Yesterday, Bryn and I went to see Rammstein. Second time lucky. Last time, when we’d arrived, the line of people had stretched half way round the block. This time, it went all the way round the block. A much bigger block. In June, the line had been primarily composed of goths, who, like us, had heard "Du Hast" and "Engel" in clubs. We hadn’t accounted for the band’s immense growth in popularity among metallers since June, with Kerrang championing "Mutter" over the summer. Our hopes of getting to be at the front were dashed.

Nevertheless, the wait, although almost as long as the last one, was more amusing. "Buy and sell Rammsteen tickets!" one evident non-fan announced repetitively. At the start of the queue, one bloke was selling posters for three pounds; by the time we’d reached the first corner, someone was giving them away for free. I refused to take one, because 1) I didn’t want to have to hang onto it throughout the concert, 2) I’m not allowed to put posters up in my house in Canterbury and 3) I have far too many for my walls at home, due to the sloping ceiling, the number of bookshelves I have, and agreeing to take home all the posters nobody wanted after Pits. (Although me and Toby ceremoniously ripped up the one of Fred Durst after the last one.) However, Bryn accepted one, put it in his coat, and it was in amazingly good condition at the end of the evening. Also, the company was good. Last time, there’d just been a girl asking if she’d be allowed to take her camera inside, and some bloke asking where everyone was from. This time, we were surrounded by lunapaths from Reading.

The support band, who were quite well-known but whose name I can’t remember (a website I've just found suggests it was Clawfinger, but since I'm writing this nine months later, I couldn't say), were fairly good. Then came the main attraction. I shan’t go into detail because:

1) I was about ten rows from the front, I’m short and therefore I couldn’t see very much beyond the flame jets.
2) I was too busy being thrown backwards and forwards to concentrate on the stage.

And anyone with any interest in the band whatsoever will already know about their stage shows: lots of depravity and even more fire. The lead singer is a grade three pyrotechnician; nobody wants him to become grade four, which would let him set buildings on fire. However, I will say 1) the moshing made it unbearably hot and the firing freely didn’t help, 2) the set list - in both content and order - was excellent, up until the encore, anyway, 3) the pyrotechnics were creative: it wasn’t just jets and sparkles (hell, Steps used them!) cool as they looked, but the singer had a flame-producing mask and sung while his arms were on fire, and 4) it was, all in all, very very cool.

Instead:

You Know You're At A Seriously Moshy Concert When . . .

1. People start moshing to the background music before the bands start . . . and it's "All By Myself" by Celine Dion.

2. You're wearing four-inch platforms with steel toe-caps, yet your feet get crush to a pulp . . . during the support act. Which is a Hungarian boy band.

3. You're a two-hundred-pound female, but during the first song, you feel compelled to take your t-shirt off.

4. You're 6'4", wearing platforms boots and in the second row. But you still can't see anything.

5. You've seen Slipknot and you're scared.

6. You stop jumping up and down (or rather, you're given the opportunity to stop - for the first song, the crowd's been so wild you've been forced to), and find that the floor's moving up and down on its own accord. And you were pretty sure it was made of concrete last time you checked.

7. The band throw bottles of water into the audience, and they cause conflicts that make the Second World War look positively civilised.

8. You don't know the guy in front of you, but he's been getting on your nerves all night, intentionally or otherwise. Yet you'll wipe your forehead on his sweat-drenched shirt, in the interest of cooling down, and might even try and squeeze some out to drink.

9. You really, really regret wearing any PVC.

10. Despite the disturbing floor vibrations, you're pretty sure you didn't wet yourself. But afterwards, you discover your pants are soaking.

11. Your cheeks are sore due to leaning over the shoulders of people who start jumping, your clothes are ripped to shreds, and you start to discover vital brain cells are missing due to jumping underneath out-stretched arms.

12. You weigh yourself the day after the concert and discover you've lost two stone.

13. You decide you're too old for this and you're never going to another concert again, unless you can get a seat. But you go to a much more violent one a month later.

