The Ganges

There's a sign on the wall that reads, "The Ganga is the life blood of India". Also referred to as the Great Mother. In the travel agent in Delhi a seasoned India-traveller asked where we were going. Varanasi was her second favourite place in India (used to be her first but she subsequently went to Kashmir and that has taken 1st place now). Very spiritual, she said. She spoke like she'd smoked too much dope - sort of slowly, with consideration.

At 5.30am we walked through the tight knots of streets down to the Ghats sitting on the Ganga's edge. Down the steps to the river, where we picked up a river boat that took us along the riverside - looking at the riverside temples, people bathing and washing their clothes, cremation pires at the far reaches tended by men with long poles, umbrellas, flags. Sun rose. Yogi's instruct their followers sitting cross legged on concrete platforms. Tourists survey the scene from rowing boats.




Much later we found ourselves back on the boat, watching prayers at one of the river side ghats, lights against water, monks wafting insense smoke and pots of fire, people pushing banana leaf bowls with tea lights inside into the water. The prayer leader's singing chants waft out across the water combined with bells clanging and drums.



For a closer look or to see more pictures of Varanasi click here.

Varanasi

Arriving at the train station was like being in the set of The Jewel in the Crown - dust covered platform full of people - beggars, travelling farmers and business men, huge families with cases and food supplies waiting to board, chai sellers with steel teapots and a bucket full of unglazed terracotta handleless cups, porters in red robes, handpulled carts, bicycles, tourists, taxi drivers with handscrawled names on paper. Very old fashioned, poor and people with missing limbs, deformities and injuries. Arrivals feeling rather overwhelming.

Night Train to Varanasi

On a cockroach infested train, in a couchette thats very hot (especially with the curtains shut) Amy and I are pretending we're in Some Like it Hot (heads popping through the gap in the curtains). She wants to be the double bass player, then the trombone. Do wab do wab. Then I was upset to discover that I haven't got a sneer so my Elvis impersonating days are over - I've mastered the hair but haven't got a good upper lip sneer on either side.

Standing looking out of the open train door in the morning it passes through agricultural fields full of women cutting grain crops, people carrying water and goods on their heads. Talking to a Seikh who said he was once in California in a village and there was nobody in the landscape which he found really strange. Here the landscape is full of people, and dotted with ramshackle buildings full of cows, goats, and people washing, cooking, eating.

The train stopped and a fight broke out on a path outside - a man was on the ground being beaten, kicked, punched, stamped on the head and stoned. Set upon by 10 others. The gaggle of men watching from the train door decided he was a pick pocket who had been chased off he train and was getting his just desserts.

Snapshot of Delhi

Culture shock, fear, arranged the trip. Sightseeing in 43 degrees - driven round in a taxi by a lovely driver with a variety of tour guides (in the loosest possible sense - sometimes felt they were more like chaparones becuase they could barely tell us more about the places than a name).





Flickr photo stream - if you want to take a closer look.

Delhi

We arrived middle of the night. While it didn't go quite according to plan its OK, sort of. We're staying in a different hotel, going to places we didn't know about. Its really really hot and dirty. But the driver we have has been very nice.

Can't quite decide whether we are being taken for a ride totally, even though the people who are doing so are very nice about it. I've been bitten by mosquitoes terribly - everyone keeps asking me whats wrong with me (I look like I have a terrible disease or something).

Seen some stuff, been made to wear a fabric bag over my skirt into the Jama Masjid Mosque - much to the amusement of the locals. Indians like to be in love, I believe. All the public gardens are full of couples. Canoodling in the shade from the heat of the day.

Amy has been keeping an animal count which I think amuses the driver - its all so ordinary for them - cows in the street (big white ones), ox (which big humps on their backs), monkeys, parrots, eagles, hooded crows, and circus elephants (not performing just standing around the big top, thought it best not to think too hard about it).. All of which hopefully will seem ordinary to us once we've been on safari (cross your fingers for tigers).

Jetting Off

I'm off to India for two weeks. Going to a wedding in Jaipur. Flying into Delhi tonight. Other than that we have no plans! Its all to be decided on arrival. So, I'll blog sporadically if I find a connection!

See you when I get back.

"How to" "Hoxton Fin"

Now while this searcher is unlikely to have actually found the answer this time, I do believe that collectively we could provide a very good answer to how to hoxton fin. For those of you not in the know, a hoxton fin is a haircut for men, not some kind of whacky ballroom dance.

I think there are two ways to get the look, although only one of them is truely effective. You can either get gel (one of the new less sticky but strong ones) and use the flats of both your hands to press the middle of your hair together in the middle, or, preferrably you need to go to a fancy hairdressers or trendy barbers for a proper asymmetrical haircut which is longer in the middle of the head. They will give you the benefit of their hair advice as to how is best to get that all desirable central uplift.

Beware though, this haircut is well and truely over. Nobody but children's tv presenters and second-rate boybanders wear their hair this way anymore. So I ask you, do you really want to hoxton fin?

White Dogs

As we said good evening on the steps of the old library we looked out over Bermondsey Spa Gardens and for the second time that day all the dogs in the park were white. Any size, any shape, any type, any colour as long as its white. Perhaps there's a local rule or something.

Garden

My new garden has a well established lawn and not a lot else. Last weekend I planted a tree and a magnolia. They are both in bloom (not masses because they are both rather twigging at present, but in bloom non the less).




The tree is a Prunus x yedoensis 'Shidare-Yoshino'. Which is quite exciting. No idea when I bought it that it would have autumn colour.

Lidl's Finsbury Park

So a long time ago there used to be a pram shop. On the corner of the park sort of next to the 12 Pins. It recently opened up as Lidls. One of my fellow ceramics students goes there to pick up bulk buys of bottled water. He talks about it, so our tutor has started popping in to see what's available as the special purchase of the week. The only time I stopped by it was cherry trees. One week it was golf clubs (shame that Ally Pally golf course has now shut). Last week it was horse's jackets (can't imagine how relieved the residents of Finsbury Park were when upon popping into Lidl's they found they could pick up that one difficult thing left on the bottom of their shopping list). This week, apparently it was unicycles. £24.99. Bargain.

Ceramics Class



So the 10 minute tea set turned out like this. Despite lavishing gold oxide onto the edges, it has turned out more like pewter. Still they're quite funny and seeing as it was the last class we ate easter eggs and drank Leffe out of them (one cup takes approximately one sip, after about 3 refills each we had managed to finish oh easily a quarter of the bottle). Still they are water tight (apart from one which leaks!). Also finally got back the porcelain vase and glazed that so its something to look forward to next term.

flickr ceramics class set

Men's Shoes

On a rack outside a shop in Bruce Grove. Sign says buy one get one free. Does that mean buy a right one and get the left one free or does it mean buy one pair and get a second free?

Office

New. Open plan. New building. Memory of PC stolen at some point during unplugging and arriving at new place. Irritated other workers on the new desk-island. Bad start to new work surroundings.

9.55am. Not too bad so far. I'm using a spare PC. Its awfully quiet. I've just had to go into the stairwell to talking on the mobile phone.

