28 March 2010

I wrote this poem for Bri bri some time ago:

It's called: I've drawn you up a man. And it goes:


I've drawn you up a man.
He's ethereal enough because
You only want to grasp him sometimes.

He wears spectacles to note
the details of your interests closely.
Has strong arms to grasp you back.

You like his fiery hair because
In some intransigent moment
The reminder of your own fierceness reflects from it.

And on that rare occasion,
when you want to sigh like
The delicate blossom and fold into something strong ...

You want him there.

And with the rest of the time
Hang him! Might just as well
Do it "By myself, if you please..."

We were drinking champagne and eating Percy Pigs in Green Park when I wrote it. I'm off animal products now but at the time it didn't actually strike me as odd that the things were made of pigs (gelatine / pork by-products or mashed up pigs bits or something) and were in the shape of pigs. No trying to hide the source of the product. Awful things, really, now that I think about it. Why would I want that in my body? We don't really think these things through, do we?

I saw an advertisement today whilst I was reading some article on the Guardian website. This ad was by Greenpeace and they were disseminating the fact that Nestle is desecrating Orang-Utan habitat in order to gather palm oil. I happened to click on the link, thinking of how I already had a bit of a gripe with Nestle for being GM supporters in a big way and not on the basis that they wanted to feed Africa which I would accept as an argument if it were posed (but only as an argument). Well, don't click on the link if you find yourself posed with the same option as I was! There's an awful, unnecessarily awful, scene where a man chews on some poor primate's finger that he's pulled out of the Kit Kat wrapper. It's offensive! I know that's the point, but really, Greenpeace, no shame. Always so shocking.

A friend of mine told me that she was walking down the street one day and a Greenpeace clipboard man (you know the one) called after her about signing up as a member. She didn't have the time. He called her some awful name.

Now I remember. It was Penny. He said that it was indicative of her intelligence in some way. I can't recall. But, boy did he choose the wrong woman to insult that day. I wouldn't try one on her any day actually. She's a scary woman. Needless to say, she devastated him with her retort. Ask her to tell you the story. My reporting skills are lacking.

Oh, Greenpeace. You silly children.

I was watching Cadillac Records again last night. I just adore that Little Walter song... what is it... Something like "My babe don't stand no cheating"... argh! How extremely sexy! But the point of this little tangent is that we followed it with another biopic, this one was the Joachim Phoenix, Johnny Cash. (Didn't he love her so terrifically fiercely? Sigh.) Do you find yourself saying "Oh, Johnny... no. What are you thinking..." a lot of the time whilst watching it?

It engenders that same disappointment in me that I have when I watch monkey-finger-Kit-Kat eating. But, I don't think that any of us should be buying Nestle products regardless of how Greenpeace has approached their campaign.

Last night, I also rediscovered my self-saucing Chocolate Pudding recipe. You know the one. Not because I've made it for you, but because someone has, if you haven't made it yourself. It's a classic. Oh, it was so good I had two helpings! I knew I would want two helpings so I skipped dinner in anticipation. Despicable, despicable behaviour.

Hey, hey, now. I've been running everyday since the hypnotist. I'll work it off - eventually. At least it's not Percy Pigs! I know what's going in that pudding; I put it all in there myself! No shitty preservatives, that's for sure. Today, I bought a pre-made pasta sauce. Normally these are jam-packed with preservatives and acidity regulators and other unknowns. Not this one. It's a Jamie Oliver product and it has nothing in it but vegetables. I haven't tried it yet, but knowing him, I'll probably be able to recommend it to you.

Isn't he looking more and more like a potato? I think it's quite natural to resemble root vegetables moreso the older you get.

I'm listening to the Crayon Fields. Chloe recommended that I go and see them when they were over this side of the world last year. It was a little basement bar just next to Islington tube. That night was well good.

I've spent the day, though, listening to The Clash. I must have about four albums so it was a bit like my Rolling Stones marathons that I run periodically. But I didn't just sit here listening and not accomplishing. I was going to go to the Chocolate Festival at Southbank. And I know I mentioned the V&A. But instead, I sat here, at my laptop, wrapped in a blanket, and pumped out about five more scenes of my first screenplay!

Loves it. I know you will too. It's tres funny. But right now, instead of writing that, I'm writing this and I'm trying to fathom how I could produce a poem in which Jamie reminds himself so much of a potato that he can't help but salt himself and eat himself all up until he's just a lone head sitting at his outdoor pizza oven which he can no longer use because he's eaten his hands clean off.

Best to resemble a broccoli, then. Beets are my favourite food in the whole world. I'd be very disappointed if I resembled one though.

26 March 2010

I don't feel particularly wretched about not having blogged all week and I'll tell you why: I've been writing this on the back of a used envelope each day in between very long days at the office and very long sleeps.

It's odd that I can sleep so much. I've been in bed from eight o'clock every single night, can you believe it! I'm leaving something out. It's a very important detail. It was not actually only a mere detail but a very definite turning point in my week, in my month and indeed my year. Perhaps even my life? How terribly dramatic of me. I'll stop building it up and admit to you all what I've avoided admitting to you until now ...

I was hypnotised.

Last Friday morning, following three morning cigarettes for breakfast (N.B. not with breakfast), just as I used to have when I was a smoker, I called up the Kentish Town branch of my chosen hypno-guru group and made an appointment for the following Tuesday. That's right - it had been a couple of days of reliving my pack a day habit and I was desperate.

What an odd experience! The man, a very enthusiastic ex-smoker who was exceedingly confident in his own abilities, spent an hour reminding me why smoking is a ridiculous and pathetic habit and spent the next hour lulling me into a state of extreme relaxation and talking to my subconscious mind. And it really did feel as if that was what he was doing. But, how, I wonder, can you talk to the subconscious mind when subconscious and conscious are just signifiers, just words attaching to a concept? The separation between the two is not a line. The difference might be described but cannot account for the intricacy of the device. Best not to overthink this and just accept that I no longer have a physical, behavioural or emotional addiction to cigarettes. Thank goodness. It might have set me back a fair few pounds but it was entirely worth it. Now, if any of you laments the fact that I will no longer ever pass around the cigarettes like your personal benefactor, please feel free to dance on my grave. Perhaps you ought to look at your own pathetic habit and go suck the life out of someone else.

I've surprised myself. The hypno-guru must have really worked a charm. Just feast on the seething resentment that he's engendered within me.

Now, he said that I would sleep well this week. What he didn't say was that I would sleep for ten hour solid blocks every night and feel utterly exhausted the rest of the time. I've had to cancel two social engagements. Poor old Nana that I am.

I have however managed to do some research on the international football racket this week which was surely the most worthless goal that I had set myself recently. Go on - ask me what off-side means. Nick did, that cheeky bastard, and I managed to blow him out of the water with my response. I'm quite sure that I understand the rule moreso than any of you, having done some serious reading on the most difficult rule to comprehend, no less enforce, so I challenge you to dare try me.

Now that I understand the rules of the game and have a solid background in the affairs of FIFA, I will move on to national football. But before I do, I have some general comments to make about the sport.

