Pocketbooks/Loves tour and Mark and Ruth’s wedding
Cold northern towns including smelly Hull where I nearly got my suitcase pinched, drinking Ladyboys, dancing with Simon Loves to Girls Aloud and Em to Bananarama, bus-themed bars and long-forgotten nightclubs. At the wedding, conga-ing to Pocketbooks, a beautiful bride and church, smashing pinatas and looking up at the brightest stars ever.
America!
Two-week whirlwind trip through Washington, New York and Boston with the biggest skyscrapers, statues and breakfasts I’ve ever seen, hearing my niece speak with an American accent, iconic streets and buildings, beautiful parks, famous movie spots and, right at the end, Michael Jackson songs playing in every shop.
Indietracks
Constantly running across muddy fields looking for bands, Stuart and keys, dancing under the night sky to La Casa Azul, dressing up in hats with Simon Love, peeping in on Sean Fortuna Pop setting fire to money during his record label masterclass and nearly killing myself laughing, glowing with joy after seeing smiles on the face of everyone I met.
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I didn’t move house, get a new job or do any of the other things people say are “defining” moments, but I certainly kept busy this year. Other fun stuff included my first ever family holiday with Andy, my brother and sister-in-law and their children and my parents. I also visited Berlin, had a very ping-pong heavy weekend in Eastbourne, tried oysters for the first time in Whitstable on my birthday and showed Andy the delights of rural Shropshire at the end of the summer.
If I’ve learned anything from this year - joint ventures with friends and trips away are a bloody brilliant way to pass the time. More in 2010 please!
I’ve really enjoyed reading some other peoples’ end-of-the-decade blogs recently, particularly Jude Rogers’ 50 songs, Ten Years – which is ruddy brilliant. In the blog, she lists 50 songs which evoke memories of specific times in her life over the last decade. Some of the posts don’t even talk about the song at all - the music serves simply to spark the description of a relationship, a fun time that she had or even just a half-remembered conversation.
Not only has she managed to portray a very vivid visual image of her 21 to 31-year-old self (along with a choice soundtrack), but I reckon her blog is essentially the way most people remember their life. Snippets of songs, half-heard conversations, old photographs, familiar smells and the look in someone’s eye. She’s not tried to put her memories in any kind of chronological order, and the result is far more powerful than any meticulous diary could achieve. I like the way that you’re forced to put the jigsaw pieces of her life together, if you want to know the order in which events happened. Jumbled-up jigsaw pieces is exactly how memories work.
I’d love to write something like that, and maybe at some point I will, but in the meantime all I have is a basic list of things lost and found/achieved and messed up/ experienced over the last decade. It’s just a bald statement of fact – it doesn’t pretend to come close to describing everything that has happened, the music I was listening to, or how I felt at the time. But it will just have to do for now.
OK, here goes. In the past decade I have:
* Lived in Stoke, Cambridge and Shropshire before finally settling in London, where I’ve lived in…
* ….Tooting, Kentish Town, Highgate, Belsize Park and Kilburn.
* Experienced the death of my nan, uncle and aunty.
* Discovered more new friends and bands than I’m able to mention.
* Met or interviewed a number of musical heroes including Dave Gedge, John Peel, Darren Hayman and Euros Childs.
* Spilt up with two boyfriends and found a new one.
* Watched my brother get married and have two children.
* Had four different full-time jobs and two part-time jobs. The worst of these was a waitress, the best of these is probably the job I have now.
* Reported on some really traumatic murder/accidental death stories, which still haunt me to this day.
* Lost and rebuilt a relationship with my dad and step-mum.
* Gone to Glastonbury twice.
* Gained a degree in English.
* Qualified as a journalist, as well as accumulating some other jobbie-type qualifications.
* Forgotten and re-learned how to play the violin, which has led on to….
* …leaving one orchestra and joining another.
* Helped to run a music festival with my friends.
* Visited America, Spain, Italy, Turkey, the Canary Islands, Sweden, Ireland, Holland, Germany and the Czech Republic.
Like I say, these are just bald facts. When I look back on this list, I wish I could say that I’d raised X amount of money for charity, or that I’d learned a new instrument or language, or achieved lots of other things that I only ever think about to myself.
