Jealousy and other stories...

Apologies in advance for the length of this post. Like that girl in Mean Girls, I just have a lot of feelings. I am aware that putting this disclaimer here is only giving you more shit to read. 
As you were. 

It's been over a month. And people have started pointing this out to me. So, as The Bastard Dissertation was handed in 14 days ago, and all I'm doing with myself is melting my brain in an office in Uckfield (East Sussex is weird...it's no West Sussex), it's probably time I wrote some shit on the internet.

But first, I'm going to recommend you some cool stuff.

Number one on the list of Things I Can't Currently Get Enough Of is 'Moranthology', by Caitlin Moran ('How To Be A Woman', anyone?). It's a collection of her columns from The Times, and while I cannot recommend it enough, I will say, don't read it in public. A young couple and their toddler genuinely edged away from me and scuttled down the platform at East Croydon station while I was standing there sniggering at her description of how girls dance in music videos.

Number two on the list is the film 'Shadow Dancer'. If you can find somewhere that's still showing it, then I beg you to go and see it. 'Whoa there, internet wench!' I hear you say. 'We don't know enough about Northern Irish politics! We're not going to get this film!' Yes, you will. It's a clever and well-acted film that's as beautifully-shot as it is bleak, and you will be thinking about it long after you've left the cinema.

Finally, I've recommended them before, but I'll say it again. Check out Brontide, 'cause they're fucking awesome. And they have the most beautiful drummer I've ever seen (oh, wait. That's awkward). I saw them live for the second time on Sunday, and they were bloody excellent. There were also so many hipsters present at the gig that you couldn't move for questionable haircuts, over-thought facial hair and jumpers. It was like a live version of the internet.

Here, try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6lvuWDZpPA


The following isn't especially relevant to my life (at least, not currently), but for some reason I started thinking about it on the train the other day, and wrote most of this post in my head while proofing car insurance policies. So here goes.

Jealousy’s a funny old bug, isn’t it? It’s one of the few emotions that you can’t say anything good about. Blind rage? Well, it gets shit done.  Frustration? It’s lovely when it’s relieved. Grief? Tends to follow the loss of something good. But jealousy? Oh no.  It achieves precisely nothing. 

 I didn’t really ‘get’ jealousy until I was in my late teens – until I was in my first relationship, in fact. My secondary school years were spent in a mostly envy-free zone. It wasn’t as if I was an especially secure, confident, well-adjusted teenager (I spent five years in an all-girls school that had a reputation for academic excellence; of course I wasn’t secure or well-adjusted). I just never understood the concept. If someone was being particularly possessive and jealous over something or someone, I just wondered why they’d never learnt to share. 

It’s something you have to really think hard about in order to overcome it, I’ve decided. You have to come at it from all angles, slice it and dice it until you’ve dealt with it absolutely and thoroughly. 
Take jealousy within friendships, for example. Most people can probably think of a friend that has a bit of a Midas touch – everything seems to go right for them. Or, you can probably think of a friend you’d happily life-swap with, just for a few days. A very dear friend of mine has just got herself a job and a flat in London (she’s worked bloody hard to get where she is, mind), and when I saw her place on Sunday, I totally had an “aww, I want to be living and working in London. Like, now”. But then I thought about it properly. Would I want to be working in the City, in a hugely competitive environment, spending all day in heels and pencil skirts? No, actually, I wouldn’t. For starters, I’m shit at Maths, and I don’t have any interest in business (I loathe and detest The Apprentice).  And secondly, I struggle in any footwear that’s not a ballet flat or a Converse All Star. Wobbling round London in Kurt Geiger’s finest isn’t really going to suit me. 

Jealousy really takes on its monstrous, green-eyed, ugly form when it rears up in relationships. It’s incredibly frustrating because it’s such a paradox: feeling jealous can lead to some pretty relationship-ending behaviour, but it usually comes from a fear of a relationship ending. By acknowledging that you’re feeling little flutters of jealousy, you’re telling yourself that you’re not good enough. And then you probably chastise yourself for feeling that way, and hey presto, you have one sorry vicious circle. (I spend a frightening amount of time either apologising for having feelings, or silently feeling guilty for having feelings. Sad but true.)