Firstly, one of FIFA's sponsors is Coca-Cola. I don't drink products made by this giant because of an article that I read a couple of years ago about the bottling companies in Columbia. The workers there are frightened out of establishing unions through threats of violence and murder. Many of the workers have diasappeared, only to turn up weeks later, lying dead in ditches. It's a dirty business and Coca-Cola has washed their hands of it on account of the fact that their relationship to the bottling companies, and hence the violence, is made up of a series of contractual arrangements which are too far removed from them to warrant any action to be taken on their part.

It smacks of the arguments that were used late last century during the child labour debacle whereby public opinion finally forced some fashion industry giants to clean up their manufacturing contracts and practices. However, I still go into H&M and find myself walking out again empty-handed, not because the clothes were manufactured in Bangladesh but because I know deep down that no one in Bangladesh is getting the money that I put down on the counter. They are getting a pittance.

So, FIFA. Another organisation that has too many false smiles and dirty back stories running a mile long in every direction and I haven't even started on the allegations of bribes and what-not. Football is a dirty sport.

But, I move on anyway to national soccer as I am determined not to leave things half-finished this year as I would generally do and such is my nature. Before I do, I have some feelings that I take with me into the foray of the club world which might taint the exploration. I have a number of friends who follow soccer in England and associate themselves with a certain team. No doubt they could tell you why they've chosen that particular team. I might be able to understand why those of them who reside in this country for the time being support national soccer here however, they do not support their local team, have no affiliation with any club except that they say that they would like them to win and moreover they all came up with the idea that they would support a certain team whilst they were living in a whole other country on the other side of the world.

I might point out here that it smacks of being sheep. But I'll go further, especially on the point that sport is an odd pastime for me. I don't really understand competition. I think that nationalism breeds wars and other nasty bigotries and sport can elicit a national pride (nothing wrong with national pride, pre se, mind) that is too extreme to be reasonable. There seems to me to be a lack of "stepping back" and seeing the pastime for what it is. What is it? I would hope that it's a chance especially for children to be social, learn sportsmanship, skills, comradery. Perhaps also to procure fitness and enjoy and explore the use of their bodies. Pride perhaps? Is that why someone sits down in the antipodes and follows religiously the movements of a team of sportsmen on the other side of the world whilst they take part in none of the above aspects of the game of that team?

So, I'll move on. I'll finish what I started and I will watch a full season of games and then I'll be a soccer expert but do note that I view the entire escapade just as ironically as I view, say, the blog. Pointless, futile, sad.

It's time for more pointlessness. That's right - just when you thought that I couldn't possibly churn out any more: it's poem time!

Auden says:

“Poetry makes nothing happen. It survives in the valley of its saying.”

And down to that valley we shall go:

I enjoy the game the most
When a player uses his caput
To pit the ball against his host
For a smart attack toward the post.

No…

I enjoy the game the best
When that attacker runs the length
To smash a ball into the net
Chasing it with a cartwheel fest.

No…

I enjoy it only once
The drunken fan puts down his jug
Strips his body to the bone
And speeds forth through the game alone.

And the crowd cheers. That’s entertainment.

I'm not pleased with the poetic effort, but I kept getting interrupted. I'll leave it be for now, forget it and never edit it.

Incidentally, I’m reading Auden’s Letters from Iceland at the moment. Daddy bought it for me when he learned that I was to take a trip there. It is just a trick! It’s so funny! I must have laughed aloud a hundred times over as many pages.

Now there was one final point that I would make about this week which was not particularly pertinent but warrants a small mention and that is the Budget. Doesn’t he have fantastic eyebrows? I wonder if his hairdresser gives them a little prune each time he goes to the barber just in the way that my beautician would wax my fingers and toes without my asking her…

The Budget wasn’t particularly interesting. Do you agree? I feel for the political and financial reporters this week. They do so want to make the subject media-savvy but just can’t get a rise out of anyone. Goodness, not even the Tories had much to say. It was like watching some bored school-children hosting a fourth form debate in front of a disinterested class – except for the cider-John down the back of the class who can’t believe that he has to face a 10 percent tax increase on his favourite tipple.

This is what Horace has to say on politics: One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.

I don’t agree, but doesn’t he write well? Speaking of another Horace, I will be attempting to get myself to the V&A for the Horace Walpole collection this weekend. The crafty bastard had collected so many wonderful pieces that it’ll be like having an invitation to his drawing room for tea and sneaking around the house whilst on the way to his lavatory.

21 March 2010

The weekend is coming to its close. My Screenwriter's Bible arrived! I've read all 365 pages of it and I'm exhausted but, on the upside, I have a couple of fantastic ideas. It's the formatting that is the most overwhelming prospect. It's one thing to write the thing and another to make it readable by industry types. Will it be another pipe dream that never comes to fruition because I lack stickability? Perhaps. I'll have to keep you posted on that one.

Otherwise, I've battled with the the space-time continuum whereby my washer-dryer skipped from 28 minutes to 8 minutes in the blink of an eye whilst I, looking on perplexedly from the kitchen table over the rim of my tea cup, mused about whether I'd actually lost 20 minutes of my life or whether the machine was faulty...

The machine was faulty. Along with everything in this damn house (oh, no I love it really - please don't tell it I said that!). Well, the bathroom light refuses to work and so I was forced to purchase a screwdriver, the bath is still filling up around my feet when I have a shower, the soap holder broke clean off giving me a terrible fright and the shower will, every now and again, throw a complete wobbly and slide from scorching to freezing over and over until you are forced to give up, your hair still full of conditioner.

On top of this - yes, there's more! - the new TV box is not working to its capacity and no one will sell me a new power cord for Nick's speakers.

I think that's it. Brilliant, though, that I managed to fashion a coffee table out of a piece of wood, two buckets and a pile of vogue magazines. It's very classy.

Did I actually do anything social? No. I talked predominantly to myself and the man at the electronics store. Mainly to myself whilst I cooked up two (no less) divine stews in my slow-cooker.

I read back over the weekends events and I'm ashamed. Perhaps some an injection of imagination will help this post:

Whilst walking along, on my way to Camden High Street, I came across a man, holding an umbrella and wearing a waistcoat and quite a fine shirt and pair of pants. He had a nice, young face and very long legs. He had very shiny shoes. Perhaps I wouldn't have noticed him, except that he was standing in the middle of the right lane of the road. He looked expectant. There was nothing coming. And so, I wondered for an instant if he was waiting for a car to come and bowl him down... But they would have seen him to clearly as they approached and surely would have stopped before reaching him. If that was his design, it was certainly flawed. Perhaps he was standing there in order to avert traffic from something up ahead. The closer I got, the more clearly I could see that he was averting traffic from nothing that could be seen by the naked eye. It was like an episode from Doctor Who. They're doing some fantastic marketing of the new Doctor Who series. Who watches it? Who knows?

The above was not in the least imaginative. It's all true. Odd, not particularly interesting, but true.

I also walked north of the homestead, later that day, passing the Arsenal supporters who plagued the streets. By locality, I'm an Arsenal supporter - well, not quite yet; just as soon as I have done my aforementioned research and become a dedicated fan of the sport. Another stickability issue? You're guess is as good as mine.

