30 June, 2006 | 2 Comments

I had to buy clothes this week and I’m quite annoyed. I really wanted to wait until I got back to the US – or as it’s also known, The Land of Cheap Goods. But unfortunately, I could wait no longer. You see, I couldn’t fit any warm weather clothes into my suitcase before I left home, so I gave them all to Good Will and packed my sweaters instead. Given that up until the beginning of June people here were still wearing their coats, this was a smart strategic move. But now that it’s warm, I have, like, two suitable outfits. Once I’ve worn those – unless I want to do laundry twice in one week – I have to start wearing this kind of stuff:

[You may remember that in a previous post, written last year in a fit of blinding rage, I threatened to turn my Johnny Damon jersey into a rag. As you can see, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s the only Red Sox shirt that I have with me! And it’s pink! Please forgive me.]

So anyway, if I’m desperate I go out in public dressed in these kinds of clothes, which are really just my workout/hanging around clothes. Classy! In my defense, the Damon jersey looks quite nice with a crunchy hippie skirt and flip flops – oh, and hoop earrings. It’s a look that not many people can pull off, a look that says “I’m an American and I don’t have access to a full-length mirror.”

This week I finally succumbed to the pressure and bought a few things. Now that it’s almost July, the stores have been cleared out. You can imagine what’s left – shirts that say “Player” and “Diva” on them in sparkles. Who would wear that? So I had a long and exhausting afternoon looking through the junky clothes no one else wanted to find something good. And I found one shirt for £6, which really isn’t a step up from the Damon jersey – more like a step sideways. When I get to Paris, I really must make more of an effort. If I wear the jersey, I will at least tie a scarf around my neck.

[tags]Johnny Damon, Fashion Victims[/tags]

29 June, 2006 | 3 Comments

The wonders of England never cease. This morning I went to see my doctor. I like her a lot – she uses words like “cool” and drinks Coke while we’re chatting. Perhaps this means she’s unprofessional, but given that I hate visiting the doctor (yet seem to end up there quite a bit), she puts me at ease. So anyway, today she prescribed to me a book. A book! She wrote the prescription out on an official prescription form and everything. I swear I am not making this up. I can pick up the book at the library near King’s Cross.

I hope the big HMOs in the US don’t discover this tactic. I can just imagine the books they’d force on their patients: Perform Your Own Caesarean Section at Home With Gardening Shears! It Won’t Hurt That Much, You Wuss!

[tags]HMO, NHS, Health, Medicine[/tags]

29 June, 2006 | Comments

[I wrote this post for Shortcut this week. I must confess that I so wanted to title this post “WAGs are Slags,” but then decided that was in poor taste, even for me.]

As an American living in London, I find myself in the minority when it comes to excitement over the World Cup. I tried to get into it, I really did, but it’s not my cuppa tea. And to be honest, I’m disappointed that I turned out to be such a cliché. I normally try to rise above the tired stereotypes of my homeland, but I failed this time. However, although the actual matches being played bore me to tears, the World Cup as a cultural spectacle fascinates me. Take, for example, the WAGs.

The media here are obsessed with the England team’s wives and girlfriends, or as they are more frequently called, the WAGs. I find this rather strange because in America, the wives of professional athletes rarely get any media coverage at all. That’s not the case in England, where the exploits of these fake-boobed, fake-tanned, fake-nailed, fake-haired zombies seems to be of major interest.

The media is full of stories about the WAGs’ exploits in Baden Baden, where the England team is staying during the World Cup. From their shopping binges and spa visits to all-night clubbing, the WAGs are in the news all the time. And it’s not just the tabloids covering them. The more serious news media is also showering them with attention, but cleverly, they’re covering the media frenzy surrounding the WAGs, not the WAGs themselves, which allows them to pretend they’re taking the journalistic high road when in fact they’re in the gutter with everyone else.

Apparently, the WAGs have seriously boosted the economy of tiny Baden Baden. From the Telegraph: “The wives and girlfriends parade through the town exuding carefully contrived glamour. They are uniformly tiny, their hips as slimline as their vodka tonics. They teeter along the cobbled streets in spiky heels and skin-tight jeans, their eyes masked by saucer-sized sunglasses.”