This is where the role-reversal thing comes in. Or the do-as-you-would-be-done-by thing. If I'm kicking off about something (I say 'kicking off'; getting blunt and angsty is more my style), I make an attempt at asking myself if I would expect the other person to do the same if the situation was reversed. Generally, the answer is "No". Sometimes, it is a struggle and the "YEAH, BUT -" part of me wins out. 
This makes more sense if you can apply it to an actual example, so let's try this one. I get on really well with guys, and almost prefer to be the only girl with a group of male friends (don't make it weird. Also, this doesn't mean that my female friends aren't brilliant and very dear to me, 'cause they are). I also tend to like boys who have a lot of female friends and get on well with women generally - what I'm saying is, I would never kick off about a guy in my life spending time with female friends because I would never stand for them getting in a tizzy about me being friends with boys. I wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

And going on from this, I'm also a total and utter flirt. Not in a predatory way, you understand (though after too much wine, that one's probably up for debate), just in a harmless way. Caitlin Moran actually puts it really well: two people being lovely to each other and just enjoying "being total lovelies together". It's fun, it makes the day go quicker, and I'd never have enjoyed any job I've ever had without it. (Except working in a school office at uni last year. History and Anthropology lecturers are, on the whole, pretty hard to flirt with.) The point being, I'm never going to be able to have a "you were flirting with her! You so were!" hissy fit because I'd be throwing the mother of all stones from a rather ostentatious glass house.

About the bajillionth frustrating thing about feeling jealous is that it’s incredibly hard to talk about it in a sane, rational manner – and talking about it doesn’t necessarily help.  It's almost more acceptable to be jealous and possessive when you're around the 16-18 mark and you've got your sixth-form boyfriend/girlfriend; you're still young and making a hash of things. Like a young lion cub, you haven't really got a handle on how sharp your claws and teeth are, so you use them freely. No amount of reassurance from the other person in the relationship is going to help; the change has to come from the person doing battle with the monster. You have to decide that you're not going to give into that nagging little voice. It’s like waves, I think – you feel the first one, then the next, then the next – and you can let them pull you into their freezing tide, or you can plant yourself firmly on dry land and march briskly away from the water. 

You've had some Brontide, now have these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2BUEzdjfpY

Do yourselves a favour & just don't read the papers...

I don't mind saying I like a bit of gossip. I would say it's a girl thing, but it's so not. It's also one of the few ways I can bond with my mother - she doesn't read books but she does seem to acquire truly impressive amounts of trashy magazines, which she passes on to me. (It's not easy to bond with someone who regards eating carbohydrates as a character flaw.) And as I've spent the last 4 years reading "proper" literature and no end of linguistics articles, I feel no shame in flicking through Grazia or Glamour from time to time. Reading a magazine is like eating a bag of crisps when you're really hungry - it distracts you for a little bit but you know it's no good for you. The hypocrisy of most women's magazines does get to me a little, because it does seem that most of them are a gross insult to our intelligence.

But now, to what I was actually going to say.

In the last few weeks, tabloids and magazines have been all over the Kristen-Stewart-cheating-on-Robert-Pattinson "scandal".

And naturally, everyone's got well up on their high horses in order to make judgemental sweeping statements about how all cheaters are scum and should burn in hell, or whatever.

I feel sorry for Kristen. Mainly because she's the one taking the majority of the flak. Yes, she cheated - but with an older, married man who definitely should have known better. He had the position of power, presumably; if anyone was going to put the brakes on their little make-out sessions, he should have been first.

She's 22. Old enough to know right from wrong but young enough to still be finding her feet. (I'm not even much of a fan of hers; about the best film she's done is Panic Room). And, good lord, if every relationship tizzy I have was splashed across the tabloids, I'd look a lot grumpier than she does. (You should have seen the Skype strop I had recently. Toddlers have displayed more rationale and reason; there was anguished yelping and everything.) 

Cheating is wrong. We all know that. Can we please now get over that and have an intelligent conversation about it?

On the one hand, you can argue that we don't need to feel too sorry for Stewart, as she's never going to have to worry about money ever again, she plays the main character in one of the biggest film franchises there's ever been (unfortunately), and she probably doesn't have to clean her own oven. But to resort to stating the bloody obvious, all the money and success in the world is largely meaningless if you're sleeping alone every night.

On the other hand, her level of fame has probably sailed past the "oh, this is pretty cool" stage and reached the "this is fucking ridiculous, I can't even post a letter without being photographed." Yes, she chose her career path, and actors know if they're successful, they stand to to lose a certain amount of privacy. But is that necessarily fair? Admittedly, this is probably better aimed at the tabloid press (I knew my dissertation would get a look-in here at some point, and not just in the form of me moaning about it), but it is worth thinking about. Personally, sometimes I think it must be pretty cool to be "famous" (in my head I am the natural heir to Caitlin Moran and/or Tom Hardy's future wife), but then I really think about it. Every unflattering outfit, every bad skin day, every heated conversation, every moody look, all photographed and written about? Haha, I think not. There'd be far too many of, well, all of them. 

