This blog is sponsored by the Arts Council

Uh, well no not really. But the Arts Council have generously offered me a grant to write my novel. Woohoo! It's incredibly generous of them, since they've become a bit tight-fisted of late, especially because the government isn't offering them any more funding till 2008. But I can't be bothered with all that because I have a grant! Celebrations galore have occurred, and now that the dust is starting to settle I realise I actually have to write the damn thing. Hence the need to procrastinate. Which is why i'm here blogging away, tralalala. And visiting my favourite money-saving website. Lalalala. But the novel sits there, slowly, waiting, patiently for my return. I can't shake this thing from my mind, it follows me wherever I go. I maybe having a laugh, drinking with a few friends, but the beast will be standing there, silently in the corner, waiting, waiting. Damn you, you novel beast! Yet, strangely enough, I love you - well, only if you end up getting published some day that is... Otherwise... well it's best not to contemplate that.

Travelling with friends (or people you just met)

Off to New york in a few weeks! I know, I have a very weighty carbon footprint to worry about - hoping some of it is offset by the fact that I dont own a car and walk or public transport it everywhere. I try to eat mostly organic and try to limit my food miles. God who would think just existing these days would get so complicated. Travelling with friend and partner, which should prove interesting as she is single and we are celebrating our anniversary. Hmm...
It's always tricky travelling with friends, you just dont know what your relationship is going to be like at the end of your trip. It reminds me of the time I was backpacking through Europe by myself and met this Aussie girl who on a whim suggested we go to Dublin for a week. I didnt know her from Adam (or should that be Eve?) but I was footloose and carefree and went wherever the wind took me - aaah those were the days. She was fine in the beginning, as we slept in dorms with 20 other people and hung out with a Norwegian "artist" (who was staying in our hostel for free as long as he helped in cleaning it - which made him more of a cleaner than an artist but anyway) and the Irish guys who were friends of friends of hers who thankfully steered us clear of the tourist hole known as Temple Bar, and went to Irish poetry recitals for the free wine, but then suddenly near the end of the trip she turned into - silent weirdo. Suddenly she was pissed off at me, to the point that on the last day of our trip, she completely stopped speaking to me. It was so out of the blue (and I know when people say that they're denying they did something wrong, but really I wrecked my brain and couldn't come up with anything) so I asked her and she was adamant it was all fine. But it was weird, on our bus ride to the airport - silence - at the airport - silence, except for when she asked to have separate seats from me. I kept asking her what was wrong, but she said it was nothing. Aeroplane ride - silence. Journey on train back to London - we sat opposite each other but she didnt say a word. To this day I dont know what that was about since I never saw her again. Except bizarrely enough many years later when I was working at a big media company, she started working in the same department as me! In fact she sat opposite me - but guess what, not a word! We didnt even admit we knew each other. I told my boss at the time about this but she couldn't believe it was true. Later on, after I left the company, my boss contacted me and said that she indeed was a real strange person. I think she was troubled thats all, she told me how when she was at uni some ambulance guys beat her up because they thought she was a drug addict. What can you say to that?
In any case that's an extreme example of when "Trips with friends (or people you just met) go wrong", but I'll be taking heed on my New York trip nonetheless and hoping to keep my friendship and relationship intact by the end. Fingers crossed.

Light a million candles

I was up last night at 1.30am watching CNN*, as you do when you get up at midday on a Sunday and aren't a slave to the economic grind - ie you don't have an office to get to at 9am, although technically I have a home office so really I should be there from then on, but hey I'm the boss, which means I'm not there till well past 9. Anyway, I saw this ad and it really affected me. If you want to help click on www.lightamillioncandles.com and light a candle - they've only got 89,000 at last count and are hoping for a million by the end of the year. God I sound like one of those awful forwarded messages you delete as soon as they plague your inbox, but hey, I've got a right to send out guilt-inducing pleas once in a while too.

*For some reason CNN reminds me of being overseas, because no matter where in the world you are if you have a TV in your hotel room it'll probably be tuned to CNN.

London Living

I had a friend visit from Sydney recently (who'd been living in London for the past few years) and he mentioned you don't notice it when you live here, but when you go away and return you find this undeniable tension in the air in London, that seeps into you as soon you step into the city. There's this sense of competition that's always in the air, like when you step off the tube and there's a rush to see who can get to the escalator first, like when people block your path and you tsk at them because god forbid they make you 2 seconds late, and I realise, I'm like that. It's this need to rush all the time, which is why you won't find very many people over 30, or very many families living in this city - London's like a massive wave that you ride for a while and then it washes you up and throws you out when you're no longer fit enough, young enough, rich enough to live here... I'm wondering when my wave's going to run its course.

The Brady couple

So the detested beatch who lived downstairs and stomped around in her army pants and butch haircut, has moved surprisingly to go live with her "boyfriend". She has now been replaced with a couple who we still are deciding are the better or worse of two evils. I mean the couple are fine and everything, it's just that they are very, very social. It's like yeah hey be social, but to have a party every night is just rubbing everyone's faces in it. They are blonde and ever so perky and happy with their tea lights dotted around the garden and little fairies hanging in the bushes and their smug faces and their happy friends honestly, get a life, you're not in bloody Devon here. It's an ex-council in notting hill, can we have a reality check? I mean every night, no matter the weather, although ok it's been pretty nice lately they'll be out there eating "alfresco" actually talking you know, not slumped in front of the tele shovelling food from a trough, like normal people. And then their pretty friends laughing with their trilly laughs, grrr, it's enough to send a misanthrope like me into a frenzy. Yeah ok so i seem like the grinch in their fairytale existence, but can someone rub a bit of acid into all that sugariness. Please?