18 March 2010

I made a promise to post some pictures yesterday and now I intend to fulfil that promise. By way of background, today I picked up the new glasses. They are fine. Only fine. I was not impressed at the right lens and I had a small tantrum at Specsavers. There's not much they can do. I've almost come to terms with it.

So, you see here, glasses, wine bottle, wine bottle opener and just because I was looking through the oddities that I've got on my phone, I've also added a wonderful landscape that I took in Tairua whilst out on a morning run earlier this year. Isn't it divine!

As you can see I have two pairs of glasses. One smaller pair for work, one larger pair for looking like a Jarvis Cocker wannabe. I'm not looking particularly good on account of the fact that I've just gotten in from a day at the office and this is the best I can do with what I have to work with. Don't tell me that they are the same as my old glasses. I don't want to know.

As nothing else happened of note today, I can't tell you much more than the fact that I'm streaming Bfm to reminisce about the Old Country. Also that I'm about to pick up my book and spend the rest of the night breaking the new specs in. I'm reading two books at the moment. They are, Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook and Simon Gray's The Last Cigarette. His stream of consciousness is hilarious - thank you Tom for buying it for me. I was sceptical at first, but it has truly won me over.

Tomorrow then...

17 March 2010

Happy St Patrick's Day, to one and all! I prefer Bloom's Day myself. Can't wait for that to come around. Perhaps I'll go to Ireland to celebrate it this year. London is just a trick for that kind of thing. I remember, Chloe and I celebrated it one year at the Dog's Bollix over some performance Ulysses. What brilliant fun!

Well, tonight I am listening to Joy Division, on account of the fact that Jade came around and brought with her the film Control. What a great piece of film. I'm very pleased. As soon as I put the music on after the credits, we imitated the dance that he inspired. A lot of thrusting of fists and what not. We amuse ourselves...

Jade came around tonight for dinner and a bottle of wine. I supplied a disappointing feast of fried rice after crudities consisting of vegetables and hummus. We both love our vegetables so it wasn't that disappointing except that I was trying to imitate the taste of Thailand in the stir-fry with a mix of soy, chilli and lime. More lime and soy was needed. The effort was commendable, and so she forgave me and then ate it. After we finished the last of the G&Ts from our party those weeks ago, we embarked upon the lovely bottle of wine that she brought. Well, how dire the ordeal! So dire, that we broke the bottle opener in not one but two places! You wouldn't believe it. I promise to post pictures of both the broken bottle opener and also the way that the cork filled bottle, which now sits on the mantle to commemorate the occasion. Note well both the previous and current Ciceronian shaped syntax and also the fact that two mere females were able to push a cork into a bottle, please. You won't see the expulsion over the kitchen floor but you can hopefully imagine it.

And a lot of fun was had by all.

Tonight consisted of much discussion of the details and cimenatography of the way in which Ian Curtis' life was portrayed. The film gives much elucidation to the story of Twenty Four Hour Party People and therefore I recommend it.

Other fateful occurrences of Wednesday might be that I once again bumped into my old boss at a planning law seminar. I had to rush off at the end, hence missing the sandwich lunch supplied by the hosting firm for which I was starving, in order to boot it back to King's Cross for my Brazilian. That's right. I get a Brazilian and I get it from a Brazilian woman. Goodness knows how I managed to find a Brazilian who was willing to give me one of those! But I did. And, incidentally, if anyone finds themselves in my neighbourhood and needs one, I can give a good recommendation. She is extremely thorough. Not that anyone is looking at mine in my case. Except me of course and even then it's very seldom.

In true Irish style, Jade and I finished the night in a conversation over whiskey. In a very non-traditional manner however, it is eleven and we've called it a night with tomorrow's working day in mind.

I remember one year, Chloe and I celebrated St Patrick's Day through free tickets to Moby. I dislike Moby. But, whilst at our regular tea spot at the old Mezze bar on the corner of Wakefield Street and Mayoral Drive, which has since sadly (almost mortifyingly so) been turned into an apartment block, we were accosted by a loud American man who had been annoying us all night and who wanted to acquire one of our cigarettes. We were reluctant. He was persistent. In the end, he offered us four free tickets to the aforementioned concert (you wouldn't believe it, he was the drummer)which was taking place the next night at the Town Hall and we gave in, again reluctantly - as I say, we aren't big fans. It turns out that these tickets were worth quite a lot. Much more than a cigarette. On St Patrick's Day we turned up at the door with two guests - hers being John, mine being Jade and we gained entry on the door list. The drummer had kept his word. And so we grinned and bore the concert, after which I was determined to get my cigarette back. There is a back entrance to the Town Hall; it's opposite the library - the security isn't tight enough for the most wily and determined of us.

The result: I retrieved my stolen cigarette, organised a number of free vodkas for our team and took an audience with Moby and what were seemingly his whores (and I don't use the word too lightly) in some seedy back room where the "artists" are held. Afterwards, we headed for the nearest Irish pub, which from memory was the most classy of establishments - Murphy's - and after that, I couldn't tell you what ensued because I can't remember past the green vodka shots...

I hope that you've all had a smashing St Paddy's Day and all I can say as a result is "Chloe! Lovely to hear from you today. I only hope that Potato is reading this. Come back to London! And as per my email, you'll complete the trifecta, triple-pronged attack! And also, we miss you terribly. I throw Potato face around all the time, but it's just not the same as when it's on your lovely visage."

Yours,

The Author and your Poochi.

As an after thought, following a bit of research, a trifecta is actually a type of horse bet. It has an interesting derivation if you cared to look it up.

15 March 2010

It's only Tuesday and it already has the taste of a sad of week and one that is fraught in the extreme.

It was just about time that I took these ridiculous broken glasses to the shop and so I did, yesterday. As I unwrapped the band-aid and cellotape, the man at Specsavers already had an ominous look on his face. The news that followed was devastating. They were broken beyond all repair. My mother bought me these spectacles when I was seventeen. I was in seventh form and boy did I look chic with my black rims that were just coming into fashion. I was certain that I needed them because I read so much. Luckily , the optometrist agreed. These glasses have been through so much. I lost them at a Rhythm and Vines festival one year along with a whole bag of things and managed to recover them at the Lost and Found booth the next morning. I've treated them so terribly and still they've come back for more... until now. I guess they just couldn't take another stomping.

Specsavers refused to use my current prescription in new frames so I made an appointment for this morning to get my eyes checked and then headed back to the office where I threw a small paddy and let a few tears well up in my eyes and Sandra, good woman that she is, told me to get over it - and so I calmed down.

I rushed home that evening to get this job application in. I want this job so badly! I only found out about it on Friday when I bumped into my previous manager at my last job whilst on the course and he advised me that he had come across it somehow. I'd been working on the application all weekend whenever I had a moment to spare. The deadline was midnight last night! Well, you just wouldn't believe that the wheel of fortune can spin quite as low as it did and I seemed to be riding it right down to its nadir. Once home, I found the ruddy broadband wasn't working. If you happen to be a BT customer, you'll understand how hard it is to get through to the right department let alone an actual person. The diagnosis was that the phone line was faulty and it would take 48 hours to fix. I'm sure I was talking to a customer service desk in India.

