RIOT TOWN

Midnight 10 August 2011

At 6pm today, I stood by my kitchen window and watched the deep breath in as London quietly prepared itself for another possible night of riots. By then I was tired of the anticipation and for a moment, I thought, 'Let them come.'

If they're coming this way, just be done with it. I don't want to keep checking twitter and facebook every 30 seconds, watching out for the ducked heads and covered faces of dangerous young kids passing by my bedroom window. The police sires and helicopters have been going all day. I'm tired of the same old reel sky news and the bbc are playing - and yet I can't switch them off. I can't stop listening and looking and trying to find out what's happening.

By 6pm, it'd been 24 hours with a knot in my stomach. Up the road, my local shopping centre was boarding up its windows and doors

The riots are scary because they are everywhere. My friend Venetia was in a cab last night and her driver told her that at that moment, there were 14 simultaneous riots happening across London. From the poor areas of Croyden and Hackney, to the prosperous Ealing and home of middle management, Clapham. Friends live above stores that were ransacked and gutted, and across the road from buildings that have been razed to the ground. People's homes have been burnt down. An old woman in Ealing woke up with looters in her bedroom, going through her belongings. A current viral sensation is a video of a looter helping up an innocent injured kid who has been knocked over in the rioting ruckus - getting him to his feet, then opening his rucksack and stealing his belongings. London is burning. Everywhere there are photos of kids in baggy sportswear and bandanas tied over their faces, hoods up, only their eyes showing - they're setting bins on fire and throwing bricks at police cars. South London gangs are calling truces with eachother in order to join forces in the riots and cause the maximum amount of damage possible.

I can't deny that the riots are scary. And that I have felt scared in their wake. But more than anything, more than I am scared or saddened; I am angry. I am so, so angry.

The riots broke out after a man was shot and killed by police in Tottenham (North London, shooting location was 3 minutes from my old apartment) and a peaceful march upon the Polica Station the next day descended into chaos. The tottenham riots, which blitzed the area all through saturday night, were mainly between the black youths of the area against the police force. While shocking and disturbing, there seemed a method to the madness. Kids vs Police over a death. Sunday brought more of the same, although to a slightly lesser degree and in different areas.

Monday though..... monday was when it exploded. Suddenly riots broke out all over London. Groups of kids started ransacking whole streets, breaking the windows of shops, stealing everything inside, then petrol bombing the building and watching them burn until they are hollow shells. Nothing related anymore to that guy in Tottenham, Mark Duggen, who pulled a gun on a cop and found himself shot twice - once fatally. By the time kids were clearing the bikes out of Halfords in Brixton and the trainers out of JD Sports in Clapham,it had nothing to do with a man in North London who died. It had everything to do with greed and some of the most flagrant lack of respect I have ever seen.

Two teenage girls were interviewed on BBC this morning, drunk on rose wine they'd looted from a local store, claiming the riots were 'fun' and 'hope they'd happen again tonight'.

When asked why the riots were happening, they said, 'It's the goverments fault..... I don't know.... The Conservatives. I forget who it is. I don't know.'

When asked why they were rioting and looting in their own area, knocking off their local people they said,

'It's the rich people. The people that got businesses, and that's why this is all happening, becuase of the rich people. So we're just showing the rich people we can do what we want.'

This is taking place near a string of gutted and ruined stores, including corner stores and off licences - little independently owned shops that have nothing to do with tories or so called rich people.

What is most apparent is the blinding stupidity of the rioters. One looter in Clapham answered a reporter's question of 'what are you doing?' with the mind bogglingly moronic response 'getting our taxes back, innit.' Another was arrested stealing from Currys, an electronics store. The exact same store that she worked at.

People were walking through the broken glass windows of Debenhams and scooping up armfuls of clothes. Clearing shelves in off licences of their bottles of rum and vodka. Most imporantly though, everyone got a new pair of trainers and a new phone. They are ripping our city apart for trainers and phones.

The media is desperately scrambling to use the 'disenfranchised youth' angle. Everyone wants to blame the poverty, the budget cuts, the poor, poor neglected youth of England. Glenda Jackson, the Hampstead/Kilburn MP, said it best: 'Don't give credence to the argument that these are deprived children, they all ahve Blackberries.'

