The Aardvark Blog

Edinburgh calling

2005-09-13T21:37:00.000+01:00

That's not really a very good title, but it implies, hopefully, that I'm going to London for a conference this weekend. I don't know quite how much I'll actually get to see (transport difficulties) but it should be a minor amount of fun, especially as I'm determined to wear my new tshirt on the last day, NOBODY KNOWS I'M A LESBIAN.
Moreover I am very happy because I've finally finished a short story which has been niggling away at me for three years and am getting on well with my book, so have wasted a cheery hour googling my own name. I am not mentioned anywhere on the interweb, which is simultaneously relieving and disappointing, and all my namesakes seem to be Australians and/or golfers.
Soon you'll know if I've died or not. Meanwhile, let me leave youse with this final thought:
Walk, don't run.

Look,

2005-09-03T19:41:00.000+01:00

it's not my fault I've not posted for many days. A lot has been going on in that my computer has decided that it won't accept the cookies of fire or what the fuck ever, and I've been busy, and having fits. So this may/will mark my return to blogging as such.

heh

2005-08-03T22:46:00.000+01:00

My last post was an unaccountably long time ago; something happened where my browser was not enabled to receive cookies whatever they are. As I have never refused a biscuit myself I was completely baffled by this and couldn't cope with it at all, I'm back and this time I'm mildly annoyed. At everything really. My work placement is a bit toss, but paradoxically and/or conveniently my mother, acting as unofficial advocate since I am having lots of absences and can't really take in anything above the level of an intelligence-insulting lecture on Good Communication in the Workplace, had a meeting with my supervisor last Friday and I had a fit right in the middle of it, and I might-to-will get my hours reduced. This would-to-will be nice.
And I got a new flatmate, whose ten boxes of books I had to help bring up from his friends' van and who swears at the cat in Italian. He keeps things clean and plays the guitar and sings in the evening, so I like him just as much as the invisible flatmate we had before; and he's a Socialist, which helps economise on arguments.
All this doesn't help me sound annoyed, and a lot of the time I'm not. The sun shines a good bit, and my cat is behaving as well as she can, and I might get to write something for Chartist. But all Socialists should maintain a kind of low-level pissedoffness, just in case.

testing testing 123 (again)

2005-07-25T22:12:00.000+01:00

Shit. I deleted another blog and I think it might have affected this one.

New from Rooters' Press Agency

2005-07-25T21:40:00.000+01:00

Spotted on algae.com:
LONDON, SUNDAY:- Refugees from Earth were today offered a lifeline by the Clangers, who have issued a statement that "People wishing to find an escape from the bigotry, violence, pollution, random killings, pointless hatred and general stupid-wankerism of this unhappy planet can come and live with us, if they don't mind eating soup every day. We will even allow them to reproduce, like the orange froglets."
This information was welcomed by representatives of people with more intelligence than the average crocus. Colin from my jobseekers course said "Fantastic, when can we go?"
Earth people will be picked up later this months in the musical space boat by Tiny Clanger, who added "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