Yes, she made a mistake. 22-year-olds do that. 17 year-olds do it. Ditto 45-year-olds. You can bet anything you like that how the press, and the internet hacks, and the pre-teen Twi-hards have responded to her bit of crappy decision-making has got nothing on what she's putting herself through. But no one makes that decision without a reason, and they alone know what the reason(s) is/are.

Being in a relationship is hard enough as it is - to paraphrase a quote from one of my favourite books, "you have to think about someone else all the time and all you get in return is regular sex" - but if you're two very famous young people who, I'm guessing, are probably miles apart a lot of the time due to work commitments, then at times it's not going to feel like a relationship at all. I've never done the long-distance thing, but I know that there's more chance of Satan winning gold at figure-skating that there is of me succeeding in a long-distance relationship. A good 60% of that relationship is in your head, really. You can't feel like you're with someone if you're not, like, with someone. I'm not saying this excuses cheating, but there's a reason proximity is a huge and obvious factor in who ends up with who.

I can't claim to be anywhere near the moral high-ground on this matter, and what's more, I'm normally judgemental as fuck, but just once, I would like to see people acknowledge that there are two+ sides to every story, a variety of possible motives and reasons for every bad decision, and that no one knows what they're capable of until they're put under enough pressure. 

Enough.

Musically speaking, I saw this guy supporting Thea Gilmore back in 2003, and this is the only song of his set that made any sort of an impression on me. Almost 10 years later, I suddenly can't get enough of it. 

"You make me smile, and laugh too; how I'd like to spend my time with you". Quite.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzFLDrMm4k

 And this is shamefully boyband-y, but it got stuck in my head when I heard it in the London Victoria branch of Paperchase last Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDL6aV7uKQU

The lyrics are very much from the songwriting-by-numbers school of thought, but there's something quite hypnotic about it.

Whatever floats your goat...

I have at last decided, I am not going to read any of the Fifty Shades trilogy.

And I really want to. It genuinely pleases me that books of that kind (I would call them erotic fiction, but having read excerpts here and there, that would be an insult to the rest of the genre) have rocketed into the bestsellers' lists, developed a stronghold there and have become such a talking point. Even Phillip Schofield has said they're good - or at least, the fact that they exist is a good thing (I used to fancy him when I was a lot younger). Even a few days ago, every third woman I saw on the train was reading a Fifty Shades book - I thought the hype was mostly over by now. But apparently, it persists.

And I don't normally get taken in by hype. If everyone's telling me that something is amazing, for some reason even I can't quite explain, my instinctive reaction is to think "it can't be that good".* It's why I've never seen The Hangover. Or The Notebook. It's why I do not find Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper or Ryan Reynolds attractive in any way. And this reaction doesn't come from a hipster-ish need to shun whatever might be drifting merrily down the mainstream, however much my friends want to think so. I just seem to have this default setting that makes me think, "if everyone thinks it's that good" - whatever it is - "then the thing in question can't be trying hard enough".

*Things I've been wrong about: (500) Days of Summer (it really is that cute. Don't watch it with your significant other, though; you might come over all, like, feeling-y or something). Razorlight's first album. The Civil Wars. Reel Big Fish live. That's kind of it.

But back to the matter at hand.

Like I said, I want to read them. Or rather, I want to want to read them. (I also really want to make a terrible pun about reading them so I can join the mass debate, but I won't.)

I know I'm not going to put myself through it though, purely because of how they're written (I don't want to say "badly", because hey, who's the published author, me or E.L. James?). But the clumsy, wince-inducing prose style and the incredibly irritating narrator will infuriate me to distraction before I find anything vaguely erotic about the books. It's a shame, because really, there is so much potential there: the naive, wide-eyed young girl being seduced and corrupted by the complicated - and by all accounts, rather bossy - mysterious (and conveniently rich) man... We've all had that fantasy, right?

Anyway... It's a shame, because I think in the hands of a more skilled writer, the books would have been truly great. Seriously, what's the whole "inner goddess" thing about? (If I get bored while dandering about in town, I duck in to WH Smiths and read a few lines, wince, chuckle and wander off again. Thinking about it, I've probably read a fair bit of the first book through doing this.) I don't have an inner goddess, I don't think. If I do, she's socially awkward and terribly indecisive, so if you find that remotely sexy, I'm your girl. I want to support the Fifty Shades cause - for want of a better word - because it seems to have got many, many women talking very publicly about what they find hot - an area of conversation that I don't think it's too controversial to say, has previously been dominated by men. (And speaking of being dominated by men... oh, it's too easy.)

