tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71052243603194918082024-02-19T13:09:47.494+00:00All Her Friends Thought Her GeniusThe Life and Times of Letty McHugh.Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-54277056451360118652017-04-14T14:44:00.000+01:002017-06-11T14:46:58.815+01:00The Neurology Appointment From Hell<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "courier new"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Lady Vanishes is based on the book </span><i><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none; color: #333333; font-family: "courier new"; padding: 0in;">The Wheel Spins</span></i><span style="font-family: "courier new"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: "courier new"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">by Ethel Lina White. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve never read it, to be honest with you, but I’ve seen both the film and the BBC mini-series based on the book. When I first watched the film in my early teens I loved it as a fun, far-fetched mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I watched the mini-series a few years ago I had a completely different experience. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second time around the Lady Vanishes had transformed and I found it horribly unsettling. I watched the mini-series on the edge of my seat with this panicky tightness in my chest.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "courier new"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For the unfamiliar, The Lady Vanishes tells the story of Iris, a young woman travelling alone across Europe by train. On her journey, Iris has an accident and is cared for by </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "courier new";">Miss Froy an older English lady who happens to be sharing Iris’ compartment.</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "courier new";"> </span><span style="font-family: "courier new"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When Iris wakes from a nap Miss Froy has (you guessed it) vanished. Iris raises the alarm, but all the other passengers deny ever seeing Miss Froy on the train. The book’s bad guys tell Iris that she imagined seeing Miss Froy. When Iris doesn’t accept their version of events the bad guys try to convince her and the other passengers she’s hysterical.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;">If only Iris had worn a slightly more massive hat<br />maybe it would’ve protected her head from that knock.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I think the reason my response to the story was so different on my second viewing had more to do with changes in me than the differences in the two retellings of The Lady Vanishes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I identified more strongly with Iris second time round and I imagine that’s partially why the story affected me more. Honestly, I think in the decade or so between viewings I’d learned how effectively an accusation of hysteria can be used to discredit and silence a young woman and so as in the story, I could easily imagine the accusation being used to silence me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "courier new"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I started thinking about The Lady Vanishes again the other week in the aftermath of this particularly horrible appointment with my new neurologist. I was in my bed unable to sleep reliving what I had said and what my Dr had said when it occurred to me that if I were Iris trying to convince a train full of people I was experiencing relapses and Dr X were an evil book bad guy telling that same train of the people I was hysterical the train would probably side with him. My arguments would be fatally undermined if I showed the slightest bit of emotion and his arguments would be eternally strengthened by his stethoscope.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">You probably need some context to help you fully appreciate the brilliant analogy I’m making. Let me back up a bit</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">The sequence of events that led me to Dr X’s office (that’s not his real name, by the way, I’m just calling him that to protect his identity and make him sound more like a comic book villain) started in December 2015 when I had this fun relapse that caused involuntary movements in my arms and legs. They were only small movements but at the worst point one of my limbs would set off on its own roughly every 30 seconds. The movements were also sudden so I would throw a fork across a restaurant or spill a drink down my shirt with no warning at all. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Studies show people are more likely to trust Doctors who carry stethoscopes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Even if those Doctors do happen to be arses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 12pt;">I visited my original neurologist, Dr P, in January 2016 and merrily twitched while he suggested I start thinking about disease modifying drug and after some administrative drama, I was referred to see the MS specialist, Dr T.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">While I was waiting for my appointment with <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr T I had and MRI scan and another relapse. This time affecting my sight and causing pain in my left eye. I saw an ophthalmologist who felt my symptoms were MS related and DR P prescribed me a short course of steroids. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>June 2016<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had an appointment with DR T <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I arrived at his office and found him friendly and reassuring. We talked about drugs, he recommended I start on disease modifying drugs but he stressed that which drug I chose was ultimately my decision. I told him which drugs I was interested in, Lemtrada or Tecfidera. DR T explained if I wanted to go for Lemtrada I would need referring to the hospital in the city, but he was happy to do so, they'd probably want to run tests make sure I was medically suitable and one of the city Dr’s would help me decided whether Lemtrada was the right drug for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">That’s how I ended up in Dr X’s office in the first week of October. I still wasn’t 100% sure Lemtrada was the drug for me but I wanted to fully understand all my options, and I was glad to finally be meeting the Dr who would help me make what I considered to be my decision. That glaring error is one of the first things Dr X set out to correct when I arrived in the office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was very careful to make clear that which drugs I would be taking would be his decision, that is if he decided I should have any drugs at all. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“I hold all the cards,” he said, “and I might choose to show some to you and the others I’ll keep in my top pocket.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later in the appointment, he lamented the existence of people like me who ‘See these new drugs on television and read about them in newspapers and want them for themselves’ if it were up to him, he told me I wouldn’t even know Lemtrada existed.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />If it were up to Dr X this is how all his patients would learn about drugs</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 12pt;">Early in what quickly became the appointment from hell, Dr X had me recount my entire patient history. When I finished Dr X told me bluntly that he ‘Didn’t like my story’ when it came to the relapses I had experienced in 2016.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 12pt;">He told me the symptoms that affected my eye were ‘unexplainable’ and he recommended I saw a neuropsychologist to explore them. In Dr X’s professional opinion, I didn’t qualify for any disease modifying drugs. The best thing I could do at this stage would be ‘Sit tight and wait’, presumably until I started experiencing more serious symptoms.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">That’s how I ended up in bed, wide awake at 2 am wondering if Dr X would be able to discredit me the way the book bad guys discredited Iris in The Lady Vanishes. Dr X’s accusation that I was hysterical and somehow conjuring my own symptoms was thinly veiled, but if you had been in the room with me you’d agree his implication was clear. That night I worried his words were going to infect my medical records. I worried no doctor would ever believe in me again. I worried Dr X would somehow have me undiagnosed and I’d be left to deal with my illness completely alone. Realistically the symptoms of MS are difficult to corroborate to anyone who isn’t experiencing them. Especially early in the illness when most symptoms are invisible to an external observer. How do you prove fatigue, or bright lightning like flashes every time you move your eyes? Once you start casting doubt even the loss of feeling in my left leg that led to my diagnosis seems suspect.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> I talked myself down from that mental ledge by recounting the long list of MS Nurses, Neurologist, Ophthalmologists other varied medical professionals who have observed my illness and never doubted my words. I Also remembered the 4 MRI’s I’ve had which are surely indisputable evidence. After my fear subsided and was replaced by a glorious white hot rage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> Irrationally the thing that really got me mad was the statement ‘I don’t like your story’. Not because he doubted my symptoms which I now felt I could prove if I needed to but because I tell a bloody good story. If I was going to make up a story about MS it would’ve an excellent, it would be well researched and compelling and I guarantee you Dr X would have believed every single word of it and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of hearing it. But I didn’t make up a story, I went into his office and told the unadulterated, unexaggerated truth without adding a single joke, which is a thing I hate to do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">When I look back on my appointment from hell now the thing that comforts me is the knowledge that I did at least fight against Dr X. I argued with him for good 20 minutes until he agreed that in exchange for me leaving he would look over my scans and records before ringing me back the nest week with his final decision. This concession gave me valuable time to figure out how best to circumnavigate Dr X completely.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">All good horror stories should have a hero, and the hero of this one turned out to be Dr T, my original MS specialist who had never discharged me as a patient. When Dr X started behaving like a megalomaniac, I thought of Dr T’s kind friendly manner, his promise that I had the finally say on which DMD I started and his promise that I could always phone and I could ask to go back to him if I changed my mind about the Lemtrada.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Dr X phoned me the next week he told me he had discussed my case with a colleague and decided ‘To give me the benefit of the doubt’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had looked at my MRI and because it showed disease activity he was prepared to recommend I started any drug other than Lemtrada. I have to admit if that it felt really good to be able to say I had decided not to work with him in response. I didn’t exactly say ‘What do you think is entirely irrelevant you megalomaniac’ I thought it really loudly through our entire conversation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I was fortunate, I had another option and could go back to working with Dr T, I don’t know how may people have a choice.</span></div>
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-23494991695706324442017-01-10T14:47:00.000+00:002017-06-11T14:48:18.353+01:00Thoughts From Inside an MRI Machine<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6lA3uZiT8RPkWGta8G5S4EjJrsxe0Oh513_rVpAcogCOkGIijvzjESm3l0HKXQGCcbN9D5HZEWjFPIAGIubQsnRnN3HoJZbxmddx6WKxTSlswPx2c8Bv3JHQxfVb503QIjK-uFsiBmWs/s400/IMG_3191.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">If I’d realised in advance I was going to be in a hospital gown with just my legs and feet visible for this length of time I probably would have worn matching socks. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">If I’d realised in advance I was going to be in a hospital gown with just my legs and feet visible for this length of time I definitely would have shaved my legs. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I really shouldn’t think about anything too weird while they are taking photographs of my brain. I wonder what the weirdest thing they’ve ever caught anyone thinking is. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">[a short while later]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Wait, that’s probably not how MRI’s work, they probably can’t tell what I’m thinking about. I hope they don’t think I’m an idiot for thinking that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I’m actually quite glad that this MRI machine doesn’t have one of those periscope things like the last two MRI machines I was in. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Having an MRI is just like space travel with all the noises and science that I don’t understand and stuff. I guess an MRI is better than space travel because you are less likely to crash and die. On the other hand, I guess an MRI is worse than space travel because when you climb out of your capsule instead of being in space you are in a hospital in Bradford.</span>Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-28554714068536425542016-12-31T14:43:00.000+00:002017-06-11T14:43:50.735+01:00Croquembouche<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGjFHg4BFtDS_RZIAWdENx4_NQI_Lna2DPxBLFnAarzG-HbSPdbXLRdJ3GRDpbY5KEhg27E2ITVhTzI6cwdan0Urd-w45gBCqP9MtrSsZFUHA1t04IHm2R0uIjElkvwGjJqE3aL1gBqRk/s1600/Croquembouche.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGjFHg4BFtDS_RZIAWdENx4_NQI_Lna2DPxBLFnAarzG-HbSPdbXLRdJ3GRDpbY5KEhg27E2ITVhTzI6cwdan0Urd-w45gBCqP9MtrSsZFUHA1t04IHm2R0uIjElkvwGjJqE3aL1gBqRk/s400/Croquembouche.jpeg" width="305" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I’ve decided that this New Year’s Eve I’m going to make Croquembouche (one of those mad towers of profiteroles) for the pudding at my Mum’s annual New Years food and cocktail thing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I usually do the pudding for the New Years thing. Last year I made Lemon Posset and Shortbread, only I was having an MS relapse that caused frequent involuntary movements in my arms and legs. I was getting my Shortbread out of the oven when my arm pulled back towards me, I dropped the Shortbread and it smashed all over the floor. </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Sometimes MS is a gigantic pain in the arse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">In November 2015 I bought a cake recipe book about making choux pastry and decided that amongst other things, I was going to use 2016 to become a choux pastry Bad Ass. By 2017 choux pastry was going to be totally my thing “Oh sure, I know Letty McHugh,” the people of 2017 would say “she makes profiteroles for breakfast”. As it turned out 2016 had other plans. It’s been a hard and weird year for a lot of people, what with Brexit and Trump and the Bake Off moving to Channel 4. I had 3 relapses and a laborious and boring fight to get the DMD’s I was first recommended in January. I think I made profiteroles once.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I don’t regret the last year even though it didn’t turn out how I expected it to. I found out that I’m a different kind of Bad Ass. The kind of Bad Ass who makes serious grown up phone calls and out manoeuvres stroppy receptionists. After 2016 I know I can rely on myself to fight my own corner if I need to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I had a phone call this week to confirm I’ll be starting Tecfidera at some point in the next 3 weeks. I’ll be so relieved to get hold of them and get on with my life, but I’d like this year to be about something more than my chronic illness and the admin that goes with it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">So on New Year’s Eve I, Letty McHugh, am going to make a mad tower of choux pastry and spun sugar, and the people of 2017 will be able to say that I can make profiteroles for breakfast. </span></div>
