That was the year that was

I spent an hour waiting to see the doctor this morning, probably contracting a fair few new infections from the festering antechamber in the process. But he was delightfully sympathetic ("Oh dear! Poor you! Bad luck!") and wrote me a prescription for highly specific antibiotics, which I carted off to Boots just as fast as my ragged urethra would allow. God bless the NHS, I thought, as I climbed gingerly onto the bus home. It's wonky, but it's saved my life on a couple of occasions and my quality of life on countless others. If your urino-genital system is, shall we say, sub-prime, you could live in a lot worse places.

I am, however, consigned to the sofa for the duration of New Year's Eve, wrapped in a blanket and watching the fire. So I have an unusually timely opportunity to reflect.

In photos:

January: Elephant riding, Kerala. February: Snowdrops, Christ Church Meadows. March: Luminox, Broad Street.
April: Pebbles and sea, Westward Ho! May: Baby Tungsten, our garden. June: Cow parsley, Thrupp.
July: M on the jetty, Lytham. August: Road sign, Cowley Road. September: Wire waiting for Charlie, Chatsworth.
October: No Entry, Harcourt Arboretum. November: At home. December: Recovering from shopping, St Michael's St.

Happenings of note:

For the first time in years (ten? fifteen?) I have taken only one flight this year, though it was a long one: coming home from India, where we spent last Christmas. We holidayed in the UK, and work didn't take me away. And I have no complaints about either of these things, though I already know neither will pertain in 2008.

A side effect of this is that I am eligible to give blood for the first time in about the same number of years (they don't want you if you've been anywhere malarial, or had a tattoo, or had your wisdom teeth out, or any number of other things I seem to have spent my 20s and 30s doing). I have put my name down, as I am rhesus negative and there's never enough of us to go around.

I emerged from the Dark Days. I have already written about this so will not dwell on it further here.

Rediscoveries: frugality, thanks to part-time working; long-lost or nearly-lost people, thanks to Facebook and the internet more generally; music, thanks to last.fm, 6Music and iTunes; vegetables, thanks (however reluctantly) to Abel & Cole; hanging out with ex-housemate S, thanks to baby Tungsten and aforementioned part-time working.

First time discoveries: walking in the Peak District, working (however sporadically and unconventionally) in the manual trades, power tools, Woman's Hour, friends from the internet.

Must not forget life's great continuities: old and new friends, front crawl (not enough of that, mind), OX4, FY8, too much booze, inner fury, good food, Evening Primrose Oil, a lovely boyfriend, a roof over my head, a town where they know what I'm like and don't mind.

To paraphrase my favourite toast, may the worst years of our lives be like this one.

joella

Shake your UTI

Marvellous. I have a urinary tract infection. That will serve me right for enjoying myself.

When I was a child, I had a gazillion of these. Nobody knows why. I had my own little box of soft toilet paper that I kept in my tray at primary school, thus saving me from the shiny stuff that was printed 'Lancashire County Council. Now wash your hands please'. That was a bonus. Less of a bonus were various operations, months and months of antibiotics, and a steady stream of doctors poking around 'down there', but I'm sure it all contributed to my enduring fascination with water generally and toilets in particular.

I haven't had a UTI for years, though. I know exactly what to do to avoid one (look it up on NHS Direct if you need to know, but if you need to know you probably already do know) and I am usually pretty good at it. I blame the inflaming sambuca. Still, a New Year's Eve based on cranberry juice and no sudden movements won't do me any harm.

joella

So there it was, merry Christmas

At the age of 37, I have of course realised that I'll never drive through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in my hair. But there are consolations. I've also finally, *finally*, realised that the secret to the perfect Christmas Day lies in escaping expectations, and striking the right balance between sociability and misanthropy. You do not have to leave the country. You barely have to leave the house. Thanks are due to Jeremy for some sound and timely advice on this.

It goes a little something like this:

1. Wake up in the bed of a teenage girl.
(She wasn't there, but I like to think some of her cool rubbed off)

2. Put last night's clothes back on, eat Plumbing S's maple syrup crepes while little T freaks everyone, including herself, out with Real Scorpion Toffee.

3. Come home and open presents. Top gifts this year included a radio-cum-iPod-dock for the kitchen, so I can now boil an egg to the Ace of Spades if I want to, and, following weeks of big fat hints, the complete Morse on DVD. I don't understand you, said M, you don't like box sets and you don't believe in owning DVDs, so why on earth would you want this? I can't really explain.

4. Receive guests while still feeling sparkly-yet-manky. Drink posh wine.

5. Decide not to eat dinner till *after* sunset walk in Shotover.

6. Go for sunset walk in Shotover with the kind of friends who think to bring mince pies and sloe gin.

7. Have a big nap.

8. Eat cheese fondue and a big salad.

9. Watch a good film (well, we watched Love Actually, which I don't think counts, but the intention was good).

10. Dance away the clearing up, helped along by little sambucas in new little sambuca glasses. Go to bed.

It was great. We rose on Boxing Day ready to cook up a Claudia Roden storm. Our 'Open House' from 2-6 degenerated into fire, music and mayhem till midnight. All the major world religions were represented, and it seems everything now smells of woodsmoke and fish.

joella

Life changing stuff in the Three Goats Heads

In the Three Goats Heads
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

You know you're pretty much on top of things, in the immediate 'festive' sense at least, when the only things left on your shopping list on the Saturday before Christmas are firewood, meths, horseradish root, coffee beans, and something for yourself, love.

We scored the firewood at the garden centre, as the sawmill is already closed for the duration. We couldn't decide between hardwood, softwood and not wood (some kind of ashless, smokeless reconstituted log-style composite) so we got a bag of each. We scored the meths at Silvesters on Magdalen Rd -- one of those family hardware businesses that defies the 21st century in the best possible way. They sell pretty much everything that a 1970s home could possibly need. Cleat hooks: check. Fridge bulbs: check. Winter pansies: check. And best, and rarest, of all, they give advice. So thus it was I emerged blinking into the wintry sunlight bearing the last axe they had in stock in one hand and a bottle of meths in the other. If my mother could have seen me, how proud she would have been.

After a quick break for vegetable samosas and the Guardian, it was time to brave the city centre. We had a nice pint with some programmers in the Kings Arms and then ventured into the Covered Market for the final food items. We are now catered up for the 25th (cheese fondue, hence meths, in case anyone was seriously worried), 26th (party going on, Jewish food and secular drink, come round if you want) and 27th (stepchildren), barring a few last minute things that can be sourced from the kind of shops that don't close for Christmas. M had a couple of presents still to buy, so we headed for a big fat bookshop.

Where, following tradition, we each bought ourselves a Christmas present. I bought myself the new 30th anniversary edition of The Women's Room. I didn't know it was out, and I was looking for my original (well, 1986) copy just yesterday, following a Solstice Dinner conversation with housemate C where we agreed that we would swap radical feminist fiction in the New Year. I couldn't believe she hadn't read The Women's Room. I mean, most people haven't, I just couldn't believe *she* hadn't.

My copy is kind of embarrassing, it falls open at particularly strident passages and about half of it is underlined. But worse, it seems I don't even know where it is, so I bought another one.

And it was the right decision: I haven't started the novel proper yet, but we repaired from the bookshop to the Three Goats Heads where I read the 2006 introduction by the author. She says:

"When I was asked, in 1977, what I would wish for the Women's Room, I wished for a world in which no one comprehended it because men and women had found a way to live together in felicity. Unfortunately, despite many easements on female life in the west, the world's ethos has moved in the opposite direction, towards more hostility between the sexes."

Can't say unfairer than that. And I also thought I should pay for a copy, seeing as I stole my first one from a second hand book fair my dad took me to. I'd run out of money and I saw this book that said on the cover 'this novel will change your life'. I could use a bit of that, I thought, so I nicked it. And it did.

