Sunday, 28 February 2010
Things that I have done this week:
1. Read a book about telepathic spiders
2. Tried to pay for a pair of tights in M&S using a red pepper: the same colour as my wallet, and also in my hand
bag. A lesson to us all to avoid sporadic grocery shopping.
3. Fallen in love with THIS bird:
4. Tried GIANT AFGHAN FOOD: a hunk o’ meat the size of my arm, on a naan bread the size of my face.
5. Sat next to a penny whistle player at a pub gathering of folk musicians. Tried to blend in by bobbing and weaving to hide the fact that I was the only one there without an instrument.
6. Danced in a Ceilidh, sometimes pretending to be a man, sometimes with a Spaniard.
7. Forgot where I lived.
8. Learned how to say ‘you’re crazy’ in Arabic.
9. Drank mint tea which reminded me of Morocco, and Cinnamon tea which will now remind me of Asem’s mum’s kitchen.
10. Ingested my yearly quota of pancakes. Prompted by Pancake Day, rediscovered the pancake food group. Got through 12 eggs in 1 week. Don’t want to look a pancake in the eye for at least another 12 months.
2. Tried to pay for a pair of tights in M&S using a red pepper: the same colour as my wallet, and also in my hand
bag. A lesson to us all to avoid sporadic grocery shopping. 
3. Fallen in love with THIS bird:
4. Tried GIANT AFGHAN FOOD: a hunk o’ meat the size of my arm, on a naan bread the size of my face.
5. Sat next to a penny whistle player at a pub gathering of folk musicians. Tried to blend in by bobbing and weaving to hide the fact that I was the only one there without an instrument.
6. Danced in a Ceilidh, sometimes pretending to be a man, sometimes with a Spaniard.
7. Forgot where I lived.
8. Learned how to say ‘you’re crazy’ in Arabic.
9. Drank mint tea which reminded me of Morocco, and Cinnamon tea which will now remind me of Asem’s mum’s kitchen.
10. Ingested my yearly quota of pancakes. Prompted by Pancake Day, rediscovered the pancake food group. Got through 12 eggs in 1 week. Don’t want to look a pancake in the eye for at least another 12 months.
Fi
Friday, 26 February 2010
An Ode to Fi's Tea
For too many years I failed to see
The wonders of the World of Tea,
Green or chai, black or white,
I never knew the comfort of a cuppa at night.
But Fifi, she knew,
That the cure to being blue,
Is a steaming hot cup,
For a chatter and a sup.
So all hail to thee, the Queen of Tea
(To you and me, that's Mademoiselle Fi!)
The wonders of the World of Tea,
Green or chai, black or white,
I never knew the comfort of a cuppa at night.
But Fifi, she knew,
That the cure to being blue,
Is a steaming hot cup,
For a chatter and a sup.
So all hail to thee, the Queen of Tea
(To you and me, that's Mademoiselle Fi!)
An Ode to Emma's Cakes
There ain’t no baker like Emmylou,
Queen of Icing and Cake Mix too.
She’ll whip up cupcakes in a flash
That look so tempting, I would dash
Through storms and seas to grab one bite!
I’d even hold vigil every night
To make sure no one came between
My tastebuds and the Cupcake Queen!
Fi
Queen of Icing and Cake Mix too.
She’ll whip up cupcakes in a flash
That look so tempting, I would dash
Through storms and seas to grab one bite!
I’d even hold vigil every night
To make sure no one came between
My tastebuds and the Cupcake Queen!
Fi
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Fi's Tea and Em's Cakes, part deux
So... we love cake and tea. Fact. And what better way to celebrate that than a regular tea and cake fiesta. In my dreams, Fi and I open up a beautiful little cake and tea shop, where I make red velvet and chocolate cherry cakes, and we drink tea all day, make some money out of it, and also use the shop as our art gallery/production studio... Ahhh, dreams. Maybe this will become the blueprint for the revolution: tea and cakes as a means to combat bad stuff. And maybe, Fi and I will start this off in our living rooms NOW, making it a regular kinda thing for anyone who's interested. Watch this space...!
