Mike Sowden Made Me Do It

Recently I started a new job. And a new life, well, a continuation of life in a new place at least. This new place is Oxford. Ancient Oxford that Philip Pullman so beautifully re-imagined in His Dark Materials trilogy, that I sold from the children’s section of Clifton Bookshop in Bristol, that, like the Green Leaf Bookshop after it, where Banksy once sold prints for £50, is no longer with us. I would listen to posh religious Cliftonites bemoan the atheist undertones of a book they hadn’t even read and be spurred on to recommend more people buy this wonderful new writing with God dust particles that were released every time the book was opened and then quickly shut again. But anyway, back to Oxford. I always imagined a world where I rubbed shoulders with the elite book-readers in the hidden tunnels and rooms behind bookcases (there are always, always rooms behind bookcases) where I was intellectually gifted enough to study Philosophy for no certain reason and talk about the impossibility of ever ‘seeing’ string theory with other academics as we sat around giant oak tables in ye olde pubs for gnomes. We would saunter up the steps to the Museum of the History of Science and gaze at the old globes with the ancient Latin constellations labelled around the equator on gold-coloured brass. And look at those medieval astrolabes I imagine were the inspiration for the alethiometer in Northern Lights. But alas, I wasn’t bright enough by academic standards for this to happen (go and take up this discussion with the wonderful Ken Robinson if you have the time) so I went to Bath Spa University to do their Creative Writing BA instead. I’m still holding out for the day that Oxford University allow me to break into their Creative Writing MA and hand over an honorary doctorate so I can feel special and loved by the illuminati, but until then I’ll be the kid in the sweet shop, propelling myself to a place where I am worthy of the sentiment. It was not long after starting this new job that my esteemed peer Facebook colleague writer Mike Sowden sent a little note my way. It said I was supposed to be writing. That other people were saying I was supposed to be writing too. Just incase his saying I was supposed to be writing wasn’t valid in itself. It wasn’t the first time it had been said since I’d moved. I’d been to Athens for an annual conference and my friend Candace, the sketch artist extraordinaire, had stared into my soul (eyes) in a tea shop I had found entirely by accident on my way back to the apartment a couple of friends and I were staying in, and she said,

 “Sophie, are you doing what you want to be doing?”

“I have a plan, I am going to build this company and have some money again and make enough to run away and write about all the things I want to write about.”

I don’t think there was enough conviction in my voice or something because she looked at me in that way. That way a non-believer-of-what-you-are-saying looks at you.

“well as long as you’re sure.”

“fuck you Candace,” is not what I said next. Perhaps what I should have said was “fuck you Sophie,” which is what I thought. Followed by, “are you doing the right thing? Is this what you want?”

The answer in that instance would probably have been yes and no. In fact, a couple of weekends later, after my school friends and I had walked three and a half hours up a Welsh mountain (hill) with the reward of a pint of Swansea scrumpy and a welshcake in a pub overlooking Rhossili Bay at the end of it, followed by tea and chips on Mumbles pier the next day, I asked my friend Roxanne to all intents and purposes the same question,

“if you could be doing anything you wanted, if money was no issue, what would you be doing?”

“Probably travelling and managing community projects as I did it,” she said.

Although just seconds before she’d decided she wanted to work on Lifeboats because we’d been into the RLNI centre and seen a really big lifeboat and spoken to the lovely volunteer about working on lifeboats, but anyway.

She isn’t currently travelling the world doing that but is not far off – she’s been working with a community theatre project and taken two short trips abroad with them.

I’m not writing full time. I went freelance for three and a half years and earned a very small amount of money and felt trapped by the copywriting I ended up doing instead of the writing I really wanted to be doing. When I moaned about it my friend Kash told me I just wasn’t trying hard enough, I wasn’t pitching hard enough.

But I hate pitching. When someone says no to me and they don’t believe me because I don’t believe myself I run away and I hide. I don’t pitch again. I eye the world with suspicion from my bedroom window. Who do they think they are, these people outside? People with jobs and money and lives they wanted?

But wait, which of those people really want what they are doing. Which of those people are 100% doing what they want to be doing 100% of the time (well, the % of the time when they are not eating biscuits or watching films or sleeping).

