Belated party debrief

Now I am in a better mood, I can report on Saturday's Civilised Drinks. The lighting was by fireglow lightbulbs (right) -- perhaps the tackiest element of the evening -- but as Party Girl, I stand by my Blackpool roots.

The wine (Rioja for red people and Viognier for white) was by Majestic, (better at wine than websites, double click fast to get back) as were the glasses. Ganesh was by himself, though incense was lit in his honour all night.

The fairy lights (right) were by my uncle J, who works for a Christmas light company, praise be. The Twiglets were by Jacobs, and the rest of the snacks were by Miles.

The music was by Windows Media Player (better at organising playlists than organising the files behind them) and massive speakers were by Eltax (better at massive speakers than websites: from theirs you might guess -- if you were terminally stupid -- that most of their customers are attractive young women. Like, sure.).

The photos were by Canon Ixus 400.

The guests were beyond compare -- though S (plumbing S, not housemate S) was sadly missed, as a tree blew down and blocked her driveway. Talk was intelligent and lively, personal space was respected, nobody was sick in the toilet.

I didn't quite get to throw everyone out at 1, as I had planned (working on the theory that nothing of value happens after 1am unless you are trying to pull), as that's when people started demanding to dance (left), but as predicted I can't remember what happened much after midnight. But I don't mind, because I was chilled out yet full of warmth all evening.

I cleaned the floor before the party *and* after, and other than that cleaning up was minimal. I am really nearly a grown up, surely. Next year I will expand this concept.

joella

Tap reseating super plumbing ladies r us

I hate my job at the moment. Too much on, too much stress, not enough people making decisions. Enough said, nobody likes a whinger.

But tonight, tonight we did get to plumbing. Very VERY annoyingly, all the men got there through the snow last week and none of the women did. We tried, we said. Cautious lady drivers, they said. Hrumph.

But we caught up I hope, and took lots of taps apart with spanners and screwdrivers and pliers. And stuck pipes together with SpeedFit. And changed the guts of a tap 'live', ie with water coming out of it.

I feel like I am getting out there and doing something useful.

joella

New look joella

Inspired by the superior readability of the India blog, I have give joella a face lift. Which includes her (ie my) face -- I had delusions of anonymity, but there's not much point really, she's part of my life now.

I am quite taken with the self-portrait -- one shot, no repeats. Ooh, it's very honest, said M. Not sure what to make of that.

Birthday drinks tomorrow, hooray! And definitely more photos to come: just need to buy a "USB port splitter" (sounds painful) so we don't lose the internet or the wireless network while I am having my arty pretensions.

joella

Something old, something new...

For my birthday I got, among other things (mostly plumbing tools), two CDs off my wishlist.

The first -- Cut, by The Slits -- I have wanted for years, partly for nostalgic reasons, partly because everyone should have some 70s feminist punk in their CD collection, and partly because it has one of the best album covers ever in the world ever. Women had their own breasts in those days.

The second -- Educated Guess by Ani DiFranco -- is brand shiny new yet in back to basics style: I have had years where I've listened to practically nothing but Ani DiFranco, and I admire her enormously, but the last few albums have been a bit disappointing. Too fussy, too many instruments, too abstract, too bloody grown up. This often happens with artists, but I don't want it to happen with her as we are almost exactly the same age -- I *want* to be liking music made now by someone my age, or rather I want people my age to be making great music. It's not all about 20 something angst, surely?

On the strength of three listens, no it's not. There's plenty of 30 something angst too. Bring it on.

joella

Blair vindicated?

I don't support (or believe) either side (or the Iraqi one) in this Hutton business, it's all boys and toys as far as I'm concerned.

Rightly or wrongly, it looks like the BBC have come off badly. They may have no easy leg to stand on in their reportage today, but this deranged photo of Tony Blair they're using on BBC Online says quite a lot about how they feel, I reckon...

joella

Could you please knock me off my feet for a while?

... being a fine line from Galaxy of Emptiness by Beth Orton, which I am currently listening to a version of on the ever-splendid Radio 6.

A splendid sentiment, and one which the weather has delivered today: it's knocked the whole country off its feet, sometimes literally. I am a bit pissed off about this, as it was plumbing night, and I didn't get there.

It wasn't that I didn't try. S walked here through the snow after the traffic backed up, so keen was she. I gave her hot soup and toast, and M and S here loaded us up with mobile phones, blankets, flasks of hot tea and Kendal mint cake in case we didn't make it to Berinsfield.

I cleared the snow and ice off M's bashed up but still super-modern car, silently offering thanks that the 2cv is in someone else's care these days, turned the heating up to 11 and we slithered off down the road with our tools in the back, thinking dammit, how girlie are we if we can't even get to the class?

But after an hour of near stationary traffic combined with ABS-enhanced slide terror whenever we got into second, we had only gone about five miles, and we decided that there is a fine line between brave and stupid, and we were in danger of crossing it. So I did a stylish U-ey and we came home again.

To make up for it we're buying copper tubing and compression fittings at the weekend and we're going to bloody well practise.

joella

Happy Birthday to Me

... and everyone else whose birthday it is today -- I now know *four* people who share my birthday, which is very cool in itself.

It's also Holocaust Memorial day here in the UK, which is quite a new thing. It depressed me a bit at first that they chose my birthday to have it, but I don't mind anymore. Makes me remember that I was lucky to be born in more ways than one.

Shalom, sisters and brothers.

joella

Upcoming Aquarius Birthday Extravaganza

Seeing as it's my birthday this week, I have done what I always wish my friends would do when it's their birthdays, which is a) announced the fact loud and clear, and b) updated my Amazon WishList. (No prizes for guessing where *I* went on holiday).

If you want your birthday remembered, you have to make it easy for people, I always say. Mine is like a Hindu festival, celebrations are carefully planned and go on for days.

My birthday is a big deal. But if I forget your birthday, it doesn't mean I don't care about you, it just means I don't have a diary (unless I've known you since you were 15, you're part of my immediate family, you're my dead dog or you live with me, I really won't have this information in my head).

Tell me it's coming up and I'll get you something I like. Tell me what you want and I'll get you something you like. Let's be adult about it in 2004.

joella

Unmatchable chat up line

I've just returned from a trip Up North -- to Manchester for work, which happily also allowed me to visit N&D and their nearly upon-us bump, and then to Lytham to visit the parentals and little sister.

She and I went out to the pub on Friday night, where I was happy (as I always am) to sink a few pints with Mr P, whom I have had a bit of a thing about for about the last fifteen years. It's been a mutual bit of a thing, but it's never really gone anywhere: I am 100% sure we would be a disaster as a couple, and he is for the most part in agreement with this assessment of the situation.

But it's never been quite as simple as that, and every now and again he tries to get me into bed. It's kind of a ritual we go through. I think he sees it as a form of chivalry, and I take it as a form of flattery. Roles are defined and the outcome is always the same. (Except once, but that's another story.)(Well, twice. Kind of. But we're older and wiser now.)

The obvious rebuttal -- that I'm already in a relationship -- cuts no ice. He knows M, and they get on well, but he has, as he says himself, the morals of a pole cat.

Any attempt at the 'we're much better as friends' argument is held up as cheesy (which when you're pissed, it is) and he points out that he's not offering lifelong, just night-long, and he'll still respect me in the morning. Which is true.

So my latest and most successful tactic is to point out practical barriers. No, I can't come back tonight, my parents want to see me. Tomorrow then. No, I can't, I've got to get up really early to get to Preston to catch the train home.

Look, you come round tomorrow night, we'll do mad passionate whatever and on Sunday I'll run you back in the van.

What, to Oxford?

Yeah. I can set the diesel off against tax.

With a line like that, I said, I'm almost tempted.

joella

All New Technicolour India Blog

The Milester and I have added selected holiday snaps to our holiday in India weblog. I am very pleased with the teamwork this represents: I did the selection, optimising, resizing, title and descriptions and page design, and M put all this in a database and generated the pages.

Boo Hoo

There's something wrong with our boiler. When we got back from our hols it was running on nearly no water pressure -- we took one of the radiators off to paper behind it before we left, and S turned off and possibly took off another one and didn't turn it back on again, and basically the whole system was full of air, the top floor ones weren't even getting warm and it's a miracle there was enough oomph in it to heat the water.

So I rang the boiler man in a panic and he told me how to top it up and then to bleed all the cold radiators and turn the off ones back on and it might all be ok. We also found a bit of a leak from the one we'd taken off and tightened that up.

But I don't think it is ok. It works all right when the heating's on, but overnight it loses pressure again and needs more water...

And with my extensive plumbing knowledge I don't know how to fix it. Arse.

joella

Woo Hoo

So off S and I went to Blanchfords (Tool Merchants To The Stars!) where I bought my first Kit.

1. An 8" adjustable spanner which goes up to 22 (that's twice as good as 11!) because, as I now know, tubes come in 15 mm (known as 15 mill) and 22 mm (etc) diameters.

