Fuck You, Snow

This morning I woke up with an anger unknown to most sensible human beings.

It was intense and has not been relieved all day. And that is because there is no way of removing the thing which has caused me such great sorrow. Because, dear readers, it's the weather.

Snow, in late March (yes I know, please do not get me started) has decided to rock up and spray its white shit all over my crib, my car; even my cat if it stands still for more than twenty seconds.

And you know what? I'm taking a stand.

I refuse to enjoy this snow. This snow will hold no magic or wonder for me.

This snow will not pressurise me with its softness to sit in it and make angelic shapes.

This snow will not cause me to spend hours battling with the elements to make a snowman which looks nothing like an actual human being.

This snow will not be 'pretty, lovely' or 'just super!'

This snow will be disgusting, annoying and plain pointless.





So, with that, all I have left to say is: 

Fuck you snow, fuck you. 

Toilets, Work and Horrible Disasters

I have a terrible problem. And, like most fully grown real-life adult people, it's with work.

Don't get me wrong (especially you, Boss) I love my job.

But there is still one thing. One little thing that causes my blood to boil and my forehead to start sweating profusely.

And that's the toilets.

Urban Dictionary says this about a toilet:

1.	Toilet	1001 up, 112 down
	A place to sit and think. Also a good place to take a plop. "I'm going to go to the toilet and figure this out." buy toilet mugs & shirts

That's right, Urban Dictionary. Toilets are a place to have a little relax; some may say a place to think about the world and put it to right. A place to let your inhibitions (and bowels) go.

But my work's rest rooms ignore all previous rules about toilet sancdom. Nay, they get the rules, cock one leg up and pee all over them. Then, to carry on the analogy, throw the said rules down their cruel stained basins and flush with a powerful vigor only relative to the strenght of Lance Armstrong's lies.

Wow, what a mouthful.

These toilets are hellish for many reasons, but I've decided on the core three below.


1) The Walls.

To relax and allow toileting to become a calm experience, privacy is key. Privacy is in fact vital to this.

But, the walls on these cubicles are so painfully thin, you can hear the person in the next cubicle doing EVERYTHING, and I mean everything.

No one wants to hear Sandra from IT's Chicken Tikka Curry coming out, but I'm ashamed to say after one year at my office I can intuitively name dinners from the sounds coming from the toilet.

What can I say? It's a talent.

Due to this issue, us ladies have a secret understanding. When entering the toilet, if I have a companion in there, I nod politely at my toilet-associate, and thus the code begins.

Toilet code #1:
Flush the toilet before you have even unzipped your flies. 

If one flushes the toilet as soon as they get into the cubicle when another attendee is in the cubicle next door, it allows  the other person to let rip with whatever they desire to do. Pipe-noise and handle pumping included, I have worked out that this gives the Toileter 20 seconds of background noise. Those precious 20 seconds means that you can no longer fear over-hearing and being subjected to hardcore office gossip as the 'farter on floor five.'

Toilet code #2:
Put the hand dryer on. 

Even though the hand dryer has the power of a baby breathing on your hands, the tessid toilet agreement states that if you are by the sinks, you must put this on in order to allow the person in the cubicle to have a small ten second window of privacy.

Some kinder souls amongst us even attempt to dry our hands by this wheezy bit of warm air so that the companion in the cubicle can plop and read the entirety of War and Peace by the time the room regains its silence.


2) The Ability To Toilet

Or lack of.

My office is a standard one in a block of around ten companies. As far as I'm aware, child labour is still illegal. And we don't employ people under sixteen. So, using simple mathematics that means that ALL people in the office blocks are adults.

So why, please tell me why, can NONE of them use the toilet in the correct fashion?

I am fully aware that some people may have complications going to the toilet. But, all, all of the three toilets we have on offer have urine/floaters/shed load of toilet paper thrown all around them.

3) The Ability to Flush

Again, or lack of.

Last but not least, my office seems to physically be unable to use the device which is known as 'The Flush Handle'.

It's a small device, some may say lever, which usually resides on the toilet 'upper-deck' as I fondly call it. It's usually not that hard to find.

See I've always been taught that the toileting goes as follows:
- Sit
- Do
-Flush

It's a three stage process. If you miss out one of those stages then the whole thing goes to pot.

I mean....
- Sit
- Flush

what's the point in that?

-Flush
-Do

Far too complex, uniformly incorrect and leads to a powerful amount of 'splash back'.

So why do people miss out the last hurdle, the final step in three? It causes a great strain as one can never quite relax as to what they may find in the toilet bowel of nightmares.

The next person is then severely scarred from their toiletting experience by seeing the INSIDE OF ANOTHER PERSON.


I hope you feel empathy towards my toileting disaster. 

Tell me your thoughts - I need guidance! 

Shakespeare and Dicaprio

Have been re-reading Romeo and Juliet this week for tutoring sessions.

