Pete's Teeth

Pete’s Teeth is my new colorful expression of annoyance, surprise, horror, etc. not just du jour but at least du mois. It sounds like this: Pete’s Teeth!!! with the emphasis clearly on the teeth part. I don’t know who Pete is and I care less about his teeth but these are the words that have just automatically been coming out of my mouth the last few weeks, usually when I get stuck in traffic behind some person who finds driving a car a challenge – in my experience these are often elderly gentlemen in hats and young women who are nattering to the person in the seat next to them, but I won’t get it into that.

I’ve always used colorful, off-the-wall expressions of my own making and I think Pete’s Teeth is a mixture of God’s Teeth and For Pete’s Sakes. One day it just popped out of my mouth when I was trying to say all of these at the same time (no doubt cramped up behind some slow person in a parking garage) and it just stuck.

The Sleeping Dali Exhibit

I am spending a few days in Berlin and yesterday I thought I should go and visit the Dali exhibition. Not because I am by any stretch of the imagination interested in Dali, but because sometimes I feel that I should broaden my cultural horizons by taking on topics that hold no attraction for me. You could also call it the result of a British all-girls’ school education.

The Dali exhibition is at the Potsdamer Platz and I found it easily after enquiring at the Film Museum (which I really should have visited instead). The Dali exhibition has large red banners with the word Dali in big letters, so it can be seen from far and wide, or from about a hundred meters away. It has lots of lip-shaped sofas, inside and outside, and the people at the entrance desk are very helpful and polite.

I did find the entrance fee of 11 Euros, plus extra for a guided tour and more extra for leaving your coat, quite steep and I communicated this. The man at the entrance desk told me it was because they are a private museum and receive no state funding. So if you are really interested in Dali, or like me, feel the need to sometimes do things that you don’t like, you might cough up and pay it.

Peep Show

We Cupcakes get irritated by lots of things. One of these is noise. More specifically, disturbing noise that encroaches on and penetrates one’s private sphere. A type of penetrating noise that particularly annoys this Cupcake is when people don’t turn off the tone on their phone keys, so that when they text, they might as well be sending the message in Morse code.

What is the point of having a tone on phone keys anyway? I could just about understand if you were stuck in an elevator during a power failure and the lights went off, then you might be reassured by the peeping of your phone as you were penning a quick text message for help. Other than that, I can’t think of a good reason for the key tones other than to irritate people like me.

The first thing I do when I get a new phone is turn off the key tones. It’s an easy thing to do, but sometimes I wonder if the reason that some people haven’t turned them off is because they don’t know how. If you’re using a Nokia, then go to Settings -> Tones. It’s the same menu where you choose your ring tone.

A couple of months ago I went on a long-distance trip on an ICE train. It was several hours to the next stop and the train was packed. Consideration for your fellow passengers is required. I was seated next to a pleasant-looking lady in the window seat, and next to me across the aisle was a lady, probably around 40, with a Blackberry.

Where Do We Go From Here?

In their latest issue, the magazine Vanity Fair addresses a topic which, for many reasons, is close to my own heart. They write that during the 20th century, there were dramatic differences in the cultural landscape - art in most of its forms, music, fashion, etc. over 20-year periods. Thus the outward appearance of our world and our peoples could be distinctly recognized as belonging to a particular era. A person living in 1952 could not be confused, for example, with a person of the era of 1932, at least not in a photograph or on film. Likewise, the image of a person living in 1972 could be immediately distinguished from a person esconsed in 1992.


However, over the last 20 years - 1992 to 2012 - there are very few perceptible differences in the outward appearance of popular style and culture, despite the vast leaps in technology and science. It is as if we are stuck in a groove of a culture and constantly looking to the past, rather than trying to create a new future.

The Glass History Museum

Another excerpt from my unpublished novel Lizzie Goes to Japan

Colin was tall, as tall as Richard. He was also slightly overweight, a little portly, but it seemed a nice sort of size to Lizzie. He was blond. She had never found herself attracted to blond men, which was probably why she really had not noticed him all this last week, and why he was not making much of an impression on her now. He was just terribly nice. And he was taking her out. He had said, Eight o’clock at the elevators, and he had been waiting there.

Inside the elevator, he looked down at her and said, “Would you like to go back to the hotel before we go somewhere? You know, I mean, to freshen up?”

I must look awful, Lizzie thought. Of course, I have been crying. How thoughtful of him to put it like that, not: your mascara has run and you do look a bit of a mess.

“I'm so sorry to be like this,” Lizzie said. “It is very kind of you.”

“It’s no problem,” said Colin. “I just can’t bear it when women cry. I just want them to... stop.”