Emma's To Do List:
1. Work out how to make myself invisible
2. Learn how to make own champagne (and drink it)
3. Destroy evil capitalist corporations
4. Party with Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Gandhi, Blondie and the Dalai Lama
5. Invent a new type of cake
6. Re-decorate Buckingham Palace (I'm thinking shades of purple...)
7. Participate in Mexican knife fight (and get non-life threatening but cool scar)
8. Learn to love soya milk
9. Stop time
10. Pick up dry cleaning
1. Work out how to make myself invisible
2. Learn how to make own champagne (and drink it)
3. Destroy evil capitalist corporations
4. Party with Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Gandhi, Blondie and the Dalai Lama
5. Invent a new type of cake
6. Re-decorate Buckingham Palace (I'm thinking shades of purple...)
7. Participate in Mexican knife fight (and get non-life threatening but cool scar)
8. Learn to love soya milk
9. Stop time
10. Pick up dry cleaning
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Softy Southerner meets Northern Aerobics, and expires.
I know they’re made of sterner stuff up north, but their aerobics instructors are a truly fearsome breed. It’s not like I’m new to the peculiar world of aerobics – I’ve spent many an hour prancing about to ’80s remixes and catching my sweaty “mad woman of the woods” reflection in the wall mirror (the public can think themselves lucky I don’t often jog outdoors).
I’ve grown accustomed to the wrath of instructors as I trip over my own knee caps when attempting to grape vine and bring down the other women like a stack of lycra-clad dominoes. I’ve long believed that I burn more calories in a class by having a fit of hysterics at the back than by following any of the steps. I’ve met instructors in many shapes and in various stages of neurosis, from the merely highly strung to the one who stopped the music mid way through, divided the class into under 25s and over 25s, and made us perform a series of ‘tough man’ challenges until the over 25s won and one girl had a bloody nose.
What I had not yet encountered was the peculiar Mancunian mixture of bitter mockery and sincere threat that seems to hold sway over Northern fitness. Perhaps it would make sense if I’d ventured into ‘kick ass judo for the burly and vengeful’, but all I’ve attended so far is body balance and yoga!
Body balance, despite mostly consisting of movements reminiscent of a kitten encountering a piece of lint, was enforced without mercy. The class was guided by a rotund woman with a voice capable of giving a regiment of the French Foreign Legion an attack of the jelly legs. Woe betide anyone who chased their imaginary lint in the wrong direction; if tasers were allowed in gyms, hers would be the first name on the order form.
Dear reader, I write in a state of difficulty, having heaved my mangled body away from this evening’s encounter with Mancunian yoga. After two hours of careful teasing, I’ve managed to remove my toe from my left ear, and the stabbing pains in most of my body are beginning to subside.
Part of the reason I’m in this state is sheer panic; when a man threatens to sit on you if you don’t straighten your back while sticking your neck between your legs, you straighten your back and to hell with the vertebrae! I’d never before associated yoga so much with the word pain, but as he guided us through each pose, laughing callously as joints snapped and tendons juddered, he informed us that we’d know when we got it right when the pain kicked in. Never before have I aimed to acquire a burning sensation in my spine. I do not intend to do it again.
Fi
I’ve grown accustomed to the wrath of instructors as I trip over my own knee caps when attempting to grape vine and bring down the other women like a stack of lycra-clad dominoes. I’ve long believed that I burn more calories in a class by having a fit of hysterics at the back than by following any of the steps. I’ve met instructors in many shapes and in various stages of neurosis, from the merely highly strung to the one who stopped the music mid way through, divided the class into under 25s and over 25s, and made us perform a series of ‘tough man’ challenges until the over 25s won and one girl had a bloody nose.
What I had not yet encountered was the peculiar Mancunian mixture of bitter mockery and sincere threat that seems to hold sway over Northern fitness. Perhaps it would make sense if I’d ventured into ‘kick ass judo for the burly and vengeful’, but all I’ve attended so far is body balance and yoga!
Body balance, despite mostly consisting of movements reminiscent of a kitten encountering a piece of lint, was enforced without mercy. The class was guided by a rotund woman with a voice capable of giving a regiment of the French Foreign Legion an attack of the jelly legs. Woe betide anyone who chased their imaginary lint in the wrong direction; if tasers were allowed in gyms, hers would be the first name on the order form.
Dear reader, I write in a state of difficulty, having heaved my mangled body away from this evening’s encounter with Mancunian yoga. After two hours of careful teasing, I’ve managed to remove my toe from my left ear, and the stabbing pains in most of my body are beginning to subside.
