You know how, when you haven’t been to the gym for a while, and you are absolutely dreading it, and then you finally drag yourself down there and resentfully, furiously get changed and then flap your big feet into the room, and stand there looking at all the fit people and you mentally shake yourself and say, ‘COME ON, I CAN DO THIS,’ and you clamber onto the treadmill or the step machine or whatever, and off you go, and then, to your profound surprise, you find that in fact it wasn’t nearly as hard as you were expecting, that actually, it was positively easy, and you conclude that clearly you are not as unfit as you’d feared, not even close, and that it is now apparent that you are just one of those very fortunate people who has a high level of latent fitness, who can lie around eating and boozing for weeks on end and then just decide on a whim to run a half marathon and find it irritatingly easy, and you leave the gym with a bounce in your step, and then a day or so later, you’re feeling optimistic and almost perky about going again, just like any latently fit person would do, because it won't be any problem for you, and you go and get changed and jump onto the treadmill, and set off full pelt, iPod blaring, only immediately it’s like trying to sprint through the sea, and your face goes red and the sweat starts pouring and some good Samaritan comes over to help you off because it is obvious to all and sundry that you are but moments from death, and you can't understand how you've gone from latently fit to dangerously unhealthy in less than 48 hours, and then reluctantly you have to admit to yourself that maybe what you called 'latent fitness' was, in fact, your body finding something so unfamiliar that it doesn't know how to respond in any helpful way, and it just bounds on happily, unprepared for any consequences, and that the second time around it knows what to expect, and makes it immediately obvious that a-ha, I've been here before and I know about this, and please stop as a matter of urgency because this is not actually something I am comfortable doing due to the fac that it may well lead to my imminent death? Well, it is very lucky that you know about that, because it is a metaphor for what I feel like to be at work today.
Having been, AND I QUOTE, “thrilled” to be back at my desk not 24 hours ago, sprightly, efficient, and uncharacteristically smiling, I now feel as though my eyes have been sluiced with nail varnish remover and my posture stool, far from feeling pleasingly challenging, is now rock hard against the flesh of my buttocks. Gasp. Maybe I have lost too much weight and am now at risk of posterior bruising. I will just check. No, that’s not it.
I think maybe yesterday I was delirious from lack of sleep, whereas today I have lost the delirium and am merely utterly exhausted. And guess what I have to do tonight? Go to the THEATRE. Yes. I must sit in a dark, warm room watching people talk about serious things. I will be asleep before they set foot onto the stage. Help. Oooh but what is that I see on the horizon? Double gasp! It is the man from the loading bay bringing me A BOX OF NEW CLOTHES FROM ASOS. I could not be more excited than if I was 11 and he was bringing me a note from the head saying my mum had called and that I need to leave early, and I already know that she is getting me out of school because we are secretly going to meet Joey MacIntyre from New Kids on the Block. Right, I’m off to the loo to try everything on. Oooh AND my boss is simultaneously putting on his jacket which means he will leave… yes, he’s leaving, which means I can be ages trying things on and NO ONE WILL KNOW. Except you, but you won’t tell anyone, will you. Will you? Hmmmm. Maybe I will wait until after the clothes-trying-on session to post this, to cover my back. Yes, I think that is sensible.
OK, I'm back, and I've tried everything on and I am keeping one blouse, one pair of shorts and one pair of leggings. I am sending back four jumpers, one dress and an alternative pair of shorts. Non-existent God bless ASOS for doing free next day delivery if you spend over £100 and free returns, and not minding that I totally take advantage and order pretty much anything I like just to bump my small order up over £100 so that I get it the next day. I'm now even more shattered following the adrenaline frenzy of trying on new things. Consume sleep consume sleep consume sleep die.
The past and the future are illusions. The only thing that is real is the I, and the now.
Showing posts with label Shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shopping. Show all posts
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Monday, 8 November 2010
Evil corporation does amazing thing
Argh. I try to be good, really I do, but as Tammy Wynette nearly sang, sometimes it's hard to be a liberal. After the recent big business letter went round, supporting the ConDem cuts, I was all geared up to boycott every single one of those horrible, moneygrabbing companies like Gap, Next and Asda, but then I saw that Marks & Spencer was on the list, and if I boycotted them I'd be naked and without iced hot cross buns, a miserable situation if ever I've heard one. It was a tricksy little fella, ain't no mistake. And then I struggled again.
One of the stalwarts of any liberal boycotting list, just down from Nestlé, is Nike. First there's all the sweatshop hideousness, meaning that it is basically a certainty that your Air Max trainers were made by blind toddlers at 4am, who are paid a single lentil for each 1000 pairs produced, using materials and chemical processes that kill lemurs and are single-handedly responsible for 46% of all global warming. Then they ship the shoes back to the West and charge £100 for them, a mark-up of six quadrillion percent, which they spend on maintaining the champagne fountains in each of their global HQs and on advertising that makes fat people feel guilty. Also they sponsor Tiger Woods, the evil philandering golfer, which literally means they approve of adultery.
So a boycott should be easy, right? I can certainly resist their trainers - I love my Asics ones - but on the technology front, they've made something so irresistable that my liberal leanings have gone all panicky, a bit like they did when I found out that Nestlé make Nobbly Bobblies. I hereby confess: I am in love with the Nike+ sensor.
A small capsule, you put it in the custom-designed niche in your Nike shoe (or sellotape it onto the top of your Asics one). Then you press the Nike swoosh logo on your iPhone - for yes, this is sanctioned by Steve Jobs - and follow the instructions like the Matrix character you are. "Walk around to activate your sensor," says the nice American woman. You walk. Then you select your workout: time, distance or calories. You choose 30 minutes. You choose the music you want. And you start running. Every five minutes, the nice lady says, "Five minutes completed" or similar. For the final five, she counts down minute by minute. At the end, you get a "Congratulations, goal attained," and a rundown of how far you've run and how many calories you've burned. Then when you plug in your iPhone, it sends the data to the Nike site, where you can track your workouts on a graph and see if you're getting faster or not. For anyone who might drift towards the geek segment of life's Venn diagram, it is addictive. And anything that can make me actually want not just to run, but to run faster, is clearly suspicious.
Then this morning, it got even more extraordinary. I finished my run, desperately pleased with myself for going outside at all given that it had been a) cold, b) raining, c) gusty and d) the morning. I pressed "End workout', the nice woman summarised my goal and I was about to remove my headphones when all of a sudden a suprise male voice interrupted. "Hi!" It said. "This is Lance Armstrong. Congratulations - that was your fastest run yet!" I couldn't have been more thrilled if he'd cycled up and handed me an actual gold medal. I don't even LIKE Lance Armstrong although I can't quite remember why not - I've just been Googling him and found nothing. Was he using drugs to aid his performance? Did he cheat on Sheryl Cole? Either way, all is forgiven. From now on I MUST HEAR LANCE OR A. N. OTHER FAMOUS SPORTSPERSON CONGRATULATING ME AFTER EVERY SINGLE RUN.
And Nike, you evil genii, you can sit their stroking your big white cats, but hear this: I'm not fooled. I still don't approve of you one tiny bit. Well, OK, your sensor rocks and your Just Do It slogan is pretty amazing, but other than that you are big bad meanies and I encourage everyone wholeheartedly to buy all their sportswear items from other more ethical retailers. Except the sensor. Buy the sensor. As long as you resist all their other products, what could possibly be the harm in us all having things in our shoes that sends details of where we are going and how fast to a multinational corporation with a background in corruption? Sennnnnnssssorrrrrrrrr.
One of the stalwarts of any liberal boycotting list, just down from Nestlé, is Nike. First there's all the sweatshop hideousness, meaning that it is basically a certainty that your Air Max trainers were made by blind toddlers at 4am, who are paid a single lentil for each 1000 pairs produced, using materials and chemical processes that kill lemurs and are single-handedly responsible for 46% of all global warming. Then they ship the shoes back to the West and charge £100 for them, a mark-up of six quadrillion percent, which they spend on maintaining the champagne fountains in each of their global HQs and on advertising that makes fat people feel guilty. Also they sponsor Tiger Woods, the evil philandering golfer, which literally means they approve of adultery.
So a boycott should be easy, right? I can certainly resist their trainers - I love my Asics ones - but on the technology front, they've made something so irresistable that my liberal leanings have gone all panicky, a bit like they did when I found out that Nestlé make Nobbly Bobblies. I hereby confess: I am in love with the Nike+ sensor.
A small capsule, you put it in the custom-designed niche in your Nike shoe (or sellotape it onto the top of your Asics one). Then you press the Nike swoosh logo on your iPhone - for yes, this is sanctioned by Steve Jobs - and follow the instructions like the Matrix character you are. "Walk around to activate your sensor," says the nice American woman. You walk. Then you select your workout: time, distance or calories. You choose 30 minutes. You choose the music you want. And you start running. Every five minutes, the nice lady says, "Five minutes completed" or similar. For the final five, she counts down minute by minute. At the end, you get a "Congratulations, goal attained," and a rundown of how far you've run and how many calories you've burned. Then when you plug in your iPhone, it sends the data to the Nike site, where you can track your workouts on a graph and see if you're getting faster or not. For anyone who might drift towards the geek segment of life's Venn diagram, it is addictive. And anything that can make me actually want not just to run, but to run faster, is clearly suspicious.
Then this morning, it got even more extraordinary. I finished my run, desperately pleased with myself for going outside at all given that it had been a) cold, b) raining, c) gusty and d) the morning. I pressed "End workout', the nice woman summarised my goal and I was about to remove my headphones when all of a sudden a suprise male voice interrupted. "Hi!" It said. "This is Lance Armstrong. Congratulations - that was your fastest run yet!" I couldn't have been more thrilled if he'd cycled up and handed me an actual gold medal. I don't even LIKE Lance Armstrong although I can't quite remember why not - I've just been Googling him and found nothing. Was he using drugs to aid his performance? Did he cheat on Sheryl Cole? Either way, all is forgiven. From now on I MUST HEAR LANCE OR A. N. OTHER FAMOUS SPORTSPERSON CONGRATULATING ME AFTER EVERY SINGLE RUN.
And Nike, you evil genii, you can sit their stroking your big white cats, but hear this: I'm not fooled. I still don't approve of you one tiny bit. Well, OK, your sensor rocks and your Just Do It slogan is pretty amazing, but other than that you are big bad meanies and I encourage everyone wholeheartedly to buy all their sportswear items from other more ethical retailers. Except the sensor. Buy the sensor. As long as you resist all their other products, what could possibly be the harm in us all having things in our shoes that sends details of where we are going and how fast to a multinational corporation with a background in corruption? Sennnnnnssssorrrrrrrrr.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Back to the groined
Oooooooh it's weird to be back here, wearing a black dress and high heels, perched on my kneeling posture stool in my little glass box, dreaming about huskies and sow-nas and reindeer kebabs. But it's fine. I mentally arrived back in London as the Gatwick Express crossed the Thames late on Sunday night and we saw Albert Bridge lit up to our left - there's certainly a shortage of limitless expanses of frozen lakes round these parts but it's still beautiful.
