resigning from the arts

Too hot to be cheerful

2009-06-18T21:01:00.001+01:00

When you wake up to BBC breakfast telly warning you intently about the oh so deadly and underestimated dangers of artificial tanning even I have to reluctantly admit that the summer appears to be on its way. People around me completely unprompted screech “yay summer isn’t it luffffly” to which I force a smile upon my aching face and sort of agree “yes?”

I am a big fan of winter clothes. I love scarves and jumpers and boots and tights and woollen hats. Where are those now? I prefer the common cold to hay fever, blue fingers to red shoulders and mulled wine to ice cream. Furthermore why do people suddenly smell so bad? Is there any excuse for smelling really, really bad while travelling in the packed tube? I remember the signs in the busses saying “no smelly food” can we have the same for people? And what on earth are summer clothes anyway? I prefer the general public neatly wrapped up and muffled by layers and layers of fabric.

I am not really a fan of summer. We have been through this before. I despise swimming. Seriously, what is it with swimming? Why??? My going-south-towards-even –higher-amounts-of-heat has to be carefully planned around a film festival. I want the option to escape to somewhere where it is cold, dark and more interesting than the beach.

Literature gets a very bad deal out of summer. Why are beach-reads a genre in the first place and why are they what they are? Now I have nothing against some mind numbing romantic reads that make Jane Austen look like Thomas Pynchon but why would anyone ever consider reading them? This once you have time to really spend time with a book, more than your twenty minutes hanging from a public transport rail and those ten minutes fighting sleep with the book on your pillow at night. Now I am really lying my way through this argument because I am not a great reader and I walk to work. Not a great reader is a bit harsh, I am a very slow reader. So if I ever wanted to read Infinite Jest or let’s say Gravity’s Rainbow (just to stick with Austen) I would do that on my holiday.

I can still picture the last time I was at the lake side with my family. There are my sisters in bikinis bathing in the sun, there are my parents drinking coffee in the beach cafe and that in the shadow under the tree with the clothes on reading Midnight's Children that’s me. Leave me alone I did my half hour alibi swim and I promise to do another before we go home. I spoke to Chuck Palahniuk that summer so I won the coolest holiday person award in the end. (The golden blue plastic cow for coolest holiday person it was, obviously!)

Tea at the Darcy's

2009-03-26T10:39:00.001Z

I am back in London. Town sans backpacks and wellies. So far my brain goes “Why?” I miss all the sheep and the little cows living next door and Mr Darcy’s estate. I stayed at a farm and every morning I was greeted by a bunch of adolescent cows staring at me. Real cows mind you, not little blue plastic ones.

The Peak District is fantastic, mainly due to the absence of the general public and its replacement with countless sheep. That works oh so well for me. And the buzzing (as if!) city life fades quickly. We had the wire thingy but the mp3 player ran out of battery and the sun was shining all week long so no need for wellies either! So what?

On the first day we went to the Chatsworth estate for cream tea with Mr Darcy. Me and my mother often lock horns on the question of who is the one and only true Darcy? She thinks it’s Colin Firth. It is obviously Mathew Macfadyen. My sisters are taking my mother’s side in this. So are my aunts. I am tempted to hide my brand new Little Dorrit boxset from them as a form of punishment. I tried using it as a tool of persuasion but all they had to say was “oh he gained weight since Pride & Prejudice hasn’t he?” Sadly I am rubbish at girly arguments so I have retreated from this dispute after my last contribution was “well but he isn’t married to Keeley Hawes is he! And she is so cool!” I really have to work on my debating skills, maybe I should take some classes in that.

How did I get here?

Yes Chatsworth. We weren’t allowed in the farm bit because it had gotten later than we thought. I was disappointed, I wanted to see the farm! Then I remembered that I am staying on one so I just went home and said hello to the cows who were joined by a grumpy pony.

Next Castleton. Now it might sound exciting to sit in a boat and be shipped through an underground tunnel but sadly it really is not. It just isn’t. Nothing to ad. But the “Remember the guide on your way out, thank you” was a very nice little send off to our next stop which was Hadfield. There we took endless amounts of pictures with the war memorial and the man in a shop asked us if we’d agree that we might be 10 years too late wandering through the streets of Royston Vasey. He was right but we were happy. Unfortunately we couldn’t find Bernice’s churches. Apart from that I was in League of Gentlemen - nerd heaven to be perfectly honest with you.

