Who Has The Right Of Way? I Do.

I've bloody done it again, haven't I? I've treated my blog like a piece of coursework and let it creep up on me until I have so many things to say, I'd bore you at the best of times. And goodness it's been a while, hasn't it? Well, if you're still with me, thanks. If you're not, then I suppose you're not reading and I have no need to address you. Well, that's that.

Apart from being poorly and exhausted - and what a year to become a wilting female! - I've been pretending to be really really busy, doing all sorts of things I feel I should have done before moving onto higher education (such as reading Winnie the Pooh and watching every episode ever made of Absolutely Fabulous).

And what's been happening? Well, some people went off to Lourdes and other people were coming back from Thailand. Genevieve had gone to Nice and my parents were going to Scotland, so I went to Liverpool. No, it was fun, really, in a lost boys and The Dreamers- cum- Shirley Valentine and more than a splash of Desperate Housewives sort of way. Have I lost you yet? I was going up to Scotland to see the parents by Loch Lomond. On the way, I stopped in London (where I had breakfast with some friendly, albeit rock 'n' roll, 'city doves' - unfortunately read: pigeons), Liverpool (where I played house with the up-and-coming Elliot James Langridge -not name-dropping or anything (darling...), but keep your eyes peeled!), Warrington -despite sounding like a very proper surname - is a town in Cheshire that has the sort of bus fares I approve of (20p from one side to the other) and Glasgow.

On the way, I read a brilliantly funny book, titled 'Lover Enshrined' by a J.R. Ward (who looks, just ever-so-slightly, like Uma Thurman). The first line read, "thanks to his sick bitch mistress, his face and his back and his wrists and his neck were scarred". I didn't enjoy it all that much, you might be surprised to know. I did, however, also (courtesy of Felix) catch the first episode of the newest vampire drama, True Blood, perhaps not for the faint-hearted, but certainly extremely good.

And then I should have known I'd fail another driving test when I managed to overturn a couple of quad bikes in Scotland - several times each. This said, I think a total of 31 minors and 2 majors across 3 practical tests isn't too drastic. Especially if you consider that passing my theory test first time around must technically erase the minors. And if we now recalculate, I definitely deserve a pink license. After some consideration, I think I may have actually failed the last test before turning on the ignition: as I wriggled into my seat, explaining that my knickers were just "in such a twist - the real problem with french knickers", poor Simon or Peter or Brian, as my weedy examiner may have been named, let an almighty gulp echo around the Ford Fiesta. Attempting to re-establish the ease we may (or may not) have begun with, I tried the old wink and "so (dramatic pause) how long have you have been doing this?" line (read: how you doiiin')- to, naturally, little avail.

So Lucy and I went out the following night. Lucy, apart from being one of my oldest friends, is the daughter of my mother's friend - this is important. Regardless of how well we think we behave, we appear to maintain our 'naughty daughter' tags, and so going out together, is pretty much a parental nightmare. Nevertheless, we did so (even if I was told by her father the following evening that I was "leading her up the proverbial garden path" - but not before Mummy asked Luce if she had a "sausage" for her!) and thoroughly exhausted ourselves - by our standards, we reckoned this was fairly impressive. We drank shots, requested Sean Paul, pulled out the lesbian card at all costs and kept an eye on each other's hem lines.

I also photographed the semi-finals of a DJ competition at a gorgeous bar in Angel (Barrio North) in conjunction with Movida and Corona, the only event I feel I'll ever attend with a floor covered in limes. Not the only night, however, I will have carried my eyelashes home in a pocket, feeling London is just ever so slightly easier for the bambi-legged sort, who have to hold on when the wind changes direction (and just as much when it doesn't).

I also gave up smoking in a very official way two nights ago because, while I love smoking, husky drawls and the intimacy of having my cigarette lit (Johnny Flynn so did me once!!) as much as the next student, the cough that creeps up with each packet just interferes with life more than I would like.

