I'm having one of those weeks where it can only be assumed that some deity hates me. I started off by leaving my rucksack on the train on Sunday evening. One of the numerous side effects of constantly packing my things up and traversing the country is that it's made me increasingly forgetful. I never used to leave anything behind; now I find myself regularly getting home to discover that I've left toothbrushes, hairbrushes, half-full pots of really quite pricey conditioner and the like in hotels, at friends' houses or on a train. Sunday was kind of a big one - I had so much stuff with me, that I didn't notice I'd left quite a crucial bit behind. (I'd put it on the shelf above the seats, where I never put anything, so hadn't thought to look up before I got off the train). It was the rucksack that I use for my gym kit, but which I'd re-purposed as a weekend bag, having put my main bag into left luggage, to avoid transporting it from Portobello to Hampstead, then down to Streatham, before going over to Walthamstow and then back to Kings Cross.
Thus the bag contained: trainers, gym kit, wash kit, make-up, PJs, sundry tops and underwear and an electric toothbrush. Quite a lot to have to replace. Thankfully, the train terminated at Edinburgh, so I was able to retrieve the bag the next day (the relief was slightly tempered by the fact that they now charge you a fiver to get your stuff back. Is there anything that remains unmonetised these days?)
So, strike one for positivity - the rest of the week's been a total mess so far. I got soaked on the way into work on Monday (having told everyone all weekend that the weather up here hasn't been as bad as I was expecting, given how shocking it was in December). Umbrellas are a bit pointless here, as the rain is usually combined with a hefty dose of wind, which really sorts the men from the boys, umbrella-wise; you have to rely on a hood instead. I then got to work and booted up the laptop, only to have it die ten minutes later. And by 'die', I don't mean 'freeze for a bit' and then respond to the usual IT Crowd 'turn it off and on again' approach, I mean 'the screen went black and it totally flatlined'. I bashed away at the on/off button to no avail. That's as far as my tech skills take me, really. I logged a call with the engineers and relocated to another part of the office to hijack someone else's computer.
Then our email went down - no communication possible with the outside world. For two days.
The engineer arrived yesterday morning to deal with my laptop. He spent five minutes bashing away at the on/off button. THAT'S WHAT I DID! SERIOUSLY, DO YOU NOT HAVE ANY BETTER SKILLS THAN THAT? I thought he'd be some kind of wizard, or Laptop Whisperer, who'd press a special button and resuscitate it and then I could, y'know, get on with my life. Or get my to do list from my desktop, at any rate. But no, he declared it dead and has taken it off to some kind of Holby City for Toshibas for a man with greater skills and knowledge to pull it apart and hopefully claw back the information from the hard drive.
I have been Goldilocks-ing my way round the office (today's computer: seemingly built in the late 1970s; I'm under instructions from its nervous owner not to turn it fully off, as it takes three days to start up. Yeah, tell me about it). I have no idea when a replacement might come from the engineers, or how long they'll keep mine in quarantine. Add this to panicky ad deadlines, endless meetings, having to forward everything to a colleague because I can't print anything out and having a nervous ten minutes yesterday morning when it looked like the Gas Board had already taken me to court, found me wanting, and were now going to break down my door in order to check my gas meter. I was most of the way through a panicky phone call to try to avert this (tears weren't beyond the realms of possibility) when I realised that actually, the mail had been mis-directed, and it wasn't me they were after at all, it was someone two doors down.
I need a weekend to recover from all this, and it's only Wednesday.
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Time to Stop Browsing and Make a Purchase
Hmm, I'm back in cattle class on the return train journey, and just discovered another reason for spanking the company credit card and upgrading to first class. Since the last time I travelled as a pleb, East Coast have seen fit to 'monetise' their Wi-Fi. If you're in first, you can have as much Wi-Fi as your business travelling heart desires. But here in the cramped land of the free-coffee-free, you can have a tantalising 15 minutes to browse for nowt, and then you have to 'upgrade' and pay for it! WTF? You can't do that! Offer a 'service' (albeit largely theoretical, given the amount of time it's generally available on a four and a half hour journey) and then take it away again.
I fear East Coast trains are taking business tips from Ryan Air. And that's never a good thing.
I fear East Coast trains are taking business tips from Ryan Air. And that's never a good thing.
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Teenage Kicks
Why is it. That the default setting. For novels that are written by young men. Who want to appear modern. And 'edgy'. Is to write in these really short sentences. That make everything sound. Like bad spoken word pieces. Delivered by young men in skinny jeans. With too much hair. Who should - by rights - be being bullied. Instead of everyone thinking they're cool.
Because they take drugs.
And write in sentences that make them sound really bored. Or, at best, mildly autistic.
I'm reading one at the moment; I have to meet the author, which I am dreading, as he is actually a teenager. Worse than that, he's already published four books! Not books you or I would've heard of, naturally (they were probably all published via Twitter, in between taking drugs and playing Call of Duty 4 or something), but yes, apparently he's a bona fide novelist. His book is a lot like Skins - it has a variety of drugs (ketamine, mephedrone - yeah, I just checked the spelling of that, that's how in touch I am with youth culture - pills [unspecified, but unlikely to be Anadin]), quite bleak sex and a protagonist who bestrides the likeable/hateable divide like a skinny jean-wearing colossus.
It is of course making me feel at least 104 years old. My teen years were so sedate I lived in fear of my mum taking me to the doctor for tests to see when my hormones were going to kick in. I liked books. I didn't like the taste of alcohol, so I didn't drink (till I was in my early 20s, actually). Having been to an all-girls' school run by crazy nuns, boys were a foreign country that I didn't have a passport to. I couldn't see the point of smoking (I was never going to look cool, so it would've just been a waste of money and a pair of unsullied lungs). My formative years had been scarred by a collection of government warning films (now being expertly exhumed by Charlie Brooker in How TV Ruined Your Life) covering a dizzying array of past-times and their ghoulish outcomes, so I was never going to experiment with drugs. Why would I, when picking up a sparkler could result in nearly losing a hand, and my desire to go swimming in an abandoned quarry had been thwarted by the looming presence of Death - actual Death, with a hooded dressing gown, and a scythe and everything - not to mention the ever-present threat of harmless-looking men in cars offering to 'show me some puppies'.
