November spawned a monster

This is Morrissey last year at Ally Pally.



You will notice he was wearing one of these. They were very difficult to get hold of last year so despite trying several Animal Aid shops I didn't have one. I shall try again this year.

So should all (both) of you.

Cx

Why I hate everybody

I am still having to mission across town to East Ham. Consequently I have to get up and get on the tube at dawn for over an hour and change twice. It is enough of a horror show already without having to be nose to tit with every sweaty animal on the planet or at the very least the Northern Line. Last week though I had a particularly unpleasant morning. The train had stopped at Euston as usual but stayed on the platform for AGES. After about five minutes the usual tutting and the shuffling and the repeated looking of watches had started to kick in which in itself was irritating enough but to be expected I suppose. After about ten minutes the driver came on the public address thing and said he was sorry but we were being held at the station because a passenger on the train had been taken seriously ill and we were waiting for paramedics. Did one person in that carriage say 'oh I really hope they're going to be all right' or 'thank heavens we're so close to UCLH so we can get them to A&E quick smart' no of course they didn't. The tutting turned into 'oh for fuck sake' and 'bloody typical'. Bloody typical of what? Deliberately requiring urgent medical assistance? Willfully bringing on a coronary to make people late? Or just messing about to disrupt the train service? All completely plausible I'm sure. What a collection of monsters. I am perhaps worst of all, as I said nothing. I was horrified and disgusted by all these vile people but instead of saying to them 'what if a school child has had an asthma attack and is turning blue or what if somebody has had seizure and smashed their head open on the floor, or a pregnant woman has collapsed and is lying in a pool of her own blood on the floor or what if, by a cruel twist of fate it is somebody you  know or care about WOULD YOU REALLY BE BEING SUCH A DICK ABOUT THIS? Is being five minutes late for work actually more important you stupid nasty little weasel?' I just ignored them all. I hope it happens to one of them one day and that people who don't really need to be in Bank or Cannon Street for 9am on the dot and if they do they should get up earlier or ride a bike all complain and have no sympathy at all for them.

Be nice or leave. Thank you.

Cx

Really?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/07/mark-saunders-inquest

LAWFULLY killed? Thank goodness there's no God or he'd have to send them to hell. As long as they didn't break any rules though. Cunts.

X

My only love sprung from my only hate!

She's not my only love. I do however love her. What would Morrissey say?

There's more to life than books you know

I have been reading lots of books. Not having a job for ages and ages has meant I have lots of free time and Christ knows my mind could do with some enriching beyond the itv website and writing hateful comment on Daily Mail online. For the last few weeks I have been temping for pennies in the outer reaches of east London and commuting for what seems like hours. I am surrounded by millions of books in my parent's house and currently live opposite a library so I don't really have an excuse. I do certainly give off an air of being far better read than I am so I should probably consider the fact that somebody might trip me up one day. Also, it's better than a lot of telly.

Here are my critiques of what I've been reading for what they are worth. Bear in mind I got level 8 in my English SATs in year 9.  This is Very High Indeed. We shall forget the C at English Lit A-Level because a) I already had my place at Chelsea so I didn't study very hard and b) Who cares about The bloody Crucible anyway.

To Kill A Mockingbird: Amazing. It made me cry on the tube. Luckily the other passengers took no notice whatsoever. Reading a book that repeatedly uses word 'nigger' in a confined space made me a little uneasy in case somebody saw it and thought I was reading BNP literature or something. I had my 'this is a seminal work about racism and predjudice in the twentieth century and only the ignorant stupid characters use that word and Atticus says it's common and it won a Pulitzer prize and um, I'm definitely not racist.' speech all prepared just in case. Obviously I had no cause to use it.


Wuthering Heights: Beautifully written and terribly dramatic and powerful but every single character is more spiteful, hateful and nasty than the last.

Heart of Darkness: Not actually finished it yet but it is really good and pretty short so should be done in a day or too. Lots of pretty descriptions.


Three Men In A Boat: Funny as fuck. Made me ROFLMAO I wish Arron would read it as he would find it very amusing but he won't as it's more than 100 years old and he has very strict rules about these things.


Dracula: I can't put it down. I take the longer route home just so I get to read it on the tube. Being buried in a book also means you can pretend not to see the pregnant or elderly people standing up while you sit in those blue sticker seats. I might even go and read it in St John's churchyard which is where a lot of it takes place apparently. THAT'S how much I am enjoying it.

Kisses.
C

PS. I was obviously only joking about books being better than telly.

