Streetwars in London

It's not big.
It's not clever.
It's not advisable in this age of heightened terrorist alerts.
But it looks like a bloody good laugh.

Streetwars comes to London

I know how they make it so creamy

So a quick post before my golden two weeks in Devon draws to an end. I can hardly complain as I'm about to fly off to Italy for a week with J and J (how confusing!) but it really has been absolutely wonderful here, helped undoubtedly by the balmy weather. J came down for a few days before and I took great delight in showing her all the lovely things to do in the area - we went for long tramps through the woods, to the beaches, the coves, the harbours, the pubs... Our best day was probably yesterday when we went to try out John Burton Race's restaurant The New Angel, as seen on Channel 4 (www.newangel.co.uk). It IS pricey - more so than anywhere else I've ever eaten - but oh my God, the food was amazing. Maybe I have a severely uneducated palate as a woman we got chatting to in the lounge area told us she was "most disappointed" and that her partner, Jean-Jacques, made far better foie gras. Not having Jean-jacques as my partner, I had to content myself with a wonderful, buttery, slippery, creamy rich foie gras courtesy of Mr Burton Race and his minions. This was accompanied by wonderful earthy black pudding, an incredibly honey sauce, and rocket that cut through the fat and gave a wonderful tang to the whole dish. J and I ate in rapt silence. For my main, I had the loin of pork, served with a wrapped pork belly, and lovely crisp cruncy apples and greens. Unfortunately it also came with beetroot (yuck) so J polished that off for me. She had the lamb - two generous size servings of best end, with a herb crust, and a pea puree that was minty with a real fresh kick - so good you could eat a whole bowl of it by itself. For pudd, I had raspberry millefeuille with pistachio ice cream and raspberry sorbet, and J had the cheese board (with incredibly pongy camembert). Our quibbles are that the foie gras was maybe a touch too rich - you really didn't need so much, and the starter at £12 could maybe have stood a bit of trimming in size and price. Also the staff (all French!), while v professional, did not explain the cheese selection well - a problem in most posh places (saying "it's blue cheese" is NOT enough. They should explain provenence, type of milk used, maturity etc). The wine list was v good too, and lots of reasonably priced bottles before you had to push the boat out.
The most memorable part of the evening was when we retired in manner of nineteenth century gentlemen to the smoking lounge. We got into all sorts of conversations, including one with a man who'd had a terrible motorbike accident (but my scar was better than his) and a gentleman who told us his three favourite activites in life were food, sex and cricket. He bought me a huge armagnac, so my head hurts today. But oh it was worth it, a real experience, and v good fun. We laughed all the way home on the ferry, and our peals of laughter drifted over the peaceful river and made me think that a good friend, a good meal, and a warming drink (especially when bought for one) are really the staff of life.

Noisy Neighbours

Hmmm - I wonder if writing letters of complaint in poem form meets with a more efficient response? I will let you know - I've sent the "Oh Ken" poem off to the mayor's office, and here's another one, to my local council.

It started some weeks ago,
And continued many nights in a row,
For above me live some boys
Who make a lot of noise
All night long –
It’s very wrong

Around eleven-thirty
I hear them get flirty
With some girls who are there
And they really don’t care
Who it annoys –
Well, after all, they are boys!

Around midnight
They start to play-fight
It’s the noise I can’t bear
I don’t know how they dare
Then I hear the doors slam
They don’t give a damn

I cannot take any more –
This banging on the floor
Lying in my bed
I can hear it above my head
Their endless screams
Even permeate my dreams

They play music too loud
But I am too proud
To go up there in pyjamas
They’d think me bananas
And anyway – as a single gal
I can’t confront them without a pal

So what did I do?
I contacted you
The Dept of Environmental Health
Which receives a great wealth
From our council tax –
And this gets up our backs

At this I must moan –
‘cos when I picked up the ‘phone
There was nobody there –
Do you not care
About noise at night?
Why must I fight?

Only to find
That you’re not very kind;
It’s acceptable for –
Between daytime hours of nine and four -
Neighbours to make noise
Just like those boys

I don’t wish to deflect
But to this I object
There is no way
That during the day
I would wish to complain
Or launch a campaign

Against any noisy lad –
However bad –
But it is simply not correct
To assume I’m a woman kept
Do not sneer –
I have a career!

It makes me fume
How you assume
We are around during the day
And for this we should pay
We did you elect*
And you must us protect

But what did you say
We can help you no way –
Even though you pay
We just do as we may
For you the solution
Is to speak to Noise Pollution

So: you pass the buck
You just don’t give a
F
U
C
K
I gave Noise Pollution a ring
Though they too wouldn’t do a thing

So I went to the top
And called in a cop
But they don’t care
Unless the neighbours dare
To indulge in mugging
Or illegal drugging

I just wanted to mention
This terrible tension
Council of Tories
I’m asking you please,
Make the upstairs tenants
Do their just penance

* Not me – I would never vote Tory!