Helen and Alice's Grand Day Out

2005-07-02T17:53:00.000+01:00

Helen, Alice, Tam, Heather, Pablo, Ramon, Dick, Janet, Graham, Sarah, Will, Mel, Jody, Ben and quite a few other people's grand day out. Organised by Tam, hosted by me, with a guest appearance by the cat.
It's rather lucky really that the largest-ever demonstration in Scotland (allegedly) is happening about twenty yards from my front door; on the other hand it means that everyone in branch and all their pals are in and out all the time, having glasses of water, using the bathroom, picking up more copies of Socialist Appeal and other literature and stuff which is selling like hot cliches, sorry, cakes, and storing tables and chairs and all sorts. Still, it's good that we have a base close to the Meadows, and Marjorie is very excited to have all these people in and out of her house. We also have some folk from London staying who absolutely adore her, as does everyone before they get to know her. (So small. So fluffy. So cute. Such a funny little purr. And the scars on my legs which she inflicted two months ago are nearly healed up.)
But I spent four hours yesterday - helped by Heather and my wee sister who has been absolutely wonderful throughout the entire thing - making cheese rolls to sell. This was going to be either a triumph or the greatest cock-up committed by a Socialist organisation since someone said "This Blair bloke looks nice, let's give him a go," and at the moment - because I don't want to be complacent - it looks quite like the former. Two hundred rolls - yes, that wasn't a typing error, two hundred - at 50p each, they're nearly all gone, and we've sold loads of papers, six books which is good because a book at six or eight or ten quid is not often an impulse purchase, and lots of packets of crisps. To be honest the roll triumph is probably just because there weren't gigantic queues at the stall; there were queues at the food vans, the toilets, and very possibly the first-aid tent, because the main activity pursued during any large gathering, from Greenham Common to Glastonbury to bloody Crufts, is queueing, and thinking "I'm hungry" and immediately purchasing a slightly squashed bread roll for 50p is preferable to standing in line for half an hour to spend [GBP]4.50 on some chips.
I tried to join the bit of march that set off at 1pm, but it was just like standing in a queue going nowhere at all, so I gave up. This was a shame, as I was dressed in white head-to-toe in order to look like a slightly bitter angel (however my skirt only just fit, and when I put my phone and stuff into the pockets came a bit undone, giving me an air which was less celestial than who-ate-all-the-pies), but shit happens. They managed fine without me anyway. The whole thing seems to be a wee bit more militant than it was originally designed to be, which is good. Through the window I can hear the anti-war people yelling from their stage, and 120,000 or 200,000 (I'd say the latter, because official statistics are, well, official) people hanging around - well, it gives me a bit of hope.
Not a lot, and maybe too much, but a bit.

Sorry I haven't posted for a while

2005-06-27T23:21:00.000+01:00

to those of you who watch this thing for updates regularly (ie no one). I've been watching Newsnight Scotland about how difficult it is to get published these days. I'm useless and terrible; I'll never get published because I can't write, even my incest story is too staid and stodgy. I'll have to be a librarian all my life, not that there's anything wrong with librarians but, like my middle name, it's just not me. I'm a failure, my work is a failure, my life is a failure, I'll go to my grave dull, frustrated, unaknowledged and unpublished, and nobody will give a shit about me or anything I've done.
Hope you're all well,
love,
Helen.

Getting your balls waxed

2005-06-19T11:25:00.000+01:00

I've been at my training course for a week now, learning how to improve my self-esteem (what would really improve my self-esteem, actually, is getting to do my sodding job) under a couple of un-nervingly enthusiastic Personal Development Trainers. The good news, of course, is that my fellow self-esteem-improvers are not such a crowd of tosswits as the last lot; good age range, lots of different, interesting people, and - ta-da! - some Socialists!! I have flogged three copies of Socialist Appeal (one pound, two pounds solidarity price, available every Saturday morning outside Tesco on the Causeway) and am signed up to do a self-esteem-improving talk in front of the class (public speaking skills; we're all doing it) about 'The Importance of Ideology'. I have already devised a cunning demonstration of the importance of co-operation as opposed to competition, using a volunteer from the audience and three little bags of beans.
One of the magazines I sold, however, was to the blonde woman in charge of the course, who said in my interview that she wanted to learn more about all the stuff I talked about (Socialism, feminism, etc.); I directed her to my tv review of 'The Apprentice' on page 28, she read it with me standing over her, and at the end said that she didn't agree with it. I would have been quite ready to debate the issue if it had not been time for the class to start, but I learned very quickly why she did not agree. The unhappy truth was that she is peddling the kind of going-for-it-giving-it-100% dribble which I was slagging; I've probably put her off Socialism for life.
But I got the quid, so it turned out OK in the end.