Yesterday evening, as planned, I hopped in my mother's car and we drove to Ikea. Mum has since revealed that, in her head, she'd thought I might buy a couple of scatter cushions and some candles, so, some four hours later, as we heaved the trollies towards the car, pushing in front of us a large chest of drawers, an oversized full length mirror, a tallish indoor palm tree, a floor lamp and several other items of varying bulk, she tentatively asked how I was going to fit this all on the tube, and I confidently said 'You're driving me home!' as in my head, that had been the plan all along. Note to both of us: relay plans from inside our heads when those plans involve other people.
The personal low point in an otherwise splendid evening was when I was trying to drag the huge mirror onto my wheelie crate thing in the loading area, and the crate wouldn't stay still and the mirror looked like it was going to slide and shatter, and I didn't want to ask Mum for help because I knew she would say the mirror was too big and that it wouldn't fit in her car (which she did indeed say, semi-accurately, a few moments later) so I struggled on my own, holding the trolley with one foot and manoeuvring the mirror with another, resulting in me pulling a muscle in my inner thigh. There are lots of reasons to dread Ikea, but getting a groin injury was not an incident for which I'd prepared myself emotionally. In the end, I forced Mum to drive with the mirror slid along the length of the car and out between the two front seats and the boot tied shut with string, a set-up that was almost certainly illegal but basically fine, and we got back to my flat without traffic dramas - there were verbal exchanges that my dad might have defined as 'a little iffy' but once back home, she phoned me to say that she'd calmed down. Today she admitted that she thought she was at risk of having a stroke but I maintain it is all good exercise.
I assembled the six drawers of my new chest last night between approx. 21:30 and 22:50, and have decided that putting together flat pack furniture is my new favourite thing in the whole world. It is like doing a jigsaw for grown-ups, and you get a new piece of practical home storage as a prize. What's not to like? I have vigorous butterflies about constructing the outer housing but sadly my next free window is on Monday 29th so I will have to quell my winged friends until then. The remainder of this week is firmly back to business as usual, with breakdancing (someone else, not me), ukulele (me and others), real ale (him, not me), a birthday party (theirs, not mine) and a country jaunt in the schedule. Loins are girded. Groins are sensitive.
Yesterday evening, as planned, I hopped in my mother's car and we drove to Ikea. Mum has since revealed that, in her head, she'd thought I might buy a couple of scatter cushions and some candles, so, some four hours later, as we heaved the trollies towards the car, pushing in front of us a large chest of drawers, an oversized full length mirror, a tallish indoor palm tree, a floor lamp and several other items of varying bulk, she tentatively asked how I was going to fit this all on the tube, and I confidently said 'You're driving me home!' as in my head, that had been the plan all along. Note to both of us: relay plans from inside our heads when those plans involve other people.
The personal low point in an otherwise splendid evening was when I was trying to drag the huge mirror onto my wheelie crate thing in the loading area, and the crate wouldn't stay still and the mirror looked like it was going to slide and shatter, and I didn't want to ask Mum for help because I knew she would say the mirror was too big and that it wouldn't fit in her car (which she did indeed say, semi-accurately, a few moments later) so I struggled on my own, holding the trolley with one foot and manoeuvring the mirror with another, resulting in me pulling a muscle in my inner thigh. There are lots of reasons to dread Ikea, but getting a groin injury was not an incident for which I'd prepared myself emotionally. In the end, I forced Mum to drive with the mirror slid along the length of the car and out between the two front seats and the boot tied shut with string, a set-up that was almost certainly illegal but basically fine, and we got back to my flat without traffic dramas - there were verbal exchanges that my dad might have defined as 'a little iffy' but once back home, she phoned me to say that she'd calmed down. Today she admitted that she thought she was at risk of having a stroke but I maintain it is all good exercise.
I assembled the six drawers of my new chest last night between approx. 21:30 and 22:50, and have decided that putting together flat pack furniture is my new favourite thing in the whole world. It is like doing a jigsaw for grown-ups, and you get a new piece of practical home storage as a prize. What's not to like? I have vigorous butterflies about constructing the outer housing but sadly my next free window is on Monday 29th so I will have to quell my winged friends until then. The remainder of this week is firmly back to business as usual, with breakdancing (someone else, not me), ukulele (me and others), real ale (him, not me), a birthday party (theirs, not mine) and a country jaunt in the schedule. Loins are girded. Groins are sensitive.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Talking shop
God I love clothes. I know, I know, appearances can be deceiving, beauty is only skin deep, it's not what's on the outside that matters yadda yadda. But let's face it, all those yawnsome platitudes were just made up so that mothers would have something to say to their fat teenage daughters. The truth is, we are judged on our appearance, and we judge others on theirs - and we make those judgements because, nine times out of ten, they're accurate. If we were consistently wrong, we'd soon learn, and adjust our prejudices accordingly.
Looks matter. Maybe they shouldn't, but they do. Last night I went to Westfield and watched a selection of the most boringly, uniformly dressed teenage girls traipse around Topshop and H&M, buying armfuls of clothes that looked identical to the ones that they were already wearing. There is a scene in the film Clueless where Cher is walking along the corridor talking to Dionne on her mobile phone, and after about ten seconds, Dionne joins her, walking in the same direction, and they hang up without drawing breath, and I remember watching that, slack-jawed, in the nineties, thinking how fun it looked to be that connected, that technologically savvy. Yesterday in Westfield, the teenagers didn't even appear to hang up when they were together. It's as though mobile phones are a cooler way of communicating than actual face-to-face, so they just never hang up. The benefit for the outsider is that they talk much more loudly into their phones than they would to each other, so the full inanity of their babble is revealed. And I suddenly realised that the horror of having children isn't the sleepless nights or the terrible twos, or the toddler tantrums or panicking about primary schools. It's the fact that, without fail, every single teenager in the world is an Absolute, Unmitigating Dick. I definitely was. How do parents humour these morons, who can't speak without splattering their sentences with 'like' and 'y'know', and who couldn't formulate an interesting or unusual phrase if you offered them VIP passes to Glastonbury, unsupervised? I can't imagine not killing them. Matricide beckons. And that's when pregnancy's still a far-off semi-thought. God I hope I never need to adopt - the agency would have a field day. For their reference: that was a joke. I promise I will never murder my children, adopted or otherwise. Although that whole euthanasia thing is interesting, with that BBC presenter killing his lover back in the day. I'm with The Graun on that one - it's all well and good supporting Right To Die etc., but not helpful doing it without proper legal strictures in place.
Aaaaaaaaaanyway. So then I stood, jaw still slack, outside Abercrombie, where there was a cordoned-off queue and a doorman, operating a one-in-one-out policy. I assumed there must be some sort of special event on. But no. These people were queuing to get into the shop. That's it. Queuing to shop. Even for a born consumer such as myself, this was shocking, and I felt a sudden urge to get all revolutionary on their asses, knock down the barricade and drag them all into M&S shouting 'There are ALTERNATIVES! And in other shops, the sizing isn't so OUTRAGEOUS that a NORMAL PERSON has to wear an XXXL!' But I didn't.
Then I went to dinner at Grania's for seriously delicious chicken stew and buttery cabbage and then pancakes, and the clothes discussion continued. I think I slightly freaked out this guy called Jim with the extent of my self-imposed rules for shopping, in that, when considering a new purchase, I will break down the item's price by estimated number of times it will be worn, and thus calculate if it's worth it. For example, I find a new belt that costs £15. I decide I will wear it approximately ten times in the next year. Thus I will be paying £1.50 a time to wear it. For £1.50, I would hope the belt would add a fair bit of value to my outfit - it wouldn't have to be the feature piece, but it certainly couldn't go unnoticed. If I decide that £1.50 is a fair price for each of the belt's outings, I will buy it. Jim's rules were different, as he doesn't buy clothes unless he has run out of something, which is a concept of purchasing that is laughably distant for me. Running out of anything... Nope. Not going to happen. Possibly tights, but that's it. I explained that my tenuous defence for my clothes addiction comes from the fact that, in my early twenties, I was really quite overweight, and the novelty of being able to fit into something, let alone actually look good, is still so fresh that whenever I try something and like it, a panic overwhelms me and I worry that, if I don't buy this garment, right here, right now, I'll regret it forever. Admittedly, I have been fitting in to high street stores for several years now, and I'll be the first to agree that argument doesn't quite stand up any longer, but it's my story and I'm sticking to it.
God I'm hungover. Can you tell? I can't seem to shut up, and nothing I write is of any real interest. Ukulele tonight. Hair of the dog may be necessary.
Looks matter. Maybe they shouldn't, but they do. Last night I went to Westfield and watched a selection of the most boringly, uniformly dressed teenage girls traipse around Topshop and H&M, buying armfuls of clothes that looked identical to the ones that they were already wearing. There is a scene in the film Clueless where Cher is walking along the corridor talking to Dionne on her mobile phone, and after about ten seconds, Dionne joins her, walking in the same direction, and they hang up without drawing breath, and I remember watching that, slack-jawed, in the nineties, thinking how fun it looked to be that connected, that technologically savvy. Yesterday in Westfield, the teenagers didn't even appear to hang up when they were together. It's as though mobile phones are a cooler way of communicating than actual face-to-face, so they just never hang up. The benefit for the outsider is that they talk much more loudly into their phones than they would to each other, so the full inanity of their babble is revealed. And I suddenly realised that the horror of having children isn't the sleepless nights or the terrible twos, or the toddler tantrums or panicking about primary schools. It's the fact that, without fail, every single teenager in the world is an Absolute, Unmitigating Dick. I definitely was. How do parents humour these morons, who can't speak without splattering their sentences with 'like' and 'y'know', and who couldn't formulate an interesting or unusual phrase if you offered them VIP passes to Glastonbury, unsupervised? I can't imagine not killing them. Matricide beckons. And that's when pregnancy's still a far-off semi-thought. God I hope I never need to adopt - the agency would have a field day. For their reference: that was a joke. I promise I will never murder my children, adopted or otherwise. Although that whole euthanasia thing is interesting, with that BBC presenter killing his lover back in the day. I'm with The Graun on that one - it's all well and good supporting Right To Die etc., but not helpful doing it without proper legal strictures in place.
Aaaaaaaaaanyway. So then I stood, jaw still slack, outside Abercrombie, where there was a cordoned-off queue and a doorman, operating a one-in-one-out policy. I assumed there must be some sort of special event on. But no. These people were queuing to get into the shop. That's it. Queuing to shop. Even for a born consumer such as myself, this was shocking, and I felt a sudden urge to get all revolutionary on their asses, knock down the barricade and drag them all into M&S shouting 'There are ALTERNATIVES! And in other shops, the sizing isn't so OUTRAGEOUS that a NORMAL PERSON has to wear an XXXL!' But I didn't.
Then I went to dinner at Grania's for seriously delicious chicken stew and buttery cabbage and then pancakes, and the clothes discussion continued. I think I slightly freaked out this guy called Jim with the extent of my self-imposed rules for shopping, in that, when considering a new purchase, I will break down the item's price by estimated number of times it will be worn, and thus calculate if it's worth it. For example, I find a new belt that costs £15. I decide I will wear it approximately ten times in the next year. Thus I will be paying £1.50 a time to wear it. For £1.50, I would hope the belt would add a fair bit of value to my outfit - it wouldn't have to be the feature piece, but it certainly couldn't go unnoticed. If I decide that £1.50 is a fair price for each of the belt's outings, I will buy it. Jim's rules were different, as he doesn't buy clothes unless he has run out of something, which is a concept of purchasing that is laughably distant for me. Running out of anything... Nope. Not going to happen. Possibly tights, but that's it. I explained that my tenuous defence for my clothes addiction comes from the fact that, in my early twenties, I was really quite overweight, and the novelty of being able to fit into something, let alone actually look good, is still so fresh that whenever I try something and like it, a panic overwhelms me and I worry that, if I don't buy this garment, right here, right now, I'll regret it forever. Admittedly, I have been fitting in to high street stores for several years now, and I'll be the first to agree that argument doesn't quite stand up any longer, but it's my story and I'm sticking to it.
