Author: Harper Lee
Theme: Understanding the whys and wherefores of human motivation
Do: Try and honestly place yourself on the spectrum of tolerance
Don't: Make the mistake of confining this story to race relations in the American South
Spoilers: Delicately avoiding them
"Are you reading To Kill A Mockingbird again?"
"Ahaha, yes... again, right you are. Read it countless times, American classic, know it off by heart..."
The lovely problem of being a long-term incurable addict to books is that most of the people you meet assume that you have read a significant proportion of the great classics. And the modern classics. And the niche bits and pieces like The Lost World or The Midwich Cuckoos. It is an unutterably flattering and pleasing state of affairs when those around you presume the bookshelves of your mind are chockablock with Austen and Hollinghurst and Sartre and Dickens and Kureishi and Beckett and Wodehouse and Wharton.
It is, unfortunately, pure shite. You're about half as likely to find something with a heaving bosom or geometric spaceship on its cover in my extensive library of books well read and loved. I'll read the back of cereal packets and old receipts and occasionally what someone is tapping out on Twitter beside me on the train (don't tell me you haven't done it too...) Indiscriminate constant reader, that's me.
So when I picked up "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the first time I had that dreadful feeling of standing in front of an elderly relative you promised to call every Sunday but what with one thing and another, you've somehow ended up completely forgetting to speak to them for four years.
"Apologies," I whisper and pat the cover affectionately.
My first thought in these reviews, is what inspires these books that became so culturally important to us as a people. In the case of Mockingbird, it is the truth. To whit, the book is semi-autobiographical and inspired by happenings and circumstances in Lee's own life. Her father practiced law in Munroe County, Alabama and once defended two black men accused of murdering a white shopkeeper. Both clients were hanged.
Your image of Mockingbird may well be of Gregory Peck standing manfully before a courthouse and proclaiming a young black man's innocence of the crime of raping a white woman. In the novel itself, the trial makes up only the smallest percentage of the prose.
Our narrator is Jean Louise Scout Finch, daughter of Atticus Finch, public defender of Tom Robinson. Everything that happens in Maycomb County, Alabama is relayed to us through the filter of Scout.
Using a child as a narrator is a wonderful device. Children have boundless curiosity and no inbuilt bias. Children are constantly learning and growing. We learn with Scout, we understand with Scout, we grow up with Scout.
So why should you read Mockingbird?
I remember a concept from one of the late great Terry Pratchett's books at this moment. The further down the social ladder you climb the more and more rungs there are - and the spaces between them become very small indeed.
Mockingbird surprised me by not being a book about race relations in the America South, but a book about human relations and the arbitrary dividing lines we draw between ourselves and others. When taken to extremes, this alienation results in crosses burning in front yards and crazed mobs taking 'justice' into their own bloody hands. In seemingly ordinary citizens dragging young black men and women from Woolworth's lunch counters and spitting on freshly enrolled students students walking up to the entryway of the University of Mississippi.
The most unsettling thing to realize is that the same sentiment is ever-present in everyday life and everyday interactions. It is an immense underlying facet of the human condition. And I think you should read Mockingbird to become aware of that tendency to divide up the human race and hold up a mirror to where you draw your lines.
The obvious starting point in any discussion on Mockingbird is the shocking treatment of Tom Robinson during trial - from the mutterings of the womenfolk of Maycomb to the lynch mob that arrives one night outside his jail cell. Far more erudite pens (well, keyboards) than mine have made discourse on the impact of this novel on the collective understanding of racism and the experience of black people in 1930's Deep South. All I will say is that I would much rather read something written by the child of a Tom Robinson than of an Atticus Finch if my main goal was to explore that particular issue. Mockingbird is a good read - but if you want to truly understand prejudice and persecution I would very much recommend The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, Negroland A Memoir by Margo Jefferson or Welcome to Braggsville by T Geronimo Johnson.
Mockingbird is a brilliant book - but when you've finished with the daughter of the warden, read something by the prisoner's children if you want a rounded worldview.
But on to humanity as a whole and how we divide each other. The book is not just about the division between black and white. Every single chapter highlights difference and what it means to be on the wrong side of a perceived 'normal.' I'd like to take a look at that, because few other reviews have.
Jem and Scout Finch are fascinated by their shut-in neighbor, Boo Radley, about whom they make up games, call names and generally do their best to draw out of his mysterious house. It is accepted that Boo Radley is an oddity and weirdo.
Miss Maudie is the Finch's neighbor and cultivates beautiful azaleas in her well-tended garden. But when the Baptists roll past her house in their horse-drawn buggies they glare and pronounce her garden to be a sin. Miss Maudie is destined for hellfire and brimstone.
The Ewells are central to Mockingbird. Robert E Lee Ewell, or Bob Ewell to his questionable friends, is the father of Mayella Ewell, the defendant. The Ewells live beside a garbage dump, the children run about unsupervised and undernourished, unloved and un-looked for - the Ewells are looked down upon by every member of the Maycomb society. One of the most striking lines of the book is Tom Robinson's confession. Not an admissions of guilt. No no no - he "felt sorry" for Mayella Ewell.
Jem and Scout Finch themselves are subject to the ire of their classmates, children of a man who defends those the rest of the county views as less than human. Different, different, different.
It is worth reading this book to think about how many distinctions you draw in your life - without realizing it. I would hope we all keep a careful eye on ourselves for instances of bigotry, rascism or sexism. But day to day, do you treat the waiter as politely and respectfully as you treat your manager as you treat you friends as your bus driver as your dentist as your binman as your fleeting flashes with people on your commute? I think we should. Unless we're Elon Musk, in which case, you just sit in a quiet room until we find you the professional help you need.
George Orwell said it best in Animal Farm, through the medium of Snowball the Pig - "four legs good, two legs bad." We humans take prejudicial basis a lot further than approved number of appendages...
Lastly, you should read this book to introduce yourself to Atticus Finch. As well as being almost blind in one eye (#myhero #wedontneeddepthperception #Atticusgetsme and I suppose obviously #metoo) he is a quiet, measured presence who dedicates himself to doing what is right above all. He is compassionate and level-headed, a trier who stands by his principles. We could all stand to be a little more like Atticus.
A Young Author's Inspiration
"I wanted you to see what real courage is...courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."
This, I hope obviously is an Atticus quote. It resonated a heck of a lot. Because we talk a lot about hope and trial and error and always believing in the best possible outcome. But what is so particularly important is to keep going when you know there is no chance of success. To keep doing what is right, what you believe in, and what you love, even if you will fail. Conviction is key.
And, somewhat selfishly, I adhere to Atticus' creed in the writing business. And I jot down the three rejections that popped up in my inbox this week - and keep seeing it through, no matter what.
A Very Devlin View
Wednesday, 18 July 2018
Thursday, 12 July 2018
Where we're going Marty, we might need the EU...
Hooyah! Hooyah! Hooyah!
A great cry arose from the entrance to the Tham Luang cave complex as the first of the young lads of the Wild Boar football team were stretchered to freedom. The world's media has descended on Chiang Rai province - the northern-most region of Thailand - to watch the drama unfold.
Every single one of those boys made it out of that cave safely, thanks to the dedication and selflessness of an international team of divers, who lost one of their own during the perilous mission to liberate the boys and their football coach before rising floodwater made rescue impossible.
The mission was meticulously planned. Nothing was left to chance. I am sure they even had someone monitoring Elon Musk's increasingly laughable attempts to propel himself into the thick of it. What started as a heart warming gesture of common humanity ended in something along the lines of "For fuck's sake Elon they've got it. They've got it, alright? You go home, have a hot chocolate, sober up - they're grand, they're grand."
In the interests of transparency I would like to asseverate that I am imagining Mr Musk ineffectually lunging at a bouncer keeping him at arm's length from a pub fight which has long since finished. Great word - asseverate. To proclaim positively and enthusiastically. Nothing whatsoever to do with severing.
In other news, England have just dramatically been defeated and a halt called to their best performance at a World Cup since Italia 1990. When I say never in all my life have I seen such a performance from an English squad, I mean it very literally. I hadn't made an appearance yet.
I perched high on my dark bell tower...erm sorry, balcony - I'll avoid the hunchback comparisons. Anyway, I perched high on my balcony in what was actually sweltering sunshine and listened to London celebrate victory over Sweden. And I mean the whole of London - the view from our place, before we get kicked out next month, is a vista from the tower at Pimlico, past the Houses of Parliament, the Eye, St Paul's Cathedral, the sweep of the Thames up to the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf, and right out again over the green expanse of Greenwich Park and out past the Thames Barrier towards Kent and Dover.
That Saturday, it wasn't just me. Everyone was high as a kite.
I had watched the previous England v Columbia in a sports bar under the Town Hall on South Bank. The atmosphere was electric and every single fan was lovely. This was worlds and hours away from the image of the typical English football fan which had loomed like a specter in my mind. Everyone jumped up and down and hugged each other and hooted and hollered. And not one bad word was exchanged between the English and Colombian contingent. 50/50 colombianos to limeys. 100% enjoyment from all sides. 'Twas glorious.
And glorious was that sunny summer Saturday - when all the cars and all the lorries on all the roads in Deptford, Greenwich and beyond beep-beep-beeped their elation. Everyone came together - it was magical.
Even the not-so-great bits redeemed themselves through the generosity of the human spirit. Many's a one I have spoken to knows all about the taxi smashed in Nottingham or the ambulance damaged in London. But do you know that a good citizen of Nottingham set up a very successful fundraising page to help with repairs? And that Millwall Supporters Club have raised thousands to help pay for the damage to the ambulance?
That's the kind of press which doesn't get the airing it should, perhaps because it doesn't have the visceral tug which gets a newspaper editor's Y-fronts tented, pasting pictures of plastered England fans jumping up and down on the emergency services' transport.
Look for the helpers...
The Wild Boars and the Three Lions got me thinking about teamwork. About my firm belief that we are all better working together as people and that the place of international agencies and bodies and trade associations and yea verily even fan clubs is growing ever more important in our world of instantaneous connectivity and shrinking borders.
I haven't seen much team work about in politics these days.
I am a very proud Remain voter. I will be the first to admit I cherish close ties to Europe. However, with a completely clear head I knew that the practicalities of the British public expecting a clean Brexit from the current pack of incumbents was pissing in the wind. Once you start, it's very hard to stop - it will provide temporary relief, but at what cost to your dignity and ah... trousers. Here the metaphor runs thin.
I always thought of Brexit this wise. Imagine, if you will a man in a crippling car accident. That was Britain after the financial crash of 2008. He wakes, kisses his significant other and expresses a desire to climb Everest. Wonderful, great goal - not everybody's first choice and you'll need to commit to a long and torturous program of training and strengthening. That'll be the saving and planning we should have already done. You'll give up on your social life, you'll rearrange you priorities. That'll be distancing yourself from your closest allies as you focus on Britain. You'll focus on yourself and not your cousin's wedding nor uncle's marathon nor friend's new baby. You'll talk about it non-stop, you'll understand there will be painful trade offs but it will ultimately be worth it.
Super, we say. Great stuff, not what we would recommend for you but it's a (democratic) choice so let's get to it.
I'm going now, you say.
"Say what?"
"Right now, get this cannula out my hand."
"Are you? You can't go now, we're waiting for X rays back."
"No I'm going right now."
"Alright, alright, calm down. Let's see what doctor says and I promise if it's what you really want then the minute you're discharged we'll set up a savings account. Maybe even a Just Giving... eh, here stop plucking out those wires!!"
