Category: Random

Mar 25

Friendship is magic, yeah!

I know I’m a bit late to the blogging-about-My-Little-Pony party, but then I am late to every party so at least I’m being consistent.

Having been reminded unceremoniously of its existence by a domain name renewal invoice, I’ve decided this poor old blog has lain dormant LONG ENOUGH. It’s time to get back in the blogging saddle.

Of course I’m still blogging rather more regularly for the excellent Bad Reputation but for my not obviously feminist interests it’s time to revive Applejackson.

On the subject of which: My Little Pony is back! Whoah. And for once my diamond hard 80s cartoon nostalgia has melted away: the new version is roughly a billionty times better than the original. For anyone who hasn’t seen it (really, what have you been doing?) It’s very much in the Powerpuff Girls mode – bright, fast, squeaky, witty – which is no surprise as they were both created by the same person, Lauren Faust.

Applejack was always my favourite because she was the tomboy pony (tompony?) But now my world has been spun on its axis because in the series reshod there are TWO TOMPONYS! Applejack and the rather brilliant Rainbow Dash. AND there’s a bookworm pony in the form of academic Twilight Sparkle. Friends of mine have produced excellent blog posts about the feminism of MLP, and the way it reflects the experiences of current twentysomethings.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (to give it its full title) has also pleasingly plundered a compendium of mythical beasts for its adversaries – in the second episode the pony friends fight a manticore! And later some giant ghostly star bears: Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

Although to be fair the original had some good baddies too. In one the ponies got turned into spiny dragon-creatures, that was quite disturbing. And anyone else remember Katrina the magic junkie witchcat and her shape-shifting lizard lover? They tried to turn all the ponies into slaves when their existing slaves (kind of a hybrid between tribbles and the M&M advert characters) escaped. Katrina appears about at about 2.30 in this clip:

Watching it again it’s all a terrible indictment of female ambition and aggression as Katrina is rewarded with the love of her lizard and social acceptance by the ponies when she gives up her power and becomes gentle and demure.

Another thing I appreciate about the new version is that it explores the implications of the presence of Spike the baby dragon. I can’t remember his exact role in 80s Pony lore, he was just sort of hanging around, but I always found it troubling. What about when he grows up? Are there other dragons around? Do they eat the ponies? In the new version he’s the friend/pet/slave of academic pony Twilight Sparkle, and there’s a whole episode dedicated to answering these urgent questions.

Of course there are new questions in their place: do the earth ponies ever get resentful at the unicorn ruling elite? Is Equestria a feudal state? Why are there so few male ponies? Why does the pony princess Celestia travel in a chariot *drawn by ponies*? Are they slaves? Do they have language too? And the one that bothers me most of all: why would a farm in Ponyville have pigs on it? I can’t stop imagining a My Little Pony Abattoir play set.

But I love it anyway, and although the sharing and fluffiness occasionally gets a bit revolting, I approve of its central message, because, well, friendship is magic. The 80s My Little Pony message was basically just “buy me!” so this is a significant improvement.

0
comments

Posted in Random, toys

May 22

Some posts what I wrote

Right so you’ve probably spotted I’ve not updated Applejackson much lately.

That’s partly because I have a large number of old posts in draft form which I managed to rescue when the site died a while back. Rebooting them is satisfying but also frustrating, as they need all new links and the original pictures are gone.

The other reason is because I’ve been bloggin’ elsewhere on the interweb. I thought it might be good to sling up a post linking to some of the things I’ve been doing elsewhere. Just to prove I’ve not just been twiddling my thumbs since xmas.

Women’s History Month

Where are women in the history of art?

An article commissioned by WHM following a massive rant of mine on Twitter about women and art (prompted by a stupid comment in a documentary from Howard Jacobson) It turned out to be a great excuse to revisit a load of essays I had to read on the hop during my degree.

