Friday

Slightly unusually, I didn’t write a blog post yesterday. Not, you understand, in order to give you more time to digest my ‘pome’, but because I was actually busy at work. I know, right. I’ve even had quite a lot of stuff to do today. In the immortal words of High School Musical, this could be the start of something new.

I’ve also been preparing for my weekend trip to Oxford in order to read exciting things (exciting for me, anyway) and to meet up with the lovely and thoroughly excellent Alison, who is acting as tutor/supervisor for my Reception project. I’ve already read a lot of exciting things, I should point out – but there are even more in the Bodleian and so that’s where I’m headed. Copyright Libraries for the win. This preparation includes reading, filling in Reader Application forms, obtaining cash and so on. Later I’m going to bake brownies as an office-warming gift and pack up my books and whatnot. I’m leaving very early tomorrow in order to get maximum library time, and because the X5 is so painfully arduous a journey.

The obtaining of this cash produced a bit of trauma earlier. In my organised, killing-two-birds-with-one-stone way, I went to Tesco’s so I could pick up a few bits (chocolate raisins for Laura; milk for the office etc) AND get cash out. Standing at the cash machine I thought ‘I’ll just check my balance’. SHOCK and HORROR abound when I realise I’m a good £530 into my (thankfully free) overdraft, which is a whole £500 less money than I thought I had. Where has this money gone? Who has hacked my account? Have I been irresponsible with my handing out of details? How am I ever going to recover this cash?

Natch, I was frantic. I messaged my dad and got him to find my internet secure key thingmy so I could access my online banking at work. Panicpanicpanic. Log on and – straightaway – realise what a tit I have been. The £500 which has vanished from my account has gone – into my ISA. It’s set up to go out on the last day of the month. Phew.

To add to the happytimes, today is payday. Hooray! It’s so pleasing to be paid <3

Almost as pleasing is that Wales-Wedding palaver has resolved itself beautifully into a sleeps 5+1 cottage for 2 nights halfway between the church and the reception venue (the aforementioned castle). And because it’s going to work out really quite cheap after all, I can even afford to obtain a new dress. I’m going to drag Laura out shopping with me on Sunday, fo sho. Maybe I’ll put a picture up for you all to consider.

Not sure what internetz over the weekend is going to be like so you may have to wait until my return on Sunday evening before you hear from me again. Tonight I will be busy packing and also swooning over the delicious Mr Cumberbatch in instalment 2 of Parade’s End. Fridays. Yes.

pome

Hullo. The title isn't a mispelling. It's what the 9yr old Dorothy Parker called her poems. I'm feeling rather in the spirit of Dorothy Parker today, so I've had a bash at something in her sort of style (I didn't spend long on it so it's not that polished). All criticism thoroughly welcome. 

Suggestion

Now, free, modernist and confessional poetry

Seems to me a laborious quest.

Always denying conventionality,

Avoiding rhyme like a plague or a pest,

Stripping words down to their meanings, undressed.

You might say it’s a fashion, or maybe a curse

Different opinions abound north, south, east and west,

But the only way forward must be light verse.

They started attacking traditionality

Those pioneers, Eliot, Pound, HD and the rest

They criticised art, politics and morality,

Theatre, fashion and the cut of one’s vest.

Although their intentions were no less than the best,

They were riven by schism and began to disperse

Now, since the modernist birds have flown from the nest,

The only way forward must be light verse.

In this day and age there are ‘poets’ in quantity

Who churn out dry works with no pith or zest

(there are some who are brimming with charm and hilarity

As Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney, Anne Carson attest,

Sparkling with life, vigour and the issues addressed

Their language spills out of their minds’ full purse)

They’re a class of their own – and as for the rest,

The only way forward must be light verse.

Envoi:

Prince, consider me serious or speaking in jest

As advice on this goes, I’m sure there’s been worse

Take freedom in poems from all except the best!

The only way forward must be light verse.

toes, part the second

I left work early today so I could go to A&E. After the horror stories I've heard about toes, I did not particularly want to risk having done some serious damage. I'm not *that* much of a hypochondriac (at least, I don't tend to act on my hypochondriacal worryings) - this was my first A&E visit for a very long time. I was going to say ever but then I remembered the time I sprayed disinfectant in my eyes. Best not to ask. Anyway, I thought that I would take the plunge because it really was very blue and rather numb and then kind of pins-and-needles-y. And y'know, that's not how a toe is supposed to feel. So off I hobbled. 

