The kitchen at work has moved. It used to occupy a corner room, with a view of theatres and The Ivy, and of, well, sky. Most of the people on my floor see no sunlight from their desks, and as the kitchen was clearly taking up a slice of desirable, prime space, it’s now being converted into an office, so that the view of theatres, The Ivy, and sky can be enjoyed by not thirty people, but one.

New office kitchen is still a hellish mess. The builders put in one socket, so the kettle lives on the floor, there is no fridge or microwave, and no hot water. Contents of new, hobo-themed kitchen: gummy jar or Marmite, tin of tuna, can of Castlemaine XXXX, giant bouquet of flowers. Some bitch at my work is always getting giant bouquets of flowers, and it has never, in two and a half years, been me.

Do dreams really come true?

Very Big Author is most unhappy with some proofs of his new book I sent him. Very Big Author has gone as far as to call the managing director of the company, and tell him how unhappy he is with them (well, why on earth would he talk to me? I am only the person who’s been working on the book and sending him proofs, after all). My fantasy has two parts: one, I talk to VBA and, sighing sadly, admit to him that, actually, I really don’t give a hoot about his stupid book, and if he’s not happy with how it looks maybe he should have delivered several months ago, as his contract stated, rather than so late that we all have to rush to get it set in time. Part two: VBA is outraged, and calls for my head on a plate or, health and safety laws being what they are, that I be fired. After much deliberation, the company reluctantly fires me to appease him, and I of course get a giant settlement because they feel so guilty.

Let’s place bets. Do you think I can goad him into it?

The smelliest street in London

No, it’s not Leicester Square at 4am on a Saturday. It’s not Brixton Market on a hot day, after all the stalls have closed and the bin men haven’t been round yet. It’s not even a mile within the radius of Camden Town tube! The smelliest street in London is St. Martin’s Lane. It always smells bad, but it smells worst in the morning, when it is either hot or raining. It’s that smell I associate with the third day of a festival, when everyone smells beyond sweaty, like melted ice-creams and stale beer.

Friday night Kara and Anamik were celebrating their lovely new house, by inviting all their friends over to trash it. They live in Hackney, and generally I’m scared of Hackney, but their place is very nice and I wish I lived there. It has dark wood shutters and floors and amazing 60s/70s furniture they got cheap. I plan to steal all their decorating tips for my next home.

Work is bums this week, and there is too much to do, so much that I haven’t had time to read Mimi, or look for vintage fabric on eBay, or barely check my Hotmail, or find a new flat. These are all things I like to do every day, at least once a day, and as I am on leave for the next month I have no idea how I’ll do them, as I have no computer at home. Maybe will buy a computer with my next paycheque and live off Supernoodles and toast until August.

Did drag Amy Lou to H&M today, though. I got a lovely bag for Therese (details are scant as she reads this blog), a woven gold belt (100% pure, all-natural polyurethane!), and a white headband for my debut on Saturday.

Went to Baltic a couple of weeks ago for my sister’s birthday drinks. The list of cocktails is truly awe-inspiring, and I was briefly tempted by a Cracow 75, before settling on a Billie Jean. ’75 is the year I was born, but in Tooting rather than the World Heritage site that is Krakow (to give it its proper name). After discussion, Steve and I decided a Tooting 75 would probably comprise: 1 part Mad Dog 20/20, 1 part Tennant’s Extra, topped with Lambrusco and garnished with chicken bones and a wad of gum on the side of the glass.

Went to Emerald’s birthday drinks on Sunday, in Brockwell Park. It was lovely: I’ve never been to that park and it was like being on a village green or something. If you looked in a certain direction all you could see over the crest of the hill was a church spire . . . who’d have thought Brixton was mere steps away? After some wine I toddled off home, stopping for an ice-cream in my local shop. A young woman was there, wearing a small, pale Siamese cat draped over her shoulder. Trying very hard to sound sober, I said ‘That’s just the prettiest cat!’ She looked at me funny and I think in my slightly intoxicated state (damn Emerald and her violet liqueur!) my words actually came out as ‘I want to eat your cat. Mmmm, tasty. Where do you live?’