You cannot imagine the blood-curdling, harpy-like scream that ensued once I had hung up the phone. I surprised myself! I had to rush down to the nearest internet cafe and smash through the application there.

It's in. It's fine. I'm having a little chuckle to myself now about how wretched the ordeal was. We can come out the other side stronger, surely. I'm quite sure I'm not being melodramatic.

Now, the optometrist checked my eye health this morning. He said that the front of my eye is very healthy and the back of my eye is "quite" healthy. There's a definite difference between the two terms "very" and "quite" and it troubles me. But, I have chosen two sets of frames, as the second pair was free, and hopefully I'll look just as chic in them as I did when I was seventeen, if a bit less sprightly and rather more wizened with age. The collection date is Thursday. Until then, the cellotape remains.

Happily for you the BT engineer called today. Unhappily for me, it meant that I had to leave work at midday to come home and let him in or else he threatened to "redistribute the job"! So I rushed home and remained here for three hours waiting for him to fix the problem which was apparently a result of the incompetence of the first engineer. Fine. Done. Whatever. I went back to work at three and have been there for most of the evening...

I'm listening to the Rolling Stones. It's that charming song from Wes Anderson's aforementioned The Darjeeling Limited. I just love that film so much and I do unashamedly go on about the fact.

Tomorrow morning there is another course on Planning Law in store for me. This time in Holborn. Perhaps I'll pop down to Leather Lane and replace the lovely gloves that I lost in the fray at the pub. The fray being the having of to many things and the lack of hands to hold them all.

The flat is too quiet tonight. Nick is lying on a beach in Thailand. Tom is somewhere in Venezuela, the country of his birth, and seems to be a little vexed at the disappointment of it all. Well, soon he'll surely head to Cuba and then onto the rest of Central America. I think it beats being here in this little flat, where I've forgotten to turn the heating on, and goosebumps are forming on my cheeks of all places... What I'm trying to say is that I think his life is comparatively going just swell.

Carol Ann Duffy is the current Poet Laureate. Chloe and I went to see a performance of The World's Wife years and years ago in Auckland. It was extremely well done. When a discussion about the theory of evolution arises, I always remember the poem about Mrs Darwin:

7 April 1852
Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him—
Something about that Chimpanzee over there reminds me of you.

But this is not why my thoughts turn to our Poet Laureate. It is because she wrote Words, Wide Night:

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you

and this is what it is like or what it is like in words.

I'm listening to MGMT now. I know everyone calls them one-hit-wonders, but they remind me a little of the Flaming Lips and I really do like the Flaming Lips and so I think that MGMT deserve more. Besides, they're fun.

I think I hear the kettle calling...

13 March 2010

I'll start by telling you that I am listening to The Kinks. Quite upbeat for this time on a Saturday when vous are generally easing yourself into your evening...

I'm off to Andy's house tonight. Remember the little vignette of a week or so ago about walking down Seven Sisters High Street being accosted? Well, I was staying at Andy's house when this happened. I get to relive the charm of West Green Road once again. This time, I'll be carrying Andy's amp which I've been sitting on ever since Stephen left London. And that's a very long time indeed. Last time I saw Andy, I managed to return his guitar that I almost mistakenly sold on Gumtree... A guitar is a guitar is a guitar and I happened to have two at the time. It's a confusing business for a simple little girl even if she does seemingly have a head for business.

I think the morale of the story might be that you shouldn't lend things to Stephen. Not big items anyway.

Last night, when Nick returned from the gym, and I'd finished telling my parent's what had passed that week with my new sim card that call New Zealand for a mere 4p a minute (such a steal!), we took a stroll down to Martin's house, who lives but a few minutes down the road. This is his new apartment. It's swell. I made some congratulatory noises. Of course, our little ex-local has charm but no style. Martin's apartment has style. More importantly, his apartment has Rock Star or Rock Band or some such game and it turns out that after a couple of wines I'm an expert on the bass when it's in easy mode. Later, we found out that after a couple of wines, none of us are experts on the microphones. When all inhibitions are caste aside - it's actually quite a horror to observe us. Imagine, instead of sitting around a table shouting at each other, we're shouting at the screen, discordantly, piercingly when it comes to the higher notes. The Beatles will never forgive what we've done to their tunes. I can also assure you that Blondie will not be pleased either.

We discussed calling it a night a number of times between about midnight and three in the morning but we must have been having an amazing time because it wasn't until about four that I got to bed. That decision Nick and Martin would live to regret on account of the fact that they were catching an early flight to Thailand this morning. I won't recount the morning's hilarity when I woke at half past seven for my run and found that Nick wasn't quite out the door and on his way to Heathrow.

I myself contemplated for about half an hour whether I truly wanted to go for the run that I had planned and made the worthy decision that instead of running I would throw back a cup of tea and head into the office. Well, of course, there is nothing interesting to report about that. I powered through for about six hours at which point I felt so sorry for myself that I went home for a nap. I'm sure that the only thing that got me through was the four breakfasts I had over the course of the morning each accompanied with a strong black instant coffee. I'll pay for this tomorrow and ply myself with fruit and vegetables. Poor old body.

On the bus home from work I hit the same landmarks which I consider in much the same way each day. There's a restaurant on Caledonian Road which is missing a couple of letters on its sign. At first glance, therefore, it seems to read "Rest & Rant". I think that would be a nice name for a restaurant. Come in, passerby, stop and rest and while you're at it, have a little rant, it seems to say.
"What's on your mind sir?"
"Well, kind proprietor," he says as he takes the coffee that the man behind the counter has offered him and eyes up the cakes in their displays, "well, I just find that every time I [insert rant here]." Huff, puff.
"How do you feel now?"
"Oh, much better, thank you. Thank goodness for the Rest and Rant!"
And he moves on feeling a burden lifted.

I also hit Ponder Street. Now, I've already told you about Ponder Street but you wouldn't know it because I lost my first blog post. I like Ponder Street. It gets me pondering...

I always take biscuits to Andy's house. Generally the 89p variety. So I'm off to get biscuits and enjoy a night of loafing around in the studio.

Bye for now.

12 March 2010

You wouldn't believe it! Nick just said that he'd read my blog today and that he thought that there were "parts", although he couldn't specify what those "parts" were, when I was trying to sound insightful but I wasn't insightful. I know I'm not insightful, fool! Missing the point, really, isn't he? I should think that he is. And, anyway, criticism breaks my heart - please address it to the comments area and not to my face if you don't want to see me cry. I'm very delicate. But there's really no reason to read my logorrhea if you're going to criticise it. You can simply stop. I can't change and I really don't want to. I think that might be the point of these blog things - I'm in charge. Perhaps that's what brought me to the idea of starting my life in blog. The control.

So, I'm back from my Friday at work/conference-affair. How arduous. But, overall, helpful. It's nice when we come together and confirm the fact that we are all approaching our work in the same manner. Drones.

This weekend, I'm going back into work on account of overload. It's fine. It's so close as to be extremely convenient and it means that on Monday, I'll feel so much better about the next week ahead.

