Romance

This morning one of the blogs I read with interest raised the question of adverts. It asks which ones are theeeee most annoying. There is one I hate so much and, since I have already related back which one it is, I can’t bring myself to do it again.

Let’s focus on the “positive” advert. Who said romance was dead?

There is this guy, all on his own, in what resembles a desert. He clearly needs to be somewhere – on time. So he runs with the determination of a man who knows what he wants; dashingly naked at first, then along the way picking up a pair of trousers, a motor bike (briefly), and running again, buying a suit, getting himself cleaned up at a barber’s, diving into a jewellery shop, and making it to the altar where the woman he wants to marry is waiting for him – not, of course, before giving his mates sitting “innocently” in the pew a look of sheer disdain (Men and their stag nights – might be worth an anthology). It’s an advert for a Visa Card – and it tells an inspired story.

There is no better way to melt a woman’s heart than for a guy to be prepared to put himself out, and – literally – run that extra mile, at speed.

Even more endearingly, you get the impression the bride doesn’t even know what her groom put himself through. Not being vain or a show-off, all that matters to him is that he made it.

U

As addictions go

To paraphrase “If you don’t have anything to say, shut up”.

I am happy to live in the age of endless, not to say relentless, chatter in print. It’s hard to imagine what it was like when monks still transcribed the bible’s stories by hand, and being able to read was considered an unnecessary skill.

Every so often I am so overwhelmed with it all I feel physically sick and nauseous. Unfortunately this lament never elicits any sympathy from friends or family; the most helpful they can come up with is: “Chuck the lot” – son, “don’t buy it in the first place” – miserly friend, “make a bon fire” – my father, and he is a fine one to talk since he works in words. Those kind souls who do not wish to add to my pain verbally just roll their eyes, shake their heads, sigh and ask me to get a ”proper” day job.

Some years ago a wise woman recommended to not read anything, certainly not papers, for a month. Her argument was plausible; I’d dearly love to follow her advice if only to clear my head. I just can’t do it. Could you?

Come to think of it I could start “Readers Renounce”; all I need to do now is to think of those 10 steps, or is it 12, to wean the poor sods off; ask everyone to write it down and read each other’s notes.

There is a line in my right hand which apparently predicts insanity in later life. I have been trying not to fulfill the prophecy but it gets harder as time goes by.

U

Today

I am spoilt for choice as to what to address, in which order, if at all.

Considering that I have a personal bone to pick with Ken Livingstone and his congestion charge, and given that London is all aquiver with having to vote for the city’s next mayor, I allow myself to zoom in on mayors, gay or otherwise.

This is what comes from reading the papers – they either make you laugh or lead to raised blood pressure.

The Times sees fit to emphasize that the current mayors of Berlin and Paris are gay. So?????? Does it impact on their ability to do the job? There is no reference to what happens in the bedroom of New York’s Michael Bloomberg. Watson to my Sherlock can only deduce that Mr Bloomberg is NOT gay.

Considering that I live in Thomas Hardy Land, and had to sit through painful moments last year with my son having to write an essay on The Mayor of Castorbridge, why not vote for the blond mop head of Boris, the Johnson? Unfortunately he is not gay, but he has a lovely smile and his sister writes an occasionally good column.

U

Going up in smoke

You are damned if you do, you are damned if you don’t.

I loved smoking.

Within five years I managed to take it to 50 a day. No mean feat considering that my fingers were flying across a keyboard eight to twelve hours a day, and a phone squeezed between my ear and my shoulder at the same time. Talk about multi tasking.

Enter the snake in paradise to end it all; yes, I fell in love with a persuasive non-smoker. To this day my poor mother, who had her hands full trying, unsuccessfully, to keep us all from killing ourselves, via tobacco, doesn’t know how he did it. Emotional blackmail, that’s how.

Of course I am grateful; my lungs are as new. However, even 25 years later, if anyone had the brains to invent something to elegantly hold between my fingers and inhale, without setting a bad and unhealthy example to the young and impressionable, I’d be at it again like a shot.

In the meantime, small comfort, in my study I have a whole wall of, mostly black and white, photographs depicting stylish and dedicated smokers of the last century.

U

Modern manners

Dumping someone via email? That’s how it’s done, is it? I suppose slightly better than being texted.

A story putting pay to the notion that the French are “gallant” by default. The guy who did the dumping, as yet unnamed, is not an imbecile who can’t string two words together but a writer – sorry, I am chortling here: Talk about being efficient, insensitive and a not too eloquent coward.