Yoghurt

2005-06-11T20:31:00.000+01:00

OK, here's the deal: for five days I have been taking antibiotics for a lymph node infection. After two tablets I felt like shit (stomach pains, headache, nausea, etc etc) so my mother recommended that I eat live yoghurt. I said I couldn't because I didn't know where to buy it. When I went to stay with my parents she bought some for me: it was exactly the same brand of Tesco Bio-Yoghurt, in exactly the same size pack, that I had at home. So all along I've been eating live yoghurt, simply because it was lower in fat than its dead cousin! It says on the back 'made with bio culture for a mild taste', in fact it's made with a bio culture so that it can breed in my stomach! I can't believe I've been such a fool! The bacteria are growing. They're going to take over my body! I can see it all now. If only I can get to the sink in time, I might be able to
THIS IS BACTERIUM T-935735832333 SPEAKING. THE YOGHURT BACTERIA HAVE TAKEN OVER THIS BODY. PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RESIST. WE ARE AWAY TO DESTROY THIS PLANET BY SUBVERTING THE CAMPAIGN FOR LABOUR PARTY DEMOCRACY, TURNING IT FOR OUR OWN EVIL ENDS INTO A CONTACT SPORTS CLUB SO THAT ITS MEMBERS WILL BE DISTRACTED FROM -
SHIT, I'VE BLOWN IT. HAVE TO THINK OF SOMETHING ELSE NOW.
THIS BODY IS OF NO MORE USE TO US. WE WILL HAVE TO FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE TO PLAN FROM. BUT WE WILL FIND SOMEWHERE. MAYBE THE CAT. AND
WE WILL TRIUMPH!

Addiction (warning: self-centred bollocks)

2005-06-05T21:39:00.000+01:00

I've been on my own in the house for a few days, and damn it's nice. I got the 'job' and am starting, I think, next Monday, ie the 13th (although the people in charge are going to tell me more about this on Tuesday). I've written my 4,000 words this week (new weekly rather than daily targets, notice), and am going to join a gym before I start work in order to take advantage of any unemployed discount, and am doing one more rather sensitive thing.
If anyone who knows me in the real world is reading this, you'll know: I have trichotillomania, I think, I can't spell it and don't want to be associated with the word 'mania' but it's a thing for pulling out your own hair, leaving little bald spots. This started when - actually I don't know when it started, it seems to have always been there. If you don't have it you probably won't be able to understand; it sounds really disgusting (it is really disgusting) to pull out the hair on your head strand by strand, or to spend half an hour chasing an imaginary hair on your chin, or to pick off every single eyelash, but I managed it until I discovered Doing your Legs. Perfect. Women aren't supposed to have hair on their legs; I like removing hair (albeit in a slightly unorthodox manner); I can take a pair of tweezers to my legs whenever I like and not be penalized for doing what I want to do. I had not counted, however, on the fact that there are a sod of a lot of hairs on your legs, and so I had to do it for hours. And hours. And hours. I have spent whole mornings when I should have been working sat on the bed with one trouser-leg rolled up and a pair of tweezers in one hand, occasionally looking at the clock and thinking quarter of an hour more and then I'll get on with my work, then quarter of an hour later that clock must be fast, I'll just take five minutes more and then I really will get on with it, then another ten minutes, then - I wanted to stop but I couldn't. That's the definition of addiction, allegedly. I looked in a library book and found out that it's a minor form of self-harm, and that did it. No way am I going to be associated with that either. So I stopped straight off - no tapering off, that doesn't work (again allegedly) - on Thursday, and if I go three months without it I shall get another tattoo. An Amazon axe, to cut through all the bollocks I am (we are) subjected to on a daily basis, rather than to symbolise courage or any bullshit like that. It seems to be the fashion these days to use 'brave' as a synonym for 'unlucky' on one hand or 'stupid' on the other; pulling hairs out of your body is stupid, trying (and I am trying really, really hard for the last and first time) to stop it is just sensible.

