Round-Up of the N00z...

First off, Indonesia has banned porn. Read about it on the BBC website. I particularly love this tidbit:

"This law will ensure that Islam is preserved and guaranteed," said Hakim Sori Muda Borhan, a member of parliament from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party.

"It is also not in the interest of any specific religion. The law is also meant to preserve arts and culture and not destroy them."

Er... huh?! DIRECT discrepancy, I'd say, mate.


Meanwhile, the Catholic Church continues to try to project an image of 'modernity' without making any fundamentally important changes. See what SNAP had to say for my thoughts... I DO like the picture of Benedict though, he looks a lot like Red Robot from Diesel Sweeties... (see the third panel of the comic strip for an idea of what I'm talking about...).

For anybody feeling low about their writing talent, for the love of God, read this pile of steaming horseshit 'written' by Peaches Geldof, the monumentally annoying wastrel who dabbles in many occupations without being even remotely good at any of them and has thankfully fucked off to America. I don't like to indulge in pointless sleb-hating for the sake of it, but PG really really irritates me because she exemplifies for me the trend of people who are famous for fame's sake (and because their parents are/were famous). People often lump her with the likes of Lily Allen and Daisy Lowe (or whoever she's currently been seen partying with...) but I do think Lily Allen is smart, talented and witty in her own way (see her response to Marina Hyde's attack on her here!) and Daisy Lowe is actually a model. She doesn't 'pretend' to be one when the mood takes her (or when her friends decide to get her off her idle ass...). This is, to paraphrase Peaches, a 'patchwork quilt' of clangingly obvious cliches, blithe and breathless arrogance, celebration of sartorial cheapskatery (she paid a dollar for someone's family heirloom?!) and painfully obvious attempts to be Michael Palin. My bezzi called my attention to it, and I found myself ACTUALLY HOWLING in a sort of wounded shriek/laugh/weep/growl. So banal it's offensive.

The 'dark side' of joining the EU, for Romania? Really quite depressing reading, and not least because the article shows that a) we're not all as 'globalised' as one might think and b) it suggests that dictatorships (i.e. China and Romania under Ceausescu) are the only way to make construction happen fast these days... I could be ODing on the doom-and-gloom there, though.

The sort of story that tends to give France a bad name. Wine! Football-team comparisons! Bitter feuding! Utter pettiness.

Last but most definitely not least, the Daily Mash's absolutely excellent take on the bloody Brand/Ross BBC fiasco, which anyone with half a brain cell doesn't really give a crap about. They express my own feelings on the matter better than I ever could (and this just durn well tickles me pink too, as a perhaps-inadvertent satire of the type of people who tend to watch things like Strictly Come Dancing religiously. Absolutely brilliant). That most excellent man of mine turned me on to le Mash, and I thank him for't.

ONE MORE LINK! A necessary piece of tasty, sexy disco to see you through till Monday morning. This song has so effectively seduced me that I can't listen to the rest of the (not bad at all) album.

Well, this blogger is heading off for a good seeing-to this weekend... Eeeee! Catch y'all later and have a great evening/weekend/week ahead/whatever!

How To...

Make an article of yours run and run without ever stopping? Take notes from el presidente of Pickled Politics, the one and only Sunny Hundal - put 'anti-Muslim' in the title, and I swear it's like a Pavlovian dog to the 'intelligentsia' that frequent the site. I use quotation marks because there are (inevitably) some nuts, and I am on it too... :-P

So yeah, for all you 'lovers, haters and anticipators' (own coinage! :-P), this is the 'How-To' post. It's not your usual 'How To,' so don't expect to see me dancing about with a monkey wrench (yes, I linked to it just in case you, like me, had utterly no idea what the hell it is. Terrifying looking thing, and to top it all off, it comes from a site called 'Manic Collector'. Brilliant). Nor will I be dancing about with any monkeys, though I may well dance at an unspecified future point of this evening.

Other things I will not be telling you how to do:
- Bake a stained-glass window biscuit (though I would LOVE to do that)
- How to fix your temperamental heating (set the neighbourhood poltergeist on it?)
- Be graceful and ladylike when farting (absolutely, scientifically bloody impossible. If you do not even let a giggle slip, you are qu. clearly an android. Pity my poor man :-P).

Now that I am done with eating my apple-that-tasted-like-mushrooms and a curiously pleasantly artificial-tasting bag of mini 'Snack-a-Jacks', I will proceed to the main 'How To' of this post.


How to... reconcile Julie Bindel and Laurie Penny?

Most of y'all (except for Rumbold) will probably be wondering 'what de haile' I am talking about (sorry, I couldn't resist... The DOs & DON'Ts crack me up).

I am referring to this:

http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/10/25/pantomime-dames

That's right. So important is this link that I refer to that I have actually abstained from insinuating it snugly within my text, and displayed it brazen and bold. I will understand if some of the comments bore you, but verily there are quite a few of those fascinatingly bitchy Internet-car-crash moments that make you wonder why the hell everyone is taking all dis shit so SERIUSS, man, iss juss da Internet, innit?

(Sorry, I've obviously been too long without going home / being woken up by 'rudebwoi' freshers and evidently I'm hankering. OMG, maybe I miss my brother!).

What is of interest (to me, anyway) here is how the author, the lovely Laurie, presents a distance between herself and Julie Bindel (it must be said that the version of the article posted on Laurie's own blog is much more complete and better articulates her viewpoint). Cath Elliott took her to task over her attacks on JB in the article, but as somebody who views themselves as a 'feminist', I'm going to be uber-patronising and try to join the dots between the two... hence the 'reconciliation.'

Firstly, in partially echoing CE, I would say: if you, Laurie, judge JB on comments she made over a year ago and has since apparently expressed regret for, are you not as bad as her (and her ilk), who attack transfolk because they see only biologically-determined sex and refuse the mutability of gender?

Secondly, assuming that JB should be accepting of transfolk is highly naive. Many gays and lesbians have fought to define themselves beyond the frequent and narrow societal dismissals of 'effeminate' or 'butch'. Hence the term 'queer' being 'reclaimed' from its 'hetero' context and being applied to (for just one example) 'Queer Studies', which seeks to revisit history from a LGBT perspective, providing a more nuanced view of history in the process I would say. Acceptance has much more to do with personal politics (i.e. your outlook on life, whether liberal, conservative or whatever) and security in oneself - both of which are entirely subjective. I think there may be a little 'liberal assumption' occurring on Laurie's part here. 'Gay' does not mean 'open-minded' or 'liberal', even though it often seems like it should.

JB, as a renowned militant-feminist-lesbian, has obviously defined herself (and thus carved out a career!) on very specific (some might say absolute) terms. Hence, the performative element that comes with transfolk - performance of a gender - is presumably problematic for her and her ilk. I suspect they see it as inauthenticity, as betrayal. Looking at her picture, I would point out some hypocrisy - is she, in refusing to wear obvious make-up and having short hair, not simply seeking to enact the same image rebellion? The only difference with her is that she happens to be 'shored up' by biological sex.

Laurie expresses near-identical sentiments to these with more eloquence towards the end of her own blog post (as I mentioned earlier). JB and co. need to remember that transfolk 'challenge' not just their own gender identity but that of heterosexuals too. I will refer here to Isis, the ANTM hopeful. Note the snarky comment about 'packing (Hint, Hint)a few more goods than the rest of this season’s competitors' and that too from a site that I initially thought was less bitchy than most!

Why this continual reduction of transfolk to an object of amusement or ridicule? Given what I learned in QS last year (:-D), it is because they are easier to handle that way. You can brush 'em off without thinking about it. Yet even within the most blatantly satirical depictions of femininity or masculinity by drag queens and kings, is a questioning of our gender norms. That's the point of all satire, after all, isn't it? If you react badly to it, then you're missing the point. You're stuck on the corner of the bigger picture.

Referring to what drag kings and queens do as 'satire,' by the way, is not meant to be in the least detrimental. Rather, I think, unwittingly or not, there's something ingenious about the whole thing. In a world which often feels like it's getting blacker-and-whiter by the day, transfolk and their reality are a much-needed burst of grey. I personally see them as mirrors - mirrors of the fact that life is not fixed and stable as we would like it to be, but fluid and perpetually in flux. Sex and gender are a part of life and are thus equally subject to change. 'Is nothing sacred any more?' Don't think so, and why should it bloody well be, anyway? :-D Surely that is a message that would unite Laurie and Julie!

The real Q here is: on what grounds did Stonewall choose Bindel for their Journalist of The Year award? And how was she selected? Perhaps there was a shortage of sufficiently trans-friendly journalists? I'd say that rather than attacking the nominee, it might be more fruitful to turn our attention upon those who nominated her...?


(Seriously) Recommended Reading:

http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2008/10/incitement_to_r
http://www.thefword.org.uk/reviews/2008/09/uglies
http://www.thefword.org.uk/reviews/2008/09/the_perfect_vag

(Warning: the last one is really rather graphic).


