tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39619222012-01-03T01:43:11.581ZSocial justice, old school feminism, greenery and pleasantness, existential fury, hot and cold running water, noisy guitars, pickled vegetables, appropriate use of the Oxford comma, and beer.Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.comBlogger11711100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-29847602123568069512011-12-30T22:37:00.002Z2012-01-03T01:43:11.698Z

When I first moved to Oxford, I registered at the Kennington Health Centre, which was fine. There was the one deeply embarrassing experience when I went for a smear test and I still had my diaphragm in, and then had to count on my fingers how many hours it was since I'd had sex to see if it was safe to take it out, but that was hardly their fault. But when my Significant Ex and I moved to Cowley

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-17855284833829786512011-11-29T18:24:00.006Z2011-12-05T22:13:37.332Z

It was September 1994, and my Significant Ex and I had been back from travelling for over a year. Since the previous November I had been working in Andover, living with my parents, who had accidentally moved there a few years earlier, and spending a chunk of every Friday night and a chunk of every Sunday afternoon driving myself to Oxford and back by 2cv to see him (and to not be in Andover). It

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-19583788979861109822011-10-30T10:19:00.008Z2011-10-30T13:11:50.261Z

Photo: bletchley park decoding goodness by insert_user_name, on Flickr. Shared under Creative Commons: click photo for more info. Taking a little break from writing long posts about leaving Oxford to write a short one about Bletchley Park. If you haven't seen Codebreakers: Bletchley Park's Lost Heroes then (at time of writing) you still have six days to watch it, and I can't recommend it highly

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-14368296648106963612011-10-12T20:56:00.005+01:002011-10-12T23:20:22.807+01:00

The first time I came to this fine city, it was by train. I was in the Lower Sixth at school, and had been identified, together with a bunch of others, as Potential Oxbridge Material. A minibus was commandeered to take us on a trip to Oxford to check it out.Only I missed it. I can’t remember why, some fairly significant departure time mix up, I presume. I do remember my dad driving me to the

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-55657329389112033812011-09-30T18:03:00.003+01:002011-10-03T18:16:06.408+01:00

What went well?1. We sold the house. Ultimately, mission accomplished.2. We sold the house to People A Bit Like Us. This is advisable, because (after the sale is agreed, at any rate) it means you can talk to them directly rather than do everything via estate agents, thus avoiding things becoming unnecessarily formal and oppositional. I'm not sure how you engineer this, except by leaving your art

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-37919989466320188932011-08-29T16:03:00.011+01:002011-09-07T12:23:09.887+01:00

We had the Finnfans from Swansea staying last weekend, for the last time, in all likelihood. 'I want to have a proper look at your garden,' said K one morning, after we'd eaten kedgeree and listened to Hounds of Love.I went out with her. I was ostensibly checking on the laundry but I realised after a minute or two that I hadn't thought much about leaving it behind, this place that we made

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-9268854705326178022011-08-21T11:52:00.005+01:002011-08-21T12:45:57.273+01:00

We may have sold our house. I say 'may' because we have accepted a low offer from our potential buyers, and they are doing a full structural survey. Who knows what further wranglings may result, even if I believe (as I do) that the faults of the house are as visible as its glories. But we're far enough down the track to have instructed a solicitor. She was recommended by a friend who is also a

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-35219361034377097222011-08-03T22:46:00.006+01:002011-08-04T00:18:25.074+01:00

The river Nile. A felucca trip because that’s what you do in Aswan, or wherever we were, when you’re about 22. A captive market for the captain, also about 22. We met some people in a restaurant who also needed people to travel with, we tried to bargain with him. Two litres of water each a day, he said. Three, I said. It was blazingly hot, Nubia in August. An insane time of year to spend four

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-40654372644923377462011-07-25T15:30:00.001+01:002011-07-25T15:37:37.814+01:00

Well, you couldn't call it a slow news month. Amy Winehouse has crashed and burnt. The press is not free. Europe is broken. There's a famine in parts of Somalia, where Islamist extremists are restricting aid agencies' access while people starve. Not all extremists are Islamists, of course, there are white ones too: in America they are about to piss on all the chips in the west, and in Norway they

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-769597035693568802011-06-13T19:07:00.006+01:002011-06-13T19:32:29.230+01:00

For years I’ve had my life set up so I don’t have to travel that much – I’ve never had to commute to work (apart from a year of Botley Road > Milton Park via 2cv, which doesn’t really count) and I live within walking / cycling / local bussing distance of pretty much everything I ever want to do. When people tell me how lucky I am, I point out that it was a deliberate choice. I have only ever

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-70789145124095369552011-05-30T00:41:00.005+01:002011-05-30T01:11:47.944+01:00

While I was writing my post about feeling a bit lost, I was also listening to back to back Gil Scott-Heron, having only just heard about the loss of someone who could fill such a big space. I only saw him live once, but it was one of the best gigs of my life. Merits a post all of its own, and maybe it will get one soon, as part of the upcoming 'leaving town' series... When I ran out of obvious

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-81274019950065712732011-05-29T00:08:00.010+01:002011-05-30T00:38:31.641+01:00

I've been in a right two-and-eight for the last month or so. When you examine the situation, maybe it's not that surprising. Our house is up for sale in the most fragile housing market in decades, we don't know how long it will take to sell, how much we will get for it or where we will end up living once it's sold. We're trying to keep it 'half an hour from viewable', which doesn't come naturally

