Best sight seen of late: yesterday morning, around 9.00am, I walked past two men in their mid-20s (jeans and t-shirts, trainers - y'know, normal), who were having an actual running race down the street. Complete with 'starting positions' and everything. Genius. I felt happy all day and then I saw a frog on the pavement on the way home! Quite a big one - kind of yellowy coloured.
So screw you, The Pope, I don't need to spend £12 million to see something unusual in Edinburgh.
Thursday 16 September 2010
Naming of the Rosies
So Jamie and Jools Oliver have finally had a son. They've called him 'Buddy'. Well, that's not so bad, I thought, until a colleague pointed out the middle name they've chosen for him.
Let's look at the array of horribly twee names with which the Olivers have saddled their offspring:
Poppy Honey Rosie
Daisy Boo Pamela
Petal Blossom Rainbow
Buddy Bear Maurice
Seriously, they should've saved themselves a lot of time and money and just bought four chihuahuas.
Let's look at the array of horribly twee names with which the Olivers have saddled their offspring:
Poppy Honey Rosie
Daisy Boo Pamela
Petal Blossom Rainbow
Buddy Bear Maurice
Seriously, they should've saved themselves a lot of time and money and just bought four chihuahuas.
Tuesday 14 September 2010
I am the Walrus
First off - very funny responses to yesterday's blog. 'You had us all VERY EXCITED and then disappointed again!' was a fairly typical reaction. 'Tell him to be more DANGEROUS and BROODING and then perhaps you'll fancy him?' was good advice - I imagined texting the MMMC and demanding that he stand atop Arthur's Seat, toss a caber off it, then bellow madly at the elements, before striding in a manly fashion down the steep, rocky slopes and picking me up bodily, with his wind-whipped kilt swirling round his knees like William Wallace (preferably without the woad). Either that or he should just ignore me for a week, and then I'll probably decide I passionately want to see him.
Anyway, news of the Other Man in my life, Cheerful James the PT. CJ and I have not had a date in some time, because I was flitting round the country (and France) and he was off on a course in Copenhagen. So I was almost excited about our session last night. Which, yeah, is pretty tragic, but now the Festival's over, and it looks like the weather is about to default to 'perpetual precipitation', a gal's gotta take her excitements where she can get 'em. But it turned out exercise was off the menu - instead, I was going to be CJ's guinea pig for all his new book learnin'. He'd been studying some bio-whatsit (I keep wanting to call it 'biomechanics', but it's not - I think it's called 'biosignature') which basically tells you why people store fat in particular areas, because of different hormone imbalances, etc, and how you can change that through diet and exercise.
In case anyone wants to try it, first off, you have to prepare for the mortification of having 12 - yes, 12 - fat sites around your body measured with those horrible calliper things. This included the mortification of having my chin(s) pinched by it, one of my boobs wrangled with (Me: 'James, is this just an excuse to grope ladies - whilst they're actually paying for it?') and him explaining that my back fat measurement of 28 should really be 17. Which meant that I have insulin problems and basically have to give up carbs. NOOOO! Why did I know this was going to be the result? Although, let's face it, the outcome was highly unlikely to be, 'The reason you're chunkier than you want to be is because you're eating too much fibre. Your body doesn't metabolise that at all well, unless you combine it with a lot of sugar and cake icing. I'm going to give you a programme of a slice of carrot cake every day, and then you'll need to top up with a brownie every Sunday - with Ben and Jerry's ice cream on top of it. It's the protein from the cream, combined with the sugar, that'll really work for you.'
No, apparently I have to ingest enough fish oil to rival a walrus. 'I eat loads of fish!' I said. Turns out for this plan, I'd have to eat about 30 of the fuckers a day. So I have to shunt down some crazy number of teaspoons of specially procured fish oil (lemon flavoured - like that makes it better) and drink buckets of water. Having tried downing as many cod liver oil capsules as I could get my hands on, and as much water as I could carry today, the regime is already pretty unwieldy. My work colleagues probably think I have cystitis as I need the loo every quarter of an hour. It's tempting to just take my laptop into the loo and work from there. CJ has let me off Phase 2 for the moment (giving up gluten, dairy and eggs, which will make breakfast a challenge. Not to mention every other bloody meal), so let's hope the Omegas and the H2O do the trick. Because it's very mean to suggest that you give up pasta and toast just as you're heading into winter - especially as, judging by the force 10 gale that was blowing up here last night, I'm actually going to need that insulating layer of fat.
