Introductory lines…

On a certain dating website people can write a headline and then a brief message to send out to all and sundry, or a selection of ‘favourites’ on the site.

Here are a few, produced by men, during summer 2014. They are all 100% genuine….

‘Could you be the gap in my life?’

‘Natrual man seeking natrual woman’

‘I am interesting on your profile’

‘A flexible man interested in various thing’

‘Really need someone to share adventurers with’

‘I’am honest’

‘I am high self-confident’

‘Hello ladys. im lloking to make friends’

‘Anyone can massage me even if they have not upgraded their account’

I am wondering if women do any better (or perhaps worse?). On another site which displays both male and female profiles on the main page, I saw one which said ‘Hi, I am Shelly* from Essex. I love chatting on the phone, shopping and Essex life’. She was scantily clad and every inch of her body was covered in tattoos…I hope she has found her soulmate, anyway.

* Not her profile name.

Blogging for Money

In the early hours of this morning I heard a programme on the World Service that really surprised and disappointed me. A journalist was interviewing a collection of smug shrieking women who wrote blogs specifically for money, the content of which appeared to be mainly endorsement of designer clothes, skiing holidays, and other luxury products.

I was very shocked by this. I am obviously naive and maybe even clueless, but I thought blogging was a way of expressing your thoughts and an outlet for your creativity, free from external influences. But no, for many people it is merely a way of earning a very comfortable income. To me, this is not blogging. This may be pedantic, but I believe a blog is a ‘weblog’ or online diary, not a series of endorsements and positive reviews, purely for advertisement and marketing purposes. The great thing about blogging is you can write about anything that interests you, and with a few key words can share your output with anyone who will care to read it. OK, it means now anyone can call themselves a journalist, but for anyone who has ever wanted to write anything, you can guarantee at least a couple of readers out there, even if they do not provide the feedback you may wish for.

So, in the interest of free speech, and just to be contrary, I have decided to write a negative review of a product…and the luxury brand that immediately springs to mind is Diane Von Furstenburg, or DVF, purveyor of the classicly chic but perhaps ever so slightly dull wrap dress, beloved of middle class women everywhere.

Recently I was wandering down Wimbledon Village High Street and noticed a funky looking boob tube jumpsuit in the DVF window, so decided to take a look inside for the first time. The first thing I noticed were there we no more jumpsuits on the rails, just a collection of shapeless, frumpy maxi dresses, overseen by a sulky young Italian girl. She obviously decided I was some sort of peasant when I asked her how much a rust coloured tent-like monstrosity cost. ‘£700’ she mumbled, ‘but of course it’s silk’. I think she read my expression of disgust as shock at the price. I was more shocked at the awfulness of the dress, and the way someone managed to make silk appear a dead ringer for nylon. And there wasn’t a single wraparound dress to be seen, let alone funky jumpsuits.

In the interests of balance I would give an example of where I experienced good customer service, and a quality product, but I have given feedback to this particular womenswear shop on their website. Although I don’t want to turn my blog into a paid for site, I don’t want to just moan about bad products and services too. Though I do think it is important to do this, in the hope that it may contribute to improvements in the long run.

Postscript.

About an hour after the piece on the wealthy women bloggers, a news item highlighted how a blogger in France had been successfully sued by a restaurant owner for a negative review which appeared prominently in Google searches, with the title ‘The Place to Avoid’. I am even more shocked and worried now. Is this going to set a precedent? Could this happen in the UK too? Could anyone anywhere take someone to court for not writing positive things about their business, whatever country either party is based in? Will DVF hunt me down, or is her fashion empire too well supported by an army of supportive bloggers, and a global following? I am still clueless, but interested to see what transpires.

PS I have had no threats of legal action (yet) resulting from the title of my previous post (June 2014).

 

Worst Ever Airport Restaurant?

OK, we all know that airports are cramped, disorganised and have terrible lighting but Luton beats them all for shabbiness in the catering department.

On a Friday night having checked in for Budapest, my sister and I were in need of a decent meal. In the large terminal we only found one catering outlet, and the signage was so unclear it was difficult to work out what they were serving in their heated tureens. Well, I say serving, there was no-one behind the counter to tackle to the growing queue, and when one guy did appear he was concentrating on the buttons of his mobile phone. When I asked if he or anyone was going to serve us some food, he looked up with a combination of anger and bewilderment. In the meantime several people in the queue just wanted to pay for fizzy drinks, but there didn’t appear to be anyone on the till to take their money.