A long wait, some x-rays, and a walk-past by the dishiest doctor EVER (no, but actually) and they told me it wasn't broken, there was nothing they could do and they'd tape it up for me (I think to make me feel like I'd not gone away empty-footed, if you will). By this time I was practically weeping in frustration at a) having wasted everyone's time b) severe discomfort and c) being the only person on their own in the waiting room. I was intermittently blubbing all the way home at my inability not to cry, my own uselessness and my general dissatisfaction with life. 

I've possibly overdone it with the tricolon there but the points stand. 

How do you be a happy person? When everything is shit, where are you supposed to start with the changes? 

Today I was happy when I was reading a really interesting article about Catullus in my lunch break, when I was eating an ice cream after I got home, and when I was watching the Great British Bake Off (and yes, also The Midwives). Maybe I need to make happy lists. Maybe it'll give me a better idea of what it is I actually like doing, and how I can go about getting there. Maybe it'll help me sort my [non] life out. 

I'm open to suggestions. I don't know what I'm doing, but you might. Answers on a postcard and all that X

toes

Hullo my lovelies. I am back! I know you missed my wit and charm. Don't all comment at once. I have many, many mosquito bites and it's just possible that I may even have the merest hint of a tan. A tan, I tell you! I suppose that's what you get for lying in the sun under 35 degree heat for a week. I wouldn't know. I used a whole bottle of Factor 50 suncream. My sister looks like a lizard, she's all scaly and burned (and she has a forked tongue and eyes that swivel independently of each other. Sun does weird things to our family). She is still, however, significantly more tanned than I am. Such is life, or my life at least. 

We got back very late last night after an absolute farce at the airport. It was the Italian version of Little Britain; the check-in woman spent about ten minutes per individual (no joke) identifying faces in passports and typing names with one expertly manicured finger, before taking a little break to chat to her co-worker, get up for a walk, air-kiss her friends etc. This in an airport that was a) tiny and b) in danger of turning into a moshpit. Anyway, the short and short of it is that we got home after a significant delay and I've spent all day today recovering and readjusting. I chose to do so by spending the morning in pyjamas and finally, FINALLY watching Henry V (which was thoroughly excellent and made me fall in love with Tom Hiddleston all over again. Especially the bit with Catherine). 

However, halfway through, agony struck, in the form of a phone call. 

Now, our sofas (bear with me, this is relevant) are really quite old and disheveled, because my mum has been planning to redecorate the lounge for a long time (and there's no point getting new sofa covers til then, she says). The arms have been patched and repatched so many times they are basically just stitches now. The cushions are all worn at the edges and what was once red and yellow material has faded to almost white. The edges are all coming away from the main cushions and create dangerous traps for the unwary. They also catch out the moving-at-speed. 

Picture the scene: I am curled up on the sofa, engrossed in Shakespeare's (and RADA's) finest. The phone rings. I grab the remote to pause the programme, swing my feet from under me, stand up. My right toe catches on the lasso formed by the trailing sofa-cushion edge and I lurch forward, smashing my left foot, with all the momentum from my fall, smack into the coffee table. Naturally my next reaction is to hop around the room swearing. Meanwhile, my brother has picked up the phone in the other room, where he was sat next to it all along. I have a minute or two to compose myself before I speak to my great aunt, who is ringing to tell my mother she misses their online scrabble games. 

My middle toe on my left foot is blue.

Owwwwwwww.

I've been a bit tetchy for the rest of the day. 

Oh, and I watched Parade's End this evening (I nearly made us late leaving for the airport last Saturday because I had to finish reading it before we left). I thought it was excellent, but my dad thought it was dreadful because he's fundamentally opposed to all period dramas, my sister was a bit bemused by all the apparent sex scenes in 'Edwardian' England and my mum said it was difficult to follow. Whatever. I think it makes more sense to me because I've read the book and I'm familiar with the way Ford Madox Ford writes; I get what Stoppard is doing with his time-shifts and I understand who the characters are when they aren't immediately explained. Sylvia is excellently portrayed. Top marks to Rebecca Hall for that one. And, well, I think Benedict Cumberbatch is a) beautifully well-cast and b) beautiful. And his voice! Listening to him is like having a bath in chocolate liqueur. 

