The World is Your Oyster (Card)

(ii) Minimal Contact Required


There is possibly nothing worse than a tube train at rush hour, especially when your general rule of thumb is "minimal contact with other human beings". This rule applies not only to public transport but public footpaths and any other circumstance when you are exposed to 'the public' (something i try to avoid at all costs). Although the rule is relatively easy to uphold on the pavement once one has perfected the 'dance of the Londoner', it is far less straightforward when forced to squeeze into a tube train carriage, with the result resembling a tin of sardines...well...once you imagine the fish as disgruntled commuters, the smell more similar to that of a tramp and the tin as blisteringly hot and being chucked through an underground tunnel at high speeds.
Although my daily commute into the city centre does not start until September, I thought I should prepare myself by thinking of some ways to increase personal space on those underground nightmares.

1. It is pertinent to always have something on the ol' iPod that is mildly (or incredibly) offensive. It is then necessary to turn it up very loudly for maximum impact. This experience may not be so enjoyable to yourself, either because of the music or merely the volume, however neither will all the people around you. A good snarl or something similar will also help the process of scaring your commuting neighbours.

2. An infectious-looking (or sounding) cough can also do wonders. Add in a sneeze or two and you'll be laughing. If people want to invade your personal space then they should be prepared to deal with the consequences! If the rest of London commuters are anything like me, and I'm sure many are, then more space will miraculously appear around you very quickly.

3. Pretend you're pregnant and you might even get a seat! (Not recommended for any male readers) This is obviously less time consuming than actually getting pregnant, however can result in soaring levels of guilt if, say, an actual pregnant lady gets on the train. This is also less useful if you are one of those commuters that recognises people on the train each morning - they may become suspicious when your baby bump does not get larger as the weeks go on. Pretending you are with-child will also thwart any chances of meeting 'the one' at that time in the morning, flirty glances are all very well but once he locks eyes on the bump you may hit a dead end.

4. Perfect your 'evil eye'. This one is tricky - you will have to tread a fine line between the general public thinking you're just a bit weird and you suddenly being arrested and held in police custody under anti-terrorism laws.

5. Get drunk. This can be achieved by either not going to sleep from the night before or having a breakfast beer or two. It may also make your morning commute a bit more exciting! However it could lead to you getting fired, which although would temporarily solve one problem (of physical contact so early in the morning) it also creates quite a few...

The World is Your Oyster (Card)

(i) Time is Money


A friend from up norf told me what he thought of us Londoners the other week. He said that we always walked in a dead-straight line, expecting everyone else to get out of the way. Although there are the exceptions to the rule, I think my mate couldn't have been more wrong.

You can say many thing about us types from the big smoke, but one thing that we will definitely agree upon is that we do not do 'wasting time'. In fact we pretty much hate it. Although spending the last three years in Manchester dulled down my inbuilt instinct to hurry everywhere, the minute I get off the train at Euston station that instinct kicks right back in. I have to be the first one on the bus and the first one off. I give myself a mental high five when I get off the right tube carriage to deliver me as close to the WAY OUT sign as possible when I get off.


It seems like there's no doubt that once you become a Londoner, you will always be a Londoner and become a Londoner once more every time you return.

Walking around London makes motorway driving look like childs-play, and that is why my friend couldn't have been more wrong in his view of us. Anyone who has experienced the joy of motorway driving knows that if you just stick in the middle lane not only will you arrive at your destination rather slowly but you will royally annoy all the drivers around you.
This principle applies just as strongly to the bustling streets of London with just one obvious exception - there are no lanes. This makes the overtaking of slower 'traffic' more of a skill, requiring balance, brilliant spatial awareness and speed. "The dance of the Londoner", as I'd like to call it, takes years to learn and perfect but only takes minutes to remember - like riding a bike!

However this is all before you factor in the other big difference between motorway-driving and London-walking...the ones who haven't read the 'walkway code' and don't know how to er...drive themselves...the TOURISTS. London's equivalent to a stoned teenage who's never sat in a car, let alone passed his text, thinking it's a good idea to get in his parents' Ford Fiesta and take a spin on the M1. With the best will in the world it's not going to end any other way than disastrously.  
Now i cannot blame tourists for wanting to enjoy our amazing city, however the fact that they don't know the unspoken code of our pavements does mean we have to become more creative with our overtaking. It becomes more than just a dance - it becomes an art form. Walking in a straight line is not an option in LDN, and anyone who attempts to get about in this way will only have their tempers frayed or get pushed out of the way by other people.

