By the beck near Boggle Hole

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 air is still, and full of the scent of wild garlic, which is all around.

The trees are coming into leaf, beech trees I think, with trunks clothed in ivy. There are ferns, and moss, and a big holly bush, and brambles, and some irises yet to flower and some red campion just beginning to.

But the main thing is the water, flowing down to the sea.

joella

Greetings from the People's Republic of Oxford East

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 Evan Harris - Lib Dem, fan of atheism and evidence, loathed by homeopaths, homophobes and evangelists - by 176 votes. Her website tells us what she did on her gap year, and that "she has volunteered with aid projects in all sorts of exotic places like Mozambique, Rwanda, Bangladesh and a few less exotic ones like Birmingham and even Blackpool". I didn't vote Lib Dem, but if I'd lived a couple of miles west, I would have. What a disaster.

Elsewhere, lovely Lancastrian places like Morecambe, Lancaster and "even" Blackpool North were all lost by Labour to the Tories, though I am heartened by the socialist 14 year old who voted Lib Dem (tactically) in Wyre & Preston North, having gone to vote disguised as a Tory, on the grounds that nobody would expect anyone under 18 to be a Tory so he might get away with it.

It wasn't all bad: Caroline Lucas's victory in Brighton was great leap forwards for the Greens, and the BNP's annihilation in Barking and Dagenham was both just reward for the sterling work of Hope Not Hate and a great leap forwards for humanity. Whatever the world's problems, fascists are never part of the solution, and I'm glad Britain has said that more clearly than it had this time last week.

And I am greatly heartened by the fact that even with 13 years of new Labour, an illegal war, an undeniably unpopular Prime Minister, the expenses scandal *and* global financial meltdown, shiny Dave and his posh boy friends didn't get a majority. I loathe him and everything he stands for, can't help myself. But the overall outcome is a bit... WTF? I wanted a hung Parliament, but I was hoping the Lib Dems, who I basically agree with about many things, would have more seats, and more choice about who to get into bed with.

I don't think a 'progressive coalition' is going to happen, the maths are too shaky, though I would be happy to be proved wrong. So the next best thing would be a minority Tory government, which falls over by Christmas, while Labour get a new leader, then we have another election, shortly followed by a referendum on electoral reform, which might deliver something approaching the sweet moderation that this country is supposed to be good at. We might get a couple of fascists into the bargain, but I think that would be a price worth paying.

It's all kind of fascinating though, in a scary kind of way. But that's enough politics for a Sunday morning, I'm off for a bath and then to pick asparagus with Plumbing S.

joella

If I were to vote Lib Dem tomorrow...

... 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 he worked in local government, and he had to be able to work with whoever was elected, so he stayed neutral.

Now, I'm sure you can have a personal political view, and yet work in a politically neutral way (indeed, all NGO X employees have been reminded that NGO X is not aligned to any political party and we shouldn't shout too loudly on social networks about our own views in the election run-up if we are identifiably NGO X), and I'm certainly sure that you can vote and still work in a politically neutral way, but maybe my dad believed that he should live neutrality as well as work neutrality. It's not the worst argument for not voting I've ever heard. Or maybe he thought 'what's the point, whatever I vote this place has Tory written through it like a stick of rock' (check it out!). Possibly I should ask him again.

But then I asked him if I could have his vote, if he wasn't going to use it, and he said I could. So on election day, we went down to the polling station (which was also my old primary school, so I felt VERY IMPORTANT), and he got his ballot paper, and he gave it to me. I went into the little booth, and decided which candidate I was going to vote for, and put my X in the box. Then I came out, and gave the paper to him, and he put it in the box.

I don't remember if he asked me who I voted for (I should ask him that too, but I'm betting he didn't). And I don't remember if I told him anyway (I'm betting I did). But my decision was this: there was one woman on the ballot paper, and I voted for her. I remember making the decision, I remember why, and I remember putting the X in the box, with the pencil on a string (I love that pencil on a string. I always want to vote like that). But until yesterday I don't think I could have told you which party she represented. For me, she represented something else altogether.

I was telling M this story last night as we were having our daily who-to-vote-for debate of our own*. I wondered again which party I'd voted for. They had the National Front in 1983, and a little shiver went down my spine in case I'd voted for a lady fascist. But a) fascists are not known for their feminism, b) coastal Tory heartlands are not known for their fascism -- even if only because there are no black people to hate** -- and c) I like to think that even at 13 I would rather have gnawed my own arm off than voted NF.

But I can't remember what I thought about politics at 13. I really can't. I can remember getting Rio by Duran Duran, and I can remember smoking my first cigarette, and I can remember hating my hair and wondering if I'd ever grow breasts, and I can remember becoming a vegetarian, but I can remember nothing about the political landscape, though the miners' strike was on the horizon and would change all that.

Still, we have the internet now. I bet you can find out, I thought. And you can (scroll down to Lancashire, Fylde).

