tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48395806951716142612024-02-12T14:37:31.765+00:00Why Miss Jones...…without your glasses you'd probably have been run overMiss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.comBlogger441125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-86621804509038321982015-11-29T00:56:00.000+00:002015-11-29T01:03:43.527+00:00WLTMSome weeks ago, I was on a train leaving Victoria for Denmark Hill on one of those golden late-summer evenings when London feels like it might actually be everything you ever wanted it to be.<br />
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The train was just beginning to relax into its journey, and as the sunshine warmed us through the windows, another train, also freshly departed, drew up alongside ours. A man on board caught my eye and blew me a kiss over the top of his <i>Metro</i>. He wore a baseball cap and bore a strong resemblance to Jack Charlton circa the 1994 World Cup. He looked delighted by his own daring (or perhaps by something in <i>The Metro</i> – though this seems unlikely) and I laughed – Laugh 7a: 'Tsk! <i>You</i>!' (Amusement + Minor Admonishment) – as his train pulled away and over the river ahead of us.<br />
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Although my sexual magnetism is flatly irresistible to all creatures that draw breath and feel pain – and all inanimate objects who expressed a preference – I was confident this wasn't an expression of romantic intent. His was the giddy air of a grandparent showing off on a merry-go-round, not a public-transport sex predator.<br />
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Also, I'm not sure how predatory you can be if you're on a totally different train*.<br />
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We were still in a thick confluence of tracks, not yet spread out into the tributaries of zone two and beyond. And as my train and others seemed to speed and slow according to the caprices of the signalling system, I became increasingly anxious about just how I should respond were my train to catch up with his, and our eyes meet again. The thing about anxiety is it really keeps you busy.<br />
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The obvious solution was to avert my eyes and pretend it never happened, AKA the London Stranger Standard (incorporating the 2012 Olympics Dispensation), applied on buses, trains and pavements city wide ever since Dick Whittington realised being Lord Mayor of London was actually a total bloody headache, and he should have trusted his instincts and ignored those stupid bells trying to talk to him while he was just minding his own business.<br />
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And yet.<br />
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I don't know if regret is a uniquely human state. I don't know if cheetahs run, run, run far across the plains, just to outpace the guilt, just to put distance between themselves and the bare bones of that gazelle they wish they could maybe – for once – have left alone. One more pair of sad, scared brown eyes to haunt them as they lay down to sleep. Damn you, the food chain!<br />
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And I don't know if a dog trudges home from the park, wishing it could have grown a pair (back), gone right up to that lovely glossy chocolate labrador and sniffed its bottom, rather than acting like a total spaniel over a stupid, dirty, broken tennis ball.<br />
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But I know the homo sapiens of London and I've read their wistful attempts to claim back a little human contact after assiduously avoiding it on their journeys around the capital. 'Northern line, evening rush hour. I was reading <i>How To Live In The Present Moment</i> but was too shy to speak to you.' Suits and tracksuits and dapper macs and uniforms, all wishing they'd been a little bit bolder, believing they'd caught a glimpse of another life with this stranger where everything's at least 79% better and someone finally understands you. But, like, really, instead of just saying, 'God, yeah, no, I<i> totally</i> understand.'<br />
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I didn't want to smell this man's bottom. Let's be clear about that. This was no fledgling May to September romance. Or even August to late October, which would have more accurate. But in the gap between our generations, and in his cheek**, I did glimpse another life - it was familiar, and it spoke of bad jokes, and foolish dancing done purely to engender others' embarrassment, and a general knowledge arsenal gathered from a lifetime of listening to Radio 4 while driving.<br />
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I'm not sure there's a precedent for this kind of Missed Connection in the back pages of <i>Time Out</i>, but still:<br />
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'You: baseball cap, <i>Metro</i>, smile. Me: curly hair, Dickensian pallor, mid-brow comic novel. Would like to know you better. Come to my flat for ham sandwiches and Battenberg? Also, can you put up large pictures and shelves properly? Like with rawlplugs and everything? Could you attempt to teach me while you're doing it, so I will know how to do it myself, and I will pretend to listen while thinking about something else, then regret it [SO MUCH REGRET, HUMANS] later and forever? Can we listen to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLsFL0gkkKI" target="_blank">Elvis</a>, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtiF01XhkPw" target="_blank">Ella and Louis</a>? Would you like to play along with <i>A Question Of Sport</i> together, even though it is an empty facade of its former self, I mean, it is barely an actual quiz at all these days. God!'<br />
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As will be inscribed on my headstone, I worried for nothing. The trains didn't pull together. I never saw him again.<br />
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But I really miss my dad.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Quite, I suppose, if you're Mr Tickle, who has been known to get quite 'handy' with the Little Misses after a night out.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">**As in sass, not nose-flanking facial areas.</span>Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-48437964249072745832015-08-30T19:01:00.000+01:002015-08-30T23:05:40.861+01:00When Your Zara Summer Sale Purchase Turns You Into A Character From An As-Yet Unwritten Sarah Waters Novel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>No 67: the Victorian lady lumberjack.</b></div>
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Kit, an orphan, is forced to stow away on a ship from Liverpool to Canada following an unusual sequence of events that most significantly include: a) the death of her grandmother, b) a contemplative walk along the docks at twilight, c) a violent dispute over a crate of stolen oranges, which she unwittingly walks into. Arriving in Quebec, she disguises herself as a man in order to find work on a lumber farm. Her surprisingly light, agile build makes her the subject of much taunting by the other lumberjacks, but she can climb like a squirrel (/other, indigenous Canadian mammal), build excellent fires and speak surprisingly good French, thanks to her grandmother's wish that she receive a well-rounded education. But when the winter snow arrives and the ice forms, Kit starts to succumb to low spirits, frostbite and exhaustion. The lady wife of the farm's owner, beautiful yet listless, married to a stolid and unremarkable husband, has noticed Kit's unusual physical stature (and occasionally suspect French pronunciation) and understands her to be a young boy, far away from home for the first time (actually 75% correct). She has always yearned for a son. She invites Kit into the house to warm by the fire on one fiercely cold afternoon and the pair strike up an unlikely friendship. WHAT ON EARTH WILL HAPPEN NEXT, I WONDER?Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-20433043314324841942015-06-29T00:05:00.002+01:002015-07-01T23:15:15.707+01:00Peer pressure<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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'So yeah, actually, mate... While it's quiet, I just wanted to check in with you. I know we're side by side every day – I mean, I spend more time with you than I do my own family. OK, I don't have any family, I'm an inanimate object – but you know how it is, it's busy, people are in and out all the time. We don't always get a proper chance to catch up.<br />
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What it is, is... Look, if it was up to me, there wouldn't be a problem, we've always been cool, you and me, yeah? It's just… is everything OK with you? Only some of the other seats have been talking and they just feel like, maybe, you're not really on top of your game lately. You're bringing the carriage down a little bit. You just seem a bit... off-colour. You're pale. You look tired. Are you sleeping OK? Also, sorry, but your whole kind of… head-rest area is just… I mean, what <i>is</i> that?<br />
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I'm sorry, I'm sorry. If I didn't care, I wouldn't say anything. But look, mate. We all know what it's like. We all have those days. Someone sprays Red Bull all over you. You're covered in crisp crumbs. And it's always cheese and onion, right? Right? Never salt and vinegar. God, I <i>love </i>salt and vinegar. Anyway, look. It's fried chicken bones, it's bad R&B through someone's phone speakers, it's a wet umbrella. It's dandruff and people's feet all over you every… single… day. It's hard, man, but we do it because we love it.</div>
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I know it's easy for me to say. I've got the window. I'm the window seat, everyone thinks it's so great being me. I see the blue sky. I feel the sun on my upholstery. But I've got stuff going on, just like everyone else. I've been pissed on on the 00.36. All these guys have.You just can't let it drag you down. You clean yourself up. You start again. We're a team. We're here to serve. You, me, the rest of the guys. We're carriage G. We're team G! We're G Force! High five! OK, no, forget that. We don't have arms. We're not those kind of seats.</div>
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I'm just saying, take a little time to look around you. See the kid with the tiger face paint, holding a balloon. The pregnant woman with the bunch of flowers. That old guy reading his book about the Second Punic War through a magnifying glass. These people need us. We're their stand-up guys. Their stand-up, sit-down guys. </div>
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Sorry to be all heavy, but I'm just looking out for you. You're my brother. Are we cool? OK. I'm glad we've had this talk.'</div>
Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-61222957372243537232015-06-15T00:06:00.000+01:002015-06-15T00:13:19.790+01:00Key Figures In British Engineering History Who May Or May Not Have Led A Secret Double Life. Part 1 In A Series Of 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I was talking to my choir pal <a href="https://simonhickson.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Simon</a> at the end of our practice last Monday. I don't remember the exact route of the conversation, but we arrived at blogging – his <a href="http://strangenessinspace.com/" target="_blank">many good reasons</a> for not writing, my abject lack of them. He offered me some discipline, challenging me to write a post by the following Monday's practice, so here I am, too proud to fail him and sneaking in just ahead of deadline.</div>
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Naturally, I'm cheating a little. This post was conceived many months ago, when I was on a temporary secondment from London living and, for five days out of every seven, I would take a morning constitutional from my incoming train at Kings Cross to the offices of Soho, Covent Garden, Marble Arch and beyond.</div>
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I would pass through Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia, and sometimes Marylebone, and I learnt that all these streets will force their stories on you, if you allow yourself to make eye contact with them.</div>
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From Kings Cross, passing through a small area of Dickensian theming, you will find yourself in Russell Square, where you will see the tiled green turret that serves as the only existing relic from London's time as a fairy-tale principality. </div>
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Though the building of the Russell Hotel has engulfed the ancient structure, it's believed that a princess still lives inside, clinging on to an archaic lease agreement and intent on rescue. Her long, long hair is now quite grey, but she believes it still to have the necessary tensile strength for ropework, thanks to her assiduous application of V05 hot oil treatments (flown up to the windows by magpies who, I think everyone knows, will do anything for cash).</div>
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Cross the square and you pass the back door of the British Museum and its heavily secure employees' entrance where you may wonder, as I do, exactly how difficult it would be to gain access this way in order to pass yourself off as a member of staff, wrap yourself in toilet paper and hide in a sarcophagi to 'surprise' groups of nervy older ladies enjoying an improving guided tour.</div>
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And then in Bedford Square, you may see a blue plaque celebrating the birthplace of the engineer and charismatic swing-band leader Harry Ricardo. </div>
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Among many other achievements, Sir Harry designed the two-stroke engine, which, I think we can all agree, is at least twice as good as the one-stroke engine. <br />
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He also had a hand in the internal combustion engine. Not literally, I hope! Ouch!<br />
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It's really hard being this funny.<br />
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And he completed a further spectrum of crucial and groundbreaking work that I tried very hard to read about but kept getting distrac<br />
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His effortless command of a 20-piece musical ensemble is, of course, less well known. This is because I made it up. But surely, with a surname that's all Latin passion and a forename of raffish swagger, Harry Ricardo was born for more than just the careful formulas of physics.<br />
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By day, toiling at the coalface of a coalface, by night tearing up the ballrooms of Paris and Palermo, Harry engineered rhythms that people only recognised from their dreams, as he slashed through the air with his baton, like Zorro in slacks.<br />
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Leading a double life that John Le Carre would consider complicated, Harry Ricardo would feint and shimmy around the suspicions of his colleagues. Lengthy absences for touring and travel were blamed on vague suggestions of field research and an ongoing nervous condition. On two occasions, that 'field research' happened to be in Hollywood, where he was subjected to campaigns of outrageous flirtation by the young starlets of the day, many of whom called him 'Hank', which he hated. Harry never said anything, though, because he was still an engineer from Bloomsbury, and while his heart did indeed boom and swing with the band, it was studded with rivets from the finest in British engineering.<br />
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Once, memorably, Harry briskly pulled out his diagrams for the internal combustion engine from his briefcase only for a handwritten note from Zelda Fitzgerald to flutter out to the floor, in full view of his science brotherhood. Harry, his mind brighter than any diamond as big as the Ritz (where, incidentally, he played often), he managed to convince the chaps that Zelda Fitzgerald was an exotic florist on Gower Street where he liked to buy peonies for his mother on her birthday. </div>
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When the business card of the concierge at the Beverly Hills Hotel was pulled absent-mindedly from a jacket pocket, it was blamed on a mix-up at his tailors.</div>
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People did notice that, for an English engineer, he had quite excellent suits. </div>
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And they also remarked, behind his back, on his habit of turning any set of cogs or pipes into some kind of makeshift musical instrument. His mind was so brilliant, they said, that such eccentricities should be expected, and indulged.<br />
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Had his colleagues known that from Friday night to Sunday morning (and often for whole weeks inbetween), he was utterly enslaved to the rhythms of swing, they may have doubted his scientific rationale.<br />
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But they never did know.<br />
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Coming soon: Kenneth Williams, diarist, comic actor (plaque-honoured on Marchmont Street, London W1) and kayak specialist, who saw his dreams of glory at the 1952 Helskinki Olympics disappear down the river after a faux pas in front of selectors at a team-building boardgames night.<br />
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<br />Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-62558263747164471672015-01-31T23:47:00.000+00:002015-02-01T00:54:20.799+00:00A Selection Of Marketing Pitches I Put Together To Exploit The Otherwise Uneventful Month Of January, Which Were Inexplicably Never GreenlitBecause 'Dry January' is boring and doesn't even rhyme.<br />
