How to survive a Truly Terrible Week

I didn't start this blog so I could use it to complain about my life (no, really). I mean, yes, I do a fair bit of complaining here, but I either try and make it relatable, or, if it's personal, do it with a sense of humour and a hefty dose of self-awareness. (Life tip: make jokes at your own expense before anyone else has a chance.)

But God, this week's been a bit of a shocker. I won't go into details, because it would be very tedious - and if you work and/drink with me, you've probably already heard - but in short, there's been at least two work-related disappointments, many flat-hunting setbacks, and lots of arguing and crying. I have a pathetically low tolerance for stress at the best of times, being rather feeble and easily panicked, so I'm glad this Terrible Week is nearly over.

I'm no Pollyanna; it's hard, when nothing seems to be going as planned, to not take it very, very personally. It's also a shame, when you have a job, qualifications, a functioning relationship (by the skin of its teeth, anyway), and a bunch of good friends, to still feel like something of a failure. No, I'm not doing quite what I want to be doing, career-wise. No, I'm not earning as much as I'd like. No, I don't have my own place. The best I can do right now is stick a "yet" at the end of those sentences, and resolve to keep on keeping on.

So, in the interests of this post having at least some redeeming qualities - and not simply being, as a dear friend said the other day, "just a wank on the page", here's how to get through your own Truly Terrible Weeks.

1) Caffeine.

In tearful times, there's a lot to be said for the great British tradition of a nice cup of tea. Ideally, it should be made by a love interest - all other romantic gestures are trumped by a well-timed, unasked-for cup of tea. They just are. 

In sleepless times, you need to up your caffeine game and hit the coffee. If you're ploughing through a tough day/week/year at the office, and trying to do it while sleep-deprived, you're going to need good, strong coffee.

2) Talk to your calmest, most interesting friends. One of the week's few bright spots was having a long chat with one such friend about everything from growing tomatoes to Go Set a Watchman. It was soothing - as long as I didn't focus on the fact that he was due to leave for Japan within 48 hours and I probably wouldn't be seeing him again for well over a year.

3) Remind yourself of, and keep chanting, all the motivational quotes and sayings you can think of. Make your own up if you have too. You'll feel like a walking tumblr, but it will help. Useful ones are as follows:

"Success isn't permanent, and failure isn't fatal."

"For every thirteen no's you hear, the fourteenth answer will be a yes".

"There will always be someone else who fucked up worse, and managed to turn it around" - I don't think this is a common saying, but it should be.

And two old favourites: "it could be worse" and "onwards and upwards".

(You have to believe this nonsense otherwise you'll go crackers or jump off a bridge.)

4) Don't hate-stalk. We all have those Facebook/Twitter/Instagram friends who are achingly smug, and sadly have much to be smug about, so don't do it to yourself. You'll only end up hissing things like "she's 25, how the bloody fuck can she afford a cleaner?" to yourself, at 2am.  

5) It's sod's law that the day you receive bad news is the day someone in your social circle gets a promotion/engaged/baby/frankly obscene payrise. Smile, nod, congratulate through gritted teeth, and take a large gulp of gin.

6) Gin. Wine. Beer. Pick your poison, have a couple of glasses. Any more than a couple and you stand a good chance of weeping yourself hoarse, or restarting a really old fight. Neither of which will make you feel any better, despite what 'drunk brain' may be telling you.

7) Remember who's on your side. And remember too that anyone who gives you advice or criticism is doing it from only one place, one perspective - their own. Parents and grandparents grew up in different times and different circumstances, which will have formed and shaped their opinions and outlooks.

8) You are not obliged to let the bastards get you down. You are allowed to say "sod it, I'm going to enjoy my evening and worry about this tomorrow". If it gets to Friday, and it's sunny, and you're in good health and not alone in the world and still have some money in the bank, then put your face on and get yourself a drink.

9) Shut Up and Dance. The day that massive, camp, super-poppy choruses like this fail to cheer me up is the day I walk into a lake, to be honest with you. Being someone's "discotheque Juliet teenage dream" sounds like a shedload of fun, too, where do you think one would apply for such a position?

