Bloomsbury In The Snow

There were all sorts of snowmen in Tavistock Square yesterday. One ambitious effort towered over me, wreathed with maple leaves. Another only came up to my knee, but with his glinting 5p eyes and mouth wide open in a silent wail he was as scary as knee-high snowmen can be. I got there late, when most of the activity had died down and the light was beginning to go. In the expanse of white and grey, Gandhi remained quietly hunched over the parched flowers in his lap, snow on his bald head and bare skin.

I moved on to Gordon Square, where I met Avril, and we built our own snowman. He looked comfortable on the park bench, although the legs we made to dangle off it were rather too spindly for his portly frame. When a group of guys initiated a snowball fight, I realized that I do, unfortunately, throw like a girl.

At UCL, one of the naked male statues on the facade was sharing his pedestal with a snowman. Another truly impressive (and unmistakably male) specimen lolled back on his bench and watched the goings-on with a broad, sculpted (no twigs involved!) smile.

By this time the light was dying fast. I took my last photograph, moulded my last snowball, and went slip-sliding all the way home.

Essays In Resentment

I’ve been reading and enjoying finestlittlespace every now and then for quite a while now, but somehow never got round to linking to it.

If, however, I manage to finally resign myself to getting a move on with that 5000 word comparative human rights paper, her blog will be a delightful source of schadenfreude in the midst of my misery, because she’s got to do a whole thesis! (Sorry, Nurul! Hang in there, and best of luck with it. You do really have all my sympathies!)

Like her, I too tried to make a list of tasks for this essay. It went something like:

  • Choose essay topic
  • Do the damn research
  • Photocopy the damn research
  • Read the bloody research
  • Make notes on the bloody research
  • Plan the fucking essay
  • Write the fucking essay
  • Shout “CHEE-BAI, it’s done!” and jet off to Venice

Perhaps the first seven items are overly negative, but the thought of the last one is keeping me going.

Things I Want To Remember

I’m less than satisfied with the event-record ratio I’ve managed on this blog lately. For simple practical purposes, I can’t seem to remember what I do without writing it down any more. More significantly, there’s a backlog of things I do actually want to write about, and the neurotic symbolist in me wants to get them written down before the year ends.

I want to remember the frustrations that built up to an unhappy last Thursday, and also how prolonged ranting to a very patient Russ (over Berwick Street trawling

[conversational excerpt, paraphrased –

Me: Look, I know this sounds pathetic but I really know what will cheer me up right now will be buying an album. I really want to bring a new album home with me to listen to tonight or I’ll be really depressed.

Russ: Here, I’ll hold those you’re carrying already so it’ll be easier for you to flick through the racks],

jerk chicken at, er, Mr Jerk, and coffee in the smoke factory that is the basement of Costa on Old Compton Street) reminded me of that long-running question: what did I do to deserve him, and how do I bottle it?

I want to remember amazing crispy pancakes at Song Que with Alec, suddenly looking around stunned to see all the chairs upside down on all the other tables, the proprietors (and their kids) patiently waiting for us to finish, and cheerfully wishing us a Merry Christmas as we stumbled out a little embarrassed.

I want to remember a cozy Saturday afternoon finishing The Hours (wonderful), swaddled in a duvet while rain pattered on the skylight, alone but not lonely.

Christmas 2002

The bacon’s bubbling away in the Coke, Avril’s alternately wringing her hands and shouting “Big Willy!” at the TV, Alec and his brother are blowing raspberries and doing armpit farts, and I am calmly and detachedly taking it all in. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Useful Males

Okay, I admit it. I throw my hands up when dancing to the chorus of Independent Women, and have been known on occasion to shout “ALL MEN ARE BASTARDS!” But today I needed men.

John had to metamorphose from his usual lovable non-fleahurting self to protector of my virtue first in a Secret!Christmas!Mission! in dodgy bits of central London, and then from an equally dodgy plumber who seemed to travel by minicab, and his mate who was either very laid back or fairly stoned. This was admittedly not a difficult thing to do for a tall Geordie who survived two years in Finsbury Park and Hackney with hardly a scratch, but I’m still grateful.

We did manage some non-dodginess with a trip to Antony Gormley’s incredibly endearing Field For The British Isles, which has become a fixture of my regular pops through the British Museum on the way home (you don’t get many short-cuts more beautiful or soul-lifting), but that was cruelly cut short by my landlady calling and saying ceilings were about to collapse and I had to hot-foot it home or else.