Needless to say, it was the most violent concert I’ve been to. For a self-professed metaller, I’ve been to a lot of decidedly un-metal concerts in my time: out of about twenty, the only metal ones were Alice Cooper, and at both of those I was seated. The Cardiacs was somewhat vicious, but I was in the front row then and fine. However, scary as it was at first, I actually started to quite enjoy it.

Afterwards, we hurried back to the tube station, only to have to wait about five minutes for the tube to set off. When we disembarked at Victoria station, I asked if we should walk up the escalator in the interest of haste. He said yes. There were three escalators - one going down, one going up, and one stationary. I suggested we used the stationary one, since it was empty.

Half way up, I suddenly realised why this was a bad idea. Even when walking up them, moving escalators seriously decrease the number of steps you need to climb. A boy who’d attended the gig (judging by his Rammstein hoodie) on the moving escalator laughed at us and raced Bryn to the top. Bryn won. I was still puffing and panting with about ten steps to go, but a girl cheered when I reached my destination.

We caught the train all right, got to sit down this time, and in Sittingbourne there was even a taxi waiting for us. Amazing, we thought, considering the number of disasters that have struck us in our going-to-gigs-together experience.

Of course, after that we couldn’t sleep for most of the night, and then slept through the alarm clock, because someone had set it to silent. Cle-ver. But I got to my first lecture in time.

Friday 7 December 2002

A couple of weeks ago, Bryn and I bought a beginner's D&D game, only to discover you need about four people plus a gamemaster to play it. Heurgh: haven't they spotted a correlation between "playing D&D" and "having no friends"?

Actually, we know a lot of people between us, but neither of us can think of anyone to invite to join in.

Today, Bryn's step-sister gave Bryn and myself a Christmas card. Which was a jolly nice thing to do, considering she's only met me three or four times.

But. A joint Christmas card. People see us as an Old Married Couple. Eek!

(Well, I suppose that's not too far wrong: we're a couple, he's old (I mean, he's over twenty one!) and I'm married. But still.)

Tuesday 11 December 2001

When oh when am I going to learn that when buying a t-shirt, "small" means "small, if you're an elephant"? Because I had not learnt this before Saturday 8 December, I am now the possessor of a Motorhead t-shirt big enough for two of me. I suppose most Motorhead fans might be elephants, and they just don't show up to the concerts because, like, they don't let elephants into most venues. However, I have seen multitudinous men with the bodies of Steven Tyler looking bitchin' in black leather jackets, black jeans, biker boots and tight Motorhead t-shirts. Where do they get them from? Perhaps they're a special introductory gift if you join the Hell's Angels. I don't think I'll investigate, though. At the age of fifteen, I harboured hopes of getting a scooter for my next birthday (the motor sort, not the ones that were popular among kids and business people alike last year). But after travelling five metres in my brother's go-kart, I decided I wasn't terribly partial to vehicles that went ROAR right beneath my bottom. Luckily, I've taken to wearing t-shirts over my jumpers, since I own a lot of v. cool t-shirts and a lot of utterly evil jumpers, so it doesn't look wholly huge. (The t-shirt, not my bottom.)

Nodnol was the place where the t-shirt was acquired. I was there due to there being a Sofie in the country, in want of companion on her second mission to Camden and Slimelight. I was a remarkably good girl, financially speaking, during the shopping part of the day, given my list said, "black PVC jacket, long black PVC skirt, knee-length black PVC skirt, black PVC hot pants" (do you ever get the feeling I like black PVC?) "tartan bondage trousers, mesh shirt, New Rock shoelaces", but all I bought was magenta hair mascara (£2), the aforementioned t-shirt (£5) and the aforementioned shoelaces, which were bloomin' expensive at £6. I only needed one, as well. Oh well, I can use the other for tying Bryn up with.

