"Happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" - Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

One of my favourite books which I'm finally getting a chance to re-read; and I'm being swept off my feet all over again. I think Tolstoy gets a reputation for heavy, long-winded epics and 'War and Peace' has become the literary equivalent of rocket science or brain surgery - something that a lay reader would resign themselves to never having the motivation or patience to undertake. In actual fact, his writing is delightfully human. It reads like a modern day novel, albeit more beautifully and accurately than anyone has, or maybe ever will, describe the turmoil, joy and neurosis that exist in the human mind. The first complete edition of the novel was published in 1877, and few books of that era still produce the same effects as they did then; few manage to create characters so rich and detailed but remarkably modern that you feel you've known them your whole life. Anna and I are separated by 140 years, 1 revolution, 2 world wars, 1800 miles and a hell of a big class difference, and yet I still wish I could pick up the phone and call her up one evening to gossip over that mega-bitchy argument she just had with her husband.

I am rather a fan of the 2012 film version with Kiera Knightly, which is strange, because the vast majority of her other roles I find intensely irritating and hollow. But I think this films' strength lies in the fact that they created a theatrical, crimson whirlwind of adrenaline which doesn't lay claim to anything more than sharing the same storyline. I laughed when I first realised that Vronsky (the handsome Count who conquers Anna's heart) was a blonde; in the book he is a brooding dark horse, and to make him a blonde pretty-boy seemed a crime of epic proportions; like making The Hulk a pastel pink. Knightly's casting as our tempestuous and passionate heroine also awoke the sceptic in me, I doubted her having the skill and experience to carry off the gravity of such a role. 

It took a little while for me to look past her vacant stare and to adjust to the mildly chaotic use of scenery changes in this version, but I was won over by the costume, use of music and brilliant timing and restraint exercised by the director/writers/whoever is responsible for that (I don't pretend to know the first thing about film production). Whenever a lengthy and detailed novel is translated onto the screen, I always commiserate the inevitable loss of subplots, the simplification of dialogue and the feeling that it's all a bit sped up, with the characters running away with their emotions before we've had a chance to properly explore their psyche. It's unavoidable, and even the best attempts often fall short to audiences familiar with the original.
Perhaps my saving grace was that I hadn't read the book in many years, and it was much easier to overlook such inconsistencies and appreciate the story on a different level. Jude Law's role as Anna's ever-faithful and righteous husband Karenin was also a pleasant surprise, he has transitioned well from playing the lovable rouge into characters with more complexity and weight, and I thought his Karenin was brilliantly subtle in his strength and saved the jilted husband from being a complete spoil-sport in the eyes of the viewer. Knightly, too, is well suited to playing the tragic, delirious final days of our heroine; this time her open mouth and shaky countenance didn't scream of overacting but added to Anna's loss of reality. (This, too, I think is why the only other performance of hers that I have truly enjoyed is the mental patient in 'A Dangerous Method' with Michael Fassbender... maybe she's finally found her niche?)

Back to the novel; I've always been most enthralled by the way Tolstoy handles moments of silence and pause during dialogues. His description of every glance, every chewed lip and every involuntary shudder speaks volumes about what is going on inside the mind and body of the characters. His understanding of worry, of indecision and of human frailty is what transports him above and beyond what even some of the best psychologists and writers of our day can ever hope to achieve. I like to think that the sign of a good book is when you read something that you had previously thought you were the only person in the world to ever experience; and here, on this page written hundreds of years ago by someone with whom you have nothing in common, are YOUR feelings and your thoughts as if he'd taken a pair of tweezers, plucked the words right out from the deepest level of your cortex and written them down more perfectly than you ever could.

(This is why, when attempting to describe how I feel about something to my therapist, I often have no choice but to paraphrase lines from my favourite authors, which allows me to better describe what I mean than cobbling my own words together. Why make Cava when you can buy Champagne?)

