quelle erqsome...

listing it out

1. Despite my usual reserve against coconut, the sight of the Chocolate Cupcakes with Coconut Icing on The Daily Raw Cafe made me swoon with unembarrassed abandon. I haven't swooned like that since grade five when I learnt I had chicken pox -- I was ten and EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD (including my sister, the traitor, who hadn't enough grace to pass it on to me) had had chicken pox and I was beginning to feel like a poxless loser.

It's not really fair to compare such heavenly delights to the rapture of a ten-year-old's relief at the normalcy of pox. The divine moment when teeth slip through chocolaty cake followed by a slight slip of control over saliva, the sugary air of the icing wafting gentle over the upper lip, the faint graininess that melts away as the tongue catches the first bite, these are the sensual delights of true enjoyment and likely a smidge more satisfactory than the discovery of a few small bumps scattered across bony pre-pubescent shoulders.

2. If you look closely, you will see how one letter can change everything:

'The couch gave a further loud, competitive groan as the two writing figures fell upon it.'

I think I like this version better. Far from draining the romance of it, there's a sweetness in the image of two lover collapsing onto the sofa, damp pen and paper in hand, unable to wait for a slightly more appropriate time to capture the very essence of the moment.

3. In an odd way, this list makes me want children. My cats don't put anything down the toilet.

Mind you, we keep the lid down for that very purpose. Yeti is content to save the bathroom from driplets running down the side of the tub or collecting inside the tap after we shower. Mozzie on the other hand dances with the spray from the shower, chases the rivulets in the sink, peers curiously at the cistern as it flushes. She will frequently dip her paw into their drinking water, just to see what happens, then furiously shake her paw and kick the dish for daring to take part in this conspiracy to make her wet.

4. Congratulations to Anna, she's now the proud mama of a wee baby boy, hurrah!

5. I officially have no more Christmas presents to post away. I did it, I am ahead of schedule, I have taken full advantage of the franking machine at the office. I have to admit, this is a new experience for me. Usually, December rolls around and I start thinking, Perhaps I should get organised, before it's too late to safely post my gifties to Canada. I never do. I usually wait until at least the 16th to even begin gathering things and am then forced into frantic hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing queues at the post office along with all the other fools. (Does anyone else hear Mr T when they see/read/write the word 'fool'? Even gooseberry fool.)('Ah pity the gooseberry foo'!')

Not this year. This year I think I might spend my 16 December standing smugly in peoples' way, bagless. Emphatically bagless.

6. This is the last day of NaBloPoMo. I enjoyed it more than last year, though I suspect if I read through each of my posts I'd notice I'm a lot angrier than I used to be, or at least a lot snarkier. I have less patience for idiotic neurotics the people I work with, although I am more organised (possibly because I know I have a limited number of days before the directors start monitoring my postage) and definitely sillier. I seem to take everything more seriously and nothing seriously at all. Either I'm coping rather splendidly or the strain of working a job I long to leave, of never having enough time, of feeling guilty whenever I want to relax is much deeper than I thought. I worry sometimes that it's much deeper than I allow myself to acknowledge, too. But it's not for ever.

It just might be that in eleven days I will hand in my one-month's notice. Or perhaps in seventeen days I will hand in my four-weeks' notice. Whichever I chose, the fact remains that in less than three weeks I will no longer be hiding, I will simply be counting down.

lessons in how not to irritate the person fixing your plot holes

1. Take care to remove evidence of foodstuffs or snotty noses from between the pages. I do not want to find the splattered remains of your tuna sandwich or torn tissue as I go through your manuscript. Equally, take care to air out your manuscript before returning it if you have done any of the following:

a. carried it under your arm prior to showering;

b. found it stuck to your face at four in the morning, having knocked yourself out in a poorly ventilated closet with a near-lethal combination of Tippex and several cartons of Marlborough Reds.

c. farted on it or in its vicinity.

2. You endear yourself with baskets of fresh muffins, not a series of angrily grafted CAPS reminding your editor on every page that they are a moron.

3. Read over your own work more than once, maybe even with a break in between sittings. That way you'll see that what originally seemed shocking and edgy is actually just embarrassing and somewhat dubious.

4. Trust that when an editor consistently queries elements of your style, they may be worth reconsidering.

5. Don't wait until right before we're all set to go to print to complain about your illustrations. Particularly when they are drawn by a real life illustrator and not ClipArt. Each one is its own work of art that takes several weeks to create and cannot be 'texturalised' in an afternoon.

