Vanilla Flavoured

A Few Shots of Dublin

2009-03-29T19:37:00.003+01:00

It's been a long time since I wandered around with my camera. It was nice today, strolling into town on the Northside, snapping away and breathing the spring air.

Henry Street.

A lovely day - chilly but bright and smelling of all those good spring scents.

Mary Street this afternoon.

A dilapidated building in Smithfield.

Smithfield Fruit Market

2009-03-29T19:30:00.003+01:00

I pass this every day, to and from work. In the morning it's a hive of activity, with men whizzing around on forklifts and stacks of fruit and vegetables by the roadside. The colours are amazing and it's always cheering to pass. The six-foot-high sacks of carrots beg to be climbed into, and I love that fresh carroty aroma. In the evenings, the shutters are down and there is nothing and no one there - almost as though I imagined the whole thing. The occasional squashed potato or battered apple is all that convinces me otherwise.

Quiet Times

2009-03-01T11:46:00.002Z

Loyal readers will have noticed a distinct lack of posts here lately...for this I apologise, but there has really been nothing of note to blog about. Not that this has ever stopped me before, but it seems that I have reached a dead end, blogwise. I am playing with Tumblr at the moment, which allows me to post more truncated, less thought-provoking items at high speed...and I'm struggling to find stuff for that too. Perhaps I have exhausted my online personality and have nothing left to give? I'm saddened to think that my blog will become yet another of those abandoned, and yet, it seems this is the way of the western world - discover, enthuse, rhapsodise, obsess...dwindle, fade, forget/destroy. Everything seems to be expendable now, and this blog is no exception...and yet, I feel like I should buck this wasteful trend and keep plugging on regardless, to prove that not everything should be binned when the fun fades.

Finally...Spring!

2009-03-01T11:41:00.004Z

Phoenix Park is beginning to bloom and for once, the sun was beaming down on the few early risers taking the morning air when I ventured into the park for a twenty-minute pick-me-up. More days like this, please.

25 Things

2009-02-08T22:10:00.002Z

There's a trend on Facebook at the moment where you have to write 25 things about yourself, tag 25 people you know, and they have to write 25 things about themselves and tag 25 people, and so on and so on. It's probably a marketing ploy, but a very smart one if so, because people love to talk about themselves. And of course, I'm no exception; after all, I have a blog, a tumblelog and I'm on Facebook. I wrote my 25 Things and thought I'd post them here too, for your amusement.

And if it is a marketing ploy, I shall be receiving information about healthcare, creative writing courses and religious organisations relating to Baden-Powell.

1. I am accident prone and not very steady on my pins. I sprained my ankle when I was 5 (falling over some toy bricks), again a few years later (falling off a kerb) and then cracked a bone in the other ankle (roller skating over a broom handle) when I was 12. I've dislocated my toe, torn cartilage in my knee, and sustained mild concussion four times. I fall over around once a year, usually in public.

2. I want to become fluent in German but fear that I will never be good enough at it.

3. I take things too seriously.

4. I've had three facial piercings, none of which settled well. My eyebrow piercing went manky and migrated after I was kicked in the face at a gig. It was removed dramatically in the Minor Injuries Unit with pliers that resembled bolt cutters (this was before piercings were commonplace and people knew how to open ball closure rings).

5. When I was a child I had lots of rituals, including jumping over the 13th stair while making blowing noises (to blow any residual bad luck from my heels) and never admitting to myself that I was cold in case I burned to death suddenly in the night.

6. When safety adverts came on the television (for fireworks etc), I used to run into the hall and sit on the stairs until they'd finished. I did the same when Michael Jackson's Thriller came on - I didn't actually see the video until I was 15 years old.

7. When I was very small I hurled a plate, frisbee-style, across the room in a rage because my parents refused to come downstairs and see the Monarch butterfly I'd found in the garden. There's still a dent in my mother's mantelpiece where the plate made contact.

8. I was a Brownie and a Guide. Brownies was fun because we made stuff with felt and buttons and bits of string, but I hated Guides. I wasn't very good at it; while the other girls amassed their badges, I gained two in Brownies and four in Guides. For the Guides' Collector and Toymaker badges, I simply rehashed all the stuff I'd used for the Brownie badges. I still have no idea how I got away with that. My other two Guides badges were Writer and Road Safety. I was most proud of the Writer badge.

9. While a Guide, I accidentally shot my guide leader's son in the leg with an air rifle. We were at a shooting gallery and I had a gun with a faulty trigger - I didn't even realise what had happened until we were back in the meeting hall. My guide leader never forgave me.

10. I like baking biscuits. The best bit is when all the washing up and clearing up is done and there's just a plate of warm, neat biscuits, as if by magic.

11. There's a particular type of blue that makes me feel sick when I see a lot of it - for example, if it's on a wall. One time I arrived home to discover that, along with painting the living room walls bright orange, my housemates had filled in the door panels with my feared blue colour. They'd done it as a surprise, not realising my aversion to it. I never really got used to it; the orange was pretty funky though.

12. I used to be 15 stone. Despite losing five stone, I remain obsessed about my weight. It makes me very boring.

13. I'm a hypochondriac. If I get a pain in my chest or my arm, I think it might be a heart defect. If my leg tingles or hurts, I think it's DVT.

14.I once ate 12 packets of Hula Hoops in a single sitting. I still love Hula Hoops. Plain are best.

15. I suffer from Raynaud's disease, and sometimes my fingertips go blue. Mostly they just go white and shrivelled.

16. I've never had a "proper" pet. I had two goldfish and two tortoises when I was little; poking Timothy Tortoise in the face with dandelions until he ate them was as much interaction as I had with them. The other tortoise was called Jethro Tull and he died almost immediately from some unknown tortoise disease. I'd love a cat but am afraid I wouldn't have the patience to deal with it.

17. Dogs frighten me a bit.

18. So do people.

19. The smells I like the most are; vanilla, fresh bread, brewing coffee, cigarette or peat smoke in my boyfriend's hair, My Queen by Alexander McQueen, fresh washing, Nag Champa incense, candles that have just been blown out.

20. I am quite vain. My glasses make me feel very ugly.

21. I was born five weeks' premature. I should have been born at the end of December; evidently I realised in the womb what a disaster it would be when it came to receiving presents for birthdays and Christmases, and so I decided to arrive early.

22. I want to write but no longer know how. When I was very small and people asked me what I wanted to be, I would always tell them that I would be "an author". I was inspired by Jayne Fisher, who wrote The Garden Gang books. Some of that conviction would be really nice right now.

23. I believed in Father Christmas until I was 10 and steadfastly refused to accept my parents' admission that it was all a hoax. My mother would write letters from Santa with her left hand and post them to me. They were very convincing.

24. I measure the success of my day by tiny achievements; cleaning the house, walking to and from work, studying for an hour, reading a story, updating my blog, emailing a friend. I celebrate these tiny victories and then feel a little lame when I read about people who run marathons or write novels or fight systems.

25. My parents nearly named me Beverley.

Terminus

2009-01-25T02:28:00.003Z

Like

cropped hair or
dropped glass or

fast falls or
phone calls or

brief views or
rushed truths or

silent booths

or noodle soup

we come
to a
stop.

Inspire me

2009-01-25T01:02:00.003Z

I wish I didn't, but I really enjoy seeing what writers' and artists' desks look like. Workstations, studios, writing rooms...they all fascinate me. The Guardian recently ran a feature in the Review section where each week it showed a photo of a writer's room and had the writer provide an overview. Another example is Francis Bacon's studio, which was moved from its original location and painstakingly reconstructed in Dublin's Hugh Lane gallery - a fine insight into the painter's surroundings and habitat.

I'm lucky enough to have commandeered the spare room for my desk (my long-suffering boyfriend has to make do with the former dining table, though it does look like an impressive hub of futuristic enchantment, especially when he has everything glowing and humming merrily away). The spare room is starting to blossom into my own space, despite desperately trying to keep it as neutral as possible so that visitors don't feel like they're being suffocated with my personal tastes. The postcards and little characters are slowly beginning to spread...

It's only a matter of time before the walls are full and we won't be able to open the door without an Edward Scissorhands finger poking us in the eye.

Drink Me

2009-01-25T00:29:00.005Z

Well, not me, but this. I usually find herbal teas bland-o-riffic, like a soggy, wussy version of whatever they were meant to be. Peppermint tea is bearable because it's like drinking a hot mug of Rennies. Everything else produces an audible "meh" from me and the boxes always end up in the office communal kitchen, so that everyone else can try them and make "meh" noises as well. This was until I forked out a shocking €3.05 for 15 little teabags from Yogi Tea. There's plenty of blah-blah on the box, telling you how spiritual/special/glee-giving the tea is, but ultimately, it tastes nice and that's all I'm looking for. Finding a god in the bottom of my cup is not what I need at the end of a long day.

Now, if you don't like ginger, cinnamon or warm spices, give this one a wide berth. If you do, this will rock your world, insofar as a teabag can. The ingredients are ginger, fennel, cinnamon, aniseed, coriander, cinnamon extract, ginger oil and licorice. Yum.

Some ginger Factoids:

- Ginger is recommended for its analgesic, sedative and antibacterial properties. And presumably because it tastes nice covered in chocolate. Bizarrely, it can cause changes in blood pressure and heart rhythm, and can apparently react with Warfarin (a blood-thinning drug). Who'd have thought a humble spice could be so potent?

- According to the Encyclopaedia of Spices, ginger is so called because it takes its name from the Sanskrit word stringa-vera, meaning "with a body like a horn".

- Wiki supplies us with this nugget of wisdom: "Ginger is also a minor chemical irritant, and because of this was used as a horse suppository by pre-World War I mounted regiments for figging." Being of pure mind, I had to look up figging. I really, really wish I hadn't.

So, if you're not planning on shoving it anywhere delicate and you're not on Warfarin, grab a box of this stuff today. The box even has a simple Yoga technique for you to try, so you can spill your tea in your lap while you attempt the lotus position. Happy days.

Feeling Stressed?

2009-01-25T00:25:00.003Z

You need a squeezy Jack Skellington Head!

Squeeze and kneed him! Make him gurn! Throw him against a wall and watch him bounce! Or just roll him gently between your hands and feel instantly better because he's so damn cute.

Reading Borges

2009-01-24T23:39:00.002Z

"I thought that a man can be an enemy of other men, of the moments of other men, but not of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams of water, sunsets."

Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths

Aiming Low

2009-01-24T22:19:00.010Z

There are times when you've just got to stop beating yourself up about everything and acknowledge the tiny things. Managing to finish a Borges story. Finding out what "erlaubt" means in German. Writing some light-hearted blog posts. Taking those clothes to a charity shop. Remembering to deposit the glass at the bottle bank. (Funny how people still look shocked and stare wildly at the sound of breaking glass, even though the bottle bank is right in front of them. It feels oddly scandalous too, carrying a large Dunnes bag up the road that's bursting with empty booze bottles. Clink, clink, clink.)

Anyone who has ever suffered from depression will know that the first time you get out of bed and put some washing in the machine, you feel as though you've just climbed Kilimanjaro. On a cold January weekend, there's a similar feeling, albeit nowhere near as severe. Of course, little things become more and more trivial the more we contemplate them. For those of us with fully-functioning bodies and minds, perhaps there's the inward screaming - I should be training for marathons! Writing novels! Sewing cushion covers! Working in a soup kitchen! Saving the world!

It's January so I'm taking my health and comfort for granted, as usual. Still, rather than mope about it and stay in bed, I'll aim low and perhaps work my way up to the other stuff. Except the marathon bit.

Things that made me feel better this week: completing level 2 of my German course; my boyfriend thinking I look good in my new jeans (the first pair I've managed to find in 16 years that don't make my legs look like bedenimed bratwurst); eating delicious Indian food at Maloti; humming the oddly disjointed Jupiter (Bringer of Jollity) in the shower; finding a herbal tea that doesn't make me gag; restocking the shelves in the Oxfam bookshop so they were bursting with variety; discovering that M&S make mini bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape; watching the gulls bobbing on the sea in Clontarf Bay while the winter sun warmed the back of my head for the first time in 2009; eating hot toast late at night even though I'm not hungry and I've been stuffing my face all day.

*Contented sigh*

Q & A

2009-01-19T00:23:00.003Z

I was talking to people recently, asking them whether they had any ideas for blog posts, as I was at risk of simply whinging about how cold my feet were and telling you all what I had for breakfast. One suggested I answer the questions from The Hot Press Mad Hatter's Box. Why not, I thought - I've no idea why anyone would want to know my answers, but then, I've also no idea why I lose hours of my time to Stumble Upon, staring at Lolcats and bad jokes and giant heart-attack-inducing burgers.

So, here you go then, Travors - selected questions only though (I don't have the wit/energy/time to answer them all).

Who would be the last person you would invite to your birthday party?

It's a toss-up between Jack Black, Jim Carrey, Ricky Gervais and Regina Spektor. Though I'm sure they're all wonderful people really.

Favourite saying?

My boyfriend thinks I learnt to speak in another century because I use words like "albeit" on a daily basis. I say "It's not ideal" and "That's alarming" so often that it's embarrassing.

Favourite record?

If we're referencing the vinyl era, probably Michael Jackson's Off the Wall when I was about 8 or something. Album-wise now, I'd be torn between:

In Requiem - Paradise Lost
Draconian Times - Paradise Lost
The Amelie Soundtrack - Yann Tiersen

15 songs I play constantly:

Ash and Debris - Paradise Lost
Lilian - Depeche Mode
Sonne - Rammstein
Symbol of Life - Paradise Lost
Runs in the Family - Amanda Palmer
Hands Away - Interpol
Mary Jane's Last Dance - Tom Petty
Evade - Lacrimas Profundere
Failure - Kings of Convenience
Omaha - Counting Crows
Cello Song - Nick Drake
Paper Tiger - Beck
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now - The Smiths
Alarm Call - Bjork
Remembrance - Paradise Lost

My iPod recently packed in...I'm assuming it took exception to some of the above.

Favourite book?

Sadly I simply don't read enough, and I've no one to blame for that but myself. And the Internet with its sweet, sweet, distracting contents. However, for books I've gone back to again and again, finding comfort in their brilliance, I'd say:

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Where I'm Calling From - Raymond Carver (collected short stories from several other previous collections)
The Outsider/The Stranger - Albert Camus
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - Edward Albee (okay so it's a play, but I've read it a hundred times and still never tire of it)

Also, though I haven't read it in for a long time, Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber always fascinated and horrified me.

Also, though I generally find poetry somewhat impenetrable, I do love reading Carol Ann Duffy's work - she manages to create some wonderful imagery from seemingly simple language.

Favourite Author?

As mentioned, I'm a terrible reader, but when I can drag myself away from the Mac, I tend to gravitate towards Margaret Atwood, T.C. Boyle, Milan Kundera, Anton Chekhov, Ray Carver. Some of Haruki Murakami's stuff is pretty good too, though I'm probably the only person in the world who didn't manage to finish The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Shame on me.

Favourite film?

Ach, so many. I'll name four, because I'm being very dull with all these lists here. I'm supposed to be writing witty comments or something aren't I...but I'm not a celebrity or a fantastically interesting musician, or whoever it is that answers these questions in Hot Press. Though if I was, I'd probably not be the type to snort cocaine off a horse's mane and regale the world with wild stories about the time I went dancing with the Dali Lama. I'd say the same as I'm saying here, which is probably why I'm not a celebrity or a fantastically interesting musician.

...where was I?

Edward Scissorhands
Amelie
Spirited Away
Hidden/Cache

There are plenty more, but they're the four that stand out in my mind.

Most embarassing moment of your life?

So, so many. Falling over whilst pulling on my trousers and tearing cartilage in my knee is near the top of the list. Not so much the falling, but explaining to the doctor that, no, it wasn't a skiing injury, but a dressing malfunction. Other moments include being sick in my hair, falling out of a car, falling over everywhere actually. I should be permanently clothed in bubble wrap.

Favourite food/drink/stimulant?

Impossible to narrow it down to one kind of favourite food. Cheese, vanilla ice cream, sausages, cherries, white chocolate...an endless list. Oink.

Favourite drink and stimulant are kind of interchangeable - red wine and coffee (though not together).

Favourite item of clothing?

Anything that keeps me warm, hides the ugly bits and makes me appear under 35.

Favourite method of relaxation?

Relaxation? What's that?

If you weren't pursuing your present career, what other might you have chosen?

Professional pessimist, immortal carer of kittens.

Something I was actually good at would be nice.

Biggest thrill?

Mind your own business.

Biggest disappointment?

My writing "career". Being a pessimist prevents too many disappointments, mind.

Your concept of heaven?

I don't actually believe in one. Proper vanilla ice cream half-drowned in Amaretto comes close though.

Your concept of hell?

Other people. (Oh yes, Monsieur Sartre, you were correct.)

Greatest ambition?

To be of use. To write something worthwhile. To die knowing I made someone happy.

If you were told that the world was ending tomorrow morning how would you react/what would you do?

Panic. Then raise a sceptical eyebrow at the messenger and ask how he/she could possibly know such a thing. Then order a wagon-wheel-sized pizza with a stuffed crust and share it with my boyfriend.

Biggest fear?

Wasps, heights, deep water, fire, being incapacitated. So being incapacitated on a sinking ship that was on fire while a cargo of wasps broke open in front of me would make me very unhappy indeed.

Humanity's most useless invention?

Celebrity status. Most organised religions (though swap "useless" for "damaging").

What would be your dying words?

"I told you so."

Destination Procrastination

2009-01-15T13:29:00.007Z

So. On this comfortably-off, mild and meandering land, the new year has settled in like a pair of fleecy slippers, and the grey sky of January has temporarily lifted to let in some light. People everywhere are battling with diets and flu. Payday is still rather far away. Yahoo! has a new CEO. My knee is still a scabby mess. That feeling of needing to be elsewhere is pressing down on the shoulders, just like it does every January. Transition and wishing for change. I have daily cravings for a hot scone and a warm bed.

I am capable of little just now; perhaps a page of sweeping generalisations and photographs of coffee cups. There is so much time to fill and so much to fill it with...and yet, nothing is done. And there is nothing afterwards. So what to do first, I wonder?

Well. I'm quite enjoying Magic Molly, who, by being smarter and prettier than me, may inspire me to use my stupid head a little. Or may just remind me of my averageness. I am currently spending too many hours of my life searching through eBay for items I don't need, staring vacantly out of the window at bald trees and listening to the same handful of songs on repeat. When I am older and dribbling pureed apples into my lap, I shall regret all this time-wasting. If I can remember it.

I take knocks badly and give up easily. My German class was an embarrassment this week, due to the fact that we had a stand-in teacher who seemed to expect us to understand proper spoken German. Perhaps in theory we should have. I, for one, felt like a remedial child in a quantum physics lecture. Ich bin nicht klug und das ist nicht gut. The spontaneity isn't there for speaking - it takes me so long to figure out what's being said, that a person asking me a question would have chewed their own arm off with boredom by the time I managed to utter an Ich denke... Should I chuck it all in? Will I ever be able to say something more than Am Samstag habe ich ins Kino gegangen? Another 12 classes have been booked, so I suppose I'll find out...

January, please hurry up and become February. Or March.

2009-01-10T01:56:00.004Z

The January Blues set in sometime on the day I was supposed to go back to work, but ended up in bed with a cold/virus thing. That immensely sorrowful self-indulgence that makes me want to chuck in my job and hide under the duvet until the sun comes out again. Indeed, the situation in Gaza, the freezing weather, the recession, the general horrors of the world, also make me want to hide away. Even the Atheist Bus Campaign didn't fully bring me out of my torpor (though I approve of the sentiment and am hugely amused by all the complaints to the ASA for the ad's lack of truthfulness and substantiation...show us concrete proof of the "Jesus Saves" ads that crop up all over the place and perhaps we'll take you more seriously).

I brightened up a little when my generous boyfriend surprised me with tickets to Full Metal Racket 2009 (Paradise Lost headlining - hurrah) and I felt better after engaging my flabby brain in my first German class of the year. Then I tripped over a paving slab (and probably my own feet). The shock is less the bruised, bloodied mess and general lumpiness of my knee (of which, tempted as I am, I shan't post a picture), and more the fact that everything else aches. Remember when we were children and we fell over? Scraped hands and knees were dabbed with some alarming yellow liquid (Iodine? Orange juice? Urine?) and that was the end of it. Now I keep finding sore bits. I fell on my knee - why does my back/other knee/hand/neck/foot/shoulder hurt? Did someone run up as I fell and give me a good kicking when I wasn't looking?

It is, I assume, what is called ageing. I'm not altogether sure I approve.

So I'm feeling a little sorry for myself at the moment...my response was to book flights to Berlin in April/May. Yay. I hope I haven't turned into someone who throws money at anything I can't immediately ease.

Anyway, my moping is becoming tiresome now, as are my various minor winter ailments, so to cheer myself up I had a flick through some old photos and chose a few to post here.

The above are Phoenix Park, a building in Manchester and a little Kneipe in Berlin.

This next photo remains one of my all-time favourites. It's not great quality, it has bits of my reflection in it and is full of flaws. But whenever I see it, it makes me smile. Happy little teapots in Paris; for reminding me to stop being an ungrateful whingebag, I say Merci Beaucoup.

Starting as I mean to go on...

2009-01-01T16:08:00.003Z

...by baking, wandering and procrastinating. There's something very satisfying about not making any changes to one's life on January First.

My boyfriend has been a sweetheart to me while I've been poorly so to thank him I've baked chocolate muffins (recipe courtesy of Saint Delia). Yes, those are giant heart-shaped muffins, and mini cutesy muffins. And I'm not afraid to admit it. And hopefully, once he gets out of bed, my boyfriend won't be afraid to eat them. I've even dusted them in icing sugar to make them more wintry.

And speaking of wintry, it's certainly a grey auld day in Dublin. Hence my grey auld pictures. After spending a few minutes leaping over deer poo and trying to get a good shot of the leafy carpet surrounding me, I ran out of patience...so this is the best I got. Not exactly striking...

The Wellington monument looked even more stern and dour than usual...

And as always, the naked trees in the fading light of dusk managed to appear eerie and melancholy.

Tick Tock

2009-01-01T08:05:00.003Z

A friend noted how odd it was that we celebrate the passing of the years, which ultimately signify our own fleeting lives, and it's an interesting thought indeed. So instead of reflecting quietly on how how little time we have on Earth, in this form, in this existance, we set off fireworks and drown ourselves in alcohol, and the newspapers are full of reviews of the previous year, lest our fun-sodden memories have already forgotten. Perhaps it's that strange optimism we carry with us, that wanting of more that has pushed us so far up the food chain, and it is that we are actually celebrating the start of another year where we'll hunt for more, demand more, more more more. Or perhaps it's relief that causes us to celebrate the fact that we got through another year. To some extent there's probably an element of autopilot, of following the herd, of going through the motions. In the same way that Christmas is celebrated with overindulgence and shopping and the meaning of it, regardless of how you feel about it, has been separated and placed in a jar on a top shelf somewhere.

Or maybe that celebrating is a way of sticking one's fingers in one's ears. The stronger the alcohol, the louder the bangs, the more made of the countdown to midnight, the less it becomes about the passing of time. The more abstract it becomes. For many people, I think Happy New Year has little more genuine meaning than Happy Christmas - how many people wishing us a Happy Christmas actually go to Mass? I sure as heck don't, and never have. People will die, wars will continue, a global recession looms and still we wish you a Happy New Year. Blind optimism. Perhaps it's what keeps us going. Probably keeps Hallmark and Clinton's in a booming trade, too.

On an unrelated note, I was complaining yesterday to my boyfriend about the abbreviating of Modus Operandi to "MO". The phrase has such a lyrical quality, and yet in our continuing quest to make everything as fast as possible, we remove what made it worth keeping it in Latin in the first place - its drama, its significance.

It's new year's day and I've been up just over an hour and a half, having had around 3 hours' sleep. I've been housebound with a head cold for days and am practically climbing the walls at this stage. My muscles are turning to mush (mushles, anyone? I was chuckling to myself about this, which suggests that perhaps my brain is turning to mush too). I have taken literally my boyfriend's invitation to "help yourself to the bread" and have gobbled down four slices of (evil, processed, delicious) super-thick white. An excellent way to prevent any dietary new year's resolutions from taking hold.

My own new year's celebrations were absorbing enough that I didn't realise it was past midnight until I heard the fireworks. An evening by a roaring fire with my boyfriend, a table full of junk food, and a marathon viewing of Dexter, season 2. I initially dug in my heels, insisting I wouldn't enjoy a programme with a serial killer as the protagonist. I relented more or less immediately after episode 1 of season 1. The writing manages to make the most unlikely of characters sympathetic, it's clever, nicely shot, and takes the time to develop plots and personalities. It has a lot going for it, and I've been pleasantly surprised...which makes a change for someone so sceptical about television shows that require regular viewing. It was also rather exhilirating to watch something that had me yelling at the television and shouting "nooooooooooooo!" during various episodes as the characters blundered through their messy lives. Oh and I'll be humming that damn theme tune for the rest of the month. Favourite character? Angel Batista. Great hat.

Belfast continued...

2008-12-30T21:56:00.003Z

I've little more of interest to say about my Belfast visit (and my brain is currently full of snot so I can barely think straight anyway), so I'll post some more pictures instead. They're probably more interesting.

One of the unusual plants in the Tropical Ravine House.

A meadow we strolled through on our last day in Belfast...it was hard to believe that there was a pounding, roaring city just minutes away.

A church near a nice little cafe where we had lunch. The cafe was called Common Grounds. The profits go to community projects in the developing world. The coffee was excellent, the sandwiches bigger than my head, and the whole thing very wholesome. So much so that it almost made me feel uncomfortable. I half-expected someone to try and convert me to something. Thankfully I was left alone to stuff my face with a chicken and mango sambo instead.

