Don't give away the goods too soon, is what she might have told me

So. It was the 21st of May 1986.

It was school sports day. I was in the Lower Sixth, and yet again I had managed not to be selected to represent anyone at anything. I did this seven years in a row, and I think I probably deserved a medal just for that, because it wasn't easy.

In my younger years I had to do humiliating things like hold the finishing tape, or help the games teachers measure out the distances between the hurdles. In the Lower Sixth, though, all that was required of me was to turn up and cheer on my house. We had to sign in at 2 when it started, and then sign in again at 4, presumably to prove that we hadn't bunked off.

Two hours was more than I needed. I signed in, stood visibly on the sidelines for a couple of races, then slipped off down the road to E's house. He was in the Upper Sixth and about to do his A-levels. If you were in the Upper Sixth and you weren't running, jumping or throwing something, you didn't even have to show.

He let me in. We had a cup of coffee, and I had a cigarette. Shall we do it then? I said. All right, he said. We went upstairs to his bedroom. It was sunny outside, but his curtains were always closed. For about a year I thought his bedroom was at the back of the house when in fact it was at the front.

We got undressed. We'd done this part before, so there were no huge revelations. I spent a long time fiddling with something called C-Film -- a sticky contraceptive film that I had found in Boots but which came with minimal instructions, and then we both spent a long time fiddling with a condom. Finally, we were ready.

On the plus side, it didn't hurt, there wasn't any blood (why, I don't know), and I was on top. This was far more a self-conscious decision not to be a virgin anymore than a great passionate moment, and this was the position I had decided it should happen in. I didn't have a clue what to do, but I was pleased to have ticked that box.

On the minus side, I didn't really feel anything at all. I did not pass through the doors of perception, the world did not change. The only words spoken were his: about 30 seconds in (of a total of about 45) he said 'god, it's hot in here. You could fry an egg on the end of my knob'.

This was probably because I am in fact allergic to spermicide. I didn't know this at the time, of course, but a double dose of the stuff didn't do me any good. If memory serves, we then did it again, another 45 seconds but the other way up.

And then he leapt off me and straight into the shower, as if the whole experience called for immediate vigorous scrubbing and anointing with Kouros. I lay there by myself and had my first experience of post-coital existential loneliness.

It was disproportionately powerful, and in fact the first real thing I had felt all afternoon. I put my pants back on, smoked a Silk Cut and listened to Marlene on the Wall, already on the turntable as if just waiting for me.

He walked me back to school, but as soon as we got there he hared off to let his friends know they could no longer refer to him as the Virgin Wimp. I went to find schoolmate S (who later became housemate S), who was long jumping or 200 metering or something, and told her of my new status.

We were hungry, so we went to find sandwiches in the pavilion. In there was Mr W, one of our geography teachers. There was a book poking out of his anorak pocket, and we could see the words 'The Joy Of'. Sir, sir, what's your book, we giggled at him.

He lifted it out. It was 'The Joy of Stamps'.

I signed in at four o'clock and got the bus home.

joella


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Incoming!

I don't normally trail posts... but come tomorrow it wil be 20 years since I lost my virginity. How old that makes me feel.

Anyway, it's a good story, and I feel enough time has passed to render it tellable. If the thought of this makes you queasy, perhaps avoid joella for a couple of days...

Hasta mañana

joella

Tonight in Jungleland

"...and the poets down here write nothing at all, they just stand back and let all be."

I'm not exactly out there giving it some tonight... long week, rising hormonal tide, better offer in the form of home made pizza and half price Chateauneuf du Pape. But in mitigation I *am* watching classic live footage on BBC4 of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band from 1975. He looks like a cross between a skinny white Rasta and early Billy Bragg. Incredible but true.

So I am rocking in the free world once removed. If the encore is Born to Run I will be up there dancing by myself, just like the old days.

joella

Sleeping in the room of a poet

Sleeping in the room of a poet
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

You know those photos you don't remember taking? This is one of them, taken last weekend while I was about to go to sleep in the room where my friend K writes poems by day. In the same batch: the big log and the pink bush. Not the big log I originally referred to, but you know how these things go.

Oh, and my personal favourite, under the gunnera. Every home should have some.

joella

Traffic calming brainwave

We were walking up the hill on our way back from a curry tonight (we were taking part in Celebrasian, er, celebrations) when yet another car burnt past us at a ridiculous speed.

If I were suicidal, I'd leap out in front of one of them. I would be dead, so mission accomplished, and they'd never speed again and serve them jolly well right.

But I'm not suicidal so that's not really a plan. As it is I sometimes make like I'm going to step out in front of them so they slam their brakes on, but that's not really a plan either if I think about it soberly.

But tonight we came up with a great idea. What we need is child-sized crash test dummies on sticks! Then you crouch in between two parked cars, and at the rubber-squealing approach of the next boy racer, you poke it out into the road.

Boy racer slows down to avoid child-sized crash test dummy, then drives off with poignant 'that could have been a real child' thoughts and never steams up (or down) hill again.

I think that's got mileage. Maybe I'll write to the council.

joella

Smokin'

Oh deary me. This weekend I discovered a 'hand-rolling tobacco alternative'. You can buy it in *health food shops*. I was smiling all the way to bed. And again when I woke up in the morning. Though that may have had something to do with something you can't buy in health food shops.

The weekend also featured a big log and a pink bush. Photos will follow.

joella

Ocado is now delivering in my area!

I have just had an email from Ocado to let me know that I can now "order fresh Waitrose groceries to be delivered in a convenient one-hour slot, straight to my kitchen by Ocado."

To reward me for my patience and as a little 'Welcome to Ocado' gift they'd like to give me 15% off my first shop with them. All I have to do is spend over £90 (which means the delivery charge is free too!), then at the end of my order enter the special code and 15% will be automatically deducted from my bill.

(Spend over HOW MUCH? But then I've never come out of Waitrose with change from £100 so maybe it's not that outrageous)

Anyway, I thought I would share the good news with any OX4 readers. We are officially civilised! I am going to wipe them out of French Onion and Cider Soup and blue cheese made from buffalo milk right this very minute.

joella

Neun und neunzig corken sporken

I am not quite sure that's the correct German, but never minden.

For the last few years I have been collecting corks. I started collecting them because I read in a gardening magazine that they were good for putting in the bottom of pots. Which they are, but they are also, en masse, rather beautiful, and so we have simply amassed them.

Lots of them. During my week off I cleared out the drawer they were spilling out of and split them into real corks and fake ones, on the grounds that the fake ones are ugly and can be used as pot drainage, while the real ones can be fashioned into something with no discernible use which can take up space and gather dust.

Anyway, there were 99 real ones and 74 fake ones. Oh, and four fizz ones -- I am sure we've had more fizz than that, but maybe they got popped out the door. That's a respectable amount of wine don't you think, even if you don't count the screw tops we threw away.

I arranged the pretty ones (see some of them here) and admired them for a while, and then put them away in my Zambian basket for safe keeping. I am not sure this is healthy on any level. But I am not sure I care.

joella

The angelica is taking over the asylum

Oh, I feel so much better. I was in the foulest of moods at the beginning of the week and then it got to the stage where I was boring *myself*, so time to move on. I have another virtual voodoo doll in my collection, but apart from that, I'm over it.

And I'm on to the joys of spring. The garden is positively throbbing: stand in it long enough and something else bursts into life. Warm warm sun and wet wet rain, it's glorious.

Last night I made fish soup with home-grown herbs, which was followed by crumble which M made from the rhubarb which thrives by the compost bin. The night was warm, the wine was cold, we played loud Elastica and it was hard to worry about anything. Ex-housemate S joined us and we heard about her new life as a lady of leisure.

I felt a bit envious... but then went to bed and decided it was warm enough to sleep with the doors to my little balcony open. This makes my bedroom feel like a huge tent, only you don't have to walk across a field to use the toilet. You wake in the night with a chilly pillow. I am not sure why I find this so life affirming, but today I feel unsquashable.

joella

on balance

... after careful consideration, I say (and I may delete this in the morning)

feck and arse and feck and arse and feck and arse and feck

and arse

joella

How to make your staff feel trusted, valued and generally not likely to spend the rest of the day fuming, sulking, drinking coffee and surfing the web

Do the opposite of the following:

1. Return expenses claim for £40 for train/tube tickets to London (accompanied by credit card receipt) without authorisation but with note saying 'how much is a day return to London? Seems a bit steep'. As if I either a) set train fares myself or b) might be submitting a receipt for something else and hoping no one would notice.

2. Return expenses claim mark 2 (which has been augmented by evidence of cost of peak hours Travelcard printed off from internet) with the comment "I'll authorise it this time, but next time you have to get the coach".

The coach costs £13, plus two tube journeys at £3 each, so we are talking about a difference of £20. To save my esteemed organisation this sum when travelling into London for something that starts in Farringdon at 9.30, I would need to get on a bus about an hour and a half earlier than I need to get on a train. Which is a quarter past six.

And yeah, it costs more, but the train is faster, more convenient, more reliable and (as long as you get a seat) you can work on it. Which I did. Perhaps less importantly it also features coffee (which I bought with my own money, naturally) and the advantage of not going past the 'why do I still do this every day' fence.

