SoMiraculous

White Weak

2011-07-25T06:19:00.000-07:00

I'm standing in the crush of people on the central line tube train toward Bond Street. Someone is holding a newspaper in front of them. The headline reads, 'Better to kill too many than not enough.' It relates to the horrific massacre in Norway in which a far-right extremist shot almost 100 people he accused of being 'multiculturalist traitors.' They were teenagers on a Labour Party summer camp.

I turn my head away from the direction of the paper and look through the glass I'm pressed against. A man is sitting on a seat with his little son. The man has gelled blonde hair and wears a yellow checked shirt. He's covered in tattoos, some of which look hand-drawn, which makes me think perhaps he did them in prison. All the tattoos are black outlines, faded to green. On his kneecap is written, 'SEX + DRUGS' with a wonky star underneath it and beneath that is written, 'BEER.' There is a nasty scar on the side of his knee that looks like the result of an accident which has taken some of the muscle there away. I move my eyes to look at his arms, which also have deep, long scars on them. They create spaces between tattoos of skulls and the name 'Maria.' I move my eyes to his neck and spot an England flag. 'Here we go,' I think. There is a large N next to the flag and just as I'm thinking perhaps it stands for 'Nazi,' I spot some writing on his wrist with a symbol which looks as if derived from the Christian fish symbol. 'White power,' it says. I look as his beautiful son, whose skin is untainted and hope that the tattoos on his father are from a past he cannot erase, but has forgotten.

Rain in June Mood

2011-06-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

It rains. What could have been the wind through trees is not. There's no movement and leaves droop with the weight of water. An oversized mac and impractical shoes, leaking onto semi-socks trudge. Trudge, trudge, trudge. Underground with wet knees and toes, umbrellas folded pass. Drips fall from lips and noses. Sit. Each person after falls heavily into empty space and sighs. Rain in June again. Wet through again.

Building

2011-05-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

I'm a bubble. Held in the air in a place with no atmosphere, spinning on an axis, tripping on the stars, occasionally I fall, and rest on rivers, borrowing more than a cliche. I'm an instrument. I feel like a projector. An aged projector which pulls up the wrong images in a presentation which has taken many hours to put together. I'm a flutter. I'm the wings of a moth beating and beating and beating. Coated in camomile, hair done up and I'm bent around my words. I'm a thesaurus not alphabetised. I'm a forcefield. Shattering metaphorical glasses with my fingertips. I'm a pianist with a keyboard instead of a piano. Making letters not notes. Building with them. Putting letters into words, tap, tap, tap. Sliding words into sentences, tap, tap tap. I float on paragraphs on seas of pages, a solid hull to safe-glide through the emptiness. An oil lamp in my hand. A blanket of belief around my shoulders, soft.

Top Deck N31

2011-03-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

The bus stop crowd sighs as an empty 31 rattles past on the Camden High Road. When the next arrives, the people-mass is twice as large as it would've otherwise been. I wait for everyone to board before eying up the top deck and taking my own chances. At the last minute upstairs a seat up-front becomes available. I sit down. How privileged I am to get this view of the throng of red car lights illuminated against the black night. To see the the people outside the clubs having a good time from this height.

Then the guy across from me pipes up. A big, bald Jamaican guy with a leather jacket and fingerless biker gloves.

"Artificial intelligence. All of you young people with your internet and your mobile phones. You're not human, you're artificial intelligence," he repeats over and over again to the window in front of him.

The man beside him widens his eyes and shrinks against the window.

The bus slowly progresses to the end of the High Road, at which point our biker says, "come out, come out, wherever you are. Who stole my youth? Who stole my youth? Be it on tube, bus, plane or train, come out, come out." He repeats this line over and over before a few more choruses about artificial intelligence.

The shrunken man catches my eye in the window reflection. He looks a bit scared. I shoot him a sympathetic glance.

At last we pull into a bus stop and with the entire top deck now watching, the biker stands up and, as he turns to leave, mutters, "Fucking two-legged wankers."

The Waiting Game

2011-03-01T09:18:00.000-08:00

Boring 2010

2010-12-12T06:13:00.000-08:00

I'm fragile today. Boring 2010 can't have been Boring. An excellent day and a happy after-pub. I won't bang on about it but will quickly mention @mount_st_nobody and @thesouthpole. Their talks were sublime. And @iamjamesward, thank you - best London thing I've done in London yet.

Some photos can be found on my Flickr account

I Thought of You

2010-11-24T15:29:00.000-08:00

I thought of you at Piccadilly
and while sitting next to an old man
turning pages of The Secret Life of France
on the Jubilee

(opposite a man
who read Lenin's biography)

I thought of you as I left
the station
and with each footfall to my door

And I cursed you
for making me write
a London-centric poem

I hate London-centric poems

Her Van and Mine

2010-11-11T15:29:00.000-08:00

I've taken the most precious of my books with me to London. One is my friend Emily Mackie's And This is True. I picked it up this evening and opened it again.

And I read the bit that describes the van that Nevis and his father lived in. In detail. And I thought of my own van. The third-hand van my dysfunctional family and I drove around in when my parents were still together.

A white Mitsubishi. The interior beige. Different shades of beige. The front had three seats covered in broken and cracked pleather, all a pale beige. The oil was underneath the driver's seat. The radio had dials. We always had it set to Atlantic Long-Wave 252 to listen to the same limited playlist over and over - the most memorable song Sunshine After The Rain. The back had two MDF benches which faced each other. There was enough space for three people on each bench. There were three dark-beige dirty cushions on each. If you lifted them there was a thumb-sized hole you could lift the top of the bench with, to access the storage space beneath.

In the boot was a large rectangle of the same MDF the benches were made of. It had two further bits of MDF which meant you could make the rectangle into a table, elevated in between the benches, or lie it flat to create a double bed.

The windows in the front wound down by means of a rotating beige handle. The back windows had thumb holes in, as the benches did, so you could slide them open.

The van broke down all the time and cost loads to run - but it was lying on the cushions in the back looking up at the double-lights permeating the black night above the motorway in the summer, with the breeze on my face as the others slept, which forms my earliest memory of a journey and is the reason I keep moving. I loved it.

"But I hate Busy Trains..."

2010-10-10T14:19:00.001-07:00

A boy holds his mother's hand on the platform at King's Cross. He's about five and his big, dark, beautiful eyes are filled with sadness as the train approaches. It's quite full.

"But I hate busy trains," he says, bottom lip quivering.

"It's okay," his mother says as the doors open and people file off.

There are seats and they sit down. He's still not pleased and gazes up at the map. His mother strokes his chestnut hair, which falls just above his eyebrows and takes his hand. She reassures him that it's not far to Camden Town, from where they will change.

He doesn't want to change but after some persuasion, he says, "okay."

His eyes move to the advert next to the map, "Mum, look, it says 'donate yourself', why does it say that?"

And just as she's about to explain he says, "I know what donate yourself means, it means give yourself to somebody else."

And then we're at Camden Town. They walk away. He doesn't look sad anymore.

The Pope's Visit

2010-09-26T10:46:00.001-07:00

Groups of pilgrims stand in Victoria Station. African nuns wear yellow 'Papal visit 2010' bags. They look so happy. Two priests walk past me. A gold cross shines light into my eye from the breast of one, a reminder to me of the wealth of the Catholic church before I cite its symbolic meaning.

Underground, a father is explaining to his young children that it's busy because the Pope is in London today.
'But daddy,' one proclaims, 'the Pope's old.'

I smile as I board the tube to travel away from the epicentre.

Defining PC Games and Media of Old.

2010-09-11T16:34:00.000-07:00

I've always been interested in the paranormal. God, ghosts, lake monsters, yetis, time portals, telekinesis and everything else 'unexplained' fascinated me from the minute I was aware of them as concepts (if a toddler can grasp the concept of God, which I suppose is not necessarily plausible).

This evening I was talking to @oye_billy on Twitter and I brought up a PC game I loved as a kid. I had to look it up. It was based on Sam & Max, comic book characters created by Steve Purcell in the late 80s (I'm an 80s kid). The game was called Sam & Max Hit the Road and I loved it because they went across America solving mysteries in weird places. Like at the giant ball of yarn.

Another game I played, again on the PC, was 'WeiRd.' In this game you went through various levels solving puzzles and reading about things like the woman with asthma, which for some reason caused her breasts to glow blue. The game was a place of different dimensions that were fantastically designed, from holes that descended miles underground with stories to unearth as you went down, to labs and misty mazes. It was magnificent.

I even enjoyed the Goosebumps PC game, One Day At Horrorland which was neither cool nor magnificent.

On TV, The X-Files was a seven-year-old revelation. From the first episode I found my mother watching in our living room (Mulder running a tooth through a supermarket check-out and alien code screwing the system) to the the hole in the smoking man's windpipe near the end.

And with a backdrop of Fortean Times Magazine from the age of eleven, all these things were absorbed with a lot of love. Yet somehow I still don't think I've turned out as a geek. Not really.

No One's Infallible

2010-09-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

So... Yesterday I bet everything (I'm not sure entirely what I bet) that I'd be okay commuting to London and using the tube on the day the staff went on strike.

To be fair, I was acting under the advice of older, wiser people than myself.

The train from Bristol to Paddington was fine, emptier than usual but on time.

@Biltawulf had tweeted me, 'go for it. It's fun!' which gave, I think, a slightly false sense of hope. But he'd somehow managed to get into work earlier than he had in years so it was coming from a good place.

I arrived. I walked past this queue on my way to the tube.

And then I was told there was no tube from Paddington. The tube trains may have been running but if they weren't running from where I was it was no use.

I asked for help. A friendly Transport-helper-person (I've no official name to hand) told me to get the 205 bus from outside. Lovely, I thought as I bounded to the bus stop full of hope.

I was greeted by this at the bus stop:

So the upshot was, over an hour and only two simultaneously-arriving-and-quickly-filled 205 buses later, I turned around and went back into Paddington. I was too late to meet the person I was meant to.

But it was alright... at least I wasn't a doctor or other important integral cog in London's Big Ben... or something.

The Tube Strike Won't Affect My Train Travel

2010-09-06T09:01:00.000-07:00

Monday morning and typing ‘tube’ into Google brings up ‘tube strike’ as the second most searched for tube related thing after ‘map.’ BBC news is tops in the results with advice to, ‘take an alternative way of getting home’

TfL have allowed ‘Around a hundred extra buses, escorted bike rides, marshalled taxi ranks, and capacity for 10,000 more journeys on the river.’

On Twitter people seem more annoyed about the Guardian’s ‘obvious’ headline, ‘Tube strike to cause mass disruption across London.’ Some are excited about having an excuse to cycle and @therealmilesyuk is: ‘Secretly a bit looking forward to London anarchy caused by tube strike.’

Royal Maritime and Transport (RMT) and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA), (maintenance and engineering staff) go on strike at 5pm today, and other RMT and TSSA Tube staff, ‘including station staff and some drivers’, begin at 9pm. They’re facing 800 job cuts because of Oyster card success – In a similar vein to supermarket staff who’ve been replaced by self-service check-outs and cinemas where you only need your bank card to pick up tickets.
I’m particularly interested in the words ‘some drivers.’ The strike is predominantly maintenance and engineering staff, so I’m thinking ‘most drivers’ will still be driving my tube trains.

In fact I’m willing to bet on it. I currently commute from Bristol to London. I get into Paddington then take the tube to work. At the end of the day, I take the tube back to Paddington. Miss the last train and I’m in a bit of a predicament.
I can’t ride a bike back (I can ride a bike…I just don’t have one). I haven’t worked out what buses to use. Oh, and it’s my brother’s birthday so I want to get his present to him. The BBC may think me an ‘irresponsible traveller.’ Let’s see if they’re right tomorrow.

Flail

2010-08-28T13:43:00.000-07:00

He said I could call anytime
I was starting to fall for him
he can not reciprocate
it would get messy
I'd get hurt
I ran

Thank You.

2010-08-08T05:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a tough year. In our last week at Bath Spa we were given a PowerPoint presentation on how many companies were shedding staff because of the recession. Pages of text crammed together. The text just company name after company name.
They told us the stigma attached to signing on no longer existed. Encouraged us to do it. Or leave the country.
I moved home. I volunteered for Oxjam for three months, which I'd recommend to anyone for meeting lovely people and getting experience while raising money for a good cause. I went to Copenhagen for the Climate Summit. I wrote 20,000 words or so of my novel. I put months of effort into applying for an internship I didn't get. I volunteered again for a community based project.
And then I started to get scared. To grow increasingly morose. My family were beginning to believe I'd become a loser. Many of my school friends were in the same boat. We sat in pubs in the rain (it may not have been raining but it adds effect) with furrowed brows, scraping the barrel for mutual support.
Then I applied for a dream job. Combining everything I love. Travel, writing, social media, video and photography. I went to an interview and gave everything I had.

And I got the job.

So I'd like to say thank you.

Thank you to my friends and family for helping me to keep my chin up. Thank you to the many kind people on twitter who have given me support over this year. To Ed. To the two train bloggers Jools and David. Thank you to my tutor Joe, travel writer extraordinaire. Thank you to my friends at Waterstone's past and present. To my old housemates. To my mother, with her boundless love and patience, in spite of being one of the most impatient people I know. To my sisters and brother, not least for helping me make videos. My father. To Kate, whose sofa has been a constant comfort and who has allowed me to become a secondary housemate. To my school friends (Lara, Roxy, Ju, thanks for the cameos). To my grandad, who commented on my application even though he doesn't know what social media is. Who told me I was the best.

