RCGPAC found poem

I have spent today at the very impressive Royal College of General Practice's annual conference. I made notes during the sessions I went to, and was struck by the amount of rich language the presenters used.

Having spent all day amongst highly skilled medical folk, the artist in me has rebelled, and created this found poem out of the words I have heard today. Enjoy.

Index of Suspicion

The starting point… stabilise the crisis.

Big potential. Pathways.

Replace hierarchy.

Reset the relationship.

Meaningfully changed; involve patients in problems.

Patients are not the enemy.

We are the solution.

Maximise wasted promises.

Get back; stabilising; survive surgeries.

There is a delay.

Most bad mouthed?

Don’t condone denigration.

Urgent care.

Going up despite going down.

The right people

sinking.

Health inequalities.

Harming healthy.

Doubt that the dam can be strengthened.

There is a delay

dealing with doctor anxiety.

Blood tests as a safety blanket.

Index of suspicion or virtuous circle?

All-cause mortality, additional burden.

A gift to prevent sending them home with nothing.

The take home message…

Everything is important.

Patients are people.

Collaborative care;

health gets worse as time spent caring increases.

Forward view; we are the solution.  

No more important job in Britain.

The Semantics of Feminism

As will be becoming ever clearer from the topics I choose to write about in my blog, feminism is a big deal for me. I haven’t been able to afford it yet, but the next tattoo I’m getting is going to be the word FEMINIST, in big block letters, right on my forearm where it can’t be ignored.

My reasons for desiring this tattoo are two-fold. One, because I am a feminist and I’m proud of it. And two, because I think the word feminist is, in itself, so very important.

I’ve spotted a shifting trend in why people won’t get down with feminism. It used to be that feminists were all scary, dungaree wearing, penis piercing, man hating weirdos. Fortunately, I think many people – at least in my circle of friends, I can only speak from my own sheltered perspective - now realise that that is nonsense. So the new argument is that the word ‘feminist’ excludes men and so we should be calling ourselves ‘equalists’ or some such wishy washy rot.

I fiercely disagree with this. First and foremost, I think that any man who is genuinely interested in the tenets of feminism and thinks he might want to get on board, but is put off because the word is too girly, or too exclusive, needs to take a good hard look at himself and his ideas about the world. Women all over the world get on every day in a world that is exclusively biased towards masculinity on so many levels – income, violence and freedom to name but three. Perhaps starting to face this bias, even on the tiny level of coming to terms with the gender bias of one particular word, might help that man start to acknowledge his position of privilege and start thinking in a more feminist manner right from the get go.

Secondly, if women are put off because the word is too biased towards females, I think this says a lot about how downtrodden we are as a gender, and scared we are of empowering ourselves and each other to take charge of a few things en masse. Many powerful women say they don't like the word feminist, which makes me sad. Obviously, those women are not scared of their own power. But my guess is that they feel they are the fluke, and that we might get it wrong if a bunch of us tried to run something together. And that makes me even sadder. 

After all, language is important. That’s the one thing these anti-feminist, oh-yeah-no-sorry- it’s-just-the-word-honestly-I-do-want-equal-rights-for-all rapscallions have got right. Words shape the way we think. So let’s just take a moment and look at some everyday English language, shall we? Words and phrases that get hurled about in conversation, on TV, in papers, in films and books every day of our lives.

Mankind.

Son of a bitch.

Motherfucker.

Pussy.

Balls.

That’s just a small sample to get us started off. Let’s look at that first word, MANkind, which obviously comes from huMAN. Where are the women in that? If you want to start picking apart individual words for things, start with the word which is meant to define and unite every single one of us on the planet, and you’ll notice that… oh yeah, hang on, 50% of us are left out. Deigned not to matter or be as important. And yes, you could say that woMAN also includes man, so in that way, it does speak to all of us, but it’s a bit bloody tenuous really, especially given the tendency I still see in a (thankfully) minority of academic papers and textbooks to continually say ‘he’ instead of ‘he or she’. Rarely, you’ll note, ‘she or he’. That would be a step too far, after all.

We can deal with son of a bitch and motherfucker together, I think, as the sexism in both phrases uses the same narrative; that is, that the man is blameless, while the woman brings shame. The son of the bitch has done nothing wrong, it’s his bloody whore of a mother that’s to blame. And the motherfucker is only maligned for his smearing of the pure Madonna ma. Either way, the problem is with the woman. Men will be men and do what they please, and if it’s upsetting? Well, it’s doubtless some sluttish woman who should have known better who caused all this.

We can take pussy and balls as opposite ends of the same pole. Both are slang for genitals, one female and one male. One means weak, cowardly, laughable; the other courageous, gutsy, strong. Despite the fact that, as Betty White may or may not have said (someone said it, the internet is patchy on who it was): “Why do people say "grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.” I can’t improve on this fabulous statement, so I won’t even bother trying.

Even the female/male insults that we level at each other are semantically sexist, I would posit. If men are nincompoops, these days they are dicks or pricks. Again, male genitals, the narrative of which is power and privilege. What are nasty ladies called? Oh yes, bitches. Female dogs.

You might say that all this is nit picking, political correctness gone mad. But language is pervasive. There is a theory in psychology says that the words we use literally change the way we think – look up the ‘weak’ version of the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis, if you’re interested. Another entire philosophical school says that discourses construct our world and the ways in which we relate to each other. So yes, the word feminism is biased towards women. And yes, it’s a shame that that has to be the way. But until the rest of language sorts itself out, I feel very strongly that we cannot give in and weaken our name to placate those who feel threatened by it. If it makes a few people think harder about language, then that has to be a good thing, because maybe that will also get them thinking harder about their behaviour, and the behaviour they see around them as well. The day we start calling each other bounders instead of bitches and cads instead of cocks is the day we might consider changing the name of feminism. But not until that day. 

The Great Lyrics Debate

There are many tricky dilemmas that face us in this spoilt first world palace in which we live. Apple vs Android. Steiner vs Sudberry. Drinking vs driving. However, if there is a bigger conundrum facing us than how to be a feminist, pro-homo, peaceful kinda gal (or guy) who listens to and love the lyrics of pop and hip hop, I don't know what it is.

I am the most ardent of ardent feminists. If feminism were a person, I'd feed her chocolates, brush her hair and give her a good seeing to on a regular basis. I am proud to be a feminist; it makes me feel whole, excited, connected.

I am also a pop and hip hop DJ. When I'm listening to hip hop music, it feels as though it is the very blood that is coursing through my veins, giving me life, energy and joy. Good pop music invigorates me, makes me feel whole, excited, connected.

I am also a fierce collector of words. Lyrics are my greatest weakness. I mine them for meaning and see myself in their nuances. I pride myself on knowing every pop lyric I have ever heard, and a few I've only heard about. However, this creates problems for my ideological self.

For once, I am actually part of the current pop zeitgeist in terms of what is Now Playing in my head. I cannot resist the current UK number one All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor. What a fantastic piece of pop. And, I initially thought, what an empowering piece of feminism as well, fighting the popular narrative of size 0 body fascism. Go, Meghan! My two great loves married in three minutes and 18 seconds of perfection.

However.

Having listened a little more closely, I started to become troubled. I still love the song, don't get me wrong, but I am much less of a fan of these lines:

Yeah my mama she told me don't worry about your size
She says, "boys like a little more booty to hold at night"
You know I won't be no stick figure silicone Barbie doll
So if that's what you're into then go ahead and move along


Johanna, I hear you cry - what's wrong with that? Teaching the larger ladies to love themselves has gotta be a good thing, right? Well, yes, right, I certainly agree with that. But teaching those ladies to love themselves at the expense of smaller women? Propagating the myth that women can only be thin or clever, never both? Assuring women that if their size is ok with men, it should be ok with them? None of this sits right with me. Don't be hating on other sisters, no matter what their shape or size. How is calling people 'skinny bitches,' as the song goes on to do, any better or worse than 'fat cow'?

As I said, I still heart the song, but I would heart it a whole hell of a lot more if the target of criticism was the oppressive patriarchy that enforces models of beauty, not other women who happen to look different. Thus, poor old Meghan Trainor is told off in my head and order is restored.

This train of thought led me on to a whole other argument which gets me into a right terrible tangle. It was suggested to me recently on a bulletin board I used to frequent that I have different standards for women who write lyrics than I do for men.

We were debating the merits of the frankly horrific Lady Gaga song Do What U Want. I heard the song on Jonathan Ross or some such and was genuinely appalled, in a writing-to-Points-of-View kinda manner, by the refrain of 'Do what you want to my body' repeated ad infinitum.

A closer inspection of the lyrics reveals that this is a (somewhat tenuous, I would argue) metaphor for the press; they can do what they want to her body (though surely she means image or reputation?) but they won't take her heart and soul. A commendable sentiment, when seen in its whole.