Turns out I voted Liberal. Not a bad choice for a properly young person.

joella

* It does feel like there's a proper choice to be made, though we agreed to discount both the man in the Batman outfit and the woman who hates foreigners without further discussion.
** I don't mean to be too damning here. There are worse political landscapes than Domesday Book Tory. Like anywhere with the BNP on the ballot paper.

World of girls

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 of Tatler and the invitation, during my Sleep Retreat, to enter my very own secret garden.
 
But mostly it was a gorgeous experience. There is a sauna and steam room, and a pool big enough for proper swimming. Upstairs is the Koi Carp lounge, featuring koi carp and lounging. For the latter, there are double bed size cushions for friends, blankets for snoozing, and quite the loveliest ginger and honey tea imaginable. There's also the famous pool with the swing, and a super-hot hot tub tucked into a stairwell.

And no men. Which somehow felt appropriate for a sanctuary, but it took a bit of getting used to. We discussed -- among many other things, of course -- how far back behind the scenes this womanliness extends. Is it a philosophy, or a business decision? Are there men working in the kitchens? In the laundry room? Do they come out at night to change the lightbulbs, or is there an army of maintenance women in dungarees?

On the way to the pool, we passed the Plant Room. As in plant room, not as in greenhouse. I'm betting they have men in there. But if not, what an amazing place to work *that* must be.

joella

Oh Lord, won't you erase all memory of every interaction with Mercedes-Benz

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 the ancient Golf he replaced it with was fading fast. There was something about wanting to have a decent car, something about having the money to buy one (hey, it was 1998 - Things Could Only Get Better), and something about liking the shape of it. There are loads of cars that look like the Mercedes A Class now, but there weren't then. And the early ones were especially pleasing. So he bought one.

Summer 1998 - January 2010: M drives Velba, and, especially after we moved in together in 2001 and I sold my beloved 2cv, so do I. I think it's fair to say that we love Velba, and, the vast majority of the time, she loves us right back. She has a comfortable driving seat, which you can raise and lower and move backwards and forwards, and lovely glowing lights to welcome you back when you press the 'unlock' button from ten metres away across a dark car park. She is warm in the winter and, for a while, cool in the summer, though the air conditioning packed up about five years ago and we never got it fixed. She has an incredible haulage capacity for a small car: you can get a lot in the boot, but if you need more, you can fold the back seats forward in several different ways, and even, in extremis, take them out altogether. She can carry two full size bikes and a week's worth of self-catering supplies, or a whole band's equipment, or a toilet and basin and all the tools, fittings and pipes you need to put them in. She's economical on petrol, starts first time every time, and parks like a dream. They know how to build cars, do Mercedes-Benz.

The only drawback is that when stuff needs doing, and it regularly does, it costs a screaming arm and a screaming leg. The car never actually breaks down, she is designed to fail elegantly, but over the years M spends what, in retrospect, is an eye-watering amount of money on her. Mainly this is because he continues to get her looked after by Mercedes-Benz of Oxford, so various warranties and guarantees and service histories are maintained. After a certain point this becomes economically pointless, as the car is not worth enough to make those warranties and guarantees and service histories anything like worthwhile, but we don't really notice that point passing. And it's hardly in their interest to point out that we could get the same work done tons cheaper elsewhere, so of course they don't.

A bit like when we were briefly members of Esporta, I am faintly ashamed, even once removed, of my association with Mercedes-Benz of Oxford and their Living The Dream, You're Worth It, Finer Things In Life aesthetic. When I go with M to drop off or pick up Velba, we get to sit on shiny chairs and drink coffee from a shiny machine, brought over by a young woman with shiny hair and shiny lips. There are flowers in shiny bowls, of the type you find on the tables at a certain kind of wedding, and a range of Mercedes-Benz merchandise (cufflinks, pens, clothing) in shiny cabinets. Through my head, without fail, plays 'what the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here...'

But the car is not like that. The car has values we share. The car is worth it.

Until the big snow. Actually, until the service just before the big snow, when N, the Human Face of Mercedes-Benz of Oxford (whom I am only annoyed with because if he wasn't actually a nice guy we might have moved on several years ago), pointed out that the clutch was 'on the way out' and that to carry out that scale of repair on a car of Velba's age was possibly not the best decision. So, he advised us, we should think about what we wanted to do when that happened.

And then it snowed. I was the first person to drive Velba after the roads cleared, and there was a strange engine noise. A couple of days later we were taking stuff to the tip, and there was a loud cracking noise as M moved the driving seat from 5'4" to 5'11".

There was no obvious performance impact resulting from either of these things, but the noises were a little alarming, so we booked her in for a check-up. M dropped her off, and caught the bus* back to Oxford. Later that day, they called M and informed him that repairs would cost £1200, including-but-not-limited-to new shock absorbers, tyres and windscreen wipers. This was a shock that needed absorbing in its own right, but for various reasons, including-but-not-limited-to a daughter who wanted to borrow the car that weekend, he agreed to go ahead without much further deliberation.

M's thinking was that this would see the car through until the clutch needed replacing. This would give us the time to think about our options, which, despite N's advice, we had not really done. There was no suggestion whatever that these repairs might not fix the problems he had reported (and indeed he paid over £100 for 'diagnosis').