According to the Telegraph, the English WAGs are unique among the international coterie of footballers’ wives and girlfriends, who appear to be keeping a lower profile. “The assorted other halves of the England team, however, are a source of curious fascination because of the conspicuousness of their consumption. At the designer boutiques, they think nothing of dropping several thousand pounds in one go.” Lodgings for the England team alone will reach £100,000 by the end of the tournament. In contrast, the Australian team and their wives are managing to live rather modestly while in Germany, spending around £100 a night per room. And as for the Costa Ricans, you gotta love ’em – they’re staying at the Holiday Inn.

The WAGs seem to be looked upon with national pride by the media, rather than derision. And though I find the whole spectacle of the WAGs to be nauseating, I do admire the fact that they are making no attempt whatsoever to hide their shallowness. I doubt we’ll see any Angelina Jolie-esque publicity stunts from them. Don’t expect to see Victoria “I’ve never read a book in my life” Beckham posing with orphans or Coleen McLoughlin serving soup to the homeless. In this age of media manipulation, it’s refreshing to watch the WAGs broadcast to the world – without an ounce of shame – that they are nothing more than image-obsessed, self-centered shopaholics. Go England!

[tags]World Cup, Footballers’ Wives, WAGs, Victoria Beckham[/tags]

[One reference from Gridskipper.]

28 June, 2006 | 3 Comments

I just gave the required 28 days notice on my flat.

28 June, 2006 | 6 Comments

Women who like to watch the World Cup are often accused of only liking it because they want to see men running around in tight shorts. Well if you ask me, I think this is why a lot of “straight” men watch it. The homoerotic nature of major organized sports like soccer and American football is blindingly obvious. You cannot be watching the World Cup right now and not see it splashed right across your television screen! Anyone who cannot at least acknowledge this is in major denial.

I think that a certain percentage of the macho repressed Neanderthal types who are obsessed with these sporting events (you know, the kind who like to beat up “queers”) actually get turned on by them. These sporting events feature lots of physical contact between men, form-fitting uniforms, hugs and pats on the ass o’plenty. [And let’s not forget terms like “tight end” and “end zone.”] Because all of this is done in an environment that celebrates male aggression, strength and even violence, men with repressed homosexual desires can get off on it without acknowledging or even understanding what they’re feeling. And then when the game is over they can continue to bash gays and women, which is classic, textbook behaviour for men like this. [Fraternities have the same vibe going on.]

Of course I am not implying that all professional athletes and sporting fans are closeted homosexuals. Big duh. But we aren’t allowed to even question the hetero macho “manliness” of playing or watching organized sports. And I’m sorry, but that’s just bullshit.

[tags]World Cup[/tags]

Photo caption: At right, the dude married to posh spice. At left, some other dude.

27 June, 2006 | 4 Comments

Something Bitch Ph.D. posted last week resonated with me in many ways. She’s been writing about how women are conditioned to be fearful for their safety in every facet of life (even blogging), while men aren’t trained to feel this way, even though men are more likely to be the victims of crime.

I moved away from NYC in 2000, so it’s been a number of years since I’ve lived in a big city. But now that I’m in London, I’m reminded of how often strange men think nothing of approaching women on the street with sexual come-ons. These kinds of comments are usually along the lines of: “Hey baby, do you have a boyfriend?” and lame stuff like that, and occasionally when you ignore them they’ll say something slightly threatening, like “Do you think you’re too good for me?” Uh, yes. So anyway, I’ve been wondering about this phenomenon. Why do these guys do this? They know that no woman is going to take them up on their offer, so what do they get out of it? I was surprised to see Bitch Ph.D. address this very issue on her blog (the latest post in a series on women and fear):

Men who hassle women online (”hey baby,” “you stupid bitch”) or in real life (wolf whistles, etc.) are actively training women to be afraid. Whether or not they realize it, that’s what they’re doing. Which makes the answer to the question “why do guys do that? Do they think I’m going to say, “hey, daddy, let me give you my number?”–and we’ve all asked that, and laughed about it–suddenly clear. Of course they don’t do it to pick up women. No women has ever responded to that, and men know this. They do it to instill fear.

