Symphony No. 5

So this week in work we did our Secret Santa exchange. Being physicists and therefore incapable/unwilling to do things like everybody else does them, we decided to shake up the standard Secret Santa formula. This decision was made with the majority of the group believing we were on the cusp of a massive social-scientific breakthrough - could we disprove the hypothesis that festive cheer must be based on time-tested traditions? The standard, for those of you not familiar with office Christmas rituals, is swapping gifts worth a monetary value of ten pounds sterling. This, you may note, is enough to purchase two large glasses of bog standard pinot grigio (there is a bog out the back of most vineyards, or so my friend Jean-Pierre-Claude-Marco who has both Argentinian and Chilean ancestors reliably informs me). This knowledge really puts the burden of the whole custom into cold harsh perspective. Of course if it were acceptable to present a colleague with two large glasses of pinot grigio, there would not be any problems and minds could rest easy that money was being well spent. However, this practice generally escalates into an awkward exchange involving not only the wine, but AA pamphlets and home use blood alcohol kits. It is therefore rather more customary to exchange mugs or candles. Socks are also known to be a solid option. You just need to be careful that you are presenting to a person confident in their own personal hygiene standards. Otherwise a five pack of new socks can be interpreted as an underhanded 'message' and all hell might break loose. 

We escaped the booby trap filled awkwardness of the ceremony this year with our Secret Santa spin-off. Instead of token gifts, we were each to compile a CD of tracks from our personal music collection. A 'mix-tape', if you will. The idea was genius. Clean-cut and simple. It should have been the most hassle free Secret Santa of all time. Should have. Somewhere along the way something happened, and the innocuous CD turned into a PhD worthy mega-project. 

The cold evenings of early December passed away at an alarming rate. Most of my time was spent updating iTunes, which I gather should optimally be done every 7 minutes or so. One of the quirky little rules our group decided on was that all music selected had to come from a pre-existing music library. Anyone caught purchasing Now 89 as a quick and trendy fix would be hung, drawn and quartered, or the 2014 equivalent (not entirely sure but I think it's intermittent mobile data restriction).

I was a little intimidated initially I must admit; I knew my iTunes had not been updated since circa 2008. This lack of modern input was quite intentional believe it or not. Our family had had a run in with a neighbour, who shall remain nameless, towards the end of 2008. I had spent hours of my life ripping collectors edition ABBA albums from disk to the family PC. The work was methodical and glorious in its nature. Every CD that had ever passed our doors was correctly named and placed with associated artwork on our family iTunes library. When I say family library, the family connection I am referring to was Dad's auto-saved credit card details. The click of a mouse could get an eighteen year old Clare any remix of soulja boy ever made. It was a flawless set-up. Unfortunately our 'helpful' neighbour 'kindly' offered to 'clean up' our desktop. In the process he 'accidentally' wiped all of everything. Consequently, as I have yet to recover sufficiently from the loss of such beautiful work to start the collection from scratch again, the only music I have is whatever was on my iPod that faithful afternoon.

I wasn't sure I trusted the eighteen year old me. Would my CD be so out of touch that I would be forever shamed in work? Would I have to start wearing flared jeans again to emphasis that 'my music is not dated, this is just how I roll.'? Actually, refreshingly enough, I  was completely taken by surprise by how cool I was back then. Every evening this month I have sat down with a cup of tea to carefully select the winning tracks for my masterpiece, and every evening the tea has gone completely cold while I get lost reliving my teenage years. The editing process was so difficult. Cutting Justin Timberlake was one of the most ruthless moves I've ever made.

Having listened to over 100 hours of  mostly quality but occasionally questionable music and selected the top 12 tracks, I became obsessed with getting them to 'flow.' I decided to go ahead and learn sheet music to better order my tunes. If you use YouTube tutorials, can you still claim to be self-taught? All the greats are self-taught. Being able to identify complimenting key changes is now top of my skills list for all future CVs. I heard over the weekend that a musically accomplished friend of a friend can readily identify what key air conditioning units are vibrating at. That's the dream.