This week, yours truly has been listening to Helicopter Girl - How To Steal The World (but only tracks 1-4 and 10!), Alphabeat - Boyfriend (oh, the cringeworthy joy of simultaneously: oddly Christmas-bell infectious music matched with utterly teenage self-indulgent lyrics, and Swedes with perfect diction innocently singing lyrics such as 'Oh yeah, we run away from private eyes / To privacy' (I think you meant 'prying eyes,' love?) and Santogold. Her whole album is good, but the pulsating religiosity of Anne has had me absolutely bewitched. There appears to be a tension between the lyrics ('My name is Anne, I got a plan / I may lack virtue / But I'm penitent' and the chorus 'J,j,jesus Pieces / Rescue me / The more I try / The more it gets too complicated') and the oddness of the backing music.

I really recommend watching the Alphabeat video (because it's really cool - it features the notion of the illustrator as God! C'mon, that's always fun!) and I recommend Anne because I'm so fucking in love with it. However, read the lyrics first! Along with Unstoppable, it's become my 'coping anthem' of late. Oooh, just realised that the HG album title also contains a 'How To' - IT'S FATE! *runs screaming and glassy-eyed into the woods*

Cheers, thanks and goodnight :-D.


A little 'hidden' How -To for anyone who is even remotely culinarily-inclined (own coinage again! o_^b ). It is both easy and fun, since I am not the most patient, even though I love food :

Catalan Bread

Bread (crusty is better, but you can use regular bog-standard white or wholemeal as long as you toast it crisp first)
A ripe tomato, halved (just-ripe isn't as good, though it does work)
A clove of garlic, cut in half
Some olive oil


Take one of your half-cloves of garlic and rub the exposed end thoroughly over the bread (it should end up smelling of garlic and may look a bit shiny in the light).

Take half your tomato and rub its innards all over your bread.

Drizzle over olive oil, and if you are anything like me, spread it with a knife to ensure even coverage (perfectionist freak!)

Enjoy.


In Barcelona, this is the standard preparation for sandwiches - you do this and then put whatever else, probably because Barça is the Catalan heartland of Spain. Fancy that!

'Higher Education'

Uh... I just wrote this.

He was a fish out of water. Or so it seemed. Walking slightly haggardly along, clutching his green M&S plastic bag – the single, firm burst of colour against his greying hair, his grey-brown fake-leather coat and his grey-black trousers. Even his eyebrows lingered between black and white. He lifted the bag slightly, as if he would shoulder it, the sudden burst of movement threatening his balance and making him undulate – ever so slightly – like Jessica Rabbit. This thought made him laugh out loud suddenly as he sloped along, heading to his room in a hall of residence.

Hall of residence! Nobody called them that now, he had to check himself constantly and remember that in fact, he lived ‘on campus.’ Perhaps the specificity of ‘hall of residence’ was passé and no longer needed; perhaps it was almost like a waste of time, a slight against the intelligence of others to spell it out for them: h-a-l-l o-f r-e-s-i-d-e-n-c-e.

After all, time was what always mattered most, wasn’t it? Going against time. Saving time. ‘Giving’ yourself more time to do more things by doing more things in less time. His head reeled, and he hunched briefly against a bench. All these students, swarming upon this site, living whole lives here in the tiny microcosm of the course-assigned buildings and the Student Village – what did they want from time? Arriving late to lessons dressed as if they would then head to London Fashion Week... the slew of panicking final-years, complaining how the world of work encroached upon them suddenly, of the few months in which to decide the trajectory of their future lives... Then there were the many that seemed to have come for apparently social reasons, for the ‘fresher experience’ and perhaps also to learn some independence...

Were they saving time? Was this channelled progression towards a ‘higher pay scale’, towards the ‘job market’? In spending three – or four, or perhaps even more than that – years of their lives, were they ‘buying back time’? He had worked ever since he was 16 and had saved steadily, only deciding to ‘complete his education’ now, at the age of 39. Even a lot of the lecturers looked younger than him, and at times when he hovered awkwardly outside the doors of seminar rooms, watching fellow students who were 22, but could easily pass for 15 in some cases, he felt singularly wrong. Out of place. This isn’t the joint for you, Grandpa.

Yet he had made enough money to take this break. He was able to be here simply for the reason that he wanted to be and that he could afford to finance himself. What, then, of the others on his Comparative Literature course? Were they ‘saving time’? Nobody was particularly unfriendly, but the huge age difference was obviously something they were not completely able to surmount. Both he, and they, felt it. It also begged a question which seemed to dance repeatedly and infuriatingly in the back of his mind. Whose way is the right way?

They were younger, less ‘formed’ by life, perhaps of a greater mental acuity. Yet, it seemed to him that underlying it all was the knowledge that they were relevant no more. In itself, they could not (or could only rarely) apply the fruits of their labour to the world without translation. No, they would have to be translated into the language of the modern ‘job market’, of ‘transferable skills’ and of ‘selling oneself.’

What of himself, who had traversed all that and taken the inverse route? Perhaps he would be less able to immediately grasp the abstract notions and subtle inter-cultural references. Yet he had had time. It seemed to him that they were as berries, crushed fast and solid against the bottom of a bowl to make one of those smoothies that everybody drank nowadays. Innocent smoothies, weren’t they called? The name made him smile. There was nothing innocent about a lot of these young ‘uns. Even in their dress, they were always looking to make statements, to sell or express themselves... ‘Palestinian’ scarves bought from giant global companies and worn with tight T-shirts that were ‘sweatshop free’.

Yet the question bothered him insistently: were they really saving time? Or had he beaten them at that game? Who was right? He checked his watch and sighed: half an hour lost in simple, mind-twisting reflection. Should he be feeling bad for having let himself go so? He shrugged and peered through the hole in his plastic bag. He would go on with his degree and then maybe find a woman who he could ‘talk books’ with. This made him laugh for a full three minutes. His printing business was there, would always be there. And yet the more insidious question persisted in pecking angrily as if at the very softness of his cerebral membrane. Why was he here? Why were any of them here? What was the point of this ‘higher education’, really?

The wind suddenly mussed his hair, cold cool fingers provoking him to stiffen and yank up his jacket collar. He turned, defiant, looking towards the canal and the road. Something in him felt that he was victorious. Bouncing his shoulders against the sudden frigidity, he set off brisk, up the path to Basle House.

The Smallest Torrent of Bitterness...

I would like to think that I am not altogether unaware of the ways of the world. Having lived abroad, travelled somewhat (not extensively, but I have been to at least four other countries!) and had a not inconsiderable share of eye-opening experiences (both positive and negative), I must admit something now.

I have said this repeatedly - but I feel at an absolute loss at the moment. It is half-past one in the morning, and my Advanced Oral Competence class looms over me in the morning. I read through the homework sheet, feeling as always, a heavy sheet of dread settle and line the bottom of my stomach. Transcribe a clip on 'youth speak', it crowed. Go on the France 5 website and find news topics which:

a) interest you
b) are of a suitably elevated linguistic register
c) could be discussed in a parliamentary debate in Strasbourg...

Then: Looking to use an interesting context, write complete sentences using the 16 action words we used today and which were attached to the last homework. And finally, Edit your oral presentation which you had to give today in class.

I forgot to mention that we were supposed to look up every word of the aforementioned list of 'action words' and translate them, for last week. There were oh, I don't know, over 100 of them? This too while having to transcribe 3 clips on the writer Georges Simenon (which I think took me about an hour and a half at least) and writing this stupid oral presentation in order to sell ourselves to an employer using our Year Abroad experience, while using as many of the action words as we possibly could.

This is a course which is supposed to develop our oral competence in French. Why don't we do something useful and interesting, such as have regular debates on political issues? Why the FUCK am I being forced to transcribe a list of fucking ACTION WORDS which I will never use in real life and most of which are synonyms of each other, while having to read Women In Love by D.H. Lawrence, his essay on Democracy, plan a commentary on an article about 'Happiness in medication?' and write a 'dissertation' on whether or not justice exists?

I am a hard worker. The term constantly applied to me in secondary school was 'conscientious.' I know I can be plenty flaky, I am changeable and moody and sometimes I will set things in motion and then struggle to maintain them, but by God. Last year abroad has made it difficult for me. Ending a five-and-a-half-year relationship with a man I thought I was going to marry has made it hard for me. Having the torrent of imminent graduation and entry into the professional world has made it hard for me. The death of my cousin and the drama of starting a new relationship HAVE - MADE - IT - HARD - FOR ME.

I am trying. I am striving. Constant lack of sleep through trying to get it done only slows me down. Brief naps revive me for a short while, and then soon I am drooping again. I will throw my hands up and confess that I end up wasting time because:

- often, very little goes into my head when I am so tired, and
- in the haze of utter isolation that develops when I have been stuck in my room for so long, the allure of MSN, Facebook and Google Chat is oh-so-inevitable. I am hungry and desperate for human contact, being as I am without any TV or radio (and without the time to watch/listen), no books of my own and all my friends in the same position as me, working non-stop or glumly job-seeking, I will talk to anyone.