M's Christmas present to himself, incidentally, was also a reissue -- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with Mervyn Peake's illustrations: "meticulously reproduced, for the first time, as they were meant to be seen... the first edition to do justice to two great English eccentrics."

I'm not sure I agree that the past didn't go anywhere.

joella

End of the working year

I am surprisingly fond of the view from the bike sheds of the New Building (right). Soggy waste ground (one day to be a Newer Building, no doubt) leads to the Ring Road, with the twin high rises of Blackbird Leys in the distance.

I can stand there for ages, watching the cars zoom across the flyover on their modern missions in the modern world. I am always glad I'm not in them: that, for now, I don't have to travel any further.

If you look left, you can see the Cowley Gas Tower and the Mini factory. I never mind industrial architecture in the winter. Even in the summer it looks better than the Business Park you see when you turn around. The sky is big, too, and I love it. I miss the big sky of my childhood by the sea.

But I'm not paid to look at the view. So after a while I gird my loins, crack my knuckles, and stride up to the plexiglass barriers. They part at the lightest touch of my proximity card, and I'm in.

And without a doubt, it's been a better place to be this year than last. I have a job that I really wanted, that is real and practical and useful, and I seem to be allowed to get on and do it. I have many lovely friends and colleagues and a slow-growing feeling that actually, I might be in more or less the right place at more or less the right time. I survived my Dark Days.

One of the outcomes, of course, was that I broke away from full time office work. I needed some time to lick my wounds, and there was something else I wanted to do. My plumbing year is a whole different post, but my sense is that, one day, I will see that that cloud did indeed have a silver lining. NGO X is restored as the best place I have ever worked, and very happy I am about it, as I like to think I'm pretty useful to have around.

joella

It says here...

In Praise of ... Billy Bragg.

Happy 50th, first hero.

joella

The wind goes right through you, it's no place for the old

I've come to the realisation that while I will never like Christmas, I can bear it in the following circumstances:

1. I either don't go anywhere or I go a long, long way away.
2. If the former, a project management approach is adopted. I cannot muddle along tinsel-headed having a gay old time.
3. I do not enter a city centre on a Saturday or watch any commercial TV station at any time for the two months previous.
4. I get horribly drunk on mulled wine early enough in the season to hate myself for several days afterwards and adopt a more balanced approach to subsequent festivities.
5. The house looks as much like Blackpool Illuminations as environmental conscience can allow.
6. Nobody makes me play charades. In fact nobody makes me do anything.
7. At a time of my choosing, I get to eat a whole tin of Roka Cheese Crispies to myself while watching Morse in a misanthropic funk.

Beyond this, terms are negotiable.

joella

The ghost of Christmas Dos past

Ex-housemate S came round today with baby Tungsten. She needed to get out of the house because her Young Man was so hungover after his work Christmas Do that he couldn't stand the company of other human beings. There was free-flowing (and indeed free) champagne, apparently. Always a bad idea.

We don't have free Christmas parties at NGO X. And fair enough -- that's not what little old ladies knit all those blankets to fund. But once the Babycham's not on the house, you do have to ask yourself if you really want to go there. Increasingly, I find the answer is no.

But I have not always worked for NGO X. My first Christmas do was in the function room of the Queens pub in Lytham, which is where I was working at the time. It was on a Sunday, which was one of my nights, so I was behind the bar downstairs, but from time to time someone would come down and cover for me for a bit and I would go up and get myself a vodka and lime. It was busy, and we were running short of glasses... I was drying a 'ladies half' (surely they don't still have those?) which was still steaming from the glass washer when the base of it twisted off and into the base of my thumb. There was a lot of blood. I ran it under the tap and the water ran red. There was a big flap of skin flap flap flapping. I went a bit funny. Maureen the landlady appeared, gave me a beer towel full of ice to grip, made me swallow a double brandy and sent someone off to make me a cup of sweet tea. Once I'd drunk that, she said right, you're off duty, and I wandered upstairs with a woozy head and a big wodge of paper towel held on with a bandage. At some point in the evening there was a Lambada competition. No one from Lancashire can dance the Lambada, it's a known fact, but there were a couple of Australians working in the pub at the time and one of them asked me to dance. He wedged his thigh in between mine and moved us around the floor in great flamboyant style. I was out of my tree and just smiled a lot (and indeed it's strange I can remember it, but I can) and as a result we won by a country mile. The prize was a bottle of Pomagne, which we proceeded to drink. I don't remember getting home, but I do remember waking up the next morning not sure which was worse, the bruise on my pubis, the pain in my head or the dull, deep ache from my still-bleeding thumb, which, it was perfectly obvious by then, I should have had stitched. I still have the scar.

About eight years later I was working in the House on the Hill. Three hundred and sixty four days of the year the Management wouldn't have cared if you lived or died, so busy were they extending the brand, extending their egos and indeed extending their offices. But they did push the boat out, in a banal sort of way, for the Christmas party. They would send taxis for anyone who didn't want to drive, and we would all have dinner in a hotel, drink too much and dance until the taxis arrived again to take us home. One year we went to one of the Four Pillars Hotels. There was turkey with all the trimmings for the carnivores, and what was described as 'oriental vegetables in puff pastry' for the rest of us. With all the same trimmings. What arrived was actually a heap of stir-fried carrots, cabbage etc in, or in the Lizard's case, merely near, an empty vol au vent case. 'Well,' she said, 'it was nice of them to give us a bin for our Brussels sprouts', and proceeded to pile hers neatly into it. We had to move rooms for the disco, which was shared with other Christmas Dos. That year, if memory serves, it was Thames Valley Police and Oxfordshire Mental Health Trust. We thought we could party. We had nothing on them. At the end of the night there was a big circle on the dance floor, holding each other up and kicking legs in the air in sort-of-time to New York, New York. I ended up dancing in the middle of this circle, and got kicked soundly in the legs many times as a result. I then had a bit of a fight with one of my colleagues while waiting for the taxi, and we fell over into the rockery. I was black and blue all over the next day.

The year after that they splashed out on the Randolph. Nigel the sales manager ended up coming home with me and M. I think we thought he had some coke on him, he usually did, and we'd got to that point in the evening where we thought coke would be a great idea (I now know of course that the point in the evening when you think coke would be a great idea is exactly the point in the evening when it's the worst idea possible, but I guess you can only find that out the hard way). He didn't have any coke on him, at least none he was prepared to share, but he did try to get off with me while M was in the bathroom. There was something very apposite about the bleakness of this.

In a way I think NGO X does us all a favour. I'm sure things are less messy when you have to fund your own hangover, though the state of some of my esteemed colleagues the morning after this year's shindig might suggest otherwise. Me, I'm living a bit lower, hanging out for the more select mulled wine and mince pie gatherings. I have no wish to sustain physical injury.

joella

Bah humbuggery

So, said my preternaturally cheerful dentist this morning, all ready for Crimble?

What I wanted to say: look, it's bad enough coming here every ten minutes (I am having stuff done to try and reduce the odds of my inner fury grinding my teeth into stumps by the time I hit the menopause) and having to sit in your shiny waiting room with nothing to read but the Daily Telegraph and back issues of Tatler. I *did* have an NHS dentist, but he was successfully sued for 'causing unnecessary pain', and what I need would never be available on the NHS anyway, and I've resigned myself to that, and I do actually think you are a very good dentist, but that does not mean I am part of your world. From Tatler to Crimble, it leaves me cold. Mine probably leaves you cold too, so let's talk about teeth.

What I actually said: mmmf nggh arr.

joella

Room service

Poor M. First of all he has a giant hangover, and then I take a photo of him eating chicken noodle soup in the bath. But I did, on the whole, tend to him fairly well, especially as I wasn't feeling too shiny myself.

joella

Say it with enormous flowers

Say it with enormous flowers
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

My Friday started in rather wobbly fashion. I still haven't got used to the fact that they don't chuck you out of the pub at 11.30 anymore. But I bought a cheese and onion pasty from the Spar at the petrol station (not a Ginsters, they seem to have upped their game recently and started baking them on the premises) and ate it for breakfast, watching the ring road traffic zoom and absorbing sunshine and humidity before engaging with the controlled atmosphere of the New Building.