The next day we went to Crich and Matlock where trams and cable cars were closed so off to the Snake Trail it was and that was heart rendering! So beautiful!

Now I have returned and what have I brought back from my holiday? Have a guess! Yes indeed twelve new pens. One of which says “Pauline’s Pen” and another that looks like Shakespeare.

Highly Efficient Holiday Preparations

2009-03-26T10:30:00.002Z

Holiday Time! How exciting! I am about to embark on a week in the Peak District and I am SO excited. Far far away from the general public. “You need two things” I told myself. Wellies and a nice little backpack. So I left the crowded house I live in and went into town one early morning only to walk through streets of closed shops. It was Sunday and shops open shockingly late. So disorganised me and a lot of perplexed tourists clutched coffees in paper cups and went window shopping. Then I came upon an utterly frightening sight! Hordes of general public members stacked up in front of Primark. As if that wasn’t enough I then realised that Primark had already opened its doors to avoid traffic chaos I presume and the crowd was slowly moving like a large insect. Primark you will be surprised to learn is the only shop I did not expand my quest for a backpack or a pair of wellies to.

I spent hours combing through the shops on Oxford Street. Hours! No wellies, no backpack. That is wrong I found one backpack which was pink and flowery and actually quite horrendous. As well as expensive. I got annoyed. Yes, again. I do get annoyed with London often. Then I realised it wasn’t London’s fault really, why not just wait until arriving in the Peak District, surely there are wellies to be bought there.

Then David called and asked me to get “one of those wire things to connect an mp3 player to the car radio.” With a new sense of purpose I marched into next hmv and bought one. Despite the underachievement in the shopping list department and a shocking overachievement in the buying-random-other-things division I was in the best of moods enjoying my outing into sunny London and the begin of my holiday. But as usual a slight panic grabbed hold of me while manoeuvring through Piccadilly Circus probably aided by the absence of breakfast.

So, as it happens, I found myself a few minutes later in the Haymarket Cineworld with a large coffee and a bag of Revels watching Bronson. Why Bronson? Well it was the only film showing at that time...and ... and that is my only excuse. I was rewarded with utter underwhelmedment (yes I know that that isn’t really a word!)Well to be fair I liked Tom Hardy a lot, he’s just fantastic! There just should have been a less self-congratulatory film around him. Or maybe just a better balanced one, there are some truly great scenes in this and many more that were unbearably not so good at all and worse.

After the film I carried all my shopping (!) to the bus stop only to find a text from David telling me he found that wire thingy for the car and that I could return the one I bought. I will forgive him, he also found my wellies.

Buying meat and finishing Hellraiser.

2008-11-25T13:54:00.006Z

The other day I went shopping for some relatives of mine who are kind enough to put a roof over my blonde hair at the moment. One thing on the list was mincemeat. Now in the last ten years I have never had any reason to enter the supermarket's meat aisle and even before giving up the magical variety a couple of dead animals could apparently have enhanced my diet with, I cannot remember ever buying a piece of meat in my entire life.

Hmmmm. Such a bizarre place if you're not used to it I must say. I started my quest for the "organic" section thinking, that if I have to buy meat in the first place it is fair enough that I buy some coming from a vegetarian cow. I got confused in no time. I did not realise that mincemeat comes in different animal flavours. Pork or beef? What to do? Pork Pasta or Beef Bolognese? Evidently no help was to be drawn from alliteration logic (as usual) so how on earth should I know?

I found meat incredibly boring. What is all the fuss about? Such a boring aisle of ugly pink stuff, I rather buy a cake that looks like a Dalek frankly. Having said that, I quite enjoyed watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall preparing all of the animal. Literally all of it that is. It seems fair enough to me not to shy away from heart and brain if you eat the rest. Given the choice I'd rather have brain than tongue and liver. At least it might feed me the wisdom of cows and solve the mystery of the little blue plastic cow once and for all. It must be a lot easier to "stomach" life if you have several of them. Stomachs that is, not lifes. Then again cats might make the perfect Sunday roast, who knows. Probably not though, they're just not the type, more Wednesday sandwich really.

