Out of ideas

(It is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I am so sorry).

I think I may have mentioned, on occasion, that when stressy, I lose the off-switch for my brain and develop insomnia (fret me not with your counsel, I have been like this since I was six weeks old and frankly, the only thing that really works is not getting stressed in the first place). So, currently, I am not sleeping. To sleep, at this time, I need perfect warmth, perfect stillness, perfect pyjamas and perfect darkness. As the bed partner has developed a cold (another cold! What in hell do they feed him at work?), I am faced with the idiotic choice between staying in the warm comfortable bed thinking: ‘Stop coughing. Stop coughing. Stop – oh, he’s stopped. Now his nose is whistling. Wake up. Wake up. Now roll over. Oh, dammit, now he’s coughing again. Oh God, he’s snoring. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it,’ ad infinitum, or moving to the spare room and thinking ‘This bed is too hard. I’m cold. I need the loo. This bed is really hard. Why’s it so quiet? I need the loo. It’s cold,’ ad infinitum.

I could always get up and read, but that rather defeats the object of being a hard-core whiner, don’t you think?

Anyway, two nights of that, and approximately three hours sleep, no, not per night, but in toto, yes, I know, not good, and no I did not fall down in a deep sleep smack in the middle of the lunch queue but believe me I wanted to, what was I talking about? [One moment please. I must just reach over there and slap her awake - Ed].

Ah yes. this morning, the one thing hauling me onwards through all the vagaries of commuting (what is it with trains? Why do they not turn up? Why do they not turn up when you’re tired? Are they allergic to yawning?) was the thought of AMT, the Best Little Coffee Stand in London. Organic milk, Fairtrade coffee, giant squishy pretzels, a scary fresh orange squeezer, and the smiliest staff. Smiley staff. On a Wednesday morning. With nothing to look at but a bazillion snarly commuters and pigeon-spattered paving. Oh, how I love that coffee stall. It can power me all the way to nearly lunch-time. Oh yes. And it’s right next to Boots, so I can top up on Rennies and aspirin while I’m at it. Ahhh, drugs.

The coffee stand is gone.

There is a square, rusty shadow on the pavement. There is no coffee stand.

Now, I knew their contract with Network Rail was up for renewal. I vaguely knew that they had been out-bid by Caffé Nero, who, while not actively sucking (Costa, I’m looking at you. Expensive and crap? I am so not transferring my loyalties), are not my lovely smiley 100% Fairtrade organic milk providers, and will not make me feel like a Good Person while I stagger woozily towards the buses.

What I did not know, is that AMT, thanks to Network Rail’s cheerfully rapacious decision-making, have now lost 40% of their retail outlets. That probably means that 40% of my amazingly smiley people, including Aziz, who was so polite and smiley he regularly made me almost tearful at the wonderful goodness of my fellow humans, have to find new jobs. I can only hope they have found new, better, jollier jobs. And I did not know that AMT were shafted by their own desire not to shaft us, their snarly commuters, by upping the coffee prices so they could out-bid Caffé Nero. See that link to Network Rail above? I linked it to their contacts page. I have already politely emailed them my displeasure. And now you can too, if you wish.

Oh, and not that this story was in the National news. Oh no. I found it on New Consumer, and Hippy Shopper. You did know that London is trying to achieve Fairtrade City status, didn’t you? Not very heart-warming, is it?

Fucking Pirates.

In that I haven’t been; fit for purpose, that is. First I had surgery (results, inconclusive, difference to health, indeterminable owing to vast quantities of drugs I am plying myself with), then I caught flu and spent two weeks staring bewildered at the thermometer which seemed to have got itself stuck in the hyperactive range, and then I developed eczema all over my hands, and meanwhile I went back to work and everyone else promptly went on holiday, leaving six of us to carry on preparing for the ceremonial re-opening of the New! Improved! Now with added Omega 3! version of the library in a fog of dust, paint-fumes and collapsing shelves, which left me with an unnatural quantity of bruises and a general desire to slap the next person who told me they couldn’t help out as the dust upset their breathing.