Post-Belfast Post

2008-12-30T21:02:00.004Z

I visited Belfast back in November, having never been before. I was with friends and stayed within the more developed areas of the city, hence I probably saw only a fraction, and have a skewed impression of the place. I didn't venture through Shankill or along the Falls Road, meaning that I didn't see a single mural. The city I saw was very much a British-feeling, newly developed version of whatever it might have previously been. It reminded me a little of Manchester, with its ferris wheel and shiny new shopping centre. I should perhaps have also visited the "real" Belfast, where ordinary people actually live, to get a proper feel for the city, but I was only there for a couple of days and never got the chance. Nonetheless, everyone I met there was pleasant enough, and it seemed a vibrant, buzzing place to be, with the exception of the drunk woman slamming her male companion's head against a litter bin...but I see that kind of thing in Dublin on a regular basis too, so it didn't really feel out of place. Cities all have their ugly sides, beyond the pretty lights and glass facades.

We saw Dylan Moran at the Waterfront Hall - a great venue, a little like a lecture hall. Very impressive. Moran was less so, seeming weary and actually, a little wary during his set. It was subtly done, but still obvious that he didn't wish to overly upset his audience, which is perhaps unsurprising, being as he is from the south.

We dropped in on the Botanical Gardens, which were rather lovely and particularly buoying on a cold Autumnal day.

A couple of factoids:

The Palm House is one of the oldest examples of cast iron glasshouses in the world, having been completed in 1840.

The gardens occupy 28 acres of land and features the Ulster Museum beside its main entrance.

The gardens include a rather impressive Tropical Ravine House, which contains a sunken ravine running the length of the building, and which really does feel like you've wandered into a mass of vegetation that has been left to its own devices. Marvellous.

We were in Belfast for Halloween and visited a brilliant little bar called The Spaniard, whose bartenders wore make-up so impressive that it was actually a little frightening. At least, I hope it was make-up. Delicious beer, ramshackle decor that constantly distracted and cosy corners galore.

We also went to a (less brilliant) bar containing "sculptures" above the cisterns in the loos. Creepy, and a tiny bit crap. I was thankful for being a lady so at least it was behind me...

Light Up, Light Up

2008-12-29T18:39:00.006Z

A couple of weeks ago, I took a few shots of Dublin's Christmas lights for the team I work with, who are based in India. They wanted to see the glistening frost that twinkled prettily in the city, but the shots I took of that just made the place look grey and depressing. So artificial lights it was, then!

The pictures are not of great quality, partly because I'm not skilled at night shots, and partly because I'm out of practice with my little camera (through laziness, admittedly). Still, they offer a taster of Dublin's festive illuminations without all the shoving and grumbling of shoppers. Which is always going to be a good thing.

Standing on O'Connell Street, looking down Henry Street. A lad I work with said the wreaths reminded him of the rings in Sonic the Hedgehog. Which probably wasn't what Dublin's festive lighting committee was going for.

Talbot Street...scary shouting Dubs just out of shot.

O'Connell Street's pretty tree and the GPO...the perfect place to pose with arms akimbo, by the looks of things.

Grafton Street, with its fancy chandeliers. And horrible advertising placard.

So that was Christmas...

2008-12-29T17:17:00.005Z

...and what did I do?
I ate too much chocolate,
and caught a cold too.

No change from previous Christmastimes then. I flew home, visited my parents, ate too much, and sat on my bum watching television (a novelty, as I no longer own one). Going home is always a strange experience (and by home, I mean my hometown where my parents live - very different to the place I call home in Dublin, Ireland). It is of course, good to visit my parents, speak to them in person and share news. It is also strange, because I feel like a child again. Twelve years of living "away" means that there is a version of me that remains frozen in Essex, a body and mindset that I step into when I emerge from Stansted's arrival hall. The skin of this other me has become too small, and yet I still squeeze into it somehow.

That skin was never tighter than when I was explaining to my mother why I didn't believe in a god, and while hearing my father's views on immigrants. Neither have ever forced their views upon me, but there is always the underlying need to feel that they understand me, and at the same time the assumption that they won't. It is perturbing to feel seventeen again, with a mouthful of cotton wool.

Whilst in Essex, I strolled around the area where I grew up. Here was the tiny windmill in a neighbour's garden, there were the yellow garage doors I used as a marker to find my turning, here was my school - now a construction site. I felt like a giant, looming over houses and gates and local shops that were once my entire world. Flat residential streets with the same front doors and gardens, some now neglected as they age in tandem with their owners; owners that would be mowing and painting and weeding as my younger self passed by. My world feels so much larger now, and yet it is still only a tiny cog whirring within the World itself. Whilst at my father's house, his girlfriend's mother came to visit and gave me an insight into how small our worlds become once again, as we age. At 88 and virtually housebound, a visit to someone's house must feel like a trip to another country, where the customs are odd, the tablecloths garish, the food too rich, the speech of children like another language entirely.

Such thoughts of identity and homecomings have been spurred on by my reading of Ignorance by Milan Kundera. A short novel, it addresses the feelings caused by the return to a homeland that is no longer considered a home by the protagonists - the recalling of times past, the recognition of one's previous self and the struggle to reconcile both with one's current life. It's an interesting book, and mirrored some of my own feelings...though of course, my reasons for leaving my home were far more banal than those of the protagonists. Nonetheless, a rewarding read, and one I'd recommend.

Navel-gazing and chocolate-grazing aside, the build-up to Christmas was busy and unusually festive. There was a party at our house, and on the 15th, a gig - I am Kloot at Whelan's.

The party was fun, booze-filled and allowed me to bake some of these gingerbread cuties (albeit smaller party-sized versions):

Yum yum.

The gig was good, though some of the crowd were the kind that seem to be drawn to male Mancunian bands (ie. lunkheads), hooting and heckling, and generally being an embarrassment. Many had a strange practice of holding up their drinks during songs they liked and keeping them there for the duration - a kind of prolonged toast to the band perhaps. I was too full from all the food I'd just eaten to be doing much of anything except clapping politely. Whelan's is a great little venue; cosy and intimate, and with a gourmet burger joint - Bo Bos - practically next door. That place single-handedly increased my blood pressure by about 10 points, I reckon. I was awkward of course (I don't like beef) and went for The Ranelagh - a giant falafel burger with salad. Of course, the hog in me couldn't resist the huge vanilla malt and a pail of "chubby" chips too. My poor arteries. My boyfriend bought me a vegetable steamer/rice cooker for Christmas so I'll be attempting to make amends come new year. Expect many pictures of vegetable medleys in 2009...if I can figure out how to work the machine.

This coming year is one of figuring things out. I want to learn to sew, and plan to buy a sewing machine. I want to learn the piano, which has been sitting all lonely and silent under a faux-suede sheet for a year. And the quest for German speech continues. My boyfriend pointed out that I make a big deal about the measurement of a year, which is a bureaucratic timeframe that doesn't mean anything, while days make more sense to measure things by because they involve sleep patterns and light and dark (I'm paraphrasing here, if you're reading this my dear)...but if I was to measure my successes on a daily basis, I'd feel even more of a failure than I do now. So I can understand the idea of New Year's Resolutions, even if I won't actually make any. I won't be giving up booze, or exercising more, or learning Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. I plan to look after myself, be nice to those around me, do my best and try. That's all I can offer. Oh, and perhaps a little more blogging - that's something I should do, for the sake of the six or seven of my loyal readers!

And so, for now, a belated Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it, and I'll blog again soon. (And no, I haven't forgotten about the Post-Belfast Post I was supposed to write...though I now feel I have built it up and may not do it justice, as I was only there for a couple of days...we shall see.)

Gut Instincts

2008-12-01T23:32:00.003Z

As regular readers will know I like food. I particularly like vanilla-flavoured food, so much so that I had planned to review something vanilla-tastic on a regular basis for this blog. Actually, I planned to do a lot of things on a regular basis for this blog, but then distraction and inertia got in the way and all plans went awry. Furthermore, I have sampled little in the way of vanilla treats recently, partly because I currently have a taste for more spicy goods. Anyhoo, I've decided I want to bake gingerbread biscuits, partly because of their warm and spicy smell, partly because I got lots of biscuit cutters for my birthday, and partly because it's been a while since I tried baking something new. What with Christmas on its way, we spent last week's German class discussing Weihnacht, and it reminded me that I wanted to try baking some traditional-style German goodies. Lebkuchen - German gingerbread cookies - sounds like the perfect winter treat, and perhaps if I take some into class, everyone will be too busy scoffing biscuits to notice my shoddy Deutsch. Here's hoping.

Where am I going with this? Oh yes, bicarbonate of soda. Obviously. I need it for my gingerbread, you see. Can I find it in regular supermarkets? Can I heck. Bread mix, muffin cases, glace cherries...the baking ingredients in our stores these days are bizarre. No one cooks anymore. Ready-made this, pre-cooked that, just add water, throw in some milk...I'm as guilty of eating junk as anyone else, but it's sad to discover that stores rarely stock the basics. After Supervalu, Tesco, M&S, and Spar all let me down, I wander into the local Oriental Emporium to see if they can oblige. And of course they can. The store on Upper Abbey Street is a wonderful sight. Ingredients! Heaps of them! In 3kg bags...enough bicarb to last me for gingerbread eternity. I find a small box of Arm and Hammer, which extols the virtues of baking soda as deodoriser, kitchen cleaner and antacid (with the worrying warning, "Do not take if overfull". Belly go boom, perhaps?). Kitchen cleaner? Should this be going into biscuits? I'm assuming it's only like cleaning glass with the same stuff you put on your chips**.

**Vinegar, not Windowlene.

So I'm there with my baking soda, prowling around the aisles, marvelling at all the uncooked, untreated, basic foodstuffs that actually require some effort to make them edible, and I come across...the snack aisle. Here, you can wave farewell to creating from scratch. All kinds of multicoloured bags of MSG, flavourings and beaming cartoon characters surround me. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to decide which kind of rice cracker to buy, before placing them all back on the shelf and striding towards the counter, reminding myself that I have recently been eating like Michael Winner. I'm almost at the counter when the crunchy snacks catch my eye. Damn! Asian crisps! I'm a goner. I select some cheery prawn items for my boyfriend, and some corn sticks for myself.

Back home, I present my boyfriend with his seafoody treat. He confesses that he'd never have risked them himself, fearing that after opening the bag, he would be greeted by deep-fried prawn eyes peering up at him. Thankfully, his snack merely consists of prawn-flavoured sticks, which smell so fishy that I can picture the entire city's cats finding ingenious ways of breaking into our house.

I crack open my grill-a-corn. I've no idea what the little characters are up to on the back of the pack, but they seem happy enough about it, even if they're actually being cooked alive. They look, and taste, like Nice N' Spicy Nik Naks, with approximately 500% more spicy flavour. Score.

After gorging on our exotic snacks, we each drink several buckets of cordial, trying to counteract the ravaging thirst from the salt, MSG and other artifical deliciousness that coats our throats. It's been an adventure, of the most gentle kind - but that's a Monday evening for you. In other news, I think the neighbour's kitty may have given our sofa fleas, Dublin is heading for zero degrees and I'm starting my dietary good behaviour from tomorrow, once I've fully digested all the junk I've been eating since I returned from Belfast.

And that's how much I've neglected this blog - I didn't even write about my little jaunt to Belfast. Perhaps I'll write a post-Belfast post. Stay tuned.

NB. I only noticed that these snacks were three months out of date when I uploaded this photo...after I'd eaten them. The bag was virtually inpenetrable so I'm guessing they'd probably survive unscathed, crisp and spicy for another eighty years. Though I may take that comment back if I'm purging spicy corn sticks from my nose in the night.

A Bounty

2008-11-25T00:14:00.003Z

My, my, I'm a lucky thing. My birthday was a bonanza of Things I Love. A morning of fancy chocolate and lounging in my pyjamas until lunchtime. Gifts of Gudrun Sjoden (a voucher that is, not the woman herself), baking tools, sparkly jewellery, purple gloves, a goat from Oxfam Unwrapped (though hopefully the goat goes to an African family and not to our terraced, garden-less abode in Dublin city). An evening of Thai food, cocktails and whisky. I even received a visit from the neighbour's cat. She arrived, miaowed dramatically and sat on me for a while - presumably this is kitty code for "happy birthday neighbour, glad tidings and whatnot. Now, do direct me henceforth to the receptacle wherein you store the ham."

My Hotel Chocolat gift box was opened immediately - ten chunky slabs of deliciousness in a spiffing black carry-case, that I declared would last me until Christmas. I am embarrassed/proud to admit that we have wolfed down 800g of delicious, silky choc in a mere 36 hours. My boyfriend provided some helpful assistance - a selfless act to prevent the hospital visit that would have occurred, had I tackled the whole thing myself.

Praline White, Cherry Fusion, Caramellow, Rocky Road, Coconut and Almond...which was best? All provided the kind of silly grins and yum-yum noises that I thought I was incapable of after the age of about five.

Carry Me Home? After all that cream-laden decadence, you wouldn't be able to lift me.

Normal blog service shall resume once we have installed a winch to hoist me out of bed...

A Birthday

2008-11-22T23:00:00.003Z

My boyfriend is drinking his way through Dublin city with friends tonight, so I'm taking the rare opportunity to pollute his speaker system with Sepultura and The Mission. It's the eve of my 31st, and I'm celebrating with some German homework and digestive biscuits. Well, there is a recession on, you know. I've a pile of cards by my bedside upstairs, waiting to be ripped into first thing tomorrow morning, along with gifts from a friend and my future parents-in-law, and a large cardboard package from my kind boyfriend, containing something delicious from Hotel Chocolat. As yet I've managed to refrain from tearing the box open with my teeth and diving in headfirst, to emerge, Augustus Gloop-like, with a gobful of choc. I'd like to pretend that I'm the model of patience and restraint, but admit to weighing the box, peeling back the corner to see what colour the box is, and then trying to guess what's inside by comparing this information with Hotel Chocolat's range.

It's been a long time since I commented on anything much here, due largely to the fact that there seems to be so much comment on everything these days that I don't feel there's much more to add. My cosy little microcosym makes me complacent, perhaps. Life is, at the moment, pretty damn good. Being a pessimist (and calling myself a realist in defence of my pessimism, particularly in the face of my boyfriend's sunny optimism), I expect things to come crashing down around my feakishly tiny ears anytime soon. That said, I try not to dwell on such things - I appreciate what I have, and may even admit to feeling rather jolly about things, on the whole. The remaining shreds of my gothic credibility have now been destroyed by that last statement, but so be it. There was a time when I wondered how I would get through life, feeling the way I did about everything, and yet here I am now, almost 31 and very much alive, albeit a little bit creaky, and rather bloated from all those bloody digestives.

Being a little kitty that has all the proverbial cream doesn't stop me daydreaming though. It's what makes humans both brilliant and horribly destructive - the need for more, the inquisitiveness, the wondering what's next, the wanting. And so I daydream about being a writer, producing something wonderful, seated at a desk with a cat snoozing on my lap. I imagine myself being worthy, without the smugness that often comes with it. I daydream about creating monoprint-and-watercolour images worth hanging on the wall. I imagine being able to do incredibly useful things like painting community centres and planting trees. (I actually did the former on Friday with some colleagues, which was great fun - I had the proud discovery of being the Person Most Covered in Paint.) I picture myself triumphantly handing in my notice and forever leaving the Office Mentality behind. I daydream about saving people, about making their lives better, about helping. That said, I certainly don't daydream about changing the world because I accept that I'm just a tiny blip (I just mistyped that as blimp, which is also correct after all those biscuits).

I am too lazy, too weak, to do these things, for the most part. Wisdom comes with age...I have a little of it, but there is still much lacking. I'm also lacking a wisdom tooth - one is still snuggled up inside the gum, its other three chums having erupted several years ago. Perhaps like my lazy tooth, I will one day burst forth and reach my full potential. Hopefully when it happens, I will not resort to bad tooth analogies with which to explain myself.

In the meantime, I shall daydream, be content with my lot and bake cakes to make people happy. And study German. Lots of German.

Studying German is comforting because it's logical - there are rights and wrongs, and success is measurable - and unlike other logical subjects like maths, it doesn't involve numbers (apart from, obviously, being able to ask for two beers, three pieces of cake, four nights in a hotel and so on). But I confess that it's also the perfect avoidance tactic - if I study German, I don't have to contemplate writing, reading, photography, painting, or anything else that I desperately want to become good at, all of which require talent, concentration and motivation, and all of which are objective and prone to criticism and failure. Failure to speak perfect German is less crushing for me than the failure to write something brilliant (and for the latter, I mean brilliant by my own standards as well as other people's).

Ach, es ist mir Wurst.

As I write this, my iPod is having a sentinent moment, registers the time and shifts from Oomph! and Paradise Lost, to Beth Orton and the wonderful Kings of Convenience. The rain is pouring and I hope my boyfriend is somewhere warm and dry. My feet are on the coffee table, something clicks in my head (probably just an echo from my horribly wrecked neck) and drops of rain plop noisily down the chimney onto the paper in the grate that is waiting to be burnt. It's two minutes to twelve. Another year of my life passes softly, pleasantly by. Now, where's that box of chocolates...

Older

2008-11-08T20:51:00.004Z

I'm 31 in a couple of weeks. Changes creep in gradually as the years march on.

For example, my Saturday night entertainment has changed a little.

Saturday night 1998 - stuffing my face with a giant takeaway pizza in a slightly scummy student house, with Type O Negative on in the background. Going out to pubs to get so drunk on pints of Stella Artois that I'd fall asleep on the pavement and be carried home by my long-suffering housemates. And with me being around 15 stone at the time, very strong housemates they were too.

Saturday night 2008 - stuffing my face with a mountain of healthy homemade chicken chilli-salsa in my cosy rented living room, with Type O Negative on in the background. Sipping a Bacardi, blackcurrant and soda and contemplating my German homework.

I think I hear a party whistle coming from somewhere.

What to Write

2008-09-28T23:02:00.004+01:00

So originality’s out of the question – for that you need knowledge and talent, and perhaps a tiny bit of genius. Stick to what you know, they say. Well, the one thing you do know better than anyone is You, so there’s your subject. A weepy memoir perhaps, with hand-wringing and confessions. The gory details. Very popular just now, this misery lit. Or perhaps something jolly and uplifting with triumph over adversity, and one of your oft-used expressions as the title - “It’s like, y’know, alarming!” written in Comic Sans. Is that the route to take? But wait, that’ll date – you’ll be on sale within a year.

What about satire? It’s modern, stylish, not too personal. But for that you need wit, along with a certain ugliness; you can’t create the original, so you’ll poke around until you find a dropped stitch, a drooping hem. Then you’ll pick and you’ll pull until something unravels, and a-ha! You’ve got it. It’ll turn you into a monster, somehow, you’re sure of it. You’re not strong enough to deal with the backlash, either...you’re already picturing yourself curled up on the bed, whimpering in fear as the lawsuits land on the doormat. So what’s next? Romance? Pink dust jackets and whimsy? Not possible. You’ve had romances in the past but there were no daring rescues or dramatic collapses (except those caused by an excessive consumption of alcohol), and you’re not sure you could describe a kiss in any way other than to say, “They kissed”.

What else? Horror? Crime? Thriller? Fantasy? Your imagination doesn’t reach far enough. Dead people are just dead, detectives are boring and winged horses make you snort your Rice Krispies through your nose. If you created a new world for a book, it would be almost exactly the same as the one you’re currently in, except you’d fit into an 18 inch corset and the streets would be cleaner. Perhaps the sky would be a nice shade of lilac, kittens would bring you croissants and people would all say good morning to each other, but you’d barely get a story out of it, let alone a series a la Discworld.

So what’s left? Religion? Philosophy? You’ve been known to ask yourself why you’re here, but that has less to do with existential angst, and more to do with forgetting why you entered the kitchen. And there’s always that woolliest of genres, literary fiction. But for that, you need to be able to utilise a vocabulary; and not just squeezing in the words crepuscular and tenebrous because you remember them from the Gothic module at University. Attempting to understand and explain the human condition also comes in useful, as does a muse. The only muse you have is a CD single of Plug In Baby, and you don’t even understand yourself, let along any other human out there.

Perhaps you should give up on the idea of writing and make some pretty cushion covers instead. Now all you need to do is learn how to sew.

Who Killed Keeley's Creativity?

2008-09-28T20:44:00.006+01:00

I'll give you a clue: it was the person mentioned in the title.

So today it's poor moping me because I am once again reminded of my mediocrity and immense inertia after witnessing another example of brilliance in action.

Last night I went to see the marvellous Amanda Palmer perform at the Acadamy in Dublin.

She is everything that I am not - talented, witty, intelligent, confident, and bloody sexy in a corset and frilly knickers.

She played a brilliant set, with songs from her solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer (named as a nod to Twin Peaks) and a couple of Dresden Dolls numbers too. Zoe Keating was on the cello, playing a gorgeous set of her own at the beginning of the gig, and adding depth to Palmer's magnificently quirky and deranged music.

I feel useless today, rich in my stable little life, wanting for nothing and staring at the unstudied German, the unlearned piano, the unread books, the unstitched sewing and the unwritten, unplotted stories that will never emerge. Of course, the fact that I am aware of all this means I should get off my bum and do something about it, right? Yeah. Totally. But perhaps I'll get to it after I've surfed the Internet to look at things I don't need. Scared of trying? Me? You betcha.

Zoe Keating on the cello - photo taken on my boyfriend's iPhone, hence the quality. As you can see from the distance we were away from the stage, we are getting old. Ten years ago, I'd have been down the front, sweating and waving my arms about. Though come to think of it, ten years ago, I'd have been giving myself whiplash at a Korn gig.

A blurry group of avant garde actors called Danger Ensemble being statuesque, and Miss Amanda Palmer attacking the piano/keyboard like a fiend.

Six Things I have Learnt this Month

2008-09-18T00:27:00.002+01:00

Tinned lentils are all kinds of horrible.

Rented houses in Dublin are either alarmingly poky or miles from anywhere. So many saggy pink sofas, so much chipboard.

In the rental property market, "Charming" means "shabby", "beautiful" means "expensive", "modern" means "soulless", and "good/nice/great" mean "really rather crap".

Second-hand CDs are near-impossible to sell, especially when your collection includes Danzig, Megadeth and The Human League.

African violets die quickly when fed rusty rainwater. D'oh.

Wedding "traditions" are ridiculous. Presents for the bride on the wedding morning? €1500 for a dress? Seat covers at €14 each? Sugared almonds in organza bags? Pah. Pah pah pah.

I think I need a lie down.

Shadow Play

2008-09-07T21:10:00.004+01:00

Newsflash - the sun shone in Dublin today. I blew the dust off my camera and went for a stroll in the park.

Such a rare treat to see strong shadows and feel the heat of the sun on my back.

I sat at the base of the Phoenix monument, feeling rather at peace with things. Now, if only I could harness that feeling and use it in times of stress...

A Muffin-Free Post

2008-09-03T22:54:00.005+01:00

A friend rang me this evening and asked me to write something for this blog, because she was sick of looking at the muffin. It made her hungry, she said. Put a picture of an apple up instead, she said. Perhaps something unappetising, or better still, something inedible. I was going to post a shot of some beetroot, simply because it doesn't look so good when it's cooked and is being rammed into a cheese sandwich, but the pictures I took looked hideous, like I was stabbing bloodied testicles with a fork.

So here's a compromise. You can eat these, but in their present state, they'd be pretty unappetising, especially with all the hair still on.

The piggies at Dublin Zoo. The little pink one is blurry because he (or she) was fidgeting. I carefully cropped out a tidy pile of poo, just in case anyone was reading this during their lunch hour.

I went to the zoo last week because my mother was over in Dublin for a visit and wanted to see the animals. I'm not sure how I feel about zoos. They're a positive thing in the sense of promoting animal conservation, encouraging children to learn about animals and their habitats, and in some cases, preventing the extinction of certain species. But on the other hand, when you see how miserable some of the animals seem to look, and how cooped up they are...the snow leopard looked threadbare and morose, and the rhinos seemed ready to gouge each other's eyes out (it didn't help that a precocious little calf was goading one of the adults, charging at it and then bouncing back behind its mother when the beleaguered one finally retaliated so that a full-on rhino riot almost occurred). Having wild animals on my doorstep is a strange thing indeed - I can hear the monkeys hooting sometimes in the mornings. I'm guessing that, unfortunately, they aren't hooting with happiness at their place on a little island in the middle of a park, being pointed at by snot-nosed children and raincoated adults with cameras.

While my mother was visiting, I had the chance to enjoy Dublin as a tourist again. I think I've had my fill of Christ Church Cathedral and the Book of Kells, but to wander through the city with fresh eyes was a refreshing experience. Everything took on that slightly magical quality that it had when I first arrived here, fresh off the ferry from Holyhead, after a perilous drive from Sheffield. (I say everything, but of course I am not including the scary children and angry drunks, which will never be magical, not even in Dickens' adaptations.) Molly Malone still makes me smile with her slightly disdainful expression, and the view along the quays at night always makes me pause and appreciate how lucky I am to live in such an interesting little city. The Guinness Christmas advert makes me cry every year, mainly because I am a pathetic wuss, but also because there's something a tiny bit magical about seeing the city empty and covered in snow (even though they're ultimately trying to sell me stout).

