So it's all over. & what a fucking deflated note to end on when it's basically been a month or more of beautiful amazingness that I never thought we were even capable of hosting. As soon as the Opening Ceremony started all my "I'm not sure about this" was gone. I squealed when Arctic Monkeys came on (luckily I hadn't been on the internet that day & it was a genuine surprise!) & their rendition of Come Together was just... wow. I was blown away, literally. It was a total surprise.

I on holiday for the first week but had the second off work & literally had it on 24/7 when I was at home. It was gripping. As it always was. But somehow more so when you saw everything working & that it was in London & all the different outfits done by Stella McCartney for the medal givers & athletes. It was endlessly entertaining.

Then the closing ceremony happened. I honestly had to keep biting on my blanket it was so embarrassing. I mean George Michael? Ok, if he sings one song & it's one that everyone knows. But not 3. & not unknown ones. That was basically the beginning of the end of the front of pride for me. The Paralympics opening ceremony did little to redeem it, minus the emphasis on Physics & also the Human Rights, which the Tories want to get rid of. & have in fact just promoted one of the most outspoken Conservatives on that front. It was like Danny Boyle's whisper was still echoing around. But it wasn't the same.

& last night after being sick a couple of times I went to bed & just watched the closing ceremony this morning. Sorry not the Paralympics closing ceremony, actually just a coldplay gig. I mean are you fucking kidding me? I know they're meant to be one of the biggest bands in the world but I have literally never met anyone who likes them, or will admit to liking them. & to pin a whole three hour ceremony that's meant to symbolise all that is great about Britain on them is like only showing the Judo coverage from the olympics & nothing else. Like we've never produced any other decent bands. 

To re-alliterate this feeling Rhianna & Jay Z (AKA Chris Martin's mates) performed as well. A song that is about Roc Nation, or at least New York/ the music business. Not the world or even sport. It's not a triumphant song. Like I'm sorry. I fucking love both of them, in almost any other context I would be so hyped to see them even with Jay Z mucking up his verses. But this is to celebrate British achievement. It's a showcase of us to the world, that we have more than handled. With ratios to size we obliterated every other country at the games & we have a rich musical culture (as showcased in the Olympic Opening Ceremony, sort of) we don't need to draft in American's to do the job. Hell no.

But this isn't even the worse thing I've seen today. David Cameron talking about triumph & overcoming adversity when it comes to disability, that "if children are like his" oh man, so many fucking quotes that make me scream mildly over most of his speech. Here's the thing. Labour brought the games to London & did so by saying it would inspire a new generation to take up sport. Labour & specifically Gordon Brown poured money into sport so that we could be the best we could be. Labour invested £2.4bn into school sport raising the participation level to 90%. 

The conservatives have cut funding to sport by £22bn at least since the first budget, mainly from schools but also from councils that provide sports facilities. School children participating in 2 hours of sport has fallen to 25% after the waves of cuts. As much anger as we should legitimately direct at Atos, the company given £100 million a year to take as many people as possible off incapacity benefits, it's the government, the conservative coalition who are driving this. 1100 people on incapacity benefit who were deemed fit for work later died. This government doesn't believe that disabled people should be granted enough money to live a decent life. The money that meant many paralympians could be at the games at all.

And finally going back to the below par-ness of the closing ceremonies & Paralympic opening ceremony I would like to point the finger squarely at Kim Gavin, the director of all three. This man made his name producing Take That's shows. Take That who include Gary Barlow. Gary Barlow who is a supporter of the conservative party, campaigned for them & got a distinctly mute opinion from one David Cameron when asks to compare his moral objection to Jimmy Carr over his old chum Gary Barlow who had done exactly the same thing.

THIS IS NOT OK WITH ME.

(photo credit: Francis Baker and Ros Barnett via Left.write.center. Stats from this article)

I've been on a bit of a William Morris trip recently. It started with the discovery of a stash of art books when we were cleaning out/moving around our house including two steller ones on him. Then I needed to make a new laptop case & was drawn to this gorgeous William Morris esque floral fabric that is hella bright, but in the same spirit. Then last week I had four days off & mum was away so I (with the help of some very lovely people) cleaned out all the crap from her bedroom, moved the ridiculously heavy furniture around & took some stuff to the tip. Now we're thinking about decoration & I had a notional idea to plaster William Morris wallpaper on a "feature wall" but she wants just a colour. Shame.

