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Kitchen Nemesis, Part 1

I have a kitchen nemesis. She does not know that she is my sworn enemy, but her ignorance does not protect her. We are engaged in a fraught and dangerous struggle, and only one of us will win. I am determined to overcome this pernicious individual by any means necessary.

Let me explain. We have a kitchen at work: it is a fairly small space, with enough room for a toaster, microwave, and coffee machine on the sideboard. At best, 2 people can get into this space at any one time - any more than this, and a fantastically complicated jigsaw of pirouettes and avoidance must be performed in order to fit everyone in. This kitchen serves as a central hub for around 30-40 people on our floor.

Most people, having experienced the dizziness of negotiating this small nook of a kitchen, tend to try and get in and out with a minimum of fuss, and spend as little time in there as possible, so as to inconvenience anyone else as little as possible.

Not the kitchen nemesis: oh no. She has decided that this is the perfect place to talk to her colleague about all kinds of things, often for 10 minutes at a time, while she slowly butters a single piece of toast. Rather than having this conversation at her desk (her henchman and partner in crime sits opposite her, anyway), they continue their trivial small talk in the kitchen, preventing anyone else from entering, and generally being a nuisance, and flouting the unspoken rules of the kitchen.

I shall have my revenge. Oh yes, I shall have my revenge.

The Cellist of Sarajevo, Steven Galloway

I found this to be an incredibly powerful book, one which stayed with me for quite a while after finishing it. I actually read it well before Juliet, Naked, but have only felt able to comment on it now, after careful consideration time.

It is often hard, when you see a catastrophe on the news, to understand how people are feeling and living through that catastrophe. You can empathise with them, and understand that they are suffering a great deal, but the event is so large, and so overwhelmingly different to your every day life, that it is impossible to even try and guess how the people caught up in the middle would be able to get through it. The news is good at giving the background to the conflict: the hows, the whys, the major players, and can give a snapshot or two of what is happening at the current time: a man scurrying across the road under fire, but it cannot tell you what it feels like to be that man.

This book goes some way to attempt to describe the day-to-day scrabble for survival for 3 different people in the ruins of Sarajevo. Their stories are intertwined around the titular cellist, and detail in very simple, stark, language, how they go about surviving while their world crumbles around them. Not only do you get a sense of how difficult simply getting water and bread is, but also how war desensitises and dehumanises all those involved: soldiers and civilians alike.

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

I have always tried to make time to read a new Nick Hornby book, and I generally read them with a lot of goodwill and fondness in my heart. The goodwill is entirely irrational, based as it is on the fact that he, like me, is an Arsenal fan, and is therefore surely a sign that he is a good egg and deserving of all good things that would come to him. His unambiguous moral superiority, based on the fact that he supports the same team as me, means that I read his books wishing and hoping that each new tome will be better than the last, and that I will enjoy the book even more than I enjoyed Fever Pitch, High Fidelity, or About a Boy.

After finishing the book, which is effectively a treatise on the nature of fandom, I seriously pondered my (misplaced?) allegiances to him, and the reasons behind why I wanted his books to be brilliant. Like Duncan, a character who's relationship with the works of a once-famous rock star is bordering on obsessive, Hornby's early work struck a chord with me - in the case of Fever Pitch an almost primal chord, and as a result I greedily read and re-read everything he subsequently published. I found a reflection of myself in many of the characters he wrote about, and as such learned a bit more about myself: sometimes an unflattering lesson, but one that I was glad of as a nervous teen/20 year old. Does the fact that I did not enjoy the book quite as much as his previous books say more about Hornby's direction as a writer, or about my own changes in taste? Or does it in fact reveal more about my snobby "fan" character that is satirised so well here?

The book revolves around a long-dormant rock star, Tucker Crowe, who achieved a reasonable amount of success in the mid-eighties before giving up that life in mysterious circumstances. In the intervening years he has developed a cult following, helped along by Internet obsessives and his media silence. The release of the demo tapes of his most successful album provides the catalyst for one of these obsessives, Duncan, to split up with his long term partner, Annie after they disagree about the genius (or lack thereof) of the new album. This also brings Tucker into their lives, after he contacts Annie after she posts a review of the album online.