Oh, Ken

Oh Ken
Is it just you, then
Or is it all men -
Who promise one thing
Only to bring
Misery and pain
Again and again?

You’ve increased the bus fare
And it doesn’t end there
Regarding the tube
You’ve made a big boob
For though we can see -
For example with P-PP -
You’re under government constraints,
I’ve a number of complaints
I would like to address
And put you under duress

Now first of all
I’m not very tall
So I constantly find
People aren’t very kind:
I am trampled upon –
This goes on and on –

Oh Ken,
I hate it when -
Without asking if they may -
People shove me out the way
It’s such a farce -
If I try to pass
They hit me on the
A
R
S
E
And it causes a ruck
When I find myself stuck
Beneath someone’s arm pit –
I can’t stand it

Daily I’m met
With such poor etiquette
We’re penned in like cattle
Why’s it a battle?
I’m making a fuss
‘cos there are too many of us –
On the trains we need chairs
(And in the stations, less stairs!)

Another issue to raise
Is the constant delays
I’m very dismayed
That I’m constantly delayed
And in relation
To the poor communication –
I cannot believe
There is no reprieve

I also can’t stand
Stations being unmanned
I can’t take any more
It’s become quite a bore

The
Rat-infested
Underground
Is a bit
Like a pit
And the smell
Is just hell

You charge us too much
And it really is such
A bloody cheek
What I spend in a week
On
Tube
Fares

But what’s even worse
Than the strain on my purse
Is that it’s too bloody hot!
You leave us to rot
And get wet
And drenched in sweat
Please make it your mission
To air condition
The
Underground

Oh Ken
You and your men
You’re in City Hall
Having a ball -
And in London bars –
Where are you – on Mars?
Don’t you realise
That the demise
Of Blair’s Labour Brits
(They’ve become such gits)
Reveals a problem that lies
In the rise
Of
Champagne
Socialism?

Oh Ken, do you care?
Have I made you aware
Of my nightmare?

I voted for you
But you haven’t pulled through
I know your job is tough
But I’ve had quite enough
So do a favour to us all:
Go back to City Hall
And make a resolution
To find a solution

I can no longer wait
So just sort it out, mate!

We're having a heat wave...

oof, my wish list is entirely heat wave related.

1) Outsize sunglasses with tortoiseshell rims and arms. Only way in which I wish to emulate Ms. Beckham

2) Continious supply of Luscombe's organic "hot" ginger beer (drank gallons of it at pub yesterday, at £2.40 a pop I'd be better off sticking to Stella, but it is GORGEOUS) - and I should say the hot refers to the quantity of ginger, not the temp. of the drink

3) Gorgeous buff surfer dude boyfriend to accompany me to beach, and who would enjoy it as much as I do, and not complain about the heat/ his irish skin burning easily.

4) Endless supply of mindless magazines to leaf through, esp. biba. French magazines are made for beach reading. Also a couple of interesting yet easy read books.

5) A Mitty James adult beach towelling robe (check them out on www.mittyjames.co.uk). They are beautiful. In fact, I'd like the entire range - the shorts, the parka. And even a child to dress in the ridiculously cute towelling poncho.

6) Huge slices of watermelon

7) a boat to sunbathe on and jump into the sea from

8) Large snorkel and mask. So I could swim in the sea without worrying about losing my contact lenses.

9) A cool box full of cool stella artois and group of trendy young friends to drink stella with.

10) Portable barbecue, and group of trendy young friends to eat barbecue foods with.

11) eternal free use of sunloungers at beach, not just when have leg in cast like last year (though still v grateful to lovely beach attendants at Broadsands for that)

12) ability to make dogs, cats and seagulls leave me alone while at beach or in pub gardens or in own back garden (have been harrassed by all 3 in last 2 days!)

13) Love my red silk sunhat the girls bought me years ago, but would like another, big, straw hat with scarf round it

Of course if I get all this, it will start to rain!

Wish List

I really really really want this.

And this.

Gilgamesh

Went to FAB new bar/restaurant last night - Girls, you would LOVE it. They're a bit up themselves, and the service was atrocious, but the venue is fantastic - and so good to have somewhere like this close to home - and I'm sure they'll iron out any problems in due course. Oh, and I bumped into one of my sisters there (the one who thinks she's a socialite), so it must be uber-cool. So guess where we're going to hold my (now scarily imminent) bday dinner?

