Friday 27 August 2010
Middle Class Dilemmas No. 2
What do you do when, in an effort to be healthy, you've chosen a salad from M&S, which you then finds contains not only a staggering 510 calories, but even worse a cholesterol-busting 32 grams of fat? That's, the labelling informs me, 46% of my daily allowance, lard-wise. All it consisted of was about 5 small bits of feta cheese, a few lumps of unripe avocado, a few seeds, some cous cous and a bit of dressing. I decided the bulk of the calories were in the dressing, so was sparing with that, but really, I might as well have just had half a pizza. Or a curry. It's no wonder people think dieting is a waste of time.
Putting the 'rail' into BR
As with many things in life - cricket, rugby, enormous greasy breakfasts - trains are a thing that we invented and now everyone else, pretty much worldwide, does them better than us. I travelled round a bit of India a few years ago with a friend and we marvelled at their superlative trains. The first one we got on, in Delhi, left exactly on time, and was the most comfortable form of transport we'd ever been on. 'Why can't British trains be like this?' we asked ourselves.
We were later to discover that the fact this train originated in Delhi, rather than coming from elsewhere, was crucial to its punctuality. The next train we got on was an awesome six hours late. Which, naturally, they don't announce when you arrive at the station - they just tell you in 20-minute bursts that it's delayed. There's only so long you can spend watching monkeys scampering around on a train platform before you feel bone-shatteringly bored. And that's before you climb aboard for a ten-hour journey. Still, in general the trains were great; it announced on the outside of each carriage who was supposed to be travelling therein (this seemed hugely organised. Largely pointless, but organised). The bunks in the sleeper carriages were perfectly comfortable. And it all probably cost about a fiver, no matter how far you were going (we'd got a company to book all our trains and hotels for us, so we didn't have any stress at all; certainly not the kind where it takes you three hours of internet searching to find your 'ideal' hotel, because the two duff reviews out of 20 have convinced you that every place must, in fact, be a hellhole; or you've discovered that on exactly the day you want to be there, the rooms have mysteriously trebled in price.)
When you travel on BR, however, which I'm increasingly going to have to do, there is nothing that fails to piss you off. My latest return ticket cost a whopping £183.50. I probably could've had a long weekend in Prague for that! Needless to say, because I hadn't booked the exact date and time of the return portion, I wasn't guaranteed a seat. 'I'll see if I can book it over the phone', I thought, on the morning I was due to travel. I spoke, of course, to someone in India. He ran through all the details - type of ticket, what it'd cost, when I'd bought it, when I wanted to travel - and then said he couldn't book me a seat. I'd have to go down to the ticket office to do that. (He probably had a quick chuckle to himself as he thought of his own, superior, trains). WHY? The whole process is automated. On computers. A computer which has exactly the same information in Delhi as it does in Durham. So, I had to cab it down from the office to the station in order to guarantee having enough time to buy lunch AND travel 3/4 of a mile down the platform in order to secure an unsecured seat.
Then, you get on the train and whip out your laptop, because you are a busy executive. Well, that's what everyone's pretending to be, whilst watching DVDs and catching up on gossip blogs (ahem). I'd like to point out that it's summer hours, so I'm technically off work. Screw you, The Man! Anyway, I digress. Despite the fact that they've managed to sort out free wi-fi (which is a total miracle to a Luddite like me), they haven't managed to put a plug socket next to every seat, just some of them. Why? Why do they do this? It's not like they're Ryan Air and they can charge you extra for the plug socket (in the same way that you don't get a refund on part of your ticket if you never manage to get a seat). There's nothing (as far as I know) to indicate socket-free sections. There's just the joy of a double seat with a table, almost immediately tempered by the lack of a socket, and thus the worry that your laptop is suddenly going to die, right in the middle of that very important Powerpoint presentation that you were struggling with.
Then there are the 'refreshments'. If I've paid the better part of £200 to get to Edinburgh and back (which takes at least four and a half hours each way), then is it really too much to ask that I can actually get a filter coffee on board? For less than the price of my mortgage? I'm sure if you take out a second mortgage and upgrade to First Class, then you've probably got Mr Arabica himself grinding your beans, asking you exactly how frothy you want your milk and making little pictures of you in cocoa powder on top of it. But here in Cattle, even if you go to the refreshment area, rather than taking your chances with the trolley (and I, on this journey, am perched within spitting distance of this culinary oasis, which looked, to my naive eyes, to have an actual coffee machine), what you end up with is powdered coffee. Powdered coffee and that shit milk in tiny plastic containers, the opening of which is guaranteed to leave you with spurty milk everywhere (and which you always have to use two of. Why don't they double the size of the frigging things?) For this hateful beverage, I got charged £1.70. £1.70!
I wanted to throw the fucking thing back in the server's face. I know it's not her fault, but a small piece of her soul must surely die every time she enacts this transaction. 'Hi, I've added some water, which seems to be at the ambient temperature of the sun, to some granules. Yes, you have to add your own milk and take your chances it's not going to end up down your front. Yes, you'll also have to either balance the two irritating half-amounts-of-what-you-need,-milk-wise and a stirrer on the top of the coffee, or have an annoying bag. Which will be too much hassle to recycle, so you'll just throw it away, adding to the mountain of landfill. Can I have £1.70? [Please don't ask me why it's this much, I haven't had any training in dealing with Rail Rage.]'
Is it any wonder that, even though I love travelling on trains, the time difference is negligible (once you've got yourself to/through/from the airport) and there are all the eco-benefits of going by rail, the £35 Easyjet fare looks really, really appealing? Yeah, they charge you for baggage, but most of the time I'm only going to need a wheely suitcase. And yes, going through airports is a nightmare if you're both guilt-ridden and neurotic, what with stressing about your shoes, your belt, your keys, your phone, your toiletries and the fact that you accidentally forgot that you had a free badge from an Edinburgh Festival comedy show in your handbag. But I'm starting to think it's a small price to pay for the fact that you can get a coffee, an actual, proper, perfectly potable coffee, before you get on board. Even if you don't have a designated seat on the plane either.
We were later to discover that the fact this train originated in Delhi, rather than coming from elsewhere, was crucial to its punctuality. The next train we got on was an awesome six hours late. Which, naturally, they don't announce when you arrive at the station - they just tell you in 20-minute bursts that it's delayed. There's only so long you can spend watching monkeys scampering around on a train platform before you feel bone-shatteringly bored. And that's before you climb aboard for a ten-hour journey. Still, in general the trains were great; it announced on the outside of each carriage who was supposed to be travelling therein (this seemed hugely organised. Largely pointless, but organised). The bunks in the sleeper carriages were perfectly comfortable. And it all probably cost about a fiver, no matter how far you were going (we'd got a company to book all our trains and hotels for us, so we didn't have any stress at all; certainly not the kind where it takes you three hours of internet searching to find your 'ideal' hotel, because the two duff reviews out of 20 have convinced you that every place must, in fact, be a hellhole; or you've discovered that on exactly the day you want to be there, the rooms have mysteriously trebled in price.)
