Facebook.

My cousin Philip posted his thoughts on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, and I've been mulling them over ever since. Facebook seems to be getting a bad rep, often from the religious crowd but also among others. I can see it from their perspective, in that the life you live online is by its very nature partial, and that is something that people who are searching for authenticity all the time find problematic. (I know there's more to it than that, but I'll let Philip speak for himself.) I just wanted to put the other side...to try and articulate a bit of why I think Facebook is popular with people from so many areas of society and what I think I take from it. I'm not an avid Facebook browser, but I do think it's a worthwhile enterprise. Probably quite long...

Facebook serves as a space to share things with a large group of people whom you see in person only rarely. I have friends spread around the country, and we meet up a few times a year to do things. But without the freedom facebook affords to say just a sentence to one another now and a again - about a photo of a trip we've been on together say, or a reminiscence about something in our shared past - we might not talk at all, and it would be harder to meet up, and we would find it harder to start conversations when we did meet up, and eventually we might drift apart. The time we actually spend together would be poorer because we wouldn't have a dripfeed of continuity between times. Of course there are more personal ways of contacting one another, but they are all more serious and more time-consuming - and the reality is that we would invest that time only rarely with a few people, or not at all. And friendships would slip away because you've missed some part of someone's life, and the barrier of events that separates you from one another becomes so high that the story of your life since last you met is so unwieldly that you don't know where to start, so you don't start, so it remains a barrier between you and the friendship is lost. Facebook, via the 'little and often' element, helps to prevent that obstacle ever becoming enormous.

It is no substitute for face to face, just an addendum to it. I don't entirely agree with the reasoning behind 'quality not quantity' philosophy that so many people expound as a reason that Facebook is a bad thing. Yes. You suddenly have minor contact with a lot of people. You still have intense contact with a few of them, and you have more contact with the wider circle than you would otherwise. Knowing just a little about the people in the wider network, about how their lives have changed since you did have contact, means that there is always the possibility of revisiting a friendship or intensifying it in a way that wouldn't have been possible before. Maybe you didn't know a schoolfriend was working in your city. Maybe you didn't know someone had a certain interest. Maybe you can re-click. You might come across other acquaintances through them, and be surprised who knows who. What's the real chance of running into the one other peerson you knew from school who lives in Australia, say, in real life? But on Facebook, you can. And suddenly the whole scary experience of a new country and a new life is made easier because there's someone to talk to about it.

You will say 'but that never happens'. It does. Maybe not those exact scenarios, but I have spoken to people via Facebook, and been pleased that I have, that I probably would have lost entirely if not for coming across them as a friend of a friend. And it has been a good experience. Going out of my way to contact them would have been creepy for both of us. A quick 'hi' on chat or whatever is so much less threatening, and actually very important for me at the time it happened. So don't knock it...

The danger is voyeurism. But it's less the domain of the watcher to censor what they look at and more the onus of the watched only to share only that which they can afford to share. That feels the wrong way around, I guess. Maybe that's a British feeling. Something about one should be embarrassed to watch? A difficult balance maybe, but not a pointless one. I don't mind that there is a presentation aspect of to the self on Facebook - it's a very freeing experience to have more control over your image, and it's not like people don't act parts in real life. But everyone knows that everyone is playing a part all of the time, in life and online, I don't see the issue. Once you're aware of the construct, you can see how it's put together.

Of course one needs to make sure that one uses it and not let oneself become merely the tool either of the software itself or of other users, but it does have a function. It's all about opinion. At the end of the day, as a place in and of itself it's just not that important. But it can slide into the real world in a much more tangible way than many other things. People whose blogs one reads, or who one talks to in web fora, are for the most part not people you meet in real life. It is the exception and not the rule that you might seek to actually meet them. Facebook is an addendum to a real life connection - who is Facebook friends with people they've never actually met? Nobody I know, I think. It is a way of documenting and strengthening that RL connection. It creates a common area where groups of friends can share things in virtual space when practicalities mean they can't do that in reality.

So I think it's a good thing. I have on occasion deleted myself from it - I don't necessarily want to be part of the scrutiny all of the time for one reason and another. But for the most part, I like that other people are prepared to share parts of themselves with me and are interested in parts of me. What's the problem?

A different sort of post.

Or one more diary-like than they've been of late. I have new poetry books on order - gushy thoughts on Carol Ann Duffy will resume shortly. And I'll probably re-visit lemonade and get summer-food excited. I'll even try and remember to take photos of it...