Forgotten how excellent this adaption is! As if jules is now is now a bit of an oddbod in Homeland

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tOjuzvLcsos

How finding ‘the one’ is a pain in the arse.

'The One' has been raved on about in all different mediums throughout my twenty two years of existence. But no one has ever told me what happens after this significant moment. Films surreptitiously appear to end just at the ‘you’re the one, Carrie’scene, leaving me rather underwhelmed by the idea of ‘The One’ and I being able to cohabitate in my normal, very ordinary life and call that a ‘happy everafter.’  

I say this because I have, infuriatingly, just found The One. And it’s a tactical nightmare.

Firstly, I did not know that he was The One for a while as he encompasses none of my previous thoughts on what this person should be like. This is sincerely displeasing, my check list remains unchecked:  

That’s not to say there is nothing great about him. I mean, he’s adequate in all of the above things. He makes me laugh, but not twenty four hours a day (though, then again, being woken up to be told a ‘knock knock’ joke would make me seriously reconsider my ‘one’ choosing), he’s sexy, kind of muscular - in the right light -  and I can kiss him without feeling repulsed by his face so he must be adequately good looking.

And he is complimentary, sometimes. He tell me I smell nice and has this habit of fiddling with my hair a little bit. And he whines on and on about the fact he loves me so I suppose that’s a compliment.

He doesn’t really buy me teddies or roses and to be honest I really don’t mind. Besides, I don’t have enough time to keep refreshing the water in roses and those heart teddies kind of creep me out. Let’s face it, no one really likes the girl at work who has just been sent flowers by her boyfriend and drinks her Earl Grey out of a ‘I Lovey Dovey you’ mug. For Christ’s sake people, keep that shit underwraps. 

Anyway, because of my previous rom-com induced desires, when I realised that my boyfriend was The One  it did come as a frustrating surprise.

We were talking, as usual, when the topic began to dwindle into uncertain territory; our most hidden fascinations and desires.

He began, with a short summary of Buffy the Vampire slayer, some sort of leather outfit and a dash of teenage angst. This was all fine; if this was the deepest, weirdest thing he could pull out the bag then I was perfectly content with that. But then it was my turn.

It was something I’d had on my mind for a while and I felt a deep desire to tell him. Partially, as most women do, to test said boyfriend and his ability to react to my darkest secrets with a sense of composure and partially because the secret was so big that I feared if I did not let it out soon, a fiddle in my internet history would cause a catastrophic relationship breakdown. So, with the quick speed of an addict telling you he’s stolen his granny’s necklace for his last hit of Crystal Meth, I blubbered out my confession:

‘I typed ‘zit-popping’ into YouTube most nights and look at the videos for at least an hour. And the worst part is, I really enjoy it’

What followed was quite an intense moment. The heat rose from my chest and into my hamster-like cheeks and the silence caused a barrier between myself and the man whom, two seconds before, I had called my boyfriend.  

But then, after five painful seconds, he merrily chimed in:

‘Ah, that one with the old lady and the vicar is the best, brutal, but sensitive at the same time’

 My heart stopped for a very brief moment and I realised that this person was quite possibly the best chap I’d ever come across. I was certain all other men would cower and run away, throwing up at the mere thought of being with me after that revelation.

But he not only accepted it, but similarly embraced my fascination himself. Wholeheartedly.

Therefore, with that, he was ‘The One’.

What happens next?

So, I’ve said it, he’s my one, I'm his. What in the name of all things holy happens now?

I have a whole list of questions which remain painfully unanswered, no matter how many times I ask Jeeves or search on Google.

I mean, the semantics of it is frustrating enough. We’ve said it twice now, but are you meant to tell each other that they remain your ‘one’ frequently? What if you tell someone they are your one and then never repeat it and ten years later they bugger off for someone else? If that is the case, how often are you meant to say it?

You see! Difficult!

What about life before ‘The One’. Are you meant to stop thinking other people are attractive (in a purely ‘just looking’ kinda way)?

Are you never to argue about silly things, such as not washing up, putting the milk carton back in the fridge when there is hardly any milk left in it, preference in bread and whether you would snog, marry or kill certain celebrities….when  you have established your duelling partner as your ‘one and only’?

I could go on for a while but I fear that more may cause a self-induced brain freeze like when you eat too much ice cream.  

All in all, I’m thoroughly confused by this, and this is why finding the one is a pain in the arse.

But y’know what? I wouldn't change it for the world. He’s well lovely.  

The end. 

The last time I went to church

Writing in the style of 'An Idiot Abroad' - I'm not just being ignorant, promise!

India is hot. It’s not the usual hot, it’s big-style hot.