To those of you who joined my Facebook groups: Hannah, Tom H, Holly T, Holly W, Leslie, Steve, Ellie, Carly, Katie M, Loralei, Jenny, Gina, Kyam, Laura J, Diego, Sam W, Ruby, Katie P, Tanja, Kimberley, Adam, Amy, Emily G, Emily M, Ella C, Cherry, Annie M, Fran, Becky, Steph, Maria, Mel, Jessi, Rachel B, Shaun, Ed, Greg, Antonia, Nathan, Kwojo, Alice C, Richard, Jalon, Lucy, Olivia, Katherine, Dave, Thea C, Henry, Charlene, Lara, Justin, Tom A, Lu (my wonderful mother), Ben, Ella P, Nieves, Elena, Thom, Daniel, Fikir, Roxanne, Jools, Sian, Kate, Natassia, Lee, Owen, Joe, Fred, James, Annie McG.

To everyone.

Thank you.

Don't Give Up.

2010-08-08T04:22:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about the representation of women in the media, again. There are several reasons. Firstly everyone who still has a television will probably have seen the Sure ad. It features Alexandra Burke, the winner of X-factor a couple of years ago. At the beginning of the advert I think she looks quite beautiful. Then they fire make-up all over her face and stick her on a stage and she looks far less beautiful. And I guess as their target audience I'm supposed to aspire to the latter Burke.
I went to a bar in Bath last night and saw swathes of women walking around in strapless dresses which only just skimmed the underneath of their buttocks. Nearly all of them were wearing impossibly high heels. I wondered at what point women collectively decided they needed to look like this. Would men cease to want to sleep with them if they wore something slightly more flattering? Of course not.
I think a sketch on That Mitchell and Webb Look - Women Sort Yourselves Out

highlights these issues pointedly.
And it's the way women talk about each other as well. In Mean Girls there's a brilliant scene where Tina Fey says to an audience of high school girls: 'you all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it OK for guys to call you sluts and whores.'
How many times have you heard Camilla Parker Bowles referred to as a horse? And what does Charles get? Big ears... If someone told me I had a big nose I'd say 'Yes?' because I do have a quite a prominent nose. But call me equine-features and you're insulting me as a person.
How many unattractive male actors and comedians can you name? And female?
Feminism has achieved a lot - but it's painful to hear people still taking the man-hating whinging woman perspective as its face. Feminism in the original sense is about striving for equality while celebrating differences. I'm still waiting for all women to be celebrated by all women and men for who they are, not what they look like.

When All Your Peers Start Wearing Suits.

2010-07-27T01:33:00.000-07:00

You're looking on your homepage (because you have the time)
Another classmate wears a suit and tie and smiles
Another update tells you how much another kid loves their job
And you sit there and think, I don't want to pretend.
I don't want to wear polyester.
I hate polyester.

Sophie C., Bristol

2010-07-22T03:58:00.000-07:00

I have a shiny page on the website now: Sophie C., Bristol Ooh shiny. Pass it around...

Trainspotter Wanted

2010-07-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

I'm applying for a seriously cool job and have made this video as part of the process.

An Invitation

2010-07-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

I am applying for a job. It relates to social media and trains. I have created a Facebook group here where you can share train related photographs, drawings, or ideas which I can then use in an application video I am in the process of putting together. If you need help with a project you may be working on in return (as long as it doesn't involve medical experimentation) I might be able to help you out.

Eggs

2010-07-01T07:19:00.000-07:00

There are some boys (they must still be boys) who drive around Bristol with boxes of eggs. Not because they're delivering eggs to the egg-less. These eggs are for throwing at innocent passers-by.
I was hit a couple of years ago by the Arches on Gloucester Rd. It felt like someone had punched me really hard in the side (although I've never actually been punched in the side so this is mere conjecture).
Last night I went out to meet some friends. We were standing outside the Golden Lion when there was a noise from behind us. I felt two spots of moisture on my feet, the guy next to me asked what had happened. There was nothing there. Then I spotted part of an eggshell.
"It was an egg, look," I pointed.
"Where is it?" he asked.
We couldn't see the rest of the egg. I looked myself over, he looked himself over. There was nothing on us. Then someone sitting at the table pointed to the guy's pint glass. The rest of the egg was suspended in his cider. Benedict style.
We were stunned. Although I hate the pricks who throw eggs, I couldn't help but be impressed.
Then, as I was walking past the RSPCA shop later, alone, I nearly jumped out of my skin as an egg obviously intended to hit me smashed against the glass of the shop window. With that my momentary respect faded.

My Sister and Cocktails.

2010-06-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

When my sister comes home from London she tells me to bleach my moustache.

Then she insists we go shopping. This involves her telling me everything I choose is horrendous while she tries on sunglasses and says: Do I look like John Lennon?

Thankfully, she has a lovely friend called Ella who came along with us on the most recent outing (last week).

After an HOUR AND A HALF in H&M the pair were distracted by Arm & Hammer giving away free toothpaste. They were not even ashamed to try it out (even though Ella looks a bit ashamed in this photograph).

When we had been out for far too long I decided going for a cocktail was an alright thing to do, as it was the evening. My friend put together what I believe is a variation on an 'eggy-weggy,' while I laughed at names like 'Knob' on some expensive bottles.

Some bartenders don't have a taste for this kind of humour. But I know my friend was laughing inside. I walked home afterwards via another bar then went on twitter after I'd had too many gins. I courted celebrities, one of whom kindly laughed at my sister's joke concerning high-sixing people from the Forest of Dean.

Bad Poems That Aren't Really Even Poems That I Wrote on the Coach #2

2010-06-28T06:58:00.001-07:00

The Fallen

Why does nobody
tell you the truth about love?

They tell you about ups and downs
But don't say,
Once you've fallen
you stay on the earth at the bottom

The love doesn't
leave
ever

There'll be times
when you'll feel liberated
and attracted to
all
kinds of people
all
over the place.

But then you were
attracted to those people
long before,
when you were on the earth
with the other person

Before you left.

Let me tell you what it feels like
to be in love.

It feels
like a metal adjustable wire
is around your heart

The wire looks like a cookie cutter.

Much of the time
it sits ever so softly
around the edges of your heart

But when you think about
love
unconnected, floating,
the love you carry
with you,
like a raindrop the size of
your head,

When you think about it,
the cookie cutter contracts,
squeezing your heart.

Love
floods your body,
like pins and needles

as the heart pumps out emotion
with blood

And you want to find anyone,
anything,
to cover in your
rain.

But you don't
because you can't
because it wouldn't work anyway.

That is what love feels like.

Bad Poems That Aren't Really Even Poems That I Wrote On The Coach. #1

2010-06-18T07:43:00.000-07:00

Football Clean-up

Imagine if everybody cared
as much about an oil spill
as the World Cup.

Bunting would be stripped
from housing and pubs
Flags pulled from cars

And wrapped around pipes
to hold them
together

Hairdressers would send hair
and gap year students
would spend their year
using it to mop oil from everything

The hole would be plugged
with recycled vuvuzelas
and maybe
not all the birds and fish
would die.

Getting Things Done

2010-06-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

I made a playlist on Spotify today called 'Getting Things Done.' It is quite weird because I was in a strange mood. It is subject to change. You may add bash bash tunes (up-tempo stuff) that are super-cool (if you like) or you can create your own.

Misery of a (Mild) Sort

2010-06-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

It is June and raining. I don't have a proper job. I don't think there are any. I am losing faith in my capabilities. I'm listening to Santana's Supernatural because it reminds me of travelling vast distances through Argentina by bus. When there was no rain. No beads of water traversing the wires of telegraph poles. No sitting in front of a computer trawling the internet to the point that fainting became probable upon standing up too quickly. No wasted time. No wasted energy. Wasted happiness. Husk is a good word.

Ode to a Pie (and a Thali).

2010-05-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

I've been eating Pieminister pies for a few years now, in fact I even did a three month stint working on their stall at the fake beach in Bristol a couple of summers ago. I still have the T-shirt. I've just returned from their shop on Stokes Croft full of Chicken of Aragon. And the best bit is the ethics. It's all free range.

Another favourite is my nearest Thali Cafe in Montpelier. They've just opened a new one in Clifton and I think it'll be the first restaurant at the top of Hensman's hill to actually be successful. On my menu this weekend past was a note explaining that the chicken was free range and the fish sourced responsibly. Both places make fantastic food at incredibly reasonable prices (the pie mash and 'groovy' I just had was £5.50). At a point in time where we can't really afford to ignore the damage farming is doing to the environment, it gives me hope to see that change is possible. If they can do it, I don't see why everyone else can't. Let's take greater steps toward re-localising the food production and farming responsibly...

Have a look at the Thali Cafe's more eloquent explanation here.

FT Pulled Amnesty Ad - Fuck You Shell

2010-05-18T06:12:00.000-07:00

Bradt's Travel Writing Competition - The Original and Still the Best.

2010-05-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

Looking Forward.

2010-05-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

I'm walking home with my friend Lara, after a day spent in the pottery studio where we volunteer. I often discuss what I might make for dinner with her, amongst the other details of my entire life. Over and over. It's a miracle she puts up with my incessant muttering really. Anyway, it's sunny and the sky is blue and we haven't been ConDemned to a Tory controlled government yet, so I fancy summer food, celebratory food. Lara suggests a frippy something or other that's creamy, mushroomy and French. I turn it down in favour of paella. Yum.
I return home with a bag of vegetables and two packets of king prawns.
I dice the red onions, crush two cloves of garlic and fry them in olive oil. Then add red pepper. As I pour paella rice into the pan to join the base, the news on the radio announces Gordon Brown is stepping down. 'Yes!' I say aloud, clutching a wooden spoon to my chest, my face wrinkling into a smile. What a good man, I think. There is hope. I happily pour the half a bottle of white wine I couldn't drink on election night into the pan (I'd already had two halves equalling one bottle when I made the 4am decision to go to bed). I take four or five salted anchovies from a small jar and put them in. The salt stings my thumb. I chop six tomatoes and add a tablespoon of tomato puree as well as two bay leaves and some saffron. Chicken stock goes in with water and I stir and stir. I pour in frozen peas from a bag.
My father calls as I'm stirring. 'Have you heard the news?!' he says.
'Yes,' I reply.
'It's very exciting isn't it?' he says.
'Yes... just imagine the Green's in government,' I say.
He has campaigned with the Green Party since at least 1982. When I was younger I thought it was all a big joke, an embarrassment. Now people have stopped laughing.
I imagine my father with tears of joy in his eyes. He might even start reading the paper again.
I open the packets of prawns and sift them into the finished paella.

Frustration.

2010-05-05T08:42:00.001-07:00

I wonder what it would be like to be mute. For all the words that roll over my tounge and jump from my lips, over half of them meaningless, it's strange that when I feel most I am silent. The inside of my mouth feels my teeth, which hold the very tip of my tongue, gently but firmly. My arms feel the blood moving within them, as does the back of my neck. My body wants, it struggles to contain the words screaming in my veins. But the words are successfully repressed, they are not welcome in the outside, yet. One day, they'll be teased out with understanding and caressed. Words holding words and making sense together. But not now.

Stand Off

2010-04-24T02:11:00.000-07:00

Always a crowd when there's a fight, tonight is no different. Except it's not a fight so much as a stand-off. He's middle aged, wears a black beanie hat and stares at people. He doesn't do a lot. Doesn't want police to have cause to take him away. Wants to sit in the corner waiting. Wants someone to punch him. Is begging anyone to punch him. When they don't, he gets up in their face and wills them to punch him with his eyes. Staff are monkey-fied clenching fists. It's like a prolonged anti-climax. I see one has a bottle of washing-up liquid. I raise an eyebrow.
"What are you going to do with that?" I ask.
"Squirt it in his eyes!"
"Right..."
"I'm smart, he won't see it coming."
We discuss what constitutes GBH and decide it's safer just to threaten squirting it in his eyes.
The police arrive. They accuse the beanie-wearing-git of intimidation. They can't do anything else.
"You've been following them?" one officer says.
"I don't know where none of them lives," he replies. Always staring.
They get out little notepads, to play along.
"What's your date of birth?" the second officer (there are two) asks.
"Er, the sixfth of the sixfth...thas it."
"No year then?"
He doesn't answer. Probably doesn't realise he can't make the number of the devil with four digits.
They manage to persuade him into another pub. They say it's that pub's problem now and to call if he comes back. Fantastic.
I think of psychopath case stories I've heard from a friend who was reading a book about murderers. This is how it starts. He'll push, push, push until something happens. However many hours it takes.

Procrastination

2010-04-23T03:21:00.000-07:00

To celebrate my 100th blog post I thought I'd write another. (That's a lie I'm on to about day 100 of procrastination...did you know that procrastination comes from the Latin...see). Listening to men talking about going into therapy on Radio 4 probably isn't helping. I'm still in my PJs. It's 11.30am. I don't have a job. I seem unable to force myself to get one, instead choosing to lie in bed two hours after I've woken, lucid dreaming about things getting in the way of my voting on May 6th and realising I've missed the boat. Along with all those other boats. I'll dream about arguing with my friends who are calling me slovenly. I scream at them that it isn't just me. It never is. The sun is shining. I am inside. Why am I inside. Why can't I be... Oh David Sedaris is on. I would like to meet him. I want to be like him.

Laura Marling

2010-04-22T06:55:00.000-07:00

I went to see Laura Marling last night. It was a last minute thing, my friend Ellie's boyfriend is stuck in New York because of the volcano my friend Ruby said 'would not be receiving Christmas presents this year.'
The support was, as it often is at the Colston Hall, excellent. Boy and Bear were a geeky Aussie set. Young guys with a lead who had a voice like Turin Breaks. The band was more contemporary, better. Then a very shy girl who might be compared to Joanna Newsom in some respects ambled oddly through her set. She had a purple skirt. I saw her on the landing on my way out for a cigarette. I touched her shoulder and told her she was great. Laura has definitley gained confidence. But she's always had a very strong presence. Toward the end with all the cider in me she could have sung me to sleep.

