Honey, I burnt the heuchera

(I'm blogging by firelight in the garden. I've just singed half the perennials)

Twenty years ago, I went out with a man called Colin. I was 17 and he was 22; I lived in Lancashire and he lived in the New Forest. It was an enormously unlikely and ultimately unsustainable arrangement, but for a good few months it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me.

We didn't see each other very often, what with the 300 miles and my A-levels to contend with, but we wrote to each other in between what used to be called Nooky Runs.

There was so much I blatantly didn't know and couldn't pretend to, in those days, that when there was something I didn't know but felt that possibly I should know, I tended to keep quiet about it and try and work it out. I still do that sometimes. I'm still not sure what the Westland Affair was, for example, but I nod knowledgeably whenever it comes up.

Colin wrote me a letter which contained two song quotes. He didn't attribute either of them, presumably assuming I'd recognise them, and I was too proud to ask where they were from. I thought to myself, 'I'll hear those songs one day, and then I'll know'. There were no lyrics servers in 1987.

And I was right. The first one was
"I see you now and you are so very young, and I've seen battles lost, and I've seen battles won. And I've got this intuition that it's all for your fun."

This is from The Queen and the Soldier by Suzanne Vega, which I heard barely a couple of months later, when my friend N pressed a tape into my hands one Saturday and said 'you need to hear this album'. I already knew Marlene on the Wall, as I practically lost my virginity to it, and the rest of the album had me completely spellbound. The Queen and the Soldier is still one of my favourite songs in the world, though not specifically for that reason.

The second one took a couple of years, but come 1990 I was lying on a beanbag in the bedroom of my Significant Ex, a few spliffs worse for wear, listening to Pink Floyd's The Final Cut for the first time.

"I was just a child then," he sang (Roger Waters, not my Significant Ex). I sat bolt upright and said "Now I'm only a man". Then I said 'wow' a lot.

Patience is a virtue, I have always believed, even if I haven't always practised it. And if you've got this far through this post you clearly have it in spades, so I'll get to the point.

There's a book I've been waiting to find for years and years and years. I read it before I was 10 -- I think one of my primary school teachers lent it to me, I was a fairly precocious reader -- and little bits of it were seared into my mind, but I had no idea what it was called or who the author was. I remembered a lonely girl, Lilliput, bloaters and lots of weirdness. I had one phrase to go on, which was that she had 'eyes the colour of Marmite'.

I've been Googling that phrase since before there was Google, I remember searching Alta Vista for it, full of hopes (dashed), and Asking Jeeves (likewise). I've been waiting for the full text of all books ever to be there for the searching.

I'm still waiting. But I've kept trying (it's been my default search phrase in any new search engine, but it's never taken me anywhere).

Until today. Today I found the book. By pure chance my phrase is part of the first paragraph, and I found it quoted twice: once as part of a first sentence guessing competition, and once by a secondhand bookseller selling an early edition of it.

The book opens:

"Maria was ten years old. She had dark hair in two pigtails, and brown eyes the colour of marmite, but more shiny. She wore spectacles for the time being, though she would not have to wear them always, and her nature was a loving one. ...Unfortunately she was an orphan, which made her difficulties more complicated than they were with other people."

I always knew I'd find that book eventually. It's called Mistress Masham's Repose, and it's by T H White, who coincidentally (or is it?) wrote one of M's favourite childhood books, The Once and Future King. Tomorrow I'm off to get it out of the library.

The internet is a beautiful thing.

joella

Thrills, spills and bellyaches

I do so want to be clean living, and I am so bad at it. On Wednesday night we cycled up to Plumbing S's for dinner. She has a big terrace with epic views and the kind of table that looks like it should have a whole roast pig on a platter in the middle of it. Knowing Plumbing S, half the time it probably does, but on this night she was pulling out the vegetarian stops, though she did do a chicken 'on the side', she can't help herself.

She's also forgotten more about wine than most of us will ever know, and she hauls dusty bottles out of dark places and foists then upon you. You get something different with each course. I forget how many courses there were. Around midnight we hauled the last chunk of tree trunk out of the wood-burner (or it would still be burning now) and called it a night.

Then we had to get home. It's downhill all the way, with a couple of bits of really scary, badly lit bits. The kind of downhill you normally do with the brakes on. Not holding hands, Thelma and Louise style, and whooping.

The morning of my first ever hangover I had trampolining at school. I wanted to die. Yesterday I had the dentist at 9 am. I felt much the same.

joella

Summer girls will

My favourite episode of Black Books is the one where Bernard gets a summer girlfriend.

As Wikiquote reminds me:

"I've got to get a girlfriend, just for the summer, until this wears off. She'll be a summery girl. She'll have hair. She'll have summery friends who know how to be outside. She'll play tennis and wear dresses and have bare feet, and in the autumn, I'll ditch her, because she's my summer girl!"

I am not that girl. And I never have been. But I've always envied them slightly.

I was lying in bed this morning, grateful for the lack of plumbing work (who wants to put on kneepad trousers and safety boots in this weather?). I had the French windows open and next door have got builders in big time, so I was involuntarily listening to Builders Radio. Builders Radio is usually shit (being either Radio 1 or some MOR FM shite, depending on the age of the builder) but occasionally reveals a gem. This morning it was Boys of Summer, by Don Henley. Some tossers did a truly dreadful dance remix of this a few years ago, but the original is a great song -- if you are fourteen, anyway.

The summeriest girl I ever knew was called (something similar to) Sarah Stuart. We were at primary school together. She was lithe and tanned and her hair was perfect and she could toss it just so while glancing over her shoulder at you. Her lips glistened, she never sweated and everything she wore looked amazing on her.

The last time I saw her was probably the summer of the Boys of Summer. She came into the bread shop where I was working... she was lithe, tanned etc, and I was pasty and frizzy and damp. I hated her, standing there in her little fluorescent mesh playsuit, with half of Clifton Street still rooted to the spot they'd been standing in when she flounced past.

Hi, I said, what are you up to at the moment?

She told me she was working at the Pleasure Beach. That was the place that summer girls worked, that's where you got to hang out with the Boys of Summer. We all wanted a job at the Pleasure Beach. I asked her what she was doing there.

She told me she had a job sitting on a swing in a bikini, over a pool of water. Punters would throw balls at a target, and if they hit it, her swing would give way and she would fall in the water. It was then I learnt that there's a dark side to being a summer girl.

Later that summer, someone told me she got badly injured when she swam into the heating element and burnt her leg. It was then I learnt that there were very real advantages to not being a summer girl.

August's still a struggle though.

joella

Pipework and Potter

Nestling in my wallet is a cheque for £700 from J the plumber. It's my first proper plumbing money. I don't want to cash it, I want to frame it.

I am of course still running at a massive net loss, if you count the cost of the course, the cost of the tools, the money I haven't been earning at NGO X since I went part time at the end of last year, the massive mobile phone bills I have run up ("no, it's still leaking, what do I do now?"). And if you knew how many hours I worked to earn that £700 you might think I was bonkers. I know some people do. Hell, quite often *I* do. So I wouldn't blame you.

But I did it my way. So I look at that cheque, and I smile.

And the £700 doesn't cover whatever it is I may have earnt this week plumbing in a giant vegetable steamer in a pub kitchen in Abingdon (the job that was flooded out last week). I was doing the pipework, J was doing the drainage, and S was doing the electrics. We were working alongside the staff, who were preparing lunch. It could have been awful, but it wasn't: everyone working in the kitchen was Eastern European, and they were considerate to a fault. There was a moment when I was perched on top of a large, temporarily relocated fridge with an SDS drill -- the drill was vibrating, the fridge was shaking underneath me, sweat was dripping into my eyes and waitresses were squeezing past like nothing untoward was happening. One of the chefs did squeeze me on the leg at one point, but it was a fairly pointless exercise, as I had my kneepads on.

Later, I was curled up behind the fridge fitting the non-return valve and the appliance isolator, swearing gently and melting slowly (it's a long time since I worked in a pub kitchen... they are really fucking hot) when J appeared above me. Leave that, he said, it's lunchtime. And we sat outside for half an hour with a platter of sandwiches and our flasks of coffee. I love it when someone tells me to take lunch. I love going through doors marked Private. I love it when my pipework comes together. And I love knocking off at 3 because the job's done.

So there was plenty of time to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows . Unlike Beth, I was wrong about Snape (well, not wrong, but far from right). But I was right about Dumbledore, if not quite for the right reasons. I found its style as bloated and heavy-handed as most of its predecessors' -- especially the last chapter, which is almost unforgivably trite -- but it remains (sorry Charlie) a fantastic story on many levels and in many ways. Here's to the Free Elf (he was always my favourite).

joella

All hail fourth wave feminism

Said M this evening... "My discovery of the fact that you can microwave a raw poppadom in 30 seconds is possibly my greatest gift to mankind.

[beat]

Or humankind, I should say.

