Finding your own style

I like fashion, actually I love fashion but I just can’t seem to find ‘my look’. I’m too old to wear whatever the latest fashion is of the moment but I don’t what to become one of these types that just end up wearing the same type of clothes for the next twenty years. Another problem with getting older is that I have started to appreciate the quality of well made clothes. Not the rubbish that the likes of Primark make. My set style at the moment is jeans, trainers and a long-sleeved top with my faithful grey cardigan. With warmer days ahead I am looking forward to wearing more fun, summer clothing.

I would love to be more funky and quirky with fashion. I’m not talking about Carrie from Sex and the City quirky but my own look. A lack of confidence makes me shy away from being that funky but there are times when I do break from the norm. I don’t like the whole ‘follow the fashion brigade’ – I haven’t done the whole skinny jeans look, purely because I’m too short. I would just look stupid and even shorter in them. I’m not keen on the leggings look either but that’s because I did that look when I was a teenager. Looking on the TopShop site recently was scary as most of this seasons fashion is heavily inspired by the 80s from ‘boyfriend jackets’ to espadrilles. The 80s had to be the worst decade for fashion and I can’t believe it is coming back round again. The one item of clothing that I love is a jacket or coat. I can’t help myself if I see a cool jacket in a shop and the amount it costs doesn’t seem to bother me unlike spending the same amount on a pair of shoes. Ooh, now I have a feeling for a new jacket for spring and I work in just the right area for that – in the middle of Covent Garden.

A lack of connection

I’m writing this with a sense of apprehension as since about 8pm the internet connection in my house has been so slow that it is impossible to do anything that I would like to do.  I managed to do about 20 minutes of work when I was hoping to do a bit more. Twitter won’t load at all and Page Load Error keeps appearing when I click on to any other site.  So am I writing this with the fear that I will lose everything that I have just written or I won’t be able to publish the post until tomorrow.  It just proves to me how much I need the internet. For my blog, twittering, all of my work is web-based, watching TV online and checking out websites. I had plans for buying a gift for a friend, check my bank account, check out some more ideas for the summer holiday and reply to some friends emails. Damn! I’m not going to write anymore just in case I lose everything – I’m blaming it on Obama flying in to Essex tomorrow, the secret service are monitoring/restricting the internet!

Thoughts and lies

I’m finding that I can’t seem to find ‘whole’ stories or interests to write about lately – I have a lot of ideas but once I start writing them I can’t seem to get a ‘whole’ story out of them.  So for today it is some thoughts, then hopefully I will get back in to writing longer posts soon especially now that British Summer Time is here and the nights will seem longer. With the so-called British “Summer” Time starting today, the weather was actually a nice spring day albeit a cold one. We went for a nice hike at the local country park with my brother and sister-in-law with their 8-month-old daughter – we are all going to the Lake District in May so we had lots to chat about from which hikes we can do with a 9-month-old to if they don’t mind me bringing my cocktail making set with me. Best thing of all is that is only four weeks away!

I’ve been meaning to write about this for ages now since reading an article in the Sunday Times a few weeks ago. Telling white lies. The article tells of an author who gave up lying for a year (obviously to write a book about it). The article is interesting in the fact that the author writes about how his life is so much better for it. Silly lies like saying you like something when you don’t really – the classic “does my bum look big in this?” question, with the answer “of course not”, went to be become “yes, it does”. Thus his wife was annoyed with him but then went on to lose weight and be a lot healthier. The article mentions a study that says on average a person lies four times a day, with the most common lie (or fib as the article calls it) is “I’m fine”.  How true that is – many times when I have felt like crap and someone asks “how are you?”, my automatic answer is “I’m fine”.  The next thing that struck me about the article was the author making a clear difference between being honest and being rude when not lying. He said he didn’t go out there saying to people “you are ugly” but was just truthful and didn’t go out of his way to hurt people. The last part of the article has a great quote about telling his wife her bum was big “If I’d lied, I would have made her happy for 30 seconds, but the worry wouldn’t have gone away.  Telling the truth is really the way to fix problems – you just have to find the time.” The last line of the article is what rings the real answer about telling the truth all the time – having the nerve.