Bad Reputation

I’m part of the Bad Rep team so trying to turn in posts for them regularly. These are some of my favourites, but you should really go and read everyone else’s posts too.

Womankind Worldwide

Where are women’s voices in the land rush debate?

My first proper blog post in my new job, it’s so fascinating learning about the global women’s movement, and about time I broadened my perspective out from the UK.

0
comments

Posted in Activism, Feminism, Random, Reading, robots

Apr 18

Trees, you have been rumbled

Fake trees at Hollow Ponds

Faking it at Hollow Ponds

0
comments

Posted in Epping Forest, Leytonstone, Random, Wandering

Mar 08

Dolls and their houses

There is no real point to this post I am afraid, there are just some doll-themed links I want to share with the wider world. As a treat I have included a picture of me and my fabulous feminist fingerpuppets (L-R Joan of Arc, Frida Kahlo, Sojourner Truth and Virginia Woolf) which I got as a gift at the weekend. The weekend before International Women’s Day! Oh yeah, I’m topical.

Anyway. It all started when I watched a cute documentary on 4oD about the people who build and buy doll’s houses. They are all – you may not be surprised to hear – gently eccentric. It’s lovely, anyway: ‘Hello Dollies’

Which reminded me of three things, as well as delivering a crushing desire to get myself a proper doll’s house rather than the fugly beige plastic 70s disaster I actually had as a child.

  1. Phoebe’s excellent DIY doll’s house in Friends, which beats Monica’s posh one hands down. Here’s the clip, with Spanish subtitles for your amusement and education.
  2. The wonderful and rather godlike fact that you can buy small bags of trees and shrubs from any good hobby shop. Why don’t I have them all over my flat?
  3. A website of modded, one-of-a-kind fantasy / celebrity Barbies which are Quite Something to look at. Here’s my favourite – vampire pirate Barbie.

That is all from me on dolls for now. Over and out.

scary pic of me with my amazing new feminist fingerpuppets! on Twitpic

1
comments

Posted in Dolls, Random, toys

Feb 11

Another wild night in

This is what I have been doing tonight besides working. You can’t see here, but the pony has ‘irony’ written on it in sugar letters. We wanted to write ‘ironicorn’ but there wasn’t room.

what I have been doing tonight besides working. The pony has ... on Twitpic

There were others, but they have been eaten already.

3
comments

Posted in Eating, Random

Sep 03

In the alley

Just had one of those strange moments when you see something perfectly normal in a way which makes it seem a little alien, and you have a feeling that it belongs to somewhere else, and you are just peering through at it. Do you know what I mean? I think it happens a lot in cities, I guess because of all the lives running around each other, and over and through and under each other in the same small spaces. It’s something a lot of people have explored, from mad Gustav Meyrink in The Golem to lovely Neil Gaiman in Neverwhere.

But anyway – I was walking up Leytonstone High Road, past the church, and the Matalan and Shoeworld and the Petch Sayam thai restaurant. At night the whole street and all the buildings are sodium orange coloured because of the streetlights, and there are always people around. Tonight there were some people smoking outside the pub, and a woman on the phone at the bus stop, all lit up and noisy and busy. As I walked past the restaurant I turned and looked down the alley beside it, and it was as if I had casually glanced into some parallel world.

The noise faded suddenly as I turned my head away from the street, and the shadows in the alley looked dark inky blue, with moonlight pouring into the courtyard at the end of it. There was a black man standing with his back to me, in a pale t-shirt, obviously quite muscular, and he was holding a wooden broom and slowly twirling it around himself, around his back and over his head. Effortlessly, “like a ninja!” I thought, but it occurs to me now I have no idea if ninjas actually do this.

Anyhow, the moment left me with a strong impression of one of the lives running close beside mine, entirely different, and invisible to me. As soon as I was past the alley the shouting orange street came back to me with a rush and for a second I wondered if I should step back to see whether he had vanished.

