I'm going to New York. In fact, in about 24 hours I'll be there,
getting off a plane at JFK airport. I am immensely excited.

This is my first business trip (unless you count an afternoon at a
Haverhill industrial plant in February) and my first trip to the States
as well, and it's to New York! I'll take a flight long enough that they
have to serve a meal - I'm really curious what the vegan food will be
like, though the airline's website made it sound promising. The plane
will fly on a great circle through the Arctic: I might see icebergs
through the window. I'll get to stay in a Holiday Inn, in a big hotel
bed, with an ergonomic desk and a complimentary copy of USA Today (I
think that's a newspaper). I'll go drinking in bad bars with my
coworker Max and his New York friends. I'll see Grand Central Station
and ... well, lots of tourist things. Ed gave me his Metro Card and at
the weekend I plan to spend my time taking the subway and walking and
looking up, up, up. Hopefully some museums too.

This trip has been a long time coming. Since the beginning of
September, all my responses to invitations have had the caveat, "... if
I'm not in America at the time." I'm sure my friends have got sick of
it but so have I. The vagaries of international bureaucracy meant that
I did make it to the Amanda Palmer show and the Grrrl Party night at
the Kambar (riot grrrl/girlpop/queercore, oh my stars, the night I've
wanted to go to since I was 18). On the other hand, I'm missing my
chance to firewalk in aid of Arthur Rank Hospice Charity, a film night,
the Pod Hallowe'en party. My flight was only booked on Monday, and only
then because I panicked and insisted that if I delayed it further there
would be no more flights to New York ever.

I've cut my hair and bought new shirts and new smart shoes. I got a
credit card so I can put things on expenses. I am the repository of all
my coworker Lara's travel tips and very grateful for them too.

The major bug in this trip, of course, is the mockery it makes of my
vague plan to make one transatlantic flight with Dave and spend a few
months seeing everything in the Americas before returning. I wanted
this job because it would give me a chance to travel, but business
travel doesn't really allow for catching slow boats across the Atlantic
to minimise your carbon dioxide output. Or walking. I'm not sure what
I'll do as penance if they ask me to go back - give up on electric
light at home?

For the time being, consider me somewhere in transit. I'm taking Dave's
phone (please note I'll have his number as well!) but will be trying
not to use it too much. I should get emails, with an uncertain delay,
but expect to be mostly offline.

New York City, imagine that!

I seem to have read a lot of blog posts and articles recently about male feminists / feminist allies. By recently, of course, I mean a couple of months ago, because I haven't been writing here and the list of posts I'm "going to write" has been mounting up. This one is really just a round-up of links, the proverbial easy way to get back into blogging.

There is some debate over whether it's appropriate for men to call themselves feminists, or whether pro-feminist or feminist ally would be a better term. Personally, I don't have a problem with male feminists, so long as they aren't operating under the label to, for example, tell women to get back in the kitchen (the same goes for feminists of any other gender, of course). Here is the Finally, a Feminism 101 FAQ for a quick overview of the question. My goodness, that site is huge now.



I can think of at least three male feminists among my acquaintance. Happily, one of them is my boyfriend. A new friend pointed out to me the other day that "does not ridicule my political ideas" should really be a prerequisite in a relationship partner, but for me it's still a nice and refreshing change. Dave (who is certainly a feminist, and frequently mentions kittens, but neither in the same way as the guy above) and I have been writing at Not Powerless since April, and most of the posts tagged feminism are his work, simply because I haven't been writing much this year.

I'm not sure my brother Ed actually identifies himself as a feminist (hello Ed, let me know in the comments) but in his incarnation as grumpy hippy blogger he has chimed in on a few feminist issues and events, like the infamous "female students are a perk of the job" essay by Buckingham University Vice Chancellor Terence Kealey. Ed wrote,

I am now the only male student enrolled in the paediatric nursing course at my University, accross all three years of study (and two annual intakes!). All of the lecture staff are female, all of the hospital staff (with one exception, to my knowledge) will be female, and I will be a rarity across every class and ward I visit. Does this mean that I can expect to be oggled by every member of staff I encounter, or that I should flirt for every mark?

