It's unseasonably warm.
Mix yourself something fiercely alcoholic. Go to your hi-fi. Dig out Debaser by the Pixies. Play it LOUD.
Oh ho ho ho.
joella
Monday, April 30, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Something is cracking, I don't know where
One of the books (previously a Guardian column that I was just a tiny bit young for) that changed my life was Jill Tweedie's 'Letters from a Fainthearted Feminist'. I read it in the late 1980s, around the same time as I read The Female Eunuch and The Women's Room, and for a time I could quote substantial chunks of each of them. And regularly did.
God knows I must have been hard work to be around, but I did genuinely believe Germaine when she said that until you had tasted your own menstrual blood you could not consider yourself a liberated woman*, and Marilyn French when she said that there was more to life than shit and string beans**. I also read Betty Friedan, Kate Millett and Andrea Dworkin, and then (just in time) along came Jill Tweedie: just as radical, but British, understated, and very, very funny. She saved me from becoming a really bad lesbian (not that lesbians are bad, just that I would have made a rubbish one) by making me laugh.
Those days, as these days, are library book days, so I don't have the Letters to re-read, but one I remember really well was about food. It doesn't take much, she said, to work as a chef in a top restaurant and make something edible out of a leg of venison and two pints of double cream. Where the skill comes in is pulling together dinner for four in half an hour out of some manky veg and the end of a tube of tomato puree. So why do chefs get all the glory?
That argument has often run through my head as I have opened the fridge. Ex-housemate S turns up on Tuesday lunchtimes for her only decent meal of the week (or so she says). I need to provide a breastfeeding woman with 35 vegetable portions in a single sitting! At least I know ten ways to serve up cabbage, is all I can say.
But the argument also applies to gardening. April is the venison month. Everything burgeons everywhere - there's nothing to it. You have to really try to have a shit April garden. The skill is having a good August garden, a good November garden, a good February garden. I may be able to do things with brassicas, but I've a lot to learn about foliage.
joella
* Probably not true, but didn't do me any harm.
** A euphemism for staying at home with small children. I think this is now generally accepted, if far from resolved.
God knows I must have been hard work to be around, but I did genuinely believe Germaine when she said that until you had tasted your own menstrual blood you could not consider yourself a liberated woman*, and Marilyn French when she said that there was more to life than shit and string beans**. I also read Betty Friedan, Kate Millett and Andrea Dworkin, and then (just in time) along came Jill Tweedie: just as radical, but British, understated, and very, very funny. She saved me from becoming a really bad lesbian (not that lesbians are bad, just that I would have made a rubbish one) by making me laugh.
Those days, as these days, are library book days, so I don't have the Letters to re-read, but one I remember really well was about food. It doesn't take much, she said, to work as a chef in a top restaurant and make something edible out of a leg of venison and two pints of double cream. Where the skill comes in is pulling together dinner for four in half an hour out of some manky veg and the end of a tube of tomato puree. So why do chefs get all the glory?
That argument has often run through my head as I have opened the fridge. Ex-housemate S turns up on Tuesday lunchtimes for her only decent meal of the week (or so she says). I need to provide a breastfeeding woman with 35 vegetable portions in a single sitting! At least I know ten ways to serve up cabbage, is all I can say.
But the argument also applies to gardening. April is the venison month. Everything burgeons everywhere - there's nothing to it. You have to really try to have a shit April garden. The skill is having a good August garden, a good November garden, a good February garden. I may be able to do things with brassicas, but I've a lot to learn about foliage.
joella
* Probably not true, but didn't do me any harm.
** A euphemism for staying at home with small children. I think this is now generally accepted, if far from resolved.
Monday, April 23, 2007
I heart Andrew Marr
There are lots of clever funny men out there, but most of them just sit around being clever and funny at the expense of people who are less clever and less funny, and, to me at least, that's Just Not That Attractive. Call me earnest, and you wouldn't be the first, but the clever funny men I like the best are the ones who do something useful with it.