The main reason for my exemplary behaviour was that I was planning to get the rest of the items in Glitters, which I described after first going there in August: if it's gothic, and you want it, the assistants will find it for you. Maybe I should have added Simon Gallup to my shopping list? However, either my geographical dyslexia was playing up, or it's closed down. It was, if I recall correctly, on the same side of the street as The Electric Ballroom, where all the buildings are being shut down and refurbished, so the latter doesn't seem entirely unlikely. Nooooo!

Sofie and I conversed at length about the Harry Potter movie in Pizza Hut, then sat on the floor in Border's Books (since all the seats in the café were taken) reading "Horrible Histories" to pass the hours between the shops o Camden closing and Slimelight starting.

At Slimelight, the number of people who have seen my nipples doubled. The original figure was around fifty (all but two of the viewers observing under completely undubious circumstances, such as sharing changing rooms with me before I believed I had anything to hide). While I bounced up and down to "Dead Stars", I held one hand over my chest. I am so getting a mesh top before I wear that basque again.

It was a very very good night, music-wise. Methinks, since the The Electric Ballroom has gone trancy and pantsy, there has been demand there for more metallish gothness. I don't remember ever hearing "The Beautiful People" or "Head Like A Hole" or "Du Hast" at Slimelight there before, but as far as I was concerned, they were most welcome. They also played more Depeche Mode than usual.

I danced at length, but at three o'clock, my feet hurt, so I sat down, slept for about an hour, and sat drowsily for another two and a half. Since I'd left my PVC gloves at home (I'd only just left the house when I realised this, but since Soppygit and Jo were up and about, I felt too foolish to go back in), by 4.30, I was absolutely freezing. I waited for Sofie to show some sign of life, and asked for my cloakroom ticket, which she was looking after, so I could get my hoodie. I stumbled upstairs to the cloakroom, shaking so violently I could hardly undo the safety pin fastener of my backpack, put my hoodie on, and buried my head in my hands once more. They played VNV Nation, Covenant, Nine Inch Nails, more Depeche Mode, Adam And The Ants, Siouxsie And The Banshees, The Cure and bountiful other goodness, yet I could not drag myself away from my seat, exhaustion making paranoia set in too.

But as soon as "Disposable Teens" by Marilyn Manson came on, I was stumbling over everyone's stilettos to get to the dance floor. I didn't even want to spend time putting away the Motorhead t-shirt which I'd been using to warm my legs up, so I put it on over the hoodie. And, since I was being totally ungoffic already, and I hadn't gone particularly mad all right, I started headbanging (now the offending self-liberating nipples were hidden).

What sort of goth am I? I should be killed with my own rsers . . . except I don't have any. (I don't see the need in shaving off hair in places which only one other person ever gets to see, when it's going to grow back to the same length in a couple of days). I could use Bryn's electric razor, which is silver and blue and therefore cybergoffic . . . except . . . well, it probably would harm a fly, if dropped upon one from a great height, from a grea-at hei-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ight. </androidal paranoia>, but won't even scratch, never mind draw critical amounts of bludddd!!! O angest! Teh pane can not be mine!

After that, I danced until the end of the night, when they played yet more Depeche Mode. I woke Sofie and we went to the tube station. We had to wait nine minutes for the tube, then it was delayed because of problems with the seatbelts (?) according to The Mysterious Voice. Somehow, I still caught my train though. I wrote and sent text messages to Bryn until Gillingham and fortunately woke up a stop before mine. The train pulled into Canterbury, and I fell asleep five times before it reached the station. Somehow I managed to get up the hill to campus (I was planning to get a taxi, but Bryn wanted me to pick up a Windoze CD from my house). There, I got into bed, but wasn't able to sleep since the geen by my side wanted to do Naughty Things. Since I didn't want to waste the afternoon, I hung out in the computer room while Bryn re-enacted, and felt like Microwaved Death.

Bryn gave me his cold. The following day, he discovered that he had an essay due in the day afterwards. He would therefore not be going to The Beercart Arms (which has a weekly rock night, which we attend) - not straight away, at any rate. So, after we'd not watched "Farscape" (it was cancelled due to snooker), he went to Eliot Computer Room, sending me to Keynes Bar, to take everyone who turned up there down the hill into town.