On the Bambi bookshelf

Normally, I'd give books that run to 600 pages a wide berth - being of the opinion that if a writer can't finish a story in less than 400 pages, they're just showing off all the words they know as opposed to actually dishing out a plot - but something about this one made me want to give it a go. And I'm so glad it came home from the library with me. Part family saga, part forensic examination of a marriage, part something else entirely, it's incredibly well-written (no overblown, flowery prose here), and quietly addictive. It doesn't feel like an Epic Novel, even though it's been hailed as one. I can definitely recommend.

Good reads and good feeds

The last week or so has involved a hefty amount of my two favourite things - good food and good books. Drummer Boy and I made our regular pilgrimage to Bristol to celebrate another year of tolerating each other - which we do by eating and drinking a lot, and allowing ourselves one moment of public affection on the Clifton Suspension Bridge, where it all began.

Obligatory "look at my dinner!" photo.

On a friend's recommendation (thanks Jen, we owe you!) we went to Bravas, probably the best tapas restaurant outside of Spain. The chorizo was smoky and sweet, the Rioja was smooth as velvet, and having utterly fallen for their aubergine fries, served with molasses, I never want to eat a normal potato chip again. DB tried them before I did, and stopped me mid-sentence with a look on his face that suggested he was about to impart the secrets of the universe - "you have to try these. Now." I don't know what they did to those aubergines, but bloody hell. They tasted amazing. So if you're in Bristol and want a stupidly reasonable, utterly delicious dinner, and you don't mind getting cosy with your dining partner(s) - it's pretty intimate, good place for a date - go directly to Bravas.


Sticking with the small plate theme, but swapping Spain for Venice, last night we went to Polpo. We'd agreed to escort my teenaged sister and her friend to Wembley Arena, so they could see 5 Seconds of Summer (no, me neither). Seeing hordes of young girls in eyeliner and tartan - some accompanied by parents wearing baffled but amused expressions, some giggly in groups, some with mums who were determined to make a night of it - brought on an attack of nostalgia. I remember the second stadium-sized gig I ever went to (the first was the Spice Girls; I regret nothing) - Green Day at Milton Keynes, Sunday 19th June 2005. It was a scorchingly hot day, made hotter by sheer excitement. I remember looking around the crowd of thousands, thinking it was strange, and brilliant, that live music is one of the few remaining good reasons for so many people gathering in one place at the same time.

Anyway, back to Polpo. Venetian tapas, essentially. I'd heard good things about it and since we had to be in London for the evening, I thought we might as well have a nice dinner. And it was nice - the service was impressively attentive for London, and the waiter explained the menu, which was helpful. The highlights were unarguably the polenta, which was filling and full of flavour, and the rabbit terrine (sorry, bunny-lovers). We shared a little tiramisu pot for pudding, which was perfectly pleasant but ever so slightly too sweet, and wondered if perhaps we needed to return at a later date, to explore the menu a bit more - DB had his eye on the calamari, I think. I'm not overly struck on eating things that have tentacles, so for once, he'll get that plate to himself.

On the Bambi bookshelf: Bristol edition

I put Owen Jones' The Establishment on hold, as I wanted something that felt a little less like a politics lecture - so I took Late Fragments: Everything I Wanted To Tell You (About This Magnificent Life). Not exactly bright and breezy reading for a romantic couple of days away, but still a beautifully-written book, chock-full of memories and well-chosen literary references, and, above all, love.





Next up was Hausfrau, by Jill Alexander Essbaum. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that it's the only thing I've been capable of talking about since I bought it on Monday. I'd been waiting to read this for a good couple of months, as it had been reviewed as this summer's must-read, and compared to Anna Karenina and Madam Bovary. As I've not read the former, and only made it halfway through the latter, I can't say if it lives up to that particular hype, but what I will say is: you have to read this book. It lives in your head when you're not reading it, and when you are, you forget to do things like eat lunch or go to bed at a reasonable hour.

I might be biased here because this book caters specifically to my own literary kinks, which are as follows:

- unlikeable yet somehow sympathetic protagonists

- unlikeable yet somehow sympathetic protagonists who are female*

- stories that explore female infidelity. We are so familiar with the "middle-aged man having an affair with his secretary" story, or the "man who feels trapped by marriage and family life so he goes off to be seduced by some broad" - these plots are thundering great cliches now. But women shagging around - that's still something that's rare. When a woman in a TV drama, or a film, or a novel, has casual sex, it will always be a talking point for reviewers: "here is a woman who isn't emotional about sex - guys, look! Gather round!"

