School ties

On Wednesday, eight of us were at Mills' house for book club (reading the highly recommended - I probably say that every time, but it really is - Dreams from my Father, by the POTUS) and, even by our standards, were struggling to stay on topic. About five minutes into the discussion, Charlotte had already veered off into chatting about Kerry Katona and Jordan, and try as I might to wrench her back onto the straight and narrow subject of racism and black identity, it wasn't long before we were reminiscing about our final years at school and trying to remember whose room was next to whose. Only half joking, I jumped in with both feet, saying, "Let's do a floor plan!" and was secretly thrilled when Mills leapt up as if electrocuted and rushed around supplying pens and scrap paper. Two phonecalls later (including one to a furious Kate, who couldn't have been more livid to be missing the nostalgia-fest), we had it sorted - all fifty-odd of us and which tiny rooms we'd occupied in a boarding school house in south-west England fourteen years ago. The joy we derive from reminiscing may be understandable, but it never fails to surprise me: the same stories still bring tears of helpless mirth to my eyes. No matter how many times I remember Lisa's desperate voice coming through the wall between our rooms, less than thirty minutes before our A Level religious studies exam on John's gospel, asking, "Jaaaane, what's the logos?", a question whose answer had formed the entire basis of two years' study, I still feel the giggles welling up. Shared experience: you can be a loner all you want, you can be truly independent, you can avoid any hint of neediness like the plague, you can be self-sufficient 'til the cows come home, and you won't get hurt so much, and you won't spend as much money, and you won't be so vulnerable - but I guarantee you won't piss yourself laughing so much either.

Andrew the Glastocrush has an important meeting on Monday and as a surprise, I thought I'd get him a new shirt and tie. I can write about this here without ruining the surprise since, as far as I know, he has not yet discovered LLFF. Anyway, so, earlier this afternoon I popped away from my desk and went to the local branch of a swanky shirt-and-tie sellers, and selected two possible shirts, and two possible ties. Then I ditched one of the shirts, and armed with one shirt and two ties, I walked over to a shop assistant who was helping a male customer over by the braces. "Excuse me," I asked in my most polished Helpless Female voice, "but I'd like a male opinion. My boyfriend [I think he is my boyfriend, we discussed it briefly last night, TBC etc. etc., but for reasons of clarity and simplicity I didn't feel the need to go into the complexities of are-we-aren't-we in TM Lewin] has a job interview on Monday. Which of these do you think is best?" I proffered the white shirt and the plain, sky blue tie with subtle herring-bone weave, and the plain purple silk tie in front of them. Like all right-minded people, I think I have impeccable taste, and was expecting both men to deliberate for some time, so befuddled would they be by the brilliance of my choices. So I was little short of deeply offended when they both scrunched up their eyes and sneered slightly at my selection.
"Definitely not the purple," said the assistant. The customer nodded vigorously.
"So the blue?" I asked.
"Weeeelll, it's better than the purple," he said, visibly uncomfortable.
"Where's the interview?" asked the customer. I explained. He looked more pained.
"What about something with a stripe?" he suggested.
"But isn't stripes so conservative and boring? So old school?"
"But you don't want to take any risks," said the customer.
"You're telling me that a plain blue tie is risky?" Suddenly I understood how out of their depth men feel when buying clothes for women. All my certainties evaporated. I trotted back to the tie display and selected four unbelievably boring striped ties in varying shades of inoffensive. I carried them, with the shirt, back to the assistant, who was now helping a different man.
"Please tell me that one of these is OK," I said. Immediately, he discarded two. It is inconceivable that they could have made any sort of impression. I can't even remember what colours they were, and this only happened a few minutes ago. Nonetheless, I was now left with a navy-with-white stripe and a maroon-with-white stripe. If someone had worn either of those things to meet me, I'd have wept silently in anticipation of the vacuous, characterless conversation that would inevitably follow. Clearly, however, the discussion wasn't over.
"What colour is his suit?" asked customer two, eager to get involved.
"Navy," I said.
"Well, go with the maroon then," he said, as if any other choice would make me of questionable intellect. "If you get the wrong shade of navy, it could look terrible. Maroon is less risky."
For a lot of men operating in the financial capital of Europe, if not the world, they are very risk-averse. I blame the credit crunch. Thankfully it has not yet had any impact on my own sartorial selections. Updates as they come in.

