almost

According to my sociology notes, one of the features of the post-modern condition is that the self is viewed as a project. Each individual sees themself, their life, as being something that requires work, constant review and improvement, like a dissertation or something.

I have so much I want to say and absolutely nothing that I can write about.

I have so much going on in my head and I feel absolutely nothing.

Sometimes I feel like I'm this close to jacking the whole thing in. By 'whole thing' I mean everything. Life, faith, education, everything.

The self as a project, right? Well I'm sick of it. I'm just done with working on this project that never goes anywhere. Like writing twenty pages and then losing it with one wrong click. Everyday.

I'm sick of living between extremes. I don't make any sense.

Also I have about 9 mozzie bites about my person right now and they're driving me absolutely batshit.

woah

I can't believe Richard Whiteley's dead. I used to watch Countdown every day with my gran. That man is part of my childhood. I wrote about him in my GCSE English coursework.

Shit.

I'm gutted, and I never even knew the man. That's a legacy to leave behind, if total strangers are sad that you've died.

You know there's a whole wardrobe of snazzy ties waiting for him in heaven.

a wonderful sense of familiarity

So I finally wore my lesbian styley dungaree skirt today. Problem is, with the straps up I look stupid, and with the straps down the skirt gets too heavy and it slips down. Then my ass shows. So I pull it up. Then it's too short and, inevitably, my ass shows. Sadly, I'm sitting round the house all day and I don't realise this until I go out to Tesco and start actually, you know, walking in the damn thing. I get incredibly self-conscious about the fact that I look like a cross between a twelve year old and a whore (go figure that one out) and decide to go and sulk in the car.

On my way back across the carpark, I pass a group of men, early twenties, and their bizatches. I'm all ready to completely ignore them and go on my merry way, but Fat Bald Guy has other ideas.

I hear him chuckling first, notice him stop in the corner of my eye. Then I hear him wolf-whistle, and turn round to see him looking me up and down, shouting something complimentary, I think. In fairness to him, I am wearing a miniskirt in the pouring rain and I realise that between human beings, a certain amount of perving is just an instinctive reaction. But screw him, does he have to do it out loud?

So, in what is not my finest moment, I give him my instinctive reaction.

"FUCK YOU."

I can't remember the last time I swore out loud at a complete stranger. I'm sure I have, but usually when I'm in a car and they can't hear me. Luckily all I got was a chorus of 'ooohs' and a middle finger this time. Not a good habit to foster, methinks.

But why am I swearing at strangers in the first place? Why am I being so obsessively insecure about a skirt that I really liked a few days ago? Why indeed.

I woke up this morning and felt awful. I'm ill for a start, which is always fun, but that didn't bug me yesterday. I'm actually feeling healthier than yesterday.

So why am I so frustrated? Now that I'm not stressed, that I have time to relax and spend time with friends and to write and watch films to my heart's content.

Everything is fine. I say that with a wonderful sense of irony, because nothing is fine. Yet again, I'm crying and snapping for no reason. The world that was beautiful a week ago isn't so pretty anymore.

Brace yourself guys, we're back in The Bad Place. Long may it fucking continue.

The Bad Place 

*freezes the longest day of the year*

A few months ago I burnt the most depressing day of the year. Today I'm freezing the longest day of the year in an attempt to rectify that damage to the chronology of 2005. It makes sense.

Annoying cold things that happened to me today:
1) Getting my sunburn stuck to a freezing cold metal bus-stop.
2) The hot water in the shower cutting out AGAIN.
3) The ice-cream scoop skidding across the surface of the ice cream and flying out of my hands.
4) The last glassful of mango and apple juice becoming beligerent slush in the carton.

Today I ate fruit juice with a spoon. Life is... surreal.

My exam went OK today. Made up some quotes. The usual. Got drama and sociology still to come, as well as the English AEA which I am NOT CLEVER ENOUGH to do. I plan to enjoy that one. I have nothing to lose, right?

I found an essay on Real Live Preacher (hats off to Rich for being an unending source of interesting links to interesting blogs) that I loved.