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Although it is for charity.<br />
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So that's OK.<br />
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1) <b>BakeAFlanuary</b><br />
Pies have ridden a wave of nostalgia to renewed relevance. Tarts never really went away. Whatever happened to flans, with their versatility and their pleasingly tidy presentation and their flantastic gift to cookery page headline writers? When will they have their moment in the sun?* During BakeAFlanuary, that is when, with its print, TV, radio and online recipe push. Vital to get either <i>Bake Off </i>or Hemsley + Hemsley on board.<br />
<b>Who makes the money?</b> Manufacturers of ready-made pastry casings.<br />
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2) <b>Panuary</b><br />
The number of people in this country learning to play the pan pipes has dropped by 67% in the last 10 years**. It's unclear just what's responsible for this worrying drop-off, but if the hip young pan-pipes player had made it into the final cut of Richard Linklater's <i>School Of Rock</i>, it's unlikely we'd be here. Through workshops, concerts and free taster sessions, let us keep this ancient, breathy musical tradition alive. It's crucial that an influential global star takes up the cause and features pan pipes in their next work. Targets: Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Kanye. Or One Direction to use them in the 'unplugged' mid-section of their next arena show, to demonstrate their 'real music' credentials.<br />
<b>Who makes the money?</b> The craftsmen of the Andes.<br />
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3) <b><i>BarbaraAnn</i>uary</b><br />
The various members of The Beach Boys spend a month fighting it out (ideally just with music, but with weapons if further television bait is needed) to decide which of them really has the right to own the touring name The Beach Boys and celebratorily rerelease the 1965 surf-pop classic. It's <i>The Hunger Games</i> in Hawaiian shirts. <br />
<b>Who makes the money? </b>Hopefully not Mike Love.<br />
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4) <b>Caravanuary</b><br />
Let's bring this great British holidaying institution to a new generation. Scandi decor. Marimekko soft furnishings. Fairy lights. Exterior paint jobs. Festivals. Encourage families and friends to see how many people they can squeeze into their caravan toilet and upload a picture to social media. Introduce the hashtag #CaravanOfLove. Ellie Goulding to rerecord the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0yEwaZK_fI" target="_blank">Housemartins' song</a>***. Advertising campaign to carry the closing slogan 'Caravan holidays: are <i>you</i> ready for the time of your life?' (This only works if you know the lyrics to the song. Could be problematic.)<br />
<b>Who makes the money? </b>Paul Heaton. People who are desperate to sell their caravans. <br />
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5) <b>FancyDanuary</b><br />
Similar in concept to Movember, this enables men to express themselves more flamboyantly in terms of their physical appearance without fear of censure or ridicule, under the carapace of charitable endeavour. The wearing of head-to-toe velvet, paisley, long flowing scarfs, winkle pickers, cuban heels and sock garters is all legitimised for one month only.<br />
<b>Who makes the money</b>: The charities. Vintage clothing shops. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.<br />
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6) <b>EatMoreBranuary</b><br />
Remember bran? It was yesterday's quinoa. And where is it now? Consigned to the breakfast buffet in lower-mid-budget chain hotels, dribbling out of plastic containers where you turn a handle and expect a plastic egg filled with a toy to plop into your bowl. Instead it is just All-Bran and it doesn't even go in the bowl, it just goes all over the table and you wonder whether you should do anything about clearing it up and in the end you don't.<br />
<b>Who makes the money?</b> The farmers. I think. Is it farmed? I am an intelligent, well-educated woman and the fact I don't know exactly where bran comes from clearly illustrates the need for action.<br />
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7)<b> <i>I'mYourMan</i>uary</b> This can go one of two ways. It's either a personal crusade by me to prove to the world that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W0d9xMhZbo" target="_blank">this</a> is indeed the world's greatest Wham! song. Closely followed by <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVEbQx_C1pI" target="_blank">Edge Of Heaven</a></b> and <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf_Lwe6p-Cg" target="_blank">Everything She Wants</a></b>. Or, more selflessly, a charity single featuring a) George and Andrew finally reuniting in order to cover <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW8rFho6In8" target="_blank">Leonard Cohen's song</a> of the same name, and b) Leonard, in turn, singing the Wham! stormer.<br />
<b>Who makes the money?</b> George and Leonard. Sorry, Andrew. Great to have you back though!<br />
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8) <b>JudithHannuary</b><br />
An initiative to boost the number of women in science broadcasting, inspired by the first lady of <i>Tomorrow's World</i>. BBC4 can make one of their docudramas, with Anita Dobson as the present day Judith, and Jessica Raine to perm up as the younger character. David Tennant first choice for Michael Rodd. Simon Amstell in a breakthrough acting role as Howard Stableford. Mark Gatiss to write the script, naturally.<br />
<b>Who makes the money?</b> Currently, the Royal Mint, but in the future, we'll be relying purely on a digital system of currency. Here's Judith to explain more.<br />
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9) <b>BigInJapanuary</b><br />
A month-long UK music industry showcase for all those disposable pop bands you thought went down the dumper (© <i>Smash Hits</i>) until you saw them on a reality show speaking candidly about their struggles with life out of the limelight from the comfort of their inexplicably well-appointed and large home set in lush, rolling grounds, with stables. How was this sumptuous faux-Tudor mansion afforded? By phenomenal success in the Far East. Can the likes of A1 regain the levels of adulation in this country that they found overseas - in just 31 days?<br />
<b>Who makes the money?</b> Loads of people who, contrary to expectations, don't appear to need it.<br />
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10) <b>Can'tScanuary</b><br />
A month-long amnesty for frustrated poets who struggle with metre to submit their unfinished verses to publishers and receive honest and constructive feedback.<br />
<b>Who makes the money?</b> Realistically, no one.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Flans can contain milk, eggs, cream, fish or meat, and should never be left directly in the sun. Always keep refrigerated.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">**Probably.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">*** Urgh, I have just done a search on YouTube and PIXIE LOTT HAS ALREADY GOT IN FIRST. It is for the Matalan charity scarves thing though. Matalanuary?</span>Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-28760919431588727292014-10-05T23:34:00.003+01:002014-10-05T23:34:37.512+01:00Here Is The NewsHi everyone. Thanks for coming. Sit down, I've got something to tell you.<br />
<br />
Right here is a fork in the road.<br />
<br />
Head over <a href="http://anddavearchplayedon.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">here</a> for And Dave Arch Played On, a dedicated blog all about <i>Strictly Come Dancing</i> written by me and my most Olympic friend, the mighty Kate from <a href="http://mindtidying.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Mind Tidying</a>.<br />
<br />
Stay here for non-<i>Strictly</i>-related rambling, which I am resolved to post far more frequently in the coming months.<br />
<br />
Over and out.<br />
<br />
xMiss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-83400017794014821172014-09-27T22:42:00.002+01:002014-09-27T23:04:01.945+01:00Strictly Come Dancing, Week 1, Show 1: Let Claudia Be Claudia<i>Strictly </i>is back. Blogging is back (well, for today). Brucie has been helped into a motorised golf cart and pointed towards the sunset. His BBC access pass has been deactivated, his dressing-room teasmade appropriated (prime suspect: John Humphreys).<br />
<br />
So this points to a slicker, sharper <i>Strictly Come Dancing</i>, doesn't it?<br />
<br />
Uh-oh.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong, I'm nothing but relieved that Sir Bruce now gets to wear slippers full-time. It's just that I'm a fan of the show's particular old-fashioned charm, as well as its ability to get anything remotely cool ever so slightly wrong. Please don't let it become too... well... competent.<br />
<br />
NO WORRIES ON THAT SCORE.<br />
<br />
The new series opens with a reassuringly lame VT that spells out very clearly: 'BUSINESS AS USUAL. (OH, EXCEPT FOR JAMES JORDAN.) YOU'RE WELCOME.'<br />
<br />
The judges (team sheet unchanged) take their seats by dancing their way across the set, which I enjoy. What would it be like, I wonder, if the <i>X Factor </i>judges similarly sang their way to their shiny desk. I hear Simon Cowell's flat, emotionless vocal style as somewhere between William Shatner and The Flying Lizards. In fact, let's imagine him 'singing', oh I don't know, maybe those Flying Lizards' <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-P2qL3qkzk" target="_blank">most well-known hit</a>, just to pluck something totally and utterly at random out of the part of my brain that is thinking really hard about his dead-eyed, imagination-free approach to the music industry.<br />
<br />
Tess is wearing a jumpsuit, which I am emphatically pro. My Dress-Up Tess doll (£12.99 from the BBC shop, £10.99 from Argos, £1.99 come January) is always wearing trousers. Claudia has had what some celeb magazine will inevitably refer to as a makeunder. Less tan. Less eyeliner. Less hair over the face. Less Claudia. She looks pretty, but this better be her call, and not the result of some ludicrous BBC ruling that says fringes may not be worn longer than four inches during primetime (also subsection 4(c)(iii) appendix (7): larky female sparkiness must be soberly contained). <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ9-3NxTzQ8" target="_blank">Let Claudia be Claudia</a>.<br />
<br />
(Having now watched Saturday's show, I see that Claudia has reverted to her more usual look, thus totally undermining the previous paragraph. THANKS CLAUDIA, I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS.)<br />
<br />
First up are Caroline Flack and Pasha. Caroline is Ringer No 1 in this year's Bananarama of ringers (Pixie Lott no 2, Frankie Saturdays no 3). She serves Pasha's cha-cha choreography well, with just the right amount of subtle messing up to suggest 'Who, me? Ooh no, I'm not a dancer. Yes, I am remarkably good and assured, and, well, yes, since you mention it, I suppose I did study dance for some years, but it was <i>nothing whatsoever</i> like this.' Still, I like her, I like Pasha. He becomes the first pro choreographer to Deploy The Judges' Desk For The Making Of Sexy Shapes. He's gone too early with that, if you ask me. Save it for week 5 at the earliest, or Fern Britton On Borrowed Time, as I like to think of it.<br />
<br />
Next up, Tim Wonnacott and Natalie Lowe. Natalie missed the 2013 series through injury. And she thought she was unlucky last year. Tim is sweet and trying hard, but his auction-themed cha-cha (such a natural pair-up, why has no one done it before?) makes me bite my hand. He's having a nice time, though, and enthusiastically trots around the floor led by Natalie in a way that reminds me of <i>Training Dogs The Woodhouse Way</i>. Afterwards, he stands in Claudia's 'area' with an arm clasped around each woman's waist like a man emerging triumphant from the conservatory at a suburban swingers' party. In his comments, Craig says Tim danced as though he was wearing a soiled nappy. I believe there is also a suburban party scene that would serve that situation.<br />
<br />
Jake Wood and Jeanette are doing a soap-operatic tango, which begins with some fun intimations of domestic violence. It really is such a family-friendly show. Jake is strong and confident and doesn't make me have to avert my eyes through awkwardness. He was also once in <i>Press Gang</i> and went to college with my friend Speranza, all of which propels him into my 'like' pile. <br />
<br />
Do you remember when Alesha Dixon was a judge and used to patronise the older female contestants? Tess does, because after Judi Murray's wobbly waltz, Tess tells her to 'walk those lovely legs upstairs'. WHAT, TESS? WHAT? Anton and Judi have employed some Scottish theming for their routine, but what with the tartan and <i>Mull Of Kintyre </i>and the Scots piper, it's so subtle you'd barely notice. Also, if you want to waltz to something dripping with Scotland, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmELS03_4So" target="_blank">SUNSHINE OF LEITH, FOR GOODNESS' SAKE</a>. During the Actual Dancing, Judi gets herself in a right old pickle, but Anton is as kind and constant to his older partner as ever. In this respect, he really is some sort of superhero emerging from the mist (rolling in from the hills my desire is always to be here oh mull of kintyre), with his cummerbund of power and his shield of Just For Men.<br />
<br />
Let me lay my cards on the table and say that Scott Mills is not my kind of DJ. This is well-known among my friends and colleagues, one of whom secured me an on-air dedication from him on my 31st birthday. He quite admirably managed to get my job title and place of work wrong and play a terrible record afterwards. But despite this, I find myself liking him tonight. I like his no-fuss out-ness, with his boyfriend sitting next to his mum in the crowd. Of course, this shouldn't even merit comment, but it's pretty radical for<i> Strictly</i>. I am less keen on his cha-cha, and apparently so is he. His Dance Face is Someone Really Scared Trying To Be Really Brave, and the early-doors appearance-via-video-message of his Good Friend Robbie Williams suggests he's not thinking in terms of bloody well Blackpool. Len's comments are surprisingly hostile initially, but perhaps, like me, he has been forced to listen to too much daytime Radio 1 in the workplace and is wishing it was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0100rp6" target="_blank">Marc Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie</a> out there on the dance floor.<br />
<br />
Last out this episode are Pixie Lott and Trent Newboy. Trent is the blond Duke Of Hazzard as played by Steve Buscemi. Pixie is the favourite to win, but not my favourite to win, even though she quite manipulatively tried to impress me by doing my favourite, the jive, in week one, and being quite good at it. Show me your rumba, Pixie, and we'll see how this is really going to shake down.<br />
<br />
And that's your lot for programme one. It's a truncated first show - almost as though they know how long it takes me to write absolutely anything - and a somewhat underwhelming one. Are they saving the Tweet-grabbing big guns (like, erm, Gregg Wallace and Mark Wright) for the main Saturday-night ratings battle? Or are they just really bad at putting together a line-up? Make your own mind up, I'm exhausted.<br />
<br />
No Saturday-night-show write-up from me this week, but I'll be back soon with my thoughts on the lack of a credible crush object for me in this year's cast. All the big issues! All the time!<br />
<br />Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-14685002029106244792014-07-09T23:58:00.000+01:002014-07-09T23:58:08.070+01:00Martin sees the pelotonTwo things that young children find more exciting than the spectacle of the world's greatest cyclists passing by in a dizzying pageant of athleticism and colour:<br />
<br />
1) A circling dragonfly.<br />
<br />
2) High-fiving a police motorcyclist.<br />
<br />
Fair enough. Both these things are excellent.<br />
<br />
Still, there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who think it's worth standing around for two hours in the burning sun (12 noon, Cambridge) or pissing rain (3.30pm, London) for a fleeting 30 seconds of partially obscured joy, and those who do not.<br />
<br />
There's a silence after the peloton goes by - a sense of expectation that some further spectacle may yet present itself, which you absolutely should not miss out on; that perhaps Froome, Kittel and Contador are just a gentle curtain-raiser for the real event - a grand prix of dogs riding children's tricycles, perhaps. Yet no dogs came. And as the crowd eventually dispersed in Cambridge, I heard one 70-something man turn to another and say, 'Well, there you go then, Martin. Was it worth it?'<br />
<br />
This companion of Martin's, I felt, was a person committed to seeking out the disappointment of others and dragging it into the open with some measure of triumph, like a cat with a dead bird.<br />
<br />
(It was all in his tone of voice. I am very sensitive to these things.)<br />
<br />
But Martin – <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casquette" target="_blank">casquette</a> on his grey head, peak pushed reverentially upwards, a believer, a hoper – simply said, 'Oh <i>yes</i>… Absolutely wonderful.'Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-90282387376368567432013-09-01T22:56:00.000+01:002013-09-01T23:21:05.403+01:00This is a testRecently I was in Boots at Kings Cross station, buying the usual items of bathroom tedium on my way home from work. A women appeared beside me (not by magic – I'm pretty sure she just walked there from a different part of the shop) to be served by the adjacent cashier.<br />
