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Sunday, January 1st, 2012
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10:08 am - the year of swimming
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What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Swam a length! In fact, more than one, and quite literally jumped in at the deep end.
Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
No. I think I resolved to see friends more, and go out more, but probably went out less.
Did anyone close to you give birth?
Loads of people! Not super close mates, but I seem to hear about a birth every month, and there are at least two pending, that I know of
Did anyone close to you die?
No.
What countries did you visit?
France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy (the last three for the first time, and we may have passed through Austria, not sure.) Oh,and Scotland, where it rained constantly, as usual.
What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
A cat. An enormous living room and kitchen. (Not going to happen though.)
What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
24th April - I got engaged to a lovely man. He went down on one knee, and presented me with a ring in front of the cows! At the farm!Brilliant. He'd looked bloody shifty beforehand - obviously nerves, but the way he kept looking around, I thought he was preparing to rob the place, or at least have a big swear. Etched on my memory for other reasons 8th August, watching the riots, having to get up for the Eurostar early the next morning, and wondering what would be left when I got back.And the 13th August, the day after my birthday.(of which more later, as writers say.)
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Learning to swim! A slightly belated birthday present from Andy - ten lessons, and by the sixth we were actually diving in. All hail to Tamara, who is clearly a bloody amazing teacher. We were initially split into two groups, with us supposed to be a bit better, although still all non-swimmers. The other lot were still bobbing around with floats in the shallow end, while we were jumping in and backstroking a length.
What was your biggest failure?
Erm dunno. I've had a pretty good year really, although I haven't seen my family much. I saw my mum for the first time this year at Christmas, and didn't get to Manchester at all.
Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just the usual drunken bumps and scrapes. Had a migraine that kept me off work in April, and a stomach bug that meant two days off in November (at which point I texted one of my managers to ask him to get ice cream, meaning to text Andy.)
What was the best thing you bought?
Bought for me -my potato ricer! Bloody marvellous. Bought for someone else - Andy's telescope, for his birthday. We bought it jointly (well he put some extra money towards buying a decent one) and I have honestly never bought anyone any present that's so well loved, and constantly used six months later.
Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Well clearly I am going to say Mr Barding. He's so lovely, and will do anything to make me happy. I enjoyed the fact that he went on tour with MY friends (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) shewho and charleston) who he'd not met before and got on with so well.
Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
The rioters. Watching that made me genuinely sick. I did cry watching Hackney and Tottenham get smashed up, and Croydon burning.
Where did most of your money go?
Bills, petrol, oh ok, and shopping. And booze, but probably not as much as in other years. I only went after-work drinking once, all year, where I used to first in the pub, and last out.
What did you get really, really, really excited about?
My birthday week! Andy had already been away with the band for a few days, so I was looking forward to seeing him. See also, the Keith TotP tour, where he'd been away for even longer, with my friends!
What song will always remind you of 2011?
Anything by Crystal Stilts, I imagine. I saw them lots on their tour, and played the CD while driving to work a lot, but can't remember any titles. Also, Fuck You, I'm Keith Top Of The Pops, by, er, Keith. And probably Angela by the Blood Arm.
Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. Happier or sadder? Happier. Life's pretty fine (don't jinx it Rhoda.)
ii. Thinner or fatter? About the same, I suppose. Well my clothes still fit.
iii. Richer or poorer? Poorer. Well I'm not, but we as a couple probably are.
What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing on Livejournal (I didn't even celebrate its tenth birthday!) Seeing people. Cleaning the floors. Reading! (I have become so lax at reading - see next answer)
What do you wish you'd done less of?
Spider Solitaire. I have become bloody hooked, and I'm still losing much more than I win. All that time, wasted, when I have good books to read.
Did you fall in love in 2011?
Much more in love. Very much more.
How many one-night stands?
None, duh.
What was your favorite TV programme?
Misfits, This Is England (although it's grim stuff - no one can say they 'enjoyed' it,) Erm...Doctor Who? (Good heavens, I just Googled to see if Sherlock was this year (no) and a trailer came on the TV saying it returns tonight!)
Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No, Although I have recently admitted to myself that I dislike someone (not on LJ, no.)
What was the best book you read?
Like I said, I have been rubbish with books lately. This has probably been my worst year for books ever. I did enjoy both Jay Rayner's and Anthony Bourdain's (quite similar) eating adventures though.
What did you want and get?
A potato ricer! Gravy. A fishslice with no holes in it. Single serving casserole dishes. (Notice a theme?)
What did you want & not get?
To the end of this bloody questionnaire within a reasonable time.
What was your favorite film of this year?
I don't know, erm, The Kings Speech was bloody good. The film about Facebook was bloody awful though. I dozed off towards the end and woke up during the credits with a feeling of 'oh thank god it's over.' Of older films I liked Eden Lake and The Butterfly Effect.
What did you do on your birthday,?
I woke up in a dorm hotel room in Munich, with Andy and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Stilts">Crystal Stilts</a>*. It was a night off for the tour, so we drove to Switzerland, stopping in some little scenic town, because all the Americans wanted to see the castle. I can't remember the name of the town to save my life, and we didn't get to the castle, but the band treated me to a pig roast lunch. Then on to Switzerland, where it was drizzling, and we couldn't find anywhere to park, or get Swiss Francs to pay for the parking, etc etc. My god, I feel like I have been filling in this questionnaire for all of 2011. So I wrote about the whole tour <a href="http://missfrost.livejournal.com/869428.html"> here</a>. See Saturday for one of the most amazing days of my life - five star hotel, speedboat on the lake, ample food and drink, shooting stars...
(*I seem to have totally lost the ability to do html links, so I'm leaving them in that messy state in the hope that someone will tell me what I've done wrong, because I can't see it.)
1 thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying
More cash, is surely everyone's answer? More trips abroad? Yes I know I did plenty, but we couldn't go the St Omer Christmas market, as we'd wanted to. Erm, naturally straight hair, longer legs..? Oh and learning to swim before we went to Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) would have been fun - I just got to watch everyone else dive in while I sat on the boat.
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
None. Jeans, shirt over a camisole top, T shirts? I just don't bother any more, I rarely wear skirts, or jewellery.
What kept you sane?
Andy Barding! He's always there to call me Grumpybollocks, or similar, if I'm having a bit of a mood. He can always make me feel good. (He also, of course, drives me mental with his non-stop talking, and his Stuff. Heaps of Stuff. Everywhere.)
Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I never fancy anyone, other than the person I'm with. I know it sounds weird, and I have occasionally been worried about that. But I just don't.
Who did you miss?
My friends and family. I haven't even made the effort to see friends that now live in South London. I bought angel some presents in August and haven't given them to her, even though she lives near, and we have a bloody car!
Who was the best new person you met?
I would have to say the Crystal Stilts boys, and the Blood Arm (and Joel, who's not actually a Blood Arm, but gets categorised with them in my head.) And davidsmum.
