London Commuting Woes

Sunny Street

The tube in the heat is a nightmare.

Sweaty compressed bodies and endless delays.

Yesterday it took double the time it usually takes to get to work.

Kings Cross had closed some gates in an effort to stem the crowds, the Hammersmith was late, over crowded and stalled at Edware road for what felt like an eon.

Too hot and sweaty to bother with my inter-connection lateness run.

I ended up being 30 mins late, compared to my usual 15.

The usual sorry-I’m-running-late text to my boss and that the train really was delayed didn’t allay my guilt.

I cried wolf too many times.

Wore my “No boyfriend, no problem” t-shirt. Given to me by my mother. It is one of my favourite tees ever. Such a cheezeballs.

Saw a lady crying on the tube this morning.

It was not even 9. She was on the phone and had her fingers compressed tightly over her mouth, the way people do when they want to stifle the sound or want to mask the way their mouth curves downward, like cup held upside down.

Another lady sat next to me, noticing, got up and asked her if she wanted to sit.

On a packed Hammersmith line this is indeed an act of true charity.

But I confess that although the lady offering up her seat meant well, I disapproved.

It was a little tactless I thought, and coming from a person distinctly lacking in social graces or diplomacy that is saying a bit.

There is an unspoken rule, (and if there isn’t, there should be) that if you see a person crying in public (and especially on public transport where there is no escape or place to hide) that unless the person is physically injured or ill,  you pretend you haven’t noticed.

Because you may or may not know from personal experience, that there is nothing more humiliating that being caught crying publicly, and how deeply embarrassing it is when someone asks you if you are ok.

You want everyone to just continue listening to their iPods, and reading their Metros - nothing to see here folks.

You don’t make eye contact with anyone.

If someone notices, it only grates on your nerves . Someone offering assistance, only mortifies.

The crying lady on the tube demurred emphatically, declining to take the other lady’s seat and turned away a step.

As to be expected.

What else could she do?

I would have done the same, silently annoyed that this person couldn’t just pretend to ignore me like everyone else.

People complain about the anonymity of large cities, and of public transport, the lack of eye contact. But it’s rather comforting to be invisible sometimes.

To be crying from Paddington to Hammersmith, once you leave the tube you can pretend it never even happened.

Pssst! Hey! You – Yes You. Wanna See My Stash?

Yo, you wanna check out my stash man? It’s good stuff. Promise.

The living room TV cabinet has 4 small shelves built into it. 3 belong to the ex. But one is mine, all mine. MU WAH HAH HA!

That shelf has books stored 2 rows deep, with some piled up on top for good measure.

I mask both rows with a single facade of ‘acceptable’ books and the Cartland’s live behind this facade. At least in the Living room…

Living room small stash. One rogue Poirot here.

The real stash, the good stuff, is right under the bed.

The books are stacked 2 rows deep under the bed, and 3 rows deep in the side table cabinet. (Small stash of Heyers as well. Barbs can’t get everything.)

I ran out of space eventually so I packed away all my shoes (I’ve worn one pair of shoes for a year. In a way it makes getting dressed for work easier.)

I ran out of space there too, so now I also have a little tower of books hidden in my desk.

I feel like such a junkie.

Under the Bed. 2 rows deep. Tower and a half of Heyers on the far left, BC’s behind. Cabinet on the right all BC’s

Cabinet Close up. 3 Deep.

Under the bed closeup. (Slightly blurry)

THE IRONY!! THE IRONY!!! OH GOD THE IRONY!!

I spent over a year collecting nearly 430 Barbara Cartland books

Hundreds of wasted hours hunting down books!

THOUSANDS of pounds! THOUSANDS! No lie

And look!

JUST FUCKING LOOK!!!!

320 Barbara Cartlands!!! In ONE FUCKING LOT!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCkk!!!!!!

LOOK AT THE PRICE!!! ARRRRRRRRGHHHHH

(Can you tell by my haphazard capitals just how distraught I am?)

Barbara Cartland Paper Backs Over 300 Selling on eBay RIGHT NOW! Click here to see.

On a happier note – I’d never go to Basildon Essex to pick it up.

Update:

Eventually sold for just £37 pounds.

Sigh.

Still, I really would never go to Basildon Essex to pick it up.

Also the ex would have killed me if I bought 300 books in one go.

Sunday Mid-Morning Aggravation

Highly aggravated this morning.