Then I was pooped, so I considered reading a very heavy book today(767g and it's only a paperback) called 'The Crimson Petal and the White' by a Michel Faber (who, despite having an incorrectly-spelt christian name, has written a novel), which Time Magazine claims is 'even better than sex'. Wikipedia says it is "a 2002 epic postmodern novel set in Victorian-era England" which sounds even more of an oxymoron to me than a stripper's dressing room. I flicked to the back hoping for something resembling a biography of the author (all I can find is anecdotes by critics and their fee(eee)lings - they really liked this one), as I still have no idea when Faber was born or if he is still alive. Finally, amidst seriously dense pages and a bags of tea, I resurfaced somewhere between Amazon and Wikipedia, unveiling Faber's placement in literature to be somewhere between Shakespeare and my mother. With this conclusion, I replaced the book (with some struggle) with a nicely controlled three-point-turn to trusty Rosamunde Pilcher who's promising me little else than a bit of charm.

"Who has the right of way?" he persists. "I do" I maintain, sitting in the right hand lane.

Listening to Travellin' Thru - Dolly Parton
Reading Long Way Round - Ewan McGreggor & Charley Boorman

Now Recruiting

Now I find myself striving to find things to do daily (being semi-unemployed), I remember an article I wrote for my local newspaper, aged 16, about being unable to find a Saturday job. At my expense, I'll humour you...

Short of prostitution and joining a convent, I don't know what to do: I can't get a Saturday job.

Gone are the days of growing up and getting a job at sixteen. No longer do you go out and get a job, the jobs come in and get you! The arrival of our National Insurance numbers at 15 and nine months are mere glimpses of loosely dangled false hope. No thanks.

One interview of only two, having dispersed several dozen C.Vs, I was the only applicant of seven without a pierced or tattooed face(1). This was at a pharmacy, and needless to say, I wasn't offered the job. Apparently 'hygienic' wasn't on the checklist. As for my other 50 C.Vs , now harbouring the Slough recycling site I imagine, tell all the right lies so how did they make the trash?

Perhaps it concerns Tesco that I could single-handedly run the show? If only I were Eastern European and knew not of the English word 'exploit'. I recall a bizarre happening at this: a month ago or so, I was grabbing a latte in a Starbucks. Putting my card into the PIN machine, I explained to Conchita or Lolita, or whoever I had been lucking to catch on said day, that I would pay with cash if my card was denied. As the expected 'DENIED' flashed on the PIN machine, she happily handed my drink over, and 'Hab a nith day!' she grinned passing over the receipt also titled 'DENIED'. Perhaps I'll donate that £3.50 or so to the Geldofs.

Of the question 'And why do you want to work here?', the answer 'Cuz I like want to get money' achieves a far higher pass than that of 'Because I am passionately interested in this particular field'! Who are employers these days? Whatever happened to brown-nosing the boss? If I were to sincerely promise to spend my £4.30 an hour on short skirts from Primark, alcohol and condoms, would I stand a chance?

Having concluded that I was over-qualified to work amongst the public, I applied for a temporary finance position at Legoland. As everything these days, the application process was online, and after filling in the lengthy form, I received an e-mail approximately 15 seconds later, telling me that they did not want me. Well, I retorted, I didn't want you either!

Don't get me wrong, I am constantly running into young employees, so I'm not implying a form of ageism, however, with rhyming cockney, greased and fried bosses, what hope is there for the elite-haitch-pronouncing-few? (2) A young Marks & Spencer's member of staff recently gave me, what she might describe as 'evils' when I asked for some help. After persistent rudeness, I felt ready to explode: "How did they employ you?" I wanted to shout to anyone who would listen. In my fury, I left, purse firmly shut. Is this how St Michael lost his millions?

"Hi, how may I help you?" How hard can it be? Apparently it can: anymore than a "yer...wot?" and you're lucky a smile is almost certainly out of the question! I've actually taken to ridiculing particularly uninspiring shop staff. I would mostly ward you from fabric shops just don't chance it; their zombie-like boredom could spread, and God forbid a world of unintelligent lemmings!

