Circumference by Annie Copland

5 Totally Liberating Things To Do This January 2012 That Will Kick-Start Your New Year

2012-01-16T12:10:00.001Z

It's 2012. This is it. We are now in the future!

So how's your year going so far? I hope it's going well and living up to all your wildest expectations...

This year for me so far has been a blast. Now I'd like to tell you about 5 Totally Liberating Things I've Done So Far In 2012... things that so far have been like blowing away the proverbial cobwebs and have allowed me to refocus my mind on what matters most to me. I thought it might be interesting to share with you, so here goes...

5 Totally Liberating Things To Do This January 2012 That Will Kick-Start Your New Year:

Rearrange your personal creative space. I did this the other day. My number one work priority in my day-to-day life is simply to 'create' (drawing, sketching, illustrating, producing ideas, writing) to my best ability, and to this end, I need to exploit the maximum potential out of the limited workspace I have. Having everything chaotically bundled on one 'workstation' desk was becoming a nightmare. Staring endlessly at the distractions of the internet and the computer screen were, I realised, 'totally not working' for me! So I had a good think about what my real requirements were, took time to reassess what I really needed, and suddenly it hit me! What seems painfully obvious now, I only just realised. I needed to sort out my creative space. So I split up the creative and brainstorming side of my work from the purely administrative and distracting 'processing' part of my work (with the computer, notebook, diary, etc), and decamped to a free space in my living room. I now have no computer or technological distractions, I now look out of a beautiful bay window at a sunny view, and I have all my pens and paper to hand - permanently. I cannot describe the difference this simple shift has had on the way I feel about my work! Liberated!
Get your hair cut off! I lost the plot with my scraggy split-ends once and for all the other day and suddenly felt an enormous urge to just go and get my hair cut. I had tried for so long to have long, beautiful hair but it sooooo wasn't working - I realised it was, quite literally, dragging me down. It so wasn't me. It was flat, lifeless, and, well, boring. So off I went that day for the sudden chop! "Just cut it off! I am sick of this old hair not doing anything! Make me feel like me again!" Edwina Scissorhands set to work with gusto. (The woman wasn't too chuffed by my frazzled dry ends either.) An hour later, I could feel a marked and noticeable swing in my stride as I stepped out of the hairdresser's feeling absolutely follically liberated. Just an inch or two, but what a difference. Bounce!
Give up the booze for 2 weeks and instead spend the time you would have been half-cut or mildly inebriated instead thinking really hard about What It Is You Really Want. I did this. I know, I know, I already spend an enormous amount of my time pondering this question...but this time I really felt focused! Go cold turkey after the excesses of Christmas/New Year and give your self a bit of a break from digesting ethanol and sugars. January's such a boring month anyway, you might as well use it as a good time to focus on your health and fitness and what you might want to achieve in the coming year. But back to Goals. I thought about What I Really Want in life, and wrote down no more than 20 things that I actually want. I concentrated on feelings. It strikes me that most of what we 'want' isn't so much about achieving tangible 'things', or 'having this' or 'getting that' - nah, most of what we really want can usually be distilled down to some ulterior feeling which we seek to have inside of us. e.g. security, warmth, power, love, comfort, etc. For example, "I want a flashy new sports car" probably really equates to: "I want others to look up to me/I crave admiration from others/I want a lot of attention." For example, "I want to be rich and famous" probably equates to: "I desperately seek affirmation of my worth from others." We all do it. Think about it really hard! Write down what it is you really want.
Ditch your favourite old tunes that were so last decade and embrace the Modern Music! I cleared my entire iPod of all the old stuff that I'd been faithfully listening to last year...and the year before...and possibly the year before that...and just suddenly thought, "We're in the future now! This is 2012! NOW is exciting. Let's keep it fresh and modern. And DEFINITELY not boring! Let's give the kids a chance!" There's a danger as you get older of falling into the Trap Of Comfortable Slippers, i.e. 'I do this a certain way and I know what I like and I like what I know and I'm happy with my choices thank you very much...so kindly leave me alone to my old ways...' BUT YOU'RE WRONG!! Suddenly 2012 sounded fresh and exciting and the place to be. Old things sounded, well, old. Dated. Tried and tested favourites were sounding done-to-death. So I scrapped the old stuff that had been so easy to listen to (not easy-listening, I hasten to add, hell no!) and went straight out and bought some Bangin' Beats. Stuff from now. Modern stuff. Cool stuff, not pipe-and-slippers-music. Dance music. I felt alive again! Again, Dr. l.i.b.e.r.a.t.e.d. (LBRTD?)
Live Out Your Perfect Day. Again, I'm thinking about what would make your life better. Today can be better than yesterday, and tomorrow promises to be better than today! So here's what to do. Take an afternoon to write down 'My Perfect Day' - everything; from when you get up, who you speak to and meet, what you are wearing, what you eat, what scent you wear, where you are, what it feels like, and what you get up to during the course of the day - and write it ALL DOWN. In grotesque amounts of detail. The more detail the better! Next, when you've a free day (perhaps at the weekend?) set that alarm and then just do it! Live it out! Enact your Perfect Day. I did this at the weekend and it was amazing. It was a brilliant day. The only thing that was missing, sadly, was the sunny weather, but hey, it's January....we can't have everything... You will realise if you do this, I think, just how many tiny, little, seemingly insignificant things make up such a Big Deal in living your perfect day, and hence, your life. For me it was such small things: it was setting the alarm earlier and getting out the door, wearing my best clothes, getting more exercise, eating nicer foods (and more fruit!), it was sensory pleasures such as the sense of smell that made all the difference; and best of all, it hardly cost me any money. And now that I've done it once, I can definitely do it again! So in this simple experiment I conducted I think we can safely say that happiness is in many ways not dependent on winning the lottery but in how you can maximise the physical way you feel. Do it!

So that's my 5 Top Things I've Done So Far This Year That Have Been Utterly Liberating... As you can see it's all about living in the moment, the now of today, the now of 2012. I hope you've found this article interesting or maybe you've been urged to go and so something equally liberating in your life. Have a happy 2012! Here's to Now!

Annie

Brand New Dictionary Definitions

2011-09-23T11:17:00.000+01:00

iPeoiaud (n.) –generic device to be found dangling from the ears or hanging out of the pocketof some ultra-attractive alpha person, which makes the wearer feel very happyand content with their life.

iPhad (n.) – trendfor the latest technological electronic device to add to one’s personal bodyarmoury of cables, wires, screens and earplugs, without which life would beimpossible.

iJone (n.) – ageneric technological gadget available to purchase in stylish black or whitewith one’s Christmas bonus that allows one to feel socially on a par with, orsuperior to, one’s social competitors/peer group. Plural iJones.

iGlare (n.) – thelook of rapture and intense excitement I have on my face as you pull out yourlatest iJone mid-conversation to show off its like amayyyyzing features andcool apps. “Like, FASC-in-a-ting.”

iZone (n.) – area inthe home that used to be given over for conversation and asking how you aregetting on (such as the kitchen table or dining room), but which is nowsilenced by the tapping of fingers on iPhad gadgets and the scrolling of menuson iJones.

iGrid (n.) – thevast power supply packs, generators, servers and air-conditioning units thatmodern iPeoiaud users must each individually transport with them whentravelling abroad or to the country to power up all their iJones, withoutwhich, life cannot continue. As in, “Have you packed the wellies? Yes. Have youpacked the waterproofs? Yes. Food? Yes. Oh wait! We haven’t left any room inthe car boot for the iGrid!”

iBone (n.) – type ofmagnetic autoslave chip inserted under the skin of iPeoiaud shoppers oncompletion of their first purchase, that makes the shopper keep coming backpanting slavishly for more six weeks prior to the release date of every newiPhad.

iGod (n.) – SteveJobs. Religious leader of the 21^st century, with a massive followingof Appleists and Apple Witnesses who make pilgrimages every 12 months to one ofthe holy sites where they queue for days kneeling and worshipping before handingover some monetary offering to their deity.

It's a funny old world...

;-)

Annie

If I have learnt anything at all about creativity...

2011-07-15T16:45:00.000+01:00

If I have learnt anything at all about creativity...

...it is that people (consumers) want to see something that is genuinely different - something genuinely new, fresh, and highly original. What they don't want to see is same-old-same-old - old ideas rehashed and reworked to be your own. People will talk only about what is new, cutting edge, genuinely different and conversation-generating. I think about this statement in terms of art, design, engineering, product design, music, performance, commerce, consumerism and ways of thinking.