2. My favourite tool that I have ever owned ever, a pair of Rothenberger 12" pump pliers -- devilishly expensive but aesthetically very pleasing, comfortable to wield in fantasy mode *and* -- get this -- ALREADY USEFUL: I wielded them experimentally in the direction of the Belfast sink we had removed from our kitchen last year and which ever since has been sitting on its side outside the back door still wearing its U-bend because I wasn't in when it was left there. I had thought this was an irredeemable situation but no -- it unscrewed like a dream.

3. A pipe cutter that will have to go back because I got the wrong size (22 rather than 15 -- we won't get to 22 for *ages* is my guess). But I reckon after only one lesson I have enough confidence to take something back to the plumbing department of a builder's merchant's. Can't be bad.

Could it be that all you need in life is a little knowledge, a little confidence, enough authority (eg: this is my sink, I might be a girl but I am entitled to have a go at removing the U-bend) and the right tool for the job?

Or am I just a bit pissed? It can't be that simple.

joella

PS The pic of the pliers is not my photo, it's lifted from the Rothenburger website. I have reversed it to reflect the fact that I am left handed -- the tool itself (unlike many I have used) is blissfully symmetrical.

Adult education is for grown ups

Too tired to think right now -- verrrry long week at work, verrry tired. But my colleague and v good friend S (not S at home, different S) and I started an Adult Education Course this week.

Put it this way. Victoria Beckham can Learn to Fly all she wants, because we are Learning to Plumb.

Saturday, I'm off to buy adjustable spanners.

joella

Unprecedented admission of massive musical misjudgement

I think this needs to go on the record immediately.

I got the Smiths wrong. I was never a fan even though I was just the right age to be one. I wasted a chunk of my adolescence.

It was one of those things. At 12 and 13 in Blackpool in the early 80s, you were either into Duran or Spandau. I was into Duran (a wise choice I still think), and therefore spat in the gutter at the sound of the first chord of True.

At 15 in Blackpool in the late 80s, you were either into Billy Bragg or The Smiths. I was a Bragg fan (and still am) and the Smiths were therefore rubbish.

And then I got older and along came dope, indie, folk and psychedelia and I never gave them a second thought. (Apart from Panic: to this day I still use the phrase "says nothing to me about my life" whenever the occasion merits.)

Why didn't I realise it wasn't that simple? I've picked up a few Smiths albums along the way but never really taken them that seriously, even though some of my favourite people rate them as the best band ever.

But they've been creeping up -- I've listened to more Smiths over the last year than ever before and thought I should add some to the playlist for my upcoming Birthday Drinks. I settled on How Soon Is Now, put it on loud loud loud and decided it was just about perfect.

Resolution #7: Do the Smiths justice.

joella

Gender related timepiece rant alert

My watch stopped yesterday. It last stopped a year ago. It seems to be stopping every year around this time. Whenever it stops I have to take it to an expensive watch sanctuary for a little break. I think they have to send off to Switzerland for new batteries or something. Either way, it costs a packet.

My watch is 14 years old. It was stylish (and expensive) when I got it, but these days it is just naff. One day it might be retro cool, but not this decade.

It was a birthday present from my parents, so I want to keep it (and as I said, one day it might be retro cool). But I suddenly realised that maybe investing in a new watch (simple, functional, not at all bling) would be a sensible thing to do and possibly not much more expensive than getting current watch patched up.

So I went surfing for watches. I have only two fixed criteria: it must be waterproof -- properly waterproof and not mimsy splashproof -- and it must display the date, and preferably the day. Anything else, I'm open minded about.

If you have a big hairy arm and you are looking for an enormo chunk-watch, you are spoilt for choice. Never have I seen so many practical, good looking wrist accessories. But if you are a woman and want to buy something vaguely in proportion to your anatomy *and yet useful and hardwearing*, you're stuffed.

Women obviously don't need to know what date it is (maybe we can just tell by the moon?) and we obviously only put our watches on when we are hanging around being dainty. Who needs to know the time in the bath?

I'm Outraged of Oxford.

joella

New Year's Resolutions

A bit late, but I've not been in the right head space.

Last year's Year of Living Healthily went pretty well on the whole. I did not smoke anything at all ever apart from a bit of vicarious deep breathing next to smokers at parties. I am a non-smoker in the eyes of the life insurance company, so it must be true. Hooray!

Also, life in my large intestine is much improved. And while I never really got there with the exercise thing, I'm certainly not any *less* fit. I did get a bit too pissed towards the end of the year but hell, it was a difficult year. And the holiday at the end was full of long walks, no hangovers and many many portions of fruit and veg.

So that was the most successful New Year's Resolution I've ever had -- but it was state of mind focused rather than target focused. So maybe that's the secret.

Which completely contradicts the resolutions I have come up with so far. Bugger.

But for the record, these are:

1. Wear dangly earrings every day (this stolen from M's daughter, but it's a great one)
2. Leave the gym (waste of fucking money -- put money not spent on gym into holiday fund)
3. Buy toilet paper in many shades and not puritanically restrict myself to white recycled (already bought embossed aqua)
4. Have people round for Sunday lunch (improve culinary repertoire, drink posh wine in comfort of own home, by necessity stay relatively sober on Saturday night)
5. Explore alternative career options (starting introductory plumbing course on Weds)
6. Take photos all the time and put them here (India ones coming soon)

A couple more areas deserve more resolve than I have currently committed to them -- these are strategies for maintenance of friendships in a year of multiple births, and improving my relationship with my bicycle. But there's time. Maybe I should have March resolutions for these and just concentrate on getting through the winter.

joella

Bleat

Home. It's raining. Work is still there.

*sigh*

But... there's white wine. And big towels. And my friends.

*grin*

joella

Hello from Kolkata

Something very strange is happening over at the India blog -- different versions of pages showing, something bizarre in the caching. So just testing over here...

joella

Not a good start

Q: What's worse than waking up with food poisoning?
A: Waking up with food poisoning the day before you are due to go on a plane to India for a month.

Q. What's worse than waking up with food poisoning the day before you are due to go on a plane to India for a month?
A. Waking up with food poisoning the day before you are due to go on a plane to India for a month and then discovering that you never picked up the tickets for your internal flight to Calcutta and the ones you've got are for a flight you cancelled.

What a fucking awful day. I was busy vomiting and shivering for most of it, but have now recovered enough to pack, even if getting on a jet plane is the last last thing I want to do...

Anyway. I'm sure it'll be all right in the end.

To find out if it is, head on over to our specially created India Blog.

Normal service will be resumed in January...

joella

Sexual healing

There are some songs that I never play, but when I hear them on the radio, I am full of feelings drawn from many stages of my life.

They are mostly songs which first became important when I was a teenager, and which, because they are standalone great songs rather than simply because they have stuff that was in the charts when I was in adolescent turmoil, have stayed important since. They happen along at unexpected times and drop me into reverie.

Sexual Healing (the original by Marvin Gaye) is definitely one such song. It was just on Radio 6. Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole is another. Pretty much anything by The Jam. Ain't Nothin' Going On But The Rent by Gwen Guthrie. Five Hundred Miles by the Proclaimers. Chain Reaction by Diana Ross. The Boxer. Most of Led Zeppelin IV, like it or not. Pinball Wizard. Purple Haze. Smoke on the Water. West End Girls. Planet Earth. Theme from S Express. Pump Up The Volume. The Only Way Is Up. Groove is in the Heart. California Dreaming. Between the Wars (though I do have that in several versions and have heard it live about 20 times).

*sigh*

But getting older ain't all bad. Tonight we had people for dinner for the first time in ages. There was me and M, plus our friend L, our friend C, and C's daughter. Two fortysomethings, two thirtysomethings and a teenager, and we had a great time -- some of the best food, the best conversation and the most fun I have had in a long time.

Today also bought digital camera. Building up to move over to India weblog -- more manana.

Long week, v tired, should have gone to bed early rather than taking the alcohol option. Alcohol is so evil. After your first drink you think just one more might be a good idea, then after your second you don't care whether a third is a good idea or not, you just want to drink more, and all tomorrows hangovers are of no consequence at all. Or maybe that's just sad old addict me (and my sad old addict boyfriend, and all my sad old addict friends).

Later note -- even weirder is when a song on the radio sounds like it's sampling a song like one of those above (as is happening now on the aforementioned Radio 6 -- I am sure Nick Saloman is playing guitar {from Then You Wanted Me} yet one of the Everly Brothers is singing... it's not at all a comfortable listen). It's like your past is being reappropriated, man.

Oooh, apparently that was The Coral. I never thought they were worth the effort, maybe I should rethink.

joella

Left field claim to dubious fame

I briefly went out with (and even more briefly shagged) the current England spokesman for Fathers 4 Justice (though I was very astute on the contraception front).

For an organisation run by volunteers, their website is very professionally done. Those dads know their web design (though it uses absolute font sizes rather than relative -- saying nothing, saying nothing).