I don't think my family is unhappy, per se. I think it's individuals are often unhappy, which reflects upon the household dynamic and strains relationships that are still under construction. My father says he cannot sleep unless I am in my own bed. I've been living at home for 6 months now, and his response to me wishing to spend the night elsewhere is that of hurt, of betrayal and the panic of a father whose beloved child is lying in a gutter somewhere sticking syringes into her arms.
I took on an evening waitressing job last week, told him I would be late home and didn't know when. Around midnight, the customers are getting ready to leave and I'm tidying up the bar, when in storms my hurricane of my father, eyes wide and fuming, hissing why wasn't I  answering my phone and how much longer I'd be. Between the baffled looks of the restaurant staff and red-faced, merry patrons, my father's pale face stood like a scared and angry child whose mother has accidentally left him at the supermarket. He later angrily dismissed my claim that I had felt humiliated. Apparently; my devotion to him should override my own feelings of pride and therefore awareness  of how strangers perceive me.

I wonder to what extent we are responsible for the happiness of our parents. We do what we can to avoid making them unhappy, but how far should we bend over to fulfil needs which originate in issues beyond our control? When does being lenient and accommodating towards someone's weaknesses and quirks become damaging not only to ourselves, but to their own well-being? How much can we discipline someone on whose kindness, love and support we still very much depend?
I fear my father is lonely, and I don't have the strength to provide him will the attention and care that he wants and needs. I don't think he understands the concept of emotional blackmail. In any case, he acts the way he does out of fear and worry rather than any malicious intent whatsoever. It's heartbreaking to witness someone drive themselves into a state of helpless animalistic fury over situations that seem so inconsequential to the untrained eye.
I feel like I'm watching the me of two years ago, a car crash happening in slow motion and understanding how frustrated and useless my friends and family must have felt; screaming at me because they knew no better.

I think that's why I read; because the best of friends can offer us a shoulder to cry on, but only the greatest of authors can make us understand exactly why we are crying.

“Funny how we take it for granted that we know all there is to know about another person, just because we see them frequently or because of some strong emotional tie.” - Robert Bloch, Psycho

18th birthday is the biggie. You wake up, and suddenly shop keepers are smiling at you, bars fling open their doors to accept your Saturday job money with glee, and the government welcomes you with open arms into the consumer rat race. "Yesterday, it would have been dangerously  irresponsible of us and harmful to your physical and mental health to offer you these products. But today.. TODAY, dear citizen, it is our privilege and our honour to invite you to join our club, to allow you to inhale the sweet smoke of adult life, and sip the nectar of the Gods. The membership fee is a tad steep, but if you think about it; the money you spend will go directly into paying your eventual NHS bills and covering your prescription charges. So you see, comrade, it's all about you now."

I've been driving for almost 5 years now, and the realisation still never fails to stun me whenever I join a motorway. Smokers may pose a threat to their nearest and dearest, drinkers (without the aid of a car) can do relatively little damage to anyone but themselves. The wake of their devastation is, to some extent, contained within their own circles. A driver can cause dozens of random deaths and ruin lives of utter strangers in the flick of a wrist; with less effort than it takes you to light a cigarette or pour a glass. The driving age is 17.  

I once heard a friend argue that the UK road network was one of the most socialist establishments that exist. No matter how expensive your car, how fast your acceleration and how loud your horn; once out on the tarmac, you have no choice but to follow the same rules as the smallest, most tattered, spluttering Ford Ka. The same speed limits apply, you get the same parking tickets and you hold absolutely no authority over the commandeering traffic lights.
If all the dominos are stacked in a neat formation, it becomes much easier to make the entire structure collapse through one wrong move.

I wonder whether it is the mark of a psychopath to get lost in the graveyard of your own imagination, seeing a trail of smoke and layers upon layers of metal, crumpled like intricate origami birds. I hear ambulances and a paramedic speaking to news reporters, I see fluorescent orange cones following a sprinkling of broken glass alongside the edge of the road. I can see the hundreds of people being late for work, school, weddings, court dates, holidays. I can see the butterfly effect of repercussions stretching outwards from the crash to families, newly made widows and orphans, limbs that will never work again, abandoned pets who will have no one to feed them when their owner doesn't return home that evening.
I can see all this whilst I am going at 69mph, overtaking a slow-moving removal van and double-checking my mirrors. I tense my arms to better grip the steering wheel and follow the curve of the road.

"Only a mediocre person is always at his best." - W. Somerset Maugham

I am sat at the table, sleepily blinking at the animated faces of the people I have known for most of my adult life. These are people I have laughed with till tears streamed down my eyes, people who I have had screaming matches with, who I have slept with and who I slept alongside.  We knew each other through the scrawny, acne-ridden years of puberty, we fallen in love together, lost those loves and cried together. We have shared cars, homes and secrets; gotten degrees, jobs and bank accounts. We haven't spoken for months, only to return to this very same table and find that nothing much changes, really.

