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.