A horrible thing happened on Saturday morning. I was eating my cornflakes when I became aware of terrified screams coming from one of the tower blocks I live in the shadow of. After about a minute, the screaming hadn’t stopped. It was punctuated by very angry shouting. Now, to give you some idea of how loud this was: I was sitting in my living room, and the tower blocks are about 100 metres away. So I grabbed my phone and keys and ran to the estate, trying to decipher which building the screams were (still) coming from. Once I thought I knew, I called 999 and a police car was on the scene within a few minutes (unlike in Mike’s case . . . ). The police seemed very eager to talk to a young couple looking very upset and standing outside the doorway of the block. I do not think they were the people I heard, as from the sounds I heard I did not think the woman doing the screaming would be able to walk, much less look composed and talk to the police. I stood outside the block for a few minutes, shaking and trying not to cry, and then I went home.

At home, I listened for another siren, assuming an ambulance would follow, but there was nothing. So I thought the screaming woman was dead. I mean, do you know what five minutes of screaming sounds like? And anyone can tell the difference between ‘stop tickling me’ screaming or ‘what a scary film’ screaming and ‘I think he’s going to kill me’ screaming. And what I heard was definitely the last one. After a few hours of trying to read and crying and not think about it, I called my local police station to find out what had happened, figuring that, as I made the 999 call, I had a right to know. The man I was put through to scrolled through his incident log. ‘When the police got there the situation was over. The woman didn’t want to press charges, so they left.’ he sounded satisfied, even smug. So I guess what I learned on Saturday morning was:
1) You can’t help someone unless they want to help themselves and
2) To mind my own fucking business
3) That the police really don't seem too bothered to tackle the domestive violence epidemic in England (with two women a week killed by their partners, I think I can call it an epidemic without being alarmist)

Walked to work today, and feel like I’m going to pass out. Am I really so unfit? Probably. But after last night’s Actionettes rehearsal, I was still hepped up and full of swingin’ dance energy, so I put my Actionettes CD on and bopped across the river. When I got to Westminster I noticed that there were people sitting in parks listening to headphones. Walking along listening to headphones. Glancing around, while listening to headphones. I came to the logical conclusion that they were all spies, and not listening to music at all, but being fed information about dodgy-looking folk loitering near the Houses of Parliament. I considered pausing at the entrance to Downing Street, surveying the skies in a frowny manner, and muttering into my watch, but I didn’t much fancy the thought of spending all day at the police station. Although at least I wouldn’t have had to come to work, where it is busy and I am bugged all day by fools.

Gross

My arms felt all greasy, so I scrubbed at them with some toilet paper. The paper came away grey with dirt. As my walk to work is almost entirely along traffic-clogged main roads, this shouldn’t surprise me, but it’s still pretty foul to realise that your skin is covered in exhaust from idling cars.

A few weeks ago me and Steve went to Brussels for a long weekend. It was one of the nicest holidays I’ve ever had, as it was cheap, swanky, and we travelled by train. OK, so it wasn’t the Orient Express or the trippy and fantastic Budapest Children’s Railway (I think the drivers are out of their teens, but the conductors and station staff are all under 16), but now that flying has become so time-consuming and crap, the train is for me.

Also, we stayed at the Hilton, and it was sexy in that way only large, business-y hotels are. Sort of impersonal, and lots of gold and glass and ornate lifts. We were amazed they actually let us in, and every time we passed the doorman and entered the lobby, we’d whisper ‘keep walking… they didn’t see us yet’ to each other, and scurry to our room, where we would breathe a sigh of relief and laugh gleefully at having been allowed to stay in a place we obviously could not afford.

Saw the twins last week. At two and a half, they are chatty and smiley, and I was pleased to see that they are upholding the Jasiewicz tradition of taking off their trousers in the evening, the more comfortably to watch TV and let their dinner digest.

Saw a billboard this morning for a film I thought was called ‘Jaws of Attraction’ – well, it was starring Pierce Brosnan, so I assumed some savvy casting director had realised that rather than being a hunk of burnin’ love, Pierce is the most terrifying man alive.