But they didn't. When Velba was ready, he caught the bus* to collect her, paid the bill of £1196.61, filled in a form saying he was happy with the service he had received, and drove her back to Oxford. By the time he got back, the car was making the same noise as before, so he turned round and drove straight back to the garage.

And from then on it just got worse. M was informed that more diagnosis would involve 'dropping the engine out' (at a cost of more hundreds of pounds), but that the car was 'probably' fine to drive around town. He drove home, and later rang to complain about the service he'd received. There was an offer to diagnose the problem free of charge, but, once the car was returned yet again, this was retracted... the person who had made the offer was over-ruled by the Service Manager.

This same man would not come and talk to us when we both caught the bus* to the garage to try and resolve things. We drove the rattly car home again knowing nothing more than it might be something to do with the alternator, or it might be something to do with the air conditioner. It was probably the latter, said the Service Manager, when he finally did return M's calls, and it would probably 'last longer than the clutch'. (Subtext: stop making a fuss, and go away).

It wasn't, and it didn't. Less than a week later the alternator went bang while M was driving me to work. We have had a dead car parked outside the house ever since, and two more calls to the Service Manager have gone unreturned. I feel he may be the kind of man who is rude to his wife in company.

It's all been very, very stressful. M has been wounded, and not just financially, because he still puts value on loyalty, and doing the right thing, and it pains him when in fact there's nothing behind the facade of 'service' beyond naked capitalism. I am less surprised and more angry, because when it comes down to it, naked capitalism is breaking the world, and makes decent people, who have to work in it, miserable.

But maybe my car days are over. I am exploring my thoughts about this, but gently, as they were formed over 20 years ago when the car keys in my pocket ignited a whole lot more than petrol.

Meanwhile I stroke Velba's flank gently as I pass her, and tell her that we know it's not her fault. And maybe as car doors close, other doors open. To be continued.

joella

* Technically, two buses - Mercedes-Benz of Oxford is actually in Kidlington. But Mercedes-Benz of Kidlington would not sound so Finer Things in Life, would it.

140 words good, 140 characters better?

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. I do like a well-composed tweet, even as I hate the fact that it's called a tweet. But it's more than that, it's quicker - you can easily do it by text or email if you're not online -  and (unlike blogging), it's not all about you. Most Thursdays, I watch BBC Question Time on the TV while following (and sometimes contributing to) the simultaneous fury being vented on #bbcqt. It's social, and I am a social animal.

But I miss creating joella. My tweets are backed up, and paint their own picture of the last year or so, but it's not the same as the narrative arc of a blog... actually more like a narrative sine wave: trawling the archives I can see the cycles of the year and the month, the ebbing and flowing, the posts I find I have written several times over, using different words in different years, not remembering that I've said it before. Some things change, some stay the same. Memories are fallible, and it's more valuable than I thought it would be to have a record. I find I consistently underestimate my younger self. Maybe we all do.

So I need to sort it out a bit.

I don't think I will get round to retro-blogging. But in case I have a burst of enthusiasm, here are a few things I wanted to expand on rather than condense, yet somehow didn't. This was the underdocumented early spring of 2010

• BBC4's Women series 
  
• My semi-related re-reading of The Handmaid's Tale
  
• The illlusion of freedom which is car ownership
  
• The removal of the wallpaper in the hall, and the realisation that there are many ways to fill a crack
  
• The sadness I feel for the grass in the Business Park
• Choice does not equal empowerment
  
• Party fears
• My burgeoning love affair with Dr Haushcka

There. That's a start.

joella

joella

Lost message from the Hot Place

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, still trying to make sense of what's happening and still (mostly) failing.

I have a data-free data stick, and a data-free laptop. I still don't know if these will be taken off me. In my check-in luggage there is a data-free flip video recorder (this one of the heartbreaking bits as I had some great videos of local staff) and my camera, from which I have deleted any photos with people on them.

I still have my phone, but some people have had these taken too - and I still hadn't got round to backing my numbers up so I have copied them all out longhand across six pages of my notebook. We have rediscovered longhand, these last few days.

There are other dazed looking NGO workers scattered round the departure lounge. We stand out a mile.

Across the way, there is a fat African man in a pale suit. He is sitting in that way some men sit, legs wide apart, taking up maximum space. He has earphones in and he's singing along, off key and really pretty loud, to Amazing Grace.

There are signs all down the road to the airport bearing huge photos of the President with slogans like "wise and strongly determined".

This can of lemon drink tastes really, really weird.

joella

A salvo from the invisible demographic

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 pay a full time union subscription. I get the bus just often enough for it to be expensive and just seldom enough not to be worth getting any kind of bus pass. I have seen my pension contributions go up, and the consequent benefits get smaller and further away. I don't get 10% off at B&Q on a Wednesday. And I don't have any children, so I've never had maternity pay or any of the things that come the way of the 'families' whose requirements the Tories are so keen to prioritise.

