Boom

I feel like I am in a warzone. I am trying to finish a job application, and about once every second or so - but irregularly - there is another deafening explosion that echoes off the surrounding buildings and hills. I can smell gunpowder. It is nearly 1 a.m. and someone is letting off fireworks. Not the pretty oooh kind, just the incredibly loud and obnoxious kind.

It is reminiscent of 7.30 this morning, when I shouted myself awake, dreaming of a sick child convulsing in my arms and panic robbing me of breath, making one giant effort to cry out. The random explosions every few minutes didn't help me get my head together.

Today has not been a restful day.

This is my Mexico

Or at least, this is my Mexico today. I took them in a few quietish streets this evening, on a ten or fifteen minute walk home that I did in an hour. There were a couple of things I'd planned to photograph, but in the end didn't really. Usually I'm too inhibited to stand in the street taking pictures, but today I didn't care. I felt exhilarated to be behind the camera, truly myself and not thinking about anything else. I shall do this more often.

So this is my Mexico, today, on a grey-blue evening after the rain; my attempts to capture some the shapes and colours and textures of my ugly-beautiful town.

They're not great pictures, but they feel like a beginning. I was actively thinking about them and learning from them, seeing how to improve.

There is just one picture I'm really proud of, and it's this one, a picture of a car-park attendant named Margarito:


It's not a work of brilliance (I seem to have some kind of congenital inability to get a horizon straight, though I'm pleased that I had the sense to nudge the exposure up a little). What I'm proud of is that I was brave enough to ask if I could take it.

I grinned at him sheepishly when I got beeped at by a car on its way out, standing stupidly in the way to take a different picture, and he grinned back. He seemed friendly, and he had an infectious smile. I went on my way and straight away started kicking myself for not having asked to take his picture, but I felt too stupid to turn round and go back.

But, my book idea involves me being brave enough to talk to strangers and ask to take their pictures. Every time I pass up an opportunity I think I will learn my lesson and be quick-witted and brave enough next time. That was what I was telling myself today as I walked away, but then I thought that I could console myself with next time forever, and that I had to just screw up my courage and do it. So I did.

And it was just fine. He didn't look at me like I was a freak and in fact was unfazed by my asking. He let me take a few shots and we had a little chat afterwards. The Earth didn't swallow me. My skin didn't all fall off. I didn't shrivel up and fall down dead. It's not the first picture I've taken of someone new to me, but the first one of a random stranger who I had no particular reason to talk to, and so I am eternally grateful to Margarito for being nice and giving me the confidence to try it again.

I wanted to photograph his fantastic smile, but like many Mexicans he went all Victorian-solemn in front of the camera, and even making stupid little jokes I couldn't get him to smile naturally. I was happy once I had what I thought was a good smiling shots, but actually it wasn't the best, and this is the one that has something of his expression.

Biscuit-bearers of the revolution

Another thing that, today, filled me with affection for my homeland. I am rather proud of our tradition of idomitable, difficult old people, and, from her wellies to her china teacup, I cannot imagine anything more British than 91-year-old Topsy of Pickering:

The picture is from the BBC's "Day in Pictures" for yesterday, and the caption read:

"Topsy Clinch, 91, a resident of Pickering in North Yorkshire, UK, recreates her "living room" in a river to depict scenes faced in the devastating floods of last year."

God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties

I just heard to the Kate Rusby version of the song "The Village Green Preservation Society" and I LOVE it, I cannot tell you how much. If you don't know it hunt it down, because it is wonderful. (It is on youtube here, although the video is very odd.) I've been meaning to get the relevant Kinks album for years, and I've had Kate Rusby's lovely Awkward Annie album for months but I guess I've never properly listened all the way to the end... and so it took me by surprise and stabbed me through the heart with love and longing for home. I'm almost glad when things do that these days, because it makes it seem less terrible to be going back.

Also today my thoughts lingered lustfully on cream teas.

Kites and equations

So if there was a rule book of blogging, I'm sure it would say DO NOT WRITE ABOUT YOUR DREAMS in big red letters, but I do not myself think dreams are boring and I'm not particularly predisposed to following most kinds of rules. So the thing I am pondering right now is: are dreams more interesting when you can figure out an explanation, or when your subconscious seems to have been taking some kind of weird drugs while you weren't looking?