When you travel on BR, however, which I'm increasingly going to have to do, there is nothing that fails to piss you off. My latest return ticket cost a whopping £183.50. I probably could've had a long weekend in Prague for that! Needless to say, because I hadn't booked the exact date and time of the return portion, I wasn't guaranteed a seat. 'I'll see if I can book it over the phone', I thought, on the morning I was due to travel. I spoke, of course, to someone in India. He ran through all the details - type of ticket, what it'd cost, when I'd bought it, when I wanted to travel - and then said he couldn't book me a seat. I'd have to go down to the ticket office to do that. (He probably had a quick chuckle to himself as he thought of his own, superior, trains). WHY? The whole process is automated. On computers. A computer which has exactly the same information in Delhi as it does in Durham. So, I had to cab it down from the office to the station in order to guarantee having enough time to buy lunch AND travel 3/4 of a mile down the platform in order to secure an unsecured seat.
Then, you get on the train and whip out your laptop, because you are a busy executive. Well, that's what everyone's pretending to be, whilst watching DVDs and catching up on gossip blogs (ahem). I'd like to point out that it's summer hours, so I'm technically off work. Screw you, The Man! Anyway, I digress. Despite the fact that they've managed to sort out free wi-fi (which is a total miracle to a Luddite like me), they haven't managed to put a plug socket next to every seat, just some of them. Why? Why do they do this? It's not like they're Ryan Air and they can charge you extra for the plug socket (in the same way that you don't get a refund on part of your ticket if you never manage to get a seat). There's nothing (as far as I know) to indicate socket-free sections. There's just the joy of a double seat with a table, almost immediately tempered by the lack of a socket, and thus the worry that your laptop is suddenly going to die, right in the middle of that very important Powerpoint presentation that you were struggling with.
Then there are the 'refreshments'. If I've paid the better part of £200 to get to Edinburgh and back (which takes at least four and a half hours each way), then is it really too much to ask that I can actually get a filter coffee on board? For less than the price of my mortgage? I'm sure if you take out a second mortgage and upgrade to First Class, then you've probably got Mr Arabica himself grinding your beans, asking you exactly how frothy you want your milk and making little pictures of you in cocoa powder on top of it. But here in Cattle, even if you go to the refreshment area, rather than taking your chances with the trolley (and I, on this journey, am perched within spitting distance of this culinary oasis, which looked, to my naive eyes, to have an actual coffee machine), what you end up with is powdered coffee. Powdered coffee and that shit milk in tiny plastic containers, the opening of which is guaranteed to leave you with spurty milk everywhere (and which you always have to use two of. Why don't they double the size of the frigging things?) For this hateful beverage, I got charged £1.70. £1.70!
I wanted to throw the fucking thing back in the server's face. I know it's not her fault, but a small piece of her soul must surely die every time she enacts this transaction. 'Hi, I've added some water, which seems to be at the ambient temperature of the sun, to some granules. Yes, you have to add your own milk and take your chances it's not going to end up down your front. Yes, you'll also have to either balance the two irritating half-amounts-of-what-you-need,-milk-wise and a stirrer on the top of the coffee, or have an annoying bag. Which will be too much hassle to recycle, so you'll just throw it away, adding to the mountain of landfill. Can I have £1.70? [Please don't ask me why it's this much, I haven't had any training in dealing with Rail Rage.]'
Is it any wonder that, even though I love travelling on trains, the time difference is negligible (once you've got yourself to/through/from the airport) and there are all the eco-benefits of going by rail, the £35 Easyjet fare looks really, really appealing? Yeah, they charge you for baggage, but most of the time I'm only going to need a wheely suitcase. And yes, going through airports is a nightmare if you're both guilt-ridden and neurotic, what with stressing about your shoes, your belt, your keys, your phone, your toiletries and the fact that you accidentally forgot that you had a free badge from an Edinburgh Festival comedy show in your handbag. But I'm starting to think it's a small price to pay for the fact that you can get a coffee, an actual, proper, perfectly potable coffee, before you get on board. Even if you don't have a designated seat on the plane either.
Wednesday 18 August 2010
Culture Vulture
My less-than-laugh-a-minute dates with Cheerful James are currently being eschewed for actual-laugh-a-minute dates with comedians. (Is it wrong that, because CJ had to cancel one of our sessions because of illness - his, not mine, which was a turn up for the books - I am actually missing having various bits of me aching all the time? Yes, it is wrong. It's thoroughly aberrant.) My comedic 'dates' are almost as sweaty, though, given that they mostly take place in extraordinarily hot and cramped venues for an hour at a time. Last night's was in some sort of container thing and even at 8.00pm on a temperate day, was pretty grim by the end.
However, so far, all my Festival events have been at least a solid 3.5 out of 5, I'd say. I've seen: Mark Watson - overpriced at £18 for an hour, but some very funny bits, including the part where he leaped off the stage and chased a couple who left after ten minutes. Turned out they were in the wrong show, which, as he said, was quite an achievement, given we'd queued for about twenty minutes outside; then queued some more in the venue; then got ourselves settled whilst Mark tapped out very funny messages on a screen; then the screen changed to a massive visual that said, 'Do I Know You?' (the title of the show) and 'Mark Watson'. With, naturally, Mark Watson then standing underneath it. I try to read his blog every day, and basically I love him, so the medium score I'm tempted to give was based mainly on the fact that I'd been to see him trying out material for this show at Christmas time in the Soho Theatre, so was familiar with quite a lot of the material. (And also that an hour's not enough - might just have to shell out for one of his tour dates later in the year, which will be longer).
Laura Solon - I saw her last year, and thought her character-based one-woman play was very funny. Perhaps because it was based around publishing, and seemed uncannily accurate. This year's was more hit and miss (a story about an ex-model turned TV presenter trying to produce a documentary about a legendary owl on an island called Steven) and had an oddly old crowd in. Perhaps because it was on a Saturday afternoon? Who knows. Anyway, enlivened by a spotting of Stephen Merchant on the way out. (Also seen: Frank Skinner, who looks freakishly young. Some cosmetic attention, there? So unlikely, but seemingly true.)
Matt Green - also saw him for the first time last year. My friend and I agreed afterwards he should be much more famous, as he's sweetly funny. (We also agreed we both wanted to be his friend. He's so cute!). He's currently most recognisable as the supermarket staffer who grabs a box of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes from a customer, shakes it and says, 'You can't have that one, it's broken'.
Dan Antopolski - never seen him live before, but a great show. Very daft, loads of terrible puns (which I love) and weirdly Matt Green was sitting right behind me! Also, a couple of fantastic songs, including a rap at the end centred around those laser things you can get at B&Q which measure distances - this incorporated an inspired bit where the awesome 80s Mr. Mister soft rock extravaganza 'Kyrie Eleison' was repurposed as 'Carry a laser' and he killed himself laughing. I always like it when comedians make themselves genuinely crack up.
