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Elizabeth Jenner

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.

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.

8

February 18:02

She left the web, she left the loom...

5.38pm today, Heswall beach.



This photograph shows exactly why I need to go home. The Midlands is too flat, too landlocked, and there's nowhere near enough marsh. Home is grey sand, tufts of reeds, and salt on the lips, and without it I don't feel quite complete. That and Derek Brockway doing his jolly weather report for Wales Today. (Yes, that is Wales in the background. No, I don't live in Wales, but my television aerial claims I do. It's a contentious issue between us. Occasionally it picks up Midlands Today, where I categorically don't live either. Is it any wonder I spend so much of my life looking so confused?)

It makes everything suddenly easier to be able to open the door and just run out into that, and keep on running. But not too far, or else you'll sink into the marsh, and get your mudsplattered figure on the front page of the local paper, as people getting stuck in the mud is pretty much the most exciting piece of news in any given week. And your fame will follow you right up Telegraph road and down again, and probably even into Tesco, and you really don't want that sort of recognition around here.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

6

February 18:02

Things That Get My Goat: Fitt the Second

Dear Mr Ugly Creepy Guy in the Black T-shirt By The Marketplace, Who Blocked My Way When I Was On The Phone And Shoved His Hand On My Breasts And Bum,

Hello. Although I would love to say it was a pleasure to meet you, I don't think that I can. You see, although my general demeanour obviously conveyed my extreme interest in your company, in the way that only no eye contact and a phone pressed to my ear will do, and I was obviously desperate to be felt up in my less than low-cut top and kneelength swathy skirt, I am afraid that you were sadly mistaken in your affections.

I would also venture to suggest that maybe this approach is not exactly guaranteed to yield happy results, certainly not at 9pm in the union on elections night and probably never ever, blessed as you are with your singular physical charms and obviously well developed sense of humour. 'Ooh, let's not let the girl past me and feel her up' is always so hilarious. You're just lucky there wasn't a security person nearby, because I would have reported you there and then, and that would have destroyed your entire evening's entertainment of standing near the dancefloor and staring at all the girls who were actually provocatively dressed, and that would have been a crying shame, wouldn't it, as that's the closest you're probably ever going to get to a woman.

And before you denounce me as a prude and a killjoy, as I'm sure you are about to do, let me say that the odd bumpinch or flirt on the dance floor when I'm with a group of people doesn't overly bother me. If I'm dressed to attract that sort of attention, and I'm in a place where it happens a lot, I expect a little of it, and it's usually done in good humour. However, the harassment of a girl on her own who is not dressed particularly provocatively is actually unacceptable, and if you ever do try that on again, I will stab my car key into you where it really really hurts.

I'm glad we got that sorted.

From The Girl Whose Breasts You'll Never Get To See, Ever, Because You're A Tosser.

31

January 20:01

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch, who watches over you?

Hmm. It appears it has taken me all of January to find a cure for the Januaryness of the month. I could have merely waited for it to come to the end of its annual life, which you would think would be the simple solution, but being me, I had to make it difficult.

However, after 30 days of searching, I am proud to report that I have managed to reclaim a day of my life from January. Without these hallowed 24 hours, I would not be the person I am now. Well, at least I probably wouldn't be singing the songs I am now. This may be a good thing or a bad thing. I haven't quite figured out the full moral and ethical implications of January, but it gives me something to work towards in 2007, at any rate.

So yes. I have, as you may have gathered, beaten January by the power of music. And not any old music. Well, that's sort of a lie. Semi -old music (if old is defined as circa 1970, but don't tell my mother I said that). January was banished from my room and my life by the songs of my long-lost youth. The Smashing Pumpkins, No Doubt, Republica, Garbage, Dodgy, All Saints, Smashmouth and the Fun Lovin' Criminals all played their part, and the final kick was administered by none other than the fantastic and neglected They Might Be Giants. I did, truly, build a birdhouse in my soul, and somehow in the middle of this January realised it wasn't getting any attention, sulked for a bit, and then waddled off for good.

As a footnote, I also made soup, flapjack, steamed chocolate pudding and a casserole, which may or may not be connected, but they were all tasty, so I don't really care either way.