Of course, such a cocktail is only going to inculculate anger and frustration. The sheer, fucking futility of it all hurts me. The reason we are doing all this stuff for AOC is to better prepare us for the world of work, while in French III, the seminar leaders obsess over our translating huge bits of text with utterly obsolete language and teaching us to write an essay French-style. Apparently, our two-hour sessions are meant to prepare us for the exam. Real nice interactivity between courses you got going there, especially considering the prof in the former is also one of the main seminar leaders in the latter! Again: the sheer, fucking futility.

If they want to help us get on in the world of work, why don't they give us more business and economics-oriented translations? How about teaching us some idioms, so that we can become more suitably 'native' in the language? A structured revision of grammar would be nice too, instead of this vague laxity that occurs with correcting translations in class. For fuck's sake, a translation is subjective at the end of the day. It's a set of choices. With literary translations especially, there's going to be myriad interpretations that fit. I'm not too sure how that is meant to help us - when we're 'out in the real world', we'll more often than not be forced to translate on the spot, and that involves going for what's simplest. What use will knowing how to say 'She hosed it up and down with her eyes' be then?! And why are we being driven to insane amounts of stress 'preparing for the exam' when:

a) the exam will be stressful enough
b) normal standards will be considerably relaxed, thus making it much easier for us to do well, and effectively making all this bollocks pointless?

Also, I think we know how to write essays by now, bitches!


French is not useless at all, but the near-desperate way that things like 'action words' and that stupid YA presentation (there was a meeting before that too!) are being shoehorned in feels like a tacit admission from the SLLF: 'Yes, what we are teaching you is bollocks. Here's some box-ticking, quota-filling claptrap so that you too can go and work for a call-centre... in French, of course.' The fact remains that unless you have a directly saleable skill that happens to be always in demand - like being an accountant or doctor - you're going to struggle somewhat, especially at a belt-tightening time like this. In all these initiatives, I see very little point; ultimately the things most desired of us - leadership, commercial awareness and risk-taking - can only really be demonstrably gained outside of your degree. I mean sure, if you're one of those super-people who is head of everything, or you have a management role at work or something, you can show evidence of that sooner than others. However, I don't think everyone is that precocious (I sure as hell hope not...!).

Meanwhile, in English, my Modernism & Democracy course continues to introduce me to books full of Big Ideas, books so invariably long and provocative that they bring me to a mental breakdown almost every week. I am not stupid and I am not a particularly slow reader, but I have spent the last two weeks (or so it feels) reading Women In Love. It took 4 days of non-stop reading to finish Howards End before that, with the result that I was weak-brained and could barely remember where certain key passages were afterwards. I never even got round to finishing Nietzsche's On The Genealogy of Morals, and I'm probably going to end up writing on him, so that means yet more steaming shit piled upon me for Reading Week. Oh, joy.

Back to French. I do actually love the Proust module, being taught as it is by the most gently-eccentric, mildly sardonic Irishman there is in Professor Hughes, who often pauses - as if for effect - just a little too long, while the class watch him uneasily. (I don't know how old he is, but I bet he doesn't look it). Then, blue eyes shining with a downright childlike joy, he will articulate the remainder of his half-completed thought, bringing the sudden tension out of the class in a chuckle.

Proust himself isn't bad either, although if I had to read all the volumes of A la recherche du temps perdu, he would be added to the 'shake-n-slap' list, methinks. In my fatalist manner, I am always seeking connections between texts (that's what makes me such a good English student!) and my strangely powerful recollection of literary texts means I can often trace the unembroidered lines in the great tapestry that is Literature to me, seeing the intertextuality that isn't always overtly stated. Proust is the major influence on many early 20th-C writers... yep, that means most of 'em on my Modernism & Democracy course - and I realised today that much of what Lawrence is doing in Women In Love and later works is rebelling quite furiously against this influence. Sorry, I know not everyone else finds the previously-unseen links between formerly completely different ideas and authors interesting like I do. :-D

I love to think on things. It is ironic, since I have just complained about how my degree is apparently unsuitable for the 'world of work', but this year, it is readying us for the world of work in the bleakest possible way. It is teaching us how to slave, slave without having the time to actually stop and reflect properly on what exactly it is we are accomplishing. I asked the most diligent student I know, a fella by the name of Tom N-, how he was finding his workload. 'Mad,' he replied succinctly, his big brown eyes earnest and slightly innocent. 'I'm doing so much work, but I find I don't actually have the time to think about what I'm doing!'

'Do you feel like you're just churning things out?' I asked, feeling horribly like a 'detached observer' (especially since my work turned me into a hermit with faltering social skills).
'Yes,' he nodded definitively and graciously, like one conclusively approving a military inspection of his own conciseness. Satisfied, I turned away, staring awkwardly into space. Yet D.H. Lawrence's terrifying 'visionaryness' in Women In Love has rattled me. All the talk of selling oneself, of the 'job market', of deciding one's future now - even as we wrestle with our work, like crocodiles struggling with ostriches, unwieldy and ferocious - all of it has made me realise a few things.

I am not cut out for the 'job market'. I can work in a team of people, and I have the barest administrative skills. I am not a thief or particularly aggressive. Hell, I can be decisive and pragmatic, even! What I hate is the naked submission of it all. For every job I apply to, no matter how lowly the post, I will have to abase myself, simulating being a person who is sunny and personable and non-existent. I will focus tightly on saying the right thing, projecting the right image and essentially pretending to be of a kind with my brother. Inside, I will feel myself twisting with impotent rage and resentment. Why do I have to lick this person's arse repeatedly just to prove (not even that I am worthy, since that is often decided in advance), but that I am likable? How has it got to the stage that employers are more impressed by your use of buzzwords than by your plain, no-nonsense English?

Why must I break myself up over the most arbitrary of decisions that more often than not, will hang upon a tiny, unpredictable caprice? People can take whatever reason they fancy to reject you, and unless you ask specifically for feedback, you will never be certain why. Yet even that in itself irks me - why should you ask for feedback, as if you are somehow wrong as a human being? And why is ambition always taken as some sort of evidence of vitality, why is the ruthless desire for power something to emulate? Having direction is one thing. Having ambition is quite another. I think people can do as they wish, but why the hell do we all have to come up to their level, just because they scare us and they're pushy?

I know I have far too much pride and arrogance, to be challenging something so monolithic and long-established. I know too that not all situations are like this. It's more retail positions and part-time work that's like that - but please, can we get a grip on ourselves already? It appears that work has become so fundamental to our very existence - we are such 'self-alienated' figures now - that any kind of work is preferable to not working. So even doing something that leaves you numb with monotony, that kills any spiritual, philosophical or creative tendencies you have with its sheer, exhausting repetitiveness, is preferable to doing nothing.

Yet 'doing nothing' leaves you some time to actually live. This is what I want, and this is why I'm thinking of taking a year to do some rubbish job and allow myself to write and reflect a bit, instead of diving straight into the stream of Professional Ambition. I do not have any major professional ambition! I do not want to boss anyone else around, show off my achievements or accept the false god of labour-routine.

Lawrence brilliantly diagnoses our current present in Women In Love, in the chapter 'The Industrial Magnate'. He presents the character Gerald as a kind of uber-capitalist before we even had people like Tim Parker, people known for ruthlessly reforming companies and systems to cut costs and make themselves rich. The whole chapter is a frankly disturbing premonition of Thatcherism and the whole destructive 'greed-is-good' philosophy of the '80s that we are still suffering from, but all seen about 60 years in advance (I have linked to the specific chapter in Google Books for anyone who's even remotely interested...).

You can infer that Lawrence feels, in a way, that work is coming to occupy the role of religion. And I think this has become all too true. People always love religion for the organised little rituals that it provides them with, to frame their life and their time with a sense of 'higher purpose' and rightness. Now, though, if you don't automatically love the (very similar) structure that comes with having a full-time job (or jobs!), you're wrong. And the punishment has shifted from going to hell to dying of hunger. Really, though, we work really long hours and at the end of it, what is the point? We tell ourselves it is just to survive, just to get by, but there must be a cheaper way to survive without being in that position.

Working all the time is deadening. You take yourself and everything around you for granted. Thus families and marriages disintegrate, and we get talk of 'broken societies' and the like. I think that a certain amount of work is good, no doubt. Yet, I do not understand why there is so much pressure on me to get into work straight away after I graduate, to start going to fairs now, to apply for work experience placements a year in advance... No! I don't need that. I admit, that as a fairly middle-class child, it is easier for me than it is for others - and what? I am going to take the time out to work out what exactly my strengths are, to reconcile myself with my 'poor' future (c'mon, you knew it as well as I did - somebody like me's never going to be commanding a lot!) and trying to balance want and need. All I need is the time and freedom to be able to think and write.