Man alive, it's a miracle any of the 70s children a/ got out alive and b/ have gone on to have children of their own.
So, despite the fact that this book has been presented to me as a chance to 'relive my teenage years', I'm sticking with the author's view that his book is aimed at people who are 'between 16 and 22' - they're nothing if not madly ageist, 18 year-olds - and I shall just nod and smile, and pretend to understand when he tells me how to market his book via crowd-sourcing or cloud gathering or something. And wonder if the current Government's approach to warning youngsters of the dangers of modern living via just printing the names of STDs on the pants of sexy girls who are going to carry on having sex regardless is a bit, well, tame. They should at least be being told not to have sex whilst touching a pylon and flying a kite. I blame Nick Clegg. Fucking liberals, they take the danger out of everything.
Because they take drugs.
And write in sentences that make them sound really bored. Or, at best, mildly autistic.
I'm reading one at the moment; I have to meet the author, which I am dreading, as he is actually a teenager. Worse than that, he's already published four books! Not books you or I would've heard of, naturally (they were probably all published via Twitter, in between taking drugs and playing Call of Duty 4 or something), but yes, apparently he's a bona fide novelist. His book is a lot like Skins - it has a variety of drugs (ketamine, mephedrone - yeah, I just checked the spelling of that, that's how in touch I am with youth culture - pills [unspecified, but unlikely to be Anadin]), quite bleak sex and a protagonist who bestrides the likeable/hateable divide like a skinny jean-wearing colossus.
It is of course making me feel at least 104 years old. My teen years were so sedate I lived in fear of my mum taking me to the doctor for tests to see when my hormones were going to kick in. I liked books. I didn't like the taste of alcohol, so I didn't drink (till I was in my early 20s, actually). Having been to an all-girls' school run by crazy nuns, boys were a foreign country that I didn't have a passport to. I couldn't see the point of smoking (I was never going to look cool, so it would've just been a waste of money and a pair of unsullied lungs). My formative years had been scarred by a collection of government warning films (now being expertly exhumed by Charlie Brooker in How TV Ruined Your Life) covering a dizzying array of past-times and their ghoulish outcomes, so I was never going to experiment with drugs. Why would I, when picking up a sparkler could result in nearly losing a hand, and my desire to go swimming in an abandoned quarry had been thwarted by the looming presence of Death - actual Death, with a hooded dressing gown, and a scythe and everything - not to mention the ever-present threat of harmless-looking men in cars offering to 'show me some puppies'.
Man alive, it's a miracle any of the 70s children a/ got out alive and b/ have gone on to have children of their own.
So, despite the fact that this book has been presented to me as a chance to 'relive my teenage years', I'm sticking with the author's view that his book is aimed at people who are 'between 16 and 22' - they're nothing if not madly ageist, 18 year-olds - and I shall just nod and smile, and pretend to understand when he tells me how to market his book via crowd-sourcing or cloud gathering or something. And wonder if the current Government's approach to warning youngsters of the dangers of modern living via just printing the names of STDs on the pants of sexy girls who are going to carry on having sex regardless is a bit, well, tame. They should at least be being told not to have sex whilst touching a pylon and flying a kite. I blame Nick Clegg. Fucking liberals, they take the danger out of everything.
Demanding an Upgrade
I found out recently that I'm allowed to travel first class on the train for work, provided, of course that I book it far enough in advance. So that it costs about the same as a week's rent each way, rather than the equivalent of the GDP of Chad each way. Thus I find myself, for only the second time, traversing the country in first class on a Tuesday evening. Tuesday! A school night! This feels in some way wrong; as if one should only go first class on a Friday evening, like a proper commuter, travelling home to one's family. Kicking off one's shoes because of the extra leg room and luxuriating in the fact that the working week is done and, dammit, Greg, you have earned this.
So, what does the extra billionty pounds buy you, on the East Coast line? Well, for a start, it buys you two different coloured seats to gaze at. Yes, that's right, when most of them are empty because of the prohibitive cost, why should you have to look at plain old navy blue all the time? You want more! You want a choice of colours at which to stare! So you also have buff-coloured seats. I am currently the sole occupier of a quad of buff-coloured seats, and a table. This is exciting, although I have to say that I'm wondering if the single seat, rows of which are placed by the window opposite, with a table that, because of the sheer quantity of room, wouldn't be nudging into your beer gut if you had one, might not be even more exciting. They just look a bit more, you know, exclusive. There is no danger that your feet would touch anyone else's (as mine had to, the very first time I travelled first class, two weeks ago. My horror was compounded when, on my return journey, a man who seemed to be suffering from advanced TB - coughing, spluttering, a face that looked as though it were about to fall off entirely - sat opposite me. From Newcastle to Edinburgh. Which takes hours).
Not content with providing a choice of colours for its seats (seats which apparently recline - I've failed so far to achieve this, despite some ardent button-pressing), first class also rewards you with antimacassars (sp? I've never had one before) embroidered with 'first class' so that you have a constant reminder that you're Better Than the Other Passengers. And you have a clean, cotton surface on which to rest your upper class noggin.