Anyway my point is that old music can suck you right back to where you were when you used to listen to it. This exercise has forced me to reminisce and I've been on an emotional roller-coaster the past month doing so. I recommend you all root out an album from 2005 and cruise back to the good old times. On a completely unrelated note, I am selling some decks; about £400 quids worth. PM me for collection details.

Welcome to my kitchen.

I've always had a thing for baking. There's something humblingly restorative about losing yourself in the details of a recipe for hours on a cold Saturday afternoon in the depths of winter. I don't want to paint too wholesome a picture, as by 8:00 Saturday night, with the bottle of sherry mysteriously evaporated and only a questionably dry trifle to show for the afternoons work, quite a different scene springs to mind. Even so, the nature of baking is precise and unassuming. And ERR MA GOD, I look so fricken cute with a dash of flour in my hair. 

But one cannot survive on baked consumables alone. So when I was mercilessly turfed off to college and had to start fending for myself...that's a complete lie. In college I survived on individually packed portions of leftover Shepard's Pie from Mam's freezer, supplemented with Ben and Jerrys. In fact my scrounging was such that Dad felt it necessary to draw up detailed redecorating plans to include a checkout by the front door. To be truthful, I didn't bother with the whole 'being an adult' nonsense until I started working this year.

Cooking and baking are two entirely different kettles of fish though. No pun intended, no self-respecting chef would put fish in a kettle. When I bake I'm a charming person to be around. I float about the kitchen humming Beethoven or the Spice Girls. As with any amateur baker with a definite ability to turn pro if so wished, I tend to match my musical accompaniment to the character of the recipe. It's all in the detail. I can instantly tell whether or not a fairy cake has been mistreated in it's past life. As an amateur baker with a definite ability to turn pro if so wished, I just know. And, as an amateur baker with a definite ability to turn pro if so wished, I am a pretty dab hand at savory bakes. So you'd imagine that that would translate readily into being fairly okay at cooking. Not so.

We will explore one particular attempt at cooking now by reviewing a transcript from my life, recorded one dark Sunday in November.

FADE IN:

INT. CLARE'S KITCHEN- LUNCH TIME

Pots and pans cover the counter tops. An apron clad (Cath Kidson, Christmas 2013) Clare stands in the center of the room, staring into the middle distance. The last four bars of Amhrán na bhFiann plays away in the background. On the final note, with the roar of the crowd in her ears, Clare squares up to the raw chicken sitting on top of the oven.                                                                                                                                             
                 CLARE
               (with steadfast resolve)
        Don't be looking at me like that, you divil you. I know the likes of you -sat there now thinking you're greash. Well you're not. 

Clare pokes the chicken with the end of a spatula. 

                 CLARE
               (continuing)
        Hard to imagine this birdy was flapping about some young lads yard not two days ago. I'd say she didn't see this coming at all, bless her.  Ah sure lookit. No point in getting all sentimental. She probably wasn't a very high achiever anyway. The elite ones are a yellowish colour after being corn fed or some such. This old bird looks no more elite than a pack of rich tea. A hard grafter, worked all her life putting food on the table for the childer, popping out eggs like there was no tomorrow. I'd say she loved a good gossip with the girls, sitting in on the eggs having the bants of a Tuesday morning. She kind of looks like a Norma maybe, or a Nancy. 

Clare puts on five pairs of surgical gloves, dubiously acquired from the hospital up the road. Nancy shifts ever so slightly on the chopping board, most probably just settling herself after being prodded with the spatula. But Clare eyes her suspiciously. She is never fully satisfied that lumps of meat are definitely dead until the smoke alarms in her hallway are going off. 

                CLARE
              (a steely determination creeping into her eyes)
       Well now Nancy, grand day isn't it? A touch dark out there now but it won't be long until there's a daycent stretch in the evenings again. I'll just turn you over there now, there's a good girl. 

Clare flips Nancy over by placing a roasting tin face down on top of her and catching her underside with the spatula. No touching necessary.