Before anyone bothers to ask, I have no idea what I am talking about either. All I can say is that the meat aisle was a great adventure. I thoroughly enjoyed myself until I tried to find meat "to put on bread sausage type of thingy." I bought something with a very melodic Italian name thinking that should I be told off for buying the wrong stuff at least I want it to sound like an opera.

Oh! Speaking about raw pieces of meat, I have finally finished Hellraiser. Oh yes I have! At night though and all alone again. Since then I haven't touched the Rubic's Cube, fearing little colourfull torture creatures might appear threatening to tear my soul apart. Nothing worse than a little blue plastic cow tearing... oh nevermind it's not like I ever gonna solve that thing.

Watching Hellraiser while thinking about David Cronenberg

2008-10-28T18:58:00.004Z

I am currently trying to close some gaping Bildungslücken, embarrassing holes in my knowledge about things I really should know about.

So I sat down the other night to watch Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. It was late at night and most of the lights had stopped working due to a broken fuse, temporarily beyond repair. Furthermore I was alone in a flat that isn’t mine. So far so good.

I admit to not having a clue about the plot, or anything else for that matter, apart from the iconic picture of the man with the needles in his head. Yes I was taken by surprise by the gore. I get grossed out pretty easily and am continuously astonished by the power of unconvincing special effects. The idea is enough. I screamed at the breaking of a wrist in The Fly and cried with disgust watching Videodrome. It works for me. I squeal, cringe and close my eyes. Then I rewind and watch it again, feeling a sense of duty after making a commitment to watching the film not shouting at it. It’s the film’s turn to talk.

I didn’t finish Hellraiser. It was the lurking in dark corners of the utterly revolting brother that pushed me beyond what I was able to deal with. I could not decide whether he appalled me more with or without skin. I am tempted to say with. What scared me most was that I could not work out why I got so frightened. The story is silly and the hooks tearing off the flesh aren’t in the least bit believable effects. I was impressed at the level of repulsion I felt at the creepy sexual tension between the woman and the leaky skeleton. I did not stop watching because I thought the film was bad, I stopped because I was afraid of not getting any sleep after watching it.

Speaking of The Fly and Videodrome. I have for quite some time tried to figure out why I like the films of David Cronenberg so much. It is a late blooming love affair as it only started recently with Eastern Promises, a film that still reigns high among my all-time favourites. I developed a personal obsession with the film after having to convince so many people about its brilliance and succeeding with quite a few. As a result I started to revisit all of his films. I am fascinated by Cronenberg because his films affect me in ways few others do. Dead Ringers had me glued to the screen and once it was finished I was so shaken that I never want have to sit through it again. That is meant as a compliment.

His films involve you, they are dark and compelling. They suck you into your own attraction with what goes against yourself. They aren’t pleasant films but they are brilliant in their physicality. Cronenberg takes the emotional power of the cinema as far as possible, his films hit you right in your gut, momentarily shutting off your intellect by overpowering your senses. It is this tangibility that generates the fascination. They connect right back to the feeling you had as a child finding a dead bird. Horrified as you might be, you can’t leave it alone curious as to how it would feel if you touched it. It is also the shock of something fundamentally beautiful turned into something ugly and frightening. Cronenberg peels away the beauty without destroying it. Like Naomi Watts cannot stay away from Viggo Mortensen and the mob world she stumbles into in Eastern Promises, I will forever return to the films of David Cronenberg.

One of these days I will return to Clive Barker and his Hellraiser as well. Preferably in the morning or at least after the lights have been fixed.

Good Morning from the worst cinema on the planet

2008-10-28T18:49:00.003Z

I have recently discovered the worst cinema on God’s green earth. Been there, done that and really do not want a t-shirt. It was one of these multiplex outlets at the margins of the city, hidden away in a giant shopping mall. Entering it I already encountered a group of fighting teenagers. The woman in front of me in the queue had some trouble with her cinema card and was told rather harshly by the box office clerk “It’s not my fault that you can’t spell you name!” The two women embarked on a futile row as the real fault had taken shelter behind an impenetrable call centre. Speaking of call centres, the other day a call centre operator hung up on me. Shouldn’t that be the other way around?

