Tech alert! Plus some other crap about ebay of all things.

If you have ZoneAlarm (free firewall that I would highly recommend) and it's asking about ie.exe do not allow it to access the internet. It's a Trojan horse, so is counter.exe. And the five other Trojan horses I've just found on my machine. I hate viruses, they scare the crap out of me. I am now convinced my bank account will be drained. I am deep scanning my whole machine for baddies.

Aside from that the general news is good - Subtext sales are on the up again after the great review we received on The F Word. We've had a submission from a guy which is good, and some more orders from men too. I had an order today from a city council as well! That was a bit of a surprise. In fact, I was a little frightened by the official looking envelope and purchase order until I looked closely. I even got to take my mum and dad out on a countryside walk this afternoon and get paid for it. Sweetness.

I have also rekindled my love interest with ebay over the past couple of days, and despite being penniless due to car breaking problems have bought myself a red bag and a blue bag. Some of you may already know I have a bag problem, and I did have kind of an ebay problem for a while too. You know the type of thing, can't stop thinking about ebay, setting 4am alarms to wake you up to bid on stuff in the USA, skipping lectures to catch the end of the auction. Normal stuff, right?

Ebay is great though. It's recycling, really.
Speaking of consumerism auction style my top picks for autumn ebay shopping are:
Knitted berets
Long wool coats with belts
Pleated skirts
Vintage bowling bags that are tatty
Knee high boots with flat soles - preferably with buckles.

(for more advice on what to wear at any given time or situation Jeepers is you woman)

The above about sums up my ebay watch list, if you remove the skirt and add a couple more bags. I'll cry if you bid against me and I loose.

Book meme: I've been tagged, and I actually got around to doing it!

Tagged by the hippest hippie
1. One book that changed your life?
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf – I’d identified as a feminist for a while before reading it, but seeing my ideas in print was great. Thanks Sarah for lending me a copy!
2. One book you have read more than once?
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – I re-read this recently, having forgotten entirely what happened in it. I skim read books super fast, so don’t always remember what I’ve read or take everything in. I’m ready now to read the next one. I love Harry Potter.
3. One book you would want on a desert island?
Outdoor Survival Handbook: The Classic Indispensable Guide to Surviving the Outdoors by Ray Mears. Hippie – you’re right; this is the one to go for! Ray Mears is ace.
4. One book that made you laugh?
I’m reading The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams at the moment (it was read to me by my teacher when I was about 11) and it’s made me laugh out load so many times. It is utterly bonkers.
5. One book that made you cry?
I read this before the film came out, after my brother recommended it – Pay it Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde, made me cry. The book’s better than the film. Aren’t they always?
6. One book you wish had been written?
The very busy woman’s guide to pausing time, and if necessary rewinding it just to catch up on sleep.
7. One book you wish had never been written?
I can’t think of one without first researching it (and I feel like writing this off the cuff). I would prefer race hate books not to be written.
8. One book you are currently reading?
The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, awesome.
9. One book you have been meaning to read?
I have a few books on the go at the moment that I have been meaning to read, but this tag has a theme of one. So, here’s one, Fire with Fire by Naomi Wolf (which I have leant to the aforementioned Sarah after hearing it is just one big retraction of Beauty Myth).
10. Now tag five people
I'll do this bit later...

Meshing - a step in the right direction or a daft idea?

A new option available to couples who choose to get married, want to keep their own names, but don't want to double barrel them is meshing. Harking from the states it basically means combining both names to come up with a totally new one. Blair and Bus = Blush etc.

I know, I'm so totally NOT allowed to blog at work, nevermind surf the net, but this one was just too good.

In other news

I've begun volunteering with a local women's centre on their management committee - I'm fundraising and communications person which is great as I actually know what I'm doing! I have my second meeting on Tuesday in which I'm advising on how to best produce and layout an annual report. Feels good to be filling up my time with righteous women stuff.