Walking my mother through the streets made everything a little more fascinating than usual. She noted how many places had pretty tiles on the floors, and the fact that the street lamps were different and more ornate. Having lived her whole life in a small town, she marvelled about how big everything was. I remember back to my first few weeks here. When I was surprised by the green post boxes (some of which still bear ER from before Ireland's independence). When I was irritated by the traffic lights that never seemed to change, and when they did, you practically had to run across the road (nothing's changed there). I remember being bemused that white coffee meant coffee with hot milk and not cold milk in a jug, and I remember how confused I was the first time my boyfriend's mother said "I'm going into the village to collect the messages, is there anything you need?". The milk was different, the crisps were stronger-flavoured and nowhere sold jacket spuds with fillings. And of course there were the things that were less magical and more harsh, things that I saw in the UK too - the beggars on the streets, the homeless sleeping in doorways, the young girls with pushchairs and cigarettes dangling from their lips. Swerving around arguments in public places, hearing children swear, seeing burly lads dropping their rubbish everywhere and pissing in the streets, but being too scared of them to say anything. This was - and is - the reality of the city, but I suppose the beauty of the place is all the more so for its variety.

I took some very touristy photos too, complete with camera shake, noise and blur. I'd like to say that it was all intentional - alas, 'tis not so. Still, at least my friend can rest easy; the pictures aren't of food.

Bran Muffins

2008-08-10T01:46:00.003+01:00

Give them a chance. They rock, they really do. Especially when you bake them yourself and realise that

- they aren't as healthy as they sound, because they're still, essentially, cake. But with added bran, which means you can eat one for breakfast and pretend you're doing yourself a favour

- they're so easy to make that even I can't mess them up

- eating three in one day is entirely possible.

Bran is, like, the new blueberry, okay? Got it? Good. Now go surf the net for recipes and bake, bake, bake. Your gut will thank you for it.

Sind Sie allein in Berlin?

2008-08-09T23:29:00.008+01:00

And indeed, like the Mobiles, I was Drowning in Berlin, but not in emotion or tears, or even in the River Spree. Drowning in beer, perhaps. But moreover, drowning in perspiration due to the fact that it was 31 degrees. I have a narrow window of comfort in weather, which is somewhere between 17 and 18 degrees. Thus, I am not a heat seeker, nor a sun seeker.

I am, however, a fun seeker and my trip to Germany's "multi-kulti" capital wasn't short of it. Cocktails and culture, beer and bratwurst; I wanted it all. The heat dampened our resolve somewhat (along with our clothes, hair and everything else), but we still managed to pack in plenty.

Highlights included a visit to a "blind" restaurant, Un-Sicht, where we chose from an enigmatic menu and were led into a pitch black room, where we sat for two hours, exploring our food with our four remaining senses. And yes, I did drop food down me. And yes, I still managed to wolf down every morsel without much trouble at all. It was an interesting experience, and one that I would recommend both to experience something of what a blind person experiences, and also to discover that food is not just about the taste. Gnocchi and mozzerella both feel rather alarming before you realise what they are. It made me more appreciative of my eyesight, as poor as it is. After stumbling out of the restaurant, we visited a jazz club to listen to a band that, at several points, made me wish that one of my other senses could be temporarily incapacitated.

Another highlight; cooling our feet in the Spree and looking over at the fancy new government complex while the river boats created waves just large enough to soak the bottom half of me while I wasn't paying attention. Seeing all the landmarks that appear in thousands and thousands of photographs felt somewhat surreal - I felt like I knew them so well already, that seeing them was like running into an old school friend after ten years - they looked, in essence, the same, but were subtly altered. So the Brandenburg gate was smaller, the Berliner Dom more striking, the Sony Centre more ugly, the Holocaust Memorial more breath-taking.

The Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe

The Protestant Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, built in the 1890s and bombed to bits in WWII, was a poignant reminder of why there are very few old buildings in Berlin. The shell remained, with most of its spire gone, its ragged edges jutting up into the sky, and looked all the more tragic with the shiny new chapel alongside it.

The Fernseturm became my Dublin Spire, my Florence Cathedral. It appeared in the skyline, in my eyeline, when I didn't expect it. I began to greet it with a smile, as though it was trying to catch my eye. (So not actually like Florence Cathedral then, which terrified me, in the same way that St. Paul's Cathedral terrifies me when it suddenly looms into view at the end of a side street like a giant, heavy-lidded eye).

The Ampelmannchen, the traffic light men from the former East, lived up to their cult status and delighted me whenever I saw them, much to the bemusement of my boyfriend. But they are dear little characters with hats! And they're showing us how to cross the road with extreme body movements! What's not to love?

Berlin is a sprawling, surprisingly spread-out city, for which no amount of warnings from guide books and previous visitors could prepare us. I can feel a few factoids coming on. (And no, I don't need any cream for it, thank you.)

- Berlin's current governing mayor is Klaus Wowerweit, who publicly came out prior to the 2001 elections with the now-famous words "Ich bin schwul, und das ist auch gut so." (I am gay and that is okay/a good thing).

- Despite some rather beautiful churches and cathedrals, 60% of Berlin's population declare themselves as having no religious affiliation. Protestants make up 23%, while there remains only 0.4% who are Jewish.

- Christmas as we know it is celebrated on December 6 in Germany, where it is St Nikolaus who delivers sweets to children if they have been good (and a stone, apparently, if they've been bad).

- Berlin's symbol and coat of arms is the bear. There are numerous reasons speculated on the net about why this is so, but none of them can be condensed into a sentence for this blog. In other related news, there are big bear sculptures all over Berlin, painted in quirky ways, called, rather nauseatingly, United Buddy Bears. They stem from an art exhibition where artists from countries within the EU each painted a bear. Think of the Cow Parade in Manchester a few years back, and you get the idea.

- The oldest beer garden in Berlin is the Berliner Prater, in Prenzlauer Berg, which opened somewhere between 1837 and 1852. We were handsomely rewarded for sweating on the S-Bahn for 40 minutes to get there; it had a gloriously relaxed atmosphere and a good buzz, and there were all kinds of people there, enjoying their drinks under the chestnut trees. The Rostbratwurst was delicious and had the proper "snap" to the skin when you bit into it. The beer wasn't half bad either.

Other observations: Traffic lights worked properly, people honked their horns a lot, few people jaywalked. The transport system is marvellous. The Hauptbahnhof is impressively huge, though less impressive when you're trying to find a toilet to throw up in after a heavy night on the ale. Hardly anyone was obese, with the exception of a policeman who looked like he was about to explode out of his seventies yellow-brown uniform. There were lots of dogs in Berlin - great big Hunde, big enough for a child to ride. Drinking during the day seemed quite normal, but the only drunken fools were the tourists. A German man with a full business suit and briefcase calmly opened a bottle of beer on the U-Bahn and sipped quietly. People were mostly polite and pleasant, even when laughing at my clumsy German. I would go back there tonight if someone handed me a ticket and replaced my presence at work for a week. (If you're acquainted with any monkeys that can surf the net, scowl at the phone and wear strong prescription glasses, that'll do nicely.)

But in the meantime, and until I go back there again...Prost!

Intermission

2008-07-13T23:46:00.003+01:00

Careful there, don't trip on your way down to the ice cream seller. Just a small pot for me thanks, I've already eaten. What's that in your hair? Popcorn? Settle down now, it's going to start any minute. Pass me a Revel, will you? Not the raisin one - yuk.

Oh boy. Blogdom remains a tiny blinking light in my peripheral vision but I haven't turned my head to face it in far too long. Blink. Blink. Blink. It's one of the many itches that I can't scratch because I've no fingernails left to make an impact. And my analogies aren't improving. Or perhaps that was supposed to be a metaphor. Brain-leak.

I'll be back...soon...

...honest. As soon as I've dragged myself out of a particularly boggy stretch of inertia, and decide what the hell I should be writing about. The web is full of facts and kittens; my head is full of nothing. When something pops in there, I'll post again.

A Small, Appeasing Factoid

Green olives and black olives are not different kinds - a green olive is simply the unripe version of a black one. I still can't tell whether I actually like them or not, even though I've just scoffed my way through a whole jar. Perhaps another jar will help me decide.

A Week Well Travelled

2008-06-21T01:01:00.003+01:00

It's been a week of new experiences and long distances. On Thursday we flew to Lucca, in Tuscany, for a short break with my future in-laws (it turned out to be very short indeed, but more of that later). I didn't even know Lucca existed (and I thought we were staying in Pisa until we arrived) but now I know and can even provide you with two factoids:

Puccini, composer of Madame Butterfly and the footie theme tune Nessun Dorma (which was adopted by FIFA and Pavarotti 66 years after his death), was born in Lucca. I just got very distracted while looking for more information about Puccini - I ended up watching The Three Tenors on YouTube, and reading the raging debates about whether Pavarotti was the best opera singer in the world. People are passionate about it, apparently. My only opinion is that I'm not keen on Jose Carreras, who sounds how I can imagine Joe Pesci would sing if he was a professional tenor, i.e. a bit screechy, over-dramatic, and unpleasant on the ear.

Lucca has Renaissance city walls, which are still impressively intact, though the city has expanded beyond them. The little I saw of the city seemed very old and run-down, with many dilapidated villas and faded, crumbling buildings. Nonetheless, it was full of character, even when about twenty Seat Ibizas drove into the centre of Piazza Napolene and honked their horns for promotion purposes.

I didn't get a chance to try the gelato apart from a cheeky nibble of my boyfriend's, but oh yes, it was good. Italian ice cream is indeed second to none. As is the red wine and pasta, which I did indeed try and can recommend heartily. If you visit Italy, eat, eat, eat. It's all so good. And say prego a lot.

Carousel ponies, resplendent with their feather duster plumage.

On Saturday, we flew back to Dublin and on Sunday embarked on an epic journey to Donegal for a funeral. New experiences abounded - I'd never been to a Catholic funeral and never been to Donegal. Donegal is a county within the province of Ulster, in the North of Ireland, but part of the republic. Despite being behind a hearse the whole way, which was sobering, the surrounding views were breathtaking, especially Mount Errigal. It was an inappropriate time to discover that Donegal has a town called Muff. (Yes, I really am that childish.) Apparently, Daniel O'Donnell, Shay Given, Tommy Tiernan and Enya are all from Donegal. I feel that two of those individuals really should have stayed there.

The wake and the mass were all rather bewildering, as I'm of no fixed religion and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I ended up taking communion, which was odd as for everyone else, the wafer might be the body of Christ, but for me it was still a wafer. A wafer that welded itself to my dry mouth for the rest of the ceremony. I'm guessing I stood out as a heathen - judging by the way the priest shook my hand and then flung it away from him as though it was diseased, he could probably smell it on me. At least I didn't burst into flames or anything.

So now here I am, having travelled many, many miles this week, a tiny bit wiser and a lot more tired. I'll leave you now with this image of pretty clouds, ruined by a Ryanair wing-tip (and a smeary window). I deemed it worth taking because usually the only interesting thing to see on a flight is the emergency procedures on the backs of the seats. I still don't understand why you're not allowed dentures or shoes in the event of an emergency landing. What are you supposed to do with them? Answers on a postcard.

For the Want of Something to Say...

2008-06-05T15:29:00.004+01:00

...I'll copy Travors.

Ten Years Ago, I was

- living in a big damp house on a hill in Sheffield with four blokes and two women
- bingeing every night on take-away pizza and beer
- in lots of unmanageable debt
- 16 stone
- trying to learn bass guitar
- studying for a degree in English and Media, which became the rubbishly-named "BA (Hons) Cultural Studies"

Five things on Today's To Do List:

- realise that I don't have a To Do List and promptly write one
- visit the gym and pull a sour face at the weighing scales
- read some more of The Pornographer of Vienna, by Lewis Crofts
- try and refrain from eating the entire contents of yesterday's Tesco delivery
- write a blog post that apes one by Travors because he gets more readers than me

Things I'd do if I were a billionaire:

- panic at the thought of so much money and check that the bank hadn't made a mistake
- give at least a third of it away to more worthwhile causes than my own bulging pockets
- quit my job and devote myself to digging through my subconscious (I'm sure I left some literary aspirations in there somewhere)
- travel around Europe and Asia, visit New York and return to Paris, Amsterdam and Prague
- buy the house I'm living in and the one next door and join them together, sound-proofing one of the rooms so that my fiance can play GTA 4 at an enjoyable volume without perforating my eardrums

Three bad habits:

- eating too much
- worrying too much
- impatience

Places I have lived:

- Barking
- Dagenham
- Sheffield
- Dublin

Six jobs I've had in my life:

- Barperson/Waitress
- Bar Manager
- Food Server and Cook
- Payroll Clerk
- Technical Writer/Team Lead
- Online Editor

And now, I must go and research some factoids and learn new things for you, dear readers, so that this window onto my little life does not solely consist of my shoes and my previous employment...

p.s. Thanks Travors!

What I Learnt This Month

2008-06-02T22:01:00.010+01:00

Or, The Return of the Factoids.

1. Egon Schiele was only 28 when he died, succumbing to a Spanish 'flu epidemic.

Schiele was a Viennese figurative artist in the early twentieth century, a protégé of Klimt (of whose work Schiele's often bears some resemblance) and prolific painter of erotic and sometimes grotesque art.

The Artist's Wife, one of Schiele's less graphic pieces, and the only one I actually recognised until today.

2. Brazilian cuisine is not at all spicy, which I expected it to be.

We went to the Porto Belo Bistro at the weekend for lunch, which is on Pleasant Street, off Camden Street. The guy who served us seemed to think we'd hate the food, looking rueful and almost embarrassed as he described it. We had Brazilian snacks to start - fried pastry half-moons filled with cheese, which we could dip into mustard or chili sauces. For the main, I decided to try what the waiter called "the most traditional Brazilian dish on the menu". It was Feijoada, a hearty, rich black bean stew with pieces of thick-skinned sausage, fatty bacon and other unidentified meaty things (hopefully not sourced from the pet shop next-door). It was served with rice, shredded stir-fried cabbage and slices of fresh orange. I'm not a fan of cabbage but the stew was delicious. The name comes from feijão, the Portuguese for beans. My better half had chicken with cashew nuts, which was, he informed me, good. We washed it down with a proper Brazilian beer, Brahma. It was very light and refreshing - a great summer beer in a nicely contoured bottle.

The restaurant was small and bright, and felt a little like someone's living room. The service was friendly, and although the place was nearly empty when we ate, I imagine it would be really lively and fun once some of the 4,720 Brazilian residents in Ireland arrived for dinner.

3. The Czechs, Irish and Germans drink the most beer per capita per year.

Okay so I could've hazarded a guess here, I suppose - it's not exactly a surprise. The Czechs guzzle 156.9 litres, while the Irish come a close second with 131.1, and the Germans enjoy 115.8. And it's no wonder really; the big three do make some darn good beers, with Germany's Erdinger and Paulaner, and the Czech Republic's Budvar and rich, dark Kozel all scoring highly on my tasty-beer-scorecard. And the Irish? Well that goes without saying doesn't it? A pint of the black stuff when you're ready, mate.

We love our Guinness, we do.

4. Planning a wedding is a minefield of stress and silliness.

My boyfriend proposed on our fifth anniversary. I said yes, of course; we grinned a lot and then agreed to a small, quiet wedding to mark the occasion. Weddings Incorporated, it seems, does not allow such a thing. Facebook is now bombarding me with adverts that promise to share "skinny bride secrets" with me, while every time a page reloads there's another ad for wedding photographers, ugly white wedding stilettos and wedding favours (Sugared almonds in an organdie bag for every guest? Not likely!). My particular favourite warns me not to be a "Fat Bride" and to get rid of my "ugly belly". Well I do indeed have an ugly belly and I've gained a few pounds of late, but seriously - how rude! Just what every woman wants - helpful advice on how to become (more) self-conscious and paranoid.

Facebook aside, Google "wedding" and you'll find all the stuff you're "supposed" to have: three-grand meringue-shaped dresses (don't want one), bridesmaids' dresses and "guides" (not having any), The Cake (chocolate? Yes. Tiered and covered in roses? Barf), the food, the photography, the venue, the ceremony, the invitations, the colour theme (wtf?)...bah. Advertisers, your devious emotional blackmail is wasted on me. On the bright side, at least there's no church to contend with. I'd probably burst into flames as soon as my toe crept over the threshold.

5. My blog content is "50% shoes".

Well it is according to Travors. I don't want to disappoint you m'dear, so here are my cute new sandals from Camper. I just called a pair of shoes cute. They have buttons on them, you see, and frills, so I'm allowed to use silly girlish words. If was buying a pair of FMBs from New Rock, I would take a photo of myself giving devil horn hand signals, and apply adjectives like funky and gorgeously chunky to my prose. Alas, wearing New Rocks in summer is a very sweaty, toe-rotting experience, so sandals it is. I originally ordered a pair from my trusty eco-cobblers Green Shoes, but sadly the resulting footwear made me walk like a duck and age by approximately twenty years. Very unsexy. Manolo Blahnik, your empire is safe.

I also saw...

2008-05-25T01:35:00.005+01:00

The James Joyce Bridge, which I really like. It's not unique - there are plenty of bridges around the world with the same kind of design, but I still think it's nice. Graceful while still managing to look suitably sturdy. And hell to walk across in icy weather.

The Four Courts in the sunshine. I seem to take a lot of shots of this building, even though I don't find it particularly aesthetically pleasing. I used to have a fear of looming domes (don't ask) so perhaps I'm inwardly conquering my repulsion of them by obsessively capturing this one.

I saw - and bought - these earphones by Skullcandy (presumably the name sounded more hardcore than Earcandy - not to mention less like a reference to earwax).

They're rather disconcertingly called Smokin' Buds, which I hope is just a hip way of saying they're cool, rather than a description of what will happen when I play my music through them. I initially recoiled from the pinkness of them, but relented because they were one of the few types of bud within my price range to cater for teeny ears like mine. One still doesn't quite fit but I'm reluctant to ram it in any deeper for fear of pushing it through my brain. They're the type that block out extraneous noise - immensely dangerous when crossing a Dublin street but perfect for the gym. Now I can bounce along on the elliptical cross trainer to Emigrate, rather than scowling up at the speakers as they pump out dance dirge or - even worse - Westlife.

On the Way Through Dublin I saw...

2008-05-25T01:11:00.007+01:00

...a pleasant morning on a street in Dublin. And Lisbon Treaty propaganda still managed to muscle its way into the shot. The amount of posters around the city is ridiculous. Okay, we get it. We should vote Yes. Or No. Please stop ramming it down our throats. Also, they all recycled the posters from their election campaigns, which I for one was glad to see the back of. Now the back of them are printed with "Vote Yes/No". Grrr.

...Dublin quays reflected in a Guinness tanker. The driver gave me a wave as I passed him - no doubt assuming I was a tourist. Living here for three-and-a-half years hasn't stopped me wanting to take pictures of the city, hasn't stopped me thinking how pretty it can look in the sunshine. Which isn't proved by the next two shots, by the way.

Now I may be completely wrong, but I have a hunch - call it a gut feeling - that Bargaintown might be having a sale. Just a little one.

Dublin City Council obviously didn't feel that a picture of a pained dog squatting was enough - so they added poo. Thanks for the confirmation guys - without the excreted pile and the extra emerging dollop there, I'd have thought the signs existed simply to remind us what dogs looked like.

What Happened to the Content?

2008-04-20T02:20:00.004+01:00

Okay, so you're probably wondering what's happened to Vanilla Flavoured recently.

"Where are the factoids that we already knew and loved all the same?"
"Why are the Vanilla Views of such poor quality these days?"
"Why isn't anything vanilla being eaten/reviewed/eulogised?"
"What happened to Song of the Week, which only appeared once?"
"Where's the occasional bit of fiction/poetry that was always good for a bit of mocking?"
"Why are there pictures of shoes and recipes for nasty vegetable gunk on here?"

Well, allow me to explain, in bullet pointed lines that are probably too close together because my html know-how is akin to my knowledge of water tower construction.

Factoids? You're all smartypants who know everything already. Next time I find a subject of interest that relates to something other than food or Germany, I'll deliver it to you posthaste.

The Vanilla Views are of poor quality because I'm not a photographer - I just take shots of things I like.

I've temporarily run out of vanilla flavoured things to test. When I find something, I'll be sure to review it. In the meantime, allow me to declare that Blazing Salads Multigrain Rye Sourdough is surprisingly good toasted. Also, Medjool dates are very tasty indeed, but eating more than three in one sitting does not a happy tummy make.

Song of the Week was a bad idea, period.

Fiction and poetry? I haven't written a word in months. When I was trying, I felt constantly tortured by my own mediocrity. At the moment, I feel vapid and lazy and useless, but I also have a certain amount of calm that will evaporate as soon as I open Word for something other than practicing German prepositions. If I live into my sixties, perhaps I'll write something then. Or perhaps I'll just take photos of my old lady shoes instead.

It's 2:50am on Sunday and I've been up since 7am Saturday, thanks to the wind pirouetting relentlessly with a graceless takeaway carton. I have studied, strolled and blogged, I have drunk red wine and gallons of tea, and I watched Delicatessen for the first time, which I very much enjoyed. I am now so tired I could vomit so I will say Guten Nacht.

In the absence of anything else, here's a toy bat. I'm very fond of him.

Pictorial Proof that I am a Female

2008-04-19T21:27:00.006+01:00

I'm not talking anatomical pictorial proof of course (a gale blows through the trees as Vanilla Flavoured's collective readership simultaneously releases a sigh of relief). It's just that, you see, I sometimes wonder if I'm missing a gene or two when it comes to being a girl. I know stereotypes are not a good measurement of anything, and I also know that there are exceptions to every rule, but when I talk to women, I sometimes wonder if I'm defective. (Actually I feel some measure of that with everyone - including myself - but that's a heavier, more searching subject that has no place on this pleasant pale yellow blog.) I have no need to prove anything to anyone but myself, but anyhoo, here I am, being a girlie girl.

1. I like shoes.

You probably guessed that from my profile picture. Now, I don't froth at the mouth when I see a pair or spend all my wages on Manolo Blahniks, but I am fond of interesting footwear. These are my favourites, from Green Shoes. Made to the shape of my foot, flat as a pancake and pumpkin orange. Sometimes when I wear them, I look at them and think, "Wow, these are so cool." I did the same when I owned New Rock boots. You are quite entitled to call me something derogatory at this point.

2. My bed linen has flowers on it.

I found this cover in a Gudrun Sjoden sale and decided it was very nice indeed. It has manly stripes on the other side, so if my long-suffering boyfriend is sickened by its floral nature, he can turn it over. And look, there's a cuddly toy. Actually, I once owned many, many, many cuddly toys. I distributed most of them among charity shops in an unsentimental uncluttering, but some still remain. A current favourite is my recycled yarn elephant from Muji, who sits on my computer at work and whose beany bum receives a theraputic squeeze when I'm annoyed. I find it's much more socially acceptable than squeezing a colleague's throat.

3. I am fond of jewellery.

Nothing too expensive - the more it costs, the worse it looks (true for many things, I find). Silver with purple, green and amber stones in simple or unusual designs. I once considered buying myself a new amber ring every time I finished a piece of writing, a la Jacqueline Wilson. I immediately scrapped the idea, for obvious reasons.

4. I'm sentimental

I keep things. I've had plenty of purges over the years but there are a couple of things that I can't get rid of yet. The jewellery remnants are tucked away in a tiny wooden box with some plectrums and stones. The green stud is from when I first had my ears pierced, when I was 12 years old. The half-ring was from the eyebrow piercing that migrated and went septic. It was eventually removed by a doctor using the kind of bolt cutters that would not look out of place in Leon's attaché case in Resident Evil 4. The other half of the ring flew across the floor and probably found its way into someone's mouth/ear/chest cavity. The bar was my labret, which I had for about four weeks before being sure that I was going to die from blood poisoning, despite having no symptoms whatsoever. I felt faint at a festival and was convinced it was the piercing's fault, and missed Terrorvision to queue in the medical tent with people who'd probably been stamped on while headbanging to Coal Chamber. Go go Hypochondria Girl!

These tickets are from the time I lost around 36kg, between 2002 and 2004. I don't really know why I still keep them - perhaps as a reminder to go easy on the bingeing when I'm on my sixth slice of rye toast. I don't know what happened to the tickets from 15 stone 9 to 14 stone 10 either. Perhaps I ate them.

April Vanilla Views

2008-04-19T19:57:00.007+01:00

April already and it's still cold enough to send my fingers red, white and blue. I ventured out for a short stroll this afternoon and scrutinised Phoenix Park for interesting things. I was rewarded with magpie feathers and a lovely old tree stump, and plenty of different varieties of poo to step in - though I didn't take any shots of that. I did try to take some shots of a heron, who to me looks like a dapper gentleman down on his luck, in a frayed grey suit and with his black hair slicked back, moving along in a manner at odds with his gait as though drunk on gin. Alas, every picture I took was blurred or too bright - Herr Heron (see what I did there?) was camera shy. I also endured a fly up my left nostril, which wasn't very pleasant at all, and which reminded me of a story book we had at school about a boy who got a fly in his eye while riding his bike and caused a catastrophe. There was a moral to the story; something to do with not stealing bikes or being home for tea on time - it was about 25 years years ago so I can only remember the front cover being blue and having a picture of a squinting boy on a bike. (Typing "There's a fly in my eye" into Google images results in pictures of Ellen, Podge and Rodge, Garth Brooks and Green Day. Which is a tiny bit odd and of no assistance at all.)

Edit: I just had a look for the book I mentioned - it was called A Fly in his Eye, published in 1981 by Ladybird books. Cute, I thought, it would be fun to buy it from Amazon next time I order something - Ladybird books are bound to be really cheap, right? Right? Wrong. There are four used editions...the cheapest at £10, the most expensive at £79.44. A book I read at school is practically an antique. Sigh.

Cobwebs

2008-03-30T19:39:00.003+01:00

The second one makes me think of nostrils. Macrotastic!

Vanilla Views in Kilmainham

2008-03-30T19:19:00.004+01:00

Some technically poor but aesthetically interesting shots taken in the gardens behind the IMMA.

Cherubs

2008-03-30T19:03:00.004+01:00

Some industrious cherubs behind the Irish Museum of Modern Art, in Kilmainham.

