In which rumours spread about the wildness of my weekend...

I just bumped into someone I haven't seen in a couple of months. She said 'I hear you're really hungover today.'

In fact, I am not hungover at all. I am recovering from a weekend which involved perhaps more alcohol than is advisable At My Age (or even At Anyone's Age). I felt a bit creaky and shit when I woke up and had a slight tummy ache. I did not cycle to work. And I have been whingeing a bit to colleagues.

But I would not like this to be interpreted as a giant hangover on a Tuesday. And in fact the weekend involved at least as many wholesome activities as toxic ones. There was swimming in the sea. There was 1980s Trivial Pursuit (thank you, Cliff Thorburn!). There was a salad which featured wheatberries. There was eBay education. There was origami (well, there was a book about origami). There was more scrambling up near-vertical surfaces than I would normally attempt. There were the top 10 pop videos of all time (according to ntl). There were sausage baps (Linda's for me). There was discussion of 16th century salt extraction processes.

The whisky was but one element of a splendid and multi-layered weekend experience.

Just wanted to make that clear.

joella

Off to the beach

It's been a hell of a long week in the Business Park.

On the plus side, I have cycled to work three days out of five: think this may be a personal record. On the down side I have had a depressing conversation about salad with the catering manager, who is himself pretty teed off that nobody told him the building would be full of people who like to eat salad.

I've also had call to use the aforementioned sanitary bins for the first time. Not only are the toilets so narrow that you have to park your butt cheeks against their shiny plastic sides, you can't actually open them if you are sitting on the toilet, as their lid meets the toilet lid in an entirely foreseeable yet completely overlooked way. So I've been spending time in the disabled toilets, which are, by contrast, so vast you have to be quite a good shot to hit the bin at all.

The skies are grey and the nights are beginning to draw in, and the resemblance of the building to a giant mothership in an alien land is becoming increasingly clear.

So to get over it, and for several other very good reasons, we're off to Swansea this weekend. Looking forward to windy walks on lonely beaches and much drunken discussion on the state of the nation. Cool.

joella

Farewell Londis

.. and the friendly men who worked in there and presided over its long, out of their hands, management-dictated decline with more dignity than most of us would have managed.

joella

Early adopter wobbles

I've been doing this internet thing for nearly eleven years now. I like to tell people that I knew a good thing when I saw it, but really it was just right place right time.

And loads of things have just got better and better -- think gmail, think blogging, think amazon, think online digital radio, think bbc.co.uk, think wikipedia, think photo sharing. We can create, we can access, we can communicate. It's a beautiful thing.

But I'm struggling with iTunes. And my iPod. In principle: near perfect. Your CD collection and extra downloaded tunes managed and manipulated through one interface and loaded in interesting, flexible ways onto different devices (players, CDs, websites) for different purposes. But it ain't working like that -- iTunes is awkward and difficult to customise, at least on a PC, and there's this nasty fascist thing where you can load music *onto* your iPod but not off it. At least, not easily. This wasn't the way it was meant to be. I am a decent and law abiding person and I do not wish to be locked down by corporate America.

I like iPodder though.

joella

Grumpy old Buerk

The middle class world is full of mildly disappointed women who fell somewhat for Michael Buerk's crinkly eyes as he delivered bad news nightly. But now it turns out he was an unreconstructed old school chauvinist all along, or, as Anna Ford put it, a 'miserable old bat'.

But is it interesting? Why should we care? Well, because he's also spectacularly wrong. This came through in an email from one of my colleagues:

I think it's highly ironic ... that Buerk's comments as reported in the Scottish press ran beside the headlines all this week of the cost to the public sector of equal pay claims [from women] - the conclusion of the two presumably is that women rule the world but do so for 40% less money than men did. A bargain I would have thought...

Couldn't have put it better myself.

joella

Swings and roundabouts

We left the house last night as it was getting dark, responding to A&L's invitation for a late drink at the Fir Tree. One of our neighbours has installed an industrial wheelie bin on the pavement, and the parking's beginning to fill up as the start of term approaches.

It's going to start feeling oppressive round here soon, I said to M. Maybe we should move somewhere where there aren't kebab boxes in the street, people don't break bits off trees and you can park outside your house. Hmmm, he said. I wonder what I would be like if I lived in the middle of nowhere?

We mused on this further on the way down the hill, hardly noticing a gradual build up of the kind of noise only really large machines get to make.

We swung round the corner onto Cowley Road and it was like something out of Mad Max. The road was closed -- they are raising its level as part of current beautification attempts -- but motorists were squeezing past the barriers and zooming down bits they shouldn't be. Between the cordons there were huge trucks pouring asphalt down onto the road, and big thumperumperers (note: not technical term) with their own floodlights packing it down ready for it to be steamrollered later. It was hot, the noise was immense, and the orange lights bounced off lots of grime-streaked men in fluorescent jackets.