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-45758845472611685392016-12-23T18:24:00.003+00:002016-12-23T18:48:52.777+00:00Things I Have in Common With This Christmas Bear<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRke-9wIdqRaD9XNvE3bGzTMBDKn5HMinu6w4_4MTpruiNPI5kevQ-NC05I3Hdq7aKtLQwxso6bmjtnKH2wv6xAbuBksYxRojdebxPVzqtTjAkYjxQrw0HGdJ8t3uTo7EOv-3zEWAj3D7a/s1600/Christmasbear.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRke-9wIdqRaD9XNvE3bGzTMBDKn5HMinu6w4_4MTpruiNPI5kevQ-NC05I3Hdq7aKtLQwxso6bmjtnKH2wv6xAbuBksYxRojdebxPVzqtTjAkYjxQrw0HGdJ8t3uTo7EOv-3zEWAj3D7a/s400/Christmasbear.jpg" width="390" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />We are very alike, You probably can't even tell <br />which one of us this is a photo of.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">We both love Christmas </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We both have killer fashion sense (We go to the same hat shop) </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We are both essentially enthusiasts in an age of cynics. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Nobody knows where either of us came from, we both just appeared as if by magic after a fan fair played. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We both simply could stay with Dean Martin in 'Baby it's Cold Outside'</span></span><br />
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></span> <span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We both spend most of the year asleep in a box in my mum's attic.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We are both made of the same constituent parts (Mystery and ribbons), although they are arranged into different formations. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We pull the exact same face when we are waiting for you to react to our jokes. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Neither of us believes that rugby union even exists (where’s the proof? We’d both like proof) </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Neither of us is any good at wrapping presents (he’s worse than me in fairness, he has no fingers) </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We are both chronic exaggerators, but if you point it out in company we will both cut you. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We are both exhausted by the constant effort it takes not to point out our own fabulousness. We’d both appreciate it if you could point it out on our behalf. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Our walk is so similar it’s uncanny, although I obviously have a longer stride on account of me being like 12 feet taller. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Neither of us really understand maths or measurements, but honestly, we don’t really need to – we can both get by on our good looks and sparkling personalities. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We were both clearly born to head up a huge parade, with a marching band and elephants and everything but no-one ever asks us and we both think it’s starting to get beyond a joke. Honestly you’ve had 25 years and we’ve just been sitting here, ready and waiting. </span></span></div>
Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-27029685011151296672016-10-06T14:48:00.000+01:002017-06-11T14:50:13.956+01:00Sad Piano Music<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Hi, I’m Letty and I’m a closet Radio 4 listener. I got into it when I was at Uni and I used to stay up nights making poorly thought out Conceptual Art and listening to The World Service.</div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I started listening to Today in Parliament because I love my current affairs and things just spiralled out of control. Eventually, I became the sort of person who joins conversations by saying “Yeah I heard about something like this on You and Yours”.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When it comes to Radio 4 my first love is Woman’s Hour; I listen most mornings with my cup of tea. I wrote an essay on interview techniques for my MA titled “What would Jenni Murray Do?”. Generally speaking, my love for Woman’s Hour is wholehearted and uncritical but I do have two small complaints to make.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">My first complaint is that they never have me as a guest even though I’m clearly Woman’s Hour material. I’m hilarious, I’m a feminist, I made a huge interactive project about the value of women’s labour and I could be in Salford in under two hours. I’ve emailed them so many times it’s getting ridiculous.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">My other complaint is the way they talk about MS. My years of listening to the show overlap almost entirely with my years of knowing I have MS so it’s obviously a topic I’ve been hyper-sensitive to. It bothers me that the illness is reported almost exclusively as a tragedy. Guests will be introduced as “A writer whose early life was tinged with tragedy when her mother died of MS.” (MS isn’t a terminal illness, for more info on that see my future epitaph). Or We’ll hear about some past tense prodigy “…whose career was tragically cut short when she developed MS and her arms fell off”. (This may not be an exact quote.)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A little while ago Woman’s Hour ran a series of interviews with women who’ve used creativity to help them through hard times. We heard from a songwriter with cancer, a textile artist with chronic fatigue, you get the idea. The last interview was with a poet with Multiple Sclerosis and I tuned in thinking “Oh good, a rare opportunity to hear a first-hand account MS in the mainstream media”. I got a sinking feeling in my chest when the poet was described as ‘bed-bound’ in the introduction and switched the radio off when I heard the interview had been intercut with sections of sad piano music.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The addition of sad piano music turns the feature from an honest conversation on living with limitations into something else entirely. You add sad piano music and suddenly it’s a tear jerker, it’s misery porn, it’s every depiction of life with MS I’ve ever seen in the mainstream media. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is a woman sat in her bedroom, she looks pale and she is alone, the colours are muted, the sounds are soft. This woman is sick, she is in pain, but still, she whittles miniature poodles. Hearing the poignant story of this brave poodle whittling woman, listeners feel both grateful not to be her and inspired to live a better life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">Maybe poodle <span style="text-align: justify;">whittling</span> could be the next trendy hobby?<br />Like adult colouring only dog shaped. </span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’m being unfair, blaming that one episode of Woman’s Hour for five years’ worth of feelings. The truth is I’m sure the interview they did with the poet was respectful and well-intentioned. I’m sure it was an accurate portrayal of her life and her illness, but it wasn’t an accurate portrayal of me and just one time I wish something would be.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Whenever I see that MS is back in the media my heart sinks because whatever gets said will colour people’s understanding of what it means to live with this illness. Every time there’s some sensationalist report about a new ‘cure’ for MS I get asked if I’m going to try it. At least three people that I sort of know think I’m on a waiting list for that experimental treatment off of Panorama because I ran into them the week after it aired and by then I was too tired of the topic to correct them.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sometimes when I’m talking to someone and they know I have MS I can just hear the sad piano music playing in their heads. Those people don’t use me to colour their understanding of what it is to have MS, they use a Soap story line about assisted suicide to colour their understanding of me.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It’s so important that we fix our depictions of MS because the way people talk about this illness and what they understand about it has such a huge impact on the lives of the people who live with it.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Now That's What I Call MS Music</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I want to stop wading through a quagmire of misconceptions every time I have a conversation with a casual acquaintance. I don’t want anyone newly diagnosed to think the rest of their lives will be a tragedy with a soundtrack of sad piano music. I want them to know that they can have a life like mine, a happy one accompanied by wall to wall disco hits.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Accurate depictions of MS are unendingly complicated, it’s such a changeable illness and no two cases are alike, but we could start by telling every story with that caveat. And then follow up by telling stories from a wider range of sources.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I would forgive Woman’s Hour’s transgression in a heartbeat if they played an interview with a young, active MS haver intercut with ABBA. Maybe they could go for a twenty-five-year-old with a super cool asymmetric- bob, that could be in Salford in less than two hours? I have it on good authority that just such a person is waiting by the phone.</span></div>
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-39159050387971766192016-09-20T02:00:00.000+01:002016-09-23T22:21:09.687+01:00Am I a Grown Up Yet?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When I started my MA I had a conversation with another student who was in her early 30’s. I was complaining that I didn’t feel like a grown up yet, and I was starting to wonder if I ever really would. Worse still I suspected everyone else could tell I wasn’t a real grown up, like I was wandering around with a neon sign over my head advertising it. “Oh Letty” the other student said trying to reassure me “The world doesn’t neatly divide into who’s grown up and who’s not.” And I thought “Obviously you would say that you are firmly entrenched on the right side of the dividing line.” It’s been the best part of three years since I had that conversation and I’m still not sure which side of the line I’d come down on. Let’s consider the evidence.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzrs9UygczfkP4BVGwioS8871qcrzaZw1VeWQOuczoWapInZYAfcL4ym82cf3WXCgqfRlyIw_56fEziwssvC0AoPonzAfVBtuwasJFjq4Px-ve2jlY7Xcq40YkksqF6vhH-ipO_Na4lJUM/s1600/Photo+on+19-09-2016+at+14.27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzrs9UygczfkP4BVGwioS8871qcrzaZw1VeWQOuczoWapInZYAfcL4ym82cf3WXCgqfRlyIw_56fEziwssvC0AoPonzAfVBtuwasJFjq4Px-ve2jlY7Xcq40YkksqF6vhH-ipO_Na4lJUM/s320/Photo+on+19-09-2016+at+14.27.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />Could a not grown up grow such an impressive girl beard? <br />I think not.</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Grown Up:</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When I was staying on a residential course in July I stayed in the Halls of Residence on a University campus. One night a bonafide student came to the door selling wristbands to get three vodka shots for a pound at a local club. I sure felt like a grown up when I opened the door already in my pyjamas and said: “No thank you, children, I do not want to come drinking vodka with you on a Tuesday night.”</span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Not Grown Up:</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Recently I found out that Super-Hero Barbie exists and there is no part of me that doesn’t want one. Her cape turns into a dress and her eye mask turns into a crown and she is just the coolest thing in all time history.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Grown Up:</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">As mentioned in <a href="http://lettymchugh.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/crimes-against-plants.html" target="_blank">this post</a> I have recently turned round my gardening fortunes and have been successfully rearing plants. What’s more adult than keeping something alive when its existence depends on you?</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkeZWGCIwuCrMN3IevSgFbGI4MQVbLdONWdfEjxjYlgG11JPxjq9SnoAQvgVIs6Sd1_K8HyIzI8d_PefzedoZzUkJixIGImgIvdayRApnmnYgKLsYNTkdyQ12r1_Z9OMe_g4uWUqV9GCmv/s1600/IMG_3225.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkeZWGCIwuCrMN3IevSgFbGI4MQVbLdONWdfEjxjYlgG11JPxjq9SnoAQvgVIs6Sd1_K8HyIzI8d_PefzedoZzUkJixIGImgIvdayRApnmnYgKLsYNTkdyQ12r1_Z9OMe_g4uWUqV9GCmv/s320/IMG_3225.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />Looking good, cactus at the back.</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Not Grown Up:</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Full Disclosure – I did kill one of my cacti last week. I came into my studio after an absence and my mini cactus had gone brown and imploded. To compound the issue, I went on this cacti forum to see if anything could be done to save it and the expert said that my cactus was the worst potted plant she had ever seen. The cactus was too far down in the pot and had slowly suffocated which seems like an awful way to go.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Grown Up:</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I have spent a lot of the last year on the phone to the NHS and as a result, I’m now mastering the art of making official phone calls. I have my details to hand, I tell people I want to speak to someone who CAN help me, in short, I make things happen and it’s glorious.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrgaJkZfqjFqMpJl3e73aUqVdbwWje8mGYjEUsESWij0rYvThL7sAPFJtfoVGXUhCtTEvuNvGFFZeHalHqXZIBdpx3_PuPc-2H01Doq9l2rvItNKg1St5uKnPQtqiNAElfSaW1jS1G3RZ/s1600/IMG_1576.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrgaJkZfqjFqMpJl3e73aUqVdbwWje8mGYjEUsESWij0rYvThL7sAPFJtfoVGXUhCtTEvuNvGFFZeHalHqXZIBdpx3_PuPc-2H01Doq9l2rvItNKg1St5uKnPQtqiNAElfSaW1jS1G3RZ/s320/IMG_1576.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />You'd probably be better off talking to my brother about this.</span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Not Grown Up:</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I am the youngest of three children and as such I will always be playing catch up in the grown up stakes. Also, I’m not sure if I’ll ever shake off that Pavlovian part of me that thinks, “Last time I counted I had two older brothers who would be better equipped to deal with this situation than me.” In my heart I will always and forever be the smallest Billy-Goat-Gruff. </span></span></div>
Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-29013579666477701012016-08-30T19:38:00.001+01:002016-09-21T18:00:11.906+01:00Olympic Sports That I Could Win a Medal in if Only They Were Real Olympic Sports<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The Summer Olympics are over for another year and I’m left wondering how I filled my days before I dedicated them entirely to watching obscure sports. What did I do before I knew the rules of canoe slalom and modern pentathlon? Work? Sounds boring. I also can’t help but notice that another Olympics has come and gone without me getting a medal. Which seems unfair given how badly I want one and how little I do in order to get one. I’m determined to come home from Tokyo 2020 with a gold medal in something, so between now and then I’ll be petitioning The IOC to make these things into sports.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Slow Blogging</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I looked up the manifesto of the slow Blogging Movement the other week on the off chance I would finally find my people. Turns out I’m already slower than all the slow bloggers. The manifesto I found recommended slowing to once a week, so with my loose schedule of once a month I already have the competition beat. I could go slower if I thought there was a gold in it. Once a year? Once a decade? How slow could a blog be without being technically abandoned? I guess that’s the sort of thing the IOC iron out.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">This is a drawing of a lion I did on the beach</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I probably wouldn't get a medal for drawing on the beach.</span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Leaving Hesitant Answer Phone Messages.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I don’t mean to brag but I think I easily leave the most hesitant answer phone messages. This is because I’m always surprised by the beep and I’ve never put any thought into what I’m saying.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">“Umm… Hello… this is Letty McHugh… I uhhh… I’m leaving a message for…Umm… Dr …Smith? It’s about the MS that I have?... So… yeah if they could ring me back on….Umm… Yeah on my number I guess… Thanks.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">If bedroom dancing were an Olympic <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sport I already have a routine to Abba’s Fernando that I would be confident on qualifying with. My dilemma would be whether to put in the one to accompany Boney M’s Ra Ra Rasputin, where I lay on the bed and pretend to be a Cossack dancer. It would have a high difficulty value, but I’d worry that I’d lose marks on execution. Still, I’ve got 4 years to practise right?</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />Medal table of the future<br />I'm coming for you, Phelps.</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Since I had that relapse in January that caused involuntary movement in my hands I have thrown many a fork across many a room and I have to say I can get some impressive distance on those things. I think this would be my weakest event because accuracy has always been an issue. Also, I’m pretty much recovered from that relapse now so my fork throwing days may be behind me.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">If any of these events are approved for 2020 I’m pretty sure I’ll come home with an impressive medal haul, and if not my one-woman campaign to have fork throwing recognised as a sport will at least keep me busy until the Paralympics starts.</span></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span></div>
Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-29563894193228315602016-06-29T22:53:00.000+01:002016-09-21T18:02:59.513+01:00Times I've Been Wrong<div style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Oh hey post-Brexit people, what are we all up to? If like me you were an IN voter you’ve probably been crying, listening to Abba and waiting for the end times. I thought it was an awful idea for Britain to leave the EU, but (and the next part of this sentence might shock you) I’ve been wrong about things before. In an effort to make us all feel better I've assembled a handy list of some of those times. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">1. </span><span lang="EN-GB">When I was in my third year of Uni and I thought we had mice.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I’ve looked at nature book since then and I’m now 90% sure that the small furry creatures that infested our house were, in fact, rats. Okay so that was a time when I was wrong but the reality was worse. MY BAD. Let me try again.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx3aQooQkFKLPOHVvmUDgQNJW0ut4P-TOIZ1K2Rdsu0EBQ-qWGQ9VdTzcoBR_IZEe9JiMKqASIS3xh63jOMBsNGqIPmDvgbUz3prqjY5SlgEXKw9841z8tPRgTXP5X1ioDbbfqJ7YgiaPP/s1600/beeeeessss.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx3aQooQkFKLPOHVvmUDgQNJW0ut4P-TOIZ1K2Rdsu0EBQ-qWGQ9VdTzcoBR_IZEe9JiMKqASIS3xh63jOMBsNGqIPmDvgbUz3prqjY5SlgEXKw9841z8tPRgTXP5X1ioDbbfqJ7YgiaPP/s400/beeeeessss.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />Oh, sorry were you expecting an illustration related to the topic of the blog?<br />Well, it was E.U. regulations that said I had to draw things on topic and we're post Brexit now.</span> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">When I was in third year of Uni and I thought I had a trapped nerve</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One cold day in February 2012 I woke up and I had lost all feeling in my left leg. ‘That’s weird’ I thought ‘I must have a trapped nerve’. A week later I went into hospital for a brain scan and (this is the funny thing) it turned out I had Multiple Sclerosis. Yeah, sorry, that’s probably also a bad example. I promise this next one will be good.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span lang="EN-GB"><b>3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></b></span><span lang="EN-GB"><b>When I thought only male goats have beards</b>.</span></span><br />
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As it turns out, all goats have beards. I don’t know who told me that lady goats don’t have beards, or why I believed them until I was twenty-one. Most likely it was the patriarchy pushing limiting gender roles like always. Those guys are the worst. </div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>4. That time I thought I’d discovered the world's most brilliant necklace.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">About a year ago I thought I had discovered this brilliant necklace. I saw it on the Tatty Devine site and fell completely in love because it was stylish and a little bit ironic and I wanted it so badly. The necklace I loved was made up of chunky pink letters that read ‘Your Name Here’. Only it obviously wasn’t real, it was the sample image from the customised name necklace page. I did think about just making one that said ‘Your Text Here’, but it just didn’t feel the same somehow.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Every time I’ve ever measured anything.</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The time I measured the space for some drawers in inches and the site I ordered them from measured them in centimetres and I insisted they delivered them to my house. The shop was only round the corner, the drawers were 41 centimetres high and I still tried to fit a pair of jeans in them. The time I was going to silversmithing classes and I needed 30 centimetres of silver but I somehow ordered 0.30 centimetres of silver. I tried to style it out by claiming I had ‘Wanted to test the quality’ and never went back to the class. The time I ordered my mum an A5 safari colouring book to go in her stocking at Christmas but it turned out to be an A0 colouring poster. I wasn’t even tipped off by the fact I’d ordered it from The Really Giant Poster Company. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Every time I tried to spell any words.</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Isn’t it weird’ I proclaim to a room full of people, drunk on the brilliance of the observation I’m about to make ‘That the word Colonel has a G in it?’</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">‘Isn’t it weird’ I say later that same night, undeterred by the failure of my earlier observation ‘that you spell cogs with only one g but clogs has two?’ </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">That poor bear, all he wanted was to be my friend. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">ALL HE WANTED WAS TO BE MY FRIEND. </span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">7.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">That time I thought I was being attacked by a tiny bear.</span></b></span><br />
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-8702455666203703342016-05-30T14:38:00.000+01:002016-09-21T18:06:34.695+01:00The Brontë Sisters Come To Modern Haworth
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span lang="EN-GB">The </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Brontë</span><span lang="EN-GB">s and I have so much in common. We all grew up in Brontë country, although when they were growing up it was just called Haworth and the surrounding area. We are all women. We are all sisters, although admittedly they were sisters to each other and I am a sister to entirely unrelated people 200 years later. We are all writers, them of ground-breaking literature, me of a blog post about a dolphin winning the Chelsea Flower Show. I know this isn’t a long list. But I figure since we are the same in all ways that matter, it’s enough for me to know exactly what the Brontë sisters would think about everything in modern Haworth.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />'Where were you 200 years ago when I needed you?' Cried Charlotte. </span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I recently got stranded in Manchester, when the last train was cancelled. This is a problem because I don’t have Uber and Brontë Taxis is the only taxi number I know. But would you believe they came all the way to Manchester to pick me up? Obviously you believe that, they are a taxi company who were charging me money, it would be weird if they said no. The point I am trying to make is: the Brontë sisters would have gone bananas for Brontë taxis. Especially considering the fuss every Brontë<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>biography I’ve ever read has made them moving to Haworth from Thornton. You can literally see parts of Haworth from Thornton, I guarantee you could get there in a taxi for under a tenner.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />It's hard to draw steampunk Emily without her just looking like regular Emily.<br />I think this says more about her steampunk credentials than my ability to draw cogs. </span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Okay, let’s collectively take a second to imagine that Bertha Rochester didn’t set fire to Thornfield, but instead destroyed it using a steam-powered ray gun. Obviously the Brontë sisters would have been all over the Steam Punk Weekend, it’s the Gothic Romance Weekend of our era.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span lang="EN-GB">When I wrote about Haworth for a uni assignment my tutor thought that I made the Brontë Balti up. But it’s totally real and if you are going to order from there I’d recommend Brontë</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> Naga Balti</span><span lang="EN-GB">. I wouldn’t recommend that for the sisters though, because everything I’ve read about them says they only liked plain food. So I guess they’d get a korma if they were getting anything at all. To be honest I’m not sure if the Brontë Balti would be the sisters’ scene. I imagine Branwell would go mad for it though. We all know that a curry is the perfect end to a hard night of drinking.</span></span><b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Admittedly the vehicles of this weekend didn’t exist until ages after the sisters were alive, so they may find the vintage tag a little confusing. I still reckon Anne would at least have been into it. This weekend is mostly about tractors and she did make a farmer the romantic lead in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tenant of Wildfell Hall </i>Imagine how much more time for romance Gilbert Markham would have had in a world of mechanised farm equipment.</span></span></div>
Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-50519027130571334492016-04-30T12:16:00.000+01:002016-09-21T18:10:13.146+01:00The Pinnacle of My Artistic Career <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Every year writers all over the world take part in National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo and try to turn off their inner filter and write 50,000 words in the month of November. The idea is to push yourself to get a first draft finished without editing and I know a lot of people who have found the process really useful for pushing through writer's block or building up discipline. Because NaNoWriMo is a cool thing and has helped people I know every few years I forget that it is an awful idea for me personally to take part. I am posting this extract from my most recent attempt to remind me and everyone around me that I should never be allowed to take part again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Days like today are the ones where I wish I hadn’t signed up for NaNoWriMo, 1667 is a lot of words to write every day. It’s only day two. I’ve only written twenty-five so far, but they quickly add up right? To be honest I’m tempted to include a Facebook post I just did to my WriMo writers group. This is the upside of not writing a novel, everything single word I write counts. The idea for me at the moment is just to build up some discipline. I just want to get back into the habit of writing more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve written 100 words now; it’s taken just over 10 minutes. I only have to do this ten more times and I’m past half way for the day. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />One day my web of lies will unravel like the protective coating on this window <br />at the Tate Liverpool which I apparently took a picture of one time. </span> </td></tr>
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<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">“Oh man, I've had a hell of a hard day. It's 10:30 pm where I am and I only just got in from my last meeting. I haven't written a word yet, I'm just gonna try and get as many words as I can by midnight. Wish me luck!” </span><span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> That’s the Facebook post. I decided to include it. I think I’m going to look at my words for the day as a “True story of a person doing NaNoWrioMo” thing. When I am successful (as in when I get to 50,000 words) I will post today’s writing on my blog, you know, for prosperity. (I’m over two hundred and fifty words now. I’ve been going for under twenty minutes)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="background: white; color: #141823;">I’m writing this like I think it’s rubbish. But the truth is I think it’s sort of brilliant. I decided about 100 words in that the joke was that this is rubbish, but the truth is I think it’s probably hilarious. If I didn’t think this was hilarious and something I will end up putting it on the blog I would have stopped writing this forever ago. I am not one of those people who see writing as having some kind of intrinsic value. I would not write anything if I thought no one was ever going to read it. Writing is not it’s own reward, I write so people will think I’m clever and funny and brilliant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />They will probably use something like this as the cover of my biography.<br />People will probably find me mysterious and esoteric by then.</span> </td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I have to be honest, at this point in article (Hahah, that was the most liberal application of the word article in history.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m thinking this is more likely to be read by my future biographers than anyone on my blog. (actually, that’s a double bluff. I put that line in because I thought it would be funnier as a blog post if my readers didn’t think this whole thing was the calculated charade that it is.)(Or maybe that’s a triple bluff, so my future biographers don’t think I’m an arrogant bastard constantly thinking about my future biographers.) </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I’m an hour in and I feel like I’m running out of steam a little. That last paragraph was mostly bracketed and it got a little bit weird. I still think this is probably just about readable. That’s what I aspire to on my blog, just about readable. This paragraph is the true bluff. I’m pretending I don’t think I’m good so that my future biographers will think I’m humble. I know this is still hilarious gold, but if I put myself down a little my future biographers will think this is my worst writing and then think I’m even more brilliant than I actually am. In truth, I am a vigorous self-editor. I will only preserve the writing I think is good for prosperity, all the bad writing will be ruthlessly destroyed. My future biographers will never know I had so much as an off day. Obviously that’s a joke, I never do any bad writing. It’s all gold. Shakespeare’s best day can’t touch me pulling it out of my arse. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />This is a drawing I did of an arse taking a selfie which is no way related <br />but it has been really hard to find images for this post so you can back off.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Okay, let's be real. A lot of this is terrible (wink face) and will never see the light of day (obviously a lie you are reading it now) but parts of it are probably usable and more importantly than that I have laughed at my own jokes the entire time I’ve been writing and one hour and seventeen minutes in I’ve passed the thousand word mark. I’m one thousand one hundred and seventy-seven words in. (here is another NaNoWriMo tip, the bigger the number your word count is, the more words you can add to your word count by typing it in words not numbers which really comes in handy when you hit the thousands because you are probably running out of things to say) (just kidding, I could never run out of things to say).</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span> </div>
Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-38287754128844678572016-03-29T14:22:00.000+01:002016-04-11T14:23:00.449+01:00When You Play Barbie / Action Man Blind Date...<div class="MsoNormal">
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play Barbie / Action Man Blind Date obviously Buzz Lightyear is Cilla Black
because he is the only toy in the toy box with a sufficient amount of gravitas
to fill the role. Generally speaking, Horse Riding Barbie will get picked first
because she is the only woman to still have both of her shoes, which is what
Action Man looks for in a woman. Two shoes mean you are practical and you have
your life more or less in order, one shoe means you are at least trying, no shoes
and you may be lovely but you are so scattered you’d probably accidentally burn
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Glitter-princess Barbie usually gets picked last. She has those
weird plastic knickers that are permanently moulded to her body and cannot wear
trousers. Glitter-princess Barbie is widely accepted to be the inferior Barbie.