Blank

2008-03-30T02:49:00.004+01:00

The capacious page lays bare.
I look away, embarrassed,
to an open doorway full of other rooms.
The folio unfolds, spreads like ogre's hands.
The yawning unpigmented.
Coffee mugs alone bear stains of service.

Cabin Fever

2008-03-10T18:25:00.004Z

I haven't left the house since I got home from work on Friday, due to feeling rather icky. I've been busy developing the kind of neck jowls flaunted by Jabba the Hut, partly due to swollen glands, and partly because (in the accent of the baby-eating Scotsman in Austin Powers 2) I can't stop eating. I panic-eat when I'm anxious or unwell, so being both causes a fridge full of food to vanish very quickly indeed. Feeling a bit poorly immediately turns me into a bundle of joyless ineptitude - I often think of all those people who have continued to write, paint, create and function throughout debilitating diseases, and marvel at my own uselessness as soon as I get a sore throat and a tummyache.

Being in the house for three days has not been good for me at all. My mother has agoraphobia and when she was at her worst, she barely left the house for about 12 years, so I can only wonder how I would've coped with that.

One of the interesting things about being unwell is how quickly I start to unravel. Something close to depression sets in and my thoughts turn to subjects of a darker nature. I become obsessive about the strangest, smallest things, training my ears on the tiniest noises, over-analysing every ache, stalking the house like a fleshy ghost. Writing, learning, reading - it's all out of the question - I very soon reach the stage where everything seems pointless. YouTube and The Guardian suddenly seem the only points of interest, causing self-loathing's pointy fingers prod at me just a little more than usual.

During a prolonged nap today, I dreamt I was in a nightclub in my bare feet - there was a slide at the entrance of the club (the stairs suddenly just stopped and became a flat angled drop) and I nearly broke my toes on the wall at the bottom because I had no shoes. For some inexplicable reason, Marilyn Monroe came down the slide behind me. The club was in a white underground cellar where it took me two hours to get a drink because the bar staff couldn't find any Erdinger. I was talking to a group of young women who all looked exactly the same, with black hair in bunches and pinched little faces, and there were giant ogre men standing at the bar. I later realised the ogre men were mutated members of Rammstein. Understandably, I was rather pleased to wake up, only to drift in and out of sleep with the lines "ich mag Einkaufen" and "du magst Einkaufen?" repeating themselves on an endless loop. German is screwing with my mind.

So. This post contains far too much evidence to suggest that I am becoming unhinged. And it's probably not very blog-friendly. Therefore, to prove that I'm still of sound mind, I'll lighten the mood with some facts I learnt this morning while scanning the Internet, as I lay in bed trying to ignore the yowling of next-door's soggy moggy.

How to get from Théroigne de Mericourt to Danish comedy pop

Théroigne de Mericourt was mentioned in an article that was considering Britney Spears' trajectory from "innocently slutty" popstrel to wayward psychiatric patient. I had no idea who she was so I looked her up. Apparently, she was a French courtesan during the French Revolution who was known for her outspoken behaviour, provoked the public with her passionate temper and fierce eloquence, and ended her days in an asylum.

From there, I followed Wiki's page for Courtesan - the meaning of which I only had a vague notion. A courtesan was a lady employed by a rich or noble man as a companion and escort, who often took the place of a wife at social functions, and who was there to provide a range of "services", including conversation, entertainment and sex.

This of course led me to Madame de Pompadour, one of the most famous courtesans. She was chosen as the official mistress of King Louis XV, and was evidently not a woman to be quieted with a bagful of nice shoes. She was widely believed to be the influence behind the Seven Years War, and had a huge influence over the king. Her name has been cemented in popular culture - pompadour haircuts, pompadour heels, and so on. It was even suggested that the Coupe de Champagne glass was modelled on the shape of her breast - though this is likely to be a myth, as the shape of the glass has also been attributed to Marie Antoinette.

I clicked through to the links relating to the shoes and found an interesting fact: apparently it is a well-known fact that Egyptian butchers once wore high heels so they would not step in offal. I wonder if butchers in the UK and Ireland did the same? I now have the image in my head of a rotund, red-and-white aproned butcher with his straw boater and his cleaver, tottering about behind the counter in a pair of stilettos. If I have bad dreams tonight, I'll be blaming them on that image.

I scrolled through the page about the Pompadour haircut, which wasn't very interesting, but found a link to modern wearers of said hairstyle, Kishidan. Kishidan are a Japanese comic rock group who need to be seen to be believed. They look like a slightly cooler, more menacing version of some Danish comedy popsters whose site I eventually located, just for you: Cartoons. They used to make me wince every time I saw them, and see the guy with the cow accordian? He made me whimper just a little bit because he scared me with his lunatic grin. I'm off now to delete my History so that no one finds that URL in there.

There's an Alien in my Fridge

2008-03-08T20:11:00.006Z

Well, there was until I ate it. You sophisticated types have probably seen a dragonfruit before, but they're new to me. I saw one in a shop a while ago but I feared it. Would I require a qualification in preparation before I could eat it? If I ate the wrong bit, would it kill me/turn me into one of them/burst through my chest when I least expected it?

My boyfriend bought me one for Valentine's Day. A Valentine's dragonfruit is, in my opinion, an awesome present. He bought me chocolates and a starfruit too, because he's a sweetheart. I scoffed the chocolates and the starfruit, but the dragonfruit sat on the top shelf for days until I finally plucked up the courage to cut it open. I had to research it on the Internet first - I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it. While I was there, I picked up a few factoids:

The dragonfruit's real name is the pitaya. It's the fruit of a cactus and is native to central and south America.

The pitaya flowers only at night, resulting in its colloquial names "moonflower" and "Queen of the Night".

Interestingly, diabetics in Taiwan use the fruit as a rice substitute and as a source of dietary fibre.

I actually felt rather reluctant to destroy it, because I rather liked just looking at it sitting there, all pink and green and bulbous. There was something jolly about it.

After marvelling over it for a little longer, I sliced it in half and was greeted with a solid mass of white, watery flesh full of tiny black seeds. I poked it with a spoon and it gave easily, squirting watery juice everywhere. It reminded me of a melon or a Chinese pear in terms of texture and taste, though perhaps not quite as delicious. It was refreshing, and there was a lot of it. There was an tiny element of disappointment that always occurs when something looks so incredible and tastes quite ordinary. Obviously I wasn't expecting it to taste like beef or ginger beer, but it was quite conventional. In a pleasant way. That was nearly a month ago and nothing has burst out of my chest yet, so I think they're safe.

Um...where did February go?

2008-03-08T19:48:00.004Z

It was here a minute ago. Okay, so I'd like to say I've been busy, but I can pretty much sum up my month's activities in three pictures:

Drinking, baking and German. In case you're wondering, no moles or golfers were harmed in the baking of the cake, despite the cocktail stick impalement.

My stress levels have hit a new, shuddering high, causing my immune system to take an impromptu holiday, so I'm currently sitting in the house with swollen throat glands and a miserable face while everyone else is drinking beer. My sleep has been plagued by German pronouns and dreams about making lunch sacks for different nations - I woke this morning to the realisation that I'd forgotten Spain, so had to go back to sleep and make another lunch sack. I'm not sure what was in the pristine white paper sacks, lined up neatly with their tops folded over and the countries' names stapled to the sides. Maybe cake, or perhaps German verbs. Very possibly my marbles.

The neighbour's cat just took a poo in the plant pot on our window sill. There are dead ants everywhere from the Super Poison that the pest control man sprayed all over the floor. I haven't written a decent word in months and I've deleted Flashbulbs and Sunrises through lack of inspiration/talent. I am grumpy and sore and fat and I want my mum.

Of course, I'm just being pathetic. All my limbs and organs are functioning, I'm nice and warm and there are plenty of good things to celebrate about life. So I'll stop feeling sorry for myself and blog about something else instead.

That's No Moon...

2008-03-08T19:44:00.003Z

...well okay, it is a moon. A moon in the afternoon. We don't get many space stations looming above Dublin.

Phoenix Park - Boing!

2008-02-12T23:29:00.000Z

Boing indeed. Spring seemed truly to have sprung when I went for a stroll in the park this afternoon. There was a rich smell of freshly turned earth, and the first crocuses were poking out from under the shade of the trees - audaciously yellow and purple, a jab in winter's eye. Some of the trees were still bald and knobbly, while others were beginning to burst with delicious greenery. What better day to capture some Vanilla Views? Somehow I still managed to take a couple that looked really bleak...

Stark but pleasing.

These trees really were a bizarre mossy green, as though they'd been sprinkled with ectoplasm.

Sunshine and growth - at last!

Pale and interesting.

Is this wonky? Probably. I like it anyway.

Lentil and Vegetable Mess

2008-02-12T21:55:00.000Z

I've become the blogger I said I'd never be. I'm posting about my dinner. With a recipe and photos. I'll try and make it more interesting with some factoids along the way.

You have to try this recipe because

a) I invented it myself, sort of. Other, much smarter people probably made this meal when they were students, while I was gorging myself on Pot Noodle. I'm a late bloomer. I'm laying claim to the name, however

b) it's full of vegetables and lentils, so it's healthy and colourful. You can add anything you like to it - including meat, if you insist on being a carnivore

c) it's pretty quick and even an idiot like me can cook it without screwing it up

d) I say so.

Okay, now notice that I mentioned lentils. Half my readership (approx three people) have balked and opened a new browser window already, but bear with me. Lentils are tasty. You can buy them in a form that doesn't need soaking so they don't take that long to cook. They bulk out a meal in a subtle way, without overpowering the flavour, like rice but better because they're more flavoursome and full of great things. I feel some Factoids coming on:

There are many types of lentils, the most commonly recognised being red and green. They can be whole or split. Interesting fact - red lentils are in fact a type of brown (or sometimes yellow) lentil that has had its husk removed. Okay, so it's not as interesting as I thought.

Lentils are jam-packed with protein. In fact, they're one of the most protein-laden vegetables that exists, hence their prominence in vegetarian diets (to compensate for the lack of cow sandwiches). Lentils are also high in iron - so stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Popeye.

The latin word for lentil is lens; the optical lens is named thus because it resembles the shape of a lentil. And possibly because it's just as fiddly as putting a lentil in your eye.

Still reading? In that case, I'll impart my recipe for Lentil and Vegetable Mess. I've named it in honour of my dad, who used to make me Corned Beef Mess when I was a kid - tinned potatoes, tinned baked beans and tinned corned beef, slapped in a saucepan and stirred through until it was...well, a mess. A tasty mess, nonetheless.

Ingredients

(Serves 2-3)

100g red split lentils, rinsed
1 small red onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
Large handful of mushrooms (I use white closed cup), chopped
400g tin of tomatoes, partially drained
225g tinned chickpeas, rinsed
Mixed herbs or coriander (optional)
Salt and black pepper
Teaspoon groundnut or olive oil

First, follow the instructions on the lentil packet. Mine told me to boil them for 10 minutes, then cover and simmer them for 20-30 minutes. Set them going and add the oil to a frying pan or wok. When the oil's hot, throw in the onions and peppers and cook for five minutes. Then add the mushrooms and cook for a further three or four minutes. Add the tinned tomatoes, a pinch of salt and a good few cracks of pepper, and turn up the heat until the liquid starts to bubble. Simmer and let the mixture cook through for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

By now your lentils should be ready - mine were lurid orange mush by this stage. Drain them through a sieve and chuck them into the tomato mix along with the chickpeas, and the herbs if you're using them. Stir well and cook for another four or five minutes.

Spoon into warm bowls and serve with crusty bread, freshly steamed broccoli florets or rice. If you're a die-hard carnivore, you can fry off a few slices of chorizo, pat off the excess fat with a paper towel, and throw them in the pan at the end - delicious. I imagine you could probably serve it with cooked chicken too. Or topped with grated cheese. I wouldn't say the possibilities are endless (it probably wouldn't go well with caviar or dog biscuits) but it's fairly versatile.

One thing - lentils make a foamy mess if your saucepan lids don't fit. Also, when you drain them, they will cover the pan, the sink and everything else with an orange liquid that dries to a disconcerting furry coating. It washes off, but it's a bit gross.

Bet this doesn't happen to Delia.

The Mess in progress.

Served with (or in this case, hidden beneath) shining broccoli florets. They look like they're made of plastic. I ate them, so I hope they aren't.

Precious Free Time and Chasms

2008-02-12T11:22:00.000Z

I write this post while an industrious Eastern European builder makes lots of smells and noise on the roof. He has been working hard since 8am, adding a new layer of lead and sealing it to stop the leaks. I have been up since 7am, eating my way through our recent Tesco delivery and moving from seat to seat, wishing I could go outside and breathe the crisp air. I am, of course, never satisfied - if I was outside, I would wish to be in front of the laptop composing, writing, scribbling. Today I peer into an empty chasm. I had hoped for a day spent writing - being forced to stay in the house for reasons other than illness means that, in theory, my magnum opus should magically form like the image of Christ on a piece of toast does to a believer - feasibly, undoubtedly, beautifully. Regrettably, the chasm remains. I wander around and eat some crisps. I sit on the sofa and flick through a book. I write the following in my notebook;

A stolen notebook is never as special as one carefully selected and bought - perhaps you will find yourself writing functional, cursory things. Perhaps you are able to write nothing at all.

I make another cup of tea, revelling like a child over the fact that I have unlimited access to tea bags and milk, and then write;

A row of coloured glass bottles, bright as lollipops or paste jewels on a child's crown. Once filled with delicious smells, amber liquids, aromas to tempt and beguile. Empty now, dressed in a soft sheen of age.

The chasm widens and I decide to blog instead, intermittently. I have been dipping into a book that my boyfriend bought for me during a trip to Amsterdam, called Novels in Three Lines. It is a fascinating collection of short news notices written by Felix Feneon, a French anarchist and art critic. The articles were originally written for the "fait divers" section in Le Matin. Reading them offers a sense of domestic life in the early 1900s in France. As it was news, much of it was bad - food poisoning, stabbings and shootings occurred regularly, as did unfortunate accidents like men being trampled by their horses and workers falling off roofs. Crimes of passion and drunken rage seemed quite commonplace. However, the wit with which Feneon wrote, despite being limited to only one or two sentences, enlivened the notices. His tone was often wry and mocking, his own opinions and beliefs nestling between the lines. Despite this, his dispatches allowed the reader to speculate on the lives of the protagonists, and to recognise them as individuals - tragic, idiotic, desperate, real.

There was some good news to be celebrated;

In one go, Mme Matignon, of Merignac, brought into the world three girls. All four are doing well.

and plenty of bad news;

Through his ineptitude with fireworks, Hebre, a soldier of Saint-Priest-la-Feuille, Creuse, killed himself and injured his brother.

A merchant of Courbevoie, M. Alexis Jamin, who had had enough of his stomach troubles, blew his brains out.

The notices were at times gruesome, while some unspeakable tragedies were dealt with delicately;

Medical examination of a little boy found in a ditch on the outskirts of Niort showed that he had undergone more than just death.

In other notices Feneon revealed his wit, his comedic touches and word play often brilliant;

On the bowling lawn a stroke leveled M. Andre, 75, of Levallois. While his ball was still rolling, he was no more.

The salt makers of the Pesquiers plant in Hyeres would like to add some flavor to their work. To this end, they are going on strike.

Mignon, an engraver, and M. Dumesnil, of M. Briand's cabinet, have come to blows in Nemours. Government injured art's elbow.

and the notices featuring bizarre occurrences are particularly interesting to read;

At the Trianon Palace, a visitor disrobed and climbed into the imperial bed. It is disputed whether he is, as he claims, Napoleon IV.

Accountant Auguste Bailly, of Boulogne, fractured his skull when he fell from a flying trapeze.

A lesson in conciseness and brevity, a snapshot of history and a collection to spark the imagination, Novels in Three Lines provides a welcome change from weighty tomes and ponderous historical novels. The translator of the pieces, Luc Sante, notes that "they may be considered Feneon's Human Comedy" - we see the very essence of life through these births, deaths, tragedies and achievements - absurdity, fragility, humanity.

Postscript: to anyone reading this who is outraged by the lack of French accents in the text - I'll add them in when I figure out how to do so. Don't hold your breath, y'all.

Gallivanting in Galway

2008-02-10T21:16:00.000Z

Last weekend my boyfriend and I took an impromptu trip to Galway. Despite having lived in Ireland for over three years, I haven't really seen very much of it. Perhaps going to Ireland's West coast at the beginning of February wasn't the best time to experience Ireland, seeing as it was freezing, wet, grey and there was rugby belting out of all the pubs, but the hotel was very fancy and it was a good excuse to overindulge (because of course, I do need an excuse to lessen the Guilt - see previous post).

So, off we went. We caught the train and managed to saddle ourselves with a group of obnoxious Scottish men, who insisted on drinking as much whisky as possible and singing at the top of their oafish lungs. Complaining would probably have resulted in violence and ambulances, so it was more sensible to stuff myself with goodies from the buffet bar and stare out of the window, glowering. I decided a treat was in order, so I picked up some cookies. My dad would have tsk-ed at me and told me I should've brought some homemade sandwiches and a carton of Um Bongo to prevent being ripped off, but I'm an idiot when it comes to treats and holidays. I've never been one for maximum frugality, which sounds like a less exciting, miserly alternative to extreme ironing.

Come to think of it, I haven't reviewed any treats for a while, so perhaps this is a good opportunity?

Treat of the Week

Lily O'Brien's Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Technically I shouldn't be talking about these here because they don't contain anything resembling vanilla, but they are a treat. And it's been a quiet week, okay? First some background info - Lily O'Brien's is an Irish-owned niche chocolate company that was started in around 1992. The chocolates pop up in Irish airports and supermarkets, are rather expensive and very rich. Lily is the chocolatier's daughter, who judging by her photograph, probably doesn't eat much chocolate. The chocolates are given personality profiles so that what you like relates to who you are; the cookies n' cream one makes you "70's soul dude...a lurve thing with bite!", while salivating over the vanilla latte one means you're "exotic and slightly mysterious, love[s] spontaneous acts of kindness!" I'm not sure what it means to gobble the entire boxful, but perhaps it's best not to think about it. Thankfully the chocolates don't have faces. Foodstuffs with faces bother me - BN is a prime example. I'll still eat it if you offer me one though.

Anyway, you get three double chocolate chip cookies in a pack. They looked pretty good in the picture, all chunky and flavoursome. Opening the packet was a bit of a disappointment, however, and I considered that "double chocolate chip" simply meant two chocolate dribbles. The picture is somewhat misleading, non?

The bottom half of the biscuit was covered in chocolate though, so I was appeased. They were crumbly, and reminded me a little of shortbread. A wee bit salty, a wee bit sickly. Quite tasty, but not as magnificent as perhaps they should be, given the trumpeting of how special Lily O'Brien's products are on the website. I made the mistake then, of course, of looking at the ingredients. I'm never keen to see ingredients that have ingredients (for example, the "Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Fat", as delightful as it sounds, is made more so by the brackets after it containing "salt, natural colours, emulsifier E475 and flavouring" Hmmmm). Still, there was never any chance that they were going to be a healthy snack. I considered force-feeding packet after packet to my drunken carriage mates until their arteries exploded, but decided I should save my money for Guinness in Galway instead.

Rather oddly, Galway was named one of the "sexiest cities in the world" in 2007. This dubious accolade was from MSN Travel, so I'm not sure how it rates in terms of reliability. It didn't feel particularly sexy, unless people bundled up in ten layers of clothing and daft woolly hats turn you on. I get the feeling they're using the word "sexiest" in a more general sense, in the way you'd use 'groovy' or 'wicked' (if you were trapped in the eighties).

That said, the hotel was pretty sexy. We stayed in The Twelve, a boutique hotel just outside Galway's centre. You can read my review of the place on Trip Advisor, if you're so inclined. We were upgraded from a "Super Splendid guest room" to a suite, which was rather exciting, because I've never stayed in a four-star hotel before, let alone let loose in a suite. At one point I was tempted to consume the entire mini bar, but luckily I found the price list and the shock stopped me dead in my tracks. A whole bottle of Absolut vodka? Way-hey! Wait - it's 25 euros? Absolut-ely not. I did eat all the chocolate though, and got rather too attached to the hard little cushions on the bed with a pattern that seemed ordinary enough until you looked closely...the pattern was made up of little courting men and women under trees. The cushions in our gaff have stripes that can induce migraines at 50 metres, so these were rather charming. My boyfriend was more interested in the fact that there were two plasma TVs and plenty of gadgets to switch on and off. Stereotypes? Us?

Galway was pretty soggy while we were there, and my boyfriend continually assured me that in the summer it was a very different place, full of sunshine and people boozing merrily on the cobbled streets outside the bars. Alas, the sunshine was not forthcoming during our visit, and the only person boozing on the street was a man who drank wine in the mornings and whiskey in the afternoons, and appeared to be foaming at the mouth. He didn't look very merry.

Nonetheless, it's a pleasant place for a wander about, the Guinness is delicious and if you're into seafood, you're bound to find something to please your palate. The main shopping streets have a strange mix of beautifully kept, brightly painted facades, and dilapidated, unused buildings that emit a stench of desperation. The famous Galway hooker boats are constantly referenced in windows, pictures and sculptures - once you start noticing them, you'll see them everywhere. And for the record, they aren't floating brothels - they're traditional sailing boats with red sails.

A model of a hooker boat in the window of a cosy little pub.

Delicious Guinness.

Song of the Week

A new feature for 2008; I plan to offer up a song that I've been particularly enjoying so that you may download/borrow/seek out a version and listen for yourself. This may fall flat when it transpires that I only listen to three bands and you collectively hate all of them.

This week:

Eifersucht by Rammstein

Okay, perhaps it's not a good start to the feature. Mentioning Rammstein tends to generate two reactions - sniggering or a complete lack of recognition. They sing in German. They set themselves on fire, sing about cannibalism and get their shirts off rather a lot. They appeared in that dubious Vin Diesel movie. They like dressing up as women and rolling around in mud. But don't let any of that put you off. They've been described as "Tanz-Metall" (dance metal), which sounds to me like something I could quite happily jump into with both feet. Eifersucht is a glorious three-and-a-half minutes of bouncy synth, crunchy riffs and evil laughter. And it's sung in German. What more could you want? Listen to it here. Es ist Wunderbar.

My Guilt - A Work in Progress

2008-02-04T23:28:00.000Z

Food Guilt.

Ah yes, a versatile, many-layered guilt to carry about with me all day. I've had three portions of bread and now I'm so bloated I can't see my feet. That latte was made with full fat milk. Just had some cereal? There's heaps of salt in it. White bread? Full of additives. Dried apricots? They probably contain sulphur (and they look like old people's ears too). And so on and on and on. I'm finding the Tesco Healthy Tracker a particularly good Food-Guilt-o-meter at the moment. It works like Weight Watchers, assigning you points for the day - except there's no patronising woman telling you you're a naughty girl for gaining half a pound. Walnut bread? 6 points. A healthy apple? 1 point. A pint of delicious lager? 6.5 points. Pah, pah, pah.

For instant Food Guilt, run into the nearest Spar and buy an almond croissant, and eat the whole damn thing in three bites. Don't even chew it properly. For a more slow-building Guilt, I find peanuts are good - they're so moreish, you just keep shovelling them in. They're also tiny, so you don't realise how many you've consumed until the bag's empty and your tongue's gone white from dehydration. Mmm mmm, that's some good Saturated Fat Guilt right there. Then there's Food Greed Guilt, when you gobble all the Pringles at a party or go out for dinner and scoff your way through a starter and main course, and your digestive common sense prods you and says "goddammit, don't you dare eat another mouthful" - and then you order dessert.

To make things even more complicated, there's Food Conscience Guilt. Was that biscuit organic? How many miles has that broccoli travelled to get to my plate? That orange was flown all the way from Spain. That's probably a battery hen nestling in my wrap.

Of course, I can ramp up the Guilt further by reminding myself that there are plenty of starving, impoverished people who would've begged me for the half-eaten loaf of bread that I've just thrown out because it's a couple of days out of date. Greedy and wasteful? A Guilt double-whammy.

Garment Guilt.

This is one I feel almost as keenly as Food Guilt. I have so many clothes, my rail has collapsed. Does anyone need 14 skirts? I take everything I no longer wear to charity shops, and briefly feel better when there's space on the rail. Then Gudrun Sjoden or Fat Face have a big sale and off I go again. Part of this is because I was once a size 20 and am now a size 12, so the sheer amazement that things fit me properly does have me reaching for the credit card. It is, however, ridiculous to keep buying clothes just because they fit. Buying clothes also makes me feel shallow. Garment Guilt sets in quite spectacularly every time a Gudrun catalogue drops through the letterbox. Thus, I have vowed not to buy anything else until the summer. Let's see how far I get.

Environment Guilt.

Loosely related to both Food and Garment Guilt, this is the all-encompassing one that jabs me between the shoulder blades whenever I buy something plastic-wrapped, or forget to recycle a paper cup, or have a twenty-five minute shower, or use a disposable razor blade, or turn on the heating. The ant poison is dangerous for fish (but sadly, it seems, not ants). The carrier bag won't disintegrate for fifty million years. Even that tea bag I just took out of my mug probably has some way of causing problems. Sigh.

Useful Guilt.

How useful am I? On a scale of 1 to useful, where do I stand? I'm guessing I'm somewhere between nuisance and time-waster. If I work hard, is that useful? Or does that just assist with the financial evils of the world? Am I unwittingly helping someone descend deeper into debt because I've written an ad about credit cards? Perhaps I've just encouraged a potential customer to buy a £99 toaster. Is that useful? I don't think it is, somehow. Is this blog useful? It doesn't tell you how to fix your bike or grow watercress. Perhaps I should look into that, actually.

Health Guilt.

