Revolutionary Rants

We are moved. It was a relatively smooth move (what a rhyming couplet!), with us doing quite a lot on Friday instead of Saturday. We actually decided to move the major bits of furniture (well, minus the washing machine and fridge) on the Friday and sleep over at our new home. On the Saturday we took on the altogether more annoying task of loading up all the bits and bobs that we had accumulated. Still, we were done and dusted by about 15:00 so that was great. We still have quite a lot of boxes and the like around, but we are mostly in, with our new dishwasher and freezer to boot. We have also succumbed to the unholy evil that is Sky+ as we were told that having a digital aerial put up on the house would cost £300-£400.

Other than the move things are quiet but busy. Christmas mania is already in full swing and December approaches, we’re both working hard with me now doing my normal hours each week. We may brave late night shopping tonight, if we dare. The weekend will be laid over to finally clearing and sorting the old house and carrying on with the moving in totally here.

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Very little to report here, work is busy and interesting, the packing is seemingly endless, the unpacking at the other end likewise. Chicken has built his rather smashing desk in the sitting room of our new home and most of our books, DVDs, CDs and kitchen items are already unpacked and placed in their new living spaces. It is wet here, it poured all afternoon yesterday and the short walk from work to home left me needing a change of shoes. Oh well, more packing to do…

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There is a interesting article online today (yes, Charles, in the Guardian and, yes, I do still read the online papers before going to work, even the employed do this, apparently…) about one of my favourite rant topics, feminism. Anyone who knows me will know I am a proud feminist, but I am also involved in a loving relationship with a man. I wrote an article on a similar theme in our University paper, the catchily titled Huddersfield Student, called “The F-Word”, surprisingly. It was about how feminism has been demonised – bra-burning, lesbian man-haters, and so on – and corrupted since the 60’s and 70’s and about how most women of my age seemed to go out of their way to avoid “feminism”.

Love, as the article says, does not equal “passive”. The great anarcho-feminist Emma Goldman talks about just that in her article Love and Marriage, it is only the capitalist based, traditional (male controlled) version of “love” that has the female as passive. Women are controlled in to passivity; the dreams of the big white wedding, the need to find “Mr Right”, the need to be thin…
Now, of course, we have a different problem, the fact that women are told by “society” that they fail if they do not have a career and children. If they dare to have one or the other they are bad girls. Surely the thing should be that women have a choice and that neither choice is wrong.

I am a feminist, I have romantic love and shortly I will be using my wages to buy a dishwasher.

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Dublin was good. Very different from the capital I used to know, but good all the same. We had a nice and easy drive to Bristol and an equally easy flight to Dubbo. We were a little taken aback at paying €6 each for a one way trip on the bus, but hey, it got us to near Kinlay House, our hostel.

I used to use Kinlay a lot in my concert going days and always found it to be the safest and quietest (apart from the dormitory, which as you’d expect is rather noisy) hostel in Dublin, however this time it had also changed. It was still nice and central (naturally) and safe, but it was extremely noisy. We had a bunch of Italian blokes above us, who nightly serenaded us from about 23:00 through to 2:00 with snippets of opera and a fair bit of loud, loud chatter. The ceiling was paper thin, so it wasn’t much fun… We also had issues with our booking in, being charged too much by a disbeliving member of staff. However, another nicer one gave us our money back on Monday.

On Saturday, after checking in, we met Chicken’s school pal Poffe for a drink or two, which was cool, especially as I finally got to go in Fibber Magee’s, a pub/club I was turned away from many moon’s ago after a Manics gig. Was good.

Sunday saw us wake rather tired… Not good. We headed out to walk around St. Stephen’s Green, which was probably my favourite bit of our trip, wandering round the whole park seeing the statues and with Celtic Tiger era joggers shooting passed us. We also saw the tart with the cart in all her exposed glory. Then we went to see where Oscar Wilde lived and walked down Grafton street. We attempted to get a coffee in the famous Bewley’s, but after waiting 15 minutes with other people being served all around us we headed off for a evil capitalist but very tasty coffee across the road. Then we saw the Polish exhibition at the National Gallery and went for a late lunch a The Bistro somewhere off George Street. Vegetarian food is still not easy to get, sadly… We went back to Kinlay and fell asleep and then watched Best in Show before falling asleep again.

Most of the stuff I had planned for Monday (my favourite gallery, the Hugh Lane and the National museum) proved to be shut, which was quite disappointing. Well, we did lots of nice capitalist shopping and had a good bit of snap in a place called Bobo’s. We borrowed a DVD from the hostel, My Left Foot, which I hadn’t seen for years and that we both enjoyed. Then we got some soda bread for tea and settled in for the night.

Our flight back was a little wobbly, but fine, as was the return drive and then I headed to work for a few hours. Been busy bees since then and the move fast approaches, as does sleep… Zzzzz.

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As you can imagine things are very busy, in fact I am in two minds as to whether to give up on ye olde blog altogether. Or maybe I’ll become like the husband and blog once in a blue moon? I’ll see.

Work is really good, but obviously – as with my volunteering – I am not going to talk about it on here. It is the old governmental thing, the “private” life versus the “public” one. Of course, in my line of work there are confidentiality issues as well. Chicken is also busy at work and thus we are enjoying our evenings with the heating on and doses of Heroes, Diablo II and the occasional bit of Ugly Betty.

I have fallen down some steps on to the road and shut a door on my foot so have a left leg injured in three places. Dyspraxic? Quite possibly.

We moved Mum and Dad yesterday, it was quicker than moving my brother’s family and we got most of it done between 9:30 and 17:00 (with a lunch break and a coffee stop or three). Just Chicks and I to go now.

Off to Dublin tomorrow, so I will try to do a trip report when we return, but as I say I am blooming busy, so don’t expect much!

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November is here. 2007, as I have previously observed, has flown by and now we reach it’s penultimate month. It is quite warm, presently, for the time of year. We are expecting a busy time this month with our move, the parent’s move, Dublin, me starting work, getting used to the commute and the steady trudge towards the mid-winter festive period.

Another festival has passed, in Barnstaple quietly. The all new Americanised version of Hallowe’en has caused quite a few problems in Devon, according to Spotlight (our version of Look North, the local Beeb news). We didn’t have any trick or treaters down here. I must admit, I always enjoyed Hallowe’en as a kid, but now it annoys me because it has become such a big thing. It not longer involves dressing up as a “bat” by wearing a black leotard and some home-made bat ears attached to your alice band… Now Evil Capitalist Shops have costumes available from the last week of September. Oh well, I have enjoyed drinking “Witches Blood” in lew of cherryade.

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