As a dating prospect GPB is even below that Barbie with one foot chewed off. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyUI_jqTf5ePyZAphNzwRm0IY24WLaMP5V1umgydIzBGsfe1MDGsrNvUsZ-CQdd7dnT-K7Sr4vBRN9WHQDMOloGZWTPYQ-x1KGL28NnIMbWMyidF6A857ZYtlqX3LA3B2S5og_rP-7i28L/s1600/Cilla+Lightyear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyUI_jqTf5ePyZAphNzwRm0IY24WLaMP5V1umgydIzBGsfe1MDGsrNvUsZ-CQdd7dnT-K7Sr4vBRN9WHQDMOloGZWTPYQ-x1KGL28NnIMbWMyidF6A857ZYtlqX3LA3B2S5og_rP-7i28L/s320/Cilla+Lightyear.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />To infinity and blind dates.</span> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When you play Barbie / Action Man Blind Date,
Action Man picks Barbie, never the other way round. This is because it is
virtually impossible to tell one Action Man apart from another Action Man, even
the Action Men’s own mothers would struggle, they all even have the same scar
from identical bar fights. There is that one Action Man with a switch on the
back of his head that makes his eyes move from side to side, but he is a shifty
creep and the Barbie’s refuse to participate if he’s going to be involved. No
one wants to date shifty eye action man, not even Glitter-princess Barbie. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When you play Barbie / Action Man Blind Date
and everyone is paired off, the Barbie’s and Action Men go on a pleasure cruise
to the luxury destination of the landing. Buzz Lightyear captains the ship
because he is multi talented. There are a lot of disagreements on the pleasure
cruise because people on Blind Date almost never get on and toys are no
exception. The highlight of the pleasure cruise is undoubtedly the bungee
jumping which takes place when the boat reaches the banister. Barbie and Action
Men get a once in a life time opportunity to be tied together with elastic and
thrown off the banister. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When you
play Barbie / Action Man Blind Date and tragedy strikes it is Buzz Lightyear's
unfortunate job to break the grim news to the rest of the toys. Horse Riding
Barbie and her generic Action Man partner have been killed in a bungee jumping
accident, murder is suspected, the Power Rangers have been called in to
investigate. No toy is to leave the boat or interfere with the scene of the
crime. Bungee jumping has been suspended until further notice. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgp1Mmhtnk-4ZzMYT6gVlc-jzhhbkiVuZDuJuXaqS__s-3oOE63pT-AnOrarLS69SfYDoY-QWHwTrw2eC0peMhAmkGHt0V-e0pk8ksDfgrBPg_0MS6xca7-JByCh1W7Px2zbeh1zgbzLh2/s1600/Captin+Lightyear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgp1Mmhtnk-4ZzMYT6gVlc-jzhhbkiVuZDuJuXaqS__s-3oOE63pT-AnOrarLS69SfYDoY-QWHwTrw2eC0peMhAmkGHt0V-e0pk8ksDfgrBPg_0MS6xca7-JByCh1W7Px2zbeh1zgbzLh2/s320/Captin+Lightyear.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />Captain Lightyear runs a very tight ship.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When you
play Barbie / Action Man Blind Date and the Power Rangers arrive they focus
their investigation on Skate Boarding Barbie, who stands to inherit Horse Riding
Barbie’s lands, stables and extensive shoe collection. The Power Rangers never
really consider Action Man's victimology; he is obviously to generic to have
any enemies. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When you
play Barbie/ Action Man Blind Date and it turns out skate boarding has an alibi
the Power Rangers look into glitter princess Barbie as a woman with pink
plastic knickers permanently moulded to her body could be capable of anything.
Things look bad for GPB when a witness reveals they overheard her saying she’d
kill Horse Riding Barbie to get her hands on those boots, but the Power Rangers
can’t find any compelling evidence linking her to the crime. After seventy -
two hours the Power Rangers are forced to release Glitter- princess Barbie without
charge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately for GPB, Buzz
Lightyear is also an excellent defence attorney. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When you
play Barbie / Action Man Blind Date all the toys are shocked to learn of
evidence suggesting the murder may have been targeting generic Action Man after
all. This is a twist not even Buzz Lightyear saw coming, and he also plays
Mystic Meg and can see the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When you
play Barbie / Action Man Blind Date the murderer is almost invariably the
shifty eyed Action Man who didn’t get an invite to the pleasure cruise. A life
time of standing out from the Action Man herd has left him twisted and lonely. Shifty
eyed Action Man breaks down when he testifies, all he ever wanted to do was fit
it and he killed generic Action Man to try and take his place, but once he got
back with the other Action Men he stuck out like a shifty eyed thumb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaAsw9NY6ebNBNYcX5vnujrMg5haEh7o3p-_Mwhi4zS-fo8rRG6tcMXTCko7HTt2K2LrUylltZP1XgybUDJ5LV-KyAUiwpcRgcrzMBwCiEGMwjHikInUkkPKGnGZFAEj7sSev8cZwZqUNa/s1600/judge+light+year+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaAsw9NY6ebNBNYcX5vnujrMg5haEh7o3p-_Mwhi4zS-fo8rRG6tcMXTCko7HTt2K2LrUylltZP1XgybUDJ5LV-KyAUiwpcRgcrzMBwCiEGMwjHikInUkkPKGnGZFAEj7sSev8cZwZqUNa/s320/judge+light+year+.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />Judge Lightyear lost his neck in a tragic justice related accident.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When you
play Barbie / Action Man Blind Date shifty eyed Action Man is convicted by a
jury of his peers with a unanimous guilty verdict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it comes to sentencing Judge Buzz
Lightyear shows leniency and allows shifty eyed Action Man to serve a life
sentence in a home for toys in need of rehabilitation instead of prison. Buzz
Lightyear is generally considered to be the most liberal judge on the circuit
and so no of the other toys are surprised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When you
play Barbie / Action Man Blind Date shifty eyed Action Man always squanders his
chance at rehabilitation by breaking out of the home for toys in need of
rehabilitation and returning to his life of crime. Despite his crocodile tears
for the jury, shifty eyed Action Man is shifty to the core and beyond
redemption. He will stop at nothing in his quest to be included in Barbie /Action
Man Blind Date. Shifty eyed Action Man must never be given that opportunity,
because his ultimate goal is not find love but to kill and replace Buzz
Lightyear as Cilla Black. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-53971177812557025452016-02-29T12:45:00.002+00:002016-09-21T18:21:58.369+01:00Reports of My Impending Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "courier";">Recently I wrote an article for Oh Comely Magazine for which the introduction mistakenly read ‘confronted with a terminal illness my first question was how to make it funny’. </span><span style="font-family: "courier";">I’m writing this blog post to emphasise that the word terminal really was used by mistake. I’m not terminally ill. I’ve never been terminally ill. I wasn’t diagnosed with a terminal illness in 2012 from which I’ve staged some kind of miraculous recovery. In 2012, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, which is a chronic illness, not a terminal one. I’m not going to die. Well, I mean, obviously I’m going to die, I’m not immortal. I will eventually die of something, but that something will most likely be falling off my clogs into oncoming traffic or in some other preposterous way that you will ultimately feel bad for laughing at when you see it on the local news. I may even eventually die of a terminal illness but that illness won’t be MS because, as I hope we have now established MS isn’t terminal.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">if you work for the local paper you can use this picture for the article <br />you will inevitably write titled 'Women dies in clog related accident'</span> </td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "courier";">Okay cool, now the ‘I’m not dying’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>segment of the blog post is out of the way we can move on to the other thing I wanted to emphasise is that the word terminal really was a mistake and an understandable one. It’s understandable because magazines are pretty hectic places. Somewhere between me submitting the article and the magazine going to print the word terminal was added. These things happen. It’s also understandable because generally speaking, people<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>don’t know a lot about MS. Often when I tell people about my chronic illness the thing people want to know is if it’s terminal. They don’t always <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>out and out ask, but they ask you with their eyes and the tilt of their heads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "courier";">MS is an illness that you often see portrayed inaccurately in soaps and sensationalist newspapers. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "courier";">If you aren’t a medical professional, or not intimately involved with MS, most of what you do know about it is probably mad nonsense; let’s establish a few basic facts:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "courier";"><b>Fact One:</b> MS stands for Multiple Sclerosis</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "courier";"><b>Fact Two:</b> There is more than one kind of MS,I have the sort called Relapsing/ Remitting ( the clue is in the name –the symptoms come and go)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "courier";"><b>Fact Three: </b>I am a 24-year-old arts graduate who tries embarrassingly hard to reference the Spice Girls in everything she writes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are probably much better places than my blog to go for hard facts on MS. Like <a href="https://www.mstrust.org.uk/understanding-ms/what-ms/introduction-ms?gclid=CJnmt_7_nMsCFesW0wodl3ELBA" target="_blank">The MS Trust</a> or <a href="https://www.mssociety.org.uk/what-is-ms" target="_blank">The MS Society</a><i style="text-decoration: underline;"></i></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">You were about to take life advice off this person.</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "courier";">I can tell you a little bit about what it is like to have MS, with the caveat that it affects everybody differently. My experience is by no means typical and (at the time of writing) my symptoms are at the mild end of the spectrum. Having MS is basically shitty. Nobody in the history of the world ever said “Oh good, I’ve got an incurable, unpredictable illness; that’s going to make my life immeasurably harder than it would have otherwise been. Still, at least it will keep me on my toes!”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "courier";">Having MS is frustrating and unfair. It changes the way you move and the way you think. It changes the decisions you make about your life, in the long and short term. Sometimes it’s funny; sometimes if you have Relapsing / Remitting and like me you are lucky, you can almost forget that you have it at all. </span><span style="font-family: "courier";">MS is part of your life forever, but it does not define you or fundamentally alter who you are. (Also just so we are super clear, it doesn’t kill you!). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier";">I’m the kind of person who makes hard things into jokes so that I can deal with them. </span><span style="font-family: "courier";">That’s why when I write about MS I generally make light of it. </span><span style="font-family: "courier";">Not everybody is going to want to do that. MS is a weird and wide-ranging illness. It affects everybody differently and everybody deals with it differently.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "courier";">I’m a big believer in using mistakes as an opportunity to learn. I hope that if you are reading this, you take the opportunity to obtain first- hand insight into MS, from a reputable source. You really would be doing a favour to every person who has it.</span></div>
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-19333623895211358352016-01-15T16:51:00.000+00:002016-09-21T18:25:57.032+01:00Crimes Against Plants.<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A lot of the time when I'm showing people around my studio and I gesture around, what I’m really saying is “Look at all these plants I haven’t killed.” I am obscenely proud of the fact that I haven’t killed my plants yet because I have a long dark history of killing houseplants. The first plant I killed was a spider plant that my Grandma bought for me from the plant sale at Cliffe Castle. It lasted a little while and was generally doing well until I knocked it down the back of the washing machine. I tried to get it back out but I couldn’t reach it, I went to tell a grown up but I got distracted on route and forgot all about it. My mum found it months later, this desiccated brown thing that was starting to smell.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">My cactus will be four this summer. <br />We will have a huge birthday bash 'cause cacti love to party. </span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Next, I had a cactus also bought by my Grandma from the plant stall at Cliffe Castle to replace the spider plant whose loss was inexplicably a huge blow to me. The cactus thrived under my neglectful care and about six months in it sprouted these spectacular purple flowers. I was chuffed and with a head swollen by unearned compliments on my skills as a gardener I dedicated myself to tending the cactus. The cactus died from over watering pretty quickly after that. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I did not have any plants of my own for a while after that but I still managed to spread destruction in my wake. My mum planted a nasturtium in the front garden and I got wind that they are edible. Over the course of one week, I ate every single flower. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">In the autumn that followed the delicious nasturtium summer, me and my friend found two tiny oak trees in the field behind our house. It did not occur to us that anyone could have planted the oak trees and we dug them out of the ground with our hands to ‘protect them from cows.’ We each took one home and planted them in plant pots. I don’t know what treatment my friend’s tree received but I tended mine every night, watering it with as much water I could fit in the can whilst also being able to lift it and packing the soil flat with my hands. I kept digging it back up to ‘check on the roots.’. I loved the idea of being able to point out a mighty oak tree that I tended practically from an acorn to future generations. Shockingly the tree didn’t make it. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">If plant killing was a crime and my life was a cowboy film <br />this is what the wanted poster for me would look like.</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">You can add to that total a yearly massacre of poinsettias and hyacinths not to mention the ill-advised mystery plant from my second year of Uni. When you consider my gardening history in this light it is unsurprising that I was kicked out of the allotment society. I always thought I was because all I ever wanted to grow was pumpkins but maybe they got a look at my rap sheet.</span></span>
