Tuneful

The iPod is back! I take it all back about Apple.

I booked an appointment at the Apple Store, and after a mere six hours wait, spoke to Pete at the Genius Bar. Pete told me that I do have a warranty (with an expression that said "as any fule kno") but that my warranty had run out, and I would have to pay £109 for a new hard drive. Or I could go elsewhere & get one for £40.

I thought of my blogging friends' advice. I bit my lip. I fluttered my eyelashes. And he gave me a shiny new replacement. Me and the iPod, we're back in business.

Metrosexual **

We went to a Shoreditch pub (very, very Shoreditch) and a gay pub, with two lesbians & one gay man. * The lesbians had just started dating two women they met on Myspace, they showed us their photos, these women looked unbelievably beautiful, like a couple of models. They assured us they were even more gorgeous in real life. G was convinced she should try being gay for a while, but the lesbians weren't having any of it. "It's no fun, G. It's hard." Why, we wanted to know. "There's a lot of scary dykes out there, who look like blokes."

In the pub, my innocent question of "Where's the ladies?" was met with "Get a hair cut" by the gay men. When a gay man tells you to get a haircut, you know it's time to go for the chop. The toilets turn out to be unisex, not such a good thing in my book. You could hear people chatting in the cubicles, I don't know what they were doing, possibly drugs (or each other?) but all I wanted was a wee. Oh, and we were molested by a bare-chested man. I think this is quite a cunning ruse for straight men - hang out at gay pubs and there's no competition, you'll have carte blanche there amongst any ladies present.

* I'm not, like, just defining them by their sexuality but the conversation did revolve quite a lot around this.
** thanks to G for the title (and for inviting me)

How to write erotic fiction: advice for Anais Nin

1. Avoid the word 'truncheon'. It's a mood-killer.

Any other words to avoid, or other advice? Post 'em in the comments box.

Art

When I first set this up I joined some directories and not really knowing what I was doing, stuck in "art, photography, music" to the profile details. Cos they're my "hobbies", ahem. Except not really. They're just things I like and am interested in. I don't know how to write about them. Now folks in Ohio or Tokyo keep showing up here in search of art, photography and music and I feel like I'm short-changing them.

This is a long introduction just to say, here is a post about "art", please feel free to skip it and come back tomorrow, when I will have thought of some interesting gossip to entertain you.

So, Klee. He's my favourite painter. He was Swiss, yet not boring. He painted forms and colours, often in watercolour. He was a great draughtsman, and described his pictures as "taking a line for a walk." The Nazis said his art was degenerate, and banned him, there can be no higher praise.

What is interesting is that his pictures are pretty much abstract, but I defy anyone to stand in front of them and not have an emotional response to them. One of our favourite books when kids was the Magic Fish, and I was happy to discover later Klee's painting which must have inspired it. Every place I've lived has had some Klee poster or other up on the wall, it helps make me feel at home.
A while ago there was an exhibition of his work at the Hayward Gallery, I can't tell you how it felt, after years of seeing reproductions in books, to see these paintings in real life for the first time.
Gives you an almost indecent amount of pleasure
(especially Harbinger of Autumn).

Here below is The Tightrope Walker and a poem I wrote about it years ago - strangely enough this picture expresses how I feel right about now.

Paradise Gardens

in Victoria Park. Be there or be square.

What do my bookshelves say about me?

They say "she never dusts, that lazy slut."

This is taken from the lovely Rockit. But there's a problem - see how many bookshelves there are? And this is just a few of them. We could be here forever.

A lot of these are L's, some are mine. (The red and black colourscheme was here when we moved in and not of our choosing, what with all the books it's sometimes like living in a branch of Waterstones.)

Yoda is not mine. Nor the light sabre. Neither is the 'drinks cabinet'. Bet you'd rather hear about them than the books right?

No matter. If you want any of these, as usual, say the word.

Click on photo to see notes

Black Swan Green

Here is today's tip for you - Black Swan Green. He's an amazing writer.
(there, 3 years of Eng. Lit. to be able to write such pithy book reviews. He's an amazing writer. Pssh. But really, he is. Read it, read it, read it quick.)

He's back! (Who's back? Go and see.)

My tabloid hell

My nose was in the Daily Mail.