I felt, though, that it was pretty damn irresponsible of a female pop music star, whose fan base is partially made up of little kids, to be singing 'Do what you want to my body' over and over again. It seemed to me that this is encouraging the culture of women as being nothing more than sex toys for men; and encouraging it from the inside, in a way that will make little girls start to doubt their right to own their bodies and to say no if other people do things to those bodies that they don't like. The little kids aren't necessarily gonna grok the wider context. They will hear the chorus and start singing it back and all hell may break loose. Won't somebody please think of the children? I write this paragraph and fear I'm turning into Mary Whitehouse in my old age, but the song just felt so wrong to me.

(Of course, I am aware of the possibility of some bias here. I don't like Gaga. If Madonna had been singing the same song, I'm sure I would find a way to justify my love. However, I really don't think Madonna would place herself in a position of such passivity. It's not her style.)

My friend put it to me that I expect women to be role models in their lyrics and expect no such thing from men. This is not equality. I argued against it when the accusation was made, but I have to admit there is some truth to it. I listen to Pharrell Williams ('Mister! Look at your girl! She loves it! I can see it in her eyes'), Jay Z ('I got this model chick that don't cook or clean, but she dress her ass off and her walk is mean'), Beenie Man ('I want a dude who will tie me to the fan, a thug that can handle his biz like a man')*, Booty Bass ('Shake that ass, bitch, and let me see what you've got') and so many more. And I (uncomfortably, for sure, but still) write these words off as being funny; too ridiculous to take seriously. But let's be real; whatever the crimes of Meghan and Gaga are, they are clearly as nothing compared to that collection.

Several explanations occur to me here.

Firstly, I wonder if there is something about such blatantly misogynistic lyrics coming at me from men that I have normalised and just come to expect. Not that any of the men in my actual life talk to me in anything approaching this way, I should point out. But hatred of women - violence against them, objectification of them, minimising of them - is so prevalent in the wider culture that perhaps I have internalised some of this hatred and just think it's ok for men to talk to about me and the missus in this way. Certainly, if I hear music that is homophobic, I don't laugh it off. I hated myself for my love of Guns n Roses as a teenager and always skipped past One In a Million with a sick feeling in my heart. I had to turn Jedi Mind Tricks off the other day because all I could hear was hating on the homos. And the gay thing really blots my otherwise unending love of Eminem, whereas Kim, his song about killing his wife, I can forgive. Homophobia? Hell no. But a bit of light sexism? Ach, what does it matter, between friends.

Secondly, it can't ignored that all the men whose lyrics I have listed above are black, whereas the two female pop stars I've listed are white. At least, I'm assuming Booty Bass are black... I don't actually know. This may be partially cos I like a lot of black music and am less keen on the sort of white male music where one might encounter sexism - metal, I imagine? Punk? I dunno. There's not a hell of a lot of sexism in Simon and Garfunkel or Jack White. (Nick Cave, Guardian readers' darling, is another matter with his murder ballads, of course.)

However, I am also forced to confront the uncomfortable fact that it might be an ugly form of prejudice within me. Do I think it's ok for black, male musicians not to be as sophisticated in their thinking as I expect white female musicians to be? If so, what the hell does that say about me? Really, nothing good.

I haven't reached a conclusion. I welcome your comments, although I'm a little scared of them as well. But in the mean time, perhaps I'll try to concentrate my DJing efforts more on the artists who make me dance and make me proud, because they are out there. Ms Dynamite, Public Enemy, Lily Allen, Mike Skinner, Kate Tempest, KRS-one, Nas. Male, female, black, white... those guys - I salute them.




*It should be noted that this is a female backing singer on Beenie Man's song. Although given his other prejudices, it's rather amusing me that it sounds like he wants to be tied to the fan and given some biz by a man.

I made a deal with god

Dear blog fans... as you probably know, I am the indoorsy type. I'd rather watch a sitcom than go surfing. I'd rather cook by gas hob than by camp fire. I'm as delighted by a beautiful sunset as the next person, but do tend to think they're best viewed through restaurant windows, with a delicious cocktail in hand.

My brother, however, has a dedication to staying indoors that makes me look like Steve Irwin, so I was more than a little surprised when he rang me up about six months ago, asking for my tips on how to buy concert tickets that are guaranteed to sell out in seconds. When it transpired that the tickets in question were for Kate Bush, I was delighted. I had been planning on trying to get a ticket for myself, naturally, but a poor girl's seat at the back, and possibly on my own as even the poor girl tickets were too expensive for most of my recession challenged friends.

When my brother does do something, however, it is clear that he does it in style - he planned to buy the most expensive, best seats in the house... and after thinking about it for a few minutes (and securing the promise of a loan from said brother), I remembered countless years of peering round poles, cursing myself for forgetting my binoculars and promising myself that next time, I would get a better seat... and I decided to join him.

Fast forward to last night at the Hammersmith Apollo, with the ticket money a dim and distant memory (after all, what else would I have spent it on? Probably only cola bottles and glitter), it became crashingly apparent that we had made the right choice - and in fact, that our choice had been even better than we had realised. We were in row H. However, for reasons unknown, there were no rows A-D. Seating started at E. We were almost close enough to touch her - and indeed, I did have to mentally straightjacket my arms a couple of times to resist trying to pull her off the stage for a cuddle. She seemed so good natured that I couldn't be certain she'd mind, even. But I'm pretty sure the burly security guards wouldn't have liked it too much.

The only time I've ever been approaching being that close to a genuine musical deity was when I saw Prince at Ronnie Scott's earlier this year (see my blog from February 2014), which obviously was in itself a dear diary moment of epic proportions. Ronnie Scotts, though, had been standing up and kinda shovey, and people's heads were in the way. Plus, Prince could get lost under a milk bottle lid, so you've got to be good looking, cos he's so hard to see, as Macca once said. This was entirely different. Kate, in all her gothic glory, was elevated above us on a huge stage. Her audience was well-behaved, watchful - and, for what it's worth, overwhelmingly white. They stayed still and so you could position your head between the heads of those in front and see perfectly.

She opened with Lily, one of my favourite songs from the Red Shoes, which is one of her best albums - followed by the Hounds of Love, which made me shout and bounce around in my seat until I suspect my seat mates became concerned for my health. It was a little unusual being surrounded by people whose appreciation was shown by gently tapping their knees rather than screaming out the words and throwing their arms wide, as I am used to, but I think I mostly managed to camouflage myself into looking like I belonged.

Watching Kate so close up was endlessly fascinating. She's bigger than she used to be, but damn, she wears it well. She looked like statuesque royalty, composed and serene. The Platonic ideal of a Very Important Person.

Kate Bush is two people. The eerily tortured singer who seems to belong to a world of vampires and velvet... and the completely unpretentious, overwhelming lovely woman who thanked us effusively for every round of applause and couldn't contain her joy at our voracious love.

At some point during King of the Mountain, complete with backing singers (one of whom was her adorable, baby faced, ginger topped son Bertie, of the eponymous song fame, fact fans!) imitating the wind that is whistling through the house, I wondered if she might throw in a costume change or two, or if she was a bit above all that kind of frippery.

What followed on almost immediately from that thought was a sensory overload of frippery of the very best kind, the likes of which I have never seen before and doubt I shall ever see again. Kate and her band played the whole of The Ninth Wave, the difficult second side of The Dreaming, a bizarrely beautiful fever dream of distortion and dancing.

But more than just playing these songs, they were performed in a play in which Kate was stranded in a sea populated by skeletal fish, where her rescuers (aka backing singers) had high vis vests on their chests and long, whip-like rats' tails hanging from their behinds. As she sank beneath the water, her husband (pretend) and son (actual) were haunted by her presence in a rocking house prop worthy of Michel Gondry, with razor sharp, aqua coloured lasers created the illusion of the ocean all around. A helicopter made up of sound effects, moving search lights and flares interrogated the audience, searching for Kate and her crew. The story culminated in Kate's death, as she clung to a buoy in a dark and stormy sea that genuinely gave me the fear - but her body was carried by the skeleton fish within feet of our seats, almost close enough to kiss, so I quickly recovered.

As, thank god, did she! The first half closed with The Morning Fog, and with Kate thanking us again and beaming all over her still stunningly beautiful face.

The second half of the show utilised the second half of Aerial, 'The Sky of Honey,' a 45 minute experimental concept string of songs which features a very bizarre rhyme about paintings not drying. I have to say, I didn't dig this half of the show quite as much. Being a Bad Fan, I didn't really like Aerial that much the first time round (I could never get past that bloody song about the washing machine) and had only listened to the Sky of Honey a couple of times since securing the tickets. It is beautiful music, but I missed The Dreaming, and The Sensual World, and You're the One, and This Woman's Work, and Army Dreamers (all unplayed) really quite badly.

