Entirely unrelated to Musical Monday, I hadn't wanted to bring down the tone of yesterday's post with far more commercial ramblings. But it goes a little like this.
Late last week, the rumours that Pearl Jam would be performing a one-off low key gig at London's Astoria were proved to be true, after a false start when Jon failed to win a pair of tickets from the fan club with perseverence an early start the next morning he managed to secure us two tickets. For anyone (that is, probably most people who read this) who doesn't know why this is a big deal -- the last time we saw Pearl Jam play, they sold out arenas. The Astoria has a capacity of 1200 people -- compared to Wembley Arena's 10,000. Tickets sold out within minutes, and have since been selling on ebay for upwards of a grand a pair.
Nick apparently sulked when Jon told him he'd bought two tickets -- for us -- and hadn't told him. "I didn't think you were a fan" Jon told him, which is true
"I am" he replied "I own two of their albums"
When questioned on which albums they were he could name only Ten, claiming he couldn't remember 'the other one'. So he's clearly a very big fan.
Yesterday this year's Reading festival (or as it's known these days "The Carling Weekend Festival: Reading") lineup was announced. And after months of speculation, it was announced Pearl Jam were to headline the Sunday night.
There was a similar rush for tickets when they went on sale a short while later, and Jon did the decent thing by buying Nick a ticket this time.
Besides, we need someone to drive the RV we're planning on renting for it.
I'm as excited at some of the much smaller bands playing -- in particular the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Raconteurs are high on my list, although I was disappointed there isn't a recently-reformed Smashing Pumpkins on the bill. And that's it for Music Tuesday -- we have tickets to see Pearl Jam at one of the city's best venues, and tickets to Reading festival.
Now I just need a new job to pay for this decadence...
Tuesday, 4 April 2006
Monday, 3 April 2006
Musical Monday
I discovered today that Mondays in this neck of the woods, according to the Noir-inspired WDKY, are Musical Monday. In honour of this there is now a link in the sidebar, and I have configured the Last.fm recently played list so it looks better and actually seems to fit inside the frame.I wish I could be all Indie Rock Pete and make it new music Monday, and talk about lots of obscure bands nobody has heard of or would want to hear of, but I'm just not that cool.
Instead, today I bring you the sublimely talented jazz trumpeter, Mr Wynton Marsalis. According to my 'Penguin Guide to Jazz' (Cook & Morton, 1997) Marsalis is "the most powerful jazz musician in America today".
Born in New Orleans on October 18, 1961, to the relatively obscure musician Ellis Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis is one of six brothers, including Branford Marsalis and Delfeayo Marsalis.
A kind of child prodigy, Marsalis quickly went from learning the trumpet as a child, to playing concertos and funk bands in his teens, before going on to study at Juliard. At 20 he was leading a new traditionalism in jazz -- and from then his influence has only grown, from joining Art Blakey in 1981, forming a band with his brother Branford in 1982 and since 1992 his position as Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Friday, 31 March 2006
Can you dig it?
Thursday morning I had to get up even earlier than I had on Wednesday.
I got up early on Wednesday to see a job agency in London about a career in media sales. A well-paid, but ultimately soulless job. A job where I have to try and convince them I don't really just want to be a writer. Why do I have to spend so much time in my life trying to convince people I don't just want to be a writer, when that's the opposite of the truth? To even be accepted for my post-grad I had to convince them that although I just wanted to write, and cared about little else, I wasn't just -- in their words -- "a frustrated novelist". I had to tell them, no I want to be a serious and professional journalist.
Now I have to tell prospective employers about walking the streets of some run down Leicester suburb in the cold and the rain and feeling miserable, about how that's what it was like to be a journalist for me. I tell them, it's after midnight on Christmas eve and you have to call a family whose baby just died and get an interview. It's not me.
But when you're not chasing down leads and digging up scoops or rewriting a dull press release about a flower show, I sort of liked it. I would be very happy sitting at my little desk at the newspaper, writing. Maybe I should have just tried harder?
I got up early, because I had an interview with a publishers about selling classified space and I think maybe the interviewer was crazy, I didn't convince him well enough of my ability to "sell" and I might have protested a little bit too much about not wanting to be a journalist.
He asked me at the end what I was doing next, at the end of the interview, and I said merely I would be going home. I didn't. I didn't feel like going home, so I asked Deb if she wanted lunch. Unfortunately, she eats early and said I should have mentioned it earlier. So then I decided what I would do is dig stuff.
Digging stuff is what I did a lot in places like New York and San Francisco, and to a lesser extent on my travels in Portugal, in France and in Ireland. It involves having no real purpose, no sightseeing, no idea of where you are going -- but just digging it. Looking at things, appreciating them, thinking "I wonder what's down that street?".
I wandered around Soho in a sort of big circle, then without any purpose or idea of where I was going I walked to Victoria, via Leicester Square and Buckingham Palace. I know I said it didn't involve sightseeing, but I found it by accident. And it doesn't look very palatial to me. I toyed with the idea of going to a gay bar, or pub, for a drink, but couldn't be bothered any time I saw one. I also got stopped three times by charity muggers in Leicester Square, all for Amnesty International.
The first one was a cute girl, and it seems this is a deliberate tactic on their part -- it's always cute girls. But her charms didn't work on me -- despite pretending to be flirty and asking me my name and what Jay was short for and saying she preferred Jay and me asking her name, and what Jo was short for. I told her I already supported the cause, which is a lie. But I was wearing a smart black suit, there was no way I could try and convince her I dont have the money and I'm really just a bar tender earning minimum wage and don't even work full time hours. That I'm really just a frustrated novelist, and secretly amused that in my suit everyone in London assumes I have a real job. Like them. Apart from the Scottish alcoholics in Kings Cross drinking special brew outside the station, I don't think they have proper jobs either.
My agency keep calling me now. I'm meant to be filling out an application for another job, it amuses me the application asks of my career aspirations for the next 5 to 7 years, leaves space for a few lines and says I can attach more sheets if I need to. Plural, sheets. Like I am going to write pages and pages about where I see myself in media sales.
Maybe I see myself being fantastic at my job earning a lot of money. Moving out, buying an expensive car and Ikea furniture and lots of shiny electrical goods and rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats...you get the idea. Forgetting my idealist youth. Forgetting wanting to see Asia, or travel the world with a notebook and camera. Being consumed with sales targets and quarterly budgets and year on year growth. I can't tell them any of this. And so the application form remains undone, and they keep leaving pointed messages on my voicemail about it.
They want to discuss feedback from the interview -- they use exactly that phrase, give nothing away about potential second interviews maybe because there isn't one. And I want to tell them I've changed my mind. I've registered with other agencies for editorial work, for the work I insisted so much I dont want. Or maybe I can tell them a rival agency found me a job in sales first. Or maybe I should just fill out the forms and go to these interviews and try and get the sales jobs, because any job is surely better than no job.
In my interview the guy mentioned how they had a long training process so they had just the right people for the job, and not someone who would quit after 6 months to go travelling around Asia. I hoped my look of horror gave nothing away.
I got up early on Wednesday to see a job agency in London about a career in media sales. A well-paid, but ultimately soulless job. A job where I have to try and convince them I don't really just want to be a writer. Why do I have to spend so much time in my life trying to convince people I don't just want to be a writer, when that's the opposite of the truth? To even be accepted for my post-grad I had to convince them that although I just wanted to write, and cared about little else, I wasn't just -- in their words -- "a frustrated novelist". I had to tell them, no I want to be a serious and professional journalist.
Now I have to tell prospective employers about walking the streets of some run down Leicester suburb in the cold and the rain and feeling miserable, about how that's what it was like to be a journalist for me. I tell them, it's after midnight on Christmas eve and you have to call a family whose baby just died and get an interview. It's not me.
But when you're not chasing down leads and digging up scoops or rewriting a dull press release about a flower show, I sort of liked it. I would be very happy sitting at my little desk at the newspaper, writing. Maybe I should have just tried harder?
I got up early, because I had an interview with a publishers about selling classified space and I think maybe the interviewer was crazy, I didn't convince him well enough of my ability to "sell" and I might have protested a little bit too much about not wanting to be a journalist.
He asked me at the end what I was doing next, at the end of the interview, and I said merely I would be going home. I didn't. I didn't feel like going home, so I asked Deb if she wanted lunch. Unfortunately, she eats early and said I should have mentioned it earlier. So then I decided what I would do is dig stuff.
Digging stuff is what I did a lot in places like New York and San Francisco, and to a lesser extent on my travels in Portugal, in France and in Ireland. It involves having no real purpose, no sightseeing, no idea of where you are going -- but just digging it. Looking at things, appreciating them, thinking "I wonder what's down that street?".
I wandered around Soho in a sort of big circle, then without any purpose or idea of where I was going I walked to Victoria, via Leicester Square and Buckingham Palace. I know I said it didn't involve sightseeing, but I found it by accident. And it doesn't look very palatial to me. I toyed with the idea of going to a gay bar, or pub, for a drink, but couldn't be bothered any time I saw one. I also got stopped three times by charity muggers in Leicester Square, all for Amnesty International.
The first one was a cute girl, and it seems this is a deliberate tactic on their part -- it's always cute girls. But her charms didn't work on me -- despite pretending to be flirty and asking me my name and what Jay was short for and saying she preferred Jay and me asking her name, and what Jo was short for. I told her I already supported the cause, which is a lie. But I was wearing a smart black suit, there was no way I could try and convince her I dont have the money and I'm really just a bar tender earning minimum wage and don't even work full time hours. That I'm really just a frustrated novelist, and secretly amused that in my suit everyone in London assumes I have a real job. Like them. Apart from the Scottish alcoholics in Kings Cross drinking special brew outside the station, I don't think they have proper jobs either.
My agency keep calling me now. I'm meant to be filling out an application for another job, it amuses me the application asks of my career aspirations for the next 5 to 7 years, leaves space for a few lines and says I can attach more sheets if I need to. Plural, sheets. Like I am going to write pages and pages about where I see myself in media sales.
Maybe I see myself being fantastic at my job earning a lot of money. Moving out, buying an expensive car and Ikea furniture and lots of shiny electrical goods and rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats...you get the idea. Forgetting my idealist youth. Forgetting wanting to see Asia, or travel the world with a notebook and camera. Being consumed with sales targets and quarterly budgets and year on year growth. I can't tell them any of this. And so the application form remains undone, and they keep leaving pointed messages on my voicemail about it.
They want to discuss feedback from the interview -- they use exactly that phrase, give nothing away about potential second interviews maybe because there isn't one. And I want to tell them I've changed my mind. I've registered with other agencies for editorial work, for the work I insisted so much I dont want. Or maybe I can tell them a rival agency found me a job in sales first. Or maybe I should just fill out the forms and go to these interviews and try and get the sales jobs, because any job is surely better than no job.
In my interview the guy mentioned how they had a long training process so they had just the right people for the job, and not someone who would quit after 6 months to go travelling around Asia. I hoped my look of horror gave nothing away.
Tuesday, 28 March 2006
Sorry is the fool who trades his love for hi-rise rent
I'm tired and slightly hungover and my legs hurt from going to the gym yesterday, so it's probably not the most coherent time for me to try and update. But I will anyway.
Work is just the same as ever, largely uneventful. I don't hate my job, but I know it's time to move on -- and as quickly as I can. I don't know what -- if anything -- will come of my interview with the media sales agency tomorrow. I've heard stories of these places making you take tests, then later claiming not to have any vacancies and being left hanging. But we shall see. I need to make a list of other options, or like in High Fidelity make a list of my ideal jobs. I think I can cross "astronaught" off the list these days.
On a personal level, I'm fine. Not exactly happy with where things are in my life, but they can be a lot worse. I'm just restless and bored. The more observant among you will notice a distinct lack of the name Lyndsay. Since she moved out of her apartment, I haven't heard a peep from her. She warned me she might not have internet while she stayed with friends, and I forget now how long she was staying with them for. This is why previous to her relatively recent reemergence in my life there's not been any mention of her -- she vanishes entirely for months, and with no diary to read or emails or...anything, feelings for her just get shelved. Of course, they're still there in the background, but life just goes on day to day without much thought.
Heard nothing from Expedia, but still hope each day for a letter or a phone call. A woman at work was saying the other day how her daughter is travelling through Thailand and Viet Nam on a moped, or something. It made me think of how I told Expedia the perfect blue sky I'd seen was in Phuket, I've never been to Asia but now I want to travel it on a motorbike. A sort of Asian take on Ernesto 'Che' Guevara's motorcycle diaries... I do fancy myself as a revolutionary, even though I'm about as revolutionary as a carrot.
It bears some thought, though, if you can follow my train of thought -- I've been reading my "Teach Yourself Zen" book lately. On Sunday on my break at work, I went outside and sat in my parked car. It was raining, but I wanted to get out of the pub for just a short while -- so I sat in my car, listening to the radio and the rain and read a chapter about meditation and concentration. Along with a page I recently stumbled upon -- Field Notes on the Compassionate Life -- I'm reminded of Guevara's quote, that the true revolutionary should always be guided by feelings of love. Maybe these things all tie together, in a way.
And entirely of topic, while searching google for today's title I found this instead. I can't decide if this is something I should read, or something I abhor.
Work is just the same as ever, largely uneventful. I don't hate my job, but I know it's time to move on -- and as quickly as I can. I don't know what -- if anything -- will come of my interview with the media sales agency tomorrow. I've heard stories of these places making you take tests, then later claiming not to have any vacancies and being left hanging. But we shall see. I need to make a list of other options, or like in High Fidelity make a list of my ideal jobs. I think I can cross "astronaught" off the list these days.
On a personal level, I'm fine. Not exactly happy with where things are in my life, but they can be a lot worse. I'm just restless and bored. The more observant among you will notice a distinct lack of the name Lyndsay. Since she moved out of her apartment, I haven't heard a peep from her. She warned me she might not have internet while she stayed with friends, and I forget now how long she was staying with them for. This is why previous to her relatively recent reemergence in my life there's not been any mention of her -- she vanishes entirely for months, and with no diary to read or emails or...anything, feelings for her just get shelved. Of course, they're still there in the background, but life just goes on day to day without much thought.
Heard nothing from Expedia, but still hope each day for a letter or a phone call. A woman at work was saying the other day how her daughter is travelling through Thailand and Viet Nam on a moped, or something. It made me think of how I told Expedia the perfect blue sky I'd seen was in Phuket, I've never been to Asia but now I want to travel it on a motorbike. A sort of Asian take on Ernesto 'Che' Guevara's motorcycle diaries... I do fancy myself as a revolutionary, even though I'm about as revolutionary as a carrot.
It bears some thought, though, if you can follow my train of thought -- I've been reading my "Teach Yourself Zen" book lately. On Sunday on my break at work, I went outside and sat in my parked car. It was raining, but I wanted to get out of the pub for just a short while -- so I sat in my car, listening to the radio and the rain and read a chapter about meditation and concentration. Along with a page I recently stumbled upon -- Field Notes on the Compassionate Life -- I'm reminded of Guevara's quote, that the true revolutionary should always be guided by feelings of love. Maybe these things all tie together, in a way.
And entirely of topic, while searching google for today's title I found this instead. I can't decide if this is something I should read, or something I abhor.
Thursday, 23 March 2006
Follow the bar room blood
I updated my previous entry on going to Birmingham, but figured I'm still not satisfied and it gets a whole new post. Yesterday morning's post brought me a large, plain brown envelope.
I opened it, unsure of what it could be, and I saw the headed paper of the company. In my haste to get the letter out of the envelope I saw there was a second page, containing some kind of a list.
A list! A list of outlets with job openings! Jobs I could then apply for and get the hell out of here! I was excited.
I read the letter, and frowned with confusion at: "I write to advise that regrettably you have been unsuccessful on this occasion..."
Then what the hell was the second page, I thought?
I didn't bother to read the rest of the letter, instead I went straight to the second page. What I had mistakenly presumed to be a list out vacancies was instead feedback.
It more or less confirmed what I had expected on the day. I scored well on the interview, was criticised in the group assessment for not contributing as much as I could have, and for letting others take control of the group. This annoys me now almost as much as it did on the day. I was pissed off at one guy in particular who dominated the exercise and I was unable to get a word in. I had since hoped he might be considered unfavourably for this -- and who knows, maybe he got feedback telling him to rein in his ego. And I socred poorly on numeracy and the profit & loss accounts, despite my revision.
If we look at the score board, this gives me a total of four rejections for working as an assistant or trainee manager in licensed retail, two of the four coming from the same company. I think I can take the hint now.
Don't let it be said I'm not pro-active though, I have already arranged a job interview for next week to work in media sales. Whether I will like the work if I even get it is a whole other matter, but I can't say I'm particularly thrilled with the badly-paid and unsociable job I have right now either.
I opened it, unsure of what it could be, and I saw the headed paper of the company. In my haste to get the letter out of the envelope I saw there was a second page, containing some kind of a list.
A list! A list of outlets with job openings! Jobs I could then apply for and get the hell out of here! I was excited.
I read the letter, and frowned with confusion at: "I write to advise that regrettably you have been unsuccessful on this occasion..."
Then what the hell was the second page, I thought?
