Epic blogging fail

So I guess blogging this year has been a complete failure - it started off well but it just kind of tailed away. I've identified several reasons for this:

1. My life is so much less exciting now that I'm no longer an Oxford student.
I had a summer where I did fuck all apart from sleep, eat and listen to TMS. Don't get me wrong, it was just the ticket having worked so hard for the last 4 years (and also the fact that my next chance to do this will probably be retirement in over 40 years time), but it yielded very little bloggable material.

2. My laptop and I went through a rocky patch then later divorced.
I started saying it was too slow; it crashed in a strop; I said "sorry, maybe we can work things through?"; it said "ok, as long as you don't mind me taking 20 minutes to open itunes, only have one tab open in firefox at a time, and go mental as soon as you try to change virus software." Needless to say our relationship never quite recovered. But now am shacked up with my newer, sexier model of a laptop with resolution so sharp it could dice onions.

3. Twitter make me distil my thoughts into a more terse and concentrated form, like poetry.
Ok, so clearly the actual reason for using Twitter more is that I'm too lazy to elucidate my life and emotions beyond more than a deliberately mysterious or ambiguous sentence or a shamefully vacuous thought (with pronouns, punctuation and actual substance removed of course). This obviously doesn't stop me incessantly pestering everyone I know to start using Twitter - in fact why don't you set up an account and follow me at www.twitter.com/jimzwall?

4. There are so many amazing bloggers out there why would anyone want to read my general ramblings?
They have no central theme apart from me: a dubious material at any time, and one very unlikely to interest most of humanity.

I guess what I'm trying to say is sorry. I'm now living and working in Wokingham in Berkshire - a nice little town near Reading, and if my life is interesting enough I'll post about it. More likely than not though I'll be blogging about more general things, for instance why I often am overcome with existential doubt in the dairy aisle in Tescos, why HMV staff dislike Bruce Forsyth and why I joined the Labour party because I thought their policies are shit...

Glastonbury 2009 Thursday

Ok, Glastonbury may have been almost 2 months ago now - but it deserves a post. Obviously I had an amazing time - I spent more time just chilling out around the Green Fields and the Field of Avalon this year rather than running from stage to stage like the previous year, I think this helped me enjoy the acts I did go and see a lot more (in no small part due to taking it easy on my feet).

Who I saw...

Stornoway (Myspace)

They're starting to get the press and airplay they deserve. Local Oxford band who I went to see these guys at the Jericho for my birthday back in October and they were simply awesome. They subsequently became the sound of my last year at Uni - framing it from October at the JT to June at the Avalon Cafe (and they got me through several Sunday afternoons of algebraic topology study in between!).

Maximo Park (Myspace)
We stood in the blistering mid-afternoon sun and avoided a stampede to see these guys - good fun though.

Liz Green (Myspace)
I went to see this girl on a recommendation from a friend's friend. It may have been beautiful acoustic music or it may have been utter shite - it was impossible to tell because her sound was terrible! Her microphone was turned down way too low for a relatively large tent. Having listened to her myspace since I really enjoy her music and would definitely go and see her again if I had the chance, but hopefully this time in a more intimate setting suited to her music, and not one where I was asked by a complete stranger if I had "banged a lot of girls" at Oxford.

Mad Dog McRea (Myspace)
We danced and capered to the reels of this West Country folk band. The have a cult following in Plymouth and it really came across in the atmosphere at the Avalon Cafe - pure Glastonbury, away from the main stages utter spontaniety, ridiculously quirky and bagfulls of fun.

Is it wrong to have a crush on an Archers character?

Is it? Anyway, haven't updated in ages...but I meant to post this at the end of June:

Anyway, I left Oxford on Saturday bringing to a close four often stressful but wonderful years. Walking through the Oxonian streets last week and looking at buildings I would never see day-to-day again tugged on my heartstrings, not so much tugged - it felt more like a trapeize artist was doing violent somersaults on them. On Friday we had a leavers' formal preceeded by a champagne reception. First of all this was my third champers reception in a week, to which Catherine sagely opined "You know you're at Oxford when you groan at the thought of another champagne reception". First of all I don't even like champagne, I have never understood why it has become the drink of high society: fashionable because it is expensive, expensive because it is fashionable. I can think of far more delicious things to drink. So whilst I'm drinking this stuff that I have to pretend to like in polite society the Principal of Somerville College DBE sweeps in and complements our respective choices of tie. In an attempt to show how consummate I am in such refined company I engage her in conversation. A cordial dialogue ensues during which one-by-one each of my friends effortlessly slink away. I expected her to flutter from person to person. She didn't. Awkward conversation ensued for several minutes during which time my glass was refilled 3 times by waiters.

