London

I wrote this today, sat in a coffee shop in town, on what has been a good and a bad day. My head's muddled and I haven't eaten. But I like this. Buying a new notebook was worth it, even if it is a bit on the bulky side.

I love this city, its hustle, its bustle, the noise, the energy. How it blends the old with the new, the ancient and modern. Museums and libraries, churches and schools.
Houses sit amongst green while the traffic roars past. Sirens scream and taxis twist past buses - red and lumbering. People dash across the street, heedless of traffic lights. It's invariably raining, but no one cares, umbrellas aloft, people weave and whizz along the pavement.
Walking along the street, there's books on a table outside a shop. £5 a book, I won't buy, but I will browse, note some old friends, and a guide to New York - opposite, sister city, city that never sleeps. This city, not asleep, dormant maybe, sparking into life, crackling with its music, sights, smells - petrol and grass, curry and coffee.
Steam rises from my tea, a scent of peppermint. And to think I almost stayed in, where it's warm and watched TV.
The beat of the city, a pulse all its own, echoing forever, through the centuries, since before Londinium, since before it had a name. Following the flow of a river, Old Father Thames.
A sense of home, despite its many faces and voices. Stretching across the world, hailing from everywhere, settling here. Drawn by that majestic chaos, that giant roused.
The wind pushes back, the Londoner strides, head bowed but not deterred. There are places to go, faces to see, carved out of stone or wreathed in friendly smiles.
City of miracles - anything can happen.
My city. Home.

Seasons in reverse

I thought Spring was supposed to be sprung, but apparently we're headed back into Winter, with snow and rotten cold weather forecast. Here's some photos of the crocuses that were as enthused as me last week before it started raining again!!

Party time!

I'm going to my high school best friend's little sister's 21st birthday tonight, and I'm having a hard time believing she's 21. I met her sister on my first day at secondary school, aged almost 11 (I'm a September baby so the first week of school was usually a week or two before my birthday). We were best friends all the way through, I spent a lot of time at their house, and their parents were almost like a second pair to me. After school we drifted, still keeping in touch, but not seeing so much of each other. We'd seen each other pretty much every day for 7 years so it was a bit weird only being together every now and then. We see less of each other now than ever before, and it definitely sucks. We keep in touch through facebook, but I couldn't tell you what she was doing now that's she's finished art school. Partly this is my own fault, we don't have a lot in common anymore and we live quite far away now, but I've made little effort to keep in touch or arrange anything.
Anyway, her sister, who was 8 or 9 when we met, is turning 21, and it's weird, watching someone you've seen grow up, someone who became a friend and a spare little sister (I have a real one, we don't really get along) become an adult. I adore this girl, she's sweet and funny, and she went to the same uni as me, which is random and cool at the same time. She graduates this summer. Happy Birthday Steph.

Music, oh, music!!

Just a little list of the music I've been listening to recently:

Wakey! Wakey! ~ The War Sweater EP & Almost Everything I Wish I'd Said The Last Time I Saw You

Rebekka Karijord ~ The Noble Art Of Letting Go

Glee Soundtracks

Regina Spektor ~ Begin To Hope (it's my favourite one of her albums)

Matt Nathanson ~ Beneath These Fireworks

Augustana ~ Can't Love, Can't Hurt

Ryan Adams ~ Gold

Yeah Yeah Yeahs ~ Fever To Tell

Butch Walker ~ Letters/The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and the Let's-Go-Out-Tonites

Los Campesinos! ~ Romance is Boring

The Beach Boys ~ The Very Best of The Beach Boys

Nina Simone ~ The Very Best of Nina Simone

Amanda Palmer ~ Who Killed Amanda Palmer

Wicked Soundtrack

Let's hear it for eclectisism!!

Watching the world

I just watched a really good film, Caramel, set in Beirut, filmed in French and Arabic, meaning I was really glad there were subtitles! It's set in a beauty salon staffed by 4 very different women, telling the stories of their lives and friendship. It's a sweet little film, better than some of the chick flicks around today.
I've got quite into foreign language films recently, two of my favourite films are Amelie and Paris Je'taime, both in French, which is a language I want to learn. Mostly I'm dependent on subtitles, which is annoying, or in the case of my Studio Ghibli films, dubbed versions. In my 'to watch' pile there is Coco Avant Chanel, Pan's Labyrinth, Persepolis and The Castle of Castaglio, so that means a lot more subtitles for me!
At the cinema I quite want to see Mic Macs, by Amelie's director, but it's not on at my local multiplex, I'll have to find a cinema further afield that's showing it. There's a lot of cinema that's not in the Hollywood mould, and it's a shame a lot of it is hard to find at the big cinemas, we're missing out.
When talking about foreign language films (or more accurately films not in English) a lot of people point to last year's triumphant Slumdog Millionaire, which whil filmed in Mumbai and partly in Hindi, is not exactly one of these films. The main actor, Dev Patel, grew up in my home town, and most of the film is in English. It's director and much of the crew are Brits too. Yes, some of the actors were Bollywood stars and local children, and it was based on a novel by and Indian writer, it's a bilingual collaberation at most.
It's a shame that there aren't more films, shot in other languages doing as well as Slumdog did, and getting the audience figures too. I liked Slumdog, it was a happy-go-lucky, fairytale with a dark side, with a great closing musical number that puts a smile on people's faces. But so are a lot of other films, and where are they? Relegated to small, independent cinemas mostly, and not seen by nearly enough people to make a difference. So let's hear it for world cinema, and opening it up to more people.

It's been one of those weeks...

I was going to write a post all about how Spring seems to have arrived, but since it's been wet and wretched all day I don't feel like it, if the sun shines through tomorrow maybe I'll feel more seasonal.

Instead I'm going to write about phobias. More specifically mine of spiders. Ewwww. Something about their scuttly 8 legged creepiness really makes my skin crawl. Apparently it's a remnant from an evolutionary ancestor, a fear meant to keep us safe from a time when spiders were more of a threat, if you live somewhere like Australia with it's poisonous varieties I guess they still are. However my bedroom does not need spiders. Ever. The flies they keep down are outside not anywhere near where I sleep. Fact. I cannot sleep when there's one in the room. And there's one under my bed right now. It ran along my desk, fell onto my bed and down the side. I've attacked where it might be with the vacuum cleaner and hopefully it's either had a heart attack and died or been eaten by the Henry. I will check before I go to bed, if I see it, it goes.

Enough ranting about spinnen (German for spider and highly appropriate).

This weekend I will be filling in my application for uni, time to get back to studenthood, and possibly seeing a friend (the not particularly reliable A I previously wrote about). Anyway, have a good weekend. Next time I should be posting some photos of Spring things and some other bits and bobs.

The Noble Art of Letting Go - Rebekka Karijord

This is a really beautiful song. It's sad but also rather lovely.