So do not copy. Do not imitate. Do not seek to do as others have done. Do not do what is 'in vogue', fashionable and already being done. Look deep into the innermost recesses of your very being, excavate the mines of your soul, and see what nugget of newness you can find there. Strive to be utterly original in thought and in action. Do not be afraid. 'Fortune favours the bold'. It is so hard to be truly original, and few will achieve groundbreakingness, but it can not be impossible. It is not just a 'desired' of creativity; it is much more important than that: it is a necessity. It is very necessary to be truly ground-breaking and original in art.

Annie's Daily 5 Essentials

2010-11-25T10:20:00.000Z

With the days ever shortening at the moment as we head towards the winter solstice, I think it's even more important to banish those winter blues! A few years ago I came up with my own distilled principles for living life well and with greater satisfaction. Forget complicated life 'rules', or philosophies, gargantuan 'to do' wish lists, diets or finite 3-month 'health kick' regimes. You'll finish them, go 'yay!' for a week or two, then go back to the way you were before. Years ago I started to analyse what my definition of a satisfying life actually was, and then I stripped it right back and pared it down to the absolute basics. So I came up with my own simple approach - entitled "The Daily 5" - which I have written on a whiteboard in my office at all times:

Annie's Daily 5 Essentials

Laugh
Exercise - preferably outdoors
Be Creative
Learn Something New
Eat Well

What it means is that no day can truly be a good one unless I have wholehearted done all of these five!

Laugh. Find someone to share a joke with, or, if you can't, think up something funny yourself. Being amused by something energises us and relaxes us for many minutes after we've first thought about it.

Exercise. Make sure you get outdoors for exercise, daily, in order to feel the rays on your face and get the dose of vitamin D we all need on our skin. A day inside is a day wasted, in my opinion.

Be creative. Our brains are naturally creative anyway, but make sure you take time to think laterally - just do something off your own back for its own sake - and put pen to paper. Doodle. Wander. Ponder.

Learn something new. All it takes is a bit of time away from the daily grind to read a book or come to terms with some idea or principle. Your mind is a great thing, but it too needs to be fed and exercised to be kept fit and agile.

And finally, eat well. I don't do diets but I don't eat a great deal of junk food either. Why starve and then gorge? Treat your body to nice wholesome things (and predominantly whole foods) and it will in turn treat you well over the years. My lifestyle approach now means that I don't mind taking the time to cook everything from scratch.

Just kinda basic really! These are my principles for a good day, and so a good life...what are yours??

Annie

Introducing Circumference: New Ways of Thought

2010-11-22T14:55:00.015Z

Circumference: a blog by Annie Copland

All of the prophets agree on one thing: to paraphrase:

"To thine own self be true."

To be oneself, to be able to look in the mirror and see no one but oneself, to walk into the room being no one but oneself and wearing no one else's clothing but one's own. They make it all sound so easy! It most definitely is not. In fact it may be the hardest thing.

I myself have a favourite quote which paraphrases this idea - from Goethe:

"What has not burst forth from your own soul will never refresh you."

(It means looking inside your heart of hearts and finding that nugget of "you-ness" that actually makes you you, and not some insipid copy of someone else whom you admire or believe you should be...)

We all know places we have been where we've pretended to be someone else, worn someone else's clothes, borrowed someone else's dress sense, put on someone else's accent, said things just to "fit in", and - in short - not been ourselves. It can actually make us feel quite uncomfortable.

Let me suggest to you that one of the bonuses of getting older is that the true self finds it easier to make itself seen and heard.

You will know when you are being your true self when you step over the doorway to the home of a familiar old friend. The wine tastes sweeter. The food tastes that little bit more natural, more wholesome. The laughter is soft and natural and not put on. The water tastes more refreshing and you feel 100% relaxed and at ease with yourself. You know that you are 100% acceptable as you are, not as something they think you should be. No need to impress, no need to defend, you just are yourself.

Today we'll find happiness in life by being with more of those people who just "make us feel ourselves". Go on!

School Run?....Yeah, Run For Your Life!

2010-11-17T16:06:00.011Z

I'm getting really angry at the moment with the local 'mums and kids' school run. A time-worn rant, but fresh as seen from my eyes.

Basically I live a few minutes' walk away from a top notch fee-paying junior school, and any time I have been walking past the gates to its entrance, I've felt like I've been dicing ever-closer to death.

Between 3pm and half-past 3, the pavements which hitherto had been quiet thoroughfares for the pedestrian minding his or her own business, instantly become mayhem. Pandemonium. Kerb-to-kerb carnage. I thank God I wear my iPod so that I can't actually hear the accompanying conversations of what's going on.

Most days I nearly get killed by the said middle class, smartly-uniformed school pupils on those stand-on scootery things, riding willynilly down the pavements. Sometimes it's bikes. Now, I had the luxury of being brought up in the country where cycling off-road was the norm, so maybe it's hard to teach a kid to cycle in a "built-up" environment. But as a pedestrian I cannot STAND it when these so called educated, polite, considerate parents actually encourage their 4 or 5-year olds to screech down the (narrow) pavements on their bikes/trikes/scooters. To school! Not once teaching them to brake and get out of the way for other people. It's actually pretty inconsiderate.

Then there's the parents themselves. You should see the carnage that happens as a gaggle of identikit Moms (yes, Boden and knee-high boots and the ubiquitous Puffa jacket) arrive in their convoys of Audi estates and identikit BMW X5s to sweep up their precious darlings. They all MUST have the nearest available space to pick up young Thomas and darling Katie: 5 minutes away WON'T DO.

Yesterday I nearly got killed by one such mother who actually mounted the kerb, reversed into somebody else's private drive (which I wouldn't be too chuffed about), then performed a rather shoddy 3-point turn on the pavement - in the busy main road, holding up traffic. All the while I had to stand there wondering if this woman who was frantically mirror-talking to two kids in the back seat actually even SAW me. I doubt it.

A few days ago I had made it beyond the school gates to the designated "mum parking point" (basically a street that only ever fills up for half an hour a day), only to find that I had to battle my way past two fee-paying school boys who were literally kicking each other's nuts in, as they waited for their turn to enter their mother's SUV. I practically had to karate-chop my way through their boxing match. Their mother didn't seem to pay a blind bit of notice. Tears from both boys ensued and I actually yelled something like "it helps if parents actually keep their children UNDER CONTROL" behind me, but it no doubt fell on exceedingly self-absorbed, deaf ears.... so inconsiderate!

So, to get past the school, I must stand and patiently wait my turn to cross the road, whilst I let the troop of 4x4s and huge estate cars guzzle up and absorb children. Not once do these women (always women, I've noticed!) ever think to be polite enough to let pedestrians cross the road. They then screech off at breakneck speed - seemingly trying to go from 0 to 60 in under 2 seconds - roaring over speed bumps and veering past parked or reversing cars. Downright dangerous. I'm not making any of this up. All the while they're looking in their rear-view mirror mouthing: "AND HOW WAS YOUR RUGBY MATCH TODAY, HENRY??"

I used to think that people from posh schools were brought up to have manners. Now I see they're all just the same, these inconsiderate townie numpties.

Crime and Punishment in the capital

2009-07-06T17:38:00.003+01:00

So, I become a crime stat for the second time in my many years in the capital. My weekend goes swimmingly until precisely 10.30pm last night when I realise I have a 'Police note' dropped inside my car. Uh-oh. My heart sinks. Further inspection reveals a nice 2-inch gap prised between passenger door and body of car. 'Attempted break in'. Arghhhhh.....not again...

Policemen two come round to visit me this a.m. Am visibly routine and nonchalent, expectant now of this type of petty crime. Invite officers over the threshold to perform the mandatory 'statement taking' (it takes two of them these days); but shocked that police standards have slipped so much these days that they actually dare to SIT DOWN WITHOUT being asked! - I mean, did you EVER? Shocking!

Boringly feel like am having deja-vu after we discuss the circumstances of the 'crime'. Neds. Ne'erdowells. 'Just kids'. But am somewhat surprised when Officer 1 summarises in a bored tone: "Well, you know what you've got to do - MOVE OUT!" Yes, the thought had crossed my mind, too. No point in making the streets safer, striving hard to make our communities feel like safe places, being tough on tracking down crime, or whatever else the police used to do before they visited and beseated themselves in other people's flats of a morning while it's raining outside, etc, etc, etc. No - that's the official police advice now: if you don't like the crime - JUST MOVE OUT! So simple. Yep. You heard it here first.

