So apart from keeping my right hand gripping whatever fabric is covering my right buttock so that I don't suffer another unintentional reveal, I've been in Paris this weekend, which was excellent. I was there on a course called Adventures in Non-Fiction, which in true expat Parisian style was held at the world's most ridiculous bookshop, Shakespeare & Co. For the uninitiated, imagine you are a forty-year old American divorcee who has always yearned to jack it all in, sweep up her dog, Loopy, and her mop-headed son, Sam, and head to the French capital to fulfill her always-yearned-for-but-never-once-voiced-in-four-decades lifelong dream of setting up a bookshop. It's ramshackle, clearly in breach of all UK fire restrictions, with wooden ladders affixed to brass rails to help you reach the higher shelves. Our classroom was a reading area upstairs, the walls crammed floor-to-ceiling with second-hand tomes, wooden pews around the edges of the room with scatter cushions scattered liberally, pink geraniums in the window box, a view of Notre Dame beyond, bunches of lavender on the sills wafting their scent in on the Autumn breeze along the occasional sound of an accordian player busking for tourists, mismatched cups, battered tin trays, superlative biscuits, a faded Moroccan rug over uneven floorboards, a farcially well-behaved black dog called Colette, a friendly fat cat to stroke, charming bilingual staff, bedrooms available for free to struggling writers... Even better, it has history, with regulars to its old premises including Hemingway and other impressive writers I've already forgotten, and some seriously groovy cats from the seventies like all those French writers whose names I've also misplaced. They were cool though. And influential. Anyone who's anyone's been to Shakespeare & Co. And then there is me.
So I arrived on Thursday night, settled in nicely to my room on the 23rd floor of a tower block in the 13th, learned the word for mortgage in French (now forgotten again), went to bed, overslept, arrived fifteen minutes en retard for the start of the course, met my coursemates while covered in sweat, my previously bouffant fringe now plastered to my forehead, missed the croissants (instant overpowering foot-stamping rage), asked a billion questions and no doubt made the other participants wish I'd slept until sixteen hundred hours instead of only 09:15.
First day's tutor was Francis Wheen, definitely one of the most erudite people I've ever had the fortune to be lectured by for around nine hours, bursting with stories about everything and everyone, dropping so many famous names that the area on the desk in front of him looked like someone had given this year's Who's Who a vigorous shaking. Fascinating and not unfond anecdotes poured out, from the young Tony Blair to... for fuck's sake, I literally cannot remember anyone else. What the hell is wrong with my brain? Anyway. The stories were gripping. And alongside all that, we got a massively helpful masterclass in non-fiction writing, particularly biography, eight students sitting agog as Francis educated and entertained, seemingly without inhaling, until 5pm, and from 10am until lunchtime on Saturday. If he ever wants to turn his hand to the didgeridoo (or any other skill requiring circular breathing), I've no doubt he'll be a hit. In the relevant circles.
I wrote eight pages of notes about research and timelines and other important things, and went away from that section feeling exhausted and enthused. From Saturday lunchtime until Sunday afternoon, Francis' place at the desk was taken by Jon Ronson, non-fiction writer and documentary-maker for film and TV, best known for The Men Who Stare At Goats, who added to the absurdly impressive collection of names on the desk by telling discreet stories about the time he lived with Robbie Williams, and George Clooney's insecurities and... oh I honestly don't know why I bother. I think he mentioned The Fall, but I might have made that up. Basically, unless it's about me, I can't remember anything. And even then I struggle.
Equally fascinating but utterly different, this second half of the course was more about finding great stories and developing our own ideas. Having thought LLFF was the limit of my writing landscape, I am now considering attempting a longer project and it's scaring the M&S opaque tights off me.
But all in all, it was money brilliantly spent: dreamy lunches at a make-shift trestle table on the pavement outside the bookshop, juicy quiches, salads, chocolate, yoghurts and juice on two days, and a nearby couscous restaurant on Saturday; an inspiring and enthralling combination of course tutors; crisp, bright, Parisian weather; free accommodation; interesting, kind and impressive coursemates - one with a ridiculously cute baby that sat on my lap for ages and was all warm and podgy; an amazing vintage store in the Marais that's open til 11pm, where I bought three dresses for 10 Euros each; a vague frisson of flirtation with someone who I didn't really want to kiss as it would be in breach of the boyban and I don't want to reawaken my comatose libido, and I wasn't sure from looking at his lips whether he'd be a good kisser, but then who generously developed a cold so I immediately went off him which couldn't have been more convenient if it tried; some lovely white wine and a few episodes of Arrested Development on DVD. Basically perfect.
My alarm went off at 05:15 Paris time this morning, and I came back to London on the 07:13 Eurostar, nodding off during the 2hr 15min ride with my old favourite alphabetical list game ("I went home to London and I brought Apple tart, a Box of macaroons, a Computer, DVDs, Estee Lauder foundation, Finnish memories, Good ideas, Housekeys, an iPod, a book by Jon Ronson...) Am now in the office feeling like I've recently done an optical rinse with battery acid and wondering how I will manage to stand without weeping during this evening's choir practice.
Dead a long time, dead a long time...
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Monday, 11 October 2010
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Miss me?
Heave an hours-long sigh of relief, my Faithful, for I am not dead, nor am I unable to type for your amusement and continued edification. I have been abroad, often without phone reception or access to the internet, and my enforced separation from these facilities has been strange and wonderful. And at times slightly unpleasant.
Even before my travels began, however, I was aware that my desire to blog has been sluggish at best, and over the past weeks I have spent some not insignificant time musing over my writing. Not to get too spiritual at this early stage of what promises to be a scroll-heavy edition of LLFF, but my psychological goal has long been to become as self-sufficient as possible. Like most people, I need and thrive on human contact, and have a deeply-held belief that love is all we need. I am not aiming for some sort of hermetic existence atop a girthy Tibetan telegraph pole. However, true love is truly selfless, and doesn’t work too well if one half of the partnership is constantly craving attention, affection or none-too-subtley pointing out that the other person owes them a present because she bought them that T-shirt last week and you haven’t even worn it yet, and for fuck’s sake how many times have I asked you to please phone me if you’re going to be late?
And release.
So. Yeah. I know that love should be unconditional, and, like millions of others, I know that in the past I’ve sometimes struggled with that. After much thought over the years, I've reasoned that the best way to be able to give unconditional love, whether to friends, family or lovers, is to need them as little as possible. I am about six tons of cherished possessions away from being a Buddhist, but ideally, I’d like to be fairly zen about this whole life malarkey, and work towards needing less, not more, the idea being that the less you need, the more you are free to give.
Which is where the blog comes in. Is it right to write? If it is informative – yes. If it brings pleasure – yes. Clearly I don’t blog for money, but I still receive two rewards: the immense satisfaction and flow I gain from the act of writing, the decision to structure a sentence like this (and not like that), the clarity and stability I feel having recounted an incident in black and white. And secondly, the flush of gratification I receive when I discover that my efforts have brought others pleasure or support.
BUT.
If I'm going to be serious about self-sufficiency, shouldn't I fight this urge for third party approval, and take the decision not to write at all? Shouldn't I conclude that the very nature of blogging cultivates a needy side of me from which I should be moving away? I thought that I should.
But then I thought of all the wonderful stuff we'd never have witnessed if a desire for appreciation was unacceptable. All the plays and paintings, poems, programmes, companies, children, families, restaurants, songs and pizzas that might not have come into existence if financial remuneration was the only possible reward for effort, if humanity's enjoyment of recognition vanished altogether.
The experience of choral singing is meditative, transformative, but the surge that follows when the audience appreciates your sound is another rush altogether - not more pleasurable than the performance itself, but nonetheless a huge part of singing, one which makes the night of a concert so strikingly different to a rehearsal. Would I still go to choir practice if I could never sing in front of an audience again? Probably not, but not many people would think that's weird. You join a choir to sing - and to be heard singing. Only a few people would, on learning that you are in a choir, conclude that you're an attention-seeking spotlight-whore. But choose to write and publish your work on the internet, and the implication is that you think you've created something worth others' valuable time. There is a question that's asked when any creative output is put in the public domain: 'Do you think this is good?' And if that question is left unanswered, it hurts. Some performers say they don't care what others think. I think they're talking out of their asses. Anyone who puts work out there, hangs it in a gallery, plays it onstage, creates and shapes a young mind, offers themselves to the lives of strangers - if you do that, you care. You need.