God I'm hungover. Can you tell? I can't seem to shut up, and nothing I write is of any real interest. Ukulele tonight. Hair of the dog may be necessary.
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Dancing in the Dark (would have been preferable)
And now it really is the last LLFF of the Noughties. It's about 6pm and Nick and I have returned from a long day's wandering and learning and eating and being confused. First stop was the fantastic Museum of Communism, which had a lot of boards displaying photos and quite small writing, and both of us later admitted that we had thought we were going to struggle to focus, but were pleasantly surprised with how well it held our attention. It was really quite amazing. I was 11 when the Berlin Wall came down, and I don't think I really understood what Communism was until about 2006, when I read The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists and 1984 in quick succession. Part of me briefly thought I was a Socialist for a while, and I suppose I still might be. But I also feel a bit Libertarian, which really doesn't fit on the same side of the fence at all. Hmmm. Either way, I would like to believe in democracy. There was some interesting footage at the museum showing ordinary Czechs in ordinary, slightly Eighties clothing, fighting the Communist forces in squares we'd been walking through moments earlier. It was inspiring. Not that I want to start a revolution but just that, maybe, if we needed to revolt, one day, we could find the courage. Power to the people.
Then we walked out of town a bit and went to the Museum of Prague, mainly to see a miniature model of the city that was made in the nineteenth century. And we would have enjoyed seeing it if it hadn't have been for the freaking annoying feature which meant that the model, which was about as big as four ping-pong tables and surrounded by a glass case, could be lit up in different sections by one person standing at a computer screen at one corner. Fun if you are in control of the screen and wanted to light up the Old Town Square or the Charles Bridge or whatever, but unbeLIEVably irritating for everyone else, who has walked around the glass case and is staring in detail at one particular area and then all the lights go out and only one patch of the model, invariably on the other side of the case, is illuminated and the bit closest to you is in pitch darkness. Badly thought out and made us both strop off. Still fun though.
Suddenly we noticed that all the while, time had been marching on, and we had to rush back across town to our hotel, pick up a couple of things and then wolf down a delicious lunch in a nearby eatery where we had gone because our hotel had supplied us with vouchers giving us 10% off if we ate more than 400 CSK which was basically impossible as a main course was about 125. But the waiters were charming and the food was perfect so we were well happy innit. Then we charged over to the National Theatre where we'd bought our tickets for Godzilla: The Ballet yesterday and the man at the door frowned at us and we thought it was because we were late, so we went up the stairs and he shouted at us and then his colleague explained that it was at another theatre and that we needed to go out and turn right, which we did, but we couldn't find anything resembling a performance of Goldilocks, so we went into another building and asked a woman who said "Hmmm. You have three minutes to go two kilometres," and it turned out the theatre was directly opposite the Museum of Communism, and we ran back across town and got there a bit late and flustered, and walked into our box, expecting to see taut men and wispy women in 200 dernier tights and perhaps some sort of figurative bear costume, delicately acting out 'Who's been eating my porridge?' in a routine choreographed by Rudolf Nuryev or similar, but instead appeared to have walked in to the live version of Let's Pretend, where the rejects from Prague's second-best ballet school went to get drunk and then die. I know as much about ballet as I do about microbiology, but even I can say with confidence that the dancing was a disgrace. The main man did four average pirouettes in a row and then expected applause from the audience. And then there was the singer/narrator, who sounded like a haggard, inebriated tramp who had stumbled onto the stage and been told to make up a song as he went along. There were no bears and no bowls of porridge. There were lots of people dressed up as red ants, some of them with women's knickers attached to their thoraxes, doing routines with silver Swiss balls, looking like something any sixth form girl could have choreographed in a twenty minute tea break. It was all quite extraordinary. In the first interval, the lights went up and I looked around - Nick and I were almost certainly the only people who had not brought a five year old with us. In the second interval, I felt a bit drowsy after my nap and Nick said he had had enough, so we culled. An experience.
Since then, we've been to a couple of shops. I developed an obsession with buying a fur muff while I was in Prague, and must have been in about thirty shops over the past two days, miming inserting my hands into a soft fur ball. I have been greeted with many strange looks, although one lady showed me a gigantic, bottle green one made of fox yesterday that I loved until I found out it was around £200. Today I walked past yet another shop that had hats on display in the window and said to Nick, hopefully, "Muff?" He agreed it looked possible, and yes, lo, inside was my dream muff, creamy white, very soft and - crucially - much cheaper than the other one. I now own it and am very happy. Sorry Peta.
Tonight we have a table booked at a restaurant near the Old Town Square, and all around everyone is getting excited. Nick, however, has a hatred of New Year's Eve so we are not allowed to talk about the end of the decade. He is lying on his bed next to mine reading Barbara Walters' autobiography and I am desperate to compile lists of best albums of the past ten years, best movies, best moments, worst moments, top three lessons learned, etc., while he just wants to forget about the passing of time. He tells me that he gets excited on New Year's Day, and looks forward to the future, but hates to think about what has been lost, missed opportunities and ineradicable truths. So, just between you and me - my best album released in the Noughties is Poses by Rufus Wainwright. My best book published in the Noughties is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. My favourite movie released in the Noughties is... TBC. I can't think of any good films I've seen at the cinema in the past ten years. That's insane. I did love Anvil. Maybe it was Anvil. Is that possible? I'll come back to that. My personal highlight is one long complex string - it's that I'm finally happy, but I wouldn't have been happy if I hadn't bought my flat, and I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't taken the job in the bank, and I wouldn't have taken the job in the bank if I hadn't been tutoring my boss's kids, and I wouldn't have been tutoring them if I hadn't been doing my MA, and I wouldn't have been doing my MA if I hadn't had been lost and blue and had my wonderful parents to help me... it's all a beautiful chain of events that's reached a wonderful viewpoint, crystal clear in retrospect but murky as a swamp at the time. What I know for sure is that everyone who's reading this makes me happy, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. TBC.
Then we walked out of town a bit and went to the Museum of Prague, mainly to see a miniature model of the city that was made in the nineteenth century. And we would have enjoyed seeing it if it hadn't have been for the freaking annoying feature which meant that the model, which was about as big as four ping-pong tables and surrounded by a glass case, could be lit up in different sections by one person standing at a computer screen at one corner. Fun if you are in control of the screen and wanted to light up the Old Town Square or the Charles Bridge or whatever, but unbeLIEVably irritating for everyone else, who has walked around the glass case and is staring in detail at one particular area and then all the lights go out and only one patch of the model, invariably on the other side of the case, is illuminated and the bit closest to you is in pitch darkness. Badly thought out and made us both strop off. Still fun though.
Suddenly we noticed that all the while, time had been marching on, and we had to rush back across town to our hotel, pick up a couple of things and then wolf down a delicious lunch in a nearby eatery where we had gone because our hotel had supplied us with vouchers giving us 10% off if we ate more than 400 CSK which was basically impossible as a main course was about 125. But the waiters were charming and the food was perfect so we were well happy innit. Then we charged over to the National Theatre where we'd bought our tickets for Godzilla: The Ballet yesterday and the man at the door frowned at us and we thought it was because we were late, so we went up the stairs and he shouted at us and then his colleague explained that it was at another theatre and that we needed to go out and turn right, which we did, but we couldn't find anything resembling a performance of Goldilocks, so we went into another building and asked a woman who said "Hmmm. You have three minutes to go two kilometres," and it turned out the theatre was directly opposite the Museum of Communism, and we ran back across town and got there a bit late and flustered, and walked into our box, expecting to see taut men and wispy women in 200 dernier tights and perhaps some sort of figurative bear costume, delicately acting out 'Who's been eating my porridge?' in a routine choreographed by Rudolf Nuryev or similar, but instead appeared to have walked in to the live version of Let's Pretend, where the rejects from Prague's second-best ballet school went to get drunk and then die. I know as much about ballet as I do about microbiology, but even I can say with confidence that the dancing was a disgrace. The main man did four average pirouettes in a row and then expected applause from the audience. And then there was the singer/narrator, who sounded like a haggard, inebriated tramp who had stumbled onto the stage and been told to make up a song as he went along. There were no bears and no bowls of porridge. There were lots of people dressed up as red ants, some of them with women's knickers attached to their thoraxes, doing routines with silver Swiss balls, looking like something any sixth form girl could have choreographed in a twenty minute tea break. It was all quite extraordinary. In the first interval, the lights went up and I looked around - Nick and I were almost certainly the only people who had not brought a five year old with us. In the second interval, I felt a bit drowsy after my nap and Nick said he had had enough, so we culled. An experience.
Since then, we've been to a couple of shops. I developed an obsession with buying a fur muff while I was in Prague, and must have been in about thirty shops over the past two days, miming inserting my hands into a soft fur ball. I have been greeted with many strange looks, although one lady showed me a gigantic, bottle green one made of fox yesterday that I loved until I found out it was around £200. Today I walked past yet another shop that had hats on display in the window and said to Nick, hopefully, "Muff?" He agreed it looked possible, and yes, lo, inside was my dream muff, creamy white, very soft and - crucially - much cheaper than the other one. I now own it and am very happy. Sorry Peta.
Tonight we have a table booked at a restaurant near the Old Town Square, and all around everyone is getting excited. Nick, however, has a hatred of New Year's Eve so we are not allowed to talk about the end of the decade. He is lying on his bed next to mine reading Barbara Walters' autobiography and I am desperate to compile lists of best albums of the past ten years, best movies, best moments, worst moments, top three lessons learned, etc., while he just wants to forget about the passing of time. He tells me that he gets excited on New Year's Day, and looks forward to the future, but hates to think about what has been lost, missed opportunities and ineradicable truths. So, just between you and me - my best album released in the Noughties is Poses by Rufus Wainwright. My best book published in the Noughties is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. My favourite movie released in the Noughties is... TBC. I can't think of any good films I've seen at the cinema in the past ten years. That's insane. I did love Anvil. Maybe it was Anvil. Is that possible? I'll come back to that. My personal highlight is one long complex string - it's that I'm finally happy, but I wouldn't have been happy if I hadn't bought my flat, and I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't taken the job in the bank, and I wouldn't have taken the job in the bank if I hadn't been tutoring my boss's kids, and I wouldn't have been tutoring them if I hadn't been doing my MA, and I wouldn't have been doing my MA if I hadn't had been lost and blue and had my wonderful parents to help me... it's all a beautiful chain of events that's reached a wonderful viewpoint, crystal clear in retrospect but murky as a swamp at the time. What I know for sure is that everyone who's reading this makes me happy, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. TBC.