The tables are furnished with proper china mugs and actual metal spoons. Crikey! It's like the Ritz on here. This is so that you can be offered free tea and coffee approximately 30 times between Edinburgh and Kings Cross, from a trolley. You are also offered complementary biscuits or fruit cake (there is a man two seats up from me who had two pieces of fruit cake by the time we'd made it to Darlington). Passing up free cake takes reserves of self-control only usually attained by Shaolin monks. However, I'd already got myself a large coffee and a muffin from Caffe Nero before I'd embarked. Because a/ the fundamental rule of train travel is that, no matter what time you're getting on the train, you have to get a cup of coffee and a muffin and b/ even though you're in first class, and the coffee is not of the granules-with-hot-water-shoved-on-it variety, it is still resolutely revolting. I don't know what they do to it, but it is like coffee as imagined by Oliver Twist. Thin, grey and somehow managing to taste vaguely of Horlicks. Perhaps they still use the hateful UHT milk in it, instead of proper milk. As with many modern luxuries, East Coast's plentiful free coffee promises so much (free coffee! In a china mug! Delivered right to you, as you sit there, doing nothing, with all that leg room!) and delivers so little.
The other thing that's vaguely disappointing is that the Wi-Fi in first class isn't substantially better than it is in normal class. For the extra money, I demand an unwavering connection of a strength that would make Atlas jealous. But no, it still took me 20 minutes to order some toiletries from Boots online, because the connection kept crashing. This is the problem when you've paid extra for something (even when it's not even coming out of your own pocket) - you feel entitled to hunt for things to find fault with. 'The big table and the leg room and the free 'coffee' aren't enough', you say to yourself. 'I want some free wine, and some snacks, like you get on a plane. And maybe one of those horrible foil-topped meals! And maybe... some socks. And a toothbrush.' Because the money you're paying is twice what it would cost you to fly, so why shouldn't you be treated like an in-flight personage?
It's possibly a good thing that I'm never going to earn enough to afford a trip on the Orient Express - I'd probably be demanding sheets spun from Cheryl Cole's hair and a dedicated Persian cat for me to stroke between the hours of 10am and 2pm after the first six hours on board. Who knows what Elton John-style levels of excess I could notch up by the time we reached our final destination?
So, what does the extra billionty pounds buy you, on the East Coast line? Well, for a start, it buys you two different coloured seats to gaze at. Yes, that's right, when most of them are empty because of the prohibitive cost, why should you have to look at plain old navy blue all the time? You want more! You want a choice of colours at which to stare! So you also have buff-coloured seats. I am currently the sole occupier of a quad of buff-coloured seats, and a table. This is exciting, although I have to say that I'm wondering if the single seat, rows of which are placed by the window opposite, with a table that, because of the sheer quantity of room, wouldn't be nudging into your beer gut if you had one, might not be even more exciting. They just look a bit more, you know, exclusive. There is no danger that your feet would touch anyone else's (as mine had to, the very first time I travelled first class, two weeks ago. My horror was compounded when, on my return journey, a man who seemed to be suffering from advanced TB - coughing, spluttering, a face that looked as though it were about to fall off entirely - sat opposite me. From Newcastle to Edinburgh. Which takes hours).
Not content with providing a choice of colours for its seats (seats which apparently recline - I've failed so far to achieve this, despite some ardent button-pressing), first class also rewards you with antimacassars (sp? I've never had one before) embroidered with 'first class' so that you have a constant reminder that you're Better Than the Other Passengers. And you have a clean, cotton surface on which to rest your upper class noggin.
The tables are furnished with proper china mugs and actual metal spoons. Crikey! It's like the Ritz on here. This is so that you can be offered free tea and coffee approximately 30 times between Edinburgh and Kings Cross, from a trolley. You are also offered complementary biscuits or fruit cake (there is a man two seats up from me who had two pieces of fruit cake by the time we'd made it to Darlington). Passing up free cake takes reserves of self-control only usually attained by Shaolin monks. However, I'd already got myself a large coffee and a muffin from Caffe Nero before I'd embarked. Because a/ the fundamental rule of train travel is that, no matter what time you're getting on the train, you have to get a cup of coffee and a muffin and b/ even though you're in first class, and the coffee is not of the granules-with-hot-water-shoved-on-it variety, it is still resolutely revolting. I don't know what they do to it, but it is like coffee as imagined by Oliver Twist. Thin, grey and somehow managing to taste vaguely of Horlicks. Perhaps they still use the hateful UHT milk in it, instead of proper milk. As with many modern luxuries, East Coast's plentiful free coffee promises so much (free coffee! In a china mug! Delivered right to you, as you sit there, doing nothing, with all that leg room!) and delivers so little.
The other thing that's vaguely disappointing is that the Wi-Fi in first class isn't substantially better than it is in normal class. For the extra money, I demand an unwavering connection of a strength that would make Atlas jealous. But no, it still took me 20 minutes to order some toiletries from Boots online, because the connection kept crashing. This is the problem when you've paid extra for something (even when it's not even coming out of your own pocket) - you feel entitled to hunt for things to find fault with. 'The big table and the leg room and the free 'coffee' aren't enough', you say to yourself. 'I want some free wine, and some snacks, like you get on a plane. And maybe one of those horrible foil-topped meals! And maybe... some socks. And a toothbrush.' Because the money you're paying is twice what it would cost you to fly, so why shouldn't you be treated like an in-flight personage?
It's possibly a good thing that I'm never going to earn enough to afford a trip on the Orient Express - I'd probably be demanding sheets spun from Cheryl Cole's hair and a dedicated Persian cat for me to stroke between the hours of 10am and 2pm after the first six hours on board. Who knows what Elton John-style levels of excess I could notch up by the time we reached our final destination?
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
I Walk, or Occasionally Jog, the Line
I have a confession to make. It is not a confession I ever thought I would make. Certainly not when I was being picked last for games throughout the entirety of my schooldays. Nor when I was paying to be a member of a gym for years at a time and only going once a month. Not even when I used to 'quite like' doing the Jane Fonda workout in the 80s. My confession is this:
I have turned into the kind of person who goes to the gym to make myself feel better.
Do you hear that sound? It's a kind of creaking, cracking sound that might be familiar from December of last year. It is the sound of something freezing over - in this case, it is the sound of hell freezing over.
