Homage

I have a fascination for stencil graffiti, been taking pictures of it on and off for over a year. Now in homage to Psychbloke I'm posting some of them (he posts them frequently and is much better informed about who did them than I am).

Snow

Waiting for the train this morning, looking up at the roof of London Bridge station, Victorian steel frame and glass, snow falling gently through the air, almost imperceptable but definitely there. On the bridge that crosses the platforms, standing on the top step, closer to the roof, watching the throng of commuters rushing along platform 13 to the exit, desperate to get to work so they can get the day over with and go home, they don't seem to notice the gently swirling snow snowing through the roof gaps. Snowing indoors. Felt sort of magical.

Train Journey

Sitting by the lav on the train from Kings Cross this evening when suddenly a weird high pitched wailing began emanating from behind the locked door. The businessmen all around me exchanged raised eyebrows at each other and a man on the phone to his wife told her that there were people fucking in the toilet. The wailing continued. Sort of like a pig in distress.

And then the lav flushed and a tall broad older gentleman came out obviously oblivious to the fact that anything could be heard outside. Nobody else came out after him. As he disappeared down the train all the chaps tittered.

Snow

Its always funny how it seems to float and waft and swirl around in different directions even when its coming down quite fast.

Peckham Street Drinkers

"fuck off you cnuts", the highpitched yet strangely resonant slow drawl shouts. I look across, its a man with a beige sweatshirt tied around his head, brandishing a plastic bottle of cider, kicking out at the pigeons.

He sees me looking. "See they want to steal my food", he gestures at his laid out cloth with half a loaf and some bags. "Are they French? Where do you think they are from?" he asks. I half smile but he doesn't wait for my answer, "where do you think? Buckingham Palace?" he chuckles, "Trafalgar Square?"

He's not as out of it as he first appears maybe. As I round the corner he is joined by his mate, a man with his hair in 3 dreadlocks - one huge matted one on top and two huge matted ones on either side.

No.38 Bench Seat

Early evening, saturday night on the way to see House of the Flying Daggers, we sat on the bench seats of the routemaster on the 38 bus.

Opposite was a middle-aged couple off to the theatre - dressed up as is the custom of this age group. He was a serene looking man in a good suit and the palest pink shirt. She was glamorous in maroon velvet and a scarf wtih silk tassles. She was totally fabulous apart from her cheap looking gold open toed sandals worn with flesh-toned tights with the toe seams showing.

Next to them was a man wearing trendy attire - jeans and trainers. He had a face that was full of sorrow and yet seemed friendly at the same time. Hang dog eyes and a mouth that turned down. But the faintest flicker of a smile made him seem appraochable and loveable in a sorrowful way. Bald on top but longish side and back hair. A clown. He had the face of a sorrowful clown. The type who wears a cross over his eyes and a big red mouth.

I wonder if the whole world is really here to entertain me or if my imagination is over-active.

Its Nice Outside

I woke up
I got outta bed
I listened to music the boyfiend bought me for valentines
I talked to my sister on the phone
I watered my plants
I turned all the cacti around so they grow the other direction (love and care)
I looked at the leaves unfurling on another plant
I washed my hair slowly for a change
Outside the sun is shining
I arranged to meet at Beetroot on Berwick Street for a box of hippy food.

Its nice outside.

Same Old Same Old

Not been feeling like blogging much - yesterday I got sent to Coventry and nobody talked to me all day (ok kidding, not really - I went there for a meeting so talked all day and then fell asleep on the train on the way home) and today I've been trying to sort out the cockroach infestation in my office (poisoned them all on Friday, really would have liked the cleaners to vaccuum but they don't seem to do that without you asking) and when talking to the people downstairs it appears its a building problem and not just in my office which in some ways makes me feel much better (I was worried it was because of something I had done) and in other ways makes my skin crawl.

Pops is in Brazil for the Mardi Gras - the carnival goes on in a football stadium and he was sitting too far away to tell if the women were naked or not. All terribly disappointing. He was on a health tourist trip - trying to get some cheaper teeth implants but I think he can't seem to find an appropriate dentist. He emailed me from an internet cafe where he said he had to ask a group of young americans to settle down (he can at times be a mite grumpy - my sister and I joke about him growing into his mother - much to his non-amusement) so its obviously not making him full of the joys of youth.

Maybe its a late bout of January blues. I normally suffer from them terribly but they didn't kick in until late perhaps.

The Tall Tale Telling Man

He was in customs and excise, importer of coke, his mate across the table was one of his customers and they'd been there since 11.00am and he'd chopped out a line that reached the whole length of the table, and his other mate always got the leftovers. Implausable.

So his mate was an artist and the other one was a probation officer and he did grafitti. And actually he was his probation officer because he'd just been inside for doing grafitti, and his artist friend was finding representation for him at a gallery. Funny but still implausable.

He had amalgamated lifts embroidered over his shirt pocket. Apparently Amalgamated Lifts was a company who provided a service to commuters on the underground, very popular on Mondays. Giving support to overtired commuters trying to shake off monday blues. Sponsored by Homepride he had to wear a hat like the Pilbury Doughboy. He was gonna show us, but then decided it would have to wait for later.

Not sure I've ever met someone before who couldn't utter a true word. He was funny but we had other places to be, so we left him and his two untalkative mates with their £100 bar bill and went off to pastures new.

The Image

I hadn't been aware of them getting on but after a while of them sitting behind me on the bus I drifted into their conversation (in a silent overhearing kind of way). They were colleagues. He was her senior but in a different team, he had a resonant deep happy voice. It was the voice of a tall man who would wear a good quality suit, perhaps have glasses(designer ones) and a decent haircut. She was a middle class young woman, tweed skirt and blouse type, successful, confident. Ever so slightly pearl-necklacy.

She was getting married in the summer - they had decided at Christmas, so far they had managed to arrange the engagement party (next friday - everyone they had ever known was invited, the whole email address list, and everyone they had ever known was coming, so it was really quite exciting) and order the ring. Probably being very naive believing that they could organise such an event in this amount of time but they had agreed if it all got too much for them that they would elope to somewhere foreign.

He had been married, just the once, in Italy where the organisation had been a real pain, for the civil ceremony they had to register with both the British consulate and the Italian authorities, trying to get them both to understand the papers was quite difficult but then they also wanted to be married in church and trying to get the Catholic church to agree. Now that was something, letters from the parish priest in England to be sure that he had never been married in church before. But it was worth it, a wonderful ceremony...

They chatted about holidays, he had been in the states over christmas, Chicago, and wasn't due another holiday at the moment although he would be in Syria for Easter for work. She hadn't got a break planned what with the wedding preparations and everything.

And then he got up and went downstairs, the creak of a leather jacket passed me and his faded jeans, and his unshaved face, ruffled hair with a bald patch at the back, large grin, "maybe I'll bump into you again," he called back at the woman as he disappeared down the stairs. Two stops later she got off, trousers, younger than I imagined, long red hair, centre parted and hanging down both sides of her face.

Wrong on every count. I don't even think they knew one another.