But I won't be voting for them anyway, obviously. As a good Marxist, I believe in to each according to their needs, and I guess I don't need much. And that's something to be happy about. But I do, every now and again, feel a bit overlooked. I work hard, and I do my bit. Who's looking out for me? Who's taking care of the people who contribute more than they get back? We're important too, you know.

And then, in 2002, came 6Music. Unbelievably, a radio station that was designed for the invisible demographic: the 30, 40 and 50 somethings whose lives have been defined and soundtracked by independent and alternative music from many decades, and the slice of the younger generation coming up behind them who want to find their tribe. I loved it immediately. It's the reason I bought a DAB radio. We listen to Freak Zone in the kitchen while cooking dinner on Sunday evenings, Nemone has taken me through many a long afternoon at work, and I've lost count of the number of live gems from the BBC archive I've happened upon and enjoyed. It's about celebrating our alternative past and giving the people who want to be part of an alternative future (and I define alternative here extremely broadly) a place to feel all right, and if that isn't a public service I don't know what is.

This is about the only thing this country has done for me this century, and now they want to bloody close it, in order to pour more wet reality-makeover-nanny-location cement down our throats, with more banal/offensive comedy, shitty quiz shows or ritual-humiliation-by-overpaid-presenters by way of 'alternative'. To say I am pissed off is putting it mildly.

Here comes the future. Please don't let it be playing Keane or I might just leave on a jet plane.

joella

Is that an iPhone in your pocket...

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 unpleasant-to-vile-to-worse, and distorting of sexuality, and invades women's lives in ways they generally would rather it didn't if you actually asked them, and all that stuff, but I've always thought that, and it's an increasingly marginal point of view. You see it everywhere, and if you're a fusty old feminist, you just learn to ignore it, like mosquitoes, except when it comes dangerously close to being right in your face.

Some of the comments on the news articles and blog posts I've read reporting Apple's move have been in the 'bunch of puritanical Dworkinites' vein, as you might expect. But even the commenters - men and women - who can see the point of maybe not having a free-for-all wankfest available for consumption in the office toilet or on the Clapham omnibus generally make a point of saying something along the lines of 'obviously, I have no problem with porn per se...'. To these people I say (actually, I don't, I say it to the readers of this blog, but I don't want to be out there getting Dworkin-flamed) check out the first chapter of David Foster Wallace's Consider The Lobster, and then say 'obviously' again.**

My second thought was that I don't believe Apple have suddenly decided to do the right thing by every woman who might pick up her boyfriend's iPhone and then wish she hadn't. Their spokesman said "we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable" (a bit degrading and objectionable is probably ok, as you can get that in Nuts magazine or on Channel Five any day of the week), but I get the strong impression that they are just 'protecting the brand', and if degrading and objectionable content was going to benefit the brand, they'd be there like a bear.

And that's about as far as I'd got, but luckily Jill Psmith over at I Blame the Patriarchy is a faster thinker than I am. Even if you are not a regular patriarchy blamer, you'll rarely find a more sharply written blog on this subject or indeed any other, and I can thoroughly recommend More Adventures with the Antithesis of Enlightenment as One Of Those Posts I Can Only Dream Of Writing.

Enjoy.

joella

* I hate this use of the word 'adult'.
** A more 'obviously' feminist reading list can be provided on request.

In which we acknowledge the possibility of spring, and consider that we may not live to see it

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 routine - weekly yoga, weekly-ish swimming, bit of cycling round the place - after I had that chunk cut out of my foot. It's a dangerous thing for the middle-aged to lose their routines. Disaffection spreads, and so do midriffs.

A wise woman looked at the two of us and suggested snowdrop therapy. We looked at each other and figured it was worth a go. And so it was that we bundled up late on a frosty morning and headed over to Welford Park.

A note for the under 60s: you will stand out like a sore thumb. But it is a remarkable place and I thoroughly recommend it. Snowdrops do their thing for a scant month of the year, and to dedicate your whole grounds to them takes serious class. Which they have at Welford Park, as well as lots of soup, cake and jam. Oh, and sausages. It's like a day trip to a pre-war universe.

I also got to play with the camera on my new iPhone, which is basic but which delivered some pleasing results.

But I was also wearing sunglasses (it was sunny, but also a bit hailing) because I had a headache. And I have had a headache, on and off, for the last fortnight. It's probably a virus, and the case of dark, dark red Australian wine that my dad sent me for my birthday* probably hasn't helped.

But there have been days of lying in a darkened room, necking codeine and clutching my temples, shouting at people I quite often want to shout at but normally manage not to, and general low-to-medium grade misery. I went to the doctor, who took some blood to check for various terrifying brain conditions, but said that it was probably indeed a virus and would go away in due course.

In the small bursts of energy I get when I don't think I'm dying of a terrifying brain condition, I have been doing spring anticipation activities like planting garlic, darning jumpers, changing the bed (not something that can be contemplated while there's no chance of line drying) and cleaning the oven.

And, like the birds and the bees, I wait.

joella

* The last two bottles left are both called Willy Willy. I think there's probably some Freudian reluctance stopping me opening them. But I expect I'll get over it shortly.

