"That blasts of January..."

"...Would blow you through and through."

Right, so January I resolved to visit at least 4 places in London I have never been before. Here are my four:

Tower Bridge Exhibition
Early this month a friend and I visited the glass walkway and engine rooms at Tower Bridge.

I get in for free as a perk of my job, so that was one of the reasons we decided on that one! It was pretty cool actually, really fun to stand on the glass and pretend to crush the cars and pedestrians below (though it would be better if some of them fell down to make it more realistic) and I quite liked seeing the engines. The main downside was the amount of tourists... Do you really need 3 pictures of you lying on the glass floor? Really? Do you really think the glass will break if I jump on it? MORE FOOL YOU.

I'm not sure it would have been worth the £9 fee most visitors spend, but I'm pleased I went.

Highgate Cemetery
The middle of this month I took a tour of the West Cemetery at Highgate.

We arrived and signed up to the next tour and luckily we were the only people on it! Private tour? Yes please! A lovely, very knowledgeable volunteer named Doreen showed us round, including a grave not always shown on the regular tour - the Rossetti's. This is also the resting place of Elizabeth Siddal, muse and wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Who had her exhumed a few years after her burial in order to retrieve an  unpublished book of poems to sell when he fell on hard times! So romantic...

I particularly enjoyed the grave of Tom Sayers, a bare-knuckle fighter who lasted more than forty rounds in a fight against American John Heenan, despite breaking his arm early on and fighting the rest one-handed. When he died a few years later, his chief mourner was his mastiff, Lion, a stone version of whom guards his grave.

I wish I could list all of Doreen's facts and stories, but I will just give shout-outs to the tombs of George Wombwell, Julius Beer, and Radclyffe Hall. Look 'em up.

Will definitely be going back in the Summer. Double thumbs up.

Dennis Severs' House
On the 19th CB and I had a mooch around Dennis Severs' House in Folgate Street.

It's a house/museum/still-life-drama that you walk round in silence. Each room is a different historical period, and you follow the story of the fictional Jervis family as you walk through the house and walk through time.

The rooms are arranged as if the family has just walked out as you've walked in, with half drunk cups of tea, broken cups, unmade beds and spilt sugar etc. Very odd, very unusual and really cool! A lot of objects you'd be used to seeing in a museum, but having them arranged as though they were still in use really changes your perception of them. It's like a living museum.

I particularly like the kitchen, with cheeky sugar mice and gingerbread men peeping out from the shelves and cookery books, and I liked the noise effects because they really helped cement you in the time period of the room. I also enjoyed checking to see if the chamber pots had been used or not!

Very odd, but well worth a visit.

Sky Garden
I work in the City, so a group of us decided to visit the Sky Garden in the Walkie Talkie. I think CoL gave it planning permission so really we were doing our civic duty in inspecting it. Yes we were.

I am sad to say it was really really disappointing!

I know everything's newly planted, but you can't really call it a garden. The planted bits are too steep and you can't walk on them. The view is gorgeous and all the curved glass is absolutely beautiful and all that jazz, but the place feels very corporate and not garden-like at all. We looked around, took some pictures....and left. There is a cafe, but we figured the food would be pretty pricey, and there is a terrace but it was bloody closed! (Not cool, Sky Garden.)

Would make a bangin' club though. Just saying.


*Quote from William Shakespeare

"Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering..."

"...'It will be happier'"

So a lot of 2014 sucked. Like, really sucked.

So this year I thought instead of making a New Year resolution that would limit me in some way (i.e. stop smoking, cut out chocolate etc.) I would do something to open my life up a little bit. Which sounds pretty prissy, but I don't care. Eating healthily or making myself go to the gym would undoubtedly make me feel good, but not necessarily happy. Which is important.

So, to cut to the chase, I have resolved to do something I have never done before every month.

Not all the months have been finalised yet, but I have some ideas....

January I am visiting at least 4 places in London I have never been. I've already done one and I have some good ideas for the others. Hoping to blog at the end of every month so watch this space Philly Fans!


*Quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson

"Heaven is whenever..."

