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.

Distracted By Jesus

While ploughing through back issues of The Irish Jurist I was completely diverted from my quest for articles on unenumerated rights in Irish constitutional law (no prizes for guessing that Comparative Human Rights is my “fun but impractical” Masters course choice) by “The Trial Of Jesus As A Conflict Of Laws?” (1997 32 Ir. Jur. 398 for any similarly sad lawyer type who’s interested).

It tackles the three main areas of concern in the subject: jurisdiction, choice of law and enforcement of judgments, basically: who had the jurisdiction to put Jesus on trial, Pilate (as Roman governor of Judea), Herod (as tetrach of Galilee and a client-king of Rome), or the Sanhedrin (as highest Jewish court of law)? What law would be applied in the trial, Roman or Jewish? Lastly, if in answer to the first two questions we discover that the Sanhedrin decided, applying Jewish law, would Pilate be prepared or required to enforce the judgment?

It ultimately concludes that there was only one trial, before Pilate, who applied Roman law, which seemed a sensible if not revelatory stance, but it was a refreshing diversion none the less.

Dear Wankers

To certain unnamed but now viciously described users of the law library where I unfortunately spend my postgraduate days:

German guy with overly floppy hair and a weak face that somehow looks capable of cruelty (think Rolf from The Sound Of Music), you are not the life of the library party, and your need to let the whole room know you’re having a wonderfully entertaining conversation is really pathetic. Your lavender jumpers really don’t go with blindingly blond hair. Also, not only is eating in a library a bit out of order, eating loud food (apples, crisps) and punctuating your already loud conversations with crunches and lipsmacks truly takes the cake, pun not intended.

Girl who hangs adoringly around German guy, and has an accent distinctly from my part of the world (Singapore or Malaysia), you are obviously so blinded by his hair that you have forgotten the manners and library etiquette they most certainly teach us back home. Thankfully, you’re trying too hard to act demure and cute to add to his noise.

Thirtysomething-if-you’re-a-day woman who leisurely answers unsilenced mobile phone and jabbers away at top volume for prolonged conversations, I have no idea what planet you’re from, so I’m not even going to bother.

With utmost sincerity,
A fellow library user, who is hardly encouraged in researching her human rights essay by the fact that she keeps longing to bludgeon all of you to death, or at least chuck you in gulags.

[Just to clarify: the library I refer to in this post is not the UCL library where I was amused by graffitti. That one is largely populated by undergraduates, who may burble on a bit at times about how rat-arsed they got last Friday night, but generally focus their efforts on vandalism and falling asleep, which are silent preoccupations and therefore don’t annoy me. The one I use most of the time, and which I refer to in this post, is only for postgrads, academics and professionals, all of whom really should know better.]

Law Library Graffiti

Selected graffiti from the carrel I was using in the UCL library yesterday:

  • (On a white square sticker with rounded edges)
    I won’t deny the pain
    I won’t deny the change
    And should I fall from grace
    Here with you
    Would you leave me too?
    (Signed off mei3 nu3 du2 LAW, which roughly translates to beautiful girl law student)
    (this promptly put the song into my head for the rest of the day, where it is still.)
  • SOCIALIST WORKERS FUCK OFF
  • My pen is Better!! (with the dots in the exclamation mark replaced by circles)
  • Today is the first day of the rest of my life!
  • moo moo moo (in neat cursive, the person probably does very legible lecture notes)
  • shezad is an annoying fuck
  • (below, in red) SO YOU BOTH HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON…
  • (I think the following few constitute a continuous exchange, although various snippets were sprawled all over the surface wherever writing space was available)
    IF YOU’RE TIRED/BORED, GET THE FUCK OUT OF ‘ERE!
  • YOU WERE OBVIOUSLY NOT SUITED TO A LIBRARY
  • YOU WERE OBVIOUSLY A KNOB
  • Using a vibrator (this word underlined in red, with concentric “vibration” marks emanating from it) sometimes helps. Put it on your brain perhaps!
  • What has a VIBRATOR got to do with REVISION?
  • What little imagination you have!
  • I wouldn’t mind a vibrator. Will it hurt?

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.

I’m Sorry, I Was Somewhere Else

Something has been wrong. Over the past few days I’ve been grouchy, boring, incapable of holding up my end of conversations, and have generally found any sort of interaction with most of the world extremely annoying. (My smart-arse friends will probably send reassuring emails telling me nothing was different, but give me the benefit of the doubt for now.)

It started with a rut on Thursday due to sudden panic about time passing and my brain remaining empty of Masters-related knowledge, and frustration with my lack of ability to get out of bed before noon. It then passed into a weird dreamy antisocialness, going through the day with minimal mental engagement with the world around me. Like I’d switched off cognition and gone on autopilot. I think the major point I want to make is that if you’re someone who’s interacted with me in the past few days, I’m sorry, I was somewhere else.

I think I’m back now, though.

I Wasn’t Made For Diplomacy

The reading on cultural relativism I’ve been doing for my comparative human rights course has been boring me so far. This isn’t because it’s especially tough or dry, it’s because it’s just so earnest and civilized. Human rights are important. Social and political cultures are complex and diverse. It’s really, really difficult to figure out how best to protect everything and everyone, but we must keep trying. GROUP HUG!!!

In contrast, Voltaire once said he would rest in peace only when the last king was strangled in the entrails of the last priest. Philosophical discourse must have been so much more fun in those days.