October 2009
31 posts
Parents upset, bored, by 'Where the Wild Things... →
This is one of my favourite risible CNN articles ever* - especially the part where one father lodges this complaint:
“I think there almost wasn’t enough of a fear element — there was never a moment when my [20-month-old] was crying.”
Hello, refund.
But this did remind me of the first movie I ever saw, or the first movie I can remember seeing: a black-and-white, silent...
On having the flu
It’s awful, but you knew that already. But I’m not sure when I last stayed in my bed for three days in a row, except perhaps when I had the flu - the Real Flu, I think this is but a pseudo-flu, a cold for anyone with a hardier constitution than mine - when I first moved to London. It must have been the second or third week that I lived here and I really couldn’t move at all for...
Get vaccinated to help your friends.
jayparkinsonmd:
Equal rights for all races, genders, and sexual orientation. Do not litter. Don’t drink and drive. Give money to charity. Etc, etc, etc.
Why do these things? Because it’s the right thing to do as a society. The vast majority of us do these things because we care about other people. We want to help others. We don’t litter because it makes the world ugly. We don’t drink and drive...
On air: is gender equality an impossible dream? →
Of course not! I say as much, in a flu-sodden voice, in the second hour of the podcast.
It may be diverting for Amis to imagine that... →
On a new kind of empathy
The trope of the trauma of trying on swimwear is something that I have never understood. It just doesn’t bother me too much: the lighting in changing rooms isn’t very nice, only supermodels look amazing on the beach, my diet and exercise regime are sufficiently healthy that I feel that I can safely conclude that size I am now, and have long been, falls short of various...
On a trip to the Genius Bar
Sit on the bench, they say at the Genius Bar, even though I have an appointment, and even though it was twenty minutes ago. The bench is wooden and long and reminds me of the benches in the arrivals hall at Ellis Island that I visited with my class at the end of 8th grade, a special treat to learn first-hand about the suffering of our ancestors.
So I sit on the bench, like my great-grandmother...
“Taken together, our results suggest that, although booty calls are mostly a...”
– Dr Peter Jonson, The ‘Booty Call’: A Compromise Between Men’s and Women’s Ideal Mating Strategies.
(Read more at himglishandfemalese)
On great things I have consumed of late
Penned In the Margins Poetry Series at Aubin & Wills: Kennard & Dockrill
Here are some thing that I’m not that in to: West London, waxed jackets, spoken word. While I remain indifferent to the former two, the performances (at a boutique in Notting Hill against a backdrop of country-appropriate garb) of these two young British poets were so breathtaking and electrifying that I...
On what this morning's breakfast made me think of
Alpen tastes like breakfast at my grandmother’s house in the 1980s: we are only allowed to eat it in small doses, after the hardier Weetabix or Shredded Wheat, a cereal dessert. The metal of the spoon (pre-war) is thick and slightly rough in my mouth. It plashes milk and clinks against the sides of the porcelain bowls that can be smashed; at home, they’re unbreakable polycarbonate that bounces...
Unsurprisingly, morale at the West End's best post...
Jean: I'd like to send this to Switzerland, please [brandishes postcard]
Post Office Man: That will be 56p. [Pause] You stood IN LINE for that?
Jean: Um, yes.
Post Office Man: Are you going to pay with a credit card?
Stories gleaned from Google Analytics: Episode 2
For mid-October, the sun is still hot, and Elisabeth and Francesca are taking the opportunity to flirt with melanoma and burn off their hangovers by the pool at the centre of the condo complex.
Frankie, says Elisabeth. She is playing with her Treo. Do you think that Nigel will call me?
No, says Francesca. I don’t think he will call. When did you meet him?
A week ago now, says Elisabeth. But it...
“Without striking any hysterical notes, Vann’s writing gradually marks out...”
– Alexander Linklater on David Vann’s Legend of a Suicide, which is probably my top book of 2009 (unless something else makes me gasp in the next two and a half months).
“A circus-like atmosphere formed outside the family’s home yesterday,...”
– Balloon boy: parents of Falcon Heene face charges | World news | guardian.co.uk Who are these people and how do they have the time to make models of the balloon out of their stovetop popcorn makers? It’s very White Noise.
On cheese at Borough Market
Reliably, the cheese stand at Borough Market is staffed by Gallic dreamboats: dark and broody-looking, sporting old jumpers and scarves, looking like they would really rather be reading Sartre (I really did once see one of them in a cafe reading a philosophy book). Such has been the case for the six years I’ve been buying cheese here. The men working today are new to me, but they are still...
Maybe I will write a collection of short stories based on search information gleaned from my Google Analytics statistics.
You just don’t understand, says Eleanor. I have to put on the right shoes to go with this dress and I cannot find them anywhere in my suitcase.
You’re being ridiculous, Pablo replies. We are going to be late for our visit to the site of the Battle of Okinawa.
Ridiculous? ...
“Each and every day 500,000 people ride their bicycle to work or school in and...”
– The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog Copenhagenize.com (via somethingchanged)
New favourite verb! I also hope the Copenhagenization process involves the consumption of more fish paste as well as more cycling.
JHE Solves Your Relationship Problems: Small World
Dear Jean,
I was wondering if you could advise on a sticky situation I seemed to have embroiled myself in - about a month ago I broke up with my boyfriend, and to try and get back out there, I was signed up to a certain dating website that helps you find love through friend recommendations. On there I began exchanging emails with , an engineer with a penchant for motown music. When he...
On language barriers
It was an elegant restaurant.
The short, sharp coffee came with two small orange packets: one long and thin and clearly filled with sugar; the other small and square.
What’s this, I said, squinting. Mentes? Mint powder to mix in your coffee?
No, said Amy. It must be an after-dinner mint.
Of course, I said. I had drunk, perhaps, a bit too much port. And certainly a lot of wine.
The coffee...
On running in to my doctor on the Underground...
Hm, I think. Where do I know that guy from? Friend of a friend? Did I see him out that night in Dalston?
And then I remember: he is my doctor.
Thus: as is appropriate for two people whose knowledge of each other outstrips the depth of their acquaintance who run across each other on the tube platform mid-commute, we look at each other with slight alarm, and do not do so much as nod.
In the Gelateria
Jean: I love words that end in 'teria'!
Amy: Cafeteria?
Jean: Yes, cafeteria. And Danceteria. And in Montreal there was a florist called the Florateria...
Amy: How about 'theria'? Like diphtheria?
Jean: No, that's not the same.
I'm going to Portugal for the weekend.
This is especially notable because the only other time I went to Portugal, earlier this year for work, I had a horrible string of misadventures, culminating in a near-death experience courtesy some stealth crab in a salad.
‘I need to go to the hospital,’ I said, reluctant to make a fuss but feeling my mouth swell, and without my Epipen.
‘You can’t go to the...
On six years
This week, I have suddenly realised, marked the sixth anniversary of my arrival to London with two enormous suitcases, a boyfriend, an acceptance letter to a postgraduate course, and the nebulous ambition of a 22-year-old to carve out some kind of career in ‘the media’. My then-boyfriend’s mother attempted to charm the woman at the check-in desk into letting us through without charging...
On dignity and sandwiches
I love the Scandinavian deli near my office where I go at least once a week for a spot of lunchtime smorgasbord. I love the fish paste and meatballs and rye bread and liver pate and all those other delightful treats that British people don’t really eat. But I really hate the way that when I go to buy my lunch there, if I am unlucky enough to be served by one particular deli employee, I must...