I am sat at this table. And I am bored.

I still find myself experiencing a smug sort of pity for people who claim they have lost touch with their school friends. "Not me", I smile. "We're closer than we ever were, and I love every minute I spend with them".
But at this very minute, I couldn't care less about their conversation. I force a smile as I dully ask about jobs and how they spent their New Years. I don't care about their love lives, I will forget what they tell me the minute it slips out from their lips. During these heavy, morbid 60 seconds, I re-evaluate the very essence of friendship; of all those wasted intimacies and emotional investments into a hedge fund that has no interest in returning profit.
I glance down at the beer-soaked wooden table and play with the salt shaker. The most frightening through of all occurs: "Only a boring person can be bored". I know this is not quite true, but years of conditioning have taught me otherwise. Boredom is the greatest sin of all, I have been told. To be bored is to lack the intelligence and motivation to NOT be bored, to find yourself work, play, anything...
And this deep rooted fear follows me to this very table, weighing down my shoulders and filling my mouth with heavy soil so that I cannot speak. I know this creature; he has been carving out a home for himself in the deeper corners of my mind for a good many years now and I have learnt to hear his footsteps and recognise his voice.

You're boring. Your friends only invite you out of pity because they feel sorry for you. You add absolutely nothing to their lives. They've all got paying jobs, meaningful relationships and they're doing something with their time. You have nothing to contribute and nothing to say for yourself. You are stagnation personified. You look like a miserable, boring wretch - sitting there, staring from one person to another with the silent idiocy of a mannequin. I can't believe you even chose that shirt tonight, did you HONESTLY think anyone gives a shit about what you wear and how you look? It's pretty pathetic, actually, how you still cling to friendships that have obviously been dead in the water a long while ago...

Other nights, my first choice of weapon against this voice is alcohol, but tonight I'm driving. So it's just me and him; face to face inside the arena of my own mind. He points out that I haven't said anything in a good while, he replays back to me the look my friend just gave me across the table, it sticks to the back on my skull like ice you have no choice but  scrape off the windscreen before you can start driving again. I blink past it, breathe deeply and put down the salt shaker. When I speak, I strain my voice to shout louder than him.

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes" - Oscar Wilde

'Unwind'; the luxurious verb copyrighted by yummy mummies everywhere to shrug away that second glass, that thrill when the cork pops out of the bottle, the light-headedness that comes from inhibiting all those ghastly nervous cell receptors that keep us towing the line. "Shhh", says the Sauvignon Blanc, "Take some time, put your feet up! INDULGE!"


I've been missing alcohol a lot in the evenings. In many ways, I still tick far too many of the boxes that 'responsible drinking' does not entail. Those boxes were ticked in ink the day I first opened a book by Evelyn Waugh, the day I watched Don Draper slinging back whiskey after whiskey and still being the most magnetic man in the room, the day I realized that little voice in my head could be made to disappear, and all it took was a glass.

'Enjoy responsibly', tells us the advert for Stolichnaya vodka, as beautiful people in beautiful surrounds drift across our line of vision. They're all having a fantastic time; more exciting, more dynamic, more romantic than anything my glass of watery Coca Cola can offer me.
'Drink sensibly', the college nurse tells us on our first day of university. I remember this bitterly as I'm sitting on the outside steps of the college bar later that evening, wondering why all of those strangers inside were having such a bloody FANTASTIC time, making the best of friends and living their Fresher's Week to the full.

The problem with unwinding a tightly coiled spring, is that some materials just don't return back to their former state once the tension has been released. They unravel and lose their shape, they get tangled and become utterly useless for the purpose they once proudly served. It takes but a tiny fraction of the effort to release a spring; allowing it to burst forth in a violent cascade of stored energy,  than it does to painstakingly wind it back, loop by loop.

3 and a half years later, I'm just managing to wind myself back up again. To find that line that I crossed many months ago and remember what it feels like to fall asleep sober.

Rule 1: Know when to stop drinking
Rule 1 (corrected): Know when to START drinking.
Do not start drinking because you can't fall asleep. Do not start drinking when you're anxious. Do not start drinking because it's 8.50am on a Tuesday morning and you're about to having a panic attack at the prospect of leaving your room and walking across town to sit in a crowded lecture theatre.