Josh Howie - took a punt on this as I got given one of his flyers literally as my sister was saying on the phone to me, 'You should go and see Josh Howie, he's good' and his show was due to start ten minutes later. Cleverer puns, and a slightly odd show about the years he and his girlfriend (now wife) spent living with his gran because she had a large house and they couldn't afford a deposit for a flat. It felt like he might be better without a 'theme', which was ultimately a bit restrictive. I think I'm right in saying that he's Ab Fab PR supremo/fruitbat Lynne Franks' son. Which is a nugget of trivia that I like - he's perfectly normal looking (verging on nerdy), so the idea of him being a male Saffy is rather pleasing.
Tonight I'm off to see a play that's about boxing (will it be hard hitting? Arf), before more comedy on Saturday/Sunday and next Tuesday and Wednesday, when I've got a few things booked. I'm also enjoying taking unfeasible numbers of cabs everywhere (three yesterday) because they're so cheap compared with London. It's so decadent and I feel like a BBC3 talent scout or something. Well, apart from the fact that I'm paying for nearly all my tickets, and they're getting everything for free. Including the cabs. It's at this time of the year when you feel you're definitely working in the wrong bit of the entertainment industry...
However, so far, all my Festival events have been at least a solid 3.5 out of 5, I'd say. I've seen: Mark Watson - overpriced at £18 for an hour, but some very funny bits, including the part where he leaped off the stage and chased a couple who left after ten minutes. Turned out they were in the wrong show, which, as he said, was quite an achievement, given we'd queued for about twenty minutes outside; then queued some more in the venue; then got ourselves settled whilst Mark tapped out very funny messages on a screen; then the screen changed to a massive visual that said, 'Do I Know You?' (the title of the show) and 'Mark Watson'. With, naturally, Mark Watson then standing underneath it. I try to read his blog every day, and basically I love him, so the medium score I'm tempted to give was based mainly on the fact that I'd been to see him trying out material for this show at Christmas time in the Soho Theatre, so was familiar with quite a lot of the material. (And also that an hour's not enough - might just have to shell out for one of his tour dates later in the year, which will be longer).
Laura Solon - I saw her last year, and thought her character-based one-woman play was very funny. Perhaps because it was based around publishing, and seemed uncannily accurate. This year's was more hit and miss (a story about an ex-model turned TV presenter trying to produce a documentary about a legendary owl on an island called Steven) and had an oddly old crowd in. Perhaps because it was on a Saturday afternoon? Who knows. Anyway, enlivened by a spotting of Stephen Merchant on the way out. (Also seen: Frank Skinner, who looks freakishly young. Some cosmetic attention, there? So unlikely, but seemingly true.)
Matt Green - also saw him for the first time last year. My friend and I agreed afterwards he should be much more famous, as he's sweetly funny. (We also agreed we both wanted to be his friend. He's so cute!). He's currently most recognisable as the supermarket staffer who grabs a box of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes from a customer, shakes it and says, 'You can't have that one, it's broken'.
Dan Antopolski - never seen him live before, but a great show. Very daft, loads of terrible puns (which I love) and weirdly Matt Green was sitting right behind me! Also, a couple of fantastic songs, including a rap at the end centred around those laser things you can get at B&Q which measure distances - this incorporated an inspired bit where the awesome 80s Mr. Mister soft rock extravaganza 'Kyrie Eleison' was repurposed as 'Carry a laser' and he killed himself laughing. I always like it when comedians make themselves genuinely crack up.
Josh Howie - took a punt on this as I got given one of his flyers literally as my sister was saying on the phone to me, 'You should go and see Josh Howie, he's good' and his show was due to start ten minutes later. Cleverer puns, and a slightly odd show about the years he and his girlfriend (now wife) spent living with his gran because she had a large house and they couldn't afford a deposit for a flat. It felt like he might be better without a 'theme', which was ultimately a bit restrictive. I think I'm right in saying that he's Ab Fab PR supremo/fruitbat Lynne Franks' son. Which is a nugget of trivia that I like - he's perfectly normal looking (verging on nerdy), so the idea of him being a male Saffy is rather pleasing.
Tonight I'm off to see a play that's about boxing (will it be hard hitting? Arf), before more comedy on Saturday/Sunday and next Tuesday and Wednesday, when I've got a few things booked. I'm also enjoying taking unfeasible numbers of cabs everywhere (three yesterday) because they're so cheap compared with London. It's so decadent and I feel like a BBC3 talent scout or something. Well, apart from the fact that I'm paying for nearly all my tickets, and they're getting everything for free. Including the cabs. It's at this time of the year when you feel you're definitely working in the wrong bit of the entertainment industry...
Sunday 15 August 2010
Inception
I saw Christopher Nolan's mind-bending film recently - and then felt I had to remind everyone I know that he was in my A-level French class - a fact that might be more exciting for people if I could say that I actually spoke to him at all in those two years. But of course I didn't, because at the time I was mortifyingly shy and couldn't speak to anyone. Bit ironic that I ended up with a job where I regularly had to pitch to and work with quite a few big-time-famous-types, which required high levels of 'fake it till you make it' confidence. But that's all by the by - I am very happy that Chris Nolan now has a stellar career, whilst I'm still holding out for a lottery win and, frankly, giving up working at all.
Anyway, aside from a somewhat depressing compare and contrast in the career stakes, the film has understandably made me worry about my dream life, in the same way that for a month after I'd seen The Trueman Show, I worried that my entire life was being faked for TV. Because since the move north, my dreams have become just ludicrously odd. Someone surely must be messing about with them for nefarious purposes.
I've had a spate of them in which an ex lurks about, being moody and ignoring me (much as he did when we were going out, actually), with a vague air of menace, like a watered-down Moriarty. In the last one he was about 15 feet tall and dressed like Marilyn Manson (with those ludicrous shoes and everything). I dreamed that I was scuba diving and faced with a Great White shark; however, the shark that got me was a massive, googly-eyed thing that looked like Marty Feldman with six rows of teeth (I've never been scuba diving and now I'm certainly never going to). Then within the last week, I've had another brace of celebrity dreams: first up, a dream in which JEREMY CLARKSON chatted me up in a spectacularly creepy way. I woke up in a cold sweat, nearly screaming. Clarkson! My absolute bete-noire. I'm still haunted by a 4-sheet poster campaign on the Tube advertising his loathesome books, which exhorted his fans to 'Read Clarkson. Think Clarkson. Act Clarkson' - a truly terrifying manifesto.
Last night's dream involved me attending a party with My Future Husband David Mitchell. Yay! Despite the fact it didn't seem to be fancy dress, we were both dressed as cowboys. I was managing to be a total twunt by a/ quoting bits of his sketch show back at him and b/ texting a friend updates on how it was all going, on DM's mobile, as the battery on mine had died. Even in the dream, I was thinking, 'God, what if I don't manage to delete these and he reads them? He's going to think I'm mental'. The dream ended with him having an epileptic fit, and me standing around feeling useless.
Why is my subconscious so unsupportive? Dreams are supposed to be fun - you imagine you can fly, you come up with brilliant business ideas, you wake up humming 'Yesterday' and realise, if you're Paul McCartney, that no-one has actually written that song before. Mine just involve me being made to feel small by an ex and then feeling like an idiot in front of celebs. I might have to hit up the old school network and see if I can get Chris Nolan to write me better scripts.
