Just in case you were wondering why you haven’t had the best service around here of late, let me give you a little round-up, so you get an idea of why:
- I really like living by the sea. But the first few weeks were hard, harder than I expected, to be honest. For someone who likes to have lot of reference points - knowing where things are, having systems, routines, safety nets and familiar experiences and areas etc - I hadn’t realised how I would feel when they were all whipped away at once.
So I was really quite lost, and very tired, and extremely unsure of what I was doing for a bit.
But I’m getting better. Slowly.
We’re being all explorey. Every weekend is like a holiday. Every day, I step off the train at the end of it and feel as if I couldn’t be further from my working day without falling off the edge of the land.
These are good things indeed.
Brighton is good.
[Incidentally, if any of the nice Brightonians ARE reading, you should go and post some things-to-do-and-see-and-eat here. I tried to think of some, but I don't know it well enough yet...]
- We still don’t have a phone line. And thus, no internet. I can just about (nefariously) pick up enough internet to read comments and emails, but then it drops out. If I haven’t done something you were expecting me to do - reply to an email, update the links on my sidebar like I keep saying I’m going to, upload photos, actually write something of worth, forgive me. That is why. I’ve been staying after work to write updates for the blog when I can, but it’s not always possible, and even when it is, I don’t have time for all the other stuff.
- I also don’t have television reception yet. That may not seem pertinent, but it’s another point of extreme annoyance. Oh, and the DVD player’s about to die. And since blogging while watching TV is one of my main evening wind-down activities, take away the TV, and poop goes the blogging. Oh, and then internet. Take away the internet as well.
Poop, poop.
- I’ve been getting spammed a fair bit on comments. Which takes up quite a bit of any time I *do* make for blogginging. I know this is the old excuse, but it’s true.
- Pieces are sitting, untyped, in my head for so long that they’re becoming as long as Law and Order (yes, I was thinking Crime and Punishment, but they’re probably more about an hour long - with ads - than 803 pages long), or stewed, like bad tea.
That’s it, really. I’m also very very very very very very busy.
And that’s about it. So you must excuse me. Managing to update the site at all is a minor miracle at the moment, and so I sometimes get frustrated with the appalling quality of what I’ve written, and sometimes get frustrated with high-maintenance comments, and sometimes with other things completely other.
Oh, and my house used to be a whorehouse. Not, like in the 1800’s or anything.
Last year.
But at least that’s funny.
So there we are. Just so you know. Yes, I know it’s not funny in the main, but it’s a pretty honest round up of where I am at the moment:
I have no phone, little internet, no TV, no DVD soon, I’m too hot, I’ve got hayfever and my eyes are itchy, and I can’t blog as much as I wish to, or to the level of quality I should and would like to, I’m out exploring too much and have joined the gym, which is exciting but I can’t even tell you about because I have no internet, I can’t reply to your comments, or, sometimes, understand what you need me to say, also, I’m hellish busy, my computer keeps falling over, and when people think they’re complaining into a void their emails are shockingly, appallingly rude - worse when you have to read them but it’s someone else’s job to reply. And I live in a brothel. So there.
Anyway. Apart from that, I’m fine. How are you?
I’m NUMBER ONE!!!
Comment by Amy — 4 July, 2006 6:11 pm
In regards to spam comments;
Do you have it set so that only people whose comments you have approved at least once can be seen?
Also you may want to take a peak at
http://www.homelandstupidity.us/software/bad-behavior/
if you are interested in reducing spam. Otherwise you could put one of those image verification things where you have to type in the numbers/letters from a badly drawn image before you can submit a comment.
I’m not the most prolific of commentors (commentators?) but it bothers me a lot less to type a couple of characters than to have to sign up for membership to comment, not sure how you or most of your other members feel however.
Chris
Comment by Chris — 4 July, 2006 6:30 pm
Dear Anna,
At risk of sounding/actually being sycophantic I would give my right arm (on second thoughts praps not since am right-handed and rubbishly ambidextrous and will need my right arm for doing everyday things) to be able to write to the standard you do and as often. Even under your present difficulties the quality is excellent. Don’t be so hard on yourself, give yourself time. On the other hand, in the same way I appreciate the use of light in a Rembrandt or the soft beauty of a pale pink rose I slavver with anticipation awaiting your beautifully crafted posts. I particularly admire the grace with which you use foul language. As mentioned b4 and sorry to be repetetetetive your writing made (and still does!) me laugh and got me through a stressful period of seriousness. I live for your posts. So I wish you a speedy recovery and internet. No pressure, like.