Love Morrissey Hate Racism (or Hoisin Is Now)

Morrissey is clearly not a racist. Yes, he chose His words poorly (or indeed very carefully) and should have specified that the people who do this to animals are indeed subhuman but that the entire nation is not. China have an appalling record for animal cruelty and there are no current laws in place to protect animals, they are indisputably among the world's worst perpetrators and should be brought to account. Sir Paul McCartney agrees with him, although of course he can't be a racist; he's a National Treasure and has been to India and everything. 

Sadly acts of brutality towards animals in many countries, ours  included (also, see below post) are steeped in tradition and therefore considered sacrosanct, no matter how cruel or barbaric they may be. Apparently preserving a 'way of life' is more important than mass suffering. Morrissey tirelessly condemns these practices and for that he should be applauded.

Oh and if one more idiot in the press cites National Front Disco as an example of His racist leanings I shall scream. LISTEN TO THE FUCKING WORDS.

Let's all just sign this and not call him anymore nasty names.

Kisses

Clare

Bitches got what they deserved.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/19/bull-jumps-into-stands-spain

What do people expect will happen when they relentlessly torment, injure and exhaust a living creature that is not only significantly stronger than them but has massive horns? Sadly the bull will probably be destroyed as a result of this.

I hope the parents of that 10 year old kid in intensive care are fucking ashamed of themselves. She's the only one I feel sorry for out of the whole filthy lot of them.

I wana do bad things with you

Why is everybody so fucking surprised that Sookie Stackhouse doesn't have a blood type? SHE CAN READ MINDS. That's not normal. In the meantime let's all focus on what it is important.

1966 and all that

Now obviously I couldn't give a fuck about football or the World Cup or England winning it (not from a tedious anti-Nationalist stance or anything, just that I'm not interested) however I would like this video from last time round to get an airing. Unfortunately it appears you have to pay for the whole video. I won't be doing that so here's the trailer.



I will also stop posting youtube videos on here. It's getting boring.

Kisses

What Samuel Johnson said

I suppose I may as well continue writing this blog, even though strictly it was only meant as a means of staying in contact with all of you while far far away without having to write emails to everybody with the same information. I am far too lazy to change stuff and personalise things every time and it would have been a lot of cutting and pasting and somebody would have eventually noticed. I shall be doing this because a) I'm not sure how to remove it from the bookmarks bar of my laptop so I might as well and b) which is much more important, I have nothing better to do with my time. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. No job, no money and no hobbies to speak of bar drawing fiddly little pictures but all my art stuff was either left behind in NY in the hope of a quick return or packed up in one of those massive see-through plastic boxes in my parent's attic. I shall petition for it to be brought down asap, along with my scanner and might even manage to sort out some kind of website other than this one which as you can see is awfully amateur and hasn't been updated in about a year.

Freeze this video about 8 seconds in and those of who who remember the Very Exciting Thing that happened in Hackney Wick last year and/or frequented our endz will know that that is the outside of Unit B1. That time that they crashed a spaceship into the drainpipe and our house became a drinking den for reckless mercenaries from outer space. Or something.



It would also be remiss of me in the circumstances not to add this.



Embedding on the real one has been disabled but this is much better.

Kisses

Just for Cara B

As the only person who cares that I am back in LDN and one of the few people who ever read this and still checks it I feel like you deserve a little cheeky thing. Because you are a little cheeky thing. x

London Calling

Or not. Roll on delays and tearful interviews with the press.

See you in a week or so, unless I go feral at JFK....

Kisses

Ruby Tuesday

So I imagine that you are all busy making banners and clearing your diaries in preparation for the 6:40am arrival into Heathrow on the 18th of May. Let's get the Prosecco on ice, put on our Classics and have a little dance shall we.



See you very soon.

Kisses

Our daughter's daughter's daughters will sing in grateful chorus

I really hope you all go and vote today. I didn't get myself sorted with a postal vote. I am a pillock. Don't be a pillock.

Kisses

PS. My laptop seems to be holding on for now so expect more updates soon enough.

This may be the last update for a while...

My beloved laptop is on its way out. The fan is making noises like a jet engine and it keeps freezing and cutting out.

'This drive has a fatal hardware error to disk utility.' Somewhere else the status is displayed as FAILING. As if I needed it spelled out to me it's written in red.

My mac genii (almost exclusively Luke) have explained how to fix it but it is feasible this won't happen for a while and/or I may cock it up.

I think we all know that it is unlikely I will ever have the money to buy another one, especially now I don't know anybody who works there anymore.

Now I know I have a heart, because it's breaking.

Kisses

Rebellious Scots to crush

Happy belated St George's Day to all of you. I was terribly busy all day yesterday in English pubs drinking Real Ale and eating fish and chips and singing God Save The Queen and shouting about 1966 and Dunkirk and generally behaving like this. I'm sure you all celebrated in a similar fashion. Patriotism is of course the last refuge of a scoundrel and I am quite sure that there is nobody reading this who isn't one.