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-77870966234269072932015-10-23T22:34:00.000+01:002016-09-21T18:27:58.097+01:00Nature Facts <div class="MsoNormal">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Lions are basically uncultured louts. They love bingo and drinking and Eighteen to Thirty holidays. I once saw I lion reading a magazine that was all about highlighting the physical flaws of other lions. I once saw another lion watch a lion cub fall down a sand dune and it just laughed instead of helping. Lions are more or less jerks. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Tigers are the most intellectual of the big cats. Tigers are all about book clubs and seminars. That classic thing that they say about tigers, that if you are being chased by a tiger you should shout at them in German and the tigers will be frightened off is only half true. So you should speak in German if you meet a tiger, but only because tigers believe that German is the true language of the intellectual. Tigers didn’t use to be intellectual, they used to be into stunts, but after the Great Go Cart Disaster of ninety-eight, they decided to get a new hobby. Lions have always been into bingo. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">That’s why ligers are so very rare, the intrinsic interests and values of tigers and lions are fundamentally incompatible. All ligers come from broken homes. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Leopards are mainly just insensitive and self-involved. If you have a problem, do not take it to a leopard no matter how close you think your friendship is. A leopard will never be interested in your problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe you’ve known that leopard for years, maybe he was Best Man at your wedding, maybe you helped that leopard through some really bad times it won’t make any difference. You know the famous saying: ‘You can’t expect a leopard to be anything other than a fair-weather friend.’ </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Hyenas are insecure and really susceptible to peer pressure. That’s why they go everywhere in a group and they are always laughing at each other jokes. That isn’t real laughter, that’s nervous laughter, hyenas are constantly afraid someone’s going to find them out. If you wanted to befriend a largish animal that you can really boss around I’d go for a hyena. A hyena will do anything to make you like it, so you could get it clean your room or do your homework or whatever. I wouldn’t do it because I’m not a user of people or largish animals, but if that’s the sort of person you are, go for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I do not know what Pumas look like. <br />I mean whoever took this genuine photograph didn't know what pumas look like. </span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Pumas are huge snobs. If you miss pronounce the name of a classical artist in front of a puma, they will give you such a withering look. You will want the ground to swallow you up. The daft thing about pumas is that they have nothing to be snobby about, they aren’t any bigger or smarter than the other big cats and they lost all their wealth investing heavily in monocles. It’s no use saying that to a puma though, because when they aren’t being snobby they are being violent. If you ever give a puma a reason it will cut you so damn fast you won’t even realise what’s happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-52256146615158482662015-09-18T20:27:00.000+01:002016-09-21T18:29:45.318+01:00Trouser Based Outfits <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">When I was 19 I had to write a life plan for Uni, to prepare for the exercise we had to write a draft plan in our notebook that we would never show to anyone. The idea was that we would work this life plan up into a career plan that we would eventually hand in. The Lecturer who took us through this exercise was fanatical about planning; she was a former life coach who looked spookily like Theresa May. She instructed us to always have weekly, monthly, yearly, five-yearly and ten yearly plans and she told us that once we had these plans our lives would become significantly easier and that we’d never have to make a spur of the moment decision again. “When it comes to choosing between a night out and your essay, you’ll simply have to glance at your ten-year plan and the choice will be made.” I’m guessing she was counting on us putting “Be successful graduates” on our ten-year plan and not “Have loads of hilarious anecdotes of drunken </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">behaviour</span><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> from Uni.” </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At the time I was pretty sure my fortune would be made in the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">sock monkey industry </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">A few months back I found my unedited plans from that lecture and let's just say they bore no resemblance to the career plan that I handed in. The yearly one was filled with subtly vague goals like “Don’t fail second year.” I liked the ten-year plan most because it contained such concrete goals as “Start drinking herbal tea” and “Work out how to pull off trouser based outfits.” <a href="http://lettymchugh.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/careers-advice-from-my-uni-notebooks.html" target="_blank">I wrote a blog post poking fun at my former 19-year-old self </a>but that wasn’t really fair because if I’m honest I’m not that much better now. If I try to imagine myself ten years in the future, I could tell you what sort of armchair I would like and that I’d like to base my wardrobe on Grace Kelly in the casual scenes from High Society but in terms of concrete goals like to be showing in X gallery or working at Y place I’ve no clue.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIuK2tveOCEEiDGNU6V1tI_IYyoBxBIRJ_tWgoR8JL6JFkXJuGNj9DN9HzjKNDE8g_ghxpar8eUxt-oJtlO-3ab0JEGHdH6uRe7tQ6eZEk1dJt8nePvnnrmxA0lPJBo9ZYXzW-pOqmJ5ps/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-10-08+at+20.32.07.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIuK2tveOCEEiDGNU6V1tI_IYyoBxBIRJ_tWgoR8JL6JFkXJuGNj9DN9HzjKNDE8g_ghxpar8eUxt-oJtlO-3ab0JEGHdH6uRe7tQ6eZEk1dJt8nePvnnrmxA0lPJBo9ZYXzW-pOqmJ5ps/s320/Screen+Shot+2015-10-08+at+20.32.07.png" width="248" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I actually do drink herbal tea now. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All my dreams are coming true. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">If I sit down and try to imagine my future, all I can really see is a long succession of massive skirts. It’s not quite as superficial as it sounds, when I was 19 my life goals involved herbal tea and formal trousers, they weren’t the most essential aspects just the only aspects that I could put into a sentence about long-term goals. To understand what I was trying to articulate you have to understand what these things </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">symbolised</span><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> for me, at 19 herbal tea meant mint tea, which I couldn’t stand the taste of, it seemed awfully sophisticated and grown-up. If a person was to drink herbal tea regularly, they would need to buy it regularly, so the would presumably be on top of their grocery shopping. I imagined my future self calmly drinking herbal tea in a workday, so I would be doing my work in a structured way - with time for a break – not doing everything in a mad scramble at the last minute. Formal trousers would imply I’d be doing the sort of thing that was formal, to important to wear jeans, also I would need to be together enough to wash and iron them, another sign of how responsible and grown up I’d be. Basically, I was picturing a life that wasn’t ruled by the overwhelming chaos that shaped my life at that time. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don't know where I'm going but I hope there will be cake</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I was hoping that 29-year old me would know what they were doing and that they would be able to fill in the blanks in my life plan, providing answers to nagging questions like “How are you going to make money?” and “Where will you live?” I started to think about this as I sat down to drink a cup of mint tea as I waited for my screen to expose and I had this feeling of understanding like “Yes this is what I wanted to happen.” That’s probably why I was able to unpick the life goals that I was unable to articulate at the time, because by and large that’s the life I’m living now or at least I’m closer to the life I’m living now than the life I was living then and maybe if I find myself sitting in an armchair wearing huge skirts I’ll be better able to express the significance of those talismans too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I think about what I’m going to do next I generally think “This, but on a better and bigger scale” and when I plan I find it hard to think beyond what I’m doing now and what I’m going to do immediately after that. I try to think less about where I’m going and more about where I am. I don’t always know where I’m going, but I generally believe I will like wherever I end up.</span>
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-5567804453658157192015-08-19T11:00:00.000+01:002016-05-19T16:22:39.391+01:00An Epiphany<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> Private detective is behind one of these trees</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">When I am feeling super
disorganised I often console myself by imagining the Uber – efficient PA I will
get to run my life after I inevitably win the Nobel prize. This morning I had
an epiphany, it came to me all at once that the solution to all that’s wrong in
my life is not in fact a PA but instead a Private detective. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">It would work like
this – my future rich self would pay this private detective obscene amounts of
money so that I would be their only client. The Private detective would follow
me when I went anywhere or did anything (obviously excluding the bathroom, why
would you think it wouldn’t exclude the bathroom?) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and keep a record of everything I said or did.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">That way when I asked
them "Hey Private detective, do you know who was I on the phone to the
other afternoon? You know when I was talking about that important thing" <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footer"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of figures"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope return"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="line number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="page number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of authorities"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="macro"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="toa heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
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<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">They could say "
Yes I tapped your phone. It was your Mum.” Or if I remarked aloud,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Frack! I wish I hadn’t thrown out that hand
written draft.” The Private detective would tap me on the shoulder and say
“Fear not, I found it whilst rummaging in your bins. Here it is.” Having
a Private detective would solve the problems I am having at the moment because I
could say “Argh, I’ve neglected my reflective journal for this year and I can’t
remember what I did. Ever. My work makes no sense at all.” They’d just go “That’s
cool, I’ve been keeping detailed notes on everything you’ve done this year, you
can just hand those in.” then I’d say “Huzzah! my MA is saved!” we’d hug and
then they’d go back to hiding in the bushes. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-44737841535915665282015-07-19T09:00:00.000+01:002016-09-21T18:33:25.668+01:00Just Like JD Salinger (but, you know, with more jokes.)<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">When I was in my first year of Uni I took a module in Short Stories and for a cocktail of reasons I neglected it. The final hand in was somewhere between three and six thousand words (I forget the exact number) and it got to the day before the hand in and I hadn’t written anything, so I decided I was going to drop out. Who even needs a degree? The whole thing had been an awful idea anyway. I went upstairs to tell my housemate the news. “Lily stop writing this second, we are dropping out of Uni”. On my way upstairs I had decided that she didn’t need a degree either.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">She didn’t look convinced “It’s going to be fine,” I said pushing her laptop away and climbing into her bed. “I’ll tell your Mum and you can tell mine. We will get jobs at bookshops and get a flat. It’s going to be brilliant, anyway aren’t we going to be writers? You don’t need a degree to be a writer, you need life experience, Baby!”</span></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ96jPIu-Z4sUu9RDqL0SkfDis7pnx42oZx1vcTnronUgvwvkbedZ7K-lxjKVrLgrl_SbI46M6uAp1JTf14EsWFQv6SqJ3GHUTRuY561q1vFTmGpRCtkUuc4cyyR13DL0l7Jm1m6ZMKAM2/s1600/DSC00482.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ96jPIu-Z4sUu9RDqL0SkfDis7pnx42oZx1vcTnronUgvwvkbedZ7K-lxjKVrLgrl_SbI46M6uAp1JTf14EsWFQv6SqJ3GHUTRuY561q1vFTmGpRCtkUuc4cyyR13DL0l7Jm1m6ZMKAM2/s320/DSC00482.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">This is where we would have lived so our Mums couldn't find</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">us after we dropped out. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">Lily did not want to drop out with me so I went downstairs to spend two hours writing an email asking for an extension which I never sent. Then I went back upstairs to ask if on the off chance you got hit by a car on the way to the hand in you would still fail. “Like do you think you would get an extension automatically on account of being hit by a car or would it be a case of ‘If you were on your way to the hand in then you can give it to us now?’ “</span></div>
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“Letty I really don’t know”</span></div>
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“Yeah, but what do you think”</span></div>
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“I think dropping out is a better idea than walking into traffic”</span></div>
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“I mean, I wasn’t going to walk into traffic on purpose.”</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">She didn’t say anything else so I waited in her doorway for a bit before adding.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“But if I do get hit by a car, and I die, I still want my name reading out at graduation okay.”</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">Nothing</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“Lily”</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">Nothing again.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“Lily, if I get hit by a car and ….”</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“I’ll tell them.”</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">There is an obvious cue to leave here which I ignore “You know my Mum knew someone who…”</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“Letty you have to go away now.”</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“Yeah okay.”</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">I do not go away.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“But can I just tell you this last thing.”</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“No.”</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“Are you sure? It’s really funny.”</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“Please just go away.” </span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I leave mumbling something along the lines of “Whatever I can take a hint.” Which I obviously can’t or I would have left her alone significantly sooner than I did. I went down stairs, drafted several more emails asking for extensions that I never sent then set off for a two-hour walk in town to ‘Get some ideas’. I eventually started writing at about 10pm and by midnight I had written 2 questionable short stories. My friends edited out the most glaring spelling errors, and a few weeks later I felt distinctly guilty about getting an average grade.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHzVNWtwWb8SpY-VzNfrK6L56bv9WI7GaaQR5SXsx0-40gIVBmmTPL06o47kiG9o4Sl0qhH8LGdErZFcSxBFwZepiysPI-OKxF2Dq4To8iPrTMh5UxKvlZxkoqmVsVY8WXUEvcshw_byG9/s1600/226805_10150169833908424_1105900_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHzVNWtwWb8SpY-VzNfrK6L56bv9WI7GaaQR5SXsx0-40gIVBmmTPL06o47kiG9o4Sl0qhH8LGdErZFcSxBFwZepiysPI-OKxF2Dq4To8iPrTMh5UxKvlZxkoqmVsVY8WXUEvcshw_byG9/s320/226805_10150169833908424_1105900_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is photographic evidence of me pretending to be working<br />