I didn't bother to read the rest of the letter, instead I went straight to the second page. What I had mistakenly presumed to be a list out vacancies was instead feedback.
It more or less confirmed what I had expected on the day. I scored well on the interview, was criticised in the group assessment for not contributing as much as I could have, and for letting others take control of the group. This annoys me now almost as much as it did on the day. I was pissed off at one guy in particular who dominated the exercise and I was unable to get a word in. I had since hoped he might be considered unfavourably for this -- and who knows, maybe he got feedback telling him to rein in his ego. And I socred poorly on numeracy and the profit & loss accounts, despite my revision.
If we look at the score board, this gives me a total of four rejections for working as an assistant or trainee manager in licensed retail, two of the four coming from the same company. I think I can take the hint now.
Don't let it be said I'm not pro-active though, I have already arranged a job interview for next week to work in media sales. Whether I will like the work if I even get it is a whole other matter, but I can't say I'm particularly thrilled with the badly-paid and unsociable job I have right now either.
Wednesday, 22 March 2006
Yes, I know it's really annoying
Annoying
I was sent the above link today, and all I can think of when I hear it is how much money it would make if you were to remix it and release it commerically. How would that be for annoying, hearing it everywhere you go... You could live off the royalties after that.
Among all my grumbling about being ripped off on the price of a train ticket I completely forgot to mention something. Or things. I arrived at Birmingham New Street station and it gave me such a strange feeling of deja vu as throughout my first year at university, I had to change trains there every weekend when I visited Fi. To be completely accurate, first I got lost my leaving the station and having no idea where I was meant to be going. So I walked round the block, and found an entrance into the shopping centre -- remembering there was some kind of way to go from one to the other without going outside.
I had planned my journey so I had plenty of time at the station before I needed to be finding where the assessment centre was, so I was in no particular hurry. I found my way back into the station, into the main concourse, and was on my way to find something to eat when a girl said to me: "Travel the world for free?"
"Thanks, I don't mind if I do" I said, and took the leaflet she was holding out to me.
It turns out she was working for Expedia (the travel site), and promoting their competition to find a "blue sky explorer"; someone to travel the world taking pictures and keeping a travel diary, in search of the perfect blue sky. The entry form was tricky, asking you to describe the most inspiring place you've visited -- in 20 words, and about 2 short lines. Or to explain where you feel you have found the perfect blue sky. I was so tempted to write for the second question: "I haven't found it yet, that's why you should pay me to go look for it".
I thought it would be cute, but not likely to impress them. Instead, I described the how on the island of Phuket after a sudden rain shower, the sky opens up before you. I've never been to Thailand, as it happens, but I liked how it sounded. And for the record, my inspiring place was the Moab desert where I once sat and meditated on a rock, and felt a glimpse behind the curtain.
I don't know if anything will come of it, but I felt it could almost have been a sign -- I was meant to be in that station, at that time, in order to pick up a leaflet for this once-in-a-lifetime experience that would be so exactly what I want to do with my life. And nothing to do with the job I went there for. More likely, it is just one of those things -- I expect every single person you stop in the street would love the chance to travel, take pictures and write about it. Some of them might be better photographers, or better writers. But I still think I would be the person for the job.
Short of that, someone help me remix that annoying song...
I was sent the above link today, and all I can think of when I hear it is how much money it would make if you were to remix it and release it commerically. How would that be for annoying, hearing it everywhere you go... You could live off the royalties after that.
Among all my grumbling about being ripped off on the price of a train ticket I completely forgot to mention something. Or things. I arrived at Birmingham New Street station and it gave me such a strange feeling of deja vu as throughout my first year at university, I had to change trains there every weekend when I visited Fi. To be completely accurate, first I got lost my leaving the station and having no idea where I was meant to be going. So I walked round the block, and found an entrance into the shopping centre -- remembering there was some kind of way to go from one to the other without going outside.
I had planned my journey so I had plenty of time at the station before I needed to be finding where the assessment centre was, so I was in no particular hurry. I found my way back into the station, into the main concourse, and was on my way to find something to eat when a girl said to me: "Travel the world for free?"
"Thanks, I don't mind if I do" I said, and took the leaflet she was holding out to me.
It turns out she was working for Expedia (the travel site), and promoting their competition to find a "blue sky explorer"; someone to travel the world taking pictures and keeping a travel diary, in search of the perfect blue sky. The entry form was tricky, asking you to describe the most inspiring place you've visited -- in 20 words, and about 2 short lines. Or to explain where you feel you have found the perfect blue sky. I was so tempted to write for the second question: "I haven't found it yet, that's why you should pay me to go look for it".
I thought it would be cute, but not likely to impress them. Instead, I described the how on the island of Phuket after a sudden rain shower, the sky opens up before you. I've never been to Thailand, as it happens, but I liked how it sounded. And for the record, my inspiring place was the Moab desert where I once sat and meditated on a rock, and felt a glimpse behind the curtain.
I don't know if anything will come of it, but I felt it could almost have been a sign -- I was meant to be in that station, at that time, in order to pick up a leaflet for this once-in-a-lifetime experience that would be so exactly what I want to do with my life. And nothing to do with the job I went there for. More likely, it is just one of those things -- I expect every single person you stop in the street would love the chance to travel, take pictures and write about it. Some of them might be better photographers, or better writers. But I still think I would be the person for the job.
Short of that, someone help me remix that annoying song...
Sunday, 19 March 2006
Swindled (part 2)
Updated: 22/03/10
Nothing more came out of the incident on Tuesday night, but on Thursday morning I was reminded that when it comes to being cheated a lone con artist is nothing at all compared to the companies that rip us off on a daily basis.
On Thursday morning I had to make my way to Birmingham for an assessment day for a company's graduate scheme. From here, Birmingham is a drive of about 3 hours, or you can take the train. I had originally considered driving, just because I can, but because I had to be there for midday and had to work the night before, I figured I would have to either drive late on Wednesday night, or very early Thursday morning. Instead I figured I'd let the train take the strain.
The journey was fairly simple -- one train into London, then another train out of London to Birmingham -- arriving early and giving me plenty of time.
I've been telling friends to guess how much my ticket cost me. "£40?" they might say, figuring that's quite a lot of money to spend on a train ticket. "60 quid, maybe?"
To the first, I tell them "Close, but try multiplying it by three."
In fact, a return ticket to Birmingham cost me £134.
A return flight from London to Barcelona would cost me no more than £50.
For another £50 on what I paid for my train ticket, I could fly to New York.
I could save £50 on my train ticket and get a six-week course of personal training at my gym.
Or for the same money I could buy a brand new pair of boots for my snowboard.
These are all items I would have dismissed as things I can't afford -- things I probably have the money for, but shouldn't spend. But on Thursday morning with the morning's commuters and dressed up in smart black suit I had no other option but to hand over my card.
The assessment day itself was unremarkable. A group exercise, numeracy tests, an individual interview and discussion about my business plan. It could go either way. I might have let myself down in the group exercise, or my numeracy skills might have failed me in the tests. The interview itself I was very happy with. And at the end of the day in a different city with a different set of commuters and snow blowing in the air, there was nothing else to do but get on the train and come back home.
People keep saying to me I should have booked my ticket in advance. Yeah, I say, I realise that now -- but I had no idea the ticket price could possibly be that much, and I didn't know what time I would be returning. I just had better get a job out of this now.
Update: I got my rejection letter today. That didn't take them long.
Nothing more came out of the incident on Tuesday night, but on Thursday morning I was reminded that when it comes to being cheated a lone con artist is nothing at all compared to the companies that rip us off on a daily basis.
On Thursday morning I had to make my way to Birmingham for an assessment day for a company's graduate scheme. From here, Birmingham is a drive of about 3 hours, or you can take the train. I had originally considered driving, just because I can, but because I had to be there for midday and had to work the night before, I figured I would have to either drive late on Wednesday night, or very early Thursday morning. Instead I figured I'd let the train take the strain.
The journey was fairly simple -- one train into London, then another train out of London to Birmingham -- arriving early and giving me plenty of time.
I've been telling friends to guess how much my ticket cost me. "£40?" they might say, figuring that's quite a lot of money to spend on a train ticket. "60 quid, maybe?"
To the first, I tell them "Close, but try multiplying it by three."
In fact, a return ticket to Birmingham cost me £134.
A return flight from London to Barcelona would cost me no more than £50.
For another £50 on what I paid for my train ticket, I could fly to New York.
I could save £50 on my train ticket and get a six-week course of personal training at my gym.
Or for the same money I could buy a brand new pair of boots for my snowboard.
These are all items I would have dismissed as things I can't afford -- things I probably have the money for, but shouldn't spend. But on Thursday morning with the morning's commuters and dressed up in smart black suit I had no other option but to hand over my card.
The assessment day itself was unremarkable. A group exercise, numeracy tests, an individual interview and discussion about my business plan. It could go either way. I might have let myself down in the group exercise, or my numeracy skills might have failed me in the tests. The interview itself I was very happy with. And at the end of the day in a different city with a different set of commuters and snow blowing in the air, there was nothing else to do but get on the train and come back home.
People keep saying to me I should have booked my ticket in advance. Yeah, I say, I realise that now -- but I had no idea the ticket price could possibly be that much, and I didn't know what time I would be returning. I just had better get a job out of this now.
Update: I got my rejection letter today. That didn't take them long.
Wednesday, 15 March 2006
Swindled
Tonight, as I was working, a man came up to the bar and asked for a pen and paper. Actually to be precise, the man was talking on a mobile phone as he came up to the bar and told the person on the other hand to hang on while he got a pen and paper -- and I found some before he had to ask. He wandered off with them, and I thought no more about it. A few minutes later he came back, and I was a little disturbed that he seemed to be telling me nothing more than he would bring the pen back in a minute -- and he stood in the open hatchway to walk behind the bar. He wasn't behind the bar, but he was almost somewhere he shouldn't have been. I would have asked him to move, had he not walked off again. He returned once more a short time later to return the pen and say thanks, and again I felt uncomfortable with him. But he walked away and I forgot all about him.
I can't remember how much later it was when a customer came up to the bar, looking slightly irritated. I asked how could I help -- after all, that's my job -- and he said something like he wanted to see the bartender who had borrowed the money. I was confused. I told him I was the only bar tender working, when had he lent someone money? The customer then got natually irate when it became clear that whoever he had given money to wasn't a member of staff. It seems that some random man had approached him and his friends, and asked to borrow some money -- 10s and 20s he said. They were under the impression this man was staff, that the money was needed for the till or something. I don't know if he told them he was staff, or if they just presumed it. Either way, they gave him 70 quid and never saw him again.
I told the customer I was sorry to hear about it, but unfortunately there was nothing I could do. I let him look around the bar and the restaurant -- just in case the guy was still around, which he obviously wouldn't be. And wasn't. He went to the pub over the road and checked in there for him, too, with the same success. I explained that I could call the police for him, but that there really wasn't anything I could do. I got the duty manager, explained to her what had happened, and she more or less told him the same thing.
Clearly the man with the pen and paper who I felt uncomfortable with had also been the man they thought was staff. Apparently he was dressed in dark clothes like I was -- although I thought I recalled him in a shirt and tie, a business type -- and obviously was carrying a pen and paper, like he'd been taking orders. Maybe what he'd been writing down was the odds on a horse. Maybe there never was anyone on the other end of the phone. They had also seen him hanging about the bar, probably even talking to me -- so when I was feeling uncomfortable, they were thinking he was a coworker.
We called other pubs locally to warn them, and the customer did call the police -- though how much interest they showed I don't know. He and his friends were upset they'd been conned like that, naturally enough -- though you have to wonder what exactly the guy said to them to encourage them to part with £70 so readily. I like to think if someone came up to me in the pub I wouldn't so much as give them a tenner without some kind of surety.
But it does remind me of several years ago when I was in New York City, alone. One day on the street a dodgy character asked me if I was interested in a fake ID. You can imagine the lightbulb above my head, I was 20 and had just recently bought tickets to see Duncan Sheik, for Angela's birthday. I knew we'd need ID to get in, and I wanted her to be impressed at my foresight in sorting out my own. So I went along with him. I forget now how much he said it would be, $50 or something. Almost as soon as I went anywhere with the guy I was regretting it, I felt intimidated and was hoping for a chance to escape him. The chance didn't come, he took me to a cash machine -- but watched from a safe distance for him while I got the cash out. $100 he had me get out, just in case. He took me to McDonalds or something to check I wasn't a cop. And then we went to wherever it was we were going. He said it was just over the road, and he had to go and sort it all out first. To wait where I was. I did as I was told -- and yes, now I wonder why I did, but maybe I thought at this point I really was going to get the ID. He went off to arrange it, came back a few minutes later and asked for the money. I hesitated slightly before handing it over, he reassured me he wasn't going to steal it or anything. So easily reassured, or just scared of what he might do if I didn't hand it over. I felt at this point I didn't really have a choice.
He told me to pretend to be making a phone call, and he'd return in a minute. I don't know how long I stood there for. And how long it was before I started to think he wasn't coming back. Even when I eventually gave up, I still worried that he might be coming out and looking for me and I'd be gone. I think I noticed a betting shop over the road, just before I walked off.
I found a deli, bought a sandwich, and went to the cinema on my own. I put my feet up on the seats in front and ate my corned beef sandwich in the dark.
I was annoyed with myself, it was such an obvious con -- but I upheld that I probably felt intimidated for a good reason, and going along with it and giving him the money was possibly a wise decision. Once it's gone, it's gone and nothing was bringing it back. This was five years ago, and I don't doubt now that in the same situation I'd tell the guy to go fuck himself when he offered me anything. But just the same, I can't be too hard on what was probably a group of students in the pub for an evening out and thought they were doing someone a favour.
I can't remember how much later it was when a customer came up to the bar, looking slightly irritated. I asked how could I help -- after all, that's my job -- and he said something like he wanted to see the bartender who had borrowed the money. I was confused. I told him I was the only bar tender working, when had he lent someone money? The customer then got natually irate when it became clear that whoever he had given money to wasn't a member of staff. It seems that some random man had approached him and his friends, and asked to borrow some money -- 10s and 20s he said. They were under the impression this man was staff, that the money was needed for the till or something. I don't know if he told them he was staff, or if they just presumed it. Either way, they gave him 70 quid and never saw him again.
I told the customer I was sorry to hear about it, but unfortunately there was nothing I could do. I let him look around the bar and the restaurant -- just in case the guy was still around, which he obviously wouldn't be. And wasn't. He went to the pub over the road and checked in there for him, too, with the same success. I explained that I could call the police for him, but that there really wasn't anything I could do. I got the duty manager, explained to her what had happened, and she more or less told him the same thing.
Clearly the man with the pen and paper who I felt uncomfortable with had also been the man they thought was staff. Apparently he was dressed in dark clothes like I was -- although I thought I recalled him in a shirt and tie, a business type -- and obviously was carrying a pen and paper, like he'd been taking orders. Maybe what he'd been writing down was the odds on a horse. Maybe there never was anyone on the other end of the phone. They had also seen him hanging about the bar, probably even talking to me -- so when I was feeling uncomfortable, they were thinking he was a coworker.
We called other pubs locally to warn them, and the customer did call the police -- though how much interest they showed I don't know. He and his friends were upset they'd been conned like that, naturally enough -- though you have to wonder what exactly the guy said to them to encourage them to part with £70 so readily. I like to think if someone came up to me in the pub I wouldn't so much as give them a tenner without some kind of surety.
But it does remind me of several years ago when I was in New York City, alone. One day on the street a dodgy character asked me if I was interested in a fake ID. You can imagine the lightbulb above my head, I was 20 and had just recently bought tickets to see Duncan Sheik, for Angela's birthday. I knew we'd need ID to get in, and I wanted her to be impressed at my foresight in sorting out my own. So I went along with him. I forget now how much he said it would be, $50 or something. Almost as soon as I went anywhere with the guy I was regretting it, I felt intimidated and was hoping for a chance to escape him. The chance didn't come, he took me to a cash machine -- but watched from a safe distance for him while I got the cash out. $100 he had me get out, just in case. He took me to McDonalds or something to check I wasn't a cop. And then we went to wherever it was we were going. He said it was just over the road, and he had to go and sort it all out first. To wait where I was. I did as I was told -- and yes, now I wonder why I did, but maybe I thought at this point I really was going to get the ID. He went off to arrange it, came back a few minutes later and asked for the money. I hesitated slightly before handing it over, he reassured me he wasn't going to steal it or anything. So easily reassured, or just scared of what he might do if I didn't hand it over. I felt at this point I didn't really have a choice.
He told me to pretend to be making a phone call, and he'd return in a minute. I don't know how long I stood there for. And how long it was before I started to think he wasn't coming back. Even when I eventually gave up, I still worried that he might be coming out and looking for me and I'd be gone. I think I noticed a betting shop over the road, just before I walked off.
I found a deli, bought a sandwich, and went to the cinema on my own. I put my feet up on the seats in front and ate my corned beef sandwich in the dark.