The morning passed without incident, and by lunchtime I was ready to face Tesco. The underpass is semi-permanently flooded at one end, and you can only get through by leaping nimbly across the stepping stone bricks that are probably there by accident. I am not that nimble so I always prepare myself by choosing an iPod track you can march to and trying not to break my stride. She who hesitates gets wet feet or a twisted ankle. This time I chose Ant Music. It worked.

Inside the shop, the King Protea stopped me in my tracks. I know they are designed to do this, but still. I rang M. You know how you don't bring me flowers anymore? I said. Well, he said, didn't you say something about it being an exploitative industry and a waste of money? Yes, I said, but can we make an exception?

Exceptions are great. I am much better at them than I used to be. Later I made another one and agreed to watch a film with subtitles. It wasn't very cheery (it seemed to be about an Iranian man who was trying to kill himself) but I had my big flowers to keep me happy.

*beam*

joella

The Drawing Schools of Eton

Many, many years ago (and yes I am a little ashamed of this) a friend and I bet each other a pint that we would be the first to shag an Old Etonian. She won the bet: it took me much longer to get with the man who would later become my Significant Ex. He was not one, as he said himself, to get wanton with his tonsils.

I persuaded another friend to invite him to a cheese fondue party she was having. It turned into more of a scrambled egg party, as the recipe called for 1-2 eggs and she read it as 12. I had never tasted cheese fondue before so I was none the wiser, and anyway, it wasn't the food I was interested in. At one point in the evening he said something I found quite patronising and I said 'I did *go* to school, you know'.

'Really?' he said. 'I never saw you there.' And he was one of the charming ones, some of the others meant it.

I visited Eton with him once, with a school friend of his and his girlfriend. A lot of things made more sense afterwards. Cambridge was a crazy place to go to university, but the people who didn't seem to notice this were the ones who went to school in an even crazier place. It's a parallel universe, it really is. There's a lot to envy, but there's a lot not to. The charming ones know this, of course.

I went back there on Sunday to look at the photos of Ian Macdonald, who spent a year there as photographer in residence. They were amazing. He's a northerner, and from what I can make out specialises in taking hard black and white photos of heavy industry, urban landscapes and working men. To see this aesthetic applied to Eton was pretty remarkable. It's the malest thing I've seen in a long time. Which isn't to say that I don't recommend it.

joella

Too much of a good thing

As M was cooking breakfast this morning, I went to set the table and realised that we have two almost new bottles of HP Sauce. My mild OCD (thanks dad!) means that I find this quite distressing. One of the reasons I do all the shopping is to avoid this kind of thing. To make matters worse, one of them was glass and the other plastic. They don't even match!

Why, I demanded, are there two of these?

Well, he said, as he spatulaed eggs onto toast, I am wife to one of them and mother to the other.

Can't argue with that. But I'm not sure which one to dispense with while he's not looking.

joella

Every bear that ever there was

The closest I have ever got to Sudan was a trip to Egypt when I was 18, with three other girls of similar age whom I'd met while we were all volunteering together on Kibbutz Yagur . We found ourselves in Luxor, a city in the south which is home to the Valley of the Kings. We found ourselves being chatted up by a young man called Ali just after we got off the train from Cairo. He asked us if we'd be interested in seeing some of the temples at night. We said we might be. He said he had a friend called Mohammed who lived on the west bank of the Nile, where all the tombs and temples were, and that if we caught the ferry over the river that evening they would meet us there.

Two of us decided that this was a terrible idea. I was one of the other two. As dusk fell, we went down to the jetty, and got on the ferry that all the other tourists were just getting off. We crossed the river feeling excited and scared and fearless all at the same time, the way you only can when you're 18. I look back now and I can't believe I got on that ferry, but neither one of us was going to be the first to back out.

We got off on the other side to find no one waiting for us. There were loads of men milling around, and we found a place to stand where we were visible but not in the way. Gradually, a crowd formed round us, not a hostile one, but not a friendly one. One of those crowds that just stands and stares. There must have been twenty or thirty pairs of dark, dark male eyes on us, and not a woman in sight. Almost none of them spoke any English, but one of them had a few words. He wanted us to come into his tent for some tea. He had a smile that indicated it might not just be tea he had on his mind, but it was difficult to tell. It was getting a bit tense.

Look, I said, we're not coming with you. We're waiting for someone.

What is his name? he said. Mohammed! I said.

He smiled wider, opened his arms wide and said 'every man here is Mohammed!'

I looked at Kath, and mouthed 'oh shit', but at that moment a car screeched up. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, and a man jumped out saying 'Salamu Alaykum! I am Mohammed!' He grabbed each of us by the hand and ushered us into the back seat. The doors slammed and we zoomed off.

The rest of that night is another story altogether. Mohammed turned out to have largely honourable intentions, which is more than can be said for Ali, and had also seen a lot more of the world than downtown Luxor. He was some sort of local aristocracy, as far as I can tell. And I survived intact to tell the tale, but it could have ended very differently. It probably was a terrible idea, basically, though not as terrible as poor Gillian Gibbons's. But you can see how it happened -- what *else* are you going to call a teddy bear in Sudan?

*My* teddy bear is called Christopher, incidentally. I call him Christ for short.*

joella

*I don't really.  

Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love you knowing nothing?

This is one of Lloyd Cole's best lines ever, and I don't say that lightly. It comes into my mind from time to time. Once was when I was on holiday in the Czech Republic with my Significant Ex, visiting Mr B and his then girlfriend R (?), who was from Texas I think. She was cool but a bit scary when drunk.

We had a great holiday, but by day five or so I was feeling distinctly malnourished: if you didn't eat meat in the Czech Republic of 1994, you didn't have a whole lot of options. Mr B fed me fried egg on rye bread with brown sauce for breakfast every morning, which covers off most of the major food groups, but after that it was fried cheese for lunch and fried cheese for tea. I was getting to the point where I would have killed for a lettuce.

So we found ourselves in an American-style Sports Bar in Prague, where you had to watch sport, obviously, but they did have a menu which included vegetables. We ordered, but what happened afterwards was chaotic at best. Basically, the service was dreadful, and the American guy serving us explained at great length why this was -- they were short-staffed, the menu had just changed, something hadn't been delivered on time etc etc. We all nodded sympathetically except R, who rolled her eyes and said 'I don't give a shit what kind of day you're having, please just bring us our food when it's ready'. And then proceeded to explain to us how if this happened in the US we'd be getting a free meal by now.

I would never have said that, but she did have a point. And I find myself feeling much the same way about Abel & Cole, from whom we currently get our organic veg box. To be fair, I think they provide very good quality vegetables, always deliver on time, have an excellent online ordering service which allows you to tell them that you don't like bananas and don't want any alfalfa sprouts this week thank you, and have near single-handedly restored my faith in (at least) a) carrots b) tomatoes and c) cucumber.

So far so good, but they will insist on bloody writing to me all the time. I try and put the weekly newsletter straight in the recycling but from time to time I can't help reading it. It's getting very, very close to being enough to make me subscribe to one of those local schemes where you might get nothing but a carrier bag full of mud with two beetroot and a parsnip embedded in it every week from now 'till March but at least you won't have to feel you've been subscribed without your consent to a special middle class smug club. In this club we're all very excited about the new muesli range, and happy to learn about the provenance of the Jerusalem artichoke in general (the explorer Samuel de Champlain discovered them in the Americas in 1605, fact fans) and this week's in particular ("Jeremy's family has been farming in Hertfordshire for six generations").

At 'special' times of year, they email me as well. Check out this little gem (all exclamation marks original!)