*You still don't see enough women not giving a shit, or having affairs and not torturing themselves with guilt, or doing exactly what they need to do to get by. God, I love a female character who's difficult and selfish - go figure.

What haunted me most about Hausfrau though was the way it crept inside my head - for all her passivity, Anna's voice and mood somehow get into the reader's bloodstream. Only two other books have done this to me - when I read John Niven's Kill Your Friends, my inner monologue became even more scathing and expletive-ridden than it usually is, and when I recently re-read the gorgeous, whimsical I Capture The Castle, I couldn't fathom why I spent three days in a strangely wistful, not-really-on-this-planet mood. And then I realised - I'd caught it off Cassandra, the story's narrator. Turns out, I'm not alone in this; a friend - who is one of the nicest, cleverest people I know - told me he became a complete arse while reading Martin Amis' Money.

Once I'd finished Hausfrau, I was in the mood for some Jilly Cooper or similar - pacy but fun, nothing too dark - so I tried Horsham library, thinking they were bound to have something suitable. Annoyingly, they didn't, but I did find The Good Girl, which came out recently and has been on my to-read list for a couple of weeks. I'm expecting good things, given its topical subject matter. I'll let you know.

The realities of dating a musician when you're 25

Or: a few words of warning to my 15-year-old self. 

I say "dating", but after four years, I'm fairly sure it's a bit more serious than that. 

1) You get an unwelcome insight into the workings of your 'local music scene'.

Local music scenes don't half attract some 'characters'. It doesn't seem hugely different from local government, actually - committees having long, drawn-out meetings in which seemingly trivial things are batted about and squabbled over, like kittens with balls of wool. Guys, chill, only half-a-dozen people are going to show up to this pub gig anyway

2) You realise that some of the cliches about musicians being hopelessly disorganised are cliches for a bloody good reason.

The following conversation happens on a regular basis:

Me: What time is your gig tomorrow?
DB: Er, it starts at 7.
Me: Cool, what time do you want to leave?
DB: About half-7?
Me, confused: But if it starts at 7...?
DB: Yeah, but you don't need to be there until -
Me: I'm coming with you, remember?
DB: Ohhhhh yeeeahhh...
Me: So what time are you actually on?
DB: ...yes. Good question....

Good grief. There's a reason that band managers are often portrayed as arseholes in popular culture. They put up with musicians all the time.

 To be fair to DB, he's not even that bad. He is at least aware of what a calendar is, if not always how one works.

3) They are not as in touch with their feelings as you might expect.

Maybe it's because I date a math rock drummer - he gets excited about weird time signatures. If it's feelings you want, try a guitarist, or a singer.

4) They are not as stylish as you're led to believe.

Sure, Johnny Borrell knew how to rock a decent wool coat and skinny jeans, back in the halcyon days of 2005. William Bowerman, Brontide drummer, could make a poncho look elegant (below right. Be still, my hammering heart). Even Harry Styles has acquired a certain something since he stopped washing his hair and started looking a bit in need of a bath... just me? Right, ok, as you were.

Drummer Boy suddenly "got into fashion" a few months ago, and to be honest, we're still dealing with the fall-out. Two nights in a row last week, he came to bed at gone midnight, quietly confessing "I've bought another jacket". He's refusing to grow back his shaggy locks, and during one recent shopping trip, held up a denim shirt and uttered the words, "is this the direction I want to go in?"

5) You find yourself in some questionable venues.

A couple of Fridays ago, I found myself in one of Crawley's shittier pubs, watching a band DB was due to play with the following night. Put it this way, there were St George's flags on the walls and when a man dropped an entire pint of Guinness on the floor, it only improved the floor. A glowing image of Noel Edmunds winked at me from a 'Deal or No Deal' games machine (really freaking eerie), and DB grimaced his way through a rather cloudy pint, because "I don't think this is the kind of place you could send it back".

This Friday just gone saw a similar situation unfold. DB had a gig in Seaford (coastal town in East Sussex. The second paragraph of Seaford's Wikipedia entry tells you all you need to know about the place, really), at a pub run by a man who resembled a five foot deflating beach ball. The band had been booked at the last moment, and their drummer couldn't make it, so DB was filling in. When he writes his memoirs (titles I've suggested include No-one Ever Fancies The Drummer; Sticks, Hits and Tits: My Life On The Road; Hard-Hitting - The Drug Years), I'm not sure this gig will be a highlight.