I was annoyed with myself, it was such an obvious con -- but I upheld that I probably felt intimidated for a good reason, and going along with it and giving him the money was possibly a wise decision. Once it's gone, it's gone and nothing was bringing it back. This was five years ago, and I don't doubt now that in the same situation I'd tell the guy to go fuck himself when he offered me anything. But just the same, I can't be too hard on what was probably a group of students in the pub for an evening out and thought they were doing someone a favour.
Monday, 13 March 2006
Death, death, death – lunch- death...
...[Hitler] was a mass-murdering fuckhead, as many important historians have said. But there were other mass murderers that got away with it: Stalin killed many millions, died in his bed, well done there. Pol Pot killed 1.7 million Cambodians; died under house arrest at age 72, well done indeed! And the reason we let them get away with it is because they killed their own people, and we're sort of fine with that.-- Eddie Izzard, Dress To Kill
"Ah, help yourself," you know? "We've been trying to kill you for ages!"
So kill your own people, right on there. Seems to be… Hitler killed people next door...
"Oh… stupid man!"
After a couple of years, "We won't stand for that, will we?"
Pol Pot killed 1.7 million people. We can't even deal with that! You know, we think if somebody kills someone, that's murder, you go to prison. You kill 10 people, you go to Texas, they hit you with a brick, that's what they do. 20 people, you go to a hospital, they look through a small window at you forever. And over that, we can't deal with it. Someone's killed 100,000 people, we're almost going; "Well done! You killed 100,000 people? You must get up very early in the morning. I can't even get down the gym! Your diary must look odd: "Get up in the morning, death, death, death, death, death, death – lunch-death, death, death, death - afternoon tea - death, death, death - quick shower…"
I don't often talk about events here outside of my own life, but I thought the - perhaps untimely - demise of Slobodan Milosevic deserves a mention. The Eddie Izzard extract I think makes a fair point about the likes of Milosevic, how can we begin to grasp the killing and displacement of people on that kind of scale? Omar al-Bashir of Sudan has been voted Parade magazine's number 1 worst dictator in the world for the second year in a row, having overtaken Kim Jong-Il of North Korea. Bashir is reported to have killed 180,000 people and displaced a further 2 million from their homes.
Ignore for now that Omar al-Bashir's name doesn't get mentioned in any axis of evil speeches, or that nobody has 'liberated' the people of Sudan unlike Iraq or Afghanistan. How do we even begin to grasp this level of depravity? We have laws on murder, and mass murder, but what do you do with someone like Milosevic? He had been on trial for the past five years, and naturally with an untimely death (that is, one not sanctioned by the state) like this, while the trial is going on, people talk of being denied justice.
How exactly do you give justice to the thousands of people killed, or the thousands more without homes? Exactly what kind of sentence can you give to someone that would be 'justice'? I don't believe in the death penalty, a rant for another day, but I don't think even taking his life -- the life of one 65 year old man -- could in any way balance the scales. As Mr Izzard says, you can't even deal with that.
I don't believe in a thing -- an entity, or a force -- called evil. I don't think there's some timeless bad that influences people to commit random acts of atrocity, from beating your girlfriend to exterminating hundreds or thousands of people. It might explain a lot, but it's an easy answer. At the same time, I don't think it can always come down to bad parenting or social factors. I guess there's just a meanness in this world.
Friday, 10 March 2006
Unexpected phone calls
I got back from the gym yesterday, and had deliberately left my phone at home, charging. When I checked it I noticed I had a missed call. The number displayed was central London, which ruled out anyone I knew. San is still in Leicester, and it wasn't her number. I wondered if it might be Fi, but I don't think she knows my number. I don't return calls if I don't recognise the number, but if I am curious enough I will withhold my number and call them from a landline, to see who answers.
I did this once in Leicester, someone had been calling me and I didn't know who they were, but they seemed persistent. I was paranoid and bordering on agorophobia following my assault, and didn't like it. So I called them, just to see. Some guy I didn't know answered, and I told him, sorry, wrong number. I thought it was as simple as that.
"How do you know?" he asked me.
"What?"
"How do you know you've got the wrong number?" he insisted "You haven't asked for anyone yet."
I thought this was a pretty stupid approach.
"Ok then, are you the hospital?" I asked him
"What?"
"Are you the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary hospital?"
"...no"
"Well then, I do have the wrong number."
Strangely, it shook me up. I didn't like that he seemed aggressive, or that he'd been calling me, and least of all I was no closer to understanding who he was. Fortunately for me, he never called again.
So yesterday, I stood with phone in hand, copying the number from one phone to the other, preparing to call this number, when my phone rang. It caught me off guard and I accidentally answered it. At first I thought I had mistakenly just cut them off, and was going to try and establish who had just called when I heard a voice saying "hello? hello?"
It turned out to be a PR company I applied for an internship with. They asked if I was still interested, very much interested I said. Where do you live, they asked. I told them. That's very far away, they said. Not really, I replied, most people here commute into London every day. I know, they said, but I pay £100 a week and that is all that I will pay. I understand this, I replied, I expect that to pay for my travel. Yes, they said, it might just pay for your travel. Are you free now, they asked.
I've begun to realise that when they ask me this I should tell them "no", whoever they are. Because what follows is usually a telephone interview, and I like to be prepared for it. So now I tell them I am literally just on my way out the door, and arrange a time for them to call me back so I can be ready for them. Get the ball back in my possession.
"No, sorry, I'm just about to go out", I told the woman
She laughed. "I didn't mean right this very minute" she told me "I mean, are you free to start immediately? Can you start Monday?"
"I can't, I need to give two week's notice in my current job" I said
"That's no good to me" she said "I need someone who can start right away. Very well, I will call some others and if nobody is any good I will come back to you."
And that was it. Unfortunately, this is the trouble -- I can probably find a wealth of PR firms more local to me than central London, and save a fortune if they'll take me on. But they are unlikely to be big enough places to have internships, unlike ones in London. I need to call the agencies I sent letters to last week, chase them up, make sure they got the letters. But I think I might be kidding myself.
I did this once in Leicester, someone had been calling me and I didn't know who they were, but they seemed persistent. I was paranoid and bordering on agorophobia following my assault, and didn't like it. So I called them, just to see. Some guy I didn't know answered, and I told him, sorry, wrong number. I thought it was as simple as that.
"How do you know?" he asked me.
"What?"
"How do you know you've got the wrong number?" he insisted "You haven't asked for anyone yet."
I thought this was a pretty stupid approach.
"Ok then, are you the hospital?" I asked him
"What?"
"Are you the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary hospital?"
"...no"
"Well then, I do have the wrong number."
Strangely, it shook me up. I didn't like that he seemed aggressive, or that he'd been calling me, and least of all I was no closer to understanding who he was. Fortunately for me, he never called again.
So yesterday, I stood with phone in hand, copying the number from one phone to the other, preparing to call this number, when my phone rang. It caught me off guard and I accidentally answered it. At first I thought I had mistakenly just cut them off, and was going to try and establish who had just called when I heard a voice saying "hello? hello?"
It turned out to be a PR company I applied for an internship with. They asked if I was still interested, very much interested I said. Where do you live, they asked. I told them. That's very far away, they said. Not really, I replied, most people here commute into London every day. I know, they said, but I pay £100 a week and that is all that I will pay. I understand this, I replied, I expect that to pay for my travel. Yes, they said, it might just pay for your travel. Are you free now, they asked.
I've begun to realise that when they ask me this I should tell them "no", whoever they are. Because what follows is usually a telephone interview, and I like to be prepared for it. So now I tell them I am literally just on my way out the door, and arrange a time for them to call me back so I can be ready for them. Get the ball back in my possession.
"No, sorry, I'm just about to go out", I told the woman
She laughed. "I didn't mean right this very minute" she told me "I mean, are you free to start immediately? Can you start Monday?"
"I can't, I need to give two week's notice in my current job" I said
"That's no good to me" she said "I need someone who can start right away. Very well, I will call some others and if nobody is any good I will come back to you."
And that was it. Unfortunately, this is the trouble -- I can probably find a wealth of PR firms more local to me than central London, and save a fortune if they'll take me on. But they are unlikely to be big enough places to have internships, unlike ones in London. I need to call the agencies I sent letters to last week, chase them up, make sure they got the letters. But I think I might be kidding myself.
Monday, 6 March 2006
Better save that. We'll need it for the autopsy.
It's hard to know how to describe how I am feeling right now. I would hazard a guess it was what Alette described as "ennui" and "angst" in response to my last entry -- a kind of frustration at where my life is, rather than any sort of active depression. What Holly Golightly called "the mean reds". Ms Golightly also said you can't give your heart to a wild thing, but that's a discussion for a whole other day, and it would probably involve girls.
I don't need to discuss why I feel frustrated because I went over all of that the other day. I just do feel it.
I didn't sleep well last night. For some reason, if I lie on my right side and face the wall, although I start to fall alseep my mind is too active and I have to wake up, make an effort to empty my mind, and turn onto my right side. Then I fall asleep without a trouble, until around 6am an alarm clock in the room next door plays the William Tell Overture. I haven't established why there is an alarm clock in the spare room where nobody is sleeping.
Last night was the usual routine -- try to sleep on left side, can't stop thinking -- and when I say I can't stop thinking we are talking from the day's events, to something that is bugging me right back to how last night I was feeling annoyed about a counsellor I saw when I was 18 or 19. It got the point where I felt like someone was shouting at me -- probably something left over from the day at work, Sundays are always the busiest day. Needless to say, sleep wasn't going to be easy so I had to open my eyes and sit up to try and take in some of the dark and the quiet. I didn't feel I could even relax then, so I dug out my discman and put on my "mind programming" cd.
I can't be sure if it's ineffective if you fall asleep listening to it, or how deeply asleep I am -- because I always wake up at the end. Not when the cd finishes and it's suddenly quiet, but in the closing seconds. Either way, whether or not I am open to suggestion in my sleep (I don't believe in "sleep learning"), it keeps me calm enough to sleep.
I had a restless night, though. I don't know what I dreamed of, but my covers were all pulled off the bed -- and that only frustrates me when I'm asleep. I sleep best with the sheets tucked tightly in each side so that I can hardly move -- I expect there's a psycholigical explanation for it. It could be that it reminds me of a hospital -- they always seem to tuck the sheets in tightly. But why would I want to be reminded of that? My lengthy hospital stay when I was a kid was hardly a pleasant experience.
I have started going to bed at 12 instead of 1 or later, and am sticking to getting up at 9 and eating breakfast. I even went to the gym today. But I expect time spent online is unlikely to be helping my mood.
I don't need to discuss why I feel frustrated because I went over all of that the other day. I just do feel it.
I didn't sleep well last night. For some reason, if I lie on my right side and face the wall, although I start to fall alseep my mind is too active and I have to wake up, make an effort to empty my mind, and turn onto my right side. Then I fall asleep without a trouble, until around 6am an alarm clock in the room next door plays the William Tell Overture. I haven't established why there is an alarm clock in the spare room where nobody is sleeping.
Last night was the usual routine -- try to sleep on left side, can't stop thinking -- and when I say I can't stop thinking we are talking from the day's events, to something that is bugging me right back to how last night I was feeling annoyed about a counsellor I saw when I was 18 or 19. It got the point where I felt like someone was shouting at me -- probably something left over from the day at work, Sundays are always the busiest day. Needless to say, sleep wasn't going to be easy so I had to open my eyes and sit up to try and take in some of the dark and the quiet. I didn't feel I could even relax then, so I dug out my discman and put on my "mind programming" cd.
I can't be sure if it's ineffective if you fall asleep listening to it, or how deeply asleep I am -- because I always wake up at the end. Not when the cd finishes and it's suddenly quiet, but in the closing seconds. Either way, whether or not I am open to suggestion in my sleep (I don't believe in "sleep learning"), it keeps me calm enough to sleep.
I had a restless night, though. I don't know what I dreamed of, but my covers were all pulled off the bed -- and that only frustrates me when I'm asleep. I sleep best with the sheets tucked tightly in each side so that I can hardly move -- I expect there's a psycholigical explanation for it. It could be that it reminds me of a hospital -- they always seem to tuck the sheets in tightly. But why would I want to be reminded of that? My lengthy hospital stay when I was a kid was hardly a pleasant experience.
I have started going to bed at 12 instead of 1 or later, and am sticking to getting up at 9 and eating breakfast. I even went to the gym today. But I expect time spent online is unlikely to be helping my mood.
Saturday, 4 March 2006
Friday night dreams
Last night I had a dream that I went out with a group of my friends for my birthday. The details are all hazy to me now -- in my mind's eye I can see scenes from the dream, but wouldn't know how to start describing them. Friends I had with me happened to include both San, and Fiona. As you might expect, even in a dream, San was furious at having to be around Fiona. Being my usual clueless self -- in my dream at least -- I wasn't able to understand what the problem was.
"But she's my friend," I told San "You don't have a problem with any of my other friends."
Of course it was completely illogical, because it was a dream. I would have more tact I expect than to ever expect San to be in the same place as Fiona -- although ironically, I don't think Fi has any idea San has an irrational hatred of her, and would probably like to meet San -- and I like to think I'd be able to understand why she'd be annoyed. The strange thing is, it's only on waking that it occurs to me San has absoluely no claim over me. Nor would she claim to.
The dream was undoubtedly inspired by an email correspondence with Fi yesterday evening, where we discussed our respective plans for the night. I both encouraged her to go out, and complained about my friends and their inability to do anything but go to the same pub every night. I am desperate to move out, move away. A short while ago I got an email from Fi, saying she didn't go out in the end because the trains were disrupted. She also mentioned next time she's going anywhere she'll invite me and maybe we could meet up...
Without sounding melodramatic, or sixth-form goth, I sometimes feel I have nothing to look forward to in my life. Not in a depressed, my life is bleak way -- but for example, some people work monday to friday and can't wait for the weekend. They live all week for Friday night and two days off. Or I used to work Friday nights, and then be on a train Saturday morning to see San for the day. When I was in Leicester I didn't need to be looking ahead to something, because San was right there.
But I don't feel that now. I don't particularly look forward to my days off -- they're random days in the week when nobody else is around -- and I probably don't make enough of all the spare time I have. I really do need to get a proper job. I should make a list:
Get a proper job
Meet new people
Sort life out.
"But she's my friend," I told San "You don't have a problem with any of my other friends."
Of course it was completely illogical, because it was a dream. I would have more tact I expect than to ever expect San to be in the same place as Fiona -- although ironically, I don't think Fi has any idea San has an irrational hatred of her, and would probably like to meet San -- and I like to think I'd be able to understand why she'd be annoyed. The strange thing is, it's only on waking that it occurs to me San has absoluely no claim over me. Nor would she claim to.
The dream was undoubtedly inspired by an email correspondence with Fi yesterday evening, where we discussed our respective plans for the night. I both encouraged her to go out, and complained about my friends and their inability to do anything but go to the same pub every night. I am desperate to move out, move away. A short while ago I got an email from Fi, saying she didn't go out in the end because the trains were disrupted. She also mentioned next time she's going anywhere she'll invite me and maybe we could meet up...
Without sounding melodramatic, or sixth-form goth, I sometimes feel I have nothing to look forward to in my life. Not in a depressed, my life is bleak way -- but for example, some people work monday to friday and can't wait for the weekend. They live all week for Friday night and two days off. Or I used to work Friday nights, and then be on a train Saturday morning to see San for the day. When I was in Leicester I didn't need to be looking ahead to something, because San was right there.
But I don't feel that now. I don't particularly look forward to my days off -- they're random days in the week when nobody else is around -- and I probably don't make enough of all the spare time I have. I really do need to get a proper job. I should make a list:
Get a proper job
Meet new people
Sort life out.
Wednesday, 1 March 2006
A bus journey
I arrived in Geneva early afternoon on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. The trouble with me travelling anywhere, is it always feels sort of like a dream -- due to a kind of narcolepsy. Luckily it seems this narcolepsy doesn't affect me when I'm driving, only when I'm a passenger -- but it must be having to be still and unable to read (it makes me travel sick, except on planes when you barely notice you're moving). I left London on a bright but cold morning, and touched down to torrential rain in Switzerland.
To be cautious I had arranged my bus ticket out of Geneva for about two hours after I landed there, and although I remembered that the arrivals side of airports is never as interesting as the departures side, I figured I would find something to do all the same. It turned out that my choice of things to do was limited to a bar. And not even a bar with walls and seats and tables or any of that normal stuff, but instead either a bar you could stand at, or large plastic tables you had to stand at. It would do.
Then I remembered I was in Switzerland and my Euros for France would be no good, so I wandered off and found a cashpoint. The cashpoint offered me a range of denominations, 50, 100, 200, that osrt of thing. How much is a Swiss Franc worth? I had no idea. I remembered that way back when the French Franc was worth about a tenth of the Pound Sterling -- so £10 was about 100F. I selected 100CHF and returned to the bar. I was amused to find the change from my glass of beer came to about 99CHF.
I caught my bus without event, it was still pouring with rain, and I fell asleep fairly quickly into the journey. When I woke up it was dark and still raining, and I had no idea what country I was in or how far I had travelled. I stared out at the dark scenery and glumly wondered how little snow there had to be for there to be piste closures. After a surf holiday with no surf last summer, I thought it would be about right that I'd take a snowboard holiday in February, and have no snow.
