The claustrophobic's guide to Tube travel

As much as I love taking the boat to work, or walking to work or taking the bus (I have a particular love of 'pole position' on the top of a double decker) it's the good old London Underground that gets me around for the most part.

Which is fine, aside from the fact that I suffer from more than a little bit of claustrophobia. I don't know whether it comes from growing up in a place with rather a lot of space, or that I'm just genetically hardwired to shudder at the thought of being stuck in enclosed places with people I don't know.

I like the concept of the Tube and I really enjoy NOT driving as being part of my life. Only I really don't want other people touching me with their hair or bags or newspapers or stuff. Yup, I'm a precious little princess, OK?

However, I know for a fact that I am not the only one - there are always a few other stragglers at the end of the platform, waiting anxiously for what I like to call a 'seaty' train. We are a rather pathetic little club of people who like space but live in one of the most densely populated cities in the western world - an assortment of misfits who have developed their own set of strategies and tics to get through the day.

So just in case you're like me I thought I'd share some of my best tube survival tips with you. Even if you're not claustrophobic it might help, especially if you're visiting London. Here we go:

1. There is ALWAYS another train - if the one you're waiting for is packed just walk to the end of the platform and wait for the next one. I know you need to get to work (so do I), but the psychological tole of having an unpleasant journey will make your day start badly. Just wait. And blame the tube when you get to the office! Who knows - you could've been stuck in a tunnel on the packed train anyways.

2. Walk to the end of the platform where there are fewer people. Watch the tube mice on the tracks. Relax. And wait.

3. Make your #1 priority getting a seat - you might think that there is space around you in the standing areas when you get on the train, but that can get filled up pretty quick. So take a seat if you can find one - and don't be shy about asking people to move their bags if they are taking up a seat. Enjoy your bit of breathing space but be prepared to give up your seat if someone elderly, infirm, or pregnant is in sight.

4. Travel off-peak - in the case of the Underground this means after 10am in the mornings and before 5pm in the evenings, and anytime after 7pm. BTW I've found that there is no real 'off peak' time in the morning unless you want to deal with the silly hours before 7am.

5. If you MUST board that sardine can there are two strategies you can use. First one is to place yourself far into the middle of the rows of seats, which means that you will be positioned well for any seats that come up in subsequent stops. The other option is to try to position yourself near a door, hopefully with your back up to one of the section dividers - this means that you won't wind up with other people squished into you on BOTH sides, and also when the train doors open for the stops you get a nice big lungful of air, rather than having to inhale anyone else's Lynx Africa.

6. Insulate your journey with lots of time: give yourself extra time to get where you're going and you can wait for a nice quiet train. Meanwhile, you can read or listen to some music while you wait.

7. If all else fails just pop above ground, and get a coffee, or wait for the bus. And if you really need to get someplace on time on the dot, book an Addison Lee car instead.

Any other survival tips out there?

P.S. The pigeon photo is totally gratuitous but hey, I took it so had to pop it in there
P.P.S. the usual apologies about not posting for a while but trust me I've been distracted!

Houston

I've always wondered - how much of who we are is formed in the earliest of days?

I was born in Houston, Texas. A poorly kid who needed a lot of surgery, which kept me out of trouble for a while, I guess. We left when I was nearly four - and I've often wondered what sort of imprint Houston has had on my life. It's always been a great unknown.

The rest of my life, barring holidays and the last 8 years in the UK were spent in Canada. I didn't ever go back to Houston for over 30 years - until last week. And there I am, in the photo, in front of the house where I first lived. To someone who grew up mostly in the cold north, it seems tropical and a bit otherworldly - ivy covers the front lawn rather than grass, the palms sway in the wind, and at the right time of the year you find pecans falling from the trees onto the streets. But this was normal life for me once.

I can't say that my memories of Houston are true or just fragments which have been implanted in my conciousness through listening to my parents, and looking at photographs. But it did feel eerie at times, driving around the streets and seeing some random thing that would trigger a thought or a feeling - or did I just want to have those feelings, to feel that affinity and connectedness with my tiny Texan 70s self?

At any rate, the city surprised me. It lived up to what I expected - sprawling, divided, western and rich, but it was also arty, multicultural, friendly, and seemed as much related to the deep, mysterious South of New Orleans and Savannah as the Wild West.

So thanks to my mom for taking me there at last and showing me my distant past - for once I felt like my American passport made sense, with 'Houston' stamped at the top as my place of birth.

I want to see inside your flat. Please!

One of the big differences I find between living in Canada and living in London is my obsession with wanting to see inside peoples' living spaces. In Canada, there isn't a tremendous amount of variation between the sort of places that people live - it's either a house in the burbs (50s, 70s, or 80s/90s), an apartment block (red brick from the early 1900s, or 1950s/80s, most likely) a small city house (mainly 20s/30s), or a generic condo kind of thing built recently. Which seems to be where most Canadians live these days.

Here in London it's tantalizing to eyeball at all of the interesting, historic buildings and wonder "what does that building look like inside? Is that a flat?"