You are joking, I said.
No, she said.
Does our Director get the coach to London? I said.
I don't know, she said.
I bet she fucking doesn't, I said. And nor do any of the colleagues I have seen at the train station whenever I've had to go to London. And nor have I in the last six years, except once and I was late. And I'm not going to start now.

joella

I love to vote

I've had a lovely day today. The sun always shines on election day.

Started off being late for work as spent far too long discussing the concept of 'family' with my not-next-of-kin-as-we-aren't-married. I cried first, so he won that one, but I got to wear the special green cardigan so we were quits.

Ticked away the moments that made up a dull day, but I did get to lie in the sun and discuss my thoughts for the future with a cool Yorkshirewoman. Felt glad that multiculturalism allows cross-Pennine bonding from time to time.

Went to plumbing. I was a bit scared, because Plumbing S is in Wales this week (long story) so I was facing an unassisted guttering/downpipe assessment. We did hers last week, so I pretty much knew what to do, but it's a lot harder when you're up a ladder on your own with no one to pick up the screws you drop or hand you the spirit level.

I swore a lot, but I did get it passed and signed off, and then I went to vote. How I love voting. I know there are places where the B *spit* N *spit* P are tippy tappying it out with non mutants, and places (the same places?) where they are sufficiently worried about electoral fraud and intimidation to assign police officers to polling stations, but East Oxford is neither kind of place.

Here you roll up to a sports hall which smells of feet and has badly photocopied signs directing you in. The ballot box is balanced on some discarded gymnastics equipment, there are two women with long plaits dishing out the ballot papers and two rickety booths providing near zero privacy. But we are mostly voting Green here, so what's to hide?

The queue featured tall skinny Africans, a gay Scottish couple and various members of an Asian family. I gave thanks as always a) to the general pantheon for creating such a splendidly British example of understated representative democracy and b) to the suffragettes for making sure I could take part in it.

joella

Dear Great British Public

Please do not vote for the BNP. They look like used car salesmen, they have tippy tappy bits on their shoes and they are evil incarnate.

joella

Waking up and smelling the roses

It's all been a bit me me me recently. Maybe this is a side effect of having a week off to Get Things Done (not an entirely successful strategy, as each thing which gets done seems to generate ten more which need doing).

I have in fact been thinking about stuff a fair amount, but not in a particularly focused way. I find things circle round inside my brain for a while until I find a peg to hang them on.

This afternoon one appeared... I was wandering down Cowley Road, mainly wondering where to purchase mushrooms and clip frames as economically and efficiently as possible, but also marvelling at the manifestations of spring: volunteers clearing weeds in the churchyard, people climbing out of windows to drink on their rooftops, vans reversing down pavements with more verve than usual, police on bikes in high-vis polo shirts moving people along in a friendly fashion. The sun was shining right in everyone's eyes, and it was just the right side of chaos.

There was a Chinese man standing outside Boots. I thought he was a Big Issue seller. When was the last time you saw a Chinese Big Issue seller, I was thinking as I slowed down to buy one. "They are killing innocent people for organ harvesting," he said, and handed me a copy of the Epoch Times.

I put it in my bag and walked on. Twenty minutes later I walked back carrying clip frames and mushrooms, and he was still there, looking aware of his own insignificance, trying to give out his papers as the denizens of East Oxford hurried past with more important things on their minds.

My heart suddenly went out to him. Yes, I believe they *are* killing innocent people for organ harvesting. I pictured a tall black man standing next to him trying to give out a paper about the genocide in Darfur. Nobody would much bother about that either. We are all too busy living in our overloaded bubbles, and if we do stop to think about organ harvesting and genocide we become overwhelmed with a sense of our own impotence. So we don't much think about it.

I stood there on the street thinking, 'does this make me complicit in organ harvesting and genocide? And if it does is there anything meaningful I can do about it?'

I crossed over the road towards him, because I wanted to say something. But I had no idea what to say, so I didn't say anything. I did read the Epoch Times all the way through when I got home, if that counts for anything.

joella

Dirty shagging

God I'm disappointed in 'Two Shags' Prescott. I had a long debate with M this evening about why this is. I think it's fair to say that we disagree over the extent to which we feel that a politician's extramarital conduct is an indication of his/her trustworthiness as a politician.

I see it thus: male married neurosurgeon has affair. May not make him a nice man, but has near-zero bearing on his ability to operate on brains, and potential brain operatees don't much care either way. Male married cabinet minister has affair. Whole different ball game. You need to be either pretty simple (to believe that there won't be uber fallout when the media get hold of it, or to neglect to consider that this might happen) or totally dick-led (to realise that this will happen and not care).

And if it was just you it was going to fall out on and you were ready for it, Edward VIII style, then I guess it's none of my business. But what about Mrs Male Cabinet Minister? What of her humiliation? I know some couples have 'arrangements', in which case she might just be furious at indiscreet secretion, but in this case the man himself has described his wife as 'devastated', while the press has had a field day talking about her impenetrable barnet.

So, simple or dick-led, I'm less inclined to give his unreconstructed arse the benefit of the doubt from this point forth.

And, like a good feminist, I am equally disgusted with Shag #2. Pissing on someone else's chips is extremely bad form. It's fair enough to pick them over if they've been chucked in the bin or left out for the seagulls, but otherwise, leave alone. There are rules.*

In the interests of balanced commentary on this issue (and before anyone else does it for me), I will add that I did once get off with a married man. Let's call him Simon. The year was 1998, and I was not long split from my Significant Ex. It was May Bank Holiday, and I was Up North, hanging out with Mick the Builder (actually, to be fair, doing slightly more than hanging out with him, but that's another story) et al.

Simon was one of the et al. We were all in a pub on the Sunday evening, the beer was flowing, the music was pounding, it was warm and not yet dark. I was arguing some point or other, something to do with how hard it was to adjust to a new reality and how people were treating me differently, but I hadn't changed, it was just my life that had changed, and he suddenly looked at me hard and then kissed me harder.

For a moment I thought this was some postmodern response to my point and we would sit back and laugh, but then I thought hang on, this is Lancashire, he's just taking his chances. And then I thought, but hang on, he's *married*. With *children*. What's *happening*?

I should make it clear that I had fancied Simon for years. About ten years, in fact. He was (and still is) a solid, sexy, working man. I remember when his first child was born: I was about 20 and couldn't believe that any woman would willingly get pregnant - but thinking that if it came to it, you could do worse on the fatherhood front. And here I was, snogging him on a warm spring evening. I was pretty hammered, but all my alarm bells were ringing.

We all went back to Mick's flat where, several hours later, I attempted to engage him in rational debate about this (yes, I know I should have gone home, but there was another story going on too). He lifted me onto the side in the kitchen, positioned himself assertively and said 'I always fancied you, curly top'.

He may or not have meant it of course, but either way I had to call upon my inner Lisa Simpson in order to get myself out of there. He came too, using the 'walk you home' pretext, and we had another physical altercation in the middle of Lytham Green. Look, Simon, I said. You need to go home. Don't do this to me. Just do the right thing.

He let his bike fall to the grass, held me by the shoulders and said "Jo, I've spent my whole fucking life doing the right fucking thing".

Part of me wanted to get right down to it, hoping that hidden speakers would start playing early Bruce Springsteen albums by way of accompaniment, but most of me knew that I didn't want to be someone's Wrong Thing, for all sorts of reasons. So after another brief tussle I watched him cycle off into the mist. He never did walk me home. We are still on speaking terms though -- but we never speak of that encounter.

What was all that about? I was trying to say that it's hard to say no, but sometimes you have to, even if you're not a politician, but definitely if you are. And here endeth this evening's lesson.

joella

*This is a bad analogy (and I'm not even sure analogy is the right word) as there also needs to be a scenario where chips can make a break for freedom on their own, and seek out another hungry person to eat them all up. This is clearly moving into science fiction territory, and my word John Prescott would be a big bag of chips, but hey, it's late.

New age fruit loop week off weirdness

Oh, I'm a sucker for a tincture.

I'm not at work this week. I had five days left to take before May 15th (the end of my leave year) and I thought well, I can't afford to go away so let's instead get stuff off the to do list, do some spring cleaning, &c (as they say in old novels). It might make me feel less oppressed by life, I thought.

And it's not going too badly, though I have spent rather more time sitting staring quietly into the middle distance than is strictly conducive to clearing a to do list which does not feature this activity.

I've been to have a weep in Wantage. I've fixed the downstairs loo so it will now flush #2s. I've done a stupendous amount of wood glossing in the bathroom. I've been to the opticians and got some splendid new contact lenses. I've improvised a bike light holder from copper pipe and garden wire. I've been to London for a Peer Learning Exchange about Web 2.0 (actually that bit was work).

And I went to see my GP to talk about my headaches, not that I've had any this week as I have been well away from the New (*spit*) Building. I like my GP very much. She is broad of church and blue of stocking and generally well worth whatever enormous amount it is that she may or may not get paid.

