Teenage wisdom

Overheard on the tube:

"Nah man, allow protein bars. You know what you should eat instead?
Pistachios and bare s*** like that."

Gillian McKeith, eat your heart out.

Don't try this at home*

After a crazy few days where the fridge broke (I opened it and felt warm air rush out. Also the thermometer read 15 degrees celsius...), all my precious and expensive anti-TNF injections had to be thrown away, and I ended up phoning the injection company several times a day, I finally got a batch of new jabby things.

Jabby things

So on Saturday night, three days after I should have had all those antibodies in my own body, really tired from work, and with half an eye on the TV while grabbing a lump of stomach to inject, this happened...

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... a bruise!

The anti-TNF forums are full of people comparing photos of their battle scars, but this is my first proper bruise as a result of self-injection, though site-specific swelling the size of tennis balls was a frequent occurrence before I discovered the miracle-working benefits of cheapo anti-histamines. I sort of feel quite proud. I don't really know if it could have been avoided, but I probably shouldn't have been watching Pirates of the Caribbean at the same time...


*multi-tasking with needles.

Let's make the most of the night like we're gonna die young

£170 Alexander McQueen skull scarf
which encapsulates his
"dark and dramatic style". Whatevs,
Selfridges. I can buy dramatic
in Primark for peanuts.

Seems lately that everywhere you turn you cannot move for skulls, bones and death stuff. Be they Mexican Day of the Dead style tattoos on rockabilly girls or t-shirts, skull bracelets, or just a mayfly-like sentiment found in Ke$ha's Die Young or any of Lana Del Rey's songs, death is everywhere. Literally, of course, but also fashionably.

Is this a bad thing? Probably not. It means that a goth is totally on-trend and that anyone who is naturally interested in the subject of death (i.e. me) looks like less of a weirdo. On a deeper level too, it could be a good sign. If people are more comfortable with death and bereavement then it might not be such a scary thing to talk about and experience. It might make people more determined to live life to the full (woo, you go Ke$ha, get drunk and kiss some randomer in a club, we're all gonna die anyway).

And for some closing words, how about these:

No people who turn their back on the dead can be alive. The presence of the dead among the living will be a daily fact in any society that encourages its people to live.

From: C Alexander with S Ishikawa, M Silverstein, M Jacobson, I Fiksdahl-King, S Angel A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction New York (1977). Found in this book.

The thinking woman's tampon?

That bastion of good-taste, the late Bernard Manning, once complained that the only things female comedians ever talked about were “periods and f***ing tampax”. The irony here of course being the fact that the only thing most women won’t mention in earshot of men is menstruation. Female comedians seem to be the only ones with enough balls (ovaries?) to actually say the P-word in front of a bunch of Y-chromosomes. The fact remains that talking about the time-of-the-month in male company is still about as taboo as you can get. 

So tra-la-la, I am going to talk about periods and good causes and charity all in one go, and to hell with all of youse who feel uncomfortable. 

Recently I bought some of these in Tesco (don't judge me. It is the only supermarket within walking distance of work. Actually, there is a Costcutter, but it tends to be staffed with men whose eyes are permanently attracted to breast-shaped things). I normally can't be having with amazing pearlised scented handwoven sanitary pads, which tend to be jaw-droppingly expensive and just as good as own brand ones, but I will admit I got a bit excited when I saw these.

"Feminine Towels" (according to Tesco) - it will be interesting to see if we
can manage to euphemise things further in a few years time (lady sponges? No?)

15p from each Halo Initiative pack goes to three difference charities: the Eve Appeal (which researches gynaecological cancers), ageUK (which makes life better for older people), and Straight Talking (offers help, advice and support to pregnant teenagers). Sounds great: I buy something I would have to buy anyway, and help lots of other people without much thought or effort. 

However, I knew that some people object to this on the principle that charity should not be this easy because you get complacent about it, and because it removes the "guilt factor", so you end up thinking "Oooh, panty liners" (yeah, right, but work with me here) and forget about the thousands of women suffering with cervical cancer, for example. An interesting article on this can be found here (though I don't think I agree with everything in it, it is still pretty thought-provoking). 

So, I stood there with arguments raging round my head, among all these feminine hygiene doodahs for about 10 minutes, trying to do the maths.

1 x Halo pack at £1.20 (they were on offer, which made me wonder about that 15p to charity and what profit margin they were making)

1 x Tesco own brand at 80p

What it boiled down to was this: if I bought the own brand ones, I saved 40p per pack, three times the amount that would go to charity if I bought the Halo ones. I could then donate that 40p to charity and do more good for the charities in question than if I had bought the explicitly charitable ones.

In the end, I bought the Halo ones. Why? Because I liked the idea of them better. I didn't want to discourage them from making products with a charity focus, and also the pads themselves are less bulky than the own brand ones. In the future, though, when I next to stop by the euphemism aisle, I think I'll ask myself again how much I really care about charity, and I think I might just choose a different way to use my money.

Sunday Assembly

I’ve been to church a couple of times: High Anglican, Catholic, even Quaker prayer meetings (long story). I’ve never been to a church quite like Sunday Assembly, however, because it’s not really a “church”. In fact, it has nothing to do with Christianity or religion, because it’s for atheists.

The Nave at St Paul’s is a huge deconsecrated church which seems to be in the process of being re-built and/or demolished, and is next door to a tiny church which has absolutely not been deconsecrated and which was in the middle of a more conventional Sunday service. This led to a mild case of panic on my part, as I contemplated having to ask a pastor, “Which way to the atheists, please?” Thankfully there was a woman giving directions and everyone who was supposed to be non-worshipping this morning made it inside the right building. There were far more non-worshippers than anyone expected. I tried to figure out if any of them were a) reporters or b) anti-atheist gatecrashers without much success, especially as once the chairs had been filled up, people started sitting on benches down the sides of the room, on the floor, on the balcony and on their friends.