Last night I dreamed I was at home and we were flying kites. I let my sister have a go with a particularly awesome kite, and she let it go and it blew away. I was ridiculously, weepingly devastated and viciously angry. This is pretty obviously a dream about the impending sense of loss and misery of leaving Mexico. Secondarily, my subconscious is probably blaming my sister for this, since the main date determiner is needing (and wanting) to spend some time with her (and my brother) before she goes to university in autumn. Also, I miss flying kites. Simple.

On the other hand, in yesterday's dream I was back in more-or-less a school chemistry lab, complete with my old teacher, who always seemed faintly amused and on the edge of a nervous breakdown. We were doing a really basic practical to illustrate the principles of making up a solution, with one of those photocopied worksheets and everything. The sheet said we were allowed to make up a solution of whatever (known) strength we liked, but then my teacher told me I should have done the strength it gave as an example (and that was so me as a teenager, perversely doing the odd or awkward or difficult thing). So, I had to change my solution to the right strength by adding more water. So my dreaming brain starts figuring out how much I should add to get the right ratio, with an equation of the form a/b = x/y. It is difficult to do this without paper, but after the numbers slipped through my fingers a few times I got what seemed to be the right answer. And then I woke up.

But that was not the end of the story, oh no. I spent my first few half-sleeping minutes (turn on water heater, go to loo, stand in bedroom staring vacantly about, have shower) slowly and painfully working it all out again to check I had the right answer, realising I'd got my sums right but made a mistake in the initial ratio, and working out the new equation, before being properly awake and realising that it actually didn't matter at all. I do quite like algebra, but it was something of a headachey way to start the day.

So what the hell brain? Sleep algebra? For why?! I haven't done more than add up my change for ages. I haven't thought about school, chemistry, or maths. Where do you get these things from?

I have always liked the weird, inexplicable dreams best, but maybe I should find the explicable ones more interesting - at least they represent some kind of insight?

In which I save the world (or at least ramble on about education n'stuff)

How depressing: according to this article, "Britain has the unenviable reputation for having the worst social mobility of any industrialised nation. What is more, the chances of a British youngster climbing out of hardship are said to be lower today than they were fifty years ago."

Depressing, but not surprising. A bit less than fifty years ago my parents, both from very ordinary working families, were starting at grammar school, from which they went on to Cambridge and professional careers in public service. Many people I know of my parents' generation also went the grammar school route. On the other hand, most (though not all) of my friends from Cambridge went to private schools (though not public schools, in the British sense - their alumni and I tend to quietly loathe each other), and most (though not all) of those who went to state schools went to nice schools in nice areas and came from firmly middle-class families who valued education. I'm not sure how I feel about the grammar school system - I can see that it's not ideal to determine children's fates at age 11, and make most of them feel like failures - but the thing about grammar schools was that they gave poor kids a chance. They created an environment where learning was valued and encouraged, rather than where being clever made you an outcast or a bullying victim.

The "solution" announced by the prime minister, of giving £200 to poor parents whose children take part in health and development programmes doesn't seem to be much of an answer, but I suppose it can't do any harm, especially if the programmes are actually worthwhile. But to me it seems like a sticking plaster for a deeply sick education system and wider culture.

One factor of course is the way Labour have sold out our education system. My parents received full grants to go to university. They simply didn't have to figure debt into their decision about what was best for them.

More importantly, we have a culture in which learning, knowledge and working hard are seen as deeply uncool. Giving a shit is for losers. Being interested is for losers. We want the moon on a stick but we don't want to have to work for it. Meanwhile the school system fails to ignite our sparks of interest in the world around us; most of the time it grinds them out. We finish our educations lazy and uninterested. I don't exclude myself from this assessment: I am by most standards an educational success story, but I'm profoundly lazy and my education failed to create in me any real love of learning. I feel like I was robbed of my own intellectual potential, my own internal resources, and most people are robbed much worse than I was.

So it really, really pisses me off - and saddens me - when Mark Easton, the BBC's home editor, writes: "In researching this issue for the BBC News At Ten tonight I was sent some fascinating graphs (how sad am I?) which show how household income distribution has changed in the UK since 1961."

For crying out loud, you are an adult! You are a top journalist! If you find something beyond football or telly or shopping fascinating, then just say so. You really shouldn't need a smugly self-deprecating little caveat about how uncool you are.