I went expecting a prescription for headache pills and came away with a prescription for antihistamines. Thing is, I've had a blocked nose for most of the last five months, accompanied by snot of unusual colours. I hadn't made any link between sinuses and headaches, but my GP suggested that part of the problem might in fact be an allergic reaction to the fungicides they put in new carpets, the chemicals in new paint, and the varnish they put on new desks, especially when said toxins are pumped endlessly round the building via the new air conditioning ducts, failing to leave through the new windows which you can't open. They call it Sick Building Syndrome, but it's really Sick People Syndrome.

Jeez. It may be that sinus pressure resulting from chemical irritation is exacerbating headaches brought on by sensitivity to bright lights. I really have to get out of there.

Good luck fighting the forces of darkness, she said as I left.

Five minutes later, I found myself in Culpepers the Herbalist. Ten minutes after that I left clutching a brown paper bag containing some tincture of chamomile and plantain (£6.75) and some elderflower infusion bags (£2.75). The former, it says, has "been used for centuries for the treatment of catarrhal conditions". The latter is allegedly "used to help reduce congestion and ease nasal inflammation".

What on earth came over me? Do I really think a cup of yellowy green slightly slimy tea and thirty drops of the world's most expensive cordial is going to be more effective than an antihistamine?

I think this was my subconscious at work. The New (*spit*) Building is the office equivalent of eating Smash. We now know that instant food is not progress, it is obesity, diabetes and constipation in a packet. Instant buildings will one day have health warnings and traffic light labelling on them too.

But in the meantime part of me clearly yearns for a Robin of Sherwood-style world where fibres are natural and we all live off the land instead of putting Business Parks on them.

However my elderflower tea box also says "legend states that if you hide beneath the elder tree at midnight on Midsummer Night's Eve you will be able to see the King and Queen of fairies go by".

I NEEDED THIS TO BRING ME TO MY SENSES. Spare me the new age crystal fairy shit. I'm off to the pharmacy in the morning to get me some real drugs.

joella

Crazy on the weekend

Crazy on the weekend
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

We went to a Finnish party on Saturday night, featuring salmiakki vodka (with salmiakki being serious salty liquorice). It was jet black and pretty fierce. There was also lots of lovely food and lovely company, but it's the vodka which did for M.

We sensibly left at 11, but then less sensibly dropped in on his friend M, who lives round the corner. He was very welcoming and gave us some wine, until I got the hiccups and M spilt his drink on the carpet, at which point we left, me clutching some bath taps he was going to throw away, so I could practise on them.

On the way home M tried to go to sleep on the pavement several times, and I had to wave my taps violently at him to make him get up. Eventually we got home (these are the journeys where you get your 10,000 steps for the day into half a mile) and I opened the front door.

M threw himself onto the hall floor (like this) and refused to move. I managed to lift up his feet so I could get the front door closed, but then I gave it up as a bad job. I left him a note though.

He still has a hangover.

We did recover sufficiently to attend a double fondue event at Jeremy's last night though, which was very fine. My only regret is that I didn't know in advance that there was going to be a chocolate fondue following the cheese one. If I had I would have donated my Lindt chocolate bunny, which could have been lowered in ears first, Fatal Attraction style.

Always next time.

joella

Just say no-bergine

I feel two food-related posts in a row is not good form, but hey, I like my food.

Unless my food is an aubergine. Aubergines were put on this earth to give us a foretaste of the foetid pustules of hell. I would rather eat my own toe cheese. I forgot this for a while, but fortunately my senses have returned.

I was never a fan as a child: aubergines were new to Britain in the 1970s, and, a bit like avocados, nobody quite knew what to do with them. Slimy, sludgy, bitter, nasty things they were, and as a teenage vegetarian in the mid 80s I had more than my share (more than *anyone's* share) of stuffed aubergines: the standard fall-back dish for the token veggie over for lunch / dinner / whatever. Nobody else was eating it, so nobody except me knew what a job it was keeping it down.

But the real killer aubergine experience came when I was 18, and working in a kibbutz kitchen during my year off. Most people didn't eat in the communal dining room but even so, the kitchens catered for 500+ people for breakfast and dinner. My favourite job was making the coleslaw: three crates of cabbages and a crate of carrots every day, shredded in a processor bigger than me. We mixed the dressing in a bucket.

The pans were basically vats: waist height stainless steel monsters which were emptied into huge plastic tubs by turning a big wheel. And one day, my job involved one of those vats full of steaming hot aubergines.

I was already steaming hot. We wore T-shirts, shorts and wellingtons in the kitchens, which were constantly washed down with jet-hoses. We used to wash ourselves down as well, because it must have been 45 degrees in there. There was a lot of sweat in the coleslaw that summer, put it that way.

And I really didn't want to deal with the aubergines, but I really didn't have a say in the matter. A group of three or four of us was assigned to squeeze the pulp out of the aubergines into a big steel bucket so they could turn it into baba ghanoush, that famous Middle Eastern delicacy that I had spent the previous month assiduously avoiding.

So you pick up a red hot aubergine, and you squeeze it like a big purple zit. PLOP! goes the stinky flesh and you chuck the skin away and repeat, pausing only to wipe the sweat from your brow and wonder what the hell you are doing here, you don't belong here.

Five or ten minutes in, and it feels like years. Then one of your comrades holds up the millionth aubergine, points it at you and smiles lazily. Don't you fucking dare, you think, but it's too late, he's squeezed it and your top half is splattered with steaming aubergine flesh. You fire one straight back and before you know it it's in your eyes, your hair, the back of your throat because he caught you laughing.

The stink hung around for days. The memory of it hung around for years. "I don't eat meat. Or aubergines. Or peas. But pea aubergines are fine" was my dietary line for aaages.

The damn things were briefly rehabilitated in the hands of a) M, who does a lovely fluffy Indian aubergine dish, and b) the Rice Box down the road, who do something amazing with them involving chilli, garlic salt and pepper. I was beginning to feel it had all been a phase.

But then I started accepting that they might be a normal part of daily life, and that really was a mistake. Last Thursday, I ate half of an aubergine pizza. I have no absolute proof positive that it was this which cause last Friday's miserable up-chuck runny bum, but every time I *think* aubergine at the moment, I get a stomach cramp. That's evidence enough for me. Ouch.

There are two in the fridge at the moment. I think I might have to ceremonially compost them, after farting in their general direction.

joella

Pickle juice for the vegetarian's soul

I bloody love gherkins, me. I've said it before, and I'll no doubt say it again.

The best ones I've ever tasted were home-pickled by my late Jewish grandmother. Proper Jewish gherkins are done in brine rather than vinegar, and hers were also heavy on dill, peppercorns, garlic and chilli. They were like heaven in a four inch crunch.

Had I had an iota of foresight as a 22 year old, when I last saw her, I would be blowing my unsuspecting friends' tastebuds out in her memory to this day. But you know what, I never got the recipe. And you can't get the cucumbers round here either, so maybe that's for the best.

The local Asian grocer carries a fine tinned kosher brine pickle, but it's slightly on the salty and yellow side. Jars are best. I mostly opt for Turkish pickles as they are sour and salty rather than vinegary and sweet, and Russian ones are also OK. I cruise the multiethnic delicatessens of the Cowley Road and make my pickle choices carefully.*

And so it was that after plumbing last night I came home to an empty house with a spring in my step and tuna-noodle-gherkin anticipation on my mind. It's a solitary pleasure, but I like to indulge my inner introvert when I get the chance.

Tuna: check. Noodle: check. Gherkin: fuck. It was a new jar, of a previously untasted Turkish brand, and I could not get it open.

I biffed the lid of the jar on the work surface, neatly, all the way round. I tried again. Nope. I ran the lid under hot water. Nope. I tried extra grip with a tea towel. Nope. I turned away so the jar would drop its defences and then threw myself at it unexpectedly and twisted so hard I pulled a muscle in my neck. Nope.

Repeated steps 1-4 above. Nada.

Got out my special plumbing pump pliers and had a go with them. Too small. Like my hands. Cursed stupid hands and stupid pliers.

Carried jar to front door, flung door open and wondered how many of my neighbours I a) know well enough to call on at 9.45 pm and b) are likely to have bigger hands and/or stronger wrists than me. Decided none in the immediate vicinity. Closed front door.

Put jar down, decided there had to be more to life than gherkins, and that they could be substituted with some of the fresh organic vegetables delivered only that morning. Rootled through veg box, emerged with courgette (any passing resemblance to a gherkin surely pure coincidence).

Said 'but I don't *want* a fucking courgette', and snatched up recalcitrant gherkin jar.

Final desperate wrench burst jar open, covering me and everything in the immediate vicinity with dill-saturated pickle juice while I shouted 'yes Yes YES' like that stupid shampoo advert. Maybe it just took her half an hour to get the lid off the bottle.

The gherkins were worth it. When M came home I recounted my exciting pickle adventures. Hmm, he said, I wondered what the smell was.

joella

* Another criterion is how useful the jar will be afterwards. Most of our storage jars still smell faintly of gherkins: fine for lentils, but slightly disturbing for sultanas.

Ruby wedding celebrations Up North

Nail varnish drying
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

My parents got married on 16 April 1966. It snowed.

Forty years later, the sun was shining brightly in a perfect blue sky, and I was frantically dabbing nail varnish onto their anniversary present.