Let me explain how I came to this conclusion. Yesterday evening, I was having a bit of a wobble. I was feeling January-ish (it's cold, it's dark, there's nothing much to look forward to); I'd had a bit of a tetchy conversation with my boss earlier in the day; I was, as ever, disappointed by the fact that I still hadn't won the Lottery on Saturday and thus couldn't give up work entirely. My other work colleagues seemed a bit strung out and down too. I suddenly really really missed all my friends. Usually, after a mildly trying day, I would've texted or emailed a couple of people and suggested a trip to the pub for a whinge over a bottle of wine, or a spontaenous visit to the cinema and then we'd have formulated a plan to do something fun and cheering in the next couple of weeks as well.
But up here, I haven't yet managed to accumulate a gaggle of friends who can be called upon at short notice to be, essentially, moaned at for an hour, whilst I pull myself out of a minor Slough of Despond. So instead of going home to watch TV and eat chocolate, I forced myself to go to the gym. I got changed, went to the loo, and had a bit of a cry whilst I was in there. Yeah, it was one of those days - all got a bit much, frankly. The internal conversation ran as follows:
Self-pitying Me: 'WHY did I decide to move to the opposite end of the country, removing myself entirely from all my family and friends?'
Rational Me: 'Because it seemed like a good idea to shake yourself out of all sorts of ruts'
SP Me: '[Sob] They weren't such bad ruts, were they?'
R Me: 'Um, well, no, not in the grand scheme of things. But aren't you, you know, kind of happy in general now? You know, with the lovely flat, and less stress at work, and not having to go on the Tube every day and worry about people blowing you up - stuff like that?'
SP Me: 'Well, yes, there is all that, but I miss going to the pub and having lots of people to suggest doing things with and the fact that I don't have to explain anything to my old friends, they just know and I am REALLY BORED OF WATCHING SHIT TELLY'
R Me: 'I don't think this is getting you anywhere fast. Dry your eyes, pet, and let's just go and flail about on a treadmill for a bit. You can lie when it asks you how old you are, if that'll make you feel better. Sweating and feeling tired will at least take your mind off all this while you're doing it'
SP Me: 'OK. Yes, you're right. I can always phone someone afterwards if I still feel crap'
R Me: 'Well done. Now, just hope that you don't bump into Cheerful James, or anyone else that you know, and have to confess that you're having a bit of a ladymoment'
I was filling up my water bottle when naturally, Cheerful James popped up at my shoulder, greeting me, bien sur, cheerfully, and then dragging me off to be introduced to someone. GAAH. Of course he's going to introduce me to someone when I have just been crying in the loo. He's been saying he wants me to have a session with a mate of his who is a 'biomechanics specialist' who will hopefully sort out my knackered left shoulder and my dodgy posture. And there he is. Man Mountain Gary, who is eleventy foot tall, must surely at some stage have been in the Marines, and looks as though he could crush me like a bug. He is also insanely good looking. I remind you once more, I am fresh from having a cry in the loos. I try to avoid looking at him, as he says that he'll email me to arrange an appointment. Having a red-eyed and now probably red-faced girl staring at you is probably less than ideal for insanely good looking man mountains. It is also cripplingly embarrassing when you are the red-eyed, red-faced girl in question. 'I hope he just assumes I'm having problems with the contact lenses that I don't actually wear', I thought, as I dashed off in search of a treadmill.
So, I assumed I'd force myself through twenty minutes or so of exercise, and then go home to carry on feeling miserable. But, dear reader, I managed a full hour of machines, weights and the like, and by the time I got home, I felt absolutely fine. Fine, I tell you! Albeit still hell bent on eating a large bowl of pasta with pesto and indulging in both Heat and that mad gypsy wedding programme on Channel 4. But yes, going to the gym, instead of being a horrible chore that I had to drag myself through had actually made me feel better.
When I moved here 6 months ago, one of the questions I was asked on my first night was whether I did any sport (by a very hearty bunch of people who were friends of the girl I was staying with). They'd just spent half an hour discussing whether or not one of them should buy a new bike, and if so, what sort of bike they should buy. I thought I was going to gnaw my own arm off with boredom. I said that my interests were largely sedentary and they all gazed at me, thoroughly perplexed. 'Why would you not want to play golf/tennis/squash and go running/cycling/kayaking during any available free moment?' I could feel them thinking. 'Because that sounds like horrible, hard work and I'd rather read a book or watch telly', I mentally replied.
Ironic, then, that I appear to have morphed into the kind of person who could give Davina McCall a run for her money in the gym-going stakes. If I manage to carry on for another 6 months, can I also have Davina's insanely shiny hair and presenting gig on The Biggest Loser? Because if there's no monetary value attached to this metamorphosis from sofa slug to Fully Bionic Human Being, then I've just crossed that invisible line. The one that marked me out as 'one of us' and has turned me into 'one of them' - the freaks who actually enjoy going to the gym and feel weird if they don't go for a couple of days. Which brings me perilously close to the danger zone in which I will suddenly wake up one day and think that taking up golf 'might be fun'.
I have turned into the kind of person who goes to the gym to make myself feel better.
Do you hear that sound? It's a kind of creaking, cracking sound that might be familiar from December of last year. It is the sound of something freezing over - in this case, it is the sound of hell freezing over.
Let me explain how I came to this conclusion. Yesterday evening, I was having a bit of a wobble. I was feeling January-ish (it's cold, it's dark, there's nothing much to look forward to); I'd had a bit of a tetchy conversation with my boss earlier in the day; I was, as ever, disappointed by the fact that I still hadn't won the Lottery on Saturday and thus couldn't give up work entirely. My other work colleagues seemed a bit strung out and down too. I suddenly really really missed all my friends. Usually, after a mildly trying day, I would've texted or emailed a couple of people and suggested a trip to the pub for a whinge over a bottle of wine, or a spontaenous visit to the cinema and then we'd have formulated a plan to do something fun and cheering in the next couple of weeks as well.
