Shallow Grave revisited

It's that time of year when the landlady remembers we exist and visits the flat, points out that we don't do enough vaccuuming and dusting (she's right, we don't) and rearranges the furniture to suit some cosmic plan that only she knows.

Except that today there is a further purpose to the visit.  My flatmate of almost a year is moving out and we are going to be interviewing a candidate for the vacant room (or at least my landlady will be interviewing, I am just there to see what I think of the interviewee).  I won't have a say in whether or not the person gets to  move in, but I do get to offer my opinion after they have left.  Judging by previous experience this will be completely ignored. 

Sometimes I wonder why I bother to turn up for the flatmate interview but then I remember.

This time I am planning on leaving too.

...and forewarned is forearmed.

So learning suitable answers to tricky interview questions will prove useful.  Or what not to say.

Now it's time to do some listening.

...and hope it doesn't turn into that flatmate interview situation from Shallow Grave.  If you haven't seen it, look on YouTube and you'll see what I mean.

Hunting lost libraries

This evening I have been mainly appealing to my own sense of the ridiculous. I have been sighted several times in various locations with a large group of people looking at things which are no longer there. While being heavily rained on by the British Summertime.

We were on a walking tour of Lost Libraries.  

As a non-librarian friend queried: 'lost because they floated away?'. 

No, but given the dampness of the participants and the day, they could well have done. It may have been a good thing that in many of the cases there was little to see - perhaps a blue plaque with the legend "Bert Bloggs lived 'ere".  Our umbrellas were so crowded together that viewing was generally limited.  In fact the  visuals probably similar to those that the grass under a clump of toadstools manages to have.  

For anyone who looked at our merry band and wondered what we were doing, well,  we were obviously a tour group. Yet possibly not tourists though.  We took shortcuts,  dared to walk across the road at nondesignated crossing places... So definitely not tourists.  We were far too comfortable with the city.

What of these poor lost libraries anyway.  Were they even libraries?  Or merely massive book collections,  printed material hoarded by people rich enough to have this as a hobby? Such as the minister who was wealthy enough to create a theological library to house his texts and to had an architect friend design him a building to put it in (a chap you may have heard of called Wren).  

Only one woman had a library - Queen Caroline.  However she could probably afford it. 

Sadly most of the libraries were lost when the collectors died. Occasionally the libraries were bought by university libraries (in America or England) but more usually they were broken up and no-one knows where the books went. 

Unless you do?

Robin Williams

Woke early this morning to the shocking news that Robin Williams - comedian and actor - was dead, by his own hand.  Not sure what was the most shocking, the simple fact that he was dead, which I was finding hard enough to grasp, or that all the news said he had done it himself.  This wasn't like the other recent deaths of actors which had been accidental overdoses of hard or prescription drugs.  He had chosen this.  He had not seen another way out.

His alcohol addiction was well known.  Likewise his drug addiction.  He had attended rehab. Come out of rehab.  Been clean for years.  Apparently slipped back.  This addiction caused by the depression he had endured for years.

His brilliance was equally well known.  His mercurial wit.  The characters he created in the many films - I will always remember him in Mork and Mindy, and as the manic DJ in Good Morning Vietnam, but also the World According to Garp, Dead Poets Society, and Good Will Hunting.  He was such different people in so many films and was amazing.  As a standup comedian he was legendary.  As a friend (his friendship with Christopher Reeve for example) he was witty, kind and loving - look up the stories.  Watch the DVDs.  Look at the clips on YouTube.  I have been.

So why couldn't he see the way forward?  It's easy for us who aren't stuck.  Those of us who aren't depressed. 

What we need to do is be there for others.  Be supportive.  Even if someone looks strong and looks like they are coping, they might not be.  Don't make assumptions.  Ask how people are.  Listen to the answers.

..and if you want help, try contacting the Samaritans

London 2012

Every mention of the Olympics has been treated with disdain in my office - snide comments about the cost of it all, the traffic jams that would be caused by the specially marked lanes, the impossibility of the daily commute.... So I suppose I should not have really been surprised by the shared excitement of the race for gold.  I have never seen such an immediate volte-face by so many people in such a short space of time.  The moments of humour - ten people watching the rowing on a desktop PC when the screen froze less than a minute into the race then frantically running round the office to find another PC to watch the remainder of the race on (we won by the way.  Gold).

The opening ceremony united a nation.  Even my parents who weren't into the Olympics watched - and enjoyed it.  I loved it - although as many people commented, the BBC commentators weren't very good.  If they thought they were bad, they should have been in my flat.  The commentary that my flatmate provided had to be heard to be believed.  While she had heard of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (phew), she didn't seem to know who some of the others were.  I have heard since that the Americans on NBC thought IKB was Abraham Lincoln - and they didn't know who Tim Berners-Lee was.  Which is slightly terrifying. 

I still can't get the sports that I remember doing at school into these glamorous events by muscular lithe individuals, who do sweat (a lot in some cases) but still look great. How?  When I ran 100 metres I was in an aertex shirt and gym knickers and never looked that good before I ran, let alone afterward. My javelin throw would nearly pierce my foot, the discus would almost crush me.  In the triple jump I would fall backwards and get comments from the PE teacher about playing in the sandpit.  So how do you get from the trials and tribulations of sports day to the excellence of the Olympics?