Before I went to Morocco, I went on a one-day travel writing course, which was immaculately structured and very helpful, in that it made me decide that I do not under any circumstances want to be a travel writer. The hardest thing about it was that we had to do four short written exercises throughout the day. After the group of around 25 people had finished the first written exercise, I sat, heart in mouth, as the course leader selected who would read – and I wasn’t picked. No one heard my astonishingly original and hilarious efforts. I was livid. Mystifyingly – or rather, demonstrating vast social intelligence – others seemed to feel remorse when they were picked and, like true Englishmen and women, they carefully indicated that they were embarrassed or uncomfortable to be in the spotlight. I did my level best to seem relieved not to have had to share, but as my second and third efforts also went unwitnessed, I became more and more desperate to be heard. I was finally selected to share my attempt for the fourth and final exercise, the last person out of the entire group to read aloud, only a couple of minutes before the workshop’s end. After hours of anticipation, the hoped-for laughs I received for my work were gratifying and immediately internal order was restored, the butterflies went back to their locker and my heart rate returned to its un-attention-seeking-nightmare levels.
That night I went to stay with my mother, and read her the three exercises I’d written that hadn’t been heard. She said I was brilliant. I was fully aware that a) she is not objective and b) I have my moments, and it was all OK.
I will be frank: I want to write and I want to be read. Does that make me needy? Yes, but no more than anyone else who puts their time and effort into a project, a baby, that doesn't give them financial reward. And in my defense: I could be needier. I could be trying to be famous, writing bad chick-lit and living on a permanent diet. That's not what I want. I want to carry on trying to put words together in an order that makes me proud, and I want to receive recognition for any pleasure my hard work brings to others.
To conclude this absurdly overlong and introspective introduction: Lost Looking For Fish will go on. I've missed it while I've been away – not just the praise, but the process. And if one or two of you are still this side of comatose and are kind enough to tell me I rock every now and then, I’ll be happy as a lamb in a field full of tussocks on a sunny day.
On to where the hell I’ve been. Morocco has been a fantastic break. I flew out two Fridays ago, and went to an unexpectedly swanky hotel about 45 minutes south of Marrakech, where I felt like I should wear floaty dresses, light candles and be filmed by Zeffirelli singing songs about love in a plaintive but effortlessly beautiful folk voice while playing some sort of north African lute. Instead I wore floaty dresses, did yoga, read books, ate my own bodyweight in couscous and discovered an hitherto unknown penchant for Moroccan rosé.
My true Faithful may remember that I went on a yoga holiday last June to Dahab in Egypt, where I discovered upon my arrival that no one else had had the foresight to sign up for the same holiday, and that I was thus going to have around four hours’ private yoga tuition each day, just me and the lovely instructor. In between classes, I was left to my own devices, and spent my time lounging, reading, snorkelling, scubaing, horse-riding, shopping, battling with local internet cafés and climbing Mount Sinai by night.
This year was somewhat different, and for ‘somewhat’, read ‘a bit meh’ and for ‘different’, read ‘by comparison’. I meeeeeaaaannnn, the people were nice, the yoga was stretchy, the pool was glorious, the hotel was far better than I deserve, my books were fantastic but… it turns out that I am not one for set meals with 24 people split up into three groups of eight, seated round one of three rectangular tables for breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day, plus four hours of yoga together, plus nowhere to go outside the hotel, no sea to swim in, no horses to ride along the beach, no internet cafés, no internet, no cafés. I slept a lot, I relaxed, I even think some people may have enjoyed my company, and I feel rested and grateful, but I won’t be rushing back. The routine made me rebellious and by the end I had lost interest in mealtimes and yoga, desperate to assert my independence by doing the only thing I could think of: not joining in.
Oh but it wasn’t bad, it really wasn’t. The sun shone, I went brown, there were some absolute gems of people there – 22 women and 2 men with an age-range spanning five decades from twenties to seventies, a male/female ratio which inevitably descended into discussions about the topics women so often discuss when left to their own devices: periods, the menopause, tanning, biological clocks, raising children and the mirena coil. I spent some time imagining how the holiday would shift if five or six single, heterosexual men arrived, and envisaged games of waterpolo ruining Margaret’s laps in the pools, cheers from makeshift boules games upsetting the meditation sessions on the sun terrace, late night drinking games distracting many of the group’s less committed members from their 7am yoga practice the next morning. As it was, one of my principal bonding conversations involved a chat with a mother and daughter about how the woman with the world’s longest fingernails wipes her bottom.
Most people were very well behaved, and it was often left to one fantastic character called Kay to provide the hilarity. In her late forties, vocally somewhere between Frances De La Tour and Roseanne Barr, she was sorted and straightforward during the day, but a few glasses of wine down and she transformed into one of the most fantastically belligerent women I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.
“I don’t mean to make a scene,” she slurred gently on our second night, having made a mid-dinner trip to another table, “but everyone else is very dry. I know it's awful, but we definitely have the best table,” she emphasised, her voice rising an octave or so. “And I think we would do very well if we could just do a little wee, go on, everyone in their chairs now. Mark your spot and then no one else can sit here tomorrow. Go on. Just a few drops – you’ll thank me later, I promise you.” I never want to party without her again.
Then after a week, a short taxi ride into Marrakech, the pink city, a place I’ve wanted to visit for a very long time, a place I’m glad I’ve now seen, a place I won’t be hurrying to visit again. Wow I’m sounding like a grump. I had a great time. It was fascinating, very different to expectations and I could have stayed longer. But did I like it? Not exactly. The divide between touristville and normalville was so harsh – the souks were 3% functioning market and 97% get-your-hands-on-the-Western-dollar desperation – Times Square without New Yorkers, Leicester Square without the cinemas. I felt guilty for perpetuating it, but not so guilty that I wasn’t able to select so many of their wares that I had to buy another suitcase to get them all home. We had a great trip through the new town, Gueliz, where the real Marrakechis live, the ones who have a life other than that portrayed in SATC2. But the expensive restaurants are all full of white faces, sweating men from Bournemouth stuff dirhams into the bra tops of bellydancers in swanky bars that serve pink Champagne at £50 a bottle, while a few minutes down the road, veiled women sit outside tourist attractions using their cute kids as bait. I guess there’s the same mix of wealth and abject poverty in any other city, but the tourist market is one huge whopping part of their economy and it felt a bit gross, like holidaying in a theme park, escaping to my luxury air conditioned riad every night while the ride's staff just carry on living in the Pink Kingdom, never able to take off their uniforms.
That said, who am I to say their life isn’t fun? Maybe they’re having a whale of a time. I guess I often felt pretty uncomfortable – the women wouldn’t look us in the eye, while the men muttered obscenities under their breath while we walked by, desperate to woo us into their shops, angry when we ignored them, unbearably obsequious when we didn’t. I can't blame the girls for being pissed off - I'd be livid if London was 95% full of gorgeous women that all the men leer over while ignoring me. Oh.
Anyway. I can’t deny I found the attention fun for the first hour, my daily experience in Marrakech being the exact opposite of my life in London: I was getting so much male attention it was almost embarrassing, but when their hands started brushing against my ass, I quickly began to feel a bit sick about the whole thing. I’d been warned about this by other visitors, and wore my (blonde) hair back and up so as to stand out a bit less, but no matter what I did with my hair, my ass was, as always, shall we say, a ‘feature’, and on my final night as Trace and I wandered round the main square I was almost in tears, as every few seconds, a complete stranger would violate my dance space and lightly touch my buttocks as he walked by and disappeared into the crowd. Arguably, I should have chucked on a birka and been done with it, but there was a part of me that felt that would have been a capitulation that'd assist those people who say rape victims who wore short skirts were asking for it. Long sentence. Sorry. It's late and I'm out of practice.
Anyway. It was interesting. Other points of note:
Now leave me alone as I have a ton of X Factor to catch up on.
