Shoes and handbags

There's something wrong with me that I'm almost ashamed to admit. I think it makes me not a real woman.
I don't like shoes or bags.
There I said it. Now tell me...am I some kind of anomaly?
To be honest it's not really that I hate shoes. They're fine. Some of them are very pretty. Mostly though, they are very expensive, painful and delicate. They are the kind of thing that you enjoy putting on then walking into a crowd like some kind of diva...and then, once the wow!factor is gone, you immediately wish you'd worn flip-flops. Frankly, if I didn't live in such a cold, rainy country where people like to smash glass bottles on the street I'd be massively in favour of being always barefoot.
But I am in shoe straits at the moment. We've just come out of rainy season where I had to wear wellies everyday because non of my other shoes were waterproof. They seemed to all develop holes simultaneously which was rather annoying. I blame my propensity to walk on tiptoes which eventually splits the sole. But I can't help it. I'm very short.
As much as I love the wellies I have to say, they aren't very glamorous. I've just spent a month looking like a farmer which is especially odd in central London. I was undoubtedly much cooler (and drier) than all the bankers and lawyers I pass on the way to work but the welly-yellow-raincoat look does seem a bit like overkill on paved streets with a functioning sewer system.
So I bought some 'sensible' shoes. No holes, not heavy, and when I put them on in the shop, very comfortable. My flatmate kindly described them as nun shoes (its OK- she has Jehovah's witness shoes). However, having worn them for the first time in the real world three days ago I can confirm that they are definitely not comfy sensible shoes. They have teeth. The only kind of nun who would wear these shoes would belong to some kind of Opus Dei order and use them to practise self-flagellation on the go.
Ouuuuuuccccchh! Why do we do this to ourselves ladies?
And the answer is because they look so damn good- once the blisters have gone and we have learnt to not walk like a baby gazelle.
And that's another thing. If you can't walk in your shoes: don't. No matter how good you look standing still, you look like an idiot once you start to move. You completely undermine the aim to be elegant.
And then there's bags. My main issue here is that I basically don't want to carry anything because I'm lazy. I don't need a Mulberry. I need a porter. Or for people to lend me money and their phones on the go. And women's clothes don't come with pockets that are good enough to actually put anything in. Annoying.
Besides, bags are often either so big that I would fall inside before being able to reach my keys at the bottom; or they are too small and all I can fit in there is a tiny golden whistle that I use to call the man behind me who is labouring under the excess weight of all my stuff.
What exactly is the point? And more importantly, what is the solution?
If it comes to you, let me know. I'm unable to leave the house at the moment due to fashion related injuries so I'll be waiting and brainstorming.

Birds: Know Your Limits

There once was a pigeon from Rome
Which began to choke on a bone
'Cause a leg of meat
Is not made for a beak
So he should have left it alone.

I would like to do my tax now.

What with tax self-assessment on the horizon, I feel now is a good time to admit that I don't understand money. I'm fairly sure most of it is entirely fictional. A million pounds is difficult enough a number for me to comprehend but I can break it down but working out what it could buy me.
Billions though? Imagine how fuzzy your head would be if you had to deal with those kind of numbers. Anything over a million is definitely monopoly money.
Not that I will ever have to think about that. This is my third self-assessment and I have managed to complete these forms with no idea how or why they work. While filling them out I have to phone my mum every seven and a half minutes and speak to one of the accountants that she works with. Hurrah for Gardner's Accountants.
I generally assume I will be paid some tax back as I am the mot unsuccessful business I know. Apparently I assume I can afford to work for free...which is bizarre.
My ambitions for money are uncertain. On one hand I am semi-sure that I will win the lottery soon. I pretty much have my bags packed for a world tour and am an occasional peruser of estate agent windows. When I imagine myself as an old and eccentric woman who dresses in purple, that is a very expensive red Chanel hat I'm wearing.
But I have been convinced I'm headed for the jackpot before and somehow the numbers came out wrong, or someone secretly swapped my ticket, realising as I did that it was the lucky one.
Anyway, I'd be very bewildered by my millions and would almost certainly have to spend it all immediately to take the pressure off my long starved bank account and get back to normal.
Right now, for once, I do have some rainy-day savings. However, I have cleverly managed to lock it in a place I can't touch...for a year! So I have money to spend that I can't spend. Lend me a tenner, would you?
But there is something kind of nice about not having money too. It's pleasantly bohemian. A world where your bicycle has to have a name because she's so important (Sybil if you're asking, in a ironic way as she would be a more obvious Rex) and free food/samples is almost as good as finding treasure.
Don't get me wrong I'm not living on the bread line here. But I am saying you enjoy things more when you live like a student. Keeps you young and creative, no?
Besides, as I've mentioned before I have no real desire for any job that involves making the kind of money where I can regularly go on the kind of holidays I regularly want to go on. Artistic types are rarely flush, are they? So perhaps the red Chanel hat will be from a second hand store and I'll work at a Buddhist Monastery so that I can see Halong Bay.
In any case, maybe I spent so much being a business this year that I will get a small fortune back in tax. Here's hoping (wait...I should not be hoping for that). First I need a P60 though, and if the people whose job money is would sort that out I'd be much obliged. I'm obviously not the only one with little interest in such banalities.