The semi-new cleaner has gone AWOL. (I don’t actually know what that means, but I’m assuming it means missing. I don’t feel like googling. I enjoy the gamble. Fingers crossed.)

Her handler can’t find her.

Handler is trying to arrange another cleaner. No luck so far.

So the ex asked a friend if their cleaner was available. (We will really do anything to avoid cleaning)

If her cleaner is free I’m going to have to tell the other cleaner we’ve found someone else or softly softly phase her out.

Which fills me with guilt because the handler is really nice. (Never met her, text only – But I prefer that kind of relationship.)

The cleaner I could live without.

In the morning the ex is Dr. Jekyll under the sheets, and Hyde the minute we get out of bed.

There’s a lesson here somewhere, but I really can’t spend all day in bed.

So far, this morning, here is a compressed list of the various scoldings:

1. Three and a half ants dared invade the kitchen. It must have been something I had done. Who else could it be? The ex could never bring in ants.
2. The toothpaste tube is almost empty. Why didn’t I replace it?
3. There is one plate in the sink. I need to clean it.
4. The bedspread needs changing. I never change it.
5. We make the bed. We squabble over covering the duvet.
6. Who’s starting the washing machine? Why isn’t it me?

Numbers 1-4, I was willing to let slide. (Even though 1. was seriously idiotic. Promise. Swear. There were actually 3 ants.)

But by number 6. I felt like this:

Ready to gnaw off someones face.

I did a cat-hiss at the ex, but that was during the 1-4 ‘let it slide’ phase.

I do a good cat-hiss – It needs to come from the back of the throat to have real depth to it.

Once I sneaked up behind this cat in Bombay and let out my best cat-hiss. (I was an adult.) It leapt up nearly a foot in the air. Best one ever.

However I’ve written my post, crawled down off the ceiling, drunk my tea, the ex has gone off to the Motherland (Harrods this time, which never fails to lift the mood), we had a quick post-squabble cuddle, it’s a sunny sunday and I just might spend all day faffing about, pleasantly colour correcting my photos.

(Even though I need to study for this Life in the UK test which frankly, offends me. No UK resident could pass this. The hypocrisy of the UK BA is really something.)

I took the photo below at Angel tube. It’s a poster for one of those odious books where a serial killer does some stuff to a cute chick.

Ugh. I’m sick of those books. But the comment scrawled on the poster cracked me up.

Capitalism of course! Dummy!

An Occupy London protester clearly.

Ona Na What’s My Name? It’s Ona, Stupid.

The on-going saga to get a flat the size of a postage stamp cleaned on a weekly basis. 

So Ona, our second cleaner turned out to be fairly flaky.

She said she was ill (and I’m sure she was) but her doctor appointments always happened to be on Saturday mornings.

The cleaning management company occasionally rallied to arrange temps but most of the time I just had to bear the brunt of the ex hissing venom at me at 9 in the morning when the cleaner had failed to show up, yet again.

“It’s your job to arrange the cleaner! Why isn’t she here?? I don’t care if her kidney is infected! Blah blah blah!”

The ex an I saved our relationship by getting a cleaner. We have totally different ideas of how often to clean and how often is too often, so cleaner issues turn critical very quickly.

On a side note:

This is such a desi wifely whine. More specifically it’s a very middle-class desi whine. Middle class Indians are always complaining about their cleaners.

Meet any woman running a house and she’ll give you a long rant about the cleaner or how the cook spoke to her very rudely the other day. (The cook and the driver are second and third in line of things to complain about.)

“Can you believe it? So rude she was. So I told her she can go look for another job if she speaks to me like that.

“And she always over cooks the daal. How many times I’ve shown her how to cook the daal but she still over cooks!”

“Plus I told her not to put salt in it. Every time too much salt. She never even tastes.

“Now the driver is upset because the cook got a bonus but the driver didn’t get the bonus.”

“Then the cleaner never jadhoos properly either. I always have to jadhoo the bathroom myself. She just does fut-fut-fut and thinks it’s done. Oof ho! Bus. What to do?”

“Haan haan, it’s so hard to find good cleaners… but have I told you what MY cleaner did…?”

In fact never ask an Indian housewife about the either the cleaner, the cook or the driver. It’ll never stop.

So to get back to my wifely whine, I’ve been designated as ‘cleaner manager’. My duties are to supervise and organise. (Catchy no?)