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Never, ever, fill in those end of year questionnaires on New Year's Day
quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Ooh la la la la, he's Keith Top of the Pops.
current mood:  merry
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| Sunday, September 11th, 2011
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3:35 am - those were the actual days etk
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'I've just bought a calendar and it seems to feature an 11th of September. And they said it would never happen again!' So said a Viz letter, soon after what we now universally call 9/11, even though to the British that clearly means the 9th of November. But of course the event, whatever its name, is a truly shocking memory. I was working in an office where the internet was a new innovation, and already they'd firewalled anything useful. Except the BBC. My first and main overriding memory of the Twin Towers attacks is Wendy, from the call centre, walking into our office (accounts) and saying in a really quite urgent voice, 'a plane's crashed into the Twin Towers.' This was about 2pm, and all we could do was refresh bbc.co.uk to find out more. I read that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and I'd recently been there, and also to New York that year - seven months ago. I'd been on the Staten Island Ferry and taken my tourist photos of that view of New York, dominated by the Twin Towers. After a few hours of refreshing the BBC website at work I went home to my flatmate, who'd been at home off sick. She'd been with me on that New York/Washington holiday, and was now absolutely white with horror. Watching the rolling news with her I felt the same. The other day the BBC's London Tonight reported that 9/11 is now being taught in schools' history lessons. Of course it is, it's 'old' to today's 13 year olds. But we'd just been there. Carine and I watched it all that night in tears and shock. Our recent lovely holiday had had this happen. A friend of ours worked in one of the big banks, in Canary Wharf, and had a live video link to their New York branch. Yes, you can guess where that live link was. Darren posted up some transcripts of conversations from that day, and they were heartbreaking... too much. Apparently it was 'the day that changed the world.' Maybe it did. Maybe we can't fly to another country with ease any more. Maybe we wouldn't even want to visit another country after this. Maybe we can no longer trust anyone. Maybe we should stick to our own. Well if this is what God and Allah want, they're not welcome in my world.
I look forward to receiving the spam mail six months hence - gosh LJ really has died eh?
current mood: jolly
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| Thursday, August 25th, 2011
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12:43 am - see this through and leave
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I was earlier telling Andrew about how much I used to like the Cooper Temple Clause, and I realised that I'd got too tired to bring my 'what I did on my holidays' post to any sort of proper end, so the CTC have nicely provided the title to my rounding off (although I'm not leaving as such.)
On the Sunday night JB's parents were putting us up in La Rochelle, but didn't have room for seven guests so their opposite neighbour Kevin put up four of us. It was a lovely place, and obviously just their summer home - Mrs Kevin (I didn't catch her name) was a teacher in Winchester, and Kevin was something indefinable in the music industry. We spent quite a long time the next day wondering how someone could afford to have a second home a few yards from a glorious Atlantic beach. Clearly it was rented out to people the rest of the year as Kevin & Mrs Kevin and their two daughters' rooms were in the basement, separate from the rooms we had, but still, lots of money was involved there. We went across to JB's for breakfast and again his dad was overwhelmingly hospitable - as fast as we could eat the toast, croissants, pain au chocolat, four types of jam, fresh fruit, cereal, coffee and juice, they were replaced. JB's mom Nicole asked if we wanted coffee or tea. Andrew asked for coffee but I asked for tea and she was thrilled. 'I knew it!' she said, pleased with my being stereotypically English. The JB family are absolutely wonderful and we've exchanged details for when Nicole comes over here next year with a bunch of students, and if you ever happen to find yourself in La Rochelle I am sure they'd give anyone just as amazing a welcome.
We then set off back on the long drive back to Calais - just me and Andrew as the band were going on to Portugal a couple of days later, and then back to the US. Luckily Nicole had told us that the Monday was a serious Catholic bank holiday and everywhere would be shut, and she was right. (Kyle: What's the holiday for? Nicole: Mary ascends to heaven. Kyle: Oh! Good for her!) The only things open were service stations and a Carrefour where I stocked up on Dijon mustard. Dijon mustard isn't better when you buy it in France because it doesn't actually have a protected status - it doesn't have to be made in Dijon - but it's massively more cheap. €1 for a jar that would have been at least £3 in England, in a jar re-usable as a tumbler, and €2 for one in a wine glass shape. Why on earth doesn't the UK do more of that? It's the most basic and obvious idea of recyclability; jars with a peel-off lid that you can wash out and reuse as a glass.
But back to the service station route, and here's where we get deep into the (quite literal) bowels of my digestive system. It's not very nice. At home I tend to drink at least six cups of tea a day, and two pints of water, and usually some fruit juice, and I have a good diet with plenty of veg. After a week of mostly meat and cheese, with the occasional tiny service station coffee, my innards were in a bad way and sitting in the van for hours at a time was becoming very painful. After dropping off Kyle in Nantes where he was picking up a hire car I was finally free to say to Andrew, through gritted teeth, 'I am going to the toilet. I will be a very long time.' Ouch. But what a relief in the end. The van seat felt much more comfortable after that was out. Sorry there.
I'd booked the Monday night off work which was a bloody good idea as we were only just in time for our ferry, and then we got stopped by both sets of customs in France, and again in England. I'm not entirely sure what the point of the Calais ones was - French customs stopped us and searched the van, and UKBA customs stopped us three yards later. The UKBA guys had clearly watched the van get checked over by French customs, but still wanted their own go. And then on arrival in Dover we got the full lot. 'Driving a band sir? What band? So where are they now?' while they climb round the back of the van and bang all the panels. They didn't ask me to get out of the front passenger seat, which was full of stuff, so the main impetus is looking for immigrants rather than drugs, I think. And having been through this before with Andrew driving a band van with no actual band in I've realised that they send a guy up front who asks chummy questions like 'oh what band? Will I have heard of them?' not out of interest, but because they have mikes picking everything up, and someone listening in is checking whether that band is currently doing a European tour.
Andrew and I once went to Belgium for the day, just for the hell of it, and that was fun. 'So you went to Europe for no reason?' No. 'You didn't visit friends?' No. 'Didn't do any shopping?' No.' Buy any duty free?' No. 'You normally drive bands in a van, don't you sir?' Er yes (and how the hell do you know that?') But as we weren't actually carrying any illegal immigrants or drugs, and Crystal Stilts had checked out as having toured Europe recently, we were allowed home, via Brixton to drop the band's gear off.
On arrival home, the place hadn't burned down. I have no idea why, but for all my life, whenever I've been on a holiday longer than a weekend, I always arrive home convinced that my house will have burned down in my absence. I always round the corner and let out a deep sigh to see it still there. I have the same feeling about returning to my workplace after a long holiday, but that's more of an 'oh bugger it's still there. Oh well, back to work it is then' feeling.
current mood: merveilleux
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| Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011
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3:03 am - you asked for it
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For those of you who don't know/have forgotten/don't care/never thought to ask, my fiance (I don't think I've ever used that word) Andrew spends a lot of time tour managing or driving for bands. And so it came to pass that a couple of months ago Crystal Stilts, who he'd done a UK tour with earlier this year, asked him to do two weeks in August. Which is my birthday. Oh, said Andrew, that's right across my girlfriend's birthday, she might not like that. Maybe I could just do the UK leg? Bring her along man! said the band. Really? Yeah, no problem man, we'll just add a seventh person as far as the promoters are concerned. So that was sorted. I was working for the first week of the tour, half of which was in England anyway, and for the second week I was to make my way out there and tag along.