Another imperfect metaphor, my point being that even though your long suffering partner (48%) may not like it we're all old enough and committed enough to democracy as a populace to compromise for the sake of our marriage. But for Heaven's sake before you take such a drastic step, have a goddamn plan and understand the consequences!
Team work isn't just a buzzword. It's necessary to our existence as a human race. It's the loveliest of us and the most practical of us and it is our ability to work together that creates a better world for everyone. If I could, I'd stop Brexit immediately in its tracks before we all suffer. But I am not so arrogant to assume the other side doesn't have a point. Nor to exonerate the EU completely from its responsibility to pull itself together on borders.
So to combat this, I wanted to give you some examples of really good teamwork you may have missed. Apart from the marvelous cave rescue and the inspiration to a nation of another football team.To prove we can all work together cross borders and cross nations. To quote Jo Cox, who echoed the wisdom of ages, far more unites us than divides us.
- Senegal & Japanese foot ball fans clean up stadiums after respective World Cup matches
- Huntington, Virginia's compassionate response to drug overdose
- Conservationists team up with large tech companies to protect elephants from poachers in Kenya
- European Bank for Restructuring & Development backs Tbilisi, Georgia's green bus scheme
- International researchers break through research into prostrate cancer and polycystic fibrosis
It is of the utmost importance to work together. To find compromise and congruence. To listen to each other and speak to each other kindly, calmly and with compassion and understanding.
We must do this, not because it is kind or gentle or easy. But because it is right and just and hard. In the end, the best things in life are.
A Devlin View
I am a very proud Remain voter. I will be the first to admit I cherish close ties to Europe. However, with a completely clear head I knew that the practicalities of the British public expecting a clean Brexit from the current pack of incumbents was pissing in the wind. Once you start, it's very hard to stop - it will provide temporary relief, but at what cost to your dignity and ah... trousers. Here the metaphor runs thin.
I always thought of Brexit this wise. Imagine, if you will a man in a crippling car accident. That was Britain after the financial crash of 2008. He wakes, kisses his significant other and expresses a desire to climb Everest. Wonderful, great goal - not everybody's first choice and you'll need to commit to a long and torturous program of training and strengthening. That'll be the saving and planning we should have already done. You'll give up on your social life, you'll rearrange you priorities. That'll be distancing yourself from your closest allies as you focus on Britain. You'll focus on yourself and not your cousin's wedding nor uncle's marathon nor friend's new baby. You'll talk about it non-stop, you'll understand there will be painful trade offs but it will ultimately be worth it.
Super, we say. Great stuff, not what we would recommend for you but it's a (democratic) choice so let's get to it.
I'm going now, you say.
"Say what?"
"Right now, get this cannula out my hand."
"Are you? You can't go now, we're waiting for X rays back."
"No I'm going right now."
"Alright, alright, calm down. Let's see what doctor says and I promise if it's what you really want then the minute you're discharged we'll set up a savings account. Maybe even a Just Giving... eh, here stop plucking out those wires!!"
Another imperfect metaphor, my point being that even though your long suffering partner (48%) may not like it we're all old enough and committed enough to democracy as a populace to compromise for the sake of our marriage. But for Heaven's sake before you take such a drastic step, have a goddamn plan and understand the consequences!
Team work isn't just a buzzword. It's necessary to our existence as a human race. It's the loveliest of us and the most practical of us and it is our ability to work together that creates a better world for everyone. If I could, I'd stop Brexit immediately in its tracks before we all suffer. But I am not so arrogant to assume the other side doesn't have a point. Nor to exonerate the EU completely from its responsibility to pull itself together on borders.
So to combat this, I wanted to give you some examples of really good teamwork you may have missed. Apart from the marvelous cave rescue and the inspiration to a nation of another football team.To prove we can all work together cross borders and cross nations. To quote Jo Cox, who echoed the wisdom of ages, far more unites us than divides us.
- Senegal & Japanese foot ball fans clean up stadiums after respective World Cup matches
- Huntington, Virginia's compassionate response to drug overdose
- Conservationists team up with large tech companies to protect elephants from poachers in Kenya
- European Bank for Restructuring & Development backs Tbilisi, Georgia's green bus scheme
- International researchers break through research into prostrate cancer and polycystic fibrosis
It is of the utmost importance to work together. To find compromise and congruence. To listen to each other and speak to each other kindly, calmly and with compassion and understanding.
We must do this, not because it is kind or gentle or easy. But because it is right and just and hard. In the end, the best things in life are.
A Devlin View
Thursday, 5 July 2018
The Novel | The Magician of Lublin
Author: Isaac Bashevis Singer
Theme: Wrestling with faith
Do: Ponder the intricate relationship between a man, his God, his forefathers and his many, many, many many women
Don't: Expect these many many many many women to be more than plot devices
Spoilers: Delicately avoiding them
I begin reading "The Magician of Lublin" on my 8.56 am train to London Cannon Street.
It would be horrifically easy to assassinate me. I leave home at 8.38 am every morning, catch the aforementioned train to be at my desk at 9.23 am and there I stay until 12.30 am - my self-appointed lunchtime - when I will take whatever tome I'm currently engrossed in and retreat to the safety of the 9th floor breakout area where no one can come looking for me to do another 'urgent' press release. 1 pm sharp, back on the floor and I leave bang on 5.35 am, just in time to make my 5.49 pm train back to...
Well anyway, you'd certainly to know on what precise door handles and at what precise times to smear Novichok...
The point is that I was getting some strange looks from across the way. The reason for this might be the naked lady with very prominent titties on the front of my Penguin Modern Classic. That classy bit is covered by her left bosom. Behind her is depicted, we can only assume, the Magician of Lublin.
Yasha Mazur, our eponymous lead character, is variously a scoundrel, a bounder, a cad and a rogue. His trade is sorcery, smoke and mirrors. He is equally at home mysticising and hypnotising the gentry as he is shuffling out card tricks in a thieves den in Piask. The action is set mainly in the shtetls of 1870's Warsaw and if I had to pin down the central question it might be;
Where can you go to be free of yourself?
Bashevis Singer was born in Warsaw, Poland - then part of the great Russian Empire. In his dedications he wrote to those, "who spared no effort to make this translation as true to the Yiddish original as a translation can be." He wrote purely in Yiddish all his life and accepted the Nobel Prize in 1978. Despite emigrating to the United States, he remained within a very close knit Jewish community until his death in Florida in 1991.
Escape and identity must have been on every mind on the continent of Europe at that time and it shines through in Singer's writing. When who you were, and who you felt you were, and who others thought you were was a question of life and death. Alongside the normal literary questions of we ourselves, the ghastly specters of Treblinka and Bergen-Belsen loom in the mind reading this book. It may have every appearance of a light-hearted tale of a trickster roaming the countryside with a girl in every city, but simmering beneath is the plight of what it meant to be Jewish whilst Singer was writing. Every mention of 'casual' antisemitism grates - by casual, I mean to say that Singer mentions it almost in passing. It forms a backdrop to everyday life. Institutionalised injustice. It is there at the corner of your eye, just glimpsed, and merits mentioning before diving into other questions of indentity.
So why should you read it? First of all - it will transport you to another world in another time. Singer is a very sensory writer - he will go to great lengths to describe the foods and drinks. I could almost taste the crumble of the butter cookies and the sharp, astringent sting of neat vodka. Singer magics up cigar smoke and fusty bed-sheets and the reel of a drunken accordionist spinning out a Polish mazurka. He describes the texture of the cloth blindfolding Yasha's eyes for a party trick. The scrape and scratch of his skeleton key ministering to a yielding lock.
Secondly, and most importantly, it will give you a glimpse into another faith and creed. I will be the first to admit, I grew up in Northern Ireland, which (while, quite simply, home to some of the most marvelous people on the planet) has all the diversity of a packet of Fox's custard creams. It wasn't until I arrived at university that I spoke to someone who wasn't a white Irish Catholic.
But for that reason, I understand the insularity of Singer's world, despite resting firmly amoungst the goyim . In researching this post, I learned of Singer's reluctance to emerge from the safety of his own community. Do I not do the same when I surround myself with Irish friends? Did my community not do the same when cruelty and conflict broke out at home? We hide ourselves where we are familiar.
The lovely thing about this is that Singer set his books onto the world, like ships onto the sea. They come to us from his safe harbour - which during his lifetime, wasn't so safe. It gives us an insight into a world many of us might otherwise know very little about, that of the Jewish community and faith. From the intricacies of prayer shawls and phylacteries to proverbs and turns of phrase we've never heard before. I wondered at the differences Yasha notes between himself and "Lithuanian Jews." Could there really be such a chasm between them? But then I remember my own background and know that both communities might be white Christians on a small island in the Irish Sea, but the differences go parish-wide and bone-deep.
There was a reason I highlighted Singer's gratitude to his translators. It is that words are supremely important and more is 'lost in translation' than the meaning of this or that particular noun or verb. Nuance can be lost, and nuance we must always strive to find.
And now - a negative - and there is a little bit of me that understands the times in which Singer was writing and the attitudes which may have changed since then.
I found it hard to read about his women.
These women - Esther, the ever-faithful wife - Magda - the lovely young assistant - Zeftel - the abandoned wife of a talentless thief - Emilia - the cultivated widow of a university professor - they are all as one, madly in love with Yasha and desperate to be with him.
Mmmmmmmm-hmmmmmmm.
Singer lingers overlong on their physical attributes, which suits his sensory style but discomforts me. He focuses not only on their present bodies, but in older women laments the passing of their youth and in young girls (pre-puberty) projects what delights might be budding. There are a few telling lines in the book:
"It would be worth surrendering my last pair of drawers to be a man."
I chose that line, not for the obvious assertion by Singer that of course it would be better to be a man! <sic> I chose it because I am astounded by his complete inability to get inside a woman's head. This is a man who spoke to me in those pages about the impermanence of life, the possibility of a Creator, the flaws and perfections of human character and the great struggle that goes on inside each one of us when we look at the stars.
All of this, and when it comes to women, he's just completely fucking obsessed with their knickers.
Think about it ladies. And of course men too, because we're all people.
If you had a great desire, one great wish and you thought about everything it might be worth surrendering to attain it, what would you choose? Would you choose your dignity? Your independence? Your wit? Your very soul?
In Singer's world, if you're a woman, you choose your goddamn pants. There's a fellow that's never known the pain of snapped knicker elastic.
Of course we could explain the disrespect away by pointing to the consistent irreverence within the book. The milieu is meant to be picaresque i.e. he's a scoundrel in a city of scoundrels, don't take it so seriously, mate!
But it's the throwaway lines that hurt you. I read:
"Magda, like all women, wanted to have children."
Hold onto your horses there Singer - that is just an untruth!
I bring these up, not to dissuade you from reading Magician of Lublin, but in the tacit understanding that reviews on 'ere give you a personal flavour and it greatly saddened me personally to come to understand that this man who had written so compellingly would perhaps not wish to engage with lively conversation with me at a dinner table. Because I am a woman. I can't swear to it, I've never known him and never will, but it was the impression I received.
Besides, my complete lack of Yiddish might have been more of a stumbling block to good table conversation about his novel...
Identity and escape, and so we come around again. Where is Yasha at the end of the book and does he manage to make his escape?
Something quite horrific and jarring and enough to make me start happens three quarters of the way through the book. Something which pinballs Yasha right down the path of repentance, a path he has been idly zig-zagging along in previous chapters. Shall I run away to Italy with Emilia? Shall I haunt the bars with Zeftel? Shall I run home to my Esther? His restless spirit chafes at his perceived bonds, like oxen in too tight a plowshare.
