Mac Daddy

I want to do a multimedia course - it says you need experience of Apple Macs - do I need to pay £100 for the Beginner's Guide to Macs course first, or can I just wing it? They can't be that different to PCs - can they?

Hot links

I know you all keep an eye religiously on my Delicious links, (they're down there, just there, on the right, see?) but worth posting these amazing discoveries up here, I feel:

Pretty Dumb Things - Chelsea G Summers - she has been blogging a good old while but I've only just come across her. Very, very interesting and articulate writing on relationships. I especially liked the 'Girl Walks Into A Bar...' post.

The Flickr stream of Tom Stone, street photographer based in San Francisco. Breath-taking portraits in the grand tradition of Dorothea Lange, Brassai, W. Eugene Smith... I'm not jealous at all, oh no.

From the creative genius of darling RoMo , the Mother of all things Rock, comes From the Basement - if you like the White Stripes, Thom Yorke, Beck, Sonic Youth, Eels, Architecture in Helsinki etc etc, her music series offers a smorgasbord of straight-up, live & beautifully filmed musical goodness. Enough to make me subscribe to Sky...

In other news, our Universal Soldier is back from Iraq - huzzah! Do go and say hello. If enough of us visit, he might spill the beans...

This is not my beautiful house

Breaking blog silence for a brief update.

Lost flat.

Fuck.

But, bought bra to make up for it:

Bra

Where would we be without retail therapy?




PS: Thanks for all good wishes...

My tether

I have found the end of it.

Well my friends, this blog will be taking a break until 2008. Happy holidays! See you on the other side...

Toxic

Everyone I work with is amazing. In a peripatetic career, I've come across only a few workplaces where there is no politics, everyone just gets on with their job, and speaks to each other with respect, and respects what everyone does.

Except (of course) for one person. One highly toxic person.

How do you deal with a toxic colleague?

Ho ho ho

It's that time of year again when the mood comes upon me to give gifts (of electronic linkery) to my regulars. Last year it was virtual presents, but this year it is all music. (Was going to do actual mp3s but the thought of uploading them all onto YouSendIt was a bit too much, so they're only YouTube clips. Soz. I still thought long and hard about what you'd like.)

Happy holidays!

Rockmother gets some Belle Stars action
(I met Miranda, the saxophonist with the big hat, now working as a makeup artist, and she told me that she NEVER KNEW HOW TO PLAY THE SAXOPHONE - ooh, the perfidy of the pop world!)

No idea of Wyndham's musical preferences - so he get this rather beautiful and moving tribute to Sergio Leone - in lego

Annie - gets some Protection (I don't know if you like Massive Attack but saw this video on holiday in a hotel room in Saigon and was absolutely riveted, so thought a budding cinematographer might like it too)

Arabella gets vintage Sly with his Family Stone - as a woman of style and sophistication I know you'll appreciate his fashion forwardness - check out his HAT!

Betty gets another version of Quannum's I Changed My Mind, which she liked on a podcast.

For Ben, a fan of the elegantly dressed, it's Rita Hayworth doing Put the Blame On Mame. You don't get much more elegant than that. Yes I've posted it before, but worth posting again, I feel.

For BiB, Gin Soaked Boy by the Divine Comedy. I never heard this before, just was browsing and it made me think of you, for some reason.

I was racking my brains for Geoff, til I saw that he's a fan of lady reggae stars - voila! He gets Althea and Donna. I aspire to a 'fro like Donna's (or is it Althea's?) All together now: Love is all I bring, inna me khaki suit an ting...

Tim gets vintage Elvis Costelloe. Can't stop listening to this song, it's like an addiction...

Dan gets What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend - it is a fabulously strange song and a strange video, like Dan's fabulously strange blog.

DJ Del has quite enough music. He gets this Snoopy t-shirt instead.

Rad gets Kelis, lucky him. Mamma mia, she is hot!

for GSE, the slinky tango-influenced Gotan Project

I seem to recall that Alda went to see jazz in New York. I know nada about jazz, but you probably can't go wrong with John Coltrane...

For Greavsie, a baby Stevie Wonder singing one of my favourite tunes.

LC - what else, but the original Monkey Man?

Llewtrah - gets some Killer Queen. I've no idea why. It's worth checking out just for Freddie's fur coat.

Matt - some of the glorious Mala Rodriguez, the only one I could think of who'd possibly like flamenco-flavoured hip hop in Spanish

Marsha gets Screamin Jay Hawkins I Put A Spell On You - what showmanship! And some supreme arsing around at the beginning. Old Screamin' Jay was claustrophobic and used to have panic attacks when they shut him in the coffin at the beginning of his act.

Billy gets some So-Called because he has eclectic, not to say odd, taste in music

Patroclus - Bullets - Tunng - not so impressed with the song, but crazy about the odd home-made looking video, which is like Space Oddity crossed with a 70s children's programme

Taiga has We Are Scientists cover of Sigur Ros' Hoppipolla - I like the video of the old people acting like delinquents.

The Curve gets my old favourite, Geno. This was the last time pop stars could get away with beanie hats like Benny off Crossroads.

Istvanski gets Jimi (playing Hear My Train A Comin)

Emma gets a little bit of bluegrass. And George Clooney.

Bad Sarah gets our heroine Deborah with an unexpected backing band

Phew, I'm exhausted. I may take to my bed now, with a flagon of egg-nog.

Teh Early Years

Inspired by Betty & Geoff's magnificent early 'show me the child at 7' photo history, I thought I would share this with you. I think we should make it a meme, what do you think?

Here - unlike Betty and Geoff I am dead happy, because I have possession of the biscuit tin. Not only did it contain biscuits, but was flowery and had a useful handle that meant you could carry it around like a handbag.

Clearly something happened to this cheery soul - regard this photo, taken some time later.




G'wan, you know you want to.

Too much blogging

I had a dream about a blogmeet. In it, I was distressed because I'd only found out afterwards that someone sitting in the corner was Greavsie, only I didn't realise it was him, so I didn't get to talk to him. Also, he was holding a stone in his hand - everyone had these little objects and artefacts on them. Maybe they were a real life replacement for online avatars... I have no idea of the significance of Greavsie's stone.

Anyway, I was thinking, half-awake as I was waking up, (possibly not the best time for bright ideas) that we should have a blogmeet where everyone came in fancy dress. It would be hi-lar-ious, don't you think? What would you come as?

In other news, Taiga's Superlon Mystery Advent Calender is back! Hurrah!

C word

After going all X-rated, I feel I have to up the controversy stakes here at Slaminsky. What else gets people all riled up? Ah yes, class. I am watching some stupid match-making programme with half an eye. An Indian woman from a dating agency is meeting a sloaney blond woman who has decided she's in the Last Chance Saloon. She's giving responsibility for her romantic future over to her friends, family (chills!) and a formal match-making service. As the Indian woman interviews her, she asks about her past relationships and asks were they professional, were they middle-class... the blond woman gets quite agitated when she says the C word. 'That doesn't matter to me, and I'm getting quite annoyed.' (Though she confesses that she's only ever been out with middle-class, professional men. ) The Indian woman says gently that this is the first thing that an Indian match-maker would establish.

I reckon this woman was in deep denial. Because we're SO hung up on class in this country and it cuts very, very deep. (I'm a big fan of Nancy Mitford and not much seems to have changed since the 30s & Noblesse Oblige. The toffs look down on the middle classes, the working class despise them, everyone else fears and patronises the working class, and the middle class are in perpetual guilt and anxiety, all is in its natural order...)

Which wouldn't be such a problem if it wasn't so taboo. Can't we just admit it? We don't want to be like the Americans - they pretend they're all Horatio Alger, classless types, and anyone can make it to the President, but who invented the concept of trailer trash, hey?

(In case you're wondering... I'd class myself as working class... as my old sociology teacher Mr Connolly used to say, if you have to work for a living, you're working class...)

