Sometimes, a cigar is only a cigar **

I has a cigar. *













(courtesy of Monkey Shoulder Whisky Appreciation Society, thanks RoMo. In our profession we never get schmoozed, never get invited to industry black-tie functions, never get taken out to lunch or courted or backhanded golden handshaked highfived or otherwise patted on the back, so a night of whisky cocktails and Havana's finest cigars in a private club in Soho, all for free, on a schoolnight, was much appreciated.) Salut!


* there is something barbarically cruel about slicing the end off a cigar, I find. It made me wince, for some reason...

** S. Freud.

GON OUT                        
BACKSON
BISY
BACKSON
                                  

Map of Web 2.0

click here.

(with thanks to Bad Sarah.)

Where do you live?

Reader, I married him *

Inspired by a post of Tim's I was watching Sense & Sensibility. I think AA Gill has definitely got it all wrong - if he'd ever bothered to read old Janie, he would have realised that far from being on the menu, sex is the big bad villain in her novels.

It's highly ironic that her books in the 21st Century should be filtered through this kind of bodice ripping Mills & Boon perception (must be the Andrew Davies sexed-up adaptations and Colin Firth as Mr Darcy-wet t-shirt-competition-winner.)

That is to say, she is totally mistrustful of sex (along with picnics, sitting in a draft, visiting spa towns like Bath, gypsies, poor people, going for a walk when it's raining, or ever leaving the house at all) as a destructive element. For example, any male character with sex appeal turns out to be a total shark, a liar, a gold-digger, a social climber; or the type who seduces underage girls & leaves them pregnant, destitute and ruined.

In Austen's world, fancying people is not a good enough reason to become involved - in fact sexual desire is a warning sign, a red flag, as things will inevitably end in poverty, ruin or death.

The best gauge is to check whether a) they are in the same class, or a higher one and b) they possess a fortune (this goes for men as much as for women) before you even begin a mild flirtation with them.

If they have all the charm and personality, all the warmth and wit of a plank of wood, but own their own estate, they are good marriage material...

“Will you tell me how long you have loved him?”
“I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley...”

I think it was Angela Carter who said that Austen's books were written as etiquette primers for bourgeois girls on how to behave in order to bag a wealthy husband. How to look uninterested in his money so as not to scare him off...

I thought it was unduly cynical, but what I find odd about her books is that they seem to counsel girls to repress their own desire. It's lawless and doesn't recognise social boundaries and can lead to misrule. Desire is dangerous because it can lead you away from the rich dullard towards someone sexy but penniless. Maybe AA Gill wasn't so far off after all... instead of Austen's virgins being sold by their families - they were self aware, learning to position themselves in a buyer's market.

* not Austen I know - her polar opposite, Charlotte Bronte.

Sucker punched

At work there is a lovely Irish girl who is leaving at the end of the summer to go back to Ireland. She wants to do lots of touristy/Londony things in London before she goes. I am well up for that.

'I really want to do afternoon tea at the Ritz...'
'Yes yes me too!'
'Because you can do it in package deal, and it's not too expensive...'
'...right right right, let's book it! I really want to!'
'And afterwards, you go to a matinee of Phantom of the Opera!'

Er.

Noisy

Welcome to the mix tape number 13, lucky for some... (Because sometimes you just want to make some noise....)

Dedicated to the glorious Rock Mother on her birthday. Go wish her happy birthday, peeps!




(this one was nearly called Heavy - but I thought that Llewtrah might laugh me out of town, as it was not very heavy at all. More just noisy. All the way up to 11.)

Some Angry Samoans, yesterday. Phwoar!

Thoughts inspired by downloading the Desperately Seeking Susan Soundtrack

by Thomas Newman.

Who composes the scores for porn? (Please, if you know the answer don't tell me - I suspect that there is not a little man who goes back to his music studio like Thomas Newman or John Williams or Ennio Morricone and thinks hard about how to orchestrate the music in perfect sync with the action and just which musical instruments will complement the mise-en-scène, they just get any old random piece of music and stick it on the soundtrack, but allow me a moment here...)