I’m expected to keep them up to scratch somehow. Inspect under the sofas, chase them around the 2 and a half rooms we live in. (Even if I did chase them around the flat my idea of “its clean” is clearly not going to match the ex’s expectation. So my supervision is really fruitless.)

The problem is the ex is the type of person who’d put of a pair of white kid gloves and run their hands down the furniture to test if it has been dusted properly.

So naturally the ex was enraged with the general incompetence of the temporary cleaners who came to fill in for Ona.

One of the temps dropped a painting off the wall. (Didn’t break, thank god. It was one of the ex’s tacky pieces of touristy shite. All hell would have broken loose.)

She then used the sulphuric acid that’s meant for unclogging drains to clean the oven. The ex caught that one.

I caught her cleaning a framed wall mirror violently and stopped her before she knocked that off too.

She then dusted the side tables by removing all the knickknacks and balancing them on the arms of the leopard print couch. The ex caught that one again.

In desperation I asked my boss at work if he knew a cleaner. This is the same boss who I once smoked a doob with. The fun one.

So he recommended a girl, so I called her and she told me she would send someone over one Saturday morning for a test run.

First day, the new girl (Elina, or Elita or something. Couldn’t quite hear her and now I can’t ask again) broke the power mop and left without telling us. Turns out she doesn’t speak any English.

We aren’t allowed to call her directly and can only contact her via her handler.

That aside, I’m still feeling optimistic.

Lit Windows

Buildings at Twilight

Essex Road with Moon

The Couch Is Out To Get Me

The Couch. Look at it just glaring at me. Defying me to drop something on it.

The good thing about this print is that it camouflages cigarette burns very well.

This is similar in theme to “The Goverment is out to get me“. A general paranoid whine, I suppose.

This fucking couch has been out to get me from day one.

First of all, this is no ordinary couch.

This is couch is upholstered in a Leopard print fabric. (As you can see.)

Like the couch of some over-weight, worn-out, Bollywood B-grade movie star.

Imagine her lying on it, draped in a hot-pink satin fabric, while eating rasgullas. When she runs out of rasgullas she claps her sticky hands together to summon her man Friday, Sreekanth to bring her some rasmalai instead.

The ex’s mother sent us these couches. She had them specially made and then shipped across the seas all the way from the Punj.

Not satisfied with the Leopard print, these couches also have cushion covers in a soft brown suede fabric.

Suede! The most easily wrecked of all materials. It’s not even in a dark colour. It’s light brown!

It’s like the couch is purposely trying to entice me to sit on it, so I can spill something and have the ex subsequently murder me.

Just look at it. Doesn’t it just seem like its saying,

“Oh look sit on me, just have a seat…no no I won’t stain my pristine, suede-ness, don’t worry beta ha ha. Of course I’d never lie to you, I’m your friend…”

Such a fucking liar! I try (as much as possible) to sit on an expendable cloth that covers the couch.

This is not to protect the couch, but to protect me from the wrath of the ex. This couch stains just by breathing on it.

“Come come, eat a meal on me. No, no don’t worry! If you spill anything and it’ll come right off!”

Nothing comes off suede. It is the devil’s fabric. All the furniture in hell is probably upholstered in suede and should you find yourself there you will spend all eternity worrying about what you may or may not have spilled on it.

Also I feel this eerie growing superstitious paranoia that the ex’s mother purposely sent this couch to ‘get me’. This couch has given me many heart palpitations in the past.

Once I was just sitting on it, innocently minding my own business… and drawing with a ball-pen (Reynolds – still good) and I accidentally swiped my hand across and a little black mark went on one of the pillows.

I don’t remember a lot of what happened later but there was some shouting and screaming and threats of,

“You better fix the couch! I mean it! You better fix it!!”

and

“I DONT CARE!! JUST FIX IT!”

I get that a lot.

The ex accuses me of ruining everything.

Which is ironic. My mother used to say that to me.

I accidentally broke one of her ceramic photo frames (one of my mother’s many collections) and in response she said very melodramatically,

“FINE! FINE! JUST BREAK EVERYTHING!! RUIN EVERYTHING!! I CAN NEVER HAVE ANYTHING NICE IN THIS HOUSE!!!”

HERE!! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW??”

On ‘HERE’ my mother grabbed another frame and smashed it on the ground. (Very silly.)

So the next time I broke a ceramic painted plate, (I was yawning and stretching. It happens.) to avoid any more tantrums, I hid it in my underwear drawer and then spent hours painstakingly, (and surreptitiously) glueing it together in the forlorn hope that she’d never even notice.