God damn, that’s shitty.

This makes perfect sense to me. The men who like to harass women get off on the intimidation. Most sexual crimes are about power and dominance, after all.

Bitch Ph.D. writes about how the female fear of violence extends into the blogosphere. She has been surveying male and female bloggers and her survey revealed, not surprisingly, that women are much more likely to use pseudonyms because they are afraid of harassment and stalking. Men tend to use pseudonyms if they want to keep the blogging they do in their personal life completely separate from their professional life. But the more she thought about the fact that female bloggers feared for their personal safety while male bloggers didn’t, the more it didn’t make sense.

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26 June, 2006 | 3 Comments

I added a Babel Fish translation box over there on the left. I’ve noticed a sudden increase in people attempting to translate certain blog entries into foreign languages. Why can’t everyone just learn English? Good grief. Once I noticed that people were using the translation tools provided by Evil Google™ I had to take immediate action. Google! Ack! Babel Fish is much better, mainly because it’s not related to Google. You just click the flag you want and it translates the whole page. How does it do this? Magic, I guess.

Also, why oh why oh why are so many people viewing this web page (or any web page) using Internet Explorer?! I went and made this site all purdy for ya and you repay me by viewing it through that supreme piece of crap known as IE. WHY? What did Anglofille do to deserve this? Liberate yourselves, oppressed blog-reading masses of the world. Try Firefox! It’s free! It makes everything pretty!

25 June, 2006 | 5 Comments

The great thing about the World Cup is that whenever England plays, the streets in London are deserted. I love to go out and walk around and pretend I’m the only person left on earth.

This evening, not long after England’s victory over Ecuador, I happened to be in Trafalgar Square. The joint was trashed! There was rubbish and cans everywhere and men were relieving themselves right in broad daylight. It was smelly and gross! The drunken hooligans were matched in number by the police (some wearing fatigues and berets). The police weren’t doing much, aside from confiscating beer from people who were falling-down drunk; one guy who was wearing a flag wrapped around his waist and nothing else was ordered to go find some clothes. [Oh, and I saw a ferret on a leash. The high point of the day.]

It’s interesting to observe how the police in London work [and I’m not just talking about today, but even thinking back to the protests over the Mohammed cartoons earlier this year]. The police in America are much more aggressive – after Boston won the World Series, they actually shot and killed a college student in the melee. While that’s an extreme example, the police in big American cities seem eager to get right in people’s faces and act more adversarial. Here, the police seem to stand back and let people run amok, only stepping in where necessary. This evening in Trafalgar Square, many fans were swimming in the fountain and many had climbed up onto statue in the middle. The police didn’t stop anyone from doing this and the paramedics were actually standing at the edge of the fountain, ready and waiting to help if one of the drunken morons diving head first into the shallow pool of water got injured. Why didn’t they stop the fans from going up there in the first place? I don’t get it.

One guy in the mob started a fight and suddenly, 10 police officers jumped out of the shadows and surrounded him. If we had been in New York, this guy would have been treated to a major smackdown courtesy of the NYPD. But here, the police talked to the guy, shook his hand and let him go. That’s it! I think my stunned reaction to this whole afternoon says a lot about my own social conditioning as an American, especially concerning the expectation of violence. It’s still impossible for me to fathom that most police in this country don’t carry guns.

On the bright side, England won and I got to wade through streams of urine. What a great day! Now I have to burn my shoes.

[tags]World Cup[/tags]

25 June, 2006 | Comments

Regarding my previous post on tart cards, a few people have e-mailed me to say that in the past, they have been physically threatened for removing these cards from phone booths. I do not want anyone to end up hospitalized or dead as a result of doing his or her civic duty. It is illegal to post these cards, so you are doing nothing wrong by removing them. However, it’s not surprising that people who work in a criminal industry that kidnaps and sells women into sexual slavery would resort to violence. I am now issuing the following guidelines for tart card removal:

1. Unless you’re a total badass, it’s probably a good idea to engage in this activity during the daylight hours and in a populated area. Check to see if anyone is watching you first and then remove the cards quickly and flee.