I'm fairly healthy, when you consider how I used to look after myself. I have a few minor ailments but nothing that can't be handled, so far. I smoked. I drank seven or eight pints every night. Consider for a moment that my favourite lunch was once four slices of bread and margarine with a 12-pack of picnic eggs, the Scotch egg's mayonnaise-tastic smaller sibling. Twelve. Count 'em. I'm sure I should be dead. But I'm not. And yet someone else who probably never ate a picnic egg in their life is sick right this minute, and doesn't deserve it at all. That's my Health Guilt, right there. And I still love picnic eggs, for the record.

Book Guilt.

When my boyfriend first visited my flat, he admitted he was intimidated by the number of books I had. He had assumed, bless him, that I was an avid reader with a big pulsing brain underneath my ratty mane of hair. Unfortunately, the brain may be pulsing, but it's certainly not churning around the contents of many books. I fall asleep during the so-called Classics, wander off halfway though contemporary fiction, and find myself staring solely at the images in art history books. To write, one must read, someone clever once said. However, one must first find one's way out from under the mountain of books, and reach for some motivation. I believe it's tucked juuuuust behind the Guilt there.

Not-Writing Guilt.

This is a daily Guilt. Every morning I wake up and stare across at the shuttered window thinking, perhaps I could write something today. Perhaps it will be interesting and magnificent and evocative. Then I begin my ritual of bashing my shins on the bed frame and poking myself in the eye with my mascara brush, marching into work and settling down in front of other people's words, and leave the hopeful thoughts of scribbling firmly under my pillow.

Writing a Load of Twaddle Guilt.

See this post? I feel guilty about it already.

Authenticity Guilt.

How authentic am I? How can I be sure that what I do is honest, and true, and done because I want to do it, should do it, can do it? How can I be sure that my intentions are authentic? How authentic can I be without adversely affecting others? Authenticity Guilt is great fun, because it's often a big winding complicated journey into oneself to find the answer. Usually I just find a bit more Guilt.

Haven't Done it Yet Guilt.

Quite simply, this relates to all the things I haven't done yet. There's plenty of Guilt to be had there, I'm quite sure of it.

Guilt Guilt.

By now, you'll be thinking/shouting, "If you feel so guilty about everything, why don't you bloody well do something about it, you chump?" Well, thanks - now I feel guilty about feeling guilty.

What's the Rumpus?

2008-01-19T22:08:00.000Z

The IFI (Irish Film Institute) recently treated us to an admiringly full-bodied retrospective of the Coen brothers' work, from their first, Blood Simple (1984), through Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Miller's Crossing, The Big Lebowski, The Hudsucker Proxy, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Intolerable Cruelty and The Man Who Wasn't There. The IFI is also screening the brothers' latest effort, No Country for Old Men. I've seen most of their films, enjoying some and not others, with The Big Lebowski being my favourite until I saw Miller's Crossing last week. Essentially a gangster movie, Miller's Crossing is a clever, slick, entertaining piece of work that looks wonderful, has solid, sometimes immensely funny scriptwriting, and contains some surprisingly impressive acting from Ireland's very own walking log pile, Gabriel Byrne. Set sometime in the 1920s/1930s, the story follows a feud between rival gangsters, the shifting of allegiances and some marvellous punch-ups, interspersed with dialogue so sharp it's a wonder it doesn't cut the lips of the speakers. Also, any film where characters enter the room with the greeting "What's the rumpus?" is all right by me.

I never look forward to watching Coen brothers' movies, possibly because on the face of it, they never sound like the kind of thing I'd enjoy. I've been correct roughly 50% of the time, thoroughly enjoying Barton Fink and Fargo, wandering off a third of the way through The Hudsucker Proxy and being completely unable to remember anything about Blood Simple. When I arrived at the screening of No Country for Old Men last night, I chose to tune out the five-star, borderline-hysterical raving from all and sundry and approach the film as neutrally as possible. In retrospect, this was a very good idea indeed, as I was completely underwhelmed. A Vietnam veteran stumbles across the grisly remains of a drug deal gone wrong, discovers a case of money and goes on the run with an alarming pyschopath following close behind to relieve him of the cash, among other things. While nicely shot with some particularly arresting scenes, I found the film to be essentially empty-hearted, brutal and overrated. Reviewers have salivated and declared it "fiercely poetic", "triumphant...the best of their career so far" and, according to Empire Magazine, "Violent, poetic, gripping, thrilling and blackly funny: that’ll be the Coens doing what they do best then. Now with added humanity.". I'm sure I must've missed something along the way because I saw very little in it. There were a couple of moments that raised a smile, a few interesting moments that shook you out of your comfortable predictions, and some good performances. For my own part however, it seemed as though there was brutality for brutality's sake. I won't spoil it for those of you who have yet to see it, but I found no character for whom I could truly root, and discovered within a few minutes of the film that I didn't care what happened to any of them. The tub of melting Ben and Jerry's hovering tantalisingly close to my tiny plastic spoon proved to be of more interest.

Contemplating why I found the film so devoid of appeal, I pondered aloud that perhaps it was because it was a boys' film. "So is Miller's Crossing," pointed out my boyfriend, and he was right. Arguably so are the Star Wars films (except the nauseatingly crap Attack of the Clones), Eastern Promises, Sean of the Dead, Leon and The Big Lebowski, but I love all of those. Perhaps the ice cream distracted me from something profound and beautiful that everyone else spotted. Perhaps reading Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name, upon which the film was based, will shed some light on what I'm missing. But it's unlikely you'll make me watch it again. Unless you bribe me with Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough first.

No Country for Old Me: perhaps Woody Allen's next movie, about displacement and old age, told in first person? No? Just a misprint on the ticket then. Okay.

Thoughts on Death

2008-01-13T21:41:00.000Z

Poem (To A)

I shall miss you so much when I'm dead
The loveliest of smiles
The softness of your body in our bed

My everlasting bride
Remember that when I am dead
You are forever alive in my heart and my head

~ Harold Pinter

After reading this poem, a familiar feeling descended. Something that is not quite fear, not quite panic, but has elements of both. A sadness with an extra charge of energy - but not rage or anger; something else. The feeling that cracks through the veneer with which I cover myself, in order to move through the days and nights with others, to maintain relationships and friendships. The veneer to protect myself from the realisation that one day, everything will stop for me, while the rest of the world grinds on.

I am a tiny stain on the world's apron, but of course, my ego decided long ago that I was, in fact, the strings holding the apron around the world's portly waist. So the thought of being dead, of feeling nothing while everything and everyone else continues, is often unthinkable. Pinter's poem suggests thought and feeling after death is possible, which I do not believe - and there is both a sadness in that, and a sense of wonder. One day, I will be gone. I will cease to be. No more coffee in the mornings, no more sunrises, no more kissing or watching or learning. Nothing. To be dead should not bother me, and yet it does because it seems so unlikely; I sometimes feel that I have only just been born. I have felt that my whole life has been spent trying to catch up with my age. And so there is a sense of urgency - yes, perhaps that's the feeling I get when I read Pinter's poem - a sense of urgency to learn and impart, to gaze upon everything before my sight fails, to pay more attention to the one with "the loveliest of smiles", to fill my conscious self with as much as possible before time snuffs me out. And there is the urgency too, to gather and weave what I experience into offerings for others, because I want to leave something behind. I want to produce something of worth, of honesty, of authenticity, of use. To be of use. Perhaps this is my ultimate aim in life, and yet, how useful am I in the larger scheme of things? Not very. It is against this too, that I employ the veneer - against the feeling of insignificance that, if indulged too freely, would result in a life deemed pointless and a wasting away of time.

What about other people? When I was younger, I was more selfish. I thought only of how death would affect me. I could not imagine others noticing my absence. I am now aware that others would feel a sense of loss more keenly than I expected. And what about the deaths of other people? The veneer once protected me from this too. Death happens, I would say, shrugging, in the same way that someone would wear a tee-shirt declaring "Shit Happens". As a teenager, the occasional glimpses of loss made me want to release all ties - if I have no one, I reasoned, I cannot grieve when they are gone. Then later, when friends disappeared and relationships broke down, I did grieve, but I also experienced a sense of relief - relief that I would no longer need to wait for them to die and leave me. Of course, this was a skewed way of thinking because they were, in a sense, already dead to me, having vanished from my life and leaving only memories. This kind of grief, however, was different - when a loss through death occurs, living becomes as though moving with a damaged or absent limb. When one loses a friend or partner to differences, change or time, one is encouraged to "move on", to live freely and focus on the positive - as though one has gained a new limb that one must learn to utilise. So each time I lost someone, after the crying and lamenting had eased and I was functional again, I embraced this new limb, and told myself, be sure to take no further risks that may result in losing it.

I did not want children for fear of losing them to illness or accident or through some failure or rejection on my part. I did not want a pet for the same reasons. The physical and mental proximity of relationships scared me and I created a mental block to shield myself from my ailing parents' woes. There are now other reasons for not wanting children or pets - practical, sensible, logical reasons. Perhaps these are a veneer too, protecting me from the real reasons that burn as strongly as ever. I function less destructively in relationships now, having met someone who, for the first time, recognises depression, insecurity and fear and forgives me for the monster they create. Someone who is not fazed by my own outlook, and who quietly demonstrates his own by way of an alternative. Someone with whom I am willing to compromise to find mutual contentment. I am able to watch my parents age now, but still only from a distance, and I wonder what I will do when they are very old. Will I look after them? Will I be able to provide for them? How will I organise their funerals if I outlive them?

I will be scolded for such thoughts - "live in the moment!" "don't be so morbid!" - but reality sometimes invades without my control. It's always easier to block out such thoughts, but then one runs the risk of being unprepared - something that is no doubt at the root of many fears. So am I prepared for the deaths of my loved ones, or indeed for my own death? Of course not, but even just to admit to myself that it will happen ensures that I carry with me an awareness. This awareness bubbles gently beneath the surface, leaking through only when someone is ill, or when I read a news story that details a loss or a piece like Pinter's poem. Then I am reminded of life, of how it is akin to a pinprick - a jolt, a consciousness, and then nothing but a tiny, fast-fading mark.

Know How I Know it's January?

2008-01-12T00:07:00.000Z

Here's how:

Gloves. And tea. At the same time. Brrrr. I also know it's January because everyone is a little bit more miserable than usual and because my feet seem to be permanently wet. I can tell too, because I am behaving like a dog on a new rug - circling, circling. I have much to entertain and employ me - Deutsch, a brand new shiny piano/keyboard, no less than nine brand new books to read, practicing my writing, expanding my vocabulary, searching for tiny, interesting things to photograph. I circle all of these things, and then I make another cup of tea. I clean the house a little, because it provides fast, visible results, and is difficult to perform incorrectly. I log on to Tesco's Healthy Living Tracker and see whether I can get away with another oatcake. It suggests that I can't but I have one anyway. Yah boo sucks to you Tesco! Oh, my oatcakes are from Tesco. Ubiquitous as air. Pah. Anyway, it's January and I'm avoiding everything that I should be embracing.

January. Diets, sales, aimlessness and Reynauds.

Also...

January is named after the Roman god Janus (or Ianus) - god of doorways and gates. When depicted, he usually appears with two heads facing in opposite directions, with one face old and wisened (representative of the past) and the other young and fresh.

Apparently, Janus granted the nymph Carna control over door hinges. However, she was powerless without the assistance of the goddess WD-40.

January is National Soup Month in the US. How about some tasty Hobo Soup to celebrate? Based on a real hobo recipe - though somehow I get the feeling that real hobos didn't have easy access to dehydrated vegetables and MSG.

January's birthstone is the garnet. I don't understand the whole birthstone business - though I remember feeling cheated when I was a kid and discovered I'd been lumbered with yellow topaz, while most of my mates had emeralds and pearls. I actually like topaz now, though it has a whiff of Argos about it. Anyway, I've become distracted. January. Garnet. Ah yes. There's a type of garnet known as a carbuncle. The name, carbuncle, is actually Latin for "little spark" or "little glowing ember", which is very pleasant indeed. A carbuncle is also a very nasty, multiple-headed abscess full of pus. Which is not very pleasant at all.

Crap but Interesting Photo of the Week

Know why I like this? Because it looks as though nature and man are going into battle. Trees vs cranes, streetlamps and flagpoles, all rising up against a brewing sky.

The Smell of January (as opposed to Success)

2008-01-09T22:35:00.000Z

Ah January. Month of good intentions, crap weather and no inspiration. I hear that one of my readers wants to know why I have only posted once in 2008 - well, it's because I've had little or nothing to write about. Sitting down tonight, I wondered, what could I tell everyone in a witty, warming manner that will enliven people's Internet time? Abso-bloody-lutely nothing. So here's a rundown of my week instead.

I have been given almost everything that Rammstein has ever produced, including remixes, bootlegs and probably one of Till Lindemann's thunderous vocal chords for good measure, converted into MP3 form and currently doing the rounds on my iPod. There is rather a lot of it. My linguistic skills are atrocious (for some reason my Essex accent is amplified when I speak in German), but I can now wow my European chums with Grab (grave), Blut (blood), Zwitter (hermaphrodite/hybrid) and all manner of other really useful words. I can also tell you that I want to go down in applause, which will come in handy if I ever do something fantastic or daring. Thanks, Rammstein.

Our surrogate cat has returned after a long absence and the mystery of her origins is far more mundane than I imagined - she belongs to our next door neighbour. When she stopped visiting just before Christmas, we mused sadly she could have been run over, or had been in a fight with another cat, or had simply moved away with her owners. Then when she reappeared, we cheered and thought perhaps she'd climbed into the back of a truck and then been dropped off somewhere, and had managed to find her way back, having Homeward Bound type adventures with Labradors and Bull Terriers. Such fertile minds we have! Turns out she was in a cattery. Ho hum.

As it's January and the Guilty Gym Surge is currently in full swing, may I recommend a great place in Ireland to buy proper footwear for exercise. I'm not talking about the Golas and Pumas with their classy looks and useless, non-existent soles that feel like you're running in bare feet. I'm talking about trainers that can help you run so that you minimise injury, the type that support your feet rather than simply making you look trendy/chavtastic/flat-footed. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a big fan of trainers. Or running. I've been marching and bounding and hobbling along in a pair of the aforementioned stylish Gola slippers for ages, because I hate, hate, hate shopping for trainers. Sport shops, threatening teenagers and shoe-buying combined make me think that cleaning up after the recent vomiting bug might even be preferable. Hurrah then, for Amphibian King.

It's not the most catchy moniker, but give them a chance. They specialise in triathalon equipment (hence the name) and offer a (free) specialist fitting to ensure you find the perfect trainers to suit you. You run along a stretch of flooring in your bare feet (want to swap veruccas, anyone?) and they film you, playing it back in slow motion to see how you move. We established that my boyfriend has pronation - when the ankles lean inwards as he runs. We established too, that I should never run in public again, because I am more flat-footed than a duck and my feet flay out in opposite directions like I'm trying to land a plane with them. Nonetheless, the perfect trainers were found for us both, so that my boyfriend's ankles no longer look like they are about to snap, and so that I can bounce along on the elliptical cross trainer without the (considerable) impact shuddering up my legs and splintering my shin bones. The downsides to our little running shoe adventure? The shop is in Bray, in the middle of nowhere, so I spent two hours needing the loo and probably pickled one of my kidneys. And I now have running shoes that a friend described as "spacey" - they do indeed look like something a comedy spaceman would wear in a YouTube video. My feet received admiring glances from some terrifying teenagers on the tram yesterday - I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or not.

I still haven't had the chance to unearth any fascinating factoids for you, dear readers, and for that I say es tut mir leid. However, watch this space (yes, this one, right here) - there will be plenty for you to marvel over soon. Actually, Wiki just informed me that there's a minor planet named after Rammstein, so that's a factoid for you, of sorts.

So, what else can I tell you? Oh, did you know that Celine Dion has launched at least three perfumes? You can see them for yourself at a site called Celinedionbeauty.com. Ahem. The site is as nauseous as the lady's music - each perfume has its own story. Seriously, it's just smelly water, people - it doesn't need a personality. I'm amused by one line on the site that invites you to read about "Celine Dion, the woman." As opposed to what? Celine Dion, the man? Celine Dion, the singing ice cream vender? I'm preoccupied with perfumes at the moment because I'm working on a website in my job that requires me to list many, many, many of them. And there are many, many, many of them out there. I admit to owning some perfume; I bought a little bottle of My Queen while I was waiting for a plane at Manchester airport. I've never bought airport perfume before so it felt decadent. I had a cold at the time, so there was some fear that my perfume may actually smell like lavender-scented dishwater, but I took the risk. My boyfriend said it smells like "rich women", which does not represent this particular wearer in the slightest. I am a little perturbed at the description of the bottle on the website:

"The bottle is bewitchingly feminine with gentle precisely defined curves. The fragrance is revealed through a clear violet tinged crystal which in turn is innocent yet at the same time spell-binding."

Actually, it's a small, pretty purple bottle that is pointed at the bottom so it doesn't stand upright. And that's all there is to it. Smelly water. In a posh bottle. With an elaborate name. On Monday night I dreamt that a bottle of Rive Gauche was flying towards me, stopping to hover in front of me, endlessly. It was a very boring dream.

Vanilla Views

Not only does Guinness (or rather, Diageo) produce a tasty beverage, its factory on the quays also appearing to be manufacturing sunlight too...

A Vanilla Flavoured 2008

2008-01-01T15:19:00.000Z

I've said happy new year far more times than is necessary so I'll not say it here. Apart from when I said it then. Ahem.

The bottles have been cleared away, the Solpadine taken and the eggs and sugary tea consumed with fervour. The celebrations are over, the new year has begun and I feel like someone has let the air out of me. I have work tomorrow after 12 days off, and I can't actually remember what I do for a living. I could quickly become accustomed to rising at 10am, pottering about, reading on the sofa, taking some light exercise and meandering away my days with studying German, scribbling in notebooks and plinking away, one-fingered, on the piano. Asti and croissants in bed every Sunday would also be something I could happily manage. Alas, it's not meant to be, so tomorrow I will be up at 6:30am, walking through a stern, grey Dublin and sitting in a boiling office, staring quizzically at in-house development tools and people's dubious grammar.

Speaking of all things word-related (kind of), I decided not to delete this blog because while it's like a pale, untalented daughter that tries hard but never amounts to anything, I'm fond of her anyway. However, I am planning to remove Flashbulbs and Sunrises, my short-lived fiction blog, because I need to rethink my writing and probably shouldn't be letting people see what I'm doing until things are actually in some readable state. At the moment, it's the equivalent of offering people a bowl of cake mix. Kind of pleasant to run your finger around, but the finished sponge will always taste better. And as you can see from those last lines, I also need to work on my analogies.

So, 2008 then. Blogwise, I need to reintroduce my Factoids, provide more Vanilla Views, and review more Vanilla Products. Lifewise? We'll see. I'm currently too full of Ferrero Rocher, scrambled eggs and coffee to think of doing much more than loosen my belt and burp.

Vanilla Views

A little jaunt through the park as the sun was setting delivered these shots to me. I'm rather fond of them, myself.

Winter Vanilla Views

2007-12-30T19:04:00.000Z

Branches

Stabbing and thrusting and poking the sky -
Imagine the damage they'd do to your eye.

While My Liver Gently Weeps

2007-12-29T12:20:00.000Z

Greetings, dear readers! I am back in the Land of Blog, having survived Christmas and all the overindulgence and stress that goes with it. I will be tackling Dublin's town centre later, if only to prevent my blood from settling in my ankles, having done next-to-no exercise in the past week or so. Sitting on planes and sofas, lounging in bed and consuming vast quantities of chocolate has resulted in this guilt-ravaged blogger ordering a mass of vegetables from Tesco, in the hope of preventing the inevitable. Friend and fellow blogger Travors has been keeping a booze ticker to see how much he drinks over this festive season, and I thought I'd give it a try too; it'll be interesting, I thought. I'm horrified to see how my booze stats are shaping up:

Alcohol consumed from 15 December to 27 December

9 Heineken - 330ml each (about 5 pints)
7 Fosters - 330ml each (about 4 pints)
1 pint Carlsberg
6 Jack Daniels (with mixers)
4 large measures white chocolate and vanilla liqueur
2 large sloe gins
2.5 bottles red wine
1 bottle white wine
Half a bottle of Asti
1 glass Cava

12 days of Christmas imbibing, and there's still the new year revelling to come yet. I briefly considered calculating the alcohol content, calorie content and resulting ill effects, but I am a) too lazy, and b) too scared, in case it reveals impending doom. It will soon be time to wash the dust off the smoothie maker and console my poor, pickled body with some fruit-based gloop.

Speaking of which, some gloop I won't be trying again is Innocent's Smoothie of the Month. I was wandering around Stansted after checking in far too early and with a bag too heavy to warrant the purchase of any cheap whiskey (which is just as well, looking at that booze ticker), when I came across Innocent's latest creation - Beetroot, Apple, Pear and Ginger. That sounds healthy, I thought. I like all of those ingredients separately, and hey, beetroot juice is supposed to be super, isn't it? So I waited patiently in WHSmith for about the same amount of time that I spent in the security queue (though at least I was allowed to keep my shoes on), paid for my purchase and eagerly cracked it open. Vitamins? Check. Nutrition? Check. Amusing blurb on the bottle? Check. Dubious vegetable aroma emanating from bright puce liquid? Check. Deliciousness? Most definitely not. It was like drinking a pulped walking boot. Innocent, I applaud your attempts to feed us vegetables, but I would prefer to be viciously pelted with raw beetroot bulbs than drink this.

I admit, it's the time of year when few people have anything of note to say (see above), because they've all been doing family stuff, raiding their siblings' selection boxes, and watching bad television. Despite this, the world doesn't stop spinning. Tragedies are still occurring even as we unwrap another Quality Street. Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated, a one-year-old boy has been killed by a Rottweiler, two people have drowned in a cave. The papers are full of lazy articles about the year 2007 (the best, the worst, list after list after list), and soon these papers will devote column inches to advice about keeping your new year's resolutions, losing weight, giving up smoking and generally paying penance for being greedy, slavering bastards, while simultaneously pummelling us with adverts about all the savings we can make in the January sales, on items we never knew we needed. (Can someone explain to me why sofa sales are so ubiquitous at this time of year?)

So, what will I be doing in 2008? Well, it could all be taken away from me. I could suddenly become destitute, ill and alone. Or I could be lucky and continue to coast along as I did in 2007. There's plenty I want to do, but do I want to cast them in stone? I want to write better blogs, because they've been a bit lame in recent weeks. I've considered deleting them - I've had a whole year of blogging, so perhaps I should quit now? I should probably learn German and the piano. I should be reading and writing more voraciously, expanding my vocabulary, eating more vegetables and committing myself to something wholesome. I should conquer my fear of telephones, learn how to cook lasagne and stop avoiding social situations that require me to hold conversations. Should, should, should. In reality, it'll be another year of me chewing my nails and lamenting over all the things I should be doing, and this will continue until I am older and greyer, when I get some kind of inevitable disease and then I will sit there lamenting about how I never lived in the moment. So, perhaps I'll bypass the resolutions, offset my carbon emissions and make a cup of coffee instead.

Vanilla-Flavoured Festivities

2007-12-24T10:55:00.000Z

I'm currently in my childhood bedroom writing this post, wearing my mum's dressing gown and trying not to go blind staring at the biggest, blurriest, oldest computer monitor to exist in the Western world. Mum's shiny little Mac Mini is making me pine for my own back in Dublin, but as I'm only here for a few days, I should probably be spending time with the family rather than making blog posts. Thus, I will be having a break from Vanilla Flavoured for a few days, dear readers, in order to immerse myself fully in the girth-expanding, brain-shrinking festivities of an Essex Christmas. I'm still recovering from the fact that it took me from 5:15pm on the Friday until 2:30am on the Saturday to get from Dublin to Romford. I could have probably flown to New York and scaled the Empire State Building in about the same amount of time. Cursed fog, Coked-up children and Ryanair ensured that those 9 hours were enough to make a saint swear. Still, I'm here now, my parents seem rather pleased to see me, and there are enough chocolates to ensure my skin will soon resemble that of a pre-Clearasil pubescent, so it's not all bad.

So in the meantime, I advise you all to have a fabulous Christmas and to eat your Brussels sprouts (you're going to need a bit of fibre, I can assure you - there's not much of it in Toblerone). To my boyfriend I will say that I'm missing you my lovely, and until my next post, I raise my glass to you all and say Prost, Slainte, and Cheers!

That In-Between Feeling

2007-12-16T17:57:00.001Z

It's not quite Christmas, but the chocolate tins have been opened and the salty snacks are absorbing all available moisture. Cars thunder along with fir trees poking dangerously out of the boot and the nauseating sound of Wham!'s Last Christmas oozes out of every shop doorway. Doorways that, of course, you can't enter because they are crammed with the flesh and fabric of stock-still security guards and desperate shoppers. Thankfully, I am experiencing none of the shopping hell because I am at home, typing this blog post and sipping a Sunday glass of Shiraz while my boyfriend catches up with The Sopranos and protects the mountainous snack pile from my constant pick-pick-picking. We had a little party last night, and as a result today, breakfast, lunch and tea have all featured Doritos, peanuts, Pringles and Celebrations. Trans-fats a-plenty, and enough salt to neutralise a lemon grove. I feel shrink-wrapped into my skin from it all and really rather unhealthy. I am resisting the excuse, "Oh well, it's Christmas" - partly because it's not, yet, and also because that's the excuse that causes my clothes to look like boiler lagging. I am also attempting to cull the other expression from my vocabulary, "I'll worry about it in the new year" - because when the new year arrives, I will suddenly be engulfed by such massive levels of guilt and self-applied pressure that I will sink under the weight of it all and probably reach for the nearest Big Mac.

