Fatter Friends & Shiny Things

Stoke and the North Staffs area is officially and academically the friendliest place in the UK. According to the University of Sheffield research, just 22.4 per cent of the city's 240,000 population feel uninvolved in their community – compared with 33.1 per cent in Edinburgh, the loneliest place. The study, called Changing Britain, also took into account the number of non-married adults in an area and the  of one-person households. This is despite the invidious and divisive presence of the BNP

BBC video clip   Local newspaper article

Hey, its glad that we have come top in something. The last time Stoked topped was not something we would put on the posters.

BBC Article

Being the fattest and friendliest city, must make Stoke the best place to have girl pals. Every girl knows its good to have a friend fatter than yourself to boost your own relative image and to stand next to in photographs. As Stoke's officially chunkiest Transwoman (though I'm shrinking by the week) I am struggling to find someone to fill this role. All my friends are irritatingly more svelte than myself. Failing my plan A of actually losing the weight myself, I plan to secretly fatten them up by spiking their food with lard, and by leaving strategically place cakes around their homes.

Finally finished my Christmas shopping yesterday. I went into Hanley, which confusingly is the city centre of Stoke. The pic on the left is of the spikey mascot that is above what was once Lewis's Department Store. It was surprising how quiet the shops were just two Saturdays before Christmas, and it was noticeable how many shops had closed down.

Earlier in the week I payed a visit to the doomed Woolworth's, closing down sale, . People were queuing for bargains but it felt more like asset stripping. There was a melancholic air and no joy was to be had, as I think everyone realised the significance of such a high street stalwart's possible demise. This said, I had stopped any serious shopping in Woolies some time ago and some of our local branches appear not to have been refurbished since the mid 70s. It will be smaller towns that are most affected if it does close down. Whenever I'm in some small backwater rural town, there will be a branch on the high street where other national chains are absent. Even in our cities, where else will we be able to impulse buy Pick-and-Mix, fabric dye or kitchen gadgetry, among all the shiny, glossy, branded, designer boutiques that dominate our shopping centres.

I managed to complete my Christmas shopping despite myself. My first assault a couple of weeks ago resulted in the only item bought being an ipod Touch for my self. Like a childlike magpie I am so easily distracted by shiny things. Once I had started obsessing about buying one the compulsion was all encompassing and the only relief would be to dig deep and buy one. In some ways this compulsive behaviour mimics my dressing habits of a closeted youth. The instant gratification of shopping works really well. Perhaps it would be cheaper if I developed a Crack habit instead. I have totally fallen in love with my sleek glistening new toy, and most evening find me trawling iTunes to feed it. Actually its more like nesting than feeding. I am filling it with all manner of different music, video and applications. In addition to the normal ipod collection of far more music than I will ever listen to, I have a couple of Wallace and Grommet videos and a number of albums of stand up from lefty socialist Comedians and an unnecessarily large number of downloaded applications. amongst the eclectic collection I have amassed so far are :  The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Simulated Koi Carp pond, The Adventures of Sherlock  Holmes, a Dictionary,  Drum Kit and Piano emulators, a simulated pint of lager! (I don't even drink) and a strange Brian Eno designed musak/graphic effect thingy. Oh and of course a few variations on a Tetris theme.

During my last iTunes browsing session, my eye was taken (the left eye for accuracy) by a Star Trek Tricorder emulater (I really am that tragically geeky). The disclaimer on the web site finally proves Darwin to be wrong, in that as a species we are clearly de evolving at some rate.

DISCLAIMER

TR- 580 is a software that mimics a fictional device.

There is no real functionality behind this software.

Do not attempt to operate the software while driving or operating heavy machinery. 

Do not attempt to use your iphone or itouch as a medical device.

...and I had really hoped to use it as an emergency defibrilator! There may come a time that we will need to be told to breathe in and breathe out.... I decided not to buy the App

Rudolph The Well Guarded Reindeer

Unison LGBT day 2 10.30 am. Lobby of the Marriott Hotel.
Last night was good fun. I met up with Lucy from Southend who I have been cyber chatting to for a year. We had a real good natter and realised we are both Geeky T's. So most of the night was spent swapping transition tales mixed with a sprinkling of telly tattle.