2. Wear a cape if you have one.

3. Be aware that vigilantism is not for the weak-willed and easily frightened, so suck it up.

I have now decided to offer a reward to anyone who can provide photographic evidence of him- or herself removing tart cards. This reward may be my undying love and adoration. It may be something you’d actually want. One reward per customer.

[tags]Tart Cards[/tags]

25 June, 2006 | 2 Comments

Thanks to SpliceGirl for her excellent blogging this past week! She didn’t burn the place down, which is a relief. The two of us together – Anglofille and SpliceGirl – sound like a couple of rejected DC Comics superheroines. One of us uses her powers for good, the other for evil. Now which one of us is the good one?

24 June, 2006 | 3 Comments

Guest blogger: SpliceGirl

Right around the corner from you, my dearest Londoners and clueless tourists, is one of the best museums in all of Europe that you probably don’t even know exists. It is called the Hunterian Museum and you really should be putting on some clothes right about now so you can go see it.

The Hunterian is part of the Royal College of Surgeons. It is a breathtaking museum that houses so many medical and science specimens that this collector literally had to sit down upon entering for fear of imploding with excitement. Granted, this museum is not for everyone. I fondly remember taking my parents to the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. My excitement was electric. I had waited years to see the deformed babies stuffed into formaldehyde-filled jars; to see the world’s largest colon on display in a beautiful glass case. It turns out, no matter how excited I got about each specimen, my parents weren’t really feeling it like I was. In fact, after a while they disappeared and I found them later outside, my Mom on her cell phone, my Dad reading a museum donor’s list out of pure boredom. So, if beautifully preserved Victorian medical & animal specimens are not your thing, then I guess you can wait outside. But you really shouldn’t.

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23 June, 2006 | 2 Comments

Guest blogger: SpliceGirl

It is a long Tube ride. It’s up a steep mountainous hill only walkable by the brave or driven up by the slowest buses in England. You can only get into the west side by tour and it only runs once a day (6 times on the weekends). But none of these are reasons to miss going to Highgate Cemetery. I love Highgate Cemetery. I think it is the most beautiful cemetery I have ever been to and I have been to many, believe me.

The main draw of Highgate is that Karl Marx is buried there. I walked by his grave; it was unexciting to me. The beauty of Highgate is its many unknown graves, all toppling from age and time, all overgrown with vines and flowers to the point that you can’t even tell there is a headstone there. On the east side of the cemetery you can walk freely. You can go anywhere you want, down spooky narrow walkways, behind trees and over headstones to hidden paths buried in roots and leaves. This astounded me to be honest. I felt as if I was being naughty…as if I had climbed over the ropes in a museum and was able to touch the paintings and caress the sculptures. I touched headstones centuries old, I climbed over angels with broken arms, and I sat next to a beautiful grave with the name “Amanda Bliss” for over half an hour just listening to the birds chirp.

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22 June, 2006 | Comments

Guest blogger: SpliceGirl

You Londoners…you take your antiques for granted. As an antique/curio/oddity collector residing in California, USA, there is never much excitement for me. The flea markets here are boring and dull. Unless you like 70s modern, Eames furniture, vinyl records, and ugly shoes, your trip to the flea market will be a useless one. But in London! I feel as if…I am home. Here is a little bit of background on my obsession with Portobello Road. One of my all-time fave movies is “Bedknobs & Broomsticks.” Most people would not admit this, but I happily do. What a great movie! The lead character is a studying witch and her name is Eglantine (YIPPEE!), there is a cat named Cosmic Creepers (Double YIPPEE!), and there is a magical traveling bed (Triple YIPPEE!). Seriously, could you ever want more? Oh, animation? Guess what?! That’s in there too!!! For those of you unlucky enough to not have seen this film there is a segment where Eglantine takes the bed & the brood to find an antique book at, you got it, the Portobello Road Flea Market. There’s an epic Disney dance sequence along with its very own song:

