let me fill you in...

...on what's been happening since I turned 18. There's been a lot of information, a lot of emotion, not as much alcohol as you might think. There's been a lot of presents.

Birthday Friday began at about 9am, when I was roused from bed with my mother's warcry: "Let's go shopping!" We went to H&M in Basingstoke where I obtained a white, 70s style waistcoat that goes incredibly well with my wellies and makes me look like my aunty Alice when she was my age and a raging hippy. I also purchased The Skirt. You'll be hearing more about The Skirt later.

As we were supping lattes in Cafe Nerro, the fire alarm went off. Wanna scare a shopping centre full of British people? Let off a fire alarm. The shopping populace unanimously decided that, to be on the safe side, they'd better leave, thus leading to a mass exodus of biblical proportions and very big queues at the very small doors.

And that, Stacey, is why I was 25 minutes late for my own birthday lunch. Sssh. Upon arriving at the pub, I was met by the lovely Sammy. "Sammy," I yelled, "it's my birthday!" Sammy looked from me to the man behind the bar (her boss) and back to me before crying "Oh my god, you're 19!" Apparently Sammy's been telling the barstaff at the White Lion that I've been 18 for weeks so I wouldn't getting in trouble. The fact that I've been drinking only fruit juice in there for years is irrelevant, it's the fact that she had my back that counts.

Stacey and Laura then presented me with an absolute haul of birthday gifts, a plethora of presents if you will, including a student cookbook, some Lush shower gel (Tramp flavour, arf arf) and a Mrs Goggins toy with MOVABLE LIMBS. I LOVE YOU STACEY. I was also given a bottle of real champagne from Liz's mum and Mike. Dudes. Absolute dudes.

Having lost my Jack Daniels and Coke virginity on the table at the White Lion and allowed Sammy to smear my chips in ketchup, onion chutney, mustard and cranberry sauce (I say 'allowed' - there was very little consent given on my part), I toddled home to play with my new toys.

Then my brother realised he hadn't bought me a present, so we went to Camberley, where I purchased a badge with '18' written on it. It's not my fault I don't have ID.

In Camberley, I got the first bit of information that led to my overload on Saturday night. A guy called Greg that I know from college was staying at the resort in Egypt that got bombed. His whole family are out there and nobody can get in touch with them. I'm frantically trying to remember everything I know about Greg, just in case. He has a big saloon car, he has ginger hair, he used to cut us up in the car park. I don't really know him at all, but I know that Liz and Jo would be gutted if something happened to him, so here's hoping.

After Camberley, I went home and did the whole 'I have new clothes and nothing to wear' thing, before going out to the George in Odiham for a meal with my entire English family. When I say English family, I mean the portion of my extended family that live in England. My mum's sister, Alice, her husband Ian (as English as they come) and my cousins Paul and Helen. Paul's girlfriend Katie, the other trainee vet in my life was there as well. Helen gave me life advice about university, such as "I know that the cheese and wine society sounds like a good idea but come October you'll be dead bored with it and then where's your subscription money?"

The George is a very nice restaurant. Shame I had to lower the tone. On the plus, I managed to drink wine for the first time since I got ill in Scotland. Not much, mind, but enough. I also had venison for the first time in my life. Bambi be damned, it tastes great.

Around this point, I recieved the second piece of information that stopped me in my tracks. To fill you in, we don't speak to my grandad. Not to air my dirty laundry in public, but we just haven't since I was about 8. I am used to this. Not ecstatic about it, but used to it. The only contact we have is that he sends us the local newspaper of the Orkney Isles, The Orcadian, every couple of weeks so that my mum can keep up on events in her homeland. For some reason, maybe the paper's gotten bigger, the amount of postage needed went up. We receieved a note from the Post Office informing us that we would have to pay the difference. The next issue was sent to us with the exact amount of postage.

How did he know that the Post Office had told us off? News, however mundane, travels fast in our family. So which member of our family told my grandfather that he needed more stamps? Somebody knows where he is. This changes everything.

