The adventures of Miss Despina

Anne my love, thanks for tagging me in this insightful meme, and shaming me into blogging again! 

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Many things! I lived in a foreign country for three months, I did two singing and acting roles on the stage at the Royal Northern College of Music (one was the main role). I moved house six times. I ate octopus. I got fined by two Hungarian ticket inspectors, and a Czech policeman. I painted my toenails turquoise. I heard jazz in central Europe.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? If I made any last year, I probably didn’t keep them. I have a few resolutions for next year, but the main ones are to put more effort into doing things socially as a couple with Jez, and to take control of my depression.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No-one in the UK!

4. Did anyone close to you die? No, thankfully.

5. What countries did you visit? Scotland, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? Stability. Please!

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? May 11th - one year of Despina and Jez. And all the dates I counted down to in Prague. Concert dates too, 13th November in particular.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Learning to speak Czech!

9. What was your biggest failure? Not doing as well as I could have done in uni.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? One bad chest infection, cutting off the top of my thumb, styes, and of course the ubiquitous depression.

11. What was the best thing you bought? A brown and cream silk skirt, a la Audrey Hepburn, with matching brown ballet pumps shoes (I’ve had it 6 months and worn it once!) Also, a shedload of sheet music!

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration? Jez has been amazing this year. Many friends have been very good to me, but Jez’s capacity for supportiveness, understanding, compassion, forgiveness, and pure love, remains unmatched. Mags has been here for me both physically and virtually, and passed all her exams second time round. Mum turned her back on a horrible career and is now enjoying being a retired lady of leisure. Dad coped with redundancy, bounced back and is now doing a bit of everything, being wonderful as always (but is working a bit too hard). Kyne was also a really good friend in Prague, dragging me out to the pub and various places, when I just wanted to hide, and making sure I ate properly.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? My own, recently.

14. Where did most of your money go? Phone bills, I think!

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Moving house recently with Jez, seeing Don Giovanni / Manon Lescaut in Prague, dancing on the Danube, seeing Jez after 6 weeks without him, making Christmas, going to Budapest, singing in Czech, learning Glitter and be Gay and hitting the highest notes I’ve ever sung, playing Yum-Yum, being thin enough to wear my favourite dresses, hearing Rachmaninov 2nd symphony, and many, many more things!

16. What song will always remind you of 2007? Too early to say, but certainly any Klezmer or anything by Lakatos, or Julie Fowlis, or the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, or Don Giovanni!

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer? A bit sadder I think, and certainly not richer, but considerably thinner. (I yo-yod between 10 and 14 this year, I’m now a curvaceous 12!)

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Travelling in the Czech Republic, making time for my friends, studying.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Working, dwelling on things, being a rubbish girlfriend, abusing my body and my mind, and fucking up my life in general!

20. How did you spend Christmas? In my beautiful new home, with my family and Jez’s family. It was a really perfect Christmas Day, in fact.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007? Yes, more and more in love.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Can’t answer this one, as I don’t have a TV!

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No. I’ve realised how much energy it takes to hate someone, and no-one is worth that when there are so many people worthy of better than hatred.

24. What was the best book you read? Ooooooh I can’t answer this! I’m currently reading the Philip Pullman trilogy and finding it mindblowing, but I loved The Historan and The Icarus Girl, and Immortality, and Inventing the Victorians.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? That I can sightread!

26. What did you want and get? To have the happiest week of my life. (And the worst.)

27. What did you want and not get? So many things.

28. What was your favourite film of this year? La vie en rose.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I was 22, and I seem to remember it was the first time I saw the house where I now live, and I thought it was beautiful. Then I think Jez made me something delicious to eat, or maybe we went out somewhere… maybe I was a bit drunk.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? More self-belief.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? Classic, with a few quirky twists. Three quarter length trousers with ballet pumps, lots of jewellery. Tailoring. Killer heels.

32. What kept you sane? Music.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I don’t really do celeb crushes, but if I had to choose, I suppose Vincent Delerm (Sorry Jez but it is all your fault.)

34. What political issue stirred you the most? The police and government’s reaction to the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. The words "a corporate failure" remain etched on my mind. I am appalled.

35. Who did you miss? Everyone I’ve managed to alienate in the last year. And in Prague, obviously I missed Jez and my family. I’ve missed Catherine since she went to uni.