18

January 00:01

Down and Out in South Leam

I love the fact that on any post-pub walk back to my house, every possible take-out delight is available en-route. Fish and chips, curry, chinese, and pizza (twice). What more could anyone need? It's also helpful as a Virtuous-ometer – I know my willpower's feeling good about itself if I manage to make it all the way home without cracking, especially if I make it past the '10% DISCOUNT ON ALL FOODS' sign in the Royal. I always succumb to the Royal mainly because most of the menu is spelt right, and this pleases me more than I should probably admit.

And the guy behind the counter is friendly, unlike a certain lady in another place not a million miles away, which we shall merely allude to as Sonacsut. She always gives me this glance of 'I'm far too cool and attractive and my hair is just too damn flicky to take your order' and then glares balefully from behind the desk until my azzip is ready. If it wasn't buy-one-get-one-free from the shop, I swear I'd have it delivered just so I didn't have to face her. Maybe that's why they do that offer. It's bad enough just walking past the shop window, especially times like tonight when my hair's a bit crazy and I was sure I still had wax on my face (which I discovered later that I still did).

Yes, wax on my face. I somehow managed to splatter a candle completely over myself in the grand tradition of things, which meant I spent half an hour on the floor with a hot iron and old newspapers, trying to get the stuff out of my clothes, and another half hour picking wax out of my hair/teeth/cleavage, at which point I decided this was not the way I wanted to spend my evening. So I ended up in the Jug instead, where I got disturbed for the first time by the fact that they have the same chairs and clock as my mother has in the kitchen, and had to keep running to the toilet to check that I didn't look like I'd got some weird waxy form of leprosy.

In other news: I won back my parking spot on the street, Costcutters appear to have stopped stocking plain noodles, and my Shakespeare essay appears to have become all about hats, which will be interesting, I'm sure.

15

January 20:01

On apologising to a lava lamp

The lava in my lamp is in a mood with me. It doesn't cheerily rise and fall any more – it merely sulks in a big pink hump in the bottom, and globbers from time to time, in the way only a grumpy lava lamp can. This might have been because I forgot to tell it to go to bed last night during my essay writing marathon. It sat up with me until 3.30am, and I don't think it's used to keeping such late hours. I am, as always, appropriately racked with guilt, and am trying to make amends, but it is proving difficult. How can I restore joy to a lava lamp? They work in mysterious ways. Hopefully, after a good sleep it will recover, though I have this feeling it may take a while.

Huh. I never have this problem with the fairy lights.

(It also worries me that I almost thought calling this entry What a Pa-lava was a good idea. I blame Jane.)

14

January 23:01

Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is.

Wise words from The Arcade Fire – unwitting prophets of the Essay Doom that hath befallen me.

I now have four thousand and one words, which means nine hundred and ninety nine words to go. (It's nice to know I still have elementary maths skills, if nothing else.) I will not give in, even though my bed looks tempting and cosy and is all snuggled up against the radiator waiting for me. It's wearing its special purple blanket and everything, and is just flaunting its cosiness a little too much, if you ask me. There's just no need to ever be quite so brazen with cushions. Not that I'll tell it that. After all, it wants the attention.

No, I will turn from it until I have written those nine hundred and ninety nine words. Nine hundred and ninety nine words that will be fantastic, and marvellous, and profound. Or alternatively, they'll just make sense in the cold light of Sunday, which would be nice.

If anyone wants to write nine hundred and ninety nine words on Jane Austen, Charlotte Smith, eighteenth century feminism and inheritance as a moral reward in return for homebaked goods, a large gin and tonic or my undying love and devotion you know how to find me. Just follow the scent of strong black coffee through the streets of Leamington until you pitch up on my doorstep. You can't miss it.

6

January 11:01

Back in the Pink of Things

If I was still at home about now I would have been enlisted in the grand debacle of the Taking Down Of The Decorations, with all the traditional little ceremonies of Not That Box, You're Packing Them All Wrong, Who Ate The Last Tree Chocolate? and Somebody Take The Lametta Away From The Cat, Now, Please, Before She Chews It Up And Dies.