So, we'll ignore the fact that it's Christmas and I'll waffle on about other things instead. I saw The Nightmare Before Christmas yesterday in the 3D format (okay, so it references Christmas, but it's good enough to be watched at any time of year so I'm letting it go). We went to a cinema in Dundrum where the seats were so huge and plush that even my big old arse was dwarfed by them. They gave us our 3D goggles (which seemed to be fashioned on the kind of shades worn by members of St. Elmo's Fire) and settled back to watch the show. I wasn't sure what to expect - Nightmare is one of my favourite movies and I listen to the soundtrack a lot when I'm at work, but how good would the 3D actually be? I was suitably impressed. There were times when you felt that you could reach out and touch Jack's skeleton face, and some of the scenes looked beautifully layered and shadowed, as though I was looking at a stage set rather than a screen. Bearing in mind the film is made with models and so is 3D anyway (rather than a 2D animation), some scenes didn't benefit much, and there were times when the cameras moved quickly and because of the 3D aspect, my head spun rather violently. On the whole though, it was wonderful, and great fun. I felt rather emotional at the end when the 3D snow sprinkled down on us as "Sandy Claws" flew over Halloweentown...

The night before, I saw a very different film - Shane Meadows' This is England. I'd avoided it previously because it didn't appeal, and it was pretty much what I thought it would be. Gritty, unflinching, unglamorous. The story of a young Northern English boy in 1983 who, having recently lost his father in the Falklands War, finds acceptance and comfort with the local skinhead community. The community is fairly innocuous until the return of Combo, a skinhead fresh from incarceration with plenty of Nationalist issues. Being English myself I recognised a lot of the attitudes and at several points I was so sickened by it that I actually tasted my dinner. It's not often I'm affected by a film in such a physical way. Of course, I was only six years old in 1983 so much of what I remember is based on microcosmic memories, of family and school friends, but it surprised me how much felt familiar. Meadows sets the scene very well by using a montage of footage of the era, showing clips of the Falklands, Thatcher and Reagan, Knight Rider and arcade games. Despite the fact that, at times, the film seemed so realistic that I wanted to look away, other aspects did let the experience down - it ended sooner than expected, some things didn't feel adequately explained, some of the acting was atrocious (though there were also some quality performances from Stephen Graham and Thomas Turgoose). The film was critically acclaimed when it was released, and to a point I can agree that it deserves many of its plaudits; however, there were also elements that didn't feel right, which unfortunately tend to be overlooked in films of such a controversial nature.

A friend with whom we were watching the film turned to me at the end and said, "Are you proud to be English?" It's the kind of question I've been asked many times since I've lived in Ireland - people are convinced that because I am English, I must have some strong sense of nationality. I sometimes suspect that people ask the question more in Ireland because of the two countries' chequered past. I remember when I started my current job, I was sitting in the office while one of the team leaders showed some new recruits around, pointing out the French, German, Spanish teams. He stopped where a Union Jack hung from the ceiling near the UK team and jokingly apologised for its presence. Looking at it realistically, if I was a proud Englishwoman in the traditional sense, I'd probably still live there, rather than in Ireland. I can safely say that I'm not proud to be English - but not because of any anti-English sentiment. I didn't choose to be English, or female, or white, and thus, I don't feel that pride is a justified emotion. I'd be proud to be a scientist or surgeon perhaps, because I'd have chosen that path and achieved it through hard work and dedication; I'd be proud to be a parent perhaps, if I had children and they were happy, morally upstanding, well nurtured and thriving individuals. But I cannot be proud of something that I didn't choose. I suppose I could say that I'm grateful - I'm grateful to be an English speaker because it's such a widely spoken language, and I'm grateful that I've had opportunities that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't been English. However, I don't feel that I deserve those opportunities anymore than anyone else; indeed it shames me at times to think how lucky I am to have been born in Britain; I've been given opportunities that everyone should rightfully have, but that many people could only dream about. But am I proud to be English? No. I tend only to remember that I'm English when I'm asked that question. To me, I'm just Keeley.

The C-Word

2007-12-13T13:28:00.000Z

So here we are, drowning in fa-la-la-la-las and tinsel. Twelve days until Christmas and I will shortly be required to venture into the heaving monstrosity of Dublin's Henry Street for a bit of last-minute shopping. Where people will cajole and push, bash my shins with the sharpened corners of gift boxes and poke me in the face with wrapping rolls. Where tat swings dangerously from market stall awnings and lucky customers can buy three stolen Toblerones for a tenner. Everyone surging through Henry Street tonight will be wearing an expression that suggests there is a bull on the loose in Marks and Spencer, and a damn angry one at that. Let the Festive Panic begin!

I was prepared this year, buying gifts online and getting them delivered to my work address or to my parents' houses in England (they live separately - they're not rich landowners or anything). I had to overcome the guilt of the shipping carbon emissions, but I reasoned that half of it would have been shipped to Ireland at some point anyway, and I'd be flying home with the rest - it may as well go straight to the destinations. I'm making feeble excuses of course; I should have handmade all my gifts or sourced them locally. Unfortunately, my craft skills are somewhat lacking, so most people would receive a lumpen mess with the response "Thanks! Erm, what is it again?". Locally sourced items would be good if everyone I knew liked chutney, but alas, I can only think of one person who enjoy such a thing (and that's exactly what he's receiving).

So why buy gifts at all? That's not what Christmas with a capital C is all about, is it? Well for me, it doesn't mean very much at all in essence because it's a religious festival and I'm an aetheist (with a small a, at least for now). So why go to all the expense and effort? Because I like buying gifts for people - it's one of the few things that I'm actually fairly good at, finding things that people like. There will always be exceptions of course, like the time I bought a guy a crazy fake fur coat because he'd said he liked it, only to watch his jaw land in his lap in dumbfounded confusion when he opened the bag. That was the start of my journey to the discovery of Irony.

So, what else is there about a Western Christmas, other than shopping, religion and spoiled children who get too many presents? Food. Lots and lots of food. There was originally a celebratory feast with a big lump of cooked animal and all the trimmings, but this has turned into a month of cramming as much food into ourselves as possible - most of it processed, most of it immensely unhealthy. Chocolate, crisps, peanuts, desserts, meat, meat, meat. I looked up some vegan and vegetarian Christmas recipes, and none of them sound particularly healthy either - though a nut cutlet will probably never be as bad as pigs in blankets.

For my own part, I've already scoffed a chocolate reindeer (thankfully it wasn't to scale), and we're having a party this weekend that will involve many bowls of nachos and mini sausage rolls. And booze of course. Lots of imbibing will take place over the course of Christmas. And perhaps a sing-song, at some point, especially if my mum digs out the dreaded Chas n' Dave records (I'm not kidding). There will no doubt be at least one argument and a few tears shed, perhaps a slammed door and some raised voices. More chocolate and slabs of meat. Perhaps a wafer thin mint or six. And Rennies by the handful. Looking at it like that, it sounds like a hellish week spent with the cast of Eastenders...but sure, nothing could be that bad.

Pilgrimage to Paradise

2007-12-06T20:52:00.001Z

Paradise Lost, that is. I nipped over to Manchester at the beginning of the week to see the delectable Nick Holmes, Gregor Mackintosh et al belt out a few miserable masterpieces. I say I nipped over, but that's a euphemism. What I mean to say is that I sat around in the airport for ages, then sat on the plane for ages while the captain did the customary "Hello this is your captain Paddy Doyle speaking, um, the weather in Dublin is, um, a cool six degrees, um, flight time to Manchester, um, about 35 minutes, um, weather in Manchester is, um, roughly the same as Dublin." It is my view that pilots need a little bit of training in how to speak reassuringly. All that um-ing makes me wonder whether there really is a pilot in that cockpit, and not just some bloke who decided to have a go at flying a plane. Anyway, Aer Lingus told me it was their pleasure to take care of me, attempted to sell me sad teddy bears and even sadder sandwiches, and then there I was in Manchester, still sick with a virus but a little bit excited about the gig, and about staying in a Premier Inn.

I was joking about the last bit, but however much we mock budget hotels where the rooms are all exact replicas of each other, I do actually think they're grand. I stayed in the GMEX one, and after a terrifying few minutes' walk from Deansgate station, I was in the warm, bright hotel and riding the lift to the seventh floor with astonishing efficiency. A hotel room of my own - and a double one at that! The novelty amused me. The room was immaculate, done out in pleasant purples and very comfortable indeed. A fancy room is all very well if you're going on a romantic holiday and want lots of sex and indulgence in luxurious surroundings, but when you're full of phlegm, tired, on your own and just need a good night's sleep, give me a Premier Inn every time. Needless to say, I opened every cupboard and played with the various switches and buttons for longer than was strictly necessary, drank all the complimentary tea and had a hot shower, before watching some television in bed. Another novelty - I never watch TV anymore, and if I did, heaving our 28-inch CRT monster up the stairs to watch it in bed isn't really an option. I spent some time marvelling over how Dylan Moran is actually quite nasty without being very funny, which is a shame because I thought he was hilarious a couple of years ago.

On Monday - the day of the gig - I decided to have a ramble around Manchester (because as much as I liked my hotel room, I didn't want to spend all day in it). After many wrong turns and requests for directions I managed to locate Afflecks Palace and had a high old time perusing all the nick nacks, giant chunky boots, piercing jewellery and beautiful gothic outfits that I was too fat for five years ago and am still too fat for now, despite being about four and a half stone lighter. Pah. Afflecks Palace is a great ramshackle building full of alternative stores, with beautiful things and complete junk nestling comfortably together.

While wandering around the Northern Quarter, I found a great little cafe that doesn't seem to have a website (come on now, if Afflecks Palace can have one, surely you guys can!). It was called Cup against the wall, and was on Thomas Street. Most the food was organic, locally sourced, free range, or all-round ethically sound. It sold Threadless tee shirts, crockery, arty screenprints in frames and designer greetings cards, and one of the tables still had a ping pong net across it from a previous life. It also housed a record store - Vox Pops - which played laidback tunes that perfectly complimented the Chocolatiest Brownies Ever served by very friendly trendy people. They also had Pieminister pies, ethically made, really deep-filled pies with proper pastry and delicious fillings. Another novelty for me - I never eat this kind of thing, too busy worrying about my waistline. To hell with it I thought. I had the Heidi Pie (goat's cheese, sweet potato and spinach) and didn't want it to end. I think I gained ten pounds just smelling the pastry, but at the time, it seemed like such a soothing, ingenious thing to do. Ill? Tired from shopping? Going to a hot sweaty heavy metal gig later? Eat a big hot pie!

Anyway, after all that, I went back to the hotel, had a nap and then laid there eating pistachios, dropping the shells in the bed and reading the Guardian. I felt like a vegetarian Henry VIII, albeit a female version without any wives. And eating nuts instead of chicken legs. Er, where was I? Ah yes. Then all at once it was time for the gig.

Oh, the gig. Actually I nearly didn't get in - after booking my tickets well over a month before the gig, they arrived at my house in Dublin on the Tuesday after the show was over, and there were no duplicates at the box office for me either. Luckily there a few tickets left so I had to buy another one. You can probably imagine the palpations that occurred between discovering I had no ticket and buying a new one. I had a bit of a sit-down and a pint to recover from it. Then, finally, I allowed myself to get rip-roaringly excited. A friend came with me to the gig; the same friend who came with me to see the band in the same venue four and a half years previous. And do you know, we even managed to stand in the same spot! And I drank Carlsberg like I did before! And the same sound guy was still there! And the room was still full of male metal fans three times taller than me and attractive goth women three sizes smaller! And...okay, you get the picture. The gig was, in a word, magnificent. I windmilled, I jigged about, I sang as loud as my phlegm-engulfed throat would allow, I clapped and punched the air and generally made a heavy metal arse of myself. The band played excellently, and I loved them just that little bit more by the end of the gig. I think I may have flayed some poor girl's face while I was whipping my hair about - my apologies to you if you are reading this wearing an eye patch, madam. I emerged at the end of the evening hot, sweaty, wheezing and skint (I bought the obligatory tour tee shirt) - but undeniably happy. Paradise Lost, I salute you for being one of the few things in life to put the kind of smile on my face that lingers long after you've left the room. (A certain Irishman is another).

My only regret is that I didn't take my camera along, so there are no Vanilla Views for you this time. I've not been too successful with my shots lately anyway so perhaps that's no bad thing. In fact, perhaps it's time to read the camera instruction manual...

Poorly

2007-12-01T20:05:00.000Z

I'm still poorly - in fact, I feel worse than I did yesterday. I've spent far too much time on my own and feel like a madwoman pacing the house, muttering to herself and looking outside eagerly for cats to befriend. I am starting to panic about drowning in my own mucus. My boyfriend thinks I'm making a big deal about nothing - he thinks colds only last two hours because he is Wolverine. By comparison, I have the immune system of a swooning Victorian lady. I went to bed earlier and had a dream about being Tony Soprano's daughter, and Iggy Pop was pleading with me not to allow his friend to be hit with a hammer. I fell down some stairs instead and Iggy's friend was horribly bludgeoned (thankfully the cameraman in my consciousness was kind enough not to supply too much footage of that). I woke up confused, snotty and with a dead arm. Keeley is not a happy bunny today, no sir. My good friend Travors suggested getting blind drunk, but I'm not sure I could cope with the messy aftermath of that.

Okay, so rather than persisting in the "poor little me" vein, I'll provide you with some visual sustenance instead. Here are a few more Amsterdam shots - very, very vanilla indeed - but that's what this blog is all about.

Amsterdam being pretty at night.

I'm liking the figures in the building - reminds me a little of those in Prague.

A rather nice suburban street, up near the Vondelpark.

The canalside on a gloomy day. Still rather pleasant though. 40,000 cyclists ding-dinging their bells are just out of shot.

Yum, interesting fruity treats. Despite this tantalising selection, I didn't eat much fruit during my visit, which may be why I'm sick now.

Amsterdam

2007-11-30T22:40:00.000Z

This time last week I was enjoying a delicious Italian meal with a handsome Irishman in the middle of Amsterdam's gay quarter. Tonight as I write this, I am sitting in the spare room with a medicinal Jameson's and a streaming horrible cold in a very soggy area of Dublin. What a difference a week makes. The anticipation is over, the holiday fun is done, the credit card bill paid, the airport germs have worked their black magic, and I am thirty years and one week old.

But we must not dwell on the negative - or rather, this blog mustn't. So, Amsterdam then! No doubt most of you have already been there; almost everyone I've spoken to has visited it at some point. Even my dad has been there, and he's been going to the same holiday cottage in Wales every year for as long as I can remember. So I'm a latecomer, so I should be able to provide interesting insights, having other people's experiences to draw upon as well as my own. Right? Right?

Well, we didn't smoke joints or visit a coffee shop so that's the first thing I didn't experience. I didn't go on a canal boat, didn't visit the Rijksmuseum (it's under renovation till 2008), and I didn't eat any space cakes. So what did I do? Well, I took a few vanilla views, and I stayed in a cute little hotel with space age lighting (space age as it was imagined in the seventies). I ate lots of unhealthy, delicious food (including poffertjes, marvellous tiny pancakes covered in icing sugar and butter and cooked on a custom-made copper hot plate that cost 16,000 euros to build). I drank a lot of good beers - and believe it or not, Heineken tastes very different there; it's far more flavoursome. I raided the minibar while my boyfriend had a nap. I bought miniature clogs like a proper little tourist. One night we got so lost that it took us two hours to get home (our hotel manager's response to that was "So you have seen the whole city then!" Yes, but it was dark and wet and we spent a lot of it walking along a busy road, shivering). We shuddered at the creepy Zwarte Piet dolls that were everywhere, glaring at us with their shining eyes.

It's an interesting place, and it feels very liveable - by that I mean that I could feasibly live there. It's a very pretty place, even when it's raining. It's very clean and full of bicycles. The "brown cafes" and "eetcafes" are inviting and cosy, and there's plenty of culture to keep you amused. We ate at the same Italian restaurant two nights running - run by Italians, Saturnino is easily one of the nicest places I've visited. If you want to go there (and you should) it's on Reguliersdwarsstraat. The food was uncomplicated - as it should be - and delicious, the service excellent, the prices very reasonable and the atmosphere was relaxed and intimate. I was taking a picture of our food (as you do) when two lovely guys from Philadelphia who were at the next table struck up a conversation with us, demanding to know why I was taking shots of my dessert and not of my boyfriend. It was that relaxed and comfortable - imagine trying to do that in some restaurants; you'd be snubbed, complained about and moved to a table in the basement.

Tiramisu for the gentleman and Amaretto coffee with cream for the birthday girl. That's a wafer-thin mint to the side there...

We also ate at an Asian restaurant called Dynasty (which cost more for one meal than it did for the two at Saturnino's), also on Reguliersdwarsstraat, which served some of the most impressive Asian cuisine we've tried. The ceiling was covered in parasols, which looked beautiful, and everything was very fancy. You know the bill is going to be expensive when they hand you hot towels after your meal. I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with those. I wiped my hands and my mouth on it. I assume that's the equivalent of wiping your bum on the menu, but I never said I was classy.

During our time there, people in Amsterdam tended to be polar opposites in terms of manners, either functional and surly or immensely friendly, but no one was downright rude, which made a pleasant change. Presumably people are curt with me because I look like a big fat tourist with my camera, map and stubborn English tongue. The Dutch have excellent English and seem eager to speak it - unlike in Paris where you are expected to attempt some French before they roll their eyes at you and respond in the English you were desperate to hear in the first place. Yes, I know that it's polite to learn the language of the country you visit, but I've found some Parisians rather unforgiving (that said, I still love Paris best of all the places I've been).

But back to Amsterdam. It's stylish, colourful and chaotic. I didn't expect it to be as built up, as crammed together and as full of life as it was. We breezed through the Red Light District, which was as depressing as I'd expected it to be. It's also a little startling because instinct tells you that women in windows are mannequins, not moving, breathing, scantily-clad prostitutes. We headed back through there during the day on our way to the station and it was even more depressing; a few women were in the windows, but mostly the area was rundown, dilapidated and seedy. My boyfriend did, however, find a nice hat and gloves from a shop nearby so it wasn't all bad.

Oh, and a note about the trams: they are confusing. And like riding the jolty, uncomfortable build-up of a rollercoster without the exhilarating payoff. The drivers and ticket collectors are rude and angry. I was shouted at for holding up my ticket for too long, and we witnessed one guy being shut repeatedly in the door until he stopped asking the driver questions and wisely stepped back onto the platform. Do not irk the Amsterdam tram staff. You have been warned.

So, Amsterdam Vanilla Views. I didn't get as many as I hoped because the weather hampered a lot of the shots, but here are a few of I salvaged. Perhaps I'll post a few more tomorrow...

A cosy brown cafe where we sought refuge from the rain.

Poffertjes. Need to gain some weight? Eat some of these beauties. You'll be carrying wheelbarrowfuls of belly fat in no time.

Pretty wooden tulips for sale at the Bloemenmarkt.

So, so, so many bicycles...

A Vanilla Birthday Break

2007-11-21T23:58:00.000Z

I'm jetting off to Amsterdam to celebrate my 30th in style, so Vanilla Flavoured will be quiet for a few days. Never fear, dear readers, providing Aer Lingus delivers me back safely and I don't fall into any canals, I'll return with photos and tales of all my japes and scrapes...

Vanilla Views

A couple more taken in the Phoenix Park.

A Tribute to my Twenties

2007-11-16T13:16:00.000Z

Next week I will be thirty. Thirty years. Thirty years. As a time frame, it sounds fairly established - but until recently I've never felt my age. It hit me a few weeks ago, after stomach troubles worsened for me and a friend - stomach troubles of the kind I'd usually associate with my parents. Also, there was the realisation that so many people of my age had prominent livelihoods and careers, and that people I used to go to school with were married with four or five kids. I'm not married, have no children, no pets (enticing other people's cats into my house doesn't count), no mortgage, no long-term profession, no car, no driving licence, no stocks or shares. I own nothing over about £500, I've no claims to fame, no notoriety and I still haven't read Ulysses.

And you know? I'm pretty happy about it all - it won't be like this forever (I'll have to sit down with Joyce's weighty tome eventually) so I'll bask in it while I can.

I can guarantee that I'll receive at least one of those cards that tell you what happened in the year of your birth. I can't decide whether these are created to make you feel special that you were born in such an interesting year, or whether it's to serve as a reminder that the world didn't come to a standstill when you arrived. I'm the same age as Orlando Bloom, Shakira, Chris Martin, Ronan Keating, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Samantha Morton, Kanye West, Edward Furlong, and Thierry Henry - all of whom I thought were either older or younger than myself.

Perhaps I can start blaming various things on my age now that I'm waving goodbye to my twenties. Disliking loud clubs and not having a clue who anyone is on the television, and preferring wine to lager. I can shop in M&S and admire pretty fabrics and enjoy a po-faced French film without worrying that it's not cool. But here's the thing - I've never been cool. I've always got into things too late, always missed the trends, always enjoyed something five years after the hype has died down. Perhaps my taste and my age are finally aligned.

So a tribute, then, to my twenties. I moved house eight times. I discovered goth. I rode in an ambulance. I achieved an impressive knee injury that the doctor said I must've done while skiing; I'd actually fallen over pulling on my trousers. I experienced what was deemed "a bad bottle of wine" and was sick for eight hours straight. I passed my Masters. I lost five stone. I attracted a handsome Irishman. I had my first foreign holiday, moved to a foreign country, bought some tailor-made boots and found the perfect biscuit recipe.

So what have I learnt during my twenties?

It's usually better to be honest than polite.

I don't have drink alcohol just to get drunk. But sometimes it's fun.

That cats are not all as friendly as I hoped they'd be, dogs slobber more than is ideal, owls aren't as wise as they're portrayed, ducks can be homosexual, wasps get drunk on fermented fruitfall, and foie gras is produced in such a manner that has ensured I will never, ever, ever eat it.

People rarely wish to hear obscure cover versions at a party when they're trying to hold a conversation.

Walking out of a bad film is entirely acceptable, but bad-mouthing someone's fondness for one is not.

A true friend is one you can go without seeing for a number of years but fall straight into conversation with when you meet them again.

Crying at the Irish Guinness Christmas advert is a sign that I am becoming a sentimental old fool.

Photos don't require people in them to be interesting.

The Simpsons should have bowed out gracefully, while it was still being intelligently written.

I am never going to be a rock star, an inspirational speaker or a nine stone.

There are worse things in life than falling out of taxi because you caught your heels on the door frame.

Offices are complicated, emotional minefields that should never be populated entirely by women. I have also learnt that the office environment is strikingly similar to being back at school, where there will always be The Bully, The Clown, The Aggressor, The Victim, The Show-Off, The Popular One, The Clique Crowd and The Outsider. Also, there is no such thing as good coffee from a vending machine.

The Paris Metro is a wonderful thing, from the reliable service and the wonderfully-styled stations, to the cartoon rabbit shutting its paw in the door.

Italian ice cream vendors in touristy areas of Florence should not be trifled with, for they are surly enough to turn your dairy treat sour.

Not all jazz is bad. Just a lot of it.

Flying with a hangover is a woefully bad idea.

You know you're on a cheap airline when the spirits are served in "baggies".

I'm not very keen on children. They alarm me and I like to keep my distance.

Walking through a city is the best way to explore it - so much is missed when you use other modes of transport. I do not, however, advocate getting horribly lost and spending several hours wandering around sinister back streets in the dark.

Sometimes I can be very, very inaccurate.

I probably shouldn't be able to remember Grease 2 quite as well as I do.

I am a geek. And quite happy with that, thank you.

Social networking sites can consume more of your precious time than they should. Go on, admit it. You've got one open in another window right now, haven't you?

Sartre was right when he wrote that "Hell is...other people!"

Pessimism is a great way of preparing for the worst, but robs you of any joyful anticipation.

Some people simply do not understand what it means to be depressed.

Feeling guilty for everything can be very unproductive.

We all die of something eventually.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was born in Greece.

Being happy in a relationship requires compromise, tolerance and more than a single living area.

Colm Meany and John C. Reilly are not the same person.

John Turturro does NOT play three parts in The Big Lebowski (I always confuse him with Peter Stormare).

Saying something in a ridiculous voice does not make it funny (take note, Joe Pasquale).

Dublin traffic lights make no sense whatsoever.

I know nothing much - but I'm learning.

So, farewell Twenties, it's been complicated, confusing and ten years of the kind I'll never experience again. Hello Thirties, be gentle with me...

Autumn in Phoenix Park - Sunset

2007-11-12T18:36:00.001Z

The cross in the distance was erected for Pope John Paul II's visit to Ireland in 1979.

Another shot with the cross in the distance.

Autumn in Phoenix Park - Daytime

2007-11-12T18:31:00.001Z

A regal swan. His friend, just out of shot, was doing a great impression of a lawnmower, devouring grass like it was going out of fashion.

An autumn shaft of light ruins/improves my shot (depending on your opinion). Wellington monument is in the distance.

A lovely tree, albeit a rather blurry one due to the breeze and the fact that my hands were completely numb.

It must be nearly Christmas - there's holly everywhere. A very hungry caterpillar has had a nibble of this one.

How to Waste a Little Bit of Your Life

2007-11-10T00:58:00.000Z

1) Drink half a bottle of claret with your lonely dinner, while your partner goes to an awards ceremony

2) Fret about all the lovely, engaging ladies at aforementioned awards ceremony, all planning to get their perfect claws into your partner, while you sit at home with your wine-stained lips and your pyjamas, worrying about your weight as usual

3) Randomly discover this website

2) Spend longer than is strictly healthy building yourself little imaginary rooms

3) Look at them and realise you have no sense of perspective or proportion

3) Take screenshots of your "efforts" and put them on your blog

4) Slink off to bed sheepishly, resolving that tomorrow you will not drink half a bottle of claret on your own and relentlessly hit the StumbleUpon button until your eyes fog over with sleep.