Also, lovely quote from this story: "The rooftop protesters intended to remain at the Royal Courts for a week but had taken no food, clothes or bedding with them."

Must surely have been written by one of their ex-partners.

joella

Man eating man

I am fascinated by the German cannibal story. Three points in particular:

1. He says (though this could be a bad translation): "I had the fantasy, and in the end I fulfilled it... I don't need to have anyone else inside me." Surely there are easier ways to have someone inside you?

2. Assuming the victim was compliant (and we'll know when we see the video, right?), who is the weirder? If he *was*(or should that be if he *were*) compliant, should cannibal man go to prison at all? Consenting adults and all that. (Though this is very shaky ground, as I would jail certain pornographers who claim their victims are consenting adults).

3. He was discovered when he advertised for a second victim "on the internet". They always say that -- *where* on the internet? Where do you advertise for someone to come round your house and get eaten? How do you find that stuff? (And this does give the lie somewhat to argument #1).

Still, all this is keeping my mind off the Huntley/Carr trial, which is too disturbing for words.

joella

Holy McMoly I am zonked in the bonk

I am sooooo tired. I have been going in at 8.30 and coming home at 7 all week. I have got to the stage where my head is so full that is someone tells me something then either I forget it within seconds (despite appearing to have taken it in and even had a conversation about it) or I remember it but forget something else of equal size.

But tomorrow is my last day at work. After that I am not back in until Thursday 8 January. I do believe that is nearly five weeks -- FIVE WEEKS -- out of the office. I don't think I've had five weeks out of the office since I started going into the office about ten years ago.

I think the Australians would call it long service leave.

(Thought: I wonder if you can have phantom maternity leave as well as phantom pregnancy?)

I don't think I'm the only one suffering. The other night we watched a programme about people who've lost their memories through illness. It was very sad but also very funny, they were very charming people who did seem to have a decent life and all had a sense of humour.

One guy had been married for 47 years. We were childhood sweethearts weren't we? said his wife. If you say so, dear, he replied.

He got a pager to help him remember important stuff. M is famed for his appalling memory, so we joked about getting him one too. Piss off, he said.

After the programme, there was a trailer for a programme about celebrities who have found god. Michael Buerk is talking to Pamela Anderson about the role religion now plays in her life, they said.

I'm not surprised, said M, I'd find god if I was married to Billy Connolly.

joella

PS to one I wrote earlier

I have been meaning to take a photo of the previously mentioned Eid lights on Cowley Road, but I am both too lazy and insufficiently arty. Fortunately Jeremy can be relied on in such circumstances -- they are one of her 26 things. The other 25 are worth a look too.

joella

A tale of two dinners

We had two dinner invitations this weekend. I am not sure they could have been more different.

Friday was over at S&E's place, with C&J as well. I used to work with S and C in my Job in a Business Park. It wasn't much of a job and I didn't stay very long, but they did pay well and I did meet some cool people. I don't see them often enough, but we have a lot of fun.

Especially when it's S&E's turn to plan something. They have a) a lot of imagination and b) more drive than a 747.

When we got there M said oh bugger, they said to bring slippers, it's shoes off. What? I thought. They rent, surely they won't have got new carpets?

They hadn't, but what they *had* done was turn the dining end of their kitchen/dining room into a kind of Bedouin tent. The walls were cardboard boxes painted black, and there was a door cut in one end which aligned with the door out into the garden for C&J to sneak in and out for smokes.

The main entrance was through black curtains, and it was lit by lamps shining through tissue paper windows, fairy lights on the fabric-draped ceiling laid out like the stars, and tealights floating in water (slightly mitigating the rampant fire hazard). We sat cross legged on cushions and blankets and ate like kings and queens. You'd never have known we were in Didcot.

It was wonderful. They say they're going to build their own house one day. I believe them.

On Saturday it was dinner for 12 with The Band and assorted others out in Widdershins or some similarly named village in deepest Oxon. The house, belonging to A&P, was cottagey yet vast, the alcohol was plentiful, and aside from me spilling a whole box of soy sauce-toasted nuts on the carpet and having to spend 20 minutes crawling round sweeping them up it all started in very civilised fashion, with smoked salmon and small talk. A bit like the opening of an episode of Inspector Morse.

Later we ate Aga-baked pies followed by Aga-baked puddings in a long, beamed, candle-lit room, drank more alcohol, and had a big sing song (except me, I never get drunk enough to sing in public). It was quite odd -- they are M's Band, not mine, though I do know them all -- but rather marvellous in a 'how did I get here' sort of way. It was certainly a splendidly bountiful occasion, I must remember to do my thank yous.

Almost inevitably, some red wine was spilt, and covered in salt, and the tablecloth folded over to cover it. Which is when I saw that the table was made of MDF. A really big bit of MDF. A had built it specially.

So I suppose that actually they *could* have been more different, because they did have homemade tables in common.

When we get back from our Big Hols we will have a functioning kitchen *and* a functioning dining table. I can't wait to start returning the favours.

joella

The folk from Wood Street*

*not its real name, but I wouldn't want anyone doing a search and getting upset.

When I can't sleep, which for some bonkers reason I couldn't last night despite being verrrrryyyy tired, I take familiar journeys in my head. One of my favourites is wandering round the house I grew up in, looking into all the cupboards and finding out which memories are clear and which are a little blurry, or just don't make sense. We lived there for 16 years, so the things I remember are a strange mix of being a kid and being a teenager.

Last night I decided instead to visit some of the neighbours.

We lived at number 154. Next door at 156 were June and Jim. They were there when we moved in in 1973, and still live there as far as I know.

They were a bit older than my parents and they had two kids who were both older than me and my sister. Jimmy was a lot older, he didn't live there. He got married and his wife was a beautician who worked out of their flat. That might have been because they had a baby. Anyway, I had my first leg wax on their sofa when I was about 15. It cost a fiver. I think my mum paid, she never was keen on body hair.

Lesley was June and Jim's daughter, she was about five years older than me. Before she left primary school she used to walk me to school and home again, without showing any deep embarrassment. She was nice.

She used to babysit us when she got a bit older, and she was crazy about Sting. I didn't get it myself, but then I was quite a late developer. She had a boyfriend called Johnny who went to my school. He was a little wild, I approved of him. She also had a friend who died of cancer, I remember her crying in the drive.

She came round to babysit once before she went out with him. She must have been about 17 and was wearing an alarming early 80s outfit with brown and black dogtooth tapered trousers, black patent heels, a creamy shiny blouse and a silky cravat-style scarf with a cream and brown pattern on it. And a big flick, and a lot of lip gloss. She must have spent hours getting ready.

She said 'I probably don't look very nice'. I remember thinking, boys do strange things to girls if they make them look like that. I said no, not very. I hope she wasn't offended, I didn't mean to be rude, I was just baffled and not very tactful.

I was a bit more tactful a few years later when I was called out into the front garden by my mother. Lesley had split up with Johnny and had been going out with Fran for a couple of years. Fran was a bit wet, I thought, but I was probably 17 myself by this stage. Lesley was crying and showing my mum an engagement ring. I remembered to smile and congratulate her, but inside I was thinking 'you can't possibly want to get married already!'

But she did. They are very happy as far as I know.

I can't remember much about June and Jim, except they had knocked through their kitchen and dining room into one huge room. Oh, and Jim used to work for Wilkinson Sword, because once he brought home two pairs of left handed scissors for me. I always used them with my right hand, because I had never had left handed scissors before, and they dug in.

Then he retired, or was he made redundant, and he started driving a taxi. His son used to drive it too. Occasionally I used to get a taxi home from my Saturday job at the bread shop (it was about a mile, but there were days my feet just hurt too much to walk) and it was always deeply embarrassing if it was one of them at the taxi rank. He also told my mum once that he'd seen me eating chips by the war memorial. I was incensed, because it was a cheese and onion pie.

And then there was the time my parents were away and I had some people over. It was all very tame, in fact we watched The Killing Fields on video and cried. I don't think anyone had sex anywhere or anything. Nonetheless, Jim reported to my parents that there had been a yellow Capri in the driveway until 1.45 am.

Neighbourhood Watch, I said. Neighbourhood Spy, more like.

joella

Times when it would be useful not to be British

Someone I know from work, not very well but I know her, heard I was going to India. She sent me an email yesterday saying she was too, whereabouts was I going, was it a romantic trip or could we maybe meet up somewhere?

I said it was an organised group thing with a few days either end, sent her the link to the details, said it would be great to meet up if our paths crossed. Went home.

Last night I went for dinner with two people I know much better from work, and she was there too. Looks like a great trip, she said, and there's one place left -- how would I feel if she booked it?

Absolutely fine, I said, what fun. She left a bit later and I proceeded to drink a whole bottle of wine and get myself into a right old pickle.

Of course I was not absolutely fine. It's been a hell of a year, M and I need a bit of space, we want to get as far away from everything to do with home and work as possible.

But why the hell couldn't I say that? She asked, why didn't I tell her?