Although it does lead to extreme tiredness... it's only 10 am and I am want to go back to sleep.

Starting from the top

Well, we've now sold over 120 copies of Subtext, and orders continue to come in. I am personally flabbergasted that the uptake for a little promoted magazine has been so great. We certainly have a rockin feminist network going on!

Now though, it's time to start getting stuff together for issue 2 (has this just become a Subtext blog? Is it boring?) I've emailed everyone who's put their name down to contribute this morning - so if you haven't had the email and want to contribute just drop me an email.

This time I'm hoping to extend the news section - and just the poeple to do that are your lovelly selves - bloggers! You lot put news up on your site everyday (because you're a lot better at this than I am). I hope you'd like to contriobute one of your posts? As with everything else, just email me (either at the blog email travellingpunk at gmail dot com or the subtext email contribute at subtexmtagazine dot co dot uk)

Fatigue taking over - must resist

After putting it off due to illness (mainly) I have spent the last 3 hours processing the first orders for Subtext. Horray, there are orders! There are a lot, too :o) I think I may have underestimated demand - which is a good thing, though I might need to get more printed :o)

I am knackered now, and my car has broken, and my full time job will no doubt get in the way of me actually mailing the magazines out for a day or so. I hope to have them dispatched in time for a weekend delivery though - interested parties, you heard it here first.

Melinda, I've also updated the website to list the editors as requested. I somehow lost the original text for the 'background' page, and completely forgot what it said, so filled the empty space with our names and vitals instead.

God, there's not much patriarchy blaming going on around here nowerdays, though someone called me an activist the other day, so maybe the general flavour is activism instead. This is heartening, I like action. It makes all the talk more effective.

However, my body, which has received some punishment in the form of careening up and down the county over the past couple of weeks and late nights fuled by stress and adrenaline, is calling for inaction, perhaps even rest - pah! it'll never learn, rest is not something I do.

54321 Launch!

Subtext Issue 1 is now available online or via mail order.

www.subtextmagazine.co.uk

I've spent that last 5 hours updating the website - argh! It's sexy new look is bound to entice orders :o)

It's £3.50 inc p&p in the UK or £5.00 worldwide, you can pay online via PayPal.

I am exhausted and have to sleep - please spread the word on your blogs, out of the goodness of your hearts and pity for my hermit like workaholicness required to get this together, eventually!

TP x

A true story.

Lady makes delicious mushroom and pine nut lasagne for dinner – a creation of her very own. She always makes too much food, and because the man in her house is not in her house, she has twice as much as she can eat.

Lady eats half. Yum. Creation is voted a success by a majority of one. She saves the other half and puts it in the fridge. Food normally lives for weeks in the fridge before going off – but this is an exception. Lady gets up early in the morning for work and puts half of the left over lasagne in a tub for her luncheon.

Cooled throughout the day by icepacks it is just-so when lunchtime arrives, and she gobbles it down at her desk. Thus – food goes unwasted. A triumph for her, her kitchen, and her dustbin (which smells).

She is prideful of her economical ecological non-food wasting ways and vows to continue along new paths of goodness.

She also decides to put the recipe in the book she is writing. She then decides that rather than just selling the book (via Lulu, which was the original plan) she will post the artwork to her blog for readers and feeders looking for easy veggie meals that don’t come on wheels or in tubs from the supermarket.

However – as her life is not all lasagnes and nonsense this may take a while. She has only written three recipes out so far, and has taken no photographs. She is also not a chef, nor does she ever intend to claim that title.

She enjoys writing in the third person present, though finds it confusing.

Oooh lala.
I have been away for some time, haven't I?

I am too tired - is that an excuse? Should I make one?
I was holidaying in the sun last week - although the sun was also holidaying, so it rarely shone. However I did manage to spend a fucking ridiculous amount of money, which is always nice.

Other tiresome updates include my first ever hen party - pretty much what I expected, drunkeness, 'wild women' with a license to be lewd, a male stripper (shudder) and dancing with/avoiding/fighting with 'stags'. Why are men even more ridiculous and pawing when they are drunk?