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-20895190048541744332011-04-24T14:25:00.006+01:002011-04-24T14:39:11.281+01:00

I'm completely fascinated by the Nigella burkini story, even as I feel a bit guilty about this fascination. On the one hand, what a woman wears to the beach should be her own business. On the other hand, though, clearly it isn't, especially if you have a) at least partly made your career out of your cleavage, and b) you then go and do something extraordinarily non-cleavage compliant.Part of me

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-7558273210995600632011-03-15T18:37:00.004Z2011-03-15T18:56:55.167Z

So we made our big decision, and, while we were paddling in the sea off Morecambe on an unseasonably sunny Sunday last October, our new Lancaster Cohousing comrades voted us in. There was a strong chance that they would – applications are only turned down if you can’t raise your house deposit (which is 30%, so pretty hefty) or if the group feel that you don’t subscribe to the values or vision of

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-8403280468233479872011-02-04T23:18:00.002Z2011-02-04T23:21:17.959Z

Thank you for all the lovely comments on the first installment. This is the second, and covers the years between leaving home for the first time and moving to Oxford. Not all public libraries, but all significant.Trinity College Library. During my first week at Cambridge, I sat in here and read the Communist Manifesto. If Radiohead had released Creep in 1988, I am sure the words "what the hell am

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-75528883883038405912011-01-31T20:01:00.007Z2011-02-01T23:35:17.939Z

There aren't many things that would get me to the barricades, truth be told. But I make an exception for swimming pools, libraries and woodland. We all need places to roam. So.Lytham Library. I think I may have spent half my childhood in here. The children's library used to be upstairs, but the issuing desk was downstairs, so you had the place to yourself. I used to read four books at a time,

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-43168005820051443052010-12-27T17:17:00.003Z2010-12-27T19:32:25.173Z

That's done for another year. I confess to spending the whole of yesterday in bed, eating toast, keeping warm, reading Any Human Heart, and rejoicing when the sun broke through the clouds to shine on Christopher, truly a bear for all seasons. I'm getting better at it, but I don't think I'll ever be a natural. I hate enforced jollity, I hate having carcasses in the kitchen, and I hate waste.

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-27146189233391481982010-12-12T21:25:00.014Z2010-12-13T23:56:06.502Z

I go quiet when I'm making big decisions. And this is one of the biggest decisions I've ever made. Me and M have joined Lancaster Cohousing*. We will be moving to a new eco-house in an intentional community on the banks of the River Lune, just outside Lancaster, sometime in 2012.FAQQ. WTF?A. There was a confluence. Last winter was SO COLD. We could get warm, but it wasn't the natural state of

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-67229183878960355422010-11-03T18:35:00.003Z2010-11-03T20:49:47.465Z

Not Joan Holloway, although she does have some of the best curves on television. And some of the best lines: "I can't wait until next year when all of you are in Vietnam. You will be pining for the day when someone was trying to make your life easier. When you're over there, and you're in the jungle and they're shooting at you, remember you're not dying for me, because I never liked you."

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-25365263696603462692010-10-20T13:36:00.001+01:002010-10-20T13:36:51.928+01:00

It's the end of the post war dream today, so I thought I'd focus on something else. Here are some things I really like. 1. A house featuring four kinds of fruit steeping in four kinds of booze, oh yes.  2. Wet walnuts3. The beginning of hat and fingerless gloves season4. Two trips to the seaside (one north, one south) in two weeks5. Neal's Yard's new Soil Association Certified eyeshadows. Here

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-28038247902058200202010-10-06T21:41:00.005+01:002010-10-06T22:23:24.716+01:00

I can't really fault Lucy Mangan's thoughts on autumn, or for that matter the other seasons, though I take issue with the headline (which of course may not be hers).For allotmenteers, autumn is a benign season, in a windy, squelchy sort of way. I love the milky skies and the temperate dampness, and the way you can be down to a T-shirt one minute, and snuggled into fleece the next*. The soil is

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-10433495437756839322010-09-27T00:06:00.004+01:002010-09-27T19:13:06.075+01:00

I've been away. It's a long story, though mostly available on Facebook and Twitter for those as is interested.But it's good to be home. We shared a large bottle of Italian white wine and ate pasta with allotment fennel and tomato sauce. Then we watched Juno. I loved it. I hope there are really are teenage girls like that these days. There weren't when I was one. We did our best, but we didn't

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-79693876059289870592010-09-01T17:18:00.002+01:002010-11-03T20:53:28.888Z

It's all about work at the moment. Which makes it hard to write about, given the Blogging Policy. But I have noticed an interesting form of power-play recently. You get a meeting invite. Before you accept it, you check your calendar, only to find that you have not one, but two meetings in that slot already. So you send a reschedule request. Here, you have a choice. You can choose a time that you

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-11036539065203486442010-08-16T11:38:00.002+01:002010-08-17T00:04:49.349+01:00

I have a deep sense of foreboding about this government. I didn't vote for them, fairly obviously, but I don't believe that the people who did vote for them are getting what they voted for, especially the ones who put the tick in the orange box. Instead they are getting to witness the taking of a battering ram to the public sector - up to and including the NHS and the BBC. And like Humpty Dumpty,

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-81789043116817479382010-08-09T00:05:00.007+01:002010-08-09T00:14:47.217+01:00

I get an email which invites me to a local event with "family activities". It ends "volunteers are needed to help – making cakes or preserves in advance, or helping on the day".Um... no. The last local event I was invited to happened directly outside my house. It was fun in many ways, but blighted by (let's call him) W, a man who had drunk so much red wine that his mouth resembled a black cave of

