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.

• The Hearing Trumpet: Surrealism and Old Lady Revolt
• What Does Feminism Look Like?
• Why Are Trending Topic #Hashtags so Sexist?
• Reproductive Justice in the UK
• Battle Angel Alita and Cyborg Feminism

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.

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.

There were others, but they have been eaten already.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

Who’s this amiable fellow? It’s a half-sheep, half-goat from Spitalfields City Farm, which is hosting a Sheep and Wool Fayre on Sunday 8 June. I can be blasé about this kind of rural jiggery-pokery because I’ve seen it tons of times before, while I was growing up. One of my friends at primary school lived on a farm and used to help with the milking before school. Which is a 6am start, folks. Ouch. Still, who better than an 8 year old who will be waking up at that time anyway? Hm.

I like my faux-rural pursuits more on the gentle, consumerist, twee side – jumble sales, coffee mornings, that sort of thing. There was a super Christmas craft fayre at Toynbee Hall year before last which I only found because there was a note in biro stuck on the wall outside.

Anyway. Spitalfields City Farm is joyous, not just because it’s well, a *farm* in the *city* (the world’s gone topsy turvy!!) but because it is just a few steps away from the vintage slouch-boot trodden paths of Brick Lane, land of the trendy. Unlike the city farms in Beckton and Mudchute where you are dropped off by the DLR in places that look a bit like a budget version of the countryside, but which are actually huge parks, Spitalfields and Hackney farms are tucked away down side streets. I love being able to emerge again from such a street into the Sunday lunchtime throng with an air of superiority that doesn’t say ‘I’m so rocking my Lazy Oaf t-shirt today’ as much as ‘I’ve just been hanging out with a tiny pony. oh yeah.’

Also apologies for the lack of posts recently! Have now moved house, which I’m very happy about, but still lacking internet. Plus I’ve been off work so there have been no lunchtime cyberjaunts either. Back in tomorrow though so hopefully things will regularize. Thanks for sticking with me!