A Little Smog and a damn good Blog!

 From my unpenetrable Lair of Quirk, I write to you as one woman with her hat off. I have removed my hat, in this case a flat cap, and have it eschewed against my jumper like a Victorian chimney sweep when Sir Jollington VI walks past. A single tear has left a white track down my blackened young chimney-sweeping face as I think in my head, 'Bravo, London, bravo'. Because, fellows, I have just returned two days ago from the social highlight of my 2013 so far. Not that there has been much competition. But oh, the ball I have had! :D

The scene was set for a good time, with a very jolly and thorough Heathrow delay. After struggling to land for upwards of 20 minutes, we were told upon landing that our steps were broken and we had to stay onboard. For an indefinite time. That was a barrel of laughs. Once I entered the airport, I made my way to the underground station. My dear pal Hannah was coming from the opposite end of Heathrow so I set out to wait. Unfortunately a ridiculous amount of delays happened her end so I was hovering like a lurking lurker for over an hour. Luckily, my 'puppy dog playing a game' face encouraged other arriving tourists to seek my advice about my 'native town' of London. I guess standing next to the arrivals board was a bad idea, I was tempted to hip jut and gesture at it and say 'I know how to commute, ask me how!' Still, I like to think I was able to help the Spanish ladies make the local phone call. And my fizzing coke bottle provided some lively entertainment for a French school group.

Stay at Premiere Inn. They match beds to your PJs.

Eventually Hannah made it, and by chance we had both been looking for each other and opposite ends so turned at the same time and saw each other, while some clanging 80s saxophone chimed. Reunited (phew!) Crannah made their way to the underground and began their journey.

As a tube pro, it was a stress free commute to our delightful Stratford Premiere Inn, with a view of the Olympic Park. We used a self- service check in machine (SELF- SERVICE!!! It printed out our room keys and everything!!) and made our way to the lifts, me jigging with glee for the chance to exploit a hotel room, declaring "This is one of the true pleasures of my life!"

It was delightfully clean and well-laid out and I did the following testing.
1. Bed bounce test
2. Free biscuit check (none :( )
3. Free coffee check (two sachets!)
4. Travel kettle (yes!)
5. Bathroom products (Foamburst shower gel dispenser- score!)
6. TV working (Freeview channels)
7. View (car park and edge of Olympic stadium, and sometimes a lardy builder looking back at me)
8. Trouser press (none)
9. Spare stuff (two pillows, lots of towels.)
10. Reading room service/restaraunt menu (Burgers? Burgers in a meal deal? BURGERS!)
11. The Miranda two moves to kettle from bed dance (Successful in one teddy bear roll and a finger press)

Everything to my satisfaction, we decided to head on down for some dinner. Burgers and (triple-fried) chips- yummy! Summer fruit and jelly sundae for dessert- jolly roger! Returning to our room, we watched almost the entirety of comic relief in our PJs. Well, until David Tennant was trying to guilt trip us and we reached an angry limit!

Saturday morning: the reason we were there. Day One of the Country2Country festival in the 02- that's right, the U.Ks first ever Country Music festival. Stopping for a croissant and coffee breakfast and a Pizza Express lunch (my pizza- gorgonzola and leek- had an ACTUAL HOLE in the middle stuffed full of salad- two meals in one!) we made our way to the arena for an all day American country town explore and music revelation.

Us and a Pilgrim Choice cowboy

The Pilgrim Choice cheddar cowboys were about.So, of course, we had to get our picture taken with him. And we also posed in a photo booth wearing cowboy hats for the chance of winning a month's supply of cheese. Obviously. With a quirky start, we explored the cowboy boot, gingham and hat stalls, and the dozens of international food stalls. Enjoying an incredibly MOIST piece of coconut blondie, we anticipated our actual concert.

It was amazing. We found people like us, of all imaginable generations, crazy for country, wacky for western! As a testament to this: queue back to tube, mass crowds singing along to 'Jolene' and middle aged and elderly women and men wearing cowboy hats and spangly boots.

