I have a new crush

R J posted this song for me this morning and I am in love with it and everything about it and this band and everything about them.  Check out Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.  It is pure JOY!

I had a great day shopping today and have nice new clobber for New York.  I feel pretty, oh so pretty and witty and gay etc.  Check it out honest, it is brilliant 

A month of meanderings

I haven't blogged for a month.  This goes against all blogging rules.  Apparently to keep my (four - one of which is me) followers interested, I should be blogging at least once a fortnight.  Apologies.  It's not that I haven't really had anything that interesting to say, I was just catching up on real life.

I have been doing a lot of googling about various things in between blogs though and now have wisdom to share about flies, prunes, Charles Bronson (the solitary confinement one), the Scottish verdict of not proven and the location of Jersey.

I will do a quick run down.  I had a fly for a while.  It must have been about two weeks which feels very long to have a fly.  The reason I was googling about flies was that this fly was extraordinarily friendly.  S/he would great me in the morning with an enthusiastic crawl and have 'mad half hours' when it excitedly flew about me at various points in the evening.  Conventional wisdom is that flies are carriers of all kinds of bad things and shouldn't be petted or encouraged.  However, during this time I was obsessed with the film How To Train Your Dragon and I could see some analogies between the relationship between Pickup and Toothless and myself and the fly.  So my googling was actually about whether you could tag a fly or make a house pet of them.  Nothing doing.  I think the fly is dead now, haven't seen it for a few weeks.  I was just curious.

I have learnt that 3/4 prunes a day are good for the digestive system but that 6 or more are not.

I decided that I wouldn't want to be a prison guard in any prison that Charles Bronson is in but that 32 years of solitary confinement is too much.

I don't know enough about the Scottish verdict of Not Proven to comment but I was very disappointed that it was delivered on John Wilson, the Hearts 'fan' who attacked Celtic manager Neil Lennon live on air.

Jersey is apparently in England.  I didn't know that.  Honestly, had no idea.

As for the here and now and future, I no longer am keen to time travel and feel it would be better to navigate the here and now and grow from it.  What doesn't kill you etc.

My current preoccupation is with preparing for the New York trip.  So I will be in New York two weeks today.  Woo hoo!

Tomorrow I am being taken clothes shopping which I am told is urgent.  I have to reluctantly agree but am now googling how to clone myself so I can send the clone shopping.  I find clothes shopping torturous but accept it must be done.  Cutting it short for the cloning so I am contemplating an alter ego to adopt for this trial and am settling on a feral adult who was found only quite recently wandering through the trees of some European forest or other.  Need to get my story straight with my shopping friend asap and go and find some twigs to entwine my hair with.  I am working on my own language which will involve a lot of clicks and clapping of hands.  I like clapping my hands.

Voices of Hackney and Peckham after the riots

I came across this on the BBC website. It's a gallery which you can move about and zoom into of post-it notes pinned up in Peckham by local people.  I think it is really powerful.  If you read the notes there are some general themes - yes things are really difficult and no we don't think people understand this but stop taking it out on your local community.

While the clean up campaign continues, our attempts to understand the rioting in London and elsewhere and what it all means takes ever more depressing twists and turns.  I think it is important to try and understand what happened in order to best make sure it doesn't happen again.  That seems obvious to me but it does seem to have a little wilfully slipped the attention of much of the media and the Coalition Government.  I am going to try and offer a bit of an opinion on it all but I would start off by saying that I don't live in the communities where civil disorder took place and I believe that it is local people, particularly young people, who we should be listening to just now.

That said, there seem to be a few schools of thought.

England is in the grip of 'Moral decay'.  Prime Minister David Cameron likes this one.  It reminds me a little of Mrs Thatcher's 'enemy within'.  As I understand it, we have a generation of 'feral youths' with no respect for civic obedience, no pride in their communities or their country, a culture of welfare dependency, a consumer culture which marks out the unobtainable as fair game in the midst of a riot, rampant use of social networking to coordinate lawlessness and a crack in the moral fabric of English society.  Solution - hammer the perpetrators in the courts by deviating from legal procedure and sentencing guidelines (4 years in jail for setting up an event on Facebook to organise a riot which nobody (apart from the police) turned up to?  6 months in jail for stealing a bottle of water?), consider a ban on social networking (lol) during periods of unrest, intervene in 'problem families' and train the police in dealing with riots and let them use water cannons.

Others want to go further and here we hear the predictable yell for all the things that stopped people in London and elsewhere rioting before (apparently) - bring back National Service!  bring back corporal punishment!  hell why not bring back capital punishment as well!  no more single parents!  no more welfare society!  make them work! back to basics! make them go to Church!  change our consumer culture!  no more rap music! (David Starkey you numbskull) on the same theme, reverse the 'odious tide of multiculturalism'!

I had a little look and as I suspected, it turns out that we have a bit of penchant for rioting.  We have been engaging in civil disorder on a large scale for some time.  This, for the English Defence League, was even before mass immigration (another apparent 'cause' of the riots).  It was even before the EDL themselves started fighting with the police and I am assuming that there was no Twitter, Facebook or Blackberry messaging then.

Moral decay - not a fan.  So what then?

It all seemed initially to kick off' after the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham.  The police failed to communicate appropriately about the circumstances of his death and a public inquiry will start in December 2011.  Cue back drop of community and police tensions going back years.  Check out Darcus Howe here (it's quite uncomfortable viewing I have to say),

Martin Luther King Jr once said that, "a riot is the language of the unheard".  If we assume this to be correct, who are the 'unheard' in this context and what is it that they wish to be heard about?

If we look at some of the post-its from Peckham, we see people talking about not having enough to do, not having enough amenities or services and a lack of opportunity.  The economy is in meltdown and public services have been hard hit.  There has also been a significant political shift in Parliament and the language of 'underclass' and 'welfarism' is common fare.  English economic austerity has enabled the fast tracking of a philosophy of a culture of the 'undeserving poor' amongst the political classes and by extension through media collusion and facilitation, in the psyche of wider English society.  This is a very interesting read on the role of the media during the riots. 

I can see that there are large communities and / or large groups of people who feel disenfranchised politically, socially, culturally and financially.  I therefore think I understand why people took to the streets and rioted.  I don't agree with it, but I think I understand it. 

I less understand the looting and destruction of local businesses and communities.  Pauline Pearce is spot on here.  To ransack and nick things from your own community is diversionary and stupid (there is swearing in this I warn you).

