Et In Arcadia Ego

Guerilla guardening is one of those fine-line illegal activites. It's not legal to plant on other people's land. But for a good cause, and on patches of scrub which no one really owns, it's a squishy area. A less contentious version of permitting graffiti on ugly buildings: the definition of nice graffiti or nasty building is a bit floppy, but no one can argue that flowers are not nice. Except perhaps hay-feverists.

I've joined the new Kings environmental society purely to get involved with it. I love caring for plants - they give you the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with taking care of a living creature, with none of the responsibility that comes with people or pets. I wish I was better at it, but so far the only plant that has survived our house is Leon - the "unkillable" cactus that Friend 1 got me a few years ago. If I don't water it, it just curls up dry until I remember at which point it flowers again. Unfortunately, Basil the mint plant was followed into plant oblivion by Sybil the mint plant (named after The Picture of Dorian Gray, not Faulty Towers. Although that's an interesting observation...). I have a low life expectation for Mr Erskine, my new pink plant, though I am now in the habit of checking it every day.

I met up with the rest of the society at the Library, in the rain, before heading forth to make the City pretty. It was a pretty damp exercise, especially because both my pairs of shoes now have holes, and I'm either too busy, too lazy or too cheap to replace them. Maybe all three. I mean, they are still basically functional...if it isn't raining.

We soon arrived at a long thin patch of earth next to a wall, filled with fag-ends and biro caps. We did a little weeding, and then set out planting. There were two trowels and two pairs of gloves between about 10 of us. I made my own shovel out of a metal box I had appropriated earlier in the day for storing my trading cards. Some people had brought actual plants to be transferred from pots - daffodils and grasses - while others had bags full of tulip bulbs.
I soon stopped noticing the rain. That area of London is beautiful when glowy and shiney anyway. The earth was pretty stoney, but I dunno, some plants like that (she said vaguely...). That was when the police drew up in a squad car.

"Is this some sort of political thing?" one asked. I feel like such an idiot hippy in retrospect, but we smiled and said we were merely planting. When put like that, it had the daft innocence of poking a flower into the barrel of a gun. "Because if it was something against the government," he qualified, "we'd have to stop you". You haven't been able to bring down a government with a bag of tulip bulbs since 68', and the cop turned out to be a friendly one - reminding us not to damage anything that wasn't ours before driving off.

"We're only planting". Add tamborine, harmonica and you've basically got a hippy hit.

I also got chatting with some fab folk, including a girl from Ireland with whom I inexplicably bonded over religion. Even though I'm open minded, religion is one of those topics that I wouldn't dare broach with a stranger, and feel rather timid talking about with even people I know well. Then a girl from Malaysia introduced herself, to which I said "?!?!??!?!??!?!?"

Flashback: some context. When I was about 10, I went on Girl Guide camp to Alderney. To celebrate the Commonwealth Games, each pack adopted a Commonwealth Country and had to do a presentation. We had Malaysia, and we wrote a little rap which I have never forgotten:

"Malaysia has 11 states
150 species of frog
the use the Malaysian ringit
and they export lots of logs.

Oh! Let's go fly a "wa"
instead of driving a car
And then lets go eat chicken satay
because it's better than pate!"

I know. Almost Swiftian in its wit, scope and incisive humanity. But the facts have stuck with me, and so I wittered my entire knowledge of Malaysian culture at her in excitement, and it didn't so much break the ice as subject it to disintigrator beam. Far from shrivelling in terror, she thought it was pretty cool that I had studied her country, even in such a superficial way.

You know, the Girl Guiding movement would be so proud of me.

So, this is what I now know about Malaysia. It is very warm, and the population a mix of Malay, Indian and Chinese - so as you might expect, the food is fab. It is predominantly Muslim, but there's religious freedom and diversity: my new friend is a Christian. As well as indigenous telly, they also get Western TV imported, including (bizzarely) Britain's got Talent; and don't really have their own film industry, though she's recommended me an epic that I intend to track down.

The damage? Well, my nice beige coat has assumed the Androzani look: it's covered in mud, but hopefully it'll brush off when dry. The same goes for my muddy rainbow poncho. I should probably wash my trousers though...I'm a little scared to submit them to the washing machine, because they're my only pair and because they're starting to fall to pieces too. Two friends. And it turned out to be an expensive evening - I've since joined the society, and now I want to do it again and properly: I want my own trowel, my own gloves, and I'm gonna go charity shop hunting this afternoon for a nasty cushion to kneel on.