Why do you hear this music nowhere else in the world? What is the ubiquity of the synthesizer all about? Is it on sale separately anywhere, perhaps in the soundtrack section of HMV? Would it not be hilarious if people put it on in the background at dinner parties? What do the musicians tell their families about their careers? (Yes, it's going really well- actually I'm working on a film soundtrack at the moment - you want tickets to the premiere? Well, that could be tricky...)

And, if it's not a silly question, why is there generally no good music on the soundtrack? Would it not enhance your viewing pleasure if there was? Sometimes it sounds positively New Age-y, like the kind of thing you'd hear in a flotation tank. Hmm, maybe this is the vocation I've been seeking...

All back to mine

I've found the property for me. Not sure about all the lavender, but check out the double height ceilings (room for my trapeze, and all...)

Now, anybody have 800 grand to spare?

Straight men love to drag up

Oh yes, it's true. Give any hetero English man an excuse to wear a frock - student rag, fancy dress, Monty Python sketch - they will leap at the chance. I was just looking at old photos from college of a party we had, we were all going to cross-dress when the girls decided they didn't want to wear boring men's clothes, (and anyway, a normal day would see us in biker boots, jeans and holey jumpers, so putting on a dress and heels would be a form of drag for us girls too.) So we all wore dresses. You've never seen such enthusiasm for the wearing of stockings and makeup, and that was just the boys.

They'll also start mincing like nobody's business. I was taken aback by my friend T, meek and mild IT student, who threw himself into the pouting and posing with gusto. (Get your male friends into women's clothes and you get an interesting insight into how they see women. ) Which reminds me of reading The Naked Civil Servant when Quentin Crisp (writing in the 60s) says that the current model of camp - limp-wristed, standing with one hip sticking out - is based on a totally antiquated feminine style which dates way back to the 1920s, and yet which has somehow stuck.

(And to sidetrack a little - maybe it's different nowadays. I'm intrigued by the cabaret scene in London which has taken off over the last few years - it's not old style Danny La Rue female impersonation, the new drag with Jonny Woo etc, is more like gender-bending. )

Anyway, say I'm having a party and you have to dress up. You can come as any diva of your choice. Who do you come as?

Strike a pose...

Uninvited

Anybody else missing his foul-mouthed obnoxiousness? I hear the King of the Swingers (and jungle VIP) is okay and will be back with us shortly.

More on that January blogmeet

Hey cool cats, click here for details...

This is not a love song

Work relationships...

yay or nay?

2 nations divided...

V and I are passing through the customs at JFK.
'You've got somewhere to stay, V?' asked the customs official.
'Yes' said V
Well, where are you staying?
'At a friend's house. Janine S___' she says (like they'll know her.)
Okay... they say, and let her pass through with all the luggage.
It's my turn. I only have a small bag, as V has all the others.
'Where's your bag, Annie?' they say suspiciously.
'Over there' I gesture. 'On the trolley.'
Okay, they say, and let me through.
As I walk on, I hear them go 'Trolley! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...!'
What do they call them in America then?

(The first time we all went to New York I remember some language difficulties then too. We all piled out onto the street the first morning, all giddy with excitement and with a desire to sample America's finest cuisine for breakfast. We asked two Latino-looking boys outside a bodega where we could go to eat.
'We're looking for a diner...'
'A what?'
'A diner... DINER...'

They shook their heads in bafflement, like we were talking in Japanese. I pronounced this word later for Bad Sarah, who being from Canadia knows the North American ways better than us. She said we said it too hard. She repeats it back to me in my London accent and I hear what it sounds like; like Pearly Kings and Queens, eel pie and mash, Chas n' Dave, the entire cast of Eastenders having a knees up round the old joanna. No wonder they couldn't understand us. I will practice saying 'di-nerrr' for the next time that I go.

(Anyway, getting some serious wanderlust. Would dearly love a Brooklyn road trip around about Easter time... The bed of my dreams just might have to wait...)

*Sob*

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

You?

'Unlawful'

Who is looking after these girls?

What is going on? Nobody is looking after them, not the police, not the schools, not the government. They have no protection. They have nowhere to go. They have no money. They have no voice. There is a VAST gap in provision for Asian women; the huge pressures the second generation are under, caught between two cultures, is not even beginning to be addressed. Beginning to see now that the burqa covers a multitude of sins. There are support groups but they're so clandestine as to be virtually invisible. (I know this because I was trying to find one, and it's much easier for me). If you are a 16 year old Pakistani or Bangladeshi girl, would you have the knowledge or skills or initiative to find a women's hostel to take you in? With no help, no information, no network, no backup... I hope this girl's death forces the powers that be to wake up.