Even before my travels began, however, I was aware that my desire to blog has been sluggish at best, and over the past weeks I have spent some not insignificant time musing over my writing. Not to get too spiritual at this early stage of what promises to be a scroll-heavy edition of LLFF, but my psychological goal has long been to become as self-sufficient as possible. Like most people, I need and thrive on human contact, and have a deeply-held belief that love is all we need. I am not aiming for some sort of hermetic existence atop a girthy Tibetan telegraph pole. However, true love is truly selfless, and doesn’t work too well if one half of the partnership is constantly craving attention, affection or none-too-subtley pointing out that the other person owes them a present because she bought them that T-shirt last week and you haven’t even worn it yet, and for fuck’s sake how many times have I asked you to please phone me if you’re going to be late?
And release.
So. Yeah. I know that love should be unconditional, and, like millions of others, I know that in the past I’ve sometimes struggled with that. After much thought over the years, I've reasoned that the best way to be able to give unconditional love, whether to friends, family or lovers, is to need them as little as possible. I am about six tons of cherished possessions away from being a Buddhist, but ideally, I’d like to be fairly zen about this whole life malarkey, and work towards needing less, not more, the idea being that the less you need, the more you are free to give.
Which is where the blog comes in. Is it right to write? If it is informative – yes. If it brings pleasure – yes. Clearly I don’t blog for money, but I still receive two rewards: the immense satisfaction and flow I gain from the act of writing, the decision to structure a sentence like this (and not like that), the clarity and stability I feel having recounted an incident in black and white. And secondly, the flush of gratification I receive when I discover that my efforts have brought others pleasure or support.
BUT.
If I'm going to be serious about self-sufficiency, shouldn't I fight this urge for third party approval, and take the decision not to write at all? Shouldn't I conclude that the very nature of blogging cultivates a needy side of me from which I should be moving away? I thought that I should.
But then I thought of all the wonderful stuff we'd never have witnessed if a desire for appreciation was unacceptable. All the plays and paintings, poems, programmes, companies, children, families, restaurants, songs and pizzas that might not have come into existence if financial remuneration was the only possible reward for effort, if humanity's enjoyment of recognition vanished altogether.
The experience of choral singing is meditative, transformative, but the surge that follows when the audience appreciates your sound is another rush altogether - not more pleasurable than the performance itself, but nonetheless a huge part of singing, one which makes the night of a concert so strikingly different to a rehearsal. Would I still go to choir practice if I could never sing in front of an audience again? Probably not, but not many people would think that's weird. You join a choir to sing - and to be heard singing. Only a few people would, on learning that you are in a choir, conclude that you're an attention-seeking spotlight-whore. But choose to write and publish your work on the internet, and the implication is that you think you've created something worth others' valuable time. There is a question that's asked when any creative output is put in the public domain: 'Do you think this is good?' And if that question is left unanswered, it hurts. Some performers say they don't care what others think. I think they're talking out of their asses. Anyone who puts work out there, hangs it in a gallery, plays it onstage, creates and shapes a young mind, offers themselves to the lives of strangers - if you do that, you care. You need.
Before I went to Morocco, I went on a one-day travel writing course, which was immaculately structured and very helpful, in that it made me decide that I do not under any circumstances want to be a travel writer. The hardest thing about it was that we had to do four short written exercises throughout the day. After the group of around 25 people had finished the first written exercise, I sat, heart in mouth, as the course leader selected who would read – and I wasn’t picked. No one heard my astonishingly original and hilarious efforts. I was livid. Mystifyingly – or rather, demonstrating vast social intelligence – others seemed to feel remorse when they were picked and, like true Englishmen and women, they carefully indicated that they were embarrassed or uncomfortable to be in the spotlight. I did my level best to seem relieved not to have had to share, but as my second and third efforts also went unwitnessed, I became more and more desperate to be heard. I was finally selected to share my attempt for the fourth and final exercise, the last person out of the entire group to read aloud, only a couple of minutes before the workshop’s end. After hours of anticipation, the hoped-for laughs I received for my work were gratifying and immediately internal order was restored, the butterflies went back to their locker and my heart rate returned to its un-attention-seeking-nightmare levels.
That night I went to stay with my mother, and read her the three exercises I’d written that hadn’t been heard. She said I was brilliant. I was fully aware that a) she is not objective and b) I have my moments, and it was all OK.
I will be frank: I want to write and I want to be read. Does that make me needy? Yes, but no more than anyone else who puts their time and effort into a project, a baby, that doesn't give them financial reward. And in my defense: I could be needier. I could be trying to be famous, writing bad chick-lit and living on a permanent diet. That's not what I want. I want to carry on trying to put words together in an order that makes me proud, and I want to receive recognition for any pleasure my hard work brings to others.
To conclude this absurdly overlong and introspective introduction: Lost Looking For Fish will go on. I've missed it while I've been away – not just the praise, but the process. And if one or two of you are still this side of comatose and are kind enough to tell me I rock every now and then, I’ll be happy as a lamb in a field full of tussocks on a sunny day.
On to where the hell I’ve been. Morocco has been a fantastic break. I flew out two Fridays ago, and went to an unexpectedly swanky hotel about 45 minutes south of Marrakech, where I felt like I should wear floaty dresses, light candles and be filmed by Zeffirelli singing songs about love in a plaintive but effortlessly beautiful folk voice while playing some sort of north African lute. Instead I wore floaty dresses, did yoga, read books, ate my own bodyweight in couscous and discovered an hitherto unknown penchant for Moroccan rosé.
My true Faithful may remember that I went on a yoga holiday last June to Dahab in Egypt, where I discovered upon my arrival that no one else had had the foresight to sign up for the same holiday, and that I was thus going to have around four hours’ private yoga tuition each day, just me and the lovely instructor. In between classes, I was left to my own devices, and spent my time lounging, reading, snorkelling, scubaing, horse-riding, shopping, battling with local internet cafés and climbing Mount Sinai by night.
This year was somewhat different, and for ‘somewhat’, read ‘a bit meh’ and for ‘different’, read ‘by comparison’. I meeeeeaaaannnn, the people were nice, the yoga was stretchy, the pool was glorious, the hotel was far better than I deserve, my books were fantastic but… it turns out that I am not one for set meals with 24 people split up into three groups of eight, seated round one of three rectangular tables for breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day, plus four hours of yoga together, plus nowhere to go outside the hotel, no sea to swim in, no horses to ride along the beach, no internet cafés, no internet, no cafés. I slept a lot, I relaxed, I even think some people may have enjoyed my company, and I feel rested and grateful, but I won’t be rushing back. The routine made me rebellious and by the end I had lost interest in mealtimes and yoga, desperate to assert my independence by doing the only thing I could think of: not joining in.
Oh but it wasn’t bad, it really wasn’t. The sun shone, I went brown, there were some absolute gems of people there – 22 women and 2 men with an age-range spanning five decades from twenties to seventies, a male/female ratio which inevitably descended into discussions about the topics women so often discuss when left to their own devices: periods, the menopause, tanning, biological clocks, raising children and the mirena coil. I spent some time imagining how the holiday would shift if five or six single, heterosexual men arrived, and envisaged games of waterpolo ruining Margaret’s laps in the pools, cheers from makeshift boules games upsetting the meditation sessions on the sun terrace, late night drinking games distracting many of the group’s less committed members from their 7am yoga practice the next morning. As it was, one of my principal bonding conversations involved a chat with a mother and daughter about how the woman with the world’s longest fingernails wipes her bottom.
Most people were very well behaved, and it was often left to one fantastic character called Kay to provide the hilarity. In her late forties, vocally somewhere between Frances De La Tour and Roseanne Barr, she was sorted and straightforward during the day, but a few glasses of wine down and she transformed into one of the most fantastically belligerent women I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.
“I don’t mean to make a scene,” she slurred gently on our second night, having made a mid-dinner trip to another table, “but everyone else is very dry. I know it's awful, but we definitely have the best table,” she emphasised, her voice rising an octave or so. “And I think we would do very well if we could just do a little wee, go on, everyone in their chairs now. Mark your spot and then no one else can sit here tomorrow. Go on. Just a few drops – you’ll thank me later, I promise you.” I never want to party without her again.
