Do this

Sit on the escalator going down the tube
The people going up on the other side will only be able to see your head zooming down on its own, and thus, you will freak them out.
Plus its restful.

This is all i have had time to do apart form cry about the hung parliament.

Next weekend Ellie and Danna take on the mantle of artsy muso and take photos of each other looking mournful yet pleased for the urban decay of whitechapel. Visits will include the sunday markets and the museum of childhood, as well as anything else we discover. Ellie's new canon (camera not actual canon) will boost the standard of this blog.

Take it as it comes.

There is life in the beyond

Leave london. Do it. I did. I didnt even mean to, and now i am so taken with the beyond that im not sure i want to go back.

Cambridge is great. Its got bare good stuffs. Like cafe's. And bridges. And idiots on boats. And a market with fruitjuice. And a library. A bloody amazing library. And jazz in pubs. And stupid monday nights.

Im not partaking in it, but i know that its happening, and other people are enjoying it on my behalf. Some beautiful individual, probably with good shorts and nice eyes and a cute smile and nothing else specific he could be anyone, is currently not dancing with the hideous bleary eyed nerved up caffein high delerious monster that is me post library whilst the monster is not getting some rest but is rather sat on the sofa, very very nervous, parousing the internet for things to say and things to fill in the immense silence which fills the countryside, which she should ofcourse, atleast pretend to like.

This is not fair, but I can be no-one else for two more weeks, and i just have to hope that at the end of that i will be instantly more attractive.
Infact, ive been kept in the library against my will for the last 10 days. Thats why I am here, i didnt want to leave my city. But i need to do this to survive, and have thus learnt that survivng london is sometimes most succesful when attempted outside london.

So come to Cambridge. S'pretty close by. You might even end up in jamie olivers restaurant without knowing that that is where you are. I thought that pasta was nice, i thought it was unusally busy for a monday. I thought taking my lunch box in was in appropriate. The clue wasnt in the name or anything.

Thrift

Has been the theme of my week.

Watching a friend, an avid cyclist and flask carrier, tuck into a tray of sushi big enough to cover a table, i raised an eyebrow: This was incongruous Sushi=metropolitan fussy and expensive, nick(aka silent nick)=fellow student composer three years in, penniless, like we all are. "How much was that?" I ask. (My mum took me for sushi for the first time this week, and it was yum, but not cheap, so the interest was justifiable.) "Free" he says, after unwrapping each carefully packaged salmon roll and placing the pickled ginger neatly on top of each one before moving on to the wasabi and kikoman.

"Got it out of a bin" He says. Ah, and normality is restored. And now i understand. Nonetheless, I am surprised.

This goes down in London. Its known to the conoisseurs, as freeganism. To everyone else, shameless bin diving. Conceputally, its fine. "ive got five of these in the fridge, thats lunch for the week." I am shocked that 5 whole large trays of sushi could be considered by anyone to be disposeable, that anyone has got as far as going through wasabi's waste to find this out, and that homeless people in london arent giganitcally fat, and that no-one has cottoned on and isnt harvesting this stuff up on a large scale for the people who need it most. Maybe they havent twigged, its certainly a well kept secret, perhaps due to shame, perhaps just thoughtlessness, but according to my expert friends, should you change to be walking down southhampton row about 8.45, check the rubbish. Its only been rubbish for 15 minutes, so by extention of the 3 second rule, it is ofcourse, all fine. It might smell of bin liner a bit, but tts wrapped anyway. Waste not, want not.

In our beloved city, almost half of the children live beneath the poverty line, and most of those live on the same streets as some of the richest people in the world. This is a gap in the volunteering market. If i was ever to dive, I'd feel awful, I'd have won the prize which really I could have bought, I am after all the rarebreed of employed student. I'm sure theres something in this though, I'm sure something can be done to close this gaping wound in the social fabric of our city.

Elsewhere on the money saving horizon, spring happened (suddenly) and I needed new clothes, so I went shopping. In charity shops. This isnt new to me either, but to a certain class of people the shame of charity shop thrift is equitable to that of sifting through binliners in search of your next meal. I dont get why, Its so much more fun than getting battered to death by tourists in Primark. I bought the comfiest pair of sandals I've ever owned, and a leather jacket, ideal alternative to heavy winter coat, a good third of the price of the one which was not as nice that I saw in topshop. Londons got the best charity shops for largely the same reasons 50% of the food in this city ends up on pavements: people here are rich, and therefore are wasteful. Around the marble arch and notting hill areas, there are plenty of charity shops tucked behind the main roads. Also the lower end of camden high st has some good ones. Avoid oxfam, its cottoned on a bit and started stocking branded things at higher prices. Get in before the vintage shoppers add their premiums to the labels. Not to forget e-bay, for those of us short of time and out of the city. Type in exactly what you want (black velvet jaeger 80's mini dress size ten never worn made by angels touched by garry glitter...) and you'll find it withtout the adventure of going outside.

