wendy house

On a Saturday I like to get out and about and meet the public. 

Real people.  Look,  here they are,  all standing in a line in NatWest. 

Perhaps they haven’t yet received their lovely blue shiny thingys yet?  Or maybe they enjoy talking to people and standing in queues,  how strange…

Loooooook what I’ve got!

A new technical gadgetty hand-held pocket-sized,  shiney, toy sent to me without solicitation.

This little thingy is going to keep my already seemingly rather complex online banking sign-in that requests out-of-sequence entry of 2 different pin codes,  even more complex. 

Admire It’s all new no-cat-hairs-or-greasy finger-prints casing,  straight out of the box-smells-like-plasitc.  My personal favourite bit is the powder-blue button labelled ‘identity‘.  This button is for my life as a secret agent,  I can click this and change identity.  For example from Ms to Mrs in the flash of a stereotype.

Recently I walked into this shop where a handsome young assistant asked if I needed any help.

No help needed.

I can ‘do’ decisions about knobs without any assistance.  Instead,  I feighend the need for decision support to keep the lad entertained.  He learned about the dark oak beams,  the matt-black metal latches on the doors and fianlly about my hammer-action masonary Black and Decker power drill.

He looked somewhat amused and orded 10 matt-black metal knobs for me.  Success!

BT Support Engineer:  Mrs. House…

Wendy:  …my mother isn’t here

BT Support Engineer:  can I talk to her?

Wendy:  I don’t see why,  its my phone,  my home,  my internet connection and I’m 44,  why do you need to talk to my mother?

BT Support Engineer:  Ms. House?

Wendy:  Yes?

Not really a dichotomy or a catchy title.

Hoorah for Aliza Shvarts is probably more appropriate.  Aliza has created a work of art as a physical object constructed from her body and a discourse where the ‘truth’ of the discourse impacts whether the physical art will be displayed or not.  The Dean of Yale University says:

[W]e will not permit her to install the project unless she submits a clear and unambiguous written statement that her installation is a work of fiction: that she did not try to inseminate herself and induce miscarriages, and that no human blood will be physically displayed in her installation.

It’s like that other ultimatum directed at women in medieval times:  confess to being a witch and we might not kill you,  don’t confess and we’ll burn you alive. 

Rephrased as

Deny that you have rights over your body (to choose insemination,  to choose miscarriage) and we’ll let people see the outcomes,  admit to having rights over your body and we’ll make sure no-one can see the outcomes.

Outstanding artwork Alizia.  Whether her story about the construction process is a hoax or not is less important than the clear themes embedded in the reactions to her construction process.     

The local corner shop is a large old co-op,  opened in 1901.  I’m thrilled,  customer owned stores are worth supporting with custom. 

Official Co-op website:  http://www.co-operative.coop/

There are strange,  repeating, symbols built into the buildings and public places all around Reading.  There are 4 scallops and 2 crossed pilgrim staff’s on the gate posts of Palmers park.  The Scallops turn up again in the Univerity of Reading’s coat of arms.  

Evidently the shells are thought to be an emblem of pilgramage because pilgrims to Europe would bring back the scallop shells from beaches.  The association with Reading is probably because the old Abbey claimed to hold the hand of St James as a holy relic that shell-carrying pilgrims would come to visit.  I wonder how St. James hand got to Reading Abbey….  

Scallop or i-pod?  visit your nana or some dead saints embalmed hand?   Such choices open to the modern traveller.

Four miserable looking people surrounding a chap in a crown on a bridge over the river kennet.  This same symbol also appears on one of the gate-posts of Palmer’s park,  though in not as much full delightful pale-skinned, blonde and blue colouring.  Aparantly this is Reading Town’s coat of Arms and the 4 people are probably burgesses…  ..and the miserable looking person is Queen Elizabeth (1 or 2 depending on how you feel).

A version of this cluster of people turns up on the symbol for ‘Reading School’  the people have an almost ominous range of sly through snide to surreal expressions.  Girl power gone wonkey?

A Wendy is rarely happier than when she’s using her hammer-action masonary drill to make nice neat round holes for her collection of brightly coloured raw plugs.  Luckily I still had my drill bits,  screws and raw-plugs left-over from my previous life as a brick-built home owner.  With the wooden houses in the US proper power-drilling is a luxury I’ve had to forego… …until now…

Ask AskOxford.com describes the origins of the English term ‘POSH’ in a way that aligns with the folk myth I somehow acquired:

The story goes that the more well-to-do passengers travelling to and from India used to have POSH written against their bookings, standing for ‘Port Out, Starboard Home’ (indicating the more desirable cabins, on the shady side of the ship).