"Let this be your new creed: Cause no harm to others with your confessions, but do not be afraid to rock the living hell out of the boat. The truth is worth it. The truth is absolutely worth it."

Also spent a disproportionate (disproportionate to the amount of productive things I did today, that is) amount of time looking at views on sexuality on the net. Expect an interesting post on that soon, as soon as I can figure out where to start.

I'm off to watch Sugar Rush. Boi.

cocky

I have another exam tomorrow, I should be revising, but I'm not. Which makes me a very bad, very cocky person, who would do well to completely fail this exam and get her comeuppance. I'll get an appalling mark and not get the B that I need in English and will have to go to Kent instead of Holloway and spend an entire extra year at university in order to get an MDrama when all I want is a BA. Such is the cry of the poor little rich girl.

I was very good in the run-up to the war-lit exam, I revised like a demon and am now more than capable of quoting war poetry at you until your ears bleed. And I think, despite the hellish morning that the exam took place on, that it paid off.

The hellish morning, by the by, consisted of oversleeping, getting wet on the way to the bus stop, forgetting to bring a pen with me (!!!) and not being able to find the exam timetable to remember where my exam actually was. The bus that should have taken me to college by about 8:40 didn't get to college until about 9:08, meaning that I didn't have time to log on to Cristalweb to find out where the exam was. Luckily, having bought two emergency biros from the college shop and sprinted halfway across college, I bumped into several English students running in the opposite direction.

Army style voices.
"Alex! What?"
"Mobile phone! Trouble!"
"Exam!?"
"New building!"
"SHIT!"

Change direction, run for the new building where I find my name on the seating plan and have to scamper through the packed exam hall with everyone watching whilst panting like yeti. Am not amused. Later find out that the exam was spread across several buildings and Alex by complete chance directed me to the right one. Phew.

The exam itself went really well. Got a lovely txt from Pete that morning (thanks Pete!) which helped me chill out a bit. Apart from overquoting massively (I was packing them in something chronic) it was cool. I might have made up some new words, but it's a boring exam if I don't do that at least once.

Then I had general studies, in which I compensated for knowing absolutely nothing about intensive farming by drawing pictures of genetically mutated potatoes with fangs and an in depth comparison between a AA battery and a battery farmed cow (it was quite clever actually).

I digress. I've done bugger all revision for this one, and I've no doubt that it will show in the results. The problem is I've got far too much in my head at the moment, there's just no room for Malfi and The Prelude. Sorry Webster, Wordsworth, my homies, but you're the last thing on my mind.

I'm thinking about 24-7prayer again, in a 'when are we gonna do that again?' sense, and I'm thinking about the gap year that I'm not going to have, I'm writing stuff on my laptop when I should be revising. This is awful.

I need to go do some work. I need to annotate my Beggar's Opera script and finish my ten pages of notes. I need to do Sociology, in general. So why am I blogging? Why am I watching Futurama and reading Germaine Greer and listening to BIG BROTHER?!

How low I have sunk. I'm listening to a man called Science talking about 'the hood'. I deserve to fail this exam.

Quote of the day: "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin.

the good place

"I'm sick of the masquerade...of not dancing too vigorously in case I sweat into my lacquered curls." - Germaine Greer.

An ode to the Agincourt.

The stamp on my hand reads "This is F**KING URGENT". I get this stamp on my right hand whenever I go there and it stays for far too long. Sunday morning I show up at church with the obscenity still written on my hand, legible if slightly smudged.

I saw my team leader from work at the Ag tonight. He said "So this is why you never work Sundays?" and I said, "no, it's because of church. I won't get out of bed for Tesco but I'll get out of bed for church."

If I'm conscious, that is.

I found a place for the bad place. All that bitterness, that fear, that frustration at who I am and the way I am - I found a place for it. I take it out with me and I leave it in the ether at the Ag, in the air that's hot and humid with the sweat of a lot of people, in the smoke blown from the fans on the stage. I force it out of me, song after song, louder than the last, angrier than the last, more brutal than the last.