The whole idea of Sunday Assembly is to “live better, learn often, wonder more” by bringing together atheists (I am shamelessly paraphrasing here because my memory is poor) into some sort of community where good things might and should happen. Led by Sanderson Jones who was the kind-of preacher/compere (“Thanks for being here tonight!”), and supported by a fantastic house band (guitar, drums, bass and, more esoterically, oboe, glockenspiel and maracas) and Pippa Evans (a comedian I saw on TV once or twice, but who is even more brilliant than I remember), we were treated to hits including singing the Oasis classic Don’t Look Back In Anger (“another of our favourite hymns!”), Sanderson’s frenetic interludes, and Pippa’s anecdote about drunk men being tasered on the Moscow underground system.  The misses, apart from a turn by children’s author Andy Stanton (part-banal, part-bizarre, wholly uninspiring), were harder to pinpoint, but there was definitely something missing.

Okay, so half the congregation stood like statues instead of singing along with everyone else, and some were a tad unfriendly and cliquey, but these are teething problems, I reckon. I think what was really bugging me was that it wasn’t exactly clear what we were doing there, or what we were supposed to get out of it. The singing was fun, and I laughed a fair bit, but everyone was at pains to point out that it was not a comedy show, and no-one had said it was meant to be an atheist social. Although I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived, I think I was hoping that Sunday Assembly might be some way to show people that atheists are not morality-starved, depraved, devil-worshipping idiots, but ordinary people who behave decently and do good things not because religion inculcates in them a duty to do so, but because of their love for human beings and the world (which, as Sanderson pointed out, is perhaps stronger because we believe that this life and world is all we have, and that there will be no hereafter).  If I had been brave enough to ask around and find out why people had turned up, I’m guessing there would have been as many reasons as people, so without a clear purpose for such a diverse range of views, I’m not sure exactly what Sunday Assembly represents.

Nevertheless, I hope Evans and Jones continue with it. I had an interesting, fun and surprisingly inspiring hour in their company, and would really really really like to go back and hear Lucy Porter speak on 3rd February, but unfortunately I’m working. Also their slogan is way cooler than the British Humanists' one and Pippa is a bazillion times funnier than Dawkins, so you'll have a good time if nothing else.

Things that make me feel all growed up.

1. Paying tax

2. Working night shifts

3. Feeling intimidated by 6' 7" schoolkids at the bus-stop

4. The creeping conviction that "everything was better when I was young" (including but not limited to: Dr Who Christmas Specials, Kit Kats, the weather and erasers)

5. Worrying about: tax, night shifts, kids today, being old before my time and, of course, global warming (those poor polar bears)

Achoo! The sound of the underground

Me and public transport are the best of friends and the worst of enemies. Having travelled on it every day for 12 years now (lawdy, I'm old), with a brief break when I was at uni, you'd think it was marvellous. That the experience of boarding a train or bus would be something like this.

Civilised, perhaps. Certainly warm and bright. Worth the money and worth the hassle. Never delayed or late or broken. Definitely not full of litter and vomit, or painfully slow while they "even out the gaps in the service" and you begin to worry about being even later for work. Definitely not full of people expectoratin' and snot-garglin' and standin' on your poor old toes. I have a big problem with people not using tissues or hankies, who spit their germy saliva (and other stuff) onto the street or who cough in your face. One of my many flaws is that I only have two gears when it comes to tolerance of this: completely passive and full-on gorgon. So far I have managed not rip anyone's head off, but it's only a matter of time...

Over the years, seasoned TfL users seem to converge on a sort of seating etiquette. Most of the rules are based around looking at people (don't make eye contact if you are seated/standing/trying not to get stabbed). Things get oddly weird when people don't observe these unwritten rules. Today I was sitting on the bus home, and the seat next to me was unoccupied. A middle-aged woman gets on. She is looking for a seat. There are two in front of me where she could happily sit and spread out her shopping too. She chooses the seat next to me. I know. FREAKY. Two stops pass without much event except for her elbowing me several times (I don't say anything. See above re: personality flaws). And then it gets even freakier. The woman vacates her seat, not to sit on the unoccupied ones, but to sit next to another woman! The only thing I could think of was that she wanted protection from the other passengers, and I looked pretty feeble compared to the other lady. That or I smell.

There are some good things about public transport though.

Er.

It used to be cheaper than this. And, um, sometimes there are sweet little beady-eyed mice at the tube stations. And you get to eavesdrop on people's conversations. It's nice when kids are sharing sweets, as they were today, and they get all indignant (Hey! This is just coloured sugar!) and five minutes later they're all "Can I have some more?" I like babies when they stop crying and smile at you and you can have brief moment of conversation with their parents without coming across as weird. I like giving up my seat to other people. I like looking at people's clothes, hair, luggage, shoes, books; reading their emails over their shoulders (smartphones + rush hour = no privacy)*, and thanking my lucky stars that I don't go to school anymore (I still get that apprehensive, sickening feeling in my stomach when I see all the students in uniform crushed onto the bus). I like seeing people's lives intersect for a few moments a day: air stewards, tourists, city gents, bunking schoolkids, harassed mothers, lovey-dovey couples, and me,  all bundled together underground or on the street.

What makes public transport so compelling then (besides the small matter that I still cannot drive, nor afford a car)? I guess it has to be the public...




*Yeah, I'm nosy. You can add it to the list of character defects.