Yours Gushingly,
a fan
PS I hope you get the other stuff fixed soon too. Its really depressing when everything seems to be going wrong at once.
Hope this helps.
Comment by anj — 4 July, 2006 6:35 pm
Have you had an ‘interesting visitors’ yet?
Comment by US — 4 July, 2006 7:39 pm
I love email whitelister. It’s easy and it works.
link
Comment by Gert — 4 July, 2006 8:25 pm
I’m not too bad, thanks. I’ve been slaving over my laptop every free minute over the last few days to write a talk on Dyslexia Support Strategies that I’m giving soon. I just hope I get the best darn feedback ever, so it’ll have been worth it. It’s written now, which is why I have time to do this. I’m always glad to see a new lrb post, but I’m not getting mad at you when you don’t, honest!
Comment by Andria — 4 July, 2006 8:45 pm
You still post more often than Johnny B, despite the aforementioned difficulties. (And I’m not getting mad with Johnny B either…)
Comment by Andria — 4 July, 2006 8:48 pm
Anna - I’m so intrigued, how did you find out that your house used to be a whorehouse? I’m dying to hear more - not dying like I actually might die, but dying like I wish I could send you some free internet waves so you could tell your story soon!! I love, LOVE, LOVE, your blog!
Comment by DesperateSerbwife — 4 July, 2006 9:36 pm
US - is having ‘interesting visitors’ a euphemism? Are you asking after my menstrual health? Yes, I had my period, thank you.
Lordy, you guys are familiar.
Chris, thank you for the spam comments ideas - I like the idea of approving a first comment and then people being free to comment forever more. At least that means people could swear or talk about their solutions to erectile dysfunction freely. So thank you. Is there a plug-in that stops people shouting ‘First!’ do you think?…
;O)
And thank you everyone. Andria, JonnyB’s methodical posting method is something I could learn from. I’m a bit to scattershot, I think. At least with Jonny you always get quality, however often he posts.
And thank you all for being comeplete poppets. I’m going to finish this comment before my stolen wiffy drops out again…
Comment by anna — 4 July, 2006 10:39 pm
So, this err, whorehouse you mentioned. It relocated where exactly?
Just so I can be sure to avoid it, and any embarrassing situations that might cause.
Comment by Mr Angry — 4 July, 2006 11:49 pm
A whorehouse.
Think of the milage you will get out of that one…
Heh.
Comment by loralee — 5 July, 2006 12:03 am
perhaps your life is moving to a new phase
and the blog is holding you back from fully embracing it.
knock it on the head for 3 months and enjoy the freedom from your public.
and have some guilt free fun
Comment by Andy Leach — 5 July, 2006 12:17 am
Is Brighton as good as they say it is, or just Islington-on-Sea or something similar but with meeja?
Talking of, does JulieB pop round? I am in complete awe of her. Complete.
Sorry I missed the bit where you gave your reasons for moving to Brighton.
Comment by Peter — 5 July, 2006 12:28 am
Anna,
Not sure what version of WordPress you are using but in the latest (2.0.3 I think) there is an option called
“Comment author must have a previously approved comment” under “Options” -> “Discussions” in the user panel. If you check that you will have to approve the first comment from each individual but once you have approved them each once they can comment to their hearts delight.
Before they are approved their comments are held in moderation and when you moderate you can specify certain comments as spam, theoretically stopping that particular person/bot from posting another comment.
The spam still gets to your blog, but only you (and whoever else has access to your admin panel) sees it. The other site I linked above actually supposedly blocks spam before it gets to you, but as with most of those systems it will more than likely eventually be worked around by the spammy bastards.
As for the “FIRST!” thing, you could go into the same place in the admin panel that I mentioned above (options->discussions) and set the phrases “FIRST!”, “FIRST POST!”, “Apples, crunch crunch crunch” etc. as spam so that comments containing those phrases have to be moderated by you before being posted (thus making it so the offender is no longer first) or even entirely blacklist the phrases so that they cannot be posted in comments at all.