Pimping Schmap

Hi Annie,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly released fourth edition of our Schmap Barcelona Guide:

Estació de França
www.schmap.com/barcelona/sights_barceloneta/p=71519/i=71519_5.jpg

If you like the guide and have a website, blog or personal page, then please also check out our schmapplets - customizable widgetized versions of our Schmap Barcelona Guide, complete with your published photo:

www.schmap.com/schmapplets/p=51311909N00/c=SF14021253

Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please enjoy the guide!

Best regards,

Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides

What do I get?

Musical theme tune/mood for the day: What Do I Get? - The Buzzcocks

Food for the day: Roast chestnuts, all burnt and black on the outside, off a street stall. Tis the season.

Mood for the day: Frustration

Thought of the day: Why, why, why is EVERYBODY, regardless of religions, belief, etc, forced to acknowledge Christmas? There's no opting out. I would like to plan a little civil disobedience.

Consolation of the day: Cough going after a mere 9 months, can celebrate with a ciggie.

Crush of the day: Ian McKellen (interviewed in the Guardian). Yes, I know it's perverse, I can't help it. Le coeur a ses raisons...

And you?

How far you going? About 30 years...

Back to the Future is one of my guilty pleasures. It doesn't stand up too badly to the passage of time and I think it's because it's not just a comedy, it's a very potent fantasy. Marty McFly is a happy, popular teenager, the only thing holding him back is an unhappy, dysfunctional family. He gets a chance to travel back in time and fix his family history - the potential Freudian nightmare of this scenario is boldly dealt with, head-on in fact when his mum gets on a teenage crush on him (though when she kisses him she says it feels 'all wrong, like kissing my brother.' So that's all okay then and the incest taboo is dispatched forthwith.)

He shows his dad how to stand up for himself, not be such a nerd, how to chat up women - a twist on the expression 'the child is father to the man.' He models his dad in his own image. And when he returns back to the future, he finds his dysfunctional, miserable family has been transformed by his own actions into a successful, happy one that he can be proud of. The family of his dreams. It must have touched a chord with teenagers everywhere.

And there can hardly be a person alive who wouldn't go back and change things if they had the option.

Nice car, too.

Your name's not down...

... you're not coming in.

Sorry if you were barred, it's all fixed now. Thank you for the emails, my friends.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, you missed all the excitement, and should come round here more often.

Will pay cash for words

I will pay you, yes I will, to do the pre-date emailing flirty business required to get an actual date out of the online dating, for me. Does anyone actually enjoy this bit of it? (And if so, I'll sub-contract.)

(Finding it especially difficult as I can't implement Tim's useful suggestion of 'getting my baps out' in the photo, because they inhumanely block photos until you've exchanged emails.)

I hate it.

So boring.

Can't be arsed.

It is not fun. It is like trying to make polite conversation with other people's parents. (Last one I found myself typing, in classic hairdresser stylee, 'Where did you last go on holiday?' On this evidence I wouldn't want to date me either. )

In this service culture, there must surely be someone somewhere you can pay to do it for you?

Dysphemism

There are plenty of friendly, and fairly neutral, if not particularly sexy, words we can use about men's bits - dick, johnson, etc etc etc - I could go on.

But women do not have this luxury. Either their words are ridiculous and faintly reminiscent of phone-line chat, like pussy, (in Spanish it's conejo, or bunny) or starkly Victorian and medical-sounding, like vagina. Or else the worst swear word you can use in the English language - sisters, let us reclaim the word cunt from swearitude! Cuntcuntcuntcuntcunt! There, I feel a lot better.

(The Spaniards must think we are ludicrously repressed or hopelessly misogynistic, as their translation of this word is a mild term which I have heard old ladies blithely using, eg 'Que coño es ese?' I heard one saying, to my delight and admiration - English translation; what the hell is that? or as they say in Spain, what the cunt is that?)

Or else they get called by coy and foolish names, like fu-fu or, as it was growing up in our house, nu-nu. This is no way to think of your family jewels, and surely will warp your sexuality in later life. So I throw the gauntlet down to you, reader - somewhere out there, you must have heard a friendly, neutral, non-medical non-misogynistic non-porn sounding word for it?

The world has gone mad. I'm not talking about crime, violence, war, disease, famine - I'm not talking about social injustice, the polar caps melting, the hole in the ozone layer, about meteors crash-landing on the earth, nuclear armageddon, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - oh no. It's something much, much worse.

Click here go on, just click, I double dare you.

Blondie - the musical

No no no no no no. No. Nonononono.

Just NO.

On feeling too old to go and see bands anymore

Bonde do Role, anybody? Anybody?

More meta

When we were bored in school, Claire and I would doodle. She would doodle a chicken, I doodled a snail. Eventually this evolved into our famous chicken and snail comic strip in which the duo would have fabulous adventures, very very far from our dull comprehensive classroom in leafy Southgate, which roped in as characters anybody we liked at the time - not just boys but also the members of Queen (except for John Deacon, he was too boring) or Led Zeppelin maybe, or bikers on Harley Davidsons, or perhaps Thor the God of Thunder and several Viking berserkers. (We liked long hair at the time.)

She'd draw a speech bubble, I'd draw another one, all under cover of our text books, and thus would the story progress and the boring lesson speed past. Our aim was to make each other laugh (LOL in fact?) though this was precarious, because it would land you in trouble with the teacher, so we'd usually be sniggering away in the corner. (Now I'm a teacher myself I'd like to apologise for how very annoying we must have been, I'd have wanted to slam our heads against the desk repeatedly. Maybe it's karma working itself out.)

Anyway, blogging's like writing notes in class isn't it?

It's hard to explain the appeal to people who don't do it, especially without comparing it with something else. I invite you to tell us what you think blogging is like.

(and while you're at it, read Treespotter's marvellous post on it. 'On the blog, I am a supreme being...')

Increasingly desperate

I have broken Google. Or it has failed me, one or the other. I just typed in 'jobs for ex-teachers' - nothing, nada, zip. Nobody wants to employ us. (This is why they dump us in school, where no adult in their right mind wants to be. )

I tried subscribing to a jobs email, and am drawn to one which curiously no one seems to have applied for yet. The job involves working for something called 'Good Vibrations - Gamelan in Prisons.'

What else can I do? What?*

* Nothing that requires retraining. No no no. I have qualifications coming out of my ears, and the scars on my bank balance to prove it.

Oh, and tell me about your WORST job, to cheer me up.

Cassette afterlife

This is the kind of eccentric, barking mad art 'happening' that makes me like living around here. Tatty Devine (jewellery) and Prick Your Finger (craft shop) are having an 'Analogue Amnesty' - they will take your old video & music cassettes and weave them into a yarn for you. I guess I'll never listen to my tapes again - I have nothing to play them on, for one - but can I bring myself to turn them into yarn? So many memories wrapped up in those C90s...

Caption the kitteh

And help Carlos achieve Lolcat nirvana.

I am very poor at captions, but it's my life's ambition to get a cat photo on I Can Has Cheezburger. Undeterred by the fact that I have no cat, I have borrowed Carlos, a somewhat dim but very affectionate & amiable tomcat belonging to friends, for this purpose. I challenge you, dear reader, to come up with a caption.

Fig. 1.














Fig. 2.














Update: Ooh! If you leave comments on I can has cheezburger, other people give you votes! I got 5 votes. I've never had this much affirmation before in my life.

How I narrowly avoided social shame & humiliation in the Tate

I am having a very special day - have been given funding to watch artists working with secondary school kids in the Tate. Have arisen at a luxurious 8.00 am and rode on the bus to the Millenium Bridge, enjoyed a coffee in the cafe and am just meeting up with the students and the artists when I suddenly become aware that my usual natural fragrance of rose petals is less, how shall we say, fragrant than usual. The jumper I picked up in a hurry this morning was not all freshly laundered! In short, it reeks. How could I have not noticed? I am not totally engaged in observing the artists at work, or the fabulous art works on the wall - I am anxiously edging away from people so they don't stand downwind of me. 'Eurrrgh... who was that smelly cow?' I imagine the secondary school students saying of me back at school (and didn't everyone have a smelly teacher you would dread leaning over you to look at your work? I have become that person!)