Today I'm trying to apply for something I really want but I keep thinking about something else. I can't stop. I feel a bit useless and a bit worried. Worried things might not work out the way I hope they will. Worried about losing again but in a different sense. I have a cement mixer in my heart.

Perhaps I'll take solace in the last words of Lavinia Greenlaw's Scat: 'Keep out of the water, stick together, store fat, wait for new feathers.'

The Wine's on STA.

2010-04-09T08:17:00.001-07:00

Having just read my sister's new blog I feel I should begin this entry with 'So...'

So, yesterday evening after a brief visit to see my friend Claire's new baby Leo ('I'm just worried I'll break him if I move, he's so tiny') I took a taxi to the bus station. The taxi driver happily ambled on about his son's head getting squashed so he looked 'like an alien' when I told him where I'd been. I smiled sympathetically and asked if whether, now aged fifteen, his son still has a funny shaped head. He does not.

National Express do £1 fares to London now, which is brilliant because Megabus buses are grotty and there are often waits of an hour or more because of 'accrued driving hours.' The new 040 is pretty goddamn plush, leg room, pleather seats, general shininess.

Two hours later and all I had to do was skip across the road to STA Travel London Victoria.
For an #experiencegc wine tasting masterclass.

I was early, so Robert McIntosh (@thirstforwine) offered me a glass of wine.

As you can see, I'm a bit of a novice. By the end of the evening, my swirling had improved a little.
By 8pm some of the World Traveller Internship applicants who had been able to get down to London (those of us without dissertations to work on) were ready for some wine tasting.
From left: Amanda (@manda_jenks), Myself (@SoMiraculous), Katie (@EnglishKatie), AJ (@Spintheglobe) and Andrea (@AndreaSantoni).

Sam from @statravelbuzz filmed the event. Here he is with Siobhan (left) and Jayne (right).

The wine guys were lovely and the wines were fantastic. I particularly liked the Money Spider wine.

You can read @thirstforwine's blog post on the event here.

I won two 'Stumpies' for my blogging challenge efforts. I'll be sharing them with the fam at dinner tonight. I'm cooking lasagna. Mmm.

Surfer's Paradise For People Who Can't Surf

2010-04-07T03:41:00.000-07:00

When I think about Surfer's Paradise I think about two things, Kath and Kim - and what my sister likes to call 'babewatch.' I can't surf. I like to have someone to give me a little push just to catch a wave on a body board. No surprises then that my ideal Gold Coast day out begins lying on the beach at lunchtime with a mojito (hey I'm on holiday and this is an ideal), checking out surfers.

Just look at these babes from the Surfer's Paradise Car Hire website. Sure, the one on the left has a dodgy taste in board shorts and the guy on the right is a little short. But they can surf.

Afternoon...

After lunch, I'd board a whale watching tour boat (to book with STA call 0871 230 0040).

Every year, up to 10,000 humpback whales pass through the Gold Coast region, between June and October. The whale watching tour also includes a 'scenic canal cruise down the Nerang river.'

Dinner...

Returning at 5.30pm, I'd head over to Broad beach for dinner at Alto Cucina & Bar. For sweet sticky prawns with caramelised lime. Yum yum.

Alright, alright... I wouldn't be able to afford that, so I'd return to Byron Bay (where I'd be staying), buy my own prawns, a lime and some Thai sauce and make prawn and lime skewers in my hostel kitchen for a BBQ party that evening.

Evening...

After the BBQ it would be time to dance. Even I was unable to escape the pull of the gap-year-snoggers-paradise that is Cheeky Monkey's. While I would usually go for hanging out around a fire on the beach over falling off a table and wondering how I managed to get home when I set out in the wrong direction, this being my ideal day, one of the Surfer's Paradise Car Hire boys is miraculously staying at my hostel and begs me to dance the night away with him. Off I go.

STA Travel Tour...

From STA's list of 40 things to do on the Gold Coast I'd pick the Fraser Island 4WD Eco Day Trip.

Who would turn down an opportunity to slide down sand dunes on the largest sand island in the world?

(Photo from my 2006 visit).

Wake Up Henry.

2010-04-05T06:31:00.000-07:00

It's Monday, the Bank Holiday is almost over. But just think, it'll only be a four-day working week, for those of you who work. For those that don't, this is what happens when you stay in bed for the best part of the day:

Have a good week everyone.

Katherine is Turned To Stone

2010-04-02T07:30:00.001-07:00

Katherine is Turned To Stone
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

Something for the weekend, in celebration of the sun coming out.

A Day In The Life Of The Near-Unemployed.

2010-03-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

I arrive at the place I volunteer to find the toilets have leaked. The rooms are filled with the smell of sewage and the building is evacuated. Outside, it's raining in the spit-in-your-face way rain does when it can't be arsed to do it properly. The wind blows my umbrella inside out enough times for me to fold it away. The sky's gray.
By the time I reach the Odeon I am considering jacking it all in and stuffing my face with KFC. Against all my ethical principles, probably.
Bravely, I march up the street and opt for a similarly gross option - a cheese & onion pasty from Greggs and an Easter cornflake cake.
I stop in front of Stanfords on Corn Street and gaze longingly at the sonic travel toothbrush then drop crumbs from the cornflake cake down my front. No one has seen, I brush myself down and head to the central library to look up some origami techniques.
In the toilet someone has written on the cubicle door:

'In answer to the question scratched in a desk in the reference section of the library: Can you write something about nothing? Yes.

Nothing is a state of mind. It is the alpha and omega of despair. It is the element of emptiness. It is the irony that holds the universe...'

Someone has written 'what a load of rubbish' next to it.

Downstairs, I sit down in the children's section by the window. An eighteen metre drill is boring a hole into the earth - it's amazing. If my friend Ruby and I had had one of those when we were little, perhaps we would have understood the impossibility of digging a hole in my back garden to get to Australia.

STA World Traveller Internship Top 50: A Thank You Jig

2010-03-30T03:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the top 50 STA WTI applicants were announced. I made it! So to say thank you, to my friends, family @statravelbuzz and the other applicants for their support, I did a little dance. After 23 years, my Father's weird taste in music finally paid off. And now I think, we've all earned a little rest. And maybe a bit of cake. Looking forward to meeting some of the applicants at the meetup in April. Congratulations everyone!

My brother helped me out with the directing. I filmed him doing a jig too:

Weirdo.

STA World Traveller Internship Q & As.

2010-03-23T04:28:00.000-07:00

So then, as we know, the meaning of life is 42 and at the moment my life has been revolving around the Most Fantastic Internship Opportunity Since The Dawn Of Time, or the STA WTI for short. I received an email from the multi-talented Fran of @statravelbuzz which asked three questions: How had I found the competition so far? How was I preparing for the next stage, should I make the top 50 this round? And finally, Was I particularly impressed by any of the other applicants? I prepared this video response on my teeny tiny netbook from Cheltenham:

And to see Harry's blog post for yourself, click here to see me naked.

Green Fingers.

2010-03-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

She wears green nail varnish, not forest green or army-green but a sort of snot-green. On the table in front of her is a paper bag. She pulls out a ball of something. I can't work out exactly what because I'm watching her reflection in the window - it's rude to stare. I wonder what the ball might be. Some kind of pastry, like an Indian sweet? No, a girl with snot-green nails and a patchwork and pleather handbag might not be so adventurous. A dumpling from a fast-food take-away? No, I'd smell it.
I stare harder into the window. She puts the ball into the bag and folds the top down.
The bag says 'Fudge Factory' on it. Ah ha! She's a fudge-eater.
She waits a couple of moments before carefully unfolding the top and taking the fudge-ball out, then bites at it like a hamster, gouging teeth marks into it as she pulls it from her mouth.
She puts the ball back in the bag and folds down the top. She knows as well as I know, that she'll unfold the bag again. She may as well just shove it in her face.
Moments later, she unfolds the top, takes a braver bite, replaces the ball and folds the top over and around the bag.
She will not touch the ball again.
A couple of moments later, with a surge of willpower, she stuffs the paper bag into her small patchwork-pleather handbag and does up the zip. I will not witness total-fudge-face after all.

The Great Travel Literature Debate.

2010-03-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

Today, one of my fellow STA travel intern applicants @paddy_doyle wrote a blog entry asking the question, is travel literature inspiring? His assertion was that it might be better to 'jump before you look.' My answer then is, why not do both?

I studied Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. In the final year I had the opportunity to take the module I had waited two years for, Travel Writing. My tutor was travel writer Joe Roberts, who I have an enormous amount of respect for. He, for want of a better word, 'nurtured' my writing skill and helped it become what it is today. For that I am grateful.

The module involved both reading travel literature and writing it. I went on a trip to Tipi Valley with my friend Katie Monks and wrote it up when we returned.

I read books about travellers, such as Chatwin, 'discovering' countries, writers like Yiyun Li and Jan Morris bringing their homelands to life and writers like Hemingway drinking their way through fictionalised versions of their experiences, in places seemingly more exotic than England (often only as far as France or Spain).

I poured over Gerald Durrell's childhood in Crete and swam alongside the fisherman in Hemingway's sea.

My bookshelf is almost entirely crammed with travel literature.

So then, the only way to find out if travel literature is inspiring, is to read it. If you only read two travel related books (one of these is a very thin volume, I promise), read The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin, in which he discovered that the Aboriginal Australians could sing every feature on the landscape of Australia, like a map made of song - and Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, a novel by Ernest Hemingway about Bull fighting and bad love in Spain as experienced by a very lovable alcoholic.

I don't think that travel writers and novelists do the travelling for you. Rather, they compliment what you already know, if you've seen it. And if you haven't been to the places they describe, they bring life to them, usually romanticising them almost imploring you to go there.

How many of us wanted to go to Kefalonia after reading Captain Corelli's Mandolin? I know I did.

The Day I Learned What The International Dateline Was

2010-03-17T13:20:00.001-07:00

Taking a leaf out of Sparky's (@emma_sparks) blog, I looked to the STA World Traveller Internship itinerary for some inspiration on what, out of four months travel a few years ago, I could write about to humour the lovely people at @statravelbuzz.
I noticed they'd mentioned the International Date Line, which made me smile. Here's what it jogged in my memory.

It was April 2006. I was eighteen and it was the first time I'd travelled alone.
I was about to experience the most bizarre plane journey in the history of plane journeys. Or mine at least.

I was pleased to have held on to my passport, bottle of 1997 Malbec, from wine tasting in Mendoza, and STA wallet with plane tickets in it, even if I hadn't paid too much attention to the dates printed on them.
I was sitting next to two Spanish speaking boys and a beefed-up Australian man. We'd been in the air no less than 30 minutes before the Australian turned to me and said,
'Mate (he probably didn't actually say mate) have you got any sleeping pills?'
I had everything, it was my first Big Trip.
'I have Nytol,' I replied.
'What's that? Is it Valium?'
'No, over the counter sleeping pills.'
'Oh, can I have some?' he asked.
'Sure,'I handed him the packet. I expected him to take two. When the packet was returned to my hand there were four missing.
An hour later he interrupted my film, poking my arm.
"Hey...can I have another sleeping pill?"
'No, you've had four.'
'Please, I can't sleep, I've had two Valium and two whiskeys. It isn't working and my mother will be annoyed if I haven't slept.' (He looked at least 24 years old). 'Or at least get me some more whiskey, they won't serve me any more.'
Who did he think I was?
'Then definitely not, I don't want to be responsible for your untimely death,' I said in less eloquent terms.
'Who the f**k do you think you are? f**king Mother Teresa?!' He retorted.
I was shocked. I ignored him, waited a while, then got up to speak to the cabin crew. When I returned to my seat, the Australian shouted at me for telling. I got up and asked the cabin crew if I could move seat.
I was moved.
Much happier in my new seat I returned to my film and relaxed.

A few hours later, an announcement came over the intercom.
'We are now passing over the International Date Line,' the voice said.
International Date Line? I thought.
What I learned then and shall relay to you now, first-time travellers who ceased Geography lessons in year nine, is that the International Date Line is an imaginary line which separates two consecutive calendar days. 'Crossing the IDL travelling east results in 24 hours being subtracted (so the traveller repeats the date), and crossing west results in a day being added.' If you look at my doodle below you will see that I was travelling west. I had gained a day. It was now tomorrow, today.
Holymotherofgod! I thought. My poor, poor friend.

Thankfully, planes have phones on them. I had no idea how much it would cost and I didn't check later because I didn't want to know, but I had to call my friend and explain the situation.

'Hello, where are you?!' she said.

'I'm on the plane,' I answered.

At least she laughed. She'd turned up at the airport in Auckland the previous day and waited two hours for me to arrive. I had not arrived. She, being wiser than me, had worked out what I'd done and spent the night on her own in a hostel. I'm not going to lie, I was ashamed.

I think my stupidity (and endless apologising when I finally met her in the hostel) cheered her up enough to let me off. But let this be a warning to those meeting the less forgiving, it is not a misprint on your ticket. Travelling from South America to New Zealand you gain a day. But your friend, waiting for you on the other side might lose one, poof, just like that, gone.

STA World Traveller Internship Application Video

2010-03-12T06:56:00.000-08:00

I FINISHED!

