Days and daze

Oof. I have spent today elbows deep in the past, with only brief excursions to see what Seaham's made of itself in the 14 years since I was last here. The answer is: since the terrible days of Mrs Thatcher and the aftermath of the miner's strike and the closing of the collieries, it has pulled itself up somewhat. It's got a shopping centre now - and if you think that shopping centres are the curse of the urban landscape I sort of agree with you, but it's brought much-needed jobs and amenities to an area that I remember as having a lot of boarded-up shops and houses.

Some of the houses are still boarded up, but the shops are livelier, if a little on the eccentric side. Here is a greengrocers we went into today. Well... a greengrocers-with-a-twist:

I swear this picture hasn't been photoshopped. It's a greengrocer-and-knitting shop. I like to imagine that the owners are a husband and wife: she wanted to start a knitting shop, he wanted to continue his dad's greengrocer's business and they hit on a happy compromise. Here's another angle:

Other than that, it was mostly sorting through piles of things I kept for little discernible reason from various periods of my life, which my parents have moved up here. Exercise books, school projects, Girl Guide magazines, Oxford papers, my old stamp collection... I've thrown much of it away, keeping the odd treasures that I happen upon.

Intermittently throughout my life I've worried about this philosophical problem: if, a year from now, I won't be able to remember a single thing that happened today, in what sense was today worth living? I suppose just worrying about this means I'm a slightly melancholic temperament; I'd hoped that studying Philosophy at Oxford would help me get to the bottom of it, but we never seemed to get to our own personal philosophical concerns.

There are two answers, I suppose, and both of them apply in a small way to writing too. The first answer is: you might not remember anything from that day, but in some way it's gone to make up who you are. I was never sure I bought that, though - I'm pretty sure there are many days of my life which, if I'd just skipped right over them, I'd be basically the same person I am now. The other answer is: you live through the pointless days because they're what you have to do to get to the intensely meaningful ones whose occurrence can never be predicted.

I've spent today throwing out museum guidebooks and theatre programmes and primary school notes from friends and taking books to the charity shop. And just occasionally picking one out and going "no, this is really meaningful to me, I'll keep it." And I guess: you have to go to a lot of museums and plays to find the ones that mean something to you. And you have to meet a lot of people to find the ones who'll be your lifelong friends. And you have to read a lot of books to discover which ones touch you. And you have to have a lot of lessons to learn what topics are of special interest to you. You have to kiss a lot of frogs, but the princes are out there.

So. As with life, so with writing. It's always annoyed me on the same philosophical level that one can't produce a perfect first draft. I mean, why not? They're just words - why can't I get them right first time round? But, I can't. Because you have to kiss a lot of frog-words to make good ones. Because most of the words you write won't be great. Because most of everything isn't great. But we write today because maybe today there'll be some great words. And if not today, then maybe tomorrow.

North to the Future (or in this case, to the past)

I am in Seaham, County Durham, for the first time in 14 years. It is peculiar. I feel like I'm in 1991.

To explain more fully. In 1988 my parents bought a little two-up, two-down miner's cottage in Seaham, at that time, one of the most depressed areas of the UK. My dad has links to the area; he and his mother were evacuated here during the war and she remained good friends with people around here all her life. She used to enjoy coming up for visits to her old friends. I spent pretty much every summer here between the ages of 13 and 19, and then stopped coming. (Got too old to want to spend summers with my parents, really...)

But now my parents want me to clear out the relics of my childhood that are still here. It is very very odd to be here. The house is full of old furniture from my parents' house, sofas from my grandma's house, my old schoolwork, books I read as a child... there's a Proustian madeleine everywhere I turn, essentially.

Anyway, more of this tomorrow. On the way up, my mum and I stopped first at Boundary Mills discount clothing outlet which was marvellously full of old ladies looking for polyester mother-of-the-bride trouser-suits and also some awesome hats:

For dinner, we went to what is apparently the best vegetarian restaurant in the UK, The Waiting Room in Stockton-on-Tees. It is very quirky, with an incredibly peaceful atmosphere, old schoolroom furniture, and cute waitresses with good hats:

Also, the food was pretty nice.

Now, I have driven about 300 miles today, and had my senses assailed by objects from my past. I think it's time for bed. As a final word: last Tuesday I went to hear the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at the Proms. If you haven't listened to the concert yet, do it before it vanishes from the website, cos it was lovely.

Heroes from Finchley

Wandered the grounds of Avenue House in Finchley today. Another lovely place not very far from my home which I've never been to. The grounds contains among other things a huge twisted tree that reminded me shudderingly of Green Noah, demon tree, from the Lucy Boston books - above is a pic of it I've borrowed from their website.

The house was left by Henry 'Inky' Stephens to the people of Finchley for their enjoyment - what an awesome idea! There's a museum dedicated to him in the house, but unfortunately it wasn't open today. He invented indelible ink, which is an achievement to be proud of - here's a Radio 4 programme about him.

Only another nine days to go of this project, and I'm already starting to wonder what I'll do when it's over, and to think about what I've gained from it. One gain I didn't expect: it's made me less anxious about the thought of moving house. I've been saying for a while that I'd start to think about moving when my novel was done, but I find the thought of choosing somewhere to live quite scary, especially as I'm hoping to do that mortgage thing so it would be a *commitment*. Every area has its downsides. London is close to cool stuff, but dirty and overcrowded. Other cities are prettier but far away from my friends. Rougher areas are cheaper, in nicer areas I'd have to put up with a much smaller place. There's nowhere that I feel really enthused about, nowhere that calls to me saying "I am your natural district, come and be here."