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
The real meaning of Christmas
As any singer will tell you, Christmas isn't about celebrating the birth of the saviour x many millennia ago, it is about singing carols in four or eight part harmony and then drinking wine to celebrate. I am enjoying singing so much at the moment that I wasn't even the most vocal complainer when we rehearsed a single piece for over an hour last night. And tonight is the third of our four carol concerts. I am VERY EXCITED, not just because we get to sing wonderful festive music and make people feel joyous, but also because there is a celebrity reader on the programme and although I have it on reliable authority that he is an absolute unmitigating idiot in real life, and married with children, I fancy him like mad (or at least I do in the TV programme that I've seen him in) and although I will try not to stare up at him with visible beams of hopeless love streaming out from my eyes while he is doing his reading, I think I will fail miserably. Ah well. A lovely boy with a flat cap emailed me today so I am feeling perky on the romance front.
Of course, the other thing that Christmas is about, apart from singing, is presents. And the problem with Christmas shopping is that I just find more and more things that I want to buy for myself. I was incredibly close to spending £190 on a Pakistani quilt on a US online store at about 09:08 this morning, having clicked there from a site where I was looking for presents for my mother. I am yet to buy a single gift for anyone. Unimpressive. I imagine that most only children revel at Christmastime, only having to buy presents for their parents, but present-buying is literally my favourite thing to do in the world ever and I am award-winningly brilliant at it, so not having anyone else to buy for other than two adults who routinely take back every single thing they are given by the other at Christmas is a bit like being a world class opera singer and living in a prison where the inmates are, without exception, deaf. Consequently, whenever I get a boyfriend I shower them with incredible gifts that I've been seen in shops previously and filed under 'brilliant gift idea for fictional boyfriend'. Then I sit back and wait to be showered in a similar fashion, but end up having to cry with gratitude when he books tickets for the cinema. Life is so unfair. I asked my father what he wants, and he said 'Nothing' and then requested that I don't spend any money on him. It's impossible that we are related. I mean, obviously I don't NEED anything. I am so far from needing things that I could lock down into some nuclear bunker for around ten years without repeating an outfit. But once I've seen the Pakistani quilt, it is all I can think about. My bedroom suddenly looks barren without it and I will toss and turn restlessly until it lies atop my duvet, adding a £190 sheen to my previously stark and boring (read: cluttered and frantic) sleeping set-up. Hmmm.
Of course, the other thing that Christmas is about, apart from singing, is presents. And the problem with Christmas shopping is that I just find more and more things that I want to buy for myself. I was incredibly close to spending £190 on a Pakistani quilt on a US online store at about 09:08 this morning, having clicked there from a site where I was looking for presents for my mother. I am yet to buy a single gift for anyone. Unimpressive. I imagine that most only children revel at Christmastime, only having to buy presents for their parents, but present-buying is literally my favourite thing to do in the world ever and I am award-winningly brilliant at it, so not having anyone else to buy for other than two adults who routinely take back every single thing they are given by the other at Christmas is a bit like being a world class opera singer and living in a prison where the inmates are, without exception, deaf. Consequently, whenever I get a boyfriend I shower them with incredible gifts that I've been seen in shops previously and filed under 'brilliant gift idea for fictional boyfriend'. Then I sit back and wait to be showered in a similar fashion, but end up having to cry with gratitude when he books tickets for the cinema. Life is so unfair. I asked my father what he wants, and he said 'Nothing' and then requested that I don't spend any money on him. It's impossible that we are related. I mean, obviously I don't NEED anything. I am so far from needing things that I could lock down into some nuclear bunker for around ten years without repeating an outfit. But once I've seen the Pakistani quilt, it is all I can think about. My bedroom suddenly looks barren without it and I will toss and turn restlessly until it lies atop my duvet, adding a £190 sheen to my previously stark and boring (read: cluttered and frantic) sleeping set-up. Hmmm.
Monday, 10 August 2009
08:58 this morning
I was standing in a crowded lift at work. Also in the lift were two women. One of them was holding a Black & Red notebook and a regulation pass for the building and was therefore clearly a full-time employee of the same company as I. The other was sporting a visitor's pass and was obviously a guest in the building.
Full Time Employee: "So, where is it you've come in from again?"
Visitor: "Kazakhstan."
FTE: "Ah right, I've never been there."
Visitor: [smiles politely]
FTE: "The nearest I've been is probably... well, I went to Singapore once, but that's..."
Visitor: "Nowhere near it."
In that 10-12 second exchange, I felt a wide selection of emotional responses, starting with absolute anger at the FTE's response to the Kazakhstan information. Who cares if you've never been there, you small-minded, blinkered mofo? Why don't you try and expand your horizons a bit? There's a Kazakhstani national standing in the same airspace as you. Why not ask her what it's like there? People's merry bubble existence drives me spastic. Then I felt absolute horror and the simultaneous desire to laugh at the Singapore remark. And sympathy for the Visitor who tried to show polite interest and didn't spit in the face of the ignorant FTE. I don't know where all this passion came from, given that it was before 9am on a Monday morning, but that's what happened. No wonder I'm always so exhausted when a journey in a lift is so stressful.
Plus I have admittedly been burning the candle at both ends of late, while holding it with a pair of tongs and firing the mid-section with a blowtorch. I am all out of wick. Wednesday night I went to a secret supper club in Brixton, where the host opens his home two nights a week to 16 strangers and cooks them the most glorious food I've had in quite some time. It was almost emotional - such an extraordinary hidden gem full of simple, uncomplicated sensations of love and passion without cynicism or caveat, which rekindled my never-that-latant fondness for city life. Then on Thursday I fasted until the evening, when it was Joanna's birthday party and I walked to the pub in the pouring rain and we ate oh-so-much pizza and delicious apple bakewell. Friday day was spent with the Glastocrush, doing a psychometric test at a gentlemen's club in Mayfair (you couldn't make it up) and then rushing home to face a dramatic pre-birthday-party wardrobe malfunction combined with too-many-incoming-phonecalls crisis when at one point I was completely naked except for a very fitted black halterneck top, barking down the phone at Emily while the GC stood by with wondrous dedication, wondering how he could help - but, short of developing an ability to perform miracle cellulite-busting, body-firming algae wraps in the confines of my flat, there was pretty much nothing he could do. Eventually we made it to my party where twelve of us went bowling in Bayswater and ate and drank too much more, and then three of us went on to the midnight show at The Comedy Store, and then two of us went back to my flat and talked until 4am. On Saturday we did an hour of yoga to sweat out the hangover, and then went vintage shopping for just under six hours (this is me and Grania, by the way, not the GC, who was working but would have wept openly if I'd made him shop on his day off). Despite our hangovers we managed to shop with impressive dedication and harmony, only complaining about vintage arm on one or two occasions, and avoiding an actual fist fight over a turban with admirable diplomacy. Then in the evening I went over to the GC's flat for an impromptu BBQ on the roof with two others, and we wrote messages on a Chinese lantern, lit it and winced as it flew, at speed, into a large chestnut tree, but were thrilled when the second attempt lifted high up, unfortunately then extinguishing almost immediately and coming down somewhere around a nearby sports centre. Yesterday was Sunday and I played frisbee in Green Park and didn't humiliate myself entirely as far as I'm aware, and then I went home and hoovered and tidied and wiped and dusted and ironed and now I'm feeling slightly less hectic, especially with the prospect of another night at the flat tonight. But calm or not, all of the above might help one to understand why an overheard conversation in an elevator is enough to tip me over the edge. Maybe I should take the stairs.
Full Time Employee: "So, where is it you've come in from again?"
Visitor: "Kazakhstan."
FTE: "Ah right, I've never been there."
Visitor: [smiles politely]
FTE: "The nearest I've been is probably... well, I went to Singapore once, but that's..."
Visitor: "Nowhere near it."
In that 10-12 second exchange, I felt a wide selection of emotional responses, starting with absolute anger at the FTE's response to the Kazakhstan information. Who cares if you've never been there, you small-minded, blinkered mofo? Why don't you try and expand your horizons a bit? There's a Kazakhstani national standing in the same airspace as you. Why not ask her what it's like there? People's merry bubble existence drives me spastic. Then I felt absolute horror and the simultaneous desire to laugh at the Singapore remark. And sympathy for the Visitor who tried to show polite interest and didn't spit in the face of the ignorant FTE. I don't know where all this passion came from, given that it was before 9am on a Monday morning, but that's what happened. No wonder I'm always so exhausted when a journey in a lift is so stressful.
Plus I have admittedly been burning the candle at both ends of late, while holding it with a pair of tongs and firing the mid-section with a blowtorch. I am all out of wick. Wednesday night I went to a secret supper club in Brixton, where the host opens his home two nights a week to 16 strangers and cooks them the most glorious food I've had in quite some time. It was almost emotional - such an extraordinary hidden gem full of simple, uncomplicated sensations of love and passion without cynicism or caveat, which rekindled my never-that-latant fondness for city life. Then on Thursday I fasted until the evening, when it was Joanna's birthday party and I walked to the pub in the pouring rain and we ate oh-so-much pizza and delicious apple bakewell. Friday day was spent with the Glastocrush, doing a psychometric test at a gentlemen's club in Mayfair (you couldn't make it up) and then rushing home to face a dramatic pre-birthday-party wardrobe malfunction combined with too-many-incoming-phonecalls crisis when at one point I was completely naked except for a very fitted black halterneck top, barking down the phone at Emily while the GC stood by with wondrous dedication, wondering how he could help - but, short of developing an ability to perform miracle cellulite-busting, body-firming algae wraps in the confines of my flat, there was pretty much nothing he could do. Eventually we made it to my party where twelve of us went bowling in Bayswater and ate and drank too much more, and then three of us went on to the midnight show at The Comedy Store, and then two of us went back to my flat and talked until 4am. On Saturday we did an hour of yoga to sweat out the hangover, and then went vintage shopping for just under six hours (this is me and Grania, by the way, not the GC, who was working but would have wept openly if I'd made him shop on his day off). Despite our hangovers we managed to shop with impressive dedication and harmony, only complaining about vintage arm on one or two occasions, and avoiding an actual fist fight over a turban with admirable diplomacy. Then in the evening I went over to the GC's flat for an impromptu BBQ on the roof with two others, and we wrote messages on a Chinese lantern, lit it and winced as it flew, at speed, into a large chestnut tree, but were thrilled when the second attempt lifted high up, unfortunately then extinguishing almost immediately and coming down somewhere around a nearby sports centre. Yesterday was Sunday and I played frisbee in Green Park and didn't humiliate myself entirely as far as I'm aware, and then I went home and hoovered and tidied and wiped and dusted and ironed and now I'm feeling slightly less hectic, especially with the prospect of another night at the flat tonight. But calm or not, all of the above might help one to understand why an overheard conversation in an elevator is enough to tip me over the edge. Maybe I should take the stairs.
Friday, 31 July 2009
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.
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.
Monday, 20 October 2008
Monday round-up
A very sweet anonymous poster commented that I am 'like Carrie from Sex and the City' and that I should continue writing about dating. Now, flattery will get you almost anywhere with me - but I think on this matter, it might be better to wait. I'll reminisce in a while once the dust has settled, I promise. But for now: things seem to be good.