I remember clearly going through a long tunnel in a mountain or hillside. I remember it so well as I was watching out the front windows of the bus, and as we emerged out the other side of the tunnel I noticed the rain had changed. Instead it now looked like it was snowing. Maybe we had climbed in altitude, maybe the weather had just naturally changed, but after a short while I was able to be sure that it really was snowing.
And it was still snowing heavily when the bus arrived in Bourg St Maurice, France.
To be cautious I had arranged my bus ticket out of Geneva for about two hours after I landed there, and although I remembered that the arrivals side of airports is never as interesting as the departures side, I figured I would find something to do all the same. It turned out that my choice of things to do was limited to a bar. And not even a bar with walls and seats and tables or any of that normal stuff, but instead either a bar you could stand at, or large plastic tables you had to stand at. It would do.
Then I remembered I was in Switzerland and my Euros for France would be no good, so I wandered off and found a cashpoint. The cashpoint offered me a range of denominations, 50, 100, 200, that osrt of thing. How much is a Swiss Franc worth? I had no idea. I remembered that way back when the French Franc was worth about a tenth of the Pound Sterling -- so £10 was about 100F. I selected 100CHF and returned to the bar. I was amused to find the change from my glass of beer came to about 99CHF.
I caught my bus without event, it was still pouring with rain, and I fell asleep fairly quickly into the journey. When I woke up it was dark and still raining, and I had no idea what country I was in or how far I had travelled. I stared out at the dark scenery and glumly wondered how little snow there had to be for there to be piste closures. After a surf holiday with no surf last summer, I thought it would be about right that I'd take a snowboard holiday in February, and have no snow.
I remember clearly going through a long tunnel in a mountain or hillside. I remember it so well as I was watching out the front windows of the bus, and as we emerged out the other side of the tunnel I noticed the rain had changed. Instead it now looked like it was snowing. Maybe we had climbed in altitude, maybe the weather had just naturally changed, but after a short while I was able to be sure that it really was snowing.
And it was still snowing heavily when the bus arrived in Bourg St Maurice, France.
She's got a tattoo of another man around her navel
I wrote once, in a diary, about the idea of our lives being commodities -- our memories, our traumas, our friends -- all being things we can package and sell. Trying to condense down our lives big events into a short, catchy synopsis.
Last night Deb was telling me about her weekend away in Amsterdam. I liked the way she'd tell her story, skipping quickly through the build-up of Saturday; went to a bar, smoked a lot, went for a walk, had dinner, all that sort of thing. Then she slows down for when she's got to the story itself, eating too many 'shrooms, getting completely twisted and going to a live sex show. Sitting through the same show -- of about 6 acts -- twice.
My trouble is, when someone's talking to me, I make mental notes. My eyes remain fixed on theirs, smiling or nodding along with their story I am thinking about what parts to keep, what parts to leave out. Thinking of how to strip it down to the bare bones so I can use the story in my writings, a character's monologue of sorts.
Last night Deb was telling me about her weekend away in Amsterdam. I liked the way she'd tell her story, skipping quickly through the build-up of Saturday; went to a bar, smoked a lot, went for a walk, had dinner, all that sort of thing. Then she slows down for when she's got to the story itself, eating too many 'shrooms, getting completely twisted and going to a live sex show. Sitting through the same show -- of about 6 acts -- twice.
My trouble is, when someone's talking to me, I make mental notes. My eyes remain fixed on theirs, smiling or nodding along with their story I am thinking about what parts to keep, what parts to leave out. Thinking of how to strip it down to the bare bones so I can use the story in my writings, a character's monologue of sorts.
Tuesday, 28 February 2006
Love in the Time of Cholera
I finished "Love in the Time of Cholera" last night, if anyone here plans to read it -- or apparently there is a movie being made of it -- and doesn't want it spoiled, look away now.
I did not like Florentino Ariza in the slightest. I don't know if he was meant to be a likeable, or pityable character, but I thought he was deluded, selfish and manipulative. I didn't believe he really loved Fermina Daza -- after all he doesn't actually spend any time with her in person until Juvenal Urbino dies. I'm not sure if this is one of those things you are required to just "accept", that he does love her, but I don't agree with it. Naturally, Fermina Daza is enamoured with him when he first contacts her, she is young and impressionable and unused to the attention. But I don't believe she was in love with Ariza and fully agreed with her when she told him it had been a mistake. Ariza then continues to obsess over her for the
rest of his life and everything in his life seems to be motivated by her -- he makes a success of his life in order to be 'worthy' of her, without ever really understanding who she really is.
After his 'experience' with the woman who may or may not have been Rosalba he effectively becomes a sexual predator -- preying on the emotionally vulnerable, under the pretext that he can relieve his desire for Fermina Daza. He quickly discards the idea of staying a virgin for her -- although the idea that virginity might be more a
matter of what you choose to give up reminds me of "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me". It also seems like he would have been happy to give up on Fermina Daza if Leona Cassiani had given in to him. I disliked how predatory he was -- and the affair with America Vicuna was almost sickening to me, especially her untimely end when he just drops her. He is responsible -- albeit indirectly -- for the deaths
of at least two people, but never seems to stop to consider his actions. Would Fermina have felt the same way, had she known how he had behaved? He even outrightly lies to her, and although she knows it she probably has little idea of the scale of the lie. Florentino then preys on Fermina -- still vulnerable after her husband's death, and seems not to have a second thought about it, so long as he gets
his own way.
I feel a lot more generous about Dr Juvenal Urbino, who genuinely seemed to care about Fermina Daza, in his own old-fashioned way -- and I like that although they didn't marry out of love his dying words were "God alone knows how much I love you". It's his relationship with Fermina Daza that I think is more representative of love -- not the obsessive and largely ignorant thoughts and behaviour of Florentino Ariza.
Maybe I will elaborate more on this later.
I did not like Florentino Ariza in the slightest. I don't know if he was meant to be a likeable, or pityable character, but I thought he was deluded, selfish and manipulative. I didn't believe he really loved Fermina Daza -- after all he doesn't actually spend any time with her in person until Juvenal Urbino dies. I'm not sure if this is one of those things you are required to just "accept", that he does love her, but I don't agree with it. Naturally, Fermina Daza is enamoured with him when he first contacts her, she is young and impressionable and unused to the attention. But I don't believe she was in love with Ariza and fully agreed with her when she told him it had been a mistake. Ariza then continues to obsess over her for the
rest of his life and everything in his life seems to be motivated by her -- he makes a success of his life in order to be 'worthy' of her, without ever really understanding who she really is.
After his 'experience' with the woman who may or may not have been Rosalba he effectively becomes a sexual predator -- preying on the emotionally vulnerable, under the pretext that he can relieve his desire for Fermina Daza. He quickly discards the idea of staying a virgin for her -- although the idea that virginity might be more a
matter of what you choose to give up reminds me of "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me". It also seems like he would have been happy to give up on Fermina Daza if Leona Cassiani had given in to him. I disliked how predatory he was -- and the affair with America Vicuna was almost sickening to me, especially her untimely end when he just drops her. He is responsible -- albeit indirectly -- for the deaths
of at least two people, but never seems to stop to consider his actions. Would Fermina have felt the same way, had she known how he had behaved? He even outrightly lies to her, and although she knows it she probably has little idea of the scale of the lie. Florentino then preys on Fermina -- still vulnerable after her husband's death, and seems not to have a second thought about it, so long as he gets
his own way.
I feel a lot more generous about Dr Juvenal Urbino, who genuinely seemed to care about Fermina Daza, in his own old-fashioned way -- and I like that although they didn't marry out of love his dying words were "God alone knows how much I love you". It's his relationship with Fermina Daza that I think is more representative of love -- not the obsessive and largely ignorant thoughts and behaviour of Florentino Ariza.
Maybe I will elaborate more on this later.
Sunday, 26 February 2006
February 15, Geneva. 2.30 pm
(from my notebook)
It's sort of lonesome, travelling alone. I enjoy the freedom of it, I enjoy my independence -- but it's not the same without someone to talk to, or to share a beer with. I amuse myself with music and a drink, and my notebook, and I watch all the people as they pass.
It's impossible to know what the week ahead holds for me, but so long as I have my board and my notebook I know I will be fine, and I am determined to enjoy myself.
As ever, San is on my mind. She has suddenly seemed more affectionate towards me lately, in the last day or two. I'm not complaining, and I do still love the girl on some level, but we both know -- by now, we all know why we can't go back again. As for Lyndsay, I would love for something to come of it, but don't think it ever can -- or will.
I get the feeling people are looking at me, as I tap my foot along to Johnny Cash. What sort of music does suit an airport in Switzerland? Probably not "Ring of Fire" I'm guessing. I like to have music that's so completely and deliberately out of place. Oh, and it would seem that 100 Swiss Francs isn't roughly the same as £10 after all. Who knew?
It's sort of lonesome, travelling alone. I enjoy the freedom of it, I enjoy my independence -- but it's not the same without someone to talk to, or to share a beer with. I amuse myself with music and a drink, and my notebook, and I watch all the people as they pass.
It's impossible to know what the week ahead holds for me, but so long as I have my board and my notebook I know I will be fine, and I am determined to enjoy myself.
As ever, San is on my mind. She has suddenly seemed more affectionate towards me lately, in the last day or two. I'm not complaining, and I do still love the girl on some level, but we both know -- by now, we all know why we can't go back again. As for Lyndsay, I would love for something to come of it, but don't think it ever can -- or will.
I get the feeling people are looking at me, as I tap my foot along to Johnny Cash. What sort of music does suit an airport in Switzerland? Probably not "Ring of Fire" I'm guessing. I like to have music that's so completely and deliberately out of place. Oh, and it would seem that 100 Swiss Francs isn't roughly the same as £10 after all. Who knew?
Friday, 24 February 2006
Watching the people get lairy
My deviantArt space has now been updated with pictures from France -- I have set the critique level to encourage advanced critiques, so feel free to offer suggestions, advice, criticisms or just heap praise upon me for my unrivalled talent.
I have been fiddling with photoshop, and have set up a plug in for writing scripts which I am told will help me able to automatically add a watermark to all of my artwork. This is a first step before I set up a print account with dA. I want to be able to sell my work through the site -- before hopefully one day being able to sell my work independently -- but I live in paranoia of people buying or copying my work and passing it off as their own. A nightmarish vision of my art ending up on mass produced postcards and being unable to prove that it was ever my original work. Perhaps that's a little vain, I don't know.
I've also set Photoshop up with the 'urban acid' plugin, which monkeys around with the hue and saturation of pictures to give them a washed-out, nightmarish feel. It's very cool, but hasn't yet warranted creating a new deviation on the strength of it. I might do at a later date, or I might reserve it for making a photoblog -- there's only so many times you can see the same picture otherwise.
I had an interesting moment at work today, where I realised that even if I quite like the job and the industry sometimes, and even if I am good at what I do, maybe I really am in the wrong job. It went like this: It's like this; at work, Laura was doing some work on her NVQ (a vocational qualification, for non-English folk) and her assessor person asked me to come over to do something. Turned out she wanted me to write a couple of "witness statements", in relation to some situations Laura had written about for her evidence. It was just bullshit, saying she was good at her job and whatever in the contexts she had given. The thing was it gave me a bit of an opportunity to write well, if only very briefly for a couple of paragraphs. But the assessor actually commented on how well they were written, laughingly asked me if I wanted a job. I bit my tongue from saying "Yes! Please! Give me a job writing!" but it made me stop and think. Maybe I should be doing something with my talent -- other than blogging.
I was actually thinking last night when I was at a concert that perhaps I should set up a blog exclusively to review music in -- live and recorded -- and advertise it. It would be like a blog of the music press. Or I could set up my own domain where I blog -- though I don't think the content of this blog would be suitable for mass consumption -- and integrate my art work from deviantart, including the option to buy my work, into one big site. It actually all sounds a lot like my friend Calvin's recommendation that I look at trying to train for jobs as a web editor, if I could get some design skills I could combine them with my writing ability... But nobody wants to train you for those IT jobs.
This was more or less just to tout my dA page, anyway. And soon I will start including some of my random scribblings from my travels.... I might even look at copying into here my old dx entries, since I don't know if I will be going back there again even if it comes back online.
I have been fiddling with photoshop, and have set up a plug in for writing scripts which I am told will help me able to automatically add a watermark to all of my artwork. This is a first step before I set up a print account with dA. I want to be able to sell my work through the site -- before hopefully one day being able to sell my work independently -- but I live in paranoia of people buying or copying my work and passing it off as their own. A nightmarish vision of my art ending up on mass produced postcards and being unable to prove that it was ever my original work. Perhaps that's a little vain, I don't know.
I've also set Photoshop up with the 'urban acid' plugin, which monkeys around with the hue and saturation of pictures to give them a washed-out, nightmarish feel. It's very cool, but hasn't yet warranted creating a new deviation on the strength of it. I might do at a later date, or I might reserve it for making a photoblog -- there's only so many times you can see the same picture otherwise.
I had an interesting moment at work today, where I realised that even if I quite like the job and the industry sometimes, and even if I am good at what I do, maybe I really am in the wrong job. It went like this: It's like this; at work, Laura was doing some work on her NVQ (a vocational qualification, for non-English folk) and her assessor person asked me to come over to do something. Turned out she wanted me to write a couple of "witness statements", in relation to some situations Laura had written about for her evidence. It was just bullshit, saying she was good at her job and whatever in the contexts she had given. The thing was it gave me a bit of an opportunity to write well, if only very briefly for a couple of paragraphs. But the assessor actually commented on how well they were written, laughingly asked me if I wanted a job. I bit my tongue from saying "Yes! Please! Give me a job writing!" but it made me stop and think. Maybe I should be doing something with my talent -- other than blogging.
I was actually thinking last night when I was at a concert that perhaps I should set up a blog exclusively to review music in -- live and recorded -- and advertise it. It would be like a blog of the music press. Or I could set up my own domain where I blog -- though I don't think the content of this blog would be suitable for mass consumption -- and integrate my art work from deviantart, including the option to buy my work, into one big site. It actually all sounds a lot like my friend Calvin's recommendation that I look at trying to train for jobs as a web editor, if I could get some design skills I could combine them with my writing ability... But nobody wants to train you for those IT jobs.
This was more or less just to tout my dA page, anyway. And soon I will start including some of my random scribblings from my travels.... I might even look at copying into here my old dx entries, since I don't know if I will be going back there again even if it comes back online.
Thursday, 23 February 2006
Whiskey bottle and a .45
I've renamed my blog. I decided today that this blog needs a spring clean to try and reflect better the changes in my life. I said before that the profile with its solipsist "unless someone is watching, you don't exist" sentiment isn't exactly what I feel any more. I like the way it's written though, and I guess so long as I'm keeping a blog (or an interent diary) it must ring true on some level.
But yes, the wholly depressing "This is all" wasn't doing it for me any more. For a start, I do adore the Pablo Neruda poem -- but the poem is incredibly sad, and not a good starting point. Taken out of context it also seems to be putting me down -- as if I'm saying "this isn't much", or "I'm not much". And that's not the way it should be. Instead, it is now called "whiskey bottle and a .45", after a line from the Gomez song "Bubblegum years". Gomez need a whole update to themself to really do them justice -- from their bluesy sound and the quirky songs, to songs full of heartache. Their bluesy sound might seem depressing, but the music is original, inspiring and uplifting -- and you can't wallow in your self pity with it.
I love Gomez, and I love the song the line is taken from -- even though it might not be a huge improvement as far as moods go.
You can read a whole bunch into it, I think it's a very visual title -- unlike what it is replacing. It reminds me of Raymond Chandler novels with Phillip Marlowe, which in turn inspire my own occasional fictional nihilist entries -- involving guns and whiskey. I think it's a much more interesting title all the same.
Next up I need to change the profile and the synopsis, as soon as I work out what they are going to say...
But yes, the wholly depressing "This is all" wasn't doing it for me any more. For a start, I do adore the Pablo Neruda poem -- but the poem is incredibly sad, and not a good starting point. Taken out of context it also seems to be putting me down -- as if I'm saying "this isn't much", or "I'm not much". And that's not the way it should be. Instead, it is now called "whiskey bottle and a .45", after a line from the Gomez song "Bubblegum years". Gomez need a whole update to themself to really do them justice -- from their bluesy sound and the quirky songs, to songs full of heartache. Their bluesy sound might seem depressing, but the music is original, inspiring and uplifting -- and you can't wallow in your self pity with it.
I love Gomez, and I love the song the line is taken from -- even though it might not be a huge improvement as far as moods go.
You can read a whole bunch into it, I think it's a very visual title -- unlike what it is replacing. It reminds me of Raymond Chandler novels with Phillip Marlowe, which in turn inspire my own occasional fictional nihilist entries -- involving guns and whiskey. I think it's a much more interesting title all the same.
Next up I need to change the profile and the synopsis, as soon as I work out what they are going to say...