I went right up to the wire as I spent Friday (allocated present finishing day) chucking up, for reasons which may have to do with takeaway pizza on Thursday night, but may be completely random.

But it got done, and it was a total score. I am dead chuffed, and very proud of my parents for managing to make marriage look like a natural state of being, something I have seen very few other people pull off.

The sun shone, Lytham was sparkly and crisp, we ate and drank and generally celebrated. Even the perma-tanned Daily Mail reading 4x4 driving nouveau riche Stepford couples with whom my home town increasingly seems to be stuffed only pissed me off a little bit. When I am queen they will be first against the wall, but I can wait. This weekend, there was more important stuff going on.

joella

The restorative power of Doing Real Stuff

Labour of love
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

I cried in the toilets at work today. I haven't done that since they took my kneely chair away. I cried because I had a big headache brought on by an all day meeting under the bright lights, which additionally incorporated some fairly relentless haranguing right at the end. Eventually I said 'OK, OK, whatever' (to what I am now not quite sure as my head was thumping too much to write it down). Then I went to the far end of the building, and by a toilet where no one would know me I sat down and wept.

A little later I came home, mostly on foot, which helped, and decided what I was going to do about it. Medium term, I need to get out of a building which makes me miserable. Short term, I need to get a bit more hardline with the facilities people who don't want to change the lightbulbs because that makes it looks like it was their fault for putting them in. I made plans for both of these. I took some big drugs. I felt better.

A little later still I got out my emery paper and carried on filing the visible solder off the present I am making for my parents to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Completing this task is about as feasible as getting all the Marmite out of the jar, and even more time consuming, but it's kind of therapeutic. Eventually I decided that one section was ready, then I buffed it up with steel wool and sealed it with clear nail varnish. Unsurprisingly, this was not the sealant recommended by any of the men who have offered me advice on this project, but it seems to be doing the job okay, and hey, if it doesn't I know how to get it off.

And after I got a little high on whatever it is in nail varnish that Smells So Good, I made some chocolate cornflake crispy cakes in an Easter stylee. Think Green & Black's 70% dark chocolate, think golden syrup, think butter, think mini eggs. See them here.

Basically, think making things. Making things is good. If you can make things, you can likely also mend things. If you can mend things, you are getting somewhere. You may not be part of the corporate bullshit universe. You may not have to stay in a bad place where they don't care how you are.*

joella

*I know there are lots of people who care how I am. I am talking here of the Man**
** Who need not be Male, but a) Working for the Person doesn't have quite the same malevolent ring to it and b) I can quote the stats which say he usually is.

Thoughts on sheets and shirts

I got a new bed sheet on Saturday, having shamed myself into it somewhat. The old one was faded fuchsia pink, the new one is a sort of lemon yellow with just a touch of green. (I do have two other sheets, one celery green and one dark blue, but the former is nearly worn through and looks it, and the latter is flat rather than fitted so is always the sheet of last resort). But the new one is lovely. I washed it and line-dried it before it went on the bed, and M ironed it. We were truly spoilt in a crisp and fresh sort of way.

I am also recycling the old one. Rags are very useful in plumbing class, and there are never enough of them. I have a hunch that teenage boys will be less likely to nick something that's faded fuchsia pink. If this proves to be true I will suggest they get some fuchsia pink screwdrivers as well.

In related environmentally friendly developments, I have had my needle and thread out tonight, mending M's favourite T-shirt. His new man skills don't extend quite as far as needlework, which means that even my very bad sewing attempts are generally appreciated. Said T-shirt is emblazoned with the slogan 'German Industrial Rock Terrorist', mind, so a tiny part of it might be to do with feeling that German industrial rock terrorists can't be caught mending their own T-shirts.

I'm quite happy to have the occasional stab at back stitch these days, but it was not always thus. I remember lying on a beanbag with my Significant Ex many years ago. We were both stoned out of our trees and listening to Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left... now an album whose every note is familiar but at the time it was all new and hopelessly romantic. Apart from one song, which I thought was about a man who lived in a shirt, as in he only had the one, probably because he was too boxed to go to the shops. He had a hole in his shirt, and he wanted the girl next door to come and mend it.

I sat bolt upright and said 'mend your own bloody shirt'. My Significant Ex started laughing at me and didn't stop for about half an hour.

It was of course Man in a Shed. And anyway, it was all metaphor, right? I never was any good at metaphor.

joella

Culture clash

We had a delegation of Chinese businessmen visiting the New Building this week. They were hosted by my colleague X, who is Chinese herself, and who asked Plumbing S to give a presentation about emergency work. Which she did, after they'd all walked round a bit videoing everything that moved and some things that didn't.

Plumbing S is an inspiring presenter, regularly moving people to tears and/or standing ovations, but she found this presentation quite hard going. First of all it was via a translator, which slows it all down a bit. Then her wireless 'wave in the air' mouse packed up, so she had to perch on the edge of the desk and use the fixed one. Various of them talked all the way through it in little groups, and they had no qualms about getting up and leaving the room in the middle, to answer calls of nature or calls of other kinds.

But she got there in the end. Any questions, she asked. There was only one -- one of them said to the translator "Why is the English woman sitting on the desk?" How spectacularly rude.

The translator didn't translate the question, but what nobody in the room knew is that the English woman studied Mandarin at Cambridge, and understood it anyway.

It would have been the coolest thing in the world to have replied in Mandarin: "Because that's how we give presentations in England. Why are the Chinese men talking at the back?"

But, having studied Mandarin at Cambridge, she knows a bit about face, so she didn't. Instead, they all had their photo taken with her (she's a bit of a babe, is Plumbing S) and everyone bowed.

joella

Creaking at the seams

I feel like I am a hundred years old. I have taken advantage of the fact that it's a plumbing holiday to go plumb crazy. I have been out every night this week, having a lovely time but in a completely unsustainable way. I am tired to my very bones and soul.

An indication of this is the state of my bedroom. Not only is it full of hair and dustballs, there are half-emptied rucksacks and laundry baskets round the place and random installations of old newspapers, dirty socks, coffee mugs and what I call 'face wipey things'. It's kind of gross.

Grossest of all is the fact that a week or so ago I hauled myself across the bed and caught my toe in a little hole that had appeared in the sheet, making a satisfying ripping noise but leaving a much bigger hole. This hole has steadily grown and is now about a foot across, exposing the slightly dilapidated mattress protector. And yet the sheet remains on the bed. I don't want to deal with this, so I am going to bed as late as possible to make it easier to ignore it.

This is not the behaviour of a functioning adult. I keep slapping myself round the face and shouting Get A Grip! (which on reflection is probably not the behaviour of a functioning adult either). But somehow it's easier to get another glass of wine. Sheet schmeet. It's not like it's my side of the bed anyway.

joella

Different for girls

At 3.30 on Sunday morning, I was in a bathroom in N5 improvising sanitary protection out of loo roll*. It had been a lovely evening, but I was tired and emotional in every sense. I was swearing gently to myself when I suddenly remembered a story I read last week on the BBC website, about how girls in Kenya often don't go to school when they get their periods because they can't afford sanitary towels. I looked at the big fluffy toilet roll I was holding and I burst into tears.

Tonight I had a little look at the gloriously jargon-ridden website of the Girl Child Network ("Gender mainstreaming in the Water and Sanitation sector, is silent on Menstrual management"). They have launched a campaign to provide 800,000 schoolgirls with sanitary towels and education on how to use them. I'll be buying my carton.

joella

If you find yourself needing to do this, and if you never do you are clearly more together than I am, my tried and tested method is as follows: wrap paper around the middle bit of your pants (I am trying to do this without using the word 'gusset') four or five times, then tear off leaving enough trailing to go round another couple of times. Then roll a loose sausage from another 4-5 sheets, and bind it in with the trailing piece. Pull your pants up as high as they will go, and cross your fingers. This should see you through till the newsagent opens in the morning.

Very earthy, slightly low femininity

I'm such a sucker for online personality tests. I found this one, at PersonalDNA.com via a bit of Monday procrastinatory blog-skipping, and bugger me, it turns out I'm a

Genuine Leader

... or at least I was this morning. The site I came from (a friend of tomato's) is authored by a Freewheeling Artist, which sounds like a lot more fun. They don't have a list of the other options anywhere, maybe I will have to go back and do it again when I am feeling more spontaneous (slightly low) and less authoritarian (slightly high). Which might be on Friday afternoon - I've a lot to get through this week, dammit.

Still, I only have average trust, so maybe it's all bollocks.

joella

Train, train, train, foot, train, bus, train

I believe in public transport. An essential criterion when buying this house was proximity to a decent local bus route. We are also within walking distance of the London and airport buses, which was a desirable rather than an essential, but something I take advantage of whenever the opportunity presents itself. I held onto my Young Person's Railcard until the very last possible day, and still get trains whenever it makes sense to rather than knee-jerking myself into the car.

This is partly because I don't particularly like driving, and if you're going to get pedantic about it, partly because I don't have a car of my own (and even when I did it wasn't really a car that liked being a long way from home, and it let you know about it). But it's mainly because I think we should promote mass transport, both environmentally and sociologically, and in my own imperfect little way I try to put my money where my mouth is. And if *I'm* going to get pedantic about it I would say that this is one of the reasons I don't have a car of my own.