Then after a week, a short taxi ride into Marrakech, the pink city, a place I’ve wanted to visit for a very long time, a place I’m glad I’ve now seen, a place I won’t be hurrying to visit again. Wow I’m sounding like a grump. I had a great time. It was fascinating, very different to expectations and I could have stayed longer. But did I like it? Not exactly. The divide between touristville and normalville was so harsh – the souks were 3% functioning market and 97% get-your-hands-on-the-Western-dollar desperation – Times Square without New Yorkers, Leicester Square without the cinemas. I felt guilty for perpetuating it, but not so guilty that I wasn’t able to select so many of their wares that I had to buy another suitcase to get them all home. We had a great trip through the new town, Gueliz, where the real Marrakechis live, the ones who have a life other than that portrayed in SATC2. But the expensive restaurants are all full of white faces, sweating men from Bournemouth stuff dirhams into the bra tops of bellydancers in swanky bars that serve pink Champagne at £50 a bottle, while a few minutes down the road, veiled women sit outside tourist attractions using their cute kids as bait. I guess there’s the same mix of wealth and abject poverty in any other city, but the tourist market is one huge whopping part of their economy and it felt a bit gross, like holidaying in a theme park, escaping to my luxury air conditioned riad every night while the ride's staff just carry on living in the Pink Kingdom, never able to take off their uniforms.
That said, who am I to say their life isn’t fun? Maybe they’re having a whale of a time. I guess I often felt pretty uncomfortable – the women wouldn’t look us in the eye, while the men muttered obscenities under their breath while we walked by, desperate to woo us into their shops, angry when we ignored them, unbearably obsequious when we didn’t. I can't blame the girls for being pissed off - I'd be livid if London was 95% full of gorgeous women that all the men leer over while ignoring me. Oh.
Anyway. I can’t deny I found the attention fun for the first hour, my daily experience in Marrakech being the exact opposite of my life in London: I was getting so much male attention it was almost embarrassing, but when their hands started brushing against my ass, I quickly began to feel a bit sick about the whole thing. I’d been warned about this by other visitors, and wore my (blonde) hair back and up so as to stand out a bit less, but no matter what I did with my hair, my ass was, as always, shall we say, a ‘feature’, and on my final night as Trace and I wandered round the main square I was almost in tears, as every few seconds, a complete stranger would violate my dance space and lightly touch my buttocks as he walked by and disappeared into the crowd. Arguably, I should have chucked on a birka and been done with it, but there was a part of me that felt that would have been a capitulation that'd assist those people who say rape victims who wore short skirts were asking for it. Long sentence. Sorry. It's late and I'm out of practice.
Anyway. It was interesting. Other points of note:
- Within a few hours of arriving in the city, Trace and I were in a local spa having a reflexology foot treatment, and I was amused to notice that the pan pipes were playing ‘Speed Bonny Boat’. You can take the girl out of Scotland…
- Moroccan horses stop at “Woah” too. I noticed no other Arabic/English convergences.
- Another day, another spa experience – Tracey and I went to a hammam for a steam and scrub, and were sitting semi awkwardly in our bikinis in the treatment room, waiting for further instructions, when a brusque woman with limited English came in, pointed at my boobs and said, “Off.” Clearly it was to be a topless treatment. We complied, lay down on an L-shaped bench, Trace along one wall, my head perpendicular to her feet. Another woman came in and started to rub black soap oil into Tracey’s front. “Tournez,” she barked. Trace slithered over onto her belly. I tipped my head back over my right shoulder to see what was going on, precisely at the moment that the lady gripped the lower hems of Tracey’s bikini bottoms and firmly jerked them up, giving a professional but unexpected wedgie that sent my friend giggling for some time to come.
- Moroccans aren’t without a sense of humour although their favourite joke is fairly simple: you ask a fairly innocent question, e.g. “Can I have a bottle of water?”, “Please can we have some lunch here?”, “Can we check out?” and they look you square in the eyes and say, “No.” And you say, “Really?” and they say, “No! Not really! It is fine! Of course you can have water/lunch/check out.” And they laugh as if it is a brilliant ruse. It is a bit funny the first time it happens. After that not so much.
- I did laugh one night though, when we were at the uber-swanky Western restaurant Foundouk, seated on the first floor mezzanine, overlooking a huge chandelier which hung deep down over the ground floor diners. The chandelier held twenty or thirty creamy wax orbs containing tea light candles, which any fool knows have a burning time of around four hours. How, I wondered, were these new candles replaced and lit every evening, when the chandelier was a good distance from any table or platform. I asked the waiter. “Nous avons un singe,” he said. “A monkey?” I said. “Oui,” he said, straightfaced. Then he laughed and showed us how the wrought iron panels in the balcony of the mezzanine slide to one side so someone can reach out and change the lights. I’m not a massive fan of animal cruelty but I’m afraid on that occasion the reality was a little disappointing.
Now leave me alone as I have a ton of X Factor to catch up on.
Friday, 21 May 2010
I Didn't Die On Wednesday Either
I've been having a lot of very interesting talks recently. It's been a fascinating couple of weeks and actually, I think it's healthy to go through these career crises every now and then. It's made me remember how lucky I am and how much I've got.
I'm not going to stop writing. But, on the basis of the conversations I've had, I don't think I'm going to plough a huge amount of effort into doing it as my full-time job. I think I'd rather do something else. I mean, sure, there are many people the world over who I'd give my right arm to interview. And many fascinating stories I'd love to tell. But getting a secure job doing that - I'm just not sure that's possible. And I know I need security. Much as I'd love to be one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants gals who doesn't know where the next ten quid is coming from, I'm just not that person. I've got gig tickets to afford, and mortgage interest to pay off. The people I know who have that kind of lifestyle are either independently wealthy or happy being skint and insecure. Clearly I'm neither.
So, if writing's out as a career (unless anyone has some specific suggestions as to how I can make that work), then it's got to be something else. I've got an idea and it's going to require some sacrifices. But all in good time. There's no rush. I'm happy enough right now. I do need to start saving as whatever I do next will involve a paycut. In the meantime, I'll be right here, plugging away and enjoying myself as much possible.
Last night I went to KaraUke at Bloomsbury Lanes. No one else wanted to bowl, so Grania and had a lane to ourselves, an unusual opportunity to focus on our technique and become Good At Bowling. We improved significantly but didn't quite reach that elusive goal of being officially, empirically Good. Then we talked to Chris and his friends, drank wine, and got up on stage to sing The Shoop Shoop Song in front of a band of ukuleles to a surprisingly enthusiastic crowd dancing below us. It was a good night. I also saw Sara for an early evening pub visit. We had a lovely time and a tramp told the table next to us a joke. Q: Why couldn't the drummer get into his house? A: Because of his high hat. I got 20p out to give to him but he didn't come back to us, so then I gave it to a different tramp who was trying to sell us the Big Issue. He didn't tell us a joke but he did look like he might drop dead any minute. Hopefully he spent the 20p on some nourishing fruit and vegetables.
Bonne weekend, Faithful. Jusqu'a lundi.
I'm not going to stop writing. But, on the basis of the conversations I've had, I don't think I'm going to plough a huge amount of effort into doing it as my full-time job. I think I'd rather do something else. I mean, sure, there are many people the world over who I'd give my right arm to interview. And many fascinating stories I'd love to tell. But getting a secure job doing that - I'm just not sure that's possible. And I know I need security. Much as I'd love to be one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants gals who doesn't know where the next ten quid is coming from, I'm just not that person. I've got gig tickets to afford, and mortgage interest to pay off. The people I know who have that kind of lifestyle are either independently wealthy or happy being skint and insecure. Clearly I'm neither.
So, if writing's out as a career (unless anyone has some specific suggestions as to how I can make that work), then it's got to be something else. I've got an idea and it's going to require some sacrifices. But all in good time. There's no rush. I'm happy enough right now. I do need to start saving as whatever I do next will involve a paycut. In the meantime, I'll be right here, plugging away and enjoying myself as much possible.