Check it out

Last Weekend in Belfast

So this weekend just gone was my last weekend in Belfast for a few months, as I try desperately to pack up my life into two teeny tiny bags that weigh less than 25kg, and persuade myself than I can live without the 100s of CDs, American sitcom DVD boxsets, Italian film posters, back copies of Biba and Private Eye, various kitsch knick knacks, photos, and two bookcases worth of books that adorn my flat. I always seem to end up throwing away furniture, clothes, and bedding, and keeping half empty shampoo bottles (but is an amazing shampoo I bought in Sephora in New York and makes even my hair less frizzy) and photos of ex-boyfriends I haven't seen for 10 years (the boyfriends, not the photos). I spent my time washing, ironing and folding clothes while watching the tennis. However, I must also say a strange nostalgia swept over me. I was meeting J and her ex-boyfriend B in the Duke of York on Saturday night and bizarrely actually got there early (practically a first for me) and was sat in the back bar, looking at all the lovely coloured mirrors with their adverts for Bushmills whiskey, and the poem by Yeats engraved on the wall, and the scratched dark old wood, and the mismatched stools and the old men sipping Guinness while young boys pushed round them to get their designer lagers, hearing the buzz of chatter from the main bar, and felt a sudden rush of love and affection for the city of Belfast (and I'd only had one sip of my pint). Couldn't quite believe it was my last Belfast night out with J for quite a while. Then later I went on to meet a different group of friends in Radio K, a strange night as it was quite empty - a combination of the university term ending and the 12th this Wednesday meaning everyone has left town. Ended up flirting lots with "Gunther", a half German, half Northern Irish boy of my acquaintance. He's a funny one - he's extremely flirtatious and even asked me about Ballymena boy, so he was obviously on the scene last time we spoke, and I was amazed he'd remembered. But we've never snogged - it's all just very childish (holding hands, suggestive comments, massaging necks, sitting on lap, rubbing cheeks, dancing together). I'm not sure if this is just Gunther's way with everybody - but I don't think so - but I always feel there is this expectation from the group something will happen, but it never has. Anyway, all this to say my last weekend was fun, and funny, and made me realise I will miss Belfast terribly in some ways. Now is this just the way we always are when faced with change - overcome with nostalgia for an experience, even when not all of it is great? I still have times of feeling intensely lonely and isolated here, so it is not as if everything is rosy. But it has been my life for the last few years, and even though I will be back in February, this break feels long enough to be significant, and to be removing me from a place that has become my home, almost despite myself.

Ode to Topshop

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Topshop is so much more than just a high street store. It is an institution, an empire. It brings the catwalk to us commoners, at a fraction of the cost. We fashion-worshipping consumers can sail through every season embracing stripes, polka dots, ruffles and empire-line dresses, getting good returns on our £30 investment, and discarding them when the wind changes.

The voluminous Oxford Street store is so amazing that I would actually prefer to live there than in my own flat. And with its facilities, I am sure I could: apart from the fab Central London location, all the clothes I could ever want, style advisers on tap (more of which later), fabulously kitsch objets on the top floor (although I have to say: I think the shoes are cheap and nasty, as are the accessories, which I would never wear, although again: great catwalk copies), a nail bar, café and customer toilets (a must if, like me, you are of a weak-bladdered disposition), plus people who are employed just to run down to the store room to check if they have your size and sofas on which to abandon the bored boyfriend while you are trying on clothes.

And as if this isn’t enough to make you run down to your local Topshop to initiate a catfight with a pre-pubescent binty twiglet (aren’t these girls ever at school?) over the latest pair of city shorts, wait ‘til you hear about some of their other services.

Back in February, EBS No 1 persuaded me to sign up to host a Topshop To Go party. “What’s a Topshop To Go Party?” I hear you trill. It’s a fantastically exciting concept, where 2 Topshop style advisers come to your home, bringing clothes, bags, shoes and accessories for you and up to 5 friends, for no fee and with no obligation to buy anything. Topshop – in the comfort of your own home.

So my Topshop To Go Party took place last weekend. Male Model, salivating at the prospect of spectating 6 women running around in their underwear, was thrown out of the flat and sent on a mission to hunt down a new air conditioning unit (he returned with a new golf club instead, leaving me in unbearable sweaty discomfort, while he proceeded to sneakily eat an entire box of chocolates that had been given to me by one of my guests. I found the squalid evidence under his bed, along with other unmentionable and traumatic sights).

The party was fantastic, although it would have been even better had the style advisers NOT turned up 1 ½ hours late and forgotten to bring clothes rails, so that we had to hang all the clothes up around the room. However, after some conciliatory negotiations, they did bring us champagne, goody bags, and agreed to extend the hostess’s 20% discount to all the guests. I ordered a top in a different size, and it was expressed to my office the next day.