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-49005001038741695092010-07-31T00:12:00.003+01:002010-07-31T09:26:17.964+01:00

Today, the youngest of M's children (whom I still occasionally refer to as his chilblains) turned 28, which is the age that I was when I started going out with him. It's one of those days, essentially insignificant -- just another day, after all -- that give pause for thought, like the day I realised I was the same age that my mother was when she had me, or the day I realised I had been split

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-79596254355249425372010-07-05T11:24:00.001+01:002010-07-05T11:24:36.715+01:00

Breaking news is that the BBC Trust has rejected the BBC's plans to close 6 Music. This is BRILLIANT, not just because the proposal to close it was a short-sighted, dumb, management by numbers one, but because thousands of people said so and they were heard. Well done us. joella

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-90879754073907266782010-07-01T22:23:00.005+01:002010-07-02T00:49:31.078+01:00

I wouldn't really say I was bullied at school. Yes, there were some horrible days, some things which made me cry quietly in the toilets, some things that kept me awake at night. Overall though, in the scheme of things, in the Big Picture, I did all right. Better than many people. But something comes back to me every time I eat a packet of prawn cocktail crisps. I like prawn cocktail crisps a lot,

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-52668725532322493742010-06-12T20:39:00.003+01:002010-06-18T20:59:57.709+01:00

I passed my driving test a couple of months before my 18th birthday. My dad, (rather generously, given that I drove his car into a fence four days after my 17th) used to let me borrow his car, a pale green Austin Maestro that I loved driving. I had a couple of close calls, but never drove it into anything else, and a few months later I got my own car, a red 2cv that I loved driving even more.

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-40404761596066021702010-06-07T10:20:00.002+01:002010-06-07T11:01:36.353+01:00

This was one of the posts on the 'never got round to it' list. So many things come into my head then go out of it again. But the grass in the Business Park hasn't gone away. I see a lot more of it than I used to, on account of getting the bus to work.*The Business Park does not have a bus stop. It is designed for cars, and getting there by any other means can be challenging. You can cycle, and

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-43099780181838684602010-05-25T14:02:00.001+01:002010-05-25T14:02:44.569+01:00

[STARTS]Dear Cross Country TrainsI just want to thank one of your staff, the Train Manager on Sunday 23rd's 13.27 from Manchester Piccadilly to Oxford. We were sitting in the Quiet Coach and, together with all the other passengers, had to contend with the deliberately noisy and disruptive behaviour of a group of five young teenagers. They refused to keep the noise down, despite being asked by

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-26090388792943499912010-05-19T17:52:00.006+01:002010-05-23T21:49:05.270+01:00

This is my new favourite place. A lane comes down to the beck, and then runs out. There's a footbridge over it, but there's also a little ford, and its heap of rocks creates a mini weir, which the water bubbles over. I could listen to that noise for ever.You can also hear the birds singing, and the bumble bees buzzing.There's a bit of pebbly sand to sit on, and if it's warm you can paddle. The

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-31384509480640464582010-05-08T21:00:00.005+01:002010-05-10T10:20:33.616+01:00

See that little red island in the middle of the vast blue sea that now makes up the south of England? That's us, that is. Constituency swing: 4.1% to Labour. The Guardian thinks we are extraordinary. We're very proud. I love not conforming.But, as allotment S put it on Friday morning, what were the rest of you doing? Oxford West now has a 12 year old Tory as its member of Parliament. She beat

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-67983281371264728742010-05-05T22:43:00.001+01:002010-05-05T22:43:51.189+01:00

... and I'm not saying I will be (I'm really not saying I will be), but if I were to, turns out it wouldn't be the first time. In 1983, I was 13. I remember (though these kinds of memories are notoriously unreliable) having a conversation with my parents about voting, and who they were going to vote for. I remember my dad saying that he didn't vote, and me asking him why. He said it was because

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-5956398643144409242010-04-28T00:18:00.001+01:002010-04-28T00:18:44.015+01:00

There are no men allowed in the Sanctuary in Covent Garden, where I have just spent the day with my (currently literally) fragrant friend K, who gets credit both for this post title and for generally making it happen. It was the final leg of my 40th birthday celebrations and the first leg of hers. Our package deal was called Girls' Delight, which made me squirm a little, as did the house copies

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-69582525119452750892010-04-09T22:30:00.006+01:002010-04-09T22:54:02.379+01:00

I'm going to tell you what happened to the car. I'll try and keep it brief, because it's not really the interesting bit, but it's important background.Summer 1998: M buys Velba, a dark green ex-demo Mercedes A140, from Inchcape, aka Mercedes-Benz of Oxford. It wasn't that he *wanted* a Mercedes, it was more that the ancient Golf he'd driven away from his marriage in got written off by a bus, and

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-71668450551270074132010-03-26T13:38:00.001Z2010-03-26T13:38:12.459Z

It's now self-evident: my Twitterstream is cannibalising my blog. I know several other people in the same situation, though a few, the most creative and prolific, are keeping a balance. I like writing short, and I think there's something both satisfying and addictive about the discipline of saying something in 140 characters, while still making sense and not compromising with naff abbreviations

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-52658661127094495142010-03-03T13:08:00.001Z2010-03-03T13:08:53.232Z