Tonight I have no plans. I'm at that wretched point where, I've been doing so much all afternoon, that now I've stopped I feel a bit stunned. Generally I get this feeling on a Saturday morning. The possibilities of the weekend stretch out before you and you're so hungry to give it the smashing that it deserves, you just end up giving it feeble prods in too many directions until it's over and you've accomplished nothing that will satisfy you upon reflection.

Perhaps it's just me.

Much nicer to have a cup of tea and sit down for a while to calm oneself, surely. And so, this is what I will do. I'll be back tomorrow to let you know how the night progresses. Wish me luck. I might just need it.

If I was Stephen Fry, I'd sign of by calling you all "my fabulous tweeties" or something. Do you follow him? He's a riot.

11 March 2010 the second

So, the blog is live. It's Facebooked. It was a brilliant release party. Thank you to all who came. What a party. It was just like that party in Breakfast at Tiffany's and I even slipped out quietly when the police came which is why I can write this now and tell you all about it. I completely forgive Mickey Rooney for calling the police...

Now, I got so excited about the release that I neglected to tell you about the reasons for Fishguard. We went on my whim. I was going through an Under Milkwood phase. I haven’t gotten over my Dylan Thomas affair altogether. I bought the film made by Richard Burton. Such self-indulgent tripe! If you ever watch it, make sure you close your eyes, because, in my humble opinion, it has nothing going for it but his dulcet tones. But, it was set in exactly that little portside town that we stayed.

We also happened upon Aberystwyth. It boasts the largest camera obscura in the world and that took our fancy for about five minutes. Other than that, I remember eating some sandwiches on the shore.

I could go on, but I think that an early night might be in order. I have to head down to London Bridge tomorrow to catch a lecture on planning law.

I’ll leave you with a poem?

There was a young lass from Nantucket,
She sighed and watched the boys play some cricket,
The game was a bore,
She was as drunk as a whore,
So she passed out right next to the wicket.

Needless to say, the batsmen were not pleased.

There’ll be more nonsense for your wasted time posted again soon.

11 March 2010

It must be time for the blog to go live. I have to admit that I’m nervous. It’s been a hell of a day. I managed a run, a wine, a fag…

On a brighter note, my boss wrote the most wonderful reference for me that when I turned up at the office this morning and read it, it brought on a tear or two, hidden behind the cellotaped glasses (now there’s a participle). I really must get them fixed.

My bond cheque turned up in the post. Celebration! I’ll put it to good use by sending it straight home to my student loan in the hope that I won’t need it, having secured some sort of employment with that fabulous reference prior to running out of funds altogether.

I had a charming lunch with Michelle. She’s up at King’s Cross every now and again doing her course. We went to Marks and Spencers and indulged in some good quality, highly priced food huddled on a seat in St Pancras station, what everyone with their suitcases trailing all going somewhere and discussing the fact that we weren’t. It’s so unseasonably cold that my red wine is almost blue! This time last year, we were planning our trip to Fishguard in Wales. It was delightful. We’re sure we saw some seals on the coastal walk, which started just down the road from our little cottage. It was the “Monthly Tutors Cottage”. I turned twenty-five. Just frightening. Walking into the past really – just like I’m doing now, with you.

Let’s get back to the present. I’ll see you all in five minutes. I’ll take two to post my release party invite on Facebook and then you’ll have three to get here. Destination: my room, London. See you there.

10 March 2010

Yesterday ended roughly. I was on the floor with my head in my hands after packing away first wine, then brandy, around the kitchen table with Martin and Nick. We three spent a good three hours shouting our points of view at each other with extreme enthusiasm. Martin wobbled home, I landed on the floor, then, when my head stopped spinning, I threw myself into bed, fully clothed, still made-up with sans clean teeth. My normal nightly routine consists of vigorously washing my face and then plying it with night cream before massaging wads of foot cream into my feet and cuticle cream to my nails. It vexes me when I don’t do these things. They give my life such a semblance of control. I won’t take you through my morning routine, but just imagine something long, involved and very particular.

So fine. I’ve accepted that last night took the course that it did. What I haven’t excepted is that, in the morning, failing to get out of bed for my run, I got out of bed with little time to spare and landed directly upon my glasses which I had strewn onto the floor the night before. Flattened completely! After admonishing myself aloud as a “stupid little bitch”, I managed to save one arm by twisting it back into place but twisted the other arm clean off.

At work, I managed to tape it back on – just imagine. My boss popped in to tell me something, noticed my geek tape and was kind enough not to laugh too much and even said that I looked “retro-chic”. Charming. Louise, on the other hand, said that I looked like … well … I can’t say; it’s too shameful and not particularly politically correct. I’ll take them to the shop tomorrow. I couldn’t bring myself to today, what with working a half-day and rushing home to the BT engineer. You might notice that today is release party day and, even though I’m connected, the blog is still not live. It’s just another thing that I can’t bring myself to do. I feel absolutely wretched, regardless of having an afternoon nap. I’ve been meaning to catch up on my sleep for so long! Then there are the builders upstairs who won’t let me sleep and my own silly vices and the illnesses that they engender. Enough. I will recoil for a spell. I’ll smash the release tomorrow and you’ll all be blown away in the wake of my luminous and spell-binding healthy glow…

Where did that come from? I’m mad from sleeplessness. It’s a quarter past eight. I’m going to bed. I’m sure I have so much more to tell you but it simply can’t matter now. You’re disappointed in me. I can tell.

9 March 2010

Nick doesn’t know it but this is my second cup of tea of the evening and it’s full of whiskey. I feel good.

Tonight, it’s tea for dinner because I’m so full of Marks and Spencers Apple and Cinnamon Hot Cross Buns. Those people are geniuses. I find that 12 seconds in the microwave brings them to the perfect doughy loveliness. I picked some up for Sandra and me to indulge in with our afternoon tea. Actually, whilst she popped out of the office for a lunchtime walk around the block, I inhaled two in a row leaving only one for her as our secretary ran away with another.

It’s evening. I’m sitting on the floor in the lounge, up against the heater like a cat again, next to William Shatner’s autobiography. Nick picked it up at the same time that I picked up the Cyndi and Liza. It’s called Up Til Now, which I think is a rather disappointing title. Nick says it’s hard to read, which is also mildly disappointing, but, yes, it was purchased in the spirit of ridiculous. The man at the second hand charity shop told us that, not only was Shatner a wicked homophobic, he was also a racist bastard. Again, I’m disappointed. I really enjoyed Boston Legal. Did you? I actually do remember preferring James Spader. I think he did an excellent job of The Secretary.

On the other side of me, I have the Argos catalogue. It’s fabulous. I’ve pulled out my post-its and we’ve marked the fooz ball table that we want amongst other things. And it’s not just a fooz ball table. It’s also a card table, a backgammon table, a pool table, a table-bowling table and an air-hockey table… The decision is made.

I’ve just checked the catalogue for the correct spelling of “fooz ball”. Argos refers to them as “football” tables and although I accept that it makes sense, it means that you’ll have to continue cringing at my spelling.

Today could have been more interesting.

How about that poem that I promised you?