Last night I went to KaraUke at Bloomsbury Lanes. No one else wanted to bowl, so Grania and had a lane to ourselves, an unusual opportunity to focus on our technique and become Good At Bowling. We improved significantly but didn't quite reach that elusive goal of being officially, empirically Good. Then we talked to Chris and his friends, drank wine, and got up on stage to sing The Shoop Shoop Song in front of a band of ukuleles to a surprisingly enthusiastic crowd dancing below us. It was a good night. I also saw Sara for an early evening pub visit. We had a lovely time and a tramp told the table next to us a joke. Q: Why couldn't the drummer get into his house? A: Because of his high hat. I got 20p out to give to him but he didn't come back to us, so then I gave it to a different tramp who was trying to sell us the Big Issue. He didn't tell us a joke but he did look like he might drop dead any minute. Hopefully he spent the 20p on some nourishing fruit and vegetables.
Bonne weekend, Faithful. Jusqu'a lundi.
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
I Am Not Dead
Well, obviously I might be. I might have a heart attack five minutes from now and then by the time you read this I might be out cold on my sofa. But if that happens, know that there would have been worse places to die. And at least I'm 50% in velour, so you'd know I'd been cosy in my final moments. Of course, you could be reading this blog in sixty years, by which time I will almost certainly be dead, or at least wishing I was from the safety of my padded room, and you will be looking at LLFF as a valuable historical artefact, wondering at us old fuddy-duddies who used to think that typing with fingers was normal and getting married was a sensible idea. Hmmm. If I were bored I'd analyse the fact that, when challenged to think of two things we all do now that will become outdated soon, I came up with typing and monogamy. Don't know what that says about me. But anyway, I'm not bored. Or dead. No. I am alive and semi-busy. And I've just faced up to the fact I should probably write a will at some point.
So anyway. I haven't written since last Friday, and the reason is that I have been having a meltdown. The snake has stayed away, but I have been going a bit mental in other ways. The China/sabbatical/career break thing got me thinking, and then I started thinking about my future, which is obviously never sensible at the best of times, and then I started thinking about writing as a career, and then I worked quite hard at turning the blogs I wrote when I was in Finland into an article of sorts, and then this evening I went to meet a guy I know who works at The Guardian to talk about jobs and ting. It was really helpful, in that it confirmed that I probably shouldn't go back into journalism or writing. I mean, there's writing work there. But I don't want to be freelance (the snake looooves irregular working hours, financial instability and extended periods of time spent home alone) and I don't want to write about shit the whole time.
I think it's time for something new. New new new new new. But not yet. Right now I'll just stay where I am. But one day I'll do something else.
Good. Glad we've got that sorted out then.
What I was thinking was the civil service. But then I have to take scary exams and stuff, and I tried them before and failed miserably. I know one person who passed them and countless people who failed them. Anyway. I was also thinking of property development, but that's just selfish and stupid. Plus it's freelance and financially unstable and involves extended periods of time spent alone. Stupid snake, hampering my property development possibilities.
Meh. I dunno. I'll be fine.
What else is news? On Friday night I went to Sir John Soane's Museum in Holborn, and was ashamed that I'd never been there before in my 32 years, but delighted that London really is the gift that keeps on giving, and glad that I hadn't gone until I was old enough to be truly appreciative. They were open for a special candlelit tour, complete with complimentary sparkling wine, and it was fascinating. The Hogarths were every bit as amazing as I'd hoped, and bloody Nora if that gallery isn't the coolest thing ever. I'd tell you all what I'm talking about in a bit more detail but I don't want to ruin the surprise for my mum. Sunday I went to see Showstopper! at the Udderbelly, a temporary performance space shaped like a gigantic upside-down purple cow near the London Eye. What will they think of next? The venue is great, and the show was excellent - an eighty-minute improvised musical with a fantastically funny cast that made me really annoyed that I'm not quite good enough at singing or being funny to join in. I will return and growl in quiet jealousy on at least one other night before the run ends in June. I've done other fun stuff too, but tonight I'm taking it easy, skiving off my uke class, eating Coco Pops and doing laundry. Mmmm. Coco Pops. Might be time for that second bowl.
So anyway. I haven't written since last Friday, and the reason is that I have been having a meltdown. The snake has stayed away, but I have been going a bit mental in other ways. The China/sabbatical/career break thing got me thinking, and then I started thinking about my future, which is obviously never sensible at the best of times, and then I started thinking about writing as a career, and then I worked quite hard at turning the blogs I wrote when I was in Finland into an article of sorts, and then this evening I went to meet a guy I know who works at The Guardian to talk about jobs and ting. It was really helpful, in that it confirmed that I probably shouldn't go back into journalism or writing. I mean, there's writing work there. But I don't want to be freelance (the snake looooves irregular working hours, financial instability and extended periods of time spent home alone) and I don't want to write about shit the whole time.
I think it's time for something new. New new new new new. But not yet. Right now I'll just stay where I am. But one day I'll do something else.
Good. Glad we've got that sorted out then.
What I was thinking was the civil service. But then I have to take scary exams and stuff, and I tried them before and failed miserably. I know one person who passed them and countless people who failed them. Anyway. I was also thinking of property development, but that's just selfish and stupid. Plus it's freelance and financially unstable and involves extended periods of time spent alone. Stupid snake, hampering my property development possibilities.
Meh. I dunno. I'll be fine.
What else is news? On Friday night I went to Sir John Soane's Museum in Holborn, and was ashamed that I'd never been there before in my 32 years, but delighted that London really is the gift that keeps on giving, and glad that I hadn't gone until I was old enough to be truly appreciative. They were open for a special candlelit tour, complete with complimentary sparkling wine, and it was fascinating. The Hogarths were every bit as amazing as I'd hoped, and bloody Nora if that gallery isn't the coolest thing ever. I'd tell you all what I'm talking about in a bit more detail but I don't want to ruin the surprise for my mum. Sunday I went to see Showstopper! at the Udderbelly, a temporary performance space shaped like a gigantic upside-down purple cow near the London Eye. What will they think of next? The venue is great, and the show was excellent - an eighty-minute improvised musical with a fantastically funny cast that made me really annoyed that I'm not quite good enough at singing or being funny to join in. I will return and growl in quiet jealousy on at least one other night before the run ends in June. I've done other fun stuff too, but tonight I'm taking it easy, skiving off my uke class, eating Coco Pops and doing laundry. Mmmm. Coco Pops. Might be time for that second bowl.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Children of the (Facebook) revolution
Warning to those of a sensitive nature, those in denial about the youth of today, or those likely to think that the behaviour of one or two teenagers equates to the behaviour and/or deepest desires of all young people, globally: clicking on the image to the left to embiggen it may seriously damage your health.For all others: Oh. Emm. Gee. This is horrific and hilarious on so many levels. There is a full description of the scenario if you scroll down to below the scanned bit of paper, but to explain in brief: some girl ratted on her brother to their parents, and they grounded him. Desperate for revenge, he was going through her room and found a list she'd written of all the boys she knew and what she wanted to do with them. He posted the list on Facebook, and everyone in her school (and now millions of others) have seen it, singlehandedly making me thankful to be an only child. NOT THAT I HAVE EVER WRITTEN A LIST LIKE THIS and yes, the girl seems deeply unpleasant and in need of a bit of ego-crushing / life-lesson-learning, but wow. Not sure anyone deserves that intensity of humiliation when they're still at such a formative age. Could their relationship ever recover from this? Shudder. Laugh. Shudder.
I have just returned from a 40 minute run with Laura when I felt like someone had filled my lungs up with treacle. It was a lot harder than the 10k I did in 2008. It's so weird when that happens, isn't it? I ran along the Southbank for 45 mins on Monday and it was absolutely fine, then did 45 mins of cardio in the gym yesterday and quite enjoyed it, and then today I almost had a hernia on Southwark Bridge and had to stop outside M&S on Old Broad Street because I had a stitch. Sooooooooo cool. I am still in shock now. Yoga tomorrow, methinks.