T and I and various assorted others went to the Cambridge Beer Festival yesterday (I drank cider). It was a wonderful evening of random drop-ins - we were the centre of a small group of wanderers from all areas of my Cambridge existence. GSM people came, a few ADC types were about (including some we hadn't planned to see), Matt the director of the the play he stitched me into producing dropped by, Carl was there, and even Linda from the college chapel set. Even a kind of vicarious family element, though that definitely doesn't count. I had to keep double-taking to keep track of it, and drifted around the circle trying to make sure that everyone had someone to talk to, because in a lot of cases they either knew me a lot better than they knew one another or often were only in the same group because of me. Linda spent a long time explaining spider reproduction to Marion (whom she'd never met), and bonding with Matt over the fact that they both have connections to the zoology department. Leave Linda in any situation and she will proceed to gross out everybody with Bugs. I love Linda.* Carl found someone he'd lived with in his second year of uni in a city 200 miles away to chat to. The attractions of a beer festival break down great disparities. It was a little confusing, and a little stressful because of it. We left before it got too late. T had been on breakfast and I had to be on top of a tower wearing a cassock at *7:15* this morning (more later).

It was a beautiful evening still when we made it home, not too hot or too cold or anything. Hopefully it promises more to come, but I don't gamble when we're talking British weather. We went to sit on the garden wall for a bit. And then there was a hedgehog.

More or less totally unconcerned that we were there, it came bumbling through the fence and snuffling through the undergrowth. It was full dark by that point, no moon, barely any light seeping around the blinds from Will's film inside. Just glimmer enough that it was possible to follow the creature's progress by means of an occasional glimpse of a waddling body on the grass, but it was quiet enough that we could hear it. Listening to it eat was hilarious - so much relish from the little animal. It was chompchompchomplipsmackpotterslurp for a good ten minutes, getting nearer and nearer to T's foot on the lawn. Both of us were still as stones, craning towards it and straining our eyes in dimness to see what it was up to, wondering if it would actually get close enough to touch Traci's shoe (it didn't). When it began to move up the garden towards a bush at the back, I crept inside to fetch Will to show him, but though we could still hear it, it didn't come back from under the bush and it left our patch via the back fence.

But a HEDGEHOG. I like hedgehogs. I like the way they move and the expressions on their faces and their attitude. I don't often see them though; in Cornwall I suspect they're either out-competed by the badgers, of which there are many, or just scared of the dogs, or both. And tiredness and tense and awkward social situations melted into our watching of a wild thing enjoying itself. No deadlines, no nothing. Not long awake from a winter sleep and enjoying a spring glut of fat worms and bugs. No concerns beyond dinner.

I like how even in a city there are still so many bits of things that are natural that hit you if you look. People say that city-dwellers have no idea about the seasons because they never see the plants. But there are hedgehogs and foxes (currently irritating a houseful of London friends of mine) and birds and the odd growing thing and all sorts, and there is the colour of the sky and the weather - it still has an impact.

I wasn't really a country kid, in that nobody in my family farms or raises food animals or manages forests or anything of that sort, but I did grow up in a village. I can milk a cow, believe it or not, though I wouldn't like to be challenged to. But city kids get taken to farms to do that, now, so they can too. I think they probably don't see much of the fields or what goes into them or comes out of them and how things grow, though. Not in a field-wide sense. Not a whole crop, just a bean at school, unless someone has an allotment or a vegetable patch. My mum did and does have a vegetable patch, and she supplements it with ducks now. The llamas still serve no useful function. But I had a childhood spent climbing on rusting tractor hulks, chasing rabbits with my dog, and picking blackberries - until I was 11 anyway, and I loved it. I then spent years living in a city, and got used to the idea of streets of houses and postage-stamp gardens and shops that weren't an event to go to. I know I'm lucky to have had that upbringing - not many kids do these days. But the thing I like most is that it has left me with the ability to have just a small handle on how things the natural world fits together, and how our and everybody's lives are affected by seasonality in a way that it must be difficult to grasp in quite the same way if you've never been that close to the countryside. And it is that slightly closer bond that makes me want to respect it enough not to eat meat that hasn't at least seen daylight and been able to stretch its legs a bit, and to try my best to make choices that have as little impact as possible. I'm not there yet, but I try, and it's got to be a start...