It's not always easy encouraging your little bundles of joy to eat a varied, healthy diet, so let us help! As the festive season approaches, you could have a houseful of little ones to feed, even if they're not your own! We've a few tried and tested tricks up our sleeves to make mealtimes easier and tastier for everyone!

Just. Cock. Off. I like my farmers taciturn. In fact I like most everyone taciturn. Enough platitudes already.

joella

Exemplary premenstrual eBaying

So three pairs of bright red socks arrived in the post this morning. Can't you, like, stop me? I asked M. It seems not, he said.

Still. You can't have too may boot socks this time of year. I'm already wearing the third pair, though they clash like mad with my orange pyjamas.

joella

Oh no! I left the personal details of 25 million babies on the bus!

What a remarkable story. I knew it was safer not to have any.

And another nail in the ID cards coffin, I imagine. Which I welcome. I have nothing much against them in a perfect world, but a) we all know colossal fuck ups like this one happen and b) at least some of us have read the Handmaid's Tale.

When she was about 20, ex-housemate S ended up with a big overdraft. She paid it off by getting a job in a casino, and when it was done, she closed her bank account. She spent the next couple of years getting her wages in brown envelopes. 'You know where you are with cash', she would say.

Increasingly, I agree with her.

joella

"welcome to joella, my reflective if slightly alcoholic alter ego"

joella's first post was five years ago today. The title of this post was her first blog strapline. It's gone now, though maybe it exists in a cache somewhere.

I started blogging because I was working in NGO X's internet team and the media unit wanted to know how hard it was to set a blog up. I set one up in about three minutes.

They never used it. I could have told them they wouldn't, and in fact I did. But to see how hard *that* was, I set up another one and started writing. And the rest is archives.

By way of celebration, here are my favourite posts from five successive Novembers:

November 2002: Still baffled by FTP. Post #3. Still getting the hang of it.

November 2003: You can take to multiculture even if they don't drink. An early example of a headline-led post. And interesting now, as I can't *believe* there was a time I didn't know what Eid was.
November 2004: Cure for the common cold. Folk music and coal mining. To be fair, there weren't many coal mines in the Fylde, but I think I was talking of the North of England in general. This is a storytelling post, and when they work I like them the best.

November 2005: Women! Don't expect any help on.... Short and a tiny bit ranty. Still makes me smile. And by 2005 there are comments!

November 2006: No heroines. I was proper angry when I wrote this, and I'm glad to have a record. I wouldn't really want 32 Flavors played at my funeral, mind. Insufficiently understated. Suzanne Vega's Left of Center was the first funeral song I settled on, and I still think you could do a lot worse.

And thank you to anyone who's ever read any of them. It would have been no fun without you.

joella

I has a fringe

And, by the looks of this photo, a giant nose. When did it get so big? I am reminded of my Jewish grandmother. In her youth she was dark and buxom and facially well-proportioned, but by the time I knew her she was tiny, except for the nose. The nose was remarkable. Oh good.

Anyway, perhaps in an attempt to do some nasal offsetting, I got my hair cut this weekend. I want a fringe, I said to Richard the hairdresser. I'm too old for a slaphead.

I had the first haircut of my life at Richard the hairdresser's. I was leetle bald as a baby, so this wasn't till I was nearly four. I had my first bob there, my first boy cut there, and my first perm there (who let that happen?). It caters more for the 'older lady' these days, but the fairly upmarket one. It has cups you can read in the mirror, and proper coffee in them.

I mostly don't get my hair cut by Richard these days, but when I decided I wanted a fringe again, he was the only choice. I spent hours of my adolescence arguing with him about fringe length. He always wanted to cut it shorter, I always wanted it long enough to look through. He knows how I like it, and he knows how it shrinks up when it dries.

I came out looking really quite elegant. The next day I looked more like a frizz-monster with a slightly too short fringe, but it will grow.

This post started with serious intentions, but has turned into four paragraphs about my hair and one about my nose. At least I have the good grace to be embarrassed.

joella

In the Purple Zone

I don't know why standing in the icy Victorian wind tunnel that is Preston Station, eating a Greggs cheese and onion pasty straight from the bag while peering forlornly at the departure screens, should make me feel warm inside. But it does. Perhaps it's because it feels so familiar. Or perhaps it's just these days I'm smart enough not to try and do it on a Sunday.

joella

Insufficient privileges

That just about sums up my week.

This also:

[17:41] joella: I am listening to old Bryan Adams tunes on YouTube, what is wrong with me please?
[17:42] m: I am listening to Peteris Vasks Symphony #1
[17:42] m: Whatever is wrong with you is not the same as what is wrong with me
[17:43] joella: Cuts like a knife

joella

Cheered, mildly

First: we had to get someone out to the washing machine *again*. That is the *third time*. I was beginning to feel seriously oppressed by a domestic appliance. But the man said that the part used to fix it when it stopped heating up (first callout) was faulty, and that this was why it had stopped heating up again and was so noisy even after we had the lump of concrete re-secured (second callout). Should be all fixed, and without having had to resort to extended warranty rip off. Here's hoping.

Second: I heard back from Stagecoach.

Dear joella,
Thank you for your e-mail of 5th November 2007. I am sorry that you received such poor service from one of my members of staff. The fare is still £1.30 and I am unable to explain the drivers actions in trying to charge you more.
I have seen the driver about this incident and warned him about his future conduct. I hope that a similar incident does not happen again.
Stagecoach in Oxfordshire Oxford Local Bus Manager

As they say in the insurance company advert, that's better.

Third: went to an interesting lunchtime talk on the Middle East today. Usually such talks (about the Middle East, they do have them about other things) move along the 'basically, it's all completely fucked' lines. This one was more of 'it's possibly not quite as completely fucked as it was 12 months ago'. This is not the place for serious political analysis (mine or anyone else's) but let's just say I bought a share in his sliver of hope and I shall look after it carefully. Let's hear it for the pragmatists. Falafel all round!

joella

Lost in our overcoats, waiting for the sunset

I saw two old friends this week, and a third a couple of weeks ago. They all live a long way away these days. I met A when I was 18 and she lived next door to me in our first year at Cambridge. She was studying architecture and would stay up all night making scale models out of cardboard, while I was in the next room writing essays about dialectical materialism. One lovely summer morning we finished at dawn, shared a joint with our mutual friend E and went running around on the Backs leaving barefoot trails in the dew. It was like something out of a film. We were the luckiest people alive, we just didn't realise it at the time.

C turned up the following year, with a music collection I envy to this day. She was from the North East, and I went to stay with her after I'd been to NUS Women's Conference in Newcastle. We went out on the town, which I needed badly after three days of heated debate about patriarchy and tampons. As we were running for the last bus back to her mum and dad's an old man waved his stick at us and shouted 'go home and look after your children!' The next day we walked along the cliffs and got blown to bits. I want to see that coastline again. I say I prefer the north west but I'm old enough to appreciate both now.

And the Lizard I met when I first moved to Oxford. We worked together at the House on the Hill, where she had the worst job in the world but the best similes. "As mad as a badger" is still common parlance chez joella. I think someone else may have coined that one, but I'm sure "as sweaty as a football" and "as scared as a fruit salad" were Lizard originals. She doesn't live *that* far away actually, but her house is impossible to find, even with Wendy the GPS. It took me over 2 hours to get there and less than one to get back. The Tesco delivery man called her three times the next morning, because he couldn't find it either. I ended up standing out on the road in my pyjamas, waving him in. Then he broke down in the drive and the recovery lorry took an hour and a half to get there. It's like the Bermuda Triangle of Berkshire.

