Studio Living

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes

Joel Veitch has a cat with knees.

Clone

Yesterday I needed to buy a new clasp for my favourite necklace (yes, I sew on buttons and repair necklaces. Truly, I am a domestic goddess for our credit crunched times) so, on a tip from Liz, I nipped into the lovely bead shop on Tower Street in Covent Garden. (Not actually the bead shop I'd been thinking of though; it seems there are two bead shops by Seven Dials.) I found the clasp and went to pay.

Guy behind till: Hey, were you in here yesterday?
Me: No, sorry.
GBT: Earlier today?
Me: No, not at all!
GBT: Have you ever been in here before?!
Me: Honestly not! First time.
GBT: That's so strange. I'm only asking because there was this woman in here, I swear it was yesterday, and she was the double of you.
Me: Heh. It's funny, but I think I do have a double somewhere. My neighbour started talking to someone in the queue at Marks and Spencers a few months ago because she thought it was me. Turns out my double comes from the same part of the country as me too.
GBT: And it's not just that... she had a similar coat. It's so weird.
Me: Really? Ooo. Now I'm starting to wonder if someone nicked umbilical cord stem cells at my birth and cloned me.
GBT: Damn those stem cell stealers!

This is the fourth time someone's reported having seen someone who looks just like me (though, admittedly, this is the first time it's been a stranger). A schoolfriend once refused to believe I hadn't been in Leeds HMV one Saturday and my Aunt saw someone on the south coast (but with a bigger nose). I'm wondering if it's the same woman... was once spotted in Leeds and now, according to my neighbour, has moved to London from Yorkshire. And she has a penchant for purple trenchcoats (admittedly, so do about one-third of London's women right now).

Still. It's weird, right?

Or maybe some extended relative of my Dad's has had a daughter by some extended relative of my Mum's. They both have a lot of cousins. There wasn't much else to do in Leeds in the late 70s.

Cannot wait

Charlie Brooker doing current affairs? Surely this will be one of the world's best things?

(via Medium Rob.)

Another way in which I am a genius / tool

After buying my iPod Nano earlier this evening (oh yes! It's a purple one) I was waiting at the Regent Street bus stop when a couple of tourists wandered up, trying to get to Knightsbridge. They had it written on a piece of paper and everything but nobody could / wanted to help direct them onto the right bus, so they started looking at the map. The night bus map. I caved and showed them the normal map and helped them find the right route and started to explain that they'd have to go to Oxford Street to catch it.

Now let me explain that my fingernails are reasonably long at the moment. Not talon-like, but there's a decent few millimetres of growth on them. And my nails are hard. They don't ever break. If my nails hung round an East End boozer they'd get respect. So when I swung my arm up to show the tourists the direction they needed to be walking in, and my fingertips made hefty contact with the back of some guy's head, I knew it was going to hurt...

Poor fellow. There he was, standing at the bus stop with his earphones in. He didn't expect to be attacked. Neither did he expect the short woman in the (rather lovely) purple trenchcoat who'd just gouged a dent in his scalp to look absolutely horrified, start babbling apologies, and actually caress his injured head. Attacked by someone with no sense of social boundaries. He's probably traumatised.

Still. It could be worse. He could be this guy.

"I discovered a flaw"

Alan Greenspan, for so long feted as the guardian and oracle of global economics, has had a tough few days. His faith in free-market capitalism has somehow been shaken. Apparently, people cannot be trusted when vast buckets of cash are waiting to be snaffled up.

Speaking before a Congressional committee, Greenspan said:

"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms... I discovered a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works."

Ah, regulation. That thing that exists because we haven't yet evolved to a state where we can be trusted to not screw over the next guy in pursuit of a quick buck. It astounds me how short-sighted the people who run our economies are. They only ever react to the thing that's immediately in front of them. Take Enron - it caused a seismic shift in the accounting industry and standards of corporate governance, but the loss of jobs, pensions, lives and one of the (then) Big 5 accountancy firms doesn't appear to have prompted a wider period of introspection. What's that? We, the regulators and governments, might want to generally investigate industries where large amounts of money are floating around, as a matter of course, just to make sure there aren't a bunch of corrupt / greedy / incompetent fuckers about to screw over more people, you say? Lalalalala, I can't hear you. There's nothing wrong anywhere else, there never is, no we won't have to sort out another crisis somewhere else in another couple of years, we never do. Go away.

Do you remember six or seven years ago, when the anti capitalist / globalisation movement was really active and vocal (or if not vocal, very busy smashing things up)? I keep expecting them to make a comeback, to see a bunch of people in white overalls marching down Canary Wharf any day now. Surely the timing is perfect to take advantage of the general discontent with the financial system?

I'm mentally keeping 1 May free to take part in any demonstrations that may be going on (and let's face it, there bloody should be). Thankfully, 1 May 2009 is a Friday so I don't have to mentally keep 2-3 May free to avoid having to explain my arrest, detention and protest against the very paradigms that keep me in paychecks to my heavily capitalist and global employers...

(Yes, I have inner conflct. Yes, I'm dealing with it.)

I am officially a nerd

While perusing the last week's New Scientist (I realise that in itself is probably enough to qualify me as a nerd; it's my new favourite magazine) I found myself laughing hysterically at this short section from Feedback:

'Philip Welsby writes to tell us that no one noticed that the universe branched in two when the LHC went into operation on 10 September. Luckily, he says, "we were in the universe that continued" rather than in the one that got swallowed up by a black hole.'