Brainwave! The shop must sell T-shirts. And it does. Louise Bourgeois t-shirts that say 'Art is a guaranty [sic] of sanity', David Shrigley t-shirts that say 'Your pizza has arrived', Guerilla Girls' 'The Advantage of Being A Woman Artist' t-shirts, t-shirts that say 'Arty' 'Keep It Surreal' and 'Tony Hart'. They all cost £25.00 and surely someone will notice that I have changed into a slogan. So I end up in a kid's t-shirt that costs £12.50. I had to turn it inside out though; it looks like this.

Brand London

As I get sucked deeper into the quicksand that is the teaching profession, I sometimes take a desperate look at jobs websites. I know that Ken is not popular with everyone, and has an arrogance bordering on insanity, plus he got rid of the Routemaster, which is a hanging offence in my book. But I am quite fond of him (for the brilliant speech he gave about 7th July, and I like the way he has opened the city up to cool things like the Thames Festival and the Sultan's Elephant which serve no particular purpose except that they're celebratory and fun), and I love my city, so I glanced at the jobs on the London Assembly website, and came across this one.

I would like to work on promoting London to India, China, Russia, and Brazil - who wouldn't? (Job Spec: Duties include walking down Copacabana Beach in a bearskin hat and a Union Jack bikini, perhaps?) But something about the phrase 'Brand London' chills the blood. And you can't help thinking it exists purely for the Mayor to be able to say to himself 'Where do I fancy visiting this year?'

I am not a spam robot

Last time I quoted spam I got barred from my blog, as Blogger thought I was a Spam Robot, yet I could not resist sharing the arresting subject of this email with you:

This way your penis will only fit in a pelican's mouth.

A niche market, I would have thought...

Teacher humour

In the playground

Small child: Miss! Miss! I heard him say the 'R' word.
Teacher: The 'R' word?
Small child: (whispers) Arsehole.


Bonus link: Uptown Girl, as seen by Go Fug Yourself

Sometimes clever can be very stupid

Michio Kaku (co-founder of string field theory) discussing the ethics of cloning in Metro magazine:
There are some things we just have to accept. Cloning, for example. One day, rich people will start cloning themselves. How can you stop them? You can legislate against it but look at the drug trade today – people have got used to a certain fraction of society being heroin addicts. It’s the same with cloning.

Nice comparison, Michio. Clearly, heroin addicts are commensurate with rich people who clone themselves. (Actually, I'm quite grateful at the mind-boggling lack of understanding of the ethical issues that this comparison suggests, because it makes me feel intellectually superior to a string field theorist. Hurrah!)

Fireworks night snapshots

I meet a Barbadian. We're crossing the road, I'm saying that we need to let my friends know we're going to the bar first for a drink, before we head back to mine. 'Text them' he says, 'they won't mind buying a drink first - unless they're Jews'.

I'm not putting up with that. I poke him in the arm. Jokingly, but quite hard. 'I'm Jewish, so be careful what you say...' He says something wholy unconvincing about his best friend being Israeli...

Later we're in Marie's flat, all slaughtered on whisky and coke followed by mulled wine chasers. 'I don't like gay bars' says James 'or gay clubs - and I just recently realised that all my friends are girls - so how am I ever going to meet someone?'
I'm transported somewhat guiltily into a parallel universe where all the girls are saying 'all my friends are gay, when do I ever meet anyone straight?'



Fireworks night in Victoria Park

Golddiggers

Nobody likes Lady Mills McCartney, and I've got to admit she doesn't do herself any favours, but I genuinely feel sorry for her. Everyone assumes she married Paul McCartney for his money, which is insulting for both of them surely - isn't it possible that they actually, like, fancied each other and fell in love? (I'm sure his money wasn't a turn-off, but I reckon she was more impressed by his fame anyway.Plus there's surely got to be a better way of making money than shagging Paul McCartney, who is long past his cute days.)*
I guess I just find it very, very hard to believe in the idea of golddiggers, in this day and age. Unless you are very very desperate, and marrying a rich man is the only possible way out of life of a)starvation or b) prostitution, and you live in a culture where there aren't that many options open to women, I just don't believe it's that common.

This idea of women as greedy grasping cupiditous gold-diggers, it doesn't reflect in any way my experience, or any woman I know or have ever met. Au contraire. Every woman I know is a grafter. They bring up the kids, they go out to work and pay the rent or the mortgage and all the bills. They are self-reliant, and usually have dependents relying on them. Whereas, it pains me to say, many of the men I have known or still know are layabouts and wasters, acting like they are still teenagers with a sense of entitlement, living off their girlfriends, accepting drinks and holidays paid for, or even in some cases still accepting handouts from their parents. Women make the world go round - I think the myth of the gold-digger obscures this fact.



* The Beatles may have been ground-breaking, earth-shattering, towering god-like geniuses of music, but they were pure poison when it came to women weren't they? They unleashed quite terrifying forces of misogyny upon poor Yoko Ono and now on Heather Mills - Jane Asher was dead lucky to escape gratefully to a life of cake-decorating. Hey Tim, maybe this is the angle you could take in your next book.

Matt

I had a wicked crush on Matt. He was a public school boy, when we started hanging around with them aged about 15 all they seemed to have in common was a massive self-confidence, not to say arrogance, which could be attractive or obnoxious depending on how charming they were. It helped that he had the same killer cheekbones and icy blue eyes as that bloke out of Bauhaus.
'He's a bit pretentious' said Janine, who introduced us.
'Yes' I agreed.
'But kind of sexy.'
'Definitely.'

He wanted to get into film school and had begged borrowed or stolen a little Arriflex camera from the local audiovisual shop and was making short films, being writer, producer, director and cameraman. He'd heard I was interested in film-making and asked if I wanted to be the focus puller (yes yes stop sniggering at the back.) Hell, yes. We met up in St Paul's one Sunday with Janine and David, our stars, and filmed Dave chasing Janine in psycho-killer fashion all around the quiet City. It was looking good, kind of Hitchcock meets The Third Man meets Benny Hill, even if none of us could think of a decent ending.

I guess there's no moral to this story, or any point at all, just that it was a premiere moment in my adolescence - getting to hang out with someone I fancied a lot, doing something I was passionately interested in at the time. I wish I'd had a bit more of their arrogance, looking back he was clearly interested - did he desperately need someone to pull his focus? - but I wondered then why someone older, so cool and so good-looking would be bothering with me. It was a life lesson from which I took 3 things

• - no one ever minds if you fancy them.
• - you should just give it a whirl. They can only reject you.
  
• - 'I can make you famous, baby' is usually a come-on
  

He started going out with a beautiful exotic older Swedish girl who played guitar in a riot grrl band shortly after, who probably had no problems with self-esteem.

Return of the ASBO family

I've had my issues with the ASBO family from upstairs - the time when every time they flushed, their waste water was somehow overflowing into our bath; the time we took in an elderly neighbour who they'd threatened with a knife; the operatic nightly rows of the mother and the moody teenage son; the time they dropped a machete into our back garden - but recently they've been strangely quiet, and I've almost missed them.

But not last night. At 3.00 in the morning, their TV (living room just over my bedroom) went on full blast. It's 3.00 am, I've just been in REM sleep. I cannot, CANNOT, be arsed to get out of bed, put on dressing gown, go downstairs, out into the cold, climb the concrete staircase up to their flat, knock on the door and ask them to turn it down. It's more than mortals can bear.

So I get out of bed, and bang the supersonic mouse noise repeller against my ceiling, WHACK, WHACK WHACK, in the hopes that this will transmit itself via a crude morse code into 'It's 3.00 am, turn the telly down, some of us have to be up at 6.00, you selfish cunts.' There is no change in the volume. I detach the end of my curtain pole and ram it against the ceiling, really bouncing up and down on the bed now in order to optimize the force and volume of the whacks against the ceiling. Whack whack whack. Whack whack whack whack whack.

