Category
College
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01.28.02MayhemTrain mayhem again this morning, and a bitter blustery wind which managed to consistently find its way down the back of my coat with worrying ease.When we move house, I will never have to stand on that platform again: this is what I keep telling myself. It's a good mantra.I wasn't ready for this morning, when it came. I bumbled through the weekend dopily and fell into a heavy sleep last night - my bed too comfortable, hot water bottle too comforting. We ignored the alarm and as a result had to rush. I hate that, but I love the ...
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10.30.01Bog Off, BOGOFI've just discovered that it's impossible to buy a single box of tissues when Boots have a two for one offer on.A rough transcription of my conversation with the shop assistant: [Meg picks up a box of ultrasoft tissues and takes them to the cash register] Cashier: [scanning the box] Oh, these are two for one, you know. Meg: Really? Well, that's ok, I don't want the other box. Cashier: [incredulous] But it's free Meg: Yes, I know. But I don't need it. I'm hoping my cold will have gone by tomorrow. Cashier: But the second one is free. You don't have to pay for ...
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04.24.01We are easily amusedEleven years ago (eek!), I went to an international college in Canada, with two hundred students from eighty-seven different countries in attendence. I represented the UK, which was an oddity for someone who had never identified herself as being especially British before. I was born abroad and brought up in Nigeria and in the heady racial and cultural mixing bowl of Notting Hill in the seventies and eighties. My family travelled often, and picked up bits of the cultures we encountered along the way. As a seven year old I could jabber away happily with snippets and words in seven ...
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03.26.01FitnessWords I never thought I'd hear myself say: 1. I miss going to the gym. I learnt so much there. [I used to think it was the perfect place to study - all the way through college and uni and my MA, I would head over most evenings at about eightish, prop up my book (Nietsche, Kant, Sexual Objectivism in Anthropology, 500 Spanish Verbs - books so dull that I simply couldn't bring myself to read at any other time, because there would always be something better, more interesting, more active to do) on the handlebars of the stationary bike, and ...
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03.23.01Come out, come out, wherever you are…I've found a foolproof way to make long-lost friends come out of the woodwork. Get a website Develop and hone it over five or six years Assume no-one is visiting Assume some people are visiting but none of them know you Idly mention one afternoon that you've never had a nickname Watch the replies to the contrary flood in from people you haven't heard from for a decade. After this morning's "Norris" reminder from the distant mists of time, MJ has shown up from the dark recesses of amnesia lane (and college in canada, ten years ago) to remind me that I did in fact have ...
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10.03.00Gently WeepsI miss my guitar. I've had the same twelve-string acoustic since 1990, when I bought it in a small music shop while on holiday in North Wales, and then hauled it over the long ocean to Canada. I chose it because it made a lot of noise - twelve strings always sound more accomplished and polished than six, and you don't need amplification to busk. I did a lot of busking. On the ferry from Tsawassen to Swartz Bay, I pulled out the guitar and busked Indigo Girls tunes to pay for the bus journey into Victoria. In 1990, I discovered ...
recent posts
- Another city, another event, another night alone in another hotel.
- Is this the emergence of the Twittering classes?
- Noises off
- Music for Rail Journeys
- Being a list of songs relating to the switching on of the LHC
- A moment’s pause
- In search of a simple sandwich
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Looking for the Anti-Valentines?