The thing is... it could so easily be true...

Conversations with my cat

El Mog sits forlornly by the back door.

Bagelmouse: You want to go out? OK, but it's raining. [Opens door.]
El Mog: But it's raining.
Bagelmouse: Yes, idiot brain. I can see it and hear it and got wet in it earlier and I just said. [Shuts door.]
El Mog: ... I'm going to keep sitting here.
Bagelmouse: I know I'll regret asking but still... Why?
El Mog: Because it might have stopped raining.
Bagelmouse: In the last thirty seconds?
El Mog: You don't know.
Bagelmouse: I believe I do. [Opens door.]
El Mog: It's still raining.
Bagelmouse: No shit. [Shuts door.]
El Mog: I am still sitting here.
Bagelmouse: I don't care.
El Mog: I will yowl if you don't open the door.
Bagelmouse: I don't care.
El Mog: Yowwwww-www-www-
Bagelmouse: Gaaaaaaaaah [Opens door]
El Mog: It's still raining.
Bagelmouse: I'm going to kill you. [Shuts door.]

Repeat ad infinitum / nauseam

The time has come

Despite being quite nerdy in some other areas, I've always been backward when it comes to gadgets. Specifically, portable music gadgets. The only thing I own to play music on the move is a Walkman I bought when I was about 13. It's utterly useless now, unless I want to listen to a bootleg tape of Suede, by Suede, purchased in Bulgaria circa 1993, and recordings of my old student radio shows - which might be interesting for the music, but I'd have to fastforward all the speech (visible cringing on the bus isn't a good look). I never owned a portable CD player and I've never owned an MP3 player, generally prefering in-head radio or, you know, books for my entertainment.

But things change. I am under instructions to join a gym (something about helping to reduce cortisol and balancing out my overactive mind with a vaguely active body blah blah blah) and the one nearest work (and the one that has a decent subsidy and no long contracts) plays - I quote - "funky house tunes, along the lines of Hed Kandi and Ministry of Sound compilations".

Oh fuck me, no.

I need an MP3 player. But I don't know anything about them. I could do research, I guess, but I can't be arsed. So I'm appealing to you - all three of you - to give me some advice. I know iPods are the default option but I'm not sure about their battery life and what seems to be built-in obsolescence. If I haven't bought a music gadget in over half my life I'm going to mighty pissed off about buying two in two years. Creative have a good reputation but they look a bit clunky. I don't need something that takes my entire CD collection. God, can I put my CD collection on it? How does one do such a thing? I have iTunes on my PC (but never use it) - does it only synch with Apple players? Oh, and I hate the default in-ear earphones (they hurt my teeny ears and fall out, not to mention make everything sound tinny). I'm watching Marie's post about her old Sennheiser headphones (I love Sennheiser - student radio again) and her new Sonys but I still don't know.

Recommendations. I need recommendations and opinions! And then I'll weigh them up, compare them with my own personal prejudices and then ignore the lot and do my own thing.

No, I won't. Because I don't have my own thing. Seriously, help, argh...

Poo

While I was out painting earlier my nose was assailed by the sweet scent of sewage. We clearly have a bit of an ongoing problem in our street (although Thames Water nor the Council can figure out where) and it's something I'm becoming grumpily resigned to, but that doesn't explain all the other places in London where I'm suddenly smelling the same thing. You know the stink: eggy, sulphurous. It suddenly seems to be everywhere, all over town, cropping up suddenly and then disappearing a few hours later.

Thames Water's website doesn't have much to say about sewage, other than reminding us yet again not to pour fat down the drains. Is it a seasonal thing? I don't recall it being this bad in other years. Maybe I'm just more attuned to the stench these days. Or have London's sewers suddenly decided they've had enough? The Victorian revenge?

Maybe it's part of an attempt to cosmopolitanise London? I've blogged previously about the odour of l'urine that hangs around Paris in the mornings. I know we're trying to encourage a cafe culture to blossom on these shores but is apeing the olfactory reminder of micturation really the best way to go?

I'm hardly a DIY genius and even I know this

If Tom's experience is anything to go by, previous residents of Hither Green are bloody awful at DIY. This weekend I decided to finally do something about the peeling paint on the front doorframe before winter sets in properly and the whole thing rots. So yesterday I set about sanding and cleaning down the remaining woodwork, probably the first time I've ever looked really closely at it. (After all - when was the last time you inspected your front door?) And a thought struck me. The morons used emulsion paint.

Some of the interior woodwork, that I've not yet got round to re-painting, has been done using emulsion. OK, fair enough. You wanted to tart the place up a bit and only had half a tin of Dulux Eggshell lying around. But exterior woodwork?! Are you out of your fucking mind? The paint job lasted about two years before bubbling and cracking and coming away in great big chunks, exposing the bare wood beneath. I hotfooted it to the local DIY store and picked up a can of undercoat but it's barely hiding the disastrous bits that I couldn't get off with sandpaper. Next spring I think I'm going to have to hire a paint stripper and take the whole lot off (mine and my neighbour's, it's the same structure and neither was done properly with gloss) and start from scratch.

Cheers, fuckwits.