Gutted I missed this

I suppose being in New York does have its downsides.

I missed this.



I think being away from London for a while has made me realise the wonder that is traveling on the tube IN SILENCE. Nobody is batting an eyelid despite this ludicrous display. That is literally unheard of here, I'd almost forgotten how to behave in public.

x

No I've never had a job because I've never wanted one

Well I have, more than one in fact but it seems they never last. It turns out after all the jokes I am in fact unemployable.

I am referring to over here obviously. I've had more jobs than I can name back in Dear Old Blighty. I shall be trawling craigslist exhaustively for the next few days and going to every open call and hopefully it will be fine and I will be able to come back/pay rent etc etc


Keanu Reeves' character in Point Break and one of my top three characters he's ever played has a bar named after him. That is going to be my first port of call. Chimene, it's one step closer that wall of Keanu that deep down we all knew was never going to happen.

Kisses

Lazy lazy monkey

I slept for 15 hours last night.

Brooklyn Nights

I came home after 1am tonight and it was still t-shirt/vest weather. It's fucking April. Roll on August; sauna in the city. I'll just have to spend a lot of time in my place in the Hamptons and maybe not buy that faux fur coat I've been banging on about.

I got the Staten Island ferry after dark tonight, partly to visit Alex who is staying with a friend there (fuck all to see-we got the ferry straight back again-see earlier post) and partly to see the lights of Manhattan and Brooky Wook from the water. Mainly because it's free though. It was beautiful. The lights have inspired me etc. and this time no pesky icy wind. Highly recommended.

If anybody is actually reading this can you send me some personal emails please. Nobody is emailing me and it's making me feel lonely and out of touch and facebook only paints half a picture. I want spiteful, malicious gossip about who has slept with whom, who hates whom and why and all the nasty things you all get drunk and say about each other but I'm not there to hear. As you all know it's clareloveday@gmail.com I look forward to hearing from all of you. Also, address on request for care packages of Marmite and chocolate and DVDs of Coronation Street.


Kisses

Vive le difference!

Emergency services vehicles are very loud but very slow, I imagine a bus would get you there quicker, a subway or a taxi certainly would. They also blare their sirens all through the night.

Almost every corner has a traffic light system (which is a red hand and a green person-not 'WALK' and 'DON'T WALK') and looking both ways and walking out into the road if it's clear isn't done, even on a residential street.

If the green person is showing, it is only for cars coming straight at you. Others cars are free to turn the corner and seemingly don't have to give right of way to pedestrians. You need your wits about you.

Hospital staff all wear scrubs in the street and on the subway. Thus negating the reasons for wearing them.

The avocados are massive.

Cottage cheese is ridiculously expensive given that it is just made from skimmed milk.

You can buy cloves of peeled garlic in tubs.

The cheese is disgusting, even semi decent stuff tastes like a Kraft Slice. European cheeses cost the earth and are quite hard to come by. It's been very difficult. If anybody were to post me some Gorgonzola I'd probably weep.

Nobody knows how to sit quietly and behave with any decorum in public. Singing, cat calls, bellowing at strangers, arguing and shouting either face to face or on the phone in the middle of the day while perfectly sober are all completely acceptable; on the subway it is positively encouraged. Luke, it's worse than Stratford. You wouldn't be able to bear it.
 

You can't get proper whiskey ANYWHERE, only Bourbon.

Chocolate here isn't very nice.

The brassica leaves of choice seem to be curly kale, which is way more popular than any other sort of greens. No complaints here, they are delicious. They are sold on the stalks rather than ready cut in bags. I've been eating a lot of it.

They have electrical sockets in bathrooms-often right above the sink. People keep hairdryers and CD players in there.

Bars and restaurants don't have gender specific loos, just little self-contained rooms with a sink and a hand dryer and a loo in them.

Racism is pretty popular. People are quite open about only sticking to their own race or nationality and it's not even considered particularly offensive.

Waitresses don't have to bring the food or drinks to the table or clear it away, the bus boy does that. They are very low down in the pecking order but they actually work much harder than anybody else and probably get paid the least. They are usually Mexican. I tried to make friends with some when I worked a few shifts in a posh Italian restaurant but vis a vis the above post it wasn't feasible. I wanted to hang out in the kitchen to talk to them about Morrissey and eat delicious food but as a white girl that wasn't allowed. I am however open to the possibility that that was a polite way of telling me they don't like me.

Veal is on most fine dining menus. Not being a connoisseur of either meat products or fancy restaurants at home I could be wrong but isn't that put in the foie gras Even-More-Unnecessarily-Cruel-Than-Other-Meat-Products category?