But what was that thing I quite enjoyed doing, back in the dim and distant past when my belly-button was quite a different shape? Oh, yes, blogging.

So, chez Reed, we are adjusting ourselves on the tenterhooks for the sake of Youngest Sister’s A-levels, apparently in postal transit somewhere about the South East of England. While Youngest Sister is spending her days in completely ignoring the subject, oh wise young mortal that she is, her mother and I are gleefully working ourselves up into a foam of anticipatory worry.

Which makes this as good a time as any to discuss A-levels. As for the annual Journalist’s Jamboree of blame, opprobrium, aspersions, whining and self-congratulation that engulfs the comment pages, I can remember it repeating itself word-for-word when I did my A-levels, *ahem*tumpty years ago. I put it down to jealousy. These students, look at them, they get to be 18, have iPods, have sex, they can afford to drink like the proverbial Lord one is as drunk as, and still, still they do better year on year. Bastards.

No, the problem with A-levels, truly, is most certainly not that they are getting easier. Rather, I think it likely that teachers are getting cannier and students are being more carefully groomed to be able to do said A-levels. The year is spent learning what sort of information to retain, and how best to regurgitate it – exam-passing is a skill, and the kids are picking that up superlatively. Talented little oiks.

I am far more distressed by the stories about students with ninety-seven As and an A* turning up at the portals of OxbriLondrews to do Literary Literature and Philosophical Musings Thereon and finding themselves utterly floored by the Gerund. Or Science Genii of the future having to spend their first year being painstakingly taught to spell ‘Socioeconomic constraints on biological determinism’. (Incidentally, is this truly true? Do universities now offer remedial classes in Writing Like a Person of Normal Intelligence and Maths Without Fingers? [In which case, can we enroll Reed in the maths one? - Ed]). While it seems to me perfectly obvious that the Teenager of Today is perfectly capable of learning a great deal of stuff and, vitally, being able to regurgitate under conditions of controlled torment, it is not nearly so obvious that they are being taught anything they really need to know. I know of English students who simply don’t know who Samuel Richardson is [Lucky, lucky swine], Biology students whose grasp of Darwinian Evolution is somewhat more shot than my own, and in any case have never heard of Alfred Russell Wallace, Politics students who leap back with shock on being told that Fascism and Communism are not after all one and the same thing, despite historical results, and therefore calling me a communist because I won’t let them take a reference book home makes me laugh hysterically for quite some minutes, because, dear reader, I was.

Back in the year *vigorous coughing*, when I attended my very first lecture, admittedly in a narcotic haze of aspirin and liver toxins, because after all I do believe in doing things properly and that includes spending Fresher’s Week plastered, I did have a vague notion of how to spell every author on the curriculum, and a vaguer notion of what exactly their books were about, as such, except in the case of James Joyce, but then, that was the point, and indeed anyone claiming to understand Ulysses in the first year was made to clean the Arts Block toilets. And this was because my English A-level was mostly dedicated to two Shakespeare plays, two Victorian novels and an untidy heap of poetry, the teaching of which entailed things like ‘context’ and ‘background’ and ‘what everyone else was up to at the time’; a somewhat old-fashioned proceeding, admittedly, but one that was fit for purpose, in that while I did indeed spend most of my first year at University feeling stupid and overwhelmed, I knew what I was feeling stupid and overwhelmed about and how to improve the shining hour [i.e. live in the library, and now your life is irredeemably blighted]. The Student of Today does not even know what they do not know. For the A-level they took was not intended to give them a shallow and somewhat patchy grounding in the subject while hammering the set texts in with the Hammer of Desperation and the chisel of Midnight Espresso. Their A-levels were about passing A-levels. For that is what everyone, students, parents, teachers, governors, ministers, all wanted. For students to pass their exams. And now they do.