Monday, 13 February 2006
It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything
It's only after you've lost
everything that you're
free to do anything
nothing is static,
everything is evolving,
everything is
falling apart
you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake
you are the same decaying
organic matter as everything else
we are all a part of the same compost heap
you have to give up
you have to realise that someday you will die,
until you know that you are useless
i say let me never be complete
i say may i never be content
i say deliver me from swedish furniture
i say deliver me from clever art
i say deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth
i say you have to give up
i say evolve, and let the chips
fall where they may
everything that you're
free to do anything
nothing is static,
everything is evolving,
everything is
falling apart
you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake
you are the same decaying
organic matter as everything else
we are all a part of the same compost heap
you have to give up
you have to realise that someday you will die,
until you know that you are useless
i say let me never be complete
i say may i never be content
i say deliver me from swedish furniture
i say deliver me from clever art
i say deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth
i say you have to give up
i say evolve, and let the chips
fall where they may
Wednesday, 25 January 2006
English
Maybe I'm too cynical, I've been told as much before. Anyway. I've never agreed that it is foolish to be proud of your country when you can't choose where you were born, but at the same time I feel it is right to question, and one should never be blindly patriotic. I think Emma once said it better than I can, that you love your country like you love your mum, even when she gets drunk at parties and embarrasses you and you're a little bit ashamed of her. It's a bit like that.
This should by no means taken as wholly inclusive or really anything other than my own meandering experience -- but having been blessed with the opportunity of living abroad, I still like to wheel out the old adage "what can you know of England, when England is all you know?". I consider this something of a work in progress -- trying to include everything I can think of without being too brief or going on too long. Following on from last entry
Red postboxes. Sometimes finding ones with "GR" on them, or if you're very lucky "VR" and being a little bit excited about it. Red London buses, big red double-decker buses -- sometimes still with the bit at the back where you can just jump on. Wanting to cry when remembering July 7 and the bus with the roof ripped off. No bins in central London. Coded warnings. The Tube. Standing on a packed train of commuters that no matter the weather outside is always far too hot. Standing cramped and pushed together, and smiling a little at how absurd it is your head is in some businessman's armpit and yet nobody makes eye-contact or even acknowledge you're there. Until the next stop, when even more push their way on. Tony Blair trying to make conversation with commuters as a PR stunt and being roundly ignored. The man with the megaphone who seems omnipotent in London. Every gig, he's there, shouting through his loud hailer about Jesus and hell and the wages of sin. Standing in Oxford Street and shouting. Crowds of people always in a hurry to get to somewhere other than where they are, pushing past you, bumping into each other with their bags of shopping, and not even noticing. Tramps sleeping in doorways as it begins to get dark. Buskers on the underground -- back before it became a corporate sponsored thing. Men with tattered cardboard signs. Zebra crossings. Giving a wave to the drivers when they stop. Muttering obscenities at the ones who don't. Pelican crossings, Toucan Crossings, Puffin crossings. The red man and green man. Push the button and it says WAIT. The green cross code. The green cross code man who I seem to remember everyone I know being scared of. Stranger Danger, and never really being sure what a stranger looked like. The friendly local policeman who would come to the school and show educational videos.. Educational short films on TV about not playing Frisbee near power stations, or something like that. Four television channels for years, and then one day Five. A man that came round to re tune your TV so it could get the exciting fifth channel that nobody ever watches. Satellite dishes. What do you call the box on the back of a satellite dish? A council house. Back when council houses existed. Pebble dashed rows of terraced houses, and hearing the footsteps or the TV of the person in the house next door. Waiting all year for six weeks off school in the summer and making plans and not doing anything. School uniforms and worse, school uniform shops. Shops with signs declaring excitedly "Back to school!" even in the first week of the holidays. Trips to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs. Still feeling like a child when you go, and still wanting to go only for the dinosaurs -- even being surprised there is more there. Trips to Tower Bridge. Castles. Real castles, and they're not made out plastic. Mottle and keep castles. Castles with drawbridges. Norman castles. Some that are just ruined piles of stones. Some with elaborate mazes and staff that dress up and talk in character. Real pubs. Not city centre council estate pubs with glasses thrown and men drinking pints of wife-beater. But real pubs. Pubs with oak beams and open fires and histories going back hundreds of years. Sitting in a corner and talking and drinking and laughing and thinking how there's nowhere else in the whole world that would ever feel quite the same as this. Pubs with old men sitting in the corner smoking. Pubs with the landlord's dog running around and begging for food. Pub food consisting of little more than egg and chips. Time at 11pm. At least it used to be. Local pubs for local people. Everyone stops talking and stares at you as you walk in. Pubs in Wales where they refuse to admit they can speak English. The English countryside. The countryside alliance, fighting the ban on hunting with dogs, and acting like fox hunting is a civil rights issue. Bleak hills and moors and marshes with driving rain and howling wind and mud. Predicting the weather by if the cows are sitting or standing. Trains crossing on bridges with passengers staring blankly out or reading their book. Public transport where if you can ever help it you avoid sitting next to someone. Sitting on the train between stations with occasional announcements from the driver about signals or problems. Ticket windows at train stations, where they look up your destination in a book. Old brick railway stations with the year on the front in different colour brick, now partially obscured by the soot from traffic fumes. Hackney carriages and black cabs that are almost never black any more. Sitting in the back with no seat-belt on and falling over when the driver turns. Roundabouts and a feeling of Russian roulette. Flyovers. Mini-roundabouts. Traffic calming. Speed bumps. Speed cameras -- traffic safety cameras. Traffic wardens, back when they still existed, and parking on double yellow lines. Skips outside of houses always full of seemingly random junk -- broken bicycles, rusted pogo sticks. Mattresses. Dustbin men who used to come into your garden to pick up the bin, back before you had to leave it by the road. Forgetting bin day and running down the road in your slippers chasing them with a waste paper bin. Black wheelie bins, and later wheelie bin cleaning vans. Recycling boxes and paper sacks. Letters to the editor. Recycling collection schedules. Information sheets on what goes in what bin with lists of exceptions.
Tree-lined streets and still years and years after you left school, still looking out for conkers. Still looking up at the branches for what you might be able to reach, or knock down with a stick. Do kids still play with conkers? Soak them in vinegar and polish them and drill a hole in them for the string to go. And acorns, too, which were just boring and sycamore seeds that twirl like a helicopter when you let them go. Or at least sometimes they do. Piles of leaves in the gutter of the road, and kicking them up and making a mess when you're feeling childish. The snails that suddenly appear on footpaths at night after a little bit of rain, and maybe it's just you, but taking the time to move certain snails out of danger. The occasional sighting of a fox in the city, or in your garden. Where have all the sparrows gone? Hanging up coconuts to attract wild birds, and hanging up in the winter feeders filled with nuts. What were the bird feeders we made at school? Something made of lard and nuts. Suddenly not so sure that birds should be eating lard... Spider webs in the autumn when the bushes are bare, and that certain time of year when there seems to be spiders everywhere indoors. Being irrationally scared of spiders even though they can't hurt you.
The Houses of Parliament. Buckingham Palace -- American tourists with cameras and baseball caps stressing the third syllable. And complaining about the weather. Nelson's Column. The stone lions. The fountains and groups of European students. The Millennium Dome and a history of a colossal waste of money. The London Eye, and trying to be Paris. The North. It's grim up there. How "The North" shifts depending on where you are. Friendly Northerners, and tight Southerners. Trams in the cities. and rain. The constant rain. Realising the rain is why The Lake District has lakes. Standing at the bus stop in the rain and laughing when a traffic cone floats off down the road. Bus shelters with seats that are too small to sit on comfortably and tip up when you get up. Small brick shelters with badly spelled graffiti and phone numbers in black pen. Dank bus stations where you can't smoke indoors but there's nothing to protect you from the bus exhaust fumes. Bus drivers who sit on the bus but wont open the doors early, however cold it is waiting outside. Sitting on the front on the top deck of a bus and pretending you're the driver, and still doing it now. Missing your stop on the bus because you didn't press the bell in time, or because the driver was in a bad mood and just didn't feel like stopping. Buses that will see you running to catch them and stop even though they have left the stop or aren't yet at the bus stop. Other buses that just ignore you. Buses that run once every few hours, and even then sometimes just don't turn up at all, and leave you standing at a random bus stop for hours.
Complaining about our weather. It's too hot. It's too cold. "The Great British Summer" where it rains the whole year. The smell of summer barbecues because you don't know when you might get another nice day. Pub beer gardens packed with people drinking lager and enjoying the nice weather while it lasts. One day of rain and cynical comments like "that's it for the summer then, a whole week of sun" before the weather changes. Weathermen on TV and watching the forecast even if you're not sure if you believe it. Isobars and little black arrows and pictures of sun and rain clouds. Everyone remembering the hurricane in the late 1980s and the weather forecaster reassuring a caller that there wouldn't be one. A changing climate, the summers getting hotter and longer. The seaside. Rock with "Southend" printed through it. Beaches of stones and cigarette butts and freezing water. Takeaway vans parked along the seafront selling doughnuts. Walking along the seafront in the cold and the wind. Lines of cars heading to the coast on nice days. Deckchairs on the beach. Beaches with imported soft yellow sand from the Caribbean. But the water is still cold, all year. Seafront arcades with the machines that push the pennies off ledges, or cranes that will fail to deliver the soft toy. Funfairs with roller coasters and ghost trains. Waltzers that gave you whiplash. Candy floss on sticks, candyfloss in bags and getting it all over your hands. Collecting shells and stones on the beach, and sometimes finding a fossil.
Sometimes finding old bullet casings on the beach. The old stone lookout posts in fields in case the Germans had made it to England. Reminders of the past that increasingly fewer people lived through. Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands war. conflict. the Gulf war. wars that are fought abroad.
Traditional Sunday Lunch. Or is it Dinner? The English civil war was fought over whether the meal eaten at midday was called lunch or dinner. Yorkshire puddings. Yorkshire puddings in the North that are so big the entire roast dinner is contained inside it. Roast potatoes. Now freezers in supermarkets filled with ready made alternatives and feeling just a little bit cheated. Pubs serving Sunday lunch, and occasionally finding a good one, As good as home. Drinking too much over lunch and sleeping the whole thing off on a Sunday afternoon. Saturday afternoons when all there was on TV was football. My Dad with the settee moved in front of the TV and a big pint mug of beer. Playing football in the park and hating it. Shouts of keep your eye on the ball and you standing in a field watching the sun set and wishing you could just go play on the swings instead. Parks when they still had swings and slides and roundabouts and other things that you could kill yourself on. Back before they even had spongy surfaces. Then later, trying to buy beer from the corner shop and taking it to the park to drink. The inexplicable finding of pornographic magazines in strange places. Trendies with their white jeans and silver puffa jackets, where did they go? The townies with their tracksuit trousers and their pitbulls drinking bottles of cider. Eventually giving way to the chav, with their burberry and their gold. Chavs, trendies, townies, always the ones hanging around in the town centre at night and keeping everyone away.
The cringe-worthy "Cool Britannia" of the 90s. Britpop and Oasis and Blur and parties in Downing Street with Tony Blair trying to cool. The 1980s. Margaret Thatcher. Recession and inflation and unemployment. Privatisation -- "new money for old rope" or "selling off the family silver" -- BSE. Mad Cow Disease. Receiving a letter in the post from the National Blood Service saying "You remember that blood transfusion you had in the 80s? Well there's a chance you could have been given infected blood and you might now have a degenerative brain disease. But it's impossible to tell. So please, don't be donating blood again." all because of money. They ground up the dead and diseased sheep and fed them to the cows. Then they ground up the dead cows and fed them to other cows. Then they made those cows into hamburgers and sold them. Foot and Mouth Disease and why the farm behind my house stopped having animals for a little while. The smell of the bonfires of the animals. Wondering if the farmers were burning their fields early. The end of the summer with the combine harvesters and haystacks and burning the stubble. The Harvest Festival with people donating tins of food they don't want. The clocks go back and it's dark at 5pm. Halloween and the increasingly Americanised obnoxious children asking for trick or treat. Or the occasional sweet children in their costumes with parents watching from down the drive and thinking it's not really so bad as they're so grateful for their handfuls of penny sweets. Guy Fawkes Night and the plot to blow up the houses of Parliament. Pretending that we celebrate not the failure but instead the thought, the effort, at least he tried. Fireworks and burning an effigy. Organised firework displays as fireworks become bigger, louder, more expensive. Keep your pets indoors on November 5. Public service announcements about not playing with fireworks or picking up the wrong end of a sparkler. Sparklers. Waving them around and writing your name in the cold night air. Checking for hibernating hedgehogs underneath the bonfire. And the scorched grass that takes all year to recover, if at all.
Being English as separate to being British. Not Scottish, not Welsh, not Northern Irish. The shocking number of people in England who don't know the difference between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Just the same celebrating St Patrick's Day -- the typically English excuse to get pissed -- but not really knowing when St George's Day is. St George's Day becoming a vehicle, a tool, for those with an axe to grind. Political Correctness gone mad and nationalistic opinion columns in the red top newspapers. Resentment of asylum seekers and refugees and immigrants and economic migrants. Councils choosing not to celebrate St George's Day since most of the constituency is Eastern European, and the people stirring up hatred and resentment. The British National Party, with election victories in the North. Enoch Powell and the repatriation charter. Grown men who paint their faces with the George Cross for sporting events. England consistently failing to win the World Cup since 1966. The hope with Wimbledon each year -- even though nobody really likes Tim Henman -- and not being altogether surprised when we're out of the tournament in record time. Sporting events cancelled because of the rain. Cricket matches that seem to last for weeks. White vans with red tape stuck on their roofs to make a flag. "Cut out and stick in your window" flags from the tabloids. Celebrity gossip and birds with their tits out on the front. Everything dumbed down, stripped down, sensationalised and reduced to the lowest common denominator. Right wing newspapers with the vitriol and their campaigns and "stop this menace". Discussions in Parliament about things they've never seen, or songs they've never heard, from a story they didn't read but someone told them about.
Local radio stations that wherever you are in the country always sound the same. The same slack jawed vacuous listeners who call in and request the new song by Will Young, in between advertising jingles for double glazing. BBC radio stations with the same news repeated all day, and the same songs from the playlist played every show. And while we're at it, BBC television with now who-knows how many channels on sky and digital and freeview with BBC news and BBC parliament and BBC consumer information. The old Reithian ethics of to educate, inform and entertain, but no longer necessarily in that order or even in equal quantities. The television licence fee and the detector vans that know if you're watching TV without a licence. Points of view where Angry from Manchester writes to complain about all the repeats on TV.
The working week. The whole rat race and the streams of people in grey and black suits as they walk and drive and cycle to the station every day, for 40 hours a week. Sitting in their luxury car traffic jams and listening to the great British bands like the Beatles and the Stones and the Kinks and the Who and the Jam and not seeing the irony in "I hope I die before I get old".
Modern shopping centres where everything is exactly the same but in a slightly different order. The cloning of modern high streets -- or the death of the high street as everything moves out of town to shopping centres and retail parks and leisure parks. The same cinemas and clubs and bars and bowling alleys -- the American themed diners and the Australian themed steakhouses and the Italian restaurants. Leaving the towns with just Chinese takeaways, Indian takeaways above a shoe shop. Feeling sad when the windows are smashed and graffiti sprayed on the walls. I said nobody goes into the town at night these days.
And that's sort of it. Like I said, it's a work in progress so I must make a permanent link to this as I expect it to be constantly updated and changed.