I finished my week of night shifts on the morning of Monday the 8th of August, had a couple of hours sleep, and then had a dentist appointment in the afternoon. And London erupted during that dentist appointment. Facebook had been abuzz with the word that it was going to kick off on Mare Street, and in the time I went and had a crown replaced and my teeth polished, it did. And then Croydon, Lewisham, Catford, Peckham, Walworth Road... getting nearer to me. It's always been quite irritating that my hood is purely residential - it's ten minutes walk to any sort of supermarket or row of shops, and all that's near me is a little offie that shuts at 9.30 - but on that day I was quite thankful. (And even the offie closed at 8 that night, it was all getting so bad.) So I combined my night of doing my final bits of packing with watching the quite terrifying news.
And then of course I started to overpack. As Andrew had gone off to Europe five days earlier, I had already packed clothes and sent them off with him, so all I needed was toiletries and maybe a book. But that quite quickly turned into the ridiculous I'm so terrifyingly well prepared that I must have missed something point where you start thinking 'should I take a pen?' I did not take a pen.
Tuesday So I got up bright and early and made my way to St Pancras to get the Eurostar, and the train to Amsterdam for a bargin £60. I missed the change for the Amsterdam train at Brussels Midi by mere seconds, so did have to spend an hour waiting for the next one, but that was no big deal - plenty of coffee/smoking/toilet time. (I had been to that station once before and seen that the train track was full of cigarette ends, but I wasn't quite sure if smoking was actually 'allowed' or simply 'turned a blind eye to.' On seeing three station staff smoking, I gave in.)
And so I finally arrived in Amsterdam, around the same time as Andrew had arrived there from Berlin with the band, but the parking was apparently pretty bad, so he said I should try and make my way to them, if possible. Absolutely not a problem. I had spent ages on the internet checking what tram to get, where to get off, how much it cost... I was sorted for making my own way there. Unfortunately the half-mile long tram station was currently under a massive redevelopment. Half of it was boarded off or behind scaffolding. I found the stop for the right tram, but there were no ticket machines around anywhere. I spent fifteen minutes queueing for a ticket machine that I finally realised was purely meant for topping up an existing ticket. After about forty-five minutes I finally managed to buy a ticket from a machine that only took cards, despite having about €20 in change. I got on a tram, and burst into tears at the sheer frustration of it all. Obviously I needed to Calm Down at this point. I was about to see my lovely, adorable Andrew for the first time in ages. It was meant to be a running into each other's arms romantic reunion, and here I was sobbing in frustration at the goddamn Amsterdam tram system, I decided I would have a calming fag on detraining. However I had chosen to ignore my phone, and Andrew had replied to my series of 'Waaaah! I hate Amsterdam!' messages by saying he would meet me at the tram stop. So the first thing I saw was him scanning the crowd for me, and my God he was a wonderful sight, and it was wonderful to hug and kiss him, but my sulking grumpiness took the shine off the whole thing. Sorry Andrew.
So he took me into the venue to meet the band and let me help myself to food and drink, and then by some bizarre coincidence thedavidx and davidsmum had also just arrived in Amsterdam for a holiday so we met them for drinks and a good chat, and we dragged them along to the gig, and the after-drinks... Fun was had. Susan fell in love with Keegan the drummer. We randomly met someone Andrew knew who took us on for drinks. The usual. Our hotel was clearly aimed at bands, having bedside tables made out of amps, lampshades made out of drums, and was also up an outrageous number of stairs. Nice hotel, although we had twin beds and Andrew kept falling into the gap.
[This is taking some bloody time, right? Either I'll resort to quickie bullet points soon, or I'll do a 'to be continued' and never bother, or I'll carry on and everyone will have skimmed down to something more Facebook bite-sized by now. We shall see. I'll try and curtail things. So...
Wednesday. Driving to Munich. Andrew and the band partook of the generous hotel breakfast, but I got up later and only had an apple juice, an orange juice, and a large glass of water, and then we set off and were driving all day with just the occasional service station coffee and bag of crisps until we arrived ten hours later in Munich. This is the reality of band touring - hours and hours of sitting in a van, with every venue offering you just meat and cheese to eat. Not much to say about that night really - I started to develop a massive sinus headache, and I was so overwhelmed with tiredness that I could easily have slept next to an amp. Hotel was okay - twin beds again, and right opposite an Apotheke.
Thursday. Sinus headache getting very bad. Andrew said he'd get me something if he could. I pointed out that we were right opposite an Apotheke, so he got me the marvellously named Rhino Pront, which did help. No gig that night but we were staying in Munich, at a hotel, actually hostel, that was the lowest of the low and in the middle of a refurb. All seven of us were in the same room in bunk beds, and Kyle (keyboard player) was on a mattress on the floor. The bathroom had a leak from the ceiling, the landing carpets were bare foam, the next-door cafe had the rudest waitress when she brought us the menu but we only wanted a coffee. But we all made the best of it, and me and Andrew made an excursion out to a lovely lake where we were attacked by a quite intense colony of ants. I was quite tempted to just drop a food item there and watch them go for it - I have never seen such a thorough ant invasion.
Friday. My birthday dawned. I opened my presents from Andrew in the van as most of the band had a long lie-in, and I'd really rather not do that sort of thing in public anyway. Andrew had (obviously) got me some wonderful and thoughtful presents - some books, some cows, some smoking stuff (which was quite surprising, from an ex-smoker, but much appreciated,) a much-wanted potato ricer and some cow oven gloves, and, er, a copy of Princess Diana's death certificate wrapped around a Charles & Di official wedding programme. And the guys from the band had all signed a card for me. Late afternoon we set off for our eventual Swiss destination, and stopped off at Fussen, in deepest Bavaria. Kyle was in search of some castle or other, but we never found it, and also fell victim to the European thing of eating meals at separate times of day. Being a British/American group we were vaguely expecting to be able to get a meal at 3pm, and spent hours trying to find such a thing. However we did find a place - speciality, pork - and tucked in, and the boys calculated that this could be covered by the tour costs, in honour of my birthday, and so I ate an outrageous amount of pork, potatoes, and fried egg. Andrew did point out that although we'd seen cows by the thousand, most South German food involved the pig, and yet we saw no pigs in all our journeys.
That night, after a brief pass through Austria, adding another country to be ticked off, we arrived in Bern, Switzerland. It was raining and it was grim and we took ages parking the van (we were cut up by some annoying Italians in the car park, unsurprisingly, but I didn't have to speak fluent Italian to realise how pissed off they were in the hotel to find out the menu consisted of pizza or spaghetti,) and then it took me an age to find a cash machine to get Swiss francs, by which time the bar was closed so I had to get machine coffees. And Andrew saw a shooting star and I didn't. So not the best birthday evening ever, but at least we actually had a double bed for the first time. And then...