But up here, I haven't yet managed to accumulate a gaggle of friends who can be called upon at short notice to be, essentially, moaned at for an hour, whilst I pull myself out of a minor Slough of Despond. So instead of going home to watch TV and eat chocolate, I forced myself to go to the gym. I got changed, went to the loo, and had a bit of a cry whilst I was in there. Yeah, it was one of those days - all got a bit much, frankly. The internal conversation ran as follows:
Self-pitying Me: 'WHY did I decide to move to the opposite end of the country, removing myself entirely from all my family and friends?'
Rational Me: 'Because it seemed like a good idea to shake yourself out of all sorts of ruts'
SP Me: '[Sob] They weren't such bad ruts, were they?'
R Me: 'Um, well, no, not in the grand scheme of things. But aren't you, you know, kind of happy in general now? You know, with the lovely flat, and less stress at work, and not having to go on the Tube every day and worry about people blowing you up - stuff like that?'
SP Me: 'Well, yes, there is all that, but I miss going to the pub and having lots of people to suggest doing things with and the fact that I don't have to explain anything to my old friends, they just know and I am REALLY BORED OF WATCHING SHIT TELLY'
R Me: 'I don't think this is getting you anywhere fast. Dry your eyes, pet, and let's just go and flail about on a treadmill for a bit. You can lie when it asks you how old you are, if that'll make you feel better. Sweating and feeling tired will at least take your mind off all this while you're doing it'
SP Me: 'OK. Yes, you're right. I can always phone someone afterwards if I still feel crap'
R Me: 'Well done. Now, just hope that you don't bump into Cheerful James, or anyone else that you know, and have to confess that you're having a bit of a ladymoment'
I was filling up my water bottle when naturally, Cheerful James popped up at my shoulder, greeting me, bien sur, cheerfully, and then dragging me off to be introduced to someone. GAAH. Of course he's going to introduce me to someone when I have just been crying in the loo. He's been saying he wants me to have a session with a mate of his who is a 'biomechanics specialist' who will hopefully sort out my knackered left shoulder and my dodgy posture. And there he is. Man Mountain Gary, who is eleventy foot tall, must surely at some stage have been in the Marines, and looks as though he could crush me like a bug. He is also insanely good looking. I remind you once more, I am fresh from having a cry in the loos. I try to avoid looking at him, as he says that he'll email me to arrange an appointment. Having a red-eyed and now probably red-faced girl staring at you is probably less than ideal for insanely good looking man mountains. It is also cripplingly embarrassing when you are the red-eyed, red-faced girl in question. 'I hope he just assumes I'm having problems with the contact lenses that I don't actually wear', I thought, as I dashed off in search of a treadmill.
So, I assumed I'd force myself through twenty minutes or so of exercise, and then go home to carry on feeling miserable. But, dear reader, I managed a full hour of machines, weights and the like, and by the time I got home, I felt absolutely fine. Fine, I tell you! Albeit still hell bent on eating a large bowl of pasta with pesto and indulging in both Heat and that mad gypsy wedding programme on Channel 4. But yes, going to the gym, instead of being a horrible chore that I had to drag myself through had actually made me feel better.
When I moved here 6 months ago, one of the questions I was asked on my first night was whether I did any sport (by a very hearty bunch of people who were friends of the girl I was staying with). They'd just spent half an hour discussing whether or not one of them should buy a new bike, and if so, what sort of bike they should buy. I thought I was going to gnaw my own arm off with boredom. I said that my interests were largely sedentary and they all gazed at me, thoroughly perplexed. 'Why would you not want to play golf/tennis/squash and go running/cycling/kayaking during any available free moment?' I could feel them thinking. 'Because that sounds like horrible, hard work and I'd rather read a book or watch telly', I mentally replied.
Ironic, then, that I appear to have morphed into the kind of person who could give Davina McCall a run for her money in the gym-going stakes. If I manage to carry on for another 6 months, can I also have Davina's insanely shiny hair and presenting gig on The Biggest Loser? Because if there's no monetary value attached to this metamorphosis from sofa slug to Fully Bionic Human Being, then I've just crossed that invisible line. The one that marked me out as 'one of us' and has turned me into 'one of them' - the freaks who actually enjoy going to the gym and feel weird if they don't go for a couple of days. Which brings me perilously close to the danger zone in which I will suddenly wake up one day and think that taking up golf 'might be fun'.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Resolving to make no Resolutions
So, it's over halfway through January, which is another free Reason to be Cheerful. January is proving to be less boring than usual, as I've decided to give up on giving up booze (I usually spend the first month of every year booze-free as a penance for Christmas/New Year and a vague attempt to lose weight). Instead I've decided that, new life, new habits style - I think you're allowed to use that as a motivating force for the first year of a new life - I shall instead embrace booze. I've been treating myself to red wine at home of an evening, which is proving to be very pleasant.
It is also extremely nice not to feel browbeaten into some sort of punitive detox routine. Magazines and newspapers at this time of year are full to the brim with 'recipes' for juices (you don't need a recipe, you just squash all the fun bits out of anything you were planning to eat and then have to wash up a machine with 37 parts afterwards); exhortations to give up alcohol, caffeine, sugar, meat, dairy, wheat and anything else that's worth eating or drinking at this time of year, and replace them with green tea, pounding away on a treadmill and sweating in a sauna as a treat.
The reason I don't feel the need to do any of this, is that I was kind of doing it anyway before Christmas - well, bar the booze and the coffee, both of which remain mainstays, but the booze is less prevalent than it was when I lived in London. London life, in a rose-tinted way, now seemed to me to revolve round cocktails and wine in pubs and nice bars in a manner that suggested I was either a Sex and the City wannabe, or Jeffrey Bernard. That's not true, I never drank that much, but I really don't go out much here yet, so feel relatively teetotal.