After not sleeping much last night, naturally, whilst decrying petty crime and pre-pubescent criminals (what were they: high on Irn-Bru?), feel lightheaded and sleepy come dinner prep time. So much so that I try to open a tin of tomatoes with a nutcracker. Great. Crime drives the innocent insane!

The CCF (Carer-cum-Fiance), seeing my malady, jumps to his feet and sneakily puts the kettle on. "What are you doing?" I suspect of him.
"Nothing."
He brings over a bowl of what looks like steaming boiled water in a bowl.
"There - it's a hot flannel to put over your face - you look like you need it," he says with care.
"That's a floor cloth." I point out. "I'm not putting a floor cloth on my face."

Comfort food of lasagne washed down with a litre of cooking wine seems like the only option at this late stage.

Google

2009-06-10T21:11:00.004+01:00

Google
[conceived whilst lying in bed one night, trying - in vain - to sleep.]

– with apologies to John Betjeman

Whatever will rhyme with Google?
There’s only the Scottish name ‘Dougal’;
Why! in Scots I shall try
With my words to get by,
If I give them a shake and a shougle.

I’d love to say more about Google,
But your rhymes are annoyingly frugal;
Whilst searching for ages
Through nine billion pages
The best you could offer was 'bugle'.

What else can I couple with Google?
If I cheat, p’rhaps I can use wriggle;
But in vain at my chair
Do I stare, and I pair,
For my brain is all higgledy-piggle.

My eyes are now square-shaped to ogle,
At pages all footered with …oooooogle,
But how many ‘o’s
Are out there? Who knows!
And thus my rhyme endeth with Gooooooooooooooo…ooooooooooooogle.

By Annie Copland
© 2009 Annie Copland. Not to be reproduced without the express permission of the author.

The Sham Parliament

2009-05-15T09:58:00.002+01:00

This debacle (for it is a debacle) about MPs' expenses has left everyone practically foaming at the mouth. How can so many so-called professionals make 'mistakes' with their finances - financial acumen being one of the things for they are supposed to be employed? It beggars belief.

So history repeats itself. I very much doubt whether today's scandals are any more ripe than those of the past. The scary thing is whether today's electorate really do have any more power to do anything about it than they did in the past - for the MPs today seem beyond reproach; they make up their own rules as they see fit; they seem to have no raison d'etre other than to cling to the rungs of power for as long as physically possible. In many ways their megalomania makes us even more powerless than ever before.

The question is: what should be done about it? I have spent much of this week churning over the facts along with possible solutions to the political mess. Paying back their expenses is a very short term solution. It is a childish act and possibly makes the guilty MPs look even more idiotic and backboneless than had they held on to each penny they'd embezzled.

No - what we are actually lacking these days is true leadership for our country. After all, that is what we are supposedly paying them to do. And as we all know, leadership involves trust, taking responsibility for one's own - and others' - actions, and authority. Today's insipid, fawning MPs demonstrate none of these qualities. They've had their chance, but they've well and truly blown it.

It pains me to say it, because it's wholly undemocratic, but the answer I feel is to go back the past: to have far fewer MPs, quadruple their salaries, and just have the ridiculously flamboyant, louche landed gentry running the place. Get more retired brigadiers, army generals, majors and sirs, lords and barons leading us: telling people what to do whilst having fun: it's what they do best. Get these pathetic, drivelling nobodies out of the House of Commons and back to their desk jobs; if they feel like 'glorified social workers', then let them become social workers - heaven knows we could do with some more. Wheel the eccentric, the brave, and the altruistic, the monied, the financially self-sufficient, out of their country estates, and back to the steering wheel of the country.

For it has been shown that paying 'ordinary' people (by which, they mean, people like us) a pretty meagre salary of £65,000 has just attracted the dregs. You could earn more being a GP or a head teacher, or in private sector management. Needless to say, these people want to claim as much extra money to line their own pockets as possible. They are self-serving and have shown they care not one iota for the people they represent. This much was inevitable. It may be different if these MPs were actually doing a great job - but they're not.

Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that democracy is somehow morally superior to great leadership. I don't want more women, more ethnic origin, more gay, more OAP, more young, more humble background MPs being paid out of my taxes if they're dishonorable and can't lead for toffee. It doesn't matter a hoot who they are: surely it's what they do that counts. And anyway, if we bring back the Rotten Borough, would our country be any more rotten than it already is??

Not another networking site....

2009-02-20T14:43:00.004Z

NANS.

No, not those sweet, silver-haired old ladies we like to call Granny.

NANS. Short for, “Not Another Networking Site!”

Help. My life has become a constant battle with keeping myself* up to date: I am already at online interactivity overload. Just when I think my poor little fingers have got up to speed with typing away at my MySpace, bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts – then along pops another social networking site into my inbox. Ping! Your new account is ready to use! Sign up, sign on, get blogging, get tweeting. Help!

Just the other day, claims in the news were made that social networking may be detrimental to our mental health. Apparently evidence suggests that the more time we spend on such sites, and the less time we spend interacting ‘face to face’, the more isolated we become and the more harm we are doing to our biological systems.

This may be true. I know I only converse face-to-face with about three or four ‘real’ people these days. All the rest of my contacts have been relegated to ‘online chat’, followed up by a biannual ‘real life’ visit if they’re lucky.

I wouldn’t mind all these so-called ‘networking’ sites if I thought the benefits:time ratio were a bit higher. But it isn’t. I can spend several hours a week online-networking and come away at the end of it thinking it might have been simpler if I’d just phoned a friend and gone out to grab a coffee for 30 minutes. My mum has the right idea.

And then all the profiles need so much updating! At the last count I had at least nine accounts; each with statuses to update, moods to select, contact details to provide, interests to specify, friends to invite, etc, etc, etc… These sites don’t save us time - they ROB us of all our free time.

I work from home, which means that if my computer is on from say, 8 in the morning to, say, 9 at night, then that’s a potential thirteen whole hours to be dabbling in and out of social networking sites. A peek here, a browse there, who’s doing what, who’s said what to whom, what wit can I post online now? And as I don’t have one of those website blocking filters like some people do in the office, there’s just no stopping me.

And yet, if it is so time-consuming and tedious, why are we all so into it? Simple. Firstly, because we’re addicted. We’re addicted to staying in the loop, and the internet provides the possibility to embark on one enormous, effortless journey through a virtual circular street with infinite virtual doors to knock on. Clever advertising makes us think we need it. And secondly, because we are ultimately a lazy people. Given the choice between going into town to meet someone in a bar or café, and just sitting in front of the computer screen, most of us would rather do the latter.

So this latest social networking site I’ve been invited to join will provide me with another opportunity to befriend people I don’t actually know, to post all sorts of facts and miscellany about myself into the infinity of the web, and to remember another goddamn password. Great.

Will this be the last I hear of the NANS? No.

What do I think will happen next?
Facebook, I suspect, is just the tip of the iceberg. From where I’m standing these interactive tools look set to multiply, rendering each of us ‘over-networked’ (i.e. the ultimate endgame of all social networking sites is surely to have each and every one of us on the planet ‘linked’ to the next person: infinite linkages. That seems to be the way it’s going anyway. And how workable will that be?)

Will what I have to say have any real bearing on people using Facebook et al?
No.

Why?
Because we’re scared of being left out.

*I am no longer myself. I am My Profile. Is it just me or is there something quite masochistic in referring to oneself in criminal-records-speak?

ANNIE

Rant: Consumerism and Materialism

2008-06-13T15:37:00.003+01:00

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about consumerism and its effects. I’ve noticed I’ve begun to get more materialistic than I ever was, more surrounded by ‘things’, and more thing-orientated. I never used to be this way. I used to stalwartly pride myself on my aversion to ‘things’; I was more interested in ideas and mind-expansion. Now, faced with the prospect of my late twenties, I seem to have kindled a new obsession with ‘things’. Perhaps I have finally realised what it means to Keep Up With The Joneses.

