I'm having a week of culture this week - I went to see Tango por Dos on Wednesday night at Sadlers Wells which was truly brilliant. I have to say I know nothing about tango (apart from the image of two people marching across the dancefloor with red roses gripped between their teeth, which needless to say, did NOT happen on Weds!) but it was full of evocative music and sex appeal. I have to say though, there's only so much accordian one person can take, and after two hours of it, I'm more than happy to not listen to any for a good while. The women were incredible - doing the splits and then pulling themselves back to standing with legs still straight - they must have nutcracker inner thigh muscles!
One of the things I most enjoyed about the night though was walking home through the centre of London. As I've got older (for that read: go out less, drink less and don't stay out as late) and have had less and less time for myself with no pressure on me from someone else, I have started to love wandering through London, watching the buildings and the rest of the world go about their nocturnal living. It has a strangely introverted appeal; it makes me feel like an outsider, viewing from within my own private space, untouched by what's going on around me. The end result is simultaneously calming and poignant, there's something quite touching that I can't capture in words about people totally absorbed in their moment, while the architecture around them holds steady as it has for the past hundreds of years.
Enough of that though, because tonight, high culture (of sorts) beckons in the form of the ENO production of The Mikado - my christmas present from the boyfriend, finally come around. I'm extremely excited about this, not least because we've just spent the past month in some sort of hideous DIY hell doing our bathroom and various other jobs around the flat (which now I may say does look quite splendid). As a former "little girl from school" in my own school production of the Mikado, I hope it lives up to the exacting standards we set back in St Aidans High School back in the late eighties!
Friday 15 February 2008
Monday 28 January 2008
Fame at last
Found myself mentioned in a great blog this weekend: Gaping Void - how exciting! Building up my "web profile" - though I'm not sure what, if any good has come of it yet.
My obsession with YouWriteOn continues apace, though I've found a new one now too: Litopia which is an online "writers' colony" set up by an agent, with the intention of fostering new talent. Admission is by approval only, which naturally I passed! so I'm getting to know the good folk on there too. Only trouble is, in between having the most hideously busy week at work and doing our bathroom at the moment (think dust, gaping holes in walls, flushing the now open-plan loo with a bucket), reappraising my manuscript is taking a back seat so far away it is in the next car back!
Had dinner with a friend last week who is an editor, she suggested looking at the very dusty book I wrote a few years ago, which is languishing (as it probably should be) in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. It seems the genre has come into fashion and in an ironic twist of fate, could be my ticket to the big time rather than the newer (and in my opinion better) book I've just written. All that effort for nothing eh?! Still it's worth a try, if I can build up the courage to get it out and look at it again!
My obsession with YouWriteOn continues apace, though I've found a new one now too: Litopia which is an online "writers' colony" set up by an agent, with the intention of fostering new talent. Admission is by approval only, which naturally I passed! so I'm getting to know the good folk on there too. Only trouble is, in between having the most hideously busy week at work and doing our bathroom at the moment (think dust, gaping holes in walls, flushing the now open-plan loo with a bucket), reappraising my manuscript is taking a back seat so far away it is in the next car back!
Had dinner with a friend last week who is an editor, she suggested looking at the very dusty book I wrote a few years ago, which is languishing (as it probably should be) in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. It seems the genre has come into fashion and in an ironic twist of fate, could be my ticket to the big time rather than the newer (and in my opinion better) book I've just written. All that effort for nothing eh?! Still it's worth a try, if I can build up the courage to get it out and look at it again!
Friday 4 January 2008
Ooh, I feel an obsession coming on
It's only been 2 days, but already I think I'm hooked on YouWriteOn. I've read 2 people's sample chapters so far, plus another 2 are waiting in my "reading assignments". So far, one has been excellent, one has been ok, and 2 (the ones that I've yet to start) look bloody awful. It's great though, because it gives a real sense of the general standard of writing that agents get as submissions and also an idea of how they must feel when they have to plough through the hundreds of sample chapters that arrive on their desks every week. Of course, there is also a teeny weeny bit of schadenfreude in it too, and a smug inner feeling of knowing that mine has got to be near the top of the pile in terms of quality (not of course that it's done me the slightest bit of good so far though!)
Otherwise, I'm staying very much in my cocoon - the extremely nauseous feeling that woke me at 5am on New Year's Day is still haunting me and it's so bloody cold outside that all I want to do is snuggle on the sofa by the fire. So much so, that I deliberately left my running kit at home today in order to stop myself from being tempted to go for a run!
I have to say I'm actually quite disappointed it hasn't snowed so far, and it doesn't look like it's going to now either. Princess O was very sweet when she was going to bed the other night and we were talking about building snowmen. She was getting upset because she didn't know how to make a snowball and wasn't big enough to roll it and make a snowman - ahhhh.
Otherwise, I'm staying very much in my cocoon - the extremely nauseous feeling that woke me at 5am on New Year's Day is still haunting me and it's so bloody cold outside that all I want to do is snuggle on the sofa by the fire. So much so, that I deliberately left my running kit at home today in order to stop myself from being tempted to go for a run!