Festival main stage

The actual acts were all amazing. The atmosphere was intense with anticipation and joy and disbelief for what was actually happening. Actual violins and banjos getting played on a live stage, people rocking out on guitars and singing with their souls. We were satisfied campers.

The next morning, Sunday, we woke up to another day of delights to be had. We made our way into the Westfield centre for dinner and had a sudden filling of dread. Were all the shops shut until 12?? Could we not get any breakfast? But alas we went to a crepery and had a crepe and coffee for a few pounds. I had a Canadian crepe- my first ever real taste of bacon and syrup combined. I think, after all, I could easily be Canadian! I also learnt an important lesson: Macchiatto is actually just a really small coffee. Gutted.

Me in Zizzi with my beer

We headed towards London Bridge for some sight seeing: we stopped for a frolic around the Globe theatre, some superb river views, a look at HMS Belfast, which was reverberating with Irish music to celebrate St. Patrick's day, and eventually we managed to find the bridge, though it took a surprising effort! We had lunch in the GORGEOUS Italian restaraunt Zizii- why do we not have it in N.I?? Gorging ourselves on delicious garlic bread with cheese and balsamic onions and a delicious lasagne/chicken, red pepper and goat's cheese pizza, I ordered a beer and was told 'Excellent choice!' It was bliss eating yummy food and watching the river flow past us. That sounds so metaphorical!

An obviously drunk man got on a tube and said "I just need a few pounds so I can get off the streets, guys." We ignored him. We are soooo London!

Heading back to the O2 arena, we stopped for another coffee break in Costa and enjoyed the build up to the next stage of the festival. Now on good speaking terms with the couple next to us who had been there the previous evening, we had a nice chat and awaited our wonderful acts. As a personal show highlight: we saw LeAnn Rimes performing on stage and fulfilled a childhood dream since Coyote Ugly came out in 2000, we got to sing along with 'Can't Fight the Moonlight'. Dreams can come true! LeAnn nearly cried, and we did too. In other news, Brantley Gilbert was delectably good at being both Metal and Country. Carrie Underwood is apparently a performer that triggers multiple girl fights if the number of women being escorted out from the stadium is anything to go by. And Hootie and the Blowfish's own Hootie, Darius Rucker, is an awesome dancer and got us all singing along to 'Family Tradition' by Hank Williams Jr., country royalty himself!

With the festival over there was a sense of sadness but also a real sense of gladness for having gone to it. It's definitely back next year and we can't wait! It was awesomely good.

Monday morning, we packed our bags and checked out, heading into the centre for some more sight seeing. We hit all the main sights, though Buckingham Palace disappeared off the map while we were looking for it, so we didn't make it there! Our dream of becoming Mary Kate and Ashley in 'Winning London' will have to wait until next year, when we've acquired colour lensed sunglasses and tartan trousers.

We went for lunch to a Chinese all you can eat buffet, where the food was nice, but they hid us in a creepy backroom, forced us to drink fizzy water and shouted at us until we paid them extra. Such fun!

Goodbye until next year, London!

We went to King's cross to get our picture at Platform 9 and three quarters, but discovered a line of tourists paying to have their picture and decided that, surprisingly, we were actually too cool for something. Heading back to Heathrow early, there's nothing like an hour and a half squeezed onto a tube where the driver keeps repeating 'We do not have a final destination for this tube yet.' to get you in the mood for going back home.

I give my trip to London a 9 and a half out of 10- only thing that would have made it better would be if Carrie Underwood's promised 'very special guest' had bothered to show up and had bothered to be Brad Paisley.

In other news, last night I fell asleep and weird stuff happened. You've heard of sleep walking? Of sleep talking? I take things to a whole new level of cray-cray. As a child, I woke up multiple times at exactly 12AM to be sick, one time I worried so much about taking a plaster off the next morning that I woke up and it had disappeared, never to be seen again, and last night: for a couple of months, one of my teddy bears has been missing, leaving me just two in my bed. This morning, I woke up and the third bear was back!!!! How??? Why??? Amazing! So, apparently adult sleep walking is a sign of mental instability/psychological problems.

I actually find myself filled with dread as to what sleep Jeremy-Kyling means...

“Let me live, love and say it well in good sentences.”

