The Happy Egg

Girl on the Northern Line

Girl on the Northern Line... wants to head South. Wants to go home.

Today I handed in all my coursework and then sat an excruciating forty minute Chinese listening exam. Despite nailing the question in which you pick a menu for each mythical candidate according to their likes and dislikes, I blindly guessed the answer to pretty much every question. In the words of Clare, who is hitch-hiking to Morocco tomorrow, ' what larks!'. So now that I've effectuated a re-sit and ascertained two thousand word's worth of physical differences between a crisp sheet of modern paper and a piece of bristling Medieval parchment, I'm ready to come home. More than ready. I just don't know what I'm going to do with myself over the next three days. Avoid Shentacles, naturally, as she's on a mission to hire the two of us a female stripper, (she's going through a 'phase'), and perhaps get my teeth stuck into some meaty blackboard. There's that 'Subversive Spaces' exhibition on next door that I've meaning to go to for ages, along with laundry, packing and the removal of the sleazy piles of crockery that crust silently in the crevices of my prison cell. (I've got all the plates, I've got ALL the plates.) Yet I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm most probably going to just sleep, like the fetid heap that I am, for the forseeable future. Unless I get a better offer. Which would of course be looking for hotels in Paris with my Creature, at my Creature's, or shopping for nauticalia around the Seven Dials.

P.S 我不想汉语。

Boxes of Tangerines

I never thought I'd blog about a musician but despite finding her vaguely sinister and really rather subversive, I feel I have to credit Spektor as an oddly magnificent poet.

The Power of Three

One

The little book on the left is the latest addition to my fledgling Pelican collection. Although I only have two at the moment, mostly hindered by the astronomical prices offered by Oxford Road OXFAM (£1.99 each!), I keep bearing in mind that from tiny acorns mighty oaks do grow. Despite being a much more recent publication (1958) than the Bennet (1938) it is still a pretty, and extremely charming, addition to my bookshelf. Plus the yellowed pages smell sweetly delightful.

Two

I came across this tentatively scribbled on the metal doors at the back of Manchester Academy and couldn't help but wonder what the author's intention was. The choice of diction, combined with the self-conscious squiggle, leads me to believe that they were undeniably making a parody of graffiti and thus taking part in mindful vandalism. Anyways, I like the mottled effect of the light and colours on the metal in the photograph and the way you can just about discern my two reflections.



Three

At last, a visible end to a farcical election. Witnessing this scene just enforced how disposible the candidates really are with their replicated posters and substanceless manifestos...

This Month Day Ten

Today my body told me there was no reason to wake up. After checking my alarm my brain told me that I was already ten minutes late for Beginner's Mandarin, confirming what my body had been telling me.


I think that I may be suffering from a mild existential crisis- I just can't find a good enough reason to get out of and stay out of bed. It may be partly due to living in the most uninspiring and desolate accommodation known to student, (no offence, Sophie) but it may be also be due to never having felt as though my life here in Manchester is 'real' or permanent in any way. I think this may be a result of the six months I spent in China as I conditioned myself to maintain simultaneous lives whilst never being fully able to immerse myself into the new, alternate one. It's not an ideal situation and at the moment I just feel as though four hours a week of classes is not worth losing three years of my life on. Even my wardrobe is feeling the effects; it's rammed full of beautiful, neglected clothes that I just see as being 'wasted' on the anonymous and drab persona I perpetuate here. To make matters worse, I'm pretty sure that I've contracted some form of starvation. At five 0' clock this evening, en route back from LIDL, I discovered that I hadn't eaten anything all day, and moreover my stomach hadn't alerted me to this fact via any form of rumblings or pangs. Even my own bag of bones is trying to kill me off!


In other news I am heartily disappointed with the repetitive nature of the Student Union election posters and billboards currently promoting "idiots and morons" (Joseph Morton) around campus. Not only do they entirely replicate each other in terms of their abject banality and shoddy construction, every single one follows the formulaic structure of:



(Cardboard box + white paint delineating unpronouncable candidate name) - any personal or distinguishing touch or image = annually dwindling voter turnout.


Bleh.


Anyway, my crocus sighting in Whitworth Park is misleading, concealing the fact that it is, alas, still only two dregrees centigrade and the reality that Spring is still quite a distance away. However, I made up my mind to visit the Whitworth Art Gallery soon. The 'Subversive Spaces' exhibition could be rather...subversive. I was also given a free mug today. As I dragged my weary form through the gates of my halls I noticed a flourescent tent set up and a be-vested being heading towards me. Instantly assuming that they were recruiting for blood donation or worse, charity, I veered away from them only to be persued and handed a mug by a smiling representative of the University Careers Service. (A stiff wake up call to the perils of cynicism.) I guess with my matted hair and haggard exterior I looked as though I was already in dire need of their services...



Progress on my coursework has ground to a standstill at seven hundred words. I, too, feel like a monk, subjugating my body via the manual labour of writing for the future benefit of the soul. I guess I won't find that out that result on the feedback cover sheet.