<br />
She was buying a pregnancy test.<br />
<br />
Just that. Just a test. Just laid down right there on the counter, all alone. Not a universally unflattering palette of eyeshadow, grabbed in haste, alongside it. Not some corn plasters and a blood-sugar monitor with which to bury it at the bottom of a wire basket. Just a pregnancy test. Imagine! She didn't even want a bag. 'Would you like a bag?' was what the assistant asked her. 'No thanks,' is exactly what she said in response. <br />
<br />
It's a long time since I studied any critical theory. Probably it could never be long enough. But this episode made me think about Barthes' <i>Mythologies</i> and Saussure and signs and signifiers. Luckily I wasn't thinking these things out loud, because I am really over-sibilant.<br />
<br />
Maybe I haven't done enough pregnancy tests in my life to reduce them simply to piss and plastic. Maybe I haven't witnessed enough other people buying them. Because when I saw this small box lying on the counter, I didn't think, 'Oh, the circle of life turns one more notch. Just another everyday, £7.99 incidence of life-changing potentiality. Nothing to see.'<br />
<br />
Instead I thought that my fellow customer must surely have slept with her infertile partner's brother following an argument and now nothing would ever be the same again. Or that the one-night stand with her boss at the end of the staff orienteering/orientation day had not been packed away with the cagoules and the clipboards after all. Or that the night when that large flying vessel landed in her back garden and the hatch opened and that creature she could not comprehend took her inside and led her to do things she didn't entirely comprehend either, but on the other hand didn't not enjoy, really did happen after all, it wasn't just the late-night brie talking.<br />
<br />
And when she got home, she would almost certainly hide it in the laundry basket because everyone knows that's a really flawless hiding place, or possibly throw the empty box in the bathroom bin, where her boyfriend might find it and wonder which one of the four female housemates it belonged to.<br />
<br />
You say pregnancy test. I say soap opera.<br />
<br />
I blame soap operas. <br />
<br />
Because it wasn't just the test. She was buying the test <i>in a train station</i>. The theatre of melodrama. (Or maybe that's Old Trafford.) Where people run alongside moving carriages to tell another that they love them. Where the lovehorn hurdle barriers and feint their way around guards to beg someone not to leave. Trains pull out of platforms to reveal passengers still standing there, wondering what they haven't just done. Where businessmen decide not to take their regular service to the suburbs, but instead pick a platform, any platform, and step right onto a train to Berwick or St Austell. I mean, this literally happens all the time, doesn't it? I've seen it with these two eyes. Only on the telly, mind you, but still.<br />
<br />
Back in Boots, the cashier swiped the woman's loyalty card and said 'Are you using your points?'<br />
<br />
Initially, I thought she said, 'Are you proving a point?' which somehow seemed slightly prescriptive, even for a pharmacist.*<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Sorry. </span>Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-46030703426846056552013-08-11T00:16:00.003+01:002013-08-11T00:45:55.351+01:00Bully for meSome things I never did as a child:<br />
<br />
I never took the school hamster home for the holidays. <br />
<br />
I never had a limb in plaster.<br />
<br />
I never played Mary in the school nativity. I was never in a nativity. We never did a nativity. Sometimes I wonder if it was really a school.<br />
<br />
I never shoplifted high-currency teenage items (lipstick, cigarettes, Monster Munch). Or low ones (Woman's Weekly, bird feed, Dentufix).<br />
<br />
I never escaped through a secret portal in my bedroom into a magical land of benign but fantastical wild beasts who greeted me as their queen and leader.<br />
<br />
Also, I was never bullied.<br />
<br />
Occasionally, over the years, I've wondered how I managed to escape it. I was brainy and a bit odd, with a whole buffet of physical eccentricities for the persecutory to pick over – deathly pale, sparrow-legged, jagged-toothed, sharp-featured, frequently unwell.<br />
<br />
At the time, of course, I never gave it a moment's thought. 'Are you bully bait?' was never one of <i>Just Seventeen</i>'s interactive quiz elements – unsurprising, given the infinite matrix of boy-related trauma to exploit. I sailed along on peaceful waters of unadventure. Once, I remember, I stumbled upon a girl I liked a lot – she was quiet, funny, a bit nervy – having her arms pulled hard in opposite directions by the scariest girls in the school and shamefully hurried past, on my way to play an urgent game of elastics, I imagine. She became very ill some time after – one of those crippling viral mysteries that may or may not propagate from emotional exhaustion – and was off school for months. Even in my youthful ignorance, I was shocked by how weak she was when she returned, as I watched her being helped around the playground like a pensioner. <br />
<br />
Now I think about it, though, I realise I always had a gang. Not a big one, or a cool one. We weren't sniffing glue in darkened shopping precincts or setting light to waste bins. But we were a tight and loyal pack, united by the serendipitous fact that we all fancied different members of Duran Duran. I was rarely separated from those girls – I never grazed far from the herd, was never easy to isolate for the purposes of Chinese burns and bogwashing. You would not have found me drifting alone, 'asking for it' in the wrong coat and bad shoes – just one more oath of unspoken thanks I owe my parents. Also, during the years when I may have had to flee, gazelle-like, for my life – or my lunch money – across the playing fields, I was one of the fastest runners in my school, however unlikely that may seem now. <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Clue: really very unlikely.)</span><br />
<br />
I don't know which god of the playground was watching over me. (I like to think it was the giant floating head of John Taylor, huge hair shimmying in the heavenly currents – distinguishable from the real John Taylor because <i>his</i> hair would never bend in the breeze.) Anyway, the fact is I escaped.<br />
<br />
Until last summer.<br />
<br />
Anniversaries are having a moment at the moment, aren't they? It's a year since the Olympics. It's ten years since <i>Breathe</i> by Blu Cantrell featuring Sean Paul was Number One. Let the human race still be remembering both these things in a hundred more years. I'm pretty sure they will. And it's a little over a year since someone was systematically behaving with cruelty and vindictiveness towards me, in order to get something they wanted, which they weren't entitled to, and shouldn't have had. Ahh, balmy, gilded 2012 summer days.<br />
<br />
I can't say exactly what happened or who was involved. Regular readers who are familiar with the thrill ride of my life will assume it's some matter of international espionage, drug running or high-level sexual power games. At the very least, they'd assume I'm bound by some kind of super-super-injunction. I'd applaud them in this, because the truth is incredibly mundane. Yet the feelings the experience produced in me were every bit as stressful and emotionally painful as anything I've known in my life. The kind of proper, lying awake at night, heart bumping, soul churning, unable-to-think-about-anything-else upset that persists until it is outrageously, complacently claiming a place in the top ten worst things that have ever happened to you, unseating important, precious things that are genuinely worth your distress – bereavement, the wrench of a break-up, deep sadness for a friend. What a waste of the terrible times, having to spunk them on some idiot misguidedly intent on ruining your life.<br />
<br />
The polite among you may be saying, 'How did it start, Miss Jones?' The rest: 'GOD, is she EVER going to get on with it? Because, seriously, I've read shorter Tolstoys.' <br />
<br />
How it started was with a series of light psychological punches – no big deal in isolation – which I attempted to parry with the following mental blocks:<br />
<br />
'Oh!'<br />
<br />
'That's a bit off.'<br />
<br />
'I wonder why she would do that?'<br />
<br />
'It will probably blow over.'<br />
<br />
'Oh. It's really not blowing over. Oh well.'<br />
<br />
'Hmm. She still seems to be doing that mean and very hurtful thing. How strange. She probably doesn't realise exactly what she's doing.' <br />
<br />
And then, eventually:<br />
<br />
'Oh. She does.'<br />
<br />
All those little blows must have given me some kind of concussion because, for a few weeks, I couldn't see just what was going on. Instead, I doubted myself, thinking what was happening was probably my own stupid fault.<br />
<br />
Of course, bullies <i>love</i> that shit. In the cold, clear light, I can see that's Bullying 101. It's <i>Now That's What I Call Bullying</i>. It's <i>Bullying For Dummies (Although Bullies Are The Real Dummies, Which You Will Learn If You Buy Our Other Hit Book, How To Stop Being A Bully For Dummies)</i>.<br />
<br />
But I'm nothing if not entirely British. My every cell loves tea and talking about trains and hates making any kind of a fuss. Even though being scared to open your email or answer the phone because of the repeated actions of one person probably does merit some kind of a fuss. I didn't feel that what was happening could possibly warrant the term 'bully' yet, by any definition (except those relating to the quiz show <i>Bullseye</i>), it absolutely did.<br />
<br />
When confusion and surprise move out, hurt outrage moves in. Seriously, those guys can not share a living space. And it always unravels with the cleaning rota. I'm a nice person. Sometimes I tut at people on the tube and leave rubbish under my seat on the train, but I'm fundamentally a B+ at nice. Maybe even A-. And I consciously surround myself with other nice people. Yet somehow someone had breached this in order to target me. They had picked me out of all the people in the world to be horrible to. That is a shitty kind of a raffle.<br />
<br />
As adults, we're rarely out of control unless we choose to be, with bungee rope, large amounts of alcohol, recreational drugs, or babies and young children. It's unlikely anyone will force us into a municipal swimming bath or over a gym horse, or order us to do any of the above in our underwear. There are acts of God and human tragedies, but most days we get to say no. Yet suddenly I was feeling powerless and frightened. This was not the adulthood I had been promised! Where was my sense of grown-up self-assurance and my wardrobe of cashmere?<br />
<br />
And also this: before it all started, I was serenely independent and content (as Professor Higgins sings in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HroAq_E075Y" target="_blank">I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face</a>). Or, more technically, single. I had my own home, a career and a lot of friends. I walked tall. I ate alone in restaurants (I mean, not all the time, I'm not weird or anything). I was proud of all that. I depend on me (as Destiny's Child sing in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lPQZni7I18" target="_blank">Independent Woman Part 1</a>). But I felt very strongly that none of this would have happened if I'd had a boyfriend or husband and wasn't plugging away at life alone. Or, in fact, if I were a boy (as Beyoncé sings in… oh, I've forgotten the name of it now). I can't tell you how much I hate that. <br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
Still, through it all, she remained – assiduously, relentlessly turning the screw. Like Miss Trunchball's less forgiving sister, the one people don't like as much as Miss Trunchball. But, crucially, not, in the eyes of the law, doing anything wrong. Because it turns out that behaving like a total shit is not in itself illegal. Really? There are small people living in a slim box in my pocket who can play any music in the world through my headphones, yet no one's sorted that out yet?<br />
<br />
And the awful consequence of that is that you end up becoming a little more like her – hardened and spiteful – in response. Soon I was sitting in middle-brow restaurants with my friends, eating our aspirational mezze and making unthinkably dark jokes about the ways in which I might kill her, in order to end all this. Then going home and lying awake and thinking what might happen if someone actually did kill her; imagining the police questioning my best girls, seeing their faces as the investigating officer said, 'How would you describe Miss Jones's relationship with the deceased? Did she ever display aggressive feelings towards her?' </div>
<br />
It ended eventually. It always does. I stayed strong and I saw it out. 'Strong' is not conventionally defined as wanting to cry, do a massive poo and start running and never stop ALL OF THE TIME, EVERY DAY, which was exactly how I felt. Strong was purely superficial in this instance. But it was enough. I always knew superficial would have its day. <br />
<br />
In a manner of speaking, I won. This absolutely does not mean that I killed her and got away with it. It means I escaped from the situation and she didn't get exactly what she wanted.<br />
<br />
In another, more profound way, she won. She got a little of what she wanted and I am left, still, with the aftershocks. I still feel a shiver when I travel through a certain part of town. Still spend morning showers and train journeys wondering what I would do or say if I ran into her. I'm less trusting.<br />
<br />
But what, I hear you asking, Terry*, was the real secret of my (small, semi-) success?<br />
<br />
I had a gang. Not a big one, or a cool one, but five-star, rock-solid back-up. Metaphorically, they held my coat while I squared up to fight. Literally, every single day, one or more of them was patiently telling me to hold my nerve, be brave, not rise to it; that I was in the right, that I was better than this, that it would soon be over.<br />
<br />
There are more of them in the world than there are of her. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Little <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41L0uedGlf8" target="_blank">Commitments throwback</a> for anyone excited about the new Roddy Doyle book</span>Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-27255889742247665582013-07-14T21:00:00.002+01:002013-07-14T22:33:11.604+01:00Miss Jones Is... Writing Without Authority About David Bowie<br />
A quiz:<br />
<br />
Consider the quotation 'Ultraviolence in Liberty fabrics.'<br />
<br />
Does it describe:<br />
<br />
a) A costume designed for the musician David Bowie during the <i>Starman</i> era?<br />
<br />
b) My disposition, 45 minutes into the V&A exhibition celebrating the musician David Bowie, having moved a total of no more than three metres from the entrance, trapped between ever-encroaching human walls of ditherers, slow readers, the spatially unaware and David Bowie fans – and the Venn diagram which holds them all?<br />
<br />
[The exhibition has been open for several months now, and it occurs to
me that it's so good that no one may actually be leaving. They're just
letting more and more people in.] <br />
<br />
The answer is, of course, both. It was a trick question.<br />
<br />
Still, during the three hours you spend carefully edging your way around <i>David Bowie Is...</i>, it is heartily reassuring to find something, anything, in common with the subject. The creativity, the eclecticism, the energy, the conviction on display, is simultaneously inspiring and totally demoralising. What have I achieved with my sorry life in comparison? Why have I wasted so many years? Should I have worn more jumpsuits when I was younger and a slim size 10?<br />
<br />
Say what you like about Dave, but he certainly gets things done.<br />
<br />
I like to imagine this kind of conversation between David and his neighbour as they both left their respective houses on any given Monday morning from the late 60s onwards.<br />
<br />
'Hello there, David!'<br />
<br />
'Hi Jeff. How was your weekend?'<br />
<br />
'Oof, well, pretty busy actually. Mowed the lawn - that was well overdue. Took Maureen and her mother out for Sunday lunch, bled the radiators, watched <i>Poldark</i>. How about yourself?'<br />
<br />
'Well, I wrote a few songs, went to my mime class, commissioned a set of asymmetric PVC stagewear from an unknown fashion student, storyboarded a new short film, made some flapjacks and read a really inspiring book about Dadaist theatre in the 1930s.'<br />
<br />
'Right.'<br />
<br />
<i>David Bowie Is...</i> a very sobering comparative exercise. Still, as my companion, Mr H, said to me over lunch afterwards, the gulf between our achievements exists because David Bowie is a one-off. There is him, he said, and then there is the rest of us. <br />
<br />
The next day, I went to get my hair cut and noticed my hairdresser had bought <i>exactly</i> the same postcard from the exhibition as I had and stuck it to his mirror.<br />
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<br />
This is the kind of symbiotic thinking that can be achieved by shouting at each other over the noise of a hairdryer three times a year.<br />
<br />
And since hairdressers are confidantes and counsellors, as well as being really good at not gagging when bits of other people's hair get everywhere, I discussed my feelings of Aladdinsecurity with him.<br />
<br />
He, too, was philosophical. (Look at all the reassuring men I know! When I was floundering after the sudden death of my dad, a counsellor told me there wasn't enough positive male influence in my life. Well, look at me now! I'm a winner!)<br />
<br />