Many of us do this: we are apologetic about any display of intelligence or passion or interest. We reassure our audience that we don't really think knowledge or understanding is worthy of respect. But really, we shouldn't.

I was asking a Mexican friend of mine if they have the same problem in schools here: of lack of discipline, lack of respect for anything, working hard being uncool. He didn't get what I meant at first - probably not then - but once explained what I meant he told me that these things are not really a problem here. He had friends who worked hard at school and friends who didn't, and there were never any problems between them: they respected each other. My own experience with young people here is that they are generally much more pleasant and less sulky. They are relaxed in the company of adults and have more functional relationships with them. When they mention something at school they don't automatically feel the need to roll their eyes or make a comment to show how stupid they think it is. They can be enthusiastic and serious about it. The first time I realised this it was a bit of a shock: I asked about a school event, I did the face-pull-little-joke thing in response to the answer, then realised she was looking at me like I was an idiot. And I really was.

The truth is that hardship is a reality in Mexico. There are no guarantees of keeping your head above water. So you use all the opportunities and talents at your disposal, you work hard, and you're glad to. People understand that the no-one owes them a living, and they have to work for it. The way my Mexican friends enjoy getting down to their work, don't complain, and are grateful for it makes me wondering and ashamed. I will never understand the American stereotype of Mexicans as lazy: whilst I've rarely met a workaholic Mexican - they tend to have a healthy understanding of the work-life balance - I don't think I've ever met a lazy one. So can we recreate this attitude as a society without the spectres of poverty, hunger and misery?

I realise that I sound like some kind of middle-aged reactionary, but I'm not. I don't believe in Draconian discipline, but I do think schools need order and structure so that some work can actually get done, and pupils also need to learn self-discipline - that I have none is one of my biggest regrets. I don't believe anyone should be taught mindless respect or obedience, but children do need to learn a basic respect for each other, their teachers, and for learning, knowledge, and hard work.

Incidentally, I don't think being middle class and well off is better than being anything else, or any kind of reliable route to happiness. The dream of a nice house in the suburbs and a big car and a flatscreen TV does not excite me. Once I thought my education and cleverness at passing exams made me better than other people, but fortunately I'm a bit wiser than that now. But, I think everyone should have access to the education or careers that are right for them.

And I think school should be interesting. It should make you think that the world is an awesome place. It should give you the intellectual resources to use and enjoy your own brain, in your work but also in your pastimes and in your own thoughts. To think and notice and read and joke and play, to be more than a passive consumer of TV - equally if you're a dinnerlady or a neuroscientist. It should develop your talents and put you on the road to a fulfulling and happy life. I don't know how, but let's dream big.

On a related note, a Labour MP endeared himself to me a little the other day, for the first time in some considerable while. How? He called the British "bloody miserable".

In his blog, Tom Harris asked:
"We live longer, eat healthier (if we choose), have better access to forms of entertainment never imagined a generation ago (satellite TV, DVD, computer games), the majority of us have fast access to the worldwide web, which we use to enable even more spending and for entertainment. Crime is down.
"So why is everyone so bloody miserable?"

When forced to defend his comments (and I like that he defended them rather than simply spinelessly apologising for any offence), he said:
"I'm not belittling the genuine problems people are facing. I do think there is a more deep-seated cultural, even possibly spiritual problem that we have in this country where, is it about consumerism, is it about the instant gratification society, are we finding that buying stuff just doesn't make us as happy as we thought?"

Well quite.

Near death experience

I'd like to say that after today I will never get in the car with a drunk friend again, but I'm not sure if it's completely true. In Mexico it is completely normal - though illegal of course - to drink and drive. Some people will 'only' drink a few beers if they know they're going to drive, others will knock back the tequilas and drive when they can barely walk. As a result I've come to take it in my stride, and I'll accept a ride from someone who I know has been or will have been drinking if the alternative involves hassle or taxis or having to go home early or not go at all.

However, after today I will be a lot more careful about the cars I get in, and I don't think I can think of my drunk friend as my friend anymore. A devil-may-care attitude to my own mortality doesn't any longer seem funny.

