At last - the knowledge we've all been waiting for

Sweatpantsmom Reveals The Secrets Of Blogging!

"Can anyone start a blog?

"Yes. In fact, that's the comment I hear most often after people have read my blog. 'Oh, I see anyone can start a blog.'"

Small crimes against the planet

Marvellous rant against single-serve coffee filters and other idiocies in today's Grauniad. This is a pet hate of mine — the can't-live-without items brought to us by the Economic Imperative, aka the eternal drive to come up with new ways to get money out of jaded consumers. What can you sell them when they already have everything... oh yes! Refrigerated butter dishes!

Not to mention disposable cameras, which of course the whole world loves. But really. Before they came on the market, nobody ever thought "gee, what this wedding really needs is a camera at each table so all the drunken guests can take hundreds of almost identical crappy out-of-focus shots and then *throw the whole thing away*!". And now that we all have digital cameras and cameraphones, they're even less useful. But somehow the disposable camera has become one of those widely accepted things, like disposable razors (why why why?). How much plastic goes into them every year, and how much cardboard goes into their packaging? How much do they add to landfill? How much would we not care if they disappeared from the market overnight?

The only disposable product I really like is of course the humble tissue. Because hankies are just gross. Disposable nappies are no doubt a great boon to parents too — but cloth is seriously underrated. (FYI, I have spent a year of my life changing nappies almost constantly. I'm not mouthing off on something I have no experience of.) For the rest... disposable is a dirty word.

Tales from the Underground

So you know that, although it's only 11pm, you're not going to make it to Waterloo in time for the last train home. You wave goodbye to your friends hopping on the tube to Ealing Broadway, figuring you'll get the next tube to Richmond and the bus from there. You wait a while. 'Sokay, you have your crochet, you don't mind waiting... as long as you get home eventually. You realise that actually, Ealing is closer to home than Richmond, and anyway if you change to the Piccadilly line at South Kensington you can walk from Osterley. You should have travelled with your friends, and gotten home earlier. Bum. You start to worry about whether you will make the Piccadilly connection. The tube arrives (it's for Ealing Broadway). You get on. You sit. You crochet. You sit and sit and sit. This is a looooong tube journey. You're crossing all the way from zone 4 east London to zone 4 west London. Good thing you've got your crochet. Damn, you're tired. You wonder whether people are staring because of the crochet or the ghoulish Halloween make-up.*

Finally you make it to South Ken. You get the Heathrow tube, yay! Last stretch. Just as well because your bladder is fit to bust. You can make it. Everyone is looking about as tired as you, even without benefit of ghoulish eye shadow.

Wait. Not quite everyone. Dimly you become aware of a very enthusiastic Irish somebody trying to pep up the passengers. Pep up Londoners on their way home on (nearly) the last tube? Is he mad?

"...so everyone over here, let me hear you say yay!"
"Yaaayyy!"
"And everyone over here, let me hear you say yay!"
"..."

"Oh now, that's just pathetic, isn't it? C'mon, we'll try again. Let me hear you say yay!"
"..."

"Well now, what's wrong wit' you lot? These guys over here, they're doing great. Listen to them: let me hear you say yay!"
"Yaaaayyy!"
"That's just fan-tas-tic. Now you guys, you've got two-t'irds of the carriage, you can do better than that. Let me hear you say yay!"
"..."

Dude, you think. Seriously. I've been travelling for well over an hour. My yarn is getting all in a tangle and I'm not quite sober enough to fix it. I'm still six stops and a 20-minute walk from home, and I am experiencing increasing discomfort in the lower abdominal region. Yay? I Do Not Think So.

"Well this is awful! Come on guys! Don't you feel great? You're in one of the biggest metropolises in the world-"

...and that's the problem right there, you think bitterly...

"-let me hear you say yay!"
"..."

"Oh come on now. You're in London. You're going home. And tomorrow you're going to tell everyone a great story about this crazy guy on the tube."

Ah. Okay. You got me.

"Let me hear you say yay!"
"Yaaaayyy!"

_____
* Slightly gothy outfit + heavy shadows under the eyes + really, really big knitting needle/stake = suicidal vampire = laziest Halloween costume ever!

Be careful what you wish for

A perfect morning for a run. Blue sky, apple-crisp autumn air, trees gently turning gold and squirrels scampering away as I pass.

Pity it made my throat hurt so. And pity it clouded over the very second I hung the washing.

Now, requests have been made for pictures of the coat. I want to oblige, but...
1. I try to keep the knitting (mostly) out of this blog. Once I start posting pictures of finished objects, it's a slippery slope.
2. I take crappy pictures. My phone — while reportedly the best cameraphone on the market, and doing a remarkable job on landscape shots — doesn't really like yarn. And I am too lazy to figure out how to use Beloved's camera, and so on. I'm also too lazy to keep trotting back to take new shots when I see that they look like crap on screen.
3. If I want to keep the option open of publishing a pattern for one of my designs, then I shouldn't really post pictures of it before publication.

All the same, though. To prove that I do occasionally knit things, I give you a twofer. Make it last.



New coat, with new scarf. In pink. I never wear pink. This is a randomly occurring freak development, owing to a strange concatenation of events (sale, gift, other stuff, I won't bore you with the details). It remains to be seen whether these ever actually get worn.

Also, the coat — while a damn fine coat and well structured — is in fact a little wider than I would have liked. Somehow, while it seemed to fit beautifully throughout the knitting and sewing up phase, in the attaching of the final button, it grew an inch or so. Most mysterious. So if anybody wants a size 16 black and pink coat, with optional matching scarf... raise your hands.



