Saturday, September 22, 2007

It's summer!

No, hang on it must be spring, cos spring comes first! And I saw loads of lilac crocuses yesterday, so yes, winter is clearly over. (They are one of my favourite flowers, together with bluebells and water lilies!) Woke up to a clear blue sky and beautiful sunshine and ran out in the garden in just my night dress. I got chased by a bee, but I didn't hit it or run away. Instead I tried my best to caress it lovingly, cos that's the sort of thing you do after a long, hard Scandinavian winter!

And Bee was fine with that. He had a bite of my cheese sandwich, sniffed my coffee and off he went. No conflict. No crisis. No potential catastrophe. I've always said humans and bugs could (in theory) live in harmony, and I meant it!

But I havn't logged in to spread happiness or positivity. I haven't decided to waste 30 minutes of my first day of spring to be nice or friendly or make people get in a good mood. Hell, no! I'm here to bitch and complain!


Take a look at this woman:

There are very few public people who irritate me more than this woman at the moment. She's in the jury of a Swedish program called "Idol" which is very similar to the British "X-factor". And I think her little story secretly goes like this:

Kishti (that's her name), has been watching Simon Cowell on the X-factor and fallen a bit in love. Not so much with him as a person as in with the idea of herself becoming a teeny weeny little version of him and his success. Simon Cowell is famous for being quite honest to the contestants. He's giving them (and his fellow judges) his genuine opinions, and those aren't always flattering. What has happened is that the public thought that he was a lot of fun to watch. He's therefore become quite popular and was soon offered a job doing the exact same thing over in the US. Ok, that's a pretty rosy story. For him.

Now Kishti is trying to do the same thing. But it's just that...well, she's totally misunderstood the whole concept! She clearly thought that if she's just as nasty as possible, looks really dangerous and shouts really loudly, well, then the same thing would soon happen to her as well. Kishti. Celebrated in the States. World famous. Admired all over the planet.

But for some reason it didn't really work out that way. People all over the country is genuinely pissed off and want her off the show. So do the other judges, her colleges, as well as her bosses since there are several hours of footage that simply can't be shown. It's considered too offensive since Kishti is just sitting in a chair screaming and roaring until she's blue!

Channel 4 has put in a shrink who is on stand-by at all times during the auditions. But this psychologist is not there for the nervous contestants, as you may be forgiven for instinctively assuming. No, it's for Kishti!!!

When people are asking her why she's being so nasty (a couple of days ago she was screaming at some girl that she was a "fucking bitch", pushing some guy in the chest and telling a camera guy he was "fucking stupid"), she's using Simon Cowells standard reply while smiling enigmatically:
"I'm just being...honest!"
- No, you're not being honest - you're being a BITCH!

She claims that the contestants are wasting her time since they're not singing well enough.
- No, you're GETTING PAID to sit in that chair and listen to those people! They're not wasting your time... THIS IS YOUR JOB!

She feels she's being provoked. The nervous contestants being scared shitless are, according to her, there to provoke her!
- NO! YOU are provoking US! YOU are managing to provoke the whole Swedish nation between 8-9pm...EVERY DAY!!!

The Bible says "Treat others the way you want to be treated yourself". Let's play with the thought...

Kishti is going to the news agent to buy the evening papers and possibly some milk. The guy working at the till suddenly feels that Kishti is trying to provoke him and is therefore wasting his valuable time! He starts to shout:
- "I feel that you're having an attitude towards me! Are you? Are you having an attitude?"
- "No, n...no I just wanted some mil..."
- "ARE YOU TRYING TO PROVOKE ME YOU FUCKING BITCH?"

Yeah, that would work!

Or Kishti is going to the hair dressers... She wants a new hairdo. The hairdresser suddenly feels the need to express his utmost honesty.
- "Excuse me, I think you would look really fucking ugly in that colour. As in REALLY ugly! I'm just being honest. I think you're insulting not just me, but my whole profession by suggesting that hairdo would suit you. What can I do - I'm an honest guy!"

Ahhh...better.

I just hope that somewhere in this country there will be some bartender or waitress who's got enough guts to refuse to serve her or take her order and say: "Nope, you're not GOOD enough for this place...SOD OFF!!!"
















Friday, September 21, 2007

...I'm gonna be whipped with a frying pan. And as far as I know there's not really all that much you can do to prepare for that sort of thing. Pain is pain. Tvi...

Me and a friend from London went to Stockholm last week. (Beautiful, lovely Stockholm!)