It was like this. My friend was working on a magazine. Her boss freelanced for the Mail, a section for women (it hurts even to write this) called "Femail". They paid you fifty quid, what can I say, I was young, broke and desperate... they wanted people to talk about parts of their faces they didn't like. Mine was my nose. My friend Gemma, her eyes.

We went along for a photo shoot, where makeup artists put lots of slap on us. There were 2 other women there (mouth and ears?) The atmosphere was quite cheery, until this vision of blonde beauty walked in. "What's wrong with her?" you could see us all thinking. She was a model, sent along by her agency, to represent the "I'm Too Beautiful" angle in the piece.

Everyone tensed up immediately, conscious that their cronky, snaggle-toothed ordinary features had suddenly been thrown into sharp relief by this model, ( at that time presenting on the Big Breakfast.) I felt sorry for her, she didn't think she was Too Beautiful, she'd just turned up where she'd been told to go. Which just goes to show, you can't believe what you read in the papers.

So anyway, they interviewed us. "Who do you most resemble, your mum or your dad?" And a few days later my photo appeared in the Mail, with the caption "Annie: Dad's nose." I felt very, very foolish. I felt even more foolish when I realised that some people actually read the Daily Mail. My boss, for example. "You... you... you made me squeak on the tube! I was reading the paper when I saw you!" And our managing director, who stopped by my desk and said a kind word or two about learning to love yourself as you really are.

To conclude; if anyone from the red tops, the broadsheets, or in fact any other form of newspaper offers you what seems like easy money, learn from my mistake kids - just say no.

London bloggers

Thanks to Adrian for this link - there's a London blogmeet suggested for June - details here

Idiot box

I hate television. When I lived in Spain we didn't have one for a long while and I missed it powerfully, though we were lucky enough to have a fantastic arthouse cinema in our very street which showed version original (ie, not dubbed) foreign language movies. I saw a lot of films.

Then we got a TV, without benefit of satellite, showing only Spanish or Catalan channels, which are stuck in the seventies. Gameshows. Chatshows. Very, very, dull political programmes. Some of our friends used to get people to tape the soaps and send them out.

(Though I would rather stick pins in my eyes than sit through a soap. For me they're a claustrophobic, never-ending nightmare. Look at the features of the gothic novel. Endless grimness? No possibility of escape? Sub-plots involving incest? Liminal creatures, between two states - eg dead/living, human/animal? Death, disease, destruction? If Edgar Allen Poe was writing today he'd be an Eastenders script-writer. Except he could really write. )

When I moved back to London, I watched TV all the time. But something seemed to have happened in the two years I was gone, there seemed to be a lot of shows with the lowest common denominator. They had cheap production values, they seemed to thrive on taking ordinary people and making them look like arses. More and more you saw "reality" shows taking over where once there were dramas or documentaries or comedies. The cruder, the cheaper, the nastier, the better. Couldn't tell if it was just a reflection of what was going on in general in the UK or was just a cost-cutting exercise. Whatever, it had suddenly shown a really ugly streak.

So I've fallen out of love with the TV, now an evening of watching it makes me feel down. And Sar, before you pop up in the comments to point out we spent a Saturday evening glued to the box, that was a FILM, it's different.

What do you watch?

It WILL work this time, goddamnit

09 My Shit's Fucked Up.m4p
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Reasons to like the theatre

Went with L to see The Royal Hunt of the Sun at the National Theatre. Great staging, costumes, sexy actor from Green Wing with his shirt off, vague political parallels between Spanish invasion of Peru for gold with American invasion of Iraq for oil, etc etc etc... but look at the view from the bar!* London can be a hard city to live in but there's nothing like a Waterloo sunset to make it seem worth it.














*It's a really nice bar, plus this beautiful view of the Thames - if you skip the play you could have the balcony all to yourself.

Sandpit

What do you do when you are broke, when the cash machine has just flashed up the dreaded "insufficient funds" message when you are barely 2 weeks into the month?
Do you
a) tighten your belt, stay in and watch telly, live on toast for the next month? or
b) go to the most expensive pub in posh West London and order mussels (gritty) a bottle of white and 3 glasses of prosecco (sparkly)?

If you're an idiot (ie, me) the answer is clearly b.

Still, remember how I was saying that I wanted to travel? If I dig myself any deeper into the Sandpit of Debt I will come out in Australia, which will kill 2 birds with one stone.