I was there for twenty five minutes. How many people turned up? Not a single soul! Worse still, the video jukebox was broken, so it was showing the latest hits. i.e. the worst songs in its collection.

Urgh! I'm too old for this!

Thursday 13 December 2001

I am most decidedly the squarest person in my Maths class. I was the only person who turned up to the lecture this morning, apart from the lecturer. It was helpful, though.

If I was male, I would sound exactly like:

Neil from "The Young Ones" (top):

"Thanks for telling me about the new hole, guys!"

Take the "Who would you sound like if you were of the opposite gender test" at fuali.com Bryn's student house.

Bryn has acquired a new soundcard. Free with it was an onscreen keyboard you can play with a mouse (or a computer keyboard, if you don't mind being limited to the range middle C to top D), a feature that lets you speed up and slow down music, and, best of all, a voice changer. You get the options "Alien", "Chipmunk", "Female to male", "Male to female" and "Zeus". When Bryn uses "Chipmunk" he sounds exactly like the woodworm from "Simon The Sorcerer".

Also, it works when you play music from it. We learnt that if Brian Molko was male, he would sound just like Boy George.

My social calendar was well-packed this evening! I was invited on a pub crawl and Matt2's band was playing. In the end, I went to see "The Haunting Of Hill House", one of Mark's projects (him what did "Azathoth" back in March). It was dead good and hard to concentrate on because it was so inspiring. I do [hart] tales of cruel Victorians locking their children in attics and ignoring their invalid mother's fainter and fainter cries for help.

Then I went to the campus shop, where a bloke tried to chat me up in the queue. This was most bizarre because:

1) People hardly ever chat me up at the best of times and right now I look and feel my worst. I haven't showered since Tuesday morning (I was going to do it today, but most of my hours were spent playing Spider Solitaire online, until the line of people waiting to type their essays made me feel too guilty to continue, and waiting for Buffy to start, only for it to be replaced by snooker), and my nose runs Forest Gump stylee. I suppose he was probably drunk, it being the last proper night of term and all. Actually, I'm sure he was drunk, judging by his insane attire.

2) Not only was I standing behind Bryn, but he and I have been Perpetually Together, in some sense o the word, since September 2000. We're one of the most prominent couples on UKC (Bryn's housemate tried to introduce him to his girlfriend: "Oh, yeah, I remember you. You used to wear a huge coat and rollerblade around campus"). Only Deaf and Stale surpass us in weirdness. (Today, we met Dale wearing his dressing gown. He had some clothes on underneath it, mind. It looked strangely funchie.) So, how anyone can not know we're together astounds me. Still, the guy complimented me on my boots, and talked to me about Depeche Mode.

I checked netgoth.org.uk recently. You can tell Cumbria's short on Good Places For Goths To Go, because "The Turf" and "Woodrow Wilson's" are listed in the "good pubs" section: two locations favoured by my entirely ungothic school friends. I was very amused to learn that The Boardroom is a gay pub: Will, Roe, Chris and myself went there once. I wonder which of them knew that? I was very scared to discover that Carlisle now has an Ann Summers! Note to self: do not take Bryn to Carlisle when he visits over New Year. (Not that this will be difficult. He isn't getting there until Saturday evening and then leaves on Friday morning, and two of the days between those dates will be a Sunday and New Year. And, in the remaining three days, we're meant to be going to Whitehaven and Newcastle.)

Ooh! Huge piece o gossip! Ibid sent an article for The Weird Sisters Website to my Hotmail account, so I checked it, for the first time in about a month. In it, I found an e-mail Smill had sent on 16th November. Apparently, for the first time ever, she has a boyfriend! w00t!

Must go and tease her about it! Revenge is nigh! Bwahaha!

Friday 14 December 2001

My Dad turned fifty eight on Wednesday. On the way to work, he thought the Rangerover might have a flat tyre, so he stopped, discovered this to be the case, and dragged the spare out of the boot. It was really heavy, so, in doing so, he did his back in. His plans to move pianos later on that day were rather scuppered.