However, I am not, due to the university's bizarre notion of what actually constitutes a 'week,' so this ritual will have to take place in my absence. The cat must take her chances with the lametta alone, and I must return to speedwriting essays, staying up far too late for no good reason, and also, more importantly, bring an end to Tales Of Festivity. Alack.

So I thought that as a lovely way to sum up my Festivities, and also provide both my conscience and my reading not-that-public with the illusion that I really blogged more than I did this holiday, I would do an edited highlights list. Sort of like Davina does for the crap Big Brother contestant of the week, but there's less nudity, less swearing and less sex in this one. The U version, if you like, though some bits of this may be disturbing for children under eight or those of a highly sensitive nature so we better make it a PG, just to be sure.

Further Tales of Festivity

1. Drove the M6 and didn't die.


2. Converted everybody I'd ever met and everybody my friends had ever met to the joy and wonder of putting cream cheese in a mince pie.


3. Made 1243057272435782059 of said mince pies, and didn't poison anybody.


4. Didn't, in the week I was on my own, either (a) perish from loneliness, or (b) develop an imaginary stalker who was almost definitely watching me from a secret peephole in the inexplicable hole in my ceiling. (I'm not imagining the hole. The hole is most definitely there, and it is, most definitely, inexplicable.)


5. Got given purple wellies. And fingerless gloves. And an Austenesque hat. Now I can wander over campus in the most extreme climes looking like 'a high-class tramp,' as one of my illustrious acquaintances has it.


6. Didn't let the guilt of having done no constructive work get in the way of Christmas.


7. Danced with my grandmother. It was fantastic.


8. Homemade sushi!
   


9. Drove the M6 again and didn't die.


10. Avoided Christmas television entirely. Apart from Doctor Who, which doesn't count because it would obviously have been great any day of the year and was obviously completely arbitrarily assigned to Christmas day, obviously. I may also have seen the end of Mary Poppins with all the kites and singing and all that jazz, and about ten minutes of Liz Taylor being Cleopatra in lots of gold chinky chains but that was only because I was waiting for Neighbours to start.


11. Haven't bought a single unnecessary bargain sale item. Yet.


12. Got paid, which made the huge bellowing monster that is my overdraft into a slightly smaller bellowing monster who is almost kind of cute.


13. Walked on the beach New Year's Day, because it was such a beautiful blue-sky day, it was that or be hungover, and it's been too long since the two of us last did that.


14. Watched an entire costume drama serial (Bleak House) without knowing what was going to happen, and my goodness, it was tense.


15. Did a snow dance. It didn't work. I maintain it would have worked if it had been done on the beach. Or maybe we did a rain dance by accident instead, which would explain a lot.

So there you have the highlights of the Tales, each of which is probably a tale in its own right. And I've also managed to think up a fairly plausible reason for there being fifteen, in that I was at home for fifteen days in total. You see, there was a plan. And if I had more time and fewer essays, I'd probably have expanded on a few of them. But rest assured, they would have been fairly dull in their complete niceness.

Though not as dull as my half written essay. Hmmm. The somewhat sickly smell of procrastination is in the air once again.

20

December 00:12

Things That Get My Goat: Fitt the First

It's nine o'clock tonight, the roads are getting a bit icy, visibility's a little poor and my tyre treads and my demisters on my dear little Clio are not exactly what you'd call state of the art. And I'm on a university campus 20mph road, with the odd pedestrian/bicycle that will suddenly loom out at you, and flashing lights everywhere telling you to go slow.

So what speed am I doing? Just ticking over 20 nicely thanks, Mr Arrogant Tosser Backing Up My Arse Honking His Horn Every Thirty Seconds.

Listen, if you want to play it risky, then just overtake me already. I'm not going to break the law because I'm not confident that if somebody did walk out in front of me in these conditions, I could stop in time, and just because you want to act like a bloody boy racer lording it round campus in your little souped up mini, there's no reason why I should have to endanger people too. You want to play it oh so fucking cool, you swing out round me and take your chances, and if you're not man (and please please don't fail to note the poisonous sarcasm in my voice here) enough to do it, then just stop honking your little horn and get over it.

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