'That's why he has an exhibition about him,' my hairdresser said. 'And we don't.'<br />
<br />
If you are as self-involved as I am, here's what you take away from <i>David Bowie Is...</i>:<br />
<br />
There will never be an exhibition all about me.<br />
<br />
People will never queue patiently to look at faded photographs of me aged six dressed
in a mum-sewn clown costume for a ballet recital and ponder how commedia
del'arte had always had a profound influence on my work. <br />
<br />
My penetrating yet slyly humorous letters of complaint to Southwark Council will never find a home under a protective glass case as an example of an artist honing their gift before finding their true artform. This is a bloody shame because they were brilliant letters, actually.<br />
<br />
Ernest curators will never write informative panels describing how my youthful brio and raw talent* <a href="http://whymissjones.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/i-fought-lambeth-horticultural-society.html" target="_blank">shook the stuffy world of regional baking competitions to its very foundations</a>. <br />
<br />
All I could do to console myself was look for any other ways DB and I are alike. There are several:<br />
<br />
We share a naturally/unnaturally high pallor.<br />
<br />
We are both Capricorns, supposedly the dullest sign in the zodiac. (At this point, the V&A would probably whirl their endless white ribbon of Bowie-related till receipts around like a rhythmic gymnast and say that astrology is bullshit.)<br />
<br />
Our dads have the same name. And I think we can all agree that 'John Jones' is pretty unusual.<br />
<br />
Another thing: as I walked around the exhibition, I overheard a man trying to impress the woman he was with by telling her how the mention of 'the market square' in <i>Five Years </i>related to the market square in Bromley. He may have been making it up. I wouldn't know. I'm the first to admit I'm a Bowie-come-lately. But I have suffered my own harrowing torment in Bromley's market square, when a wooden skewer thrown on the ground became embedded in my foot, having found a path through the slats of my gladiator sandals (a grasp of footwear trends will tell you this happened some years ago).<br />
<br />
Uncanny, no?<br />
<br />
Um. OK. Everyone?<br />
<br />
I THINK I MIGHT ACTUALLY BE DAVID BOWIE.<br />
<br />
Obviously I realise I'm nearly 40 and this has never occurred to me before, but if it's true, then I did take an awful lot of drugs in the 70s, so it's very likely this kind of thing could slip your mind. And Dave does love an image change.<br />
<br />
I feel much better about things now. <br />
<br />
Still. I should NEVER have turned down the Olympics.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Not so much this really.</span>Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-62593752463836873262013-06-27T22:20:00.000+01:002013-06-27T22:20:42.764+01:00Commuter dominoes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-82822444671212189062013-06-25T23:41:00.000+01:002013-06-25T23:45:29.335+01:00Art is hardI believe that creativity demands total emotional truth.<br />
<br />
That's why I feel compelled to tell you that my latest found-art project, exploring the ways in which extraordinary musical talent is predestined to collide and collaborate organically, despite the synthetic constructs of the corporate machine – using the medium of the 'Share a Coke' venture and its random product placement – has not exactly got off to the dynamic start I had hoped.<br />
<br />
No 1: The Bedingfields.<br />
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I am honestly starting to doubt whether Coke has even produced a 'Ringo'.Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-69018499328858978492012-11-11T23:32:00.001+00:002012-11-12T18:18:03.955+00:00Blogging again! Strictly half-term report! Trumpets!No explanation, no excuses, I am easing myself back into blogging with a half-term report on this series of <i>Strictly Come Dancing</i>. I'm not sure how it can be half-term when there are still 10 – 10! – contestants remaining, but from what I can tell nowadays, half-term seems to happen whenever anyone bloody well feels like it over a four-week period, so anything goes, right? If you're looking for quality weekly <i>Strictly</i> blogging, let me recommend my best Olympic buddy <a href="http://mindtidying.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Mind Tidying</a>, who is highly entertaining, with the kind of understanding and appreciation of dance skills that I brazenly lack.<br />
<br />
My own personal <i>Strictly</i> viewing journey this series so far can be summarised thus:<br />
<br />
1) <b>Love:</b> Louis, Kimberley, Richard. <b>Falling for:</b> Dani. <b>Fingers crossed for: </b>Lisa (£5 at
18-1). <b>Want to love
but can't quite: </b>Fern, Victoria, Nicky. <b>Don't love:</b> Denise, Michael. <br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Terms and conditions: Emotional investments can go down as well as up.)</span><br />
<br />
2) No one should ever make Dave Arch wear a costume. Seeing him dressed up as Dracula at Halloween made me think of a giant bear that's been chained to a post and poked with sticks to make it dance.<br />
<br />
3) Despite another duff partner/early exit for Anton, I have chosen to stop seeing him as an object of sympathy. This is a powerful psychological breakthrough for me. No longer do I picture him weeping the sad tears of a clown into a smart lambswool V-neck while other couples march on to Wembley and sodding Blackpool. Instead I think of him as liberated and free, having more time to do the things he loves, which I imagine to be: taking a special lady friend for a picnic in one of the greenhouses at Kew Gardens, 'motoring' down to a classic car rally at the Beaulieu Museum, or caddying for Ronnie Corbett and Bruce Forsyth at St Andrews in an attempt to further infiltrate the upper (well, up-ish) echelons of light entertainment.<br />
<br />
4) I feel quite strongly that <i>Strictly</i> may be running out of songs. How can this be? There are more songs in the world than there are rats in London and insects in the rainforest. This is scientific fact.* Yet people must apparently STILL waltz to <i>Kiss From A Rose.</i><br />
<br />
ANYWAY. This week.<br />
<br />
Bruce Forsyth and I share many similarities. We both enjoy our morning porridge with nuts and blueberries (I saw this on a documentary once). And he, too, is celebrating half-term. But I imagine Bruce's break – unlike most half-termers – amounts less to a trip to the Harry Potter Studios tour and a Burger King, or spending the whole day in Topshop eating Pick and Mix, and more to quality time with a tartan blanket, some crackers and Stilton, and a DVD of the Ryder Cup. And, awkwardly, I must report to Brucie and the writers of his 'jokes' that this is the first show in recent memory where I actually laughed out loud at something that was intentionally funny (and not just at Michael Vaughan's hair, for example).<br />
<br />
Firstly, I love the opening montage. It's got Miranda in it, why wouldn't I? It would be easy for me to mock Su Pollard at this point, but she's the one apparently owning this season's gold brocade trend, not me, so I know which one of us is more likely to be invited to the Balmain Christmas party. (She's welcome to it. I reckon the buffet would be rubbish.) I also love Tess and Claudia back together. Tess no longer has to painfully perform a series of 'reaction' faces to Bruce's hi-jinks and can get on with the business of solidly competent presenting. Claudia can be demented in a safe, controlled environment while dressed as a sci-fi dentist. (Tess, by the way, has come as a bunny girl who's chosen to start dressing slightly more conservatively since having children.)<br />
<br />
On with the dancing. First up are Denise and James. I'm not saying James was threatened by the reappearance of Ian Waite (who rehearsed with DVO while James was injured) but their paso seemed to be a lot about Le Jordan. 'Yes, Denise, first of all I have to spend AGES twirling a cape right in front of the camera while you stand behind me and can't be seen. No, a bit longer. No, you see I HAVE to, it's not a proper paso if I don't. And now I'm going to do a knee slide RIGHT INTO THE CAMERA for all my fans.' Their paso is brilliant, of course, and scores four 9s, but I think I speak for everyone who's ever watched <i>Strictly</i> when I say that I really, really miss Ian Waite.<br />
<br />
We all love Richard, right? Funny, self-effacing, suitably deferential to Erin (who I like more and more when she's with him, a bit like Taylor Swift when she was dating Jake Gyllenhaal, only Erin and Richard's partnership has lasted longer). His and Erin's Charleston is no <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrCfqbTy3W8" target="_blank">Hollins 'n' Ola</a>, but it's great value, and for fans of dance faces, he has some of the all-time best ever. Also, fans of men in their 40s doing Penelope Pitstop runs won't have been disappointed by that either. Richard's little face (©CWinkleman) when he's awarded a string of 7s and 8s is one of my favourite <i>Strictly</i> things in history. I mean it's no Vincent trying to do a roly-poly, but come on...<br />
<br />
Louis and Flavia are dancing the waltz. All the dancers, pro and celeb, have their individual crosses to bear – a partner who's too tall/too short/does 'impressions'/does 'jokes'/has no rhythm – and with Louis, I think it's important to remember how weird it must be to be 23, and have lived all your professional life with the discipline and routine of a sportsman, then suddenly have to be all intimate and expressive with an older lady. We can't all be totally down with it like Aaron Johnson-Taylor-Wood. Never mind, Louis's mum has come along to training to make sure no one's mean to him. Too bad she didn't save a mum smackdown for Craig in the studio, who unaccountably gives Louis a 6. He says it was a bit saccharine for him. It's a waltz, Craig. Surely you've seen one before. <i>Entre nous</i>, I think Craig is dismayed by the presence of the <i>Strictly</i> swing, a reappearance that's about as welcome as a coldsore, having <a href="http://whymissjones.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/badly-done-ballroom-voters.html" target="_blank">propelled Matt Baker to the brink of a nervous collapse</a> (in my own parallel <i>Strictly </i>narrative) almost exactly two years ago. <br />
<br />
Fern and Artem are doing the salsa. Artem does have a shirt on again but it's open to the waist. He's put the chest out there now, he can't take it back. Craig immediately erases all my Louis-related bad feeling towards him with the look of utter contempt he gives to Fern coming at his face with a feather duster. Fern gives it some welly and has nice hair. It's the hair that Kimberley had a few weeks ago. I wonder who will have it next week? I'm hoping for Michael Vaughan and I think he is too. After a kindly round of judging, Claudia asks Artem if he's over the moon with their comments. Artem deadpans: 'I am very much so,' like a bored escort crossed with a really sexy Russian droid. <br />
<br />
Now. Pendleton. Are we all agreed that the judges have received a memo ordering them not to upset her under any circumstances, in case the subsequent cascade of salty tears melts the studio floor and up from the dark oblivion below surges the angry vengeful figure of Chris Hoy, grown to the proportions of an ogre? Good. Yes, Sir Chris is lovely and charming and benign, AS FAR AS WE KNOW, but
who can say how the golden god may react when forced to defend the honour of the queen of British cycling. It's either that or Sebastian Coe has made some dark and terrible pact with the IOC that the UK will only get to host the Olympics again if Victoria Pendleton wins <i>Strictly Come Dancing</i>. On a plinth in his turreted castle sits an eerily glowing GB Pendleton cycling helmet symbolising the pact. What we need, of course, is some young knight – Jason Kenny would do it, or Laura Trott for sexual parity – to battle their way inside on a magic wall-penetrating bicycle, smash the helmet with an axe, and thus break the spell.<br />
<br />
It's just possible I've overthought this.<br />
<br />
In summary, Brendan wheels (hahahahaha - she is a cyclist! I made a joke) Victoria around and the judges treat her like a frail endangered species. She's improving A LOT but not to the extent where Craig is justified in marking her higher than Louis.<br />
<br />
Also important to note: Brendan falls over harder than Philip Hindes, at a similarly critical moment, but possibly with less deliberation. I love Brendan these days.<br />
<br />
It's Danni and Vincent. I LOVE Vincent SO MUCH. I like Danni. That means that, on balance and using simultaneous equations, I love (Vincent + Danni). A note from me to the <i>Strictly</i> producers: please stop treating Vincent like a joke and forcing him to wear stupid blonde wigs. You're making us forget that he's awesome and used to date Flavia, who's really fit, and doesn't date just anyone... Oh. Well, anyway, she's really fit. (I'm just joking. She's been dating Jimi Mistry for at least three series). And the good news is that with the Fonzie Jive and the Phone Box Tango, Danni seems to be resuscitating Awesome Vincent. HE LIVES.<br />
<br />
Next up, Nicky, who starts his foxtrot with a brilliant solo section which makes me 'Oooh!' out loud. Not as much as when <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0qkoqHAZ7w" target="_blank">Gethin did the salsa</a>, but still, Nicky's really blossoming. It's as though he is, in the metaphorical language of Westlife, rising up off his
stool and walking with purpose and a boyband air-grab to the front of the stage. He is living a key-change. He and Karen make great use of their microphone prop, although it's not turned on. Just like in the Westlife days. I'M TOTALLY JOKING, WESTLIFE FANS. AND ANYWAY, WE ALL KNOW YOU AND YOUR MOBILE PHONES ARE TAKING NICKY TO AT LEAST THE SEMI-FINALS.<br />
<br />
During his judges' comments, Cheryl <strike>Cole</strike> heckles from the crowd. I'd prefer it if she was heckling at <i>The X Factor</i>. Everyone would pay money for that. 'Oi! Scherzinger! WHO ARE YA?'<br />
<br />
Kimberley and Pasha are dancing the Viennese Waltz. Kimberley says they are dancing to a beautiful song, and this makes me worry for my potential friendship with Kimberley as I think it's one of the most boring things I've ever heard. Kimberley is clearly the sensible one in Girls Aloud, and I am the sensible one in any friendship group, which should make us so compatible, but now everything I thought I knew has been thrown into question. What would we play at our slumber parties where we have a chocolate fondue and tell Nicola Roberts she should always stick to her natural ginger? However, I do love Kimberley's 'yearning' expression at the top of the stairs, which should see her at least win a part in the next series of that ITV drama about military wives when this is all over and Girls Aloud have a massive bust-up on their reunion tour. It's all nice enough, but doesn't change my opinion that the world could live quite happily without the Viennese Waltz. Viennese Whirls, however = indispensable.<br />
<br />
Michael Vaughan has found some good form in recent weeks. This seems to have woken the terrible kraken that is Natalie's competitive streak – a beast that had lain dormant during Michael's lovable but hopeless early weeks. We could see the warning signs earlier tonight when Natalie was caught on camera applauding Louis's waltz with gritted teeth and flashing eyes. It's like Vesuvius, ominously smoking, and primed to erupt. I am aware, by the way, that I am mixing my metaphors beyond salvation in this paragraph. Let's just say that salsa is not really for Michael and move on. Good lifts, though.<br />
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Lisa
and Robin dance a fabulous razzle-dazzle foxtrot to <i>This Will Be (An
Everlasting Love)</i>, which is on the soundtrack to <i>While You Were
Sleeping</i>, which I love. The film's premise would make a great concept for Romantic Comedy Week (planned for week 9, I believe**). Male dancer starts off lying on faux railway tracks. Female rolls
him off and into a coma-themed rumba (all rumbas are coma-themed, albeit inadvertently, for me). In other falling over news, Robin takes a tumble just before the stairs.<br />
<br />
Come the results show, it's time for the SHOCK! we all knew was on the cards after weeks of perfectly appropriate evictions. And it's Kimberley and Pasha in the dance-off, which I'm blaming on mid-table forgettability and bland song forgettability, and also Cheryl hanging around in the studio wearing black like a tiny beautiful doomy raven. But ultimately it's Fern who's going home. Artem went topless too early. Like I said, where could he go from that?<br />
<br />
See you for the semi-finals! Maybe!<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*It's not.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">**It's not.</span>Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-38488035462209469612012-09-20T00:22:00.000+01:002012-09-29T18:06:41.061+01:0012 Things I Learnt From The Olympic And Paralympic Gamesor 'Yes, I am still going on about this, but so are the weekend supplements, so I think it's kind of OK, especially considering this is not even my actual job.'<br />
<br />
WARNING: Long! Really, really long.<br />
<br />
Memories... light the corners of my mind. Those aren't my words. They're the words of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Bergman" target="_blank">Marilyn and Alan Bergman</a>. To them I say, 'Alan, Maz, easy for you to say. <i>My</i> mind is jammed full of shopping lists and train times and the birthdays of the individual members of Duran Duran, all languishing under a huge billowing fog of worries, both generalised and specific. How can I possibly fit all those small but significant Olympic and Paralympic memories in there too? All the many things I've learned and the ways I've grown? What if some of them... I don't know... fall out? Because brain specialists tell me this can happen.<br />
