A white picket fence is the same as the pain lodged between my right shoulder blade and my neck. Now, with my itsybitsyteenyweenytiny laptop it’s getting worse. Dr Blog is on rubbing orders every night. I need a keyboard and an osteopath to crack my back like a shrimp in garlic butter. ZedBed is on red alert at the Apple show. I will swim at Oasis. Open air. The Fishy One may come and teach me front crawl. I even necked an industrial strength Nurofen I got from Crete: 400 mg. I bit it in half and expected it to taste bitter and poisonous but it was bland and chalky. I nibbled away and two thirds of a pill later the pain had subsided. This morning I woke up and sat at my desk, hoping it would be gone, but the pain was the same. This morning I sat up and woke at my desk, but the pain was the same. The pain was the same.

John has a mouth full of gold teeth and when I ride by on my bicyclette he flashes me a smile. We got talking when I was looking for a mechanic to mend Mr McGoo. John’s lived on our street for 27 years. He deserves to have his own chair. I like it because the handwriting is neat.

was yesterday. It’s a big project. Mass observation they call it. History in the making. I uploaded my entry which talked of flu and cabin fever and blogs blogs blogs blogs and skyping and texting and websites and geraniums and it all felt very very 21st century. Then I looked up Samuel Pepys’s diary and guess what? Even the dead have blogs these days. Amazing. Diary of a Dead Man. I like it.

You can upload your what did I do on Tuesday 17th October 2006 into the annals of history until Halloween. Click on the mass observation link above if you’re up for it.

As soon as I pressed ‘publish’ late last night I went next door to watch tv. What was on? A documentary about hijab porn. The Real Blue Nuns was actually a multi-faith affair that also covered Catholic nuns. There I was thinking I was being controversial and up to the minute discussing the veil. Clearly not. Made in France, this was porn movies with women wearing nothing but…you get the picture. Or not. No free ads here. Of course the Channel 4 documentary makers needed to show lots of shots of this transgressive medium, so the screen was awash with vibrators and wobbling silicone as they interviewed a veiled but otherwise naked Arabian actress on a bed. The pornographer wielded a camera in one hand and a large fluorescent dildo in the other and wore a handkerchief and dark glasses for fear of reprisals. Was he going to be ‘done as he would do by’ with that large and painful looking probe, or was it solely a spectator sport for our man behind the lens? Not sure what this added to the debate. More of a post script really. I’m bored entirely of this worthy subject. You know me. I’d rather talk about geraniums.

Who could resist? Parked up, looking swish. Is it the brothers from the Nation? Or a posse of beveiled mums on the school run? I feel like Loyd Grossman peeking ‘through the keyhole’ trying to imagine the owner of the vehicle. One thing we can be sure of is that whoever owns this four-wheeled beast is clearly devout. A personalised number plate shows passion. They are expensive and one has to twiddle about with the lettering to avoid duplication, hence the 5 instead of the S. I often try not to touch on political debate here on the Blag as I worry it would become tiresome and boring and just like all the other ‘this is what I think about the veil/the bus service/my navel’ blogs. Hence I tend to err on the side of my navel, which is possibly the least or the most interesting of the three things depending on how you look at it. Literally is probably best. But, urged on by my forthcoming course on blogging, which I’ll be teaching over the next four weeks, and on discovering that two of the students on it have their own blogs and are busy debating the veil, I decided to join the fray!