Saturday. We'd stayed in Bern on the band's night off because it seemed to be not far away from Vevey, where the band were playing a small festival. We arrived at 12pm for soundcheck, and had the nice meat, cheese and drinks, but the band weren't playing until 11.30pm, so what were we to do all day? Word went round that we had a boat at our disposal, which we assumed would be a rowing boat, and assumed might not have room for all of us, so who was going to back out of a boat trip? It turned out that we had two speed boats ready for us, waiting to take us around Lake Geneva (which is really called Lac Leman, although the UK/US haven't really bothered acknowledging this.) And that was bloody amazing. All the guys took swimming gear and jumped off into the lake for a swim, and even though Brad hadn't brought trunks our driver (er, what is a boat driver called?) had spares to lend so he joined in, as did the driver - [French accent] 'They have showed the cour-age, so I must too.'] I haven't tried to swim, or owned swimming stuff, since I left school, and I genuinely do not know what my ability in swimming is because I could not swim as a schoolgirl, but I was a weedy kid, but am quite a muscly, strong older woman, so I didn't chance the swimming, but contented myself with dangling my feet into Lake Geneva, which was glorious enough. Having quite a few hours still to go before the gig, we checked into our five star hotel. And it was very much five star - free dressing gowns and slippers (those slippers may now live in SE16, you get me?) delicious complimentary chocolates, phone calls to check everything was ok, a range of smart bathroom products, a welcome letter with a postcard featuring the weather forecast, astonishingly fast broadband, and the view to end all views. The other guys in the band were facing the town, but me and Andrew had an enormous balcony overlooking the lake, where I watched the sun go down while listening to a tinkling piano with an entertainer doing easy listening classics which in the wrong place could have been tacky and risible, but at that point, on that day, it contributed to the feeling of everything being overwhelmingly wonderful. One of those stunningly amazing days that you will remember for the rest of your life as being so amazingly blissful and perfect. It was all absolutely stunning. I didn't have a deprived childhood, but I had a fairly ordinary working class upbringing, and it was odd that now I'd spent the afternoon on a leather-seated speedboat on Lake Geneva and was now sunning myself on a five star hotel balcony with an unbeatable view, surrounded by the Very Rich. And these people must have been rich. I was surprised that the hotel room didn't have tea making facilities, but looking at the room service menu with its CHF600 bottles of wine and the four pages of types of tea available I realised the type of people who stayed in hotels like that wouldn't even dream of making their own tea.
'You can pretend this is our honeymoon,' said Andrew, 'because we can't afford anything anywhere near this good.' So we went back to the festival to watch the other bands. We sat on the deckchairs as I'd suggested they might be good for shooting star viewing, with the Perseid meteor shower being due around my birthday. I had never seen a shooting star. Last year we were in France and it rained and rained so that ruined my chances, and as a child I spent time in the South of France where my mum and dad continually said 'There's one! There's one! Wow, did you see that one?!' and I never saw a bloody thing. Andrew had said 'what do you think they look like?' so I had suggested satellites, which I am familiar with, or maybe aeroplane contrails, and he had sort of said 'hmm' in the way that meant 'no they don't really look like that.' So I settled down in a deckchair and he went off to do work stuff, and there it was, a thing going across the sky. I can only describe it as movement similar to that when you watch a runner in the 100m on TV. It did not look the way I expected a shooting star to look, but I saw one, finally, and then I saw another two! Earlier in the day I'd thought I'd seen a friend of mine arrive with the other bands but I'd completely dismissed the idea after finding out the band (or singer of the band at least) was from New Zealand. Sitting on my deckchair while the band was on I heard the singer say something about Jules, who has just learned the songs. I said to Andrew, 'erm, that band that's on, have they got a black guy on the drums?' Andrew came back and said yes, so I wandered up to see them, and there was my friend Jules! So we had a big 'Jules?' 'Rhoda!!' reunion, having not seen each other for a few years, and it turned out we were in the same hotel, but I didn't actually see him after that. How odd though.
Sunday. A long assed drive. Again Andrew and the band partook of the hotel breakfast (apparently fantastic, mushroom omelette and three types of smoothie for Andrew) while I lay in, and then another punishing butt-achingly long drive. We arrived at La Rochelle, where JB's parents have a home, around 11.30pm. JB's mom and dad (American and French respectively) had catered for hundreds and wanted us to eat it all. We got massive servings of chicken and rice, followed by a cheeseboard, accompanied by wine, and then JB's dad took us on a walk to the sea, and round to the funfair. Andrew took a phone camera photo of us at this point, and despite us being overwhelmingly full of JB's mom and dad's food, and very tired, and it being drizzly and us not really wanting to walk round a funfair at midnight... we look happy.
current mood: in love
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| Friday, March 4th, 2011
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3:25 pm - the clapping song
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Brief Friday afternoon question. After hearing yesterday about the break up of a 15+ year long relationship, I had a large outburst of cynicism, and a debate at work concluded that the only lifelong relationships most of us have known are those of older people - grandparents mainly. But it was pointed out that that 'was a different generation.'
So who's got the better way - the older generation with their 'stick it out' mentality, which on the whole seems to even out over the years; or us with our 'hey, it's not working for me, I'm out' tendency? Is the second way more enlightened, or just selfish?
current mood:  cynical
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| Thursday, February 24th, 2011
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12:12 am - have you organised your street party yet?
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There's a Royal wedding coming up, you might have heard, and this is going to impact on my life quite massively. For part of my job, seven days out of fourteen, i.e. week on/week off, is to read every single newspaper story about the Royal Family, and summarise the gist of the article, in three-four lines of my own words. Also I (and my opposite week equivalent) have to take note of every cartoon printed, and every randomly used picture of a member of the Family - for example, last week an article about unseasonal weather was illustrated for no reason at all with a photo of 'The Queen in April 1981's unexpected snow.'
Therefore, when it comes to the actual wedding of Prince William and Kate 'Catherine' Middleton, I am going to be somewhat busy, especially with all the inevitable souvenir pullouts. That's me, writing three to four lines, about every single article in every paper, except the Daily Star (the company I work for considers the Daily Star to be a valid national daily newspaper, but The Queen clearly has no interest in what it has to say.) The engagement was announced on my week off, which was nice, but the date of the wedding wasn't, and the wedding itself is during my watch. I could very, very, easily have gone into work then and nonchalantly booked that week, or weekend, as a holiday. No one would have noticed at that point, however some part of me that's either suicidal or seeking martyrdom decided that really wasn't fair on anyone who'd have to cover for me, and besides, I've been doing Buck Pal for nearly three and a half years, so without hammering even harder on the self-martyrdom, I am actually the best person for the job. I am paying for this already, of course. Every single travel article slaps a picture of Wills'n'Kate alongside, and headlines it 'possible honeymoon destination?' House price articles focus on Anglesey (where they live), St Andrews (where they met), and Berkshire (Kate's parents' manor). Business articles hint of increased profits for Sky, Eurostar, and tea towel makers across the land. London and New York Fashion Weeks are full of the 'Kate Middleton' influence. Irish dissidents are joyously reforming to bomb the fuck out of the wedding, and global anarchists are planning to disrupt it. Yes, anarchists, planning. Check your dictionaries, anarchists. Vivienne Westwood even made front-page news by saying she's not designing Kate's dress. Well so what Vivienne? Adrian Chiles probably isn't designing it either, but he's not felt the need to make a public statement about it.