It must be said though, that much to my horror, I am afraid I may end up being a lecturer in English (although French is an option I am forced to consider also). I don't know what it is that has made me reconsider this. Maybe it's the fact that I am such a painfully academic personality, patently made for the ivory tower. Maybe it's the growing realisation that I'm actually far more in tune with my lecturers than my fellow students (and have been even since my first year...). I don't know. If any of ye faithful remains among my readers - if you have made it this far - can you tell me what you think, please? You probably just think I am a child who doesn't want to enter the adult world, and you wouldn't be wrong there.

It doesn't help that I find myself shaking off the old, dusty moth-eaten blanket of love that surrounds my ex in my memory, while being almost fatally drawn to the adult who is currently deigning to 'take me out' :-D. The development of feelings between myself and him was quite steadily surreal as it was, without the ex-messiness turning my life into a Truffaut film. My sweetheart is like a vision sprung from the pages of a romance novel, but with a very healthy sense of humour and a kindness that frequently almost either moves me to tears, or makes me fulminate and gape like some chicken/goldfish hybrid. He keeps threatening to move into my head permanently (I see him twice a week), and I constantly find myself spread-eagled, frightened, within the drawer that reads 'Head over heels'. What should I do? See him less? See him more? How can I resolve this feeling that doesn't want to be resolved, so that I may train myself more freely on work?

A little note to anyone I haven't yet replied to, i.e. Fabien and Andy: I am v. sorry but as you can see, I have been losing my mind. So please, bear with me. As of about 2 a.m., your dear authoress decided to strike a blow for truancy and is, rather unwillingly, it must be said, skipping Advanced Oral Competence tomorrow in the hopes of getting ahead with work and getting a full night's sleep.Wish me luck...

Neither new nor particularly revolutionary

I’M BACK, MY PRETTIES, I’M BACK! I am probably getting if anything less sleep at the moment than previously, but the shadow of healthful fitness lingers over the horizon (trans.: I joined the gym) and I’m starting to get a handle on my work a little. Plus, I think it’s about time I came to terms with Facts and accepted that even if I got some sort of work in the Real World, I’m just not capable of keeping it up without trying to off myself. I need stimulation, and I need to be able to write. So... I shall have to face down my parents and tell them that the prospect of doing a Master’s seems more than likely. Hopefully, my soon-to-be-happening interview with the Careers Office will fill me with shining career guidance goodness (if they don’t get back to me tomorrow morn, I’ll just drop in myself).

While fighting nodding-off in the course of French III Séance Courte, my teacher said something about Chateaubriand and communication. We were attempting to create a ‘plan of development’ for certain ideas that our homework presented us with. What ol’ Chatty actually said was: « Est-il bon que les communications entre les hommes soient devenues aussi faciles ? Les nations ne conserveraient-elles pas mieux leur caractère en s’ignorant les unes les autres, en gardant une fidélité religieuse aux habitudes et aux traditions de leurs pères ? » (Chateaubriand, Préface au Voyage en Amérique(1827)).

To translate: ‘Is it a good thing that communication between men has become so easy? Would nations not better conserve their particular characters, in ignoring each other, in maintaining a religious faithfulness to the habits and traditions of their fathers?’(Yes, yes, I know, it still sounds a bit fancy, but whaddaya expect? It’s 19th-century French political theory!).

Laetitia, our lovely seminar leader, opened up a whole new possibility of thought in revealing to us that ‘religion’ comes from the Latin religare, which is (to translate from the French, relier, faire le lien), to ‘make a link.’ Hence, Chateaubriand’s comment suddenly seems to become paradoxical, she said. How can you say that communications should be reduced, while promoting a ‘religious’ attitude? A cheeky Christian called Skye sitting opposite refuted that in well-murmured tones that my afternoon-fuddled mind failed to grasp completely. Something about religion and culture and them not necessarily being linked always, I believe. This (eventually) made Laetitia quite pleased and she wrote: ‘The paradox is only superficial. No exclusivity: communication is not necessarily the conservation of an ‘own identity.’ Ex. The richness of multiculturalism.’

Bingo! It hit me – like a Biblical thunderbolt – that we are all, inherently, multicultural. I am playing here with semantic suppleness, and I’m sure somebody will tell me that I am wrong according to the current, politicised understanding of ‘multiculturalism.’ People simplify these things, but look at the history of the world, HELLO! It’s much like people who talk about ‘racial purity.’ My BS-detector begins to keen urgently.The history of the world is one littered with rapes, invasions, immigration, emigration and travel. You CANNOT – many people have tried and failed – pin down the exact ‘point of origin’ of everyone out there. Anglo-Saxon people come from two different peoples! In India, there is the theory (not scientifically substantiated – check this out for a pretty interesting debunk) of the modern population being largely descended from the Aryans and the Dravidians – but the lovely man that I am seeing, WHO IS A HISTORIAN (ergo, he deals in facts unlike my brother-in-law, who once tried to interpret LoTR as being exclusively about India and Indians) – told me that apparently these two tribes were nomadic. What’s that, you cry? Nomadic? As in, ‘they moved about a lot’? As in, that means it’s pretty bloody hard to assert, with scientific evidence, exactly where the originated from?

Hopefully you get the gist of what I’m saying by now. It’s ironic really, since as any fule kno (that's for you, Rumbold :-D), ‘multiculturalism: the failure of’ is more often than not a hypocritical hijacking of reality by (usually white... but not always) right-wingers who want to use it to comfort themselves over the fact that they have difficulty understanding people who don’t think or look like them.

(I know this is supremely graceless and untimely, as are most of my political reflections, but... eh. I dance to my own beat :-D). Let’s make this relevant to ‘right now’ by saying: it’s little victories like this - over things as apparently small but utterly fundamental to effective communication that spans difference – conceded to loons, that don’t help the cause of the left any. I could REALLY time-lock this now, by talking about 42 days, which appears to be dying at last (hopefully), and which the supposedly left-wing Prime Minister pretty much forced through in attempting a show of power. Ironic really, since it was little more than pandering to our daily papers, if you ask me, and who are the imagined readership of most of those?

...Yes, that’s right, you’ve got it. LOONS. The Daily Mail – LOONS. The Sun – LOONS. The Mirror and the Express – LOONS (need I go any further?). People have a right to read these papers, and sometimes they may even be reasonable – as they say, ‘even a stopped clock is right twice a day.’ However, in the main, their truth-embroidered narratives – spun of fiction! – are not much more than self-serving bile. But hey. People are stupid and most people probably don’t tend to deconstruct in quite the same fashion as yours truly (the image that comes to mind is of a particularly enraged bulldozer). As a lover of language, I make my own esoteric contributions to the political stage, and hope that it entertains if nowt else!

The subliminal message here is: interracial couples should make you jump for joy, because they are totally hot. And most utterly hot people are... that’s right, of interracial ‘stock’? (Why does that make me think of a giant Oxo cube with Jessica Alba’s face on one side and Angelina Jolie’s on the other? Freak). I should know, because I am*ahem* seeing somebody of ANOTHER RACE, gasp, splutter etc.

In other news, I really want to make friends with some of the the people who repeatedly bob up in my French classes – who I have never seen before, sheltered as I was for two years in the top group and then shipped off to France comme un colis rempli de madeleines (a packet full of madeleines – blame Proust for giving me French cake-based desires). This is hampered by the fact that:

a) I am often too stressed/hungry/lazy/knackered to bother speaking (delete and equate as appropriate). When I am tired, I also have the most unfortunate tendency to lose control of my face, which doesn’t help the cause of socialising. When you are trying to make eye contact with somebody as they gibber gently into the distance like a nursing-home grandma, then suddenly blurt out a stream of throaty French as if they have been saving it for just this very instant... well. Fear would not be inappropriate, would it now? At this particular moment, I have developed ANOTHER fucking coldsore as well, so les pauvres get to be treated to my throbbing, red, second and third heads too (it’s more of a ‘they’ than an ‘it’, I’m afraid to say...)

b) They are all really weird looking.

This is INCREDIBLY rich coming from me – especially after what I just revealed. Maybe it is the return of my incredibly cruel and childish creative mind – but Jeez. Let’s start with one called Emily. She is tall and thin and just really reminds me of a horse in a way. She has large eyes (nice eyes – blue), the sort of mouth that probably once required braces and (I realised today) a frighteningly small chin, which kind of melts into the rest of her bony visage as if receding. Maybe it is a little? She wears a leather jacket which kind of matches her hair and makes me think ‘chestnut mare’...

Then there is Maya. She is an Asian girl (as the name suggests), with a warm kind of slightly reddish complexion – think Parminder Nagra in terms of colour and the sort of sleek, short hair she has too – but facially, she has huge eyes and a little mouth which always bears the hint of a pout, but only very slightly. No, I know what you’re thinking and this is no lemon-sucking pout – this is that slight twist of the mouth that says ‘I’m not altogether confident about this. What’s goin’ on ‘ere, like?’ Though she doesn’t sound anything like that.

