I am christening my brand new laptop with its first post! Bit daft for a blogger I know, but I haven’t actually owned a laptop since 2007; whatever you’ve read before now is the product of moonlighting on Adina’s Macbook.

The last (and only) computer I ever owned was a great pavement slab of a Dell, which worked without any fuss from fresher’s week through to my finals. The day I handed in my last piece of coursework it died with a faint ‘vlmmph’. My old computer resuscitating trick of removing the battery and slamming it back in again didn’t work, so I closed it gently, whispered goodbye and slid it under my bed. Continue reading New Laptops and Newborn Lambs

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Sorry it’s been a bit quiet this end. I’ve been up to my eyeballs with interview prep for a job which – in absence of an opening for Caramel Cake Bar Taster at the Galaxy Factory – I want more than any other job ever.

Obviously dear reader, this is a frightening state of affairs, like reaching the 2nd date stage with a man who’s way out of your league and preparing for the crushing blow-off.  So I’m a bag of butterflies this week, a tightly wound coil of nervous distraction: Continue reading Job Hunting / Sprogs Everywhere

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A PR sent a copy of Disney’s Beauty and The Beast into the office last week, and though admittedly a bit of a PR misfire, it melted the flinty adult hearts of our Features desk with intermittent screenings of enchanted plates and animated candlesticks.

I’m surprised nostalgic Disney viewings aren’t trumpeted more as therapy for stressed adults. Just pinpoint the era of Disney said stressed adult grew up in, et Voila – like a cup of hot chocolate for the brain. Continue reading Disney Therapy

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Another feature in the exciting journey of Adina and I moving from Battersea to… somewhere else in Battersea was the bone-chilling gas bill that flopped onto our mat just before we left. As parting gestures go, this wasn’t a great one.

I can picture the scene perfectly – Adina on her day off, humming around the kitchen in her slippers, tidying up after making a banana cake. She potters down stairs, picks up the post, opens it, swears a lot, runs upstairs and sends me this: Continue reading Bills and Meringue Marathons

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Ed managed to get out of helping me move house this weekend. Contrast this with my display of sheer altruism and self-sacrifice when he moved house, and you’ll realise how deeply this leaves him in debt at the bank of Goodwill to Lucy.

The lavish dinner he took me out for on Friday, he claims, had no connection to his scuttling out of London to leave me, my Sister and a Lithuanian called Roland to heave a chest of drawers up six flights of stairs (more on this later), but it helped to butter me up in any case – turns out a well timed Italian ham platter is a good way of placating me. Continue reading The Ice Bar (and moving house)

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I meant to write this earlier in the week, but current circumstances are leaving me perpetually behind. I’m in house move limbo, typing this from the last corner of living room not stuffed with boxes and fat binbags of clothes.

Fed up of ferrying tattered Primark and a 1997 cardigan from A to B each year, I ruthlessly edited my wardrobe last weekend, holding a proverbial gun to the forehead of each garment: Continue reading Tarts, Clubs and Karaoke

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Turning 25 last week quietly slid me over to the 30 side of my 20s, another bead shifted on the abacus of life. Clink.

I’ve no idea how this next age phase is going to pan out, but let’s agree that if I get to the end of it and I’m actually reading wine menus in restaurants rather than slapping them shut and shouting ‘house please!’ significant progress will have been made.   Continue reading Male Supermodels (and other pleasantries)

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With his parents away and younger siblings left at home, Ed and I offered to go to Bath last weekend for a bit of laissez faire teenage babysitting.

Since Ed had travelled down earlier I was looking forward to an hour with my book and several tiny bottles of train wine, consumed in the judgement-free zone of an anonymous carriage.

The book in question – in case you’re wondering – is this one – a delicious little taste of Cambridge student life, ideal if like me you got about as close to attending as a hedgehog on the M11 flyover.   Continue reading West Country Weekend

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Richard O'Brien

I have a job interview with a big fashion company tomorrow, for which it occurred to me – in a white flash of panic at 6pm this evening – that I have nothing to wear.

And if you think it’s all about what’s on the inside, it isn’t, it’s very, very much about what’s on the outside in this case, despite an interview confirmation which read ‘we are a fashion company so don’t expect you to be in business dress, just wear what you feel comfortable in.’

This is not license to pitch up in my Dad’s Waverley Tennis Club jumper, despite it being 48 years old and very comfortable indeed. No. What this really means is ‘we are a fashion company so don’t expect you to be in business dress – just make sure your outfit reflects a natural capacity for smart-casual chic with nods towards the SS11 trends’ – which means my Dad’s jumper won’t quite cut the mustard.   Continue reading Interviews, Cake and The Crystal Maze

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It occurred to me recently that I haven’t written about my Sister yet. I say ‘it occurred to me’ – it mostly occurred to me when she said ‘why haven’t you written about me yet?’

What better time to rectify this than on her birthday, particularly since I didn’t get her a present.

Happy Birthday Sis! I give to you the gift of WORDS. Continue reading The Birthday Girl

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