Up until we got in the car, I was having an exceptionally nice evening. We had gone into Mexico City for a farewell party for an American colleague. I am rather sad I didn't get to know her properly earlier, and have the chance to get spend time with her and her friends, but it was profoundly pleasant. I got to catch up with an ex-colleague and build that relationship a little; chat to some superfun Mexicans; meet some pleasant Americans and one Italian (and a rather terrifying American girl who works at the embassy). I got to have a dance with her boyfriend, who may be the best salsa dancer I have danced with in Mexico. I enjoyed myself even though the Boy wasn't there. I was brave and chatted to strangers.

And then we left. We were four, colleagues and friends: the driver, his girlfriend, my officemate and me. The others were boisterous and amped-up and I - stone-cold sober - was trepidatious from the moment we got in the car, but I just stayed quiet and said nothing. Driver started messing about, driving too fast, and, perhaps not surprisingly, generally acting like a drunken prick behind the wheel. It comes to a head when he does a big, terrifying, dangerous swerve around another car.

"Driver, that's not even fucking funny" I yell, though not loudly.

This turns out to be the wrong thing to say.

Far from prompting him to start not driving like he wants to kill us all, he starts swerving all over the three-lane road, deliberately throwing us from side to side, at top speed.

We are all shouting, loudly this time, and screaming in fear. I think I am saying things along the lines of "for fuck's sake Driver, fucking stop it, you're going to fucking kill us, fucking stop the car right now". My officemate is saying similar things, only with less fuck and more please.

He doesn't stop. I think I might die in this car.

"Every time you say fuck Eloise I'm going to crash the car, I swear," he says. His voice is menacing. He is angry with me, punishing me. All my friends know that the word fuck is practically punctuation with me, but it seems that he has taken offence at me trying to reign him in, tell him what to do.

He stops, though his driving is still terrifying.

I sit in absolute silence and disappear into myself. I am trembling with rage and fright. I am also feeling miserable with guilt, because I feel like it's my fault, even though it isn't. Girlfriend is apologising for what she has said or shouted - I didn't hear it. "I'm sorry, but...", she says. Driver is driving like a madman.

He starts the crazy swerving again, I don't know why.

This time I let myself break into terrified tears. I know that, though there is a certain kind of nasty machismo that would get a kick out of having power over three screaming, frightened, begging girls, there are very few men who won't feel ashamed of making a girl cry. I am right, and he calms down. But the tears are real and they won't stop. I am sobbing and sobbing and there is music playing and no-one says a word.

I draw even further into myself, looking away out of the window. Sometimes the tears come back and I try to fight them off. Sometimes my whole body seems to go stiff, other times I shudder and shake. My officemate reaches out to comfort me. We write each other text messages and show each other our phone screens. Are you OK? Do you want to get out? Will he let us? We hold hands. Driver is still going too fast, too aggressive, too close to other cars, stopping just in time.

We do get out. My officemate is conciliatory - I love you, but you're scaring me. I am too frightened and too angry to speak. Just four words: "Girlfriend, are you OK?"

Yes, she says, so I leave her to her fate.

It's after midnight, dark, a busy road somewhere in Mexico City with cars streaming past but no-one about, a few distant figures seeming threatening rather than comforting. I am crying uncontrollably again and half-shouting, barely coherent with rage.

We flag down a taxi, itself a dangerous enough decision in this city. I can't afford what it will cost, but it doesn't matter. All the way home I can't stop crying, I can't stop shivering. I can feel my heart racing, I can feel my limbs trembling with the adrenalin. Every little bump or swerve frightens me.

The saddest thing about it all is that in the back of Driver's car, when I was hopelessly afraid, all I wanted was to call the Boy and ask him to come and make it alright, to hug me better and drive me home. I would have called him - and I know he would have come and rescued us - except that he lost his phone and doesn't have a new one yet. He would have come, because he is generous and chivalrous and he is my friend, but I wanted to be the one he wanted to come for, I wanted him to want to hold me, I wanted there to be someone to want those things. My tears of fear became too tears of loneliness - and there's nothing like impending death to make you feel alone - and tears of want of love.

I am home now, safe. The fright has almost worn off, with sugary foods and time, but I will not forgive tonight easily. It isn't that he drove drunk that makes me angry. That's culturally normal for him (he is Latin American, though not Mexican), and it would be unreasonable of me since I was willing to get in the car knowing he'd been drinking. But I don't believe that drunkenness is an exuse for any and all behaviour. Mooning yes, terrorising your friends no. Alcohol isn't some kind of magic potion that gets forced down your throat by evil wizards. You don't get to abrogate responsibility for whatever you do. It doesn't make you a whole different person, just loosens the straps on whatver you normally keep strapped in.