This morning has been made up of a disappointing breakfast (continental, what's that all about.) and a nice mile long (and it did seem a long mile) stroll along Harbourside to this huge hotel where the conference is based. I must admit even on a dull morning, Bristol is a really pleasant city though surprisingly quiet.
The conference proper don't Starrt for a goodly few 'ourrrs yet (look I'm picking up the lingo already (actually that sounded more piratey than west country) so I'm toying with a trip to the shops. I've just noticed someone coming out of the lift that looked just like a guy Chris Bisson once of Coronation Street, but who knows I'm not going to ask him. ...... Laters...

12.45 coffee bar, Marriott Hotel
Got back from my shopping jaunt. It turned out to be more of an adventure than I expected. My main targets in descending order were , Evans natch, Hmv or similar, Claires and Waterstones. (for anyone overseas these may just be random words!) anyway a right turn found me in Cabots Circus shopping mall. This was a brand new looking, flashy, glassy arcade. Not seeing any of my targets, my eyes were drawn too the Christmas decorations (and for once both eyes were drawn in the same direction!) there were some huge wire Reindeers dotted with lights. Liking big things, I drew my camera and snapped away. Just as I was holstering my camera back in my bag, out of somewhere a large black overcoated man appeared. (large and black refer to the overcoat and not the man) with a telltale curly wire trailing from an earpiece and disappearing into his overcoat. "Do you work for House of Fraser" he asked. "Errm no I don't think so'', I replied unhelpfully. "You need permission to take photographs''. ''Do I ??'', as I pulled out my camera and brought up the pictures I had taken. "Look, I just wanted a pic of your stags''. Unimpressed, he said "you can't take photographs here'', and indicated away from the arcade. ''Oh sorry, perhaps a sign would be helpful and maybe some duller Christmas decorations'', and with that Cabots Circus, the security man and me parted ways. I did wonder what they were so worried about. My best guesses in no order are that I may have been an  international terrorist, a rival flashy glassy arcade  developer, or that everyone in Bristol is terminally camera shy.

Anyway I now found myself heading leftwards and lo I stumbled upon another oversized decoration in the form of a huge pyramid of baubles. So I was torn, I should really just walk away but the devil made this my quest. So I scoured the scene for possible securitas. There was one possible candidate the far side of a square, so unsuccessfully secreting myself behind a lamppost I waited for him to turn away and snapped my prey and quickly stowed away the incriminating camera.

  
The conference starts with a stutter rather than a bang. I'm used to the motion fests of the national conferences, but this is much more civilised with the first day taken up with meetings and caucuses, interspersed with networking and mingling. The meat and heat of debate starts tomorrow. I killed a few minutes bantering with some of the service provider stands selling insurance, breakdown cover, financial advice and credit cards. I asked how many of them had merged or been nationalised since the credit crumpet had landed, but from their expressions I guess that was really only funny in my head. Anyway, I have 3 meetings ahead of me, the Trans Caucus, West Midlands regional meeting and the Healthcare group meeting, so I was kept out of any further shopping expeditions

10pm All done and dusted and back in my Hotel cabin

The meetings went well. In the Trans caucus I was banging on about still getting called by my old pronoun. I even related the story of Gammo my cat to illustrate how hard it is to change the way peoples brains work. When I had Gammo off Vicky she told me it was a boy cat, so it naturally became he. On closer inspection, when one morning I awoke and found him sitting on my face, I noticed that he was in fact a she. The thing is, even with my trans super powers I struggle to call her she. If I can't get the bloody cat's gender right how can I moan when people get mine wrong. I guess the problem its it hurts me, much more than Gammo. I was less annoying at the other meetings and mainly kept quiet. The conference day was finished with a reception at the civic centre with speeches by the mayor, the council leader and minister for state Dawn Primarolo who brought the house down.

Sitting tapping away I have realised that I haven't eaten since my disappointing breakfast. I've taken my slap off so I'm not going to venture out. I will just have to stick it out till morning as the only things I can find to eat are 2 sachets of hot chocolate powder.