11.52am. Right now there is far too much chatting and giggling going on and not much work. There's two in the meeting area. Out island-colleagues are talking with colleagues from anther island - talking about babies. The cataloguing librarians are chatting and tearing off sellotape - chatting in a sort over-the-fence-gossiping way.

16.05pm. Full compliment of colleagues on the opposite island. Boy can they chat. Two people are going round in coats complaining of cold. I on the other hand am baking and would really like to open some windows. My cheeks are red - I can feel them. We've just had a brief blast of Boney M's Brown Girl in the Ring from the cataloguers. Much full room discussion of singing the song in the school playground, or the fact of being far too young to remember such things. I'm almost at the stage of putting my fingers in my ears and going lalala I can't hear you.

16.34pm. There's a great talking bum (clad in tweed) using a guillotine next to my desk. Its talking to a colleague who sits next to me who has wandered off without the guillotine-user realising.

5.30pm. End of the day. Sure I'll get used to it in time.

Sparrows vs Tits

(Not quite West Side Story, and actually more sparrows vs tit, singular). There's a gang of sparrows about 11 strong. They hang out in this mass of matted branch, stem stuff at the back of next door's neighbour's. The stuff overhangs next door's shed. Sparrows flit from matted stuff to shed roof edge and onto a feeder hanging in a small tree on my boundary with next door. Dominating the back of the gardens. Much too-ing and fro-ing. Tit gets the front of the garden. From the fucia (I hate fucias), holly bush and tall rose to the house eaves and across to the feeder in a tree closer to the houses. On rare occassions tit makes at attempt at the sparrows feeder. Then everybody abandons everything when next door's cat arches his back lazily on the roof of the shed at the back of the opposite garden.

1000th Post

And this is my 1000th post (so I'm making it a really boring one!) It seems like some kind of milestone. It feels it has taken me quite a long time to get here I have to say!

Spring Forward

Why I'm actually doing awake at this hour (when I haven't been out and am not dancing the night away somewhere) I'm not sure. However I am now in that limboland that the changing clocks besets us with. Its not quite so upsetting in Autumn when you get an extra hour but I suddenly noticed that the time on the laptop had moved to 2.00am when I was certain it had only been 12.40 very recently. I had to check the BBC website to see if it was tonight that the clocks were going forward. Normally you hear it on the news. I can never quite get my head around where the extra hour comes from or where it disappears to in Autumn. But it certainly upsets my body clock considerably. For about a week. So it doesn't help that I am awake noticing it happen.

Anxiety

I'm having tree planting anxiety. I've wanted to plant a small tree in my small urban garden. Looking around the garden centre last weekend I found a suitable one. Bought it. It was delivered yesterday. Between those times I have spent a little bit of time looking up planting advice. I've now got the anxiety of a hypochondriac (the oh my god I've got... kind of anxiety). I have to dig a hole - I can do that, thats fine. But I do need to improve the soil it seems (general fertilizer must be bought). I need to stake the tree (do I need to get a new thicker one or is the one that came with the tree sufficient) and ties, proper tree ties manufactured specially for that purpose (so the advice says, if I can't find one, what then...). I need to water it but not drown it for the first year. Its a lot of responsibility. What if it dies? But I'm forgetting I'm quite good with plants...

Ceramics Class



Its coming to an end again. There's the mad rush at the end of the 10 week term where people have been making and making and making but not glazing. Lots of finishing off to be done. Glazing isn't the quick dipping at the end that one might expect it to be. There are choices (albeit subject to a certain amount of chance once applied, but choices none the less). There are techniques for applying. Then there is cleaning up (bottoms must be clean with at least 4mm of clean space at the bottom of the pot as well - to allow for seeping glaze during firing - technicians are not best pleased if your pot/cup/plate/thing sticks to the kiln shelf). So its all a bit frantic for the last couple of weeks.

So the tall pot didn't come out exactly as I had hoped. Next time I might choose not to drip blue lines onto it. And the bulbous pot (which is actually shorter by far than the tall pot) was a bit of a glazing disaster - white tin was too thin, the shiny stuff is extremely shiny (on the plus side it doesn't look so much like a hospital pisspot anymore). But as it is a bit of a hit and miss process and I feel I'm just working up to the real work, it doesn't really matter!

flickr ceramics class set

Visa

Waited in the rain queuing outside the Indian High Commission to get a Q-number from the open window. Waited in the wrong queue until a nice man behind me explained why there were two windows.

Collected my yellow, dated, Q-number and entered the embassy through a side door, passed through an ancient security detector gate, up some steps with municipal linolium and into the visa hall. It was full. The electronic numbers were on B39. My ticket was number C41. It was 9.30am. Over a hundred visas to be approved before me.

The floor was old parquet, the counter was like an old 50s post office - dark stained wood windows with clutches of people crowding round. Grey plastic fixed seats filled with the waiting stretched across the hall. A big crowd congregated at the far side by the exit. Completely unsure about what was going on and where exactly I should be I sat down and waited for the buzzing of numbers turning to inch closer to B99 when at least we'd get to the C-numbers.

B63. I got my paper out. A new crowd of people gathered at a wooden doorway which occassionaly opened for forms to be passed in or a stack of passports to be passed out.

B71 the man at one of the windows got a bit trigger happy and kept pressing, the numbers buzzed through to B79 before any of the holders of those numbers had an opportunity to present themselves. People crowded up to the windows. Chaos ensued. The chairs cleared a little though.

Buzzzd. The numbers turned over. The C light lit up. 00. buzzd. C01.

C22. A look around. Its a great leveller, the visa hall. We're all here. Woman in an extremely expensive fur coat and scarf, serious travellers, groups, boys off to Goa, people visiting relatives, a woman organising some kind of tournament (much loud discussion of buffet breakfast tickets, itineries and the participants on the mobile phone, despite there being many signs forbidding their use).

C23. A man who came in after me presented himself to the window. Your ticket is C57, the woman behind the glass said. I've been waiting for ages, he said. I'm sorry, she said, watch the indicator and come back up when your number appears.

C41. I finally get to a window. It takes 5 minutes to process the form. She gives me a print out with my number on it and says collect your passport from window 1 in an hour. I contemplate going out to get a coffee somewhere, stand in the doorway feeling the chill breeze and decide instead to sit back down and wait some more. About half an hour later I hear the man at window 1 calling out numbers B23, B56 and then suddenly unexpectedly C41. I go up wafting my print out. A woman protests, I must have missed my number, my number's B.. The man cuts her off, you must come when I call the number out please wait, make room. I pass my print out through the window and recieve back my passport with visa and leave the melee behind me, descend the dark hallway and escape back through the side door to the street.

Terrible Things to Do with your Eyebrows
Numbers 1, 2 & 3

1. Pluck them all out and draw very thin, very black lines in their place. Particularly when that line goes above the natural brow line (you will look like a drag queen).


2. Remove the bit of your brows that joins them over your nose by shaving it off. This never looks quite right. Get professional help. Or at least pluck.


3. For a man - overly manicured eyebrows (something becoming more popular with younger fellows). Your eyebrows are supposed to be bigger and less neat than a woman's. Try not to show us up.

Spring

Free from a meeting back into the street I look up at the snow flying horizontally across a steel grey sky. Strangely it isn't falling on me. Where I am the sun shines and makes a rainbow against the snow. And then bam the first icy flakes hit me in the face. And then more and heavy rain drops pummel down on my head.