*****

Birthday Saturday dawned not-so-bright-and-early with a luncheon invitation from Paul. We went out for a birthday KFC before heading back to his house to eat apple crisps, talk about Harry Potter in code and for me to be introduced to Jacob. Jacob is an inflatable play centre shaped like a dinosaur that Paul's girlfriend bought him for his birthday. Jacob makes an exceedingly good sofa. I curled up in Jacob's rubber bosom and Paul and I talked about the future, and who knows us best, and how people change, and how we don't feel grown-up enough to be doing this whole 'life' thing.

Then we walked up to Dani's house, cracked open the Birthday Champagne, realised that all we'd eaten that day were a couple of Mini Fillets and felt decidedly sleepy. Dani made me a toastie sandwich and I walked home in the rain to get ready to go out.

In classic style, I was late to dinner, tried and failed miserably to sneak in past a table full of people and pretend I'd been there since 7:30. Dinner was great. Chris gave me a coconut. It was far and away the best present I've ever had. I was incredibly touched that Emilie showed up (having just sat through an 11.5 hour flight from Mauritius and having been awake for almost 18 hours), looking even more black than when she left. Other highlights of the evening included Paul smearing pasta sauce on my face, the interesting experience of drinking Baileys coffee and Baileys on the rocks simultaneously and the most appallingly timed chorus of 'happy birthday to you' ever (sorry about that, Phil). Shocking information part three.

After a quick change of clothes whilst walking along the A30 (don't ever tell me I haven't got class), I legally entered the Agincourt for the first time in my life. I decided not to make a big deal of the fact that it was my birthday. It's kind of cheeky when you've been going to a club for several months.

I have to document the fact that I have never had so many of my favouritest people at the Ag before. Paul, Emilie and Taz came with from the restaurant, Stacey, Rob, Mike, Andy and Liz were already there along with, apparently, half of Farnborough 6th Form. And Liz's dad. And my friend Ollie who I haven't seen for a year. Oh yeah, and my ex-boyfriend. With a bag of my stuff that I left at his house when we were together. You know, the bag of stuff that says 'now we're DEFINITELY over'. Ouch. Information number 4. By this time, it was all getting a bit overwhelming. The craziness of the last two days was all very well but that stupid bag of socks, jewellery, my Trainspotting video and my dragon t-shirt was too much. There was too many people, too much stuff going on and too many conflicting emotions. So I did what I do best in that kind of situation. I got depressed. Martin gave me my present, a teddy of one of the crazy penguins from Madagascar and I actually cried.

I got home at 3, utterly burnt out, and put on the Soul Survivor live CD that Chris had given me. I listened to 'Whole World In His Hands' on repeat until I felt something more like normal, then went to sleep and had the weirdest dreams.

So what the hell was that? Was it a good birthday? Fuck yes. I couldn't have asked to turn 18 with a more fantastic bunch of people. I got emotional about that too, if you're wondering, about how much I love my mental, wonderful friends and how screwed I would be without them. So what's my philosophical conclusion for the night? That I will always have something to complain about. That I think too much, that I feel too much and that The Skirt and My Bitches are the only things in my life that I can be sure of.

aging fruitcake

So, I'm 18 now.

Being seventeen sucked. It was the hardest year. I'm glad that being seventeen is over.

When I was seventeen, I acted like a child, but now I am eighteen, I will put seventeen behind me.

Things can only get better. And I mean that in the most positive way. It's all up from here.

rhubarb

I've always wanted to have my dreams psycho-analysed. I watched a great episode of Frasier, where Frasier has a recurring dream about hooking up with Gil Chesterton, the food critic, in a seedy motel room. Niles and Frasier spend the whole episode trying to come up with different psychological explanations for what the dream means. Eventually they go Freudian and decide that it was a dream about their mother. Then Frasier goes to sleep and dreams about hooking up with Freud in a seedy hotel room. Niiiiice.

As far as freaky dreams go, I've had some stonkers myself. Spend more than about an hour with me and you'll realise this. There was the time that I had a series of dreams over the course of about a week in which no less than 6 of my friends died in lifts. Then there was the dream where I baked Robbie into a giant cake. Once I dreamt about two boys dying in a house fire and switched on the news to find it had happened.

Like I say, I'd love to have them analysed one day because, hell, who wouldn't?