Now I'm thinking, what about my room? It would make a beautiful backdrop to my lovely clothes. Or even the back wall of my room that is currently bare waiting for me to frame an arctic monkeys poster. It would look fucking awesome. & for some unknown reason £110 for two rolls of wallpaper to do it sounds perfectly reasonable. Especially since my departure from this house is imminent (well, just as soon as I find that magical job or career path that will make me happy & fulfilled for the rest of my life) unless I really want to live with my mum forever, or raise my own family here. & then really some wallpaper turns into a whole other massive question. But the answer, incase you needed to know, is that I would like either Pimpernel in Privet & Slate or Golden Lily in Green & Red.

Yesterday was the first time in three years I wore jeans. In fact when I went out & bought these last week, it was the first time I'd owned jeans in about two years, apart from the stripy ones from River Island I got a few months back. & it's well weird. It's like being normal. Like being able to put on a normal person costume & go out into the world. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about them, we're not the best of friends, I spy them led on the pile of clothes next to my bed & eye them with suspicion. & now I'm consumed with thoughts about what the fuck you wear with a pair of jeans. I feel like an idiot. Or an alien. Who knows. My boyfriend & mum were equally unsettled by my normal costume which makes me feel like I'm not entirely overreacting. 

So anyone know what I can wear with jeans so I don't feel like a freak or like too casual that I feel sloppy. I'm inkling towards band t-shirts but it would make me feel like I'm fourteen. Shit I sound like a total twat whining about jeans, oh well, anyone empathise? 

I'm now gonna get back to eating yogurt & honey, catching up with Breaking Bad, spending embarrassing amounts of time looking at Miley Cyrus photos on tumblr (her legs are like damn) reading the new Roger McGough poetry book & writing reviews on books about sex trafficking. Now that sounds like a decent day off to me!

Sticker from the etsy shop of the amazing Midge AKA ModernGirlBlitz.

So over my apple & coffee this morning I read this article in G2 about teenagers not knowing what consent means. Interesting, given that recently high profile men & what would appear to be the whole British media, are pretty sketchy about what consent means as well. The only good thing about the Julian Assange fiasco is that if it comes up in conversation I now have a great way of telling what side of the "rape fence" someone stands on & can adjust my behaviour towards them appropriately. As in "Wikileaks is more important than whether two women were raped" = spit in face/point & scream rapist.

The sex education in this country (never mind the rest of the world) is appalling. I was shown the same video twice, about cartoons having sex & what this does to their body. We were never talked to about what constitues emotional abuse, or that because boys are often raised on porn nowadays their expectations of girls are unrealistic & that the girls themselves should treat them as such. Basically, to say girls you have the power to say no to anything you don't feel comfortable with because the boy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about or wants anyway.

Recently I've had several friends tell me that guys have taken condoms off whilst they were having sex & although they felt completely violated, they didn't consider it rape. This totally astounded me. All of them are confident, self assured feminist women. It angered me so much that if it could happen to them & they did nothing, then what would these guys get away with, with more vulnerable women? They all agreed in the end that they had consented to one thing & the guy's had crossed the line into something that they had not consented to. Whilst I don't know the technical term for rape, it sure sounds like it to me. & I cannot believe that there are teenagers out there thinking this is ok. That there are guys that do this at all. I just... I can't believe it's so fucking common.

I spent Saturday at work unpacking boxes & putting stock on the system. We've had some of these Penguin English Classics in stock for a while but Joe told me that they're releasing like a few new covers every month in the lead up to Christmas. The covers are just so lovely. My only critique it that the texture on the cover is a bitch to get stickers off, but that's probably not an issue unless you work in a bookshop!

Penguin have made a pretty hellishly animated website with all the covers on it to be interactive & stuff, & this cute little animation is nice. But I was more interested to find out about Coralie Bickford-Smith whose the inhouse designer who gets to make all these beautiful covers, as well as some of those absolutely lovely fabric hardbacks we've had in for a while now. What an absolutely perfect job.

The cover of Edgar Allan Poe also reminded me of this bandana from Slowdownjoe that I keep meaning to buy. I mean, it's cotton! & it's only £15! & it has pen knives on it! They actually have a wonderful selection of bandanas. Makes me wish is was like the 90s again or something...

Anyway, pretty books, yes. Almost enough to actually make me get round to reading some classics!

New t-shirt from my boy now he's back from his travels. I know that Courtney Love will always be questionable when it comes to the Riot Grrrrl movement & parenthood, but I will always love Hole. They're one of the last bands I really loved like a teenager if you know what I mean. I don't get that so much with music nowadays. Like Drake & Frank Ocean I'll listen to on repeat for weeks but I'll never be their fangirl. & plus when I was going mental at the Guardian (that sounds like a top piece of journalism for like Vice or someone, or a really middle class punk band) I locked myself in the stock cupboard & organised lovely clothes whilst soothing myself with Hole on Youtube. Bad times with good music.