Later. Much later I stand on platform 2, raised as it is above the street, listening to heavy drops dripping from the gutter onto a flat roof below. I stare into the huge pale yellow sun hanging low in the sky as dusk gathers. Relishing the blue spots when I look away.

I'm thinking about the beggar I just gave a measly amount of spare change to (some coppers and two silver coins). He told me its his birthday tomorrow. He'll be 36. He's younger than I am but looks about 45. Glad I'm not him. Its cold to be living on the street.

First day of spring tomorrow.

Play

Went to a play today. At the National. It was good. Audience was full of olds. Perhaps it was because it was a Tennessee Williams play. Perhaps its because it was the National, or maybe because it was Monday night.

I'm reminded of theatre etiquette. Where ever you sit in a theatre you have responsibilities. Middle of the row - you must try to be back early from the interval. Terrible to have to excuse everybody else on the row to get back to your seat. End of rowers need to be both swift off their seats at the start of intervals and end of performance and lesiurely back from intermission. And try not to push people over on the rush to the bar, there are no gold medals y'know.

Coffee and Cake

In a clean white coffee and cake shop on Blackstock Road the waitress busies herself with washing up quietly and two japanese girls have one of those difficult conversations between girlfriends when one has got together with a boyfriend and the other has been left behind. I know you say I can call you anytime but its not really possible because he doesn't like it. I dont see you anymore. (Translate: I liked our relationship the way it was before. I feel abandoned.) The boyfriend is made to be the enemy of the piece becuase he's the basic cause and all his girlfriend can do is apologise. Its a sort of one sided pain.

Earwigging an Actress, Darhling

...I'm thinking a bit young but gorgeous, right up my street...its like when you've got two lines and you're up on the stage of the Almedia for the first time and because you've only got two lines you really ham it up, proper 40s accent and everything. And they say can you just throw it away a bit more Jessica and you say yeah of course and then do it the same again. Two years at Rada? You're rubbish. So naturally I don't get the call...I was up for an advert, playing Australia, America, New Zealand and here - very unusual - it was life changing money, I'd have been able to pay off my mortgage, £150,000.00 and £500 every time it aired. They were telling me I had it in the bag. There were 8 of us, whittled down to 2. I called Ben and my mum and I was screaming and they were screaming. And then I was just waiting for the call. That was 2 weeks ago...it was all face stuff, there were no lines. I have a great face for face stuff. You just had to look orgasmic eating porridge. My face is soooo porridge...

Tube Space

Standing today with the bum of a man much taller than me nestled into the small of my back a number of things crossed my mind. Firstly, that I could tell this was an irritated bum, how could I tell this? Something to do with the way it backed into me, like it was accusing me of getting in its space. Secondly, if it wasn't an angry bum it might be a slightly erotic situation. This thought quickly evaporated as someone's bag dug into me, the bum leaned angrily against me as the tube jerked and the doors opened to let more people on who will squeeze, push, cajole and inch a space out for themselves. And then London Bridge and the freedom of space and a depth of air that just doesn't exist in a tube carriage.

Assessment Test

I have been assaulted with a battery of tests today. Competing with the best of the rest of the Council for an obviously coveted place on a leadership course. We've had individual interviews for an hour and a half, taken a raven's test for an hour, and pretended we were a special projects officer in the second week of work having to deal with a written crisis (hour long exercise), prepare for and meet with an angry councillor (played by a pretty convincing actor) and write a presentation which I delivered to the woman who used to be in the RAF jumping out of planes.

They asked us as we left if we had fun. Personally I felt not. I was stressed. Anxious. It was like having the worst day at work, not knowing what you're supposed to be doing, not knowing the subject properly and being made to take the blame. Not sure its really an accurate depiction of the role of a leader, but then again I may be mistaken, being as I'm not one at present. At least there wasn't an Alan Sugar moment where we were hauled in and told you're fired.

Bus

In the pound shop a girl sticks out her chest so the man behind the counter can grab her breast with his long-armed-grabber. They collapse in laughter when he is successful. A form of extreme flirtation perhaps.

Boys run for the bus trying not to spill their open drinks. First they're on the outside of the railings and then transfer to the safe side. They miss the bus though.

Some driver agreived by the bus driver pulling out infront of him, manages to overtake and proceeds to drive very slowly infront of the bus as a protest. At the next stop he pulls in, jumps out and runs up to give the bus driver a piece of his mind.

Two stops long a youth jumps onto the bus screaming to the driver to get out of his cab, punches the glass divide repeatedly. Two girls with him drag him off the bus by the neck telling him he's soooo stupid.

Ceramics Class



I'm calling this plate, because, well, its a plate. I dipped it in white crackle glaze which gives it a really lovely satiny feel and drizzled some Egyptian blue on the spiral.

This term one of the students is a big whistler. Which has led to lots of tunes being sung/hummed/whistled almost subconsciously. Last week it was Hawai-5-O. This week it was songs from the Jungle Book. Somehow between us we knew many of the words to many of the songs. My personal favourite is the vultures singing, "we're your friend, we're your friend, we're your friend til the bitter end".


flickr ceramics class set

Little Africa, Peckham

Its lunchtime. The warmth of the spring sunshine is strengthening. In the doorway of his mother's shop a child less than 3 years old dances to the reggae music blaring from the hairdressers across the street.

Pet Peeves

On crowded underground trains standing body to body I'm finding it increasingly difficult to tolerate those little bumps when someone's elbow nudges you or they swing against you against the sway of the train. Its irrational, but a response to personal space invasion. I hardly ever seem to let my hand slip down the pole and land on someone else's hand. But I'm having less and less tolerance to this enforced bodily contact with strangers. Perhaps it was just today. Went to work earlier than normal. Much more crowded.

Invigilation games

Teachers are much more like teachers than I ever imagined. Invigilation games involve trying to relieve boredom during endless exams by doing the catwalk (catwalking the aisles), or walking as far as possible with your eyes shut without bumping into something, or my personal favourite of the games offered up, each invigilator standing next to the kid they think is most likely to be pregnant by 15.

Moon

The shadow of the earth crossed over the moon until the moon grew orange, the sky is darker than usual.

Pictures by DrD and Blue Witch.

BBQ

In a delapidated park in the Old Kent Road, on a day that had started sunny but was now cloudy and turning damp, the front trees were surrounded by daffodils, brightly cheerful in the dim surroundings. Old concrete planters with dark shrubs lined up along the back walls. A blossom tree in pink hung over the wall from a garden behind. And in the mossy, grey darkness towards the back a man barbequed his dinner sitting on a low bench. A lick of smoke curling up through the trees.

Ceramics Class



Paperclay pot - made with paper fibre wedged into the clay to make it stronger and lighter. I was attempting to build something really tall. Then in the week before half term I started another pot - terracotta so that I can use some gold oxide on it. Trying to build something that isn't bulbous which is proving to be really difficult.

Then we had a group activity. Make 10 things in 10 minutes. All that came into my head was teacups. Not that you'd make them out of terracotta normally, or anything.

flickr ceramics classs set

IoD

Many times I've travelled past on the bus, looking into the tall dark rooms covered in enormous paintings of minor royalty and admirals and filled with leather chairs containing stiff businessmen in pin stripes. Some kind of exclusive gentlemen's club I always thought.