All in all, succesful week.

Excuse me whilst i lock myself in the library and forget that sunshine exists again.

Resolution Fail

Under the pressures of money, time, work and a general dislike for myself, my resolution has buckled. I'm sorry to let you down.

Its not like I haven't done anything new though. Just nothing desperately life changing.

Golders hill park is beautiful. I realised going there counts as new, even though I now go there three times a week because I work there. Its come out in colour since that thing called the sun which I'd forgotten existed re emerged. I sit in a bay window of Anna Pavlova's old house playing the piano whilst limbs fly past my eyes and watch how it makes the world alter totally just by shining in a different place and on different things.

I've been to the ballet at the Royal Opera House twice this week. If you've never been, do it. And dont start with something long and heavy, go and see the three shorts. Urban Living/Infra/Rushes is just wonderful. The first one of the three is a let down, more mime than ballet i felt, but the expression in the second two is rife, involving, vigorous, beautiful. The shapes Sarah Lamb can make you see are uninaginable, so continuous and forward moving you think they might not stop. The strength and elegance of the bodies of these people is something i hope I never cease to marvel at. If you are up for crying (and you wont be able to help yourself) go and see Romeo and Juliet. The double pas de deux is something else.

Leaving london occasionally is something everyone should do. The richness of life here makes me numb. I am tempted to lock myself in my prison cell of a bedroom and never re-emerge. But im not going to.

Also. Walk through trafalgar square in the middle of the night. Look at london when there is no particular light to look at it in, except that of the moon and the polution, and see someone else in the light of that quiet. There are some moments you just have to live for, to live in, to reach out and touch, and not whittle away with worry of the consequences.

Napoleon Bonaparte's Toothbrush

Yes, that's right, we won the battle and took Boney's tooth brush hostage, and its on display in the Wellcome Collection, among all manner of other similarly fascinating items, forceps, a mummy, teeth, masturbation prevention devices, medical teaching tools, masks. You name it. My personal favourites were the shrunken head (how did it get so small?!) and the snuff box made out of the entire head of a ram.

Its not all gore (although a lot of it is) there is some art which literally made my jaw drop. A photograph of the all inclusive nervous system amazed me, as well as a map of the world made from mosquitos stiched together. There are some utterly stunning photographs from the actual collection, and some highly unusual paintings. The sheer quanity of artefacts is impressive in its self, apparently Henry Wellcome collected enough torture chairs to fill an entire room of the science museum. The display of glass bottles-the sorts of which were quite clearly ordinary back then, and just arent used today-made me realise that even the most everyday of objects are infact highly developped. Nothing just comes into this world, and nothing is truly ordinary until we take it for granted, nothing stays put, development happens... Just go and see it before i over indulge in meaningless musings.

The identity exhibition is great too. I walked out thinking who the hell am I?! And does it even matter? Cause, i really dont know. I live in london, and I am trying to change my perspectives on that at the moment. All sorts of questions of androgyny, sexuality, race, occupation and sociology are thrown up, and getting inside the little boxes and momentarily being involved in the life and identity of someone different is exciting. "give yourself a mark out of ten" is the final question on the survey. Isnt that hard?

I ventured to the cafe on the quest for the perfect coffee. Alas it was only meagre, its noisy in there and the milk was a bit burnt, but it came in a satisfying mug, and i felt fulfilled sitting in the window by a woman with clogs on and every apple device under the sun watching her editting her photographs and taking some notes in my moleskin. I think coffee and cafes are better in Cambridge and Croatia, and I should stop wasting money on finding good ones in london.

Simple things

For a number of reasons, i cant actually do anything this week.

But I've noticed something. London is the best city on earth for singing in the streets. Try it. Noone will here you, cause its so freakin' noisy. I did, I sang summer time consistantly all the way along oxford st to tcr, i turned only 4 heads on a 40 minute walk, and did they mind? No. They all smiled at me, and I felt free, and happy, and like id made the whole commotion of life sound a little less drab.

Even if they could, I reckon a song wouldnt mark anyone out as the nutcase on the bus, or the maniac on the tube. There's always someone worse off, and if you cant beat them, join them. You dont need to be loud about it. Embrace your inner weirdo, you cant do it everywhere.

Dingy Basements, Coffee, Trains...