The Day I Met My Hero

2010-02-28T12:02:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Safran Foer

(Image taken from http://www.youngandhungry.com/)

I read Jonathan Safran Foer's thoughts on fish farming last week. I had heard about his new book a couple of months back and was impressed by the idea of it, to say the least. At the bottom of the piece in the G2 supplement, were details of a book group event in London. Jonathan would be attending and discussing his book, Everything is Illuminated, my favourite book by a living author (to put it morbidly), with its Chris Ofili-esque cover.
My heart sank. My boots were heavy. Everything happens in London, I thought. Every Thing.
And then yesterday, I was sitting in the staffroom at Bath Waterstone's, where I work, talking to my friend Tom Abbot about it.
'But Jonathan Safran Foer is in the Bath Lit Fest line up,' he said.
'WHAT?!' I replied.
'Yeah,' he fumbled around under the Saturday papers and pulled out the programme.
'Here,' he pointed.
'Sunday 28th February, 2pm,' I read aloud, 'that's tomorrow!'

And so, today I caught the one o'clock train from Redland to Temple Meads to Bath Spa. I phoned the box office and asked for directions, then headed to the (thankfully) well-kept toilets on the platform to apply my make-up (I was not about to meet my hero with a bare face).

I walked out of the station, up the road and turned down Henry Street and across the cobbles to the Masonic Hall, where I almost walked into Jonathan, who I was not expecting to be milling around. I don't know what I was expecting, that he be flown in last minute in his own private jet? Not often on a writer's wages.
I stood in front of him, pointed at him and said to the woman selling tickets in the entrance 'look, he's a real person.'
I don't think even I would be able to respond to someone pointing at me and talking about me as if I was some sort of post-illusory Pinocchio, so I wasn't surprised when he didn't respond, instead ascending the stairs to the 'writers only' room.

I could have said anything, I could have held out my hand and introduced myself. I could have told him how much I admired his work. As we have read, I did neither of these things.

My friend Holly Thacker has been photographing events at the festival as a Bath Literature Festival Photographer. I was extremely relieved when she turned up. I had been biding my time before the talk recommending his books, displayed on a table by the entrance, to people who hadn't read him before (I had been asked to by the bookseller who hadn't read them).

I bought a copy of Jonathan's new book, Eating Animals, and went inside with Holly.
We sat on the left hand side near the front. I was nervous. I was excited.

Holly and I talked a bit about weirdos. A man at a festival event had told Holly he was part of the New World Order. Now we were sitting in the Masonic Hall and she had been asked whether she would be infringing copyright by taking photographs.
'What, copyright on his face?' I asked.
'No on the hall. It's the Masonic Hall. Could be some kind of secret. As if a 'secret society' would call the building the Masonic Hall,' she said.
'You'd better watch out, they might abduct you and try to pull your face off, claiming you to be a reptilian lizard, shouting 'show your scales!'' I said.
We mused over the symbol of the all seeing eye and of the keys.
'I like the crest with the handbags and the pens best,' Holly said.
(There really was one).

Everybody started clapping, and Jonathan walked through the centre of the room to one of the throne like chairs.

For almost an hour I sat and enjoyed his intelligent and funny answers to the questions he was asked about his book. I liked his analogy between monogamy and vegetarianism (spending your life not having everything you want all the time but enjoying it nevertheless).
He was everything I had hoped he would be.

The floor was opened up to questions. I had rehearsed mine over and over in my head so I would not cock it up. I raised my arm. Everybody else's questions were a blur around me as my heart thudded away in my chest and my palms sweated over My New Book.

I was the last question asker.

I took the microphone.

'Is it on? Hello? Oh yes, Hi.' Oh my God pleasedon'tfuckthisuppleasedon'tfuckthisuppleasedon'tfuckthisup, I said in my head and then, miraculously,
'would you suggest (could would imply he wanted to) a way we can begin implementing the re-localisation of the food production?'

'I'm glad you asked that...' he began.

Oh thankyouJesus, I said in my head.

I had temporarily redeemed myself. He said, if we wanted to, each one of us could cut just one meat based meal a week, or even just those burgers we eat when we don't need to, but eat just because they're there. And if we each did that, the effect on the factory farms would be felt immediately. Eventually we might in that way be able to make the move back to the way things were. 40% of damage to the environment results from our obsession with meat. Imagine what we could achieve with a slight menu re-shuffle! This man can do no wrong.

When the talk was over, a woman came over to me and asked if she could take my email down. She asked if I'd heard of guerrilla gardening. I told her I'd been introduced to the concept last year and found it very exciting. She was part of a movement in Bath, the members of which have a lot of war-time dig for victory spirit. It's very sweet. I wrote down my email address in her mini-green-moleskine and told her about my quince jam. She was impressed.

I joined the queue to have my book signed by Jonathan.
I reached the front.
'Hi how are you?' He asked in a monotone voice.
'I'm fine.'
'What's your name?'
'Sophie.'
'S-O...'
'P-H-I-E,' I finished, 'I wanted to bring my copy of Everything is Illuminated, my favourite book of all time, for you to sign, but my sister wouldn't bring it to the station,' I said.
'Why was she in the place where the book was?' he asked.
'She was at home.'
'Where had you been before the station?'
'Er, at my other home, I'm living at home at the moment and my parents have split so there are two houses.'
Oh my God why am I wasting my ten seconds of talking-to-my-hero-time telling him I live with my parents?! I thought. I could be telling him how I loved the way he manipulated the language in Everything is Illuminated so that the Ukrainian way of speaking English came through, or Oskar Schell's 'Heavy Boots' in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Or how I had translated the numbers the grandfather in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close had dialled into the payphone on my own battered blue mobile so I'd know what he was trying to say to his lost love.
But I didn't instead I 8653 69 4376 22688 69 3825464 7273687!

'Another time,' he said.

http://www.eatinganimals.com/

Does No One Clean These Windows?

2010-02-14T11:13:00.000-08:00

I'm treating myself to a crepe with maple syrup. I don't realise that I've spilled a lot of the syrup down my front as I queue for the train, which only has two carriages today because somebody projectile vomited all over the third carriage so it had to be removed - or at least that's what I think I overhear the conductor say. We pack onto the train. A kid of about ten standing with his father and little sister is voicing his concerns about the lack of space. His mother- staying on the platform says, 'if you start to panic, just cover your eyes (she covers her eyes) and count to ten, okay?' Her eyes have the suggestion of tears in them. The boy nods, the doors close and father and children wave their mother goodbye.
'Does no one clean these windows?' asks the boy, who is almost forced to be pressed against them by space deficiency.
His father pretends not to hear, mutters something about the little girl's toilet request in thick cockney. The boy points to a plan of the train stuck to the passenger wall and the letters WC on it as if his father is the most stupid man in the world.
'Alright, alright, everyone will be getting off soon,' the father says.
'Dad, what does obstruct mean?' the boy says.

Mother Meera Gives Darshan in Bristol

2010-02-10T09:37:00.000-08:00

I wake up to the obscene sound of Grieg's electronically remastered-for-mobile-technology Hall of the Mountain King, commonly referred to as 'the theme tune to that Alton Towers advert a few years back.' It is the automatic alarm sound. It is truly horrendous. I haven't been able to sleep much, not because I am due to see Mother Meera today, but because I was planning YouTube stunts in my head.

After breakfast and a cup of tea, I collect my things and trudge through the streets of Bristol, lamenting the existence of 'morning people' and remembering why I never go out before 9am.
At St. Georges, usually used for concerts, a side door is open for the trickle of people arriving to see Her (with a capital 'H') to enter through.

The first thing we are ushered past is a merchandise table. This surprises me and at first I think perhaps Darshan isn't free after all. I'm compelled to buy something and even though I want a wristwatch with Mother Meera's face on it (£25), I opt for a passport sized photograph of Her (50p) and some sandalwood incense emblazoned with Her face and the inscription 'always remember the divine.'(£2) I may possibly be allergic to it. But I can't be allergic to God, surely?

After I have made my purchases, I find a corner of the foyer to sit down in. I want a little space. When I look up, my mother's friend is standing in front of me. Paradoxically, I am glad to have the company. We walk up to the room Mother Meera is due to arrive in at 10am.
The first thing I notice is that a lot of people are wearing purple. This is apparently by random choice. secondly, there is a woman dressed all in white near the front with a large bird's feather in her hair.

We are told that when Mother arrives, we will be led out one row at a time to kneel in queue formation down the centre of the room before ascending to the stage, where She will sit, awaiting our turn for Darshan, 'the bestowal of Love, Light and Grace.'

She arrives, a small woman with a red dot between Her eyebrows, wearing an orange sari, the scarf around Her shoulders.
We sit for around an hour and a half in silence before it is our turn.
I find that it actually hurts me to kneel in the centre of the room. I hope it will not hurt when I am kneeling in front of Her. As I ascend the stage, my heart starts beating faster. Not out of excitement but because I get stage fright, it's like graduation day all over again. I am three then two then one away from Her.

Then it is my turn. I bow my head and touch (but don't push as the laminated instructions stated) Her orange covered feet. She touches my shoulders lightly and then gestures my head up so that my eyes meet Her eyes. I don't know what I'm expecting. Rays of light to emanate from them? She looks at me but I see nothing at all in Her eyes. Then she looks to her right and I think 'was that a flash of disappointment in Her eyes' then She looks to the floor signifying the completion of my Darshan.

As I walk away, thinking I felt nothing. I realise that I do feel something. I also realise that it did not hurt me to kneel in front of Her and that my heart no longer beat fast when I did so. I walk past all the chairs and out of the room to go to the toilet. Ideally, I would have preferred to have clicked my fingers and the other people in the room melt away so that I can reflect on my experience, but instead I have to make to with a toilet cubicle, where I decide, still in a state of calm, that what I feel is comparable to the feeling I had in the Notre Dame, the Sacre Coeur, the back room of one of the shops in Glastonbury, a small Stone Circle in Tipi Valley and even the feeling I imagine you get after you have come up on ecstasy. Awe.

When we reach the door to exit the building, a flurry of snow is whizzing past it. Outside, the snow envelopes us. It lasts all the way down Park Street. Then just stops and the sky is as blue as it had been that morning.

Dancing for STA WTI

2010-02-10T09:32:00.000-08:00

Alphabetising Erotica

2010-02-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning and I sway on my way to work, having ordered a taxi just to get me to the station in the first place. I manage the niceties well at first, although a little unsteady after my foray into the past (a 'Skins' party). I stray from the till to help a customer. The bell underneath the counter is rung to call me back. I walk-run back. I go full pelt into a customer who I hug by way of apology, making her laugh. I decide I am a shop-floor liability and wonder to the stock room to see what can be done in there. And then I see it, erotica, falling apart at the seams. Spanking Volume 1 on the floor. Blushing at Both Ends damaged at both ends. It is time to alphabetise erotica. This is simultaneously fulfilling and hilarious. My favourite title is The Hot Nurse's Nympho Sister, which features an expertly written blurb that covers up the content superbly. I have a flash-forward to the future and see 70-year-old me realising it wants to write this stuff. I find confirmation in a book titled The Most Beautiful Erotic Lines In Literature. I think Anais Nin, I turn to a random page (which happens to be page 47 if you're interested) and find, "I creamed her anus. She had angel buttocks. I entered her as in religion." ~ Bertrand Blier.

2010-02-05T04:14:00.000-08:00

So last night was stationery club. I thought I'd quote my friend Gina on this one:

"I have just returned from stationery club. Initally we sat in the wrong place until 7.11pm. Things were looking dire until a girl approached us after she saw the stationery club emblem stabilo pen placed in front of us. After a few very dangerous moments of thinking that stationery club was going to be the three of us only, Sophie realised that all 20 or so members were sitting upstairs.
Then the real fun sarted. Nobody understood me because I wasn't on twitter. The main man had 5 stabilo related questions for us all to ponder and A WORRYING AMOUNT of twitter people who were unable to attend had sent hilarious emails to be read out like stationery club haikus and fascinating and contentious questions such as 'do you find the stabilo a bit scratchy?"

COP15 Part Nine

2010-01-31T07:27:00.000-08:00

I know it has taken me a really long time to put these up. Christmas happened, it snowed, I had a motivational downturn. But having just this past Tuesday gone to a STA World Traveller Internship launch party, from which I am still buzzing, and Friday come back from a Stop Climate Chaos coalition meeting, it is time that I put the rest of my material from Copenhagen up here for everybody to remember. It is especially important at the moment in light of recent scepticism about climate change being man-made. My mother also thinks I should shut up now. What she doesn't know is that I plan to go to COP16 in Mexico, right, I'm going to go by ship in time for Day of the Dead, which is on my list of 'Ten Things to do Before I Die' (see a few posts ago) then stay for a month and learn Spanish (top of the list) And THEN go to COP16.

Vandana Shiva is amazing. We were tired and freezing cold at the halfway point but it was still a pleasure to hear this magnificent woman.

At this point with the cold and the tiredness, I nearly burst into tears when he announced that there were 100,000 of us. Being part of something so huge and so, so important was humbling. It was also the moment Joanna and I had the revelation that a Bailey's coffee was just about the best thing in the world we could think of, other than the world leaders agreeing.

Helena Christiensen. (From Fashion Model Directory)

Yes it's true, she is a nuevo-supermodel but she's also a photographer and great speaker. We were impressed. I found it quite empowering.

It's unfortunate that the longer we stood in the cold, the greater the desire of many to disappear to find coffee. It was so cold that I had split skin on my hands, so I think they can be forgiven!

Hannah is one of my best friends in the whole wide world. I missed her at the march but managed to arrange to meet up on Sunday 13th December at Klimaforum where I filmed this. Really, I felt a little naive about what Climate Camp were hoping to achieve so I asked questions to this end. Fikir's hat was pretty awesome too.

one last thing...