Me and Liz agree that the Ag, this kind of music, is like therapy. Other music is fun, sure, maybe more sexy, easier on the ears. But this is our music, music which is 'negative' - meaning that it acknowledges that the Bad Place exists and it embraces it. It invites it round for coffee.

And that's where I leave it when I go, aching and tired, sweat running down my face, in my hair, my legs, my trousers. I look a state but I'm happy. Sleepy. Empty. All gone.

It's OURS, is the thing. The songs they play in there are the songs that have made me who I am, that simple. One Step Closer, Linkin Park and I'm falling in love with Chester Benninton and listening to Hybrid Theory over and over until I know every word and every song back to front.

Wait and Bleed, Slipknot. I've just bought my first Nirvana album and, inspired, I borrow this song off my brother and I love it, because I hate the world and this is the angriest, most intense thing I've ever heard.

Limp Bizkit, My Generation. Yeah, it's shitty nu-metal, but it's shitty nu-metal that changed my musical taste forever. That band made our generation the colour it is. My love of guitars, hip hop, the word 'fuck' and all the myriad ways it can be used started right here.

Papa Roach, Last Resort, and I'm not even dancing, just jumping, whatever you call it, and I've closed my eyes and I cease to care about anything else but the song and the floor and the feeling.

Faithless, Insomnia. This is my song. This is the here and the now. I'm not thirteen, buying hoodies and patches and carving Korn lyrics into my bag, books and arms, I'm seventeen, and I'm better now. Not great, but better. There's this Bad Place that I go to sometimes, but there's this Good Place too, and that's where I do what I do. That's where I have my therapy.

So I stick my arms up in the air, as free as I ever have been and then I go home and try to get some sleep before I haul my aching ass and bones to church, for to say thank you.

vital statistics

10,000,000 = hours I have wasted on the internet.

324 = hours I have spent working at Tesco.

98 = days until I move out.

78 = pages of Germaine Greer's 'The Female Eunuch' that I've read today.

55 = periods I have had in my lifetime. That sucks.

42 = days until my birthday.

32 = CDs that I lost this year.

28 = months of my life that I haven't been single, hours since I last knew where my phone was.

22 = months that I have been a Christian.

17 = full years I have been alive, pictures of Elijah Wood on my bedroom wall.

12 = hours that it took me to read the last Harry Potter book, months that I spent waiting for it to be published, hours that I spent at a party at Sarah's house the night before.

5 = years that I attended Yateley School, universities I've visited this year, people called Chris in my phone memory.

4 = years that I loved Yateley School, years since I decided that I wanted to go to drama school and be an actress, since I was 13 and thought I knew absolutely everything, times that I've sung in front of people.

3 = relationships I've been in, boys I've kissed, times I've been to France, plane journeys I've been on (not including coming back), years I've had braces,

2 = times I've had tonsilitis, times that I've sworn on stage, piano exams I've sat, times I've seen my grandad in a decade.

1 = times I've been sick since I was about ten, times I've made myself sick, times someone else has been sick on me, weddings I've been bridesmaid at.

0.5 = episodes of 24 that I've watched, books by Stephen King that I've read

0 = piercings I have, bones I've broken, times I've been dumped, baptisms I've had, times I've moved house, pubs I've been served in, nights when I've been wasted.

I like to count stuff. Some stuff I can't count. How many times have I been in love? Well, is that when they loved me back or when I just loved them and is it even love if you never say it out loud? How many times have I cried? Or been so happy that I cried? Or been happy? How much can you tell about a person from the things they've kept count of?

Just one more:

880 = children that died from preventable diseases in the time it took me to write this post, count those things and eat my vanilla ice cream from a clean bowl with a clean spoon from a full kitchen.

scared sheetless

Last night. Scary thing happens.

I'm in bed (my messy, sheetless bed) and I'm trying to get to sleep. But I can't. I take a Nytol and feel a bit ill because it gets caught in my throat.

Watch an episode of Futurama. Leela almost gets married to this guy pretending to be another cyclops. Think about getting married. Consider watching another episode of Futurama but the remote has disappeared and the TV won't switch on.