Anyway, news of the Other Man in my life, Cheerful James the PT. CJ and I have not had a date in some time, because I was flitting round the country (and France) and he was off on a course in Copenhagen. So I was almost excited about our session last night. Which, yeah, is pretty tragic, but now the Festival's over, and it looks like the weather is about to default to 'perpetual precipitation', a gal's gotta take her excitements where she can get 'em. But it turned out exercise was off the menu - instead, I was going to be CJ's guinea pig for all his new book learnin'. He'd been studying some bio-whatsit (I keep wanting to call it 'biomechanics', but it's not - I think it's called 'biosignature') which basically tells you why people store fat in particular areas, because of different hormone imbalances, etc, and how you can change that through diet and exercise.
In case anyone wants to try it, first off, you have to prepare for the mortification of having 12 - yes, 12 - fat sites around your body measured with those horrible calliper things. This included the mortification of having my chin(s) pinched by it, one of my boobs wrangled with (Me: 'James, is this just an excuse to grope ladies - whilst they're actually paying for it?') and him explaining that my back fat measurement of 28 should really be 17. Which meant that I have insulin problems and basically have to give up carbs. NOOOO! Why did I know this was going to be the result? Although, let's face it, the outcome was highly unlikely to be, 'The reason you're chunkier than you want to be is because you're eating too much fibre. Your body doesn't metabolise that at all well, unless you combine it with a lot of sugar and cake icing. I'm going to give you a programme of a slice of carrot cake every day, and then you'll need to top up with a brownie every Sunday - with Ben and Jerry's ice cream on top of it. It's the protein from the cream, combined with the sugar, that'll really work for you.'
No, apparently I have to ingest enough fish oil to rival a walrus. 'I eat loads of fish!' I said. Turns out for this plan, I'd have to eat about 30 of the fuckers a day. So I have to shunt down some crazy number of teaspoons of specially procured fish oil (lemon flavoured - like that makes it better) and drink buckets of water. Having tried downing as many cod liver oil capsules as I could get my hands on, and as much water as I could carry today, the regime is already pretty unwieldy. My work colleagues probably think I have cystitis as I need the loo every quarter of an hour. It's tempting to just take my laptop into the loo and work from there. CJ has let me off Phase 2 for the moment (giving up gluten, dairy and eggs, which will make breakfast a challenge. Not to mention every other bloody meal), so let's hope the Omegas and the H2O do the trick. Because it's very mean to suggest that you give up pasta and toast just as you're heading into winter - especially as, judging by the force 10 gale that was blowing up here last night, I'm actually going to need that insulating layer of fat.
Monday 13 September 2010
Courtly Love
As part of my new life in Edinburgh, it appears that my Relocation Relocation fairy godmothers, Phil 'n' Kirstie, have also granted me a MAN. Yes, in exciting news from Purple Towers, it appears I have a Pseudo Boyfriend. Crikey! Wasn't expecting that.
I met him at a dinner party, which I'd been invited to via some string-pulling by my parents. (The hostess was the sister of an old friend of theirs). Hearing on the grapevine that I was friendless and alone, the call came through: 'We're having a dinner party! Would you like to come?' Well of course I would! The chance for free food and a good nose round someone else's house is rarely refused. I put on a frock, I bought a proper bottle of wine and teetered over rainy cobbles in unsuitable heels (anything other than trainers are, it turns out, classed as 'unsuitable heels' in Edinburgh, unless you're going everywhere by taxi). I arrived at what I presumed was the correct address. The house was vast. The building's entrance hall was akin to the foyer of the Natural History Museum, just minus a dinosaur skeleton. The flat's foyer (is it still a flat if it's 'over three floors'?!) had loads of glass cabinets in it full of china, like the V&A. I proferred my plastic bag with the bottle of wine in it, and slightly regretted the fact I was wearing a denim jacket and a backpack. I instantly felt like someone on a gap year who's been sent round to one of their parents' friends' houses for a decent dinner.
This wasn't really helped by the host (who's 20 years older than his wife), announcing to everyone when he introduced me that, 'We don't know her at all!' Umm, that's not helping with the impression that I just passed your house, saw you had people round and banged on the door hoping for some upmarket charity.
Anyway, everyone was very civil to me. I got told I was 'brave' a lot. People do this, I've found, when you tell them you've moved cities and jobs and you don't know anyone. I find it a bit odd - it's not like I'm a doctor in a war zone, or Tony Blair's security guard at a book signing - but I just nod and smile and put on my cheerful, 'Well, you know, I'm doing my best!' face.
It was a bit of an odd fact that everyone (out of about 12 people) seemed to be on at least their second marriage. One such couple, Hamish and Plum (!) had recently got married. For Hamish, it was marriage no. 3, for Plum, marriage no. 2. Both had several children. Hamish looked to be at least mid-50s and Plum looked like a well-preserved late 40s (she was the sort of woman who does a lot of aerobics and wears floaty chiffon tops with large 'statement' necklaces for dinner parties and has expensive blonde hair). 'How did you meet?' I asked. Hamish then told an extraordinary story about how they'd met through the Telegraph's internet dating service. Their first date was over lunch, after which they were so mutually blown away that a flurry of texts, phone calls and emails ensued before Hamish had to go on a business trip a week later, to New York. From New York, he decided he simply couldn't bear to be without Plum for a moment longer. He phoned her and asked her to marry him. She said yes. AFTER A WEEK. They hadn't even had a snog! It was like wandering into a copy of OK!