I’ve been in warm places before; Dave and I went to Magaluf in 2010 and had those big glassed cocktails with the little umbrellas by the pool for a week straight. Coming from Wolverhampton, where God puts a layer of cloud between him and the people on a constant basis so as to not see the misery of human kind, Dave didn't understand suncream. He managed to burn nothing other than his nose and his man-boobs and looked like Santa wearing a bikini for the best part of the week.

But India isn’t a Magaluf type of hot at all. India is the type of hot which means your trousers are sticking to parts of you that you didn’t even think they could stick to and having an ice cream every ten minutes is not just a holiday indulgence: it’s a life or death necessity.

So the thought of going into the midst of Delhi on one of those HOT afternoons was not at the top of my “to do” list, but Mayank, my tour guide told me we needed to see the Karunya Mahaganapathi Temple. Today was the beginning of Ganesh Chaturthi, a festival where Hindu’s drown loads of statues of the elephant god Ganesh for ten days and the temple was Ganesh's Delhi HQ. 

We walked towards the temple and I was stopped by what looked like a beggar who told me to give him my shoes. After living in Birmingham all my life, I knew what to do. Immediately, I put my hand in my bag and shuffled round for the pepper spray, only to be abruptly stopped by my tour guide himself on his hands and knees pulling at my laces.

After I forced Mayank off my shoes, he told me, at pepper-spray point, everyone had to take their shoes off 100 meters before the temple. He said I should give my new Timberland trainers to this grubby man on the side of the street, contently sat next to a chap selling chickens. Otherwise, he said, we would be cursing ourselves and the house of Ganesh.  

I told him I’d only leave them with this man if we got a receipt – like when you go to the cloak room. Mayank rolled his eyes at me and translated to the shoe-hoarder, who looked bemused and then pulled two chicken feathers out of a bird from his neighbour’s stock and put one in my shoes and another in my hand.

‘Now you know you are the one with chicken shoes’ he smiled. 

I don’t know why he thought it was funny. I knew that this wasn’t exactly ‘Tesco customer promise’, but I put the feather in my pocket; I didn’t want any old person with a feather coming in and rocking my Timberlands. 

So dodging the cows, people and rikshaws, Mayank and I made our way to the temple with the heat of Indian concrete against our feet. About 50 metres before the entrance, a busting crowd of people appeared to come from nowhere. Everyone here had no shoes on and were scrambling towards the temple, desperate to see Ganesh. 

We moved through the crowd of people which seemed to be circulating around a central object. Slowly, as we pushed on, we saw that this object was a statue of Ganesh. This statue was open at one side where two monks sat before a large table on which there was a container of prayer water and a bowl full of tika. People were queuing towards this opening and then being blessed by the holy men. Their prayer bowls (a load of coconut and flowers) were then put by the monks on the side of a small, beautifully ornate version of Ganesh that sat inside the opening.  

I got to the front of the queue. My bowl was taken from me by what was the holy man but who had the sentiment of a conveyor belt teen. Whilst chewing chud-like pan, I handed him my bowl, threw the contents on the statue with the vigor of a man who was getting repetitive strain, and then motioned me to greet his neighbour to be blessed.

Now, this guy looked more promising. He was tall but slightly narly looking. I don’t know what it is about people who haven't aged well, they always seem to be more wise, which is absurd as they're clearly not wise enough to wear sun protection. Which reminds me, must teach Dave the value of skincare. I don't want people thinking he's wise when we get older. 

The old man talked animatedly to me in Hindi, which Mayank translated in my ear. He said that I should drink the holy water from the bowl in front of him. Now, I'd already seen a load of people drink from this bowl and wasn't entirely certain of the health and safety regime they had in place, but nevertheless I took a gulp. It tasted sweet and slightly musty, kinda like kissing my nan. The man looked at me, smiled and then put the tika on my forehead. I don't know what it was, whether it was the heady incense smell or the bacteria in the water, but I felt...well...pretty good, actually. 

Surprisingly, when we returned to the outside world, the shoe collector was still there. I gave him my feather and in return was greeted with my timberlands. They seemed a little moist when I put them on but I was dead chuffed to have them back in one piece.

I told Mayank that he should tell the shoe-man that this method of receipts clearly worked and perhaps he should subject other foreigners to this in the future. But I don’t think he did tell him, as the man only smiled and proceeded to absentmindedly pluck a chicken through the holes in the cage.

We went home and I had my third curry of the day. At least I’m staying hydrated I suppose, having to guzzle down so much water after eating a particularly hot chutney. Now to bed with a dicky tummy and an aching head.  Don’t know how much longer I can just eat curry for, at night I'm dreaming about being attacked by Pan and masala.  

But, no rest for the wicked, I’ve already seen the maid preparing what I’m eating in the morning and it sure isn't coco-pops.

The end.

You want the moon?

Christmas is here. Let's get on it with the ye olde movies.

Sam Quigley Exhibition

Sam Quigley did a pretty stunning exhibition today, here are a few snapshots from it...review to come: