19
February 13:02
On (not) being Jewish
Going to Israel last September has really changed my perception of many things, from Jewish culture to the conflict to how nice it would be to live somewhere with better weather.One unintended consequence of my 5 day trip is this: since going, three different people have assumed I am Jewish.
One, when I was in Israel (an easy mistake - I was on a trip organised by the Union of Jewish Students!).
The second time was in November at the IPSO event. I asked a question about the representation of the conflict in the British media, saying I had spent a few days in Israel back in September. When he answered my question, the guy from the Palestinian General Delegation to the UK suddenly started using the word "you" when he spoke about Israel or the Jewish people. "You" do this or "you" promised that.
Finally, a nasty far-right columnist on a nasty far-right website (no, I'm not linking to them!) has described me as "a Jewish lesbian NuLabourite". How they ended up mentioning me is a long story, but it involves a post I wrote about David Irving, which was then mentioned by someone else, and his post was picked up by the columnist....
Now, panic not, I don't care if someone thinks I'm Jewish. I'm not, but then again, I've spent my entire life being mistaken for a Christian and I'm not that either. I'm an atheist and I long to live in a secular, socialist society.
I'm bemused by my secret identity (so secret that I know nothing about it) because I can only think of one reason why this assumption has suddenly been made: I went to Israel for five days so I must be Jewish.
Is it me, or is that just part of the anti-Semitism that still plagues society? Maybe not intentional (some of the time) but there is something distasteful about the way this assumption works.
Oh, and I don't care what far-right Nazis think of me, though in conclusion, I would like to take this opportunity to refute the "NuLabourite" accusation. Bastards...
And for those of you who have been asking, I promise that one day, I will get round to blogging the rest of my trip to Israel. It's just that I can't find my notebook...
17
February 23:02
The Mercedes Mystery
And the prophets foretold that in the far distant future a Shining Silver Machine would appear, overnight, a gleaming thing of Joy and Wonder among the murky coloured micras and the grubby white vans, and the Street would truly be transformed by its glorious Presence, and all would look upon the Miracle with thankful eyes......apart from the person whose parking space it had taken as it fell from the heavens.
All right, strictly, I suppose, it's not actually my parking space, apart from the fact that it is the spot that is directly outside my house. And also I consider it my right, as a driver without power steering, to have priority to this particular space, as it's directly next to a driveway so I don't have to wrench my arms out of their sockets and attempt a parallel park with an interested audience twitching their curtains. I can also gaze upon this hallowed spot from the spare room window, and give Coco a little wink every so often so she doesn't get too lonely out there. It's nice for a little car to feel appreciated, after all. The poor girl hasn't really got that much going for her otherwise.
And for a while, this worked. Coco sat happily outside the window, for the most part. Occasionally, she and I would find somebody else had coasted into our spot, and there were a few times when she ended up nose to nose with an entirely undesirable van, but these are after all, formative life experiences, and she doesn't seem to have suffered unduly from them.
But that was all back in the halcyon days of Before Merc. Literally overnight, this silver beast dropped from the skies, and we woke one morn about five weeks ago to find it twinkling outside our house. And it has not moved since.
At first, it was a bit of local interest. It added a bit of glamour and speculation to our humdrum lives. I mean, it's not everyone who has a whacking great Mercedes Benz appear outside their house now, is it? However, gradually, the charm wore off. Every morning now, we wake to feel its presence looming outside our closed curtains, and have to look away from its scrutiny as we lock the door every night. It is immovable, unchanging in wind and weather, and we are powerless against it. Coco and I even have to respectfully change down a gear as we pass its presence in case we graze its silver sheen, and the two of us remain in perpetual fear of overstepping the boundaries of courtesy as we try to parallel park near its large shiny body.
What we are desperate to know, but do not dare to ask, is when will it leave? When can we return to our cheerful pursuit of carelessly dodging round little two door metros and fiestas without its eternally threatening presence? When, in fact, can we cease to live in fear? It's been sitting there for over a bloody month now, and hasn't moved once. It doesn't appear to belong to anybody. More importantly, it's hogging my parking space, in the way a car with no claim to the house it sits beside and probably power power power steering has no right to do. Besides, it makes Coco feel inadequate. Look, I tell her, it's got nothing on you. You are beloved of an honest woman, and although you may have only a teeny engine and battered white paintwork, you are so valued that all that ceases to be important.
So, you see, having a nice shiny mystery vehicle brightening up the street is all very well, but now it's just plain annoying, for many reasons. I'm just waiting for the second Miracle to occur – the one where it disappears as mysteriously as it came. (And although we never hear of it, it's found by the police three nights later, burnt out and dumped at the bottom of the Sydenham Industrial Estate.)
But all that Coco and I care about is that it never flashes its glossy chasse in our parking spot again.
16
February 21:02
One True Real Love Affair To Remember In Desperate Lands From Afar etc.
I thought it was an isolated incident at first, truly I did. You see, it seemed so harmless. All I did was press one teeny tiny little button. A teeny tiny oh-so-miniscule button. What's the harm in that? you say. And I shake my head from the sofa, and reply with sssh, keep it down. I'm watching the Channel Five Afternoon Movie.Yes. You did hear that right. For all those unfamiliar with the glory of daytime television, Channel Five, or '5ive' (correctly pronounced 'fiveive') as they prefer to be known, as obviously they are cool and hip and in tune with the youth of today and therefore obviously not at all a waste of bandwidth at all, every afternoon put on two films for your viewing pleasure.
They're not the sort of films you're likely to have seen at the cinema. They're not the sort of films you're likely to have read reviews of in some esoteric magazine but never got round to seeing because they were only shown once, at midnight, in an art house cinema in an attic the other side of Liverpool. They're not even the sort of films you may have picked up in a Woolworths bargain bucket for 50p marked 'straight to video.' Oh no, these are a whole new beast. These are the American 'made-for-tv' movies. Which, I suppose, is exactly what you come up with when you invent a zillion cable channels and need something to fill them. One day, when the viewing public finally becomes tired of seeing fifty Friends and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps episodes a day, I predict Channel 4 and the BBC will end up with exactly the same concept. But with fewer white picket fences and 'wise woman' parts for Whoopi Goldberg.
So yes, anyway, it was entering the post-lunch-Neighbours period, and I felt nothing more than a fleeting, idle curiosity to see what else was on. So, ever ever so whimsically, I gaily flipped the remote. Little did I know what I had let myself in for. I was confronted with a small orphan boy riding his bicycle between the white picket fences, quickly replaced with a car smash where a tousled, bloody and yet beautiful woman was being hauled tenderly from the wreckage by David Hasselhoff in a fireman's helmet and his trusty pet dalmation. Cute orphan children, David Hasselhoff, and a faithful dalmatian? How could I resist?
This turned out to be the masterpiece known as One True Love. Somehow, despite the advert breaks for hearing aids, post 50s insurance and denture sterilising equipment, I remained on that sofa until the beautiful woman, not longer bloodied but still in her wedding dress (from the wedding she ran out of to be with David Hasselhoff) had ended up with her Baywatch fire fighter, driving off in his T-bird with dalmatian and cute orphan kid sitting in the the back.
And I thought that would be the end of that. But today, all that changed. I arrived home to find a housemate, who shall remain nameless, engrossed in a touching tale of a man who fell down a sinkhole during mardi gras and was being chased through a cave by wet cement whilst his girlfriend ran about anxiously and yet attractively trying to save him.
It appears the addiction is catching. But even worse, I have started to apply the Rules Of The C5AM to my own life. For example, the small cute girl in the pink dress who almost ran into me in the Arts Centre today I expected to have a young, widowed and incredibly sexy father (who would of course have a great classic car) instead of a normal jeans and oversized jumper mother. I laboured under the delusion that the spring wind was sweeping my hair into an attractive tousled look rather than the usual haystack. And when I fell backwards going down the bus steps today (I know I'm clumsy, but in my defence,I hadn't eaten for seven hours and the driver did brake rather sharply) instead of collapsing back in an undignified manner and smiling shamefacedly at the old lady looking up at me from the lower deck in concern, I was supposed to have been caught by a muscle-bound firefighter or similar, who would have miraculously appeared behind me, and would, of course have proposed within a fortnight.