Can I build a time machine?

My Mum used to call me Why-Bird. This referred both to my favourite character on Playdays and to the fact that I was constantly asking questions. Why does it rain? What makes rainbows happen? Are snails born with shells? And of course, where do babies come from?
My Dad came back from working away from home once to discover my new habit of 'giving birth' around the house, and the mother of one of the girls at school was not happy when I informed her daughter that babies did not, in fact, come out of your belly button. Urgh! What a disgusting thought. I was quite right to nip that one in the bud.
It's not just that I am curious about lots of things but I like to hear people speak about things that they are passionate about. I want what they have in manner of toddler grabbing a shiny new toy. Which I think is what makes me a good student. It is irrelevant whether or not I have a natural talent for a subject. I just enjoy receiving well-loved knowledge and asking questions.
I love that beautiful dawning comprehension as something is explained to you. The most satisfaction I've ever got out of a book was one I didn't really understand: How to build a time machine. It was pretty much what it says on the tin, a discussion about whether time travel would be possible. And I almost understood it.
What I mean is that when I was reading it, it made sense, despite it being rather beyond the GCSE physics that I had almost forgotten. However, as soon as I tried to explain it to anyone else I was lost and had to go back to the book again to reaffirm my newly discovered genius. Wow! I totally get physics...for at least three minutes after reading.
You know, it's nice to have discussions. Not only do I like guzzling up delicious information, I'm also something of a show-off and am very happy to tell you about it. I like to be right, whether that means arguing my point or making myself right by filling in gaps.
However, I do not like answering questions that I do not benefit from. That is questions about things that maybe I should know, or should find out, but that I'm not interested in.
Giving directions is fine. Because I have such a terrible sense or direction I get really excited when I do know the way. It's like I'm getting full marks in a surprise test.
Taking orders and bookings are not so good for me because for a start I have no concept of time so I can't answer that kind of question well. No matter how many times someone tells my something happens at 6.45, I cannot keep that number in my head so the information attached to it also disappears. The same applies to money. No matter how hard I try to keep a track on it (and I must admit I don't try very hard) I can't work out how value and price is worked out. So I can't answer your questions.
So I'm terrible for giving practical and immediately useful information. Ask me about Shakespeare though and I'm all over it.
This is why I'm running away to Italy. To stuff my head full of art and history and language, and my belly full of pasta. All delicious. I'll be late all the time and spend all my money. But it my birthday present to myself so that's OK.
And then having spent all my time and money maybe I'll return with a new appreciation of it.
Nah! I'll just tell you about my lovely holiday instead and ask you why the sky is blue.

And this is why I [do not] hate the Moor.