Not so after The Incident. I won't spoil it for you - I want you to pull up short and reread in disbelief as well. But I will reveal that Yasha the Magician ends up back at home, bricked into a stone hut, where he intends to spend the rest of his days seeking redemption through prayer and abstinence.
I loved it. I loved it because my reaction was - you see, you can't run from yourself.
All of our Magician's problems are those of his own making. His reasoning is that to be captive and captured will be a great boon - he can avoid temptation for the rest of his life.
We all carry the seeds of our triumph and downfall within us. I am certainly not suggesting we all crack out the bricks and mortar - but the moment Yasha stopped running he became Yasha the Penitent. The faithful flocked to him for miles around, seeking his counsel and wisdom. He was considered to have achieved enlightenment.
Identity, innit. Do you make it yourself, is it something other people give you, or is it a mix of the two?
A Young Author's Inspiration
I found the most marvelous quote from Isaac Bashevis Singer:
"I think it is a great tragedy that modern writers have become so interested in messages that they forget that there are stories which are wonderful without a message, that the message isn't everything."
Theme: Wrestling with faith
Do: Ponder the intricate relationship between a man, his God, his forefathers and his many, many, many many women
Don't: Expect these many many many many women to be more than plot devices
Spoilers: Delicately avoiding them
I begin reading "The Magician of Lublin" on my 8.56 am train to London Cannon Street.
It would be horrifically easy to assassinate me. I leave home at 8.38 am every morning, catch the aforementioned train to be at my desk at 9.23 am and there I stay until 12.30 am - my self-appointed lunchtime - when I will take whatever tome I'm currently engrossed in and retreat to the safety of the 9th floor breakout area where no one can come looking for me to do another 'urgent' press release. 1 pm sharp, back on the floor and I leave bang on 5.35 am, just in time to make my 5.49 pm train back to...
Well anyway, you'd certainly to know on what precise door handles and at what precise times to smear Novichok...
The point is that I was getting some strange looks from across the way. The reason for this might be the naked lady with very prominent titties on the front of my Penguin Modern Classic. That classy bit is covered by her left bosom. Behind her is depicted, we can only assume, the Magician of Lublin.
Yasha Mazur, our eponymous lead character, is variously a scoundrel, a bounder, a cad and a rogue. His trade is sorcery, smoke and mirrors. He is equally at home mysticising and hypnotising the gentry as he is shuffling out card tricks in a thieves den in Piask. The action is set mainly in the shtetls of 1870's Warsaw and if I had to pin down the central question it might be;
Where can you go to be free of yourself?
Bashevis Singer was born in Warsaw, Poland - then part of the great Russian Empire. In his dedications he wrote to those, "who spared no effort to make this translation as true to the Yiddish original as a translation can be." He wrote purely in Yiddish all his life and accepted the Nobel Prize in 1978. Despite emigrating to the United States, he remained within a very close knit Jewish community until his death in Florida in 1991.
Escape and identity must have been on every mind on the continent of Europe at that time and it shines through in Singer's writing. When who you were, and who you felt you were, and who others thought you were was a question of life and death. Alongside the normal literary questions of we ourselves, the ghastly specters of Treblinka and Bergen-Belsen loom in the mind reading this book. It may have every appearance of a light-hearted tale of a trickster roaming the countryside with a girl in every city, but simmering beneath is the plight of what it meant to be Jewish whilst Singer was writing. Every mention of 'casual' antisemitism grates - by casual, I mean to say that Singer mentions it almost in passing. It forms a backdrop to everyday life. Institutionalised injustice. It is there at the corner of your eye, just glimpsed, and merits mentioning before diving into other questions of indentity.
So why should you read it? First of all - it will transport you to another world in another time. Singer is a very sensory writer - he will go to great lengths to describe the foods and drinks. I could almost taste the crumble of the butter cookies and the sharp, astringent sting of neat vodka. Singer magics up cigar smoke and fusty bed-sheets and the reel of a drunken accordionist spinning out a Polish mazurka. He describes the texture of the cloth blindfolding Yasha's eyes for a party trick. The scrape and scratch of his skeleton key ministering to a yielding lock.
Secondly, and most importantly, it will give you a glimpse into another faith and creed. I will be the first to admit, I grew up in Northern Ireland, which (while, quite simply, home to some of the most marvelous people on the planet) has all the diversity of a packet of Fox's custard creams. It wasn't until I arrived at university that I spoke to someone who wasn't a white Irish Catholic.
But for that reason, I understand the insularity of Singer's world, despite resting firmly amoungst the goyim . In researching this post, I learned of Singer's reluctance to emerge from the safety of his own community. Do I not do the same when I surround myself with Irish friends? Did my community not do the same when cruelty and conflict broke out at home? We hide ourselves where we are familiar.
The lovely thing about this is that Singer set his books onto the world, like ships onto the sea. They come to us from his safe harbour - which during his lifetime, wasn't so safe. It gives us an insight into a world many of us might otherwise know very little about, that of the Jewish community and faith. From the intricacies of prayer shawls and phylacteries to proverbs and turns of phrase we've never heard before. I wondered at the differences Yasha notes between himself and "Lithuanian Jews." Could there really be such a chasm between them? But then I remember my own background and know that both communities might be white Christians on a small island in the Irish Sea, but the differences go parish-wide and bone-deep.
There was a reason I highlighted Singer's gratitude to his translators. It is that words are supremely important and more is 'lost in translation' than the meaning of this or that particular noun or verb. Nuance can be lost, and nuance we must always strive to find.
And now - a negative - and there is a little bit of me that understands the times in which Singer was writing and the attitudes which may have changed since then.
I found it hard to read about his women.
These women - Esther, the ever-faithful wife - Magda - the lovely young assistant - Zeftel - the abandoned wife of a talentless thief - Emilia - the cultivated widow of a university professor - they are all as one, madly in love with Yasha and desperate to be with him.
Mmmmmmmm-hmmmmmmm.
Singer lingers overlong on their physical attributes, which suits his sensory style but discomforts me. He focuses not only on their present bodies, but in older women laments the passing of their youth and in young girls (pre-puberty) projects what delights might be budding. There are a few telling lines in the book:
"It would be worth surrendering my last pair of drawers to be a man."
I chose that line, not for the obvious assertion by Singer that of course it would be better to be a man! <sic> I chose it because I am astounded by his complete inability to get inside a woman's head. This is a man who spoke to me in those pages about the impermanence of life, the possibility of a Creator, the flaws and perfections of human character and the great struggle that goes on inside each one of us when we look at the stars.
All of this, and when it comes to women, he's just completely fucking obsessed with their knickers.
Think about it ladies. And of course men too, because we're all people.
If you had a great desire, one great wish and you thought about everything it might be worth surrendering to attain it, what would you choose? Would you choose your dignity? Your independence? Your wit? Your very soul?
In Singer's world, if you're a woman, you choose your goddamn pants. There's a fellow that's never known the pain of snapped knicker elastic.
Of course we could explain the disrespect away by pointing to the consistent irreverence within the book. The milieu is meant to be picaresque i.e. he's a scoundrel in a city of scoundrels, don't take it so seriously, mate!
But it's the throwaway lines that hurt you. I read:
"Magda, like all women, wanted to have children."
Hold onto your horses there Singer - that is just an untruth!
I bring these up, not to dissuade you from reading Magician of Lublin, but in the tacit understanding that reviews on 'ere give you a personal flavour and it greatly saddened me personally to come to understand that this man who had written so compellingly would perhaps not wish to engage with lively conversation with me at a dinner table. Because I am a woman. I can't swear to it, I've never known him and never will, but it was the impression I received.
Besides, my complete lack of Yiddish might have been more of a stumbling block to good table conversation about his novel...
Identity and escape, and so we come around again. Where is Yasha at the end of the book and does he manage to make his escape?
Something quite horrific and jarring and enough to make me start happens three quarters of the way through the book. Something which pinballs Yasha right down the path of repentance, a path he has been idly zig-zagging along in previous chapters. Shall I run away to Italy with Emilia? Shall I haunt the bars with Zeftel? Shall I run home to my Esther? His restless spirit chafes at his perceived bonds, like oxen in too tight a plowshare.
Not so after The Incident. I won't spoil it for you - I want you to pull up short and reread in disbelief as well. But I will reveal that Yasha the Magician ends up back at home, bricked into a stone hut, where he intends to spend the rest of his days seeking redemption through prayer and abstinence.
I loved it. I loved it because my reaction was - you see, you can't run from yourself.
All of our Magician's problems are those of his own making. His reasoning is that to be captive and captured will be a great boon - he can avoid temptation for the rest of his life.
We all carry the seeds of our triumph and downfall within us. I am certainly not suggesting we all crack out the bricks and mortar - but the moment Yasha stopped running he became Yasha the Penitent. The faithful flocked to him for miles around, seeking his counsel and wisdom. He was considered to have achieved enlightenment.
Identity, innit. Do you make it yourself, is it something other people give you, or is it a mix of the two?
A Young Author's Inspiration
I found the most marvelous quote from Isaac Bashevis Singer:
"I think it is a great tragedy that modern writers have become so interested in messages that they forget that there are stories which are wonderful without a message, that the message isn't everything."
Well said, sir. I think for a while there in writing my next book I was in danger of forgetting I was telling a story. Sometimes when you are surrounded by social media soundbites, when we sacrifice nuance for brevity, everything has to become a strong stance or a firm opinion. Sometimes, we're only looking for a good story.
And now, the action in taverns and taprooms has given me quite a thirst. I might seek out some of this wódka and try and (magician-like) coax a little inspiration out of thin air.
Devlin xo
Friday, 29 June 2018
A very Devlin view of "The Novel & the New"
Funny old world, isn't it?
Four score and seven years ago... well, I wasn't even a twinkle in my great-grandfather's eye. I just thought it's worth you getting curious about the intro and reading the Gettysburg Address. Education and the like.
The last time I spoke to you five years ago I had nothing figured out. I was in my first job in the City of London, I was navigating the world of cohabiting with people you didn't know from Adam. I didn't know them from Adam. I was single, I wouldn't cook, I was struggling to be recognized as a serious writer with powerful and relevant things to say. Incisive and witty commentary on what it means to be young-ish in one of the world's foremost cities.
Oh how things have changed!
"Come on you wee pink bastard - I can't add the ginger paste and soy sauce until you're salmonella-free..."
Welcome to my world five years in. And I have wonderful news for you. I have found the love of my life. I am earning a few more bucks than I was. And I cook like Gordon Ramsay on steroids. At least for myself.
What I haven't done is found any more success in the whole realization of the life long dream of being a paid-for serious writer. Or how to get that silvery little ring out from around the plughole of the bath. It's like a little halo of deposit-eating wear and tear.
I have tried my hardest. Not scrubbing the bathtub, I mean the writing! In the years since last we spoke, I have written a whole book. 70,000 marvelous words, each painstakingly chosen and lovingly woven into my oeuvre, a five year work of an eternity when you're pushing 30.
Nobody wanted it. I won't name and shame, because when you point a finger, there are three pointing back at you. But I did drown my sorrows in a fierce amount of chardonnay and merlot and whisky....
The funny thing is, I always thought being rejected from publishers would be an utterly horrible pillory experience. It was not. In fact, it was exactly the same as those 175 rejections from the job search way way way back in my last year of university. You remember? I have spent many gainful years of being able to afford the shelf above where they keep the Sainsbury Basic Table Wine trying to forget. The memory lingers... much like the aftertaste of a night on Sainsbury's Basic Rosé.