Anyway, aside from a somewhat depressing compare and contrast in the career stakes, the film has understandably made me worry about my dream life, in the same way that for a month after I'd seen The Trueman Show, I worried that my entire life was being faked for TV. Because since the move north, my dreams have become just ludicrously odd. Someone surely must be messing about with them for nefarious purposes.
I've had a spate of them in which an ex lurks about, being moody and ignoring me (much as he did when we were going out, actually), with a vague air of menace, like a watered-down Moriarty. In the last one he was about 15 feet tall and dressed like Marilyn Manson (with those ludicrous shoes and everything). I dreamed that I was scuba diving and faced with a Great White shark; however, the shark that got me was a massive, googly-eyed thing that looked like Marty Feldman with six rows of teeth (I've never been scuba diving and now I'm certainly never going to). Then within the last week, I've had another brace of celebrity dreams: first up, a dream in which JEREMY CLARKSON chatted me up in a spectacularly creepy way. I woke up in a cold sweat, nearly screaming. Clarkson! My absolute bete-noire. I'm still haunted by a 4-sheet poster campaign on the Tube advertising his loathesome books, which exhorted his fans to 'Read Clarkson. Think Clarkson. Act Clarkson' - a truly terrifying manifesto.
Last night's dream involved me attending a party with My Future Husband David Mitchell. Yay! Despite the fact it didn't seem to be fancy dress, we were both dressed as cowboys. I was managing to be a total twunt by a/ quoting bits of his sketch show back at him and b/ texting a friend updates on how it was all going, on DM's mobile, as the battery on mine had died. Even in the dream, I was thinking, 'God, what if I don't manage to delete these and he reads them? He's going to think I'm mental'. The dream ended with him having an epileptic fit, and me standing around feeling useless.
Why is my subconscious so unsupportive? Dreams are supposed to be fun - you imagine you can fly, you come up with brilliant business ideas, you wake up humming 'Yesterday' and realise, if you're Paul McCartney, that no-one has actually written that song before. Mine just involve me being made to feel small by an ex and then feeling like an idiot in front of celebs. I might have to hit up the old school network and see if I can get Chris Nolan to write me better scripts.
Thursday 12 August 2010
The culture show
As all media types will be aware, the Edinburgh Festival is in full swing. As I suspected might happen, when you're actually living here, if you avoid the area around the Pleasance entirely, then you can practically remain oblivious to the whole thing. In previous years, when I've been up for a holiday and gone to five shows a day, then tried to be all spontaneous at night (aka 'drink like a wino till four a.m'), it's felt like the whole city is obsessed by the Festival and that everyone is spending every waking hour attending shows, reading about shows, booking tickets for shows and then discussing with you what shows you've seen. Or which comedians you've spotted loitering in the Pleasance courtyard and wondered whether if you tried to talk to them, they'd be welcoming or narky and dismissive.
However, if you're a/ working and b/ have been so slack that you haven't actually booked anything to see till week two of the Festival (and right at the end of week two at that), then it's just like someone's suddenly bussed in an extra 10,000 people. Most of whom seemed to be on the Royal Mile when I went out to get lunch the other day. Any female performer under 25 and promoting their show seems to be dressed either as a wench or a tart. There are a lot of basque/fishnet combos which probably seem an excellent idea at 9.00am when it's sunny, but less fabulous when at 2.00pm every day you're deluged by the daily monsoon rain for half an hour. Also, if you thought your tart gear was startlingly original and was going to make your show stand out, then sadly it won't - you're now one of 3,000 young women wandering the city dressed as a slapper. (Insert 'and that doesn't include the ones who live here and dress like that normally' gag here).
So far, the only Festival show I've been to was a baroque music concert in a church - very grown-up. The last music event I went to was a quartet in a gallery, which I'd thought was going to be quite restful. In fact, it was an hour and a half of them playing modern compositions which sounded like someone throwing pots and pans down a stairwell - and at such a frantic pace that one of them reduced his bow to a load of shredded string. I quite wanted to tear my ears off - and when I saw a couple who were sitting over the other side of the gallery indulging in a really OTT PDA session, I wanted to poke myself in the eyes too.
Luckily this week's music was much better - some stirring choral action, and some excellent medieval-style brass instruments in the mix too. And the tickets were free! Result. Next up: Mark Watson, Dan Antopolski, a play about boxing, Laura Solon's new show and Matt Green, which should be a good mash-up of the familiar and the new. I'll be in the swing of things, but without the chronic hangovers of yesteryear, which is probably a good balance.
However, if you're a/ working and b/ have been so slack that you haven't actually booked anything to see till week two of the Festival (and right at the end of week two at that), then it's just like someone's suddenly bussed in an extra 10,000 people. Most of whom seemed to be on the Royal Mile when I went out to get lunch the other day. Any female performer under 25 and promoting their show seems to be dressed either as a wench or a tart. There are a lot of basque/fishnet combos which probably seem an excellent idea at 9.00am when it's sunny, but less fabulous when at 2.00pm every day you're deluged by the daily monsoon rain for half an hour. Also, if you thought your tart gear was startlingly original and was going to make your show stand out, then sadly it won't - you're now one of 3,000 young women wandering the city dressed as a slapper. (Insert 'and that doesn't include the ones who live here and dress like that normally' gag here).
So far, the only Festival show I've been to was a baroque music concert in a church - very grown-up. The last music event I went to was a quartet in a gallery, which I'd thought was going to be quite restful. In fact, it was an hour and a half of them playing modern compositions which sounded like someone throwing pots and pans down a stairwell - and at such a frantic pace that one of them reduced his bow to a load of shredded string. I quite wanted to tear my ears off - and when I saw a couple who were sitting over the other side of the gallery indulging in a really OTT PDA session, I wanted to poke myself in the eyes too.
Luckily this week's music was much better - some stirring choral action, and some excellent medieval-style brass instruments in the mix too. And the tickets were free! Result. Next up: Mark Watson, Dan Antopolski, a play about boxing, Laura Solon's new show and Matt Green, which should be a good mash-up of the familiar and the new. I'll be in the swing of things, but without the chronic hangovers of yesteryear, which is probably a good balance.
Friday 6 August 2010
Fat(s) Furry Catpuss
I was very sad to hear today of the demise of my friend Dan's cat, Fatima, with whom I enjoyed many a week in the Barnes/Mortlake area, when Dan was away on holiday and Fatima was not. Fats (who was in fact positively slimline) was mildly crazy, shed hair like a bastard, had an insatiable appetite and wasn't really much for being stroked or sitting on laps, but she will be much missed.