Whassup blood?

Yesterday afternoon I trotted along the City streets to Aldermanbury, where, after the usual formalities, I gave a litre of my blood to the National Blood Service. I had been sitting on the seat, watching the proceedings and waiting to be called over, when a Blood Bank man walked up and called my name. Immediately and instinctively, I didn't want to go with him. He was in his thirties and outwardly showed very little sign of being incompetent. But there was something about him that worried me, a slightly flippant attitude, the casual way he tossed the clipboard onto his pile of blood extracting things. Irritatingly, much like the panic that overcomes one in the hairdressers when, even if one feels like ripping the scissors out of one's hairdresser's sweaty hand and stabbing him/her in the jugular for committing such a crime to barnetry, one has to smile sweetly, agree that one is truly beautiful now, coo gratefully and hand over much money, I found myself unable to say "Ummm, no. I don't like your manner. I'll wait for someone else to stick a fat needle in my arm, thanks." Instead, I mutely followed him to the bed, lay down, waited an inordinately long time for him to locate my clearly, pulsingly visible vein and tried not to wince too much as he scraped in his syringe thing. It was, for the first time, a bit painful. But I was still really glad I went, and, if you're in the UK, you should go too. They need you. And you get a sticker and free orange squash and biscuits and/or Hula Hoops. Plus you leave with a big plaster on your inside elbow and everyone knows you've saved a life. It's, like, totally worth it.

Delaying tactics

Last week was weird because I changed my sheets and then simply Could Not Find the dirty duvet cover. I looked everywhere. I had washed and dried the bottom sheet and the pillowcases, but the duvet cover vanished. It wasn't behind the bed, it wasn't under the bed, or in my cupboards, or in the washing machine, or behind the washing machine, or anywhere. Then I went to work and I couldn't find a bag of sweets that I'd bought for myself in France as a treat. I'd had one or two on Tuesday and Wednesday, but on Thursday the bag had, like the duvet cover, disappeared. Then I realised that I'd eaten the sweets. And I got home that night, and looked underneath the clean duvet cover, and found the old, missing one. I'd never taken it off in the first place. That is because I am a nitwit.

On Saturday I drove with Joanna and Andrew down to Wiltshire to stay with Amy and Jamie and an assortment of lovely people, surprisingly charming offspring and a very nice dog, and for the next 48 hours we wove between their gorgeous house and the WOMAD Festival, a celebration of world music that, in Hannes' German accent, sounds disarmingly like the Vomit Festival, although to my knowledge none of our contingent were sick, despite Andrew giving it a good try following an ill-advised birthday shot of chilli vodka. Yuck. It rained quite a bit and we barely saw any music, but we did some beatboxing and Andrew shot things and won a lion and a duck, then I caught a pingpong ball in a net and won a unicorn and Andew hooked a yellow duck and won a pot of bubbles, and he shot more and we won a small monkey finger puppet an a tiger. And we went on olde-fashioned, steam-powered fairground rides and into a Hall of Mirrors, and I cut my arm quite badly following an ill-advised trip down a helter skelter. It was fun. Now I'm back home and trying to summon up the energy to do yoga with Rodney Yee before I fall asleep in a post-work haze on the sofa. Ohm exhausted.

Hesitation, repetition, deviation. All in a day's work.

