Staying In

One of my myriad of faults is that I’m scared of missing out on something. This means I’m usually the last to leave the pub just in case something interesting happens and I rarely turn down invitations just in case something is amazing. This goes double for anything I’m invited to that happens to be free.

In the last week, this policy has meant that I was out five nights in a row.

Thursday night – launch party of a vodka bottle (free)
Friday night – pub for friend’s birthday
Saturday night – cinema and meal
Sunday night – work awards ceremony (free)
Monday night – benefit concert

This might be fine if you are twenty-something, but I’m not and even if my mind won’t accept it, my body is there to remind me.

Yesterday, I was exhausted and craving a night in. Then I was offered a ticket to the James Bond Premiere tonight. I deliberated all day. The devil on one shoulder shouting “It is free. It is glamorous. You wouldn’t want to miss out” whilst the angel on the other said “look the last one was rubbish, there is nothing glamorous about sitting in a cold cinema in posh dress waiting around for hours for the queen and you don’t like Bond films anyway”.

In the end I didn’t accept the offer, which is progress for me. As evening approaches I’m glad I’m going to be spending it with the OH, my sofa and television, but a little bit of me still thinks “what if it is really great?”

My October

Aware that I have been silent again for most of the month, a quick round-up.

I have:

Volunteered at an independent film festival again which consisted of;

• Lots of crowd control (aging session musicians are the worst)
• Seeing 3 features, 12 shorts and 5 documentaries
  Drinking free cocktails made from Tuaca (tastes nice but lethal)
• Being in the same room as celebrities of various degrees including; Faye Dunaway, Mark Benton, Richard Hawley and Corey Fieldman
• Meeting Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys
  

Joined another library because the 200,000 book in my Borough aren't enough

Contemplated becoming a documentary film maker

Learnt how to prepare for and deal with a terrorist attack

Continued to dodge the Lucky Heather Sellers

Lucky Heather

I’m accustomed to weaving my way between Big Issue sellers, Chuggers and Living Statues in my lunch hour, but recently their ranks have been joined by another group looking for money; Lucky Heather Sellers.

Whilst you might be moved to give money to the Big Issue sellers or the fundraisers (encouraging those living statues is inexcusable), I’ve yet to see anyone parting with their money to a Lucky Heather Seller. When I’ve been feeling particularly glum, I have contemplated it, wondering if that is what is wrong with my life, but I’ve never actually succumbed. Ever the rationalist, I realise that if I want to change my life, I have to do something more about it than purchase a dried up weed from a buxom woman who accosts me in the street. Luck does play a part in most successes, but I doubt this product comes with a guarantee.

So I’ve ruled out buying it. But what about selling it? Is this a profitable business? The outlay is presumably pretty small (you could pick plants growing in the wild for free), but it is labour intensive, hanging around the street all day haranguing passers-by. My haranguing skills aren’t up to much anyway. Another career change ruled out.

Election Obsession

Not that I have any say in at all but I've found it fascinating so far. I've also become rather obsessed with The Daily Show and this bit about undecided voters is the funniest thing I've seen on television in ages (admittedly you don't many laughs in the endless crime shows I normally watch).

A wish come true

Today I got my wish and went swimming in the rain.

It wasn’t as great as I’d thought it would be.

In my mind, there would be big fat raindrops, but a blue sky and perhaps even a rainbow. In reality, the rain was persistent but fine, the sky was white with rain yet to fall and the surrounding buildings were drabber than ever. The poolside walk was treacherous and I nearly slipped. A light steam rose from the heat of the water and the palm trees swayed in the breeze.

The rain continued for my whole swim but after the first few lengths, once I was properly wet, I didn’t really notice it that much.

I’ve got a night out tomorrow that I’m really looking forward to – I hope it isn’t as much of an anticlimax as the rain swimming.

Why I still hate BT

Considering the problems I've had with BT in the past, I wonder why we decided to go with them when we decided to switch broadband providers? The main reason was that a comparison website didn't give any provider more than 4 out of 10, and BT came out top, although hardly with flying colours. 4 out of 10 is a failure mark regardless of how liberal your marking system is.

So two weeks after the switchover date between providers which promised minimum disruption to your service, we still have no broadband. What we have had is:

8 phonecalls from me to their call centres, most of which lasted around 45 minutes due to their systems not working
3 pointless call backs from their call centres, all optimistically starting the conversation with "Your broadband is working now, yes?"
Instructions to press the "Restart" button x 1000
2 new BT hubs
2 visits from engineers, one who reported a fault on the line, the other who diagnosed the hub as faulty.
2 days off work to wait in for said engineers
and today a bill for the broadbroad service!!!!!

If a miracle hasn't occurred and the service started up when I return home tonight, I have to call them again tomorrow. I don't think I can face explaining the situation again or pressing that Restart button again.

You Take the Low Road

and I'll take the train, and I'll be in Scotland before thee?

I'm off to Scotland for work today. I'm hoping I might see something beyond my hotel and the theatre foyer.

Then I'm heading south to the North which may be geographically impossible but makes sense to me. I'm there for my oldest friend's wedding, where once more I will a bridemaid.