It occurred to me that it was a year ago. I figured it was time to go through my paperwork, do some sorting out. And I found a blog entry that I wrote in pencil on the back of an envelope. I decided not to post it, but I guess I kept it for a reason. I have resisted the temptation to edit retrospectively.  Sitting in the departure lounge in Capital City airport, premenstrual, illegally hungover,

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-33287667007124307472010-03-02T11:48:00.001Z2010-03-02T11:48:03.068Z

You know what? If you're me, you qualify for practically nothing. I mean, there's stuff for all of us, the NHS, waste collection, public libraries, swimming pools. But all the stuff on top, the targeted things... what do I get? Pretty much fuck all. I pay full tax, and don't get any credits. I'm too old for a young person's railcard and too young for a senior railcard. I earn part time money but

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-52095865374096873632010-02-24T10:31:00.005Z2010-02-24T21:32:44.122Z

I was gathering my thoughts on the news that Apple has pulled its pornographic, sorry, 'adult-themed'* iPhone apps. My first thought was that it's a sign of how much the world has changed since ye olde webbe was invented that you can buy software that makes women's breasts wobble to put on your phone and everyone thinks it's a jolly good laugh. I think the vast, vast majority of pornography is

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-14020808709501208462010-02-19T21:00:00.003Z2010-02-21T22:29:13.746Z

Not being funny or anything, but I fucking hate February. And this one's turning out more vicious than most. The real freeze combined with the pay freeze = less money just when you need more. The end of January wasn't quite beans on toast, but only because I had a Significant Birthday and allowances were made.And I never quite got back into my (already not much more than desultory) exercise

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-39769674328877468272010-02-11T21:53:00.000Z2010-02-12T18:43:05.661Z

While I believe it's healthy not to live in a pigeonhole, I also acknowledge that rhyme and reason do not appear to figure in some of my lifestyle choices.On one hand, I wouldn't dream of buying salad dressing in a bottle, and have four kinds of oil (three olive, one walnut), five kinds of vinegar, three kinds of mustard and two kinds of sugar to hand when I want to make some. On another, I will

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-49713311435213544842010-02-04T20:58:00.006Z2010-02-05T00:07:20.835Z

I basically don't buy things very often. At least, not difficult things that involve conversations with customer service people in call centres. But then I have just had a Significant Birthday, which brought with it several Significant Presents.I am not knocking the Significant Presents, they are excellent and amazing and generally not things I would ever have bought for myself, and I feel

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-22314684227389517422010-01-26T20:48:00.016Z2010-01-27T00:17:55.086Z

This photo was taken when I was 20. It's one of my favourites. I look young and happy and indefatigable, but also more or less fully formed. There aren't many photos like this, certainly not of me.I had a party for my 20th birthday. In those days you designed your invitation by hand, then photocopied it up onto a sheet of A4, then bought coloured paper or card, duplicated your A4 onto multiple

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-79146180749587036922010-01-25T10:11:00.002Z2010-01-25T10:14:57.375Z

I'm ever so grateful to you lovey, said the little old lady.Well, I said, thank you.What I didn't say: thank you for waiting an extra week for me to come round given that I went into NGO X last Monday for Haiti stuff and on Tuesday I just couldn't face dealing with anything at all. Thank you for having an immaculate kitchen. Thank you for choosing a plumber to fit said immaculate kitchen who put

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-12616329297733639982010-01-21T22:48:00.008Z2010-01-22T11:04:33.179Z

As usual, Facebook asks me what's on my mind.Well. NGO X (Google image here: http://bit.ly/50mgFh), supported by thousands (millions?) of ordinary British people, plus the government we all elected, is now able to provide clean water to tens of thousands of other people who currently desperately need clean water.Meanwhile the leader of the BNP (BBC article here: http://bit.ly/4EeMX6) sees these

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-34714232359575798562010-01-18T20:30:00.005Z2010-01-18T21:16:08.427Z

I know brands are basically bad*, and that American ones, being the biggest, are the baddest of all.But I've just got back from New York, and having stood in awe before this, I can't help but feel really sad about this.joella* Naomi Klein often gets right on my nerves, but I think this is a great article.

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-68210235931834312142010-01-17T02:19:00.001Z2010-01-17T02:19:39.187Z

Everything hangs on the weather at the moment. And the BBC weather forecast for Oxford tonight and for the next five days is unprecedentedly ... Random? Diverse? Terrifying? Anyway, it goes like this: Fog. Sunny. Grey Cloud. Sunny Intervals. Heavy Snow. Heavy Rain. Glad that's clear then. joella

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-5852651753962353052009-12-31T17:56:00.006Z2009-12-31T19:25:48.996Z

It was all a bit last minute. On Christmas Eve I was slightly hungover, having had an unexpected (and very enjoyable) evening out with my Significant Ex the night before. Not so's I couldn't function, but there was the whole house to clean, all the decorations to put up, the presents to wrap and the nut roast to cook. It needed to be done early because there was a giant turkey too (Peach Croft

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-31373831833792427412009-12-29T13:46:00.008Z2009-12-29T15:39:57.059Z

There's a new dog in town. Well, actually, he lives in Lancashire with the parentals, but I paid a pre-Christmas visit and got to take him for walks. He's about a year old. He wasn't technically a rescue dog, but he needed rescuing - he was bred as a show dog and then wasn't quite good looking enough. He's very thin, he doesn't eat, he sits sideways like he was taught to, and he trots dutifully

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-85428278802201640772009-12-17T20:32:00.000Z2009-12-17T20:37:50.133Z