I think the C5AM may have ruined my life. If I start beginning sentences with 'when I was nothing but the littlest of little girls,' or 'I had the most beautiful dream last night...' or even 'I'm sorry [insert name here] but I just can't marry you. Don't ask me to explain... I just can't' then please, please, put me out of my misery.
Just don't let it get to the stage where I start thinking rainstorms are romantic, I'm begging you.
17:02
Fencing (the kind with swords, not posts) with Jill
Yesterday I went fencing.It's Andy's fault really.
Before I got ill I said, 'Fencing sounds interesting. I might like to try it some time.'
It's also Ian's fault. But to be fair he did go easy on me in my first week.
I learned how to shuffle (ok, it was meant to be how to go forwards and backwards, but I looked like a demented penguin) and how to lunge and parry and counter-parry (I haven't learned to countercounter-parry yet, but it's only a matter of time, I imagine.)
Mind you, any sport which gives me a weapon (albeit one with a rubber bit on the end) in the first week is just asking for trouble.
You also get to wear a natty outfit (including a plastic bra over your T-shirt which harks back to Madonna videos from the 80s) and get sore legs, arms, and...everything else.
Though honestly, I'm not particularly sore or stiff this week. But I stretched a lot, only fought once, and had to cycle home which tends to loosen your muscles.
I'm going to be very stiff tomorrow, and I have to give a presentation.
Oh dear...I'll hobble up to the front, maybe pity will be taken on an invalid.
Nah.
15
February 14:02
Full smoking ban
I've said before that I support a full smoking ban so I just want to say congratulations to all MPs who voted for the full ban rather than the various compromises that were floating around.A total ban on smoking inside offices, pubs, restaurants and "virtually every enclosed public place and workplace" throughout England will come into force in the summer of 2007 after a resounding cross-party majority of MPs yesterday rejected last minute compromises designed to exempt some pubs and private clubs.
...
Health officials proclaimed the vote a historic victory, to be compared with the 1948 NHS Act or the clean air legislation which ended city smog in the 50s. [Guardian]
The full list of the MPs who voted for the full ban is available here - I'm glad to see that Oxford's own Andrew Smith is on the list
14
February 18:02
St Valentine's day
St Valentine, the patron saint of making sad and lonely single people feel like shit.
Stewart Lee, 1996.
07:02
Important Facts about Valentine's Day
Wellllll...There are a few important things about Valentine's Day. People tend to forget them when they either:
a) rejoice in the opportunity to send soppy cards/cuddly teddy bears/overpriced flowers to their nearest and dearest (or those they wish to be nearer and/or dearer)
OR
b) Violently denounce the holiday as an exploitative capitalist exercise in extracting money from idiots (while secretly wishing that someone would send them a card)
Valentine's Day celebrates St. Valentine. Who was a Christian martyr, who by all accounts got rather a grisly death.
As to why this was...well, some people think he was martyred for refusing to give up his faith, a few think it was for refusing to stop marrying Christian couples, and a few others for defying a Roman emperor.
The marrying one is my favourite I think.
Ahem. I feel some artwork coming on:
This is Emperor Claudius, known (behind his back) as Claudius the Cruel:
He was upset because no one was joining the army cos they didn't want to leave their homes and families behind.
Claudius tries to prevent this by banning all marriages and engagements.
Valentine, however, carried on marrying Christian couples in secret.
But he got found out. And they beat him to death with clubs and then cut his head off.
This was not very friendly.
But, so the legend goes, while he was in jail people threw flowers and notes up to him to tell him they were thinking of him.
Hence the tradition.
Here's another.
14th of February was, in the Roman calendar, a celebration of the goddess of women and marriage Juno.
And part of the tradition was the pairing up of boys and girls of the same age (by drawing a name out of a hat (or Roman equivalent)) and making them spend the day together.
Aww...
Actually...that could get a bit violent.
With that cheerful thought, I leave you. God bless, and happy Valentine's Day, however you choose to spend it. Me? I'm going to Rev.