But in a way I am sure I have only staved off the inevitable, for you only need look in any Lifestyle Magazine or newspaper or internet site to have it bombarded upon you that You Must Buy. If you’re a guy, this means gadgets, cars, trainers and the latest metrosexual beauty products; if you’re a gal, this means…well, it means shoes, handbags, sofa cushions, clothes, beads, accessories and lipgloss…all the things I love to hate, basically.

As I reach my late twenties and see my thirties lined up behind them, I notice I am spending less and less time on the ideas and idealism of my youth and on stocking up my brain, and more and more time stocking up my (already heaving) shelves. It’s quite worrying actually. These days I’m disturbed to find that I am more likely to spend time looking through home furnishing catalogues and perfume stores than I am on good old fashioned reading or having a laugh with friends. And yet, paradoxically, I find I am at my most creative and at ease with myself when I am surrounded by minimal ‘stuff’.

The question is, does all this stuff actually make us happy? Or does it, as I suspect, only serve to increase the void of loneliness and unhappiness that single 20-something women hope to fill…with stuff?

My own theory, based on my experience of these people, is that nice ‘stuff’ and girly things are actually a sort of thinly-disguised substitute for emotional contentedness. Too often, I have seen single professional 20-somethings (I’m not one of them, luckily) who are surrounded by beautiful things…fantastic shopping sprees, luxury spas and facials and pedicures, many pairs of must-have designer shoes…and yet when I got to know them, I detected the same thing over and over again. Insecurity. Insecurity over not being successful enough with their career, insecurity over not having enough friends or a lively enough social life, insecurity over their less-than-perfect bums, tums, and thighs, but way over and above all of these – insecurity over not having a boyfriend. Panic about never getting married.

I’m not blaming them, I am pitying them. I think there is a great trend in our culture towards people expecting young ladies to perform at every conceivable level: career, money, physical appearance, social life, love life. Many are expected to do the done thing, which is to live in a small IKEA-clad designer flat, alone. I think it’s a bit much. Women, at the end of the day, are all just human beings with that most basic of desires to be loved. Most are just absolutely crying out not to be lonely, not to be alone, to have a boyfriend, to have good friends. Materialism is just their way of coping, I cynically have to admit.

So what is the solution? I don’t know. All I know is that the fact of the matter is, I feel like I have more creative freedom when I am not surrounded by ‘stuff’, as for one thing I can spend less time tidying it up! And the thing I always have to try and remind myself is that true happiness, that happiness you will remember when you are 80, is not a product of the number of nice things you own, but the product of great experiences, lasting friendships, and funny stories involving other people that you care about.

I hope I don’t forget this as I grow up next door to the Joneses.

Annie

New Spring/Summer Collection: What Not To Wear

2008-04-11T15:25:00.003+01:00

As the slightly warmer spring season is nearly upon us, I thought I would talk today about fashion. There are some items of fashion I just don’t like. I don’t think I shall ever like them.

These are:

• Anything ‘black’ – yes, black is the new black, black makes you slimmer, yada yada yada…yes, yes, but I still don’t like black. Especially black tops. Black trousers are boring enough, (and there are so many other wonderful colours to enjoy, why would you choose black?), but black tops are just the icing on the cake of boringness as far as I’m concerned. Black is a morbid colour, best reserved for funerals and people who want to look terminally depressed – e.g. Goths. Even wearing black makes me feel depressed. It drains colour from the skin on all but the darkest of skin tones. Black has no place in my colourful, (hopefully!) cheery life.

• Leather jackets – probably something to do with my aversion to all black. The smell of cowhide and the fact that they are shiny and can be wiped clean are also dubious ‘qualities’.

• Flip-flops – especially when worn by so-called ‘trendies’ as some sort of fashion statement down the street. Nowadays these cheap, bethonged slivers of rubber are adorned with all sorts of jewels, beads, wood, flowers, and dangly bits, and some people even seem to want to wear them in the workplace. WHY??! They conjure up images of people, mainly overweight girls and students and fat mothers, who haven’t been (but wish they have been) on some ‘year out’ ethnic experience to Bali. I just think they look tacky and remarkably working class. They cost about 20p to make and they are rubbish for your feet. Leave them back on the beach where they belong.

• On the subject of vulgar shoes, what about strappy sandals worn two sizes too small? There is nothing quite so repulsive as the sight of fat feet bulging out of flimsy stilettos, with the toes poking about two inches out of the front of the sandal. This bugs me mental! I went to a proper shoe shop and the man there informed me that toes should not protrude from the end of shoe; there should be at least half a thumbnail gap, and most women buy shoes that are too small for them. Why can’t women get shoes that FIT?! – and which might actually protect their precious tootsies.

• Boob tubes – unless they are a properly fitted basque or part of a formal evening gown or wedding dress, boob tubes are a big no-no and are hardly flattering to anyone. I think what puts me off the boob tube is the fact that it is normally worn only by overweight, fat-bosomed girls who believe if they’ve got it, they should flaunt it. The women I feel have got slightly more perfect bodies tend to know about common decency and put more clothes on.

• Leopard print – it always looks like a resurgence to all that was wrong with the ‘80s, and it always looks tacky, never serious. Dorien from Birds of a Fevva wore a lot of it and that just about rests my case.

• Denim skirts – I don’t know why, I just don’t like them. Why do they always make you look cheap, like you ought to live on some council estate, pushing buggies round the streets with a fag in your hand? The miniskirts are about the only useful ones and even then are really only good if you want to look like: (a) a power-balladeer from the ‘80s, like Tina Turner or Chaka Khan, or (b) a transvestite. The knee-length ones are God-awful, in my opinion.

• Fleece. Ah! Admittedly, here I am sorry to say that I do not/can not practice what I preach. For in the breezy neck of the woods where I come from, fleece is a weather-independent necessity. It’s always chilly and even our gussets are manufactured from that awful downy sheep-a-like manmade polymer. But, let’s be clear about this: fleeces really are the leggings of the 90s/Noughties. They are merely an exhibition in new material technology (‘80s = lycra; ‘90s = microfleece), but, let’s be honest, they have no style attached whatsoever.

I could go on, but I better hadn't in case I do myself out of a wardrobe!

Annie

What Edinburgh Taught Me: A Musical Appreciation

2008-01-21T20:13:00.000Z

It is with a certain sense of lachrymosity that I announce my departure from the city of Edinburgh, or, as they say here in the leafy ‘burbs, Auld Reekie. And while I was preparing my things for quitting this place, I somehow thought of creating a soundtrack that embodied everything I had encountered during the 5ish on-and-off years I have spent living here.

So what has Edinburgh taught me? Davis, Coltrane, Monk: It has taught me jazz. Crazy, wild jazz – mincing its words, so to speak, but saying them nonetheless in a fury of passion.

As I crossed the Dean Bridge for the last time the other day, I had Joni Mitchell on my mind, for this city has taught me poetry. The ability to see beauty and something original in everything. The woman in touch with her creative side – a blessing for sure. And again, The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines: chromatic high jinks: everything that may have once appeared difficult - even impossible - once deconstructed, becomes that little bit easier.

Fedel quanto bella, il cielo la fe – yep. Ridiculous pomp and shouting: Passion – the key to good calibre work.

Pour que tu m’aimes encore – Edinburgh has taught me language. Especially the easy, Romance languages, that I should’ve done more of at school…

Amerie is up there next: 1 Thing – Edinburgh taught me to run for my life. Without a telly for amusement, I took up the next best thing: pounding the streets for fun! Shapes, strides, swing, shooting space – I ran round the streets, miles over and over again.

Next – Mozart: Allegro Quintet Pour Cor En Eb Maj – the understated certainty of that opening line of the melody…because I have come to the realisation that there are times when just a bit of quiet concentration is required to stimulate the old grey matter, and these times call for just one – only one – person, and that is Mozart. Pop, rap, hiphop, rock, jazz: it all fades away, I’m afraid, in the light of the frankly impertinent musical genius of WAM. Even his sad music is chirpy.