<br />
Alan and Maz have no answer for me on that. Perhaps it's because Maz doesn't really like being called Maz. She thinks it's disrespectful to abbreviate a triple Oscar-winner. To her, I say, 'You know what, MAZ? Some of the lyrics to <i>Windmills Of Your Mind</i> make NO SENSE AT ALL,' because I don't take rejection very well.<br />
<br />
Since Burt Bacharach was no help either, I clearly had to sort this out myself. If only I had some sort of cyber dump where I could record all my favourite strange and inconsequential parts of the last couple of months, things that won't become part of the official Olympic DVD (I've pre-ordered, naturally), before they drift out of my ears and away into the ether? Where oh where could I write about those things and maybe post some photogra.... OH HANG ON.<br />
<br />
So here, in no order of rank – which, by the way, isn't a reflection of my views on competitive sport in schools – are the things I learnt from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.<br />
<br />
<b>1. Cardboard can make you cry. </b><br />
Oh alright. Anything during the Olympics can make you cry. Or, more specifically, me. Anything at all during the Olympics can make me cry. Any mundane gesture becomes infused with meaning. Any waitress routinely wiping down your café table became a symbol of the clean start we are all making together, a new time of friendliness and warmth and national pride and OH GOD I'M CRYING; any pigeon eating some sick off the pavement somehow represents London's spirit of plucky, stubborn survival and OH GOD I'M CRYING AGAIN. The sign below, which I spotted on a merchandise stand at Eton Dornay, just after Great Britain won their first gold medal, seemed to mark a kind of turning point for me, from the nation feeling kind of indifferent about the Olympics to feeling really very different about them indeed. <br />
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OH THE TEARS, I CANNOT STOP THE TEARS.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>2. Be careful what you wish for. </b><br />
Having front-row seats at the velodrome is amazing! It's a dream come true! All it takes is a lot of cash and many hours spent poring over foreign ticket sites! Look! Show-off photo incoming!<br />
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<br />
And yet my precious cycling session was marred by nightmarish visions. As I leaned forward to take photos of our two-wheeling heroes, I kept seeing my iphone slipping out of my sweating hand (it is HOT in there), arcing over the barrier and sliding, in sickening slow motion, down the banked track and into the path of Sir Chris Hoy's bike, causing him to wobble, topple and surrender his long-cherished dream of record-breaking gold at his home Olympics, while I crouched down under my seat as the world's media attempted to capture the moron responsible. Oops, sorry, Sir Chris. Butter fingers! Never mind, you've got four other gold medals, right? <br />
<br />
<b>3. No One Is Really As Cool As You Think, Not Even Cyclists. </b><br />
Oh cyclists. You think you're so special with your superhero skin suits and your space age curvy track and your what-is-better-in-the-world-really spectacle of team pursuiters powering along in perfect formation. Look, here they come...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW2Ba7_bTElVXLI1VzJaCxc7QLeq44j04QrcSGg4v6KlEvE8JxkE1pKZiGvaVhk56VDUbNakPS9WPCXeUMu-icZePP4rrixYrXI7q2Fr28HoAmyJYpbGwU-RIq2LYScuGYUx1iIreud3M/s1600/pursuitincoming.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW2Ba7_bTElVXLI1VzJaCxc7QLeq44j04QrcSGg4v6KlEvE8JxkE1pKZiGvaVhk56VDUbNakPS9WPCXeUMu-icZePP4rrixYrXI7q2Fr28HoAmyJYpbGwU-RIq2LYScuGYUx1iIreud3M/s320/pursuitincoming.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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And there they go...<br />
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Sometimes I wonder how I can be so amazing at photography. <br />
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Still, don't lose heart, mortals. Because my live cycling experience has taught me that the invincible athletes who ride team pursuit for GB like to sit there between rounds in their vests. I'm sure these are very special vests, engineered by scientists to nurture muscle, repel fatigue and, I don't know, do something that really helps with the cycling. But to the uneducated eye, Our Boys look like four elderly men on a hot day at Blackpool sea front, moaning about the sun or the quality of the battered sausages.<br />
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Incidentally, if the BBC ever decides to commission a sitcom entitled <i>Last Of The Summer Cyclists</i>, in which elderly characters loosely based on the post-retirement Hoy, Cavendish and Wiggins (or perhaps Clancy, Thomas and Burke in subsequent series) get into hilarious scrapes as they attempt to recreate the team pursuit while riding a tin bath or similar junk-shop find down a steep hill, I would totally watch it.<br />
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<b>4. In case there was ever any doubt, I can now confirm that I am emphatically anti-fun.</b><br />
If you, Olympic-venue public-address announcers, ask me if I'm having a good time, especially in that tone of voice that suggests you are the soul of an over-excited puppy planted into the body of a human, as if in a hilarious inter-species body-swap film comedy that, as far as I know, has never yet been made, but I am totally claiming the idea now if it hasn't because that's box office gold, I am immediately NOT having a good time. Did you never read Just Seventeen? Don't you know that desperation isn't attractive? And, in the five minutes between basketball quarters, I don't want to dance to <i>The Macarena</i> in the hope that a roaming camera may project my mad dance skillz onto the big screen. I just want to sit and talk about the game with my friend, have a drink and, perhaps, go to the toilet (I promise to leave my seat to do this). Similarly, I don't care for playing invisible bongos or even, if I may go so far, actual bongos. NO TO BONGOS OF ANY KIND. This is top-level competitive sport, not <i>Agadoo</i><i>.</i> What is this obsession with hyping everyone up to the point of nervous and laryngeal collapse, inciting the crowd to cheer louder? No, louder than that. Ooh now, I think you can do better. Now this grandstand. Now that grandstand. Now which grandstand is loudest? NO ONE CARES. IT'S THE OLYMPICS. EVERYONE IS ALREADY PRETTY BLOODY WELL PSYCHED WITHOUT YOUR HELP. JUST LEAVE US ALONE, CAN'T YOU?<br />
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I can also personally attest to the awkwardness of sitting next to a male stranger, with whom you have been making pleasant but functional small talk, when 'Kiss Cam' starts roaming around. 'No, it's OK. I've just dropped something down here. Yes, it does look uncannily like I'm hiding under my seat, doesn't it? How funny!' Sodding Kiss Cam! Poor old Pierre de Coubertin must be spinning. (And by this I mean the grave-swivelling outrage, not the exercise class.) Higher, faster, stronger, CRINGIER.<br />
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<b>5. You can be patriotic and totally unpatriotic at the same time. Human beings are a rich and confusing species. </b><br />
Here is a mystery in my life. I, absolutely the least fly woman in Europe, if not the world, can give an impassioned 100% earnest rendition of Grandmaster Flash's <i>White Lines</i> without flinching. I can karaoke the heck out of the most cringeworthy lines of Olivia Newton John's <i>Physical</i> ('I took you to an intimate restaurant... to a suggestive movie') or The Divinyls <i>I Touch Myself</i> without a hint of self-consciousness. Yet I find it impossible to sing <i>God Save The Queen</i> without feeling very uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed. At the same time, when I see a man dressed in this outfit, I want to give him a firm handshake and some kind of military salute. <br />
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This, like most things, worries me. I think I'm young enough, at 38, to still contest the following sports at Olympic level: golf, archery, fencing, sailing, shooting, equestrianing and triple jump (Yamile Aldama is 40). I will wear my team kit with huge pride. But what will I do on the podium when I inevitably win a gold medal? I will have to pretend that my lips are totally paralysed by Potent Victory Emotions. And does this anthem-aversion mean I am, like, the new Guy Fawkes or something? Probably not because I really like fireworks. <br />
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<b>6. Long-distance mega-lens photos aren't always creepy and invasive. </b><br />
Oh OK, they are. Having a friend in possesion of a swanky camera with a privacy-encroaching zoom is an absolute boon during the more pedestrian sections of the Closing Ceremony. Those cringey cover versions will simply fly past as you hunt down your favourite athletes and discover which international comrades they are having one final crack at before everyone goes home. In addition, it can transform your view of... oh I don't know, let's say Ryan Lochte, just for argument's sake, from this…<br />
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…to this<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqO9dSR0UHsyVmtTCoa-VwYIYHd94uOyLMnmI2NZx4jJ2w8_hDSCAOQrF5an3X9RSK_gnf1dHlueLuBgqfEmrXXgujNdgBF_9avaXVsIEgNPu2dDwfZXKGSa3EFv98qS7dmIPaguSfhzU/s1600/lochte.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqO9dSR0UHsyVmtTCoa-VwYIYHd94uOyLMnmI2NZx4jJ2w8_hDSCAOQrF5an3X9RSK_gnf1dHlueLuBgqfEmrXXgujNdgBF_9avaXVsIEgNPu2dDwfZXKGSa3EFv98qS7dmIPaguSfhzU/s320/lochte.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy of <a href="http://mindtidying.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Mind Tidying</a></td></tr>
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Technology truly is a wonderful thing.<br />
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<b>7. The memories of merchandisers are short.</b><br />
London 2012 Megastore! You can't reduce Daley Thompson, he's the greatest! Show some respect!<br />
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Mo Farah, some day you too will be in the bargain bin. Deal with it.<br />
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<b>8. Volunteering is more like a proper job than any proper job I've ever actually had. </b><br />
<b> </b>I mean, honestly, it was all pro-activity and initiative and concentration and application, and really hardly any sitting around having cups of teas and snacking and dicking around on the internet for hours at a time. Even though my role was a long way out of my comfort zone, Sir Alan, I truly loved being able to walk through the empty ExCel arenas after hours, feet sore, but spine tingling.<br />
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I loved being there when the corridors had turned from this…<br />
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…to this…<br />
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I loved sweet-talking the closing-up food concessions into selling me a late-night cup of tea, because – and I really can't stress this enough – the opportunities for idle tea-drinking were extremely limited, then smugly congratulating myself on my silky people skills, only to undermine any newly fostered goodwill by spilling milk all over their newly wiped down counter and having to slope off to the DLR feeling clumsy and sheepish.<br />
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And I'm fairly sure I loved going home so tired that I genuinely didn't know whether this particular sight was real or just a weary hallucination.<br />
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<b>9. Always have your excuse handy.</b><br />
If you are standing in the workforce toilets, wearing your volunteer uniform, attempting to take pictures of yourself in the mirror because you deludedly fancy that in your press bib, under the strip lightning, you bear a marked resemblance to Kate Adie in her flak jacket in a war-torn Middle Eastern country – but purple; really, really purple – it might be good to have some kind of sensible explanation ready in case someone walks in, instead of having to try and turn it into some elaborate hair-grooming ritual involving your iPhone.<br />
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I don't know what to do with my uniform now it's all over. Obviously I can't throw it away, or give it to charity or engineer any other parting. That would suggest I am something other than a sentimental, hoarding fool. But there is so much of it. And it's so synthetic (as one particularly maternal employee at the uniform pick-up said to me, in a voice that was pure Thora Hird, 'It doesn't breathe, but it washes like a dream'), it's surely a fire hazard to have it stacked up around the house. I'm hoping that if I put it into the oven, it might become like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinky_Dinks" target="_blank">Shrinky Dinks</a> and reduce dramatically in size until it's small enough that I can thread the individual pieces onto a charm bracelet.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>10. It's OK to change your mind. Isn't it?</b><br />
Not so long ago, the 2012 logo and cycloptic mascots were the worst things I had ever seen. Ugly. Unforgivable. An affront to this country's design industry. And now? Well, I seem to have bought this:<br />
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And this:<br />
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(As well as two Team GB rucksacks, a T-shirt, a set of Olympic-themed commemorative biscuit tins and two tea towels, but that's not important right now.) I can only attribute this about-turn in affection to what my friend Ms H one termed the Alan Hansen Effect, which dictates that given sufficiently intense exposure to a particular individual or object – say, during the endless TV coverage of a major international football tournament – one can develop profoundly warm feelings, possibly sexual, for them. (I loved Hansen from the start, by the way.)<br />
<b><br /></b><b>11. The erotic potential of Greco-Roman wresling has been wildy under-estimated. By me, at least. </b><br />
Here is what I learnt from watching the sport for the first time. I record my findings without comment.<br />
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If there has been no score after the second minute of a three-minute round, one of our two competitors gets to choose whether he goes 'top or bottom'. The wrestler who is 'bottom' gets down on all fours. The 'top' wrestler then mounts his opponent from behind and must attempt to 'turn' him while the crowd become increasingly enthused. <br />
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<b>12. I am a pretty good bad photographer. </b><br />
I love this picture.<br />
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Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-2164854717005791292012-08-17T22:00:00.000+01:002012-08-21T22:54:04.963+01:00A Late And Over-Emotional Response To The Recent Olympic Games, Containing Poor Reasoning And Little Fresh InsightFor well over two weeks now, I've had a heavy stone sitting in my stomach. And it is not just the late-night BK Whopper meal I ate on the way home from the Greco-Roman wrestling. BA-DUM!<br />
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It is because very soon [press play on the <i>100 Most Wistful Ballads In The World That Are Also Suitable For Soundtracking A Sporting Montage… Ever!</i> CD about now] there will be a time when the London Olympics are not on the way, are not about to happen, are not happening. Only 12 days of Paralympic heroics remain between now and Normal Life flatlining ahead of us – a grey time when the person in the cubicle next to me in the toilets at St Pancras at 11pm is not audibly humming the music to <i>Chariots Of Fire</i>; a time when it doesn't seem perfectly run-of-the-mill to see a man eating lasagne and salad in the John Lewis cafe in full red, white and blue face paint and a matching bubble wig with a flag draped around his shoulders; a time when beaming strangers in red and purple manmade fibres do not queue up to high-five you just for sitting in a plastic seat for two hours or walking towards a train station in a peaceful crowd formation. <br />
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These four words I might have said in this blog more than any others: I love the Olympics. My heart, my soul, quite a lot of my inheritance… all this and more went into finding tickets. I've rarely worked harder at anything, apart from my <i>Fox And The Hound </i>sticker book in the early 80s (full up, no repeats). It baffles people – I am nothing if not a mercurial yet highly charismatic enigma – but there's really nothing I'd rather have spent my money on. Cars bore me and I have too many clothes (only lately, in moving house, have I come to the startling realisation that this is possible. Nothing quenches a passion like packing 105 coathangers). Australia is nice, so they say; Thailand too, but really I've only ever wanted to go to the Olympics. They're my
round-the-world cruise, my all-inclusive five-star getaway with novelty cocktails on a lounger at sunset. <br />
<br />
Sometimes people ask me what it is I love so much about the Olympics
and I turn to them and say: 'WHAT A RIDICULOUS QUESTION. WHY ARE WE EVEN
FRIENDS?'<br />
<br />
It's simple: the Olympics
has the best stories. Obsession, sacrifice, vengeance, loss, triumph
and really attractive people in tight outfits. All happening at a high-pressure, odds-lengthening, last-chance-heavy interval of once every four years. And if you can't buy into
that, you might want to ask yourself whether life as a member of the
human race is really for you. The Olympics are <i>Star Wars</i> and <i>Moby Dick</i>.