I'm looking forward to his reflections on his course over the next three years, "Diary of a child nurse".

My friend Lupie recently got called a "femtard" on Twitter for making the reasonable point that there must be male feminists, since he is a) male and b) a feminist. Heh. I should probably link to the blog of the name-caller, for it is in some wise hilarious, but I would feel worried about catching something off it.

From men I know in real life to a few of the links I mentioned, though I'm sure I'm forgetting some of them:

• "Apologize." I loved this story from Female Impersonator: a young man in a socially intimidating situation standing up against casual rape jokes, and making people pay attention. It may be a small thing but they add up. We really need more people like this.
• We need volunteers. XY, an online magazine about men, masculinities and gender politics, needs writers/bloggers/etc. I would encourage any men reading this blog to have a read and maybe submit something to them! I heard about them via the F-Word Blog (of course) and agree with them that the zine Don't Be A Dick looks interesting. I haven't read it yet, though.
• Men! Feminism needs you! (Not your privilege...) is an article on the F-Word from last year offering advice to men starting to think about or join in with feminist activism.
• On the topic of advice, I should really contribute to spreading this article around, also from you-guessed-where: Sexual assault prevention tips, guaranteed to work!

What do you think about men and feminism? Did I miss out any avid male (pro-)feminists in my circle of friends, or any good links? Please feel free to chime in in the comments.

Edit: I finished this post quite late at night and this morning was worried that I'd forgotten the part where I say that I actually enjoyed the gig! I did; in fact, I was pretty much beside myself throughout.

Hayley and Kirsten (LJ, friendslocked) have both blogged about the night now too.


Amazing cycling piano outside the venue.

Last night, Dave and I went to see Amanda Palmer play at Union Chapel in Islington, one of three shows she's playing in London this weekend despite not really being on tour. We went with Kirsten and met Hayley, Carina and Ruth at the venue.


Amanda Palmer

Union Chapel is a beautiful building - Victorian Gothic architecture with a vaulted octagonal hall - and much smaller than Koko's in Camden, where we saw Ms Palmer last year. Then, she was touring an impressive art show with Jason Webley, the Danger Ensemble and Zoe Keating; this time, the bulk of the evening consisted of Amanda and her Kurt Weil keyboard. She was nearly on the same level as the audience on the ground floor, and spitting distance from the third pew back, where we sat. The support act, Polly Scattergood and her band, joined Amanda onstage for a few songs during her set, and Neil Gaiman came on as well, a magnificent look of longsuffering on his face as he sang a filthy hymn.


Polly Scattergood

The intimacy of the venue and family atmosphere of the performers matched the setlist well: a mix of songs from Who Killed Amanda Palmer, older Dolls pieces that haven't often been performed and unexpected covers. I was very happy that she played my favourite WKAP song, "Runs in the Family", as well as "Delilah" from Yes, Virginia... Polly Scattergood sang the second vocal on that, from a green spotlight on the balcony, and it worked beautifully. "Oasis", towards the end of the night, was of course the big, handclapping, jolly band moment it always is. Maybe twenty minutes later, Amanda started her encore standing at the edge of the stage to sing "Me and a Gun" by Tori Amos in a strong voice into utter stillness.


Amanda Palmer

Even more so than at other AFP/Dresden Dolls gigs, there was a feeling of community at this show, both within the audience and between us and the performers. It's probably not unexpected, since Amanda Palmer, Neil Gaiman and Beth Hommel (photographer and Amanda's assistant, who was also there) are so very open and connected to the fans via blogs, Twitter, the Shadow Box forum and so on. At the same time, seeing them and Neil Gaiman's daughter Holly, who shows up in his blog now and then, in the flesh, person-sized and looking like themselves, had a strange effect - something like spotting Susan, Libby and Karl Kennedy walking down your street as a family. (Yeah, it's a Neighbours reference.)

Kirsten, Dave and I queued up for the brief signing afterwards. Kirsten had brought her WKAP book and had been gearing herself up all day to talk to Neil and Amanda when they signed it. I had forgotten my book and bought a poster, vaguely thinking I could have it signed if we happened to end up in the queue, but had given the signing itself no thought at all. Despite the feeling of knowing them both inside out (well, in part anyway) I found myself very starstruck in the crunch. At least I got out a thank you. I think that's important.