As i said before, we do not like wasting time, and the time we save in the day by skipping and darting past unsuspecting tourists is the extra time we have to enjoy another Gin and Tonic at the end of our day. Time is a precious entity in London, and we know how to make the most of it. Slow, gormless, purpose-less walking is not the way to make the most of this beautiful city. Time saved is time spent doing something better than standing on a tube platform or waiting for a bus.

Here we go again..

Another re-brand, another promise of good stuff to read, but this time i promise i'm not lying.

Rapturous

(via http://rapturethreads.bigcartel.com/product/i-survived)

It's like it was all made up or something....

Photos of the Day

First book of the summer...

....on the terrace....

....in the sun!

And now the end is near...

Somehow I have made it to the end of University, a day that forever seemed like it would never come.
I have completed all my modules and now will be (temporarily) free of deadlines, essays and revision.
I am no longer a student.

So what have I learned?


There's no place like home
Living in Manchester for three years has definitely strengthened my love for London, and no matter where in the world I'll end up, a part of me will always be a true Londoner.
Regardless of what any other city can offer me, there is nothing quite like that feeling of getting off the train to the hustle and bustle of Euston station, flying past the majesty that is St Pancras station on the 390 bus and waving at my local chippy as i head into my house.
As much as i have enjoyed living in Manchester, it will never make me feel like London does.



You can't get on with everyone
And that's okay. And if you DO get on with everyone you're probably too nice.
Or too boring.

Facebook is evil
Never in my life has anything distracted me as much

High heels are more of a hindrance than a help

I'd rather be short thanks

There is such thing as too much fake tan
I must say that I will not miss the copious amounts of fake tan used in Manchester.
And as for people who use sun-beds...or even worse people who have a sun-bed before going on holiday so they don't need to 'worry about getting tanned' while they're away.....well there are no words for such people

Caught up in the romance of it all

I don't care who knows it - I loved the Royal Wedding.

I loved the count-downs, speculative documentaries, "I met Kate Middleton once" programs and, best of all, Kate and William - the Movie, which is possibly both the best and worst thing i have ever seen in my life. Not to mention some...erm...zany members of the public being interviewed!

Courtesy of http://katemiddletonforthewin.tumblr.com/

Although i did not have any flags, or bunting, or commemorate cakes (well i am a university student, with limited funds and time!), I made the effort to not go into the library and watch the entire wedding, and most of the build-up....

If i look HALF as good on my wedding day as she did, i'd be lucky. Absolutely stunning.

If you can't get swept up in the romance of this, then what is the point?

And there's still hope...there's still Harry...




Unless Pippa Middleton got in there first!

Why I Love Being a Londoner

I love knowing where to stand on the platform for the tube doors to open right in front of me

I love walking at 'London' pace to dart through hordes of tourists

I love how out of place my 'London' pace looks in any other city

I love feeling weirdly safe in a city full of nutters

I love my impatience at waiting five minutes for a train

I love the panic of not getting on a bus first

I love feeling completely anonymous in a sea of strangers

I love coming home to the chaos of Kings Cross

I love the way it never gets truly dark with the yellow tint in the sky

I love London......and I love being a snob about  :)

A sunny break from dissertation-writing

The Joy of being a Third Year University Student in Springtime

I am clearly meant to live in a hot country. Or at least a sunny country.

Living in Manchester can sometimes be incredibly depressing, when you look out of the library window to see the rain pouring down, where it's so dark at midday it might as well be midnight, and when you know that at some point before they close the library for the day, you will have to brave the rain and the bracing wind to make it back home...where the rain and bracing wind rattles at your window and whistles through the numerous holes in the walls.
However, I've decided that being a university student in Manchester when its sunny is actually worse. Because now when I peer over the mountain of books I've yet to read, I look out of the window and see people walking around in shorts. And dresses. And flip-flops. And sunglasses.
All of this whilst i'm shivering in some dark corner of the library where they don't seem to understand that a typical library temperature of 14 degrees is not warm enough to sustain human life and will not make me work harder. And to top it all off, once i'm forced out of the library through hunger i have to suffer the heat with too many layers on and too much to carry.
There is nothing better than a good bit of sun, unless you're dressed for winter (also known as the John Rylands University Library). And as the weather gets better, the deadlines get worse...and the idea of sitting in a park, with a glass of Pimms seems further and further away from reality.
But come mid-may, University will be over, and summer/the rest of my life will begin.
Hopefully a few months of sun to make up for the sheer lack of it in the past three years will sort me out :)

Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents: teenage life on TV.