Most people involved in teh riots are teens. A shocking 50% of arrests yesterday were people born after 1991. The youngest charged is 11 years old. These riots have been organsied primarily on BBM and twitter - smart phone apps. These children say they are fighting 'government, tories, rich people, i don't know' - But here in lies the core of my fury - How many starving third world revolutionaries are parading around with Blackberries, organising riots on BBM to steal trainers?

There is no sense. They are not fighting for a cause. They are rioting to riot. They have found an excuse to go out and wreck havoc, do whatever they want. Some snotty nose little shit in a hood and his tshirt pulled up over his nose and sunglasses on, just said on the news, 'I'm doing this because I can. Because tonight the police can't do anything to me.'

He was clutching a bottle of rum. He had fat fingers and a young voice. He couldn't have been more than 16.

The go-to line of 'retaliating against the goverment' makes my blood boil. By no means am I the biggest fan of the Conservative government, but what is there to rally so hard against? Our free health care? Our easily manipulated benefits system? I don't agree with many of the budget cuts that this government has made, but I also don't believe in the benefits system that has existed in England for so long. The Conservative government has made it much harder to 'sign on' - ie, receive the dole/jobseekers allowance. And so it should. Why, if you are physically able and mentally capable, should you not work? Why should people who do work have to pay tax in order to fund your arse sitting, tv watching, criminally lazy lifestyle?

As I said,by and large I don't agree with the cuts - I think they've made many many wrong decisions with regard to them. For instance, disability benefits are almost impossible to get nowadays, even when people are really, legitimately ill and actually cannot work. My friend Nathalie is going through a bit of a benefits battle after several rounds of chemo left her constantly ill. One of these bouts of sickness landed her in the hospital with a heart infection, where a viral infection went undetected, and left her paralysed from the waist down. Not long after she was declared a paraplaegic, her local council sent her a letter stating they were slashing her benefits as she could not prove she was 'unfit for work.' They also refused to contribute to a stairlift (her flat is on the 1st floor of a walk up) or pay for her to move. This meant she was unable to elave her house for months unless she was physically carried down the stairs - until some very kind people raised money for her and bought her a stairlift. She is managing to get back on benefits - which she should have as she is physically unable to work - but it has been a long and hard road.

And yet she has never once incited a riot, thrown a petrol bomb, looted a store. Her problems cannot be fixed by stolen trainers and phones and flatscreen tvs.

What is it they are rioting for?

I keep thinking this, over and over again:

184 MILLION Africans suffer from malnutrition. THAT is a tragedy.

15 MILLION African children have been orphaned by AIDS. THAT is a tragedy.

Every 4 seconds a child dies from aids/poverty. THAT IS A TRAGEDY.

Having to work, to hold down a job, in order to buy yourself new trainers and phones and flatscreen tvs IS NOT A TRAGEDY.

Get off the dole. Take some accountability for your life.

I am so angry I can barely organise thoughts in my head. More than I am scared and more than I am confused and more than I am sad - I am angry.

There have however, in teh wake of all this destruction, been moments of quite incredible hope. Last night The Ledbury, a 2 star Michelen restaurant in Notting Hill, was attacked by the mob. Rioters smashed the windows and bombarded in, taking jewellery and wallets from the diners. The kitchen staff retaliated and fought of the mob with rolling pins, pots and chefs knives. They then hurried them down to the cellar until things calmed down, giving them cognac and champagne.

Kingsland Road in Dalston was not hit at all last night, despite gangs splashing up on both sides of the long road that reaches from Tottenham on one end to Shoreditch on the other. THe turkish shop owners (of which there are many - given the high saturation of turkish owned shops on the stretch) stood out in front of their stores, arm to arm, all the way down the road, refusing to let anyone near their shops. They called their friends and those friends called their friends and any gangs who approached Kingsland Road dispersed quickly at the sight of The Turkish Grocery Army.

This afternoon you couldn't see Clapham Junction for the hoards of people with brooms, black bags and gloves. It looked like the whole of Clapham came out to help clean up the streets. Tonight there are hundreds of Sikh men in Southall, guarding their temple and the streets - creating a presence to safeguard their community.