I’m not going to worry though. My next blog will be a round-up of this year, and 2009 has just been the culmination of three consecutively brilliant years. How can I not feel optimistic about the Tennies, or whatever we’re supposed to be calling them now?
I’m still writing my end-of-year-summing-up post, but it’s hard to find the time when work is so busy. I’ve got exactly seven working days in the office to get everything finished – publications to send to print, podcasts to upload, reports to write – the list is seemingly neverending. And that’s on top of three more Christmas parties, two Secret Santas, one orchestra rehearsal and countless family gifts still to buy. I’m becoming one of those boring people who only ever talks about how busy they are.
I haven’t even had that much time to apply for jobs, the one thing I really want to do. I think it will just have to wait until January now. All I know is I can’t wait for 6pm on December 22, when I’m switching the “off” button on my work laptop and rebooting myself into holiday mode. Even though we’ll be driving across the country like maniacs for most of it, it will be so lovely to only have to worry about eating too much and which Christmas telly specials to watch. Ooh, and plan where to go on holiday next year, of course!
It looks like we’re off to Paris for my birthday, which I’m incredibly excited about, but I’ve also got a real hankering to visit Japan or Iceland.
I’m not saying my life is anywhere near as busy as full-thrust 24-hour Tokyo or even late-night downtown Reykjavik, but the thought of those intricately designed Japanese gardens or the haphazardly stunning glaciers are the only things right now that fill me with instant calm.
I flippin’ love the run-up to Christmas. I haven’t got that Christmassy feeling just yet, but I’m definitely working on it. To help things along, here are a few of my favourite things about this time of year, in no particular order:
- Christmas songs/compilations both old and new (I’m particularly looking forward to this compilation this year)
- Secret Santa gift-giving
- Oxford Street Christmas lights
- Spotting which neighbours have put their decorations up early
- Midnight Mass
- Christmas adverts on telly
- That Mariah Carey song (even if it is used on DFS adverts these days)
- Christmas soap storyline-showdowns
- Becoming suddenly able to use the phrases “Winter Warmer” and “Turkey and Tinsel” in a non-ironic way
- Christmas “specials” on telly of any sort, although I do wish the Top of the Pops Christmas special still existed
- The urge to bake Christmassy food like cake and big sides of ham (NB I have never baked a side of ham in my life)
- The smell of real Christmas trees
- All the “Christmas chaos” travel stories in the papers, even though they’re usually grossly exaggerated. I just like the idea of lots of people pilgrimaging across the country to visit their friends and families
- Mulled wine
- German Christmas markets
- Posh mince pies
I could go on…..
Bah. Is it still really only November?
Riding the tube home last night, after a slightly bizarre festival networking evening spent worrying about all the people I wasn’t talking to, I finally figured something out – I’ve got Worryitis.
I’m genuinely not happy unless I’m worrying about something. And this isn’t one or two niggly things at the back of your mind, like an unpaid bill or the date of the last post for Christmas, this is deep down, all encompassing worry, with layers as complex and rich as a particularly opulent fruit cake. (There’s a bad joke in there somewhere).
First off there’s the icing encrusted top layer of worry, the layer that remains lifeless on the plate, solid and inpenetrable regardless of what happens to the rest of the cake. This is the layer of everyday worries. You know, the worries about not being kind/thin/sociable/pretty/successful/clever/charitable enough - the common daily insecurities that most of us face at one time or another.
Then there’s the next fruity, juicy layer of slightly longer-term worries like: What will happen with my relationship? When will I finally find a job I really enjoy? Will I even ever get a better job? Where will I live? Will my friends be OK? The list is endless, and none of the top or middle-layer worries are mutually exclusive. Sometimes an everyday worry can evolve into a lingering medium-term worry without you even realising it. Turn your back just for one second and they multiply, like some kind of malevolent worry-virus.
And, of course, at the base of this great big worry cake is the biggies, the things that I’d probably spend a lot more time worrying about if I didn’t have a full-time job. And, to be fair, the concerns that actually deserve more of my worry-time. Things like terrorism, our foreign policy in Iraq, freakish weather and the threat of global warming, that sort of thing.
I know for a FACT that I’ve inherited the Worryitis gene from my mum. She could have given me her excellent eyesight, or my dad’s skinny legs, but no, I’ve been palmed off with the Worry gene. My mum worries about everything. You name it, she’s worried about it. Late buses, meal preparation, television plotlines – she’s covered them all. If there was something that hadn’t been worried about it, and didn’t want to be worried about thankyouverymuch, she’d hunt it down and make it be worried about.