But back to the cinema. I managed to trick a woman somewhat less accommodating than Little Britain’s Carol Beer, into handing me a ticket and already in a bad mood decided to treat myself to a bag of Revels. It was a bad day anyway and so far the cinema had done little to cheer me up. The man at the sweets counter said “Revels ey? What are those then?” and he wasn’t even kidding as his empty face told me as I giggled politely. I cleared my throat and said “orange and brown striped bag” and he said “oh is it chocolate?” Suddenly a walking profile-neurosis came rushing to the counter yelling “Moin you need to talk to me you need to do this and this and this” now that was funny because “Moin” means good morning should you be familiar with the language of Germany’s north. Also the man trying very hard to be important and authoritative shouting “Good Morning Good Morning Good Morning get your act together” reminded me of the seagulls in Finding Nemo, as they have a similar war cry. This could have cheered me up but it slowed down the poor stressed out “Multifunctional” as the cinema affectionately refers to its employees in his quest for the striped bag of mysterious sweets. Finally Goodmorning managed to find a bag and I genuinely believed him that he had never seen one before.

On entering the hallway that led to the screens a big bag search was in progress which was completely in tone with the general airport cosiness of the place. Luckily I got spared the search and was allowed to roam around for a while until I found my screen. Now the problems did not end there like I had hoped. There was a doorway under the screen leading to a fully lid corridor which was blocked off by neither door nor curtain which is basically the last thing you need in a cinema.

It smelled bad and the seats where unbelievably uncomfortable. Come on then Revels cheer me up! They didn’t really, instead they gave me a bad conscience. The film I saw was How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and frankly the cinema itself did a better job at fulfilling the titles promised lessons. As much as I like Simon Pegg, which is quite a lot, I could not bring myself to like this movie. On returning home I needed a healthy dose of Hot Fuzz to be reconciled. The group of teenagers sharing the screening with me were quite entertaining though. The scene with the transvestite annoyed be because I thought it was overwritten, it was so obvious that there was no need to explain it multiple times in multiple ways. Or so I thought. About a minute after seeing the penis and hearing the line “Penis!” in further explanation, a girl in a back row yelled “hang on was that a man? Oh my God it was! That’s a man A MAN!!!” and her cronies went “oh my God REALLY?!?!” Enough said. I stand corrected apparently the most obvious scene was still underwritten for some. I am not being overly arrogant here, just generally arrogant. Furthermore it was at around that time that the chocolates had gone so I felt stranded and alone.

On returning home I spoke to a friend of mine who asked me how I was to which I literally replied “Ever so slightly suicidal” to which she replied “Oh really? By the way you wouldn’t believe what a party I had the other night.” Thanks for that. I don’t think I count her among my readers, if I do consider youself column-exploited and be proud.

Good Morning.

Dead Things in Jars

2008-09-26T17:36:00.008+01:00

I have handed in yet another dissertation type thing, hence my long absence
Now I am back! Kind of.

Before handing in the cursed work it had to get bound. And while waiting I did the usual thing done to pass the time. I looked at dead things in jars. The University of Glasgow holds quite a collection of little birds and dissected body parts kept in jars. It has also put a clever little twist on the obsession with stuffed animals in Scottish museums, by exhibiting deformed stuffed animals. At first I thought it was two little pigs dancing a waltz but soon realised that they were sharing a head. In the usual tactful and frankly highly entertaining way of scientist language, these things were called "monstrosities." Moving on from the ballroom dancing monsters I had a look at all the bits and pieces that you can cut an eyeball into. That grossed me out pretty deeply, I really do not like eyes. At least not when they get cut. It might be a deep character fault on my part, that the eyes frightened me more than the 5months old embryo. But they did. I really do not like eyeballs. Really, really not. I can't even bring myself to eat litchies due to their uncanny resemblance to eyeballs. I am not a fan of eyeballs.

In my defence I was very tired. My two and a half hours of sleep were framed by long lasting battles with my printer, which for some reason decided to cross out entire sections of my work. I looked through those suggestions and decided that at certain points it had put forward a pretty good argument. Maybe I should listen to my printer more often. It would certainly cut out this useless little paragraph.