In tribute, I think Dan's 'Under the Paw' profile of Fats couldn't be bettered: http://bit.ly/bJJUQO
In tribute, I think Dan's 'Under the Paw' profile of Fats couldn't be bettered: http://bit.ly/bJJUQO
Awarding myself a Chufty Badge
Typically, the weather has decided to really give it with both barrels, just as I was about to leave the office (persistent drizzle will, I suspect, morph into bucketing-it-down very soon, as it did earlier today). So I thought I'd postpone the inevitable trudge through town trying to hide under my tiny umbrella. I am, however, going out for a drink with a POTENTIAL FRIEND, which is exciting indeed. And another POTENTIAL FRIEND has just offered me complimentary tickets for some baroque music do-dad on Tuesday night (he's doing the PR for it). Not to mention the sister of an old family friend, who's invited me to a dinner party on Thursday! Gracious, I'm practically Jaime Winstone or Daisy Lowe (both of whom seem to be ubiquitous party fodder in the pages of the tabs/ES mag and the like, without anyone being that sure about what they do. Still, they're both very pretty in their various ways, and I'm sure are largely harmless. They certainly were at the party I saw them at. Ha - just because I'm not in London any more doesn't mean I can't still name-drop).
I am also avoiding moving from my chair because earlier I had another session with Cheerful James, the King of Exercise and I'm now crippled. Having not done anything for a week, since my free session with the Rival Personal Trainer (I think Cheerful James was a bit jealous when I said I'd been putting my biceps about with another man; he told me the way his rival had taught me how to swing a kettle bell around was all wrong, for a start), I was expecting the worst, and he certainly delivered. I don't think it really helps when you've eaten breakfast at 9.30am, you start the session at 2.00pm, and you haven't eaten anything in the meantime. That's my excuse, anyway.
The session did at least start well, with CJ telling me that my hair was looking particularly shiny today. Aww! I love him! Well, I did until the point that he made me do something simple yet thigh-shatteringly awful on the cross-trainer. I then nearly had a heart attack on the rowing machine; I wanted to give up, but didn't have the breath available to puff out, 'I want to give up'. Still, that's what it's all about; paying someone to stand over you to force you to carry on, when your natural instinct is to have given up at least half an hour ago.
I can see why people get really into it, though - having someone act like you're the most important person in the world, and nothing could be more key to them than blasting your back fat into oblivion (and that this is a worthwhile use of an hour of their time) is nice. And being told you're doing really well - even if you suspect that you're not, particularly - is also nice. It's not that often you get told you're doing really well after the age of about, what, ten? So, in honour of my friend Ed, who often used to tell me I had lovely shiny hair, I have awarded myself my first ever Chufty Badge for Exercise. A Chufty Badge is something that Ed invented; it's a self-awarded gong when you feel particularly proud of an achievement. Perhaps especially a fairly minor achievement.
Now I just have to fill in Cheerful James's questionnaire on what my 'goals' are. Given that they run to such general, unspecific things like 'lose weight and tone up', which is what everyone puts, one of my friends suggested, 'Become the oldest person on the 2012 GB Olympic team'. I'm tempted, just to amuse myself. Especially if I can aim to be on the curling team - as everyone knows curling is basically just really enthusiastic housework, but on ice.
I am also avoiding moving from my chair because earlier I had another session with Cheerful James, the King of Exercise and I'm now crippled. Having not done anything for a week, since my free session with the Rival Personal Trainer (I think Cheerful James was a bit jealous when I said I'd been putting my biceps about with another man; he told me the way his rival had taught me how to swing a kettle bell around was all wrong, for a start), I was expecting the worst, and he certainly delivered. I don't think it really helps when you've eaten breakfast at 9.30am, you start the session at 2.00pm, and you haven't eaten anything in the meantime. That's my excuse, anyway.
The session did at least start well, with CJ telling me that my hair was looking particularly shiny today. Aww! I love him! Well, I did until the point that he made me do something simple yet thigh-shatteringly awful on the cross-trainer. I then nearly had a heart attack on the rowing machine; I wanted to give up, but didn't have the breath available to puff out, 'I want to give up'. Still, that's what it's all about; paying someone to stand over you to force you to carry on, when your natural instinct is to have given up at least half an hour ago.
I can see why people get really into it, though - having someone act like you're the most important person in the world, and nothing could be more key to them than blasting your back fat into oblivion (and that this is a worthwhile use of an hour of their time) is nice. And being told you're doing really well - even if you suspect that you're not, particularly - is also nice. It's not that often you get told you're doing really well after the age of about, what, ten? So, in honour of my friend Ed, who often used to tell me I had lovely shiny hair, I have awarded myself my first ever Chufty Badge for Exercise. A Chufty Badge is something that Ed invented; it's a self-awarded gong when you feel particularly proud of an achievement. Perhaps especially a fairly minor achievement.
Now I just have to fill in Cheerful James's questionnaire on what my 'goals' are. Given that they run to such general, unspecific things like 'lose weight and tone up', which is what everyone puts, one of my friends suggested, 'Become the oldest person on the 2012 GB Olympic team'. I'm tempted, just to amuse myself. Especially if I can aim to be on the curling team - as everyone knows curling is basically just really enthusiastic housework, but on ice.
Tuesday 3 August 2010
Ch-ch-ch-changes
Eagle-eyed readers will clock the fact that there were no blog entries in July. No! None whatsoever. Is this down to a life of endless socialising in my new city? A lack of time due to hunting down the best haggis and munching on deep-fried Mars Bars? Of turning down handsome, kilt-wearing swains with a polite, 'Thank you, kind sir, but I am new in town and a lady must protect her reputation'? No, of course it's not - it's the usual idleness, combined with being a bit knackered, what with having a new job an' all.
So, to catch up, here's a run-down of What's New at Purple Towers (now with added tartan):
1/ I took my vow that I was going to 'walk everywhere' when I moved rather too literally in the first week, when I wasn't working. I think I averaged at least four hours a day. I somewhat regretted giving my trainers to the second-hand shop before I left London.
2/ As a result, I am now the proud owner of new, go-faster-and-tone-while-you're-at-it trainers which have 'unstable' soles which are supposed to... oh, I don't know, somehow make you use muscles that have lain dormant for years to counteract this wibbly-wobbliness. Shove in a cobbled street every five minutes and I'd imagine that the effect is trebled at the very least. They make you bounce along like Tigger, so even if the weather's not exactly matching up to the summer that everyone else in the country appears to be having, it's hard not to feel jaunty.
3/ I'm now walking 40 minutes to work, and 40 minutes back again. Yes, every day, even, one day, in a massive downpour. I have to carry a backpack (again, newly bought) to carry my 'proper' shoes in. Tackling steep, long hills in heels is not to be advised. I now blend in with the locals, all of whom have backpacks with 'walking to work' shoes and 'being at work' shoe options contained within. It's the first step on a slippery slope that ends up with me clad in Goretex coats and with a pair of sturdy walking boots. The other day, I caught myself looking in the window of an outdoors shop and thinking, 'Hmm, that Northface jacket looks rather appealing'.
4/ All of this, however, is not sufficient exercise for the brand new me. No indeed, not only have I joined the gym, and am actually going because I pass it on the way home, and my only other evening option is watching TV, but I have also signed up with a PERSONAL TRAINER. A personal trainer! Me, the girl who was always picked last for teams at school! Who didn't even achieve BAGA 4 (seriously, could my PE teachers not have tried a bit harder to salvage my self-esteem by just giving me that? It's not like they would've been struck off the register or anything).