Last night Grania and I went to a recording of Just A Minute at the BBC Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House. I have been applying to be part of the audience for this show for two or three years, and this is the first time my name has been pulled out of the hat at the time of the ballot. Unfortunately, it appears that my enjoyment of the programme has waned since I first decided I'd like to see it live. Firstly, my enjoyment of the BBC has changed. Not that I don't think it is a wonderful service: I pay my license fee happily. But the smugness of those involved, from the superior snootiness of the woman on the door to the self-satisfaction of the guy with the headset who loved being able to tell us whether or not we were allowed to leave the quarantine area - it was all a bit irritating. And the show itself, with panellists including Paul Merton and Stephen Fry, was simply not as funny as I'd hoped. There were a couple of laugh out loud moments, but (and I feel absurd writing this) it was largely an old boys' club. I feel absurd writing that because of course that's what it is, and the idea that I'd thought it would be anything else is absurd. Stephen Fry made a joke that the brilliant thing about Sainsbury's is that it keeps the plebs out of Waitrose, and I thought the roof was going to blasted off the building by the force of the laughter. And even though Paul Merton occasionally put things from a liberal perspective, by joining in he's obviously complicit in the experience. Consequently, I found the evening uncomfortable and quite disappointing, like when I realised that Howard from Take That was actually probably a bit thick and possibly not the ideal boyfriend for me. Ah well. Another one bites the dust.

LLFF on tour

I'm back from France. God it was fun. Here is what happened.

It was Thursday and Astrid, Rob, Suz and I flew to Lyon, got in our rental car and I drove us on motorways and through vineyards (where we stopped for lunch in the 36 degree heat but quickly had to take refuge in the aircon) over to the obscure town of Romans-sur-Isere, where we'd decided to spend the night. It used to be a shoe-hub. Now it is not up to much and I probably wouldn't say it justifies a detour even if you are driving directly through it and have several hours to kill, but we are all really fun and nice so we had a brilliant time. Harry and Aidan joined us for dinner.

[Chorus] We had too much to drink.

Then it was Friday and the six of us drove in convoy to a Cistercian (sp?) abbey somewhere deep deep in the glorious mountainous countryside. We took some self-timer photos in the churchyard and then we went inside to look round the abbey. Rob suggested that we sing something. Aidan objected on the grounds that it was really arrogant to force our music on other people, but by then it was too late as Astrid had asked the lady in charge of the church and she had enthusiastically accepted our offer. Five of us (minus Aidan) sung Jonathan Dove's Into Thy Hands and it was pretty lovely to sing something so whopping in such a quiet, empty space. But the debate with Aidan continued after our performance. I'm really not sure where I stand on it. It is arrogant. But then, as Aidan kindly pointed out himself, if you extrapolate his argument to its furthest conclusions, all performance is arrogant. Anyway, fortunately on this occasion the assembled eight people seemed to like it and we drove off thinking it had probably been an okay thing to do. We took a road up an unbelievably big mountain to reach a famous view point, but when we got there, we couldn't see anything because it was too cloudy at that altitude. Then we went for lunch. Then we drove on to... god, where did we go on tour again? My memory... Argh. It was in the Ardeche region. Okay, I've checked my Gmail. We went to Saint-Agrève, which is a small village in the middle of nowhere, about 1100 metres above sea level. Glorious. In our hotel, we met with the rest of the choir, about twenty of us in total I reckon, and an amazingly nice bunch.

[Chorus]

We played music loudly on Harry's iPod speakers in the hotel dining room and did lots of dancing to Thriller and others, and then we got complaints, so we went up to the second floor and listened to music loudly there instead. Jess chucked water in Leo's face because he asked her to. Some people kissed. Other people did more than just kiss. Other people did more than just kiss and it was very naughty because they should be committed to other people. They were Tour Single (i.e. not really single but single while on tour). We were also keen to find out who may or may not be Tour Gay. Having been initially sceptical, many people drank from the box of acidic rosé I had bought.

[Repeat chorus]

Then it was Saturday, and some people thought that maybe they should have drunk a bit less the night before a day on which we were expected to rehearse from 10am to 1pm, then from 6pm to 7pm, and then perform a concert from 9.15pm to 10.30pm. But we battled through. In the evening, the girls rehearsed outside while the boys rehearsed inside and Jess was sick because there was a grass snake. Then we went over to the concert venue and did the concert, and we got three encores which was really nice. Afterwards we all piled into the tiny little sauna room they'd provided for us and Aidan said, "This is where we turn off the lights and play a quick game of 'Who's In My Mouth?'" Then we went back out into the concert venue/barn and had wine and local produce with the locals.