But I've managed to cut right down on dairy (bar milk in the aforementioned coffee), mainly cut out wheat (it really doesn't agree with my digestion and is also on Cheerful James's Banned List) and was trying hard to avoid sugar. I don't very often eat meat, and am still scoffing salmon like a seal, so it was all going fine. Until the Great Carb Rebellion of Christmas and the dreaded Between Christmas and New Year Period, when seemingly all be(l)ts are off and it's a free for all. I threw myself with particularly wild abandon at the pannetone that appeared everywhere. One of my friends got given three for a Christmas party she hosted, one of which made it to mine at New Year.
I ate it with Bailey's in a bread and butter pudding (sugar, wheat, cream and booze - ticking all the boxes there). I had it toasted with butter for breakfast. I had big chunks of it just because it was there. Still there. Still not stale enough to justify throwing it away (wasteful). There was some exciting shop-bought custard that hadn't been eaten, so I had some of that with pannetone and prunes (surprisingly good). I probably would've made it into a duvet and slept under it if I could've.
But like many a holiday romance, mine has now ended. Now it is back to scrambled eggs for breakfast and salmon for lunch. It's back to pounding away at the gym, praying that Cheerful James will let me off another week of being weighed and measured. I was doing so well before Christmas that I very nearly awarded myself a Chufty Medal for Exercise - I'd managed to get down to something like 14.5% body fat (from 22.3% - ooh, STATS!) and had put on 7lb of muscle since the middle of September, for anyone who cares about such things. CJ is threatening to put 'before' and 'after' photos of me on the wall of the gym. I cannot express how utterly mortifying this would be. Surely that is the preserve of Biggest Loser types, who've lost 5 stone and gone from 'blimpishly fat' to a size 12? Rather than me, who's gone from a bit of a muffin top and arms devoid of any muscle or definition to losing half a stone and being able to get the lids off jam jars? It doesn't feel sufficiently inspirational to see a photo of me with a few wobbly bits, grinning with embarrassment, next to a photo of me with fewer wobbly bits, grinning with embarrassment.
Perhaps I embarked on the Great Carb Rebellion in order to avoid being on the wall of the gym and pointed at by punters thinking, 'Who's that girl, who clearly thinks she's better than she is?' Or perhaps I should just use one of my newly-muscled arms to punch James and tell him to find another former fatty to put on the wall. Yes, that sounds better. I've always meant to try boxing.
It is also extremely nice not to feel browbeaten into some sort of punitive detox routine. Magazines and newspapers at this time of year are full to the brim with 'recipes' for juices (you don't need a recipe, you just squash all the fun bits out of anything you were planning to eat and then have to wash up a machine with 37 parts afterwards); exhortations to give up alcohol, caffeine, sugar, meat, dairy, wheat and anything else that's worth eating or drinking at this time of year, and replace them with green tea, pounding away on a treadmill and sweating in a sauna as a treat.
The reason I don't feel the need to do any of this, is that I was kind of doing it anyway before Christmas - well, bar the booze and the coffee, both of which remain mainstays, but the booze is less prevalent than it was when I lived in London. London life, in a rose-tinted way, now seemed to me to revolve round cocktails and wine in pubs and nice bars in a manner that suggested I was either a Sex and the City wannabe, or Jeffrey Bernard. That's not true, I never drank that much, but I really don't go out much here yet, so feel relatively teetotal.
But I've managed to cut right down on dairy (bar milk in the aforementioned coffee), mainly cut out wheat (it really doesn't agree with my digestion and is also on Cheerful James's Banned List) and was trying hard to avoid sugar. I don't very often eat meat, and am still scoffing salmon like a seal, so it was all going fine. Until the Great Carb Rebellion of Christmas and the dreaded Between Christmas and New Year Period, when seemingly all be(l)ts are off and it's a free for all. I threw myself with particularly wild abandon at the pannetone that appeared everywhere. One of my friends got given three for a Christmas party she hosted, one of which made it to mine at New Year.
I ate it with Bailey's in a bread and butter pudding (sugar, wheat, cream and booze - ticking all the boxes there). I had it toasted with butter for breakfast. I had big chunks of it just because it was there. Still there. Still not stale enough to justify throwing it away (wasteful). There was some exciting shop-bought custard that hadn't been eaten, so I had some of that with pannetone and prunes (surprisingly good). I probably would've made it into a duvet and slept under it if I could've.
But like many a holiday romance, mine has now ended. Now it is back to scrambled eggs for breakfast and salmon for lunch. It's back to pounding away at the gym, praying that Cheerful James will let me off another week of being weighed and measured. I was doing so well before Christmas that I very nearly awarded myself a Chufty Medal for Exercise - I'd managed to get down to something like 14.5% body fat (from 22.3% - ooh, STATS!) and had put on 7lb of muscle since the middle of September, for anyone who cares about such things. CJ is threatening to put 'before' and 'after' photos of me on the wall of the gym. I cannot express how utterly mortifying this would be. Surely that is the preserve of Biggest Loser types, who've lost 5 stone and gone from 'blimpishly fat' to a size 12? Rather than me, who's gone from a bit of a muffin top and arms devoid of any muscle or definition to losing half a stone and being able to get the lids off jam jars? It doesn't feel sufficiently inspirational to see a photo of me with a few wobbly bits, grinning with embarrassment, next to a photo of me with fewer wobbly bits, grinning with embarrassment.
Perhaps I embarked on the Great Carb Rebellion in order to avoid being on the wall of the gym and pointed at by punters thinking, 'Who's that girl, who clearly thinks she's better than she is?' Or perhaps I should just use one of my newly-muscled arms to punch James and tell him to find another former fatty to put on the wall. Yes, that sounds better. I've always meant to try boxing.
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
Welcome to the Cheap Sweets
Ah, the New Year - ushered in with the usual array of post-Christmas penury, the addition of festive flab and the sheer drear of returning to work. Even when there's hardly anyone at work, and you spend the first five minutes of every encounter with a colleague exchanging information about how their holiday was. But 2011 has an added excitement - we now have to pay more VAT on everything! As if we weren't feeling bleak enough, having spent far too much on presents and in the sales, and fallen off the dietary bandwagon, gammon-faced Cameron has really stuck the boot in.