Of course, none of this worrying is productive. Apparently, research has shown that worriers are the least effective people of all. All worrying does is prevent you from doing anything useful, which is going to solve precisely zero of the problems you were worrying about in the first place.
This is why Facebook, Twitter et al are just so bloody bad for us worriers. Not only does it stop everyone from actually doing any real work, it also specifically caters to the worries about forgetting someone’s birthday, or missing out on something important. Just trying to relax about it, and maybe even shutting down your account, just leads to more worry about missing messages and gig invites. And, as everybody knows, any effort to consciously try and not worry too much, just leads to more worry about not worrying enough.
I think I need a holiday.
Have just re-read the hormonal wobble that was my last post. Crikey, I sound depressed! I’m not, honestly. I’ve just…..adjusted my expectations about certain things and people, that’s all. Having said that, I spend a lot of my time alone at the moment, so maybe I’m just thinking too much, as usual.
This week I did two ace things though. First off, I met my all-time musical hero Euros Childs at Camden Roundhouse on Sunday, shortly after he’d performed a fantastic support slot for Yo La Tengo. And when I say “got to meet”, I actually mean that I spent about 15 minutes nervously hanging about the merchandise stand, bought a record that I already own and then waited like a right fangirl until I espied an opportunity to talk to him. And ask him to sign my CD. And have my photograph taken with him. Ahem.
He was so lovely, and I got so over-excited, that I broke my self-imposed rule and wrote to him afterwards to ask for an interview for Whisper Mag. I stopped short of asking him to play Indietracks though – I’ll save that for the first official Team Indietracks AGM next week!
Aside from Darren Hayman, he’s probably the only solo musician (who releases new records) that I’ve listened to regularly since I was 16. In contrast, I went to see Ash play at the Corrib Rest pub (aka the Spaced pub) in Queens Park as part of their A-Z tour and although they played a pretty good set, the whole evening just felt a little sad and desperate. Everyone looked too old to put any real effort into dancing, and even the token moshpit towards the end was a trifle subdued. They’re another band that I used to like when I was 16, but they just haven’t aged as well - probably because they’re still weighted under the load of expectation, I guess. They genuinely did achieve worldwide success, whereas Gorky’s (Euros’s old band) still hold the legendary record of releasing the most number of singles to reach the top 75 but not the top 40. It was still good to see them though, if only to enjoy the novelty of seeing a pretty famous band play in my local.
Anyway, it’s been that kind of week - relics from the past cropping up in the present. My ex-boyfriend has been in touch and is happy and well, which I’m pleased about; I think I’ll love Euros Childs til the day I die and I even managed to patch things up with my family last weekend too, resolving a disagreement that was firmly rooted in the past and which I thought would never go away. Loose ends continue to get tied up, but I still feel like I’m just waiting to see what happens next.
I’ve not posted on here for a couple of weeks now. I think it’s been due to a combination of reasons – work and socialising mainly, but also I’ve had a nagging sense of inertia.
I can’t explain it, but right now life feels as though it could so easily be tipped in the balance for me – work, home, family, everything. Like six months down the line each of these things could be radically different to how they are now – and not all necessarily in a good way. I’m not making a lot of sense, am I? Let me try to explain.
Maybe it’s something to do with the likely impending change in government. There’s a really strange feeling at work at the moment, and everyone’s talking about the election in May although it’s a foregone conclusion. Apparently, in the civil service, people are already being sent on training courses to prepare them for a Tory government. In my little team, where no-one really knows which government department should be funding us anyway, we’re all trying to stay positive and do the best work that we can. Yet I can’t be the only one thinking that ultimately it could all be futile, that we could be disbanded in June, and that all the work will have been for nothing.
As a result, I’m looking for jobs, but I feel torn in about a hundred different directions. The credit crunch is driving me to look for stable jobs such as the civil service, whilst the prospect of working under the Conservatives scares me. It sounds cheesy, but I just want a job which I enjoy, and where I feel like I’m actually contributing in a positive way to society. I’ve started looking for jobs in charities, but there doesn’t seem to be much around at the moment. I guess I’ll just have to keep looking.
