Bloody Valentines...

I am a hopeless romantic. Really. Under this cynical, twisted, borderline-misanthropic, Bernard-Black-lite facade, there beats a heart as mushy as melting cheesecake. I am absolutely powerless in the face of a romantic gesture, no matter how big or small. I love seeing old couples walking along hand-in-hand*; I think airports are romantic places, because of all the lovers' reunions potentially happening in them, and I find it hard to stay dry-eyed at weddings.

But I really, really couldn't give half a damn about Valentine's Day.

*PDAs from young couples are unnecessary, however - on the train the other evening, The Best-Dressed Couple Ever were literally entwined around each other, all the way from London Bridge to Crawley. Eww. And don't even get me started on sixth-formers who think they're in love. Until you've spent a day bringing them tea and toast while listening to them hack up bits of lung, in the grip of a filthy, snotty cold, it's probably not love. Until you've heard them chuck up badly-made Pina Coladas and then nursed them through the ensuing hangover, it's probably not love.

It's not as if I once had a bad Valentine's experience; I don't need to go to a support group (Valentine Victims Anonymous, slogan: "one rose petal at a time"), I just absolutely and emphatically could not care less if I tried about February 14th.

And I'm allowed to say this, because I'm not single and bitter. (Just bitter.)

Fortunately, this wasn't really an issue for me until I was nineteen (at which point I found myself a nice Chemistry student from Birmingham and my mother breathed a "phew, she's not a lesbian" sigh of relief. Not that there's anything wrong with being a lesbian, it's just my mother reads the Daily Mail on a regular basis, and well, y'know...). One day in early February 2010, the aforementioned Chemistry student bounded into my room and sighed, "The dreaded day's coming up. What do you want?" as if I were dragging the words out of him with rusty pliers. I was momentarily confused - "The dreaded day? My birthday's not for another six weeks. Oh, Valentine's Day. Oh, riiiight. Well, no. Nothing. Couldn't give a shit." He too looked confused, then relieved, then positively thrilled. He may have stammered something along the lines of "but, but you're a woman", so I had to elaborate thus.

The thing is, it's bollocks. I think I've made that much quite clear. People like to say "oh, it's just a Hallmark holiday", but it does have quite a long history - according to Wikipedia, at least. My main problem with V-Day is that if you're in a relationship, you should be doing nice, romantic things for each other anyway. Not all the time - you need to bitch and bicker sometimes, keep them on their toes - but essentially that's the point of being in a relationship in the first place. The difference between that and a friends-with-benefits arrangement tends to be the romantic element. The "I'll cook you your favourite dinner" evenings. The "I got us gig tickets because I thought you might like them" times. The "yeah I'll come and see that weird indie film with you" times. But you shouldn't need a designated day for that. There's nothing special about calendar-scheduled romance. My line on Valentine's Day used to be "if you're in a relationship, it's pressure to do something special, and if you're single, it makes you feel like you shouldn't be". Now, I take that back, because the sensible people, of both the single and coupled variety, know that it can be ignored altogether.

Don't get me wrong, if someone did take a notion to rock up to my house on Thursday holding a massive bunch of tulips, I'd hardly be churlish enough to turn them away. But that has more to do with the fact that I've never been bought/sent/randomly presented with a bunch of flowers in all my 23-ish years. That's not even a veiled hint; a) flowers are such an easy, obvious choice when a man is trying to find something Valentiney for his lady, and b) I'd rather be given flowers on a day that's not specifically earmarked "BE ROMANTIC OR ELSE".

The most romantic moments tend to be the ones you don't see coming - for instance, you might find yourself on a bridge with someone, looking at a spectacular view and realising that suddenly a few things are making an awful lot of sense.Which I hope goes some way to hint at why there's a picture of Clifton Suspension Bridge at the beginning of the post. I'm saying no more.

A cautionary tale, by one of the best songwriters there has ever been.

And this band are my current guilty pleasure, and this song of theirs has been getting me through a lot of early mornings.

Purely academic

As I write this, I am waiting for the results of my Masters dissertation, which will determine whether or not I can actually put “MA in Forensic Linguistics” on my CV.  If I’ve passed, I may well read this back and think, “Well, there was no need to sound quite so bitter, it turned out fine”.  I can’t actually think about the other course of events; it’s too frightening.