I think I'd get them to start with this:

I'm at a party with Robbie from church, my old drama teacher Tom, and most of my friends and family. Robbie, Tom and I are standing on a glass coffee table holding an enormous stick of rhubarb. It's transparent and slightly blue in colour but it's rhubarb nonetheless. Well, the rest of the party are crowded round us, kind of like when someone hands you a massive glass of beer and everyone chants CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG except they're shouting EAT EAT EAT EAT.

So we eat. And as soon as we start eating, we realise that this rhubarb is in fact hollowed out and full of custard. Suddenly, it becomes a race and we're tearing at the rhubarb with our teeth, trying desperately to guzzle as much custard as we can before it's all gone. The crowd are going mental, stamping their feet and cheering as we stand victorious, middle fingers aloft, custard streaming down our faces.

I remembered this dream today when I was standing in Shakeaway with Steph and Emma, and decided to have a rhubarb and custard milkshake. Wasn't spectacular, but the novelty made it taste so much better.

Rhubarb is what they tell you to say on stage when you're adlibbing conversation in the background of a scene and can't remember what to say. If one or two people do it, it's ok, but what you tend to get is a stage full of people saying the word rhubarb over and over again until it loses meaning.

Don't you hate it when that happens? Whaddaya know, 'rhubarb' doesn't sound like a real word anymore.

*****

I'ts been one of those days where I've had a lot of thoughts that meant something, but the thing I'm going to remember about today is rhubarb and custard. So I don't forget, I want to say what else I thought about today.

I thought that I don't like the way I blog. There's a reason why I haven't given the address of this site out to all my friends, most of them don't know about it. I don't know what that reason is, but I do know that what I say on here is not what I say in real life. I don't know if the two could be reconciled, I don't know if I've said too much on here for that.

I realised something about myself: I can't allow myself to have a thought that isn't recorded. In order for a thought to be perfect, I have to write it down. The same with prayers. I went to the Boiler Room today and thought, now why the hell does God need to read my prayers off a piece of paper? Answer - he doesn't. So why the hell are all my prayers on pieces of paper? Answer - because I'm better at pretty words than I am at talking to God.

I thought about growing up. About the bit in Corinthians that says, "when I was a child, I acted like a child, now I am a man I will put foolish things aside" (or words to that effect). I also thought about how 'abba' basically means 'daddy', and decided that, even though I'm not a little girl anymore, that's a nice reminder that we should always be children in the Lord.

I thought about boys, because I always do. I thought about plays, because Steph has to read three plays from this massive long list and I went through and picked out the ones I liked. I thought about drama school and the fact that I'm not going to go there.

I thought a lot about being a pilgrim.

I thought a lot about rhubarb.

i'm funner when i'm feverish

Foxy Fi is funner when she's feverish and flees the house and gets freaked out by falling leaves form nasty trees. I was just walking, minding my own business, is it my fault if the leaf that fell on me looked like a giant bug?

I think, I think I might be ill today.

At some point during the semi-conscious blur that was today, I watched Magnolia and dammit, it was such a long film that I forgot it wasn't real and blow me if that bit at the end with the frogs didn't scare the hell out of me.

I also had what can only be described as a temporary loss of my already tenuous grasp of reality. I got back from my walk (I catapulted myself out of bed at about 5 and ran out of the house due to a sudden need for fresh air) and suddenly panicked. It was imperative that I be back in bed by the time my parents got home. It was also imperative that I should never get out of bed again. Thus, it was imperative that I should take everything I could ever need to bed with me.

I was woken later in the evening in a bed containing books, DVDs, CDs, batteries, a stack of Pringles, two oranges, a pen and paper, a cushion and a clean change of clothes.

At least the cushion came in handy for throwing at the TV when that thing with the frogs happened and I thought it was real.

intervention

Who can know the mind of God?

On Wednesday night, a friend of mine dreamt of bombs in London. And a couple of nights before that, several others felt the sudden need to pray protection for London.

Is that surprising, considering what happened two weeks ago?

Well, they're saying that the bombs malfunctioned now, or that maybe the bombers chickened out. Either way, no one died on the tube today.

Other people are saying that angels saved London today. All I know is that people dreamed of bombs and nobody died today.

Amen.

centenary

This is my 100th post.

Woohoo!