It was a fine book, and on some level I did enjoy reading it (as evidenced by the fact that it only took me 3 days to finish it), but it didn't grab me as much as it should have done. The observations on men and women and their relationships to culture were, as ever, spot on, especially their relationship with that culture in relation to the Internet. However, the characters never felt real to me, and although their intellectual lives were well rounded, their actual lives were nothing more than sketches. In "High Fidelity", I really wanted Rob and Laura to get back together, and I felt like I knew them: this is not the case here, and although I enjoyed the book, there was no one person that I could identify with, and so I wasn't bothered about how it ended.

In the end then, a disappointment: but only in the way that you wish that your once favorite band would release something quite as good as their debut. The new stuff is still enjoyable, and has touches of what you really liked about them in the first place, but the familiar refrains seem tired and overdone.

nothing is underground anymore

Great music blog from Simon Reynolds here, who argues that the internet has blurred the lines between what is seen as "underground", and what is seen as "mainstream". Everybody now has access to a wide variety of music at the touch of a button, which means that if you so wish, you can go and easily discover new music from the comfort of your own bedroom. In previous generations, mine included, there were often physical barriers to entry into an underground scene - either by virtue of not being old enough to get into clubs or gigs, or simply being too far away from a decent record shop, so that it became physically impossible to listen (or even know about) music which was not played on heavy rotation on the radio.

It meant that there had to be a big psychological step for any person who wanted to become part of any scene, a step into the unknown, or at the least having the bottle to go into that musty smelling record store and ask for an obscure name of a band that you had jotted down on a notebook while listening to John Peel. That barrier is simply not there anymore, and as soon as a genre has a name, you can simply google it and find out what exactly it sounds like without handing over some of your hard-earned cash.

'Kidults' living with their parents longer

The Office for National Statistics have released a study saying that many young adults in their mid-20s and early 30s, are increasingly postponing the transition to adulthood.

It seems that 1/3 of them say they are still living at home because they cannot afford to get a toehold on the property ladder by buying or renting. But that means that 2/3rds of them are staying through choice.

I find this very strange. I couldn't wait to leave home, and I saw it as an important part of growing up - having my own space, being independent, and being responsible to no-one but myself. And frankly, I saw the people who stayed at home as dullards and a little bit weird to be honest: why would you stay with your parents, and abide by the rules set down for you when you were a teenager, when you could live by yourself, and do exactly as you pleased.

It was made easier for me, as I left home for university, but even once my course had finished, I moved back to my mum's for only 5 or 6 months, while I found a job and got some money together. Once I had enough money to afford a deposit and month's rent, I moved out. Yes, there were some tough times, and yes, I couldn't always afford to eat properly, but that is part and parcel of gaining independence, and growing up. You make your mistakes when you are young, so that you learn how to budget properly, you learn how to cook, you learn how to fend for yourselves. It was a greater education than anything else I have done, and I can't help but feel that those people who stay at home are not only isolating themselves from the joys of living by yourself, but also willingly infantilising themselves.

stewart lee interview

I am a long time fan of Stewart Lee, from way back when he popped onto TV with Richard Herring with Fist of Fun. They then provided great Sunday morning hangover entertainment with TMWRNJ. An interview in the Guardian provides a fascinating insight into how and why he chooses what to write his stand-up material about. One interesting thing is the following quote:

It's interesting to me that apparently distasteful comments from the right against weak targets tend to draw a lot less media fire than apparently distasteful comments from the left against hard targets. That's one of the threads that runs through the show and that people hopefully pick up on."

A very valid point, although in fairness, the same is also true vice versa. I hate the shit that comes out of littlejohn, davidson's etc mouths, but maybe I just notice it more because I am already looking to be offended. The only other option would be to have no comedy, and no targeting of anything - which would make for rather boring comedy and life in general.