In terms of a response, to deny a sociological analysis of the recent riots in London, Birmingham and Manchester is short sighted and in my view, dangerous.  A response that fails either out of idiocy or deliberate exclusion, to consider multiple disenfranchisement, is a response doomed to fail.  We need to listen to people in local communities and we need to use the structures and processes that local communities use to do this. 

There is an Abba song for everything

Glorious

Time travel vs Benjamin Button exhumation

  

I have decided that I was happier when I was younger.  Most specifically I think I was happier when I was at school.  I loved school!  The teachers in our school were really quite nice and encouraging and I liked that they got excited if you would think, explore ideas and share ideas.  They seemed to quite like the weird kids who asked them stuff at our school.  I also did quite well at school and life has been a downward spiral of achievement since then.

The way I see it I have three options.  First option - I can time travel.  Second option - I can somehow make it so that I am permanently at school at the age I am now.  Third option - I can be permanently at school and permanently a to-be-determined school age.

I initially considered time travel to be my best bet.  I have googled "How to Time Travel" and Stephen Hawking tells me that all I need is a wormhole or a very fast rocket.  I have a lot of worms in the compost bin, a gaping great big hole where common sense and strength of character should be and I imagined I could get a very fast rocket on  eBay.  I have a few days off work and expected to time travel on Sunday and enrol in school on Monday.  Kerching time travel.  Then I worked out that if I time travelled, unless I am a child of Gallifrey, I would remain in my current human form.  I might not age but I would still look around 40.  Ditto when I considered developing a split personality, alter ego - Jemima Hooper Wrinkleton who goes to school in a small village in Devon and rides ponies at the weekend.

The second option seemed better.  I could become a teacher so that I am permanently at school but then I (and my peers) would still be adults and I am looking to avoid that.  I could pass myself off somehow as a child and go to school but I don't see how physically and legally I can pull that off.  I am also convinced I will be behind on my subjects as a lot of school is remembering facts and I don't remember facts very well.  There are some other options I am thinking about which involve potions, being cursed, negotiating some hybrid of Faustian soul selling or being bitten by a vampire.  I have worked out though that Vampires don't exist, I am already cursed, I don't know any potion brewers and I like my soul.

Then I remembered that Brad Pitt has been filming in Glasgow and I remembered the Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  My third option is to study pathology and genetics, exhume the corpse of Benjamin Button and clone and manipulate his genes so that I can rejuvenate to say 11 and then slow down the ageing process so that I only age one year at the passing of each decade.  This way, I would still age and die but it would take a lot longer and I would have at least 50 years left of school.

I am now googling "exhumation", "genetic manipulation" and "cloning".  If the google police don't get me, age and cursed adulthood surely will.  Best years of your life folks - if you still have them, make the most of them.  Or I could maybe have them...?

Digging Odetta the Queen of Folk

I have a real affection for the criminally under rated Odetta.  She is cited as a leading influence on the folk revival of the 1960s and is acknowledged as an inspiration to many singers, writers and members of the civil rights movement.  She needs however to be more widely known, celebrated and revered by my own generation I think for her musicality, her soul and her humanity.

The wonderful Odetta

Please check this marvellous women's back catalogue out. 

Things that are annoying but shouldn't really be

You know how it is sometimes when you are having an especially bad day or are feeling a little tense and something happens or you do something that is really annoying and then you calm down a little bit and you work out that it is really such a silly thing to have been annoyed about?  It happens to me all the time at the moment.

Such little things,

A bag of frozen peas splitting open cascading their contents all over the kitchen floor and into irretrievable nooks and crannies.  I don't ever have peas for breakfast or lunch so this might happen quite late at night and you can't see the peas but by the time you come to hoover the next day the peas have defrosted and squish all over the floor and the hoover won't pick them up.

Not being able to find the remote control.  Really for anything but mostly for the TV.  Years ago we used to get up to change the channel or turn the volume up or down.  I don't even think my current television has that option.

Related but slightly different.  The volume on  Sky Anytime is louder than the volume of normal Sky.  So you settle in to watch something on Sky Anytime and put your TV remote somewhere and there the woman is blasting that there ARE LOTS OF GREAT MOVIES COMING UP.  I go to turn her down and I have lost the remote.

People procrastinating in shops or when buying train tickets.  That really winds me up!  I have timed my journey exactly to the second and have taken no account (my fault perhaps) of somebody either renewing a rail card or dithering about where they are going or with their change. I usually storm off to the ticket dispensing machine.  I have a lot of change but none of it seems to work in the ticket dispensing machine.  Why the sodding blazes not?  What the heck is wrong with my change?  Then by the time I have got the right change to work in the machine, the ticket queue I left has now passed the person who was behind me when I stormed off and I have missed my train.

One for people who smoke your own roll ups.  You have saved a tiny bit of tobacco for the next morning because you either don't have a 24 hour shop or you can't be bothered going.  You assemble your precious tobacco on your cigarette paper and then you sneeze or blow out too hard or whilst rolling the paper rips or your fingers slip - all of which leaves you with a little pile of tobacco on the floor.  Or you tobacco pouch falls out of your bag or falls upside down in your bag.  This happened to me once at a job interview in a room with particularly shaggy carpets.  It was the early 1990s but it was three women all with shoulder pads and Dynasty hair cuts.  They stared unamused at me picking my tobacco out of the shag.  It was a crap job and I should have known from the interview.  Another one for people who smoke your own but don't use filter tips.  That little bit of torn up Rizla card that gets left protruding out of your mouth after you have taken a draw, usually when you are in the middle of making a very, very good point about something.

When you are in a rush to get in somewhere and you are fiddling with your keys and drop them and then you can't find the right key in time.  This usually happens when I am trying to avoid talking to my neighbours.


A few more

• envelopes that don't stick
• Phil Thompson and Jeff Stelling shouting on Sky Sports and people shouting in general
• people on facebook who tag you in a virus photo
• things that squirt stuff on you like milk cartons or little packets of sauce
• amateur poetry (but not amateur blogging :-)
• cans that won't open because the tin opener is broken but you really want what is in the tin
• corks that break when you really want a glass of wine and you are forced to take a hammer to the bottle and sift out the glass
• people who take photos of people without asking 
• people who say, "cheer up, it might never happen" when you feel like your life is falling apart 
• people who stop dead in the street when you are walking behind them
• drunk people on trains who are keen to socialise 
• the smell of yoghurt 
• Kyle Lafferty 
• people who use text speak in facebook updates and you can't fathom what they are saying 
• margarine tubs that fall out of the fridge or your hands and the lid falls margarine side down 
• things that are falling and you are too late to catch them
• getting old and falling to bits
• stomach ache
• those lyrics you recognise but can't place and you don't have enough information for You Tube
• Wikipedia inaccuracies 
• when your favourite shoes become too knackered to wear
• clothes that no longer fit or have turned grey
• menstruating at inconvenient times
• the sound of rain when you can't sleep
• not being able to sleep
• the excruciating dumbed down journalism and unrelenting bias and banality of Fox News

Freaking annoying all ...