Still no change. Are they deaf? Somehow I remember that I might have their phone number from when we had to get the plumber in to check their pipes. I go downstairs to find it... and guess what? It's MY TV that has somehow, mysteriously (and somewhat spookily) turned itself on and is making all the racket.

Sorry, ASBO neighbours. You must think I'm a psycho.

Fashion halp

One for the ladies (and the fashion-forward men) as Halp is closed for business at the moment.

I bought a silver dress from Beyond Retro but it has a split right up the middle. If I was Sienna Miller (or this was the 60s, the era of this dress) I'd probably wear it with only my pants on and look fabulous, but don't really have the legs to carry this look off. What should I wear underneath, fashionistas?

Star Wars vs Star Trek

Oh. My. God.

You HAVE to watch this video by Lichtfaktor, amazing lighting/graffitti artist. (I'd put it in my Delicious links, but no one ever bothers with them.)

Purely a work of art. Flickr set here

My little pony

'Go away. We're talking about girls' things.'
'I can be a girl too. I can talk about horses and periods...'

Male friend of Annie's (who'd been at a mixed boarding school), circa 1994

This was his impression of the things that mattered to girls. (Well, he had a point. My Little Pony was a cynical, brilliant idea of genius, invented by someone who understood that the things little girls love more than anything are a) horses and b) brushing hair, and who combined them in one appalling yet strangely seductive plastic toy.) He was not so interested in horses and periods, but did not want to be left out of the girls' conversation .

What traits do you find most intriguing about the opposite sex then?

Me first - I find men's fascination with facts and figures intriguing. The way their eyes light up if they come across Schott's Original Miscellany or Wisden or the like. Is it something genetic, do you reckon?

Right brained or left brained?

Check it out. Which one are you?

(Seen on FridayCities. I am a day-dreaming right-brainer with no logic or mathematical skills, natch. Can't believe that ANYBODY can see her going anti-clockwise, though apparently if you focus you can change her direction.)

The dream of the fisherman's wife

or, today I bring you Octopus P_orn.


Taken from the highly entertaining show of smut erotic art at the Barbican. Thanks to Bad Sarah for bringing it to my attention.



And can I just say - Robert Mapplethorpe - ouch, ouch, ouch!

Everyone on the internet is a big fat fibber

Mind boggling true story of sex, lies and internet on Jezebel.

I love the twist in the tale - I bet you can spot it coming a mile off, but I am someone who was genuinely amazed at the ending of the Sixth Sense and The Others. Doh.

I saw this on someone else's site, I forget where - sorry if it was yours.

the Eel

the Eel (super-cool fanzine for local people) are publishing my Hackney A-Z photo in their December issue. What very great taste they have.

Available for an entirely reasonable £1.00 from Rough Trade and your classier emporiums, or you can view it for free on my Flickr stream.

Woo-hoo!

Control

A movie review in bullet points:

• It does look beautiful, in black and white, as you'd expect from Anton Corbijn
• Old Anton somehow managed to find an actor who was beautiful, yet the spitting image of Ian Curtis, who wasn't very beautiful at all. Same same for Barney, Hooky, &, er, the other one. So, glossy but a bit unconvincing.
  
• Samantha Morton is such a powerful actress, you have to be careful casting her - she tends to blow everyone else off the screen and make them seem like amateurs
  
• Makes old Ian seem quite normal and demystifies him but still doesn't do as good a job as 24 Hour Party People, in which he comes across as barking mad and scary and is just seen a) calling Anthony Wilson a cunt and b) hanging himself
• Somehow this meshed more with the picture I had in my head after obsessive listening to Joy Division as a teenager - after all, who calls their band after the Nazi's brothels, and writes songs with apocalyptic lyrics, other than someone very, very dark? Joy Division were pretty dark, and New Order were all sweetness and light - Control doesn't seem to capture that side of him at all.
• What is it with the 2 hour movies these days? Am I imagining it, or did they use to be 1 hour and a half, max? Directors of the world - your movies are rarely worth two hours of my life. After 180 mins, my arse is crying out for mercy - in this case, I was ashamed to find myself thinking 'Oh just get on with it and hang yourself.'
  

Hackney vignette

Friday evening. There's a knock on the door. It's a young man wearing a suit, at first I think he's a Jehovah's Witness, but no:

'Hi, I'm a journalist from the Mail on Sunday. I just wanted to ask - did you see a car-jacking that took place in this street this week?'

'No... but if I had, do you think I would speak to someone from your nasty Nazi rag about it? Be off with you, or I'll set the dogs on you' is what I didn't say.

(What a wasted opportunity to abuse a minion from the Mail. And now I think about it - door-stepping people about car-jacking - utterly bizarre!)

Half-arsed

Q: Why is homophobia more acceptable than racism?
A: I don’t know, why is homophobia more acceptable than racism?

I know, let us ask the Department for Children, Families and Schools; they seem to have given carte blanche to faith schools. (and while I’m up here on my high horse, why do we have faith schools? Religion has no place in school, [except Comparative Religion, which I would argue for.])

Let’s play a little game – I’ve replaced words like ‘homosexuals’ ‘family values’ ‘sinful’ and ‘single sex relationships’ in the paragraphs from their advice on new legislation below – see if you can spot where I have replaced them!

• ... the concerns expressed are that faith schools will no longer be able to teach according to an aspect of their belief or faith — such as the superiority of white people and the inferiority of black people.
• .…if a faith school (or indeed any school) teaches that the Christian and Muslim faiths decree that black people are racially inferior then the school will not be acting unlawfully.
  
• Similarly, if a pupil asks a teacher his views on Judaism and the teacher gives his view that Jews are sinful, then again, that teacher will not be acting unlawfully.

They talk a lot of sense really, these faith schools. I think we should bring back the cane while we’re at it. Or hell, why not, schools should also be granted powers to perform exorcisms, witchhunts and trial by fire and water.

In respect of schools with a religious character, the DfES Guidance goes on to say:-

"However, many views on sexual orientation are entrenched in religious belief and this has led to some misunderstanding and to concerns being expressed about the impact that these regulations will have on religious freedom in faith schools. Non-denominational maintained schools and voluntary controlled denominational schools teach Religious Education (RE) according to the locally agreed syllabus and voluntary aided schools teach RE according to the tenets of their faith. However, the concerns expressed are that faith schools will no longer be able to teach according to an aspect of their belief or faith - which is the importance of traditional family values and that single-sex relationships are sinful. There are similar concerns about the possibility that individual teachers expressing their views in this area, whether based on their religion or not, might be the subject of legal action.

The regulations will not prevent any of this. So for example, if a faith school (or indeed any school) teaches that the Christian and Muslim faiths decree that same-sex sexual activity is a sin then the school will not be acting unlawfully. Similarly, if a pupil asks a teacher his views on homosexuality and the teacher gives his view, then again, that teacher will not be acting unlawfully. In both cases, the subject must be dealt with appropriately in accordance with existing DfES guidance. Haranguing or harassing a particular student or group of students is not an acceptable way to convey a belief within an educational context, and such behaviour could constitute unlawful discrimination."

Gone fishin'

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."
Dr Johnson

Oof, I am flagging, my friends... I feel the need to take a break from blogging, and the need to spend more time on some of that RL stuff. But I guess I'd miss it if I stopped for good, & I'll still be reading you. And I'll still be on Flickr if you really miss me.

So, hasta la vista baby ...














Photo from here

Blogshares

A lady in Bristol bought shares in my blog!*

Check yours out here.

Oh no, something else to worry about, (the share price has dropped by around £400 over the past month, surely this can't be a good thing?) as well as my flatlining sitemeter....

* what is a 'hostile takeover'? It does not sound friendly.

Bring It On Home

Good grief!!

Could it be...?


I am tempted. But old Robert can't really sing like he used to. He used to sing like a pissed-off banshee and now he sounds a bit like an Elvis impersonator. Still...

happy birthday to bad Sarah

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

I'm not a cheapskate who wouldn't send a card,

I'm just a dope who didn't know it was today,

Happy Birthday to you!!!