And my personal favourite, my absolute best, is that there was some footage last night of a street in Ealing that had been absolutely pillaged. Well... almost absolutely. Standing between some barren electrical stores and cleared out clothes shops, there was a waterstones, England's biggest chain of bookstores, left completely untouched.

Today there was a sign in the window of that Waterstones.

WE ARE STAYING OPEN. IF THEY STEAL OUR BOOKS, THEY MIGHT LEARN SOMETHING.

As i type this there are riots in Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. It's like a ghost town outside my window, save for the constant wail of sirens. I don't know where they are going. London is eerily quiet right now. I think we're all still waiting for something else to happen, but if it does, I hope to be near a Turksih shop, or a Sikh temple, or in the cellar of a Michelin starred restaurant drinking champagne. Or in a Waterstones.

...and this is where we live now....

I’ve been quiet. To this land of the internet, as good as dead. It’s a combination of tiredness and a distinct lack of connectivity; mostly I have been siphoning any leftover filaments of energy I have crawling into bed with my boy – or lying with my legs across his lap watching made for TV murder mysteries, tracing his prominent eyebrows with the soft pads of my thumbs. I’d go so far as to say I’d spend all of my free time with him, doing whatever mundane task the day required of us, just sitting on a bus getting to wherever it is that we need to go. But in truth, buses make him edgy, and it’s an often arduous task simply travelling as a pair. His shoulders hunch up as if poised on the precipice of battle, his eyes dart toward the footfall of strangers every time the doors open. At first, I found this attitude odd, but with time and a shift in residence I’ve come to realise it’s not so much nature as nurture. It is, as much as anything, a South London thing. Defining personality by geography, as if gleaning personal insight by reading the A-Z.

South London is ugly. From the false hope of the south bank of the Thames, the beautifully lit Royal Albert Hall and the lights on the bridges, the city slopes down into a wasteland of fried chicken shops, clothing stores selling itchy, alien coloured polyester, signs boasting ‘EVERYTHING £5!!!’, mobile phone stores, their windows garishly lit with Chinese LED signs, ‘OPEN TIL LATE’ ‘PHONE UNBLOCKING DONE HERE’, pink plastic diamond encrusted iphone covers hanging in their windows. All goods on sale, everything displayed. Even the crackheads and whores (or as is common, crackwhores) find little reason to hide themselves south of the river. They press themselves up outside 24hour minicab offices, drinking Super Tennants, selling their wares, themselves, as if Peking ducks in restaurant windows on the streets of hungry Beijing.
There’s a peculiarity built into the South London demeanour; an out and out aggression, a sort of spit and snarl that acts as a precursor to every sentence, every action. You hear it all the time, it saturates the already damp air. The 188 bus runs from central Russell Square to southerly Greenwich. An accidental misstep, the result of the jerking bus plucking your centre of gravity like a reverberating chord, will in Bloomsbury be met with a staid lack of acknowledgement or a polite grimace. But by the time the bus starts its path down Tower Bridge Road into Bermondsey, the same action will be met with a small snap at best, an onslaught of abuse at worst. I ride the bus trying to fit my whole self into a space too small to physically inhabit, hearing the hard wet slapping sound, like heavy feet running on a pavement, of all those altercations taking place, . I sit at the back at the bus only when it’s empty, and when it’s full, as near to the doors as possible. If it is ever me that stands on someone’s foot, my elbow digging into someone’s back, I feel my North of the River, privileged upbringing spill out of me like sick. “Sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Tsss...” The low hiss and growl of Bermondsey. “Fucking mug.”

This South London is new to me. Sure, I lived in Battersea for a substantial time and yes, it is an area that exists on the southern bank of the river, but one can scarcely call it South London. I loved Battersea, the park and the river and the crumbling mansions blocks on Albert Bridge Road, the poor man’s Chelsea, the beat up red merc with the soft top held together with duct tape. I live in South London now. Actual South London, proper South London, Pie and Mash and Millwall South London. I live just near the heart of the blue, near a 24hour supermarket big as an aeroplane hanger, on a noisy street that most Saturdays is peppered with riot vans and football violence. I guess, as it goes, I call South London home now. But when you come to the teeth and bones of it, truthfully I don’t like it much. Most of the time, I don’t like it at all.

