The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

So I haven't been on here for a little while and I feel it is high time that I got myself back on here and wrote something out the universe once again. Quite recently I finished my second year of university and to commemorate this occasion there was a final production for one of each of the four groups. My group had the bless to be given a play by Bertolt Brecht. If you don't know him give a look sometime, he is a very interesting German playwright who worked on many different plays but the one that we were most fortunate to be able to choose was 'The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui'. Again I will assume that many of you don't know what this play is about so before I go into detail about my desired point of focus I will give a brief outlining of what it's all about.

It is set originally in 1930's Chicago despite the fact that Brecht had never been there until after he finished writing the play. It's climate is that of the gangster sub-culture of that city at that time. It details in magnificent images the brutal and intelligent rise to power of a man known as Arturo Ui. The entire play is a parody of Hitlers rise to power in Germany at the same time. You can see the link between Brecht there I imagine. The play parodies the rise of Hitler in such a way as to raise the questions as to why Hitler wasn't stopped on his rise to power and whether it was possible.

I was lucky enough to be cast as the lead character in this play. So yes I was playing Arturo Ui and yes in a roundabout way I was playing Adolph Hitler. So there we go. A curious part to play to say the least. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it none the less. Getting into the mind set was a difficult task but rewarding. Seeing into the mind of one considered mad is difficult for the normal mind to do because there is no link to the logic in most cases. When taking on the task of 'being' Hitler I had to embody the rage and self righteousness that allowed him to carry himself through to power.

Aside from the seriousness for a moment I am sure you it may have crossed your mind many a time already that I was the butt of many a Nazi joke. Not helped by my 1/4 German descent as well. But I played the part and I played it well. A chance to get into the role of a gangster if nothing else. That alone is something intensely cool without a shadow of a doubt. Guns and murder on a whim, brutal take over of institutions and the power struggle for the very heart of London (as is where we set out version of events).

So all in all a good part to play. I know that this play is being done a few times in the next year in different places and as of September will be in London and so I recommend anyone to visit the theatre and enjoy the show because if nothing else it is a truly epic story line and gripping set of events to witness. But also a horrid reminder of the truth that happened all those years ago.

Midnight Snacks

A late post for me. And it has been a while I know. But I was trying to get to sleep and realised that I was getting nowhere with my stomach so empty. I hate that, when you are more than ready to go to bed and get a good nights sleep but you can't because you all of a sudden out of the blue become really peckish and need to go and grab a snack. Now for me late night snacks are a serious deal, they need some thought and preparation. So tonight I have gone for the well loved toasty, as is quite a common choice for me I must say.

So I have decided to focus this blog post more on toasties themselves than snacks in general...misleading title now isn't it...oh well it's staying. Deal with it. So, toasties. One of the main reasons I love toasties so very much indeed is the combination of toasted bread and melted cheese. For those of you who love cheese you know what I mean when I say that a good helping of well melted cheese is just heavenly and in between two pieces of toasted bread! Oh! Yes! Good old cheddar comes into its very own here, it is the perfect melting cheese for sandwiches make no mistake there.

Anyway, although I am fond of a classic cheese toasty I will never stop there if I can help. If I am crafting what would come near to a perfect toasty for me I need some meat, something to really sink my teeth into with satisfaction. And to you vegetarians out there I for that only ever so slightly visual statement there but I cannot pretend that meat is not important to me. Chunks of chicken make a great addition to a toasty especially when paired with some nice slices of ham. A good selection that is. Using the type of chicken that Tesco specifically prepare for sandwiches and then almost using enough of the chicken meant for a good 6 sandwiches in only two, like I said, I have to have them well prepared.