People, go and send her birthday wishes in the comments to make up for my slackness.

Bad Sar gives Deborah Harry a run for her money in the killer-cheekbones-&-rock- n- roll- attitude stakes

Random crushes

Steve Bell

David Attenborough

Bill Bailey

Heston Blumenthal

None of them are oil paintings. Two of them have beards. Hmmm....

They can all do stuff though.

Y tu? Who are your random crushes? Don't be shy.

for the lurkers

who are you? come on now, I don't bite. *


* unless on special request

I hate these people

Rupert and Jemima have a budget of only £800,000. Yet they want a country place to bring up their kids and a pied-a-terre in town for Rupert to commute to his something-very-well paid in London. A tall order? Maybe so, but you know that Phil and Kirsty love a challenge.

Rupert: I can see myself living here. Games room with snooker table... granny flat... indoor pool, laundry room, double garage, study, 5 bedrooms, 3 receptions, ballroom with Italian marble floors - what's not to like?

Jemima: But what about the paddock for my gymkhanas? *bursts into tears*

Kirsty: Back to the drawing board, Phil.

Phil: [thinks] Posh gits... can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.

Sunday feeling

It can't be right to feel this negative about going back to work. Can it? In addition to gloomy Sunday afternoon/end of holiday feeling there is real dread in the pit of my stomach. I am not ready, or even willing, to inspire young minds. I wish to hide under the duvet, quite frankly.

Yeah yeah, teachers, always bloody moaning, but you get all these long paid holidays - but let me put it to you like this, gentle reader - ask yourself this, truthfully now - would you like to go back to school?

Oh well, as we were always telling each other during the hellish PGCE year - the only way out is through. See you sometime next June. Probably.

Return of the mouse

Sorry to bore you again with the mouse, but despite the magic supersonic mouse noise repeller, now permanently plugged in, last night about 2.00 am I could hear scratch scratch scratch, scratch scratch scratch, under the floorboards at the foot of the bed.

It was very freaky, sounded like something hideous was trying to tunnel its way into the room. I was a wuss and threw my shoe at it, I wanted to lift up the rug and be face to face with the beast, but was scared to in case it looked like this:










In which case I would have to leave the house immediately and check into a hotel.

Fuck. I had such faith in the supersonic mouse noise repeller too. On the website it says that The ultrasound creates a loud noise at a high frequency that only rodents can hear: imagine that for a mouse, it's like having a smoke alarm going off constantly.

Is it all a big con, and I have just bought an expensive box which lights up when you plug it in? After all, I can only take their word for it that its emitting a mouse smoke alarm - only the mice know for sure, and they're not telling...

When you know you're past it

A booklet falls out of the Saturday papers. Idly you open it up and flick through. Hmm, nice bootleg dark denim jeans, you think.

Oh no. You have just admired something in the Boden catalogue.

English Eccentrics

I'm on the bus home. I spy a man - it's not apparent at first he's a man, only when he speaks with a quite deep voice, because he's wearing a floral summer dress, pink birkenstocks, bright pink nail polish, carrying a bag with pink polka dots, a pink plastic bangle and pink plastic watch, white framed sunglasses a la Paris Hilton, and with long blonde hair streaked with Krazy Colour pink.

So there are trannies in London, I hear you say - tell us not old news. What is more unusual is that sitting across the aisle from him are his companions - a blonde woman in her early forties, and a little blond boy of about 7. The little boy, with total unself-consciousness, calls him dad. He is much more interested and excited about his new Sonic the Hedghog game than the fact that his dad is wearing a frock. Apart from the odd curious glance, nobody on the bus bats an eye.

Hurrah for the English!


In fact, this reminded me of one of my colleagues in my old job, whose boyfriend of 10 years confessed that he'd been having negative feelings about his, um, manhood... that he'd been thinking about it for some time, and that henceforth, he'd like to be addressed as Mary. As Mary, he applied for the big op through the NHS and was successful. He started taking hormones and began dressing as a woman in everyday life while he was on the waiting list.

I met Mary once when we all went to see the Buena Vista Social Club at the South Bank, and was intrigued to see that she modelled her whole self as a woman on her girlfriend, same facial expressions, mannerisms, laugh and all... it was somewhat eerie, like they were twins.

What is amazing is that my colleague, we'll call her Amanda, stuck by him (her?) 'It's still the same person that I love' she said. I thought she was truly amazing, a person in a million. Can you imagine if your other half came home and told you they wanted to change sex? Would you say 'It's alright darling, whatever you want - as long as you're happy'? Or would you run for the hills?

It also brought up interesting questions of sexual orientation - Amanda wasn't gay but her boyfriend's change of gender made her lesbian by default. When we were out for drinks one evening, someone braver at work than me asked 'Are you still having sex?' 'Oh yes,' she said.

Still, it came as no surprise when I'd left that place, I heard that Amanda had found a new boyfriend, and got married shortly afterwards. It was maybe a bit too much to ask of someone else.

Thanks, but no thanks

Chatting around the table in the beer garden with the ladies:

Annie: I've never owned a vibrator.

[Happily Married] Friend: You can have mine if you want.

be there or be sq

Singaporean Chili Crab Festival!


Illuminated Night Carnival!

Attempting Geek-fu

Open ID - worth a try?

I saw it on Jack's comment on Adrian's site. Looks handy...

To make up for the last posts...

Holiday... continued.

... continued from here:

Rachael's eyes get bigger and bigger as she's on the phone. I'm jumping up and down, going
'What? What? What?! Is it her?' But it's okay, I can hear her voice on the phone. She's alive and okay, that's all that matters.

She's been in a prison cell since 5.00 pm the day before, then taken to court, then only just been released.

She had gone to buy a raincoat in a shopping centre. It was an open plan place with different boutiques surrounding a coffee shop in the middle. She had put the coat over her arm while she went to get a coffee, before she took it to the counter to pay for it. But she's immediately surrounded by a million Spanish women, including the sales assistant, who are all accusing her of shop-lifting. (How this can be when she hasn't left the shop is still not clear.) She doesn't speak a word of Spanish (and before you judge, she speaks German English and French, so not doing too badly.) And they don't speak any English, or pretend not to. She doesn't know what's going on. It appears at first that she can just pay for the coat and go, but the sales assistant says it's too late, she's already called the police.

The police take her to the station. She is strip searched. They take away her bag, and though it's pretty cold, her scarf (in case she should hang herself with it in the cell.) They won't let her make a phone call. They give her a document with her rights in English, but then make her sign a document in Spanish. They put her in a concrete windowless cell with strip lighting and a mat on the floor in the basement of the station. She can't hear any noise from the street and can't tell what time it is or how long she's been in there. She has to be in court for the case and apparently they won't let her go in case she tries to skip the country. They tell her the case might come up in 3 days' time. She can hear her phone ringing in her bag outside the cell (me & Rachael, increasingly frantic) but they won't let her answer it, or answer it themselves.

She's moved to another jail in the morning, which is very busy, but she's the last person to be taken out of the cell to court. They take her to court in handcuffs. There's an interpreter there, but they won't let Barbara ask the interpreter any questions except to translate what is being said by the sales assistant. If she will pay a fine of 300 euros she can go. She agrees to pay the fine.

When we tell the consulate all this later, they say the police have been in breach of her human rights in not allowing her a phone call, and say they will take it up with the police.

It makes you wonder what they would do with actual terrorists. ("This would never happen in England" said Barbara. "No, in England they just shoot you in the back" said Rachael.)

Spanish police (with the honourable exception of Marian, of the local Basque force) are cunts. That is all.

What we did on our holidays.

Or, 3 go mad in San Sebastian.

UPDATE: See post above

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning. I am on the phone to the hospitals, the police station and the British Consulate and German Consulate trying to track down Barbara, whilst trying to communicate in my terrible rusty Spanish. We haven’t seen or heard from her in 16 hours, she’s not answering voice messages or texts and some very dark thoughts have started to cross our minds.

