fourth floor feminism | sociable speculation

Last stop on the London tour for February was my long overdue expensive London haircut. I went to the Vidal Sassoon Advanced Hair Academy, handed over the tiny amount of £9.50 and sat in a chair for four hours getting my hair cut as a model. Thankfully curly hair is far harder to turn into a 'David Beckham', a 'femullet', or an asymmetrical style, so I did not walk out with a trendy and high maintenance haircut as the other models did. The students that day were a group of thirty something hairdressers from ... St Petersburg! As soon as they walked in you could tell they were from Eastern Europe, blonde hair, razor sharp cheekbones and the most divine boots *squeak* Half the entertainment was watching the towering blondes listen to the translated instructions of the diminutive gay brit flitting around instructing them. My stylist Tanya was straight out of ABBA; dead straight white blonde hair and leopard print top. And I must commend the little gay brit for making her...

Quite apart from the fact that this piece is about me and the well documented Look, this is just very funny. Monica sent it to the usual pub quiz suspects the day after the quiz at which a photo was taken - Monica's headband broke and the first thing everyone thought was 'we can make them into horns for Claire ...' Why I Am Afraid Of The Claire - by Monica White. Claire is small, granted. There's a formidable intellect there and a fierce streak. All fine and well, but I'd usually tell someone like that to bite my kneecaps if an argument wasn't going my way. The Claire, though, has one weapon that chills my blood. The Look. This is reserved for those times when words would be utterly superflous. It's usually aimed at me when I say something of a particularly stupid bent. I watch myself around The Claire. For Claire's calling (not unlike Buffy) is to be an assistant to the supernatural. 'Nothing new,' you may say, 'I've seen...

Being footloose and fancy-free in the boyfriend department, and the proud owner of a ‘Friends of the British Museum’ card (a brilliant present from Kim), I spent the weekend of love with my greatest love – HISTORY. Thus my first visit to the British Museum was on the Buried Treasure weekend that included gallery talks by BM curators, displays of ancient crafts by re-enactment societies and guided tours around the Buried Treasure Exhibit itself. As a young ‘un I wanted to be an archaeologist, and throughout changes in career I have never lost my desire to find historical treasures in the ground. I still have a battered crucifix, with the body of Jesus broken off, that I found in the sheep pens on our first farm. And of course there was that dinosaur bone in a rock that I picked up at the base of the cliffs at Yallingup, which Mum threw away after three years gathering dust in the shed – Claireosaurus: Lost Forever. The Buried Treasure Exhibit displayed the Hoards (ie collections of ...

Well, the birthday was a rather fabulous affair actually. It kicked off with drinks in town on Thursday. I invited all the best friends – most of whom are regulars at the Pub Quiz each Tuesday. Once everyone was there the night really took off. I was bought Baileys all night and they changed from singles to doubles without me noticing(!) and that is when I got VERY tipsy. Towards 11 o’clock I was very happy and there were many hugs, declarations of love for London and my friends in it, and all such things. Great friends as they are, some enterprising ex-perthites even tried to freak me out by setting up a random man in the bar to say he had met me at the Cott and we had *ahem* locked lips! At first I thought that I was starting to forget faces, but as soon as he tried to claim tonsil hockey I smelt a rat … never done THAT in the Cott. I was rather blasé about my lack of headache the next morning, and all involved in the buying my drinks scam were a little miffed. There w...

I helped at a press conference run by the Media Consultancy team at the EA for the launch of an art exhibition in St Paul’s Cathedral. The exhibition featured works from some of the foremost artists in Britain at the moment, including the controversial Tracy Emin , so the media interest in the story was considerable. The journalists had shoes with worn heels, flapping grey or beige overcoats and assorted bags and notepads - the reporter from the Times was a perfect Hollywood journalist with his lean height, thin blonde hair and harried look. The photographers were, to a man, dressed as if ready to hop on a plane to a war zone somewhere; the khaki fatigues, pocket-covered safari vests and the pure amount of gadgets draped around necks and flourished in their hands. Most had two mobile phones, one to send photos and one to receive calls, as explained by the guy I actually spent most of the conference in deep discussion with. He was a photographer from AP, a news agency of the size of ...

Funny things still happen to my brain over here. Like being so spaced out from no sleep that I got strangely excited at spotting a pigeon on the platform at Baker Street Station and pointed it out to Monica saying 'hey, cool, a penguin on the underground.' Monica was so pleased with the line that she composed me a poem the next day. There's a penguin on Claire's subway Wand'ring this way and then that He waddles 'cross the platform Feet softly slapping, belly fat Dressed in warm grey feathers Birdlike beak 'neath tiny eyes Methinks that Claire's fat penguin Is a pigeon in disguise :) The story could just end there but later that week, while walking through the crowd at the Church for Australia Day there was a (hot) guy in a t-shirt that said 'one by one the penguins are stealing my sanity' Ah! But does the strange penguin inspired co-incidences stop there? No indeed not my captive audience! That very Tuesday at the pub quiz there ...