I was very sad when Andrew Marr stopped being the BBC's Political Editor, as he made me *want* to watch the 10 O'Clock News. But he made up for it by making Start The Week funny (well, I quite liked it with Paxo too, if I'm honest).
This morning, he was talking to the head honcho at English Heritage, who has done a study of the White House, 10 Downing Street, and the Kremlin, and how these kinds of buildings both influence and are influenced by the type of regime whose leaders they house. They were talking about how George W Bush set about redecorating the White House the second he took up residency.
AM: 'So it was as if he needed to remove the stains of the Clinton era?'
(beat)
AM: 'Not literally, of course'.
Genius.
joella
I was very sad when Andrew Marr stopped being the BBC's Political Editor, as he made me *want* to watch the 10 O'Clock News. But he made up for it by making Start The Week funny (well, I quite liked it with Paxo too, if I'm honest).
This morning, he was talking to the head honcho at English Heritage, who has done a study of the White House, 10 Downing Street, and the Kremlin, and how these kinds of buildings both influence and are influenced by the type of regime whose leaders they house. They were talking about how George W Bush set about redecorating the White House the second he took up residency.
AM: 'So it was as if he needed to remove the stains of the Clinton era?'
(beat)
AM: 'Not literally, of course'.
Genius.
joella
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Second chance Sunday
Given Tuesday's avocado bathroom debacle, it was with some trepidation that I called J the plumber tonight... in fact if I hadn't had someone call me on Friday with a central heating problem that I haven't a hope of fixing myself (though, encouragingly, I'm pretty sure I know what's wrong), I might not have called at all.
But he sounded pleased to hear from me, and told me that tomorrow I am changing the taps in that very same bathroom. It will be like revisiting the scene of an old humiliation, only not so old. What happens, I said, if I can't get the bath taps off? Jo, he said, there's only one thing I can say to you: they've got to come off, so you'll get them off. Oh, I said. Right.
We went out for a Sunday evening bike ride with added Pizza Express, and when we got back there was some copper pipe on the front path and two sets of taps and a bag of fittings tucked under the ceanothus.
Mild terror. That's what I'm feeling.
But to offset this, I have the warm, warm memories of last night down the Exeter Hall, where we attended the first Terrastock Tea Party. Where I learnt that if you come across a large number of men with long hair and beards all hanging out in the same place, they're either survivalists or members of United Bible Fellowship. If they are Irish, it's the latter, and you're in luck. Also playing was Tara Jane O'Neil, with whom I was a tiny bit smitten, and that doesn't happen very often, and Sharron Kraus, who delivers amazing acid ballads with a perfect folk singer's voice. Some of it was hypnotic, some of it was noisy, most of it you could lose yourself in, and that doesn't happen very often either. Lovely.
joella
But he sounded pleased to hear from me, and told me that tomorrow I am changing the taps in that very same bathroom. It will be like revisiting the scene of an old humiliation, only not so old. What happens, I said, if I can't get the bath taps off? Jo, he said, there's only one thing I can say to you: they've got to come off, so you'll get them off. Oh, I said. Right.
We went out for a Sunday evening bike ride with added Pizza Express, and when we got back there was some copper pipe on the front path and two sets of taps and a bag of fittings tucked under the ceanothus.
Mild terror. That's what I'm feeling.
But to offset this, I have the warm, warm memories of last night down the Exeter Hall, where we attended the first Terrastock Tea Party. Where I learnt that if you come across a large number of men with long hair and beards all hanging out in the same place, they're either survivalists or members of United Bible Fellowship. If they are Irish, it's the latter, and you're in luck. Also playing was Tara Jane O'Neil, with whom I was a tiny bit smitten, and that doesn't happen very often, and Sharron Kraus, who delivers amazing acid ballads with a perfect folk singer's voice. Some of it was hypnotic, some of it was noisy, most of it you could lose yourself in, and that doesn't happen very often either. Lovely.
joella
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Thoughts
I am so tired that I can't string a whole post together. So here are the thoughts that I might have developed into posts if I had a bit more energy.
joella
- I am so happy to have Peep Show back!
- If I see that fucking M&S advert with Mylene Klass in it one more time I'm going to change the underwear buying habits of a lifetime.
- Is there a more offensive poster on the high street at the moment than the one in the window of KFC advertising the 'Mum's night off family bucket'?
- What the hell are we going to do with the giant (as in 4'x3') poster of a surrealist dog kennel that M brought back from the Rock in Opposition festival? Will it stay rolled up in the middle of the living room forever?
- I have trousers to take up. I'm 5'4". I therefore always have trousers to take up, why can't I sew properly?
- I hope it rains soon. I've had to take a hosepipe to the new perennials, and it made me feel a bit transgressive.
joella
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Learning curves like sine waves
I'll be honest, there are moments when I'm plumbing when I think what the fuck am I doing here? I had a seriously big one this morning when I was stuck, short of sleep and battling period pain, in an overheated house in Kidlington completely failing to take a bath tap apart. I hung off it till my neck bulged, but all that happened was that the whole tap lurched round. This is bad news as it can loosen the connection under the tap. I dragged it back to its original position, but I was sure I could hear something gurgling.
I tried to check under the bath but the bath side was tiled in. Shit, shit, shit. I rang J the plumber in a bit of a state. Go downstairs! he said. Can you hear dripping? Um, I think so, I said. Shit, shit, shit, he said. Have you got a chisel?
No, I said in a small voice.
Right, he said, get the water off, I'll get someone over to get that panel off for you, and you'll have to change those taps.
OK, I said in an even smaller voice, panicking wildly about a) changing bath taps, which is a seriously evil job, b) consequently having no time to revise for, or possibly even sit, my final plumbing theory exam, which was tonight, and c) the fact that as well as no chisel I had no food and no tampons with me, and was getting to the point where I would be sorely in need of both.
I stood hugging myself in the bathroom, telling myself it would all be ok, just get this done and then you can go home and cry and never do it again.
And then it occurred to me to check if the cold tap, which was not dripping and which I hadn't touched, could be turned off any harder. It could. The gurgling noise stopped.
I rang J back and left a message telling him that I am an idiot. I left the tenants a note saying that the basin tap was done but the bath tap wasn't and would need to be changed at some point. I dropped the keys off with the letting agent, drove home to eat Lebanese food with M and ex-housemate S and baby Tungsten, and sat in the garden to revise for my exam (which I went on pass convincingly, which might not have happened without those two hours of fact cramming). I remembered how I felt fitting N&D's bathroom in Manchester this weekend -- miserable on Saturday evening when all the waste outlets leaked, euphoric on Sunday afternoon when D and I had fixed them all with generous application of silicone and Plumbers Mait and you could see what a lovely room it was going to be.
It's not a job you can fudge, basically. When it goes wrong it's terrifying, but when it goes right it makes you grin from ear to ear and sing along to Alison Moyet all the way home. To paraphrase Billy Bragg, you need to have the crunchy so you can have the smooth. And that's why it's worth it.
joella
I tried to check under the bath but the bath side was tiled in. Shit, shit, shit. I rang J the plumber in a bit of a state. Go downstairs! he said. Can you hear dripping? Um, I think so, I said. Shit, shit, shit, he said. Have you got a chisel?
No, I said in a small voice.
Right, he said, get the water off, I'll get someone over to get that panel off for you, and you'll have to change those taps.
OK, I said in an even smaller voice, panicking wildly about a) changing bath taps, which is a seriously evil job, b) consequently having no time to revise for, or possibly even sit, my final plumbing theory exam, which was tonight, and c) the fact that as well as no chisel I had no food and no tampons with me, and was getting to the point where I would be sorely in need of both.
I stood hugging myself in the bathroom, telling myself it would all be ok, just get this done and then you can go home and cry and never do it again.
And then it occurred to me to check if the cold tap, which was not dripping and which I hadn't touched, could be turned off any harder. It could. The gurgling noise stopped.