Rule 2:  Don't drink in secret
Rule 2 (corrected): It's still a secret if you're having a quiet drink with friends and you have to sneak off into the kitchen for stolen gulps of vodka because the amount everyone else is drinking isn't enough to even give you a slight buzz.

Have you ever felt guilty about your drinking?
Yes, doesn't everyone after a night out? You know what makes it go away? A drink.
Can they smell wine on my breath? I hope I remembered to take chewing gum with me. Am I blinking at a normal rate? Am I acting like I do when I'm sober? Better avert my eyes and say as little as possible.
Do they know?

Have you ever lied about the amount you were drinking?
Yeah, but only to health questionnaires. I mean, ask ANY normal student and their weekly average is WAY over the recommended units, right? And they all turn out fine...
Why is she drinking so slowly? Is it obvious that I've had most of the bottle we were going to 'share'? Oh shit, am I slurring? Is she having a good time? I can't tell..
Does she know?

Have you ever felt unable to stop drinking?
Nah, I mean, I'll stop when I want to, right? I just haven't reached the 'right' level of buzz yet. Look: everyone else is drinking too!
I have to stifle the gagging sensation of cheap vodka straight from the bottle. How is half of it gone already? This was supposed to last me the week! Well, tonight's the last night, then...
I don't know.

I can't say I enjoy falling asleep sober, I think that's where most of my nostalgia arises. I dream in colours too vivid to get any restful sleep. I toss and worry about things and people who probably don't think about me at all. My own drowsy brain embarrasses and frustrates me to the extent that I fall asleep with my face stuck deep into my pillow, eyes scrunched and hands covering my ears to block out the laughter and mocking sounds of voices that are already too deeply rooted in my brain.
No, I hate falling asleep sober.
But  I hate the look of my mother's broken face more. I hate not remembering what my best friend said to me last night. I hate my sister avoiding my glance. I hate the insects that run down my arms when I'm carrying a bottle I know I shouldn't have. I hate feeling the X-ray stare of shop cashiers, I hate feeling every gram of their disdain and pity for me (real or imagined). I hate counting coins and knowing how much own-brand alcohol costs in every store. I hate feeling my father's whiskery kiss on my forehead, a seal of approval that stings unworthy skin.

A friend of mine says she's gotten into the habit of enjoying a glass of wine after work most days. I want to cry and pray that she's made out of stronger spring than I am.  

“Later she remembered all the hours of the afternoon as happy -- one of those uneventful times that seem at the moment only a link between past and future pleasure, but turn out to have been the pleasure itself.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The above is from 'Tender is the Night'; a book that anyone rushing out to watch The Great Gatsby in cinemas these following weeks must bring themselves to read and re-read. And read again.

There's comfort in knowing that not all troubles arose afresh in my generation. That the children of the internet, of cable television, of strip malls and of frozen yoghurt did not dream up their own misfortunes. There has been much talk in recent press of us being the narcissistic, over-stimulated and under-worked youth. Tears have been spilt and hair torn over our callous, selfish selves.

It's a comfort to read about great literary characters who spew the same self-centered, misinformed, over-analytical garbage that we do. After all; these characters do not come from nowhere, and the authors who created them must have had some pretty messed up traits of their own to rustle up something so powerful and accurate as the cruelty that can come from the human spirit. Drunkards, womanisers, criminals and general scoundrels.
Evelyn Waugh was persistently in debt, orchestrating various tax-avoidance schemes, and snubbed the offer of a CBE because he felt he deserved a knighthood and no less. Tolstoy surprised his wife on the eve of their wedding by giving her a list of women he had slept with, one of whom had borne him a child. O. Henry was arrested and jailed for several months of charges of embezzlement. Dickens decided that, at the ripe old age of 45, now was the time to fall in love with an 18-year-old actress and turn his current wife and children out of the house, no questions asked.

These flaws humanise. They tarnish the gold leaf with which we adorn our memories of these men (and women; Virginia Woolf was thoughtful enough to write in her diary "I do not like the Jewish laugh. I do not like the Jewish voice" - and yet still went on to marry one.) Maybe it's a particular frame of mind that finds it easier to associate with the lazy, the weak and selfish. It's much more gratifying to bring them down to our level, than to wistfully observe that we, too, could be great if we only got up when our damn alarm clock told us to.