Now all of this is wonderful together make no mistake about it...but, I happened to have the fortune of my eating life to date. I hope that many of you have discovered this secret well before me and have enjoyed the rewards of this knowledge and for those of you who haven't I suggest you immediately go out and buy every ingredient that is mentioned in this post after reading it and prepare yourself a damn fine toasty! The secret ingredient of my so beloved toasties is.......wait for it......the special Tesco sandwich fillers! I know right! Who knew?! Ahem. Yeah well, simply things alright. The fact is one of the chicken and bacon or coronation chicken or chicken tikka fillings just finish off the toasty. The little chunks of meat adding something a little extra special but the sauces of the fillings are what really make the toasty spectacular, the herbs of the chicken and bacon, the mayonnaise in chicken, bacon and sweetcorn and the sweet flavours of the coronation chicken! They pad it out, they lift it up, they give a toasty purpose, they give it heart, they give it life, they give it love. They make AMAZING toasties! No doubts, no debates, no deliberations. Just fine tasting toasties. And now I must leave you either drool over your keyboard because you are soooooo hungry or to run and make a toasty yourself or even, for those of you whom I will never in all my life understand, go away, unaffected by the mention of toasties. I go to eat my toasties in piece. Good night.

Sadness

This is a poem I wrote the other day while I was in university, I hope you like it.

Sadness

So much sadness in the world,
Some for great and some for small,
All for woes of mortal soul,
All relative and none forgotten,
In all my life I seek to cure,
A fruitless task that in it's own,
Brings it's unique withdrawal,
But still I work to fight the corner,
Or happiness will surely die,
Like good in wake of evil.

Getting Wings

This is a little late on but last week I had my very first ever flying lesson and I wanted to write about it because it was such an amazing experience. Now I have always had such a strange obsession with flying, the idea of floating through the sky in a man made object being able to look down on the world and admire it at a greater scale that my mere mortal feet. I have always had a pull to take up flying lessons but never really had the opportunity. When I was younger I had a neighbour who used to be an RAF pilot and had a series of WWII flying simulator games on his PC and a range of normal flight simulator games and every now and then he would invite me in and he would show me how to use them and then let me play them for hours which only served to expand my love and obsession with flying (also it hit my passion for WWII history and playing computer games so it was a win all around really).

The first time I ever flew was on a small passenger plane going out to Germany to stay with my uncle for a bit of a holiday. I remember feeling really excited about it and my mum gave me the window seat which was lovely of her. I spent the entire hour long flight staring out of the window marveling at the fact that I was being propelled through the air simply by a couple of engines and a metal tube with wings. Now considering I am quite scared of heights, not super petrified but just enough fear for me to be worried when standing at the top of something quite high. I would describe it as a relatively ration fear (I would say that though wouldn't I?) but when I was flying it didn't phase me at all. I couldn't be higher up above the ground unless I was an astronaut but it just didn't affect me, other that excite me obviously.

So when it came around to my 21st birthday last year in October my very loving and wonderful girlfriend thought she would really surprise me and she bought me a flying lesson! Now I understand that there is a long time difference between when I said I had the lesson and when it was given to me. But the present was more like an 'I Owe You' because we are at uni and we needed to do it when we were both free to do so. So we booked it a while ago and the weather was an issue the first time I was going to do it so we decided to reschedule so that I could actually see things from the plane, kinda makes it more worth it. So we managed to get it rescheduled for the Easter holidays.

So when we get to the place we discover that the flying club that the lesson is booked with is on an RAF base and we have to go through some minor security checks. It isn't a fully functional RAF so no top secret projects or expensive aircraft or anything like that. But we drove through down to the club and I got my first sight of the selection of aircraft that I would be flying one of that afternoon. I was so excited that my heart was thumping away. I met the instructor who asked what kind of a lesson I wanted seeing as it was a half an hour lesson and was my very first time, so we agreed that I could just have a bit of fun with it all really. We jumped in the plane, did the checks, got permission from the control tower to take off and up we went. 50 feet above the ground and "controls are yours". Now this didn't scare me because he had already told me he was going to do this but it was such a strange feeling. Pulling back on the controls to get some altitude and up we went. For pretty much the entire lesson I had control of the plane apart from take off and landing which are obviously the bits that can go most wrong and I don't think either of us were in the mood for my completely amateur attempts at that. However having complete control of the aircraft while up in the sky was such a surreal and fantastic experience. Up in a small Cessna 152, which is a very small two seater aircraft propeller plane basically for those who don't know, and it just felt so free. And one of the most surreal moments was any turn to the left because I was sat in the left hand seat but this meant that when we turned I was looking straight down at the ground through a very normal window and a quite thin door wearing a very basic seat belt. At first this was such a strange feeling but it didn't scare me. It was such a beautiful experience, flying out over villages and looking down at the hold world with a 360 degree view from the cockpit. I even got the chance to feel 2G which I can tell you is a weird experience, feeling your whole body pushed down by double gravity! Especially your eyes being pushed down, that was the strangest part of that. It isn't as bad as it sounds though.