I didn't want to give this too much of a feminist slant because, let's be honest, that sounds rather dull. But it seems that part of the reason Fifty Shades has become so talked-about is because it's essentially mainstream porn for the girls. Which we haven't had, really, up until now. (Not that I've looked.) Guys have had it easier in that respect for quite some time. Already, Fifty Shades is spawning copy-cat stories - it's like Twilight all over again - and while these bandwagon-jumping tales might well be worse than the wagon that came first (God forbid), hopefully this means that erotic fiction will maintain a presence in the best-seller charts for time to come. Or will at least prompt people to seek out the better-written stuff. Like Anais Nin, or Erica Jong. Or even when Sarra Manning gets two of her main characters in a bedroom. Or, as you're on the internet, try that.

So - not that I can really conclude with anything useful, as I'm on the fence myself - I wish I could switch off my word-geekery and rattle through the trilogy, because I'm nothing but in favour of erotic fiction. But it really, really kills the mood when the choice of words makes you cringe. It's like having someone talk dirty to you in a strong Birmingham accent - just kind of wrong (oh God, please no-one take offence) ...I think I should go before I say something worse...


I must quickly explain the rather odd title of this entry - a few nights ago, I was joking around with a friend and said something along the lines of "Well, the wildest night I ever had involved dwarves and the sacrifice of a goat..." (Funnily enough, this is what's known as a lie.) To which he responded, "Whatever floats your boat, I guess!" I couldn't resist saying, "Don't you mean... goat?" Heavy groans all round.

Here, have some Tim Minchin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V41R1p9hjNg

My favourite verse starts at 2:19. It's the work of a genius (well, almost).

And I'm listening to these guys' new album, but this song is one of my favourites by them (and probably one of my favourite songs ever). They're very good live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnPCoCfz1mM

Don't you dare use the word "party" as a verb in this shop!

...or, Things People Really Need To Not Say.

Before I get my (admittedly very tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted) rant on, I must say, the last few days have been very pleasant indeed. Well, apart from the 24 hours spent in university halls last week - which, in the middle of the summer, was pretty eerie. I had to get a friend to ring me to take my mind off the nagging fear that if I was caught up in, say, the Talybont Massacre, no-one would know, since there was no-one about. Still, I was grateful to have a free place to crash so I could see my dissertation supervisor and pick up my deposit from my landlady. Oh, the rock & roll life I lead...

But then things did get a bit more rock & roll. Because this weekend, at the grand old age of 22, I finally lost my festival virginity*. To Truck Festival. (Nothing to do with heavy goods vehicles, I can assure you.) Held on a farm in a beautiful village close to Oxford, it was a great couple of days and one I can highly recommend if you want a weekend of awesome music that won't break the bank. Says the girl who still hasn't paid back her ticket-buyer. Eek. It's family-friendly too - I lost count of the number of little ones being carried around on their dads' shoulders, and then felt sorry for the all parents during Tim Minchin's excellent but rather sweary set. I could only imagine the awkward questions later: "Mum, who's the motherfucking Pope?"

*V in 2007 doesn't really count; we only had a day ticket.

 I'm not what you'd call a natural camper - as much as I like to think I am quite outdoorsy, it's been a while since I spent every weekend working on a farm, and I think the last time I camped properly, I was a Guide. The idea of not showering for a couple of days didn't exactly fill me with joy - I think I'm borderline-OCD when it comes to shaving my legs; I have a zero-tolerance attitude to stubble. But feeling pretty rank was a small price to pay for so much good music in one place, and when my mother's opening line to me when she picked me up from the station on Sunday was "No offence darling, but you look skanky, you need a shower", I laughed. Mainly at the fact that she thought I needed telling.

Anyhoo. The weekend was rounded off nicely with a quiet drink with a handful of friends, some of whom I hadn't seen for bloody ages, and then it was up at 5.45am on Monday and Tuesday for work. Or, two days of "spot the difference: water bill edition", bookended by lots of train rage. I was relieved when I was told I wasn't needed today, and planned on a serious lie-in and a very relaxed, unstressy day. I must have been mistaken as to who I am for a minute there, because of course, my day began at 7am with excruciating pain (I'll spare you the details) and I've spent most of the time since then thinking, "Oh God, I don't have enough to do". I don't think I'm going to learn how to relax until I'm about 55.