35 submissions and counting, each wanting a different aspect. First 30 pages and a 500 word synopsis. 30 word synopsis, chapters 3, 5 & 8 and a description of you as an author. First 10,000 words and a cover letter. I fulfilled every single one.
It was the long and drawn out soul-destroying ennui of the automated response that did it. "We are sorry but..." "We receive hundreds of admirable submissions" "it is our deepest regret we cannot represent..."
Every single one of them automatically generated and devoid of human personality.
So what's a girl/boy/gender non-binary person to do? Just to be inclusive, like...
I'll tell you what they're to do - they're to keep going. They are to keep producing content, they are to keep speaking, and above all they are to keep their chin up and keep positive.
There is a very old and ancient Chinese curse. It admonishes, "may you live in interesting times." We certainly are and a half. Brexit, Trump, Putin, Kim Jong Un. And don't get me started on this nonsense that is living in a world without Stephen Hawking.
The first thing to do was change my profile picture. The one where I'm clutching the largest jar of Nutella I'd ever seen and incidentally weigh a good three and half stones more than I do now. Not that I am embarrassed by the more voluptuous Aileen, good Lord no. But this lady spent a good two years running the roads and doing every sit up Jillian Michaels ever screamed at her to complete because "pain is fear leaving the body." Bollocks by the way Jillian.
Forgive me, and in the words of Jay Z, allow me to reintroduce myself.
What will we be talking about? Readers, I have decided to write on the subjects which mean the very most to me in life. Literature, learning and lots and lots of good news.
Which means occasionally I will be telling you about fascinating words from my Merriam Webster Word a Day calendar. About anything I have actually managed to read from my 1001 Books to Read before You Die. War & Peace and Austen type works. That's the Novel for you. And I will always try and find a wonderful and positive story from the world's News. Because we've had enough. Any extra terrestrial being restricted to reading anything in news outlets and the darker areas of social media platforms would conclude that we're all unpleasant, pugilistic narcissists who can't stand change, difference or analytics.
That's not true. We love each other and we are generally good craic. Let's prove it to E.T.
And in response to that, my first good news story. Which I shall embellish with a personal journey.
In September 2017, while watching a marketing presentation, I noticed a spot in my vision. You will know exactly what I mean if you have ever, accidentally or otherwise, looked into the sun. That coruscating dot which lingers. Flashes in and out when you blink. Gradually fades.
This wasn't gradually fading. This had been bothering me for hours and a Power Point presentation proved the optimal control. White background, uniform font. Close and open affected eye to try and figure out how bad it is. Close right eye. Can't read slide. Open. Visions blurs and swims together. Close again. Spot back. Have I looked at the sun? Open. But why would I with just one eye? Close again to check right vision.
I must at this stage point out that my director is making this presentation and has been looking at me very strangely throughout. I smile and nod encouragingly to project my interest in European/Asian business development strategy through Quarter 1 2018 . What I haven't realized that my exercise in self-diagnosis has come across as winking lasciviously at her throughout her entire slide deck. I thought she'd been oddly quiet at dinner...
The upside is, I live in London - by Moorfields Hospital, who have been unquestionably bright and brilliant. The downside is that PIC and it's complication CNV, is not preventable and not curable. Punctate Inner Chroidopathy and Chroidal NeoVascularization. What has basically happened is that bits of my macula - the pigmented area near the center of the retina - have been flaring and dying for years. Cell death. Which oddly, produces absolutely NO visual symptoms.
Unfortunately, my system has noticed this cell death and charged to the inept rescue, like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. My eye is trying to grow new blood vessels to provide the dead areas with oxygen. The new blood vessel growth is clouding my vision, like thunderstorms on a summer's day.
In my old job, I worked with some of the best people around - I still drink with them, which tells you what amazing chaps and chapettes they are. Unfortunately, I also worked with the law firm's directories submissions, which led me to declare "I would rather stick pins in my eyes than continue." Oh how are the mighty fallen.
Moorfields do stick pins in my eyes. Well, eye. They inject me with Lucentis, a drug to reduce inflammation. And they put me on steroids - which makes me gain weight and toss and turn by night. But, thank science and the NHS, they are preserving what little close vision I have left in my left eye. Think Daniel Day Lewis. My Left Eye...
And so I would like to share with you How Moorfields Hospital Changed the World.
Just to let you know, when you reach 60/70 odds are very likely your macula will degenerate as well. All the people in the waiting room with me are fifty years my senior. And Moorfields are pioneering research which seeks to eliminate wet macular degeneration in our lifetimes. Millennials that is.
And I would like to say thank you to Moorfields. When they thought I had what is known as a chroidal melanoma. Eye cancer. A two year survival rate. I Dr Googled everything and scared myself witless/ And they sat with me. They saw me clutch LG's hand (LG shall hencefoth be my fabulous, wonderful other half - I know, I know, I'm one of those but True Love hit me like a tonne of goddamn bricks) and they held mine through the tests. They made me laugh and brought me Lucozade when a bad reaction to fluoroscein dye in my angiocardiogram fucking floored me. It felt like someone pressed a copper penny down hard enough on my tongue to stop my heart. Then I passed out.
They talked me though every procedure. They celebrated when the news was good. And they stayed in good humour and polite and courteous even though I have seen the general public treat them the way you wouldn't treat your Auntie Katherine when she asks for the third time have you thought about hurrying up the whole 'kids' thing because time's ticking. They handle everything with grace and good will and eternal patience.
We've read about Gosport and I would urge you to read Francis, Keogh & Berwick because let us not mistake positivity as white washing. Even the most beloved institutions have problems and failings, which is why we remain analytical. But after we analyse, let us also act positively.
And let's give a rather bloody large hand to our NHS and staff. From consultants to porters. And something else for free. Let me take you to another September night, a shortly after his 70th birthday for which I was flown home and for which I hid in a cupboard and emerged with the lighted birthday cake. Ye all who joked about giving my Daddy a heart attack, Bejaysus...
Well I tell you, not a word of a lie, when my wee lovely Daddy was holding his fist to his chest and insisting it was nothing a Rennie's couldn't cure - a paramedic I'll never be able to thank enough insisted he be rushed to the Royal. Seven stents in a major artery later, we've had another 9 months with my Daddy. I was on a Ryanair flight home at the exact moment he managed to get back to the house after checking on the sheep. A good shepherd as always. Not a word of a lie or an exaggeration. To need help, to dial 999 and help arrive. What on Earth could be finer than first responders?
To the individuals in the NHS. To its improvement and betterment. To understanding its flaws and shortcomings and working to provide more than chucking cash at it. To everyone who goes above and beyond when someone has gotten a 3 am call with the worst news you can hear. Thank you.
And to you dear readers, a final note. One day I will be looking cock-eyed at another Power Point. I will probably be wearing a bejeweled eye-patch. I will imagine that I look like a rakish pirate, a modern day Jack Sparrow. And I will blink. And there will be another sunspot in my vision. But I won't have looked skyward. It might happen tomorrow. Maybe in ten years. Hopefully forty.
So that might explain the renewed energy and investment in blogging and writing and living and loving life. One day my right eye will fail me as well. But until then, and by Gods even after then - I will keep doing as much of what I love as I can.
And I love writing for you. And I love travelling. And I love words. And I love optimism.
So prepare yourselves... for a very Devlin view of The Novel & The New.
Devlin xo
Four score and seven years ago... well, I wasn't even a twinkle in my great-grandfather's eye. I just thought it's worth you getting curious about the intro and reading the Gettysburg Address. Education and the like.
The last time I spoke to you five years ago I had nothing figured out. I was in my first job in the City of London, I was navigating the world of cohabiting with people you didn't know from Adam. I didn't know them from Adam. I was single, I wouldn't cook, I was struggling to be recognized as a serious writer with powerful and relevant things to say. Incisive and witty commentary on what it means to be young-ish in one of the world's foremost cities.
Oh how things have changed!
"Come on you wee pink bastard - I can't add the ginger paste and soy sauce until you're salmonella-free..."
Welcome to my world five years in. And I have wonderful news for you. I have found the love of my life. I am earning a few more bucks than I was. And I cook like Gordon Ramsay on steroids. At least for myself.
What I haven't done is found any more success in the whole realization of the life long dream of being a paid-for serious writer. Or how to get that silvery little ring out from around the plughole of the bath. It's like a little halo of deposit-eating wear and tear.
I have tried my hardest. Not scrubbing the bathtub, I mean the writing! In the years since last we spoke, I have written a whole book. 70,000 marvelous words, each painstakingly chosen and lovingly woven into my oeuvre, a five year work of an eternity when you're pushing 30.
Nobody wanted it. I won't name and shame, because when you point a finger, there are three pointing back at you. But I did drown my sorrows in a fierce amount of chardonnay and merlot and whisky....
The funny thing is, I always thought being rejected from publishers would be an utterly horrible pillory experience. It was not. In fact, it was exactly the same as those 175 rejections from the job search way way way back in my last year of university. You remember? I have spent many gainful years of being able to afford the shelf above where they keep the Sainsbury Basic Table Wine trying to forget. The memory lingers... much like the aftertaste of a night on Sainsbury's Basic Rosé.
35 submissions and counting, each wanting a different aspect. First 30 pages and a 500 word synopsis. 30 word synopsis, chapters 3, 5 & 8 and a description of you as an author. First 10,000 words and a cover letter. I fulfilled every single one.
It was the long and drawn out soul-destroying ennui of the automated response that did it. "We are sorry but..." "We receive hundreds of admirable submissions" "it is our deepest regret we cannot represent..."
Every single one of them automatically generated and devoid of human personality.
So what's a girl/boy/gender non-binary person to do? Just to be inclusive, like...
I'll tell you what they're to do - they're to keep going. They are to keep producing content, they are to keep speaking, and above all they are to keep their chin up and keep positive.
There is a very old and ancient Chinese curse. It admonishes, "may you live in interesting times." We certainly are and a half. Brexit, Trump, Putin, Kim Jong Un. And don't get me started on this nonsense that is living in a world without Stephen Hawking.
The first thing to do was change my profile picture. The one where I'm clutching the largest jar of Nutella I'd ever seen and incidentally weigh a good three and half stones more than I do now. Not that I am embarrassed by the more voluptuous Aileen, good Lord no. But this lady spent a good two years running the roads and doing every sit up Jillian Michaels ever screamed at her to complete because "pain is fear leaving the body." Bollocks by the way Jillian.
Forgive me, and in the words of Jay Z, allow me to reintroduce myself.
What will we be talking about? Readers, I have decided to write on the subjects which mean the very most to me in life. Literature, learning and lots and lots of good news.
Which means occasionally I will be telling you about fascinating words from my Merriam Webster Word a Day calendar. About anything I have actually managed to read from my 1001 Books to Read before You Die. War & Peace and Austen type works. That's the Novel for you. And I will always try and find a wonderful and positive story from the world's News. Because we've had enough. Any extra terrestrial being restricted to reading anything in news outlets and the darker areas of social media platforms would conclude that we're all unpleasant, pugilistic narcissists who can't stand change, difference or analytics.
That's not true. We love each other and we are generally good craic. Let's prove it to E.T.
And in response to that, my first good news story. Which I shall embellish with a personal journey.
In September 2017, while watching a marketing presentation, I noticed a spot in my vision. You will know exactly what I mean if you have ever, accidentally or otherwise, looked into the sun. That coruscating dot which lingers. Flashes in and out when you blink. Gradually fades.