I wanted to do an MA in Forensic Linguistics well before I started university. I don’t know where or when I first heard of this small, but growing field, I just remember thinking, at some point “That’s it. That’s my thing.” Analysing language to solve real, important problems – using language to have an actual effect on the world? But of course.

I don’t wish I hadn’t done the MA. I learned a lot of very interesting things, was taught by - and with - some great people, and discovered some excellent bars in Cardiff. 

I sometimes wish I’d done it part-time. Or worked for a year or so, and then done it. Or given the MSc at York some more thought. (As they say, hindsight is 20/20 vision.) Worrying about money, almost constantly, is – as I’m sure we’re all aware – a pain in the arse. It was actually my mother who insisted I went straight on from a BA in English and Linguistics to an MA, saying, “You won’t want to go back to being a student after working for a bit”. Knowing myself fairly well by now, I suspect she was right. It was tedious enough combining freelance proofreading work with a dissertation over the summer; going from some kind of income back down to no income would have been even tougher.

Doing it part-time might have taken the pressure off financially, but it would have extended the whole process. I’m not sure I could have handled that. Why? Let me explain.

It was intense. After a carefree summer, post-graduation, I thought I was ready to get back into the swing of endless analysis, essays and hours spent in the library. I really wasn’t. Being plunged into a new city to do something you’ve been thinking about for at least three years is a weird situation. I repeat, it’s intense. You have to get comfortable in a new place while throwing yourself headlong back into academia, no holds barred. You need to know what you’re getting yourself into.

Undergrad life has got nothing on post-grad life. Yeah, I know I did an English degree – I’m aware it’s not the most challenging course you can take and in terms of contact time, it’s not particularly demanding. I know that, but I’m not going to apologise for making the most of my natural academic strengths. Doing an MA is much more demanding on the schedule and on the brain – it’s something you have to be thinking about pretty much all the time. There are no real breaks from it. Which is all fine and dandy if you’re already planning your PhD, but if your jury is still out on this whole full-time academic thing, just be warned. You have to really fucking love your subject. 

And be prepared to put up with academics. Most are great, some are terrifying, and some will just rub you up the wrong way. This isn’t so much of a problem at undergrad level, because you spend less time with them and can more easily avoid them if you really want to. But with smaller groups of students and more contact time at MA level, you may find yourself doing a lot of teeth-gritting, and your mantra may quickly become “it’s only for a few months”. Some academics will appear to act as if they’re curing cancer. I remember hearing someone complain about how inconvenient it was to have to prove to a particular funding board that proposed research was going to have “impact”, and upon hearing this, I had a little hissy fit in my head. That may be my problem and mine alone – the learning-fatigue may have been at an all-time high that day – but my gut reaction was “Of course your research should have impact! If it’s got no practical use in the real world, what the fuck’s the point?” Talk about things being purely academic, Jesus.

This is sounding rather bitter, I’m aware. As I said, if my results are what I want them to be, I may change my tune about the whole shenanigan, I don’t know.

Update: so I got my results in November, after an agonising wait and whilst I was in the middle of a violent cold, and I have that MA. The “final result pending” has been deleted from my CV. Do I feel differently? No. I can honestly say that I don’t. It occurred to me on the train the other day (where I do all my best thinking, except for in the shower) that I still don’t actually know anything. I really don’t. Or at least, nothing that is much practical use to anyone. Maybe in a few years’ time, it will have paid off. I’ll be glad I spent an extra year having meltdowns in the library and printing off rainforests' worth of assignments. It is, I'll grudgingly admit, a slight confidence boost to be able to say, "Yes, I have an MA. I did it, I passed, I didn't waste a year, nor over £4000". But as I'm currently in the rather weird and frustrating position of having two part-time jobs that are enough to keep me busy but not enough to engage my brain, I'm going to have to wait and see. And being the most impatient person I know, it's going to be quite the learning curve.