Part of the reason I’m in this state is sheer panic; when a man threatens to sit on you if you don’t straighten your back while sticking your neck between your legs, you straighten your back and to hell with the vertebrae! I’d never before associated yoga so much with the word pain, but as he guided us through each pose, laughing callously as joints snapped and tendons juddered, he informed us that we’d know when we got it right when the pain kicked in. Never before have I aimed to acquire a burning sensation in my spine. I do not intend to do it again.
Fi
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
March of the Grannies
Each year, a truly remarkable journey takes place as it has done for millennia. Woolly clad grannies in their thousands abandon the tea scented security of their homes and clamber onto the frozen ice to begin their long journey into a region so bleak, so extreme, it supports no other wildlife…
The Hazards of Housekeeping
I’ve decided I’m not going to do any more cleaning – I’ll just leave things to mass until the mice break in and eat the surplus.
The following things have occurred since I opened and attempted to construct and use my new hoover:
1. I caught my thumb between the hose pipe and the metal bit when fitting them together.
2. I punched myself in the face when trying to pull the hose pipe and the metal bit apart again when they got stuck.
3. I pulled all my jewellery across my hall when the lead got caught round my bedroom table.
4. I didn’t find the magic hoover pipe extender switch until too late and gave myself a hunchback trying to use the improbably short hoover pipe (see Diagram A).
5. I’ve half lost my voice from singing along to Beyonce too loudly above the hoover noise.
Surely, a lesson to us all to live in our own filth.
The following things have occurred since I opened and attempted to construct and use my new hoover:
1. I caught my thumb between the hose pipe and the metal bit when fitting them together.
2. I punched myself in the face when trying to pull the hose pipe and the metal bit apart again when they got stuck.
3. I pulled all my jewellery across my hall when the lead got caught round my bedroom table.
4. I didn’t find the magic hoover pipe extender switch until too late and gave myself a hunchback trying to use the improbably short hoover pipe (see Diagram A).
5. I’ve half lost my voice from singing along to Beyonce too loudly above the hoover noise.
Surely, a lesson to us all to live in our own filth.
Fi
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Winning a Wife
This etching is inspired by a story I heard in Central Asia that in order to win the woman he wants to marry, a man and his potential bride are both given horses and the man must catch up with the woman, but she gets a head start so it's really up to her (unless she's as bad at horseriding as I am) Fi
Walls are Talking at The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester
In presenting their new exhibition “Walls are Talking” the Whitworth Gallery emphasises the artists’ subversive use of wallpaper as a medium - how surprising that it can be used to discuss topics as serious as warfare, racism, and gender! It is as if they are anticipating their audience to find it farcical that artists might find wallpaper a useful canvas to carry their message.
Of course artistic battles have long been played out on the home front. From the Surrealists (Meret Oppenheim’s ‘Object (Le Dejeuner en Fourrure)’, 1936), to Pop Art (Richard Hamilton’s ‘Just What Was it That Made Yesterday’s Homes So Different, So Appealing’, 1959), to the YBAs (Tracey Emin’s appliqué blanket ‘Hate and Power can be a Terrible Thing’, 2004), artists have turned domestic materials into a canvas. Subverting the most everyday and familiar items strikes at the heart of people’s lives and their conceptions of identity and reality; it is one of the most useful tools to artists trying to get a message across.
The exhibition has a strongly surrealist tone, partly because the work it contains so often makes reference to Victorian social and aesthetic values; revolting against their Victorian predecessors was a major driving force behind the Surrealist movement that began in the early 1920s.
The exhibition displays many original examples of Victorian wallpaper. Victorian decoration was often guided by their belief that scenes depicted on their walls would influence the room’s inhabitants. In one example of Victorian nursery wallpaper, a diamond pattern contains scenes of children diligently employed through each of the year’s four seasons. Another displays a catalogue of scenes from Robinson Crusoe, intended to inspire self reliance and discipline in those nursery inhabitants confined between the images. In the seasonal design, barely any attention has been paid to drawing the children’s faces, giving rise to the suggestion of how little Victorians valued individuality in comparison to conformity and respectability.
Several artists in the exhibition subvert these intentions and designs, taking elements of the traditional motifs and incorporating additional, often shocking images of their own. Francesco Simeti’s ‘Acorn’ takes the decorative frames of traditional ‘print room’ wallpaper and replaces the images they contain with disturbing scenes of chemical warfare and figures in biohazard suits dealing with contamination. Another of his works, ‘Arabian Nights’, takes a traditional wallpaper design of tranquil landscape scenes. Within the motifs he incorporates images of Afghan refugees displaced by the war – they are displaced again within the rigid confines of the repeated paradise that echoes across the wall.