My one paid workday this summer, I was a runner on a commercial, and I'll shock few, by telling you that the other runner was an Oxford Law graduate. But being naïve, this struck me as peculiar, but peculiar more so, when he confessed how he made his living: handing out flyers. So that's that: I won't be applying to Oxford, in fact, I should drop out of school now and take a vocational waxing course at a TVU college and all these years, I thought university was the future! Conceivably, a university graduate could argue his qualification to work at a launderette or as a dishwasher, but the nation's fear of a higher intelligence than its own worries me somewhat.

Can you not trace this negative correlation as the onward direction? Admittedly, I have had a horrid but subconscious superiority instilled, and therefore, today's youth, is only what I see in public either the nation is collectively losing brain cells though evidently not, as A-levels are on the up or employers are picking the dullest bunch. Dull: no thoughts: no opinions: no argument: no messing around. Ah, I see the logic. Well, I guess there's no argument then!

I cringe in horror at my earlier arrogance (sounding nearer fifty, than fifteen (3)), but sadly, the situation hasn't changed a huge amount: I still find myself failing to get, what are essentially, incredibly ordinary jobs. No skills required. I recall, however, an interview at FatFace in Windsor, where I appeared, mid-interview, with an outfit I had been instructed to pick out for the manager. Having lied about my ski and surf history, on being asked about my choice, "i think you'd look hot in it" I proudly grinned(4). This was in January. I evidently still have no shame...

Reading Shakespeare - Bill Bryson
Listening to Pon de Replay/ Disturbia - Rihanna

(1) I might point out I have since acquired eight further piercings since the original time of print...
(2) OUCH!
(3)I also promise I have joined the real world now!!
(4) I wouldn't like to say I didn't also wink.

I Make That Pimms O'Clock

I spent the last two days working at Henley Regatta. Behind the Pimms bar. In the Regatta Enclosure. Through rain and shine. And rain and shine it sure did, so that the uniform I shivered in during the morning (to the point that I managed to convince myself – over an extra hot, rather wet, mostly soya, Starbucks hot chocolate – that warming myself with a new Joules hoody - conveniently located opposite Starbucks – was completely justified and did not make me high maintenance. Of course, that I now own a Joules hoody and neither play, nor really understand polo beyond Jilly’s Cooper, is not justifiable at all) I stripped off later in the Mahiki enclosure much to the amusement of the rod stewarts who had asked me earlier in the day whether or not the “boat thing” was “over yet”. Yes, really.

But let’s go back a bit (1), to the morning I stumbled out of work, having competed with Amy to sell the most shots at Maidenhead’s own Coyote -very- Ugly. This is before I learnt about the effects of having a Henley STAFF pass and the sneaky under-the-counter services run by a hoard of waitresses. It hadn't been an unpleasant evening (if you don't count having two shots nicked and £15 disappear without explanation unpleasant): I, once again disobeyed my mother's one house rule (do not go out in just a bikini...); saw everyone I've ever met in Maidenhead and managed to actually tie with Amy (each selling exactly 312 shots, using absolutely no uncatholic methods...) who has acquired the club's capacity in extremely loyal best friends. Of course, the evening probably began to slide backwards when a man offered to buy fifteen shots from me - on the agreement that I would drink eleven of them... For a five-feet-nothing girl, wearing far too much make-up and really very little else, there's not much she can say... So, not only, might we note, have I learnt that I have not yet learnt my limits, but I also defy anyone to claim there is no alcohol in our yummy little shots!