So, suggestions for picking up extra coinage will be mighty welcome. (At the moment I'm thinking part-time dominatrix. I can handle the idea of standing over someone with a whip, getting them to clean my kitchen floor. And it's cash in hand, tax-free. )

Hard at work

Via Prolix comes this meme - 10 things that annoy you about your workplace/colleagues. Seeing as he's (yes, you read it right) TWENTY-ONE he can hardly have been at work long enough to moan about it yet, but it's never too early to start our national sport of grumbling.

Okay, all my colleagues now are lovely people, luckily enough. Workplace, though...

1. 1 toilet. 50 staff. 10 minute break times. And given I drink enough strong coffee throughout the day to fuel 10 men, you see where the problem lies. And while we're on the subject, I know I am one, but what do women do in the toilet? Why do they take so long?? Can they all have OCD and be washing their hands 50 times? Or are they applying make-up? What? Toilet rage...

2. RM software, specifically (aargh, just writing this gets me steamed up) a word processing programme called Talking First Word, which won't allow you to open more than one document at the same time. Designed to drive you mad, seemingly.

3. Legs covered in bruises from constantly bumping into child-height furniture. And having to sit at those tiny little chairs at the tiny little tables. Teacher's desk? What teacher's desk? (I will end up with a hump-back. )

That's all I could come up with, which is pretty pathetic. We always like a good rant against the government or the LEA ("Don't be a teacher, Annie" said one of my friends whose parents were both teachers. "All they do is sit around and moan about how crap teaching is.") But they don't really count, as it's not too personal.

I won't be tagging (unless you would like to take up Prolix's meme) but instead invite you to vent regarding your irritating colleagues, past or present, in the comments. Fire away.

Shoe sale

Support A London Teacher campaign.

Once in a lifetime opportunity to own some of my shoes. They are as new, honest. Buy them for yourself, or the lady in your life. 3 days left... Go on, start a bidding war.

(thanks to Cat for the fantastic descriptions, Cat you should be a copy-writer. And Sarah for putting them on her account. Check out Sar's items too, she has great taste. Buy buy buy...)

Russell and Bromley wedges

Morgan platforms

Red or Dead sandals

Nine West sandals

Art therapy

Updated post! scroll down...

Bored at work? Try this psychological exercise. (Our friend Vanessa insisted on testing us when we went round for tea, it was the price you had to pay to get a cake. But it was quite fun, and insightful.)

Fold a piece of paper so you have 6 boxes.
Copy the lines you see here into the boxes.
Once you have copied them, doodle on them, make them into whatever you want.
You can draw whatever you like in the empty box.
That's it. I will reveal what they mean tomorrow.












If anyone does this & can be bothered to send me their doodles, that would be great...

Prolix's doodle








Mr Angry's doodle










Bravo, Prolix and welcome Mr Angry, glad you could make it! The rest of my readership are clearly wusses, fearful of my awesome powers of analysis and wishing not to have their souls revealed to the world. I promise not to reveal your whereabouts to the authorities if either of you turn out to be mad.

So here goes...

The wiggly line is meant to reveal your view of how you're coping in the world, of your feelings of control. For example you might draw above the line (coping) or below the line (not coping).
Prolix: you have drawn a groovy hipster with a wiggly tie. This means that you are in full control of your destiny, and dance to your own rhythm. (or something.)
Mr Angry: you have drawn a carrot. There is nothing wrong with carrots. And yours looks like a particularly healthy and flourishing one. You too feel in control of your destiny.

The right angle is an architectural shape which shows what you feel about your home circumstances.
And Prolix has quite fittingly drawn a desirable residence in the countryside, complete with sun shining, birds singing, rolling hills, and - what's this? A top-of-the-range sports car, in case the countryside gets a bit much and he fancies burning some rubber. Either this is what you aspire to Prolix, or it's your current living circumstances, you lucky sod.
Mr Angry begins to live up to his name, with a frankly worrying doodle of a tall spiky haired man standing on the block about to drop a large weight onto a small bald man. Mr Angry, are you having problems with the neighbours?

The circle -this is your view of yourself. You might draw concentric circles, or a sun
Prolix - has drawn a happy smiling person. The only hint of madness might be suggested by the eyes - see how they follow you around the room. You're a happy bunny, right? Life's just one long party to you. Nutter.
Mr Angry makes his circle into a person with a very woeful expression. But all is not lost, at least he has drawn a person, and not, say a gaping black hole sucking all life and happiness out of the universe. Cheer up, Mr Angry!

