The Wedding DJ

I have just received an invitation to a wedding which contained the instruction: "Please suggest a song for the disco".

Big mistake. This is not a request that I can take lightly. Just one song? *One*? I'm not suggesting they hand over the entire disco to me - I'm not - well, I am - I totally am - but given that that's not going to happen, it's the work of an entire day to pick a song which encapsulates all of my musical taste, is enough of a crowd-pleaser to get everyone moving on the dancefloor, and isn't something that any passing DJ would have just picked anyway. I'm supposed to be writing my novel!

What's that? Taking this *too seriously*? Man, are you ever reading the wrong blog. Move along.

For the rest of us that are still here, shall we go to a vote?

I have decided that 1990s nostalgia is the way to go, given that's when we first were friends, and also it narrows the field considerably. Consider -



Call the cops! I can't find a youtube of the original (I didn't look that hard) but even those unfamiliar (can there be such people?) can get the gist from this live version. Advantages: we call get to dance like Bez. (Note also the excellent moves of Rowetta, the bonkers X Factor contestant in her early days as a Happy Mondays backing singer.)

Then there's -



Too slow? But they are the quintessential 1990s band and I bet loads of people wouldn't have heard this song for years. And think of the singalong potential of the chorus. Also, those of us who are single and thin get a great line towards the end.

And would people go mad for this?



Or would it clear the dancefloor now we're older and nobody's on any drugs except antibiotics? I am very tempted to suggest it. What's a wedding without a hint of heroin after all? Plus it would stand out nicely if everyone else has suggested ABBA.

Too bleak? OK. How about the least bleak song of the entire 1990s?



This blog post could go on and on, so I'm going to make myself end with this, maybe the most appropriate 1990s pre-nostalgia post-nostalgia reunion wedding song ever?



Right then. Let's take a vote.

poll by twiigs.com

If you happen to be reading this and it's your wedding, do feel free to vote twice.

I'll remind you of this nearer the time (probably)...

...but I'm giving a talk at the London Writers' Club, on how to write a novel. Something I have succeeded in doing once, and failed to do on any number of other occasions before and since. Hmmm. Anyway, if you are on Facebook, there are details here and you can sign up on the page and show the world just how brilliant and popular the talk is going to be. But if you are not on Facebook, I will show mercy and give you the details anyway:

Date: July 7
Time: 6.30-8.30pm Bar opens at 6.30 (it stays open 'til later)
Venue: Clerkenwell House, 23-27 Hatton Wall, Clerkenwell EC1
Tickets: £10 in advance, £15 on the door.
Website: www.londonwritersclub.com

Tickets go on sale June 9th. Be there or etc.

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: Next Month: Disquiet

Have returned from Hay to a To Do Mountain (like the European Butter mountain, but less slimy, and less tasty on toast), one of which I realise is: new bookclub book.

Because I have shaved a week off your reading time, I am going short beyond the call of duty. This month we're going to read Disquiet by Julia Leigh.

Short enough to be read in a couple of hours, Disquiet is - as the title suggests - a disturbing, unsettling novella, about a woman who returns to her family home with her two children, escaping a violent relationship. The day she arrives coincides with her brother's return home from hospital where his wife has just given birth to a stillborn child.

Having picked a series of crowd-pleasers, I expect this one to divide readers. The only reviews on Amazon are both 2-star, from people who found the book hard to engage with. It is an eerie and distant read. On the other hand I found the book utterly engrossing and read it in one sitting. It's dark and haunting and very unusual. But that'll make for a good discussion...

Meet back here on June 18th, literary guns blazing.

Out On A Limb

My leg is the the bottom left of this picture, in rolled-up jeans.

Name: Marie Phillips
Age: 33
Book Most Recently Read: The Mighty Walzer by Howard Jacobson
(Was) Most Looking Forward To: Paddy Ashdown (and quite right too - he was brilliant.)

Making Hay

Off to the Hay-on-Wye festival for the bank holiday weekend. Weather forecast: both sun and rain! Hurrah! I can pack a ridiculous amount of clothing I won't wear, including (does quick mental calculation) at least three pairs of shoes. That's three pairs of shoes, in order to sit in tents for three days listening to people talk about books. *Happy sigh*. I am planning to take my laptop with me, but only if there is room in my suitcase once I have packed the shoes. So there may be updates; or there may not be. It'll be an exciting surprise for us all.

Pointless addition to my bag this time: hairdryer.