Birdland. I remember exactly where I was, and exactly what I was doing when I first heard this song, so great an impression this ‘new’ music had on me. I was listening to it on my pre-iPod CD walkman all the way through Princes Street Gardens and down to the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, as a young Landscape Architecture student, back in 2002. I had never dared myself to listen to the likes of this before. When its opening bars hit my ears, I thought, ‘What the hell is this??!’ as its lyric-less tune stormed through my headphones, assaulting my ears with a mish-mash of strange sounds. Then the upbeat chorus, the sunshine that comes through it all at the end. It was music for music’s sake. I have to confess I wasn’t sure I’d really ‘get’ it. Wasn’t this musicians’ music? It was certainly challenging, as they say in the boardroom! and I knew I wouldn’t get it in just a couple of listens…but isn’t that then the point of music? To make you learn? I stuck with Weather Report, I persevered, and I still don’t understand a lot of it, but like a foreign language which you don’t know, there is something of beauty in its sounds and forms, something strange that you can appreciate nonetheless. And appreciate I did, and continue to do. Birdland led me into jazz and fusion slowly but surely and with no looking back!

Edinburgh has also taught me a sense of calm. If ever a piece of music painted a picture, then surely it’s Playground by Richard Bona. It makes me think of a sunset; orange and pink and red, just up there in the distant sky, peaceful, at day’s end. Class. A feeling of total calmness and peace and acceptance of oneself.

And finally, some old folk tune about bucolic bliss that I just, well, like. Linden Lea. It reminds me of a moment of horticultural/philosophical epiphany I once had under an apple tree, all about the important things in life (not to be taken literally, but you get the idea):
‘Let other folk make money faster, In the air of dark-roomed towns; I don’t dread a peevish master, Though no man may heed my frowns; I be free to go abroad, Or take again my homeward road…’

Adios Athens of the North!

Annie

A Tale of Confusing Packaging...

2007-11-28T13:42:00.000Z

I got a fright the other day as I was walking down the toiletries aisle of the supermarket looking for some girlie sanitary products. There it was, emblazoned across the shelf, in large bold type, a sign advertising:

“Digital Tampons”.

What?!
For one scary moment I actually thought (it was still well early in the morning; I was probably half-asleep), ‘Well blimey me! What the HELL are they? They sound painful.’

For one very strange minute I had this completely freaked-out mental relapse where I was not in a supermarket aisle at all but in some bizarre, freaked-up horror film where some pervy psychopath does things to you with probes and crocodile clips that are simply unmentionable.

Digital tampons, digital tampons….Come on girl, think! - All I could come up with though was the thought that perhaps I’d been cryogenically preserved for decades and had accidentally woken up in the year 2065. Where everything had gone digital. We had digital clocks these days…digital handsets…digital thermometers…surely…..Nooooo…they can’t be….! Not wee things that now glow up in the dark or which automatically pop in and out according to your body’s menstrual whims, surely? Not things with little flashing LEDs and microcomputers in them which you can pre-programme with a remote? Perhaps it’s a novelty Christmas gift idea. A cotton mouse that’s also a barometer-cum-anemometer-cum-sat-nav. Jings! Ach, dearie me…not like those old cardboard cotton woolly things you used to have to ram up there yourself like they had back in 2007…. Perhaps it’s a Japanese technology…they always were pretty good with developing their micro-gadgets…But this! This might have gone TOO far…

Seconds later, I was, thankfully, snapped out of my daze as I was reminded of the origins of the word ‘digital’ – coming from the Latin 'digitus', meaning finger or toe. Phew. I was back in the real world after all. Oh it means FINGER. As opposed to cardboard. Into the shopping basket with those, my familiar old friends!

But on second thoughts, if ever I WAS going to steal a patent for something, well…..

Annie

Rant 9: G'DAY!!!!

2007-11-16T10:16:00.000Z

Australians: WHY'D THEY ALL HAVE TO TALK SO DAMNED LOUD???? (-ly)

"Yeee! Thet'd be roiiight!"

Rant 8: Hang On A Moment, I Need To Go And Pop Another Dose Of My Ugly Pills…

2007-11-02T14:52:00.000Z

In this rant I’m going to be discussing some of the reasons why (if any) there are certain people on this planet that just seem to go OUT OF THEIR WAY to look unattractive. The opinions expressed in this particular rant are purely personal, so I don’t expect everyone necessarily to agree with me on this one. However, some things need to be said. Controversial? Perhaps.

What I’m getting at here are those people – and who, I admit, are mainly female - who apparently leave the house in the morning with not a hint of preparation having gone into their morning routine. It’s like they’ve just rolled outa bed, dah-dahhh! - just like that. Terrible dress sense. Unflattering clothes. Greasy, unstyled hair, scraped into a limp ponytail. Not a trace of make-up. Nada. Couldn’t give a hoot. It’s like, Why would you WANT to make yourself look that unattractive?

Now I’m no Elizabeth Hurley, but for goodness’ sake, women! Have some shame on yourselves! People who don’t take any pride in their appearance are, to me, people who have given up on the joys of life. Looking good makes you FEEL good about yourself, and after that then the day just seems to swing along with a buzz – plus it makes the streets look full of beautiful people and we’re all happy. Which is a nice thing.

Now if there was a scale of mingingness from 1 (gorgeous) to 10 (ultra-ming), then I’d be the first to admit that I’d probably be nearer the higher end of the scale; I’m not vain! – but taking just a BIT of care over your appearance can do wonders for your self-esteem, and can bring your mingingness down a grade or two. I’m entirely with ‘What Not To Wear’ on this one – a tiny bit of daily preening and maintenance can really make the difference between being a butch-looking hermaphroditette and a beautiful thing of glamour.

It’s not about wearing a mask. It’s not about being a fashion victim. It’s not about trying to emulate Jordan Katie Price or Pamela Anderson, who both swing too far in the opposite direction. Nobody wants to go out feeling uncomfortable or looking like a drag queen. But a simple bit of pressed powder, mascara and lipstick, plus at least an attempt at some kind of hair "style” – I mean, come ON! Is that really too much to ask?

It’s as if these people (namely: some mums, so-called “practical” women, lesbians, and other “I’m too busy for appearances” sorts) feel they have some god-given right to look plain. Actually I think it’s more than that: after a while it’s self-indulgent. It’s as if they’re saying, “Uh! Think I’ve got time for dressing up? Think I’ve got time for twiddling my hair into shape? Think I need make-up?” – in that holier-than-thou, appearances-are-just-for-slappers kind of way. As though looking plain makes them better than the rest of us or something.

I disagree with this brazenly cocksure attitude. As a matter of fact I would deem myself to be a highly “practical” or – what’s that euphemism for unattractive? – “outdoorsy” sort of bird. I have my minging, no-effort days (at weekends). Everybody does. But not EVERY day. During the week it’s not only good to look good, but it’s fun, and, I’d say, it’s even a public responsibility. I’m also a feminist but that doesn’t necessarily make me want to look like a tomboy or like someone out of McDonald’s.

Fact: Nobody likes mingers. Fact: You’ll have plenty of time to look as unattractive as you want when you’re six foot under and lying in a coffin! So get with the program! – You’re only here once; you’re only going to have this face, this body, ONCE; you’re only going to meet/smile at/make an impression to certain people in this world – THE ONCE. So make the most of it! Make an effort. Stop looking like a Neanderthal and make people take notice of your assets. And ditch those ugly pills once and for all, will you!

ANNIE

Rant 7: Comma Police

2007-10-31T17:22:00.000Z

…No, not the song by Radiohead. I refer to those communication “experts” who have, for mind-baffling reasons, seen it fit to allow the virtual eradication of the comma from the written word in the English language.

These days, commas in text are about as sparse as hens’ teeth, and it’s not only unfashionable to have them in your document or letter or whatever; it’s actually deemed to be WRONG. Just look in any “official” document, any business letter or e-mail, and – if the Comma Police have had their hands on it – I bet you will struggle to find more than about two commas in it. (Word “Wizards” and so-called computer ‘Help’ don’t do much to help either.) They’re becoming extinct – I tell you.

Personally, I love commas. [Sorry – Personally I love commas.]
Actually, I think this might be, of all my rants so far, the one which irks me most of all, for unknown reasons! [Sorry - Comma Police Transcription required: Actually I think this might be of all my rants so far the one which irks me most of all for unknown reasons!]
GAD. Not only does it sound ugly but it looks ugly too.

I’ll tell you why we need commas, and why the eradication of the humble comma is a bad thing. Firstly, commas do for the sentence what phrasing does for a piece of music. It’s all about breathing and timing; making sense of a random string of words, and, ultimately, bringing them to life. At each comma, we, as the reader, are expected to slow down, to pause, to HALT, before proceeding to the next phrase. It gives personality and voice to the words, introducing subtleties of rhythm, and tone, and even gravity that the Comma Police wouldn’t get if it belted them across the ears. Probably the invention of computers and everything having to be done online and automatically without thought these days has contributed to the demise of that gracious pause in the flow of words. See? These days everything needs to be done now now NOW and there is just no time for pausing – or appearing to pause to catch one’s breath hence the lack of punctuation and phrasing. Phew!

