fourth floor feminism | sociable speculation

I just don't know where to start! The tackiness seemed to go on forever and that 'bracing' wind was whittling away at my bones. I was at a seaside resort on the Lincolnshire coast called Skegness - sadly enough the name is a good indication of the general attractiveness of the surrounds - to attend the Evangelical Alliance stand for a few days at a four week Christian Conference. I had spent the entire weekend gushing on about my paid holiday in Skegness, an excitement that vastly amused my English friends, who warned me repeatedly not to expect much. The three hour train journey out to Skeggie (or Skeggers – my attempt at a more Australian ring – it never caught on) was brilliant. I finally traveled out of the South East of England and I was glued to the windows watching the most fabulous countryside unroll before me. There was a particularly lovely section of the trip where the train chugged through low, hedge-rowed hills that hid so many little towns that as one church s...

I know the Square Mile MUCH better now – after that night I made sure one day a week was set aside to wander the streets without a map and with no direction. I went to the Alternative Fashion Week in the Spitalfields markets - shows put on by students with the most fabulous designs and ideas - after which I followed the crowds to Petticoat Lane markets and the beautiful arcades of Bishopsgate. I walked a substantial part of the ruins of the Roman Walls - a wonderful trek that has you darting down dark alleys to find oasis' of Roman ruins in landscaped gardens. I strolled down the dark valleys of the roads radiating off the Bank junction, vast stone walls looming above the pavement and hiding an amazing array of churches, pubs and Roman temples beneath its corporate facade. My favourite part of the immediate neighbourhood however is the Barbican Center, which is a huge complex of apartments, conference centers, cinemas and theatres that is like a small 1960's space station set...

The biggest exhibit at the Tate Modern Gallery for the last few months had been the Weather Project, a vast sun made up of powerful lights and an opaque plastice disc setting in a vast turbine hall with a mirrored ceiling. For the last two nights of the exhibition the hall was open until 1am and I joined the crowd on the South Bank at midnight to see a Midnight Sun in wintery London. The Tate is housed in a huge factory and the turbine hall was vast, the mirrored ceiling opened it up even more and the air-conditioning pumped out air carrying dissolved sugar which gave the area a sulphurous glow. Coming out of the freezing night air off the Thames, the heat was incredible and familiar, I was grinning as I crossed the concrete floor to get closer to the much missed warmth. After walking behind the disc to look at the mechanics of the sun I joined the rest of the crowd on the concrete floor – once you had inspected the sun for more than five minutes the urge to watch yourself in the mirro...

Kim is a fantastically conscientious traveler and around February had proposed a twelve hour tour of Dublin for St Patrick's Day – Kim, Monica, Matt and I were the lucky revelers who attended. We flew out of London at 5pm, Matt and Monica from Stansted, Kim and I from Gatwick, and were in the middle of Dublin by 8pm. Kim was the only one who knew anything or anyone in the city so we spent the night in various bars meeting people who knew Kim, or people who knew people who knew Kim, or people who wanted to know Kim ... We met random drunk but hilariously funny Scotsmen and Matt and Monica found themselves a philosopher wandering the streets of Dublin at 3 o'clock in the morning. Since we had optimistically envisaged partying all night and had not arranged accommodation – something I would not recommend doing anywhere – we also met two lovely Irishmen who offered us a couch for the few hours before our 8am flight back to London. These two lovely men were called Liam and Ronan ...

After my terrible defeat at the hands of the RAA and the ensuring debacle of the love affair with an exorbitantly priced bracelet, I got back on the horse and attended a free lecture at the National Portrait Gallery on Dandyism . The Regency Period, when the first dandy, Beau Brummell, lived his life, was the flavour of my March for a few different reasons. I had stayed home every Saturday from mid-February to watch Regency House Party – a show documenting 12 modern singles living in Regency costume in a Regency house with all the attendant Regency strictures and conditions. They had their social places, no access to anything other than Regency entertainment and they could only bathe once a week. It was pure heaven for me, though a bit embarrassing to admit to when you were turning down Saturday night invitations. It addition to this interactive immersion in Regency culture, I had also committed a small crime in order to obtain myself even more Regency bliss – I stole a book! Now, m...

By the end of February I realised that, despite the fact I had been in London for 8 months, there were still some museums that I had not seen. I embarked on a Museum and Gallery bender, to commence at the Royal Academy of Arts on my Tuesday off. Jacinta and I met in Piccadilly Circus only to discovered that my bender was getting off to a bad start - my cultural event was the next week. So we went window shopping, as one does. We started out at Fortnum & Masons and went on to the lovely Regency Burlington Arcade that had its own guards and rules, including no whistling, singing or hurrying, and then Jacinta took me down Bond Street. Ooooooh, the shops! Unfortunately we had dressed down for the museum visit and I was too shy to sully the doorsteps of Cartier, Alexander McQueen and Gucci with my £20 pound sneakers and bad hair. We did go into Tiffany & Co though. Nice stuff. Once we got out of Tiffany’s we spotted a film crew with camera and presenter and another group that may ...