I wrote her an email and went to bed, where I spent most of the night staring at the ceiling and cursing my cowardice. Don't worry, said M. She will understand, and if she went home and booked it straight away, well, we'll cope...

Came in with a hangover and feeling a bit weird.

She did understand, so he was right (and I would have understood, so there's no reason to think someone else wouldn't), but I do get so worried about these things. Must be braver next time.

joella

Pointless but brilliant

Check out let them sing it for you. The internet rocks.

joella

Not sports fans

Yesterday we started putting lining paper up in the kitchen-as-was. For DIY, you have to listen to Radio 1, it's the law. And so it was that we had the charts on.

Hang on a minute, said M. Isn't this UB40? What are *they* doing in the charts?

Sounds like it, I said. And they're singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot! (Bizarre -- hear for yourself). Maybe there's a big rugby match on or something.

But it's a spiritual, said M.

Yes, but I'm sure they sing it at England rugby matches, I said. And just being spiritual won't get it in the charts.

Suppose not, he said.

About two hours later, I found the Rugby World Cup Souvenir Special in the Observer.

See? I said.

We used it to lay out the takeaway curry to stop the new worktop getting stained.

joella

You can take to multiculture even if they don't drink

We spent Friday night and Saturday in Swansea having a lovely time with A&K and their boys, enjoying some fine conversation, some Southern Comfort, some less coherent conversation, some walking on a beautiful deserted beach by way of hangover cure, and some just being part of family life for a while.

We arrived back in Oxford at about seven on Saturday night, and as we got off the bus on Cowley Road I said 'oh god, they've put Christmas lights up. Save us from Christmas lights in bloody November'.

But as I got closer to them, I realised they weren't Christmas lights. They actually say 'Happy Eid'.

How many streets in Britain have Happy Eid lights?

What's Eid? said M. And to be honest I wasn't quite sure. I knew it was an important festival in India, and I guessed it was a Muslim one because the Hindus have only just had Diwali... and I thought maybe it was to do with it being Ramadan... but that was as far as I could go.

So when we got home I looked it up by using the define: feature of Google, which I have only recently discovered.

(Aside: I mostly get frustrated with Google when it doesn't immediately deliver sites *about* things, instead choosing sites selling them. About.com is a way of getting round this but I don't usually think to go there first. But anyway -- define: is a very useful feature, if a little immature as yet)

Eid mostly seems to mean 'Electronic ID' but let's ignore that for the moment and leap to the very useful definition in About.com's Ramadan Glossary

Eid is the holiday at the end of Ramadan. Which is pretty much exactly what I guessed it was. Cool.

I am warmed at the thought that the Eid lights will mean lots of people find out what Eid is. Unless I am exceptional in a) not knowing or b) wanting to find out because it's up in lights. Both of which I doubt.

And of course, being a Blackpool girl, I think the more lights the better. Come on you Buddhists!

joella

Getting bloody with it

I know it's gross to write about periods. Nobody wants to hear it.

But mine has dominated my day. I have been grumpy and tearful and a bit shouty, and then to top it off I bled right through into my trousers.

How does that happen? One minute fine, next minute splodge. I've been doing it for years. That's why pretty much all my pants are black, but you can't wear black trousers all the fucking time as well.

These are a kind of eucalyptus green. Now eucalyptus green with a reddish stain between the legs. I hate this.

joella

The dawn's early light

I turn the Today Programme on when my alarm goes off at 7.15, but I usually then snooze for at least an hour.

This means I often have weird dreams interspersed with current news stories or Thought for the Day. For ages I thought these stories and photos of Britain at 6am were part of a dream, but I was awake at the right moment this morning to realise that they are real.

King's College Cambridge gets my vote. I remember being out on the Backs at dawn (though a few colleges down...) after staying up all night writing essays. I used to feel like the luckiest person in the world having that to look at.

joella

Dusty bin

That's in the corner of the kitchen.

Dusty Springfield. That's M watching The Simpsons.

Dusty. Fucking. Everything. That's our house.

We are being sanded. We didn't do much by the way of protection, but given that there's dust in the *fridge* I think it would have been effort wasted anyway. At least when there's lots of it you can see where to Dyson.

Which is one bright side. I am looking for them very hard to stop myself running screaming down the street.

The only other one I can think of is it makes our solitary bottle of red wine look like it's been laid down for years rather than bought on Monday from Londis.

Time to crack it, it must be a good vintage. And my hormones need dulling.

joella

What's purple and shimmery?

Beetroot of course! I have just had some for my lunch and am struck once again by how beautiful it is.

And not only that, it is so bloody good for you.

joella

Television wars

I don't like big televisions. In fact, I hate them. Especially in small living rooms like ours. It is a living room, not a television room. I watch it, but I turn it off afterwards. I need this to be so or I go leetle crazy.

S likes to have the television on. If she's in the same room as one, it's generally on. She likes them big because then they are easier to watch.

M thinks he wants a big television but I don't think he does really. But that could be me projecting (arf).

Anyway, we had a small one. It was in fairness a little smaller than is practical if four people were trying to watch it, but there was no way you could say it dominated the room. Watching it wasn't much fun, so we didn't watch it that much. So far so good, if you are me.

Then from nowhere S bundled in an enormo-television that her Young Man's Grandad didn't want anymore. I protested, but there wasn't that much I could do as it was free and it was there now.

And I have to say it has made EastEnders more compelling, and has made DVDs more fun to watch.

However, it is now on the blink. So she went to look for a new one, and found another enormo one. This choice she justified on the grounds that it was no bigger than the current one (Enormo in this context is 24" -- I know TVs get *much* bigger than this these days but it's still too bloody big as far as I'm concerned).

BUT I NEVER WANTED THE CURRENT ONE! NOBODY ASKED ME! I WOULDN'T HAVE PARTED WITH CASH FOR IT! I WOULDN'T HAVE EVEN LET IT IN THE HOUSE GIVEN THE CHOICE!

I figured a 21" compromise would work. But M is on the 24" side.

If we had a big room I could probably cope. But we haven't. We haven't agreed yet, on the grounds that 24" TVs are significantly more expensive than 21" TVs, and that's before you get into the flat screen wide screen surround sound hoohah, but the pressure is on.

joella

Thought for the day

There is something unbearably sad about Tesco Value tinsel. With most Tesco Value products you can fool yourself they're just the same inside the packet (in fact I was once shouted at by a man in Tesco for *not* buying Tesco Value fish fingers -- they're just the same you know, he said, you're just paying for the packaging, you students, don't know you're born).

I wasn't sure about that, and I told him so, and when I look at Tesco Value tinsel I know I was right.

joella

Pleasant surprise of the weekend #2

Not sure if I've mentioned this yet, but in December we're going to India for nearly a month. While I am looking forward to this more than I can say, there's also loads to organise.

So while yesterday we spent the day doing household things with S (tip... insurance... tile showroom... trying and failing to agree on a new television given that ours now needs regular thumping... etc), today was Shopping.

I don't like shopping in Oxford at the best of times, and these weren't the best of times. Although better than a Saturday, the pre-Christmas fever is building up already. Boots was hell. There's no one to ask where anything is! And sensible shops that sell 'performance clothing' (ie stuff that packs small and travels well) are shut on Sundays, because all the people who buy stuff there are sensibly hiking up a hill somewhere.

So it wasn't long before we needed some lunch. After some debate, we decided to try the India Garden restaurant on the High Street -- it's tucked away upstairs but had its rather gaudy sandwich board out on the street, and we felt in the mood for something gaudy rather than something stylish but overpriced (one option) or chain-restaurant reheated hell (most of the others).

And what a fine fine choice it was.

We had the vegetarian lunch special: £7.45 for dal, dansak, mixed veg, bombay potatoes, onion bhaji and rice, plus fresh apple juice with lime and fresh ginger and some strange red syrup I couldn't identify. It was all absolutely fantastic.

The interior decor is also splendid -- raspberry pink tablecloths, bright yellow napkins and a mirror-tiled, neon-lit bay window stuffed full of fake flowers. I have been trying to persuade M of the value of kitsch, and this was a very fine example indeed.

Yet we were the only people in there. The manager said it was hit and miss, there was a lot of competition and they were upstairs and while sometimes they are busy people often just don't come up. Which is sad. We walked down Turl Street afterwards and the Beefeater restaurant at the Mitre was *packed*. What are people thinking??

As a final flourish, I have just found their website. While stylistically very different, it somehow manages to give a feel for the place...

joella

Pleasant surprise of the weekend #1

Last night we made a trip to High Wycombe to see The Mingers play. Talia, who sings, is my cousin -- I hadn't seen her for years, and punk isn't really my thing... so I was a bit unsure what to expect.

But she is lovely, and cool, and gorgeous, and she fronts the band (who are very very loud but very very tight so get away with it) like a demon. It was great. We didn't stay for the other bands, but then that wasn't why we went.