There are also plugins that will replace words so you could for example set up one of those plugins to replace the word “first” with “a doofus”, so instead of “I’m first!” the offenders end up posting “I’m a doofus!” :)
(I really need to get out of the habit of adding my name at the bottom of wordpress posts…)
Comment by Chris — 5 July, 2006 1:14 am
Whorehouses bad in general, yet…. your house used to be a whorehouse? How COOL!
My house used to belong to the people who owned the old people’s home down the road, and for some years we would get occasional old ladies wandering round the garden in nighties and slippers, looking confused. Disconcerting, though possibly less so than seedy blokes wandering around looking sexually frustrated?
And, Anna, I empathise with feeling lost in a new place. I hope it keeps feeling like a lovely place :)
Comment by Eloise — 5 July, 2006 1:17 am
Not far from where I live is a boarded up shop with a sign on which says “Space for rent. Formerly retail use.”
It used to be a massage parlour.
So I think Pickard Towers should be “formerly retail use”.
Comment by Rob — 5 July, 2006 3:13 am
Oh for god’s sake. I just typed a whole comment and it’s disappeared.
Anyway, as I was saying, there’s a plug in for Wordpress called Dr Dave’s Spam Karma 2, which can be found here. I’ve found that it works a treat, and there are all kinds of different settings. I can recommend it, even though I’ve only had 7 bits of spam to date. It’s picked them all up though.
Comment by rachie — 5 July, 2006 8:47 am
Tho in another part of the world and of a different generaton I drop in here from time to time and always enjoy your writing. I’d imagine that you would have many readers who will be checking in because of the quality of your posts and they won’t give up on you.
Used to live next to a once was brothel. It had a built-in wardrobe that had a door to be used as an exit if there was a raid.
Also was once sitting quietly at my place of work (a library!)when a real estate type who I barely knew rang to offer me the chance to buy premises called ‘The Garden of Eden’ Yup: it was a massage parlour. He thought my partner and I were prospects beacause we were ‘arty types’ (whatever that meant). Makes a good story when you reach a tamer stage of life.
Enjoy Brighton!!
Comment by Sylvia — 5 July, 2006 10:32 am
It’s a really normal thing what you have been feeling- liking where you are but feeling at sea because your comfort zone is gone.
I’ve had some interesting meltdown moments moving from the US here. . .
I’ve had reletively goodluck getting rid of the spam with Trackback Validator http://idli.cs.rice.edu/~dsandler/trackback/
a few slip it but it helps. . .
Comment by Nicole — 5 July, 2006 11:01 am
Hang on someone just called me a doofus.
jesus.
Comment by Amy — 5 July, 2006 11:08 am
But a lovable doofus!
Sorry, Amy, I prodded him into it - it’s just - people calling ‘first’ is what happpens on big famous people’s blogs…
It feels SO weird when anyone does it around here - even though they’re doing it in a nice fun way.
Doofus is a good word.
Comment by anna — 5 July, 2006 11:33 am
It is. As is dingus.
I am not angry with you! I’m surprised you’re blogging as much as you are, actually. I don’t live at the computer so you’ve always written something new by the time I get round to it.
I like the idea of free internet waves, though! How would that work?
Comment by Anna F — 5 July, 2006 11:40 am
Finding that you are living in an ex-whorehouse doesn’t seem to be that uncommon in Brighton, I found that most Brightonion flats had been used for nefarious purposes at sometime in their recent history. May have something to do with all those foriegn students needing to pay their course fees.
Mind you, could be handy if you ever think of changing proffession…
Comment by Rob — 5 July, 2006 12:55 pm
And you could change the website to “Little Red Light”
Comment by Rob — 5 July, 2006 12:56 pm
We felt a bit like you do too - exploring and finding our way round the seaside and not having phone-internet-telly for ages… kind of nice in a techno-cleansing way (briefly) for me, not too handy for the other half who came straight to Brighton from Melbourne.
If you haven’t been up to Stanmer Park yet I really recommend it - after our ‘moving in’ week it was the perfect place to relax and fall in love with where we get to live now.
but…
We got just the net and phone and have remained a TV-free house :)
We read and explore and go for walks and take billions of photos of the old gambling grannies on the pier, and read, and do all manner of things for the TV-less. AND we don’t have to pay a license fee :)
And it makes you feel excellent when you walk round Lewes Crescent/Sussex Square and see the billionaires in their GIANT houses…watching ’stenders slumped miserabally on their £100000000 sofa.
