Michele Roberts

This is the book I am reading at the moment. I'm down to the last 20 or so pages actually, and trying to eke it out. Roberts has probably handbagged Margaret Atwood down to second place in my favourite authors ever list. I just love the way she writes, particularly her descriptive passages: "The trees are turning bronze and rusty at their tips and the sun hangs low and heavy like a yellow plum". Very apposite for the time of year, as autumn clings on with its fingertips before the big, scary, middle-of-the-night blackness clamps down around 5 o'clock.

I am, admittedly, an ardent Virago-type reader (although have been trying to educate myself in manly, recent writing with some Philip Roth). But there is something so earnest and truthful about the way Roberts writes, that the strident '80s feminism doesn't feel too anachronistic, although it does bring you up short to realise that the struggles she saw were going on even 20 years ago.

On that note I am going to some sort of anarchic cross-stitch event this evening. Someone at work rather sweetly said 'Even nice girls are radical sometimes', which I think would be an excellent T-shirt slogan. And there are going to be cup cakes (thought: who has decided cup cakes are cool and trendy, is it some kind of ironic 50s revivalism? What next - macaroons?)

I went to see the Francis Bacon exhibition at Tate Britain yesterday. It was quite strange afterwards strolling around the Pre-Raphaelites and their crowd-pleasing, glamorous paintings - after seeing Bacon's images of pain and torment and despair, human bodies reduced to ripped meat. It came to mind: where can art go, after this? It made me think of Adorno professing that there could be no poetry after Auschwitz. It was also a savage depiction of masculinity, particularly the screaming men in suits. And all the bestial twisted teeth and jaws, the rawness of human emotion - a contrast to the day-trippers with their handbags and headphones, wandering around. I thought, what would reduce you, with your iPod and trendy jeans, to a figure from one of these paintings?

Literally one whole person requested to read my Rockabilly Rave feature (thanks Mike!) so if you want to actually have a copy in your hand, and see me in all my pink-haired glory, head to Borders . . . and y'know it would be nice not to just read it on the stand as I -er- never do, of course, as the Nude people produce the magazine without making any profit, and it is such a beautifully produced work of (he)art.

And another thing, what is with all the anti-Madonna rage? Alongside all the gleeful schadenfreude about the Ritchies' divorce, and I doubt she needs my feeble support, the press was vitriolically anti-Madonna. Guy Richie received some flack about his Mockney-twattishness, but most of the commentary was on how her success was too much for him to deal with, with some wags wondering which was "the husband". How is it in this day and age that a woman still can't be more successful than her partner without being called a "ball-breaker" etc etc rant . . .

Exciting

Exciting news. My Rockabilly Rave feature has finally come out, although I haven't laid eyes on a copy of Nude yet. Plus my favourite magazine in the world has at last got back to me about a feature idea, but I daren't mention it in case of jinxing possibilities. I also have an interview here - check out that massive coverline!

And at last I have moved into my new place. It's not perfect-the floor in my room slopes uncannily and the landlords didn't exactly clean it before we moved in-but at last I have somewhere to put my books on a shelf and 'stuff' somewhere that isn't boxes. I also have a desk, which may not sound that monumental, but after several years of balancing laptops on knees, possibly frying any future Allens, or using my sewing machine in the living room, and annoying anyone watching TV, it feels very satisfying.

Kinky boots

So I have some new boots. The lady at the vintage fair swore they were Edwardian, and although they are in suspiciously good nick I am determined to believe her. They remind me of my days of (re)reading Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, and I quite fancy wearing stays and a picture hat with them. I can pretend I live in more innocent times when putting your skirts 'down' and your hair 'up' were the signifiers of moving from childhood to womanhood (and hence, presumably) on the marriage market, and when all Anne wanted was a pair of leg o'mutton sleeves (you can imagine the confusion that cast in my nine-year-old mind). I also bought a royal blue frock, although I am a little concerned that it looks a bit - medical.

Enough about my shopping, these were spontaneous and very naughty purchases in the week I am supposed to be paying extortionate amounts of rent and deposit (denial is a wonderful thing). It was supposed to cheer me up in a weekend of being constantly damp and blown about. Perhaps I am shallow, but it does a bit.

Lovely Dawn

Things are happening on the home front. Met up with potential new housemate last night and he seemed very sweet in a wholesome way. Let's hope he doesn't have some kind of secret crack habit.

I also watched Dawn Porter: Free Love on Channel 4. I think I have a bit of a crush on her (especially after the episode where she careened around London in an open-top bus, naked, to promote real women's figures in the media, as opposed to lollipop strumpets (more parentheses, what a great name for a band)). She's just so pretty, and normal, and yet completely full of neuroses. And look at her lovely pink bike and earmuffs in the photo, sigh.

It was a bit of a shame that despite her earnest exploration of the alternate ways of loving in various free love camps and homes, the people she met were all long-haired, of some kind of Teutonic descent, and a bit Eighties. There were a lot of intarsia rainbow jumpers.

Speaking of intarsia, am going to track down the SnB group tonight, and hopefully not sit next to the rather alarming lady, who to my tremulous 'Is this Stitch n Bitch?' replied: 'Yes. Can you knit?' 'Yes' 'Good. That helps.'