Anyway a staff member finally appeared, and agreed to take my order for two x macaroni cheeses. I don’t know what was in the tureens but no-one was being offered anything from them. There was also nothing green on the menu or on display. I was told the macaroni cheese would take about ten minutes, and then I was handed a strange rectangular object with flashing lights, which I was told was a pager. So you don’t get food, just some pseudo-hi tech piece of equipment. Why they can’t give you a sign, wooden spoon, or just call your name, like in most caffs or pubs I don’t know.

To be fair the pager started flashing in exactly ten minutes and I went to collect the greasy overcooked macaroni and soggy chips from the counter. It was inedible. However no-one asked for any money, so we didn’t push it…

Of course the lighting and decor were disgusting too, and there was one incredibly overworked pregnant lady serving behind the bar, who could only provide us with plastic champagne flutes for our wine, because there was nothing else clean.

A winner in the awfulness stakes – and British airports provide some stiff competition.

Not the Best!

I reclined in my comfy chair in the Ritzy Screen 5 with excited anticipation at Lukas Moodysson’s new film ‘We are the Best!’, but was rather disappointed.

I guess tales of early teen rebellion, friendships ebbing and flowing, and inept attempts to start bands have been done to death.

There was plenty of his usual charm, but not the same quality of deadpan lines and observations of the ridiculous adult world through children’s eyes, as in ‘Together’ (2000).

But the parents were still the best (or worst) characters in the film. Middle class, self-absorbed and just awful, they provided the most cringeworthy laughs of recognition. No wonder the kids had to hide in their rooms to escape yet another excrutiating dinner party.

The performances were good, but I would recommend you watch ‘Together’ instead –  set in 1975, this is Moodysson’s tale of a woman who seeks refuge from domestic violence in her brother’s hippie commune.

Lilya Forever and Show Me Love are still on my to-watch list, but I’ve heard they are a bit grim, so I will save  them for when I am in the right mood.

 

 

 

Grizzly Man and Werner Herzog

Finally got round to watching Grizzly Man, the documentary about Timothy Treadwell who believed he had some kind of bond with bears and other animals, and that it was his calling to protect them. He was actually a talented cameraman and shot some amazing footage, but Herzog captures his increasing paranoia and disconnection with the human world, and the sense of menace as Treadwell boasts about managing to co-exist with some of the most dangerous predators alive, a few days before his death.

On the DVD is also a wonderful documentary about the recording of the haunting soundtrack with Richard Thompson and Jim O’Rourke. Herzog is in complete control. I need to watch the rest of his films now.

What happens when your friend starts chatting up someone from your distant past

Just before Christmas last year me and my friend Fiona had finished our annual festive trawl around Borough Market and were looking for a table at one of the busy market pubs to rest our legs and drink our pints. We spied a corner table occupied by two pleasant looking guys, and as there appeared to be enough space for us we made a beeline for it. Fiona seemed to take quite a shine to the bloke sitting diagonally opposite me, and as I wandered off to find the loo I wondered if he was in fact familiar. Anyway when I returned the flirting had hit fever pitch as Fi had found part of a false nail in her beer, and after much shrieking, sped off to the bar to get the pint replaced.

But when I sat down a change appeared to have come over the two men. They no longer seemed chatty and were concentrating on their menus. The one who might have been familiar put on a hat, on even though it was mild, and as I listened to him in discussion with his mate over the menu, a nagging suspicion would not leave me be. Hat man had a poorly disguised Nottinghamshire accent, and when I looked at his hands, I knew. He had the most unappealing small, piggy hands I have ever seen, and I realised he had recognised me before I him, somehow signalled to his mate that he didn’t want to know, and as I was quite happy to go along with the charade I feigned ignorance and sipped my pint.

When Fi returned with a new drink I could tell she was somewhat disappointed that neither of the guys wanted to carry on their conversation with her, and even when their meals came and we both remarked how good the food looked, they didn’t want to know. Meanwhile I was trying to suppress visions of sitting on a sagging mattress in a filthy squat surrounded by bin bags, thinking I was having the time of my life with a spotty lad with tiny hands. I must say R’s skin had improved a lot in the intervening years; he had obviously cut down on smoking, started eating vegetables, and also shaved the worst of the nasal edge off his accent.

The four of us had very involved conversations with the friends opposite, about nothing in particular, and I was very relieved when Fi announced she had to leave to get to another rendezvous. On the way out, she said that she had quite liked that guy with the hat, who was initially really friendly, so then I had to explain.

I actually wouldn’t have minded bringing up the past, but I think perhaps R. was not too proud of the squalid Stepney Green squatting arrangements. Or maybe he just couldn’t be bothered. It made me smile anyway, and if I bump into him next Christmas, I’ll be prepared.

 

Some thoughts about what some men want

And they’re not entirely positive.

