Youth culture

I am a bit terrified. I have found out that my colleagues consider me to be a Youth Champion, and as a result I have to go to an all day brainstorm next week.

Well, I volunteered for the brainstorm (why?) but I didn't realise it made me a Y.C.

And it is in a pub. And there is a dress code, which is "fun and funky".

And I have to take an 'item of youth culture' with me.

This could be awful.

joella

Would the reverse be surprising?

Back in the mists of time I got a job as a reporter on a rather esoteric publication about the electronic information industry. I had to learn what that was (mostly telnet, private data networks and CD-ROM, from what I remember), but I also had to learn how to write.

At the time I was used to writing essays. Introduce the subject, look at both sides, come to a conclusion. On top of that, every sentence was a mile long, just to be sure every nuance was covered.

But Peter changed all that. He was a teacher turned journalist who set me writing things and then set about tearing them apart.

"A number of? A number of? What fucking number?" was one of his sayings, and one now I use myself at every opportunity. He also taught me that the first sentence is the most important, that the headline is even more important than that, and that many, if not most adjectives are pointless ("awardwinning", "leading" etc).

But my favourite Peterism was the one he used to tell if something is newsworthy, or indeed worth saying at all. You simply ask yourself: "Would the reverse be surprising?" If the answer is yes, then what you are reading is dross written by marketing people.

As an example, we recently did our first internet shop, and decided to use Sainsburys To You. The process was quite tedious but pretty well organised -- good interface, simple to use etc. So far so good.

But then the email arrived, which began: "You can sit back and relax while your order is carefully selected by our trained shoppers and delivered straight to your door."

Now ask yourself, would the reverse be surprising? "You can get stressed while a bunch of stuff is selected at random by idiots, thrown headlong into a box and dropped off at your house, or maybe someone else's, via Birmingham."

Who thinks this sort of stuff adds value to anything, that's what I want to know.

joella

How to find your tent at a festival

Navigate by landmarks, and then triangulate.

In our case, it was head down the main drag, turn left at the peace flags, then look for the white gazebo which lined up the fish kite with the toilets.

And that worked fine till the gazebo blew away.

Luckily a) none of the tents themselves did, b) we all found each other again eventually, and c) nobody had rain in their bed. But it wasn't the easiest of weekends to chill out.

Having said that, we all managed to have a fairly splendid time. Takes more than a bit of rain etc. Especially when you have waterproof trousers, some of your favourite people, hot spicy cider, bands like the Angel Brothers to stumble across, and the ever-fabulous Madras Cafe (thalis, samosas, mango lassis and all funds to Action Village India).

I wish I'd stayed out partying on Friday night though -- I was saving it for Saturday but then it was just too damn wet. There's a lesson there.

joella

Girls and boys

What we should have been doing this evening: packing for Womad, taking into account forecast inclement weather and any number of unexpected things that might happen (okay, that bit's just me).

Instead, one of us chose which CDs we were going to listen to on the journey (CD changer in boot, boot will be chocka, if going to listen to anything at all need to plan ahead and ooh the new Jane's Addiction album is just out), and the other of us baked a birthday cake for E, who is coming in from Paris on the train (not just any birthday cake, but Sylvia Plath's tomato soup cake to mark E's gift of The Bell Jar as birthday present twelve years ago).

No prizes for spotting male and female behaviour, eh?

joella

Headstand

I have just been to yoga. I did a headstand.

I did a headstand on Thursday morning, but I had some help and I thought it was a fluke. So tonight is the first time I have done a headstand on my very own.

I am totally Zen.

joella

Upcoming festival fun

Off to WOMAD on Thursday -- the weather forecast isn't great but it might work out by then that rain at WOMAD is Not Allowed. It hasn't rained the last four years, it's got no right to start raining now.

Still, I'd be lost without something to worry about.

Though there's more -- as token goers-down-early we seem to be taking a vast number of tents. This is of course lovely as it means we can camp with all our friends, but it does create stress of the many-tent-putting-up variety, as I never relax till they're all done.