Petty acts of rebellion I have performed today

When the bus conductor wouldn’t let people on the bus cos – quelle surprise – it was too busy, and she said “No, it’s full up.” I screeched back “Full of SHIT!” No, I’m not sure what I mean either.

When, for the second day in a row, the photocopier was jammed and needed fixing before it could be used again, I taped a notice to it saying “Dear all, if the copier breaks while you are using it, please fix it instead of leaving this for the next person to do. This is not nice.”

At work, drew a smiley face in biro on the wall near the lifts.

OK, Officer, I’ll come quietly.

On Tuesday night I attended my first Actionettes rehearsal, at Drill Hall. It was tipping it down outside: the streets were deserted as everyone huddled in doorways and rain and hail bounced a foot off the pavement. I took a cab to the venue, as I had no umbrella, and it was pretty scary: the noise was deafening as the hail pounded the roof.

The rehearsal was fun, and although I was clearly by far the worst, most un-co-ordinated ‘dancer’ they had ever had the misfortune to share a floor with, the Actionettes were very polite and didn’t ask me to leave. Think I need to put in a lot of practice if I’m to dance on stage (on stage!!) in a month or two…

Now all I need is an -ette name.

I was puzzled and very disappointed to find news of the pro-choice march on Washington relegated, the day after the event, to a single column on p16 of the Guardian. Over 1 million people marched in support of women’s right to control their bodies, and yet this isn’t deemed newsworthy. Every other broadsheet reported the march in the same way (if they reported it at all - the Times chose not to): in a single column, with reports of numbers ranging from ‘hundreds of thousands’ (the Guardian) to ‘500,000’ (the Telegraph). Today the Guardian published a photo of the Mall in Washington and an op-ed admitted that ‘up to, and maybe more than, a million…’ marched. This is a bigger turn out than the Million Man March in 1995, which didn’t quite reach the titular number. When 1m people march against war in Iraq, it is news. When 1m people march against curtailing the right to control if, when and how you choose to have children, it isn’t.

All the papers, however, saw fit to devote at least twice as many column inches to the death of Estee Lauder, a woman who made her fortune from other women’s insecurities.

Some great reports on the march can be found at the comprehensive site Feminist.com, and on the Ms. website.

Today I am mostly:

Listening to a girl I work with flirt with the work experience boy (whom I took an instant dislike to when, in the lift, I asked him if he was doing work exp. here. He said ‘Yes, are you?’ I glared at him and said ‘No. I work here.’ it’s my own damn fault for wearing jeans and trainers to work). And I just realised I used the word 'work' about 15 times in that one anecdote.

Stealing my work-neighbour’s nuts/wheat-free chocolate cake/jelly babies

Wondering if the nuked pizza I had at lunch is the reason I’m feeling delicate in the stomach region


This weekend was the first truly hot weekend of the year. Picnics are the order of the season, and I’ve already had two in the space of three days. Friday night Steve and I got a ton of food – quiche, pork pies, bread, cheese, pate, and a Greek salad I brought to work – and went to St. James’s park. In spite of the aggressive drunk making the rounds of picnickers, it was perfect. We sat under a giant, pale pink blossoming tree and drank a tiny bottle of M&S red wine, and then we walked across the giant gravely square (what is it called?) that opens onto Whitehall.

I spent Saturday returning a very late library book, picking up my dry-cleaned winter coat so that I could put it in storage and (hopefully) it won’t get eaten by moths, and lying on a towel outside the Imperial War Museum reading the paper. After a couple of hours, when I was cooked to a crisp, it was ice-cream time. The Mr Softee van outside the Imp does the best, creamy, light-as-air 99s in the land. Plus the guy running it that day was doling out foot-high cornets, which was fine by me. In the evening I saw the boy, and we had a pint of London Pride at my local, the Ship, before attempting to get a fupper* at the Windmill Fish Bar. However, as they don’t seem to want drunken Saturday nite custom from hungry lushes with money to burn and a craving for cod, the Windmill Fish Bar closes at 9pm. Hmph. Went to the Thai place over the road instead (it was that or Pizza Express, and I can get that any day of the week), which was nice but did nearly make me cry with the spiciness of its curry.