There was a spate of articles recently about how annoying it is when people who eat fish and/or bacon sandwiches call themselves vegetarian. Like this one. The Vegetarian Society is so pissed off about it that they've devoted a whole section of their website to the issue.Now I regularly answer 'yes' to the question 'are you a vegetarian?'. And I'm not. But from my point of view what's annoying is

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-77657182473527286242009-11-29T20:17:00.005Z2009-11-29T23:01:59.966Z

I get very annoyed by the 10:10 campaign. I've never commuted. Or bought (or for that matter worn) disposable nappies. We fitted eco lightbulbs, turned down our thermostats and got into economy gastronomy *years* ago. The council delivered us a little bin for waste food collection this week, and I'm struggling to find anything to put in it (Current contents: some dried out feta, a bit of fish

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-72396263153480439202009-11-18T20:11:00.006Z2009-11-19T22:33:43.382Z

Me? I'm fine. I wouldn't quite go as far as never better, but my foot has almost repaired itself, Moley's histology was clear, I can walk as far as I like again, and it feels great. Last week I was striding down Cowley Road in the dark and the drizzle, in search of a) paperchain raw material and b) aromatics for preservation purposes (of which more shortly) and feeling... uplifted. Autonomy is a

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-78008421038788283262009-11-02T22:31:00.005Z2009-11-03T22:44:20.626Z

I took time out to go and see Michelle Shocked play the Drill Hall yesterday. The Drill Hall is one of those venues where my possible pasts catch up with me big time, and I am amazed to see how so many of them have made it into the present.I went (up) to Cambridge in October 1988, aged 18, outwardly stroppy and inwardly terrified. I look at some of the photos from that first year and I really

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-81185725839631609622009-10-26T22:45:00.010Z2009-10-26T23:47:23.970Z

I've just been out on my own, for the first time in nearly a fortnight. Only to the Co-op, and only because I'd run out of wine. M would have gone if I'd asked him to*, but he's not drinking at the moment, and it didn't seem right. So I took off my slippers and put my trainers on, and limped slowly down the road in the clocks-gone-back drizzle, sniffing the air like a dog and obstructing the

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-76750847682511321582009-10-20T07:06:00.005+01:002009-10-20T08:33:45.878+01:00

God knows, I'm bad at most things, but I'm good at sleeping. It can be hard to get me into bed, but it's nigh on impossible to get me out of it. I can sleep for England. I love to sleep. My Significant Ex and I once slept through the burglar alarm going off at his mum's and the police coming round with his elderly key-holding great aunt to check the place out. We woke up five hours later and

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-53183321923788645202009-10-16T17:59:00.006+01:002009-10-16T18:12:59.435+01:00

This isn't a very good 'after' photo: there are still strips covering the stitches and there was a bit of bleeding which I haven't been able to wash off yet. But let's just say it hurts. Not so much when I'm not doing anything, but a lot if I try and walk on it. They did warn me. I did say 'yes of course I'll take it easy'. I didn't quite realise I wouldn't have any choice. Which made it all the

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-85834617756364695672009-10-13T20:20:00.008+01:002009-10-13T21:08:23.542+01:00

I've called her Moley Cyrus. She's 8mm long, and she's coming off tomorrow. I won't be digging for a bit, so I made the most of the glorious weather today, and went down to the allotment to plough the fields and scatter (aka pull up a lot of bolted lettuce and weeds, and plant out some spring cabbages that likely won't survive our current plague of whitefly). The sun was going down, and it was

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-14044717008144247162009-10-03T12:34:00.005+01:002009-10-03T23:30:51.080+01:00

I have this brown mark on my foot. It just kind of arrived a couple of years ago. My mother said I was getting old. I *am* getting old.Over the summer, my friend N came to stay. A few years ago she went into hospital Up North (where she lives) to have a mole removed from one of her eyebrows. You can see the scar if you know where to look, but they did a lovely job. More importantly, while it

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-18916396735665199632009-09-19T20:08:00.002+01:002009-09-22T14:35:03.746+01:00

It's been a month of earthly and other-worldly delights.Walking tours. Two of them. Both on the same weekend, celebrating P's 60th birthday and discovering many things about London. The first one accompanied Radical Nature, an exhibition at the Barbican, which I could not wholeheartedly recommend. The dolphin embassy is hilarious, and Agnes Denes's wheatfield is spectacular, but most of the 21st

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-12089978662543811912009-09-05T22:29:00.003+01:002009-09-07T22:16:45.927+01:00

A couple of weeks back, when ex-Saturday-job-comrade N and her family came to stay, we went to the Elder Stubbs Festival. We'd probably have gone anyway, it is a highlight of the East Oxford summer calendar. But it was even more fun with a bunch of Lancastrians-turned-Mancunians, who boggled gratifyingly at the patchouli-and-patchwork people, the wicker sculptures, and the bands who all sound

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-89990893573375011752009-09-01T14:21:00.002+01:002009-09-01T14:36:09.340+01:00

I survived another summer without getting sunburned, getting stuck in a traffic jam on the M6, going anywhere *near* a caravan, making forced smalltalk with other people's husbands over disappointing barbecues (barbecues are always disappointing, in my experience, plus they are deeply ethically suspect) or - worst of all - having to play rounders or otherwise throw and catch things in the name of

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-5078018594041187692009-08-29T21:01:00.004+01:002009-08-30T22:24:32.634+01:00