[beat]

Oh, and you have to give them 30 more seconds to stiffen."

He's bang on.

joella

(illustration courtesy of Vibe2k. Concept courtesy of AMcV. Original fury courtesy of Spitting Mad Woman.)

You have to think like a fish to catch a fish

The first rule of Sushi Night is, you do not talk about Sushi Night. The second rule of Sushi Night is, you DO NOT talk about Sushi Night.

So instead, I'll tell you that they've got some lovely beer on at the Turf at the moment. *And* they're selling Spitfire Ale at Cafe Baba... with big clunky glasses to drink it from. Saved me from mojitos on a schoolnight, that did.

joella

Blanket, feet, wellies

Blanket, feet, wellies
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

There are some great Womad mudshots out there. My other ones are here and here, but I think my favourite is this one.

And liberty she pirouette, when I think that I am free

I knew that M really wanted to go to this year's WOMAD -- we used to go every year, but it got more and more complicated, coordinating children (his) and friends (both of ours), and setting up camp proper festival style with gazebos and flags and inflatable sofas and many tents. By 2003 I felt like a project manager (which is not how I want to feel on my holidays) and then 2004 was a wet year, and I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm after that. This year he offered me a low-impact 'just the two of us and a tent like the old days' option. I still wasn't up for it, my opinions are like ocean liners: they take a long time to build and nearly as long to turn around, but then I looked at the line up (Peter Gabriel, Isaac Hayes, Baaba Maal, Sheila Chandra, Asian Dub Foundation, something folky with Billy Bragg in) and the site (a move from tightly packed city centre Reading to grounds of Malmesbury stately home) and said yeah, ok, let's do it.

So we bought tickets. And watched the weather forecasts with increasing alarm. M drove us to Wiltshire in torrential rain, while I threw all maps aside once it became clear that the road we should be taking was flooded -- the last direction I gave was 'follow those WOMAD Diversion signs', though I was still calm, having indulged in a rare Temazepam the night before, figuring I needed a decent night's sleep, and I wasn't going to get one if I didn't suppress my anxiety somehow.

And on the bright side (and there definitely was one)

• you could see what a beautiful site it could be if it wasn't ankle-to-knee deep in mud
• our tent held water, and -- more than that -- held us very well, as it always has done
• falafel, noodles, burritos, Madras Cafe thalis, Lulu's Cafe vegetarian breakfasts, and lots and lots of Gem by Bath Ales -- the finest beer I have ever drunk at a festival (Simon, more on this later)
  
• mud makes you feel ok about being a thirty-something person with a camping chair
• mud gives you licence to wee in a plastic pint glass in the middle of the night: who wants to confront something resembling the Somme in their pyjamas? (Hint to amateurs: if you think there's more than a pint in there -- and if you think there is, there almost certainly is -- then you'll need pelvic floor muscles that could stop a train. Wee half a pint, stop, pour it out the tent door, then do the rest. If you try to stop after a full pint, unless you have pelvic floor muscles that could stop a tank, you'll fail. And if there's one thing worse than trying to sleep with a full bladder, it's trying to sleep in your own wee)
  
• even in extreme circumstances, there are still WOMAD Moments. The best one for both of us happened at the same time, yet was not shared... it was when Peter Gabriel sang Solsbury Hill (this is not Friday's version, but I'll replace the link as/when one appears). I remembered a New Year's Eve many years ago that I spent with my Significant Ex (before he was my Significant Other), Mr B, his scary friend W, and a girl whose name I forget. Mr B lived in Bath in those days. We had posh drinks with his parents, and then he drove us up Solsbury Hill in his rickety mushroom-coloured Mini. We made a fire, took various drugs, drank various drinks and listened to music on one of those cassette players that you used to find attached to BBC Bs. I remember the buttons clunking as we turned the tapes over. It was fucking freezing. I don't ow what we were thinking. Hearing that song live, about 20 miles away from Solsbury Hill, down the muddy front, mired and squashed and laden with camping chairs but still sort of dancing, I did shed a tear. Halfway through, I looked up at M, to find him sobbing like a child. I asked him why later, and he was crying for times past too.
  

But ultimately, WOMAD for me is about the incidental, the serendipitous... lazy warm evenings lying on rugs drinking hot cider and listening to Cubans or Palestinians or Sri Lankans or Malians doing their stuff, and imagining a world where it was like this all the time. The best WOMADs are dusty and magical, and bring belief in the redemptive power of song. You'll never hear any of them again, but that's ok, there will be more next year. You can do yoga in the mornings, and sneak off for a shower in the middle of the night, to beat the queue and for the joy of washing in hot water under the stars.

And this year couldn't deliver any of that. Getting around was murderously hard work and there was little relaxing to be done except up by the tents (and even that was a bit edgy thanks to a spate of thieving). I salute the people who worked their arses off to keep the show on the road and the toilets clean, but it was hard going for audiences as well, and there were lots of things they simply couldn't manage to keep going -- the water points ran dry, the running order was all over the place, the main thoroughfares were constantly being churned up by tractors doing urgent things. Keep smiling! a nice woman said to me as I nearly fell over for the millionth time (note to self: too-big wellies come off easily - this is useful for gardening but shit for serious mud). I tried, but when the severe weather warning for Saturday night was relayed round the site, I realised that I wasn't having fun, and would be having even less if it rained another drop.

We negotiated. It's not an endurance test, I said to M. The difference between us is that he kind of thinks it is, that there is honour in seeing a muddy festival through. He didn't want to give up. I didn't want to spend another 24 hours wishing I was clean and/or could sit down, or another 24 hours worrying that the car would be bogged down in the slurry left by the wheel-spinning of wiser people than us. I just don't love world music that much.

It wasn't an easy decision, not least because we were tired and fractious when we were trying to make it, but we left early. We trudged out to the car with the last load, following the steady stream of fellow campers who had made the same decision. Bye bye WOMAD! said a little girl behind me, and I turned round to say my own goodbye. The gate we were leaving by had a big cardboard sign reading 'Welcome to WOMUD'. I knew then it was the right decision.

joella

Getting deeper

Oxford flood 2007_13
Originally uploaded by lenastrid.

The Waterman's Arms used to be my local when ex-housmate S and I lived on Riverside Road (not a desirable address at the moment, though we lived on top of a storage building so we were ok when it flooded, which it did, but not like this).

We were trying to get down the towpath on Sunday for an afternoon pint at the Waterman's, but the water was knee deep and we turned back. And now it looks like this...

joella

Sandbags at dawn

Sandbags at dawn
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

I was supposed to be doing some pipework in a pub in Abingdon this morning... J the plumber said 'can you get there by 7'? Sure, I said, not at all sure.

I was even less sure as the floodwaters rose across Oxfordshire... yesterday they closed the train station and the Botley Road in Oxford, and water levels on substantial chunks of roads Abingdonwards moved inexorably upwards.

So I was relieved to get a text from J just before midnight (I should have been asleep, but I fell prey to the new Harry Potter book): 'change of plan can you head to P in Long Wittenham x'. 'Ok will call a.m. x' I sent back.

A.m. came and the road to Long Wittenham was one of those under water. I called J and he said 'the road's clear to Berry (Berinsfield, where he lives), get over here and we'll take the Land Rover'.

So I did. And we did.

He grinned at me as I peered nervously out the window: the water was higher than the wheel arches, and Land Rover wheel arches are pretty high. You've never done this before, have you? he said.

When he's not plumbing, J does stuff for ERT Search and Rescue. If you're going to get yourself driven through floodwater, you want someone like him at the wheel.

I was glad to get home to my house up a hill, mind, where M correctly identified low-level oppression caused by broken washing machine, called Hotpoint and poked me with a stick until I agreed to go swimming with him. 20 lengths of crawl helped, and his macaroni cheese with garlicky greens helped some more.

I may occasionally give the impression that I don't like men, but really I think a lot of them are pretty cool.

joella

As good as *what* gets, exactly?

Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

What's wrong with *you*? said M as I stomped around while we were waiting for a bus the other weekend. Look at that fucking advert, I said. I resent having to stand near it. In fact I might boycott this bus stop till it's bloody well gone.

He looked at it for a while. Is it because you don't like sport? he said.

No it is not, I said. Well, maybe only obliquely. Look who has been playing sport. Look who's been keeping the cider cold while looking pretty in a tea dress. Look who's talking. Look who's not. Who's going to be washing those cricket whites, do you suppose?

Oh, he said. I should have spotted that, shouldn't I?

I'm going to send you back, I said, and order a Stepford boyfriend who will do a better job of picking up gender oppression messages in popular culture.

joella

Nice weather for slugs

I was aquaplaning to work yesterday, pressing random buttons hoping the rear windscreen wiper would come on (how often do you need to use that, eh? pretty much never) and twirling random dials trying to stop the windscreen misting up when a big orange light came on on the dashboard. Shit, I thought, I've just drained the brake fluid or something. This is no time to be breaking down, I'll drown if I get out of the car. I tested all the vital functions I could think of (brakes, lights, er, that's it), and proceeded in mild terror, trying my very hardest not to soak people waiting at bus stops with my backwash. It was a bit like negotiating a hovercraft. The light continued to glare at me.