I remember having a conversation with Shelley once, a million years ago, where I boldly proclaimed that I wouldn’t want to fly First Class once if I could never fly it again. What would be the point? Every trip after that I would only think of how things were just that much nicer on the other side of the curtain. Champagne before takeoff, real china, proper cutlery. The ability to breathe without tasting your neighbour’s sour recycled air. Ignorance, I told myself, was bliss. It was a silly teenage thing to say and I don’t agree now with my 16 year old self, but I can’t help but find a small nugget of truth in my juvenile petulance. There’s always a slight sad taste, like metal, when things aren’t as good as they used to be.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m happier now than I was then. Personally, I’m in a better place. But in a bid for self preservation, I still avoid going anywhere near to Baker Street as far as I can help it.

Isithwalambiza

There is this thing my brother does, his wife tells me, when she feels sick; he lies in bed next to her and massages her hands until she falls asleep. There is something about this that makes me ache a little bit inside. I can’t quite put my finger on it, I can't quite pinpoint the exact cause within the actions, but there is definitely something about it that makes me hurt in some hazy way, as if suffering from pains in a phantom limb. She feels sick a lot these days, waves of nausea rising in her at regular intervals. A few months ago we went to a spa and a praying mantis jumped on her cream towelling gown. The ladies massaging almond cream into our calves laughed and laughed as she tried to swat it away, telling her, “You know this means you will be pregnant soon. A Praying Mantis is always a baby.” And we in turn laughed at the quaintness of the folk lore, the fertility equivalent of ice cream leading to nightmares or playing with matches causing you to wet the bed. A month and a half later, my brother cleared his throat in that way he does when he has something of consequence to say, and told us, “So guys, a bit of news… Corlia is pregnant.” and then there was much hugging and congratulating and sly tears that leaked from the corners of our rapidly blinking eyes and Matthew hurrying to the freezer to retrieve the bottle of champagne he’d previously secretly stashed in order to quickly chill. As we sat and talked about it, laughing at the sheer absurdity of this age old occurrence that is completely and utterly miraculous with each happening, she said to me, “Remember the praying mantis?”

And now she suffers from morning sickness, that is really also afternoon sickness and night sickness and when she does, my brother lies in bed next to her and massages her hands until she falls asleep.

We went to the coast last week and at night, when I lay in bed down the hall from them and I could not sleep, I thought of who that house harboured. It was no longer just us; there was the tiny thumb sized (thumbnail sized?) human they are bringing into the world too. And I thought about how something was fundamentally changing. I can’t fully describe it, I’ve yet to find the words, but now when someone asks me what is happening, I want to say, “Everything. Everything is happening.”

LHR to JhB

(a delayed post...)

The Evening Standard Final vendors and deadpan delivery piped through speakers on the Tube have stopped mocking me. No longer do I have to hear of ash clouds and airport closures – no, the skies have been declared open and one week late, to the minute, I boarded an aeroplane and skipped over the equator, to a Johannesburg I find unseasonably cold.
As is customary, the travelling itself was fine and the carrying of stuff was miserable. I opted for a wheelie bag this time as to not want to top myself by the time I arrived at Heathrow, but found my mood only marginally better than the last time I had to carry stuff. I bought books at the airport with grand plans to read on the plane, but as usual found myself napping on takeoff, eating the cheese and biscuits from the evening meal, watching a movie and then falling into restless slumber. The temperature on the plane was akin to high dry desert heat and it’s the first flight that I’ve ever managed to not shiver all the way through. On the flip side of that, my t-shirt was distinctly damp and I couldn’t help but think of those trips I used to take in the car when I was a kid, where I’d fall asleep and wake up with my face stuck to the leather seats. Needless to say, the glamour of travel has always been a near mythical beast. The best thing about the flight was managing to sleep through breakfast and thus escaping the waves of nausea those little tin foil boats of congealed egg and black pudding invariably inspire.