Not entirely honest. About 10 of those 100 posts are not actually on Angelic Fruitcake for reasons of them being crap, boring, too personal or just plain unfinished. There's also a couple that I posted, left for several months and then took down in the oops, people I know might actually read this thing cull that occurred a few weeks ago. I had to take down some corkers, but corkers that it really wasn't wise to post publicly, so...

To commemorate this shocker of an anniversary, I thought I'd give you some more Vital Statistics.

5,000,000 = hours I have spent blogging rather than doing something else.

278 = number of dodgy similes and other imagery that I have used in my pursuit of the truth. Seriously, who's gonna go through and count them?

91 = times that I have mentioned God on this site.

35 = times that I have used the word shit, shitty or shithead on this shite. I mean site.

23 = times that I have used the word fuck, fucking or motherfucker on this site.

15 = websites that have told you to go to.

13 = different people that have commented on this blog. Thanks guys!

12 = times that I have mentioned Jesus on this site.

9 = months that I have been blogging.

7 = seconds since I realised that if you click on one of the coloured spots at the top of this page you'll get magically transported to 24-7prayer.com. I never even meant for that to happen but it did.

6 = blogs on my blogroll. Oh, it sounds like bogroll. I get it now.

5 = blogs that I have started reading because of other people's blogrolls.

4 = times that the mentions of God and Jesus have been blasphemous. By the way, two of them were omigods that I quoted from someone else and the other two were big, loud, heartfelt goddams!

3 = members of the Duncalfe family that have commented on my blog and made me feel special.

2 = times that I've felt like never blogging again.

1 = times that my involvement in the blogging phenomena has gotten me into trouble. Not my fault, you understand.

Since I've been a blogger, I've...

Become a fan of making lists, sat my a-levels, lost a relative, lost a boyfriend, been rejected, dyed my hair, cut my hair, bought a new chest of drawers, hit rock bottom, learnt basic html, figured out how to work my brother's digital camera, decided to quit my job, thought about death too much, accepted offers at two universities, decided not to do a gap year, started wearing make-up, realised that I want to get married, been to my first protest, realised how much I love writing, realised how much I love blogging, started listening to Suzanne Vega, joined the gym, started writing a book, stopped writing a book, created a name for the congealed mass of writing that is my life's creative work thus far, lost my glasses twice, my phone twice and my passport once, had my braces removed, bought new glasses and decided that i NEED contact lenses, bought The Communist Manifesto, had very big crushes on at least 5 people, been in 4 plays, been a sound technician for one play, done 24-7 at my church, been the compere of a cabaret, met 4 American people, received an email from Paul Kingsnorth, been flogged with a rubber chicken called Jean Claude and been to see Idlewild.

And finally...

Things I have yet to do.

Figure out what bandwidth is, tell you about the Black Tie, tell you about Emilie's nipple plasters (WHOOPS!), make an About Me page, find something interesting to put on the Listings page, update my blogroll, defeat the Bad Place, show you a picture of my new very red hair, watch Pulp Fiction, explain about Jean Claude the rubber chicken, post pictures from my Leaver's Ball, remind you that it's my BIRTHDAY ON THE 29TH OF JULY, write a list of reasons why Pete Duncalfe is Uncool (no, I haven't forgotten), tell you why 11:38 is the luckiest time of day and, oh yeah, post that picture of Phil kissing another guy...

Here's to another happy (and by happy I mean expletive-laden) hundred!

PS. Sorry Emilie.

PPS. Sorry Phil.

PPPS. Sorry Jean Claude.

weirder than my average

Saturday was the strangest, coolest day.

For a start, it involved the new Harry Potter book, which I bought about 20 minutes before the start of my shift and then, defiantly unleashing my inner Potter-geek like a sawn off shotgun in a bank robbery, proceeded to spend my lunch break, afternoon break, most of the time in the evening when I should've been paying attention to a play, reading it.

As much as I would love to turn this into a spoiler-tastic account of all the crazy things that happened in the book, I'm not going to. I could never do that to some poor, lagging behind Potter fan who might inadvertently stumble upon this post and then be forced to kill themselves for finding the ending out. Over-dramatic? No. This is Harry Potter. Take it seriously or get the hell out of my blog and don't let the door spank your uncultured ass on the way out.