36. Who was the best new person you met? Kindest, funniest, or downright strangest? Too many to mention - not just new friends in 2007, but people I knew before who I am now much closer to. That’s a nice feeling.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007. I will consider my response to this and write a separate blog post about it. But I am beginning to realise just what a big responsiblity life can be.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Plusieurs indices m’ont mis la puce à l’oreille
J’ouvre l’oeil
J’vais faire une enquète pour en avoir le coeur net
Ca m’inquiète

Y a des détails qui trompent pas

Les draps la couette et la taie d’oreiller
Sont plus dépareillés
A coté de mes fringues en boule
Y a des vêtements pliés et repassés

Y a des détails qui trompent pas
J’crois qu’y a une fille qu’habite chez moi !

Deux brosses à dent dans la salle de bain
Du savon sans savon et le sèche-cheveux
C’est certainement pas le mien
Des petites boules bizarres
Pour parfumer la baignoire
C’est un vrai cauchemar
Quelqu’un a massacré tous mes amis cafards !

Dans la cuisine des sachets de thé
De verveine de camomille
Un message sur le répondeur d’une mère
Qu’est pas la mienne
V’là qu’elle s’en prend à ma famille !

Y a des détails qui trompent pas

Quelqu’un en douce a fait la vaiselle
Où sont mes habitudes mon ménage trimestriel ?
J’ouvre le frigo horreur c’est d’la folie !
Y a plein de légumes !
Y a même des fruits !

Y a des détails qui trompent pas
J’crois qu’y a une fille qu’habite chez moi !

Où sont mes potes qui glandaient devant la télé
Les boîtes de pizza les paquets de chips éventrés
Les mégots de cigarettes écrasés dans les assiettes
Ma collection de new look ? Aux oubliettes !

Sur la table de nuit y a plus de capotes mais de l’aspirine
Y a une fille qu’habite chez moi
Y a aussi des bougies contre l’odeur de la nicotine
Y a une fille qu’habite chez moi !

Y a des détails qui trompent pas

Y a un vrai rideau y a plus un drap cloué sur la fenêtre !
Qu’est-ce que c’est que ça ? Mon Dieu, c’est une plante verte !

L’aspirateur est encore chaud
C’est trop je porte plainte !
Je vais l’emmener au labo
Pour vérifier les empreintes

On dirait que je suis plus célibataire
La coupable je la tiens
Elle est devant l’étau se resserre
Accrochée au téléphone assise en tailleur
Dans une jolie robe à fleur
Une fille me dit "Arrête ton cinéma
Et le loyer j’le paye autant que toi !"

(Bénabar, Y a une fille qui habite chez moi)

How cool is this?

Thanks my dear! 

Jez and I just popped down to town for some cleaning stuff, and decided to go to PC World to buy an ink catridge. It’s a store which I totally shun, incidentally. I think the staff are generally stupid, the quality of service rotten, the products miserable and the whole place just stinks of the mediocrity of corporation. So there.

So I’m standing there in PC World gazing blankly at the ink cartridge boxes, wondering which of the strange numeric codes corresponds to the model of my printer (which has decided it needs to be filled with colour ink before it can print plain black text). And since it’s over a year since I’ve had to buy ink, I really have no idea which cartridge I need to get. A young man comes up to me and says very brightly:

"Hello, can I help you at all there?"

I am grateful to see him.

"Yes," I say, "I’m wondering which ink cartridge I need to get for my Epson. I know that the black ink has a teddy bear on the box but I don’t know which coloured cartridge I should buy, they all look the same."

"Ah…" he said. "Hmmm, you see, I don’t actually work for PC World."

"Whu-"

"But what I can offer you is a promotion I’m doing for users of digital TV! Do you have a digital TV?"

The young man shuffles his feet enthusiatically and is poised, pen in hand, ready to take our details. Jez and I, incredulous, say together:

"We don’t have a TV."

"What? You mean - "

"No, we don’t own a television. Goodbye." 

Tonight, there’s a young salesman eating pizza in front of the TV, wearing the same bewildered expression he was when we left him, and wondering what on earth people who don’t have a television actually do all night!

 *****

Jez and I simply decided that we didn’t have any use for a television. We watched it for about an hour once every month. For culture, we’re Radio 3 addicts and get all our news needs from the BBC website. We have lots of DVDs, hundreds of CDs between us, and we’re both complete bookworms. (In fact one of the best things about meeting him was all the new music and literature I discovered.)