Get annoyed at TV. Feel very spoilt and westernised. Feel guilty.

Start to feel very guilty about severe lack of revision. Sat at laptop most of the day and wrote the beginning of a story about two people who runaway. Realise that most of the stories I write (nay, all of them) are about people running away. Wonder what I should make of that.

Start to worry about exam on Wednesday, exams in general. This is silly for the following reasons: 1) I haven't been worried about exams for months, 2) I have nothing to worry about, I'm more than capable of getting the grades I need and don't need to bust my ass revising. Not arrogance, just fact based on my UMS scores and etc.

Silly, irrational me.

Start to worry about work. Meant to do overtime tomorrow but will now have to cancel due to severe need to revise that didn't exist half an hour ago.

Set my alarm to 2 and a half hours before my shift starts in the morning so I can call and cancel. It'll be fine.

Start to worry about my prolonged absence from the gym. Why? They don't care, as long as I'm paying them. My mum doesn't mind because she hasn't been either. It's not like I miss it. Why am I worrying so much?

Resolve to go during the week.

Roll over and try to sleep.

Worry about sheetless bed. Why didn't I remember to put new sheets on? Why? Do other people forget to do that? NO. NO THEY DON'T. I am the only person who does and it reflects so badly on me as a person.

Worry that someone will drop round and barge into my room, seeing horrendous mess and sheetless bed and will judge me for being a messy skank, a lazy fat girl who never goes to the gym and cancels overtime.

Worry about having little money and borrowing heavily off my parents. Worry about not having enough summery clothes to get through the summer.

Worry about worrying.

Then, I realise. I'm regressing, going back into the BAD PLACE, where BAD THINGS happen and BAD THOUGHTS abound. I can feel it happening, the worrying, the fear, the plunging feeling of worthlessness in my stomach. And I think, fuck no. Not now. Not before my exams.

I will not walk into my exam on Wednesday and not know what to write. I just won't. I'm not going to let this happen to me because I am not going to fail myself. Fuck off. I say it out loud.

FUCK RIGHT OFF. I'M NOT GOING THROUGH THIS AGAIN.

And it goes away. And I roll over, and go to sleep.

And I woke up this morning, called Tesco, did some hardcore revision, learnt some hardcore quotes and am good and ready to sit and regurgitate everything know about Owen and Rosenberg, Sassoon and Graves, irony and Somme and patriotism and statements against war.

So now, how do I feel? Proud that I conquered my demons? That I'm starting to learn how to control my emotions? Nope. I'm shit scared. Whatever. I'll get through these exams, I'll probably even manage to do well. But it's gonna come back, no matter how much I delay it. I am by no stretch of the imagination 'fixed', and I can't stay in denial forever.

sick of the sight

I really don't care. I'm bored of looking at you anyway. You can just go home and eat Amaretto biscuits and drink white wine with your girlfriend because wine makes me nauseous and almonds taste like shite. I'm sure she's lovely though.

Get on home.

*banishes Guy From Work to the farthest corner of the supermarket*

I don't care. I'm deliberately single at the moment anyway.

upload

I'm about to embark on a cyber-mission - to create some kind of online photo album that will depict my life, in all its technicolour, cursing glory. The reason I'm doing this is so that when I'm awa' at UNIVERSITY (capitalised to signify importance and terror) I will be able to hop online and tada! - all my memories.

I'm sure that there are many spangly online services that exist purely for this purpose but I'm so not intelligent enough to work them. Beware, the Sightings page (hands up if you didn't know there was a Sightings page) is about to get busy.

Question: what is this bandwidth that people keep mentioning and how does its existence affect me?

yet more reasons why i'm a dork

Emilie, Millie and I went to see Tom's MA performance at Royal Holloway last night. V. exciting for the obvious reasons of seeing Holloway again (I've now been there twice in my life) and also seeing Tom performing. If you don't know, Tom's a drama teacher at college. The tall one. With the sideburns. And the 'vintage' car.

(Take note. The car is important.)

Apart from Emilie scaring seven kinds of crap out of me by suggesting that the performance might involve nudity of the my-drama-teacher variety, it was a very pleasant evening.

