fourth floor feminism | sociable speculation

Today Bunty Marshall, 82, breezed into my life from Derbyshire (driving 2 ½ hours down the M1 by herself thank you very much) to remind me what I should be doing with my time over here. She was trying some loose powder, I offered a hand massage with the new hand cream and we talked about the weather, her Christmas, her son's travels, my travels and we finally got to my degree. And then we were off, talking faster than we could manage of the Danelaw, WRENs, the Great War and the feeling you can get of the countless years of an old building reaching out of the very stones for you. I pulled out my chair, seated her behind my counter and we became the best of friends. We covered her impression of the Imperial War Museum's Women in War exhibition that we had both seen and her founding of the Repton Historical Society. We bonded over our mutual thoughts on Hastings Castle, the Battle of Bosworth, Gallipoli and Normandy. We stood with slightly teary eyes discussing the profound ef...

When you are not at school or university, lessons creep up on you. In the middle of a quiet December I had one day in which I learnt quite a few things about the importance of being earnest about clean socks, the obligations inherent in being older, the difference between sticks and knives, why I miss my cousins and the real look of sun damaged skin. Perhaps I should start at the top then. The importance of clean socks, or in my case stockings without holes. Accessorize stockings are in my top five 'Things I Love About London' along with Pret a Manger sandwiches , any food from Marks and Spencer's , New Look trousers and the Sunday Times' Style Magazine . I have a pair from last year that were worn every day for five months and have only two holes. This year's pair are showing all the signs of repeating the star performance as the sturdiest stockings in existence. But this year's pair had not been washed, and neither had my jeans, so I was wearing skirts ...

Dude, the tongue stud is not going back into the tongue tonight. R I P

All the 2004 stories from my superceeded forum have been posted up today, illustrated with photos etc. For those readers who have not seen my earlier forum, this is your golden opportunity to read some of my other writing. Further 2004 writing and the 2003 stories should be up soon - they will be back dated and will therefore will be found in the archives.

I have an impressive list of workplaces from the last 16 months in London, the Evangelical Alliance , Transport for London , the Victoria and Albert Museum , Drake International , Avanti Architects and now Elizabeth Arden . This week I started out on my three month contract as an Elizabeth Arden counter dolly and it has been an eye opener. The entire arrangement fell into place because of a throw away remark made by the London Area Manager. Alison and I were exchanging banter and she asked me why I couldn’t come and work for her. When I told her my contract with Head Office was up in five days, she rushed the whole thing through in a week and I was a consultant – all rouged up and ready to go. The two interviews, one with her and one with the store turned out to be mere formalities. The interview with Alison was an amusing one, as she told me she loved the hair, loved the eye makeup and loved me. I just had to lose the tongue stud and start wearing lipstick. The lipstick rule is a...

Shakespeare's Globe 2005 THEATRE SEASON THE SEASON OF THE WORLD AND UNDERWORLD The 2005 summer theatre season at Shakespeare’s Globe has been announced as The Season of The World and Underworld. Three plays by Shakespeare - The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale and Pericles – will be joined by an adaptation of The Storm by Plautus. This Graeco-Roman comedy has been adapted by Peter Oswald whose previous work for the Globe, The Golden Ass, was a huge hit in 2002. In addition to these productions, two company projects will explore voice and the use of masks on the Globe stage. The Season of The World and Underworld, which begins on 6 May, will examine the influence of classical Greece on Shakespeare’s works. The season will finish on 2 October with The Tempest. It will be Mark Rylance’s final performance as artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe. The Natural History Museum CURRENT EXHIBITIONS Wildlife Photographer of the Year Tickets £5, £3 concessions, £12 family ...

Royal Mail provide a new Premium Service in London. You put your package in the Post Box, and five days later they deliver it - not to the addressee - but back to you. What could they possibly come up with to top THAT for service? I arrived home on Tuesday and as I made my way up the stairs, Monica sang out that I was a lucky girl - I had a parcel. I caught sight of the parcel and it looked all too familiar – you see it was Alicia's Christmas present, posted on Friday for Perth. I know for a fact that at least one of it's accompanying parcels actually reached Perth on the same day. I stared, I trembled and I unleashed a display of anger and swearing that had Monica leaping out of her skin. She watched me stride around the house calling into question the parentage and intelligence of all Royal Mail workers and I think she was shocked at the outburst. Who knows what I did wrong! On the front of the envelope – structurally the front, the side with the Royal Mail stamp...

It's Christmas and I haven't seen family and friends for about 16 months. This means I have a lot of Christmas Cards to send. If you haven't heard from me for a while, it is probably because I have been closeted away writing, addressing, wrapping and posting. This is just the Christmas Card collection for Perth - this is not including about 10 more individuals, presents for the best friends and immediate family, and certainly not the presents and cards for London. The 50 odd cards in the photo, with at least 30 more to go, are keeping me awake at night when I should be sleeping to tackle the next day of writing. But my goodness they are worth it! I would not be as happy as I am in London without the constant contact from home. The presents, the photos, the Cherry Ripes, the SMS's, the phonecalls. So thank you, all of you, for being so very good at keeping in contact. I would rather be driven crazy by the need to get something sent to everyone than be relaxed a...

