Real-life chicklit
Friday, April 30, 2004
Have you, like me, been wondering what H from Steps (always my favourite member) has been doing since the band broke up (apart from that odd duet single with Claire Watkins)?
He's now, apparently, the new singer in legendary 80s prog combo Marillion. How odd. I went to check out their website because I've heard their new single and album are selling well, which seems bizarre even to me, someone who was a massive fan in my youth - I even went to see them live at the NEC Arena when I was 14, and it was post-Fish as well. In fact, I doubt I'd have got through puberty without Script for a Jester's Tear and Misplaced Childhood. Even just looking at the cover artwork on those pages makes me feel like putting on something black and tasselled, shutting myself in my bedroom and having a good grump about how unfair it all is. The new single features a hip-hop stylee drum machine, though, which is inexcusable.
Regular readers of Real-Life Chicklit will know that I slag off America a lot. I make no excuse for this; it's the most powerful country in the world so even if it were not also the self-appointed guardian of the globe's morals, it has to put up with other people having opinions about it. I can't even say that some of my best friends are Americans - I used to have two very good American friends, but have lost touch with both (not through wanting to, though - Cristi!! Where have you gone?).
However, I thought maybe it was about time I balanced the negative cover a little by mentioning some of the things I like about the country and its people. So here, for starters, is a copy of a letter of mine that was printed in the Independent newspaper in November. Also it's the first time I've had my name in a national broadsheet, so I'm quite proud.
Sir: As part of my degree, I was lucky enough to spend a semester at Hofstra University in New York in 1995 . I was interested to read Professor Evans' column "Not all Oxbridge dons want to see top-up fees" (28 November).
The characteristic of the US system ignored in our own debate on fees is that the system is arranged to assist people to work their way through college rather than build up a mountain of loans.
One is not forced to complete one's degree within a time limit; a degree is awarded after one has completed a certain number of courses. You can take just one course a semester if that's all you can fit in around your work or childcare commitments.
Contact time is arranged for the convenience of people who have to work: there are lectures starting at 8am for those who have to go to work afterwards, and at 8pm for those who have to go to work during the day.
Employers consider the needs of students and offer flexible working. At my university, much of the office work was done by students working jobshares or flexitime; I worked as a security guard in a team of students, doing two-hour shifts that were arranged around my timetable. How different to the temping agencies I tried to work for in the UK, who would not take me on to their books during termtime because I was available for daytime work only one day a week.
Perhaps these factors give some indication why my fellow students at Southampton were overwhelmingly the white, middle-class, 19-year-old offspring of rich families, while those at Hofstra included single mothers and mature students of all backgrounds.
Lots of love and sloppy kisses, Fizzwhizz.
Alright, I made up the "love and kisses" bit. And, by the way, I also did not use the word "assist" in the second par of my original letter - I'd like to point this out because, as a sub, I would of course always say "help". Tsk. The Indy's production desk clearly needs me.
I've just noticed how often I say "Come on, people". It can be my phrase of the day. I like it. Also another of my phrases du semaine is "Get in!" to indicate approval and encouragement. I don't know where it came from but I'm even starting to irritate myself with it, so God knows how my friends and relations feel.
On a heavier note, why is everyone so surprised by American soldiers torturing people? 1) War is ugly. People get hurt and tortured. Inevery war, both sides do this. That's why millions of people protested against this war, as many other wars. And it's why I'm a pacifist. 2) People who join the army are subjected to their own torture by the hazing and intimidation that goes on during training. This not only makes them think this is a normal and acceptable way to behave, it also removes their ability to think for themselves and to stand out from the crowd and say "Gee liddle buddy, don'tcha think we could be, like, a liddle kinder to these people who happen to be fighding for the other side" (that's meant to be Americanish, but of course this type of behaviour is not limited to the US army).
I think this is going to be the century when America gets real. It started with 9/11, when Americans finally realised that there could be a hostile attack on their own soil. Since then, more and more seem to be becoming aware that not everyone agrees that fundamentalist Christian capitalism is the best way to live their lives. Now, the latest shock is: "Oh my Gaarrrrrd, our armed forces are, like, just the same as everyone else's." How long before America begins to realise that poor people aren't just lazy and that maybe public healthcare is quite a good thing?
There are tickets for Glastonbury going on Ebay for £440 a pair. Come ON, people, it's just a bloody party in a field. And it's probably going to rain.
Still, I am a Smug Ticketed so perhaps I'm not qualified to comment.
In other news, I'm having a very busy day and wishing I'd hired a freelancer to help out (the uber-talented Mini Me is on a training course and Sundried is working at the Sunday Times). Also feeling very un-motivated and drinking unusually large amounts of tea - I've even managed to drink RHN under the table which is remarkable.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Word of the day: rouleau. It's the term for a cylinder of coins. As in "I say my good bank manager sir, please be so kind as to furnish me with a rouleau of your shiniest guineas". Also I like this word because the plural is rouleaux and I like plurals that have Xs on them.
As a teenager I frequently used to get irritated when grown-ups patronised me by saying that I was too young to understand something, or that I was having the best days of my life because I had no responsibilities. Generally, these were people who were unaware that I had a severely physically disabled mother, an emotionally disabled father and a parents-vs-gay-sister situation to deal with, although that doesn't excuse their attitude.
But I pretty much assumed that by the age of 29 I'd be past this issue and that people might take me a little more seriously, even if not respecting my ideas in the same way that one might respect the opinion of, say, a 65-year-old grandmother who has read, worked and travelled widely.