Finally, thinking about trying:
http://heavypetal.ca/archives/2007/04/operation-moss-graffiti/

1. Everything is good in the Doctor Who world! The 1983 TARDIS team have just recorded three audios, together for the first time since it really was 1983! Neil Gaiman writing

2. Almost everything. Get me presents from here, or I won't like you any more:
http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/public.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?sContinent=Eur&screen=Catalogue&iSaleNo=18192

Cool stuff starts from page 7. Particularly excited by: the Torchwood SUV, Adric's costume, a God of Ragnarok, THE KANDYMAN, the Rani's time brain, a Vervoid, Kiv and Sil, a Morlok, A CRYON (I've been trying to make a Cryon costume...), ACE's JACKET, Sharaz bloody Jek's facemask, the Malus, several Timelord gowns, Turlough's suit, NIMON, and a motorised Kroll! And that's before you get started on fullscale Daleks and Cybermen.

Probably most wanted is the Lot 159: the Chancellery Guard uniform. Zing! Unfortunately, the smallest item on my list of desires is Nyssa's party mask - estimated at £350-£500. Fail. Maybe I should sub-let my room for a month and sleep on the sofa to save up?

Non Doctor Who fans: read "lots of huge rubbery monster props". But seriously. Niiiiiimon! And Kroll! Kroll was a giant, zeppelin-sized octopus god who was worshipped by Marshmen, and I'm not even kidding. How cool would that be?!

3. Last night, I dreamed that we were in Victorian London trying to find a lodger for our room, but it was a cover up for our true mission: tracking down the Ripper's secret identity! Methinks I need to give my brain a break.

4. Found a fabulous link I want to share with you all, but I can't think of a temptation-free way of posting it with instructions that Calypso not click. Hmmm....I've found someone who reminds me of me, but I am all talk, whereas he is not.

5. Found in the margin of a book. Someone had noted a response to a quote in pencil:

"But that hir wrathfull stomake then did somewhat staine hir grace."

"like tamara? ppl don't like her brash nature."

6. Caught someone today using the motto "semper ubi sub ubi". Translation: Always Where Under Where. Think about it for a moment

We have just proved that our university is being run by the Federation.

Everything I ever intimated about this place being a loveless well of despair is correct.

It has as much resemblance to a learning institution as "Springtime for Hitler" has to a West-End success - i.e. a manipulative profit making scam, masquerading as a public service.

I say this because the Principle's salary is £312,000; last year's surplus was £739,000 and we have £160 million in the bank, but none of that can be spared so instead they've started laying of lecturers.

In our department, everyone is being forced to basically reapply for their jobs in competition with one another, so they can then decide which 22 they want to lay off. This has already happened in the Philosophy department where (I hear) they deliberately targeted professors they knew no one would miss, people with less engaging teaching styles about whom no one would kick up a fuss. In my head, I already know at least one member of our department who is royally f-d if it comes to the same thing. Oh, the atmosphere here is just charming right now.

There are so many good people here, and I have never faulted the teaching. But the reason why so many of my friends (not to mention myself) keep getting screwed over by a system which doesn't function, which doesn't explain itself simply and doesn't have safety nets is because the powers that be don't give actually give a damn about teaching.

Our new Vice Principle for Research and Innovation is not a renowned academian, but an ex-advisor to BP.

I say this with a rather defeatist tone because last year, the same arguments were used to axe the Equality and Diversity department. If the disabled and the political correctness army can't convince, then what hope do people who merely Make This Place A University Instead Of A Big Empty Building have?

As a student representative, I'm now in charge of the "make a stand which will inevitably be crushed before it begins" effort. It's horrid. They are doing a student consultation, but what they mean is "we are going to meet with the students so they feel involved".

Expect to find me knee-deep in heroes and exiled to a prison planet with my memory erased before the end of the week...

For my most recent Classics coursework, I had to study the translation of Classical literature into English. If I'd felt like handing in something edgy, I'd have taken the suggestion that one should transform the original into the appropriate modern medium (poetry to poetry, prose to prose) to its logical extention. As I have been in my imagination for the entire duration of the essay.

So, Kings Classics department, what would you say to...

Homer translated by DC and Marvel Comics

The Iliad is one long fight scene, featuring superhuman heroes smacking one another. The canon for many of these figures is jolly dodgy, but their basic traits are universal making them relevant to generation after generation. So why not adapt it as a graphic novel, as a DC/Marvel crossover. One house can draw the Trojans, the other can do the Greeks. It would actually look just like this:

Much like comics, the Iliad is a long "what if?". Could Hera bitchslap Venus? What about Ajax vs. Paris? And that is the general principle of superhero comics, which always have time to abandon the plot and derail for Superman-controlled-by-Poison-Ivy vs. Batman, or similar tomfoolery for the sake of some hitting. They could play it straight, with swords and sandals; but hell, the archetypes in both graphic novels and epics are so grand that they could probably easily be analogised:

Achilles could be Hulk - unstoppably strong. BUT YOU WON'T LIKE HIM WHEN HE'S ANGRY. Actually, considering it's anger that makes Hulk green, possibly this is a bad pick. Superman, then - infinitely strong, but his human heart is his fatal flaw. Bow-wielding playboy Paris could be Green Arrow - or maybe Speedy.