It's a lot of work, for me, but it's also very interesting to see other people's attitudes to this. (For the record, John Lydon is very pleased for them. Good old Johnny - he will never be a traditional rent-a-quote, my guess is that the journalist there was after some bile and hatred, so he 'rebelled' and gave them what they least expected.) You, or at least I, have to look at newspaper letters pages to see anyone who's actually happy about this wedding, but the general consensus is either that of ennui or actual hatred. The worst thing I have heard said was 'hey, maybe Prince Philip will die on the morning of the wedding!' So what you're saying here is that you want the grandfather of a complete stranger to die the day he gets married? Nice. This is no 'our heir must marry a virgin, get one, stat!' - they've been together for eight years, pretty much avoiding being seen together in public even so much as holding hands, and they want to get married now. Eight years is more than a lot of relationships I've seen recently, so fair play to them, let them enjoy their day. Yes, William is Very Rich, he's Royalty, he will be King one day, 'living off our taxpayers' money' etc etc, but funnily enough, that's not his fault. That's just the way it goes. (And most 'rich' people are that way because of your money anyway, money you've spent, on their products and/or services.) So what can he, or any other members of the Royal Family, do about that, that would please all those of us not born Royal, or who are actively anti-Royal? If any one of them said, oh, you're right, it's not fair that I'm Royal, I'm going to get a Proper Job and live in a nice little semi - or even if the Monarchy collapsed entirely - do you really think that the paparazzi and the red-tops would just say, oh, ok then, and leave them alone? And if you were bloody rich and privileged, would you give it all up because it's 'not fair' on poor(er) people? I'm certainly not that noble. Give me tons of cash and family homes anyday, thanks.
So on April the 29th, a fairly ordinary (in terms of being a 'couple') couple are to get married. You will get a day off. You can have a lie in, you can ignore it, you can go to a street party, you can 'rise up' and storm the Palace if you feel like it (good luck with that), or you could go to some anti Royal Wedding event. I, personally, will probably watch the wedding (because I have to) having just got in from a night shift, and then go straight back to a night shift and summarise every single detail of the day. I just hope the police don't kill any of the anarchists/Irish dissidents, because the Home Office is my other main client, so I'd have to write about all that too.
current mood: loved
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| Sunday, January 2nd, 2011
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11:08 am - there it was gone
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What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Went to Belgium, er, four times actually. I rather like Belgium.
Had a miscarriage. I'm quite surprised nobody noticed, because I was bloody enormous.
Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not 'close' but there was Stef and Hallie, and Lea and Gemma, and two of Andy's nieces.
Did anyone close to you die?
I lost a chum to a suicide. Again.
Did you keep all of last years resolutions, and have you any resolutions for next year?
I don't think I made any. This year I would like to see my friends more often.
What countries did you visit?
Belgium, France, Wales, Cornwall (yes it's a country.)
What would you like to have in 2011 that you didn't have in 2010?
£250 million. A cat. A cow.
What date in 2010 will remain etched in your memory?
May 17th. July 10th.
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Staying awake, sometimes.
What was your biggest failure?
Not staying awake, sometimes.
Did you suffer any illness or injury?
The odd banged head and grazed knee, but not much to write home about.
What was the best thing you bought?
My new little laptop. A bit of an impulse buy, but Andy was away for ten days so it was needed to be able to keep in touch.
Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Andrew, for organising a massive gig in memory of a friend. I have no idea why my html won't work, but it won't. http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/8266869.Tribute_to_TJ_s_legend_John_Sicolo_rocks_Newport/"
Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
The Lib Dems. I've voted Lib Dem since the days of the Liberal SDP alliance. I am never going to vote again. Never. I really mean that. Don't tell me my vote counts, because clearly it doesn't.
Where did most of your money go?
.Rent. Food.
What did you get really really really excited about?
Andrew coming home from tediously long tours, I suppose.
What songs will always remind you of 2010?
Hoots Mon. Sleepless in the New Seattle.
Compared to this time last year are you:
A. Fatter or thinner? Same.
B. Happier or sadder? Happier, but with added annoyance.
C. Richer or poorer? Richer. I paid off my bank loan, and had quite a surprise healthy payrise.
What do you wish you'd done more of?
Making an effort to go out.
What do you wish you'd done less of?
Going for a 'little nap' that lasted four hours.
How did you spend Christmas?
With Andy's family in Exeter. It was lovely.
Which LJ users did you meet for the first time?
Erm, none? LJ is like, so 2003 right?
Did you fall in love in 2010?
Yes. We were together for the last couple of months of 2009, but it very much became A Big Thing in 2010.
How many one night stands?
None.
What was your favourite TV show?
Misfits, Sherlock, Doctor Who, Corrie.
What was/were the best books you read?
This has probably been my worst ever reading year. Although I was happy to get Catching Fire for my birthday, and I have a few Christmas books to get through.
What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Drains. I was pleasantly surprised/not embarrassed.
What was your favourite film this year?
Moon (was that this year?)
Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Gosh yes. Two women that I've never even met, but their names appearing on Facebook actually make me want to kill.
What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?
I was 43. We started the day in Brussels, then travelled to Lille. There was supposed to be a spectacular show of comets, but it rained all night.
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
I wouldn't.
What kept you sane?
The internet, probably.
Who did you miss?
Holmes. I don't think I saw him all year.
Who was the best new person you met?
That's not an easy question to answer is it? Because anyone you don't name will be all 'what about me?' Although Carl Bevan and Anushka deserve a mention.
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned this year?
Unfortunately just a reinforcement of the old rules to trust no one, and don't believe a word anyone says. Oh well eh?
current mood:  blank
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| Monday, November 22nd, 2010
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6:30 pm - in which rhoda fails to remember how to do an lj-cut
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While I wait for a lamb casserole to cook, yet another in a series of 'oh I don't post much anymore do I?' space-fillers
( Yes it's a bloody meme. )
current mood:  hungry
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| Sunday, September 19th, 2010
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5:46 pm - we thought of wanitou
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When I was lumbered with the name Rhoda, it was obviously very unusual, and still is. That was the problem - it made me stick out at school for being the only one with an odd name. Absolutely every other girl was called Joanne. Well okay, there were quite a few Elaines and Karens as well, but there wasn't much variation, and Rhoda was just 'weird.'
These days the balance has tipped, and the odd kid in school is probably going to be the one whose parents haven't gone completely out of their way to come up with something 'original.' And so with a horrified fascination I present you with just some of the examples of today's children, whose proud parents have put them up for the South London Press Child of the Year Award.
(In no particular order, and surnames have only been included, in brackets, where they add something to the general sense of horror.)