I’m getting a bit Carrie Bradshaw now (minus the shoes and Cosmopolitans) but it was bound to happen.

Recently I was corresponding with someone who was quite complimentary about my writing, but had not uploaded a photo onto the dating site, and refused to email me one. He finally admitted that this was because he was already in a relationship but ‘looking for a get-out clause’. When I asked him why he didn’t just leave, to avoid unnecessary pain for his current partner, and also suggested he was selfish and too interested in home comforts, his shirty response was ‘…Have you been in many medium to ltr relationships?….There’s pain involved whichever road you take. Its easy to bang on about moral compass as those are just words. Life is many shades of grey.’. Prior to this indefensible statement he had complained that women only wanted to use him as a plaything between 9pm and 5am – but obviously hadn’t put two and two together.

I emailed him to ask whether he had considered that most women would take the attitude of ‘done it before, could do it again’, then blocked his profile. Annoying in a way because I had given him some helpful advice about feeding back on the shoddy care he had received in a local hospital  – but perhaps that will make him realise some of us are kindhearted, and practice what we preach.

Another recent experience involves someone perhaps a lot less calculating. A hospital worker in Suffolk who claimed to like cycling and hiking got in touch. But when I suggested meeting up on Saturday evening, he kept asking me if I was only available ‘for a few hours’, I asked him what he meant, but got the same question. I have to conclude he would only meet up if he was guaranteed a bit of nookie later on. What a creep! I should have suggested that the only way to guarantee that would be to pay for it, but I didn’t waste my breath.

On a slightly more positive note (or maybe hopeful) i have developed a new strategy to put rejection to good use. One nice seeming guy admitted he had just met someone away from the site (in real life!) and another guy said he had had a very nice first date just last night. So I have been suggesting they keep me in mind for any of their trusted friends who may be looking. After all I have been through the initial vetting process. Oh how clinical and soul-destroying it all is.

However I do have a provisional date with a marathon runner / table tennis champion lined up. His written English may not be perfect but something has to give.

And this weekend I have painting the living room to occupy me – don’t need anyone hanging around, getting in my way for that.

 

Worst Dates 2: or The Importance of Avoiding Mumbo Jumbo

It’s the worst case scenario: five minutes before you are due to meet someone for a first date you realise you have lost your cashpoint card, and only have £2.50 in your purse. But in this case it saved my bacon.

I texted my profuse apologies to my date, explaining that I would just have a juice (even though I was secretly in the mood for a gallon of wine and huge plate of steak and chips), and dashed round the corner to our rendevous point.

My date was recognisable, though he looked shorter, fatter and iller than his picture. I knew it wouldn’t be brilliant, but I thought I’d give him a chance to talk, and at least we could sit on the terrace and watch the riverside world go by.

After a minute or two I realised he only had one topic of conversation, and was incapable of, or uninterested in asking anything about me. I lost track after a while but his monologue included: chakras, tapping (?), healing, QiJong, masters, channelling your higher being, auras, being clinically dead through meditation, and going off to live in a cave for 50 years.

He didn’t pause for breath, or sip his drink, and I was getting desperate. But I must have been good in a previous life because the divine Shanti was helping me out tonight. ‘I have go home and phone the bank to cancel my card’. Dash.

When I got home, I measured up my sitting room for new carpets because I was so desperate to do something normal.

 

 

When Was the Last Time You Were Absolutely Bloody Terrified?

Recalling the Alpine road incident reminded me of another time I got quite a fright.

In the mid 90s I was working as an all-round dogsbody in a B&B and riding holiday centre in France, and as well as cooking and cleaning I was sometimes allowed to help with the horses.

One day I was tasked with taking out a new horse, Shaun, to get him use to trekking out in the local woods.

Leading the way was my rather unpleasant Canadian colleague, Pauline, on one of the old implacable hacks, who had seen it all before.

Shaun, on the other hand, was a 16.3hh chestnut Thoroughbred, about 4 years old, completely skittish and ungainly, with hooves the size of dinner plates.

Out on the ride I discovered that Shaun had a phobia of mud, and as we got to another patch of damp ground he stopped dead and refused to move forward.

For some reason I was in a rather bad mood that day (the company? hormones?), and I jumped off and started to lead, or rather drag Shaun by the reins through the mud. Any horsey people will have their heads in their hands by now as they will be aware that horses do not have good vision directly in front of them, and standing in front of a young, nervous animal is never a good idea.

Suddenly I felt a ‘whumph!’ against my back as Shaun jumped the mud patch and I was under his hooves curling myself into a little ball. Then ‘wham!’ one of those enormous hooves slammed into my thigh, and I remember thinking that’s my leg smashed to pieces, and I’m going to die.