Hands that would be kept soooo snuggly warm in these lovely pocketses...

Sunday morning

It's grey and wet outside. I'm under the duvet, with the laptop, Beloved next to me working on his laptop, and two purring cats keeping our toes warm. We've had breakfast in bed and there is chocolate in the house. We're starting to plan Christmas in Switzerland.

I'm starting my new job soon. Esteemed Father (whose life has again been difficult lately) has finally got a new job, a very promising one, and he too starts next month. Beloved has just, quite unexpectedly, got a very gratifying promotion.

I finished knitting a coat yesterday - one of the most successful projects I've done in the past couple of years. It fits beautifully.

I like today.

It's because Mars is transiting my second house. Probably.

I seem to be having a severe attack of the spendies. It happens sometimes. Without quite intending it, or having any noticeable reason, I find my wallet lightening and a mysterious pile of shopping bags building in a corner of my home. The doorbell keeps ringing and the postie is giving me a look that frankly I regard as a little personal. Has he never experienced the pure, true joy of online shopping? Why must he judge me so?

I think it's under control, though. Really. I haven't bought any shoes in, well, months. The new clothes — well, it's autumn, right? Time for a little wardrobe renewal. And I've lost a little weight, so it's very important for me to have skirts that don't turn into hipsters when they weren't designed that way. It's all very sensible.

The books, now, I guess those weren't entirely necessary. But you wouldn't have me turn my back on knowledge, would you? The books are food for the soul. We can't have an emaciated soul situation.

And the yarn. Look. I know I already had more yarn than I can knit in a year. But it wasn't the right yarn. Creativity needs abundance. And plus, half of it is for gifting, so there. I will not apologise for my natural generosity.

I admit that maybe all that champagne was a little excessive... no. No I don't. The champagne was compulsory, every delicious drop. A celebration is a celebration, after all!

Next up on the Scrivenings — Advice from the heart: be well prepared for salary negotiations.

Public service announcement

Calling Miyazaki fans in London: free screening of Howl's Moving Castle at the Renoir, Saturday 21 October, 11am. As part of the "Bloomsbury festival", which is really just a Big Shiny Shopping Centre Opening thing — but props to Allied London, they have made that horrible concrete block the Brunswick look remarkably passable.* And the festival does look rather fun. Even with the singalonga Messiah.

(After I got all those lovely comments on my last post**, and after Tayster called me "the Katherine Hepburn of the blog world"***, I thought: gosh. People still show up here? Oh bollocks. I'd better write something interesting. Right, I'll do that, um, tomorrow. Day after, for sure.

Time passes... and this is all you get. It's like I'm pushing you away, isn't it?)

_____
* Interesting tidbit: it was never supposed to be exposed concrete. The council was responsible for painting the housing (i.e. most of it), and of course being a council, it didn't have any money. Fast forward to the redevelopment and the story repeats itself — but they seem to have reached a compromise, with interesting vertical panels of paint. O'course, it looks good now the concrete's been refinished and all, but in a few years... grumblegrumble.
** For which, thank you most sincerely. It made me very happy to hear from you all.
*** I don't really know what that means,**** but I'm hoping it means Cate Blanchett would play me in a movie. Since "married to alcoholic closet case" doesn't seem to apply.
**** Well, it means he was looking for a suitably grandiose acceptance speech, yes. But apart from that.

Headline news

I will shortly be writing headlines for actual news.

And doing other stuff too, because it's, like, a Very Cool Job with Lots of Responsibilities. But still three days a week.

This is Enormously Exciting, so modesty be damned: three cheers for me! Hip hip...?

Update: first day 7 November. So now that's settled, I can spend the next four weeks letting the fear and trepidation set in. Marvellous.

One for the knitters

So a while ago I had a great rush of blood to the head and thought, "I know! I'll start a competition! A fabulous, exciting knitting competition with tons of marvellous prizes and, like, it'll run for SIX MONTHS and there will be SO MUCH FUN and it will all be BRILLIANT!"

So, um, now it's launched, and I really need some entries. A LOT of entries. So, like, tell your friends, ja?

Ooh! Go here!

Further in the series of "I'm not a real blogger any more, I just post occasional links", I heartily recommend Anna's Invalidding for beginners.

I would like to point out, in the interests of random sympathy generation (despite the great rudeness of my health just now), that while I frequently do have someone on hand for "kettling, duveduty and on-demand-biscuitage", that someone has an unfortunate tendency to let illing bring out his very most unpleasant Teutonicnesses. Viz:

"Tea? Of course my love. Here. Drink it while it's hot. Now. Now. It's hot. Drink it! Drink it up! It's hot! DRINK THE DAMN TEA RIGHT NOW WOMAN!"
[while plaintive meeping from self goes along the lines of "too hot to drink! Leave it there! Go away! You're scaring me!"]

"Let me tuck you up my love. You're not warm enough. You need to sweat it out. Lie still now, I'll bundle the duvet. Stop! Stop moving! You need more blankets! All the blankets in the house! Wrapped tight around you! You're not sweating enough! STOP MOVING AND SWEAT DAMMIT!"
[plaintive meeping: "but I'm too hot! is horrid! feel awful! can't move limbs! go away you're scaring me!"]

"Biscuit? You want a biscuit? Sick people don't have biscuits. No biscuits! If you're hungry for biscuits you can't really be sick! You can have tea and sweat, that's all!"
[I must admit I generally win this one in the end. He's not *entirely* heartless.]

And now, please excuse me; the rain appears to have stopped, so I must go run. Dammit.