I joke that I once saw the ghost of Shakespeare in the brasserie at Swan at the Globe. Well...I say I joke. I did see the ghost of Shakespeare in the brasserie. Fact.
Why wouldn't he be there? He spent his most significant adult years hanging around Southbank. I'm guessing he wouldn't want to spend eternity with the wife..why not check how his Globe is getting on.
Yes, yes. You're right, it's not his Globe, or even in the same place but I reckon he'd be pretty chuffed with the whole establishment. It's a great theatre, and I'm not saying that just because I work there. I'm saying it because it's a magical place where even the rain cannot dampen ones spirit because we're all part of the show. And all getting wet...actor and audience alike.
Besides, everyone wants a Shakespeare poncho.
So, we are currently in the middle of Globe To Globe festival. You could go to the theatre every night and see a different play in a different language. Being a fan of Will I booked tickets for three shows on the first day they were released, to since discover that staff members can just walk in for free. Fool. Tickets are only £5 though so it's no tragedy and I can pretend it's my contribution to the Jacobean theatre.
I'm spending some time being generally confused by the shows because I can unfortunately only understand one language. If I had a superpower I would like the ability to speak all the languages. Not just because this would then be the perfect festival for a newly smug me, but imagine the holidays...
I digress. What I meant to say was that I find it quite nice to not know exactly what's going on sometimes. And the best actors can be understood without words.
But Shakespeare is so much about language so I was very excited to see Othello: The Remix by the Q Brothers and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in a language I would understand: Hip Hop.
Now I accept that everyone is entitled to their opinion but the lady behind me who said she hated it should pipe down because hers is wrong. Clearly and obviously wrong because I've never seen an audience enjoy a show quite this much. The atmosphere was something like a party but with everyone from scholars, to babies, to students invited. A play that begins with a DJ and involves you getting high fived by Iago is bound to be fun.
OK, so this wasn't Shakespeare on a pedestal. The company said from the start that it wouldn't be the same, but that they were following in the footsteps of the bard himself and stealing the story, giving it a twist and making something new. I think Shakespeare himself would have been in the front row with his hands in the air.
The entirety of the play was rapped, and all the characters played by the four guys. All except Desdemona who existed in our imaginations as clearly as a physical presence on stage.
I laughed for most of the ninety minutes but it wasn't all comedy. The smothering scene was beautifully done and wonderfully painful. It was a moment of sensation and Desdemona became more tangible and alive even as she was killed.
Too many people think they don't like or don't understand Shakespeare, or that he's not relevant but this production proves them wrong. Yes, the language was different but the show was littered with references and quotes, not just from Othello, but many more of Shakespeare's works. Rap is not so distantly removed from poetry. Will would have loved the rhyme.
Of course the vocabulary is different now. The richness of Shakespeare's language is undeniable but we have so many more words today.
Anyone who can invent words like 'bump,' 'metamorphosed,' or 'madcap' must have been awesome. We can't really know for sure if he invented them, maybe he just wrote them down first but those words were probably the Elizabethan equivalents of 'chav' or 'tweet.'
I imagine an audience watching Shakespeare when he was alive felt the same about his language as I sometimes do when I see Will.I.Am on The Voice..envious that I can't describe something as 'dope' because I'm just not that cool.
Othello: The Remix was just a hugely entertaining and accessible show, in the true spirit of the festival and the Great Man. If you think you don't like Shakespeare get involved and see how timeless he is. If you're already a fan just enjoy.
Actually by now you've already missed it, unless you will be lucky enough to see them elsewhere. If not, there are whole new worlds to discover at Globe to Globe. And season proper starts soon so get your tickets.
Promo: done. I should get a bonus and a free poncho.

Gilbert Blyth and the perfect flaw

I think I promised a few blogs ago to talk about the first time I fell in love. Well here it is. My first love was a boy called Gilbert Blyth. Unfortunately, though he did grow up to be a doctor and generally lovely person, he also married his childhood sweetheart, Anne Shirley, commonly known by thousands of children as Anne of Green Gables.
It was OK though. I also loved Anne as truly as a sister so I was happy for them both. I'm a nice girl like that.
Of course the other problem with Gilbert Blyth was that he was entirely imaginary, as were a long progression of other men: the prince from Disney's Sleeping Beauty; Mr Thornton from North & South; Jamie Fraser, a Jacobite Scotman; Darragh, an Irish gypsy; Heathcliff...
All imaginary and all entirely unobtainable. And not like real people at all because even though these characters are not written flawless, they are somehow perfectly flawed. Like how Achilles' only weakness is his heel, but it is this chink in the armour that makes him a hero.
They say that Disney and romance give women unrealistic expectations of men, that we all want a superhero or Prince Charming but we know that would be boring. What I at least would look for is the perfect flaw.
But how do you tell what the perfect flaw is? Maybe it needs to be something you don't suddenly notice, but that you grow to love and not become annoyed with. Or maybe it could be something that at first is the only thing you see and then suddenly, it becomes something you are blind to. Did any of that make any sense? Probably not. Basically who knows. Not me, for sure.
I'm hardly an expert. I'm a non-dater. This is when you agree to go on what normal people would think of as dates but insist they are nothing of the sort. Or I avoid any kind of definite answer: "I don't know when I'm free..." Or from a warped sense of either self preservation or pride I become deliberately obtuse or very Britishly self-mocking.
So I have not discovered what the perfect flaw is.
I blame catholic girls school (where the only examples of boys are Jesus and the pervy geography teacher who possibly has a bottle of whiskey in his cupboard to see him through the day) and ballet (where men wear tights). They don't teach you about boys there and as we all know, men are much more complicated than women. I have only recently observed first hand that rather than a tragically mortal heel being the perfect flaw, an annoying adiction to xbox is more likely. Or a comic book collection. Or selfishness. Everyone is selfish though, so that doesn't really count.
It's a whole confusing world out there. Disney men don't say they'll call and then disappear until they need something from you, and they would never kiss all the other princesses, or compare notes with their prince friends. They have cool and much more forgivable faults like having been turned inconveniently into a frog.
However, Disney men don't seem likely to make you laugh. And they wouldn't be so undignified as to go on the swings in the park with you. And you couldn't tell them you fancy Rupert Grint. They wouldn't be half as fun as proper people.
Actually I'm holding out for Gilbert so its all irrelevant anyway!