A website that explains English phrases considers the above explanation as being popular over accurate and lists other,  less well known,  plausible alternatives such as:

Posh is also the Romany word for money and this was current throughout the 19th century.

The Romany word for halfpenny is a popularly web-cited explanation, the true origin may now be lost with old buffers

facilitator: we’ve split the groups up to ensure that each group includes a woman

why do you think this is? 

Perhaps to balance any biases on group achiviements based on the differential skill.  No group is systematically (dis)advantaged due to a disproportionate representation of women.  Is this reasonable?   

For me,  the bottom-line is that I am treated differently based on my gender in a situation where skills are more important than gender.  It’s reinforced gender differentiation.  I’d rather they just dropped it from the discourse and enabled us to focus on things that actually can and should make a difference.

Eventually I protested by taking my nail-varnish kit and cookery-books out of the pool resource and minced in my stilletos to the spar for a massage and gossip with a dose of well deserved shampoo. 

Or did I?

Named after Mr. George Palmer of Biscuit fame who donated the land for use as a Park,  next to the South Park conservation area of Reading.  Palmers park currently includes a:

1) lot of trees and grass that are occassionally covered in snow or sunlight and are always beautiful.

2) sports stadium.  Featuring a velodrome with lots of people wearing colourful lycra and providing exercise classes called ‘legs bums & tums’ for people who have not yet earned the right to wear lycra.

3) library that is really rather cute.

presenter:  a success story and she’s a woman!

possible implications of mentioning gender in this context include, but are not limited to,

1. being a member of the minority group, female, is not easy to identify
2. being a member of this minority group, female, shoupld be promoted as deserving of special treatment,  recognition,  etc
3. citing female gender as exceptional is a presenter-declarant of psuedo-feminisim.
4. The presenter gets twisted pleasure out of winding-wendy-up.
5. women demonstrating successful behaviour in this context is an expception and therefore noteworthy because:

society works to prevent skilled women from succeeding

women are less skilled

After over 40 years of listening to this sort of crap on a daily basis I’m amazed that I manage to get irritated by its commonality….  

while visiting Seattle this April I met with many local friends, indulged in lots of purring, stroking, creaky-meowing, general faffing and furring-up-nosing.   All in the best possible taste.

(housekeeping blog post)

recently I upgraded this blof from wordpress 2.3 to 2.5

Then the spam filter didn’t work – I managed to find out why and belive I have fixed it.  Then no-one could make comments – I managed to find out why and believe that I fixed it.  Then only one comment was possible on each blog post.  I only knew because you guys told me – thanks!!   

I haven’t found out why,  I’ve done personal tests at different times and the blog theme developer helped out (Tommaso Baldovino) by running tests and finding no problems.  I’ve just checked today and it seems to work.  Seems to have ‘fixed itself’.   Thankyou to everyone who told me about their frustraitions,  I believe that it works now,  let me know if it doesn’t.

Geoff Mulgan is partly on track when he aligns L’Oreal’s slogan with Nationalisim and values of low worth.  Oddly(?) Geoff completely omits what appears, to me, to be the obvious point that the message appears to be intentionally delivered to women. 

‘you’re worth it…’

…what are you worth?  Apparantly a shampoo..  ..or a moisturiser…

Is that really what women are worth? 

Apparantly letting the big-front-door fall closed on its own weight can annoy other residents.  My fiesty Swedish flatmate is outraged by recieving the message below and the nature of its delivery,  pushed under said heavy door.   

The apartment block if not yet fully constructed.  Above the sound of daily construction work I hadn’t noticed the noise of our, or other peoples’, door shutting.  What advice is coming next…

a buffer is a description applicable to an old man according to my folk memory and:

• Oxford.com (UK)
• Merriam-Websters online dictionary first definition (US).

But not according to the majority of current online English-language dictionaries and encyclopedia, including:  

• Wiktionary doesn’t (yet) list buffer as an old man, neither does wikipedia.
• Encarta defintitions 1, and 2 (Microsoft).

 I suspect that age is killing-off old buffers…

I experience modern US accomodation,  like the place I’m currently staying,  as big, brightly lit and beige.  For example,  this laundry space is bigger than the whole of the old new Wendy House kitchen and has more built-in storage!   

Granted the Wendy House kitchen is small even by UK standards. 

The only dishwasher that will fit in here is a portable dishwasher,  preferably with firm muscular legs, slim hips and a cheeky smile…

not just ordinary hockey.  hockey on ice,  in the NW US hockey on ice is ordinary hockey.

Audiences at hockey matches bear more resemblance to (real) football audiences throwing insults at players and referees,  there were some entertaining insults thrown around at the match between the Seattle Thunderbirds and the Tri-Cities Americans.  Mostly aimed at a Tri-Cities player with the family name ‘Yellow Horn’ on his shirt. 