Of course she found it in my underwear drawer (I should have hidden it under the underwear), but I’m comforted by the fact that it took her a few days to find it. She didn’t have a tantrum. I think by now she’d grown accustomed to the idea of her unfortunately clumsy child.

Back to the couch and its vindictive campaign to get me:

Another time, I was sitting on the couch, yet again, harmlessly minding my own business, when I happened to notice a small burn on one of the suede cushions.

I started having cold sweats. I was pretty sure I didn’t make it. But if I didn’t warn the ex in advance, guaranteed I’d get blamed for it.

So I had to grit my teeth, steel my nerves and call the ex at work.

I prepped the scene with my stellar opening,

“OK. Baby. Don’t get mad. I have some bad news…”

Always open with the bad news, (the good news is that I didn’t do it)

“…OK…”

*uncertain pause*

“…what is it?”

“Uhm, I noticed a black mark on one of the cushions…

“…butIswearitwasn’tmeIdidn’tdoititwasalreadythere
motherswearonmylifedon’tbemadIloveyou.”

The ex must have been in a more than usually benevolent mood, because I passed. Whew.

Recently I was washing the cover I usually sit on (a rare moment of domestic responsibility) and then sat on the couch after painting something, and before I knew it a smudge of white acrylic paint went on one of the cushions. (which just goes to show you how unrewarded I am for my domestic responsibility).

It was after so long! And I had been so good! I really tried, really really REALLY, not to spill anything on that couch.

This is why I’m convinced, that it’s a curse. The couch has it in for me.

The ex was mad, and I couldn’t even say anything to defend myself. I mean, I don’t even know how the paint got on the couch. It wasn’t even on me this time. It must have been on my laptop and I didn’t notice.

Now I have to try scraping it very gently with a sharp scalpel in the hope the white paint will flake off.

It’ll probably leave a patch. (sigh)

Suede is an evil, evil fabric.

Zombie Parasites

Zombie Parasite infected snail. The eyeballs! The eyeballs!

I looked into the parasite-snail thing I vaguely mentioned as a comparison to shopping with the ex in Selfridges a couple of weeks ago, and after a quick search I found the exact clip I was looking for on the interweb (although I’m sure the original clip was voiced by Attenborough.)

This little video has been on my mind for years. I can’t ever forget it.

So I’m passing it on. Enjoy

Shudder.

Rant For Today: Breeding Ethics

A non-developmental series of models made for medical science. Click for more info and the credit and all that.

Now here is a sensible blog post about breeding by Duchess.

It actually has citations from proper articles. It even the mentions a girl doing a PhD on the subject of the ethics of breeding. Unlike me, who can never be bothered to track down research and cite shit. I am too lazy to do any more than have an incoherent rant. This entire blog is one huge, incoherent rant.

I must confess I particularly enjoyed the timid disclaimer at the bottom about how the PhD girl who is writing about breeding morality loves children and isn’t having a go at any breeders. That made me snicker a little, the idea that there was a need for that disclaimer.

The article linked within the post from the New Yorker was also a very interesting read.

The size of your family helps determine how the world of the future will look. (Credit the New Yorker)

‘The case against kids: Is procreation immoral?’ Elizabeth Kolbert, 2012. in The New Yorker.

“In “Why Have Children?: The Ethical Debate” (M.I.T. Press), Christine Overall tries to subject that decision to morally rigorous analysis. Overall, who teaches philosophy at Queen’s University, in Ontario, dismisses the notion that childbearing is “natural” and therefore needs no justification.

“There are many urges apparently arising from our biological nature that we nonetheless should choose not to act upon,” she observes. If we’re going to keep having kids, we ought to be able to come up with a reason.”

I had a huge argument with a friend of the ex’s back in Bombay last December. We met him and his now fiancée at this hotel near the airport for dinner (Don’t know why we chose a place near the airport. The airport is in the middle of nowhere, the food was so-so and was massively over priced). We got into a heated debate over our Paan Pasand flavoured Shesha, or perhaps even a sequence of debates.

The first one was about breeding dogs to develop or enhance certain genetic traits. (I’m totally against this. It seems cruel and unnecessary to actively cultivate a squashed pug nose if that nose results in limited or poor ability to breathe.)