I've also been reading up on the Straight Edge movement. It's kind of interesting in light of my more recent dabblings in teetotality and militant anti-drugs and smoking stance. Just gotta get my 'X' tattoo now... ;-)


"I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and fuck my head
Hang out with the living dead.

I've got the straight edge."


(Minor Threat)


I'm worried I'm become a radical...

Cotton and Guns

My first day back in Manchester, after a blissful long weekend in Londontown, was aptly despondent. Dragging my carcass to my nine o' clock lecture did, however, provide some light relief in the shape of a kagool-clad Maori warrior hailing a Stagecoach bus to the Southern Cemetary. Naturally.

Although the lecture was thought-provoking, discussing issues of gender and the Oedipal dream in Frankenstein, I had no choice but to return to bed immediately afterwards - not rousing until four. My slumber was plagued by unexplained dark noises ('whales dying'- Tony Lee) and hideous dreams until I awoke facing the realities of starvation; encountering nausea, disorientation, paranoia and probably a degree of hysteria in discovering that the fridge had been PURGED of all my persishables and my cheese had been left on a side to rot. (My last ingestion being a cheese and pickle sandwich at approximately 7.30pm the evening before.) Naturally, I recoiled into my memories of the weekend to escape the grim realities of school, petri dish-like growths in EVERY item of crockery, a rancid kitchen, a rancid bedroom, perpetually blocked toilets and the impossible task of writing two thousand words on how you turn a cow into a Bible...

I had such a wonderful weekend. Thursday night was spent exploring the majestic catacombs of London Bridge tube station which, with the acquisition of some rather tragic performance art, some rather more promising 'vis com' installations, an adorable installation of a chintzy, lamp-lit lounge and a ska band, becomes hot alternative club night SHUNT. A couple of months ago I would have been determined to condemn the entire concept as a 'circus' but with the right company, and an open mind, I was finally able to shed my contemporary art-phobic paranoia and simply enjoy the whole experience. The venue actually slightly reminded me of the Ming Tombs, although the scattering of tea-lights in beer glasses lent it a completely different ambience. Friday was spent sleeping and drinking perfect coffees topped with squirty cream, occasionally punctuated with episodes of Alan Partridge. Saturday consisted of a trip to Covent Garden to find Jian Wei some replacement footwear and to see me in raptures in the Cath Kidston store. A surprise discovery was MUJI, a Japanese minimalist store stocked with affordably addictive stationery and homewear. Jian Wei bought me a chunky perspex holepunch which I can safely say is the most stylish object on my desk. I've subsequently been madly holepunching everything in sight, ever since. MUJI was followed by a Chai Tea Latte and a peruse around the Seven Dials followed by the 243 bus home. (Not the number one.)

The worried face that accompanied us, throughout our panicked rush to catch the National Express back to Manchester, concealed my hopeful desire of missing the coach so that I could stay for a little bit longer.

I wish I was still in London. I wish I was always in London really.

Drip drip drop

I'm troubled by the notion of to blog or not to blog. The medium itself is constricting. Whether serving as a public diary or a contrived portfolio of how cool you are, both are too formulaic to honestly compell me to write. Wallace Steven's words 'we are the mimics' seem to haunt me as i desperately try to squeeze out sentences that won't make me squirm with self-consciousness. However, as the hideous essays begin crawling from out of the dark places from which they've been banished, I feel internet escapism calling to me and the humble weblog summons me into its open arms, allaying my fears with sweet promises of never judging me on the lineality of my argument or the presentation of my footnotes. Dear little blog, perhaps you have presented me with an arena in which to play with words, sculpt with ideas and paint with reflections, drawn from my previously unexamined life...

Despite the seemingly endless rain, the days are getting longer, as is my hair. My thoughts are turning to summer dresses and Topshop's Spring range is looking promising, the highlights being as follows:

http://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?beginIndex=0&viewAllFlag=&catalogId=19551&storeId=12556&categoryId=151414&parent_category_rn=42344&productId=1091259&langId=-1

and

http://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?beginIndex=0&viewAllFlag=&catalogId=19551&storeId=12556&categoryId=96918&parent_category_rn=42344&productId=1080207&langId=-1

I'm loving what appears to be a big return to the prints of childhood and will definitely be championing this trend once I find the perfect flat T-bar sandles. I'm thinking of white or baby blue leather. Ooh.

I started my coursework for the Textual Communities module about four hours ago and at the last click, word count informed me that I have thirty-two words. This is despite consuming an entire can of 'Monster Ripper', a freebie thrust upon me outside the Student Union yesterday afternoon by a chap, leaning out of the back of a SUV, wearing a black fleece with claw slashes on. I was intrigued as to how it would compare to 22p LIDL classic, 'Stimulation Drink', which although coming in smaller portions, does exactly what it says on the tin. I'm particularly perplexed by the recurring images of claw marks, tigers and monsters: could I even possibly be consuming a more masculine product?

Ta ta for now. x

P.S Jian Wei quote in his blog that mine is 'already better than his'. This is because Keates and Yeats are on my side. ;)