And now they must work out how to understand what they’ve learnt, all by themselves.

[Apologies for any fall in standards in this blog - the Fragile Flower is still draped over the ottoman, so to speak, and can't take much kicking. Which is boring of her]

I assume you all know about the failed car-bomb attacks we’ve been having lately. As you can imagine, discovering your local tube is closed off by stern people in neon jackets is a bore, and being told the perpetrators are doctors, of all things, is, well, horrible. Wasn’t there this oath thing that doctors took, promising to do no harm?

Anyway, it rather derailed me because I felt it was somewhat underhand to poke fun at Gordon Brown and his zippedy-doo-dah new Cabinet of Young Things when the poor chap was having to start his new job at Critical, also known as ‘Hello, is that your country that has just burst into flames?’

And onwards to Today’s Petty Whinge:

The stupidest little incident has been irritating me for nearly a week now.

Allow me to contextualise a little. There is another website/ set of fora where I hang out and talk drivel. Hanging out and talking drivel is far much less like hard work than having all my words standing or falling on their own merit, so even though I have been lackadaising all over the blog, I have been persisting over there. And of course we got the news on Saturday that a flaming car had been driven into the doors of the Glasgow Airport terminal, and the drivers had possibly even thrown fire bombs before being flattened by police and by-standers. Naturally we were all shocked. A person, who I shall name Person (because, OK?), posted something-or-other, which was promptly removed by the moderators. So Person wrote another post saying, basically, that whoever had alerted the moderators to his post, ‘clearly think it is OK to try to throw petrol bombs at children in airport terminals.’ And then Person stormed off in a huff.

Now, I was all for being horribly cross that one’s post had been removed. But I was not at all amused by the implication that one of the other ‘regulars’ had done it (we are not that kind of people. We are all rabidly free speech), and that therefore one of the other regulars was pro-terrorism. However, many of the other regulars took time to contact Person, explain that the forum in question had all sorts of other readers who don’t post but could’ve alerted the moderators, and also, if he used language, the post would be automatically moderated by a profanity filter. As it turned out, the post had been automatically moderated for the liberal use of the words ’sod’, ‘bastards’ and ‘bloody’, and the human moderators decided the subject excused the language and re-instated it within 24 hours.

Did Person apologise for the hissy fit and the utterly unwarranted accusations? No. Did Person acknowledge calling us pro-terrorist was a bit rich? No. Is this what I care about? Not really. Anyone’s allowed the odd burst of soddishness. Especially when upset by scary news. What does bug the absolute britches off me is that I am the only one who said anything (and that a mild, ‘I’m not sure I like the implication that whoever removed Person’s post is therefore pro-terrorism.’). Everyone else was busy being reassuring and explanatory and hunting Person down so they could encourage said Person to return to the forum. The very forum that bases its raison d’être on civilised, polite, rational conversation, no shouting, no ad hominem attacks, even on difficult subjects. It’s why I could make the effort to stay there when the rest of the internetty boiling was too much like hard work.

Now, either I have missed something in my lackadaisicalery, and Person is allowed lee-way the rest of us aren’t and wouldn’t dream of claiming, for reasons I have not understood, or I am excruciatingly thin-skinned and up myself. But because everyone is refusing to discuss it, I can’t find out. And because everyone is refusing to discuss it, I am highly reluctant to open the subject and start a truly unwelcome shit-storm and put myself firmly in the unwelcome category. It is for this very wimpy reason that I am not linking to said forum.

This being my blog, I shall say what the hell I like though. I think Person’s reaction was rude and unwarranted. I think even if Person did assume (and why? Person has been posting for years, surely Person understands that there is automatic sweary moderating?) a regular had yanked his post [heh heh heh; oops. Sorry. - Ed], and therefore let fly in extremis, Person should have said sorry. More to the point, the other regulars owed it to each other to remonstrate with him, politely and mildly of course. As it is, one rather gets the impression you can say whatever the fuck you like in whatever unpleasant tone you like and everyone will butter you up big-time. Just like any other damn forum. Obviating the point of this particular special forum.