I spent the day there today at a conference. The Institute of Directors has a strict dress code of no trainers or jeans because it is a place of business. And no mobile phones were to be used at the reception. Never been to a conference with a dress code before.

Its rooms were grand, detail picked out in gold leaf, pictures bigger than most of the rooms in my house. Chandeliers.



I thought the one in the Nash room was rather gaudy with its glass that split light into rainbows (not dissimilar to those that can be purchased from a delightfully tacky light shop on the end of turnpike lane) and therefore assumed to be modern(ish) in comparison to the one in the Trafalgar room and the hallway, neither of which did the rainbow thing and had more beautifully cut glass in a wider variety of forms.

Familiars

So you see someone around. Periodically seeing them on the last part of the daily epic commute. Only noticing them as you familiarise yourself with the surroundings. And then after two years, when your routine has settled down you start to see them more frequently and realise they are weird. Someone who was once just another smart office worker on their way to work suddenly becomes a neurotic who stands up against the doors whispering harshly into a mobile phone, who won't get on the train until its just about to leave.

Neighbourhood

Coming home this evening stepping off the emptying 341 bus into the past-midnight street I realised that the now familiar streets, paving stones, buildings, people were no longer scary as they once were. I followed an elderly lady along the street in her baige mac and black hat to the unoffical crossing (place where everyone crosses but no actual pedestrian crossing exists) and crossed into my road. A quiet road, well lit. Familiar cars. Privet hedges, scrappy front gardens, ricketing low-rise fencing. Familiarity promotes feeling of safety. The known nooks and crannies no longer scary.

I've forgotten the fear I once had sitting at the bus stop late at night before I had moved in.

I'm Loving...



Haunting, melodic, beautiful and suprising from a man who looks like a mountain man with a big beard - Ray LaMontagne. Loved his first album also - the fantastic Trouble.



I'm hating...

My new Dell inspiron LCD screen - keeps turning black with white lines - makes it very difficult to see what you're doing! Still the end is near - they're sending a technician out to replace the LCD finally on Monday after being told this is likely to be whats needed back on 9 Jan. In between I've had to jump through all their stupid technical hoops like reinstalling video drivers, taking machine back to factory settings because it might of been caused by software. Not been impressed I have to say and I've always loved Dell computers before.

The Catastrophic Mistake of an Outfit
London Bridge. 9.14am

Felt hat, with a brim upturned on one side, worn at a jaunty angle over flowing salt'n'peppered locks. Black and white coat in large hounds-tooth check. Black mini-skirt, slightly flared. Sheer tights with tiny black spots and pink high heels, peep toes with bows. A total 80s extravaganza. Perhaps they were having 80s day at work.

Home

How long does it take for a house to feel like home? My initial excitement at buying is long over (even before the completion in fact). The shock of the empty house left when I started pulling up the red carpets. The drive to make it mine was strong when I first got the keys but it waned over christmas.

I feel safe in my house and it has the mod cons necessary for a comfortable life. But, it isn't feeling like home yet. Perhaps because there are still things at my dad's - books mainly. Perhaps because there are boxes still piled up in the upstairs rooms. Perhaps because I'm still sleeping on the futon and haven't moved back into my bedroom after having guests at christmas. It all feels a bit temporary. And blank. Pictures. It needs pictures.

Perhaps its the let down of it all - while its nice having a your own space to do with what you please, it's just a house. I only get to be in it for any length of time at the weekend. Maybe there hasn't been enough time yet. It also feels chaotic. I'm probably craving organisation. Finished-ness. Dare I say perfection. Too many house magazines with all their perfect rooms, dressed with everything just so, not a thing out of place, everything in its place (those magazines aren't real - nobody in them actually lives like that, obviously, its all just for the shoot). They're supposed to be aspirational, I suppose, but just make you feel bad (feed the dissatisfaction!)

Ceramics Class

I finally got to see the finished Ladypot - its been weeks in the making, carefully scratching drawings into it, thinking about the glazing and stuff. Generally I'm finding the end result a little bit disappointing but this one isn't too bad. I'm quite happy with it (apart from the thickness of the glazing). The drawings are really quite effective.

Over the course of the day I have changed my mind about what I wanted to say here. What I really wanted to say is that I was very nervous about the ladypot. I liked it a lot while I was making it and have been rather disappointed with the way glazes have turned out on other things. So it was with a great deal of anxiety that I left the glazed pot on the shelf for its final firing. And this week I found what was once grey with carved drawings on it has turned out like this:



I quite like it.

flickr ceramics classs set

Be my Valentine

Its a cruel celebration really - enables those that have to rub those-that-have-nobody-to-share-it-with's noses in it. Still won't linger on that (wouldn't want to rub anyone's nose in it afterall).

Its a day for those who believe in true love to wear their romantic streaks on their sleeves, so to speak. At Moorgate there was a woman dressed in a red suede coat and boots, with a red feather boa. Off to the office with a colleague in tow. On the tube an otherwise dourly dressed woman wore a red enamelled heart-shaped badge on her lapel. And opposite her was a teenager in blond jeans with a bag full of goodies - mini red heart balloon, chocolates and something with a big red bow.

Happy Valentines!

Seven Sisters

They were trees y'know (you probably did, actually!)

A woman applies mascara on the notoriously bumpy section of the Victoria Line between Seven Sisters and Finsbury Park. Other people are rolled vigorously in their seats. She is watched by a man with a painstakingly perfect 60s bob - side parting and smoothed into a bowl with not a single hair out of place. He's wearing a short parker jacket (a blue one with orange inside and scrappy fake grey fur around the hood) and a big beard. Both of which detract from the smooth hair image.

Whatever happened to...

Jimmy Somerville? I think I saw him cycle past the bus stop this morning.

Snow

I'm belatedly blogging about the snow. Largely to remind myself about how it looked. It was lovely looking out on Thursday morning to the softness, light and quiet of the gently falling snow. People had trampled the path before me, their footsteps crispy underfoot already. But my garden remained pristine bar a couple of trails of fox and local cats (either the black and white one or the one-eyed tabby).



By the next day the big melt had started (and completed in most places) but in Tottenham where the council hadn't salted the pavements the resulting compacted snow blackened on the side of the road. So it was nice that it was gone by the evening.

Fire Fire

So after the other women of the group got over their disappointment that the firemen giving the talk weren't in their hard hats and protective overcoats (so many cliched fantasies, bet they involved poles), they actually turned out to be a bunch of pyromaniacs. How their eyes lit up at the prospect of being able to put out actual simulated fires with fire extinguishers. Our crappy coffee cup managed to leak coffee onto one of the firemen's shirts. He decided to take it off, wash it, dry it on the radiator and hang round in his vest in the meantime (fanning the girls fantasies, perhaps, he didn't really look much like the diet coke man, though, which perhaps saved him). Fire safety training is scary actually.