I felt that feeling again this morning. The adults were down to sing the Ascension Day service from the top of the GSM tower at Frightening AM today. I think the last time I got up before 6:30 it was winter - so that time actually felt like dawn, with greyness and mists and sunrise. We're edging on to summer here now, so the sun is well and truly awake at 7am, which was when I left the house. I was slightly disappointed not to be privy to that secret dawn...I like that time of day, though definitely not more than sleep. I can see the season changing, though, and that's ace. On top of the tower today it was a little hazy still from spring dampness, but you could see Ely Cathedral on the horizon 15 miles away - 'the ship of the Fens'. Cambridgeshire is SO flat...

I like that I'm not attached to academic years any more. They create artificial breaks in the progression of the year. Christmas and Easter do that, to a certain extent, too, but they're less intrusive and regimented than the three terms, three holidays arrangement that we use to order our years. I like that I can sink into something more natural, rather than trying all the time to break the year into shorter segments. That just results in feeling like a failure when you miss a deadline that was set with no regard for what the task is and your personal work speed.

And I don't have to watch the end approaching with the same finality that you do with the end of the term, the end of the year, the end of school, the end of university...and there is life beyond whatever the deadline is because the months and the years keep going and don't stop because you've reached a certain milestone. Dates are only a way of talking about time - in themselves they shouldn't be deadlines on their own account. There shouldn't be exams 'just because it's summer'. A couple of college friends have said to me that they always feel guilty if they're in Cambridge in the summer - they should be revising, that's what May means. No. All that May means is that the sun will be edging its way out a bit and that the peas have sprouted. All. Exams are not seasonal. They have nothing to do with the sun and the weather and the natural order of things. There are still deadlines, because otherwise there is no way of functioning, but they are more fluid and less metallic. They move with not against the flow of the year.

*She is actually ace. Used to date a housemate of mine, who made his own mead and shoes and spend a lot of time dressed as a Viking and talking in dead languages.

Clean slates and baglust.

I've been a bit useless. I think if I had a more regular life I'd be better at the blogging thing. I do enjoy it, but I haven't had a great deal of time recently. Not enough time to think about things deeply enough. I've written bits and pieces in my journal, but nothing very much on here. I haven't read a great deal that has excited me and I haven't had any great cultural experiences. Mostly, I've been eating, sleeping, spending time with people I love and making things for people I care about. I'm making Carl a cookery book for his birthday. His email asking for it went as follows:

Subject: For myyy birthdaaayyy

You can get me some sex! Not, you know, directly, but through referred
skill.

I cook, occasionally, and most of what could be deemed impressive
knowledge has come from you (eg, frying veg with cumin or chilli flakes,
veg chilli, ubercrispycake, frying salmon...). But I keep having to ask,
cause my filing system is flawed, so I think to save the frequent
lunchtime emails to you getting the information again, here's what you
could do:

If you write down in a hardback notebook or something the recipes for
things that suit my particular cooking limitations...
including all the stuff I should already know but probably have
simplified in my head to be not quite as good as they originally were...

So stuff like:
veg chilli,
ubercrispycake,
curry
fajitas

Anything else you can think of that's easy and doesn't take too long
(cause it'll take me twice as long as you) and can be carried out by
someone relatively clever but not at all good at multitasking and
generally mentally slowed by a day at work.

This will be an awesome thing you could do that no-one else can. :¬)

xx

...Carl

I can't work out whether this is a present for him or just him being nice to me. He DOES ask me for cooking things sometimes, and putting those things together in a good way is something I can do. I cook for and with him on a something approaching weekly basis [exciting aside: will be more often if we DO end up living together, but that's a whole other story...] - nothing very dramatic, just ordinary things that I like to eat, that fill me up and are reasonably healthy and (important) quite cheap. But I'm so flattered to be asked. I like that it means that Carl likes the food I cook, and the fact that he has gone so far as to ask me to write down my recipes so that he can use them himself has given me one huge warm fuzzy glow. For the record, the boy is a perfectly acceptable cook, he just doesn't really get excited about food in the same slightly obsessive way that I do. This is not a bad thing. Anyway. Thanks, Carl. :-)

I like making things that people enjoy eating and that I enjoy eating. Something of the mother in me, I guess. Or just something of the instant gratification of seeing people enjoying what I make. I love food, and I like to share things that excite me with my friends, so that they can be excited about it too. In reality, I don't know THAT many people that are excited by dried beans or peculiar Mexican herbs (at least ones that you can't smoke), but when I make them into things I like to think that people begin to see the point. And everyone can be excited by interesting sorts of chocolate and things you can do with that.