When I got to work I parked up and dug out the user manual, hoping whatever was wrong wouldn't cost hundreds of pounds to fix, but fearing that it would, as everything that goes wrong with M's car costs hundreds of pounds to fix.

But I was in luck: the warning light in question turned out to be a 'drive carefully, it's pissing it down' light. How very useful, I'd never have worked that out for myself. My 2cv used to warn you of the same thing by dripping gently into your lap through the hole in the roof.

Later I learnt of children stranded in schools, unreachable villages and cancelled festivals, so I felt I had got off pretty lightly, but that didn't stop me getting furious when our student neighbours poached the taxi we'd booked to save us waiting damply at the bus stop laden with food for dinner with our friends C&G. Little bastards (our neighbours, not C&G). But we got there in the end, and it was dry when we left, full of curry and watermelon, a little stoned, and just in the mood for a stroll past Evenlode Tower. It's beautiful at night, whatever they say. The Blackbird at chucking out time is not beautiful (it's an unfulfilled ambition of mine to find someone willing to take me in there for a pint, but this may be one of those ambitions best left unfulfilled), but the bus stop opposite was only mildly intimidating, and even at that time of night you've never more than 10 minutes to wait for a bus. Cities are great.

When we got home, there was a slug party happening on the path. I think they were eating the entrails of a snail that had perished there previously. See that? I said (or maybe just thought, I was a bit out of it). That's what little boys are made of. Some of them grow up ok though.

joella

Fishing for strawberries

What I like about you, Jo, one of my friends said recently-ish, is that you're a constant in a changing world.

I considered how to take this, and decided that it was a compliment. I wouldn't say I don't change, but it's true that I evolve slowly. I think about things long and hard before I decide where I stand on them, and when I've decided where I stand, I stand firm until convinced otherwise. 

I prefer to wear things out than to throw them away. I have a pair of socks that I've had since I was 11. My lucky pants are 23 years old (and still lucky!), and I still wear a Lynx T-shirt ("it takes up to 40 dumb animals to make a fur coat, but only one to wear it") that was a 21st birthday present. I bought my green vegetarian Doc Martens in 1993 and they're still going strong.

I'm ridiculously brand loyal. I've had one mobile phone provider and three handsets (all Nokia) since 1995. I've never changed utility or landline provider, though that might change since the bastards have started charging me for the privilege of receiving a bill in the post. All my butter is Lurpak, all my washing powder is Ecover, all my lip balm is Blistex. I do my research, and when I find something I like, I stick with it. I had a minor panic on Tuesday when I tried to go to the Body Shop to buy some perfume (White Musk, since 1984 -- I've tried a few others but always go back) and it wasn't there any more (the shop, not the perfume -- but fortunately it's just moved round the corner).

I don't like waste and I try to see things through. I had my first car for 14 years. I generally finish books, and bottles of shampoo. I remember more than I let on. I never forget a favour, but I can hold a grudge forever. (The safest thing is not to meet me at all). The mainstays of my personal politics -- feminism, vegetarianism, socialism -- have changed very little in the last 20 years. When I was 17, I knew I would never get married, I knew I would never vote Tory, and I knew I would never eat steak. And I haven't.

That's not because I *wouldn't*, if that was the right thing for me to do. But it never has been. I think I was lucky, in that I more or less knew who I was a long time ago. I've grown older and grown up a lot, been more places, done more things, met more people, had more thoughts, tried more products, gained things, lost things, but nothing fundamental has changed. I don't see myself as a fixed point of reference, but I guess I can still be a place from which to take bearings. I think this is probably a good thing,

I learnt about a summer fruit thing you can do this weekend, but I've forgotten what it's called. You start it off with early season soft fruit, like strawberries: put them in a big pot, soak them in alcohol, like grappa, and put a weighted plate on top to squash them down. As the summer progresses, you add other fruit, in layers -- raspberries, cherries, plums etc, with more alcohol, and keep the plate on. By the end of summer you've added the blackcurrants, and you've got something that will give you boozy fruit all winter.

Maybe that's what I'm like. Maybe that's what we're all like -- the blackcurrants are the most visible bits, but the strawberries are still there underneath. 

joella

Don't go breaking my heart

Oops, too late.

Luckily, there's glue.

joella

Pause for thought that might save a life

Ghost bike
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

I saw this bike a few weeks ago, but I only found out why it's there when I saw Damian's photo of it.

It's a ghost bike, left as a memorial to the 22 year old cyclist who was killed following a collision with a lorry at this junction a few months ago.

Is this street art? Whatever it is, it's brilliant. I can think of at least two more people who have died in places I cycle past regularly -- the YHA near the train station, and the Elm Tree on Cowley Road -- who should have a ghost bike too. The first I just read about, the second I came closer to than I like to remember. But remembering is important.

joella

Wake up and smell the beer

Wake up and smell the beer
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

The smoking ban had been in force for six days before I went to the pub. I can't believe it took me so long. We were up in Lancs this weekend, and dropped into the Queens for last orders on Saturday night. I worked in the Queens many years ago, and it was scruffy, smoky, a bit druggy, a bit scary, and very, very loud. I loved it, but I was most of those things myself back then.

Two weeks ago, I would have said that it was still noisy and still smoky, but otherwise unrecognisable (about 10 years ago it had its guts ripped out, its heart covered in tasteful hardwearing fabric, and its soul laminated). Now it's just noisy.

It's weird. Good weird -- *very* good weird -- but weird nonetheless.

Woke up on Sunday and went out to check that it was still true. We met up with A Free Man in Preston and Girl on a Train in a pub which has great beer but which used to be like sitting in the bottom of an ashtray. Wow, said M, when we walked through the door, it smells like beer in here.

And indeed it did. We weren't worried it wouldn't last, so we stayed in there for a good three hours just to make sure. When we emerged, it was the only thing we *were* sure of. But in a good way.

I felt a bit ropey later. I blame it on the Moonlight.

joella

Codeine Queen

On days like today (the painters are in, and this month they're playing death metal), I'd be nowhere without codeine. What a marvellous drug it is. I normally take it over-the-counter strength in the form of Nurofen Plus, and it's one of the things, like pickled vegetables and ear buds, that I never let myself run out of. Yet this morning I couldn't find any anywhere. I was panicked. It was 8.20 am, I had a nine o'clock meeting with my manager, and I was curled up in a ball fighting tears and thinking dark thoughts.

M came to the rescue with Solpadol, which his GP prescribed him after he injured himself last month by driving a go-kart into a wall. I took two, wrapped myself in a very large cardigan and got on with it. Twenty minutes later, I was nicely spaced out, and I've been calm and floaty all day. I'm *never* this benign without chemical assistance. I can see how it might be habit-forming.

Shall I go home now? Yes, I think I shall. I'll just have another glass of Vimto first.

joella

"Getting rid of that 'just kidnapped' look"

The last time I cried during the Today Programme was when they were marking the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War.

More broadly, I have shed tears over the Situation In That Part Of The World, as I call it, on more occasions than I care to count.

One memorable one was in the toilets at Loughborough University after I danced to I Will Survive with a Palestinian colleague who had made a very long and difficult journey from Nablus to talk to us about trying to restore destroyed water supplies to households living under curfew.

Another was when I went to a talk given by a journalist writing about the Middle East for the Economist. The crux of his message was 'basically, it's completely fucked'. He didn't hold out any hope whatever, and he was pretty much right. I hadn't considered before that it might be hopeless, and it upset me a lot.

What did it for me on the Today Programme in question, however, wasn't the all-too-familiar back and forth of entrenched, furious, fundamentally opposing points of view. I dozed through some parts of it, shouted at other parts, tried to reconcile still others with what I've been told and what I've read. No, what did it for me was the last fifteen seconds, when they ended with a tribute to their colleague Alan Johnston and a wish for his safe release. It was one of those rare Today Programme endings that runs directly into the pips. I am sure they do them on purpose for extra poignancy. They usually work, and this one certainly did: I sobbed till I'd (temporarily) run out of sadness.

This morning I woke up to hear that he was on his way home, and that the tireless campaigning by his colleagues, and journalists everywhere, had got through to him via the World Service. It made me cry all over again. There were 28 days, give or take, between these two bouts of sobbing, so my reaction is perhaps not surprising, but they were all tears worth shedding.

