Note to self

Today I came across an artist whose chosen muse is women's lists. Clearly they are the latest artform - I'm inclined to agree as I love lists, really I do. My first memory of them was less positive - a dear friend boasting of her list of over 100 'boyfriends', including BA from the A-team. We were 8 at the time and I recall we disagreed profoundly over her definition of boyfriend... some things never change... However I just can't get enough of them these days (lists, not boys). I have lists for everything. Music to buy (currently pending: Kubicheck!, Maximo Park, the latest Air album - always useful - a slightly random selection I know but I've been doing quite well at keeping up recently). Things to see - films, theatre, exhibitions. I've really failed this month - still to do (and I'm going on holiday in two days) include the Gilbert and George exhibition, Climates, the fashion exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, After the Wedding, Hogarth - argh I am so annoyed that I haven't managed any of these.

More mundanely I have lists for stuff I need to get for my house like a decent lampshade, curtains that are actually the right length, more coathangers. Boring things I need to do like filing (why does that one never get crossed off??), cleaning my windows, paying in cheques, going through my post - the pile has almost reached the unacceptable 3 month stage. Somehow I think that if it's really urgent, they'll call...

What I like best about my latest system is that instead of all these lists being on poxy scraps of paper I just use one moleskine notebook (conforming to my demographic, moi?) and now it's like a little patchwork of my life for the last 18 months - all there in one glorious jumble of things to do - things that I've done with a satisfied tick through them, although there are also a rather distressing number of things that have yet to be crossed off. Lists of music I ripped out of a magazine whilst in Copenhagen are right next to emails I need to send; a list of pros for a particular boy is next to a shopping list for new years eve. Who needs all this prose when a list will do? Forget blogging, it's all about the lists.

3 hours later and...

I've got a ticket for Glastonbury! Although my ear is still ringing from hearing the engaged tone solidly from 9 to 11.30 this morning, it was thanks to others efforts that I am now (and I cringe to confess this) going to a festival for the first time in my life.

(well, unless Port Eliot litfest counts, which I'm not sure it does - fantastic and wonderful as it was, it involved better showers than I have in my flat, and at least half the people there had kids of the cute middle-class kind.)

I've just never quite got round to it before, not really sure why. I do remember having a row with my mum when I was 15 and miserable about not being allowed to go to Reading 'in case I got crushed' (??). And I guess I spent quite a lot of my twenties (a) with people who thought camping/music stuff was notso hotso and (b) making paltry excuses based on having too much work. Whatever! This year is different. Give me mud and booze and music, I'm ready (just don't ask me to share my tent)...

Why do I wake up to this crap?

I hate the Today programme. Really I do. So why oh why oh why have I listened to it every day (including most Saturdays) for the last 8 years??? This really is something of a mystery to me. There are only two (semi) rational explanations: (1) it makes me so cross that it wakes me up enough to drag me out of bed and (2) there are NO OTHER OPTIONS. As I felt the urge to type in capitals I realise the second explanation is more likely.

The most recent source of anger for the programme's shitness is a report on yesterday's programme on the high pregnancy and abortion rate amongst Polish immigrants. I couldn't believe the utter failure to recognise the parallels between this story ('Polish women sleep with our men! Then they use our health services! shock! horror! the wrong people are breeding!') and the fears about working class fertility that kicked Marie Stopes into advocating birth control - oh yes and eugenics - nearly a century ago. It was like Today was tapping into this powerful fear of women's reproductive power, a fear of uneven birth rates and immigration. I guess it's a pretty potent combination but really, is there NO ONE with any interest in what might lie behind these figures who works for the programme?

Leaving aside the fact that apparently most of its listeners are reactionary bigots themselves (for god's sake, the 'Radio 4 law' was to legalise gun ownership for the protection of our properties!), for me this Polish Women Get Pregnant story simply reinforced, yet AGAIN, the utter prejudice and crassness of the programme and the narrow-mindedness of the presenters. Unable to see nuance, unable to recognise complexity or indeed demonstrate any grasp of real life as the rest of us experience it. The utter opposite of good current affairs journalism in my view, which ought to be about making complicated issues understandable, rather than simplistic. Don't patronise me John Humphrys, you wanker. Learn a lesson from that amazing Newsnight when Martha Kearny followed Jack Straw for a week. Now that's proof that journalism can make people want to vote, rather than turning them off from it (and while I'm on this, what the hell was the BBC doing when they appointed spekky thinktank boy Nick Robinson over marvellous Martha as their political editor?)

Anyway. Back to the rant about the Today programme. Don't even get me started on the fucking schmaltzy-as-hell pieces about birds and wildlife. They make me want to puke, almost as much as the 'take me back to 1950' thought for the day from religious nut-nuts. Give me a break. Why hasn't anyone realised there isn't just a gap in the market for a decent current affairs morning programme, there's a bloody gaping void?

I want to be alone

Sometimes, nothing is as good as enjoying London on your own. Just been speaking to a friend who went up to columbia road market this morning to buy some flowers, then wandered around the vintage shops on brick lane before pottering back to her flat. sounds great to me. And it reminds me of all the things that frankly I wouldn't want anyone else doing with me because they're my time, all mine.

Things like the trocadero cinema early viewings on saturdays - there's always the major challenge of sneaking your pret coffee past the attendants who have been told to only allow the disgusting, overpriced cinema coffee past - but once in, the joy of a cinema almost all to yourself - for a fiver! Even better are the days when I come out of one film and go straight back into another. I've never really understood why people go to the cinema together when it's so fun to go alone.

A selection of other things that are best done alone...

(1) waterstones on piccadilly at around 4pm on a weekday - browsing systematically but especially the ground floor, first and fourth, before landing in the bar at the top for a cold glass of white wine to be savoured slowly.

(2) early morning runs along the thames, especially when the air is so cold it knocks the breath out of you when you start, and when there's a slight mist over the houses of parliament and a sense of London coming to life and gearing up for another busy day.

(3) galleries - I always worry that my approach to art makes me something of a charlatan compared to my cultured friends - I like to go round the entire exhibition quickly and then come back to anything I like - or exit stage left, pronto, if I don't - either way, this approach is easier done alone. no need for meaningful chat in front of a painting that does nothing for you.

(4) coffee anywhere along carnaby st - I've got happy memories of sipping coffee at Leon with a former boy but still enjoy watching the world go by tout seule - Carnaby St such a weird mix of fashion tourists, teenagers and other assorted randoms that it's a great place to be.

(5) topshop. the requirement for beady eyes and sharp elbows make this shopping experience one best kept to yourself - who wants to talk when there's so much else to do??

(6) busaba eatai chicken noodle soup whilst sitting at one of their window seats. genius. messy.

(7) north london line train from Richmond to Highbury and Islington - taking in Kew, Brondesbury and lots of the other back gardens of London. very appealing to nosy people who have their best ideas whilst glimpsing fragments of other people's lives. a worthy use of time in its own right for those days when I just like feeling part of London

(8) green park and a book in spring. loadsa daffs. loadsa football games. good for the 'hello trees, hello flowers' moments.

(9) waking up, getting tea and my copy of Time Out before climbing back into bed again. pure bliss (esp on a day where I should be working).