. It had been a massive breakthrough of course, whoever had suspected her?

“Sara, I’m home!”

“I’m in here, did you pick up those things?”

“Yeah, I’ve put them on the kitchen table.”

He stepped down in the living room to find Sara plugged into an audio book. Probably Austen, Huxley thought, she had gone on the Regency Romance tour more times then he cared to remember.

“Where are the kids?” he asked as he let himself fall onto the settee next to her.

She paused the audio, “Up in their room on their VR sets, there was some new pandemic game out, or something.” She tuned back to her book.

“You should be careful what they play on there, I’m not sure I like them being subjected to all that violence.”

“This coming from the man whose job entails taking gaggling tourists to see murders, genocide and terrorism in real time. I hardly think it’s going to have any effect on them, pandemics are as dead as the rhino. It’s the same as them playing at shooting up zombies or Nazis.”

Huxley acquiesced. She was probably right, she usually was.

 

 

Things to not do at a book launch

So, Wednesday (1st October 2014) was the day of my first official book launch. I mean a book which I'm actually in, rather than just knowing someone who wrote it.
The book is 'Furies: A Poetry Anthology of Women Warriors' and you can buy it here with all profits from sales (a minimum of £5 per book) going to Rape Crisis England and Wales.

So Plumb and I decided to head along to The Star of Kings in London, where the event took place.
However, I made some errors. Namely:

1. I drank loads of red wine and didn't eat anything. Cue overly loud laughing and extreme chatterbox.
2. I accidentally stole one of the other poet's books - she was handing it around for the poets to sign and it was left on my table. It was handed to me and I stuck it in my bag without even thinking. I discovered I had both copies later on that night. Luckily, she signed my book so I am currently in the process of trying to get hold of her contact details.
3. I almost fell off a lock - don't try to cross canal locks in heels whilst drunk.
4. I misspelt 'thanks' when signing the publisher's copy.
5. I couldn't remember my own email address when asked for it.
6. I may have danced along in the beer garden to some freestyle rap by 'Random Renee'.

However, I did do some things right too:

1. Randomly bump into a friends of mine and Matt's from Glastonbury, who then came along to the launch and then let us hang out on her awesome house boat.
2. Met lots of really cool people, including a few who know people that I know - thus reinforcing the 'small world-ness'.
3. Went to bed as a reasonable time so, for once, I wasn't hungover. Huzzah!

But it was a really good night and such a good experience, it felt lovely to be involved in something which is raising money for such an amazing cause. I felt truly humbled.

Here are some photos from the night:



A representative from Rape Crisis made a moving speech



Becky (on the right) did her undergrad at Cardiff, where I am studying now

 

Jane Bradley from For Book's Sake introducing the poets and speakers

 

Amy and I with a copy of the collection (this is her picture which I totally stole).

 

The view from the canal bar.

 


The inside of my mind at the end of the night.
 

 My first publication is now out - I wonder where I'll be heading next.

Creative Responses to Dementia

So, as part of this event which was held at the MADe Gallery in Roath by Creative Reponses to Dementia and Making Minds, I was asked to write and read some words inspired by my experience with dementia.

I chose to write a poem about my work as a carer with adults with dementia and a more personal piece of prose about my grandfather.

Here's me reading for the first time as an invited writer:

 

 

 

Here's the poem :

 

 

 

Your Husband

 

A key-lock used to enter,

family photos on the wall,

we check in to on-call service

from the guest phone in the hall.

 

We know where he’ll be sitting,

his care plan and routine,

we know his pills and creams and times

and how he takes his tea.

 

To us he’s Mr Davies

but to you he is just ‘dear’,

or Daddy, Dad or Grandad,

and other names throughout the years.

 

A commode where once were golf clubs,

a dry-pad on his seat,

button alarm around his neck,

catheter bag between his feet .

 

There are tanks outside his window,

there is a man under his bed.

There’s things he sees that we cannot,

the things inside his head.

 

The tanks turn into rubbish trucks,

the man just goes away,

he wonders what we did with him,

he marvels at your name.

 

I know you’re stood outside the door,

to watch me as I care,

as I wipe him, wash him, dress and clean,

you know I know you’re there.

 

So when he says I’m pretty,

or that I’m nice and tall,

I know that you know that he doesn’t know,

 that he doesn’t mean it at all.

 

 

And here is the piece about my grandfather:

 

 

A Boat for One

 

The last time I saw my grandfather, he didn’t know who I was.

To him, I was just another one from the stream of strange faces who came to wash him, dress him, help him go to the toilet.

‘That girl’, he’d call me, ‘that nice young girl’.

