I get the appeal

I totally get the appeal now... (of twitter)... at least I think I do. In the case of celebrities, such as Slavoj Zizek, or Russell Brand, who I am following, they are saying such trivial things, it feels really personal, and they said it so RECENTLY you have instant access to talk to them. This blog nearly turned out as brief as a Tweet. I will elaborate... at the moment I feel a bit blinkered by it, I can see what people have written, sometimes in response to someone else's tweet but it doesn't immediately show you the other half of the conversation, I also have no one following me, so it really does feel like eavesdropping... to half of a conversation. In conclusion, appealing but limited. esp. without a blackberry.

EDIT: (Zizek and Brand are terrible examples of triviality as Zizek actually sparks intellectual debate and Brand is always trivial :P )

I joined twitter

mainly because I want to follow Charlie Brooker. Tho I don't see the point (other than to stalk CB), it's just like facebook statuses isnt it?
It's in the media a lot for some reason...? Just because it's new? That gives plenty people an arbitrary reason to hate it... I'm not into that.

There's a lot of that around, hating things cos they are new, I guess people can't be bothered to actually choose what they like and hate based on any kind of real analysis so they just go with the impulse to hate/fear the different/new. You gotta hate something right? I think I wrote a blog similar to this on LiveJournal, about how people distribute their 'liking of things' as if it was a finite thing, actually ((I think I called it 'limiting sympathy' back then when I used big words cos it was before the long long uni holidays melted my brain.)) An example (I always talk about Helen lol) is Helen Meragi, who got myspace, and then a couple of years later myspace introduced photoalbums but Helen didn't want to get photo-albums because she Quote: 'felt like [she] would be betraying [her] old self'. Eventually she got them tho, after Hat convinced her! :P
Anyway, this is a small group of young people... most people that will hate Twitter are OLDDD and they just don't really know what it is and they think as people who are younger than them use it it must be shallow and immature, but also a threat because they are OLD so won't have the power to supress new media forever.

I think young people need a revolution, I personally have had enough of, every time I turn on the TV, hearing a middle-aged, middle-class person calling me stupid because I use a computer, because I write to my friends in e-mails instead of telegrams or face-to-face on a pic-nic blanket eating scones with lashings of strawberry jam and hand-whipped cream or whatever.
This rant is mainly brought on by Baroness Greenfield, a 'professor of neuroscience' who is given regular slots on TV shows, quoted in Newspapers and featured in radio programs with her ridiculous claims that Q: 'these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights'. She also believes that in a few years children won't recognise blood, yes, blood, because they've been desensitised by Youtube... I am not joking she said children will go: 'what's that red stuff pouring out of him?'. She believes that in the old days kids read books which taught them to empathise whereas facebook turns kids into unfeeling robots...yeah... doesn't make much sense to me either!

If the mainstream media only allows these conservative "scientists" in these kinds of forums then they are shooting themselves in the foot because anyone with a different opinion (such as any young person) will air their views on... the internet and this will reduce the relevence of these old media such as TV, Radio and Newspapers. It also perpetuates class divides, typical of the BBC to respect such hierarchies, and continues this attack on the working classes which has been prevalent in the media recently (see: Benefit Fraud adverts starring chavvy looking people.) ITV, of course is supposedly less uptight and middle-class but still perpetuates this hierarchy as its 'factual' programs stir up tabloid-like fear and hatred of young people and working class people and its fiction does nothing to question the status-quo , Coronation Street, for example, has very unambitious working-class characters with low self-esteem who marry the people who live nearest to them (before changing their mind and sleeping with someone 2 doors down), the young people are all scheming or stupid or lazy or shallow, its characters rarely read books or use computers, just sit in the pub all day (though its creators are very aware of this format). ITV's american imports are all aspirational, let's-admire-rich-people programs.
You'd think Channel 4 would be better but (like the BBC) that's full of cooking shows which encourage people to cook expensively, eat fatteningly, all in the name of high-brow dining which is supposedly the antithesis to fast-food and other things favoured by the working-classes. Or there's 'grand designs' where rich people get to build their ugly barbie dream houses because they deserve it cos they are so rich. Channel five is just a magazine channel with very cheap TV shows often about other TV shows on other channels but at least it has Neighbours. And don't get me started on the Digital Channels.

Anyway, anyone want to join my revolution?

Number One, I live in my momma house

I pulled a dead flattened mouse out of the bottom of my trainer the other day.
I thought maybe it was a sock or something I'd left in the end of the shoe but I when I pulled it out it was all stiff and spikey then I saw it was a flattened curled up mouse in my hand I screamed and ran to the bathroom to wash my hands a few hundred times. I can only blog about it now cos the memory of the HORROR has faded.

Anyway, lots of gigs coming up, I wish I had more charisma...
Yesterday me and Sam and a girl called Markella gave away cakes for art... students at uni could have free cakes if they did a piece of art on a postcard. It's for Sam's exhibition People Planet
Where anyone can submit artwork or perform, it opens on the 19th March.