What did impress me enormously and in a good way was the little piece of bone from the foot of Robert the Bruce. Does that mean one day the University of Glasgow might clone him? Would he be happy with his picture on the 20 pound note? Or would he be deeply hurt by the little board in the Kelvingrove Museum informing the general public (yes, them again!) that he was in fact a very ugly man.

Anyway the day was crowned by the purchase of a dvd of Jules Dassin's Night and the City which I have been watching continuously ever since. I am now officially a fan of Richard Widmark on facebook, I do not like eyes and I obviously need a holiday.

My Annual Visit to Pronto Soccorso and I Always Said that Swimming is a Silly Thing

2008-08-12T10:25:00.005+01:00

Unfortunately Pronto Soccorso is not a nice a little town in Italy but the emergency room, in my case that of Locarno. I have made it a habit to visit there every summer. Last year I managed to put out my back (told you swimming isn't a good thing) yesterday I woke up and was almost completely deaf.

So once again I made my way there. They have redecorated since last year and moved to the other side of the building by the way, should you share my habit.Being deaf in addition to not speaking the local language very well is not a very good combination. I walked in telling the lady at the desk "Buongiorno, miei orecchi non funziona piu" which can be translated with "Hello my ears funtion no more" She smiled and gave me a form to fill in. The form asked me about my marital status and my religion and I wonder if putting married and catholic would have reduced my waiting hours. As a single protestant you have to bring some time to the pronto soccorso.

The best thing is that the doctor told me not to go swimming please. She actually had a go at me for going in the first place. I promised her that I went only twice just because I felt that I ought to while being here but that I did not enjoy it.

Which is true. I swam about in the lake for a while, pondering (pun!) about the ridiculousness of my actions. Being in an element that isn't yours, forced to move your arms and legs constantly because otherwise it'll kill you. I am not a shark, I can't see any reason why I should pretend to be one. I swam until every muscle in my body was in excruciating pain and called it a day. When I was a kid my ballet teacher used to say "always go up to your pain threshold and then a bit further to get really good." I can't help it, I follow her religiously, I have to be in pain to consider it worthwhile. I get the pain bit but I do not understand swimming.

Global Warming Themed Holiday Experience

2008-08-06T14:18:00.003+01:00

Could I use this space to pitch a new idea to the tourist board of Switzerland's south? How about a "Death by Global Warming Experience!" All inclusive, obviously. I am currently test driving this new adventure holiday package and it is very exciting. I cough a lot, I cannot sleep and my eyes swell up. Oh and the headaches are marvellous! It's not all bad, since not even the grass manages to survive in this boiling heat, I am unaffected by hay fever. YAY!

I also feel constantly stressed but that might be due to the fact that my parents are here and I have to write my dissertation pretty quickly now. I wouldn't want to throw false accusations into the face of Global Warming. Yet the ozone levels are so ridiculously high, that you are advised to stay inside. Should you insist on going out (you mentalist!), wear a hat and bring a machete to cut your path through the thick air. Oh and NEVER attempt to crawl, the heavy layers of atmosphere could crush you. This is true, I have discovered that only flat animals appear to survive. Lovely lizzards brighten the mood frequently. Scorpions don't. Call me narrowminded should you so wish but I do not and will never appreciate scorpions slouching around on my bed room wall. Never.

Yesterday a creature the size of a finger sporting millions of legs ran around on the ceiling and then suddenly fell to the ground with a loud "clunk" resulting in me losing all composure. I jumped out of my bed and screamed: "Piss off you little shit!" It didn't. It just ran around the floor at frightening speed. Bastard bug! All of this after I made a point of being highly offended after being called "slightly hysterical." Thank you bug.

Who are the people that tell you Switzerland is full of goats, cows and groundhogs? Heidi lied to me. Unless this is evolution on the go, goats mutate into scorpions, groundhogs turn into giant centipedes and cows become, well... little blue and plastic maybe?

I like it here, honstly, I just pretend to be Dwayne Johnson when I get scared by another scorpion sighting. That reminds me that I promised to make some tomato soup. It might be silly to spend your summer holiday avoiding the sun and stay indoors, but after I actually dared a swim in the lake today I remembered that I prefer the indoors anyway. This is a summer to my liking, noone forces you to enjoy the sun. Finally people learn to agree with me that the hot days are made for the cinema, NOT the rainy days.