On a slightly-related but interesting note, I was reading something the other day - it might have been the Guardian problem page, don't judge me - and a young woman had written in expressing her concerns that she was experiencing mental health problems but was about to embark upon a PhD. There were many, many responses - and a huge number of them were along the lines of, "I did a PhD/some form of postgraduate study and found it triggered/exacerbated mental health issues for me. Be warned!"

I have rambled on enough now, and haven't even mentioned that I've finally joined the rest of the TV-watching world and become obsessed with Homeland (Carrie Mathison: most inappropriate girl-crush ever? Discuss), nor how I'm finally going back to Belfast in March and I'm already excited. Belfast, you're my favourite city so I hope you're less rioty by the time I get there. I'm very sentimental about you - a friend once decided I qualified as being half-Northern Irish, and frankly I've never been more flattered.

These songs seem to fit with the wintry weather we're having. Probably because one of them is called 'Winter'. The other one is just gorgeous.

Reason #463 why I'm a little bit odd...

I was told yesterday morning, in a very sweet text that made my journey to work a thousand times better (hint: I really do like early morning texts), that a blog entry should be posted "in honour of it being 12/12/12".

Yes, I'm a day late, but the majority of this was drafted yesterday.

I'm not used to writing to order - except academic essays, and I don't think I'm ever going to have to write one of those again. When no-one is expecting anything, I have a gazillion ideas, each more self-analytical and angsty than the last. When someone makes a specific request for bloggage, my mind goes utterly blank.

I probably have enough material for a "Spectacularly Stupid Things Said By Men" post, but that's possibly too passive-aggressive, even by my standards. Another time perhaps. Something about special dates, or numbers, given the prompt? Not really. I'm not so good with numbers - a customer at work recently had to tell me how much change I was supposed to give him. When I was at school, I was regularly reduced to tears by my maths homework*. When tutoring small children a while back, I forgot how to do long multiplication and had to dash to the ladies to fire off a quick "Remind me!" text to the Boy.

*And do you know what, Mrs Bentham? I haven't used algebra since my maths GCSE, six years ago. So there.

So perhaps not numbers then.

As I was mid-train journey when I received the blog request, I decided to go with the obvious, i.e. what was right outside the window. Which led me to this.

I'm a freak - for many reasons - but one of the main ones is that my absolute all-time, hands-down favourite season is winter. For someone who loathes and detests being cold and wet, it's an odd preference.

I figured out quite recently that I like winter best for reasons that are mainly to do with vanity. Winter suits me. It goes with my pale, blonde-haired, blue-eyed colouring. Also, you get to wear more clothes in winter. You have to be all tanned and thin in summer, neither of which I do well (I can feel the eye-rolling at the "thin" bit, but in my defence, a) I'm a woman, so no, I will never be thin enough, and b) as I've said before, I spent five years in an all-girls school. Skipping lunch was a fairly standard extra-curricular activity.)

Frost-covered trees, fields and hedgerows all look like something out of Narnia. Rooves, pavements, ponies - everything looks a little bit other-worldly when it's white and glittering in the winter sunshine. My route to work cuts through some really pretty Sussex countryside, and the last few mornings have been so beautiful I've half-wanted to write terrible poetry about them.

Everything looks better when covered in Christmas fairy lights. Even Crawley, or Milton Keynes. Even David Cameron naked (no, wait, not him).

And Christmas itself. The food, the mulled wine, the songs (for one you may not have heard, try and find Thea Gilmore's version of "The St Stephen's Day Murders". Trust me). The family. Well, the family until about 2pm on Christmas Day when you've had too much alcohol and not enough food and they really, really start to grate. So you take the last glass of Champagne, barricade yourself in the bathroom and wail, "How am I related to these people? HOW, DAMMIT?!"

Just me? Moving on.

And on that festive note, Christmas films. The Muppets Christmas Carol. Elf. The first Bridget Jones. The ultimate - Love Actually. Mainly for the awesome kid who plays Liam Neeson's son, and his dash through the airport at the end, and the storyline between Keira Knightley and Andrew Lincoln. Oh, and when Colin Firth's character learns Portuguese so he can ask the Aurelia to marry him. Oh, just most of it, really.

