Girlfriends

Girlfriends
Originally uploaded by MelT..

blink and it's gone

mel was here. and then left. and left her phone on the desk and some moochi in the fridge.
i'm off to wales with work until friday. so think of rain, nasty jokes about sheep, and being stuck in a big house in the forest with your office for a week, and think of me.

update: the way luck runs

it wasn't anything hot or sharp, but instead a mini-van full of preschoolers.
luckily i was only going about 14mph, them 4 or 5; and i lifted my hands up before impact, so all that's resulted is another 4 bruises to complement my already colourful legs.
bike status: mangled handlebars but i needed shorter ones anyway.

the drivers - one cockney and one rastafarian jamaican - were terribly nice and made me walk around for a while to show them I was ok and didn't need an ambulance. i told them to tell the rather shocked children I was ok, and that you should always wear helmets while riding.

note: richmond park was gorgeous - the sun just up, deer racing across the hills, birds soaring everywhere. all the cyclists were grinning from ear to ear.

a fox just screamed outside my window.

last week it was geese waking me up honking... it's almost like i live in a zoo. or just a house near lots of parks and mature trees with a great stonking big back garden.

i won't bore you with tonights gorgeous crisp and cold ride home from east london. navigating through the deserted city by the dome of st.pauls, the empty offices glowing. or how on the river the royal festival hall's concrete front is lighted blue now, the london eye red, and the tate's chimney stack green. the tide was high, hms president obstructing my blackfriars view.

but on my way up constitution hill, just after running the red lights at buckingham, I thought about where I'd come from. whitechapel, the bangladeshi and saree centre of london. there to see a david adajye exhibit. from a celebration of man known for rejuvinating great chunks of east london through delightful architecture, it was a shameful bar to have been in. probably the only place in 1/2 a mile which sold alcohol, and definitely the only shopfront on the street with white people.

what's the point of living in east london if you avoid the shisha cafes, the mirch resturants, the dive bars and the late night halal kebab joints by going to an overpriced, badly decorated euro-edgy pub full where they serve pizza and deep fried onions? in a muslim neighbourhood, they've got the monopoly on alcohol, but i still destest paying 6 for a GnT in a place where the bathrooms aren't even heated.

now, back to the annoying fox in west london...

ABC weekend

IMG_3806
Originally uploaded by wonderwomanyank.

yep yep mel's coming over from austria this weekend. finally going to celebrate my birthday....

the way luck runs

i feel like some sort of voodoo good luck charm for relationships...we've just hit number 4 of my close friends falling into one. i however, am sitting contentedly, listening to stories of everyone's sexy nights and happy dates. if you're looking for love, come talk to me...i'll guarantee that you'll be in luck soon!

however my luck on general co-ordination has been miserable lately. two separate cooking knife injuries (i'm going to have to learn to set the sharp knives down while talking); a hurdle up the stairs has left me with concrete rash on elbow, knee and ankle; gorgeous crash while rollerblading in hyde park has left an equally gorgeous bruise on my thigh; and i've bumped into two tables today and it's only noon. sharp or hot things, stay away today.

thoughts on art galleries under florescent lights

the Davin Flavin retrospective opened at the Hayward Gallery on the Southbank last night. I was there, enjoying the stellar company and exhibition entrance and the not-so-stellar warm white wine. Why are gallery openings only attended by pretty intersesting women and gay men?

St Martins' had done some work to the exterior of the Hayward in preparation for the exhibition; painting stairs to match his flourescent colours and directional art to help everyone find their way around the concrete jungle of the south bank to the normally hidden entrance.

Flavin himself - archetypal modernist, turning florescent lights into sculpture. It's the kind of exhibit best set in big dark concerete halls, and enjoyed while slighty drunk. Otherwise you'd assume you're paying to wander in an electricians shop. But it is fun to wander in canaverous empty halls, glowing green or purple or blue, the kind of light that turns people into monochrome flat photos. Big indoor spaces make me want to run, and in one room my high heels 'gracefully' turned my run into a slip'n slide across the floor on my ass to the other corner. But it was an art gallery opening, so everyone clapped, and it echoed in the hall.

winter carnival

ferry
Originally uploaded by wonderwomanyank.

sometimes fate tests my goodwill

biycle's finally crashed out, and is in the shop for a few hundred pounds of overhaul. woke up to a lack of loo roll. left the new dior sunglasses in a cab the first time i wore them. red wine all over my new beige rug and my blue desk chair. realised i'm missing books and jewerly somewhere in the move. time to ignore the clothes that need ironing, and go to bed.

eco-babes (and boys):: new years resolutions

My last post was inspired by kate's blog, and in part by my boss (see the lifestyles section), who writes for newspapers and does tv shows in the UK on 'living green'. (i'll link to these soon).