Paths, sometimes, have to part; but first you tremble, bare your soul and your body - and then you can’t look that person who enchanted you so much in the eye and say: Sorry, but that’s it.? It takes my breath away.

If I were that woman I wouldn’t so much grieve over the guy as beat myself up that I didn’t have the good judgment not to get involved with him in the first place.

Some lawyer calls him an “egocentric narcissist”; annoying in itself since a narcissist – by definition – is egocentric, otherwise Echo wouldn’t have come to grief.

U

Booking passage

I am so mad I could weep.

Amy Winehouse’s father is reported to have already written the eulogy he expects to deliver at his daughter’s funeral any time soon. Good god, man, get off your arse and DO something for her instead of writing words which – at her funeral – will only serve to bring tears to your own eyes.

I am writing this as a daughter of a man who once promised me to not turn up at my funeral if I ever committed suicide. Considering that I inherited my over optimistic sunny temperament from him, to this day, I am still bewildered as to what made him say that. At the time I was a lot younger than AW is now. I told him, coldly, that – considering I’d be dead – I wouldn’t be able to care who’d turn up at my funeral. If anything, the fewer the better.

Let’s look after each other whilst we are still alive.

U

Nightmares

About three years ago I was lucky to fall into an intensive email exchange with one of the sweetest guys ever – though he’d dispute the sweet bit.

Some months into our relationship - and, given the times we live in, I’d like to stress that this friendship is platonic - I started writing emails to him in my dreams. It was an avalanche of mega proportions, not that I ever could remember the exact beauty of my words once I’d woken up.

Now that my friend and I have settled into a comfortable routine please do fast forward – exactly, you guessed right on the first count: The last few days I have been dreaming about my blog. It’s no joke. WordPress itself being the joker.

Match that if you can – not that I am competitive.

PS: Would Virginia Woolf have pensioned off her pen and taken to the joy of immediate, and public, communication?

U

Interim

I have been on my dashboard (dashboard???? where is the car to go with it?) and whilst wordpress refuses to give me back my previous blog entries they are perfectly able to keep all the stats from the very beginning, all tags and categories I ever entered.

I don’t know why technology brings out the howling toddler in me – mainly because I don’t comprehend it I suppose.

Felix thinks it hilarious and ridiculous of me, and annoying to him, in equal measure. One of my proud achievements is that, apart from once (brought on by a small penguin in a park), my son has never had reason to throw a tantrum even when he was of an age when he could have easily conformed to stereotype. But then maybe he was always too busy to keep me occupied  with pushing little cars about on the floor with him, making up stories as I went along, assembling Duplo, Lego, Playmobil – not to mention the dreaded Kinderegg, reading books, going for walks, driving across Europe, and Mama trying to find that missing piece of the puzzle.

Come to think of it, the one time I hit mothering rock bottom was when one Christmas after assembling a Playmobil Ship (never attempt the sails; they’ll drive you nuts) I sank back onto the sofa reaching for a glass of champagne when little Felix asked me when I was going to play with him. The two hours watching me to put together his toy obviously didn’t count… I was devasted – and had to gather my remaining reserves to stay calm in the face of my obvious parental neglect. I occasionally bring up this story (not that he remembers any of it) whenever he gives me slightly impatient advice on matters computer.

And then Vernon inspired me to buy a proper Fountain pen, of the type I learnt to write with at school, but that’s another story to be continued any moment now. In the meantime, should you never hear from me again rest assured I will have just been sucked down the drain of technology rather than having thrown in the towel.

Or I might have died of natural causes.

U

Take your life in your hands

Where is a zebra crossing when you need one? Indeed where is anyone when you need one?

I admire lollipop ladies. I admire local councils even more – for not seeing fit to set up traffic lights close to schools. Why not make it part of the curriculum: How to cross a road in three easy and safe steps. As life skills go it might come in useful.

And yes, I know I am in a bad mood. But what are blogs for if not to bounce around in the confined padded space of one’s idiocy?

U

Calm at sunset, calm at dawn

I love it. The day has barely started and I have already been confirmed in one of my pet hates: Language being stretched like a fairly fresh piece of chewing gum, and no: I don’t chew gum. There is a time and a place and an age for everything.

Hot tip on this St George’s day:

Judge any organisation by how they word their recruitment page, even if you are not after a job. Nudged by a reliable source I clicked on a certain website. After extolling their own virtues they want to recruit your talents too. “Executive Assistant” – is the executive bit supposed to make the Assistant whose job it is, after all, to execute, feel any better because she is serving top dog? “Senior Front End Engineer” – I shudder to think what the junior at the rear end is expected to do.

Any takers?

U