New Year's Eve. I've never really been the biggest fan, and indeed don't know anyone who is, but the last few have been quite nice. Last year I reluctantly hosted - but when a gathering ends with shots in the kitchen at 4am, you can't complain too much. Two years previous to that I got very, very drunk and endured The Coldest Walk Home I Have Ever Known, all the while rambling at someone I now refer to as The Boy. My dream New Year celebration would involve me and a group of friends, a cottage somewhere rural and of lot of really good food and red wine. This year I've no idea what I'm doing, which is a shame, but I guess something will turn up.

I'm going to shut up now, mainly because I have the last 5.50am start of the week tomorrow, and I get really grumpy all the time when I'm tired.


I really like this song.

And this one - thing is, she seems far too gutsy and non-bullshit-taking to have ever been that hung up on someone.

Why are you putting crayon on your face?

Regular train-travellers - and therefore habitual Metro readers - will be aware of the following two things: 1) that women often do their make-up on the way to work, and 2) that some other people inexplicably find this thoroughly objectionable, and like to kick off about it via the pages of the free newspapers.

(On the subject of the Metro and the Evening Standard, does anyone agree that they should have a "Commuter Soundtrack" feature? They could get people to text/e-mail/tweet the songs that get them through their journeys to work, to give the rest of us some ideas. Personally I find "Radio Nowhere" by Bruce Springsteen and "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash - duh - are my Monday morning tracks of choice. Oh, and if anyone takes this and pitches it to one of the aforementioned papers, I will kill you.)

As I was saying. Seeing women do their make-up on the train is a pretty common occurrence, and it mystifies me when people get all haughty about it. Frankly, I'm impressed at both their unselfconsciousness and their steady-handedness. This morning I saw a girl successfully apply liquid eyeliner on the train. I nearly asked her to do my make-up too.

Personally I don't do my face on the train, but that's because I'm a freak and absolutely hate people watching me do my make-up. Sometimes if my ex was getting impatient while waiting for me to get ready to go out, he'd come and lurk behind me in the bathroom, so I could see him in the mirror. It was really bloody off-putting, and didn't result in me being ready any quicker - the only thing he achieved was having an eyeliner pencil or something chucked at him in petulant protest. Or, on bad days, some tweezers.

Having said that, it is kind of fascinating watching someone do their make-up. As a girl, I'm curious about what products and techniques other girls use (my best friend and I spend ages in Boots, literally every time we see each other. Clarins vs. Clinique? If only we could afford Chanel... Best mascara for volume and length? It's like we don't have an MA and an MPhys between us). I can see why boys remain curious and perplexed by the whole "changing our faces" process. A girl I know was asked, "Why are you putting crayon on your face?" by a male friend as they got ready for a night out. Well, as she got ready and he lurked, I should imagine.

And it kind of is an odd concept. Most men I know just get up, shower, perhaps faff about with their hair a bit and then go. (The Boy has it down to a fine art, let me tell you. Never fails to make me laugh with his head-banging move that apparently gets the curls to fall in exactly the right way.) Most girls I know spend at least some time on their faces - whether it's just a bit of eyeliner and mascara, or the full works. It's kind of weird that most women don't go out to work, or wherever, with their natural bare face. I certainly don't, but years of teenage skin will do that to you. I know I look better with make-up. A bit of blusher can give some definition to otherwise Cabbage Patch Kid cheeks. Eyeliner, eyelash curlers (I felt like I'd qualified as a woman when I mastered those) and mascara can make unremarkable eyes super-expressive. And foundation and concealer can transform "God, I look like death, if it was a bit shiny and had spots on its chin" into "Well, don't I look naturally flawless?" If it wasn't for foundation, I'd probably have never got laid.

I'm not a fan of looking like I'm wearing a lot of make-up though. A guy in the office where I work - when I can get there, not looking at anyone in particular, Southern Rail - said to me that he thought I didn't wear any make-up, "except maybe on your eyes, a bit". After I'd finished laughing, I took it as a massive compliment. Having waxed lyrical about the benefits of make-up, it's going to sound a bit odd to say I don't like anything that looks fake. False eyelashes, false nails, fake tan - I don't want any of these. I had to have a spray tan not that long ago (don't ask), and didn't enjoy having an orange face. In the slightest. A Benefit girl once ambushed me in Boots and did my face for me. It was all going well until she cracked out the blusher. Long story short, I walked away whimpering "no-one blushes orange" and vowing to shun all Benefit counters forevermore.