But I diverge. Something I find myself at fault of often doing is daydreaming. A small crime, sure.. but it takes years to realise of how much it robs you. I'm permanently living in the rosy glow of past amusements (or, indeed, the dark shadows of a previous life) or in the idyllic film-script of my future. I don't exist in the present tense.
There is a fantastic quote from the character of Julia in 'Brideshead Revisited' (which I have recently finished, having put it off for far, far too long) which runs something along the lines of time as pressing in on your from behind and arriving much too quickly ahead of you. One feels suffocatingly pressed upon from both sides and there's no room to live. It's only long after that we can truly recognise the beauty of a moment we regarded at the time as being a mere interval. A nothingness, a wait for something else, something better that, when it arrives; we're inevitably already ahead of ourselves and don't even notice it passing us by.

It's a beautiful day in May. I'm surrounded by good friends, good books, good food and freedom to myself. And the only way I can appreciate it is by removing myself from it and reminiscing about that lovely moment 40mins ago.

"The university brings out all abilities. Including incapability." - Anton Chekov

The Leaden-Eyed

Let not young souls be smothered out before
They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride.
It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull,
Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed.
Not that they starve; but starve so dreamlessly,
Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap,
Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve,
Not that they die, but that they die like sheep.
Vachel Lindsay

It's that time of year again. Jeans and boots are swiftly dropped in favour of pyjama bottoms and hole-infested ski socks. Lunch becomes a daily pilgrimage of duty and desperation; a half-hour laspe in the dreaded time/work continuum. The library becomes a blizzard of strewn pages and open textbooks, a hive of anxious, paranoid, caffiene-addled worker bees who know no difference between day and night. Witty conversation is condensed with lighting speed to worry, self-deprication and hollow retorts of half-hearted moral support from friends who are themselves too far drowned to throw a life ring.
And those faces. Those eyes; straining to focus through days of missed sleep, to see through the barrage of words and sums and diagrams. Like some grotesque version of Google Glass envisioned by Stanley Kubrick in a particularly cruel frame of mind. A face the colour of forgotten marble.

Of course this is all a temporary illness. Merely the height of a fever which, once sweated out, leaves one feeling weak, starved, and yet deliriously happy to be out of the woods and half-alive. In this case: I'm not much good as a bed nurse. I'm standing by the doorframe; sympathetically contemplating the ailing patients progress and offering to bring a glass of water. He must get himself better. Nothing can help him now except to clench his teeth and ride out the storm.

For many of my friends; the storm has hit. They are floundering on the waves of nausea; tossing and turning in a fitful sleep of unfinished essays and forgotten chapters.

And I am waiting. I'm 'slinging beef' (as my friend calls my current waitressing job) and begging tips. I'm polishing cupboards and folding napkins. Living a life so far removed from my university life that I feel like an intruder sitting in the same library. A userper of public justice, a threat to the unspoken mob-culture of pervading misery and masochism. Waiting patiently outside the sickroom for permission to be allowed in.

"It is a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word" - Andrew Jackson

An aside from posts: I will always crumble inside everytime I spot a spelling mistake I can't take back. You'll have to forgive a fast train of thought and lazy fingers.

"Decieving others. This is what the world calls romance" - Oscar Wilde

Something of a problem has been brought to the forefront of my mind this week. Stemming from one too many shatteringly emotive dreams (which my doctor says are likely to be linked to my medication, if that's the reason, then I'd rather not stop taking it. They're too exciting) and from one too many off-hand comments which happy-go-lucky friends throw out in that nonchalant way that ensure you only realise how hurt you were by it days later.

Attitudes of (even the most normal) UK university students which are destructive to the female psyche:
1. Girls who do not have sex or seek out sexual encounters on nights out are shy, wallflowers who simply don't have the guts to admit to themselves that sex would 'free' them.
2. That everyone 'needs' (and wants) regular sex. This was insisted upon me by two of my best male friends just the other night. No, I do not believe in celibacy. Nor do I believe that people who do not engage in regular sex are in some way abnormal or denying themselves a basic human right.
3. That sexual freedom and promiscuity is in some way related to female emancipation.