A few more of my pictures are here, and Kirstens much better ones are here.

How strange. Once Dave had put up this post at Not Powerless, on the fate of the bluefin tuna, I of course wrote an email about it to all seven of my MEPs and the UK's EU Trade Commissioner, Catherine Ashton. This was a few days ago and to be honest I wasn't really expecting a response - but today I got one, from the UK Independence Party of all people, fervently assuring me that

We are grateful that you have shared with us your concerns in relation to the future of bluefin tuna and will certainly take an active interest in the application to add them to Appendix I of CITES, which would make it officially an endangered species.

I am surprised whenever I'm reminded that UKIP are actually still a functioning political party, and I certainly wouldn't vote for them. If they're habitually so much more responsive to their constituents than their rival parties, though, it goes some way to explaining their continued existence.

This is the current state of bluefin tuna affairs:

The European Commission said it would support the EU co-sponsoring a proposal by Monaco to list the species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) next March.

But the EU will not fully commit until its 27 member countries have been consulted on September 21 or before new scientific data emerges in November.

Things are looking better than they were, but powerful business interests are against the move. A few more emails to your representatives can't hurt - encourage your MEPs to do whatever they can to support the proposal! Handy links are at the bottom of Dave's post.

I got a typewriter in the post yesterday! It's a 70s (I think)
Olympiette Special and I have named it Gladys, after the lady who wrote
four books on it in the 70s and 80s, Gladys Rosa Lennox.

Amusingly, on being confronted with a strange device bearing lettered
keys, Dave's first response was to write code on it (see above). Code
about kittens, indeed.

Part of my plan for tonight was to post pictures of Gladys, write about
the history of my love of typewriters, and try my hand at the
delightful art of typecasting. Unfortunately, my housemates and I have
spent the evening in a council of war against the depradations of our
shifty, lying, incompetent letting agency, who want to evict us. It is
can be Typewriter Night sometime soon, when I'm more confident of
keeping a roof over my and Sparky's heads.

Just a quick post to congratulate zarkonnen 's company, Metal Beetle Ltd, on reaching its first birthday! Over the last year Dave has worked very hard on his Beetley projects (including Fractal Fripperies, Space Exploration: Serpens Sector and various freelance things) and deserves to celebrate. I'm very proud of him.

Click through to the Metal Beetle page for more news and the celebration: the Beetle has a cake, and there is a discount code for Fractal Fripperies t-shirts.

The awesome picture of the Beetle and its cake was drawn by Lupie Stardust, who now has his own lovely art website and takes commissions.

(My friends are so talented!)

On my way to work, I cycle past a gym called Greens. It's a Health and Fitness Club, in fact, or perhaps even more of a lifestyle centre, complete with "stylish, fully licensed bar and brasserie" and "luxurious health and beauty salon".

Outside the car park, on the corner of a main road where hundreds of people must see them every day, Greens have two large advertisements. The posters, which are changed regularly, used to be the size of the ones in bus stops. They recently replaced the old boards with two enormous ones, nearly ten feet tall and each completely covered with a new ad.

The images below are representative of the Greens advertising style. The new ad in question featured the bum of a woman in bright pink shorts, and if I remember correctly, the model was actually pointing her finger directly at her rump. The caption read, "Does my bum look big in this?"

These ads present the female body - usually divested of its head or any other indication that it belongs to an individual person - in a purely passive, sexual way. Even the two women who seem to have been exercising, one with a Swiss ball and the other with boxing gloves, are posed to be coy, inviting, sexually receptive. This is the only image of female beauty that is possible in the Greens advert. Additionally, this is a beauty only attainable by women who have the means to buy a membership to this expensive and luxurious health club and the leisure time to spend many hours working out there.

Greens offer many classes (in aerobics and so on) and talk about health benefits on their website. I'm sure you could get fit there, but according to their advertising the primary reason for women to join is to conform to this sexualised, exclusive and unrealistic notion of beauty. For the men? Either they don't need to be advertised to, or Greens is counting on the timeworn idea that a few shots of tits and ass will lead them wherever the advertiser wants.