Highlights so far:
x1000 bottles of champagne.
Corlia and warwick’s birthday lunch at Nice in Parkhurst. A long lazy meal in beautiful surroundings, fillet steak, bone china tea cups, crystal flutes and cake, cake, cake.
Being woken up at 3am by the ruckus of the boys returning home and getting up to watch hours of shit TV with them.
Jacques de Savoy 2002 Cara
The frat house. I love these boys.

(A more up to date account to follow soon.)

In which I go FUCKIN' NOWHERE!

There’s a great scene in the Boondock Saints, where a detective stands over the heavily bandaged and previously bleeding body of a dead Russian mobster and yells in his thick Boston accent, “He ain’t goin’ nowhere! He’s goin’ fuckin’ nowhere!” He leans down, “Where you goin’? Nowhere!!”

Right now, I should be in South Africa, eating a steak and drinking red wine from a glass the size of my head. Instead, I am in London. I was supposed to fly out on Thursday night but all the planes in the UK have been grounded. There’s a giant ash cloud floating somewhere above me, the spit and guts of some bad tempered volcano in Iceland. It was my birthday yesterday and I should’ve been home for it, but like Detective Greenly so eloquently put it, I’m goin’ fuckin’ nowhere.

I don’t usually get too riled up either way when it comes to my trips back and forth and all over. I don’t get all that excited when I am heading off somewhere, just as I don’t get teary at airports when I leave. I don’t get excited when I book tickets, I don’t count down in calendars. I don’t pack a week before. I wake up on the day of travel, sort my luggage out, get a train to get to my plane to fly off to wherever it is I am going. It’s just easier that way. I just go. However, this time was a little different. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen my Mom, Dad, Brother & Sister for a few months more than I’d like. Maybe it’s because we’ve been dealing with some pretty hectic family stuff over the last few months, almost all of which I’ve had to do remotely. Meltdowns over electronic devices are hard to contain; the constant crashing of the latest (shitty) version Skype and repeated lapses in cell phone signal makes for frustrating communication. Needless to say, there is a dire need for some face time with the family and sentences that run on without long radio silences. Maybe it’s that I moved out of my last permanent residence in February and have been house sitting since then and my sense of permanence has become permeable once again – I ache for roots. So for the first time in god knows how long or how many trips, three days before I was due to fly off and away, I packed my bags. I sorted my goods into essential and non essential items, hauling the non essentials up precarious ladders into dusty loft spaces, cob webs tickling my nose, the groaning beams sounding like ghosts, scaring me more than I knew they should’ve.

On Thursday morning I woke up ready to fly the same route I’ve done countless times. And then, at 9am, my sister called me. “Have you seen the news? You need to check your flight, there’s volcanic ash in British Airspace.” What followed was a flurry of phone calls between South Africa and England, The SAA help desk and constantly checking for updates online. No one was saying anything. I was still holding onto the hope that I would be able to fly or at worst, be delayed for a few hours. I went to go and say goodbye to Laura at her shop up the road and on my way back, stopped to by something to eat. I looked at the time on my phone. 13:01. SAA said that they would release a statement at 1pm, finalising their flight plans for the day. 13:01. I dialled their number, now imprinted in my brain. An automated voice service crackled across the line “Due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland, all SAA flights departing London today, the 15^th of April, have been canceled. We apologise for the inconvenience.” And I don’t know if it was because I was dead set on being home for my birthday, or the fact that I was slightly shaky with hunger and had an express train of PMS related hormones bulleting through my body, but I just burst into tears; big, shaky, hiccupping tears, right there, in the sandwich aisle of Marks & Spencer.

I did what anyone in my position would do. I went home, ate a sandwich, picked up my bags and went to Shelley and Paul’s house in Chiswick. When in doubt, go to Chiswick. This is a failsafe option that has saved me many, many times. Sad? Go to Chiswick. Drunk at 4am and unable to get into your house? Go to Chiswick. State of occasional pseudo homelessness? Chiswick. Hungry? Chiswick. Lonely? Chiswick. So when I found out that my flights home was canceled and I was in crying in the sandwich aisle territory, I knew I needed to go to Chiswick.