But yeah, that is my first experience of flying a plane myself. My instructor told me that I was a natural and I am quite proud indeed of that fact. I don't know if he was just saying that because it was my first time but he gave me lots of encouragement and said it a few times so I'm going to take it as the truth. I would recommend flying to absolutely everyone! It is a little expensive but then what isn't these days. Even if you just do it once it is so worth it for the experience!

The Hound of Tiverton

So for a few days I have been visiting my mum at home in Devon for Easter. Now I must say that coming to the end of my stay here I have had a wonderfully relaxing time. However, one of the...more interesting parts of the stay, as always, has been my dog, King. He is a Jack Russell Terrier and despite the horrible stereotype (which on all counts I have found to be wrong) he is an absolute softy. He does have a few minor niggling not so quaint personality traits. Me and my mum decided that we were going to take him for a wonderfully long walk on one of the rare sunny days along a canal that isn't far from our house. Firstly though in order to get to the start of the walk it was a short drive. Now, one of  the more unfortunate traits which the lovely King possesses is that he cannot seem to endure a car journey without throwing what can only be described as a childish tantrum. Not quite barking, not quite squeaking, just a constant torrent of miserable whining. It is in my opinion that the secret services of the world need to invest in this sole method of torture because you can't argue that it isn't humane, in some mystical way, but it does get results. I can only dread the thought of not being able to do anything about it. A nightmare has never been so real.

On the other hand he is one of the most loving dogs I have ever had the pleasure of owning/knowing. He does love to have cuddles and if your legs are long enough he will lay on your lap for hours on end and fall asleep. He has even been known to fall asleep while sitting on your lap and promptly slides off waking himself up with a start. It is a brilliantly hysterical sight and a must see for anyone who knows him.

Recently he has had the joy of being able to indulge in the bone of a leg of lamb! Now that is a treat, a few hours and it is gone though. However it can sometimes be a bit too much when he eats all this lovely food and sometimes we see the second coming of it if you know what I mean.

I shall miss him greatly when I go back to uni tomorrow as he is currently hugging into my leg as he sleeps with me on the sofa. He is such a soft hearted animal and I love him to bits. So I just thought that I would say a few things about him.

The biggest plus side that there is to the existence of King however is that he is fantastic company all round. And I thank the heavens for him because he keeps my mum exceptional company all the year round and if it wasn't for him the guilt of leaving my mum on her own while I am at university.

To end I shall include a picture of the lovely hound:

Something a little Serious

Third post. Less than an hour. I am bored aren't I. Well anyway, hello again big wide world and the people who reside within it. Lovely to see you back again for some more wonderfully uninteresting reading. I joke, *cough* *cough*. This is where you feel the urge to boost my ego and tell me that I'm not boring at all.....no? Well ok I can understand your reservations about doing such a thing.

To business! This post for me is a brief introduction into one of my many ideas about world politics. Oooooooooooo! No not politics! It's ok, I don't have the energy to go into great depth right now. That would require a whole week with regular coffee and muffin breaks and probably a large lack of sleep and movement resulting in the death of feeling in both my left and right bum cheeks. To return to the subject at hand, politics. Scary and unfriendly isn't it? What I don't understand is why it has to be? It countries of the Western World we vote to see a government of our choice put into power so that they can make decisions on our behalf for the betterment of our nation as a whole and our situations as individuals and family units. Therefore I don't see the reasoning behind everything that intentionally makes politics a dark mirage of fog that blinds us from what is really going on and limits many of us who don't choose to devote our lives to politics from truly understand what it is all about. Politics is something that many broken down comes into our every day lives. Therefore it should be something that we can understand on a daily basis without much effort. The problem that I immediately find without my in depth analysis of the subject is that the systems of government are internationally corrupt, maybe not the individuals or the parties (although on the whole it is more likely that many of them are as well) but the way in which governments work is corrupt in a way that eliminates the people who it effects from its understandings. Governments fight against each other to see that their country is the best or most powerful and all over the world secrets are kept and played off against each others secrets in order to retain a level of power over everyone else. There is no real unity in the world. I simply look at the world and I think to myself that all the time for those nations to bicker among each other is over. This world is now too small and the human race has come to a point where equality should be at such a level that we are ruled as one race together where we make the decisions that effect our lives ourselves. I understand that this idea alone without any explanation or in depth discussion on the surface appears to be somewhat naive but it is only an idea, and all great achievements in this world were born of one idea or another. I know that there are people and things in this world that would have us separated, each country vying for power with the next and people and business' fighting it out to be the strongest and the best and although I agree with the competition in order to encourage growth we are an intellectually strong enough species to retain that while pulling together our resources as a planet rather than individual nations and become something stronger than any of us have ever been able to see or in some cases imagine possible.