Today's Burning Issue: Green

If you were green (skin colour, not environmentally friendly) what colour clothes would you wear?

(Inspired by a theatre trip to see "Wicked" last night, where the green central character favoured green clothes, which I didn't think was the best choice. She did later move onto wearing black once she'd become a wicked witch)

Oddly Familiar

I was browsing for boots yesterday (I don't think my black ones will last another winter, but I'm constantly drawn to tan boots which I don't really need another pair of), when I noticed a woman doing something rather strange.

She was trying on a pair of boots and looking the mirror to see what they looks like, but as well as looking at herself from different angles, she was also holding her hair back with her hand so she could see how the boots look with different hairstyles! Now logically, what difference does your hairstyle make to whether a pair of boot suit you?

But while I found her behaviour strange, I realised that this is something I do.

And its even odder when I do it, because I never go out in public with my hair tied back.

Welsh Situationist Punk Band

There's a phrase you don't hear on a daily basis. But we heard it on Friday night when we saw the Manic Street Preachers play. This is how they described themselves.

I've never been a fan of the Manics. I didn't hate them particularly but I didn't love them and they seemed to inspire that weird obsessive fandom that scares me a bit. So what was I doing watching them on Friday night?

It was a concert at the Royal Festival Hall, part of the Heavenly Forever series. The headline act was Doves, who I do like a lot but what led to us buying tickets was the promise of Very Special Guests. We consulted the list of who was already confirmed for other nights and who had been on the Heavenly label. And jumped to the conclusion that it could only be either The Chemical Brothers or Flowered Up.

So we bought tickets, and then it was announced that it was the Manics. They had released six songs on Heavenly Records before selling out (as they admitted themselves) and so would play those six songs, and those six songs only.

They opened with "Motown Junk" which I didn't recognise from the OH's rendition of it but knew as soon as the band started playing it. They also played "We Her Majesty's Prisoners" which apparently they'd wanted to call "Ceremonial Rape Machine". They ended with "You Love Us" which sounded a lot better than I'd remembered it but perhaps it was because I felt nostalgic.

Doves were excellent, and the first support band Cherry Ghost were pretty good too, but I was still a little disappointed that Flowered Up weren't on.

Low Level Decadence

Today I've worn a silk dress for work. It is quite a casual dress for something made from silk (its dull silk, not the shiny stuff), but the luxury decadent feeling I've had all day from wearing it has been unexpectedly wonderful.

I highly recommend it.

Probably just to female readers. For male readers wearing a silk dress to work, even on a Friday would probably be high level decadence and who knows where that may led.

I perhaps look like the less shrill long-lost daughter of Kate Bush. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Excuses Excuses

There hasn’t been much in the way of posts here recently because

a) I’m trying to save some money so am not really doing anything worth writing about at the moment
b) I’ve stopped reading the newspaper on my morning commute because it depresses me so I can’t rant about current affairs
c) We are in the process of switching broadband provider and inevitably it isn’t going smoothly so I’m without connection at home,

Just so that you know...

Overheard Conversations No. 4

In the office today. I can see Colleague 1, but Colleague 2 is round a corner.

Colleague 1 (in an incredulous tone) "You bubble wrap your bananas?"
Colleague 2 (as if everyone does) "Of course I do"

And shifting from my seat, I see that Colleague 2 is indeed carefully wrapping her bananas in bubble wrap.

Things were better then

I can see myself becoming one of those old people who constantly talks about how much better things were in the past. I'll say things like "That wouldn't have happened when I was young" and start conversations with "In my day..." I accept this. but early in the week I experienced an extreme longing for the past.

We went to the Natural History Museum.

I found out that hippos roamed where Trafalgar Square is and there was a Woolly Mammoth from Ilford!

I wish there were still hippos in Trafalgar Square, they could wallow in the fountains. And Mammoths in Ilford could only be an improvement on much of the current population. Things were definitely better then.

My Sanctuary

I've been feeling blue this week and nothing could lift the gloom. But then yesterday, the sun was shining, so I was able to sit in my garden, amongst my tomato plants and read.

I love my garden, it calms and comforts me and I felt much better. Even though this morning there has been rain and thunder, I'm grateful for that one last day of summer.

Time Capsule

Inspired by the forthcoming display of one of Andy Warhol's Time Capsules at the Hayward Gallery, Bryan Appleyard wrote a piece in the Sunday Times this week about what would go in a time capsule to represent 2008.


I'm fascinated by time capsules, perhaps because I contributed to one myself when I was about 10. It was our school's centenary and it was decided that a time capsule would be created, to be opened in another 100 years. I was chosen to do the contribution from my class. For reasons I can't remember I wrote about fashion. This was the Eighties. The piece was accompanied by photographs of me to illustrate the piece. So somewhere there is a time capsule that includes photographs of me in leggings, bat-wing sleeved jumpers, ski-pants and a peach coloured sweatshirt. Not exactly how I'd choose to be remembered.

I discussed the time capsule article with the OH, explaining what was going in their 2008 capsule.