It’s a subject I feel strongly about. As readers will probably know or guess, Blag Lady is in the ‘as short as one’s legs and date of birth will allow if one feels like it’ camp when it comes to skirts and dresses. God/The Higher Power/Allah/Isis made us naked which is fine for sub-Saharan Africa and other such temperate climes, but not so marvellous when it comes to a chilly October afternoon in Stockholm. Which is why we have brains, clubs and baby seals. ONLY JOKING. Adult seals only. Every woman has the right to wear a burqa if she so wishes. But as a feminist I wish she wouldn’t wish to wear one. After Afghanistan and the atrocities that were committed on women and girls it symbolises nothing but oppression to me. Now British women with tons and tons of choice that feminists flung themselves under horses and burnt bras for are exercising that choice and choosing the veil as a way of expressing their cultural identity. Even though I wouldn’t enter a synagogue wearing a bikini I’m still not entirely sold on the modesty before God argument. Yes, there are degrees, but going to church is not the same as going to Sainsbury’s. As for the ‘otherwise I’d have the same problems as Posh Spice/Nicole Ritchie argument’ well, yeah, but let’s face it, given half the chance 9 out of 10 people would ban Posh if they could. And 00 Nicole. In fact full coverage seems somehow immodest to me. It says ‘this human can’t feel the wind, rain or sun on her face when she walks the the earth’ and I like the feel of the rain, and the sun and the wind on my bare-faced cheeks! You can’t get more spiritual than that. For those who want to demonstrate religious allegiance, I think personalised number plates are just the ticket. Although one could argue that they are not very modest.

Us writers are used to rejection and that special feeling of suspended hope when you enter the National Poetry Competition or submit to an august journal and are waiting with baited breath for the good and the great to acknowledge your mutual good and greatness. For years I didn’t send much out anywhere and when I did people often said yes, but the more things you apply for the more you get used to getting knocked back from time to time. So, I thought I would be prepared for anything. But I can tell you, the fact that Alicante Adolf has NOT been accepted (yet – see how the hope lives on until it’s absolutely futile) on the Cats That Look Like Hitler website has knocked me sideways! You think I’m joking? I was devastated. Evil Fred first sent me the link to this rather fine site. So imagine my excitement, while on a writing retreat with Poodle in the mountains up above Benidorm, when I discovered this feisty little furrhrer. Well, at least he’s behind bars was Poodle’s comment, which just goes to show how incredibly like Hitler he really is. Ha.

Unfortunately, my new Nokia is inferior to the last one (more megapixels, lots of camerashake) so picture quality is crap. The website does warn that blurry pics may not make the final cut. Yeah, well quality-schmality – there’s no feral furrhrers on CTLLH – it’s all ‘Harlequin as owned by Minxibelle in Ohio’ and you can see they’ve had ages to set up a perfect shot with their little moggy posing in their arms. And how many of them have actually got a parting (okay, it’s a centre parting, but let’s not quibble)? Yes, I’m bitter. But who wouldn’t be? AND Alicante Adolf looks evil, which is more than I can say for some of the simpering pretenders on show (notwithstanding Claude who I adore). Much as I’d like to despise CTLLH I can’t. I’ve now become the saddest loser on the block and am obsessed with finding another kitler. Or forcing CTLLH to accept Alicante Adolf by bombarding them with the photo day in day out and sending pleading emails. I am now the stinky kid that didn’t get invited to the perfect/prettiest/richest girl in the school’s party and hangs around outside the mansion window looking in wistfully at all the other children playing pass the parcel. Actually, no, I forgot, BlagLady would never be a member of any club that would put her on the VIP guest list. In fact CTLLH are NOTHING in comparison to Cats that REALLY look like Hitler. Alicante Adolf is the don. Don’t you agree?

Mrs Kinley doing what she does best

Yesterday Tattontastic dragged me off to a red carpet and bridal designer in Belgravia. Well, not a designer of red carpets, and not dragged really – truth be told I loved it! Poncing around in a posh frock shop where you have to have an appointment and everything. What’s more I got to go to the delightful SW1 and see how the other 0.7% live. I’ve not been to Belgravia for a month of Sundays, more in fact. I used to know a girl ‘Kay-Bee’ who lived there with her impoverished parents in a charming mews residence with a pack of Yorkshire terriers that pooed all over the kitchen. The freehold to their house was owned by that nasty Duke of Wellington/Westminster/Wherever – you know the one who still owns all, not half, of Belgravia, because they always keep the freehold. (Just remembered it’s the Duke of Devonshire – now he was a one – his wife was the enfant terrible of the 18th Century and was an opium addict with zillions of squid in gambling debts – he moved his mistress in to live with them for a menage a trois but she ended up falling for The Wife. Nice.) Anyway, back to the 20th Century, as it was then. Kay-Bees ma was an haute couture designer of yesteryear, and used to dress lots of faded duchesses and half the Swedish royal family or something. Every day the Family Kay-Bee checked the calendar to see how long they had left on their dwindling lease. Of course, they could have sold those last 11 years for a few hundred K even then, but a Belgravia address is absolutely de rigeur in certain circles. I know I’m being heartless, feeling nothing for the poor mites, but then Kay-Bee was a bitch to me when I was a keen teen, so sod the sympathy.