Here goes. Entitled: In which I remember the past and just want to cry at how beautiful it was…

We had the ships to our back, cruisers on the harbour

And drunks in pubs leaning over railings

And pissing, spitting, fighting… I pushed you

A little, delicately, and laughed, looked away,

Closing my eyes in mirth so that they seemed

Upside-down, crescent, fingernail moons,

At something charming you’d said. And you said

You’d like me to stay, tonight, this close still…

So, enclosed in eaves, watching, we wait for our turn

To woo a crowd with our dance and make

A couple’a’bucks, we move closer together

And languish amongst my petticoat and

Your flared dirty trousers, encrusted with muck.

You had a guitar, pluck, pluckety-pluck

Then you strummed and I hummed a little and swayed.

John threw a cigarette butt into the alcove and brought the world in

With a siren and a splash and the tingle of cold hard cash,

Tinkling to the ground at our feet - for it was the High Street -

And Katie squealed intolerably over and over but

With such chaotic delight! She was tight.

And quietly, ever so much so, you leaned in

For one more look. I’m lost. Take me back there.

Oh, would that life would – that cruel old thing!

I could possibly get more disgustingly sentimental. Why don’t you try to out-do me? I bet you’ll simply pour it out, you desperate romantics.

Enough. I’m heading for the kettle.

8 March 2010 the second

So the flat being sufficiently warmed, we’ve started to get down to the business of living. This involves dealing to the backwash that bubbles up in the shower around our feet each morning. Mine is the first shower. Don’t start confusing yourself that this makes it somehow better. It’s still floating up from God-only-knows-where and lapping up against my skin. We’ve tried the coat hanger, the Draino and next it will be baking soda and vinegar thanks to the infinite wisdom of YahooAsk. Nick is off to get the vinegar now on the way back from the gym. After that, we’ve been told that boiling water might do the trick and failing that it’s a matter of filling the bath and then letting it empty; something about the pressure. What more could there be? A plumber, naturally, but we have such lovely landlords that we mustn’t bother them until it’s absolutely necessary. Or so I’ve decided.

The other chore is the toilet cistern. It takes an inordinately long time to fill and it’s just frightful. I don’t know about you but I tend to use it twice in one sitting – I’m a fan of roughage and sometimes that’s what it takes. Well, I’m sure that cisterns cannot be that complicated.

You might notice that it’s Monday night and I had said that I would take a seat in the audience of a lecture. Well, let’s imagine that I didn’t pike at the last minute and pretend that I worked late, as planned, and walked down to Russell Square to join the other avids. When I walk down to Russell Square I feel a sense of connectedness with the world. This being the setting for much of Woolf’s most brilliant Night and Day. I recommend it. Some is set further West in those suburbs. But here, the suffragette, Mary, has her offices where she works for free typing up pamphlets for one of the women’s causes and takes walks in the Fields and sometimes happens upon Ralph whom she loves. They’re not suited. You can see that he loves the heroine. I forget her name. What’s in a name?

When you walk down to Lamb’s Conduit, there is a small open space allotment-type area with goats and the like. Completely out of place. Thought-provoking…

I’m listening to the Dirty Projectors. They are playing at Coachella, which I’ll be attending in just over a month’s time. What a thrill!

Back at the lecture, we’ve found the door to the lecture theatre on account of the fact that it was clearly sign-posted. Academics are such careful creatures. There are a number of us suits. It’s so cold, we’re all sitting on our coats and it reminds me of an Odgen Nash poem about how women always tend to sit on their coats. If you’re not familiar with his work, I can recommend him to you. He makes me laugh. I promise you’ll be laughing too. Daddy sent me a LP of him reading his oeuvre. Come round and listen to it. Jon did. He brought wine and cheese. We also listened to The Wasteland and then watched my favourite Wes Anderson, The Darjeeling Limited. Such unapologetic pseuds! Needless to say, it was a riot. You needn’t bring wine and cheese. I used to have a “coming to visit? Bring a bottle of whiskey” policy. I dropped that policy during my temperance phase, lucky for you.

A long-limbed woman with dark rings under her eyes and shy public-speaking mannerisms, such as speaking too fast and throwing fingers up and down uncomfortably, is introducing the speaker and for the next hour I’m numbed by the fluorescent lights, projected slides and dulcet tones. The topic? Perhaps that there must be a court for grave environmental decisions and perhaps there is even a case for grave environmental crimes. Each country signs up to the creed, so why shouldn’t it be enforceable in practice?

Now, my views are that we’re all going to hell in a handcart. I consider myself lucky that people forgive me for joining in with the mode. That mode seeming to be that people live in houses on top of each other, produce a certain amount of carbon, buy food covered in packaging and go to their office each day (I shudder at the fact that I spend so long in an office – if you’d have told me that this was my future ten years ago… well…). On weekends they let their hair down by going to the pub, filling themselves alcohol, wake up the next day and keep house, pop off to lunch with friends, perhaps a movie, a museum, a walk through the markets and then back to the pub or home for a quiet night. Perhaps we put on our best clothes and meet with others to dance or something… personally, I wish I could spend my whole life dancing… We all jump onto our Facebook pages each day and see whether others are doing the same. On Twitter, we can follow our interests and when we tire, it’s to bed, alone or with another - in my case alone.

Is this your life? Best to join in. It’s the kind of life that your parents can be proud of. You’re a professional. You’ve got a job and a house and you’re not full of tattoos and drugs and piercings. Forget that tattoo hidden down there and that thing in my nose. This is why they brought you into the world. You’re their little experiments and you’re independent enough and at the same time a part of the whole. What more could be expected of you. Except perhaps that you all pull together to make sure that we don’t set fire to the sky and desecrate every single natural resource that we can find whilst turning a blind eye to poverty and suffering.

Isn’t it only human to focus on the positive, forget the negative? Wouldn’t it drive you mad otherwise? What would mother say if we all went mad from caring too much about one thing? Forget that it’s one of the most important things on earth and that’s a reality, not an idea or a philosophy. Set aside the fact that this one thing will be the end of us.

Wouldn’t it be nice to live without all these concrete and highway, footpath and building complications? I mean, how much do we need? Personally, I get along just fine without meat. That means I need nothing but a patch on which to grow some food. Silly really.

But then where would I get my record player to listen to my Ogden Nash? And where would I get my Ogden Nash. The technology gets me connected and the technology is fuelled by the battery made from that thing that they mine in China to the detriment of their natural resources. I think that I’m confused to want to be connected in this way and it’s sad that I long for it. Or do I? Remember, this is the “ironic blog” - emphasis on foolish pastimes.

And now I’ve come full circle, the lecture is finished and I’m walking back to the bus that will take me home.

I’m listening to Leonard Cohen singing about Suzanne. I met a man on my travels through Thailand called Jez. I say travels – it took me twenty-four hours to get from London to Koh Phanang and there I stayed put for one month swinging on a hammock reading War and Peace. When Dave arrived, he got me moving and shaking down to the beach nightlife, which we later came to rule, mainly on account of the fact that it was the low season and we’re terribly self-involved. Jez was a young fire-dancer. I used to be a fire-dancer perhaps ten years ago when the late-nineties hippy movement came to town. Pan, the Thai boy who was having a love affair with me although I took no part in it, built me some quarterstaves and I joined in the game as if I had walked back into the past. And the past was nice. I’ve written a poem about it, which I will post if you remind me. Generally it was nice because Jez turned his staff around his lovely shoulders and his lean muscles ripples under the flames and the moon.