So I thought it was time for another ranty list - because hey, if there's one thing I'm good at, it's making ranty lists.

I don't actually know what triggered this particular list, but the other day I did find myself wondering why people say certain things - things that are either  a) pointless, b) never going to get an answer, or c) just plain annoying. Here are a few things I really can't help but scoff at when I hear people say them; you probably have your own.

1) "What are you thinking?"

Oh, this old chestnut. Blatant and sweeping gender stereotyping - and Ed Byrne - would have you believe that this question is very much a Woman Thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P87DS3aY4w 

 Apparently, it's a seemingly-innocuous bomb we drop on guys to make them panic and scramble in vain for something more romantic than, "I was just wondering whether it would be worse to be raped by a pirate or a ninja".

Personally, I've been asked this question many more times - by guys who should really know better than to put me on the spot like that - than I've asked it. It's a stupid question because a) generally, people don't have one thought at a time. I, for one, can be planning what I'm going to wear tomorrow, thinking of exciting and improbable careers for myself and doing the day's "calorie maths" all at once (sad but true). All while having the "OhmyGodI'm22andhavenoideawhatI'mdoingwithmylife" breakdown. So, for your own peace of mind, don't ask me what I'm thinking. It'll only freak us both out.

2) "Come on, what's the worst that could happen?"

To this, my answer is succinct: can I write you a fucking list?

3) "I'm not being funny, but..."

No, you're not being anything in the same time zone as funny. You're being petty and nitpicky, I can pretty much guarantee it. (And I can't have anyone infringing on my "petty and nitpicky" copyright.)

4) "Oh, I was going say something but now I've forgotten what it was."

Oh God, don't tease me like that. Now I'm not going to listen to at least the next six minutes of this conversation because I'm trying to guess what you were going to say. Hurry up and remember, damn it.

5) "So why were you at the doctors'?"

Does anyone ever expect a genuine answer to this question? It's the kind of information that you should know not to ask for if it hasn't been volunteered. I'm aware that asking this does come from genuine concern, but relax - I'd have told you if it was serious/contagious/your fault, honest.

6) The following words: condiment, throb, naughty, pulsate.

Throb and pulsate are self-explanatory, I feel. They're just far too onomatopoeic.
"Condiment" is just an unnecessary word. I don't know what we could replace it with, but there's got to be something shorter that means "stuff you put on food to make it better".
"Naughty" is either applied to misbehaving children, or to most of Lovehoney's products. I don't need to make the point that nothing should apply both of these things.

Dara O'Briain agrees with me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtl7Q_biowM

7) "Get over yourself."

No. Sorry. Like every other human being, I am the central protagonist in my life. So I reserve the right not to get over myself, thank you very much.

8) "I didn't think it would be your kind of thing..."

This one seems fairly harmless, and I'm never going to call anyone out on it when they say it - I'm not a total nutjob. But the first problem with this is that you can't say much in response: "Oh. Well, it is." Cue awkward silence.

And then - me being ever the linguist (read: pedant) - there are underlying assumptions contained within the statement that need unpicking. Assumptions being the operative word, really; the speaker is assuming they know what your kind of thing is - which admittedly isn't a crime. But it's the assuming part that makes me get a little prickly - I don't care how well you think you know me, please don't assume you know everything. I'm a woman of many tastes and talents (well, two talents mainly, and you only find out the second if I really like you) - you can't pigeon-hole me, man! And other such pretentious-wanker nonsense. I think this all just comes from my perma-teenage tendency to retreat into a thought-cycle of "I'm so misunderstood" whenever I'm feeling vaguely out of sorts.

So now you know what to say if you want to annoy me. (I can guarantee that some of the wind-up merchants I like to call friends are making mental notes to drop as many of these as possible into conversations with me. I'm onto you, kids.)

Musically speaking, you really need to check out a band called Brontide if you know what's good for you.

And it's not summer til Santana happens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gpwgPpswms 

New favourite rock star...

