Mj’s Blog

Now vegetarian is the wrong word to describe me, I’m more of a non-meat eater but sometimes it is easier to say vegetarian when out for dinner or if I’m invited round a friends house. The reason for this is that I eat fish and I can hear many true veggies shouting in disgust that I would call myself a vegetarian. I’ve been to restaurants where they have a fish dish under the vegetarian section! I haven’t eaten meat (and that includes chicken) since I was 15/16 (can’t really remember) but I was a teenager and it was the thing to do. That’s peer pressure for you. When I started eating fish again, I can’t really remember but I haven’t had any lamb, chicken, beef or pork in nearly 20 years. My principles for eating fish is that its the only living thing I think I would be able to kill myself.

My in-laws have a terrible time with me being a veggie. At least five times a year I get some sort of lecture about how bad it is, how unhealthy, blah, blah, blah. Now for anyone that knows me I’m not a preaching type of person and I have never told anyone to be a vegetarian - if I was like that then I could understand them lecturing me. I think everyone has the right to decide for themselves and they should respect that.

Last year I was thinking of eating chicken again but only organic and free range. After much thinking I decided not to and after another lecture from the in-laws at the weekend, its made me even more determined not to eat meat. I do think that organic and free-range farming is the way go and if H buys meat for himself then it is always organic. I could moan about my in-laws having an unhealthy diet of too much red meat, too much processed cheap food but I won’t just in case one day they see this blog!

I absolutely love the Mark Ronson, Version album. So I thought I would write up some sort of music review. Can’t promise it will be any good and I’m not sure if I will ever write up any other reviews (maybe only albums I like).

It was the Stop Me track that first pointed me towards getting the Mark Ronson album. After hearing Stop Me many times on Radio 1, I decided to look up Mark Ronson and found his MySpace page with the video for Stop Me. The Stop Me track reminded me of an early 90s dance track called Sound of Eden by Shades of Rhythm. This is what made me look Mark Ronson up. Since then I have looked up the original song by The Smiths on YouTube but I still prefer the Ronson version.

This album is differently my favourite album of last year and I continue to listen to it on my iPod and in the car - other great songs on there are: Oh My God feat. Lily Allen, Toxic feat. Tiggers, Apply Some Pressure feat. Paul Smith and Valerie feat. Amy Winehouse. Recently I have bought the Amy Winehouse album Back to Black because of the Valerie song (one day I will write about that album too). The music arrangements on this album is great and hearing the individual instruments is something you don’t hear very often on albums. I would highly recommend this album and as Mark Ronson is British (although he did grow up in New York), he gets five stars from me!

I remember Romford Ice Rink from my days as a teenager and going at least 3 times at week in the evenings (disco time!). I loved it and made many new friends from going. Unfortunately I don’t know of anyone now who would like to go skating with me know so I choose to go on my own. My hockey boots are twenty years old but have lasted well - this might be because I didn’t use them for about twelve years. When I think they cost over two hundred pounds back then I certainly have got value for money out of them. Now Romford Ice Rink is over twenty years old too but that hasn’t lasted as well. Everything is looking a bit shabby but this was bound to happen as they are building a new one soon. I’m hoping they don’t have to shut the old one while building the new one. My interest to go back to skating started as a form of exercise and honestly I’m really enjoying it - makes me want to be 18 again!

One of the best things of skating and being able to skate is watching men and women in their 30s with their children trying to skate. They are normally dressed in clothes not really suited for skating and seeing men who most probably are brilliant at football or rugby, standing on the ice wobbling all over the place is such a good laugh. I shouldn’t laugh really as I’m sure I was like that once - maybe. Lets hope the new rink will be just as good as I remember all those years ago when I first went and lets hope they don’t close it for a while otherwise I will have to take up running seriously as my only form of exercise.

Ah, the bendy bus… now I work in London and the no. 38 bus goes pass our office. This used to be one of the old Routemaster lines until they were scrapped and replaced by the bendy bus. Now for those who don’t know what a bendy bus is - it’s a very long bus and bends round corners. For a better description there is a good wikipedia article on them. They get a lot of bad press in London, apparently everyone hates them but I can’t see what is wrong with them. I think it is the press who hate them because it was Ken Livingstone who brought them in and cyclists hate them for being too long. Now I never drive around London so I would either walk or get public transport and have many times got a bendy buses - nope can’t see what the problem is. My only bugbear with walking around London is cyclists who have to always jump red lights and go through crossings while the green man is showing. I don’t think they know how dangerous it is!

I got a bendy bus today to purchase a birthday present for a colleague of mine and the best bit about it (apart from not getting wet - where has all this rain come from) was listening, couldn’t actually avoid their conversation as the lady in question was quite loud, to a couple in their 50s who were having problems with paying for their trip on the bus. On a London bendy bus you have a pre-paid ticket, you can’t pay the driver so hearing them talking about Oyster cards, not being able to pay (the driver let them on anyway) and the gentleman finding a saver ticket after much talking was done by his wife. After all of this the poor man had to listen to her go on about getting a sandwich before they got somewhere - I think I heard him say about two words on the whole trip and that was to agree with her. Poor sod, in a few years time they will have Freedom Passes and will be travelling around London on bendy buses with her talking very loudly at him while he is most probably trying to find a way of losing her in the crowds.

