On the benefits of not mixing drinks

Very enthusiastically, I started this post like every other post - with a title that will not at all be related to the contents of my writing - and then was stuck. Rather than bullshitting as I usually do, I meant to think about something very serious to write here, because, dear non-existent reader, it is about bloody time to get serious. The leaves are falling, the neighbours are refurbishing their house, the chavs are wearing hoodies, and the East is filled with the smells of the cold. A time to be serious.

App on water. Since I have no AppPhone, I am left
ignorant as to the nature of the App, but
as far as I can tell, it must be the key to the
Promised Land. The Promising Land at the very least.

But frankly, what to be serious about? The absolutely awful play I went to see yesterday? The fact that I'd rather spend my time on a building site? The app on my water bottle? That apple-cinnamon-cardamom-traybake I made a couple of weeks ago? The choice of potentially serious matter is overwhelmingly big. Gargantuan - to hit you with a good old French adjective for pretentious people. And in my experience form previous serious episodes, hardly ever worth the while. Dwelling in the Peter Pan twilight of 'not-wanting-to-grow-up', I face the fact that I have indeed grown up to be rather tall, and that, as much as I'd love to, I cannot hide behind other people. (please insert here online abbreviation to express dislike)

Traybake. Pre-bake.

Facing perfectly autumnal sunny, but freezing weather, I wonder, loony without shroud, if I can get away with it for another couple of years. Get away with the worry about my hair, when really, I should be worrying about the impending melting of the baby seals, or the state the ozone zone. These issues exist, whether I like it or not, and I alone cannot help them. However, I can make a fair deal of a difference to my hair; it's a direct reaction to a prevalent problem at 8am in East London, whereas anything else would be a second- or third-hand reaction to an long-lasting problem somewhere completely different, and far away from East London that cannot be solved by Battiste dry shampoo, and might in fact have been caused by the overuse of Battiste dry shampoo in the late 70s and early 80s. I am starting to get the hang of Proustian sentences. Woop.

In order to have some content relevant to the title, I must say that finally, I also have got the hang of not-mixing-drinks. It was about time. After an incredible amount of G&Ts in late September, and only G&T, I have discovered the joy of being completely off my face, without the terrible hangover of the mixed drinks. Granted there was a bit of an aftermath, seeing that I definitely had more than 8 (which is where my brain was left physically incapable of counting), on hardly any sleep, but I was able to take a shower, put on my face and be presentable in no time on a Saturday morning roughly two weeks ago. I think another woop is in order! Like the path to the Promised Land, I am on to a winner here. Knowing that I respond rather well to Gin in general, and that apparently I smell like Gin too, I shall leave my sausagey fingers from dry white wine in the future, and dedicate my drinking to G&T. In other news, I just hovered my shoes - because they are muddy/dusty from working on a building site. Technically, it is not a building site in the classical sense, it's a set-deconstruction site, but looks strikingly similar to a building site, and works very similarly: lots of strong, capable people, and me in the middle. Clumsy, loud and a bit useless, but totally satisfied, because somebody gave me a drill the other day. Aaaannnnd I carried wood, which is the sole most satisfying thing I have done in the past year, which includes my degree. Who would have known. I should have enlisted in a carpenter's course or something, where I could get dirty (not in the Christina Aguilera sense), and where I could work on years of stored aggressions without doing much harm to anybody. Three arts degrees and I find paradise on a building site. October, the month of discoveries. 

The long and even longer of it

A lesser Alice once sang:
school's out forever.

It's back to school folks, only that it isn't. Not anymore. I am done. The agony of the first day shall no longer hover over me - not in academic terms at least.

Before you ask for the details of my psychotherapist, I have not, in fact, found a solution to the age-old phenomenon of the first-day-anxiety, or indeed, the first-week-anxiety. I have just left education. Full stop.

The relief I am not feeling perfectly reflects the bouts of knowledge that I am not getting from a year of postgraduating my way through London: all I get is the waft of expired meat from the cornershop. It summarises what has been going on this last year, and unfortunately, there is no health and safety committee running to the rescue. If you are traveling to the Strand take some smelling salts with you  - the rot is unbearable.