Realtime Newsnight shit

2005-05-31T23:03:00.000+01:00

Just a tiny update to say that I'm watching the eurothing debate on Newsnight and I FUCKING FUCKING HATE HATE HATE JOHN FUCKING REDWOOD.
3 million unemployment
Poll tax
VAT on fuel
Selling everything that wasn't nailed down, and quite a lot that was
Remember that when you hear him talking about fucking prosperity.
And the 'Brussels political class': since he stuffed every quango going with Tory donors when he was Welsh Secretary he'd be an arrant hypocrite if he weren't just referring to 'people who live in Europe and understand a bit more about politics than the average knuckle-dragging Tory voter.' And of course he isn't an arrant hypocrite, is he? (is he?)

Libraries: body mass indexes: referendums

2005-05-31T22:06:00.000+01:00

Got it. Goddamn. (That's a good 'goddamn,' like the americans say it, with a sort of funny hand-signal and a baseball hat... anyway, what I mean is that I'm pleased.) I went to the interview and gave the folk a lot of stuff about how much I adore the public, which I don't really - well, a bit, but I'm not entirely - I'm not one of those public-lovers - I don't mean I wouldn't do it in public, I just mean - oh, forget it. I'm glad to get the job, even though it's an hour's walk from my house. Especially since it's a hour's walk from my house. Need to lose a bit of weight. I've got a body mass index of 22. I think.
Oh, the French Referendum. Bad business, that. I think. Neil Kinnock says it is, and he's probably right. Even though he would have expelled me. I wouldn't have needed to join Militant back then. Unilateral disarmament... god. Them were the days. Nationalisation. Michael Foot. And that. God. (That was a 'god' of nostalgia, unhappiness and looking into the distance with a world-weary smile, rather than any reference to a mythical supreme being. Supreme beings don't have anything to do with the Labour Party, cf. The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists. Thank g... Oh dear. Sorry. Anyway.)

Nearly employed now.

2005-05-26T00:09:00.000+01:00

Got my job (placement, but never mind) interview tomorrow; the bloke on the phone told me it was an 'informal chat,' which presumably means it isn't a proper interview but a quick look on their part to see just how much of a maladjusted sad freak I am, and I'll be given the job (placement, but who's counting?) if I don't come in naked/give them a display of uncontrolled Tourette's Syndrome (I do tend to shout FUCK!!! occasionally, but that's only when I hear about the latest id card fiasco or dead Iraqis or what-bloody-ever I voted for)/have a swastika tattooed on my forehead. So that would maybe do all right.
I told them rather a lot of half-truths to get onto the programme; there was a list of Potential Problems in the Job [free] Market, and I couldn't really say I was homeless or used illegal substances, and the man asked me eventually (about half-way down) if I felt I 'would be discriminated against on the grounds of [my] gender or sexuality'. I automatically answered yes - I'm a woman living in the patriarchy, of course I'm going to be bloody discriminated against - and he asked how. I made up some gibberish about people not wanting me to work with children because of my sexuality
"Are you gay?"
And I just said "yes," and that was it, it had been said, it wasn't inside my head any more. I said it was a half-truth and of course it is, but it would have been just as bad to say 'I'm bisexual' and I wouldn't have got any points for that.

Queeniness

2005-05-20T21:47:00.000+01:00

A horrid sort of day: muggy. I went off to the job centre to see my new deal adviser and tell her the wonderful news that I've got an interview for a placement in a library far far away arranged by Edinburgh Council's Deal Me In for the Terminally Hopeless. I thought my appointment was at 11am; I arrived at quarter to and told the man on the reception desk, who looked down a list in front of him and frowned. After taking down my national insurance number he told me that yes, my appointment was at eleven o'clock, but... next week. Could be a good deal worse, of course, I could have missed it and thus got much shit from my adviser and all connected to her (especially the scary woman who does New Deal for the Disabled; I swear she never blinks), but the fact remains that I trailed halfway across town in unpleasant weather, wearing my 'smart' trousers with the shiny nylon or polyester or some kind of synthetic ugh thing lining, for no reason at all. So I went to the library, paid a fine on a book, and then went to the goth boutique on George IV Bridge and bought a t-shirt saying QUEEN OF THE FUCKING UNIVERSE for fifteen quid.
That's what I did today. The end.
(Shit, I can't believe I spent fifteen quid on a t-shirt.)