I am angry because he put us in danger by deliberately driving dangerously and too fast. I am angry because it was all about his fucking ego. I am angry because he deliberately terrified us. I am angry because he didn't stop, even when we were screaming. Someone who would - who could - do that, drunk or sober, isn't someone I can be friends with. Maybe it's not such a big deal. Maybe I'm a bitch. Maybe I'm unforgiving. But I don't feel I can forgive. If he apologises I'll be polite - for the sake of the group - but trust? friendship? affection? No.

Even at the time I was thinking about how the limits of friendship are revealed in extremis. I have felt like a bad person for having some reserve in my feelings about Driver, not really trusting or feeling completely comfortable with him. Yet another lesson in trusting my instincts. The contrast with the Boy was sharp and immediate. He plays the fool sometimes, making race-car noises or pretending we're taking off on the long straight road to the campus gates, but no matter how drunk he was (and he doesn't drink much - by Mexican standards - when he's driving) he would never, ever do something like that. I trust him absolutely.

I am not, I think, a fearful person - sometimes not fearful enough. It's easy to make me jump but not generally easy to really scare me. But when I do get really scared - which fortunately is not often - I am miserably, overwhelmingly terrified. Everything frightens me. When I got home I hurried for safety and looked over my shoulder. A loud doorbell noise coming from somewhere on the stairs made me jump. I phoned my officemate to make sure it wasn't her, because I was too scared too open the outer door. The sounds of people walking past in the street sent shivers down my spine. A truth was suddenly clear to me: I hate people who make me afraid.

Monday morning drama

After too much turning over and ignoring the clock, I force myself out of bed. I have woken from a dream where I am living, and I think working, in an old people's home. The old people are being abused and one is murdered, and I am sneaking around trying to find out what's happening and why and bring the murderers to justice. It is sort of exciting but also gut-twistingly frightening. I have NO IDEA why I dreamed this.

I am in the bathroom, washing my hands, when out of the corner of my eye I see a bird flying around in my living room. I look again, squinting without my glasses. There is a bird flying around my house. I close doors and open windows. It is a very lovely little bird, a sparrow or something very like one, but I do not think my house is the best habitat for it. I pursue it with my camera. It flies away.

I am in the shower. I remember with a spasm of horror that applications for a job I really want to apply for close today at 4pm - 10am Mexican time. I switch on my computer, wondering if I can complete a job application in 45 minutes (note: of course not). I see that the closing date is in fact the 30th, and another job which does close today doesn't have a time specified. My insides untie themselves.

I am walking down the stairs, and I see the handyman (who otherwise I hardly ever see). We have a little chat, during which it emerges that, whilst I am otherwise happy in my apartment, the rain is leaking through my ceiling again. He tells me he will fix it if I show him where. I seize the opportunity, even though the lateness of the hour is tying my insides up again.

On my way to work at last I watch my town going past in all its everyday, ugly, scruffy, glorious beauty. A boy is buying tortillas at a tortilleria, just tall enough to see over the counter. All at once it doesn't seem to matter how late I am for work.

The happiness of secrets

Today I read this article, and I wanted very much to think it was inexpressibly amazing. It is about the apartment of a New York family, whose designer-architect, unbeknown to them, embedded in it a kind of mystery-puzzle-treasure hunt, all codes and secret compartments and hidden roles for everyday things. Being more than a little fascinated by secrets and mysteries, I kind of think that that that's about the coolest thing ever, and I would surely burst with joy if someone did such a thing for me. All mysteries are exciting, but a surprise mystery is, well, enough to restore your faith in magic.

But.

The apartment to me, despite all the money to lavish on making it beautiful, is in places rather ugly. It speaks of more money than taste, on the part of both the occupants and the designer. It should be stunning in both its mystery and its everydayness, and it seems to just fall a little bit short. Which is sort of sad for such a perfect idea.