To start with, you need to be good at sport... and that was where I fell down.  Literally in quite a lot of places.  So I decided early on that sport was not for me, and this year I decided to support London 2012 from the sidelines.  I watched the Show Jumping and the Men's Marathon and thoroughly enjoyed them.  For someone who loathes sport, it has been a good fortnight.

Internet dating

I've been trying internet dating and it definitely isn't for the faint hearted.  Let's face it, you are trying to sell yourself and I have never been that good at self promotion - if I were I would hardly be hiding my poetry and writing behind a picture of a slightly worried looking orange (however cute it may be). So I have struggled to describe myself in what I think might be a winning, yet truthful, way in the hope that this might lead to my finding the man of my dreams. 

However the more I've read of men's profiles, and the more accompanying pictures I've seen, the more disheartened I've become with the whole process.  No, I don't think a picture of a motorbike is going to sway me.  Nor will a picture of a car, a boat, fish (in a tank or cradled in your arms after being freshly caught), a race track, a Staffie, your tattoos (especially when spelled wrong)... just no.  All I want to know is what you look like.  I don't want to see a picture of you with your ex girlfriend, current girlfriend (get off the site!), a picture of you in bed, or in the bathroom.  Yes it is difficult to get a self portrait but surely you could ask a friend to take one for you rather than have all these bizarre and rather creepy one eyed bathroom mirror photographs that have sprouted across the dating sites? 

What of the profiles themselves?  I had great difficulty in writing mine and to come up with a list of interests that didn't make me sound insane but made me sound interesting enough to talk to.  Some men's profiles have such a long list of hobbies that you wonder how on earth they'd have time, let alone the inclination for a girlfriend.  They go skiing, mountain biking, sailing, kayaking, marathon running, snow boarding... They love travelling round the world and list the countries that they have been to and the ones that they plan to go to next...  Others have a description, not of themselves but of the woman they require - height, age, shape, weight. Somehow I get the feeling, from looking at their own profile pictures, that they expect great things and are possibly somewhat over optimistic. Average would be a generous description.

So far I've only had two dates.  Both were very nice men.  Who were very interested (in themselves).  Sadly not in me.  It is quite depressing sitting listening to men telling you all about themselves - until they suddenly remember that they are on a date and break off to ask you a question and patently obviously don't listen to the answer. I was quite disappointed as on paper and by email they had seemed rather nice.

Let's face it, I don't want much. I don't have a great long list of requirements - but I would like my date to at least be interested in me. Surely that isn't too much to ask?  Is it?

*Since I wrote this blog, I have written this purely about Internet dating*
http://milkandabiscuit.blogspot.co.uk/

Jubilate everybody

Whether you were camped on the banks of the Thames, at a street party in the suburbs, curled up with a coffee and the TV, the Diamond Jubilee River Pageant has been something to remember.  You might remember it for the boats but more likely for the terrible weather. We’re British, a spot of rain won’t dampen our spirits.  Neither will several hours of constant soaking drizzle.  We just get on with it - Royal Family and subjects as well. 

It is true that the Thames Jubilee Pageant didn’t quite resemble the promised Canaletto, but that was more to do with the lack of sunshine than the boats.  The boats were, frankly, brilliant. 1000 of them on the biggest waterbourne procession for 300 years. The flotilla contained steamships, barges, narrowboats, canoes, boats displaying the flags of each commonwealth country – each had their place.  Particularly memorable were the Dunkirk boats.  What they had been through was incredible. The sense of history that was shown on the television screens was something spectacular. 

Even watching from home you had a sense a community, a sense of being part of something bigger.  A few weeks ago the Queen came to visit the town where I live.  I waited for several hours in the rain to see her, talking to several different people also waiting.  The crowds surprised me, as did the mixture - pensioners, teenagers, babies, workers.  Somehow I had been expecting it to be older people and not so many.  That said, why was I, a 36 year old, going to see her?

The simple reason is this.  She gave up the possibility of a normal life for us.  We might argue that we didn't ask her to, but she has been a rock for our country for 60 years.  This small pensioner is far stronger than she appears.  Jubilate everyone.  We should celebrate her.

Hope Floats

Watching films like Hope Floats, I get the feeling that there is something out there, that love is real, and that all things are possible..  Then I look round, focus on my self and realise that I'm a 36 year old spinster in a world where all my friends are attached.  If there is something out there, it certainly isn't headed my way.

Why not?  Am I too cynical?  Probably, although the people who know me well are aware that it is just a defence mechanism.  Maybe I lack self confidence. Maybe you haven't tried to get to know me. Maybe my exterior repulsed you. Maybe you weren't interested in the first place.

I'm fussy too.  I want someone I like.  Looking at online dating sites was an eye opener.  It appears that the men out there, who were (at best) rather average looking believed that they deserved to a statuesque female with a large bank balance and an even larger bust, and wouldn't consider anything less.  I find it unlikely that a Pamela Anderson look-alike will be trawling through the lonely hearts searching for a man, but I have been wrong before. 

Personally I think I will just carry on as I am, and hope that I'll meet the right person somewhere - because after all, Hope Floats