Sit down next to me

I'm taking the advice of James and I'm sitting down. Well of course I am now, I mean when I go to gigs.

I've being going to gigs ever since I made my dad take me to see these guys for my 12th birthday. That's 16 years of gig going people, and I'd say for about 75% of those 16 years, I haven't been able to see the band. I stupidly and stubbornly insist on standing, 'cus it's "cooler", it's "closer to the band", but do you know what? No more!

After going to "see" The Cat Empire last week it took me three days to fully recover from standing on my tip-toes for the best part of two hours. So, no more will I be paying a fortune to see I band (and sword swallower!) that I don't actually get to see, no more will I be standing behind a 6ft 5 man, no more will I be standing behind snogging couple, and no more will I be getting smacked in the face by people's elbows. So I'm taking it up them stairs to the balcony people, I'm going along with the whole sitting downness at gigs thing. When this first occurred to me I thought it made me sensible, but then I had a panic and thought it might just make me old. And so far four whole people who are older than me have agreed that it is the way forward. Maybe I'll give standing just one more chance...

You have five days to memorise all of this...

We are still sans broadband at home, no, wait- I just can't bring myself to talk about it right now, it's too painful.

So thank goodness for Saturday jobs where they have computers and the internet and everything. I got to check my email for the first time in a week, which meant I read the email telling me that:

"Oh, by the way, I'm not sure if we mentioned it before, we didn't? Oops, how super careless of us, but you know your new job? Mm-hmm. Well, your first week is the last week that the librarian will be working before she goes on maternity leave. What's that? Sorry we can't hear you. Byeeeeeee."

Or something very similar.

And do you know what I say to that? Oh crap.

I'm outta here!

Today is my last day in this job. It's also my last broadband day for a while, but I'm not thinking about that, it's too sad. I have brought in chocolatey goodies and also some 'exotic' fruit, 'cus it's so damn H.O.T. here at the moment. So this afternoon, we can sit around downstairs where the air-con doesn't quite reach, eat the fruit and pretend that we are somewhere way more exciting. Like Fiji, or Hawaii, or, well, it's not too hard to get more exotic than South London.

I am really looking forward to my new job, but I'm now also getting a bit nervous. I'm worried that I'll seem like a fraud as I try to desperately remember all my teaching skills and NHS acronyms. And they'll realise that I'm all nice shoes and no brains. Eek!

My leaving 'do' last night was nice, well, apart from the bit where I discovered the meat in my vegetarian moussaka. Double eek. And a yuck. But the rum, red wine, company and conversation was great. Especially the bit when someone younger than me said "This music is a bit modern isn't it" (they were playing Nirvana Unplugged in New York, man, I'd forgotten how much I love that album "cover your hair and your eyes" is such a good piece of advice, thanks Kurt). Anyway, to the "This music is a bit modern isn't it?" I replied, "he's been dead 10 years" to which the younger someone said "Guns'n'Roses man is dead?". Oh dear. I explained to him the difference between Nirvana and G'n'R and then maybe suggested he'd like to enroll in Indie Boot Camp. He didn't do himself any favours by later saying "Grunge. That's the name for the clothes that indie people wear isn't it?". Oh dear, he has so much to learn.

Indie Boot Camp

Oh, the wonderful ideas you have when you're giddy on Moscow Mules and bbq smoke: Indie Boot Camp (IBC). Simple really, we will help people on their transistion to indie. We have no prejudice and will take ravers, metal heads, goths, or grebos. Simply send them to IBC and watch them pop out the other side all squeaky clean and clad in indie wear with a nice indie haircut (with compulsory floppy fringes for boys) to boot. It will save them all that painful wearing brand new Nirvana t-shirts and experimenting with home tie-dye that currently accompanies the indie-ing out of the closet process.

I will generously take all the credit for coming up with the name, but I have to take my indie hat off to my friend Clare who came up with this inspired timetable.