Sunday was all hot and muggy, too. A stroll around Cannizaro Park was the only thing I wanted. This park was such a part of my childhood: I’ve been going there with my family since I was about two, and I’m always amazed that most people have never heard of it. It’s beautiful, with little walkways and steep brick steps and narrow paths overhung with branches. There are flowers and an aviary and many sorts of trees and a duck pond. After our walk we were hungry, and Wimbledon Village isn’t really Safeway territory, so we spent a tenner on bread, cheese, ham, olives and a single pork pie (organic but overrated! Dry as dust and needed to be swallowed with swigs of wine). Watched the dogs and children on Wimbledon Common and tried not to think about Monday morning . . .


* fish supper. Do keep up.

Last night we had our annual imprint party, and today I am feeling a touch delicate. Wisely decided to line my stomach (with a Subway meatball and hot pepper sub, mmm!) before the hard drinking commenced, and was very glad I did*. Decided to stick to beer, too, as wine makes me melancholy and tired and, oh yes, very drunk very quickly. Had five beers and felt fine (and at about 11pm tons of food magically arrived for the hardcore drinkers still there), but this morning I do not feel fine . . . Feel like I need quiet, darkness, and a big fry-up.


* Even though, as science fiction folks are suckers for a free drink, people started arriving before the party started, to be greeted with the sight of me glaring at them and wolfing down a sandwich.

Where have all the craft sites gone?

Getcrafty.com, one of my faves, is no longer. Not Martha doesn’t have what I need. Sew Wrong is the saviour, I guess, as here you can find free patterns to make simple bags and clothing (even bras! Yes, really) and fun message boards.

Have decided to rename my niece Tiny, as she is a scrappy little thing. Steve claims this will ensure she is a boxer when she grows up, and that ‘Boxing will give her a route out of the urban jungle that is Grove Park.’ Maybe I will arrange a video afternoon with Tiny and Right-Eye (her sister) and screen Girlfight. (PS read the comments about this film on the link . . . Svabbi, I’m coming to Iceland to kick your blond asssss). It'll be good for them to have a role model so they won't feel like they are pioneers in the sport. Yes.

Also, someone at work just gave me a praline duck. It was very very tasty.

Super nervous . . .

Any minute now I’m going to receive a phone call, asking me to come to the boardroom and try to convince 15 people who I don’t know to let me pay an author £15,000 to write a book. This is why I am sitting at my desk glugging Rescue Remedy and trying to make my hands stop shaking.

And, on this very important day (career wise: my real highlight is that I got a free can of Lipovitan from a man wearing a leotard and cape outside Charing Cross station), my flat had no hot water. I boiled a few kettles’ worth, had a bath in four inches of lukewarm water, and washed my hair by leaning over the bath. Made sure I perfumed myself to cover any lingering whiff. Oh dear.

Last night was lovely: had a meeting of the Ladies’ Sewing Bee at the Chandos pub. The meeting entailed some brief looking at a 1960s book about pattern cutting, talking about clothes, eating Mini Cheddars and drinking a lot.

“Nice big flaps”

What does it say about me that this snippet of conversation I heard in a meeting today nearly made me burst out laughing, and that I had to hide behind a sheaf of paper and think of malnourished kittens to keep a straight face? The fact that the subject being discussed was a fancy book with printed end papers and generous jacket flaps (pffft! there it is again!) didn’t make a bean of difference.

At the moment I am too busy to live. Leave desk for 1 hour and when I come back I can barely find my chair, obscured as it is by piles and piles of crap*.



* And when I say ‘crap’ I do, sadly, mean ‘work’.

Am applying for a job at the company I work for. Yes, you read that right. I hate that they’re making me jump through hoops to get it; I feel like saying ‘Hire me already! You know I can do this!’ but I have to play the game. As part of my assessment I was asked to read a manuscript and write a report, so I did, and tried to find something positive to say about a derivative, badly written, formulaic piece of poo. Well okay, it wasn’t completely awful. Some parts were funny. But I am worried, as my report contained the word ‘masturbated’, and I feel this may go against me.

