tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-96787962024-03-13T00:54:32.065+00:00urban hermitUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-82154255292705903662008-10-19T22:28:00.002+00:002008-10-19T22:31:38.009+00:00Drop the ShopA fascinating article by a woman <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/19/credit-card-crunch-budget">who gave up shopping for a year </a>in the Guardian. As a recent trip to Glasgow left me £85 poorer pehaps I should take a leaf out of her book. But the quilt will keep me warm ! The mahjong bracelet will... be handy if I'm ever stuck without 10 mahjong pieces and need a quick game and the magazines were research ... honest!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-29472319863881155252008-10-14T09:30:00.003+00:002008-10-14T09:32:12.228+00:006 formidable women in stamps<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pJKZHwR1hiY/SPRm0f9vH2I/AAAAAAAABAg/F1gxEtcPJlU/s1600-h/stamps.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256939717167882082" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pJKZHwR1hiY/SPRm0f9vH2I/AAAAAAAABAg/F1gxEtcPJlU/s400/stamps.jpg" border="0" /></a> Delighted to read that the post office is going to celebreate the achievements of women in a series of stamps today. I must go and get some soon. More info at the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/14/women-post">Guardian.<br /></a><div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-86142485942477998692008-10-11T19:57:00.002+00:002008-10-11T20:04:44.877+00:00megan's pictures of wall stAn aquaintance of mine who lives in NY rushed out and got <a href="http://forums.photographyreview.com/blog.php?do=showcomments&j=5&e=659">photos of the protests </a>which apparently occuring around Wall St. Weird to have descriptions of this going on as I can remember walking past that bull when I was in NY a few years ago.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-16694343435553958882008-10-05T17:25:00.000+00:002008-10-05T17:26:28.563+00:00tea leaf reading<div align="center">Reading No. 24<br />Our plans miscarry because they have no aim.When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind. ~ Seneca<br />It's one thing to let the wind take you where it may, to "go with the flow," to be a rootless leaf at the mercy of the breeze.<br />It's quite another to make a plan and stick to it.<br />Believe in yourself enough to trust that you can make a decision and carry it through.<br />And once you make a decision, believe that it's the right one and proceed on that basis, at least until something convinces you that you need to change your path.<br />Aim for your harbor. </div><div align="center"> </div><div align="left">You can get your own virtual <a href="http://www.knopfler.com/tealeaves/index.html">reading here.</a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-80277710698121142332008-10-04T18:33:00.001+00:002008-10-04T18:35:20.324+00:00stuffInteresting article on <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/03/women.manet">Manet's model being unconsined from the dustbin of history</a> and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/city-of-ghosts-is-berlin-finally-a-fitting-place-for-jews-to-visit-948101.html">City of Ghosts </a>- Jews visiting Berlin.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-74373240875705379682007-08-08T23:47:00.001+00:002007-08-08T23:47:32.931+00:00I want to write something which would be a solace. I got a message on my answerphone last night from a friend. She didn't say anything but I could hear her grief.<br />Grief - its so real. On Sunday I sat on a bus and wept as a wave of sadness bore down on me as I realised I would probably never see my grandmother again before she dies.<br />Meanwhile I sit in a hot and fetid office. Struggling and struggling to work out why my invoice and their invoice have such different figures. People wander in and out asking for things of other people in the office, phones ring and ring, anxious thoughts about x & y & z & b and why they haven't called back yet. A co-worker interrogates me about a database, who she asks will update it, when will it be updated. It takes all my energy to restrain myself from picking up the mobile phone box which lurks under my desk (I am to use the devil's instrument in my job in a time to be specified later) and throwing it at her while yelling I don't give a fuck. My train of thought as I try and understand where the discrepancy lies is broken. I later try and persuade her to leave the office at lunchtime. Oh the joy of being in the office alone!<br />Then I sit outside in a garden with a friend and a glass of wine and a man and two dogs walk past. The one wants a ball to be thrown and my friend obliges. I move awkwardly and spill the glass of wine. The other smaller dog - firmly on a lead (because she runs away) licks the wine off the grass.<br />Anyway in between the sheer aggravations of everyday office life I keep on getting secret and not so secret messages about what is real and important. And believe me baby it ain't filemaker databases.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-86393199585237343572006-12-11T18:35:00.000+00:002006-12-11T18:40:48.949+00:00tantrumI've been very good this year - positively looking on the silver linings despite it generally being a very hard year to survive. Financially speaking things have been hideous and my entire 11 1/2 months seem to be entirely spent just keeping the directors of the Bank of Scotland in gee gaws.