Diary of a Grammatical Misfit

Seriously gorgeous man on the train the other day. He’s not a regular commuter but I have seen him before and look forward to seeing him again.

I usually sleep on the train and wake up at London Bridge slightly fuggy and feeling rather stupid but a bit of discreet staring and mild fantasising first thing in the morning is much more condusive to an active brain.

So, man-on-train, thank you for being a good substitute for my (sadly missed) 3 shot americano. 

Shame there can’t be on-board entertainment every day.

What I do for my family!

I hurt in almost every muscle group I know of and I have bruises all over me - all for the sake of my sister’s new flat.

Yesterday we moved all my sister’s (and boyfriend’s) belongings half a mile down the road from a ground floor flat to a first floor flat. Should NOT have been that tough. Except for two things - her ground floor flat is below street level (which I should have remembered giving us problems when we moved her into it, since it was late January and ICY!!!) and her new flat is, in fact, on the second floor, not the first.

So three flights of stairs, 12 car loads, 2 sofas, 1 flatpack wardrobe, 3 assorted tables, 1 double bed, and a few scraped doorways later…

 OWWWWWWW

I went to see A Portrait of London in Trafalgar Square last night.

Postcard-type images accompanied by music and short films projected onto a huge screen at the base of Nelson’s Column after dark on a crisp autumn’s evening. It was certainly atmospheric with the images on the screen reflected in the water and people huddled in their coats staring at the screen.

Would have been more atmospheric if it wasn’t for the near constant accompaniment of whispered (and loudly spoken) comments like “that was weird” and “what is this one all about?”

Annoying though the talking was, I do sympathise. The pictures were occasionally beautiful and often thought provoking but the short films generally rather bewildering. This probably wouldn’t have bothered me because I have to admit that I always expect to find short films mostly confusing. I’m a sucker for a programme at most things - hoping that if the director can tell me what the film’s about then I might stand an outside chance of spotting the meaning when I watch it.

Unfortunately though, in the absence of any helpfully suggestive programme - the comments from nearby audience members kind of stuck. My favourite explanation was for the first film of the night which was described by ‘man at rear right’ to ‘man who arrived late’ as being about “a geezer with took off his tag and goes off with fit bird (woman) and clever dog (actual pet)”. Good summary, although I’m not sure he fully captured the surreal essence of the film - for instance, the escape from the armed guards in a black cab that turned into a rocket…. 

Before I commit myself to this opinion I should say, I love watching Top Gear. I love driving and I love the concept of fast cars and just how gosh darned beautiful they are. But for me, it stops at loving the concept. There is absolutely no incy wincy part of me that can justify spending a 6 figure sum on a car.

What else could you buy with that money? - I could have flats in beautiful cities around the world. I could even buy one in London if I was really lucky. I’d prefer that to a massively expensive lump of metal any day! Especially one that if I really drove it how it wants to be driven, I’d probably crash within a few months. It’s a bit like spending the money on the afore-mentioned flats and sitting in them playing with matches.

Take the brand new Bentley Azure that’s parked outside my office at the moment. The new toy of one of my boss’s friends. Within a minute of its arrival a small group of middle aged men had gathered to gawk. The owner made a ‘joke’ about it being my boss’s (it really is a joke - his wife would john wayne bobbit him first - sensible woman!!) and he was congratulated by complete strangers.

Now the proud owner and my boss have got the roof down and have gone for a spin. How much of a spin they’ll get in the West End on a Friday afternoon is debatable - my guess is that they’ll be lucky to hit 20mph. Not even enough to ruffle their hair.

What is the point?

I have real problems knowing what to call myself these days. And I don’t mean my name (I’m not gaga yet) but my ‘type’.

To most people a 26 year old female is a woman but I cannot quite bring myself to think of people my own age as men and women. I don’t think of males my age as boys but tend toward the vague term ‘guy’ which in my mind sits between boy and man. The period of time that males are ’guys’ varies according to how old I am - 18 year olds for example, used to be guys but at some point in the last 8 years they were relegated to boys again. At the moment it encompasses roughly all those between 20 and 30. 

Females cause more problems since there’s no compromise term. I’m not foolish enough to call people my age girls but neither am I comfortable describing them as women - I’m just not ready to be in a category with my mother!

In the same way, I HATE being called Madam. The first time I was called Madam rather than Miss, I almost clobbered the shop assistant with the shoes “madam” was trying on. The thought that there might be a newspaper report saying “shop assistant attacked by mad woman” restrained me.

