RED LETTER DAY! I've just noticed I've got my first ever comment! Hang up the bunting, bust open the Prosecco and let's have a celebration! Who is it, and what have they said? Have I made them contemplate life's little oddities with my erudite observations, made them chuckle so much their tea exploded out of their nose or otherwise tickled their fancy? Do they think I'm clearly a total catch and want to go out with me? Or, you know, just flirt a bit via a Comments box? (All entirely welcome, by the way).
Gaaah, the suspense is, I'm sure, if not actually killing you, then giving you a bit of a twinge - sort of like a mild heartburn, perhaps.
Well, to tell the truth, the suspense is causing me exactly these kind of problems too, because the comment I got was this: 很好啊
DOES ANYONE KNOW A TRANSLATOR? THIS IS DRIVING ME MAD.
Thursday 14 January 2010
Resolutionary Fervour
So, a belated Happy New Year to all my readers! Ah, I've always wanted to say that - doesn't matter that I'm not sure my readership's even into double figures. It's not like I want to adopt all Stephen Fry's poor, abandoned Twitterati and clutch them to my web-bosom. Imagine the pressure of having to be amusing at 10-second intervals! Ghastly, as Mr Fry would say. Anyway, I trust you are hale, hearty and have decided which option to go for during 2010. You know: ‘twenty-ten’, or ‘two thousand and ten’? I’m voting for twenty-ten. Just to clear that up.
Apologies for the tardy start to my blogging year - not to put too fine a point on it (say I'm the only bee in your bonnet), work has been cocking mental since before Christmas, so I haven't had time for stringing together thoughts on the interweb. Because of course I'm still clinging on to my Luddite tendencies, despite the fact that it's a new decade and everything, and haven't managed to sort out broadband at home. I used to be able to get access by sitting on the floor with my laptop right by my sitting room wall, and effectively stealing the next door flat's wireless access, but they seem to have switched it off, or built thicker walls or something. Excuse any linguistic oddities on the tech front, by the way. Even talking about broadband makes me feel a bit like my parents doing text messages. Although my Dad texts in the language of a 14-year old - it's all 'See u later' and 'luv Dad', whilst my replies to him involve semi-colons, quote marks and proper spelling, stopping just short of finishing off with 'yours sincerely' or 'fondest regards'. I really want to get him onto email just to see if he'd garnish every message with an excitement of exclamation marks ('See you at the cricket at 10am!!!'), emoticons and LOLs.
Anyway, contrary to the diminishing number of blogs I've managed to produce since I launched this thing, I've got lots of thoughts on various topics, many of which date back to before Christmas (can you even imagine such a time now?). So forgive me if January's musings are in fact not strictly chronologically truthful. You can pretend I've messed about with the space/time continuum if you want something to fill the David Tennant-shaped void in your life. Or entertain yourself by wondering which bits really did happen 'the other day' and which took place 'about three months ago, actually', by the time they eventually make it into print.
So, first things first, as it's already the middle of ruddy January, it's time to see what exciting resolutions I've made for the year - nay, the decade, and how they're progressing. In no particular order, they are:
1/ Undergo incredible, chrysalis-to-butterfly type transformation by the time my birthday rolls around in October. Yes, it's a birthday with a nought on the end of it, and it's not 30. Magazine articles are full of people like Jennifer Aniston declaring that they look 'fabulous at forty' and the TV is cluttered with series depicting Botoxed-and-gymmed-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives cougars getting it on with buff boys 15 years their junior. I'm in no way aiming to rival Sam Taylor-Wood, whose life seems to get more alarming by the day ('you're having a baby? With a boy who's 19? I just can't even begin to compute that'). But I am intending to have a Big Party (you're all invited, by the way) and therefore, everyone must Gasp at How Amazing I Look when I make my entrance. Them's the rules.
So far, this involves: giving up booze for January, and possibly for Lent as well, which I managed last year. (Going well, no desire for wine yet; although haven't been tested by a visit to a cocktail bar, which is my usual downfall). Pretending that I'm 'easing my way back into exercising' by walking up and down the Tube escalators instead of reading a magazine whilst the escalator does all of the work. I'm ashamed to say this remains a challenge. Trying to avoid cake/unnecessary sugar. Bit tricky, given that one of my sidelines involves making cakes, but successful thus far, as long as pannetone doesn't count as cake (surely it's just decadent bread?)