Rediscovered Smells

For a number of reasons I haven't smelt this smell for a long time - mostly to do with the fact that I don't generally spin sheets on a vigorous 1200 setting so they hang slightly wet and all the creases fall out whilst they dry and they don't need ironing. However, this week, in a hurry I didn't change the settings on the washing machine and ironing became a necessity. The sheets were very creased. More creased than I could leave them despite the fact that you're only going to lye on them and wrinkle them up anyway. More creased than stretching them over the bed would straighten. So tonight I'm ironing them. And the smell is lovely - clean cotton sheets, ironed with steam. Reminds me of opening the parachute bag that mum would bring home full of clean pressed washing from the laundry at Hornsey Road Baths. Sheets ironed in huge roller ironing machines. Warm still despite the journey, but with their poppers crushed.

In a beaten up silver ford sierra 2 hasidic jews rock while listening to loud reggae music out of their open window before steaming away from the traffic lights.

Slow Fast Day

For a day that dragged and at 3.00pm seemed like it would never end I was suprised when I looked up and it was suddenly 5.35. That fear shot through me - the fear that is being locked in the building and not knowing how to get out (at least 2 people have told me this has happened to them). I gladly found that although I was the last there, I wasn't locked in and rushed out into the open air.

Now I find myself sitting on a 63 bus listening to Paulo Conte (singing dancin dancin, chips chips, you're wonderfuel you're wonderfuel good luck ma baby etc). There's a man behind me whose breath smells stale, whose clothes smell of mothballs and who persists in thumping my seat as we wing our way through Southwark, past the Dun Cow Surgery that must be a doctor's but looks like a pub and down onto the Old Kent Road to the Elephant.

The Elephant and Castle is a confusion of merging routes, underpasses, overpasses, market stalls, pink walls, housing towers. They still haven't taken down the christmas decorations.

Then the bus empties out as we turn north along the London Road round the strange roundabout with a war memorial and past the station I always forget exists (Southwark) then over the Blackfriars bridge to the northside.

Monday's Life Class




So today, drawing this model, trying to draw him in ink and feeling unable to get across what I wanted to, I decided to go back to charcoal. And I liked it. It was messy but it was good. Man with blue rope.

Candid Arts Trust: open access sessions and more formal taught courses in both life drawing and painting. Behind Angel tube, Islington - first left down City Road. Contact: The Candid Arts Trust, 3 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ, Tel: 020 7837 4237.

Spring is Coming

Its getting noticeably lighter in the evenings and the snow drops have appeared. So it feels like the bleak months are behind us.

Mishaps

Just because I was having a gentle dig at those morning disasters yesterday doesn't mean I'm immune to them, which I then started thinking would only be fair to share.

Like walking around Padstow (in Cornwall) with my lovely long skirt tucked into the back of my knickers until some old dears kindly told me so.

Or the time I had just purchased some absolutely beautiful boots with buckles, patent leather faux snakeskin long pointy toes (it was the 80s, and I know it sounds like a bad teenage movie, but it really was the thing to be wearing, and I was a teenager). Riding the escalator down to the tube platform at Manor House and just as I got to the bottom, a trainload of decanting passengers arrived just in time to see me get one of the blasted toes stuck in the grill at the bottom and splat head first across the floor. It doesn't matter how long you lye there, face down and hope for the ground to swallow you up. It won't.

Or the time when I wasn't really slightly pissed and was wearing wedges (stoooopid stoooopid shoes) and slipped off the steps at Leicester Square tube and tumbled all the way down, bag contents flying all over the place. I was badly behaved and snapped at all offers of help. Much to the boyfiend's aghast embarrassment.

And then there's the time when I went to the loo at lunchtime after a really important meeting and discovered I had a big black smudge across my forehead, most likely from the dirty underside of the tube escalator handle earlier that morning.

Oh and being told by my boss to pull my shirt down because I'm flashing some waist skin. Only not being sure which is better, waist skin or too much cleavage (poor choice of top - not quite long enough either direction, and usually I would go with cleavage but it being work and everything..).

And everyone's got a piece-of-spinach story.

Morning Toilette

Boys, nay men, need to remember to wipe the toothpaste from the corners of their mouth, the crumbs from their beards and not to catch their shirts in their flies.

The Knitting Girl

Standing on the platform at Peckham Rye, waiting for the imminent arrival of the london bridge train, a girl is knitting. Knitting something narrow and straight in bottle green. Thin needles. Thin wool. The ball is in her bag, an enormous length looping from the bag to the needles hanging almost to the ground. Its the technique of an inexperienced knitter. The loops being knitted into are too far down the sticks - making it difficult to slip the new stitch over.

Its not the knitting of our grannies. That manic click clicking, chatter and speedily growing garments with odd patterns, knobbly wool, side opening necklines and thick itchy socks.

Hamlet

There's a man leaning against the door frame. He's carrying the head of another man under his arm. The head doesn't look particularly perturbed by this.

Or at least, thats what it looks like as he stands on the other side of a glass panel to me (with a seated passenger facing him and reflected in the glass in my sight line).

Monday's Life Class




I skipped a couple of classes. So on return, once again it feels like I haven't been in an age. The model was sort of slightly limp in his poses - not exactly exciting. And the pictures are horribly green in photos.

Candid Arts Trust: open access sessions and more formal taught courses in both life drawing and painting. Behind Angel tube, Islington - first left down City Road. Contact: The Candid Arts Trust, 3 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ, Tel: 020 7837 4237.

Headline

A man sat on the bus reading the Sun. The frontpage headline shocker said, "Mafia's Plot to Kidnap Clary". What on earth would the mafia want with Julian Clary?

Passing Clissold Park

The teams are getting the Talk. They are in appropriately matching kit despite the fact that its a Saturday norming park game. The dressing room is a tree that grows horizontally out of a slope. All their bags and discarded clothing hang in the branches.

Children

Today has been a terrible day. Just overwhelmingly bad. The Boyfiend and I went for a meal after work, sat down talked through my day, relaxed. And then on the way home we were talking on the bus, laughing, joking, not swearing or being terrible. Some old woman took aversion to us and shouted at me, "children, children will you go and sit down because we don't want to hear your conversation anymore". Rudely. Boyfiend took offense. Nice middle class do-goody busybody next to her turned around and said, "you should really show consideration for others, some of us have had a long day at work..." Now we may have been a little bit loud (but not like school children released from school f'ing and blinding all over the place, shouting into their mobile phones), but I don't think I look that young, I don't think I was behaving that abominably and I certainly don't think I look like I've been lounging around all day doing nothing - particluarly with a briefcase in tow. All she had to do was ask us nicely to keep it down a little.

New Office, New Politics

Reading today's Guardian about office environments where the politics are bad for us (whilst in a cafe down the street which sells great homemade soup) I started thinking about just that.

I came from an open plan office, which while it had massive drawbacks (like not being able to work because of the noise of others), did have social advantages. Here I have my own office, which is nice but means I don't meet any colleagues. I used to work in a place where we were treated like second class citizens to our funders next door and we were all united in our fight against them despite the fact we were all working for different organisations (I worked for the council, then some people worked for a variety of voluntary organisations). Here I'm not even sure if I have any colleagues. I am a sub-business unit of my own, with no other workers in it with me.

My boss is a business unit manager which makes him a BUM for short - I cried laughing when he emailed me about that, which is what having your own office is good for, I suppose. Sadly I am a sub-BUM. Maybe that makes me an upper thigh. I'm hoping I'm an athletic one (like Linford Christie's) rather than an orangey peel one.