"...We can get together."


So I've had a particularly rubbish week. I've been coming down with a cold, so after struggling through Monday at work I sacked off the pub quiz that evening and called in sick on Tuesday. Turns out, being off work is brilliant but only when you're not actually ill... Obviously I appreciated the chance to watch some terrible TV (ANTM anyone? Nope, just me then...) but generally it's just killing time until someone comes along to entertain you. 

Wednesday saw me back in work, but being repeatedly told how ill I looked and how I should go home... A big confidence booster, I can tell you. But I had to be in to prepare for my mammoth Thursday - anyone fancy 4 hours of back-to-back meetings, being filmed and no lunch? So when Friday rolled around (with a sneaky pub lunch served by what could be the IDENTICAL TWIN of Theon Greyjoy from Game of Thrones) I was ready to crawl into my Spiderman onesie and stick my snotty nose in a good book. 

My Filofax , though, had other plans (yes, I said Filofax. Deal with it). Dinner at my (gorgeously hyperactive) friend's flat in Sawbo to spend the night with some of my oldest and best friends. 

And I could not be more grateful I dragged myself there. 

I know everyone thinks they have the best mates, but they really really don't. Because I do. It doesn't matter how often I see C., HSnr. and HJnr., they always have something interesting to talk about, some new perspective on my problems, and some horrific but hilarious anecdote. 

Us in Prague, August 2011

After about a million menthol rollies, a few bottles of wine, rum and gin, and 4 hours of Trivial Pursuit, we had covered most of the basics: life, love, mental health, dreams, sex, music, and drugs. I had also had a couple of epiphanies about myself, the main one being that I can answer a goodly amount of Trivial Pursuit questions but only when it's someone else's go. 

What I admire most about my friends is their unflinching honesty. Things are rarely perfect or even pretty but that just doesn't matter. We take whatever people have/who they are and we embrace, relate to, and accept it all. Who could ask for more?

The best end to a shitty week. (Not including the drunk guy who sat next to me on the train home. Nor me having to pick up his can of cider when he tipped it over. Nor the looks of others when I then smelt of cider. Sigh.)


*Quote from The Hold Steady.

"This is no declaration, I just thought I'd let you know goodbye..."

"...Said the hero in the story"

Hello Easter Monday! 

You join me on my bed in my pyjamas, hair scraped back, surrounded by chocolates (and choco wrappers) with a treasured cup of tea (containing the last of the milk). Perfect setting to do some Facebook Culling. (Please accept the use of 'unfriend' and 'defriend' as actually words for this bloglet. Also the word 'bloglet'.) 

*Dips tiny chocolate egg in tea*

I have just unfriended about 20 people. These people are (mostly) lovely, but I asked myself two questions:
1. Would I want to meet up for a cup of coffee with this person? (I would meet for a cup of tea with almost anyone so we have to specify coffee here)
2. If I saw this person on the street/on a train, would I go up and say hello, or would I keep my head down and hope they don't see me? 

*Slurps tea*

If NO to #1, I seriously consider whether I want to actively share my digital life with them. Sometimes this is a clear cut decision but sometimes it's a little more complicated. Say they were someone I used to know, or worked with, who I really liked but haven't seen in a year or so. Therefore no to coffee but not necessary a removal. 

*Unwraps and nibbles egg*

Move on to question #2. If this is AVOID, I unfriend them. Why am I classing myself as a digital friend to someone I wouldn't want to acknowledge in public? Sometimes this is awkward. Sometimes it's the friend of someone you like, or someone you used to be close with but just don't have need for in your life anymore. Sometimes you get a message from them days later asking how they are and saying how weird it is that you're not Facebook friends when they "swear we used to be! LOL!"

Though it's nice they're trying to resurrect the friendship, I find it creepy when someone I don't speak to often notices when I unfriend - I don't post a lot so if you notice we're not friends it means you are Facebook Stalking me. Reinforces the decision to defriend. Sorted. 

