December 2002

December 31st, 2002. Random change of subject

Feeling a bit hungry on the train back up North, I went to get a packet of crisps and a sandwich from the buffet. The only crisps they had left were "Root Vegetable Crisps" - not flavoured, but made from bits of carrot, parsnip and beetroot rather than potato.

This sounded a little odd, but they turned out to taste really good. I've never seen them in the shops anywhere; so does anyone know where I might be able to get vegetable crisps like these without having to get on a train?

19:06 Comments (4)

December 30th, 2002. More motherly wisdom on transsexuality

"If God made your body a particular way, He did it for a reason."

"This is like a bereavement for me. I keep thinking: what's the point going on living?"

"You must be normal because you had a normal sexual relationship with a girl"

"It's just a phase you're going through. You felt a bit down and you remembered you'd just thought 'oh, it might be nice to be a girl' once when you were little. Then you read stuff about it and it got this idea in your head."

"Everyone is far too open about everything nowadays. You read too much, and it puts ideas like this into your head. A hundred years ago nobody felt that way because nobody knew it existed."

"If you become a woman you'll be stuck doing housework and cleaning and cooking and looking after other people for the rest of your life."

"When you see your doctor you should get him to give you some hormones. If you get some male hormones it'll make you more masculine and you won't think like this any more."

My dad, on the other hand, on the phone, just said: "Your mam showed me the note you wrote her. It doesn't matter." And that was all.

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December 30th, 2002. Awkward

So, I just had The Conversation with my mother.

It didn't get off to a good start, because she realised I had something important to say and kept worrying what it might be. "Are you gay," she said, "Have you got AIDS? They're the worst things I can think of." In the end, I was a coward and scribbled it on a slip of paper. She promised to break it gently to my dad, too.

I think she probably sees it as something I'm going to grow out of. "You didn't get along with boys very well when you were at school; all your friends were girls. Maybe that's why." I tried to say that maybe that was an effect, not a cause. "You've had relationships with girls, so you must be normal." I couldn't think of anything to reply to that one.

First, though, she gave me a long hug, and I cried a lot. She didn't seem shocked or surprised or anything.

I'd better go pack for going home. More later, maybe.

12:12 Comments (4)

December 29th, 2002. Christmas is all about seal breeding

It's been a long week.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm going back up to Scotland, and I'll probably breathe a sigh of relief. I still haven't had any Serious Conversations with the parents; I'm hoping that I'll be able to say something to my mum in the morning, but I wouldn't bet on it. In any case, I feel a bit guilty about not wanting to tell them both together.

The Parents have been trying to keep me entertained for the tail-end of my holiday. Yesterday, we went to the restaurant which used to be the Danish Seamen's Mission up by the docks, for lunch. We sat by the window, my mum commenting on the passing traffic. "Ooh, look, there's a caravan. It looks a bit loaded up. Look, some Norwich City supporters. I'm sure I just saw that minibus go past the other way."

Today, for a change, we had lunch at the Lord Tennyson pub in Louth. I overheard the landlady trying to explain to the waitress how to serve us. "Here's a pad, give them a red menu each, when they put it down come back and write down what they want on the pad." Afterwards we were going to go to Donna Nook to watch the basking seals, but it was pissing down. We stopped the car at Saltfleet and walked to the top of the sea-bank to look out at the sea. The high-tide line is about half a mile from the sea bank at Saltfleet, so we could just about see the breaking waves behind a wasteland of marsh and sand. There were lots of large signs "issued by the Defence Council": "THIS IS A LIVE BOMBING RANGE. DO NOT TOUCH ANY SUSPICIOUS OBJECTS". We got back in the car and drove home.

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December 27th, 2002. Mince pies and everything

Christmas must be over now because Dad went back to work today. I'm still hanging around at the parents' house, because there are apparently no trains from here to Scotland until Monday. I've been sitting around the house reading books, trying to write the Review Pages that I said I was going to do ages ago, and trying not to annoy my mother too much; she got all mardy this afternoon when we couldn't find her 7" single collection.

Christmas day wasn't too bad really; just me and The Parents, sat around eating and watching telly. I had no idea what I should give the parents, so it was books and DVDs as usual. Dad got the Back To The Future Trilogy DVD set, and Mum got a couple of books: A Thousand Years of the English Parish and, a little more seriously, Everybody Poos. I mostly received CDs: the new ones by The Delgados and Saint Etienne, and a couple of older ones from Stereolab and The Smiths.