I also found it a little harder to make sense of the accompanying theatre for this half of the show. Was it about her art being her child and breaking away from her? Or was it about Kate turning into a bird? I was a bit confused, but still, it was sumptuous music, and there is something very reassuring about realising that pop stars don't get any less mad the older they get. And let's face it, mad pop stars are always the best. (With the exception of Lady Gaga. How I wish she'd make music that had even half the kick of her frankly thrilling visual image.)

The show ended with Kate playing a grand piano had that seemingly been smashed through by a silver birch tree and then leading us all in the 'yeah-ee-yeah-ee-yos' of Cloud Busting. We were at a show right near the end of the epic 22 night run, so I don't know how she managed to still look so genuinely thrilled that we all knew the words and were eager to scream them back at her, but she pulled it off so convincingly that it bought tears to my eyes. Kate, you are the very definition of a lady, and I shall love you until the day I die. Never get normal. 

The unusual world of academic conferences

Academic conferences are a strange beast. In theory (and if it's theory-led, it must be robust, yes yes?), such events are a chance to rub shoulders with your most valued peers, to hear from the greatest minds in your field, to socialise with your academic idols. And true, they are all those things. But there is more, so much more, lingering beneath this perfect surface.

When I first started going to conferences alone, I was downright terrified. It was like the worst first day of school ever... a school where you have to stand up in front of kids six or seven years above you and try to speak aloud what you had previously thought were the most magical meditations that ever you mused in 15 mere minutes whilst those older kids all sharpen their claws and think about ways to rip you limb from limb, intellectually speaking. And then you must sit and eat lunch with those same kids, pretending that nothing happened and we're all friends here.

I spent the first conference I went to alone hiding in the toilets during the breaks for fear that someone Terribly Important might speak to me and that the resultant horror would cause me to lose control of my senses and start blurting out nonsense about which series of RuPaul's Drag Race I think is the best. (Incidentally - definitely the first. No-one will ever top Ongina, and you know it just as well as I do.)

I'm over that fear a little now, and have reached the stage where I mostly enjoy conferences. Certainly, the ones where I'm surrounded by my fellow qualitative, leftie contemporaries are nothing short of glorious. But I just returned from a different beast altogether - a much more mainstream, quantitative conference, populated by Big Wigs with a both capital B and a capital Double You.

Ninety per cent of the qualitative work there was consigned to the humiliation of a poster session (in which those magical musings I mentioned earlier must be boiled down into a sheeny soundbite and Velcroed to the wall, whilst you stand awkwardly alongside looking hopeful that someone will be transfixed by your efforts, the proverbial puppy waiting to be taken home from the pound - excruciating stuff for authors and punters alike), whilst the oral presentations were all given by people who think that if it's not been proven by a Randomised Control Trial, it's nothing more than pixie dust, blowing in the wind. Hence, I knew very few people and was out of my depth all over again.

The oral presentations are, along with the keynote speakers, the ostensible reason one attends these shindigs in the first place. It's definitely not all about getting your institution to pay for three days of unlimited food and freely flowing alcohol, oh no no. And as I said at the start of this blog, the presentations really should be a treat, a chance to hear the latest work from the people who are basically celebrities in your little corner of academia, legends in your own lunchtime.

However... with all the endless buffets and the hot, sticky rooms, I can't be the only person who finds myself constantly battling sleep in these things? My head doing that heavier-than-a-baby-grand thing, my eyelids doing that droopier-than-Pete-Doherty's-willy thing? (Well, re the latter... I imagine. I can't think that horse would help a fella fulfil its namesake in the old trouser department, but I've no personal experience - answers on a postcard if I'm wrong. This is science, after all, I'm open to peer review.) I live in constant fear that one day my body will betray me in the worst way possible during one of these things and I'll let out a snore louder than bombs and forever be known as the girl who fell asleep whilst Dan Zahavi told us what the actual secret of the universe is.

The applause at the end of a session usually jerks me back awake, and then come the questions. Ahh, the 'questions'. Which, as we all know, are not really questions at all - no-one ever really wants or listens to the answer. Instead, this is just the chance to point out, in the most polished and poised language available, that the speaker might know some stuff, but I know a bit more, so here's where you're wrong. Always prefaced with the obligatory, 'thank you so much for that talk, it was fascinating.' And postfaced with 'so blerty ner ner.'*

Lunch is always a trauma, served as it is minus alcohol - the squares. Being the awkward wheat free meat free person I am, I always face an epic struggle to find any food I can actually eat at conferences, meaning that by the time I have wrangled with a outraged kitchen staff member who clearly never got my three-times-emailed request and have been handed my dry as a bone, raw onion filled, gluten free sandwich (some of this blog is exaggerating for effect - this last is Actual Fact), I have to face a canteen full of people who have seemingly known each other since the maternity ward and are roaring with laughter over jokes I could never understand and so face the choice of trying to find a seat alone, taking my horrible lunch to the ladies and trying to moisten it up a bit with my tears, or being brave, sitting down and joining in the joke. I rarely opt for that last option.

Ah, but the conference dinner... that makes it all worthwhile. The wine comes out, and so does the gossip. The intellect elite love a good bitching session as much as the rest of us mere mortals do. The music gets turned up, and the dad dancing begins. Your single serving friend (thanks for that one, Chuck Palahniuk) suddenly becomes family. And you book your space for next year before the night is out.




*Well, it might as well be. 

I'm trying to say... I made you this mixtape.

Is there a more intricate language in this land than the secret speech inherent within the track listing of that first mixtape? If there is, I don't know what it could be. So many possible pitfalls line the way. How can you make clear your interest without coming across as a sap? How does one successfully traverse the tightrope between romantic poetry and sappy, scary adoration? Of course, the mere fact of making a mixtape in the first place makes it completely obvious that sappiness is the order of the day, but you've usually been made too stupid with the excess of oxytocin to spot that rather obvious flaw amongst the delicate plotting.

Plus, of course, when one is a DJ (as one is, don't you know, darling), there is the additional pressure (entirely self imposed, I'm sure, it's hugely unlikely that anyone else gives a fig) that as well as carrying that subtle-as-a-skunk message of I QUITE FANCY YOU, YOU KNOW, the mix tape must also be artfully compiled and contain the right ratio of new, cool, edgy stuff to balance out the obligatory Lady in Reds and Careless Whispers that suddenly seem to mean so much more than ever they did before. No, it's not like any other love. This is one is different, because it's us.

(Please don't worry, I haven't entirely lost my mind. Lady in Red is not on this mixtape.)

(I have put on a totally awesome drum n bass remix of Careless Whisper, though.)

Throw in the additional complication that the current apple of your eye is ALSO a DJ (and a much more accomplished DJ than you are, goddamn it), and the whole thing becomes something you have to write an entire blog about to get right, apparently.

I like to think my mixtape skills have improved in subtlety somewhat since I was a sallow, sullen teenager. I still wake cringing in the night when I remember the cassette I made for a boy I relentlessly pursued, despite his repeated efforts at giving me the swerve, for which the track listing was entirely selected and ordered so that the song titles created an acronym expressing my devotion. I don't think I quite went so far as to do those first letters in big lipstick red strokes while the rest of each title was type written, but it probably wasn't far off. I wonder if he ever noticed? I do hope not.

Then there are the questions of etiquette. Can you put a song on a new mixtape that you have used before? That's probably a bit lazy, isn't it, like having the same nickname for every beau? So definitely not, no. Laziness might be ok for others, but it will never do for me! But what if it's a really, really good song and no other song will work in that particular spot? Do you take out THREE songs so that the preceding and following songs aren't just oh so obviously crying out for the one you had to remove? Or do you just cheat and repeat? Doesn't that mean the whole relationship is based on a lie, right from the outset??? This is the sort of thing that could end up divorce papers, you know!

Which aspects of yourself do you reveal, and which do you hide? I like to think that I'm amongst the bolder in this world in terms of not caring if other people are going to judge me for liking music they might consider inferior (YES I love Sugababes, YES I have every album Madonna has ever made, YES I think Will Smith spits iller lyrics than Tyler the Creator... WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT???), but this first mixtape is a much more vulnerable situation than a slightly tanked up DJ gig to a mass of people who probably don't know what's good for them anyway. What if I take a risk with that Girls Aloud album track and love disappears from my fingertips as a result? I've gone off people for less in the past; I know how it works.

An entire evening of crafting, and I think I'm there. I'm listening to the result right now, and certainly I think I'm terribly clever, even if no-one else does. One thing is for certain. This is very serious business. I know you understand, blog fans.

I'll let you know how it goes down.

He Could Probably Take The Place Of My Man

Unless you live under a rock or are one of these tedious types who eschew television, you will have realised that Prince is in town. This is big news for me. I love Prince with a passion that knows no bounds. Well, maybe it knows some bounds - the period of 1994-2004 in his back catalogue scares me a bit and I suspect might be a touch self-indulgent, although I'm ashamed to say I've never tried to find out - but the whacked out, unpredictable, genuine pop-star bonkers-ness of the man more than makes up for any failings in terms of self editing. Besides, look at the length of some of these blog entries... I can hardly get on my high horse about limiting yourself artistically, can I?