Exciting news for me is that my parents are taking me to Paris at the beginning of December. I haven't been for five years and I can't wait. Last time I went I bought a green short sleeved jumper featuring an embroidered pair of sunglasses, and a V-neck sweater vest with knitted penguins all over it - vintage purchases I still wear and love - so hopefully this trip will be equally fruitful. I suppose we'll have to do something cultural as well, between the eating and the shopping. Things must've changed over there in the past five years though - if any loyal Faithful have any tips of Must Do tourist things, please leave a comment, bearing in mind that my parents will be present, so fetish nights and/or Full Moon party type events possibly not suitable.
Having kicked off with a rather lovely Friday night, my weekend was really quite ace. Saturday was spent mooching, hungover, with Emily, before I went to meet Joanna in Westbourne Park and talked non-stop about Friday night for about 25 minutes. Then we went to Dan and Clare's engagement party, celebrating a couple who were just destined to be together. I am extremely and genuinely delighted for them. Selfishly, I was also really glad that they had an excuse to throw a party, because it was the first time I'd seen a lot of that posse for months, and I was like a butterfly on coke, chatting to as many people as I possibly could, laughing far too loudly and struggling to check my emails on my iPhone using Fuller's wifi. Pah.
Then Vanessa and I took the tube home and, during a nine minute wait on the platform at Elephant and Castle, took photographs of ourselves reflected in the perspex covering of the tube map so that we looked like a) Cabbage Patch Kids and then b) Cyclops. Our silent, hiccupping hysteria was possibly incredibly annoying for the three other people waiting forlornly on the platform.
Then on Sunday, Emily, Joanna, Kate, Ses and I went to the Robert Capa exhibition at the Barbican, which was fascinating - or at least, in the spirit of true self-obsession, I found my reaction to it fascinating, in that the exhibition of Capa's famous photographs was teamed with photographs from modern warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, and unexpectedly, I found the recent pictures infinitely more affecting. And I much preferred the photos taken by Capa's girlfriend, which seemed to have a more personal, studied focus - not like warfare then. I did understand why Capa went for the blurred action shots, and his images of the D-Day landings were amazing - what these journalists go through is incredible - but one of the modern collections featured a wall of photos with subjects ranging from Iraqi families wearing Santa hats to brutal attacks by American soldiers - now that I write it, the contrast is possibly a bit schmaltzy but in situ it was very striking.
Despite gallery flop, Em and I somehow found the energy to schlep over to Cheshire St for a quick trip to Beyond Retro where I found some amazing new items among the warehouse's heaving rails. Very smug. I went home, collapsed onto the sofa, watched Saturday's X Factor (gripping) and then realised that my flat was a tip and that it was being seen by someone who's never seen it before on Tuesday. Consequently, my shoe pile had to be confronted. I laid them all out for the first time and I'm ashamed to say that, in a display worthy of a modern day Imelda, the pairs covered the floor around three sides of my bed. It was extraordinary. I did a cull, and then counted what was left. And... I don't know if I can just come out and admit how many are left... but if you take the number 200 and then times it by six and then divide it by the square root of 25, and then minus the sum of 170 and 36, and then add the amount you get when you multiply 3 and 5, that's how many pairs of shoes and boots I now possess. In my defence, I suffer from an unnamed but special condition due to having size 10 feet - due to an almost total shortage of shoes in my size during my younger years, I now compulsively fall upon any footwear I find that fits me today, panicking that if I don't buy it immediately, I'll never find anything like it again. It's an addiction - don't criticise me: pity me.
Exciting news for me is that my parents are taking me to Paris at the beginning of December. I haven't been for five years and I can't wait. Last time I went I bought a green short sleeved jumper featuring an embroidered pair of sunglasses, and a V-neck sweater vest with knitted penguins all over it - vintage purchases I still wear and love - so hopefully this trip will be equally fruitful. I suppose we'll have to do something cultural as well, between the eating and the shopping. Things must've changed over there in the past five years though - if any loyal Faithful have any tips of Must Do tourist things, please leave a comment, bearing in mind that my parents will be present, so fetish nights and/or Full Moon party type events possibly not suitable.
Having kicked off with a rather lovely Friday night, my weekend was really quite ace. Saturday was spent mooching, hungover, with Emily, before I went to meet Joanna in Westbourne Park and talked non-stop about Friday night for about 25 minutes. Then we went to Dan and Clare's engagement party, celebrating a couple who were just destined to be together. I am extremely and genuinely delighted for them. Selfishly, I was also really glad that they had an excuse to throw a party, because it was the first time I'd seen a lot of that posse for months, and I was like a butterfly on coke, chatting to as many people as I possibly could, laughing far too loudly and struggling to check my emails on my iPhone using Fuller's wifi. Pah.
Then Vanessa and I took the tube home and, during a nine minute wait on the platform at Elephant and Castle, took photographs of ourselves reflected in the perspex covering of the tube map so that we looked like a) Cabbage Patch Kids and then b) Cyclops. Our silent, hiccupping hysteria was possibly incredibly annoying for the three other people waiting forlornly on the platform.Then on Sunday, Emily, Joanna, Kate, Ses and I went to the Robert Capa exhibition at the Barbican, which was fascinating - or at least, in the spirit of true self-obsession, I found my reaction to it fascinating, in that the exhibition of Capa's famous photographs was teamed with photographs from modern warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, and unexpectedly, I found the recent pictures infinitely more affecting. And I much preferred the photos taken by Capa's girlfriend, which seemed to have a more personal, studied focus - not like warfare then. I did understand why Capa went for the blurred action shots, and his images of the D-Day landings were amazing - what these journalists go through is incredible - but one of the modern collections featured a wall of photos with subjects ranging from Iraqi families wearing Santa hats to brutal attacks by American soldiers - now that I write it, the contrast is possibly a bit schmaltzy but in situ it was very striking.
Despite gallery flop, Em and I somehow found the energy to schlep over to Cheshire St for a quick trip to Beyond Retro where I found some amazing new items among the warehouse's heaving rails. Very smug. I went home, collapsed onto the sofa, watched Saturday's X Factor (gripping) and then realised that my flat was a tip and that it was being seen by someone who's never seen it before on Tuesday. Consequently, my shoe pile had to be confronted. I laid them all out for the first time and I'm ashamed to say that, in a display worthy of a modern day Imelda, the pairs covered the floor around three sides of my bed. It was extraordinary. I did a cull, and then counted what was left. And... I don't know if I can just come out and admit how many are left... but if you take the number 200 and then times it by six and then divide it by the square root of 25, and then minus the sum of 170 and 36, and then add the amount you get when you multiply 3 and 5, that's how many pairs of shoes and boots I now possess. In my defence, I suffer from an unnamed but special condition due to having size 10 feet - due to an almost total shortage of shoes in my size during my younger years, I now compulsively fall upon any footwear I find that fits me today, panicking that if I don't buy it immediately, I'll never find anything like it again. It's an addiction - don't criticise me: pity me.
Friday, 17 October 2008
LLFF no longer AWOL
Sorry for protracted absence but it's been a weird week. I haven't been very focused. Fun though... I kept meaning to write - there was the guy who leant his entire bodyweight on me on the tube, completely unnecessarily, between Borough and Bank. I kept pushing back against him to try and get him to move but either he wasn't picking up on my subtle signals or he was enjoying it. Urgh. I arrived at work feeling violated. Then there was the guy who was playing his iPod really loudly which is not, in itself, unusual or remarkable - but this guy was actually shouting over his own music to speak to his girlfriend. Why he couldn't press pause, or remove his headphones, was beyond me. I tutted fairly loudly at that one. Still no sign of the missing cat so I'm feeling very sad about that. It's been ten days now. Lower lip out. I think the reason I haven't been writing is because I've pretty much banned myself from writing about boys until I know for sure that either I'm never going to see them again or we get close enough that they find out about this blog and accept its existence - and since boys, as a topic, is pretty much been all I've been thinking about, I've felt like writing about something else would be unrepresentative and, in a small way, untruthful / out and out lies.
Then this afternoon I did something completely un-boy-related that was naughty and struck me as something that should be recorded. I was in that paragon of the posh modern British shopping experience, New Look, and chanced across a lovely green dress. "I'll have that," I thought to myself - but there was only one in my size, and it had a button missing. Not just any button, but a rather large 'feature' button, one of four that was stitched to the neckline. Unsure, I went to try it on, found it to be wondrous, and realised that I must now address the issue of the missing button. I asked the comatose shop assistant whether they had any more dresses in my size. She looked at me as though I'd just grounded her for a month. Speaking as if addressing someone hard of hearing or irrepairably stupid, she drawled, "Wha'ever's out there's all we've got." I explained I wanted to get a replacement button. She repeated her last phrase. I asked if they could order one in. "No," she replied, "cos it's a concession innit," as if that explained everything. Then she directed me to the tills where, she claimed, I would be offered a discount. I went back to the rack where the dresses were, to check again that there were none in my size. There weren't. There was one in another size though. With the button I wanted. So I took it. Not the dress. Just the button. I pulled it, and it was suddenly in my hand. Those four year olds who made it obviously were being thrifty with the thread. Was it stealing? Not really - I paid for the dress fair and square. Was it wrong? Yes. Do I feel bad? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes. Do you hate me? I hope not.
Since I returned to my desk, Sara and I have been email bantering about internet acronyms. These developed a while ago on online forums, where oft-used phrases were shortened to facilitate quick typing. Most people will be familiar with LOL (laugh out loud) but a whole new stream of popular acronyms have sprung up in recent years. Common favourites are LMFAO (laughing my fat ass off), ROFL (rolling on floor laughing) and IYSWIM (if you see what I mean) - but there are also more random ones that are used on individual sites only and are yet to 'catch on'. I was recently on an online London forum when someone typed something really gross - and the next person replied PSIOEWRS. This, I was later informed, stands for 'pokes self in own eye with rusty spoon'. Sara and I decided to make our own. Here are our attempts:
POWUE - passes out with unjustified excitement
PUBAHD - Panics unnecessarily before a hot date
EITA - Enagages in text anxiety
WTCOMABDBUTS - Within the context of making a bad decision but unable to stop
HFHA - Heading for heart ache
OIBPARBS - Obviously I'm being paranoid and ridiculous but still
IKWDTAHTBBWM - I know we've discussed this a hundred times but bear with me
YIRATI -Yes I really am this insecure
IKIGTOTABUINIRBD - I know I've got ten of these already but I need it, recession be damned
IIBTIFTW - Is it bad that I feel this way?
SIBS - Should I be sectioned?
PDSMTAA - Please don't send me to an asylum
Feel free to add your own in the Comments. Right. I'm off to PUBAHD. Fare thee well.
Then this afternoon I did something completely un-boy-related that was naughty and struck me as something that should be recorded. I was in that paragon of the posh modern British shopping experience, New Look, and chanced across a lovely green dress. "I'll have that," I thought to myself - but there was only one in my size, and it had a button missing. Not just any button, but a rather large 'feature' button, one of four that was stitched to the neckline. Unsure, I went to try it on, found it to be wondrous, and realised that I must now address the issue of the missing button. I asked the comatose shop assistant whether they had any more dresses in my size. She looked at me as though I'd just grounded her for a month. Speaking as if addressing someone hard of hearing or irrepairably stupid, she drawled, "Wha'ever's out there's all we've got." I explained I wanted to get a replacement button. She repeated her last phrase. I asked if they could order one in. "No," she replied, "cos it's a concession innit," as if that explained everything. Then she directed me to the tills where, she claimed, I would be offered a discount. I went back to the rack where the dresses were, to check again that there were none in my size. There weren't. There was one in another size though. With the button I wanted. So I took it. Not the dress. Just the button. I pulled it, and it was suddenly in my hand. Those four year olds who made it obviously were being thrifty with the thread. Was it stealing? Not really - I paid for the dress fair and square. Was it wrong? Yes. Do I feel bad? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes. Do you hate me? I hope not.