There was no bar, which I thought was a bit weird, though I knew that she didn't drink. I had thought that was a bit unusual, given that she's a student -- I am sure I have never known a student who didn't drink -- but then she told me about Straight Edge (which seems also to be known as sXe), a punk/hardcore movement which is essentially no drinking, no drugs, no shagging around. Vegetarianism / veganism seems to go with the territory also.

It's more philosophical and political than puritanical I think, about self control and avoiding dependency and exploitation, though at its extremes it can veer into weirdness, like anything else.

It also means you can play all ages gigs, and there were some pretty small people there having the time of their lives, as well as some splendidly Mohicaned very tall people (you can't get through doors very easily when you're over six foot with a Mohican, so points for effort. Though Talia told me they should really have put glue on the spikes to stop them fraying as the night wore on).

I loved the spirit of their music, even if I probably wouldn't put it on at home -- plenty of anger about the bad things in the world, plenty of energy to challenge them. And as we walked back to the car, avoiding the splatters of vomit and shrieking hordes that characterise the centre of High Wycombe (and most English towns) on a Saturday night, I thought it all had a hell of a lot going for it.

joella

Cheesy moment

Bad: inadvertently dropping grated cheese down your top while trying to sneak bits that are designed to go in the dinner.

Worse: getting caught fishing it out of your bra by the guy who is sanding the floor in the next room.

joella

More from the Onion

Oooh! Scary!

The Onion | Mom Finds Out About Blog

'nuff said.

Though maybe, as an anxious person, I am careful not to give out too much demographic information on this blog. My mother would recognise me, sure, but she wouldn't find me in the first place.

Same with people from work. Or at least that's the plan...

joella

OW!

So just to prove that I could, last night I went to Legs, Bums and Tums (known as LBT by regulars, and rather fetchingly as Abs, Fabs and Tabs by M).

But I couldn't. I would have walked out halfway through, except I couldn't walk anymore.

We did a million squats, moving through seven degrees of agony, and then we did a million more, interspersed with some lunges and some other things involving standing on one leg and moving the other leg around that I just could not even attempt.

The leg I was trying to stand on was shuddering, and the leg I was trying to wave around was just not going anywhere at all. So I stood there like a wonky lemon while pregnant women and pensioners went for the burn all around me.

Legs and bums sorted, we got to do the tums part. That was a bit easier, mostly because we were lying down and I only had to do stuff when she was actually walking around looking at us. The rest of the time I just lay there whimpering.

Which was fine until it was time to get up, when I realised that my legs were on strike due to unreasonable working condiitons. After careful negotiation they allowed me to shuffle out the door and hobble down the stairs holding carefully on to the bannister, but that was it.

Today I can't get up without help from furniture. It's so humiliating.

joella

Healthy caveat

Some parts of Year of Living Healthily may have fallen by the wayside, but two very important things have been integrated into my life.

1. I don't smoke anymore. I really don't. I've been to Glastonbury, I've been miserable, I've been very drunk, I've been very stressed, I've been very angry, I've been to the pub in Lytham, where *everyone* smokes, and I haven't smoked.

The hardest moments have been with smokers of roll-ups, as roll-ups are the friendliest of things to smoke, and I have thought well maybe just a very small, very thin one would be ok... but I haven't done it. I've dreamt about it, but I haven't done it. The year's not over yet, but I am relatively optimistic on that one.

2. I eat better. Lunch today: spiced potatoes, feta salad and green beans with tomatoes and olive oil from the Lebanese deli across the road. With a V8 juice and some pumpkin seeds (do you *know* how much protein there is in pumpkin seeds?). Breakfast this morning: two handfuls of dried fruit and nuts (never been very good at breakfast, but I try). Dinner last night: smoked haddock, poached egg, wild mushrooms cooked in olive oil, brown rice with onion and chilli.

I'm beginning to sound like a wanker, so I'll stop there, but basically I mostly avoid wheat, and I mostly avoid dairy, except when a) not to is a pain in the arse for someone else or b) I would go hungry otherwise. This has helped my slug of a digestive system no end, which is why I stick to it, but a side effect is that you are forced to think harder about food: you can't have a sandwich for your lunch, and you can't have pasta or pizza for your tea.

And if you're going to have to plan your meals, you might as well do it properly. I still struggle with lunch (I am nowhere near organised enough to take it into work, and instant options are v limited) but tea is another matter altogether. Never have I eaten so well. Lots of fish, lots of veg, rice, salad, tofu, stir fries, lentils, beans, nuts, curries, jacket potatoes, soups, stews... with almost nothing instant or out of a jar. It's an effort sometimes, but it's worth it.

So if I can bring myself to get off my arse three times a week, I'll be sorted.

joella

Playlist

I did my Not Little Anymore But Still Littler Than Me Sister a bunch of CDs for her birthday. One of them was a compilation and I'm very taken with it. It's a mixture of songs she must know but might not have, songs she might know but might not know she knows, and songs she might not know but really should. All chosen to go well together (if you are my sister), though I'm not sure Gil Scott-Heron fits as well musically in there as he does in sentiment.

Anyway, the track listing is:

She's in Love with Time: The Bevis Frond
English Rose: The Jam
A New England: Kirsty MacColl
Something's gotten hold of my heart: Nick Cave
Car Wash Hair: Mercury Rev
Frontier Psychiatrist: The Avalanches
Know Now Then: Ani DiFranco
Good to Be on the Road Back Home: Cornershop
When You Are Who You Are: Gil Scott-Heron
Yoshimi Battle the Pink Robots, Pt. 1: The Flaming Lips
Strawberry Fields Forever: Candy Flip
Ecstasy Symphony/Transparent Radiation: Spacemen 3
I Shall Be Released (live): Chrissie Hynde

English Rose is an achingly beautiful song, yet the last time I heard it was at N&D's place in Kent just after I had my wisdom teeth out, which I make to be about 10 years ago now. How can I have gone so long without listening to it?

I've got out of the habit of doing compilations, and even though they should be easier than they used to be when you had to do them on tape, they somehow seem harder. Maybe it's just I don't spend my whole life in my bedroom these days.

joella

Tears before bedtime

Well, the drive to get fit (I think I called it Active Autumn, as a sub-brand of Year of Living Healthily) is going dismally. Monday evenings are prime exercise nights but I spent yet another one in front of the television.

I did get to cry twice though, an activity which while not very active definitely counts as healthy in my book.

The first time was during a story on the 10 o'clock news about Aids sufferers in China. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people have been infected *by the actions of their own government*, which encouraged them to sell their blood while not bothering to make sure equipment was sterilised. (More here).

Now they are dying in their thousands, on their own, with no state help, as the epidemic is alternately denied and ignored by the same government.

The second time was during the second part of Holy Cross. I remember how anxious I felt in September 2001. How much worse would it have been if people had been breaking my windows and spitting at me? How do you feel safe in the world?

Relatedly -- lest we forget. It's not often you see Flash used as sensitively as this.

joella

Possible pasts

Just got back from a weekend Oop North with what I used to call my APs (Aged Parents) and Little Sister. Only now she is 30 she is not so Little and I am beginning to feel pretty Aged myself.

Shite six hour journey up there thanks to four lorry collision on the M6 -- why do they have to do that on a bloody Friday afternoon -- but a relative breeze at three and a half on the way back. I wasn't driving and didn't look at the speedo.

I love going up there, but I always return slightly unsettled, as I get a glimpse into the parallel universe life I could have had if I hadn't headed off to university and never come back.

And it's not all bad. It's a small, friendly town. It's by the sea. There's lots of space. The shops are great: there's a local fishmonger and greengrocer and baker. The beer's cheap. There is a big, big sky. Lots of people were at the Remembrance Sunday service at the war memorial.

Having said that, as a teenager I couldn't wait to get away. It's a safe Tory seat (how many of *them* are there left) and every other shop sells bouffant leather couches and china shepherdesses. There's even a men's shop which specialises in 'cruisewear' (and they're not talking about Clapham Common).

Older women have enormo-hair, wear diamante and drive 4WD vehicles they are unable to park, while younger women wear very little and puke in gutters on a Saturday night. The men are (on the whole) either unreconstructed or paternalistic, and the local GP once wrote me a prescription for the morning after pill on his doorstep, presumably judging that a girl of such loose morals should not be allowed in the house. (By strange twist of fate I ended up at the same GP's house for the same reason about eight years later: this time he let me in, but I still had to suffer the indignity of having my blood pressure taken in the kitchen in front of his wife and labrador).

So on the whole I think I did well to escape to a world where trade can be fair, where eyebrows can be left unplucked, and where basically I do not spend a significant proportion of time feeling like a freak.

But sometimes I wonder. So many things would be simpler. Fewer decisions to make, and a big green to walk the dog on. If only I could be a proper woman.

joella

Final thoughts for the day

1. I am in *such* a bad mood at the moment that I think I might be getting my nicotine withdrawal symptoms ten months late. Is that possible? I did smoke for over 18 years (they start us young up north) -- maybe you store reserves up somewhere for times of trouble, and when they run out, *that's* when you really start hurting...

