* Shocked by the Power and Stalked by the Spider

…
On Saturday, me and Hobbes joined my Mum, eldest Auntie and my sister for a wee girlie day out.
We went to the Glasgow Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum for its very first guest exhibition since reopening last year – and it couldn’t have picked a better one to start with…
http://www.glasgowmuseums.com/assets/fileStore/KYLIE_leaflet.pdf

“KYLIE: THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition explores Kylie Minogue as a popular icon and international performer. Featuring costumes, accessories, photographs and awards, sound and video, the exhibition looks at Kylie's career and changing image.
KYLIE: THE EXHIBITION also gives some insight into how a major international tour develops - from initial concept to first live performance.
200 objects including 45 costumes and 60 photographs are on display, from the overalls Kylie wore as Charlene in Neighbours and the gold lame hotpants she wore in her Spinning Around video in 2000 to costumes from her latest Kylie Showgirl: Homcoming Tour.”

[The above text was copied and pasted directly and without editing from the Glasgow.gov.uk Museums section.
Hilariously, it reads
“Lame” (laim) as in ‘pathetic’
… Rather then
“Lamé” (lah-mmay) as in ‘sparkly’
AND
It reads “hom-coming”, which given her legendary gay following is quite an interesting typo...]

Now, the obvious thing to say is just how small the stuff is, in both height and width – this is one seriously teeny tiny woman; any Barbie-doll-type action figure would not be a kick in the gold lame hotpants off actual size.

The costumes are really interesting – it’s always surprising how much detail and construction goes into costumes that are generally only seen from a distance or on TV, and it’s always funny to see ‘mechanics’ overalls looking so clean and false-patched-up, and to see the ‘Kids’ video where Robbie Williams was the higher paid ‘star’ helping out poor wee re-launching Kylie…

But weirdly enough, the most disappointing part of the whole thing is… how tacky and cheap some of the awards are.
The MTV Astronaut award thingy just looks like something my 5-year-old niece would knock up in day-care – it’s utterly tin-foil-hastily-wrapped-round-an-ornament-for-a-school-play…

And ironically, the best part wasn’t even directly a part of the exhibition.
Kelvingrove has a working pipe organ, and there are sometimes recitals when the museum is open.

This truly is a magnificent instrument; it’s beautiful and intricate and resonates throughout the building and when you are in the main hall itself when it’s being played you can actually feel it resonate through your very being.

We had not long arrived and noticed that the day’s recital was due to start in a few moments, so we decided to hold off going downstairs to the Kylie exhibition so that we could hear the start of it.
Giggling, I mentioned to the girls about how if he didn’t play “I Should Be So Lucky” (Kylie’s first hit) or “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” (her biggest hit) then I would be gutted, and we all have a bit of a smile and a chat at how funny that would be.

So off the organist goes, beautiful, deep sounds soon filling the halls and our hearts: this is the first time we’ve heard the organ since the reopening and refurbishment.
Only… slowly it dawns on us just what we are listening to…
Waltzing Mathilda
And…
The theme tune from Neighbours (Kylie’s breakthrough TV show)
And…
I Should Be So Lucky!!!!!

On a massive magnificent pipe organ!!!

Truly, a most commendable stroke of good-humoured genius.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Now, the night before, I had had a bit of a headache and went to bed just after 10pm, leaving Calvin and Hobbes watching whatever was on TV.

About 15 minutes later, I had an awareness that something was going on: the living room door was opened and I could hear them talking and I heard someone rummaging about in a kitchen cupboard and the front door being unlocked and opened and closed and relocked.

Knowing Calvin, I decided that there must be a spider in the living room, and as I hate the creepy little uninvited guests [I don’t even like looking at pictures of them let alone having them in the house] he had done his usual thing of getting a cup from the kitchen, scooping the little bugger up, and throwing it out of the front door; death is only used in extreme cases (or if I get to them first).

So I turned over and went back to sleep.

Except…

Calvin came to bed about 15 minutes later, and me being me, I woke up at the sound and movement of this.
He then proceeds to tell me about the spider incident.

Yes, there had been a spider.

Yes, it was in the living room, marching across the floor right in front of the telly like it owned the bliddy place.


No, this was no ordinary retrieve and release operation.


The initial noise and movement that I had heard was actually Hobbes (who is not overly bothered by spiders) leaping up and running into her bedroom and shutting the door until it was safe to come back out, freaked out by the fact that this was – and I quote Calvin, man of a thousand spider-removal-exercises –
“the biggest effing spider I’ve ever seen”.
And he’s done a fair amount of travelling and outdoorsy stuff to know what he’s talking about.

Calvin had initially got a cup to scoop it up in.
The cup wasn’t big enough.
He had to get a JUG to fit this thing in.
And even then he couldn’t scoop it up – once he had put the jug over it, he had to get a bit of paper and slide it underneath to get the d@mn thing in.

Ooh, I am starting to itch just thinking about this…

In the morning, he showed me which jug he had used… the circumference of which is about 14 inches… so this THING, toes-to-toes, covered a circle of 14 inches…!
Seriously, draw a circle or find something that’s 14 inches round.
THAT’S FRIGGIN' HUUUUUUUGE for an in-the-house spider in the city of Glasgow…!

And then he tells me that it wasn’t just all legs… a fair proportion of this beast was body – he could make out a fair amount of detail and hair and maybe even fangs…

So this thing is immediately given the nickname ‘The Spider Of Death’.

I check and double and triple check with Calvin that it wasn’t actually an escaped exotic pet or a tropical asylum seeker that hitched a ride with the bananas into the supermarket – he maintains it was just a big old bugger, nothing unusual or special (yeah, right…)

Only now, I am becoming slightly obsessed by the fact that...
... HE SET THIS THING FREE.

The Spider Of Death could still be out there, somewhere, in my garden, in the garage, at my door, at my window, waiting for the chance to come back into the warm and dry and telly.

It could be watching me, waiting, just waiting, knowing that every new movement, every new web I see, I experience a momentary flurry of panic that The Spider Of Death has returned to claim as its own the house, the telly, everything, everything covered in its creepy crawly sticky icky web of hate and death.

Or…
It was most likely eaten by a bird or a squirrel or a fox within 12 hours of being forcibly evicted by Calvin.

I know which scenario I prefer…