Spider

I first saw it hiding under the skirting board when I was sanding four months ago. I vaccumed under there carefully hoping to suck it up. Today it ran into the middle of the rug before I saw it. Its grown. Huge. (Not in turrantula proportions, you understand, but big for a british house spider). I froze. It froze. I looked round for something to catch him in. I considered pouring the water out of the nearby glass through a gap in the floorboards. I finally spied a box, emptied it, and like lightening slapped it over the top of the spider, clapping a cd against a hole on one side. Phew. A box is harder to slide a paper under though. I slid last week's weekend magazine under, it mostly fitted and daringly flipped the box right way up closing the lid as the spider ran into a corner. Spider nightmares (mostly that they'll run up my arm). I released it to the outdoors where he promptly headed for the ventilation vent under the building. Nightmare. I fully expect to have to catch him again.

Freesheets

It seems to be agreed by everyone that London's Freesheets are getting out of hand. The additional litter and the fruggers (remember chuggers - charity muggers - bib wearing charity collecting harassers, fruggers are those agressive freesheet giver-outers who are everywhere on the streets of an evening).

This evening I found my bus littered by a stack of special editions of More than Conquerers from the Deya Ministries warning of the marriages destroyed by witchcraft spells and of witches attacking the head of state's granddaughter (the State being Cameroon). Scary.

The Pompous Ass

He was sitting on the tube reading his telegraph folded in half horizontally down the middle, held out in front of him with his arms not resting on anything, almost like an endurance test. Clad in a pink shirt (bound to be Pinks) with a feint blue check matched with a blue tie with pink stars.

Pompous ass, I thought. Judgemental perhaps but he was. Deconstructing my prejudice about his ass-ness I wondered what exactly made me think that when I had never spoken to the poor man. Its the way he sits, his pointy nose, the way he folded his suit jacket just so. Harsh, I thought, always jumping to conclusions. Perhaps I'm the pompous ass.

The Ladies

Part way through the evening it became necessary to pay a visit to the ladies. Pushing the heavy door open I stepped into what appeared to be a hairdressers' convention. The room was crowded with girls wearing dead-straight hair, lots of asymmetrical fringes, drinking bubbly white wine and talking at the tops of their voices. It turned out none of them was queueing for the lav. I sat in the cubicle listening to their gossip wondering why they didn't go back to the bar. I nudged my way to the sink, sneaking between the masquara wielding and nose powdering to wash my hands. And was glad to get back to the relative peace of the party (never have been very good at the small talk in the hairdressers).

On the Road Again

Weekend was all about a suprise party in Scotland. Someone let slip that the party was happening and so it wasn't really a suprise anymore. We could only get a flight. Flight cost £0.00 but the tax and booking fee came to £45 a piece (how can you figure the tax on nothing to be anything more than nothing? Don't they remember that if you times nothing by a number the answer is nothing? Anyway...).

We got the tube to Heathrow, hung around the airport, had my glasses cleaner confiscated (a container bigger than 100ml). Flight took hour and fifteen minutes. Then had to catch a bus to Waverley train station, caught a train to Dundee. Arrived at the party. Partied for 4 hours. Stayed over. And did it all in reverse the next day to come home.

Knackered. Feel like I've been in a state of perpectual motion.

Edmonton First Impressions

Outside First Impressions (its a photographic studio) two men in black trousers and white shirts retuck, in the street. One of them unbuckles his belt drops his trousers, adjusts his shirt tails over his black-with-white-edging pants. In the street. Its naught degrees. Classy. Not.

6 Degrees of Seperation

So I work in South London, funding voluntary sector organisations, on a monitoring visit today we started talking about these buildings near the Elephant which apparently were designed by an architect who I know because he lives on the same street as a friend of mine. He's just left his wife for a woman who lived with her partner on the same street. She is the friend of the man I was visiting today. Small world.

Race Row

The thing is that whether or not your intentions are to be racist, if you say something to someone that is racist, in anger or otherwise, then it is racism.

The Snippet of Reception

Waiting for the First Capital Connect train, on the platform next to the Victoria Line at Highbury and Islington, my phone suddenly rings. Suprised (seeing as I'm underground and mobiles don't work underground), I answer. Hello, I whisper, worried that underground big brother staff may see me and send out a message over the tannoy along the lines of can the woman wearing the red and black coat please switch off her mobile phone (they aren't above such things - I've heard them in the past chastising smokers wandering through the tunnels). I'm on the underground, I don't know how I have reception. Its hard trying to explain and whisper. And then suddenly the three little bars are gone and the phone says no service again as usual.

I might try again tomorrow. Standing next to the emergency stretchers on the WAGN platform going south to Moorgate.

Puddle

Walking along the road I get a sudden rush of uncertainty of footing as I look down at the sky reflecting in the puddles. They look so deep, I'm worried about falling in.

A Little Light Bus Reading

Mix pleasure with pain the tight lipped woman sitting next to me reads from a book called The Art of Seduction. Personally I'm not sure you can learn the art of seduction from a book.

Curly Mop Connection

We can confirm from his antics on celebrity big brother that Leo Sayer is ever so slightly deluded and a somewhat demanding diva. We were also privvie to a previously unseen side of his personality - sweary Leo (although it has to be said that while prolific it wasn't always executed correctly, with some mix ups between which cusses go together and how). I saw his fellow once-curly mop headed contemporary Wayne Sleep speaking about his antics on big bro's big mouth. Anyway, enough of such base pulp TV.

Onto the connection. I used to be a really big fan of John Curry (I was 6 when he won gold at the olympics). I was taken, as a big treat, to see him skate in one of those on-ice shows (I haven't a good memory of it but it might have been at a theatre rather than in an ice rink - we sat in banked rows and watched him like at a theatre). But I couldn't recognise him because he had recently had his hair cut. His mop of curly black hair all gone. Presumably, it was the only feature of his I obviously recognised at the time. Wayne Sleep did a parody of John Curry on TV around the time - sliding across a floor bum stuck out in that way male figure skaters tend to do (and other curly haired celebs, like, John McEnroe).

That hair was a fashion statement at the time. I had a cousin who had a rather amazing curly afro perm - we were sent a fabulous picture of him in a dark blue suit with a white shirt under. Shirt collars outside the jacket lapels, both of which almost reached off his shoulders. Ahh, the crazy 70s.

Bloghuh
Its a mystery...

New Blogger

I'm annoyed. I finally decided I should change to the new blogger. What harm could it do? Seemed straightforward. Only when I did I found they had added one of their annoying bars over the top of the blog. I'd been able to choose not to have that there before. Its only a little thing but its a choice that has been taken away. Bah humbug.

So there's my mystery for today - why does stuff have to keep changing? I know that competition requires that developers stay on their toes and in response to this it is thought that change is necessary to stay ahead of the game. However, change for changes sake is just annoying. Especially when it isn't better. Why can't changes be made that don't affect the good stuff from before? Why try to fix something that ain't broke?

I'll get used to it. Its not like they haven't changed it before, after all.


Read more about things that mystify others at participating Bloghuh? blogs this week:
Alley Kat
Aprosexic
Blue Witch
bob's yer uncle
Changing Places
Depthmarker
In the Aquarium
Jen&HerBoat
Kitchen Witch
La Que Sabe
London Daily Photo
Pewari's Prattle
Purple Pen
Quixotic Evil
Santiago Dreaming
Tabula Rasa
Tiger Feet
Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From?
wintermute

Being Ill

I'm at the stage now where my nose is like a dripping tap. It hurts. Amazing how once soft balsam laced tissues have become rough like that tracing-paper-style bog roll from school (remember the sort that had now wash your hands printed on the bottom of each sheet). My sinuses feel solid.