This last one really gets under my skin. I am grateful that I live in a culture where it is acceptable to have relations outside of marriage. But I am infinitely more grateful for a offshoot of this cultural shift - the fact that most of my friends are guys, which is something I can't imagine having any other way.
I cannot but whince inwardly whenever one of my female friends uses any of the following phrases: "I need a guy", "We need to find hot guys", and - my personal favourite - "Don't worry, we'll find you a boyfriend!"
Good. Whew! You had me, lyk, seriously freaking out there, bbz..

Of course, I admit to my fair share of weakness and apologise to the rest of my sex for ever drunkenly yelling at my male friends that they NEED to be my wingmen.. when the only help I needed that night was getting into my own bed without being sick anywhere I'd regret later. But that's another story.

Moreover, I will not deny myself the heart-wrenching thrill that comes with actual attraction.When that happens; the entire spectrum of emotions avaliable to mankind will be buzzing through me and I will become just another silly girl who can't maintain eye contact without her mouth going dry. But in the meantime, I need to find some witty comebacks when someone thinks it's their business to express their concern as to the state of my sex life... "I find I'm pretty good with my hands - know anyone who can do better? No? Shame.."

"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays." - Henry Youngman

Restaurant customers are one of the most peculiar populations of people.

There are the singletons.
Maybe they're lone tourists; at the sight of these I can't help but feel a wrenching pit of sadness in my stomach. How far away from home are they? What happened to their travelling partners? What does it feel like to pay £40 for lunch without speaking a single word to anyone but your waitress?
It could be the woman taking a working lunch. These gals have fabulous hair and are surgically attached to their Blackberry. Or maybe they've spent years perfecting the 'pretending to text' performance.

There are the families.
They never tip. They're too busy trying to deliver puree into the mouth of their suited, booted, bundle of joy in between sips of Chardonnay. They leave you with a 3 mile radius of napkins, cold chips and bendy straws to clean up afterwards. But, oh boy, are those chubby cheeks a sight for sore eyes.

There are the gaggle of friends. These folks vary with age.
The students who make more noise than sense. The mid-life crisis women who spend 20mins arguing whether it's acceptable to order a side with their meal and subtly bully eachother into smaller portions whilst crying out "Order what YOU want!" to the whole restaurant. The working men whose idea of a night well spent involves asking me for sexual favours in the general spirit of merriment. ("We're paying you - play along, darling")
And the old friends - these are my favourite. They sip their Malbec slowly and think fast. They sit back and spend several weighty hours of a late afternoon sitting at a table of memories, of quips and jokes, of knowing each other too well to discuss trivialities and fuss over ordering. These are the people I want to be friends with when I'm 63.

Don't get me started on the couple. A different species altogether.
The teenage romance - awkward and tender. Who pays? What shall we order? No fuss, just nice to have a posh dinner out.
The young professionals: one of two types. The drunken, laughing couple who don't regard my presence as a burden on their lives; a pleasure and make the evening go quicker. I almost look forward to serving them. And the macho guy with the plastic arm candy. I'm being cruel, of course - but the barbie doll will pipe in with complaints whilst he orders for her. At least one of them will send their steak back. Overhearing their conversations makes me want to drive nails into my eye sockets.
The married couple on date night. It's been a few decades of putting up with someone else's annoying habits, so these guys don't demand a cocktail or steak which requires more than 30secs of explaining. They'll be quiet, polite, a bit sad. Unless they're one of those strange couple who are still blissfully in love - in which case they'll order four rounds of cocktails, he'll move across the table to hold her in his arms and they'll steal kisses when they think no one's looking or because maybe they just don't care anymore.
And the couple whose kids have moved out years ago, who will pay with a voucher, she'll put on make-up for the first time in months, and he will tell me that he'd like to pour the wine himself. They will sit for exactly as long as it takes to eat the food, they will speak little and stare around the restaurant blankly. I imagine them going home and having sex with the same blank, clinical manner of going through the motions. It makes me want to slap them back into living, back into colour and movement and emotion.

Restaurants are fishbowls. Maybe the fish are happy when they're eating mulch and swimming around the same familiar 30cm.