My office, if I was a writer with ideas and books and money and a piano and a cat

My living room, if I was the aforementioned writer and could afford lots of seating and miniature indoor palm trees

101st Let-Down

2007-11-08T20:49:00.000Z

Well, this blogger has wiped the champagne (or rather, coffee) from the keyboard and is ready to continue posting, now that her first blogging milestone is behind her. Winter is upon us suddenly and everyone has become a shivering mass of runny noses and hastily applied winterwear. I myself am cultivating a warming layer of fat over my bones to soothe me during this most chilly of seasons. I seem to have been panic-eating again, which I shall blame on the weather and the unusual amount of stress I'm experiencing at work, despite having a job with less stress than a Malibu advert. In short, my job is "seriously easy-going" but I've found the stress cupboard and foolishly opened the door (perhaps I thought there was some food in there). Cue manic overeating, sudden weight gain and eczema. If I worked on the stock exchange, I would last precisely 40 seconds before falling into a coma.

Today, I have been reading about Minsk, and Rachel Whiteread. In that wonderful way the Internet has of distracting you from your original destination, I went from The Guardian, to Minsk on Wikipedia, and then from the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square to Rachel Whiteread, straying onto Alison Lapper and then back to Whiteread and the K Foundation. All very interesting, though I often wonder, when I read things, where exactly my head was when the events actually happened.

Five Factoids about Minsk

Minsk the capital of Belarus. (I didn't know that until today because my geography is embarrassingly poor. Until a few years ago I couldn't have pointed out Italy, Portugal or even Spain on a map. This was due to never travelling outside the UK, studying no geography after the age of 12, and, um, being a bit ignorant).

Minsk has been ruled by Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. Belarus (and therefore Minsk) declared independence in 1991. As a result, the main languages now spoken are Belarusian (thought to originate from East Slavonic) and Russian, and there are 116 registered religious groups, including Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Judaism.

The coldest weather ever recorded was in January 1940, when it dropped to -40 degrees Celsius. This evening the temperature in Dublin is a comparatively balmy five degrees.

Average life expectancy for men is 63 and for women 74. Presumably the women must be more adept at surviving the cold and the stewed cabbage.

Belarusians had an interesting way of declining a proposal of marriage. If the bride's parents rejected a young man's proposal, the matchmaker would be offered black poliuka, a kind of wheat or barley-based soup that was made with pork or goose blood. Apparently, offering him a raw pumpkin was the equivalent to a middle finger.

In Other News...

Well if I'm honest, there isn't much going on at a personal level right now. I'm still attempting to produce regular pieces for Flashbulbs and Sunrises, which no one is reading, and I'm currently enjoying Sartre's No Exit very much indeed. It was compared to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - one of my favourites - and there do appear to be similarities. The characters are all flawed, there are mental games and personal realisations, characters play each off against the other. It contains Sartre's most renowned quote, and indeed one I often agree with: "Hell is other people." All very interesting. It feels good to have a book in my hand again, something that doesn't happen so often these days - usually it's a mouse. And sadly not the cute furry kind.

100th Vanilla Post!

2007-11-06T22:00:00.000Z

Welcome to Vanilla Flavoured's 100th post! In honour of this magnificently mediocre milestone, I thought I'd find some interesting facts relating to the number 100. I'll surf the World Wide Wonderweb, I thought, that's bound to throw up some interesting results!

According to Wikipedia, by the year 100, lions were extinct in the Balkans. Okay, I thought, that's a little bit interesting, but only if you know anything about the Balkans. Or lions.

There was a hundred years' war between the English and the French. It's erroneously named because it waged for 116 years, between 1337-1453. English kings were trying to claim the French throne - the English always seem to trying to claim something. Islands, thrones, great big slabs of Antarctica; so there's no surprise. But 116 years! Surely at some point, someone checked the date and said, "Hang on a minute, we've been going at this for, like, seventy years. I don't reckon they're going to give us the throne. Shall we just toddle back home and look for something else to claim instead?"

Typing "There are 100 types of..." into Google delivers results about 100 types of arthritis, cancer, and HPVs. How cheering. Oh, and there are 100 villages in Alberta. More interestingly, typing "There are 100 kinds of..." into Google returns 100 kinds of cats in the US, and 100 kinds of wet in Texas(?).

Okay, so far, so not very illuminating. How about typing in "100 years old"? Predictably, this returned advice on how to live to be 100. From what I can gather, cold showers and smoking 170,000 cigarettes in your lifetime should do the trick. Oh, but you mustn't inhale, advises Winnie from Croyden who celebrated her 100th birthday "the best way she knows how - smoking". I'm hoping she then stubbed out her cigarette on the Daily Mail reporter's forehead.

I mused for a moment, and then thought, how about finding a £100 cake, seeing as I'm celebrating something here? Google failed me again, providing me instead with a recipe for a chocolate cake big enough to serve 100 people. Although that could come in very handy at some point, I'm sure. Wait a minute, I thought, what about wedding cakes? They're probably £100! Presumably I'm living in the 1940s. The deposit for a wedding cake is £100 on some websites. One cake was listed as £1500. Wait, let me say that again. £1500 for a wedding cake. £1500 for something that is sliced to pieces within a few hours of its arrival, tastes like horrible horrible Christmas cake, and ends its short life with most of the guests leaving it in their fridges for a week before feeding it to the birds/their uncles/the dustbin. I couldn't find a picture - presumably the cake creators were laughing too hard at the idiots buying it to hold the camera steady.

Okay, so my search engine idea didn't work out so well.

So perhaps a top 100 list would be appropriate? I can hear the groans from over here. Possibly because they're coming from me. Why is everyone obsessed with lists? Top tens are digestible, and you can usually remember them, should you be stuck for a conversation starter and want to drive everyone away from you as soon as possible. But who's going to remember what's in a top 100 (apart from people with magical miracle master memories - and they're already busy memorising decks of cards)?

How about the top 100 songs? Songs are so personal - it seems inconceivable that anyone could find a common choice. I considered offering you the top 100 most played songs on my iPod. The first forty were a good enough indication of what was there, however, so I'll spare you the rest. Be thankful they're not queued up to play while you're reading.

Or how about the top 100 novels? That's a pretty absurd one. Whenever I flip through those, I count how many I've read (usually about 15), how many I started reading and abandoned (usually about 20) and grumble at the rest of the list as I realise a) how little I've read of the so-called classics, b) how narrow my personal tastes are, and c) how annoying it is that there are hardly any female writers on these lists - usually Harper Lee and Doris Lessing get a mention, but very few others. I don't think I could come up with a top 100 books myself - I wonder whether I've even read 100. I certainly don't remember reading that many. I'm not sure I could even list my top ten...if you look up ignoramus in the dictionary, you'll see my name.

I could do some kind of stunt, I thought. Like eating 100 of something or spending 100 minutes/hours doing something. The problem was, I'd just ate 12 almonds and 10 cashews and I was a bit full, so that ruled out anything gastronomical. Probably by the time you read this, I'll have spent about 100 minutes scratching my head and trying (and succeeding) to write a blog post on absolutely nothing of note. Phew. Roll on the 101st post. Then I can talk about Orwellian torture rooms, the queen mother and a restaurant in Dublin I've never visited. Or perhaps I'll just pretend none of this ever happened and talk about a vanilla flavoured biscuit instead.

A November-Flavoured Post

2007-11-01T20:42:00.000Z

November is here at last, then. I like November. It probably has something to do with being born in this month, so as a child it was always exciting. There's the run-up to Christmas too; I don't particularly relish it anymore but I admit there's still something bubbling under the surface. The crunchy leaves and the smell of peat fires is very appealing, as are rosy cheeks after being outside. Another mug of coffee and a bowl of hot custard? Don't mind if I do. And now there's an excuse to wear funky scarves, gloves and hats. Not that one really needs an excuse, I suppose. The best thing for me about November is the dark. Light pollution has reduced the darkness, affects the ecosystem and is generally a bad thing, I'm afraid I find it hard to be angry when Dublin is lit so beautifully on an inky November night. Bad Keeley. If I ever figure out the settings on my camera, I'll take some vanilla views and post them, and then I can feel guilty about enjoying something else that adversely affects the environment.

Something else was lighting up Dublin last night - fires and fireworks. We were walking home and there was a massive fire in what we presumed (and hoped) was an abandoned building. Plenty of very panicked policemen nearby. Friend and fellow blog writer Travors took a photo of an almost identical fire in another part of Dublin. Apparently at one point, every single ambulance and fire engine was on call last night. We saw children throwing fireworks at cars and each other, which was alarming - they obviously never saw the shock-tactic adverts of my youth. There were some deafening, spectacular fireworks going off all over Dublin. But here's the thing - they're illegal without a licence. I doubt many of the kids lobbing rockets at cars last night had a licence, but even people setting them off in their back gardens could be subject to fines and imprisonment. Another little difference I've learnt about England (or rather, Britain) and Ireland.

Eastern Promises

I saw Eastern Promises, David Cronenberg's latest offering, on Monday night. Described as a companion piece to A History of Violence, it's a story of a midwife who becomes involved with the Russian mafia when a girl dies in childbirth. Naomi Watts, the midwife, has managed to cultivate one of the most irritating English accents since Johnny Depp's vocal impression of an Essex market stall owner in From Hell (except her's is the opposite, sounding as though she was voice-coached by the queen). This minor niggle aside, it's a fantastically-paced, realistic, gruesome drama that focuses upon the themes of loyalty, human vulnerability, family and differing cultures. Mortenson is the star, with one of his best performances to date. He manages to be in turn menacing, sleazy, terrifying, appealing, vulnerable and sympathetic. (You're probably rather tired of these lists of words, but as this is a blog, I can't offer you an interpretive dance to illustrate how good it all is, and it's late enough in the evening to find intelligent phrasing rather difficult.) His co-stars are also excellent, with Vincent Cassel playing the vicious, sadistic but foolish son of the London-based Russian mafia boss. He is ultimately weak, and this is his saving grace. The main characters are interesting and well-drawn - it would have been easy to resort to caricatures in this film, but Cronenberg, with his fondness for exploring human frailty, is offering us much more.

The film is not always easy on the eye. There is a lot of blood spilled, and if you're queasy at the thought of a throat being cut, you should perhaps think about giving this one a miss. Alternatively, you could go and internally repeat the mantra "it's only make-up, it's only make-up." As ghastly as some of the violence is, it isn't glorified, and there are subtle comic releases to ease the tension. The cinematography is excellent, contrasting rich interiors with stark surroundings; a dim-hued London, a too-bright pharmacy, a smoky, glistening bath house, a sumptuous restaurant, a tobacco-stained bedroom. A naked fight to the death in a Turkish bath is powerful and impressively choreographed, and if the sight of Viggo Mortenson fighting in the buff appeals to you, you'll enjoy it all the more. Particularly interesting was the explanation of the tattoos worn by the characters - Cronenberg describes them as "passports" through the penal system. It's truly fascinating, and also fascinatingly true, as tattoos have been used to denote crime and punishment for many, many years.

The pacing of Eastern Promises is spot-on and there are some surprises along the way. If I had one criticism, it would be that it could have done without the last couple of minutes, because they feel tacked on - ending it at the scene before would, for me, have been more interesting. A friend who I saw the film with felt that it should have been longer to adequately complete the story. Nonetheless, it's a gripping film and another success for Cronenberg.

Read some interesting stuff about the movie and flick through some more images here: www.Focus Features.com/Eastern Promises - but perhaps wait until after you've seen it!

Postscript:

While looking for the fireworks advert I also managed to find this one, warning kids not to climb pylons. It used to scare the living daylights out of me when I was young, to the point where I was too frightened to fly (my very cool) Optimus Prime kite, in case I exploded in a ball of flaming voltage. The combination of the menacing music, and the fact that we're told the kid actually dies at the end (cue poignant picture of the kid's coat hanging on the banister) is truly a deterrent if ever I saw one. Brrrr.

Toffee Apples

2007-10-25T22:41:00.000+01:00

As it's nearly halloween and all the paraphernalia has been in the shops for a while, haunting us with their sugary/scary/plasticky goodness, my boyfriend kindly bought me a toffee apple. I haven't had one in years - I only really remember the fact that the apple inside was usually rotten and the sugar made you into a hyperactive lunatic, while turning your mouth blood red. It took me a day or two to work up to eating it - I eat about three apples a day anyway, so another one covered in sugar was hard to face by the time I got home from work. Today, however, I tackled the treat.

And what a treat it was. It took an age to peel off the wrapping, and the stick fell off immediately, but there it was, glistening like a big round sugary ruby. I was a sensible grown up and cut it into chunks to check the apple wasn't maggoty - which it wasn't, so I tucked in. How many people eat toffee apples with a fork? Just one. It managed to be gloriously crunchy, sticky, chewy, moist and gooey all at the same time. I managed three-quarters before I became afraid of sinking into a sugar-induced coma and my teeth threatened to pop themselves out of my gums and run for cover. It'll be another five or six years before I eat another one, but as they're the symbol of changing weather, kids throwing eggs at your windows and an extra hour in bed, I fully endorse them.

The boring way to eat a toffee apple

As I digest the glucose syrup and crazy colourings, I lament the fact that once again my "diet" has been foiled. Autumn and winter are bad times to be sensible about food - cold weather brings with it cravings for lard-related foodstuffs. Not good news for almost two-thirds of the population who are overweight or obese. Being half a stone heavier than I should/want to be, I'm teetering on the edge of that statistic myself. Which means that for the first time in my life, I'm on-trend. Perhaps I'll celebrate with a plate of cream cakes.

The fireworks are banging and cracking already, as Ireland gears up to celebrate Halloween. It's a bank holiday here, and it seems pretty important to people, unlike in England, where people save their fireworks for Guy Fawkes' Night. Every year on November 5th, I'm puzzled why I can't hear any fireworks, before remembering that it's not an Irish celebration. Though some of the fireworks now are loud enough that I'm frankly surprised I can't hear them exploding over on the British Isles. That was very cantankerous of me. I'm 30 next month - the transition into middle age starts here. (Actually I think it started as soon as I learnt to talk.)

Anyway, in light of the upcoming festivities, here are some Factoids about Halloween...

The celebration is thought to have originated in Ireland, based on an ancient Gaelic festival called Samhain - a celebration of the end of the summer and the harvest season. There was the belief that on the 31st, the spirits of the dead would enter the world of the living and make mischief, destroying crops. Bonfires were lit to burn slaughtered livestock, and people would wear costumes to mimic or placate the dead spirits.

The Romans shoehorned a few of their own traditions into the festival while occupying Celtic territory - the goddess Pomona had her own festival in October, and it's thought that the apple bobbing malarkey that happens on Halloween was due to her - Pomona's symbol is an apple. Perhaps it's her fault there are such deliciously bad things as toffee apples too.

While these days we carve up pumpkins for Jack O'Lanterns, it all began with the turnip. Pumpkins were not readily available to the Irish, so they used a turnip instead. Anecdote: I used to confuse turnips and parsnips, so I was very confused when I first heard about this - I was trying to imagine carving an intricate spooky face on what looks like an albino carrot. Silly me.

Jack O'Lanterns are thought to originate from an Irish folktale, about a sinful farmer called Jack who trapped the devil and made him promise not to take his soul when he died. The devil agreed but when Jack died, he wasn't allowed into heaven because he was too bad, so he was forced to remain on earth. The devil threw him an ember and Jack carved a lantern out of a turnip in which he placed the ember to light his way.

Memoirs and Custard

2007-10-24T23:29:00.000+01:00

It's Wednesday already and I've done little of constructive use, apart from putting a load of washing in the machine, which never feels very constructive because it just gets dirty again - sometimes instantly, if I drop it on the kitchen floor while it's still wet.

I've just finished reading Memoirs of Montparnasse, by a Canadian poet, writer and cad named John Glassco. The book is a semi-fictionalised memoir, written about Glassco's three years in Paris. In a nutshell, he hob-nobbed with the big names of the day, and he had lots of sex. Many of the cultural references passed me by, and I know enough French to allow me to order bread and blackcurrant ice-cream but no more than that, so some of the passages were unfathomable. However, it was a very lively read. It seems that most people wrote their memoirs back in the '20s and '30s, even if they had nothing much to say. Ghostwriting, fabrication and embellishment were the order of the day, and even people who simply removed their clothes for a living and had a few bewildering sexual experiences felt it quite necessary to put pen to paper.

Hang on...that sounds familiar...so here I was, all this time thinking that it was new, this trend for "celebrities" to write their autobiographies at the age of twenty even though all they'd done was to get their bottoms out on TV. It's been happening since the twenties! Glassco's contribution contains moments of self-indulgence that border on legendary, and you really want to give the lad a good slap when he complains about not having enough to eat; he considered a five-course meal to be the norm. Still, it's rich in description of the time and pretty enjoyable. I'm probably a philistine or something.

A Few Words About Custard

I have a real weakness for custard. I grew up eating the sweet, gloopy Ambrosia Devon Custard, and very delicious it was too. I have cravings for it pretty regularly, and occasionally buy some and chop a banana into it. How quintessentially English and dad-like of me. However, I recently decided that I should make "proper custard" and by that, I don't mean making it from scratch - I mean Bird's Custard Powder. How hard could it be, I thought?

The answer - never let me make you custard. It tasted like wallpaper paste, but runnier, and less useful. The ingredients on the tin alarmed me: Cornflour, Salt, Colour (Annatto), Flavouring. Hmmm. Usually the fewer ingredients, the better, but what does "flavouring" mean? And why is there so much salt? Where's the sugar? Surely it should be sugar instead of all this other stuff? You actually add the sugar yourself - they tell you 1-2 tablespoons per pint of custard. My teeth felt sore just thinking about it. You all knew this already, didn't you? You're all wise when it comes to custard. Or you follow a Jamie Oliver recipe that requires vanilla pods from a remote area of Madagascar. Or perhaps you couldn't give a fig.

Nonetheless, here are some thrilling factoids about Birds Custard...I'm short on content this evening. Hey, it's been a quiet week!

Bird's Custard was invented by Alfred Bird, whose wife was allergic to eggs - which are the main ingredient, besides milk, in proper custard.

It was invented in 1837. Think of all the things that hadn't been invented yet, like blogs and power showers and iPods and microwaves - but there was instant custard! Wow.

There is a Custard Factory in Birmingham, England, which was once where Bird's custard was produced. I was initially quite amused by the thought of a place dedicated to the wonders of all things custardy - then I read the website properly, and it's an arts centre. Boo. Well, yay for arts, but boo to the absence of custard memorabilia.

Vanilla View

Quite simply, Moore Street, Dublin. I liked this one for its vibrancy.

Flashbulbs and Sunrises

2007-10-18T22:21:00.000+01:00

Greetings, dear readers! I started a new blog today in order to "showcase my talents", or whatever the vernacular is for this sort of thing. I'll be posting short pieces of fiction, poems, extracts and paragraphs that I've written myself. I think it's time to find an audience - no doubt small, ungrateful and scathing, but an audience nonetheless - for my work. I'm hoping it will act as a way to encourage me to write regularly and improve, rather than just sitting here wringing my hands about all reasons why I shouldn't type another word.

And so, it is with a flourishing sweep of a plush velvet curtain and a shameless trumpet-parp of self-advertising, that I present to you:

Flashbulbs and Sunrises

So is this the end of all things Vanilla, I hear you ask?

The answer is a loud and definite No. I won't be giving up Vanilla Flavoured. The aims and content of the blogs are completely different and I like the idea of having a couple of "projects" on the go. I'm acutely aware that I'm excellent at leaving projects unfinished or neglected as fear, inadequacy, impatience and other distractions vie to be the first to prevent me from continuing. Hopefully, this will be different. Hooray, I hear you all cry. Hooray indeed.

To mark the occasion, I offer you a topical Vanilla View this evening. An October sunrise, taken this morning on my way to work. Lovely, lovely Autumn.

Uncle Vanya

2007-10-18T00:41:00.000+01:00

I've just returned from seeing a play at The Gate Theatre in Dublin. I saw Uncle Vanya - Chekhov's tragicomedy based around a rather confusingly related group of individuals. I'd like to be able to provide you with an intelligent analysis of the play, but I hadn't read or seen it until tonight, I'm fairly new to Chekhov's work, and if you require in-depth analysis, there are no doubt reams of it already accessible. So I'll provide you with a short Vanilla Review instead.

The story centres around the relationships and lives of a retired professor and his hypnotically attractive young wife, the professor's diligent and pious daughter by his first marriage, his brother-in-law and mother-in-law also both from his first marriage, a country doctor, an old nurse and an impoverished landowner/permanent guest. The young wife is spoiled, bored and beautiful, and does little more than move languidly around the house causing everything to come to a halt. The doctor desires her, the brother-in-law (the Uncle Vanya of the title) is half-mad with love for her, the husband is oblivious. The plain, sweet daughter is in love with the doctor, who doesn't even notice her. There are moments of shouting and flailing, of falling in and out of chairs, of boozing and at one point running through some fantastic-looking trees with a revolver. There are a few chuckles to be had, but most of the time is taken up with self-indulgent self-pity and bitterness.

It was a little like a soap opera, except with period costume, some rather hammy acting and a bit of piety thrown in, where there would normally be denim, attitude and a bit of pre-watershed swearing. I'm being facetious of course - it was an interesting story, nicely interwoven, the final speech reeking of despair despite the apparent hope in the character's voice (listening to the speech as an atheist makes it perhaps even more despairing). The play appears to be a comment on humanity's wasteful nature, on the wasting of life, of time, and of hope.

It was an uncomfortable experience to hear doom-laden predictions of climate change and declining forestation from people in period dress. While the characters were each uniquely engaging in their own way, three of the four main characters were monstrously blind and self-indulgent, and even the supporting character presumably created for comic relief led an immensely hopeless, depressing existence.

I really do feel, for all his mastery of the domestic scene, that Mr Chekhov would have benefited from greater brevity with this play - or perhaps a more ruthless editor. That said, it's still worth seeing because it's an example of humanity that, in its essence, hasn't changed as much as we would like to think it has over the past couple of centuries.

Odd as it sounds, it was also, somehow, a suitable companion to The Big Lebowski, which we went to see at a special IFI screening last night.

Vanilla View

In honour of the glorious stage set of Uncle Vanya, here's a shot of a tree I took recently. I'm off to bed now before I start gibbering.

A Less Morose Post

2007-10-12T16:41:00.000+01:00

Bouncing bunnies, fluffy clouds, lemonade. Singing birdies, cream cakes and rainbows. Tra la la la. *skips around the room, singing loudly to music with a silly grin on her face*

Yes folks, my previous post was so bloody miserable and sour, I thought perhaps I should start off with something cheery. Sure, the music I'm playing is Paradise Lost, it's overcast outside and I'm slowly being overwhelmed by the smell of nail polish, but we'll pretend I'm actually listening to Lionel Richie or something. Or perhaps not...anyway, here I am, with some Vanilla Views from a little trip I took to Dun Laoghaire yesterday. A couple of days off work to relax and do some study has so far been spent getting a wind tan from the coast and painting my stubby fingernails, but at least I'm not wrestling with search marketing. I've also been gorging myself with hummus bagels from Itsabagel and making niggley changes to Wikipedia pages. Time well spent.

A Couple of Things About Dun Laoghaire

The anglicised pronunciation is Dun Leary. I'm not going to try and write it phonetic Irish because I'll probably be flogged as soon as I step outside. Dun Laoghaire is a nice little seaside town on the coast, about seven miles south of Dublin city. The expression 'seaside town' conjures up horrible images of faded amusement arcades and children covered in ice-cream, but actually it's nothing like that. It's very pleasant indeed, and seems full of Irishwomen marching along the East Pier in suits and trainers in their lunch hour, talking loudly about their children's toiletry habits. When I visited, there were quite a few wealthy stone-faced people with large dogs, and some very old men wearing baseball caps and whistling jolly tunes through their teeth.

Oh and Itsabagel was full of absolute arsewipes, talking at ridiculous volumes about their jobs, diets, and general opinions. One complained loudly about Romanian immigrants, and then spread his hands wide and declared "But I'm not a racist", which he followed up with ten minutes of examples detailing exactly why he was not a racist. When I returned to the city, I mentioned this to someone, who declared the patrons of the shop as "bagel-chomping southsiders", which amused me because, while it was meant as a derogatory, inflammatory remark, it was in fact completely accurate.

Dun Laoghaire was named after King Laoghaire, a High King of Ireland in the fifth century. Laoghaire used the coastal town as a base to invade other countries. Dún is Irish for "fort".

The name was briefly changed to Kingstown to honour a visit by King George VI back in 1821, but the town's council decided it should revert back to its original name in 1921. And quite rightly so.

Dun Laoghaire is the main ferry port for passage to Britain. Shame everyone uses Ryanair instead, because the ferry's much more comfortable. Unless you suffer from seasickness.

There is a memorial in a garden along the seafront that is dedicated to a Sandycove postman called Denis Burton. Royal Mail, take note.

Vanilla Views - Dun Laoghaire

Perhaps I'll post a couple more over the weekend. Right, I'm off to tart myself up for a night out. TTFN...

Oh, the Indulgence

2007-10-10T21:58:00.000+01:00

Having finally recovered from the embarrassment caused by that awful, awful poem I wrote in my previous post, I am here to wax lyrical about a different kind of self-indulgence. Chocolate. After posting here about Hotel Chocolat, my boyfriend promptly went and ordered me a great big box of the aforementioned white and light selection. Here they are:

As you can see, I wasn't even able to keep my grubby mitts out of them long enough to take a photo - that first one was orange flavoured with flecks of caramel in a praline, if recall correctly. They were delicious. And I don't mean in a Dairy Milk, teeth-screamingly-sweet way. They were probably the poshest things I have ever eaten in my life. I'm talking in the past tense, of course, because my boyfriend and I scoffed them in three days. Actually, it was mostly me. I am now being punished by alarming weight gain and horrible, horrible skin, but so be it. If you only have posh chocolates once in your life, order a box of these. Your body won't thank you for it, and nor will your wallet (they work out to about a euro per chocolate) but you'll be dead soon anyway - live a little.