Whats Happy?

Blue Witch started something. She asked us what makes us angry. We all wrote our answers into her comments box. Some of the responses I thought would indeed make me angry, others merely irritated. Then she asked us what makes us happy.

Anger I can easily identify with its tight throat, seering heat and flashes. Its a very physical emotion. It feels primative - a thing we needed as part of our survival skills toolkit (blurgh educational lingo) when we were stoneage. Stubbing your toe, looking for something you can't find when you need to leave the house, loosing a long piece of writing because the computer crashes, frustrations at stupidity and other's lack of understanding, injustice both personally and at large, my own failures and stupidity. Easy things to identify with a set of physical responses.

Happiness on the other hand is sort of intangible. Is it supposed to be an overarching feeling that is with you all the time, only interrupted by other emotions from time to time, or is it something that touches you once in a while?

There are little things that make me happy frequently every day (first blossom of spring, growing things, good times, funny people, flirting, success, the sky etc etc) but I'm not sure my blank state of mind is happy. There was a time when I was a kid when I thought my blank state of mind and my natural face (unaltered by any emotion) had a mouth with upturned corners. I can't remember exactly when but a long time ago I realised that it wasn't like that anymore. But I don't feel unhappy. I'm not depressed (I know this because there was a time after my mother died when I certainly was as miserable as I have ever been, almost all the time). I have drive and optimism and enthusiasm to keep going on. Am I happy? People often tell me they just want to be happy. But if we can't pinpoint what being happy means how will we know when we are? Or maybe we have to build into our day enough of those moments of happiness that we feel happy overall.

Old Couple

An elderly couple approach the bus stop, a girl moves her bags so they can sit down.
"Na, don't worry yourself dear," says the bloke, "we're optimistic."
"9 times outta 10 we come out and see one going off daan the road. The other day we missed one and another one was coming along behind and we nearly missed it anawl," says his misses.
"There's a chill wind today. What we need is a brazier full o' timber."
A few minutes later another old bloke walks past, "Good day to you, Jim"
"Good day to you, sir," says our bloke, "ow's your good lady wife?"
"She's not at all bad, Jim, thanks for asking. And yourself?"
"I'm well, thank you."

An elderly couple on the way to somewhere. She's tall and thin, wearing a brown fake fur coat. Her blue-tinted hair stark against the grey sky. Red lipstick from a bygone era. Very wartime, or maybe 50s. One slight lipstick smear on her front teeth. He's also tall and thin in what seems to be a far-too-lightweight jacket for the weather. His creamy hair slicked back in quiff like affair. A jolly pair, caring, and talkative after all those years.

Launch

A name-change launch party of an organisation we fund took me to the Abbey Community Centre just behind Westminster Abbey. While I was there I bumped into an ex-colleague from Lewisham College Learning Centre days who is now a basic skills tutor for name-change organisation. He has a lot less hair but otherwise is just the same - hippy (in the off-to-Goa-vein), looking like a graduate even though its been easily 5 years. We chatted about the good old days as all ex-Lewisham colleagues seem to do.

On my bus journey home past the gothic spires and gargoyles of parliament and the faintly lit millennium wheel, along the deserted streets of Whitehall up to the grandeur of Trafalgar Square with its gigantic phallic monument to the diminutive Nelson flanked by lions and wind-blown night-lit fountains I wondered what it was about Lewisham that brings out such nostalgia.

Never again will I work in a place where there are so many people of a similar age, with a similar mindset and a common front united against a perceived enemy.

Perhaps thats it. Or perhaps it was the type of people that the job attracted at that particular time - a certain caliber, a certain work-ethic, a certain work-play balance. Or maybe it was our lack of husbands, wives and children.

And despite the fact that we hated it at the time (and spent most of our time in pursuit of change, challenging authority, complaining and plotting our escapes) everyone I subsequently meet thinks back fondly to the friday night benders, camaraderie lunches and great nurturing of talent and skills that occurred there. At least for those of us who have now executed an escape. I have more friends from there than anywhere else, including college and school. And they have all moved onto jobs which are worthy and important with small i's - teaching, regeneration, local government, community & voluntary. Good work. Still I find some of the best of times can be had with these people where going out is a non-planned spontaneous affair of wanton abandon.

The change for me? Happened when I moved into management. Nobody likes a manager. No rephrase that, nobody trusts a manager - because you are naturally on different sides, so to speak. Never again will I be one of the gang, in the know or first on the invite list. Maybe they were just the no-responsibility days, and like childhood they are there to be remembered.

Fashion Faux Pas

She was gorgeous. She wore purple stiletto boots to the supermarket and although strutting home with supermarket bags dangling from either arm wasn't exactly the image she was looking for, this was Tuesday night and there wasn't any food in the house. Walking along behind her I noticed the way she placed each foot slightly across the path of the other, sort of like Sarah Jessica in those impossibly high heels she was wearing at the end of SITC. The result of this style of walk is a sort of boom badoom badoom swing of hips from side to side (entrancing, even for a girl - it makes me laugh really). And then as I continued to watch I noticed at the upturn of every foot a flash of white label on the instep. And then all I could see was the flash flash flash of the labels. Really, it doesn't take two minutes to peel those muthers off. It makes expensive shoes look cheap. Now come on, get it together.

Techniques for Tights-Wearers with Hairy Legs

Explained to me by my good sister in Dundee (where its so cold you really need the extra layer of insulation the hairs give you).

1. You must choose your tights with care - they need to be opaque (as opposed to sheer) and of a high enough denier (thickness of the fabric) for the hairs not to show through. You really don't want the Mrs Brown (old deputy head of my secondary school) look of long trapped hairs in 10 denier tights, nosiree. I would say you are looking for 40 denier or greater.


2. The aim of the technique is to get the tights on without pulling the hairs (mostly affects the calf area) backwards which will promote a sort of trapped feeling and encourage the hairs to poke through the fabric (so I'm told). As you can imagine this will not be achieved by taking the body section and pulling the leg sections over the foot and up your leg (incidentally this is a surefire way to promote ladders with your toenails).


3. So, to the technique itself - you will put one leg on first and other after. Choose your leading leg. Take hold of the tights, gather the appropriate leg into both your hands with your thumbs inside and the fabric held in your hands until you have a clear view of the toe.


4. Place the toe over your foot and allow the fabric to flow out of your hands onto your foot. (But don't go further than the heel).


5. At this point, you need to change the hold position of the tights. (Don't ask me exactly how this is going to be achieved, practice with trial and error, is my advice). You need to get your hands into the tights so that the fabric is bunched up on the outside of your hands with your hands on either side of your legs. You will then stretch your hands away from your legs and draw the tights up to your knees, feeding the fabric onto the leg from a position held away from the leg. (Are you following me? No? Didn't think so).


6. So you end up having brought the tight onto the leg over the hairs without disturbing their natural downward lay.


7. (And this bit will be obvious to regular tights wearers). Once one leg is on to the knee, do the other leg (since you won't alf struggle getting the second leg in if you draw them all the way up to the top).

Personally, I pefer a shaved leg - much less of this hassle.

I had a Dream

I was getting married. Sometimes it was a quick wedding with only a couple of witnesses, and sometimes it was a big church wedding. I wore a pale grey dress. He wore a black suit.