With my dysfunctional step-family, things have always been messed up, and they always will be. I’m grateful for those family members who I like and who are normal, and the rest of them can sort themselves out. But just lately it’s felt as though matters are coming to a head with them. I’m hoping it’s in a positive way, and will do everything that I can to make sure that it is, but who knows? I don’t really want to talk too much about my personal life on here, but all the nice things I presumed might happen, or even took for granted a little, just don’t look likely to me anymore. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that sometimes stuff just doesn’t work, no matter how hard you try to fix it.
But, having said all this, I think some fantastic things are going to happen for the people I care most about in the world, and I’m really pleased about that. I think they’ve got some brilliant opportunities ahead of them, and I’m determined to be inspired by their hard work! What I really want to do is to come back on this blog in six months’ time, and to be able to write about all the great things that have happened, or which I have made happen. Let’s see. One thing I do know is that I’m not just going to sit here and do nothing.
Right – whinging session over! I’m off to see Ash next week on their bizarre A-Z nostalgia tour – now that’s something to laugh about.
When I started this blog, I said that I would also post up some of my music writing, so here are the links to two New Band of the Week pieces about Standard Fare and The Drums for Whisper Mag. The Standard Fare article was quite heavily sub-edited because it was too long, so apologies if it doesn’t read particularly well!
I feel like that Style Council song My Ever Changing Moods at the moment. I don’t know if it’s the new moon or the after-effects of flu, but I seem to be experiencing a million different micro-moods per minute, culminating in feeling ridiculously over-sensitive to absolutely everything .
The only thing I can be sure of anymore is my underlying internet addiction, which shows no sign of abating. I have tried to be less internet obsessed, but it just makes things worse. As a sort of experiment, I deleted my Twitter account and then restored it after six days. It didn’t bring me one single benefit – it just meant that I had six days of tweets to catch up on. More worryingly, they’d also kept all my account information, so it was as if I’d never been away. Clearly there’s a lot of half-hearted quitters like me out there.
Still, a friend recently pointed me in the direction of this ace Caitlin Moran article in The Times, and suddenly I don’t feel quite so bad about being unable to finish an e-mail without checking my Facebook/Twitter/e-mail/whatever. I’ve loved Caitlin Moran ever since she interviewed loads of famous Britpoppers on obscure 90s’ Channel 4 programme Naked City. She’s one of those groovy child geniuses like Julie Burchill, terminally hip since they were in nappies and so talented it makes you want to throw up.
Anyway, I’ve decided not to worry about it anymore. If the internet’s good enough for Caitlin, it’s good enough for me.
Apparently 36 new planets have just been discovered - did you know that? I can’t begin to imagine how those scientists must be feeling right now, but they’re not the only ones having a good week. Since Sunday I’ve been mainly daydreaming, turning imaginary cartwheels in my head and beaming at everyone I say hello to. It’s amazing to feel free of flu. I have tons of energy, there’s no more weird body aches and for once I’m in sleep credit. It’s just so ACE to leave the flat and be out and about. Even going into work cheered me up! I know…mad, eh?
The real reason for all this excitement though, is that next month Pocketbooks are supporting God Help the Girl at the 100 Club. In fact, it’s all just too exciting for words really, so I won’t ramble on too much. Suffice to say that since I heard the news, I haven’t been able to think about much else. It’s not even my exciting news, and yet I’m over-the-top happy about it all. It’s because I’m just so flippin’ pleased for them, and proud as well – they really deserve it. If I’m in this state, goodness knows how they feel!
A bit like those scientists, I bet.
Wow, the power of the tinterweb. Since yesterday, the storm kicked up over Jan Moir’s article (started on Facebook by a friend of a friend) spread to Twitter, where Derren Brown and Stephen Fry urged everyone to complain to the Press Complaints Commission. Charlie Brooker and Roy Greenslade wrote articles in the Guardian, the BBC reported on it and Jan Moir herself was eventually forced to issue an “apology” of sorts. Marks and Spencers withdrew their advertising from the website (well, that particular page, at least) and a host of other companies followed suit.
Gosh, all that from just one Facebook group! Could the same kind of thing be used to bring about other, bigger changes? Everything that happened with the Jan Moir story yesterday was related to the online world, where things are easily changed, edited and moved around.
Hmmm, I wonder…