Next comes Salma. Salma strikes me as... large. Not fat (not at all!), just taller and with bigger proportions than me. Her face is one you would describe as ‘sensual’ – I suppose... heavy-lidded eyes (which give the impression of a scowl, paired with the mouth), a full mouth with the slightest hint of disapproval, slightly slanted eyes... everything in its place. Glossy hair, fringe, shoulder-length, usually half-pulled back (front strands pinned at the back of the head, or a little ponytail on the side). She seems to turn that pout at me a lot, which really unnerves me (am I being judged?!).

Finally, we have Skye and Vanitha. Skye – the cheeky Christian – is less expressive than the others. She looks like a total tomboy – I couldn’t stop myself from writing down the logo on the breast of her sweatshirt, which read ‘British Car Auctions’ and beneath ‘Maureen Connolly Trophy, Bournemouth 1999.’ She is often as semi-conscious as me, and always has the hint of a grin and a surprisingly good French accent and expressiveness whenever called upon. I believe the term is ‘firecracker’? Vanitha is apparently French and has lived in London for 6 years. She is, however, of Indian extraction (the name!). She dresses a lot like Emily and Salma – that is in faux-leather jackets with jeans and boots or similar. Hardly fascinating. She has a low, unsure murmur of a voice and she trains what feels like the full force of her eyeballs on me surreptitiously quite a lot. She seems to wear a lot of eye-make up and her hair (which is ear-length) tends to kind of go a bit poker-ish and pointy at the ends which give her a slightly mad air. Add this to her audible nerves or fatigue (I think it’s got to be one or both of those,) and you have an interesting picture.

Funnily enough, there is a common link between all these people (excepting Maya and Skye)... they are the ab initios! They took French ‘from scratch’! Does this mean that someday, I will seem like some sort of subterranean weirdo if I decide to make the leap into learning Spanish, or somesuch? I know it sounds like I think they’re ‘out to get me,’ but just you come to our Séance Courte and see Emily staring, slack-jawed off into the distance, apparently at you; or Salma’s hollow-eyed accusatory stare, Maya’s ‘nervous mouse’ face... You’ll understand.

Looking Back In Anger

Right. I have had enough of trying to resist the urge to blog because my work is more important. Technically, I have done everything (or close enough) for tomorrow. No, I haven't finished Nietzsche, but I can take the bastard apart for the sake of Modernism & Democracy if I have to... AND I can link him to Whitman! How'd you like THAT, bitch?!

(Apologies to readers of a more delicate disposition, but Nietzsche and I have been involved in a power-struggle through the course of the First Essay of his On The Genealogy of Morals. Yesterday got so bad that I actually had to just put the book down and step away from it for hours to stop my poor brain bleeding. This then resulted in a dear friend and I making a list of, as I put it, 'the shake-'n'-slap writers.' These are writers who, after you've wrestled sufficiently with them, give you the hearty desire to meet them so that you can shake their hand and then bitch-slap them, all the while perhaps crying about how they've simultaneously changed/ruined your life (we got Shakespeare, Graham Greene, Nietzsche and Freud before it was time for bed...).

Anyway, this same friend commented on a story that the F-word brought to my attention. I strongly recommend going to read it, as you won't really be able to appreciate any of what follows otherwise. I posted this on Facebook, commenting:

Fucking ridiculous that as always, one person can wield this much power despite 98 others being satisfied. What fucking bollocks. I'm not going to go around singing the praises of that time of the month, but honestly.

and then my friend replied saying:

Dude. I totally agree with the decision to withdraw the tampon thing. I mean it's one thing to say on stage 'Ew a blood soaked tampon' but another thing to pull one out. Even a fake. It's like you wouldn't want to see someone pretending to do a shit on stage. I'm all for artistic whatever but i don't agree with people being disgusting for the sake of controversial art. And you know that this comes from a real and natural place as I'm the type of person to say 'I'm on ladies, and only telling you on the off chance I faint or something'.

I love my friend and what she has to say is totally fair - yet I must say, I'm sorry but I think that's bollocks. It would help if I could see the offending scene on YouTube or whatever, but I'm assuming it was a brief scene with the tampon, and not some lingering appraisal.

I wouldn't want to see someone doing a shit on stage, no, but if it were to happen once and be part of the story - much as was the case here, because it was a play about daughters, and girls growing up - deal the fuck with it. I'm really not a fan of the excessive-secrecy approach. Especially over a thing like this - we girls have enough to worry about as it is without having to feel like disgusting freaks if some evidence of this biological difference emerges between us and men. My mother was always hyper-uptight about any evidence WHATSOEVER - even washed knickers which had been put out to dry - being happened upon my brother and dad, which only made me angrier about the state of affairs.

I mean, what the fuck? Sex used to be a lot more taboo than it is now (some aspects of it still are in all fairness), and then it came into the public eye more and guess what? We're all still here. The world hasn't ended! It's surprising to me, as always, that I should be the one defending things like this as I used to think I was quite influenced by the somewhat traditional and 'follower' style of thinking of my family. Maybe not, eh?

I tried to think of an equivalent part of the male development experience, and I drew a blank... until I thought of voices breaking (not really as big a deal), spontaneous erections (since they entered the coming-of-age and comedy genres, not quite as offensive as periods) and finally I hit 'bingo'... with masturbation.

We all know boys do it, and even those of us that it is a big shock for (like me, I honestly had no idea that they did until I was 19...) generally accept that y'know, that's how it is. That isn't to say that it's acceptable - masturbation is still an object of huge shame and guilt, especially on the religious front. There is so much to say here (the problems arising from porn and the images of sex it presents to boys and girls, for one?) but again: GET OVER IT. Especially you, America. As porn providers par excellence to the world, you REALLY don't have a leg to stand on. Although I suppose that as a country whose identity was founded upon ideas like 'Manifest Destiny', you were always going to be fucked from the start (pun entirely unintentional). And finally, just to get all feminist-in-your-face and point out how female sexuality and sexual development in particular are once again being vilified, let's think about the attitudes towards female masturbation (and then not go there just yet, because I still have lots to say).

To summarise: girls and women have periods. We go through hormonal changes, it is disgusting and unpleasant. It's also a fundamental part of female sexual/physical development. So, get over it world, and we'll try not to wave our dirty laundry at you too much in return (pun intentional this time.)

So... that is over, and now I must take to task a dickwad by the screen-name of 'Ashik'. Mon copain Rumbold recently posted a short article on Pickled Politics, publicising a new 'honour'-based violence helpline. Some interesting facts were gleaned through the setting-up of this project - like the fact that 71% of the mostly-female callers considered immediate family more of a threat than their actual husbands. 'Ashik' - who provoked the wrath of myself and a fair few others when he posted personal information about Sonia, a deservedly-beloved regular, on another thread - had this to say:

1. Ashik — on 29th September, 2008 at 9:43 pm

   I’m not sure what role groups like Karma Nirvana and individuals like Sanghera can play in stopping honour-based violence amongst ethnic minorities in the UK. Although they can certainly provide advice to individual victims.

   Sanghera and her like tend to be viewed with suspicion by these minority communities because they tend to be supported by the authorities and the fact is they tend to sensationalise sensitive issues like arranged marriages (not to be confused with forced marriages) and have often too accommodating a view on inter-racial and religious relationships. If one keeps on running to the (often rightwing) media and mouthing off and entire communities are associated only with oppressing women, forced marriages and family violence then this colours these communities ability to tackle these problems. That’s not say that minority communities shouldn’t admit and talk about the problem, as Halima has indicated domestic violence amongst the wider community is in many ways akin to honour-crimes. This shouldn’t be about attacking a section of the community but sincere attempts at dialogue need to be made. This means liaising with mosques, churches, Gurdwaras and other community centres which reach into target communities rather than alien implants like Karma Nirvana, even if they are staffed by Asians.

   While a 17 year-old girl (whether Asian or not) should not be forced to marry, equally given her tender age she shouldn’t be encouraged to form a relationship and elope. Especially if the partner is considered unsuitable. She will have need for extended family support. How often does a relationship formed at 17 last?

WHAT PURE, UNADULTERATED BOLLOCKS. What the hell is he on about? If he knew anything at all about Karma Nirvana or Jasvinder Sanghera (he could at least read her book, Shame, which lays out what she aims for with KN), he would know that one of their aims is not just helping women in 'honour' situations, but also in helping them - and elderly women - of South Asian descent who cannot speak English, to get by. If that isn't 'liasing with communities' even in the least, then I don't know what is.

'... the fact is they tend to sensationalise sensitive issues like arranged marriages (not to be confused with forced marriages)'

Sorry Ass-kick, but unfortunately in a lot of cases, the line is pretty blurred between those two categories (as it was in JS's own case!) and so people rightly condemn both, which obviously doesn't go down well in your little two-tone world.

'While a 17 year-old girl (whether Asian or not) should not be forced to marry, equally given her tender age she shouldn’t be encouraged to form a relationship and elope. Especially if the partner is considered unsuitable. She will have need for extended family support. How often does a relationship formed at 17 last?'

This actually cracked me up, as it reveals a lot of poor ol' Ass-kick's mindset. 'If we don't marry our daughters off early and police their relationships, they might fall in love at 17 and elope! What will we do then?'