Since I returned to my desk, Sara and I have been email bantering about internet acronyms. These developed a while ago on online forums, where oft-used phrases were shortened to facilitate quick typing. Most people will be familiar with LOL (laugh out loud) but a whole new stream of popular acronyms have sprung up in recent years. Common favourites are LMFAO (laughing my fat ass off), ROFL (rolling on floor laughing) and IYSWIM (if you see what I mean) - but there are also more random ones that are used on individual sites only and are yet to 'catch on'. I was recently on an online London forum when someone typed something really gross - and the next person replied PSIOEWRS. This, I was later informed, stands for 'pokes self in own eye with rusty spoon'. Sara and I decided to make our own. Here are our attempts:
POWUE - passes out with unjustified excitement
PUBAHD - Panics unnecessarily before a hot date
EITA - Enagages in text anxiety
WTCOMABDBUTS - Within the context of making a bad decision but unable to stop
HFHA - Heading for heart ache
OIBPARBS - Obviously I'm being paranoid and ridiculous but still
IKWDTAHTBBWM - I know we've discussed this a hundred times but bear with me
YIRATI -Yes I really am this insecure
IKIGTOTABUINIRBD - I know I've got ten of these already but I need it, recession be damned
IIBTIFTW - Is it bad that I feel this way?
SIBS - Should I be sectioned?
PDSMTAA - Please don't send me to an asylum
Feel free to add your own in the Comments. Right. I'm off to PUBAHD. Fare thee well.
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Introducing: Goldie
I told you he was amazing. Isn't he the most incredible purchase there ever was? Loving sigh. Part of me knows that it is wrong that he makes me so happy, but hey, what can you do. I'm in an especially vacuous mood having just watched the Sex and the City movie with Emily, which had a mediocre plot as expected - but the clothes... oh! The clothes. It was vintage porn - huge corsages, pearls with Eighties mini-dresses, and a Vivienne Westwood wedding meringue. Men should not be allowed to watch that film. It reinforces everything that they must think is awful and superficial about girls: that we're fashion obsessed, over-romantic idiots who only want to get married and have babies. I'm not denying there's a grain of truth in that summary - but there really is so much more to us. The movie, on the other hand, manages to distill femininity down into a deceptive 'essence', leaving out the context and the depth and the... real story. Then again, anyone who is really prepared to form their opinion of women from the SATC movie needs their head read.Right - got to go. It's late, and Goldie needs a last walk before bedtime.
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Emotional rollercoaster
I'm not sure this photograph is one of my better ones, but you'll have to trust me that it illustrates perfectly the idiocy that is displayed around this wonderful planet all too frequently. It was taken yesterday evening on the ground floor of Zara Homes, Regent St. It is the third or fourth time I've visited this establishment, and the third or fourth time I've been stopped in my tracks by the lettering on their stairwell. On each occasion, I browse the ground floor, and then meander towards the staircase to continue my shopping experience. To help me decide whether to go up or, indeed, down, I peer at the steel art deco letters on the wall - but instead of telling me what I might find, should I walk up or down the stairs, the sign merely has an arrow pointing in an 'up' direction, labelled 'First Floor', and an arrow pointing 'down', labelled 'Lower Ground Floor'. I mean. Has it come to this? That when we're on the ground floor, we need instruction labels to help us know that, by walking up a flight of stairs, we will find the First Floor? Or that by walking down, we may come across a basement? Growl. Like any good shopper, I went both up and down the stairs, possibly as a result of the mystery and intrigue provided by the lack of labelling (perhaps this was their intention), and my rage died down when I spotted the most incredible gold leather sausage dog. It has shot straight into my top five favourite purchases of 2008, along with my Bookworm shelf, my sugar bowl from Anthropologie in Seattle, my cherry blossom fairy lights and my carpet.My life has been extremely weird since approx. last Thursday when overnight, any hint of the summer ended and it suddenly became Autumn. As soon as I started wearing my delicious pea-green coat and little blue hat, so beloved last winter, I started experiencing the most overpowering feelings of deja vu and nostalgia, so intense as to be almost unpleasant. The Faithful will know that I am up there in the World's Most Unspiritual, and weird sensations such as these are unheard of in my past. I think it's something about having an August break-up and then going on a couple of interesting dates, which is precisely what I was doing a year ago - I feel like a completely different person in so many ways, very much happier, older and wiser than I was in 2007, but history still repeats itself...
Last summer, I went on a weekend in Devon with a group of friends and remember feeling startlingly relieved to return to the varieties of London. And similarly, this weekend just past, I went to stay with a girlfriend in Wiltshire, who is now married with three gorgeous children and three dogs. I had a fantastic time helping out and going for long walks, interspersed with drinking Cava and watching The X Factor, but there was just no denying the breath-taking hit of relief when I boarded the Bakerloo line at Paddington and looked around me at all the different, unfamiliar faces - people from every walk of life, going through every permutation of experience. It is just impossible to feel alone in London. Whatever you're going through - someone else has got it worse, someone else has it better, someone else has been through it before. I never feel isolated here - but the anonymity also allows one to have time to oneself, soul-space to consider and grow. In the countryside, the geographical space is beautiful and wonderful and energising - but the lack of people mean that there is an intense claustrophobia, a blinkeredness that, while it may also exist here in London, is so much more easy to avoid in the Big Smoke. The dream of retiring to the country is popular for many - but I'm a City girl through and through and I'm proud of it.
So I was feeling very odd. But then last night was the start of the new choir term and it was so incredibly lovely to see everyone again that I felt almost emotional. And we sang Christmas music which just filled me with atheistic joy. And then today, I received an email from a prospective suitor, a 46 year old currently living '15 miles north-west of New York' who effectively sent me his CV, including his diet, his exercise regime, his background (where his parents were born and where his mother died) and the fact that he is looking for a permanent relationship. Terrifying. I won't be dating him but it made for interesting reading. I showed Laura his photo, which is admittedly not the most reassuring, and she said:
'Jane, he looks like a serial killer.'
'What does a serial killer look like?!'
'That.'
I had to concede that he had a guilty mouth. Sad really, but what can you do. Thankfully I have also received messages from other young men who sound lovely. And, just in case, I'm keeping schtum about that this time! And then I received a phonecall from Westminster council, admitting that they'd been idiots, and dropping the charges against me for when they towed my car from Soho Square back in May, and so I'm going to be refunded £260. All that and my unbelievable gold dachshund - ah me! All of a sudden, life is good again and I am appreciative.
Sunday, 31 August 2008
Retail Therapy
God I am such a freaking stereotype, which I hate. I would so much rather be cool and different, swim against the tide, run against the tourists, but on this particular issue there's simply no denying it: I'm a fully signed up member of the Female Cliché. Worse still, what I'm about to admit will trample all over my oft-vaunted attempts to be anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist and left-leaning.
Believe me, I know it shouldn't make me so happy, and for the sake of my political conscience and my bank balance, I truly wish it didn't, but the fact remains: I absolutely, 100% unequivocally, shamefully but unerringly adore shopping.
Last night, after a blissful Friday night stay with Tracey at our friend Charlie's showhome in Essex, featuring drunk dancing in the kitchen, faaaar too much Chinese takeaway, even more Pinot Grigio and nostalgia, a brave Saturday morning run, a long walk along the beach in the suddenly blistering heat and a fantastic and pleasantly tipsy lunch at a seafront restaurant where we all felt like we had been teleported to Marbella (in a good way), I went home to my parents' house for a delicious dinner in the beautiful garden, celebrating what may be our last night out there on a balmy summer's eve before they move - and it was all just so perfect. So when I got to bed last night, you might imagine that I would be fairly self-satisfied, content and at peace. Well: I was. But I also had butterflies, because I had earmarked this morning to travel to Hammersmith and visit Primark.
Clearly I wasn't actually as fussed as I'm implying, as I didn't wake up until just short of midday. But the moment I was able to stand, the butterflies redescended and my shopping excursion loomed ahead like a first date at a top restaurant with an attractive man in possession of an above-average vocabulary. What would be there amongst the racks of cheaply designed items? In a moment of delicious serendipity, would I find a fantastic garment lying discarded on the floor of the changing room? I wasn't sure I could cope with the excitement.
Like the seasoned amateur that I am, upon arrival I did two sweeps of the ground floor and one of the first, before trying on my haul, all the while humming 'I love a party with a happy atmosphere,' the classic mid-Eighties 'hit' by Russ Abbott, which I get in my head Every Single Time I see an Atmosphere label ('So let me take you there, and soon, we'll be dancing in the cool, night air...'). I found a fantastic checked shirt for work, two T-shirts (one useful black, one distinctly inessential striped), a starry top, an amazing hat, a great jumper that will bobble after approx. three washes but for now is divine, a fantastic raincoat, a great bag, a thousand pairs of earrings for about 30p, a makeup bag, two hair accessories, a heart-rate-raising brooch, and a delicious pair of orange wristwarmers. I then unexpectedly pounced on a crazy tartan cardigan on my way to the checkout. All that for £66. By the end I was sated, brimming with the combination of joy, heady effervescence, relief and satisfied calm that only purchasing can provide.
My name's Jane, and I'm a shopaholic. It's a weakness, I'll admit it unreservedly - bad for my attempts to climb to the summit of the moral highground, bad for the child labourers in the East, bad for my finances, bad for the planet. But hey, nobody's perfect. My principles are otherwise fairly intact, so for now, keep that wagon away. I'm not quite ready to give up this buzz. Besides, anything that can make me look forward to getting up on Monday morning has got to be good news. Bonne nuit.
Believe me, I know it shouldn't make me so happy, and for the sake of my political conscience and my bank balance, I truly wish it didn't, but the fact remains: I absolutely, 100% unequivocally, shamefully but unerringly adore shopping.
Last night, after a blissful Friday night stay with Tracey at our friend Charlie's showhome in Essex, featuring drunk dancing in the kitchen, faaaar too much Chinese takeaway, even more Pinot Grigio and nostalgia, a brave Saturday morning run, a long walk along the beach in the suddenly blistering heat and a fantastic and pleasantly tipsy lunch at a seafront restaurant where we all felt like we had been teleported to Marbella (in a good way), I went home to my parents' house for a delicious dinner in the beautiful garden, celebrating what may be our last night out there on a balmy summer's eve before they move - and it was all just so perfect. So when I got to bed last night, you might imagine that I would be fairly self-satisfied, content and at peace. Well: I was. But I also had butterflies, because I had earmarked this morning to travel to Hammersmith and visit Primark.
Clearly I wasn't actually as fussed as I'm implying, as I didn't wake up until just short of midday. But the moment I was able to stand, the butterflies redescended and my shopping excursion loomed ahead like a first date at a top restaurant with an attractive man in possession of an above-average vocabulary. What would be there amongst the racks of cheaply designed items? In a moment of delicious serendipity, would I find a fantastic garment lying discarded on the floor of the changing room? I wasn't sure I could cope with the excitement.