There were happy times though (rummaging through archives), and it is strange to see familiar names and faces spread all over the world again, right through to the edges, like the most accurately garnished Nutella Bagel you have ever had. The back-to-school feeling is met with the feeling of losing irreplaceable friends, who remain on the same planet, but are in another galaxy. Life goes on, and that's the long and even longer of it, irrevocably, sadly, and with much anticipation of the things that are going to happen, because they will. A stand-still is not an option (as much as I would love to hang around in this moment for quite a bit, just enough to let everything settle) I run, just like everybody else, with the times, and against time. Lucky us. Poor us.

Go to Notes in Covent Garden. They are a
hipster, independent, relaxed café with
excellent nibbles, coffee and wines!

 While I am sitting here, over iced coffee and iced olives (pretentious idiot that I am), different lives happen. Lives that were once united in their hate against a prestigious (cough) university on the north side of the river, and that are now scattered around the globe as in a gigantic Monopoly game. As I have only ever played the Belgian version from the 1950s, I have no idea what the modern day equivalent of all the boulevards and rues is, but I imagine that some people will end up with four hotels in the Rue Neuve, while others constantly hop between Gare du Nord and Gare du Midi, and even others are happy to avoid the Caisse de Communauté. I have always preferred 'Spiel des Lebens' (LIFE for all Anglophones), because you had a car at your disposition, and there was this wheel in the middle that was slightly more arbitrary than the cards in Monopoly. As opposed to Monopoly, you could marry (though only into the opposite sex - might have to be revised now), and there was a sense of philanthropic accomplishment, in addition to all the money. Weird - me talking about philanthropy.

Isn't this the BEST loo in
London/the world??

So, I resume where I left it about a year ago. With it, I sort of mean my life, plans, etc., when friends re-scattered across the world, and life just continued, completely oblivious to all the details. I, however, am very attentive to all the details in this (my) life, and here is a bit of visual trivia (see picture). A textual analysis shows a water closet, white suite with a neon orange lid. In the background we see white tiles with black drawings. It is the loo at 157 Brick Lane, my local watering hole. As a person who rates places by the standard of their facilities, including hand soap and scent, I appreciate the effort these guys put into this award-worthy loo. Their coffee isn't too bad either.

The weather is now turning from soppy grey Summer-plagiat to Indian Summer. As always when things are shifting. With a bit of luck they shift in the right direction. If not, I'll still have the loo.

Job Search: Midnight Mayhem

If you are a passionate accountant, this might work.

Twenty minutes ago I thought it a rather decent idea to send the below email to a potential employer. I would like to emphasise that I am not drunk, and do not intend to get drunk, even though I have every reason to do so. (Please note that the addressee has been blacked out, as I am still a bit embarrassed, and God knows they might offer me a job)




'A Clouded Morning XXXXXX Team!


For it will be a clouded morning when this email reaches you, I checked the weather, the rain only starts mid-afternoonish.
I - currently unemployed, with too much creative energy - am looking for a job to keep me from writing email opening lines such as the above. I read that you are looking for individuals with sparkling personalities to join your team, and I am confident that I am such a person (think RPatz in Twilight for sparkling equivalent).


Other than in sparkling, I am proficient in 'out-of-the-box'-thinking, I have a passion for grammar, and I look extremely good in a hat (for reference see the hat picture attached to my CV). Pretty soon, I will also be the proud holder of an MA in Cultural and Creative Industries, which means that there is some substance under the hat too. Over the course of the last year, I busied myself taking courses on Fashion and Society, Visual Culture, and working as a XXXX at the XXXXXX (just round the corner), where I have picked up one or the other party trick in marketing, customer services and event organisation. I am far from being the perfect Renaissance woman, though, and this is where you come in: I need a place to start a stellar career in Marketing. So, if there is an opportunity in your office for a brilliant (yes - in addition to sparkling!), determined, and inspired postgraduate, I would be more than happy to accept. What I have been thinking about (fantasising, really) is a paid Intern/Assistant position, where I would have room for growth in my ambitions, as well as headroom to wear outrageous hats.


If you think that the person writing such a weird email at midnight could be the ideal addition to you team, please get in touch. I live around the corner and could come in for an interview at a moment's notice.


I spare you the boring end of all cover emails.



My best wishes,'


The world's biggest twat. 