Bloghuh?
Its a mystery...

With this subtitle I keep getting the strains of a song by Shakespear's Sister with all its gothic shrieking (ode to Kate Bush) in one line, "its a mystery...its a mystery". I can't remember anything else of the song but it seems fitting.

This is a community blog event. No rules as such but much linking necessary. Chance to find new blogs etc etc. My contribution may be briefer than most but I'm not in a terribly verbose state of mind right now (as you may tell from the brief posts of late)! (Answers gratefully received).

1. Why is it that grey hairs break off and leave annoying obvious wirey stray specimens exactly where they really show?
2. How come you feel so cold when you're burning up with a fever?
3. Why can you wait for half an hour for a bus and then 3 turn up at once. And continuing the public transport mystery - why when you have loads of time do you get a driver who is a formula one maniac and when you're late he's a snail?

Read more about things that mystify others at participating Bloghuh? blogs this week:
Aprosexic
Blue Witch
bob's yer uncle
Changing Places
Depthmarker
Jen&HerBoat
Kitchen Witch
La Que Sabe
Purple Pen
Quixotic Evil
Santiago Dreaming
Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From?

Different Way of Thinking

A man on the bus sits down and gets out a pamphlet. He's marked his place in it with a yellow post-it note. He opens his page and starts reading the section headed using the camera buttons to set the camera.

I can never be bothered to read the instructions unless I can't do something.

Water in the Dark

In the dark the river looks thick and viscous, solid almost. Light reflecting from the London Eye - huge with blue light the pods are almost invisible against the black sky. Boats sit still on the surface waves undulate around them.

By contrast the fountains in Trafalgar Square dance in the light, spray wafting in the wind, wetting the stone slabs to the south. Light frippery, vapourous.

Midnight bus to Tottenham

Smells. Someone is wearing cheap aftershave. Brut. Like teenage boys on the pull. Smells of cardboard warmed by pizza that is slowly going cold. Smells of the pub. Beery breath all round. Eau de ashtray on everyone's jackets. Smells of chips from Dixy Fried Chicken shop.

Modern Technology

Two old codgers board the bus. After a while one of their mobile phones rings. A sort of high pitched tinkling. Hullo? Tinkle tinkle. Hullo? Tinkle tinkle. Hullo? He sounds like Arthur Daley. His mate says, "it's not working". Finally he manages to answer it. "Hawaya doing mate? Hows the misses? Good new year? I'll give you a bell in a while. Yeah ... going up town. No problem mate." He rings off. The bus lurches to a stop and his suitcase (on wheels) makes a break for it - rolls up the aisle and crashes to a halt by the driver's doors. One of them rushes up to rescue it. Sorry mate, darn suitcases. He's even wearing a sheepskin coat. Proper Sarf London.

New Years Resolutions

Fate worse than death - writing about new years resolutions and I usually don't actually make any. However, this year I intend to:

1. find more inspiration (go to strange theatre, listen to new music, see foreign films and go to obscure exhibitions, well any exhibitions actually)
2. continue to seek creative means of expression (back to ceramics class mid jan - finishing off the lady pot and making a birdbath, more drawing)
3. and plant a tree in the back garden (a small one that flowers)

So there are my new year intensions. Not calling them resolutions - they probably don't qualify because they aren't going to require giving anything up however I want this year to be more exciting, stimulating and satisfying.

Happy New Year

So here I am celebrating new year on my own for the first time ever. Couldn't manage to drag together even a couple of friends willing to see in the new year. I bought an ironing board today so I'm hoping that won't jinx my new year to one of domesticity. I suddenly had a feeling of being totally alone, sitting in my new house all alone with Jools Holland on the TV, which isn't so bad apart from the fact you can't have a meaningful conversation with a tv programme. Dad and I set off to go see the fireworks at Waterloo but someone tried to pick pocket him on the bus on the way there, at the same time a gang was stopping people getting on the bus, the tube was packed and the next 3 trains were all arriving in 3 minutes and none of them did, so we gave up. I watched some neighbourhood fireworks on the corner of the street instead. Another woman walked passed me wearing a red feather boa and smiled at me - first new year greeting. So anyway. Happy New Year to you, and I hope your year is everything you wish for.

Personally I'd like to stop being such a boring fart and manage to get out a bit. I'd like to enter into a reinvention this year.

I really am going away next christmas and I'm not buying any presents!

Micropost

Laid in bed until My Fair Lady had finished. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

What's been happening over Christmas?

Well I'm finally back online at home. The luxury of blogging all over the house, not just in the computer room. So I expect the quality of posts will decrease as they are done in front of the telly (much like homework when we were at school).

Christmas has been and gone. In the two days before christmas I cleaned, tidied, sorted, bought a christmas tree, decorated it, went to a super-large supermarket to buy the makings of dinner two days in advance (shelves were empty, customers were fighting over the last bottle of baileys and shopping as if they were going to be holed up for 3 months), wrapped presents up at midnight on christmas eve (possibly even as Santa was coming down the non-existant chimney), had barely 5 hours sleep and woke with the toddlers at 6.30 to tear open presents without really looking at them. We ate but not too much, drank hardly anything, were tired enough to sit on the sofa feeling sleepy and forgot to play any games (once de rigeur for Christmas day). We also missed the Queen. But the roast potatoes were possibly the best they've ever been - following advice from sister who had seen them done on that science cooking programme.

Now the visitors have gone home and the house is back to the way it was before - still in a degree of chaos from moving in. And we're in that inbetween time between christmas and new year which sort of feels like no-man's-land. New year's eve - possibly the most over-hyped night of the year, almost impossible not to be disappointed by the outcome, almost certainly start the new year with a hangover. Roll on 31st.

Christmas Uncheer (2)

All day since 9.00am the Peckham one-way system has been jammed by people trying to get into Nettos. All the way down Alpha Street and round the corner. Honking. Obviously needing to feed the 5,000 or shop for the Christmas closure as if we won't be coming out again for a month.

Tube Conversation

In a bold attempt, a woman turned to her neighbour and asked him if it would be ok to have a conversation. He unplugged himself from his ipod and looked at her expectantly. It might have got off to a better start if she had begun with something other than, "I don't think the London Paper is terribly good reading material". But after an uncomfortable pregnant pause she confessed to being rather drunk from a work's do (after having to explain to him what a work's do was - it transpires he was a foreign waiter) he jumped on the opener by asking her what she did. Sadly they were only getting warmed up when he had to get off.

On the way out of the station I was glad to notice that not all young men have taken to wearing their jeans hanging-low, I spotted one amongst a group of low-slingers whose bum was firmly in his jeans. Nice to see.

Christmas Uncheer

I sat at lunch today reading the paper. First time in an age I've gone out to the cafe. On one side a baby screamed for attention as her mother chatted over a coffee witha friend. On the other side a man couldn't stop kissing his girlfriend, with slurping. After they ate they had a christmas gift giving extravaganza. the rush of early love had spurned them on to buy buy buy for one another. Each gift unwrapping was met with enthusiastic exclaims and was an excuse for another kiss. The biggest exclamation was hers when she opened a cow-teddy bear. Never have quite understood adult women who obsess about teddies. I was quite put off my lunch. Bah Humbug. Get a room!