If I ask you if I can turn up at your house and cook you dinner, it really isn't me doing you the favour but me asking you for the favour. Just a warning, though, if I ever cook for you: I am possessive of my kitchen, even if it's your kitchen. I'm very, very bossy when it comes to cooking. Comes of caring about it, I guess. I'm better behaved than I used to be, which is a product of knowing more people who really care about cooking. If I'm in your kitchen getting in the way or genuinely being nagging or jumping to change things, REALLY don't feel bad about telling me to go next door and not get involved, or to attach me to the sink and the washing up by a short leash. That way, I can't annoy you by leaning over your shoulder and going 'I think it needs some chilli and lemon juice' (the two things I usually consider ANY dish to be in need of). Do not let me patronise you, I don't mean to, I just get over-enthusiastic.

I like the fact that I can cook something every day, so disasters get written over and I can forget about them and move on. Any cringeworthy mistakes can be anhilated with successes, or just by the sheer volume of non-disasters. This is important...I need to be able to overlay bad errors with better achievements. I'm dependent on past experiences for current self esteem. Does everyone have that? I'm fine provided the LAST thing I did, in any area of my life, wasn't one I'm ashamed of. There are many things in my life I'm ashamed of, but provided the LAST one in any given category went ok, then I'm ok. I'm stuck if the last thing in a category is the Last Thing, and I can't over-write it. THAT is the point when my self-esteem takes a permanent knock and I look to see if I can re-assign categories to overlap the one where I failed. Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't. In food, I can. Always. I eat every day, and I cook meals for people regularly enough that I can overlay food memories. At least in MY head, which is what matters for this purpose.

Moral: Things that could be regarded as repetitive can be incredibly satisfying. It's probably a life lesson, if only for me.



In other news, I have developed an obsession with this bag. I want the green version* but it appears to be out of stock. There's an offer for the People Tree in this Guardian article. Such things are dangerous. I thoroughly approve of the People Tree. They make beautiful clothing (they even have and outlet via Topshop), and they have ethics I'd love to be able to afford to endorse more in my clothing shopping - fair trade and responsibly sourced from organic cotton. Everyone knows garment workers are some of the most poorly paid in the world, and cotton is one of the world's most chemically treated crops. Wikipedia says that it uses 'approximately 25% of the world's insecticides and 10% of the world's pesticides', which is more or less what I've heard elsewhere. So if possible, I'd like to support the People Tree. BUT, I can't afford to until after the end of the month (cars are very expensive things, this month). And I have a SEVERE case of baglust. BUT, even after the end of the month, I mostly need summer tops, not new bags. *sigh*. But all of my 3 readers, YOU should all go and look at the People Tree website and see what you think. I reckon they're close to the most affordable of the ethical clothing outlets out there, not that I've conducted exhaustive research, and they're doing an important job.


*I ALWAYS want the green version

If life was just about budgetting TIME, I'd be ok...

This article irritated me a little. The guy implies that it's a really difficult thing to do, to live on £10 a week. I grant that it's not THAT easy and that when I do my mental weekly sort-of budget calculations there are things that I automatically drop into the 'necessary' and 'luxury' categories.

Travel
# I don't have much in the way of transport costs, because I live close to work and I can get anywhere in the city on a bike in less that half an hour. I fill the car once a month, if that, and use it mostly for going to the supermarket or transporting tat around town. I have used a bus once in my entire time living in this city, as far as I remember - not a major fan. I have a bike. I like it. Even if it creaks. It costs me around £40 a year in parts and servicing, I reckon, maybe a little bit more. Literally, peanuts.


Food
# I cook for myself. I love food (shock) and I cooking is something I genuinely enjoy. Someone who didn't would find all of this harder. I reckon the only pre-prepared products I buy regularly that are more expensive to make than to buy are bread, pesto and bacon. I might solve the bread thing at some point, but that will be more because I want to be able to make good bread rather than for saving money reasons. I'm prepared to buy bread.
# I try and buy meat with bones in so that I can make stock from it, for soups and so on. I don't buy much meat, at that. A chorizo sausage will last me a few weeks, as will a packet of bacon. Chicken thighs or a whole chicken represent several meals. Vegetables and pulses are great. Veggie chilli. Veggie curry. Stew made with two portions of meat that will feed six at least because of the quantity of leeks in it. Refried beans with a tin of tomatoes stirred through for chilli for 3.
# I'm getting better at doing this properly - the feeding myself with food I like without spending a lot of money. Fewer meals involve pasta and pesto than they did at college or when I was 18. I LIKE pasta, pesto, peas and bacon/chorizo, though, so that tends to feature once a week on a day I'm in a hurry or have run out of whatever the main dish I made that week was. I'm sparing with the pesto and the bacon though...they make many portions.