The repetitive nature of wallpaper design makes it the perfect vehicle for commenting on media culture and the proliferation of images. Who better to display as an example of this than Andy Warhol, whose “Mao Wallpaper” features a repeated design of the dictator’s face, just as Mao’s face formed the wallpaper of China as a nation. The work is at once imposing in Mao’s omnipresence, and reductive, as the controlled pattern relieves the face of its significance as it is subsumed by the rhythm of the design.
Many artists make use of wallpaper’s overtly domestic identity to comment on confinement and repression within the home. ‘Five Bar Gate’ by Kelly Mark is filled with lines that appear to mark out time within a prison, but imagined within the home setting they could equally be chores ticked off as they daily grind wears on. In another piece, ‘Cry Baby’, a repeating design of baby faces bloom out at the onlooker in claustrophobic deep pink, echoing the feelings many young parents experience of the walls closing in as they are confined with the constant demands of young children.
As the exhibition demonstrates, wallpaper is irrevocably associated with our living spaces, and as such can be of major significance to our memories and identity. Many people can remember the wallpaper of their house as children, and memories of this image become interwoven with the domestic scenes they formed the backdrop to. In times of physical or mental illness, insomnia, or confinement, the familiarity we gain with our own walls can make their image both intensely comforting and threatening.
Victorian women, for whom the outmoded adage ‘a woman’s place is in the home’ held sway over their entire existence, developed an intense relationship with their home’s furnishings. We need not join the ranks of the Surrealists or modernists to pick apart the misplaced values of this era; in 1892 Charlotte Perkins Gilman first published her 6,000 word short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The story depicts the mental deterioration of a woman forced into confinement by her husband so she can recuperate from “a slight hysterical tendency". Forbidden from working, and totally lacking in stimulation, she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper she is confined by. As she descends further into psychosis she loses herself in the patterns of the wallpaper, imagining women creeping around behind the patterns, eventually believing she is one of them.
This excellent exhibition takes full account of the threatening, comforting, and even political role wallpaper has played, and continues to play. It is well worth a visit.
Of course artistic battles have long been played out on the home front. From the Surrealists (Meret Oppenheim’s ‘Object (Le Dejeuner en Fourrure)’, 1936), to Pop Art (Richard Hamilton’s ‘Just What Was it That Made Yesterday’s Homes So Different, So Appealing’, 1959), to the YBAs (Tracey Emin’s appliqué blanket ‘Hate and Power can be a Terrible Thing’, 2004), artists have turned domestic materials into a canvas. Subverting the most everyday and familiar items strikes at the heart of people’s lives and their conceptions of identity and reality; it is one of the most useful tools to artists trying to get a message across.
The exhibition has a strongly surrealist tone, partly because the work it contains so often makes reference to Victorian social and aesthetic values; revolting against their Victorian predecessors was a major driving force behind the Surrealist movement that began in the early 1920s.
The exhibition displays many original examples of Victorian wallpaper. Victorian decoration was often guided by their belief that scenes depicted on their walls would influence the room’s inhabitants. In one example of Victorian nursery wallpaper, a diamond pattern contains scenes of children diligently employed through each of the year’s four seasons. Another displays a catalogue of scenes from Robinson Crusoe, intended to inspire self reliance and discipline in those nursery inhabitants confined between the images. In the seasonal design, barely any attention has been paid to drawing the children’s faces, giving rise to the suggestion of how little Victorians valued individuality in comparison to conformity and respectability.
Several artists in the exhibition subvert these intentions and designs, taking elements of the traditional motifs and incorporating additional, often shocking images of their own. Francesco Simeti’s ‘Acorn’ takes the decorative frames of traditional ‘print room’ wallpaper and replaces the images they contain with disturbing scenes of chemical warfare and figures in biohazard suits dealing with contamination. Another of his works, ‘Arabian Nights’, takes a traditional wallpaper design of tranquil landscape scenes. Within the motifs he incorporates images of Afghan refugees displaced by the war – they are displaced again within the rigid confines of the repeated paradise that echoes across the wall.