(Oh yeah, and we found Tom's car in the carpark.)

We got to chatting to some people and interesting conversations were had about performance artists who make themselves bleed on stage and call it 'art'.

(We may or may not have decided to do funny things to Tom's car.)

Decided that I'm very glad I didn't go to Dartington College, apparently it's as pretentious and wanky as it seemed in the prospectus. No loss there then.

(We may or may not have stuck a balloon, some McDonald's straws and a note saying "you better not be naked in this play or we're stealing your car" to Tom's 'antique' motor.)

Decided that I'm very glad I'm going to Holloway. The lecturers seem great, the students seem great, the place looks just as lovely as it did in January...

(It may or may not have been the wrong car.)

Sigh.

Never mind. The note was addressed to Tom, so if it was someone from the drama department, then at least they'll know who to blame. As far as I know he's the only MA student who invited his juvenile students to watch the performance.

To me it's just further proof of why I should not be allowed out of the house. I blame myself. Yes, Millie supplied the pen and paper, and yes it was completely Emilie's fault for insisting that it was Tom's car but this is the kind of stuff that I just attract. I am a magnet for ridiculous things. There is something inherently bizarre about me.

Yes, I'm aware that I just stated the obvious.

*****

I watched Straw Dogs.

I can see why it was banned from video for thirty years.

You'd think they would have realised that having a giant bear trap in the house was always gonna be trouble. I just knew some poor bugger was gonna be the worst for that thing. Someone as clever as Dustin Hoffman should really have known not to keep it lying around the house.

You'd think I would have realised after the Bowling For Columbine incident I would have realised that watching a film like Straw Dogs late at night was always gonna be trouble.

Luckily I sent Emilie a txt near the beginning asking if there were any really gory bits that I should watch out for. One bear trap, two rapes, three shootings, some cheesewire, some bubbling fat, a dead cat, a bludgeoning, some bagpipe music and the accidental murder of a teenage girl by the local pervert later, Emilie replied to say that no, there was nothing too gory I should watch out for.

Oh well, I watched the damn thing. Am mad hard geezer bird. Am scared of nothing. Except the possibility that I stuck a balloon to the car of one of my future lecturers.

the next person...

...who describes 'Bowling for Columbine' as a funny film is going to get a copy of it shoved where the sun is incapable of providing illumination. I watched it last night and can safely say that it is not a funny film. It had funny bits, yeah, and I laughed, twice in fact. But if you can walk away from a film like that and think it was a comedy, you're seriously missing the point. It contains CCTV footage from Columbine High School on the day of the massacre. Call me crazy, but I'd say that's the part of the documentary that'll be sticking in my mind, not the funny parts.

It was actually the most shocking film I've ever seen. It wouldn't have been, had it not been for the footage from Columbine. I know that films are made in a certain way, to provoke a certain reaction, but seeing that footage, hearing the 911 calls and then hearing Charlton Heston yelling "from my cold, dead hands" while waving a rifle in the air was a kick in the balls I really wish I hadn't received so late at night.

Ironically, one of Mr Moore's very good points is that the media has made us far more afraid that we should be. Yep. Sure has. *says Fi, hiding deeper under the covers and clutching her baseball bat with sweaty paws*

The thing is, with things like this, you have to face up to them (and I would completely recommend seeing this film if you haven't already), but you need to do it right. Watching a film about guns, fear and violence on your own, late at night, is not a good idea if you have a nervous disposition and are, let's face it, a complete pussy. Like me *see my complete failure to watch Straw Dogs if you need proof*

****

Anyway, after a late-night debate with myself, God and my teddy bear about the nature of evil and some interesting Nytol induced nightmares about guns and schools, I needed some normality. A good healthy dose of thinking about nothing at all that was important.

So I went to Tesco to do some overtime and thought about boys. Boy, specifically.