Last night was a cultural highpoint. I went to see a modern reworking of Moliere's The Misanthrope on Panton Street and it was absolutely fantastic. I was totally prepared to hate it because it was a) in the West End and b) had celebrity cast members (Damian Lewis and Keira Knightley) but I was hooked from curtain up. The script, echoing the original, rhymed. Throughout. This was brilliant because it forced the audience to really, really listen - as a consequence, it was one of the quietest congregations I've ever enjoyed. It was also brilliant because it was massively clever - two hours of rhyming isn't easy, whatever the topic, but when it's also satirical, topical and believable, it's a huge technical and linguistic achievement. Most of the way through I sat there fuming that I hadn't done it first, but ten percent of the time I had to concede that it was way beyond my abilities. I got the jokes, sure, but I don't think I could have thought of them in the first place. Maybe in a few years... It's the first time I've ever left a play and bought the script in the foyer. In fact, the last time I bought anything in a foyer was the twin cassette of Starlight Express in the mid-eighties and I'm pretty sure my parents will have paid for that.
I suppose it resonated because, in some ways, the play's central premise is so close to what I battle with a lot - whether one should be open-minded and forgiving of humanity's failings or rail against them and fight for the right to be different. In the same way that the planetary YouTube clip I posted the other night made me feel tiny, culture like that makes me feel pleasingly irrelevant: people have been worrying about this stuff since the 17th century and they'll be worrying about it long after I'm gone. I'll do my best, bumble along, and eventually I'll feed the worms. Nice.
It wasn't just the script that was wowing, though. Damian Lewis was good, as expected, but Keira was a revelation. I really like her and think she's absolutely gorgeous, so I'm possibly not the most objective viewer, but her portrayal of a whining American superstar was confident, utterly convincing and, at times, very moving. She gave me goosebumps and I send her props. Also, if she's reading, I'd really like that black dress from the final scene in my size. Any way you can help? Thanx.
After the play, I went home and watched Celebrity Big Brother, which sadly grinds to an end this weekend. Last night's episode was absolutely fantastic and I was grinning compulsively as Alex Reid was covered in spray tan. Brilliant entertainment, a blast of MSG escapism, and anyone who's snobbish about reality TV knows where they can shove their superiority complex. Byeeeeeee.
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Afternoon delights
I just got back from a one day writing course at City Lit, where we used word games to free up our creativity. It was really good. One exercise had us write down the letters in the alphabet, but in a completely jumbled up, random order, and then write something where each word had to start with the letters, in the order that we'd written them down. We only had a few minutes on that exercise - I did one:
Voluptuous, flyaway Bertha jumped neatly round Will, and emphatically indicated my quail.
"Your Zanzibarian cockerell, Gideon, kicked over Sophie's xylophone! Damned hellish loose poultry. Too unfortunate."
Then I had some time left so I did another one:
Very fortunate boys jostle near Ronaldo,
Wishing avidly, excitedly, impossibly.
More queuing yesterday,
Zebra crossing,
Goal kick,
One shot,
X-box,
Desperation, hope, love.
Please touch us.
I really liked the way that the constriction of the 26 letters forced you into an unexpected place. If you'd asked me to write a 26 word story, I'd never have come up with either of those. And it was surprising how, both times, the first three or four words set the tone and the pace for the rest of the piece. Good exercise.
For another game, we were asked to draw six columns on a piece of paper, and label each one with Adjective, Noun, Adverb, Verb, Adjective, Noun. In the first column, we wrote four adjectives. Then we folded over the piece of paper so our words were hidden, and passed it on round the room, filling in the columns on different pieces of paper each time. Eventually, we unfolded one piece of paper each and had four different six word phrases in front of us. The last line of mine read: 'Lumpen boy painfully snogs warm farmer.' Brilliant.
A really enjoyable day, capped off with the purchase of an amazing cream and sequined jumper in the lunchbreak. Back at home now, with dishwasher humming and popcorn maker calling. Proper weekend summary to follow tomorrow in some downtime. Adios.
Voluptuous, flyaway Bertha jumped neatly round Will, and emphatically indicated my quail.
"Your Zanzibarian cockerell, Gideon, kicked over Sophie's xylophone! Damned hellish loose poultry. Too unfortunate."
Then I had some time left so I did another one:
Very fortunate boys jostle near Ronaldo,
Wishing avidly, excitedly, impossibly.
More queuing yesterday,
Zebra crossing,
Goal kick,
One shot,
X-box,
Desperation, hope, love.
Please touch us.
I really liked the way that the constriction of the 26 letters forced you into an unexpected place. If you'd asked me to write a 26 word story, I'd never have come up with either of those. And it was surprising how, both times, the first three or four words set the tone and the pace for the rest of the piece. Good exercise.
For another game, we were asked to draw six columns on a piece of paper, and label each one with Adjective, Noun, Adverb, Verb, Adjective, Noun. In the first column, we wrote four adjectives. Then we folded over the piece of paper so our words were hidden, and passed it on round the room, filling in the columns on different pieces of paper each time. Eventually, we unfolded one piece of paper each and had four different six word phrases in front of us. The last line of mine read: 'Lumpen boy painfully snogs warm farmer.' Brilliant.
A really enjoyable day, capped off with the purchase of an amazing cream and sequined jumper in the lunchbreak. Back at home now, with dishwasher humming and popcorn maker calling. Proper weekend summary to follow tomorrow in some downtime. Adios.
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Science and not much progress
Last night I met up with Laura after work (not the Laura I work with but another one) and we went to Science Museum Lates at the, er, Science Museum - they stay open late one night a month, and no kids are allowed in. It was brilliant. We made origami and played on the machines and watched a talk about rockets, both volunteered to be assistants, got free drinks as a result, and accosted one of the incredibly knowledgeable curators who had tattoos up one arm to find out where the Apollo 10 capsule was hiding. He showed us - but not before he'd boasted about the satellite display he'd put together, showing the location of the approx. 11 thousand satellites there are currently whirring around our planet. Some of them are really far away - they're the ones that are static, like the ones for our Sky TV. It was fascinating.
After we'd tired of the exhibition (and personally, it was the site of all the sickeningly happy couples drooling on each other next to the party games), we went for some food and Laura's friend joined us, who was really nice and she works for a London website and wanted to hear about the Late night so she could write it up, and I offered to do it, and I wrote the review this morning and now it's on the internet. Clever me.
Writing's a funny one. I still stand by my assertion that, unlike every other human on earth, I don't have a novel inside me, but I do love the process of rambling on through the medium of typing. There are plans afoot. That said, I think there are a lot of people out there who are a lot better than I am. But with that attitude, no one would ever do anything. I've never been good at being medium at something, though. I'm either pretty good, or I don't do it at all. The prospect of just being an OK writer makes me feel a bit queasy. I'd rather not try. Blogging doesn't count as I can write exactly what I like. No one is paying me to do it, and you are not paying to read it. I owe you nothing, rooooer, nothin' at aaaalllllllll. Hmmm. Once you start writing for money, everything changes. Even you. We're a thousand miles apart but I still love you. Anyway. I have decided that Sundays in 2010 are Writing Days and I'm going to Do Something Constructive if it kills me.
Goodness what a lot of self-absorbed blathering. I have nothing else to report - all I can think about is myself, and when I briefly take time off from doing that, I am unable to cope with the panic I feel following the discovery that my lovely Hungarian hairdresser has left the salon and the unreasonable bitch at reception wouldn't give me his mobile number so now I can't stalk him and track him down in the street when he's out with his wife and demand that he trims my split ends immediately. That is all.
After we'd tired of the exhibition (and personally, it was the site of all the sickeningly happy couples drooling on each other next to the party games), we went for some food and Laura's friend joined us, who was really nice and she works for a London website and wanted to hear about the Late night so she could write it up, and I offered to do it, and I wrote the review this morning and now it's on the internet. Clever me.
Writing's a funny one. I still stand by my assertion that, unlike every other human on earth, I don't have a novel inside me, but I do love the process of rambling on through the medium of typing. There are plans afoot. That said, I think there are a lot of people out there who are a lot better than I am. But with that attitude, no one would ever do anything. I've never been good at being medium at something, though. I'm either pretty good, or I don't do it at all. The prospect of just being an OK writer makes me feel a bit queasy. I'd rather not try. Blogging doesn't count as I can write exactly what I like. No one is paying me to do it, and you are not paying to read it. I owe you nothing, rooooer, nothin' at aaaalllllllll. Hmmm. Once you start writing for money, everything changes. Even you. We're a thousand miles apart but I still love you. Anyway. I have decided that Sundays in 2010 are Writing Days and I'm going to Do Something Constructive if it kills me.