Last night M asks, as he cooks lentil and chard soup, whether there's anything on the 'tellybox' (this is what people from the 70s call it, I gather). I go look it up. Of course there is stuff on, but most of it, as usual, appears to involve a) football or b) quiz/reality/talent shows designed and presented by obscenely well-paid people which dangle transient fame or

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-54687553365648810692009-08-27T22:17:00.001+01:002009-08-27T22:17:59.506+01:00

I returned my mum's call the night before the night before last. She was still in bed (she works nights). I had a nice chat with my dad. The night before last she called back, but I was out. Last night I called. She was out. I had a much shorter chat with my dad. Tonight, I called. 'She's still not back', he said. I'd forgotten. I thought she'd been at work the previous night, but in fact she is

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-47184261203947769082009-08-26T22:17:00.006+01:002009-08-26T23:06:22.850+01:00

Like lots of other people, I started the summer with the intention of finishing Infinite Jest by the end of it. It's not going to happen... I am only 400 pages in.I read like a fiend, but IJ is just so *dense*. I have had to keep taking a break. Interleaved with it over the last couple of months have been the following, all of which are a walk in the park by contrast and which I thoroughly

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-54946422922614211412009-08-20T22:36:00.009+01:002009-08-20T23:30:37.492+01:00

'Can *you* remember getting your A-level results?' said M. I know he's not actually joking, because I know that he remembers almost nothing about anything. And I can see the advantages of that. As Ani DiFranco wrote about the goldfish, the little plastic castle is a surprise every time. I can remember getting my A-level results like it was yesterday. I had two such experiences, as I took General

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-82717008862116358732009-08-16T22:53:00.005+01:002009-08-18T00:59:55.229+01:00

We spent our holidays at home this year, primarily for financial reasons (roof replacement, window renovation, lodger shortfall) but also because, after a stressful interlude, we have the house back to ourselves for a while, and we wanted to reclaim it. There was a fair amount of reclaiming to do, so we decided to spend the first week dealing with house stuff and the second week resolutely not

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-56259591391842082102009-08-01T19:53:00.005+01:002009-08-01T20:22:05.099+01:00

I find myself talking to the landlady of a go-go bar in Oxford on a quiet night when one of the resident dancers hasn't turned up. Apparently these women are very unreliable. So she asks me if I'll do the warm up for the main act, who is the real Bada Bing pole dancing deal. And so there follow several months where I dance at the same time every week in a tiny room (accessible from an even tinier

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-88570187231162151602009-07-31T01:00:00.005+01:002009-07-31T01:47:38.598+01:00

This morning, I got to nurse my hangover in the Olympic Flame Diner on W 60th St in NYC, eating a three egg feta cheese omelette with fried potatoes, drinking bottomless coffee and listening to Pat Benatar. I couldn't have been happier.This followed three days spent staying at the seriously weird and cool Hudson Hotel courtesy of the much less weird but just as cool Open Society Institute. I am

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-59427221618936395782009-07-19T23:17:00.007+01:002009-07-20T00:42:39.023+01:00

One of the many medium-level irritants for the politically aware water obsessive who lives in shonky East Oxford is pointless water wastage. You see it quite a lot round here, with our Victorian-era HMOs and their evil tightarse landlords and lazy letting agents. You hear it first... patter patter patter... in the winter it could be snow melting off a pitched roof faster than the gutters can cope

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-56056439049754781642009-07-16T21:37:00.008+01:002009-07-16T23:08:58.584+01:00

One of those possibly ill-advised work-related posts. But hey. There's a pay freeze this year for UK-based staff at NGO X. I kind of get why. Were it up to me, I'd freeze the higher salaries and up the lower ones a bit, but it's not up to me. We do have a union, of which I am a member, and if there's an argument to be had, it's in a collective bargaining environment. It's a free country still,

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-66264850635435891962009-07-09T22:51:00.004+01:002009-07-10T00:05:41.603+01:00

I am delighted to be able to report that ex-housemate S is up the stick again. This is excellent news. Baby Tungsten, marvellous as he is, could benefit from a serious challenge to his current 'I am the centre of the universe and I will glare at you till you agree with me' world view. I know this because I had that world view myself once. Still do, some would say, but there's nothing like having

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-86698111929357600712009-07-01T23:35:00.006+01:002009-07-01T23:58:27.666+01:00

... he said that all revolutions are not the same...This song came out in 1991, right in the middle of the last big fat recession. It's amazing how sharp it suddenly sounds. And its inspiration, Thomas Paine, died 200 years ago. It's amazing how sharp *he* suddenly sounds as well. Fairtrade cotton company Gossypium (based in his home town of Lewes) have just released a very cool T-shirt in his

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-12470077755539837572009-06-25T20:22:00.006+01:002009-06-26T23:02:19.128+01:00

When I was about 12, I had a sort of all in one halterneck top and shorts. It was banana yellow, and every time I put it on, which took a while as it was complicated, I experienced massive dissonance between how I would like to have felt wearing it - leggy, tanned, cartwheeling, glorious - and how I actually did feel -pallid, clumsy, exposed, and profoundly self-conscious. I kept thinking this

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-44092320385969450632009-06-23T09:49:00.005+01:002009-06-30T22:49:20.479+01:00

I got a phone call a few weeks ago from Roman Krznaric, who I have met a few times - I once hung a radiator in his front room, and for several years I had a wood chest in my garden that used to belong to him and his partner K. He was calling because he is leading the 'Work' course at the School of Life, and he wanted to know if I would come and give a talk about becoming a Lady Plumber. I was