All in all I look at the world and in so many circumstances I see the human race being held back because on a world wide scale we still act too tribal for our own good. We don't look at the bigger picture and people, governments and societies are too selfish, stubborn and afraid to look into the future, see what needs to be done to make the changes that will benefit all in some way and make the leap of faith and grab at the solutions that we know are waiting for us.

As always I hope you enjoyed reading and didn't find this too dull. I try to write in an entertaining way at least some of the time. Take care of yourselves and enjoy the day. It's beautiful weather where I am at the moment and I hope that you can have some sunshine in one form or another today.

The Name

Maybe I should have addressed this in my first post but I must say I was so excited at the time I forgot. The name of my blog. 'The Flying Fancies of a Fruitful Mind'. Right now there are several things I could tell you, 'Flying' comes from both my love of actual flying, as I have recently taken my first flying lesson, and also my love of good British comedy, 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' (genius). The choice of the word 'Fancies' comes from a personal love of cream cakes and sweet things relating directly to an obsession with French Fancies and Mr. Kipling's specifically. 'Fruitful' coming from both a love of fruit (clutching at straws there) but also the abundance of crap that my mind is said to be full of which neatly leads on to the last inclusion of mind as all of these posts will be from my mind because that is where they have to start. I could tell you all of that in a detailed analysis.....The truth is a much simpler thing. It was the first title that came to my mind and I liked the way it sounded. A psychologist will probably be able to tell you a good many things that it indicates about me as a person and they may even be right on some cases. Honestly though, I get moments of inspiration (and I use that term loosely in this case) where some images, phrases, actions or ideas come to me a moment of clarity (a.k.a a day dream) and they just stick with me.

However looking back at all that I must admit I quite like the sound of all that fluff I just invented to justify the name of my blog. Quite charming indeed. Keeping with the theme of the name of this post, 'The Name' I might as well talk about my own name in the need for something else to type away about in order to fill out this post and make it seem a little more worth while. Mathew Thomas Swann. That is my full name. And once again I will admit my vanity here and admit to you all that I do like the sound of my own name. It has a nice ring to it and I like saying it sometimes to myself. And yes, I did just say that. I won't apologise, there really isn't any point. Mathew, my first name given to me by my brother when I was born. My mother had panicked when I came out as all had predicted that I would be a girl and had the name Natasha waiting for me upon my emergence to the world. That is a sure story to give you all the incentive to be prepared with a name from both sexes just in case. Thomas is the first name of my father and as a tradition with my family the first born of that father takes the first name as their second name. A mouthful to explain but a simple concept especially seeing as me and my brother have different fathers. Makes the middle names a tad easier to come up with. And Swann, my last name, the last name of my brothers dad who passed away when he was littler and my mum chose to keep the name. I must say that I am pleased that she did because it is a lovely name in my opinion. I could have had the last name of my father which was Connroy, he was Irish in case you couldn't guess. But I think that I prefer the name I have. Reasons for the whole father thing needn't be gone into, none of you know me well enough for that unless you already know me then you probably already know all about that. Life eh, a complicated mess of comings and goings and events of all sizes.

I think that that is enough waffling for this post and once again I will sign off wishing you all to take care and enjoy yourselves.