Budgets
# I don't think in weeks, and I use the freezer. Is working by month cheating? Surely just better planning. I did a shop the other day that I hope will last me for two or three weeks, with milk top ups.
# I also share. £20 for two is much easier than £10 for one. It means £80 for a month for two of you.

Luxuries
# The glaring one for most people is booze. Or maybe it's that for me because I don't find going without alcohol most of the time I hardship. Any booze is a luxury. I usually have a bottle of whiskey or tequila/triple sec (for margaritas) around. I'm pretty certain I don't drink one of them a month though.

# Designating something 'luxury', and therefore allowing it to come out of a different area of budget is the problem bit. I tend to count more or less ANY meat in this category, and I do usually have SOME of that around in some form - even if it's a chorizo I use very sparingly that's in the back of the fridge. Exciting chillis. Unusual spices. Fresh herbs (that I haven't grown). Any booze, for me anyway. Good chocolate - I aim at one bar a week as a sort of staple that lives in the fridge at work, to prevent me going down to the café for stupidly expensive Wispas (mmm Wispas) with the other girls I work with. I do like to have it to cook with though - for hot chocolate, or brownies, or other baking. That's something else - baking. I have controlled myself a bit recently, but I DO love doing it. Not a necessity, but sometimes actually cheaper than having fruit for pudding.


Other
# And then there are things that aren't food. The toiletries and house stuff - they're just necessary. Having my car fixed is, too. [I'm waiting with nervousness to see how much it's going to cost me this time. Arg.] Presents for people. There are times when they are necessary, to show how you value a friendship. They don't have to be big things - thought is most of the point, but it's nigh on impossible to do without spending SOME money. As is going out once in a while with your mates. That's not actually a luxury, though it's only fair to everyone not to make it too much of an expensive obligation if inviting people out for dinner or whatever. We need each other, and we're only any good to one another if we see one another and know what's going on in each other's lives. So going to London to see that crowd or cooking dinner for Carl or others or going to the pub with the choir are important things to do. Carefully. As is buying my wonderful girlfriend chocolate or flowers or a beer or some badges or, this being Traci, some exciting chilli of some sort when she feels sad and it needs more than just a hug, or I'm looking for a NEW way to tell her I love her. Once in a while, things like that need to happen. Hard to budget for. I guess that's why we have savings, and instant access ones at that. Which is why savings have a massively important place in any budget. I must bump mine up...

These are the days of miracles and wonder.

Music's amazing. How are there people that don't listen to it or play it? I come home, I put something to listen to on. I listen all day at my desk. I put it on in the car. I listen on the train. I listen walking about. And if I haven't got phones in my ears, I'm listening in my head, or singing out loud. I look forward to choir practice, to spending time with a piano (for preference) or failing that nearly anything that is tuned so that I can practice songs I adore. The title of the post comes from a song called 'I know what I know' from the album Graceland by Paul Simon. I did nearly call it 'Thank you for the days', from the song 'Days' by The Kinks. Either sentiment fits what I want to say, but I like the sense of immediacy of the one I chose. Now is the moment. Carpe diem, and all that - you will never get it back. Now is for living in, don't wait. But The Kinks line is necessary, too. It is just as important to realise what you have had, how you have lived - what happened, what it means, what you take from it, how you apply it to the days that will happen in future. That sounds really clinical, when I write it down. It was quite a poetic thought in my head. At least I avoided the use of 'evaluation'. The lyrics of that song are fantastic. Simple, but effective. I can't work out the song's mood though, probably because I can't work out my own. Up and down again.

Music just has a way of underlining existence. Oli Robinson had something when he put together Something about life and music.... I have become addicted to Graceland. I have listened to it at least once, most days, since about the middle of November. I know it by heart. It's part of the experience of my life at the moment. I couldn't tell you why, though. Why THAT album. It's undeniably great. It has pathos and power and melody and harmony and tune and lyrics that intrigue and captivate. It wavers on the border of old fashioned and almost modern pop in places. It carries folk and elements of rock. It's of its time, in the recording quality if nowhere else. (And in its obsession with potted drums - lots of clipped tight noises, which I think sound hopeless...what's wrong with acoustic?! You just stop it sounding real. But that particular sound dates it for me. Not that we don't have that around now, but I don't really think it sounds the same.)