(woo, checking those links I found that there's a Delgados gig at the QMU on my birthday! Anyone want to come with me?)

Last night W invited me round for drinks, along with Catherine and her husband, and John. We drank lots of wine, ate W's mum's lovely chocolate torte, and talked about what a great time we'd all had at Catherine's wedding, before getting pulled through to the living room for party games with W's brother's in-laws, none of whose names I managed to pick up at all. It was really good to see them again; mind, it was good to get out of the house at all. I keep thinking I should save up and pop down to London for a holiday; and I do have a few days' holiday coming in January after all.

21:44 Comments (2)

December 25th, 2002. Seasonal poetry

Christmas 1924, by Thomas Hardy

"Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We've got as far as poison gas.

18:45 Comments (1)

December 24th, 2002. Bite my tongue

Firstly, just for Laura, here's some photos of my new shoes. The Parents were a bit puzzled about me taking the shoes out into the garden to photograph them.

I'm already starting to bounce off the walls here. My Mum was very stressed today, what with preparing all the food for tomorrow (even though there's only 3 of us) and organising the church nativity play this afternoon. One of the cousins visited this morning with her children and stepdaughter, leaving my mother even more stressed and panicking that there wasn't enough time to fit everything in. Lunch became some stale bread and a pork pie, which led to us discussing the nature of salad:

MOTHER: I've got some lettuce in the fridge, but I didn't put it out because I know you don't like salad.

CAITLIN: I don't mind salad. What you give us is some lettuce, a tomato and a piece of cheese all on a plate together. Calling it a salad doesn't make it one.

M: Well, that's what I've always called salad.

C: You don't make a salad just by putting a piece of lettuce next to something. A salad needs proper dressing, for one thing.

M: We've always managed without all that fancy stuff.

You can tell I'm starting to get stressed with them because I'm bothering to argue. Every year, my mother says: "Next year I'm not going to cook. Lots of people go out for Christmas dinner," but of course the next year everything is still the same.

It's not just the family that gets me annoyed. The Parents get all their news from teletext and the local paper, the Grimsby Evening Telegraph. As it's published by the same people as the Daily Mail, it's unsurprising that its editorial tone tends towards the far right. Today, for example, the headlined letter on the Letters Page contained the following:

It seems to me that the agenda for this disasterous Labour government is [...] to ensure that our beloved Prime Minister can be crowned President of the Great Socialist Republic of Europe. [...] We, as a nation, do not appear to be concerned that as every day passes, even more of our Sovereignty [sic] is eroded. Even more important, in my view, is the fact that in probably no more than two generation's [sic] time, the British people will be in a minority within our own shores. Those same shores that our forefathers have stoutly defended against invaders for a thousand years. [...] The Conservatives, to whom one would normally look to support the interests of Britain, are nothing more than a "politically correct" rabble. John Robertson, Cleethorpes

Anyone who describes the Conservative Party as "politically correct" must be on rather strong drugs, I feel. I would write to the editor myself, but I can't be bothered; it's not as if they'd print it. If you do, then remember: "Letters which include names and addresses will receive priority."

The news pages aren't much more interesting. Lots of one-paragraph reports from the magistrates' court, and a story that the local magistrates are so busy they have a six-month waiting list for cases to be heard. Also, this story caught my eye:

Police have said they are no nearer identifying the woman who calls herself Barry Manilow, who was found wandering around the Market Rasen area. A Lincolnshire Police spokesman said they had no response to a nationwide appeal for relatives of the woman to come forward. [...] She was found in Middle Rasen with a bag full of Barry Manilow records. [...] The woman is described as white and aged about 60 with a ruddy complexion. [...] She has a shrill voice and [psychiatric unit] staff say she only answers to the singer's name. Police are appealing for anyone who knows her true identity to contact them.

I know that's an awfully sad story to read, especially at Christmas; but it shows how close together tragedy and comedy fit. It could be easy to mistake a real person for a sitcom one-liner.

23:07 Comments (1)

December 22nd, 2002. Stressful

After rushing round Edinburgh fighting my way through the crowds and wondering what to buy people for Christmas, I've dashed off to The Parents for a whole different kind of stress. I'm here for 8 days (until I can get a train back home), and by the end of that I'll probably be bouncing off the walls trying to get out of here.