Like the seasoned amateur that I am, upon arrival I did two sweeps of the ground floor and one of the first, before trying on my haul, all the while humming 'I love a party with a happy atmosphere,' the classic mid-Eighties 'hit' by Russ Abbott, which I get in my head Every Single Time I see an Atmosphere label ('So let me take you there, and soon, we'll be dancing in the cool, night air...'). I found a fantastic checked shirt for work, two T-shirts (one useful black, one distinctly inessential striped), a starry top, an amazing hat, a great jumper that will bobble after approx. three washes but for now is divine, a fantastic raincoat, a great bag, a thousand pairs of earrings for about 30p, a makeup bag, two hair accessories, a heart-rate-raising brooch, and a delicious pair of orange wristwarmers. I then unexpectedly pounced on a crazy tartan cardigan on my way to the checkout. All that for £66. By the end I was sated, brimming with the combination of joy, heady effervescence, relief and satisfied calm that only purchasing can provide.
My name's Jane, and I'm a shopaholic. It's a weakness, I'll admit it unreservedly - bad for my attempts to climb to the summit of the moral highground, bad for the child labourers in the East, bad for my finances, bad for the planet. But hey, nobody's perfect. My principles are otherwise fairly intact, so for now, keep that wagon away. I'm not quite ready to give up this buzz. Besides, anything that can make me look forward to getting up on Monday morning has got to be good news. Bonne nuit.
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
Middle class rant
As the minute hand clicks onto 12 and the clock outside strikes six times, indicating that it is now 18:00 hours on Tuesday 25 March, my excitement reaches unhealthy levels and my risk of heart attack increases approximately threefold. For at 18:00 hours, I have been told, it is possible that a nice man, or perhaps a nice woman, will arrive in a Tesco's van with a large quantity of extremely heavy and essential groceries for my eating pleasure. Of course, I tell myself at 18:05, they probably won't arrive on the dot of six. Mentally, I prepare myself for the possibility that they may not even arrive until the end of my window, at 8pm. This will be a disappointing outcome as it will delay my dinner further - I am already knee-deep in anticipation about my first home-cooked meal in my new flat and the kitchen is not presently full of options, containing two pots of out-of-date milk, some spreadable butter, some leftover smoked mackerel pate that is crawling with invisible food poisoning and a Twix.
19:00 hours. My excitement has dropped to a simmer but I am still poised and ready to leap the moment the door buzzer sounds.
19:45. Anger has set in. I try to stop myself from working into a psychopathic rage, reminding myself that they are not actually late until 20:01.
20:01. Psychopathic rage culminates in terse, barely civil phonecall to Tesco's. Unaware of the levels of my fury, a blameless young man unwittingly tells me that my order has been cancelled and that I 'should have been informed'. No shit. He puts me on hold while he checks what happened. Apparently my card didn't work - which is ridiculous as I entered all the details correctly and have no shortage of funds - and instead of phoning me to verify it, they cancelled the order. At this point, pins and needles start shooting through both of my legs and I start to exaggerate. "This is my only free night until next Tuesday [true]. I cancelled several plans to make sure I was in tonight [false]. Plus I am having people over for the next three nights [false] and people staying this weekend [false] and now have no food for them [would be true if the last two claims hadn't been false]. I will complain about this online [true] - my blog is read by thousands of people [white lie] all over the world [true] and I hope that this will deter them from using your service in future [false: I'm not that bothered]."
After I requested compensation, the man emailed me a £10 discount on my next online shop. It's interesting to me that, in the eyes of the Tesco's system, waiting in all evening for shopping that never arrives is half as irritating as almost (but not actually) breaking a tooth while eating sultanas, for which we were paid £20. I wonder who calculates these things...
Perhaps the people at my local branch of Tesco read my blog yesterday, decided that I'd been too smug about my lovely Easter minibreak and saw an opportunity to sabotage my happiness. Their efforts were in vain, however - after my early stumble into irritation brought on by being stood up by a supermarket, the evening ended well as I ordered a Thai meal (which did actually arrive) and began to seal my birch kitchen counters with Danish wood oil. This is a process more satisfying than I could ever have dreamed, like rubbing really good moisturiser into dry, scaly legs, only without the accompanying feeling of self-revulsion. The instructions advise giving untreated wood three or four initial coats with at least five hours between applications. I did one before bed and then surprised myself by getting up fifteen minutes earlier than I had to this morning and putting on another layer at around 7.10am. I always knew my priorities would change when I had my own home but given that spring cleaning has not been high on my agenda this side of the Millennium, it's a bit of a surprise to be waking up early to rub oil into a kitchen counter with a lint-free cloth wearing a nightie and slippers. Wonders will never cease.
19:00 hours. My excitement has dropped to a simmer but I am still poised and ready to leap the moment the door buzzer sounds.
19:45. Anger has set in. I try to stop myself from working into a psychopathic rage, reminding myself that they are not actually late until 20:01.
20:01. Psychopathic rage culminates in terse, barely civil phonecall to Tesco's. Unaware of the levels of my fury, a blameless young man unwittingly tells me that my order has been cancelled and that I 'should have been informed'. No shit. He puts me on hold while he checks what happened. Apparently my card didn't work - which is ridiculous as I entered all the details correctly and have no shortage of funds - and instead of phoning me to verify it, they cancelled the order. At this point, pins and needles start shooting through both of my legs and I start to exaggerate. "This is my only free night until next Tuesday [true]. I cancelled several plans to make sure I was in tonight [false]. Plus I am having people over for the next three nights [false] and people staying this weekend [false] and now have no food for them [would be true if the last two claims hadn't been false]. I will complain about this online [true] - my blog is read by thousands of people [white lie] all over the world [true] and I hope that this will deter them from using your service in future [false: I'm not that bothered]."
After I requested compensation, the man emailed me a £10 discount on my next online shop. It's interesting to me that, in the eyes of the Tesco's system, waiting in all evening for shopping that never arrives is half as irritating as almost (but not actually) breaking a tooth while eating sultanas, for which we were paid £20. I wonder who calculates these things...
Perhaps the people at my local branch of Tesco read my blog yesterday, decided that I'd been too smug about my lovely Easter minibreak and saw an opportunity to sabotage my happiness. Their efforts were in vain, however - after my early stumble into irritation brought on by being stood up by a supermarket, the evening ended well as I ordered a Thai meal (which did actually arrive) and began to seal my birch kitchen counters with Danish wood oil. This is a process more satisfying than I could ever have dreamed, like rubbing really good moisturiser into dry, scaly legs, only without the accompanying feeling of self-revulsion. The instructions advise giving untreated wood three or four initial coats with at least five hours between applications. I did one before bed and then surprised myself by getting up fifteen minutes earlier than I had to this morning and putting on another layer at around 7.10am. I always knew my priorities would change when I had my own home but given that spring cleaning has not been high on my agenda this side of the Millennium, it's a bit of a surprise to be waking up early to rub oil into a kitchen counter with a lint-free cloth wearing a nightie and slippers. Wonders will never cease.
Saturday, 1 March 2008
Skirting Boredom
It's not the least rewarding task in DIY but it's certainly one of the jobs I've enjoyed least over the past few weeks: undercoating skirting boards and architrave is pretty slow work and, let's be honest, how often do you actually notice the paint job on someone else's woodwork? The truth is, you only notice if it's rubbish. I fear that, by that rationale, mine may attract attention.
I arrived at the flat at around 10am this morning and painted pretty solidly until 8.30pm - with the help of my two parent-shaped apprentices until 3pm and a Katherine-shaped distraction for half an hour later on in the afternoon, when I paused and ate fig rolls. Overall, progress has been undeniably and disappointingly slow on the decorating front and I'm having to face up to the reality that neither my bathroom nor my kitchen will be painted when I move in. Still, as long as the taps work, the loo flushes and the fridge is cold, I think I'll survive; it will take a lot more than bare plaster to make me push back my move date.
After the day's DIY was over, it was time to leap in the car and head south to my favourite Croydon superstore, Ikea, to pick up a few essentials for next week's building work. I scampered down the stairs outside my flat to the faithful Honda, trying to force some adrenaline into my system in preparation for the mission ahead. However, my first hurdle was greeting me rather sooner than I'd expected: the car had been blocked in by another vehicle, a small white stick shift that had been thoughtfully parked perpendicular to my automotive rear. The gap that remained was inadequate. I know this because I tried, and failed, to reverse through it. Stumped, I resorted to drastic measures and honked my horn. Twice. But to my irritation, no guilty party shot down the stairs to rescue me.
I was stuck. At 8.30pm. On a Saturday night, when I should have been driving to Ikea. It was time to pull out the big guns. Like a girl possessed, I tried the white car's handle. Miraculously, the door opened. The car's interior light glowed a threatening UV blue and the hazards started flashing, but thankfully no alarm sounded. I positioned myself, took off the handbrake and pushed, 100% uncertain if I would be strong enough to shift the car up the slight incline on which it was parked. Feeling like an unsettling combination of an independent goddess and a massively unattractive, over-capable, butch, Wagnerian heroine, I rolled the car forwards, put the handbrake back on, returned to my car and, in a scene not unreminiscent of the Austin Powers electric buggy 400-point turn, eventually manoeuvred out of the space.
After that, Ikea was a breeze. This time, everything was in stock, the queues weren't too long, the child count was mercifully low and I managed to resist buying a headboard and a chest of drawers as I maturely decided to wait until I've lived in the flat for a bit. OK, plus I had a tragic fantasy about me and and Mr L'Atelier returning Croydonwards at an unspecified future date to pick a couple of things out together. Ikea shopping toute seule is undeniably efficient but a gal can get a bit sick of being solo. It's that same feeling as when you go to the supermarket after work, all excited about your night in watching crap TV, and you find your delicious ready meal and go to the checkout and put it on the conveyor belt and then pause to look around you and realise that everyone else is buying eight bottles of wine for their fun parties and that in between laughing with their friends, they're staring at you with pity and suddenly the evening in doesn't seem quite so fun any more.
Not that that's ever happened to me.
I arrived at the flat at around 10am this morning and painted pretty solidly until 8.30pm - with the help of my two parent-shaped apprentices until 3pm and a Katherine-shaped distraction for half an hour later on in the afternoon, when I paused and ate fig rolls. Overall, progress has been undeniably and disappointingly slow on the decorating front and I'm having to face up to the reality that neither my bathroom nor my kitchen will be painted when I move in. Still, as long as the taps work, the loo flushes and the fridge is cold, I think I'll survive; it will take a lot more than bare plaster to make me push back my move date.
After the day's DIY was over, it was time to leap in the car and head south to my favourite Croydon superstore, Ikea, to pick up a few essentials for next week's building work. I scampered down the stairs outside my flat to the faithful Honda, trying to force some adrenaline into my system in preparation for the mission ahead. However, my first hurdle was greeting me rather sooner than I'd expected: the car had been blocked in by another vehicle, a small white stick shift that had been thoughtfully parked perpendicular to my automotive rear. The gap that remained was inadequate. I know this because I tried, and failed, to reverse through it. Stumped, I resorted to drastic measures and honked my horn. Twice. But to my irritation, no guilty party shot down the stairs to rescue me.