And they are such a ridiculously wealthy, privileged family - the apartment itself cost $8.5 million. I'm sure that after being featured in the New York times, the designer is set. But he "absorbed much of the cost in terms of his own billable hours, and relied on the generosity of more than 40 friends and artisans who became captivated by the project. He said he 'begged, borrowed and stole' from them "in the collaborative process".

If I was going to be a fairy godmother, if I was going to do something utterly amazing, incredible, and life-changing for one family, and beg a whole load of other people to do it to, for free, I just don't think I would pick them.

Worst of all, I don't think they deserve it. What kind of a child (or adult) spends months seeing a load of scambled letters every day his bedroom and never once thinks it might be a code, until a friend points it out?

But maybe I'm just jealous.

What has it got in its pocketses?

It is tempting, and harmless fun for all the family, to draw conclusions about people's character based on their everyday bits and pieces. In detective stories, lists of what the dead man had in his pockets are utterly compelling.

So apparently I am the kind of person who, when putting on her serious waterproof for the first time in several months and putting her hands in her pockets, finds sheep's wool and several lengths of blue and green ribbon. I have no idea why.

Pictures I like. I think.

I am hopelessly confused about the best way to organise my photos. I cannot find my copy of photoshop even though I have seen it recently and losing things makes me feel like I am LOSING MY MIND.

But, even though every bad photo makes me want to stab myself in the eyes, I really do like some of them. I find myself in a paralysis of indecision about which are good and which not, but these are three of the ones I decided to send to my Dad - not necessarily the best, but ones I like:

Perpetual light

The littlest dancer

The littlest graffiti artist

Guilt

I need to start sorting out the photos I have taken on my digital SLR (ie big fancy camera, if you are a non-photographer). Currently all the raw files are sitting on my external hard drive in a folder called "slr unsorted", which they very much are. One of the things I need to do with them is convert them into jpegs, so I can email/send print copies to various people I have interviewed and photographed.

To do this I need the software that came with the camera. The camera used to be my dad's before he got one with even more bells and whistles, and he installed the software for me when he let me "borrow" the camera at Christmas. This, of course, disappeared when my computer went to its inglorious death. I thought I had the CD for reinstalling it, but now that I have looked everwhere and am feeling frustrated and sulky, I have decided that I never had the CD and am trying to download the software from Nikon. However, there are 23 different things I could be downloading, and I can't for the life of me remember which are the right two programmes I need.

I was just looking through emails from my dad to see if he had at any point told me this. For some reason yahoo sorted them out of date order, so I had to read them all. And I realised that pretty much all I ever email my dad about is computer- or camera- related questions, or favours he's doing for me at the time. At this moment I am feeling like the world's most maggoty daughter.

In my defence, we do talk on the phone, but still, I feel ungiving and ungrateful. I am resolved to get my arse in gear and send him some of the best of my photos - he is a camera nerd and would love to see them.

I was going to say that that means figuring out which of these programmes I need, which would bring me back to square one - I am too embarrassed to ask my dad, because I should have been less lazy and apathetic and downloaded them months ago, which I also feel guilty about - but actually I could send the crappy low-resolution files that the camera makes at the same time as the raw file. However, I think it is time to finally get on the ball, and maybe kill two guilt-birds with one stone...

Funnies

On the subject of webcomics, my latest discovery is Married to the Sea.

I don't like all of them, but some of them make me giggle uncontrollably - and some are nicely acid. Hurray for funnies!

These are some of my favourites so far:

Incidentally,

Friday's xkcd references Narnia! (It does, just hover your cursor over the comic.) I think I may be in love with Randall Munroe.

Also, someone translates xkcd into Spanish. That, my friends, is remarkably cool.

Look! Breasts!

The internet is great! You can look at pictures of breasts!

Specifically this website, the Normal Breasts Gallery. The idea is that lots of women share pictures of their breasts, allowing us all to see that we're not hideous freaks for not having breasts like the ones in porn and in the movies.

They are a bit militant about breasts being fetishised in modern western culture as sexual objects and their primary purpose being for nurturing babies. I don't quite agree: it is true, and a bad thing, that breast feeding is seen as indecent or even disgusting by a lot of Americans especially, and breasts need to be seen as not only for sex (and sex not as disgusting), but breasts ARE for sexual pleasure, no? And wonderful things they are too.

But it is hard to enjoy them to the full if you are worrying about how ugly and abnormal they are, and for that reason I think this site is brilliant.