Peep show

Many years ago, when we were about 17, someone brought a men's magazine back from a gay club. 'Look at this!' she said, throwing it open at the centrefold, just to show me, well, the centrefold - but as I looked at it, I realised that there in all his well-endowed glory, wearing lip-gloss & nothing else, was our friend J, soul music aficionado and deflowerer of most of North London.

I hasten to say, wasn't judging him - we were more surprised than anything else as he'd kept quiet about his 'modelling' - but the sensation of looking at this picture of man-candy, and then the abrupt shift in feeling when you realise it's one of your friends, is impossible to describe. (though maybe J Geils would know whereof I speak.)

Why am I telling you this story? Not just for cheap titillation - it's because there's something sort of similar in my recent reading experiences in blogs. Usually I am totally happy with the voyeurism of it all. At the moment it's making me uncomfortable. And somehow, ashamed of myself. Shouldn't click-click, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak...

I know we've been here before,but for me it’s a question that won’t go away. It’s finding a balance not just as a writer but as a reader too.

What do you reckon?

What I had for dinner

a tin of sardines (nice ones from Fresh & Wild in olive oil, but basically a tin of sardines)
a bowl of peas.
And tomato sauce.

This is not good at my advanced age. Halp! I cannot cook. Or even food shop. The cupboard is bare. I keep opening it as if by magic nice food will suddenly appear in there by itself.

Why don't you post me a nice easy recipe in the comments - I will make it, and review it for your reading pleasure. And even post a photo if it looks edible. BTW I'm vegetarian - yes yes I know, but have been one since I was a nipper and it's a hard habit to break - I will have seafood & fish though. (technically, a pescatarian.)

Go on! I'll give control of my life over to you. You gots the power. It'll be just like the Dice Man, except without the choice to sleep with a teenage girl which curiously always seemed to be one of his options.

I could give a damn about an ill subliminal

Just because I wake up with that line in my head most days.

Enjoy!

My happy place

I have decided to buy a new bed.

The Shaker

The Sunday

The Mozart

The Summer

The Deco

The Brazil

The Cottage

The Kensington

Vote here for your favourite!

The perils of online grocery shopping

Anybody want any tomato puree?

On the general rubbishness of English men

English men are rubbish. Every time I have been chatted up or otherwise approached in the last year it was by a furriner.

(The last one was a suave hand-kissing, if drunken, Argentinian in the pub for bad Sar's birthday - or should I count yesterday in Old Compton Street - a most unlikely place - a foreign of un-specified nature made that kiss-kiss, hissing noise that most people make to cats. This noise is of course also irresistible to women.)

I know, I know - I know it's hard; after all I'm a paragon of beauty, an ice-maiden glittering with remoteness on my pedestal, in short, a goddess - but goddesses have their mortal needs and desires too. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU LILY-LIVERED WUSSES?

(I know some smartarse is going to pop with 'Ah but Annie, you call yourself a feminist, why don't you make the first move?' To which I say - I'll get back to you on that. And anyway, nobody likes a smartarse.)

Oh lord

January blues...

Time for a blogmeet surely? Someone kindly sort it out?

(AKA does quiz nights, btw. Just, like, saying...)

Happy New Year

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, (for reasons I can't go into because they involve other people,) were the most difficult 48 hours I've ever lived through in my 36 years. I slink home on the train on a grey, wet, cold, typically miserable and lifeless New Year's Day, wishing only to get home and get into bed and make the world go away. I don't want drink, I don't want drugs, I don't even want chocolate. It's too early to go to sleep. I go online and have an almost visceral craving to watch Dirty Dancing, but it's not available. I want pink, I want fluffy, I want mindless and girly, I want easily resolved problems and happy endings. So I watch Legally Blonde and Mean Girls back to back. I would have gone on to watch Miss Congeniality but I fell asleep. It didn't make things better but it did work exactly as I hoped - I was anaesthetised by chick flicks. Praise be for chick flicks!

Happy New Year, dear readers. I hope you and yours remain safe and sound for 2008.