When I heard that Prince would be playing a series of gigs in small venues all across London, I swore to myself that I would get to as many of them as I could manage. At that point, I was imagining a frantic four or five minutes with 16 tabs for Ticketmaster and Stargreen open on my computer, stabbing in the details of my long-suffering credit card with my eyes closed and worrying about what I had to cancel to make way for His Royal Purpleness later.

When it became clear a week or so ago that it was going to be a case of turning up and queueing for tickets rather than a crazed episode of advanced ticket booking, I was struck by the typically oddball nature of it all, but also, being old and tired and set in my ways, a bit put out. I'm often busy with, you know, yoga. Or watching re-runs of Modern Family. Or needing to go to bed by 9.30 because it was a hard day. I can't just drop everything and run out in the rain on the off-chance I might get to see Prince, can I? In retrospect, I'm deeply ashamed of this attitude. It's hardly I Would Die 4 U, is it now?

Due to work and other plans and not-hearing-about-gigs-till-too-late, I missed both Electric Ballroom shows, the Shepherd's Bush and King's Centre ones, and then all three (well, two and a half) Koko gigs. One part of me was starting to think that I would just have to accept that the Hit and Run tour was not going to happen for me. But my heart was also breaking slightly at this thought.

When I got into university on Monday morning, I was not planning on going to Ronnie Scott's. I had a lot of important PhD work to do, I couldn't be sure I would get in - it was just all round a bad idea. I sat at my desk and looked at an interview transcript and tried to settle down to work.

And tried a bit harder.

And then a bit less hard.

I couldn't stop looking at Twitter, which showed pictures of the squiggly one's mic stand being unloaded into Ronnie Scott's... a venue which is, as it happens, only 10 minutes' walk from my office. I tried and tried to turn my mind away from Prince and think about my work but, as it turns out, pop music DOES matter more to me than academia and my soul would not be broken. After all, I thought to myself, what am I going to remember in five years time - sitting at my desk writing linguistic, descriptive and conceptual notes about a participant's experience of haemodialysis, like I do every day? Or seeing Prince in a 250 capacity venue?

For an allegedly smart girl, it does take me a while to figure things out properly at times.

As soon as I'd made the decision, I started panicking that I'd left it too late. I printed out some work, fondly imagining I'd do it in the queue (ha! Some chance!), said my goodbyes to my university mates, none of whom asked me, 'take me with u,' very disappointing... and pretty much sprinted (well, walked briskly, some things will never change) round to Firth Street, stopping only at Pret to stock up on supplies.

Arriving at about 11.15 with visions of mobs of thousands swarming around Ronnie Scott's, I was in fact pleasantly surprised by how short the queue was. I joined the back of it in time to hear someone say the words 'worth getting fired for,' to which I said 'I agree!' and immediately, I had friends. These friends told me to go up to the venue door and get a number written on my hand. It was official - I was number 104 - this surely meant I would get to see Prince in just a few short hours.

As with so many things in life, the queue was really not the cold, boring monster I was scared it would be. It really wasn't especially cold for a long, long time. And there was definitely no time for working, as I was far too busy swapping stories - both Prince and life related - with the other fans around me. Although I should note that I was put to shame by one woman who was doing her sustainable fashion Masters homework while sitting on the curb. I was far too busy doing runs to the off licence for red wine and having crisps pressed on me by my new friends to give psychology a second thought.

The rumours were coming thick and fast as everyone looked on their phones and swapped gossip. We decided he would probably take pity on us and do an afternoon show, a hope that was sadly only in our heads. The show would start at 7. It would start at midnight. That was just a rumour to try to scare people away. If you got a stamp on your hand that said Prince and 3rd Eye Girl, you were definitely getting in. Actually, those stamps were fake and nothing was a guarantee. It was going to be £70. It would be £10. It was actually £35. Who knew what was real? Certainly not us! Controversy was all around!

The whole atmosphere was a cross between a carnival and the best hooky you ever played. Newsnight filmed us singing a few lines of Purple Rain. We ran out of booze and went to buy more. The nearby Cafe Nero had never had such a long toilet queue in all of its existence before. We were given free popcorn, and then free pizza. And underneath it all ran the insistent, excited thrum that we were going to see Prince and we were going to see him soon. And close, close up. Life can be so nice.

At some point - I'm not sure what the time was, but I think it was around dusk - we were told that we couldn't keep using the camping chairs my more organised new friends had bought with them as they were blocking the pavement. So we grudgingly stood up, and immediately the queue doubled in width, meaning the pavement was blocked anyway.

Shortly after this, it started raining and the hooch ran out for a second time. These portents were clearly a sign o the times ahead.

Looking back, it's hard to work out when the queue stopped being a hilarious, spacious conga line of Paisley Park anticipation and instead became a sardine can of rainy frayed tempers and nerves, but by 10pm, it had definitely crossed over to the dark side. I tried to interest my new friends in playing I Spy and 20 Questions to pass the time, but turns out not everyone is quite as geeky as me when it comes to things like that. My friends and I were still doing ok, taking photos and trying to cheer each other along, but cross words were being exchanged amongst other queue mates over pushing in slights - some real, some imaginary - and we all kept moving forwards into each other even though the doors still weren't open.

It was probably around 11.30 that I realised I was ridiculously thirsty and starting to feel quite light headed and sick. Turns out a lot of wine, a lot of rain, a slice of pizza and a handful of popcorn do not a substantial dinner make. I did not imagine that throwing up in these close knit circumstances would win me any additional new friends, so I fought my way to the outer edges of the queue and tried to put my head between my knees without actually sitting down, since the pavement was sodden, which is about as hard as it sounds. Truly, this is what it sounds like when doves cry.

Fortunately, a friendly queue man came to my rescue with some Ribena, which seemed to do the job, so I rallied myself and got back in the queue. By this point, though, my back was hurting, everything was wet, I was bone tired and thinking with dread about the night bus home... and for a moment, I came very, very close to giving up and going home.

But then, just as I was thinking this, 13 long hours after I had arrived, the door opened! Stephen Fry came right past us all, somehow not being blinded by the epilepsy inducing shower of flashes going off in his face, which cheered me greatly as I adore our kid Steve so... and with an impressive lack of fuss or fighting, we were in.

Myself and two of my queue buddies managed to get right to the front of the right hand side of the stage... which was uncannily lucky as this turned out to be directly in front of where the wee man spent 90% of the gig, playing his piano with his beautiful artistic fingers, which I watched delicately tease out Purple Rain on the old ivories. Not through a screen, not through binoculars... but through leaning forward slightly and angling my head right. I was almost close enough to give him my extra time and my kiss.

Was the gig worth the 13 hours out in the cold and the rain? Well, readers, I have to be totally honest and say that the first 10 or 15 minutes did disappoint me a bit. Prince has such a vast discography that one always runs the risk of being underwhelmed by rarities that you don't know. I didn't know the first few instrumental tunes, and while they were no doubt beautifully executed they were, as befits Ronnie Scott's I suppose, undeniably jazzy, and not in the way your mum means when she talks about her new jumper. I'm all for accomplished musicianship (well, kinda), but I'm a bigger fan of pop music, and I hadn't really queued for all that time to listen to instrumentals.

However, things quickly turned around when the sexy MF (and god, close up, he really is just as sexy as you had always hoped but didn't dare to dream) first played a beautifully slowed down version of I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man before offering to take us back to the 80s and playing a medley of Take Me With U (a contender for my favourite Prince tune ever) and Raspberry Beret. The band were hot and cool all at once... Prince himself seemed quite shy, letting them take centre stage and only really talking to us to tell us to be safe on the way home.

It was surreal, being that close to not only such a hero of mine but also such a hugely photographed icon. He really does look like Prince. That might sound daft, but I think it's easy to imagine that these impossibly big stars aren't really real, or that if you got close enough it would turn out it was all some tricksy combination of Photoshop, smoke and mirrors, and that actually, these giants of pop life look a bit more like your slightly scuzzy next door neighbour than like the press has always shown you. But no - he really does look like Prince. Occasionally it felt like the pathway of his eyes crossed the pathway of mine, and I would feel faint all over the again. The idea that Prince, even for a millisecond, could be aware of my existence was something I don't think I could ever quite wrap my head round.

He played two encores and sang both The Beautiful Ones and How Come You Don't Call Me Any More, two more of my favourites, covered Who is He and What is He to You and the Whole of the Moon, got us all singing along to Purple Rain, played the bass, the guitar and the keyboards all with the same dazzling virtuosity and sang like nothing I can find any words to describe. He finished around 90 minutes after he went on. Approximately an eighth of the time I had been waiting for him.