A recipe from Christiania for the vegetarian stuff they were doling out... I went into the tipi kitchen and asked them for it. Actually it's just a list of ingredients:

chickpeas butternut squash, potato, pumpkin, onion, garlic, leek, soy chunks, tomato puree, ginger, coconut butter, herbs, soy sauce. For cous cous parsley, carrot, sultanas, cous cous.

I might do some culinary experiments in the future.

Postscript

In order that you might understand my un-chronological blogging, I refer you to Borges' Garden of Forking Paths in the hope it might explain my ability to simultaneously be marching,interviewing Jonathan Neale, looking to the future, enjoying Christmas and making snow angels. It is the best excuse I can offer.

SMC 29th January 2010/ 31st January 2010

Yum Yum

2010-01-31T05:34:00.001-08:00

Yum Yum
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

I ate it all up like a good girl. Thank you Billy. A fine idea. A fine food.

Omlette on a Muffin

2010-01-31T05:33:00.001-08:00

Omlette on a Muffin
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

Oh look how pretty it is.

Omlette Frying

2010-01-31T05:32:00.005-08:00

Omlette Frying
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

It is rotund and everything.

Everything in a bowl

2010-01-31T05:32:00.003-08:00

Everything in a bowl
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

Oh, a Tomato

2010-01-31T05:32:00.001-08:00

Oh, a Tomato
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

Tomato, tomato.

Why Not?

2010-01-31T05:31:00.001-08:00

Why Not?
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

That's right, I'm putting Laughing Cow cheese in my omlette. I don't give a damn what you think. I think it's important not to be too snobby about hangover omlettes (although I don't actually have a hangover today, hooray!).

The Sun

2010-01-31T05:29:00.001-08:00

The Sun
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

and it is a magic egg that shines like the sun on a bright day.

Only one egg

2010-01-31T05:28:00.001-08:00

Only one egg
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

Oh no! There is only one egg. Oh well that's probably healthier than two.

Massive Garlic

2010-01-31T05:27:00.001-08:00

Massive Garlic
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

Now I can see how the massive bulb of garlic may frighten some, but just think of the medicinal properties. Crush it in.

Leftover Red Onion

2010-01-31T05:26:00.001-08:00

Leftover Red Onion
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

and the red onion used to make last night's pizza more interesting.

Leftover Spinach

2010-01-31T05:25:00.001-08:00

Leftover Spinach
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

Take spinach leftover from last night's salad.

The Owl You Heard

2010-01-30T18:29:00.001-08:00

This was on a Facebook application that I have but don't always look at today.

'Forgotten' Note to Housemates

2010-01-27T09:30:00.001-08:00

'Forgotten' Note to Housemates
Originally uploaded by SoMiraculous

The Evidence

2010-01-27T09:28:00.001-08:00

STA Travel WTI - The Gathering
Originally uploaded by statravelbuzz

See, there she is at lift off...Thunderbirds are go. (I'll show you what she wrote on the white board in her living room about my imminent arrival to London in a second).

Cam Gets Sandwiches for the STA WTI Launch Party.

2010-01-27T09:14:00.001-08:00

STA Travel WTI - Getting Ready
Originally uploaded by statravelbuzz

@cherryec and @SoMiraculous went to STA Travel in opposite Victoria tube station last night for the WTI (World Traveller Internship) launch party. Almost sounds like WI (Women's Institute) There were many sandwiches (as pictured). (If it had been a WI meeting there probably would've been sandwiches but no alcoholic drinks). @cherryec was delighted to be presented with such a great grazing opportunity and ate many of the sandwiches (she's a poor student). I went for the sushi and wine.

Pumpkin Café Waitress.

2010-01-24T08:49:00.000-08:00

I feel sorry for the woman who works in the Pumpkin Café on platform eleven at Temple Meads. I think she's German or from a country that borders Germany. She's never anything but polite and I'm sure she isn't stupid. She has to wear a maroon polo-shirt and a black baseball cap (I hate that Britain has adopted this ridiculous US tradition).
This morning, I notice a rash around her mouth, either an outbreak of acne or eczema or similar. And I think, the poor woman must be stressed. Here she is, stuck behind a till dealing with all manner of freaks on a daily basis for no money.
I say, 'Could I have a bacon bap please?'
She says, 'I'm just going to wash my hands first, is that okay?'
'Yes of course,' I say.
'Would you like a drink with that madame?'
(the madame grates, I'm not a plump middle aged woman who smells of patchouli and I don't think for a second she would normally use the term).
'No, thank you.'
'Okay...Have a good day!'she says, leaning over the counter to assert her geniuneness.
'You too,' I say (I really hope she does).
It's like a mask. What I want to say is, 'where are you from? What are you doing here? Are you alright?'

Leaving Dunster

2010-01-20T18:45:00.000-08:00

Flamingos

2010-01-20T09:51:00.000-08:00

I have work tomorrow, so it is very naughty of me to accept my friend Emily Mackie's request (backed up by girlfriend Amy and her sister Zoe, egged on by @kateosgreatos) to come a-gallivanting to Flamingos. I think part of the reason I agree is because the club is called Flamingos. In fact that has a lot to do with it. I don't know why. We get a taxi to Old Market, exchange some banter with the neon-jacketed doorman outside the club and go on in.
As we enter, the DJ calls out from his box above the dance floor 'talking of sexy bitches, this one goes out to...' and I smile. I haven't been to a gay bar for years (the last time I went, I almost threw up because I inhaled too much foam at the foam party). I've almost forgotten what they're like. There's some moving pictures on the wall that would really screw with your head if you'd taken acid, girls dancing with their tops off, proudly baring their bras, guys dancing with their tops of, proudly bearing their, er, pecks.
In the smoking alley, a transvestite stands at the end, smiling coyly through bright magenta tinted lips. She wears a blonde wig, mini skirt and a white tank top. She has quite a well developed upper body.
Elegantly, she lifts a fag to her lips as a blonde boy straight out asks Kate, 'so are you a lesbian then?' to an applause of laughter.
Inside a girl walks up to Emily, who has a boyish dress sense and a mohican and says 'oh my God, oh my god, my friend thought you were Gok Wan!' More laughter, this time from Emily and her girlfriend.
After some suitably camp 'of the moment' tracks (Lady Gaga etc.) what sounds like most of my old tape 'Hits 95' is played. When 2 Unlimited - No Limit comes on I shout to Emily, 'do you remember when they used to play this on Gladiators, as one of the Gladiators stood on that podium?'
She replies, 'I loved Gladiators, I joined the fan club. Shadow sent me a Christmas card.'
It takes a long time for my sides to stop hurting.
Finally, at 3am, as a tequila and lemonade (even the barman asked if I was serious) headache sets in I decide it's time to leave. Kate and I jump in a taxi and go home. I have one of the Worst Hangovers Ever the next day, but it was worth it.

Facebook | Sophia Miraculous Collardito: 10 Things I'd Like To Do Before I Die

2010-01-19T09:17:00.000-08:00

Facebook Sophia Miraculous Collardito: 10 Things I'd Like To Do Before I Die:
1. Speak Spanish fluently.
2. Go to India.
3. Join the Carnival dressed in sequins and feathers.
4. Finish my novel.
5. Do something positive toward finding some sort of alleviation for those afflicted by climate change.
6. Go to Mexico for Day of the Dead.
7. Involves women.
8. Be a travel writer.
9. Be able to deliver a speech or presentation in public without wanting to die all the way through.
10. Buy a house with a man who I love.

Veggie Moussaka. (Recommended for students - lots of health and cheap)

2010-01-12T13:46:00.000-08:00

Steal Quorn mince from your father's freezer at the end of a day writing (and joining a club devoted to stationery and making a paperclip necklace for it).

Go to Somerfield's, realise they have neither aubergine (eggplant to non-English-types) nor courgettes. They are rubbish. Although I like them more now that they've merged (or been taken over by?) the Cooperative. Even though I lost my Cooperative membership card with my wallet in Copenhagen. Anyway, head to onions, then to veg/salad area. pick up the following:

2x red onions (of which you will use 1 1/2 later)
1x garlic bulb (of which you will use 2 cloves later)
3x carrots (1 of which you will use later as it's pretty long)
bag of white potatoes (er, maybe 5 or 6 you will use later)
2x those long thin peppers (you know the sweet red pointy ones)
a handful of bog standard mushrooms (of which you will use 4 large ones, maybe 6)
bag of spinach (you'll use most of it saving a little for side salad)
quite a few tomatoes (all of them)

waltz over to the bit where the spices are. Buy ground cinnamon and if you don't have any either nutmeg or cumin (in this case nutmeg, realise you never needed cumin anyway)
pick up a tube of tomato puree.
Think hard about what you're missing... Wine! Spend 2.99 on cheap, exceedingly shit red (vino da tavolo, or 'table wine' to you and I will do just fine but make sure you have a decent corkscrew as the cheap corks are a bitch to get out).

Insist that you DO NOT need a plastic bag at the checkout and hastily stuff veg into rucksack lamenting bag of potatoes. carry pre-bagged stuff that won't fit in hands.

Triumphantly gallop (or gambol) home over slushy ground.

Get one fuck-off (large) pan, one medium and one small.

Whack oil in monster pan. Dice onion, crush garlic, chuck in when oil is hot (turn on hob first obs) dice peppers while singing along loudly to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack for the first time in years. Wonder when music cuts out, whether neighbours have burrowed into your internet and pulled a connection somewhere to shut you up.
chuck in peppers and mince. desperately try to ease cork from cheap red. In a panic throw in one of those chicken stock pots from that sell out chef. Realise this is no longer a veggie moussaka anymore but tell veggies to just substitute with veggie stock pot if they're listening.
Ask sister to help get cork out, yell that mince is going to dry out any minute. Have tug-of-war with bottle and corkscrew like the Giant Turnip tale. Give up, take out corkscrew, pull out cork with bare teeth. Consider how long it's been since last dentist visit. Remember that you owe money and that's why you've not been back.

Pour half the bottle (that's right, half) into the pan. Stir. Put more pepper than salt in (use common sense here, a pinch if you're too stupid).

chop tomatoes and mushrooms roughly. Chuck in. get pinch of nutmeg and pinch cinnamon. Chuck in. Stir. Squeeze about 1/4 tube tomato puree in. Rinse spinach. Chuck in. Wait for spinach to 'deflate.'

Cover pan and simmer while you finely slice the potatoes and put in medium pan with boiling water and a little pinch of salt.

Get what's left in the butter dish (a knob, ha ha ha) and put in small pan. Add flour to make a ghee. Slowly add milk. Realise you didn't have enough ghee, add cream. Realise it's still too thin. Add flour several times over. Add 2 eggs. Get handheld whisk. Advise everyone the country over to purchase electric whisk. Wonder why the top always ends up as plain cheese sauce rather than the fluffy deep top it's supposed to. Probably you need to use just the egg white. After ages get sister to whisk and thicken while you strain the cooked potatoes.. Transfer mince-y bit to ceramic-dish-for-ovens. Grandpa calls. Just as brother is talking to him, say 'FUCK!' really loudly in the background as you realise you have the wrong dish. Cover mouth and raise eyebrows and hope Grandpa didn't hear. He's old, he probably didn't. Transfer into Mega-ceramic-dish-for-ovens, take slices of potato and carefully create potato blanket over mince-y bit. 'Yey,' sister announces to suggest bechamel type sauce is thick enough now. Grab pan, swish sauce over potato, grab cheese sister kindly grated and whack on top. Shove whole thing in oven for about twenty minutes, glad mother is late home from writing-classy-thing.
Serve to family. Observe wondrous silence of everyone enjoying meal (other than brother's 'no points for presentation' and 'more potato than I had in mind' (he doesn't like potatoes))

Title dish: Mussange, Messaka or Shepherd's Mussange (mother thinks a cross between moussaka, Shepherd's pie and lasagna).

FIN

P.S sorry about lack of pictures, left SD card at makeshift office.

TTFN.

COP15 Part Eight

2010-01-10T12:24:00.000-08:00

At the end of the Flood, we pass the tree installation that was outside Trafalgar Square (see Chloe Lambert's article on it: http://bit.ly/8b3zF2 )

Some people lie down on the ground. I am reminded of Radiohead's video for 'Just' but say nothing.

Here's Ozzie. He has brought the Bath Rugby flag 'because it's blue.'

COP15 Part Seven

2010-01-10T10:24:00.001-08:00

The inflatable globe is caged and then released and then caged again. When the cage structure comes undone at the wheel, Joanna insists on stopping to help fix it. She's already stopped once to paint people's faces.

I think these guys are very sweet, silently raising their message written on the tops of umbrellas.

I suppose these guys are sweet too.

I'm not sure if they're Jain's. Have a look at the Jain beliefs concerning our universe, and more specifically their beliefs about where we are now. I may post my Jain essay on here at some point.

COP15 Part Six

2010-01-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

When we've finally assembled ourselves at the door to the Klimaforum, someone from FOE tells us we are to walk around the corner to pick up our blue poncho's. I do not laugh. At all.

Joanna asks if someone can paint her face for her. I step up. Then realise everyone will know my fingers aren't as slender as I'd like, for the rest of the day. Then figure it's in aid of saving our planet and think, what the hell. She asks me to write 'act with love.'