Im rambling, but I think 2 of your problems should help each other out - DONT get a TV, and you’ll have to do more exploring and go for nice evening walks and that will make you feel more at home/orientated too.
Kill 2 seagulls with 1 stone.
x
Comment by Lauren — 5 July, 2006 1:00 pm
Ah you have discovered the joys of inging. As in blogging without the blog, or tellywatching without a telly to watch. I discovered this whilst skating without skates. I lead a very sad life.
Comment by Sal Ford — 5 July, 2006 1:28 pm
Ah, Lauren - you know, I wouldn’t actually care that much - I do love TV when I have one, but can cope without, and yes, there are series that I love and miss, but I can always catch up with them on DVD - but the thing is, I’m supposed to be writing about TV for a bit of job … and every day that passes without the bloody thing is one day closer to them giving the gig to someone else.
So if it wasn’t for the fact I actually need it for work, and this is driving me a little insane, I wouldn’t mind at all…
But I do. And I do.
Booooooo.
Comment by anna — 5 July, 2006 1:37 pm
The mice, the mice, the “cunty little fucktards” are growing…
http://www.topgear.com/content/timetoburn/sections/carbage/pages/0480/
(way off post, but a “saw this and thought of you” moment)
Comment by Tim — 5 July, 2006 2:28 pm
HA!
that’s fanTastic.
thank you
Comment by anna — 5 July, 2006 2:30 pm
I really like lunch at Browns Brasserie just around the courner from Steamer Trading cookshop
Comment by afc — 5 July, 2006 3:38 pm
I know someone that lives in an old Police Station. It seems to fit in with the whorehouse theme, but what do I know, I’m a blimmin doofus.
Comment by Amy — 5 July, 2006 3:45 pm
Oh stop it, I like doofuses. Doofi. Doofum.
Meh.
Who’s the doofus?
Comment by anna — 5 July, 2006 3:48 pm
So where would we find tv stuff you’ve wroted?
Years ago, back in the 70s, someone (The Daily Mail perhaps) persuaded several families to give up their tv for a while and see what happened. They all found new things to do and talked to each other more and reported that their lives had become much richer without their tellies. From now on, things were going to change.
At the end of the experiment they were given their old tellies back and follow up visits showed that they’d all settled back to their old goggle box viewing habits and had stopped leading their richer lives.
Which just goes to show what a load of guff people will say to you if they don’t have tv telling them what to think and do.
Comment by Miss Nomer — 5 July, 2006 5:03 pm
Nowhere, Miss Nomer love, I haven’t wroted it because i haven’t got a telly.
Will let you know…
Comment by anna — 5 July, 2006 5:32 pm
Nicole said you might be ‘feeling at sea’. Isn’t that why you moved to Brighton?
I’ll get me coat…
Comment by Andria — 5 July, 2006 6:48 pm
Proving that he was smarter than the average bear, the tv was Yogi Bears best invention.
Comment by Amy — 5 July, 2006 7:28 pm
Ah, I assumed that there was past stuff available somewhere. Didn’t realise that it was all shiny and new and something for us to look forward too.
Comment by Miss Nomer — 6 July, 2006 12:51 pm
You’ve moved? Well that shows how recently I’ve been here, doesn’t it.
So I guess that you not having an internet connection went unnoticed by me until now.
However if you have no TV, how are you going to watch the CSI season finale?
Comment by Alan — 6 July, 2006 1:33 pm
..for a ‘deeper’ appreciation of your new home-place, and since you have no telly, try Rob Shields’ article ‘The “System of Pleasure”: Liminality and the Carnivalesque at Brighton’, Theory, Culture & Society, 7(1): 39-72, which looks at the ‘carnivalization of social relations at the English Seaside’ in times past, with reference to Brighton. Got this reference from the article ‘Bakhtin at the Seaside’ by Darren Webb http://goldsmithsdesign.blogs.com/papers/Webb_Bakhtin_at_the_Seaside.pdf which takes Blackpool lays it on the couch and analyizes (sp.??) it and sends it home with a stick of lettered rock. This latter is a hoot to read with things like ‘the regional-popular hegemonic discourse’ sitting alongside ‘it wor’ onmost like bein’ at hooam’. Still some fascinating stuff about how the nasty middle class people oppressed the nice working class people by putting a toll on their end of Blackpool to keep the great unwashed out. Now for homework class…
Comment by anj — 6 July, 2006 3:33 pm