A parental summit took place yesterday, with Steve’s parents and my mum coming over for lunch. It was the first time they’d met, and we hoped they’d get on. Steve cooked lunch, I removed potentially offensive magnets from the fridge (‘Oh shit – I turned into my mother’ and ‘You suck big time’ – both gifts, I’ll have you know), and made sure the bedroom had nothing in it to suggest that anything other than sleeping took place in it, ever. However, I neglected to remove two packs of cigarettes from on top of the TV (both purchased about a year ago and mostly unsmoked), and my copy of Cunt from the bookshelf. The same bookshelf Steve’s parents perused with interest.

Four dresses and one c1960 Louis Feraud coat on eBay: £35
Haircut at little Japanese place in Covent Garden where they don’t speak much English and you look through a book of haircuts and pick one and they interpret it to suit you: £30 (a bargain in London)
Manicure: free, cos I do it myself at home
MAC lipstick in Lady Bug: £11
Feeling attractive and cute: priceless (or £76. Either way, I think that’s a bargain)

Last night we made a recipe from Saturday’s Guardian. It had three ingredients: frozen fish fingers, a tin of Heinz tomato soup, and grated cheese. It was absolutely delicious, despite being a violent orange colour, and we counteracted the salt & additives by serving it with broccoli and granary bread. And Miss Marple on the telly.

Steve has synesthesia, which is apparently quite unusual in a) men and b) right-handers. It’s inherited, too, so maybe our kids will be able to taste shapes and smell music. Steve sees people and days of the week (among other things?) as colours. Apparently I am a rich purply shade. Damn right.

The first post of 2006 is about food. I’m thinking of taking up smoking, as apparently it’s a marvelous appetite suppressant, but sadly after about two drags on a cigarette I get really woozy and start stumbling into traffic (as nearly happened this afternoon outside the office), so I may need a plan b. Not wanting to ruin my day of healthy eating (fruit & fibre cereal, green tea, sushi) I just went to Tesco for carrot sticks and houmous. Yay me. The photo is what I had for lunch yesterday: McDonald’s.

We have a slight mouse problem. We found a dead one, curled up next to a Quality Street wrapper (they do love sweets, bless ‘em) when we moved in, and one ran into the bathroom when Steve was in there. A few days ago we left a loaf of seeded bread, in its wrapper, on the kitchen counter, and when I picked it up the next morning there was a giant, chewed hole in the wrapper, a chunk of bread missing, and lots of crumbs. Oh dear.

Jingle all the way...

Last post of 2005, as we still don't have a computer at home, and I'm off for the next 2 weeks. Huzzah! In no order, this is what I'll be doing:

reading the 15 or so books I bought/was given over the past year and haven't even opened
baking ginger and white chocolate cookies for Emerald's party
sewing curtains for our living room
watching films
drinking in the afternoon (let's be honest, in the morning too. As Steve and I are spending Christmas with our respective families, we're going to have a separate Christmas day, complete with champagne breakfast and presents)
painting the walls, hanging pictures
going to Ikea (urrrggh)
going wedding dress shopping with my recently engaged big sister
taking long walks in the parks near my house

Merry Christmas!

London’s a small city, despite the 8million people.

Over the summer I used to see a woman on my bus to work. She was very heavily pregnant, with glasses, long dark hair, always reading a book, and wore flip-flops. Today I saw her crossing the street with her partner, pushing a pram. Not sure why, but it made me happy.

Work Christmas party tonight, and although I want to go (free food, free booze, look at colleagues all dressed up and flirting), I also really want a night (OK, a week) at home reading and snoozing. Have decided to stay for a couple of hours (until the food runs out), then head home for an early night. Best of both worlds.

When I started writing this blog, over two years ago, there were over 20 bus routes in London served by Routemasters. Now there are none. My fondest memories are of the 15 (when I lived in Whitechapel I'd take this to work), and of the last route to go, the 159, which took me from Kennington to work, and took me and Steve to each other's houses. Feel like an ass cos I missed the last 159 today: I thought the last one was at midnight - in fact it was at noon. Very sad.

And even more...

More bus pics, if Blogger will cooperate...