The birthday that I had planned fell by the wayside, and instead it was that I woke up in Shelley and Paul’s spare room with the phantom beast that is the occasional April sunshine streaming in through the windows. Lunch was a cheeseburger at Sam’s Brasserie, quite commonly known to the very best burger to the found in London. In the evening, Magpie traipsed through to Chiswick bearing gifts of Falke tights and Mac eyeliner and we went to Sam’s (again, sometimes once a day isn’t enough) and drank rhubarb cocktails and Sgroppinos and ate plates of cheese and helpings of lamb koftas with harissa yoghurt. It wasn’t a total bust. In fact, it actually turned out to be a really good day.

I’ve rebooked my ticket twice and at the moment I plan to be flying out on Sunday night, but as it stands the Volcano continues to spit up into the sky and the wind continues to blow over England and since I’m quite safely out of the crying in the sandwich aisle territory, I’m not holding my breath. I doubt the airports will open by then. I hope to fly sometime in the next week. But until then.... I’m going fucking nowhere.

An almost oops....

I am currently house sitting a large abode in Muswell Hill for a journalist that I am currently working with, a well established woman in the food and travel arenas hereafter only ever referred to as 'EE' (El Eccentrico)
EE has jetted off to Barbados where stories await her, and in her absence I am to make sure that the dog is walked and fed (insert snotty 'Eloise can't look after a living creature' joke here. Because that hasn't gotten tired. At all.) and that the house basically remains in one piece. Today, after walking the dog (Insert another joke. Go on. I'm loving it. Eye roll.) I got home and made my way into my bedroom. And there was the distinct smell of something burning. Panic ensued.
Okay, let's backtrack a second here.....
Today is the second day of Spring. The sky is blue, the sun is shining. Sure, it's cold, but this is England and we take what we can get. So in a fit of spring madness, I flung open my blinds (Can one fling open roller blinds? Can blinds be flung? 'I rolled up my blinds with enthusiasm' doesn't have the same ring.....anyway....) and threw open the window (I am almost certain one can throw open a window. It has a certain 'Sound of Music' feel about it.) and let the sun shine in. (Cue background music from Hair) Then I took the dog for the walk. The sun continued to shine. I got back. There was burning. Are we all up to speed?
So, I frantically searched all the plug points in the room to check that I did not have an electrical fire on my hands. And I didn't. Couldn't find a thing. I was perplexed. I sat down at this very computer to check that the charger hadn't blown (again) and as I reached around to the back of it, I caught a distinct whiff of smoke and then saw a thin stream of it rising, like some ethereal totem pole of doom. Something sparkled. The sun momentarily blinded me.
Oh fuck.
The glass paperweight on the desk had caught a beam of light, and like a magnifying lens, had concentrated the rays into one incredibly hot spot. The stack of paper that it was holding down, was now smouldering, a fiery ring spreading underneath it. OH fuck fuck fuck. Please, oh please, do not let me get caught in some situation where I inadvertently burn this house down.

Anyway. I put it out. I shut the blind. I put the paperweight in a drawer. That thing is a goddamn fire hazard.

Miserablism and absolutely nothing for those not automotively* inclined

Miserablism, that rough tongued sonofabitch, has set up home amongst my insides. It’s my own fault really. I did a Bad Thing. Bad things often lead to similar nauseating circumstances, but I must confess I did not think that the Mother of the Blueness would have come to stay for quite so long. I thought I could be done with it, that I could shrug and duck my head and it would, if not be forgotten, at least not be spoken of. No such luck. Having said that, while the repercussions of the Bad Thing have been further reaching and more damaging than I initially thought possible, this overwhelming sense of sickness does have some glimmer of hope on the horizon. Sadly, I do not speak of some sort of time travel where I can go and undo the Bad Thing. No, this is far more selfish. (One would think, after the aforementioned Bad Thing, I would seek to be less selfish. But apparently my fallibility remains wholly intact, and I do not.) Instead, I speak of the holy grail of distractions. The one thing absolutely guaranteed to hold my attention in such a way that I do not dwell quite so obsessively on this wrong that I cannot right.

That’s right. I speak of the return of the season.