Here are the places that I really want to see inside. If you live in anything like these, please invite me round for tea (I'm a friendly guest and I'll reciprocate)

1. Temple (see photo)- I know most of this 'compound' is made up of law offices BUT I also know that the top floors are private housing for the lawyers. Right now to get home from the office I have to walk through middle and inner Temple to the tube station, and I seem to spend most of this walk craning my neck to see if there is any way of nosily viewing the living spaces inside...

2. The Barbican - Though I am not massively fond of most 20th century housing projects, I have a secret love for the Barbican centre. I'd really be interested to see inside one of the flats, as they are so well preserved. And high up. Shakespeare tower, please!

3. Any of the Regency houses near Regent's Park - they are so beautiful. I want to see how the light streams through the windows. Ideally something designed by John Nash.

4. A 1930s block in Fitzrovia/Marylebone - maybe with a porter. And a really nice entrance hall.

5. The bonkers artists' studios turned into flats in Barons Court. Apparently used by the Pre-Raphaelites.

I'm sure there are more that I (and you) can think of. Meanwhile, if you live in any of those places, I'll bring the biccies, K?

All citizens are equal - but some citizens are more equal than others

One of the more disappointing days of my 20s was the day I became a Canadian citizen. At that point I had been living in Canada for 18 out of my 22 years and I was really happy to be making a commitment to becoming a signed-up full-on citizen of the Great White North. Woo! My English father and I both passed the citizenship test and went off to the citizenship ceremony together.

I was excited. This was going to be good. I was going to feel really happily Canadian. I knew I'd still be part British and part American too of course, but I was finally *choosing* to become part of the country which had dictated most of my life up until then.

So what was disappointing? Unsurprisingly dad and I were part of a large group of people from all over the world. Good-oh. Unfortunately, this global diversity wasn't fully appreciated by the citizenship judge, who gave us a massive lecture on how much *better* Canada was than our native countries, and how lucky we'd be to suddenly have human rights. I'm sure this generalisation applied to some of our group - but not all. It left a really bad taste in my mouth - was there no way we could appreciate our home countries and Canada *too*? Did we have to make a value judgement that Canada was automatically better?

As part of the Citizenship ceremony, you are asked to swear on a Bible or affirm your oath to Canada. Dad and I were fine with affirming, but as both of us are pretty much atheists, we didn't want to use the Bible. Fine, right? You would expect that the rest of our multi-faith group would be doing the same. Surprisingly, all of them wound up swearing on the Bible. Why is this? Because the citizenship judge had brought one of his friends, a fundamentalist Christian evangelist, to the ceremony so he could hand out Bibles... and start converting heathen souls. To be sworn into a secular nation, which recognises the separation between church and state, with some hard-core bible thumping really struck the wrong note. Not only was Canada a better country than yours - it would be good if you signed up for the standard religion too.

We left the ceremony as Canadians, but neither of us felt particularly proud at that particular moment, though obviously we were overall happy to be citizens at last, after so many years of hard work and education in the country.

Anyway, I've been reminded of how that citizenship ceremony made me feel over the past few weeks, because of some new amends to Canadian citizenship laws. As you know, I now live here in the UK where I am happily married to a lovely English fellow. Though I'm a British citizen (thanks again, Dad!), I identify mainly as a Canadian expat, as Canada is still where I've spent most of my life. But it turns out that my Canadian citizenship is second-class. Because I was born in the USA, if I have a child here in the UK, they won't be eligible for Canadian citizenship. I'd need to fly all the way back to Canada if I wanted to bring a dual citizen child into the world. This seems even more ridiculous for my sister, who was less than 1 year old when we left the USA - but if she has a child while she's on a contract in Alaska (as she is right now - can you believe I'm related to an archaeologist?), no Canadian citizenship.

Funny - I thought that that day in Citizenship court I became a full Canadian citizen, with all the rights of the native-born. Turns out I was wrong. Canada - you are better than this.

P.S. useful debate about all of this here

10 years later....

Back in the proto days of the Internet, when the only people writing on here were the serious geeks and freaks (myself included), I wrote the occasional blog-style article on my personal website. One of them was about turning 26, and how weird and old it made me feel.

Of course reading this article having just turned 36 makes me feel even weirder and older. And embarrassed. (and the rest of my old personal website isn't much better. I can't quite bring myself to write to my old host to take it down, even though I lost access to make updates years ago). I feel especially blushy about feeing old at *26* - honestly!

Now I am at that age where I tell people how old I am, and they gasp - "I wouldn't have guessed". This means two things - one good (I can still pass for young-ish and foolish) and one not so good (36 is a bit long in the tooth for someone who works in the web industry and wears "Kittens for Obama" t-shirts to work.) Oh well.

So what have I learned in the last 10 years? I think I'm still figuring that one out. The only thing I can say for sure is that the thing about always wearing sunscreen is right.

My three countries vs the credit crunch.....

USA: What the f**k is going on here?? We're supposed to be the rich ones!!! C'mon TEAM USA let's sort this out. But first I need to default on my mortgage.