But weirdly, spending some time really exploring the places that are 10-20 minutes away from my home either on foot or by car has made me feel optimistic. Hendon is nowhere special, but if you start looking there are a lot of great places to visit round here: beautiful parks, nice cafes, a cool cemetery, retro shopping and an architecturally interesting university campus. Surely the same would be true of most places - the UK is a tiny country, after all, and it's been continuously inhabited for more than 5,000 years. There's nowhere that doesn't have *some* history, some interest, even some beauty. Finchley has the house of the man who invented indelible ink. Pretty much wherever I go there'll be something to be proud of.

Retro shopping

Remember 'shopping'? Not for food or clothes, things which one really wants to select by sight. I mean, shopping for the perfectly-packaged, homogenous items Jeff Bezos targetted as being ideal internet-commerce stock. DVDs, books, CDs (who even buys CDs now?).

I used to really enjoy that kind of shopping. I remember as a teenager (yes, I was a geek), I used to take tremendous pleasure in standing in the basement of WH Smith on the Finchley Road, comparing different Dr Who videos (what? I told you I was a geek). I'd look at the titles, the photographs, the descriptions, see which Doctor it was and which companions. I could spend half an hour comparing the different videos available, before deciding on one to take home and watch as a reward for finishing my Latin homework (I *said* I was a geek already.)

I rarely do it now though. Books, DVDs - why not just order them online? Saves schlepping to a bookshop in town, or dealing with the depressingly warehouse-like massive local Borders. One click, it's done, they arrive in a couple of days.

Except... by the time those couple of days have gone past I've often forgotten why I wanted them. Or the moment has passed, that perfect moment when I really wanted to sit down *right then* and read that book or watch that movie. I have to try to recreate my enthusiasm, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And if it doesn't I'm left with a movie whose perfect moment was last Tuesday, waiting to see if that moment turns up again.

So today I went to 'Retrobloke', or to give it its full title 'Retrobloke.com', a shop down the road from me and yes the '.com' is on the storefront. It's a little shop, full of sci-fi and horror DVDs and videogames in the front, and vinyl in the back. The stock is good, eclectic and interesting. Looking at the shelves reminded me of things I'd always wanted to see and never got around to - unlike Amazon, no one was trying to push new releases on me.

It was a slow Friday afternoon. I stood for a long time flicking through the DVDs until I picked a couple of discs with three episodes each of original series Star Trek on them - total £6, very reasonable. I was the only person there. No one was hurrying me, or making tannoy announcements or trying to entice me with the piped-over smell of coffee. I'm looking forward to watching them over the weekend, because I've chosen the time slot to fit them into along with my purchase - you can do that if you walk out of the shop with them in your hand.

As I made my purchase I asked the friendly shopkeeper whether he did most of his business online nowadays.
"No," he said, "it's strange but we find a lot of people still want to come in."
But if you're looking for a 'retro' experience, I'm not sure that's so surprising.

Cabinet of Curiosities

People, go to The Wellcome Collection. They have false eyeballs.

Perhaps, to be fair, you are not a false eyeball kind of person. In which case I should warn you that this is not the kind of museum where you should expect to, you know, learn anything. They have an exhibition about DNA and I am still no wiser about what all the 'map of the human genome' actually is. They have an exhibit about childbirth and I wouldn't be able to tell you the different stages of cervical dilation.

I was expecting a Science Museum-style take on the human body and medicine. A demystification of the workings of the spleen, for example. A model of the different parts of the human eye with an explanation of the things that can go wrong with it. But The Wellcome Collection is more of a remystification, really. Henry Wellcome collected a bunch of really weird medical shit, and they have put it on display with beautiful tactile representations for the blind and occasional audio commentaries. Their idea is not for you to come out going "huh, who knew bile was so useful?" but rather to stand in the gallery going "good lord. Seriously. Good Lord."

Here are some of the things Wellcome collected:

Yes, that is his own life-mask. Hairs from his moustache still adhere to it.

This must be left to speak for itself:

*Do you see what that rider is riding? Do you?*

It's Graeco-Roman, you know. Probably more than 2,000 years old.

And here's a Chinese torture chair! The seat is made of swords! I bet you know a small child who would love this place.

Alongside the weird medical stuff, they have commissioned artists to produce responses to the items in the collection. Some of these are more successful than others. I loved a piece by Daniel Lee which dramatised the evolution of (a very creepy) man from a coelocanth-like fish. I liked the towering shelf of 'books of the human genome' - although I still don't know what it is. For the exhibit on obesity, though, one of the pieces was a figure whose entire face and body was covered by rippling fat. Not just fat. Blue-veined, ulcerous, peeling-skinned fat. Which... even in a medical museum dedicated to grotesquery seemed needlessly offensive. Being fat is not a creeping disease which will destroy your head. I realise it was artistic, symbolic, etc, but... it seemed more symbolic of the artist's loathing of fatness than anything else. Which is not something I approve of.

Having got that off my chest, though, I must say the space is beautiful. There's a lovely cafe, with wifi, they're open late, there's a library. All in all, somewhere I will definitely go back. But not, I think, totally alone after dark; if anywhere has exhibits that come to limping, shuffling, blind-groping life, this would be it.