I know I have blogged about it once before, but at the moment I just cannot emphasize enough how much a love the fact that people share their itunes libraries freely with others. (Mine, of course, is strictly personal.) Today I spent the day listening to someone’s ‘Arabic groove’ (their words, not mine). Brilliant! Firstly, it is actually very groovy (can one still say that, without being stuck in the 60s?) and very easy to listen to. Secondly, there’s no way I can sing along (highly embarrassing if done aloud) and I can’t even sit and listen to the words, as they mean absolutely nothing to me. Perfect for working!
Normally you can group people’s libraries into one of three categories: the senior academic (listens to classical and occasionally some jazz, the most modern stuff they have is ABBA), the fresh BA student (listens mainly to pop/rock, usually pretty mainstream) and then the ‘alternative’ phd student (who is trying to be a bit more ‘deep’ and ‘difficult’ than the average person – he or she is, after all, doing some serious research – and thus won’t have anything from the hit lists in the library). Of course these can also be divided into subgroups, and a good bit of gender and queer theory could be applied to it, but I am trying to keep it simple here.
I was thus very surprised when I the other day came across someone’s library, which mostly consisted of Disney music! I looked around. Who is this person? I came up with four possible explanations: 1) a stressed parent (most likely the mother) is sharing a laptop with the kids, 2) someone is doing a major research project on the importance of music in Disney stories (I was, after all, sitting in the Rare books and music reading room), 3) someone in my alternative group has gone way too alternative, or 4) Disney music has suddenly become retro cool (I definitely wouldn’t know) and someone from the young student group is like the hippest person around. Go figure!
Today in the library I sat next to a man with a spectacular hair. [Feel free to here sing anything you know from the musical.] The man, in his sixties/seventies wore an amazing white, curly wig. The hair was just too big and too white to be real, and the synthetic material just glowed. And yes, looking a bit closer you could see some of his real hair poking out at the back of the neck. And I just couldn’t help wondering why he was wearing that? It was so unnatural looking, almost as if he woke up after a particularly tough Halloween weekend, realizing he’d overslept, and ran straight to the library completely unconscious about the fact that his clown hair was still on. (Mind you, I forgot to have a look at his shoes!) It looked like a young Michael Jackson, if Michael Jackson indeed had been white (at that time). Or was he serious? What on earth happened to the old fashioned toupees? And I feel incredibly guilty, but it was really hard not to look.
It was almost as bad as the transvestite we had when I first started college. Nothing wrong with transvestites (I don’t know any, as far as I know, but I’m sure they’re no worse than the rest of us), but he was neither the glamorous gay club world transvestites, or the ‘is it a rather manly woman or quite a female man’ that you run into every now and then. This man was so obviously a man, with an ill fitting dress and poor lipstick technique. He was studying to become a high school teacher. And it always struck me, that no matter how good a teacher he was, he would never be accepted by the pupils (or their farming parents). The man disappeared after a few months. I still don’t know if he gave up his studies, or just moved, but I still hope he eventually found something to do that was right for him. But it was still really hard not to look.
Well, I've now discovered a new week (who celebrates Easter anyway, this could be the official Halloween week): lucky Friday, lonely Saturday, worrying Sunday (Tim got stuck in a tunnel on the Eurostar for close to four hours, and with no phone switched on!), and finally shitty Monday. Yes, I might just as well make it public — I woke up nice and early this morning only to discover that I have the urinary tract infection from hell! So, there, now we all know it. (Sorry, just have to whinge about it.) Thus my morning was spent in the local health clinic...
Finally getting in to the British Library, I was met by complete chaos. It was children's day! And there were children, parents, more children, grandparents, buggies, nannies, and kindergarten groups everywhere! The courtyard was completely packed, and the queue for bag search enormous. (Yes, the bag search - another thing I've planned to blog about for months now.) Kind of cute, but also a bit stressing when all you want to do is to make up for the wasted morning. On a break a few hours later, I also discovered that they had invited illustrators of children's books to come and 'perform' (i.e. draw) live on a giant canvas. Quite entertaining to watch, and a great crowd pleaser. Just look at all the people! 
However, I was a bit bummed to realize that I had missed one of my favorites: Quentin Blake! Anyone who grew up reading Roald Dahl knows what I'm referring to. Oh well, maybe next year. It wouldn't surprise me if was still in the BL then...
