England Calling’s blog

I Cannot Make This Shit Up.

nobody@vox.com(England Calling) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:55:51 -0700

+ Oxford has a lot of books, and only a hundred libraries (impoverished, darlings). So, until somebody conveniently dies and leaves them a Georgian mansion/Camelot/historical burial ground, they are keeping some of the lesser-needed books somewhe...

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Fact: Philip Pullman Does A Good Texan Accent.

nobody@vox.com(England Calling) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:29:29 -0700

Other facts: + Placing sixteen aspiring writers in the one place appears to lead to an almost rabid mutual support. Everybody is wonderful and lovely and talented and coos over one another's dogs. I suspect this is a communal reaction against ...

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The Cake Is A Lie?

nobody@vox.com(England Calling) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:23:16 -0700

In the past week, I have: + Assembled a 45-page collection of documents, passports, dutifully hideous photographs and nail parings with which I aim to pummel on the door of the UK Visa Office yelling 'SANCTUARY', + Given said UK Visa Office my b...

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In Which Our Heroine Finds A Roof Over Her God-Forsaken Head

nobody@vox.com(England Calling) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:55:49 -0700

It's done. It only took five months, ten housing agents, innumerable Emails To Express Interest, equally innumerable flats rejected because they lacked heating/fridge/floor, two blessedly helpful British Angels Of Mercy who trooped out to inspec...

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Hunting A Hagrid-Hut

nobody@vox.com(England Calling) — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:18:38 -0700

The process of uprooting my Fine Upstanding Self from these antipodean foundations is now steaming forth with vim and vigour. Visa applications, snide remarks regarding the NHS, international driver's license jiggery-pokery and startling varietie...

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Shooting From The Hipster?

nobody@vox.com(England Calling) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:13:20 -0700

I'll miss many things about Sydney- the Chinatown markets on Friday nights, the colossal thunderstorms, the free Wednesday concerts at St James's, the oddly high likelihood that one's taxi driver is a Bangladeshi heart surgeon with a controversial...

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Oh, Cripes.

nobody@vox.com(England Calling) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:54:59 -0700

I never in my life thought I would actually be saying this. Ahem. I'm going to Oxford. Yes. That Oxford. The Big Thing With The Dreaming Spires (Shut Up, Matthew Arnold). The place with the Prohibited Mounds and the rowing matches and t...

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Graduation Speeches I Have Known

nobody@vox.com(England Calling) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:20:26 -0700

So, I'm a graduate now. Jesus loves me more than I will know, whoa whoa whoa, etcetera. Yes, I wore the peculiar hat, attempted at one point to throw it in the air but watched it collide with another person's at a height of perhaps three feet...

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Lancing The Free Market

nobody@vox.com(England Calling) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:23:04 -0700

I began, a short while ago, to write about the ridiculousness of the freelance writing market, into which (for various reasons) I am currently dangling my pretty pink tootsies; but I got exactly halfway through a post before deciding that I sound...

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Well, That Was... Peculiar.

nobody@vox.com(England Calling) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:05:02 -0800

Suffice it to say that the interview with Oxford was not entirely what I expected, and leave it at that. If I'm not what they want, I shall not grieve, rend my artfully diaphanous clothing, and throw myself in front of the nearest omnibus (autom...

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