At last count, there will be nine of us, in eight tents. No one can accuse me of only hanging out with couples. And ain't that a good thing.

Can't wait, campañeros y campañeras!

joella

Enough of the home improvements Mr Irving Coleridge...

One of the wonderful things about life is the way wildly disparate bits of it can suddenly join up together in ways you could never have dreamed of.

Last Sunday I was indulging my gardening side with two of my very favourite planty friends. Consulting the National Gardens Scheme guide, we decided to visit the National Collection of day lilies, which lives somewhere near Bicester.

It was a bit of a disappointment, frankly, as even flowers as lovely as day lilies need a decent setting, and this lot were basically in a small field. So we left pretty fast, though I did manage to pick up some Crocosmias to replace the ones that S dug up and threw away on her only gardening venture. And these ones are brighter and more beautiful.

Crocosmia delight aside, it felt like a big voyage in the baking heat for not much reward, so we decided to drop in to an open garden in Kidlington on the way home.

And what a fine decision it turned out to be: we entered through an unpreposessing garage to find ourselves in quite the most incredible garden imaginable. It was a shrine to ferns.

We had tea and cake in the conservatory and then wandered down gravel paths through what was basically a shady woodland in the heart of suburbia. The shade came from old trees and pergolas covered in ivy and clematis, and there were ferns everywhere, some tiny and delicate and some huge and imposing. It was incredible.

There were other plants as well, hostas and fuchsias and other lovely things, and every corner seemed to have a surprise in it.

We sighed collectively and made to leave back through the garage, stopping to look at the little ferns for sale.

And there in litre pots were lovely looking specimens of Polystichum Setiferum Plumosum "Bevis" -- a previously rare fern which has recently become more widely available.

And I thought to myself ... the Bevis Frond!

The Bevis Frond is Nick Saloman, described (quite accurately I think) on a fan site as a neo-psychedelic renaissance man.

His songs are a combination of swirling psychedelic guitars and sharp, bittersweet lyrics that can make grown women cry really quite easily. His earlier albums were a large part of the soundtrack to my early 20s, as my Significant Ex was one of his biggest fans, but he has cropped up in several places since, and there are still times when only a Bevis Frond track will do.

From his songs I have found out what fan vaulting is, and sphagnum, and a triptych, and the phrase "gentle, sensitive, loving man" (used wryly) has passed into my lexicon. Breaking down on the Westway also had a whole new resonance.

But in all these years I never knew what a Bevis Frond was. And now I do. And one day, when I have excavated the shady corner of my garden, I shall grow some.

joella

The politics of dirt

'Who cleans your house?' asked the Guardian last Saturday. A woman who lives there, a man who lives there, or a cleaner?

I had a friend once whose boyfriend's idea of cleaning the toilet was pissing through the Harpic block. Resorting to a Harpic block in the first place must have been a sign of desperation -- surely it's like having urinal cakes in your house? The same man would cut and butter bread and then leave the whole shebang -- bread, butter, buttery knife -- out on the side for his girlfriend to clear up after him. Which she did, presumably when she'd finished cleaning the toilet.

My own mother (who lives with a man who wouldn't know a bottle of bleach from a hole in the ground) bought me a dishwasher when I first moved in with my Significant Ex. If you're going to live with a man, dear, she said, you're going to need one of these. And she was pretty much right: while it is true that he did take his turn cleaning the bathroom, it is also true that the time elapsed between turns did come to stretch the boundaries of acceptable hygiene, and it is perhaps truest of all that as soon as I moved out he hired a cleaner.

To be fair, he did want to hire a cleaner *before* I moved out: I am no domestic goddess, and the place was pretty dirty. But I wasn't having any of it.

And I'm still not.

This seems to be an increasingly unfashionable line to take -- my higher income friends are happily paying people to come into their homes to clean the dirt off their floors, take their hair out of the plughole and get all the 'difficult stains' off the cooker.