There has been a Cadbury’s Mini Eggs Easter egg sitting on my desk all week. When I bought eggs in Tesco, using the very generous 3-for-2 offer, I had a spare: Steve got a Crunchie egg, Therese got a Kit-Kat egg, and I was going to do the decent thing and give the third egg to my mum or one of my sisters. But this afternoon, halfway through composing a sheepish email to a girl who sits near me asking if she had any chocolate, I caved. I would eat the damn spare egg! In a moment of clarity, I realised that I need to buy at least another three eggs, anyway! One for my mum, and one each for my sisters! So there will always be a spare! (Plus, to be honest, I bought the Mini Eggs egg with my gob, and mine alone, in mind.)

Happy Easter!

Last night was of the most fun evenings I’ve had in a long long time. And best of all, it was free! (Apart from the kebab at the end of the night. Which Therese put in the microwave to heat up and Steve nearly rugby-tackled her to make her stop nuking it, as he has heard ‘statistics’ saying that one in four kebabs, when microwaved, produce maggots.) Therese and I went to Liberty for the cardholder shopping evening, and there was free booze. Two glasses of wine and two giant gin cocktails each later, we plonked ourselves down in a £2,000 leather armchair and contemplated our next move. Miss T was craving a kebab so I had to go along with her. My kebab was tasty enough, but later I had two eyelashes in my mouth. I think (and hope) they were mine.

Purchases

Ilona: fig perfume by Dyptique, an off-cut of amazing brown, orange and white cotton, to be used to make nice headscarves

Therese: two pink London A-Z tea towels, Neal’s Yard box set for friend

The weekend seems a long time ago, but the high point was definitely seeing the Actionettes at Bush Hall. It’s about the loveliest venue in London, and I bumped into my friend Jim, who I hadn’t seen in over two years.

Bugging me today: that BBC2 programme ‘If…’. I really wanted to see it last night, cos it was called ‘If…women ruled the world’. (But I am a video retard so managed not to tape it.) Apparently, in twenty years time women will be ‘running tings’, and this is a terrible scenario and must be nipped in the bud before all those power bitches start castrating nice, non-aggressive males. Ok, I am exaggerating, but is it not true that all the other ‘If’ programmes have presented Doomsday scenarios showing how the western world is spiralling out of control? Previous ‘If’s have predicted what could happen if the divide between rich and poor people (a bad thing) continues to grow; if there is a giant scary power cut (a bad thing); if we don’t stop pieing it on a daily basis (a bad thing). So the obvious continuation of these catastrophes where our children are fat, we use too much electricity and the rich live in gated communities which the poor attack with pitchforks, is a world where women have power. Oh hell, I just give up. Read the dumb BBC website for more info: they have the requisite ‘The death of feminism?’ piece, and an article, illustrated with a picture of Superman, titled ‘Why we will always need men’ (which almost brought a tear to my eye. Men, do you really feel you are on the way out? Cos everywhere I go you seem fairly prevalent, going about your business, being mine and other peoples’ friends and lovers and relatives. The defiant stance of the piece – here is an argument that we’re not totally redundant! – is really quite sad. Rest assured, menfolk: I love you and I don’t want to see you sent to the glue factory!).

In other news: my company runs a graduate recruitment scheme. Each year one person does what is basically glorified work experience for a few months. I just saw the CV of this latest new grad: white, Oxford educated, won awards, lives in Surrey.

Glad that the ‘Diversity in Publishing’ campaign is going well, then.

Notes to self

Replenish supplies of work snacks. Situation is now critical. Have resorted to scrounging puffed rice bars off wheat-intolerant colleague.

Try not to kill author who has disregarded all my pleas to mark up a manuscript using red or blue ink, and instead used black. The exact same colour the copy-editor uses, so that now I have no way of knowing whose marks are whose.

Sew nice clothing. Kara is always sewing amazing things that look like they cost $100 from Built By Wendy, and I want to sew too. Sew there (ahahaha).