I say, "if I remember correctly," because I came back past Greens yesterday to find that the posters had been pulled down and the graffiti above sprayed on one of the boards: Every body is beautiful.

I was overjoyed to see this - activism for body acceptance and against this unrealistic beauty standard, in my very own neighbourhood. I have been annoyed with these ads - which are put up in several other places around the area too - since I started noticing them, almost as much for the bad puns they sport as for their representation of female beauty (they never feature men). I'd never really moved on from annoyance to anger or determination to act, though. I think part of my pleasure in seeing this graffiti is because it's a reminder that kicking against these images, which dominate our public spaces without our consent, is possible and has an effect.

I wonder who wrote this? I'd like to meet them.

I'm still a little skeptical that posting this is a great idea, but if
you wanted to see the Cambridge Ideas film that zarkonnen  and I were in, it
can be found here.

Strangely, there are far too many clips of me saying nonsensical
things, and almost none of Dave, except for some general shots, in
which he looks, simply, dreamy. I have no other comments to make
because I'm still running around inside my head saying, "Aaaah, do I
really look and sound like that? What was I saying?"

There follows a brief account of the weekend at M'era Luna, with some pictures and short descriptions of the bands we saw.

On Saturday morning we were mildly awoken by the sweet sound of a woman's voice calling, "Kaffee? Kaffee?"

"Is that a coffee vendor outside our tent?" I thought muzzily. "No, can't be." But it was! They belonged to a large baked-goods stand with the awful bilingually-punning name of BACK-Stage. We got up and Mark and I practised poi while the others drove to a Netto for supplies. Hilariously, the queue for mirrors was longer than the queues for the toilets, sinks or showers.

There was a "Mediaeval village" set up in part of the campsitewith interesting stalls (a steampunk oculist, a priest who would marry couples for a day, "mouse roulette") and good food, including falafel and fladenbrot. In the campsite, the mood was jolly throughout. One group, who had camped next to the main runway, spent nearly the whole weekend playing “goth cricket” with a two-litre water bottle as stumps and cans of beer as the ball. I think.

The people-watching, of course, was excellent. I saw my first girlfriend-being-led-on-a-chain here, and then several more, and then Dave and I began collecting statistics.

Girlfriend-on-a-chain: 18
Boyfriend-on-a-chain: 8
Two women, chained together at the neck: 1
A girl and a boy, chained together by the wrists: 1
A child on a chain held by its mother (the chain was connected to the waist this time!): 1

We didn't bother counting how many women we saw walking around in lace underwear and nothing else. At least it was the weather for it. The dust from the dry ground and the sand around the main stage rose in the air to create a constant haze that filmed the skin and hair. From out of this fog loomed postapocalyptic, perhaps posthuman creatures, their combat boots caked with dirt, their faces streaked with strange warpaint.

Kilts, and tartan in general, were a minor theme. I need someone to explain this for me.

Black slogan t-shirts were as popular as at home, but rather than the couple of dozen deeply familiar variants I'm used to at home, here there were another two dozen – in German!

I am having my usual trouble writing about the music. I want to say, "Zeromancer sounded much more square than Frozen Plasma," or "I really liked the colours in Faderhead's set" (to be overly simplistic about it). Unfortunately this does not translate to the space outside my head. Genre labels are even less useful and anyway Last.FM and I are disagreeing on them. That being said, here are some thoughts on the bands (and here is somebody else's review of the hangar stage on Saturday).