[Chorus]

Then we went back to the hotel.

[Chorus]

We started on the second floor but then there were complaints so we moved down to the first floor. We gave each other massages competitively. Someone who shall remain nameless got a text message from one of their friends saying 'Please come to dinner next Friday - no orgy this time, I promise!' Then we locked Rob in the room and straightened his hair which was so funny I thought I might have to go to bed through exhaustion brought on by laughter. But then there were more complaints, and we went outside into the hotel grounds and I woke up. We played Aidan's glow-in-the-dark frisbee for a while. Then it all gets a tad blurry but it involved cartwheels and handstands and lying on the driveway looking up at the Milky Way and Gilly trying to pour the acidic rosé from the box into Jess's mouth but missing and instead getting a lot of it in her eyes and Jess seriously thinking she had been permanently blinded and then we did a bit of running around doing piggybacks. We got to bed quite late.

Then it was Sunday and we had to get up very early to check out and then drive for 45 minutes up winding roads to another tiny village where we sung Byrd's Mass for 5 voices at the Catholic church service, and then when we had to walk forwards in front of the altar to perform the anthem, I tripped over my trouser hem and fell flat on my face and found it hard not to giggle all the way through the next few minutes, which wasn't great. Then we had lunch in the village hall and the mayor said nice things and a couple of local men sung us a local ditty and it was all rather lovely, and then most of the choir caught their bus back to the train station, and Rob, Astrid and I drove slowly to Tain L'Hermitage and looked at some vines and took self portraits of ourselves and I lay on the hot tarmac at the side of the (almost) deserted road because my hangover had kicked in quite badly and I had been banished to the back seat and the windy roads and too much fruit at lunch were not being a happy combo, and then I nearly got run over by a truck, and then we drove to a wine cave and then into Lyon town centre. Feeling that throwing a large sheaf of photocopied sheet music in the bin was somehow wrong, Rob decided to distribute it to the Lyonaise. Astrid taught him to say 'Un cadeau musicale' and he approached total strangers and gave them random pieces from our repertoire. It was quite funny but finding people who accepted our gift was difficult, so after we had a Coke on the river, we started leaving sheets under the windscreen wipers of cars, and then I noticed that the back window of a BMW was open, and so Rob posted a song through the gap and it set off the car alarm, so we had to run back to our hire car and make a quick exit. Then we drove back to the airport and the three of us got the flight back to London Stansted, although unfortunately on arrival back at the airport, we discovered that my luggage had instead taken a flight to Ibiza. Within my luggage had been my housekeys. So that was fun. I went back to stay with Astrid and got up early this morning, came into the City and bought an emergency work outfit. It's been another awesome adventure. Yay.

Shindig and shin dig

Last night I went to a charidee screening of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at an outdoor cinema set up in the grounds of Fulham Palace. It was mighty refined and I had a great time. What was weird and slightly painful is the undeniable evidence that the public school network is alive and well, especially in South-West London; even with 300 people present, I couldn't seem to move far without making eye contact with someone I hadn't seen for almost a decade. It was a braying mass of Prince Charles accents and horsey faces, and of course, try as I might to stand out and be irreverent and 'kooky' in my pink coat and faux-tiger-fur deerstalker, there's no denying that, to the untrained eye, me and posh go together like blisters and Compede. Growl.