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-75248390103710582262009-06-20T12:05:00.000+01:002009-06-20T12:05:30.851+01:00

I have this rumbling fear that the country is sinking into right wing bigoted quicksand, and over the next decade we will all be suffocated slowly by our own fear and intolerance. It will be bad for lots of people, and lots of those people will be women. Example 1: Female journalist is pilloried on CiF for suggesting, actually quite apologetically, that the students at St Annes College Oxford who

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-9030938215513974352009-06-11T23:07:00.004+01:002009-06-12T16:04:20.242+01:00

I had a lovely evening out tonight with people I last properly saw in the Hot Place. Two of them are temporarily based in the New Building, and a third was passing through. It was a chance to revisit the days of chaos and paranoia from a safe distance, and with our guards much further down. And I appreciated the chance, even as it was embarrassing to hear how I got stoned by accident - at the

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-77717618190800551892009-06-08T19:08:00.004+01:002009-06-08T20:44:34.217+01:00

I heard Nick Griffin on the radio a couple of years ago, and one of the few consoling thoughts was that he was pretty much a lone voice in the fascist wilderness. But no more. No, the good people of the North West have gone and democratically elected him to the European Parliament, despite the fact that fewer people voted BNP than five years ago. What the fuck was everyone else doing? Singing

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-29418184118180561532009-05-31T22:43:00.004+01:002009-06-01T15:10:44.382+01:00

They ask me sometimes what PMS is like, those people who don't have it. I never quite know how to describe it, though I can tell stories of skidding across a kitchen floor on the half a kilo of dried penne I had just thrown on it, of sobbing on a swing surrounded by a shredded loaf of bread, of spending an hour crouched on the floor cleaning the gunk out of the bit of the dishwasher you only see

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-68682777011179554102009-05-29T10:34:00.004+01:002009-05-29T10:46:48.465+01:00

What a charming man Bill Cash must be. They didn't say I *couldn't* bleed the country dry, mum! I picked up this story because my blog stats shot up suddenly. This has happened before and only ever means a surge of interest in my 2003 post about the equally charming Laetitia Cash. Booze soaked old school feminism remains a minority interest, sadly. Still, it's great to have new visitors. Thanks

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-4021573585879224362009-05-25T11:49:00.003+01:002009-05-29T11:34:48.809+01:00

How did I not know about Sarah Haskins till yesterday? More on how I came to know about her another time, this is too good not to share. Enjoy. joella

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-77332842484047752982009-05-23T20:32:00.004+01:002009-05-24T12:55:24.157+01:00

Executive summaryNot at all like Lancashire. Well, maybe a little bit.Full reportPlusesFish. I first "got" fish in 1992. My Significant Ex and I were staying on Kovalam Beach in Kerala, which in those days wasn't much more than a bunch of £1 a night huts and some bars playing Santana. The boats would come in, the sun would go down, we would have a little fishy (from the tandoor) on a little dishy

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-8549632616042478632009-05-10T11:08:00.005+01:002009-05-13T22:31:05.361+01:00

For a lot of the 1970s and early 1980s my dad was an officer in the ACF. He called it 'playing soldiers'. It didn't have that much impact on me, though I occasionally went out with him at weekends, and developed crushes of varying proportions on various boys (they were all boys) in uniform. I had my first 'nature wee' with the ACF, when we were doing something in a wood. I turned out not to be

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-23713405935132126172009-05-10T00:12:00.009+01:002009-05-10T11:07:55.911+01:00

Inspired by Jonathan Crinklybee's latest... I am only just beginning to realise that my childhood is now part of a different era, and has stories to tell. I don't remember going on holiday before 1975, but to be fair I don't remember much of anything before 1975. That year was a landmark one: I started school, and we went on our first Foreign Holiday. We went to Majorca in low season, I think

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-76206777349900672092009-05-04T17:29:00.002+01:002009-06-30T22:55:49.036+01:00

We paid a visit to my Significant Aunt in Shropshire last weekend, and a lot of fun it was too, although the main purpose of the visit, the initiation of Project Skirting, was shelved. I have never been able to get my sewing machine to run properly, it keeps clunking and jamming. It turns out that this is actually because there is something wrong with it, rather than because I am unable to RTFM.

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-33563430177590255172009-05-01T23:43:00.005+01:002009-05-02T00:27:26.293+01:00

Ten or so years ago, when I was young and shiny and we believed in our political leaders, M and I got up (or possibly stayed up, I have done it both ways round and can't quite remember) for May Morning. It was a glorious dawn, and on the way into town we bumped into two of our friends, heading in the same direction, and we all parked our bikes together and walked up to Magdalen Tower. These two

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-86348843852884014492009-04-27T16:57:00.005+01:002009-04-28T19:43:18.779+01:00

This morning we found ourselves at a Welcome Break on the M42, needing a brief respite from lorry spray, tailbacks and general greyness. In the coffee queue, I saw a sign that awarded the southbound M42 outlet of this forgettably named hot-drinks-and-panini franchise five stars, for attaining '96% brand compliance'. I thought this was about the most depressing thing imaginable - although then I

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-51998287907311884502009-04-20T20:45:00.005+01:002009-04-22T14:02:09.211+01:00