But actually, the lyrics of the songs don't resonate specifically with my life. Well, they do, but I could find more emotive things to hear, I think. The album flicks between moods. It's young, but learning; it's attached to life but sees the pain. I think that's it. It's romantic, even though I don't think it's really about love. During SAL&M, Sarah Lambie said it was something she and her Dad had listened to it while driving around the Peak District, when she was a kid. That's her connection to it. And it IS good driving music - the songs seem to have that movement to them. They don't finish where they started. I can't explain it, you'll have to listen and see if you can hear it, too. It's also enormously American. There's an enormous scope to it that seems silly in England. And I want that scope. Not that I think England CAN'T offer it, but it is different. Here it is slow. There is an immediacy to Graceland that seems odd in this country that can be so ponderous. Too much weight of history. Mostly, I love the history, but sometimes it seems like it might be limiting us. I don't know. I don't know anything really about America. I'm working from a nebulous folk impression of the place, of which Graceland has become inextricably part, now. That, and Stephen Fry's America programmes that were on in October and November and were fantastic. I become more in awe of that guy all the time.

I've talked about music for ages. Which is hopefully a little more interesting than my slightly excited countdown of simple things that have made me hungover happy this week. You get both...

• John and I cooked the pheasants Will shot for dinner on Thursday. It went SO well. I was so pleased. Not that it was complicated, we just covered the things in bacon and butter and roasted them with pears and onions and juniper, and served them with mustard roast potatoes and parsnips, with spicy cabbage and a mushroom and white wine vinegar gravy. It was a bit hotch-potch because too many people had been in charge of shopping and we didn't have quite what we really wanted. Worked out pretty damn well though! I love watching people eat food that I cooked. It's satisfying. Yes, probably even satisfying some maternal instinct. A very old way of showing people you care, but there are reasons for that. This event made me hungover, however. We started with G&Ts mixed by John, then moved on to the wine (there were six of us, and we probably drank 3 bottles of wine...not THAT bad...yet), and then started on the port. We drank 2 bottles of port. And then went on to spirits... Good job work is REALLY dull at the moment and only Jenny was in the office on Friday, really.
• I went to London yesterday, to see Pete McDonald, mostly. We had lunch at Wahaca in Covent Garden, which was fantastic fun, then saw Slumdog Millionaire in Leicester Square. The film is billed as something like 'the feelgood film of the year', which is a load of rubbish...I cried a couple of times, but then I'm soft-hearted. It's fantastic. Cheesy in places and occasionally lacking much sophistication, which is unsurprising given it has Bollywood roots, but still a wonderful thing to have seen. India is a place of extremes. It frightened me because I couldn't get to grips with them. I shouldn't have been trying. But it was brilliant.
• We then wandered over to the National Portrait Gallery, because we had some time to kill and figured it would be warm there (it was -5. I didn't have a hat. I wasn't impressed). They had the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize on display. It would have been more powerful if it had been less busy (the whole city was heaving yesterday - I had difficulty finding a seat on my train in), but it was still an experience. At a very simple level, technically brilliant photographs of people that are blown up more than life size are always going to be arresting. Some of them were generic images, in terms of facial expressions or of pose or whatever. Or some were over-worked, trying too hard and falling down - like the iconic picture of the girl with the plastic bag on her head...it's too didactic. I don't feel I have the same lack of comprehension about photographs that I do about paintings. I think I know more about what I like, and more about the process and everything. And so I feel a bit more able to judge, at least against my own measures. I suppose that in photography I HAVE my own measures. I know what I'm trying to achieve when I take pictures for myself. Though if you actually asked me a bit more about what that was I'd find it hard. There were some that spoke, that you wanted to know more about, that drew you in to their eyes or their story.
• I then headed off to meet up with a few other people and catch up with the world over girly dinner. I always go to London feeling the need to make the most of the time (especially since they've put the damn fares up again...not long now before a Young Persons' Travelcard from Cambridge will be over £20...), and I'm always shattered when I come home again. I love the whirlwind experience though. I met up with three sets of people, all of whom come from different areas of my life. I love the interaction of all of that. And meeting up with lots of people almost guarantees too much wine...so when I got back to Cambridge at 1am I was pretty shattered. And THEN there were people online to chat to, to complete the social events of the day. 'Social events' has a derogatory tone to it. My Saturday had nothing derogatory or generic or ordinary about it.

Oh, and I had some luck in my exam on Wednesday. It has been a week of extremes. Bit like the film. Bedtime.