Or those genetically bred cows that have so much muscle (It’s for people who want really lean, low-fat meat) that they can’t even have sex without a human manually having to inserting the bull’s penis. Here I’ve even attached an article. See? I’m being so good and almost semi-researched. Maybe I should do a PhD.

This argument then morphed into:

“If you know you and your partner both have a high chance of passing on a debilitating genetic condition to any offspring would you still have a baby?”

I’d like to say that I presented a good defence of the ‘No’ stance, but some of his arguments (especially no.4 below) were so maddening that after a point I just got enraged and incoherent. Also the ex was on my left, acting like an atrocious little troll, constantly interrupting rudely in trying to change the subject and derail the debate. The ex doesn’t enjoy debates.

So this guy’s response to the question above was “Yes” and these were the core reasons listed below (My arguments underneath)

Venus in Flames. Click for info about this Votive drawing on the Wellcome collection. (and the artist credits and stuff)

1.

“All procreation carries some risk.”

Of course it does. What a redundant point. Everything we ever do carries risk. Walking across a street carries risk. But most people also have the capacity to assess the risk and make an informed decision based on that assessment.

If there is a high risk when running across a train track when the signal is red that you will get hit, then most people would avoid running across a train track. I don’t see why this wouldn’t apply to breeding. In fact I should think this should especially apply to breeding in the circumstances mentioned above.

“Dark-skinned” pregnant doll - Edo-Tokyo Museum. Click through for more info from the blog I nicked it from.

2.

“Doctors don’t know everything and can’t predict the outcome accurately. Even if they tell you the chances of this kid having a horrific incurable condition is high, like a 50/50 chance. Even if its 80%. Even if its 99.9%. They can’t know everything. So I’d have this kid anyway and take that 0.01% chance.”

What an idiot.

Again, sure part of the statement is true to a degree. (Doctors don’t know everything.) However it is also insane.

Firstly doctors don’t claim to know everything. They are presenting you with the chances of a certain outcome that you are free to then take or leave. However their inaccuracy will be a good deal less inaccurate than yours.

Secondly if using the logic above, you refuse to listen to a professional who may have spent a several years studying to give you solutions, why bother going to see a doctor at all? Just visit a Homeopath. Or a yogi. Just as good. In fact better – You’ll won’t have to think about the risks at all – They’ll tell you to pray harder, swallow a special herbal remedy when the Moon is in Vishnu and everything will be just dandy.

But reading between the lines here’s what I think this guy was actually saying,

“I’m willing to take the risk, even if it’s very high because the person who would suffer the most is this child but that’s ok because what I want is a baby and getting what I want is more important to me and besides I can easily rationalise it.”

In fact if he just said that I’d be fine with the whole thing. I’d still think he was a selfish, amoral, butthead but at least he’d be an honest one. This whole ‘I’m bringing a child into the world for its benefit and the benefit of the world’ is such a crock of shit. I want to vomit every time some deluded breeder or to-be breeder says it. (Unlike the Duchess I have no disclaimer)

Wood carved fetus model set (circa 1877) - Toyota Collection. Click through for more info from the blog I nicked it from.

3.

“Existing but being in incredible pain is better than not existing at all.”

I couldn’t even be bothered to argue this at dinner. It’s too … exhausting. Non existing creatures won’t care that they don’t exist. Plus creating something when you know it will suffer (and not in the existential angsty sort of way, while listening to a Morrissey album, but really suffer.) seems like nothing short of torture to me.

I think this guy had religious leanings. People with religious leanings never seem to mind creating things that will suffer. They have a million ways of justifying it. So that’s always a dead-end. I stopped bothering with it a while ago. Religion I mean. If I’m going to argue about fiction I’d rather it was a debate about The Hobbit and whether Gandalf was a bit gay. (I think he might have been)

Image from the Wellcome collection "Draw your own votive". Click through for the story behind it on the Wellcome collection. (and the artist credits and stuff)

4.

“I’d love this child. My love would be better than it having good health.”

Actual statement. I’m not even paraphrasing.

Oh yes yes of course, your love would compensate for all this baby suffers even though you chose to procreate in the face of medical advice, even though you could have adopted. What a saint.

He then presented us with 2 theoretical situations:

One a baby is born to a large but poor family. They neglect the child and probably they won’t be able to give him/her any of the good things in life but this kid would be totally healthy.

Or two, a baby is born to this genetically dodge couple, he has a terrible incurable chronic illness and disability but his parents would really, really love it and give it whatever it wanted.