Fastforward 48 hours, minus £17, add a few shots backfiring in our upstairs loo, several rows with one's mother and a lift - the long way - from a james, we're back to Henley with a copy of Lolita and little - to no- organisation behind the safety of our loveable Pimms bar. Only I wasn't behind the bar: I was on table service, so that I later met a group who simply had to put an end to an 'ongoing argument', whether or not I had earlier been wearing a 'nude thong'. Thank you, regulatory flesh-coloured tights! Needless to say, I rebelled the second day and 'forgot' my tights at home (read: ripped them off at the first chance and LEFT THEM TO ROT).

While years of attending Henley as one of the 'Saturday lot' (i.e. one of the all-knowing, socialising, chain-smoking, under-age yaaaaaahs), well before I knew what rowing was, was perfectly pleasant, working at Henley was another experience entirely. For someone as disorganised as I am, I am rarely shocked by disorganisation, however, the manager in charge of the bar I worked with, had about as much knowledge of managing a bar as half a wet dog, and after a freezing morning, eyeing up a stack of bacon sandwiches, only to catch wind of the fact they'd been thrown away, I almost broke down. The very worst part of my brief attendance this year, however, was great rescue I managed. Calling Harriet Green, only have a male voice answer, panic alarms went off in little me, but I efficiently (not so calm) engineered said male into meeting me about a mile down the river from where I was. Running all the way, on the phone to him, making sure he would definitely be there, I was finally found (having described myself as 'too small to see but wearing a pillow case'), by a boy who, saying 'I think you'd better come with me, I obligingly followed (is this worrying at all?). This was only to discover that he was Catherine's boyfriend's brother and, in fact, walked me over to Harriet, who I had just gallantly sprinted down the river for. All in all, the event was truly heartbreaking. No jokes please about how easily my heart breaks.

And then I heard something quite funny - and was a bit pissed off I hadn't thought of it first - that waitresses were selling cigarettes on the sly(2). And at around £20 a pack! (I'm no mathematician, but even I can tell you that's an incredible profit for no practically no effort - the mind even boggles to think if they originated from a Duty Free). While I did almost sob by the third time I'd been asked if I had 'any cigs going...', I can't complain, because (for anyone who doesn't know, the Regatta Enclosure is not the laaaavely enclosure, it's the mediocre one - hence the fact we had bacon sandwiches on offer) I was actually tipped £4 for bringing someone a glass with ice! This is the kind of tip one wants to bat away muttering something like "no, don't be silly: it was no trouble!", but then one remembers one woke up at 7am and has been drenched in lemonade since 9am, so one dismisses one's argument, smiles sweetly and then retreats bashfully.

Reading Lolita - Nabokov
Listening to PODCASTS ON VIIGO

(1) Ignoring the fact that I begin most of my sentences with all sorts of things I promised not to at prep school...
(2) note: I am not outing anyone here...

Bite Me!

I have something to confess. I've got a bit of a thing for vampires.

Had I admitted this a year and a half ago, however, you'd have thought I was mad (maybe you still do), but because of the - well-received, but typo-ridden- Twilight Saga, odaxelagnia is now a socially-accepted fetish. And we've even got to the stage of being able to discuss it like Marmite: you either love it or hate it. I'd say, if you love it, it's the raw and physical, shirt-ripping type of love... And then if you hate it, you just don't talk about it.

Once again, I turned to Ed Fraser for a male opinion.
"Do we fear what we do not understand?" he considered.
"Fear is kinky" I threw in for argument's sake.
He decided, following rather a lot of deliberation, that he might, were the vampirist to be at least part Scandinavian, consider involvement in such an indulgence. I wasn't satisfied.

Convinced this was a bigger fetish than I could immediately prove, I asked around, leading to conversations turning in every weird and wonderful direction possible. A vincent suggested a scenario in which both (or all) participants play vampires draped in cloaks, donning fangs and sharing blood, leading, however, to an argument over whether or not vampires have blood (very much up for debate). A james claimed "everyone likes a bit of pain". A tom didn't get it.