Familiar

A familiar figure comes into focus from the blur of periphery vision on the steps to the escalator at London Bridge. A small woman with a black coat and a rucksack, short fine hair. She used to travel on the same train as I did when I was working in Lewisham. I'm suddenly struck by an urge to know how she is doing.

"How are your dreadful children?" I could ask, "Still attending City of London Girls?" Terribly posh, blond girls, with knotted hair that she would try to tame into some semblance of a ponytail despite their wails of protest. Awful attitude they had to their mother, even when they were under 10. "Any more settled in your household?"

Instead I watch her walk ahead of me and disappear up a different escalator. She seemed so quiet and orderly by comparison to my memory.

Friday Night

The bus is full of semi-pissed. The night is yet young. Some are just setting out, all spruced and perfect hair. A woman slumps in her seat silent singing, with dramatic flourishes, to her ipod. Occassionally staring into its screen. I'm imagining some warbling Maria Carey number.

The Man Who Fell Asleep



I met Greg through his website Tube Gossip. I mean meet in the virtual sense of the word, actually I think its more akin to hanging around the cool people hoping they’ll notice you one day. Actually, they don’t even have to notice you, you just hope some of their cool will rub off. It was a simple concept, but highly effective and I wished I’d thought of it. So I first knew Greg through a form of blog envy. And then I discovered that he also wrote The Man Who Fell Asleep. Even more blog envy. I’d love to be one of those people who has an off-beat sense of the world, who sees things through kaleidoscopic glasses and throws you off at a tangent. I love those people. I read the man who fell asleep a lot before it sort of stopped. It made me laugh. It was very London (I collect blogs that are very London, in that quirky English way they can be). If there’s a blog I wish I wrote, it’s it.

I got an unexpected email announcing that The Man Who Fell Asleep has become a book. There was to be a virtual book tour. I would be one of the stops. I felt a sense of affirmation. I was sent a copy. It’s like reading an old friend. There are passages I remember from the blog but they were tied together into a narrative. While a blog feels fleeting and ephemeral, this made that writing substantial. And you could hold it and turn it over in your hand. You might like to buy a copy!

End of Term Feeling

Yeah, I've got it. Not because my work ends at the end of a term as such, but in my building the classes have stopped, students are trailing off, tutors are gone, they've put up christmas decorations in a vane attempt to keep some momentum going, and everyone is really really tired. The nights draw in, every night the bars are full of other people's office parties, and it feels like a time for nesting. Still another week to go after this one...

Weather

11.05: green air, hailstones, lightning, thunder, torrential rain.
11.07: rain, hailstones lying on the ground like white shadows.
11.08: bright lightning flash. Big crack & roll of thunder, rumbling on. Police siren in the distance.
11.10: blue sky, white fluffy sun lit clouds.
11.35: blue sky
13.15: blustery wind.
15.13: dark sky one side of the building, strange light reflecting in rain drops the other.
15.14: blue sky, clouds, sun going down.

Passengers

Tall man sweeps into the carriage and plumps into a seat, unzips his jacket and shrugs it off, re-adjusts himself and crosses his legs, reads his crinkly copy of London Lite. Opposite a man in checkered vans chats to a woman with a haircut like Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner - sharp straight fringe that brushes her eyes. He's talking about separating from his girlfriend who is the mother of his child - he feels its better than staying in a loveless relationship and potentially damaging the child. When he gets off at Kings Cross she starts reading The Catcher in the Rye. She's about half way through. I loved that book. I met an aspiring writer at a party once. He reminded me of Holden Caulfield, he threw himself into life with abandon willing to experience everything.

I am a passenger. And I ride and I ride.

Moving

Is stressful. That's almost all I have to say on the matter.

I remember as a kid moving from our lovely flat in Myddleton Square to our bare-floored house in Haringey. We cried.

I feel like that now. I'm not ready. Literally, physically and psychologically. I pack a couple of boxes each night, chucking out the horded detritus of decades - unwanted gifts, long lost unworn clothes, possible useful articles, toys-that-may-once-have-been sentimental. But it makes me feel insecure, scared of change. And then there's the rising panic. I still can't find someone, well actually a tradesperson, willing to take a window out and put it back so the sofa can be put in (it seems Saturday's are bad, and the fact that they are not nice easy wooden sash but instead rather a uPVC aboration).

I'm sitting in Starbucks across from the back of Liberties which used to be full of chocolate. Its full of special entry shoppers madly scrabbling for christmas things at 20% off. A stream of joggers pass between them and me - upright, leggings and bumbags. I'm waiting. Concentrating on breathing to settle the panic.

Department Vision

The meglomaniac head of division was giving us a collective pat on the back and telling us about future plans. These plans include subsumption of 700 staff from a different department and a localised network for power so we can seperate ourselves from the grid and become more efficient and less wasteful. We basked in the future glory and visualised the new republic of E&L, a principality within London. Some at the back were dropping off due to the heat rising. The leader asked for some windows to be opened, at which point one of the windows being opened fell off the building.

laughing man

Ceramics Class

Laughing Man is finished. Not sure I like him as much now that I've glazed him. But thats the haphazard nature of ceramics I guess.

Yellow Electric

Woke up after dreaming about a gorilla that had been sitting in my neighbour's tree and then took to terrorising the neighbourhood - nobody could get to or from work. There was a dark grey sky and strange electric yellow light shining off the few remaining leaves. The rain was pouring. Finally a flash of lightning followed by a whack and rumble of thunder that shook the window.

Free Bus

They're everywhere these days, easy to board, no collection of tickets, commonly known as free buses to locals of the routes (dreaded bendy buses to the rest of us). Friday night Bails was debating whether she should touch in with her oyster and save her pennies unless a revenue protector (ticket inspector) got on. It seems this free riding has seeped into the public conscious as an tap-on-the-wrist naughtiness rather than the law-breaking we were reliably informed it was (amounts to stealing) when we were debating it elsewhere.

I remember the old days on the routemasters when we'd all pretend to be alseep when the conductor came upstairs. The technique involved slumping over each other, eyes closed, mouth open. You could adopt a number of stances - head back on the hand rail, or chin down head hidden by parker hood, or head against window (very uncomfortable and not to be recommended). It has to be said that you were most successful when alone and far less convincing when travelling in a group of 6 (we'd never heard of narcolepsy at the time).

laughing man

Ceramics Class



I made this laughing man after I saw some pots from the Congo in the window of a weird shop on the corner of St Anns Road. Its owned by a Turk with grey hair and a died black mustache with ends that he twists carefully. He gets them from a village, they come packed in banana skins. Anyway, I thought I'd make a version. I didn't really want it to come out looking quite so comedy. But I glazed it this lesson so maybe it will look less obvious when its finished.