2. Mr B, happy fifth of November. For yesterday. I was no fun, so I never rang.

3. Happy birthday little sister.

joella

Shagged out

My strange job this week took me to Perthshire -- up on Monday night on the Caledonian Sleeper, back on Tuesday night, into work on Wednesday morning with a caffeine high and sugar buzz from the nasty coffee and 99% sugar blueberry muffin they brought us at some ungodly hour of the morning.

I am sooooooooo tired.

Thought: it's the only type of train I go on that I actively want to arrive late, as later is more sleep. But even if there's more sleep, there's never enough, and what you get is disturbed by a) the train separating (on the way up) or joining together (on the way down) in the middle of the night; b) the fact that you wake up seventeen times wondering if you're nearly there yet and even if you should be you're often not because it's stopped for an hour in a random siding; or c) your bottle of water donking you on the nose because you left it on the little shelf and the train cornered a little violently.

I was madly grumpy last night, and don't feel much better today.

Also, today I made a work-related link back into a my former life: we selected two ex-colleagues of mine to organise a big event next year. I have no doubts about their ability to do the job, they are very skilled and very dedicated. But it's also kind of risky as there is another ex-colleague I really don't want in my life, and I drew a line a few years ago that I swore never to cross.

But times change, M's links into that life have remained, I like the people we'll be working with very much, and I think professionally it was the best option. So it was a grown up decision. I hope it works out.

A further ex-colleague from the same house of weirdness (though different wing) remains a firm friend. I gave her a ring last night. Only a conversation with the Lizard -- about her personal finances -- could produce the line "We talked to Mad Mick the money man but he's insane in the membrane!" I love her. The past ain't all bad.

joella

Oh joy

I picked this link up from Jeremy, it's marvellous, though based on something that is opposite of marvellous...

If you spot terrorism, blow your anti-terrorism whistle. If you are Vin Diesel, yell really loud.

joella

Adult life isn't always rubbish

About thirteen years ago, I needed a new winter coat.

I had bought the one I already had from Oxfam when I was about fifteen. It was an enormous man's overcoat -- my mother hated it, the teachers at school had hated it -- but I loved it.

It had only cost £9 and was in perfectly good nick even if many sizes too big, so nobody had a leg to stand on, except the 'you look like a tramp' one. Good, I said. I wore it for years.

But it did eventually start to fall apart, and the time had also come for me to get jobs and stuff, so I trooped off to look for a new one. The one I found was in Miss Selfridge. It was like a duffel coat with a zip (I've never been any good at smart) and it came in black or red.

I wanted the red one. I wanted the red one so badly. If my memory serves, I even bought the red one, but was persuaded to take it back and swap it for the black one, because everyone knows red is not a sensible winter coat colour.

The next winter coat after that was also black, for the same reasons, and that is the one I still have. It is one of those military looking long waisted coats which is *very* 1994, and these days I only seem to wear it to funerals.

In the intervening years I have also amassed a brown 70s fake fur coat (also Oxfam, slightly too small), a big-lapelled grey fake fur jacket (glam, impractical) and a black North Face waterproof coat (mens, sensible but unattractive). Oh, and the leather coat my Australian artist half-aunt left behind (cool but slightly dilapidated).

But today I bought myself a new proper winter coat. It's stylish. It's proper. And it's very, very red.

The next funeral I go to I'm going to stand out like a sore thumb.

joella

Making the most of a bad day

I am having the day from hell at work. Yesterday my PC blew up (well, good as: a corrupted Last Known Good configuration). I got nothing done all day *and* took a lot of grief from the severe PC support person.

"You are not supposed to haff Netscape". "But I make web pages -- I have to look at them in Netscape". "It is not supported". "I can't believe it was Netscape that broke my computer". "Your profile is enormous." "I know, I've reported it fifteen times at least. Have you ever fixed it? No."

And the day before I bunked off early to go drinking with Mr B and left a lot of things to do yesterday that I couldn't do so all in all today has been shit.

Added to that I am trying to get enetation comments working and they won't.

But a few things have cheered me up. We went out for lunch. And I found this on the Onion: I Would Treat The Girl From The Muffler Commercial Right

Awwww.

joella

Another autumn moment

Left work a bit early today, as I had the car and it was parked in pay and display. So managed to leave while it was still light on the first working day of darkness: a Good Thing.

On the way to the car, I saw a small boy, maybe five or six years old, kicking his way joyously through a huge pile of sycamore leaves that had banked up against a wall.

I used to have a real thing about big piles of leaves when I was a kid. When I was barely not a kid I had sex with one of my first boyfriends in a big pile of leaves under a lamp post. Although disastrous as a sexual experience, it was great fun and we ran home afterwards shrieking with laughter with our pants full of leaves.

So I was watching the small boy laughing and kicking, and remembering the dodgy moments, when a condom wrapper suddenly appeared among the leaves.

Guess I wasn't the last teenager to have that idea, then.

joella

Bugger

Turns out cocoa shell mulch is poisonous to dogs, if they eat a lot of it just after you've put it down. Can't imagine that happening, as we don't have a dog, but I don't feel *quite* as pleased with myself.

joella

Chocolate gardening

Sounds like a Viz euphemism for something not sanctioned by the Vatican, but no.

This afternoon, to ward off incipient daylight saving depression, we planted some tulips (many colours) and some narcissi (white) in our newly beshrubbed front garden.

Then mulched the whole lot with amazing Sunshine of Africa cocoa shell mulch.

It's organic. It's a by-product of the cocoa industry. It helps the soil retain water (much needed out the front of our house). It adds nutrients. It looks much prettier than bark (too municipal), gravel (why have a garden?) or slate (ok for minimalist urban but not edwardian terrace).

And, unlike manure, it smells of chocolate. Really quite a lot like chocolate.

I am very impressed with myself.

joella

You couldn't make it up

On Friday I found a link purporting to be to a video of Adam Ant singing a remake of Stand and Deliver called Save the Gorilla.

But it was in QuickTime, which I haven't got installed at work, and can't install because you have to be a network administrator to install anything useful (most Popcap games seem to install fine...)

Anyway, I didn't quite believe it could be true. But it is.

joella

Beautiful and damned

Concorde's last flight today... it was built down the road from where I grew up and my mum remembers taking me out into the street to watch it do a fly by. It pretty much blocked out the sun.

Ongoing fascination with cyberspace

I was wondering if it was, after all, Thatcher who privatised the railways. A search took me to Transport Blog -- what a wealth of information.

Mr Transport Blog *does* think the free market can provide public services, so we will have to disagree, but I thank him for providing such an incredibly useful site. I think this is probably what weblogs are supposed to be used for...

I poked around for a while and discovered he had a personal blog. Intrigued to find out what kind of person writes a transport blog, I went to visit. Not sure we would agree on much, actually, but was delighted to find a link to the Tower of Bears.

The Tower of Bears is part of Nobody Here, I site I had forgotten the name of but have been looking for for ages because I love Nose so much.

I do love the internet. It would have to be the thing I took to a desert island.

(It was Major's government wot did it, btw. But we can still blame Thatcher)

joella

This just in

Just heard M woo-hoo-ing about this from the front room. Check it out. Un-be-fucking-lievable. BBC NEWS | Business | Network Rail takes repairs in-house.

Can the free market provide decent public services? OF COURSE NOT. Maybe we are slowly reclaiming Thatcher's legacy. Maybe one day we will do whatever the opposite of canonise is to her.

Oooh, can't wait for John Humphreys on the Today programme tomorrow...

joella

Things to do when nursing a cold

#1 - Find your very own Googlewhack. (Basically, a Google search on exactly two words which returns exactly one result).

It took a little while, but less time than I thought it might. See here

#2 - Take more Lemsip and get on with your work

joella

You know you're getting old when...

You realise you work with people who don't know what a ra ra skirt is

You find a hair growing in a place that didn't have a hair before

You spend all day convinced that it's 2002, and suddenly get freaked out by the date on your emails

Your little sister is about to turn 30

*sigh*

joella

Last night a Beechams saved my life

Not literally, you understand. (But neither did the DJ).

There can be few things lonelier than being alone in a Premier Lodge with a lousy head cold.

I knew I wasn't *really* ill, and there were sympathetic people on the end of the phone. (Do mobiles have ends?). I was warm, and comfortable, and had enough paracetamol.

But still. It's enough to make you thank your lucky stars that you have a home to go to, and thank them even more when you get there.

Which doesn't explain why I felt the need to drink a bottle of red wine when I finally did. Perhaps it's to block out the memories of the Hello! magazine I bought at Glasgow airport (being ill = allowed to buy celeb mags, but doesn't quite {unless *really* ill} block out the shame of doing so).

joella

PS Does Rachel Hunter really think we think her tits are real?
PPS Although the same person, can Jack Ryder ever be as good looking as Jamie Mitchell?
PPPS That poor Iraqi boy with no arms meets David Beckham... quintessential 21st century moment, no?