in second year. I am actually on twitter.<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 15pt;">When I told you the story about my Short Stories hand in and I said I hadn’t done any work I wasn’t being honest. The truth is that I’d done loads of work I just didn’t want to hand any of it in.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">In Short Stories you had a workshop group and you took it in turns to bring a story for the group to workshop. In my workshop group, there was this guy who thought he was the next Ernest Hemmingway or Raymond Carver. He was older than me as he’d taken a few years out before Uni to explore his ‘Central Wound’. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">One session he brought in a story about a guy who bought a pen, this pen stayed with him and he kept it throughout his life using it at key moments, the protagonist started out young and hopeful, slowly becoming an alcoholic then killed himself by opening an artery with the pen and proceeding to write his suicide note in his own blood. The workshop group was fairly confused by the technicalities of this story.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; orphans: auto; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“Wouldn’t the pen run out of ink over the course of 50 years?”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“It’s a cartridge pen obviously.” (You aren’t really meant to respond when you’re being workshopped, but everybody did.)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“It’s not that I don’t like the story.” I said (although I didn’t.) “I just think you take the end bit too far. I mean have you ever tried writing in your own blood?” He looked at me like I was mental.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“No.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“Well I have and you know what it’s not as easy as it looks on murder shows. You would, without a doubt, bleed out before you got even halfway done with this suicide note.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">“Well,” he said, “it’s a metaphor.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">The next session it was my turn to bring something in, I forget what I brought but I do remember what Hemmingway Jnr had to say.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">“It’s not that I don’t like your writing Letty, it’s just that it reads like it was written by a teenage girl. I’d just prefer to see something more authentic.” I had no idea what to say to that, so I pretended to be following the rule that said you shouldn’t respond. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The irony of being told to be more authentic by sounding less like a teenage girl when I was a 19-year-old girl was 100% lost on me at the time.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVgbDIX00Zi5dbXMGtF7cRTwtL3JvKsb2m5PY0o0VtmZY3vXA2DGU9wKYlj09Qr-UvELSprf56hKOa1SA1FRvQ9-VroNst4xkCAWmyF3RqS8Fs7e8bC5N7OxNoMP0O4IF_so4nRyF4p4kJ/s1600/avatar_d5e5a779772d_128.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVgbDIX00Zi5dbXMGtF7cRTwtL3JvKsb2m5PY0o0VtmZY3vXA2DGU9wKYlj09Qr-UvELSprf56hKOa1SA1FRvQ9-VroNst4xkCAWmyF3RqS8Fs7e8bC5N7OxNoMP0O4IF_so4nRyF4p4kJ/s320/avatar_d5e5a779772d_128.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">19 -year-old the authentic jokester </td></tr>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">The problem was that the comment tapped into my pre-existing fear that I was good at some things but somehow I was good at all the wrong things. So when it came to discarding a years’ worth of work I didn’t think “I can’t hand this in, that Jackass in my class doesn’t like it.” It was more like what he said confirmed my sneaking suspicion that everything I’d been doing all year was wrong. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9.0pt;">When I was seriously thinking about dropping out in second year I started looking at other courses. The thing it came down to was that I couldn’t imagine my future without a degree. If I left the university I was at I would only end up going to another one. I’d have to make new friends, get to know a new city and, ultimately, I’d still have hand something in sooner or later. So I cobbled together these two short stories that I thought were literary and serious. The first was about two maids that discover a murder in a hotel room, but because they didn’t like the woman whose room it was, conspire to cover it up. The second was about a woman who accidently runs someone over and calls her friend to help her dispose of the body. The whole idea with both pieces was that they started comic then evolved to be chilling and leave the reader with a niggling feeling that all people are capable of unspeakably dark acts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I went to my tutorial for feedback on the work my tutor said that the pieces were very rough and needed more thorough proofreading. Fair enough I thought. She went on to say that the pacing was a little off, and I could have worked on the plot more. Overall though the work was saved by my excellent comic timing and sense of humor. I was torn between outrage and triumph. On the one hand, secretly, I wanted people to think I was funny more than anything in the world. On the other hand, she had missed the part where I was exposing the darkness of the human condition entirely. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Ultimately triumph won out. Over time I stopped telling people that I was hoping to be the next JD Salinger “but, you know, with more jokes.”. And started writing work about dolphins winning the Chelsea flower show. That story I was trying to tell Lily when she rightly kicked me out of her room was about this girl my mum knew at school who smashed her arm so she wouldn’t be able to write and therefore get out of her exams. Only she made a mistake and smashed the wrong one so she still had to do all of her exams and she had a broken arm. In hindsight, when I left Lily burning with the desire to tell someone my hilarious anecdote it would have been a better idea to go straight down stairs and write it as a short story. That story probably would have done a better job of making the reader laugh but then leaving them with questions about the human condition than anything I came up with. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"></span></span></div>
Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-73009288535544850362015-06-08T18:52:00.000+01:002016-09-21T18:35:00.135+01:00House of Cards (as a metaphor) <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhowBYOswgr3Tqz0VanQ5XwYjDN1G3uV-RCSuPQ-gExkbcuDGmI1bv9G-ynboMw24cY4Y2OQet4NLGgL_TPpmfziVGUokOl744YrkcIGfqBl5vEGT5Sh4F-ZFbVWBs6t8khKaPhAaxpkPRk/s1600/IMG_2749.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhowBYOswgr3Tqz0VanQ5XwYjDN1G3uV-RCSuPQ-gExkbcuDGmI1bv9G-ynboMw24cY4Y2OQet4NLGgL_TPpmfziVGUokOl744YrkcIGfqBl5vEGT5Sh4F-ZFbVWBs6t8khKaPhAaxpkPRk/s320/IMG_2749.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Curators of the future: Please don't put this in a retrospective</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> of my work after I am dead. I will haunt you if you do </span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 9pt;">One time when I was at Uni I filled a match box up with spent matches and called it a Self Portrait but I don’t do things like that anymore. Another time I spent a month teaching myself to build a house of cards (as a metaphor) then decided it was a bad idea and never told anyone about it. This is what happens if you try and make art without ever stopping to ask what it’s for or what you are making it about. Do that and you will find yourself showing a collection of unrelated objects to a room full of people who look as confused as you feel. This experience is not fun for anyone involved and could be used as a cautionary tale by anyone tasked with explaining to an art student why they need theory. Do you want to explain to your peer group why you spent the last semester sticking a whole packet of plasters into your sketch book? No? Then shut up and read some Marxism or something. Do not try and make any more conceptual art until you at least have a concept. </span></div>
Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-17154952845864692432015-05-24T15:21:00.000+01:002016-09-21T18:36:25.675+01:00I Murdered My Library by Linda Grant<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I have this recurring nightmare where I am moving from one student house to another. There have been many different versions of this dream, but these three components that are more or less fixed<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>The people who are moving in arrive and I haven’t packed a thing. </li>
<li>I am in my pyjamas. </li>
<li>In the ensuing chaos, I am forced to leave behind all of my belongings including, devastatingly, my books.</li>
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A person who has also had this nightmare is Linda Grant only for her it was real life. Okay, so the part about the pyjamas probably didn’t happen to her, and she didn’t have to abandon <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>her belongings. She did have to get rid of loads of her books though and losing the books is basically the worst bit of the dream.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPeNzA9iqmief6aocQ6nLlhbGXuCxJnZWCFAXZ6zCohBOU85u27UGOlxZYOS6k4JSytAzBQ7X9TlDMKDYqbrJ9EwDfSI5VS8s8oNGBqx78rOPTVI7NKfNpuHnxxr00Qlfg0d_u2NLpZPcR/s1600/Photo+18.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPeNzA9iqmief6aocQ6nLlhbGXuCxJnZWCFAXZ6zCohBOU85u27UGOlxZYOS6k4JSytAzBQ7X9TlDMKDYqbrJ9EwDfSI5VS8s8oNGBqx78rOPTVI7NKfNpuHnxxr00Qlfg0d_u2NLpZPcR/s1600/Photo+18.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's gotten to the point that I can't sit about in my pj's<br />
without expecting removal men to turn up. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "courier";">Linda Grant </span>lived my nightmare when she moved from a massive flat with plenty of space for books to a much smaller one with hardly any space for the library she’d spent her entire life building up. The move forced her to cull her collection and she found the experience so traumatic that she wrote an essay about it. <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Murdered-My-Library-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B00K6JO15A" target="_blank">I Murdered My Library</a> is available as a kindle single, which I read the other week in a cold sweat.</div>
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Grant tells us how her Library began, as a few books between plastic bookends in her bedroom. As her collection grows she associates key moments of her life with books, as if the pages could tell us the story of her life as easily as the story originally written on them. This is something anyone who has lived their life with books will relate to. If I wanted to tell you what my world was like as a child I’d do it with books, I’d tell you about the copy of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase I found in my school library. The pages were falling out and I had to crawl under the shelves to find the ones that were missing, when I stole the copy after I stuck the pages back in I saw it more as a liberation than a crime.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisaJFvtJ946JC1mwSFtAjjvfQayFzA8X9hiiUw9OTXyaI1ShrnroNarv95e4vKU0vPWiQnbwemYjQ4N4iJAMBaAwtkEUveYf2E-OJcKj3UDeaDbNsfIJthXTrl3ARTfnKGKHi8R7PssIX8/s1600/IMG_1989.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisaJFvtJ946JC1mwSFtAjjvfQayFzA8X9hiiUw9OTXyaI1ShrnroNarv95e4vKU0vPWiQnbwemYjQ4N4iJAMBaAwtkEUveYf2E-OJcKj3UDeaDbNsfIJthXTrl3ARTfnKGKHi8R7PssIX8/s1600/IMG_1989.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These aren't my books or Linda Grant's, but this is probably what it looks<br />
like when books go unchecked so take it as a cautionary tale anyway. </td></tr>
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At some point after the books have followed Grant from her childhood bedroom to her grotty student digs and eventually nice London flat, they begin to take over. Books fill the shelves and spill out into the flat, squeezing themselves into every available space until there is no room for anything else. I can relate to that feeling of drowning in books as well, when I was moving from house to house as a student I once had to put my things in storage, I had six boxes of belongings and three suitcases full of clothes, four of the boxes were full of books. Those boxes were bloody heavy. When I got the books into my new house I threatened a cull of my own, putting all the unread textbooks from my first year onto a ‘review’ self while I decided if I still needed them. Three moves on, I still have everyone.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhui6oxMbkkjH-z49rJqrUobzIBaiZ7bQ_eMi0z5yFJLx-w0Vc8NMBr7pmiVjqDR2pBztVLkl_efJYf85GuG9uVddg_JeRUdaGSeiZ0brlb8mWvDB270DYMkiNgC9xPmWRgzi_5_vqLaNGf/s1600/IMG_0769.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhui6oxMbkkjH-z49rJqrUobzIBaiZ7bQ_eMi0z5yFJLx-w0Vc8NMBr7pmiVjqDR2pBztVLkl_efJYf85GuG9uVddg_JeRUdaGSeiZ0brlb8mWvDB270DYMkiNgC9xPmWRgzi_5_vqLaNGf/s1600/IMG_0769.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what Linda Grant thinks<br />
young people's bookcases look like.</td></tr>
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In the later part of the essay, Grant relates the fate of her library with the fate of books in general. She mulls over her relationship to her kindle, mourns the death of her local bookshop and decides that younger generation have no interest in books. After the cull is over she says, “It is death that we’re talking about. Death is the subject. The death of the book.” And it’s here that I start to disagree with Linda Grant. The death of the book is this thing that I keep hearing about but don’t believe is happening. I think the book is changing, what we are seeing is the separation of the book as object and book as a tool for mass communication. E-books are better at spreading stories instantly and affordably, which is sort of the most important thing. As Grant says “What matters most is not the paper or the cover or the binding or the smell of the ink but the words.”. That doesn’t mean the book will die though, I think this separation will liberate the book as an object, allowing it to become a beautiful and valuable artefact. When the book is an artefact we can fill our shelves with limited edition hardbacks of the books we love the best and relegate 50 Shades of Grey to our e-readers where it belongs.</div>
