EasyJetsetter

I think we should see other people

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 22:27:36 +0000

I'm not sure how to tell you this. I've just moved on in my life. I'm not sure that I want to spend my evenings with you any more. Now that I have this new job, I feel distant from you. I know I've not been as attentive recently as I could have been, and frankly, you deserve better.

For all that I love to write and still think the intarweb is the dogs bollocks, I think that when I started blogging, it was because I was lonely and uncertain about where things were going, and I was trying to keep a connection with the things and people that I loved back in the States, in lieu of really liking the idea of Europe at all.

In Paris, I've found a city I love and a group of friends I love. In London, I'm not enamoured of the city or the social scene, but I love my job. When something comes into my head these days, the man I love is on the other end of the phone to share it with.

I've recently been promoted and suddenly have a responsibility to my organisation that an intern, even a paid one, doesn't.

I hope we can still be friends, and I may pop in from time to time to check you're doing ok, but something that was missing, which this place provided, isn't missing any more.

And, you know, there are plenty more fish in the sea. There are better, certainly more frequent, writers than me out there. Some of them are linked to the right.

All of this is a long way of saying: it's not you, it's me.

Things a girl doesn't want to hear

Mon, 8 May 2006 17:38:01 +0000

A text, received at 3:30 pm:
After reading guardian have decided that you are, in fact, kirstie allsopp.

So I go and read the article about her in G2, and two things stand out. One, she is pregnant. Two, she says "I'm quite like mercury. I'm unstable"

So I send an email.
Either, you fancy Kirstie Allsopp, or you think I look like her. Neither is good.

An email returns.
Well you both have black hair and if you were wearing name tags it would be easy to misread them I suppose.

I reply
She's pregnant. Are you saying I look pregnant?

The answer:
Nothing more than the first trimester at most

Git.

(In his defence, he did point out that it was more her turn of phrase and peremptory dismissal of all claims of poshness despite being patently very posh)

Free and fair?

Wed, 3 May 2006 08:30:42 +0000

Birmingham's council polls were marred by fraud in 2004. An elections judge said the evidence he heard would "disgrace a banana republic."

Last week, council leader Mike Whitby asked for a police presence at polling stations.

He said it would ensure the city's elections were "free, fair and clear of any illegal or corrupt practices".

I dunno about you, but I would classify police presence at polling booths even more of a banana republic thing....

Ways in which I am becoming scarily like my mother

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 17:33:11 +0000

I drink a glass of wine most nights. It's mostly to keep flatmate Jack company with his port, but still. Most nights.

I ignore best before dates. It is only a matter of time before I start groping in the bin for items other people have discarded because there's a bit of mould on it ("if you cut it off it's perfectly all right dear")

I swim breaststroke really slowly with my head held above water. My excuse is that I never learned how to breathe properly while swimming. Her's is her hair.

When about to leave a place, I dither around and call it good sense. When someone else is dithering, I call it faffing. This pisses off the someone else.

I regularly use the phrase "I'm not paying Â£2.50 for a packaged sandwich!" and take bags of nuts and raisins and fruit on long journeys.

I apologise for using ready-made food items. To give the impression that I regularly make it from scratch.

I impart too much information to complete strangers. Example: when evil sister appeared in the papers yesterday as 'a tory worker' and a coworker commented that she looked nothing like me, I said "Oh, she's the pretty one, all tall and skinny because my mother smoked when she was pregnant with me to avoid having another big baby like her."

Open plan offices are not the place to make such revelations. There was a brief moment of silence.

Wouldn't it be nice?

Thu, 9 Feb 2006 16:39:22 +0000

Via Bruce Nussbaum on Design at Davos

I had my first glass of Margaux 79. And my second. Made me dream of becoming a wealthy high tech entrepreneur.

Sigh.

The wonders of google

Fri, 3 Feb 2006 17:46:13 +0000

So, imagine that you've been asked to find out the overseas earnings of the architecture industry. Who you gonna call? Not the ghostbusters, but the next best thing, google.

However, thanks to the way that information is presented in google, on your way to the information you really need you will come across other interesting (and other uninteresting) facts.

For example, British television makes Â£1 billion annually in overseas earnings. British music generates a surplus of Â£435 million. The steel sector Â£570 million.

Unsurprisingly, financial services generate Â£13.2 billion, while the craft industry manages a surprisingly large (for them) Â£43 million. Astonishingly, maritime services total Â£2.2 billion!

Then you discover a document about the East Midlands, in which they quote the figure for the east midlands architectural sector's overseas earnings totalling Â£68 million, and joy of joys, there is a reference, to a national architecture market review. It sure was fun getting there, wasn't it?

Pillow Talk

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:23:28 +0000

"You're hogging the duvet"
"It's made for midgets"
"The length is fine, it's the fact that my right arm and side is freezing that I'm worried about"
"Yes, well, you're one of them"
"One of what?"
"The midgets. It's only fair that since you get more of your legs covered you should also get less of your arms covered."
"What utter bollocks."
"It's to each according to his needs. I'm bigger, so I get more duvet"
"The duvet is an equal human right. Fair division between all persons"
"That's socialism that is. You hate socialists"
"Right, fine, capitalist version: I've earned my half of the duvet"
"Free-market economy: competition between firms and survival of the fittest"
(At this point, I am pushed out of bed entirely)
"That's a monopoly that is!"
"How tall are you? In cms"
"160. What about it? Apart from the fact that you're disgustingly tall"
"Hmm, 187.5/160. I get 58% of the duvet"
"That's bollocks"
"I need more, comrade"
"No, because the duvet length isn't altered by how much you share the width of it with someone. Surely you need at least your leg length of duvet no matter whether you give me 58% or yourself 58%. Using height is useless. Width is much more useful"
"We could do it by weight then"
"Now, bearing in mind that I'm fatter than you, and that I have more volume, albeit in my short frame, I have a larger circumference to be covered by the widthwise dimensions of the duvet than you do. bearing in mind that an arc of the circumference will be at any one time on the bed and not needing covered."
"You weight ten stone, I weigh 12 and a half (but I'm on a diet)...."
"At my widest point, my hips, I am 40 inches in circumference, assuming that a third of me is on the bed at any given time that means I need at least 27 inches of duvet. And that is not counting arms which are perhaps one third of their circumference on the bed and one third against my body (assuming they are by my sides)"
"Yes, but you have wee, stumpy arms (he said gentlemanly)"
"I'm talking about circumference, girth"
"You have to decide, weight or height?"
"Sorry, circumference is what matters in terms of distributing the linear width of duvet, and I need a MINIMUM of 35 inches of duvet to cover what is not against the bed. 35 inches of duvet will meet my basic needs."
"If you have 35 inches of duvet, can I have 58%?"
"If we ever have a duvet over 83 inches wide, yes"
"That's all I was saying, I wanted my 58%"