I spent the afternoon with my dear friend Alex last Saturday (although, as you may have noticed, my blog dates are now entirely out-of-sync, and so it is probably in fact next Saturday), when we caught one of the last matinees of Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray, which we both decided was really rather great (1). This alex once wrote a song called 'I Wanna Be A Sex Offender' (2), well received by 14-year-old Godolphin thoroughbreds in leotards, primary-school plimsols and little else but, no doubt, less by their mothers.

Alex explained that the song was in response to some silly ideas thought up by the Daily Mail regarding their ideas of sex offence, with headlines such as ‘POSTMAN POKES PACKAGE’ and ‘MILKMAN MILKS MANSLAVE’(3). Of course, my morally-Catholic mother maintains that anything sexual (4) is disgusting and a practice that not even, 'normal married couples' engage in(5). And so vampirism, as a way of life, is not something we have brought up over supper as yet, and so my sister and I remain living our half-lives cocooned between the covers of our Buffy and Angel boxsets and Twilight collector's editions.

Ok, uncatholic it may be, but if we must also insist it is also wrong, as Alex says, I too, wanna be a sex offender.

Reading Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer
Listening to The Boat That Rocked Soundtrack

(1) Olivia-Anne requested some footnotes, so I thought I might add that of the shows currently a-playing in London, Dorian Gray is a great bounding skip better than Peter Pan but potentially not as a great as Waiting For Godot, even if Olivia-Anne described it as a play in which "nothing happens in the first half and then the second half is a repeat of the first".
(2) with his band The More Assured -buy their album on itunes!
(3) not really
(4) pronounced like 'capsule'.
(5) less of a joke than I would like.

Game Over

I just finished my exams but unfortunately, and as I'm sure you can imagine, finishing A Levels for the second time is somewhat of an anticlimactic. The first time, you relax thinking there is nothing more that can be done - until the second time, when continuing the pattern of failing indefinitely becomes a friendlier and friendlier option.

So although I guess I have now officially left school, I also left school last summer and two summers before that when I finished my GCSEs and every time, it has seemed more about holding hands and swaying uncontrollably to Eternal Flame than anything remotely linked to education - ironic really. This time, while everyone else was wasting away on buckets of Tequila and jumping through hoops of fire in the Far East, I finished off my Portuguese paper and signed off my coursework to the Devil, in whose utterly incapable hands my fate now lies.

I was thinking back over my academic life until arriving here in Limbo and my track record isn't a terribly inspiring one. While I may have been a scholar at two out of three schools, I've never won an award; had innumerous detentions and still got a D in my Physics GCSE, then again Annabel Banks did copy my spellings... but we won't go into that.

I applied for a job today that involved giving my Myspace URL (which I haven't looked at for quite some time). There, I found in a post, the first and only piece of A Level Latin work I ever produced before dropping the subject, and it is by no means any more or less exaggerated than an exactly literal translation of Ovid's Amores 1.5. I thought I had done quite well, I simply thought I could help Ovid out a bit:

It was past the sun's time with the gods, but not yet night. Pieces of the twilight entered our room, shredded -in a way that woodland does- by the part-open shutters. But let me tell you that between these shreds are found hidden, shy girls bidding their modesty.

And here, Corinna enters; an unbelted tunic in place of a masking veil. Hair, tumbling, surrounding an exposed fair decolletage: the look of a courtesan or queen, desired en masse.

I tore at her tunic, pulling it effortlessly from her. I would lie, were I to tell she had not struggled, but an apathetic struggle as it was, suggested it bore little intent. No, Corinna was out to be sought. Sought and conquered: to be dominated. And so, Corinna was taken not by force, but by the force of her own will.

And there she stood, before me, as though unspoiled- perfection in her natural shape. Nowhere could I find cause for any complaint- so flawless a form. Shoulders, as sweet as the arms I touched, and breasts, with caresses I may well not have done them justice. So worthy of appraisal, I could simply not admire them too greatly. This is not to say that her stomach, side or thighs were not worthy of vast awe- for they too: youthful and fair in colour. But I relate too much in detail, and in prose I am inept to describe such faultlessness.