I bumped into Ben, who I haven't seen since university, and we had a catch up on the lawn. And, like my friend Bee who I saw at Olly's wedding party on Saturday, it seemed that I didn't really need to do much catching up, as he seems to know most of my news from occasionally reading my blog. It was quite odd. Then this morning I got an email from a recent ex, who said he is also an intermittent follower. Note to self: must stop writing quite so much in the 'Jane = idiot' vein and stick to 'Jane = excellent and impressive' style posts from now on. Will do that after I tell you that the likely highlight of last night (for others) was me running back from the WC, in the dark, towards the cinema screen, deerstalker flapping, and tripping over an agonisingly designed, cruelly positioned, racing green, wrought-iron-framed chair which was lying ON ITS SIDE on the lawn and was therefore invisible to the naked eye. Grace I am not.

Moving quickly on...

Pity the Glastocrush. Not merely because he is the current Object of my Affections, but because last night he decided in a fairly haphazard, last minute type way, to come to my choir concert, and afterwards, with about fifteen seconds notice, was told that after approx. two weeks of knowing each other, he was about to meet my parents. Not that my parents are anything other than unremittingly lovely, of course, but still. Quite a shocker for him, I'm sure. I would have gone spastic if it had happened to me, and almost certainly would have run down the road with my arms waving above my head, emitting a long, high pitched moan en route, panic bought an entirely new outfit in Selfridges, bankrupted myself in the process and then returned to be faced with the grown ups convinced that I was seeming composed and utterly charming but in fact ruining it all because the label would still be hanging out of the back of my fictional new skirt and I would be covered in a sheen of perspiration from the unparalleled pressure of the lightning quick purchase.

What else is news? I have absolutely and utterly lost interest in current affairs. I don't think I've watched a single minute of TV since before I went to Egypt. It's quite extraordinary how you get sucked into the bubble and how quickly you can extricate yourself from it if you so desire. Quite liberating I suppose. Nothing is as all-encompassing as it may seem. Good or bad, this too shall pass. Quite astonishing, really. Hmmm, I appear to be having some sort of existential moment. I won't bore you with it further. 'Til next time.

Summary

FFS. I'm having enough trouble writing my blog and then the stupid computer freaking deletes it. GROWL. Anyway. So. I'm sorry. I was in a post-Glasto haze, seriously sad that it was all over, still slightly in shock about how much I had enjoyed it, and then I became distracted with work and life and it all got a bit much. Last Tuesday I went to the Barbican with Kate to see Stravinsky's Firebird suite, which was every bit as stunning in real life as I'd hoped, and then on Wednesday I went to the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea with Grania to see a dreadful talk where none of the speakers defined their stance and the motion was neither passed nor refuted. Alain de Botton did his public-school best, but neither Ant(h)ony Gormley nor Grayson Perry or the other speakers were good enough, and Grania and I had a more balanced and conclusive debate about whether 'Art Can Be Taught To The Facebook Generation' on our short walk to dinner afterwards. Thursday I saw my Glastocrush for a bit of nostalgia - we sat in Hyde Park drinking alcohol out of big cardboard cups, listening to Blur who were playing over the perimeter fence a short distance away. Friday I was girly with my friend who's just got engaged, and Saturday I spent the afternoon with Sara and Maggie, who's nearly six and an absolute knockout. Saturday night I won't discuss because not everything is fit for public consumption. Sunday I got up and went to Green Park to play Ultimate Frisbee with approx. twelve complete strangers and it was blissful and sweaty and I had a brilliant time. God I am lucky to live in a part of the world where I can think on Friday night 'Hmmm, I quite fancy playing Ultimate Frisbee,' find a website on Google, send a few emails, and then get an invitation from a really fun team to play a day and a half later. I am exuding gratitude for this and my many other blessings. After the game we all went to a nearby pub to watch the epic Wimbledon final and I had delicious chilled leek and potato soup and then didn't get home until after 7pm, far too late and exhausted to contemplate my ironing or my DIY. Yesterday I was at my desk but couldn't do any work due to frisbee-induced stiffness and life-induced exhaustion/apathy. Then I went to choir. And now you're up to date. I am sorry again for my lack of updates, but j'espere que you'll understand, under the circs. I'll be back soon with proper observations 'n' ting. Be strong, Faithful - your continued loyalty is valued a great deal. Until tomorrow.