6. Accept responsibility for delays in your publishing process when you've submitting eighteen pages of single-spaced alterations and twenty-five pages of unedited additions and point-blank refusing to submit to the rules and regulations of copyright law.

7. Politeness is awesome.

Now, if I could just incorporate these tenets into their contracts...

gambling with the jitterbug

Five more pattern repeats and a toe to go.

I'm never going to make.

swathed in a minty light

There's been a thin veil of confusion hanging over me today. It might be the hangover or the lack of sleep or the fact that Kniterati is tonight and the twisty end of Ender's Game is still ringing loudly in my ears, but I think the real source is the sudden yen to become a Daring Baker. I think I'm fairly daring, but am I daring enough? It's hard to say. I'd also rather like to marry the Knitting Geek and have Short Row babies, but is that asking too much?

My legs hurt today, the long bruised pain of running a marathon or climbing the CN Tower. It shouldn't be so, for all I did was spend the day in heels instead of my usual Converse. It's placed me in a peculiar situation. On the one hand, I do not envy people forced to go to work in smart clothes and a bit swotty. On the other hand, If I wear heels once a week for the next 52 weeks, in a year's time my legs will be incomparable. The heels were worn in honour of Matthew's gig. And his gig was a thing of beauty.

It was perhaps the tightest I've ever seen them perform together and it showed in the response of the room. Particularly in the faces of other musicians. There's something strangely, vicariously satisfying in watching the faces of other musicians light up with interest when Matthew took a violin bow to his guitar and with a gliding hand made the stings tremour. Also, he'd shaved. I'd almost forgotten how sharp his cheekbones are. Yowza.

There is nothing foxier than my dearheart's cheekbones.

it's curious

How, why and when did this happen to sweet little Olivia almost-Huxtable?

Should the holes be walnut-sized or marble-sized? Is it still Emmenthal?

Hypnos is the personification of Sleep, son of Erebus and Nyx, twin brother of Thanatos, brother of Lethe, and ancestor of the 1,000 Oneiroi. Homer says that he lived on Lemnos, Virgil places him in the Underworld and Ovid in the land of the Cimmerians. What would he have thought of REM?

Are all bad eggs bad? Maybe not...

Wrapping presents under my desk at work to sneak into the post is hard work. I must remember to wrap them at home next time.

speeding to the fun fair

It's been a surprisingly productive weekend. I'm in the midst of making bread and Christmas cake (or will be once Matthew returns with the brown sugar that I forgot to buy in two consecutive trips to the shops); I met up with my nan and aunt at Borough Market, and bought some coffee beans; I finished off some Christmas presents while listening to Kim; I've read a lot and pondered arguments supporting the spy genre as a continuation of ideas of courtly love and patriotism and whether they're worth pursuing; and I've just about turned the heel on the second of Geoffrey's Masonic Lodge socks, hurrah!

I'm quite delighted with how they're turning out, my plan to keep them simple but elegant seems be working. Even the girls like them,

though not as much as Mr Bear.

(That scraggy bit flopping down? That used to be his ear. Poor Mr Bear.)

a brief glimpse

On the other side of my study is my desk with all its books and papers, and the radiator that doesn't work, but this is more interesting, don't you think? The plastic bags aren't very attractive, however I fear moths and kittens far too much to allow my yarn to be freely exposed to the air.

Have I ever noted how much I love buttons? It pleases me that I own more buttons than yards of yarns.

betsey is five (nearly)

Matthew, my dearheart, has finished his EP. Quite frankly, it's incredible. I don't say this lightly, either. Generally speaking I'm the meanie who takes all his fun away and points out where he needs to improve. This, I don't think needs to improve. I listen to it and have trouble believing anyone that I know could be that talented.

Unfortunately, he seems to have this built-in hermit mechanism that dictates he hasn't actually announced publicly that his EP is complete, rather waits and hopes people will pop by his site. It also has the regretful side-effect of him only being able tell people about his gigs the day of. Sometimes (sometimes) he will be so kind as to mention them two days in advance. It's something of a source of contention.

