Stolen Jumpers and Stuffed Marrows

Gin is a devilish drink*. The spirit that harbours dark spirits. But these are soon exorcised (on the bus, orally) and good things can result from knocking back such evils. Like the jumper he found in his pocket. A large jumper folded into a small pocket. A man's, and bearing the date of a dear friend's birth. A jumper that I wear the day after the night before, following the march through the London of Important Buildings, where condom balloons fly and bounce off shiny, bald, liberal heads.

When odd things happen, when chickens lose heads, and when surreal seems to be the norm, I concentrate on little things. Like how I always sneeze when I pluck my eyebrows. Concentrate on little things, and make big things out of Sunday afternoons. Stuff a marrow with bright colours (add mince for the carnivores) and eat with friends whilst listening to Radio 4.

* Though Jilly Cooper gets hammered on sloe gin with her daughter, which sounds sublime. I would like to get a bit silly and giggly and very very tipsy with Jilly. And sloe gin conjures a gentrified countryside idyll of old. Nectar rather than noxious.

Changing Gears

[Me putting a Harry Potter hex on the Provost]

Graduand sounds rather grand, but now I am a Graduate. Unfortunately Anne Bancroft was not involved in this initiation, despite me having the same nose as Dustin Hoffman.

Now I am a Graduate, I am also a grease monkey. I change inner tubes in the hallway. I re-connect the chain when it comes off over hills. I smudge my A-Z, clothes, bare legs and face with oil. My hands are bathed in the stuff. I curse like a trooper. I get a boy to 'deal with the bike' when not even my Barbie bell can redeem it that day.

I construct bookshelves by myself. Bang bang bang. After watching the women on Madmen. I bake bread pudding. But fork it cold and straight from the souffle dish into my mouth. 'Anna, don't smack your lips'.

I drink Turkish coffee and buy a spinach-stuffed borek. Sweet sludge and savoury stodge.

I invite Iris Murdoch and Alan Hollinghurst to bed on a Sunday morning. We all lie in together.

I read Style magazines and munch apples collected from wind-fall in the conservatory as he types. Tap tap tap om nom nom.

I witness the perfect death of a villain in Castle of Cagliostro. Crushed between clock hands at the top of a tower as it strikes midnight.

Graduates wear red lipstick, become wimpy tomboys, get covered in grease, wish they were a Manga cartoon, and eat in an unladylike manner. I thought this would be enough to attract Anne Bancroft. Maybe I can do without her. I have left-over bread pudding in her place.

Organ Playing

London was upturned topsy-turvy yesterday. All those who usually dwell underground, beneath the streets, came out into the sunlight and were blinded by it. Dazzled, startled, so the streets became barmy. Sirens, buses screaming right by stops, crammed crowded like the trains in India. Roads jam jam jammed. The monster ignoring the zebra crossing was the beginning of it all. [I should have been wearing my zebra leggings, to hammer home the safari road safety]
After being run over, the city became skewiff along with my flying shoe and crisscrossed nerves.

I gave the boy with the East-European Face an East-European Stomach. I made it with sausage carved from solid meat and herrings in mustard and spiced cheese curds. We ate dinner in a restaurant wearing indoor slippers and inside-out shirts. Men sang Marvin Gaye, thinking him a hot-blooded hunk of male meat. Women knew better, secret-smiling and shaking heads. Hot-blooded males. Tepid results.

Today the tubes are running again, pumping, pulsing under city skin. I listen to witchy playlists [http://fraeuleinzucker.blogspot.com/2010/09/something-wicked-this-way-comes.html] and add REINBOLT to the database. A bolt of rain? Lightning that got damp, then sodden, round the edges as it passed through the topsy-turvy atmosphere of yesterday. Lightning teardrop. Today it rains and Mumford and Sons don't sound so bad with their hands and their hearts and their eyes in every song. They sound laughably familiar. Bodies. Tangible flesh.

Plated flesh food is gifted to us from lovely neighbours. Tempting me with tasty smackerals of aromatic dead animal, filling the hallway, and then our home, with 'mmmmm...' Grilled fish and meat curries. Caribbean blood, string vests, wide smiles. They are large loud solid. Alive! We give them thick sweet honey in return, though they are sweet enough.


[intestine sock]

My shoe flew through the air, no substance to it, but my foot has a thick skin. It is the meat that matters.

Breakfasts in Victoria Park Village. Lunches in Soho Square. Dinners in Turnpike Lane.

Wine in Hackney Wick. Ale on Highgate Road. Gin and tonics in Kilburn. Red Stripe in Brick Lane. A pint in a plastic cup in Clapham.

Take-away tea on the 236.