On the surface of it, this would seem to be a sensible way to resolve domestic strife of both the cohabiting and housesharing variety, while at the same time clearing precious non-working hours for activities more pleasurable than wiping piss off the toilet bowl (and environs, if there are men in the house).

But it's not for me. I clean up my own shit, and I expect those who live with me to do the same. It's not that I enjoy it, because mostly I don't -- occasionally it is satisfying, when very premenstrual it is cathartic, but on the whole it is something I do when necessary in order not to feel like a slut.

And I find the thought of paying someone else to do it quite fundamentally wrong.

It's taken me ages to write this post, which is a usually an indication that it's an issue I am not clear about -- sometimes I only find clarity by doing the writing itself. But that's not the case here -- I am very clear about the issue, it's just hard to express why.

Barbara Ehrenreich's article covered some of it: the low pay, bad conditions (lack of paid holiday, sick pay etc) and zero prospects of the average cleaner, the discomfort of the employer : employee relationship in one's own home in an area that is essentially unskilled. Paying someone to do something you could easily do yourself is different from paying someone to carry out a specialised piece of maintenance or repair. It's saying 'my time is too valuable to waste it doing this'.

But there's something else as well, and I think I finally got it when I read the letters about the article in this week's Guardian. Someone wrote that she defended her insistence that the family clean the house together rather than hiring a cleaner with the argument that cleaning up after yourself is part of what it means to be fully human. I buy that.

joella

CatholicShopper.com

A divine website if ever there was one.

And Ricardo has just emailed to let me know that the Inspirational Jesus Tennis Statue is currently half price! News worth sharing.

joella

On my bike / Beetle in my salad

Miles and I went out for dinner last night. He managed to wear his Turkish flag T-shirt into the Euphrates, a restaurant offering Greek and Kurdish specialities, but they were polite enough not to chuck us out. And the food was great.

Over dinner we discussed our expanding girths, consequences of a mutual love of cooking (and of course eating) combined with the side effects of giving up smoking (more eating) and general laziness.

And a plan was hatched, a sort of yet to be named sub-brand of Year of Living Healthily, consisting of three months of doing more exercise and better meal planning. Three months is a good length of time -- it's long enough to see the difference of any initiative while being short enough to feel achievable on the legs bums tums classes / no crisps for tea type front.

And so it was that I cycled to work this morning, without even angling for a lift. And went swimming at lunchtime. And then had a salad.

Or some of a salad. I bought my salad from the Co-op instead of M&S, on the grounds that the former is an organisation far more worthy of support. But when I was about two thirds of the way through I looked down to see a dead beetle on my plate. And that was it for me and that bag of mixed leaves I'm afraid.

I do slightly crave a cheese sandwich, which has none of these complications. But overall I am fairly optimistic.

joella

Too. Damn. Hot. But there's cherries.

Yes, yes, I know we all complain whatever the weather, but it really is too hot.

Countries where it is this hot a lot have sensible ways of coping with it, like big stone buildings or air conditioning. My office has a fan, and frankly it's not enough, especially as there is a bank of servers and a photocopier just outside the door blasting out heat which the fan then pushes in my direction.

We are all barefoot and wearing our floatiest clothes (and that's just the boys). There's nothing else we can do. What if it gets hotter? Our health and safety guidelines have a minimum temperature below which we cannot be compelled to work, but no maximum temperature above which we cannot be compelled to work. We will die in here.

The only consolation is Rainier cherries from the greengrocer's across the road. They are delicate and temperamental, and only in season for about a month -- and it's now. They are pale yellow with pink splatters and as big as conkers. They taste like heaven.

The only thing with cherries is the stones. I want to fill my whole mouth with them, to experience ultimate cherriness, but it's treacherous on the teeth.

So I have just invested in a cherry stoner (I knew they existed, it was just a matter of getting it together to find one) -- I just hope it arrives before the season finishes.

joella

Gay bishop

I have never been a member of the Church of England and can't see that I ever will be, but I do have some regard for its status as part of the Establishment, and I do think it has often been a force for good. The Church can get into places that most of civil society can't, rightly or wrongly, and it can (and does) speak out for moderation, and tolerance in situations where the voices of the powerless are seldom heard.