Reasons why my decicion to stay single was clearly unnecessary:
1) Was telling him about Bowling for Columbine and feeling ever so intelligent and media-savvy when I referred to the Columbine High School Shitings instead of Shootings. Vintage Fi. Being disrespectful to the dead and sounding like a brainless twat all in one go. Je suis en peu retarde.
2) Banging my funny bone on the till drawer and yelling 'bollocks' when he smiled at me when what I clearly should have done is smiled back.
3) Leaving my locker key on my till and having to run back down the stairs, thus interrupting an actual conversation with the man of my dreams, tripping on the door and not getting to say goodbye.

Ha. The thing is, the gap between my last two boyfriends was so embarassingly small (not my finest hour, it has to be said) that I thought I should make an effort to NOT get into another relationship until I was done with my a-levels and, you know, less messed up in my head. Spending my first few months of singledom obsessing over That Guy Who Didn't Like Me Back kind of defeated the point of being single, in that I was still messed in the head and not focussing on The More Important Things In Life. Eg. Jesus Christ.

Now my head is slightly less messed, in that it's been about two weeks since I last went into the Bad Place and started hating myself and the world. I feel Ok. I have no expectation of this feeling lasting, I'm still having nightmares and sleep issues, but I can get out of bed in the morning now. Which is nice.

I personally would like to source this transformation to my absence from the gym in the last two weeks. What can I say, laziness makes me happy!

But I'm still messed. Can you imagine me getting into a relationship when I'm still like this? When at any moment I could go back in to the Bad Place and not come out? It's all very well blogging about the way I've been this last few months, or talking about it (however vaguely) with friends and people who I love but it's not exactly what a guy wants to hear. And it's not exactly something I'm about to keep a secret.

So I guess it's ok that I'm socially constipated and inacapable of being smiled at without accidentally hollering obscenities, because who the hell am I kidding? I can't win here.

playground politics

disclaimer: warning, this is long, very long. It's late, very late. And this post is rambling, very rambling. You know what I'm like when I hit on a fun analogy. As proud as I am of this one, I'd advise that if you don't like politics, my opinions or extended metaphors then you should just skip this post, maybe go look at the pictures of my hair again.

S'all about Make Poverty History at the moment - G8, Gleneagles, Live8, Bob Geldoff, Coldplay, Africa, Sudan, Oxfam, free trade, fair trade, subsidies, national debts...

Locally, s'all about Europe at the moment - France, Netherlands, 'no' votes, constitutions, European Union, reforms, integration, member states, the single currency, economic growth, those bloody stubborn English gits...

For me, s'all about kiddies and grownups - spats, huddles, bitchfights, secret societies, discipline, parent teacher conferences, "you'll understand when you're older" and (my personal favourite) "daddy knows best".

So. We, the people of our various countries, are the kiddies. Our politicians are the grown ups. They know what's best for us, so they make the decisions. They plan our days out and make the house rules, they give us chores to do and punish us accordingly when we don't do them. They rule us with a firm hand, and we trust them, because they're grown ups and they know better than us.

Right?

The thing about politicians is that, unlike parents, we get to choose them. Well, kind of. We get to choose what kind of politician we get, what breed they are: the strict disciplinarian 'you'll eat your peas and you'll damn well like them' Michael Howard, the liberal 'I only feed my kids organic tofu and flowers' Charles Kennedy' and the completely dithering 'well I'd like to give you crumpets but that American family across the road say that fries are better for you' Tony Blair.

Some choice. It's all very well, this voting for a representative of the people thing but, like with parents, the problem with politicians is that once you've got them, you're stuck with them.

Case in point - Mr "I don't agree with tuition fees" Antony Blair, who then promptly gave us not only tutition fees but top-up fees as well, making it HARDER for people to go to university.

"But Daddy, you said we wouldn't have any tuition fees!"
"Be quiet, eat your greens."

Socialism my arse. Democracy my arse. Welcome to the liberal democratic state of MY ARSE, now 100% honesty free, accountability kept to a minimum for your peace of mind. Would you like FRIES with that?

I digress. Apparently, despite the fact that he's a lying non-entity, Tony Blair is still our proverbial daddy (don't get me wrong, I don't blame him, it's not his fault we're too stupi to vote him out). The other Daddies in our neighbourhood are just as big and strong, if slightly less well-spoken.