What's lovely about old friends, though, is how quickly you get to laughing. Maybe that's why you stay friends with them. All the people you used to know who *don't* make you laugh fade away.

joella

Reluctant exercising of consumer choice

So I said something very like:

Dear Stagecoach Oxford

Yesterday afternoon I boarded one of your #1 buses from Oxford city centre to Cowley Road, as I do regularly. 'Tesco, please!' I said to the driver, as I do regularly. He said 'two pounds'. I thought he'd misheard me, or maybe thought I wanted the big Tesco right at the end of Cowley Road (not that the bus goes there), so I said, no, the second stop on Cowley Road, the one before Manzil Way. He said 'two pounds'. I said 'it's not two pounds, it's £1.30'. Which it is. He waved me away and said 'get the other bus then'.

I stood there for a while, and he sold tickets to the people behind me, who asked for St Clements. He charged them 80p. I said 'I just want the stop after that'. He said 'two pounds, or get the other bus'. I argued a bit longer, asking how much to Manzil Way, because that costs £1.30, and I want the stop before it, but he wasn't going to sell me a ticket for less than two pounds. And I wasn't paying two pounds.

I figured I would stand my ground, as I had a lot of stuff with me and I thought eventually someone else would get on and ask for the stop I wanted and I could just say 'same as them!', but there was a huge queue behind me getting impatient, and he'd clearly decided he wasn't backing down. So in the end I said forget it and got off. I then ran for the Oxford Bus Company's #5, and asked for Tesco. The driver said '£1.30, love'. I nearly cried.

I found your driver's behaviour to be upsetting, unpleasant and rude. And I don't know why he didn't want me on his bus, unless there was some complicated face saving thing going on. If he was, as I believe, wrong about the fare, I would like him to know that's how I felt, and I would like you to know that he did it. I wouldn't want anyone else to have that experience, it was horrible. If on the other hand your fare from Oxford to Tesco *has* gone up to two pounds, *I'd* like to know, so I can make sure to avoid your buses in future.

The Oxford Bus Company's bus delivered me to Tesco sooner than your bus, possibly because of the queue that built up behind me while your driver was intent on overcharging me. So when I got off, I took a photo of it (attached), the registration number is visible as OV51KAJ, and you should be able to work out who the driver was.

Cheers
joella

Haven't heard anything yet. Bus drivers were never this unpleasant in small town Lancashire.

joella

A is for autumn

A is for acers
A is for arboretum
Er, P is for pint on the way home.

joella

Soupy twist

Campbells Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup: comfort food of the gods. Swallow.
Campbells Condensed Cream of Celery Soup*: ejaculate of the devil. Spit.

How can this be?

joella

*which, forgetting the above, I purchase about every five years when there isn't any mushroom.

What I learnt from the washing machine man

It wasn't pleasant, getting the washing machine man out. We had a call out back in July, when I realised the dryer bit of the washer dryer wasn't working. The call centre person tried hard to get M, who made the call, to take out an extended warranty. I was in the other room, and he asked me what I thought. I said no way. We paid the call out charge.

The dryer got fixed, but the insane noise the machine made during its spin cycle just got louder. We pulled the machine out, checked its 'transit bolts' were removed, balanced it with a spirit level. Still the noise endured. When it was spinning, you couldn't talk in the hall. You could hear it down the street.

So I called the washing machine company again. The guy tried to sell me an extended warranty again. I said no way again. 'I see you had a call out earlier this year,' he said. 'Are you saying you're going to pay another £80?'

Well, I said, it turns out that it would have saved me money *in this instance* to take out an extended warranty *last time*. But I didn't, and that doesn't mean it makes sense to now. So yes, I am going to pay another £80.

Every time I have a conversation like that, I feel a little bit dirty. And I hate the world, for making me deal with call centre people who know nothing and care less about the situation you and your washing machine are in, and are primed, poised and prodded like cattle into making as much money out of you as possible. You know it's not really their fault, they are just pawns in the game, but in order to not get shafted you often have to be rude to them. You hate yourself for this, because it's a real person you're being rude to, yet you know they are trained to put you in this position, so you hate them too.

You come away a bit bruised, a bit bullied and a bit beaten down. You lose a bit of faith in your ability to make consumer choices. You lose a bit of faith in the world. You don't know who to trust. And this is a fucking washing machine. I can't even *think* about pensions.

Two days later, the washing machine man came. I'd subconsciously blocked it out of my mind, so we were still in bed when the doorbell rang. I therefore had to show him what was what wearing my orange pyjamas and with a serious bed head, which was all quite embarrassing.

He found the problem immediately: one of the large blocks of concrete which stops the machine going walkabout was loose. He fixed it with a spanner and some glue. I took an interest -- I've never seen the workings of a washing machine before. He liked that. We got chatting.

As he was putting the casing back together, he spotted the bottle of Ecover lurking in the under-stair gloom. You've got to watch that stuff, he said. It'll destroy your machine, especially if you only wash at low temperatures.

How can Ecover be bad? I asked. And what about my EcoBalls?

He laughed hollowly.

The thing is, girls and boys, that Ecover doesn't contain the chemicals that are needed to kill bacteria that accumulate in the machine, creating sludge and slime on the outside of the drum, rotting the seal and causing that nasty 'in the machine too long' smell if you leave your clothes in any length of time after the cycle has finished.

Those chemicals have a purpose, he said. They're not for your clothes, they're for your washing machine. If you want to use Ecover, fine (and there are some good environmental reasons for doing so) but if you're not to end up a) shortening the life of your machine and b) re-washing smelly stuff -- neither of which can be seen as environmentally friendly things to do -- you should do a hot (at least 60 degrees) wash with 'proper' (he recommended Ariel biological) washing powder at least once a month. You should also descale once a month if you live in a hard water area.

The washing machine man was lovely. He knew his stuff and did his thing, but also told me things he thought I should know. Nobody was paying him for that. It's entirely possible, in fact, that the washing machine makers would prefer he didn't tell me those things, as that way they get to sell more washing machines.

*And* he managed to find a way to charge me less than the call out charge. He restored my faith in human ingenuity: at the call centre end, big companies pay peanuts and do their best to get human beings to behave like manipulative automatons, but at the business end, there is discretion and there is autonomy. And when decent people get their hands on that, they provide better than a decent service and they provide a warm feeling inside to go with it. More like that please.

And I also thought it was such good advice that I should pass it on, as I can't imagine anyone reading this regularly isn't also washing their clothes in Ecover. I know some of you smell funny, put it that way.

joella

Have you ever been experienced? Well, she has.

Patti Smith and her band by Pirlouiiiit 17102007
Originally uploaded by pirlouiiiit. (This was taken a couple of gigs before Oxford - visit the set for some amazing photos!)

There are gigs... and there are Gigs. I ventured to the all-new Cardiac for the first time on Monday night to see Patti Smith, wondering if they'd have fucked the venue up, wondering if she'd be any good, wondering if it might all be an expensive and not that rewarding Monday evening (never a great night for going out, face it).

And it was a Gig. She is a force of nature. I was blown away. We got two hours of passion and storm and fury. She screamed at us and it was scary, but then she smiled at us, and it was all ok. She played Are You Experienced on *clarinet*, which was astonishing, she played Because The Night, which made me feel about seventeen years old (only with worse knees), she played a glorious White Rabbit, with an Oxford-themed stream of consciousness intro, and then at the end, just when I'd figured she wouldn't (though I was of course hoping beyond hope that she would), she played Gloria. And it couldn't have been better.

There is not a chance of this happening, but I want to be like Patti Smith when I grow up. She embodies something timeless, ageless, fabulous.

And the Cardiac is ok. I can live with it. The beer is worse (as in, there's only lager and it costs a fortune), but the toilets are better (as in, the doors lock and they have paper). Oxford crowds are always interesting, and this one was no exception. It was full of interesting looking women of all ages, including a surprising number of under-21s. And they were not Brookes-alikes, they were beautiful. Such hair! Such eyebrows!

So in all, I am inspired. Let's hear it for the provincial gig, where you can always get down the front.

joella

No! Sleep! Till 11.30!

This week I looked after baby Tungsten nearly on my own for nearly three hours. He'd been suffering from what my mother calls D&V, *and* he's teething, so he was extremely pissed off.