When John had to leave from plumber-watching duty, Alec assumed the position, albeit in markedly different garb of yuppie suit, leather gloves, skinny umbrella and latest copy of The Chap. All the same, my virtue remains intact after a day of decidedly sleazy encounters, and for that I thank these two particular members of the male race. Without them I’d have felt decidedly vulnerable, whatever feminism may argue to the contrary.

Not Quite Nigella

It is probably advisable, when throwing a dinner party on Friday, to decide you’re doing it a little earlier than Thursday.

I don’t really know what I was expecting when I decided, in a fit of festive benevolence, that I’d throw some sort of dinner party at my flat in an attempt to celebrate the end of term and general Christmassiness in a more sophisticated way than getting pissed at the union. It was a tentative idea at first, more tadpole than frog, and could quite possibly have been abandoned soon after as more trouble than it was worth. And then we arrived at Michael’s basement palace in Kensington for his Christmas party, and there were candles, and an improvised cloakroom, and people in nice clothes, and chocolate fondue, and all of a sudden I thought I too could be Nigella Lawson.

So I got home (having earlier called a few friends who gamely agreed to take the plunge), settled myself down with our cookbook collection and a Crispy Strip (chocolate fondue isn’t really filling), inserted a finger up my arse, and started tugging.

[Clarity note: this doesn’t refer to what I eventually served at the dinner party. That would be disgusting. It’s just that I commonly refer to embarking on an enterprise for which I am ill-suited and have no real knowledge or skill for as “pulling something out of my arse”. Brits will understand.]

Morning came. I tidied my room. Went out and bought groceries. Lugged everything home. Cooked. I was planning on crudites (unfortunately named, I’ve always thought) and dip for everyone to munch on while I was finishing cooking, and a bizarre mixture of Thai beef salad, chicken, aubergine and chick pea curry, spinachy garlicky rice, and paratha, for the main meal. Nav brought chocolate cake. Gwen brought wine. Alec brought wine, ice-cream, interior decorating resourcefulness (a folded bedsheet with coloured napkins on top for the tablecloth) and general sweetness and reliability in helping to fight fires (I mean this literally as well as figuratively).

I’d even invested in crackers and festively hued serviettes.

We started at nine, an hour after the time I’d told people to come for, which was annoying to my perfectionist’s soul, but still fairly on par with most other dinner parties I’ve been to, so I won’t scourge myself for it. All I can say for the quality of the food was that I thoroughly enjoyed it – the Thai beef salad actually lived up to the immense trouble it was to make, the chicken absorbed the flavours of the curry and wasn’t dry, and while some mistakes I made with the rice meant it could have been a lot better, it still tasted good to me. As for what my guests thought, or the state of their digestive systems the next morning, I can only vouch for Alec (whose cooking credentials far surpass mine, which made his thumbs-up all the more gratifying), but the absence of lawsuits thus far indicates they were at least not too negatively affected.

The party ended around three in the morning. I spent Saturday nursing my headache and cleaning the place up.

Would I do it again? I’m not sure. I don’t regret having done it, but it was a lot of effort for the benefit of a very small number of people. I think my energies might be better directed towards world domination.

Desperately Seeking Savings

This week will be different. This week I will radiate such an aura of thrift and asceticism that next to me the Dalai Lama will look like Puff Daddy. But I think the first step towards this ascent is to document last week’s decline.

Wednesday was relatively refined, in that solid work got done and indulgence only began with dinner with Russ at a wonderful Thai place on Red Lion Street (I forget the name), where I gorged myself on its exquisite chillied fish only a week after gorging myself on its equally satisfying papaya salad and grilled chicken.

Thursday began the downward spiral into extreme consumerism, and some blame has to be squarely placed on Benny, who endured our semi-marathonic Berwick Street trawl with grace, good humour and good recommendations, thus encouraging me to emerge somewhat shocked at the end of it all clutching 6 CDs (see Appendix 1). In my defence I can only say that this was partially financed by the 9 I sold (see Appendix 2). Borders yielded coffee, conversation, and finally, finally, finally, a copy of The Wire with the free double CD, which my local newsagents sold out of within days of its release. Two coffees and an added Alec later, we moseyed down to Malaysia Kopitiam (Wardour Street) for dinner. Benny’s already done a spot-on review of the place (post for 23/11), to which I need only add that my Hainanese chicken rice was perhaps a little bloodier than I like it, but the chilli was authentic, and as anyone who knows will know, it’s almost all in the chilli. My dessert of tau huay (beancurd) was as smooth and silky as the place near Jago Close at home in Singapore makes it, and all in all, I’m definitely going back.