It's really the end. As of tomorrow, the Routemaster will be no more. Sure, there are the crappy heritage routes, which don't go anywhere a Londoner would need to go, but the last real route, the 159, makes its last journey (from Marble Arch to Streatham, via Trafalgar Sq, Lambeth North, Kennington Oval and Brixton) just after midnight tomorrow. Judging by the crowds lining the route this afternoon, the final journey will see more people on the streets than Chas & Di's wedding. The 159 was my route when I lived in Kennington, and it may sounds stupid to have such fond memories of a bus, but I do. So today I rode from Oxford Street to my old stop in Kennington, then crossed the road and came back. Hundreds of people took photos of the buses. Not just bus enthusiasts, either: tourists, young people with cameraphones, kids, businessmen, police. I took photos, too: the quality's a bit crappy, as they were taken with a phone, but here they are.

You know those pics I allegedly posted last week? They never showed up, did they? Let's hope this works...

Yessss! Steve on Hungerford Bridge on a very cold and foggy Sunday in November.

And me and T ice-skating!

If only I could make the pics go in order it would be perfect...

What a shitty week to be a woman. The papers are full of articles reporting the Amnesty International survey which found that 1/3 of people think that if a woman flirts/dresses provocatively (whatever that means) or is drunk she is at least partially responsible should she be raped. Nice. Maybe it was naïve to think that this attitude died out several decades ago, what with the conviction rate for rape standing at under 6% and police estimates that only 15% of rapes are reported to them. But it’s the tone of the newspaper articles I hate: the headlines all say things like ‘drunk women more likely to be raped’. Why not ‘rapists target drunk women’? Why is the onus on women to behave, to not drink, not flirt, not wear short skirts, in other words, to do everything we can to protect ourselves from it? So unless I go out wearing jeans and a baggy sweater, don’t drink, and don’t make eye contact with a man (could be construed as flirting!), I am asking for trouble. Why is the problem of male violence women’s responsibility and not men’s?

Also making the front page is binge drinking. Despite the statistics showing that men are more likely to binge drink than women, and more men are alcoholics than women, articles about binge drinking are always, and I mean always, illustrated by a group of pretty twentysomethings in strappy tops clutching goblets of chardonnay. Give me a fucking break. This always reminds me of the brilliant and oft-repeated (usually by her) Julie Burchill quote that there are men out there who cannot bear the thought that somewhere, at some time, a woman is having fun and getting away with it.

OK, some happy things now. The lovely Therese and Dan are staying with us for a couple of weeks, and it’s a pleasure to have them here. Not only are they cooking up a Thanksgiving feast tonight, but they’re going to do some DIY too! Yes, they are earning their keep. Last night we went ice-skating at the Natural History Museum (see pics), followed by stuff-your-face Japanese in Catford. I am proud (ashamed?) to say that we got through 20 dishes between the four of us.

I love Polly Toynbee.

Just had soup for lunch. Like so many of the new Covent Garden Soup Co. offerings it was pretty bad. Will I never learn to stick to mushroom or broccoli and stilton? It was citrus chicken and sage, and just tasted like creamy orange drink with bits of chicken in it. I still ate two bowls, despite the chest pains caused by salty badness. I asked my colleague if he wanted some, and told him to get a mug. He came back with a glass, and I don’t know why but watching someone drink a glass of soup is right up there as a Horrible Thing to See.

Catford isn’t famous for much (I think they have a dogtrack and a market), but it is famous for having the best all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant in London. And it’s no ordinary buffet: the food doesn’t stand there all day, and it’s not MSG-tastic. You go in, sit, and are given a menu of 8 starters, 8 sushi, 8 mains, and 8 specials, and you pick, for the table, 8 items. They’re made to order, so the prawn tempura roll is crispy and the batter is still warm. The gyoza are porky and spicy and fat. You eat it all, then you order another 8 items. Then another, until you a) die b) are asked to leave (rather wisely, the menu states in bold that dining time is 2 hours). All this for £10.90 per person. Last night me and Steve shared 8 dishes and were fit to burst, and the thought that we could have had 8 more was both frightening and exhilarating. We will be back.