A short story, starring Claire and Jerome in their younger years - Baby gorillas Two small brown heads are bent over in concentration, four small hands are engaged in cutting, writing and ripping up sticky tape and two darting sets of eyes are keeping an eagle eye out for the presence of MUM . You see, the Naughty Club was being created, and the entire reason for the Naughty Club was to facilitate real and tangible rebellion by a 4 year old and a 3 year old against the tyranny of good behaviour as expected by MUM . In stealth, and very limited legibility, the Naughty Club membership cards were cut out, inscribed with secret symbols (lost now to your reporter) and 'laminated' with large amounts of sticky tape. The inaugural meeting was arranged and the current members of one of the newest radical movements of 1985 split up to try and allay suspicion and confound the ever watchful eyes of MUM . One of MUM 's great weaknesses was that she was old and tired and need...

Last Thursday I was making my leisurely way down Regent Street to the National Portrait Gallery and I walked past the new Apple shop , unwrapped from its scaffolding and hoardings only that week. Despite the fantastically bright red and blue Christmas lights spanning Regent Street, it was the light (the light …), the clean, white light that attracted me. As I flattened my body against the window in curiosity, I had to admit that Apple had spent their money well. Calculating the price the company paid for a two storey shop front, three times the width of most of the other shops makes my head hurt. But it is what they have done with that decadent amount of space that really makes the shop extraordinary. There are a few vast, clean blonde wood tables nearly lost in the gleaming whiteness and the sexy machines sit in splendid isolation so you can caress them and still have more than enough room to bring your other hand up to wipe the drool away in comfort and without disturbing your neig...

The cattle-class conditions of rush hour on the tube are an amazing way to learn to ignore people. With my head tucked into my neighbour's armpit, the wookie attempting to suffocate a seated bystander and some diminutive child eyeing the pink plastic handle of my umbrella as if it was a candy-cane, I travelled in one forgetable morning on a train that was packed to dangerous and unsociable standards. When in such circumstances the urge to withdraw from the outposts of your body is overwhelming and I cease my habitual, ceaseless and obvious observation of the people in the carriage, pull all my nerve endings in closer to my spine and attempt to ignore any touch registering with my brain. I blur the edges of my peripheral vision so I can be alone and discreet in the swaying mass of steaming, exhaling, sweating bodies. Today I was particularly loath to be in such close quarters with anyone as I was reading Perfume by Patrick Suskind and the rich descriptions of Grenouille's o...

Today it rained heavily for about 20 seconds at 8.12 when I stepped, umbrella-less, out of the door to work. I went back for the umbrella. This took all of a minute. By the time I got back out it was drizzling. I barely raised an eyebrow. I remember sitting in my room in the middle of the English 'summer' just past, rearranging my photos and postcards on the wall and trying not to look outside. I tended to overuse non-descript when describing the weather this summer, but I will use it again because the only better way to describe it is as an absence of weather and that is just silly. One boring and grey day, as I sent my reluctant gaze outside like a child into the gloom of England's summer, my mind had itself an epiphany – I could write a book about eternal summer and beautiful gardens and adventures and ...! I suppose, then, that the sunny, balmy days of English children's literature were wishful and hopeful rather than factual. Given that I spent my genuinely sun...

I find England literary and historically thrilling and Saturday was one of those days when the thrill reduced me to ecstatic silence. Three months ago I decided to see the last night of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Hamlet in Stratford Upon Avon and I was determined not to do it alone. Half the shelf outside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. So I ruthlessly organised seven other people to come with me (I say ruthlessly because no matter how many emails I sent out about the minutiae of it's organisation no-one ever replied to them bar Sue because she is organised) and all was good for my scheduled three hour perve-fest on Toby Stephens as Hamlet. It was a great pleasure to step off the train surrounded by a gaggle of friends instead of by myself, take possession of our own private inn instead of having to hang in the B&B lounge room by myself, Half the shelf outside our inn, The Queens Head. have dinner by the consensus of 'god we have 30 minutes and we c...

Woke up. Groused about how much sleep I don't get in bed and how much I was going to get in front of the computer at work doing stuff a trained monkey could do. Had lunch with Jacinta and laugh maniacally about stupid stuff. She is a treasure for what she puts up with. Told Ozy she was weird. Spent the rest of the day assuring her that was meant in an endearing fashion. Spent an hour nose-to-oil with portraits of the Tudors. Some of those 'favourites' of the first Lizzie were right lookers – especially the dandy with the long auburn hair. Watched three vaguely silly art-house animations that reduced Kate and I to uncharacteristic silence due to amazed incomprehension. Left in the middle of the question and answer session with the directors when a paragraph-length luvvie question from the critic to the artist was answered with 'well, I don't know what I really mean by using dolls, I am just making the film, I am just the puppet for larger forces ...' ...