Tomorrow's post will possibly be about reflections on the civil unrest in England and other parts of the UK or I may just find other things that make me really, really mad.  I'm not good just now.  Need to vent.

On the theme of disintegration and disappearing

Having a little break from blogging whilst I occupy myself with more pressing life changing decisions and meanderings and googling about flys.

Eliza Carthy will explain for me, sung here beautifully by her Mum Norma.

On going missing

I have just there been ruminating on how difficult it must be for people to go missing.  This blog isn't by the way about people who are taken, it's about people who go missing, as in people who make a decision to leave somewhere.

You see adverts for people who have been missing for maybe 10 or 20 years.  Perhaps they were running away from something or running to something.  Perhaps they had an accident or had a degenerative disorder which meant that they forgot who they were and either floated or went through the process of being someone else.  Perhaps sadly they were the victims of another person's cruelty or had to leave an abusive situation.  Either way, it seems inconceivable to me that people could just disappear but still be alive albeit, living as somebody else.

I have been thinking recently of grand gestures that might lead you to have to disappear for a while.  For example, you might be so unhappy in your job that you decide the only way out is to leave but you may be so ashamed of having left that you can't face people or you have to leave your family or a relationship for some what of the same reasons or you have to leave an abusive situation.

The whole process of having to start again after such a traumatic experience is exhausting and upsetting just to consider.  I imagine you would have to slowly wind down things that could lead you to be traced like bank accounts or friendships.  If you had a medical condition, how would you go about registering with a doctor in some place new?  What about if you got sick?  Would you need to change your career?  How would you start to pick up the pieces of your life again?  Where would you start?  Do you need money to disappear with the intention of coming back as somebody else?  Would you need to have people that know you are missing from somewhere with whom you can share your feelings or get practical support and advice?  What about if the circumstances that led you to contemplate going missing where so traumatic that you didn't think you could trust anybody to help you or to talk to?

I was thinking there about what I would do if I wanted to go missing.  Where would I start, what would I take, where would I go and who would I tell?  Would I have a tipping point where I would decide in advance that being missing was worse that staying put?  What would it be?  When would I no longer be missing and now be found?  Would I ever?

A tribute to Amy Winehouse

It was announced this afternoon that Amy Winehouse has been found dead at her London home at the age of 27. 

The Twitter and Facebook feeds resound with an equal amount of genuine sadness, shock and mockery.  The genuine sadness appears to be winning thankfully.

I first heard "Back To Black" at one of my friend's amazing dinner parties.  Rehab was the first song I noticed - upbeat, '60s throwback and defiant.  I came home that night and in my drunken state immediately downloaded the album and played it none stop for weeks.

There was so much to admire about Amy Winehouse both as a musician and a person.  She wrote the majority of her songs.  She wrote the lyrics and the music.  She had a voice that soared and a presence that shined.  She appeared from what I saw to be a good soul. 

More legion sadly was her battle with addiction, her sometimes shambolic and rambling live performances and outbursts, her dramatic weight loss, her earnest and intense love of people who were damaging to her and her predictable descent into self harm (literally) and ultimately, her untimely death.

I have no patience with anyone who would laugh at the death of another person. I despair at people who make comment on how undeserving of sympathy a person is who is in so much pain that they would hurt themselves with a razor blade, drink or drugs.  Amy Winehouse once said,

"I write songs because I'm fucked in the head and need to get something good out of something bad." 

Thank you for the music Amy.  To quote Lauren Laverne on Twitter, "Twenty fucking seven".

I was meant to be a scientist

I am having a self actualisation crisis.

Actually, it's more a Myers Briggs crisis.

I embrace my INTPness as I think it describes me perfectly.  I have tested myself once and been 'tested' once and I am an extreme of nearly everything.  I am off the chart.  I am so freaking INTP.  I also secretly like that it explains away other problems I have with living in a neuro, and in every other damn and blast way, typical world.  INTP's are rare and lady INTP's are even rarer.

Being an INTP gives me a lot of problems in socialising with E's, being empathic with F's, trying not to get exasperated with S's and constantly infuriating J's.

Of course what the Myers Briggs Type Indicator is supposed to do is highlight areas you need to work on, not give you excuses for not playing the game of life with a straight bat.  In my case, I need to get out of my head and my house and talk to people, deal with the here and now and stop day dreaming about the bigger picture, let my feelings show and stop procrastinating, plan properly and do the stuff I plan.

Oh do I have to though!

I am going to try and work on my ESFJness.  It would make my life easier and I begrudge, richer.

I chose to spend my days in the more natural realm of ESFJ's, in working with people within a hierarchy.  On my grave though I would like the following inscribed, "did okayish but was meant to be a scientist, inventor or architect of either thought or building .. but, never was and she blames her physics teacher for that for making physics really, really boring."

All hail Billy Bragg

This is turning into a blog about how great Billy Bragg is after I previously posted Tank Park Salute and It Says Here.

Billy gets a bit of a hard time these days from some folks who think of him as a bit of a traitor to socialism (I don't) and for his involvement in debates about English nationalism and an English parliament (which I don't agree with him about).

All that said, I think Mr Bragg has a lot to brag about when it comes to both the composition of his songs and his lyrical mastery of both political outrage and love, by and large of the unrequited variety.  I shall have Between The Wars played at my funeral, I like to wake up to and sometimes march with an imaginary red banner to his version of The Internationale and I have sighed empathic sighs for years at The Saturday Boy.  I prefer his earlier stuff from Life is a Riot with Spy Vs Spy and Brewing Up with.  I do like most of his stuff but I am a stripped down to the basics kind of music fan hence, the earlier stuff trumps the newer more elaborate sound for me.

As for my favourite Billy Bragg song, too hard - possibly The Saturday Boy but this comes close, wow, what lyrics.  Buy his stuff please, he deserves it.