“I love time capsules. We should do one” he said.
“What would you put in it” I asked
“A tin of won ton soup” he replied

A little while ago, he decided to try tinned won ton soup, over enthusiastically ordered multiple cans only to find that he didn’t really like it. He is working his way through it on evenings when we aren’t inclined to cook or there isn’t much else in the cupboard, but still a few cans remain.

He couldn’t think of anything else he’d like to add and for the moment nor can I. So I don’t think we’ll be doing our own time capsule at the moment.

As the Olympics draw to a close

My favourite athletics related song. Belle and Sebastian "Stars of Track and Field".

2 down 1 to go (or 1 down 2 to go)

The first refers to the number of the summer weddings we’ve been to out of the three we are invited to.

The second is my mother’s perspective since her middle daughter out of three was married on Saturday.

The first wedding was two weekends ago. A countryside setting, with drinks in the parents’ garden, a marquee, a speech that name dropped Jacqueline du Pre and in sharp contrast, a DJ-set by my OH that involved a medley of Chas and Dave records.

The second wedding was my sister’s this weekend, which was a very different affair, but none the less still lovely. Despite being in the rain-soaked North, the weather was bright for most of the day. The little bridesmaids were cute, but proved the rule of “never working with animals and children”.

As the OH once said in a Best Man's Speech "Weddings are emotional occasions. Even the cake is in tiers". I came close to tears no fewer than three times during the day. The first was in the morning when we were all in our dresses ready for the photographer. I was banished to the kitchen to avoid setting my sister off, only to find that my other sister was already in there trying not the cry as well.

The second time was during the speeches, where my sister made the unconventional move of doing a speech, mainly with the purpose of thanking our mother for giving her away and how it was a shame our father wasn’t there to do it. The OH held my hand to see me through that, and luckily the Groom gave his hilarious speech next that cheered us up.

The third was when they did their first dance. My sister has a great love of show tunes, so it was “All Ask of You” from The Phantom of the Opera. Not a song I had any great love for, but again the tears started to fall. The Groom’s father was so overcome by this that he had to go outside.

The only bad point of the day was the Groom’s mother’s hair. For some reason known only to herself and the world’s worst hairdresser, her hair had been badly dyed purple for the occasion. It was so bad that on seeing from a distance, the Groom had asked why she was wearing a stupid hat! It really will be a blight on the photographs, but perhaps Photoshop can make it a normal colour.

We have a few weeks off now until the third wedding.

It’s really really grim up North

A right of centre think tank has declared that some Northern cities can not be regenerated and the inhabitants could consider moving to the south. (see here)

When I first heard this story on the news this morning, I laughed. The cities mentioned were Liverpool, Bradford and Sunderland. It seems a bit of a kick in the teeth and rather ironic considering that Liverpool is the European City of Culture this year. I’ve never been to Bradford so couldn’t possible comment. The third city is what made me laugh though.

Sunderland is near enough to being my hometown. I didn’t live there, but I went to school there, I support their football team and (perhaps most importantly) this is where I went out in my teenage years.

The report says: "Sunderland demonstrates just how hard it is to regenerate such a city. It is time to stop pretending there is a bright future for Sunderland and ask ourselves instead what we need to do to offer people in Sunderland better prospects."

To be honest, Sunderland doesn’t have much to recommend it, but hometowns are like families – it is fine for you to mock them yourself, but you don’t want to hear anyone doing it. Newcastle has a certain glitz and even something resembling cosmopolitan about it these days, but not so Sunderland. Actually I’m making an assumption, because on my fleeting visits to the north, I’ve not set foot in Sunderland in years. There isn’t anything there really and while money was poured into making Newcastle what it is today, Sunderland was left to rot (this is a source of local animosity as well as the football rivalry).

So is Sunderland beyond saving? I got out of there 11 years ago and did exactly what the report suggests people there do, move to London, Oxford or Cambridge. The jury is still out on whether that was a good move in my case, but I can’t see it is a viable solution for most people. Beside most people being very happy in the north, I don’t think we’ve got much more room down here.

Quiz Call Recall

When I'm on my own, I have a habit of falling asleep with the television on, and often my dreams merge with what is on the television, and I wake up unsure of what was real and what was imagined.

I had been watching Law & Order on Channel 5, but the next programme is that awful Quiz Call. It seems to be broadcast at a louder volume than other programmes, the presenter shouts enthusiastically in the hope that someone on a better programme might rescue her. People ring in to guess things and win some money. Beyond that I don't quite understand the rules, it often sounds as if the presenter is making them up as she goes along, but then I've never actually watched it with my eyes open for more than a few minutes.

From what I (and probably most of the street) heard of it last night, it was film titles they had to guess. That seems likely enough. But I also thought there was a section where it was book titles, but I think I may have dreamt this bit. One contestant was saying "The Human Stain" by Philip Roth, and the presenter kept asking him to repeat it and saying she didn't know what he meant, that she hadn't heard of it, and he was repeating the title over again and saying "you know by Philip Roth" and then she just cut him off and went to the next contestant.

Did this really happen or did I dream this part? Its just that I read something about this book the other day so perhaps it was in mind, and (no offence if you are a regular on the show) it seems a bit too high brow for a reference on Quiz Call.