I thought about contacting a few people I know there that I hadn't seen in a while, but I just didn't have time. The one I felt the most guilty about was Helena, since she's ALWAYS inviting me over, asking when I'm coming, whether I'm on my way yet or not! She's really lovely and has got a great sense of humour, so I thought to myself that if I do manage to find some extra time I'll get in touch, maybe I'll even stay an extra day!

But I didn't! (Hang on, I'll explain!)

And just a few hours after that I'd arrived in Malmö the day afterwards, she texted me wondering when I was coming over! Oh, the guilt! If that wasn't the work of Cosmo then I don't know what could possibly be!

Helena, I'm sorry...please don't fry me. Or whip me. Or anything else that hurts more than a few bee stings or so. If I ever move to Stockholm, I'll pop over and do your dishes for a week. Cos honestly, I've got some high quality excuses coming up here...

First of all, we only had a few days and had planned spending them in the archipelago. I've been dreaming about those 24.000 islands for so many years now and have wanted to see them for more summers than I can count. (I mean, I've been to Stockholm loads of times, but not to these fantastic fairy tale islands!) So the idea was to go there to camp and swim and do other summer stuff in order to fool the climate into believing that it was still summer for just one more week. So we did! And even though the climate wasn't as gullible as we thought, it was still absolutely mesmerizing (and at times even sunny!)



The only point where I had some time over was on Sunday, but both me and my friend were absolutely exhausted and got stuck on a bench in the central station eating sausages, playing sudoku…for pretty much the whole day! I can't remember the last time I was even close to feeling so totally and utterly wiped out.

Afterwards I calculated that my average amount of sleep during the last week had been less than 3,7 hours per night. Three of those nights being in a tent. A cold one. By the sea.
(But a beautiful sea it was! And me and my winterjacket even dedicated a spiritual moment to it by the beach listening to music in the middle of the night. It's so stunning it hurts...)

But even being as tired as I was, I still managed to quite efficiently kill a few flies. At New Years Eve I came up with a slightly different sort of resolution. I (and some others who went along with it) decided to do 52 weird things in the upcoming year, which would add up to 1 weird thing each week, roughly. It would be healthy, I reckoned, cos that way you would try new things. Things that you otherwise would never find out whether you liked or not. This was a serious opportunity. You could do things that would normally classify you as a complete and utter idiot, but now you suddenly had rules that liberated you from all personal responsibility! I mean, quite obviously I, as in me, would normally prefer to chew my own arm off rather than going to a cabbage exhibition, but suddenly I had 52 justified reasons that made it all make total sense!

And I'm genuinely grateful to my warped resolution, cos thanks to that I can now proudly claim that I know how to yodle! Properly! Goats stop and ponder when they hear me. Then they follow me! I also now know how to build an igloo! Properly! Have you seen "The day after tomorrow"? Well, when that happens, you know who to contact!

Another idea I'd had was to go trainspotting. But it's something you would have to do with someone else. Otherwise, resolution or no resolution - you're just an idiot. An idiot waiting for a train. There were actually several people who agreed to do it with me "at some point", but all the promises came with pretty hefty pricetags… I had to do stuff in return, like play bingo or go picking berries (in granmas garden…120 miles away!)

Now, sitting in Stockholm central station, I just realized that Mission Trainspotting suddenly could be accomplished incredibly easy, with me not even having to move. Much. The tables had turned…


While waiting for the hours to pass in order to get home to Malmö, I managed to get quite excited about the whole idea. I'm not really sure what a "real" trainspotter, a professional one, is actually doing, if there are any certain rules or if I should have bought any specific equipment. And I don't know what the standard procedure actually is. I mean, yes, I guess it's about spotting trains, but do they have to be moving? Is it only supposed to be thrilling to see them being on time or is it ok to feel the same level of sensation when they are late? I got really into it! The peak of excitement, I think, came when the Gothenburg train was 15 minutes late. People were frantic! We didn't even get an explanation. Why was it late? And why was it important for us to know why? (And why the hell was it important for me to know why? I wasn't even going anywhere near Gothenburg!!)

It was a little bit like watching a movie. You got the action, I think we can all agree on that. But it was also about drama and comedy and painful tragedi. One man, a tired man, who had forgotten his umbrella at home and had therefore got wet, wanted to buy a cup of coffee. He went up to the coffee machine with hope in his eyes, his mouth open with anticipation. He put his coins into it and pressed the appropriate buttons only to find out that the machine had run out of milk! I can't express the look of pain in that mans eyes! Oh the poor man, he didn't see that coming, he didn't, he really didn't!