Feeling small

Well, Harcourt Arboretum did the trick -- acers in autumn just can't be beat. And then we had dinner at Loch Fyne, which was mighty, er, fine.

S went to the aforementioned party and didn't come home til QUARTER TO SEVEN. That's rock enough for three.

But I'm glad I didn't go because I was already coming down with something which has now fully descended. There is snot everywhere. My head isn't working.

And to top it all I'm in Scotland. Not a bad thing in itself, far from it (stayed last night with my friend A, who fed me trout caught by her neighbour from a loch...), but I'm supposed to be working here and I can't think at all.

Am also a long, long way from my bed. Though there's one waiting for me in a Travelodge somewhere. Might go and find it for a bit.

Bleat. Snurfle. Meep.

joella

Party dilemmas

There's a party on tomorrow night. The host and hostess are imaginative and well-organised, and all the signs are there that it should be a night to remember (or remember the early part of, at any rate).

But I don't think I'm going. It's been a shit couple of months chez nous, what with most of downstairs out of action, the rest of it covered in dust, and every conversation involving a decision. It's not that we haven't reached consensus in the end, it's just that we seem to have approached every situation from almost diametrically opposed positions (and when there's three of you, that's fairly weird). It's been grim.

We need some time out of the house, but I don't think a party is it.

I am thinking something involving trees (maybe), it being autumn, and then some good food somewhere.

Also I have a large premenstrual spot on my chin. Don't want to meet anyone glamorous looking like this.

But not going to a party... that feels weird.

joella

The joy of words. And technology. Together.

Remember when email was exciting? When you got as excited about a new message as you used to do about getting post at university? (When there was no email, and there were no mobile phones, so people actually used to *write* to each other?)

Early email was fantastic. And often it was about fantastic new websites, and you would rush off to look at what wondrous development 1996 had come up with.

And one of them (maybe not in 1996, but certainly by 1998) was the Plumb Design Online Thesaurus. It was mentioned at the training I went on last week so I checked it out again, and damn me if it isn't just as fabulous as it was the first time round.

I just investigated the FAQ -- it was indeed first released in 1998, and you can still use the original, now known as the Classic, version.

Rock and roll.

joella

Stress with a clear conscience

I'm not a big chocolate eater, but there are certain situations (and certain times of the month) when something dark and sweet is required.

So I keep a bar of Darkly Divine in my desk drawer, next to my oatcakes, my lemons and my tampons.

Days like today, I appreciate my ability to provide for myself in advance. And it's Fair Trade (of course), so I am doing good in the world as I comfort eat.

joella

A tale of two hangovers

The first one was mine. I was staying with the lovely R&J in Brixton in between two days of training in London.

The first day was great, I learnt some interesting things, wished I'd done it six months ago but still. I left happy. It was a beautiful afternoon, and I walked from Temple to Tottenham Court Road to have a drink with an ex-colleague and generally felt quite the metropolitan girl (though admittedly most of them aren't clutching a sweaty A-Z).

But then I had to get myself to R&J's. They live very near Loughborough Junction station, and I had directions, so I felt pretty confident. Last thing to do was get a bus four stops from opposite Brixton police station.

Arsing bastard London bus drivers. Do they want to help you? No they do not. The first bus I got on was, in fairness, the wrong bus, so I got off and went to another bus stop.

The next bus driver told me I was on the wrong side of the road, so I got off and crossed the road. The *next* bus driver told me I was on the wrong side of the road. I protested a bit that they couldn't *both* be the wrong side of the road, but eventually got off and crossed the road.

The *next* bus driver waved me down the bus without answering the Loughborough Junction question, but then refused to drive off and started shouting at me for not having a ticket. But I tried to buy one! I said. I want to go to Loughborough Junction!

He shouted at me some more, I didn't understand what he was saying, but he eventually deigned to sell me a ticket, although not to tell me where to get off. But I worked that out for myself.

I was only half an hour late, but all vestiges of metropolitanness had evaporated, and I drank a lot of wine. Far too much wine. So much wine I can't remember going to bed. Not a good idea when you have a training course the next day.

And I felt like I was going to die. I got there early and sat in some gardens with a coffee and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and hoped these would help.

They didn't. And nor did the fact that the course was essentially 130 powerpoint slides delivered over six hours in a slightly overheated room, broken up with some strange vegetarian nuggets for lunch and several trips to the loo.

But all my own fault. Never. Again. Honest.

The second hangover was M's. His was gained by more conventional means, ie drinking too much in the pub on Saturday night. What was notable was the speed with which it became apparent he was going to have a mother of a hangover, and the fact that he had to take it to our Sunday Neighbourhood Drinks.

The former was odd... he just kind of went. One minute, playing the piano, showing off his website, chatting happily, the next a confused drunk person with a terrible case of hiccups. He fell asleep before his hiccups left and there I was lying next to a man who was snoring and hiccuping at the same time. I've never heard anything like it. Zzzzz-HIC! Zzzzz-HIC!

The latter was just unfortunate. I made him come with me, because Neighbourhood Drinks are scary, and to his eternal credit he did, though he did leave about 20 minutes later to go home and lie down.

I like to think this has improved our cool rating with our neighbours (rock and roll, etc), but I suspect not.

joella

Three cranes do make a sunset

Lock me in an unlit dungeon for seventeen years, and then show me a photo of the sky over Oxford this evening and ask me what month it was. October, I would tell you. Without a doubt.

I am not sure if Color Me Beautiful would agree, but I feel in my soul that I am an autumn person.

Dark blue sky with pink streaks, plus orange trees (optional extra, but achingly beautiful if you get the right species on the right day) -- who could ask for more on her way home?

But there were cranes as well. I am not nearly so big a fan of cranes as M, but they have an undeniable elegance and style, and tonight they were lit up in the bright twilight as if celebrating their own transience.

And as a final bonus, the silhouette of the new mosque appeared against the setting sun as we drove down Divinity Road. Not the obvious Oxford spires, but all the more beautiful for that.

joella

The joys of autumn

1. Scarves. I think I have finally become a woman who can wear scarves. I started to knit one last year, but made an utter pig's ear of it. When my mother came to stay, she took it away, unravelled it, reknitted it and sent it back. It's fabulous.

2. Quince. We have an ornamental quince tree in the front garden. I think what makes it ornamental is the shocking pink flowers in February (one of the joys of spring), but it is also a practical quince tree in that it has loads of quince on it. Thus far we have (shame on us) chucked them, but this year M says he is going to make quince marmalade. Or maybe quince paste, which goes so wonderfully with manchego cheese.

joella

Road trip!

Well, train trip, but I'm excited nonetheless. We're off to Manchester. Please let the train run on time. Please let it not piss down. Please let N&D be well and happy and please let us all have lots of fun.

back on Monday

joella

And in the Darkness...

... turn it up to eleven.

I am really, really taken with the Darkness album. I can't quite put my finger on why. I think it scratches the same itch that Bat Out Of Hell used to when I was a teenager.

Our new kitchen is deliciously, briefly, functional yet spartan. There is a CD player on the floor in the corner. I am cooking, drinking Gewurtztraminer and listening to I Believe in a Thing Called Love.

The rollercoaster's on its way up again.

joella

Arty pants

I do know a bit about art after all! I did this BBC art quiz and I got them all right!

Must count for something, no?

joella

Meg on Blair

I read Meg's blog at meish.org every now and again. I don't know her, but I like how she writes. It used to be at notsosoft.com, which is how I found it: Not So Soft is an Ani DiFranco album and I was searching on it.

Anyway... her post on Blair's speech yesterday is just wonderful.

joella

Bloody turn up, will you

The Ecuadorian government has started a campaign to encourage people not to be late for work.

I thoroughly approve. Can they do that over here? Especially for builders? Mike the kitchen man said they were a shower, and he wasn't wrong.

Grump, grump.

joella

Arrrggghhh

I had one of those weekends. House in chaos, everything smelling of white spirit, computer monitor not attached to computer, kettle on the stairs while the kitchen floor dries.

Got fed last night by some good, good people, but this did involve some strange Peruvian spirit, and though I skipped home I fear it was not the most sensible start to the week.

And today I have only one really important thing to do but I cannot get my head round it. I feel like I have a touch of Durkheim's anomie.

Or, as Bruce Springsteen put it, I might take a wrong turn and just keep going.

It'll be all right soon, probably.

joella

The Google Toolbar

I had the Google Toolbar installed many moons ago, then I got a new PC and never got round to reinstalling it, and then I forgot all about it.

And at home Google is my homepage, so it's no big deal. But at work my homepage is a set of useful links I put together for the last team I worked in, and Google is two clicks away. Or three, if you are not on the homepage when you think about it. Which is two, or even three, clicks too many when you use Google as often as I do.

I could have re-done my homepage, but I couldn't be arsed. I could have reset my homepage, but I would then lose all the other useful links (Favourites are for reference, not for everyday use, imo).