The weather forecast for the last week was snow, but frankly I was getting AWFULLY tired of waiting. On Tuesday I was walking down the street to lunch when itsy bitsy little snow flakes starting swirling around me like tiny lost baby hailstones. This lasted for about 30 seconds. Wednesday I entertained a few workmates by standing on the roof and doing a Julie-Andrews-in-the-first-scene-of-the-Sound-of-Music style dance in the 1 minute splatter of snow. Once again, not terribly exciting, but certainly an escalation. Then, Wednesday afternoon I went up to Old Street to see my house and as I came out of the tube it was snowing. Old Street Station has an open roof to the sky and so I saw the snow falling before I saw it on the ground. Being a snow-virgin there were a few fabulous moments when I didn’t even know it was snow, I seriously looked at the sky and thought ‘that is REALLY fat rain!’ (thank you Terry Pratchett) Walking out onto my very first stretch of snow covered ground I then ...

Immediately after this bitter little outburst I felt better. Perhaps because there is NOTHING like a good whine, and perhaps because I used trousers instead of pants - getting a handle on the lingo is very satisfying. Then, just to make sure that my bitterness really turned into a good dose of homesickness, Val sent me a photo of herself standing on a nameless Western Australian Beach and for a moment, sitting in four layers of clothes at my desk in London, I was transported. I could feel the sun drying my skin, the sand cradling my feet and the tang of the salt air from the surf. I could feel the weight of sunglasses on my nose, my hair lift in the afternoon breeze and recall my grin as I watch the surfies pass as I sun-baked with Louise on the shoreline. I could see the grey and brown gum-trees blur into a khaki sea as we roar at Dad's breakneck speed from Perth to Yallingup for that blissful two-week holiday. It is a strange kind of torture when your whole body aches fo...

See! I have swum in clothes before! It is just I have never done it in four layers on the way to work. Today is the start of the horrible winter weather and I am not in the best mood with London. ONE – why, why, WHY combine rain AND umbrella melting winds? I had been so proud of the little umbrella I bought from home. It had survived the three times I bought it out so far. On Friday it melted before my eyes in the middle of Hatfield Mead. By melted I mean it buckled and curled along all the ribs, and not even just at the joints. I just walked on watching the death agony of my umbrella and decided that the moment they bring out a titanium brolly, I will queue up for it in fine English tradition. TWO – surprisingly enough London town planners, drains were invented to keep the water OFF the roads. I walked three blocks today from Tube to work cowering against the far limit of the sidewalk so I could miss the meter high tidal waves churned up by the buses driving through the stream th...

I really knew winter was here when I stepped out of the house one day and the ground was covered in frost. Sure, Australia sees frost, so the shimmering swards of grass on Hatfield Mead were not a surprise. What was a surprise however were the frosted sidewalks, which I had to negotiate so very carefully for about 500 meters. Every drop of water on a surface was frozen - I had certainly never seen frosted concrete and tar before. I haven’t seen it since either, so thankfully I have not needed ice-skates to get to the bus again. As I turn out of Hatfield Mead each morning to go to the bus, I look out across Morden Park, and on a clear day it is a sight that never fails to remind me I am in another country. The bare branched trees are many-masted ships ghosting above the mist that obscures their trunks and the grass completely veiled in silver frost. I now understand what crystal-clear air is about ... nothing else really describes the biting crispness of the atmosphere on a cloudless da...

I just wrote my first letter to a member of the aristocracy today. It was such a strange feeling to be writing 'My Lord' instead of 'Dear blah blah'. Right, so, once The Right Honourable the Viscount Crispin Brentford gets back to me ...

My last few days in Perth have been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. Not only had I been having some pretty horrible nights sleep, but friends kept on turning up at my door and reminding me why I really wanted to stay in Perth. So, inbetween bouts of nervousness characterised by the feeling that a giant hand was crushing my stomach, and hyperactivity that made whoever witness them wish I was gone already, I have managed to fit in a few sobs and tears. All round a good last few days.

I was cruising Kim's site one day when I picked up a link to her friend Cat's travelogues of their time in Turkey ( Cruising Cappadocia ). Cat is one of the most exceptional travel writers I have ever read. Her work is hosted on a few different sites, so I have put them all together for ease of reading. Repository One: Travelpod Repository Two: BootnAll Travel Network Repository Three: MyTravelBug.org Repository Four: The Vancouver Courier Repository Five: www.travelmag.co.uk (article one) www.travelmag.co.uk (article two) www.travelmag.co.uk (article three)