I did feel for him. I hate throwing up. I had bad D&V once when I was about eight or nine. I remember lying in my turquoise flowery nightdress in my turquoise bed in my turquoise bedroom, looking glumly at the pale blue bucket that my mum had put next to the bed. It was the middle of a school day and it was weird and quiet, and I knew that all I could do was wait, feeling sicker and sicker till I chucked up in the bucket and felt better. And then it would start again. It was one of the longest days of my life.

So when I woke up in the middle of Wednesday night with a slow growing ache in my guts, I knew it wasn't going to end well. And it didn't. I had just enough sequencing between ends to avoid major bathroom disaster, and just enough interval between episodes to reflect on the sad fact that when you're a grown up, you have to clean up after yourself. I am not blaming baby Tungsten, but I did call him a little bastard more than once.

I did get a day in bed to recover though, drinking flat Coca Cola and reading OK magazine (both allowed only when ill). And tonight I am clean and serene, listening to Bob Dylan-as-DJ playing hymns to New York on 6Music and looking forward to an early night with Georgette Heyer.

Tomorrow: sloe hunting and rugby avoidance. Bring it on.

joella

"What I saw is quite beyond my powers of description."

Oh, why am I watching The Relief of Belsen? It's not cheering me up any.

But maybe it's worse not to watch it. It's done well, I think. Better it's made than not. Better it's broadcast than not. It reminds me why I am happy to be British: you really can make the world a better place with little more than a sense of decency and good project management skills. And it reminds me of Banksy's Manifesto, which can still move me to tears.

There is evil, but there is also good. There is inhumanity, but there is also art that works for anyone with a heart.

joella

The law of halves

Half a Ribble Rouser and half a perry
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

When we got to the Beer Festival on Thursday, they were only hiring out half pint glasses. They did have pints, I guess they'd just run out.

And a bloody good job it was too, as otherwise we'd have been in all sorts of trouble. I was (relatively) sensible and designed my tasting round a Lancashire theme: brewery in Lancashire (another) or brewery in town that can be seen from Lancashire (which some would argue still *is* in Lancashire) or brewer from Lancashire (I had inside knowledge on the last). One from Yorkshire did sneak in but it was Jeremy's favourite, and her tasting notes were so beautiful that it was hard to say no.

M went for a more eclectic approach, including perry (why?!) and coconut beer in his list. Remarkably, thanks to the half pint glasses (which I found in my bag the next morning, with my beer-soaked programme) he survived to tell the tale. And I can assure you they are all better at making beer than they are at making websites. Which is as it should be.

joella

Notes on a hangover

1. If I weren't hungover, I really wouldn't be watching Con Air
2. I can well see why V walked out of this film
3. But I also worry slightly that when I get bored of power tools, I might want a gun

joella

This isn't very sisterly but it needs to come off my chest

Dear Jessica / Camilla / Charlotte / Phoebe (delete as applicable)

Congratulations on getting into Oxford Brookes! Your parents must be delighted with this return on their investment in your education.

The chances are high that you will, in later life, get away with telling people that you went to university in Oxford. But while you are here we need to make sure that you are clearly identifiable as actually quite thick.

You must therefore wear the following uniform at all times:

Giant sunglasses
Hip-skimming, violently patterned top of your choice, cut to display maximum cleavage and cling to puppy fat
Belt of 4" width or greater serving no discernible purpose
Flippy miniskirt just a little shorter than you have the legs to carry off
Leggings
Flip flops

If you get cold, you may add a pashmina and swap your flip flops for Uggs. If your breasts are not sufficiently wobbly (ideally they should look like a pair of orange blancmanges), proceed to Subway and eat meatball torpedos until they are.

Please note that failure to comply with this directive will result in the impounding of your Renault Clit.

Regards
Brookes Admissions

joella

Memories of west Lancashire

This week, I find myself mostly thinking of Blackpool, where I went to school. I was pupil #7 in the 80s-tastic photo above that I found on its website.

1. Watching the second part of the Stephen Fry HIV documentary reminded me of my schoolfriend J, whose little sister was born with significant disabilities, and went to an amazing school, which I visited a few times as a teenager in the mid-80s. It was my first encounter with HIV, as some of the pupils were haemophiliacs and contracted the virus via unsafe blood transfusions. I remember there was a flu outbreak one winter. I remember this already (physically) fragile girl losing friends to something that should never kill teenagers.

2. Me and housemate C were wiping tears away, topping up our Fairtrade wine and checking out the news when along came One Life: Above Enemy Lines (can't find a better link, strangely). I wasn't really watching until the central officer character - Ian Diggle - came on screen. We went to school together. He was good friends with schoolfriend J. The last time I saw him was at her little sister's 21st.

All. Very. Weird.

3. Happy birthday E. Never thought I'd be saying that, either!

I didn't make the White Stripes now-infamous Blackpool gig, but this clip from it is one of my favourite bits of music ever.



joella

Blair Witch Mystique

My newest Facebook Friend (whom I have actually known for 18 years: I am thinking that, like Eskimos and snow, or Northerners and bread rolls, we need more words for friend) told me that my profile photo made me look like I was in the Blair Witch Project. I was actually pretty chuffed.

I was wearing the same woolly hat (which used to be my mum's) last Monday night when J the plumber came to pick me up for a couple of evening jobs. I'm not sure you'll need the hat, he said, but you look very cute in it.

And it was on my head again this morning when I pitched up in Didcot feeling like shit, but not enough like shit to let the side down. I got in the door, worked out what was missing, and said to G, who was already assembling kitchen units: 'arse, I forgot my blowtorch'. The customer was still in her pyjamas, as we'd arrived surprisingly early, and she grinned from ear to ear and said 'now I've never heard a woman say *that* before'. Yeah, I said, we're normally very good at remembering them. But I was grinning too.

joella

My hey, hey my

A long time ago, when staying in on a Friday night was still the worst thing imaginable but doing a line of speed before heading out the door was no longer viable (that was only a brief phase, mum, honest), I discovered that much under-rated cocktail: vodka and Lemsip. Seriously, if you feel like shit but you need to be out there, it's the business. (If you feel like shit but it's ok to stay in, go straight for a hot toddy.)

A few years later, along came Red Bull. Someone with a cold once dubbed it Party Nurse (and indeed it does taste a bit like medicine), and ever since then I've thought of vodka and Lemsip as Party Nurse Max.

We could have done with some Party Nurse Max tonight, but instead we came home early, which on Cowley Road at this time of year makes you feel like a salmon swimming upstream. We were sitting in the Oxford Thai running low fevers and wondering what to do next, when M said 'I think we should just head back'. Well, I said, it's better to fade out than to burn away.

Vodka, we don't have. But Lemsip, we do.

joella

Shopping list on the back of a business card

Holiday shopping list
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

I wish I was still on holiday...

joella

Feelgood veg of the autumn. Oh, and HIV.

I have this theory: you cannot roast too many vegetables, and you cannot mash too many vegetables. However much you make, if you make it right, it will get eaten. There will never be enough for tomorrow's lunch.

Tonight we had sausages (veggie for me and housemate C, Freedom Food for M), and I made potato, celeriac and garlic mash and roasted carrots, courgettes and shallots. There was some celery soup left from last night, and I did something with veggie Bisto and a blender to create gravy out of it.

I made tons. I used half a big celeriac, eight potatoes, five carrots, four courgettes and a big handful of shallots. I felt sure it was enough to feed six. But no, we ate it all. And how can vegetables be bad for you? This is like intravenous V8 juice, no? We'll be winning awards if we carry on like this.

And *then* we had M's blackberry and apple crumble, in front of Stephen Fry's HIV & Me. I'd like my colleagues in South Africa, Zambia and Malawi to get the chance to see this programme. I think they think HIV is a non-issue in the UK. It's nowhere near as prevalent, but it's still having a massive impact. The young gay guy who had voluntarily had sex with five HIV+ 'gift givers', who then stuck a butt plug in him to maximise the chance of infection... now that I don't pretend to get.