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie

Before we begin, I was in central London this morning and noticed a huge poster advertising Suzanne Shaw's perfume. How many people wake up in the morning and think: today, I want to smell like Suzanne Shaw? My guess: not many.

Moving on. Really enjoyed re-reading The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie this month, for one main reason: I had forgotten how funny it is. The appropriately-surnamed Muriel Spark has such a waspish way with her prose, each page glitters with vicious observations and sharp commentary. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book where the girls are pubescent children filled with beady curiosity, watching the adult world, and, while not entirely understanding it, somehow picking up the truth of it, so that they catch onto Miss Brodie's love triangle long before any of the adults do. The fake letter they write from Miss Brodie to her lover Gordon Lowther is typically priceless:

I was proud of giving myself to you when you came and took me in the bracken on Arthur's Seat while the storm raged about us. If I am in a certain condition I shall place the infant in the care of a worthy shepherd and his wife, and we can discuss it calmly as platonic acquaintances. I may permit misconduct to occur again from time to time as an outlet because I am in my Prime.

Miss Brodie herself is a fascinating, grotesque, as simultaneously attractive and monstrous as any fascist leader, which is of course what she is to her girls. Marrying the portrait of Miss Brodie to the story of fascism in 1930s Italy and Spain, Muriel Spark spins a brilliant satire, where the power struggles are no less momentous for taking place against the smaller backdrop of a school. The book skillfully intertwines its twin themes of female sexuality and female power dynamics, reading as a sort of female Lord of the Flies, except much, much funnier.

I'll announce next month's book, um, once I've decided on one...

Interstitial

There's going to be an unavoidable delay with the bookclub tomorrow because I'm out all morning and I'm too tired and snotty to write the post now. So until tomorrow afternoon, here's a little ditty from those lovely Conchords boys about their, ah, after-dinner mints.



Jemaine's dancing is a particular joy.

Fringe Party Party

Cold still going strong, and I've run out of tissues, so I'm delighted that a bunch of leaflets from bonkers fringe parties have just popped through my letterbox, giving me something to blow my nose on.

First up, the good old BNP, current slogan: "Because *we've* earned the right". Not you, you horrible brown-coloured lot. WE. So bugger off to your own crappy countries. (What gurkhas?) Anyway, I'm particularly enjoying the BNP evoking the spirit of the Blitz to garner votes. "The NEW Battle for Britain", it trumpets, next to a picture of a Spitfire. "Trafalgar, The Somme, Dunkirk, D-Day, The Falklands" - entirely fought by the white, don't you know. And what better way to evoke that wartime cameraderie than borrowing all your policies off the Nazis? You know where the Nazis went wrong? By being German. If only they'd been British, we wouldn't have had to kill them. Such a missed opportunity.

Next up, UKIP. Sad when all you have going for you is that you're less evil than the BNP. Their message: the EU sucks. And: nothing else. Their choice of illustration: Winston Churchill. Basically, nothing worthwhile has occurred in this country since 1945, so vote for us and it will be as if the last fifty years never happened. Hurrah!

Offering stiff competition to UKIP is the snappily-named 'No2EU: Yes to Democracy' party. Otherwise known as UKIP for lefties. No pictures of Churchill or any other WW2 icons, no nasty embarrassment of having to align yourself with Robert Kilroy-Silk, no racism, but lots of cheap black and white photocopying, several detailed paragraphs of policy and one small photograph of Bob Crow. It's quite charmingly old-fashioned but someone should probably have a chat with them about marketing. I find myself actually slightly convinced by their propaganda, which is a surprise, and instantly makes me suspicious.

Lastly: the grammatically confusing 'We Can Europe' (Verb! Verb!) which claims not to be a political party but "a movement which believes that political parties have become part of the problem", but is nevertheless fielding a bunch of candidates. Hmm. Images used: shaky building sites, splatty-looking pictures of politicians. First flick through the leaflet - hang on, it's not a leaflet, apparently it's a "multi-media experience", cunningly disguised as a leaflet - fails to reveal whether they are for Europe or against it (Verb! *Please*!) Closer reading leaves me no wiser. Very flashy, lots of new-speak ("WE CAN EUROPE is about starting the process of developing new forms of participation and communication in order to change politics"), lots of marketing, but content utterly baffling. Appears mainly to be advocating use of websites. Strongly feel that We Can Europe and No2EU : Yes To Democracy should consider doing some skill-sharing.