And while the Situation In That Part Of The World still looks pretty fucking bleak, I am so happy they let him go. I bloody love the World Service. Nothing else comes close. Principled journalism is one of the few pinpricks of light in the darkness created when unstoppable forces meet immovable objects.

joella

Recovery position

Petunia, lobelia and pink Rioja
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

On Saturday, we went to the last wedding of the season. The last wedding of *our* season, anyway. We were invited because I lived with the bride R (and the bridesmaid K) for a while just after I split with my Significant Ex, having answered an ad in Daily Information which read 'Sane, clean, Guardian-reading woman wanted: No wallpaper TV addicts please'. When I turned up to view the room they were playing Ani DiFranco and I loved them both immediately. It was the best place I could have moved to, and I loved living with them, and I love the fact that we are still friends nine years later. Additionally, R was marrying a genuinely lovely man. Additionally still, it was one of those weddings that you know will be ok because you know that the couple in question feel at least as ambivalent about the wedding industry as you do yourself.

When the invitation came, I thought it was very modern of a church hall to get itself licensed for a civil ceremony, but it turned out that they actually got married on the Friday in a register office, and what was happening was an exchange of vows and rings and a general (secular) celebration.

Still very modern, and utterly admirable. There was lots of wine, but we were also invited to bring our own (and the church hall in question was conveniently located 100 yards from an Oddbins selling splendid pink Rioja). There was a best man, but she was a woman. There were speeches, and the bride made one of them. The bridesmaid made another, which made me cry with laughter. There were vows about equal partnership, which made me cry for other reasons. There were flowers on the tables, and we were invited to take them home and plant them in our gardens (to save the bride and groom having to take them back to their own).

There was also bunting. You can't have too much bunting. And there was mucho, mucho dancing. I did myself a mischief during True Faith, and compounded it during Common People.

I wish we'd left by 9.30, which was the plan, and would have made a lot of sense, given that we'd been drinking since 3.30. But as it was we were still there when the lights went up, and stood uncertainly at the bus stop at midnight (or thereabouts), clutching plant pots and talking bollocks.

And three days later I am still feeling it. Sunday... forget it. Monday... misanthropic. Tuesday... venturing back into polite society.

This is another reason I've never got married. I'd be hungover for a week.

Me and Cherry, 1988

Me and Cherry, 1988
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

Basically, I'm not very photogenic. The camera does not love me. I have a wonky eye (occasionally pictured right) which looks fine, I like to think, in the flesh, but usually comes out squinty on film, and generally my face just doesn't work in repose. Some do, some don't. I've got used to it.

So going through 20 years of photos, as I did recently, resulted in a fair bit of wincing, especially during the 'microphone head' years when my hair was growing back after being shorn on a whim in the Imperial Hair Cutting Saloon in Bombay.

But I *love* this photo. It was taken when I was 18 and not long in possession of Cherry, my lovely 2cv. I was working on Dock Road in Lytham during the Christmas holidays, packing Sheila Maid components into boxes. Ex-housemate S was working with me for a few days, and I had the bright idea of doing a photo-story, called 'A Day In The Life Of Domestic Paraphernalia'. This was the first photo of the day. The photo story never happened, but I could perhaps redress that now.

What I love about it is that it has pretty much everything significant about my 18 year old self all in one photo. My 2cv, my Billy Bragg T-shirt, my dad's old suit jacket, my M&S grey cardigan, my CND badge, my spiral perm, my sign of Venus earring (just the one), my rather bleak part time job. The keyring is blank-side out, but on the other side it said 'The more I know about men, the more I like my dog'.

Capturing all of this was never the plan, and I like that even better. *And* it's slightly out of focus, as many of my favourite photos are.

joella

Galaxie 500 - Tugboat

Arse to the Spice Girls: this is the reunion tour I would cross continents to see.

Leftover-tastic

On Monday, feeling a touch vitamin C-deprived after the weekend, I made my current favourite pasta sauce, which incorporates tomatoes and char-grilled red & yellow peppers blitzed with onions, celery and garlic softened in posh olive oil. Oh, and some basil. It's glorious. I cooked a ton of pasta, so there would be leftovers, but there wasn't enough left over for another whole dinner. There's never enough, no matter how much I cook.

But there *was* enough for spaghetti omelette. Spaghetti omelette sounds gross but is actually about the tasty as things get. You beat up some eggs, add some chilli, some herbs, some anchovies (optional), mix in your pasta and fry. You can have it on its own, or with sauce, or with veg, or with anything really. You can eat it with your fingers in big crispy chunks, or cut it up neatly with a knife and fork. It's the best leftover dish ever in the world ever. Makes me want to eat nothing but leftovers, even as I see the logical impossibility of this.

The leftover sauce, we had for breakfast this morning, on slightly stale leftover bread. Tonight, I shall roast vegetables, in anticipation of tomorrow's lunch.

joella

Brains over brawn

The thing is, Jo, said Graham this afternoon, that bath's heavy and you're a girl.

The thing is, Graham, I said back, those are what you might call the constants in this equation. The variable is how we're going to get it down the stairs.

I used a few tricks I learnt on the canal this weekend watching 18-ton stern-steered narrowboats navigating into locks - "to me! to me!" -- only converted into three dimensions -- and wherever possible I said "and... slide!". Any five year old knows the fastest way down the stairs.

The bits that were't slideable did wipe me out rather, but the other trick is to do your panting out of view.

joella

Happy 40th Ms Y part 2

I know it's not the done thing to laugh at your own jokes, but I was thinking of Ms Y this morning and I remembered ms-y.xls, which I created for her many birthdays ago to celebrate her facility with a spreadsheet. And lo, it was still lurking in my personal files.

Friday night and the lights are low                                    
    Looking out for a missing row                                
        Consolidating her worksheet                            
            Formatting the cells                        
                She's in the mood for a chart                    
                    So she inserts some art                
                        She is the Excel Queen            
                            Young and sweet        
                                Only A1 * C13   

joella
                                   

Happy 40th, Ms Y

Here's the track listing of my special birthday compilation for Ms Y's impending canal-based fizz-quaffing rain-dancing celebrations. Because she's worth it.

Word Up! - Cameo
White Lines - Grandmaster Flash
Relax - FGTH
Praise You - Fatboy Slim
Only Living Boy In New Cross - Carter USM
Hung Up - Madonna
Don't You Want Me - Human League
Hippy Chick - Soho
Ghost Town - The Specials
Get Ur Freak On - Missy Elliott
Funkytown - Countdown
Freak Like Me - Sugababes
Dancing Queen (extended version) - ABBA
1999 - Prince

M is upstairs making *his* Ms Y-inspired compilation. If it beats mine I will eat my sou'wester.

joella

She said, 'I'm tired of the war, I want the kind of work I had before'.

Oh, I do love a bit of Leonard of a summer evening. I don't actually own this album, but I know every word of it, as I borrowed it on repeat for months and months from Blackpool Record Library in the mid-80s. My mother would come into my bedroom to find me lying on a beanbag in the dark burning joss sticks and intoning 'I stepped into an avalanche, it covered up my soul'. It was what you might call a solitary pursuit.

But who's to say they aren't the best kind sometimes? And I now keep coming across it on last.fm without even looking. My tags are its tags, my 'sounds likes' are its sounds likes, my 'also likes' take me there. It's quite spooky.

joella

More money than sense

Some people don't know they're born. A couple of weeks ago I heard about a rented house in Oxford where the tenant managed to drop her toilet cistern lid, smashing the basin, cracking the toilet bowl *and* damaging the bath. Impressive. J got the refit job, and last week passed it on to me. Start with the basin, he said, seeing as she's already had that off for you.

So this morning I got up, loaded my tools, my boots, my drill, my pipe benders and my various plumbing substances into the car, drove to Berinsfield to pick up the taps, connectors and isolation valves that J had left for me on top of the guinea pig cage; drove to the plumber's merchants to pick up a basin, a waste, a trap and a pedestal, drove to the letting agents to pick up the keys, and drove to the house in question.

Where I couldn't get in, because none of the keys fit. It turns out the tenant lost her keys, so got a locksmith out to change the locks, and didn't leave a copy with the letting agent. Oh, and then went back to the US on holiday, leaving a leaky pipe (presumably something disturbed by her bathroom smashing) dripping into the downstairs study. And her mobile number is unobtainable, maybe she lost that too.

What a spectacular waste of time and space she must be. The job sheet says 'please attend urgently'. Well I would, I said as I dropped the keys back, if I could get through the bloody door. I was extremely pissed off. But on the bright side I had a free day, and I will be able to occupy the moral high ground with the letting agents for at least the next couple of encounters. So I went to buy some posh French cakes and took them round to see my friend C, who conveniently lives round the corner from the letting agents and is home on maternity leave. Then I drove home. And now there's a sink in the shed. Thank god I didn't pick the whole lot up in one go, though I still haven't worked out how to get a bath into a car. J says I can borrow his Land Rover. I'm not sure how to get *myself* into a Land Rover. But I haven't told him that.