"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow" - Leo Tolstoy

I had the immense pleasure of attending a wedding this weekend. The lead roles? A girl with a heartbreaking past, yet with enough heart left to be one of the most wonderful people I know. Her fiance; a golden retriever character. Or that's as much as I could gather from about 7 hours in his presence.
The setting? It's seen War & Peace, it's listened to Anna Karenina's torturous life story. I's residents have been starved, frozen and hailed as heroes. It has changed it's name three times in the last century. A city that remains one of the greatest love stories of the modern age. Something only Tolstoy could have summed up.

St Petersburg was having a particularly warm February - I only needed two woolen jumpers.

The wedding was pleasantly un-Russian (aka. paid very little tribute to My Big Fat Greek Wedding). Minimal dancing, no one passing out drunk, relatives with only moderately eye-rolling speeches, only a few cheesy gift-boxes. The dress, to my immense relief, was absolutely gorgeous.

The city feels like it's still breathing the glory of it's history. Of course, visiting for exactly 2 days, I had little chance to sample the nightlife and youth scene (how it pains me to use that phrase) but which I am assuredly told is thriving. If Moscow is the daring, glamorous younger sister that goes out and attracts all the attention; St Petersburg is the older sister, the dreamer and the poet.
It's astounding how big the city is, for a relatively small population. The streets were built to plan and encompass a maze of canals and islands. It's often called the Venice of the North; it too is sinking under our feet. A strange and charming fury; the strength of history and the frail, sad beauty of what it's walls have lived through. 

I caught the bouquet that evening. But too late, I think I'm already in love.

"Charity creates a multitude of sins" - Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde's plays drew a rainbow of characters, whose opinions were so dramatic and varied that one could not possibly ascribe such thoughts to the man himself. Or at least I hope not, otherwise he would have led a very bleak existence.

Sadly, we know this to be the truth. Coming from the man who was sent to the workhouse at the age of seven, whose mother was taken into a mental institution when he was nine, and who spent years in prison under a multitude of charges - you'd think he'd be a little more sympathetic towards those in dire need, even through the mouthpeices of his characters.

Last week, a good friend of mine and myself took part in a charity event called Jailbreak. The idea is deceptively simple: 36 hours to get as far away from our uni without spending any of our own money.
The key phrase here is 'our own money'.
I'm sure that, back in the good old days when people were more noble/smart/kind/better, they hitchiked and trudged and struggled through the snowy season to emerge somewhere a little more interesting. What do we do now? We beg, barter and annoy people for money.. and use it to buy plane tickets.

Admittedly, this probably works to get people further (one group got to Sydney this year, pretty mind bending stuff), but those thousands of pounds given to airline companies?
Not once over the course of those hours did we bend the truth, exxagerate and weasel our way out of awkward explanations. We never lied, but that speaks not of our moral victory, but more of those kind donations which came from the rushed, the bored and the occupied. Those that would rather throw a few coins in the listen to our frozen, desperate pitches.

In the end, we'll collect more money than we spent (which, admittedly, got us far further than we could have hoped for), but does the end justify the means?

We returned exhausted, dirty and poor, but elated. Shame to think those folks in Sydney have get right on that plane and come back the next day.

"I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything" - John Steinbeck

I thank GCSE English lessons for introducing me to Steinbeck. I'm pretty sure that I was in the minority, a minority who were secretly enthralled by character profiles, entertained a secret love for writing essays and kept quite whilst our peers sniggered at why anyone would ever willingly put themselves through the torture of reading a book. (God forbid; enjoy it.)

When Steinbeck was asked whether he thought he deserved his 1962 Nobel Prize for literature he answered: "Frankly, no."
The choice was supposedly a controversial one. The New York Times spoke of his 'tenth-rate philosophising'. Ouch.

I can't speak for world literature, but I can speak for the wrenching gut feeling I felt when reading East of Eden; which remains one of my favourite books. I can speak for the that heavy, hot weight in the pit on your stomach that won't go away for long after you've turned the page. My fingers shook for rage and agony.
I can't quite remember one of my favourite lines from the book, so shall have to settle for one that is 99.9% as satisfying: "It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves... The skin tastes the air".
Had Cathy Ames appeared in front of me in those moments, I was sure that I'd tear her skin to shreds with my very nails. Few villians before or since triggered such a deep, physiological reaction from me.