Meanwhile, it's two weeks to the election and I am yet to hear a word from anything that could be defined as a normal party. Either they have totally given up, or they have spent all their money on flatscreen TVs for their second homes and can no longer afford to pay for leaflets.

Cold

Have a proper, old skool cold, like the ones we got back in the day and called "flu" before being reminded that flu is actually something that can kill you and if you can get out of bed and blog about it, it really is just a cold. Even so, pity me. Yes, I am ill all the time. No, I don't know why, as have none of the risk factors: I don't commute, I don't have kids, I do wash my hands.

Anyway, I am about to get back into bed with some research (soldiering on), thus depriving you of an interesting blog to read. Fortunately, with incredible foresight, I scheduled this month's book club for Thursday, so while you are waiting for me to get better, you can all read The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. It's funnier than I am anyway, even on a good day. Chop chop.

This Week In Grazia

I have a(nother) stinking cold, which in my house means that I have permission to buy Grazia and read celebrity stories, such as the cover headline that sensationally reveals that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are back together, although the actual story in the magazine only sensationally reveals that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are not back together. I also get to find out what I'm supposed to be wearing this season, because really, I do not know. Right now I am wearing tracksuit bottoms, a jumper and some old cashmere socks. That's another thing having a cold means in my house.

Anyway, it turns out that I am supposed to be wearing this season is: jeggings. In other words, a cross between jeans and leggings. Skinny jeans are just too baggy, apparently. What you really want is denim that looks as though it has been spray-painted on. The piece comes with the following encouraging quote:

Denim guru Donna Ida says, "Jeggings flatter as they hug you in all the right places, and the high-waisted ones suck in the tummy."

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse - *high-waisted* jeggings? Could anything promise more hideousness? Jeans that are equally tight on your belly button as on your ankles! Meanwhile, the jeggings (the word doesn't get any less stupid with repetition) themselves are photographed without actual human beings inside them, and still manage to be unflatteringly fattening when worn by air. That's right: even nothing's bum looks big in jeggings. That's because they hug you in all the right places - and all the wrong places as well. And what does denim need a guru for anyway? Ladies: just say no to jeggings.

Three pages later, Grazia, as it does, has moved on from ensuring our compliant grotesquitude, and runs a piece on a 12-year-old Indian girl who has made a stand against forced marriage. It's the thinking woman's weekly, lest we forget. Unencumbered by any apparent sense of doubt in its reporting, Grazia cheerfully tells us:

While Rekha's parents at first reacted angrily, even refusing her water and food for several days, they eventually relented and now couldn't be prouder of their campaigning daughter.

Heartwarming stuff.

I can't quite figure out whether I need to never read Grazia again or buy it obsessively every week.

To Claim Or Not To Claim?

I am concerned about expenses.

The normal way, obviously, like everyone else. (People who run our country and whose wages we already pay also think it is OK to claim for moat-cleaning?) But also because, being self-employed, I am allowed to claim my business expenses against tax, ie I do not have to pay tax on income which goes on my expenses, so effectively you the British taxpayer cover 22% of my expenses - the rest I pay for myself. (Is that right? or is it just that the Treasury has 22% of my expenses less to play with? I was never good at maths.)

But it is not immediately clear what counts as a legitimate business expense. Paper obviously, and pens, writer-y stuff like that. Library membership, maybe? Internet access? The electricity I use to run the computer that I write on and the gas to heat the room that I sit in? Stuff your employer would usually pay for, basically. Stuff I can't do my job without.

How about this: after some moderate but bulky shopping in NYC (new winter coat: J'accuse) I suffered the indignity of having my suitcase burst apart at the seams on the flight home, turning up forlorn on the luggage carousel wrapped in accusatory bright orange Virgin Atlantic parcel tape. (Me: "That's my case! - Oh, no it isn't - Oh god, it really is.") So today I went out to buy a new suitcase, because I need it to go to the Hay Literary Festival at the end of the month (I am not reading there, but I am seeing other writers read, and using the opportunity to do some schmoozing of publishers, journos, etc - business trip? Fun weekend jaunt? Who can say?), to Milan in June (book tour, 100% business) and to France in the summer (holiday, 100% fun.) I didn't buy the most expensive case, nor did I buy the cheapest. (In fact I bought the lightest, because of budget airline weight restrictions and so I can lift it in and out of the loft by myself. Also, it is a bit bigger than my old suitcase, but not so much bigger that I will lose my mind. That's the idea, anyway.)