Queen's speech swearword alert

2005-05-17T21:28:00.000+01:00

Now I - well I didn't envelope my arse off last election, but I know people who did, and I stood at a bloody freezing polling station doing nothing but smile at people which was probably a waste of time but never mind I did it, and I didn't bloody do it for this. 'Condoning or glorifying terrorism'? What kind of wonky thinking/wanky language is that? Who decides if you're condoning or glorifying terrorism (and what's with the christian jihad terminology? I haven't glorified anything since I was 17, and that was only because I was being stupid)? And the ID card thing for benefit cheats (cliche of the aeon) and scroungers off the state (so I suppose they'll be fitting Rupert Murdoch out with one then? - No? Jolly good). Haven't they twigged that this is not wanted on voyage? Expensive, pointless and sinister. Actually that seems to be Our Leader's litmus test on policy, now I come to think of it.
And making the taxpayer subsidise big business when it's running state schools and setting the curriculum there? And - Jesus, it's all wrong. It's a rubbish queen's speech, is what it is.
Oh, and:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1485653,00.html
Excuse me while I don't combust with disbelief.

Biographies of Neil Kinnock

2005-05-16T20:37:00.000+01:00

I've been staying with my parents over the weekend, 'sorting out' my books. Damn them. They painted my bedroom white (this is the parents not the books I'm talking about here), they took my chair out from besides the fireplace, they took all the books off of my shelves and put them on the floor, and now they tell me to look through and see which ones I want to get rid of.
I didn't mind it too much, actually, although it was mildly disorientating. There were easy choices; George Orwell's essays stay, detective stories I've already read go. But some of them were more difficult, I must admit. The abridged edition of Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall' was tricky, for example. Do I keep it and use it as an offensive weapon against possible rapists? Do I chuck it, and with it my pretensions to intellectuality? And am I ever going to get round to reading 'Perestroika'? 'Kosovo: a short history'? It didn't feel that short when I read it, but I was 16. Might I want to read it again, even though I only bought it because Michael Foot recommended it in the Observer? And I must have spent fifty quid on all those Private Eye books, and now they just annoy me. How many biographies of Neil Kinnock do I actually need? I'll keep the one with the red cover and throw out the black-and-white one. Same for German dictionaries; and English dictionaries, come to that. Why the fuck did I buy Norman Tebbit's autobiography? And what made me think I'd ever need 'Irish Politics in the 1980s'? Half an hour later I'm standing in the middle of my bedroom looking mournfully at what my mother calls the Keeps and Not Keeps piles of books and thinking about the person who used to live in the room who was and wasn't me; different hair, different handwriting, different vocabulary, different ambitions. I was going to Be Someone. By this point (if you'd asked the fourteen- or fifteen-year-old me) I should have been a PPC, writing pamphlets which would revolutionise the Socialist Vision and the way the Labour Party was run and novels and short stories which would make people compare me to Disraeli; I'd have had at least one profile in the Guardian, a husband, probably a child or so... and I'm just a depressed diseased underachiever with no job and a cat to support, and I still haven't read Capital. It's funny how things turn out.

They're lying. It hurts.

2005-05-10T21:18:00.000+01:00

My latest experience with Tribe body-piercers/tattooers to the gentry on West Nicholson St will apparently not be my last. Tattoos, allegedly, are addictive. In my opinion they're just sore. It's a shame, because it was supposed to be a celebrating - celebrative - celebratory, that's it, thing. I made the appointment on Friday on the first day of a historic third term, and I walked into the tattoo room, which looks a lot like a dentist's, to a stencil of a two-inch-tall long-stemmed red rose. It looks nice, now it's on, but it did hurt. The biggest cosmetic problem is still the blood seeping through the ink. When it's settled down it'll be a lot better. Exactly the reverse of the English and Welsh education policy reforms, then.