Topshop does offer a variety of other services. Express delivery is one of them, but they will also custom-make a dress for you (£200, and there’s a 5-month waiting list). Honestly, I would even be inclined to entrust them with the arduous, diva-pleasing task of designing me a wedding dress.

But perhaps the most heart-warming ending to this little advertorial (they should just pay me to do their PR) is the way in which my Topshop parties (yes, more are on the way) have brought me closer together to people. As a self-confessed workaholic gym-addict who also studies in the evenings and is constantly travelling, I am rarely at home, and wouldn’t recognise my neighbours unless they had their key in the lock (or in the case of the Screaming Orgasm woman upstairs, there may be other methods of identification). So when I recently overslept and ended up going to work at a normal time when the sun had actually risen, I was delighted to meet my lovely new next-door neighbour, S. I decided to invite her, and two other neighbours she is friendly with, R and B, to the Topshop party.

Such a good decision, that made me realise that I am so busy running around everywhere trying to find new experiences, that I have forgotten that there are simple pleasures available to me much closer to home, such as late night drinks with the girls in my block and gossiping sessions about Orgasm Woman’s latest conquest.

Feeling Sorry for Self

F, I totally understand how you feel. Recently, I have been feeling - and this is a very specifically pre-30th bday crisis - that while I have been getting on with my life, working literally every working hour towards my goals and ambitions, feeling that I am still not "there", all of a sudden, it seems that everyone is growing up and settling down. Everyone seems to have moved on: not merely owning a property, but upgrading to their second home; not merely dating or in a relationship, but buying a property with a partner, or in more extreme cases, marrying and having a child. Some friends even have more than one child!

As time goes on, and I am still not in a relationship, I am becoming ever-more independent, and therefore (I know this is anti-feminist, but it is sodding true and I'm just going to say it) even more scary and repellent to men. Even all my friends are now convinced that "partner for life" relationships (or even just relationships) are not for me.

Last week, I had to go into hospital for minor surgery. I had to be there at 7am, and although I am lucky to have so many friends, there was no one to take me to or collect me from the hospital. I even ended up taking public transport home (although that's more a sign of my independence and bloody mindedness than anything else). The whole episode just made it seem so depressing to see a lifetime of this ahead of me – everything being twice as difficult and involving extra planning, not so much because I'm on my own, but because everyone else is
not. It feels as though I will spend the rest of my life in a career path I don't want to follow, struggling financially, with dehydrated skin from constant flying and not getting enough sleep, still bloody studying with no prospect of better times to come; permanently unattractive and repellent to men, and this will only get worse as I get older and more brittle and defensive towards men. It feels as though I will always be renting a room in someone else's flat, have no assets, and not be able to afford a new car or have time to go on a much-needed holiday – and certainly have no one to go on holiday with.

Last week I went to a barbeque at the home of my friends S&S, and although it was lovely, it was yet another reminder of how scarily functional and grown up everyone else is. They have a lovely grown up home with lots of sweet wedding and family photos everywhere, and they managed to pull off a yummy, relaxed meal, in contrast to myself; on the rare occasion I subject my friends to dinner at mine, I run around for days before cursing my demanding guests, then force them to eat weird wheat-free superfoods they have never heard of, while obsessively cleaning up around everyone.

I have spent my post-operative recovery time sitting at home, obsessively checking my blackberry, paranoid that I am ruining my career by daring to be ill for a week, watching mid-morning TV chat shows ("My husband fathered a child with my mother" - nothing like that to put your life in perspective!), and being visited by friends with children, which has been lovely, but feel as though am destroying brain cells by reading Thomas the Tank Engine stories all week and rolling around on the floor pretending to be a train! Raising children is so far removed from my daily life, and although some of my married friends have - and I am SO touched by this - kindly offered to let me stay with them while I recover, the prospect of me staying in their guest bedroom in their suburban 4 bedroom-3 bathroom house with grown-up furniture and kitchen, and two kids, two cars and husband (just the one husband thankfully!) – is even more depressing. I feel cheated out one of life's experiences we are meant to have in our 20s, that I haven't even begun to learn the lessons one can only learn from being in different relationships. I used to think I was wise and savvy and just not vulnerable (for not getting into bad relationships), but now I'm starting to think there is something wrong with me. Not that I'm looking for it, but... why can't people look for ME?! And the whole thing is made worse by the visible signs of aging that are now appearing on my body. Even my bloody armpits are wrinkled because the skin is old and sagging. I don't mind getting older, I just (a) don't want to look older, and (b) certainly don't want to look older or even become older until my achievements and experiences catch up with the number.

I work harder than most people I know. I get up at 4.30 every weekday morning. I work a 12 hour day. I study in the library until 11pm. I train twice a day. So WHY am I still STRUGGLING when everyone else seems to be reaping the benefits of their efforts???