meish dot org: life, unfolding

A very good friend of mine, Frank Wynne, has just had his first book published: I was Vermeer: The Legend of the Forger who Swindled the Nazis.It’s the story of “a paranoid, drug-addicted, alcoholic, hypochondriac painter whose journey from zero to hero earned him $50 million, the acclamation of the world’s press and the satisfaction of swindling the Nazis. Half a century after his death, his handiwork is still suspected in at least four Vermeers in major galleries, and the ugly daub sold last year at Sotheby’s for $30 million had long been attributed to him. The book takes a wry, sometimes scathing, amoral and irreverent look at forgery, the expert, and the career of a second-rate painter who became the world’s greatest forger.”

There was a nice full page feature in the Telegraph on Saturday, review in the Mail on Sunday yesterday, there’s one in the Standard today plus serialisation begins on Radio 4 on August 14th (9.45am 11.45pm) (woohoo!)

So why am I telling you this? You may well ask.

Reason 1: I thought you nice people might like to know about the book. The subject matter is interesting, plus Frank is a talented writer who has been dedicated and influential in publishing for years in various contexts: he was the Editor of Deadline Magazine for a long time (Tank Girl, anyone?) and more recently did the English translations for Michel Houllebecq’s novels including Atomised and Platform

Reason 2: What else are social networks for, if not to generate viral marketing? Basically, we’re trying to give his book a boost on the day of launch and if you’re interested, you can help.What would be great is for those of you who can to buy the book direct from Amazon (or via this page: www.frankwynne.com/books.html which means Frank gets another small cut via Amazon’s referral scheme) on Monday August 7th, between 5pm – 7pm (or on Tuesday 8 or Wed 9) (the timing is important).

Feel entirely free to leave a short review. Yeah, I know you won’t have read the book yet. You don’t have to give it five stars, any number will do since, as we know, one review will encourage other reviews. If you need inspiration, check out the Observer review.

You will be rewarded by not only having a great new book to read, but also by being showered with my appreciation and experiencing for yourself the warm fuzzy glow of helping a talented author to achieve literary success in his own right after years of graft in the shadows of others.

Five years ago, to the day, a (very) small bunch of geeks sidled up to each other outside WHSmith at Kings Cross station, muttering “Got blog?” before repairing to a local hostelry for beer, cosmopolitans, odd conversation about the noise cotton wool makes and other such essential trivia.

Over the subsequent months of 2000, the geeks became collectively known as bloggers (although some grumbled about it) and, more specifically, UKBloggers. Aided by a listserv (and later, an alternative one) and a site (now departed), they somehow coordinated themselves and each other sufficiently to enjoy a succession of hazy evenings spent in random London pubs discussing the contents of a Cider Armadillo, the rules of gurning, and the sound effect of a shell-suit combusting (Vuhk’um, IIRC).

There were many photos taken, many vodka jellies imbibed and many backs slapped in a wanky sort of way (if contemporary coverage is to be believed).

In celebration of FIVE YEARS of UK blogmeets, we thought it might be sort of fun to get together a bunch of the people who attended those very first few random events back in 2000.

And so we did.

Then. Now.

Five years is a long time.

Some things change: Since that first boozing session in a grubby Kings Cross bar, we’ve clocked up between us two babies, two weddings (and two more, imminent), three graduations, dozens of job changes and all manner of geeky gadgetry.

Some things stay the same: it was good to meet again if only to remember that what helped us become friends five years ago was not the technology we used to update our websites, but the human factors. Geekery. Humour. Passion. All that.

That’s what I have liked all this time about blogging: the human connections. The silly conversations. The geeking about in random pubs with people with clue (mostly). The enthusiastic waving of hands in conversation. The sharing of nibbles and boisterous cameraderie. We’ve got more in common than technology.

Mind you, you know things have moved on a bit when the happyslapping craze infiltrates the blog world: Short .avi of Tom “Plasticbag” Coates being happyslapped.

Just returned from a lovely weekend oop north, celebrating at the wedding of our friends Sally & Michael. A fantastic time altogether – full of friends and laughter, just as these things ought to be.

Something I remember very clearly from my own wedding day, eleven months ago, was that the whole day felt like a happy blur, almost dreamlike, and saturated with intense colour, with everything seen through a filter of almost overwhelming happiness and emotion. Vivid. Alive. Fleeting. Intense.

I wanted to see if I could echo that in the pictures I took at the evening reception on Saturday. Since I was under no obligation to faithfully and accurately record the people and events of the night – there were plenty of people with cameras, and an official photographer, to boot – I decided to experiment with using long(er) exposures, in order to try and reflect the way the day felt, not just how it looked.