Moving on, I am wanting the new White Stripes album *a lot*. Which should pose no great logistical problem, but I tell you what does: does anyone have an mp3 or aac of Hippy Chick by Soho (released 1990, samples How Soon Is Now)? It's not on iTunes, it's not on allofmp3, it's not on last.fm, it *might* be on emusic but I never outstayed my free trial, it might be in a number of other places but none which don't look dodgy. I know Mr B has it, but I seem to remember that was vinyl... any thoughts?

Some brave new world this is...

joella

I never took the advice in that book

A couple of weeks ago, and apropos of nothing as far as I know, M asked me about the T-shirt that's been hanging on the wall since we moved into this house together in 2001. It's a badly-made, once-white garment bearing the following message (hand-painted, in block capitals):

"Don't saddle me with your ideals
And spare me all your guilt"

What *is* that quote, he said, and what did you mean by it? And why is it hanging on the wall?

I was hungover and sitting on the loo at the time, so it took me a while to explain. But the basics are as follows: it's a line from Billy Bragg's I Don't Need This Pressure, Ron -- one of the B-side tracks on 1985's Days Like These 12". I can (and did) quote the entire song by way of big-picture context, but that line was the one that I cared about most. 'Don't saddle me with your ideals' is a fairly obvious teenage feminist statement: I don't want to be part of your world, and watch me not be. 'And spare me all your guilt' is a bit harder to articulate. I'm still not sure what BB meant by it, but I'm not sure that matters. What *I* meant by it is perhaps best expressed by something Yoko Ono said on this week's Desert Island Discs: "My life is not about appeasing other people. My life is about being myself."

I painted it onto a T-shirt when I was about 17 because I wanted the world to know that this was how I felt. But it never really worked: every time I wore it out men would read it and say something along the lines of 'I wouldn't mind straddling you'. No, I would say, you haven't read it properly. So then they would stare at my breasts a bit harder. V quickly I realised that this T-shirt would only bring me grief, and I stopped wearing it. But I could never bear to part with it. I created it with the best of intentions. And it's hanging on the wall 20 years later because it's still true.

Fair enough, said M. I thought there must be a story behind it. I felt warm inside.

A few days later, I was sorting through photos upstairs when I heard Scholarship Is the Enemy of Romance playing loud downstairs. This could only be C, our new housemate, who has a sticker on her bike which says 'I'd rather be listening to Billy Bragg'. I've never lived with a Billy Bragg fan before. I grinned like a lunatic, knowing which track was coming up next, and ran downstairs to catch it -- I have it, obviously, but I don't think I've played it for about five years. 'So don't saddle me with your ideals, and spare me all your guilt', I sang from the middle room. 'For a poet with all the answers has never yet been built', she sang back from the kitchen.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

joella

Andy & Liz's wedding

I like the one of the photographer the best...more on Flickr here.




joella

And on the fifth day...

After a long and not terribly productive week, I thought a civilised dinner out might be in order: had we stayed in we would have grouched at each other, and I didn't want to do that. We ended up in Euphrates, eating meze (very good, though the whitebait was a mistake) and drinking Lebanese Arak (very good full stop), and discussing... abortion. How cheerful. But civilised in its way: we'd both (separately) listened to this week's Moral Maze, scheduled to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act (definitely worth a listen, incidentally: if only all discussion on the subject were so reasoned) and we both wanted to talk about it.

I still don't think we agree, though it's detail we disagree on (when and how), not fundamentals (whether), so I can live with that. And debate is healthy: if you don't get the odd brickbat thrown at your views from time to time you can't decide if they still stand up or not.

We stopped in at Videosyncratic to borrow The History Boys, then wandered back. By the time we neared home I was trying unsuccessfully to explain why, with the honourable exception of Closer to Fine, I can't bear the Indigo Girls. I *ought* to like them, I was saying, but it's just one minority cause too many. Environmentally aware lesbian folk songs about Native Americans, I can't do it. Please don't bury my heart at wounded knee! Bury it somewhere else! Well, said M, strictly speaking that's a Buffy Sainte Marie song.

She's even worse, I said. I hear a Buffy Sainte Marie album and I want to put on Led Zeppelin and eat liver! Add anal sex to that list, said M, and I'll buy you a copy. You're all heart, I said, and marched up the front path.

The film was fantastic, though I don't for a moment believe 18 year old boys from Yorkshire would ever be that comfortable with themselves, not even the cleverest ones in the school, not even in 1983. But it was very touching, very interesting and very, very funny.

Mrs. Lintott: And you, Rudge? How do you define history?  
Rudge: Can I speak freely without being hit?  
Mrs. Lintott: You have my protection.  
Rudge: How do I define history? Well it's just one fucking thing after another, isn't it?

Isn't it just.

joella
  

Open Garden

Jardin de joella 4
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

M is on the Events Committee of our local residents' association. I co-edit its newsletter. We are both slightly embarrassed to find ourselves community-minded in this way, but a) we have the skills and b) if you don't have small children you have to look for ways to meet your neighbours. So when the Open Gardens idea was mooted at a recent Events meeting, our names went down.

We worked like bastards to make our garden worth Opening. We weren't sure we had succeeded. About 30 people came to look at it today -- we had baby Tungsten round providing distractions, but people generally seemed to think we'd done ok with our 16 by 60 foot space.

A few people stood on the doorstep and said 'you're very brave to be doing this' before they'd even seen it. They were the ones who made us feel all right. And if you're reading this and you were part of the landscaping posse three years ago -- thanks: the terracing was the Most Admired. And rightly so.

joella

Bloodied but unbowed

On Wednesday, I did a full day's managing of information and then drove back to the bathroom of the ex-husband of Plumbing S to solder the new heating pipes and let the electrician in. J the plumber turned up at 10.30pm. The electrician left at 11.30. We were there till 1.30. I was starting to see things. I woke up at five panicking slightly, so I got up, got dressed and went back there. I did another 12 hours, then I left for my Plumbing Class Night Out (of which more later). It still wasn't finished. J the plumber went in later to sort out the final bits. He called it the bathroom from hell, and he should know.

What was so evil about the bathroom of the ex-husband of Plumbing S?

1. Incomplete basin: it needed legs, which it didn't have, so we had to build a frame. Also in a different place to the old basin, and once the frame was in the floor couldn't come up, so lots of jiggling round fitting pipes through little holes.
2. Incomplete basin taps: no fixing nut, no little grommet thing for the waste lever.
3. Crap basin waste: not enough thread for the S bend to seal, which meant the S bend washer had to be cut down with a hacksaw. Nice.
4. 'Non-applicable' WC - back to the wall pan with wall hanging cistern. J managed to fit it in the end but not before he'd threatened to take it back to the shop that sold it to the ex-husband of plumbing S and 'throw it through the fucking window and say "you fucking fit it"'.
5. Cheap and nasty pre-fitted siphon and float valve which pissed water everywhere and had to be taken apart and re-fitted.
6. Wall-mounted bath taps and shower bar which will need to be taken off for tiling (and the tiles are stone and about 10mm thick) but which had no fixings of their own so needed to be supported by rigid pipework. *You* try designing rigid pipework which can be moved back 10mm. It's not impossible but it's a pain in the arse.
7. P-shaped bath: needed to be installed exactly 542mm off the floor to accommodate the side panel. Floor was made of old, often-soaked and much messed about with tongue and groove chipboard which could in no way be described as either flat or level.
8. Heated towel rail which fit too close to the wall to take standard radiator valves, on a different wall to the original radiator.

And that was just the plumbing, never mind the electrics, which had the electrician by turns baffled and really bloody annoyed. It nearly killed me. At five to six on Thursday I came over all funny and realised my ability to hit things hard had been premenstrually enhanced. There was still no toilet. I rang J and said 'right, I'm off, there are some things a girl can't do in the garden'. 'How much do I owe you?' he said. 'A week in the sun,' I replied.

At home I threw all my clothes into the washing machine and legged it upstairs for painkillers, san-pro, a good scrub and a bit of mascara, then I jumped on my bike and headed off into town for my Plumbing Class Night Out. It was very strange but lots of fun, we went to the pub, then for a curry, then to the pub again. I was a bit manic, I fear, but I did get the chance to tell J the stores manager than it was terrifying at first and he was a big part of making it less terrifying. I also had the pleasure of seeing Plumbing S drinking a pint. I don't think she's ever done that before. I'm not sure she'll do it again.

We broke up at the Head of the River at 11.30 and I realised my back bike light wasn't working. I had also had four pints. I decided it was too risky to cycle through town. Also too risky to cycle down Abingdon Road and over Donnington Bridge. And I really couldn't be arsed to walk. I know, I thought, I'll go down the towpath.

I balanced at the top of the slope down onto it from Folly Bridge thinking 'now, is it sensible for a drunk woman on her own to cycle down the river at this time of night?'. Then I thought 'fuck it', released my brakes and swooped down into the darkness.