2/ Finish off my flat. It's now three years since I moved in, and the flat still contains an alarming number of boxes with stuff in. I've no idea what stuff. I was very chuffed indeed when I managed to get to the bottom of one of them last weekend and redistribute the stuff around the flat. I discovered a pair of shoes I thought I'd given to Oxfam before the last move, and decided I quite liked them and should resurrect them. The positive side of this is that it's like having new clothes. The negative side is that I permanently feel that the barely contained chaos is going to implode and I'm going to turn into one of those people who can't leave their house because the piles of magazines and newspapers have blocked all the doors. But 30 years earlier than it happens to most people.
I'm currently reading a book on 'banishing clutter' which suggests the solution is to get rid of loads of stuff, and then find exactly the right place for everything else - which is of course useful or beautiful, rather than rubbish which 'might come in handy some day'. This is easier said than done when there's so little storage space that everything has to multi-task. I, for example, have turned my bed into a place for sleeping, a wardrobe and a library. This surely must change before I hit middle age and I'm only an actual cat away from being a mad cat lady.
3/ Make some vague attempt at internet dating. I too want terrible stories of disastrous dates! Of men who said they were 5'10" and turned out to be 5'4"! Who spent two hours telling you how their ex was a bitch and actually all women were the same in the end! Who say they really enjoyed their evening and would definitely like to do it again, then mysteriously vanish! I am clearly missing out on a vital part of being a woman in the 21st Century, not to mention easy conversational fodder for dinner parties.
I shall attend to this once back on the booze - I think ideally one's profile should be written when drunk and over-confident; dates are best undertaken when mildly inebriated and of course the aftermath is improved by what might be termed ' having a white whine' with one's female friends.
4/ Do something new. My 30s have passed with no new skills accrued (other than a basic working knowledge of mortgages. I've also found I have a knack for finding rubbish builders and then employing them at great expense). Thus far, my new things are joining a choir in Putney (I haven't actually been yet, and won't be able to go for another fortnight, but the intention's there) and learning to tango. One of my friends has found a class somewhere and we're going to go. No idea when this will happen; I have appalling co-ordination and all the grace of a newborn gazelle after a bottle of wine, but it sounds quite exotic.
I saw a friend of mine last year - who I haven't seen for a very long time, as she lives in Australia - who looked amazing. I asked her what she'd been doing, and she told me she'd learned to tango, and now does it wherever she goes. Not in a 'Red Shoes' kind of a way, just when she's in a new city (she travels a lot for business), she finds the nearest tango spot and away she goes. So this might also help with point 1 of this year's grand plan. It may also help me nimbly side-step my way around the clutter in my flat, whilst making 'dramatic arms'. Result.
The Resolutions for 2010 all looks quite achievable, I think. Sure, it's not a patch on David 'Dave' Cameron's list ('Be Prime Minister! Sort out terrible burden of national debt! Without cutting spending on the important bits!') or Jonathan Ross's ('Save £6 million a year/Find a job that'll pay me £6 million a year - whilst we're still in a recession!'), but the books all tell you that the key to success is to aim for something realistic. So, losing a bit of weight and stop being a total slattern it is, then. New decade, my arse.
Apologies for the tardy start to my blogging year - not to put too fine a point on it (say I'm the only bee in your bonnet), work has been cocking mental since before Christmas, so I haven't had time for stringing together thoughts on the interweb. Because of course I'm still clinging on to my Luddite tendencies, despite the fact that it's a new decade and everything, and haven't managed to sort out broadband at home. I used to be able to get access by sitting on the floor with my laptop right by my sitting room wall, and effectively stealing the next door flat's wireless access, but they seem to have switched it off, or built thicker walls or something. Excuse any linguistic oddities on the tech front, by the way. Even talking about broadband makes me feel a bit like my parents doing text messages. Although my Dad texts in the language of a 14-year old - it's all 'See u later' and 'luv Dad', whilst my replies to him involve semi-colons, quote marks and proper spelling, stopping just short of finishing off with 'yours sincerely' or 'fondest regards'. I really want to get him onto email just to see if he'd garnish every message with an excitement of exclamation marks ('See you at the cricket at 10am!!!'), emoticons and LOLs.
Anyway, contrary to the diminishing number of blogs I've managed to produce since I launched this thing, I've got lots of thoughts on various topics, many of which date back to before Christmas (can you even imagine such a time now?). So forgive me if January's musings are in fact not strictly chronologically truthful. You can pretend I've messed about with the space/time continuum if you want something to fill the David Tennant-shaped void in your life. Or entertain yourself by wondering which bits really did happen 'the other day' and which took place 'about three months ago, actually', by the time they eventually make it into print.
