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

Headlines

(Because I am feeling over-committed and inarticulate. Oh, and a bit pissed)

• One of the young men working next door appeared from nowhere and offered to carry a large box from the car to the house for me. I am not quite sure if he was the same young man who caught me wandering round the house in my bra and pants earlier this week when he was up a ladder out back and I had got in from plumbing and stuck my dirty clothes straight in the washing machine, but I think he might have been.
  
• There's a lot to be said for getting someone else to choose six of your CDs for you to play in the car while you drive around. Even if one of them is a Qawwali album you bought by accident.
  
• Interestingly, Qawwali reminds me a bit of Klezmer.
  
• Cooking for boys is more rewarding than cooking for girls. Especially if they are Boys in a Band. They eat everything in sight and then have seconds.
  
• I am nearly on holiday from job #1 for a fortnight and I cannot wait.
  
• Job #2 has suddenly gone supernova and I'm a bit scared.
  
• I need a van. Perhaps a van like you.
  
• Yes, no, Alphabet Street.
  
• Bleat.

joella

Semi-obligatory tangentially Diana-related post

You're always going to remember where you were when you hear big news, but big news notwithstanding, I'd still remember the night Diana died.

It was a big family gathering, and these are rare. There are lots of people I am related to, but they don't often seem to constitute a family. They are geographically dispersed, culturally disparate, and separated by many other elements of time, space, history and consequence. The older I get, the more I understand why this is so, and the more normal it seems.

My mother and her sister C have always been close though, so it was natural that she and my dad, plus my sister, me and my Significant Ex should be invited to the Big Do to celebrate C's silver wedding anniversary. Also being celebrated were Significant Birthdays of each of their two sons, P and P. It was held on an RAF base, as my uncle was in the RAF at the time and that's where they lived. They put us up in the Officers' Mess. I was mildly freaked out by this at the time, as a fully paid-up member of the anti-Establishment, but I got over it. There were more important things to worry about.

It was the summer of meltdown with my Significant Ex. We weren't getting on, but we were doing our arguing behind closed doors. Most of the world still had no idea there was anything wrong. Consequently, we both got absolutely hammered. I danced the Macarena with 18 year olds who smelt faintly of vomit, and wondered if I was too old to do a 'tactical chunder', as we used to call them at college, myself. He spent a large part of the evening playing snooker with my half-uncle, who did have an idea.

Around 1 am I was sitting on a bar stool next to my aunt C, of whom I am extremely fond. She was telling me that the dangerous thing about the Officers' Mess is that they let you sign for drinks. By this point in the evening she was having trouble doing the signing, and I think we were both having trouble staying on the stools. But she got more vodkas in nonetheless.

Can I ask you something? I said. How do you manage to stay with someone for 25 years? Cos I don't think I'm going to make ten. She gave me a long sideways look. I don't think she'd realised.

Well, she said, when it's just me and G, we're fine. We've always been fine. The problems only come when you have to deal with the rest of the world. It's the rest of the world that can get in the way.

She was absolutely bang on. But I still don't know how we could have stopped it.

The next morning, the breakfast room was full of Diana news. The rest of the world got in *her* way something chronic, I thought.

We had an argument about my wanting to watch the funeral. Looking back, it was probably an argument about something else in disguise, most of them were. In the end I went to London and watched it with ex-schoolmate-not-yet-housemate S, who had recently lost her own mother and was house-sitting in Hackney. I mixed jugs of Bloody Marys, she lined up the Silk Cut, and we sobbed for our respective losses.

Later, her ex Chris came round and took us out for a drink in the pub we'd been too scared to go into on our own. He went off to work his shift in a casino in Leicester Square, but later came back having bunked off. We drank more, got stoned and ended up playing backgammon, each of us looking through one eye because we couldn't focus with two.

When the vodka ran out, we got some duvets and bedded down in a companionable heap on the giant sofa. I'd told Chris I was there because things weren't so great at home. S fell asleep first, and he made a move. I kicked him. He took it on the chin.

Life seems simpler now. But this could be just an illusion. The world's always out there, waiting to get in the way.

joella