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.