Goodness, there was one night, the moon was so full and so resplendent and there was a ring around it, just like Coleridge’s poem and there could be no despair! The ring was so wide it took up the whole sky and the stars disappeared. Jez had downloaded the star charts onto his iphone so that we could explore them but to no avail because the ring had completely blocked them out.

I see sometimes that his Facebook profile photo is the mast that the proprietors of the bar put up on the beach, wrapped in fairy lights from an extremely foreshortened angle. That was the nicest holiday. I wish that I was there right now with him, listening to his odd theory about how, when I was having a midnight swim in my knickers, it looked from the shore as if I was walking on the water, and it just happened that Leonard started to sing about Jesus, walking on the water, and Jez balked at the coincidence and sought to celebrate it, finding that mere words just couldn’t serve his purpose. I like to think he was a romantic. I like to think fondly back, but sometimes, when I recall how sublime it all was, I can’t think about it any more because it hurts.

How dramatic. I sound like a phony. I “real phony”, I hope.

So sometimes, life is very nice. Tonight, I’m sitting with my back up against the heater. I have a very indulgent second glass of wine at my side and I’m mildly content but mainly ravenous for the weekend to come around again so I can smash it to pieces.

Nick has suggested that we find some cheap fun on Thursday night. Perhaps the weekend will start early. Until then, I’m sure that I’ll have some more mundanities for you. In the meantime, another poem:

Wishful light,

Careful night,

Winking time,

Laughing mine,

Catch my breath,

Shibboleth,

Post-modern,

Down-trodden –

Tine E Sign

Tres nonsensical. Tres Da-da. Don’t you agree?

8 March 2010

I’m just going to take a small break from this frightful drafting exercise in order to reflect on the weekend that has just been. Ah, what a wonderful weekend it was in hindsight. I especially note the weather. I love discussing the weather. I love how banal it all is. I remember that I used to make a weather-related announcement when arriving at the office at my last job in order to elicit a discussion on the subject amongst my colleagues. Generally such discussion would continue for a good five minutes. As an experiment, I would also note changes in the weather over the course of the day and similar discussions would ensue. It was a quiet office. It was a polite office. It was just too charming for words.

The weather on the weekend was lovely. There was a terrible chill in the air and an incredibly blue sky. It felt as if tiny little ice particles hung in the air around you, stinging at your extremities. Everything had an almost grey hue to it. Delightful! And more delightful to be walking down Camden Road to do a little shopping in preparation for our little party.

Just past the station, a man who I had never seen before leaned out of his door and called my name. Well, it was Nick’s hairdresser, beckoning me in, shaking my hand and behaving generally the nicest hairdresser known to man (aside from my own hairdresser of course, who is nice in different ways but unfortunately not attracted to women, sigh).

Other highlights of the shopping trip include throwing my toys out of the pram at the electronic store and upsetting one of the sales assistants (she’ll be fine), spending little more than twenty pounds on household items in the second-hand stores and picking up a Liza Minnelli LP and a Cyndi Lauper LP! I’m going to the cabaret! But, I didn’t cry at my party. Perhaps I’ll cry at the next one.

The Sangria was a success. Who would have though that brandy and gin would ever make such a good team? Yes, I’m back off the wagon. Incidentally, you might have seen me puffing away at a fag or two this weekend. It’s been six months since I finished the book – I’ll have to read it again. At least it’s not twenty a day, right?

Right.

In fact, the Sangria was such a success that it really had people rather legless. Is that a success? I guess it is. What’s your measurement.

We are silly old monkeys, plying ourselves with stimulants and saying that it’s a good thing.

At one o’clock, we went to Proud Galleries where Sandro bought me a wine which, when I woke up the next morning was to be found in great splotches all over my body. Such was the insouciance of my dancing.

Once Proud shut down for the night, we had a shisha next door and at four o’clock I was back at home, falling over, knocking my head (the lump is incredible) and trying to clean up. What had gotten into me? Something that’s always there, I presume. Cleanliness.

Sunday was fine! Until I mixed paracetamol with aspirin. Apparently there is nothing wrong with this practice until I do it and then all hell breaks loose. I’m sure it was a near death experience. It reminded me of taking too many mushrooms in Thailand when I had to lock myself in our bungalow and try not to go insane for four hours. Not pleasant.

Well, this was odd! I’d lost all feeling in my body, my left arms started to tingle and writhe and then I lost my breath. Nick had to walk me to Boots for a pharmacist’s opinion. The pharmacist had a laugh in his eyes. So, I didn’t die.

Sometimes people have bad weeks. It comes like a wave. And remember, this week had started with the super-bug. I was heaving up my porridge for hours, whilst trying to move house. Each time the moving man took a box down to the truck, I’d rush into the bathroom and try to expel some more. By Monday it wasn’t coming up, but going down. I didn’t find this out until I had taken my tumble on the pavement and realised that I needed to get home fast before something sinister happened downstairs. I ran like the wind – but not like the aforementioned gazelle. It was more like an angry bear. There was a lot of panicking flailing.

Today is Monday. No doubt you already know. Today, I’ve started a new regime. It consists of running seven days a week at half past six in the morning and eating only raw fruit an vegetables. Sandra had this lovely meaty stewy goodness for lunch which smelt just divine whilst I sat here eating my way through a packet of snow peas. Harrowing.

Tonight, I have the lecture re the International Environment Court. Something that I’m sure won’t proffer any new information than that I learnt in my international law course but it makes me feel like I’m part of something big and then, I reflect further and feel like an ant. A very small one…

Perhaps, on the contrary, if I stay at home tonight and close all the blinds so that I can’t see the great boundless city of estates that I live in and forget that beyond those clouds is a vast and infinite universe I could feel exceedingly large instead.

Thoughts?

I’m at the office. I don’t listen to music at the office but I still have Echo and the Bunnymen in my head from this morning’s bus ride if that’s helpful.

And then I smile wistfully. Of course it’s not helpful. Such is the beauty of the blog.

Things that you might look forward to:

– The appointment with the BT engineer on Wednesday. This is when the blog goes live because we don’t have internet without a phone line. I’m throwing a release party on Wednesday night and I hope to see you there.

– The completion of the screen play which I am co-writing with Nick just as soon as I’ve picked up one of those How To Write guides. Having sat through the whole of the film War last night we decided that they had landed on a winning formula – obviously the same formula that all action movies adhere to – but it was the little things that made the difference. There was a Footloose inspired scene where, although Jason Stratham didn’t dance through an abandoned warehouse, he did go to the firing range and shoot his fury out of his pistol whilst flames and other angry images bounced up superimposed on his visage. It reminds one of that scene in The Simpsons “Lisa needs braces”, “dental plan”. Need I say more. This will be the third ironic hobby of 2010. Feel free to suggest any further ones that might spring to mind.

– The last day at work. This will be followed by a period of intense blogging about some darling activities. Why, there’s the van Doesburg and an assortment of other exhibitions and plenty more grand designs in store. It will, I hope also be a period of serious prose. I need to get this silly book written. It’s boring me. I’m also going to get that oil-painting underway. I’ll post pictures of the results – good, bad and despicably ugly will all be yours to purview.