I. Loved. This. Book. I personally thought that number 4 was stonking and number 5 was only mildly disappointing. This one made me so happy, I actually considered drawing a lightning bolt on my forehead just to feel part of the phenomena. It also made me cry, but then I'm a loser, so don't feel bad. Without being spoiler-ish, the two things that I've been waiting to happen finally happened in this book.

1) Harry stopped behaving like a stroppy teenager (see book 5 and his numerous tantrums) and started behaving like a MAN. A MAN with a PLAN, no less.

2) The student body finally, uh, you know, did that thing, what's it called? Oh yeah, PUBERTY and started behaving more like the randy buggers we knew they were underneath. Hurrah for the sexual emancipation of Hogwarts and all the joy and 'snogging' that it brought!

Am pleased. Want to snog Bill Weasley. Still maintain that Snape is a Good Guy, much in the same way that my brother maintains that Metallica are a Good Band - with blind faith, little evidence and little chance of ever being proved right.

*****

Saturday then proceeded to be one of the oddest days I've ever had at work, purely because of the weird-ass customers I had. There were too many odd little incidents for me to bring back up here, but there was this one girl who really stuck in my mind. She was about 14 or 15, with her parents, wearing a National Ballet t-shirt. Not in a poser kind of way either, you could tell by the way she walked and everything that she was a dancer. She was also the skinniest girl I have ever seen, completely flat-chested, legs like twigs. So skinny that she bought a pair of shorts that were size 11-12.

Well, big deal, most ballet dancers are skinny. The shocking thing about this girl was her arms. She had cuts all the way up her arms, from her wrists to the sleeves of her t-shirt, all bunched up together. It almost looked like she had stripes, like a zebra or something. Both arms. I couldn't stop staring, as much as I knewI shouldn't. I've never seen self-harm that extreme before. Her parents seemed totally fine, cheerful and jolly as anything.

I don't know if they were oblivious or just really good at dealing with the truth. I felt like shouting at them, "Hey guys, your daughter's slashed her arms to pieces and she looks like she hasn't eaten for about 6 months. NOTICE!"

Not that I know them, or have any right to pass judgement on them or their daughter. You get these little snapshots into people's lives sometimes. It almost makes the job interesting.

*****

Then, at the end of my shift, I got into Liz's car, glanced in the wing mirror and noticed that my work shirt (being at the smaller end of clothes that just about fit me) happens to hang in exactly the right way so as to give anyone standing on my left a clear view of what's underneath.

Customers queue on my left. Is this why no one helps me when I'm struggling to haul compost and crates of beer through the checkout?

Feel violated. Must quit. Also must start campaign to MAIM the git who decided that putting barcodes on the BOTTOM of a 24 crate of beer was a good idea. I hate him. Yes it was a him. Probably the same kind of him that likes to watch stressed, underpaid students in ill-fitting uniforms struggle to move heavy objects.

Is that sexist? Because if it is, I have a tiny, sad-sounding violin that could do with a new home where there is CONSIDERABLY LESS SUNLIGHT.

*****

Did the last night of The Hound of the Baskervilles at my drama group. Am a real live sound technician. Use technical words such as 'headphone thingy' and 'mini-mah-jiggy-disk'. Know how to do technical things such as pressing 'play', 'stop' and giving va va voom to the va va volume.

Left chocolate on sound desk.

Finished off a rousing chorus of 'Gay Bar' by accidentally saying something to the effect of "So, *insert non-libellous name here*'s boyfriend. Wouldn't mind taking him to a gay bar!" into the microphone that was attached to the headphone thingy that was being worn by the stage manager.

Will not be asked back.

*****

Went to the Ag with Liz, Rob and some American girls who pronounced Rob's name 'Rab' and found my jokes about the questionable moral fibre of Liz's mother very funny. Or had good fake laughs.

Saw my ex-boyfriend's new tattoo. It's not that I said he couldn't have it done, just that if he had got it done, I'd have killed him.

Got beer thrown on me. Almost had a cat fight with a girl in moon boots. Threw half eaten chocolates out of the window on the way home.

*****

Got home and read the rest of Harry Potter.

*****

Slept.

*****

Woke up thinking about the girl in the National Ballet t-shirt.