Today, something even worse happened: he learnt he has cancer of the bowel. Beep. Dad says there's an eighty per cent chance he will live. He seems to think this is a good thing, a lot better than expected. As a student of Probability, my response was "Muh!?" However, I can't even get my head around anything other than his survival, so not to worry about me, yet. He's actually looking forward to getting some time off work after the operation, so he can rewrite "Vampower", this musical he composed twenty five years ago.

My cousin is getting married. Apparently, you have to book two years in advance for a wedding reception. Note to self: do not get married. Or, if I must, do so at Registry Office. Or online: quicker still.

Smill no longer has a boyfriend. Booers!

Bryn has gone to a party. I could have joined him, but it was a thirty minute walk away, and about negative thirty degrees outside. Since I intend to make a career out of writing, I thought it in my best interest not to let my fingers fall off. Ibid went home on Thursday, Soppygit today, and so I am in Eliot computer room. I have written to my online friend Meaghan a few times and 598 words of a new novella. Downstairs, we have the usual Friday drum et bass night. There are supposed to be live bands on as well, but I haven't heard any so far. I brought a Rammstein CD with me, so I could drown out the annoying repetitive pounding . . . except I've left my headphones at Bryn's house. Beep!

I'm tired and I'm probably going to be stuck here for another three hours. Me go get Jaffa Cakes for NRG before the campus shop shuts.

Later

I have owned a video camera in all the time Bryn has known me. He has sporadically asked me, "Can we film ourselves being dodgy?" I have always answered yes. However, it wasn't until today that we actually got round to doing it.

The result was the visual equivalent of illegible. Fuzzy grey bars covered most of the screen, and there were flashes of green and red. Most of the time you could hardly make out what was going on: most of it seemed to consist of my hair. (That on my head, you!) However, I was rather pleased with the result. There was no sound and it looked really artistic. Bryn was just pleased about how big- er, yeah, let's not go there. However, he edited over it, with a really interesting shot of the lens cap, which is probably just as well.

There was no problem with the video, or the camera, or his video machine, because what was on the video beforehand - footage from the first Pit I went to - looked just fine. The various components must have just decided that what we were filming was unfit to ever be seen.

In other news, I should be getting £46.08 for my supervising of ickle firsties, come next term. Which will be nice. Unfortunately, when I was handing over the application form to the finance officer guy, he said, "So that's £12.10 an hour?"

"I thought it was £5.12," I said.

"Oh, you're a student. I thought you were a postgrad. Right you are."

Grr! Why was I so honest? Why didn't I let my twenty-three-year-old looks work in my favour? (I always thought I looked young for my age, but apparently, both Soppygit and Ibid thought I was a postgrad when they first met me.) I could have been £62.82 richer! (Yes, I worked that out in my head. Not for nothing am I a Maths student.)

My hair is all stiff from the pink hair mascara Bryn put in it earlier. However, it is not even remotely pink. Grr. Stoopid Camden where the only cheap stuff is completely useless.

I had a load of dreams to upload, but I used that page as a template to HTMLise the entry about my NIN hoodie, and guess what? I overwrote them. Je deteste les ordinateurs à l'université du Kent à Canterbury. Je voudrais mon ordinateur, fixé, mais mon frère n'a pas fixé ça. Mon français est très mauvais, mais je peux utiliser les ALT chiffres très bien.

Sunday 16 December 2001

Meh. I want to go to Snakebite And Black, this well-known goth club in Newcastle. Apparently it is open the first Tuesday of each month. Poifect, thought I, since Bryn will be visiting on the first Tuesday of January . . . but noooo, it's not open then. Spose the first Tuesday it is New Year's Day, but gah.