Teenagers are everywhere and all over our television.
There's no greater champion of wayward teenage life than the Channel 4 phenomenon that is "Skins", which reared its ugly head again last night. Now I must admit that Skins is not generally my cup of tea, but I thought I would give the new series a go, and see whether the new cast of 'crazy' teenagers would change my mind.
Within the first five minutes of Series 5, the similarities to 'Mean Girls' is more than a bit obvious and the parody continues. Franky is the new kid on the block, bullied in her last school and starting again in Bristol. She's soon adopted by the popular girls: Mini: the pretty one, Grace: the less than intelligent one and Liv: the sassy one. Now stop me if this is sounding unrealistic.

Oh wait, that would have been around the opening credits.

Only half way through the first episode and we've seen the girls take drugs, run riot in a shopping mall and do a cheeky bit of shop-lifting. Standard after school antics when I was younger. Oh wait, no it wasn't. By half an hour in, the mean girl has stopped being nice and Franky, the tortured soul, is wielding a replica gun around and has found her 'true' friends.

Now I'm not denying the entertainment value of programmes like this - granted, they're full of energy. But what really is Skins? Is it a social commentary, an aspirational programme for young teenagers or just an overused story-line? As far as i'm concerned, not only is Skins a bad influence but it's a bad representation of teenagers today.

And talking of a bad representation of teenagers, BBC Three's "Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents" must be one of the weirdest programmes on TV. On one hand it glorifies the "lads" and "ladies" booze-filled holidays to destinations such as Zante and Magaluf, and then on the other hand brings along the parents to shock and appal them with scenes of their dearly-beloved daughters and sons getting absolutely wasted. The result of this is not the condemnation of our teenage booze-culture, but a giggle at the overly strict parents and how they need to let go.

If Skins is a representation of teenage life, then i missed out on a lot, but i don't think i'm too bothered about that.

Sexism, Homophobia, and other despicable behaviour

How brilliant is it that in the twenty-first century a headline like that can still be relevant.


To start with a bit of sexism, when Andy Gray and Richard Keys were caught red-handed making derogatory and quite frankly malicious remarks about a female assistant referee, Sian Massey, who helped officiate the weekend's game between Wolves and Liverpool. With comments including a swipe at Massey's inability to know the offside rule because of her gender, we would have expected Sky Sports to take swift action, order the two to apologise and remove them from their positions that they have had for so long. Not quite. The two were pulled off air for last night's game between Chelsea and Bolton and replaced by Dave Jones (in the 'Keys' role) and Sam Allardyce, a man I usually have no time for, who was honest and appeared to have more football knowledge than Gray. Overall it appeared that most approved of this new partnership. But currently there is no news as to the long-term future of Gray and Keys or any public apology. Rio Ferdinand labelled the two as "prehistoric", which has reaffirmed the belief that many have of the 'old-boys club' way that football is now run, which is institutionally sexist, set in their ways and not open for change.
I think this scandal is an opportunity. Not only is it an opportunity for women to break the stereotypes we have long suffered in football, but more importantly is an opportunity to shake things up, especially within Sky Sports, a channel that is celebrating its 20th birthday this year. There will always be those who will never accept female participation in football, and will judge one's knowledge of the game on whether you know the offside rule or not, but we need to make sure these people become the minority, and not the majority. A removal of the institutionalised Gray and Keys would be a start.


In Other News...

• Melanie Phillips caused yet more, almost inevitable, outrage from another of her Daily Mail columns expressing her....distaste.... for the "government-backed drive to promote the gay agenda"

• Oscar Nominations were announced, with the surprising absence of Christopher Nolan in the "Best Director" category, despite producing one of the stand-out films of the year.

• A local council has found a...unique (!) way of saving on their swimming pool's heating bills

UPDATE

So Andy Gray has been sacked by Sky Sports for another incident from last month. But let me guess, they're too scared to sack both of them. Although how Keys will be able to show his face after this debacle i don't know. I may slightly miss Gray's humorous ineptitude with all the new-fangled technology at his disposal, especially on 'The Last Word', but good riddance that he's gone.