This wasn't gradually fading. This had been bothering me for hours and a Power Point presentation proved the optimal control. White background, uniform font. Close and open affected eye to try and figure out how bad it is. Close right eye. Can't read slide. Open. Visions blurs and swims together. Close again. Spot back. Have I looked at the sun? Open. But why would I with just one eye? Close again to check right vision.
I must at this stage point out that my director is making this presentation and has been looking at me very strangely throughout. I smile and nod encouragingly to project my interest in European/Asian business development strategy through Quarter 1 2018 . What I haven't realized that my exercise in self-diagnosis has come across as winking lasciviously at her throughout her entire slide deck. I thought she'd been oddly quiet at dinner...
The upside is, I live in London - by Moorfields Hospital, who have been unquestionably bright and brilliant. The downside is that PIC and it's complication CNV, is not preventable and not curable. Punctate Inner Chroidopathy and Chroidal NeoVascularization. What has basically happened is that bits of my macula - the pigmented area near the center of the retina - have been flaring and dying for years. Cell death. Which oddly, produces absolutely NO visual symptoms.
Unfortunately, my system has noticed this cell death and charged to the inept rescue, like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. My eye is trying to grow new blood vessels to provide the dead areas with oxygen. The new blood vessel growth is clouding my vision, like thunderstorms on a summer's day.
In my old job, I worked with some of the best people around - I still drink with them, which tells you what amazing chaps and chapettes they are. Unfortunately, I also worked with the law firm's directories submissions, which led me to declare "I would rather stick pins in my eyes than continue." Oh how are the mighty fallen.
Moorfields do stick pins in my eyes. Well, eye. They inject me with Lucentis, a drug to reduce inflammation. And they put me on steroids - which makes me gain weight and toss and turn by night. But, thank science and the NHS, they are preserving what little close vision I have left in my left eye. Think Daniel Day Lewis. My Left Eye...
And so I would like to share with you How Moorfields Hospital Changed the World.
Just to let you know, when you reach 60/70 odds are very likely your macula will degenerate as well. All the people in the waiting room with me are fifty years my senior. And Moorfields are pioneering research which seeks to eliminate wet macular degeneration in our lifetimes. Millennials that is.
And I would like to say thank you to Moorfields. When they thought I had what is known as a chroidal melanoma. Eye cancer. A two year survival rate. I Dr Googled everything and scared myself witless/ And they sat with me. They saw me clutch LG's hand (LG shall hencefoth be my fabulous, wonderful other half - I know, I know, I'm one of those but True Love hit me like a tonne of goddamn bricks) and they held mine through the tests. They made me laugh and brought me Lucozade when a bad reaction to fluoroscein dye in my angiocardiogram fucking floored me. It felt like someone pressed a copper penny down hard enough on my tongue to stop my heart. Then I passed out.
They talked me though every procedure. They celebrated when the news was good. And they stayed in good humour and polite and courteous even though I have seen the general public treat them the way you wouldn't treat your Auntie Katherine when she asks for the third time have you thought about hurrying up the whole 'kids' thing because time's ticking. They handle everything with grace and good will and eternal patience.
We've read about Gosport and I would urge you to read Francis, Keogh & Berwick because let us not mistake positivity as white washing. Even the most beloved institutions have problems and failings, which is why we remain analytical. But after we analyse, let us also act positively.
And let's give a rather bloody large hand to our NHS and staff. From consultants to porters. And something else for free. Let me take you to another September night, a shortly after his 70th birthday for which I was flown home and for which I hid in a cupboard and emerged with the lighted birthday cake. Ye all who joked about giving my Daddy a heart attack, Bejaysus...
Well I tell you, not a word of a lie, when my wee lovely Daddy was holding his fist to his chest and insisting it was nothing a Rennie's couldn't cure - a paramedic I'll never be able to thank enough insisted he be rushed to the Royal. Seven stents in a major artery later, we've had another 9 months with my Daddy. I was on a Ryanair flight home at the exact moment he managed to get back to the house after checking on the sheep. A good shepherd as always. Not a word of a lie or an exaggeration. To need help, to dial 999 and help arrive. What on Earth could be finer than first responders?
To the individuals in the NHS. To its improvement and betterment. To understanding its flaws and shortcomings and working to provide more than chucking cash at it. To everyone who goes above and beyond when someone has gotten a 3 am call with the worst news you can hear. Thank you.
And to you dear readers, a final note. One day I will be looking cock-eyed at another Power Point. I will probably be wearing a bejeweled eye-patch. I will imagine that I look like a rakish pirate, a modern day Jack Sparrow. And I will blink. And there will be another sunspot in my vision. But I won't have looked skyward. It might happen tomorrow. Maybe in ten years. Hopefully forty.
So that might explain the renewed energy and investment in blogging and writing and living and loving life. One day my right eye will fail me as well. But until then, and by Gods even after then - I will keep doing as much of what I love as I can.
And I love writing for you. And I love travelling. And I love words. And I love optimism.
So prepare yourselves... for a very Devlin view of The Novel & The New.
Devlin xo
Wednesday, 11 September 2013
"I ring them only to discover they've been taken by a bunch of fucking psychic flat hunting wankers!!"
Your first flat hunt is a rite of passage. This is what we are told. Baptism of fire, Hail Mary, nothing for it but to grin and bare all and throw yourself into it until you just want to weep then throw up and die.
They do not tell you that the same is true of all house hunts you will ever to in your life. It does not get any easier. This is my third and the third time is NOT the charm.
Oh we will find somewhere. We might even find somewhere halfway decent that makes me want to tell people about my gap yah and bake scones (rhyming with stones) and point out the period fireplace. And we might even find somewhere quickly, within a week of intense hunting so when we try to explain to the dwindling number of friends who have not flat hunted how stressful it was they look at us with glassy infuriatingly uncomprehending eyes and with furrowed brows say, "It was just a week..."
"JUST A WEEK! You little (rhymes with flat hunt). The crucifixion was just six hours, Katrina took a day, Hiro-bloody-shima took fifteen minutes, don't you sit there and toss around time frames like fucking sweeties and tell me it only took a week!"
I don't say this, but I think it incredibly loudly.
Flat hunting makes you feel all irritable and itchy, like your clothes have shrunk in the wash. And it makes me tired and I get fussy when I'm tired. I do a lot of incredibly loud thinking.
"You know what I love sir? I fucking love it when you stop in the middle of the street, I can't get enough of that shit. That stumblebumble text walk? I will stick Barry White on my fucking iPod and ENJOY the view as you walk away from me. I hope the thought doesn't make you uncomfortable but if you think as slowly as you walk you're still wondering what all these bright lights are and who's shouting "It's a boy!!!"
Sometimes I don't even think it, I will say it. There was this gem from the first solo flat hunt and thank God I'm doing it with lovely people this time or I would crack.
Rewind six weeks. I was standing in the shittest flat I have ever seen in Mile End. Mould in the shower. Kitchen falling apart. Closed locked doors to other bedrooms I was assured were home to the sweetest students in the world. A man screaming at his "lazy fucking useless bitch" in the next flat over.
Standing beside me was an estate agent who looked me square in the face, like he had neither eyes nor ears nor a sense of smell, and told me:
"Now little places like this go like hotcakes so you need to let me know now if not sooner if you want it or you'll miss out big time."
The little shit.
So I looked at him square in the eye and said, "You know what, I'm not actually that desperate yet so if I miss out I'll try not to cry myself to sleep."
There was no applause and no wolf whistles...except in my imagination. The truth is I needed somewhere quick so I was getting pretty desperate. As is everyone who flat hunts for longer than two days in London. And the estate agents have us over a barrel.
The quote in the title is from Spaced and it encapsulates everything horrible about the flat hunt. Speed is the key. You need to be on the line and feeling fine. In it essence nowadays the flat hunt is done online and the viewing should really be to tell you if the area or the house is everything promised online. It is a reassurance, not an extra step. After the house view it WILL be a yes or no within half an hour. There is no room for maybes in the London market.
I am writing all this in a Starbucks (yes I know, I do have proper internet but I do not have proper chai lattes) and all the couples in the world are here. Every other table in this place people are looking into each others eyes doe eyed or doing that smile with one side of the mouth crooked up. Couples. You all do this smile and you don't notice. I think it's a special thing. I am making a study. It's a sort of wryly amused look.
The only other single person here has answered a phone with "Hi honey, where are you?"
Bleurgh.
I met the most laughable man on the night bus yesterday. Well. I didn't meet him, he merely made an impression. He had been sitting in the back of the bus talking to two young women. One a stunner in bodycon and stilettos, you know the type, and one plainer and homelier (and yes plumper) but still in jeans and a nice top and they were both clearly out for the night. They hopped off at Old Street roundabout and a minute later he came rollicking up the bus and approached the driver and asked,
"Sorry mate, which is the next stop the 78 pulls in at cos I've gone and missed the last one."
"Central Road mate."
Then, completely voluntarily,
"Right, right. Cheers. You know how it happened? I was talking to this absolutely gorgeous woman, I mean she was just stunning and I went to jelly I forgot what I was doing, like a school boy again, you know. I wish I'd asked her her number because I know she would of give it to me."
And I wish I could have caught the bus driver's eye because he and I I'm sure raised an eyebrow and gave a Scrubs Laverne "Mmmmmm-hmmmmm" at exactly the same time. And we burned to ask this balding middle aged man, "What was it sweetie? Was it that the last time a pretty woman spoke to you she said "Tall, grande or venti?"
And some of the more hopeless romantics out there will boo hiss boo at my meaness, but his story made me all annoyed. And though I'm the best wing woman in the world and though I am appreciative of fitties and our quest to get with them I got all annoyed because of her friend. Her lovely friend with the lovely smile doing a third of the talking who didn't get a look in.
But back to the vile spawn of Satan masquerading as ordinary humans. Estate agents. We dealt with an estate agent called Harris who took us to a house. A really nice house, four beds, two baths, lovely jubbly. And Harris was as cool as a cucumber. Well, according to my sources I was actually in work at the time being sweet talked by an aging banker from Barcelona. Time is ticking...
So this Harris character tells us to "noooo, relax, don't even worry about it, there aren't any other viewings today, everything's fine"
And we like the look of the place, leave, decide we're going to take it, get all excited, call the agency back and they tell us "We literally just got a holding deposit..." And Harris is mysteriously uncontactable. In this day and age? I think not...
To put it mildly we were all extremely cross with Harris who had to have known of the serious interest. So I devised a wonderful scheme of revenge.
I get dolled up, head out to the West End and find Harris in a group of his smarmy cheap suited friends and buy him a whiskey and smile winsomely. And I shall notch up the charm to 11 and make the poor bastard fall in love with me. Boy won't know what hit him.
We shall court for three years or so, going slowly because I am a classy lassy. We shall marry on a clear, chilly October day when the leaves are turning coppery and drifting to the ground.
We shall have two children, Harris Jr who is just like his dad and a little girl who shall be his princess, We shall have picnics in the park and go to his mum's at Christmas.
And then one day, one ordinary unremarkable day he will wake up in our Egyptian cotton streets and I will be gone. And the kids will be gone. And a letter will inform him of the sale of the house. And of his car. And detail unauthorised payments made from the deposit scheme his agency uses to his own personal bank account.
Aha.
But I really don't have the dedication for such a long term plan so now I'll just drink a fifth and sob angry incoherent things down the phone at him. "HARRIS! I hope you f**k your wife as well as you f**ked over us you schelfish bassshhterrd..."