BBC America shows Peep Show, The Inbetweeners and Skins

They don't have wheelie bins on the street. People in apartments and shops and restaurants just chuck scores of bin bags on the road. I assume they are collected fairly frequently but I'd hazard a guess as to why they have rats everywhere.

They don't put cocoa powder on cappuccinos.

They have only have short fat bumpy cucumbers that have a really waxy skin and look like big gherkins.

You can buy cigarettes in Duane Reed which is the equivalent of Boots.

You can buy beer in a corner shop but you have to go to a special shop to get spirits or wine.

Women are quite happy to sleep with their friend's boyfriends and exes (I'm sure it's the other way around too but I've only spoken to girls about it) and don't really mind if they are sharing the same bloke. There is also no issue with hooking up with your mates on a regular basis either, apparently it doesn't affect friendships. I'm not convinced. At least in Britain we have the good sense to have one night stands with strangers.

All cakes and most hot drinks taste like cinnamon.

There are loads more that I can't think of right now but I'll add some more when I think of them so if you are particularly interested in my observations do keep checking this post as I'll go into it and edit it.

Kisses

BushWICKED

Is where my new loft apartment is.

I get the impression that this is what Louis wished Unit 1B was like if he didn't have to share the space with such a bunch of lazy squalid tramps who didn't want to paint everything white and have lovely organic food on the shelves and have lots of plants everywhere. There's not a glass brick in sight.

There IS a massive roof which I've not been on yet but has amazing views of the Manhattan skyline and we have a smaller private roof terrace that you can get to by climbing out of the kitchen window, there are herbs in pots and even more plants and chairs and lights and ashtrays.

Bushwick is in Brooklyn and is just north north of Williamsburg where I was living before. At first I didn't really want to move further away from Manhattan (it's about 5 subway stops further out) and was looking around at places on or around Bedford Avenue but looking for sublets on craigslist is a fucking nightmare; it's easy enough to find somewhere but you have to send emails all the time and try and make yourself seem friendly but not too annoying or needy and distant enough that you won't be in their faces or watching them sleep but at the same time making sure you don't seem like a cunt or a psycho which is all harder than it seems, then you have to shlep across town visiting all these people and then have an awkward exchange at the end where you pretend you have loads more places to see and they pretend they have loads of people coming to look. I looked at loads and the ones I really liked didn't seem to like me and vice versa. I nearly moved in here because it looked like fun and there were loads of artists and musicians living there and they had band practice spaces and workshops and stuff but it turned out not to have a bed in it. There was a single mattress on the floor and no other furniture. As you all know I'm pretty disgusting and more than happy in a hovel/den of filth etc but when the girl who was moving out of the room texted me to say if I give her $100 I can have the mattress and some ridiculous clothes rack it really was lower than even I was prepared to go. I draw the line of having no furniture. Even if all my possessions end up on the floor while I sleep in a nest fashioned from a mix of clean and dirty clothes and bed linen I do like to have the option of an alternative. I'm sharing with two brilliant girls who were drinking beer and eating brie when I came round to view the place so I knew they were good eggs and they both seem like they'll be fun to live which will make a nice change from the two stoned silent boys I was with in March. They didn't even care about my nails.

Anyway, I was chatting to my new room mate Laree and it turns out Bushwick has loads of fun stuff to do and she says it's the best place to be in New York because everybody has roof parties all summer and it seems more relaxed and less pretentious and annoying than Williamsburg. It's not cheap round here and this apartment certainly isn't so I can assume she must be telling the truth. There are a lot of pretty murals and some really interesting graffiti and some bars that look good (they have loads of secret bars that I'm yet to find-I don't understand it from a marketing point of view but it seems no publicity is good publicity as far as bar owners are concerned) and also some nice food shops. No Waitrose or anything but the delis (I am yet to go to a supermarket or even a big shop and I'm pretty convinced they don't exist, with the exception of Whole Foods in Manhattan where I queued for 45 fucking minutes to buy an avocado and refuse to go back to ever again, plus it's really expensive although their express lane is called '10 items or fewer' rather than the ubiquitous '10 items or less') around where I used to live are pretty nasty. They sell horrible looking vegetables and weird food and they all have sandwich counters and they are all full of poor people shouting and they have cats lurking about inside them. The cats are to catch to the rats. This is absolutely true, I was disgusted as well when I first heard. There are also some amazing vintage clothes warehouses round here that have brilliant floor length faux coats in them. There is apparently no stigma at all about wearing real fur coats here, so the fake ones have to look really realistic. The weather may be getting warmer but they are pretty cheap and would fill a hole in my life that I didn't even know was there until I tried one on.