In these straightened times, one must turn to the world of cheap thrills in order to cheer oneself up. I was thinking last night of a list of free, or nearly free delights with which to start my year.
1/ The gargantuan plastic jar of sweets which my boss provided for Christmas will surely still yield a few more Dolly Mixtures. I've no idea what's in Dolly Mixtures - I'm hoping, in a Toy Story 3 style, that it's not actual dollies - but they are awesome. If you haven't had any since you were 10, then get a bag, throw away the jelly ones if there are any (urgh), and dig in. They're tiny, so you can eat fifty of them and feel like you haven't really been that bad. There's something about the slightly fudgy texture, and the constant question of, 'do the orange ones really taste different from the purple ones?' that is just as pleasing as scoffing Green and Black's Butterscotch chocolate. Albeit in a way that's a bit like reading the latest Jilly Cooper in hardback when you know you should really be reading Jonathan Frantzen.
2/ There is no snow and ice left in Edinburgh. I can't overstate the pure pleasure I felt this morning when I put on a pair of boots with a heel, instead of walking boots, and walked at a normal pace, rather than my tiny-geisha-steps-shuffle. It's a joy that's equal to the one you get when the Anadin Extra kicks in and your vicious headache finally disappears. Snow, and its ensuing dramas, was fine for the first week, and then it became a total pain in the arse. Thank you, 2011, for starting without any more of it, and for melting (nearly all) of the remainder whilst I was away for Christmas.
3/ I got given John Lewis vouchers as part of my Christmas present (a joy in and of itself; you know you're middle aged when John Lewis becomes your favourite shop. I reached that landmark about 10 years ago, truth be told. Take me on a trip to look at toasters and baking equipment in the kitchen department, and I'm happy). The vouchers were to purchase a new duvet cover and pillow cases. The ones in the flat were fine, but not really me (they're a bit... brown), so I was eyeing up some with a bit of embroidery on. I bought them. I even managed to put them on, on the actual day of purchase (surely one of my Resolutions for this year is to Stop. Bloody. Procrastinating). I snuggled under the duvet and marvelled at how great it is to cuddle up under a brand new, crispy, white cotton duvet cover. 'This is what it must be like for people quite often, who iron their duvet covers', I thought. 'Best make the most of it, then', my inner voice declared. 'Given you've only just bought an iron for the first time in 4 years, it's not likely you're going to suddenly morph into the kind of person who irons their duvet cover.'
4/ Now it's the 4th of January, we can hopefully stop reviewing 2010, and I can also stop being told what I should like/be anticipating for 2011. There's a raft of doubtless thrilling theatrical productions in London which I won't see, because I'm not there for long enough to fit in theatre visits and pub sessions with my mates. Ditto art exhibitions, although I am planning a trip to a Dior illustration exhibition when I'm in town on Thursday. Books I should be reading? I'm still planning to fit in 2009's Booker winner at some stage. New bands? To be honest, I'm still happy with the banjo stylings of Mumford and Sons. (Added benefit: for some reason, it's the only music that will persuade me to actually run on a treadmill. I have no such hopes for the XX or The Vaccines, which people in the know are indicating are this year's New Big Thing.)
5/ As everyone's got an iPad for Christmas - I've no idea if this is a fact, I'm just assuming loads of people have - people can stop asking me if I've got an iPhone and whether I know how to use it. The answers to those questions are:
Yes, and it's lovely and shiny
and
No, of course I don't, it's for work, and every time I try to make a phone call on it, it freaks me out. And that touch-screen typing thing doesn't work for me either. It's mainly useful for looking at things on eBay when you're waiting for someone and you're bored. And as a side point, having, 'sent from my iPhone' at the end of all your emails is annoying; it's like you're boasting about the fact that you've got one.
6/ Everyone seems to agree that Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights is quite the worst comedy thing that's ever been put on TV (other than Come Fly with Me, but as I haven't seen that, I'll just have to rely on the trailers making it look excruciating, and at least a decade past its sell-by date). I don't know why all these stand-ups have suddenly decided that they're great at doing sketch shows. Maybe it stops them using up great swathes of their stand-up material that they're still touring/trying to shift on DVD. But they're all having a crack at it, and they're all shit. Stephen K. Amos - perfectly nice fellow, I'm sure, but his show looked like a Lenny Henry series from the early '80s. Surely the BBC's comedy commissioner didn't really say, 'Ooh, you're not white, therefore you have to have quite a few sketches where you dress up as your own mum?' Channel 4's new offering is some woman called Morgana (ever heard of her? No, me neither; was slightly expecting the screechy witch from the Kevin Costner Robin Hood film trying out a Derren Brown-influenced prediction show). Her schtick seems to be funny wigs and googly glasses for each character. Because people with chronically bad eyesight and frizzy hair are always hilarious.
But Frankie really wins all the awards for this category hands down. I used to think he was deeply unpleasant but occasionally very funny on Mock the Week. Then he sacked one of my friends, who was supposed to be doing the PR for his mystifyingly popular book, on the basis of a typo in an email. Then Channel 4 give him a bucket of cash to make offensive stand-up jokes (TM the Daily Mail), interspersed with terrible sketches. The brief for which appears to have been: make them 3 times as long as they need to be, with no punchlines, and referencing TV shows and films that are at least fifteen years old. With terrible wigs. And no acting ability. Which are also offensive. In the one I saw, the sketches were based around Knight Rider and The Green Mile. It's a much debated question - what constitutes offence in comedy, and whether any subject is off-limits - but the basics for me are always, 'do I laugh, and then have a bit of a guilty intake of breath, or do I just think, "bloody hell, that's offensive, and it's not even funny".'