But no. We’re no longer supposed to use commas. They’re bad form. According to the communication experts, if we have to put loads of commas in a sentence, then obviously our sentence is too long, and needs to be broken up into a few, simpler, shorter sentences, all for the reader’s benefit. “Cut out the commas!" we’re told, “They’re so last century!” – Or is it, as is my suspicion, that we are merely – YET AGAIN – having to pander to the lowest common denominator, that is, to people who can only read sentences of 10 words or fewer; people who can only understand monosyllabic words? I.e. Readers of The Sun.

If it is, then I resent this fact. This “dumbing down” is to the implicit detriment of ALL written work, in my (humble) opinion. Some of the most enjoyable stuff I’ve ever read has been absolutely littered with commas, with sentences going on for days (e.g. Dickens), but we still get the gist of it because there are natural breaks, and pauses, and the sense spins out through the writer’s careful use of phrasing. And correct phrasing is an art form. Why would we actually WANT to make our words sound like a computer-generated monotone, instead of something hand-carved and lyrical?

No. The REAL illiterate, in my view, are the Comma Police, those bland punctuation Nazis, who cannot understand a sentence if it is a paragraph, or even if it spills over more than two lines (oh, the horror!). It’s like we’re being penalised for pausing, or for having an attention span. I really, really resent this demise of the comma (among other punctuation extinctions). I shall continue to use LOADS of commas in my written work as long as it remains unfashionable; in fact, the more the merrier, as far as I’m concerned.

Rant 6: Give us our daily bread...

2007-10-24T16:10:00.001+01:00

I LOVE supermarkets. They’re an experiment in social behaviour just sitting right in front of you, awaiting analysis.

Recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a direct correlation between poorness and the number of loaves of white bread in the supermarket trolley. A few days ago I happened to be in a branch of a certain love-it-or-loathe-it supermarket chain which takes – what is it? – one pound out of every eight pounds spent in this country and rhymes with al fresco. Good grief, it was an enlightening experience, I tell you. I think it’s actually possible to discover more about our fellow countrymen and women by noseying into their supermarket trolleys than by reading tables of Government statistics.

Some of the sights astounded me. I saw one woman who was about the size of a hippopotamus, and her face was a picture of ill-health. All flab and folds, pink and flaccid, rolling over the top of her tight fitting clothes. I think the Government calls it – obese. And in her gargantuan trolley was, neatly perched one on top of the other, about 20 loaves of white bread. She had a small bread mountain in there. She appeared to have very little else in that trolley. I began to wonder how many she was feeding back home. An army of little blighters? Or – let’s give her the benefit of the doubt here - did she perhaps run a Bed and Breakfast? Perhaps she owned a sandwich delicatessen? But then, why wouldn’t she buy straight from the wholesaler?

I looked around me and began to see that she was not alone. Several people, each portly and panting, appeared to be buying nothing but loaf upon loaf of bread. Was there a war on? I wondered. Some rationing that no one had told me about? They couldn’t get enough of it. Not granary, not multigrain, not even French baton, but extra extra white, factory bleached, no-bits, nutritionally-devoid BREAD. Starch. Carbs. The “healthy” alternative to chips, one presumed. Now I like a bit of bread, and it has been around for a few thousand years after all – but seven identical loaves all at once? – That’s pushing it, even for the biggest of families. That’s more than just a round of sandwiches and even a hefty-sized bread-and-butter pudding for afters. These people seemed to have more than a bread fetish. This was a bread eating disorder.

And once home, what are people DOING with all this bread? Are they building houses with the stuff? Feeding it to the ducks and squirrels? Stitching it into quilts for winter? No, I’m afraid not. I’ve asked people and I know some who think that a nutritionally balanced diet consists of breakfast – “toast!”, with nought but butter – then lunch – a chip sandwich – followed by dinner – soup, plus “loads and loads of white TOAST” to polish it off. Perhaps then a Nutella sandwich before bed to really put an end to their hyperglycaemic day. Mmm. Yummy!

Further, my no-Government-funding-required research then went on to hypothesize that there is a direct link between yellow-to-white foodstuffs and gargantuanism. You can analyse this for yourself the next time you go food shopping. Just scan the contents of each trolley and look out for one rich in all the yellow-white hues: for example, chips, potatoes, white bread, “baps”, pastry, Supanoodles, macaroni cheese, milk, chicken dippers, fish fingers, vanilla ice cream, waffles, crisp multi-packs, frozen alphabet letters made of piped potatoes, spaghetti hoops, pasta. It’s all low-grade starch fuel at the end of the day. Then quickly look up from the trolley to the person pushing it around and you can bet your bottom dollar that they will be obese. You can also bet there will be little in the way of green hues in that trolley, a fact further demonstrated by the lack of vitality and vigour in the trolley pusher’s face.

Think of this next time you look down at your trolley and find yourself nursing a single tin of beans on top of a veritable bouncy castle of loaves – man cannot live by bread alone!

Annie

Rant 5: Whatever happened to simple old 'Yes' and 'No'?

2007-10-11T17:20:00.000+01:00

As a pedant and a lexophile, I have been increasingly troubled lately by what I see as the sad disappearance of simple words like ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Especially in the world of business. And in these humble words’ place, a new proliferation of polysyllabic verbal effluvium seems to have taken over. All nonsense words. This therefore is a subject on which I am only too keen to rant.

Have you noticed, recently, that everything has to be ‘Absolutely!’ to indicate a response in the affirmative – instead of the plainer-sounding ‘yes’?

E.g. ‘Hello Margaret! Are you well today?’
‘Absolutely!’
Or, ‘Can we achieve all this in the space of a week?’
‘Absolutely!’
Or, ‘I think I need to take a holiday. Maybe next week…’
‘Absolutely!’

Do you do it? Are you afraid of sounding too plain?

Another one that gets my goat is this current fixation with the word ‘Perfect!’ as a euphemism for the much humbler sounding ‘OK’ or ‘That’s fine’. Are you guilty?

E.g. ‘I’ve sent you that document by email just now so it should be with you any second.’
‘Oh! Perfect!’
Or, ‘I’ll meet you at the plaza at 1pm then, Mark.’
‘Perfect! See you there!’

- When what they mean is anything BUT ‘perfect’. They mean, ‘Alright, that suits me.’ It’s not perfect. Perfect is something untarnished, something without soil, something divine, and you rarely know about it.

Another one used in place of simple, old-fashioned ‘yes’ is ‘Correct’ – or, even, ‘Cor-RECT!’ Why? Why the fixation with this odd, Magnus Magnusson-sounding catchphrase? Is it to sound more pompous or more ‘computer-like’ than the rest of us normal folk? To give the tone of your approval more gravitas?

E.g. ‘I think we need to speak to our suppliers first before we go any further.’
‘Correct.’ ‘Absolutely!’ ‘Perfect!’
Or, ‘I don’t think I need dress up too much tonight. We’re only going to the pub down the road after all.’
‘Correct!’

Correct? In the sense in which they use it (the computer-binary, affirmative/negative sense), ‘correct’ is the opposite in meaning of ‘incorrect’, and while it might not be a good idea to dress up to the nines just to go down your local pub, it can hardly be, technically speaking, INCORRECT. So this language is just nonsense. Do we WANT to sound like computers, or like people? Do we WANT to end up sounding like those imbecilic American science geeks in all the movies who go, ‘Negative, sir!’? Eh?

So let’s get rid of the sickly superlatives and the hyped-up hyperbole and stick to good old Yes ‘n’ No.

Annie

Rant 4: When Computers Aren't Such A Good Thing

2007-10-09T16:12:00.000+01:00

Media fascinates me. It’s interesting to see where we’re going next in terms of the way we communicate. But two facets of the modern media really irk me. One is this perma-gravitation towards everything being “online”, and the second, following on from the first, is this arrogant presumption that everything is inherently better or superior because it’s “on the Internet”. Is it?