It all started very promisingly. It was a beautiful evening when I arrived, they had been on the beach all day. We sat and watched fireworks in the harbour (they were having a worldwide fireworks competition every night, we liked China’s efforts the best) and had the world’s finest pinxtos and drank rose.

But the next day it rained. And rained. And rained. And didn’t stop for 3 days. Even the surfers looked miserable. We ventured out in the rain to see the turtles, rays, jellyfish and sharks in the aquarium, and made a hit & run, lightning visit to the fabulous Guggenheim in Bilbao, but by day 3 we were getting stir crazy. Barbara said she’d go to the spa for a massage. Rachael & I went shopping. We planned to meet at the apartment at 8.00 to go to dinner.

8.00 pm: Barbara not back. We text her and go to dinner.

11.00 pm: Arrive back to apartment. She’s not there. Not answering phone or texts. Phone going to voicemail. All her clothes, passport, money, bag etc are still in her room.

12.00 am: ‘Maybe she’s met someone at the spa and gone to a party or something…and her phone’s gone dead… or she’s run out of credit… It’s not like her not to be in touch though. She’s really good like that.’

1.00am: Lay in bed awake thinking about two possibilities: a) Barbara having fantastic time, pissed in club with glamorous Spanish people, not thinking about what time it is or her phone messages. B) Barbara blown into the sea, knocking head on rock and drowning, or knocked down by speeding driver, or bundled into a car and kidnapped, or or or…

2.00 am: Where the fuck is she? Have a tiny, brief insight into the hell on earth that the McCanns must be living through at the moment. Go round and round in circles – she’s fine/she’s not fine/she’s fine… I wish she’d just walk in, I wouldn’t be pissed off with her, just relieved to see her. Waking with a start every time we hear the door go in the apartment building.

3.00 am. Annie tries to spell a German name (Barbara is German) over the phone to the Spanish emergency services, and explain the situation, very tricky at this hour, after 5 years of speaking no Spanish and having had a bottle of very heavy Rioja at dinner. I seem to have located a total imbecile at the police station. ‘B for Bilbao? A for Andorra?’ he goes, on and on throughout her name… If I wasn’t so worried it would be funny. He asks how old she is. When I tell him 43, his voice changes. Clearly he thought it was some teenager who hadn’t bothered coming home. He tells us to come in and report her missing.

9.00 am British Consulate rings to check if she’s back. She’s not. There is definitely something up.

10.00 am Get in cab to police station. She seems to have disappeared. We’re trying not to think about Lucie Blackman, about Joanne Lees. We both feel sick. Rach cries. It makes me cry. We pull ourselves together to talk to the police.

11.00 am File a missing person’s report with a very nice policewoman, who is patient with my shocking Spanish. It feels very surreal to be describing her eyes, her hair, her clothes… She types it up and tells us to fax it to the British and German Consulates. In the meantime, she’ll photocopy her ID photo and post it up in the streets. That’s all for now.

12.00 pm We sit in the café next door to the police station, trying to be calm. She has vanished off the face of the earth and we’re the ones who have to deal with it. We can’t go home – the police don’t seem that bothered. No one else knows where she is. We’ll have to cancel our flights. See if we can stay longer in the apartment. Try and get in touch with her parents in Germany through the consulate. We both feel sick. Can’t believe it’s happening. It doesn’t feel real.

12.30 pm – Rachael’s phone rings.

Tell you the rest tomorrow.

Question: would you still blog if you'd won £35 million?

A: No, I would have minions to blog for me.

What would it be like to win £35 million?

1. It wouldn't change me. I would still keep the day job and go down the pub with my friends. *

2. After a brief period of buying airplanes, islands, lighting cigars with £50 notes and marrying and divorcing Hollywood sex symbols that I fancy in quick succession, I would go totally off the rails through despair at the pointless shallow pointlessness of my life and end up in the loony bin.

3. It would be a mere stepping stone towards my ultimate plan, which has always been TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION.

4. £35 million? Pah, chicken feed.


What do you reckon?


* rather poignantly, one of Ms Kelly's co-workers was quoted as saying 'I don't know what she'll do next, but we'll miss her if she goes. She's the life and soul of the admin department.'

Halp for Katy

Our Realdoc is off on her holidays it appears, alas, anybody know any blogging doctors/nurses who can advise Katy on her NHS nightmare?

PDA

Have seen 7 couples kissing passionately in the streets today. Yes, I counted.

Stop it right now, you bastards. I know you only do it to annoy me.

And if you are in a couple, dear reader, can you please refrain whilst in public?

Kthxbye.

Hangover of Damocles

Sat 11.00 am Claire's hen night, Claire's parent's gracious home. Lovely cava. Lovely ladies. Lovely garden. Lovely weather. Manicures facials reflexology massages. Lovely food. More cava. Karaoke. California Zinfandel. More karaoke. Lots of cigarettes. More California Zinfandel. More karaoke. Vodka shots. Two lies and a truth. Stagger onto sofa and know nothing more...

Awake at 9.45 am. Lo! Feel fine, right as rain... hello trees, hello clouds, hello sky! Up and at 'em. La la la, not hungover at all, it's marvellous...

... but I know from experience, it is a false dawn. All the time, the hangover is lurking above your head like the Sword of Damocles, waiting for its moment to descend. 2.00 pm is the usual time. It's 1.30 pm now...




PS: Thanks Claire! It was faaaaabulous! You're the hostess with the mostest! Can't wait to see your dress

A boring question post

But techies, it could be your chance to shine.

My McAfee PC protection is about to expire. I do not like them because they debited fifty quid from my credit card without asking for confirmation and without any warning around Christmas time when I was brokety broke, (which if I could be arsed to look into, I'm pretty sure is not legal, whether they have stored your credit card details or not.) Anybody can recommend other (just as good and hopefully cheaper) PC protection?

Resistance is useless

Okay, hands up, who's on Facebook? You're all having a big party on there without me, aren't you.

Must resist... can't resist... yet I must... but I don't want to be 'poked' by ex-colleagues... the torment!

Maturity

Finding a copy of Arkham Asylum (that you desperately wanted as a teenager) for £1.50 in a junk shop.

Not buying it, because you're not a teenager anymore.

(I still ♥ Dave Mckean though.)

Is age creeping up on you? What signs have you noticed?

I can has cheez

O, hai. Mees here.

I'M IN UR DASHBOARD, WRITIN UR BLOG POSTS.

I can has cheez?

Wait! Can't stand noiz! Must... get... out... Bad noiz hurts mees ears... O halp!!!










PS Anybody totally baffled by this post, click here

eeeeek

So I'm sitting on the sofa, watching the Simpsons, when something dark and small and very fast darts across my line of vision, underneath the table. And later on, I'm in bed on my front, just dropping off to sleep, when I can feel something scrabbling about underneath the bedstead. Sit up and turn on the light, heart beating away. Eventually it darts out, seemingly aiming for my computer hard drive, darts back underneath again. Can just about cope with it in the living room, but the bedroom is your sanctuary.

There is mees in my house. I'll never sleep again.

Sitting up blogging (with feet up on the chair) because I don't want to get back in bed. I know they don't hurt you, but it is just wrong when you can feel little beasties scampering away below the bedstead.

(What can I do about mees? I don't want to co-habit with them, but can't bear mousetraps.)

blog of the week

Ooh. Mimi (of Mimi in New York) has relocated to London & relaunched her blog. For the most infuriating but entertaining & essential blog since, well, LC's, get yourself over there pronto.



Update: She's removed the comment facility though. Shame, as reading the vitriol/praise was half the fun.

Stick it on

This weekend I am going to Stick It On. The moment of truth is on me - my musical tastes will be held up to judgement by an audience of my peers, who will either hold up big placards which say "CHOON!" in approval, and cheer and applaud and go wild, or... the dancefloor will magically empty, the tumbleweed will roll on by, and I'll have to hang myself out of shame.