There's Mr Bush at number 5 (he has a big chimney and a big car that our Daddy washes for him), Mr Schroeder at number 7 (makes good sausages) and Mr Chirac at number 9 (Daddy pretends to like him but doesn't really).

These Daddies, along with the other ones on our street, run the entire world. Why's that? Because we said they could. Or at least they say we said they could. Anyway, they do, but it's ok, because they're running it on our behalf. Even if we don't always agree with Daddy, he's got our interests at heart.

Right?

So, it's the annual meeting of the World Trade Organisation a couple of years back, and one of the protesters outside has just killed himself. Thought that maybe people would pay more attention to his cause if he did that. Thought wrong.

So, the Dutch and the French have just had referendums and have said NO to the EU constitution with big-ass majorities. They think that maybe their Daddies will listen if they kick up enough of a fuss. Think wrong.

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you and your brothers and sisters or friends used to get sent out of the room because 'the grown ups were talking'. Didn't that drive you up the wall? So patronising, especially as you got older and felt that you really were adult enough to take part, if only they'd let you try, maybe the reason you were still a child is because they never gave you a chance to be adult.

Mr Schroeder (I don't care if I've spelt that wrong) wants to introduce a new 'two-tier' European Union. In simple terms, this will divide the EU into two groups - the inner core (who hold the most power) and the outer circle (less integrated, less considered). Like kiddies and grown-ups, you might say. If you were that kind of person who liked analogies. Which I'm not.

Check this out - "Berlin is the main benficiary of the constitution because of the proposed change in the voting system. For the first time, it would link decision making power to size of population - giving Germany the greatest say in EU decisions" (The Independent, 4 June 2005).

Funny that. If I were a cynic and inclined to point fingers, I'd say that old German sausage has a sneaky reason for wanting the EU constitution enforced. I'd say that creating an 'inner-core' of key European states (namely the ones that agree with him) to force through this constitution was just a sneaky ploy to get more power. I'd say that, suddenly, Daddy's not quite the trustworthy figure he once seemed.

It's nice the way that we human beings do that, you know, how we simply stop listening to the voices that annoy us, how we can block out the things we don't want to hear. Some people don't want the EU constitution? Well, that's fine, we'll just ignore them and do it anyway.

"But Daddy, we don't want the EU constitution."
"Be quiet, eat your Brussels. Sprouts! I said sprouts!"

Well, screw you Schroeder, France have said NO, and the Dutch Daddy has said he won't go against his country's wishes and say yes to the constitution anyway which means that none of the other leaders can without looking like fascists which means that you, sir, are BONED!

I love politics.

Which leads me on to the G8 - the politcial embodiment of the term "Daddy knows best". This one really gets my goat. Actually, it doesn't so much get my goat as GRAB my goat, twist its ears and shave the words "CONDESCENDING POLITICANS WILL ALWAYS WIN" into its backside. Man, I sure am getting good at imagery.

It's all so lovely in theory because, well, most things are. Communism, in theory. Free trade, in theory. Me going to the gym, in theory. The 8 richest Daddies on earth, the ones with the most expensive cars and exclusive golf-club memberships, all getting together to discuss how to help out the poorer Daddies who live down the road. The Daddies who try but, bless them, just can't seem to raise their children like good Christian Daddies should do. I mean Liberated Daddies. Did I say Christian? I meant Liberated. Religion has nothing to do with it. Heheh. *sweats*

Nice. Very nice. But, for starters, who decided that the way these Daddies raise their kids is the right way? Our daddies have lets us get fat, they've started fights with other Daddies and not even told us why, they've lied to us and they never act the way they say we should. Why should they be in charge of all the other Daddies, just because they've got the biggest guns?

And why don't the other Daddies get a say? Picture it - you're a kid and it's Parents' Evening at school. When you get older, when you're a 'student' instead of a 'child', you'll get to hear what goes on, but right now, you're a child, and you're waiting outside. Inside, the grown-ups are debating what is to be done about you. How you are to improve. Later, you will be informed of their decision and you'll just have to go along with it because, you've guessed it, daddy knows best.