Yes, James from Belfast is being paid, at great personal expense, for ten hours of his time in one-hour chunks, to transform me from a sofa slug into Linda Hamilton in the Terminator films. I'm not sure he knows that's quite what he's supposed to be doing; I think he'd settle for me not laughing every time he tells me how to do something because the idea of me doing actual, proper, presided-over exercise, is so ludicrous. But so far a/ I'm not hating it (which is a major result) and b/ by dint of doing tricep dips and push-ups on a Power Plate, I can at least get the lids off jam jars. I'm sure there will be more about my Damascus-style conversion to exercise soon.
5/ Yup, the weather is rubbish. On any given day, if it's less than six degrees cooler than London, I find myself a tad disappointed. It is grey, it is drizzly, there is staggering pea-souper mist last seen in Dickensian times. Then it will suddenly be REALLY HOT AND SUNNY for twenty minutes (confusion reigns) before going back to being drizzly and grey again. Apparently, they have summer in Edinburgh in June, and then that's your lot. However, as has been noted previously, this is fine by me. Having just spent two days using the Tube on a trip to London, in not spectacularly hot weather, if I'd stayed put till July 5th, I'd have gone mental and done something murderous, so utterly unbalanced would the heat and humidity have made me.
6/ My office is surrounded by a quantity of tartan shops that is, frankly, comedic.
7/ Visits to London will partly be treasured because of their lack of bagpipe music. There is a shop I pass twice daily which pumps out a tinny bagpipe version of 80s classic 'You're the Voice' which will erode my sanity very quickly indeed.
8/ I miss the variety of London architecture. Everything in Edinburgh kind of looks the same - it's like they took a look at the average day and went, 'How can we make it look as though the sky and the earth are as one? I know! Build everything out of dark grey stone!' I'll get used to it, but it's weird when you come from a city that looks as though it's been assembled by a mad student who wants to try out everything they learned at architecture school, all in one street.
9/ I have not had haggis yet, or tried deep-fried Mars Bars. I do, however, pass a flashing neon sign every day advertising the latter, should I feel the need to indulge.
10/ NO-ONE has called me 'Hen' yet. Why not?! This is an outrage. Everyone is, however, very friendly, apart, ironically, from the man who teaches the yoga class I go to on a Sunday morning. He seems to be very angry about having to teach us, gives the impression that everyone in his class is doing everything wrong and is, in short, extremely unrelaxing. I miss my Streatham yoga teacher, who was awesome.
11/ My favourite Edinburgh firm so far is a lawyers' outfit called McSporrans.
12/ I'm trying to blend in by eating porridge for breakfast every day. I'm making it in a microwave, but I'm sure it still counts. No desire to drink whisky just yet, though.
13/ Having 'Scottish' telly is still confusing me. Ergo, I've gone into default mode, and am watching re-runs of Friends for the 808th time. The irony of not really having any actual friends here yet is not lost on me. I also had to suffer the episode the other day where Rachel Freaks Out Because She's 30. Try turning 40, love, I thought darkly.
14/ I'm looking forward to complaining about all the horrid Festival People cluttering up the city now that I'm no longer one of Them and am instead (almost) one of Us. I love a good moan.
15/ I have found the best lunch known to man - and all for £2.50. There's a cafe across the road from the office which is populated entirely by old people and students. It serves soup and the fluffiest, most divine cheese scone you will ever have encountered, for less than the cost of a f*cking Starbucks Frappuccino. It is apparently a Christian cafe and I think God has blessed the cheese scones especially. I know, cheese scones + paying for a personal trainer = doolally madness, but I don't care.
So, after a month, I reckon I'm doing OK; I have waged a daily battle with my bed, ('Not on the bed!' still rings in my ears) and I'm trying to think of myself as A Person Who Does Exercise. I even went to the gym on my day off in London, and somehow managed to wangle a free session with a Personal Trainer. Albeit one who, when I said I'd been a member for a number of years, asked, with admirable bluntness, why he'd never seen me before, given he'd been working there since it opened. 'Because I didn't use to come very often!' I trilled gaily, to a look of utter confusion. PTs don't seem to understand that you can pay staggering amounts to remain a member of a gym, whilst doing one yoga class a week and occasionally using the steam room. Fools! Everyone knows that's how gyms make their money. Especially my new gym, which is the size of a football pitch, with gleaming machines as far as the eye can see and exercise studios which are twice the size of my old flat. It's sort of daunting, but at least you don't feel like people are looking at you when you're quarter of a mile away from the nearest person. Next up: booking Festival festivities and establishing good/cheap/good and cheap bars and restaurants to show off my local knowledge when friends come to visit. And making some new chums to replace my Friends.
So, to catch up, here's a run-down of What's New at Purple Towers (now with added tartan):
1/ I took my vow that I was going to 'walk everywhere' when I moved rather too literally in the first week, when I wasn't working. I think I averaged at least four hours a day. I somewhat regretted giving my trainers to the second-hand shop before I left London.
2/ As a result, I am now the proud owner of new, go-faster-and-tone-while-you're-at-it trainers which have 'unstable' soles which are supposed to... oh, I don't know, somehow make you use muscles that have lain dormant for years to counteract this wibbly-wobbliness. Shove in a cobbled street every five minutes and I'd imagine that the effect is trebled at the very least. They make you bounce along like Tigger, so even if the weather's not exactly matching up to the summer that everyone else in the country appears to be having, it's hard not to feel jaunty.
3/ I'm now walking 40 minutes to work, and 40 minutes back again. Yes, every day, even, one day, in a massive downpour. I have to carry a backpack (again, newly bought) to carry my 'proper' shoes in. Tackling steep, long hills in heels is not to be advised. I now blend in with the locals, all of whom have backpacks with 'walking to work' shoes and 'being at work' shoe options contained within. It's the first step on a slippery slope that ends up with me clad in Goretex coats and with a pair of sturdy walking boots. The other day, I caught myself looking in the window of an outdoors shop and thinking, 'Hmm, that Northface jacket looks rather appealing'.
4/ All of this, however, is not sufficient exercise for the brand new me. No indeed, not only have I joined the gym, and am actually going because I pass it on the way home, and my only other evening option is watching TV, but I have also signed up with a PERSONAL TRAINER. A personal trainer! Me, the girl who was always picked last for teams at school! Who didn't even achieve BAGA 4 (seriously, could my PE teachers not have tried a bit harder to salvage my self-esteem by just giving me that? It's not like they would've been struck off the register or anything).
Yes, James from Belfast is being paid, at great personal expense, for ten hours of his time in one-hour chunks, to transform me from a sofa slug into Linda Hamilton in the Terminator films. I'm not sure he knows that's quite what he's supposed to be doing; I think he'd settle for me not laughing every time he tells me how to do something because the idea of me doing actual, proper, presided-over exercise, is so ludicrous. But so far a/ I'm not hating it (which is a major result) and b/ by dint of doing tricep dips and push-ups on a Power Plate, I can at least get the lids off jam jars. I'm sure there will be more about my Damascus-style conversion to exercise soon.