The vicar was someone we knew. It was touching and a little embarrassing. The ring was a thin band of etched silver.

I didn't want to go straight to the reception so we were getting prepared in the kitchen. It was our family kitchen (but not like our actual family kithcen, if you know what I mean). My now husband took off his jacket and padded around without his shoes talking to his best man. Once I walked past him and slapped him on the arse in a familiar manner. They decided to go off to the reception, like they were deciding to go to the pub. I still wasn't ready and stayed behind talking to my parents (they were both alive).

When the boys had left I discovered that the ring was on my right hand. Swapping it I noticed that it didn't fit onto my left ring finger. As I tried it the ring snapped.

Then I worried. I fretted because the ring had broken. I worried because I didn't want to go to the reception. Then I thought about my husband sitting on the top table with all the guests and family around, listening to the speeches, but without a bride.

Waiting

Drinking coffee in a window seat watching the rush hour outside. People walking. In the dark. On the reflective street. Red light across tarmac. People listening to music, phoning, watching me back, chewing gum. A reflection of inside is superimposed on outside through the plate glass. I'm staring. Brain ticking over. Exhuasted. Listening to quiet jazz. Feeling like a broad in a Tom Waits record.

Peckham Snippet

Two middle aged men in puffy jackets come out of Nettos on Rye Lane.
"Chris he dead, he was kilt."
"No, no, Chris is dead, but no one didn't kill him."

And then they were gone. Past the newsagents and along towards the meat and fish shops.

Morning

Winter sun dappled through silver birch branches warms my eyelids and flickers gold and blue inside as the train trundles through Peckham.

Most Popular Images

Keeping a keen eye on the stats, as I'm trying not to do, I notice that there are three very popular images in the archives of In the Aquarium. The name of one of them is thongs - which goes some way to explaining why its so popular (shouldn't think once found that it really meets the requirements of most who are doing searching) but the other 2 is anyone's guess.

Christmas Tree

First thing this morning I came out of the house and turned up the street for the station as usual and noticed that a red bmw was wearing a christmas tree on its roof, kindly left there by a passing drunk no doubt. I wondered if it had scratched the paint work, but not enough to go over and look.

Later in the day a friend I used to work with suggested I cast my eye at page 17 of today's sun newspaper (quite a trial since its not something I ever come in contact with but hey, they have a website and I looked it up). It appears that the principal of the college I used to work for has banned the sun newspaper from the grounds, no student or staff member is allowed to read it. Big brotherly molly coddling of the highest order but she has principles does Ruthie. We have a co-worker who will now have to wrap his contraband newspaper in, perhaps, the front pages of a G2 in order to smuggle it into work with him. So not only will he have to lurk in outside-corners to smoke but also to read his choice of newsprint. It is a rag, however, so perhaps he should read the free Metro instead and save himself 20p (won't get the bare bossoms though).

And finally, rounded up the evening getting dinner in the Salisbury, our local which was bad but recently turned good. Served by a Gordon Ramsey-esque grumpy chef who shouted at the barlady for asking (on my behalf) if the Pasta of the Day (informative description of a dish) was vegetarian or not. While we were there he cooked 4 dinners (2 of which were ours). Getting way above his station methinks.

Coming back up the hill to home I happened to notice the christmas tree had been ditched and tossed between two cars and a lamppost on the other side of the road to the red bmw.

Monday's Life Class




Its been a long time - but I went back despite being absolutely knackered. Drawing a model we've drawn quite a few times but who has good shapes when posing. Started putting broad strokes of ink on the paper and then drawing in pen over the top leading to ink bleeding through itself where it was still wet. Quite liked this effect. Very much like drawing 30 second drawings with a thick sponge as well.

Candid Arts Trust: open access sessions and more formal taught courses in both life drawing and painting. Behind Angel tube, Islington - first left down City Road. Contact: The Candid Arts Trust, 3 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ, Tel: 020 7837 4237.

Magicians

SO the bus driver was being a jobsworth and not opening the doors until he was right outside the bus stop, despite the fact it was spattering rain and all the potential passengers had walked the 10 metres up to the bus while it was stuck in traffic. While we tutted at the bus stop a spanish man came back and wondered out loud to Bails, "why are the driver's here so like this? They have no hearts".

Once we were inside the bus he continued to talk to Bails and then bent over to pluck the biggest coin off the floor, and then from behind her ear. Then he dug three balls out of his pocket and kept us guessing which hand they were all in with his slight of hand tricks. And finally wowing us with his scarf disappearing tricks. Bails thought he was nice. And when we got off at Selfridges and went downstairs to have a coffee she told me how he did the scarf trick (her brother is a magician) - with a secret thumb covering pocket thing to stuff it into, with clever slight of hand and tricks of distraction those of us not-in-the-know won't notice. Anyway, shortly after she explained all this Derren Brown walked by. Magic (apart from the fact I find him exceedingly creepy). Spooky.

Pisshead

So we'd drunk long cocktails in a Mexican bar in Charlotte Street. I had a pear and elderflower martini. Bails and Heather each had a Rosemary's Baby which came with rosemary sprigs in them, Bails got a couple of needles, Heather got a whole sprig plus a bit of twig. Personally I think theirs would have benefited from having a morello cherry in the bottom to gradually waft a red trail into the drink - just for the whole macabre scene to be set appropriately.

Emerging from the downstairs bar a little tipsy in the cool night air I nearly walked into the gate (failing to look in the direction I was walking) and Heather standing at the top of the steps was rammed by a man falling out the door of the restuarant. Much discussion was had, as we stumbled work-bag laiden along the street, about where we should eat. Too much italian, looking for something a little more challenging, staring at a restuarant whose sign read thai METRO Bails asked, "what kind of food do they do?" That'll be THAI then. We plumped for Japanese noodles.

Gales

Well we're not really having any but the low cloud is racing, big bits of ash (or it could be torn up plastic) fly past the window and in the background the sound of a tarpaulin being thrashed against its scaffold.

The Man With Rockers Hair

Got on at South Bermondsey and caught a glimpse of himself in the window (mirrored by the black sky outside). He thought it was looking a little flat at the back where he maybe slept on it. So he sits down and fiddles with it a bit to help puff it up. To me it just looks like thats the way it grows - all long ringlets growing forwards overwhelming his face which is a tiny triangle beneath huge black curly long hair.

First Day Back

Getting to work today was painful. With lead in my legs and cloud in my head I peeled myself off the bed, dragged myself up to the train station and through the interchanges. All around me the others made it feel like I was on my way home after a big night out on the town catching the first tube home - people were dishevelled, staring, sleeping, slack mouthed and tired. We're all a bunch of zombies.

New Year. Happy. At 8.00am today most definitely NOT.

The Ol' Christmas Giveaway is Now a January Sale

A couple of people have come in with 'late' requests - just in case there are any others wishing they'd been quick - you still have time!! You want a gmail account? I can make your wish come true! (Honestly - trying the hard sell now. Still got 12).

Drop me a line at [harrietsblogg at gmail dot com] and one can be yours!

UPDATE: 6 down, 10 to go.