They might not quite be <i>Romeo & Juliet</i> – and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/cycling/9463993/Laura-Trott-admits-I-am-dating-Jason-Kenny.html" target="_blank">Jason Kenny and Laura Trott</a> are probably hoping that remains the case – but let's think of showjumper
Scott Brash <a href="http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/4476501/Scott-hopes-to-get-jump-on-the-girls.html" target="_blank">hoping his gold medal would help him pull women</a>,
and more epicly (yes, definitely a word, thanks) German weightlifter
Matthias Steiner in Beijing, winning the gold medal he'd promised to his
wife who died in a car accident a year before. Steiner
took a photo of her on to the victory podium – watch, weep and do some
GCSE German listening comprehension <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPGWuWhb-T0" target="_blank">here</a>. <br />
<br />
During any other Olympics, I would have been developing sofa sores and square eyes, bingeing on the BBC, catching each highlights package at least three times until I could turn the sound off and provide the commentary myself verbatim. This time, I was there, Actually Literally There, for loads of it, seeing the Real Thing in front of me and in no other medium. On the middle weekend, and a rare day off, I went to a birthday barbecue where one friend surveyed my hollow eyes, unwashed clothing and sunburnt extremities and enquired whether I had actually been living feral in the Olympic Park. I had not, mostly because of all the excellent and thorough security measures that had been put in place to prevent this and, oh yes, because I HATE CAMPING – but it often felt like it. It was dreamlike. But not quite in the way I was expecting. I'm not sure whether it's an indication of my general grasp on reality, or whether I'm trying to say something profound about our relationship with the digital age – oh wait, no, it's not that; this is cheap sentiment and whimsical comparison; please move elsewhere for penetrating insight – but it's very strange that watching these events live somehow seemed less real than watching them on TV.<br />
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I saw a lot of incredible achievement, of the kind it is a privilege to share the same microclimate with, to eat over-priced tiny tubs of Pringles alongside, to shout raucously at in a voice you are surprised to find you own. Pure magic is happening in front of you, but if you have a suspicious nature like me, you doubt that you're really there witnessing it. On August 1st, I was at Eton Dornay watching Stanning & Glover (opticians? solicitors? <i>New Faces</i> double act?) win Britain's first gold medal. But on the way home, I
barely thought of them. I did, however, think of the British men's eight crew. I couldn't stop. They had dismissed the prospect of a certain silver
medal to gamble for gold, only to fall short and end up with utter despair – or bronze, as the madly competitive sometimes call it. I watched through my binoculars (only a little less creepy than it sounds) as they remained adrift in their boat a
good 20 minutes after the event had finished, slumped forward with heads in hands, or lying
back, prostrate with pain, eventually crawling on to dry land like they'd fought in a war. That <i>did</i> seem real – horribly so.<br />
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(Ideally, all the time Steve Redgrave spent on the water would have triggered a marine metamorphosis after he retired, transforming him into some kind of octopus – thus able to offer one arm to each member of the GB eight crew for hugging, holding up or back-rubbing anyone spewing off the end of the jetty. I guess evolution is not the miracle we all think.)<br />
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I know some people believe rowing to be strictly the preserve of poshos who only practise on the river in order to simultaneously do their training and pluck out swans for their servants to roast for lunch, but for me it is the perfect visual representation of the Olympics effort. Rowers are so utterly broken – physically sick and emotionally spent – by the end of their event that it is distressing just to watch. The winners have the perfect tonic of course, but everyone else? Well, if you tuned into the post-race interview with Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter, you will forever be haunted by the terrible, dark things you saw that day – it was, I would say, only marginally less harrowing than the opening sequence of <i>Saving Private Ryan</i>. Those few minutes of agony seemed pretty real too. And I think it's because failure is probably more familiar to the majority than triumph. Most of us don't win, not in that way. We lead small lives, in jobs we tolerate, bumbling along. Maybe that's why the defeats resonated with me more than the victories. Or maybe I'm just quite miserable. It's probably that. <br />
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Of course, I feel guilty for questioning my experience of the triumphs I was lucky enough to see, for failing to fully absorb their scale and reality when they were right there in front of me. But when you've been waiting for something as long as I have (28 years, since Los Angeles), I think it's hard to make it truly meaningful when it finally happens. How can you possibly, definitively, drink every last bit in? I've heard people say this about
their weddings, but I wouldn't know about that as I am an unmarried <i>Daily Mail </i>statistic.<br />
<br />
But it's probably not good to over-analyse – which, for me, is like saying, 'Could you just try to ease up on the breathing in and out?' It's important not to examine those loud, bright moments of ecstacy too much in case you somehow rub all their gloss away, but I suppose you just have to know that they will somehow seep inside you and stay there, along with all the other good things that have ever happened in your life, ready to shore you up in grimmer times.<br />
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Farah, Ennis, Rutherford, Hoy, Grainger… they are the ones I will remember in 40 years' time, as I watch my worn-out Opening Ceremony DVD on repeat, Havisham-like, in my care home. Those who didn't come first, I suppose I may forget – along with my own name and where I live. Olympians, of course, have known this all along. I am just working it out.<br />
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<b>Coming as soon as I get round it: My top xx [to be filled in when I've actually written it and counted them] first-hand Olympic memories, including cyclists in vests, anthem inhibition and references to the Teenage Fanclub song <i>Tears Are Cool</i>.</b><br />
<br />Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-15334713095426541922012-02-16T21:51:00.001+00:002012-02-16T22:02:34.563+00:00VacationI'm going to be taking a little holiday from blogging – not the now-habitual week or two between posts, I mean a proper holiday for a few months. Look on it as the blogging equivalent of going travelling, only I'll still be here in southeast London, trying to sell my flat and buy another one and execute various other tedious chores. I suspect once I've told myself – and you – that there'll be no blogging for a while, I won't be able to help myself, but who knows. Anything could happen. It's a thrill ride, in a flat, uneventful sort of a way<br />
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See you in a few months. I won't Forget You. That makes me sound like a cold-blooded, watchful killer, but no need to double-lock the door, it's just an excuse to post this:<br />
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<iframe width="410" height="308" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yifgTYhDJ0s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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When the blog returns, I'm definitely reintroducing Muppet Monday.Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-48403782129056841302012-02-12T23:30:00.000+00:002012-02-13T00:32:57.505+00:00On Marks & Spencer and their self-respect (slight return)Oh Marks & Spencer. Have you not read my <a href="http://whymissjones.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-m-malaise.html" target="_blank">laments</a> for your lost dignity? For your slightly self-conscious slide into twee packaging, alien brands and freshly flipped burgers?<br />
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No one even calls you St Michael any more.<br />
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A fresh blow, for me, is the latest self-checkout apparatus, where you must hurl your coins down a chute, just as though you were tossing pound coins into a pint glass in the kind of grubby public house I have never been in.<br />
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This coin orifice, it should be noted, lights up and flashes, as does the notes slot on the opposite side, like the embellished extremities of a brassiere at the Moulin Rouge.<br />
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I imagine.<br />
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In the interests of raising awareness of this grim spectacle, I have attempted to photograph it:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_l1TCA9esuUxIw0tikIl8nj_XDKESHggEfnQC25LzoH_bKun5vpWP_rdmgdVxcXe8WvmMy47QRGL2p97LVR84_JzXvC37-fWcIY391ekXbCcykIrP4zEotwpKuOOQMw-R6F0DeCj-B1Q/s1600/mandstill.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_l1TCA9esuUxIw0tikIl8nj_XDKESHggEfnQC25LzoH_bKun5vpWP_rdmgdVxcXe8WvmMy47QRGL2p97LVR84_JzXvC37-fWcIY391ekXbCcykIrP4zEotwpKuOOQMw-R6F0DeCj-B1Q/s320/mandstill.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I have had to improvise with Photoshop to demonstrate the full effect, as the lights don't flash in synchronisation. <br />
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The Marks & Spencer of legend would have been slightly embarrassed about asking for your money, automatedly (yes, I'm totally sure this is definitely a word). The Marks & Spencer that would sooner have closed its doors for ever than allow a box of Kellogg's or a can of Coke into the stockroom would merely encourage the sober placing of cash in a brown envelope (provided) and the opening and closing of a hatch. Or better, the recorded voice of Stephen Fry (Nigel Havers if Fry's busy making a documentary about words somewhere warm and exotic) apologising profusely whenever an unexpected item finds its way into the bagging area. 'Oh, I know this is a terrible bind, but would you be a brick and pop that little soldier through the scanner again. Everything shipshape now? Oh, good show!'<br />
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Not this clattering of coins from a great height. Not this vulgar neon beckoning.Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-79628753662412167632012-01-31T23:41:00.000+00:002012-01-31T23:48:49.524+00:00The Little Crisp That Could… And Then Actually Couldn't<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is the view from my bedroom window.<br />
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The first thing you might think on seeing this picture is that our neighbours must produce a LOT of rubbish.<br />
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They do.<br />
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But another group of you will only have eyes for another part of the frame. Those people are the eagled-eyed potato-based-snack fanatics, and every civilisation has them.<br />
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In this instance, the quarry of this unique group of hunters is a Hula Hoop placed on top of the wall that divides us from our waste-profligate neighbours.<br />
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Let's stretch the zoom capabilities of the iphone camera to the farthest reaches of endeavour and take a closer look.<br />
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There's nothing so remarkable about this. I live on a busy road which, for a great many, is the route from public house to home, or school to leisure. Hula Hoop hi-jinx, you might say, are inevitable in such a situation.<br />
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But the wall is about seven feet tall.<br />
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And the Hula Hoop has been there for weeks. Petrified, potato-y weeks and weeks.<br />
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Quite alone, it has defended its post in the face of driving rain and high winds. On each of January's unforgiving nights, I have looked out of the window before going to bed, observing the frost on the cars, the litter on the driveway and the Hula Hoop on the wall. <br />
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And somehow it has stared down the famished foxes and cats of the neighbourhood, who clearly don't believe in not eating where they shit, because this is indeed where they shit. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgNk6Mb-ab_g1WwOV1Ye8bJIG_MoINSDsjTlDKfzalJJxk4QuWd_cx123dyqEY1xJnMNeN5Rx9JpBoPaT0SieYsHgbRFu4yVANIeS2PmA1PK70BkmqTEOPzqOpZxmM6mVGmbG_XcsUMw/s1600/poo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgNk6Mb-ab_g1WwOV1Ye8bJIG_MoINSDsjTlDKfzalJJxk4QuWd_cx123dyqEY1xJnMNeN5Rx9JpBoPaT0SieYsHgbRFu4yVANIeS2PmA1PK70BkmqTEOPzqOpZxmM6mVGmbG_XcsUMw/s320/poo.JPG" width="239" /></a><br />
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The fortitude of this tiny, tenacious Hula Hoop only enforced my belief that it is the king of all crisps – its unbroken circle a ready-salted symbol of endurance that, coincidentally, is also perfectly engineered to be eaten off the fingers of five-year-olds at parties.<br />
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The foxes of this world are welcome to all the oven-baked, 'gourmet'-flavoured crisp innovations of the last 20 years if they will leave me perfect, plain Hula Hoops.<br />
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I see you and your strength, tiny crisp. And I will try to be a little more like you.<br />
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Together, I thought to myself, we will wait for the snow.<br />
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And then this morning I looked out of the window and noticed that the Hula Hoop had finally moved, just a couple of inches towards my house. And I could see quite clearly that it was a pebble.</div>
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</div>Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-29181054418091715482012-01-18T23:30:00.000+00:002012-01-19T10:45:07.084+00:00Testing, testing...Eagle-eyed readers will have noted from a previous post that I had a date with gymnastics last week.<br />
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Not competing, of course, although my floor routine to <i>(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman</i> is quite something, particularly the star-jump-into-forward-roll sequence, which is so spectacular I essentially repeat it for the duration of the programme. My marks for difficulty are, in general, heavily outweighed by those for performance, but what performance! If your living room carpet is vast enough, I'd be more than willing to pop over and demonstrate. Please ensure I cannot bump my head on the coffee table or similar. I am extremely litigious. <br />
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No, this was, of course, one of the Olympic test events at the North Greenwich Arena. Not the O2 Arena. Oh no. The Olympics does not recognise O2 as a valid sponsor. If you say the words O2 repeatedly in the presence of Lord Coe or one of his LOCOG droids, they spin round on the spot as smoke and springs are propelled from their featureless middles while they emit the words 'Happy Meal! Happy Meal!' at ever-increasing pitch and volume until your ears bleed.<br />