Once upon a time there was a young woman (me) who lived with a lively couple called Matt and Monica. Sometimes this young woman had trouble sounding intelligent and this resulted in the embarrassing phenomenon of her referring to Mott and Manica so often it became the couple's nickname among the young woman's friends. To curb this habit of hers, she started referring to them as M&M. Sometimes M&M really did remind her of the famous chocolate that melted in your mouth and not in your hand. You melted them by intelligent conversation, not posing and glad-handing. Then, prompted but an email in which I made a clumsy, yet appropriate rhyme, Monica decided to channel the OTHER M&M. One of my friend's sent out an invite to a nightclub event to which she had been invited by a DJ. Another member of the list commented that the hostess was going 'street' on us. I admitted I would not be able to make it because I was going to a Terry Pratchett convention and m...

I got out of work today and the sky was clear. For me, this equates roughly to a lotto win. Very soon it will be pitch black when I get to work and pitch black when I get out of work. The pleasure of walking on sunshine is going to be curtailed cruelly very soon. So me, the Wookie (my classy but vast vintage fur coat) The Wookie, bought in Camden and named for a large imaginary animal because no-one could come up with a Russian name that I liked. and the clear sky strode off down Regent Street. I made a quick side trip to Liberty (very swanky department store) to buy pot plants for my hosts for dinner this evening. Since I got here I have started collecting bags from all the expensive shops. The trick is to buy something cheap that needs a big bag so it looks like you bought something expensive. So unfortunately the two dinky pot plants needed this vast purple Liberty bag to be transported on the tube. Shame. I walked through Carnaby Street and into the back streets of Soho,...

Welcome to my blog. *mutter* scrap that! something more exciting is needed ... It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a girl in possession of insane sociability must be in want of a blog. *grimace* something ORIGINAL please ... This is the blog that will launch a thousand thoughts. *wail* you are plagarising again! I like to write, I love to share, I adore the idea of banging on about whatever I wish on the internet. Thus my experiences will live here in this little corner of blogger.com. It is rather rudimentary at the moment - I have been lazy in filling it up. This happens, I find, when you have too much fun doing the interesting stuff and not the discipline to write it all down! Over the next two weeks I will be back dating many posts, so when you get on be sure to check the August and September archives for new tales. For all those coming from Travelling with Clairebear, everything before June is old material from that board. I must explain that the lau...

Today was the kind of day you are glad you lived through, but hope you only have once in a while. I had my first big party in London on Friday and I got immense pleasure from seeing all the many and varied friends I have acquired here chat and mix, promising that the winter will be warmed by good conversations and easy companionship. Monica, Ely, Ozy and Lizzie at my party . Last night I saw Kristen off at the airport after spending our first week together for a year. We had five days on my first ever trip to Paris and then five days in London culminating in the party so she could meet all the people I had talked to her about in her weekly phone calls. Kristen and I in Paris . I finally have a regular paycheck and was able to shop for the first time in almost six months. We had had friends to stay the whole weekend, cooked good food and had great running conversations that had filled the weekend with laughter. To remind me just how much a heart can hold in both happin...

A friend reckons I am one of the scary people on the Tube. I like to watch people, to try and plumb the depth of their character by observing the minute of their faces and bodies as they wait in the introverted suspended animation that the Tube requires of you. This friend tells me that when I watch people I get an intense look on my face that reminds her of a Dali painting that she once saw. When she imitates my look, she looks crazy, and I hope she is exaggerating because I do not want to make my fascinating subjects uncomfortable as they entertain me on my journey through the bowels of London, swerving around plague pits and hurtling past deserted stations. To Her Door One of the most haunting passengers of my travels got on at Morden with me with a large polystyrene box, carefully taped, something that you would transport a fragile object in. He sat in the corner of the carriage, his entire being concentrated completely on the box in his lap. The importance of this container w...

Since I started travelling, I have begun to treasure the more unusual of Australian national traits, including our unique outlook on defeat. The fact that tens of thousands of young Australians travel to ANZAC Cove each year to commemorate months of slaughter ending in inevitable defeat is indicative of our appreciation for hard work, whether it ends in wealth or death. Young Australians travel to the Gallipoli Peninsula in tour groups, spend almost 24 hours on the site visiting memorials, waiting for the Dawn Service and standing on the soil that birthed the Australian sense of country and identity. Yet we are people of life and spirit, who work hard and try to empathise with others, in a place of sorrow and death, created by incompetence and intolerance. My first trip to ANZAC Cove was made in the company of the victors of those hideous killing fields - the Turks. A friend of mine with ties to the young people of the Turkish town of Gelibulu, after which the Gallipoli Peninsula is ...