Fizz going to my head. Sweating profusely. Awkward silence.

"Mrs Thatcher is recovering well." Dame Fi remarked. What do you say to that? To your college principal and a knight of the realm? "Shit, will she never die? I've a bottle of dom perrignon I've been waiting to crack out. I don't like champagne I just thought it would add to the gaity of the day when it comes." Instead the noise I make can best be described as a thoughtful hum, wincing as if someone were squeezing my balls. After what seemed like an hour but which was probably ten minutes, the catering manager saved me by informing us that dinner was "to be served shortly"

No More Hiroshimas

I just burnt my knee ironing. Ouch.

I was actually quite surprised how easily my skin completely burnt off. Bizarrely, it made me think of what it must have been like on a somewhat larger and and more lethal scale for those in Hiroshima in 1945. I'm not entirely sure if I just made some sort of profound connection with a common humanity or I am just completely vain by associating a cataclysmic event with a minor domestic accident.

Tomorrow I shall do some hoovering which hopefully won't remind me of the Rwandan genocide.

The Most Disturbing Thing You'll See Today?

Yes. Yes it is.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2009/jun/15/piers-morgan-burger-king

Plastic Bag Guilt

It is a scenario we have all become familiar with: you’re walking home when you realize “ooops! I think I run out of milk/toilet roll/whaling harpoons. Better pop into Sainsbo’s”. It being an impromptu shop you have come ill prepared – no cotton bag. Reaching the checkout you are served by an unusually chirpy assistant ‘ah, they must be new,’ you smile to yourself. Yet to have the life drained out of them, not a drone just yet. Supermarkets usually conduct lobotomies on their employees only at their first appraisal I hear.

“That’s £10.95, please”
You flash your debit card.
“Any cash-back?”
“No thanks.”
“Enter your pin please”
Punch ****
“Do you need a bag?”
“Yes please”

All of sudden you previously friendly interlocutor pulls a face as if you have just shat in Al Gore’s face.

I call this “plastic bag guilt”. Now don’t get me wrong I’m all for saving the environment, reducing waste, cutting CO2 emissions, recycling, paddy fields, polar bears, ice caps, Joan Rivers’ face yada yada yada. Hell I even voted Green in the Euro elections. But you know what? I don’t have cotton bags on my person all of the time – I barely have room in my pockets for the Holy Trinity of keys, phone, wallet. Where do you suggest that I keep a stash of canvas bags? In my underpants? This would give me impressive girth but may attract the wrong sort of attention.

In all seriousness, I do use canvas bag probably 90% of the time I go shopping and I think it is great that people are more conscious of how their habit affects the environment, but it annoys me that society has made using plastic bags THE cardinal eco-sin. It seems like people have chosen to concentrate on one of the easiest habits to change rather than confronting more challenging ones. There are so many things that we do on a day-to-day basis that have a greater adverse effect to the environment. Next time you are at the supermarket, don’t just think about your carrier bags ponder on the amount of meat you eat. Eating just one vegetarian meal a week can significantly reduce your carbon footprint. It’s actually surprisingly easy, and although I’m not ready to give up on bacon sandwiches just yet, one meal a week is barely anything. A good veggie curry - mmmmmmm.

Shitfuckbollocks

I have an exam today, this afternoon in fact. So what better way to spend the last few hours before it procrastinating on the internet and updating a blog which, because of the last 2 months spent encased in the library, I have neglected to update. Apart from my beautiful niece, born just before my encarceration in Somerville College library lower extension began, nothing has happend in my life except maths. The worst part is that this year was entirely optional - so all this pain, stress and boredom is entirely self-inflicted.

How can I have been working for so long and feel like I know so little? Why do I never have any self-confidence?