So, first things first, as it's already the middle of ruddy January, it's time to see what exciting resolutions I've made for the year - nay, the decade, and how they're progressing. In no particular order, they are:
1/ Undergo incredible, chrysalis-to-butterfly type transformation by the time my birthday rolls around in October. Yes, it's a birthday with a nought on the end of it, and it's not 30. Magazine articles are full of people like Jennifer Aniston declaring that they look 'fabulous at forty' and the TV is cluttered with series depicting Botoxed-and-gymmed-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives cougars getting it on with buff boys 15 years their junior. I'm in no way aiming to rival Sam Taylor-Wood, whose life seems to get more alarming by the day ('you're having a baby? With a boy who's 19? I just can't even begin to compute that'). But I am intending to have a Big Party (you're all invited, by the way) and therefore, everyone must Gasp at How Amazing I Look when I make my entrance. Them's the rules.
So far, this involves: giving up booze for January, and possibly for Lent as well, which I managed last year. (Going well, no desire for wine yet; although haven't been tested by a visit to a cocktail bar, which is my usual downfall). Pretending that I'm 'easing my way back into exercising' by walking up and down the Tube escalators instead of reading a magazine whilst the escalator does all of the work. I'm ashamed to say this remains a challenge. Trying to avoid cake/unnecessary sugar. Bit tricky, given that one of my sidelines involves making cakes, but successful thus far, as long as pannetone doesn't count as cake (surely it's just decadent bread?)
2/ Finish off my flat. It's now three years since I moved in, and the flat still contains an alarming number of boxes with stuff in. I've no idea what stuff. I was very chuffed indeed when I managed to get to the bottom of one of them last weekend and redistribute the stuff around the flat. I discovered a pair of shoes I thought I'd given to Oxfam before the last move, and decided I quite liked them and should resurrect them. The positive side of this is that it's like having new clothes. The negative side is that I permanently feel that the barely contained chaos is going to implode and I'm going to turn into one of those people who can't leave their house because the piles of magazines and newspapers have blocked all the doors. But 30 years earlier than it happens to most people.
I'm currently reading a book on 'banishing clutter' which suggests the solution is to get rid of loads of stuff, and then find exactly the right place for everything else - which is of course useful or beautiful, rather than rubbish which 'might come in handy some day'. This is easier said than done when there's so little storage space that everything has to multi-task. I, for example, have turned my bed into a place for sleeping, a wardrobe and a library. This surely must change before I hit middle age and I'm only an actual cat away from being a mad cat lady.
3/ Make some vague attempt at internet dating. I too want terrible stories of disastrous dates! Of men who said they were 5'10" and turned out to be 5'4"! Who spent two hours telling you how their ex was a bitch and actually all women were the same in the end! Who say they really enjoyed their evening and would definitely like to do it again, then mysteriously vanish! I am clearly missing out on a vital part of being a woman in the 21st Century, not to mention easy conversational fodder for dinner parties.
I shall attend to this once back on the booze - I think ideally one's profile should be written when drunk and over-confident; dates are best undertaken when mildly inebriated and of course the aftermath is improved by what might be termed ' having a white whine' with one's female friends.
4/ Do something new. My 30s have passed with no new skills accrued (other than a basic working knowledge of mortgages. I've also found I have a knack for finding rubbish builders and then employing them at great expense). Thus far, my new things are joining a choir in Putney (I haven't actually been yet, and won't be able to go for another fortnight, but the intention's there) and learning to tango. One of my friends has found a class somewhere and we're going to go. No idea when this will happen; I have appalling co-ordination and all the grace of a newborn gazelle after a bottle of wine, but it sounds quite exotic.
I saw a friend of mine last year - who I haven't seen for a very long time, as she lives in Australia - who looked amazing. I asked her what she'd been doing, and she told me she'd learned to tango, and now does it wherever she goes. Not in a 'Red Shoes' kind of a way, just when she's in a new city (she travels a lot for business), she finds the nearest tango spot and away she goes. So this might also help with point 1 of this year's grand plan. It may also help me nimbly side-step my way around the clutter in my flat, whilst making 'dramatic arms'. Result.
The Resolutions for 2010 all looks quite achievable, I think. Sure, it's not a patch on David 'Dave' Cameron's list ('Be Prime Minister! Sort out terrible burden of national debt! Without cutting spending on the important bits!') or Jonathan Ross's ('Save £6 million a year/Find a job that'll pay me £6 million a year - whilst we're still in a recession!'), but the books all tell you that the key to success is to aim for something realistic. So, losing a bit of weight and stop being a total slattern it is, then. New decade, my arse.
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