In April 2003, the BBC held a poll to find the 100 best reads in the UK. After much voting and a television show, the Top 100 was decided with Lord of the Rings coming top. Sometime in 2004, I decided that I would try and read them all. I have created a new page with the full list and how I’m doing - at the moment I’ve read 67 books of the 100. Considering I started on 20-something I don’t think I’m doing too badly. I’m reading David Copperfield at the moment which is turning out to be a fab read.

Some of the books that I’m looking forward to reading are:

• Bleak House
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• A Town Like Alice

Ones I’m not looking forward to reading:

• War and Peace
• Ulysses
• Gormenghast

Maybe when I’ve finished each book from now on I will write a review on it. My favourite books so far are: Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, Jane Eyre, Pillars of the Earth, Gone with the Wind, Rebecca and The Secret History.

All the news reports today are about Carla Bruni and her husband - oh yeah the French President - visiting the UK. Most of it is about how she was his mistress and what is she going to wear. On breakfast TV they did a news report all about her and only briefly mentioned him. Now the French are renowned for their fashion and she is no exception (merely the fact that she is Italian doesn’t seem to matter). Being a supermodel in the 90s, even I know who she is but this is the first time I’ve seen his name. The way politics is broadcast in this country is very much about entertainment value - who is wearing what, sleeping with whom and how much they spend on their expenses.

The best polictical picture I saw today was on the front cover of the Metro - Gordon Brown and his wife or was it Harriet Harman(?) at the door of someones home and the headline was ‘The Prime Minister? I don’t care who you are, if you are selling something I don’t want it!’. Made me chuckle.

Silly shoes are actually to blame for my cold toes as work shoes are not always the most comfortable/warm shoes you can have. Men have it easy - most men wear shoes that all look the same (flat, black, sometimes with laces) and with socks - so they can march along the street at a 100 miles an hour with no blisters and warm, toasty toes. As I walk to work I see all the women out there in gorgeous high heeled shoes or lovely sandals in the summer and I wish I could wear them with such ease. Not a chance, having small odd size feet (respectively 3 and 3 1/2) makes it hard to find a pair that the shoe shop actually has in stock and when they do, 9 out of 10 times they are the most uncomfortable shoes in the world.

This means that I don’t have enough shoes! I’m sure my husband will think otherwise but compared to other women out there I am in the minority. I have two pairs of shoes for work and occasionally I wear my trainers to work and change when I get in. The weekend just gone I managed to get another pair of shoes for work so now I’m up to three pairs - woo who. When the summer arrives (if it does…) then I have other problems like blisters and hobbling to and from work because of them. Ode to have normal feet…

We have just spent the morning visiting friends who have just finished rebuilding and decorating their house and wow, what a project that was. Apart from rebuilding the whole of the back house and almost doubling the size of it, I do believe the house is held up by thousands and thousands of cables. Cables for Sky TV, internet, heating, lighting, sound in every room and all run by a central network. Admittedly my friend is a computer programmer at work so I shouldn’t expect anything less but it is still impressive to see. Knowing your whole home is controlled by one system reminds me of some 80’s film where the light switch controls the toaster and door bell turns the shower on.

I don’t think we could ever do this to our house - it’s too old and I don’t think our next door neighbour would like the idea of us knocking half the house down to build decent walls for cables especially as we are semi-detached! I think wireless is the way to go for us - getting wireless connection a few months ago has been revolutionary, yesterday I baked some cakes using a Nigella recipe that was on her website - no need to print it out just the laptop on the kitchen top and while the cakes were baking I managed to update this blog at the same time. Now we are moving in to the 21st century…

Waking up this morning and my first thought was as I looked out the window that it’s Christmas - snow on the ground and large floaty flakes falling but hell no it’s Easter Sunday. This is what Christmas should be like. By mid day it had turned into a typical UK Christmas day by raining lots and grey skies. Us Brits love talking about and moaning about the weather and I’m sure I will mention it a lot on here. I just want to know what happened to the seasons - snow in March, warm sunny days in February etc. Is it global warming or has it always been like this and I’ve got selective memory about it.

It is a sad day in my parents household - they had to had their cat put to sleep. He was 17 years old (82 in cat years) so he had a good innings but to see your parents upset is quite strange. As we had two cats (half-brothers) from a very young age and as the older one died a couple of years ago, we now have no pets in the family. I wonder if my parents will get a new kitten… The family cat had a great name - Dominio. At least I have a great porn name - first name is your first pet and surname is your mother’s maiden name. Mine is Dominio Drew - or I could be known as Double D, that’s if I was a porn star and had a rather large chest, which I don’t. RIP Dominio.

Today I had my hair cut at a rather well known chain of hairdressers - and it cost me £53! Now I love my new hair cut - being all girlie there is nothing like having it cut but I’m sure it is getting more and more expensive. Also, this particular hairdressers is in a well known shopping centre in Essex, so of course I had to go shopping too. After buying a top, jacket and a pair of shoes the whole day has cost me a small fortune. Plus lunch at Wagamamas, oh and I forgot about the socks I bought. Now I see this as my part of stopping the UK following the US and going in to a recession (has this happened yet?). By the amount of people at the shopping centre I think everyone else had the same idea.

Now I’m sitting at home watching it snow! We haven’t had any snow in Essex/London since last year so for it to start now over Easter is just typical for British weather. The idea of going out tonight with my new hair cut, new shoes and new jacket is just out of the question otherwise I will freeze and my hair will be covered up with a hat! Oh well, a night in then with a cosmo and a rather well-styled hair cut!