Canada: Oh this kind of sucks, eh? I guess people might still want to buy this oil and these minerals and all of this timber though, eh? I don't think this knowledge economy thing is going to work anymore. Let's go fell some trees, eh?

UK: Oh dear. I think we rather deserved this. Typical.

Bye bye 2008!

My year: lots of thinking, talking and travelling. And I enjoyed all of these things...

Best music: Band of Horses, Goldfrapp, Fleet Foxes - good things happening with the nu-folk scene. Other than that everything new sounded like it was from the 80s (see Ladyhawke for a good example)

Best films: Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Summer Hours- I know it's confusing to combine both comic-book adaptations and an obscure French film but hey, it was that kind of year.

Best exhibitions: Janet Cardiff & George Bures-Miller at Modern Art Oxford, The Lure of the East at Tate Britain - none of the big blockbusters really did it for me this year. If you are in the UK I really recommend the Cardiff and Bures-Miller show, which is still on until January 19th. It's wonderfully creepy, inventive and has a unique 1950s Canadian mystery feel.

Best TV: Mad Men, The Apprentice (UK version), The IT Crowd, Peep Show, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe - all of that worthy stuff plus my guilty, schmaltzy love of Strictly Come Dancing (the UK original version of 'Dancing with the Stars') continues. I should say that this year I enjoyed the daily programme of 'Strictly Come Dancing - It Takes Two' hosted by the acerbic Claudia Winkleman even more than I enjoyed the Saturday night normal SCD outings.

Best theatre: Artefacts at the Bush Theatre, Now or Later at the Royal Court, and I was really blown away by the touring 50th anniversary production of West Side Story, at the New Wimbledon Theatre.

Best gigs: Not a lot to choose from this year. I've completely given up going to see bands in standing venues - can't be bothered anymore, and I figure being officially in my mid-30s means I can opt-out now. Of the few contemporary music gigs I went to this year, I enjoyed Terry Callier at the Festival Hall and Antony and the Johnsons at the Barbican. On the classical/jazz side the Jazz vocal night at the Barbican was pretty ace, and seeing mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager in the surrounds of the 12th century Temple Church was pretty special too.

Best hotels: The Post Ranch Inn - Big Sur, California, Hotel San Anselmo - Rome - I think I stayed in about 12 hotels this year, ranging from the seriously spectacular (the Post Ranch - see picture - that's our Treehouse in the woods) to the pretty grim (try to avoid the Thistle hotel in Poole, OK?)

Best (non-London) city: Rome wins over San Francisco and Chicago this year - difficult decision here but I think Rome has the slight edge because of the spectacular history. I think my favourite day of all of 2008 was exploring the Roman Forum and Palatine with my husband and my sister the archaeologist.

Memorable meals (abroad): Il Margutta - Rome (wonderful veggie Italian food), Sushi Roku - Santa Monica CA (Japanese fusion, LA style), Frontera Grill - Chicago IL (Big fresh neuvo Mexican), Sierra Mar - Big Sur, CA (Seasonal Californian). And if I had to choose one dish of the year it would be something I don't even know the name of - but it was tuna on a crisp rice cake, served at Sushi Roku. Amazing.

Memorable meals (domestic): Dehesa - London (great tapas in Soho), Terre a Terre- Brighton (seriously good world veggie food by the sea), Vanilla Black - London (sophisticated modern British vegetarian cooking)

Best new products: Dorset Cereals Honey Granola and the Andrew Collinge line of 'Perfect Endings' hair products. If you've got long difficult thick hair like mine this stuff is amazing - and much cheaper that buying the salon stuff too.

Best clothes from: Anthropologie, Jigsaw, Boden and Banana Republic (at last in Britain- hey, now when's Old Navy coming?). My fave look of the year is pairing a long cardie with a jersey dress and my fave item of clothing is a long grey cardie with ruffling at the neck which I bought at Anthropologie in Santa Monica, California. Please come to the UK Anthropologie!

Best websites: Twitter, Ocado's redesign, BBC iPlayer. I think I can safely say that the iPlayer has changed the viewing habits of a LOT of Britons. Now I only wish it would work outside of the UK! Oh well. Also - how much do I love Twitter? Follow me at www.twitter.com/Izabel_blue. Oh, and the worst website of the year? Got to be the Facebook redesign. Just when people had gotten used to it let's change it all around and make it harder to use, eh? FB is for now still a neccesary evil, but I'm looking forward to the social sites of the future that get it better and treat their users with less contempt.

Best sporty stuff: Federer vs Nadal in the Wimbledon men's final, and all that Olympic rowing. The Wimbledon final was especially memorable for me for two reasons - first, I made some good money betting on it, and the second was that I got so excited during the final that I managed to channel my inner She-hulk and pull the door off of our refrigerator during set 2. That was a very noisy crash.

Best thing ever about 2008: Obama! From the moment that I watched his post-Iowa primary speech (which made me burst into tears) I knew that something good was coming, as long as the American people had the courage to take a chance. Roll on January 20th!!!

And all of 2009, for that matter. Happy new year to you.