In the middle of all this the Bangla Bazaar had decided to get itself a new window and door, and the staff were packing up in a shop with no front. Just round the corner, in the gap left when they knocked down the Akash, a guy with long grey hair sat cross-legged on the ground painting an anti-corporate mural on the wall.

By the time I got to the pub I'd remembered why it is I live here.

joella

Glimmer of hope?

It's not often these days I feel comfortable with my Israeli connection. Half my dad's family lives there and I've been there four times. The last time was in 1992 and there was a nasty scene at the border on the way in because of what turned out to be a computer error -- long story but I had trouble getting out and swore I would never return.

This has made it easier not to engage too much with what's happened since then, but I remain more involved than I like to think I am, and feeling that I should talk about it more than I do. If you can look at a situation from both sides you've got a rare point of view. Like people with rare blood groups who have more of an obligation to donate, maybe you've got more of an obligation to speak up.

Or maybe that's a load of old cack. But I am impressed with the Israeli government for de-settling Gaza, and I have my breath held that it doesn't get ugly. I believe that it should never have been settled in the first place but I can see that there are Israelis who don't think that, and it's a big step for Sharon to move them out. There's a long, long way to go, but longest journeys, single steps etc.

joella

Retro kettle

Sundays down the launderette are getting to be quite the thing -- buy a paper, have a quick drink in the pub while the washing's going round, stop off at Cowley Road's various delis for pickled vegetables and posh pasta. One drawback is that I'm not sure Ecover can hold its own in these circumstances. We may have to buy powder that kicks more arse.

Boiling water in a pan, on the other hand, has no appeal at all. Coffee made with it tastes like it's been spewed from the bowels of the earth. So I have purchased another kettle.



It was more painful a process than I had predicted. Our last kettle was stainless steel, but to replace it would have cost £60. *How much?* I didn't even know kettles got that expensive. You can get plastic ones for £15, but they look horrible and how long do they last? The last but one kettle was plastic and it rotted. And then, in Boswells (of course, thanks to L for sending me there) I found the retro kettle. Not retro in a premium marketed as retro sort of way, but retro in still making them like they have since the 70s sort of way.

It's shiny, it's metal, it's a beautiful shape, you plug a cord into in (which always feels safer to me than this cordless business) and it's almost exactly like the first kettle I ever learnt to boil. It was £29.99, and I am very happy with it. My housemates really don't seem to care either way, so it's a good job it was me who went out to choose it.

joella

Summer rain

Raindrops on the washing line yesterday as the garden gave thanks to the heavens

joella

*sigh*

I learnt something about myself yesterday, thanks to our brave new open plan world.

I did a big sigh at my desk, and my colleague R, with whom I used to share an office, came over. She said to the others sitting around us: 'one of these sighs is okay, but if she does three or four of them, it means she needs some attention'.

I always used to wonder how it was that R would say 'how's it going' at just the moment I needed to offload some fury or frustration. And now I know.

joella

Give John Prescott a medal

I've had a few issues with John Prescott in my time. He's unreconstructed but ultimately on the right side, and I always struggle with that combination.

Every now and again though he cuts through the New Labour crap so perfectly that I can forgive him pretty much anything.

Today he said to Omar Bakri Mohammed: "Enjoy your holiday - make it a long one", and one suspects there was a silent 'beardy weirdy' at the end of the sentence.

He is acting PM, so this is almost as good as Tony saying it, though of course Tony would never dream of saying anything so splendidly rude and splendidly funny. As the Aussies would say, beaut.

joella

Am I missing something important?

M and I are wondering if we should be worried that our friends are showing a tendency to borrow our clothes for fancy dress parties. Here's a recent example, but it's not the first time it's happened...

joella

So, farewell then, dirty shagger

I have this kind of sub-Tourettes thing. Every time I see Margaret Thatcher on television, I shout 'Bitch!'. I can't help it. For Robin Cook, it used to be 'dirty shagger!'. So I will miss him. And also remember him for one of the finest resignation speeches in history.

joella, aged 35 1/2

Consumer non-durables

N&D and baby C have just left. While they were here, the kettle went pop. And just before they arrived, the washing machine's status shifted from 'making far too much noise when going round' to 'not going round at all'.

I feel a bit put upon by my white goods -- it's only four months since the same thing happened to the dishwasher. Kettles don't cost that much, but this was a posh one -- it was housemate S's leaving present from her last but one job and I happen to know it cost £50. You'd expect more than four years from that. The washing machine belonged to M's mother, and he took it over after she died a couple of years ago as it was so much better than the one we had. Or so we thought.

We could get someone out to it I suppose. But then there's the fact that the tumble dryer is currently in the bathroom, where it Should Not Be. There's no room for it anywhere else, so my long term plan has always been to get a washer-dryer (I know they aren't very good at drying, but -- to apply the same logic as to getting a small TV -- this would mean that I wouldn't use it much, while having the option to use it if necessary).