Not my average Saturday.

if you read to the end of this, have a celebratory smoke

Where did we leave the disposable barbecue? Oh yeah, on the plastic garden table.



That was clever.

Where's my phone? Oh yeah, floating face down in the milk from my corn flakes, where it landed after I knocked it off the table.

Also clever.

Where's the remote control for the DVD? Oh yeah, in the fridge.

Where I left it. Evidently.

When are my parents getting home? When?

********

Things that have been good:

1) Doing the sound for The Hound of the Baskervilles and realising that, hey, I'm not completely incompetent when it comes to technology.

2) Realising that I can borrow CDs from the library and reacquainting myself with Michelle Branch and David Gray.

3) Not being the one who melted the garden table.

4) My phone still working after I drowned it in cereal milk. Although from the postition of the phone, bowl and table, I'd say it's far more likely that it tried to drown itself.

5) Watching Enduring Love and finding that, while it's absolutely nothing like the book, it's actually a stunning film. I wouldn't have cast Rhys Ifans as Jed, but then I wouldn't have had the idea of making him sing "God Only Knows" to freak out Joe, so I'll take my cinematic hat off.

Things that have not been good:

1) The return of Unexplainable Shitty Moods.

2) Not realising that I had to pay to borrow CDs from the library and thus looking stupid.

3) Walking round Yateley for two hours in FLIPFLOPS and ridiculous temperatures and realising that, by glorious coincidence, everyone apart from me was busy doing something. It's hysterical how that only happens when you really need someone to talk to and don't want to go home.

4) My bus-pass expiring. Shit. Am stranded. Don't know how much bus fares cost.

5) People going away to foreign places. Pfft.

Update on my campaign to actually, you know, tell the truth and stuff:

Since I whinged in my last post that I felt like I couldn't say the things I wanted to say, I've said a lot of the things I wanted to say and had conversations with at least three people about how important it is to be real, and truthful. That worked out pretty well.

Interestingly...

Someone said to me yesterday that tortured souls make better writers. They also recommended that I start blogging. Umm. Maybe I should, like, tell people about my blog? Nah.

Things that have happened that have made me say "I SO HAVE TO BLOG THIS!"

1) Emilie flogging me with a rubber chicken and us assuming the roles of a married couple whilst shopping in Tesco.

2) Me being automatically given the role of 'husband'. I think this is unfair. Admittedly Em is a damn sight more feminine than I am, and doesn't burp, swear or throw food across the kitchen when she can't be bothered to walk to the bin but, seriously, which of us is more likely to end up with a WIFE?

3) The long walk I took on Tuesday in which I had an interesting thought about death. I was on the swings by the Red Cross Hut and the swing was creaking kind of ominously (don't laugh). I thought, as I do, about what would happen if the swing collapsed and the thick wooden crossbar fell on my head. I was wondering if that would kill me, if it happened, and whether that would be a bad thing.

This doesn't mean I'm thinking about topping myself, before you refer me to samaritans.org. I was thinking about it in the sense that, if I died right now, would I be pissed off? I came to the conclusion that there's never a good time to die. I'm happy with my lot, as messed up as it may be. I wouldn't exactly be thrilled about it, but how could I stay mad?

4) Chaos on Sunday, the most intense worship I've been part of in a long time.

5) Finding a box of King Edward cigars in my parents' booze cupboard. Wha?

sponsored silence

"I'm entered into a sponsored silence, where I'm only paid / if i dont' say what I want to say" Idlewild.

There was this post I started on Friday night. You can guess what it was about. I'll have to post it retrospectively, because I want to say what I was going I say. But not tonight.

I keep starting posts that I never finish. I'll let you see them one day. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. There are certain things it probably would not be wise for me to say on the wonderful web. So I'll say this instead:

I do not like this empty house. All the shit in my head has expanded to fill the gap left by my family and I'm slowly going crazy. I haven't felt this bad for many weeks. I've become bored with being frustrated at myself and so I'm getting frustrated with the people around me. I have to sort myself out before I get bored with lashing out at myself and start lashing out at people instead.

I know exactly what I'd say. I go over it in my head and I know one of these days I'm going to slip up and say these things out loud. Maybe that's a good thing. I think a lot of my relationships could do with some honesty. I wish for one day I could be completely fearless and just say all the things I want to say.