                NANCY
             (muffled)
        Ah here, will you be gentle. No bit of breeding in you at all.

               CLARE
             (turning a subtle shade paler)
        Sorry N-dogg, just got a bit over excited is all. 
       Now, you're probably not going to like this but I've been brushing up on my Darina Allen (not Rachel, shes only a blow in) and she recommends just throwing a lemon or two into your carcass. Sure you're probably feeling a bit out of sorts with the giblets all gone, are you? This should sort you right out. Hold on there now Nancy, I'll just roll the lemons on the counter, get the juices flowing, you know yourself sure. 

Clare reaches to move Nancy's leg out of the way with the spatula. Thank God for that spatula. She has half a lemon speared on the tip of her longest blade in the other hand. She swallows, bits down on her bottom lip and shoves the lemon forward to meet its demise. To her utter horror, the lemon refuses to give up without a fight and will not remove itself from the knife tip. In shock, she drops the handle of the knife, but when she sees it just hanging there where Nancy's head used to be she turns ashen and tears begin to leak from the corners of her eyes.

               CLARE
            (gagging)

        Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod

She drops the spatula,salmonella and all, in a fit of panic and takes a death grip of the knife handle with both hands. She lifts her right foot onto the counter and places it against the base of the roasting tin, kicking the whole contraption, Nancy and all, into the wall behind the oven. When the tin is firmly in place she jiggles the knife about a bit, but to no avail. The lemon has a hold of the knife tip like Rose should have been gripping Jack if she was any good at all.

            CLARE

           (almost shouting now)

      Nancy! Crikey, I didn't see this coming at all. Nancy, it's the knife, it's stuck. My my, this is some pickle. Except with no pickle... am I right?! Sorry. God Nancy, okay, I know what to do. Close you eyes there pet, this will be over in a second.

Clare raises the knife above her head and slams poor Nancy down into her tray. Nothing. She repeats the motion, this time with more power. Again, nothing. Clare is in full action mode now though, the theme tune from 'Bring it On' blaring in the background. She raises Nancy a third time and SLAM. There's a definite rhythm to it. Breath in, up, breath out, SLAM, breath in, up, breath out, SLAM... 

           CLARE

          (full on shouting)

        ALMOST GOT IT NANCY! LAST 10, DEFINITELY.

Slam, slam, slam, slam. Clare slides down the side of the counter to the ground with sweat rolling down her temples, triumphantly wielding the lemon free knife. Her moment of elation is rather short-lived though. Her face crumples as she sees that Nancy is looking a little worse for wear. (The realisation hasn't quite hit her yet but Nancy's second funeral will be closed casket, much to the dismay of all the girls from the hut.)

The kitchen looks like a crime scene. Clare is shaking at this point, adrenaline seeping from her bones at a rapid rate. She leans down on the home button of her iphone with her elbow.

           CLARE

          (subdued)

       Siri, call David Caruso. I'd say he'll be interested to see this. And Dominos. Ask for the usual.

END SCENE

Being sassy: Why you end up looking a bit of a twit.

I've been actively exercising my sassy streak for the past two weeks or so now. Let me just cut straight to the chase here, in true sassy style, and tell you that it hasn't gone very well for me. At all.

This whole rigmarole stemmed from my recent altercation with public speaking (see here for the full horror). In the days following the whole palava, a period I like to refer to as The Aftermath, I decided that my personality was simply too genteel to handle the passive aggressive stares of forty plus students. I went through a watered down version of the five stages of grief, albeit experiencing denial and anger rather more forcefully than acceptance. In fact I still haven't quite reached acceptance - rendering a student blind due to exuberant use of a laser pointer takes more than two weeks to come to terms with let me tell you. During this time of reflection though I did manage to devise a plan for future success. I decided that in order to conquer my demons I would need a serious attitude reform. Snap snap.

I decided that I was no longer going to sit back and allow life to just happen, meekly accepting whatever it threw my way. No, I was going to readjust my mindset, up my confidence levels, be more badass. I was going to go and grab life by the proverbials. (See last week I would have used a rather more descriptive expression here, but as I have reverted to my normal mode of operation I can't seem to type it without my cheeks turning an arresting shade of crimson.) I was going to weave the new 'tude into every aspect of my life. Full hardcore dedication.

