Studio Living

Ushered towards delays

Why do airlines even bother lying to passengers any more? 'Do not use electronic equipment during takeoff and landing as they may interfere with flight equipment.' Surely they just mean, 'we want your full attention in case something goes wrong'. Don't use mobile phones during the flight – is the Ryanair “I'm on the plane” flight only for phones with flight safe mode, whatever that is? So why not on all flights? (Apart from the fact it's a hideous notion.) But my favourite is, 'please go into the departure lounge, your flight is on time'.

I'm typing this (though not uploading, stupid Eee) in the departure lounge, such as it is, in Murcia airport. My parents and I arrived at the airport 55 minutes before scheduled departure and ah – the inboundflight is an hour late. The outbound – my flight – is showing as simply 'delayed'. I go to the easyJet check in desk.

“How much is the flight delayed by, please?”
“Oh, just 20 minutes. You need to be through security in 30 minutes.”
“But... the inbound flight is an hour delayed. How can this flight be only 20 minutes late?”
She looks momentarily busted, but quickly regains composure. “No, no, only 20 minutes late.” And that, apparently, is the end of it.

Of course, the flight will be over an hour late, but they don't make this announcement until the alloted 20 minutes past the scheduled departure time when everyone's stuck in the tiny departure hall. Seriously, why bother with the fiction? Murcia San Javier is a tiny, teeny airport. It's the work of seconds to look at the arrivals / departures boards and see which is the corresponding inbound flight for you. We are not idiots, we can see what's going on. And yet, airlines and airports continue to treat us like sheep, herding us into confined spaces where we have no option but to buy their overpriced chocolate and flaccid sandwiches if we're hungry. Which is, I suppose, the point. It infuriates me.

Halp

Quick appeal - just taken delivery of my shiny new Eee PC 901, but bloody thing cannot connect to my wireless router (Siemens Gigaset SE587). Tiscali "help desk" can only say they haven't been trained on Linux (or Macs, can you believe) and suggest I contact the vendor. The Eee can see my wireless, it just can't connect to it. Anyone got any suggestions? I worked til 8pm tonight and am just too knackered to think straight.

Giddy

People sometimes ask me if I want to someday work abroad and then look very confused when I say no, I've already emigrated. OK, so technically Yorkshire to London isn't emigrating with passports and visas and the like, but in terms of culture and outlook and opportunity it's a whole world away. It's a sentiment that often gets weird looks shot in my general direction but I Guide's-honour-swear it's true.

With that in mind, allow me to tell you how I feel about bridges. Specifically London's bridges (but really, any bridge that's not some massive suspension bridge). I still get a little misty eyed when I cross the Thames, perhaps because the bridges offer one of the few open-vista glimpses of London that don't involve going to the top of a tall building. In the last couple of days I've crossed Tower Bridge and Lambeth Bridge on glorious spring days, with the sun glinting off the water and the buildings. It's a bit like being in a long-term relationship with someone and everything's getting very humdrum and settled, when suddenly you see them off guard, unawares, and they look so beautiful and you're suddenly reminded why you fell in love in the first place. I love bridges.

I also love spring. There's a road near me that's lined with plum trees, so at this time of year it's full of fluffy, delicate blooms. Same goes for stretches of Lewisham High Street. (Who says Lewisham's a hole?) There's a carpet of daffodils near the back of Greenwich Park and the smell of cut grass is everywhere. Even El Mog has been doing what, for him, passes as frolicking.

It's the small things that make one happy.

Hive mind

While I agree with Graham Linehan's sentiments about the Express / Dunblane gutter-scraping story, there's a part of me that feels uncomfortable with the Facebook groups and petitions. I didn't see the original story because I, in a revelation which may surprise none of you, don't read the Sunday Express. And I cannot help but remember the way in which liberal souls decried the Daily Mail whipping up a frenzy over the Ross-Brand-Sachs affair, escalating the number of complaints from people who hadn't heard the orginal broadcast but were persuaded that they'd certainly have been offended if they had. From what Linehan says and what I read at Chicken Yoghurt, this story appears to be a despicable, underhand piece of 'journalism' that displays a shocking lack of moral fibre from everyone involved. But I'm not going to read the original, because I know I'm being sent there with the intention of being outraged. Like the Daily Mail readers who watched the videos and listened to the audio after reading about how disgusting it was and, by golly, they saw that it was so. It's too late now for me to form an opinion that I would comfortably believe to be my own so I'm keeping away from the groups and the exhortations to complain. Which is a shame, because some things are worth getting worked up about, but not if the hive mind moves grass-roots campaigning into the same pot as mindless knee-jerkism.