And it was magical. The river was as still as glass, the moon was out, the swans drifted by asleep in mid-stream. It was dark and silent and peaceful and warm and glorious. I started the day feeling tiny and anxious. I ended it feeling invincible.

joella

The poo most travelled

Warning: not for the squeamish.

Monday night and all day yesterday (and tonight and all day tomorrow) I have been / will be refitting a bathroom in a house recently bought by the ex-husband of Plumbing S. It's a much bigger job than I would take on by myself at this stage, but it came through J the plumber, who met the ex-husband of Plumbing S when he rodded out their drains one Christmas Eve. I think the ex-husband of Plumbing S would rather it was J the plumber doing the work (and based on experiences so far, so would I) but J the plumber doesn't work like that. He distributes, and he troubleshoots. Don't worry Jo, he said, you'll be fine.

He came over on Monday night to help me drain down the central heating system, and (literally) kicked out the bath and the WC while he was there. He left the basin and the radiator for me to remove, and I turned up by myself first thing yesterday feeling a bit nervous but ready for action.

I was balanced between two floor joists surveying the pipework and trying to decide what to do first, when I realised I really, really needed a poo. 'I'll just go to the...' Oh.

I did not know what to do. Poo in the garden and bury it (but he might dig it up, and I would always, always know it was there)? Drive home (not enough time)? Go in a bucket (only one bucket and it was already in use, and anyway *then* what would I do with it)? Knock on a neighbour's door (hello, you've never met me, but can I take a dump in your toilet Right Now)? What *is* the done thing in these situations? I really have no idea.

In the end I made a little nest of toilet paper where the toilet should be, and offered thanks to the gods for being well-practised at squatting. Then I carefully wrapped up my poo, which seemed twice as big as normal, but then I don't normally pick them up, put it in a carrier bag and put it in the car.

That wasn't such a good idea, as it was a hot day yesterday and later on I had to drive with my poo in the passenger stairwell all the way to the plumber's merchants and all the way back. When I returned I took it out of the car and put it down by the wheelie bin (but the wheelie bin was empty, and I couldn't bear the thought of leaving it lurking in there, it would surely give itself away).

So when I finally left for the day I scooped up my poo for its final journey, and drove as fast as I dared. There was no one in when I got home, thank goodness, so I was able to dispatch it in short order and deposit its bag in my own wheelie bin.

There has to be a better way. Maybe I should get a litte tin?

joella

Hobson's choice?

I got an email the other day from Tesco. They had noticed that I hadn't shopped online with them recently, and hoped they hadn't done anything to upset me. They asked me to let them know if they had, and as a goodwill gesture they would give me £10 off my next online-shop-over-£100-to-be-delivered-by-27-May.

And you know what, I nearly fell for it. I even had preliminary chats with ex-housemate S over whether we could split it. But a couple of days later I got my Tesco Clubcard statement in the post.

I never asked for a Tesco Clubcard. In fact, I have refused a Tesco Clubcard on many occasions. I do not want Tesco mining my data, however benignly they claim to do it and however many vouchers for V8 juice, Evening Primrose Oil and anchovies I might receive as a result. But if you shop online they give you a Clubcard *whether you want one or not*. Of course they do. They know where I live, they know what I buy. They want my soul. They're not having it.

So instead, I made a fifteen mile round trip to Waitrose and spent £115. That'll show them, I thought.

What an idiot. To be fair to me, it's getting on two months since I last did a supermarket shop, and to be fair to them, Waitrose are clearly at the less evil end of the supermarket scale. But ye gods, are they expensive. I recoiled in horror at a packet of ("Cave Aged") Gruyere which cost nearly Six Pounds and some pine kernels for Three Pounds Ninety Nine. But I spent a small fortune on Jersey new potatoes, another on 'wholesome' walnuts, and yet another on organic tampons. And don't even get me started on the caperberries.

Whichever hype you believe, you're still a sucker, I reckon.

joella

Am I pregnant?

I found a link to this remarkable 'Am I pregnant?' quiz during a bit of aimless post-prandial blog-wandering.

I'm no expert, I thought to myself, but I'd bet good money that you can't actually find out if you're pregnant by doing an online quiz, unless one of the questions is 'is there a baby's head poking out between your legs?' and your answer is 'yes'.

If you click through, they tell you: "if you want to know if you are pregnant, you MUST take a pregnancy test". But then they offer you the 'Am I pregnant?' quiz anyway.

So I took it. There is no earthly way I could be pregnant, but it told me that "your chance of pregnancy is low, but you need to check a pregnancy test to be sure".

If I wanted even more pointless guidance, I could pay $4.95 for a personal e-mail response detailing the chance of pregnancy in my specific situation. Which would also presumably include a recommendation that I take a pregnancy test to be on the safe side.

I struggle to see how this is useful or indeed ethical. They should wipe the whole thing and replace it with a money-off coupon for a stick to wee on.

joella

The female of the species

Last night, I Handed My Plumbing Folder In. All my assignments have been appropriately assessed, all my methods have been adequately stated, and all my achievements have been acceptably recorded. This one is my favourite.

So, I said to B the assessor, when will I be Qualified*? Well, he said, the IV (Internal Verifier) needs to approve your work, and then you'll get your certificate. That'll take a couple of months, though it might be a bit longer for you, because I've chosen your folder to send off to the EV (External Verifier).

Oh, I said. Is my folder special? (I have been pretty much top of the class in the theory stuff, but when it comes to the practical stuff I am precise-but-slow: average, really, if on the desirable side of average).

Well Jo, he said, not wanting to be sexist or anything, but you are a female.

Go on, I said.

Well, he went on, we've only had about 10 females get through the course. And you and S, you're about the only ones who've finished it on time and with no problems. You've done really well! Your folder is fantastic!

I squinted up at the light and thought back over the last two years. I decided to take this comment on my (unremarkable if you disregard my sex) performance in the sense in which it was intended. At one level I have found his combination of surprise and amusement quite hard to handle, but at another he has come along and used his (not inconsiderable) brute force pretty much on request whenever more brute force than I can muster has been required, and at yet another I believe his perceptions of women have genuinely, if slowly, shifted. You have to hold onto that.

I beamed at him. Thanks B, I said. Are you proud of yourself? he said. Oh yes, I replied. And I am. But one thing, I carried on, stop calling us females. We are women. If you're talking about human beings, female is an adjective. Lose the word.

I've been wanting to say that since September 2005. But I did at least say it. Some battles you can only fight when you know you've half won them: my pipework speaks for itself, and my knowledge of the Water Regulations is unmatched.

I don't know if any of this will make a difference to those women who come after me, but I like to think that Plumbing S and I softened the place up a bit. The whole atmosphere has a macho reek which will take some challenging, but to be honest that's far more down to the students than the teachers. B is one of a couple of them who didn't quite come to terms with our presence, but J the stores manager never seemed to have the tiniest issue with it, D the theory teacher toned down his jokes and never made us feel less than legitimate in the classroom (and also I think liked having people who always remembered their coloured pencils and did their homework), and BJ the leadwork teacher was old school courteous, called us ladies, and took extra time to make sure our welding was as neat as we wanted it.

For our part I think we handled ourselves well -- we laughed a lot but never giggled, we asked for help when we needed it but never expected special treatment, and we supported each other brilliantly. I was the one who remembered all the facts, made most of the decisions, and planned assignments meticulously, while S, in pink trousers and with pink flowery tools, got stuck in without a second thought. Between us we had it nailed, and we finished the course within a few hours of each other (her folder is in the photo because it's not quite ready to hand in yet).

Genderwise, I was heavily outnumbered at both school and university, but never at anything like this level. It had its dodgy moments, but on the whole it was a blast - there's nothing I like more than breaking moulds. Especially if you can do it without scoring cheap points.

joella

*Though I am not a properly Qualified plumber till I get my NVQ, and that's a different kettle of fish (and a different folder) altogether.

You can't have a cupboard if there ain't no wall

Ah, in late spring a young-ish woman's thoughts turn to Neil Young.

I don't really like driving except when I'm by myself, I more or less know where I'm going, the shadows are long, the traffic is light, the music is loud and the windows are down. Then I love it.

It was best of all when I still had my 2cv. There weren't many songs you could hear with the roof off and both cylinders roaring, but the ones that made it through were the best songs in the world. And one of my best tapes had Ragged Glory on one side and Nothing's Shocking on the other.

I parted with Cherry five years or so back, and I left the tapes with her - the rain used to drip through her cassette deck so I don't think they would really have worked in any other setting. But I still think driving is a time for the familiar, not for the strange, and for the epic, not for the fey.

Tonight I drove out into Oxfordshire after work to help fit a bath in a bungalow in Carterton. I was tired before I started, and completely knackered afterwards (though strangely manic once I got home, hence stupid late blogging). I should have resented it, or at least part of me should. But instead I got a perfect late May sky, with the sun shafting down through the clouds, framing half an hour of contemplation set to Neil Young's Unplugged.

