Oh, bless those darling little newbies! My dear friend Alan – not knowing that I am far too important and influential a blogger to be bothered with such trifles – has decided to “tag” me with a meme thingy. To wit: he wants me to post a picture of my computer, and its immediate milieu.
Since it would appear to be Meme Week on Diva, and since I would hate to disoblige a friend (a real-life meatspace friend at that, not one of your namby-pamby Met You Once At A Blogmeet And Now We’re Like Sisters constructs), and since I’m still trying to will my blogging mojo back into life by any means at my disposal…
…here is an exhaustively annotated picture of the very place where a significant proportion of Troubled Diva is created, as snapped after I got home from work yesterday evening. (The annotations represent an attempt at Adding Value to what might otherwise be a deeply dull post. I do try and go the extra mile.)
1. Lovely Dell computer, as ordered online about 18 months ago. Easy to order, good on price, prompt delivery, doddle to install, no subsequent problems, happy customer, recommend them to anybody. K insisted that we splash out on the flat-screen monitor, and I’m glad he did; it’s vastly easier on the eye. (It’s also much better at displaying nice, bright, cheerful versions of my digital photos – unlike the machine I’m currently using, which has seen fit to render the above image in several shades of sludge. For optimum viewing results, please come round to my house and look at them on my computer etc etc.)
2. Not so lovely Dell printer/scanner/copier/fax – as ordered at the same time as the PC, in total ignorance of the Great Dell Ink Cartridge Scam. (Basically, no other makes of ink cartridge are compatible, so you have to keep ordering from Dell, at a hideously inflated price. Avoid avoid avoid.)
3. This is the very microphone which I use to record the Troubled Diva podcasts!
4. Brand new so-called “digital” phone, which K picked up at reduced price from Dixons on Monday. I know, I know. I wanted to warn him, but I was in a bit of a hyper-critical mood on Sunday (nasty touch of flu), and didn’t dare venture yet another negative opinion. So we’re currently lumbered with this absolute piece of shit: terrible reproduction quality, which makes it sound like you’re speaking from a padded cell, at the bottom of a well, while someone does the hoovering in the background. Digital my arse.
5. Horrible unaesthetic chair, reduced to clear in Office World about 6 or 7 years ago. Unergonomic in design, and it squeaks every time that you so much as twitch. Plus it’s grey, and so clashes with the entire room (and indeed the entire house).
6. Spare chair, for those Darling Let’s Surf The Web Together moments. (Consquently covered with random bits of paper for 90% of the time.) This was relegated from the sitting room, once its combination of wicker and curvy metal began to scream Early 1990s.
7. Jumbo spindle of blank CDs, ready for burning. If I’ve done you a CD in the last few months, then it will have been peeled off this spindle.
8. Sturdy beech-effect IKEA desk. (Yes, we do occasionally give house room to IKEA products. They’re particularly good on office stuff.) The drawers contain 95% crap which didn’t have a home elsewhere; I only ever open them to retrieve the digital camera, which lives in the middle drawer.
9. Exciting M15-approved electronic paper shredder, as purchased by K while he was still working from home. Because you can’t be too careful. (We’ve had someone go through our wheelie bin on a couple of occasions. Or maybe it was the local fox. Yes, the Park Estate has its own fox. It’s a wonder the residents have never taken up hunting. After all, it’s not as if they ever pass up a chance to be faux-gentry.)
10. Waste paper bin, which our cleaner never empties because it has scary modern technical stuff in it like discarded CDs, and she doesn’t like to tangle with such matters. Oh God, I’m blogging about our cleaner. Take me out and shoot me, before I morph into Polly Filler.
11. Terracotta mug, bought from IKEA in 1992 when we moved into the house, containing a freshly brewed cup of Twinings English Breakfast. Note the sad lack of Troubled Diva merchandising in the mug arena (and indeed in the mousemat arena). Because, believe it or not, I don’t actually own any of my own merchandise. Well, it seems a little masturbatory, don’t you think?
12. Painting, by Alicia Dubnyckyj, of the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. Let’s look at it properly, shall we?
Bought (and blogged) in January 2003, this painting took on an added level of interest a year later, when the chapel in question was used by Britney Spears for her Whoops I’d Had A Few Too Many 24-hour marriage to “childhood sweetheart” Jason Alexander. Perhaps they have a commemorative plaque there now.
13. A bunch of recently digitised CDs. (The CD burner is out of sight, behind the nasty grey chair.) Top of the pile: a CDR of Jet Propelled Photographs by Daevid Allen’s University Of Errors, as copied by my mate Stereoboard, and consisting of latter-day space-prog covers of extremely early Soft Machine tunes. Yes, it’s a bit Niche even by my standards.
14. It’s very untidy of me to leave it lying around like that, but the iPod to USB connection cable is used so frequently, that there’s scarcely any point in tidying it away. Everyone’s allowed one area of the house where they can be a total slob, right?
15. The only bookshelves in the house, which run from floor to ceiling in this handily placed alcove. Unlike with music, we’re not great hoarders of books, unless they’re hardbacks or contain pretty pictures. Read ’em, pass ’em on, or bung ’em in a box for the charity shop. Anyway, just visible in this shot are: In The Fascist Bathroom by Greil Marcus, an original 1950’s collection of Ronald Searle‘s St Trinians cartoons, and a large number of signed and dedicated first editions of Dymbel’s Young Adult Fiction paperbacks.
Any further questions? And shall I “tag” someone this time round?
Yes, I shall. Peter, you’re It. Show us yer workings!
troubled diva 