Tri cities covers three cities,  Richland, Kennewick and Pasco.  Near Hanford,  Hanford was the nuclear power generator for the Manthatten project,  the first full-scale plutonium producing reactor in the world.

One Seattle Thunderbirds supporter called out:   Yellow Horn,  do you glow in the dark?

One of the highlights was when my companions explained that the orange rubber-pucks that you could purchase on the way into the ground are for throwing into the sunroof of the car that drives on the ice during the interval. 

Yeah,  you’re pulling my leg right? 

No?  You’re serious,  we buy rubber pucks and throw them into the sunroof of a car on the ice rink?  

And indeed we did just that….    

Thankyou to the cultfigurine and cultfigure for escourting me into the wierd and wonderful world of ice hockey.  Sadly,  Reading doesn’t have its own Ice Hockey team in the UK league,   When the season starts in the UK,  next September, I’ll have to catch a direct train then bus to the Basingstoke arena,  looks like they need a little support, hoorah!.

Words of wisdom from my outrageously expensive and handsome young product-dispensing hairdresser:

“I picked up a newer model of my current phone,  after one night’s use the pictures were terrible,  all fuzzy.  I took the phone back and they said they couldn’t exchange it because it was working probably properly*,  I asked what should I do? and they said,  Vodaphone support said, change to another service provider they even recommended one!”

He certainly knows a thing or thirty-two about almost everything.

*editted multiple times post-publication to remove the superfluous, random, and just darn wanton spelling mistakes

The buses here are so clean and shiny they just give me a warm feeling all over,  its sweet,  though it will never replace the sheer jof of sitting over the driver on a double-decker.  yay!

can lead to fatal misunderstandings if pronounced:

execute if manager

received in an email from a boy sent to a distribution list of mainly boys including the odd non-boy like me: 

we had a Soccer-game and it was great Fun (even 1 Female attended )

can you see any problem here or is refering to a gender-based stereo-type based on predominant current behaviours acceptable?

facilitator:  put your hand up if you’ve been to MacDonalds in the last week.

about 70% of the class raise their hands.  The facilitator points out that desptie many negative associations people still purchase the product.   Under my breath, I mutter that I’ve never been into MacDonalds.    Things start to go downhill.

facilitator:  BMW,  what words do you associate with BMW?

I frantically try to search for a word to cover shafted the failing British car industry.  Hearing other people generate words like ’stylish’, who am I in a room with…  …they go to Macdonalds and think BMW is stylish?  Am I in the wrong place?  I get frustrated with my inability to find one word that covers the true depth of my dislike for BMW

Wendy:  Bastards

Then we move on to consider Coca Cola.  The word ‘Yuck’ comes to mind,  the rest of the class are generating words like ‘red’ and ’sugar’.  I realise that I haven’t knowingly drunk anything produced by that company in the last 2 decades.  The girl stood next to me smiles and talks to me about how addictive and wonderful Coca Cola is.  I toy with the idea of telling her that I find the brand Coca Cola product terminally icky but decide that I should hold off on becoming a fully-fledged curmudgeon for at least another 10 years… …and return her enthusiasm with a smile….

facilitator:  what’s this?

Wendy: an excel pie chart?

facilitator:  anything else?  a branding symbol

Wendy:  errrrrrmmmmm…

facilitator:  Mercedes

Wendy:  I’m a pedestrian

facilitator:  [?????]

Before opening my mail,  making a phone call,  or walking onto the dark streets of the rainy city I put on my invisible cloak of super powers bequeathed to me by my ancestors,  then,  as if by magic any subsequent communications with me are somehow directed to somone that isnt really me….

Wait-staff:  Excuse me Mrs.

Thames Water:  Mr.

Bus driver: you ladies remind me to point out where the mall is

British Telecom:  Mrs.

Who would have guessed my superhero power to mirror people’s gender-expectations right back at them,  its akin to being invisible except you can still be seen and are expected to pay your bills even if they are not actually addressed to you.  Sigh.

I’ll either have to get married,  start compulsive shopping, or have a sex-change operation to fulfill the expectations of the people whose services I use.   Luckily, pleasing them is not high on my list of priorities,  so I can keep my money,  self respect and decreasing carbon footprint.

Here in the NW US the doorways are big,  just BIG.

It’s as if builders are planning for obescity on a large scale.  The door to the (toilet) restroom in my temporary accommodation is about twice the width of any doors in the new old wendy house.  I have to stand in awe for a moment before I pass through them….

welcome to Sea-At-TULL, mount rainy-air on the left