So nothing posed. No flash used. Minimal photoshop touching-up (a little gamma correction here and there, but nowt else). I’m pretty pleased with the results.

So we had a leaving dinner for Meester Yan the other night.

It was a great evening. I haven’t smiled so much in months.

The best thing was that while leaving dos can be sad and dismal affairs (because you know you’ll probably never see the individual concerned again, even if they’re just going to a new job down the road) this one wasn’t depressing in the slightest. It was a celebration – of old friends, of adventures to come, of long-overdue reunions and of just surviving the week.

There’d been a corporate shindig on Wednesday, but on Friday, it was just us, the usual suspects: friends (and colleagues, and drinking buddies, and partners-in-crime) from way back, gathered with a sprinkling of significant others for food and drinks and laughter – sharing bottles of wine and silly stories and cold viruses over a long table set for thirteen.

Even though we were partly saying goodbye, it wasn’t depressing because we all realised that there was absolutely no possibility of not seeing Meester Yan – and each other – again, and soon. And that’s just the way it should be.

Some things are really important in life. Long evenings of laughter with friends should be high on that list.

Acting as a bookmark between the pages of Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood, this thumbnail sketch of a man in a bar in Bolivia.

The paper is a Cacho* score sheet, distributed in bars and sponsored by the major singani brand, San Pedro. People always used to tell me that “se puede huele las uvas en el singani San Pedro” but frankly, I’d be amazed if you could smell anything after a couple of glasses of that stuff. Let’s just say it’s an acquired taste. Much much more palatable when you turn it into Chuflay (which involves mixing it with lemon juice, ice and fizzy water/soda water).

I’m no artist, but it’s quite a good likeness of Richard – when I compare it with photos of the real thing, at least. Perhaps the alcohol and the altitude conspired to make me a better artist?

I wonder where Richard is now. Probably still playing cacho in a Bolivian bar.

* I got very good at Cachito – so good that I kept winning bottles of evil-tasting singani. I blame the luck of the wrist.

It’s Liaise. Not Liase, no matter what Mr Gates’ spellchecker may tell you.

Useless fact for word buffs: “Liaison” is a seventeenth century cookery term and “liaise” was invented by the army in the 1920s. [words-work]

I have a friend who was once the editor of a major London listings and culture magazine. He once told me that as a matter of course, he binned every CV for an editorial position which spelled that word wrong. You might be able to use it in context, he argued, but if you rely on your computer to tell you when you’ve made a mistake, you won’t be terribly useful.

After he revealed that, I strangely became a lot more fastidious about checking.

Have you received an email purporting to be a UN petition for peace, and urging you to add your name to it and then send it on to all your friends, and then every 500 or so, forward it to the UN? Yes? Well, before you send it on, please stop and think.

You might be interested to know that one of my good friends is listed on the petition with her maiden name – and she’s never signed this petition.

When she received a copy of this petition the other day, she was surprised to see her name on it, because she’d never seen it before. Since she got married three years ago, the name must pre-date that. Eventually, she figured out that the list of names (up to at least #200) had been lifted wholly from a different petition – the one for women’s rights in afghanistan. You remember than one doing the rounds in 1999-2000?

You can compare the name lists here: http://www.geocities.com/paths_of_wisdom/online/afghan.html

Would you like your name on the UN petition to be used at a later date in support of (or against) something else entirely? Regardless of whether you agree with the sentiments behind the petition, adding your name should be a personal choice. I oppose the wholesale importing of petition name lists from one cause to another, because it makes the whole idea of petitions untrustworthy – like photocopying signed sheets to make it up to a million signatures, or copying names out of the phone book.

Anyway, I’d warn people against signing this or any online petition which relies on distribution by email, because they are generally not what they say they are. In this case, the UN Petition for Peace is a hoax and not sanctioned in any way by the UN – anyone who submits a copy to the UN, as instructed, will receive the following response: http://unicwash.org/unic%20was%20response%20to%20petition.htm

As it states there, “We would suggest that since it is member governments of the UN who will decide on whatever action occurs in various situations, citizens should contact their own government.”

If you receive this email petition, and feel moved to sign it, please contact your own government representatives to register your dissent, and urge those who feel passionately about this issue to do the same. One email to a member of parliament will do a lot more than ten hoax emails circulated. I’m all for people doing something to prevent war, or to speak up against it, but it’s so important for that energy to go into activities that might actually make a difference.

More information about the hoax:
– http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-un-petition.htm

– http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/un.htm

– http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/hoaxes/unpetition.html

Date: 26.03.01
Guest: None (yet)
Menu: Chicken, pasta, caesar salad, wine, strawberries, cream
Chef: Dave
Conversation: The world’s worst flavour combinations (raisin and caper, or oyster sorbet?)