AWWWWWWWWW there's another little lizzard walking past me! I really do like it here.

Ethics, Vanity and Grumpy Happiness

2008-07-14T20:15:00.000+01:00

I had to buy a new hair dryer today because my old one decided to melt in my hand this morning. Bye bye old friend. Buying a hair dryer induced the urge to buy make up and clothes as well. Probably fuelled by an Ashes to Ashes marathon I ended up buying blue eye shadow. That cannot be good. But it got worse. For no apparent reason I ended up browsing through H&M and discovered a black leather jacket that I seriously wanted to own. A leather jacket. Leather has never been my style really. It just does not feel right to wear leather while not eating meat, though I must admit I have made exceptions for shoes before...

This was a major clash of ethics and morals with vanity. An H&M leather jacket "made in China" worn by a Vegetarian Amnesty International supporter is just wrong on too many levels. What saved me in the end was the vast emptiness of my wallet. But I detected the thought "maybe in Cannobio" in the back of my head. Don't worry, understanding this last remark will only be granted to a few insiders. But it looked so good and my current jacket is 3 years old...

I decided to treat myself to strawberries instead, wondering who picked them and if it was really the better option. Unfortunately the very grumpy lady called Happiness at the supermarket till packed them first and crushed them with the rest of my shopping. Now you cannot crush a jacket...

I blame the "general public." Who are they anyway?

2008-06-30T19:59:00.000+01:00

I have made an amazing discovery! I am against all previous conceptions not a misanthropist after all. I like people. Well some of them. I am still deeply sceptical of most. Hence it is most people I dislike, that leaves a few and they make all the difference in the terminology.

By the way I am pretty sure that working box office shifts in a multiplex can turn even the last "a person I don't know is just a friend I haven't met yet"-dellusionist into a more realistic judge of human potential. After being shouted at for sold out performances, age restrictions and broken computers extensively in this life, I am not fussed by that anymore. What is more depressing is being told off for showing films that aren't English. Honestly, the next time I hear the phrase "I'm not coming to the cinema to read" I might just get up and leave. "Why would they speak French? Surely they speak English and only the subtitles are in French otherwise it wouldn't make any sense" someone said to me yesterday with the sound of utter despair over my apparent stupidity in her face. I don't know, maybe it is me but I find it more unlikely that a French film would be shot in English and then subtitled for its home audiences. But what do I know? On an other occasion I was told that Mongolian is not a language and that I should just shut up. Ah well. So far I have kept my composure, smiled a lot and said "so sorry, okay then, bye bye" quite often. Unlike the colleague to my left who jumped up shouting "we don't use that sort of language here!" yesterday and started chasing some difficult looking teenage boys up the escalators.

Right. Now I have forgotten who the people are that keep my belief in mankind alive if only on a little flame. Reading Jeremy Dyson's short stories in my breaks helps. Reading an article about Tesco in the Oberver does not, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall however does. Oh and that woman who came to my till with her two sons asking me what the film Teeth is about did. "HULK" she screamed after I told her "We're seeing The Hulk boys, no discussions!"

Making Money

2008-06-09T12:48:00.001+01:00

I am finally getting better at the "making some money"-front. Yes I have a new job. Hence the last couple of days where spent in a little, hot, windowless room filling in forms and learning how to lift a box. Ah the pleasures of Health & Safety. I won't go into those that would just be too lazy. Still they are entertaining.
I love new interview techniques by the way. Instead of talking to us, we have to talk to one another and then introduce our neighbour. Which brings me to the question: Am I the only one who is perfectly calm until the remark "to ease the tension we will play some little games now to get to know each other" falls? Seriously nothing makes me panic more. "Hi everyone, this is Peter, he is 23 and studies astro-physics. His favourite film is Dodgeball and he hates bees more than anything. His hobbies are movies, music and socialising and if he'd win a million pounds he'd quit this possible job straight away and buy loads of little blue plastic cows."
After surviving this part of the group interview it got worse, although I must stress how much I admire the determination of my new employer to go totally crazy on the funky new interviews. We got given paper, bin bags, glue and pens and had to design some clothes for one of us. Brilliant. My entire group got hired and may I ad, we rocked! Get us!
Slowly but surely the training days are over now and the job becomes less exciting and more necessary. Which is kinda sad.
All I remember from the extensive training is that should someone call and tell me that he has placed a bomb in the building I have to ask him his name, where he is at the moment, what this bomb looks like, where it is and when it is supposed to go off! Let's face it, these are all totally reasonable questions which you really should be willing to answer politely, after all we might evacuate the building just for you, so the least you could do it give up your name and adress. I hope I don't mess it up and say "Why?" should this conversation ever take place.

the password is football!

