About This Site

Currently studying to become a Dramaturg. Living with two small children (not mine) and two small kittens (ditto, but that doesn't stop them puking on my feet). Now in London, job-hunting

From March to September 2002, I made 635 candles. That's a lot of hot wax.

I look a bit like this. I like email.

Things that I can do

1. I can put my fist in my mouth.

   This is of no use to myself or the world in general. I just can.

2. I can turn cartwheels.

   badly.

3. I can play the piano, the flute, the cello, and the recorder.

   very badly. I've had between one and six years training in them. most of which I can hardly remember. I maybe could bang out London's burning on the recorder for you, but it would probably shatter your teeth.

4. I can sing

   quite well. I've only discovered that this year for sure, but I enjoy singing and keep being told I'm good at it. Which is nice. Apparently I'd be better at it if I didn't drink so much coffee or smoke so many roll-ups, but one has to decide on one's priorities, eh?

5. I can write

   I think I can. And do. now in this blog, but previously in many teenage-angsty journals ("God, I Love Him, or do I?..." etc.) a few poems, and a couple of aborted stage-plays, one of which I will go back to one of these days, short stories, ridiculous ideas for novels and many, many, many e-mails.

6. I can read.

   And do. A lot. I devour books, newspapers, magazines, anything. I find it hard to sit and just be, I have to be reading something. At the moment I've run out of fiction and money for fiction, so I've borrowed a friend's collection of Ian Rankin, which are going down fast.

   Favourite Authors I can think of; Novels: Maurakami, Tibor Fischer, Kurt Vonnegut, I've liked two of Nick Hornby's, a couple of Roddy Doyle's, various good, good books by lots of other people that I've passed on to other people and will wake in the middle of the night going "oooh! that one! him!" and they usually are 'hims'. and I don't know why.

   Short stories: O Henry, Dorothy Parker, Vonnegut again, collected sets of various people. I like short stories a lot.

   Plays: Shakespeare, Edward Albee, Beckett, Oscar Wilde. I prefer to read them out loud, and don't get the chance very often. That's what I'm trained in. Reading plays out loud. Acting. Although I don't want to do that now. I guess it's something I can Do, all the same. Where was I?

   Poetry: e.e.cummings, Shakespeare, a lot of the Liverpool school of poets, Roger McGough, Brian Patten. John Fuller, Dorothy Parker again.

   One of my favourite poems, for no reason, else but it's short...

   The reason I like Edna St Vincent Millay
   Is that her name
   sounds like a basketball
   falling down stairs.

   The reason I like Walt Whitman
   Is that his name
   sounds like Edna St Vincent Millay
   falling down stairs.

   I can't remember who wrote it (apparently it was David Mamet), but I love that if you read it out loud, it does sound like those things.

7. I can, entirely, rationalise my hatred of Apples.

   They're loud. And monotonous. And smell.

   Alright, perhaps I cannot rationalise my hatred of apples.

8. I can remember all my houses.
   • London, west London, St Quentin's Avenue; 0-9
   • London, west London, Barlby Gardens; 9-16
   • Derbyshire, New Mills 16-19
   • Lansdowne Road, Didsbury, Manchester, 19-20
   • Adams Drive, Davis, California, 20-21
   • Burton Road, Manchester, 21-22
   • Something (not my house doesn't count) street, Salford 22-23
   • Back to New Mills, Derbyshire 23 - still 23
   • The Abbey, Isle of Iona 23 - 25
   • Glasgow 25 - 26.
   • Stoke Newington, London; 26 - now.

9. I can be organised. And grown up.

   I just don't want to be.