Much better, pithy and and witty and nicely noir.
But even as we speak I hope to have good news to tell you for lo a hope is born...but sometimes in life horrible and inexplicable things happen and as I don't want to risk a stillbirth I shan't say a word.
Instead I shall wrap myself in a woolly blanket at Jenny's and drink hot chocolate and listen to jazz.
And email her contact at Reuters...
xo
They do not tell you that the same is true of all house hunts you will ever to in your life. It does not get any easier. This is my third and the third time is NOT the charm.
Oh we will find somewhere. We might even find somewhere halfway decent that makes me want to tell people about my gap yah and bake scones (rhyming with stones) and point out the period fireplace. And we might even find somewhere quickly, within a week of intense hunting so when we try to explain to the dwindling number of friends who have not flat hunted how stressful it was they look at us with glassy infuriatingly uncomprehending eyes and with furrowed brows say, "It was just a week..."
"JUST A WEEK! You little (rhymes with flat hunt). The crucifixion was just six hours, Katrina took a day, Hiro-bloody-shima took fifteen minutes, don't you sit there and toss around time frames like fucking sweeties and tell me it only took a week!"
I don't say this, but I think it incredibly loudly.
Flat hunting makes you feel all irritable and itchy, like your clothes have shrunk in the wash. And it makes me tired and I get fussy when I'm tired. I do a lot of incredibly loud thinking.
"You know what I love sir? I fucking love it when you stop in the middle of the street, I can't get enough of that shit. That stumblebumble text walk? I will stick Barry White on my fucking iPod and ENJOY the view as you walk away from me. I hope the thought doesn't make you uncomfortable but if you think as slowly as you walk you're still wondering what all these bright lights are and who's shouting "It's a boy!!!"
Sometimes I don't even think it, I will say it. There was this gem from the first solo flat hunt and thank God I'm doing it with lovely people this time or I would crack.
Rewind six weeks. I was standing in the shittest flat I have ever seen in Mile End. Mould in the shower. Kitchen falling apart. Closed locked doors to other bedrooms I was assured were home to the sweetest students in the world. A man screaming at his "lazy fucking useless bitch" in the next flat over.
Standing beside me was an estate agent who looked me square in the face, like he had neither eyes nor ears nor a sense of smell, and told me:
"Now little places like this go like hotcakes so you need to let me know now if not sooner if you want it or you'll miss out big time."
The little shit.
So I looked at him square in the eye and said, "You know what, I'm not actually that desperate yet so if I miss out I'll try not to cry myself to sleep."
There was no applause and no wolf whistles...except in my imagination. The truth is I needed somewhere quick so I was getting pretty desperate. As is everyone who flat hunts for longer than two days in London. And the estate agents have us over a barrel.
The quote in the title is from Spaced and it encapsulates everything horrible about the flat hunt. Speed is the key. You need to be on the line and feeling fine. In it essence nowadays the flat hunt is done online and the viewing should really be to tell you if the area or the house is everything promised online. It is a reassurance, not an extra step. After the house view it WILL be a yes or no within half an hour. There is no room for maybes in the London market.
I am writing all this in a Starbucks (yes I know, I do have proper internet but I do not have proper chai lattes) and all the couples in the world are here. Every other table in this place people are looking into each others eyes doe eyed or doing that smile with one side of the mouth crooked up. Couples. You all do this smile and you don't notice. I think it's a special thing. I am making a study. It's a sort of wryly amused look.
The only other single person here has answered a phone with "Hi honey, where are you?"
Bleurgh.
I met the most laughable man on the night bus yesterday. Well. I didn't meet him, he merely made an impression. He had been sitting in the back of the bus talking to two young women. One a stunner in bodycon and stilettos, you know the type, and one plainer and homelier (and yes plumper) but still in jeans and a nice top and they were both clearly out for the night. They hopped off at Old Street roundabout and a minute later he came rollicking up the bus and approached the driver and asked,
"Sorry mate, which is the next stop the 78 pulls in at cos I've gone and missed the last one."
"Central Road mate."
Then, completely voluntarily,
"Right, right. Cheers. You know how it happened? I was talking to this absolutely gorgeous woman, I mean she was just stunning and I went to jelly I forgot what I was doing, like a school boy again, you know. I wish I'd asked her her number because I know she would of give it to me."
And I wish I could have caught the bus driver's eye because he and I I'm sure raised an eyebrow and gave a Scrubs Laverne "Mmmmmm-hmmmmm" at exactly the same time. And we burned to ask this balding middle aged man, "What was it sweetie? Was it that the last time a pretty woman spoke to you she said "Tall, grande or venti?"
And some of the more hopeless romantics out there will boo hiss boo at my meaness, but his story made me all annoyed. And though I'm the best wing woman in the world and though I am appreciative of fitties and our quest to get with them I got all annoyed because of her friend. Her lovely friend with the lovely smile doing a third of the talking who didn't get a look in.
But back to the vile spawn of Satan masquerading as ordinary humans. Estate agents. We dealt with an estate agent called Harris who took us to a house. A really nice house, four beds, two baths, lovely jubbly. And Harris was as cool as a cucumber. Well, according to my sources I was actually in work at the time being sweet talked by an aging banker from Barcelona. Time is ticking...
So this Harris character tells us to "noooo, relax, don't even worry about it, there aren't any other viewings today, everything's fine"
And we like the look of the place, leave, decide we're going to take it, get all excited, call the agency back and they tell us "We literally just got a holding deposit..." And Harris is mysteriously uncontactable. In this day and age? I think not...
To put it mildly we were all extremely cross with Harris who had to have known of the serious interest. So I devised a wonderful scheme of revenge.
I get dolled up, head out to the West End and find Harris in a group of his smarmy cheap suited friends and buy him a whiskey and smile winsomely. And I shall notch up the charm to 11 and make the poor bastard fall in love with me. Boy won't know what hit him.
We shall court for three years or so, going slowly because I am a classy lassy. We shall marry on a clear, chilly October day when the leaves are turning coppery and drifting to the ground.
We shall have two children, Harris Jr who is just like his dad and a little girl who shall be his princess, We shall have picnics in the park and go to his mum's at Christmas.
And then one day, one ordinary unremarkable day he will wake up in our Egyptian cotton streets and I will be gone. And the kids will be gone. And a letter will inform him of the sale of the house. And of his car. And detail unauthorised payments made from the deposit scheme his agency uses to his own personal bank account.
Aha.
But I really don't have the dedication for such a long term plan so now I'll just drink a fifth and sob angry incoherent things down the phone at him. "HARRIS! I hope you f**k your wife as well as you f**ked over us you schelfish bassshhterrd..."
Much better, pithy and and witty and nicely noir.
But even as we speak I hope to have good news to tell you for lo a hope is born...but sometimes in life horrible and inexplicable things happen and as I don't want to risk a stillbirth I shan't say a word.
Instead I shall wrap myself in a woolly blanket at Jenny's and drink hot chocolate and listen to jazz.
And email her contact at Reuters...
xo
Thursday, 5 September 2013
"Would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill?"
To best enjoy this blog post you must recline. You must pour yourself a glass of wine and you must put on a very specific playlist. One that begins with Bastille's Pompeii then segues neatly into Daft Punk's Harder Better Faster remix. Then the Dartmouth Airs remix of Remix to Ignition. Because you deserve smooth RnB lovin'
Jesus, the shit I have to tell you lot. And I'll do it too, the minute I figure out how to extricate myself from a smug gentleman purring on my lap.
No kiddies, it's not about to get R rated.Yet. I've had several thoughts in that direction but I think my mother reads this blog sometimes. Not that she'd disapprove. No indeed, there are fouler and more terrible things than your mother disapproving.
Your mother cheering you along, that's far worse. Once she wanted to talk about "50 Shades" and the enigma of Christian Grey in a Starbucks. Not him being mysterious in a Starbucks, when we were Star... never mind. Suffice it to say she's like Stella getting her groove back.
Enough about my beloved smother! We're back to me balancing a cat and a laptop at new landlady's who we shall call Jenny. We like Jenny, there is Internet at Jenny's house. There are warm duvets and squishy pillows at Jenny's house. There is TV, there is every good thing. And a cat, just to be a bit more Dr Seuss. I like the cat. I hope it doesn't die. Not like the last pet.
There is also me being utterly fabulous. I say utterly fabulous, I'm eating Victoria Sponge that Jenny has baked and drinking orange juice that Jenny has poured. I feel like little orphan Annie at Daddy Warbucks'.
Life goes on in the wide world. Let me tell you about it.
The quote in the title is from Charles Dickens himself and it is to his local that I went last Tuesday night, "The Olde Chesire Cheese" hidden away in a little alley off of Fleet Street. The stone step was so worn down that there was a metal grating over it to let patrons in and out. There was no question of replacing that step. Because that step was worm down by the tread of Hemingway and Dickens and Twain and Tennyson. It has been eroded by history. I went there with people from work. People from work are massively dead on.
Second reason for the dinosaur in the title, I went to see Jurassic Park at the IMAX and I loved. Every. Single. Moment. They do not make them like that any more. They simply do not.
I love Dodson, we got Dodson over here!! You see, no one cares... That was a childhood staple.
Mind you the biggest laugh was not at any of the still hilarious gems. (Example, what do you call a blind dinosaur? A Do-You-Think-Ee-Saurus!" Ah, classic) The biggest laugh was reserved for "Oh my God, an interactive CD-ROM." Touch screen darling. It's gonna be big...
And Dr Grant, don't get me started on Dr Grant because I would. And you would too. Mind you I also would Robert "Clever Girl" Muldoon. But never Ian Malcolm. Girl have standards.
We had a grand old day wandering around the South Bank and the posh people's market. We knew it was a posh people's market because of the non-segregation of the vegetables. They were artfully arranged in a sort of Bacchanal mess. And nobody was looking at me flicking though racks of knock off dresses, squinting one eye appraisingly and opining unasked-for "Sorry, dahlin' we ain't got nuffin' bigger than a meed-jum in with that lot." The indignity. Anyway, yes posh people's market.
It took me quite a while to distinguish actual posh people from my Southern English friends who had just grown up anywhere south of the imaginary line from Wolverhampton to Kings Lynn. All southern English people were de facto posh where I come from. Well, they were called a lot of things before posh, but I promised we'd keep the blog relatively clean.
Speaking of market stalls all those "pale ales" and "slow roasted peppers" were not a patch on Notting Hill Carnival. Oh yes.
We did that shit right. Dragged ourselves out at 8am on a Saturday morning and got on the Tube to Westbourne Park and arrived there before everyone. When the port-a-loos were still spotless and the streets gleamed and all the stall holders were just setting up.
Now the first thing I wanted to do before finding a suitable place to watch many scantily clad women and men parade by in wild abandon, a genuine Bacchanalia, I wanted me some jerk chicken, rice and peas and fried plantain.
I am not actually talking to you at the moment because if I was rest assured I would immediately and unapologetically launch into full "Yu'know I grew oop juust a stone throw awai from Windward Ro-wad" mode and I have yet to ascertain whether that has a happy ending. We got spectacularly pissed at last Friday of the month/pay day drinks and I ended up telling everyone about Notting Hill in that accent. And just when I though I would finish there would be a "Haaaaaaaave you met my friend" moment where I was presented to more people who now only know me as "the girl who does voices." They all came out. Sean Connery, Bernie Mac, Pitbull, Tevye the Dairyman, and the lady from the Caribbean food stall at which we rocked up.