My point is: is a suitcase a business expense? I can't do my job without it; on the other hand, if I never went on another work trip again, I would still need a suitcase, plus I think that people who go on lots of business trips in normal jobs are not provided with luggage by their bosses (correct me if I am wrong.) Before the whole MP expenses scandal I would probably have claimed it without another thought: at least 22% of my travel is work-related. But now I feel sleazy and tainted by association. I feel like Hazel Blears. I do not want to feel like Hazel Blears. God prevent me from feeling like Hazel Blears. The value of not feeling like Hazel Blears is surely at least one quarter of a suitcase. (Hazel Blears: the kind of vomit you get from eating too much Nutella?)

Anyway, I don't know. Is it legitimate? Is it illegitimate? This is as confusing as Prince Harry. And multiply that by everything I buy which I sort of use for work but also use for other things - filing cabinet? *Assembly* of filing cabinet? I can sense it's going to be a very soul-searching, guilt-inducing tax return this year.

And don't even get me started on the leaky pipe underneath my tennis court. Totally interfering with my concentration on my second novel.

Tearjerkers

Every week on his blog The Medium Is Not Enough, Rob (aka MediumRob, when he comments here) posts a TV or film related meme, which usually I answer in the comments section there. This week's meme, however, deserves a post here all of its own. The question simply is: what's the most tear-jerking movie you've ever seen and why?

So here's the thing. I am a full-on, unashamed movie blubber. If you are going to see a sad film with me, bring extra tissues because I will be needing them. I don't think there is anything that makes me cry more than films, except perhaps really unhelpful customer service, and missing trains, but that's a whole different post.

I should probably warn here - this post will no doubt be full of spoilers, because I am going to talk about very sad films and what makes them very sad, and maybe some of the films in question you won't know are sad or why. So reader beware...

The first film I remember making me cry was Out of Africa, which I saw in the cinema when it came out in 1985. I was nine. As I recall the bit that really got to me is when Meryl Streep can't bring herself to throw the handful of earth on Robert Redford's grave. I managed to hold it together until we got outside, but then in the street outside the Swiss Cottage Odeon my whole body went into judders. My oldest sister asked me what the matter was, and I just about managed to say "It's sooooo sad" before I was engulfed in huge, racking sobs.

From then on my sister instigated the tear test, in which, at any potentially tear-jerking juncture in any film we were watching, she would shove her finger underneath my eyelid to see if I was crying yet. She also gained huge pleasure from taking me into her bedroom, playing the theme from Watership Down on her record player, and telling me the saddest story she could think of, usually involving a dying animal, until I wept.

There were, of course, any number of films which got me teary in the interim, but the next full-on sob-fest that stayed in my memory was Beaches, which I watched by myself on video in the living room of the family home. Looking back, I can't remember what exactly it was about Beaches that got to me, but I suspect it has to do with the protracted and painful death of selfless but beautiful Barbara Hershey from cancer while her traitorous but repentant best friend Bette Midler looked on and then wrote a soppy song about it. Yes, that's probably it. Again I made every possible effort to hold it in and managed to get across to the video player, press stop, and get halfway back across the room before collapsing into floods of tears. What was significant about Beaches is that it was the first time that I knew *even as I was crying* that I had been manipulated by a shamelessly sentimental heap of tripe.

I got older, I got tougher, I learnt the ways of the world. The crying did not stop. If anything, it got worse.

Take Atonement, for example, which I went to see with a new friend, after which - despite (or because of?) having read the book, and knowing exactly what was coming - I was so hysterical I couldn't leave my seat in the cinema, and had to wait while the whole of the rest of the room filed out, nudging each other and whispering "what's the matter with her?" Or Miss Austen Regrets, which was on TV a while back, and is about Jane Austen of course, looking back over her life as a spinster author and wondering whether the brilliance of her career was an adequate replacement for the lack of romantic love and and children. Inexplicably I identified with her predicament - I know, it's weird - and I cried pretty much all the way through from the beginning, so when Jane Austen actually died (she does die at the end, I hope that's not a spoiler) it barely registered.