I resolved that before embarking on my journey as Diva Devery I should spend one last evening researching in preparation. Ironically enough, sitting at my laptop with a cup of warm milk reading a WikiHow tutorial entitled 'Channeling your inner sass' is probably the least Beyoncé thing I've ever done. I came to the brazen conclusion that I would be better off just free-styling my way.

My first move was to go to bed without laying out my outfit for work the next morning. I had notions of rising at dawn to do some yoga type maneuvers. I would never claim to be doing actual yoga; just a yoga-esque routine. I only attempted actual yoga once. I had been informed about an hour before attending a class with a friend that normally yoga is performed without shoes or socks. In a fit of manic preparation I decided that my toes were probably too hairy to remove socks in public without some sort of license and so, in a vain spur of the moment effort, took a razor to them. I won't bother with the details, suffice it to say that I was politely asked to leave the class. Apparently bleeding profusely on a fancy rented mat isn't considered au fait in the yoga world. But, I digress.

I assumed that, feeling refreshed and faintly superior to the general public who don't rise at dawn to salute the sun, I would be in an optimum head-space to choose an outfit with both assurance and authority. Confident as Kanye. I envisioned myself picking killer pointed toe stilettos and some power suit type ensemble. I would colour in my eyebrows with a thick black permanent marker, as is apparently fashion forward? Obviously I would also lash on the red lipstick. Nothing screams sassy like sitting by an MRI scanner dressed like an extra on 'Sex and the City'. As I was fully committed I decided to take up smoking to complete the look. Unfortunately I slept through my alarm, hit the snooze button eleven times and got toothpaste in my hair. I wore black trousers, sensible shoes and a cardigan. And I was late for work because the cardigan was not laid out in its usual spot so I panicked and pulled every item of clothing I own out onto the floor.

Thoroughly disheartened by the second rate start to my new life, I decided to maybe try inject some oomph in the form of coffee. Making coffee in the staff room was, according to my expert opinion, a bit basic for a true diva so I spent some NHS time googling the local Starbucks. Armed with the number and my 'I own this' attitude, I rang up and got chatting to some grump who could have done with a double shot or two himself.  "We don't do delivery" he said. I considered asking if he knew who I was, but thought the better of it. I hadn't put in enough groundwork to pull that one. I did however explain that the coffee was a vital component of the new me and that it was imperative that it landed on my desk within the half hour. I added that I didn't care how exactly he carried this out. He responded with "I'm sorry, but we don't deliver. Try Dominos." I told him that he was rather unhelpful (as the WikiHow tutorial decreed that a filter is just for Instagram and one should speak one's mind at all times). He hung up.

Well obviously after this unadulterated ego bash, I was feeling wholly embarrassed. In a last ditch attempt to regain control of the situation I decided to try out my brand new sass walk. It's truly amazing how a little hip swinging can pump you right back up. As per usual I took it too far though, and now have some muscular strain injury niggling the left hip flexor. My online diagnosis indicates a grade 2 tear, which should be readily treatable with rest and proper care. However in 0.02% of cases there is evidence of it maturing into chronic necrosis with the necessary treatment being amputation. I translated this particular piece of convincing research from a Japanese medical journal published in 1992, so if any of you are considering pre-emptive amputation I would just maybe double check the translation. It seemed legit enough though. I've ordered a bottle of Holy Water from the Lourdes gift shop, just to be on the safe side.

By Friday, failing miserably at every turn, I decided to scale back my mission and simply download a Queen Latifa album instead.

I understand that this particular social experiment cannot be relied upon as a typical representation of a transformation from classy (just roll with it) to sassy. I spent the weekend gone by analysing my behavior patterns and have come to the conclusion that perhaps I am genetically predisposed to feeling permanently apologetic. Contact the Vatican for further details. Anyway, I can confirm that I am well and truly back in my box.