But... there are lots of things I don't pretend to get about *straight* unsafe sex: I do, after all, come from the generation who saw the 1980s tombstone advert (aside: it took all my old-school, and considerable, web searching skills to track this down: you still need archives, if only for when YouTube doesn't deliver) just as we were thinking about getting down to it. I couldn't swear to the fact that I've never taken a risk, but I can definitely come closer to swearing that than most.

We had a little drink, and we shed a little tear. And we snuck into the kitchen one by one to steal the last little bits out of the roasting pan.

joella

Entente not very cordiale

Our new student neighbours moved in while we were away in the Peak District. Their landlords, who had spent most of the summer turning a dilapidated semi-wreck into a seriously nice house, told us they were postgraduates and would be well behaved. We figured they would need to be fairly rich postgraduates to be able to afford the rent that a house like that would be commanding, and we also figured that postgraduate status would not necessarily be sufficient to guarantee good behaviour.

Depressingly, we were right on both counts. They'd been in less than a week when they brought home a horde of pissed, braying idiots. It was 11.30 on a Thursday night, and we wanted to go to bed. I went out the back to try and get them to close their windows and back door, and there was a fully fledged drinks party going on. I got their attention by chucking pebbles over the wall, and a girl came flying out the back door saying 'what the fuck?'

'Hi,' I said, 'we're your neighbours'. God, she said, I'm, like, so sorry. They were all supposed to be gone by 11. Fine, I said, could you try and keep it down and close the windows? 'We're Masters students, she said, we're not Freshers or anything'. Fine, I said, could you try and keep it down and close the windows?

Ten minutes later, there were another bunch of them roaring in the garden. M went out this time. They couldn't go inside, because, like, it wasn't their house. Super posh boy emerged the third time we went out, by which point one of his charming friends was pulling branches off one of our trees. 'Yah, he said, I'm so sorry, we'll keep the noise down, I hope you can trust me on that.' I've no idea if I can trust you or not, said M, you're not doing too well so far. I'll set the hose on the next person to touch that tree, I added, you can trust me on *that*.

We went to bed, and heard them bringing people in from the garden several more times, so I guess the message sunk in at some level. They came round to apologise the next day, and assured us that they were postgraduates so would be working far too hard to make that kind of noise ever again.

We'll see. But I don't have a great feeling about it. They also don't have a bike between the four of them, so I suspect they are contributing more than their fair share to the predictable-yet-still-oppressive termtime parking chaos. Still, on the bright side, in nine months they'll be gone forever.

joella

The darkest part of the night

The pain wakes me up in the darkest part of the night. It used to do that when I was younger, but the last few years have been easier. I don't know why it's started doing it again.

I lie there for a few minutes, breathing carefully, adjusting, then slip out of bed to the bathroom. I can do this in the dark, open cupboards and wrappers, find drugs, take drugs. I slip back into bed, to wait for the codeine wave to break over me.

When this happens in the darkest part of the night it is scary. I am vulnerable and disoriented. I try to focus on the breathing, I lie on my balled fists. I try and keep still. But my mind always races. Into it this month comes Burma and Darfur, and the newly discovered photos of guards at Auschwitz. I am reading The Kite Runner (which I highly recommend, but which will not cheer you up much).

The veneer of civilisation is very thin, and these are the times I feel it might splinter at any moment. They come for you in the darkest part of the night, when you are alone and when you are already bleeding.

But I am not alone. After a few minutes M stirs. 'Would you like me to warm up your pink sack?' he says sleepily. My pink sack is a little corduroy bean bag that you can heat in the microwave. It used to smell of something comforting, like lavender, but that faded years ago. It was a gift, and I can't remember who from, but I am sure it was a man. It is the best thing in the world for this pain, but the microwave is two flights of stairs away and I can barely move.

Would you? I say, and he does. It is so hot that I need to wrap it in layers, which I unwrap gradually until it is next to my skin. The heat is bliss, it hurts, but in a sharp way, near the surface, tangible, movable. He goes back to sleep. I lie there until the light appears in the corners of the skylight, the birds are awake, and the codeine has dulled all my senses. Then I curl up round him, with the pink sack between us, and I sleep too.

I know when I wake up the world will feel more benign. And it does.

joella

Wearing badges is not enough

... so if you're able to do something more, give this lot some money. The website is struggling, so phone probably best.

Dear friend

With a democracy uprising taking place in Burma, the most significant events in Burma in 20 years, you may have been wondering why you have not heard from the Burma Campaign UK.

We are a small organisation, and we have been working round the clock getting information out of Burma, briefing journalists, helping them get in to Burma, and doing media interviews. In the last 48 hours alone we have had almost 500 enquires from journalists in more than 20 countries.

Media are coming to us because we have excellent sources in the country, and can provide analysis of what is going on. The fact that we can do this is down to the financial support our supporters have given us to set up networks and build contacts.

As you can imagine, as a small organisation we are overwhelmed with the number of media enquiries we are getting, but we believe that ensuring the world knows what is going on, and, through the media, pressuring the international community to act, must be our top priority. We will update our website and send email updates as often as possible.

We would like to ask for your financial support at this critical time. The current crisis is placing a strain on our resources, and we don't want to be held back from providing maximum support at this critical time simply because of a lack of funds. Please visit our site to make a donation. http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/donate.html or call 020 7324 4714 to make a donation by credit card over the phone.

Our friends in Burma are hopeful that they could be nearing the end of their repression, but they also fear a brutal crackdown from the regime. International support is more important than ever.

Demonstrate in solidarity with the Burmese people

The Burmese Community in London are holding a demonstration outside the Burmese Embassy in London every day from 12-1pm.
Please show your support if you can.

Embassy of the Union of Myanmar
19 A CHARLES STREET
LONDON W1J 5DX

Nearest tube: Green Park

For campaigns and actions in other countries, please check here:
http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/links.html

Thank you for your continued support.

Anna Roberts
The Burma Campaign UK

joella

Godless harlots of the world unite

Reading The Sacred And Profane Love Machine with a temperature of 104
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

Another photo from the joella archive... I am just turned 23, and as sick as I've ever been. My Significant Ex and I were in Kota Bharu, Malaysia, and I woke up with a temperature. Which rose, and rose, and rose, until it hit 104 degrees. I nearly popped the thermometer. We were fortunate enough to be staying in the lovely, family-run Town Guest House, and the landlady reassured us that temperatures of this magnitude were nothing to worry about in this latitude. She bathed my armpits and forehead in iced water, my SE managed to find the only bottle of Ribena in the country, and I tried to manage my panic by reading Iris Murdoch. Some books work when you're feverish, and this was one of them.

A week later, I'd been to several doctors and had several blood tests. I couldn't keep anything down, but no one knew what was wrong. Eventually they took me to hospital, where they put me on a saline drip and gave me IV antibiotics.

Malaysia is fairly ethnically diverse, but is predominantly Muslim, and Kota Bharu felt more Muslim than other places. I think there was some rule in the hospital that Muslim women could only be examined by Muslim doctors, so every Chinese / Indian / other medical student in the place came by my bed on a regular basis. I was a grade A exhibit.

They thought I might have dengue fever, one of the symptoms of which is a rash on the chest. Every morning, a steady stream of young men would whisk the curtains round my bed and ask me to open my pyjama top. There's no rash, I would say, your colleague checked just recently, but they would want to just make sure. Still no rash, I would say to the next one. Trust me, I've seen my breasts this morning, they are as spot-free as they were yesterday. But, you know, be my guest.

In the afternoon, it was visiting time. As the hour approached, the woman in the bed opposite would put her headscarf on. Her husband would come and see her, and my SE would come and see me. A couple of days in, her husband beckoned my SE over, and muttered something into his ear.