Overcome with emotion and longing, I snatched her away from herself, embracing her body close to mine.

I narrate the rest in mind, and leave to you, my untold memoir. For lists do no credits to such actions past. Besides, that we both rested together, should illustrate alone. I make it no secret in hoping for echo.

OK, so I am evidently not to be an academic. Perhaps I should have listened to George Skerett, put my books away and invested more time in finding myself a husband. Why oh why did I never pursue Home Economics? While I may be able to elaborate heavily on the ideas of lots of really old men, I can neither cook nor sew - nor walk in a straight line at the best of times. On the other hand, there's always next year. It's not Game Over just yet.

New Game?

Press Continue

Reading O Alquimista - Paulo Coelho
Listening to The Sarah McLachlan trance remixes

I Scream, You Scream...

I HAVE A FIFTH FOLLOWER! Hell yeah! I feel as great as I do when I see that Phones4U ad - the one that claims it has 'GREAT DEALS 4 popular people' - because I know they mean me...

But I know it's about quality, not quantity... right?

(dare I make this sort of assertion?)


I recently went through my Facebook and deleted some 500 'friends' and I feel great. I'd managed to collect a hoard of somewhat less than acquaintances over the past two years at parties I was slightly drunk at, jobs I've walked out of and schools I attended for less than a term. At a glance, my Facebook was more like a horribly visual, bad-memory-provoking spidergram of everyone I've ever met - and it's no secret that I don't like most people.

Just to be really jolly and conformist, I looked up the definition of 'popular', so I knew what I was aiming for/competing against. My lovely illustrated dictionary said I just have to be 'generally liked or admired', which I don't think is too much of a feat. After all, what is 'generally' in the great scope of things? Say, 10%? Phones4U say that I need more than fifty contacts to fit their image of 'popular' and get their 'GREAT DEAL', so if five of the fifty are following my blog, I don't think I'm doing too badly... According to Steven Schwartz (who wrote Wicked), I also have to know how to stand properly; talk to boys; pick the right shoes; do my hair and be good at sport. My dictionary may say one thing, but realistically, Steve's closer to the mark: I remember the very first 'popular' girl I knew - the excedingly pretty Anoushka Dovey at prep school who danced and swam; she was the first to have a boyfriend; had a pair of navy suede mary janes from Shelleys we all wanted and never had a bad hair day.

So I sat down for an evening, and in one fell swoop, rubbed out several years worth of pointless, useless or plainly boring meetings as my criteria for deletion increased with impressive speed. I was thinking about these fifty contacts I require for this 'great deal' and, while the deal may be, I don't think the logic is so great because, even though I only just about passed Maths GCSE, I don't think making up several phone numbers would be too much of a challenge. After all, if you think you have my number, you might want to try giving it a ring because, chances are, you'll more likely get y'mum (oh yeah). What about the numbers for taxi companies I have for every city in the UK? They make me more popular than you, that's right. What I want to know is, who is cheating the system here? Am I dishonestly claiming deals I don't really deserve or is Phones4U inventing incredulous conditions to appear elitist? The bastards. Because, deny as we might, elitism is all we want, like the fact I must only holiday on islands just big enough for me - and my ego. On the upside, all the people I dislike won't be there (because I'll make my runway too small for their jets) but I also won't be able to invite the 200 'friends' I do have left, take photos and post them on Facebook so everyone can see how popular I am.

Sometimes I think I'm going mad (even though Julia Keys told me I wan't- to begin with...) And then I wake up to things like this
Introduce
Between You and Feri Irawan
Feri Irawan
Confirm Friend
20 June at 08:28
Report message
Hai sabrina , can I be your friend , I am from Indonesia

Just that ...and I wonder what I'd been worrying about!

Listening to: Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Reading: Peter Pan - JM Barrie

Watching: Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow

I Killed Bill

There's something wrong with this website: I now have three posts for yesterday.

I'm watching you...