Hey there, old (only as old as you feel) friends! 

This Saturday I found myself reading 'The Bell Jar'. Reading 'The Bell Jar' and eating cake. I can tell you are all thinking 'Oh no, it's one of THOSE posts.'

 It's not.

I actually had a jolly sort of day and it provided some sort of comfort for my current apres-education predicament.

The character in the novel, Esther, is an English graduate who can't get a job. An English graduate who likes writing and has based her years of education on being commended for a good job, for being creative. Of course, Esther goes one further by ending up in an asylum, and I don't think I'm quite teetering so close to the edge of a break down (though some mornings when the air is rife with the stench of rejection letters, I find myself Patrick Bateman laughing and Chris Brander face pulling), but the general sudden realisation of I don't know' when asked what you're doing after college is certainly familiar. ( “What do you have in mind after you graduate?'
'I don't really know,' I heard myself say. I felt a deep shock, hearing myself say
that, because the minute I said it, I knew it was true.”)

Not much has changed since the 50s/60s: “I didn't know shorthand either.

This meant I couldn't get a good job after college. My mother kept telling me nobody wanted a plain English major. But an English major who knew shorthand would be something else again. Everybody would want her. She would be in demand among all the up-and-coming young men and she would transcribe letter after thrilling letter.

The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters.”

It all seems to be about who has the most additional skills they can contribute to a job. And with every Tom, Dick and Harry constantly bettering themselves, it becomes a bit of a challenge. I lived abroad so I could improve my German. Additional language: check.
I got relevant experience in several different mediums of writing: check.
I have a range of interests and, let's face it, a rather amazing personality.
But it doesn't seem to be enough.

I was recently talking to my friend in the U.S, and she said something that has really stuck with me. "I feel as if my life has slowed down considerably in the last few months, and I'm trying everything I can to speed it back up." And this is something worryingly familiar to a whole generation of 18-25 year olds at the minute. Very few of my friends who have jobs are doing jobs they imagined they'd be doing, or that have any long term prospect of increased prosperity. Those of us unemployed hear of wonderful statistics such as our universities having a 95% after education employment rate and we can't help but laugh at our incredible good fortune to be the minority. A vast number have gone on to further education as a chance to get ahead,, but for those of us with no funds and no chance of affording the fees, even with scholarships, there is a bleak sense of no possibility whatsoever.

It's a strange place to be in, this no-man's land, and I find myself increasing losing my capacity to think. I'm slower at doing the Times crossword, I haven't been reading enough, I feel like the best sentence I can form sometimes is 'Me like cookies!' and there's a sort of silence that descends on me when I don't find any jobs to apply to and when I don't know what to do with myself.

Meanwhile, I had to Sign On a few weeks ago, but so far all I've received is four trips to the centre, a patronising talk about how to make a CV, several accusations of being foreign and zero money whatsoever...so it begins to feel like all I'm doing is spending a few hours questioning my own person and my own abilities just for the fun of it, with no compensation for my time.



We were promised a lot more by the older generations for our early 20s- this is supposed to be the time we truly become ourselves, with the people we are destined to love, and live in the places we are meant to be and that we've always dreamed of. 

I've prepared a film referencing system. Here we were: fresh faced youth ready for our next big adventure, straight off the graduate train of success and exam completion.

Pretty happy, eh?

After a few months of being minimum wage workers, or unemployed, or emotionally ravaged by the pressing loneliness of suddenly being without your closest friends indefinitely, we somewhat more resemble these poor guys:

"You got a little Chow?"

"OHMYGAAAWD!"

"Yeah, yeah, you...
you make my dreams come true!

IRONY!





So, I guess my point is: if anybody's got a way to turbo charge these years back into the good times they are meant to be, please go right ahead!

In other news, I'm going to see a comedy show with my mum at the weekend....but we're sitting in rows C +Q...so really it's going to be like going to a comedy show on my own! Which is the emotional equivalent of listening to Saint Saens 'The Swan' while doing a sad Mime Artist routine which involves (real) Ugly Crying silently while an audience breathily salivates over popcorn and smelly nachos.

Good times!