Hello? Hello??

2005-05-08T17:03:00.000+01:00

I've been coasting around the Tory websites and apart from conservatives.com (how interesting that they should be a .com while even Newlabour is an org.uk) can't find a single one updated since Thursday. Queer. A nice one to visit is http://www.gavinbrown.org , the charming website of Gavin Brown, unsuccessful Tory candidate for Edinburgh South (the Liberals actually came second. Boundary changes schmoundary changes) for all your motivational speaker needs. He will no doubt be able to cater for these very effectively, since he has so much time on his hands now, having lost the election, hence the words unsuccessful Tory candidate which I wish to repeat as often as possible. Why not leave a message casting doubt on his mother's marital status while you're there? I wish him every success in his small business career, which will probably be more successful in any case than that of my parents, who ran a petshop (catering to real needs, ie the need of pets to have food, litter, etc, rather than intangible needs, such as that of executives to have people tell them to chin up a bit) until the second Thatcher recession, when they went bust. (I know what you're going to say; but it's rather odd that an entire road's-worth of shops should become incompetent at the same time in the middle of a recession. And they've got a very successful farm under this (Labour) government.)
A rather more tragic case than that of Mr Brown (let us not forget, the unsuccessful Tory candidate for Edinburgh South) is documented here:
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=sandra.howard.page .
Look at her. In't she gorgeous? Lovely woman. Baffles me how she could end up with him.
Then read it. It's appalling. It's fucking appalling. Think of the mirror-image of me during the past month or so, distort it horribly, add three gallons of bile, a metre-large smirk, and several metric tonnes of chintz, and you're still nowhere fucking close. There are three possibilities here:
1. She didn't write it herself.
2. Her brain's been hacked.
3. He's the one who's drawn the short straw.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be that unkind. (Well I did, but you know what I mean.) But she's used the EU exclamation-mark quota for the whole UK; and halfway down the page she starts looking like Christine Hamilton.

Bagpuss works - official

2005-05-06T20:14:00.000+01:00

We made it. Half a rainforest of leaflets, many many phonecalls, lots of billboards and much shouting and 100 people still didn't manage (Stephen Twigg, for fucksake! Apparently it was the Liberals), but we made it. Iraq was a big issue throughout the campaign, so I think what finally swung it for us was Michael Howard, as a person, and the presence on polling day of my lucky Bagpuss socks.
My Dad analysed the result over the phone while I was still in bed at the ungodly hour of 11.45am; majority of 66, 40 Blairites, 47 Brownites, however-many (I can't remember) swingers, and around 30 bolshy bastards of the kind that I love best. So Our Leader may have a slightly more difficult time getting the ID cards et al through than he thought. It'll be a wee bit odd having a smallish majority like that, though. I'm used to seeing the Labour benches crammed to bursting point with women in suits, but - ach, we're in, shut up. And Michael Howard is leaving the building, or at least stopping being leader of the Tory Party (yes, Tory, not Conservative, see entry last month), so we'll not see anything of his strange face soon, good. They may of course choose someone even more repellent, but apart from Boris Johnson there's not really anyone quite so annoying. Watch this space.
And finally. My tory candidate, as I have said, has been bombarding me with leaflets, free gifts, et cetera ad nauseam, for over a year. Gavin Brown. Gavin Brown vs. Nigel Griffiths MP (Edinburgh South: Lab). Nigel Griffiths, with the help of my Bagpuss socks, fucking wasted him. Go Nigel.

Not long now.

2005-05-03T21:23:00.000+01:00

I'm getting two letters a day from my tory candidate, my latest containing a potted biography describing him as a former World Debating Champion* and a black belt in Tae Kwon-Do (as my sister points out, you only need one or the other), an outstanding 'trainer with the Junior Chamber of Commerce,' which I've had a run-in with myself (it seems the kind of body in which a maggot like Gavin Brown might well flourish), an outstanding litigation lawyer (there's nothing wrong with lawyers, except - it must just be a coincidence that Michael Howard - anyway) and - he has the good grace to pretend somebody else said this - 'a star.' Modest boy. A lot a lot a lot of resources are being channelled into Edinburgh South, so people like me get free DVDs (OK I'm on his mailing list, but it's expensive to send anyone DVDs about how great you are) and Nigel Griffiths, who isn't sound on the war but despite everything is a Labour MP, is their top target; so if you're living in Edinburgh South and reading this please please.