Oh, I could do this all day! Frank Miller and Alan Moore can do the darker-and-edgier fall of Troy in the Aeneid...speaking thus:

Virgil's Aeneid translated by Ronald D. Moore (rebooter of Battlestar Galactica)

"o passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem..."
"You who have suffered worse, this also God will end..."

The Aeneid is the story of a dislocated people. After the destruction of their home, they take their remaining ships and found some failed colonies to no avail, with Carthage as their New Caprica. There is also a mutiny in which half the crew decide they won't follow Aeneas any more and attempt to burn the ships, before following prophecy to a big battle their promised New Home.

There is an obvious plot analogy here (made explicit by the show's use of Greek mythology), but I think the context in which the stories were made is even more interesting. Virgil is all about the contemporary Roman situation. The poem celebrates the peace which followed the horrific Civil War, with heroic Aeneas a figure for the new emperor Augustus, both of whom, in their own ways, "found" a Rome.

Critics disagree on exactly what Virgil meant by all this. You can read it as a ludicrously imperialistic poem, packed with prophecies of Rome's future greatness. Others have taken the scene where Aeneas leaves the Underworld through the door of Lies to mean Virgil regards the Roman Dream as a pack of bull, and the whole thing is very subversive. Certainly antagonists like Dido and Turnus are given buckets of sympathy; the final line of the poem features Aeneas succumbing to his basest human urges, not ascending to a throne. There is no one explanation, and probably more than one are at work. Magistra always said - and I like this - that she thought Virgil's message was "founding an empire requires terrible sacrifices, however they are ultimately worth it."

Battlestar Galactica is also a show intimately concerned with contemporary America - obviously critical, and yet at the same time often pretty flagwaving. Is it pro-military or anti-military? New Caprica is a criticism of the Iraq war, and it is effectively a long tale about the horrors of war. At the same time all our heroes are soldiers, and fight scenes and military apparel are presented for our enjoyment and consumption. Like in the Aeneid - 50% fight scene, with all the glory that entails, yet presented with a grace and pathos that assures you Virgil is a pacifist at heart.

I'd like to see RDM have a crack at this story. One trait the two do not share is an ensemble cast, and I think transplanting Galactica's squabbling bureacracy into the Aeneid would have possibilities.

And now for some jokes which no one will get, as the Galactica fans and Virgil fans on this blog don't overlap: Sinon is a Cylon. Ascates is a girl. The "trip to the Underworld" happens in a dream sequence. The Sybil of Cumae has tits the size of Mars' moons...

Horace translated by Woody Allen

The catchword which follows Horace is "detatched". "Wry" is another one. Horace was a Roman society man, and member of a considerable intellectual circle including Virgil. His pose within the love Odes is as a mature man commentingly amusingly on romantic follies, while doing it all the same himself. He is brilliantly self effacing - one of his poems, a quarrel between him and a girl, allows her to win and considerably insult him. Something about all this just screams "Woody Allen" at me, and it's a mental image I now keep in mind when analysing Horace.

This is my translation of 3.9. I can't stump up the energy now to make it rhyme, but the Latin has a nee-naw-nee-naw rhythm, like kids chanting in a playground. Note how every stanza, the girl trumps him, and how knowingly childish the whole business is. For its ending, this is one of my favourite poems.

"Once I was good enough for you,
no other white-armed chap around your neck
I thought myself richer than a Persian king!"

"Once, you did not burn for another,
for Chloe more than Lydia -
Many know the name Lydia, more famous than Rome itself!"

"Now slave-girl Chloe is for me,
clever at sweet melodies on the guitar
For her, I would not fear to die
if the fates allowed her to survive!"

"Calaius, son of a great man,
burns for me with an equal passion!
For whom, I would not fear to die twice,
if the fates allowed my boy to survive!"

"If, perchance, love returned
and we were lead again under the same fate,
if red-headed Chloe were to be thrown out
and the door again open to Lydia...?"

"Although he is more beautiful than stars,
and you sulky and lighter than a cork
I will live with you
With you I would willingly die"

Catullus as translated by Westlife

Or Boyzone, or Josh Groban, or any of them. Catullus was a sincere, if playful love poet, and his heartfelt elegies best suit the rhythms and swells of modern pop. "Odi et amo" basically is "tainted love".

Julius Caesar as translated by Alan Partridge

Or any sport commentator of your choice. Julius Caesar's military reports have been described as "lean, clean and mean". They are textbook-perfect Latin, informing the reader of what happened as expediently as possible in the dry manner of front page journalism. Despite this, they have a certain irresistable charm - once you get into the rhythm of his frumentiis collociis, obsidiis daris, legationem mittere and the rest, it's irrepressable stuff. Both diciplines require a quick way of expressing the movements of many men, and interpreting the reasons for victory. War, like sport, has to be accurately reported for the sake of those who weren't there - but like sport, it's not always the most fascinating thing.