There I was, thinking that I never did anything anymore except darn socks, explore cabbage recipes and stick pins in voodoo dolls of the Carolines next door, but it's shaping up to be quite an eventful spring. Gigular, in particular. David Byrne played Oxford the Thursday before Easter. Wasn't planning to go, but then M read the reviews of previous shows and decided that we had to. And there were

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-84825397680075029602009-04-16T01:09:00.000+01:002009-04-16T01:10:01.830+01:00

... is a real place. Someone took me there once when I was a little, how shall we say, boxed. It's stayed with me. So I was slightly freaked the other day when, walking up the stairs, I tugged at a corner of wallpaper till it started coming away. Feeling guilty (we have agreed to strip the wallpaper but we haven't actually agreed to start stripping the wallpaper, as we can't rewallpaper till

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-6079342736637451222009-04-12T13:57:00.002+01:002009-04-12T14:46:05.450+01:00

I finally tidied up my Blogger template. I'm not using Blogger Layouts, which would make it easy to add things and take things away, because I've been around longer than they have. I could switch, but then I would lose all my template tweaks, and there are quite a lot of them - the random top right photo code, the archive posts in latest-first order code, some of the styles in the stylesheet. But

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-68245476923775546662009-04-06T15:33:00.001+01:002009-04-09T15:35:49.949+01:00

It's a non-working Monday. I'm getting back into the habit. One thing I have realised from a couple of years of mostly non-working Mondays (and quite a lot of non-working Tuesdays) is that I don't, after all, hate summer. No. It is mornings that I hate. If I don't have a reason to rise, then 11 is the earliest you're likely to see me. Quite likely later, in these days of wireless internet access,

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-90049084231582145852009-04-03T23:06:00.004+01:002009-04-04T00:03:38.610+01:00

Not a great week for the ladies. Over here, we find out more about the man who killed his wife, daughter, horses and dogs before burning down his house, like they were so many things to cross off a list. Rich and dead, or poor and alive, I wonder which they'd have chosen if he'd bothered to ask them? Over there, we have the public flogging of a teenage girl, for being in the same house as an

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-14566327090709468852009-03-31T22:39:00.006+01:002009-03-31T23:11:11.679+01:00

We have a bit of a carrot glut at the moment, so I went looking for carrot recipes while M watched The Simpsons. I did this via old skool cookbooks... you get a feel for the author whose recipes you are in the mood for, and I was feeling a bit Prue Leith. I can't find her carrot fritters recipe online, but there is an Anthony Worrall Thompson one that is remarkably similar. We got to work. I

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-91486210739504242532009-03-26T23:34:00.000Z2009-03-26T23:46:26.145Z

Three things, having just watched Newsnight. 1. The opposite of anti-abortion is NOT pro-abortion. Nobody is pro-abortion, at least nobody I've ever met. The opposite of anti-abortion is pro-choice. 2. Relatedly, young people do not get pregnant. Young women get pregnant. Can we please at least MENTION gender when we talk about teenage pregnancy? 3. Like Stephen Fry once said about Noel Edmonds:

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-25640321820434830212009-03-24T20:37:00.001Z2009-03-24T20:37:52.128Z

... said M, as he set off bravely into the drizzle in search of a bottle of white, you've been a very understanding girlfriend. Glad you see it that way, I said. I worry that I have termagant tendencies. But it takes all sorts to make a world. joella

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-11798738219174259412009-03-22T19:37:00.005Z2009-03-25T21:08:35.933Z

Last week at work, a decision I have been pushing for for nearly a year finally got made, and got made in the direction I'd been pushing for. I was momentarily jubilant, then I went for a wee and when I came back the person who had been pushing just as hard in the other direction was a bit tearful. And I know, if it had gone the other way, which it so easily could have, so very nearly did, then

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-30320966238617027872009-03-15T18:36:00.004Z2009-03-15T21:44:25.963Z

I've been back from the Hot Place for a week now. It feels like a lot longer, even though the calendar and the laundry basket both tell me otherwise. Monday: went into work for a bit. Talked to a lot of people. Hugged some of them. Cried a bit. Came home. Dreamt about deleting things. Tuesday: stayed at home. Thought I would go to the allotment. I got there eventually but I just sat on a plastic

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-15730268238135958272009-03-09T19:50:00.001Z2009-03-09T19:50:59.495Z

[STARTS]The international staff who work in the NGO X Field Office live together in a ramshackle guest house. It is truly international -- at the moment there are people there from Malaysia, Chile, Kenya, Iraq, Sweden, New Zealand, the US and the UK. It is also truly ramshackle, though necessity is the mother of invention and people produce the most surprising things -- nutritional yeast for

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-89208044037302856552009-02-26T15:57:00.001Z2009-02-26T15:57:45.071Z

I'm having trouble putting my thoughts into words at the moment, I am in The Field (well, in a field office, The Field is down the road) and I have a million things to say. The first one is, for anyone watching the situation in the Hot Place, I'm fine. We're all fine. The rest has to do with stars and sand and guns and water. It feels like a waste of bandwidth to compose online, as bandwidth is

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961922.post-52613866030907147582009-02-18T15:45:00.001Z2009-02-18T15:45:17.518Z

By popular demand, I am going back to the Hot Place. It won't be quite so hot, but there will be other complications. I will be playing with Jing, so I have got myself a microphone headset, so I will in theory be Skypeable. I won't be Twittering, but I might be Yammering. I'll be blogging obliquely. I'll be MSNing. All of this is of course assuming there's an internet connection. There was last

Johttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14736501243972791343noreply@blogger.com3