Fair enough, it didn't look like the man was particularly poor. And he could quite easily have got into one of the coffeeshops inside the main building instead (although there were queues to be fair…) but if you would have been there... If you would have seen the movie - my Stockholm Central station Trainspotting movie (it'll probably come to a cinema near you very very soon), especially if you would have watched it in slow motion or in black and white, maybe without the sound on (or actually - the rain was quite effective…), then I'd like to think that you'd have got quite caught up in the moment.







Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
When you are planning to go out
and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don't have a baby,
call you a bum.

From "Circles in the sand", Marge Piercy.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Hey, if I managed to wet your appetite for jellyfish (...and I think I did), here are some brilliant ways to integrate them into your own lives in both creative and romantic ways.


If you've got a pool (or a bathtub...or a really big sink) you can go for these flourescent POOL LIGHTS! If I had a pool, this would definitely be how I would illuminate it! Oh, trust me! :-D











Or if you felt inspired by my jellyfish-as-a-pet idea, but haven't yet found a pet-shop to buy them from (and don't live by the sea), you can start off with these japanese electro-jello to see how they fit in...
(Why are the japanese always, and I mean always, ahead of me?! It's beginning to bug me!)















Of course, fake jellies are not for me. I was more thinking along the lines of...














(but each to their own, I say...)
Jellyfish and insomnia…

Jellyfish. I’ve managed to stay away from those things for months now and thought it was beginning to get safe. But then I suddenly started to fantasize about them again during a moment of insomnia last night.
Alluring stuff!


I used to think they were pretty off-putting. Disgusting even. But then my friend dragged me off to see a 3D film about sharks, which ended up containing way more jellyfish than sharks. It was hard to be disgusted by them after having had hundreds and hundreds of them swimming into my face one after another. I guess that technique would probably be worth trying with other phobias as well. Let’s say you’re having an inexplicable fear of needles and other sharp things. After 15 minutes or so of having gigantic 3 dimensional knives and syringes thrown at you with precision and care, you’ll probably be past caring. Either that or you’ll have passed out.


Most people seem to think of aquariums as relaxing and tend to agree on that fish have a calming effect. But, logically, wouldn’t a tank full of jellyfish be even more relaxing? They swim slower. They don’t try to eat each other. If two male jellyfish suddenly happen to swim in the same part of the tank, there won’t be any fight or argument and if a particularly pretty female jellyfish pops up, there won’t be any rivalry or even jealousy. No, honestly, you can take my word for it. Jellyfish are above that sort of thing.

A couple of months ago I worked hard on trying to convince my boyfriend at the time to let me give him one! I claimed it was the hottest present you could get this summer! I had read it in Heat, I said. I also claimed that if we were ever to accidentally break up, this would secure his future success with females. What girl would be able to resist a guy who’s got a tank of jellyfish at home! (Puppies and kittens are soo last season, dahling!) But I decided to take my jelly elsewhere when he threatened to flush them down the loo. A bit harsh. I mean, after all they’ve got emotions like all the rest of us. No need for jokes like that…

Anyway, the most efficient way to make them relax you is, I’m sure, to pretend that you are one! Works wonders! Works even better than my Noel Edmonds Cosmo cd. (But, please, don’t tell him I said that. Things will just turn dirty and get out of hand, and I just feel that might be a bit unnecessary all things considered…)
To make the relaxation exercise a bit more interesting and add a bit of drama, I can recommend using some colour. Personally, I’d like to think of myself as a green one! It tends to keep predators away and is somewhat spicier in general than, let’s say, orange (which is a bit lame, really). But you know, that’s just my personal experience. You don’t have to take my advice if you don’t want to. Use whatever colour you want. No, really.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Been Busy…

Well, I have! It’s been the end of summer (what summer) and in the same way as in the month of December, it’s always contained a lot of “obligations” (parties..) and it would be rude of me not to respect traditions probably older than mankind itself! It really would.
But hey, at least I’m pleased to inform you that my hobby of excessive/obsessive walking slowly has started to spread. People who’s been whining and whinging about the mere thought of it before has now been seen (and heard of) taking unnecessary strolls after visiting their local corner shop for a newspaper, walking home instead of taking the tube and some has even been marching by the canal all the way from Bethnal Green to Little Venice! I was going to meet Scout 1 and Scout 2 there and only had to walk 1/6th of what they had to cover, but still ended up being over 1 hour late! It was the second day of the (Notting Hill) Carnival and I had severely miscalculated the amounts of people around. Apparently some new record was set with 2 million people visiting Notting Hill on Monday (and one guy shot!). Notting Hill is not that big. It took me over 1 hour and an argument with a police officer to walk 100 meters. So escaping for a few hours to Little Venice was like a dream come true. Trust me if you don’t live in Notting Hill, you just won’t understand. This year we were lucky, since the party didn’t start until around 10 am. Other years it’s been 8. Both days. Its not just your bed that’s hopping, but the whole house is shaking to the music. You need a few hours away not to go crazy…