Propertius 1.21 as translated by The Decemberists

The Decemberists are an acoustic guitar band who I wrote off as really, really boring because I hadn't listened to the lyrics. When you do, you actually discover a wellspring of macabre Victoriana - bloody revenges, rapes aplenty and a cathexis of dead love interests - which cheers me up in a very particular manner. I also admit that their use of instruments is far more various and proggy than I gave them credit for. I actually know very little about Propertius, but a single poem of his put the Decemberists in mind.

We've been studying Love and War, best expressed by Ovid's "crede mihi, Attice, Militat omnes amores". It's 100 lines of puns and picturesque ideas, of how a lover is just like a soldier. Very cute, but in a pacifistic moment I had the urge to write a response beginning and ending "No, Atticus, to be in love is nothing like soldiery" and pack it out with Wilfred Owen style scenes of muddy despair.

This is exactly when Propertius came along and picked me up. It is...unexpected. The Romans are rarely coarse. Even Virgil's bloody battle descriptions have a certain epic detatchment to them. This is all generalisation, so there are exceptions: you do get emotional honesty, and heartbreak, and viceral descriptions. But not often, and only (I think) because we, as a modern audience, expect them to be there. My impression of Roman literature is of it being far more studied and impersonal than our own, certainly too much so for properly brutal cynicism.

I stand corrected, and it's possibly the shock of the correction that has made me fall so hard for this poem. It's bitter, cruel and downright nasty. The context is a genuine Roman Civil War battle, in which Augustus successfuly starved the besieged into surrender before killing all the leaders except Marc Antony's brother, a battle in which Propertius lost a loved one. This poem is one of those "moments" for me when a Roman reaches out of the past and taps me on the shoulder. Have a read of the best translation I could make in two minutes:

You, man, rushing to escape the fate common to all,
fellow soldier wounded on Etruscan battlelines,
why do you weeping look away from my groans?
I am your closest brother-in-arms.
Thus let your parents rejoice to see you safe,
and let sister know what has passed only from your tears:
that surrounded, Gallus escaped the swords of Caesar
but could not flee the hand of a stranger;
and whatever bones she finds scattered over
Etruscan hills - let her think they are mine.

My English doesn't do his Latin justice.

Of course, an academic has toned it down by claiming it is a ghostly apparition (welling eyes can be a sign of fear), and it is true this makes a more obvious fit in the genre of Roman grave poetry - which often had sepulchral inscriptions coldly addressed from the deceased. The modern assumption is that it is a death scene. I actually believe this is supposed to be ambiguous. It plays as both, and I believe Propertius starts by making his audience think it is a tomb inscription in the first line, then smacks him with the immediacy of the scene by addressing a specific character instead of a generic passer by.

It's the unRoman weeping, and unRoman groaning - in Virgil, heroes give up a single groan as they are hit and then die. The implication from the verbs here is that Gallus is taking his time...it's the bitterness with which Gallus twice tells the listener that he too will die, and yet also noting that he will return to his parents (with the implication that he, Gallus, will not). Gallus gets to die an ignoble death in the retreat, without even the consolation of in the first unremittingly anti-military passage I have ever read in Latin. The last couplet is just a heartbreaker: hundreds of men are being left behind on those hills, so many that it is impossible to discover his, but let his sister decieve herself in consolation. The idea of unburied bones would strike proper horror in a Roman, but the sheer cynicism of this is still affecting.

I also like the dramatic ambiguity of the scene. Is the Miles a stranger who happens to pass Gallus? Or are they close friends or, heck, even rivals? Are they brothers, or cousins? Or maybe brothers in law - with the sister married, or about to be married to one of them? There is just-about enough evidence in "ignotos" to suggest Gallus was killed accidentally by his own side as he retreated, including by the listener himself - the sense of "unknowing" as well as "unknown" is there if you want it to be.

It reminded me of many of the American civil war songs, which is doubtless what put me in mind of the Decemberists. The beyond-the-grave-ness reminds me of many-a Decemberists song (Leslie Ann Levine for one, Yankee Bayonet is another), and other things too, but really...

...what a poem!

1. Why does everyone on Swapbot love Boston Terriers? They're the ugliest dogs!


2. Ancient Greece had archons. I am now 99% convinced that Gallifrey also had Archons, possibly organising day to day life in the different districts of the citadel.