Ok, so this post was rather self-pitying but I just wanted people to know that I'm still alive and that on Monday I enter a land which I always thought was mythical - a life that does not consist of losing 3 months of each spring/early summer to revision and exams.

May listen to some motivational music to psyche self up... Toodles!

Jeffrey Lewis in the Guardian!

To my squeals of delight Jeffrey Lewis has started a series of videos for guardian.co.uk. In the first he and Laura Marling perform an awesome cover of Eminem's Braindamage. He's touring in the UK soon and come whatever I WILL see him this time... http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/video/2009/mar/15/jeffrey-lewis-laura-marling

Better Late Than Never... 25 Things

1. I used to be Christian, but now I don’t have to feel guilty about doing some ‘bad’ things that are just victimless.
2. I like bananas but hate banana flavoured things.
3. I love Maths but wish I could have taken degrees in Philosophy, Physics, English Lit, Geography, Geology, Art History and Classics too.
4. I blame Catherine for an insatiable Rufus Wainwright addiction.
5. I once referred to the state of Virginia in class as ‘vagina’, and never lived it down.
6. I stay awake at night and worry that because the Labour Party has abandoned the working classes the BNP and other fascists might have actual political power within 20 years.
7. All my friends joke that I have ‘nun fetish’ and I can’t remember how or why this jest started.
8. I always have at least 6 different types of tea, each for a different mood or time of day.
9. I divide almost all my free time between browsing BBC News, Guardian.co.uk, YouTube, and Facebook.
10. ‘Anxious’ is my default setting.
11. I just found a card from an art gallery from 3 years ago that asked “How would you improve the world? Tell us in 12 words,” to which I appeared to have written “Make gin free to everyone to wash away the never-ending pain”.
12. Winter used to be my favourite season but now I spend most of winter wishing it was summer.
13. I often eat a whole can of sweetcorn on its own in one sitting.
14. I often affirm that I don’t want to get married and have children, but I fear deep down I truly do.
15. My only childhood ambition was to read out the scores on the Eurovision Song contest [Lol!]
16. Dark brown liquids disgust me – Bovril, Marmite, Brown Sauce and diahorrea all fall into the same bracket.
17. In the last few years I have developed a pastoral streak = listening to folk music and wishing I lived in a Thomas Hardy novel (without all the death, unrequited love and general misery).
18. I hold in highest disdain those who are not just ignorant of maths and science but proudly proclaim to be so.
19. I have deep insecurities which I don’t ever really share with anyone – I often tread them out on long walks. Introspection is a rather painful form of vanity.
20. I never had an imaginary friend but I did have an imaginary pet mouse, creatively called ‘Little Mouse’.
21. I am a pessimist but see it as an advantage – one is always expecting the worst and so is prepared for it when it comes or is pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t.
22. I can’t ride a bike.
23. I once dropped a shot-put on my head.
24. I buy books at a faster rate than I can read them.
25. The above list may make it seem that I am a rather irritable whilst melancholic fellow but I am in fact quite satisfied with my life and still rather jolly.

Buzzing

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I wish I had an excuse but I don't really - I am just lazy. I will get round to doing that 25 Facts thing at some point (I'm up to #17). I am only writing this post now because I have drunken so much tea this evening I'm too awake to go to sleep.

I love tea. I honestly don't know what I would do without it - seriously. If you know me you know that I always have a selection of teas for different occasions:

English Breakfast: Business tea. Best in the morning for a serious caffeine hit to get you in gear for work; its richness and strength confers an air of gravity and purpose on your affairs.

Darjeeling: It's mid-afternoon, you've been working all day and your head feels delicate so strong tea could bring on a serious headache, but you need enough caffeine to recover from the after-lunch dip. Deliciously light and refreshing Darjeeling hits the spot. Such a refined tea you feel like you should be drinking it from fine china.

Earl Grey: Marmite tea - in the sense that people either love it or hate it (it certainly does not taste like marmite). My mother thinks perfumed tea is blasphemous, and a friend of mine one said it tastes to her like "old socks". The scent of bergamot is not for everyone but I happen to think E.G. is wonderful - especially in the evening when men "read poetry or sit in the dark and think what a hollow world this is".

