heartbroken

john peel has died. he had a heart attack while on holiday in peru.

when i was a teenager, living in my own private hell, i used to imagine going and finding peelie outside the bbc after his show and going to live with him and his wife and their children. it was a silly fantasy, but i do feel as though, if not a parent, a particularly lovely uncle has just passed away.

would that i were

chris and i went to see the would-be-goods last night at the betsey trotwood over in farringdon. the gig was ace and i picked up a copy of their single emmanuelle béart, which stu put on a tape for me ages ago.

they're exactly the kind of band i'd like to be in, let's look at the facts:
1) last night, jessica, the singer, was wearing a tricorn hat. the other members of the band were also wearing hats, but it's the tricorn hat that's important.
2) she sings in french. this is something i have always wanted to do. unfortunately my sole attempt at writing in french was completely pants. but i do a mean poupée de cire.
3) they're really fucking cool.
4) er...
5) that's it. (this gag tm private eye)

i think i've made my point clearly there.

also, for the person who was searching for stuart murdoch comic book, i think what you meant was this: "image comics are currently in talks with scottish pop group belle & sebastian and with british songwriter stephen duffy to create graphic novel anthologies, transforming their songs into comic book stories." what i particularly like about this article is that all the subheads are b&s songs. hooray. (this was found via no rock and roll fun your one stop shop for all the pop that's fit to print.)

i almost never do this

I am Indie Girl Click on the picture below to read more: Take the 'What Kind of Girl Are You?' quiz at CookingToHookup.com

yep, that's right, there's a book called cooking to hook up: the batchelor's date-night cookbook. i'm slightly appalled by the existence of this text - and particularly the idea that you can lump a girl into one of ten categories and that if you then cook her the right menu for that category she'll sleep with you. on the other hand, the authors' description of the indie girl is disappointingly spot on (i only really know indie girls, so i couldn't really tell you about the others), and if i saw the book in a shop, i would definitely take a sneaky peek inside to see whether i would be tempted by their recipes. still i'm not convinced this one's striking a blow for feminism, even if it is about getting men into the kitchen.

morning bell

walking up the uxbridge road, going past the ice cream parlour. it's almost dusk, but there's a woman sitting outside with a tiny cup of coffee, smoking. she's wearing a floor length black fur coat, her grey hair is swept off her face, and she is elegantly pontificating to some imaginary person sitting behind her. fifty years ago, she might have been the toast of the london season. a debutante wearing pearls and a dress made just for her, dancing with the gentlemen and curtsying to a large cake (possibly). and now she sits slightly forlornly outside the ice cream parlour, nursing her espresso and talking to herself. and thom yorke is singing "release me" on my ipod.

all at sea

this is the first time since i started this site, that october hasn't meant a new year at university. in fact it's the first time since i started nursery school that the autumn hasn't brought the start of a new year.

i'm feeling slightly disorientated by it, actually. in borders yesterday, i caught myself thinking 'i wish i had a reading list', because at least when you were an english student you knew you had books to read and you read them (admittedly usually a couple of hours before the seminar began, but still). even as a journalism student there were newspaper handbooks (and y'know, newspapers) to read, but now... a void. i'm currently reading birdsong, and i will follow that up with the woman in white, but any suggestions would be very welcome.

the bonus is that i have more free time than i have had pretty much ever. i am fast becoming a lady-who-lunches, having had lunch with stu, chris c and jess in the past three days. i've been a completely hopeless friend over the last six months ish, but i'm planning on changing that. honest.

inevitability

it is a truth universally acknowleged that the moment you finish a big project of any kind you will catch a cold. i'm not sure if there's scientific proof of this, but it's demonstrably true. for instance: i handed in my dissertation about this time last week, and i finally got around to returning my books yesterday. today, i have a clear case of the sniffles, which will almost certainly develop over the weekend into a full blown runny nose/hacking cough situation. thus, i am spending my first day of underemployment (the course finished yesterday, but i'm not technically unemployed as i actually have two jobs - one of which is official) in my pyjamas in bed, watching videos and knitting a cosy for the ipod that i talked myself into purchasing yesterday.

(go on, you won't get it any cheaper but i can't really afford it but you really want it, and look you can get it engraved and everything but that's just a device to lower the resale value you could have a belle and sebastian lyric oh alright then.)*

knitting was one of the things i wanted to do now i have more time to play with, some of the others are:

• get a job (obviously).
• volunteer somewhere (have already managed this one, by volunteering at my local traid who were looking for someone to look after their books - as in literature not accounts).
• improve my french.
• go to ikea (bit of a curveball that one, but i've never been before).

*nb, internal debate dramatised for comic effect. mostly.