Things I'd Forgotten About Driving (and some things I never knew)

Some time ago (and I can't remember exactly), its likely to have been around 1999/2000 I was in a car accident with my dad's little automatic Renault 5 (black shiny paintwork - very beautiful little car that I liked to keep clean with those jet wash things - it wasn't fast but it went from A to B). I was coming home from dropping off the boyfiend at about 1.00am driving along Stapleton Hall Road past Victoria Road when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that a car coming along Victoria Road wasn't going to stop at the junction and sure enough he slammed into the back right-hand side of my car forcing me over a metal bollard into the brick wall of a house. Happily I was only superficially injured - whiplash, sore ankle and lower back injury which is mostly ok now if I remember to sit correctly. The car however, faired badly and was written off. When the boyfiend arrived at the scene of the crash it was all I could do to stop him knocking the block off the other bloke (good job the police got there first). Anyway, pops has never replaced the car and neither have I.

The only driving I do now is in rentals - mostly in foreign countries - France, America, South Africa or vans to help pals move house (don't know why but I'm about the only driver I know in a circle of friends in need - maybe I have a lot of fearful friends of nervous disposition, or something).

This Christmas hols Bails and I rented a car to go up north. At the car hire place on Christmas Eve after a 2 hour delay they persuaded me to get an upgrade (from a small car) to a Peugeot 307 Estate (don't know WHAT I was thinking - I've never driven a car that big - a van yes but not a car). Its a nice big car. Wide. Long. Hard to see the front end and the back end for parking. Comfortable though. Space - tonnes of the stuff. Pockets - full of them - lots of space for rubbish and cds. Powersteering (now theres a true revelation - can spin the wheel with one finger the steering is so light). Can go at great speed with great ease (staying within the speed limit was really quite a task of will). My fears with such a big car included parking the damn thing, getting through narrow gaps, having to turn around. All of which were much less of a problem than I imagined thanks to the powersteering.

So from our journey up and down the country I remembered some things that happen on the road that I'd forgotten about:

• Speed limits. Ever heard of them? No? Neither have the majority of people on the motorway, making it seem safer to go with them than against them. However some people drive considerably faster than the speed limit - especially those in Audi's, Mercedes and Volkswagen polos or golfs, and anyone in a sports car, particularly the mid-life crisis middle aged man (sorry about the type casting). Best to let them get on with it.


• Some men hate to be overtaken (cat and mouse games ensue).


• Its horrible to be stuck behind something that you can't see round - having to trust the driver ahead to be signalling appropriately. And there are an awful lot more things that you can't see round - not just lorries and coaches but four wheel drives, jeeps and those cars with stupid high roofs with tall windows.


• People have forgotten how to use indicators (if they ever knew).


• And the joy that is remembering those people who believe that driving up your arse with their lights shining in your mirror is the best way to tell you to get out of their way.


• Fast lane hogs who have to cut across all the traffic to make an exit. Plan ahead springs to mind.


• Stopping distance. Did you swot up on that bit of the highway code? Or bank on the likelihood of being asked that question as minimal (oh the good old days of that part of the test being a couple of questions from the examiner at the end). All I have to say is we saw a couple of multi-car crashes, although not terrible ones.


• Lane weaving boy - zig zagging across the road and back again in an attempt to get ahead.


• The tres considerate habit of cutting back into your lane too soon after overtaking particularly in snowy or wet conditions spraying your windshield with lots of road residue.


• Fifth gear - having been thoroughly back-seat driven by my sister I embraced 5th gear properly (having only ever had a car with 4 gears before, and living in the city, therefore not needing a 5th, and only being taught on a car with 4 gears etc etc I rest my case). You live and learn (though the merciless ribbing was not necessary, really, never one to miss an opportunity my sister).


• Never, NEVER, overtake a gritting lorry. Even when he's in the hard shoulder and you're in the fast lane two lanes away (hopefully they won't notice the dink in the windshield made by that very big piece of grit that flew across the road and hit us (now I'm sure that there ought to be a machine that measures the size of grit and extracts the STONES, but maybe thats a future technology).


• Watch out for walls when reversing under pressure. Full carload, new years eve, dark. What can I say? Guilty - the bumper scrape they will notice but hopefully that will distract them from the windshield.

Boy its good to be home. Back to public transport. Much less of a responsibility.

New Year

We were in Edinburgh for Hogmonay, standing in the street wishing they were better organised having wandered around for what seemed hours amidst loads of people intent on getting smashed on cheap cider or beer.

We watched some breakdancers on a stage for a while. After them was a performance by the nuttiest dance troupe I think I have every seen - several women in a variety of tarten getups (couple of kilts, couple of other skirts), dancing in a folky/scottish dancing kind of way but a bit avant garde to say the least - lots of big pants showing, in a variety of colours - blue, black and red. A bit of rolling around simulating sex. Weird music. Never really seen anything like it.

And then we saw some fireworks. Beautiful and brief. Which I think is the best way these days - a big bang with lots of colour.




And we concluded that we are being rather bar-humbug about the new year thing and shall stay in next year (not keen on the pissheads, it turns out).

So, happy new year to you all, I hope its better than last year.

Earthquake Tsunami

One of the blogs I read regularly is written by Fred who is in Jaffna in Sri Lanka. He is blogging about whats happening around him at the moment. Visit him here:

this way please

I can't quite get a handle on this awful occurance. I visited Thailand about 2 years ago, many of the islands I was on are probably flattened. They were only reachable by boat, there weren't many escape routes inland, if there was anywhere to escape to. The TV doesn't begin to aid my understanding. I wonder how many of the people who I met when I was there - the hotel owners, workers, guides, fishermen, restuaranteurs - are still alive.

Dundee

Went for a walk at my favourite place near Dundee - Kinshaldy Beach in the Tentsmere forest. Love this place.




Love the forest, love the sand and the dunes, love the sea and the light. Its not hot, but its very dramatic and empty. Sweeps the cobwebs out of your hair and reminds you of why its good to be alive.

Bogies

And just in case you haven't heard about this part of Dick and Dom inda Bungalow (Sat morning kids TV) I just thought I throw it into the pot that I find it eye wateringly hilarious. Bails got me into it. The first one I saw was an Old Fogey Bogey - where two elderly ladies accompanied by Dick and Dom were taken into an art gallery in order to compete. They had to shout bogies in turn louder and louder - the loudest to shout was the winner. Its stupid but really really funny. Mixture of their embarrassment, and bewilderment from people around them. Apparently Dick and Dom themselves have done this in theatres and lectures. And they've done it with parents in the library. I'm hoping at some point they'll bring out a video of bogies clips. 10/10.30ish Saturday mornings.

Sad I know.

100 best TV moments - no. 76
Guardian review

Lake District





Bails and I stopped off in the Lake District on the way to Dundee. Staying in Kendal on the first evening we arrived at 6.00 and after resting for a while went out to find something to eat (since the hotel restaurant shut at 8.30 - really not used to these provincial eating times). Most restaurants were closed however - it seems that we were just out of sync with the local dining times. Finally we found an italian where nice waiters took pity on us and let us have their last table of the night. It was pouring with rain, we were drowned. They persuaded us to have a bottle of wine, a starter, and salad with our mains, and to round it off with cappuccinos. It wasn't until we had finished and the bill came that they told us that the card machine wasn't working because all the telephones in Kendal were out of order. Bails was sent off to the cashpoint. I stayed with the waiters and joked about being good at washing up. Some time later Bails came back empty handed - none of the cashpoints were working either. We scraped together £22 in change and they kindly let us off the remaining £7. Which was nice. Didn't really fancy washing up.