I have to say I'm actually quite disappointed it hasn't snowed so far, and it doesn't look like it's going to now either. Princess O was very sweet when she was going to bed the other night and we were talking about building snowmen. She was getting upset because she didn't know how to make a snowball and wasn't big enough to roll it and make a snowman - ahhhh.
Wednesday 2 January 2008
Happy New Year!
Back at work after Christmas, very depressing. At least work is quiet after the hideously busy few months preceding (hence no blogging).
Another year rolls round, with the inevitable list of resolutions, which for me reappear each year with depressing regularity (must get flat stomach; get book published; become all round super-woman with perfect work/life balance etc etc.)
Looking back over 2007, I fear I have achieved precisely zero of the above, and after the bingeing on chocolate, cheese, food in general, sherry (don't ask!) port, wine and champagne, with a few Baileys thrown in for good measure (just to prove I will drink "grain" as well as "grape") I look more like a six month pregnant elephant, so the flat stomach element of the resolutions is probably further away than ever.
Nevertheless, it's onwards and upwards (or possibly just sideways) with the blog/book enterprise. I've joined a new Harper Collins group called "authonomy" which is an online forum for aspiring writers to post some of their book and get readers to comment - a democratic slush pile, apparently, but also perhaps, a time saving device to stop the juniors at HC having to wade through thousands of hopeless manuscripts in the hope of finding a booker winner, which invariably never happens. Almost like getting us to do the hard work for them (not that I'm being cynical of course, because it's all about consumer power and word of mouth in the age of web 2.0)
This has also led me to discovering another website with a similar aim: YouWriteOn . Again, writers post their books, and readers read and comment. It's not affiliated to any publisher, but some agents and publishers do look on it, according to the information on the home page. So I will no doubt join that one too, and hope that another tiny voice of mine calling in the online wilderness will add to the others and be finally heard.
Another year rolls round, with the inevitable list of resolutions, which for me reappear each year with depressing regularity (must get flat stomach; get book published; become all round super-woman with perfect work/life balance etc etc.)
Looking back over 2007, I fear I have achieved precisely zero of the above, and after the bingeing on chocolate, cheese, food in general, sherry (don't ask!) port, wine and champagne, with a few Baileys thrown in for good measure (just to prove I will drink "grain" as well as "grape") I look more like a six month pregnant elephant, so the flat stomach element of the resolutions is probably further away than ever.
Nevertheless, it's onwards and upwards (or possibly just sideways) with the blog/book enterprise. I've joined a new Harper Collins group called "authonomy" which is an online forum for aspiring writers to post some of their book and get readers to comment - a democratic slush pile, apparently, but also perhaps, a time saving device to stop the juniors at HC having to wade through thousands of hopeless manuscripts in the hope of finding a booker winner, which invariably never happens. Almost like getting us to do the hard work for them (not that I'm being cynical of course, because it's all about consumer power and word of mouth in the age of web 2.0)
This has also led me to discovering another website with a similar aim: YouWriteOn . Again, writers post their books, and readers read and comment. It's not affiliated to any publisher, but some agents and publishers do look on it, according to the information on the home page. So I will no doubt join that one too, and hope that another tiny voice of mine calling in the online wilderness will add to the others and be finally heard.
Thursday 11 October 2007
The Flying Dutchman Rides Again
Have just come back from the most amazing lunch at locanda locatelli - mmmmmm! I wondered after all the incredible food we ate in Italy, if Italian food in England was ever going to be as good, but this really did top it all (and so it should with 2 Michelin stars!)
Perhaps this meal could be topped though, by the delights on offer at "International Evening" at school tomorrow, where all the loving parents are going with their offspring for an evening of international cuisine (everyone has to take a dish typical of their country - I made Yorkshire Parkin, after all, it's practically a different nation isn't it?) As one of the other mum's said "there'll be wine there, please come" I felt I could hardly refuse! Daddy was very sulky at the prospect, but I appear to have convinced him (again I think the lure of the wine could have had something to do with it, not to to mention my killer parkin of course!)
As part of International Week, tied in (as Princess O proudly told me) with Black History Month, the kids all had to go to school yesterday in their national dress (which could include football kit for the two children of purely English descent). Thankfully some old neighbours of ours who were from St Petersburg had given us a mini Russian folk outfit, so I forced Princess O into it and made her promise to say it was Lithuanian (not too much of a stretch) as her Grandma is from there. Of course when I overheard her telling someone at school, she spoke like Judas Iscariot declaiming Jesus, and whispered that it was from Russia. Oh if only we hadn't told her it was wrong to ever lie!
So, there's good news and bad news on the book front - out of the blue, I had an email from The Flying Dutchman a few weeks ago, asking if I wanted to meet up again to discuss book/film project (or at least the notional project!) Despite clearing my diary for the rest of my life, we have yet to actually meet up though. Grr, why is this whole thing so bloody hard?
Also, very interestingly, Harper Collins have decided to set up their own website for unpublished authors to post their manuscripts and allow readers to comment, with the view that the most popular will be turned into books. I intend to email them and tell them I've done it myself already! Hope they'll be suitably impressed.