Echo… echo… echo…
Yes, I admit, it’s quite empty in here. I’ve been really bad at updating lately. Partly, this is because of my trip to Sweden, partly because I’ve been rather stressed and down, and blogging then is just plain depressing — if not for me, so for you readers. But things are slowly looking brighter. If nothing else, they finally have started with free internet in the British Library! Absolutely perfect! I love it. Although it took me a few days to get it to work. I had to log in with my old account, but I couldn’t remember the details. Tried registering a new account, but they already had my reader’s pass on file, so that didn’t work. But no worry, it said on the homepage. Just write your user name, and we’ll email you your password. Only two problems: 1) How could I check my email if they wouldn’t allow me to use the internet, and 2) I couldn’t remember my user name (but was pretty sure of my password). Very frustrating! But after a few phone calls (with my super phone, which is still lovely) everything is up and running, and I can now check emails/update the blog/chat and well, search for info online whenever I want. Super! It really feels like a luxury!
Other good news: we finally gave in and bought a "new" TV. We had been promised one from a friend, but none of us had ever the time to meet up to get it. It had to be a weekend, and when he was available we weren’t and vice versa. But last Sunday we agreed that we’d had enough! The tiny one that came with the flat has definitely done its job. So, we looked around on some ads online, and called a few. Found one who wanted to sell the same day (sounds suspicious?), and was willing to deliver it, too. A few hour later, she was ours! £ 80 felt like very well spent money when we saw the huge TV that arrived (29 inches, 3 years old). It is enormous. I’m not sure if it’s because we are so used to the old, tiny one, or because it really is big, or because the furniture it’s standing on is small… but anyway. It has revolutionized our lives. We can now zap with a remote; watch all five channels without having to go through 99 channels on the way there; and use the Wii again. (Yes, we are playing Super Mario like crazy.) The remote control is particularly impressing. It is absolutely huge! I almost suspect it has been made for someone half blind/deaf/generally disabled person. Just look at the size of the buttons:
Well, at least it is hard to lose it!
Ok, good day for this kind of stuff: two great spottings today.
1) Woman walking through the British Library with a pillow (!) under her arm.
2) At King's Cross tube station: young girl, dressed in pink, sitting in a buggy, being pushed by her older sister. The sister, c. 10 years old, is dressed in a shocking neon pink coloured tracksuit. After them comes their mother (very blond), in her late 30s, in a matching tracksuit (same colour!), in a pair of even more matching furry (!) pink flip flops, decorated with glitter! Pink overload, anyone?!
I guess it's been a bit naughty of me to call Tim all these names (although he certainly calls himself a lot more - and a lot worse than this), so it probably serves me right, that I now call myself tomato-face! Oh, the embarrassment...
I had spent the day in the BL, being rather good. Had gone through all my old notes, to make sure there were no question marks I had not followed up. One minute to eight, and the library is on the edge of closing. I pack up my things, shut down the computer, return my books, and... no, do not unlock the laptop. I normally use a laptop lock (which is attached to the laptop, and then bound around the lamp above the reading desk). Well, the lock has a simple four-digit combination (which happens to be the same as the pin to my Visa card, so nothing too tricky) but it just wouldn't open! Tried over and over again! No, still locked. In the end, had to go to security, and they called for a janitor to come and cut it open. Before the janitor arrived three of us managed to pull the thing over the lamp. I was absolutely mortified! And really stressed. I mean, now is not the time to have to find a lock smith.
Got home. Tried again. Oh, yes. Wrong combination. Tadaaa! Lock opens! I am sooo embarrassed!
One of my fairly recent discoveries is that you in iTunes can access other people’s music libraries. (Stupid people who let complete strangers do that!) This is a great feature, as I am bored of my own music — and too busy to upload anything new, and too poor to buy new stuff. So, when I want new music I just surf around other people’s iTunes. The music is only half the fun, though. The greatest part is to see what weird taste in music some people have (classical and hard core house and Britney — must be someone who shares the computer with a teenage son or daughter), and also to try and guess whose library it is I am listening too (which is really hard, because there are too many people in the library) and what kind of person it is. Today I listened to a library which definitely belonged to a Swede... And a person whose taste in music is more or less the same as mine! It was actually quite scary — it was like looking at my own library, plus/minus a few! Who can it be...?
Work update: polishing on my summary, and waiting for some proofs. Thesis now 555 pages long...
Records I have listened to in one day in the library (with a few songs on repeat): the Beatles ‘One’, Amy McDonald ‘This is the life’, Catatonia ‘International Velvet’, Damien Rice ‘O’, Dave Matthews Band ‘Crash’ and Faithless ‘Outroperspective’ (in that very order). Oddly enough, at the end of the day I normally want anthem-like music, or electronica / psychedelic / techno stuff. It’s nice and repetitive, and the brain is on minimal work (there’s no desire to sit and sing along).