5/ Yup, the weather is rubbish. On any given day, if it's less than six degrees cooler than London, I find myself a tad disappointed. It is grey, it is drizzly, there is staggering pea-souper mist last seen in Dickensian times. Then it will suddenly be REALLY HOT AND SUNNY for twenty minutes (confusion reigns) before going back to being drizzly and grey again. Apparently, they have summer in Edinburgh in June, and then that's your lot. However, as has been noted previously, this is fine by me. Having just spent two days using the Tube on a trip to London, in not spectacularly hot weather, if I'd stayed put till July 5th, I'd have gone mental and done something murderous, so utterly unbalanced would the heat and humidity have made me.
6/ My office is surrounded by a quantity of tartan shops that is, frankly, comedic.
7/ Visits to London will partly be treasured because of their lack of bagpipe music. There is a shop I pass twice daily which pumps out a tinny bagpipe version of 80s classic 'You're the Voice' which will erode my sanity very quickly indeed.
8/ I miss the variety of London architecture. Everything in Edinburgh kind of looks the same - it's like they took a look at the average day and went, 'How can we make it look as though the sky and the earth are as one? I know! Build everything out of dark grey stone!' I'll get used to it, but it's weird when you come from a city that looks as though it's been assembled by a mad student who wants to try out everything they learned at architecture school, all in one street.
9/ I have not had haggis yet, or tried deep-fried Mars Bars. I do, however, pass a flashing neon sign every day advertising the latter, should I feel the need to indulge.
10/ NO-ONE has called me 'Hen' yet. Why not?! This is an outrage. Everyone is, however, very friendly, apart, ironically, from the man who teaches the yoga class I go to on a Sunday morning. He seems to be very angry about having to teach us, gives the impression that everyone in his class is doing everything wrong and is, in short, extremely unrelaxing. I miss my Streatham yoga teacher, who was awesome.
11/ My favourite Edinburgh firm so far is a lawyers' outfit called McSporrans.
12/ I'm trying to blend in by eating porridge for breakfast every day. I'm making it in a microwave, but I'm sure it still counts. No desire to drink whisky just yet, though.
13/ Having 'Scottish' telly is still confusing me. Ergo, I've gone into default mode, and am watching re-runs of Friends for the 808th time. The irony of not really having any actual friends here yet is not lost on me. I also had to suffer the episode the other day where Rachel Freaks Out Because She's 30. Try turning 40, love, I thought darkly.
14/ I'm looking forward to complaining about all the horrid Festival People cluttering up the city now that I'm no longer one of Them and am instead (almost) one of Us. I love a good moan.
15/ I have found the best lunch known to man - and all for £2.50. There's a cafe across the road from the office which is populated entirely by old people and students. It serves soup and the fluffiest, most divine cheese scone you will ever have encountered, for less than the cost of a f*cking Starbucks Frappuccino. It is apparently a Christian cafe and I think God has blessed the cheese scones especially. I know, cheese scones + paying for a personal trainer = doolally madness, but I don't care.
So, after a month, I reckon I'm doing OK; I have waged a daily battle with my bed, ('Not on the bed!' still rings in my ears) and I'm trying to think of myself as A Person Who Does Exercise. I even went to the gym on my day off in London, and somehow managed to wangle a free session with a Personal Trainer. Albeit one who, when I said I'd been a member for a number of years, asked, with admirable bluntness, why he'd never seen me before, given he'd been working there since it opened. 'Because I didn't use to come very often!' I trilled gaily, to a look of utter confusion. PTs don't seem to understand that you can pay staggering amounts to remain a member of a gym, whilst doing one yoga class a week and occasionally using the steam room. Fools! Everyone knows that's how gyms make their money. Especially my new gym, which is the size of a football pitch, with gleaming machines as far as the eye can see and exercise studios which are twice the size of my old flat. It's sort of daunting, but at least you don't feel like people are looking at you when you're quarter of a mile away from the nearest person. Next up: booking Festival festivities and establishing good/cheap/good and cheap bars and restaurants to show off my local knowledge when friends come to visit. And making some new chums to replace my Friends.
'Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed'
When you're Moving to a New Life in a New Country, you imagine checking in at an airport, with enormous, J-Lo-style trunks full of clothes, furniture that is too important or sentimental to leave behind in Blighty and gifts for the natives. I may have watched Out of Africa a few times too many and substituted 'an airport' for 'the docks where your ocean-going liner is moored'. You also imagine a collection of well-dressed well-wishers, clutching hankies and smiling bravely through the tears.
Either way, you don't really think you'll be sitting under the departures board at Kings Cross on one of the hottest days of the year, with a rucksack you've had since your early 20s, a small wheely suitcase and a large canvas bag that was free with a magazine five years ago (hitherto used for the recycling), representing all your worldly possessions. On your own. The friend I was staying with prior to my departure had had to leave at 8.30am to get a train to Bath for a hen weekend. So I'd spent my last morning in London tossing things into whatever packing receptacle would accommodate them, whilst sighing - it felt as though I'd been packing for months, rather than a two-week at-home-and-at-work blitz - shuffling aimlessly from one room to the next and feeling a bit lonely.
I'd battled my way to the taxi office, building up a hefty sweat in the course of five minutes' of dragging my possessions along the pavement. I dropped my keys off at the estate agents' with only a minor twinge of guilt as I thought about the selection of random items that I'd left in the hallway of my former home, which I was supposed to take to the second-hand shop the day before. But which I'd been too debilitated by a leaving party hangover to face sorting out.
(As a sidebar, I'd had the most awesome work leaving do in the world, ever. A feat of organisation, planning, design, speech-writing, love, care and attention to detail, it featured, in no particular order: a speech which my boss had actually tried out on one of my colleagues beforehand - which had bullet points and everything; a fantastic card in which I'd been immortalised as Kerry Katona, for reasons which I won't go into; a print-out of the email one of my colleagues had sent to the designer of the card, asking him to 'Tango me up a bit' so that my face would match Ms Katona's hands in the pic; fantastic presents; the most amazing turn-out in the pub; a hilarious pub quiz that was ALL ABOUT ME - my ego shot off the scale; a selection of past colleagues and a This is Your Life-style mystery guest - my friend Julie, who was over from Canada - and then free champagne from the landlord, Paul. If I hadn't been feeling overwelmed before, then I properly was by the end. It was one of the loveliest things that anyone's ever done for me, and a Top 5 in the Nights to Remember stakes).
All of which was a good excuse to think, 'Ah, sod it' and leave my new tenants to wonder at the complexity of an absent landlady who leaves behind a purple plastic filing drawer, a copy of an old Sex and the City book (commemorating the series, not the grim cash-in films), a container full of spices and vitamin supplements, a large, green, plush toy hippo that I'd inexplicably stolen from an ex-boyfriend and a very tired-looking winter coat. This was added to the variety of possessions and clothes that now reside in the basements and cupboards of three of my friends in London, ensuring that no-one will forget me - no, you shall be confronted with the remnants of my Clutter Collection on a daily basis! Sorry about that.
Anyway, Kings Cross, midday on a hot Saturday in July was suddenly transformed by the appearance of my sister, her boyfriend, my sister's dog and an entire posse of friends and family that she'd organised to be there. My friend John was joined by Carolina (she of Operation Clearout), Emma and her three daughters (my godchildren - all of whom looked confused by the fact that they were at a train station, yet weren't going anywhere, and weren't quite sure why it was a big deal that I was).