Of course I’d just snap straight back into my carer role – guide him to his comfy chair, change his pad, reassure him when I found him wandering the house at night.

I’d be woken by him clattering his zimmer frame into the wooden doors. ‘Hello?’ he’d say, ‘hello?’ Pyjama-clad I’d rush downstairs, ‘Hi Jim’, I’d say.

I’d never called him Jim before.

‘It’s ok, you’re at home’.

 I’d then tuck him back into bed.

I couldn’t see much of what I remembered – the man with the wicked sense of humour who could make anything out of wood, who insisted on going to Ogmore beach every time we visited, completely irregardless of the weather, and had his own special pint glass behind the bar at his local.

Perhaps he was still down there somewhere, smothered by the huge knitted jumpers which used to fit, but now just pooled on the chair around him. They hung as if draped over a scarecrow, his shoulders empty boughs, his knuckles; gnarled oak.

Moth picked and aged, there were too many holes to hold in the straw.

I could see it as it fell through the air, its motes catching golden in the light. I saw it collect in drifts along the floor; heaped memories. Unaware of its significance he stuck to his cleared path, his shambling gait exposing the carpet.

‘I want my wife, Kay, my wife’, he’d say to me, over and over, as I helped him dress.  Momentarily I’d rise to it, ‘I know’ I’d think, ‘I know who she is, that’s my name too.’

But then I’d remember.

And then I’d forget.

‘Pleasantly muddled’, we’d say, ‘Away with the fairies’. An affectionate term, a positive spin.

There wasn’t much else we could do – no emergency brake, no miraculous antidote, no rip cord, no life ring to thrown out to him.

So, together we stood on the shore and waved and smiled as he drifted out in the current. And when he was way out on the horizon, we lifted our arms high in the air to show him we were still watching, were still there. And that even when he couldn’t see us anymore, we could still see him. Still knew him.

He sailed away in a boat for one and we watched him go.

‘That girl’, he said, ‘that nice young girl’.

 

 

x

 

 

 

 

 

 





La Force XI - Fortitude

So, for the Modern Alchemists exhibition 'Solve et Coagula', writers were paired up anonymously with local artists and asked to write a piece about their work. You can read my write up about the event on We Are Cardiff here.

I was lucky enough to meet my artist, Borja Perez Mielgo, on the day of the exhibition opening and he has given me the green light to put his work up here. He does not have a website yet but I'll keep you posted:

At first glance, there's a lot to take in. I allowed myself a while to think about it before I started and eventually decided to do a little research into the symbolism. I discovered that 'Fortitude' is a tarot card which commonly displays a woman and a lion as its motif, so continuing on this theme, I based my writing around the cards. And here it is:

Fortitude

She watched the colours fade from the card, they distorted and dripped; the hand, the numerals, the chain. When it was completely blank, she tossed it onto the fire. The corners curled and blackened before it succumbed completely to the embers.

Then it was gone.

She smiled.

She peered over the edge. There wasn’t much left of him now either, he had stopped squealing a while before. All she could hear was the Cuttlecrawlers drinking up the last of him, suckling and nuzzling like placated babies. The horns were always the last bits to go, the regurgitated intestinal fluids had a hard time eating through them, even with the help of the engorged tentacles. The sound of their snuffling and the wafts of their excited sulphuric burps tickled nauseatingly at her stomach. She could barely see the ground through the writhing mass of feelers, twitching and squirming languorously after their unexpectedly large meal. There wouldn’t be a bone left when they were done with him, nothing but a sour smell and a slightly scorched patch where the bile had burnt through.

She took another sip of her coffee and put the rest of the stack to one side.

The eagle incident had been unfortunate. Adelaide had been a good hunter and a fast flyer, supplying the group with a steady flow of rabbits. She had warned her about swooping too low over the polyp fields, but of course she was sick.

And young.

Her anti-Icarus.

She would miss her.

She opened up her satchel and took out the remaining cookies. Six in total; four raisin and two oatmeal. They wouldn’t last long, she had already gone over her allowance for that day but they had all needed it, what was left of her rag tag team. She had enough flour and butter for two more batches, provided she could find a safe place and some good wood for an earth oven. She liked to use oak, it gave them a earthy, smokey flavour. Cookies were a bit of a hassle to make but they travelled well, especially if she found some good munrom leaves to wrap them in.

She glanced at Captain. He had shrunk down to normal size again which was good, he would need less food that way. They wouldn’t be going anywhere until at least the morning and they were out of reach up there. She took swigged the last of her coffee; her fifth cup that day. She should really cut down but it helped sooth her post-battle jitters. She’d needed it even more after giving up the tobaccamon pipe, it gave her something to do with her trembling hands.