Now here's the thing. When was it decided that developing countries were children? Who made the call, who was it who stood up and said that small nations, poor nations were incapable of deciding their own futures? I know, I know that time and time again developing nations have been screwed over by their own Daddies, by the people who are supposed to be leading them. And I know that, without some kind of intervention, a lot of these nations will never be changed.

But who the fuck made the G8 the Daddies of the world? Since when are these decisions their's to make? Why isn't global poverty being solved in the UN, in discussion between the countries with the money to give and the countries with the people who need it? Why are these decisions being made behind closed doors, between eight rich men in a big rich house eating big rich dinners, while their children scream and cry outside?

before it starts / before i begin

So, the hair is changed. I shouldn't keep banging on about it, but try growing your hair for two years and then going to a posh hairdressers - you'd be banging on about it too. My lovely stylist, Ryan, said I looked like a rock-chick. When I left Toni and Guy, I did. Liz and I were visions of roll-in-the-hay mussy haired sexiness. Meow. Easy tiger. Etc.

Then I got locked out of my house and had to hide under the garden table for twenty minutes in order to avoid the torrential rain. Substitute 'rock chick' for 'wet labrador' and you're getting closer. Remember when I said I liked torrential rain? It's funny, I should have learnt by now that when I say stuff like that, God listens. And he writes it down.

Pictures of my new hair (yes it IS a big deal) are on the sightings page (hands up if you didn't know there was a sightings page) so you can ooh and aah and SAY NICE THINGS. The captions won't make sense unless you look at the pictures from bottom to top. If that makes sense. Mmm. I'm techno-fabulous.

*****

Inspired by a post on Rich Duncalfe's blog (hi Rich!) and an argument I had with my mum about the exact same thing just a couple of hours later, I've decided to have a big king-sized rant about trade justice and the G8. Not tonight though my pretties. It takes considerable effort to get as angry as I do when I'm ranting, and I'm all sleepy today.

I had some big and important thoughts about the importance of democracy today. I think I've forgotten them though, so you'll have to make do with some shoddy similes, copious cursing and astounding alliteration instead.

Brace yourselves.

I'm feeling: Good. Have been good since last Tuesday afternoon and not a minute sooner. Am currently in an 'up' phase. For more about my 'up and down' mood cycles, consult a mental health journal.
I'm listening to: Coldplay, Speed of Sound. First heard this song whilst sitting in my desk chair, sipping Baileys by the light of two candles, my laptop and a sunset. I may or may not have cried like a baby. Is it my new favourite song? Hell yes it is.

goodbye, you hairy son of a bitch

Tomorrow, I shalll return from Toni and Guy with a completely different haircut. Some trainee stylist called Ryan is going to have his wicked way with me and Liz and, in theory, we'll get cheap haircuts and he'll get some much needed experience. Yeah, I see the obvious risk of letting a trainee do my hair, but I can't lose - if it looks shite one of the senior stylists will fix it (they don't want their name attached to a crap haircut) and there's no way it can actually look any worse than it does now.

The ugly truth is that I haven't had my haircut for about 18 months. Partly because I hate people touching my hair, partly because I've been aiming for long, hippy-tastic tresses that would make me look like Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You. Sadly, I've ended up looking more like Heath Ledger from the same film although without the buff body. About the same level of feminine charm though.

The hair has to go. It's cool, you'll be able to see my neck and everything. Hands up if you didn't know I had a neck.

How short though? Used to have very short hair. Used to look like a boy, but that was in the days when I was stick thin and flat chested. Hmm. My brother reckons I have a bump on the back of my head that only shows when I have short hair.

On the other hand, I've been wanting to cut it all off for ages. Ever since my first boyfriend told me to grow it long because he didn't like girls with short hair. It's kind of late to spite him now, four years after I did exactly what he told me to, but it would still give me a kick.

I shall return tomorrow, with shockingly sexy pictures of me and my new barnet. Prepare to want me even more than I'm sure you all already do.

Either that or prepare a fresh pair of underwear for when you're done laughing.