It’s F1 time again and I can assertively say that it’s with a momentous sigh of relief that the cars have been unveiled, the teams announced and the drivers decided. There are big changes this year. Huge. Drivers are all over the place. Great teams no longer exist. This is also true for shit teams. Old teams of legendary status have returned. Richard Branson has poured an incredible amount of money onto the grid in what I can only foresee to be a massive hydraulically challenged waste of time. World Champion Button (or, to quote Shelley, ‘Stitch, Button, whatever that guy’s name is’) has moved to McLaren (the world’s most morally bankrupt team) to partner with Hamilton. Remember the last time McLaren signed a World Champion to drive with Lewis? Remember how well that went? I expect a similar scene. I am on the edge of my seat about it. Toys will be thrown. Tantrums will take place. Expect two very stroppy British World Champions any day now. Ayrton Senna’s nephew makes his debut. Alonso, the severely browed Spaniard, has scooted EVERYONE’S favourite party boy Kimi out of his Ferrari seat and into WRC. Does this mean I will start watching WRC? I don’t have time for this shit. Really. I’m not ruling it out though. In matters such as these, I am easily swayed. The new Renault looks like a giant, aerodynamically inclined bumblebee. The new Lotus livery is lovely, it’s been too long since there was racing green on the track. Rubens didn’t retire. Irritating. The good news is that I doubt the Williams will be fighting at the front, so we won’t have to see him cry too much on the podium. New boys are everywhere. Kobayashi got a drive with Sauber. He is insane and I like it. I am excited to see that crazy, brilliant Jap fuck with everyone’s races. (Well, not everyone. When he gets in the way of you know who I will be fuming.) No more refuelling. Pit stops down to 3 seconds. THREE SECONDS. Renault has said in practise they can change the tyres in under that, but we’ll see what happens. Test drivers back on the grid. That preemie beast, Alguersuari, he who cannot finish a race for love nor money, is back in the Torro Rosso. Vettel’s neck is thicker than ever. His head is in danger of looking like a baseball on a tree stump.

And then there’s Merc GP.

Oh Mercedes. I want to weep with joy when I see you. Ross Brawn, the strategic genius. The return of Schumacher. And of course, be still my wildly beating heart, Nico Rosberg. I’m pleased to report that Nico has been kicking ass and taking names (that’s right, I went there) in winter testing and I do believe that the 2010/2011 season will be that of his inaugural grand prix win. I am willing to put money on it. I really am. I’m not prone to gambling, I’m just THAT confident. For those Schumacher haters out there (and you know who you are) I am not saying that this team is without fault. I mean, did you SEE the press pictures? Tragic. But let’s be honest. They are a formidable team. There was a lot of shoulder shrugging and confused looks when Button was looking to leave his world championship winning team at the end of last season and it was only when the rumours of a Merc buyout surfaced that the whisperings of an all German team were heard. The rumour mill was pretty spot on and the return of Schumacher has caused much consternation amongst those who care about these particular cars. Will he still be great? Can he do it? Is he too old? I’m not sure really. He’s a fiercely competitive driver who has not yet stopped looking for occasions to go as fast as possible. And let's face it. He is SCHUMACHER. The Mercedes engines, last year at least, were unsurpassed. Brawn in a genius. And Nico.... well, we all know how I feel about that beast. So a German team running German engines with German drivers it is then. I just hope this doesn’t go the same way the last time the Germans attempted world domination.

From now until November, I am no longer available on Sundays. Not even to talk on the phone. That is unless you’re calling to talk about the illegal overtaking on corner 9.

*I am fully aware of automotively’s meagre credentials as a bona-fide word. In this particular instance, I don’t care.

An open letter to my sister

Dear Corlia

It started with long winded emails that invariably described in unnecessarily loquacious detail the exceptional turn of a hair pin bend in a winding road in yet another far off place that I had gone to; another place to lay my hat in some vague attempt to find my home. You said, 'Write this stuff online.' So I did. And so, sometimes when I am somewhere between here and there, I write down small bits and pieces of my fragmented days; the funnier things, the things that don't tell too much about the long and lonely hours and the gaps in time and the large cold question mark that follows me to bed, sleeps with me like a lover, its cold bones pressing along my spine. I am the small spoon to my own self doubt.