Was it worth it?

Well, I'm already thinking about next time. You can draw your own conclusion from that.

The emotional complexities of transplantation

This is a fairly different blog from me. In my day job as psychological qualitative researcher extraordinaire, I am taking part in an event at the Science Museum on Wednesday night talking about why my research is the Next Big Thing in Psychology. Exciting, and also mildly terrifying. Here's a blog I wrote about that research for my university. 

I am a qualitative, psychological researcher exploring the experiences of people living with kidney disease. End stage renal disease (ESRD) is a complex beast that may require its sufferers to undergo gruelling dialysis sessions three times a week, to restrict their diets and how much they drink, to bide time on a waiting list hoping for a kidney from a deceased donor, or to negotiate the emotional complexities of receiving a kidney from a living donor. Even when – if – a transplant has taken place, the renal patient has to take a cocktail of drugs (which come with a serving platter of side effects) every day for the rest of their lives. That’s a lot of different challenges for a person to get their head around.

My research involves speaking to people in-depth about their experiences, and then trying to illuminate those experiences in a resonant manner so that other people can walk a mile in their shoes – or perhaps more appropriately cleanse a pint of blood in their dialysis machines. My hope is that my work will better our understanding of the lives of renal patients; and better understanding makes for a better world, on so many levels.

Accepting a kidney from a living donor

Two of my studies have looked at the experience of receiving a kidney from a living donor. Common sense, that oh-so-reliable source, may predict that the decision to give a kidney away is a weighty and difficult one, a decision that may keep the potential donor up all night as they fret about whether they will ever play the piano again.

I’m sure this is the case for some donors, but I know from both research and personal experience that it’s not the case for most. When I made the decision to give a kidney to my dear friend, I did so in the blink of an eye. Why would I not want my friend to be healthy and happy, especially if it did me no harm? Rather less altruistically, why would I not want the accolades of friends and family for being a so-called hero? My somewhat shop-worn self esteem regularly needs a lift, and I now have an instant booster that I can reliably get out of the memory cabinet and polish up for inspection any time I feel self-loathing start to creep in.

That same common sense might suggest that anyone who needed a kidney would jump at the chance to take any they are offered, and would be undyingly grateful for this chance at a fresh start.

But think about that for a moment. Would you want to be undying grateful? To anyone? Even if it does mean a chance at health? The shackles of indebtedness are real and heavy, and a kidney patient needs to be sure that any potential donor will not be pulling out the ‘but I saved your LIFE eyes’ during any disagreement, or expecting that they will now be BFFs until the end of time.

Add to this the fact that the recipient is asking the donor to undergo painful elective surgery (something the foolhardy donor may well not care about, but you still don’t want to ask for it, do you?) and we can start to see that receiving a kidney is much more emotionally complex process than donating one.

My findings

This dilemma is the driving motivation for my research, and my findings from both studies on this topic bear out the prediction that recipient/donor relationships are complicated stuff. In one study, one participant had received a kidney from a second cousin, a woman who lived on the other side of the world and who was no longer that close to her recipient. Another woman had received a kidney from her best friend, a friend so close they were almost like sisters. Counter-intuitively, the latter woman found post-op adjustment harder as she felt she could never speak her mind in an argument again.

A participant in another study was given a kidney by her daughter. She felt wracked with conflict and distress over this, in her words, ‘wrong direction’ transplant. Her family wanted her to be well and so were invested in the transplant going ahead. She presented a position of being happy with this, yet seemed wracked with uncertainties beneath the surface.

These were the sorts of situations that came up for my participants; emotionally complex ones which have gone largely unnoticed by the current literature. I hope that by illuminating the fact that renal patients must deal with situations like these, I can help them be more fully supported through those decisions.

The Christmas Crisis

I love Christmas. I look forward to it every year. I love presents, both the receiving and the giving. I love time off work, I love eating, I love my friends and family, I love sparkly decorations, I love carols, I love the Pogues. My heart aches for people who can't enjoy Christmas because they have lost others or are alone. It must be face-rippingly hideous to watch the whole world shake its corpulent belly and go ho ho ho when you feel isolated or bereaved. But I am not (yet) in that number, for which I count myself lucky. I love Christmas.

I don't love New Year. In fact, much against my better judgement and despite a great one two years ago and an decent one last year, I loathe New Year with a deadly loathing. See this early blog for more details: http://johannaswittythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/news-and-more-poems.html

And, I'm now learning, I really don't love the days between Christmas and New Year either. In fact, for several years now, on and off, these days have been marked by loneliness and something that borders on depression, although I may be over-agrandising myself somewhat to go that far.

As with so many things in life, the fantasy and the reality just don't quite match up. For months now, I've been dreaming of this week; dreaming of not having to get up early, not having to work all day, having eight whole days to do with whatever I please.

I always think that being alone and having no plans is going to be so great. This is because my days in a regular week are so jam crammed sideways and backwards full with things to do, things I often end up resenting. In fact this over-cramming of my diary caused me to have a bit of a meltdown about a month ago and firstly cry for so long I became a bit alarmed about if I would ever stop and secondly cancel a whole bunch of things I was meant to be doing. So I'd looked upon these few days as an oasis of calm in the middle of the city centre of my life that is jammed full of demands and niceities. And I mean oasis like the soothing desert haven, not Oasis like the shouty annoying indie lot.

What is it that goes wrong? Have I forgotten how to enjoy being properly alone? I love being alone at the beginnings and ends of the day, it's my preferable state. I love having evenings alone. But it seems like perhaps several days in a row just starts making the bad voices kick off in my head.

I have learnt from the last few years. I know that watching endless TV (even the good stuff) and shovelling mountains of cheese into my mouth may equal very short term happiness but will result in concluding that no one could ever love me and life is completely futile by hour five. So I swore blind I would read novels and listen to Spotify this holiday, not just hook myself up to the goggle box.

However, I got a cold. And apparently decided that meant I was incapable of reading. But definitely capable of watching an entire series of Modern Family (and the Big Fat Quiz of the Year Show, and some of the godawful Alan Carr Twatty Man (Russell was on it, otherwise I would have turned off) (I hope), and the final feature length episode of Masters of Sex) all in the space of about 29 hours.

And now, predictably, I feel like I will never love anyone and life is indeed futile.

I think perhaps this Christmas crisis that seems to be becoming a tradition for me is also mixed up to the irrepressible human urge to make ourselves better in the new year. We all know these attempts are doomed to failure, but none of us (at least, not me, and I'm guessing a lot of you as well) can resist the siren song of resolution. I will carry on eating this cheese now, because as of tomorrow, I will lose the cheese and do all the sit ups and none of it will matter any more. I'll definitely be reading novels instead of watching TV as of next month and you can take that to the bank. Again, I wrote a would-be jokey blog about that right at the start of this year (New Year, New You, should be you interested), but the fact that none of my clothes fit properly and I'm not sleeping right cos I've been drinking too much and I keep making one stupid mistake over and over and over and over again means that the pressure to change and change for the better don't feel so fucking funny right now.

Next year, I hope to be on a beach in Hawaii for this whole period of time. Hopefully with my best friends around me. Because I have a feeling that the loneliness will follow me, even if I do get to the sun. 

The Art of Conversation

I like talking to people. It's possibly my favourite thing in the world. I think I like it best when they don't answer back, hence why I love writing in this blog so much, all appearances to the contrary given the six month gap since my last entry. I can only apologise, but my PhD has taken over my life and squeezed my brain dry of any excess creativity. So quite what the quality of this blog will be, I dread to think. I shall close my eyes while I type and I'm sure it will all fine.

(I actually did close my eyes for last five words. No typos, you'll note, though I did miss out the word be. Riveting stuff. It's already going really well, eh?)

Talking to people in person is, of course, lovely. If they're the right people, which all too irritatingly often they aren't, and then it's just awkward and miserable, whether you're the one trying to get away or the one suspecting you're trying to be got away from. But when it is the right person, then it's all eye contact and belly laughs and clinking your drink to say cheers and maybe even a bit of a cuddle if you're lucky. You won't rack up phone bills or get RSI from good old face to face chat either, so it is a bit of a winner right out of the gate.

But... you know... we're all so bloody BUSY these days, aren't we? And everyone will insist on moving further and further away from me, and I think I am actually developing an allergy to trains in the same way I have an allergy to wheat... ITS, I shall have to call it, Irritable Train Syndrome, and if I have to stand around on a cold platform in South East London weeping over my useless smart phone because I still don't really understand how it's meant to make trains come faster, and as a result I have once again missed the last train for the next 45 minutes, I shall probably chuck myself onto the tracks. (That was a nice coherent sentence for you all, eh? Hey ho, I did try to warn you.)

So I guess phone calls, right? And in theory, yes, phone calls are a great idea. You can laugh with each other! You hear tone of voice! You can connect in many of the ways that you can face to face! All these things are true, and yet I only know two people in the entire world that still like phone calls and one of those is my supervisor. The rest of us have suddenly become terrified of them.