Portobello Road, Portobello Road,

Street where the riches of ages are stowed…

So, in short, even without the antiques obsession I would have been making my way to Portobello Road if only for the nostalgic cheese factor of remembering Angela Lansbury doing line kicks with scullery maids and chimney sweeps (who oddly roamed the streets in WW2 era London…according to Mr. Disney). Portobello Road was an experience for me. The stuff for sale at that flea market blew my mind. There was beautiful extinct animal taxidermy, Jacobean baubles, Edwardian bangles, old medical equipment made from wood (from wood!), and antique book dealers who actually sold antique books. All this made for quite an enjoyable day. I didn’t buy much…Portobello Road is famous and its prices are high. I was able to get a preserved lizard with tags from an old museum collection and an amazing Loris skull also with museum ID. These cost me a pretty pence, but how could I not buy them? Every time I’m in London I make sure I stay over on a weekend so I don’t miss this amazing flea market. There are many other fleas in London but they all pale to Portobello in my opinion. Does Camden Lock Market have its own song? I think not.

Portobello Road, Portobello Road,

Anything & everything a chap can unload…

OPEN WIDE! Anglofille bought me this 19th-century gynecological speculum at the Portobello Flea Market so I could avoid those pesky co-pays HealthNet so eagerly demands upon every doctor visit.
[I really did buy this for her! - Anglofille]

Who is SpliceGirl? In her own words…

SpliceGirl is the worshipped sibling of Anglofille. She is a film editor who lives in Los Angeles in an apartment with no air conditioner, thus her internal organs have turned into withered lumps from the extreme hell-fire like temperatures. SpliceGirl recently bought a real monkey’s paw but is too afraid to make a wish on it in case the story is true. “I wish him to come back just as he was before he died!” Oooooh, scaaaaaary….

[tags]London, Portobello Road[/tags]

21 June, 2006 | 2 Comments

Guest blogger: SpliceGirl

Yesterday I wrote about how, after walking around London for 4 days straight, my feet rebelled and I ended up on the Original London Sightseeing Tour. What they don’t tell you in the brochures for this tour is that it is largely staffed by immigrant men from a certain region of the world who love curvy white girls like me.

Well, as I waited at the stop for the next hop-on/hop-off double-decker bus to arrive, I would instantly be hit on – very aggressively – by employees of the tour bus company. They loved me, they wanted to hang out with me, they wanted my phone number. God how they wanted my phone number!

I am not a conceited girl. I haven’t had a boyfriend in eons. I don’t want to sound vain and snotty like “That guy was SO hitting on me! I am SO popular!” I am not that girl, I promise. But on the Original London Sightseeing Tour, men found me irresistible. The first employee wrote his number on my bus map as I politely smiled and said “I will totally try to go out with you tonight” all the while thinking “Where the hell is the next bus so I can escape?”

At the next stop another employee asked me out. I found this suspicious, like I was being set-up for some cruel British reality TV show. This guy wrote his number on the other side of the map. At the third stop another guy approached me and started talking. He of course wanted me to have his number. This guy saw the number of one of the other guys and exclaimed, “Don’t go out with him! Oh, he’s not good for you. I’m the one for you! Call me, I get off work before him so we can go out before he even knows.” Then he promptly scratched out his friend’s number and wrote his below it.

I asked him, “Isn’t he your friend?”

He said, “Yes, but he’s not here. Call me.”

(more…)

20 June, 2006 | 2 Comments

Guest blogger: SpliceGirl

Londinium. Founded by the Romans in 43 AD. Conquered by the Vikings, 842 AD. Reclaimed for the Saxons in 886 AD. I’m really not this brainy. I didn’t know any of this until about 6 years ago when I bought my Lonely Planet LONDON! book. This information is found in the front pages of the book, the pages no one reads. I finally learned the history of London while sitting in the very back of a double-decker bus on the Original London Sightseeing Tour. You see, I was hiding in the back, cowering, so the driver and the tour guide didn’t notice that this was about my 12th loop around the city without getting off the bus.