Following day we strolled around Kendal, and then visited Grasmere. A place where hardened walkers go on 'hikes' across the hills. We visited Wordsworth's Grave (by chance) and his garden - which Bails said in spring is full of daffodils. Put us in mind of his poem:

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

The whole time I was filled with images from books by the bronte sisters and costume dramas by the BBC with lovelorn victorian ladies and stiff upper-lipped farming gentlemen. Beautiful in a very British way - dry stone walls, moss, ferns, rain, grey stone houses, rivers and lakes.

We stopped in a cafe in Grasmere for some late lunch. It was full of serious walkers in boots and waterproof trousers with their packs all over the place. All teal fleece, jackets in go-faster designs with accents of contrasting colours and double ended zips. High performance fabrics, glasses that anti-glare. Drinking tea out of stainless steel teapots and reading the paper. Men with a few days beard growth and productless hair. Women with ruddy faces. I felt very much city dressed and out of place. Like the silly city cousins visiting the countryside retreat and having tea with their poor country cousins.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

The telly is crap again, two guests are here already - G is watching a video of the Big Labowski (like the film) and Bails is doing the vaccuuming (its 12.15!) because she's feeling manic so I expect it to be a good job. Its a weird one, Christmas, the mania, the shopping... I think I was at odds with everyone today - my only chore was to pick up the hire car, any time I came anywhere near a shop it was like everyone was in desperate need of a valium. The car place was in some kind of disarray and the waiting time was 2 hours late for the pick ups. I chatted with a chinese family who had come by train from Paris on route to Glasgow who were now over 2 hours late setting off. Its quiet outside now.

Have yourselves a good one! I'll be cooking turkey that I won't eat!

Christmas Shopping

She sits with a coffee. She has a hard paper carrier bag from an expensive jewellers on her knee. From inside she draws out a blue card box and opens it, carefully lifting the inner card cover and gently shaking the contents inside - most likely a necklace or chain of some sort - to make it hang down in the box. A formation of diamond lights land on her face and dance around as she looks down at the contents. She smiles, and closes the box back up.

The Peckham Rye Mouse

A tiny grey mouse darting about between the tracks and the sleepers picking up crumbs and investigating litter. Hiding in the cracks between the loose bricks where the grouting has fallen out.

I like this mouse. I've seen him before. He's very active, fast and really rather cute. I thought he was the only one. A solitary mouse, out in the big wide open space. A refugee from the depths of the tunnels. He does, after all, seem to be exactly like the tube mice - those unlucky souls who never see the light of day, live on old chewing gum and excite the observant passengers standing slightly too close to the yellow line.

As I watched him today, waiting for the imminant arrival of the London Bridge bound train, he suddenly scampered across the tracks followed by a gang of friends. Maybe 10 of them, darting from a variety of directions to many different destination holes. So as it turns out, he's not a solitary mouse.

Netto's

Outside my office window is a one way street. Southwark is fond of a strange traffic calming system that makes a one way system where there isn't really a prevailing direction - you come off the high road to the first corner and have to turn right, cars coming towards you from across the junction also have to turn left and you can't go straight, go down and then have to turn right again, then right again, then you have a longer stretch of road which crosses the one you turned off originally, and then you have to turn left. Confused? Me too. Have no idea how you get back to the high street if you turn off it and want to get back there. No idea at all.

Anyway. If you turn off the high road and then do a right (because you have to) you get stuck in a file of traffic trying to turn left into the Netto carpark. All these cars drive up to the queue all over the road, don't keep to the left, therefore you have to join the queue even if you aren't trying to get into Nettos. Some of those queueing are just trying to get along the one way system.

Well, its christmas. Everyone is shopping like they are going to holed up for a 10 week stretch. The carpark in Nettos is extremely busy. There is a queue that goes all the way back to the high street. People are sitting in their cars leaning on their horns (like its going to make the shoppers get out of Nettos quicker and get out of the car park). Its the prevailing sound of the week - irritated horn blowing in unison, for extended periods.

Incidentally Nettos smells like chlorine, which puts me off buying anything there incase it tastes like chlorine too. And its next door to a United Kingdom Church of God place.

Christmas Give-Away

You're all so lucky! Well actually they've been around for a considerable time now but my allocation of freebies keeps getting extended, so if there is ANYBODY out there who is yet to get one and wants one, please email me at harrietsblogg at gmail dot com.

I have 16, yes thats right 16 free gmail invitations to give away!. First 16 to email me get 'em (I need an email address in order to send the invite to you). (Presuming of course that there are 16 people out there without one).

Advantages: big space, searchable messages, not too much spam. Possible weird things: conversations are saved together rather than in IN and OUT boxes - easy to find messages and replies relating to one another on one hand, different from normal therefore odd on the other hand.

UPDATE (as of 3/1/2005): still got 12, so if you really really want one, you can still have one! Drop me a line!

All Bar One, New Oxford Street, The Beer Goggles

The girl with huge knockers and long dangling silver earrings is holding court for 3 men in suits. Its those boozy after work evenings coming up to christmas when alcohol oils the conversation. She's being very animated on the subject of sex. They are hanging on her every word. Perhaps they all feel that they could be lucky if they laugh loudly enough at her jokes and make sure she knows they find her wit and repartee dazzling. She's trying to explain to Mark that he's still single because of his inability to remain faithful.

Weird Things to Carry in a Bag Today

1. A little dog - on 73 from Kings Cross to Oxford Street - in a smallish bag worn under the arm.
2. a mini christmas tree - on 19 from Angel to Highbury corner - in a rucksack with the zipper open

The Door Wars

Having rediscovered the Spitz the other night we met a couple of ex-work colleagues (from different works) there for an apres work drink. Its the Christmas Party season and the inside was set up for some mammoth dinners, so we sat outside. In 0 degrees. Fortunately there were gas heaters. And lots of alcohol. It did become necessary to wrap up warm and wear gloves. Fridays appear to be jazz night (remember it has to be with a long jjjjjjjj soft aaaa and long zzzzzzzzz). The band was banished to the doorway between the terrace and the warm inside. They started playing around 9.30, starting with a guitar, drummer and bass player. Later joined by a sax, later still by a trumpet and finally rounding up with the addition of a trombone.

The door was wide. It didn't have a closing arm on it. A seperate part of the restuarant was being hired out by a massive party. They were getting really pissed. They had to use the toilet through the main part of the restaurant. Someone would come along, open the door, come through, leave it ajar and go to the loo. The door would gradually work its way wide open. The band, (most annoyed at first was the drummer), would huff in the middle of their piece and one of them would get up and shut the door. On returning a drunken someone would make it back to the door, fling it open and stagger through it, forgetting to shut it at all. Band member gets up, display of total irritation and slam it shut again. This went on for over an hour.

For some reason when the door was slammed shut, whoever was doing so would shoot us a look like daggers, like it was anything to do with us. We started to find this rather funny. This didn't endear us to the band. The people got more and more pissed. The band got more and more pissed off. We spent more and more time pissing ourselves laughing.