Whether you're concerned about CO2, waste, or industrial pollution, here's Kate's easy ways to help in your daily routines.
1) food packaging and sourcing - watch for waste and go local
2) lights and electronics - turn them off!
3) save water > simple, but crucial
4) lower CO2 emissions>>limit plane travel where you can, use public transportation
the little things DO add up, and your behaviour can influence others.

And if for some reason you influence govermnent policy on whole cities, here's my 'top four ways to change a city's ecological footprint'.

1) Educate residents. Spread the word, formally or informally, any media: large and small, high fashion mags or school textbooks. Improving individual resident’s knowledge and awareness of the problems their city and the world faces is step number one. The reason cities exist is to do facilitate communicate and exchange - imagine if even half the population of your city knew what an ecological footprint was? Individuals make a difference, especially when they all change their preferences, change the way they buy, what they eat, how they travel.

2) Use what legal and political systems exist to force businesses to improve their own activities. Work with both bribery (tax credits) and big sticks (pollution limits). This requires strong political leadership that is committed to sustainability. For example, in the UK, local government is beginning to insist that all large developments supply at least 10% of their energy renewably on site. This has ramifications in so many ways - reduces the buildings' consumption of energy, reduces the impact of new developments on the national power demand, and helps a budding localised renewable energy sector grow, encourages innovation in localised energy generation.

3) Teach architects, accountants, and engineers about sustainability, and encourage innovation in system design. We are going to have to re-design our cities, soon. Our economies, our buildings, our homes, our shopping play and work habits, our farms that supply the cities, and everyone's got to start now. Architects and planners need to design places that don't require cars (great for the elderly and kids!), developers need to find better financing for redevelopment instead of urban growth, insurance needs to connect the dots between insuring coal plants and insuring buildings from severe weather....

4) Find ways to make users and business pay the real cost of private transportation, and build public transportation systems that don’t use carbon. This is more important to the health of the planet than perfect sewers or pesticides. Climate change is irreversible, and transportation accounts for 30% of it. Tax car owners to own a car, tax drivers to drive cars, start tolls for carbon-based private transport on roads, stop fuel subsidies to airlines, tax fuel, build low-energy trains, build bicycle lanes, build fast inter-city trains, stop building airports, make car manufacturers pay for the health impacts of cars until they design better ones, subsidise the manufacture of buses that run on fuel cells or bio-diesel…the list could go on for pages.

road works

the men in high vis have been re-paving the pavements(sidewalks) along the street oustide my office for the past 10 days. today, they've finally reached the spot just beneath my window. it would be more interesting if the circular saws they use to cut the stone weren't loud enough to make conversation three floors up pointless.

still, i've always wanted to know what was really underneath the stones i run and walk on every day. apparently it's just sandy soil. but they do take a huge sledgehammer and beat the stones down into place. i doubt the technique has changed in 200 years. a pickaxe, a few shovels and levers, a wheelbarrow and two men. one bald, one with spiky blonde hair.

inner london boroughs only use 2 kinds of paving stones - the small square darker ones, or the lighter larger rectangular ones. we're on a rectangular street, except as it's old lodnon, the street patterns are irregular so they have to cut them often, fitting everything in like a jig saw puzzle.

my hymns to london

well for once, here's my 'wish list'.

1) it's patently, ridiculous that mel can pay enough to get from austria to stanstead airport, as from stanstead airport to my house. this is not just a rant about london prices. melanie can board a plane in austria, cause as much C02 emissions as driving a car constantly for a month, land in the middle of nowhere london, and it costs her as much as taking public transportation, shared with people on less C02 producing vehicles, from the middle of nowhere to the city, and then west to my house.

europe is a mindset that politically cares about climate change, ostensibly shuts down coal plants because of C02 releases and ideally desires drastic change in countries and lifestyles to meet kyoto targets. but have dirt cheap arlines, just because the local goverments will subsidise airports which provide jobs. next time you fly ryan air, think about what you are helping. the high quality jobs of the security man, of the shop attendant, of the cleaner! those are the jobs that you are (literally) being paid to support by flying ryan-air.