But hell, they don't make it easy for you. First of all train fares cost a fucking fortune, and cost double for two in the way a car just doesn't, and then you have to fight drunken breastfeeding Glaswegians (no offence) for the seat you booked, and then the train limps into to Birmingham New Street and coughs its last and you have to decant into a giant roller skate pulled by pit ponies and it takes you seventeen years to get to Preston sitting in the same traffic you'd have been in if you'd driven in the first place, only with less privacy, a shorter temper and a fuller bladder.

This is only a slight exaggeration. I've taken the last train north for Easter many times, and it's never been pleasant. On one memorable occasion the smokers (and I was proud to be counted among them in those days) were herded into a rickety carriage with no electricity (= no light and no heat) and we lit candles and shared beer and sang songs as we inched north. We were four hours late on a three and a half hour journey, and ex-housemate S and I literally fell out onto the platform, so pissed were we. It was memorable, but I'd rather have got there on time and not had the vestigial smell of chilly train carriage piss hanging around for the whole weekend.

So... Japan we ain't, when it comes to rail travel. But I try and keep the faith, and as we are journeying north this easter for the parentals' 40th wedding anniversary, I thought I'd be organised and book train tickets.

And this was the suggestion for the return journey:



Six hours, six changes. Chances of a journey this convoluted going smoothly: slim. Chances of us paying fifty four quid each for the privilege of getting on a bus at Dorridge (Dorridge? Dorridge? Where the fuck is Dorridge?): zero.

So it looks like the M6 at snail's pace, playing I-Spy and trying not to split up. Housemate K suggested flying from Stansted to Blackpool. I know short haul flights are evil, but you know what, two flights would cost the same as one train ticket and take 45 minutes. If we didn't live two hours from Stansted I think I'd be doing it. I'd hate myself, but I would stay sane. As things stand, it looks like I'm going to hate myself *and* go mad. Bring it on.

joella

Mystery theft x 2

About six weeks? two months? ago I did some tidying up in the front garden, and filled one of our nice new garden waste bags (which we bought recently to replace ones which rotted because we left them out full for weeks on end) with weeds, clippings, dead foliage, you know, stuff. And left it out full for weeks on end. Normally I spend only marginally less time at the tip than I do at B&Q, but recently we just haven't reached tipping point (arf).

On Sunday I opened the front door to wave off my cousin and his girlfriend, and noticed that the bag was empty. Someone had nicked our garden waste! How weird is that? Maybe there's a hyper-composter somewhere.

But the bag was all soggy, it was raining and dark and, well, I left it there. Tonight I came back from plumbing and the bag had gone as well. Which is really annoying as it was brand bloody new and they cost a tenner. And it would have been so easy to chuck it into the back garden.

And I wonder to myself, was it the same person? In which case why didn't they just nick the full bag? It was no heavier than the stuff in it, and would have been a good deal more pleasant to carry. Or was it two people? What kind of neighbours do we have, exactly?

Put it this way, it's not for nothing that we've chained the dustbin to the fence. We lost two before we did that.

joella

Embracing your inner contradictions

Since moving in, housemate K has expressed a degree of surprise at the number of lipsticks and dangly earrings that she finds lying round the place, not to mention the newly candy pinked radiator in the bathroom.

This is entirely understandable. When I became a woman, I put away girlish things. It was far more important that people Took Me Seriously. And to a very large extent, it still is.

But every now and again I drive out into deepest Oxfordshire and wrangle with myself with the help of a psychotherapist. It's a process that's given me (among many other things) the space to acknowledge and enjoy things that don't easily fit together, and not worry about it too much.

It's the same with food. Yesterday my cousin and his girlfriend came for lunch. We had a LOT of organic vegetables and talked about eating and cooking and food and how lovely and delicious and important it all is. Most of the time, we eat good things: fish and vegetables and lentils and rice and nuts and seeds and porridge and salad and soup.

Tonight: SuperNoodles and Diet Coke. Tonight I needed something instant and stodgy and salty. Bad day at work, little weep in Wantage, slow recovery from Saturday night's slighly mad excesses (dinner with housemate K and her parents, trip to the pub with A&L, back to meet M and some improvisers, decision that turning up to J's party a) incoherent and b) at 3 am was probably not a good plan), pointless mission to B&Q, as so many of them seem to be. It was not a night for healthy food.

But that's ok.

If you're similarly inclined, the following serves 2:

2 packets chicken SuperNoodles (which are suitable for vegetarians)
1 tin tuna
Encona
Black pepper
4 tomatoes

Boil the water, add the tuna and the sachets of chicken flavouring, bash the tuna around to break it up. Add a big slug of Encona and then the noodles. Cook till gloopy. Turn off the heat and add the tomatoes and black pepper.

Curl up on sofa. Feel small.

joella

Horizontal blogging

I am lying on the sofa with my feet up and a glass of wine perched precariously on the fire surround. I tried to sit up at the little desk where my laptop lives, but I couldn't do it. I was too aware of my aching head and weary limbs to think of anything to say. Now I'm comfy I can make the space to reflect a little, not least on how wild it is to be able to access the internet lying down. That never used to be possible.

If I cycle into work tomorrow, it will make five days out of five: a personal record. I almost don't want to, it will leave me nothing to achieve. And as if that weren't impressive enough, there have been multiple extra journey bits:

Monday: home > work > town > home
Tuesday: home > work > plumbing > home
Wednesday: home > work > home
Thursday: home > hotel in N Oxford > home > plumbing > home

Home > work = 15 mins
Work > town = 25 mins
Town > home = 15 mins
Work > plumbing = 10 mins
Plumbing > home = 20 mins
Home > hotel in N Oxford = 20 mins

So we are talking 55 + 45 + 30 + 80 minutes = LOTS of cycling this week. It must be good for me. *And* I've given up crisps for Lent. I'm a frigging paragon of virtue at the moment, frankly.

So why do I feel so crap? Well... it's not been an insane week but it's had its moments, particularly Monday evening, which was spent immensely pleasurably with housemate K and our mutual friend J, who is a make up artist. She has put foundation on Yasmin Le Bon! She (J, not Yasmin Le Bon) came from London on the bus and we generally made a very respectable night of it. There was brandy involved. On a school night. Tsk.

And then (and much more BORINGLY) there are the headaches. They have kind of come back and it's really dull. *gloom*

Oh, but tonight M has come home with a visiting musician, who we are putting up. She is an improvising flautist from Los Angeles, on tour with a Chinese zither player. As if that weren't weird enough, by day she's a paralegal who does contracts for rap artists. She likes 'Europe' and she drinks Scotch. Thursday nights are cool.

joella

Sunday afternoon sauna

Sunday afternoon sauna
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

We've been away. Hooray! Back now, boo hoo.

M and I decided to book a late break at Center Parcs. By ourselves. We weren't even sure you were allowed in without a brace of children, or indeed that we would know what to do with ourselves, but it was lovely.

We booked an apartment rather than a villa. That's what grown ups do. And when we got there they said they'd upgraded us to a penthouse. Woo hoo! We had two floors! Two fridges! Two toilets! Two balconies! And one of them had a sauna on it!

We went to the Subtropical Swimming Paradise and threw ourselves down chutes and rapids. We went to the spa and covered ourselves in ice and mud. We got up stupidly early on Sunday and went to a yoga class. We hung out in the sunshine looking at the giant redwoods, watching moorhens and making the most of being able to get hot enough to lie out reading the paper in the nip in the middle of March.

I feel, as the Lizard would say, clean and serene. It's a little like Pontins meets the Truman Show meets Disneyland, but sometimes it makes sense to suppress one's inner snob.

joella

I wish I never saw the sunshine*

Yesterday was getting on for balmy. I wanted to lie in the sun singing songs all day like my life had just begun.

But today... today I fought the hail and the hail won. Who needs microdermabrasion when you have a 20 minute downhill bike ride at the end of the day? If I hadn't been glowing inside with scaffolding tower construction achievements (only mildly offset by the fact that plumbing S and I were the only ones they thought it important to get photographic evidence of) I might have abandoned my bike to Blackbird Leys and called a cab. As it was I fell in the door and shook ice out of my hair straight into my drink.

I have an A4 b&w print out of our photo. Plumbing S, sitting cross-legged atop the tower, looks sultry and like something out of Flashdance. I am swinging off the cross-strut support at ground level looking more like a special needs child in an adventure playground. We are both wearing hard hats which are about four sizes too big -- we pointed out that having a hat falling over your eyes and donking you on the nose probably impedes safety rather than the reverse (and we also pointed out that nobody else had even looked at the hats, never mind worn them) but... as I remember from my limited building site experience, in this world you really do need to choose your battles, and you really do need to make the most of the sunshine that comes your way.

And so, on reflection, I am glad for all the sunshine I have seen, both real and metaphorical.

joella

*on re-reading, I realised this title assumes you know the next line of the (Beth Orton) song, which goes "'cause if I never saw the sunshine, then maybe I wouldn't mind the rain". Which you may not, but if you don't, I recommend it. It's perfect for singing on a wet bicycle.