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Anyway, look, it's a bit like being at the Olympics but with far less people there, they're presumably hoping.<br />
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Aren't you wildy excited? Luckily, LOGOC have sought to quell your rabid enthusiasm by lighting the arena so brightly as to remind one of a friend's brand-new kitchen extension, or some kind of deeply unethical laboratory, thus creating all the atmosphere associated with the latter.</div>
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Here you can see the competitors for the rings event lining up, along with the lady who leads them on their march into the arena and carries a sign bearing the name of the event. </div>
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Perhaps you think that this lady and her sign look a little blandly presented, and that this is an effect caused by my poor photography skills or the bleachingly harsh lighting? Well, one out of two ain't bad, as Meatloaf initially wrote, before a surer grasp of fractions prompted a rewrite. My photography is, on this rare occasion, not to blame.</div>
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No one is suggesting any more money than is strictly necessary should be spent on these events; no one is suggesting this lady should wear a spangly leotard and feather headdress and write out the name of the event in the air with burning sparklers as she enters on stilts, but perhaps we could have aimed a little higher than the look of a volunteer who didn't have time to change her clothes after finishing her temping job at HSBC (luckily she'd found time to print out the signs – Times Roman, A4 – during her lunch-hour).</div>
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However, it wasn't entirely a razzamatazz vacuum. There was a brief moment of magic as the gymnasts marched on to music that was <i>Star Wars</i>-esque – or, perhaps, actually from <i>Star Wars</i>. I'm not big on the sci-fi classics. Iconic, rousing theme music soundtracking the parades and presentations at the Games? This is an idea I could get behind, but John Williams is American. We need something resolutely British. Perhaps the estate of the late Ronnie Hazlehurst could licence a reworking of the <i>Are You Being Served?</i> theme tune to introduce all the apparatus as the gymnasts walk on ('Beam, floor and pommel horse; vault and uneven bars; coming up!')</div>
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All this would have been entirely lost on the lady sitting two seats away from me, however, who had apparently seen the evening as an opportunity to catch up on her emails. We're all busy people, after all.</div>
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Luckily, when the national anthems were being played for the victors, she did have the good grace to stand up and respectfully lower the lid of her laptop slightly. </div>
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Perhaps she and her partner were working on a modern art project where they act out scenes from disappointing romcoms in public places. Here, of course, they are giving their take on the sequence from the US <i>Fever Pitch</i> remake <i>The Perfect Catch</i>, where Drew Barrymore's character takes her laptop to the Red Sox game and, in failing to focus on the game, ends up knocked out by a flying baseball. This, I realise, is unlikely to happen in artistic gymnastics, but at the rhythmic disciplines (taking place on another evening) my seat-neighbour could well have been concussed by a <a href="http://youtu.be/AzJxihrqaqU" target="_blank">club</a> thrown with impressive strength but sub-standard levels of accuracy. I must confess I would have been sad to miss that.</div>
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Maybe she was just bored. Let me tell you, if anyone sitting next to me at the Actual Olympics is doing their admin instead of paying full attention, I am going to KICK OFF.</div>
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In other gymnastics news, I have worked out how to make my fortune, and that is by creating a leotard that does not immediately seek out the innermost reaches of one's backside. </div>
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Also, I could totally do this:</div>
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I just choose not to.</div>
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</div>Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-24622079321583551172012-01-08T23:22:00.000+00:002012-01-09T10:58:50.341+00:00Oh Christmas tree...<div style="margin: 0px;">
(or 'In Which Old Posts Rewrite Themselves')<br />
<br />
Some sights that gladden my heart as I walk across Trafalgar Square on my way to the workplace:<br />
<br />
1) groups of tourists circling the strange, bright ugliness of the Olympic countdown clock with a mixture of intrigue and confusion. (I am very adept at reading strangers' faces. It's one of my many gifts, along with being able to guess the phrase on<i> Wheel Of Fortune</i> before they've filled in a single letter.) How did it get here? What does it mean? Who is responsible? Basically, all the questions one might apply to Stonehenge, with any trace of wonder or admiration removed. Had the design been up to me, it would have been a giant effigy of Daley Thompson's face, with his moustache gradually lighting up like a Blue Peter charity-appeal totaliser the nearer we get to 27th July 2012.<br />
2) the snaking queues of cold people (physically, not emotionally – they all look quite approachable actually) hoping for day tickets to the Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery. Sometimes I think it would be nice if a security guard just unhooked one of the smaller works of art from the wall and walked up and down the queue with it, giving the waiting punters an insight into the kind of thrills that were going on inside, and how all this standing around outside with mittens and a styrofoam cup of tea would be Totally Worth It. I've seen something like this done with a plate of anipasti outside Jamie's Italian, although it should be made clear to the future patrons of the National Gallery that it's not acceptable to eat the art.<br />
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However, on Thursday morning, I saw something that did not gladden my heart. Instead, and I'm paraphrasing the Eurythmics here, it left quite a chill.</div>
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Poor, poor Trafalgar Square Christmas tree, naked and fallen. Such an undignified end to a glamorous career. Couldn't they could have smuggled her away under cover of darkness and undressed her somewhere a little more private, instead of stripping her bare at 9.30 in the morning in front of an audience of commuters, tourists and shivering art scholars? She's like an ageing actress from the golden era of Hollywood whose wig has been snatched away, revealing a lost little old lady underneath. Only greener and pinier. And so thin! A once-full figure now emaciated from a lifetime devoted to entertaining others (or from being urinated on by idiots in the early hours of New Year's Day).<br />
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I like tradition as much as the next fool – mince pies are great, for example; also, carols; burning witches, less so – but I think I have identified a fundamental flaw in one of our oldest social rituals. January needs an antidote to its dark hours and back-to-work gloom and dashed resolutions. January needs romance. January needs glitter and promise. So what do we do? In its earliest days, we tear down the decorations and turn out the twinkling lights that help make the previous month so exciting we actually believe red and white fun-fur hats are a valid style choice.<br />
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We go out of our way to highlight how drab our homes and streets look for most of the year.<br />
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Brothers and sisters, I'm saying to you that I want the
Christmas decorations to stay up for ALL OF JANUARY. I might be calling this
campaign Keep January Jazzy! Or Keep! January! Jazzy!<br />
<br />
I'm probably
not. <br />
<br />
But imagine that first month being full of looming, lit-up, giant snowmen right from day 1 to 31. Wouldn't this say, 'Look a new year full of
fabulous flashing lights and shiny baubles, which you may use as a clumsy metaphor for all
the bright, shiny things that could be part of your future' instead of 'Look, once you take the tinsel down, here's a new year just
as dark and shitty as the last. And that crack in the plaster over the mantelpiece is still there.' <br />
<br />
With K!J!J! (OK, I am), when the decorations do finally come down on January 31st,
you can say, 'So, 2012 then. We're already a month in, and it isn't so
bad, is it? I actually think I might be able to struggle on.'<br />
<br />
I don't know who decreed that the fun should stop on
Twelfth Night. I mean, I guess I could look it up, but it's late and I'm
tired. Whoever it is, I will take them on. I say this in the
certain knowledge that they're dead and can't physically hurt me.Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-10331637205772039542012-01-02T21:30:00.000+00:002012-01-03T00:29:00.622+00:00Dear diaryDo you ever feel as though you might be stuck in a rut? That the days are toppling like dominoes, each shaped so much like the one before, and what is going to change? WHAT IS EVER GOING TO CHANGE?<br />
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No, nor me. Absolutely not. Shut off the alarm clock because today is a brand new adventure and I can't wait to climb back on the thrill ride! I'm not even going to wear my seatbelt! Will I have blueberries on my porridge? Or will it be raspberries? My god, I have never felt more alive!<br />
<br />
And yet. When I bought my 2012 diary several months ago – naturally, I needed to buy early, the sooner to fill in my hectic new-year timetable of risks that needed taking, rulebooks I would be tearing up and cutting edges I was scheduled to live on, as well as book group, of course – it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, the rut had me after all. <br />
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Never mind my innate sloth and failure to apply myself. It was clearly my diary, with its ongoing sequels, that was dragging me down.<br />
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Year after year, I've realised, I am living with the <i>Police Academy </i>of personal organisers. But it doesn't make the noise of a helicopter when I open it.<br />
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I am trying to tell myself, of course, that the latest diary is not totally identical to the others. For one thing, it is a quite different colour, but only because it has yet to acquire a grimy coating of eyeliner, burst banana and other, unindentified handbag excretia. It is only January 2, after all.<br />
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But I love the space it gives me. Space is so important in a relationship, don't you think? Just the right amount that my modest number of social engagements doesn't look like a modest number of social engagements. And observe, below, the blank right-hand page, whose lines are just the right distance apart to make your handwriting look far tidier than it really is, on which you can list all your tasks to accomplish during the week ahead. <br />
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Then, on Sunday, when you have failed to accomplish any of them, you can turn over and write them out again on the next week's corresponding blank page. It's important to cross each item out as you rewrite it on the next page, as this provides you with the sense that you have actually achieved each of your objectives, a useful shot in the arm for one's self-esteem.<br />
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The thing is, it always come back to this. Me and the red Moleskine weekly notebook (pocket size) are right for each other. If that's boring, then call me Steve Davis*.<br />
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I bought the new diary in that specialist travel bookshop on Long Acre, a place that reminds you that the world is really very small, with its furthest reaches only a 300-page guidebook away. Still, I only ever seem to go in there for diaries and birthday cards. The lady who served me remarked on how organised I was buying my diary so far ahead. I told her it was my third year with the same make and model, and expressed my fear that this hinted at a fundamental stasis in my existence, but she said I should save the excitement in my life for the really important things.<br />
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She was talking about breakfast, right?<br />
<br />
I thought so.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(*I love Steve Davis.)</span>Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-29474714893421815132011-12-24T22:15:00.000+00:002012-01-03T00:13:21.401+00:00All I want for Christmas is a Monkee<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Many mistakes are made at Christmas – Cliff Richard is responsible for more than his share – and one of them is to repeatedly feel surprised that the kind of manic, rising December excitement you felt as a child sags and dims in a way that is commensurate with the rest of the ageing process. <br />
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But lately I've been experiencing one strain of childhood fervour that does endure – that deep passion for a beloved item of clothing; something you would simply refuse to take off until it was wrestled free of your body, crumpled and gravy-stained, by parental sleight of hand and Herculean feats of distraction. Because there are two new items in the Jones lookbook that I have formed quite the attachment to since buying them a couple of weeks ago, to the extent that few hours have passed without me and one or both of them being in intimate contact.<br />
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Observe then, if you will, a few of my [new] favourite things – bobble hat (I have very delicate ears) and checked shirt. The former has met with mostly positive feedback. The latter has been euphemistically described by my mother as 'very relaxed'.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD59eveyKY5XXIuusUkuIJm7GOKmu7JrGmc5-JwzjJgCoHV0JcLnenWcDjrMn_MMRaNmjkL0c_SSpRczTs1QQ3_1Vq_U9uWMOs68MUw-N9N2UJBaDHum8_1IwXjb-kekD-Guts_g5NV_0/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD59eveyKY5XXIuusUkuIJm7GOKmu7JrGmc5-JwzjJgCoHV0JcLnenWcDjrMn_MMRaNmjkL0c_SSpRczTs1QQ3_1Vq_U9uWMOs68MUw-N9N2UJBaDHum8_1IwXjb-kekD-Guts_g5NV_0/s320/photo.JPG" width="239" /></a>
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(Other noteworthy things about this picture: 1 Yes, this is a tantalising glimpse into my bathroom. 2 One forearm is not, as it appears here, longer than the other. That is the witchcraft of the camera's lens.)<br />
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If I thought that anyone was actually reading this so close to Christmas, I'd install a poll here, asking which icon of showbusiness I most resemble in this picture. Is it a) Benny from <i>Crossroads</i> (though his beanie was bobble-less), b) one of the main characters in<i> The L Word</i> or c) my personal preference: <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFLaygqiPpYCzuIEdAftmBBxh4FDEkJQ0ImC3MiIWaI_zKxj9OKkHwHBOD6Ml1l8kxCNhzIc_8xz9Tz8Rp-fcrSyHB9seG6dyHGytCkgSVgRLQX6wYw4d6wMrdBZpkiqMyTfdw0RU87E/s1600/michael_nesmith_jpg_pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFLaygqiPpYCzuIEdAftmBBxh4FDEkJQ0ImC3MiIWaI_zKxj9OKkHwHBOD6Ml1l8kxCNhzIc_8xz9Tz8Rp-fcrSyHB9seG6dyHGytCkgSVgRLQX6wYw4d6wMrdBZpkiqMyTfdw0RU87E/s320/michael_nesmith_jpg_pic.jpg" width="214" /></a>