Austin went to the toilet and, having discussed with us earlier, left the door ajar. The guitarist said, "DOOR!" sharply after him but he ignored it. On his return from the toilet the guitarist shouted at him, "SHUT THE DOOR BEHIND YOU" so loudly Austin heard it when he was six feet away. He felt he had to close it properly. Well you would really, wouldn't you?

Sleep Commute Work

So I've entered this life of sleep commute work commute sleep commute work etc etc. Only I've been much better at breaking the after work commute with a bit of play. Then the work started to become frustrating and stifling (after just 6 weeks).

Something about them not knowing me and how I work, and what I'm capable of against me not knowing how to work them (long time local authority servants, retirement closing in). Sometimes it difficult to be a new girl.

Then my frustrations were such that I started gathering a list of issues to take to my boss. All valid. All much talked about to other people. (You become that kind of person with one topic of conversation - the BIG winge. Like when someone is planning to break up with their boyfriend - you have to gather as much evidence about it being the right thing to do as possible. Only people weren't helping, they were just adding fuel to the confusion.)

Then a job came up at my old work place. A good job. So I applied. And got called for an interview.

Between finding out about the interview and having the interview I had the meeting with my boss. There came no clarity from this meeting. But I stood on the side of London Road, looking at the row of old houses and thinking about the new neighbourhood I work in, the new organisations, the possibilities, the places I see, the distance I travel.

Next day at the interview I felt like it went ok but that I was a babbling stream of consciousness rather than cool and level headed. Sort of came out hoping the decision would be made for me. It wasn't. They offered me the job with a deadline of 12 noon the following day for an answer.

I hummed. I haa'd. Swang this way then that. Boyfiend and I went to the movies to take my mind off it. Slept on it this way. Turned over, slept on it that way.

Woke up. Definitely going to turn it down. 5 minutes later, no should definitely take it. Concerned at how the new organisation would feel with me going so soon. Huge feeling of guilt, leaving them in the lurch (important upcoming deadlines). Moving would lead to a more positive and sorted environment. Staying would give me the opportunity to see how to make change happen in difficult circumstances. Moving would mean I would have an uncomfortable notice period to work out. Staying would mean I'd have to deal with an unclear vision and defining a new role. Moving would mean going back to dealing with all the people I knew, loved and found difficult in a better-the-devil-you-know kind of way. Staying would mean... Moving would mean... I felt sick. Sicker and sicker as the day went on. 12 past. 12.30 past. Text from my old boss curious about a decision. 1 past. 1.30. I called. I was going to move. The voice said hello, I said I'm staying then I hummed and haa'd. But the minute I made the decision the sickness subsided.

Sometimes a decision is all encompassing. You see good and bad in both sides. Nothing makes it easy to figure out. There are no right answers. Gut instinct isn't working. Sometimes its better not to put yourself in that position in the first place. I'm exhausted but I don't feel sick. Which is good.

In the Bleak Mid-Winter

The grey stays all day, cold, misty air, visible breath whisps away over your shoulder as you walk along the street, nose chilled red and drippy. Fingers go white with loss of feeling having been wrapped round the work bag handles all day. The only joy is of christmas lights in the high streets after dark, as I snuggle into my coat and scarf on the final bus journey home.

Office Christmas Party

The old work one. You know its time to go home when you've partaken of white wine and several tia maria's & coke (my favourite, most sickly, girlfest of a drink - much piss is taken out of me for it but I like it and once, a long time ago, a man asked me what I was drinking and when I told him he said, "Oh I thought you would be drinking something exotic like tia maria", which started me on a phase that I am yet to grow out of) and find yourself in the Medicine Bar on Upper Street and your old boss and bails are so pissed they are losing the ability to stand up and hold their heads up respectively. Being told by some stranger that he can tell you are sober by the fact you can look him in the eye and if it would be any help, or encourage you to stay, he could offer both the girls a line. Gathering coats (bails trying to put hers on upside down and being in that kind of state where you can't figure out whats not quite right) and bundling everyone into a very understanding black cab with quite some relief. Its lovely to get into a cab at the end of the evening sometimes.

Morning Man

Why would you wear a black suit with brown shoes? And a fat knotted black tie (a la footballers)? And a white shirt? And do up the top button (of three) only therefore pulling the jacket taught across the chest? And carry a fake louis vuitton weekend overnight bag? And wear your clothes like you had bullet proof vest underneath?

Unless perhaps you were a copper going undercover. Or a MI5 agent like on Spooks. Or doing some personal body guarding. Or being a funeral director and finding your black shoes too uncomfortable to wear on the way to work, therefore carrying them in your bag.

Oh, so much hypothesis, so few answers.

Road Trip

Bails and I are going on another great adventure. We've hired the car already. Its going to be fab. There will be singing along to old family faves (mine include a strange mix of Ray Charles, Dolly Parton and Boney M, it was only recently that we discovered that hers are very similar but are likely also to include Queen).

We've done this before - for some reason we like to do the driving thing, disadvantage is that I'm the only one who can drive.

Most recently we went to France and stayed in a cottage up some single track road 100 miles south of Toulouse. Great countryside. On the way I got a terrible phonecall from the Boyfiend who had just found out his sister had died and in the mind scramble that followed I managed to clip the wing mirrors of all the cars parked on the main street in a town we were going through. Quite some going I thought.

Later in the trip we were on a roundabout when I recognised some people who shared the same morning train as me, not knowing their names I shouted, "Haringey Folks!" loudly out the window but we didn't have time to see if they noticed. Incidentally, on my return to the commute I kept wanting to say to them (they were a young couple - he had red curly hair and she was waif-like, could've been French) how did they enjoy the south of France, but never got up the courage. Finally, I decided that they must have split up because he started only coming to the station alone, had a major overhaul and shaved his hair off.

We set the scene however in South Africa. Bails was living with a boyfriend out there and I went to visit - we hired a car to drive down to Addo Elephant Park from Cape Town. Great driving - empty roads, beautiful scenery, fantastic hostel type places. When we reached Addo we kept pulling up to view the elephants, at the watering hole, tonnes together in a group, running etc, for some reason (as is common with a hire car) I couldn't get used to the fact the horn was one of those central plates on the steering wheel and I kept leaning on it and tooting the horn - kept getting the worst looks from everyone else around us. I was mortified. Bails on the other hand, couldn't stop laughing. And I did it more than once. Then it started to rain, and the tracks turned to mud. A nice man from up front in a four wheel drive got out and told me how to drive in such conditions - don't ever hit the brake and go very very slowly. So we inched around the park. I was concentrating so hard by the time we pulled into the carpark I forgot to brake and drove into the wall. Bails practically pee'd her pants.

On our way from there to Port Elizabeth we got caught for speeding through a village. Quite unintentionally. There were some strapping police officers with a speed gun. I held my hands up, and offered to pay, without question. I think the combination of my accent and my willingness to cough up led to them letting me off with a (not terribly) stern caution ("don't let me catch you doing it again") type thing. Nobody could believe it when we got back (300 dollar fine apparently).

So, hopefully none of that this time. But we are looking forward to it.