I was so excited for food. Let us face reality, I am always excited for food. But this was special because I had never had plantain and jerk chicken before and it did not disappoint.
"Can I have some plantain too please?"
"You don' worry duhlin' I'm a puttin' a bit of everything on y'here. You don' mind spicy? Then I give you sum jerk sauce on the chicken there."
It was delicious. You pulled the chicken apart with your hands and found the good mouth watering meat and the jerk sauce tasted like all it was ever made for was to be shaken liberally over hot chicken to the jaunty rhythm of steel drums.
And in the way of the world Pooh decided to find himself a smackerel of something sweetly...alcoholic. So I tried to buy a coconut full of rum.
Mind you these things are heavily heavily policed. I saw more Metropolitan police in five hours than I've seen all day on the 12th July at home. But the point is that they ID-ed like a bitch and because I lost my drivers license to the last Cindies ever (don't ask, just think stampede by the Ganges or at Mecca, last Cindies was our pilgrimage) and wasn't carrying my passport so when refused I shuffled my feet and said awkwardly to the dreadlocked purveyor. "Can I just have a coconut?"
Now because we had come early and because we had had a chance to do more wandering that everyone else had lo it came to pass that I was the only person there sipping from this massive green coconut. And those things are full of water, just like Castaway! Or, in fact, just like real life. I desperately wanted to find paint, slap a handprint on there, lob the coconut onto the crowd and cry "WILSON!!" as it drifted away. But I resisted.
Others were not immune to the lure of the coconut.
"Daddy, daddy, that lady has a coconut."
"Yes she certainly does."
"Daddy, daddy...<whisper, whisper, whisper>"
"Excuse me, where did you get your coconut?"
Elsewise work takes up most of the week and now flat hunting does as well. Estate agents. Four bedrooms means four bedrooms. It does not mean lounge that could be converted. Do not lie to my face.
But there is writing! There is the odd little moment that happened in a Vodaphone shop when I was topping up my Dongle for the last bittersweet time. There was a nice chap there who was having trouble setting up a business line and for the last fifteen minutes (slow slow service day) me and him have been doing that odd "Are you in line, ah you're coming back into line, oh no you need to sort something out over the phone, oh yes sorry I'll move along" silent dance with shakes of the head and apology smiles. He comes off the phone and returns to the queue, smiles and reaches out his hand and says "Hi, I'm Manolo, what's your name?"
I suspect this is called flirting. I understand this happens sometimes. But I am not entirely sure and am not able to distinguish this mythical business from being nice. People are often nice to me, I think its the glasses...
And he talks for a little bit more and he's been here for an hour already, silly Vodaphone, and he has to go soon as he's meeting friends it's a Friday and what do I do for a living?
"Me? I'm a writer. The paid stuff's not all that exciting."
But I am. Under my email signature it says my name and Junior Writer in italics.
Calloo-callay.
Mind you he leaves thinking my name is Lily (because of my natural suspicion of that uncertainty) and I haven't seen him since. If I do your all to be my wingmen and swear I've been known affectionately as Lily since birth. Because that sort of stuff's on the list as well. Practice makes perfect.
Until I get a minute my friends
xo
Jesus, the shit I have to tell you lot. And I'll do it too, the minute I figure out how to extricate myself from a smug gentleman purring on my lap.
No kiddies, it's not about to get R rated.Yet. I've had several thoughts in that direction but I think my mother reads this blog sometimes. Not that she'd disapprove. No indeed, there are fouler and more terrible things than your mother disapproving.
Your mother cheering you along, that's far worse. Once she wanted to talk about "50 Shades" and the enigma of Christian Grey in a Starbucks. Not him being mysterious in a Starbucks, when we were Star... never mind. Suffice it to say she's like Stella getting her groove back.
Enough about my beloved smother! We're back to me balancing a cat and a laptop at new landlady's who we shall call Jenny. We like Jenny, there is Internet at Jenny's house. There are warm duvets and squishy pillows at Jenny's house. There is TV, there is every good thing. And a cat, just to be a bit more Dr Seuss. I like the cat. I hope it doesn't die. Not like the last pet.
There is also me being utterly fabulous. I say utterly fabulous, I'm eating Victoria Sponge that Jenny has baked and drinking orange juice that Jenny has poured. I feel like little orphan Annie at Daddy Warbucks'.
Life goes on in the wide world. Let me tell you about it.
The quote in the title is from Charles Dickens himself and it is to his local that I went last Tuesday night, "The Olde Chesire Cheese" hidden away in a little alley off of Fleet Street. The stone step was so worn down that there was a metal grating over it to let patrons in and out. There was no question of replacing that step. Because that step was worm down by the tread of Hemingway and Dickens and Twain and Tennyson. It has been eroded by history. I went there with people from work. People from work are massively dead on.
Second reason for the dinosaur in the title, I went to see Jurassic Park at the IMAX and I loved. Every. Single. Moment. They do not make them like that any more. They simply do not.
I love Dodson, we got Dodson over here!! You see, no one cares... That was a childhood staple.
Mind you the biggest laugh was not at any of the still hilarious gems. (Example, what do you call a blind dinosaur? A Do-You-Think-Ee-Saurus!" Ah, classic) The biggest laugh was reserved for "Oh my God, an interactive CD-ROM." Touch screen darling. It's gonna be big...
And Dr Grant, don't get me started on Dr Grant because I would. And you would too. Mind you I also would Robert "Clever Girl" Muldoon. But never Ian Malcolm. Girl have standards.
We had a grand old day wandering around the South Bank and the posh people's market. We knew it was a posh people's market because of the non-segregation of the vegetables. They were artfully arranged in a sort of Bacchanal mess. And nobody was looking at me flicking though racks of knock off dresses, squinting one eye appraisingly and opining unasked-for "Sorry, dahlin' we ain't got nuffin' bigger than a meed-jum in with that lot." The indignity. Anyway, yes posh people's market.
It took me quite a while to distinguish actual posh people from my Southern English friends who had just grown up anywhere south of the imaginary line from Wolverhampton to Kings Lynn. All southern English people were de facto posh where I come from. Well, they were called a lot of things before posh, but I promised we'd keep the blog relatively clean.
Speaking of market stalls all those "pale ales" and "slow roasted peppers" were not a patch on Notting Hill Carnival. Oh yes.
We did that shit right. Dragged ourselves out at 8am on a Saturday morning and got on the Tube to Westbourne Park and arrived there before everyone. When the port-a-loos were still spotless and the streets gleamed and all the stall holders were just setting up.
Now the first thing I wanted to do before finding a suitable place to watch many scantily clad women and men parade by in wild abandon, a genuine Bacchanalia, I wanted me some jerk chicken, rice and peas and fried plantain.
I am not actually talking to you at the moment because if I was rest assured I would immediately and unapologetically launch into full "Yu'know I grew oop juust a stone throw awai from Windward Ro-wad" mode and I have yet to ascertain whether that has a happy ending. We got spectacularly pissed at last Friday of the month/pay day drinks and I ended up telling everyone about Notting Hill in that accent. And just when I though I would finish there would be a "Haaaaaaaave you met my friend" moment where I was presented to more people who now only know me as "the girl who does voices." They all came out. Sean Connery, Bernie Mac, Pitbull, Tevye the Dairyman, and the lady from the Caribbean food stall at which we rocked up.
I was so excited for food. Let us face reality, I am always excited for food. But this was special because I had never had plantain and jerk chicken before and it did not disappoint.
"Can I have some plantain too please?"
"You don' worry duhlin' I'm a puttin' a bit of everything on y'here. You don' mind spicy? Then I give you sum jerk sauce on the chicken there."
It was delicious. You pulled the chicken apart with your hands and found the good mouth watering meat and the jerk sauce tasted like all it was ever made for was to be shaken liberally over hot chicken to the jaunty rhythm of steel drums.
And in the way of the world Pooh decided to find himself a smackerel of something sweetly...alcoholic. So I tried to buy a coconut full of rum.
Mind you these things are heavily heavily policed. I saw more Metropolitan police in five hours than I've seen all day on the 12th July at home. But the point is that they ID-ed like a bitch and because I lost my drivers license to the last Cindies ever (don't ask, just think stampede by the Ganges or at Mecca, last Cindies was our pilgrimage) and wasn't carrying my passport so when refused I shuffled my feet and said awkwardly to the dreadlocked purveyor. "Can I just have a coconut?"
Now because we had come early and because we had had a chance to do more wandering that everyone else had lo it came to pass that I was the only person there sipping from this massive green coconut. And those things are full of water, just like Castaway! Or, in fact, just like real life. I desperately wanted to find paint, slap a handprint on there, lob the coconut onto the crowd and cry "WILSON!!" as it drifted away. But I resisted.
Others were not immune to the lure of the coconut.
"Daddy, daddy, that lady has a coconut."
"Yes she certainly does."
"Daddy, daddy...<whisper, whisper, whisper>"
"Excuse me, where did you get your coconut?"
Elsewise work takes up most of the week and now flat hunting does as well. Estate agents. Four bedrooms means four bedrooms. It does not mean lounge that could be converted. Do not lie to my face.
But there is writing! There is the odd little moment that happened in a Vodaphone shop when I was topping up my Dongle for the last bittersweet time. There was a nice chap there who was having trouble setting up a business line and for the last fifteen minutes (slow slow service day) me and him have been doing that odd "Are you in line, ah you're coming back into line, oh no you need to sort something out over the phone, oh yes sorry I'll move along" silent dance with shakes of the head and apology smiles. He comes off the phone and returns to the queue, smiles and reaches out his hand and says "Hi, I'm Manolo, what's your name?"
I suspect this is called flirting. I understand this happens sometimes. But I am not entirely sure and am not able to distinguish this mythical business from being nice. People are often nice to me, I think its the glasses...
And he talks for a little bit more and he's been here for an hour already, silly Vodaphone, and he has to go soon as he's meeting friends it's a Friday and what do I do for a living?
"Me? I'm a writer. The paid stuff's not all that exciting."
But I am. Under my email signature it says my name and Junior Writer in italics.
Calloo-callay.
Mind you he leaves thinking my name is Lily (because of my natural suspicion of that uncertainty) and I haven't seen him since. If I do your all to be my wingmen and swear I've been known affectionately as Lily since birth. Because that sort of stuff's on the list as well. Practice makes perfect.
Until I get a minute my friends
xo
Sunday, 18 August 2013
Of children and sweet shops
"What in the name of God happened?!"
"I don't know! One minute she was calmly telling me her landlady's internet is out again, the next she was curled up on the floor in a foetal position muttering nonsense."
"Wait, wait, wait...was the failure of internets before or after she'd got next weekend planned?"
"Ah, I think she was going on about not knowing the route for the Notting Hill carnival..."
"I wouldn't worry, it's London performance anxiety."
"What?"
"It's very simple. Any and all indicators that she may not be making the most of each and every waking second in London is sure to induce a bit of existential anxiety. She grew up on a farm in the middle of mountains. Plopping her in the middle of London but taking away the resources to plan to see all of it is tantamount to pushing a child into a sweetie shop and telling them it's closing in thirty seconds."
"So what do we do?"
"This..."
<Bamboleo, bambolea, porque mi vida yo la prefiero vivir así...">
And as the pulsating Latin rhythms of my alarm clock jerks me into wakefulness I realise it has all been a horrible dream. Except it hasn't and the internet is still kaputski. But I'm not panicking. Starbucks, as ever, got my back, Jack...