Er... and then again, they might not? (And what is his obsession with the age 17 anyway?!) I really hope, judging by all of that, that Ass-kick never has daughters. In fact, I think any children of his deserve all the pity they can get for having such a close-minded father *shudders*.

It really irks me when men get all defensive about something that is actually not really that much about them (as I and the likes of Sonia and Desi Italiana have said before, it's much more likely to be the older women who police the younger ones' relationships), and then turn it into a 'community issue,' subsequently colouring any critique in terms of a betrayal of that community. Look, you fuckers, if these women have suffered, they are going to speak out and so they bloody well should. Doing so does not make their efforts to change things 'an alien implant'.

It is things like this that force communities to change - I mean hello, since when were large groups of people ever progressive and contemplative about their actions?! The 'herd-instinct' has those connotations for a reason. Essentially saying 'the communities should be allowed to deal with it themselves':

'If one keeps on running to the (often rightwing) media and mouthing off and entire communities are associated only with oppressing women, forced marriages and family violence then this colours these communities ability to tackle these problems.'

(apologist, apologist, communitarian apologist!)

is BS, and here's why.

I'm off now, because I don't want to altogether lose the high I have from dating the most WONDERFUL person (who isn't Indian - watch out Ass-kick, I might be an 'alien implant' too!) to stress and Mr. Ass-kick Dickwad. As Nellie McKay would say, 'sari' for my language... ;-)


P.S.: I see that Ass-kick has already been taken to task by Don and my awesome new blogging pal, Andy Gilmour. Go go Gilmour! *waves a Scottish flag* Haha.


AND JUST TO REITERATE, THE HELPLINE NUMBER FOR 'HONOUR'-BASED VIOLENCE VICTIMS IS: 0800 5999 247

Remember, there's only so much 'the authorities' can do - people need to put their cojones to some use and blow the whistle to stop cases like that of Banaz Mahmod from re-occurring.

The Future (Proper)

Aka another poem. I feel like a 14-year-old 21-year-old. Haha. Sorry readers, I promise I will get back on track once I get work under control to the point where I can actually manage to write a decent post.

The Future (Proper)
If only I was techno-Tarzan;
surfing wireless routers
to get to you,

Broad bands of distance
offer us see-through
fronting, to kiss

Without touching; no 'fronting'
at least in our
removed and efficient connection –

It spits and crackles,
loud and literal, the
irritating, inescapable future –

But we'll make
our own literature
over strings of sexy

Texts and emails;
Future Sex and Love-
Sounds that we

Build and participate in
in our heads together.
For in these virtually

Real times, you are
the carrot on
the stick, the kiss,

The whisper, the heated
Solidity I need –
The future proper.

A Day of Frustration

I have had a really frustrating day today. It came about as a result of a good deed done for my friend yesterday - she took almost two hours to get home, being as she was outside of London and thus not able to make use of late-night Tube trains or 24-hour buses. I am on her network and I have unlimited calls, so I kept her company as she went home, attempting to turn away her anxieties with my dislocated ramblings. I was fatigued through inability to sleep for various reasons (stress being chief among them), and her sudden need of me meant that I am now feeling the double whammy of two nights' lost sleep.

Now I don't know what it is about me - maybe my general tendency to be a bit odd and sensitive as a writer - but certain changes of state rob me of my personhood and leave me bristling on the verge of 'animal.' Extreme hunger is one, and extreme lack of sleep is another.

I have fussed and fought with the expectations weighing down upon me as a final year student, living away from home, trying to reconcile my experiences of being in another country and leading a very different life last year with what I want from this year.

The prognosis is bleak. Things don't go how you wish they would. You move out and dream of plucking up the courage to talk to anyone and everyone, of being your own boss and controlling when you eat (at last!). The lengthy commute vanishes altogether. You can now head back to YOUR ROOM and make yourself lunch instead of buying overpriced sandwiches to nibble on, hoping they will suffice for the four hours ahead before you can even hope to grab something else.

You talk to the other early arriver at the final-year English meeting and he eyes you like a frightened mole, barely mustering the response 'I'm doing English and History.' You introduce yourself in the most friendly and personable way possible to others. They are polite and friendly, but unmistakably stand-offish: they don't need you. Nobody is going to take the time to be your friend. And why should they? What was your plan originally? You thought you could fall back on the people from 'your year,' right?

Wrong. One friend appears to have her woolly hat soldered to her head and a permanent whiff of hysteria about her. Another sports a dazed look despite her being much more organised than you are. Other people are laughing and relaxed, chatting with their Spanish-classmates or fellow students from last year, or people they have struck something up with from the start.

You think to draw strength from your work. It has always been a source of joy, a feeling of plugging yourself into a current that is both so natural and so magically electric that everything that crosses your mind can be explained away. Yet everyone is a competitor this year. They eye your mental outpourings hungrily, ears straining for the next remark that they can snatch up, and like a key, use to prise open the groaning difficulties of Modernism and Democracy.

You are no longer safe in your work, even. Every student is out for blood, and in the torrent of unspoken fear, insecurity, stress and wide-eyed disbelief ('what am I doing up so early? why am I here? can it really be that this year is worth quadruple?'), you feel that you might just fall. You might lose hope and lock yourself away, become addicted to the Internet, lose the ability to recognise what makes you angry and simply float in a limbo of de-motivation. Nostalgia is painful and dangerous and deceptive.

You see the whirlwind of hurried, stressed madness and lonely freedom that is the final year, that is London. It feels familiar to you, after a year elsewhere. And yet it makes no more sense than before. You feel cheated of something you were looking for, that you realise you have been seeking your whole life and found neither where you grew up, nor where you were forced to move.

It is a hard-won emptiness. The beginning of the end of childhood - and just when you realised that you were, in fact, a child. The sinister encroachments of adulthood look now like the reflection of gold on water - a flimsy and insubstantial promise that only your imagination will ever be able to keep to you.

Another Bleedin' Song

This really kind of sums up just how AAAAARGH I feel right now.

Lyrics:
Brooklyn we go hard
We on the look for the advantage, we work hard
And if we seem to rough it up a bit
We broke but we rich at heart
Pull ourselves up now we won't choke
It's our time, put the lights on us

War tactics they make me sick
reel your heart in run away with it
Smile in your face, undermine your back
got guns for the strength they lack
So if you know another way
you can't look the other way
if you know another way,
tell them so right to their face

We think you're a joke
Shove your hope where it don't shine (4x)

I pay for what's called
eccentricity and my will to evolve
I hear them all say
that I got heart
but not everything that it takes

Taint my mind but not my soul
Tell you I got fire
I won't sell it for no payroll
Let 'em hold me down
I know if I know another way
I can't look the other way
I know another way
I'll tell them so right to their face

We think you're a joke
Shove your hope where it don't shine (4x)

Tweet - Oops (Oh, My)

[Verse 1]
Tell you what I did last night
I came home, say, around a quarter to three
Still so high,
Hypnotized,
In a trance
From this body, so buttery brown and tantalizing
You woulda thought I needed help from this feeling that I felt
So shook I had to catch my breath

[Hook]
Oops, there goes my shirt up over my head
(Oh my)
Oops, there goes my skirt droppin' to my feet
(Oh my)
Ooh, some kinda touch caressing my legs
(Oh my)
Ooh, I'm turning red, who could this be?

I tried and I tried to avoid
but this thing was happening
Swallow my pride
Let it ride and partied
But this body felt just like mines
I got worried
I looked over to the left
A reflection of myself
That's why I couldn't catch my breath

[Hook]
Oops, there goes my shirt up over my head
(Oh my)
Oops, there goes my skirt droppin' to my feet
(Oh my)
Ooh, some kinda touch caressing my legs
(Oh my)
Ooh, I'm turning red, who could this be?

[Bridge: [Tweet & Missy]
(I looked over to the left)
Mmm I was looking so good I couldn't reject myself
(I looked over to the left)
Mmm I was feeling so good I had to touch myself
(I looked over to the left)
Mmm I was eyein’ my thighs butter pecan brown
(I looked over to the left)
Mmm comin’ outta my shirt and then my skirt came down

[Hook]
Oops, there goes my shirt up over my head
(Oh my)
Oops, there goes my skirt droppin' to my feet
(Oh my)
Ooh, some kinda touch caressing my legs
(Oh my)
Ooh, I'm turning red
Who could this be?

*nabbed from here.

The video, of course. Much better than any rap-porn you get these days, and infused with a cheekiness that music always needs.

A lethal cocktail of baked-beans induced fart-o-rama, fatigue, horniness and sheer window-diving fear over commencing my final year - aka The Rest of Your Life - tomorrow, has me floored.

At some point (once Nietzsche and I learn to be real friends, and I find common ground with Proust), I might be able to muster another half-decent blog post...

A Treatise on Women's Mags; or Is This Feminist?

I'm going to make a proposition here that I think is not particularly daring... or necessarily all that political. I feel that it's just something that has to be said.