Though I harbour secret fantasies of being a DJ, Stick It On makes it a bit too easy - you don't have to hunch over the decks, all cool and impressive with your headphones on, as they line everything up for you. But I'm not sure what you're meant to do - deprived of these tools of the trade, people tend to bob about looking proud and slightly foolish behind the mixing desk.

So help me out here - what killer tunes should I include in my 15 minutes of fame?

When I fell in love with Ripley

Ripley is stuck in the sick bay with a little girl and a vicious indestructible predatory alien bent on vicious indefensible predatory parasitism. No one can hear them shout for help because the glass window is too thick. She can't break it with a chair, it just bounces off. The evil corporate guy closes the blind so no one can see them waving and screaming.

What does Ripley do? She reaches up with one arm (economically, almost insouciantly) and flicks her lighter open close to the ceiling, setting off the smoke alarm and alerting everyone to the danger.

Definitely in my top 10 of cool movie moments. (I would love to be Ripley, alas, I feel I identify more with Hudson, the cowardly marine who cracks up under the pressure.)

Who's your movie hero then, and why?

Get away from her, you bitch!

Berlin...

This post dedicated to all the lovely bloggers I met at the Stammtisch;
Ben Perry;
BerlinBites;
John Borland;
Peasant Glasses;
Radio Free Mike;
Zis German Life;
and especially Bowleserised; and to Em, for coming to play, for braving all the bloggers & for giving me this lovely book, and last but by no means least the gorgeous BiB and the Raaahsian, darling, always a pleasure, never a chore...

London is filled with nutters

Case number 1:

(Man standing next to me in line for coffee at Ray's Jazz:)
I'll have a cappuccino. Oh, and a glass of water. Mmmmmmm, water, mmm mmm mmm [he starts making sex noises] I love water. I love it. [Glances at me with eyebrow raised suggestively] It's so good for you... and it's transparent.

Case number 2:
Man in a suit who at first glance appears quite normal, then turns round and displays a proud inch or two of builder's bum, throwing his bike over the railings on Charing Cross Road in a temper:

Nobody loves you! Nobody! You can just fuck right off! (he is talking to the bike.)

Anyway, I'm off to Berlin. Laters...

Immature

It's my birthday tomorrow. Cake, champagne & kisses all round. And here is my birthday present to you, because I love you all so much.

(You have to listen to it, or I'll sulk. It's called Handbag, features mainly old embarrassing handbag type dance tunes, as I'm showing my age & can no longer pretend to be down with the kids.)

What is your optimum age then?

What do you do...

when you're stuck?

Had enough...

Rah! Flight booked. Apartment booked. (like you care.) Flying via Biarritz - I intend to walk a leopard on a diamond chain down the main drag whilst sporting sunglasses, capri pants & skyscraper heels (or am I thinking of Cannes?)

But first, I must get past the horror of this final week which involves yet another trip - last week on a trip, in the grand tradition of my 30-small- kids-on-public-transport traumas, I nearly lost one when she left her bag behind and decided to jump back on the tube a split second before the doors closed.

This one is a farm trip, lord help me. Cue nightmares about them being eaten by pigs, mown down by combine harvesters, etc etc... Why do I do it? Forget 'enriching their education', they can stay within the 4 school walls til they're 18 for all I care, I have my blood pressure to consider.

Rise

See here. Free music! Yes, it is in Finsbury Park,* which is just a big stretch of grass for dogs to wee on and alcoholics to pass out on, and is not on a par with any other London park IMHO, but still, free music, in the cause of anti-racism, which we all need to show our support with in these troubled times.

Plus it stars KELIS, KELIS, yes for free! (She is my same sex crush of choice, if I was, you know, a bloke, or that way inclined. )




* and Dagenham, but I'm not that committed to the cause.

San Sebastian

Under duress, I'm posting this here, for a friend who does not understand that it is not a NOTICEBOARD, it is a work of highly-crafted literary genius:

Anybody ever stayed in San Sebastian? Can you recommend somewhere? (Preferably apartments, but hotels or even hostels will do.) Or better yet, do you own a holiday home there which you are willing to let to us?*

I thank you.

* As it is during high season, and every one in Spain goes there on their holidays, I suspect we're fucked, but worth a try...

Grownups (2)

ways he made me laugh in a way I haven't in a long time:

confessing whilst back in the Big Smoke for a Criminologist's convention, he'd been dragged along to not one, not two, but three reality tv-related shows by a fame crazed, camp fellow criminologist, who made him sit in the front row each time, where he found himself on camera waving his hands in the air whilst wearing those big sponge hands, singing along 'Hey baby, I wanna know, will you be my girl?' Catching himself on the monitor and freezing in horror.

"You've no idea, there is this whole sub-culture of professional TV audiences - you should have heard them - oh, you should try the Friday Night Project, you should try Big Brother's Big Mouth... They make the people in 'Extras' look sane and balanced. '

Telling us about his wedding - 'We chose our favourite song, it's Bootsy Collins. But we hadn't really thought it through - it's got all this tricky jazz stuff in it, and is not that easy to dance to... we were having to free-style it... plus it goes on for about an hour, you could see about 200 people glancing at their watches...'

He seems to have grown up in a way our other friends haven't; 'When I go out with Mons and Damien, and they're checking out some 19 year old, I say 'You're old enough to be her dad.' 'Eh? Nooo... Well... Fuck off, grandad! Who asked you out anyway?'

Mons was seeing this lovely woman. Down to earth, really nice, but he stuffed it up. She was a proper woman, you know, not a little girl - very womanly, but in no way, like, fat. I said, what did you say to her? 'I just suggested she lose a little bit of weight.' 'Oh, Mons... ' 'What, what's wrong with that?' 'You'd only been seeing her a week. And, pot, have you met kettle?'

He says, 'You know what I remember most about you? We were around your house at a party, and I said, where's Annie? I opened your bedroom door and you were sitting cross-legged on the bed, bouncing up and down and listening to Cypress Hill, head-banging with all your mad hair...'

Ah, misty water-coloured memories...

Arty nonsense

I like it, what can I say?

Vauxhall Art Carboot Fair (in Brick Lane, confusingly enough.)


Update: photos here

I am not here

I'm over here. I don't know anyone, and they don't know me. It's just like being the new girl at school again (- may yet end up eating lunch in the ladies', just like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls, because no social clique will talk to me.)

Beyond belief

Wanted in connection with the attempted Glasgow bombings - a doctor.

A doctor.

Like one of the July 7th bombers, who was a classroom assistant.

What next? A paediatrician? A nun?

Grownups

I have a friend coming to stay on Friday, I haven't seen him in over 10 years. Once past the initial excitement (and I'm looking forward to seeing him a lot - we haven't kept in touch at all, so there's a lot of catching up) I start looking around and wondering what he's going to see. I wonder if I can paint the kitchen before Friday?

And, oh my God, the waterlogged, moldy,damp & depressing bathroom (have been having problems with a leak from the flat upstairs, been on the phone to Hackney council for the past three weeks, with no joy.) Now I used to visit him in his flat in Nottingham, where the bathroom was so arctic you could see your breath, & you had to put your coat on to go in it, but that was way back then, when we were all poor & feckless students, and everybody lived in a dive. Now he has a house, and a wife, and a baby to show for all this time passed. And I've got... um...

In short, he's a grownup. What is he going to think? Maybe I can book him into a hotel.

Really, I can't wait to see him, but it is making me think about what I've been doing all this time - it's sort of like New Year's Eve, renewing your passport and your birthday all rolled into one.

Here is my Simpsons' avatar. You can make yours here.

(It is a bit flattering. Couldn't bring myself to go for the full-on 'fro, which would be more accurate.)

the S word

Bernard: You hated school, you had a miserable time.
Fran: I never said that.
Bernard: No, but I look at your life now and work backwards from that.

What were you like at school?

Stupid things to say to a 5 year old

Number 1:

Shortbus

should convince most men of the benefits of yoga. I'll say no more.