My first lesson in London: You better like walking, or this city is not for you. I really couldn’t bring myself to keep going underground. Why would you ever want to go underground and not see every inch of this amazing, historical, BEAUTIFUL city? I just wanted to see everything. I wanted to see the things I had read about for years and years. Just knowing that the building I quickly walked past and completely ignored could have been built CENTURIES ago. CENTURIES! That is so amazing. So I walked. I walked through the entire city. I walked to St. Paul’s Cathedral and across Tower Bridge and then to the Tower of London and then to Trafalgar Square and then to the British Museum and then to Harrods and then to the Tate, to the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, to the National Gallery; I walked everywhere for 3 days. At one point I had to buy an ACE bandage to wrap one of my ankles because it was so sore. But I kept walking. It literally felt as if every bone in my right foot was broken, ground to a fine dust. Yet I walked.

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19 June, 2006 | 2 Comments

So yesterday I bit off my fingernails. All ten of ‘em. I’m not a nail biter, never have been. I was finishing up a massive project yesterday – I spent at least 10 hours sitting at the computer. At around midnight, I looked at my hands and my beautiful long nails were gone. I only vaguely remember chewing them off. Gee, tense much?

If you’ve been reading the blog over the past few days, you’ve probably noted my slow mental collapse and increasing reliance on Ibuprofen. But the good news is that I’ve finished the project and now the stars have aligned in such a way that I can take a much-needed break from the demon internet. I have a certain “professional commitment” that requires me to be online 7 days a week, sometimes at odd hours. I have been working at this job since January without a single day off, but for the next week I am free! Hurrah!

[BTW, this “professional commitment” is not something X-rated. I’m not moonlighting as a cyberslut, though I do wonder how much something like that would pay. ’Cause if it paid a lot, I’d do it. I’m online all the time anyway. I have excellent spelling and grammar – always a turn on for sex-starved web users. And I used to pay the bills by writing for really repugnant fashion magazines, so clearly, I’m not averse to whoring myself out for cash.]

Obviously, this is a much-needed break for moi. Obviously. But I don’t want to let the blog just sit here, because as the saying goes, an idle blog is the devil’s workshop. So my sister will be taking over blogging duties this week (heaven help us). She is called SpliceGirl and she is roundly hated by many of my readers because of what we’ll call the “Easter candy” incident. But to be fair, she deserves a chance to prove she is not the embodiment of pure evil.

See you next week, my lovelies!

18 June, 2006 | 4 Comments

Like Fox News Channel, my blog is “fair and balanced.” So in honor of Father’s Day, I decided to interview my dear ol’ dad. I thought this would be an interesting experiment, given that my dad has such right-wing views. He thinks America is the greatest country in the world and he would love to go fight in Iraq. Gulp. I know it’s probably hard for you to believe that I sprang from such seed, but I did. And I don’t feel the need to hide the fact that many people in my family hold these views and that I grew up in an extremely conservative and religious society. It’s made me who I am, for better or worse. Somehow I managed to escape this mind-set, though to tell you the truth, I’m not sure how.

So anyway, a little background on my pops: He is a fiftysomething small business owner, a born and bred Westerner who lives in one of the big sprawling Mountain states at an elevation of 4,800 feet, where there isn’t as much oxygen in the air. He drives a Ford pick-up truck with a Support our Troops sticker. Politics and religion aside, he is actually a very gentle, kind and easy-going guy. He has spent his entire adult life living in a household with only women. And he survived!

Okay, enough of that. On with the interview. A rather large percentage of Americans see things the way my dad does (otherwise, George Bush wouldn’t be president). Those of you who aren’t in regular contact with a “red state” American may find this enlightening or amusing or terrifying. These are his views, not mine.

Fille: Do you read my blog?

Big Daddy: Yes, but not regularly. I’m not getting a Ph.D. so I don’t have time. [This sounds mean, but he was laughing. Sorta.]