Indie Boot Camp - you'll leave us being the biggest fan of a group no-one else has ever heard of - or your money back!

The intensive one day course should be about £200 I think. But really we'll need a whole week which should be £1,000.

I see the week long programme looking like this:

Monday am - Introductions and enforced indie haircuts
Monday pm - The history of indie music (from The Smiths to Hard-Fi)

Tuesday am - Anyone Can Play Guitar (an introduction to strumming the guitar - only minor chords taught)
Tuesday pm - True Pop Facts, including extended sessions on the gossip pages of NME and Q

Wednesday am - In praise of the work of John Peel
Wednesday pm - Dance and deportment (or the subtle art of pogoing/dancing in fabulous heels)

Thursday am - Festival etiquette and preparation
Thursday pm - a choice of - Women in Indie or Kula Shaker (a warning from history)

Friday am - Unfashionable fashion Choices I
Friday pm - Unfashionable fashion Choices II

Saturday am - Art School Rock focusing on the work of Bernard Butler and Damon Albarn)
Saturday pm - Who we hate and why (Clare rants about Coldplay ALL afternoon)

Sunday am - Unusually cool Americans (The Killers are OK)
Sunday pm - Hunting for obscure gig tickets

and home.

Any takers?

People power

Well, there I was checking out the XFM website when I found this, their voting list for The Greatest Indie Band Of All Time, and to my horror I discovered that James Dean Bradfield had been missed off the singers list! So I sent this email:

Dear XFM list makers,

Imagine my horror at checking out your (so called) 'The Greatest Indie Band Of All Time!' only to discover that James Dean Bradfield was not in your greatest singers list! How can you justify having Pete 'barely conscious' Doherty on there and Chris 'whinger' Martin and miss out James 'yes, I did eat all the pies but listen to my beautiful voice' Dean Bradfield off? And the bassist from The Magic Numbers? And please don't get me started on Meg White in the best drummer category. If you look closely at her you can see her sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrates really hard on beating that Fisher Price 'My first drum kit'.

I fear that you have gotten over excited at the prospect of an Indie Supergroup and have made that list in haste, and I urge you to reconsider.

Yours, in a right old state,

Lady Librarian

and got this back in reply (straight away!)

The last thing we want is to get our listeners in a state. 'Right old' or otherwise. Consider him added. Just don't try to persaude us to include Shaun in the drummer catagory. ;-)

Xfm

and now he's on there! Yey! People power!

The Steve Guttenberg Project

Now, even before she thought of this I wanted to be as cool as Alice is when I grow up. And this, well, this is just Pure Genius. If there is one thing that the world needs, it's a living archive of the Gutts work.

Genius.

Celebrity skin

London is slowly getting back to normal (or at least as normal as it can be right now) and so to do my bit I went to a party way over the other side of town on Saturday night. I was a little nervous on the way there, and more than a little drunk on the way back, but I made it in one piece and I'm so glad I did, it was great to see my friends.

For my friends wedding in April I made a mix cd. Now, 'made' doesn't really do it, or me, proper justice. I slaved over this mix for weeks, deciding on the tracks to put on there, waiting for my 'inner ear' to tell me what song would perfectly complement the one that went before, finding a decent bit of (free) software so that I could mix the songs together. At the wedding my cd didn't get played, but I didn't mind one bit, another (cooler) friend had made a motown cd which totally rocked and meant that I got to dance like my mum and dad did when they were young. Cool.

So, back to Saturday night, and there we were in the garden when Duran Duran 'The Reflex' came on, and I was all excited because a) it's Duran Duran and why wouldn't you be excited? and b) that's the first track on the cd I did which meant I had a legitimate reason to talk about it! Then as Simon Le Bon fades out, guess what fades in (in the perfect place)? It was only 'Mr Brightside' by The Killers - it was my cd! How exciting! But that wasn't the best bit - people loved it. Everyone wanted to know where the cd had come from, which of course led them to me! Double how exciting! For about an hour I squeaked "it's me" whilst pointing at myself with both hands for extra emphasis.