I rang J back and left a message telling him that I am an idiot. I left the tenants a note saying that the basin tap was done but the bath tap wasn't and would need to be changed at some point. I dropped the keys off with the letting agent, drove home to eat Lebanese food with M and ex-housemate S and baby Tungsten, and sat in the garden to revise for my exam (which I went on pass convincingly, which might not have happened without those two hours of fact cramming). I remembered how I felt fitting N&D's bathroom in Manchester this weekend -- miserable on Saturday evening when all the waste outlets leaked, euphoric on Sunday afternoon when D and I had fixed them all with generous application of silicone and Plumbers Mait and you could see what a lovely room it was going to be.
It's not a job you can fudge, basically. When it goes wrong it's terrifying, but when it goes right it makes you grin from ear to ear and sing along to Alison Moyet all the way home. To paraphrase Billy Bragg, you need to have the crunchy so you can have the smooth. And that's why it's worth it.
joella
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Nature or nurture?
Here are five things I can't be without:
joella
- Urban folk music from the late 1980s
- Multi-ethnic variations on the 'cheese and pickle' theme
- Big jumpers
- Red wine
- Hot baths
- Anything featuring harpsichords
- McDonalds
- High heels
- Alcopops
- Cold showers
joella
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Formative experiences
Today I went into town with ex-housemate S and baby Tungsten*. Parents everywhere will laugh hollowly at me for finding this a fascinating experience, but I've never been shopping with a baby before. It's really *hard*. And they clearly built the pavements round here before they invented pushchairs. What did they do with babies in the Middle Ages? Left them wriggling in middens, probably.
But it had its advantages. We bought new trousers in White Stuff (the first shop we went into) at the speed of light. Okay, we bought the same trousers, but thankfully they came in two different colours, and I don't think anyone will notice. I went to the library and borrowed the first three books I saw, which is probably as good a way as any of selecting reading material. I pared my Neal's Yard purchases down to the bare minimum (one bottle of conditioner and one bottle of body lotion), which is good, because I am poor at the moment. And then we went to Modern Art Oxford for lunch, whose cafe is the spiritual home of every middle class parent in Oxford. Even those who hate modern art.
The cafe is in the basement. You can go down the stairs from street level, or you can get in a special stairlift type cage to take you up to the shop, from where a normal lift will take you down to the cafe. I opened the special cage door for the pushchair. 'I've never got in this before', said S. 'I'm just too embarrassed'. It moved us up, whirring gently, about three feet at maybe an inch a second, in full view of everyone in the shop. It *was* a bit excruciating, and two nuns sitting on a bench smiled wryly** at us as we walked across the room trying to act natural.
We ate, and Tungsten drank, and then it was time for them to go to the GP to get his kidneys weighed or something. I can't face that lift again, said S. Okay, I said, let's carry him up the stairs.
She took the back of the pushchair, and I had the front. Can I just hold the handles? I said. Yes, fine, she said, and we set off. By the time she was halfway up, the pushchair was approaching vertical, and Tungsten sort of rolled forward, curled up like a caterpillar with his head pointing downwards in a way which was clearly not ideal. No! Stop! I said, and we had a kind of mid-air mid-stair baby wrangling moment which fortunately he slept right through and we both found hilarious.
A severe looking middle aged woman was waiting for us at the top of the stairs. As we finally returned the pushchair to solid ground, she peered round the hood and said 'Oh, you *do* actually have a baby in there!' Just about, I replied. 'I thought you might be an installation,' she said.
Clearly, I'm a natural.
joella
*not his official name, but that's what they really wanted to call him, so it's his name for the time being
**possibly not wryly, possibly open-heartedly and generously, they are nuns after all. But it looked wry to me.
But it had its advantages. We bought new trousers in White Stuff (the first shop we went into) at the speed of light. Okay, we bought the same trousers, but thankfully they came in two different colours, and I don't think anyone will notice. I went to the library and borrowed the first three books I saw, which is probably as good a way as any of selecting reading material. I pared my Neal's Yard purchases down to the bare minimum (one bottle of conditioner and one bottle of body lotion), which is good, because I am poor at the moment. And then we went to Modern Art Oxford for lunch, whose cafe is the spiritual home of every middle class parent in Oxford. Even those who hate modern art.