Accounting for taste

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 happily eat white bread sandwiches filled with iceberg lettuce, pickled beetroot, crisps and salad cream. On a third hand, I just bought myself a silk tunic dress in the Toast sale. On a fourth, I wear a dress about four times a year. There's a fifth hand, where I want to live naked by a Finnish lake and smoke my own fish*, and a sixth where I want to put on a lot of black eyeliner, drink a lot of Cinzano and smoke a lot of cocktail Sobranies to a backdrop of arty black and white photos and minimalist electropop.

I read serious novels, and fat books of social history and feminist politics, but then I read borderline-dodgy crime fiction, collections of comic strips, and books about growing vegetables. Top of my last.fm most-listened-to artists list are Ani DiFranco, Nick Cave, Billy Bragg and PJ Harvey, but scroll down a little and you'll find Duran Duran... scroll down a little further and you'll find Meat Loaf**.

This all confuses me sometimes. I like to think - especially at my advanced age - that I choose what to consume for a range of reasons, most of them sensible - what do I like, what can I afford, what is good for me, what is made well, what am I politically comfortable with. I got taught how to think about stuff, and I do. But then there's also what you grew up with, what you seek out in times of trouble, what you retreat to when you want comfort, and what's as much about pleasurable vice as about sensible virtue. Basically, I think it's about living with the sum of your parts.

Which is why, last night, I found myself, for the first time since the early 1980s, in a Badedas bath. It's not all Neal's Yard, this life. And amen to that.

joella

*As one of my favourite recent Twitter tags put it, #notaeuphemism

**Most of the Meat Loaf plays, I suspect***, are me standing on a chair late at night singing Modern Girl into a hairbrush or playing air guitar to Bat Out of Hell, but still.

*** I typed that, then thought, hang on, this is the internet. I don't need to suspect, it knows. And I was right.

Spotty Herberts

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 somewhat overwhelmed at their number and Significance, but a couple of them, the Most Significant, have involved needing to talk to Spotty Herberts. Some of them a long way away and very unlikely to be called Herbert.

Spotty Herbert Encounter #1. My beloved bought me an iPhone. I didn't even know I wanted an iPhone till I got one, but already I don't know how I got by without being able to lie in bed, check my email, watch iPlayer, pop bubbles, update Facebook, renew my library books and call my mother all at the same time. He got me an Orange one (well, it's white, but you know what I mean) because I am already have an Orange contract and he thought that would be straightforward. Which it should be, right?

So I called Orange and asked them to transfer my number from my existing contract to my new contract. 'So,' said spotty Herbert, somewhere in (I'm guessing) Bangalore, 'you want to upgrade your handset to an iPhone?'. No, no, a thousand times no, I said. I already have an iPhone! I just want you to move my number. I don't want this smelly old contract anymore, I want this shiny new one, with free internet for, like, ages.

We weren't getting anywhere, and eventually he transferred me to a 'colleague', somewhere more like Aberdeen. Which was an improvement, except that she (let's call her spotty Sherbert) told me they would have to send me a new SIM card. But I already have one! I said. In fact I have two! Can't you just move the number? Or move the details from one to the other? Or something?

We can't just go changing things willy nilly, she said. We have to send you a new SIM card, and then you have to choose your animal.

I have a bad feeling about this. And about the fact that it takes 30 freaking days to send a new SIM card. This is how they make you give a month's notice on the smelly contract you didn't want in the first place EVEN THOUGH you are already paying over in the shiny corner for another contract. What a load of old shit.

So for the time being I tweet on one phone and text on another. That's convergence for you.

Spotty Herbert Encounter #2. My mother offers me perfect eyesight for my Significant Birthday, on the grounds that she didn't manage to give it to me first time round (though I think we're all clear that blind-as-bat-itis comes from the other side of the gene pool). I have never given the possibility of perfect eyesight much thought, though it's a seriously cool prospect, and I wander into Boots opticians to enquire, where spotty Sherbert looks at me as if I am mad and says 'laser what?'.

Fortunately one of her colleagues steps in and tells me that Boots sold its laser eye surgery business to Optical Express, and tells me where Optical Express is. So I go to Optical Express, where spotty Herbert says I can have an assessment straight away. Oh, I say. Well, I've got contact lenses in, can you give me something to put them in?

He checks with his colleague, who tells me that actually I can't have an assessment until I have three clear contact lens-free days. I look to spotty Herbert to take the rap, and bless him, he does, and explains that it's his first week. I make an appointment for six days later and hope that it won't be the laser-person's first week, or my eyeballs might end up in space.

The next day, I get a call from a number I don't recognise. Twice. I Google the number to find out that it's Optical Express, and that several thousand people who have no interest in laser eye surgery seem to be seriously pissed off about the calls they get from this number every single day. I start getting these calls too. I don't answer them. They don't leave a message.

On Saturday, two days before my assessment, they call again, and I am on a bus, two pints and a Steampunk exhibition up, so I answer.