On Friday night, after hours of suffering Music Of Deth from downstairs, I heard them playing "Insomnia" by Faithless. Since I [hart] that song, I immediately abandoned my computer and rushed down to Mungo's, the restaurant / bar from which the music was emanating. Hardly anyone was dancing, but, since I'm generally the only person on the dance floor of The Beercart Arms for about an hour, this bothered me not. Well, it bothered me a bit, since at The Beercart Arms, I look cool. Insane perhaps, but like a metaller nonetheless. My New Rocks and Anarchy shirt were a little misplaced here. (Although someone clearing up the band's equipment was wearing a Moog Synthesizer shirt. What could be better? I complimented him on it.) Nevertheless, I'm as well-versed in techno-techno-techno dancing as I am in headbanging, so in I joined. I kept going for about eight tracks, recognising two others. I do like menacing trance music - "Nightmare" by Brainbug is another fine example of it. Why does the only decent commercial dance concern sleeping disorders? And why did it have to vanish, taking with it lyrical integrity? As far as I'm concerned, either write a set of decent lyrics or abandon words entirely. I know I like a song whose only line is "One World! One Sky! We Live! We Die!" But that sounds infinitely cooler than "I'm horny, horny horny horny!" or "Keep on jumpin'"

They started playing something garage-y, so I went upstairs. Before I got to the computer room, Bryn called - he was only his way back from the party and asked me to meet him half way. So I set off down the hill and learnt a valuable lesson: never dance enthusiastically in platform boots on thick carpet for a long period of time. It hurts. (It hurrrrts! Make it stop!)

On Saturday night, Bryn was going to go round to Re-Enactor Anna's while I went to the computer room. However, there was a campus-wide power cut, so I went home instead. It was absolutely freezing - Soppygit and Ibid have left, and neither Jo nor myself knew how to get any heat. So I made some toast, to warm my hands up, and sat reading "Bad Girls" by Jacqueline Wilson while listening to "Mutter" by Rammstein on my (literally) Shiny New Walkman, taped for me by Ibid (since her stereo works, while mine goes skippy in every single song). By the seventh track, I decided there was nothing for it, but to dance for a while, but at that moment, the side ended. "Muh?" I said, taking the tape out. Grr! It was only a C60, when the people in the campus shop told me it was a C90, and charged me the price of a C90 too! My parents' shop sells cassettes, I know these things. Perhaps this was punishment for my switched allegiance? Now, with only two C60s and a C90 of music, I'm going to have to play some tapes three times on my nine-hour coach ride tomorrow. Hmpf. At least I have Ian Dury and Nick Cave's biographies to read. I hope I can read on coaches without being sick; I always used to feel a bit queasy while reading "Film Art: An Introduction" when I took the bus to work.

The power came back last night. But today, I tried to go to Eliot computer room, while Bryn re-enacted, there was a beeg sign at the front of Eliot telling me that there was no power whatsoever. So over to Rutherford computer room I went. The computers there worked, up to a point - I couldn't use the WWW or access my X drive - but it was absolutely freezing. My fingers were almost too cold to type. Eventually I left, to seek another college. Eliot now had power, but none of the computers worked. Keynes, however, has power and WWW and X drives. However, the room is almost as cold. I'm sitting next to the radiator, but like the one in my room last year, no matter how hot it gets, it fails to emanate any heat. Woe!

Tuesday 18 December 2001

What's wrong with this picture?

My indie-kid-turned-nu-metaller brother is watching Yoj Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" on Kerrang Interactive. I, the goth-punk, am listening to Lost Prophets.

This morning, I left the house at 8.20. I got home at 8pm. Remind me never to travel by coach again . . . except on 4 January, since I have a ticket for them. Grr. I broke my usual habit of going by train, because 1) I'd heard coach travel was cheaper and 2) last time I did the Carlisle-London jaunt by train, all the seats were taken and I ended up standing up for three quarters of the journey. Which is three hours. Considering I felt horribly nauseous and started seeing in monochrome last time I had to stand up on a train for five minutes (on the way back from the Cardiacs gig), I didn't want a repeat of this.