It didn't used to be this way. There was a time, as a teenager, when I would come thundering down the stairs no matter what time of day or night in order to snatch the ringing handset of victory from under the nose of my father and then happily stay chatting on it, lying across the hallway with my legs up the wall, for hours on end, pretending all the while that I couldn't hear my mother yelling at me to get off the phone and come to DINNER young lady.

Oh, sweet telephone, when did it all go so wrong? When did I stop trusting you?

Well, when other options... other - and here's the rub - editable options came along. I have always been a writer, which means I've always been an editor, which means I've always lain awake at night planning the exact sequence of syllables with which to seduce and surprise my suitors. But all the planning in the world can come to nought when faced with the stuttering reality of real-time interactions. Of course, being a self-immolator as well as a writer, I will then lie awake the whole of the next night cursing myself for having said oncology when I meant to say ontology. And those kinds of mistakes are far too easy on the old dog and bone.

So when text messages came along, our eyes met across a crowded room and the rest is history. Oh, the delightful back and forth banter! The exquisite pressure of presenting the best possible side of yourself in a small, neat paragraph! The absurd pleasure of correctly spelling six syllable words in defiance of the autocorrects of your friends! (Yes of course, conversation is better when it becomes a sort of war - what's your point, caller?) The freedom to reply whenever you damn well please, rather than having to attend to some cursed shrill ringing RIGHT NOW! Added to all this the thrill of the trill of the phone as a text message is received and you know that someone, somewhere is thinking of you and maybe you won't die alone to be eaten by the mice you fear so much after all and really, I think the pinnacle of human conversation has been reached and none of us ever need bother to leave the house again.

Text messages would really be enough to sustain me until the end of my days, but throw Facebook into the mix and I have an embarrassment of riches. I used to hate MSN, feeling it as a boorish intrusion on whatever highly intellectual past time I was engaging in at that moment (read - typing Morrissey lyrics into Word 95 and trying to glean their True Meaning), yet somehow, now the concept has been given some lipstick and high heels and has re-entered my life as Facebook Chat, I am hooked. (Oddly, I still don't really have much patience for people trying to chat to me in gmail and wish I knew how I could turn that function off. I don't know why. Oh, contrary-ness, thy name is Johanna).

I am smarter and funnier and at least 10% more attractive on Facebook Chat than I am in real life. Plus, I can keep one eye on the telly whilst engaging my awesome art of assonance. I also like to start conversations on people's Facebook walls. Why is this? I have been reading a little recently about how some people think we're all hell-bent on ditching the idea of privacy, and posts on Facebook walls are seen as proof of this. I don't really agree. I wouldn't talk about heart-break or tampons or a stinging sensation when I pee on a Facebook wall. (Oh no, no, clearly, I'd save that for this blog, you lucky readers). The things I'd say to a friend on their Facebook wall are the same sorts of things I'd shout to them across a crowded room at a party. It's just that with Facebook, the party lasts all day, dude. (Do you think if I say enough things like that, I'll be able to convince Zuckerberg to fund the research I want to do next year?)

Yet somehow, I can't really get on with Twitter. I'm on Twitter, and I use it to promote this blog and to talk to my friend who left Facebook, but that's about it. I think it's a combination of always wondering why anyone would choose to use 140 characters when 140,000 would do and an obsessive need to read *everything*. This is just about manageable on Facebook. On Twitter? You're having a laugh mate. Plus, I don't really understand hashtags. #old. 

So yeah. If, for any reason, you want to talk to me, then text me or send me a Facebook message. Phone me and I'll probably hide under my bed for a few days before I can remember it won't hurt to ring back. I would say face to face is best, but they I might get people turning up on my doorstep unarranged and I'd never get over the horror. I am a Londoner, you know.

In these shoes? I don't think so...

Beloved blog fans, in the recent present I had the great good fortune to go on holiday to Spain with my boyfriend and two very dear friends. We went to a spot called Isla Plana, which I would whole heartedly recommend to anyone thinking about having a holiday. Not just because it almost sounds a bit like the name of a Madonna song (although, let's face it, that would be enough) but also because it is a beautiful, sunny, unspoiled place with more coves than Nancy Blackett could shake a stick at and more mountains than even I could turn into molehills.

However, I am not here to wax lyrical about its beauty. Instead, as is befitting, I am here to tell you about a story of fear, forgetfulness and farcical fun, all of which stemmed from wearing entirely the wrong shoes.

Now, there are two important facts you need to know in order for this story to make sense. The first is that each of the three of my fellow holiday goers, boyfriend, girlie mate and her boyfriend all, are much more 'running, jumping, climbing trees' (Atkinson, 2013) sorts than I am. They like snorkelling in rocky seas. I like sun loungers. They like climbing mountains. I like sitting. They like flinging themselves after frisbees in the surf. I like novels. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

The second important idea is that, whilst I am, as a general rule, way too keen to impress almost everyone (an ingratiating and uncomfortable trait that ironically has the exact opposite effect to the one it intends), I am especially keen to impress my friends I went on holiday with, since a) I think they're awesome and b) we're kinda new-ish in being close friends and I want to Do Well. Charming, no? No?

Right, now we've got those two things straight, I can commence.

On the second day of holi, we headed down to the beach, which stretches out for miles, as inviting as freshly washed, Egyptian cotton sheets. The sea features a tiny, rocky little island, to which you can wade out. Well, maybe YOU can. Can I? That's a different question altogether.

We had talked about this upcoming wade when we were drinking cocktails on the balcony in the sun earlier on (a much more Johanna-approved activity). My friend's boyfriend (also my friend, I should point out, but this seems the simplest way to avoid a) confusion and b) confidentiality spillage)) had said we would need sensible shoes. I think I owned a pair of sensible shoes once, but that was way back in 1986 and they didn't go with my outfit, so I took them off and threw them in the lake.

In fact, I had outdone myself on shoe flakiness on this particular holiday. There's a whole other story I could go into about why this happened, but I will just say that, due to a series of unfortunate events, I only had two pairs of half-way-to-broken flip flops with me (no heels at all either - damn Ryan Air weight limits), neither of which in any way qualified for sensible.

We walked down to the beach, with my friend saying that, due to the somewhat lively wind, the sea was rather a lot choppier than usual. We got to the sea, at the foot of the wade across the water, and could quickly see that my friend was right. There were waves which, in Cornish standards, were barely there, it's true, but still in real terms could knock a child of five over fairly easily. Given that I have the outdoormanship of a kitten of five months, I was already starting to worry.

A second result of the wind was that the sand was being somewhat agitated beneath the water, so you couldn't really see what you were treading on. Which, as it turns out, was a mass of very jagged rocks with the odd patch of slippery seaweed and the occasional sea anemone thrown in for good measure.

My friend's boyfriend strode out ahead to, ho ho ho, test the water. He, of course, made it across to the island in pretty much a single bound. All the same, I could see that this was not the journey for me and started trying to say so, mum-ish worry infecting my voice like a rash. However, without really knowing how it was happening, mid-pathetic-protest, I was suddenly attempting this wade and there was no turning back.

I don't know if you've ever tried to walk across spikes of stone that you can't see, through fairly lively waves, with breaking flip flops on your feet and nothing to steady yourself against but a friend you really don't want to push into the water? Maybe this is the sort of thing, blog fans, that you can do in your sleep, but me... not so much. I was convinced the entire time that I was going to fall face first into the spikey rocks, or get my foot stuck in between two rocks, or be stung by some kind of crazy ocean creature.

In fact, all that actually went wrong (apart from my intense panic) was that my flip flop, predictably, broke. The thong came away from the sole about half way along the journey, meaning that after a while, I was wearing that flip flop like a rather unconventional anklet flapping around my ankle, heightening the pain and fear-of-stingy-creatures factors relating to that particular foot twenty fold.

I don't think I have ever looked less in my element in all my live long days.

However, as you will have surmised, I did not die. Phew! I made it to the island in one piece and passed a pleasant hour or so reading in the sun.

I shall fast forward at this point because I've already been going on for ages and I want to eat my breakfast and not alienate you all my writing a novella. When the time came, I got back across to the mainland, mostly thanks to my friend's boyfriend bringing me my friend's (very sensible) (and yet still cool, I don't want to make her sound like a pottery teacher) shoes after she had done the clamber.

However, on reaching the road, made of black tarmac and cooked away in the sun all day, a problem quickly became apparent. My friend and I couldn't, due to the pesky laws of physics, share her shoes for the entire walk, uphill, over the rocks home. And, wuss and all that I am, I wouldn't have recommended doing that walk barefoot to anyone who didn't want some delightful blisters and burns all over the bottoms of their feet for the next week or so.