2008-06-06T14:18:00.000+01:00

Going to the hairdresser and demanding to be made to look like Debbie Harry.
I suppose we have all been there at some point in our lives. I did so last week. My hairdresser was a frightening lady who began with throwing her long hair all over my head to prove that her hair colour would be cooler on me than mine. Slightly grossed out and seriously panicking I managed to squeak "I'm okay for colour thank you" while inside my head a voice screamed "GET OFF!" She then continued to make several attempts to either pull off my head or at least cave in my temples while yelling at her assistant who was trying to retrieve an email for her. "You don't need to be online to get emails!" I attempted a half-hearted "well actually..." but was silenced by a severe blow to the head with a killer brush. "It's the email adress from the card and the password is football. FOOTBALL. I am sure that the password is football!" Man am I tempted to hack into those! I won't because, honestly? I really don't care.

My hair bravely withstood the attack and is actually looking pretty good. The only lesson I learned is not to give your hairdresser any excuse to say something along the lines of: "well it is kind of a punk look so it doesn't matter if it isn't symmetric, it is supposed to be a bit wonky." Is it now. Judging from my time in the salon I am convinced however that she'd have said the same thing had I demanded to look like Angela Merkel. Ah well.

Panda Bear and Iron Man

2008-05-05T14:09:00.000+01:00

The essay is long handed in and awaiting its verdict. Yet the excessive procrastination is still taking its toll. The other day I received a little red card through the post informing me that I got a parcel which my postman could not be bothered to deliver, he rarely is. Without a clue what that might contain I started the endless walk to the far away collection office. On arrival I was handed a small brown parcel containing a toy panda bear. I guess it could have been worse, it could have been a little blue plastic cow. The panda stems from a procrastination action involving vouchers on a package of toilet paper and a small donation to the WWF.

Considering that I find myself all alone in Glasgow the new company was quite welcome. The panda and me went straight from the post office to the cinema and saw Iron Man. Which is an awesome film, do not cross me on that one dear reader!

Living in Glasgow for 8 months now, I have decided that of all the places I have been to in my life this is the one that most resembles Royston Vasey. Only it might be a bit harder to fit in here.
I tried to book a hotel room for some friends but the Tourist Information was most reluctant to talk to me. After much persuasion they gave me a little list. Most of the rooms miraculously doubled in price when I called. I finally found a hotel around the corner so I went there and tried to book. It took a long time because the man was most annoyed at the strange name and he got extremely impatient when I did not understand him straight away. He made a point of not understanding me either by breathing out heavily, shaking is head, squinting his eyes and then grunting in dispair. I ended up writing things down for him. I thought at least hotels would not mind people that are not "local" but apparently they do. In their defence I can say, dub it and you have Locarno.

Procrastination Confessions and Ice-T Readings

2008-03-27T14:01:00.000Z

I am spending HOURS at my deak these days. There is a lot of work to be done and all of it has to be done by me. There is also a lot of procrastination to be done, also by me. Writing this definetely counts as the latter, though I might argue that at least I am writing!

Otherwise I have rediscovered the yo yo, I have juggled, I won some races and some turf on Need for Speed, couldn't work out how to drift so gave up, emailed old friends, planned a holiday, tidied the living room, tidied my room, discarded holiday plans. At a particular low point I even typed "panda bear" into the youtube search engine. What completely got me is a new found ambition to solve the Rubik's Cube. Boy I am getting better at that! I have solved half of it. YAY! Now I'm stuck though.

The strangest thing of all is that despite this eagerness to procrastinate I have almost finished my portfolio a week ahead of the deadline. No nightshift this time. At least not for the work, there might be one for the Rubik's Cube.