I'll update you on my toe-bruise-colour soon. I reckon it'll be at its best tomorrow or Tuesday. Til then, in the immortal words of (BBC version) Mr Wickham, 'let us not say farewell, but as the French have it - Au Revoir!'

flurry

I can’t believe how little work I’ve done today. It’s that pre-holiday feeling. This must be why schools have half-days on the last day of term. My colleague who sits opposite me and basically does the more complicated and demanding version of my job, the offcuts of which I deal with when she’s not here, is not in today. My boss has not been in today. The colleague who sits on my left has been busy – and has now left, early, to go on holiday for two weeks. The rest of the office is about as formal as a monkey picnic in any case. The phone has rung about three times today. There was only 1 item I could do anything with in the post. No exciting parcels clunking around alarmingly to collect from reception (there was one, but it didn’t clunk). I’ve been trying really hard not to start anything new, because it doesn’t seem worth it given I’m going away. I’ve been working here 6 weeks – that’s the same amount of time I interned last summer at the Museum of English Rural Life. I feel like I deserve a looooooong holiday and I suspect I will come back feeling cheated of that. But never mind. Today I am happy happy happy.

What, you may ask, have I been doing all day, then? Well, my pretties, I have been busily engaged, ohoh yes. This morning I was caught in rather a flurry of communications about the arrangements for a wedding I am going to (as an usher, no less!) in September. I am very excited about this wedding because I <3 Adam and Alice. However, I am less than fully enthusiastic about getting there. It is in Wales. Wales is a long way from Cambridge. Wales has the advantage of having beautiful castles in which to host joyous events, as on this occasion. But it also has the disadvantage of being freaking unreachable. Anyway. These matters are being slowly fed through the churning cogs of deliberation and will emerge as fine as fine can be. So all will be well. Then I will have to decide whether it is worth me buying a new dress/outfit generally, or whether I should just spruce up a previous one. I am tempted to go for a biker-jacket and boots look with my summer-wedding dress. Not sure if this will be appreciated in an usher. Cannot make decision until I know how much just getting to Wales is going to cost me, as it could be enough to preclude new outfits and indeed, all fun things until next paycheck.

But that only occupied me for a small part of the morning. I have also written some emails, in line with my maintenance of title ‘socialite queen’ (lol). I have also been writing. Writing feverishly. Yesterday I was finally hit with the plot idea for which I have been waiting since I was about 12. Naturally I started writing straight away. I looked at it again this morning and refined it. Then I realised that in order to expand this fully, I should (and could, for a change!) write a plan, a character list, a sequence of events etc in order to actually form the basis around which a story might develop. This made my morning and most of my afternoon absolutely fly by. It has occurred to me that it could be a novel – probably – but it could also be a screenplay – possibly. This is exciting.

Of course it may well turn out to be just one more in the sequence of half-started projects that are lurking on the hard drive of my laptop. It may be dead in the water after I’ve been away for a week, especially if I’m spending that week thinking about poetry and whatnot.

Whatever. I’ll keep you posted. You can expect a break from my relentless blogging while I’m away, but I’ll be right back at you, have no fear, when I return to work on 28^th August.

balls

Today I went down to reception to pick up a parcel, as I tend to be asked to do. It was addressed to someone in the office who doesn’t usually receive parcels, and it was quite large and more than usually heavy. I stomped my way through the corridors with it, up the three flights of stairs to the office (I could take the lift, but how am I ever going to get toned legs if I don’t make some effort?) and put it on the recipient’s desk. It had been clunking alarmingly all the way. Given that we deal with a lot of very valuable electronic goods this was slightly concerning to me. I watched the package with some trepidation from my own desk, while I was pretending to do some work.

When the mystery package’s addressee returned to the office a little while later, he looked at the large, well-sealed box and exclaimed ‘aha! I know what this is’. He then picked it up and SHOOK it. I winced a bit. He sliced open the box with a pair of scissors and pulled out – a boule. And another. There were a couple of boxes of them, in fact, and little holders to go with them. He said ‘look, it’s a boule grid array’. That’s a technological joke. A Ball Grid Array is a type of chip that goes on a circuit board, and it’s basically the reason that the company I work for exists. Hilarious. Anyway, he seemed very pleased to have received his boules and has put them away to take home.