*support www.carbonneutral.com and fly as much as you want.

2) ALL roads that can fit two lanes should have a bus/cycle lane. please.

3) all cycle shops should sell woman's 2 inch heels that have space for clip pedal brackets in the soles. please. boots, strappy leather... i don't mind. just please.

4) buses shoudl run on fuel cells. now. to give TFL credit, some of them do. but all of them shoud.

5) police bored while guarding buckingham palace should stop bothering me for running red lights. or at least stop pulling up beside me at 18 mph, rolling down the window and yelling at me for some ostensible traffic violation. what if traffic rules were redesigned to favor vehicles that didn't cause major biodiversity loss? what if the police stopped people who made our summers hotter?

cold and crisp

it's nights like this that the city sings to me. every shape defined, every light edged....the brick warm under the office lights, when chinatown smells of buns, and then knightsbridge faintly of lebanese. st. pauls lording over the dead meatmarket, wellington arch glowing in the darkness...
these are the days.... when i love cycling home at night. under the lights, where the bumpy pavements and buses are great things, and when cold and dark are beautiful.

its monday but i'm content

just had second helpings of a moroccan dinner - cooked by my new flatmates. proper from scratch dinnner with herbs is a regular fixture apparently, so for the future I'll cut down on my food buying and up the wine buying in an unabashed attempt to get them to cook for me more.

besides the warmth in my tummy, i've learned the cycle ride from new place to work is longer, but much prettier. it april it will be st james' tulips and buckingham instead of oxford street or euston road's traffic smog.

and...best of all...there's supposed to be sun tomorrow morning! i'll be out on the bike, it'll be nice and warm at 6C, and the sun will come up! no endless grey clouds and a gentle lightening of the mist, but perhaps even enough rays for my christmas sunglasses.

the sofa is bigger and comfy-ier at this house...

since people have been asking.... yes, i'm still in central london, still near the big park, in an even wealthier area where if the landlady felt like doing up the place i wouldn't be able to afford it. instead, i have a room that doesn't even begin to fit my accumulated books and stuff of years (I carry my prom dress around the world just to remind myself I can still fit in it), but the house comes with a texas-sized living room and kitchen.
it’s decorated like my grandmothers house, with green carpet and lots of small lamps and if there was sparkly speckled ceilings i’d expect my grandmother to toddle around the corner offering food but the ceilings are the Victorian high ones, with moulding in the corners, and i’m watching con air and finishing off a bottle of wine. the grocery is full of posh skinny people or live in cleaners, the iranian corner store plays hip-swinging arabic tunes and my favorite bookstore has an annex close by, so life will go on as normal.

useful learning of the day

Neologism. A word, term, or phrase which has been recently created ("coined") —often to apply to new concepts, or to reshape older terms in newer language form. Neologisms are especially useful in identifying inventions, new phenomena, or old ideas which have taken on a new cultural context.

e.g synergy, meritocracy, cyberspace. thanks ed

in the new kitchen

next to a big sash window, up above the cars, looking out over the pitched vitcorian and georgian roofs. carlos vives on the music player, i'm tempted to light candles in welcome to the house spirits.

what do your parents do when they move house to mark the moment?

exercise will kill you

yesterday, i did get up and go running. i also did lunges, near the hilariously named 'physical energy statue' of a greekesque man on a horse looking off into the not-yet risen sun.

today, walking is painful. the stairs at my office are torture.

it's a grey drab day in the city, and i wish i was back in scotland, where excepting the fun of edinburgh on nye, i spent most of the time in the silence of a rural village, high in the mountains, surrounded by snow. walking in the dusk at 4 among the fields, powder crunching under our boots, or with the birds in the morning, chattering among the hedges. when the white fog descended, the ground met air and the mountains disappeared. then we got lost, and had to follow the rabbits and the fences home.

welcome 2006

IMG_0599
Originally uploaded by wonderwomanyank.

from Hogmanay, Edinburgh. A wee bit cold, but as new years are supposed to be - pure good fun. Thanks to James for inviting me into his family and friends, and now I'm off to bed. It's late, and I've got several large slices of banoffee pie to run off in the park tomorrow morning.