Snow Hangover

2010-01-08T07:34:00.000-08:00

After walking all the way from Stokes Croft to Bower Ashton in a few hours, rolling around in the snow several times on the way and stopping only for thali and chai at the new Thali Café at the top of Hensman's hill, I wake up the day after with glands looking as frog's skin blown out to attract a mate. Bunged up doesn't begin to cover it. One whole day I sit on the sofa. It's great. Then, this morning I wake up expecting to feel better actually feeling worse. I'll have to go and get that Lemsip. I don't usually do drugs. So I put on my hardcore boots, my hand knitted scarf and my in-aid-of-Tibetan-children's-villages hat and walk over the soft white blanket to Somerfield's. The queue ahead is long. The queue is unaware of it's humour. Everyone has a rosy tinge to their nose. The guy in front of me has a packet of paracetamol in his basket as well as two bottles of wine. The sound of the decrepit snake is one of baskets shuffling along the floor protesting the stall in their recovery without words. It's just a little cold people, we're all going to survive.

SNOW (Part Two - Photo Blog)

2010-01-07T08:32:00.000-08:00

SNOW (Part One)

2010-01-07T04:58:00.001-08:00

In the morning, I posted 'text SNOW to Sophie to ascertain whereabouts at any given time.' It was silly, but snow brings out the child in all of us (well almost all of us, our neighbour, Psycho, who I mentioned in a blog post ages ago, had opened his window the night before and said, 'it's 1.2o in the bloody mornin' some've us 'ave to work in the mornin' do you know wa it is to work, do you?' to which my brother's snowball throwing friend replied 'sorry random angry man.' Let's just hope Psycho hasn't put a nail in my mother's tyre again as a result of said offence).

My friend Brigitte http://brigittesutherland.blogspot.com/ was finally ready to venture out of her humble abode to play.

So I arranged to meet her at the bottom of Cheltenham Rd. We met my friends Shaun, Jake and co. who had made it as far as outside their front door throwing snowballs, got bored and said we might see them later, we were off to find a hill to sled down on the silver IKEA tray that someone had put my sister's 21st cake on and left at our house after the cake hd been demolished and the blow up porn chair hopefully not sat on.

We passed this motorbike and took photos.

I suggested that we walk up the hill, through Kingsdown then on to Clifton Village, as Brigitte wanted to go up to the Observatory. So we walked up the hill, toward Freemantle Square. Kids were bravely sliding down on their bellies. We decided it must be safe and tried out the silver platter toboggan.

We left the hill to walk on, up through Kingsdown to Clifton Village, Bristol's Bath, playground of the rich. Recently I heard that they wanted to steal the lampposts from St. Andrews (less affluent but very middle class) because they were original. That was after they'd already stolen the pavements. I do not have proof to hand.

We walked through the cemetery in Clifton village.

The Fat Man and the Sky.

2010-01-02T10:30:00.000-08:00

There's a really, really fat man dressed in black waddling past the bakery. He doesn't go in. It must hurt when people automatically step into the road to give him the width of the pavement to himself. By the station, the cover of Hargreaves' Little Miss Giggles is stuck to the ground. More like Little Miss Pissed On. A cedar tree forks out against the pure blue sky and for a second it's like an English winter savanna.

COP15 Part Five

2009-12-31T05:30:00.000-08:00

We arrive at our accommodation, a school in one of Copenhagen's suburbs, around 5.30am. I am impressed by the school which is well designed and warm. I wonder why British schools can't be more like it. The school children have written welcome notes along the lines of' 'welcome to our school, enjoy your stay and please put everything back as you found it before you leave.' There's a large Christmas tree and child-drawn-decorations saying 'God Jul' or 'Happy Christmas,' It's very sweet.

After our welcome from, I think, the Headmaster, we disperse to populate the various classrooms and lay down our sleeping mats and have (hallelujah) hot showers (Christian Aid had suggested their party bring swimming costumes as the showers were communal). I find a space in room 7B and inflate my mattress, although I dont plan on using it tonight.

After we're sorted, I go and find Joanna.

We agree that if we sleep, we'll never get up for the flood at 8am. The flood; http://bit.ly/61hXHv is Friends of the Earth's Copenhagen march stunt.

A couple of hours later, having survived communal showering by angling oneself right and stuffing a couple of jam-less rolls down the throat, around half the coach party brave the dry and bitter chill to meander our way to the metro.

Friends of the Earth have negotiated discounted travel cards which are neatly printed yellow cards the size of my Co-operative bank card (which I later lose, but that's another, uninteresting, story). The Danes on the Metro smile at each other. At one stop a Muslim woman in full hijab, abaya but not niquab, gets on and I think this must be the only time of year it's a relief, in terms of the weather, to wear one, although the material looks a little scratchy, like a habit. 40 minutes later we are getting off the metro and heading over the road to the Klimaforum, meeting point/exhibition hall/platform for speakers.

(The pink flag will be unfolded later, it is the Stop Climate Chaos coalition flag).

COP15 Part Four

2009-12-30T04:59:00.000-08:00

A friendly Austrian on our coach acts as translator, going out first to talk to the police about how the three hour search is to be conducted. He comes back after what feels like an eternity to relay the information back to us. Joanna follows this up with information from FOE (Friends of the Earth).

After interludes of cigarettes, yoga, star-jumps, cigarettes, coffee, some toilet trips ('spinner in der toiletten?' I use my terrible German to ask the police lady who searches my person. She shrugs.) and a photograph of Daniel with a friendly police officer who, I think, looks a little like Orlando Bloom,

we are all back in the coach.

We see a van that looks a little like an ambulance out of the window as we are about to pull away. A man disappears into it and a blind in the window being pulled down confirms what we all feared we'd have to go through when we were pulled over...the cavity search. Shudder.

A woman who is covered head to toe in purple drapery starts to irritate everyone. I consider binding and gagging but imagine I'm just being rude in my head because I'm tired.

I try and amuse everybody saying it would be great if Derren Brown was on board because he could click his fingers and send us all to sleep (I can't sleep on coaches). We won't be sleeping tonight, now that the Eurostar,searches and breaks have made us nearly five hours late.

I muse that hypnotism doesn't work on me as I like to be in control.

Purple-clothed woman asks if I let my guard down during sex. I duck behind my seat so I don't have to look her in the eye. I can't believe her audacity. She merely takes my action as a 'no.' I want to push her out the emergency exit and ask the driver to step on it.

Meanwhile cavity searched men are being handcuffed and put in a van. Someone makes a comment bout how unfortunate it would be if they were immigrants caught up in all of this, an issue to be dealt with another time.

COP15 Part Three

2009-12-28T09:54:00.001-08:00

Three hours (or is it two?) and a watch change later we are in Brussels, where we board three coaches waiting outside the station.

Having formed a bond with Daniel, we sit next to each other on the coach, behind Tanya, who works as a fundraiser amongst other things, at the CAT (Centre for Alternative Technologies) http://bit.ly/8PK8CK in Wales and Rory, who as I mentioned earlier works for the Woodland trust.

We travel for a long time through Belgium, Holland and Germany. I take photographs of various Windmills in Holland through the window.

I film Rory talking to Tanya about climate change, with interjections from Daniel about the possible hope of algae.

(Youtube won't take the film at the moment, it's too long).

We're getting increasingly delayed because our two drivers are required by law to take a break every four hours. On one of the breaks Daniel buys a massive can of beer (1 litre) and I buy some apple flavoured vodka which tastes sort of like Apple Sourz. I give a little taster to a training doctor who is with us.

After many hours, in Germany, we are pulled over at a police check-point.

Apparently, the Geman police are working with the Danish police, as the latter have deployed their entire force to the centre of Copenhagen, understandably.
Thankfully, St. Andrews educated Joanna speaks French fluently and it able to humour our coach drivers as well as negotiating for one of them (apologies for not having a name) to make us all a much needed coffee.

The police have to search everybody one by one, for which they have erected a staging area (or marquee). Each person has to take their luggage from the hold and themselves to said marquee to be felt up and have their things gone through. Just like at an airport, which ironically some people are beginning to voice a desire for at this point.

Two hours in, when it's finally my turn, I bound toward the staging area with much excitement. The police are very friendly. They do not go overboard feeling my chest and don't feel my crotch at all. I am pleased that I obviously convey something which continuously allows people to have faith in my honesty (or am mortally offended if it's because they don't find me attractive enough to cop a feel).

Outside, one girl has decided to go through various yoga positions, much to the amusement (or bemusement?) of the police.

I film some of us making the best of the stop by doing a WAVE.

http://bit.ly/4NnA4r

Christmas Din Dins

2009-12-27T06:43:00.000-08:00

So, the turkey is wrapped up in its foil blanket and I've shoved the chestnuts up its bum.

The tatties my sister, Olivia (15) peeled last night ('don't you know I peel like one per hour?') are put on to par-boil for ten minutes. They possibly par-boil for seven and are harder than I intended when I strain them. I throw them back into the pan and shake it as hard as I can to rough the potatoes up a bit. I go bright red and look terrible in any photographs taken of me. I sing the relevant line from Outkast's 'Hey Ya' because I'm a massive dork.

Not only has the other sister, Cherry only bought one carrot (which I peel with a peeler masquerading as a carrot masquerading as a peeler) she's also forgotten to buy packet-ed bread sauce. Now at this point, with two hours before I'm supposed to serve the damn thing (turkey) I could, like, totally freak out. But I turn instead to the index of did-she-ever-get-any?-Delia's Complete Cookery Course to find a recipe for the homemade shit.

I discover that one can indeed make breadcrumbs with Hovis Best of Both and a handheld blender (who knew). I hate cloves, Delia, so fuck you I'm putting dried nutmeg (from a *gasp* jar) into my mix along with a moon-resembling onion cut in half, five pepper corns, because I drop one of the six you are meant to put in, you anal..., and a bay leaf. I've screwed the weights up so I make that 200lbs of crumbs so, I should mix in, er, 1 litre of milk and two tablespoons of SINGLE cream (I already have a double chin thank you very much). I don't have two hours before preparation because I actually have a life, so I strain the whole thing after about twenty minutes then call my father a 'massive twat' as he begins pouring some away.

'Why would you do that, idiot?' I say in disbelief. 'There's too much in the jug it's making a mess,' he replies 'So decanter it, dickhead,' I say. I'm being harsh, this is the man who taught me not to swear. He can be awfully stupid though and what other contribution has he made to dinner, other than paying for it, huh?

I say sorry for calling him a twat but point out he really can be one sometimes though. As I'm thinking I can't really retract a statement like that he says 'you can't apologise then just retract...' and I worry that we're too alike.

My sister (Cherry) comes downstairs and takes a photo of my father and I then proclaims; 'broke the lens.' I make this face as she says it and she takes another photo which captures the reaction. Apparently I've misunderstood...she doesn't mean she has broken my camera, she means I've metaphorically broken the lens with my face. I love her too.

Olivia, knowing what's important in life, hastily makes sure the pigs in blankets are prepped.

I shove them with the taters (tray 1). At this point my father's cousin, Debbie ('will you mention me in the blog? Auntie Debbie came over..? Did you know your father is Internet dating' she says. 'No I didn't but I'm starting to think it isn't as weird as it was in the 90s,' I reply when we're having a fag in the garden and talking in hushed voices) turns up with her partner who isn't really her partner we don't think but still aren't sure. His name is Pete. Pete's MS has got worse since we saw him last Christmas and he now has a walking stick. I wish my father had had the forethought to get some better furniture to make it easier for him (a table he could have by the sofa, for example) My father, while not meaning harm, is often unable to empathise properly, or at least cannot organise anything in advance, ever.

I thank Jebus Debbie has arrived. She asks what she can do so I give orders and she is my sous chef for the last half hour cooking time. She helps me do the baking tray dance, she puts the beans, broccoli and bastard brussel sprouts into the steamer (15 for my father, who actually likes them, one obligatory one for everyone else). She tells me when the bread sauce bubbles up and the Yorkshires (Aunt Bessie's, don't even) go flat and a bit burnt at the back. I remember the butter for the bread sauce and watch it's sunny colour spread over the surface last minute before turning my attention to the gravy, for which I pretty much ignore Delia (to be fair, when my parents were still together and it was our Worst Christmas Ever, my mother put the giblets in the gravy and they burst and our dinner which had taken all those hours to make tasted like piss and I think she cried a little)

Finally, an hour and a half later than expected, everything is ready and the tray dance turns to a table dance as everything is displayed on our inherited Wedgwood china (the only tasteful inheritance from Nana, who also kindly donated the fugly nicotine drenched WTF-colour-is-that?-leather-sofa in the background of the photo of Debbie. My father is colourblind but that doesn't forgive his total taste bypasses in life. He's a hoarder too. My turkey is fantastic if I don't say so myself.

CHRISTMAS!

2009-12-25T04:25:00.000-08:00

I awake at 9.15 on the morning of the 25th bleary eyed and with a cotton wool mouth to see my mother standing in the doorway dressed like an Conservative Evangelical Christian (in a forest green pinafore dress with white buttons and lace) I can see my self in my imagination make-up smeared around my eyes, Tribute to a good Christmas eve seeing the ex and Brad the vampire landlord of the Highbury Vaults who had chrismased up his minature railway that runs along the wall behind a perspex casing.
I call my father to tell him to stick the pre-prepared very well lubricated turkey in at 10am sharp. My Grandfather's wife calls to tell us to put big woolly socks over our shoes as they did in the war, to prevent us falling over on the days-old ice. 'What the F does she want?' My mother asks when I tell her it's her turn. 'She wants to tell you to put socks over your shoes as they did in the war,' I say. I'm an avid fan of not slipping over, I point out. I hear her repeat this to the my step-grandmother over the phone. My step-grandmother is a conservative evangelical christian. I don't ask if she's wearing a pinafore.
When I'm dressed and ready I pick up the turkey foil ('I knew he'd forget,' my mother said) and a bag of cheese, wine quince jam and Christmas pudding for my father and head out. It's still a little slippy as I walk through the park. The sunlight is glorius, the day beautiful. An elderly man with a big beard is with his wife and dog, as I walk past he takes his flat-cap off to me and says 'happy Christmas,' 'happy Chrismas,' I say back. I prefer 'happy' to 'merry' and enjoy the 50s moment as I turn the corner. On the frozen concrete there is a familiar aquamarine lighter marking the spot where I fell over the previous night which makes me laugh.
I arrive in the kitchen to see the roasted chestnuts (peeled by my brother while I went to the pub last night) in a bowl and the turkey in the oven and feel unusually serene.
My father and I take the turkey out and flip her over and I shove chestnuts into the apple and onion permeated sausagemeat. It looks like I'm birthing a cow.