That’s my job. Boule-ferrier, Booker of Meeting Rooms, Corrector of Grammar.

It’s not even 3pm yet so I may have more to say before the day is out. ‘Til then, may your boules land close to your jack and may your semicolons be correctly placed. Adieu.

modern marketing and Classical 'charis'

I told my boss (after a not inconsiderable amount of time spent faffing around doing zip) that I had nothing to do. This may have been a mistake, because now I have a list as long as my arm and it’s all REALLY BORING.

He directed me to a website that I basically need to turn into marketing material for a service we are offering based on the product they sell. Got that? Yup. Ok. This website is written in Capital Letter Moralist Style, with majuscules leaping around like they’re on a parade ground, showing off their raw recruit lower-case followers. Every word has a multiplicity of syllables which I’m sure are quite unnecessary. Take this header, for example:

‘Software License Optimization Solution Implementation’.

I mean, really. What does that, when you get right down to it, actually say? It says ‘we have a really good way of solving your software licensing issues, and this is how you use it’. Which would you rather see on a website? If you’re an engineer, do you want to be tested on your understanding of technical terms (and needlessly long words) or would you rather read something direct, less formal and simpler to understand?

Marketing seems to me to be a dangerous business. It gets more complicated and self-conceited, more concerned with its own aesthetic than the product it is selling and more tenuous and long-winded at every stage. Then there is the absurdity of companies that deal exclusively with marketing, marketing themselves. It all seems superfluous to me.

Did Classical civilisations worry about marketing? Well, on the face of it, no, because the clients they sold to would base their decision to buy from someone out of necessity, trust and reputation. Society was sufficiently compacted that you’d know who was the better baker at the market, or who produced sails that would fit your ship. Decrees would go up condemning those who had dared sell their produce to the Persians, or a comic playwright would slander the less-than-fresh wares of a certain fishmonger. And if you didn’t know the tradesman, you’d be able to ask someone who did. You could rest assured that if he was doing something illegal then the full force of the law would come crashing down on him in the form of the Market Regulators (try Aristotle’s Athenaion Politeia and – I think – Aristophanes’ Acharnians for references). Anyway, the point is that your reputation was all the selling power you needed, and there was a limited amount of stuff to sell anyway.

Of course, people still spent money on ‘ludicrous’ things like a rhetorical education or horses (Aristophanes’ Clouds) or gilding the prows on their triremes ([Demosthenes] Against Polycles). What persuaded them to do this? Well, in part, it’s because they were convinced by what were probably the first cases of ‘marketing’ – speeches by men like Antiphon and Gorgias, who would argue both sides of a question and thus persuade people into making decisions. Really, this was condensing into one person’s speech the arguments that would be presented in a law court for prosecution and defence, but the combination was what blew people’s minds. How could you pretend to have such different opinions on the same thing? It’s not natural. The other thing that encouraged weird spending patterns – the sort of thing that makes a city ‘fevered’ (Plato, Republic II) – was the desire to augment reputation, by (among other things) being rich, hosting fabulous parties, equipping triremes, educating your children and so on. In Greek lingo, this is part of the all-important ‘charis’, a sort of civilised hangover from the heroic, Homeric ‘kleos’. Charis could save you in a law case (save him because of what he has done for the city, even if he is guilty), and if you didn’t have enough, it could condemn you (think of what he hasn’t done - but might yet do - to the city if he had the chance!). It was essential to cultivate it and maintain it. Ultimately, people would deal with you on a professional, political, religious, personal and business level based on your charis and that of your family and associates.

I suppose marketing is the modern charis. It’s come a long way since then. It’s always been important to promote a positive image of yourself. We just seem to have taken it to unbelievable levels…

defence

Benedict Cumberbatch is trending on twitter today. This is primarily because he is ‘complaining’ about the ‘posh-bashing’ he gets for having gone to Harrow. Some people are writing some very nasty things about an actor who has become very successful after many years of hard graft doing a job which is considered valuable in today’s popular culture.