On my way back, me and Nicola were texting, arranging to meet up back in Ladbroke Grove. But before we managed to agree on any specific spot the phones were jammed. And I mean ALL phones! Every person in the whole area was suddenly seen shouting, swearing, desperately shaking their mobiles (because that would help. Yes.) And this happens every year. On the second day, roughly around the same time. Still everybody is equally chocked and angry beyond belief. Every year. Including me! Why? (Well, it’s probably a way to make people leave quicker…it’s not rocket science.) But guinea pigs learn faster!
I managed to run into my friends Jef and Anna within the time span of 10 minutes! (I guess the world is not that big after all. Or at least not Notting Hill.) But gave up before I even tried to find Nicola, because the rule of logic is that if you’re trying to haphazardly find someone – it just will not happen! (Although on the other hand, if you’re trying to AVOID someone the exact opposite rule applies – they will find you!) I’m fairly sure these rules are older than mankind as well…

I’ve felt another obsession slowly growing lately as well. I think it started with a dream (it normally does) and then that I coincidentally started to hear about it everywhere (that’s pretty much standard procedure as well). There has been a lot of strange coincidences going on in my life lately - impossible ones even! But that’s a totally different story. Let’s just narrow it down to that I believe these are sometimes there as some sort of clues to be followed.
This time I was focusing on the Thames Barrier! One day a couple of months ago I was going east and had a few hours to spare. Since I had been thinking about this place for days I decided to pop around quickly to have a look. Easy. What could go wrong?
Only that I couldn’t find it! I had thought it was located just by the Millennium Dome! It isn’t!
I even climbed the Greenwich hill to try to spot it. But still couldn’t see it! I was defeated and had to give up.
Last week Sara came to visit! :) We used to live together in Paris and have stayed in contact ever since. She now lives in Leeds, but has been down to London quite a lot, so she can’t exactly be called a “tourist”. But even so, I had to come up with something “touristy” to do with her. Something of treat. Something she would really appreciate… A lot of people tried to come up with suggestions, like the theatre or a daytrip. But then I accidentally saw something on the internet about – the Thames Barrier! And that changed absolutely everything! Apparently it’s the 8th wonder of the world!!! Can you believe it? What can possibly be more fun, more interesting to see and visit than the 8th wonder of the world! Yes, surely she was going to love this! Still I avoided letting her know what we were up to until the last minute in case she wouldn’t see it my way (some people just don’t understand what’s good for them…I mean this was on equal footing with the pyramids! That’s more than you can say about the London Eye!)

This time I was properly prepared. I had (vaguely) seen the Barrier in the picture of the Thames in the beginning of East Enders. I knew exactly where I stood! How could I possibly go wrong this time?
Turns out that the introduction picture in East Enders is not to scale! (But that sort of should have been expected, considering the river isn’t even floating the right way! Surely rivers start at the source and end up in the sea, right? Right? So why is the BBC making it look as if it’s the other way around?)
Sara really didn’t look convinced about walking for several miles, considering we had a party to go to in the other edge of the town a couple of hours later. And we needed to get home to shower and change first. But we did manage to catch a glimpse of some “shark looking thingies” in the far distance.

That means I’ve now failed to get to this place – twice! How ridiculous is that?!?

A couple of days later I was talking to Joanna about it. She didn’t really know what I was on about, at least not after describing them as “sharks”. She doesn’t think they look like sharks! It’s quite obvious that they do. Not the fin, but the nose! She thinks they look the like Sidney Opera house! SIDNEY OPERA HOUSE?
Come on! Personally, I think there’s more of a similarity between the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao and The Sidney Opera house. But I still haven’t managed to get any support for this idea!

But surely…SURELY this…














…makes more sense than THIS…



…which in turn makes LESS sense than
???

Or maybe I should just go and actually see the damn thing first and then get back to you? It’s an idea. Give me a week…