Nasty

2009-12-22T12:33:00.000-08:00

On my way to work I pass not one, but two streams of frozen piss. Forking out like
2D white trees on the concrete. I haven't seen anything so subtly disgusting for a while and just hope that no pregnant women, small children or infirm slip on the frozen reminder of your drunkeness. And if they do, may I be the one with the rewind button to send your carelessness back where it came from, (keeping it still frozen).

Saturday 19th (?)

Slightly Disjointed Interview With Jonathan Neale Owing To Our Mutual Tiredness/Excitement About COP15

2009-12-18T11:26:00.001-08:00

Slightly Disjointed Interview With Jonathan Neale Owing To Our Mutual Tiredness/Excitement About COP15

I knew Jonathan Neale in my final year at university. I’m walking around an exhibit at the Klimaforum in Copenhagen on the Sunday after the march, with my friend Hannah, when I spot him out of the corner of my eye. I get a rush of excitement and race over to him.
A man he’s with is explaining to him in a hushed voice that they’re reducing the numbers of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) allowed into the conference on Wednesday to 15,000 … Jonathan says ‘I think, myself, we don’t panic.’

S: I want to hear what you’re doing here.

J: I’m the International Secretary for the Campaign Against Climate Change. We’re the people who have been organising the national demonstrations up until this year when the NGOs stepped in and did it much bigger but we’re er…we’re…um…

S: Tired?

J: Tired? We are shattered, we had… I had a wonderful, wonderful time yesterday.

S: when did you arrive?

J: We’ve been here a week, we’re here for the duration.

S: Wow.

J: So basically that’s what I do with my life aside from what you are already familiar with.

S: I heard a couple of students say they’d seen you on YouTube and I’ve meant to look you up. Are you filming or recording here?

J: No I’m not filming or recording, I am writing.

S: Right, its weird bumping into you. I’ve got my friend Hannah just over there too, she’s with Climate Camp. They arrived halfway through yesterday, I think. I’ve kind of lost track of time a bit because we stayed up all night. We got stopped by the police for about two and a half hours. I came on the coach with the Stop Climate Chaos coalition and the Friends of the Earth, who’ve helped me out with accommodation and travel and taught me a lot about what we are all doing here.

J: right.

S: So what are you hoping to achieve?

J: First of all I’m just part of the movement. Secondly, I’m part of tons of arguments basically arguing for a socialist position. The third thing is we’ve got a campaign in Britain to get a million green jobs.

S: Right, the Green Party were involved with that…

J: Yes, what we’ve now got is the people who might do it, we’ve got a big network of unions and I’m trying to find other people who can do similar things for other countries.

(Jonathan asks me what I’m doing with my life, I explain that my father has been working with the Green Party for the past twenty-odd years of my life…he clarified for me yesterday that he joined the Green Party in 1981… and how we used to be embarrassed by his involvement, when everybody cared more about money than the environment, but now it’s everywhere and really important and I’ve come to be part of it. Jonathan gives me his email address on a business card and asks me to drop him an email).

S: So when are you going back?

J: I’m going back on Saturday.

S: Okay, I imagine you’re going to write up quite a lot of stuff as well.

J: yes.

S: It’s just really surreal to bump into you.

J: When a movement gets real you start meeting people you didn’t expect to meet.

(We are interrupted by a man telling Jonathan about the Danes prohibiting access to the Bella Centre. Jonathan asks if they’re going to decide who’s a good person and who’s a bad person. The other guy laughs. ‘So they’re just going to limit the number of NGOs?’ Jonathan asks him. I think the other guy says, ‘they’re going to limit but there will still be access.’
Jonathan proclaims, ‘This is the Americans, this is them clearing the way for Obama.’ We are interrupted by someone who is looking to interview Jonathan. He says not tonight, maybe tomorrow. I count my lucky stars I know him from back home).

S: I’ll email you. I’d love to hear about what you get up to when we’re not tired.

J: Oh it’s probably just excitement.

S: Yeah, I was really overwhelmed when that guy announced 100,000 of us turned up [to the march] I almost cried.

J: 100,000, by the way, is the official police estimate.

S: Is that true? Other people were saying it was less than that.

J: No that’s the official police estimate.

S: I went on the anti war march in 2003 in London and they said then that a couple hundred thousand turned up… but what I came away with was two million

J: The organisers said two million and the next day in a survey a question was asked ‘was someone from your household at the anti war march yesterday?’ and, extrapolating the numbers, there were people from 1.3 million households on that march, so that’s at least two million people.

S: Yeah, there must’ve been, I mean you could see. Even one of our neighbours who wouldn’t be seen dead at any kind of protest went.

J: Okay, the easy way to do it is…Wembley stadium is 90,000. Ask yourself; was that crowd bigger than a full Wembley stadium?

S: Definitely. Just look how big the traffic jams were, waiting for the protestors to walk past. You can probably work out how many people there were from how many hours people sat in their cars for.
Where are you off to now?

J: I’m off to dinner with a bunch of Socialists. I’m in the SWP in Britain and I’m talking to the Danish comrades. And then there’s a meeting with the NGOs back here at 7 o’clock to talk about what to do about them reducing the number of NGOs.

(I tell Jonathan that unfortunately, if the SCCcoalition are to make the Eurostar, we have to leave at 12am, but that I’ll email him and hope he’ll be able to fill me in on everything that happens that I’m unable to be a part of in the coming days).

J: Yesterday, I mean that’s the beginning of a global movement.

(I talk to Jonathan on a personal level for a bit and wish him luck. As I write this, he’s just emailed me from Copenhagen saying it was good to see me there. He’s shattered yet optimistic. I share that optimism. Reclaim the power).

COP15 Part Two

2009-12-16T05:13:00.000-08:00

The Eurostar train is delayed in the end by an hour and thirty minutes due to a fault with the doors. We await a replacement train at Ashford and then see smiles from the passengers who were on their way to London as they swap trains with us (the doors are only a problem when travelling through the tunnel). The trains reverse their respective directions of travel and we are on our way. I am delighted to hear as I fumble with tracing paper toilet paper, the first time I’ve encountered such paper since school, that as a result of our delay we are each to receive a complimentary single ticket or half price return on our next Eurostar trip.

I am sitting beside Daniel directly behind Joanna, manager of Stop Climate Chaos coalition. Joanna tells us about complaints the SCC received post Wave, which took place in London 5th December. There were the obvious yet ironic complaints that the Wave caused traffic jams and the more out there, someone else mentions a drunk who phoned their organisation that day asking if they should kill their pets if animals were contributing to climate change. Let's just hope the Daily Mail goes bankrupt in the near future. Joanna is a kind and compassionate woman and mother of two.

COP15

2009-12-16T04:15:00.000-08:00

I turn up early at St. Pancras after no sleep due to traffic outside my welcoming sister's Kentish town window. I'm pleased that the London bus service has run smoothly enough to have brought me here. As everyone travelling with the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition converges, I notice an ice sculpture adjacent to us standing as an ironic nod to capitalism, a blonde woman stands in front of the sculpture with a mic negotiating an item for the television. It's 4.45am and she's smoothing her hair before take after take holding the mic up to the frozen sculpted people, pretending to interview them. I have come alone. The first guys I speak to are Daniel, who is representing UNITE and Rory from the Woodland Trust. These are just two of many good people I'm to meet and spend my time in Copenhagen with. I'm asked how I came to be where I'm standing. My first answer that comes to mind is that my father has been campaigning on behalf of the Green Party in Bristol my entire life (I'm twenty-three). I used to be embarrassed by it, when everybody was more conservative and the socks with sandals were doing nothing to impress the still-married-mothers in my primary school playground. I'm proud now that he saw this coming when I was too young to. Daniel is a big guy with a backpack that has a large, folded UNITE flag protruding from it. It is the first time he's done anything like this. I think he's a little nervous. Rory wears glasses with string to keep them from straying from his neck. He's muttering something about a Danish friend who is now in charge of foreign affairs.

Train Rant

2009-12-09T11:47:00.000-08:00

It's raining and my Nivea moisturiser has resurfaced on my face as I walk past a seagull corpse on the track at Temple Meads wondering if they'd leave a dead human clawing the air there too. I'm not in the best mood for what I'm about to realise.
As the man at the cashier's booth asks if I have ID for my railcard I almost burst into tears and yell, 'twenty-three, twenty-three,' to see if willpower alone can magic a hologram of the old railcard I've left at home, cut to pieces so that I could look twenty-two for another year. But he's a good man. After I've made my purchase I head down to the subway passage to look at the train times. While scanning the screens I realise I'm hungry so enter the glowing pasty shop. These guys know there should always be filling in the crust, do I look like a coal-miner?
So I buy my pasty and cup of tea (only 99p when you buy the pasty) and move to my right so that a slightly overweight nerdy looking bloke can get his.
"I'd like..." he begins quietly, hands clasped together. But he's cut off by a guy behind him in a neon-yellow reflective waistcoat with a hands free piece in his ear and a tenner ready in his hand who makes his order instead. Unbelievable. The geeky kid looks down and says nothing, embarrassed. But it's not his embarrassment to have. I know the pain of the mumbler and wait until neon-jacket has left and say,
"well that was rude. I hate it when people do that," loudly (I don't mumble in the face of injustice)
"never mind," the cashier says.
The geeky guy smiles and very quickly meets my eye but says nothing. And I think, 'well if I don't fight for us, who will?'

Bluecoat

2009-12-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

A small, elderly lady who I've likened to the dwarf from Don't Look Now only because of her appearance (she's a kind lonely woman in person) and who I call 'bluecoat' frequents the shop I work in. She's making her way to the nearest member of staff who will spare her some time and starts talking about something, anything. The Christmas shoppers are milling about like idle turkeys. If you walk into one they'll probably blink a couple of times look at you through glazed eyes then change direction, bobbing over to a different bay to pour over Clarkson or Delia (who is the best at preparing Turkeys). The elderly, hunched woman pretends to be part of the crowd but the minute she realises I'm free and, hallelujah, actually there specifically to answer questions on the shop floor, she makes a beeline for me.
"I've got so many books," she says.
"Hmm," I mumble.
"I've got so many books I can't fit them on the shelves anymore."
"Hmm," I repeat.
I don't doubt her, she's in enough to have accumulated a library's worth of empty paperbacks. This gives me an idea. I suggest she visits the library to help alleviate her storage problem.
"It's not very good," she replies.
"No, I agree," I say. I do, Bath Central Library is abysmal.
I've run out of smalltalk and I think she senses this. I am not prepared for what she says next.
"Do bats have bollocks?" she asks.
My eyes widen with surprise.
"And do ants have ar-seholes?" there's a west country twang in her voice.
I laugh as I realise she's talking about the New Scientist books. This satisfies her and she trundles away.

Making Quince Jam

2009-12-02T08:42:00.000-08:00

Stanley Rd. West

It's very early in the morning on the first day of December when I wake up having had a bad dream. I can't get back to sleep. For some reason I remember the quince bush outside my old house in Stanley Rd. West. What if the new tenants don't realise they can make jam out of them? Has the fruit already fallen? Is it slowly rotting and wasting on the stones beneath the bush? A wave of injustice passes over me.
As I can't get back to sleep, I forge a plan to save whatever is left. And then I think more about Stanley Rd. West.
Our shared house was cold. Really, really cold. A lot of houses in Bath get cold because Bath stone is porous (I think that's why anyway). The beams beneath Sian's room were rotting, so it smelled musty. Mould attached itself in there to things under the bed, including, sadly, a rather expensive poker set. The beams were so rotten you could bounce up and down on the floor and it would follow your feet on your ascent and descent. The living room wasn't really a living room but a hallway and toward the end of our tenancy, part of the plug in our bath went AWOL and the living room ceiling collapsed under the pressure of shower water leaking out from the gap. When the plumber came over he joked about people having sex in the bath, which I laughed off (we weren't those kind of students, I don't think). When he pulled up the floorboards he showed me underneath and explained that in days of yore everything was so they say 'swept under the carpet' quite literally. My room was a good size - the walls weren't necessarily entirely straight and I could hear the wind howling in the boarded up wall-papered over chimney in bad weather and pigeons cooing either inside or above it most of the year. Once I even heard scrabbling in there. But it felt good in the house. The carpets were atrocious, particularly the grey monstrosity with the pink roses printed at random intervals on its surface circa 1973 (approximately) and we weren't always sure it was our hair we vacuumed up with the Vax vacuum (circa 1983). But it felt good. The back garden was uneven but it had a pink-blooming rose bush at the front and deep red roses at the back in Summer. In the Autumn it had blackberries, until someone got over zealous with the strimmer. I never, ever went into the tumbledown shed for fear of spiders.
When the power cut off (only very occasionally) and everything went black, the first time, I hadn't bothered to find the fuse-box so had to ring the neighbor's doorbell. A kind woman with short (dyed) blonde hair who always smiled hello at me answered and offered her husband to help. He was bald and obviously had a very bad back as he hunched and touched his hand to it from time to time for support. He raised an eyebrow but came over with a torch and insisted that he get on a chair to look at the fuse box. It made me wince watching him climb with his back the way it was and I tried to insist he didn't.
All year round from my bedroom window I could see him pottering around his garden with his fluffy cat which had its own dog-house. In Summer he'd lie in a deck chair topless apart from the gold chain around his neck and catch the sun with his chest.
Anyway, I'm thinking about stealing me some quinces. I like them because of their name's proximity to the word quim and I like making them into jam (delectable with red meats, especially cold). When I cook jam it heats up even the coldest, dampest kitchen.