Around the subject of the cat

I never set out to be the Mad Cat Woman. Yes, I like cats; they're brilliant creatures and there is no happier sound in the world than a cat's purr. And if El Mog were in any way vaguely approaching normal I'm sure his presence in my life would be (almost) restricted to home and the occasional blog Conversation. But he's weird. And poorly. And impinging on my overall life in a way I don't actually resent - I'm ridiculously anally retentive anyway; injection timing merely gives me an excuse to demand plans in advance.

But I'm starting to get oh-so-bored with it being my only topic of conversation. It's partly my own fault for having a habit of overexplaining (perhaps I should adopt the tactic of "never apologise, never explain"? For everything?) and you can't blame people for having the 'wtf?!' reaction. It's completely understandable and I don't resent them for it. What I resent - childishly, petulantly, regrettably - is that I am now The Woman With The Diabetic Cat. This is my main defining characteristic. I know the half hour before I leave the pub (for a late injection) or the half hour after I've arrived late at the pub (for an early injection) will revolve around the cat (because I feel the need to explain why I'm leaving / why I'm there two hours after everyone else. See? My own fault. I suck). There's a thing possibly happening in a couple of weeks that I really want to get confirmed or not, because I may or may not need to book a catsitter. But, dear lord, I don't want to subject people again to the stuck record of "please give me answers / injections / yawn". It's boring for me and frankly, it must be boring the crap out of everyone else.

Unfortunately it's a fact of my life, and one that I can't get away from. I also don't want people to think I'm some dullard loser who can't handle boozing until closing time. So I end up having them think I'm a cat obsessed dullard loser instead. Neither is quite what I have in mind for my self image.

To clarify: I love the little fuzzball dearly. There's precious little else on this Earth I'd do so much for. But. Is it OK if I stop talking about it now? If we tacitly accept that I'm going to be a finicky arse-pain about when we're meeting up so I can stop mentioning it? Please? I want to be normal again...

Dangerous food

"I'd like the fried cheese in breadcrumbs with a side order of dumplings please."

The waitress at the Czech and Slovak Club in West Hampstead looked at me askance. "Are you sure?" she said. "That's very... are you sure you want that?"

What? It's fat and bread. No different from a pizza, in my opinion. "Yes," I assured her. "I know what I'm doing."

And damn fine it was too. And so was the beer. As evidenced by the number of typos as I tippytap this post out. I'm not afraid of my liver function, dear readers, but only of my skin disasters (does anyone else get huge spots after they've been drinking? One more session and I'll look like a plague victim).

Post hic ergo propter hic *

I went to the Ig Nobels on tour the other day, saw a sword swallower, then got drunk. It's a natural and obvious progression.

You'll have heard about the Ig Nobels in some form or other. Say, the guy who wrote a paper on homosexual necrophilia in ducks. Or how playing someone the sound of a very crispy crisp can make them think they're eating a fresh, rather than stale, crisp. Or proving that heaps of string or wires will inevitably tie themselves in knots. It's the kind of thing that often ends up in the pages of the Daily Mail in a 'wotta wasta money' piece, but actually has genuine science and application behind it. A number of former Ig Nobel winners gave hilarious five minute speeches (time limits ensured by a cartwheeling eight year old girl), and then came Dan Meyer, sword swallower.

You know sword swallowing's real, right? Stephen Fry told me on QI once and Stephen Fry would never knowingly mislead me. Thing is, I'm really squeamish. So while m'Londonist companion was busy taking photos, I was sitting there with my hands between my legs, squirming for all I'm worth. The guy took a bow with a sword still in his gullet and got a man to pull out another sword with a sodding bullwhip. Is it, therefore, any surprise that more than the one advertised free glass of wine was snaffled? You can't subject the pathetic unaware to an exhibition of sword swallowing without consequences.