*I don't know how they decide these things, but apparently all the debates are conducted in English; which is unfair, to my mind. Much like only letting people from Earth enter Mr Universe.

May Day may day

2005-04-30T19:42:00.000+01:00

The problem may be that I'm not doing as much campaigning as I should be. Or it may be my opinion poll addiction (they don't matter, they really don't matter) which makes my hands shake every time I guide the little mouse button onto the Guardian election page, with its polls section and the handy guide up the top saying 5 DAYS TO GO (yes, thanks for that). Or it may be the media dribbling on about all the wrong stuff. Or it may be - I don't even want to think this - about Lynton Crosby. His Queensland Gambit is particularly unpleasant, in that it tries actively to make voters stay home. Now this may be politically correct of me, but I thought the point of an election campaign was to make people vote for you. Convince people how great you are, and/or how shit the other boy is, and make them come out and vote to get you in or the other one out, doesn't matter about their motives, the point is they vote. Right? To try to make people think 'sod it, I'll stay home' because they will never ever vote Tory is extremely daring and extremely cynical. I don't know if I'm the only person to think it stinks. The Queensland Gambit is a kind of political bulimia. In the short term it works fine. In the long term it does serious damage not just to everyone but to you in particular. (I'm only using the bulimia metaphor because of the word 'erode' floating around my brain.) Watch out, Lynton Crosby. Instant karma may not get you, but it'll catch up with you eventually.

I do try.

2005-04-29T22:23:00.000+01:00

Just to let youse know that I have been trying truly, madly, deeply to sort the page so that I've got a bit at the side for Links; but I can't.
Also
The Greens have been putting an awful lot of paper through my door lately. Neither I or any of my flatmates are on their priority list. I simply note this for the attention of future generations.

Fitba/feeling unwell

2005-04-26T22:53:00.000+01:00

I am trying terribly hard to avoid turning this into When Where and Why I had a fit, incorporating how awful I felt at the time, what I missed on tv and in real life, and how disappointed I am; but I had one last night because I missed my tablets earlier on, so it was entirely my fault. I am also going to try to avoid turning this into a series of personal attacks on Michael Howard, but not terribly hard, so I will simply mention his verdict on the tory campaign so far, which is not that far from Lynton Crosby's (which everyone, allegedly, is talking about). He was asked on We the Jury or Whatever the Fuck it Is how he thought it was going and he said that he was a football fan [in passing may I mention that all politicians, from whatever party, who go on about how much they like football make me want to vomit] and it was quite common for a team to be 2-0 down at half-time and make a miraculous comeback in the second week, sorry half. From the Guardian:
But Mr Howard admitted that his beloved team [this being Liverpool - me] did not provide a great precedent. "We were ahead [in the Carling Cup final against Chelsea] until the last 10 minutes and then we were screwed."

This shows that he is desperate:
a. he seems to have been talking about Lynton Crosby
b. he finished an anecdote with the phrase 'and then we were screwed.'