ANYWAY, Tattontastic looked Tattontastic in her gown. It had lots of [I've had to edit these details now as I realised reading Tattontastic's blog that Phil might get a whiff of what the dress looks like if I say more] and clung to all the right places. Being a champagne socialist par excellence and a new and improved member of the Green party Tattontastic enquired as to the provenance of said finery. You should have seen the assistant’s face. I took pity on her and voiced her thoughts: now, sweetie, if a girl sees the word ‘organic’ on her wedding dress label she ain’t gonna pay £1500++ to walk down the aisle in what sounds like a sack of potatoes! Full marks for asking though. The label may have said ‘Made in Love’ but this little number was knocked up in China. They also sold lots of wedding night accessories. In particular I noted some fabulous blue satin nipple tassles – you know the ones that you used to want when you were little and your ambition was to be a stripper. However, what’s brass when you’ve got sheer class? As demonstrated so ably by the delectable Mrs Kinley on the morning after her wedding which I attended in the summer. Tattontastic: a pair of organic cotton next-day-knickers coming your way!

to get the train to Brixton and the bus up the hill, or to get off at Victoria and take the overground?

An empirical experiment this evening yielded predictable results. For those that don’t know: the overground is quicker only if there is no alternative tube route. Despite its subterranean failings the tube is fast.

Other notes: Peaches tried to steal that coat. C’mon. You know it makes sense.

Otherwise: I spent the entire evening PANDERING which was very tiresome, and not at all BLAGtastic. ZedBed and LoopyLoo liked their presents so that made up for it. Particularly ZedBed, who is nigh on impossible to buy for.

Poems: started writing up a Haiku diary I kept on a trip from Seattle to LA in January 2002 just after September the 11th. This was a relief, as I was in that I will never write again and it’s National Poetry Day/Week/Hour/Moment and I’m not an official part of it whine. There was a lovely talented young thing of only 16 – Foyle’s Young Poet of the Year on R4 Midweek – and I thought, that’s how it is. A poet only gets to be on Midweek if they’re a freak – and being 16 and a poet provides plenty of freak points. I think these feelings are natural. I’ve gone through a phase of intense productivity, and now the fallow period feels like a famine. Recognition and a sense of validation through that recognition are shallow and egotistical entities, but true nonetheless.

I had two strange dreams back to back this week. In the first one I accidentally went on holiday to Darfur. I thought I was going to be killed by machine gun strafe until we found shelter in a five star hotel with white linen that was run by a clucky Italian woman in her mid fifties. I woke, wrote and fell back to sleep and promptly dreamt that Geoffrey Hill (the poet) fell hopelessly in love with me. Having never even seen even a photo of him I have no idea if this would be an aesthetically aspirational event or not. Something in my gut says not.