However, the journey proved just as expensive as it would have been by train and nearly twice as long. Besides, I don't particularly like road travel - all those sudden slowings down for traffic lights in cities. And there were no fold-down tables to assist one in writing. I read half of Ian Dury's biography before the light got too bad and listened to my walkman. Luckily, I discovered I had another cassette in Canterbury, so I only had to listen to my repetoire twice.

Can't bands come up with original names these days? Since I'm too disillusioned to keep abreast of popular music, or a nose of popular music, or even a toe nail of popular music, when it insists in jumping up and down in front of me, I'm confused. There's MoSolidGold, this bluesy indie-ish band whose CD I had to review for the radio station. But there's also SoSolidCrew, who hang out in the charts.

There's Incubus, who my brother likes. But there's also Inkubus Sukkubus, popular among goths. Since I've got a friend who likes The Deftones and went to see Machinehead, but goes to Slimelight, if he talks about a band starting with "Incubus", I'm going to be terribly confused.

I like The Ataris, this punk band whose stuff I downloaded off the Internet. But I keep seeing this skatepunk bloke in an Atari Teenage Riot shirt. I keep wanting to say, "Like the shirt, man" (because talking that way tends to scare people less than an accolade that would come naturally to me, such as, "I [hart] your shirt" or "Funchie shirt!"), but must remind myself it's a different band. To make matters worse, there's people who go round in shirts with the word "Ataris" on them, and the Atari computer logo.

Speaking of t-shirts, last night, when trying to wear something to sleep in, I came across my Earth And Co t-shirt. Which reminded me that when I was in my early teens, clothes with environmental slogans were really popular. Whatever happened to them? It's not like I'd wear them, these days, although the colours were perfect: the Earth And Co t-shirt is black, with white writing and purple sleeves, and the "Save The Rainforest" sweatshirt I owned was black with white print. But I'm too concerned with displaying extreme gofficness, punkiness or metalleriness to advertise saving the planet. However, it would make me a lot happier if "normal" kids would wear these shirts instead of "99% Bitch" and "69" shirts.

Thursday 20 December 2001

Yesterday, I went to Workington. I do not go to Workington often: in fact, I can only ever remember going there once in my life: five years ago, when my cousin, who lived there, got married. It is a town in West Cumbria and holds very little in the way of attraction, for me or for anyone. There is an irregular "goth" night there, but I'll probably never go to it: apart from the fact that I'm usually at university when it's on, it mostly plays nu metal, it's a long way away, and I don't think my parents would be too happy about me going there, as Workington is a supposed to be a Scank Dodgy Place Of Dume.

The reason I went there yesterday was because the aforementioned cousin has opened an optician's there. In order to give her some custom, Mum arranged for me and her to have our eyes tested.

After the appointments, me and Mum and my cousin and my aunt (who'd turned up, to exchange Christmas presents with Mum) went to lunch in a little café type o place called "Treats". There were signs everywhere saying, "Children must remain seated at all times" as if it was a bus or a fairground ride or sommat. Then we headed back to the car.

According to the UK Goth Map at darkwave.org.uk there are at least ninety nine goths in Cumbria. Most of them seem to live in the Workington area, so I was expecting to see some. However, the nearest thing I saw was a guy in a Marilyn Manson shirt. I suppose they don't come out until night. At that point in time, the place was crawling with townies. I saw a couple, who looked like they'd been attacked by a bird with severe diarrhoea. Then I saw some more, in the same state. Eventually, I saw one with a spray can containing some sort of foam. If that's what they did to each other, what would they do to goths? I wasn't wearing my boots (since I can't drive in them) but I was in my Anarchy t-shirt. I was very, very glad to get out of there, unscathed, and also that eye tests only need to happen every two years or so.

Saturday 22 December 2001

Today, I was planning to make some revision notes. (Best to make them now, instead leaving them all till Easter, when I'll doubtless 1) have forgotten everything I learnt this term and 2) have boundless inspiration.) I did manage to make a few pages of them this morning, but found myself spending the afternoon going through all my notes from school, so as to get rid of them. Considering I had notes from my last four years there (they eventually totally filled five big carrier bags), this took several hours.