Food eaten today
2 slices sunflower bread with cheddar
I Krispy Kreme glazed donut
1 small treacle flapjack
2 bowls chicken soup (see above), 1 slice of bread
Slice of frosted carrot cake

On Monday I got a call at work from the Evening Standard. They asked me if I had any thoughts about ad exec Neil French’s comments about women being crap employees etc. etc. Basically they were asking me to write an angry letter, and the fact they had to ask indicates that women weren’t filling the ES mailbag with furious screeds, but were instead just rolling their eyes and getting on with their lives. I obliged, and they published my letter, and thankfully I wasn’t fired when I got to work the next day. I criticised the publishing industry for the lack of women at the top, despite editorial assistants being 95% female. By the time editors reach the stage where they’re commissioning, somehow 60% are men. By the time employees reach the board of directors, about 90% are male. Where do all the women go? And where do all the men come from? (My ex-boss, a female editorial director, emailed me to say ‘they mostly come from bookshops’. So I never should’ve left Borders after all…)



Last night I went to the House of Lords. I’ve always wanted to see the place, and it is beautiful inside. Really breathtaking. I was there for a talk organised by Abortion Rights UK, with speakers including several Labour MPs, Diane Holland, a trades unions representative; Jo Salmon, Women’s Officer for the NUS; Guardian columnist Zoe Williams and several others, including a woman from NOW. The venue was packed and we moved to a bigger room, which quickly became full and about half those attending had to stand for the full two hours. The meeting had been called to discuss the attempts being made by right-wing politicians to reduce the time limit on abortion, ostensibly to do away with ‘late term’ abortions (which receive a disproportionately high number of column inches despite accounting for 1-2% of all abortions performed). The speakers were inspiring, impassioned and articulate. Zoe Williams spoke about how the media represent abortion: as a tragedy, never as a reasonable option. No one on TV has abortions, unless it’s in a period drama and they go to a backstreet abortionist. No celebrity comes out and admits to having had one, although as 1 in 3 British women have terminated a pregnancy, we all know people who have. She mentioned in passing her own abortion, and a middle-aged Camilla Parker-Bowles doppelganger with pearl earrings spoke up cheerfully: ‘I’m the co-chair of Abortion Rights UK, and I had three abortions before the law came into force.’ There were women (and a few men) in their 60s and 70s, who had fought for the law to be changed in 1967, and defended it in the 1980s when it was under attack, and who expressed sadness to be here again, fighting again, when we shouldn’t have to.

Worldwide, over 80,000 women a year die as a direct result of backstreet abortions.

YUM: Curried parsnip soup.

I caved in, and I bought a pair of skinny jeans. I have bad association with any trouser that tapers at the ankle, as my first pair of jeans (circa 1987) were from Bhs with hems so narrow my mum had to buy a size larger so I could get my foot through. I looked like a turkey in them, and ever since then I, like so many women, have embraced the boot cut. But, feeling all 30 of my years, and dressed like a businesswoman/undertaker (black boot-cut trousers, long black coat, sensible flat shoes), I decided to try the trend all these hip young things (Kara, Kyle, most London gals) are wearing. So I went to Gap. Not the first place you go to for cutting edge design but, dang, they really do have nice stuff. Plus, they boast that their skinny jeans make you drop a dress size as soon as you put them on. So I took a few pairs into the fitting room, along with a pair of city shorts, which made me look like this dude. But the jeans… they were a revelation. Suddenly I saw what all the fuss was about. I looked younger, thinner, I suddenly had a new wardrobe staple to wear with boots (forgive me Father, but I will tuck them in), flats, dressy tops, casual tops. I cackled to myself and I bought them.