But of course it is also hidebound in many ways, as organised religions tend to be... and so I rejoiced unto the heavens when it was announced that Dr Jeffrey John, who is openly gay if avowedly celibate, was to be the next Bishop of Reading. How refreshing for an ancient institution to be able to focus on someone's ability to do the job rather than who they fuck or don't fuck (or indeed what sex they are -- though I suspect a woman bishop is a way off yet).

But of course he ended up stepping down, as his ability to do the job was fundamentally compromised by an outpouring of vitriolic homophobia across middle England and beyond, with Nigeria threatening to sever ties with the C of E if the appointment went ahead.

They should have let them, frankly. And everyone else should just deal with it, or convert to Catholicism or something. There's plenty of space for bigots in the world, but if the country's church can't be a broad one, it can't claim to represent the people.

joella

Can't seem to face up to the facts...

Actually that line just came into my head because Miles is sitting behind me playing Psychokiller on the piano.

But there do seem to be a hell of a lot of babies around all of a sudden, and I am finding it quite unsettling.

Not because I want one, because I am still pretty sure that I don't, but because not wanting one is starting to feel even more like a freakish position to hold than it used to.

There is a body clock rush beginning: people are meeting on internet dating services and conceiving within weeks (actually that's only one person, but she neatly illustrates the sharp end of the trend). There's placenta everywhere.

I am trying to work out what it is that is getting to me. I think it's what I assume (perhaps wrongly) to be the volte face of thirtysomething pregnancy... women who have never previously seemed to give a stuff about children suddenly going doe-eyed at the latest bunch of jpegs on the latest 'baby's first website'. (Please, wash the blood off first. Please.)

But it may be that all these women have been nurturing dreams of nurturing for many years, just not talking about it. Or I haven't been listening. In which case, I might have a bit missing. Which is fine: it's a big world, there's plenty to do to make it better, and I have my inner child to look after.

Or it may indeed be that you wake up one morning and feel that your life will count for naught if you don't, as a friend of mine once put it, fulfil your biological imperative. In which case I should start to panic right about now. Especially as I carefully chose a boyfriend with a vasectomy.

joella

I love the smell of jasmine in the evening

I had a bout of the post-Glastonbury blues last week I think. Maybe, after months of relative TLC, my body was overwhelmed by the daily injections of black coffee, hot cider and fried bread. Maybe I caught a bug from not washing my hands enough. Maybe my soul was daunted at the thought of returning to urban office life. Whatever. I wasn't feeling good.

So on Friday night I went for an Ayurvedic massage at Eau de Vie. I had actually booked a deep tissue massage, but the deep tissue woman was off sick (maybe she had the post-Glastonbury blues as well). So instead a tiny woman with bottles of oil nearly as big as she was took me upstairs and did strange things to me.

And it was fantastic. I want to do it all the time. I was a bit sceptical at the beginning as what I wanted was a good pounding and instead it was all very gentle. I was also a bit worried that I was becoming aroused (not supposed to happen, surely?) but then realised she had just dragged me up the bed by my neck and my nipples had got squashed in on themselves.

And then I stopped thinking about anything at all, and it's not often I can do that. It was quite difficult to get up afterwards and Cowley Road seemed even more insane than usual, but I managed to negotiate buying some tofu and rice from the Rice Box then floated home for an early night. I felt amazing.

So I am thinking to myself, in the style of a good search engine, we need more results like this. This is about refreshing the parts that lager cannot reach.

I found a little one last night. We had a houseful for dinner and I wasn't at my most sociable, so I retreated for a bath after a terrifying episode of Spooks. Baths are definitely good, especially ours, which is huge, but the bathroom is an oppressive reminder of some of the drawbacks of living with others: we can't agree what to do with it, so it retains the smelly brown carpet it's had since we moved in.