Why do you want laser eye surgery? says spotty Sherbert in a thick Scottish accent (I think she might be moonlighting for Orange). Well, I say, I've been walking into things since I was 10 and I fancy a change.

'That's fantastic, that's great', she says.

Then she asks if it's ok to ask me some questions about myself to save time on the day. No, I say. I'm on a bus.

The form I fill in before my assessment includes questions about my mental health (I say it's fantastic! it's great!) and family history. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to answer such questions over the phone to someone they cannot see, who would in all likelihood greet an admission of anything from postnatal depression to paranoid schizophrenia with mindless platitudes.

ANYWAY. The man who tested my eyesight and squirted air at my eyeballs, and the other man who assessed my general awareness, suitability, and ability to absorb the information that their 'from £395 per eye' figure is a figure that applies to precisely nobody who might ever be blind enough to want to get someone to stick a laser in their eye, were all perfectly credible, professional and likeable. I was mildly annoyed that they asked me to fill in their customer service feedback survey while still not able to see very well from the strange drops they put in your eyes, but luckily I can more or less touch type. I also guess that their evil marketing people know how to Google, as do many of the people who are considering getting their eyes lasered.

I discussed the proliferation of spotty Herberts, Sherberts, and Dilberts with my dad. These things would be enough to put him off, and they are certainly enough to piss me off. But this is the 21st century, and this is our version of Adam Smith's division of labour. I think if their surgical outcome stats were not excellent, we'd know about it.

I'm thinking RyanAir. I may (and indeed I do) loathe everything about how they do business, but they're not going to hire shit pilots are they? That would be a bad business decision. I will never fly RyanAir again, but that was nothing to do with the flying bit and everything to do with the customer service bit.

Additionally, I only plan to get my eyes lasered once, and the important part of the experience is the bit where someone zaps me in a vulnerable place. And if I'm not happy just before that point, I'll be saying 'cool your lasers, I'm offski'. I once had to have my cervix lasered -- which was not (technically) an elective process, and I still remember the deal I had to make with the devil so I wouldn't shoot off the table and run like the wind. My cervix has been fine for 15 years now, so I like to think I'd know if I felt spotty S/Herbertism had penetrated too far.

Having said all that, I'm not sure I like the post-modern world much. The modern one was always a bit blurry, but while blurry can hide a multitude of sins, for sure, it can also create space to trust that people will do the right thing in the right way. To be continued.

joella

So, how am I doing?

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 sheets, chopped them up with a guillotine, and put them in the internal post. I can still remember the invite: it said 'please come and help celebrate the fact that I will never be a teenage mother'.

And these days, when I am making an important choice, I don't ask myself what Jesus would do. And nor do I make decisions based on what's easiest, what's expected, what's the least difficult, least boat-rockiest thing to do right now. Instead, I think about the woman in this photo and try to make sure I'm not letting her, or the people who gave her the space and freedom to be herself, down. And generally, yeah, I think I've done pretty well on that front, though no prizes for guessing what one of those important choices has turned out to be.

Tomorrow, I'm going to be 40. I'm not about to invite my friends to celebrate the fact that I will never be a mother at all. We celebrate motherhood, we don't celebrate its opposite, even when it's freely chosen.

And I think that's ok. There are enough children in the world who know they weren't wanted without reminding them that some of us are better at not having them. And now I am 40, I know that most women want children, and that's something to be celebrated too. If my mother hadn't wanted me, I wouldn't be here, and hell, that would be a tragedy.

But me, I made my choice, and it was the right one for me. So I raise a glass of posh Sauvignon Blanc to humanity and turn up the Internationale*. My 20 year old self would be cool with that, I think. Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.

joella

* Ignore the video, I hoped to find this version on Spotify but it was not to be.

Emerging from January blues

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 proper isolators on your taps. Thank you for having a no-frills budget, resulting in an old-style mixer tap with washers, rather than one of those fancy ones with ceramic inserts that you have to go and find in a merchants somewhere. Thank you for leaving me to it rather than watching.

I knocked a fiver off for an easy job, and turned the water pressure down a bit on her cold tap so it didn't splash all over her immaculate kitchen.

She said it was so nice to see women branching out and could she have my card.

I think that's what you call a win-win situation.

joella

Unprecedented cross-posting. Because it's worth it.

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 other people as 'rioting ingrates'. I hope I can trust these same thousands (millions?) of ordinary British people to keep these fuckers from winning any elected seat ever again.

That is what is on my mind.

joella

Yes we tin

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.

To freeze or not to freeze?

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

Seasonal highlights part two: to Christmas and beyond!

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 Farm's finest*), which was going to leave mere millimetres to spare in the oven.

In the end, the wrapping, apart from for M (who anyway had half a washing machine to look at if he was after shiny) was done on a 'they're coming up the path now' basis. I can recommend this approach as long as you have sellotape in one of those quick-action dispensers.