The cafe is in the basement. You can go down the stairs from street level, or you can get in a special stairlift type cage to take you up to the shop, from where a normal lift will take you down to the cafe. I opened the special cage door for the pushchair. 'I've never got in this before', said S. 'I'm just too embarrassed'. It moved us up, whirring gently, about three feet at maybe an inch a second, in full view of everyone in the shop. It *was* a bit excruciating, and two nuns sitting on a bench smiled wryly** at us as we walked across the room trying to act natural.
We ate, and Tungsten drank, and then it was time for them to go to the GP to get his kidneys weighed or something. I can't face that lift again, said S. Okay, I said, let's carry him up the stairs.
She took the back of the pushchair, and I had the front. Can I just hold the handles? I said. Yes, fine, she said, and we set off. By the time she was halfway up, the pushchair was approaching vertical, and Tungsten sort of rolled forward, curled up like a caterpillar with his head pointing downwards in a way which was clearly not ideal. No! Stop! I said, and we had a kind of mid-air mid-stair baby wrangling moment which fortunately he slept right through and we both found hilarious.
A severe looking middle aged woman was waiting for us at the top of the stairs. As we finally returned the pushchair to solid ground, she peered round the hood and said 'Oh, you *do* actually have a baby in there!' Just about, I replied. 'I thought you might be an installation,' she said.
Clearly, I'm a natural.
joella
*not his official name, but that's what they really wanted to call him, so it's his name for the time being
**possibly not wryly, possibly open-heartedly and generously, they are nuns after all. But it looked wry to me.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Good Friday chez joella
Good Friday chez joella
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.
Sometimes, the only person you can please is yourself. Today I did the best friend bit, I did the girlfriend bit, I did the stepmother bit. I did my best at all of the above, and a lot of it was fun. The last bit was the most complicated, and probably not just for me. So come 10 o'clock I built the first outdoor fire of the year and settled into a deckchair in the garden with red wine and 6Music and nobody else. What a fabulous month April can be.
joella
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
The dynamics of the provisional
I nearly cancelled dinner with J last night, but I am very glad I didn't. She is older and wiser than I am and always gives me a new way to look at things – a different perspective, or a philosophical framework I wasn't aware of. There's not much new under the sun, when it comes down to it, and sometimes I think growing up is basically about working that out.
I was talking about my bad cold, and how I seemed to have been ill a lot recently, which I was finding hard because I need energy and initiative and optimism to help me make the transition from a full time job to a more flexible life. It's all down to me, see, if I don't make it happen then nobody else will, and if I'm going to lie around feeling sorry for myself two days a week then I might as well be doing it in an office, cos then at least I'd be getting paid. And even if I'm not ill, how do I know when to take a risk, and how far should I push it, and how many baskets should I have my eggs in exactly? It's all so... hard sometimes. Am I a fool? Am I making a very expensive point of principle? Etc.
She's in a sort of a risky place too, though a very different one, and she told me about the dynamics of the provisional. I think this idea, first articulated by Immanuel Kant, essentially posits that transitional states are difficult, and you have to allow them to be so if they are to deliver what they could. To impose control, draw lines, or jump ship too soon stops things running their course. It's not comfortable, but it's ok. In fact it's necessary. Water finds its own level eventually.
I ate my bouillabaisse and drank my Sambuca and felt a whole heap better. And in return I recommended Pan's Labyrinth. I *wanted* to recommend Standing in the Way of Control - perfect for jumping up and down to while wrestling with the dynamics of the provisional - but she's more of an opera person. I am sure there are arias that say much the same thing.
joella
I was talking about my bad cold, and how I seemed to have been ill a lot recently, which I was finding hard because I need energy and initiative and optimism to help me make the transition from a full time job to a more flexible life. It's all down to me, see, if I don't make it happen then nobody else will, and if I'm going to lie around feeling sorry for myself two days a week then I might as well be doing it in an office, cos then at least I'd be getting paid. And even if I'm not ill, how do I know when to take a risk, and how far should I push it, and how many baskets should I have my eggs in exactly? It's all so... hard sometimes. Am I a fool? Am I making a very expensive point of principle? Etc.