So at this point in the story, we parted ways. My friend and her boyfriend set out on the blisteringly hot, 45 degrees steep walk back to the apartment to get the car and my other pair of shoes, gawd bless them, whilst my boyfriend and I sat ourselves at the bar with cold drinks and our books. What a terrible hard life we lead.

We enjoyed the sun and our drinks. And we finished our drinks and started to notice that we were getting hungry. And we looked at our watches and were a bit confused. Our wet swimming costumes started to feel really rather damp and cloying. I think we might have ordered another drink - that's certainly not impossible.

After really quite a while, I saw my friend striding towards us and stood up, saying hello. I noticed that she didn't have my shoes in her hands, but kinda figured they must be in the car, maybe? I didn't really have time to finish this thought before the next one presented it to myself, which is that she didn't look best pleased.

She came over to our table and said a word that we so weren't expecting that I think it took a moment or two for us to understand it. That word was:

Keys?

with, yes, that all-important question mark. Oh dear oh dear... what we had all forgotten was that my boyfriend had left something behind that morning, gone back to get it, and, as a result, he had the keys for the apartment (which contained not only the shoes but, rather crucially, the car keys) in his pocket.

Oops.

I think at this point I think it's fair to say that my friend and her boyfriend were (extremely understandably) wishing they had gone on holiday with anybody other than this gormless sissy and her memory-deficient boyfriend. This had really not been either of our finest hours. We offered to try to manage the walk with the shoes, but my friend's boyfriend said that if we rendered this whole trip pointless, he would most likely have to drown himself, so we stayed in the bar while our friends went on the hotter than hell, steeper than Everest walk once again.

Fast forwarding again, our friends eventually made it back again complete with the car and much bigger smiles on their faces. But the punchline to this story? As my friend's boyfriend came to fetch us and show us where my friend had parked my car, he stopped to exclaim... they had forgotten my shoes. How this then lead to me standing alone and bare foot outside a police station, hopping from one foot to another in desperate need of a wee, is a whole different story for a whole different time.

My New Phone or How I Became a Traitor

Blog fans, I owe you an apology. I knew it had been a long time since my last post, but I had no idea it had been over three months. I am abject. I am on my knees, begging for forgiveness. My ever hungry ego is wondering who noticed.

The thing is, it's not like I don't spend almost all waking moments when I'm not actively thinking about something (more moments than you might suspect) thinking about my blog. I really do. It's the screen saver for my brain. I have a long list of possible entries that need writing (viz: why the Big Bang Theory will never be as good as Friends; why I love dancing; tube politics, to name but three) but somehow the time has never been quite right to write them in the past - exactly - 100 days.

The reasons for this are multiple, often revolving around being somewhat busy, but I think the major one is that I've been, you know, if I dare admit it, kinda… happy. I know. Vile, right? I can't write about happiness. What would people say? This blog isn't called The Big Book o Smiles and Skipping, is it now?

I realise now how remiss I've been, and I shall do my best to redress the balance and get miserable again ASAP so that I can keep y'all entertained with puns and pithiness aplenty.

And so... those of you who are still talking to me will remember that I ended my last blog post with the promise of finally getting with the program only, what, like 8 or 9 years late and obtaining a smart phone. And on Monday, that's what I did. I nothing if not am a woman of my word.

I thought I would dive in at the deep end, so I got an HTC One, which I was reliably informed by reams of techy comparison websites in the hours of intense research that I did was the genuine article, the greatest phone ever built, the phone that would change my entire life. Oh, ok, that's a lie, a friend of mine said it could play audio books really loud and that was enough for me.

I have had this computer-in-my-pocket for six days now, and here are my conclusions, thus far:

1. It's not actually a computer-in-my-pocket. This would be an impossibility because it's so fecking BIG. My old Nokia 2330 fit in my hand like a diamond on a ring finger. This HTC One wouldn't fit in a 10 litre rucksack, even if it used its own internet capabilities to join Weight Watchers for a month first. Now, I know I got an extra big phone and I could have gone for a smaller one, so I really have no-one to blame but myself, but I had my reason for this, a reason which I stand by.

My major gripe with smart phones has always been that typing on them is so damn hard. Your fingers press the wrong key constantly. So it seemed sensible to me that a bigger screen would equal a better chance at accuracy when stabbing at the letters. This is somewhat true, and I must say, there is something very satisfying about the heft of it when I'm actually speaking to someone on it. My ear lines up with it... and so does my mouth!!! It is so many decades since I had a phone that did that that I forgot it was ever true. But... it won't fit in ANY of my pockets. Which means I'm either carrying it constantly in my paw like a mugging waiting to happen, or I have to zip it inside a special pocket in my bag so it won't get scratched, which means it's nowhere near me. I do not like this.

2. The typing IS really annoying. I have already made three (THREE!) mistakes in texts in only six days (well, I made about 65 more when I was texting my boyfriend very drunkenly on the way home last night - he, bless him, was replying imploring me to put the very expensive new phone bag in my bag and stop waving it around the high streets of Tottenham. Must remember that people might actually want to steal this phone, another sensation I've not had in a decade or so - but I won't count drunken text errors, we're allowed to do silly things when we're drunk), one of them, humiliatingly, on Facebook. For the WHOLE WORLD TO SEE. Happiness one day, and writing 'tryst' when I meant 'trust' the next. Where is the real Johanna?

This is obviously unacceptable. The thing is, isn't it, you're staring so intently at the bit where you're pecking away with your fingers that you don't have the time to look at the bit where the words are actually coming out. And let's face it, this phone is so big I'd need a stepladder to get to where I could see that bit anyway. This is why the mistakes happen. Well, that and the fact that some moron decided it would be a good idea to replace perfectly serviceable phone keyboards with 12 actual buttons on them with so-called touch screens with 104 virtual buttons on all the phones in the world ever. Of course that doesn't work as well, you ASS HAT. There's not enough space!

I hear there are 'apps' (I feel like such a traitor using that word, it sits in my mouth as badly as chillax or mudblood or I'll-take-mine-rare-please) which can turn your stupid virtual QWERTY keyboard into a sensible phone one (although sadly it can't turn the screen into a set of physical buttons), so as soon as I've worked out how to download things (alright, alright, as soon as I'm sitting next to someone who already knows how so they can 'show me' and I can nod wisely and watch Ally McBeal episodes in my head), I'm getting me one of those so I shall never make a mistake again. In my entire life ever once. It works like that, right?

Briefly now, as I fear I'm going to bore you all away if I don't shut up soon, here are some other observations I have made: I tried to use the maps for the first time yesterday, the thing everyone told me would make it all worth it, and it tried to make me walk 10 minutes past where I was actually meant to be going. You cannot text on 'smart' (HA! Smart my ASS!) phones and walk at the same time, at least not without causing a 10 person pile up. I actually never will read a book on a bus ever again. It buzzes annoyingly every single time someone sneezes on Facebook and I don't know how to turn it off.

I should really read the manual, huh?  

The League Against Smart Phones (or Why I Love my Dumb Phone)

I believe myself to be the last person under the age of 60 and living in the UK who doesn't have a smart phone. Even my parents have better phones than I do.

When iPhones first came out I, like many of the rest of the population, goggled at them, starry eyed and full of product lust, thinking that if I was only carrying one in my pocket, the secrets of the universe would surely be mine.  

However, as time soldiered on, in that inimitable way that it has, I become more and more grateful that I hadn't caved (*cough*  - read, been able to afford) a fancy touch screen mini-computer and had stuck with my terribly basic Nokia. The major reasons for this are three-fold. 

1. I quickly noticed that anyone who had an iPhone made all the same spelling mistakes in their text messages. Me became Mr. A simple pair of kisses at the end of the text became fx. You could spot an iPhone user at 100 paces. This is not quite so much the case any more, but all those hilarious Damn You, Autocorrect memes you see? You can bet they weren't written on a 3310. My friends with smart phones (aka, all of them) write me ever-increasingly incomprehensible texts and never really seem to notice. 

I like to think my pals have enough smarts to notice when one word is entirely replaced with another, and it can't possibly be that they just don't care, because that's the kind of thing that only happens in science-fiction, right? So the only conclusion I can draw is that it's so hard to correct these mistakes that no-one really knows how to. This unsettles me. Reading a poorly spelled text message can mess with my head enough. Authoring one would surely ruin my whole week. 

2. Battery life. I could talk about this at great length, but you all know the story. I sometimes don't take a charger on long weekends with me on purpose so I can text the entire time I'm away and then laugh at my friends when they can't play Angry Birds on the way home whilst I can still ring my dad to ask him to come and get me. 

3. There is nothing, nothing that makes me angrier than trying to have a conversation with someone who is more interested in their phone than they are in me. Well, ok, that's a lie... people who get all 'oh, it's so comMERcial' about Valentine's day or give those bloody charity certificates as 'presents' or say daft things like, 'it's good for the garden' as a way to try to cheer me up... those things all make me just as angry. But yeah - people who think you can't see them looking at Twitter when they're meant to be listening to you make me want to punch them. 