However, I was dazzled by the neatness of my handwriting (I couldn't bring myself to throw away my translation of "Aeneas And Turnus", it was so beautiful), amazed at how well I'd been able to comment on the style of Latin poetry, and was somewhat amused. I'd doodled stuff like "Zobocop Is A Geen" in Greek a lot. I was able to see just how long I'd had "Tragedy" by Steps stuck in my head, because on every single page, I'd scribbled lyrics from it. Every time my Geography notes mentioned "staple diet", I'd drawn a person eating a stapler. I found a silly version of one of my Physics practicals, where the aim was to find k (the spring constant) and g (acceleration due to gravity). I'd written, "I have found k. It comes after j and before l in the English alphabet. I have found g. It comes after f and before h in the English alphabet." My teacher had given me 18/18. I'd written a speech about Arthurian legend which contained the paragraphs:

"Films that have been made include 'First Knight' which focusses on the relationships between Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot, and 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' - an amusing version of the search for the grail - and a shrubbery.

"Music includes the album 'The Myths And Legends of King Arthur and the knights of the round table' by Rick Wakweman, which got to number two in the charts in 1975. My Dad has no less than three copies of the original record. I found the sleeves in no time, but it took half an hour to find the vinyl."

And then there's the notebook, which says on the front, "Le deuxième 'jotter' de C. Z. Warnes de la "lower 6th". Note to intruders: this book solely contains Maths calculations, Physics experiment results, beginnings of History essays, Y.E. notes and other unintelligible doodlings. In other words NOT the great novel (or poems or letters of plans to kill members of staff). Turn over for the pseudo French."

This was because Chris was in the habit of seizing my notebooks and holding them high above his head (i.e. v. far out of my reach) while reading the embarrassing stories I'd written in them. However, upon reading this warning, he still insisted in flipping through this one. "Aha!" he said, when he reached a page that looked like a story. But in fact that page said,

"I know this looks like a story, which is probably why you are reading this page. In fact, it isn't. It's a government overthrown plan. Urr, not! Back off, you nosey scum! Didn't you read the cover? Didn't you believe me? I don't know, some people. Don't you know that trust is the basis of any friendship? What am I on about, friendship? Ok, trust is just really really rally important. It's in the ten commandments. No it isn't. Ok, it would have been in the ten commandments - it was in the original - but they had to cut it out because it looked like eleven commandments then.

"Anyway, you didn't believe me and wasted two hours deciphering my handwriting, so ha ha ha! Hopefully this will teach you to stop snooping when you have been warned that there is nothing worth looking at!"

In other news, my room is on helium. At 12 noon today, when you'd expect it to be fairly warm, I was so cold I had to put on a jumper and a dressing gown. Now it's 9.14pm, it's boiling, and I'm going to have to take both off. Annoying, since I wear my jumper under my t-shirt. I'm a foolface. It's not like I've been anywhere today - I've turned into such an anti-fashion victim.

Thursday 27 December 2001

That animated paperclip is making me paranoid. It's not that it won't shut up, but I'm trying to write gay erotica and it keeps gazing at my words with far too much fascination.

It's either gay or a faghag! No! This agent of Satan must not have a personality!

Friday 28 December 2001

This afternoon, me and Smill went to the cinema, to see "Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone": Bryn's coat's biggest acting role to date. Yes, I'd seen it before, but of the others that were showing, the only one I wanted to see was, appropriately enough, "The Others" which wasn't on until a much later time than we were prepared to go to Carlisle. (I very much dislike trying to scrape ice off the windscreen.) And since Smill had yet to see HP, I agreed to see it again.

As the credits came up, she said, "Christopher Columbus?"

"Yes, bet you thought he was just an explorer. Oh no, he has directing talents too."

"And he lived about five hundred years longer than he should have done."

"Ah, yes, well, he had The Philosopher's Stone.""

We then went to the ladies, and were pleased to find the biggest menace was really difficult-to-use flushing mechanisms, rather than a troll.