0
comments

Posted in London, Random, Stories

Jun 15

The tree for me

S for Sajarina! :-) We were in Epping Forest again, enjoying the sunny loveliness. Graffiti on trees seems bizarre to me (spraycans that is, when it’s carved it’s retro, even romantic, like in Robin Hood) Why would you want to tag a tree?

3
comments

Posted in Epping Forest, Random, Uncategorized, Wandering

Jun 09

Bromley-By-Bomb, someone in my shoes and fluffy insect love

On Friday night the unexploded WW2 device in Bow was detonated – I don’t have much to add to Going Underground’s post, which includes a dramatic still from a BBC video.

As I was leaving the house a few mornings ago a woman walked past wearing my shoes. Not just the same style from the same shop – actually my shoes, which I bought from the Dalston Oxfam shop, customised (badly) and then gave away to another charity shop. I was stunned, and she looked at me a bit oddly, probably because I was following her and gaping. Nobody needs that at 8.30 in the morning.

It made me happy though, because I thought I’d made a real mess of them, but she clearly didn’t think so! They were Converse, with a comic book print and white toes. I decided they would look better with black toes, so I coloured them in with permanent marker, leaving a star shape on one toe and writing “Pow!” inside. “How witty I am!” I thought to myself, and then realised I’d just hashed up a perfectly good pair of sneakers. Sigh.

It’s not the first time something like that has happened either – my friend customised a t-shirt and later donated it to the Tottenham branch of Sense, then I found it in the Hackney branch. I not sure whether this ‘small world’ business is comforting or depressing. Maybe a little bit of both.

In other news: I saw a bumblebee! From the top deck of a bus. It made me realise how seldom I see the fluffy little dears these days, and I made a mental note to stop mocking The Independent for devoting its cover to “The plight of the bumblebee“. Surely there’s some good bee-PR to be had from Harry Potter? That’s where ‘dumbledore‘ comes from after all.

2
comments

Posted in Bow, Craft, Leytonstone, Random

Jun 04

Rainy roof flowers

These amazing gutter flowers make me happy :-) Anyone know what they are? I thought they were foxgloves at first, but on closer inspection they look like something approaching a snapdragon. It seems very poetic, to see beauty striving through neglect, even in somewhere proper skanky like Thatched House.

2
comments

Posted in Random

May 30

But why is he so frothy?

Wow. Keeping a blog going is much harder without regular internet access – guess I should have seen that one coming. It’s not just not having free time online to write, it’s also the fact that, frankly, I haven’t been getting out much lately.

So, I was planning to just let my current obsession spill over and stick up some pictures of my new flat (here, and here, since you ask!) But then I happened to visit the bizarre and rather awesome website of Stratford’s Mr Coffee, who, it turns out, is a bit of an East London institution, (aside from a rogue vehicle in Paddington).

For those not in the know, Mr Coffee (Strapline: He’s so frothy!) is a chain of mobile cafes each operating out of the back of a ‘cute little Piaggio’. I am big fan of the one in Stratford at least, because the people are friendly and the coffee is cheap and really tasty. Also he’s SO frothy! How could you resist?

Anyway, on the website all your burning questions will be answered:

‘Who is Mr Coffee?’

‘Why is he so frothy?!’

and my personal favourite:

‘Where can I find him? I must have him now!‘

There is a video of interviews with Mr Coffee regulars from around London (not Stratford, sadly!) Also don’t miss the animated site intro which demonstrates I don’t know what exactly. The problem of over-crowding in London? The futility of our efforts to make change in the face of universal indifference? And is that Mr Coffee swerving onto the pavement to avoid a bus? Hm.

Apologies for continuing disruptions to Sajarina service. I’m hopefully off to the East London Craft Guerrilla market in Walthamstow tomorrow, so I’ll have something to write about. And internet in the next week or so so I will be able to share it with you all. Until then – ciao!

0
comments

Posted in Random, Stratford

« Older Entries