Again I am having a week where I just can’t write. Am trying to do lots of semi-work-related stuff, and helping my sister write a book proposal, and sending begging letters to presses I really want to work for.

There’s a thin line between Maggie Gyllenhaal and Mrs Thatcher

While looking like the minxy Ms Maggie is desirable, resembling the Iron Lady is not. So it is with great trepidation that I don the pussy-bow blouse (they’re back! With puffed, bell sleeves) and the A-line skirt. I am walking a very fine line, my friends, very fine. As I type this, I am wearing: grey, high-waist A-line skirt, black chiffony blouse with puffed sleeves and sparkly black buttons, black 80s boots. The blouse and the boots are my mums, and the boots are the only high heeled footwear I can walk in. The blouse is a little on the sheer side for the office, so I have a pink wool tank top (jerkin?) over it.

I know I haven’t written in weeks. If you missed me I am sorry, and please do not give up on me. But I have the next two days off (for shopping) so will not be writing again until at LEAST Thursday.

I went to see Mona Lisa Smile last night, and it was an exasperating experience at best. I’d sum it up as a film about feminism for anti-feminists. It could have been a great film, but I can see Hollywood studio execs (never the most progressive of men) being downright scared about making an honest film about the white, middle/upper-class female experience in a 1950s all-girls college. The entire film stopped short of making any real statements. The scene where a frustrated Katherine Watson (Roberts) shows her art class slides of 50s adverts teaching them to be good little housewives and nothing else, she gets furious and shouts “What are these telling us? WHAT?!” [Pause] “I don’t know.” [Walks out]. Well, it’d really have helped if she had known. And that sums the film up, really: every time it comes close to saying something real, it backs down. Julia Stiles’ character, Joan, is a brilliant, rich, beautiful young woman. She applies to Yale Law School, and is accepted. But her boyfriend (who is kind of a dick) is offered a place at Penn State, so obviously Joan can’t go to Yale. She is nonplussed. Shortly after, they elope one weekend and marry. Katherine is (not surprisingly) shocked and a little disappointed. So Stiles’ character launches into a defence of the married woman which manages to make Katherine look like the narrow-minded snob who thinks that being a housewife is unfulfilling and boring (um, it is if your other options included Yale Law, darlin’). I find it bizarre that a film about, let’s face it, feminism, does not once mention the f-word, or the word “oppression” or the word “patriarchy”. Feminism was a word first used at the turn of the century, so it’s not like no one would have heard of it. There were only two moments in this film that seemed real and not sanitised: the first, where Betty (Kirsten Dunst) is screaming at Giselle (Maggie Gyllenhaal) for sleeping around, and Giselle comes towards Betty. You think she’s going to punch her (cat fights are good for ratings!) but instead she envelopes her in a hug (Betty’s husband is a slag and she is projecting her anger/hurt onto Giselle). The second is when Katherine and the teacher she’s seeing are at Betty’s wedding and notice other teachers discussing them. Katherine’s boyf whispers “Are your ears burning?” and Roberts wryly replies “When you’re on a stake the flames start at your feet” (or something), a reference to which-burning. And that, folks, is as subversive as it gets.

Basically the message of the film can be summed up as: In the 1950s it was widely assumed that women went to college to meet a husband. How awful! But some of them did and they were happy and so let’s not be mean to them.

Nice dresses and make-up, tho.

PS Ginnifer Goodwin is hottt. And she’s supposed to be the ugly one!