I love gardening!

I am in love with gardening again.  Popped out tonight to water the plants and this is what I found,

I grew this from seed and I did write what it was on the label but I can't read it.

I also found five of these.  Again, I have no idea what they are but they were bulbs from Poundland. 

My aromatic collection from Poundland has started to sprout and everything is smelling absolutely lovely!  The tomato plants are getting bigger but not giving me anything but that's fine, they will next year.

Oh and the bed is gone.  A strange man I have never seen before came to collect it.

Loving my oot the back again!

On being a millionaire

I was watching the end of the news there and it was a feature on some Scots who have won the lottery and become millionaires.  They asked somebody at the end of the feature if money bought you happiness and he smugly declared, "yes it does and if somebody says differently, you aren't speaking to the right people".  I could quite happily have poked this man in the eye where it not for the fact that he was on the tele and was wearing glasses.  Smug sod.

To cheer myself up I have decided to have a think about the things I would buy if I won a million pounds.  This is a theoretical blog so please, if I do end up winning £1 million and I have offered to pay off your mortgage but I decide in the end that you would benefit from working to pay it off yourself, don't sue me and it's likely you may have done something to irk me which justifies my decision.  Just getting my Shaun Ryder's in first.

If I win a £1 million or perhaps maybe £4 million,

My demands are really quite modest.  I shall stop working.  I want a nice house here in Glasgow but would also would like a cottage somewhere in the Highlands or perhaps Fife.  My Glasgow house would be the pad that I visit when I come to see Celtic play or visit friends.  It would most likely be in Albert Drive and would have (if it would fit) a swimming pool, a pool table, a jukebok and one of those arcade games where you pretend you are driving.  It would have a very tidy little garden and I would have a gardener called Esther who would also bake me cakes and pies for me coming to Glasgow to visit.

My cottage shall be ramshackle with a much larger garden where I shall grow all my own produce and perhaps have at least one cow and some hens.  I will be a writer and I shall drink a lot of whisky and smoke a lot whilst looking wistfully at the Scottish countryside.  I shall ride a bicycle (or scooter) into town and be known by the local village folks as "somewhat of a recluse" but every now and again I shall invite some of them to tea, for an hour or so.

I shall holiday in Tenerife and I shall have a small apartment in Manhattan which my friends can use on their trips to New York.

I will pay off the mortgages of my nearest and dearest in so far as I can.

I shall get drunk and go on iTunes and buy music constantly without worrying about if I can afford it.

I shall buy a piano and learn to play the piano.

I shall buy a digital SLR and learn how to use it.  I shall go on rambles and take telephoto snaps of wildlife and landscapes and I shall post them on my blog and flickr and write flaming great romance novels under the pseudonym of Josephine Martina O'Malley.  I shall write on a Mac and I shall drink coffee made from an absurdly frivolous coffee machine which made cappuccino.  I would also purchase a waffle machine, an iPhone, a really good Dyson hoover, a tumble dryer, a reclining chair and an X Box.

I shall have many brief trips under different pseudonyms in order to research my flaming great romance novels and I shall have a whole room in my Glasgow house with disguises in it (figure they won't fit in the cottage).

I will select a small group of organisations that I will give money to but I shall also go on conservation holidays and shall become a world renowned expert in dry stone walling.

I shall dine alone and take friends out for dinner and not worry about the prices and tell them to "order whatever you want!"

I will buy this wonderful morning off Nancy Sinatra or Oliver! or at least get dancing lessons so I can dance like the main guy in white trousers in this video.  I think he looks very cool (he looks a bit like the assassin in Grosse Point Blank?)

I shall have a 'larder' and will fill it with Dandelion and Burdock.  I shall make friends with the local curry house and leave massive tips so they will hike up to my cottage with take away curry at the whim of this drunken millionaires.  I shall have a dog named Barker and a cat named Arnold that I take for walks and they will have their own room as I have allergies.  I will pay for my allergies to be fixed.  I shall have a cellar and be too scared to go down there.

I like the sea so I would like a little cottage or flat near a fishing village too and I would like a boat.  I would like the option to go out on the boat quite a lot so will need somebody to sit the cat and dog. 

Oh and I will have a little bar in each of my properties with scampi fries, optics and draft ale.

Will I be happy?  Oh I really do expect so.

Viva la wild flower

I must have spent around £50 all in on eBay over the winter amassing exotic and not so exotic seeds.  Right enough we had some really bad storms around March - April which put paid to a lot of my purchases.  Some did survive though and turned into nothing really special.

Then I buy a box of wild flower seeds from Poundland for £1 and the trough I put them in is bathing part of my 'roof' garden in chaotic colour.  People are total snobs when it comes to weeds and wild flowers I think.  If something looks and smells nice and it lasts a decent amount of time, it works for me.

I have just sown an equivalent poundland box of 'aromatics' and am very excited to see what I get.  Next year, I am going to forgo the messing about with fancy seeds which need all manner of pampering and cajoling to do something but actually do nothing and make me hate gardening.  I am going to buy a tonne of compost and chuck it over the roof.  Then I am going to buy 40 boxes of wild flower seeds from Poundland and have a ceremonial flounce, toss and rakeathon.

Sorry but I think these look lovely - £1 for all this

 I suspect this one is not from Poundland but I can't remember

Note update, moving on from something and my shoes

As I was rushing out this morning for work I noticed that somebody had written on my note about the bed. "it wiz (sic) Jean".  Now the person in question has barely managed to get themselves down our shared stairs for months without a stick and is very civic minded so I doubt they lugged a great big bed down the stairs.  It means that I will be either phoning the council to get the bed lifted or getting drunk and doing it myself, which was always the plan pre note anyway.  I learnt something though.  If you don't ask, you don't get and the worse that can happen is that somebody scribbles, "it wiz (sic ..") over your note.  At least I have put out the message, mess with my herbs and I shall get my multi coloured pens out so .. so there!

Today I took the decision to leave my beloved Castle Age Guild.  Now my none Castle Age playing mates think guild battles are very amusing when I am at a dinner party for example and ask to be excused to poly somebody, "so what, so like do you have a sword and what, so, you hit somebody with it?"  I practically cringed when explaining to somebody at my work, I am an Officer in my Guild.  The reaction usually is a smirk or a look of "get a life Jo".  Being part of a Guild is such good fun and I only left because I was having to stay up quite late at times as most folks live in the US.  I feel really sad to leave the Guild but I have found a new one and the folks seem jolly nice (most folks are jolly nice I find - another lesson in life).  However, I shall miss drunken nights sharing music and chatting to folks from around the world, some of the nicest folks you could hope to meet.