I have avoided posting this for nearly a week to make sure I wasn’t merely being a snarling bitch and making mountains out of molehills. Does the fact it still bugs me to hell mean I have a point or that I am a very snarling bitch? Or is it the fact that Person is allowed off and I didn’t think anyone else would be – what have I missed abut Person? Am I being an idiot?

The Editor, by the way, is disclaiming all responsibility for this post and thinks I am indeed being an idiot. So I may well take this post down later. Also, am off work with high temperature, so judgement probably severely impaired. But hey, like I said, my blog.

I am memeing, as a way to deal with the vast echoing blankness that is the inside of my head. It’s still, vaguely, Resolution Season, so here is one I found over at Helen’s, which she found at Charlotte’s, which Charlotte created after reading this Newsweek article listing ten tips to help save the planet. I had always thought of myself as irritatingly, primly, green and eco-friendly. So this has been… interesting.

1. What do you for the birds and the bees? Nothing. I live in London, I have three house-plants and a tarmacked yard with two cars parked in it. My main interaction with the local wildlife consists of me leaning half-naked out of the bedroom window at three am to scream abuse at the exuberantly noisy mating foxes.

2. Household products. Chemical or organic? Organic, biodegradable, made lovingly by hippies and bottled in refillable and recycled and recyclable bottles. AND I use a lot if vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. As far as cleaning goes, I am the planet-loving queen. And too lazy to do much cleaning in the first place, which is also good.

3. Do you junk? We registered with the ’send us junk mail and we will SUE your asses’ services, we recycle the inevitable ‘to the occupier’ rubbish and leaflets that turn up anyway, and mostly we fantasize about shredding a year’s worth, finding the company owner’s home and using a leaf-blower to cover his front garden irretrievably with it all.

4. Air-dry or tumble-dry? What is this tumble-drying of which you speak? I personally, after a hard childhood spent washing my own smalls by hand in the bathroom sink and wringing them out in the salad-dryer, find having a washing-machine the height of luxuriant decadence. And we wash at low temps with ecologically friendly detergent. Smug mode.

5. Old gadgets. Recycle or toss ‘em? My current and beautifully functional mobile phone is approximately the size and weight of a house-brick and can just about do predictive texting. I will keep it until it breaks irretrievably. We also still use the stereo (with tape deck and no CD player) I inherited when I went to University. So, what old gadgets? Ooh, even smugger mode.

6. Lightbulbs – incandescent or fluorescent? Speak to my landlord. Him and his snazzy multi-bulb light-fixtures. Bah. Though we do have a several-year-old florescent bulb in the hall, and it does just about cast enough light to let you see if those are your keys you are clutching, or random cutlery.

7. Meat or veg? We only buy organic meat. I grew up on an organic farm (by default. My parents were mostly too cash-strapped and too soft-hearted to have more than a few outrageously pampered animals). I could no more buy battery chicken than I could buy the Daily Mail. But, yes, I should probably eat less meat [Or just eat less - Ed].

8. Loo paper. Virgin or recycled? But totally recycled. We’ve even found a brand sturdy enough to prevent the dreaded finger-goes-straight-through-when-it-gets-the-least-damp problem that has been my friends’ main objection to recycled.

9. Tap or bottled water? At home I drink tap. I feel twinges of guilt whenever I buy bottled water when out and about. I realise feeling a twinge and buying the bottle regardless is not good.

10. Dating – metrosexual or ecosexual? He’s about as green as I am, especially now that I have brow-beaten him to jelly as regards electronic gadgets, purchasing of when old one is still intermittently functional. Oh, and he’s better than me at turning lights off, and worse about leaving gadgets on stand-by.