13
February 20:02
Things That Get My Goat: Fitt the Third
It could have all been so easy. It was the perfect opportunity for a good ol' Traditional Single Person's Rant about Commercialism and Marketing and It's Not Real Love, It's Just An Overpriced Wilting Rose On A Stick And Anyway, What Does An Expression Of Love Really Mean In Today's Cynical Ugly Divorce-Ridden Sordid Society?I could have written that, and then I could have had comments from other unattached people agreeing, or demurring because they're content with their single status, whilst the coupled up people tactfully ignored my vituperant outpourings as the rantings of one who must be pitied, or alternatively let me know how they'd decided not to do anything that big anyway because they didn't want to get sucked in. And then, of course, there would have been the obligatory anonymous comment from somebody calling himself something enigmatic and lowercase and therefore mysterious telling me that I was just plain bitter, and then a little later on tomorrow evening, when the single drunkards come back from the pub, I would have found a little email in my inbox from 'mitch' or 'andiz' asking me if I have a good body and how I should really 'cyber' with them sometime. You see? It could have all been so easy.
But it's not. And this is why Valentine's Day really pisses me off. Because as much as it makes good blog sense, if nothing else, to play the Cynical And Single – And Loving It (In A Masochistic Kind Of Way) card, I also end up being a tad hypocritical. Yes, a lot of the day may be commercial nonsense, but I have to admit that if I thought that there was anyone who was interested in me at all (or had even, possibly, once, in the far distant past, looked at me and thought well, she's all right, I suppose) then I know full well I'd be ready and willing to be caught up in the tacky red excitement of it all. So Valentine's Day actually annoys me more because although I can't restrain myself from the patented terminally single person's mutter, I can't really get up on my lofty moral high ground and frown disapprovingly at all the millions of pounds spent on cards and flowers and droopy-eyed teddy bears either.
Actually, thinking about it, I can still shake my head at the teddy bears. You know the ones. They look pathetically at you and hold big red hearts and felt flowers and things, in a slightly creepy way. You get the feeling that behind their soppy smiles they're just dying to rip the sodding red things apart and be done with it.
What's that? Single and embittered, me? Never.
11
February 17:02
A Most Remarkable Day
All in all, it's been a pretty good day.Well, it has for me at any rate. I mean, for my friend Polly, for example, it hasn't been a very good day.
But I've...I've... (sorry, you may need to sit down. It's shocking it is)...
I've done some work.
(swallows)
Yeah, I was surprised and all. But having been so ill and preoccupied for a fortnight, on Friday I suddenly had the will to do some work. Bearing in mind it was 11 at night and I needed to sleep, I assumed it would pass.
But no, up I got this morning and proceeded to summarise all of my Energy and Environment notes (very interesting topic, but that's not the point).
I wait with interest to see if it's a minor blip, or if my enthusiasm for my degree has actually returned. That'd be nice.
I might even go to my lectures on Monday.
Now that would be a shock to the system. :)
9
February 17:02
Dressing dangerously
So I'm back. With an entry that I've had lurking about for ages, but never bothered to finish. Ah well, here goes...One of the things I like about blogs is that you can't see what people look like so easily. They probably have a picture of themselves there somewhere, but mostly you read what they write rather than listen to what they say. It's wonderfully democratic. You can be just who you like.
The downside, of course, being that people can't hear your inflection. And so find it more difficult to tell when you're being sarcastic or deliberately obtuse or just genuinely confused.
The thing being, in The Real WorldTM people actually look at you while you're talking. And so will (consciously or not) make some sort of judgement of your appearance. On the blogs all you have to go on is the colour of their background. (Ooh. Pretty flowers.Etc.)
I was paddling around (I don't surf the world wide web, I paddle in the shallow end away from the sharks) and I found this thing about something called Wholesome Wear.
I kid you not. I couldn't make this stuff up. It's nearly (not quite) as good as WaitWear which is just...indescribable.
It got me thinking though.
While I wouldn't be seen dead going to the swimming pool in one of those outfits (I don't wear dresses. Not even to swim in) I feel equally uncomfortable wandering about the place in a bikini. Which is the only swimwear I have, because one-pieces always without fail come in hideously awful flowery patterns (this one is the best of the bunch which says a lot really) and never fit. Going swimming always makes me feel like I'm toddling around in my underwear, and that everyone's looking at me.