But no! Reading a review in the paper today I came across this little gem: "People today stay younger, in the sense of behaving impulsively and postponing major life events, longer than in the past". As a 29-year-old who is not married and has no kids and no mortgage, I can only surmise that Rhoda "Could I be any more patronising?" Koenig is talking about me and my generation.
This seems odd. If by "younger" and "behaving impulsively", she means lacking wisdom and not considering the consequences of what we do, I'd argue that in fact my generation of middle-class life-event postponers is actually wiser than our forebears. I am continually hearing/reading the previous generation complaining about how they didn't have the opportunities that I have, that they married too early and if they had their time over they wouldn't have settled down when they did, so surely it is a sign of wisdom that I and my friends didn't get married and have kids at 19 but yet spent our 20s travelling/working/generally having fun.
As for postponing major life events: as my life expectancy is somewhere in the region of another 40-odd years, notwithstanding illness, a nasty accident or someone hijacking the plane I'm on (whilst, no doubt, "impulsively" taking a long weekend city break in Antanarivo, because that's what my Peter Pan generation likes to do) and flying it into a building, I see no reason why I should rush into marriage/kids/homeownership. Surely the trend for this behavious indicates that my generation is thinking ahead and considering the consequences of our decisions?
And although there's no reason for Rhoda "Should be writing for the Daily Mail, not the Independent" Koenig to be aware that I have already buried a parent, which is pretty much as major a life event as they come, she should surely be aware that the price of houses these days means that even those of us who do want to settle down and do some of those major life events that are connected with owning a home (buying one's first sit-on lawnmower, for example) are precluded from doing so even though we are working our arses off (and isn't getting a good job a life event anyway?).
And by the way, my dad didn't get married till he was 33. It has been common for hundreds of years for men not to get married until they're well into their 30s - read some Jane Austen, Rhoda - it's only women who did their "major life events" when they were barely out of their teens. So Rhoda "sexist" Koenig is really only referring to the changing situation of women.
Secondly, "acting impulsively"? I have a very responsible job in which I manage three people and handle an annual budget of tens of thousands of pounds. I don't just decide to bugger off for the day and take ecstasy in a forest whenever I feel like it. I may not have to factor the provision of high chairs into every decision I make about which restaurant to go to, but I do have a network of family, work and other connections that affect the way I live my day-to-day life.
I have no idea how old Rhoda "Sour grapes" Koenig is, but I find her implication that anyone who's not some prematurey middle-aged square is somehow an irresponsible waste of space almost as irritating as the negative associations she puts on the word "younger". What in hell is wrong with postponing major life events longer than my parents' generation did? They would have done if they could.
And another thing: I long ago ceased to be surprised by the way the USA manages to fuck up other people's countries, but surely to God they could have foreseen that forcing a new flag on an occupied nation is a little tactless?
On a lighter note, surely this stuff about pet cloning is a hoax along the lines of this stuff about baby cloning which is actually a plug for this film? I mean, "Genetic Savings and Clone"? Come on, people. I can't believe the press has fallen for it so hard. Cute puss though.
Friday, April 23, 2004
Well, it's been a long time since my last post (indeed, it's been a long time since rock'n'roll) but hey, I hadn't forgotten ya. So why not check out these delightful diet recipes from 1974? They sure make me thankful for the Marks and Spencer Count on Us range.
Or, if you're not on a diet but looking for something stylish to wear to the Grand National, how about one of these fine titfers?
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Word of the day: burly
Lots of stuff has happened, as it tends to, so here is a digest, in order of excitingness:
1) I got Glastonbury tickets!!!! It was all thanks to my lovely friends Lord and Lady Benthal who discovered that they could phone up on the international line and you only had to listen to an engaged tone for half an hour before getting through. So after our whole group had given up after 12 hours of trying and reconciled ourselves to camping in the garden with a radio and a bag of dried sage, because we all had to, you know, like go to work and heavy stuff like that which made it a little inconvenient to spend another 14 hours trying to get through to the phone/internet booking services, they - being respectively freelance and currently between jobs, and therefore at home - refused to give in and not only got tickets for me and the boyf but for four other friends as well. And this is using a system where you couldn't book more than two tickets per credit card or per phonecall That's dedication. Lady Benthal said she had a headache afterwards, and I'm not surprised. I am going to make them a massive tin of my really nice brownies this weekend to say thankyou.
2) Bessie came home! I was so pleased to see her. She had a lovely time in Goa and had a fling with a sexy young Frenchman which is just what she needed after being treated so appallingly by her two-timing rat of a boyfriend.
3) And we went to the Sanctuary!! Which was total luxury. We spent all day in spa baths/steam rooms/saunas etc and got wrinkly fingers. And we had facials which were very nice and these bizarre anti-cellulite treatments that were a bit less pleasant, but we'd vowed to go for the most ridiculous beauty treatment on offer and that was the chosen one. I wouldn't have it again but I did enjoy wearing the paper knickers. We're going again for an evening soon.
4) I went to see my brother for the weekend! I love him and his wife. I should see them more often. They live in Bath which is beautiful and I wish I lived in that part of the world. I want to move to the country sometime soon, hopefully before the end of the year - how great it would be to fall asleep to the sound of cows mooing instead of police sirens and to wake up to a view over the rolling Cotswolds instead of smelly Hackney.
5) Sunday was a day with a really cool date: 040404.... numerologically terribly auspicious I'm sure. I like that kind of thing anyway, I got very excited about the binary numbers we had in 2001 (110101 etc).