The Parents both mean well, but there are undercurrents of nervousness all the time, at least on my part. I feel that everything I say and do has to be carefully guarded.

I might, at least, be going for seasonal drinks with W on Boxing Day. I didn't think I'd see anyone at all, but he is going to be around for a couple of days, as are Catherine and her husband; it will be nice to maybe see them again.

Incidentally, W sent me a couple of photos from Catherine's wedding the other week. The one in Paris that I went on about for weeks, remember? The pictures show Catherine, me, W and Tidswell; they all look sharp and stylish and I look incredibly drunk. I took one look and thought: "No, really, I can't have been that bad, can I?" I really don't remember being as drunk as I looked.

21:58 Comments (0)

December 19th, 2002. Time for a holiday

It's my last day in the office before Christmas. Hopefully, I will have time to get all my shopping finished, book train tickets (assuming there are still some left) and do everything else I need to do before going to visit The Parents. And the less said about that, the better.

Of course, it being the last day before the holiday, I nearly had an awful pile of work to do. Rather, I narrowly escaped being dragged across the city for a Crisis Meeting about the idiot consultant from last week. He still hadn't got his computers to work, so I was facing the prospect of having to say "no, our systems are fine; yours are broken," in various polite face-to-face ways. It wouldn't have been fun; but fortunately he managed to get his machines vaguely working with just enough time to spare.

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December 17th, 2002. Site update

Instead of going to work today, I shopped. I still didn't get many presents bought, but I did manage to get new shoes for myself instead. Prioritising is important, you know.

I also picked up a roll of film that I'd finished off on Sunday. A few of the pictures from it have gone up on the People section of the pictures page already. Here's some quicker links to them:

Laura, before you say anything: I will tell you more about the shoes later, I promise.

22:35 Comments (3)

December 16th, 2002. Over the wires

Seeing Danny and Z at the weekend made me start thinking about long-distance relationships. At what stage can you say you're in a relationship, if you hardly ever see the other person? If you've never even met them?

Danny and Z met each other for the first time about a week ago. They got to know each other on the Internet. They look very happy with each other, holding hands and everything. I didn't ask, but I'm sure they'd probably say they were "seeing each other" or something before they'd met.

Recently, I was talking to someone on IRC, who I'll call Y. "I used to go out with X," he told me. I was intrigued, because as far as I knew they'd never met; they'd never been within several thousand miles of each other. X's reaction was: "IS THIS BOY ON CRACK?" because as far as she was concerned, there was no way their relationship could be described like that.

So, at what stage can you legitimately say "I'm seeing N" when you've never even met? Personally, I don't think I ever could; but maybe that's just me. And how can you ever get into a situation where *you* think you're seeing someone but the other person completely disagrees? I don't think I understand that one either.

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December 15th, 2002. Glass-GAU

It was time to try again with the christmas shopping, so I went through to Glasgow to meet Danny and his friend Z (who is Foreign and therefore can't say 'Glasgow') and drag them back and forth through all the shops. I needed to get presents; I needed to get new shoes; and of course I didn't get anything, except a book on religious history for my mother.

D and Z didn't really want to shop at all; they just followed me around looking tired and sleepy. After I gave up, we went to the 13th Note Cafe, where I ate lots and they sat with their coffees. Kristin Mitchell was also there with a friend; of course, they ignored us.

19:55 Comments (1)

December 14th, 2002. Hot Love Now

Christmas shopping is hard. Especially when you have a job, because the only time to go shopping is when everyone else who also has a job goes shopping too.

I did try, I promise. But it's just too much effort fighting through the crowds, trying to get inspired for the ideal presents, just trying to spot something nice. The only way I can see it is if I take a morning off this week some time, get up really early, plan what I'm going to get and nip round all the shops just as they're opening before everything gets busy.

Giving up on shopping, I wandered round the German market stalls selling model buildings, Christmas food (mmm, Stollen again), jewellery; and all the German takeaway food booths, selling sausages, potato pancakes and Glühwein. The Glühwein stall had a big long list of hot toddies on sale, with names like Heisse Liebe. I couldn't help thinking that a phrase like "Ich möchte eine Heisse Liebe, bitte," sounds much ... well ... classier than "I'd like some Hot Love, please."

22:42 Comments (0)

December 13th, 2002. Not Something You Hear Every Day

I was sat at my desk yesterday, blogsurfing working terribly hard as usual, when I heard The Boss making a phonecall. I was rather surprised with the way it started:

"Can I speak to the person responsible for spamming, please?"