Fille: Why did you vote for George Bush – twice?

Big Daddy: In 2000, I was tired of the Clinton-Gore crap. George Bush was not a lawyer, which was a real plus. Gore negotiated the Kyoto Treaty and that would have completely destroyed our economy. Who would vote for an idiot like that for president? To Clinton’s credit, he wouldn’t even submit it to the Senate. I voted for Bush again in 2004 because he actually did something when we were attacked. He sticks to what he says and he has guts. He risked his whole entire presidency and legacy to do something he thought was right. Do you think Clinton, Gore or Bush senior would have done that? Not on your life.

Fille: I voted for Gore so I guess that makes me an idiot. Do you think Dubya is doing a good job?

Big Daddy: I think in foreign relations he’s doing a good job. His domestic spending record is not as good.

Fille: Do you like Tony Blair?

Big Daddy: I like Tony Blair because he’s got guts. He has common sense and a long-range vision of how the world should work – not the typical European limited view of things, as if they’re the only people on the planet.

Fille: Everyone here hates Blair.

Big Daddy: Britain has taken the Old Europe view of things. Fortunately for America, Blair views things more like Churchill, who wasn’t very popular either, by the way.

Fille: Do you think Europe has become very anti-American?

Big Daddy: Yes, I think they have. They like to lecture America, but we’re in the global mess we’re in now because of the European colonial powers. Africa is facing disasters because of what they did to it. They created a mess in the Middle East, India, Pakistan. America is the leader in trying to clean this up.

(more…)

17 June, 2006 | 2 Comments

[gv data=" http://www.youtube.com/v/wolWERJ9oM0" width="425" height="350"][/gv]

[tags]Brighton[/tags]

16 June, 2006 | 7 Comments

I’m taking a day trip tomorrow.  I am determined to escape the city for the day and see the ocean.  I’ve told you that I’ve been a bit stressed lately.  Little things are starting to get to me.

For example -

I went to Boots today in desperate need of Ibuprofen – a familiar errand for me.  I have taken more Ibuprofen in the past 6 months than I have in the past 6 years.  At Boots, you have to ask the chemist for this dangerous addictive drug – it’s not on the shelf.  Before he would hand over the pills, he asked me all sorts of questions, like whether I’m taking any prescription medication or whether I’ve ever taken Ibuprofen before.  Have I ever taken Ibuprofen?  I’m human, aren’t I?  I really wanted to say: “Do you have any clue how much Ibuprofen is flowing through my veins right now?  You could stab me in the neck and I wouldn’t feel anything.”  But I resisted saying anything too sassy for fear that he might not give me my drugs or perhaps the scary Boots “security guard” who stands by the door reading InStyle all day would want to frisk me – a horrific thought.

So there’s my cranky story.  There are other stories I could tell you, but I come off looking bad in them.  And you know, I’m not the only cranky person out there.  I went into Pret-a-Manger to get a bottle of the watered-down lemonade they sell and some guy was threatening the cashier because he wanted a croissant and she was too slow.  I swear this happened.  This guy went totally nuts – he was screaming and scaring everyone.  If we had been in New York, I would have gotten down on the floor and assumed the position – you know, covering my ears to drown out the sound of the gunshot. 

16 June, 2006 | 6 Comments

In Britain, as in the US, there are way too many people with orange skin.

Memo to white people: You are WHITE! Throw away the self-tanner and deal with it. Do you really think that looking like an oompa loompa makes you more attractive?

As for me, I have just purchased my suntan lotion for the summer. Before I go out in the sun, even if it’s just walking around town, I like to put it on my face. SPF 15? No. SPF 30? No. SPF 50+? Yes please! I feel it’s very important to protect my skin from harmful UV rays. As such, not one drop of golden sun is penetrating my flesh, even if it means having the skin tone of someone just recovering from TB.

I also wear large Jackie O-style sunglasses, as seen in this photo taken by my friend. [I don’t like to publish recognizable photos of myself on the internet, but this is just part of my face. Perhaps I’ll publish the other pieces throughout the summer. Collect them all!]