With a sigh, Captain uncurled and rolled onto his back, letting his heavy paws dangle in the air. He paddled them and twitched his ears occasionally, letting out huge snoring purrs which fluttered at his nostrils. He was probably dreaming of chasing wild pigs, she thought, or soaring through the celestial plains in pursuit of albatross. He loved albatross.

She cleared away the cooking stove, pots and pans, and added a little wood to the fire from the bundle they’d brought. She tipped the coffee mulch over the side, that would give the crawlers a buzz. She rinsed the cup and packed it back into the saddle bag and then pulled out her knife and looked at herself in the blade. She regarded her newly cracked tooth and the heavy circles under her eyes, the greasy hair and sallow skin. With a shake of her head she re-sheathed it.

It was best not to look.

She picked up the deck again and shuffled it, sliding the cards in on themselves over and over again. She smirked at how light they felt in her fingers. She was about halfway through with only a few Major Arcana left, she’d be glad to finish and go home.

She looked out over the landscape that the sun was scurrying to hide behind. When it was dark the Tartaran creatures would heave themselves out of their day-time holes, their pockets of night-time in the flood of light, and slither and creep in search of something soft, warm and beating. She would hear their low moans and heavy growls in an hour or so, the click of the palpitating mandibles, the desperate shrieks of a constricted meal.

Even the crawlers pushed themselves deep into the black crystal sand, twisting and coiling until their flaccid bodies were completely covered. If they felt particularly bold they would push up a tentacle or two up into the bitter night air and then snatch furtively at unsuspecting mice and golgors. Once caught, they’d hurry them into their warm lair beneath the onyx grains and gorge, trying to quieten their slurps and impatient gurgles. They’d pause mid-guzzle whenever anything heavy and terrible passed overhead, only daring to open all their eyes and breathe again once silence was restored.

They were safe up there though, she reminded herself, on that curious structure built by a people she knew nothing about, in a time that no one remembers. She wondered what the world would have looked like then, in the times before the Haze. Did they have any idea of what was coming, of what was waiting for them? There wasn’t much left of it anymore, just a few monoliths here and there and the strange stone arrangements swept up in the dust.

She looked down at the cards.

With her eyes closed she finished shuffling and arranged them in front of her, just as she had been taught all those years ago, piling them neatly and confidently until she had run out. In the dying light she took the top card from the spread.

With a deep breath, she turned it over and opened her eyes.

XII

The colours flashed: red, blue, yellow.

She regarded it for a moment before placing it in the inside pocket of her cloak and then stashed the rest of the pack in her satchel. She unpacked and unrolled the blanket, threw it over Captain and got in beside him, burying into his fur for warmth, his heavy sleep-breathing a comfort to her. She lay flat on her back and studied the emerging stars, but they provided no answers for her that night. The heavens remained tight-lipped for her. Instead, she rolled to look at the fire. Its licking and lolling felt warm on her face. She drew the blanket in around her.

The Hanged Man.

She would need to get some sleep.

 

 

The Upper Deep - horror short story

You can check out my foray into horror at the Cardiff Undead blog here!

It was inspired by this poem:

The Kraken - Lord Alfred Tennyson

 Below the thunders of the upper deep;
 Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
 His antient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
 The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
 About his shadowy sides: above him swell
 Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
 And far away into the sickly light,
 From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
 Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
 Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
 There hath he lain for ages and will lie
 Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
 Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
 Then once by man and angels to be seen,
 In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

And this book:

I'm sure you can guess the common theme;

Although there's not actually a kraken in it...

Literature Wales Poetry Workshop

So, on St David's Day we headed to Neath to attend a day of poetry performances and workshops funded by Literature Wales and Seren Books - all for £7!
Gillian Clark (The National Poet of Wales) also did a reading of some of her poems (two of which I absolutely loved) and a book signing.

Here's one of the poems that really moved me: Miracle on St Davids Day


I really enjoyed the day and it definitely inspired me to write more poetry.

I chose to attend a workshop by Rhian Edwards about bridging the gap between page and performance poetry. She gave us this exercise:

Think of an emotion, without naming it give it a (non-cliché):

• Colour
• Texture
• Smell
• Sound
• Effect on the body
• Animal
• Visual

(not necessarily in that order)

So this was mine:

It is a pearlescent sheen,

the scent of money,

it's copper smell,

a knot on smooth.

It trickles almost imperceptibly

a gradual waterboard.

It stifles and suffocates,

a gnawing worm, 

it's holes left gaping. 

 

 

(Answer at the bottom)

 

 

The next workshop was with Paul Henry and focused on writing from memory.