So I thought about it a lot and I came to the conclusion that I do have a plan. I am going to write. I am supposed to be writing. But I am also one whole year younger than Candace, and um, I have a job. And I love the job that I have, it’s exciting and I am building something and I like building things and its nice to see other people and dress a bit more properly after three and a half years either hiding under a blanket that also functions as a jumper that another friend offered to (told me she was going to) throw in the bin. Or running away to India on a one way ticket to Delhi because I couldn’t face writing another hotel special offer however absolutely lovely the wonderful website editor was.

So what am I talking about? Oh yes – SO, I shall endeavor to schedule time for writing, in fact I shall endeavor to have a schedule at all, and tidy my room, clear my desk, ignore the fact the landlady put frosted glass on my window that looks out to the garden and the stream at the bottom of it and write. About anything and everything. So I can simultaneously figure out what it is that I’m ‘supposed’ to be writing. So that I can reconnect with my pre-London self. With the self that loves ale and cider and warm English pubs and people, and the cold black winter’s night air on my face at the end of a good sit in with friends. The self that went to Bath Spa University to study Creative Writing and has wanted to be a writer since the age of seven when she penned the stapled-together and illustrated ‘Blak Cat’ that I can only assume was about a black cat.

So thank you Candace, and Kash and Mike and the other mystery people Mike said said I should write but who I still don’t actually really believe exist. You all have a special place in my heart. And I will allow you to drag me slowly down with you, to the pit of creative suffering that when it is over unleashes a sense of unimaginable joy and accomplishment (I don’t really believe that, I just said it to make you feel better). I expect copious amounts of tea to be brought to me on a silver platter, and a good recommendation for where I can buy a replacement blanket that is also a jumper. Don’t tell Becky. (The jumper-blanket-thrower outer). Over. And out.

Tales From My Crypt

I’d like to thank a man in his 60s who I’ve never spoken to for making me want to write on this blog again. When I had just graduated, I was unemployed and living at my mother’s house. I was going out of my mind with boredom and she was going out of her mind with my incessant talking and inability to tidy up after myself. She kept asking how long exactly it was going to be before I moved out. I told her I was going to finish my novel then get a job. I had a go at this for a while, reached 30,000 words after three months and gave up, tried to finish a non-fiction project instead, reached 30,000 words and gave up. But all the time I was starting projects and stopping them, I wrote this blog. Like a sort of column that nobody really read. Writing about the small observations I had from time to time about people and things kept me sane.

Yesterday, I was sitting with a friend in Soho at a stupidly early time to be sitting in a pub in Soho. As we talked about why we were both skiving off work, and about India, where my next adventure is going to take place and where she lived for a time, I saw a man get out of a taxi with two lime green suitcases with blue straps across them that were identical to each other. My friend and I talked some more. A man in his 60s had been sitting across from us drinking beer from an old-fashioned glass mug on his own. He’d finished his second glass and started shuffling his things about. Taking a piece of paper from a pocket, he placed it under his mug and started toward the top of the stairs that lead down to the toilets. I thought this strange and stood up to take a look at the paper... 

...it had a photo quality photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger on it and underneath was typed ‘i’ll be back.’ Nobody else noticed. It made my day. And then I thought back to a couple of things I had saved –

‘Week beginning 9^th July:

As I exited an underground station, someone stood on the loose pavement slab I was standing on, causing it to lift a little and giving me a free ‘ride.’

On the Bakerloo line, an elderly man with a friar’s bald spot sat with his last two long white hairs raised by the breeze running through the carriage.

At Waterloo station, a Jamaican man in his 40s was wheeling a trolley around M&S. The trolley contained old framed portraits. There were colourful signs attached to the side of the trolley. Shop staff approached the man. He smiled and said ‘wagwan wagwan?!’ several times. Then, ‘I’m going to a party!’ Every single member of staff was smiling as I left.

A man standing in the gardens of a council estate block on a hill was wearing a kilt with traditional socks as he sheared the plants at the edge of the grass.

Week beginning 16^th July:

An orange rubber duck found on the pavement on a gray day…

And so, I don’t know how regularly I’ll write, and it’s true that I’m only writing now because the internet is broken in my house and the only thing to do is write. But we’ll see. I hope I will.

White Weak

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

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

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

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

Boring 2010

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

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 poem

I hate desperate poems

Her Van and Mine

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..."

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Trainspotter Wanted

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