I've already ripped the shit out of marriage in a previous post. See, I really do get why people love marriage. It's because they love tradition and their dear little brains just look at the cover of the book and go 'My, but that looks wonderful.' Of course it looks wonderful! You can't predict the future now, can you? I'm not prone to believing any of us yuman beans can, in all honesty.

So WHY WOULD YOU TRY? Why would you slap a giant condition like a marriage-contract (for what else could you call it) onto something that's dying on its feet as a 'relationship' already? The idiom 'hammering the final nail into the coffin' seems very apt here.

Marriages when both people are really sure of what is involved - i.e. if they've lived together for a while, or if they occur later in life when people have had more life experience - are most certainly a wonderful event for those who attend them, and an inspiration (with a decidedly religious glow, ahem) to the rest of us.

Yet how common are those kinds of marriages, really? Especially within the British Asian community (and in India...) where both partners come to the table deeply hampered by inequality. As I have said before with various other things, this isn't just an Asian/Indian thing, it happens everywhere.

And this is what I want to move on to attacking today: the deeply traditional idea that you HAVE to be in a relationship to be happy and/or complete as a person. The reason I ask if I'm being feminist is because this is something women are fed CONSTANTLY. I was discussing this with a friend and we agreed that on the whole, it seems that men are encouraged to seek sexual experience while women are encouraged to form relationships. Anybody else see the potential problems in that?

I'm not asserting that as an absolute truth by any means, but if you want some form of evidence: look at the male homosexual community and the way just about everyone (including some of them themselves) equate 'their culture' with hedonism, kinky sex, partner-swapping etc. I would dare to say here that we don't really know enough about lesbians to venture any sort of stereotype that isn't immediately wrapped in masculine-tailored bollocks (i.e. 'all lesbians are man-hating dykes,' or 'all lesbians can be 'cured' with the arrival of the right guy,' or 'all lesbians are nymphomaniacs'... see what I mean?). Gay guy-mates of mine have commented that they actually do wish to settle down with somebody, but that that's not really something they can advertise in the sex-oriented gay dating scene.

The solution for this is NOT (I don't think), for women to just try and 'even the score' by becoming as sexually-oriented as men. By all means, ladies, go in search of the perfect orgasm if you wish. Just be aware that you're facing off against your biology, which wants to reduce you to the level of a childbearer and not much else, if you don't watch it.

That's why I really don't see the logic in 'friends-with-benefits' situations. Duh, could you ask for trouble any LOUDER? Could you take hold of the can-o'-worms and wrench the lid off any harder, please? The worms will hit YOU in the eye and then YOU'LL complain. Some people really are developed and mature enough to rise above their biological instinct and handle these situations as they need to (I'm thinking Tallulah Bankhead here).

Unfortunately, many of us don't see the obvious problem in entering into regular sessions of close physical contact with somebody we know and quite probably like and trust to a fair degree. Wait, read that back to me - NOW do you see the problem? What makes you think the other person being your 'friend' is going to make you 'safe' from attachments (if not simply MORE at risk of falling for them because you're not paying attention?) ? As my brother would say, NAAW MATE.

The problem is that we really don't do enough to support each other as ladies, now, do we? I'm looking at you here, women's magazines industries! Then again, what's to say that you are even really trying to 'connect' with women? You might have female editors an' all, but the owners are more than likely probably still men, and the shareholders are the people who really matter. Cynicism, here I come. The French singer Yelle had the right idea when she sang:

'C’est la faute des ma-
Des magazines
Les Maries, Les Frances
Les Marie-France
Les femmes pratiques qui en ont pas marre
Des cosmo vogues et tout l'bazar'


Translation:
'It's the fault of some mags - some magazines / The Maries, the Frances / The Marie-Frances / The 'practical women' who haven't had enough of them / Of the Cosmos, Vogues and the whole bazaar.'


You women's mags, you give us a real half-assed picture of the situation. You tell us: great, go after your female orgasm. You encourage us to stay good and monogamous with your endless articles on 'how to spice up your sex life' while simultaneously and subtly trumpeting the values of casual sex with your reader confessions columns and the endless stuff on attaining the perfect climax (again), taking a lover etc. I have Cosmpolitan in mind particularly here.

Women's mags aren't 'all bad,' of course - I don't mean to imply that they are (Marie Claire, for one, has some very interesting and well-written articles, such as one about Real Dolls...). They're just selfish - as is everything out there at the end of the day. Women's magazines won't tell you what to do once you outgrow their 2D status-quo world. Look how shittily simplistic their solutions are: either carry on as you are, looking for a relationship all the time, or make sex the main factor.

There is of course a third way that they won't tell you because it's not in their interests to do so (they prescribe this in small doses, usually to women who have suffered a recent break-up or who have emotional/mental health issues of some kind). Get the cheesy disco music ready, people, because that is to 'Love Yourself.'

Actually, hell with that. We live in a post-psychoanalytical age, where we are trained to ascribe meaning to things (such as our personality quirks) that may not even need it really, and I just don't DO cheesy disco music anyway (give me some Justice or Donna Summer, fool!). So instead, pop on a song that makes you laugh and BE YOUR OWN FRIEND. To briefly invoke the oft-whipped carcass of marriage again for convenience's sake: if you can't spend eternity on your own, how the hell are you going to spend it with somebody else? And vice-versa. Take a leaf out of those magazines' book (thank you Ugly Betty for making that metaphor actually work!) and GIT SELF-CENTRED.

The way I see it is this: despite what your parents say, despite what society says - no matter who brought you into existence, or who sees you out of it - you are born alone (unless of course, you are a twin, or one of triplets etc. etc., but even then you won't all be leaving yer mum's tummy at once!). Does that not make loneness the most natural state in the world to inhabit? There is something glorious I find - dunno about y'all - in gracefully accepting that.

No-one says you have to be misanthropic (not all the time, anyway). No-one says you musn't value your friends or relatives, or your partner (or whatever the fuck you call them). It is rush-of-blood-to-head LIBERATING though, when you realise, that you shouldn't have to be defined and existent entirely in terms of others. I have come to value the bond of friendship - REAL friendship - as quite possibly the highest human connection there is. However, there's a lot to be said for enjoying one's OWN company from time to time. And if you're somebody whose mental tank always seems to be running overloaded-full (comme moi), then find a way to go and birth your thoughts into the world.

In his Essays, Francis Bacon essentially said that men could choose between children and creative endeavour, which was why the greatest artists had been childless men. A very wise and interesting observation, I think you'll agree, and then I hope you'll join me in saying '... but Bakey, now the wimminz can do that too. Relationships, marriage, and kids (in order of seriousness of impact upon one's life and future) are not the sole feckin' purpose of our existence.'

So fuck you, biology! Here's a chance for us all to be equal. And hey, if there's less stupid people falling into these binds, hopefully that means a smaller influx of idiots turning towards extremely conservative/religious/overall fundamentalist viewpoints - or falling victim to them.

Own yourselves. No-one wants to be another Bristol Palin, regardless of whatever their age is (just look at that poor girl's eyes in the picture... I can imagine how she will look once being a 'mommy' takes its toll on her). Own yourselves and RECLAIM YOURSELVES!

Aidan Moffatt's Love Advice

Aidan Moffatt, for those of you who don't know, is what might be termed 'a professional grump.' He was in the band Arab Strap with Malcolm Middleton.

I don't actually know any more than you, my readers, probably do, in this situation - I know that Arab Strap were known and acclaimed for being apparently quite darkly comic in a distinctly '90s Scottish way.

Anyway, Aidan Moffatt acted as an agony uncle for the review site The Quietus (a site I really love reading every now and again, as their writing is very witty and just so much fun). It was in two parts, both prefaced with I'm No Expert... and whether you're looking for love/sex advice or not, it's hilarious. The second column is especially brilliant.

Uncle Agony Aidan Moffatt's First Sex Advice Column For The Quietus.

Uncle Agony Aidan Moffat: Back To Fix Your Weeping Sores.


Their review of Eden Lake also has single-handedly convinced me to watch it, while simultaneously reminding me why I love The Quietus. I also owe them for randomly urging me to listen to the (absolutely brilliant) Afro Samurai soundtrack. Yay!

Marriage: I Ain't Sold

This post was inspired by Nesrine Malik, Desi Italiana and Sonia... thanks, guys.

Well. I must begin this post by congratulating myself on avoiding eating more than 1-an'-a-bit squares of utterly tasty Sainsbury's Belgian dark chocolate, especially after having eaten a sin-filled pack of Walkers' Max Paprika earlier. I am a feminist and ergo not crazy about looking overly-youthful and wisplike all the time (the former would really be cause for concern, as I am still quite young!), but if you do not have the metabolism of a greyhound and are likely to get grumpy after eating too much 'crap,' you have to watch it.

This post is intended to be about marriage, especially its place within Indian culture. I have learnt a fair bit about this recently, and I feel that it's time I wrested my blog from the caprices of creativity and pushed it back towards the polemic. Unfortunately, because tiredness and stress have somewhat 'worn the wick' recently, I may descend into what is essentially a series of no more than randomly-caught observations.