The slope represents your friendships.
Prolix has drawn a rather abstract window. Um... your friendships are a source of light in your life?
Mr Angry a skier, going downhill. Now don't get angry, Mr Angry. Going downhill can be positive, in the sense that it's the opposite to uphill, ie hard work. Skiing is exhilarating (so I'm told) and provides pleasure. No problems there then.

Parallel lines your feelings about sex and relationships.
Prolix A mysterious masked figure, heading left out of the frame. You don't like to stand still too long in your relationships and the mask over the eyes maybe suggests that you keep your feelings hidden. A tricky customer.
Mr Angry A hamburger. Paging Dr Freud! Well, this suggests to me that you are passionate and carnal (carnivore?) in your relationships. And that you relish them. (Relish, hamburger, get it? See what I did?)

The empty box - what you choose to draw sums up your feelings about life in general.
Prolix - An electric guitar. Would it be out of line to say that music is central to your life? No, too easy. I think that you are waiting for someone or something to plug you in and play you.
Mr Angry - A big roaring fire. You are a veritable firebrand. But we already knew that.

There, you are both sane as sane can be.... I don't know if this was fun to read, but it surely was fun to write. If anyone else wants a reading, drop me a line, special rates available for weddings and bar mitzvahs.

Testing testing

Testing my new Castpost account. (Martin Scorsese is quaking in his boots.)



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Exhale

I don't care what job you do, brain surgery or rocket science, let me tell you it is as nothing compared with shepherding 30 small children on and off of public transport. It is no cake-walk, believe me. (Not entirely sure what a cake-walk is. Let's just say it was no picnic.)

So it was all going beautifully, got them there, crossed the streets in one piece, stopped them falling off slides and climbing frames and breaking their necks, destroying valuable artworks, setting fire to each other or otherwise causing mischief.

Was breathing a sigh of relief on the bus back to school when just as it drew to a halt at the bus stop, (situated at the start of the Blackwall Tunnel), one little boy decided to open the emergency door next to him, narrowly missing falling out into some heavy duty traffic. ("What's this lever? Pull handle to open. Oh, okay..." Why did I teach them to read?) My life flashed before my eyes. In fact, Daily Mail headlines flashed before my eyes. I have aged 10 years today.

But regular readers will be happy to know that the evil government overlords have gone. We got an Outstanding in our Ofsted report.

Meta

It struck me when reading other people's blogs that I hardly ever look at their link lists but this is more because it sometimes feels like gatecrashing a private party than because I'm not interested. I'd be failing in my duties as a hostess if I didn't introduce people. So here goes, from top to bottom. Get clicking...

A Beautiful Revolution is Andre - very talented cartoonist/photographer, writes about depression and makes it funny, which is not easy.

Base 13 is Mike in Philadelphia, coffee afficionado and Viking. His girl is in Brazil, but they're getting together soon. So romantic.

Chase Me Ladies is Harry Hutton, so sharp he could cut himself. I daren't leave a comment.

Cultural Snow is Tim Footman, a real proper published writer who is in Bangkok. It's pop culture to die for, plus Thailand, what more could you ask for?

Dan Flynn's blog is by, what do you know, Dan Flynn, in Manchester. He writes the best surreal posts you've ever read. Just don't mention cats in the comments.

Diamond Geezer writes all about London, a subject close to my heart. And he's a real facts and figures boy.

Dies Israe is Ivan the Terrible, an Englishman in North Carolina who's very good on politics, in a sarcastic way.

Everything is Electric is Katy in London, very very funny, especially on dating. She does it so I don't have to.

Girl With A One Track Mind in London, writes about sex & relationships, beautifully.

Greavsie in Blogland - Greavsie - where are you Greavsie? I don't know. Maybe it's a secret. He writes about the day to day stuff and is very funny (must find a new word apart from funny. Are we sensing a theme here?)

Guyana Gyal - the lovely GG writes about life in Guyana, she's a poet and if there's any justice in the world will get a book deal soon.

House of D Destructor of the ever-changing blog name, from New Zealand and living in London. Gives good links and has written a novel online, so hats off to him.

JonnyB lives in a village in Norfolk. Do I need to say more?

Karma's Drum is Rad in Norwich. He likes Star Wars and comics, and his language is foul and makes me laugh.

Life Without Toast is by Matt in Dublin. He is absolute master of the links - go and vote for him when he next storms Google Idol!