<br /><br />My phone stopped working, I got a telephone engineer out who said that I needed a new phone. So I went to John Lewis and paid out £50 yes £50 bloody pounds for a new phone. I charged it for 24 hours and the fecking thing is not compatible with my phone line. Thats right the line does not fecking fit. Despite all the assurances of the man at John Lewis. Serves me right for believing him.<br /><br />I stomped up and down this afternoon at the beach. The sky as black as my mood and the sea as green as the bile with win me. I've had enough.<br /><br />No more.<br /><br />I'm going to shut the door this christmas and not emerge until January. This fucking phone malarky is a sign.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1162943874540955582006-11-07T23:54:00.000+00:002006-11-07T23:57:54.550+00:00<strong>sunshine, swimming pools and servants.... </strong>this is what white people happily consumed feeding off Apartheide.<br /><br /><br />Evening class suddenly at the end our conversation turns to our pasts. We come from all over, new jersey, zambia, are we outing ourselves as not from this place?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1157402634617666282006-09-04T20:39:00.000+00:002006-09-04T20:43:54.636+00:00New CareerApparently I'm a Mossad Agent and so is my friend K. I've obviously been such a long time sleeper I've forgotten when I was recruited. I seem to have missed the induction week but I'm hoping for a bit of international travel in the next few months (work is a bit quiet) and my dad was really thrilled to discover that I've managed to get a career with a pension!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1148133543875915632006-05-20T13:56:00.000+00:002006-05-20T13:59:03.893+00:00And did you get what<br />You wanted from this life, even so?<br />I did.<br />And what did you want?<br />To call myself beloved to feel myself<br />Beloved on the earth.<br /><br />Raymond Carver<br /><br />Quoted in an email on a list I'm on - for some reason this just made me feel unbearably sad.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1147887368164758732006-05-17T17:32:00.000+00:002006-05-17T17:36:08.203+00:00I went to a seminar about documentary film finance and the man asked people how they described themselves when asked what they were. Apparently if we weren't prepared to call ourselves 'documentary' makers we should go and 'bake cakes'. And I'm thinking 'Don't diss the cakes - its a lot harder to produce a decent Victoria Sponge than you think.'Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1139347715658270492006-02-07T21:14:00.000+00:002006-02-07T21:28:35.676+00:00landmarksLast friday I was having dinner with Hendrix-Cat and as they have fancy schmancy computers and broadband they showed off Google maps. Most of the world had already been labeled eg where mr HC saw the road in LA undulate like a wave during the earthquake, the rehersal room with the severed finger. <br /><br />Mr HC showed me Cape Town which I've never actually visited. So I directed him to my childhood home. A verdant village (all white south african hamlets are) by the Neilspruit river with the Irene Estates a large farm which it grew out of. We swooped down on it and I pointed out the Oval where cricket was played. Where I once cycled to without permission and when I returned to the house and the state my mother was in - it was another small chink in the awareness that something was really not all right. But as I looked at the map I became disturbed, I could not make out the shopping centre, I could not make sense of where the river was, I knew logically that a huge amount of building had gone one since we left in 1977 but it disturbed me. Was that the group of buildings which housed the armaments factory which the Van der Byles had sold the land for? Were those the farm bulidings we would vist with a bucket to collect our milk? Where was my primary school? And most importantly where was Pioneer Road which we lived on. It curved around. A dangerous curve which a drunk driver sped around and ploughed into the parked cars of my parents friends who were having dinner with my parents one night. I never heard it though our house was on two acres well set back from the road. The plots of land looked packed with rooftops. I'd also heard that many of the houses had subdivided their properties and sold off their gardens for develpments to make money. We've also got news that the entire village is now 'gated' and surrounded by a security fence.<br /><br />But my eyes scrabbling across the screen evoked the fear in me that perhaps the internal landmarks of my life the things that I take to be true the things I hang my memories, my certanities, my personality and even my outlook on the work may not exist at all. I could of course stamp my foot and say 'But they were there that was my childhood and you can't tell me any different' but in the past year so many things I've bumped up against to realise they are false phatasims that I've nurtured in my life and I'm afraid these will turn out the same way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1137184590074529162006-01-13T20:31:00.000+00:002006-01-13T20:36:30.086+00:00You cannot make other people happy. If who you are increases someone else's happiness, that is joy for you both. But it is impossible to accept the burden of someone else's happiness (or their unhappiness) without coming to resent it, and risking losing respect for the selfhood of that person.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.stephaniedowrick.com">Stephanie Dowrick</a> 'Intimacy & SolitudeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1130277555906864772005-10-25T21:53:00.000+00:002005-10-25T21:59:15.916+00:00ok i'm awarethat I dash in here say something and run out. But posting at 11pm is not a good time to try and catch up.