Today at Glasgow Central station somebody said something to me that I have never heard before in my life.  I always have my head phones on, always and I do 'charge' a little when I am in the zone and on my way home but this lady grabbed my arm and earnestly asked, "excuse me, where did you get your shoes?  I noticed them when I got on the train and I have been looking for a pair like that for years."  Now I have 4 pairs of shoes and until a splurge last year I only had one pair, for about a year.  I looked at her stunned for enough time for her to start worriedly retreating.  I told her "eBay", she gave a devastated look and we parted ways.  Imagine that, me, being asked about my shoes? 

A wee song for my old Guild mates

Bye bye NOTW - hello? Sparkle Motion?

After Rupert Murdoch's week from hell, the last edition of the News of The World will be published on Sunday.  Undoubtedly a re-branded hybrid will be published in the future but it is a victory of sorts.  A Sellafied / Windscale victory maybe but it is a start.

Bye bye News of The World but I hope we keep the pressure up on this issue,

It's rubbish but I did the whole note thing

Finally plucked up the courage to ask the neighbour to move the bed.  It is a rubbish note and this was my 10th version but at least I did it.  Sure I will hide if they knock on the door but it's progress I think?

Clearly it is the worst note in history.  I need help ....

Hugo the gnome, the bed and the garden

I have photographic evidence of the bed somebody has 'rested' against my bathroom window.

Every time I see it I am painfully reminded of the following - I am unassertive, I am passive aggressive, I am rubbish at galvanizing my neighbours into collective social action and mattresses left out in the wet get mouldy and infected by creatures.  I still haven't put a note out and I am annoyed with myself.

The good news is though that I now own a gnome.  I think everyone should have a gnome.  I am calling him Hugo because I like Hugo Chavez and Hugh Grant (at the moment) and it fits.  Here is Hugo with my star plant.  It is called star something.

and here Hugo is in all his gnomely glory 

Here the garden is in all it's chaos

I do have some new bulbs poking through of a beautiful shade of blue.  I have no idea what they are but I shall post photos when they come.  I am going back to Poundland to see if they have more gnomes that I can name after political heroes and I am also going to pluck up courage to leave that note.

The people are taking control

Following the recent revelations about phone hacking and the NOTW I rejoined Twitter.  I had been on Twitter a few years ago but I found it boring and lacking the dynamism of my facebook interactions.  However, my more recent experience has been so different.

It's Murdoch vs the social media here in the UK.  People are trending messages of outrage and telling each other about campaigns in a way I haven't seen before.  Check out the campaign to block Murdoch's take over of BSkyB on Avaaz just now.  It has gained nearly 1000 signatures in the time it has taken me to write this post so far.

Look at this which was originally posted on Mumsnet.  It is ready set up Tweets to organisations that advertise with NOTW.  Ford have already pulled out, one has to assume partly because of this campaign.

A flash mob was being organised last night on Twitter and facebook to coincide with an emergency debate in Parliament.

People are sharing news links through social media in a way which was never possible before.  Twitter is off the charts at the moment in my view in terms of it's capacity to enable people to quickly generate and share information.  It's interesting to me that Murdoch's News International empire may be tarnished in a way it has never been before through people taking control and making and sharing their own news.  It's the ultimate example of participatory democracy in action and it is stunning to watch.

Let's not forget though the power of good journalism. All hail The Guardian for it's work this week.

Also, Hugh Grant for actual Prime Minister anyone?

Will people boycott The News of the World?

It has been revealed today by The Guardian newspaper that new evidence has emerged as part of Operation Weeting that journalists at a tabloid newspaper hacked the mobile phone of Milly Dowler.  Milly disappeared in 2002 when she was 13 years old.  Levi Bellfield was convicted of her murder two weeks ago.

The details of the allegations are that journalists hacked into and deleted messages on Milly's phone so that space could be freed up for other messages which they could listen in to.  It is assumed that deletion of the messages led family and friends to believe that Milly had received and deleted the messages herself.  It gave false hope to her family and significantly disrupted the police investigation.

This is the latest in a long line of instances of phone hacking and monitoring by the News of The World of people in the public eye, MPs and celebrities.  This one is different though.

I can't get my head around the lack of morality and common decency which this whole sorry story reveals.  Can you imagine being in the offices of the News of The World whilst the hacking plan was being hatched.  Where were the dissenting voices?  Why did nobody in that office stand up and point out the absolute callousness of the actions of the staff who hacked and the people higher up who allowed it to happen?  Did they at any point consider that it could compromise the investigation into Milly's disappearance?  Did any of them go home at night and sneak a peak at their own children, sound and safe and wonder if what they were doing was right?  The News of The World did an exclusive feature with the family after her disappearance.  Did any of the journalists who covered this or the editors who published it feel any shame, knowing what they had done?

The other question is why did they do it?  They presumably did it to get the best story first in order to sell more copies of their newspaper, in order to be able to afford more expensive things, in order to impress their bosses and in order to further line the deep pockets of pay master Rupert Murdoch.

Why were they allowed to do it?  Because the public buy The News of The World.

Why do the public buy The News of The World?  No idea but I reckon it's most likely (beyond tradition or family allegiance) because of shock factor and because alongside it's sister paper The Sun it engages in the most lewd, libidinous, extreme, nosey and downright reprehensible form of lazy sensationalist journalism which appeals to the most lewd, libidinous, extreme, nosey and downright reprehensible side of human nature.

So now everyone wants a boycott of the News of the World. I am on Trendsmap as I write this and tweet after tweet is calling for a boycott not just of the NOTW but every company that advertises in it and the entire Murdoch media empire.

Can it happen?  Try buying The Sun in Liverpool.  So yes, it can. 

Will it happen?  I doubt it but I really hope so.

Blogging whilst very very drunk

Is in my view to be avoided :-)

Silly Walks

As ever the morning after a night of indulgence, I am appalled at the leftovers from a night drinking at my computer.  I have managed to spam my own facebook wall with all manner of songs I don't remember listening to and there is an empty wine bottle and a one thirds empty bottle of Russian Standard Vodka huddled around me.  I haven't had a hangover for a while but this is a stonker.

