in 24 hours...

(weather willing) I'll be getting off a train in Scotland, arriving for a weekend of Hogmanay Fun. Probably because I have no idea what happens after I arrive at noon tomorrow, am not responsible for arranging anything but getting my own ass to Edinburgh, in general like the Scottish, and trust James for a good night out on town (see Beijing posts from July), I'm really looking forward to this. In that 'you just know it's going to be good' relaxing kind of way. Wait, take back that relaxing part.

Other things on my mind...the way geese in Hyde Park sleep huddled under the trees in the frozen dawn, packing the rest of my life into boxes, writing application essays, exchanging aprov lingerie for a better size, contacting old professors, the three friends I owe huge emails to, my bicycle insurance that's disappeared in the post, planning a proper birthday party for late jan, wishing it was bright enough to wear my new Dior sunglasses...

raise a cow...or a pig...or a cane rat...

Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:the terrain is too hilly for cows
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:also cows usually have to be herded into a big city to be sold
dodyg (silverkey) says:hmm..let's invest in pigs then
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:yes i was going to suggest
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:there is also catching on here the taming and eating of cane rats
dodyg (silverkey) says:wtf?
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:but if you want to have a project that i can personally supervise, it's best that it's pigs
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:yeah people eat wild cane rats
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:in fact they prefer them to pig or cow meat

it's started. a pig and a school scholarship.
when i think i'm going to be paying £6k come september, $50 sounds like i could help.

good words.

from john stuart mill, through the walrus and norm.

I never, indeed, wavered in the conviction that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct, and the end of life. But I now thought that this end was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoyments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning. This theory now became the basis of my philosophy of life.

this will be a quiet weekend

listening to the hours soundtrack yesterday at work, against the cool window, working steadily in the darkening dusk. the sun failed to appear yesterday. a friday night devoted to shalimar the clown, rushdie's latest. saturday's slow morning, sun through my curtains. cleaning my bicycle and wrapping that last present. the contessa's coming over later, with prosecco and Dvds, and we'll pass a relaxing weekend. monday begins the packing and sorting and binning; after 2.5 years of accumulated stuff, it's time for a serious cull as i move on to a smaller room.

richmond park was a winter wonderland this morning

‘A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, on the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.’ (henry james)

veg?

dammit. help me get my mp3 player untangled from the spokes of my bicycle wheels. of course i want veg. just give me a bowl of food. 'it'll make you fart' intones the gudgrati. 'i dont care'; and inhale peas, snow peas (mangetout), brussel sprouts, spinach.. there is a point at which cycling drunk is scary. it's around when you can't walk, and laugh hiariously, but before time disappears and the spinning starts. when cycling is possible, but wobbly, and you pray, really pray, that at 11 on sunday, the streets of london are empty.

winter pimms and christmas sugar cookies

the dough is resting in the fridge, the food coloring's ready for the next step - icing all the trees, santas and stars. with all the presents shipped to northern cali, i've only left to cook up christmas treats for flatmates, for soon to be flatmates, for andrew and the office. i'm wearing a jamie oliver apron, cooking among the christmas lights and tinsel of andrew's well equipped kitchen. drinking warm apple juice and pimms.

today a local saying came true - 'london is a collection of many villages' . at select times (christmas shopping, spring pub days) the city acts like tiny hamlets, neighbours gossiping outside the butcher and saying hello over a pint at the pub. andrew and i were stocking up on sugar and rummaging for stocking tidbits for his nieces on my local marylebone high street when i stopped to chat with my boss(at the organic butchers), alan (the french cheese shop), toby co-worker (the supermarket). the regular flowersellers smiled knowingly in the bright sun, and i danced through rocococo chocolates into the cold.

worlds largest urban areas...

DEMOGRAPHIA.COM...
The first known attempt at a comprehensive list of the world's largest urban areas, including population, land area and population density.
Includes all (673) known urban areas with 500,000 or more residents.
These urban areas account for an estimated 42 percent of the world's urban population.

rare mentors...

a conference follow up leads to one of the best contacts I've met in a year. woman, late 40s, head of a planning/urban design office, manages the regeneration of elephant and castle in london, works internationally.... enormous gems of advice about my career, about specialisms, about life and how to handle pinstripe wearing men. urbanista, she called herself with passion, and a glass of wine turned into four.

black rain timed with kyoto failures...

Government's watchdog attacks failure on climate change targets

By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor Published: 12 December 2005

"Tony Blair, John Prescott and Gordon Brown will be condemned today over the Government's failure to meet its targets on climate change in a report by its own watchdog on global warming.

The Prime Minister's "green guru", Sir Jonathon Porritt, who heads the Commission for Sustainable Development, will deliver a humiliating blow to Mr Blair over his claims to lead the world on climate change, one day after ministers celebrated a deal in Montreal to curb global warming."

"The most embarrassing red light is for the Government's target on reducing CO₂ emissions by 12.5 per cent by 2012. Instead of cutting the harmful emissions that contribute to global warming, Britain has increased the emissions by 9 per cent since 1999."

and we all laughed at china's chemical spills...

Smoke cloud spreading over South

Images of smoke and blasts In pictures

A cloud of black smoke is spreading over a large area of southern England after a series of explosions at an oil depot in Hemel Hempstead.

Although winds are light, smoke is drifting towards Reading and Swindon, the Met Office has said.

The smoke is likely to affect only people who already have respiratory illnesses, health officials say.

i'm doomed

i'm doomed
Originally uploaded by wonderwomanyank.

prime suspect

you never thought a little girl from texas would be a helen mirren fan, did you. unfortunately - or more probably fortunately - among my father's hobbies of snakes and hiking was a substantial collection of Britannia cinema. the entire avengers collection on dvd, seasons 1 to 4 of prime suspect on vhs, even half of red dwarf.....

so tonight, watching detective superintendent Tennyson on an evening standard free dvd, i'm transported back to the blue couches of my parent's home, where grisly murders complement a hard-edged hard-drinking eternally smoking hellen mirren. in a world of rain, long coats, pale policeman and bureaucracy, she's the focus: a woman with a constant whiskey, with purpose in life, chatting on old portable phones, bullying her male colleagues. her relationships never lasted, but she always got her man.

and now i live here, and now no-one smokes, ever, and now everyone still drinks, and now it doesn't rain that often, and now we have texting, and now Tennyson's one-aspect life looks off-balance. devoid of happy leisure, devoid of relationships whether friend or family, devoid of a life to call one's own in the stories they tell when we die.

back home...

i have been wearing blue suede 2.5 inch heels for 17 hours now. enough.
and the irish cabbie in manchester offered to buy me from my boss - 'how 'bout a free fare for the one in the middle'.
reminder to self: never smile at cabbies after dark while dressed nicely.

kafka on the shore

there's a lot of things i should do in life. forgetting to return library books should not be on this list. unfortuantely life gets in the way, and i always have plenty of good reasons to not make the deadlines. the library down the street has the full set of murakami (which for some reason no one ever borrows any of, and yet the new laurel k hamilton is always gone). it's become a bit of tradition (since june - i'm american and allowed to create traditions) that i read a murakami on the way back from foreign lands. beginning to suspect this doesn't help adjusting between cultures, though, reading high in skies, cocooned in plastic, where cats and stones can speak and men go down wells to find their wives trapped in dreamworlds.

that's my bird

that's my bird
Originally uploaded by wonderwomanyank.

turkey dinner on thursday. thanks to tom gara's stories about tunesia, thibault, ed, contessa and greg from botswana for an enlightening conversation that veered between how to kill and cook a large ocotupus, breast implants, gun ownership and the ducks of rotterdam. next time, more women and less red wine.