Te-rene
Yoriance
Montana-Star
Harmony (Rhooms) Massage parlour?
Kevelle
Kenzi-Blue
Kevaughn
Aronas
Jordaine
India-Lee
Paris (Smith) Yeah, we wanted something unusual with such an ordinary surname...
T'nee
Kyllah Named after Ghostface?
Dontay
Jake-Kaci Is that meant to be transgender?
Poppie-Mac Ditto
Madyson
Kaysie
Maksyhiliah Good luck to all your future teachers taking the register.
Cheriane
Aarian He's not.
Blake (Sexton) Are you SURE?
Tenzin
Asharnae-Gloria
Uriah Not read any Dickens then?
Blu
La'Shea
Teddy
Sahai-Joanne Some sort of compromise going on there?
D'Andra-May
Shy-Lah
Indiyana
Sharamarah
Shamaree
Carloz
Iyshitaa Oh, come on, what chance has she got with a name containing shit?
Rio
Mia-Capri
Issa (Virtue) What is?
Leteia (Legister)
Nasharn and Gyron [Twins]
Kearah and Kameira
Roman and Raine
Angel and Destiny
Also a vast assortment of Jayden/Jaydon/Jaidens, and a couple of Mahlias, presumably after the Obama one. Seriously, this is just a dip into this eight-page bonanza of wrong. These could be our doctors, lawyers and politicians of the future. How could any of them be taken seriously as a bereavement counsellor or something?
current mood:  distressed
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| Thursday, September 16th, 2010
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5:24 pm - lively journal?
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Part XVII in a series on the theme Why I Don't Really Post To Livejournal Anymore is it then? Which is a shame because I think I need to use it more. I've recently noticed a tendency in myself to 'spill', that is, to be unable to keep things to myself and instantly blab about my personal feelings and emotions whether its appropriate or not. To have to talk about things in a new-age Californian style. I wasn't sure where this had come from, but I have now traced it back.
In 2000 I had a pretty weird time of it - I would have scored about 800 on this for a start - and took to keeping a handwritten spillage diary. Which was great. Then in September 2001 I took up Livejournal, which was greater! Not least because I can type a hell of a lot faster than I can write by hand. It was a massive gang of friends talking about whatever the hell we liked (remember when people used to grumble about Livejournal killing messageboards the way we now talk about Facebook killing LJ?) but had the added advantage that you could lock the entries so only a few friends could read it, or just yourself. I rarely subscribed to the locked entries thing, and I've always been proud of that. 95% of what's gone on here has been for general public consumption, there for anyone to read, as was proved when a complete stranger emailed me after Googling his own name and finding me taking the piss out of it. (Hi Avian! Oh, he's on Facebook now, should I add him?)
But I've recently been mildly irritated by someone saying things to Andy in Gmail Chat that I said about him here six months ago. Of course he's free to read it himself, but the fact that someone I've never met can instantly track down and quote something I said in March smacks of stalker, doesn't it? I'd completely forgotten about it myself, for a start. Creepy. And sad. I've also taken pride in my ability never to publicly insult anyone on Livejournal (except Avian, bless him. But he got the joke and took it all in good humour.) However, considering this person has no 'right' to be following my movements, let's speak directly to them.
He's just humouring you with your tacky photos and your conversations, and I do know the whole story. Leave it eh? Message ends.
Good grief it's 5.15. No respectable Livejournaller would have posted at 5.15 back in the day. They hadn't invented mobile internet then, and this is peak travelling home from work time.
This is a bit serious for me. Perhaps you can have a fun game of guessing which things on the stress test I was going through. And perhaps I'll come back tomorrow and write about why I find religion TERRIFYING.
current mood:  predatory
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| Sunday, September 12th, 2010
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11:37 am - why the long face?
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That there meme there - photo of self, now, no dressing up.
Look at that Grand Canyon frown! I'm quite happy and content really. Honest! You can see the huge amount of freckles I've amassed from a sunny 2010 - I don't think I've been this tanned since I was a kid. Which I will forget by November, and like everyone else I will be giving it 'huh, summer, what summer, we had one nice day...'
current mood: great!
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| Saturday, August 28th, 2010
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6:05 pm - purple shoes again rhoda?
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So I was watching the film of The 39 Steps (Kenneth More version) and remembering when we read it at school. I really can't remember which English teacher I had at the time - either Miss Huddart, or Mrs Chayter, but I have lots of memories of both, mainly Huddart, who was also my form tutor for a few years and would regularly tell me off for the non-uniform subject header. (I loved those shoes.)
Mrs Chayter was, like, cool, yar, like, down with the kids? She once introduced a conversation about 'the F word' and in particular, the Who ('why don't you just, f-f-f-fade away?' ooh, they're nearly swearing!) and I precociously pointed out that I'd recently watched Quadrophenia with my mother, who had said 'the big problem with this film is the swearing - we swore in the 60s, but we didn't say fuck.'
My actual overriding memory of Mrs Chayter is a thunderstorm that happened one day, but that's by the by. Oh, and the fact that she once got out our current read of Elidor and everyone groaned, and she had the grace/sense to say 'ok, you all hate this book. Let's ditch it then.' I actually was enjoying it, because it was set in Manchester, but I've never finished it since.
Miss Huddart was young and trendy - thinking back, she must have been about 15 years younger than I am now - and my dad fancied her to bits, as he used to tell me when parents' evenings were coming up; she looked like Olivia Newton John in Grease, post makeover, and this was very much of that year/era. She then became 'Mrs Watson' and we saw photos of her wedding. We were all quite amused at Mr Watson's beard...
So one day (back to the point, Rhoda) I was in an English lesson with Miss Huddart, and I became the hot topic of conversation. We had a big school building, split into lower school, middle school (I have no idea what point this served) and upper school, and we were expected to run between them. I tripped and banged my knee behind middle school (aka the swimming pool) between lessons, and got a piece of stone lodged in there (it still is) and I went to the lesson. Half way through I realised my leg was still bleeding, so I rooted around in my bag for something to clean it up. I was making my cousin Mina a dress at the time, so I got a bit of that material out to clean it. Miss Huddart had spotted me. 'Rhoda, if you have a problem, can you come to the front?' With absolutely no idea how this could be interpreted I said 'sorry miss, I've got blood pouring down my leg.'
All the boys stared with the excitement of observing a womanly period taking place. All the girls stared in horrified fascination. But I had just cut my knee, and the scar is still there.
Mentally, I guess.
current mood:  enthralled
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| Monday, May 17th, 2010
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12:22 pm - it costs more to divorce than to marry...
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Are you happy? Think about it. What if someone asked you that question right now and you absolutely had to answer. I watched a documentary on the very subject about 25 years ago and the main conclusion was that we put off being happy for no reason - 'I'll be happy when I earn X amount/have a lovely partner/lose this much weight...' and the consensus was, why wait? Just be happy NOW?!