Left me helpless, helpless, helpless.

But in a good way.

joella

Weddings, eh?

Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

I'm never quite sure what to make of them. This one was in the middle of the Peak District, and, being terminally stupid, we didn't factor either breakfast or lunch into our departure time. So we were running on a bottle of Lucozade and two packets of Frazzles by the time Wendy the GPS announced 'Destination!'. At this point we were a) clearly in the middle of nowhere and b) had 15 minutes to get to the church. There was swearing.

But we made it, much to my mother's relief. I will be writing to the Peak District council to suggest they trade off a bit of their outstanding natural beauty for a few road signs.

I do see why people get married, even if I can't imagine doing it myself, and it was a very beautiful setting to do it in - all around was bright, bright green, with super-sharp hills, a bright blue sky and big white clouds. It was like someone had turned up the contrast button. I am glad I wore red, I fitted right in. And the bride and groom genuinely seemed to be having the best day of their lives, which is as it should be.

But I still think 'the wedding' is a throwback ritual. The giving away, the bridesmaids, the hats, the men giving speeches. I've been to lots of weddings (some of them far more ostentatious than this one) and I can't help thinking they were designed for a different age. We haven't come up with many alternatives, though, apart from eloping or not bothering, so they carry on much the same.

Do you mind that I haven't done this, I asked my dad. The look he gave me told me all I needed to know.

joella

Grinner on the roof

Grinner on the roof
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

How happy am I to have finished my leadwork? This isn't quite as big a grin as the one on the photo in the assessment folder, but still gives a fair indication.

As anyone who knows their way round a bending stick could attest, my leadwork isn't actually very good, unlike my pipework, which isn't bad at all. But I don't intend to do it ever again, so I don't really care. The best bit was getting to wear a special purple coat (seventeen sizes too big) and a welding visor. It reminded me of the white coats and safety specs we got to wear in the chemistry labs in the sixth form. I always felt cool in a lab coat.

In other news, check out this cat in an ambulance story. I love our public services.

joella

PS and (as a result) the best lolcat I've ever seen

Dig your own hole

I think I got flirted with last night. I say 'think' because a) I'm not sure I recognise the signs anymore and b) if that *is* what he was doing he got it very, very wrong.

He arrived late at my friend C's birthday dinner, and sat next to me at the end of the table. We established that we both knew C from university. Which was weird, as I'd expect to at least recognise someone I spent three years in the same college as, but if we did ever meet neither of us remembered it.

Hey, he said after a while, you know who you sound like?
Who? I said, hoping he wasn't going to say Victoria Wood.
Victoria Wood! he said.

You're not the first person to say that, I said (hello Charlie!). But I don't think I do.

No, she doesn't, said someone across the table. It's just they're both Northern, and there is otherwise a complete lack of accent diversity in this room. Exactly, I said. I sound more like Victoria Wood than anyone else here, but that does not mean I sound like Victoria Wood.

No, you do! he said, and nudged me. And if you were blonde, you'd look a bit like her as well.
*Thanks*, I said, in my best facetious voice. Don't get me wrong, I like Victoria Wood a lot, and I happen to think she's looking pretty good these days. But she is 53.

Well, he went on hurriedly, except she's fat and you're not.

Can we stop this conversation? I said.

I would have said this definitely wasn't flirting except later on he did touch me on the leg.

joella

The Bear and baby

It's ok, he missed your hair, said ex-housemate S today as baby Tungsten chucked up over my shoulder in Modern Art Oxford. It's mostly on your top, your coat and your bag.

She took him off to change his nappy and I dabbed around in my hood with a Wet One, feeling a little squeamish but glad he's not on solids yet.

He is, however, teething, and really bloody grumpy. The best way to get around town was with one of us practising a range of silly walks involving the magic bounce factor, and the other manoevering the empty pushchair, which gradually filled up with surplus clothing, library books and tuna steaks. It's easier to plough into the ankles of teenagers who are blocking doorways and ignoring your 'excuse me please's' if you don't actually have the baby, and then the person who does can fall in behind. Neat.

The last purchase we had to make was a new plug for S's vacuum cleaner, and I directed her to Gill's the Ironmongers, one of my favourite shops. It's down Wheatsheaf Alley, and as she squeezed the pushchair past the scaffolding I said 'how about a quick half?'. Sure, she said, I'll meet you in there, so Tungsten and I wandered in, but the Wheatsheaf doesn't like babies and wouldn't serve me.

I'll see you outside the Bear, I said and we carried on up the alley. S arrived shortly afterwards and fetched beer. Maybe it was her lager going straight to his head but Tungsten fell asleep as soon as she'd fed him, and we sat there in the humid overcast afternoon and talked about old times. Which we don't do very often but I've had them on my mind recently.

First: I got an email a few weeks ago from E, who I went out with when I was 15. He was older than me (18, but that was a lot in the 80s) and I hadn't really been out with anyone before. Don't go there, said various well meaning people (including ex-housemate-then-schoolmate S), he's on the rebound and you'll get hurt. I have never been any good at listening to well meaning people but in this case they were right, in that I did get hurt, and I always assumed that he didn't really notice or care, and never gave me a thought thereafter. It was odd (but good) to find out 22 years later that there was a bit more to it than that. I am a little sad for my 15 year old self, who settled for less than she should've for a fair while afterwards, but happy to have the long view.

Second: my Significant Ex emailed me a few months ago asking if I'd sort out the photos from our relationship and send them off to be scanned so he can have copies. It's a fair request, but it's taken me a while to get round to it. I have maybe 100 packets of photos stored in a box in my room. They cover the period 1983 (when I first got a camera) to 2003 (when I first got a digital camera). I started the job last week, and it's been hard work on my back and on my eyes (are those tears? or just dust and grit?). So far I have divided the packets into three piles: 1983-1989 (pre-Significant Ex), 1989-98 (during) and 1998-2003. The 89-98 pile needs further sorting. The pre-89 pile is full of school photos, including many of S, (though only one of E, blurry, taken in the pub). Today she said 'I should get some copies of those'.

How times change. She is famous for keeping nothing, yet now she is the one with the baby. Another? I said, but as I came back with them (she was drinking halves, before anyone writes to the Breastfeeding Police) the heavens opened. I went into the pub and said 'can we bring a baby in here?'. Sure, they said, if you can get in through our 13th century door. There was about 2mm either side, and we parked up in the no smoking area, taking up about 80% of the available space and blocking access to the Gents.

When we emerged it was into what Mick the builder would call a terminal piss down situation. We had brief respite on the bus but then I made my farewells, pulled my still-damp-from-baby-sick hood up and leapt out into sheeting rain. It was pelting so hard that my normally extremely efficient Dutch trainers started leaking from the top. By the time I got home, every part of me that wasn't covered by my trusty North Face jacket was piss wet through.

I struggled slightly on the doorstep, and dropped my keys. M opened the door. I wasn't expecting him to be in. Hello! I giggled. I'm wet and drunk! So you are, he said, that's quite impressive for 5.30. I took off my wet clothes and put them in the washing machine, then fell asleep under a blanket on the sofa. He woke me up a couple of hours later with a glass of red and tuna steak au poivre. I'm still not sure what I did to deserve this.

joella

Girls and boys

1. Boys.
I enjoyed David Baddiel's Whatever Love Means far more than I expected to. He's overtly a) alpha, b) Oxbridge, and c) Jewish, and I've never found that a particularly sympathetic combination in men, even though it's not so far from my own. On those grounds, I'd never normally have borrowed the book from the library, but I was in a tearing hurry and it was on the 'If You're In a Tearing Hurry' stand by the door, next to the books in Polish.

And it is a good book, especially if you remember the time and the place (which I do), and if you have ever been in a relationship with someone whose behaviour has baffled you unless you take a really uncharitable view of men (which I have).

So next time I was in there, in slightly less of a tearing hurry, I borrowed Time for Bed. I've read about half of it, and decided (and this is rare for me) that I won't finish it. I found someone else's bookmark in it, which is a sign that I am not the first person to make this decision.

Basically, it's the porn, and the porn-driven sex. I don't like either of these things, and reading about them in this level of detail makes me feel bleak. I feel this way about a lot of Hanif "there are some fucks for which a man would have his wife and children drown in a freezing sea" Kureishi, not to mention a fair amount of early Martin Amis. And I don't think what he's saying is important or interesting enough to wade through the wanking and arse-fucking, frankly.

M is slightly further ahead in the book than me (we sometimes end up reading the same copy of the same book at the same time which annoys both of us but does mean you get to talk about it quicker). I don't like what this book says about men, I said. I don't think it's true. Surely it's not true.

Er, um, well it is a bit, he said. But you don't have a collection of hardcore DVDs! I said. You don't have major pubic hair issues! You don't negotiate interactions with women like they come from another planet! Do you?