The repetitive nature of wallpaper design makes it the perfect vehicle for commenting on media culture and the proliferation of images. Who better to display as an example of this than Andy Warhol, whose “Mao Wallpaper” features a repeated design of the dictator’s face, just as Mao’s face formed the wallpaper of China as a nation. The work is at once imposing in Mao’s omnipresence, and reductive, as the controlled pattern relieves the face of its significance as it is subsumed by the rhythm of the design.
Many artists make use of wallpaper’s overtly domestic identity to comment on confinement and repression within the home. ‘Five Bar Gate’ by Kelly Mark is filled with lines that appear to mark out time within a prison, but imagined within the home setting they could equally be chores ticked off as they daily grind wears on. In another piece, ‘Cry Baby’, a repeating design of baby faces bloom out at the onlooker in claustrophobic deep pink, echoing the feelings many young parents experience of the walls closing in as they are confined with the constant demands of young children.
As the exhibition demonstrates, wallpaper is irrevocably associated with our living spaces, and as such can be of major significance to our memories and identity. Many people can remember the wallpaper of their house as children, and memories of this image become interwoven with the domestic scenes they formed the backdrop to. In times of physical or mental illness, insomnia, or confinement, the familiarity we gain with our own walls can make their image both intensely comforting and threatening.
Victorian women, for whom the outmoded adage ‘a woman’s place is in the home’ held sway over their entire existence, developed an intense relationship with their home’s furnishings. We need not join the ranks of the Surrealists or modernists to pick apart the misplaced values of this era; in 1892 Charlotte Perkins Gilman first published her 6,000 word short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The story depicts the mental deterioration of a woman forced into confinement by her husband so she can recuperate from “a slight hysterical tendency". Forbidden from working, and totally lacking in stimulation, she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper she is confined by. As she descends further into psychosis she loses herself in the patterns of the wallpaper, imagining women creeping around behind the patterns, eventually believing she is one of them.
This excellent exhibition takes full account of the threatening, comforting, and even political role wallpaper has played, and continues to play. It is well worth a visit.
Fi
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
File under: Adventures and Escapades, Part Uno
The abridged and (hopefully) amusing version of Emma and Fibi's night in Cambridge, 24/9/09:
Chapter 1: Emma arrives in Cambridge at 7pm and her and Fibi set off on their merry way to pizza express where they glug down a bottle of wine, eat 2 slightly cold pizzas, talk about life the universe and everything, and Fibi tries to teach Emma how to flirt (unsuccessfully? maybe not! See chapter 11!)
Chapter 2: Slightly tipsy, our heroines hop in a taxi to the beautiful village of Grantchester, where they force themselves to drink another glass of watery but surprisingly potent red wine before staggering out in the dark down to the punt of doom...
Chapter 3: Emma and Fibi befriend weird beardy guy (who gives Emma a roll-up - which she surprisingly enjoys), punt lady, american punt lady, and Sam the punter who is apparently a novice and who wants to drink champagne whilst punting a boat of drunken people along a pitch black river
Chapter 4: Scary japanese film, amusing B-movie film, scary Birds attacking us movie (weird beardy Tom not happy about scary birds), scary scottish wicker man film. Lots of champagne. Pissed guy on boat jumps off to have a piss (ironic) and splashes in water. Emma mocks weak bladders, something she may come to regret, see next chapter
Chapter 5: Drunken people get out, apart from very drunken Emma and Fibi, who continue in punt on pitch black river with Sam and american punt lady, probably embarrassing themselves with comments and questions. Emma's bladder almost explodes
Chapter 6: Emma and Fibi arrive back in town, where a desperate to pee Emma tries to run out of the punt docks the wrong way and then do her business up an "alley" (in fact, not an alley, a busy road with many restaurants). They run up the street to the cinema bar thing, which hungover Emma cannot remember name of, and run into bathroom. Best.Pee.Ever
Chapter 7: Emma buys Fibi and herself another red wine (big mistake) but they do get a delegate's discount. They sit in an empty bar and talk deeply, meaningfully and profoundly about life (translation: drunkenly, loudly and stupidly)
Chapter 8: Fibi's then boss arrives, not drunk, joins their table and they proceed to talk to him through their hair (Fibi) and not be able to focus on him (Emma). He seems to know all Fi's secrets... Emma tries to stop Fi revealing more secrets. Fi worries about her lazy eye.