3. I've just set up a Swap where your partner gives you five themes to choose from, giving you some random sources of inspiration. Unfortunately, partners are assigned randomly, and unfortunately, out of the 23 people in the swap I've got the only one with a dearth of imagination. Everyone else wants Sylvia Plath, Steampunk, the Northern Lights, Owls, the Mona Lisa, Magpies, Frida Kalho, 80s toys...what is my prompt? "teapots houses trees birdhouses". Not even the dignity of commas, numbers or capitals. What on earth am I meant to do with those? They're purely visual concepts. I might do something with a treehouse, as that's the vibe I'm getting off the combination, but Jesu I need to make two cards based on it. Teapots: Mad Hatter, but too obvious; Mrs Pots from Beauty and the Beast. I suppose I could do a Victorian tea party...I could definitely do something with trees too.


4. This week I have developed a moral backbone. I don't like it. Last month, my housemates voted me the most amoral person they had ever met - which I found rather charming. In the past week I've been objecting to small things on reactionary grounds. And I don't like it.


5. Continued doing Jack the Ripper research. Did you know...

...Unsuprisingly, undesirables of all sorts were suggested as the killer: Socialists, Jews, the Irish - certainly not anyone British! But curiously, philanthropists were also under scrutiny - with General Booth of the Salvation Army and Dr Barnardo being candidates!

...Arthur Conan Doyle was fascinated by it all: it was his theory that the killer was a woman midwife, and he not only saw some of the evidence but went on what was surely one of the first Ripper walking tours. He also toned Sherlock Holmes' character down so he could not be associated with the killer.

...Queen Victoria had her own pet theories, and repeatedly wrote to Scotland Yard regarding them!

...socialists never change. They jump on everything as an example of the evils of capitalism. Most impressively, I've seen their recent "How Imperialism Wrecked Haiti" posters. Yowch. As all-purpose undesirables, they were also blamed for the killings - but what did they have to say about it? From a socialist paper of the time:

"The true criminal is the vicious borgeouse system which forces people into poverty, vice and crime"

Would the last remaining passengers for the two-horse hansom departing to SOAS...


6. My new laptop asked for a name so it can be identified on the network. I went with "Orac", and felt pretty immature until Calypso reminded me all the computers in her house are named in Quenya or Sindarin...lets hope, unlike TV Orac, it doesn't have a hidden agenda...


7. Listening to the Guillemots again. Very weird. I've been listening to Fyfe's solo album a lot, and love it. It sounds very Guillemot-y, but it's only when I hear proper Guillemots I think "no, actually, his solo stuff is so much thinner than when they all play together. They are currently recording album number three, woo hoo!

8. Twin Peaks has just got awesome! I ship the fact Dale and Audrey aren't a couple. We're on the penultimate episode of the first season, which just goes to prove how long it takes my brain to heat up to liking a show. I can only think of one series ever it has taken less than three episodes for me to actually adore. I am overcome by it's never-should-have-been-shown-on-American-telly qualities. A lot of horrific stuff happens off screen. I refer in particular to the scene with Waldo, the mimicking minah bird.

9. I am missing Supernatural. They keep advertising it on the tube.

10. Last night, coming out of the Tube at North Acton, I think I heard a parakeet.

11. Where is the box for my Blake's 7 video? No, seriously, where is it? I've tidied the lounge twice now - I can find the video itself, but where has the box gone?

I have to tell you what's gone on with the househunt!

I'm now sitting at Guy's campus with the loveliest view, one of my favourites. A mix of huge modern buildings, 50s brick, 1880s grimey white tile, hundreds of windows, walkways, scaffolds and smoking chimneys intersecting with pipework and stairwells. Yes, it's ugly. But I'm not sure anyone quite understand how much this breed of London ugliness makes me happy. To cap it off, I can also see trees, and lights and shadows playing through it all, and a huge sky of clouds peppered by regular planes. I'm happy.

I'm at a strange campus because I've spent the last two days papering student-haunts, and this is the end of my toils. Today, because I have no shame, I have also been carrying about a placard reading "HOUSEMATE WANTED". Unfortunately, the only offer that has gleaned has been from a yellow foam pig, whom we established probably couldn't afford make rent every week.

Yesterday was a sort of special hell. We were going to sign up Segnor Espania and Miss Interpreter at 11.30AM, so I came home specially only to discover that they had flaked out on us that very morning. Calypso and I did some calming painting (she's doing, as she calls it, "Mucha Sci Fi Tarot") but finally resigned ourselves to tromping back to Central. It was a crushingly miserable moment, but my motto is if you can't feel fantastic, you can at least look fantastic.

So I got out the tub of "man gel" Oceanic had abandoned there - mum had got it for her by mistake, not being the brand she needed. I've been intending for some time to attempt Agent Cooper-style slicked-back hair, and my day wasn't going to get any worse. My hair is too long to do it properly - it's heavy, so it scrapes the style back flat instead of achieving the foppish "puff" short haired folk get - but I shoved it into a pony at the back. With a bit of practice, I might be able to get a little puff. Calypso noted it had rather a boyish effect, though I thought it was a bit more 80s power-dressing. Very much like the photo to the left. It certainly made my face look good, if artificially giving my hair the greasy-unwashed look. I then pushed it over the top with a fake cravat and the Sixth Doctor frock coat. Looked worse (probably), but felt better.