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-59686730230372627742015-04-07T21:28:00.000+01:002016-09-21T18:38:16.901+01:00Self Knowledge Is The Bomb<div class="MsoNormal">
An Abundance of Katherines is not the best book you are ever going to read, it is not even the best book you are going to read by John Green. Objectively speaking I know this but still, it is unwaveringly my favourite. Technically speaking I know the best book by John Green is probably The Fault In Our Stars. You’ll have heard of The Fault in Our Stars – it’s the one about kids with cancer that they made a movie of this summer. The posters for it were everywhere. No one is ever going to make a movie out of An Abundance of Katherines; even I’m not convinced it would make a very good movie and I have illogically strong feelings about this book.</div>
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In the corners of Internet that I frequent, I have seen people have pretty heated debates about which John Green novel is the best, but I don’t join in because I would inevitably lose. (I am not a good loser.) I even once heard John Green describe An Abundance of Katherines as “The sullen Middle child” of his novels. I’m not here to tell you it's underrated because it’s pretty much not, it is essentially a fun young adult novel, reading it will not change your life.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbxNu77aaydYsKIclbiGkJKJcBYVkNwis-b5r6U7RF1Pce7_M9MsmNUmLk81F4uSEmLXGCEczTXVV9-WJdWSQj6SiHeTv4JnqxYWlDAAleEh1GPDPJjtT6Cum7bv5xIT1_DTTr9dXo9XT9/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-09-07+at+21.18.19.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbxNu77aaydYsKIclbiGkJKJcBYVkNwis-b5r6U7RF1Pce7_M9MsmNUmLk81F4uSEmLXGCEczTXVV9-WJdWSQj6SiHeTv4JnqxYWlDAAleEh1GPDPJjtT6Cum7bv5xIT1_DTTr9dXo9XT9/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-09-07+at+21.18.19.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This isn't my copy - this is a screen grab off of amazon<br />
I only have the kindle edition cause I'm single-handedly trying<br />
to bring down the publishing industry. Or something.</td></tr>
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There’s just this one thing that annoys me about the reputation of the book and that is the one quote that people chose to talk about if they talk about it at all. I have seen this quote on twitter, as a sub-heading on blogs and plastered on walls in university bedrooms. The quote goes like this “What is the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable.” I see this quote and it drives me insane. Every time I just think did you even read that book? Because if you did you missed the entire fracking point.</div>
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An Abundance of Katherines is about this kid named Colin who was a child prodigy and he’s terribly worried he’ll never live up to his potential. At the start of the book, he says things like “What is the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable.” Then there’s a road trip, a mathematical formula about break ups and some stuff about a tampon factory and Colin learns to chill the frack down and stop saying such stupid shit. That’s the Cliff Notes version but you get the idea. It’s funny, fun to read and like I said, it’s not going to change your life – except for the fact that it sort of changed mine.</div>
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I first read An Abundance in the spring of 2012 I was 20, in my third year of Uni and I felt like I was plummeting towards the end of my degree. Oh and about a month earlier I spent four days in hospital and got diagnosed with MS. MS for those of you who don’t know, is what those of us in the business, refer to as a chronic illness. This means it’s the sort of bastard that you have for the rest of your life and you have no way of predicting. It keeps things interesting.</div>
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The thing for me when I was first diagnosed was health wise I actually felt much better in months immediately after I found out about it than I had in the year or so before. For me it went like this, I got diagnosed, I read up on the condition and suddenly I understood what had been happening all along (self-knowledge is the bomb). For me, the illness itself wasn’t hard to deal with because I had been dealing with it since I was maybe 16. The thing that was hard the deal with was the total shift in worldview the knowledge of my illness triggered.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUhfzjo1KoWIFGJjVtE0dG905poIelipeyud0-awsnzzhF6WDfPeVy9gi1WHDPVs_oMaGWH41kXlXcaw0dMrxf-N97FTQp_nznw0C5C8HSZMwYYqOiUWUBkKIJwsYOQBzY0JRseMzbh_xw/s1600/Photo+89.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUhfzjo1KoWIFGJjVtE0dG905poIelipeyud0-awsnzzhF6WDfPeVy9gi1WHDPVs_oMaGWH41kXlXcaw0dMrxf-N97FTQp_nznw0C5C8HSZMwYYqOiUWUBkKIJwsYOQBzY0JRseMzbh_xw/s1600/Photo+89.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what a person with an undiagnosed chronic illness looks like.<br />
If you see one give them a hair brush for the love of God.</td></tr>
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If you believe yourself to be a healthy 20-year-old when you look into the future you imagine yourself as a healthy 30-year-old. You assume that all the major aspects of the life of that 30-year-old are things you have complete control over. Your job, your house, your love-life - all you have to do is decide how you want these things to be, follow the right path and they will be yours. Once I had this weird, unpredictable life long illness I couldn’t imagine myself as a healthy 30-year-old anymore. I no longer have the luxury of taking my health for granted, this was/is a blow, but what’s worse is the realization that I have very little control over my future at all. I am not living some kind of charmed life, bad things can happen to me and my life does not automatically have to work out how I hope it will. Two and a- bit years on, I find this realization sort of liberating; but in the months after my diagnosis, that’s what kept me up at nights.</div>
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Previously my major worry had been what I was going to do after Uni. I had long meetings with my personal tutor to discuss this point where she told me how much potential I had and we pondered over which London art school I might do my MA at. Now I was worried I might never even do an MA. What about my infamous potential? What if I never did anything remarkable?</div>
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Enter An Abundance of Katherines with that very same question. What is the value of an unremarkable life? It’s huge. Small, unremarkable lives are maybe some of the happiest and most valuable. They can be some of the most fulfilling and the most important. That’s not to say we shouldn’t still try and do great things, just that if all we end up doing is being happy, then that’s good too.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhisNtnrh48qDn1Phyphenhyphen2-cH_OyO9YFQPkfshEXK9NtNil885-O1AgALNBpEsS1VbgyQ89u3SGt1CC2igutrI8AdKmnHnlyqRfdyD399UwjtBkpo0EIynUNnmMcSH2NcgA2ZdtdL4qIPpnD98/s1600/Photo+on+11-05-2014+at+00.03+%232.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhisNtnrh48qDn1Phyphenhyphen2-cH_OyO9YFQPkfshEXK9NtNil885-O1AgALNBpEsS1VbgyQ89u3SGt1CC2igutrI8AdKmnHnlyqRfdyD399UwjtBkpo0EIynUNnmMcSH2NcgA2ZdtdL4qIPpnD98/s1600/Photo+on+11-05-2014+at+00.03+%232.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See - it all worked out fine in the end.<br />
I have a crown now. </td></tr>
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I don’t mean to imply here that I read An Abundance of Katherines and everything was okay – things felt pretty tricky for quite a while after that, but it was an immensely comforting book at the time and it will always mean something to me because of that.</div>
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I haven’t moved to London (yet?) but I am doing my MA and living a life altogether better and more complex than anything I could have imagined. Shaped as it is by all the other things I never saw coming. I have learnt my lesson though and just like Colin at the end of the book, I too stopped being the kind of self-indulgent git to lie about worrying about being remarkable. And I didn’t even have to go to a tampon factory to learn my lesson. Win.</div>
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-8049666894012870402015-03-05T22:07:00.000+00:002016-09-21T18:39:59.957+01:00Careers Advice From my Uni Notebooks. <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I have an exhibition coming up and I want to include some of the work I did whilst at Uni, so I looked in my uber efficient filing system and immediately found things that I wasn’t looking for to distract myself with. (The filing system is a cardboard box labelled “stuff from before 2012.” I’m just kidding, it’s not labelled.) Amongst such vital items as a receipt for shampoo and wine gums, I found all my old lectures notes. I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever read any of my lecture notes back, they are both sparse and baffling. My personal favourite are the notes from the careers lectures I attended in my second year. I didn’t use to pay that much attention in careers talks because I was busy planning what I would say when I came back to Uni to speak after I won the Turner Prize. I didn’t write down much, mostly just stuff lecturers said that I thought was funny. I didn’t even use to write down the names of the speakers because I figured I’d remember them. (Spoiler: I don’t remember.)</div>
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As I was reading them over I felt this careers advice to good to keep to myself, so I have transcribed everything I can read for your reading pleasure.</div>
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<b>Things That Speakers said that I found Hilarious:</b></div>
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“It was written in a fortnight in the mid-nineties.”</div>
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“Things got a bit out of hand, the publishers got firebombed.”</div>
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“I dunno, take drugs I suppose.”</div>
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“I found a Narwhal Skull.”</div>
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“Don’t ever be afraid of the internet.” (With my own comment: Who is afraid of the Internet?)</div>
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“At the time I was really pissed off with DH Lawrence.”</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuVnMQ_rMfHkGVgE9jqihZAg5V9gzMMSye2cIkSkpW3wb7Pv6mNNo1OPswkRLzcqAQApiM1uPOB35xk9vY9899DCm5MzQ8RnXgQRoxxiBjy6cee27leU1ZRZz3Xyp3VlbjQDTlP86u8qL9/s1600/a+women+who+looks+like+her+dog.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuVnMQ_rMfHkGVgE9jqihZAg5V9gzMMSye2cIkSkpW3wb7Pv6mNNo1OPswkRLzcqAQApiM1uPOB35xk9vY9899DCm5MzQ8RnXgQRoxxiBjy6cee27leU1ZRZz3Xyp3VlbjQDTlP86u8qL9/s1600/a+women+who+looks+like+her+dog.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 14.5600004196167px; text-align: left;">Marginalia: a woman who is giving a dog that looks <br />like her some top notch careers advice.</span></td></tr>
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<b> Careers advice in my own words:</b></div>
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Network.</div>
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Have a CV.</div>
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Get paid to do something.</div>
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Have some goals.</div>
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Never get a job in Publishing.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqR9yJJ2ZiCjHcvRpnWLX6Yp1nbyewezv-lDE1Hrgfpy5se5phMDmmIPqSedZmI20YkeuQaNZPQi-WhchO09BzzTyhukoFYHGdPGHrz1o9EF1Lg9vgMdQpk5wHKk8mjo4eD3sxHhjnfJEM/s1600/old+refugee+mice.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqR9yJJ2ZiCjHcvRpnWLX6Yp1nbyewezv-lDE1Hrgfpy5se5phMDmmIPqSedZmI20YkeuQaNZPQi-WhchO09BzzTyhukoFYHGdPGHrz1o9EF1Lg9vgMdQpk5wHKk8mjo4eD3sxHhjnfJEM/s1600/old+refugee+mice.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 14.5600004196167px; text-align: left;">Marginalia: some old refugee mice <br />who are presumably looking for jobs. </span></td></tr>
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<b>Notes to my friends I no longer understand: </b></div>
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Sometimes my brain is depressingly literal.</div>
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I miss that guy with the imagination airport.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXdgnVtaBVeYOU3tK8f7mZQuCAeeZ69wm8XOk3Kdsu4UcH54wIYrvOXfrxF7bLkm_cPLbWCtQAAxtCeE12velXmnE_tzB0vnblEj6bIoLCtOq9FWxAKOLzIxTG3oJ1m3BuAzEzl8UyHaB0/s1600/IMG_0626.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXdgnVtaBVeYOU3tK8f7mZQuCAeeZ69wm8XOk3Kdsu4UcH54wIYrvOXfrxF7bLkm_cPLbWCtQAAxtCeE12velXmnE_tzB0vnblEj6bIoLCtOq9FWxAKOLzIxTG3oJ1m3BuAzEzl8UyHaB0/s1600/IMG_0626.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 14.5600004196167px; text-align: left;">Marginalia: a ghost who is sad because of bullies<br />but also 'cause his CV is rubbish. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>What I wrote when asked for my goals for 2031</b></div>
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Live alone. </div>
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Drink herbal tea. </div>
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Work out how to pull off more trouser based outfits. </div>
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Get up before 10 am on weekdays.</div>
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So there you have it, never say I don't give you any good advice. Now go forth, get a CV and work out how to pull off more trouser based outfits and the world will be yours, my friends, the world will be yours.</div>
Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-68816745425883409942015-02-25T15:45:00.000+00:002015-10-08T15:09:26.681+01:00The Woman and the Dolphin.Dear Self, <br />
<br />
I know you are convinced that you have your best ideas in the middle of the night. I have told you before that this is fallacy, but you never believe me. I can tell you don’t because you insist on keeping a pen and notebook in your bedside drawer and you insist on writing in that notebook in the middle of the night. No matter how many times I tell you if an idea is really good you’ll have it more than once, or that the best ideas come in the day time after research, hard work and a good nights sleep. Things are going to change, because now, I have evidence. I present to you the play you outlined at 3am the other night under the heading ‘Best idea ever.’ <br />
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<b>A woman who runs a gardening business advertises for an assistant, a dolphin is the only applicant. At the interview they have this conversation.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Woman: Sorry, I’m not sure if you can be my gardening assistant, you have no hands.</b><br />
<b>Dolphin: Hey man, dolphins are the gardeners of the coral reef. I can hold any trowels in my mouth.</b><br />
<b>Woman: I don’t know about that.</b><br />
<b>Dolphin: Come on lady, what have you got to loose? I’m the only person here.</b><br />
<b>Woman: Okay, I’ll give you one chance dolphin.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The woman hires the dolphin. After a lot of crazy ups and downs they win the Chelsea Flower Show together and the woman is the Best Man at the dolphin’s wedding.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Please write this properly, it will be awesome!!!</b></blockquote>