This should by no means taken as wholly inclusive or really anything other than my own meandering experience -- but having been blessed with the opportunity of living abroad, I still like to wheel out the old adage "what can you know of England, when England is all you know?". I consider this something of a work in progress -- trying to include everything I can think of without being too brief or going on too long. Following on from last entry
Red postboxes. Sometimes finding ones with "GR" on them, or if you're very lucky "VR" and being a little bit excited about it. Red London buses, big red double-decker buses -- sometimes still with the bit at the back where you can just jump on. Wanting to cry when remembering July 7 and the bus with the roof ripped off. No bins in central London. Coded warnings. The Tube. Standing on a packed train of commuters that no matter the weather outside is always far too hot. Standing cramped and pushed together, and smiling a little at how absurd it is your head is in some businessman's armpit and yet nobody makes eye-contact or even acknowledge you're there. Until the next stop, when even more push their way on. Tony Blair trying to make conversation with commuters as a PR stunt and being roundly ignored. The man with the megaphone who seems omnipotent in London. Every gig, he's there, shouting through his loud hailer about Jesus and hell and the wages of sin. Standing in Oxford Street and shouting. Crowds of people always in a hurry to get to somewhere other than where they are, pushing past you, bumping into each other with their bags of shopping, and not even noticing. Tramps sleeping in doorways as it begins to get dark. Buskers on the underground -- back before it became a corporate sponsored thing. Men with tattered cardboard signs. Zebra crossings. Giving a wave to the drivers when they stop. Muttering obscenities at the ones who don't. Pelican crossings, Toucan Crossings, Puffin crossings. The red man and green man. Push the button and it says WAIT. The green cross code. The green cross code man who I seem to remember everyone I know being scared of. Stranger Danger, and never really being sure what a stranger looked like. The friendly local policeman who would come to the school and show educational videos.. Educational short films on TV about not playing Frisbee near power stations, or something like that. Four television channels for years, and then one day Five. A man that came round to re tune your TV so it could get the exciting fifth channel that nobody ever watches. Satellite dishes. What do you call the box on the back of a satellite dish? A council house. Back when council houses existed. Pebble dashed rows of terraced houses, and hearing the footsteps or the TV of the person in the house next door. Waiting all year for six weeks off school in the summer and making plans and not doing anything. School uniforms and worse, school uniform shops. Shops with signs declaring excitedly "Back to school!" even in the first week of the holidays. Trips to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs. Still feeling like a child when you go, and still wanting to go only for the dinosaurs -- even being surprised there is more there. Trips to Tower Bridge. Castles. Real castles, and they're not made out plastic. Mottle and keep castles. Castles with drawbridges. Norman castles. Some that are just ruined piles of stones. Some with elaborate mazes and staff that dress up and talk in character. Real pubs. Not city centre council estate pubs with glasses thrown and men drinking pints of wife-beater. But real pubs. Pubs with oak beams and open fires and histories going back hundreds of years. Sitting in a corner and talking and drinking and laughing and thinking how there's nowhere else in the whole world that would ever feel quite the same as this. Pubs with old men sitting in the corner smoking. Pubs with the landlord's dog running around and begging for food. Pub food consisting of little more than egg and chips. Time at 11pm. At least it used to be. Local pubs for local people. Everyone stops talking and stares at you as you walk in. Pubs in Wales where they refuse to admit they can speak English. The English countryside. The countryside alliance, fighting the ban on hunting with dogs, and acting like fox hunting is a civil rights issue. Bleak hills and moors and marshes with driving rain and howling wind and mud. Predicting the weather by if the cows are sitting or standing. Trains crossing on bridges with passengers staring blankly out or reading their book. Public transport where if you can ever help it you avoid sitting next to someone. Sitting on the train between stations with occasional announcements from the driver about signals or problems. Ticket windows at train stations, where they look up your destination in a book. Old brick railway stations with the year on the front in different colour brick, now partially obscured by the soot from traffic fumes. Hackney carriages and black cabs that are almost never black any more. Sitting in the back with no seat-belt on and falling over when the driver turns. Roundabouts and a feeling of Russian roulette. Flyovers. Mini-roundabouts. Traffic calming. Speed bumps. Speed cameras -- traffic safety cameras. Traffic wardens, back when they still existed, and parking on double yellow lines. Skips outside of houses always full of seemingly random junk -- broken bicycles, rusted pogo sticks. Mattresses. Dustbin men who used to come into your garden to pick up the bin, back before you had to leave it by the road. Forgetting bin day and running down the road in your slippers chasing them with a waste paper bin. Black wheelie bins, and later wheelie bin cleaning vans. Recycling boxes and paper sacks. Letters to the editor. Recycling collection schedules. Information sheets on what goes in what bin with lists of exceptions.
Tree-lined streets and still years and years after you left school, still looking out for conkers. Still looking up at the branches for what you might be able to reach, or knock down with a stick. Do kids still play with conkers? Soak them in vinegar and polish them and drill a hole in them for the string to go. And acorns, too, which were just boring and sycamore seeds that twirl like a helicopter when you let them go. Or at least sometimes they do. Piles of leaves in the gutter of the road, and kicking them up and making a mess when you're feeling childish. The snails that suddenly appear on footpaths at night after a little bit of rain, and maybe it's just you, but taking the time to move certain snails out of danger. The occasional sighting of a fox in the city, or in your garden. Where have all the sparrows gone? Hanging up coconuts to attract wild birds, and hanging up in the winter feeders filled with nuts. What were the bird feeders we made at school? Something made of lard and nuts. Suddenly not so sure that birds should be eating lard... Spider webs in the autumn when the bushes are bare, and that certain time of year when there seems to be spiders everywhere indoors. Being irrationally scared of spiders even though they can't hurt you.
The Houses of Parliament. Buckingham Palace -- American tourists with cameras and baseball caps stressing the third syllable. And complaining about the weather. Nelson's Column. The stone lions. The fountains and groups of European students. The Millennium Dome and a history of a colossal waste of money. The London Eye, and trying to be Paris. The North. It's grim up there. How "The North" shifts depending on where you are. Friendly Northerners, and tight Southerners. Trams in the cities. and rain. The constant rain. Realising the rain is why The Lake District has lakes. Standing at the bus stop in the rain and laughing when a traffic cone floats off down the road. Bus shelters with seats that are too small to sit on comfortably and tip up when you get up. Small brick shelters with badly spelled graffiti and phone numbers in black pen. Dank bus stations where you can't smoke indoors but there's nothing to protect you from the bus exhaust fumes. Bus drivers who sit on the bus but wont open the doors early, however cold it is waiting outside. Sitting on the front on the top deck of a bus and pretending you're the driver, and still doing it now. Missing your stop on the bus because you didn't press the bell in time, or because the driver was in a bad mood and just didn't feel like stopping. Buses that will see you running to catch them and stop even though they have left the stop or aren't yet at the bus stop. Other buses that just ignore you. Buses that run once every few hours, and even then sometimes just don't turn up at all, and leave you standing at a random bus stop for hours.
Complaining about our weather. It's too hot. It's too cold. "The Great British Summer" where it rains the whole year. The smell of summer barbecues because you don't know when you might get another nice day. Pub beer gardens packed with people drinking lager and enjoying the nice weather while it lasts. One day of rain and cynical comments like "that's it for the summer then, a whole week of sun" before the weather changes. Weathermen on TV and watching the forecast even if you're not sure if you believe it. Isobars and little black arrows and pictures of sun and rain clouds. Everyone remembering the hurricane in the late 1980s and the weather forecaster reassuring a caller that there wouldn't be one. A changing climate, the summers getting hotter and longer. The seaside. Rock with "Southend" printed through it. Beaches of stones and cigarette butts and freezing water. Takeaway vans parked along the seafront selling doughnuts. Walking along the seafront in the cold and the wind. Lines of cars heading to the coast on nice days. Deckchairs on the beach. Beaches with imported soft yellow sand from the Caribbean. But the water is still cold, all year. Seafront arcades with the machines that push the pennies off ledges, or cranes that will fail to deliver the soft toy. Funfairs with roller coasters and ghost trains. Waltzers that gave you whiplash. Candy floss on sticks, candyfloss in bags and getting it all over your hands. Collecting shells and stones on the beach, and sometimes finding a fossil.
Sometimes finding old bullet casings on the beach. The old stone lookout posts in fields in case the Germans had made it to England. Reminders of the past that increasingly fewer people lived through. Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands war. conflict. the Gulf war. wars that are fought abroad.
Traditional Sunday Lunch. Or is it Dinner? The English civil war was fought over whether the meal eaten at midday was called lunch or dinner. Yorkshire puddings. Yorkshire puddings in the North that are so big the entire roast dinner is contained inside it. Roast potatoes. Now freezers in supermarkets filled with ready made alternatives and feeling just a little bit cheated. Pubs serving Sunday lunch, and occasionally finding a good one, As good as home. Drinking too much over lunch and sleeping the whole thing off on a Sunday afternoon. Saturday afternoons when all there was on TV was football. My Dad with the settee moved in front of the TV and a big pint mug of beer. Playing football in the park and hating it. Shouts of keep your eye on the ball and you standing in a field watching the sun set and wishing you could just go play on the swings instead. Parks when they still had swings and slides and roundabouts and other things that you could kill yourself on. Back before they even had spongy surfaces. Then later, trying to buy beer from the corner shop and taking it to the park to drink. The inexplicable finding of pornographic magazines in strange places. Trendies with their white jeans and silver puffa jackets, where did they go? The townies with their tracksuit trousers and their pitbulls drinking bottles of cider. Eventually giving way to the chav, with their burberry and their gold. Chavs, trendies, townies, always the ones hanging around in the town centre at night and keeping everyone away.
The cringe-worthy "Cool Britannia" of the 90s. Britpop and Oasis and Blur and parties in Downing Street with Tony Blair trying to cool. The 1980s. Margaret Thatcher. Recession and inflation and unemployment. Privatisation -- "new money for old rope" or "selling off the family silver" -- BSE. Mad Cow Disease. Receiving a letter in the post from the National Blood Service saying "You remember that blood transfusion you had in the 80s? Well there's a chance you could have been given infected blood and you might now have a degenerative brain disease. But it's impossible to tell. So please, don't be donating blood again." all because of money. They ground up the dead and diseased sheep and fed them to the cows. Then they ground up the dead cows and fed them to other cows. Then they made those cows into hamburgers and sold them. Foot and Mouth Disease and why the farm behind my house stopped having animals for a little while. The smell of the bonfires of the animals. Wondering if the farmers were burning their fields early. The end of the summer with the combine harvesters and haystacks and burning the stubble. The Harvest Festival with people donating tins of food they don't want. The clocks go back and it's dark at 5pm. Halloween and the increasingly Americanised obnoxious children asking for trick or treat. Or the occasional sweet children in their costumes with parents watching from down the drive and thinking it's not really so bad as they're so grateful for their handfuls of penny sweets. Guy Fawkes Night and the plot to blow up the houses of Parliament. Pretending that we celebrate not the failure but instead the thought, the effort, at least he tried. Fireworks and burning an effigy. Organised firework displays as fireworks become bigger, louder, more expensive. Keep your pets indoors on November 5. Public service announcements about not playing with fireworks or picking up the wrong end of a sparkler. Sparklers. Waving them around and writing your name in the cold night air. Checking for hibernating hedgehogs underneath the bonfire. And the scorched grass that takes all year to recover, if at all.
Being English as separate to being British. Not Scottish, not Welsh, not Northern Irish. The shocking number of people in England who don't know the difference between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Just the same celebrating St Patrick's Day -- the typically English excuse to get pissed -- but not really knowing when St George's Day is. St George's Day becoming a vehicle, a tool, for those with an axe to grind. Political Correctness gone mad and nationalistic opinion columns in the red top newspapers. Resentment of asylum seekers and refugees and immigrants and economic migrants. Councils choosing not to celebrate St George's Day since most of the constituency is Eastern European, and the people stirring up hatred and resentment. The British National Party, with election victories in the North. Enoch Powell and the repatriation charter. Grown men who paint their faces with the George Cross for sporting events. England consistently failing to win the World Cup since 1966. The hope with Wimbledon each year -- even though nobody really likes Tim Henman -- and not being altogether surprised when we're out of the tournament in record time. Sporting events cancelled because of the rain. Cricket matches that seem to last for weeks. White vans with red tape stuck on their roofs to make a flag. "Cut out and stick in your window" flags from the tabloids. Celebrity gossip and birds with their tits out on the front. Everything dumbed down, stripped down, sensationalised and reduced to the lowest common denominator. Right wing newspapers with the vitriol and their campaigns and "stop this menace". Discussions in Parliament about things they've never seen, or songs they've never heard, from a story they didn't read but someone told them about.
Local radio stations that wherever you are in the country always sound the same. The same slack jawed vacuous listeners who call in and request the new song by Will Young, in between advertising jingles for double glazing. BBC radio stations with the same news repeated all day, and the same songs from the playlist played every show. And while we're at it, BBC television with now who-knows how many channels on sky and digital and freeview with BBC news and BBC parliament and BBC consumer information. The old Reithian ethics of to educate, inform and entertain, but no longer necessarily in that order or even in equal quantities. The television licence fee and the detector vans that know if you're watching TV without a licence. Points of view where Angry from Manchester writes to complain about all the repeats on TV.
The working week. The whole rat race and the streams of people in grey and black suits as they walk and drive and cycle to the station every day, for 40 hours a week. Sitting in their luxury car traffic jams and listening to the great British bands like the Beatles and the Stones and the Kinks and the Who and the Jam and not seeing the irony in "I hope I die before I get old".
Modern shopping centres where everything is exactly the same but in a slightly different order. The cloning of modern high streets -- or the death of the high street as everything moves out of town to shopping centres and retail parks and leisure parks. The same cinemas and clubs and bars and bowling alleys -- the American themed diners and the Australian themed steakhouses and the Italian restaurants. Leaving the towns with just Chinese takeaways, Indian takeaways above a shoe shop. Feeling sad when the windows are smashed and graffiti sprayed on the walls. I said nobody goes into the town at night these days.
And that's sort of it. Like I said, it's a work in progress so I must make a permanent link to this as I expect it to be constantly updated and changed.
Friday, 30 December 2005
Sweetheart this city has beautiful, beautiful snow
"Last day in December
and the world is a white line of unshovelled cars,
'cause you can walk to the bars.
In a town where the drinkers are ploughed like the roads,
in a heap round their breakfasts in yesterday's clothes.
Sweetheart, this city has beautiful, beautiful snow..."
An unspecified prize goes to anyone that can correctly identify the quote (and with it the entry title) without cheating. It's been snowing on and off here for a few days, it snowed first the morning of the 27th -- although I was in Portsmouth, on the coast, so we didn't see any until we got further inland towards London. By the time I got home the snow had been melted by the incessant rain and I headed straight back out to work.
It was hardly any time at all before Laura got in turns hyperactive and frustrated because it was snowing, and because she couldn't go out and play. I was more bemused at her moods, but the way the lights outside would light up the big flakes of snow did have a certain atmosphere. The pub was quiet -- in that sort of post-Christmas, before going back to work, on a cold wet night sort of way. The snow was intermittently heavy, and then light, and then heavy, and then stopping. Laura would keep me informed of its current status whenever she ran to the window to check. She wanted to make a snowman before the snow even covered the grass.
Like I say, this was Tuesday night. Since then the snow was steadily melting, until this morning, when there had been a heavy snowfall overnight. It frustrates me, snow and no winter sports. I'm scraping together my savings for a snowboard holiday this season -- comparing Utah with Eruopean destinations, wondering if I'll have to go alone, or worse yet not go at all.
I can't believe I'm writing a whole entry about snow.
I dreamed the other night I was joining the RAF. I've talked about it before, I've seriously considered it and had them send me information packs. But recently I shrugged and threw it out, and said it wasn't going to happen. And there I thought it ended. But in my dream I was in a recruitment office, and instead of wanting to be a photographer I was interested in being a gunner. Something I have taken one look at and thought "canon fodder" in the past. I don't think the dream last long before the scene turned into a gym and the recruiter chick was trying to kiss me or something. The dream was hardly worth mentioning if one of my colleagues today hadn't mentioned he applied to be a photographer, in the RAF. He said he wanted to be a physical training assistant or something, but didn't get the points. He didn't elaborate on why he didn't go through with it -- maybe like me they said there was a very long wait, and he said to forget it. But he also mentioned they told him there were vacancies to be a gunner, and he laughed at the suggestion.
It's funny sometimes the things you have in common with the people you least expect it.
and the world is a white line of unshovelled cars,
'cause you can walk to the bars.
In a town where the drinkers are ploughed like the roads,
in a heap round their breakfasts in yesterday's clothes.
Sweetheart, this city has beautiful, beautiful snow..."
An unspecified prize goes to anyone that can correctly identify the quote (and with it the entry title) without cheating. It's been snowing on and off here for a few days, it snowed first the morning of the 27th -- although I was in Portsmouth, on the coast, so we didn't see any until we got further inland towards London. By the time I got home the snow had been melted by the incessant rain and I headed straight back out to work.
It was hardly any time at all before Laura got in turns hyperactive and frustrated because it was snowing, and because she couldn't go out and play. I was more bemused at her moods, but the way the lights outside would light up the big flakes of snow did have a certain atmosphere. The pub was quiet -- in that sort of post-Christmas, before going back to work, on a cold wet night sort of way. The snow was intermittently heavy, and then light, and then heavy, and then stopping. Laura would keep me informed of its current status whenever she ran to the window to check. She wanted to make a snowman before the snow even covered the grass.
Like I say, this was Tuesday night. Since then the snow was steadily melting, until this morning, when there had been a heavy snowfall overnight. It frustrates me, snow and no winter sports. I'm scraping together my savings for a snowboard holiday this season -- comparing Utah with Eruopean destinations, wondering if I'll have to go alone, or worse yet not go at all.
I can't believe I'm writing a whole entry about snow.
I dreamed the other night I was joining the RAF. I've talked about it before, I've seriously considered it and had them send me information packs. But recently I shrugged and threw it out, and said it wasn't going to happen. And there I thought it ended. But in my dream I was in a recruitment office, and instead of wanting to be a photographer I was interested in being a gunner. Something I have taken one look at and thought "canon fodder" in the past. I don't think the dream last long before the scene turned into a gym and the recruiter chick was trying to kiss me or something. The dream was hardly worth mentioning if one of my colleagues today hadn't mentioned he applied to be a photographer, in the RAF. He said he wanted to be a physical training assistant or something, but didn't get the points. He didn't elaborate on why he didn't go through with it -- maybe like me they said there was a very long wait, and he said to forget it. But he also mentioned they told him there were vacancies to be a gunner, and he laughed at the suggestion.
It's funny sometimes the things you have in common with the people you least expect it.
Thursday, 4 August 2005
It hits you so much harder than you thought
It's sort of difficult to know what to write in an update, so for the past 4 weeks I have been putting it off. It sounds stupid, I surely have no less to write about now than I did however many years ago when I first started an online diary.
