Saturday, March 31, 2012

i cut my own hair

This week I was persuaded to cut my own hair. I've wanted a fringe for a long time now and always chickened out of asking for one at the hairdressers. I nearly got layers till the girl doing the cutting suddenly remembered I was a bloke; wish she hadn't!



So there are a couple of methods here for two different things - first cutting your own hair in a pony tail to give a layered effect. The Momsnet method. And here. It works well, but the layers are somewhat random. And I lost much of the layer effect when i cut the fringe. But I feel I can experiment, and will!



The fringe method was fairly simple too, but still I didn't quite manage to follow it properly. so I have a raggedy fringe. I was too excited and rushed into it. All I need to do now is allow the hair to grow a bit and do it again properly. but I am still extremely pleased by the result.


The pictures I took tonight were necessarily a rush job as I had very limited time to get everything done.
(in the interests of transparency I cartoonised the above picture, now there are 4 styles available and the first style is extremely flattering, and smooths over all your blemishes, and ropey make-up technique)

Then the plan that was in the back of my mind, and had been all day, was put into action. The grey skirt I bought last week was crying out to be worn. It has an uneven hem line - like a raggedy kind of effect. I have just shaved my legs and this skirt felt so lovely on with shaven legs that I couldn't resist going for a little walk in it, and I could road-test my new hair too!



Since its still not summer out there, I thought I'd better put a coat on. Also, took a handbag, even though there was nothing in there, I thought it would look a bit more natural.


And then I stepped out of the front door into the night, at about 11pm, and went for a little walk over the railway line, in a pair of sparkly blue flat shoes. The thing I hate about heels is the noise they make, which at night makes me feel extremely conspicuous. The flats were nice and quiet and still looked rather elegant.

I slipped out the front door and suddenly felt the cold night air wrapping around my legs. Closed the front door behind me, after checking I DEFINITELY had my keys, and wander out, walking in as unblokey manner as I could mange  -though being in a skirt helps with that, being in flat shoes doesn't.

I just went up over the footbridge to the other side of the railway line. Walked long the extremely quiet street for a bit and turned back. Unfortunately flatmate was due back soon after 11.00 so I knew I didn't have long.

I got back just before my flatmate arrived home. Phew! Must do this again soon!

I also have this, possibly, irritating habit of revising my blog posts on the go. So it's worth checking back to see what I've added....

Later that night my fm went to bed quite early (for him) and as I was still up, and relatively awake, I thought I'd go for another walk. this time I put on a stripey top and a black mini-skirt, tights and a long woollen coat.


I went a lot further on the second walk - had taken a lot less care with the make-up and wore a more casual outfit. I set of towards the railway station, along the main road, passed by a few cars, and then back along the other side of the wailway line, over the footbridge and home. Had a very close encounter with a group of young foxes. Obviously used to having the streets to themselves, they were chasing each other all over the place until they virtually ran into me walking along. They just managed to stop in time and ran off :D I'm glad they stopped in time, I was slightly worried about them laddering my tights.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Back on the bike

You won't believe how fucking happy it makes me to be back on my bike. In that case I'll spell it out to you. I am sooooo fucking happy to be back on my bike.

And when I'm on my bike I like to photograph the things around me and record the changes I can see, and the everyday things that makes London unique. 

I find the Woolwich ferry endlessly fascinating and keep photographing it in the hope that new stuff pops out, and on occasion it does. 

The yellow really attracts me - I like seeing it against the blue sky background. If I ever get back into painting, then this will be the first place I go to. 



 Then more yellow came along. This view reminds me of New York harbour more and more - so when I see three yellow barges being pulled along with the Docklands towers as a backdrop I get a little bit excited.




I find this building fascinating too

Boris's folly part one

Boris's folly part two (left of the stadium)
I had a meeting with signals management in east London and then I cycled along the regents canal back into Holborn to my office. Stopped only for lunch on a park bench on Victoria Park. There were people sunbathing! In March! Sunbathing! I have never seen the like in 40 odd years!

Monday, March 19, 2012

comment on CiF today

No, this is a government owned by bankers the wealthy and a corporate
fascist coup d'état, who have made Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott's,
dystopian "Blade Runner" nightmare a reality. This is only the
beginning. Every aspect of human activity/endeavour will be
privatized. Government pronouncements are being disseminated by the
department of "Newspeak" and will mean precisely the opposite of what
they say.

A comprehensive media blackout will be imposed both voluntarily and
through coercion. Dissent particularly against the NHS "reforms" and
the deregulation and removal of powers from environment agency(s) will
go (under)unreported by national media and the BBC which is now an arm
of government propaganda.

The privatisation of the NHS is underway. Then the roads,
police/pathology units, post office. Whole swathes of the Welfare
State. Higher education. deregulation of employment rights and the
withdrawal of legal aid, health and safety. Tenancy rights will be
revoked or minimised. Attacks/exploitation against public sector
workers, the unions, the poor, disabled, unemployed, homeless, those
on low incomes, the old, will increase in ferocity. Class war by the
rich one percent - subsidising their debt/taxes - against the rest of
the population has become an acceptable part of Tory/LibDem doctrine.

"In accordance to the principles of doublethink, it does not matter if
the war is not real, or when it is, that victory is not possible. The
war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The
essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of
human labour. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of
poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned
to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the
ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory
over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society
intact."
George Orwell 1984

This is not science fiction. We the citizens are sleep walking into a
nightmare made real by this Coalition government.
IsabellaBorgia
19 March 2012 10:35AM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/19/cameron-greenest-government-ever-poll?commentpage=1#comment-15226962

A tory (and LibDem) future

Well it's easy to see where the government are going with all this. They're forcing poor people out of the south and into the north, or other depresed areas.There push to reduce public sector pay in these areas will result in pushing down pay across the board. Private sector pay was ahead of public sector pay just a few years ago, but with a concerted effort by the elite who own the private sector, they have succeeded in pushing pay down below the public sector levels. This now leaves the public sector in the position of being a block to the ongoing plans to erode pay still further. To play on everyone's tendencies to jealousy the elites have unleashed a veritable groundswell of dissatisfaction, not at employers, or the government, but at the very people who are fighting to keep pay and conditions at reasonable levels, public sector workers and their unions!

 This, with removing environmental regulations and planning regulations should help boost profit while forcing the poor to live with air pollution and on contaminated land.
People make really moronic statements on websites such as the Guardian's CiF such as - oh rich people don't suffer from air pollution then? Well not if they live away from the source they don't, no! Rich people can afford to choose where they live, poor people can't.The areas where air pollution is low will become more valuable, more expensive. Eventually it will be the poor suffering while the rich takes the profits. it was thus in the 18th and 19th century and it will be thus again. soon.

A privatised health service will make the gap between rich and poor even more obvious while the rich can have expensive treatments to mitigate their pollution related illensses - theones that have them - the poor will not, will become chronically ill and will probably die. This suits Cameron's friends - better they die than they become a burden on "society", by "society" I mean nice rich people, not nasty poor smelly people!

Ironic that it's the tories who have decided they want to make the UK as much like China as possible.