Benedict Cumberbatch has a voice which is instantly recognisable as an educated one, and he speaks intelligently and fluently. He dresses well, because he earns a lot of money. He can go on nice holidays or move house if he wants to, because he has the financial resources to do so. Incidentally, he happened to make the choice - when he was a child - to take up a scholarship to go to one of the most prestigious public schools in the country. Of course, he's taking the piss a bit - as I believe Caitlin Moran adroitly pointed out on Twitter. But the furore that's sprung up as a result means it's worthwhile to address the prejudice that lies behind it. 

Now, if you have been raised to think that education is a valuable thing, then of course you are going to take an opportunity like a scholarship. You will not consider, at the age of ten, the ways in which people will hold it against you in the future. And maybe it won’t have been the academic side of things that will have convinced you – maybe it’s the chance to do sport three times a week, or to not live with your annoying parents who won’t let you repaper your room with comic books, or because you didn’t have a good experience at primary school and you really want to go somewhere new and different. Maybe it’s because you know your parents want you to do the best you can, and you worry that you will be letting them down if you turn down this offer. Maybe you like the uniform.

It’s not fair to criticise people for the educational choices they make when they choose to succeed. Moreover, it only reinforces the system of privilege. If we continue to demonise everyone who is able to go to a good school or a good university or both, then we make it ok for people not to want to go there. We chop the top off the aspirational ladder – we invert it, in fact. If it’s a vice to be well-educated, then it follows that it’s a virtue to eschew the system, and to drop out or even to get kicked out is tantamount to sainthood. ‘Look at that guy, he’s got a degree. What a tosser’. How is an attitude like this going to encourage people to take their education seriously?

At the other end of the scale, this can make those who have succeeded protective, self-conscious, embarrassed. The well-educated form cliques which seem impenetrable to those less lucky. Some of these really are vile overhangs from an age with very different values to our own and I too will be lining up to throw rotten eggs at the Bullingdon Club et al when the revolution comes. Some of them, however, are constructs created by generalisations in the minds of the public and perpetuated by the media. These include ‘Oxbridge’. Oxbridge is stereotyped as a tiny section of society filled with slimeballs, red-trouser-wearers, heirs to great estates and yacht owners. They all hang out together drinking champagne and messing about in boats because they simply can’t abide to be seen cavorting with the plebs, dahling. There’s no denying that there are people in Oxford like this, and they do seem to stick together. Similar groups exist at Bristol, Durham, various London colleges and so on. But also populating these places is a considerable number of people who are there for the right reasons. There are even red-trouser wearers in this category. It’s possible to be the heir to a great estate and be possessed of a humility that makes you feel incredibly lucky to have been given the opportunities you have, and to want to work really hard to make them count. If someone slags you off for doing that because other people don’t have the same opportunities, what are you supposed to do? Renounce your wealth and your education, and live as a hermit? Or carry on, in the hope that you can make a positive change one day?

Now consider this. What about if you have parents who didn’t go to university, but who have scrimped and saved and sacrificed to send you to a good school – either by paying through the nose for it, or by moving to the right catchment area, or by filling the house with books they will never read but that they hope you will? If you are clever, and you want to study, you can go on to a very good university – and even if you’re not a stellar student you can do a respectable course at a respectable institution. Why on earth would you reject an opportunity to go somewhere amazing and make something of yourself?

Oh yeah – because you might be criticised for selling out, for joining the club, for being ‘posh’. You might go to a job interview one day and be rejected because your manager – who worked their way up from the floor – is threatened by your ‘elite’ label. You might be typecast with all the other stereotypes. You might find yourself adopting those stereotypes in order to feel part of something, since you’ve been cut off from the culture which spawned you. And that, there, is right where the problem is. We turn people into the stereotypes we loath by not allowing them to cross artificially-imposed social boundaries.

When we bitch people out for being clever, or funny, or successful, we are really just explaining to ourselves why we aren’t in the same position.

This isn’t a love letter to Benedict Cumberbatch. It’s a plea. We have to stop seeing boundaries in order to eradicate them. The Olympics Games have shown us that people really can come from all backgrounds and be national heroes. Matthew Pinsent isn't criticised for going to Eton. Steve Redgrave isn't criticised for sending his daughter to the best girl's school in the country. Somebody criticised Cumberbatch, and he responded with a bit of wit. We've turned it into a class crisis because we are so class conscious.