Some humour

One of my friends mentioned yesterday that I need to cheer up my blog maybe by adding a joke a day. Well, I don’t know enough jokes to write one a day but I thought I would write a few humourous things for today’s piece.  Then again, I don’t think I can write humour – I will leave that to Ben Elton, Ricky Gervais and Eddie Izzard to do that. So I’m trying to think of the funny things that have happened over the past week. I’ve sneakily put War & Peace to one side for the time being and am reading Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent.  While on the train the other night I realised my sense of humour is really like a teenage boys especially after I had to stop myself my laughing out loud at this “my brother, once built a short-wave radio from old baked bean cans and that sort of thing, and late at night when we were supposed to be asleep he would lie in bed in the dark twiddling his knob (so to speak), searching for distant stations”.  For some reason that had me in giggles (silently) on the train.

I can’t really think of anything else that has happened to me that was funny this week but I have a collection of funny artists that I like to watch on YouTube a lot. Eddie Izzard is one – I have seen nearly all his stand-up videos thanks to YouTube. Michael McIntyre is another comedian that I find very funny (I have tickets to see him live in November at the O2).  I just love the fact that Google Video and YouTube house so many great things for me to watch when I like. When I’m feeling a bit down I can watch ten minutes of Eddie Izzard and then I feel so much better.  My podcasts do the same – some light relief on the train when travelling to work.  Laughter and fun is such a good medicine for my anxious mind – which is hard to find in these modern times when everyone is busy working and looking after their own families. Perhaps I need to create my own humour – starting with trying to think to a joke. Knock, Knock. Who’s there? Doctor. Doctor Who? Doctor Who – get it ‘Doctor Who’.  I know it’s an old joke but still makes me smile.

Happy Friday!

This is going to be a short post as going out after work for a few cocktails with current and old colleagues!  Not sure what state I will be in later to write anything cohernet.  All I will say this has been a long week and I’m looking forward to an array of drinks soon.  Hopefully the weekend will bring some sleep and also some reading. Might have to do some work but if it means that I’m all caught up for Monday then that is a good thing. Wow, this is short but I can’t honestly think of anything else to write about. Happy Friday everyone.

Feeling like a Zombie

Maybe it’s a lack of decent sleep (being woken up at four in the morning is not fun) or it’s all part of my mind playing tricks on me as it has been for the past few months. At the weekend I was fine and kept my mind at bay with all the scary panic thoughts that I’ve been lately and even on Monday I felt fine and managed to get lots of work done.  Since Tuesday though, I have been feeling gradually worse and worse and I have trying to think of the reason why.  I kind of know it is all psychological as normally after lunch and my American colleagues are up and about for me to chat and work with, I always feel almost ‘normal’. I suppose I get distracted so the worries go away.

Today wasn’t brilliant as I had a headache for most of the day and just felt out of sorts. I do think half the problem is that I now expect to be ill so having a congested nose in the morning (like I have had for the past week) must mean I have a nasal infection. Then I feel tired in the mornings (which I’m sure everyone else does) but it goes around and around in my mind that I shouldn’t be tired as I’ve had seven hours sleep. Then I worry about the train journey after feeling dizzy on the train once or twice last year when I having all those tests for my “tiny” kidneys.  I just can’t seem to get the image out of my head about me feeling dizzy while on the train and thinking that I might faint in public – which to me seems a worst thing than anything else. I know that in all the time I have been travelling and feeling like this I haven’t fainted but my idiotic brain can’t seem to stop me from worrying about it.  I’m not really sure on how to stop this – someone suggested seeing a therapist but I’m not sure, that could open a whole can of worms. So for now I will talk a great deal about it on here instead until I can feel well again.

The London free papers

The London Lite: a free daily newspaper given out in the evenings throughout London. Owned by the DMGT group with the Daily Mail being the most bigoted, racist paper in the UK. Even The Sun isn’t that bad. The Sun just dumbs down the news for the ignorant. So here is a snapshot of the news courtesy of London Lite. The front page contains all the important figures in Great Britain today: The Queen, Simon Cowell, Alan Sugar and Sir Fred Goodwin. Scarlett Johansson was the bit of totty for all the lads. Real news: Iraq war probe, Obama backs Brown in rescue plan, Sinn Fein man on PC death charge, email less safe than a postcard, healthy meals could kill off schools dinners. All of these were tiny ten line articles.