We hit Central like a plummeting lift. Calypso manned the internet machine, and shrapnelled the web with adverts. I photocopied adverts, then went and papered every student building I could find. We'd already done the Strand Campus. It was a lovely, dark evening - glowy lights of all colours, public transport, glittery shops. I walked up to Bloomsbury and hit every college in the area: UCL, SOAS, Royal College of Surgeons, Birkbeck. Guess what else I found up there?

RADA.

I snuck in nervously, avoiding the urge to attack the smug, irritating types I found scattered all over the place, and went to the reception desk. As I had at the other Colleges, I stumbled over a request that the receptionist take my poster and have it put up. He accepted it, and replied "I'll make sure it's put up, sir." I thanked him and left, and it was only once I'd left and shut the door that what he'd said sunk in.

Sir?!

Being mistaken for a man didn't actually upset me as much as you'd assume it should - in fact, I grinned for the next fifteen minutes. While "passing" for male wasn't exactly what I'd intended that morning, nevertheless I had consciously styled my appearance after my male fashion icons, so I suppose I was sort-of asking for it. And it made some sense - that coat broadens my shoulders, what shape I have was hidden under a baggy jumper and as per usual, I wasn't wearing make up. Plus, this was RADA: they must be used to ludicrously effete fellas.

But I wasn't upset. While I've no desire at all to be a man, there is a fairly significant chunk of my brain which operates in a stereotypically "male" manner; and part of me would love to be a proper Victorian gentleman, hence the cravats and pretentions to chivalry. On a shallow, purely aesthetic level, it's a torment that I can't wear suits. I mean, I have the right to, and do my best with cravats and top hats and the rest, but I will never have the ability to make it look good in the way I want it to. Rather like that dress my sister and I accidentally bought on the same day. We both kept it, and it looks marvellous on both of us - but it looks like two different dresses when we wear them together, because we've different shapes. To illustrate my point, I've peppered this post with some of my favourite suit-wearers: Doctor number ten; 30s actress Jessie Matthews in First a Girl; Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks; 30s actress Marlene Dietrich in Morocco and singer Janelle Monae, who I've never heard of before but the picture looked great. My point being, they all look very fine - but fine in different ways.

But avoiding the obvious biological differences, I've little time for the gender binary. I feel that dividing people into two categories which influence the way they behave, dress, speak, move, and are treated is a shame on so many levels, not to mention unfair. Why would anyone want to limit themselves like that?

Bizzarely, the whole experience left me very conscious of how feminine I am. Going back on the tube, it occured to me that no one could possibly mistake me for a man for longer than the 5 seconds I had talked with the receptionist. The way I was standing, sitting, walking, positioning my legs, moving my hands - even, I felt, my range of facial expression would be different had I been raised male. No space or time, or indeed point to going into nature vs. nurture here - I think it's predominantly the way we learn to behave. Properly paying attention to the way men and women move is actually an exercise I'd recommend to everyone.

All in all, it was a fascinating occurrence. My first instinct was "eeek, won't do that again" - but a moment after, I amended that to "I will be careful how I use this in future". After all, with great hair comes great responsibility. There are many situations in my life where appearing manly is not an advantage - i.e. most of them. I'm glad I've been warned, so I never give off this effect by accident.

But I'm tempted. Very, very tempted to have a go at it properly. Work out how to sit and stand, and (assuming, for a moment, that I am convincing) see how people treat me differently.

Of course, the main downside of this whole scenario is the fact I spent my entire evening walking about with dead animal fat smeared all over my head. It's now gone all crusty, and I somehow respect movie gangsters and the rest less for knowing how nasty it feels in the morning. I've washed it once now, and it's still pretty gooey - today, I've been sporting the cancer-outpatient look, with a hair-concealing hat so concealing that it makes obvious something nasty has happened up there...

I've got a plan, however, for what to do next. I'm going to get my hair to frizz, then slick down the very top. It works, in my head, with a flapper dress and pearls.

Just so you know we've been trying has hard as we can on the house front...we started with people we knew well - a good friend, and Calypso's cousin. As these are people I know and like, I'll skimp on details :) But after a few weeks of hope, neither turned out to be able to live with us, which was a shame. We then moved on to people who moved in the same circles:

Alzarius
Remember Alzarius from the quiz? Right. Turned him down on the basis that, as a geek, he Absolutely Positively requires the internet hard-wired into his brain, and we love having an internet free house.