I used to think that I could escape the clutches of the Indian society that surrounded me by choosing who I got married to. There was a rather great irony in this, because I would say that feminism/egalitarianism is more important to me than keeping my parents happy and upholding a certain idea of Indian 'culture'. Ever since I was little, I have burned at the notion that females should be considered inferior to males in any way, especially in this country. Even the whole 'men are naturally stronger' argument never cut much ice with me. I mean, bitch please – are all men the same? No. Are all women the same? No. For example, a dedicated female javelin or discus thrower is probably going to be of greater strength than an Asian rudeboi of the same age, unless, like my brother currently is, he's so obsessed with getting 'hench' that he's significantly bulked-up.

Aaaaaanyway… I used to believe that one could have the best of both worlds. I could placate my parents in the merest sense by marrying someone brown and to all intents and purposes, Sikh. Even if he was secretly unsure (like me), or a naastik (atheist), it would be OK because, like a well-placed visual illusion, everybody would see what they wanted to see.

The problem with my little picture is that it was missing someone fundamentally important: me. I was thinking about entering into an arrangement that would be convenient for the other person and appease his family and mine. I have always taken pride in being the firebrand of the family, but I didn't see the obvious until it was pointed out to me repeatedly by a very dear friend: I'm not ready to get married and I never will be.

Now, I can understand the line of thought that goes 'oh, y'know – it'll just be a stupid wedding and then you have the rest of your life.' I can understand because that's what I thought up until a few weeks ago. What bullshit, yaar! Whether you're a girl or a boy, if you're Indian, shaadi (marriage) is the whole point of your life. All that differs is the point at which this is impressed, and then eventually, imposed upon you. If you're a girl, chances are you'll be conditioned from childhood (whether you realise/enjoy it or not) to be a wife and then eventually in some ways, a mother. Whereas with boys, it varies - many of them are left free to do as they like until a certain age when the kitchen sink and all is suddenly dropped on their head.

This must be said, because the current double standards that are deeply ingrained within Indian society (more so in some classes/groups than others) are bad for EVERYONE. Seeing and admitting this is a shot of common sense that is desperately needed. Parents like mine – who are actually almost liberal in some ways, how else would I have got the way I am?! – encourage and support their daughters in going to university, only to gently remind them that marriage is ultimately going to be more important. Even if this reminder does not come verbally, it comes in the fact that more of your life will be spent in gearing you towards marriage than will be spent in encouraging you to get a job you want to, or in pursuing a degree you want to do.

I find that even in education, marriage just won't leave people alone. Women who do 'male' degrees (medicine, law, dentistry, finance etc.) or watered-down 'male'/acceptably-feminine degrees (biomedical sciences, pharmacy, teaching…) are more worthwhile investments than those in the arts. The same applies for men, more or less. However, the reason I find this more appalling with regards to women is because it shows how little things have really changed. Now, people don't just want a well-indentured servant, they want one who can pay her way too. Funny how the huge emotional sacrifices made by the bride (leaving her family and having to externalise them while ingratiating herself with a set of near-strangers) doesn't apply much in this regard. I do appreciate that men who 'deviate' educationally also have it hard, but the overall level of suffering is still notably lower for them. (It often seems to me that if you're a guy who does 'deviate' and it doesn't work out for you, your senior male relatives will often rally round and bail you out somehow, while if you're a girl, your senior female relatives will tell you you're reaping what you've sown, but it could just be the cynicism getting the better of me...).

Encouraging the men-folk to do whatever before suddenly dropping the nuptial bomb is disastrous as well. Shrieking harridan mothers-in-law and scheming bahus (daughters-in-law) have come to stereotypically define the power-struggles in Indian marriages, because there are some things that people just don't want to say. Like, if you let your son marry a woman and then make her life hell because he has someone already (or because he swings the other way…), you are not 'saving face.' You are NOT good parents. It will reflect back on you when the aggrieved party either fights back or leaves, when your son gets together properly with the 'somebody else' or when something bad happens to the wife.

I know that tradition is hard to let go of for many Indians, especially my parents' generation (those who are in their fifties and sixties now), but puh-lease. If you've come to a foreign country, you have to accept the fact that your children have the right to choose to follow 'other' influences – and why wouldn't they? There is so much more freedom available to them in many ways. Some will eventually turn their back on that, but many don't want to. Your tricking them into losing the adult years of their lives in a tacit concession to your ideals – shaadi – only shows you up as a load of spoilt children.

That isn't to say that marriage always inevitably fails. I take a very dim view of it, because I have seen how often people struggle to balance the sacrifice, the delusion and the harsh, harsh reality. I simply think that it needs to be said that the failure of marriage is NOT down to Western influences, emotional immaturity or anything that easily scapegoatable. I think deep down, we know that it's really down to the arrangement of power in the Indian family structure (if you're old, you're wise. If you're young, shut up), and the deeply unequal and voracious nature of marriage. Stop idealising the parivaar (family) and the shaadi! Most of the time, in a move harking back to the Middle flippin' Ages, marriage is about the advancement of two families. The Indian ethos par excellence, distilled into the symbolic form of the married couple: communities before individuals. It often becomes almost a political contract, an act enacted for the purposes of what-bloody-else? NETWORKING. 'Look at the relatives I have acquired.I have moved up in the world!' Very bloody ironic for Sikhs, since Sikhi is meant to be without caste, whereas many Punjabis are obsessed with going up a class (why?! why does having x number of doctor/lawyer relatives make you more of a person?!).

To finish, my mother often castigated us for not trying hard enough/failing to learn how to make adequately round chappatis. She told us we needed to learn it for our own sake, because 'otherwise, what will people say? What would your suss (mother-in-law) say? People will say that I didn't teach your properly' (i.e. that she had failed in her duty as a mother).

Yeah, because telling your daughter that she should learn something to your standards to please some far-off woman – which at the end turns out to be you, surprise surprise! – isn't selfish in the least. As Private Eye would say: trebles all round!

Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty
Missah Sleepy Sweet,

I spell your name like it was air
Expelled from my lungs

In slumber; come fly
In my dreamscape; come lie in my way-
Out-of-reality –

The twitch of my
Pink lip fishes for you; my incomplete,
Sweet, incoherence burbled’ll

Hook you like a
Singing stream; I am Sleeping Beauty; bewitching,
Making an offering

To dormant gods;
Listen for the nonsense prayer breaking
On the side

Of my mouth
In messy, mini, white waves; just lean out
Of the night,

Kiss me in
My mind, if not in reality – pray, let me
Wake another day.


(aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh).

'Get There Steppin'?'

... is the thought that crosses many a confused cyber-wanderer's mind upon encountering this here blog of mine.

Seeing as how I have loads of work to do but my brain is broken (AND I am currently facing a whole load of upheaval), I am resorting to the most enjoyable and therapeutic form of procrastination possible: writing.

I am currently far too sappy to write about anything even remotely important, so I am going to instead reveal (FINALLY) why my blog is called 'Get There Steppin.''

I wish it were a better story than it is, but onwards nonetheless...

Once upon a time, a girl made a blog. Although she had developed the habit of keeping sporadic diaries over the years - and writing poetry on almost anything she could get her hands on - she decided that chronicling her thoughts in a weblog would be good, as it would be a way to ensure that she never lost or damaged her thoughts (no fountain-pen ink running here! No family computer-contracting-50-viruses-and-getting-fucked, no sirree!). And once she had her own laptop - her 'personal computer,' if you will - it would only be even easier and more effective for her.

Well, this blog had to have a name. The girl, like many young people have been known to want, wanted to choose something 'edgy.' It should be a name both attention-grabbing yet obscure. It ought to strike fear into the thoughts of those who happened upon it, with its literally-translated message of 'get the heck out of here!' Then again, the nature of the title would also imply rewards for the patient among any potential readers - if they were prepared to 'get there' one step at a time, they might enjoy themselves, and who knows, even become REGULAR READERS.

Reader, I would like to say that this is what shot through that girl's mind like a glint of sequin in a sari!

However, the sad fact is that she simply panicked and thought 'What... er... something not too noticeable, but unique, but a bit weird... Wait, what?' Then the fear of seeming derivative and overly self-conscious struck her. Giving in to the inevitable insecurity of the would-be writer, she thought 'A line from a song! But which?'

She thought, and 'Lose My Breath' by Destiny's Child marched uninvited over her memory. The audacity of Kelly Rowland singing:


'Oooh, you understand the facts that I'm tryna get to you
You're movin' so slow like you just don't have a clue
Didn't momma teach you to give affection?
Learn the difference from a man and an adolescent?
It ain't you boo, so get ta steppin''


Randomness had decided. And so it was born - Get There Steppin', a blog with just about nothing to do with the woman, group or song that inspired it AND a misspelling of the song-lyric it came from!

:-D


The video, as is only fair. In the paraphrased words of Manhattan Transfer, 'ooh, those girls can dance!'