CHILL. OUT. 

Ok. I'm done. 

re-introduction

Hullo folkses. This is my new, spangly, all-singing, all-dancing ‘I’m a working girl now’ blog. I am no longer counting down to Finals but attempting to have a life after them. So far, I am having mixed results.

I have hurtled back to the world of blog-dom because I find myself, as I did all those months ago in February/March, lonely and with too much vitriol to explain myself in 140 characters. And also lacking in things to do at work. But don’t spread that last bit around.

Things that have happened between the demise of the last blog and the starting of a new blog chapter:

I got my results – just missed that first. Curse that fortune cookie and its overconfident predictions! As I have been told many a time, though, it’s absolutely pointless to dwell on it. A degree from Oxford is still a degree from Oxford. And this is all very true. I could complain for months about it, how unfair it is, how it’s totally shafted my life plans, how cruel life is that I can’t have one bit of paper that says I’m not as mediocre as my brain tells me I am, etc etc. I could do all those things (I just did, a bit). But I have to at least pretend to be over it in order to demonstrate to people that I am a bigger person for being able to take the hit and roll with it, rather than hide in a corner and cry.

Does that make sense?

I got a job. There, I hear you cry, so you haven’t got anything to complain about. Well, on the one hand, that is very true. To walk out of university with your life plans falling apart around your ears and land on your feet like that is great. Living at home takes a lot of the expense and grief out of living in a crappy rented place anywhere else, and is much higher on the creature comforts factor. I benefit from having food bought for me, tea made for me, washing done for me. I like having the cats around – well, most of the time. Some of the time they are groooosssss. Anyway, the point is that I shouldn’t have anything to complain about, but because I am me, I can always find something.

Leila told me to man up and get over myself last night, in typical Leila fashion. She’s absolutely right, of course. The best thing to do is get my nose to the grindstone, work like a demon, earn as much money as possible and then find something I’ll be really happy doing. Trouble is, I don’t know what that is any more. Baking? Maybe. Academia? That’s what I want now – what I’ve wanted for at least two years. Is that because it’s all I know, because it’s safe, because it’s not the real world? I don’t really know any more. Various people have told me I’d make a good academic, but then lots of people told me I’d make a good teacher (or that I’d ace my exams) and that didn’t get me anywhere. There’s a fine line between being defeatist and being a realist and I worry that sometimes I blur the boundaries and don’t realise which side I’m on. It’s realistic to say there are very few jobs in academia. It’s defeatist to say I’ll never get a job. But am I realist or a defeatist if I choose not to follow the academic path because of job scarcity? Does it even matter if I’m doing what I love? You can’t eat books. Loving your job can unfortunately help you only so far. I would be an academic for free if I didn’t have to worry about money, without a second thought.

Other things that have happened. Dan and Kate’s wedding. It was well cute. Odd to be in Exeter – it was a surreal event in an extremely familiar location. Bit mindboggling, which may explain why I drank what would probably be considered a leetle too much. I had a great time dancing with the tiny kids though. Tom says I am broody. I don’t know that I consider the basis on which he has formed his opinion valid. Besides, while I am desperate to be assured of a future in which children are an option, I certainly don’t want an actual baby just yet. There’s a significant difference. Anyway, D+K are back from honeymoon now and Kate has changed her surname on Facebook, thus formalising their union in a way marriage banns, a civil register etc never could.

Also. The. Olympics.

I am so amazed and gratified and proud of the feel-good factor they have generated and the way they have made Britain look and feel – to itself and to the rest of the world. There have been so many absolutely top moments. I’m so pleased to have been involved - even just as a spectator - and to have been proven right in supporting the Games all along. I hope we can use our memories of the last two weeks as a positive, motivating force rather than as a pinnacle from which to descend into an all-consuming gloom. I want to be part of the movement of change and show a commitment to the idea of legacy, so I’ve tried getting in touch with a boxing club. There aren’t that many sports available to a short, verging on chubby individual who is scared of falling off things or going high in the air. But being punched in the face now and again? Sounds like the perfect antidote to assuaging my Jewish guilt.

I'll be back with another post very shortly. I meant to publish it all together but I got a bit carried away, and the next post is kind of a standalone subject...