Pesto Tagliatelle with Lime and Garlic Chicken

Tell flatmates you’ll cook them dinner. Instantly regret decision due to the overwhelming performance anxiety of “The First Meal” situation. Rack brain. Go to supermarket and buy:

1 lime
1 bulb of garlic
3 chicken breasts
1 packet of fresh tagliatelle
1 tub of double cream
1 jar of pesto
chilli powder (or paprika)
olive oil
parsley (optional)

Arrive home, consume beer, smoke cigarette. Then, start dinner. Chop chicken into bite-sized pieces and place in bowl. Add juice and grated zest of lime, 4-5 cloves of crushed garlic, a sprinkle of chilli powder and/or paprika (for red-ness), half a handfull of chopped parsley (if desired, for green-ness) and a slosh of olive oil. Stir to combine. Cover bowl in cling-film and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes.

After marinating, stir-fry chicken for 8-10 minutes, or until cooked. In the last 2-3 minutes of frying, cook pasta in plenty of salted/oiled/boiling water. Cover base of a large serving dish in double cream, add a dessertspoon of pesto and stir to combine. When pasta is finished, drain and transfer to the dish. Toss pasta in cream/pesto mix. Stir cooked chicken into pasta. Serve with salad, crusty bread and chardonnay to two appreciative flatmates (and the chef, of course).

How did that song go after that anyway? Something about how I could grind coffee every time we touch? I could never figure it out.

In 1985, I went to the Just Seventeen magazine open day at the editorial offices on Carnaby Street, with my best friend Jane. We were eleven at the time – though as anyone who’s familiar with teen girl publications (that’s for, not about) will confirm, the average age of readers is generally about five years lower than you pretend it is. So Just Seventeen (known as J17 these days) should really be called Just Twelve, while 19 magazine is read by fifteen and sixteen year-olds, and so on. See, no self-respecting fifteen year old would want to read a magazine called Fifteen – they want to seem older, more sophisticated, so they read a magazine supposedly aimed at girls a few years older – though in fact, targeted squarely in terms of advertising and editorial at precisely those who read it. Aspiration is everything, then as now.

We climbed three flights of stairs to the editorial office, collected a goody bag (which, as I recall, contained the latest issue of the mag, a sticker set, and some surplus covermounts from the last few issues – crappy tin mirror, ugly hot pink lipstick, you know the kind of thing) from a minion by the door, had a three-minute makeover (typical eighties style – too much pink blusher and a swathe of electric blue mascara) and joined the queue.

The queue was what we had really come for, or rather, what was on the end of it. We didn’t read the magazine religiously – we preferred Smash Hits and No.1 and (at a push) Mizz because they had lyrics and better free gifts, variously, and when we did read the mag, we giggled over the cringeworthy problem page, and that’s about it – but still, the open invitation to the Just Seventeen open day was pretty difficult to turn down, seeing as we were in London, just down the road practically, and there was going to be a special appearance by none other than Philip Schofield, who was the new big thing in children’s TV links between after-school programmes.

We hadn’t met anyone famous before, or at least famous and relevant – like, someone that people at school might have heard of; Michael Rosen simply didn’t count – and so we stood in line, with autograph books purchased specially for the occasion. Mine was green leatherette, and it slid in my sweaty hands as we approached the front of the queue.

Mr S sat at a trestle table surrounded by used polystyrene cups and editorial types in batwing sleeves, more keen on hanging out with the pseudo-celeb than manning the makeover table (work experience girls weren’t so lucky). I thrust my green leatherette autograph book in his direction.

“What’s your name?” he asked, for the thousandth time that day, probably.

I don’t know what came over me in the split second between processing the question and opening my mouth, but something clearly did, because I heard myself say, quite clearly “Maggie” which was not – and never had been – my name.

I can only assume that in that, my twelfth summer, I was making the difficult transition from primary to secondary schools, and was perhaps bothered by the prospect of another five years of dealing with Meg – Egg – Peg – Leg – and/or Mog type jokes. Time for a change, to something more sophisticated. Meg was a name for a little girl, while Maggie was a name for a teenager. In fact, a couple of weeks after the open day, I started secondary school and told everyone my name was Maggie – a rash action which sadly stuck, and meant that I spent four and a half years trying to get rid of the nickname again. A politically charged child I may have been, but I somehow managed to miss the fact that we were in Britain in the mid eighties, and public enemy number one was also called Maggie. Oops.