So one day in July I logged onto facebook, and saw a notice saying something like "Jez is feeling liberated from the power of the gogglebox after giving away his telly on freecycle." And I worked it out and realised I hadn’t watched television since the first week in April.

I don’t want to sound like a highbrow culture snob here. I did enjoy certain TV shows (my favourites were Rick Stein and company) but I just couldn’t cope with the crappiness of the rest of it! We only had the standard five channels and had considered upgrading by getting freeview or whatever it’s called, but then we realised that actually, TV had just ceased to be a part of our lives.

Has anyone else had this epiphany? 

It’s been a great few days!

On Thursday I took the Student Agency bus to Olomouc, which was a great journey by the way, I’d recommend them. Cheap too!

Olomouc is just gorgeous. I’ll post some photos when I’m back. It’s not too big, you can see everything in two days, but it’s just so quiet and unspoilt! I went in the house where Mozart survived the plague or chicken pox or something when he was on his travels, I went in the cafe in the house where Mahler lived for a few years - whilst reading Milan Kundera’s Immortality, and the actual chapter about Mahler! I climbed the tower of the gothic cathedral and looked out over all the gorgeous squares and churches there. I went in three cathedrals and they were all unbelievably beautiful. I got some high gothic art (which I’ve fallen in love with) and saw a locally created copy of the Bayeux tapestry. At lunchtime I hid from the heat in a jazz club where Yann Tiersen was on the stereo. At night I walked around the outside of the city walls, and then had a gin and tonic in a pavement café, whilst ignoring the rock concert on the main square! I ate local food and generally wandered around and enjoyed the relaxed pace of the city. I have fallen in love with Olomouc and hope I will return one day - sadly we don’t have time to do it between Prague and Krakow as we’ve already booked our time there, but I think next time I come to the Czech Republic, I will defeinitely spend some time there showing Jez around!

I was actually there to look at the library in the medical faculty, but the librarian there decided that the majority of my time would be better spent sightseeing, and didn’t allow me to pay for anything. She was so lovely. I hope we’ll stay in touch, she was so kind and interesting. She’s also multilingual and as well as being a brilliant librarian and teacher, she has also published articles on pedagogy and medical information. I actually felt inspired by what she was saying about the library, and I think that thanks to her I’ve got a brilliant idea for my final year project, thank god! I was starting to get worried! I found her so enthusiastic about her subject, it was very refreshing for me to talk to her. I think for my project I’m going to observe medical students’ search behaviour, before training, immediately after training, and then a few months after training. I hope I can get backing for this!

I also stumbled into a small bookshop by the university and found loads of sheet music, mainly Czech opera arias and art songs. I was amazed - some of this music I have been looking for in the UK and it’s either out of print, or I’d have to buy a great big naff anthology just for the sake of one piece. This stuff just isn’t available in the UK, the editions are either Russian, Czech or German. I had to limit myself because I don’t want to have to pay too much extra for my suitcase, but I was still quite worried about how much this music would cost me. It was 153 crowns, that’s less than 4 quid. Couldn’t believe it! I told her in Czech just how happy I was, I was literally dancing!

Highlights include arias from Samson and Delilah (Printemps est commence, Mon coeur s’ouvre á ta voix) Rusalka’s Song to the Moon, a czech opera anthology, a battered copy of Conconne (thankfully with French instructions), a book of coloratura arias, a few songs by composers I’d never heard of, and a Handel’s Largo with Czech text - I’m sure it will come in handy (and it cost me 25p!)

Yesterday I went out with the lady who used to teach me music at school. Last time she saw me I was a spotty 18 year old, not very sociable and carrying a whopping inferiority complex. However all that was forgotten and we talked like old friends all day. She lives five minutes away from me, she has the same name as me, and her boyfriend is a translator - too many coincidences! I just wish I’d been able to get in touch earlier, but she only joined facebook about three weeks ago. still, better late than not at all. We drove to a lovely historical town, but instead of looking around we just drank wine and soaked up the sun in the main square, then we went back to her fiancé’s family house, where we managed to speak Czech, play with a very cute little girl called Natalya, and get absolutely hammered! Czech hospitality… Then we drove back to Prague, went to our local bar, and drank more, had a brilliant time, and I think I phoned Jez when I got home but you know, I can’t actually remember. Oops. But guess what?

I’m singing at a wedding in Bertramka! The very house where Mozart lived! Isn’t that wonderful!?!