Goodness what a lot of self-absorbed blathering. I have nothing else to report - all I can think about is myself, and when I briefly take time off from doing that, I am unable to cope with the panic I feel following the discovery that my lovely Hungarian hairdresser has left the salon and the unreasonable bitch at reception wouldn't give me his mobile number so now I can't stalk him and track him down in the street when he's out with his wife and demand that he trims my split ends immediately. That is all.
Friday, 13 November 2009
Title suggestions welcome
Last night I went home and sat on my sofa and, for the following two hours, read What I Loved by Siri Husvedt until I came to the end. I don't think I've done that since I moved into my flat. Reading is something that I do when I've finished everything else - or when there's nothing else I can be doing i.e. on the tube. What's annoying is that it now must seem like the book I was reading was especially remarkable, but it wasn't - it was smug and self-aware and irritating. But, in much the same way that I read The Da Vinci Code in a matter of consecutive hours, I wanted to find out what happened. A gripping plot is an amazing achievement, something that manages to fight through all manner of literary irritants. Also compelling was the fact that three separate friends had told me to read the book, and warned me that it gets quite dark in its latter stages. Pulse racing and compulsively determined to 'win' in some way, I spent pretty much every page trying to pre-empt the darkness, guessing and guessing and guessing, and then I finished the book. Turns out that what I call dark is a bit darker than what they call dark. Not that I thought it was a romcom or anything, but in my head I had the dad becoming a paedophile with his best friend's underage son. That didn't happen.
I sat on my sofa for a few minutes after I'd finished the final page and tsked my way through the acknowledgements, and I think I've pretty much decided that I will never write a novel. I just don't know or care enough about any one thing to focus on it for months of my life. I love the flippancy of a blog, the immediacy and the disposability. We all change constantly; at the moment I find it hard to be committed to these entries for longer than the few seconds it takes me to write them, and I don't allow myself to come back and edit them - they are truly immediate, normally produced in around a quarter of an hour, churned out and forgotten about. I like that rush. And certainly, the idea of pulling together the first draft of a novel is electrifying in a completely different way, a marathon as opposed to a sprint, but the truth that, even if it goes brilliantly, I will still be churning out rewrites in a year's time - well, the claustrophobia is so strong I can smell it. I can't promise I'll still like my shoes tomorrow morning, nor my haircut, my job or my friends - how can I possibly guarantee that I'll still be interested in the same story in twelve months? I posted a question about book writing on Twitter and Facebook, and had a gratifying number of encouraging messages from friends, but only one from a published author, who told me not to bother. I think she's right. I'll stick to the short stuff. Can't someone just publish this blog somewhere?
Meanwhile, in Matters of the Heart, I have been emailing (amongst others) a deeply unsuitable guy over the past few days. He sent me a message on Wednesday afternoon, babbling away perfectly happily and asking a couple of questions, as you do. I logged on to the site yesterday afternoon and wrote a (brilliant) reply, and pressed send. I was then taken to an unfamiliar page with a no entry sign on it, and an error message that read 'This user has chosen to block you. Please respect their wishes.' My jaw dropped. In a moment of uncharacteristic cockiness, I immediately concluded that he must have done it in error. The guy chatters away like he's on smack, I'm pretty sure that he is a likely candidate for accidentally pressing buttons on his computer that block people on dating sites. Still, my ego wanted to know, so like any good sleuth, I asked Sara (who is also on the site, and who he hadn't yet blocked) to email him and tell him that he had accidentally blocked me. She did. He unblocked me and apologised. Now, of course, I look like I really like him, which is annoying, because I don't. But I'd rather be emailing an unsuitable smack addict than be blocked by one for no reason. So all's well that ends well.
I'm off to sing beautifully and then watch 2012. Dreading it.
I sat on my sofa for a few minutes after I'd finished the final page and tsked my way through the acknowledgements, and I think I've pretty much decided that I will never write a novel. I just don't know or care enough about any one thing to focus on it for months of my life. I love the flippancy of a blog, the immediacy and the disposability. We all change constantly; at the moment I find it hard to be committed to these entries for longer than the few seconds it takes me to write them, and I don't allow myself to come back and edit them - they are truly immediate, normally produced in around a quarter of an hour, churned out and forgotten about. I like that rush. And certainly, the idea of pulling together the first draft of a novel is electrifying in a completely different way, a marathon as opposed to a sprint, but the truth that, even if it goes brilliantly, I will still be churning out rewrites in a year's time - well, the claustrophobia is so strong I can smell it. I can't promise I'll still like my shoes tomorrow morning, nor my haircut, my job or my friends - how can I possibly guarantee that I'll still be interested in the same story in twelve months? I posted a question about book writing on Twitter and Facebook, and had a gratifying number of encouraging messages from friends, but only one from a published author, who told me not to bother. I think she's right. I'll stick to the short stuff. Can't someone just publish this blog somewhere?
Meanwhile, in Matters of the Heart, I have been emailing (amongst others) a deeply unsuitable guy over the past few days. He sent me a message on Wednesday afternoon, babbling away perfectly happily and asking a couple of questions, as you do. I logged on to the site yesterday afternoon and wrote a (brilliant) reply, and pressed send. I was then taken to an unfamiliar page with a no entry sign on it, and an error message that read 'This user has chosen to block you. Please respect their wishes.' My jaw dropped. In a moment of uncharacteristic cockiness, I immediately concluded that he must have done it in error. The guy chatters away like he's on smack, I'm pretty sure that he is a likely candidate for accidentally pressing buttons on his computer that block people on dating sites. Still, my ego wanted to know, so like any good sleuth, I asked Sara (who is also on the site, and who he hadn't yet blocked) to email him and tell him that he had accidentally blocked me. She did. He unblocked me and apologised. Now, of course, I look like I really like him, which is annoying, because I don't. But I'd rather be emailing an unsuitable smack addict than be blocked by one for no reason. So all's well that ends well.
I'm off to sing beautifully and then watch 2012. Dreading it.
Monday, 19 October 2009
Poor me, I've had it too easy
I've been delaying writing this because I felt like there was so much to tell. But then, as always happens, with a bit of objectivity, it becomes clear that none of the stuff I thought was important was actually very interesting at all. Nonetheless, for the sake of completeness, I'll record that, on Thursday I went to see Pixar's Up, in 3-D at the IMAX, and it really was as wonderful as everyone else has said. I have nothing to add to the thousands of other reviews, except that I want a talking dog. I cried within about three minutes of it starting and again at the end, and laughed my highly unflattering glasses off in between. Go. See. It is good. I defy you not to giggle uncontrollably at the Rotweiller.
On Friday I was all nervous because I was filming a thing for a thing. I'd spent a fair bit of time over the past week writing the thing for the thing, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I love writing LLFF, but this was a bit different, there was a strict brief, and it was fun. So I went and read out the thing in front of the camera, standing on a green background, and there was a bit of laughter, which was gratifying. Then Justin and I went to Stephen Fry's book launch, and then on to a party given by the stars of the popular Channel 4 programme, Peep Show. I was so excited about this that I could barely contain myself. And I met the stars and that was fun. But what was awful was that, in addition to my friend Justin being invited to this party (as he knows one of the stars professionally), I also, unexpectedly, bumped into two other people I knew there. This was deeply depressing. It is a cool party. I know I am only one degree of separation away from the party, but that one degree is a gulf three times the size of the known universe. One of the people I knew was a guy from Uni, who now edits the Comment section of The Guardian. And the other was my friend Ben who works with Charlie Brooker. And so Charlie Brooker was there too, and Caitlin Moran, two people whose columns in national newspapers make me laugh with irritating regularity. And there I was. A PA in a bank. I USED to be an entertainment writer. And I'm sure in future I'll be something else. But right now, I'm a PA in a City bank, and when anyone asks me what job I do, I say, "I'm not telling you."