Consider this for stupidity. I’ve seen people walk into a room where the telly is on, and announce, proudly: “Hey! You don’t need to do that. I can switch on my computer and watch it online, you know!!!” – whereupon they have to power up yet another kilowatt-guzzling device in the same room as the already-on TV. The compu’er invariably has inferior sound and visual output to the TV, which was designed for prolonged periods of watching. Then there are people who hover around with their laptops strapped permanently to their side who seem to take great delight in walking into a room where the radio is on and going, “Stop! Turn that off. We can listen to that online!!!” Then someone has to go and find the remote to turn off the radio (usually left on standby), then wait while the computer powers up before “clicking on” the website from which the radio station can be listened. Backward? No…!

These days everything must be “online” or it isn’t worth a look in, apparently. Simply everything has to have a website attached to it. I wager these days the most common letter in the English language is not ‘e’ but ‘w’. Double-you-double-you-double-you; that’s all you ever hear these days. As if that makes it smart, or cool, or something. Newspapers – online. TV reports – online. Board games – online. Telephone conversations – online. Socialising and catching up with friends – online. It’s fast becoming a sedate old life. The only things I don’t think they’ve discovered how to put online are Sleeping, Eating, and Urination. But watch this space.

I went to a library (the ones that stock books, not computers - remember those?) the other day, and my browsing led me to stumble upon a lovely book of pictures. It was a book all about architectural sketches through the ages – from Leonardo da Vinci right the way through to modern day designers such as Zaha Hadid and Santiago Calatrava. The style of drawing and the techniques used varied dramatically over the centuries but the most fascinating thing about all the designers featured was that each used a simple ‘pen and pencil drawing’ to “work things out”: to see, to think, to design. And from the initial sketch came the great building.

The most basic act of human creativity is almost always most naturally carried out with these simple tools. Tool 1: pen. Tool 2: paper. Writers, artists, engineers, architects, inventors, illustrators, carpenters: basically anyone worth knowing does all their ‘thinking work’ using these simple tools. No computers, no mouse, no keyboard, no fancy peripherals – and certainly no fancy digital software. People who think they need these things to come up with the goods are sadly lacking in inspiration. The book showed me that.

Yes, we’ve got fancy software to help us refine designs and to “mess about” with our initial idea or concept, but too often I think we use technology and modern media as an excuse for ‘a poor sketch’, or indeed, no sketch at all. I made the horrible realisation that I had ‘no sketch at all’ in my life when I saw that book – it’s too easy to do everything with ‘the click of a mouse’ without ever really seeing anything; to ingest everything but simultaneously to produce nothing useful at the end of my mouse-clicking labours. And the simple reason for this being that the Internet and the advent of ‘online everything’ was quite literally sapping me of (a) my time, and (b) any creative energy I had. I wanted to go straight home and lob my computer out the window!

You see, the Internet revolution means it is now possible to spend no time being truly creative or original at all. We tend to think (or are led to believe by ‘The Media’) that being online is going to make our lives better, more culturally rich, more easy, more efficient – when the reality is, it can rob us of all our ‘creative’ time. Computers can therefore be the very enemy of creativity. For one thing computers are designed and based around logic – lists, formulae, series, things in sequence. People who interact with computers tend to exploit them for these idiosyncrasies. Creative, holistic thought on the other hand tends to come from the opposite side of the brain – the right side – which doesn’t deal in lists, programmes, sequences, and so on, but in pictures and ‘wholes’. In other words computers are by their nature very left side of the brain-centric.

I am not a Luddite or a technophobe – computers and onlineness can help us and can save us time – but too often I think that we are fast migrating in the wrong direction, moving further away from what it was that computers were originally designed to do. At work I’ve seen people who think they “aren’t doing work” when they aren’t physically strapped to their computer, and who seem at a loss as to what to do without one in front of them.

Certainly from my own experience, it is now possible to spend a whole day strapped to a computer without learning anything you originally set out to learn nor really having been inspired by anything worth being inspired by. Sometimes our most lucid moments are those when we just sit with everything digital switched off and a pencil and paper in our hands.

Unfortunately what the e-revolutionaries have failed to realise is that there is still a gaping disparity between what we are led to believe is the place we live in these days (the ‘digital age’, the ‘e-world’) and the actual reality of the thing, which is a deeply explorable physical world. A world of trees, muscle, sky, flow, birds, boats, metal, soil, pen, and paper. Well, it was the last time I looked anyway…

Rant 3: Children In Supermarkets

2007-10-08T11:54:00.000+01:00

As the old Victorian adage goes, “Children should be seen and not heard”. Well, I’d like to go one stage further in that sentiment and propose that children should neither be seen, nor heard. Especially in “super”markets.

Nobody likes going to do the weekly food shop at the best of times. It’s mundane, dull, dreary and fraught with potential stresses on the human body. Claustrophobia, trip hazards, trolleys bashing into the legs of the unwary pedestrian; that sort of thing. Not to mention the queues. For me, personally it’s a rant waiting to happen – and these days I can usually feel my heartbeat surging within the first few yards of the veg aisle.

So why IS it – please someone tell me why IS IT! – that parents INSIST upon bringing their snot-nosed little blighters out and about to do the weekly shop with them? Nowadays it is not a rarity to have some child absolutely howling their demonic way down the Cheese & Milk aisle, but more a commonplace fact of life. When was the last time you went shopping to your local Sainsbury’s or Asda where you WEREN’T deafened by the cacophonic caterwauling of some troublesome toddler, bawling its way down the aisles and demanding chocklat? They’re everywhere. ‘All I came in for was some cheese and a loaf of bread and what do I have to put up with?’ – “MWAAAAAHHH! MWAAAAHHHH!! MWAHHHHHH!!!” right in my lughole. ‘Oh Lord, what have I done to deserve this?’ I ask, looking skyward. I may soon have to invest in a pair of earplugs.

At weekends it’s worse. Much worse. At weekends you not only get the howling wean and its doting mother thinking that their baby/toddler/child is adding something to the overall shopping experience, but you get the whole entourage. That is: mother, father, child one, child two, and obligatory baby. All are fidgeting. All look bored. All are whingeing. All are clogging up the aisles with their presence when one representative from the family could easily have gone in alone and done it themselves. That’s five times more people trying to bash their way through the hideous queues than is necessary. It’s like these havoc-wreaking families say, “Oh goody! Saturday! And you know what that means, young Jordan and Kayleigh? It’s our day out at the supermarket! What fun!”

Child abuse more like. For not only can I not stand the sound of screaming kids rushing up and down the supermarket playing with things they shouldn’t be touching, and generally wailing, but I am pretty sure they can’t be having much fun either. “Call this a day out? Not much!” their bored faces seem to be saying. At weekends (and any other time of the week for that matter) children want to be outside playing with their friends and getting muddy – not wandering round air-conditioned aisles listening to pan-pipe-moods Ricky Martin and pondering the merits of mascarpone cheese and sun-blushed vine ripened tomatoes. You see it just doesn't make any sense, and in doing so annoys everyone present. Are the children learning anything? No. Are they having fun? No. Are they going to be rewarded for their screeching efforts with a gargantuan bar of obesity-forming chocklat and a tin of E-number-laden "fizzy pop"? Why of course!

And then there are newborn babies. These surely bring my pulse rate over the 100 mark. The piercing shriek of milk-starved, nappy-saturated young Sammy is enough to bring down the strip lighting. Oh, annoying doting mother – cannot you see that your wee baby would far rather be asleep at home in his nursery or out for some fresh air in his pram? But no! – you’d rather bury him in carrots and cauliflower and a sack of cat litter and 25 tins of baked beans. No wonder he’s howling!

No – children should neither be seen nor heard in the supermarket. It’s an adult place. They’ll get plenty of opportunity to waste their lives in supermarkets when they grow up. Get a grip parents!

ANNIE

Rant 2: BBC Six O'Clock News For Dummies v.2.1

2007-10-03T20:37:00.000+01:00

Back in March of this year...

I have just finished watching the BBC Six O’clock News for the first time in about a year, and all I can say is…"What???!!"

It seems that times have changed both in broadcasting and in the way we speak and address each other. It was like watching something in a foreign language.

I thought: Ah, this’ll be good – I’ll watch the good old BBC News for half an hour and get an idea of what’s going on in the world, with pictures for a change. Well, if that was the News, then I don’t know what sort of people make it up and I honestly don’t think I’m missing much by not having a TV.