It was quite a party atmosphere - cue lots of 'team photos' taken by an obliging stranger. Suddenly, I felt as though I were a Victorian explorer on my way to paddle down (up?) the Amazon. Especially when I got my entourage to cart various bits of baggage onto the train for me. Before I hastily shooed them off, terrified that the doors would shut and they'd end up trapped on the train and also starting a new life in Edinburgh. Or at least Peterborough. Although with pretty much just a rucksack and a bag of shoes, perhaps it was more like being waved off by my extended family for the gap year I never had.
The other two girls at my table must've been quite perplexed by a group of 30-somethings and three small children waving at me through the window as the train drew away, with me a blubbering mess. Expecially as Carolina had made me a packed lunch, with Tupperware and a Petit Filous and everything, which made me start crying all over again. Of course, being English, I didn't explain to my table mates that my Richard Curtis moment was because I was starting a New Life in a New Country. I just whipped my phone out and started texting my friends and family, telling them I was missing them already.
Either way, you don't really think you'll be sitting under the departures board at Kings Cross on one of the hottest days of the year, with a rucksack you've had since your early 20s, a small wheely suitcase and a large canvas bag that was free with a magazine five years ago (hitherto used for the recycling), representing all your worldly possessions. On your own. The friend I was staying with prior to my departure had had to leave at 8.30am to get a train to Bath for a hen weekend. So I'd spent my last morning in London tossing things into whatever packing receptacle would accommodate them, whilst sighing - it felt as though I'd been packing for months, rather than a two-week at-home-and-at-work blitz - shuffling aimlessly from one room to the next and feeling a bit lonely.
I'd battled my way to the taxi office, building up a hefty sweat in the course of five minutes' of dragging my possessions along the pavement. I dropped my keys off at the estate agents' with only a minor twinge of guilt as I thought about the selection of random items that I'd left in the hallway of my former home, which I was supposed to take to the second-hand shop the day before. But which I'd been too debilitated by a leaving party hangover to face sorting out.
(As a sidebar, I'd had the most awesome work leaving do in the world, ever. A feat of organisation, planning, design, speech-writing, love, care and attention to detail, it featured, in no particular order: a speech which my boss had actually tried out on one of my colleagues beforehand - which had bullet points and everything; a fantastic card in which I'd been immortalised as Kerry Katona, for reasons which I won't go into; a print-out of the email one of my colleagues had sent to the designer of the card, asking him to 'Tango me up a bit' so that my face would match Ms Katona's hands in the pic; fantastic presents; the most amazing turn-out in the pub; a hilarious pub quiz that was ALL ABOUT ME - my ego shot off the scale; a selection of past colleagues and a This is Your Life-style mystery guest - my friend Julie, who was over from Canada - and then free champagne from the landlord, Paul. If I hadn't been feeling overwelmed before, then I properly was by the end. It was one of the loveliest things that anyone's ever done for me, and a Top 5 in the Nights to Remember stakes).
All of which was a good excuse to think, 'Ah, sod it' and leave my new tenants to wonder at the complexity of an absent landlady who leaves behind a purple plastic filing drawer, a copy of an old Sex and the City book (commemorating the series, not the grim cash-in films), a container full of spices and vitamin supplements, a large, green, plush toy hippo that I'd inexplicably stolen from an ex-boyfriend and a very tired-looking winter coat. This was added to the variety of possessions and clothes that now reside in the basements and cupboards of three of my friends in London, ensuring that no-one will forget me - no, you shall be confronted with the remnants of my Clutter Collection on a daily basis! Sorry about that.
Anyway, Kings Cross, midday on a hot Saturday in July was suddenly transformed by the appearance of my sister, her boyfriend, my sister's dog and an entire posse of friends and family that she'd organised to be there. My friend John was joined by Carolina (she of Operation Clearout), Emma and her three daughters (my godchildren - all of whom looked confused by the fact that they were at a train station, yet weren't going anywhere, and weren't quite sure why it was a big deal that I was).
It was quite a party atmosphere - cue lots of 'team photos' taken by an obliging stranger. Suddenly, I felt as though I were a Victorian explorer on my way to paddle down (up?) the Amazon. Especially when I got my entourage to cart various bits of baggage onto the train for me. Before I hastily shooed them off, terrified that the doors would shut and they'd end up trapped on the train and also starting a new life in Edinburgh. Or at least Peterborough. Although with pretty much just a rucksack and a bag of shoes, perhaps it was more like being waved off by my extended family for the gap year I never had.
The other two girls at my table must've been quite perplexed by a group of 30-somethings and three small children waving at me through the window as the train drew away, with me a blubbering mess. Expecially as Carolina had made me a packed lunch, with Tupperware and a Petit Filous and everything, which made me start crying all over again. Of course, being English, I didn't explain to my table mates that my Richard Curtis moment was because I was starting a New Life in a New Country. I just whipped my phone out and started texting my friends and family, telling them I was missing them already.
Trains and planes and automobiles
Get ready, World, I'm about to start blogging from the TRAIN! How modern is that? Well, it would be about a million times more modern if I hadn't spent the last half hour trying to figure out why EastCoast's wi-fi (whose connection, the icon tells me smugly, is 'excellent') wouldn't log me into any given website. So, I tried the classic solution of 'turn it off and on again' and voila! It works. After first logging me into the back end bit of the site in Swedish, then revealing another set of comments for me to moderate, 75% of which were in Chinese. I have no idea why I have so many Chinese commenters - it's not like I didn't switch my culinary allegiances to Thai about two decades ago, and that was pretty much my only knowledge of, or affiliation with, China and its numerous peoples. Apart from the fact my friend Michelle cycled round a large part of the country relatively recently - but she has her own, vastly successful blog detailing that, so I doubt there's a connection.
(Talking of connections, I'd post the link to Michelle's blog if I didn't think that looking for it would mean that the above paragraph would inevitably be lost in the ether). But I can assure you it exists, is very excellent and has about a bajillion followers.
Anyway, for those who're used to knowing exactly where they are at all times by dint of sat navs or their iPhones, and feel unnerved by not knowing where other people are, I can tell you that I've just gone through Darlington. Which, if my eyes didn't deceive me, has a door marked 'Chaplain' on the platform. I used to live near Darlington - I don't remember it as being bad enough to warrant actual religious comfort on either entering it or preparing to leave it.
(Talking of connections, I'd post the link to Michelle's blog if I didn't think that looking for it would mean that the above paragraph would inevitably be lost in the ether). But I can assure you it exists, is very excellent and has about a bajillion followers.
Anyway, for those who're used to knowing exactly where they are at all times by dint of sat navs or their iPhones, and feel unnerved by not knowing where other people are, I can tell you that I've just gone through Darlington. Which, if my eyes didn't deceive me, has a door marked 'Chaplain' on the platform. I used to live near Darlington - I don't remember it as being bad enough to warrant actual religious comfort on either entering it or preparing to leave it.
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