As you very clever people may have figured out a lot has happened in almost two weeks and I have been very remiss in not blogging. But then again I am now a juene professionale as they don't say in Paris and I have started my first proper job. It won't be featuring in the blog. The blog is about making the most out of living in one of the largest, most vibrant cities in the world and writing about it and for it and not my days at the office. I am, however, in love with my job. The dopey kind of love where you smile when you think about him/her and feel that feeling of the first sip of hot chocolate when its snowing outside. Blah di blah di fuckitty blah... Enough sentiment.
I am also a year older and not very much wiser. We had a wonderful time at my birthday. I'm sure that's a fair statement, they all seemed happy. I, however, had had a more wonderful time than most and was carted to friends' home through the winding warrens around Brick Lane, stumbling most disgracefully and schlurring my wuurrds like Sean Connery after a head injury.
Good clean fun.
It is with great regret and no small amount of distress that I must inform you all of the sad and untimely demise of Fucking Nuisance, our small rabbit friend. Departed this vale of tears 10/08/2013. My fucking birthday.
I got that dress from the market. It was well lush. I were all dressed up, war paint on and ready to go out on the lash when I thought I'd check up on little FN and see if she (for it was a she, don't worry I didn't interfere with it, we found that out off landlady's friend) was okay and well fed.
I found her, lying there, as if in sleep but for eyes open; seeing not this world but rather some far off plain beyond what we ourselves can know. She looked somehow smaller in death and a hush was over that little hutch, a hush that could not be explained by mere absence of little snuffles and rustlings. It was altogether more eerie and definite.
The fucking point is that the sodding little bugger was belly up and I'm going to fucking have to tell my landlady that someone has cocked up massively and her little bunnikins is dead as a sodding doornail.
I don't know if anyone noticed but I get sweary and non-PC when distressed...
It wasn't anything we had done! There were frantic phone call summits to this effect and the fear of autopsies and independent reviews conducted by duly appointed watchdogs hanging over us.
It was grand, turns out she was hundreds of years old. But we still had to dispose of her legally and safely, you can't just pop rabbits in bin-bags, leave 'em outside and hope for the best, you know.
Check these facts out.
It costs £56 for a vet to dispose of a rabbit.
You can't just wing it, decide to bury it and dig down in a city garden because you might hit anything from gas mains to phone lines...apparently.
It's different in the country. Daddy was/is a farmer, a very good one, and once he told me did I know that not one lamb had died in Northern Ireland that year.
I said how the fuck could that be? (Except I didn't swear in front of my lovely Daddy...)
He said that every time an animal dies you're supposed to fill out all these forms and pay the Department of Agriculture to come and safely dispose of it.
But farmers have acres of land, not a lot of money and all the work time that self employment allows (sunrise to sunset) so they bury the lambs and that's that.
I was unfamiliar with the dead rabbit in a city situation. Not the council's job, that's only if it's in a public place. Not the RSPCA, they're more in the business of tending to the sick and wounded fauna. It seemed to be solely on us to take care of the rabbit... And not in a Mother Teresa way.
We were saved from any further stress by our landlady's friend turning up and doing the needful. I never did ask what became of FN...
Enough talk of dead rabbits, no matter how hilarious/distressing the matter may be!
In other news the flirtation with George Alagiah has come to a natural end with work resulting in me only being able to catch the enigmatic and dashing Jon Snow on Channel 4 at 7pm. George was flirting a bit too enthusiastically with the slutty weather-girl anyway. And Jon Snow does have those ties.
We're not going to talk about older men and my TV schedule anymore as some revelations about my predilection for PM Question Time resulted in sustained and unfair mockery. For shame, you know who you are...
We are going to talk about the wonderful and highly recommended Alternative London Tour of Shoreditch/Brick Lane which brought the amazing street art to life and was well good.
It's free! Free!! Well, a pay-what-you-feel-it's-worth, but when you're waiting on your first end-of-the-month paycheque the only remuneration you can afford is usually a handshake.
We saw such amazing artwork. Huge cranes and stork in exquisite detail. Artists who had flown to London's East End from Brazil and Puerto Rico and China and South Africa and had left veritable works of art on streets for everyone to enjoy.
There were Lego-style Luke Skywalkers, scattered Space Invaders, entwined lovers formed of interlocking ribbons of paint, caricature Del Boys, epic fantasy landscapes and deep philosophical statements. Every one of them could have been hung in the Tate Modern and indeed many artists HAD been featured in the high halls of fame. But they loved street art and they kept it up.
I would have paid a fiver just for this one bit of information.
Remember Spitalfields? The market? And why on earth was it called Spitalfields? I'll tell you now...
In the 1650's French Protestant Huguenots were fleeing persecution in Catholic France. They fled to the Roman-walled city of London seeking asylum. They weren't allowed within the city walls but were granted fields around the City as amnesty. These fields were used to build temporary accommodation and artillery ranges but primarily they were used as field hospitals to treat the ill and injured.
Hospital fields.
Spitalfields.
But enough for now! Speaking of culture, next week is a bank holiday weekend which hasn't meant so much since school. And I am looking forward to both Notting Hill carnival and visiting St Paul's and the Tate Modern. Vive la culture!
And vive the building of experience and expertise. One cannot write about nothing after all.
And soon we'll have to think about proper writing.
But until then, London awaits some more!
xo
"I don't know! One minute she was calmly telling me her landlady's internet is out again, the next she was curled up on the floor in a foetal position muttering nonsense."
"Wait, wait, wait...was the failure of internets before or after she'd got next weekend planned?"
"Ah, I think she was going on about not knowing the route for the Notting Hill carnival..."
"I wouldn't worry, it's London performance anxiety."
"What?"
"It's very simple. Any and all indicators that she may not be making the most of each and every waking second in London is sure to induce a bit of existential anxiety. She grew up on a farm in the middle of mountains. Plopping her in the middle of London but taking away the resources to plan to see all of it is tantamount to pushing a child into a sweetie shop and telling them it's closing in thirty seconds."
"So what do we do?"
"This..."
<Bamboleo, bambolea, porque mi vida yo la prefiero vivir así...">
And as the pulsating Latin rhythms of my alarm clock jerks me into wakefulness I realise it has all been a horrible dream. Except it hasn't and the internet is still kaputski. But I'm not panicking. Starbucks, as ever, got my back, Jack...
As you very clever people may have figured out a lot has happened in almost two weeks and I have been very remiss in not blogging. But then again I am now a juene professionale as they don't say in Paris and I have started my first proper job. It won't be featuring in the blog. The blog is about making the most out of living in one of the largest, most vibrant cities in the world and writing about it and for it and not my days at the office. I am, however, in love with my job. The dopey kind of love where you smile when you think about him/her and feel that feeling of the first sip of hot chocolate when its snowing outside. Blah di blah di fuckitty blah... Enough sentiment.
I am also a year older and not very much wiser. We had a wonderful time at my birthday. I'm sure that's a fair statement, they all seemed happy. I, however, had had a more wonderful time than most and was carted to friends' home through the winding warrens around Brick Lane, stumbling most disgracefully and schlurring my wuurrds like Sean Connery after a head injury.
Good clean fun.
It is with great regret and no small amount of distress that I must inform you all of the sad and untimely demise of Fucking Nuisance, our small rabbit friend. Departed this vale of tears 10/08/2013. My fucking birthday.
I got that dress from the market. It was well lush. I were all dressed up, war paint on and ready to go out on the lash when I thought I'd check up on little FN and see if she (for it was a she, don't worry I didn't interfere with it, we found that out off landlady's friend) was okay and well fed.
I found her, lying there, as if in sleep but for eyes open; seeing not this world but rather some far off plain beyond what we ourselves can know. She looked somehow smaller in death and a hush was over that little hutch, a hush that could not be explained by mere absence of little snuffles and rustlings. It was altogether more eerie and definite.
The fucking point is that the sodding little bugger was belly up and I'm going to fucking have to tell my landlady that someone has cocked up massively and her little bunnikins is dead as a sodding doornail.
I don't know if anyone noticed but I get sweary and non-PC when distressed...
It wasn't anything we had done! There were frantic phone call summits to this effect and the fear of autopsies and independent reviews conducted by duly appointed watchdogs hanging over us.
It was grand, turns out she was hundreds of years old. But we still had to dispose of her legally and safely, you can't just pop rabbits in bin-bags, leave 'em outside and hope for the best, you know.
Check these facts out.
It costs £56 for a vet to dispose of a rabbit.
You can't just wing it, decide to bury it and dig down in a city garden because you might hit anything from gas mains to phone lines...apparently.
It's different in the country. Daddy was/is a farmer, a very good one, and once he told me did I know that not one lamb had died in Northern Ireland that year.
I said how the fuck could that be? (Except I didn't swear in front of my lovely Daddy...)
He said that every time an animal dies you're supposed to fill out all these forms and pay the Department of Agriculture to come and safely dispose of it.
But farmers have acres of land, not a lot of money and all the work time that self employment allows (sunrise to sunset) so they bury the lambs and that's that.
I was unfamiliar with the dead rabbit in a city situation. Not the council's job, that's only if it's in a public place. Not the RSPCA, they're more in the business of tending to the sick and wounded fauna. It seemed to be solely on us to take care of the rabbit... And not in a Mother Teresa way.
We were saved from any further stress by our landlady's friend turning up and doing the needful. I never did ask what became of FN...
Enough talk of dead rabbits, no matter how hilarious/distressing the matter may be!
In other news the flirtation with George Alagiah has come to a natural end with work resulting in me only being able to catch the enigmatic and dashing Jon Snow on Channel 4 at 7pm. George was flirting a bit too enthusiastically with the slutty weather-girl anyway. And Jon Snow does have those ties.
We're not going to talk about older men and my TV schedule anymore as some revelations about my predilection for PM Question Time resulted in sustained and unfair mockery. For shame, you know who you are...
We are going to talk about the wonderful and highly recommended Alternative London Tour of Shoreditch/Brick Lane which brought the amazing street art to life and was well good.
It's free! Free!! Well, a pay-what-you-feel-it's-worth, but when you're waiting on your first end-of-the-month paycheque the only remuneration you can afford is usually a handshake.
We saw such amazing artwork. Huge cranes and stork in exquisite detail. Artists who had flown to London's East End from Brazil and Puerto Rico and China and South Africa and had left veritable works of art on streets for everyone to enjoy.
There were Lego-style Luke Skywalkers, scattered Space Invaders, entwined lovers formed of interlocking ribbons of paint, caricature Del Boys, epic fantasy landscapes and deep philosophical statements. Every one of them could have been hung in the Tate Modern and indeed many artists HAD been featured in the high halls of fame. But they loved street art and they kept it up.
I would have paid a fiver just for this one bit of information.
Remember Spitalfields? The market? And why on earth was it called Spitalfields? I'll tell you now...
In the 1650's French Protestant Huguenots were fleeing persecution in Catholic France. They fled to the Roman-walled city of London seeking asylum. They weren't allowed within the city walls but were granted fields around the City as amnesty. These fields were used to build temporary accommodation and artillery ranges but primarily they were used as field hospitals to treat the ill and injured.
Hospital fields.
Spitalfields.
But enough for now! Speaking of culture, next week is a bank holiday weekend which hasn't meant so much since school. And I am looking forward to both Notting Hill carnival and visiting St Paul's and the Tate Modern. Vive la culture!
And vive the building of experience and expertise. One cannot write about nothing after all.
And soon we'll have to think about proper writing.
But until then, London awaits some more!
xo
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)