But it's not about fakery, or not liking how you look - it's about confidence, and emphasising your good bits, and covering the bits you aren't so fond of. Looking like you, only even better. I could make some attempt at being deep and say something about living in a society where the pressure to look good, all the time, can be relentless, but that kind of takes the fun out of things. And to be honest, the only pressure I get about looking a certain way comes from my mother:

"You're glowing today, darling."
"I'm what? No, I'm just wearing blusher."
"Oh, that's why you don't look like an anaemic blonde Goth for a change."

Thanks, Mum.

A tool of revolution there in every single chord...

It's a brilliant feeling when you come across a "tell-all-your-friends" band or singer - an artist so good, you want to tell everyone you know about them. You want to stop random passers-by in the street and say "Listen! For God's sake, listen! Is this not everything you never knew you wanted from music?!"

They don't come around that often - or maybe I'm just really hard to please, I don't know. Currently, I can think of two - Brontide, and Thea Gilmore. Fortunately for you, I'm not going to bang on about Brontide again - how I feel about them and their dapper drummer is well-documented. No, this time it's all about the Gilmore girl, and how she pretty much is my taste in music.

Hard to label - she's a bit folky (without the rolling hills and fair maidens), fairly acoustic, rocky in places (there's a definite Chrissie Hynde/Debbie Harry swagger there) - she's the one artist whose career I will follow to the bitter end. I saw her live - for what must be at least the eighth time - at Union Chapel in Islington on Wednesday night. Which, by the way, is a gorgeous venue that if you get the chance to go to, you should. Sitting on a pew with my best friend and fellow Gilmore devotee, it occurred to me that I first heard of Thea nearly ten years ago. Which made me feel old - but not as old as I feel now, as I'm reading the Wikipedia entry for the UK charts of that year - 2003. The year of tATu (the snogging Russians). The year of Justin Timberlake's Cry Me A River, of Evanescence's first assault on our ears, and of Where Is The Love? Yeah.

The flipside to this "everyone must listen to this! Everyone!" feeling is that you lose that feeling of possession. Sometimes a band are so good, you almost don't want others to know. There is immense joy to be had in the selfishness of revelling in something no-one else knows about. You can smugly congratulate yourself on your own exquisite taste.

Fortunately for me, Thea Gilmore fulfils both of these things - she's so good, I want her to be compulsory listening for anyone who claims they have good taste in music. Far too clever to be lumped into the "female singer/songwriter" category, she ain't no Alanis Morrisette. She's also not exactly "famous". Say to most people, "I'm going to see Thea Gilmore tonight", and they'll say "Who?" On the one hand, it's kind of a shame that someone with such talent, who writes such fiercely intelligent songs yet never over-complicates her music, isn't more well-known, but on the other hand, it makes her the best musical secret weapon we have. When the rest of the world realises what we did by giving them Ed Sheeran, we can say "Don't shoot! We do have good music here, promise! The Clash and the Stones weren't just flukes!"

Here's a couple of Thea songs to get you started. If you like what you hear, I'd recommend her most recent album, Murphy's Heart (2010), and Rules For Jokers (2001). If you don't, well, I'm afraid you're just wrong.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEFm7d0fcCI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWmB1_DgihQ

On the subject of me telling you what's cool, if you happen to be at a loose end and are in/near London, please try and see the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition.  It's on at the Natural History Museum, and is around £10 entry (there's probably a student rate, and I'm still not used to the fact that this doesn't apply to me anymore. I just don't feel like a real human being yet). It's become a bit of a thing for the Boy and I, as it's on in Bristol too, and we always come out afterwards going "right, let's sod this real-life business, and just get cameras and go travelling". This year, there's fluffy ravens, comical penguins, breathtaking landscapes and a haunting photo of a tethered baby baboon with fear in its eyes that will make you wonder whether we really have a grip on what we're doing to this planet of ours.

I'm going to leave you with a very classy, non-Thea song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcmQQT0b-Hk