Shoreditch Fridays

Bails was tired but met for a quick drink after work. When we met she suggested the Spitz. Haven't been there in an age. We ate. And drank a bottle of wine. After sitting there for an age trying to finish the slightly acidy wine a live band started up. Jazz. A trio of guitar, sax and drums. The drummer was stroking his drums with those metal basting-style sticks and looking out the window at passing beauties (as opposed to paying attention to the job at hand). Eventually a double bass player arrived and joined in. We left before the slow melodic jazz (has to be said in that breathy voice, hard J, round a and long zzz) got the better of us.

Once out in the street we decided on going and getting one for the road. Fatal last words. Nipping round the corner through the back end of the Truman Brewery we nipped into the Big Chill, partner of the Cantaloupe. Where we stood round watching the young people cop off.

A Mick Hutchenson-alike with snake hips and a white cotton sweater kept dancing up close behind his girlfriend while breathing into her hair. He wore his hair carefully in order to hide his receeding hairline.

In a space that was suddenly created by an exodus a man came to dance, on his own, in his own world, doing his own thing. He danced the dance of a man who had spent many summers raving in fields, and this was obviously one of his favourite tracks. He had arm movements, foot moves, full body action, motion from side to side, diagonally and up and down. When it was over, he vapourised, as if into thin air. Two public school graduates and their girlfriends watched, not really sure if in disbelief or awe.

And finally, at midnight we caught a taxi home.

3 Men and a Funeral

The men are somewhere between 30 and 40, jovial, coming from work, two white, one asian.
"So it was Tuesday?"
"What did they do, burn him?"
One guffaws, "Cremate him, you mean!"
"yeah, isn't that what they do to christians?"
"Well... I'm going to be buried, but we're catholic."
"I'm not catholic but I'm going to be buried as well. Got me plot sorted already. Its a family one, first there's me great uncle, then there'll be me dad, and then me... Unless of course I die before me dad, then we'll be the other way up..."

Domestic

Theres a woman with a ring of bruise around her bloodshot eye. A look of pain shot down the carriage and she cluthces her book to her chest and disappears into her inner world. Unconsciously she raises her forefinger to the cut over her eye and traces the scab. At Highbury & Islington the sallow man standing close to her leans over and says quietly, "I'll see you later" and steps out of the train. She turns as he goes and the rings on her left hand (engagement and wedding) glint in the dim light.

Famous On the Side of the Road

Clive Anderson standing on the side of the Highbury Corner roundabout, after dark, chill of night air. Steps forward as a silver car approaches and stops to pick him up. Inside a woman with long wavy blond hair smiles. He is in navy blue, sort of slight on the bottom and wider on the top. Blending into the background. Instantly recognisable, but definitely not catching one's eye.

Huge golden aura
Gleams from behind a tower block
So long before its visible again
I start to think it was lighting
And then we turn to face it
Shining
Above the thick dark water of a canal
Slap slapping the banks
Reflected there, still, in the lapping
Large, misty, low in the autumn sky
The waning moon.
Fixated.
Dappled by tree branches
Framed by a crane
Dips behind the buildings.
I was once told by a four year old
That as long as you can see the moon
Its ok to be outside in the dark.
Its ok.

Sleeplessness at 3.00am

The moon is out, the night is full of white light. Black tree skeletons against light clouds. The quiet of the early hours. The hours when unusual waking causes reflection about things past, long gone, deep secret desires and fears. Wander naked through the thoughts until sounds from reality bring you back - wind chimes, car wheels on tarmac somewhere far away, the clock constantly ticking reminiscent of old aunties and over stuffed parlours. Cool skin in the chill night air.

What Brings You Here?

A myriad of searches end up here, not sure anybody ever finds what they are truely looking for but their curioristy is roused by the search engine at least enough for a click. The one thing that is annoying about blogs is that each month is a page all its own, so the searches often find a whole raft of writing and not the specific post. So, here are some of the stranger queries and where you might find an answer (unlikely to be THE answer, but an answer of sorts) - as a pointer, just in case any of these were you (and apologies to anyone who's read it all before).

• transvestite shop in Kings Cross
• flag waving flashing
• lifedrawing class larger penis
• frogmen at clissold park murder scene
• happening bagel bakery Finsbury Park
• office kitchen etiquette for cleaning the microwave
• hairstyles of Linda Barker
• 'sawn in half' 'office party'
• bus spotter
• bruises tits blue gallery
• Martin Jacques Tiger Lillies Interview
• exposed nipples
• pick a pocket or two
• Kiki Booba
• double-jointed fingers pictures
• eliasson what strange uncertainty
• Spanish fly whore
• bendy buses

Pressure Point

My arm against his chest.
Her back and bum against my chest and stomach.
My other arm sandwiched between their backs & bums.
My back against his stomach and bag.

Could almost get shiatsu standing there with so many other people pressed against your pressure points. Sadly the effort of standing prevents the necessary relaxation.

The Two Unrelated Deaths of Rachel Dean

I.

She read the notice. Please do not lean out of the window or open the door when the train is moving. She thought about it. Considered the yellow triangular warning symbol beside it with an exclamation mark.

Through the window, slightly misty with condensation, the street lights, car head & brake lights, traffic lights, blurred, all colours and twinkly against the pane, smudging across the droplets, blending together like coloured spots on a movie camera lens.

Inside the carriage the commuters slept. Two colleagues discussed issues about The Company. And a couple of teenage lovers play faught over phones and hats. The girl playing up in front of a couple of curb-chain wearing hardnut boys, one of whom eyed her knowingly from the corner of his eye, a feint smile spreading occassionally across his face.

The train passed over a street, then the sidings became brush and bare trees. With sudden movement she opened the door and before anyone could grab her flung herself from the train. A flurry of coat tails whisked past the train.

Necks whiplashed twisting to see what had happened. The door slammed shut as the brakes screamed on. The wind and commotion died down in an instant, as if nothing had happened and she had never been there at all. A split second, collectively dreamt by a dozy carriage. No one had seen her before the incident and all anybody recalled was a flap of cloth, which could have been anything, a plastic bag or old newspaper thrown up by the speed of the train. No one could be sure that it wasn't just a faulty catch on the door.

II.

In the shadow of St Pauls on Ludgate Hill is a serenading balcony over a scallop-shell doorway where Rachel liked to crouch and watch the world go by along the muddy road to and from the worship and the bridge. Her mother used to scold her lest anyone would see, afraid of what she would look like to passers by. The fishmongers and the butcher's wives and that girl that sold string. But Rachel was curious and wore it like those with itchy feet, nose pressed up against the glass, desperate for a world beyond.

One particular cold day she had slipped away from her reading and stood on the balcony with the breeze in her hair. Her mother, upon noticing her missing from her chair, shrieked her name in such a way that on hearing it Rachel started so vigorously she caught the railing edge and fell head first over it onto the ground below. Her fallen body startled a horse and it reared up and trampled her, fear in its eyes.

Doctors were called but there was little they could do. For a few hours her mother cradled her crumpled body in her arms, but she was dead already.

OOO Mrs

Get this...so she got lucky on Saturday night y'know. Yes, she did [raised eyebrows, plucked very thin]. I said, so is fanny out of practice? Yes, she said, it don't alf urt today [one raised eyebrow, downward smirky lip]. I bet you weren't even wearing your shaggin knickers. No, she said, but it didn't matter cos when I came to get back dressed I couldn't find em anywhere. I ad to come ome without any. Don't know where they got to. [double raised eyebrows, hyena cackles].

Life really is a carry-on movie.