As a direct result of eating those chocolates, I am now abstaining from all things delectably sweet until Christmas. With a short concession on my birthday next month. I know, whew, what a challenge. Jason Lewis travelled around the world using only his muscles, a bicycle and a peddle boat. Leonardo da Vinci invented just about everything. Gerhardt Ertl just won a Nobel Prize for more or less inventing surface chemistry and explaining the vanishing ozone layer. Me? I give up chocolate for a month and a half. Oh, and I write meaningless blog posts too. Way to go down in history.

What I've learnt this week

What it means when a body (i.e. a corpse) is incorruptible. It's when the body does not decompose. It is deemed incorruptible only if the body has not been preserved, embalmed or mummified in any way. Religious types often point to the phenomenon as a sign of the person's piety, or that a deity has interfered with the decomposition process. Often, Christian and Catholic belief is that if a body is incorruptible, that individual is often a saint. On a more scientific, practical level, it's believed that certain environmental conditions can prevent the body from decomposing, including the surrounding humidity, type of soil and even the amount of body fat and muscle on the corpse.

Incorruptible bodies include those of St Bernadette of Lourdes, lots of other Christian saints whose names I don't recognise, a few popes, some (Christian) kings and queens, and a couple of Hindus and Buddhists. One wonders why Christians seem so keen to keep digging up their dead in order the beatify them; but I suppose it gives them something to do.

I've also learnt the identity of the aforementioned St Bernadette. As you probably noticed from my previous flippant and perhaps downright ignorant comments, I wasn't schooled in religion. I wasn't christened or baptised, and my folks aren't religious. I was in the Brownies and the Guides, but there wasn't much religion going on there; it was mostly about pulling hair, helping the occasional old person across the road and wearing a silly brown bobble hat. With my lack of religion, living in Ireland is an interesting experience and I'm learning all sorts of crazy stuff.

Anyway, Bernadette Soubirous was a young peasant girl from Lourdes who had 18 separate visions of the Virgin Mary. As a result, Bernadette was made a saint when she died and the quiet little town of Lourdes became a holy tourist trap with five million visitors every year, outnumbering the 15,000 residents by rather a lot.

Another thing I learnt recently was that I shouldn't watch two bleak films back to back while drinking Jack Daniels and eating luxury chocolates. Going to bed at about 4am, I had nightmares about eating broken glass on a prison bus. The films, however, were thankfully both more enjoyable - I rewatched the Shawshank Redemption, which is a very good movie indeed, and which had me giving Tim Robbins' character a round of applause at the end for his wiles, and also for his quite frankly astounding stature. I still think he'd have died of dysentery, swallowing all that shit, but it's Hollywood - I suppose you have to overlook the occasional unlikely situation.

I also saw a 2003 Russian film called Vozvrashcheniye (The Return), which follows the story of two young boys whose father returns home after disappearing for 12 years, and who takes them for a fishing trip. The synopsis doesn't sound too thrilling but I don't want to give away any of the plot, other than to say the boys don't get the little holiday they expect. It's an excellent film with a quiet, steady pace in sepia wash of colour that suits the mood. One of the child actors should win an award for playing the Most Convincingly Foul-Tempered, Bull-Headed Child in History. Sadly, the older of the two boys, Vladmir Garin, died shortly after making this film, his first and only role. It's well worth watching. Just don't follow it up with bourbon and a prison flick.

Some things I haven't learnt this week

(And yes, I'm stealing this format directly from Saturday's Guardian. What I lack in imagination I make up for in dour observations and enthusiastic vitriol).

Why they are still allowing Jack Black to make films

How to say very much at all in German (I now fear it)

How much longer The Guardian is going to be writing articles about Control, the Joy Division film

The location of all the states in the US (although by the sound of it, plenty of Americans don't know either)

October, October

2007-10-07T11:01:00.000+01:00

October, October, a month of great change
when skies dim much faster and offer more rain.
The leaves start to sprinkle and land at your feet
while people in jumpers crave hot things to eat.
You're ready for winter, accepting your fate
the mornings are darker, it's harder to wake.

But this year it's different, a change to the plan -
you're shopping for gift wrap and getting a tan.
The mince pies and puddings (already in stock)
seem quite out of place in weather so hot.
The van selling ice cream is tinkling a tune,
you stare at the sky and think, "Is it June?"
The sweltering "Santa" regrets his fake beard -
his red-suited torture is worse than he feared.

Someone in spectacles nods like a sage
we ruined the climate, the crime of our age.
We broke it, she sighs, and goes on her way,
smoothing a dress she's been wearing since May.
Perhaps the world too, is shaking her head,
frowning at aerosols, coal smoke and lead,
wondering how humans can cause such a stink
(as a woman in Dublin pours bleach down her sink).

The world rolls her sleeves up, primes and prepares,
she grumbles and mutters and rages and glares.
"I'll ruin your crops and deliver a flood,
I'll shake you with earthquakes and kill you with mud.
I'll blast you with sunlight when you expect rain
You'll hang your weak heads in a vision of shame."

The humans however, are too busy shopping,
freezing their turkeys and searching for stuffing.
Jack Frost is archaic, the chestnuts have gone,
but people don't care about words in a song.
Humans adapt and hope for the best,
so long as there's Arnotts and Your M&S.
"In two months it's Christmas; the sun's a ripe peach.
Perhaps we'll have presents on Malahide beach!"

Vodka and Eggs

2007-09-30T20:30:00.000+01:00

Sadly it seems that I have succumbed to one of the things I have always dreaded - the female desire for accessories. I own seven pairs of footwear, which is apparently quite pathetic compared to most Western women; however, my boyfriend tells me I have a bag problem (which relates to those in which I carry my belongings, as opposed to those upon which my eyes nestle). I have seven bags, not counting my Bagpuss backpack, and a broken bag that has been chucked under the bed in disgust. I don't think that's too bad, considering two of them are for travelling. I suppose compared to someone impoverished, I have a lot - but then I have a lot of everything compared to someone impoverished, I suppose, so I'm pretty lucky.

My concern relates to the fact that I recently bought two new hats, neither of which I really needed, and both of which I now feel rather guilty about owning. I have five hats. Is that a bad thing? They are hung on little "meat hooks" that I bought from Habitat a while ago - there's probably a delicious conceit to be drawn from such imagery; alas, I have been too busy buying hats to concentrate upon intellectual matters so I will leave it up to you, dear readers, to figure that one out.

I am feeling a little bit blue this evening - and by that I mean blue in a melancholy way, not a Bernard Manning way. I spent the day cleaning the house, which now looks nice and shiny, but my own head still remains a dusty clutter of Things Unfinished. I decided to drink some vodka and cook myself a favourite dish, which not only made me feel better, but also made me want to take a picture of my hat collection and my dinner and post them here. Okay, so it's probably the vodka and tonic that's made me want to do that, if I'm honest. But, oh, the simple joys of scrambled eggs and toast. That said, I am a fussy bugger and have a number of conditions. The bread must be brown or wholemeal or full of seeds (or in this case, seed and rye bread). The spread must be margarine or Benecol (I don't have a cholesterol problem, I just like Benecol better than butter. A million people's monocles just fell out in unison at that statement). The scrambled eggs must be free range, mixed with milk and have plenty of proper black pepper. And finally, there must be tomato sauce - preferably Spanks tangy tomato ketchup.

I always promised myself that I wouldn't post pictures of my dinner on a blog, but no one reads my blog so no one will care. Guten Appetit!

The joys of being an adult. Not only can you have sex and drink alcohol, you can also eat your dinner in your room and drop scrambled egg on your keyboard without being scolded. Except that now I'm going to get comments from people telling me not to drop food on my Mac. You can't have everything, I suppose.

I'd like to be able to discuss the current conflict in Burma/Myanmar, or the situation in Darfur, but I simply don't know enough to comment intelligently. It's best to stick to what one knows, I suppose. Therefore, here are some Factoids of a less cerebral nature:

Koalas are the only mammal, apart from humans, to have fingerprints. They also have opposable thumbs. However, as they sleep for 19 hours a day and have a very tiny brain, there's little chance of them taking over the human world, unless it was done with a Scrabble deathmatch with a certain American president. We'd be screwed then, for sure.

Contrary to what most people think, drugs are not legal in Amsterdam. The sale of cannabis remains an offence, but prosecution is given a low priority, provided the quantities are small. "Coffee shops" can sell no more than 5 grams in a single transaction - if they get caught selling more, they can be shut down. They can't advertise the sale of it either, though you can find a "marijuana menu" in some establishments that will allow you to choose your poison. Just don't try and bring any home with you - the airport security queues are already long enough.

There was once a parlour game, popular between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, called Snapdragon (also known as Flapdragon). The game involved sitting in the dark with a bowl of brandy that was filled with raisins and then set alight. The point of the game was to snatch the raisins from the flaming liquor and eat them. The darkness was supposed to make it all more eerie, as liquor produces a spooky blue flame. I'm quite relieved to hear that people have always been thrill-seeking idiots.

Vanilla Views Autumn Special (2)

2007-09-30T11:31:00.000+01:00

Part 2 - Dublin

The Guinness factory, a Liffey seahorse, St. Audoen's church and its accompanying park.

Vanilla Views Autumn Special (1)

2007-09-30T11:15:00.000+01:00

I was reluctant to take my camera with me when I went out because it was overcast and wet. My boyfriend reminded me how it's possible to get some very pretty shots when it's been raining, and as the red flowers prove, he was correct. I tend to rely a lot on changes in natural light for my shots, which is probably the sign of a poor photographer, but then I've never suggested I'm anything special (I still don't know all the fabulous things my camera can do and I've had it nearly a year). Anyway, without further delay, I present...

Vanilla Views Autumn Special: Part 1 - Nature

Greetings, Autumn. The Kettle's On...

2007-09-30T00:19:00.000+01:00

Autumn has arrived in earnest, it seems, which I'm rather pleased about. Transitional seasons have always felt the most important to me, the most distinctive. I particularly love October and November. Okay, so there's more of my hair in the hairbrush, my nose is cold and I keep buying hats and eating too much, but it's somehow pleasant nonetheless. A friend said on Facebook that she was excited because "it smells like Halloween." Due to a regrettably blocked nose, I can't smell anything, but it feels autumnal; for a start, I recall the feeling of starting school terms/university semesters, all the new things to learn, all the new routines. Then there's getting up and leaving the house in darkness, which most people hate, but which always thrills me a tiny bit, as though I'm off to do something special (even though it's just work and it wears off eventually).

I can wrap up in my favourite scarf, which my boyfriend found in a lost property box and gave me a few weeks after we met, and which is wide and long enough to double as a two-man tent, should we ever get lost in the wilderness.

Oh, and hot porridge with raisins. Soak the oats and the raisins in milk overnight (in the fridge, of course), and it reduces the cooking time, and plumps up the raisins. Yum.

Then there's the pleasant tingling when you enter a warm room after a bracing walk. The trees turn to fire and kindly offer up crunchy carpets for us to stomp through. The festive feeling in the air, when it's mild and anticipatory and exciting, as opposed to in December when everything becomes a shallow, manic, stressful, consumer hell replete with waving snowmen and demon santas. The cards are already appearing in the shops...

I'm still a bit poorly but it didn't stop me going on a little "photo shoot" today in Dublin, the results of which I will present to you here as soon as Blogger lets me (it's all rather slow and disfunctional at present)...don't exhaust your enthusiasm quota though - save some for Christmas! *shudder*

Floral Intermission

2007-09-24T21:52:00.000+01:00

I'm off sick today, so all I've done is eat, worry about weight gain, sleep, sneeze, cough, eat more, sleep more, flip through books, and anticipate my boyfriend's timely delivery of Benylin. Oh and did I mention eating? I'm a big fan of feeding a cold...

Anyway, in lieu of anything interesting to say, here's a visual intermission until I'm better. I took these shots in my friend's house in Sheffield, while she was getting ready for a night on the town. A night that illustrated how old we were both getting when the general consensus was that everything was too loud; we then bought wine and snacks and hotfooted home to gossip until 3am and listen to Neutral Milk Hotel in our pyjamas. Hurrah for ageing!

Vanilla-Flavoured Frippery

2007-09-23T22:45:00.000+01:00

Having a few quid left at the end of the month is something of a novelty, but probably one that won't last, so I recently treated myself to a brand new iPod Classic (which is well beyond my technological requirements - a pocket gramaphone would probably have served just as well). I also purchased a rather lovely amber ring and a World of Art book called The Pre-Raphaelites (which, according to the review on the back, is "free of cant". I assume the reviewer's monocle popped out as he wrote that line). As regular readers know, the guilt I attach to such purchases is somewhat extreme, as well as being entirely useless (in that I do nothing to appease the guilt). Sitting here on the eve of my return to work after a rather hectic break, preparing for monotony and still streaming with cold, I have been idly surfing the net and sipping tea while my boyfriend tests out the beta build of Call of Duty 4. Whilst doing so, I chose a few sites that indulged my girlish love of fripperies. Very much for the ladies, here's the top four:

What Katie Did

Sexy, saucy, vintage underwear - and by that, I mean underwear styled on vintage fashions, as opposed to very old used pants. Which would be rather unpleasant. I probably couldn't wear much of this stuff, but it's all very fancy and I rather like the corsetry. Perhaps it would be a wise investment after tonight's takeaway binge.

The Art of Adornment

Gothic and Victorian accessories for ladies with lots of money and no dress code, by Canadian artist Elaine Foster. I'm particularly fond of the huge black lace chokers, despite the fact that if I wore one, I'd look like a mad old tart.

Green Shoes

Yeah, yeah, I know; I'm always sandwich-boarding about this site with their fab handmade, tailored-to-your-foot, sensible shoes. But I love them. And you should too.

Hotel Chocolat

Gourmet mail-order chocolates. I've never treated myself with anything from this site (though if I did, I'd head straight for the white chocolate range), but I've used it to send gifts to others, and there's currently a 100% satisfaction rate as far as the recipients are concerned. They arrive on time, in perfect condition, and there's heaps of stuff to choose from. I have it on good authority that these chocolates are the ultimate in decadence - and any chocolate big enough to require more than one bite gets my vote.

Jeez, I must be hormonal or something.

On a less sickeningly female note, here are a few more Vanilla Views. I suppose you'd call them the dregs - nothing that exciting, a bit out of focus, lop-sided, too dark/bright, badly composed...but I rather like them and they're unmistakably vanilla. Which is enough of a reason to post them here, I reckon.

A Vanilla View of London

2007-09-23T00:11:00.000+01:00

My visit to London was, as always, brief and lacking in the chance to take in the sights. One day I'll go to London with the sole intention of taking photographs, but on this occasion I took my mother to the Tate. When I say the Tate, most people assume I mean Tate Modern, which is a testament to that gallery's success, but taking my mum there was never an option. Upon seeing a piece of modern art, she declared that it resembled "the Pepperami man off the adverts". Hence, she probably wouldn't much enjoy Tate Modern, where there are dirty beds, giant metal spiders and a video of a clown having a tantrum. Tate Britain it was, then.

I've been to the Tate a good few times, but I always forget how many of my favourite pieces are there. I found most of the Pre-Raphaelites that I enjoy, and it was a particular joy to see John William Waterhouse's the Lady of Shallot again. Every time I go, I discover a new painting or sculpture to love. This time it was Hope, by George Frederic Watts, and Jacob and the Angel, by Sir Jacob Epstein (both pictures taken from the gallery's website).

Hope - George Frederic Watts, 1886

Jacob and the Angel - Sir Jacob Epstein, 1940

My mum declared the paintings I liked to be quite sad, though I suppose that's part of the appeal. Once a miserable goth, always a miserable goth.

Once outside, I managed to take a couple of Very Vanilla Views for you, before sampling some London pub fare - a cheese sandwich and a bowl of chips is a strangely tasty combination, especially when you couple it with three Budvars and follow it up with vanilla ice cream. Then we boarded the underground train home, where no one looked at anyone, preferring to stare out at the tunnel walls and at their own maudlin reflections.

A statue trying to escape its confines, Millbank

The SIS building and Vauxhall Bridge

A statue outside the Tate

Some very vanilla lamps

The Return of the Vanilla One

2007-09-21T17:00:00.000+01:00

Hello dear readers - I'm back in Dublin after a jolly little jaunt to Sheffield and East London. I have returned with some postcards from Tate Britain, a rotten cold and a charmingly meaty cough. Hooray for airports and all their delicious germs.

A special loveheart goes out to Stansted for their fun security system, which ensures that no matter how early you arrive for your flight, you'll still barely make it to the boarding gate. This is thanks to the huge, miserable queues of people, all clutching their make-up and medicines in plastic bags, juggling jackets and laptops and babies, and in some cases, crying or swearing because their flight is about to leave without them. Angry husbands jostle their dithering wives, who have forgotten about the industrial paint-can-sized perfume bottle they have in their handbags. Italian women exclaim loudly and shove their way to the front, only to appear some time later in the same departure lounge as the ordinary queuing Joes. Shoes are removed and suddenly we are confronted by reams of bums as people bend to retie their footwear. Bags come undone and spew their contents across the paths of people rushing for a gate that is 12 minutes' walk away, unless you are elderly, infirm, or have not properly tied your shoes. Bootlaces flail and tempers fray. It's for our own good, etc. etc. Bravo indeed. An additional compulsory measure should be introduced - one free stiff drink for everyone upon entry to the airport.

I am feeling an aversion for transport at present, having spent more time on it in the last week than I would normally spend in several months. When in Dublin, I'll use the Luas once or twice a week, I'll take a cab once every 10 days and a Dart only about once a month. Compared to the past six days, where I've been on 5 buses, 5 underground trains, 5 trams and 2 planes, along with a couple of trips in an Astra and one in a VW Polo. I also had a ride on an exercise bike - in a desperate attempt to ward off Transport Apathy. Last year, I had to take a daily 40-minute train ride to and from work, but that was sandwiched between two 40-minute walks, and I was heading where no other sensible individual would dream of working, so the train was always quiet. I have no idea how people can sit in vehicles for hours every day, surrounded by children, armpits and tuna sandwiches. When my body gives out on me, I'll be on one of those electric wheelchairs, carving up the main road at 15 miles an hour.

It was great to see my friends and folks in the UK, but I have missed my skimmed milk and high-fibre cereals, my Carte Noir, my crunchy seed bread, my skin-peelingly powerful shower and the chance to stroll at my leisure. I have also missed my boyfriend, who welcomed me home with lovely flowers and not a stray sock in sight. That said, I think he enjoyed his brief bachelordom far more than he's letting on. Our surrogate cat has also been missed, though I'm guessing she'll turn up her kitty nose at my short absence - ham-flavoured bribery should resolve that problem, however. And I have missed my blog, of course, dear readers, if there are any of you left!

My seed bread welcomes me back to Dublin

Sheffield Vanilla Views

I was in Sheffield for only a short time - just over 24 hours, in fact - but I still managed to get a few shots. And by shots, I mean photographs, not booze. (I drank wine instead, ho ho.)

Orchard Square, a nice little shopping precinct on Fargate.

Some carefully-arranged police cones on Fargate, the main shopping area in Sheffield's town centre.

On the way to the bus station, my friend and I braved some wee-scented steps and I'm rather glad we did, because I turned round and saw this nice building looming up behind us.

A Short Vanilla Break

2007-09-13T23:57:00.000+01:00

I've not been too prolific of late, and now I'm swanning off for a week so it's unlikely I'll be doing any blogging until I return. A night in Sheffield, revisiting my past and meeting good friends, and then onto Barking and Romford to greet my parents (who, to my shame, I haven't seen since Christmas). I'm taking my camera so hopefully there will be some Vanilla Views to astound you all with upon my return. Very Vanilla indeed if I take any of Barking. In fact, I'd go so far as to say ready salted. Without the salt.

Not Very Good Haiku for a Vanilla Break

Farewell for one week -
A short Vanilla absence.
Try chocolate instead.

Tate Britain is planned,
Sheffield town will be explored,
Wine will be imbibed.

New Vanilla Views
should manifest themselves here -
keep your fingers crossed.

Auf Wiedersehen dears.
Await flourishing musings.
Return to me soon.

On Food, Ireland and Animals

2007-09-08T00:01:00.000+01:00

I'm suffering blog block it seems, which sounds like a stomach complaint or a job for Domestos, but is in fact a lack of things to scribble. You guys know it all already...Pavarotti is dead, it's finally stopped raining, there's the smell of a new school term in the air and Keira Knightly still can't pose for a photograph without pulling that odd goldfish-mouth expression. You're probably not interested in my daily happenings either; Tesco deliveries, power naps and studying German are not exactly engaging subjects. I was surfing the net randomly earlier and stumbled across someone's live web cam of their room. It was just a room, very ordinary, with some fairy lights blinking on and off. I felt a tiny bit creeped out and went back to reading the news. You don't want to see inside my house, and I sure as hell don't want you to either, even though I just cleaned it and everything's currently quite splendid-looking, now that I've evicted most of the spiders (sorry chaps, but if you're not going to catch the flying bugs that have invaded the bathroom, you have to leave).

So, what to say? When I began this blog, I had a definite format. Factoids, photos, the occasional vanilla review. Formats are comforting. They provide structure. Perhaps I should go back to the format. Tonight, however, I have nothing to review, no photos to hand, and factoids are not forthcoming, unless you want to know the fat content for a ham, leek and mushroom quiche.

Or perhaps I should come up with crazy sandwich fillings and post those - but whatever I invent, you'll no doubt be able to think of worse. When I was a kid, one of the things I liked best between two slices of bread and margarine was mashed potato and tomato sauce. If there was any cheese about, all the better. That said, I was the child who bought the Tracey Special from the ice cream van and dipped my hot dog-flavoured crisps into it. For the uninitiated, a Tracey Special was a large cone with proper whippy ice cream, which was half-dipped in hundreds and thousands and half-dipped in chopped nuts, and then drizzled with strawberry sauce. And hot-dog flavoured crisps alone are pretty unfathomable, but dipped in a Tracey Special? I think even Heston Blumenthal would lay down his mini blowtorch and back away. I used to dip my McDonald's fries into my vanilla milkshake as well though, so I think I had taste bud issues. And probably artery issues too, come to think of it.

Speaking of heart-busting treats, I was chatting to people at work today and the conversation momentarily strayed from the new iPods to the subject of Scotch Eggs. That bastion of the English picnic is, it seems, virtually unheard of over here in Ireland. You can buy them in Marks and Spencer because everything's imported from the UK, but otherwise, they are nowhere to be seen. I have an immense weakness for Scotch Eggs, so much so that I insist on writing the name in title case. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here's a really, really unappetising picture of one, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Basically, it's a boiled egg covered in sausagemeat and breadcrumbs. One of my horrified colleagues declared that only deep-frying it could make it even less healthy. Ping! That's exactly what happens - it's deep-fried until the breadcrumbs are nice and golden, or in the case of the prepackaged versions, a spooky orange colour. You can get tiny versions of them too, with egg mayo in the middle. Usually when I've finished describing them, people look a little unwell.

Another English "phenomenon" that Ireland has ignored seems to be the jacket potato. In England, there are restaurants and kiosks devoted to adding as many different fillings/toppings as possible to a humble jacket spud, presumably in the hope of disguising the blandness. Give me a handful of grated cheese on one and I'm happy. I'm always scandalised when people leave the skins. Ahhh, simple pleasures.

The longer I live in Ireland, the more I discover these little differences. I was panicking today about what to serve people when they come over for a buffet (how eighties of me - cheese and pineapple on sticks, anyone?), and a friend suggested smoked salmon on brown bread, because it was a something of a Irish tradition. When I'd finished making puke faces, I realised I hadn't heard of the combination when I lived in England. (Any of my prospective buffet guests reading this; there will be no salmon, sorry. My gag reflex would be too much for you to bear, and the cat would probably tear up the house to get to it, only to lick it sufficiently to make it inedible and then walk away, leaving potato salad-covered paw prints in her wake. Quiche and crisps and other eighties snacks will be present though, provided I don't wake up in the middle of the night and eat them all).

I suppose I could go on, comparing my England to my Ireland in a very microcosmic way, but I'm boring myself to death here, and I get the feeling that you've all nodded off or gone back to drooling over the iPod Touch, so perhaps I'll stop.

Perhaps though, I could redeem myself with some factoids to do with animals and food? Well, I can try can't I?

Macadamia nuts, grapes, raisins and onions are all toxic for dogs. One wonders why anyone would feed such things to dogs in the first place. They seem just as happy gnawing away on an old boot.

Cats are severely allergic to Panadol. Again, at which point does someone decide that their cat has a headache and supplies the necessary analgesic?

Many wasps are omnivious, feeding on insects as well as nectar. Some species actively scavenge for dead insects in order to feed their young. Which just reinforces my view of them as Most Evil Bastard Creatures in Existence.

Elephants can spend around 16 hours a day gathering food, which is about the equivalent amount of time I spend thinking about food. While they eat somewhere in the region of 140-270kg food, Wiki states in a very delicate manner, "60% of that food leaves the elephant's body undigested." They poo 60% of their food without digesting it - it seems such a waste of time. In the same way that some butterflies will only live for a day despite spending a torturous amount of time developing from a caterpillar, it sounds like someone got bored when they were drawing up the evolution blueprints and went for a few ales instead.

Fewer Emergencies Review

2007-09-04T22:26:00.000+01:00

A review I wrote for a play showing in Dublin's Project Arts Centre - 4 September issue, page 15 (the title wasn't my own):

http://www.playsonthenet.com/potn/?curtainrising=archive

Admittedly, not the greatest piece of writing I've ever produced, but just about readable.