Regardless, both Matthew on his own and Matthew with his band are playing next week and they promise to be a rather lovely gigs. His band Exit to Wave is opening the Betsey Is Five festival on Monday 26 November. The Betsey Is Five festival is celebrating five years of 'ridiculously small and lovely gigs'. The Betsey is my favourite venue in London, mostly because of its inherent cramped sweatiness. Regardless, Exit to Wave are the very first act of the night and were chosen for the event by Boy Kill Boy, who are curating the night.

Much less sweaty is the upstairs room, where Matthew is also performing solo. He'll be up on the boards as Grundy le Zimbra, the following night in fact, Tuesday 27 November. Up there, there are seats and windows and a bar to make you comfortable for a night of Songs in the Dark. The Woebetides and Niall Spooner-Harvey will be performing. Niall I've mentioned before, and lest it bear repeating, he is fan-fucking-fastic. Even if Matthew's isn't enough to make you gid quietly to yourself, Niall ought to, for he is an event unto himself. The Magic Numbers are curating the downstairs event, so there will be famous beardy people about as well. Famous friendly beardy people to boot.

Each night there will be ten bands playing, and each night you will be able to see all ten of them for £5, and each night that £5 will be going to charity so you can feel happy in the knowledge that you are not only supporting lovely music and a lovely venue but people somewhere across the world who need it most.

Delightful, no? Will you come? You should, because then you can lament with me, in loud, conspicuous tones, about how Matthew never tells us anything and how you still don't have an EP.

blimey, i forgot the title

Anna Torborg doesn't do much in the way of public displays of craftiness anymore and she's become dangerous to wander through just before lunch time, but she is still a demon when it comes to grammar and style.

I know very much what she means, and not just from a professional standpoint. Several of the books I'm using as secondary research material seem a bit lacking. Either the editors (i.e. compilers) made the error of assuming that their academic authors knew how to string together a cohesive argument and didn't read past the introduction or the editors (i.e. editors) assumed their academic authors knew how to string together a complete sentence and neglected to proofread. One book in particular would be a fascinating collection of essays on how the James Bond phenomenon can enlighten us on virtually every aspect of critical theory, yet it wasn't until page 94 that I found an article worth reading. I'm not sure how the opening article was even accepted, seeing as how the author actually contradicts herself halfway through without even acknowledging the fault as perhaps part of her argument. A demonstration, if you like, as to the various interpretations on her analytical point. Instead she blithely barrels forth and left this reader wondering whether she decided to scramble or fry the egg on her face after receiving her complimentary copy.

I'm currently on a quest for the early works of Sax Rohmer and Geoffrey Household, seeking as ever a complete understanding of the history and evolution of the spy genre. As I began roaming Amazon I came across this little cracker: The Magic of the Swatchways. Which I initially read as The Magic of the Swatchaways, and had a brief moment of excitement thinking that I may have stumbled upon some sort of aged knitting adventure on the high seas, but alas! it's about stupid boats. The synopsis cracks me up:

Written for all those who love to explore in small boats. It is a book that aims to enthrall anyone who is entranced by the peace and solitude of the creeks at night and the moan of the sea on the sands

Evidently the person writing it dropped off mid-sentence (yet still managed to sleep-upload to Amazon). This was added to my Amazon-compiled Must Read list likely due to my purchase of The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, which is widely considered the first modern spy thriller and widely panned as being mostly a never-ending narrative about yachting in shallow Baltic waters. If you can get past the boat-speak, it's actually a good read, with a narrative voice pleasingly similar to Jerome K Jerome. There is, after all, nothing so delightful as the high-jinx of middle-class hypochondriacs fettered with the threat of dodgy German submarines in the shoals and faced with a month of tinned pineapple.

I did not knit an Innocent hat, but I have bought one, and I'll buy another because my cats think it's charming.

purified in mind and colour

Alexandra Palace is not the venue you might think. It's PA is surprisingly poo; it's drafty in all the wrong places; it's too big and impersonal. Yet, when surrounded by the idolising swarm down at the front, getting carried along by bodies buoyant with that almost religious fervour Arcade Fire incites, all is forgiven. I don't know what it was like for them lot at the back, but twelve feet from the stage I shouted and sang and jumped and wept and sweated and cheered along with everyone else. And I came out beaming.

I am knackered today, that much is true, but it's no matter. When two thousand people use the violin's chorus from 'Rebellion' to coax out an encore (with Sparklers threaded through guitar strings), you know it was an experience such that mortal words cannot express. If I am tired now, it's merely because my brain is meek and the magnitude greater than can be easily comprehended.