Fake!Friend1
Met her at a club on one of the LGBT nights out. TERRIFYING. Charming, witty, very friendly, but looks JUST LIKE FRIEND 1. Same short hair. Same sort of face. Same dress sense, and slouch, and jewellry picks. Drinks the same drinks. As far as I could glean, same interests too. Oh, and is also called "Friend 1". On the one hand, this is a pretty excellent reason for her to live with us: while on the whole my Friend 1 wouldn't exactly fit the quiet, party-free house we are running in Acton, she is an intelligent female activist, and at least I know she's a good pal and great person. But on the other, OHMYGOODNESSCREEPY. Unfortunately, she couldn't get out of her contract.

Miss Polypluck
Also couldn't get out of her contract, and I'm still not sure whether I'm glad or not. Another one of Calypso's activist buddies, pretty perfect. She wanted to get out of Kings halls because they wouldn't let her play her drums, sax and keyboard there. Obviously, this would almost have been excellent: we've a garage for her drumkit, and I wouldn't say no to having a keyboard in the house. But I don't know. Everyone turns into a bitch when it comes to music. Bar none. I include myself in this, and can envisage the atmosphere turning instantly unpleasant when it comes to sharing and arranging rotas or, worse, if I were better than her (or she better than me...)

Mr Novello
The first of a very long line of very gay men. Spirita pounced on him at SOAS, having overheard him talking about his flathunt, and invited him straight home. Calypso showed him around while I did a whirlwind tidy ahead of her. He was soft spoken, very poised and careful, and didn't seem to mind the mess. His favourite film is Brief Encounter ("us too!" the three of us squealed. It is basically our joint-fave movie), but he was something of a cineaste. I couldn't help but ask him if he'd seen The Lodger - 1920s silent film, about a mysterious lodger who might secretly be Jack the Ripper. He had, and took the question in good faith. In many ways, he was ideal - he would hardly ever be there, and because of the age gap, wouldn't want to be our pal in a dynamic-disrupting manner. But Calypso had a bad feeling about him, in the way one reasonably might of a stranger Spirita had known for 30 minutes, and fortunately, he only wanted four months out of the six month contract, giving a substantial reason to turn him down.

At this point, we started advertising, bringing us an unwelcome influx of foreign students. Which sounds mean, but not wanting the internet remains my chief aim in finding a roommate. Impossible? Probably, but foreign students are naturally going to require the internet to keep in contact with those abroad. It was at this point I agreed to cave on the internet front, and am still rather gloomy about it. It's not that I don't want to get in contact with you all; but having the ability to do so (in the form of the net) is a constant reminder of your absence. When no one has emailed/messaged me, it's not because you forgot to, didn't want to, it's because you physically couldn't. Which sounds pretty clingy and pathetic, and perhaps it is, but it turns the Acton House into a very calm, relaxing space where I can go to unwind from absolutely everything. Calypso keeps referring to it as a "safe space", which is a technical concept that, in this context means no fellas, no conservatives, no hateful people. For me, a safe space also entails the internet's absence. Incidentally, this isn't an excuse for you to stop calling, texting and sending me health packages with cigarettes, pin ups, warm knitted socks and Queen Alexandra tobbaco tins...

La Dolce Vita
Visited, and was adored by my fellow housemates. I didn't meet her, but she was The One for about a week until she couldn't get out of her contract.

Tempus Fugit
Mr Fugit was actually one of my favourite people we interviewed, a small and rather timid fella with a lovely smile. He was very keen to make sure we were OK with lodging with a guy, and made sure we knew he was gay and therefore non-threatening, in a manner which I thought rather sweet. Too expensive for him, though.

Senor Espania
Oh God, this one is almost too recent for me to want to go into. Lovely. Lovely, lovely Spanish guy studying fashion design - hobbies, cooking and cleaning. Which is a combination that makes more sense if you understand that we put some adverts up in the queer-friendly sections of the internet. Again, much like being smacked over the head by the nightmare transpeople must have navigating public facilities, I've suddenly realised how much it must suck to be a homo in search of a home. On top of all the other problems associated with finding a room, you'd have to find roommates OK with your other half.

He came to visit with a friendly interpreter - he is learning English at present, but is very timid at speaking it. The four of us got on famously. Argh, curses be upon everything! It turns out he couldn't afford it, but then suggested maybe he could share the room with someone. Which we were actually cool with - especially when we discovered the friend would be Miss Interpreter.

Senor Espania and Miss Interpreter
Which was fine and peachy, and legal, and everything was set up to sign the contract until fifteen minutes before the landlord was due to arrive. Still can't afford it. A flurry of obscene texts followed this news. Which is probably good on some level, because a five person house wouldn't be ideal, but then again it is now three days away from our deadline...

Mr Poland
Replied to the ad in frustratingly chirpy broken prose, peppered with ellipses, but had problems coping with "you are not a student and would therefore need to pay Council Tax".

Caviar
Referred to us via her brother's cousin, or something, but only wants to live here for three months. Might actually be an option, at this rate...