(It is utterly ludicrous, silly, slapstick and proposterous, but a definite thumbs up from me and V. Have not seen so many willies on the silver screen since a double bill of a German movie called 'Taxi zum Klo' and Almodovar's 'Law of Desire' at the Everyman when I was 17 - yeah yeah, call them 'art' movies if you want...

There is a very touching speech which I can't really recall & Google for once has let me down - Justin Bond (of Kiki & Herb) tells Sofia, the sex therapist who's never had an orgasm, that she shouldn't see it as a 'block' but as 'an electrical circuit' - 'everyone is just trying to plug into it & to find the right connection.' )

Shortbus

Please, please, please, let me....

get what I want...

Have just seen a beautiful little Victorian one-bed flat around the corner from the tube.

• It does not have laminate flooring.
• It does not have a million halogen spotlights installed in every room.
• It does not have hotel-style bathroom and matchy-matchy fitted kitchen and neutral paint job.
• It does have proper rooms of a proper size.
• It does have original wooden shutters,big sash windows, wooden floors, and is a blank slate waiting for me to make it mine, all mine.

And it is available to rent (a whole 1 bed flat, all to myself) at the same price I'm paying now to share, through a housing association which lets to key workers. Words cannot express how much I want this.

Unfortunately, there's probably a million people ahead of me on the waiting list. Cross fingers...

Hourglass

this birthday I'll be 36. I don't mind getting older (no no, really I don't - something one of my wise friends said stuck in my head and I can never complain about it again
'I love getting older - because what else can I do about it?') But it is bittersweet, working in the job I do - every year I get a new influx of kids in, and you get attached to them and spend more time with them than their parents, and know their highs and lows, and mediate their battles, and celebrate their wobbly teeth, and teach them to tie their shoelaces and button their shirts and see them learning and growing taller and more articulate and confident - then they go into the next year and forget all about you, and you forget about them. You get a new lot in and the whole thing starts over again...

And I wonder if I'll be the single lady teacher forever, like teachers traditionally were, humble, broke and devoted... Most of the parents are my age (or younger, heavens!) And I look at them and wonder what it's like to be them, all partnered up and taking their kids for granted, as you do... It's not even that I'm sure I want kids - like a lot of my friends, (well the ones that haven't had them yet) I'm ambivalent about the whole thing. It's just that we don't have the luxury of ambivalence, because time's not on our side.

Weeeeeds...

Weeds is one of those TV series that we seem incapable of making in this country, grownup, brilliant writing, confident, intelligent, shocking, funny, irreverent, I could go on...

Excuse me while I bore you with it, but it seemed to have passed under most people's radar.

It's the story of a young widow with two sons, who turns to dope-dealing when her husband unexpectedly dies and she has to maintain her upper-middle-class lifestyle in a conformist suburb of California.

It seems rare in that it portrays black and white characters pretty even-handedly, and doesn't skirt around the tensions. The characters are absolutely briliant - the stoner governor, the weed-dealing black matriarch, Elizabeth Perkins as a bitch-on-wheels PTA mom, the widow's waster brother-in-law who joins a Yeshiva in order to dodge the draft, and Mary-Louise Parker who is the sexiest, coolest character ever, and my heroine.

It also has great plot twists - I'm not giving too much away when I tell you that at the end of the first series, Mary-Louise gets out of her new lover's bed in the middle of the night and throws on his shirt, only to see in the bathroom mirror that it has 'DEA' written across it.

Just been watching the first two series on TV links (and the third series coming out soon on TV, so catch up while you can.) I'm watching TV less and less - we were very excited when we first got satellite, and called it The Shiny Friend - now we've come to realise there's a gazillion channels on it, most of them showing rubbish, so this discovery is a diamond.


PS - Sign of the times - in ICT on Wednesday one of my little boys turns from his computer to say 'Miss, can we watch Spiderman 3? I know where to find it - on TV links.)

Conversation

There goes the front door. Crash! What time is it? I fumble for the alarm. 2.00 am. Drunk people pour into my house. The stereo goes on. People thump up and down the stairs, slamming doors. Lights go on. My bedroom door flies open.

'Annie! Annie! People have come back... Sorry! Is it okay? We'll be quiet.'

I stuff earplugs in my ears (learned the value of them when living in Spain amongst the noisiest bastards on the planet) and try to go back to sleep but the hideous music and loud joyful drunk voices float effortlessly through the bedroom floor.

Dr Slaminsky: It's okay, it's okay. It's Saturday night, they're entitled to a party.

Ms Hyde: They interrupted my sleep! For the third time in a month! No one does that without paying!

Dr Slaminsky: You should be out anyway, doing coke off the rock-hard six-pack of a hot young man in a club or something, not tucked up in bed dreaming chastely about literacy planning and activities for Sports Day. You sad bastard.

Ms Hyde: Oh no, not fucking Trance Nation. I fucking hate that. Kill! Kill! Kill!

Dr Slaminsky: Oh shut up and put your ear plugs back in. You can sleep in tomorrow. Zzzzzz...

(5 minutes later) Annie! Psst, Annie! Sorry! Can I borrow your charger?

Ms Hyde: Hang draw and quarter them! Shave them bald when they're asleep!

Next morning. The house looks like a bombsite - and someone has smoked all my cigarettes which I stupidly left in the living room (okay okay I know I gave up - for the purpose of this blog, just take it as read that I give up and start again, over and over, until I die from lung cancer.)

Dr Slaminsky and Ms Hyde: Okay, now where are the clippers?

Red Slaminsky *

Mr Johnson says salaries for core public-sector workers, including teachers, nurses, police and the armed forces, cost £50 billion a year, which has a significant impact on the economy.

Those greedy, grasping public sector workers - looking after the sick, teaching the children, protecting the general public and risking life and limb - & expecting a living wage for it! The cheek of it. It's their fault the rate of inflation is rising, you know! All they're interested in is money, money, money... Everyone knows that nurses and teachers go into it just for the fat paycheck.

The Government is willing to increase teacher numbers to pay for more personalised learning, but only if pay rises remain at no more than 2 per cent.

"A settlement of 0.5 per cent above this level would equate to an additional £250 million cost pressure by 2010-11 - equivalent to one-to-one support for around 500,000 pupils," he said.

So, forget about keeping your heads above the water, teachers, you moaning, griping, kvetching whingers - you want to deprive the kids of their Tailored, Individual, One to One Personalised tuition that New Labour holds so dear. Selfish bastards.

An extra 0.5 per cent would equate to £100 a year, or £2 a week, before tax is deducted for a newly qualified teacher.

But Mr Johnson said: "It is essential that today's pay awards do not jeopardise tomorrow's jobs in the public sector and the general economy."

Teachers' pay, he said, has risen more than that of most other public sector workers under the Labour government.

So just be grateful you're not on the breadline like the below-minimum-wage postal workers or out of work altogether, hey?

Striiiiiiike....

* was going to call it 'Mr Johnson, you're a Johnson' but that would be childish.

Tired of London

I saw this great rant by Anonymous on a post of Betty's and it got me thinking - there are times when I love it, and times when I don't love it very much at all...

It is often Londoners (you know, the detritus from everywhere else in Britain who moved to that shithole so that they could phone their friends back home on a nightly basis and say "It's great, I can get a Venezualan meal at 2 in the morning if I want"?) who refer to anyone from outside that anal sphincter of a city as "inbreds" ... Dr Johnson said that anyone tired of London was tired of life. Wonder if he'd have been so fucking chipper if you'd told him that one day he would have to pay to park outside his own house, to pay to travel into the city, to earn about £1 million-a-year to afford a two-up, two-down former squat, to pay £3 for a shit pint, to live in a place where one, drab, dreary, grey suburb stretches into another drab, dreary, grey suburb without you even noticing and to risk being blown up by terrorists or stabbed to death by young gang members on a daily basis?

Do you love it? If so, why? Or maybe you hate it? Are you from somewhere else? Why did you move here, if you come from somewhere else? Or did you leave it because you'd had enough? What do you miss about it, if anything? Londoners, defend yourselves... or tear it to pieces, the choice is yours. Leave your message after the beep...