So, what's new? I'm still unsure if my stupid job is going to lead me anywhere fast, and increasingly of the opinion that journalism was a massive waste of time. I make plans, like I get my head down on my training at work and then can get onto the management program and get out and up. Or I will decide I will pass my driving test -- on like my third attempt -- and go work for a better company. I have no idea if these are just things I tell myself so i can sleep at night, to excuse that I work for minimum wage, can't afford to leave home and have no prospects.
This is totally not what I wanted this update to be.
Jon failed his driving test the other day for something like the fourth time, and has had to admit to himself he has problems with anxiety. When you're up all night throwing up then it's a pretty good guess -- but like I say, he's just had to admit it. He says it's made him sit back and take stock of his life, and has decided however nice a guy he is, he's still a loser. Which more or less makes me a loser, too, since I've nothing more going for me.
On a random whim the other day I found Tai Chi classes vaguely nearby. I figure it combines several things I want -- like fitness, self defence, and a centring of the mind and spirit. Of course, I might think it's all a load of old bollocks when I actually start it. I also want to get into mountain boarding. I went surfing in Portugal, except all week there was no surf. Nothing. Hardly a ripple. So on like the last day, a bunch of us went mountain baording since there was a guy called Alex Deimos who sort of lived at the surf house.
Alex is fairly well known in certain boarding circles -- I have an all-terrain boarding magazine with him on the cover -- so Alex and this Australian guy called Nick had a bunch of these all terrain boards, and took us out. It was a lot like snowboarding, but on rock. I liked it a lot -- like snowboaring and surfing -- and although I scraped up an arm pretty good and twisted a foot quite badly and spent weeks thinking I had cracked a rib, I want to pursue it. So one night at the pub I was explaining to Deb how I managed to scrape my arm up, and how I wanted to carry on boarding, and she said she would go too -- since she used to be a skateboarder. I just haven't got around to finding a place to do it yet.
I want to be somewhere else. Jon mentioned the other day -- again -- of moving to Milton Keynes. I don't expect anything to come of it this time any more than it does any other time, and I don't know what we could do even if we did move there. I want to be somewhere else tho, like Norway. Or Mexico. Or maybe Canada. The trouble is, though, you can't run away from yourself.
So, what's new? I'm still unsure if my stupid job is going to lead me anywhere fast, and increasingly of the opinion that journalism was a massive waste of time. I make plans, like I get my head down on my training at work and then can get onto the management program and get out and up. Or I will decide I will pass my driving test -- on like my third attempt -- and go work for a better company. I have no idea if these are just things I tell myself so i can sleep at night, to excuse that I work for minimum wage, can't afford to leave home and have no prospects.
This is totally not what I wanted this update to be.
Jon failed his driving test the other day for something like the fourth time, and has had to admit to himself he has problems with anxiety. When you're up all night throwing up then it's a pretty good guess -- but like I say, he's just had to admit it. He says it's made him sit back and take stock of his life, and has decided however nice a guy he is, he's still a loser. Which more or less makes me a loser, too, since I've nothing more going for me.
On a random whim the other day I found Tai Chi classes vaguely nearby. I figure it combines several things I want -- like fitness, self defence, and a centring of the mind and spirit. Of course, I might think it's all a load of old bollocks when I actually start it. I also want to get into mountain boarding. I went surfing in Portugal, except all week there was no surf. Nothing. Hardly a ripple. So on like the last day, a bunch of us went mountain baording since there was a guy called Alex Deimos who sort of lived at the surf house.
Alex is fairly well known in certain boarding circles -- I have an all-terrain boarding magazine with him on the cover -- so Alex and this Australian guy called Nick had a bunch of these all terrain boards, and took us out. It was a lot like snowboarding, but on rock. I liked it a lot -- like snowboaring and surfing -- and although I scraped up an arm pretty good and twisted a foot quite badly and spent weeks thinking I had cracked a rib, I want to pursue it. So one night at the pub I was explaining to Deb how I managed to scrape my arm up, and how I wanted to carry on boarding, and she said she would go too -- since she used to be a skateboarder. I just haven't got around to finding a place to do it yet.
I want to be somewhere else. Jon mentioned the other day -- again -- of moving to Milton Keynes. I don't expect anything to come of it this time any more than it does any other time, and I don't know what we could do even if we did move there. I want to be somewhere else tho, like Norway. Or Mexico. Or maybe Canada. The trouble is, though, you can't run away from yourself.
Thursday, 7 July 2005
07/07/05
07/07/2005
I woke this morning, a little after 9am. Confused and disorientated, I lay staring at the ceiling while I tried to work out what time it was, what day it was. Once I established it was my day off and I had another hour in bed before I had to get up, I tried to go back to sleep – almost on cue, San called me. We were meant to be meeting up today, and she wanted to check what time I would be coming to see if she had time to go to the gym. We discussed our arrangements, and again I tried to go back to sleep. I heard my phone vibrate with a text message shortly afterwards, but I ignored it – thinking it was probably San trying to wake me up again.
After about half an hour of non-sleep I got out of bed and checked my phone; the message was from my Mum saying to check the trains because there had been an explosion in London. I didn’t think much of it – assumed there had been some kind of isolated accident. I logged onto the internet and checked train times and everything seemed normal. Then my Dad called me into the living room where he had the TV on.
It was then that I saw that it wasn’t an isolated accident, but rather a series of coordinated terrorist attacks on the transport system in London. The reports were still a little vague – it seemed undeniable it was terrorism, and the similarities to the attacks in Madrid were obvious.
Although San lives in Kings Cross, where one of the attacks had been, I felt sure that she was safe – since I had spoken to her after the attacks, without either of us knowing it, and that she wouldn’t have so much as left her flat. Then like so many other people today, I started trying to contact friends who would be in the city. I couldn’t reach San, the mobile networks were jammed and nobody was answering at her flat – but as I say, I already spoken to her already and more wanted to make sure her family were okay, and let her know that – perhaps obviously – I wouldn’t be seeing her today.
I have friends among the many people in this town who commute into London every day – their trains arriving in Liverpool Street station, before they take the tube to their various workplaces in the city. I have no idea how many people I know -- more acquaintances than they are friends -- might be caught up in it all.
I have little else to say, I have no intention on getting into the politics of the day.
Tuesday, 10 August 2004
A first kiss
I wrote about my first kiss. It wasn't romantic, really. I wasn't in love with Michelle, wasn't particularly interested in dating her and I don't think she felt much differently. I don't remember what I said the last time I spoke to her, or even when it was. So I'm thinking I want to write about a good kiss.
I kissed Michelle when I was 17 or 18 -- I can't even remember exactly now. Then, one night in early November, when I was 20, I kissed San for the first time.
San and I "met" on Open Diary. She was a favourite of Dave's, and I'd seen her comments on his diary so one day, when I was bored and online in Salt Lake City, I'd started reading her diary. I found San lived in London -- which perhaps sparked an initial interest for me, in that I knew I could see her. Knew there could be something. If I returned from the USA, at any rate -- and at the time (early in the summer of 2001) I wasn't sure I was going to.
As people meet people in situations like this, we read each other's diaries, we left each other comments, we chatted on instant messenger when it was late at night for her. And I really liked her.
So much so that when I returned to England we started talking on the phone, and after a week I kind-of, sort-of, asked her out on a date. We liked each other but didn't date because we thought it wouldn't be feasible living in different parts of the country, as we would do in term time.
This is largely background, not meant to be a whole history of us. Just setting down there were feelings there, for in November when I went to stay with San at her university.
I don't remember what we did all night. If we talked, or drank, if we stayed in or if we went out. I don't remember what music she played, if any.
I just remember when we were going to go to sleep -- San on the floor -- and San turned the light out. We sat on the bed, facing each other, in the dark. It was hard to make San out in the dark, but her skin was -- and is -- amazingly soft. As it should be for how much she moisturises. I think we held hands, or I stroked her face or arms. Then we gradually got closer and closer in the dark.
Until suddenly we were kissing. It was dark, so I couldn't have seen much, but we kissed for what seemed like all night. Her lips were as soft as the rest of her skin.
I mention it was November, because in England in early November is fireworks night. Maybe this was or wasn't that night, but the fireworks go on for days if not weeks, and I remember we laughed at the fireworks that night.
That kiss was the best first kiss ever. Yes, better than the first time I kissed Fiona -- and better than the other girls before and in between.
I kissed Michelle when I was 17 or 18 -- I can't even remember exactly now. Then, one night in early November, when I was 20, I kissed San for the first time.
San and I "met" on Open Diary. She was a favourite of Dave's, and I'd seen her comments on his diary so one day, when I was bored and online in Salt Lake City, I'd started reading her diary. I found San lived in London -- which perhaps sparked an initial interest for me, in that I knew I could see her. Knew there could be something. If I returned from the USA, at any rate -- and at the time (early in the summer of 2001) I wasn't sure I was going to.
As people meet people in situations like this, we read each other's diaries, we left each other comments, we chatted on instant messenger when it was late at night for her. And I really liked her.
So much so that when I returned to England we started talking on the phone, and after a week I kind-of, sort-of, asked her out on a date. We liked each other but didn't date because we thought it wouldn't be feasible living in different parts of the country, as we would do in term time.
This is largely background, not meant to be a whole history of us. Just setting down there were feelings there, for in November when I went to stay with San at her university.
I don't remember what we did all night. If we talked, or drank, if we stayed in or if we went out. I don't remember what music she played, if any.
I just remember when we were going to go to sleep -- San on the floor -- and San turned the light out. We sat on the bed, facing each other, in the dark. It was hard to make San out in the dark, but her skin was -- and is -- amazingly soft. As it should be for how much she moisturises. I think we held hands, or I stroked her face or arms. Then we gradually got closer and closer in the dark.
Until suddenly we were kissing. It was dark, so I couldn't have seen much, but we kissed for what seemed like all night. Her lips were as soft as the rest of her skin.
I mention it was November, because in England in early November is fireworks night. Maybe this was or wasn't that night, but the fireworks go on for days if not weeks, and I remember we laughed at the fireworks that night.
That kiss was the best first kiss ever. Yes, better than the first time I kissed Fiona -- and better than the other girls before and in between.
Tuesday, 27 July 2004
Now that you're not here
Saturday afternoon, just after midday, I got into London and met Tom. I had invited Tom to come and stay with me again now I'm back home, under the impression he was going away next weekend. But I was wrong, it was this weekend. So on Saturday I arranged to meet him in London, and spend the day with him before his flight to Japan.
Even though we never kept in close contact all that much, it seems so strange now that he's gone and I can't talk to him. Knowing that he's in Tokyo, probably drunk and jet-lagged, carrying a small fortune in Japanese Yen in cash on him. Or by now on (in? what's correct) some kind of orientation, where he will be saying moshimatsu in his thick Northern accent.
Who in Japan will ever tell him that Hull is grim and smells like fish? Who will beat to death the same joke about fish over and over again, and still make him laugh?
I worry about him out there, all on his own. I know he can take care of himself, he -- like me -- took himself around the USA one summer and lived and worked in New Orleans for a while without knowing anyone. Just the same, I worry how he will cope if his depression comes down on him and he realises that he's an 11-hour flight away from home, knows nobody and can barely speak the language. Maybe he will luck out and run into Scarlett Johansson while in Tokyo (like he said he was going to do).
Tom was a wholly different person on Saturday to the depressed, subdued guy who had stayed with me in Leicester shortly before I left. I don't know precisely what prompted the change, just as I was never really clear on what had got him so depressed to begin with. I give credit to a girl named Kim that was on the Jet program like him, and whom he'd met on the interview day in London. I won't divulge details, but I'm sure she had a part to play in cheering him up when I couldn't.
Tom and I wandered around Camden market, and he found a retro shop and bought himself a pair of 1970s-style football shorts. Even though he said the seams would probably split if he tried to play football in them, he was pleased to find them and sent text messages to friends telling them of his great find. We then spent most of the afternoon drinking in a bar and talking, like old times.
I took him to the airport, we met his family and he checked his baggage and the representatives from the Jet program. And I hugged him goodbye, and made my way home.
Even though I have written how I am sick of feeling impermanent and that nowhere is my home and starting over all the time, I was envious of him. I might just sign up myself and go try teach English to kids in Japan. It would only need to be for a year -- which out of a lifetime is nothing. I can settle down later.
This is Tom:
Tom with his silly hair, playing with my digital camera. Currently speaking Japanese somewhere with a thick Northern accent...
Even though we never kept in close contact all that much, it seems so strange now that he's gone and I can't talk to him. Knowing that he's in Tokyo, probably drunk and jet-lagged, carrying a small fortune in Japanese Yen in cash on him. Or by now on (in? what's correct) some kind of orientation, where he will be saying moshimatsu in his thick Northern accent.
Who in Japan will ever tell him that Hull is grim and smells like fish? Who will beat to death the same joke about fish over and over again, and still make him laugh?
I worry about him out there, all on his own. I know he can take care of himself, he -- like me -- took himself around the USA one summer and lived and worked in New Orleans for a while without knowing anyone. Just the same, I worry how he will cope if his depression comes down on him and he realises that he's an 11-hour flight away from home, knows nobody and can barely speak the language. Maybe he will luck out and run into Scarlett Johansson while in Tokyo (like he said he was going to do).
Tom was a wholly different person on Saturday to the depressed, subdued guy who had stayed with me in Leicester shortly before I left. I don't know precisely what prompted the change, just as I was never really clear on what had got him so depressed to begin with. I give credit to a girl named Kim that was on the Jet program like him, and whom he'd met on the interview day in London. I won't divulge details, but I'm sure she had a part to play in cheering him up when I couldn't.
Tom and I wandered around Camden market, and he found a retro shop and bought himself a pair of 1970s-style football shorts. Even though he said the seams would probably split if he tried to play football in them, he was pleased to find them and sent text messages to friends telling them of his great find. We then spent most of the afternoon drinking in a bar and talking, like old times.
I took him to the airport, we met his family and he checked his baggage and the representatives from the Jet program. And I hugged him goodbye, and made my way home.
Even though I have written how I am sick of feeling impermanent and that nowhere is my home and starting over all the time, I was envious of him. I might just sign up myself and go try teach English to kids in Japan. It would only need to be for a year -- which out of a lifetime is nothing. I can settle down later.
This is Tom:
Tom with his silly hair, playing with my digital camera. Currently speaking Japanese somewhere with a thick Northern accent...
Monday, 19 July 2004
On diaries and girlfriends
Before this diary, there was Open Diary, and I started on Open Diary as Sharkbait. The name didn't -- and doesn't -- really mean anything, it was going to be Sharky Sharky but I had email accounts and IM names with it and I wanted my diary to be private from Fiona.
I kept that diary for years, upgrading to Open Diary Plus when that was launched to be free of the pop ups and for the better service. But in the end, I didn't like how Open Diary was run. Some days it just didn't work, sometimes one thing after another would go wrong and stay wrong for days. What really got to me was when people were paying for subscriptions, but not having them recognised. The money would be taken, but the service wouldn't be provided.
Eventually it became time for me to leave my past behind and start over. I came here, after looking at what other sites were available. I liked how Stephen was involved in the community, and how it felt like more of a community. I liked how Stephen answered my emails, and asked me what I thought of d-x and how he explained the idea was for a place where people wanted to write better.
I've never regretted coming here. Until today.
No, only kidding.
All this is just nostalgia, because I was looking through my old open diary for a poem to show Diane, and I forgot that if I edited something my diary would show up as updated and everyone I knew there would be confused. But I can lose myself in reading entries written when I lived in Salt Lake, 3 years ago.
I'm toying with the idea of including a link here back to that diary -- entries written when I was 19 and fretting about my relationship with Fiona, notes from San on old entires -- after all, that's where the two of us met. I won't include such a link yet, though -- this diary was set up to free me from my past. To start over. But I wonder if knowing my past doesn't help understand me better. It's something to ponder.
I kept that diary for years, upgrading to Open Diary Plus when that was launched to be free of the pop ups and for the better service. But in the end, I didn't like how Open Diary was run. Some days it just didn't work, sometimes one thing after another would go wrong and stay wrong for days. What really got to me was when people were paying for subscriptions, but not having them recognised. The money would be taken, but the service wouldn't be provided.
Eventually it became time for me to leave my past behind and start over. I came here, after looking at what other sites were available. I liked how Stephen was involved in the community, and how it felt like more of a community. I liked how Stephen answered my emails, and asked me what I thought of d-x and how he explained the idea was for a place where people wanted to write better.
I've never regretted coming here. Until today.
No, only kidding.
All this is just nostalgia, because I was looking through my old open diary for a poem to show Diane, and I forgot that if I edited something my diary would show up as updated and everyone I knew there would be confused. But I can lose myself in reading entries written when I lived in Salt Lake, 3 years ago.
I'm toying with the idea of including a link here back to that diary -- entries written when I was 19 and fretting about my relationship with Fiona, notes from San on old entires -- after all, that's where the two of us met. I won't include such a link yet, though -- this diary was set up to free me from my past. To start over. But I wonder if knowing my past doesn't help understand me better. It's something to ponder.