Christmas Day itself had something of the military about it, in the early part anyway. The nut roast never did get done on Christmas Eve, so there were back of envelope calculations about oven timings and temperatures, and there was a mountain of potatoes, parsnips, sprouts, carrots, swede, broccoli, and two colours of cabbage to prepare. This was because M had offered to feed ex-housemate S, her Young Man, Big Boy Tungsten and Baby Particle (well, at one remove). Somewhere along the line her Young Man's parents were added into the equation, but by then it was well into sheep as a lamb territory anyway.

One of the indisputable joys of living in East Oxford is that if you decide you absolutely must have six cans of Coca Cola and a Swiss roll (for trifle) at 1.30pm on Christmas Day, there's a shop open that will sell them to you, and you can have a little solitary walk there and back through the churchyard. After dinner, which was a success of epic proportions for which I can take only minor credit (nut roast, some peeling, excavation of posh wine glasses, table decorations) I had another burst of claustrophobia, and this time managed to persuade ex-housemate S to come for a short stomp with me over South Park as the sun went down. Then we all watched the Gruffalo together and I thought, maybe I'm not such a misanthrope after all.

Boxing Day featured more wrapping and more eating, this time with M's offspring. They are all proper grown ups these days, and it doesn't half make life easier. For them as well as me, I'm sure. We had a splendid cheese fondue with an enormous winter salad and drank a bit too much (or was that just me?) without it getting messy.

And then there was peace, interspersed with spontaneous socialising, which I think is the kind I like the best these days. Right now I have a streaming cold, but one that is containable as long as there is a generous supply of Lemsip Max and those tissues that don't make your nose hurt. We went to see Avatar last night (a shit Hollywood plot that you can almost but not quite ignore because the 3D special effects are so awesome) and tonight I am going to share a little sloe Sambuca at either or possibly both of two gatherings, one of which is largely made up of people I last saw in the Hot Place.

It's been a funny old year, what with the global economic meltdown, a trip to quite possibly the worst place on earth, dealing with leaks in roofs and radiators, and nearly having skin cancer. Perhaps the funniest thing is it feels like it's not been a bad one. Maybe close escapes are good for the soul.

joella

* Going to pick up the turkey on the 23rd with M and the ex-housemate S collective was about the most middle class thing I have ever done. There was a big marquee with heaters and mulled wine and carols playing. I was sitting with Particle and a posh lady said 'how *delightful* to have a new baby at Christmas!'. Oh, I said. He's not mine. Fortunately, I didn't get arrested or anything.

Seasonal highlights part one: pre-Christmas

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 along beside you with no obvious enthusiasm. It's quite heartbreaking. But he can actually fetch, which is promising, and once he's learnt to wee outside and eat proper dog food (rather than table scraps, which is what he was brought up on), he'll be right. I'm glad he didn't pass muster, he'll have a better life than if he had.

So there's the dachshund. And then there's the Miele. I have never had much luck with washing machines. This is the fourth one through these doors in eight years. The first was one M bought off Dave the Rave when he left the country. It never did more than get stuff wet, really, but it worked. We sold it on when M inherited his mum's. Which was a new-ish Electrolux, but broke down a couple of years later just before ex-housemate S left. Mistake #1 was not getting it repaired. We had a tumble dryer at that point, but it was in the bathroom, and I'd found out how many water and electrical regulations that was breaking. So I got rid of the broken washing machine, sold on the tumble dryer, and bought a Hotpoint washer-dryer. That was mistake #2.

Anyone will tell you that washer-dryers are shit, including the engineers you have to call out to them on a depressingly regular basis. They don't wash very well, they hardly dry at all, they *eat* electricity in the process, and then they blow up. Which ours duly did. I hated it from the start, but I cried when it died. Where were we going to find the cash for a new washing machine just before Christmas?

The answer was that I bought M a third of a washing machine for Christmas, and he bought me two thirds of a washing machine. And this time, we got it right. We bought a Miele. It was number two on the Which Washing Machine list (number one is a Miele as well), and even the man who knows everything about washing machines says they're basically the bollocks. And I love it. It is the MacBook of washing machines. It arrived on the 22nd, and after we installed it, I stroked its sturdy corners and sat cross-legged in front of it for its entire first cycle.

But it's not all been introspective dog-walking and appliance-stroking. No. It's a social time of year, and while I begged off the NGO X Christmas party (ceilidh! karaoke! other circles of hell!) we did have a team high tea, which was good fun and marvellously festive, though I would have preferred a higher sandwich:cake ratio myself. I did some mulled celebrating of the solstice, which was also lovely, but I think the highlight was the Queen of Clubs Pre-Christmas Cabaret, featuring Oxford Maqam, Kimwei and Scarlett in the Wilderness, all playing to a shawl-swathed audience in the tiny and ridiculously atmospheric Bartlemas Chapel. I am suspicious of any act whose description contains the word 'burlesque' (SITW - the first two acts were anything but), but it was far too cold for corsetry. And I think all the better for it. Worth listening out for any of them... and remarkable to see them all in the same place. My hat was off to the organisers. At least, as soon as I got back in the warm.

Now, I must away and wash my pyjamas. Again.

joella

Anxious Vegetarian Markup Language

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 that there isn't a word, or even a phrase, to describe what I do and don't eat. Not even close.