So there I was this morning laying in bed cursing the single vodka that undoubtedly crashed me over the edge of sobriety and I remembered I am hosting a get together tonight.

I decided that I needed a good lay in bed if I was to tackle the carnage brought about by a night of drinking and get myself ready to host my lovely friends.  I also remembered a plan to move a double bed that some careless neighbour has wedged against my bathroom window, on top of my herbs.  Or at least to pin an angry note (anonymously) of outrage on the door.  However, I was awoken by a terrible noise and my day became progressively worse.

It's July 2nd and an estimated 8000 marchers are expected for the annual Orange Walk through Glasgow.  Oh this thing makes my heart sink.  Firstly, it's bloody noisy.  Secondly, it attracts thousands of drunk Glasgow Rangers fans with their drunk Glasgow Rangers songs to my street and I have no way of asking them to move along.  They chant sectarian songs and make statements decrying the religious leader of my Catholic friends whilst police watch on.  Thirdly, I have to witness the induction of very small people into this hideous tradition with Union Jack draped children being led by the hands of Union Jack draped parents.  Finally, it's triumphalist and sectarian.

I honestly think the Parades have no place in a modern Scotland (or anywhere for that matter).  Clearly none of the people supporting the marchers today are Dutch or have a particular affection for history.  Very few will know that William of Orange defeated King James at the Battle of the Boyne.  For those people who do know, these marches are about the overthrow of the last Catholic monarch and the subsequent and continued subjugation of the Catholic people.  For the rest, it's an excuse to dust off the Rangers tops and Union Jacks, get drunk, fight with each other and possibly somebody else and prance about the streets singing vile songs and chanting vile chants.  There has been rioting again in Belfast and unconfirmed reports of an incident in The Gallowgate area of Glasgow as I write.  Can we consign this silly walk to history please?  Or if it's to stay, can we insist that the marchers can only march if they do an actual silly walk? Of the John Cleese variety?

Off to tidy up.

Stromboli lust - on the search for good food in New York

Few pals and myself are planning a holiday in New York in October.  This will be my second time in Manhattan and I can't wait.  It's the greatest place on earth, I am convinced of it.

My friend is busy trying to get us to take some decisions about hotels and I accept that is important but our other current obsession is making a list of things we simply must eat whilst in New York.  The last time we went to New York my friend felt that she didn't get to eat enough and that this was my fault - I accept and plead guilty to both charges.  This time we are going to eat until we burst.

I have a brief list of 'must haves' for the return trip.  After seeing it featured on Man vs Food, I absolutely must have a Stromboli (spell check wants symbolist but Stromboli it will stay as).  Wikipedia tells me that  

"A stromboli is made with a square shaped pizza dough that can be topped with any pizza toppings and is then rolled into a log and baked"

I need a stromboli I think.  It would really enhance my life to have one.  The other things I want are a taco and a burrito.  I really want to find somewhere in New York that does authentic BBQ and I also want a double dipped sandwich.

Any other suggestions of things that we absolutely must eat and places where we absolutely must eat them would be much appreciated.  You have until late September :-)

Trains revisited - ban summer holidays, don't talk to me and make puzzle purchases less obscure

Sometimes I get the train in a bad mood.  As I am getting the train for work it annoys me when I see people getting the train for pleasure.  The schools have or are breaking up here and there are children and parents everywhere looking red faced, eager and jolly with pick n mixes and colouring books which I wish I had.  I see what I imagine to be students with back packs and crampons all ready to traverse mountains and skite across lakes.  There are elderly couples enjoying their retirement unwrapping sandwiches from tin foil and bringing out tissues and kit kats.

On the 8.41 to Aberdeen the other day there was even what looked like a group of happy workmates all travelling together to a conference.  When I am in a good mood I tend to move seats so people can sit next to each other but if I am in a bad mood I tend to do the "I got there early, I never once took my eye off the board so I could see which platform it was on, I had my ticket (not my seat reservation) the right side up for the machine, I know that front train means the end of the platform and I sprinted to coach C to get a seat as that is where the unreserved seats are - you want a good seat, don't meander, don't take up valuable space at the ticket counter asking what train to get and what platform it leaves from, research it in advance like us regular train people do and don't be buying stuff from the trolley like us regular train people don't and biggest of all - don't but don't try to engage me in conversation on the 8.41 to Aberdeen, I am in the zone and don't want to be distracted from my sudoko by your frivolous and jolly chat or pleading glances under the pretence at looking out the window.  If you do, I shall either clean my headphones out in front of you, fall asleep on you or spend the journey plucking my eyebrows in front of you.  You are warned."

I like to steadily accumulate rubbish in my laptop bag for the bins in the trains.  It's not as if I don't have a bin or several in fact but I like to think that people will be watching me admiringly thinking, "isn't that lady so very conscientious, taking all her rubbish to the little train bins."  Yes, I am conscientious.

I decided that The Metro sudoko puzzles weren't meeting my needs anymore and I saw a bumper pack with two pens and 1 pencil with a rubber on it for £4.  I have to buy this I thought to myself!  So I did.  I ran to coach C (COACH C PEOPLE) and ripped open my puzzle collection to discover that there was not one sudoko puzzle in it.  Not one.  Dispirited and appalled I am relegated to tutting at potential chatters and fingering my tweezers warningly whilst doing word searches (albeit with a snazzy purple pen which I might have paid £4 for if I was drunk).  Word searches I ask you.

Blog verbosity

A friend of mine was round yesterday and we were discussing my blog.  She thinks my posts are too long and I would tend to agree.  I read a really interesting debate about blog posts in which people were debating whether many shorter posts or the less regular large post was better.  I think it depends on what you are talking about and how you write I guess but I do agree that I sometimes skip read longer blog posts.  Be interested to hear what other bloggers think.

We laughed hysterically for several minutes at the absurdity of my post about my favourite words.  I love my friend and I wish I could carry her around in my pocket all day.

Yeah, good but I like the older stuff

I finally resolved my iTunes issue earlier in the week.  I had killed another laptop (this one with a glass of sadly very good wine). That was me gone over my 5 authorised computers for my iTunes account so I couldn't buy new stuff for ages (I don't go into shops for music anymore).

So have caught up on a couple of new albums that I missed whilst I was iTunes less.