A barely functioning hand writes

2005-04-24T21:57:00.000+01:00

Oh my dear goodness. I am actually surprised, really, no shit, that my arms are functioning well enough to work this keyboard; I started stuffing envelopes on Friday and today I stopped and it feels like several years. The story is this; that I went for coffee (assiduously counting calories in the cappucino froth) with a couple of Marxist friends and was rude about the Labour Party for an hour or so, then took the scenic route home. On the way I passed the flat I used to live in in my third year, which was a bit of a shithole (the flat and the year) and saw no. 78 Buccleuch St covered in Labour posters. I am a Labour Person. I wouldn't leave the Labour Party if national conference voted to cut little babies' throats. I'm certainly not leaving it now. My feet automatically walked me through the door.
"Any leaflets to stuff?" I asked a woman jocularly.
"Yes."
In the back room were a few people and some leaflets. More than a few leaflets. We're talking large numbers of boxes here. Seriously large. I found a place at the table (not difficult) and settled down to be told the Rules; one pre-folded (thank christ) leaflet to each envelope, of course, and put in a certain way, so that the first thing people saw when they opened it was Alastair Darling's lovely face. (I am absolutely certain that I will see Alastair Darling's beautiful face in my dreams for many, many nights to come. The top half of it, rather. The bottom bit was cut off by the way it was folded over.) I got a pile of envelopes and a pile of leaflets, and started.
My god, what did I get myself into? The short answer, of course, would be "stuffing fucking envelopes. Of course it hurts your arms. Everyone does it, you moaning twat." But it was much more complicated than that.
All right, it wasn't. And occasionally we (being more people every day) did have a good time, chattering on about how Michael Foot had stayed in one woman's bed (audience: ohhhhhh??) which her father, then an MP, used as a spare room while she was away at college (audience: ohhhhh), and the Jeremy Paxman interview with Michael Howard. I never watch Jeremy Paxman interviews because they're so frustrating; if the politician gets to finish one sentence, let alone one answer, s/he's lucky. It's just a symptom of the current simplistic political debate; we want Answers Now No Obfuscating (nobody says obfuscating, but you get my drift), which is entirely understandable but doesn't allow for the fact that some issues really are more complicated than 'yes we did' 'no he didn't' 'but they are' et cetera ad nauseam. And then he complains that people don't understand politics... At any rate, I didn't catch Michael Howard, being engaged in more rewarding pursuits eg picking my toenails, but the only other Michael Foot fan in the village said that he (Howard) looked "really as if he was - mentally ill.' We asked, naturally, for evidence, and she talked about the way he kept pulling bits of paper out of his pockets to illustrate his points rather than giving an answer of the real sort. Everyone pulls bits of paper out of their pockets, I do it all the time and I'm not mad. (Well I am, but it's got nothing to do with little bits of paper.)
Put like that, though, it does sound a bit crackers, simply adding to his resemblance to Alec Guiness in "The Ladykillers."
Stream of consciousness rubbish. My hands are getting better, you can see.
But he does. I think it's the teeth.

2005-04-21T23:24:00.000+01:00

On Newsnight last night I came across the immortal sentence "Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby." I find it highly unlikely that the we're-fucked attitude of the Conservatives' Director of Communications is as big a deal as the death of the last pope, a royal wedding or Gwyneth Paltrow changing hairstyles, but having been read my sister's top ten country song titles (the winner, if I recall rightly, being 'You're the Reason our Kids are Ugly') I decided that it should be recognised as the wonderful title it is. Therefore my song for scratchy voice, blues guitar, incompetent piano and improvised drum/s, in the style of country and western crossed with Flanders and Swann. This is dedicated to the cast and crew of Newsnight.

EVERYBODY'S TALKING ABOUT LYNTON CROSBY

Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby
Yesterday we'd never heard his name
Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby
Talking talking about him just the same.

Sold his soul to the devil the daft sod did
(Yesterday we'd never heard his name)
Shacked up with Michael Howard for a few thousand quid
(We're talking talking about him just the same.)

Arrived in London all fresh and clean
(Yesterday we'd never heard his name)
Sold himself to the Tories, got dirty and mean
(We're talking talking about him just the same.)

Now he thinks himself his tone's all wrong
(Yesterday we'd never heard his name)
So none of us think he'll be here for long
(We're talking talking about him just the same.)

Now he'll take back his memos to his native land
I found it amusing all the same
Guess it's sad though he don't understand
Got nobody but himself to blame
Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby
But Lynton Crosby
Yeah Lynton Crosby
Lynton Crosby is a fuckin stupid name.