T.E.S.C.O.

(In subversive Ottowan stylee)

It is T, gargantuan
It is E, ubiquitous
It is S, inescapable
It is C, unethical
It is OoooooooooOOOOOOOOHHHHoooooooooooHHHHHH

I hate Tesco as an entity, but they bring stuff to my door. And better than that, they usually bring me something I didn't quite ask for, but which is just weird enough to add value to an experience which would otherwise feel a little dirty.

Example 1: last time. Last time, we got double everything except the refrigerated goods. What added value was a) that we didn't have to pay double and b) that M (who received the order) thought it was perfectly within the bounds of possibility that I might have ordered 32 toilet rolls and 24 litres of fizzy water. It was only when he unpacked two tins of mustard powder that he suspected something might be amiss.

Example 2: this time. The delivery man (preternaturally cheerful) assured us the order was all present and correct. And it was, except we had three packets of Knorr Minestrone instead of three of Knorr Chicken Noodle (acceptable error, if annoying), and... thirteen random limes.

Why limes? Why 13? Why did the man (who independently reminded us both of M's ex's on again off again boyfriend) suggest we check our order 'just in case'?

Are we part of something bigger and more surreal?

Oh I do hope so.

joella

Happy Pi Day

One of my colleagues congratulated another of my colleagues today on her fine use of circles on a flip chart. Especially appropriate, she said, as today is Pi Day. What on earth is Pi Day? Why does Pi have a day? I thought these things briefly, but the conversation moved on, and I forgot all about it.

Later on I lay on the sofa talking to M. We discussed cold water cisterns and Sufism - possibly the only household in the land to manage this particular combination, and that's probably no bad thing. But either of these topics is more engaging than compiling a Tesco's list and deciding whether to order online or go there IRL. Desperate for distractions, I caught sight of a copy of Pi on the shelf.

It's Pi Day today, I said.
What's that?
I have no idea.

[mathematician thinks]

Ah, he said. It's American.
What?
3/14. Pi.
Right.

[non mathematician thinks]

We should have our own, like Mother's Day, on the 31st of, oh. Damn.

Later again (after doing virtual Tesco's - I would do virtual Co-op if they did virtual, I really would) I wikipedia'd it and saw that he was right. However I shall choose instead to mark Pi Approximation Day, which is the more pleasing 22/7.

joella

New bathroom colour scheme

Walls: harvest fruits 5



Woodwork and boxing: woodland fern 2



Pipes and radiator and shelves and cupboard: rock candy 3



I am particularly taken with Rock Candy, and very impressed with M that he has embraced the use of such a spectacularly girly colour. It's like Barbie lite.

The floor will be rubber, in a colour called 'Proton'



When it's all done I will a) probably have permanent rock candy and woodland fern highlights, and b) almost have forgiven Tony the plumber for doing such a thoughtless heartless job.

joella

Roe vs Wade = choosing life

I don't think my politics get any less radical as I get older, but I do keep quieter about them. I often think about why this is.

Some of the reasons are good ones, involving acknowledgement that life is complicated and messy; that compromise does not necessarily equal weakness (and may often in fact equal strength); that reality, frankly, bites.

But some of them are bad ones... involving a reluctance to stand up and be counted. Who's got time for all those difficult conversations? Let's instead talk about organic veg delivery miles and the latest Web 2.0 mash ups. We can debate our unease at our successful middle class post-modernity and everyone's a winner.

M stepped out of that box the other week, when he got up early to go on the Pro-test march in support of Oxford University's new animal testing facility. Ten (fifteen?) years ago, I'd have been on the opposing march. This time, I stayed in bed, to avoid arguments. I used to be black and white on this, now I'm grey. I felt confused, in the way that I felt confused when millions marched against the war in Iraq and I didn't. I profoundly disagreed with my boyfriend, but not so profoundly that I'd stand on a barricade when he would. How uncomfortable.

So it has come as some relief to realise that there are still some things, or at least one thing, that I *would* chain myself to a railing for. And that one thing is a woman's right to choose to have an abortion.

I cannot believe what has just happened in South Dakota. I cannot believe that Roe vs Wade is under threat. I cannot believe that the land of the free is potentially about to remove such a hard won freedom from the daughters and grand-daughters of the women who fought for it. In short, I cannot believe that religious fundamentalism has gained such a freakish stranglehold on the USA. It will be its downfall, mark my words.

You bunch of fuckers.

So in the face of such medieval recidivism, I feel I ought to front up. I'm not pro-abortion. I don't believe anyone is pro-abortion. I have never had an abortion myself (mostly down to assiduous use of contraception and, latterly, choice of vasectomised partner, partly down to luck), but I know many women who have, and I don't believe any of them did it lightly. It's not a light thing. It shouldn't be a light thing. It should be a last resort thing. But it's a resort that needs to be there.

Take it away and you are saying to women that a bunch of cells has more rights than they do. I don't buy that. The life that's already happening has the right to decide what happens. To have it otherwise isn't valuing life, it's devaluing it.

And let's not forget that unwanted pregnancies, carried to term, might become unwanted children. What kind of start in life is that? What kind of life is that full stop? I don't know if I completely buy the link, but a few years ago two US academics produced a paper pointing out that crime rates in the US dropped significantly about 18 years after abortion was legalised.

Finally, and more pragmatically, take legal abortion away and you don't stop abortion happening, you just make it more difficult and more dangerous.

So. Hope those rednecks come to their senses soon. Rant over.

joella

This house needs a bean bag

Sometimes I want to lie by the fire. There's a rug, but it's not in any way squishy. Sometimes I want to lie on the floor in the middle room where the big speakers are and make the most of what I am reliably informed is called the 'sound stage'. There's no rug, just a paltry collection of cushions. (And a rug wouldn't work in there, because we wheel bikes through it every morning).

What we need is a bean bag. Portable, comfy, adolescent. I had a bean bag in my life from age 10ish to age 30-odd. I revised for my A-levels on a bean bag. I wrote my university essays on a bean bag. I had my late 20s crisis on a bean bag. What am I doing without a bean bag in my life now?

joella

Go Go! Team!

Go! Team hand stamp plus woodwork primer
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

Oh I did enjoy the Go! Team (beware nasty Flash) at Brookes last night. They were better than I thought they were going to be, which is quite remarkable as I am often disappointed by Brookes gig experiences. It's a rubbish venue, all pillars, pinch points and bad acoustics. No excuse, given that it's purpose built.

But it was top jumpy up and down stuff, particularly a new track called Ice Storm. I can't wait to get my hands on that.

Even better, the support band (some fun-loving Australians called The Grates, I believe) were unexpectedly fantastic.

So my only gripe was the bloody hand stamp, which has proved harder to get off than the paint I was covered in half an hour before leaving the house. I woke up this morning with a blue circle on my inner thigh (must have slept all curled up last night) which I can't get off either.

So all in all quite adventurous for a frosty Sunday. And that's without my strange gig etiquette experience.

A strange Glaswegian tapped me on the shoulder and said "stop leaning on my bird". I pointed out (very politely) that I was standing upright, she was leaning back onto me, and I had nowhere to go, while she had a big space in front of her (that someone had just left -- all around us was otherwise packed). He gestured me into the big space with his head.

I shrugged and moved into it. His bird was right pissed off - I don't think that's quite what she had in mind. But hey, that's what happens when you get your boyfriend to fight your battles for you.

joella

North

North
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

The light is changing. I noticed it last weekend, and even more so today. Must be something to do with the angle of the sun, I guess, but I never did get my head round the physics of the seasons.

I love the light of winter, but there's something incredibly life affirming about the sunshine of early spring. It's sharp without being harsh, and gives dilapidated things a kind of romantic edge that will be gone by May.

joella

they know me so well

I was out with my housemates tonight. We ate mezze, drank white Rioja, talked about, you know, stuff. Work stuff, mostly.

Next week I have to have a significant and difficult conversation with my manager. I received comradely advice from them both.

K recommended trying a phrase she had just picked up on a training course: "I don't want to give you the impression that I'm in any way dissatisfied, but there are a couple of points I'd like to raise."

Tactical. I'll remember that.

M said: "I'd try and avoid using the words 'you bloody fucker'."

Top strategic advice all round.

joella

And your point *is*?

It was never going to be easy tonight. Most women can work out what's going on when you keep walking into things a la Sideshow Bob, dropping things on your foot, spilling coffee down yourself and randomly coming over all sweary and tearful, but you won't be able to play the be-gentle-with-me-I'm-premenstrual card in plumbing class for several decades yet.

Plumbing S was a star, and guided me through a range of health and safety assessments. What's wrong with this power drill? What do you use a junior hacksaw for? What kind of extinguisher do you use to put out a wood shavings fire near a fuse box? Why are threads on LPG hoses left handed? What personal protective equipment do you need when using a jigsaw?

The final bit was a test to see if you can solder without burning a hole in the board you've clamped your pipework to. Friendly K gave us some tips on heating from the side and avoiding solder blobs. And I did a beautiful job, if I say so myself.