Lady Grey(TM): A Twinings only variant on E.G. highly recommended. Perfumed with bergamot with an added citrus zing, this tea is liquid summer and has got me through many a Trinity term's revision sesh.

Green Tea: you don't need to be one who buys into all this detox bullshit or one who needs their chakras realigned to drink green tea. Oh no, it is not a new-age fad. Remember now, no milk in this one. Caffiene free, it's perfect just before bedfordshire. Anyway I'm a very tidy person to the point of obsessivness - if my chakras were not aligned I'm sure I would notice.

Fruit Tea: I use the word "tea" very loosly. Bought a pack over the summer and found it to be not my cup of tea. I just kept it on the off chance someone might want a cup, and so that I can claim to have 6 types of tea at all times.

Orwell said that tea is "one of the main stays of civilisiation in this country", which is undoubtedly true, and in celebration of this fact here is a musical ditty...

Apparently it snowed this week...

...and no-one made the slightest bit of fuss about it.

Here are a few photos of Somerville:








And now some of Oxford city centre:






Jericho, Oxford Canal and Port Meadow:

I don't like grapefruit, but I love Pomplamoose

Recently I have become addicted to a Californian duo called Pomplamoose. And they are awesome, check out their MySpace or YouTube. So far they only seemed to have played one show in San Fran, but they have a lot of songs available for download.



I love them. I hope you will too, then maybe one day they can come and play in the UK

Prince Hari

I LOVE Johann Hari. The Independent columnist and Richard Littlejohn's nemesis keeps me sane in a sea of right-wing, racist, homophobic comments online. Every time a new article appears on his blog I clap my hands in excitement, put on the kettle and settle down to read it. I've noticed that no other blogger or columnist has this effect on me, although Jon Ronson did until he was replaced in the Guardian Weekend by the poor imitation Tim Dowling. However, all of this makes me feel incredibly guilty because I'm not an Independent reader - I'm a Guardianista. Oh, this isn't a partisan thing, it is just that the Independent always seems to be running at a loss and reading Hari's blog online for free removes the incentive for me to buy the paper.

Anyway, if I ever saw Johann Hari I would definitely buy him a drink, or shake his hand, maybe even hug him inappropriately. Anyone who "was once called “babe” by Germaine Greer, and squealed with pleasure," is definitely my kind of guy.

How did I get like this?

The man opposite me is coughing and spluttering, wheezing and growling in a seemingly deliberate attempt to annoy me. He snorts and inhales deeply - an act that emits a high-pitched prolonged whine as if the air itself is in pain, protesting about having to pass through the nostrils of anyone who wears beige patterned knitwear. "This is a library," I think indignantly to myself "not a GP's waiting room. If I came in here and broke wind constantly for five minutes people would rightly treat me with disgust. I may even be banished like a leper from this place, forced to wear a bell and cry 'Unclean!'. Yes! How is a flatulence problem any different from a cold? One can help neither - both are medical conditions. In fact, farts aren't contagious so really it is much less opprobrious to fart than to sneeze or cough." I internally shake a purely abstract head, as if I've made some kind of grave and profound judgement on the double standards of society. The man now appears to be leafing through some note on what looks like logic. He is rustling them rather loudly. I decide the best course of action is to go and get a coffee and cool off.

That is how my days in the library pass away. How did I become like this? So intolerant of other people? People irritate me so easily. I am irritated by Oxford posh girls who all look identical wearing their tea-cosy-esque hats on the way to the Taylorian. I am irritated by people in front of you in a queue who don't have their money ready when they get to the till. I am irritated by couples who walk towards you on narrow pavements holding hands so you have to actually perform a tactical perambulatory detour into the gutter to avoid a collision with them.

"Why are you single?" my friend asked me last night. "People are so much effort," I replied.

Stephen Fry Is Reading Crime and Punishment in Luxembourg

I know this to be the case as I have become ridiculously addicted to following said national treasure on twitter http://twitter.com/stephenfry. Twitter has not really taken off amongst my friends and family so although I do have a twitter account (http://twitter.com/jimzwall) I don't update very often. In fact the sad reality of it all is that only one person really reads my updates, and I see them at least twice a day anyway. So you should all join twitter so I can stalk you and sell my telescope and nightgoggles on eBay. I want to know about the rude service you recieved in Starbucks this morning when you ordered your skinny-decaf-chino; what you had on your sandwich/bagel/ryvita/communion wafer at lunch; what they said at the GUM clinic about the herpes.