I've learned a few things from people I've known. Mainly from Monica, a former workmate. Monica moaned about everything: the job, the people in the job, the weather, the price of cigarettes, the clients, the pay, the desks, her daughter's expensive wedding, babysitting the grandkids...If five of you were talking and one left, Monica would slate the one who had walked away, immediately. I found myself thinking that I do NOT want to be Monica. I do NOT want to be the person that drags everything down, and I think and hope I have succeeded in that.
And helping that is Julius, an absolutely ace Nigerian I worked with who was Monica's antithesis. He was enthusiastically happy about Britain and any problem that arose he would say 'aaah, never mind!' with a smile. Every problem could be overcome with Julius' ' God save thi qwin!' happiness, which he would chant quite a lot. I thought one day, would I rather be Monica who drags everyone down to her depressive level, or Julius, who brings you UP with his happiness? Who would I rather be around, for the rest of my life? The kids call it a no-brainer.I chose to be a cheery person. If you ask me at work how I am I will ALWAYS so OK! thanks to Monica.
So I always try to be a cheery person, thanks to you, you miserable bitch.
current mood:  exhausted
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| Friday, March 26th, 2010
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2:19 pm - nice day at the office
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I nipped out to the shop earlier taking just my keys and purse, and suddenly had this blinding premonition of myself being knocked down and killed while carrying no identification. What would happen? How would they know who to contact? How long would it take for my friends and family to find out? The guys in the shop would be aware I live opposite, but that's about 40 flats, would the police try my keys in all of them? Anyway, I've just realised my donor card is in my purse, so at least I wouldn't go to waste.
Morbid stuff huh? And possibly not the best thing to discuss with my other half as he's been at the funeral of a good friend (I am told Goldie Lookin' Chain turned up in suits) so maybe I'll keep the conversation away from WHAT IF I DIED? tonight.
Funny though, now I can't get my mind off WHAT IF I DIED? at all, like the worst earworm ever. I presume everyone else gets odd flashes of a possible future like that though. Not really premonitions, just times where your brain rushes through possible scenarios at top speed. When I was younger I used to think it was only me that was afflicted with it, and then we found a football in the street and my friend Paula said 'I just had this image of myself kicking it and falling on my arse...' so I realised I wasn't special at all.
Other than my friend from school Elaine (who is about to become a granny) I don't have any experience with sleep talkers (when I was staying over at Elaine's when we were about 14 she once sat bolt upright in bed and said 'WHAT? I NEVER said THAT!' and went straight back to sleep.) What are you supposed to do with sleep talkers, can you keep them going for hours? I woke up Andy the other day and he said 'I spent a shilling on those two photos!' Oh really, I said. 'Yeah, but everyone danced so it's ok!' Right. The laughing in his sleep was just bloody weird though, especially when he then woke up and asked me why I was staring at him. 'Er well, you've been laughing out loud for a good five minutes.'
I suppose nothing beats Carl, who once was clearly dreaming about being Batman or something, and reached over with his fist, hit me square in the mouth, and said 'THWACK!' out loud.
current mood:  nostalgic, as ever in March
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| Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
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2:11 pm - pink gravy
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Yeah man, so I'm going to do a meme! I am trying to make an effort to keep up with Livejournal, but it's all getting a bit pass-the-sick-bucket round here and people may not want to hear it, so meme it is... Actually, I might go for a cigarette and finish my coffee first.
( Tee ell dee arr )
Right, now what shall I do? Think about my stomach and filling it, probably...
current mood: content
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| Friday, February 26th, 2010
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11:48 am - i don't mind if you don't
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Various thoughts, mostly on shopping:
- Tesco Metro are now providing 10" square, tissue-thin carrier bags, presumably to make you use less, but unfortunately this means you need to use five where one would have done.
- 40 teabags £1.97, 80 teabags £2.19, so clearly you buy the 80. However I have 160 being delivered tomorrow afternoon. Tea party anyone?
- Tom at work would like to test the limit of the clubcard points system. You get 'green' points for using your own carrier bags, but does this mean you can tell the self-service machine you've brought 1,000,000 bags with you and collect the commensurate reward?
- My hot cross buns were nice, but my hands disturbingly smell of garlic from last night's dinner. Not sure they go together.
- Why is it impossible to spend less than £18 in Superdrug? I have never, ever managed to buy only one item in there. It's like plant food crack.
- See also Peacocks. I really don't need that many pairs of knickers.
- When did shoving your way past someone while bellowing 'SORRY' replace saying 'excuse me' first?
- I needn't even start on the disappearance of 'thank you.'
- When you have laughed at the eight people queuing for the Barclays machine and crossed over the road to use the Sainsburys one, you will find it broken and have to humbly cross back over again and get in line.
- How do I always manage to sit in the one bus seat where there's no bell in reach?
- Isn't it lovely out? Bit of a cold wind, but it's my cheerful day of the year - I always have a distinct ooh, spring is on the way markable day every year, and I have designated this to be it.
- I have had quite a successful week: paperwork sorted, cleaning done, lasted to payday on what cash I had.
- I have an enormous great fry up planned for tomorrow.
- I can't stop laughing at the way Greg Wallace forks his food into his mouth on Masterchef.
Right, I'm going to fill myself up with pasta and then lounge around in the sun for the afternoon. Alles gut.
current mood: excited
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| Thursday, February 25th, 2010
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7:51 am - he's good at heart
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It is my week off. And I don't get paid until tomorrow so I can't really do much. Theoretically I should be spending the week sleeping like a bear, but instead I have been up and about by 6am every day - today 5.30am, in fact. I can't seem to clock up more than five and a half hours sleep in a row any more. Thanks for that legacy, Thatcher.
Once I wake up I am thoroughly awake, and then my brain starts working away at me - psychoanalysing, wondering, giving myself a deep introspective clean-out. I'm getting pretty damn good at knowing what makes me tick and why I am the way I am, it's just not that bloody interesting. Why should I need to have such a deep, egotistical knowledge of myself? This morning Rhoda's super-ego has decided to go all Jeremy Kyle on the subject of home decor, or the lack of, specifically in the area of pictures.
I have no pictures hanging up. No paintings, no photos, posters, gold discs... no tastefully chosen art or nostalgia. And I don't know why. It's not as if I wasn't brought up with art, my mother is an artist after all, and I have personally seen people hand over hundreds of pounds so they can hang one of her paintings in their house. And I know what I like - I have my own tastes and favourite artists, and there are works that I love, but why the bare walls in my house? (At this point I should add that I have a mosaic mirror made by my mother hanging in the bedroom, but that hardly shows it off to visitors.) Also, apart from a smattering (well I say smattering, I may mean abundance) of cow stuff I'm not really into ornamentation or otherwise putting my taste on display. I occasionally see something like Come Dine With Me where they ask everyone to guess what another contestant's home will be like, based on their personality, and the guesses are usually spot on; 'very modern,' 'spotless and organised,' 'ostentatious,' or 'full of clutter.' Therefore I'm moved to wonder what this says about my personality. Am I quite obviously a person who would live with no visible imprint of their own personality? Does it, more worryingly, mean that I don't actually have a personality to speak of? I thought about the houses of friends and family, and it seems that other people do have paintings, photos, posters, gold discs, tastefully chosen art and nostalgia. Am I really that unusual?