Need to dwell on this for a while, while examining finances that have recently forked out for both a dishwasher and a television. So in the short term, it's back to the launderette. They've got higher tech since I last used one -- you now put little cards in them like in electricity meters at holiday parks.

And actually quite a pleasant experience -- the machines are about three times as fast as domestic ones, so we had two loads washed, home and out on the line to dry in hardly any time at all. Maybe we don't need a washing machine at all? We could do service washes like they do in EastEnders, and never have to encounter that nasty in-the-machine-too-long smell again.

joella

Girl I'm just a Ginsters for your love

I wrote a post last night but I deleted it this morning because it made No Sense At All. I can be very pompous when I am pissed.

I liked its title though: maybe it was hangover needs anticipation. There are few things that can take the edge off the hollow-to-my-soul feeling I woke up with, but a cheese and onion Ginsters is one of them -- preferably heated up in a petrol station microwave and eaten straight out of the packet.

Chicken flavour SuperNoodles can help too, or reheated cold pizza, ideally with anchovies. I think it's the combination of stodge and salt that's such a winner.

Sadly, none of these things could be sourced in the New Building and I could not get it together to go and forage in the real world. But I did manage to find a sofa to lie on for a little while.

joella

Welcome to a new kind of tension

It was pointed out this evening that I haven't talked about life in the New Building. I reminisced about our Staff Revue last Christmas, which was opened with an adaptation of Green Day's finest moment, entitled 'Business Park Idiot'. It's been running through my head all week.

On the positive side: I can walk to work (40 mins) or get one bus rather than two (£1 each way rather than £2.30 each way). There's a big Tesco five minutes' walk away. The toilets don't smell. The carpets don't raise hairballs when you rub them with your toe. Coffee is cheaper. The phones tell you who is calling. There is air conditioning. It is open plan so I see all members of my team every day.

On the negative side: it is in a business park where everyone drives and they have economised on pavement by only putting it on one side of the road, which is borderline lethal. There is no Lebanese takeaway and no delicatessen (as my friend S put it 'goddamn it, there's no crayfish on this business park'). The toilet cubicles were designed without taking into account the need for sanitary bins, and are so narrow that you graze your left buttock on said bins every time you sit down. The main colour in our daily palette is grey. The cafe's menu is designed for (and by?) people who like pub food. We are not supposed to open the windows but it is freezing if you don't. It is open plan so I see all members of my team every day.

I leave it to you to 'do the math'.

joella

Longlisting

I've spent the best part of two days longlisting for a post that had over 90 applicants. Here are some tips I can offer for free and for nothing.

1. Apart from what you got in your A-levels, nothing about your schooldays is of the slightest interest.

2. Explain how you meet the required competencies -- yes it takes longer to write your CV that way, but it means I will actually read it.

3. Don't use words like liaise unless you know how to spell them.

4. Don't write your entire application in lower case unless it is for a job sending text messages.

5. Don't attach a CV written in an obsolete wordprocessing package that takes ten minutes to convert into something readable.

6. Get a sensible email address, funkybutt.

joella

Ever fallen in love with someone...

... you had no justification at all to fall in love with?

I'm smitten with a man I just saw interviewed on Newsnight. I can't remember his name or his qualification for being on Newsnight. I can't even remember what he was being interviewed about. All I could look at were his hands waving around in just the way mine do when I am talking about something I care about: they move a bit too much and much too randomly, but with feeling. I looked at those hands and imagined all the other things they might do, and how they could probably never lie.

joella

Television wars are over!

I have long maintained two things. Firstly, that if I had enough money to, I would live on my own. Secondly, that I am glad I don't have that much money, because I believe living with other people is both good for the planet and good for the soul.

But you do end up with things like the television wars. When we moved in we had a small TV. This suited me, because I believe that if televisions dominate living rooms, they dominate lives. If watching it is a bit shit, then you watch less of it, which is good.

Both housemates aspired to a bigger one, but I would not spend money on this, and they did not want to buy one between them. Stalemate #1. Then free bigger one arrived, courtesy of housemate's boyfriends's grandad getting a newer bigger one and giving the old one away. I did not see this as an improvement, in fact from my perspective it was considerably worse, as it was a crap TV which regularly took ages to warm up and needed a lot of thumping, but it served for approx two years while we failed to agree on communal way forward.

We all went to Currys once.

Them: What about this one?

Me: No! It's too big.

Them: But it's only as big as the one we've already got.

Me: Yes, but I never wanted that one.

Stalemate #2.

Fortunately, recently three things changed. Firstly housemate S is leaving, so I only have to argue with M. Secondly, the big TV developed a habit of shrinking the middle of the picture, like someone had put a belt round it. In no way could this be deemed a quality viewing experience. Thirdly, prices of LCD TVs crept steadily downwards.

We bought one. It's slim and beautiful and sits elegantly in the corner. It looks hi-tech but not like something out of Men & Gadgets magazine. Somehow, it has a big enough screen for M and a small enough screen for me. We are both happy with the television we have. I never thought this would happen.

joella