Anti-social day
I feel like trash today. I didn't sleep very well last night I think, and today just feel run down and anti-social. It's funny, I'm sat around wondering abut calling my doctor. Not because I don't feel good, but because he apparently called wanting to speak to me over the weekend. I really don't know what he wants. I'm not expecting any sort of test results, nor any feedback from him on anything. I saw him last week and he changed my medication, and it's possible that with my moving and his surgery reopening my medical records weren't available to him at the time. In this case he could be concerned that my records show I'm all kinds of screwed up and he wants to talk to me about it or something. This seems kind of above and beyond the call of duty to me, especially since he wasn't overly concerned with talking to me about why I was on medication to begin with.
The other option is that I mentioned to him I needed a job. That here I am, a qualified journalist, and I can't get a job. He said something like he would keep his ear to the ground for me in case he heard of anything I might be suitable for. There's a chance, then, that this is why he called -- that he has heard of a job or recommended me for a job and wanted to tell me.
But it's the uncertainty, the fear that it could be the first option and not the second, that is stopping me from calling. I'm wrestling with whether it is better to not know. If it's about a job then surely it is better to call sooner rather than later? I don't expect to make a move any time soon.
On an unrelated topic, I finally got compensation through for my assault back in January. It's not a fortune, but I'm pleased enough that it has cleared my overdraft, cleared my credit card debts and given me some savings again. It also meant I could take San out to dinner on Friday night and buy her a pretty bracelet from Camden market. Of course, since my parents don't know I was assaulted I also haven't told them about my compensation and am having to be careful about my spending. I bought a usb device and a new pair of boots before I left Leicester -- knowing I had money coming -- and so have successfully avoided being asked where I got the money for those from. I have my reasons for keeping it from them -- mainly because it would be too difficult to explain who I got compensation from when I told them that I merely slipped on some ice and fractured my jaw. But it's also because I know they would want a share of the money.
I talked to the university before I left about getting a hardship grant from them, since I had to pay out for all my exams. They said they could give me £1500, if I met certain requirements. Once my parents found out about this they decided that the majority of this money should go to them, and not to me. I resented this at the time, but have since agreed to just keep £500 for myself, since they don't know about the other money. Out of this I will take them out to dinner this week.
I'm wondering to myself lately if maybe I should go travelling. I've got a little money and nothing really to do here right now, so it could be a good time to see something of the world. Most likely it's an idea I will do nothing more about -- yeah, I said I was feeling anti-social today.
The other option is that I mentioned to him I needed a job. That here I am, a qualified journalist, and I can't get a job. He said something like he would keep his ear to the ground for me in case he heard of anything I might be suitable for. There's a chance, then, that this is why he called -- that he has heard of a job or recommended me for a job and wanted to tell me.
But it's the uncertainty, the fear that it could be the first option and not the second, that is stopping me from calling. I'm wrestling with whether it is better to not know. If it's about a job then surely it is better to call sooner rather than later? I don't expect to make a move any time soon.
On an unrelated topic, I finally got compensation through for my assault back in January. It's not a fortune, but I'm pleased enough that it has cleared my overdraft, cleared my credit card debts and given me some savings again. It also meant I could take San out to dinner on Friday night and buy her a pretty bracelet from Camden market. Of course, since my parents don't know I was assaulted I also haven't told them about my compensation and am having to be careful about my spending. I bought a usb device and a new pair of boots before I left Leicester -- knowing I had money coming -- and so have successfully avoided being asked where I got the money for those from. I have my reasons for keeping it from them -- mainly because it would be too difficult to explain who I got compensation from when I told them that I merely slipped on some ice and fractured my jaw. But it's also because I know they would want a share of the money.
I talked to the university before I left about getting a hardship grant from them, since I had to pay out for all my exams. They said they could give me £1500, if I met certain requirements. Once my parents found out about this they decided that the majority of this money should go to them, and not to me. I resented this at the time, but have since agreed to just keep £500 for myself, since they don't know about the other money. Out of this I will take them out to dinner this week.
I'm wondering to myself lately if maybe I should go travelling. I've got a little money and nothing really to do here right now, so it could be a good time to see something of the world. Most likely it's an idea I will do nothing more about -- yeah, I said I was feeling anti-social today.
Tuesday, 13 July 2004
Shannon
Shannon
For some reason this evening my thoughts are centred around a girl named Shannon, that I knew online several years ago -- when I first started a journal on Open Diary.
This isn't a tale of lost love, or undeclared crushes -- or even of two close friends losing each other. But she was a friend, and I can still remember random facts about her -- how she lived in Canada, and used the name Raven to begin with. Her diary was the sporadically updated type -- even more sporadic than is mine, but she had a very distinct writing style.
I don't recall now if she often wrote poetry, or if it was a rare occurrence. If I close my eyes and concentrate hard, I think I can visualise various poems of hers -- though I can't read what they say. I can almost see myself in the third person, sat here in front of her diary and reading her poetry. One poem stood out, though, it was called Lupine Dreams and I can always remember the first line read: "I dreamed of you as you ran with the wolves". I think she said it was inspired by a real dream of her boyfriend, and wolves.
She was an angry and depressed person -- as you might expect -- and I think she was about the age I am now, which would have given us something like a 5-year age gap. We'd talk late into the night on ICQ, and I think we even used voice-chat once or twice. What did we talk about? I can't remember. Probably Fiona, when I was with her. Her boyfriend, who she always referred to as "the boy". It was easy conversation, though it won't ever go down in history.
As I sit here and write I keep pausing and I will stare into space for a minute as I try to recall the names or nicknames of her coworkers from diary entries. I try to recall place names, or the type of job she did.
I'm sorry, Shannon, but I can't.
Just the other day a girl I knew from university -- a sort-of friend of Fiona's -- started talking to me on IM. We hadn't talked in about 4 years, or thereabouts, and to be honest I didn't much care for her when I knew her, let alone now. But maybe Shannon will one day resurface on yahoo, or maybe she never left but thinks it's been too long to talk to someone she didn't know that well to begin either way.
Just the same, I have a copy of her poem kept still, I like it so much. I've searched for the title online, but with no success. I've searched lines from it, but I get no results. She changed her name from ravengirl to Crimson raven, but there's no sense in searching those names -- they'd be too popular.
She's out there, somewhere, tonight. And I hope she's still writing.
For some reason this evening my thoughts are centred around a girl named Shannon, that I knew online several years ago -- when I first started a journal on Open Diary.
This isn't a tale of lost love, or undeclared crushes -- or even of two close friends losing each other. But she was a friend, and I can still remember random facts about her -- how she lived in Canada, and used the name Raven to begin with. Her diary was the sporadically updated type -- even more sporadic than is mine, but she had a very distinct writing style.
I don't recall now if she often wrote poetry, or if it was a rare occurrence. If I close my eyes and concentrate hard, I think I can visualise various poems of hers -- though I can't read what they say. I can almost see myself in the third person, sat here in front of her diary and reading her poetry. One poem stood out, though, it was called Lupine Dreams and I can always remember the first line read: "I dreamed of you as you ran with the wolves". I think she said it was inspired by a real dream of her boyfriend, and wolves.
She was an angry and depressed person -- as you might expect -- and I think she was about the age I am now, which would have given us something like a 5-year age gap. We'd talk late into the night on ICQ, and I think we even used voice-chat once or twice. What did we talk about? I can't remember. Probably Fiona, when I was with her. Her boyfriend, who she always referred to as "the boy". It was easy conversation, though it won't ever go down in history.
As I sit here and write I keep pausing and I will stare into space for a minute as I try to recall the names or nicknames of her coworkers from diary entries. I try to recall place names, or the type of job she did.
I'm sorry, Shannon, but I can't.
Just the other day a girl I knew from university -- a sort-of friend of Fiona's -- started talking to me on IM. We hadn't talked in about 4 years, or thereabouts, and to be honest I didn't much care for her when I knew her, let alone now. But maybe Shannon will one day resurface on yahoo, or maybe she never left but thinks it's been too long to talk to someone she didn't know that well to begin either way.
Just the same, I have a copy of her poem kept still, I like it so much. I've searched for the title online, but with no success. I've searched lines from it, but I get no results. She changed her name from ravengirl to Crimson raven, but there's no sense in searching those names -- they'd be too popular.
She's out there, somewhere, tonight. And I hope she's still writing.
Sunday, 11 July 2004
"We were on a break" and jealousy issues
San has gone to the coast to celebrate her flatmate Krystina's birthday, along with (most of) her other flatmates, and most likely their boyfriends. I agreed to go, and was actually looking forward to it for a while -- then figured that I would hardly know anyone, and it wouldn't be much fun if San felt she had to keep me company the whole time rather than have fun. So I've stayed home, sending San with the card and the pretty stud earrings I bought for Krystina.
I spent most of yesterday in Camden, again -- this time with San and the additional company of her flatmate (from Leicester, like any flatmate of hers I mention) Natalie, since the two of them wanted to shop for something for Krystina and I just didn't want to have to wait another week to see San.
I don't remember how it started, but over lunch I was teasing San about this guy Sebastian she slept with when we were "on a break" this one time. The conversation had gone from a general discussion -- or rant, perhaps, on my part -- about how nobody ever says "I think we should see other people" without having somebody else in mind. That's probably where Sebastian came into it, I said that San had known perfectly well when she decided we should take a break that she wanted him. After all, he'd made it pretty clear what he wanted from her and she'd kept in contact with him.
It was about the time I was teasing San about him just wanting to be her "friend" that I said how she had been a really, really good friend to him all night. Yes, said San, that night, and the next night, and the night after that...
I stared at her.
What I'd always thought was a one night stand apparently wasn't at all. But we were on a break, says San. I don't hold it against her, I tell her, I was just 'surprised' and needed a minute to take it in. Natalie thought watching all this was hilarious.
San then picked up my phone and started looking through my inbox, and I went to the bathroom. When I came back, San showed me my phone and had highlighted the name Charley in my inbox. Yes, you know Charley, I told her. I've talked about her before, she's a friend of mine that was on the same Psychology course as Kirsty, her flatmate. San wanted to know why Charley had been thanking me for a lovely afternoon. Not that I felt I should have to justify or explain myself, but I told her that, yes, Charley is my friend and we hung out one afternoon. Seems when I was in the bathroom San had read my messages, found this one, got jealous, and toyed with the idea of calling her, to see who answered. Natalie had agreed with San this was just a little bit psychotic, and talked her out of it.
Everything's fine, though.
I'm no longer bothered by the idea of her spending several nights with Sebastian -- it caught me off-guard at the time and that is all. We were on a break, as she says, I just hadn't expected her to start up with someone else so quickly at the time. But it's all in the past. As for San's jealousy... I assured her that there's no funny stuff and it's all platonic. But it was because of a reaction like this I didn't tell her to begin with.
Don't get me wrong, I adore San. I miss her during the week, and love her for who she is, as a whole -- not in spite of her flaws, they just make up who she is. Like I say, everything's fine -- she's texting me today, in typical San fashion, saying she wants to live by the sea, but only in the summer when it's nice weather...
I spent most of yesterday in Camden, again -- this time with San and the additional company of her flatmate (from Leicester, like any flatmate of hers I mention) Natalie, since the two of them wanted to shop for something for Krystina and I just didn't want to have to wait another week to see San.
I don't remember how it started, but over lunch I was teasing San about this guy Sebastian she slept with when we were "on a break" this one time. The conversation had gone from a general discussion -- or rant, perhaps, on my part -- about how nobody ever says "I think we should see other people" without having somebody else in mind. That's probably where Sebastian came into it, I said that San had known perfectly well when she decided we should take a break that she wanted him. After all, he'd made it pretty clear what he wanted from her and she'd kept in contact with him.
It was about the time I was teasing San about him just wanting to be her "friend" that I said how she had been a really, really good friend to him all night. Yes, said San, that night, and the next night, and the night after that...
I stared at her.
What I'd always thought was a one night stand apparently wasn't at all. But we were on a break, says San. I don't hold it against her, I tell her, I was just 'surprised' and needed a minute to take it in. Natalie thought watching all this was hilarious.
San then picked up my phone and started looking through my inbox, and I went to the bathroom. When I came back, San showed me my phone and had highlighted the name Charley in my inbox. Yes, you know Charley, I told her. I've talked about her before, she's a friend of mine that was on the same Psychology course as Kirsty, her flatmate. San wanted to know why Charley had been thanking me for a lovely afternoon. Not that I felt I should have to justify or explain myself, but I told her that, yes, Charley is my friend and we hung out one afternoon. Seems when I was in the bathroom San had read my messages, found this one, got jealous, and toyed with the idea of calling her, to see who answered. Natalie had agreed with San this was just a little bit psychotic, and talked her out of it.
Everything's fine, though.
I'm no longer bothered by the idea of her spending several nights with Sebastian -- it caught me off-guard at the time and that is all. We were on a break, as she says, I just hadn't expected her to start up with someone else so quickly at the time. But it's all in the past. As for San's jealousy... I assured her that there's no funny stuff and it's all platonic. But it was because of a reaction like this I didn't tell her to begin with.
Don't get me wrong, I adore San. I miss her during the week, and love her for who she is, as a whole -- not in spite of her flaws, they just make up who she is. Like I say, everything's fine -- she's texting me today, in typical San fashion, saying she wants to live by the sea, but only in the summer when it's nice weather...
Sunday, 4 July 2004
Cry as they all die blonde
I've been slacking off. There's been things I should have been writing down, but haven't. Instead I will make this entry a sort of mish-mash of recent happenings.
I was interviewed last week for a paper that for privacy reasons I will refer to only as "The Chronicle". I had sent them a speculative letter asking them to keep me on file for any vacancies that might come up, and they invited me for a preliminary interview, or an "informal interview".
I was mislead by the word informal. Even when i got there the news editor -- whom I remembered being a happy and laid back sort of guy from when I was on work experience -- led me to a meeting room and told me it was just an informal chat. The interview didn't go entirely badly, but I think that my nerves might have lead me to lose my train of thought once or twice. Also, I wasn't prepared for when I was asked to talk factually about the paper. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I must have appeared as a terrible journalist, since the first thing a decent journalist does is his research -- but I hadn't researched the paper. I'd read the paper and familiarised myself with the news locally, but nothing about circulation figures, that the paper is the oldest business in the area and is one of the oldest papers in the country.
I also had to do a kind of written test -- remember this isn't even the official interview, this is just to see if I am worth interviewing for a position. It might have gone well, or I might have crashed and burned -- trying to write 250 words and find the right news angle from a vicar's newsletter.
I am yet to hear back from my first interview -- the much nicer interview I had weeks back. I'm told this can be a good sign.
In non-journo news, I spent yesterday with San wandering around Camden. Camden is like no other place on earth. In fact, London is a very unique city in that it appears to be run entirely by people from other countries -- from waitresses to bar tenders to shop assistants in tourist shops, every last one of them speaking with an accent. It makes me smile. But Camden... one big melting pot of cultures and counter-cultures and people with sandwich boards and taxis trying to run you over as you cross the road, or markets mixing the sounds and smells together to just make that unique Camden feeling.
San and I are going to her flatmate Krystina's birthday next weekend, so I was looking for something to buy her and texting one of San's other flatmates asking for ideas and guidance. In the end, I bought her some pretty studs for her freshly-pierced ears. I miss being pierced myself.
I was interviewed last week for a paper that for privacy reasons I will refer to only as "The Chronicle". I had sent them a speculative letter asking them to keep me on file for any vacancies that might come up, and they invited me for a preliminary interview, or an "informal interview".
I was mislead by the word informal. Even when i got there the news editor -- whom I remembered being a happy and laid back sort of guy from when I was on work experience -- led me to a meeting room and told me it was just an informal chat. The interview didn't go entirely badly, but I think that my nerves might have lead me to lose my train of thought once or twice. Also, I wasn't prepared for when I was asked to talk factually about the paper. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I must have appeared as a terrible journalist, since the first thing a decent journalist does is his research -- but I hadn't researched the paper. I'd read the paper and familiarised myself with the news locally, but nothing about circulation figures, that the paper is the oldest business in the area and is one of the oldest papers in the country.
I also had to do a kind of written test -- remember this isn't even the official interview, this is just to see if I am worth interviewing for a position. It might have gone well, or I might have crashed and burned -- trying to write 250 words and find the right news angle from a vicar's newsletter.
I am yet to hear back from my first interview -- the much nicer interview I had weeks back. I'm told this can be a good sign.
In non-journo news, I spent yesterday with San wandering around Camden. Camden is like no other place on earth. In fact, London is a very unique city in that it appears to be run entirely by people from other countries -- from waitresses to bar tenders to shop assistants in tourist shops, every last one of them speaking with an accent. It makes me smile. But Camden... one big melting pot of cultures and counter-cultures and people with sandwich boards and taxis trying to run you over as you cross the road, or markets mixing the sounds and smells together to just make that unique Camden feeling.
San and I are going to her flatmate Krystina's birthday next weekend, so I was looking for something to buy her and texting one of San's other flatmates asking for ideas and guidance. In the end, I bought her some pretty studs for her freshly-pierced ears. I miss being pierced myself.
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