Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

I love it when magnets make you reasses your life. I can't say it happens often. These delightful words were found on a door in a courtyard somewhere near covent garden, possibly. I interpret it as a call to drink more but also to acheive more. I'm concerned these two goals might be incompatible.

Let's go fly a kite

I have been struggling in inner turmoil with this issue for a while now, and I think I need an outlet.

The issue is Merry-Go-Rounds.

Merry-Go-Rounds: The Silent Killer

I find them simultaneously alluring and disturbing. The 'alluring' part is understandable; they evoke a kind of Edwardian charm of fairgrounds and laughter and candyfloss and dodgems. (Yes I know candyfloss probably isn't Edwardian. Don't shatter the dream). Then of course there's Rosie, the Magical Mystical Merry-Go-Round from Playdays; she was neither alluring nor disturbing, but a necessary evil until Why-Bird graced our screens again. I think I can trace my discomfort with them back to my almost-daily viewings of Mary Poppins as a child. Not only did this film form the bedrock of my feminist principles with the classic song 'Sister Suffragette' and inspire the now half-fulfilled ambition to become a tapdancing chimney-sweep, it also had me 60% convinced that if I rode a Merry-Go-Round, the horses would come semi-alive, leave their stifling fairground structure and gallop/bob down a lane into untold danger/excitement. Possibly including some kind of racecourse. I'm not sure what it says about me that the threat of danger we might encounter on our fantastical journey far outweighed any potential excitement and has left me with an almost crippling phobia of Merry-Go-Rounds, and horses, that I am only now beginning to excavate. Perhaps that I have a fear of the unknown and am unwilling to take (equine) risks? One thing's for certain: after five months publishing books on counselling I am no closer to unravelling my own psychoses. Although I did find myself today uttering the phrase "I cannot believe we only have two books on groupwork!"...and genuinely meaning it.

Scandals in Stonemasonry

You've got to admire a lady who is so ashamed of her nakedness that she covers her face despite being made of stone. The cheery inscription on the stone seems to read: "Is life a boon? If so it must befal that death when he call must call too soon." Man that is depressing. I'd probably get naked too if I had to stand next to that every day. Not sure it would help though.

CS Lewis = Badass

The jury is out on whether I can get away with the word 'badass'...I've been inspired by Lauren Leto, Literary Blogger Extraordinaire, but then she is American. I think they might have a monopoly on the word 'badass'. Perhaps I should use the phrase 'Extremely Good Chap' instead. CS Lewis is an Extremely Good Chap. He said this, and it is Awesome:

"Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

In the spirit of Lewis and childish things...this place is AMAZING:

http://www.pollockstoymuseum.com/

Sugar and Spice and all things Nice

I stumbled/tripped over/bumped into this place a while ago on what turned out to be a Very Good Day - I interviewed comedians, had dim sum, went to an avant-garde production of Hamlet in a disused office block and met an incredibly drunk chap on the way home who was very impressed by all of the above. Fingers crossed I shall in time meet someone else who is impressed with me and is also able to comport himself in a soberly fashion. In the meantime there's always sweets...

The Sweetshop: Hope and Greenwood

The Comedians: The Penny Dreadfuls

See my interview here

Lost London Loves

I think it's pretty much on record that London is awesome; as Samuel Johnson once said, "When a man is tired of London, he is a douchebag."

There are many things I love about London. I love the fact that it's got so much history it doesn't know what to do with it - did you know there's been a church on the site of Westminster Cathedral since 200AD(ish)?

I love that the one time I had occasion to go into the offices of Vogue, I met the receptionist; who contrary to expectation was an old man who was seventy-plus or I'm a wombat. He called me "dearie".

I love that if you go even slightly off the beaten track you find gems you would never know were there; nothing makes me feel more like a Londoner than being able to say "oh you want a purveyor of obscure cartography? follow me..." My only problem is quite often I stumble upon these amazing places/things/people and can never find them again. I quite like that though; it's like the city is playing hide and seek with me. I thought I'd share some here so you can join the game if you want. First up, my Favourite Bench In All The World:



I know it's on the South Bank somewhere but whenever I try and find it I always end up freaking out the couples who are trying to have a Romantic Moment Looking At the Thames. More Lost London Loves to come...

Marginalia Larks

Books are good, right? We're all agreed. But what's...gooderer? Spending thousands of pounds on an English degree and being unable to think of the word 'better' for several minutes? No! Second Hand Bookshops. They, quite frankly, Rock My Socks. I was thinking about making a T-shirt that says "Second Hand Bookshops Rock My Socks" but it's not the snappiest slogan in the world, and there is the inevitable problem that any girl wearing a top with words on has to suffer the indignity of someone basically reading her breasts. I digress.

My Second Hand Bookshop of the Week is without a doubt, Any Amount of Books which can be found in real life at 56 Charing Cross Road, and on the internet here: http://www.anyamountofbooks.com/ . They don't make 'em like this anymore - leather so stiff and battered, fifty years old and you can practically still smell the cow. A couple of doors down, in another labyrinth of libris (Latin and alliteration, get me) I stifled giggles at the incredibly super-posh odd couple proprieters, who could have been performing a Fry and Laurie sketch for all I know, with their disdainful commentary on pretty much everything. Flicking through these second-hand gems, you find things you wouldn't in Waterstones - 50 year-old bus tickets fall out of the pages, inscriptions to long-dead lovers are still marked on the front page.

This message for example - who is Philip? Was Miranda his lover? Why is her name in sarcastic quote marks - is it a code? Were they spies?! Ok probably not. But it's still interesting - is he in the forces, still off on a post-war peace-keeping thing in '49? And if so, is what he really needed a copy of "Three Plays for Puritans"?

What all this boils down to is that my books have had lives and loves before I was even born. Which, in my jobless, loveless state, just makes me feel more inadequate. My books are more accomplished than I am. That is depressing.