You said, write it online. So I did. As if I were telling you the story. Just like all those emails I'd written you. But it's not quite the same. My computer is a battered piece of weathered goods and if it weren't for my withering detest for the carrying of stuff, I'd get my typewriter out of storage and work on that instead. There is also the small issue of being unable to source ribbon for the antique. The last time I wrote on it my prose was blind embossed into the page. I prefer letters, real ones, written on paper, sealed with wax. They are tangible. Handwritten letters, like typewritten prose, exist in a way these words on these screens do not. If it exists on paper, I treat it differently. I am a fastidious writer. But I don't consider this real writing, this internet thing. I leave spelling mistakes as is. Grammatical errors. Missing words stay lost, clumsy sentences continue to clunk along, tripping over their heavy feet. I'd prefer the paper mail and wax seals, but in truth I am not a particularly dedicated letter writer. I begin with the best of intentions, but after several courses of correspondence, I find my dedication flags, and the one week response rate slows to two then three then a sluggish four and soon the letter and the blank paper and the unaddressed envelopes and my very intent is buried under a pile of debris on my desk.

So it seems that no means of correspondence suits me quite completely, but we continue in whatever form of it we can lay our hands on. These are the breaks when you live across oceans from your family. On a Monday, I'll send you an email. You'll catch me on skype for four minutes three days later. Sometime before the weekend, I'd get a facebook message from you. I'll respond in a text message. So many words that don't exist. No typewritten letters, the x always a little low on the line, on ivory coloured linen paper. No wax seals or personalised stationary or calling cards.

In some ways though, these words that don't exist do have their benefits. The ability to instantly connect. The way that when I'm walking down the street in some dilapidated European city and see a foreign language magazine in a newsagent with a brooding australian actor looking painfully serious on the cover I can pull out my phone and send you a quick message and within a few minutes you'll be agreeing with me that the beast does indeed belong on the list of those whom get their dark shipped all the way in. And so it will be, momentarily at least, that I don't feel we are quite so far apart as we really are. And then there is the way that I can write a letter like this one, and put it up here, in the space where words don't really exist.

This is the way it is for us. Everyday I make a choice, and that choice leaves me with phones and wires and cables and screens and shitty wifi connection. And that's the way it is. Those are the breaks. But I wonder if one day I'll be able to write small notes, in quink, on thick linen folded cards, my initials embossed subtly in the corner and drop them through your front door when I am passing through the neighbourhood and find you're not home. Or send you handwritten invitations to dinner, or thank you cards. I wonder if we'd live close enough that these words that don't exist ceased to be, and instead it would be my looped handwriting in a day planner and a glass of wine and something tangible, and I'd say, "Let me tell you about this thing I saw today...."

And I don't know if that's how it will ever be... But I hope so.

xx

Fashion Reich

My guide to vintage shopping in Berlin, as featured in the lovely, shiny, press your face to the pages glossy magazine Black Book.

The Impoverished Writer's Survival Kit

My cousin Shanna is a rock star. I went to go have a glass of wine with her last night and she presented me with this:
Which I opened, to find this:
"It's your survival kit," she told me. "as it's only a matter of time before you run off to some far away city and can't afford to eat.... again."
In the little suitcase (which, by the way, belonged to her as a pre schooler and I have coveted since we were 5 years old) was some Sanctuary bath soak and body butter
a bar of micky mouse soap
a nail file and band aids
an easy open tin of baked beans
for which this fold up spoon was provided
and naturally, a packet of rice.
No writer can ever be without a pocket sized bottle of whiskey, complete with teeny tiny hip flask.
For when I am in need of something sweet, there are shortcake biscuits on hand
and bite sized rolls of sweets
Just because I will not always be in a position to drink Chateau Lafite, does not mean that my carry on wine stopper should be anything less than crystal
and obviously I will need to keep a bottle opener at hand for when I need to open beers. (You know, when the crystal stopper is in the in the Lafite.

And of course, a lighter with which to light my Marlboro Reds.
and most importantly, the piece de resistance of the writer's survival kit, as rice, whiskey, body butter and biscuits can only get one so far......
my beloved moleskin notebooks
As I said, my cousin is a rock star.
Thanks Shan. YOU ARE THE BEST.

(there was also a tiny bag of chocolate coins. I must confess I molested those before I even found my camera. But know, they existed.)