They rest of the news was full of celebrity gossip and propaganda by health ministers which talked about cutting the size of wine glasses in pubs. Smokers and drinkers will always be punished for enjoying themselves. Now I’m bored with reading this paper but like with the Metro (also owned by DMGT) in the morning, I’m amazed by how so many people read them on the trains. Michael McIntyre does a great impression of what he calls the ‘Metro readers’ that seem to take over the tube trains in the mornings but can I find this video online, no!  Writing my blog in two parts – first part on the train and now trying to finish it off late does not help matters. On that note it is time to turn the laptop off.

What category are you in?

After reading my American boss’s blog on my company’s site about generalists I realised two things. One is that we all like to belong to a group or category and two, Americans are better at it than us Brits.  Now, I’ve not heard of the word generalists until I read that post and to me it means someone who can put their hand to any task given to them. Not sure I would give this type of person (and I would like to think I am one) a title of generalist but this might be because I’m British and don’t like to categorise people. Or it could be just me.  One of my American friends on Twitter wrote xenophobia once and I was like, ooh what is that – sounds like fun? Again, another word I have not heard of before (I must have had terrible teachings of the English language). I was even more excited that it was another ‘x’ word for playing Scrabble instead of the usual xray or xylophone. Anyway, I found out it’s not a fun thing but a phobia and another category to put one in.

Politics is a good one especially in America, Democrat or Republican. I am sure if you asked any American they would say which party they supported very quickly and talk a great deal about why. In the UK politics feels very dull in-comparison and if anyone asked a majority of Brits which political party they supported, most would ‘umm and ahh’ over the matter and then say they don’t care or don’t support one. Religion is most probably the only category that most British would know or admit to. Catholics, Muslims, Protestants, Mormons and the odd atheists like me. I suppose it is a sense of belonging but I’m not sure why Americans are better at it than us or if it just another culture difference between us. Now which category should I go in… ‘the quiet as a mouse’ one or ‘terrible at the English Language’ one.

What do nine year olds like these days?

On Wednesday it will be my niece’s ninth birthday and as part of her present I would like to get her some books but what to get her. As far as I can tell she seems to like High School Musical or fairy-style books, but I would like to get her some of the books that I like when I was her age. Now half of me expects her family to already have the books I’m thinking of and the other half of me is not sure my niece would read them.  My favourite books from the early years that I can actually remember enjoying to read were: The BFG by Roald Dahl; Malory Towers by Enid Blyton; The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis; and the Nancy Drew mysteries.  I think the Nancy Drew mysteries is what started my love for murder mysteries by Agatha Christie and to thrillers by Jefferey Deaver.

Since beginning the Big Read there are a wealth of children’s book that I would like to get my nieces but I’m still not sure if they would read them. From Little Women, Swallows and Amazons, Black Beauty, to Goodnight Mister Tom. One of my nieces didn’t look too excited when I got her Anne of Green Gables for Christmas.  Maybe I should really get her a game for the DS as the computer games do seem to get their attention more than anything. That is the problem with getting old – trying to get kids to like what you liked when you was younger. From the ZX Spectrum computer, old boards games and cartoons like Tom & Jerry.  Maybe there is just too much for kids to keep them entertained from computer games, TV shows, DVDs (portable DVD players in cars) to those soft play areas that I know a few friends take their kids to. The other day my best friend and I were discussing how kids have to be kept entertained all the day and both of us remembered that we had to find things to do ourselves or being dragging around net curtain shops with our mums!

A quick Sunday post

It’s late on a Sunday and I keep looking at my laptop trying to think of something to write for today. After a busy day of visiting family for Mother’s Day, I am feeling quite pooped and enjoying some dark chocolate.  One of the highlights of the day was having my first barbecue of the year.  OK, I had a veggie version of barbecue food but it was still nice to see all the food being cooked outside.  Now I can see the appeal of having a gas barbecue instead of a charcoal one – easy and quick to use. Which makes methinks that I should get a gas barbecue so on warm days during the week after work dinner could be barbecued! I say this as the weather is about to change from sunny warm days to wet and windy ahead. Maybe saying ‘ooh, eating and cooking outside, how exciting’ makes the weather changed to the usual wet weather that the British are so fond of in the summer.  Ah well, I must stop being pessimistic about the weather – hopefully the summer will be nice and warm this year.