Then all of a sudden it was time to leave! I'd told Mr L. that I'd be in about 9ish, sober me didn't fancy being out too late on my own in London, but drunk/celebrity me totally forgot about the time and all of a sudden it was 10.30! I left in a hurry, like Cinderella. Well, like Cinderella if she had got both her shoes on and stopped to dance to Dexy's Midnight Runners 'Gino' in the kitchen on her way out.

Then drunk on attention and more than a little Moscow Mule I made my way home, smiling to myself and feeling all was right with my world. Until I got to London Bridge station and got confused by a vending machine. Seriously, it's at a station, you'd think they would make them drunk proof.

London

Do you what I thought when I looked at the clothes in my wardrobe this morning "What will I be able to run in?". A far cry from yesterday morning when all my pretty little head had to worry about was "What will make me look thin?".

I still can't quite believe what has happened. I know that I am incredibly fortunate that all my friends are safe. My heart goes out to all those that are injured or have lost a loved one. I have never been so pleased to see Mr Librarian in my life as I was last night.

I can't even begin to understand the terror those people must have felt. I don't like getting the tube at the best of times, it always makes me feel vunerable. No, I am an overground, catch the bus kinda girl, but it appears even there we're not safe anymore.

I don't want to rain on their parade

or say "I told you so" but I will anyway.

The day the games are given to London, greedy vendors take their houses off the market, even those that have already agreed sales, so that they can put them back on with a £15,000-£20,000 mark up. Then today this is forecast.

Good job I already have that 2p in my mortgage fund, or I'd never be able to afford to buy a house.

(And yes, you should be reading this in a sarcastic manner)

Why I love Bookish Barbara

On Saturday both Booky B and I were working, which is bad for her as she doesn't usually have to, but great for me as it meant I had someone to email during those quiet issue desk moments.

Lady Librarian: Hiya, only just got to work, has been a horrible morning, had to fight the bleedin' tourists to get to work! How are you doing?
Booky B: I only got the tube from Liverpool St to Holborn and it was rammed with toothy girls in hobo gear going to Live 8. Damn them!
Lady Librarian: Hobo? Do you mean boho?

:)

See below

Crap.

Are you there God? It's me, Lady Librarian

Dear God,

Hi. Yes, I know I only get in touch when I want something, but this time it's really important, and also not just for me. Not like the time when I prayed that the fabulous Antoni & Allison coat would get reduced in the January sales (thanks for that by the way). Also it's not like the time when I was 10 and it was raining so hard and I asked you to send my mum to pick me up from school in the car (and thanks for that too, I'd be even shorter than I already am if I had subjected my growing body to that amount of rain).

This time, I am asking, praying, begging you to intervene in this whole 'Olympics' hoo-haa. Please, give it to Paris, Madrid, the moon, anywhere, just not London. Seriously. I do not want to be paying extra tax for this for the next seven years. I do not want every news bulletin for the next seven years to be talking about the 'o' word. I do not want Hackney Marshes to be built on. I do not want another repeat of the dome. Do you hear me? And most importantly I do not want to be fighting my way through even more clueless tourists everytime I want to go anywhere (come on people, I brought a map when I visited you, could you please return the favour?)

Come on god, don't let us down at 12.46pm BST,

Yours in hope,

Lady Librarian

P.S. If you can't do something about the Olympics, could you at least do something about how frumpy I look today? What's going on there? I was aiming for sassy Librarian chic and somehow ended up with aging, plump maiden aunt trying to look fashionable. Help!

Would somebody just shoot me?

I'm at work. It is so quiet that I began to wonder if I was the only human left alive. But then a man walked past the window, so apparently not. To make the dragging time seem less like every second is lasting a decade, I am reading 'Information & IT Literacy: Enabling Learning in the 21st Century'.

So, like I said, somebody just shoot me.