I won't regail you with every detail - however one particular ass-face sticks clearly in my mind, for yanking on my hair as I walked past. Totally unprovoked. I have short fucking hair - it's not like it was even easy for him to get a handful. Anyway. After much insulting screeching (aimed at him) and tears (I am a crap drunk who vows never to drink again every time I touch the stuff. Please, if I am drunk and you see me remember only one thing - forget everything I said, and never remind me of what horrors I did.) we made up. He was a fool though. I think he may have thought my hair was a wig - which is insulting in a makes-me-laugh-you-fool kind of way.

Anyway. Eurgh. Fool - pulling my hair.

Also, after great indepth discussions about porn during holidays with the missus he decided, while I was out henning it up, to see for himself what all the fuss is about.

Sheepishly he informed me the following day, worried perhaps I will discover his illicit brush with sex-on-the-net and judge him a dirty old perve (he is right, this would likely be my reaction, I am reactionary). After confessing his sins to me, the minister, he is absolved, and vows, mainly on the foul taste left in his mouth from that experieince, that it is not something he plans to do again.

I tell him some people like to feel dirty.

Today I skived off work for a bit, drove 50 odd miles, bought rubber gloves, created lasagne (yes, created) avoided washing up for as long as possible, cried a little inside over the Subtext debacle and the fact that it is STILL not done (for fucks sake this is killing me - why do I do this to myself), vowed to fill in the application for a volunteering position at the women's refuge that has been lounging on my sofa for weeks before I actually meet up with them next week, and drank water as I am still cleansing my system after Saturday.

Good/bad news is I have another hen party next week, then weddings for the following two weekends. Will I ever have a normal blood:alcohol level? This is all after swearing off the stuff after the Notts 'Drop in the Ocean' music festival at which I got so utterly tanked my missus came home to find me asleep in the garden. *Sigh*

In parting, a big knob in the tennis world said today that women should not get the same amount of prize money as men for winning Wimbledon. He based this on the 'fact' that it is the only tournament that still has unequal prizes, and that men are better at tennis. I'm sure Maria Sharapova is better than my missus at tennis, proving this theory instantly wrong. I declare him, for sheer idiocy and mindboggling stupid arguments, a foolish fooligan. He may have been called Andy - I am not a tennins fan.

After than diarrohea of brain draining nonsense I bid you adieu...

Cohabiting couples in the UK may be on their way to receiving them same rights as married couples!

According to the BBC more than three-quarters of couples live together before marriage (me included – though not before marriage, that implies I actually want to get married), and one in four children is born to parents who are cohabiting.

If the new law is introduced (this won’t be until 2007, at least) cohabitees could make the same financial claims as divorcees and lawyers have suggested the entitlements should apply after couples have lived together for two years.

I hope that like me you’re thinking ‘Wow, a step in the right direction! Down with heteronormative marriage practices!’, if you are, you are about to roll your eyes and groan.

Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips told the BBC changing the law would undermine marriage.
She said: "This idea that society is changing and therefore the law has to change to keep up with it is wrong, in my view, historically the law has led the progressive dismemberment of marriage by stripping it progressively of meaning.”

So, is Melanie actually saying that the law shouldn’t be changed to keep up with changes in society? If this is the case, how widely does she want to apply this theory? I mean, back in the old days it was perfectly legal to kill a Welshman with a crossbow on a Sunday. Thankfully this is no longer the case, as of a year or two ago. I would imagine this is a positive law change reflecting a change in society – no?

Ok, that’s a little different, but isn’t the premise the same – refusing to adapt laws to a changing society is utterly ridiculous.

In summation – Cohabiting couples in the UK may be on their way to receiving them same rights as married couples. Can you see a day on the horizon when marriage is not the be all and end all of coupledom in our society – nay, of everything a girl is brought up to do in our society.
Horray!