It goes a little something like this:

• Vegetables = Yes. Although not aubergines, because they're the devil's vegetable. I try to eat vegetables which are organic, in season and grown in the UK, because they taste better, and I believe the taste better = grew better = better for the planet hype. We get a weekly box from Abel & Cole, which we supplement with things we grow on the allotment, or things we buy on Cowley Road. This can be from the uber-ethical East Oxford Farmer's Market, but can also be from the Co-op, Tesco, or any of the Asian grocers. I'm not a purist. Every now and again I buy Kenyan green beans in the middle of winter. I feel bad, but not that bad. Those Kenyan farmers have got to make a living. Those Asian shopkeepers have got to make a living.


• Fruit = Yes. But mainly summer fruits, in summer. I like the fleeting nature of the soft fruit season. Lemons all year round. Fairtrade if I can get them, but whatever.


• Lentils, beans, rice, pasta, bread = Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. The first three generally sourced from the aforementioned Asian grocers in large quantities, which is more about frugality than anything else. I have the kind of brain that can hold vast quantities of price comparison data. Bread, I'm kind of fussy about. I'll pay silly money for fresh rye bread. But there's also always a Warburton's Toastie in the freezer. Horses for courses.


• Dairy = Mostly. My favourite cheese in the world is Norwegian Jarlsberg, and I don't even think that's vegetarian. But I don't have it very often. Mostly I cook with British (vegetarian) cheddar, and I eat ewes milk cheeses like roquefort and manchego. It costs more, but you can't farm sheep intensively, they won't stand for it. And it's easier to digest. These things are possibly related. Yoghurt = also ewes milk, if I can find it, else organic. Milk and butter... yes, in moderation. Sometimes organic, sometimes not.


• Eggs = Yes, but free range only. Anyone who's seen a battery hen and still eats battery eggs has a bit missing. If you can't afford free range eggs, don't eat eggs. End of.


• Fish = Some. I don't eat farmed fish. I don't eat things caught in purse seine nets. I don't eat fish where stocks are clearly at risk, eg sea bass, bluefin tuna, most types of cod. I read labels carefully and look things up on the internet. I adjust the list of fish I do eat all the time, mostly downwards. But I do eat fish. Smoked mackerel, trout, tuna from M&S, anchovies, coley, pollack all currently feature in my diet. Smoked wild salmon is one of my favourite things, but can only be justified at Christmas, on cost grounds.


• Shellfish = Some. I don't eat warm water prawns because of the human and environmental evils of intensive prawn farming (the mangroves! the mangroves!). I don't eat oysters because I'm squeamish. I don't eat lobster because of they way they are cooked. I don't eat octopus because they're too big and wriggly. I don't eat scallops because I don't like them. But cold water prawns, mussels, clams, squid, I eat.


• White and read meat = 99.9% No. Theoretical exceptions apply. The 0.1%: when poorly, I eat Knorr Chicken Noodle Soup, and on the first day of my period, if I am near anyone eating liver, I will have a bit. Intensive animal farming is bad and wrong. Bad for the animals, and wrong for the environment. The food that comes out the other end of it is also bad for people, as evidenced by the obesity, diabetes and heart disease statistics which have emerged over the last few decades. And that's before we talk about variant CJD.


• Frog's legs, foie gras, veal, cat, dog, monkey brains = Never have, never will.

Those theoretical exceptions:

1. I gave up meat in 1983, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I have had the occasional drunken lapse in the mini pork pie direction, but these are very occasional. And there's the liver thing, but that counts for maybe 2oz of liver a year. Maintaining this while travelling is usually no problem, but it's a nightmare in many parts of Africa. Firstly, there aren't many vegetables, and secondly, someone else is usually taking care of the food side of things and the whole vegetarian concept is totally alien to them. And, I realised when I was in the Hot Place, my reasons for not eating meat do not apply in this context. The chicken or goat running round the yard has more freedom than a lot of people living in the same settlement. There's nothing intensive about it. So in those circumstances, I lapse where necessary, with necessary being defined as not otherwise eating anything, or deeply inconveniencing someone who is trying to be hospitable with limited resources.

2. I live with someone who eats meat, though not much of it, mostly organic, and mostly when I'm not around. We talk about it a lot. And I do think there's meat and meat - I have less objection to rabbit than to chicken, to venison than to beef. Wilder animals are fairer game, so to speak. In theory, I eat wild things. But in practice, I don't.

3. Meat grown in a lab that doesn't quite exist yet but will soon. No problem with that in theory, but I'll probably stick to Quorn.

4. Human placenta. Curious. Mainly because it's supposed to taste a bit like liver.

And that's it in a nutshell. Oh, nuts. Them as well. And seeds. Loads of them. And Marmite.

So I tick the 'vegetarian' box because there's a box to tick, and there's not much vegetarian that I won't eat. If I get on a plane, I am an AVML.

You might not agree with where I've drawn my personal line, and I might not agree with where you've drawn yours. But I have a lot more respect for people who've thought about it and drawn one. And there's no word for them either.

joella