I do realise that not everyone with a smart phone is guilty of this heinous crime. However... this is me we're talking about. I am so addicted to the internet that I dream in Facebook colours most nights. If I had the whole of the social network in my pocket, there is no way I would ever talk to a real person again. 

All convincing reasons to stick with the dumb phone forever, right?

Well, yes, right... but still, come May time, I'm going to have to capitulate. Why, I hear all dozens of you clamour? Well, here is the sorry tale of woe. 

Whilst I was in Spain last year, I had an unfortunate incident with a sun lounger, my not inconsiderable heft, and the screen of my phone. I had a moment of smug glee in which I thought it had survived, but the top quarter of the screen went pretty rainbow colours and couldn't be read. This would never do. 

When I got back to London, I went to a phone shop and asked to see their finest dumb phone. I was laughed out of not one, not two, but three shops. In the fourth shop, I finally found a paltry selection of Nokias, huddled together, blinded by the techni-coloured light rebounding from the screens of the all-singing, all-dancing smart phones showing off on the shelves above them. 

In an ill-advised burst of stubbornness, I bought the cheapest dumb phone there (£10 for the world's most basic Nokia) thinking, 'ha, I'll show them! If it texts and it calls, that's ALL I NEED!' (NB... I'm not quite sure who it is I'm hoping to 'show' by having a rubbish phone. I never think that far ahead. Does anyone?)

However, this phone turned out to be so unbearably terrible that we parted company after about 14 hours when I hurled it into a canal. Well, ok, I didn't, because that would be littering, but by Jove, I wanted to. 

Remember the old, old, olden days when you would be happily composing a text message... you'd be three terribly clever puns and four esoteric references in, but then your big stoopid thumb would accidentally press the red 'hang up' button, and rather than saving your carefully crafted message to drafts or something sensible, the whole thing would vanish and then you'd turn apoplectic with rage? No? I didn't remember either, until it started happening again. And then I remembered how it happened three times an hour some years ago and coloured my every day with white-hot irritation. Isn't it funny how these things can piss you off so much at the time, just to vanish from your head the moment they stop happening? 

So I decided the thing to do was buy my favourite ever dumb phone handset (the Nokia Classic 2330) from Ebay. It had Snake on it, it had pictures of fish on it, it never let me down... I couldn't go wrong. 

Or so I thought. 

The first two disappointments came quickly when I realised that the shoddy eBay version of this phone didn't have Snake OR pictures of fish on it. I've never used a phone to connect to the internet and can't remember how to download anything that isn't from iTunes from one second to the next even when I'm on my laptop, so had no idea how I could go about downloading these items. 

It then transpired that, whilst I'd been disappointed with my broken Spain phone, and had thought it had no redeeming features at all, it had actually had some improvements on my beloved Nokia Classic. I had, however, like a mindless Pac-Man swallowing blue dots, absorbed those improvements and stopped paying attention to them. They have only become glaringly apparent now that I've had to go backwards. Plus, the shoddy eBay battery only lasts, like, two days, which is nowhere near long enough to make me smug. 

So... my dumb phone days are numbered. The signs all point in one direction. In May, when my contract ends, I will get a smart phone. What do you think, dear readers? Will I be able to resist the lure of 24/7 internet and continue speaking in person to you, my beloved friends? Or will I spend my whole time writing illiterate text messages and getting excited about apps and develop a permanent crick in my neck from forever angling my head at the fecking thing? Answers on a blog comment, please. 

My oldest friend

Here's a poem I wrote for my friend Millena on her birthday. It's a little hokey, but I like it anyway. FYI, Hockerill was the school we stayed in for a weekend of intense rehearsals on the school play of Billy, where we first made friends. We bonded over the fact that we could both play 'Oh will you wash my dirty socks' on the piano.

Also - I know I'm meant to be moving my blog. I kinda started. But it confused me so I stopped. I'm working on it.

My oldest friend 

My oldest friendship is a boat

that glides through golden seas. 

We sail together, sharing secrets,

perfect you and perfect me.

We drift past faded memories 

of when we first were kin.

Washing dirty socks at Hockerill,

striking a pose in your kitchen.

We've docked a port at Whirl-y-gig

sparkling and star-eyed, we would roam.

On a mission, we'd dance til midnight,

when my dad would take us home.

Every Thursday night, our rowing boat

would cruise right to New York.

But we will never be on a break - 

this ship is too strong for that talk. 

Our boat beat storms in Bulgaria,

by conquering waves of wine. 

We've daydreamed around Greek islands 

and we've lost all track of time. 

Today our crew has new members: 

Rosch and Polly, Rachel and Jen.

We traverse the seas together,

plaiting hair and swapping men.

Our friend ship will sail forever

never creaking, never leaking. 

Our boat could sail up waterfalls

and never let the tide in. 

When we are old and rickety

our ship still won't let us get wet. 

We'll take an oar each for eternity

and row into the sunset.

New year, new you

So it's 2013... a whole new year, a whole new start, time for a whole new page. As such, I can definitively state that I will never again eat anything unhealthy, miss a yoga class, drink booze, stay up too late, spend too much money or re-watch episodes of the Big Bang theory when I could be reading Jane Austen ever again. Ever.

Every day will start with a bowl (just one) of wheat-free muesli and a cup of hot lemon water. Ok, so I don't like hot drinks and never have (hot is the devil's temperature, as Kenneth Parcell once so memorably said) but I hear that hot lemon water makes your skin clear or smoothes out all cellulite or eliminates third world debt or some such, so it seems a small price to pay.  

Lunch will be home-made soup every day in the winter and home-made salad every day in summer. All packaged in recyclable tupperware. Never again shall I feel the heart-wring of guilt as I throw away, willy nilly, another fast food wrapper that once contained nothing but expensive calories. Expensive, delicious calories, to be sure, but nothing tastes better than the smugness of knowing you made your entire weeks' lunch on Sunday night for 32p... even by Thursday lunchtime when it's started to go a bit limp... right? 

I shall home-make every dinner entirely from brown rice and steamed vegetables, and yet every night will be a different adventure in cuisine that will delight and sate my friends in manners they didn't know yet existed. I shall throw away all takeaway menus and never darken the door of the chip shop again. Even if those chips are delicious golden rods of sunshine, each and every one of them, and even though I do want to, you know, like support local businesses and that. Would that make it ok to buy chips just once or twice in the year? No, definitely not. Probably. I'll get back to you. 

In order to augment this new, slimmer self, I shall also become leaner and more flexible and stronger. I shall get up at 7am every day and either do some yoga or sweat through a crazy Shred workout with that buffed up lady lover Jillian Michaels. Did I say 7am? No, surely 6am is better. Everyone knows that the earlier you do your exercise, the better it pays off. Real athletes (yes, correct, that's me) are sweating while the rest of the world is still dribbling into its collective pillows. I shall swim every other lunchtime and do 30 sit-ups before bed every night. I'll be so ripped by February that you'll be able to grate cheddar on my stomach. I'll be so toned that the rain forests will spontaneously start re-generating in honour of my biceps. 

I shall adopt a panda. Two pandas. A whole raft of pandas. I'll keep them in my garden, which will always be mown and weeded and pretty. I shall finally undertake that upgrade from vegetarian to vegan, and I'll spend weekends in my lab perfecting vegan cheese. I shall heat my house entirely with rolled up socks and teddy bears, and I shall use all my old Socialist Workers (which I'll definitely start reading again) to wrap the home-crafted presents I'll be giving you all for your birthdays. 

Every week I will make a budget of exactly what I can afford to spend, and I will spend £20 less than that and save the difference so that I am not living out of bins when I'm old. My tube journeys will be spent entirely focused on psychology papers; my evenings on Capital-C Clever novels and brand new music, not Absolute Radio 90s. Unless I've got a cold, in which case I might give myself special dispensation. But what with the new me living entirely off mineral water and organic fruit, I doubt I shall ever catch a cold again. 

Every DJ set I do will be the best one ever, and I will really learn properly what all the little lights on the mixer mean. I will never again have to ask a boy how to turn the volume in my headphones up. I will take at least one fantastic photo every day and fully master the concept of aperture. And yet at the same time both DJing and photography will remain effortless hobbies and I won't get hung up on being perfectionist. I can do all these things at once, right? 

I will write a hilarious and thought-provoking blog every single week; I will spend every bus journey I take writing profound poetry; I will walk instead of driving; I will drive faster and better and I'll never get lost again; I will only ever say things that are at once clever and thoughtful, and I will never act without thinking again. Although I will also be spontaneous and free-spirited and stop being so tied to a schedule. 

I will do all this and I will do it with style, verve, elan and elation, and with all of the things in between. And I'll start tomorrow, do you hear? Tomorrow! Everything will change!