Apparently... Harriet wants to move away to go to uni (cos she's a traitor and she hates me) and my mum wants to turn her room into a kitchen and wants me and Sam to live in the cabin instead of moving out and pay her rent n stuff... Sam wants to paint the living room off-white. I prefer pure white tho. and we'll need a wardrobe.

Learning is Hard

I'm so bad at singing and playing ukulele at the same time. I can play it so good when I'm not singin, then as soon as I start to sing- spaz hands!
Actually I can play and song some songs pretty good, it's just the ones with syncopated strumming that get me. As soon as I start to concentrate on the strumming, my words trail off and go quiet, I need to re-wire my brain.

I'm so hungry right now but I don't know what to eat.

Anyway, back on topic... I really like our new songs, I've been practising them and they are so cooool! aaah, I'm sounding really fake and positive (like those people who say everything they did 'today' was 'awesome') but I'm just really excited.

Another thought I just had is sometimes I wish I lived in New York. Okay I reaaallly don't like those people that idolise everything that is American just cos it's on TV and it appears to be glamourous... and I probably have a little of that in me but the music scene just seems really great, I love so many bands that live there and when me and Sam went there we went to this great gig in a squat with the bands Ghost Mice and Japanther. In a lot of ways it's very similar to London, I'm just sick of London, sick of all the fucking expensive preppy clothing shops and sick of the tourist shops, sick of the beer company/phone company sponsored/owned gig venues that hike the prices up and make you wait around for hours for the band to start, at which point you're about 5 metres away cos they have barriers and sick of the shit chinese buffets and the adverts for musicals and the free 'news'papers full of right wing propaganda and sick of pretentious cafes and wine bars and middle class families with their middle class little kids and sick of everyone trying to rip you off all the time including Transport for London.
But there are plenty of things that annoy me about New York too.

I think I'll have a sandwich.

Things that happened yesterday and today

Okay, my normal blogging style is one of openness and honesty. I assure you, reader, this has not changed. A thing you may notice, however, is that in this particular blog, my tone is a lot less... negative? self-critical? World-weary? This is not because I have let the lord Jesus Christ into my heart, oh no, not this time. This is because I have just had a very good 24 hours! Possibly, 24 hours I will remember forever!


Yesterday I went out, to Marylebone campus to a meeting about the third runway, in which I didn't alienate anyone (unlike SOMEONE I know) and had a lot of things to say (you forget how much you know about a topic). And Helen came so that was great!

Then me and Sam went to Brixton to see Bomb the Music Industry! at the Windmill which is a great venue with loads of stickers everywhere and posters, I even put a colour me wednesday sticker up above the bar.
Anyway, during one of the support acts I asked Jeff Rosenstock (of bomb the music industry fame, oh yes) if I could sing 'yesterday's lunch'(a Lemuria song) with him, Sheena's part. And he said yeah and then he went and started his set and the crowd went wild, well it seemed wild cos it's such a tiny venue but it was all positive and lovely.
And then he called me up on stage and everyone started chanting:
'Jennifer! Jennifer! Jennifer! Go Jennifer! GO JENNIFER! WOO JENNIFER! I love your hat.'
(this is sounding like some crazy hallucination where I'm queen of the world brought on by over exposure to dissertation, but no!)
So I got up on stage and sang the song, there weren't any monitors so I couldn't hear myself at all but Sam says I sounded good.
It was so great, when I think of it now it's like some kind of escapist fantasy... like when you've had a really happy dream and you just want to stay asleep. Then when the song was over everyone was like:

'Wooo! WE LOVE YOU JENNIFER! JENNIFER! JENNIFER! WOOO JENNIFER!'

and it was wonderful, I wasn't even nervous really cos everyone was so nice, even the guy that threw up on the stage! :P

anyway, today, I woke up and finished my dissertation WOOO!

And then me and Sam went to Tesco and bought a Gazette because Colour Me Wednesday is in it!! And the article actually isn't that bad, I mean they misquoted us a bit, and got us mixed up but that's inevitable. It's just a nice thing to have, it's kinda surreal and funny! Like it's not us, it's the media version of us... the mediation...
Anyway, it promotes our next gig and doesn't make us look like corporate bastards.

HATS HATS HATS

Here is a beautiful hat my nan made me. I said I wanted one with little flaps to keep my ears warm.

Sorry, it's sunday, so I havent brushed my hair.

BUTTON BUTTON BUTTON!

At Sophie's request, here are some

pictures of my hairclip-button creations, also some pics of the gig which we went to the day I made them which I think was Helen's b-day or near Helen's B-day, The gig was the Pipettes new lineup free gig at the Fly.

Also some pictures of my nan's curtains taken by Harrietta. Very nice!