But I think the most embarrassing of all was The Lives of Others, which my parents took me to see on my 31st birthday, a few months after I had signed the publishing deal for Gods Behaving Badly. In the lobby on the way in, we happened to run into Dan Franklin - my editor and the head of Jonathan Cape - and his wife in the lobby. My parents had never met them, so we chatted pleasantly for a while before taking our seats. As chance would have it, we were in the row directly behind them. For those of you who don't know, The Lives of Others is one of the most brilliant and unbearably sad films made in the last few years, filled with moments of selfishness and selflessness, love, betrayal, misunderstanding, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, death, redemption - any one of which could make me cry, but all at once? I cried my eyes out in the film, but managed to pull myself together and thought I was going to get out of the cinema OK, until I saw the name of one of the characters (Christa-Maria, the writer's wife, for those who know the film) in the end credits, which set me off again. Which normally would not have been a problem. My parents are used to this. However, what doesn't usually happen is that I have to stand in the lobby of the cinema making small talk with my publisher while chocking on vast, engulfing sobs. I was crying too hard to even be able to say goodbye. Eventually I sort of waved and walked away, but then - but then!! - almost immediately walked into an old schoolfriend of mine who I hadn't seen for some years, who was there with her new husband who I had never met, and had to do a whole other round of small talk ("How was the wedding? How lovely!") with tears streaming down my face.

I could go on, but I won't. Suffice to say that I love a sad movie. And there is nothing worse than a film which promises a wealth of weeping but does not deliver. Love Story, I'm looking at you.

Vanity: fair?

I have just been interviewed by Italian Vanity Fair magazine. We had the interview at my house, at my request, because I feel self-conscious doing interviews in a cafe where people can overhear.

The interview was at 10am. At 9.30am, I suddenly realised that if you do an interview in your house, it is not only you being interviewed: it is the house itself. Flurry of panic. I was, of course, not ready myself either. Thus had to do a whole series of appraisals:

- will Vanity Fair be more shocked by my not drying my hair, or by having all my laundry inc underwear on drying rack in corner of room?
- will Vanity Fair be more shocked by my not having any make-up on, or by drifts of dust and loose hair on my white-painted staircase?
- is it worse for doorbell to ring while am carrying dustpan and brush, or with only one set of lashes wearing mascara?

And so on.

But hurrah for confused cab drivers: the journalist was 15 minutes late. Thus was able to open door with styled hair and emergency-level make-up (you know what I mean: hadn't curled my eyelashes, had stretched to Touche Eclat), graciously accept apologies for tardiness, and lead journalist into gleaming house with nary a trace of laundry to be seen. It was only when I went to make the tea that I noticed the wok from yesterday's stir-fry still sitting soaking in the sink... but she'll never know about that. Except when she looks up the blog to help her with her research. Ah well.

The thing about being interviewed, you see, is that you forget: it's not just you bring interviewed, it's your house. And your blog. And your book. Maybe I should worry less about being overheard?

Vanful of cats

As requested by my sister:



I would comment further, but that would involve me knowing why there was a vanful of cats parked on the street in Manhattan.

Gather up the news again, I'm back from New York

I'm back, and even my bleary jetlagged eyes can see that I have apparently only blogged about what I wore in New York and the arguments I had with subway operators. There were more arguments with subway operators, incidentally, but it just got too repetitive to log them all. Sometime around the penultimate one I noticed a small sign on the booth reading "Courteous Service Here". Would have taken a photo but feared it was forbidden and I would be punished with some kind of ritual decapitation.

I did do things other than argue with subway operators and get dressed, but I did do those things every day. (Wardrobe watchers: I returned having failed to wear two dresses and a top, and really I could have done without at least one of the cardigans.) I did remarkably little shopping (although my suitcase burst at the seams on the way home, which tells a different story) and I only went to one museum (the Guggenheim, stunning building but mostly shut) and one gallery (the fantastic Sophie Calle show at Paula Cooper) and rain for three days curtailed some of my walking around with my eyes open, and yet somehow I feel like I crammed full every minute with diverse sources of joy.

Will it be singing showtunes by the piano at the excellently-named gay bar Marie's Crisis that I look back on with most fondness? Will it be the jazz gig in an old woman's Harlem flat? Or perhaps the Lincoln Center's screening of an obscure 1934 Soviet musical farce, described with much accuracy by them as "part Marx, part Marx Brothers"? Will it be going to the birthday party of a Tom Cruise impersonator who had his own showreel projected onto a screen throughout, and who took time out from the cocktails and cake to show the bar the trailer of his new movie? (Surely he was lost - that sort of behaviour belongs in LA.) Will it be arguing (and winning the argument) with a ferociously patronising New York waitress ("I don't know how it works where *you* come from, but here if you put your knife and fork together it means you've finished")? Or will it be the simple joys of Coney Island on a Monday morning in torrential rain, where the only people around are moribund Russian waiters waiting for something - anything - to happen? Getting drunk on Mint Juleps and watching my horse lose the Kentucky Derby with a group of the preppiest men in history? Eating eggs over easy in an old Greek dive, served by a seventy-year-old waitress with drawn-on eyebrows? The vanful of cats? The Burger Parade (not a place, but a menu item)? The Bourgeois Pig (swine flu not included)? Shoegasm? Barney Greengrass, the Sturgeon King? Or just the discovery of the best bar on earth? (You think I'd tell? On a public website?)