Yes, that's right. The Boss was so pissed off, he was phoning up a spammer to complain. His half of the conversation went something like:

"I'm the managing director of the Interweb Tat Emporium, and every one of the public email addresses on all the sites we manage has received spam from you today. I want it stopped. If I ever get a single piece of email from you ..."

"No, someone has gone through all of our websites and recorded all of our email addresses. I want you to get someone to go through your list and take all those addresses off it. No, they don't all have the same domain name."

"Sack them, then."

"Unless you do this, I'll get your website taken down, by making a formal complaint to your ISP. I can get your website taken down, and I will."

GO BOSS! GO BOSS!

Of course, this wasn't your normal Chinese septic-tank retailer or penis enlarger. All this spam was from the Scottish Food And Drink Federation, a supposedly reputable organisation (albeit with a rather badly-designed website) who have suddenly decided to become evil spamming scum. I think it would be nice to set a trend, though. So, if you ever get any spam from the Scottish Food And Drink Federation, why not phone them up and complain on +44 (0)131 229 9415. Maybe they'll take the hint.

In other news: well, sometimes even politicians make the right decision. Ignore all the "right to marry" stuff; that's just what hit the headline. The important thing is: the right to be recognised legally as yourself. That has to be good news.

23:04 Comments (1)

December 12th, 2002. Tasty

I'm not feeling at all Seasonal yet. I don't have an advent calendar. I haven't sent any cards yet. I haven't even done any Christmas shopping so far.

Yesterday, though, I popped into Tesco's and saw that they've got all their Christmas food on sale. Mmmmmm. The food has to be one of the best things about this time of year. Mince pies. Fruit cake. Plum pudding. Stollen. Those German iced gingery biscuits (what are they called? Liebküchen or something?). More mince pies. Tubs full of savoury snacks. Why aren't these things in the shops the rest of the year?

My gran made lovely mince pies, with pastry that was just the right texture. Mmmmm. Christmas Day will be two years since the last time I saw her; she died about three weeks after Christmas.

11:39 Comments (0)

December 10th, 2002. F@TS: More useful than a government minister

When I go to bed, I usually put the radio on and listen to Today In Parliament, because it's so boring that it sends me to sleep. Last night, though, one bit of it jogged my arm, about the forthcoming war.

In the House of Commons, Alice Mahon MP asked a minister if it was true that there are British minesweepers on their way to the Persian Gulf. The minister, of course, wouldn't say. Presumbly Ms Mahon knew it was true before she asked the question. It woke me up because I knew it was true, because the husband of a friend of mine is onboard one of those ships. I've even mentioned it here. They set off in September, and were planning to get there some time this month.

I hate going on about politics, so I'm not going to say what I think about this, the war or anything related to it. I'm tempted to go for a tagline, though. Flat At The Top Of The Stairs: Tells you what a defence minister won't!

15:20 Comments (0)

December 9th, 2002. Working with idiots

Today, I had a wonderful time dealing with a "consultant" hired by a Tat Emporium client to rework their office network. The chap seems to be completely clueless. He asked us to handle all their email, but forward it directly to one of the machines he manages. Then, when he couldn't get that machine to behave, he tried to blame it all on us.

The conversations went something like:
IDIOT: "It must be your problem, because emails aren't going anywhere near my computer."
CAITLIN: "Behold! A log file from my computer, showing that it is your computer that is bouncing them all!"
IDIOT: "But why is email supposed to come via you? Surely that's set up wrong?"
CAITLIN: "It's set up that way because you asked us to do it like that, fool."
IDIOT: " Aha! I've found something that looks a bit fishy! All my friends say it's fishy too! So it must be your fault."
CAITLIN: "Um, no, that looks dodgy because it's a symptom of the odd setup that you asked for."
IDIOT: "By the way, are you using [wibble] or [foo] to process these emails?"
CAITLIN: "We're doing [wibble], because that's what you asked us to. AAARGH!"

I politely emailed back again saying: "if you can't get your problems fixed, why don't you try doing it with [blah] instead." See, I'm even trying to be helpful.

Walking home from work, I would take a deep breath every so often and get a sudden sharp whiff of burning building. I don't know if the fire's out or not yet, but I suppose that's not important.