I am not sure whether it is the copious amount of antibiotics I am consuming presently that has lead me to send this piece of pretentious muck, or whether it is just my true twat-nature shining through. The company will forthwith delete all their contact addresses from the website, and return to the good old Royal Mail for all their communication. Because of people like me. Self-important idiots like me, who think that their midnight scribbles will make tuppence of a difference to the lives of professional creatives, who probably won't even read beyond the second line. But how, how do I know? With all the applications I have written, I might as well apply for the post of Prime Minister (memo to myself, check with No. 10 website if there is a vacancy), and feign interest for politics and people and shit. Like, totally my thing, right, people and stuff.

I would make an impeccable circus tent designer.

I am aware that this is me on repeat, yesterday's re-run, available on iPlayer - forever. I have seven different versions of my CV saved to my desktop, and counting, including a semi-fictional version for very special occasions (say, the application for a Time Lord position, or an internship with Ray Bradbury). I have even made an Excel sheet about myself that I have then turned into a 3D pie chart. Pathetic. Nobody cares, do they?
 It is hard to say, since most replies I receive are generic HR answers, 'Dear Please Insert Here, we regret to inform you that on this occasion, you just sucked and we're like soooo not gonna hire you, because nobody here gives a shit about your experience, because we can't stand you anyway. But do keep an eye out for further vacancies. Regards, HR Copy Paste Template'.


Anyone for dessert? 

(again I accidentally tagged Tom Hiddleston, so he has to get a mention too)

This is the end: now show me the way to the next Whiskey bar

Byzantine Cat-Mouse-War. A reading staple.
With lots of hyphenation.

Oh Black Betty, no time to bam ba lam, it's the end of the world and you got a ticket to ride.

It is very comforting to know that I, and you, and everyone else is now sitting in one big imaginary boat. Arch-styly, they better have had a second thought about the facilities on board - portaloos are just not very cool. Regardless of the way you choose to spend your last days (see the Big WD, cake, and burgers), the end of the world may be slightly tinted by the other big event in London: the Games. (unlike ordinary football or a darts in the pub, these games are so huge that they are capitalised all the time. I personally prefer to capitalise Pub at all times, but that is, like I say, a personal choice)

With all the tourists in the Capital (let's capitalise Capital - it's the end of the world after all), the experience of the final moment - judgement day - could be lost in a queue to the loos, or in trying to navigate around the crowds in the centre. You might be so busy trying to ignore the barking Americans that you fail to notice the last, wailing, praying sounds of the earth. The last cries of an already dying planet that faces its death, facing white socks and beige trousers. The last breath of a planet that has done so much for us in the past (sunshine, rain, rain, rain, rain), and will now wheeze to the smell of moth balls and hair pomade. Could I be overly dramatic? No. I never am. And I never complain. About anything. Ever.

I made this pre-Jubilee. Beetroot cake with cream cheese icing.
 I mentioned cake.

I say this because I am on a mission: part of a select few (who selected to come), I will fight the impending doom and make sure that those white-sock-wearing, heavy-breathed strangers will keep a place to parade bad taste and smelly armpits. I, like my politically correct persons in arms, have signed up to fight the Dilluminati, and Good Lord, it will be epic. What will descend upon us on Saturday remains unknown, and perhaps for the better. I am not really all that good at facing dangers I have known about for some time - I keep avoiding that sort of thing - but I am really rather good at facing chaotic situations on the day, as long as I've had breakfast. No breakfast - no fighting. (apparently, so I've been told/I've seen on the telly, Templar Knights fasted before the big battle. How stupid of them)

A well-groomed beantache is essential for all
fighters. Note the Dali influence.

So, it is now Thursday night, about 36 hours before the beginning of the end, and I'm wearing a face mask, knowing that well-groomed fighters make better fighters. And maybe there is one or the other cute Dilluminatus around. Stockholm syndrome, just saying. All girls like bad boys. (I'm not really sure whether Dilluminati are gendered/have genders/do genders, but you never know) Very importantly, a well-groomed fighter is aware of their own well-groomedness and marches into battle, knowing that perfect skin and sharp eyebrows are killer attributes. As is a good soundtrack: Vangelis is played up and down on the iPod, and where would I be without Europe and the soundtrack to all but the last one of the Rocky films. In your face, Evil, we've survived 80s perms and we will survive further attacks on humanity. (However, if you could get rid of the Olympic uniforms, that would be amazeballs)

In a last attempt to expand my scientific potential, I signed up for a screening of Weird Science tomorrow night - al fresco - for those last blasts of health and knowledge. Subsequently, I realised that the film is another one of those 80s comedies that feature men in their thirties pretending to be 18, and that it does not actually boost my knowledge (like that science show on the Beebs), but rather, should boost my inclination to get hilariously drunk and pass out before the end of the film. You just can't have everything. It is time now to get that mud out of my face, and see the immediate improvement (from mud-face to non-mud-face). Goodnight, and may the farce be with you.