I have also managed to make a few friends that live around here so I am looking forward to the next few weeks.

Kisses

Stewart's Birthday

It was weeks ago but I misplaced my card reader lead so couldn't upload the pictures and I can't seem to sneak this post in chronologically so imagine it's further down the page if you can bear it. Also facetoss is requiring plug-ins (whatever they are) which I've downloaded but apparently aren't there (Arron or Louis or Lewis you may need to email me instructions. Nominate Arron as he owes me for the approaching abandonment I shall be suffering in April) the alternative method is incredibly laborious which is why I haven't added any pictures in a while. Trust me there are loads.

This is the amazing curry house we went to after the zoo-no photos of that because of the glass cases and bars and the suchlike but I have a Moleskine (thanks Dad!) sketchbook full of inky little drawings of bears and kingfishers and tree frogs and the like:

This is the restaurant where Stewart had 'the best chicken korma he's ever tasted' which is quite an accolade from somebody who dines in Pollokshields. There were red chilli shaped fairy lights and tinsel and mirrors hanging from every corner of the ceiling and the walls and it was tiny and cramped and garish and superb. Almost every table was a celebrating a birthday (I strongly suspect Stewart was the only one there whose birthday it actually was but seeing as they made such a brilliant fuss with lights being turned off and bells and singing and free mango ice cream who could blame anybody for trying their luck?) A wonderful day

Oh dear

No job, no money, nowhere to live and virtually no friends. Plus it's raining.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up drinking $7 bottles of Evan Williams Kentucky Bourbon before lunch.

x

Yes I know the blue bit is on the wrong side

 

I just didn't notice at the time/in time to stop her. She didn't speak English anyway. Still the best twenty four bucks I ever spent.

Just for Luke

                                       

HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY!

I for one will certainly not be at the parade; by all accounts it is like the worst hen and stag nights rolled into one with Guiness Hats and 'Kiss Me I'm Irish' t-shirts. I'll be sitting at home dressed as a snake or a potato blight. I hope you have a good one love.

xxx

Absence makes the heart go wander

I'm not doing a very good job updating this. The main reason is that my nails are getting far too long and I am having terrible difficulty typing, that and all the whiskey.

New York is still super fun. The weekend was marred by treacherously bad weather but luckily Alex and I were so hungover on Saturday we were just holding each other and weeping all day and had no need to leave the house. It was super sunny today and according to the 10 day forecast will continue to be so Stewart and I had our second day out to Coney Island Baby today. It gets better every time. We are trying to cram in all the fun we can before the season starts at the end of March. Obviously it will be a different kind of wonderful when the cotton candy stands and hot dog stalls and rides are all open but it has a certain beauty all shut down and derelict. I didn't have a paddle this time but I did last week and it was probably colder than anything I've been thigh-deep in before, my legs were so numb I thought I was going to fall over.

We are going to Bronx Zoo tomorrow, also for the second time. We went last week for Stewart's birthday and Wednesday is 'Donation Day' i.e. Free/$1 Day so we'll be up with the lark to cram in a full day of drawing as we didn't get there til about half past two last time and it shuts early out of season and it's really massive so we didn't see an awful lot and as the animals are all too busy pacing and pulling out their own fur to sit bloody still for five minutes drawing them takes forever. I am hoping there will be owls; beautiful and wise and they barely move. I have my misgivings about zoos obviously but I think it's very important that people can engage with animals they would never normally see or they are less interested in saving them. Or perhaps that is just what I am telling myself. Either way I'm going and I'm going all day.

I will add in some posts about Stewart's birthday and the last few days/weeks with photos when I locate the cable for my card reader. In summary; keep a closer eye on passports as they are a bugger to lose, if it's 5am NOBODY will stop you smoking on the subway, water is definitely thicker than blood and drag queens love it when you know all the words to Dolly Parton album tracks.

Grosses bises

Twenty Fucking Seven

Thursday: TwentyFucking Seven. What a waste of a considerable length of time. Sleeping, swearing, getting too drunk, being sick, being rude, arguing, eating samosas, eating spaghetti, being cold, having blisters on my heels all the time, twisting my ankles all the time, complaining that my feet hurt all the time, regrets about various inappropriate people and places (my parents read this so it is heavily edited) I could go on. Suffice to say, a lot of hangovers and a lot of mistakes. Luckily however, je ne regret rien so it's all sweet like Tropicana.