* Inspired by The West Wing, amendment thanks to Amy

I love Jon Stewart

I do. I love him. I don't want babies but I would have Jon Stewart's babies. I love him because he cares (and he looks damn hot in a suit, but that's by the by. Almost).

You may have been aware of a 'spat' between The Daily Show and US business network CNBC. It got blown up by the media into an all-out war, because with the state of the world as it is, US TV news clearly has nothing better to do with its time. And the networks, being the networks, completely missed Stewart's point, which is that the networks are more interested in stupid gimmicks than actual reporting and investigation. Watch the original Daily Show segment (with ads, sorry):

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer took things a bit personally, so The Daily Show went to town:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

In Cramer We Trust

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Then the rest of the media caught on:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Battle

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

And Jim Cramer finally came onto The Daily Show to answer criticisms of CNBC. And didn't do very well. Jon Stewart gave an impassioned cri de coeur for decent reporting, almost the exact same thing he did several years ago with general political reporting on Crossfire. The man cares about journalism and news and truth. He's not pretending that The Daily Show is anything other than a comedy show, but it says a lot about the state of US (and, by extension, Western) news reporting when it takes a comedy show to expose the coasting that goes on. He points out that these networks set themselves up as the guardians of unbiased, in-depth journalism when in reality so much of it is glib and featherlight. He (like us) is not a financial or political expert, he (like us) doesn't have access to the main players, he (like us) isn't paid to tell the world what's really going on. And he feels let down and angry when they fail us. Watch the interview with Jim Cramer, in these here three parts, and tell me you don't share his anger:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Conversations with my cat

Series, blah

Bagelmouse: Is there any chance you could clean your paws before you come in at night?
El Mog: You mean you don't like bits of grass and soil all over the bed?
Bagelmouse: It's like sleeping in the fracking garden.

Another way of living

Oh my fracking lord. I am utterly, ludicrously tired - so tired, in fact, that I couldn't see the computer screen without my glasses on. Normally I'm just about OK without them, edges are a little fuzzy and prolonged no-glasses-monitor-staring brings on a headache, but today it was a case of white-with-a-few-extra-colours in there somewhere.

Work, eh?

Though also, people who are moving continents and having leaving beers, and cats who need injecting early so I can get to said leaving beers at a reasonable time, do not help either.

Diabetes, eh?

So. Mmm. The job is pootling along. The things I've been brought in to do (vague project management, rather than the promised dullness) aren't really happening yet so I've been chipping in with lots of HTML production and CMS work which is pretty dull and by Friday evening had turned my mouse hand into a mis-shapen claw. What's quite amusing is that even though I've been there a week, I already seem to be faster in the CMS than a number of existing team members: I've been called "a machine" and "scary". This is good because it confirms my innate awesomeness (and my natural modesty, clearly); this is bad because, well, I'm flesh and blood, not an HTML robot. Whatever. I can wear jeans to work and there's a subsidised chocolate machine with Crunchies less than 15 metres from my desk so it's not all bad.

It's so not all bad that I think I might try this contracting lark for the longish term. I spent my last Thursday and Friday of freedom wandering around various parts of London, gathering bookshop stuff for Londonist, enjoying the sunshine, having lunch in a Notting Hill pub where they played Fleet Foxes, exploring Holland Park and meeting the peacocks, and making some brilliant coat discoveries in a Kensington Church Street charity shop.

This is the kind of stuff I moved to London to do. Wander. Explore. Discover. There are so many fantastic parts to this city and during the week is the perfect time to make use of them. So here's my plan. Contracting pays more than a permanent job because of the uncertainty and lack of benefits. If I can work two/three month contracts with several weeks in between I should still make the kind of money I need to be comfortable and have more time off than I would in a 'normal' job - with the added bonus of accruing holiday pay if I work via agencies - and be free to admit to my other 'work' for Londonist and spend lunch hours writing. Obviously, this all hangs on being able to get regular work... but we'll see how it goes over the next year.

I'm quite excited about this plan. Freedom, flexibility. Who knows, I might even start freelance writing again if I can brush up my networking skills (read: get some). It's a little bit like having an open vista before me, just waiting to be explored. Exploration again. It's clearly a theme. And I cannot remember being happier.

I just need to get some sleep.