I am getting heartily sick of the media circus around men saying dumb things. An ad exec claims that the reason women don’t get to the top in advertising is because they’re crap and don’t deserve to. He then went on to say ‘they all go off and suckle something’. What a prince, eh? Rightly, he lost his job, all the while insisting that he’s not sexist, he’s just telling it like it is. I’m sure the latter is the case: while many men in senior management think women are crap, few of them are stupid enough to say it. What is stupid is that TV and radio latched onto this, with Vanessa Feltz doing a call-in on the subject. That’s right: so, are women really crap? Call in and have your say! Today there’s another furore, this time over Gordon Ramsay’s comment that women can’t cook. Bigmouth Gordon will be sleeping on the couch tonight: his wife, Tana, is Grazia magazine’s cookery writer. Oops. But, once again, women have to drop everything and rush to refute this boring, clichéd, brainless accusation. Why do we bother? Seriously, why? Some of us can cook, some of us can’t. So what? Are the ones who do practice the domestic arts so insecure that they have to speak up when some idiot makes a throwaway comment? What does it matter whether we choose to make dinner from scratch using 23 ingredients, or throw a Chicago Town pizza in the microwave? The argument is so old (for years men have been gloatingly pointing out that all the top chefs are male, while their partner is doing all the grocery shopping and cooking a meal after a day at work), and so stupid, that the more I write about it the more riled I’m getting. OK, enough.

Just spent a couple of house riding the 13 bus, as this is the last day the route will be served by Routemaster buses. There were bus enthusiasts galore lining the route (that’s quite a lot of people – it runs from Aldwych to Golders Green), standing on traffic islands and at junctions, taking photos of the bus, and the bus itself was packed with middle-aged men enjoying the ride. The atmosphere on the bus was cheerful but slightly melancholy, and the men (I saw one woman) taking photos looked sad as the bus passed.

I fucking hate eBay. They are being bastards, and have removed two of my listings, claiming I was using keywords to get interest. I listed a trench coat as 'not Burberry' - so obviously I am not trying to pass it off as a genuine item, although yes, I am hoping that people using Burberry as a keyword will see my coat. What really pisses me off is that their policy is totally inconsistent. Look on eBay.co.uk and search using Marc. The vintage section has over a dozen items with Marc in the title, even though they're not Marc Jacobs. Same with Miu Miu. So why the hell aren't eBay upbraiding those sellers? Am hopping mad. Must go drink.

Links galore!

Not sure if T’s getting my email (either her IT dept or mine seem to have twigged that the content of the dozens of emails flying back and forth each day is not remotely work-related, unless you count bitching about evil bosses). So here’s a list I made for her (and any other non-UK pals who are coming to stay!), listing lots of fun, cheap ways to spend a day.

Train to London Bridge, lunch at Borough Market. Get RV1 bus, which goes past the Tate Modern, London Eye and across Waterloo Bridge to Covent Garden.

A walk in one of the parks: Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, St James’s Park are all nice, as is Regents Park.

Marylebone High Street! Lovely, pretty shopping street near Selfridges, with nice cafes, a great book shop, lots of swanky clothes/homewares shops. Good place for Xmas gifts.

Dennis Severs House, and the Sir John Soane’s Museum. Follow a visit to the latter with a warming shot of vodka at Na Zdrowie, which is around the corner.

V&A Museum, National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery, and Tate Britain. Good way to spend a few hours on a rainy afternoon.

Geffrye Museum in Bethnal Green, followed by Vietnamese food in one of the many amazing, cheap restaurants on Kingsland Road.

Shopping in East Dulwich, a walk in Dulwich Village (tres posh), and a drink in the really good bar on the main road in East Dulwich, which does great sausage sandwiches and has tons of different beers.

Indian food in Whitechapel, near Ilona & Ewa’s old flat. BYOB, and super cheap.

Girly thing: treatment at the Aveda spa, drinks at Claridge’s, afternoon tea at Liberty.

Fish and chips. Olley’s in Norwood is one of the best in London, or Rock & Sole Plaice in Cov Garden, or Sea Cow in East Dulwich.

Walk the Thames Path! Not the whole thing, but a few miles. Visit Hays Galleria near Tower Bridge.

Greenwich market and the Royal Observatory, lunch in a nice pub.

Cake and coffee at Paul, and a browse in the Office Shoes sale shop down the street.

Photos from the first Crafternoon baking session... We spent about 6 hours shopping, cooking, and drinking Bellinis. And eating all the cakes we made. Next one is at the end of October, at Amy's house, with pumpkin pie and other autumnal baked treats...

Also, jacket potato for lunch = comatose by 3pm.