B the teacher looked it over, blew down it to see if it leaked, and said 'wow Jo, you're getting to be better at this than the boys!'. The look he got said 'and your point IS?', but he wasn't looking, he was signing my assessment form. When he looked up, I was smiling like a lobotomy patient and shuffled off without a word. Even in this state, I find it pays to pick your battles.

The upside was the bike ride home. Normally, it's mildly terrifying negotiating the infamous Blackbird Leys chicane (put in to slow the joyriders down, allegedly), and I mutter 'please don't kill me please don't kill me' through gritted teeth all the way to Temple Cowley. But tonight I would have taken on any boy racers stupid enough to try and cut me up.

I wonder if I'll make it to the menopause?

joella

When the night is cold, some get by but some get old

Is it spring or isn't it? It's dark, there's snow on the ground, and I am sitting by the fire drinking whisky in a bleak premenstrual haze. So on that evidence I would side with the traditionalists and say no, there must be at least three more weeks of winter to go.

Earlier on, in an attempt to avert utter self-loathing, I did switch off the television set and do something less boring instead. This happened to be switching on 6Music just in time to hear Beth Orton's 'I wish I never saw the sunshine', possibly my defining song of 1998 (not my finest year). I shed a little tear and felt a little bleaker. M's son T came round to pick up his birthday presents. I opened the door, kissed him hello and said 'Hmm. 28. Difficult age'. He must wonder what sort of nutter his father lives with.

But then later, post a divine bottle of red wine shared with housemates over rice penne with chilli, broccoli, anchovies and pine kernels (hot, salty, comforting and good for you), I was left alone in the living room with only a Nick Drake documentary and some crackling logs (from sustainably managed woodland of course) for company.

And what fine company it was. If you'd asked me, I'd have said I'd had enough Nick Drake documentaries for one lifetime, but I'm glad you didn't because then I might not have heard the strains of so many beautiful songs right at a time when I needed them. I almost never listen to Nick Drake because it's such a bittersweet experience for me, like taking the pressed flowers of teenage dreams out of the book where they've been safe all this time and seeing how the colours have faded and the pages have stained.

But there's something hopeful and cathartic about doing that, as well as something sad. And sad is fine too. Let the fresh air in, feel what's there to be felt, add it to everything else that helps to feel the next thing.

So by this argument, I'm with the new kids on the block. Spring is sprung. Or at least springing.

joella

Juicing it

Juicing it
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

We cut down our organic fruit delivery to once a fortnight because we just don't eat that much fruit. Chucking away overpriced kiwi fruit makes me feel even more evil than having a standing order to a gym I never visit. (NB cancelled that years ago).

I do like citrus fruit, but even that is a struggle unless someone peels it and sits it in front of me. So once a fortnight we end up having a big juice. And I have to say, it's usually glorious. This time we had blood oranges and pink plus regular grapefruit. The juice was an improbable pinky-orange somehow reminiscent of student cocktails featuring too much grenadine (= any grenadine).

Every time I drink the big juice I think mmm, fruit is great, must eat more fruit. Never happens.

joella

Malarial Mary

Malaria Information Week
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

In theory, marking Malaria Information Week with an educational display in the Atrium of the New Building should only be a good thing.

Malaria kills more people than AIDS, and while a very different disease it does have some parallels: it's hard to get rid of, it kills poor people but not rich people, prevention is more likely to be effective than cure.

We had an interesting set of display boards with photos and captions, plus some leaflets and handouts to give us more information. The vast majority of British people never have this level of exposure to malaria itself, never mind to educational material about malaria. I should salute my employer.

But what's with Malarial Mary? Clearly on loan from Matalan down the road, she sat there all week with her full make up, 'am I bovvered?' posture and protruding joints - in fact you could probably sell those oversized rubber gloves and perspex face masks as eating disorder fetish kit.

We asked ourselves - how significant a role do anorexic white female mannequins usually play in public health initiatives to overcome global scourges? Answer: Um, none. We asked ourselves - is there a good reason for this? Answer: Um, probably.

joella

Sun and wind and laundry and me

Sun and wind and laundry and me
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

I love the smell and the feel of line-dried bedding... and it is spectacularly sunny and windy today. I wriggled out of bed specially to get the laundry on and not miss such a rare February opportunity.

Days like these are the reason I sank fence posts randomly across the garden and strung washing line between them: you just don't get the same joy from rotary dryers.

joella

Vive la difference!

After a hard night's plumbing, I was relaxing this evening with some of housemate K's vodka aux fines herbes - or somesuch - which she kindly brought back from her recent work trip to Poland. We were trading stories of the last 20 years and laughing like drains.

She headed off to bed saying ' I think I just need to listen to a bit of Oasis before I go to sleep'. Now I am very fond of housemate K but I can't fucking stand Oasis (with the exception of Champagne Supernova, which is ace). I needed a Gallagher antidote, and fast.

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Diamanda Galas is the sun! Here was a copy of Saint of the Pit, kindly lent to me by A last weekend at the end of a long and great evening featuring much red wine, much random conversation and many organic root vegetables. What, bar something featuring a harpsichord, could offset Oasis more appositely?

M, arriving home on a high from the inaugural meeting of his new band, said something along the lines of 'I'm so pleased that you have found avant garde music that you like; I just wish I didn't happen to think it was unbearable'.

Now I have said this before, but it bears repeating: as far as I'm concerned, Diamanda Galas's music is like the inside of my head on a bad day, maybe with extra goth sound effects. It's elemental female raging against the machine of church and state and I love it.

Now, M has a lot of John Zorn albums. To me, they seem to form the soundtrack to joyless postmodern existence... such as the lives surely lived by the new Observer sex columnists.

But not everyone is alienated by the sound of powertools meeting asbestos and kicking off an inescapable chronic lung condition while millstones grind on regardless. I mean no offence by this, but something in Mr Zorn's musical take on life clearly resonates with M, just as something in Ms Galas's resonates with me.

Which leads me to surmise that one person's eardrum bleed is another person's ambient. We could all learn something from that, no?

joella

Shameless

... is the name of one of my favourite Ani DiFranco songs (which is pretty much the same as being one of my favourite songs full stop). If you haven't heard it, I recommend it as the perfect song for those moments where you need to slam round the house scratching the itch of existence.

But more topically, Shameless is absolutely my favourite TV programme.

And tonight was one of its finest episodes. It turns out ultra-medicated Sheila killed her first husband with a fondue fork and buried him in the garden. Pisshead Frank gets cold feet, convinced she's about to off him as well. But salt of the earth Veronica (who was after the corpse's gold to finance her IVF) discovered the truth: that Sheila killed him because he used to beat her and burn her with hot medallions (of the Elizabeth Duke type, as opposed to the pork type). She told Frank, who (also realising that she'd opened a joint bank account for them, giving him access to an unprecedented amount of beer and E money) nicked a random kid's BMX to get to the police station before Sheila confessed all.

Frank is a fuckwit and a sponger and an addict and a very bad father, but he's not violent and he doesn't hate anyone more than he hates himself. He's the archetypal 21st century waster dad. And the scene where he did the right thing and told Sheila he was nothing without her... and you suddenly realised, well, actually he *is* the best thing that ever happened to her. Genius.

As Frank said himself... Vene vidi vol au vent - let's have a fuckng party!

joella

Lightbulb Wars: update from the frontline

I had a comment (which, annoyingly, appears to have disappeared in a Blogger glitch) from anna t about my recent lightbulb wars with the Facilities department in the New Building. She suggested joining a Union. In fact I think she suggested becoming a Union rep.

Which is good advice. I think we should all be Union members, and in fact I am - I have been a T&G member since I started working for this large multinational NGO about five and a half years ago. (As a trainee plumber I am also an NUS member, which is great for getting cheap cinema tickets, but I'm not sure that really counts).

And we do have a health and safety rep. And taking the matter up with her was going to be my next move. This would be a high risk strategy, as Facilities had told me they were 'progressing' the issue (which they are, but at what feels to me, with a headache, like a glacial pace).

Upping the ante in this way would risk lighting a red touchpaper. This isn't to say I wouldn't do it, but I am, after all, a manager with a sore head, not a sweatshop worker who isn't allowed to go to the toilet. So I adopted a more subtle approach. I talked to the Building Services Engineer.

He is a lovely guy, who is fond of me because I am interested in plumbing, and has taken me on a tour of the amazing pipes and boilers and tanks hidden in the roof space of the New Building. He isn't allowed to do anything that alters the spec of the building without authorisation from Facilities. This includes removing lightbulbs. But, he said, 'we could just move the lights over a bit'.

The ceiling is made of squares, and every fifth square one way and fourth square the other way is a light. He went and got a stepladder, poked a few panels out, and moved the light above my desk two squares over and three squares back. Then he moved the light over my colleague K's desk. Then he said 'see how you get on with that', and left me in a blissful pool of shadow.

I don't have a headache. My colleague K doesn't have a headache. The Building Services Engineer is in trouble. But he grinned at me this morning and said 'I've got broad shoulders, I can take it.' Life is sweet.

joella

David Irving: not mad, just bad

I like to think I am reasonably well informed about current affairs (I snooze to the Today Programme for at least an hour every morning), and being a little bit Jewish I have a special interest in anti-Semitism. So I am really quite embarrassed to recount the following, but feel its comedy value might redeem me.