Making Jam From Stolen (shh) Quinces.

First, pick some (11) quinces by reaching over the wall of your old house and putting your finger to your lips so the builders staring at you like you are the weirdest person on Earth know not to tell your old neighbors. Then go to town and eat breakfast at the Jazz Cafe because it's the best, before heading to the Christmas market. Buy something from the Lithuanian artist who is very, very good. Like him. Finally, later return to the quince bush and perform acrobatics over the garden fence so that your weight is supported on your stomach while you grab three fallen quinces.

Now make your get away.

Go to Somerfield at the bottom of the road (it's there) and buy shit loads of sugar in different forms so you can choose which one you want later and still have some to replace the negative amount you have left for cups of tea.

Laugh off the cashiers comments about how much sugar you are buying.

At home, peel and core all 14 quinces and put them with a guestimated amont of water in a really big pan like this:

mmm.

Now, you still need to make dinner for your entire (almost) family, so think about making a pie from the left overs of last night's beef stew with some broad beans thrown in because you aren't exactly going to eat left over broad beans on their own, are you. cut some red and orange peppers and red onions dust them with olive oil and drown them in balsamic vinegar then shove some happy pig sausages next to them. Like this:

now add 500grams of soft brown sugar and probably 500grams of granulated sugar. (I used to boycott Tate and Lyle because I heard they treated farmers like shit but apparently they're now 'Fairtrade' so I've lifted this personal embargo).

Now you probably have too much water in there so let it evaporate for the next four hours.

While you are waiting take out the pie, sausage, mash and roasted vegetables and serve them up:

Once you've eaten that up make your way back to the jam. Stir it for a bit, get bored and go and watch television. Get bored of television and go back to the jam and vice versa, again and again, until hey presto, jam is done!

remember to sterilise the jars and lids in boiling water for ten minutes before ladling the hot jam into them. Decide to use greaseproof paper over the tops of the jars and slam the lids on.
Leave jars and mess to cool off. Deal with mess complaints the following day. Lick the spoon.

Chauvinism: A Guide

2009-11-24T04:39:00.000-08:00

He stood on a seat at the edge of the deck in the dark and used it as a stage to give a live performance of 'getting his cock out.' I was engaged in conversation and missed the spectacle but my friends, voices bitter with mild distain, filled me in. Obviously elated following his show, he sat down on a chair and leant back, dinner jacket agape, arms in Lincoln-esque power-recline pose, and looked me in the eye. I recoiled before he opened his mouth. When he did it was only to congratulate himself on his performance. In the same way I've heard a small number of men referring to a small number of women as 'sweaters' I nick-named him Dinner Jacket, or Blazer for want of short semblance. I watched as a friend of Blazer's spat heavy amounts of saliva onto the wood beneath his feet. He screwed up his face in a way which suggested both discomfort and remorse for his fading dignity which he was unable to stop from fading post intoxication. Embarrassed, he put his head in his hands. Cocky Blazer, whose hairline, I noticed, was receding, although only in his twenties, asked if I was a student. I said no and asked which university he went to. He told me to 'fuck off asking,' as if aware I may be judging and said he worked for HEFCE. Oh God, I thought, no wonder our country is in a state.
Feeling sorry for his friend, I asked Blazer to get a glass of water for him. 'Shut up,' he replied, and with those two words I was raging. venom flooded my mouth. How dare he speak to me like that, how dare he? Vile ignoramus. And to make matters worse, as we were leaving, a woman accepted his invitation for a kiss. A little piece of me died.
I suppose I lost the upper hand as we walked away from the Thekla, by vividly imagining stamping on his head with my leather boots until small fragments of his flimsy pink brain were scattered on the pavement, each individual bit of which I stamped on again, repeatedly. But if he'd just accidentally fallen overboard...

Sunday 22nd November 09

Auburn

2009-11-19T08:29:00.000-08:00

I'm walking up the road from the Prom bar where I've been sitting, greasy-haired and half properly dressed, half pijama clad, biding time, escaping the banality of unemployment. I would have ventured in the opposite direction to my friend's house, but the loneliness I feel tonight doesn't call for feeling lonely with someone else. So I'm walking up the Gloucester Road, instead of down it.
As I go past the white-fly-postered HSBC cashpoint, a gruff voice calls to me,
"Auburn."
I look in its direction.There's a man sitting on the pavement behind a fortress of boxes, the back ends of which all face towards me. He's wearing a long grey coat and has drug-shined eyes that sparkle in the streetlight.
"What did you say?" I ask.
He looks blank.
"Auburn? As in auburn hair?" I run my fingers through my side-spilling ponytail, which I suppose is sort of auburn.
He looks blank still.
"I want to go home," he says. And again, "I want to go home."
"You want to go home?"
He looks blank.
"We all want to go home," I say dumbly.
"Are you cold?" he asks.
I think for a minute. Metaphorically yes, but no, I'm not cold.
"No," I reply, "are you?"
"Not yet, I might be later on."
"Is this your home?" I ask.
He nods or shrugs, I think, and says, "Where do you live?"
"Just around the corner," I point.
He nods.
"Well, tomorrow's another day," I say. And I think he mutters "thank you" a couple of times - unless it's my mind trying to give me peace.
He watches through his mirror eyes as I walk up the alleyway.
The loneliness doesn't fade for either of us, but at least it isn't cold.

1.45am 19/11/09

Grandma's Fruit Cake.

2009-11-11T07:17:00.000-08:00

Donated by Lu (Sophie 3RW, Cherry 1H)

This is Sophie and Cherry's Grandma's recipe for useless cake makers like us - it's foolproof and requires no cooking.

Ingredients

12oz (340 grams) finely crushed digestive biscuits
2oz (56 grams) raisins lightly chopped
3oz (85 grams) glace cherries
3Tbsp golden syrup
3 oz (85 grams) butter/margarine
7 oz (200 grams) dark chocolate

Method

Melt butter, syrup and chocolate together gently (preferably over hot water) until chocolate is melted.
Stir in remaining ingredients.
Smooth into buttered 1 lb (.45kg) tin and chill.
Turn out onto suitable board or plate.

The Killing Fields

2009-11-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

The monument holds sixteen shelves
of skulls and bones,
those with large blows at the front.
Teeth, rooted in the ground
and clothes strewn over and under the earth nearby,
must have been put there for effect.
But this is no intentional museum,
those teeth were recently punched out
There’s a praying mantis attached to a tree,
I’ve never seen one;
And take a photo before you point to a sign
which says; ‘the killing tree’
that children were taken to be beaten against.
The mantis and the butterfly flourish.
Purple flowers rise from the graves,
peacefully.
A tourist with a camera round his sunburned neck
asks if we’re in the Killing Fields—
I stare at him in amazement.

2006

The Crow

2009-11-03T06:27:00.000-08:00

November 3rd

It started a few weeks ago. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed I was being followed. Followed by a large, black, beady-eyed raven. It has been pointed out that due to the small numbers of ravens around these parts, it might more likely be a crow. But I know it’s definitely a raven. If it’s a raven I can draw analogies to Edgar Allan Poe whose raven spelt doom. If it’s a crow I can only think of the darkness of The Crow: Stairway to Heaven – one of the most needlessly disturbing films I’ve seen, which really only provided a door to the twisted inner sadist workings of the writer’s mind. So it’s definitely a raven. At first it was perched atop a chimney top, watching. This went on for a few days. And then yesterday it was at my feet, staring up at me inquisitively poking around scanning the windows to my soul trying to convey its message. It beat its large wings and flew up in a flurry of jet feathers. I’ve not heard the message yet but know the beast will be back. I live in fear.

Babysitting

2009-11-03T06:26:00.000-08:00

I'm nearly twenty-three years old which is too old to be payed to babysit, so I'm not overly impressed when my neighbour gives out my number to a friend of hers. The friend calls me up at work and begs me to help her out and because I feel guilty that I'm allowed out all the time and I know it's hard for parents to get the opportunity I sheepishly give in. On the day I'm feeling pretty low, lower than I've felt in a while and meeting strangers isn't top of my list of fun activities. I put on an old shapeless gun-metal blue jumper which screams I-don't-care-what-I-look-like-today and head out.When I arrive the couple are late so briefly introduce me to his eight-year-old daughter. I ask her if she'll show me where everything is so she will feel in charge which makes her smile. Her dad and his girlfriend leave. When they're gone I get let into their world. The girl tells me her father is working his way through the alphabet but thinks this one will last, which makes me laugh. If not it'll be 'O' next (he's already had three 'Ls'). We go into the living room and from my memory of babysitting I'm expecting the usual middle class CD collection (Terence D'arby, Tracy Chapman a bit of Radiohead to show they can be 'edgy') but what I actually find is far, far better. There's a cabinet with fossils from all over the world and not just your standard ammonite, there's a sloth's claw and armadillo skin, a suffocated crab and an entire fish. In another cabinet there are small boxes with drawers in them, each labelled with the names of countries and each with a camera symbol on the front. Sliding one open, I find (to much excitement on my part) slides inside. I haven't seen slides in years. I say to the girl, who is quite happy to give me a running commentary on my findings; 'do you know what these are?' 'no,' she replies. 'These are slides, look if I hold one up to the light you can see the picture on it.' So she takes one in her hand and asks me to hold it up to the light for her (I'm taller). And I think how wonderful it is to show old things to young people.

Oct 17th

Halloween 2009

2009-11-01T08:52:00.000-08:00

Creating a Posada Print Inspired/Day of the Dead Costume for Halloween

1. went to Artrageous. Bought face paint and feathers...(more expensive than you'd think)

2. took hat bought at WOMAD a couple years back with
mud to prove it...

3. Used old pages of Yellow Pages to cover hat with PVA/water mix.

4. Created 'feathers' from cereal box...covered with paper then realised I'd created what could be mistaken for a demnted origami turtle so rejected grand feathers (alright rejected feathers later after deciding they were a choking hazard)

5. covered dried out hat with a layer of blue tissue

paper which I was pleased was incredibly cheap from

Romantica.

6. Painted flowers using ancient acrylics I found

in a shoebox. Can't remember those Art shoes...

I got a D in A-level art but this was not to deter

me.
Added far less grand feathers.

Um, I tried it on?

7. Hey presto a week of hard labour later...

I was going to do a step by step face painting photoshoot but the frustration incurred from paining ones face in a hurry then having to walk friend's dog with friend dressed this way before we went out and dog nearly getting eaten by other dog whose owner said 'this has never happened before' meant I could not be arsed. Ho hum.

Compliments ranged from a guy in Bath (Green Park Tavern) dressed as something out of the Young Ones taking my photo while speaking Spanish at me and lifting his shirt to reveal a massive skull tattoo, to being called a whore and a man in the centre of Bristol. Ironic considering I was covered head to toe and many girs were almost totally uncovered. I HATE the centre of Bristol on a Saturday night. Who bred those people?
My eyes still have blue paint on them.

FIN

Happy

2009-10-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting next to this girl on the train. She's talking animatedly on her mobile and all eyes are on her. She has a folder open in front of her with a book lying at its centre. The book is a textbook about psychotherapy but she does not sound like a psychotherapist. She might be talking about her course but it's boring so I've tuned her out. I'm trying to read and I'm doing just fine even though she's talking loudly and all the eyes on her suggest she's got everyone else listening. What actually distracts me is her smell. What is that scent? It smells fresh and familiar. It's not a scent I would wear, I wear subtly intoxicating perfumes day-to-day or olfactorily offensive ones like Coco Chanel to interviews. I think of my sister and realise that I have worn it because of her. Then I remember that it's Clinique Happy. And now I'm no longer reading my book but thinking about the scents that are important to me. I'm going through my olfactory memory. Beech trees in autumn are my primary school playground. Bleach my nursery school. Home is the scent of home, it isn't the washing powder or the food but us. My friend's homes all have scents that are them. suncream is the beach and coffee my Grandfather's house. the smell of overheated drains is Greece and the smell of dried fish Bangkok. The smell of white musk is (embarrassingly) my father, yet so is the smell of imperial leather which he washes his weather leathered face with.

Thursday, 8th October 2009

2pm Thursday

2009-10-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

I'm making pasta with Tuna and tomato sauce in the kitchen. I get oil over my fingers and wash them. Though my hands are clean I can't resist eating some of the tuna, satisfying myself by separating the layers of steak, sliding them up and over one another to create a pyramid which rises above the can. I wash my hands again and turn the radio tuner to a random station. 'We have a guest on in a minute but I...er...can't remember the name,' says the presenter. 'We have a telephone number you can contact us on but I...er can't remember it off the top of my head.' What station is this? I think. I'm answered by the presenter eagerly remembering the website, unsurprising given that it's bcfm.org.uk and the channel is BCFM. The station is run by volunteers from the Malcolm X Centre in St. Paul's. A Welsh ska band are put on with lyrics that are something along the lines of 'you can't know what it is not to stand until you've lived in the Mumbles,' followed by a Russian guy reading out a beautifully written comparison of Chaplin and Hitler. The elderly sikh couple who go for a walk up my road, through the park and back again every day go past the window. She wears a mustard coloured sari and walks as elegant as ever.