She's in a sort of a risky place too, though a very different one, and she told me about the dynamics of the provisional. I think this idea, first articulated by Immanuel Kant, essentially posits that transitional states are difficult, and you have to allow them to be so if they are to deliver what they could. To impose control, draw lines, or jump ship too soon stops things running their course. It's not comfortable, but it's ok. In fact it's necessary. Water finds its own level eventually.
I ate my bouillabaisse and drank my Sambuca and felt a whole heap better. And in return I recommended Pan's Labyrinth. I *wanted* to recommend Standing in the Way of Control - perfect for jumping up and down to while wrestling with the dynamics of the provisional - but she's more of an opera person. I am sure there are arias that say much the same thing.
joella
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
I fought the lead, and the lead won
A new colleague at NGO X is also a blogger. She is a Labour councillor and blogs mostly about politics local and global. People are amazed that she is so comfortable with her life being 'out there' for all to see. Mmm yes, I mutter, how extraordinary.
I don't publicise joella at work, you see, though it would hardly take VI Warshawski to uncover her existence. I worry about it sometimes. But joella is really an alter ego. She's more articulate than I am, her anger is more focused and she definitely drinks more Rioja. My heart is not quite on my sleeve, for then I would have to be completely anonymous, and that would be less fun. I like walking this line.
But what it does mean, when you have even a little bit of your life 'out there', is that when (as Mike Skinner would say) shit goes pear-shaped you don't really want to write about it. Well, if shit went really pear-shaped there might be something worth writing about, but if it's just that you develop a mean stinking cold, possibly picked up in the foetid stairwell of the council house from hell, and spend several days lying under a blanket on the sofa necking Benylin, feeling misanthropic and loathing of self (automisanthropic?) and generally losing your mojo in industrial quantities of snot, there's just not much to say.
Some of those days were in Devon, involving a party and a place called Ho! I ate a mini pork pie when I was pissed (I blame the Benylin/champagne combo) and played with stones with stripes in them. I was glad to be there, but could not claim to have been great company. I came home to lie on the sofa some more.
This morning I dragged myself into college to do some leadwork, as I missed last week's lesson in order to attend aforementioned party. My eyes hurt, my throat hurt, my head hurt, and I stood for three hours hitting heavy metal with sticks. It's like breaking rocks. I bloody hate it.
More sofa, more blankets, more Benylin.
Right, I'm going to shut up again till I'm better. This is no fun for anyone.
joella
I don't publicise joella at work, you see, though it would hardly take VI Warshawski to uncover her existence. I worry about it sometimes. But joella is really an alter ego. She's more articulate than I am, her anger is more focused and she definitely drinks more Rioja. My heart is not quite on my sleeve, for then I would have to be completely anonymous, and that would be less fun. I like walking this line.
But what it does mean, when you have even a little bit of your life 'out there', is that when (as Mike Skinner would say) shit goes pear-shaped you don't really want to write about it. Well, if shit went really pear-shaped there might be something worth writing about, but if it's just that you develop a mean stinking cold, possibly picked up in the foetid stairwell of the council house from hell, and spend several days lying under a blanket on the sofa necking Benylin, feeling misanthropic and loathing of self (automisanthropic?) and generally losing your mojo in industrial quantities of snot, there's just not much to say.
Some of those days were in Devon, involving a party and a place called Ho! I ate a mini pork pie when I was pissed (I blame the Benylin/champagne combo) and played with stones with stripes in them. I was glad to be there, but could not claim to have been great company. I came home to lie on the sofa some more.
This morning I dragged myself into college to do some leadwork, as I missed last week's lesson in order to attend aforementioned party. My eyes hurt, my throat hurt, my head hurt, and I stood for three hours hitting heavy metal with sticks. It's like breaking rocks. I bloody hate it.
More sofa, more blankets, more Benylin.
Right, I'm going to shut up again till I'm better. This is no fun for anyone.
joella
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