The chap sitting next to me, who I'd been having quite a good chat with, looked at me, his jaw agape. 'Well, d'you want to get married?' he asked. 'Yes, are you free on Tuesday?' I replied. He emailed the next day to apologise, saying he thought a proposal was the only option, and asked me out for a walk with his dog. So Jane Austen! He came and picked me up in his car and everything. Having had many jokes about how his car was massively uncool, second hand, etc, I was expecting him to turn up in a Fiat Punto. In fact, he drives a BMW. In what world is a BMW the height of uncool? Very odd.
Anyway, we had a very pleasant day together, and I seem to have seen more of him over the last few weeks than I normally would of my best friends (the hazard, perhaps, of not knowing many people here). As he runs his own business (a management consultancy) and only reads wanky business books, he thinks my entire life is glamorous and fascinating. Which, of course, is fine by me. I've decided that my role is that of his Cultural Advisor, and have been supplying books (which he emails to tell me he's started; I'm slightly worried he thinks of this as 'homework'), trips to the Festival and a film. (The Illusionist, if you're interested - it's set in Edinburgh, it's really beautiful and unbearably sad. It's not a great 'date movie', but I wanted to see it. And I was adamant, if only in my own head, that this was not a date).
Yes, for there is the great tragedy of the man who has come to be known in my office as The Mild Mannered Management Consultant. (A moniker that makes him sound like he has a superheroic alter-ego, who of course I would fancy MADLY). I just don't fancy him. File under 'gift horse, looking in the mouth of': he is nice, he is kind, he pays for everything (despite me begging him not to), he picks me up and he drives me home (he lives totally the other side of town). He emails, he texts (he even sent me a long text in French, when I was in France the other week), he thinks I'm great company. But he doesn't make me laugh, and that's a deal-breaker for me.
However, he hasn't yet made any moves in the 'passionate embrace' department. Which leaves me with a conundrum. Is he A/ playing a very long game, akin to a Chaucerian demonstration of courtly love? B/ just the kind of man who likes driving women around and paying for things, entirely platonically or C/ actually entirely friendless apart from me? It's all rather confusing. And no-one wants to be the person who embarks upon the 'Just Good Friends' chat whilst the other person is thinking, 'Ooh, get you! I wasn't aiming for anything other than Just Good Friends, actually'.
The unfortunate effect of having a love life that's akin to the Kalahari Desert, however, is that all my friends and family have decided that as someone's finally asked me out (more than once), he's The One, and I must marry him. I spoke to my mum and sister after our first 'date', who cackled like a pair of witches and immediately started planning the commissioning of special marital tartans (the MMMC is Scottish). 'Can't you force yourself to fancy him?' everyone keeps asking, as though I am actually a Jane Austen heroine, who needs urgent saving from a life of penury by a well-meaning, well-off but horribly dull vicar. No! No, I can't. That's kind of the point of a boyfriend: it's someone you fancy. Otherwise, they are just a friend.
I might have to start internet dating to take the pressure off.
I met him at a dinner party, which I'd been invited to via some string-pulling by my parents. (The hostess was the sister of an old friend of theirs). Hearing on the grapevine that I was friendless and alone, the call came through: 'We're having a dinner party! Would you like to come?' Well of course I would! The chance for free food and a good nose round someone else's house is rarely refused. I put on a frock, I bought a proper bottle of wine and teetered over rainy cobbles in unsuitable heels (anything other than trainers are, it turns out, classed as 'unsuitable heels' in Edinburgh, unless you're going everywhere by taxi). I arrived at what I presumed was the correct address. The house was vast. The building's entrance hall was akin to the foyer of the Natural History Museum, just minus a dinosaur skeleton. The flat's foyer (is it still a flat if it's 'over three floors'?!) had loads of glass cabinets in it full of china, like the V&A. I proferred my plastic bag with the bottle of wine in it, and slightly regretted the fact I was wearing a denim jacket and a backpack. I instantly felt like someone on a gap year who's been sent round to one of their parents' friends' houses for a decent dinner.
This wasn't really helped by the host (who's 20 years older than his wife), announcing to everyone when he introduced me that, 'We don't know her at all!' Umm, that's not helping with the impression that I just passed your house, saw you had people round and banged on the door hoping for some upmarket charity.