So I decided to go for the Google Toolbar again.

And what a tremendously useful thing it has become. It blocks pop-ups, unless you don't want it to. It auto-fills in forms, unless you don't want it to. It searches just within the site you're on.

It also lets you BlogThis! whenever you like. So I did.

joella

When I grow up I want to be an old woman

Went to see Belleville Rendezvous the other day. It is a surreal French animation which takes you to some strange old places.

I'm not, as I have said, always a great one for art, but there is a wonderful dog in it who behaves perfectly consistently however weird it gets, and it features the funniest corrective shoe in history.

And of course Madame Souza and the swinging, frog-eating Belleville Triplets themselves. Afterwards I said how wonderful it was to have a film -- albeit an animation -- where the four main characters were old women. How often does that happen?

Aha! someone pointed out: what about Calendar Girls?

No, no, that misses the *point*.

joella

80s revival in my head

There's a leather necklace that S and I bought together in about 1986 because we both wanted it but neither of us could afford it. We took turns wearing it, and then it ended up with me, and somehow I kept it.

And how glad I am that I did, because suddenly it looks fabulous again (how does that *happen*?). And Psychocandy sounds fabulous again. And I hate the government again.

Any minute now mine will be a pint of snakebite.

joella

Smell-o-vision

I have always been somewhat led by my nose, and am even more so as a non-smoker (I can smell a cigarette on a warm day at 100 paces).

Often this is great. I was just walking through Cornmarket in Oxford, a fairly dismal experience most of the time as they have been resurfacing it for years now, so there are hoards of people squeezing across tiny little walkways in bad moods and the smell drifts from KFC (very bad) to Lush (not much better).

But today the resurfacing had reached that crucial point where they have to lay asphalt. Oh, the smell of fresh asphalt. I could live on that smell. It reminds me, though I am not sure why, of long hot childhood summers. It makes me want to lie down and smell the road.

Other top smells of the week have included Sunday lunch coming out of the kitchen at the Marsh Harrier, mingling with the smell of fresh beer and the smell of the Observer to create something quintissentially British and great... and the smell I got when I opened my long lost dishwasher after I first used it yesterday: clean, shiny and nostalgic all at the same time.

But sometimes it is not great. I sat behind someone on the bus whose clothes had that smell you get when you leave them in the washing machine too long and then dry them badly. I cannot bear that smell. It is the smell of neglect and depression and no central heating. I would like to live in a world where nobody's clothes smelt like that.

joella

Miles shows off

I have been saying to Miles for *ages* that he should have a website, given that he does website development stuff for a living.

And now he's got one.

He said 'I don't want to just have a website. I want to do something that says I am a programmer but also creative'.

And he's done it (Press F5). I am dead impressed.

Though you can't actually use it to contact him or anything useful like that. Purist arty programmers don't make it easy for you to give them work.

joella

The bright side

Okay, it's better than marrying the wrong man in the wrong century. That was drunken hyperbole. The units are still horrible, but apparently they can be painted. And if that doesn't work we'll get new ones. We don't have to live with them.

And now we've got a window. And... bestest of all... the lump of metal and plastic that I have been dragging round Oxford with me for the last five years but unable to plumb in has ceased to be a very large piece of emotional baggage and become a dishwasher again! Hooray!

And the sink has a bit you can use for rinsing.

And we have a real oven.

And cupboards. And drawers. Two years we have lived with no kitchen cupboards or drawers.

A bit of shit brown fake wood can be dealt with. We will deal with it.

joella

Push pineapple shake a tree

The kitchen men están aquí.

We made our choices and they are doing their job. But something has gone wrong.

We hate our units. We don't hate the design, and we don't hate the concept, but we hate the delivery.

The doors are fine. The worktops are fine. But the units themselves are fucking hideous. How did we choose light oak? It's not light and it never saw oak. It is like a world without redemption. It is like marrying the wrong man in the wrong century.

I live in a world where this can be rectified. I have lived my life in preparation for this moment. Surely.

joella

Time to stand up and be counted

OK, way I see it, if you're reading this you either

a) know me and think I'm cool enough to have a blog worth reading
b) know me and think I'm a bitch trog from hell (in which case fuck off let's not waste each other's time)
or
c) don't know me from Eve but got here anyway

So.

Oh, bugger. I had a really good point, and then I went to the loo, and now I can't remember what I was going to say.

joella

S is for scary

For long boring car journeys, there is the poo game. But that doesn't help you get to sleep when your body clock is a bit screwed, so for that we have the alphabet game.

It's pretty simple, like all the best games. Think of a category (colours, animals, etc) then think of one thing from that category beginning with each letter of the alphabet in order.

X and z are obvious dodgy characters, but pretty quickly you come to hate j, k and n as well. The only category we have got all the way through is cars (thank you, Citroen Xsara!).

The other night, Miles said: let's do disasters. OK, I said. Avalanche.
M: Bloodbath
J: Ewww. Um, cyclone
M: Drought
J: Earthquake
M:Flood
J: G... g... genocide!

How can I be delighted to have thought of genocide? H, of course, is for Holocaust, and we stopped there before we horrified ourselves further.

joella

It's only rock and roll but I like it...

... like it, yes I do.

It was the Limitations' last night of the summer party yesterday, in a barn in Oddington. There were about 250 people there, including many of my favourite ones.

I wore a mini skirt for the first time in my life, and my 80s canvas biker jacket from the first time round. (I am beginning to regret chucking all my red and black plastic jewellery -- a casualty of moving house so many times).

We danced, we drank, we screamed for more. The band could do no wrong. The music was supposed to stop at 12.30 but didn't. The bar was supposed to close at one but didn't. I fell over on the way to the toilet at about three and decided to call it a night, but S was still dancing when Belinda called the police at five because she was stuck in her tent.

We had watermelon for breakfast and stopped at the Little Chef on the way home.

It was wonderful. Autumn is allowed now.

joella

Singing the blues to make trade fair

The US and the EU are ruining the lives of millions of poor farmers. The world's trade activists are decamping to Mexico right now to lobby the big guns at the World Trade Organisation Meeting in Cancun from 10th - 14th September.

Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign is going to be there and they have recorded a cow singing the blues to help them gather support... and that cow is my boyfriend.

http://www.maketradefair.com/bluecow.htm

He is very excited to be part of an email campaign, even disguised as a cow, and possibly even more excited that Jeremy has given him a mention...

joella

Reptile loving Finnish speaking billiard playing giant hairy woman WLTM...

Some time at the end of last year when I was drinking far too much I joined Emode, which is an online dating agency.

I didn't join Emode because I wanted to do any online dating, I joined because I was really really drunk. I think I got there via a quiz or IQ test from another site, and ended up registering in order to get my results.

My profile is a mixture of outright lies (I am 6'5", keep lizards, speak nine languages, live in Schenectady, NY) and the word 'Arse'. ArseArseArseArseArse is the answer to the sections 'How she's different', 'Who she's looking for', 'What you'd find in her bedroom' and 'Her hangouts' (hmmm).

And bugger me if I don't get an email every single week with people who match my profile. I can't even unsubscribe because I used an email address that I can receive to but not send from.

Either this is a perfect demonstration of the pointlessness of 'website personalisation', or there really are some weirdos out there.

Either way, not good. Note to self: only surf when sober.

joella

Poorly girl

I stayed at home today. I don't like doing that unless I'm indisputably ill, and to me a cold doesn't count, but I just couldn't get up.

Then I slept on and off until 2pm, when I woke up feeling a lot better, so I don't feel so bad about staying at home.

When I wasn't sleeping I read most of the Life of Pi.

Feeling humbled by a boy who managed to tame a tiger while feeling a lot worse than I was, I got up and cleaned my shower room.

If I am honest, this room only gets a proper clean about twice a year. It was filthy, and it has been getting me down.

I find I can only clean the shower when I am in the shower, and so it was that in my slightly feverish state I set to wearing only a pair of Marigolds and brandishing a bottle of bleach.

I had to have a bit more of a lie down afterwards, I don't think on balance it was a good idea. My shower is lovely and clean though.

joella

Small blue thing

I feel rotten today. And it's not an extra-long hangover from Saturday night, though I probably did deserve one for talking so much bollocks.

No, it's something more sinister -- mostly physical, a kind of heavy head, sore-ish throat, bit of sneezing, general fug, but accompanied by a feeling best described as restlessness combined with apathy, which I find quite unsettling. Like I would run away if I could be arsed.

I am hoping the psychological feelings are a side effect of the same bug that is causing the physical ones. I haven't got time for existential angst this month.

But maybe I don't have a choice in the matter. On Friday night I was at a Mick Thomas gig at Brentford FC. My friend Pete was there too -- I've known him for six years or so, but we only really see each other at gigs.

He was standing a couple of yards away from me down at the front, and at the opening bars of one song he came over and shouted in my ear: This one's called The Lonely Goth -- it might work for you.

Thanks a lot, I said, but you know what, he was right.

joella