So there I was, complaining to Facebook that I was running low on things to write about. Do I weigh in on the Fifty Shades of Grey madness, despite having only read the first fifth of the first book? (I still might; it's like the Da Vinci Code of BDSM - badly written, but good grief, everyone's got an opinion). Do I do a vague and generic "Relationships: even when they're simple, they're not" post? Which, rest assured, arises out of being agony aunt for a couple of friends recently, rather than my own issues (which, indeed, would fill a book, so perhaps here isn't the place). A friend suggested a post on superpowers, which would be very brief (I have a lot of geeky friends so we've got this particular conversation down to a fine art). The superpower I'd most like to have would be mood control - so being able to rouse a crowd of apathetic people, or calm down an angry mob. Or just defuse awkwardness. The Boy suggested a rant about people who make massive generalisations -we were having a conversation in the pub about the Daily-Mail-reader kind of attitude that can be truly horrifying in its pervasiveness. We all have friends/relatives who are prone to making big, sweeping statements about entire groups of people based on one tiny, barely-significant experience. But, knowing the upshot of that soapbox session would be "God, aren't people just crap?" there would be some irony there.

But then. As I was sitting in bed on Saturday feeling rather queasy and sorry for myself (am on drugs for a week, and constant nausea seems to be the side-effect. Cheers, biology), my uncle called. "What are you up to today?"

"Oh, kind of busy," I lied, thinking he was going to rope me into doing something helpful - which, ordinarily, I hasten to add, I wouldn't mind - just not when the contents of my stomach are churning like a washing machine.

"Well, I have a spare ticket to Bruce Springsteen in Hyde Park..."

That changed things. Radically.

"I'm sure whatever I'm doing isn't that urgent. What time are we leaving?"

Now, I wouldn't call myself a die-hard Bruce fan. There's a good handful of his songs that I do really love - more recent ones like The Rising, Radio Nowhere, Lonesome Day, and the classics like Born to Run and Dancing in the Dark - but I'm not a go-out-and-get-new-album-on-date-of-release kind of fan. (Actually, it's more sit-in-and-download-standout-tracks these days, but the point stands.) However, my uncle has been a devoted fan for as long as I can remember, and as I was partly brought up by my grandmother and him, Bruce's music featured heavily in my early childhood. As a kid, I loved the "Born in the USA" album, and I remember being rather perplexed by the album cover for "The Ghost of Tom Joad" (hey, I was only five or so).

But only a fool would turn down an opportunity to see the Boss live, so I shovelled some dry toast into my face, stuffed a rucksack with lunch and a waterproof, and off we toddled to Hyde Park.

I probably don't need to tell you it was an amazing show. That for a man of 62, the energy and sheer joy he exudes while onstage puts 85% of other performers to shame. That - and don't worry, I'm wincing at the phrasing I'm about to employ - the gig was a journey from the harder, angrier, political songs of recent years to the anthems Springsteen is best known for. The turning point came - for me at least - at the twelfth song of the evening, "Because the Night". You have not lived until you have shouted along to that song as the stage lights turn the rain gold and silver. I also hope never to forget that performance of the afore-mentioned "The Ghost of Tom Joad", which included a positively orgasmic guitar solo from Tom Morello. The encore included Born in the USA, Glory Days, Born To Run, and Dancing in the Dark - and true to form, Bruce plucked one super-lucky lady from the crowd to dance with him, and then personally lifted her up and put her back where he'd found her. Oh, to be Bruce's Dancing in the Dark girl...

It wasn't over yet though, because who should stride onstage but Paul McCartney? And unfortunately this is where my tale (I say tale, it's more an extended "Ha, I saw Bruce and you didn't!") turns a little sour. As has been reported all over the internet today, the plug was pulled at 10.40pm, as Bruce, his band and Sir Paul were storming the hell out of Twist and Shout. They'd passed their curfew by 10 minutes - not half an hour, as most papers/sites are claiming - and so were silenced.  It's not a big deal, and of course it didn't ruin the evening, nice as it would have been to have heard the band's goodbyes. But what dawned on me today was that these days, a live music event is one of the last places where you can get thousands of people together who have no intention of causing trouble, are there to just see their act of choice and have a good time, so to pull the plug on that seems to be erring on the side of buzzkill. I know whoever took that decision was merely doing their job and following orders, but it's just a shame such a spectacular night had to end like that.

Whatever though, I got to sing along to Born To Run as if my life depended on it, so I'm not complaining. 

So that was yesterday, and today I've been at a family gathering - and all anyone asked me about was my dissertation/Masters course/career ideas. Someone genuinely uttered the words, "So what are your job prospects like?"

I had to stuff an entire egg sandwich into my mouth to stifle the yelp of anguish.

I'm going to leave you with this (it's a personal favourite and he didn't play it), and go and feel guilty about the stone I've gained in cake today.

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

Ciao for now.

 P.S. That's Bruce crossed off the to-see-live list. Now, who wants to get me tickets for the Stones?