still on my feet.

This cover of Joni Mitchell's A case of you is astonishingly lovely and according to iTunes, I've listened to it fifty eight times. Sounds about right. Up until now, though, I'd never seen the video, featuring Rebecca Hall whom I have loved ever since the first time I saw Starter for Ten. She almost ruined it with Vicky Christina Barcelona which is bad. Really really bad. But this is great, so she's back in my good books. And James Blake never left them.



Due to unforeseen circumstances, I have deleted my Facebook account. I think I'll stick with it for the time being because already today, I have read an awful lot, and this has to be better for the little grey cells. No doubt I will return soon enough, but for now I feel fairly liberated.

Today, I was walking to the supermarket (I use the term lightly. Think Netto mixed with an Esso Garage and you'll get the right idea) down the street from me. I was not immodestly dressed, I wore a long sleeved t-shirt, a knee length skirt and a leather jacket. A middle aged woman stared at my bare legs in disbelief, and without even trying to disguise her abhorrence, tutted at me and mumbled "disgraceful". I would have been surprised were it not for the fact that I seem to be living in a country where they cannot tell hot from cold. Today was beautifully sunny and hit 21°C at midday which is when I ventured out. This is the equivalent of British summertime, and dammit I'll get my legs out if I bloody want to. 

our good fortune allowed us to feel a sadness our parents didn't have time for.

In general, I'm not really a film person. As I get older, my attention span seems to be getting shorter and my ability to will myself to do... well anything is lessening day by day. And I know that watching a film isn't exactly hard work, you just sit there and it unfolds before you, but anything over ninety minutes and I get bored. And then I start doing something else. And the film never gets finished, and it hangs over me like a credit card bill. I find film-watching an overall depressing pastime. I watched Beginners the other day, and all it did was make me sad. I watched The Rebound today, and all it did was make me sad, but in a very different way.

But yes, I really do need a pastime. I've started running again in a bid to spend all summer on the beach, but that is more a grueling necessity than something I find enjoyable. Perhaps I should devote myself entirely to learning the Italian language - I do really love learning grammar - but it's just so hard, and I find it difficult when the man from whom I buy coffee sniggers at my pronunciation, let alone when people I actually like are listening to me butcher their language.

I've started reading a lot more, and strive to do this outdoors now that it's getting warmer and I'm beginning to discover all the open spaces Rome has to offer that seemed to hibernate over the winter. Currently, I'm trawling through the Stieg Larsson books. I say trawling, I am absolutely loving them, and I just can't stop turning the pages (pressing the "next page" button on my Kindle). I am yet to see either version of the film, but I'd like to finish the trilogy first so I can make up my own mind about how everyone looks and sounds. It's a nerd thing.

I suppose cooking could be my pastime, but I don't really have any money, so buying fancy ingredients is a bit of a struggle, and I invariably end up making pasta. It's one of the side effects of living in Italy.

Drinking, shopping and museum-going also all fall into the not enough money category. Basically I need ideas for things to do that are free and require little or no effort. Let me know!

I've included this video, not because I like the song but because I think she has a funny singing manner and feel you should appreciate this. She has a similar demeanour to a nodding dog.

put ya cape on, you a super hoe...

Happy International Women's Day!

One of the greatest annoyances in my life is that often when the topic of feminism comes up, people say to me "Feminism is all very well and good, but I hate it when "they" think they are superior to men". And I tend to nod along. Sometimes I venture that this isn't really the idea of feminism, but I tend to wilt under the glower that greets me. I am a feminist, but I am also hideously shy, and sometimes I don't stick up for my gender as I perhaps should.

For my eighth birthday, my mum took me to see S Club 7. They were possibly the worst "band" who ever existed, but I loved them as loyally as I now love Radiohead or The Cure. And they were so innocent. They sang about love and summer and lovely things, and they weren't remotely sexual. I was brought up on The Spice Girls who were much more sexcentric (Two Become One) but advocated girl power and taught girls to think for themselves (in their own little way).

About three years ago, I helped at Brownies for a bit. I only did this to get my Duke of Edinburgh award, and there was nothing altruistic in it at all. However, I did it. I was a Guide. It made sense. I don't really like children, but some of them were not that bad. I still remember my heart breaking however, when at the "Christmas Concert" (glorified karaoke session), a group of the girls decided to do a dance to "Don't Cha" by the Pussycat Dolls. It was horrific. They were about nine years old.

This was a few years ago. Things have changed a bit, possibly for the better, but now there are The Saturdays who whinge on all the time about unrequited love. Everyone wears so much make up. There are Bratz instead of Sylvanian Families, and Nicky Minaj says the word "hoe" an awful lot.

I really don't want to be too quick to condemn this new generation as doomed, and I'm sure that people thought the same about us when Blue (Dabadee) came out in 1998. I was seven. But the thing is, shitty Europop is inoffensive, and Nicole Sherzinger is anything but.

Happy Women's day everyone.