I have a similar reaction when people ask if (or assume that) I’m married.  “What? No! Of course not, I’m only…”

And then comes the awkward pause. I know that it would be perfectly reasonable to be married and even have a couple of brats by the age of 26 so I know I can’t actually complete that sentence. Righteous indignation was justified when I was 17 - the first time I remember being asked my marital status - and it worked at 20 and even (just about) at 23. But not 26.

Darn it!

When does that definitive moment come I wonder? Will I wake up one morning singing “Man, I feel like a woman”? Or will I just get tired of flinching and accept that no matter how old you feel, you can’t stop people treating you the way you really are?!

I always knew I wasn’t well travelled but it really seems obvious looking at this map of places I’ve been:

It’s a cool website though. And it makes my ambition to go to more places quite a few degrees stronger!

If you’d like to do one yourself go here.

And if, like me, you think it might prove a little shaming, then try booking a flight somewhere instead!!

I went to a holiday camp last weekend. Technically I think it called itself a resort of some sort but considering the organised activities and the scary introduction of the ‘team’ when we arrived, I’m going to call it a holiday camp.

It was an 80s themed weekend but the overtones of Hi-de-Hi were far more evocative of the decade than anything else they threw at us! The Madonna tribute was good but Music and Ray of Light should’ve been dropped, if not for authenticity then for the sake of my eardrums. In between attempts at 80s they stuck to their normal weekend formala, highlights of which included Bingo, shuffleboard, line dancing and drinking. Lots of drinking. With frequent loundspeaker reminders that house doubles were only £3. Wish they’d gone for 80s prices - I drink mostly in central London and even so I thought that was a bit pricy. Especially with mixers at £1.15 extra.

The weekend as a whole though was a real giggle and my friends and I had lots of fun. As we are nearly all in mid-late 20s we were by far the youngest group there and we were greeted at the gate by a man who stuck his head in the car window and said “Ooooooh, young people! We’ve never had so many young people here before!” I think he based this statement on us and a large group of women in their early 40s.

This man was narrowly pipped for creepiness factor though by what was happening when we left… Christmas. They were decking the halls with plastic Christmas trees and tinsel on October 22nd for their first Christmas themed break this week.

Christmas for three months solid. I think the staff must all be Satan worshippers on their days off. And seriously allergic to turkey.

I had a discussion with a friend on Sunday about the need for duvet days.

I really wanted to spend a day lounging around, lying in and then watching tv while deep cleansing and hanging up my clothes. I’d have liked to book a haircut in the afternoon since I have no idea how I’m ever going to get my hair cut before Christmas, let alone before I stop being able to see through my fringe. 

But it’s a bit of a moral dilemma coz it’s not actually my boss’s fault that I’ve been away the last two weekends and have the next 5 fully booked. So it’s really not his problem that I really wanted to use Monday as my ‘do nothing’ day and hadn’t thought to mention it to him before I went away on Friday.

But I really really wanted it. And when my friend told me that she’d taken Monday off to read a book in bed, I could’ve quite cheerfully thrown her off a cliff in my jealousy. I decided to call my boss on Sunday evening and ask to take Monday off. Duvet day for me.

Only I didn’t call, I started fretting about everything I needed to do at work and wimped out.

And then I got a stomach bug and spent Sunday night and Monday morning clinging to the toilet bowl and thinking that this was even further removed from my duvet than my blooming desk is! And I don’t think my hairdresser would’ve appreciated me turning up looking slightly greener than Kermit.

But I did get my day off. Not even worth pointing out that I should be careful what I wish for.

Goodness knows why, but this morning my brain decided to think about the price I pay for coffee in the mornings. This is not the first time that I’ve ever questionned the value of buying coffee from a shop rather than making do with the instant provided free at the office, but it was the most scary.

I have always managed to justify the spending of £2.30 a day (with the 10th one free - bless ‘em!) but today my brain did some multiplication and started shouting at me. Average cost of £10.35 per week and with 50 weeks work in a year that’s £517.50 per year.

Over £500 per year on coffee?! I could go on holiday for that.

I’d better get some nice brochures to stare at in the mornings. Might take away the bitter taste coming from the instant coffee…

Today has answered my question of why bother to have a blog - it’s made me appreciate all the efforts of those people who’ve written their blogs over the years and made me laugh/groan/go “hmmm?”.

I love reading other people’s blogs but I’ve hardly ever bothered commenting about those that are good, just accepted them as entertainment and moved on.

I never thought of them as real people until today.

I really AM that stupid.

Not sure I saw that reason coming, but it will do to be getting on with.