Tuesday 2 October 2007
It's a fair cop
A small and rather hilarious post script to being burgled and having our car stolen happened last Saturday night. I was driving back from a friend's wedding down in Hastings, on my own (or at least with Princess O asleep in the passenger seat) about midnight, getting very lost in the City after coming through the Blackwall Tunnel and taking several very annoying detours. Anyway, as I finally got myself onto the right road and thought that home was nearly in sight, I heard a load of police sirens coming towards me, which I (in my innocence) thought were on their way to some major crime scene.
Alas the crime scene they were on their way to, was me! Or so it transpired when one of the cars blocked me off and a strapping policeman took the car key from the ignition and told me I was under suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle! He told me that in the City they have automatic numberplate readers, and that my number plate had "kept flashing up" on their screen (that was all my wrong turns, trying to work out where I was going!) After about 20 minutes on the pavement, surrounded by policemen, giving them my little story about how the car had been stolen, but how it was now reunited with its rightful owner (ie me), I was allowed on my way.
They were all extremely kind to me, once it became apparent that I was in fact not the hardened car criminal they were after, but what pleased me most about the whole situation was that when I read the copy of my "stop and search" warrant, the physical description the policeman had given of me was 5'6'' (a good inch taller than I really am) and "slim" build - hurrah! In his eyes practically a supermodel (and let me tell you, he wasn't too shabby in the height and looks department either!)
I did also think afterwards that it was probably a good thing for them and their stastics to be able to include a white, middle class female in the number they have apprehended, to balance out the existing, very unfortunate bias towards young, (black) men. So at least some good came of the wrongful arrest, even if it wasn't actually catching the bastards who broke into our flat!
Which leads me onto my final thought on this little saga - we got the car back nearly two months ago, and Westminster police had kept it on their register of stolen vehicles (a minor administrative error to start with). In that time though, we have driven up to Yorkshire, to the airport, out to Oxford, plus all over London, and no other policeforce has noticed our "stolen car" or thought to stop it, until that is, I entered the City of London, where money pays for a much more sophisticated police force. It's a shame that the rest of the country doesn't exist under such great policing. If it did, perhaps we'd all be a little safer and better off.
And as if I needed an excuse for a glimpse of George Michael in a pleasingly tight policeman's get-up, here's "Outside", to remind us all that a man in uniform is always sexy.
Alas the crime scene they were on their way to, was me! Or so it transpired when one of the cars blocked me off and a strapping policeman took the car key from the ignition and told me I was under suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle! He told me that in the City they have automatic numberplate readers, and that my number plate had "kept flashing up" on their screen (that was all my wrong turns, trying to work out where I was going!) After about 20 minutes on the pavement, surrounded by policemen, giving them my little story about how the car had been stolen, but how it was now reunited with its rightful owner (ie me), I was allowed on my way.
They were all extremely kind to me, once it became apparent that I was in fact not the hardened car criminal they were after, but what pleased me most about the whole situation was that when I read the copy of my "stop and search" warrant, the physical description the policeman had given of me was 5'6'' (a good inch taller than I really am) and "slim" build - hurrah! In his eyes practically a supermodel (and let me tell you, he wasn't too shabby in the height and looks department either!)
I did also think afterwards that it was probably a good thing for them and their stastics to be able to include a white, middle class female in the number they have apprehended, to balance out the existing, very unfortunate bias towards young, (black) men. So at least some good came of the wrongful arrest, even if it wasn't actually catching the bastards who broke into our flat!
Which leads me onto my final thought on this little saga - we got the car back nearly two months ago, and Westminster police had kept it on their register of stolen vehicles (a minor administrative error to start with). In that time though, we have driven up to Yorkshire, to the airport, out to Oxford, plus all over London, and no other policeforce has noticed our "stolen car" or thought to stop it, until that is, I entered the City of London, where money pays for a much more sophisticated police force. It's a shame that the rest of the country doesn't exist under such great policing. If it did, perhaps we'd all be a little safer and better off.
And as if I needed an excuse for a glimpse of George Michael in a pleasingly tight policeman's get-up, here's "Outside", to remind us all that a man in uniform is always sexy.
Wednesday 19 September 2007
Pride comes before a fall
All domestic smugness was replaced last night when I discovered a swarm of maggots in my sesame seeds! Urgh! It was so disgusting I nearly puked. Am going to have to have a full de-maggotting of all dry goods tonight too, as I'm sure there must be more lurking in the cupboard. Where do they come from? It was truly horrendous.
And on top of that Princess O is waking up every night because she's scared of the dark, despite the fact that she has a night light and now a Fifi and the Flowertots doll which lights up and sings a lullaby when you press its tummy. I'm at the end of my endurance with it, and I really don't know what to do next.
Even more depressing, I'm starting to feel a bit sick about all this website/Facebook malarkey with my book, being consumed by fear and self-loathing, that it's a stupid idea, will never work, that the book is crap anyway, etc, etc. Argh!
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