Please help me. Make me feel normal...

Ugly Mug

So I have spent the last few days mainly twiddling my thumbs waiting for some work to come along, sleeping and spilling scolding hot coffee on myself. The lecture courses I'm taking this term are Algebraic Topology, Set Theory and Representation Theory which are all as thrilling as they sound. I actually rather enjoy Representation Theory (the area in which I was thinking I would do a DPhil) and the bonus is that the lectures are given by my personal tutor; Set Theory had potential until I turned up and the lecturer began by writing line after line of predicate calculus on the blackboard (history shows that the study of mathematical logic is v. bad for your mental health); and Algebraic Topology clearly has the capacity to ruin my life for the next 8 weeks.

In other news, I watched the inauguration, and thought that Obama's speech was very accomplished and lucidly set out a new ethos with regard to American foreign policy. But most importantly - did you see Aretha Franklin's enormous hat?!

This Land Is Your Land

I was delighted to see Pete Seeger leading the crowd in song at the end of the Obama concert yesterday. Now there is a true American hero: almost 90 his voice is fading, but the same cannot be said of his enthusiasm - he looked so happy!

Characteristically he insisted that they sing the full 'unsanitised' version of 'This Land is Your Land', and rightly so. Woody Guthrie's song is patriotic in a unromantic and unfashionable way - expressing the notion that ultimately the story of a nation is the story of her people, not of her leaders. It is not a song celebrating the hope and freedom of America but decrying its absence for those exploited and left in extreme poverty by the actions of an unchecked Capitalist hierarchy. It is in essence a protest song. I'm sure the potency of the lyrics in these times of multi-billion dollar bailouts, fraudsters and deindustrialisation were not lost on Seeger, or for that matter Barack Obama.

Bric-a-brac

So now I am finally back in Oxford staring into an algebraic topology textbook with a horror I will fortunately only know for 6 more months now.

Had a delightful day with my parents yesterday - they came to bring all my stuff down from home. After a quite delicious, although not altogether nutritious, breakfast at Maison Blanc we drove to Witney in West Oxfordshire. The aforementioned town is actually the constituency of the Leader of HM Opposition - but don't let that put you off, it is actually rather a charming place apparently once know for its thriving blanket industry but now dominated by charity shops.

Charity shops positively thrill my parents which is perhaps not unusual now that they are both around sixty. The sad truth is, however, that from as early as I can remember I have been dragged to these temples of tat, and I blame television. Wall-to-wall screenings of antiques shows like Bargain Hunt, Cash In the Attic and the rather shocking Car Booty seem to have convinced my parents that if you look long and hard enough you will eventually find a Titian behind a copy of a 1989 Jason Donovan Annual in a Sue Ryder Shop in rural Worcestershire. Consequently I have developed a distaste for charity shops; this is not to demean the excellent work they do for worthy causes and the feeling of purpose they give to the pensioners who work in them, I just can't handle them. Bric-a-brac especially disturbs me: in its presence my heart race increases and my breathing quickens - a porcelain cockerel here, a golden jubilee commemorative place there, an egg slicer...

"Ooooo, look at this barometer!" my mother cooed. Feeling I was about to hyperventilate I sat down.

"What do you think?" said my Dad, sporting a grey tweed jacket with those buttons that look like footballs circa 1974. I nodded and smiled sympathetically and waited for my mother to correct him.

20 minutes and a VHS of Jesus Christ Superstar later we headed for a much needed cup of tea.