*Checks empty mug for more tea*

*Sadface*

If someone defriended me (and I actually noticed) I might be hurt (depending on who they were) but I would ask myself the last time we actually had any contact more than a 'like' on a status or something. If I want to keep people in my life I need to make the effort to keep them, and I hope that my Facebook friends do the same. 

If not, next time I'm too lazy to get dressed and go out they'll be for the chop - mwahahahaha! 


*Quote from Belle & Sebastian 

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead..."

"...I lift my lids and all is born again."

Today on the way to work I finished “Mad Girl’s Love Song”, a biography of Sylvia Plath.

I loved it; I found it very insightful, very gripping and very thought provoking. However, as it ended with her meeting Ted Hughes (as the latter part of her life has been well documented elsewhere) I have been left hungry for more.

It feels very odd to be hungry for a person. I wish to devour them, mind and soul. I want her letters, her words, her thoughts inside me, in my stomach to churn and digest.

I’ve always loved Sylvia Plath, and the more I read of her work and about the woman herself the more I feel an affinity to the ill-fated poet. She looked for doubles and I see her as mine. In the grip of a depression her words resonate with me, in exhilaration only mania brings I see her fevered soul in my eyes.

Is this dangerous? To identify so closely to a woman who took her own life, who indeed seemed destined to do so? My Mother once told me she foresaw and dreaded the day I would abscond from my life, disappear without a goodbye, unable to continue to try and solve the problems I saw with living. Well, she didn’t say it anywhere near as prosaically or as pretentiously as that, but you catch my meaning.

I don’t want to give up on life, but I don’t want to bury that side of me; sometimes at my most broken I feel like my most authentic self. How twisted is that?


*Quote from Sylvia Plath

"'Hallo Rabbit,' he said, 'is that you?'..."

"...'Let's pretend it isn't,' said Rabbit, 'and see what happens.'"

I've never been a pet person. You know how some people class themselves as animal lovers? Yeah, I'm not one of them. I've got nothing against animals, I think they're very cute and I like having a cuddle, but I've always been happy to hand them back afterwards.

We never had hamsters or a dog or anything, but I remember our family cat when I was a tiddler (under 6). I remember her trying to sit on my lap and doing that thing that all cats do - kneading your thighs to get comfy. I found it unbearable. You know the sensation when someone jabs you in the sides and it kinda tickles, kinda hurts, but basically makes you squeal and jump away? That's what it was like for me. And obviously with me tensing up and trying not to squirm underneath, the kitty never gets comfy and just spends longer doing its torturous massage. Inevitably it ends with kitty sinking her claws into my tender legs and me jumping out of my seat cartoon-style.

Well I was always told that this reaction was because I was so young and my legs were a bit too small for our cat to get comfy. THAT WAS A LIE. I still cannot abide the sensation of a kitty walking across my lap. I like it when they settle and you have the warm furry ball to stroke, but rarely can I engage in mind-over-body mediation long enough for that to happen. I have to employ the services of a cushion, which really isn't as successful in attracting cat attention. Kitty wants warm legs, not a still cushion that either sinks in the middle or topples to the side if not perfectly balanced. All in all, I am happy to remain pet-free and thus free of negotiating the traumatic experience of lap sitting. Not to mention the lack of responsibility and cost... 

So when we got the green light from our landlord to get rabbits, I was fairly nonplussed. Never had rabbits, never wanted them. Obviously thought they were cute, but really never saw the attraction. Imagine my surprise when I got home from a weekend away yesterday to two darling little fluff-balls and fell in love. One is a teeny tiny sandy coloured bunny, and one is a slightly bigger grey lionhead bad boy. Fucking adorable. The whole house can now be found regularly sitting round the garden cooing over the new additions, overreacting at every nibble and every whisker twitch.

But you know the best bit? They are officially my housemate's so I don't have to clean them, feed them or pay for them. Genius. Why has no one thought of this before? Difficult to orchestrate, I grant you, but the best arrangement certainly.

*Quote from A. A. Milne

"We Hobbits ought to stick together, and we will. I shall go, unless they chain me up..."

"...There must be someone with intelligence in the party."