Horrible slushy snow that meant we couldn't really go far from the apartment in the morning. My ridiculous footwear situation also meant that the only shoes I have that weren't scraps of ribbon and cardboard were high heels so I was teetering about the place in these. James insisted we go to a god awful bakery that is also sort of a diner for homefries and eggs because it's close by the apartment. They didn't have homefries so we ate horrible egg and chips followed by horrible cakes. Opposite the diner was a nail bar and seeing as it was my bloody birthday and I'd been deprived of the only thing I truly wanted to eat I got these bitches done.

 

What the photo doesn't quite capture is that they are a startling neon pink not the sophisticated coral they appear. Drag queen hookers everywhere are crying into their wigs wishing they were me.

More later, I need to go and get something to eat, it's 2 o'clock and I've not had any breakfast. Bella, I am hitting Bedford to get some $5 Thai food. I'll tell them you said hi.

Kisses
x

Toilet Humour

I've just remembered that Monday was spent in the most part trying to unblock the loo.

From what we could make out  the problem was too much paper and not something more untoward. It was fine and then one flush filled the bowl filled up with shredded paper and what looked like bits of leaf. I was concerned for a minute it could mean there was some sort of external plumbing/pipework nonsense or the pipes were connected to another apartment's drains or something, then I remembered that Unit B1 was a total anomaly and nowhere else would dream of doing that. I wish I had Arron's letter to our landlords at this point. Anyway, we made the fatal error of flushing it twice and it was full almost to the brim. Nightmare. We poured a whole bottle of bleach and 2 kettles (this is when it started to resemble rice pudding soup) but nothing was shifting it. At least paper and leaves (which may have been the residue of somebody's digestive tract but we tried to pretend it wasn't) don't smell so it wasn't as bad as it could be. We were hoping it would go down on its own but it didn't. I spent a long time looking up handy hints online, we all had a go with the plunger and destroyed about 6 wire coat hangers to no avail. Dionne was having people over for a meeting and we couldn't contact her so I'm not ashamed to say there were tears and screams and some of us had to be slapped to calm down. When James came home we decided the only way to tackle it was an extreme one. See below:

 

Yeah he went right in there like a trooper. Couldn't shift anything though. We did the honourable thing and jacked it in and called a plumber. We had to go out and get Mexican food just so we could use the loos though. In a way it wasn't so bad as it meant DD's meeting didn't drag on. Utterly vile though. On the plus side La Burrito was not only cheap but delicious, Stewart and Alex couldn't even finish theirs-obviously Fatty Fat Fat Loveday and Greedy Guts Skinny Malinky Loveday left their plates clean as a whistle. If we'd stayed in we probably would've just had spaghetti al pomodoro, just like EVERY OTHER MEAL James eats. I have never seen anybody, Italian or otherwise who can eat the same meal at least twice a day every day and not get bored. Madness.

After Tuesday night's filthy excesses Wednesday was mainly spent on the sofa feeling awful. 5 people in a two bedroom apartment was beginning to take its toll as well; not just on the plumbing. I went to my cousin Cecily's apartment on 5th Avenue to see her and Nikolai and baby Celeste. She is super cute with bright blue eyes and cheeks that I had to stop myself biting. I am not a particular fan of babies per se as you know but this one was topping the polls. She didn't cry at all and was chatting away to herself and crawling about like a nutter. I may steal her at some point. I was feeling pretty rough so despite being offered Prosecco, whisky, wine, Bloody Marys, G&Ts and pretty much anything I wanted I had to sip water and try not to be sick (I was sick in the kitchen sink the night before-while Stewart was making pancakes) I also couldn't even stomach a kettle chip let alone some of the delicious sounding Italian food they were ordering. For shame. I had to go home early and try not to be sick in the taxi that I had taken specifically so as not to risk being sick on the subway; I could not have anticipated such erratic driving, even for a NY cabdriver. Poor Clare.

More later.

Kisses

Just for Arron

Right, I am bowing to Arron's constant and relentless harassment and updating now, despite the fact it is nap time. I made the rather foolish decision earlier to spend a king's ransom on a huge pile of not very nice nachos in a diner off Times Square because the waiters dress all '50s and sing show tunes and rock classics and jump all around on the furniture. Lesson learned, I feel ill. ANYWAY, It has been about a week since my last blog post, loads has happened and I probably won't remember all of it as we have mainly been drunk and the bits that I shall remember probably won't be in the right order. I'm also not in the least bit sorry for this. Arron, your name is in the Bully Log.

Saturday: No idea, probably nothing as we were pretty hungover from Friday. This is subject to change if I remember. I wasted £15 on a pretentious diary and am not even using it.