It’s been swell. The law calls.

6 March 2010

Well, it’s Saturday morning. I’m fighting fit except for a yellowish hue to the eye, a terrible festering sore on my ankle (new stilettos) and a sensation of extreme dehydration, which is ostensible in my visage in the way that my lips have turn a bright-cherry red – an odd phenomenon that has recently occurred more often as I get older and wake up after a night on the wines. It’s all easily fixed – I’ve been up for hours attempting to fix it with water and tea – second cup of the morning – I love you tea. Needless to say, I was a fright when I hauled myself out for a run this morning. You’ll be pleased to know that I managed to stay upright the whole way. The week has been littered with occasions when I’ve fallen (hilariously slapstick in hindsight, as it is always the same spot at which I tumble). It’s Islington’s fault for the uneven pavement. Or perhaps it’s Camden’s territory on that side of the road. It’s probably also the manifestation of bad technique – I don’t lift my feet very far from the pavement. I’m sure I should be springing like a gazelle.

My shredded hands are starting to clear up. As long as I stay upright for at least the next week, they’ll have healed completely. I’m sure that one of them is full of pieces of pavement and I’m on track for some more festering …

T.S. Elliott was very good at complaining about his ailments. His letters were full of exactly how he was feeling all of the time. He was afflicted in the extreme. I’m not. I’m just having a bad week and I’ve already moaned enough to my circle of friends so now I moan to you. T.S. and I are like two peas, of course.

And… I’m… done.

Now, last night was just charming. The bar is what I could describe as punk/rock fusion. It houses all types and, by the looks of it, serves tres appetizing food. The wine is cheap and there are pool tables aplenty. This is now dubbed “our local”. But what I really want to tell you is that there were Fooz ball tables! Is that how you spell it? I’d better find out, because I’ll need to google where exactly I can acquire one of these tables – that’s how excited about the new game in my life. And it really came at the most perfect time. I’d just made this decision to become one with soccer – yes, not football, soccer. I’ve had this idea that I will learn everything that there is to know about the topic, become an expert and crush all in the wake of my vast knowledge. The boys will hate me and be in awe – so sublime is the emotion that I will inspire in them.

Jade commented on the fact that I seem to be taking up a number of ironic hobbies. 2010: the year of irony. Between the blog and the soccer, she’s probably hit the nail on the head. But I do point out that I have a number of other serious hobbies to tackle this year… I’ve got to buy the Singer to run up all those unmade dresses that sit in that pile over there. And then there’s the oil painting. Easel and paints have been top of my list for a number of months. I’ve digressed.

The table. Well, these little men on the table, kicking the ball around at my will, were dressed up as rock icons. We had Kiss, Bowie, Freddie and the like. And so I said to Nick, we should have a themed table ourselves. After a moment’s mull, I suggested the great philosophers (what a loser) and began the list – Freud, Socrates, Simone de Beauvior! Ah, she’d be brilliant. She’d lay them all to waste, that fiery minx.

Now I’m thinking of Marx. Now Derrida. Brilliant. And then Nick, with his keen sense of bathos, announced that he would just paint them all up as the Liverpool team.

Chuckle.

I have my Saturday morning play list on and it’s currently playing Arcade Fire. Yes, that’s right, the list is called “Saturday morning”. Control freaks need utilitarian labels on everything. Art cannot escape the strictures of my order.

Bless me, I have to finish the “Saturday morning laundry” and do the “Saturday-morning-wiping-of-the-household-surfaces” and it’s already ten o’clock! Until anon again then…

5 March 2010

I have such an insatiable hankering for some wine and a cigarette. Those of you who know me will know that I gave up both these habits around six months ago. Therefore, I’ve tried to stifle my hankering with some tea instead. Those of you who know me will know I have a fondness for tea but that I also gave up that habit about six months ago too. Remember how those teacups used to litter the floor of my car? I don’t have a car any more, and so nowhere to keep my cups.

Well, giving up all three seems to be just too much. Besides, I’m only human. These are human vices. I understand their pointlessness and I will reflect on it but for goodness’ sake, I’m not superwoman…

I’m listening to Edith Piaf. Her lovely little vices took her very quickly to liver failure…

But, I needn’t reflect all the time. If I’m going to be downhearted whilst listening to Edith, I might as well slit my wrist in a warm bath right now! Hers is a lovely, uplifting despair or such a terrible jollity. I’m going to enjoy it.

Being sensible is devastating sometimes. I’ll just sit here quietly and wait for the time to pass; until it’s time for bed or until someone interrupts with an invite to the pub. I’ve already decided that to take up such an invite would not be sensible – there’s the toothache to consider, after all, and what of tomorrow’s party? Too sensible for words… how depressing…

Edith, pick up the pace please. I need you to inspire me.

I’ve just had my invite to the pub. Oh, sorry, sorry state of affairs. Until anon then...

4 March 2010

Today I took my terrible tooth to the NHS dentist. Dr Nabil saw to it. He was just brilliant. I mean, what a charming, considerate professional. She’s a lucky woman who has him. I hope that she knows it. Sigh.

My tooth has been off and on for a number of weeks now. It was only inevitable that in the move, laden with the super-bug, part-consumed by the impending job loss, I would eventually succumb to an all-out infection.

Dr Nabil took three different types of x-ray with implements that can only have been created by someone who doesn’t understand the concept of ergonomics. Whilst I sat there trying desperately not to choke, trying also not to move, he looked at my tooth from every angle and declared my pain a mystery. It reminded me of that scene in Happy Go Lucky, quite a lovely piece of artful filmmaking – soft and slow, where she goes to the chiropractor, and he takes her in his big arms and contorts skinny little back as if she were a pipe-cleaner. Not that Dr Nabil was that big, nor I quite that skinny, but let’s apply it as a metaphor.

Of course, I already knew, or at least hoped, that there was nothing going on in the roots and that there was no hole in this particular tooth. I just wanted some antibiotics but could see that a GP would pack me off to a dentist before prescribing them. That’s right – I’m crafty and proud enough of it to tell you about it.

Thank you NHS. For a nominal sum of sixteen pounds and another seven for the drugs, I’m on a course to convalescence. Not that I feel it right now. Back at the office, I had to grapple with some silly urgencies, brain swimming in the ether of the paracetemol and antibiotic combination. Sandra sent me home. She’s very authoritative. Now I’m here and she is still at the office, advising some committee on some things. I cast a thought in her direction and send my sympathy southward to King’s Cross on the universal odes. Today, she wanted to discuss meditation. I used to be a fire-dancing hippie with dreads. I still have the nose-stud and tattoo to prove it. Needless to say, having moved on from that phase, I found that I could only partake in such a discussion with an ironic smile on my face, still bashing away at the emails on my screen.

I’m listening to the New York Dolls. Specifically, Looking for a Kiss. Perhaps I’ll do that… perhaps I’ll let you know what I’m listening to every now and again.

I’ll sign off now. I haven’t forgotten that I have a super-bug story to tell you. I’m just waiting for the gumption. No poems tonight, you greedy little monkeys…