Recently I watched a Channel 4 documentary-type-show on the fans of One Direction. It was eye-opening. I remember being pre-teen and keen on a few boybands (namely Boyzone, 911 and Peter Andre (I-know-he’s-not-a-boyband-but-that-is-not-the-point)) but I think the extent to my fandom was a topless Andre doll, a animatronic dinosaur named after the muscled hunk, a couple of Boyzone concerts at Wembley, and me and my sister knowing all the words and the harmony parts to The Journey. Not a casual interest, it’s true, but nothing that could be classed as obsessive.

These girls though…they were generally older for a start, more akin to the 1D lads’ age, so maybe that changes thing. They were more of a sexualised age than I was in my Boyzone heyday. Plus the obvious elephant of social media – if you feel you are directly linked to your hero I would imagine that sharpens the obsession. I suppose it’s that link that leads on to the “stalking” - waiting outside hotel rooms, accosting anyone with a security badge, threatening to hurt yourself for their attention, bombarding them with twoots…you know the like. They know the band can see their message and that personal link could be established, but there are too many messages for theirs to stand out; they have to take it to the next level.

I discussed the fandom with my housemate, who pointed out that many people were obsessive in their youth, just not always about a pop band. “Interesting point” I thought, “was I obsessed with anything at 14?” And then it hit me.

My One Direction was Lord of the Rings. How utterly pathetic.

My obsession started when the first film came out. A quick Google tells me that was in 2001 so I would have been about 13. I don’t know what it was that hooked me to be honest; I had read and enjoyed The Hobbit, sure, but not fanatically. After seeing FotR for the first time I pretty much swallowed the books whole and vomited up stacks of posters - a mixture of artistic illustrations based on the books, really big movie posters, and collages of faces I had printed from the internet. I named all my friends after the characters - I was Pippin, my sister Merry. Two of my closest friends were Frodo and Sam despite the two of them not being close. In fact looking back a lot of the names given didn’t really make sense… Some people refused to be named, others asked eagerly to be included, and one person was thrilled just to be given the name of one of the horses after all the good names had run out. I created scrapbooks of film tickets, interviews from magazine, clippings, toys, any paraphernalia I could cram into my lever arch files (I had three).

But it wasn’t just Tolkien’s lore that had me; I was besotted with the actors too. I knew all their names, not just for the main 9 but all the named characters (I don’t know who played the Witch King however). My friend (Frodo) and I found chat room records of a conversation including Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan (Pippin and Merry) and would quote them at each other. Things that made no sense: “Who are you and why do you have the power to cancel the internet?” “ Dom, cause I am God”. We would use a very scientific method (MASH) to calculate the percentage of our love match with each actor, varying the spelling of our names and theirs in order to get a bigger score. I plastered my school planner in pictures and quotes and random runes and Elvish script. I wrote out every poem in the FotR by hand into a customised notebook; I would have continued but thankfully my sister bought me a properly published version and saved me the hassle.

And although I never tried to find where the actors lived, never felt any strong emotions regarding their wives and girlfriends, never wrote to them or tried to contact them, maybe this would have been different if I had been able to tweet them. I definitely would have ‘followed’ them and sent tweets. If I had known they were doing any signings in London I would have attended. I believed I would be very good friends with Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan and Elijah Wood, if I just had the opportunity to get to know them. But I never presumed to orchestrate a meeting. I dreamt of it happening by fortuitous accident, yes, but I understood it was just a dream and I think part of me didn’t want to shatter the fantasy by confronting it. I knew I didn’t really know them, and I think I must have known deep down that a 14 year old school girl wouldn’t really have much in common with a fully grown movie star. I liked rock bands at that age too, I think I saw Biffy Clyro about 9 times, but again despite fancying them and thinking they were the coolest guys ever, I was too wrapped up in my own life to think about infiltrating theirs.

Why aren’t these teenagers more involved with their own social life than a pop band? How has an online social life replaced a real one? If you speak to half your friends online more than you do in person, is it any wonder people feel they could be friends with celebrities?

More importantly, how old do I feel right now? Urgh.

*Quote from JRR Tolkien