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I like to imagine I'm experiencing the early stages of exactly how Mike Nesmith's trademark look came about. He bought a new bobble hat one winter as he, too, had a chronic ear infection a few years previously and had never been quite the same since. Then he found he loved it too much to take off. I don't imagine his was from Dorothy Perkins, however. <br />
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And then I thought of this, which at the time I believed to be written by Mike Nesmith. Tireless research has revealed that it's actually part of the Goffin/King canon, but whoever is responsible, it speaks of being younger again, emotionally speaking, like the magic of new clothes and That Christmas Feeling.<br />
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Happy Christmas and all that.Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-29988308037076603722011-12-22T23:30:00.000+00:002011-12-24T00:42:16.062+00:00It's been a while since we talked about the Olympics, hasn't it?Regular readers will know that the longest love affair of my life is with the Olympic Games. It may not be the most ardent – John Taylor from Duran Duran, we will always have 1983 – but it endures after all others have fallen away. An empty carton explodes under the wheels of a car and that sound suggests a starting pistol. Police tape flutters in the breeze and I see the ribbons of rhythmic gymnastics. Birds sing and I hear the national anthem of the old Soviet Union.<br />
<br />
And I am loyal. I am like one half of a couple you meet at a dinner party, laughing indulgently at my partner's excruciating impressions and gazing at him in blind adoration as he airs his challenging views on immigration.<br />
<br />
Because since London was awarded the 2012 Games, I have refused to acknowledge that they will be anything other than the Best Thing Of All Time. I have turned a blind eye to the swelling budget; laughed off suspicions around the legacy. I put my fingers in my ears and sing Sting's <i>Fields Of Gold</i> when anyone mentions the transport system reaching meltdown or the various good causes that have had money diverted away from them and towards Stratford City.<br />
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But even I have a breaking point. And about a month ago I found it (those same regular readers will understand I meant to write this nearer the time). As you know, much earlier this year I feverishly completed my application to work as a volunteer next summer, and <a href="http://whymissjones.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-talked-about-rowing.html" target="_blank">gabbled my way through an interview</a>. No news yet, no. And no, I'm not worried. I imagine they're deliberating over which one of a number of powerful, high-profile roles they're going to award me. But now, my faith is wavering. Because about a month ago I saw the volunteers' uniforms.<br />
<br />
The eyes of the world will be upon our glorious city. Hundreds of men and women will be giving up their time to assume positions of efficiency and responsibility, so their uniforms will be chic, stylish, effortlessly tasteful and a kind of shop window for the extraordinary design talent we have in our country, with Kane or Westwood on the case, no?<br />
<br />
No.<br />
<br />
Chinos.<br />
<br />
CHINOS.<br />
<br />
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WITH A CAGOULE.<br />
<br />
IN PURPLE.<br />
<br />
OR A SHADE I'M CALLING GLOWERING TURQUOISE.<br />
<br />
JESUS CHRIST.<br />
<br />
And this crack in my heart approaches a chasm when I think of some of the other design debacles endorsed by London 2012. The logo, the merchandise… too many ill-conceived ideas and ugly shapes.<br />
<br />
But lately I have found a couple of official souvenir items that I can get behind. <br />
<br />
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<br />
Something in these bears' blank, baffled stares says exactly how I feel about all these ill-conceived projects that are dragging down my precious Olympics. Uncomprehending. Lost. A little bit let down. And a feeling that this can't really be it, can it? One day soon, they'll reveal the real logo, surely. The proper one.<br />
<br />
Move over, Mandeville and Wenlock. These are my mascots.Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839580695171614261.post-50128218900044571272011-12-20T09:30:00.000+00:002011-12-20T10:57:24.848+00:00The Strictly Final, featuring no lampposts at allRoll up, roll up, it's the <i>Strictly Come Dancing</i> final! You'll squeal! You'll cringe! You'll feel a nagging sense of sorrow and emptiness at the passing of another year!<br />
<br />
For its ever-inventive introductory sequence, the BBC have hit upon a gladiatorial theme. The reason for this is unclear until you see the opening group dance, where the male pros are stripped to the waist and strapped up, wielding swords and shields, and it becomes obvious that some assistant producer has taken the opportunity to recreate one of his/her most private fantasies. I imagine the production meeting went something like this:<br />
<br />
'So I think we need to brainstorm some ideas for the clumsily punning opening sequence of the final. Any ideas, guys?'<br />
<br />
'Well, I mean, I'm totally just winging it here, like, this is literally off the top of my head, but it's like the finalists have battled their way here, like... hmm... like... oh, I know, like gladiators. So what could we do? What. Could. We. Do? Hmm. Oh I know, it's literally just come to me. LET'S MAKE THEM GET NAKED AND PRETEND TO FIGHT.'<br />
<br />
They've made Anton stand at the back.<br />
<br />
I am spending the evening with my usual <i>Strictly Come Dancing</i> final companions, and despite our collective enthusiasm for soft-rock and its anthems – <i>Living On A Prayer</i> is the soundtrack here – the group-dance reaction in the room goes something like this:<br />
<br />
'URGH!'<br />
<br />
'THIS IS HORRIBLE'<br />
<br />
'IT'S LIKE ITALIAN TELEVISION.'<br />
<br />
For fans of sword-and-sandals light erotica, this is quite a night, certainly.<br />
<br />
In the finest tradition of the <i>Strictly Come Dancing</i> prop department, as if the shoddy cardboard portcullis arrangement didn't smack quite enough of a rural amateur dramatic group's take on <i>Ben Hur</i>, the finalists are trundled on in wobbly gold cardboard chariots. One of which is being pulled by Vincent. Oh, the inhumanity! Poor Vincent! How could it come to this? He's probably thinking that this is all because he couldn't pull off a roly-poly in Series 7.<br />
<br />
Who do we want to win? I have always loved Harry, even if, in recent years, Tom has overtaken him in my Order Of McFly, but I fear a victory for the Judd would be seen by Aliona as some kind of vindication of her 'artistic' choreography. I like Chelsee a lot, but I like Pasha more. So really, what would be ideal for me would be a Harry-Pasha pairing. Surely it's time <i>Strictly</i> embraced same-sex partnerships? Who would not thrill to the sight of Artem tango-ing with, oh I don't know, say, Tom from McFly? Phew. I might just open a window, it's getting hot in here.<br />
<br />
For the first round, the three finalists are dancing the judges' choice. First up, Harry and Aliona, reprising their quickstep. This might be my favourite dance of the season, apart from Chelsee and Pacha's quickstep. I really love the quickstep. Over the last few weeks, Aliona seems to have found new reserves of taste and subtlety in her choreography, and I think this is where it started. Maybe Len staged some kind of intervention, locking them both in her dressing room and gripping her face tightly towards a grainy video of <i>Top Hat</i> he'd taped off BBC2 until she broke down and saw sense. Or perhaps as she and Harry have advanced in the competition, she has found some sense of affirmation and worth as a peformer and has felt able to ditch those sleazy pleas for attention.<br />
<br />
It's possible I'm reading too much into that.<br />
<br />
Anyway, this is BRILLIANT – so quick and light, and their feet are eating up the Tower Ballroom Floor like Len Goodman eats jellied eels. Probably.<br />
<br />
The judges love it, although I sense that Len has written all his lines from last year's final on pieces of paper and put them in a bowl, and now he's pulling them out at random and reading them aloud. It's a big, fat 40 for Harry and Aliona.<br />
<br />
Jason's VT is introduced with the words 'Let's find out what <i>Strictly</i> means to Jason.' Luckily, this part is pre-recorded, so there's no danger of him talking over the National Lottery draw with endless discussion of 'journey' and 'character'. Aww, earnest Jase. A career in motivational speaking surely beckons after this. He and Kristina are reprising their <i>Priscilla</i>-esque disco-tango, which is as much fun as ever. It scores 38 to a soundtrack of House Of Commons-style booing.<br />
<br />
Chelsee does little to persuade me she's not in love with Pasha by calling him her 'Pash-Pash'. I hope Pasha realises that after the show has finished, Chelsee will still be on her mobile phone all the time, but it will be him she's obsessively texting. They're doing their <i>Shrek</i> jive, and since he's made the final, Pasha's earnt the right to have only a partially green face. I can tell you that this is absolutely the reason, and not just because he won't have time to get full facepaint off before their next dance. They score 39.<br />
<br />
And so it is with a sense of trepidation and rising nausea that we approach the showdances. Far from being a feast for the eyes and the ears, in recent years, these freestyle opportunities have become noteworthy for colossol lapses in taste and judgement, and breakdancing off pretend hay bales. Ick. Will we ever see the likes of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUcgLC7GuQQ" target="_blank">Tom Chambers'</a> masterpiece again? Je pense que non.<br />
<br />
First, and fearmost, are Harry and Aliona. Aliona is wearing some of the worst trousers known to humankind. This does not bode well. They are on a rock and roll vibe, which makes perfect sense after Harry's stellar showing at jive and swing, but there are some ludicrously over-complicated lifts, and here is my problem with the majority of showdances. Where is the actual dancing? If I wanted to see people being tossed around in mid-air I'd go and see those <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hxp4haVpTE" target="_blank">gold-painted freaks</a> who won <i>Britain's Got Talent</i>.<br />
<br />
Also, the climax involves Harry sitting behind a drumkit for about five seconds for no reason other than HE IS A DRUMMER, DO YOU SEE? A DRUMMER. PLAYING THE DRUMS. It's kind of a waste and a gimmick at the expense of the dancing, and I'm calling that a metaphor for what's wrong with <i>Strictly</i> lately, if you want to get all heavy about it. Alesha gives them a 10. WHAT A SURPRISE. Otherwise, 9s all around, and I'm glad it's not more, so bloody well there.<br />
<br />
Kristina and Jason have gone hooray for Hollywood. Thank the lord! They're properly dancing. Kristina wins the choreography prize for me this season. What is that prize? It's a tangerine and half a Marks & Spencer's flapjack from my coat pocket. The stakes are high, after all. They score a perfect 40. I'm not sure it's 100% warranted but I'm pleased for them, and if Jason goes out next, which seems likely, at least he'll always have this moment to draw on when he's doing his morning affirmations.<br />
<br />
Chelsee is wearing one of Alesha's glittery leotards, and begins her routine swinging around Pasha's neck by the ankles. And that is the hell of showdances right there. I'd hoped for less cheese from Pasha. I'm sure he had nobler intentions for the routine, but was ambushed by some BBC executive in stained slacks lurking in a dark corridor, rubbing his knees and saying, 'Passhhhhhha, what you need is to have your face as close to Chelsee's groin as possible. It's what everyone wants.'<br />
<br />
We don't.<br />
<br />
It's all a bit frantic and, for me, doesn't show off how brilliant Chelsee is.<br />
<br />
And that's the end of the first show. It's time to eat a lot of cheese and ice cream.<br />
<br />
Come elimination o'clock, it's Jason and Kristina who are out. No surprises there. Luckily the BBC has provided us with two non-voting surprises: One, Kristina appears to have had her lips plumped during <i>Merlin. </i>Two: cheeky Tess Daly has pulled off a hilarious wardrobe-related prank. There we were thinking she actually had quite a nice dress on, only for the camera to pull back to reveal a pair of net curtains glued to the bottom, thus rendering it revolting. Oh Tess! You minx!<br />
<br />
Jason is dignified and gracious and... well... yes, earnest. But lovely!<br />
<br />
Next, the final two tackle a new dance. Harry and Aliona have the American Smooth. Lucky. It's a bit rainbows and marshmallows, but I think we all know it could be A LOT worse. Pash-Pash and Chelsee get the rumba. Unlucky. It's pretty good as rumbas go, which is to say it's more of a tactical drinking vomit rather than full-on food poisoning.<br />
<br />
Next, there's a review of this season's <i>Strictly</i> and a performance from Jessie J in which all the winter-wonderland scenery, creepy <i>Nutcracker</i>-style dancers and dry ice cannot avert my eyes from the fact she appears to be wearing some kind of vulval codpiece. Two words I never thought I'd type adjacently.<br />
<br />
We finish with their favourite dances. Harry and Aliona's is the tango. Boooooo. I was hoping for the jive. It's content-heavy, though, so that's good, right? Apart from their showdance, which contained some of her Trademark Writhing, I'm relieved to have got through four of Aliona's dances with no swings, lampposts, trellises, stair-kissing or other accessories to naffness. <br />
<br />
Yay! Chelsee and Pasha are quickstepping on an airline theme. Although... I don't think Chelsee's having a fantastic night. Maybe it's nerves, maybe it's fatigue, maybe she's living in fear – as we all are – that at any moment it may be time for Bruce's annual song-and-dance, but she just doesn't seem so sharp. <br />
<br />
Before the results, we have the now-obligatory montage of old women in shopping centres and men working in covered markets all saying how <i>Strictly</i> has been the best thing that's happened to them all year. Men building the Olympic park love the show! Pensioners at bingo love the show! Men who make cheese love the show! Women having a coffee in front of a giant sculpture of Barry Gibb's head love the show! It really does touch us all.<br />
<br />
Results time! To no one's surprise, it's Harry and Aliona who are triumphant. And then someone lets loose a litter of puppies into the studio! Oh no, it's just McFly. Including Tom. I LOVE TOM. Bruce gets a bit angry caretaker-off-of-<i>Grange-Hill</i> and shoos these young hoolians off the stage. Harry is very gracious and thanks everyone through a veneer of suppressed emotion, in the great tradition of England's public schools, and we roll on to the Christmas special. A great man/woman/honestly-can't-remember once said, 'If the highlight of your line-up is Su Pollard, you know you're in trouble.' And I have to agree. No Madeley, no magic.<br />
<br />
Thanks for reading, <i>Strictly</i> fans. Non-<i>Strictly</i> fans, normal blogging service will be resumed in a matter of days. I promise.*<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Not legally binding.</span><br />Miss Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405389518233540306noreply@blogger.com9