Well no, he said. But then I live with you. And you've always said yourself that you can't help what's in your head, you can only help what you do with it. Which left me simultaneously flattered and disappointed. V postmodern. You finish it, I said, then tell me whether you think I should. And we left it at that.

2. Girls.
I might be hard work, but I'm low maintenance. I'm a cheap date, I carry a bag big enough for all my stuff, I don't sulk much, and I provide a detailed list of what I want for my birthday (which these days can mostly be sourced from the Screwfix catalogue).

I've been getting my legs waxed every four weeks since I was about 25, because I can't bear to shave but I can't bear to leave them either, and I've been dying my hair every 12 weeks since I was about 30, because I had developed a Mallen streak and it wasn't a good look. I exfoliate because it makes me feel clean, and I've been moisturising since my sister bought me some for Christmas a few years ago, but apart from that, nothing. No nails, no highlights, no perming, no straightening, no tanning, no bleaching, no Brazilians, no working out, no tooth whitening, no Botox, no foundation, no implants, no chucking up. This is partly a political stance (beauty fascism = bad), partly because I can't afford it, partly because even if I could I'm not sure it would make *that* much difference except to people whose opinion I like to think I don't value, and partly because I Just Can't Be Arsed.

And so it was with significant misgiving that I went out on Friday to get my eyebrows shaped. I've never done it because it's another thing to keep on top of, but I've realised of late that a) pretty much every woman in the world has "managed eyebrows", plus quite a few men, and b) the older you get, the less straggliness you can get away with. I've had beauticians offer to do it for free, I've had my mother on at me about it for years, I've had friends mention it 'in passing'. I've ignored them all, but then I saw this photo of me at Jeremy's clocks-forward-barbecue. Shit, I thought, I look very sweet and all but I have *got* to sort my eyebrows out.

And on Friday, I did.

What do you normally do, asked the nice lady, get them waxed or have them plucked? They've never been touched, I said. What, she said, NEVER? Nope, I said (not strictly true, I got them plucked once as a teenager but they've been au naturel since c1984), do your worst.

She did something involving both waxing and plucking. It hurt. I look weird. But better, I think. And either I get better at inflicting pain on myself, or that's another ten quid a month on personal grooming. M didn't notice, bless him. Or my haircut. But that's so much better than the other way round. You do it to yourself, you do.

joella

Head above parapet

This is an unfashionable thing to say, but I think Tony Blair's all right. I wish he wasn't such good friends with George W, who I think is very, very far from all right, and I think he made a colossal, irredeemable mistake with Iraq. But he made the Labour Party (which I have never joined but which I have always voted for) electable and he's kept it electable. And I think his heart's in the right place on many issues, domestic and international, even if I'd prefer it if he was an atheist (not least because if he was I don't think he'd be such good friends with George W). Basically, I think he *does* want to make the world a fairer place, and some of what he's done has had that effect. And I think the alternative's still worse, a whole lot worse, and those of us who can remember politics in the 1980s and early 90s shouldn't forget that.

He's also indirectly responsible for one of the best nights of my life, which I spent at the now legendary Billy Bragg gig at the Mean Fiddler in Harlesden on 1 May 1997. The sun came up, the birds began to sing, and light shone in on everything. (There were Class As involved too, but still).

joella

Selective engagement with the bottom-feeders of humanity

On the whole, I don't put myself through things that I know will just make me angry. I don't bother to read American Psycho, for example, or watch A Clockwork Orange, or listen to Beenie Man, or visit lap dancing clubs. People have occasionally argued that you can't say you hate something if you haven't actually read / heard / seen it, but on the rare occasions I have listened to them - like the time I went for a night out in Patpong or the time I watched Leaving Las Vegas - I have regretted it. I know about the evil that men do. I don't need to consume its cultural byproducts.

But I do engage with the causes and effects of things that make me angry, and that's different. We've only the one world, and the more you know it, the better you understand it. I don't think I could bear to confront the worst that humans can do to each other all day every day, but nor do I think it's viable to live in a bubble and pretend it doesn't happen. And sometimes it's just important to bear witness.

So I didn't turn off the interview with Nick Griffin that was on Radio 4 tonight as I was driving home, even though the very sound of his voice makes my innards twist. I listened to him saying that he no longer believes the Holocaust didn't happen, and then I listened to him saying that he no longer believes this because it's against the law to believe it. You could hear the sneer in his voice. I howled with rage and floored it through Blackbird Leys, which is exactly the kind of place the BNP targets. He is slug slime in human form. I would like to pour salt on him and watch him shrivel.

joella

And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Pies

Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

Something very dangerous happened this weekend. An idle thought of M's met a Nigel Slater recipe. Together they opened the freezer to find a block of puff pastry that I bought on a whim a few weeks ago, and unto us a pie was born.

We ate the pie for dinner with our visiting friend C, who could not have done a better job of appreciating the pie had he been Desperate Dan himself.

The pie was filled with cheese, leek, onion, potato and cream. It was fucking amazing, pardon my French. It was so amazing that the next morning we ate another pie almost just like it, but with extra broccoli inside to make up numbers and baked beans on the side.

We spent much of our constitutional walk the next day playing Fantasy Pie League. C's pie will feature feta cheese and spinach. And I fancy one with mushrooms in, like a giant mushroom vol au vent.

The pie possibilites are endless. Who knew it was so easy? All those years in my teens I spent fannying around with a toasted sandwich maker, I could have been making pies instead!

*However* (and this is where it gets dangerous) how long before small boys start pointing at me in the street and shouting 'who ate all the pies?'. At two pies a day, it might be Wednesday week.

Maybe I should buy some earplugs.

joella

Lead in my pencil

'So you cut it there, and there,' said J the plumbing technician this evening, 'and then you put it up on the chimney and beat it vigorously'.

There must have been something in my expression, because what actually happened was I did the cutting, then held it in place while he did the vigorous beating part. Leadwork is so primitive. It really is about hitting metal with sticks.

I was very grateful for the help, it's the hitting with sticks bit I find most difficult. Cutting I got the hang of once someone introduced me to the left-handed snips, and my welding, on a good day, looks as it should.

It's odd isn't it, I said, that we spend weeks grappling with bending sticks and flat dressers and oxy-acetylene torches and shave hooks, then just as they stop feeling entirely alien in your hands you finish your chimney set and never touch the stuff again.

Well, he said, it's a dying art.

It is. It's dirty and heavy and poisonous and heavy and difficult and did I say heavy, but it's a remarkable material to work with. If you know what you're doing, you can make it do anything you want, as the rooftops of Oxford attest. Time was it was part of what plumbers did (the trade is named after it, after all) but now it's a specialist thing roofers do, and it just remains in plumbing courses for legacy reasons.

It will go soon, I expect, and I don't think anyone will miss it. But I guess I'm glad I've had the chance to have a go on it. Most of the time it makes you feel puny and/or all thumbs, but when you tap something round a corner and it goes exactly where it should, or you finish a perfect welded seam and lift your mask off like her out of Flashdance, you begin to see the point...

joella

Bad Person

I forgot my swipe card this morning. You can't get into the New Building without one, and if you forget it you have to sign a little book and get buzzed through the plexiglass. The lovely Front of House team never give you a hard time about this, but emails go round occasionally about all the extra work this generates for them when they already have tons to do, like buzz through people who don't have swipe cards at all and deal with random calls from the Great Global Public on the switchboard all day long. The people who write these emails are right. When I forget my swipe card I feel like a heel.

I had to go to the post room at lunchtime, which you also need a swipe card to get to. I asked my colleague, the gloriously named Spartaca, if I could borrow hers for ten minutes. Hey, I thought to myself as the door popped open, I'm Spartaca!

This thought kept me amused until I was nearly back at my desk, when I got waylaid once by someone wanting to talk about Kleinian psychotherapy and once by someone wanting to understand why she only had 24 hours to do the reading for a meeting I should have sent the papers out for last week. I talked anxiety and delivered apologies and sought solace (not found) in a pasta salad that clearly started life as a different meal on a different day.

And I forgot all about Spartaca's swipe card till I found it in my pocket after I got home. How shit do I feel now. How do you make it up to someone for leaving them having to wave plaintively at the security guard to get out and then having to sign the Book of Badness to get back in?

joella

Candle. Both ends burnt.

It's not often I get up at 8.30 on a Sunday morning, but that's what you do when you're convinced all the punts will be gone by 10.01. They weren't, but it was still worth getting there early.

Punting was in honour of E, W and little F, visiting us from Paris for the weekend. We also managed college sightseeing (New College garden! How have I lived here this long and never seen that before?), a walk in the country, the Boat Inn at Thrupp, smoked salmon in the garden, Nonstop Tango at the Wheatsheaf, Victoria sponge cake in Iffley Fields after lunch at the Victoria Arms, and gallons and gallons of vin rouge. I am *exhausted*.

This week: clean living, steamed vegetables, early nights. Honest. That's fizzy Ribena in the pint glass. It *is*.

joella