What did he say? I asked. Er, said my SE, he said 'tell your wife she is exposing herself'. Apparently, he could see my pants.

Mad? I was livid. So, I said (but quietly), half you lot want me to get my tits out, and the other half object to me wearing a *hospital-issue* sarong in a *hospital bed*. SORT IT OUT. And while I think about it, this is a women's ward. You are visiting. If you don't like it, don't fucking look, all right? My legs, my choice. Oh, and I'm not his wife. Oh, and I speak English my very own self, you can talk to me directly if you've got anything to say.

I think, said my SE, it would be more politic if I just brought you some trousers in. And bless him, he did. Some purple tie-dye trousers. The next night, I waved my purple legs in the air with impunity. But I still think they had it all fucked up.

And bugger me sideways if some of them still don't. What a revolting man. I wonder if he'd join the non-Muslim breast examination queue in a parallel universe.

But in the interests of balance (I was once a journalist you know) I should highlight that misogynist madness lurks in the corners of other major world religions. Hey, says the Archbishop of Mozambique, those wanton Europeans are infecting condoms with HIV "in order to finish quickly the African people". To any of the African people reading this I say A: it is literally not possible to do this, so the Archbishop is a chump, and B: you will be finished far quicker if you listen to nutjobs like him than by using any number of condoms. Put it this way, I used them for years, and I'm still here.

Oh, and I did get better. This one was taken the night before I left hospital, when they'd taken the drip out. I walked out onto the balcony (the ward was kind of open to the air, with slatted walls) as the sun went down that night, listened to Suzanne Vega's 99.9 F on my Walkman, and thought about heat and blood.

joella

Sunday

Sunday
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

In slight mitigation for the Nokia 6300, it does take good photos. In fact in low light it takes better photos than my camera. I managed to get this one off by emailing it to myself, which can only be a frustrating and expensive way to proceed, but it's my favourite so far so I thought it would be worth it.

joella

The future's bakelite

Today, I had to engage with the Orange Shop. I recently tried to upgrade my mobile contract online, and they rang me up and told me I should really get a new phone. Indeed, they sounded amazed that I had neglected to upgrade my phone before now. So I did, as the battery on my trusty Nokia 6310i was beginning to fade. I did no research whatever, I just said I wanted something reliable, robust and made by Nokia. They recommended the Nokia 6300, and sent me one.

I had seven days to send it back if I didn't like it, but a) it took me nearly that long to get round to charging it up and using it, and b) housemate C spilt red wine over the box and instruction book as soon as I did. But it didn't occur to me that I wouldn't like it. It does everything, including (probably) bring you to orgasm if you get the vibrate setting right. And it's beautiful, beautiful, very very beautiful.

But I don't like it. The battery doesn't last nearly as long as my fading, five year old 6310i one. Couple of phone calls and you're down from 100% to 40%. I've been charging it every other night. It would never see you through a festival. It takes photos, but you have to buy a not-included cable (also not sold by the Orange Shop) to actually get them off the phone. And they added Orange Care (insurance, basically), for £6 a month, without asking me if I wanted it. I didn't, but by the time I realised I had it I was out of my 14 day cooling off period. Hence the visit to the shop, where they did cancel it, but it still cost me half an hour of my life that I'll never get back.

And getting everything else sorted out has cost me several more hours, for something I didn't ask for, didn't need and now don't really want. The moral of the story, boys and girls, is that there's no such thing as a free phone. Serves me right for believing the hype.

In other news: what a twat. Drives a stupidly powerful machine at a stupidly dangerous speed on a road that's quite dangerous enough already, then takes his mum and dad to court with him to prove how really really sorry he is.

joella

Hibernation

I've been all a bit Outdoor Socialising Girl the last week or so. It's been fun, but I have a sore knee, a sore back, a sore hand and all round a bit of a sore head. So in an effort to redress the balance, I spent today doing nothing more energetic than assembling a lawnmower. Mostly I was significantly less energetic than that. I am delighted to report that Mistress Masham's Repose is just as wonderful a book as it was when I first read it about 28 years ago. I don't think I managed it all in one day that time though.

joella

Where the hills have names

Wind, hair, sticks
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

The week in numbers:

Walks: 4
Bike rides: 1
Moors: 2 (my favourite being Stanton Moor -- my camera packed up but this photo is way better than any I took anyway)
Outdoor hot tubs: 1
Pubs: 5 (my favourite being the Black Swan in Crich: lovely pint, cheese and pickle toastie, mongrels welcome, lead piping in the toilets, what more could you want?)
Books: 1 (Money, by Martin Amis. Perfect for reading when either drunk or hungover.)
Derbyshire oatcakes: 3 (with fried egg and Encona: genius)
Celebs staying nearly-next-door: 1 (I think, I only went round to see if he knew how to work his oven, and I was a bit pissed)
Amount *per place setting* that the only cutlery I have ever loved (made in Derbyshire, tested on cake) costs: £75. I might have to get married after all.*
Old lead mines visited by boat: 1
Stately homes: 2 (my favourite stately thing being the gravity-fed Emperor Fountain at Chatsworth. Fucking amazing, frankly, given that the average British house can't manage a decent shower).

Moments of marvel at the joys to be had holidaying in England: many. Thanks Global Warming. Oh, and happy birthday M.

joella
*joke

There'll always be an England

The Peak District is a fascinating place.

He's dead, but he won't lie down! said Phyllis, who works in one of the local Oxfam shops. The till drawer popped open, catching her on the hip. I got the impression that it was a surprise every time. I think she was talking about John Thaw, she'd found out we came from Oxford. Is this literature? she asked, trying to find a category for the Best of Linda Smith book that I was buying. I explained that she was a comedian, and had also sadly died. Maybe it's leisure, then, she said.

After a pint of Druid Ale and a bite to eat in the deserved winner of the Best Pub Sandwich of the Year Award 2005, we went for a gentle stroll on the moors in the hail. It would have been fine except I didn't have a belt on, and once my trousers soaked through they started sliding down my legs. I was wielding new walking poles, purchased at a knock-down price from a shop that also sold clitoral jewellery (only in Derbyshire, surely), so didn't have a free hand. It all got a bit gritty. But we got back to the car in the end, and came home for a hot bath followed by pickled garlic and Scotch in our pyjamas.

Later, we watched the news. It seems the banking system is about to enter meltdown. Makes me glad I haven't got any money, and that my dad keeps all his in paperweights.

joella

Therapeutic discomfort

J the plumber failed to furnish me with work this week. There's lots on but somehow it didn't come together. Secretly, I was delighted... I had a miserable time last week wrestling with radiators that kept falling off walls, and the week before I had to listen to a large man shouting at his small children all day while I was trying to screw things into their soggy plasterboard. No one said it would be easy, and they weren't wrong.

Yesterday I stayed in bed all morning reading The Devil And Miss Prym (verdict: deep if you're ten years old), then (mostly) caught up on my paperwork. In the evening I attended a delightfully stuffy meeting of our Residents' Association Committee, as round-the-corner-S and I have decided to stop editing the local newsletter and wanted to tell them why. The wine was posh and I believe I banged the table a couple of times. We giggled all the way back down the hill.

Today was altogether more serious. I went to see a young man called Humphrey, who stuck his thumbs in my glutea maxima (sp?). It was astonishingly painful. There's lots of tension here Jo, he said, focus on that breathing for me. OK, I said, uncurling my toes and trying not to bite through my lip. I've never been massaged (professionally) by a man before, there's a lot to be said for it, if you can get past the embarrassment. They are stronger and have bigger hands. You know you've been seen to, put it that way.

No one's ever done that to my lower back before, I said afterwards, perching gingerly on a little folding chair and feeling floaty. I'm sure it's done wonders, but it really bloody hurt. Well, he said, it might help not to think of it as pain. We prefer to think of it as therapeutic discomfort. You have to go towards it rather than away from it if you're going to open things up.

Maybe he's right. I feel like I've been butterflied.

joella