The next thing I remember I was standing up again, with the ever unsympathetic Pauline saying hurry up, you’d better get back on again as we need to get home.

Somehow we did, and I had a feeling my leg wasn’t actually broken. In the end I was just left with a severe haematoma, as a clinician would call it, and shock that lasted a few days.

I certainly learnt a lot from that experience. And yes I was wearing a hard hat, but I am happy to say it proved to be redundant on that occasion.

Next instalment: The Brixton Nailbomber.

Men vs Women, or Why The SatNav is Not Always Right

Dear Chaps,

OK, this is probably going to to be one of my most personal and longest posts (and probably the last for a while), so if you are more interested in the weather, or Liverpool FC I suggest that you do not read on.

A few years ago, me and an ex of Italian extraction (let’s call him Alberto) set off in a hire car from Lyon to head to the fairly inaccessible ski resort of St Sorlin D’Arves, 1600m up in the Haute Savoie. I must point out that this was in a fairly early stage of our relationship (three months) and I feel that we still did not know each other particularly well.

…Anyway, we were speeding along a beautiful straight stretch of empty autoroute, when a car approaching from the other way, out of the Frejus tunnel, flashed us. A. didn’t appear to notice, but I said to him that driver is trying to tell us something, perhaps there’s been an accident, maybe we’d better slow down – but he seemed not to hear me.

As we exited the tunnel, predictably enough we spotted the gendarmes in their little layby, and yes, they pulled us over, and that’s where the nightmare began. A. seemed pretty carefree, and stayed in the front seat while I pulled down my top a bit, and prepared to ‘charm’ the grizzled old officer and his teenage assistant. But they looked most unimpressed as I struggled to ascertain in my rusty schoolgirl French that we had to pay 90 Euros in cash immediately, and sign something to declare we had committed the crime of driving at 155kph in a 120 zone.

Well, guess who hadn’t bothered getting any currency out in advance, and guess who coughed up 90 of my 100 Euros cash, and was trying to suppress tears of anger and frustration while A. mocked me in his sunny way; ‘Are you crying?..Are you crying?…’ I should have known that this was something of a warning sign.

I somehow managed to put the incident behind me, and we left the motorway and hit the local roads into the mountains. This is where I had to discard my internet directions printout as the instructions were given in road numbers eg E72, but the roads were only ever marked in names, eg Rue de la Fourchette etc.

It was getting towards evening as we arrived at the grimmest ski resort I have ever set eyes on. No trees, no people, no snow – just concrete tower blocks. Welcome to Corbiere. We weren’t supposed to go through here, according to my printout, but by now A. was following theSatNav that kept ominously saying ‘recalculating route’ and was sending us in an ever decreasing spiral that ended up on a steep icy side road, leading to a piste, which the SatNav insisted we drive up.

At this point I cracked.

I managed to ask a guy who said we had to drive back several kilometres, and get back on the E72 or whatever it was called, and I had a feeling he was right. The were no roads out of Corbiere except back, so we must have missed a turning somewhere. Oh yes, and at one point during this disastrous bit of the journey A. was distracted by my shuffling papers and had to slam on the brakes as we nearly plunged over a cliff. I still shudder about that moment even now.

So we turned round and set off to retrace our steps about 20 kilometres, and hopefully never go anywhere near Corbiere again. At this point it was starting to get dark, and there was no way we were going to get to our concierge by 8pm to pick up the keys to our apartment. This is where A. really started to lose the plot. He insisted on stopping the car, opening the laptop, and trying to find an email address to contact the travel company to let them know we would be late. But of course we were high in the Alps where WiFi and Satellite connections are unreliable to say the least. I had to practically shake him out of it, and persude him to just drive…Eventually we did arrive at the pleasant village of St Sorlin, found our block, and I did what anyone with half a brain would do: marched into the nearest cafebar, where a smiling lady sat us down, got us beers, and looked up a number in a battered old notebook. Ten minutes later, another smiling friendly local arrived with a key, and although we were both still shaking, I knew the worst was over, for the moment.

Postscript

We did have a very enjoyable holiday, though everyone we spoke to laughed heartily when we told them about the journey, and they all said of course SatNav doesnt work in the mountains – everyone is always late getting here! We even returned to that resort on another occasion – not missing the turning this time, but experiencing a whole new set of adventures involving snow chains…We had a few more good months together before things started to go seriously wrong, and well, warning signs are usually accurate, and maybe shouldn’t be taken as a sign of imminent doom, but perhaps should just be borne in mind rather than shut away forcefully under lock and key…but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Now it’s your turn…