And it's so annoying, because my job has lots of perks. The salary, for one. The fact that, without it, I wouldn't have my flat, the purchase of which is probably the single most life-changing thing I've ever done. The fact that I get to arrive at 9 and leave at 5, on the dot, every single day. The fact that I never, ever think about work after 17:01. The fact that my boss is really very funny and easy to work for. And the fact that I have lots of time to trawl the internet looking for all the fun cultural stuff that I cram into my plentiful time off. Basically, my job rocks.
Except it doesn't, because it's not intellectually challenging and I'm assisting corporate greed, and there are no possibilities for promotion. And I want to be invited to the Peep Show party, not as Justin's plus one, but on my own merits. So I have to do something extraordinary. I can't just write any old book, or any old column. It has to be way more unusual, way more authoritative, way more cutting edge than even this blog. I know. And it pains me to face up to this, but I'm about as cutting edge as a sofa. My life is mainstream. I grew up in the mainstream. I loved chart pop - and still do. I like hanging out in pubs and nice restaurants. I like linen sheets and my iPhone and The X Factor. But, as I've grown older, I've also been aware of the dangers of the mainstream. My MA taught me a lot about consumerism and the way that culture can be co-opted as a means of control. There was never any danger of me turning into a genuine Marxist, but I found it interesting, and I gained an appreciation of the counter-culture. I stopped liking pop music quite so much. I bought more vintage clothing, partly because I really like it, partly because the synthetic fabrics don't require ironing, partly because I wanted to look individual, and partly because it's a way of recycling, cutting out the sweatshops. I moved out of South West London and now I go out in Hoxton with all the other hipsters, to bars that are strip joints Mon-Fri and turn into happening fifties venues at the weekends.
So far, so normal. But my problem is, most people I seem to be dancing with in Hackney are in their early 20s. They rejected the mainstream in their teens. I look at my competition on The Guardian's dating site and there are girls on there aged 23 who have a favourite South Korean film director, and list obscure Serbian photographers as among their most powerful influences. How the hell did they get to be so quirky so young? At their age, I was still going to see Britney Spears at Wembley Arena. OK, the tickets were free, but I can't deny I was excited. Always similarly gobsmacking were the number of people who were really very politically engaged when I was doing my BA. I could barely have explained what government did; they were up in London campaigning against atrocities in the third world while I was getting annoyed not to be invited to Jamie Double-Barrelled's party at Wedgie's. And of course, by the time they're my age, their tastes, their opinions are all so much more established. These are the people who are running the media and the think tanks while I'm write about make-up and boys and wishing I was less vacuous and more worthwhile without actually knowing what I can do about it. I am trying to fly the nest, I feel like I'm just about to burst out, but my little wings just aren't quite strong enough yet. If I'm very lucky, I'll be about 40% as good as Charlie Brooker by the time I die.
So what's left for me in the meantime? My old guilty pleasure: the mainstream. I could write a popular chick lit novel, surely? Or try to get a column in a major women's mag, and write about 69 Sexual Positions You NEED To Try Tonight! I could even attempt to get this blog published. But... whimper... it's not what I want to be known for. I don't WANT to be mainstream. I want to make a DIFFERENCE. Stamps foot. And that kind of middle-of-the-road activity certainly won't get me invited to the Peep Show party. So for now, I'll carry on revising, try to get as clever as possible. Maybe one day I'll have the editorial authority, the time and the talent that means I'm able to write about clever things like the recent super-injunction in a pithy, irreverant fashion. But in the meantime, you'll have to make do with me whining on about my absurdly fortunate life and telling you what films to see. Soz.
On Friday I was all nervous because I was filming a thing for a thing. I'd spent a fair bit of time over the past week writing the thing for the thing, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I love writing LLFF, but this was a bit different, there was a strict brief, and it was fun. So I went and read out the thing in front of the camera, standing on a green background, and there was a bit of laughter, which was gratifying. Then Justin and I went to Stephen Fry's book launch, and then on to a party given by the stars of the popular Channel 4 programme, Peep Show. I was so excited about this that I could barely contain myself. And I met the stars and that was fun. But what was awful was that, in addition to my friend Justin being invited to this party (as he knows one of the stars professionally), I also, unexpectedly, bumped into two other people I knew there. This was deeply depressing. It is a cool party. I know I am only one degree of separation away from the party, but that one degree is a gulf three times the size of the known universe. One of the people I knew was a guy from Uni, who now edits the Comment section of The Guardian. And the other was my friend Ben who works with Charlie Brooker. And so Charlie Brooker was there too, and Caitlin Moran, two people whose columns in national newspapers make me laugh with irritating regularity. And there I was. A PA in a bank. I USED to be an entertainment writer. And I'm sure in future I'll be something else. But right now, I'm a PA in a City bank, and when anyone asks me what job I do, I say, "I'm not telling you."
And it's so annoying, because my job has lots of perks. The salary, for one. The fact that, without it, I wouldn't have my flat, the purchase of which is probably the single most life-changing thing I've ever done. The fact that I get to arrive at 9 and leave at 5, on the dot, every single day. The fact that I never, ever think about work after 17:01. The fact that my boss is really very funny and easy to work for. And the fact that I have lots of time to trawl the internet looking for all the fun cultural stuff that I cram into my plentiful time off. Basically, my job rocks.
Except it doesn't, because it's not intellectually challenging and I'm assisting corporate greed, and there are no possibilities for promotion. And I want to be invited to the Peep Show party, not as Justin's plus one, but on my own merits. So I have to do something extraordinary. I can't just write any old book, or any old column. It has to be way more unusual, way more authoritative, way more cutting edge than even this blog. I know. And it pains me to face up to this, but I'm about as cutting edge as a sofa. My life is mainstream. I grew up in the mainstream. I loved chart pop - and still do. I like hanging out in pubs and nice restaurants. I like linen sheets and my iPhone and The X Factor. But, as I've grown older, I've also been aware of the dangers of the mainstream. My MA taught me a lot about consumerism and the way that culture can be co-opted as a means of control. There was never any danger of me turning into a genuine Marxist, but I found it interesting, and I gained an appreciation of the counter-culture. I stopped liking pop music quite so much. I bought more vintage clothing, partly because I really like it, partly because the synthetic fabrics don't require ironing, partly because I wanted to look individual, and partly because it's a way of recycling, cutting out the sweatshops. I moved out of South West London and now I go out in Hoxton with all the other hipsters, to bars that are strip joints Mon-Fri and turn into happening fifties venues at the weekends.
So far, so normal. But my problem is, most people I seem to be dancing with in Hackney are in their early 20s. They rejected the mainstream in their teens. I look at my competition on The Guardian's dating site and there are girls on there aged 23 who have a favourite South Korean film director, and list obscure Serbian photographers as among their most powerful influences. How the hell did they get to be so quirky so young? At their age, I was still going to see Britney Spears at Wembley Arena. OK, the tickets were free, but I can't deny I was excited. Always similarly gobsmacking were the number of people who were really very politically engaged when I was doing my BA. I could barely have explained what government did; they were up in London campaigning against atrocities in the third world while I was getting annoyed not to be invited to Jamie Double-Barrelled's party at Wedgie's. And of course, by the time they're my age, their tastes, their opinions are all so much more established. These are the people who are running the media and the think tanks while I'm write about make-up and boys and wishing I was less vacuous and more worthwhile without actually knowing what I can do about it. I am trying to fly the nest, I feel like I'm just about to burst out, but my little wings just aren't quite strong enough yet. If I'm very lucky, I'll be about 40% as good as Charlie Brooker by the time I die.
So what's left for me in the meantime? My old guilty pleasure: the mainstream. I could write a popular chick lit novel, surely? Or try to get a column in a major women's mag, and write about 69 Sexual Positions You NEED To Try Tonight! I could even attempt to get this blog published. But... whimper... it's not what I want to be known for. I don't WANT to be mainstream. I want to make a DIFFERENCE. Stamps foot. And that kind of middle-of-the-road activity certainly won't get me invited to the Peep Show party. So for now, I'll carry on revising, try to get as clever as possible. Maybe one day I'll have the editorial authority, the time and the talent that means I'm able to write about clever things like the recent super-injunction in a pithy, irreverant fashion. But in the meantime, you'll have to make do with me whining on about my absurdly fortunate life and telling you what films to see. Soz.
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