The fallout would be immense. But it would feel so good.

I did a 48hour sponsored silence in year 10. If you know me at all, you'll know how difficult it was. I remember we were having a debate in RS and I wanted so badly to join in, to say my bit. I just knew that if I could speak up then the debate would go differently, if I could just get my damn point across.

Deja vu. I'm sick of walking on eggshells. One of these days I'm just going to start telling the truth and to hell with it. Lying never did anyone any good.

they're calling it g-hate...

...I can't imagine why. It's almost as if the world is shocked to realise that there are some people who are genuinely furious about the way the world is, rather than just mildly peeved. Paul Kingsnorth wrote a very good book called 'One No, Many Yeses'.

"The weather is no harbinger of what is about to happen... It is July 2001 and here in the ancient port city of Genoa, 300,000 people have gathered to stake a claim to the future. By the end of the day, everything will have changed. We don't know it yet but we are about to undergo a baptism of fire. Fire and tear gas and blood and bullets. And one of us is about to die."

'Hey everybody!' said Geldof, in full swing, 'I want to see a million people in Edinburgh this July!'

Far be it from me to call an ageing pop-star naive, but is he stupid? I think some people seem to believe that they're the only people ever to get a stick up their arses about the G8. Corporate and political abuse has been going on far longer than Make Poverty History bands have been selling in the shops. A lot of people are pissed off. Very pissed off. And they were on their way to Edinburgh long before Geldof told the rest of the world to show up.

Personally I'm against violent protest. Hate only breeds hate. But it's not hate that's the problem today, it's emotional apathy, it's plain not giving a shit about what happens to the world around you. It's not that the G8 leaders hate African children, it's just that it's a whole lot less hassle to just ignore them. And that's the danger. I'd always meet blind hatred with love, but that callousness, that complete lack of empathy - I can't help but hate that. A lot of people can't help but hate that.

And a lot of people, unlike my pussy self, don't think twice about showing that hate. Acting on it. People seem surprised that this week's events have descended into violence but I don't understand why. Haven't we been paying attention? Is this the first G8 summit that's actually registered on our public consciousness? Kingsnorth's account of the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa gives an idea of the depth of feeling that these protests contain. I don't think Geldof and his contingent realised that it's not just peace-loving white band wearers that will be strutting their stuff in Gleneagles. The bad guys might show up too, the anarchists and the 'hooligans'.

Don't get me wrong, I think that protest needs a healthy injection of hippy-peace love. I can understand the hate that people have, but I don't endorse it, I never will. The fact that millions of people are willing to buy the band and do their bit is fantastic. But it's not enough. We have to understand things before we can change them. People clicking their fingers is a shocking illustration of the scale of poverty and death in Africa, but it's not magic. Clicking fingers won't stop it from happening.

How can we help a country that we know nothing about? How can we plead with the G8 when we can't even name the eight men sitting by that fireside? Are we so lazy that we'll let popstars speak for us, blindly trusting in their slick soundbites because, lord knows, they play good music and that's gotta be enough, right?

It all comes down to ignorance, the pompous air with which megastars come waltzing in, as if they've just discovered this incredibly obvious truth that the rest of the world haven't got yet (blinded as we are by our humdrum, fame-less existences).

Listen guys, people don't have to die of starvation. The world doesn't have to be this way. If we tell our politicians to fix it then they have to because we live in a democracy!

And the millions of people who have dedicated their lives to working with the poor, to campaigning against corporate abuse, to actually doing something about the state of the world say:

Well that's great, good on yer for getting the public mobilised but it's not really as simple as just having a big concert -

-before they get drowned out by the squeal of tires from Bono's limo.

In the meantime, the Black Bloc keep kicking the crap out of anyone who'll stand still long enough, the anarchists keep... being anarchic, the politicians keep arguing, the Africans continue to be denied the right to actually, you know, have self-respect and, like, live, or whatever, and all the complications keep being ignored.

It's so difficult not to just write off the whole thing. We must believe that making poverty history is possible or the public emotion that Live8 has shown will just dissipate. But if we don't stop buying into the Politics Lite solution to poverty, the simplified to the point of being irrelevant view of world injustice, the people are going to get bored and forget (because that's what people do) and in a couple of months, the only people fighting are going to the ones who've been fighting for years. We do nothing. We learn nothing.