If you had the power to decide into which family this baby would be born which would you choose?

Even the ex who normally NEVER agrees with me picked the first option. Who the fuck wouldn’t?? I’d imagine that most parents just want their kids to be born healthy.

This particular argument really blew my mind. The sheer deluded arrogance of it. The amazing selfishness. My love will conquer all. Even genetic illness. Even suffering. I mean seriously. Who does this guy think he is? Mother Teresa?

Even now, months after this dinner my mind reels.

Drawings of pregnancy to guide clinical examination. Click for more info & credits. The grossly distended tummy over the vagina in last image makes me feel a bit queasy.

“Benatar’s case rests on a critical but, in his view, unappreciated asymmetry. Consider two couples, the A’s and the B’s. The A’s are young, healthy, and rich. If they had children, they could give them the best of everything—schools, clothes, electronic gaming devices. Even so, we would not say that the A’s have a moral obligation to reproduce.

The B’s are just as young and rich. But both have a genetic disease, and, were they to have a child together, that child would suffer terribly. We would say, using Benatar’s logic, that the B’s have an ethical obligation not to procreate.

The case of the A’s and the B’s shows that we regard pleasure and pain differently. Pleasure missed out on by the nonexistent doesn’t count as a harm. Yet suffering avoided counts as a good, even when the recipient is a nonexistent one.”

I’m totally on board with this Bentar guy. In fact I wish he was with me at this dinner. Just him, his huge thesis (not a euphemism) and his beautiful logic.

The ex was very annoyed about this entire debate and refused to take part, except by trying to stop it by occasionally yelling at me. (Being the incredibly rude person the ex is).

For once though I was perfectly happy to comply and wrap the thing up. (It wasn’t going anywhere this debate, although I did get quite annoyed when the ex was being particularly trollish. We were both sitting there hissing at each other now and then.) but the ex’s friend really wanted to carry on. He just wouldn’t drop it. The ex lectured me all the way home. I didn’t pay any attention.

In other news, I just got back from holiday in the Caribbean. I feel terribly smug.

I’m brown as a nut and looking more like an Indian than I’ve looked in ages.

So I’m asking Punjab to send over a crate of Fair & Lovely. It seems to be all the rage these days. 

Shopper Euphoria

Selfridges Window (Rather good their windows. This series was showcasing rising young talent.)

I went shopping with the ex to Selfridges on Saturday. (Well a Saturday a couple of weeks ago anyway. I’m on holiday now.)

It was an eye-opening experience.

Not because I hadn’t gone to Selfridges before but because of the dramatic and noticeable personality overhaul the ex underwent while in the store.

I’m quite manic when I visit shops that have a lot of things to look at and I have no fixed agenda

i.e. I’m not thinking

“I want a kettle and then I’m leaving.”

I look at everything. I cannot talk or concentrate. I want to go through all the racks methodically one by one, sifting through the multitude of products. I need to be dragged around because I have ceased to function aside from browsing.

Muji, for example, is particularly irresistible. It’s like a pricey charity shop. I like to read all the labels and then mentally debate with myself whether I need anything. I desperately want to need something but the problem with Muji is that all of its products only look appealing en mass. Once you get them home you realise what a pile of junk it is.

Like those stupid plastic trays they always have. I love the clear acrylic compartments. I don’t know why. In my mind I’m filling them with things. What things? No idea, but just … some things that might fill an acrylic compartment.

After a while I reach a state of total shopper hypnosis and have sudden uncontrollable urges to buy things that have become crucial to my happiness.

JUST BUY IT!! BUY IT NOW!

YOU NEED IT!

YOU’LL USE IT!

YOU’LL USE IT EVERY DAY.

EVERY SINGLE DAY OF YOUR LIFE!

IT’LL BE AWESOME!

DO IT NOW!”

That’s my internal monologue. I’m not walking around Muji yelling. (Yet)

Occasionally the sensible quiet part in my brain says,

“Yes, yes, that’s very nice. Very nice.

But let’s not be hasty shall we?

You remember all the trouble we’ve had with things like this in the past don’t you?

You don’t want to be buying something only to return it do you? Think of how much unnecessary work that would be.

Why don’t we just look around a bit and come back in a little while?”

But the shouty part usually yells over the sensible guy, in a dastardly attempt to drown him out. (I don’t know why it’s a ‘him’. Its sexless really.)

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! JUST BUY IT!