So I still wasn't quite right. But then I wrapped myself in my vast pink bath towel, a glorious feeling in itself, and went and sat in the garden for half an hour. There are so few evenings in Britain when it's warm enough to sit outside at 11 at night in a bath towel and smell the jasmine as your hair dries. Taking advantage of one of them was a very good move.

joella

Canicular

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day is always worth a look. And today it is fabulous: canicular, an adjective meaning 'of or relating to the dog days of summer'.

As in: My canicular cravings are few, but they are irresistible: a cold drink, a soft hammock, and a good read.

Here's why:
The Latin word "canicula," meaning "small dog," is the diminutive form of "canis," the word that ultimately gives us the English word "canine." "Canicula" was also the name for Sirius, the star that represents the hound of the hunter Orion in the constellation named for that Roman mythological figure. Because the first visible rising of Sirius occurs during the summer, the hot sultry days that occur from early July to early September came to be called "dies caniculares," or as we know them in English, "the dog days."

I love words.

joella

New look for oatcakes!

Sometimes, I like to visit the websites of the products I buy. This is because I like websites, bad ones as well as good ones, and it is always interesting to see who takes theirs seriously and who makes the mistake of leaving theirs in the hands of marketing people.

Some of them are excellent, like the site of J Parker Dutch Bulbs. Minimum fuss, maximum usability, even if the plants they deliver never seem to grow up to look like the photos.

Some are hugely disappointing. Our new Vaude tent is a masterful piece of design and engineering, and wasn't cheap, but the website offers nothing but some crappy links, bad gifs and a link to order a print catalogue.

And others are hilarious. I have a bit of a thing for Paterson's Oatcakes at the moment. The website has a great news section, including Bronte Biscuit Range Re-Launched and Arran White Pots Redesigned. But the best is definitely New Look for Oatcakes:

"The oatcake product has always been popular in Scotland. We have now re-designed our range to emphasise the versatility of the products. To do so, the pack now helps to explain the oatcake’s suitability with various toppings and dips as well as the majority of eating occasions. The pack design also helps to introduce the product to a younger audience without neglecting our duty to the mixture of ages currently purchasing Paterson’s oatcakes."

The majority of eating occasions! Fantastic stuff.

joella

Year of Living Healthily Update

Year of Living Healthily Update

So we are six months through the year, how are we doing?

Cigarettes smoked: none

Recreational pharmaceuticals: none

Alcohol drunk Jan 1-April 19: none

Alcohol drunk April 20-June 30: some

Hangovers: four (day after Ali's last night, day after Duane's party, day after Richard & Mopsa's party, Glastonbury Monday)

Really bad shocking awful want to die have to apologise to people hangovers: none

Hangovers on a schoolnight: none

Colonic irrigations: four

Amount of wheat, dairy and caffeine in current diet: hardly any

Spots: none

Yoga classes per week (average): one

Swimming sessions per week (average): half

Riding bike to work days per week (average): hardly any

And how do I feel? I have better periods, definitely. I have better skin. It is easier to get up in the morning, while still not exactly being easy. It is easier to go to bed. It is easier to go to sleep.

I have less non-specific anxiety. I have less non-specific aggression. I get more done and spend less time angry with myself for not getting things done.

I read more books. I spend more time thinking about stuff. I do better work.

When I do drink I decide in advance how much I am going to drink and don't try and make this decision after several pints. I have also realised why people drink halves, and have started doing that.

I have better guts. I don't ache. I poo nearly every day.

I ring my parents more often. I eat breakfast. I have salad for lunch. I laugh in the face of pizza.

I think some of these things will still happen even when I am not Living Healthily. Even though I am not totally sober, I am very proud of myself. And if I had kept up the totally sober part I would have missed out on some very good times.

But I still don't do enough exercise. I still hate cycling to work and I still pay an exorbitant amount for a gym membership that I barely use.

In short, I am still a lazy arse. In a world of Type As who tend towards action, I am a Type B who tends towards bed.

What's new is that I will remember to put on my moisturiser when I get there.

joella