Mr Belgium
Our Landlord has informed us that we have to find an English student, so we didn't bother getting in touch with him.

Miss M.
Found somewhere else out of the blue.

Alzarius II
We asked again, now with the offer of internet, but he couldn't be parted from his busy social schedule before Monday morning. This being the only excuse, under the circumstances, I think I might like to kill him.

Candida
Visiting this weekend. Fingers crossed.

???????????
Well, I'll tell you about what happened last night in another more narrative post, but as you can see - we've been busy. We've exausted everyone we've ever met, scoured Facebook, shrapnelled the internet and plastered not only our campuses, but every London university with posters. At this stage, I am not sure what else we reasonably can do. As you can see, however, it is not for lack of effort - and our Landlord has offered to dock the cost of the spare room by 50% if on Monday we have no one and need to cover it ourselves.

This obviously would not be ideal. If only because the stress of finding someone has been dangling heavy for about two months now, and I can't take much more of it. It's like a constant weariness, like there's always a task to accomplish. But it could be worse. A friend has informed us about his last lodger, who was a really sweet old lady who gave him cookies, and then turned out to be an international confidence trickster who stole £800 from him over a few months!!!

OK, once and for all. I am constantly amused by the need to correct people on this front. Something about smokey Victoriana just gets people confused. What links these people is fairly simple: cravats, crime, at least a hundred media adaptations between them, not to mention fog and gaslight. But it's the telly and novels which are key in making their "existence" murky, blurring boundaries and consigning them all to the same semi-real twilight.

It's alarming that it should be my job to be the arbiter of what is and isn't real. But for the record:

SWEENEY TODD = NOT REAL (1785)
An invention of an 18-part Victorian Penny Dreadful called A String of Pearls, contemporary with Dickens, and serialised in the papers. Sweeney Todd, as you doubtless know, is a barber who slits his customer's throats and deposits them in the basement via a ludicrous chair, where his next door neighbout Mrs Lovett turns them into pies. Though there are some sources for the story, it is effectively an urban legend that has been much retold.

(Recent culprit: Calypso)

BURKE AND HARE = REAL (1820s)
Two serial murderers from Scotland who killed 17 people in the 1820s then sold their corpses to an anatomical school. Though I knew they existed, I was a little surprised to learn they were killers: I thought they were merely bodysnatchers. Soon to be a movie starring Simon Pegg.

(Recent culprit: a lecturer!)

SPRING-HEEL JACK = NOT REAL (1830s)
An urban legend, of a man with glowing eyes who could leap to extrodinary heights. Last time I heard this rumour, Jack was a cheeky nobleman who had startled a maid by blowing alcohol onto a candleflame and thus breathing fire. Or so I thought - a recent lecturer attempted to convince us that he was an actual multiple-rapist, famous for "leaping out" at his victims, which inspired the myth. Not as far as the internet informs me.

(Recent culprit: a different lecturer!)

JACK THE RIPPER = SORT-OF REAL (1888)
Five women were killed horribly in Whitechapel. Everything else is fictional or conjectural, including the fact that a single man did for all five: it's probably true, but could easily have been different men, a group working together or a woman. Or a leprichaun. There is undeniable truth at the heart of this one, but anything else you know beyond five corpses is probably wrong. Because it wasn't solved, innumerable ideas have built up in the collective imagination about who it "was", and all these tropes and codes have built up to form a man called Jack (probably wearing a top hat; probably a rakish gentleman).

(Recent culprit: Friend 5)

And while we're at it:

SHERLOCK HOLMES = NOT REAL (1887-)
You'd think this was obvious, but at the time many people wrote to Arthur Conan Doyle requesting the services of Mr Holmes. There is a Sherlock Holmes museum on the site of his house at 22B Baker Street, preserving it "as it was". An address they have, by the way, invented - at the time Conan Doyle was writing, there was no 22B on Baker Street. There is also a fake-blue plaque on the building. To muddy the waters more, as the most famous Victorian character Sherlock Holmes is always dragged into narratives featuring the characters above, fictional or no. This includes Dracula, Dr Jekyll, the Lovecraftian Mythos, the Doctor, everyone in League of Extraordinary Gentleman - and, of course, Mr Ripper in more novels than I can be bothered to list, the movies A Study in Terror, Murder By Decree, The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire, and even the most recent 2009 one.

And that probably is the most important point: they are all confused together. They inform one another - ideas and concepts about one meld into another, dragging people into or out of fiction in a pretty indescriminate manner. Victorian detective Holmes? Meet other Victorian criminals. Sweeney Todd with a barber's razor? Meet other Victorian knife-wielders. Spring Heeled Jack has supernatural powers? Why shouldn't they all? And so on.


So, is there anyone else dubiously real from the Victorian period whom I have missed? I can go on, you know...