I was stuck. At 8.30pm. On a Saturday night, when I should have been driving to Ikea. It was time to pull out the big guns. Like a girl possessed, I tried the white car's handle. Miraculously, the door opened. The car's interior light glowed a threatening UV blue and the hazards started flashing, but thankfully no alarm sounded. I positioned myself, took off the handbrake and pushed, 100% uncertain if I would be strong enough to shift the car up the slight incline on which it was parked. Feeling like an unsettling combination of an independent goddess and a massively unattractive, over-capable, butch, Wagnerian heroine, I rolled the car forwards, put the handbrake back on, returned to my car and, in a scene not unreminiscent of the Austin Powers electric buggy 400-point turn, eventually manoeuvred out of the space.
After that, Ikea was a breeze. This time, everything was in stock, the queues weren't too long, the child count was mercifully low and I managed to resist buying a headboard and a chest of drawers as I maturely decided to wait until I've lived in the flat for a bit. OK, plus I had a tragic fantasy about me and and Mr L'Atelier returning Croydonwards at an unspecified future date to pick a couple of things out together. Ikea shopping toute seule is undeniably efficient but a gal can get a bit sick of being solo. It's that same feeling as when you go to the supermarket after work, all excited about your night in watching crap TV, and you find your delicious ready meal and go to the checkout and put it on the conveyor belt and then pause to look around you and realise that everyone else is buying eight bottles of wine for their fun parties and that in between laughing with their friends, they're staring at you with pity and suddenly the evening in doesn't seem quite so fun any more.
Not that that's ever happened to me.
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
Ikea: Swedish for 'What you most need is unavailable'
My bedroom at home is a metaphorical bomb site. My new flat is a literal building site. It's a sad state of affairs when one's tiny, sterile glass office is the most pleasant environment on offer. The light at the end of the tunnel does exist, I'm sure, but I can't claim to have glimpsed it yet. However, in order to collect some items urgently required by my lovely builder and thus hopefully expedite the moment of first viewing of said end-of-tunnel light, this afternoon I left work, commuted across London, jumped into my mum's car and drove south to Ikea, Croydon.
An hour later after a journey through the rush hour, I started to wend through the showroom. It was really just as I'd remembered it, vast, irritating and invaluable. One question did continually arise as I wove my merry way with wonky trolley through the labyrinthine hell: why, in the name of sanity, do they allow children in this funforsaken place? Besides that, who in their right mind would bring their offspring to an environment that is already so devoid of peace and low blood pressure? I think once one's journey has been delayed by a small person more than five times, it should be legal to mow them down and store their remains in whatever handy Swedish-designed vessel happens to be nearby.
Miraculously, despite the junior hold-ups, I managed to make it through the showroom and down into the pick-up aisles fairly quickly. Excitably, I started collecting all my items, stacking the first couple of doors onto my flatbed trolley and feeling rather independent and capable. Full of the joys of minor achievements, I wheeled over to the appropriate place for my bathroom sink unit, where I had been personally assured that a box would be waiting, but - horrors - found only an empty space. My jaw dropped. This was the vital component. I had come all this way specifically for my bathroom sink unit. All the other purchases were secondary. Sure, I could buy the sink that would sit atop the unit, but without the unit, my builder would be unable to plumb anything anywhere. At first I was agog that, despite having checked stock availability online earlier this afternoon and then rechecked in the bathroom department on arrival at the store, there was still no sign of the unit. Then I became a bit grumpy. But then I realised that there was nothing else for it. I bought what I had found, got back in the car, and set off for Wembley.
An hour later, I arrived in the West London Ikea and began the process all over again. Thankfully, the missing items were present and correct and I think by this point it must have been bedtime because the child-count was dramatically and blissfully lower. Things were generally calmer and I left the store, shopping list completed as far as was possible, feeling much happier. There is not a cell in my body that believes I will finish this project without at least eighty more late-night trips to one or other of the branches, and returning to Homebase/B&Q is also inevitable, so there's no point developing too passionate a hatred. But for future reference, don't trust the stock check. It ain't over 'til the sink unit's in the boot of your car.
Can I see the light or am I merely hallucinating with exhaustion?
An hour later after a journey through the rush hour, I started to wend through the showroom. It was really just as I'd remembered it, vast, irritating and invaluable. One question did continually arise as I wove my merry way with wonky trolley through the labyrinthine hell: why, in the name of sanity, do they allow children in this funforsaken place? Besides that, who in their right mind would bring their offspring to an environment that is already so devoid of peace and low blood pressure? I think once one's journey has been delayed by a small person more than five times, it should be legal to mow them down and store their remains in whatever handy Swedish-designed vessel happens to be nearby.
Miraculously, despite the junior hold-ups, I managed to make it through the showroom and down into the pick-up aisles fairly quickly. Excitably, I started collecting all my items, stacking the first couple of doors onto my flatbed trolley and feeling rather independent and capable. Full of the joys of minor achievements, I wheeled over to the appropriate place for my bathroom sink unit, where I had been personally assured that a box would be waiting, but - horrors - found only an empty space. My jaw dropped. This was the vital component. I had come all this way specifically for my bathroom sink unit. All the other purchases were secondary. Sure, I could buy the sink that would sit atop the unit, but without the unit, my builder would be unable to plumb anything anywhere. At first I was agog that, despite having checked stock availability online earlier this afternoon and then rechecked in the bathroom department on arrival at the store, there was still no sign of the unit. Then I became a bit grumpy. But then I realised that there was nothing else for it. I bought what I had found, got back in the car, and set off for Wembley.
An hour later, I arrived in the West London Ikea and began the process all over again. Thankfully, the missing items were present and correct and I think by this point it must have been bedtime because the child-count was dramatically and blissfully lower. Things were generally calmer and I left the store, shopping list completed as far as was possible, feeling much happier. There is not a cell in my body that believes I will finish this project without at least eighty more late-night trips to one or other of the branches, and returning to Homebase/B&Q is also inevitable, so there's no point developing too passionate a hatred. But for future reference, don't trust the stock check. It ain't over 'til the sink unit's in the boot of your car.
Can I see the light or am I merely hallucinating with exhaustion?
Sunday, 23 December 2007
Happy holidays
This weekend has passed by in a bit of a blur, and I am inordinately glad that I do not have to return to work this side of 2008. I have managed to eat and drink a fair amount in the past few days and I now feel confident that my stomach will be fully limbered up by Tuesday, allowing for maximum gluttony while it is considered socially legitimate to eat until one is unable to do much except massage one's own intestine in the hope of facilitating digestion. Personally, I find that sitting at a slight left or right incline can inexplicably expedite this process, though I am sure that medical professionals would scoff at such pseudo-quackery.
Today was both enjoyable and efficient, one of the best day combinations currently on offer. I met up with Katherine in Hammersmith where we performed possibly the most adroit last minute Christmas shopping ever attempted, making it through Primark, Habitat, M&S and WH Smith's in just under two hours, followed by a delicious lunch and our reward of Pinot Grigio. My only minor hiccup had occurred in Smith's. I had selected my desired item in under a minute and then sped-walked to the queue, only to find it snaking through the magazine racks into the middle distance somewhere north of Lancaster. The till-workers seemed insufficient in number and, with the awaiting Katherine adding to my impatience, I made the decision to search out an alternative queue. I found the DVD tills at the same time as three other customers and although I made it clear I wanted us to unite in a 'first come, first served' fashion, a lady in a red coat decided to plump for the 'two tills, two queues' method - one which I detest. I detested it even more when the man in front of me revealed his haul with what I believe was a touch of vindictive glee - he was purchasing at least 37 DVDs, each of which required the well-meaning staff member to burrow into the filing cabinet behind him, find the correct disk and place it in the case before scanning it. I am not normally a queue-mover, on the whole preferring to stick these things out, but immediately I knew there was no competition and I reluctantly took my place behind the redcoat who was oozing sympathy like pus. She then realised that she had forgotten High School Musical 2 and rushed off to find it, bleating apologies with all the sincerity of a hairdresser with ADHD. Sadly the till-man wouldn't serve me in the interim so I sat there thinking about The Power of Now and hoping that steam wasn't actually coming out of my nostrils. Props go to Katherine for only phoning me once to ask politely how I was doing. I could easily have learned Cantonese while she'd been waiting for me, so her calm demeanour was impressive.
This evening I have been feeling very festive in new Primark lounge trousers (£4) and sheepskin slippers. Having derided our requests to play games, my father was unable to resist the clatter of the Boggle cubes and the three of us spent an animated 45 minutes playing a new version of the game, with added old age. This involved my mother reading out the list of words she'd found, around half of which were actually on the board. Of those that were valid, she would generally have written about three of them down more than once. When she realised her score was low, she would then pretend to be searching her piece of paper for more words, while frantically scanning the letters on the board to find last minute options. Dad, meanwhile, attempted to pass 'moppet' and 'doper' off as genuine words. And I won. Tomorrow I will wrap presents, go for a walk and peel many root vegetables. La vita é bella.
Today was both enjoyable and efficient, one of the best day combinations currently on offer. I met up with Katherine in Hammersmith where we performed possibly the most adroit last minute Christmas shopping ever attempted, making it through Primark, Habitat, M&S and WH Smith's in just under two hours, followed by a delicious lunch and our reward of Pinot Grigio. My only minor hiccup had occurred in Smith's. I had selected my desired item in under a minute and then sped-walked to the queue, only to find it snaking through the magazine racks into the middle distance somewhere north of Lancaster. The till-workers seemed insufficient in number and, with the awaiting Katherine adding to my impatience, I made the decision to search out an alternative queue. I found the DVD tills at the same time as three other customers and although I made it clear I wanted us to unite in a 'first come, first served' fashion, a lady in a red coat decided to plump for the 'two tills, two queues' method - one which I detest. I detested it even more when the man in front of me revealed his haul with what I believe was a touch of vindictive glee - he was purchasing at least 37 DVDs, each of which required the well-meaning staff member to burrow into the filing cabinet behind him, find the correct disk and place it in the case before scanning it. I am not normally a queue-mover, on the whole preferring to stick these things out, but immediately I knew there was no competition and I reluctantly took my place behind the redcoat who was oozing sympathy like pus. She then realised that she had forgotten High School Musical 2 and rushed off to find it, bleating apologies with all the sincerity of a hairdresser with ADHD. Sadly the till-man wouldn't serve me in the interim so I sat there thinking about The Power of Now and hoping that steam wasn't actually coming out of my nostrils. Props go to Katherine for only phoning me once to ask politely how I was doing. I could easily have learned Cantonese while she'd been waiting for me, so her calm demeanour was impressive.
This evening I have been feeling very festive in new Primark lounge trousers (£4) and sheepskin slippers. Having derided our requests to play games, my father was unable to resist the clatter of the Boggle cubes and the three of us spent an animated 45 minutes playing a new version of the game, with added old age. This involved my mother reading out the list of words she'd found, around half of which were actually on the board. Of those that were valid, she would generally have written about three of them down more than once. When she realised her score was low, she would then pretend to be searching her piece of paper for more words, while frantically scanning the letters on the board to find last minute options. Dad, meanwhile, attempted to pass 'moppet' and 'doper' off as genuine words. And I won. Tomorrow I will wrap presents, go for a walk and peel many root vegetables. La vita é bella.
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