Heimatærde: We only caught the end of their last song but I am interested to hear more. Industrial/drone/something by men dressed as Knights Templar? Why not?
Faderhead: The first brilliant surprise of the festival. Lola Angst (and their 300 kg church organ) weren't onstage as we expected - instead Dave, Mark and I danced, shirtless and frenetic, in the aircraft hangar to Faderhead. I got very excited when they played "O/H Scavenger" (it's a chemistry term - there is an explanation in the comments of the YouTube video, which is something I thought I'd never say.) I was surprised that "Dirty Grrrls/Dirty Bois" was by them. I need to buy their music.
Krypteria: The first band we saw on the main stage. Their lead singer has a great voice and the music is rather melodic rock/metal. I think Chrisi would like them.
Letzte Instanz: We only heard them from across the mediaeval market, but I think I would like to hear more. German lyrics and a singer with a very deep voice.
Die Apokalyptischen Reiter: Again, we only heard them from afar, but I wasn't impressed - they were rather too abrasive for me.
Star Industry: We saw them in the hangar, thinking they were Nachtmahr because of timetable changes. I liked this quite a lot. Very 80s-sounding goth music that was nice to dance to. I don't think I'd buy an album, but maybe a few songs, and I'd dance to it again in a club.
Oomph!: Mark was very keen on seeing them, and I think I liked them and danced, but can't now remember anything about the music, except that they had one song about Deutschland. I'll have to try finding them on Last.FM.
The Birthday Massacre: They were fantastic. We weren't up close to the stage so I think I didn't really get the full effect, but I had been excited about seeing them and they didn't disappoint. The lead singer had great stage prescence. I was a little sorry they didn't play "Happy Birthday" but I could see that it might not have fitted with the rest of their set. Must get their album.
Welle:Erdball: Their name translates as Wave:Earthball and they seem just as odd. We didn't get to see them because of the timetable change - we saw Untoten instead, who were fun and enthusiastic onstage, but not really the same. I was intrigued by the programme's description of their stage shows as often containing lasers, balloons and staggering robots. Luckily there is a good song by them on the 2007 M'era Luna CD I got, and I hope to find out more.
Blutengel: Again, brilliant. Rather theatrical goth-pop with good lyrics. I do want more of this.
Apocalyptica: They were definitely one of the highpoints of the festival for me. I had been looking forward to seeing them for months and they were as exciting as I'd hoped. I make no apologies for responding to the music, the musicians and the playing style with unadulterated lust.
Nightwish: Somehow I have seen Nightwish play three times in the last year and a half, and with every show I get fonder of them. The band were excited to be playing the last festival date at the end of a very long tour (two years!). Unfortunately, the speakers of the main stage cut out midway through one of their biggest pyrotechnic set-pieces, leaving just the treble. Their reaction showed just how professional a group they are. Eventually the problem was fixed and the night ended on a high for audience and band alike. Even the promised thunderstorm only manifested as a brief drizzle.

Bands from Sunday:

Scream Silence: Another addition to the tally of bands we only heard from a distance. They sounded quite good though.
Mina Harker: We couldn't stop to hear Scream Silence. We needed to get our morning stuff done so we could go and see Mina Harker, which I had been determined to do since we bought tickets, purely because of the name. I wasn't disappointed. At 11.20 am, Ms Harker was wearing skin-tight black from head to foot, including an amazing collar. Her voice was wonderful and the goth-pop songs gave her plenty of opportunity to show it off.
Frozen Plasma: Never mind going to see them - Frozen Plasma's name was one of the reasons I bought a ticket for the whole festival. For months I have been telling people, "I'm going to M'era Luna this year. You know - Nightwish, the Prodigy, Frozen Plasma..." I feared they'd be a death metal band and I'd hate them, but no, Frozen Plasma sounded, in Dave's words, "exactly like you'd expect a band called Frozen Plasma to sound." It's futurepop, apparently. We danced - I as much as I could in my platforms - but then had to move to the main stage for -
Zeromancer: One of the bands Mark wanted to see. They were more straight-up rock (Last.FM says industrial, I disagree somewhat) but we kept dancing. Someone from the German TV station ZF filmed the three of us dancing shirtfree to "It Sounds Like Love (But It Looks Like Sex)". They also have a good song called "Clone Your Lover".
Ashbury Heights: According to the programme, "Whoever thinks electronic music is not at all sexy should let themselves be taught a lesson by this Swedish boy-meets-girl duo," which baffled me. Of course electronic music is sexy, isn't that what it's there for? Having seen Ashbury Heights, I think the writer simply means that they have more songs about relationships than most other electro outfits. Also one that I was sure had the refrain, "Release the lobsters!" (I liked them.)
L'Âme Immortelle: Theatrical goth. I thought they were quite good but can't remember much about the music. I didn't like the female singer's voice as much as some others (it's better on record), but I admired her hair greatly.
The Crüxshadows: Another discovery! The rest of the group had all expressed their intention to see this band, and I dismissed them because, um, they have a rather silly name, unlike any of my favourite acts. Besides, they've been going for ages and I hadn't heard their music so they couldn't be any good. It turned out that they were incredible live. They have electric violin! I stood listening, half watching the dancers in silver corsets and black knickers, half watching a woman make sandcastles with her daughter in the sand near the stage. Another woman, wearing a transparent blouse, a leather corset and antlers in her hair, came up and politely asked to take a photograph of the two of them.
Grendel: Sorry, Martin, not the Marillion song. We only caught the last minute or two of this, but the rest of the group seemed to have enjoyed themselves when they tumbled out of the hangar, looking as though they had been freshly basted.
Tiamat: I had been looking forward to seeing Tiamat, but in the end I don't think much was gained over their records by the live performance. Halfway through the set they paused so their drummer could take a photo of the crowd! Dave wandered off to get us some iced coffee and I sat down and tried to regain some energy.
IAMX: Bollocks. As with Grendel, we only saw a little of this performance. I wasn't very keen on pushing into the hangar for it. On searching for IAMX on Last.FM, however, I realise that I was mixing them up with Static-X and this would have been much better. Er, next time?
Subway to Sally: I've never seen so much tartan onstage before. All the band were wearing red kilts, possibly hats as well. I was very confused. The music didn't impress me hugely, though I was pleased they had fiddles and pipes of some kind in the sound.
Deathstars: Gothic industrial somewhat similar to Marilyn Manson. Deathstars were the last band in the hangar. I thought they were good for stomping around to, but the volume was loud enough that I needed to wear earphones and felt I missed most of the nuance in their performance. And the lyrics. I did gather that the singer was keen for us to appreciate Satan.
The Prodigy: There was still light in the sky when we walked out for the final band of the weekend. The Prodigy would have been an odd choice to headline this festival a year ago, but their current sound fit right in. Live, they brought in songs from throughout their history interspersed with tracks from Invaders Must Die. The whole airfield danced - from cybergoths to Victorian goths shimmying, plus that one guy who had been yelling, "We want the Prodigy!" since the Crüxshadows were on.

“I don't know where you two find the energy,” Helen remarked to Dave and me afterwards.

“Well, it helps that we don't have to power a set of lights,” I replied.

It was only ten o'clock. We left the stage area with an antswarm of goths and headed to the mediaeval village for fladenbrot, to find a troupe of performers beating on big drums while their barker, strangely enough dressed as a 17th-century gentlemen, called up a crowd around a large cleared circle. Sipping good mead, we watched a thrillingly accomplished fire-spinning display (including blindfolded fire poi - wow). The performance ended with the drummer and Marktsackpfeifer playing dancing tunes together as dozens of goths ran into the open space for an enthusiastic knees-up.

It's taken me nearly two weeks to write this post, and just as I finished it last night, our aggravatingly flaky internet went down. I was going to intersperse more photos with the band descriptions, but instead I will just link again to the Flickr set and finally - I hope - hit POST.

DSCF5034
Originally uploaded by daisydaisyk

Here is a Science Question for Dad and Eddy.

I have a Brompton folding bicycle with three gears (her name is Janis).
Bromptons, I have been told, use a sun and planet gear. I usually pump
the tyres up to 60-65 psi, after which point it gets difficult to put
more air into them. The good pump is at Dave’s house, though, so
sometimes they get a bit squishy before I get over there to pump them
up again.

I usually cycle in the middle gear, but when the tyres are losing
pressure I can feel myself going slowly and come up to the higher gear
to compensate. This is not too challenging. When I pump the tyres up
again, though, cycling in the higher gear becomes a lot more difficult
and I drop back down to the relief of middle gear.

Why is this? I would have thought that cycling with soft tyres would be
slower because it would take more effort overall. Instead it seems to
be easier but still slower. Answers on the back of a comment please!

Above: the picture that perhaps best sums up the last weekend. I spent
three days in an apocalyptic wasteland of sorts, saw bands I've loved
for years and bands that I've only just begun to love, was filmed by
German TV dancing in my bra, bought five-inch platform boots and spun
poi in public with almost zero angst.