Shoes

Sometimes on the tube its all about the shoes. Largely because of walking with your head down, following lots of others up stairs and escalators. Boots are back. But it is winter again. First a black pair. Huge hairy things, with jeans tucked into them, and pomp pomps on strings that flap around the ankles. Then a man with timberlands on that are too big, or not done up properly that make that gushy sound when his foot pushes down - like air being compressed. Then some comedy wellies, sorry ironic wellies (so last year) with pink spots on.

One Crazy to Another

Bus. Woman gets on. Talking about racists. They all racists. Even to me. Theres no need for it. At first I think she's talking to the woman opposite. Eventually everyone looks away and tries to ignore her. Her rant goes on. I stop listening.

A woman wearning a brown mac and a pair of pink fairy wings as a hat (the tie wrapped round each ear and secured on the left-hand side with a blue plastic clothes peg) tires of the ranting and says to the woman, "you should get off dear - go to the chemist here [gestures out the window] they'd have something for you there. They may even find you a husband." Ranting lady talks on seemingly oblivious. Pink fairy wings lady repeats her comment. Several times. Then changes it slightly, "you should go to Stamford Hill, there's a ministry there, they'd find you a husband".

A moment of lucidity passes over ranting woman. She looks pink fairy wings in the eyes and says patronisingly, "No darlin', I'm going home to watch the set." And then just as suddenly as it came, the lucidity is gone, she's back in her internal world, ranting about the racists, occassionally muttering, "she's schizophrenic, she is."

Kiss

She loves him so much she can allow herself to be totally submissive to his kiss. She leans her head back, her under-chin exposed, neck fully extended. He leans over her. Their open mouths touch lightly. Their eyes are closed. It lasts a few moments. Its too personal to watch.

Leaves

A woman must have been in the park with her rollerblading kids. The wheels of her basket-trolley had yellow leaves stuck to them, going round and round and round. Probably the park was muddy from yesterday's rain.

* * *

Wind blows a swirl of yellow leaves around the black tarmac as I wait for the bus. A windchime clanks dully from across the street - the grey and white building of the Mount Zion Church of God, with its England flag flapping against its upper window. The wind drags leaves along the street, they must be dry and crisp, sound like cardboard.

Peckham Rye

The revenue at Peckham Rye obviously needs protecting greatly. Twice this week the revenue protection squad was out in force, flanked by police in illuminous yellow jackets, writing fine tickets and handcuffing people. Last week they were doing an airport style security check on arriving passengers, presumably looking for knives and guns. What was it they used to say at the end of roll call in Hill Street Blues? Be careful out there.

ladypot

Ceramics Class



Last week I made this pot, this week I spent all class transfering lifedrawings onto it - technique used was to pinprick along the lines of a photocopied lifedrawing (A3), place the drawing over the pot, rub charcoal dust across the holes to provide a guide line. Then traced the drawing with a needle into the clay. It needs 3 drawings to complete - I only managed to do 2. Took some time! Next week will finish transposing the drawings and then send it off for firing. Not so instaneous after all this ceramics.

How to Eat a Sandwich (On a Train)

We're not talking about the type you get when you're travelling with your Nan. You and sibling sit backwards, Nan and Grandad go forwards. Nan lays paper napkins over the table and presents you with sarnies wrapped in tinfoil (probably saved from previous use), doorstoppers prepared at 5.00am while everybody else slept. Sandwiches that are brought out the moment the train sets off, the departure station barely behind you. No. We are talking about sandwiches downed by commuters on their way home.

So, when it comes to sandwich eating are you a two bite or one bite mouhtful? In public, its probably best to avoid the two-bite, if you want to be able to chew without looking like a hamster. Also, try not to devour an eighth of the sandwich at each bite (remember, if you eat slower it will make you feel fuller). Always chew with your lips closed. Try not to chose smelly fillings like tuna or egg.

I'm amazed at the number of men (generally) grabbing a sandwich on the way home. Aren't they worried it will spoil their supper?

London Alphabet
F is for Fashion

So it follows that from great ego comes great fashion. A city full of egos means even the outlandish are ignored and remain largely anonymous, free to express their sense of style in whatever freewheeling eccentricity takes their fancy. Priding ourselves on being first, foremost, cutting edge. Our stores are bigger, flashier, most up to date. Our fashion colleges world renowned, fashion designers scouring the neighbourhoods for the latest in street style. Eclectic, perhaps, or maybe just anything goes and nobody will stare at you (I hadn't realised I was weird until I went to Denmark with pink hair). London allows you to be whatever it is you want to be and however outrageous that is you will find a niche to fit into.

A is for Architecture
B is for Bridges
C is for Crowds
D is for Dusk
E is for Ego

London Alphabet
E is for Ego

Londoners feel they are the centre of the universe, well perhaps not quite, but certainly the centre of the UK, looking down on our suburban and rural neighbours with pity and a certain amount of disdain. (I hasten to add that I don't condone such behaviour, I'm just noticing). Living in the massive conurbation rubbing shoulder to shoulder with nearly 8 million others its easy to forget that anything else exists. Partly because you have to work quite hard to reach its edges and there is this constant magnetic draw towards its centre. I know a number of people who only leave through airports when travelling abroad and probably don't know any of the delights beyond the green belt. So we feel privileged to have such culture, transport and wealth on our doorstep, ignore the poverty and dirt, and are shocked when companies, government and services relocate to the north or Swansea, so indoctrinated are we by the mantra, "tired of London, tired of life".

So I'm offering up Ego as London's E - and anyone who is from anywhere else but here will have some recollection of the self-absorbtion we Londoner's have and our inability to understand the plight of towns and cities beyond our reach, together with our total lack of understanding that someone may prefer to live elsewhere.

A is for Architecture
B is for Bridges
C is for Crowds
D is for Dusk

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At least I hope so. I'm having writers block. I'm sinking into a routine so mundane that I have no inspiration at all. Coupled with the fact that the minute I am still (horizontally or just sitting) my eyes droop shut (I always find it difficult to adjust to the change of time). It seems always to be dark! I'm spending all my time going between home and new house, painting and concerning self with tiles and uneven floors. Its not terribly exciting I tell you. Not at all.

Autumn

Autumn finally seems to have arrived, and we're nearly in winter. I sat watching the dark fall this evening at 4.00. Slowly it happened but definitely closing in from 4.00. Totally dark by the time I left work. Leaves are falling into the street. Yellow and brown. Seems late for it. But perhaps I'm remembering wrongly.

firework

Firework



The sky is alive with the dull pop and sizzle of fireworks. Occassionally a louder boom. Sometimes passing close to a private display some green or red sparks float into the sky over a rooftop. An acrid smell in the air and smoky mist. I didn't see an organised display this year, too busy painting.

Going Home

Its dark as work ends. We huddle into our coats as we wait for the train. Staring down the track longing to see the faint yellow glow of its windows rounding the corner.

On the train 3 sarf london men chat about trainers. Particularly a pair of red and cream converse that one of them was wearing when he met a bird from Southend. Generous arse, gold heels. His hand gesture seemed to imply he enjoyed her.

Ceramics Class

Before the half term I spent the whole lesson glazing all the bits and pieces that I had made in the previous weeks. It took long and was impossible to tell what the results would look like. This week all was revealed. Some of them turned out nice, others were a terrible mistake. I'm not keen on that oatmealy look that pottery can have!





Still its all trial and error.