Warning bells first rang when we pulled up outside the pub and saw the St George's flags in the window, and the posters advertising four-pint pitchers of Fosters. I don't get the whole flag thing, I have to say - who looks at the exterior of a building and thinks, "you know what would really set off the brickwork? A flag that denotes my nationality, which in turn suggests I might be casually, flippantly racist."

"I'm not sure we're going to be welcome here," I said to DB. "They're going to be able to smell  Marks & Spencers and the Guardian on me and tell us that they don't take kindly to fancy folk."

Those warning bells went again when we overheard the landlord say "ooh, it's quite busy for a Friday," as he cast his eye over the eight people in the bar. And they rang a third time when I ordered a gin & tonic and the barmaid - who had a look of "please help me!" in her eyes - asked if I wanted a slice of lemon in it. Yes, ideally. (Didn't want to push it by asking for lime.)

DB and I did our rather-too-habitual thing of "being at a gig and not having dinner plans", which always results in one of us dashing into a supermarket and grabbing some sandwiches, which we then have to eat standing outside the venue, in weathers that are not really conducive to al fresco dining.

I would make a wry comment along the lines of "DB really knows how to treat a lady", but last night, he cooked steak and we had Prosecco and everything was right with the world, so fear not, he does indeed know how to treat a lady.

The band played the first set at me - it's quite strange having four middle-aged men plus your boyfriend play half a dozen AC/DC and Bon Jovi songs for your ears only - but gradually, more people trickled in. Towards the end of the gig, a woman in a zebra-print shirt with a lion's mane of frizzy blonde hair came up to me - smoking an actual cigarette indoors! - and asked, gesturing at the 50-something guitarist, if he was my boyfriend. (I've just realised why; it's not because I look wildly old for my age, it's because at one point during the set, he motioned at me to get him a glass of water, as I was standing by the bar for most of the night, and I did.) "No, mine's the drummer!" I shouted back - we were right in front of the band, so I had to mime playing the drums - adding in my head "the one that doesn't look like he's old enough to be my dad, thanks."

DB's got a gig with his folk band tonight; I'm looking forward to this one.


6) You also end up spending a lot of time with middle-aged men.

They tend to dominate that local music scene, you see. Fortunately, I am basically a middle-aged man, so I fit in quite well.

I've found that middle-aged bassists are the sweetest, friendliest band members (I think maybe bassists have to be) and singers tend to be a bit mental. You never know what you're getting with keyboard players and guitarists are all-round nice guys.

7) You get a lot of free drinks.

Presumably because you're 25 and female, and are at a gig in a rough pub surrounded by middle-aged men.

8) You veer wildly from envying those in your social circle who are doing things like "getting married" and "buying houses", to thanking fuck you're with someone who does something interesting and creative for a living.

I mean, it beats dating an accountant.

9) Listening to a drummer tuning his new kit could be used as a torture method.

The CIA want to give it a go if they haven't already. Or just send ISIS round here and we'll break them before Newsnight finishes. 

10) People come up to you while your boyfriend's on stage and say, "he's a really good drummer". 

That's my favourite bit. I always say, "yeah, I know."

 

On the Bambi bookshelf

I am moments away from launching into The Establishment, Owen Jones' second book. It's going to be quite the commitment, I think - everything Jones writes is chock-full of facts and stats, which is absolutely brilliant, and I fancy his mind so hard, but it's not going to be a light read.

I finished Viv Albertine's Clothes Music Boys last night, and have to add that as well as being a very cool read, it's also a genuinely inspiring one. The chapter about her cancer and its treatment is fairly harrowing, as you'd expect (and if there are any girls reading who have wimped out of booking a smear test, can I please ask that you book one, now, and I will as well), but Viv's refusal to display any self-pity is incredibly bracing. Probably my favourite part of the whole book is when, after twenty-odd years away from music and the punk scene, she tentatively starts playing guitar again, taking lessons and going to open mic nights. If a woman in her forties - one who's put two decades of distance between herself and her punk past - can start over like that, then quite frankly, none of the rest of us have any excuse for not having a stab at doing what we really love.