Anyway, everyone was very civil to me. I got told I was 'brave' a lot. People do this, I've found, when you tell them you've moved cities and jobs and you don't know anyone. I find it a bit odd - it's not like I'm a doctor in a war zone, or Tony Blair's security guard at a book signing - but I just nod and smile and put on my cheerful, 'Well, you know, I'm doing my best!' face.
It was a bit of an odd fact that everyone (out of about 12 people) seemed to be on at least their second marriage. One such couple, Hamish and Plum (!) had recently got married. For Hamish, it was marriage no. 3, for Plum, marriage no. 2. Both had several children. Hamish looked to be at least mid-50s and Plum looked like a well-preserved late 40s (she was the sort of woman who does a lot of aerobics and wears floaty chiffon tops with large 'statement' necklaces for dinner parties and has expensive blonde hair). 'How did you meet?' I asked. Hamish then told an extraordinary story about how they'd met through the Telegraph's internet dating service. Their first date was over lunch, after which they were so mutually blown away that a flurry of texts, phone calls and emails ensued before Hamish had to go on a business trip a week later, to New York. From New York, he decided he simply couldn't bear to be without Plum for a moment longer. He phoned her and asked her to marry him. She said yes. AFTER A WEEK. They hadn't even had a snog! It was like wandering into a copy of OK!
The chap sitting next to me, who I'd been having quite a good chat with, looked at me, his jaw agape. 'Well, d'you want to get married?' he asked. 'Yes, are you free on Tuesday?' I replied. He emailed the next day to apologise, saying he thought a proposal was the only option, and asked me out for a walk with his dog. So Jane Austen! He came and picked me up in his car and everything. Having had many jokes about how his car was massively uncool, second hand, etc, I was expecting him to turn up in a Fiat Punto. In fact, he drives a BMW. In what world is a BMW the height of uncool? Very odd.
Anyway, we had a very pleasant day together, and I seem to have seen more of him over the last few weeks than I normally would of my best friends (the hazard, perhaps, of not knowing many people here). As he runs his own business (a management consultancy) and only reads wanky business books, he thinks my entire life is glamorous and fascinating. Which, of course, is fine by me. I've decided that my role is that of his Cultural Advisor, and have been supplying books (which he emails to tell me he's started; I'm slightly worried he thinks of this as 'homework'), trips to the Festival and a film. (The Illusionist, if you're interested - it's set in Edinburgh, it's really beautiful and unbearably sad. It's not a great 'date movie', but I wanted to see it. And I was adamant, if only in my own head, that this was not a date).
Yes, for there is the great tragedy of the man who has come to be known in my office as The Mild Mannered Management Consultant. (A moniker that makes him sound like he has a superheroic alter-ego, who of course I would fancy MADLY). I just don't fancy him. File under 'gift horse, looking in the mouth of': he is nice, he is kind, he pays for everything (despite me begging him not to), he picks me up and he drives me home (he lives totally the other side of town). He emails, he texts (he even sent me a long text in French, when I was in France the other week), he thinks I'm great company. But he doesn't make me laugh, and that's a deal-breaker for me.
However, he hasn't yet made any moves in the 'passionate embrace' department. Which leaves me with a conundrum. Is he A/ playing a very long game, akin to a Chaucerian demonstration of courtly love? B/ just the kind of man who likes driving women around and paying for things, entirely platonically or C/ actually entirely friendless apart from me? It's all rather confusing. And no-one wants to be the person who embarks upon the 'Just Good Friends' chat whilst the other person is thinking, 'Ooh, get you! I wasn't aiming for anything other than Just Good Friends, actually'.
The unfortunate effect of having a love life that's akin to the Kalahari Desert, however, is that all my friends and family have decided that as someone's finally asked me out (more than once), he's The One, and I must marry him. I spoke to my mum and sister after our first 'date', who cackled like a pair of witches and immediately started planning the commissioning of special marital tartans (the MMMC is Scottish). 'Can't you force yourself to fancy him?' everyone keeps asking, as though I am actually a Jane Austen heroine, who needs urgent saving from a life of penury by a well-meaning, well-off but horribly dull vicar. No! No, I can't. That's kind of the point of a boyfriend: it's someone you fancy. Otherwise, they are just a friend.
I might have to start internet dating to take the pressure off.
Political Correctness gone, if not a bit mad, then fairly cracked out
I found out recently that you're not allowed to call 'temps' 'temps' any more. I've no idea why (it's not, after all, as bad as my habit of referring to work experience people as 'workies', is it?)
No, the PC term for temps now is 'mobile workers'. Which, if you are one, has the unfortunate effect of making you sound like a prostitute. Who owns a car.
No, the PC term for temps now is 'mobile workers'. Which, if you are one, has the unfortunate effect of making you sound like a prostitute. Who owns a car.
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