Chapter 9: Emma liberates a bag of revels from the Cinema
Chapter 10: Emma and Fibi wander around Cambridge (note from author: Our heroines actually can’t remember this part AT ALL. Their next memory is...)
Chapter 11: They go to get a vegetarian kebab. Emma flirts with the kebab man, who keeps touching her and saying "oh, Emma" and gives them free pizza. The kebab staff try to persuade a loudly disbelieving Emma and Fibi that Barack Obama came to the Kebab shop. Whatever. (Note to selves: get the photo they took of Emma and Fibi and destroy)
Chapter 12: They walk back MILES to house of doom, dropping the kebab and pizza along the way. They have a loud theological debate that makes Fibi's head hurt and which Emma cannot remember
Chapter 13: They sleep for 3 hours
Chapter 14: Within 20 minutes of getting up, they are in a taxi on way to town. The taxi drops them off and they walk in a circle back to where it dropped them to go to a little Italian cafe. Handsome cafe man can tell they are hungover. They eat yoghurt and drink juice, tea and iced tea. Everything tastes gross. Emma calls Barack Obama "Barack Osama Obama" They laugh a lot. They walk unbelievably slowly to the taxi rank, where they have an emotional goodbye. Emma gets a taxi to the railway station (nb. time is 7.58am), Fibi wanders off to find her bike
The End
Appendices: The following texts from Emma and Fibi followed directly after chapter 16:
Emma: "my pyjama bottoms just fell out of my bag outside the train station! Arg! Tried to pay taxi driver with euros, not impressed! really need loo Now this has become a stream of consciousness text! Have a good day chick, thank you for 1 of the best nights EVER! Love you long time xxx"
Fibi: "You fruitloop! Just sing aloud to yourself that'll help the varmit. After u left I walked round town laughing to myself and hiccuping. Then I bought some yazoo. then I found my bike and patted it on the handlebars like a dog. Love u mrs magoo! Ur ace!xxx"
Emma: "What's yazoo? Sounds gd, i want some.... Driest mouth ever. Gonna get a loaf of bread in London, and maybe some grapes. A v.posh business woman opposite me has an "Am I bovered?" ring binder. Weird!xxx"
Emma: "just remembered what yazoo is. I do want some!xxx"
Fibi: "I drank too much yazoo. Auauurgh... Hope you feel better! I have literally no idea how to do the work I've been given so I'm just squinting at the computer screen waiting for something to happen.xx"
Emma: "I just got here [work] and realised most of the clean clothes in my bag have some toothpaste on them somewhere...! Damn! Hope your work magics itself done!"
Chapter 1: Emma arrives in Cambridge at 7pm and her and Fibi set off on their merry way to pizza express where they glug down a bottle of wine, eat 2 slightly cold pizzas, talk about life the universe and everything, and Fibi tries to teach Emma how to flirt (unsuccessfully? maybe not! See chapter 11!)
Chapter 2: Slightly tipsy, our heroines hop in a taxi to the beautiful village of Grantchester, where they force themselves to drink another glass of watery but surprisingly potent red wine before staggering out in the dark down to the punt of doom...
Chapter 3: Emma and Fibi befriend weird beardy guy (who gives Emma a roll-up - which she surprisingly enjoys), punt lady, american punt lady, and Sam the punter who is apparently a novice and who wants to drink champagne whilst punting a boat of drunken people along a pitch black river
Chapter 4: Scary japanese film, amusing B-movie film, scary Birds attacking us movie (weird beardy Tom not happy about scary birds), scary scottish wicker man film. Lots of champagne. Pissed guy on boat jumps off to have a piss (ironic) and splashes in water. Emma mocks weak bladders, something she may come to regret, see next chapter
Chapter 5: Drunken people get out, apart from very drunken Emma and Fibi, who continue in punt on pitch black river with Sam and american punt lady, probably embarrassing themselves with comments and questions. Emma's bladder almost explodes
Chapter 6: Emma and Fibi arrive back in town, where a desperate to pee Emma tries to run out of the punt docks the wrong way and then do her business up an "alley" (in fact, not an alley, a busy road with many restaurants). They run up the street to the cinema bar thing, which hungover Emma cannot remember name of, and run into bathroom. Best.Pee.Ever
Chapter 7: Emma buys Fibi and herself another red wine (big mistake) but they do get a delegate's discount. They sit in an empty bar and talk deeply, meaningfully and profoundly about life (translation: drunkenly, loudly and stupidly)
Chapter 8: Fibi's then boss arrives, not drunk, joins their table and they proceed to talk to him through their hair (Fibi) and not be able to focus on him (Emma). He seems to know all Fi's secrets... Emma tries to stop Fi revealing more secrets. Fi worries about her lazy eye.
Chapter 9: Emma liberates a bag of revels from the Cinema
Chapter 10: Emma and Fibi wander around Cambridge (note from author: Our heroines actually can’t remember this part AT ALL. Their next memory is...)
Chapter 11: They go to get a vegetarian kebab. Emma flirts with the kebab man, who keeps touching her and saying "oh, Emma" and gives them free pizza. The kebab staff try to persuade a loudly disbelieving Emma and Fibi that Barack Obama came to the Kebab shop. Whatever. (Note to selves: get the photo they took of Emma and Fibi and destroy)
Chapter 12: They walk back MILES to house of doom, dropping the kebab and pizza along the way. They have a loud theological debate that makes Fibi's head hurt and which Emma cannot remember
Chapter 13: They sleep for 3 hours
Chapter 14: Within 20 minutes of getting up, they are in a taxi on way to town. The taxi drops them off and they walk in a circle back to where it dropped them to go to a little Italian cafe. Handsome cafe man can tell they are hungover. They eat yoghurt and drink juice, tea and iced tea. Everything tastes gross. Emma calls Barack Obama "Barack Osama Obama" They laugh a lot. They walk unbelievably slowly to the taxi rank, where they have an emotional goodbye. Emma gets a taxi to the railway station (nb. time is 7.58am), Fibi wanders off to find her bike
The End
Appendices: The following texts from Emma and Fibi followed directly after chapter 16:
Emma: "my pyjama bottoms just fell out of my bag outside the train station! Arg! Tried to pay taxi driver with euros, not impressed! really need loo Now this has become a stream of consciousness text! Have a good day chick, thank you for 1 of the best nights EVER! Love you long time xxx"
Fibi: "You fruitloop! Just sing aloud to yourself that'll help the varmit. After u left I walked round town laughing to myself and hiccuping. Then I bought some yazoo. then I found my bike and patted it on the handlebars like a dog. Love u mrs magoo! Ur ace!xxx"
Emma: "What's yazoo? Sounds gd, i want some.... Driest mouth ever. Gonna get a loaf of bread in London, and maybe some grapes. A v.posh business woman opposite me has an "Am I bovered?" ring binder. Weird!xxx"
Emma: "just remembered what yazoo is. I do want some!xxx"
Fibi: "I drank too much yazoo. Auauurgh... Hope you feel better! I have literally no idea how to do the work I've been given so I'm just squinting at the computer screen waiting for something to happen.xx"
Emma: "I just got here [work] and realised most of the clean clothes in my bag have some toothpaste on them somewhere...! Damn! Hope your work magics itself done!"
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Top 5 ways of procrastinating at work this morning:
1. Trying to eat mini cornflake cakes one cornflake at a time without cracking any.
2. Trying to hear what's going on in the mosque underneath our floorboards without getting caught with my head on the floor.
3. Searching for obscure/distantly remembered songs to add to my Spotify playlist.
4. Making little animals out of coloured paperclips.
5. Moving my laptop around 3 different spare desks every hour on the hour.
Fi
1. Trying to eat mini cornflake cakes one cornflake at a time without cracking any.
2. Trying to hear what's going on in the mosque underneath our floorboards without getting caught with my head on the floor.
3. Searching for obscure/distantly remembered songs to add to my Spotify playlist.
4. Making little animals out of coloured paperclips.
5. Moving my laptop around 3 different spare desks every hour on the hour.
Fi
Monday, 1 February 2010
Projects on the Go
As somewhere we can store our thoughts, we want to make sure we have all our forthcoming projects posted here (also as motivation to actually do them..?! Maybe we should have been Procrastinator Productions!) Some things we hope to post about in the future:
- Betty the Tea Lady (to know her is to love her)
- Short animated films - silly and fun, Fi and I play with a wind-up penguin and other random things
- Short stories, articles and poems (we have a backlog of these!)
- Plans for a real short film (script ideas in progress)
- Fi's art (check out polka dot lady above - she rocks)
Any more to add Fi?
Today though, I am flummoxed by my digital camera - not a good beginning! (Mondays...)
Ems
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)