Smocks and Pantaloons

I'm not very good at being a girl so I rarely go clothes shopping. This Christmas though, I was given money specifically to spend on clothes, and I was very strong; I didn't spend any of it on books or CDs.

I did remember why I don't like clothes shopping though. All the shops seemed to sell were smocks and pantaloons. Am I that out of fashion touch?

I did manage to spend all my money, but the majority of it was on duplicates of the same clothes I have been wearing for the last 10 years or so. I am very pleased with myself.

Ruby, Ruby

Once upon a time there was a little blonde geek who won a CD walkman in an essay writing competition. She only owned one CD at the time; Pornograffitti by Extreme, and she listened to it over and over again, retreating to her private, portable music world. There were few things that brought this tragic child more pleasure than her walkman, but as she began to add Guns 'N'Roses and The Fairer Sax to her CD collection, she began to dream bigger dreams.

If only there were a way to have ALL her metal and light jazz CDs in one place. If only there was a way of shuffling the tracks so that Axl Rose could blend seamlessly into 'Latin American Medly'. Her limited mind began to imagine a giant rucksack with a tiny man inside it to select tracks at random. Fortunately for her, Mr Apple was imagining too.

Cue Ruby, the most beautiful, anthropomorphic inanimate object I have ever met. She is all my childhood dreams rolled into one. So far, Ruby has eaten 13.1 DAYS worth of solid music, and I still have entire meals of Various Artists to feed her.

Ruby is a cheeky begger. I have set myself the inexplicable and masochistic rule, that I will never skip a track that Ruby sings when the 'what I am listening to' thing is on Messenger. So whenever she is singing via my computer, she will inevitably sing B*Witched, Aqua and PJ & Duncan.* When she sings to me in the car when we are alone together, she sings me a breathtaking mix which would make anyone listening in say "wow, she is so eclectic and hip!" of course, no-one ever IS listeing in. I can see a sadistic smile on her click wheel.

I could count - for a long time, and in great detail - all of the ways that I love Ruby, but I fear no-one would ever read my blog again, or I would get arrested for material idolatory. Allow this modest limerick to suffice:

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints,

I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life!

and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.

*Yes, I do own albums by each of these 'artists', but that is only because I worked in a record shop for many years and I got given them for free, and this information is strictly just between you and me. I just hope that none of you find out that I actually have BOTH B*Witched albums, and that I paid for one of them.

Cyber Dancing

Nayf says:I should be dancing
OddBabble says:why?
Nayf says:I like dancing
OddBabble says:oh, ok!
Nayf says:And it would be more productive
Nayf says:Shall we dance, OddBabble?
OddBabble says:OK
OddBabble says:I'll just do up my trousers
Nayf says:Erm
OddBabble says:ready!
Nayf says:Good!
Nayf says:What style are we going for?
OddBabble says:You choose, dear
Nayf says:How about... LA SAMBA!
Nayf says:And... GO!
OddBabble says:woooooooooooohhhh!!
Nayf says:Woah!
Nayf says:You're amazing at this!
OddBabble says:I know!
Nayf says:How do you get your hips to DO that?!
OddBabble says:You're terrible, but it's still fun!
Nayf says:I'm still working on my footwork
OddBabble says:stop looking at them, give me those eyes!
OddBabble says:GIVE ME THOSE EYES!
Nayf says:*EYES*
OddBabble says:MUCH BETTER!
OddBabble says:NOW we're getting warm
OddBabble says:Wooooooooooooohhhhhhh!!
Nayf says:Yeah baby!
Nayf says:Actually, I'm feeling a bit too hot
Nayf says:*runs out of breath*
Nayf says:*DIES*
OddBabble says:oh well

Elementary theology

I was on the phone to my sis one morn, and my baby niece was in the background chatting as usual, saying stuff like; "dah! bladdgllll-eeeeee" etc. Then I noticed her saying 'Allah! Allah!' I asked my sister if she had become a muslim. She said "well....I have noticed her moving her play matt so that it faces the same direction every day....."

I guess Allah is easier to pronounce than YAHWEH.

Ten years gone

Once upon a time there were 3 Goldsmiths freshers who, although it was 1996, should really have been arrested by the Fashion Police. These stylistically challenged teenagers were on thier way to Club Sandwich - the hottest night spot in South East London - where they were to spend every Wednesday night for the next 3 years. 10 years later these same girls (and thier similarly ageing friends) were to revisit their old haunt. They now look like this:
Now, I know they're not supermodels, but aren't we all glad that at some point in that decade SOMEONE showed them a mirror?
These are the lowlights of our 10 year Club Sandwich Reunion:

• Watching a video of myself as a drunken non-Christian, wearing such embarrasingly dreadful clothes that the assembled company had to agree that we couldn't believe no-one took me (or, to be fair, a nameless friend wearing jeans with a waistline meeting her bosom. This was nineteen ninety six, not nineteen EIGHTY six.) aside and sorted me out, or indeed that anyone was prepared to talk to me at all.
  
• Arriving at half past nine and finding that the only other people there were bar staff.
  
• Glaring at the DJ as he played the second Arctic Monkey song. I mean who can dance to that?

These are the highlights:

• Realising that I am no longer the girl on that video. In fact, IN FACT, I am a new creation.
  
• As documented on my 365, the moment when as we got onto the bus in Peckham, Mad Clare asked "What's a kebab?" to which Tan dryly replied "the thing you're standing in".
  
• The buzz of excitement as we walked up that familiar road leading up to the union door.
  
• Our delight in finding that, although the rest of the union was uncharacteristically clean and sterile, the toilets were JUST as we remembered them - fit for sanitary condemnation. Ah, memories.
  
• A moment when I looked up to find that the 6 of us were deep in conversation in pairs, talking about what was happening now, in 2006, and remembering that we weren't really in a time warp.
  
• The moment when I HAD to get on the dancefloor because my all time favourite tune to dance to came on:Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough.
  
• The moment when, although the DJ had systematically ignored all of our retro requests for the Spice Girls and Prodigy, he did actually play Jump Around by House of Pain. We did.
  
• ALL the dancing.
  
• Visiting that same old kebab shop afterwards. *Sigh*.
  
• Waking up the next morning with my old mates, glad that they are still my old mates.
  

So, next stop 2016, when I can guarantee that the union toilets will be EXACTLY the same.

Signage

OddBabble's Strange Dreamworld #4

So I was walking through a crowded room holding a hoody on which I had had printed my own design (as if I would do such a thing! You can tell it's a strange dreamworld!). I saw Pod and suddenly felt embarrassed by the colour scheme I had chosen, and started to babble "yeah, so I just thought I'd put the brown ink in the border, against this brown background...." "Yeah?" said Pod. "Well, I think it's disgusting." He said unsmilingly, looking me in the eye. "OK!" I said, giving him one of those smiles you give someone which has a mixture of pity and fear, when you realise that at some point recently they had lost their minds. I walked away thinking "aren't you the moody one!"