M'era Luna 2009 was more fun than I can sum up here, especially since
uploading pictures to Flickr has taken about two hours. I will write a
more proper post tomorrow (honest!), but tonight I am just going to
link to those photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daisydaisyk/tags/meraluna/.

Writing actual words is difficult at the moment, so there will likely
(hopefully, since part of the reason I'm not out gothing it up is so I
could blog!) be pictures instead. If you're reading this on
livejournal, the pictures will be at http://verticalblue.blogspot.com,
not there, sorry. They don't fit down the tubes for some reason.

I turned 25 at the end of July, and spent my birthday travelling to
Switzerland with Dave. He got me a Lego spider for my birthday, because
we are grown ups now.

I've taken this meme from tiny_monster. The rules are:

* Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.

* No captions. It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.

* They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.

* You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.

For me, if anyone has any questions, I will answer them in comments. You should all join in! I think it will be fun.

( Pictures behind the cut. Be warned, there are some boobs. I think you can click them to make them bigger. )

EDIT: The pictures! You can click the pictures to make them bigger, not the boobs! That would just be weird.

I’ve clearly been spending too much time on computers. One of my
coworkers mentioned the other day that he didn’t know what geranium
leaves smelled like. My fingers immediately flew to my keyboard, to
google the scent and send him a link to it.

i

Last night, Dave (mine), Dave (non-denominational), Jenny and I had a
board games evening that turned into a group chemistry session. Er, not
that kind. Someone at work had given me six unripe walnuts from the
tree in his back garden, to make schnapps with. We were very taken with
the description of the colour changes in the solution over the course
of a year - from light green to dark green as the essential oils
dissolve out of the nuts, to black when they oxidise, to, finally, a
deep mahogany. The conversation turned to speculation as to what else
we could steep in vodka for fun and profit, and the obvious answer
surfaced - coffee beans!

The internet had got there ahead of us, of course, and with nicer
pictures. Coffee vodka takes only 12 hours to become drinkable, giving
much faster gratification than the walnut schnapps, which will be ready
in a year.

Dave cracked a large handful of his fancy coffee beans between two
chopping boards while I quartered my unripe walnuts. They were
strangely unlike the ripe ones we eat: when asked to guess, most people
thought they were limes or quinces. They were smooth and green, with a
faint spicy aroma. Inside, the shells had not yet started to develop,
and though the familiar curlicued pattern was present, it was picked
out in translucent goo and white pith. When we'd both finished our
preparations, Dave added a shake of sugar to his and we covered our
test samples in a respectable layer of Finlandia vodka. They were then
put in the airing cupboard.



This morning, the coffee vodka had turned an impressively opaque black.
We filtered it through a tea strainer to get the shiny, beetle-like
beans out. Even after that, when I held the glass up to the light, the
shadows of my fingers did not show through.



The four of us stood in the kitchen, clinked our beakers to science and
took a sip. At the first taste, our tongues met sweetness, but it was
followed up immediately by the black bitterness of the coffee and a
combined caffeine/alcohol kick that could blow your head off. It is
truly wonderful stuff, a brew for cementing dark unholy compacts. It
goes nicely with dark chocolate, too. We have honoured it with the name
of Podka.



I'm not supposed to be drinking at the moment, so clearly vodka and
caffeine was the best breakfast possible. Hopefully, by the time my
walnuts are schnapps I will be in a position to appreciate them fully!

I am using a sort of workaround to cross-post entries from my Blogger blog to here, emailing the post automatically from Blogger to LiveJournal. It seems to be working well except that formatting, links and images all get washed out on the way. I can see this getting irritating. Can anyone offer any advice? Thanks a lot :)

In the course of some inter-desk shenanigans this afternoon, my boss
tried to tempt me and Sarah the summer student into eating some BBQ
Beef Hula Hoops he'd lifted from our physicist's desk drawer.

"Come on, share the guilt," he beguiled us.

"I wouldn't eat your stolen beef Hula Hoops even if I could!" I
declared grandly.

"Can you eat them, though?" someone else asked. I set out to find a
definitive answer, committed as ever to the twin causes of Truth and
filling up the five minutes between collecting samples.