Although I still wouldn't say this was a choice, or a conscious decision. I don't move into somewhere and think 'aha, bare walls! They can stay like THAT then.' It just never occurs to me to put things up. There are hooks in every room here waiting for paintings, and on moving in my landlady offered to put more up. Oh maybe, I said. Perhaps I'm just lazy. Perhaps it signifies that I'm never prepared to stay in one place, either mentally or physically. Never settling in or 'making myself at home.' Perhaps it says I like to keep my innermost opinions hidden (she wrote on the internet.) Deep eh? I think I'm prepared to stick with the lazy answer, but I'd be interested to know other opinions.
Showing the place to a potential flatmate last year, the guy, with whom I'd been getting on famously thus far, suddenly stopped in his tracks and said 'oh, you have no plants!' He said this with absolute horror. Not the 'oh is there no dishwasher?' sort of thing you get, more with the tone of 'oh, you have dead babies nailed to the ceiling!' He didn't move in. But I do have plants now. Cactuses.
From the top with the psychoanalysis...
current mood: fittingly blank
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| Friday, February 12th, 2010
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10:52 am - don't bother summarising the jokes
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In my job I gain endless amusement out of some of the 'crime' headlines in the regional newspapers - 'WHEELIE BIN SET ON FIRE', 'NUMBER PLATE AND WIPER BLADE STOLEN' - that sort of thing. Complete non-stories shoved in to fill up space. Last night I saw one that seemed more than the usual gubbins; MEN HUNTED AFTER SEXUAL ASSAULT ON GRAN ON TRAIN. This immediately brings to mind a vision of a frail 90 year old dragged into a toilet by a load of hoodies and subjected to a violent attack, doesn't it? Read on, as they say. A fifty year old woman, with her two teenage granddaughters, was making her way down a train past a group of 'rowdy' men, in their late twenties to thirties (stag do, rugby team?) when one of them pinched her arse. Pinched her arse. This merited a description of the man assumed to be guilty, a police constable statement on the seriousness of the attack, and a crime reference number for witnesses to phone Crimestoppers with.
Now without wanting to sound like Richard Littlejohn, what the fuck? (Of course he's not allowed to say that.) Men 'hunted' over a 'sexual assault'? A crime reference number? The trumped up nature of this story isn't even the fault of the paper, it's down to the 'victim.' Honestly. I ask you. Etc.
Anyway does anyone want a futon? The previous tenants of my flat left it behind so the landlady said it was mine to use or dispose of as I wished. It's been sitting in the hall (the hall is square) but now it's surplus to requirements as we want to put other stuff there, and it's no longer needed for guests as there's a whole spare bedroom now. The mattress bit is slightly grubby but could probably be cleaned up or cheaply replaced (it's red,) but the base is in good condition. It can probably be dropped off, within reasonable distance, but Andy's in Germany for the last week of Feb so it might have to be after that.
Speak up, or don't. I shall be at the New Royal Family tomorrow, along with the rest of the world, if you want to ask me about it.
I worked overtime the last couple of nights, but I'm not working tonight, so now I'm in that odd limbo of not being sure whether I should be asleep or awake and I can't decide if I need to eat or not. What to do?
current mood:  wired
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| Thursday, February 11th, 2010
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1:22 pm - merry christmas and happy new year!
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I keep thinking, well I don't really have anything amusing to say to Livejournal, I'm not inspired to say anything anymore, but maybe it's time to just ramble and say something, get myself back in the saddle, as it were. (Rhoda, you really shouldn't balance your tea on the settee - it's going to end in tears, and a wet bum.)
I've been very disconnected from my friends in the North (of the Thames) for some time. I don't get randomly invited to anything anymore, or hear from anyone, but that's partly my fault, because when I do get invited to things I more often than not decide not to go at the last minute, mainly on the basis that I won't be missed, or I'm tired, or it's raining/snowing/freezing, or I've been offered some overtime. I apologise for not turning up to your birthday or gig or whatever if you have invited me somewhere. I do still like you. I should make the effort. Sorry.
It's not as if I've been going to something else, just staying in, although it has been nice staying in recently. I've enjoyed having the flat to myself since the sudden departure of my odd-but-nice flatmate (who needs six copies of Das Kapital, in four different languages?) who was offered a PhD in Edinburgh and legged it before Christmas, but the financial constraints of paying for everything myself were getting a little wearing, again. (He legged it taking a desk I had paid for, but without bothering to ask for his deposit back, which I consider fair - to me.) So now my spare room is filling up with an odd collection of CDs, books, vinyl and videos. Absolutely enormous quantities of CDs, books, vinyl and videos. So many in fact, that my new flatmate will be forced to sleep in my room, therefore it's probably good that he's the chap we bafflingly refer to as my 'boyfriend.' Which is all very mature and exciting isn't it? Well, we're 'mature' in that we're both old enough to legally have grandchildren, but I'm not sure how 'grown up' we are.
Although I was thrown the other day when I jokingly suggested he could pick me up from work if it was raining and he said 'I'll put you on the insurance and you can drive your-bloody-self!' and I thought 'oh yeah, that's what couples with cars do innit?' (I can drive, but I've never been out with anyone else who can.) It's good having a car though, I'd forgotten - you can go places and do things, and watch Andy wonder why he has so much stuff when he never buys anything, and gently point out he just bought 20 singles at the car boot sale. Oh yeah, that's what I used to do on Livejournal isn't it? Digress.
So that's 2010 off to an interesting start. Does that mean I don't have to think of anything to write for another six months?
current mood: boxes of stuff
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| Sunday, December 20th, 2009
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1:10 pm - hello is that germany?
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Lots of Christmas films on today, for those of you, like me, who are spending the day wrapped in a quilt (well I'm also waiting for a Tesco delivery, although you don't have to be doing that.) I have just watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, in which Jack's smile on discovering Christmas Town is one of the greatest sights in the world. Also, the kid who gets a severed head...
Just started now there is a thing called One Magic Christmas, which is PILING on the agony and cliches - cutesy kids, no money for gifts, poor neighbours, house about to be repossessed by evil landlord, downtrodden mom who has lost the spirit of Christmas - presumably for Harry Dean Stanton's angel (huh?) to make it all the more brilliantly merry by the end. I know I have actually seen this film before, but on this occasion I think I am just going to fill in the happy ending myself, and switch over for the Alistair Sim Scrooge at 1.40. Superb stuff.
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is also on at the moment. I have no plans to watch that, nor Christmas With The Kranks (I have no idea, but I think I am fair in judging it by the title.) And later it's the remake of Miracle on 34th Street, which is one of the few acceptable remakes ever to have been made in the world of film. The original is on Film4 on Christmas Eve, for sticklers.
Unfortunately Scrooged, one of my favourite Christmas films, is not being shown until the 29th, which is bloody useless, but I plan to splash out £1.94 for the On Demand one at some point.
Hmm, I am feeling much more festive and merry this Christmas than I usually do. I even had mulled wine last night and the house still smells nicely of it.
current mood: festive
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