Philip obligingly scrawled his autograph in my little green book – “To Maggie, love Philip Schofield xx” – and that was the last autograph I ever collected. The book remained empty, except for that one scribbled page in the middle, which I was too embarrassed to show anyone – even my mum – because they would have quite rightly pointed out that it was very nice, only it wasn’t actually made out to me. I threw it away a few years later, but my cheeks still glow hotly when I think about it.

I did not have a crush on Philip Schofield. This story is tangential to the subject I intended to approach, which is the true subject of my teenage crush. Where were we?

For a short period between 1985 and 1987, Just Seventeen contained a photo feature page called Hillier’s Hunks, named after then-editor Bev Hillier. Every week, there would be a full-page headshot of a hunk, as requested by all the girls whose names appeared threaded across the bottom of the page. Rob Lowe. Jon Bon Jovi. Morten Harket and Mags Furuhurhurrhurrhurrholmen from A-Ha. Simon Le Bon. Ben Volauvent-Perrier or whatever his name was from Curiosity Killed the Cat. Michael J Fox. Dolph Lundgren. Dolph Lundgren?? Who suggested him, for goodness’ sake?

Regardless, I carefully tore them out, and blu-tacked them in a row to my bedroom wall, in a long row above the bed, not because I fancied Rob or Morten or *shudder* Dolph, but because I thought I ought to. Jane dared me to snog Rob Lowe once, and I did, standing on the bed with my tongue against the wall, even though I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. I even had the Hillier’s Hunks pull-out-double-sided-calendar for 1987, though there was a staple puncture-hole in the middle of Stuart Adamson’s forehead, which was sort of unfortunate, though on reflection it could have been a portent of bad things to come. Who can say?

I never bought into any of those pre-packaged hunks, though. They brightened up the room, but they didn’t make me feel anything.

And then there was Larry.

Everything changed on my thirteenth birthday. With a record token I received from some kind relative, I went out to Brent Cross shopping centre to buy a copy of The Joshua Tree, though I forget on whose recommendation. I was transfixed. The music, yeah yeah, that was moving and amazing and all that – but I was thirteen. I loved the music, but I also thought that Larry Mullen Jr was a total hottie.

For a little over a year, my bedroom wall resembled a shrine. I consumed everything I could get my hands on about him and the rest of the band. Posters, articles, pieces torn from magazines and papers, blutacked to the flowered wallpaer, the newspaper edges curling up from where my hands had run over the images and words. Larry. Phwoar.

Of course, at this stage, I hadn’t yet heard him speak, hadn’t yet realised that he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. None of that mattered – he was blonde and fit and lovely.

As a byproduct of having a big girlie crush on Larry, I came to love the music. When my feelings for him faded, as they were bound to do (to be replaced briefly by Matti Nykanen and Stefan Edberg in the sporty summer of 1987, and then the darker charms of Morrissey and Robert Smith), my love for the music remained – and for that I am eternally grateful.

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Who was plastered on your walls? Who made your heart dance when they appeared on telly? Whose poster did you pretend to kiss? Who seemed attractive but untouchable?

I’m not talking here about idols or sexual fantasies – but the time before them (if such a time existed), or the person who seemed so appealing for some reason that you could never quite figure out, but beyond posters ripped from Smash Hits (or wherever), you never actually did anything about.

I’m not talking about teachers or classmates either, though you may have fancied them. It’s like innocently fancying without ever being able to have, but not being offput by their unattainability. Idolising without worshipping.

Who was your crush?

We arrived in the late morning, after a cold night in SeaTac airport, sleeping under bright lights to the accompaniment of automatic doors swishing open and shut, letting in gasps of snowy, frozen air.

Ten hours later, we were in another world, stepping off an Alaska Airlines plane into a wall of moist, hot, heavy air. Mexico.

We headed for the Hotel Vialta, picked at random from the Lonely Planet book.

We were students at the same college in Western Canada – friends, but not close. We knew each other well enough to plan an expedition together South of the border, down Mexico way, over the Christmas vacation – but not well enough to know what it would be like travelling together when we got there.

Today, rooting through a box of things I’ve been meaning to sort out for years, I found this photo of the ceiling fan in our room at the crumbling Hotel Vialta, in the old town of Mazatlan, where we stayed three nights for a couple of dollars each.

We’d been swimming in the calm pacific earlier in the day, and the air was so humid that our swimsuits refused to dry in the moist air. Geckos ran across the ceiling and down the walls. A family of cockroaches lurked in the dark bathroom. I hung my cozzie and sarong on the rickety fan to dry as it churned the thick air, slowly.

I also found the travel diary we kept throughout the trip. Re-reading it, I realise how many risks we took, how accepting and carefree – and stupid – we were. At eighteen, it didn’t even occur to me to worry.

I’ve written some of what happened here. More photos of Meg’s month in Mexico.