Sunday: Pizza at Vinnies on Bedford Avenue (Williamsburg is more or less the equivalent of Shoreditch without the stag nights/Hackney Wick in 2 years from now when there will be more wanky cafes and vintage clothes shops. Bedford Ave is its lynchpin; you literally can't move for cunts with beards and skinny jeans in coffee bars on macbooks and scruffy girls with long dark hair and fringes and oversized glasses scowling in eyeliner and men's shoes) which was top delicious then we went and looked at the apartment I am now in and had a wander around Williamsburg. In the evening Stewart and Alex and I went to a bunch of bars in the the Lower East Side. New York may well be the city that never sleeps but it seems they are mostly at home on Sunday night, it was pretty quiet and we had not learned the rule of asking for 'well' spirits instead of Bacardi or Jack Daniels etc so it was more expensive than it could've been given that'll drink any old shit and am in no way fussy. It's like getting Totov vodka instead of Smirnoff. We were more or less on a pub crawl across Avenues A and B trying to find somewhere that wasn't a) dead as a dodo or b) showing the fucking winter olympics, not even figure skating either-CURLING! Can you imagine! We ended up back in some awful bars in Williamsburg and I had a huge row in the street on the way home with some cretin who was taking the piss out of my accent (to his credit he knew it was north London) then it somehow escalated into the political situation in Cyprus (Chimp, RS would've been well proud of me and ZS would have something terrible about the Greeks) he claimed he was Greek Cypriot but I didn't believe him, stupid Americans with their one grandparent bollocks. It ended with him repeatedly screaming at me to go fuck myself. No way to speak to a lady if you ask me.

Monday: Can't remember-all of the above may have actually happened on Monday. I'll get back to you.

Tuesday: We had some drinks in the apartment then went to a bar in the Lower East Side that Stewart had wanted to go to on Sunday called Angels and Kings but it was shut. Yes Cara, that is who you think it is in the top right corner. It's owned by this loser who alas wasn't there (nor was Ashlee or Papa Joe more's the pity) but Stewart's friend Erica from RISD was DJing and he had been before and had a really good time so went down, my friend Chris came too, it was super sweet to see him. They had loads of free drinks deals, which happens quite a lot here. Pretty dangerous if you ask me, especially when it's free vodka then free wine then free tequilas. Messy. We went to some other bars after that, some of them we'd been to on Sunday but they were a lot busier. Stewart had got talking to some girl who worked for Sony records and was busy trying to get a record deal and I was pretending to be Jewish to some girl that looked just like Princess Beatrice and have invited her over for Pesach. I'd better learn to cook matzo. Anyway, I somehow ended up getting in yet another drunk row with a stranger because he said something about Lady Gaga looking like an ugly Jew. Apparently if you are Korean you can't be racist. Ha! It made me think of Saskia from BB 2005.

I'll update the rest later. I need a lie down. I'm still full of nachos.

Arron I hope you are happy.

Kisses

The one where Clare finds an apartment

So after trawling through craigslist for what seemed like forever I have found myself a room in an apartment about 10 minutes walk away from Stewart's place with two guys who seem very nice. The place is shabby chic and a bit of a mess which is ideal for me. They have lots of ashtrays knocking around and lots of books on the shelves which is very reassuring. I've heard they furnish a room after all.

The guy whose room I'll be taking is away in LA for a month so I'll be there for March. Sweet. Photos to follow. It's chucking it down today so we're all in the apartment looking for jobs and listening to audiobooks. Where is Frauline Maria when you need her?

Kisses

Williamsburg it was really nothing

We started Friday with a hearty breakfast in Kellog's Diner. Cara and Sarah will have fond memories of how good this place is. Apparently it doesn't have the greatest reputation with Brooklynites but I think that's because a couple of years ago it was an utter shithole and riddled with rats and botulism and the like then it was shut down and reopened and I'd imagine deep down nobody trusts it. I do though (possibly because I couldn't see into the kitchen) and confidently ordered myself a spinach omelette and some delicious homefries. Set us right up for the day. Lovely stuff. Sated, we hopped on the L train into Manhattan to get on the Staten Island Ferry to have a little look at the Statue of Liberty an' that. It was absolutely freezing on the ferry; the blustery winds had their nasty icy hands all over our faces and were desperate to get to our brains through our ears. Quite nice to see the Manhattan skyline from the other side though.

Word to the wise, there is NOTHING on Staten Island. Nothing at all. To be honest we wandered around the periphery for all of 20 minutes, past some dreadful looking restaurants with massive car parks outside and appalling looking menus. Everything further into town was up some oppressive steep hills so we sacked it off and got back on the ferry. The best bit about SI was all the heavy plant and myriad of lovely red cranes as the ferry left the harbour port dock.