(I have also just accidentally labelled this post with Tom Hiddleston, so I think I should at least give him a mention. Tom Hiddleston.)

Thoughts on being a grown up

IT has dawned on me recently that all my efforts to remain an under-educated, under-estimated, under-no-obligations twenty-something old are in vain, and that even I have to grow up some time to take my place within society. Argh, essentially, it means shovelling my own grave, doesn't it? Dear anonymous, inexistent reader. I confess, the latest outcomes of my creative, semi-professional life did not include any sign of adult behaviour, ended cataclysmic in public embarrassment or included making pompoms out of plastic bags. The fact that I am writing this at 03:26 after a day's work and a visit to the theatre should emphasise the fact that regulation and routine are slightly off-theme. I do like my routines, ocd-ing is one of my favourite pastimes, but how can anybody expect me to be responsible, empathetic, and mumsy?????? Don't get me wrong, I like other people - well not everybody, but the broader mass - and I wouldn't want to live without them (apart from a few), I just don't always feel with others, care about others or try and help others. Most things I do are created out of unadultered selfishness, with added egocentrism and a pinch of narcissism. I heard or read somewhere that being an adult is when you do things, not for your own benefit,  but for the benefit of others. Right, complete fail on that front, then. But let's be honest, how many people can I name who reason according to this Ghandi-ish mantra. Maybe two or three, and even those have their slips, occasionally, and involve a lot of spirits, in 99% of the cases. I have realised over the past year, that being a grown up has nothing to do with age, it is more, and here I enter the nature vs. nurture debate, a matter of being born an adult, or not being born an adult. I consider grown ups another ethnicity, about half the earth's population is a grown up in addition to whatever else category we want to put them into, and you don't just grow up to be a grown up. Your mind is set to a particular function, and unless you're hit on the head quite hard as a child, or fall into a pot full of magic potion (one has heard of such cases), your grown-up-ness is determined from the start. Ready, set, go, and fuck Simone de Beauvoir, 'on ne naît pas femme, on devient femme' - whom did she date again?? Right, dating a cross-eyed French Nobel Prize-denier does not make you cool enough to judge on nature or nurture or both.

This post does not come out of nowhere, in fact, it's midlife-crisy territoire - the twilight zone, as I would like to call it, had twilight not gained unwanted spotlight through a rather popular film series within the last couple of years. (ironic, isn't it that twilight is now in the limelight - ok ok, my jokes aren't getting better with age). What I want to say, were I not a self-centred idiot, is that I am turning 24 in less than 24 hours. Birthdays don't bother me much. I don't actually like birthdaying, it's a bit of a bother, trying to accommodate other people's well wishes, I don't like saying thank you, I like it about as much as saying I am sorry, or making compliments. If you hear it from me, it means a lot of effort on my side, so it's worth a lot. Celebrating the date of my birth is a bit of a weird idea - I wasn't much involved in the process, almost 24 years ago, as a matter of fact, I was barely present. I couldn't stand, was covered in sticky liquids and screamed cryptically - like an average night out, without the hangover. I think that celebrating the few successes I had in life would be much more appropriate than celebrating that fact that I appeared. Not that I want to get all Tristram Shandy here, but I'd rather celebrate the efforts that I made consciously: graduating,  learning how to bicycle, learning how to drive, learning how to avoid driving on a night out etc.


(P.S. I post-scribe this on the date I publish the post, 12 days after my birthday, like any good underachiever. I still believe what I wrote then, but I have to add that celebrating other people's birthdays is an activity I quite like. Mostly because I can value them for what they have done, and what they mean to me. Celebrating myself, as much as I would like to enjoy it as a self-centred idiot, is just not in my nature, so hurray to all the rest of people celebrating themselves.)