The supposed 'top' news item was pictures of truckloads of turkeys being taken to some warehouse to be slaughtered, and a minister telling us that "as long as we cook the meat to at least 70 degrees then it’ll be perfectly safe to eat" (! Excuse me! I think I’ll be the judge of that!). Next it was pictures of a man standing on a dark road watching loads of traffic go past, followed by pictures of a computer screen close-up, showing "1,455,692 signatures – no! Now 1,455,891 signatures!" on an ‘online’ petition by drivers campaigning against a proposed new road tax. Everything has to be ‘online’ these days or it’s not worth reporting. Riveting!

Also, I object to being announced to as though I were in the same room as the newsreader. I don’t want to be talked down to, in that "Now, if you’ve ever considered eating turkey without first checking the cooking instructions then you might want to listen up to this! Because…" tone. It is demeaning, it isn’t interesting, and it doesn’t make me feel any more ‘engaged’ with the news item or the giggle-eyed newsreader.

Then there was an interview in a sandwich shop where a plump and burly lady who made sandwiches all day was complaining about the new campaign to offer employees flexible working – "We do most our business in rush hour so I need all the employees I can get at busy times to make sandwiches – I can’t have people waiting for hours to get a sandwich, they’ll go elsewhere," she commented. Very incisive.

The bit of footage that followed showed - I kid you not - two halves of a sandwich – one of which was fully laden with fillings, the other with a mere wafer-thin slice of ham. The reporter then used the sandwich analogy to explain to the viewers that while some employees can get lots of flexible working, others have very little.

I also watched as the same reporter then went on to quiz an ordinary woman in the street about the new proposals for flexible working hours. Her response? "Oh yeah, I mean, that would be great, if you had a hen night or something then it’d be good if you could use it for a bit of recovery time the next day, you know, to come in a bit later the next morning…ha ha ha!" Still, in this politically c'rect world, everybody's opinion counts.

Next I had to watch about 7 minutes of footage going into all the detail of Camilla Parker-Bowles’s supposed planned hysterectomy, in which doctors and reporters and ‘experts’ told me how long she would be off work, and how many other women have had the operation this year, and how soon she could expect to get back to her regular ‘schedule’. - All this despite the fact that the op itself was a good few weeks away.

Is this all I am to expect in the way of News? I asked myself, about halfway through the bulletin. A petition, a womb, and a sandwich? But there was more. A good ten minutes were devoted to the next item, which was all about The Police (the band, not the Constab) reforming as a group. Wow! A sentence would have sufficed for the avid music fan, but no – they had to string it out with interviews with a bunch of fawning Americans jumping up and down with joy, and old footage of Sting back in the '80s, then they appeared to turn the whole item into a mini music feature all about boy bands reforming to make money. A new figure emerged on screen. Who’s this? I thought. It was Phil Collins from the band Genesis. Apparently they (or ‘it’ as the reporter insisted on calling the bands, in the singular – he may have a point…) are reforming too. So is/are Crowded House. So has/have Take That. Brilliant. I honestly wasn’t sure now whether I was watching the BBC News or just some MTV '100 Greatest Bands' documentary.

Then there was more – this time a piece on how we "like to book our package holidays on the Internet now rather than go to a travel agent", along with a reporter taking us through the steps on a white computer just in case we didn’t know how. Apparently more and more of us are taking more exotic holidays and booking not the whole package but flights and hotels separately, or even just flights themselves. Some of us are even taking more than one such holiday each year. Wow. The reporter grinned at me as though he was enlightening the human race with this item that was deemed to be 'newsworthy'.

My patience by now slightly thinned by the fact that I was wasting 28 minutes of my time watching this, I cringed as the reporters made the all too common hilarious banter between themselves about going to see The Police … “And will you be wearing your tight jeans, George?” - “A-hah-hah-hah-hahh…!” GET ON WITH IT AND TELL ME SOMETHING I NEED TO KNOW, YOU CRETINS!

Some other pictures showed Kate Winslet on a red carpet shaking hands with ordinary punters as she "denied claims that she had ever been on a diet". Again, highly important stuff.

Then the weather ("Get your brollies out! It's raining folks!" - etc, etc, don't get me started...), then more inane and totally unnecessary ‘witty exchange’ between the newsreaders before I was told that that was the end of the Six O’Clock News. Excuse me? Have I missed something? Twenty-eight minutes of celebrity non-news and some total nobody with a tie on the telly telling me how to book a flight on the Internet! More like: chit-chat, pointless speculation, and dull social commentary on some of the most banal facets of human life: this truly was BBC NewsLite©!

Rant 1: Pedestrian Hazards In The Shipping Lane

2007-10-03T17:59:00.000+01:00

Pedestrians. Pavement. Bus stops. Human traffic. Such a simple collection of objects. And yet nearly always arranged in such a fashion as to cause a hazard to shipping. Can somebody please tell me - Why oh why oh why oh WHY - do people INSIST upon standing in the very middle of the allocated one metre of pavement whilst waiting for a bus? Why do people INSIST upon standing RIGHT in the middle of the pedestrian walkway, which is heaving with frustrated pedestrian traffic moving in both directions, apparently completely oblivious to the way in which they are impeding progress?

Do they think that because they're taking public transport - how very green! - then they somehow have a divine right to hog all the pavement space in the immediate vicinity of the perspex shelter? I walk everywhere - and FAST - and never wait for buses, so I cannot understand this.

"Huhhh Betty, that's yer 23 comin alonnng nooo!....here it's. Numbur 23. S'comin noo, 23, OK?"
"Huhhh, Ah'v been waitin lonnng enough for thaat yin Wulma. See - is that a 12 comin alonng noo?"
"Hhhhhhh...nooo, that's no ma bus. Can ye see the 34? Thaht's whit Ah'm after. The 34. 34...."
[Shuffle, shuffle. A walking stick or umbrella lunges upwards. An eye is nearly poked out. A fast-walking pedestrian is nearly impaled. OWCH!]

Can't this banter be had from the privacy and comfort of the allocated bus shelter? To me it seems downright stupid (not to mention rude) that old Betty and Maisie and Jummy and Sharon with her 4 perambulators and 10 bags of BhS shopping should be hogging the WHOLE pavement, for the spectator sport of bus watching. Cannot they SEE that people are flying into them at a rate of knots and that they're causing untold amounts of violent rage?

It's discourteous. You wouldn't park your car in the middle of the highway if you wanted to stop and check the map, or to see where you were (or would you??) - so why is it that people feel the need to "park" themselves at a point which is equidistant from both the kerb and the wall/fence/railings/shop front? - i.e. slap BANG in the middle! For every pedestrian to wallop into. The pavement traffic then comes to a complete standstill, and it's all the fault of a few old lazybones who cannot be bothered to get out the way.

Many's the time I've nearly stacked a bus-ditherer in this manner. Frail old ladies, iPodin' students, besuited businessmen - they're all to blame. And do you know what? - These discourteous bus stop attendees seem entirely oblivious to the fact that I'm even there! I growl usually and mutter 'k'Sake!' - like they're even listening. It's like all they can focus on is one thing - the next NUMBER 32 BUS - and they are blinkered to the existence of anything moving or stationary that doesn't resemble that bus.

So, bus-stop-waiting people of our shared pavements - please do us rushed pedestrians a favour and stand out of the way of the human traffic!
ANNIE

Rantology

2007-10-03T17:42:00.000+01:00

Rantology is the study of rants. Rantology is a way of life. It is the way in which pent-up, emotionally aggravated individuals who have a lot going on in their brains in this busy, modern world, discharge some of that grief upon a shaken audience. A rant is more than a statement or an outburst; it is a question. It begs some participation not only on the part of the deliverer (the ranter), but also on the part of the recipient (rantee). We rant to shake up the world. We rant to make it better. We rant to make people think. We rant because we're annoyed, angry, frustrated, somehow intellectually and morally superior. Shakespeare's oft-quoted line, 'To be, or not to be' - becomes (in today's world) - 'To rant, or not to rant: that is the question' - with the former usually being the likely outcome of the dilemma.

'Every day is a winding road' - so said the tousle-haired rocktress of hillbilly pop, Sheryl Crow. Rantology says, joyfully, 'Every day is another rant' - and life is instantly better.

Without further ado (and I can scarcely restrain my already overly-eager fingers on the keyboard), let us get started. Long live rantology!

Summer

2007-06-22T10:34:00.000+01:00

Summer grasses...

2007-06-22T10:30:00.000+01:00

What on earth has happened to our summer??