Went swimming with ZedBed yesterday. I returned to Swiss Cottage Baths although it is now a swanky sports centre with one pool. I kept thinking it was some kind of refit, like Dingwalls and Jongleurs in Camden Town, and that I’d be swimming in part of Priory or Adelaide pools. But no. ‘It’s much smaller,’ ZedBed kept reminding me, ‘to make way for the luxury flats’. There are some affordable housing units up above, but the second bedrooms don’t have windows apparently. The pool was good, and we swam side by side, chatting: although halfway through, the Junior Swim club arrived and all the lane swimmers came and swam in the slightly more random non-lane bit we’d hitherto been sharing with three 14 year-old boys who would have been bombing each other had they not been more obedient. Actually, the no running, diving, pushing, bombing or petting signs had disappeared – didn’t you just love those cartoon illustrations? – and only a no diving sign endures. I did notice that the lifeguards are more vigilant here than they are in Oasis, where middle-aged men are allowed to belly flop into the pool as they so please. A lifeguard in a red t-shirt came up to the guy who had been terrorising the ladies’ lane with a lopsided front crawl that looked like a half-butterfly, and said ‘this is the FAST lane you know, can you please go back to the general area’ ie the sissy ladies’ lane where breaststroke and swimcaps reign. Ha!

I wanted to swim, but to be honest the real reason I went was to chase a poem. (Always a fruitless task.) I wanted to see the difference. I wanted to remember walking round the back over the ventilators in winter and feel the warm air rush up my skirt like Marilyn Monroe in the Seven Year Itch (or was it Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?). ZedBed reminded me of when they had wire baskets that were hung up by fierce Nigerian changing room ladies. The original baths were built in the mid-60s and had vast stadium seating in each pool: as if the kids of Swiss Cottage and its environs were going to seriously challenge the Soviets in the Olympics. The biggest shock though was not the new Starbucks-esque cafe that was not a Starbucks that sold ‘meringues the size of your head’, or the ‘family changing area’ and individual cabin showers, it was the fact that I preferred it. Sod nostalgia, this was more like paying £3.50 to get into Cannons. I liked having the past bulldozed and rebuilt in a more palatable and usable manner. Although, thank God, they’ve not touched the library.

Why is October the eighth month etymologically but in reality the tenth month? September’s over and with it the hot sunshine and clear blue skies. I still don’t know the answer to the October question. Hang on: and September is the ninth month but sept is seven isn’t it? So obvious, but a question I’ve never considered. I received a copy of Paul Muldoon’s Horse Latitudes in the post last week. I also received a home-made bookmark from my mentor which has a very woolly sheep on it and is an exact colour match for the Horse Latitudes cover. There were several words I needed to look up so I have been jotting them on the back of the bookmark. They are:

hypersaucoma
traduction
hauberk
pelf
rouncy
pollard
xenophon
fanfaron.

And I’m only on page 12! So is this the answer to last week’s conundrum, viz a viz how to write like a serious bloke poet…? Or part answer at least. Also, in my Myslexia diary they have handy inspirationals from women authors. This week PD James offers:

‘Try always to enlarge you vocabulary through reading. This is not in order to use complex or pretentious phrases, but to have available precisely the right word for every sentence.’

On the way to rouncy I noticed Robinocracy and rongo-rongo. I thought Muldoon had gone for rouncy just because it rhymed with bouncy (castle), but in fact a rouncy is ‘a horse, esp one of cob type for riding’. So there you have it, most precise word for the sentence that rhymes with…as required. I do love having the 2 vol Shorter Oxford but now I’ve got to get up to look up hauberk…which means: ‘A piece of defensive armour originally for the neck and shoulders but early developed into a long coat of mail or military tunic.’

Well, did you know that England adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752? It was established by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. It’s something of an achievement isn’t it: changing the measurement of time itself. Or is it the calculation of the measurement of time itself? Does that mean October used to be warmer, perhaps more like August. And, incidentally did you also know that August used only to have 30 days, until Caligula, who was born on 1 September said his birthday was August 31st, because all the great emperors were born in August? Obviously, being born at the latter end of August, I like this little anecdote.

I am now signing off as I need to re-order the following words to create a single sentence:

the there were twenty turf opened generations an mossed under disco of roof up just ends knees gable Iceland for farm before

By the time I’ve finished it may be something of a traduction. If I then turned these words into my own poem it could end up as pelf. Call me a fanfaron, but I think I will deserve a sing and a dance and possibly a knees up in a disco on the roof of a farm in Iceland in front of twenty generations if I can crack this little xenophon without resorting to nonsense.