Nothing will change.

home alone

Since last we spoke, I've been a busy bee. So, sorry, here's a boring 'documenting everything I've done so when I look back I'll remember these crazy days' post that'll bore you to tears. I love you too.

Thursday brought my last exam, kicking and screaming like a giant three hour baby. Not that I'm comparing the English AEA to childbirth, but you know. You don't? Never mind. It was... interesting. I did a hell of a lot better than I thought I would, in that I actually managed to produce two decent essays, within which were some of the most kickarse sentences that I've ever penned (can't remember them now but damn they were good). Problem is, I have no idea what the examiners were actually wanting me to do. A-levels are about being taught how to jump through hoops. In this exam, I didn't even know which direction I was jumping in, let alone where the hoops were.

Screw it. My college career is over. I'm so sad, but so utterly relieved.

Thursday afternoon I caught the train into Reading to meet up with my girlies from church and we went to visit the Boiler Room. I've been wanting to go to the Boiler Room for ages, but on the one occasion I managed to get there, it had been demolished. You'd think they'd have mentioned that on the website. The new premises are in Caversham. It took us about half an hour to walk there and ten minutes to walk back on account of the shortcut we found.

When we finally arrived (I was wearing flipflops and it had been raining, just to give you an idea of what my mood was like) we were met by a startled looking American pilgrim who I don't think got the message that we were coming, but showed us round anyway and left us to it.

Wow, we said, it's like 24-7prayer all the time. Something in the atmosphere said, well, yeah, no shit.

Have I mentioned recently that I think 24-7prayer is the most brilliant, obvious and simplistic idea that our generation has cottoned onto? Jesus told us to pray continually and, centuries ago, people did. Now we're doing it again and it's the sweetest thing.

Spent some quality time with the man upstairs attempting to sort my head out. We came to the conclusion that the healing process is both long and slow. The size and scale of epiphany I've been looking for is the kind only available with obligatory visit to the pearly gates. I'm never gonna have it sorted. But things can only get easier from here on in.

Instead of keeping my prayers to read back through later (gotta love self-analysis), I borrowed Emma's lighter and burnt them outside. Felt unburdened. Prayers are like incense, they say...

Friday I spent the whole day doing stuff and got nothing done.

Oh yeah, and then we had the Leaver's Ball at Lakeside Country Club. OH YES WE DID. The Vice Squad, a tres cool band made up of teachers, rocked our socks. In short, we discovered that it's more than OK to think that Phil the theatre technician is sexy when he's playing rock star. It's also quite socially acceptable to go fangirl over your teachers when they're playing rock star. But experiencing a deep and inexplicable attraction toward your vice-principal is just icky, rock star guitar solos or no.

I blame Meffie. I would NEVER have had those thoughts if it wasn't for her and her PESKY FANGIRLING!

We laughed, we danced, we fell in hate with Michael Jackson all over again... I remembered why I love Archers and hate alcopops (it's a matter of small change, how much I have and how much those drinks are worth in relation to how nice they taste). Maths is great.

Saturday morning I woke up and decided to go camping. As you do. So off I went to Wellington Country Park with no tent and no cutlery, no pyjamas and no pillow. It was great. I laughed a lot. An awful lot. I can't remember why, exactly, but I remember ranting about how I didn't see why I should feel insignificant in comparison to the stars because they look downright tiny to me and I actually think I'm rather more important than them. I found it extremely funny. Don't know if anyone else did.

This morning we took communion in the park, which was lovely. It seems so much more profoud out doors, like we're coming together through an actual desire to honour Christ rather than because it's boring old church routine. It really touched me today, which I'm glad about, because I'd hate for something like that to become mundane.

Came home to an empty house. Feel a bit sad and lonely. Watched My Beautiful Laundrette. Liked it, but got inexplicably bored halfway through and listened to the Smashing Pumpkins instead. Printed off Pumpkins lyrics from the internet.

Wrote pointless and lengthy post on blog in order to feel productive now that I have nothing to do and no family to fight with.

This is going to be a long week.