 

He encouraged us to fill a page with words and sentences inspired by the phrase, 'The first house I lived in'. We then read through the following poem together and then wrote our own inspired by it.

 

The Self-Unseeing by Thomas Hardy  

Here is the ancient floor,

Footworn and hollowed and thin,

Here was the former door

Where the dead feet walked in.

She sat here in her chair,

Smiling into the fire;

He who played stood there,

Bowing it higher and higher.

Childlike, I danced in a dream;

Blessings emblazoned that day;

Everything glowed with a gleam;

Yet we were looking away!

 

 

 

And this was mine:

 

 

 

Heol Y Coed

 

Here is the step where the dog sits,

stooping to peer through the clear, green frog

of the stained glass window,

an occasional eruptive bark,

pre-empting the doorbell.

Here is the bannister which I pushed my head through

and was stuck for what seemed like hours.

 

Here is the hall with its full length mirror,

which I cracked

with an ill-advised handstand.

Here is the kitchen door

through which I would listen to adult conversations

pyjama-clad after bed time.

It does little to blot out the noise.

 

Here is the kitchen table,

a stain or two from sodastream syrup.

Here is where they gathered en mass,

all high hopes and hair gel

before taxiing to town,

the dog's head left smelling of aftershave,

from many different hands.

 

Here is the garden,

with its lavender-lined patio.

A badminton net traversing the pre-chained daisies.

Here is the quince bush, heavy with

fat bumble bees

and crammed with owl and pussycat fruit.

 

Here is where we buried the guinea pig,

which the dog then dug up

 and brought inside.

 

 

 

The answer to the first poem was....envy!

Mug.0

If you walk down the street with a mug, people look at you like you're bloody crazy.

It upsets people, it makes them nervous. You can see them feverishly glancing round for a building site, a need to placate the uneasiness of the aforementioned mug  being out of the household parameters by placing you as a builder. It's ok to drink from mugs outside if you're repairing someone's roof or replumbing a kitchen.

But no, there is no building site - not even any light renovation or some gentle landscaping. The ensuing judgment is swift and damning. There's only one thing for it, you must be mad.

You see them whispering as you approach, mug in hand, taking an occasional furtive look in your direction. They stop as you pass lips compressed together, holding tight onto their handbags, eyes diverted, before resuming once again when you're at a safe distance:
"Did you see the size of the mug he had?"
"I know, I don't feel safe on the streets anymore."




Don't pretend you didn't have one of these

And I'm not just talking about any mug, I mean the big, ceramic, chipped, faded, got-free-with-an-easter-egg type of mug. It may be emblazoned with 'World's Best Dad' or 'Diamond Jubilee 1952-2012' or be one of those brown Smarties ones that every household seemed to have in the 90s. Something with a big handle and stir marks in the bottom, something that's been with you through three house moves, it's origins lost completely in the sands of time.

But the important thing is the confidence with which you carry it. Here you are, walking the neighbourhood sipping a brew, you're a Kenco flaneur, a Lipton lounger, a Tetley stroller. You don't care, you've got the streets at your feet and a cup of the good stuff in your hand. Never mind those who stare, who judge, who comment; they don't get it. They don't get that pushing the boundaries of domesticity can be liberating, exhilarating, intoxicating.

You should leave those haters in your coffee infused wake.

I sometimes wonder if there's a limit, a Mug.0 ,where the normalcy restrictions have been pushed too far. An invisible barrier at about 100 metres circumference from your house that marks the end of public mugging, indecent mugging, mugging with attitude. If you dare to venture far enough to cross it, the mug will be whisked out of your hand, go flying over your shoulder, zip down the road, careen straight through the sitting room window and smash straight into the splash-back above the sink.

Of course, you'd wear it as a badge of honour, this brewed Jackson Pollock, this caffeine-imbued abstract homage. It shows that you stared the mug-limits right in the face and laughed wildly. You've conquered Mount Olympus, you've knocked down the doors of Valhalla, slammed your  'I survived the monkeys of Longleat' mug down on the table and said:


They would really benefit from a mug or two

"That's right! I choose to drink my refreshing and invigorating hot drink out of a vessel whose handle I can actually get my fingers through and won't burn the shit of my hands even with the cardboard surround. And if you've got a problem with that, you've got a problem with me. Capiche?"
You defied any of them to complain. They didn't.

The Beverage Gods tremble at your feet.You have overcome.

So next time you fancy an alfresco tea, a coffee on the move, a hot chocolate in the park, throw off your convention-shackles, pick up your mug and damn well take it outside. Hell, maybe take a Hobnob or two along, really shake things up.

Go on, just try it.