I like taking photos. I fear it is partly a selfish thing; I enjoy posting them to social media sites, and enjoy showing off what enormous fun my friends and I have together. Thankfully, I almost never take photos of myself, so this ugly truth masquerades as a selfless act of documentation and friendliness.
I used to adore creating photo-diaries of trips and holidays - 'Oh, remember this?' and 'This is when we found that funny looking tree/crisp/sign!'. I no longer have the patience for that anymore, and as people grow older they lose patience on the other side of the camera too - they don't like the flash in their face, they don't WANT to remember why they drank that 3rd bottle of wine.

The city in which I have lived for the last 3 years is beautiful. All turrets and gateways, bridges and cobblestones. But sadly, even that begins to lose its charm. I suppose that's what sets me apart from the 'real' photographers - I tire from beauty. What a terrible thing to admit.
The last three years have changed me to the point that I am unrecognisable to the person I was. I've fallen apart, nailed myself back together, bullied myself into obedience, lost myself in the process, fallen apart once again and am slowly - ever so painfully slowly - rebuilding myself, brick by brick.

Had I taken photos of those lows, my self-image would have been very different. But no, we choose to capture the good times. I look over albums of even the worst times with a tinge of bitter nostalgia. We think 'maybe it wasn't so bad at all?'. We use the digital images to sugar-coat daily life. Look at us: all parties and fun and games. No one knows what I was doing several hours earlier behind closed doors because THERE ISN'T A PHOTO OF IT. And the truth will be stored in the imperfect catalogue of our memories, distored and pixelated as need be, so we can plaster our bedroom walls with smiles and caricatures of an alternate reality we believe ourselves to have lived.

I often think that, if I were in The Matrix (a situation I regard as statistically likely to occur within my lifetime), I would have chosen the blue pill. Call it cowardly. I challenge anyone to choose differently.

"The saddest thing I can Imagine is to get used to luxury" - Charlie Chaplin

My father and I rarely see eye to eye when it comes to sense of humour. Yet one of the childhood memories to which I am most attached is the image of both of us rolling around on the floor, tears streaming down our faces which ached from insupressible laughter.
And to what do we owe this treasured moment? To the 'Little Tramp'. To the man who could make the world laugh using two forks and a pair of bread rolls.

Chaplin's life story reads as if the phrase 'rags to riches' was created in his honour. (Maybe 'honour' is a poor choice of word; to his misfortune.)
One of the few comedic actors to whom I will refer, tentatively, to as a genius; was forced into a workhouse at the age of seven, and whose mother was admitted to a mental asylum when he was nine. Hardly the stuff of fairy tales, unless you're a fan of the original works of Hans Christian Andersen.

I take a somewhat guilty pleasure from famous quotations. Having amassed books, websites and magazine articles on the subject under my belt; I continue to collect these soundbites of meaning everywhere I find them. I have shoeboxes filled with post-it notes and sheets of phrases and ideas, like a magpie which likes nothing more than to admire her treasures and applaud herself for having such good taste in theft. I applaud myself in having such a good taste in genius.

Dorothy L. Sayers, an early 20th century English author, joked that she always used quotations because it saved her having to do any original thinking.
(There's me disguising another quote in a sentence. I just can't stop.)

Which brings us to the original philosophy which kicked off today's train of thought: what is luxury and how do we stop ourselves getting used to it?

I was lucky enough to be born into a stable family background. The pinnacle of our poverty was perhaps when I had demanded ice cream as a child, only for us to realise - after my demands had been fulfilled - that we hadn't left enough money for the bus ride home. My parents walked for almost three hours to get home that night, me on my father’s shoulders and my mother telling stories so I wouldn't get restless.

Today, I am fortunate enough to attend a university cloaked in more traditions and prestige than it's terrified students can uphold. The terror of being faced with 4 rows of cutlery at the dinner table has been overcome. The complaint about how they're serving salmon AGAIN loses its absurdity. I do not hesitate at the thought of driving myself further into debt by spending a weeks worth of wages on a black tie event. Because, well.. EVERYONE DOES IT.
I'm painfully aware that this does not win many friends, nor does it ease our traumatic pathway into 'The Real World'.

Are we sad? I suppose that depends on what each of us has given up in the pursuit of such luxuries. Whether you still have the capacity to enjoy something you've grown accustomed to, and perhaps even bored of. How different were we before we knew what wealth tasted like?

All I know is; salmon gets very tiresome.