The latter is patently ridiculous, of course: no one actually pays anyone else any attention when swimming; they're too concerned about either a) swimming or b) what they look like. But the former concerns me: despite my general protestations about shopping, I like clothes. Particularly I like to wear clothes, especially when out in public. Not doing so tends to get you arrested anyway, so it's just as well.
I also found a book. And by the by, I was looking for Star Wars stuff, so how on earth I ended up on the Catholic blogs is a mystery to me too...One of the things that annoys me about this book (apart from the cover obviously: lavender is A Granny Colour, and should not be used on the covers of books) is the way it would seem to advocate the wearing of dresses and skirts.
Let me be clear: I have nothing against dresses or skirts on other people. But the last time I wore a dress was to the Chaplaincy ball last June, and despite somehow ending up with five skirts (five! How?), they're strictly special occasion wear. Except for one, which is strictly wear nowhere because...never mind why.
You cannot cycle in a short skirt. You can't. You cannot cycle in a long skirt. The ends get oily and mucky and it's generally considered to be A Bad Thing. Plus it's murder on your washing machine. And if you do it wrong you look like Gypsy Rose Lee.
How you dress says a whole lot about you whether you wish it or not.
Take blogging for example. My blog was formerly lovely and fluffy and pink. Now it's black and red and looks like the inside of Fresh Garbage in Belfast. Without the smell of dubious substances, obviously, as my favourite dubious substance is chocolate, which is legal everywhere (I think).
Which possibly says that I have Disassociative Identity Disorder (or DID, formerly know as Multiple Personality Disorder – see, I learn things!) or just that I'm undergoing another attitude shift. They happen every now and again.
But your clothes say even more about you than that, particularly to those who don't really know you. That's why stuff like A Week of Dressing Dangerously is so entertaining. People who are dressed differently to how they normally dress act differently to how they normally act.
Personally, if I had to wear a hippy outfit for a day I'd be mortified. But I'm (honestly!) rather shy and retiring. And I prefer to wander through completely oblivious to what's going on around me (and having others oblivious to me). Or at least giving that impression...
Thing is, it's all tied up with body image again, isn't it? If you feel comfortable in your own skin then other people can go and take a running jump if they don't like it. They don't, of course, but if you're not quite the exact level of normalcy they're looking for then you're likely to ruffle some feathers anywhere other than uni. I remember causing a mild sensation among the first year girls at the age of 11 when I point blank refused to make my skirt any shorter. Not out of any particular religious-ness (I wasn't a Christian then) but just because I was too stubborn to do anything I didn't really fancy. Shows you how petty people can be (myself included: don't wanna, not gonna.)
Me of course being, er...mild as milk (hey, it happens...sometimes) most of the time suddenly transmogrified into being opinionated and difficult. I'm not entirely sure when it happened, but 'some point in the last decade' probably covers it. After all, I was the little shy kid at the back of the class. I'll rephrase that. I was the little shy kid with a bossy streak a mile wide at the back of the class who walks kind of strangely. This is more the result of chronic bad temper (walking very quickly is a wonderful way to reduce stress) and far too many books in my bag (many many textbooks) while I was in school. As a result I now march along at a frightening pace. It annoys people when they have to jog to keep up. But oh well.
If you should see me then, walking around campus (blink and you'll miss me) while wearing ridiculous outfits, don't worry: it'll wear off. My jeans are my refuge from the world. Worrying that.
Last thing, I promise. University is a brilliant place for being exactly who you wish to be. If that's an antisocial eejit, so be it, but you'll have no friends. If you're a person who likes rainbow Mohican haircuts and painting your face yellow, hey, there's probably at least one other person who thinks that's the greatest thing ever. If you consider jeans to be the very foundation on which your life is built, then you're likely to find many friends.
And if you have strange religious beliefs that seems to be ok too.
Or a combination of all of the above.
Nice being accepted for whoever it is you reckon you are, rather than who everyone else wants you to be.
Vive la difference.