The Decemberists - The King is Dead

Reviewers have described this as variously Americana, Folk, The Smiths, Country and R.E.M influenced.  I don't see The Smiths influence AT ALL.  However, what it is I grant you is a return to form after the brief flirtation with concept (aka self indulgent) album with the ponderous Hazards of Love.  The King is Dead is a fine album if you don't know The Decemberists and a good return to form if you do.  Please do check it out.  However, delve a little into the back catalogue first if you don't know the band as it is some way short of their best.  Check out The Mariner's Revenge Song form Picaresque, it is epic!

Gogol Bordello - Trans-Continental Hustle

Manhattan's finest return with another collection of raucous gypsy punk.  Again, if you haven't heard Gogol Bordello do check this album out.  It is good for sure but I do prefer the two earlier studio albums.  I am not hearing any stand out stonkers in Trans-Continental Hustle such as Super Taranta, Start Wearing Purple or Not A Crime, earlier and more memorable offerings. 

Various artists - The Fairport Companion, Loose Chippings from the Fairport Convention Family Tree

This cost me £1.19 for 37 tracks which is simply absurd.  I bought it primarily for a Mike Waterson track that I discovered years ago through his English folk super group Blue Murder, Rubber Band.  This is such a jolly tune!  Overall a great collection and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Lady GaGa - The Fame Monster

Am I the last person in the world to buy this album?  I bought it primarily for Poker Face which I love after seeing a friend perform a marvellous dance to it at her wedding.  It's not the kind of stuff I usually listen to and a few tracks pass me by but Poker Face makes me want to DANCE and I can't dance, not at all.  Full on fun.

I also bought Kasabian's West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum really because I feel I should own some Kasabian and Adele's 21 because I liked Adele's 19 and she is doing very well for herself.  It's excellent for sure but honestly, I prefer the stripped down sound of 19.

My final purchases were Simple Minds's (?) Someone, Somewhere In Summertime (reminds me of school), Take That's Shine (a very happy song) and Plan B's She Said.  Apparently Plan B has sold out and glancing at his back catalogue, I can see why rapper purists think that but hey, I like it.  

I didn't buy Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere but tonight was the first time I have listened to it (it is from my brother's collection).  Check out Just a Thought.  Very powerful track.

On the theme of my indulgences that newer isn't always better, I finished off the iTunes spending frenzy with a classic number from Spark's.  Play this really loud, whack up your base, get your headphones on and jump, jump, jump around.  I am going to the minute I finish this :-) 

Messing about with words Part I

In the bath just there I started thinking about writing and words.  I was remembering a teacher at my school who didn't like the word 'nice'.  If you used the word nice in a story, you were required to write it out 100 times in the back of your notebook.  We asked him once what his aversion to the word was (I only slipped up once - never again) and he said it was because it said nothing as a word.  He said it was bland and did not adequately describe anything.  I disagreed however what this teacher did instill in us was a consideration and love of language.  Words are beautiful and interesting I think.  Where do they come from, what do they mean, why should we use them and not another word? 

Now I am not a big reader of books.  I find reading printed page quite difficult.  It's the orderliness of things - move from left to right and then move down, go back to the left and start again.  I more often see the shapes in between words when I look at a book.  I am concentrating so much on left to right, back to left and move down that I lose the meaning of things and the beauty of the words.  I find it mechanistic and a chore.  I think words should dance and float and not be regimented and ordered.  Blogs are easier for me because they are shorter and I can give a blog 10 or so minutes of being ordered left, right, down and left / right again.

Because I don't read much, I like to write.  That doesn't make a lot of sense to me but it is true.  I write as a way to think aloud and my thoughts are by nature, scattered and scrambled.  I jump about.  It is chaos.  This is another reason why I write things down - so I can put them into order.  I don't understand it very well but it seems to make sense to me.

Anyway, I decided to have a shot at writing a short story.  I yearn desperately for a simpler life.  I dream of being a dancing word free of the regimented page.  I dream of living on a small holding in the middle of nowhere and of indulging my creative side and earning enough money to be warm, housed and fed.  I envision fingerless gloves and endless nights sat typing and dreaming and of drinking whisky and listening to Tom Waits.

The problem is that I have no idea how to go about writing a short story for adults.  I used to write stuff as a child at school but it was more often than not based on things I had seen on TV or things I had read.  So I decided I would start off by thinking of some words that just had to go in my short story.  I am going to set myself the task of writing a story of no more than 1500 words.

I am going to make a cup of tea and write down my favourite word for each letter of the alphabet as Part II of a two part blog post.

My favourite words from A to Z

Each of these words needs to feature in my short story.  I am going to throw them up in the air and see where they land. 

Antecedent
Benevolence
Caustic 
Dexterous
Eloquence
Fluorescence
Gentle
Heuristic
Implication
Just
Kinetic
Lithe
Magnanimous
Neurosis
Opulence
Paradox
Quintessential
Rekindle
Systematic
Tacit
Unlikely
Vestibular
Worldly
Xylophonist
Yearn
Zoom

I know this is a silly idea and a little contrived but I am just experimenting with ways to make myself write.

I am off now to ponder where and when and what but I heard a wonderful song tonight and would like to share it.  I am off to try and write ...

Gillian Welch perfection

Came across this video.  Had to share.  I think this is just perfect.  Simple, beautiful and just perfect.

I most often listen to this album on train journeys or when I am nearly home at the end of work train journeys.  There is just something about Gillian's voice and the music that is just, so wonderful.

Mediterranean braised lamb and couscous

I've made this recipe from Jamie Oliver's website a couple of times.  It's really easy to make and very tasty.  If you hover over the link and press open in new tab it will bring it up.  I can reproduce it here but I think it might be a bit disingenuous.

My own tips

• I personally like to add some chopped dried apricots at the cooking stage and dust with some chopped almonds and dessicated coconut at the serving stage (just a bit).  It gives it that 'Moroccan' feel.  I also add a little finely chopped chilli (but not much!).
• Dry the lamb in paper towel before using it.
• Don't worry about it looking like there is too much liquid.  A few people on the website have reduced the amount of liquid but seriously don't - it does reduce right down.

Cheats - I didn't have a live basil plant one time I made this so I used green pesto (quite oily but it worked).  

For people just finding their feet with cooking, I don't know much but a few tips would be to always crush garlic with a crusher, rip or shred rather than cut fresh herbs, a sprig is not the same as a leaf and prepare your ingredients before cooking it as it makes it easier and reduces on the washing up (no washing machine here!).  Experiment with different ingredients and just enjoy cooking, it's great fun. 