Let's hope one of Frankie's New Year's resolutions is to give it all up, as he keeps threatening to, and then I'll have another VAT-free pleasure to add to my list.
In these straightened times, one must turn to the world of cheap thrills in order to cheer oneself up. I was thinking last night of a list of free, or nearly free delights with which to start my year.
1/ The gargantuan plastic jar of sweets which my boss provided for Christmas will surely still yield a few more Dolly Mixtures. I've no idea what's in Dolly Mixtures - I'm hoping, in a Toy Story 3 style, that it's not actual dollies - but they are awesome. If you haven't had any since you were 10, then get a bag, throw away the jelly ones if there are any (urgh), and dig in. They're tiny, so you can eat fifty of them and feel like you haven't really been that bad. There's something about the slightly fudgy texture, and the constant question of, 'do the orange ones really taste different from the purple ones?' that is just as pleasing as scoffing Green and Black's Butterscotch chocolate. Albeit in a way that's a bit like reading the latest Jilly Cooper in hardback when you know you should really be reading Jonathan Frantzen.
2/ There is no snow and ice left in Edinburgh. I can't overstate the pure pleasure I felt this morning when I put on a pair of boots with a heel, instead of walking boots, and walked at a normal pace, rather than my tiny-geisha-steps-shuffle. It's a joy that's equal to the one you get when the Anadin Extra kicks in and your vicious headache finally disappears. Snow, and its ensuing dramas, was fine for the first week, and then it became a total pain in the arse. Thank you, 2011, for starting without any more of it, and for melting (nearly all) of the remainder whilst I was away for Christmas.
3/ I got given John Lewis vouchers as part of my Christmas present (a joy in and of itself; you know you're middle aged when John Lewis becomes your favourite shop. I reached that landmark about 10 years ago, truth be told. Take me on a trip to look at toasters and baking equipment in the kitchen department, and I'm happy). The vouchers were to purchase a new duvet cover and pillow cases. The ones in the flat were fine, but not really me (they're a bit... brown), so I was eyeing up some with a bit of embroidery on. I bought them. I even managed to put them on, on the actual day of purchase (surely one of my Resolutions for this year is to Stop. Bloody. Procrastinating). I snuggled under the duvet and marvelled at how great it is to cuddle up under a brand new, crispy, white cotton duvet cover. 'This is what it must be like for people quite often, who iron their duvet covers', I thought. 'Best make the most of it, then', my inner voice declared. 'Given you've only just bought an iron for the first time in 4 years, it's not likely you're going to suddenly morph into the kind of person who irons their duvet cover.'
4/ Now it's the 4th of January, we can hopefully stop reviewing 2010, and I can also stop being told what I should like/be anticipating for 2011. There's a raft of doubtless thrilling theatrical productions in London which I won't see, because I'm not there for long enough to fit in theatre visits and pub sessions with my mates. Ditto art exhibitions, although I am planning a trip to a Dior illustration exhibition when I'm in town on Thursday. Books I should be reading? I'm still planning to fit in 2009's Booker winner at some stage. New bands? To be honest, I'm still happy with the banjo stylings of Mumford and Sons. (Added benefit: for some reason, it's the only music that will persuade me to actually run on a treadmill. I have no such hopes for the XX or The Vaccines, which people in the know are indicating are this year's New Big Thing.)
5/ As everyone's got an iPad for Christmas - I've no idea if this is a fact, I'm just assuming loads of people have - people can stop asking me if I've got an iPhone and whether I know how to use it. The answers to those questions are:
Yes, and it's lovely and shiny
and
No, of course I don't, it's for work, and every time I try to make a phone call on it, it freaks me out. And that touch-screen typing thing doesn't work for me either. It's mainly useful for looking at things on eBay when you're waiting for someone and you're bored. And as a side point, having, 'sent from my iPhone' at the end of all your emails is annoying; it's like you're boasting about the fact that you've got one.
6/ Everyone seems to agree that Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights is quite the worst comedy thing that's ever been put on TV (other than Come Fly with Me, but as I haven't seen that, I'll just have to rely on the trailers making it look excruciating, and at least a decade past its sell-by date). I don't know why all these stand-ups have suddenly decided that they're great at doing sketch shows. Maybe it stops them using up great swathes of their stand-up material that they're still touring/trying to shift on DVD. But they're all having a crack at it, and they're all shit. Stephen K. Amos - perfectly nice fellow, I'm sure, but his show looked like a Lenny Henry series from the early '80s. Surely the BBC's comedy commissioner didn't really say, 'Ooh, you're not white, therefore you have to have quite a few sketches where you dress up as your own mum?' Channel 4's new offering is some woman called Morgana (ever heard of her? No, me neither; was slightly expecting the screechy witch from the Kevin Costner Robin Hood film trying out a Derren Brown-influenced prediction show). Her schtick seems to be funny wigs and googly glasses for each character. Because people with chronically bad eyesight and frizzy hair are always hilarious.
But Frankie really wins all the awards for this category hands down. I used to think he was deeply unpleasant but occasionally very funny on Mock the Week. Then he sacked one of my friends, who was supposed to be doing the PR for his mystifyingly popular book, on the basis of a typo in an email. Then Channel 4 give him a bucket of cash to make offensive stand-up jokes (TM the Daily Mail), interspersed with terrible sketches. The brief for which appears to have been: make them 3 times as long as they need to be, with no punchlines, and referencing TV shows and films that are at least fifteen years old. With terrible wigs. And no acting ability. Which are also offensive. In the one I saw, the sketches were based around Knight Rider and The Green Mile. It's a much debated question - what constitutes offence in comedy, and whether any subject is off-limits - but the basics for me are always, 'do I laugh, and then have a bit of a guilty intake of breath, or do I just think, "bloody hell, that's offensive, and it's not even funny".'
Let's hope one of Frankie's New Year's resolutions is to give it all up, as he keeps threatening to, and then I'll have another VAT-free pleasure to add to my list.
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