On Tuesday I spent four (utterly fruitless) hours at the British Library Newspaper Archive, a huge Deco block opposite Colindale station. I was looking at bestseller lists from the 1970s, and as these are not online or on CD-ROM, this entailed scanning through reels of film on a microfiche reader and getting nauseous. Seeing as I was supposed to check five years’ worth of lists, and each reel of film held two months of papers (the Sunday Times was huge even back then), this would mean reading 30 reels of film. And as you are only allowed to borrow four reels at a time, and have to wait ½ an hour for them to be delivered to your little microfiche booth, and it takes an hour to scroll very fast through four reels, it would take me approximately, what, 10? 11? hours to do this. Pointless thought this exercise was, I did get to read very old newspapers, which is always fun. Did you know that in 1977 you could buy a three-bedroomed apartment in Knightsbridge for £50,000? Oh yes. And the Times boasted that on Thursday top jobs, paying only over £4,000 PA, were advertised. Har! I looked at the job ads, and while I’m not sure exactly when it became illegal to specify gender, quite a few of the ones from 1977 said things like ‘Sales manager required. He will be responsible for . . .’. Reading the 1977 Times really made me see that even though things aren’t perfect now, they were pretty awful back then. The Review section was written almost entirely by men (even when slamming – sorry, reviewing – books about women or feminism), and one article about David Irving’s controversial claims that Hitler was misunderstood and didn’t actually kill anyone begins with the words: ‘Like him or not, Hitler . . .’ Like him or not?! Was there really a time after the Second World War when people argued about whether Hitler was nice or not nice? My flabber was truly ghasted.

I had some time to kill (and money for work ‘expenses’) before I met Kara to discuss our Sewing Bee, so decided to get food at Tokyo Diner. I ordered what I thought was a modest meal: a side salad, small portion of sushi (three pieces) and miso soup. But it seems I accidentally ordered a giant trough of food (oh well, what can you do?). All eyes were on me as the third dish was brought to my table, and I dug in. Anyway, the Sewing Bee is going to be held every three weeks, on a Monday or Tuesday (Wednesday is good telly night); let me know if you want to join.

For the love of Kirstie

I think if I met Kirstie Allsopp we would be friends. She is a bit odd for a telly presenter: have you heard her answers to those Channel 4 ads? She lost her virginity when she was 21 and would like to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She seems quite giggly and girlie but also very smart. Relocation Relocation is compulsory viewing, if only to check whether Kirstie is looking all 50s and cute, or wearing her atrocious pearls-and-padded-Alice-band combo and coming across like your Sloaney aunt.

Joey, we hardly knew you

Shock, horror! Joey Ramone has come out as a supporter of Bush. Joey has apparently repented for his life of rock & roll excess, and is now anti-abortion, anti-welfare, anti-choice.

‘These aren’t issues, they’re life’ – Nandita Das, Capitalwoman 2004

Saturday saw the fourth annual Capitalwoman conference in London. The first event attracted some 400 women: 4000 registered this year. I was surprised and pleased to see a huge variety of women: a lot of over 50s, many black and Asian women, but few young women (hey, if we’re going to argue that feminism isn’t dead and that the third wave is alive in England, we need to show our faces). The atmosphere was upbeat, electric, one of excitement and anticipation. In the morning we were addressed by a variety of speakers including journalist Polly Toynbee, Diane Abbott MP, Solicitor General Harriet Harman, Deputy Mayor Jenny Jones, Nandita Das and Red Ken himself. They spoke on topics ranging from the pay gap (yep, it’s still there, and it’s not going away by itself), to Britain’s appalling childcare policy, domestic violence and safety on the streets and in the parks. I was moved by Diane Abbott’s statement that ‘this country was built on the labour of economic migrants’, as this is something close to my heart. My parents came to Britain for freedom and a better life: how could I begrudge anyone else that right?