In terms of wine to go with this - I drink anything and am not in the least a wine snob but I guess something a little dryer as my version is quite fruity.  I usually drink sparkling water with nice food and then worry about wine later.  Enjoy, I did and thanks to Jamie Oliver's website. 

RIP Peter Falk

Peter Falk died today aged 83.  I recently shared a conversation with some friends about how wonderful Columbo was.  We broke down shortly after the conversation and were stranded for several hours on a bee infested verge near Tyndrum so I don't recall the exact details of the conversation.

It may have gone something along the lines of Peter Falk, wasn't Columbo great, how everybody thought he was a bumbling oaf and underestimated him but then he would come back with his, "just one more thing" and crack the case.

I am sure it also included a question about what else Peter Falk was in.

I found this, barely recognisable but brilliant.

Gardening mayhem - I am retiring

I have an Oot the back where I live - it's a big concreted over space up some stairs.  It isn't quite a roof garden but it a little bit is and it has a great big dome in the middle from the casino downstairs from me.  I commandeered the space last year to start a garden for myself and my neighbours.  I spent a bit of money and did what I hoped to be things which would sustain and continue.  I wrote about the development of the project on my old blog but have combined all the posts to a page on this one here.

As per my list of things to do, I went out there today and I have decided to retire from gardening as I am clearly no good at it despite how relaxing I find it.

My plastic water butt for conserving rain water fell over ages ago and the tap broke.  I have a new tap from eBay now but it has been sat in a drawer for 6 months.  I bought 4 small plastic greenhouses after my experience during the winter of things getting very cold and dying.  Each one has at some point fallen over in the last 6 months and not one of them hasn't got something that is bent in some way.  False economy but I am convinced if I spent a lot of money on an expensive one, it would fall over too.

Little Parsley plant from seed - lone survivor

I sowed a tonne of herbs before we had terribly bad winds in Scotland and they all but one fell over and were found in a heap several days later.  It rains so much that things get waterlogged and rot and when it doesn't rain, I don't remember to water things often enough.

Spearmint is my saviour

Basically, it feels like everything is dying on me.  The only thing I can grow superbly is Night Flowering Catchfly, Coriander, Spearmint, wild flowers and weeds.  I really don't know where I am going wrong.  Is it me, is it the environment I am in?  Is it luck?  What is it?  I am so annoyed with myself here for letting living and breathing and potentially living and breathing things die.

Ailing tomato plants from seed

The only thing in my Oot the back garden that is going superbly is my dalek compost bin.  It must be the most popular compost bin in Glasgow for slugs and the like.  Which is good I grant you but if I had to chose, it would be the one thing I would merrily be rubbish at.

Do I chuck the gardening and move on to a new hobby or do I read more and learn more and persevere more?  I am at a crossroads in my brief career as a gardener.

Celebrating Glen Campbell

It was announced yesterday that Glen Campbell has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease.  What a terrible disease Alzheimer's is.  I wish him and his family all the best.

Hey Winston! Leave those kids alone. Thoughts on Mr Smith and his 'underclass'

Winston Smith writes a blog about his experiences in support worker roles in care homes for children, supported accommodation for young people and Youth Offending Services.  Winston Smith isn't his real name but the name of a character from George Orwell's 1984.  This Winston Smith wouldn't bother me where it not for him garnering national media attention, picking up the Orwell Prize in 2010 and penning a book, Generation F.

Winston tells us in his book that he wanted to be a journalist but his excessive use of cannabis meant that he couldn't complete his formal education as a journalist.  It also apparently was the reason he decided to work in the field of social care.  He believes that his experience of smoking too much dope, appearing in court and turning his life around thanks in part to the tough love of his parents gives him a particular insight into what the people he works for really need.

Winston's blog is called "Winston Smith - Working with the underclass".  It is a retrospective and detailed account of some of his encounters with the young people he supports.  I've read quite a bit of his blog and the resulting comments. 

Winston very occasionally demonstrates some understanding and a little affection for some of the people he is paid to support.  However, by and large, the over riding sense is of a person who actually has little or no genuine insight into or particular liking for the young people he sees himself as being unfortunate enough to have to encounter in his working day.  The general gist seems to be - here is a generation of people with little or no respect for themselves, authority, rules and good grammar, an indulgent society upon which they inflict their odious and burdensome selves, a care system which colludes with their expectations of take and not give and which is staffed by heroic and well intentioned people whose 'common sense' approach goes disastrously unheeded by manager after bleeding heart manager; essentially a self replicating 'underclass' of feral rogues, welfare scroungers and bad parents who don't get told off enough.

Winston's blog is certainly interesting but I am horrified to read in the comments that people believe that his views are actually representative of a large group of tough but loving and down trodden social care workers.

My personal view is that 'Winston' is burnt out and has a value base which is clearly ill suited to the field of work in which he reluctantly still finds himself.  A few examples of the things that he writes about the people he is paid to value and support,

"a slightly obese, uncouth 21-year-old female member of the underclass storms in to the office"

"the she-lout class"

On the participation of people who live in care services he writes,

But half of our residents are potheads who fail to sign on, can't successfully apply for housing benefit, are always in rent arrears and are in and out of court for petty offences. They can’t apply order to their own lives and seem to flout most social norms as well as the law so surely they are the last people that we should be consulting on how to run this project?

Winston excused himself of any sense of being offensive about the people he works with in an interview with The Guardian by pointing that he wouldn't actually talk like that about people to them directly.  Yeah, still not okay Winston.

Winston also provides us with very detailed information (false names) about people that he has worked with.  Some of these people would very clearly be identifiable to either themselves (Winston would probably reassure himself that they couldn't read) or other people who either work with Winston or with the young people.  It is a clear breach of confidentiality and completely unethical.

The other frustrating thing about reading Winston's blog is that apart from instilling a sense of discipline, responsibility and good grammar in 'the underclass', he doesn't seem to have many concrete suggestions for the betterment of the people he is paid to provide a service to.  He gives the impression of somebody who smugly watches on and races home to bang away on his keyboard.  He isn't participating, he is watching and judging. 

I hope Winston finally finds the route into journalism that his brief flirtation with addiction prevented him from achieving.  He is clearly too good to be wasting his time with the 'loveable rogues' that pollute his day.  He is meant for bigger and better things.  It would be a win win too.  The 'loveable rogues' would have somebody working with them who hasn't spent most of his career sulking self importantly over a keyboard because nobody in his work values his offensive, snobbish, reactionary and just plain mean theories about the people it should be his privilege to support.