This week saw in the return to work, the return to college, the return to "normal" life. this whole doing new stuff has gone from being weekly to almost hourly. I must not let it alter me completely, only slightly, and for the better.

I punctured the stress bubble a bit by buying a travel card. I have never done this before, and i dont know why! What a lease of life! I got to college in a record 15 minutes the other morning, which is preferable to the usual hour of mind numbing frustration at traffic and meandering pedestrians. I am yet to decide if this privilege is worth the expense, and anyway, my snot has gone black. I will make a pros and cons list and fathom it out at some point. I feel i have insulted the religion of bus users by breaking the age old mantra buses can be faster... They're just not. At least, not up the Finchley road. My bus route knowledge is still second to none, and long will it remain so as back up for shut down days.

I went to the 100 Club this week, not to see Jazz but to Limelight, the only truly balanced informal classical music night I've come across. The club its self is great, its like a village hall in a dingy basement, all fold out chairs and little candles with light switches on the bottoms, confetti stars on the table. If you don't like Jazz its worth going for a sneak at the graf in the toilets which makes for interesting reading at the very least. For all the photos of famous names on the walls, its not for a minute pretentious. I love that. I know how hard it is to transplant "classical" music into an "informal setting", but limelight really pulled it off. Maybe it was all down to O Duo, who were an immense introduction to the place. They are two super talented percussionists who put together a really great combination of interesting music from all sorts of genres whilst being thoroughly entertaining and not once did their musicianship drop.


Elsewhere in my life my mission to find London's perfect cup of coffee took me to the famous Flat White of Berick St. Its ok, maybe I went at the end of the day and the beans had gone bitter, but I wasnt that impressed. Much better was Scooter Works, a little coffee bar on lower marsh waterloo. Its warm, its comfortable, people in there play scrabble whilst the cats kick the pieces off the board. It has a pink glittery toilet, and a basement which is dusty and full of huge tables and tiny chairs and a projector screened by a dustsheet. It does beer and wine too, and the best bit is its not even a cafe: check the website for that story. The coffee is great, the hot chocolate is like mud-thick and dreamy. Its by my college, i will be back there to chill out.


To do next week: Wellcome collection. Maybe even Whitechapel gallery.
Not to do next week: cry in my room. At all. About anything. Particularly people. You cant trust people. People like coldplay and voted for the Nazis.

Yesterday was all a lie

You can turn over new leaves, even when you dont really mean to.

I ended up in the best place this evening. I danced with strangers, no, I twisted low with strangers, i drank organic cider which tasted like cardigans and wonderful at the same time,, i listened to songs about catholic girls getting off on bicycles, i met some kids from my home town. I was warm, I was welcome, there were photos on the walls, all neatly balanced with inexcessive fairy lights and a good amount of comfortable seating. It is the cafe i have been wanting to establish for myself for most of my life, only better. It has knitting evenings, and charity all tied up too.

Thank you Anne-Marie for being a friend who plays gigs and playing one there: please check out her songs cause they get better every time you hear them.

Lets not all go there all the time, because the bubble of happiness vibe might get popped, but should you ever venture to bethnal green, I strongly recommend it.

Things noticed on the way that i must do: Museum of Childhood

New Leaves for this week

There are none. I have had exams. This is a valid excuse.
No its not. I've had one exam. I spent the night before watching lolcats and texting people to tell them i loved them.

I also worked out that in my young life, I have sat more than 100 exams. Assuming each exam is about 2 hours long, thats a significant portion of time to be sat at a freezing cold desk reciting things you will forget a few hours later. Because that is all they are, memory tests, and thats why I am really good at them.

My new leaf for this week then, is not stressing over exams or coursework, because most of the time, someone other than your own temperamental memory, your pride, or that sickly devil who sits in your stomach singing songs about failiure and ingratitude, deserves your attention more.

First stop for new london leaf: Wellcome collection exhibition. It sounds fascinating. I have spent too years walking past the photograph of a giant armpit in a rush for piano lessons, and now I am going to go and see what its all about. I might even join the club. You get free coffee. There is good in the world.

A new leaf every week

I have lived in london for almost three years. Over all, I hate it, which is why I have to work to make hating it so much worthwhile.
This year, I am going to do something new and exiting in the city everyweek, and every week, try and make myself hate it a bit less, to dig a bit deaper under the dirt of crime and selfishness and pollution to see what good shit is going on for the sake of being damn cool. It must be here somewhere, its just got covered up, like your keys do when you get lazy and dont wash your socks.

This blog will document my challenge: to fall back in love with my home, they say theres no place like it. Well, that is certainly true. Amoungst the fly pits, amoungst the rot, my heart is still here. I want it back.