After lunch there were a variety of seminars. I attended the one on domestic violence. It was packed out, women crowding the aisles, sitting or standing wherever there was space. I got there early and took a seat near the back; a few minutes later a man sat down next to me. He was scruffy and smelled, and he took out a notebook. Ok, I thought, probably a journalist (can’t have all those women in one place for a whole day without a man monitoring it, now can we? Heaven knows what they’d get up to!). As the speakers introduced themselves and began to outline the work they were doing, Mr Smelly began to twitch. He was rolling his eyes, muttering, snorting and tutting. I gave him what I hoped was a fierce ‘shut the fuck up’ stare, and he was quiet for a little while. As one of the speakers addressed domestic violence in relation to disabled women, she stated that in 1994 she was commissioned to write a booklet on this subject. To her knowledge, none had been written before, or since. ‘What about disabled men?’ yelled Mr Smelly. Ok, what about them? This is a conference on women. If he is an advocate of disabled men’s rights, great. What is he doing about their experience of domestic violence? (This moment brought to mind an excellent article on the f-word website. If you read one thing on the web this week, please read this.) He was ignored. The talk continued. I very rarely feel physically sick in a non-drunk situation, but at this seminar I did. I realised I was in the presence of a noxious misogynist, someone whose only reason for attending a positive, proactive conference was to disrupt it. It’s not like the talk was titled ‘Bulldozing the Patriarchy: Men Out Now!!!’ (that was at 3.30. Kidding!). It was about stopping women being beaten and killed by their partners. How can you possibly take exception to that? During the Q&A session I thought Mr Smelly was going to combust: his hand was in the air, he had a question to ask. So did twenty other people, and only about five of them got to speak. But he was clearly being discriminated against. ‘What about a question from a man – but I guess you wouldn’t understand that!’ he yelled. Huh? Seeing as the panellists were highly educated, articulate women, I think they could grasp the concept of both ‘man’ and ‘question from’ pretty well, and put them together to form a thought. He got a few funny looks, but was, again, ignored. After the seminar was over, I went home. I felt confused and angry. If there are men out there who object to measures to stop domestic violence, what hope in hell do women have of being given anything easily? If there are men out there who still feel that a man has a right to hit his wife (after all, she must have provoked him), what hope do we have of equal rights in the workplace and abortion on demand?

On Friday an alarming statistic came to light. 1 in 4 women will be victims of domestic violence during their lifetime. Also, two women a week are murdered by their partners. You’d think this would be front-page news, right? I mean, this is news, isn’t it? Wrong. It was tucked away on page 25 of the Evening Standard, presumably so as not to upset people. I am baffled by this. If new research had shown that 1 in 4 schoolchildren experienced violence at school, or 1 in 4 pets was beaten, there would be a national outcry. So why isn’t there? Part of me believes that people just find the whole subject of domestic violence uncomfortable, and would prefer to ignore it: if it’s not happening to me, or if I’m not battering my partner, then there’s nothing more I can do. Domestic violence is still seen as ‘one of those things’, a ‘fact of life’.

Amnesty International has launched a new campaign to stop domestic violence. One of the spokespeople is Star Trek actor Patrick Stewart, whose father beat his mother. He said ‘I saw the self-loathing of my father, due to his inability to control his violent outbursts. I saw society, police, doctors and neighbours conspire to hide the abuse with comments like “She must have provoked him” and “It takes two to make an argument”. Violence must be controlled. If you fail to raise your hand in protest, you are part of the problem.’

Today is international Women’s Day.

Booky

For a long time I wanted to read Das Boot cos I really thought it was about footwear. When I discovered it was some rotten old wartime drama I crossed it off my list, quicksmart.

I reserved a book at my local library and went to pick it up last night. I think if the librarian had owned a pair of giant tweezers, she’d have used them to pass me the copy of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women. She eyed me sniffily, obviously having pegged me as a man-hater and probable lesbian. I just smiled sweetly.

Went to the London Transport museum at lunch, to look at postcards. Got some lovely 1930s ones (have you seen the new ads on London buses? They are all Deco and angular and have taglines like ‘Faster Through the Mighty Metropolis’ and ‘Safe Beneath the Watchful Eyes’), and will put them by my desk to cheer me every time I see them.

Stopped in at H&M on the way to the LT museum. Was not planning to, but the fake vintage dresses in the window lured me in… God, but I could have spent £200 in there. And that would have bought me a new wardrobe. But as I was being good I strolled around pretending to be unimpressed, telling myself ‘Oh, I can live without that’ while my subconscious screamed ‘No you can’t! If you owned that canary yellow short jacket with the round collar and ruched pockets, your life would be complete, you fool! Buy it! And the black woven cloche hat for £5!’ Well thank Christ my subconscious doesn’t control the purse strings. I escaped, poorer in style but richer in money. Yeah, great. As Steve is quick to remind me, ‘You can’t eat a pair of shoes.’ True, but you can’t wear a ham sandwich.