Culinary G-spot titilation continued on Friday with Nick at South in Shoreditch, where I had bunny with prunes in red wine, washed down with, er, more red wine. On the way back to Nick’s place we unfortunately had to walk past The Spread Eagle which brought back traumatic memories, but apart from that moment of stress for me it was a good night out with a dear friend I don’t get to see often, and that made for warm fuzzy feelings.

On Saturday morning I trimmed my goatee and popped down to the National Theatre with Nav to watch Voyage, the first play in Tom Stoppard’s The Coast Of Utopia trilogy. Saturday night brought oodles of red wine celebrating Chris’s birthday, and Sunday a dim sum lunch with Laura and Katy.

I sense the spectre of poverty around the corner. It smells of reduced Safeway’s chicken and old cabbage, and its teeth are glittering CD shards. I think it’s coming for me.

—

Appendix 1: Bought

  • Low: Trust
  • Boards of Canada: Geogaddi
  • Coldcut: Journeys By DJ
  • Amon Tobin: Out From Out Where
  • Prefuse 73: Vocal Studies And Uprock Narratives
  • Ninja Tune (compilation): Cold Krush Cuts

Appendix 2: Sold

  • April March: Chrominance Decoder (boredom chronicled here)
  • Starlight Mints: The Dream That Stuff Was Made Of
  • Money Mark: Push The Button
  • Sebadoh: The Sebadoh
  • Wagon Christ: Tally Ho!
  • Kid Loco: A Grand Love Story
  • Blonde Redhead: In An Expression Of The Inexpressible
  • Esthero: Breath From Another
  • Galaxie 500: The Portable Galaxie 500

It should probably also be mentioned:

  • That on Sunday I also ordered the new Missy Elliot and Sigur Ros from CD-Wow
  • And am planning to get the new Massive Attack from there as well
  • And am also tempted by the new Tori Amos. Must resist. Must resist.

Just For Today

Perhaps it’s just that it’s been a sunny morning, or that yesterday was both a site and relationship anniversary, but it’s noon and instead of having just woken up with a mouthful of sleep and obscenities as is standard operating procedure on other days, I’ve been up for hours, and feel great.

St Pancras station and the sun were loving each other this morning. Walking home from King’s Cross, I got the powerful sensation I experience from time to time, that London was reminding me it can still take my breath away, that being grim and jaded does not necessarily come with this territory no matter what some people seem to think, that I have been immeasurably lucky to have spent this time of my life here, for so many more reasons than just beautiful buildings.

I sometimes feel guilty about the fact that in over three years here, I have never once felt even the slightest twinge of homesickness, or that I wasn’t as much a part of this city as the blond lager lout staggering down Tottenham Court Road in his Saturday night fcuk T-shirt. So many friends of mine have missed family and friends at home dreadfully, have sat in a crowded pub silently staring at the yawning cultural chasm that invisibly separates them from everyone else. I used to somehow feel that I was just living the blissful life on borrowed time, and sooner or later I’d succumb to that same creeping feeling of not belonging, ultimately. Just for today, I reject that guilt. Just for today, I’m going to revel in London loving me back.

Xen Halloween

As second-last-ever Xen nights go, last night was rather anticlimactic, but I suppose there are worse ways to spend Halloween than watching Hexstatic mix Tubular Bells with drum’n’bass with accompanying visuals from The Exorcist, all perfectly synced with Linda Blair’s convulsions and bile-spewing.

Coming in costume garnered prizes – the incongruity of Alec getting rewarded for his pipe, Burberry tie, Derek Rose dressing gown and Brylcreamed hair with a DJ Vadim sampler amuses me still. (I am so stealing that sampler.) Despite my bias I must admit that he didn’t have the best costume there: Spinal Tap guy complete with big wig, luxuriant facial hair, tattoo of horned beast on chest, red lycra pants and huge sock shoved in crotch, I salute you.

Friendly Party People

Drunk man on street outside our flat: All you part-y people ‘earin’ me I wan’ ya to say BOO!
Me, in bedroom/Tamara, in kitchen (simultaneously): BOO!

I like our flat. It’s friendly.