100 Things To Do In 2009

1. Think of 100 things to fill this list
2. Go to Glastonbury again
3. Learn to like real ale [Actually doing quite well at this]
4. Stop biting fingernails
5. Cut down on money spent in Delis and Patisseries
6. Appreciate Oxford whilst still there and stop complaining about it so much [Definitely did during Hilary, not so much during finals, but I think that is both understandableand permissable]
7. Get own apartment
8. Go on a ‘proper’ holiday with sun and all the trimmings
9. Tell them
10. See Stornoway again
11. Be an amazing uncle to first born niece/nephew
12. Go on a pub crawl in Bristol
13. Get a first in finals
14. Start a blog to keep in touch with people
15. Get a hairstyle that I actually like
16. Watch Le Château de ma mère with Catherine
17. Be on Radio 4 or the BBC World Service [this one may be tricky without becoming some kind of terrorist]
18. Catch-up with old school friends
19. Vote in a general election [too much shit has happened in 4 years to delay any longer]
20. Start buying the Big Issue again [haven’t bought one since the guy who recited Robert Burns on Broad St disappeared]
21. Recite Chaucer/Shakespeare/Ted Hughes to a field of cows
22. Keep my head when all about me are losing theirs
23. Read more poetry [In light of 20, 21, 22]
24. Visit Tate Modern
25. Think more about the person you could be and less about the person you used to be
26. Take pictures to document time left in Oxford.
27. Take up running again
28. Develop a daily routine to normalize days and reduce stress by more effective time management [This involved seeing more of the inside of the godless RSL]
29. Get a new mobile [the only speaker that works on the current one is the loud speaker, hence all calls are conducted in manner of Apprentice contestants]
30. Visit Katherine in Nottingham
31. Meet someone famous
32. Read Van Gogh’s letters [I bought a book of them almost 3 years ago that is just gathering dust]
33. Go on YouTube less [who am I kidding?]
34. Dance like no-one’s watching
35. Visit Scotland
36. Write a letter to and have it published in the Guardian
37. Watch the entire series of Flight of the Concords with Liz/Owen
38. Kiss in the pouring rain
39. Go to an Ashes match
40. Go fruit picking [An idyllic Oxford day post-exams, picking strawberries at Binsey Lane and having a BBQ on Port Meadow]
41. Have the time and patience to have wet shaves
42. Watch a sunrise
43. Do something outrageously spontaneous
44. Get a stranger to wave at me [I didn't so much get him to wave at me he did it of his own accord, he was just a crazy man in the park]
45. Do something that results in someone asking “Jimmy, what the fuck are you doing?”
46. Learn all the constellations
47. Play truth or dare
48. Whiten my teeth
49. Get a new tweed jacket
50. Forget my troubles and (come on) get happy!
51. Express my app/dep-reciation of someone’s choice of curtains to them
52. Lick the underside of an ice-cube
53. Drink orange juice from the wrong end of the carton
54. Buy an original piece of art
55. Make my own pesto
56. Hammer in the morning
57. Hammer in the evening
58. Join Amnesty International
59. Go to evensong at a Cathedral (or St Mary’s the Virgin)
60. Get drunk on cocktails
61. Win the Gardener’s pub quiz
62. Climb a mountain (or at least a large hill)
63. Start writing more ‘stuff’ down
64. Find 5 artists on MySpace with less than 50,000 hits who I think are cool.
65. Bake a cake for someone
66. Ride in a open-top bus
67. Have a heated debate [I was drunk and no-one else was - it was heated in mymind but no-one elses I imagine]
68. Plant a time capsule
69. Cry with laughter
70. Cry with sadness
71. Visit Kathy in Milton Keynes
72. Budget using an Excel spreadsheet
73. Buy something from Ikea
74. Read Marx
75. Get a new set of spectacles
76. Try wearing contact lenses
77. See Jeffrey Lewis
78. Sit in a meadow on a summer’s day
79. Complement and give money to a busker
80. Make the effort to recycle my rubbish
81. Write letters to 3 people
82. Remember people’s birthdays
83. Have a shower fully clothed
84. Get an Oyster card
85. Cook something out of Nigella or Hugh FW’s Guardian column
86. Have a moment which reminds me how good it feels to be alive
87. Read for pleasure during term time
88. Ride on a narrow boat
89. See Rufus’s opera Prima Donna
90. Go for High Tea at a posh café/restaurant
91. Tell someone exactly what I think of them
92. Dance and sing with some Hare Krishnas
93. Pretend to be foreign tourist for a day
94. Be caught in a compromising situation
95. Scream at the top of my voice
96. Do a tarot reading [so vague that it was not worth doing]
97. Go to watch either the Boat Race or Varsity Rugby match
98. Start using fabric softener
99. Buy a scratch card
100. Say something so profound that I impress myself