<div>
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<br />
Okay, so now we’ve both had chance to read that over I think we can agree writing it down was an act of madness on your part. I want you to think about this next time you have an idea you ‘just have to’ write down, an idea in the middle of the night, I want you to remember the last time you did that it ended in a woman being a dolphin’s Best Man. <br />
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Here’s the thing self, there is a reason things look so much better by lamplight than they do in sunlight, it’s because you can’t see them properly. <br />
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Put you pen down and go to sleep.<br />
<br />
<br />
Love,<br />
<br />
you in the morning x</div>
Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-75060782425141105882015-01-13T13:56:00.000+00:002016-09-21T18:42:53.870+01:00I’ll Never be a Poet and Other Things I Learnt Whilst Studying Poetry.<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
When I was a teenager I harboured the secret belief that I was a great poet. I spent all my free time scribbling badly spelt poems in my notebooks then typing them up and casually leaving them lying about the place in the hope that people would read them. The inevitable discovery of my discreetly placed work led to exchanges with friends and relatives that went like this:</div>
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<b>Them:</b> I read your poem.<br />
<b>Me:</b> No, you didn’t, did you? No
one was meant to see that, that’s why I printed it in 72pt font and taped it
over the TV screen. But now that you have read it, you can tell me what you
think.<br />
<b>Them: </b>Yeah, It’s good.<br />
<b>Me (out loud):</b> No it’s not, it’s
awful.<br />
<b>Me (in my head):</b> I am going to be
England’s youngest ever poet laureate. </blockquote>
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At this time I also harboured the belief that true creative geniuses are plagued with self-doubt. That’s why I had to pretend to think my work was awful, even though I knew that it was only a matter of time before someone realized I was the next Shakespeare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span> <span style="text-indent: 36pt;">My early stuff was written with the aim of being funny, and when I read over it now the jokes still make me laugh. Things changed when I hit 14. I read Jane Eyre, started wearing a cape and writing poetry with the aim of being anything but funny. I still couldn’t stop myself putting jokes in. If you put my writing for the next four years into a collection the title would be </span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;">I’m Awful but I’m Still Better Than Everyone Else.</i><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> The blurb would read ‘In this collection, McHugh attempts to sound like a miserable, self-loathing teenager whilst accidentally exposing herself as a cheerful little soul, drunk on her own brilliance.’.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8RCTFxcPdpxING604DhHS7zgkAeE3ABIylDRMkQ9gVlTnnhW9AkEjnrXATEtsWYEX9XAc62hCQefjkYTobi1yKtA0gonoY27Jr7pyP_oJ5I-7GmNd6U0qxF9lG16xVmezAU-J35YqRta0/s1600/photo2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8RCTFxcPdpxING604DhHS7zgkAeE3ABIylDRMkQ9gVlTnnhW9AkEjnrXATEtsWYEX9XAc62hCQefjkYTobi1yKtA0gonoY27Jr7pyP_oJ5I-7GmNd6U0qxF9lG16xVmezAU-J35YqRta0/s1600/photo2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The gap on all poetry shelves my collection would have filled </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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It didn’t help that I refused to read poetry, branding everything but Spike Milligan as ‘self-indulgent shit.’ Because the War Poets were just being self-indulgent whereas I had real problems, my friends listened to music that I didn’t like.<br />
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span> <span style="text-indent: 36pt;">When I got to Uni and the time came to choose my first-year modules I phoned my mum to say “I think I’m going to do poetry. I know I’m not that good at it, but it’ll be a good challenge.” I expected that class to be the place my tutor told me I had the kind of talent she had been waiting her entire career to discover. Instead, it was the place I discovered two really important things about myself. 1. I cannot write poetry but 2. I love to read it.</span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span> <span style="text-indent: 36pt;">That first lesson was important because the world needs another bad poet like it needs another hole in the o-zone. The second lesson was more important. Learning to read poetry transformed my understanding of the world, I honestly don’t think I would be any kind of artist if it weren’t for the lessons I learnt in that poetry class. It’s weird if you study art you never talk about metaphor, but that’s essentially what conceptual art is. Study poetry and you’ll spend hours seeking out good metaphors and then dissecting them to see what makes them work. The same thing with titles, not one of my art teachers ever explained the point of a title to me. When I told my poetry tutor I didn’t see the point of titles she explained them as ‘The only chance you get to give a clue as to how you want your work to be read.’ I think about that every time I name my work.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjgYGZ-Pq78_4ti6tRv_uak5A5c4L-QgTbSbYk2tYOMCW7q0gA19LOKsFVH7JlDB8HuVyhIwV4vgvkizuTaPiTU2FQGh60GjhDhi3j3VW9z5hjbrhv9fDQxyEDY_E48GXBlfYC0blYdqSX/s1600/photo1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjgYGZ-Pq78_4ti6tRv_uak5A5c4L-QgTbSbYk2tYOMCW7q0gA19LOKsFVH7JlDB8HuVyhIwV4vgvkizuTaPiTU2FQGh60GjhDhi3j3VW9z5hjbrhv9fDQxyEDY_E48GXBlfYC0blYdqSX/s1600/photo1.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even my cactus loves poetry.<br />
He copied out Sandra Beasley onto his pot. </td></tr>
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Of course, I hated every second, because I was slowly realizing I was wrong. I resented every class and I’m mortified to think of the fuss I kicked up, promising anyone that would listen that I would never, ever, ever pick up a single volume of poetry. The thing was we had to write this reading paper, and I spent the Christmas holidays curled up with my cat dipping in and out of the reading list so I’d have something to write about. I wouldn’t admit it until months later but that’s really when I lost the fight. I spent the rest of my first year secretly visiting the poetry section of the library. To be honest, once I was reading poetry the stuff I was writing significantly improved, but the more in love with reading it I fell, the less I felt like writing it. I can’t explain why maybe once I saw what a good poem looked like I just knew I didn’t have one in me. I turned my attention to short stories and spent a few more years trying really hard not to be funny.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I guess the moral of this story is that 18 year old me could be a bit of a brat, or that sometimes the best gifts seem like a crock of shit when you’re getting them. Which, sort of makes me feel like it was a mistake throwing out the fugly-ass cat painting someone got me for my 18<sup>th</sup> birthday. No, that’s no kind of moral, it’s impossible throwing out that cat picture was a mistake. I guess the real moral is read stuff, even stuff you think you won’t like because you aren’t as smart as you think you are and it might just change your lif</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">e.</span>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">'Till Next time,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Letty</span>Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105224360319491808.post-32409678478763554132014-12-04T18:39:00.000+00:002016-09-21T18:51:25.256+01:00Guess Who's Back?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace; font-size: small;">'The most anticipated return to blogging of 2014' - The Times</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace; font-size: small;">'McHugh makes a triumphant return to a scene that was floundering without her.' - The Guardian</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace; font-size: small;">'Oh yeah, I vaguely remember you.' People Who Used To Follow Me.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace; font-size: small;">'Um, yeah I guess you could start blogging again if you really want to.' - My Mum</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace; font-size: small;">'Please for the love of God stop asking me if you should start blogging again. Why can't you just let me live my life? I will pay you with money to leave me alone.' - That Guy I Chased Down The Street That One Time.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">Hi, my name is Letty and this used to be my blog. For anyone who doesn't remember me here are the essential facts: I am 23 and an artist, I live in Yorkshire, I genuinely believe I can reason with the weather and I made some of those reviews up. (The one about my mum obviously, she thinks my blog is the best. Just like those guys at The Guardian.) I’m super excited to announce my return to blogging, and I’m sure you guys are just as excited to have me back. What’s up? I’m sensing resistance. Look, I know the last two years have been hard for you guys, spending endless nights refreshing this page hoping for an update, going into bookshops and changing copies of “Where’s Wally?” to say “Where’s Letty?” and then running away crying, I heard somewhere that they re-opened those phone lines they had when Take That split up just to reassure my heartbroken followers, but I’m back now, It’s all going to be okay. You still don’t believe me? Okay, I get that. You’ve been hurt before and that last thing I posted did include the words “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere” but if you would just let me explain why I left, and how it’s going to be different this time around I think you would understand, and maybe start to trust me again. You don't have to hang around, just hear me out. Deal? Deal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">Okay, so let's start by going over The Three Main Reasons I Abandoned You Like a Heartless Jerk:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">1. I Took Digital Publishing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">Around the time I stopped updating this blog I decided to take digital publishing, it was an unmitigated disaster. Well no, I exaggerate, it wasn’t any kind of disaster I got a high 2:1 for the module and it comes in really handy now that social media is sort of my job. Because I took Digital Publishing when people are like “Why should I pay to you to do this?” I can go “Hey man, I studied this stuff. At University.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;"> The truth is that whole module just wasn’t really what I signed up for. I was expecting digital publishing with digital being the operative word, I thought we were going to learn to code and build apps and generally do cool whizzy things using the internet, but it turned out that publishing was the operative word and we spent all the time talking about the publishing industry and what the internet and new technologies mean for the publishing industry. We looked at a lot of stats and graphs, and the dryness of it all sort of made me lose my taste for blogging. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">2. My life went insane.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">I’ll probably elaborate about this at a later date, but for now, let’s just say it’s been a crazy two years and parts of it were the opposite of fun times, and the worst parts of it happened shortly after I stopped updating. So digital publishing had killed off my desire to blog and dealing with my life ensured I didn’t really have to time either.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">3. I slept with WordPress...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">…and Tumblr and Twitter and Pinterest. Look, we never said this was an exclusive thing, and I was curious, I wanted to try something different. I am so sorry. It never felt the same. The time I spent with them was the time I could have been spending with you. I know that now. That two years we spent together was a magical time for me, and I know it meant something to you too. I made a mistake, but I want to try again. Take me back Blogger, you are the only platform for me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">PS. I’m still going to see Twitter and Tumblr and Pinterest, but not WordPress, WordPress is a bitch.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">Alright, I'm glad we've got that out in the open. Don't you feel better? No, obviously you don't, I've basically just rubbed salt in your wounds by outlining my betrayal but you will feel after you read The Three Main Reasons Why Everything’s Going to be Different This Time Round:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">1. I have at least three usable post ideas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is probably more post ideas than I ever had in my illustrious blogging career. In the old days, I just used to sit down and brain vomit whatever was in my head onto my keyboard then put it on the internet with zero percent editing. Things are different now, I have real ideas, some of them about serious things, and I’ve even outlined them, in a notebook. If notebook outlines aren’t the very definition of commitment and maturity I don’t know what is.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">Evidence: this very post outlined in my notebook. <br />(Thats right, I planned this.)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">2. I started thinking in blog posts again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">Before, when I used to update the blog regularly I thought in blog posts, by which I mean as things were happening I would be imagining how best to blog about them, I would fall over and think “Oh man, this is going to be so funny when I blog about it.” Then I got twitter, and I’d fall over and think “oh man, twitter is going to love this." instead. Recently though I’ve been finding twitter kind of frustrating, it’s so blunt, there’s only really room for the punch line and I miss telling the story. I want to talk about the build up to my public humiliations, I want to talk about the aftermath, I want space for details, and for that, you need more than 140 characters. I need a blog. (Or real life people to talk to, but those guys are always trying to tell me about their own life and they are so boring.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">3. I’m super busy now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">That sounds like an argument against blogging, but trust me it’s an argument for it. I have a million other things that I should be doing right now, which makes this blog procrastination, which I think we all know is what all good blogs should be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">Now you’ve read that you are totally convinced I’m back for good right? Wrong. You won’t be convinced until you've seen some more posts. I guess I can understand that, but you should stick around baby because there is plenty more bullet point based rambling where this came from.</span><br />
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Lettyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15896468145537280800noreply@blogger.com1England, UK53.917281015475986 -1.5820312552.728692015475985 -4.16381825 55.105870015475986 0.99975574999999983