New York City Wardrobe Watch: I have lost count of the days

Only here for two more days. I have worn everything aside from two dresses and a cardigan. And a top. I may have to get changed a lot before I go home.

Have started to believe that I live in New York. Arguments with subway superintendents a daily occurance. Latest was trying to buy a replacement for the Metrocard I lost: the credit card machine asked me to put in my zip code, I remonstrated with the superintendent that this was not possible (the machine's numeric only), she said with great boredom: Just make up a bunch of numbers. Eventually forced her to sell me one for cash. Her face spoke volumes of outrage.

Found myself getting irritable with stupid tourists trying to get into Guggenheim museum this morning as I swanned past with my yearly membership pass. Out of my way, peasants. I belong here. Oh hang on, that would be my friend's elderly landlady's yearly membership card. There is no photo.

Haven't decided what to do tonight yet. The doorman suggested going to the Intrepid. I imagine hidden locals-only bar. Google. It is naval museum.

Tomorrow I am wearing a dress.

Revenge of the New York Subway

Following that post I went out for the evening. Got to the subway stop - the same subway stop where I had previously been lectured on my subway entry technique - only to discover that I had lost me Metrocard. After emptying out my entire handbag on the floor of the subway station and ensured that there was definitely no card in there, I gathered up my possessions and went over to the little booth and asked the man there to sell me a ticket. The man went on the dreaded microphone - I forgot to tell you that when the superintendents lecture you, they do it *over loudspeaker* - and explained to me that they do not sell tickets, you have to get them from the machine. Yes: I have been lectured twice in one day by New York subway officials. Yes: New York subway officials are only employed to sit in booths and lecture people over loudspeakers, and not to sell tickets. What kind of a system is this??

Later, we went to a bar called Marie's Crisis. True story.

New York City Wardrobe Watch: Day 3

Rain in New York. I misjudged and put on one of my chunky knits when I went out for the day, but it's warm and humid, thus I ended up far too hot and had to carry my coat most of the time. Don't see it getting any colder than this, and so must reluctantly register a FAIL for the cardigans. They were added as a last-minute impulse to an otherwise perfectly calibrated case: note to future self, ignore the impulse urge.

Meanwhile am experiencing a love-hate relationship with the New York subway. Points in favour: it's cheap. It's fast. It runs all night. It is air-conditioned - every time i get in to a busy carriage I brace myself for a London-style wave of fetid human bodyheat, but it's always blissfully cool. (Sadly not cool enough to justify the cardies though.)

Points against: it is totally beyond man or beast to understand. Particularly beast, I'd imagine, but basically there's a totally confusing map where it would appear that certain train lines all go the same way, BUT trains from different lines stop at different stations on the same trajectory, AND not all trains of the same line stop at all the stations on their line - it depends whether they are local or express. To further complicate matters, after a certain, non-defined, non-signposted time of night, some of the trains stop running and other express trains become local trains. You are supposed to know when this happens by some kind of New York ESP. Also, sometimes, without announcing it, they decide against doing this non-defined change, or they decide to do it but at a different time then usual, or do it, but then fox you by changing back. Result: I am becoming intimately acquainted with the subway stations of Harlem.

If that weren't enough, for some subway stations, there are separate entrances for the uptown / downtown platforms, and if you go in the wrong entrance you can't get to the other platform through the station, but nor can you exit the station using your Metrocard, cross the road and go in the other side. When I did this I had to be summoned and lectured by the subway superintendent, an utterly terrifying woman who gave me a long lecture about how I had to READ the SIGNS, and then who finally said that she would let me onto the correct platform "as a courtesy" but that I must NEVER DO IT AGAIN. She also informed me that if I *did* do it again, the mandatory amount of time that I had to wait before I was allowed onto the correct platform was 18 minutes. I would love to have been at the meeting where that was decided. 15 minutes not enough of a punishment; 20 too stringent.

I can't say I exactly miss the expensive, sweaty, early-closing tube, but somebody needs to sit the people in charge of the Subway here and have a long, firm talk about signposting.