A moment's googling brought me to the United Biscuits customer care
webpage, where they helpfully offer no less than 15 lists of products
suitable for various special diets. A note at the top of the list
states, "Valid only for the month of July 2009," so they are presumably
updated once a month.

This month, vegans like me are allowed the following:

HULA HOOPS
Original
Salt & Vinegar Flavour
Smoky Bacon Flavour

I doubt that any of my readers who eat bacon actually thought there was
any in their crisps, so this would be fine, except that Muslim
customers are offered this selection, all "vegetarian and alcohol free":

HULA HOOPS
Original
Salt & Vinegar Flavour
Cheese & Onion Flavour
Roast Chicken Flavour

The Cheese & Onion and Roast Chicken flavours probably contain whey
powder, so that's why they're on this list and not the vegan one, but
where have the Bacon hoops gone? I guessed that they were left off
because Muslims might not want even fake pig flavour in their crisps -
but, no, Bacon Flavour Discos, Skips and Wheat Crunchies are all okay.

Does this mean Smokey Bacon Hula Hoops contain alcohol? I would buy a
packet and see if I get tipsy, but unfortunately I am opposed to fake
pig flavouring on grounds of taste.

I avoided the wages of sin (they are beef-flavour savoury snacks) but
gained a new mystery.

zarkonnen recently blogged at Not Powerless about the "rape crisis crisis". Despite promising in his election manifesto to provide funding for four new rape crisis centres in the capital, as well as to sustain the only one already operating, Boris Johnson has done nothing to help them. The Croydon rape crisis centre may soon have to close because of this lack of funding. It goes without saying that the work they do is highly important and this is a big problem.

zarkonnen has written a follow-up post about the issue and suggests ways to help, including writing to Boris Johnson to remind him to keep his promise in the consultation to decide funding, closing the 20th of July. I highly recommend reading both posts and taking action!

I spent eight days in Switzerland, helping with a school trip to CERN as I've done a couple of times before and then meeting up with Dave to go to Bern and Zürich by train. The CERN trip went really well, I thought, despite a forced divergence from our usual plan - some sort of little shindig was occurring, so we had to stay at the Geneva Youth Hostel rather than on the site. This meant more time spent on public transport rather than free for the girls to decompress from all the physics we took them through, as well as less of an immersion in the day-to-day scientific atmosphere there. We had a great guided tour around some of the accelerators, though. We also visited, as usual, the Red Cross Museum and took a boat ride across the lake. I'd like to put some pictures up but this will have to wait till next week, when I've bought abDave's old computer - neither I nor my poor ancient laptop have much fun when I try to deal with photos nowadays.

After the group had left, like a true cosmopolitan, I hit up my Geneva connection and got drunk with Hugh and some of his interns before finding Dave. Oops. It was good to catch up with him, though.

We arrived in Bern in the middle of the Museumsnacht, a once-a-year event when the city's many museums stay open till 2am. For a set price, you can enter however many of them you like - it was a little too much for us, though, since we got there at midnight. Instead we walked around the old centre of the city together. It was punctuated with beautiful lighting displays at each of the museums, huge moths fluttering across their facades in constantly-changing colours. Shining vintage cars drove around in a circuit. In the central plaza, there was even a large inflatable igloo with a disco and bar inside. It was just like a citywide May Ball. We had one (very expensive!) drink in the Kornhauskeller, which was far more impressive even than their website shows. Throughout all of this I took no pictures - the camera's batteries had died. Oh well.

Our second night in Bern, we saw Cindy-Jane perform in Hopscotch by Israel Horovitz, with her production company The Free 3eggars (Facebook link), followed by her comedy improv group, Are You Serious?!. The venue was a cellar on the Münstergasse - very intimate and plain, it worked well for both the play and the comedy. I hugely enjoyed the whole evening.

Dave and I finished our trip with a visit to the Alpamare, near Zürich, a huge indoor and outdoor complex of swimming pools, with the free passes we'd got from Maria for Christmas. Then, before we knew it, the holiday was over. A bit like this post, which was meant to be about something entirely different, and now has to end because I ought to eat lunch.