COMING BACK IS BORING. COMING BACK IS FOR LOSERS!

YOU’LL WASTE TIME. TIME IS MONEY EVERYONE KNOWS THAT.

DON’T BE SUCH A SQUARE. YOU NEED IT.

WE HAVE MONEY. YOU DESERVE A TREAT. YOU HARDLY EVEN DRINK!! GO ON BUY IT!

THERE WONT BE ANYTHING BETTER ANYWAY! YOU’LL JUST HAVE MORE HASSLE COMING BACK.

ONCE YOU HAVE IT, IT’LL BE DONE. DON’T YOU WANT TO BE DONE??

JUST BUY IT. PICK IT UP AND PUT IT IN YOUR HAND. TAKE IT TO THE COUNTER NOW!!!!

NOOOOOOOOWWW!!!!!”

Eventually I get really tired and cranky. If I’m lucky I don’t buy anything.

If I succumb I come home with something useless, a lighter wallet and an agenda to rationalize my purchase. This is why I avoid shopping as much as possible.

So back to the ex: The ex’s personality underwent a remarkable and really quite odd change. You know those documentaries where some parasite crawls into the eye-ball of a snail, and then makes the snail change its entire behaviour so the snail crawls up on a branch so a bird can eat it, only so the parasite can live in the bird’s gut to complete its life cycle?

That’s what happened to the ex.

Well not literally. The ex wasn’t infected by a parasite that made the ex crawl up a branch on the look out for a bird, (You’ll be relieved to hear that) but what I mean is the behavioural pattern changes were comparable.

1. The ex became very relaxed. - Now the ex is not a relaxed person.
Sober. Not a relaxed person sober.
I felt I needed to add the ‘sober’ part. Un-sober the ex is suuuuper relaxed.

2. The ex seemed to be filled with a calm sense of inner well-being and benevolence.
The ex is quite benevolent in general, but the benevolence seemed more heightened than usual.

3. The ex also became surprisingly susceptible. Really susceptible.
Every time I pointed out something out there was a discussion, in some depth, of whether we could or should buy it.
New wine glasses, decanters, complete dinner sets. A new couch. We were both on some euphoric bender.

The ex started offering to buy me all sort of things. Just things I liked for no reason.

It was like Selfridges was some evil narcotic, some parasitic worm.

I didn’t take advantage of this, because I knew the ex wasn’t their normal aggravated self and I’m just not that kind of girl, believe it or not.

The ex bought me lunch (This was planned before our Selfridges jaunt. It was incentive to get me there in the first place you see. So no narcotic inducement)

I succumbed (dammit!) to Selfridges wicked wiles and bought myself 2 miniature bell jars things on stands.

Look. I need them. I’m going to use them. Really, I am. I’m going to put some drawings in there, like tiny cut-out things. I don’t know what yet but I swear I’m going to do it.

Both bell jars are now lying on the bedroom window-sill.

We finally walked out of Selfridges. It was raining and crowded on the grey pavement. Within mere minutes the hypnotic effect of Selfridges had worn off. The state of euphoria was palpably evaporating.

Back on the bus ride home though the hell of Oxford street, and the ex was back to

“GET BACK IN YOUR CORNER! BE QUIET! DON’T ANNOY ME. I KILL YOU!”

Fastest come down ever.

The London 2012 Olympics

I’d like to get right to the heart of the upcoming olympics and say a few unpoetic, yet pertinent words, through that powerful medium the poster.

The London 2012 Olympics

Fuck the Olympics, Fuck the tube delays, Fuck the huge waste of money, Fuck the swimming team, Fuck the canoeists team, Fuck the curling team, Fuck the horse jumping team, Fuck the yachting team, Fuck the rowing team, Fuck the javelin, Fuck the shot put, Fuck the discus, Fuck the hurdles, Fuck the long jump, the short jump and the high jump, Fuck the opening event, Fuck the Olympic committee, Fuck the sponsors, Fuck the McCartney ‘designed’ slutty outfits that look like the bottom half will ride up all the athletes butts, Fuck the shitty advertising (except the illustrated tube posters. Those are rather good), Fuck the crappy logo designed by a group of morons trying to be ‘street’, Fuck the athletes going on talk shows to constantly bore us with their ‘training schedule’ stories, Like anyone gives a crap, Fuck the sponsors, Fuck the mascots, Fuck the raise in prices, Fuck the cuts to the arts, Fuck the BS, Fuck it. All of it.