There's lots of buzzing on the airwaves at the moment about David Irving being tried in Austria, where Holocaust denial is illegal, for claiming that Auschwitz's gas chambers were a hoax. Skimming the BBC News RSS feed earlier, I saw the headline 'Irving admits Holocaust 'mistake'', and skipped over to take a look.

Hmm, I thought, I see he's not wearing those turquoise tracksuits anymore.

Hmm, I thought again, actually he might not be the guy with the turquoise tracksuits.

It turns out I had confused David Irving (who was a serious historian if also "an active Holocaust denier, anti-Semitic and racist ") with David Icke (who is clearly barking mad if also the holder of pretty dodgy views on Jews).

I had been wondering why anyone cared what he thought. I've got it now.

joella

Showing my age

This week I upbraided my friend Ben for being rude about Paul Weller - specifically, for claiming that he has always written miserable songs. No! I said. Listen to Cafe Bleu! In particular, listen to 'You're the best thing'. In what sense could this song ever be described as miserable? (At this point I should direct you to an MP3 of it but I can't find one, and I can't make my own as I have it on vinyl, and while I know that doesn't make it impossible, life is too short. If you haven't got it, ask iTunes. But, as I said to Ben, you want the original, not the Singular Adventures version.)

This song...

Could be discontent
Chase the rainbow's end
I could win much more
But lose all that is mine

I could run away
But I'd rather stay
I'm content just with the riches that you bring

... is by any measure the very opposite of miserable, but personally I love it because it, and the rest of the album it comes from, formed part of the soundtrack to my first serious relationship. So many things about my life are better now than they were 20 years ago, but nothing will ever be as sweet or as salty as some of those memories.

So I guess I'm biased.

But what *really* made me feel old was coming home from the pub last night, deciding to put the record (record!) on, and finding tucked into the album sleeve a page torn out of Smash Hits, with a photo of a young Paul Weller in a lemon yellow jumper and all the lyrics to that beautiful song.

RIP Smash Hits (visit the Smash Hits Tribute Messageboard!). We loved you.

joella

"Holy shit, I just shot Harry in the face!"

When did Pulp Fiction come out? 1995? (I know it's the work of seconds to find this out, but I can't be arsed). Anyway, I went to watch it at the Phoenix with my Significant Ex and my colleague C. For weeks afterwards, 'Holy shit, I just shot Marvin in the face!' was our all-purpose catchphrase. I still say it sometimes. I wonder if Dick Cheney's friends have seen it? They could be having a whale of a time winding him up if they have.*

God bless the right to bear arms.

joella

*though the Cheney version, according to today's Guardian, is the slightly less catchy "Ultimately I'm the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry."

A paean to East Oxford

Last night Plumbing S was coming over. I didn't have any wine. I'm just popping out to Classic Wines, I said. Hang on, said M, *Plumbing S* is coming over and you're going to *Classic Wines*? (Plumbing S has a Diploma of Wine. Everything I know about wine, I learnt it from her. Classic Wines, and forgive me if you've heard this before, is the sort of off licence which smells of bleach and vomit.)

Shit, you're right, I said. Maybe I should go to Tesco.

But there wasn't time, and I headed for the compromise option: Wasim Regency Stores, where a wildly random selection of wine costs a consistent £4.99 a bottle. Who knows where they get it from, I have often thought to myself. It can be good, and it can be quite spectacularly bad. It's kind of a lottery, but this seemed more appropriate than the alternative of slightly gone off Ernest & Julio Gallo.

Scanning the shelves in a mild panic, I suddenly saw a familiar 'Finest' label. A Tesco Finest label. And then another one. So I emerged with a bottle of 2005 Aussie Chardonnay (Tesco price: £7.99) and another of 1999 Gran Reserva Rioja (Tesco price: £9.99) for the princely total of £9.98.

When I got home I discovered that plumbing S had brought a posh bottle of Manzanilla, just in case I'd resorted to Classic Wines. We drank some of that and most of the Rioja, which I thought was lovely but she judged to be low on tannin. She's undoubtedly right, but I am more curious about how it came to be there in the first place. I'm glad it was though: saved me a walk and eight quid. You don't get that in Middle England.

joella

Rearrange me till I'm sane

Quite by chance, we have ended up this evening drinking Rioja and watching Classic Albums on BBC2. Very ABC1. But hey, this week it's Dark Side of the Moon, which is possibly the album most centrally placed in the Venn diagram of the intergenerational record collection occupying the middle room of my significant relationship.

M saw Pink Floyd in Brighton in 1972, around the time I was toddling Up North, busy getting used to solid foods. I envy him that gig experience. I have never seen The Floyd, and have no desire to now. Musicians, unlike writers, rarely age well. He still loves the album, but he's mainly into it for the music, the strange time signatures, the special effects which these days could be done at the drop of an automated hat, but then involved lots of tape machines being turned on at the same time.

For me, it's mainly about the lyrics. I heard them first in about 1985, while still in deepest Lancashire, lying on the bedroom floor of a boy who was trying to get into my pants, too drunk for comfort and wondering what the hell was going on. The thing I remember from that first listen is all the clocks at the beginning of Time. I think they probably prompted me to get up and be sick.

A few years later I was on holiday with my Significant Ex in still (as opposed to former) Yugoslavia. It wasn't a good holiday, for reasons I am still too ashamed to articulate, but one of its high points was a visit to a nightclub at the end of the universe, where we asked the DJ if he had any English music and he played us Time. We threw spacy shapes on an empty dancefloor under the stony glare of crewcut Communist Europopsters and tried not to think about hanging on in quiet desperation.

That experience notwithstanding, over the next few years I had some of my most memorable orgasms, whether alone or accompanied, to the strains of Great Gig in the Sky. And it became a sporadic ritual to head out to the pub, roll a big spliff on returning, lie in companionable 20-something heaps on the floor and listen to the whole album with the lights off and the essential oils burning.

I don't really do that sort of thing anymore, and neither does M, but every time we put the album on I kind of figure we should. He bought my uncle J a reggae take on it for Christmas, listening to which made us giggle for at least five junctions worth of the M6 (a near impossible feat), and it was also sampled (Time again) by Madonna for one of the tracks on Confessions. Clearly it's not an album that's lost its mojo. And that's a beautiful thing.

My Pink Floyd secret is that (very unfashionably) I like the Roger Waters bits best. Us and Them, now there's a heart stopping song. He said on the programme that he fel slightly embarrassed that he'd got away with such Lower Sixth lyrics. Maybe I don't see them that way because I first heard them when I was in the Lower Sixth myself, or maybe they just work because the world was different then. They didn't have postmodern paranoia in the 1970s. It's not all progress.

joella

Shoot out the lights

You know how it is sometimes: the world's imploding in a series of medieval knee jerks and all you can think about is you you you.

I've been getting headaches nearly every day since we moved office. I don't cope well under bright artificial light, but never before have I had to work in it -- in every previous workplace where it's been too bright I have been able to turn off the lights, sit by a window and use a desk lamp with a daylight bulb in it when it's dark. This has worked as a modus operandi for the last 12 years. But not here. No. Here in the Brave New Building you can't turn off the lights yourself, and, I am assured in 'computer says no' style, that the light levels at my desk are fine because they "fall within the design criteria for the building".

I'm thinking of getting some T-shirts made up: How many headaches does it take to change a light bulb?

joella

Viz Letterbocks

Having written my previous post, I ended up on the Viz website for the first time ever... I did have tea coming out of my nose when I read this:

It really annoys me to see these suicide bombers blowing up other people as well as themselves. In my day, suicide was done in a more dignified way, such as slicing your wrists in the bath, or hanging yourself from a door with a belt.
Paul Mulraney, Belfast

joella

The flag burners and cheese boycotters are as bad as the cartoonists

I despair of the world sometimes. Were I a cartoonist, I wouldn't draw a cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb turban. I would think it a little crass, a bit like drawing a cartoon of Jesus as a choirboy abuser or Buddha as a... (um... can anyone think of anything bad that any Buddhist has ever done?)

But, you know. Art as satire. It's not what anyone really thinks. It's designed to get a rise. When I was a teenage feminist I used to get angry at Viz Comic. What's the fucking point? This is on about the same level of sophistication, and so is the bloody reaction to it.

joella

Day out in Big Smoke

St Paul's, Rousseau, Millennium Bridge
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

Took the day off yesterday to visit Tate Modern to see the Rousseau show before it finishes. It was amazing, and great to go in the week when it's not so heaving. It was chocablock with schoolgirls in long kilts though, sitting in packs on the floor sketching tigers. Which was a bit freaky, frankly.

We looked and looked at the deep green leaves and the strange animals and the big beautiful moons hanging in the deep bluey green skies. Then we headed off into the sunless grey to find something warm and exotic to eat. Which we did, at Busaba Eathai on Wardour Street. I haven't had morning glory for years (kind of like chewy spinach) but I could eat it all day. M had a mandarin juice with chilli and lemongrass which was like heaven in a glass. We were very happy bunnies. And then we came home.

Hmm. I think birthday celebrations are finally over. Sniff.

joella