<br /><br />Apart from to say cryptically MY MOTHER IS NUTS!<br /><br />I'm in a new job which is a bit of an adjustment.<br /><br />so go here to see cute <a href="http://www.toiloftowcities.blogspot.com">cute sleeping ferrets.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1128977595581428152005-10-10T20:51:00.000+00:002005-10-10T20:53:15.586+00:00So I washed a few cupsselected one with a crack. Went to my bedroom stepping over sleeping cat and closed the door behing me.<br /><br />A threw it against the wall.<br /><br />I'M AS MAD AS HELL AND I WON'T TAKE IT ANYMOREUnknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1128976312019239232005-10-10T20:21:00.000+00:002005-10-10T20:31:52.026+00:00FUCCCCCCCK or in cyberspace nobody can hear you scream....I was doing quite well. Life uncertain jobless but I was managing to surf the crest of the unknown. <br /><br />I went to therapy and throughly cheered myself up remembering all the wasted holidays I'd had as a child the few precious weeks with my family on another continent which consisted of my grandmother banging on about my size (which subsequent examination of photographs twenty years later proved that I was an entirely normal size for my age). <br /><br />I then staggered home to an email from my bloody producer saying he'd applied for funds from an organisation where you can only apply as the filmmaker not the producer so he'd put himself down as co-director which is the FIRST FUCKING TIME I HEARD THAT HE WAS THE FUCKING CO-DIRECTOR. My natural reaction was to throw a corning ware saucepan across the kitchen. I was only stopped by the thought of the mess and the reaction of the kittens to domestic violence and resulting bill for feline psychiatry.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1127304899694723752005-09-21T12:10:00.000+00:002005-09-21T12:14:59.706+00:00feel so sadI met a friend last week who is a few years older than me. She had some trouble with her eye when we met. Afterwards she went to the hospital and has been diagnosed with mallecular degeneration. I'm feeling my own mortality. I feel selfish because I ought to be thinking of her.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1122235420736150452005-07-24T19:57:00.000+00:002005-07-24T20:03:40.743+00:00I feel guilty about this blogso much has happened in my life since I started it which I haven't written about. Long dark nights and days of the soul... excruciating lonliness from someone previously very proud of her ability to be solitary.<br /><br />Now weird stuff happening. People appearing into my life and doing things saying things which make me feel paranoid. A closeness and connection to the London Bombings which is disturbing - through 2 degrees of separation I 'know' 2 victims. My best friend B was involved in evacuating a tube train carriage the day of the second bombings. I watched the news saw a plain clothes policewoman appeal for witnesses and realised I'd done a course with her 2/3 years ago.<br /><br />weird weird weirdUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1122115250876829292005-07-23T10:40:00.000+00:002005-07-23T10:40:50.880+00:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/263/2923/640/58980012.jpg'><img border='0' class='phostImg' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/263/2923/400/58980012.jpg'></a><br />attractive Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1121810659977808742005-07-19T22:04:00.000+00:002005-07-19T22:04:20.320+00:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/263/2923/640/58980024.jpg'><img border='0' class='phostImg' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/263/2923/400/58980024.jpg'></a><br />london trainUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1120509293758572182005-07-04T20:31:00.000+00:002005-07-04T20:34:53.763+00:00the ruckus continueslife is as quiet as a grave in Leith but just phoned my friend S who is watching a mini riot at the MacDonald's off Princes St. He says its seems to be more Neds v Polis than Polis V Anarchists. Anyway dogs baton charges I could all hear via mobile phone. S reports about 1000 locals/tourists watching the debacle.<br /><br />oh and starbucks on Princes St had horseshite thrown over it.<br /><br />Blogging as it happens.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1119655341638566232005-06-24T23:20:00.000+00:002005-06-24T23:22:21.643+00:00The campaign against peasant skirtshas been started by <a href="http://girlbomb.typepad.com/blog/2005/06/attention_your_.html">Glitterbomb</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1119212079626748632005-06-19T20:14:00.000+00:002005-06-19T20:14:39.650+00:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/263/2923/640/58980010.jpg'><img border='0' class='phostImg' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/263/2923/400/589800103.jpg'></a><br />words words wordsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1118353830240509782005-06-09T21:50:00.000+00:002005-06-09T21:50:32.730+00:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/263/2923/640/58980017.jpg'><img border='0' class='phostImg' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/263/2923/400/58980017.jpg'></a><br />london train Feb 2005Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9678796.post-1118270094931803612005-06-08T22:34:00.000+00:002005-06-08T22:34:54.946+00:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/263/2923/640/56160002.jpg'><img border='0' class='phostImg' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/263/2923/400/56160002.jpg'></a><br />holgaUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0