When we got back to Manhattan we had a wander about downtown looking at weird shops that sold cheap shoes and horrible expensive clothes. The area around Lafayette Street is officially Stewart's favourite part of town so in honour of this we had a wander about there and found a sweet little Portugese bar where we had a few happy hour Mojitos. This inspired us to make our own when we got home. Badly. We swung by Dean and DeLuca and got some fresh mint and more limes than could ever be consumed by anybody and made something that was vaguely passable as a drink but would certainly be sent back in a bar.

 

Once we'd finished making a big mess in the kitchen we hit Williamsburg. Big time. On the way to Bedford Avenue (the main street where most of the bars and restaurants are) we stopped in one of the many unfathomably odd little deli/grocery store/place for big groups of middle aged Puerto Rican men to drink beer IN A SHOP instead of going home or to a bar and leer at women in Spanish so that Alex could use the ATM at the back of the shop. We (mainly James) got chatting to a mad drunk man called Carlos Jimenez who was knocking back the beers with his sordid little cronies. This is apparently quite normal in this neighbourhood. Almost every shop that is Hispanic Caribbean, either Puerto Rican or Dominican is full of men drinking beers and having shouty conversations, I wish I could speak Spanish so I could tell what thy are saying but I imagine it would be as uninteresting as any group of drunk old men in any language. I can't work out how they make any money in these shops because they are quite intimidating and their customer service skills are practically non-existent but seeing as there's one on every corner they must be doing all right. I suppose I'm hardly their target demographic anyway. Anyway, James (and before too long Stewart as well) had become embroiled with this Carlos guy who was trying to sell us weed and coke and chat to us and tell us that the other men in the store were scared of 'blancas' and seemed desperate to hang out with us so we listened politely while he explained in great detail about his house in Williamsburg and that his mother had bought  the building in 1976 for $16000 and that is was the greatest town in the world and that he had two sons and that he worked for the MTA buses and had a lifetime Metrocard and all manner of nonsense; there was a lot of embarrassed high fiving in appropriate places.  The other men in the shop wanted us to leave because we are white and they didn't like us (apparently this is a completely acceptable thing to say-maybe because neighbourhoods are so much less diverse and people seem to only live with other people of the same ethnicity, Puerto Rican, Hasidic Jews etc. or maybe because they are all just fucking racist) anyway, we didn't stick around to find out. Our party of four had become a party of five, with Carlos in tow we continued on our way. At this point we were as keen to shake him off as he was to buy us lots of drinks. At the first bar we got to, Alex and I sloped off out the door and down the road while James and Stewart had a shot and then ran away down the road. From our vantage point down the street we weren't sure if they were ditching him or running away in terror. It all ended well, suffice to say none of us can ever walk down Havermeyer Street again just in case.

We went down to Bedford Ave and met some of DD's friends that she was working on a film with and drank what I would swear was listerine and coke and had a disco. More fun than I can be bothered to write about. My nails are getting too long to type without loads of mistakes. More later.

Kisses. 

Micro SD

I just went to a brilliant Hasidic Jewish camera shop in Williamsburg and got myself a sweet little card reader. I can now show both of you what I've been up to since we arrived. Well I could if this stupid website wasn't playing silly buggers and freezing on me. More later.

Friday I'm in love

Arron I am sorry but I am a cretin and can't get the card reader you gave me to work. I shall be hitting the dodgy camera shop on Broadway tomorrow to buy a new one then I shall literally litter this page with all the pictures I took of Friday's disco dancing adventures. More to come when I can add some photos.

Hey, we're in New York! I got a gun. Let's hit Broadway

It occurred to me for a moment that I should probably wait until I actually have something interesting to post before updating. Then I remembered that never happens before I speak so why would it happen before I type? So here we are. Finally. After all these ages and ages of planning, bragging and whining it has really happened. Despite all the fretting about being strip searched and interrogated by Homeland Security or tipped onto Ellis Island to be deloused and turned back to Galway we sashayed through without a problem. I had bought a lovely cobalt blue underwear set just in case I needed to disrobe in a small room in front of a man with a big gun. What a waste of £7.99. I also neglected to bring any contraband or exceed my cigarette allowance. Turns out fortune does indeed favour the bold.

New York is freezing but has apparently been much colder so we should be grateful. There are piles of snow everywhere and hazardous slushy puddles that I learned about the hard way last night. We had delicious Thai food in Williamsburg although their fryers were broken so it was much healthier than we would have liked.

I am hitting the statue of Liberty later with Stewart and Alex today. Photos to be added later.

Welcome to Edgar who is my first 'follower'.

Kisses

It may all end tomorrow; or it could go on forever.

So this is it. Checked in online but still not properly packed. A window seat and a vegetarian meal is all I could ever ask for. Ever. I am very excited and a little bit terrified.