23:17 Comments (0)

December 8th, 2002. How soon is now?

My voice has disappeared but otherwise I felt a little better today, so I thought I'd risk some Christmas shopping. Canongate and New Street were gridlocked, but North Bridge was completely empty of traffic. Which seemed a little odd.

Getting home, I read this entry in Alan's blog, which took me to here, here and here. If I'd looked outside at all last night, I might have seen the glow from the huge fire a few hundred yards away.

Events like this make me wish I'd recorded all the little details before they disappear. I did innumerable exams in Adam House (which is still there, it seems). The first ever gig I saw was in La Belle Angele (which isn't). One of my former flatmates earned his degree in the burnt-out building. The Cellar Bar, a jazz bar next to Adam House, was the Archaeology Department's local pub even though nobody liked jazz. None of these places will be unchanged, and some are gone for good.

Recipe Tree update (to completely change the subject): I've now added Laura's recipe for Andes mint cookies. Can anyone tell me if Andes mints really are the same thing as After Eights, or not?

17:59 Comments (6)

December 7th, 2002. Still Ill

This damn illness isn't going away. I've spent the day with coughing fits, spaced out on Sudafed and unable to speak. I had so little energy that I couldn't change channel on the telly, even when the Gaelic programmes came on. It seems to be going all round Edinburgh at the moment.

Link Of The Day That You'll Have Already Seen Anyway: The BBC KittenCam. The sort of thing that makes me glad I bothered to renew the license.

actually, the real reason I renewed the license was because of a narrow escape I had a few years ago. I lived in a flat where it was hard to hear people knocking at the door if you had the telly on. So, of course, one day I was watching telly and thought: "Is that the door? Can I be bothered moving? Naah." When going to the front door a few hours later I found a piece of paper that said: "Today the TV License inspectors tried to visit. If we'd found you watching telly, we'd have fined you £1000." I bought a license rather quickly after that.

23:59 Comments (0)

December 5th, 2002. Linky Linky

I'm sure I don't respond properly to headlines. When I saw "PORN PROBE POLICE RAID PRIEST" on the front page of yesterday's Evening News, my first reaction was "ooh, nice alliteration". When I saw the headline "Police wounded by Dutch IKEA bombs" on a website, I thought of sudden explosions sending hundreds of self-assembly tables and chairs scything through Amsterdam streets.

This news story was slightly more entertaining: someone is writing poetry by spraying words on a flock of sheep, then letting them wander off to randomise their order. I found the idea quite nice, really.

Something that hasn't been so widely reported (I heard of it via this thread on I Love Everything) is the bug on Tower Records' website, which led to the personal details - including the addresses - of all their online customers being openly available to anyone viewing the site. Oops. They managed to block the hole, several hours after it was first reported.

Final random thing for today: the webzine Friends Of The Heroes is running a competition for Christmas. The rules seem a bit vague, but the general aim is to draw a picture of "your hero celebrating Christmas", using very basic tools and without scanning anything, using filters, or anything like that. I know what I'm going to draw. A poetic flock of Christmas sheep.

13:50 Comments (1)

December 4th, 2002. Cough, splutter

Moaning is bad, but sometimes it has to be done. I'm sick. No, not like that. I'm ill.

Yesterday I woke up at 4am with a headache. Stupidly, I struggled in to work despite feeling awful: sore throat, blocked nose, awful head. I sat at my desk trying to put two coherent thoughts together other than: "I need drugs! I need my bed!" I felt like someone from a cold-medicine advert, like I had red arrows painted all over my face.

Back today, and with plenty of sleep the headache has gone but I'm still none too good. My throat still feels like it's been sandpapered. Apparently (according to The Boss's girlfriend) I probably have sinusitis; nothing serious.

Incidentally, Peter's 100 Great Gay Britons poll is coming along. It's now reached Stage 2, where you have to vote for 20 people you think should make it onto the final shortlist. Go and vote here.

11:01 Comments (1)

December 2nd, 2002. Site updates

In case you hadn't noticed, there's a new member of the Vermicious Kids. Tokyo Rosemary lives in New Jersey and, apparently, likes playing Bingo. This is her, in fact. Apart from that, that's all I know. She will get rid of her default templates soon, I'm told.

In other news: the Recipe Tree has been updated slightly, with a recipe for paella made from whatever you have lying about in your vegetable rack, by Kerstin Hammes. Hopefully, people will like it.

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