I spent all of last night reading articles about Ice-T and the Cop Killer controversy. Now that was a night shift due to insomnia, not time pressure. I couldn't quite resist to roll my eyes at the irony of people actually picketing Time Warner with signs calling for Ice-T to be executed for instigating violence. How does that make sense? He sings violent stuff, let's kill him!

Apparently Charlton Heston read out the lyrics of Cop Killer and KKK Bitch. To demonstrate how bad they are. Now that I would LOVE to hear. Was it like Peter Seller's Shakespeare interpretation of The Beatles' A Hard Days Night?

A Very Happy Easter

2008-03-23T14:22:00.000Z

A lot of dead animals and a little blue plastic cow

2008-03-18T14:48:00.000Z

I spent most of the day in Edinburgh which is a pretty glorious city. I went to a museum and ...well...what is this fascination with stuffed animals all about? The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum around the corner in Glasgow is also filled with them, but Edinburgh wins this one. Hundreds of them! Bears, foxes, fish, lions, tigers, rabbits, squirrles, seals, leopards, polar bears, a rhino, monkeys, birds, turtles etc etc etc. CRAZY, especially since Edinburgh has a zoo, wouldn't it be nicer to see those creatures alive? Walking through rooms filled with dead animals is strangely disturbing and ever so creepy. I was glad to see some fish swimming about in a little fountain type thingy.

Speaking of dead animals, I just realised that I have not eaten meat in ten years. Maybe that should make me feel healthy but it just makes me feel old. It means that for ten whole years everytime I was ill my mum has said "maybe just fish, please?" The good thing is that I qualified to look at a nice "big double room in vegetarian flat" in Edinburgh, which was the reason for the little excursion. It was a very nice room in a very nice area, and in the tree outside of the window was a very nice (refreshingly alive) squirrel. I like squirrels very much, I don't have a garden. I was told those two things ALWAYS go hand in hand.

I forgot to buy a pen in the museum shop despite looking around in it. I blame that German lady who was also browsing until she discoverd a little blue plastic cow and yelled "That is exactly what I need!"...what on earth do you need a little blue plastic cow for? I was tempted to buy a little blue plastic cow myself just to figure out what you need a little blue plastic cow for. Unfortunately I did not buy a little blue plastic cow and now it bugs me tremendously. It was exactly was she needed as well. Does that mean a little blue plastic donkey or a little green plastic cow would have been altogether wrong and useless? Here's a thought...maybe she has a strange connection to Franz Marc and is trying to work something out...but Marc's cow was yellow and the pony was blue...what is she up to?

making a stand

2008-03-09T17:53:00.000Z

My parents are flat hunting as well. Their serach might be even harder than mine, because their standards are higher. Then again, so is their budget. Trying to picture my dad in a 2.5 x 2.5 boxroom...well at least he would not get cold due to that "bloody open window all the time."

Speaking of my father, he went to see No Country for Old Men yesterday. Dubbed into German. Javier Bardem does not get a Spanish accent in the German version, which seems rather bizarre. My dad said that the dubbing was rubbish anyway but that it luckily could not destroy Bardem's brilliance. Yes he knows a good actor when he sees one. Go Javier! Maybe Benno Fürmann should have dubbed Javier Bardem, just think about it... Benno Fürmann of course is this very talented German actor from Tom Tykwer's The Warrior and the Empress who managed to pull off one of the few worthwhile dubs as Puss in Boots in the Shrek sequels, sporting a much stronger Spanish accent than that of original voice Antonio Banderas. It's quite glorious.

Why oh WHY this insistance on dubbing in Germany?As long as that country so shamelessly abuses films like that I will NOT return there by free will. So far it does not seem to mind. I like to imagine this like that scene in The English Patient. I walk away and Germany goes "I just wanted you to know: I'm not missing you yet." and I turn around and say "You will."

flat hunting 1

2008-03-07T21:17:00.000Z

I suddenly find myself on the search for a room again. AGAIN! This time in Edinburgh, which let's be honest is quite exciting. Unfortunately the room/house/roof-over-head market seems rather ridiculous.

Here's my favourite add of the day (and I quote):
Large box room 2.5m x 2.5m. No window. £195/m + bills

I remember Adrian Mole living in Pandora's box room for a while and it did not do him any good. Then again that wasn't a "large" box room...