Little Red Boat is Anna, currently of London and soon to be of Brighton. She is Queen of the Bloggers in my book, very talented and funn- amusing. She also writes for the Guardian but her blog is absolutely free!

Mimi in New York is from Wales, she works as a stripper to pay her way to train as a yoga teacher. Harsh but very intriguing.

Mini-Obs is Nat in New England. Like music? You'll love Nat's site, lots of free music links and memes.

My Boyfriend is a Twat is Zoe in Belgium. It's like a soap opera written by Dali.

Pandemian written by Jack in London, who used to be called Green Fairy. The first blog I ever came across, she is an amazing writer.

Pixeldiva is by Ann in London, her site is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Really, go and look at it, it's unique. Great photography. And knitting.

Quinquireme is by Patroclus in London, my newest link so I'm getting to know her site. But I like her style...

Quixotic Evil is by Matthew in Ipswich. Must confess, I don't understand a lot of his posts but those more technically minded than me (ie, everyone) will. I like the other posts though.

Rise is Karen (not sure of location) Karen and Pete used to have a blog called Uborka. Now they have a baby on the way, aaah!

Rockit is Natalie in London, Natalie are you from South Africa? (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) She has fine taste in music and is about to move into her own place, lucky Natalie...

Sevitz is the one and only Adrian Sevitz, from South Africa and in *whisper* South London but we won't hold that against him. He is witty. And techie. He's one of the few bloggers I've met so my theory is he's the only one that really exists.

Screamers is Cream - his profile says he's in Algiers, but I think he's really in Newcastle. I'd like to visit his restaurant. He writes about food in a way that's inspiring even to "can't cook won't cook" people like me, and his blog always gives me a lift. Plus he has a foodie blog and an illustration blog - he's a one man publishing empire.

Shyha is in Poland, I love his photography. Particularly the photo of the hedgehog. But not the photo of the doll. It's enough to give you nightmares.

Status Anxiety has gone awol :-( It's a pity, because she writes about the thoughts you have that most people are not honest enough to publish. Maybe she'll be back.

The Iceland Weather Report is Alda Kalda in Iceland (or Niceland if you prefer), not ONLY about the weather, also all about life in the land of the geysers, which is fascinating. Alda is fabulous.

There Goes A Tenner is by Ghoghghoti in London, an old friend, great insightful writing when she does write. (We were introduced age about 14. "I wish you two would talk to each other" said the extrovert friend who introduced us, both not so extrovert back then. So we did.)

Trajectory is Dave in Barcelona, another friend. He has a boy's dream job and has forgotten more about music than I'll ever know.

Troubled Diva is Mike in Nottingham, a total star. He is incredibly prolific, loves music, if you start reading anywhere go for the 40 in 40 days posts which are autobiographical and a tour de force of writing.

Twilight Zone is Dcver in Portugal, he writes thoughtful posts on all sorts and always makes me think.

Universal Soldier of mystery location, tells us how it is in the army. And he gets up very early.

Vitriolica is also in Portugal, she is a ridiculously talented artist, oh to have her skill in drawing. Her blog makes me laugh because her drawings of Portuguese folks remind me so strongly of the Spanish.

Wyndham the Triffid
in North London (yay!) My first ever reader, I got lucky because his is one of my favourites
too. Books. Lots of books. And misanthropy.


Right, I am off to find some Indian blogs as this continent is underrepresented in my link list.
Go to it! Mingle, network...

On marriage

When I was on placement at a school in East Ham, my TA was a Indian woman in her fifties, with three teenage sons. She had had an arranged marriage in India and they had moved over here to start a family. "You married?" she said. "No." "It's very difficult for you girls now. You have to do everything. Find the job, find the husband... My parents did the work for me."

You could tell she felt deeply, deeply sorry for me. And I could see her point of view. When I was a teenager the idea of arranged marriages horrified me. Now I think it's just as likely (as long as neither are coerced or forced into it) as a love match to work out, or not. I mean, my parent's marriage was a love match, and look how well that worked out! A lot of the Bengali and Indian girls on the PGCE were in arranged marriages and seemed pretty contented.

Only one of them made me think when she said "My husband laughs at stuff that just isn't funny. He's got the weirdest sense of humour." Can you imagine being married to someone whose sense of humour clashes with yours? It's such a basic thing. It's often one of the first things that attracts you to another person. Bizarre.