Let’s Talk About Text…

I wrote this blog AGES ago (way back when we texted rather than twittered).  It’s amazing how quickly technology becomes passé. Anyway, no matter how old school it is, I thought I’d share it with you! 😉

Much has been written in terms of social commentary about our massive consumption rate as a society: be it food, fashion or fornication. What we want, we want now without the messy before and afters that come with thinking too much about the rest of the journey. However, Jamie Oliver made us question cheap as chips chickens and somewhere in our conscious we are beginning to wonder whether our £1 vests are really such a good investment.

So what about our fickleness in the face of love and relationships? At the hope of not sounding too much like my technology enraged Mother, why have we sold ourselves the idea that fingers are better at doing the talking?

Don’t get me wrong; I have much aligned the benefits of e-mail to my Ma. A short message here and there has much served the purpose of maintaining friendships once thought beyond their sell-by-date and rekindled work arrangements at the click of a mouse. And, don’t get me started on Facebook, not simply a face-fad but truly a sociological renewal of how we communicate.

The quibble that I would like to maintain is that of the text message. Or more accurately, the text relationship. I recently gave my number to a rather dashing young chap. Henceforth we duly exchanged the rapid flurry of…beep,beep ‘Hey gd looking!…beep, beep…’Cud I cu again?. In days this escalated to the more flirtatious…beeb, beep ‘What RU wearin’? (Not really, but it’s old school sauce, so I thought I’d pop it in) it was more like…beep, beep ‘Do you fancy a beer…or 3?’….’Yes’…’Does that mean u want me 2 get u drunk?’ However, it was not long before this initial bombardment had encountered a rather more banal status-quo (as in balance, not the band) and culminated in an entirely more subdued…beeb, beep ‘How was UR day?’ This continued until I finally ran out of patience. We still hadn’t even had that beer.

Suddenly it struck me; he and I had in fact experienced the ups and downs, how’s yer father to the old hat, all without the presence of even one date! How wrong to experience a relationship entirely in the subterfuge of mobile airways.

So, I beg you boys (and ladies too) with your adept texting thumbs…repent and pick up the phone and dial and court one another vis-à-vis. There is a great deal more in the twirl of the hair or a chastened lick of the lips than err there will be in a …beep, beep…. Sorry, that’s my phone, I wonder if it’s a text from…

London Scottish

May I first dispel any myths about Scots and Mars bars? Oh naughty…no, I’m not being rude, whatever you may get up to in your spare time. Quite simply, I’ve never had one, nor has anyone I’ve ever known or indeed do my close family or friends eat them as a mid-morning snack, or heaven forbid, for breakfast. The Scots are many things, but if we wanted to consume that many calories, we’d drink them instead…

It’s a funny thing being a Scot in London. Stuck between the ripple of amusement from these Southerners when I let slip a ‘wee’. Not literally of course, but my speech is so peppered with the word (I think it comes from a need to perpetuate my Scottishness) that I recently managed to blurt out in a meeting that I was going for a ‘wee wee’. ‘Um, not like I’m 5 years old and I say wee-wee I stuttered, I mean I’m going for a small wee’. Clearly, that didn’t make it any better; it was still far too much information.

So with that, entirely embarrassing and unnecessary story out of the way, what then of the other myths about Scots? Far be it for me to talk for a whole nation, but much like the Mars myth, nor are we miserly. We have far too much good sense for that. We are always the first to get a round in (as every good Scot knows, the first round is usually the smallest and least outlandish, the top shelf only gets a look in later).

I’m going to keep this short, so I’ll miss out the tough oats to fry like sporting prowess, political standoffs/scrutiny or philandering and our dear old Sean Connery and stick to; Do we really dislike the English that much?   Don’t be daft, how could we possibly, when you make us look so damn brilliant in the eyes of the rest of the world. Many a merit comes from being an underdog.

It is, obviously, no myth of course that we always love a bit of good humoured banter… (and really, I do love an Englsh crumpet!).

Feline Fine…

I read recently about the latest trend in Japan of Cat Cafes. Apparently, they’re huge there right now. They are exactly as the name suggests; coffee shops where people go to have a mocha in a cat Mecca. The reasoning behind them is that most Tokyo apartments are too small or don’t allow people to own pets; so overworked, stressed-out workers are longing for a bit of the feline touch.

As Japan tends to lead the world in innovation: think built in chopstick fans and the bra that turns into a bag, could they have something about sharing your brew with a Burmese?

There’s actually been loads of research to suggest that having a cat not only reduces stress and the onset of depression but it can also make you less likely to suffer heart disease or heart attacks. Weirdly, the same links haven’t been made with owning a dog. Perhaps some of these benefits are down to the power of the purr. Amazingly, cat-chat creates vibrations between 25 and 140 Hertz, the exact range that has been shown to produce all manner of therapeutic remedies in humans, from pain-relief to muscle repair. Clearly, though that is something us girlies may have known for a while!

So, these kitty cafes got me thinking… could they be exactly what stressed out Londoners need too, seeing as it’s apparently what all the cool cats are doing? The post-election blues (and of course yellows), the recession and the fact that this winter is certainly not sunny side up could all be gently stroked away with a gentle purr and a grande frappe. Just think a Siamese could sit easily in the extras between soya and syrup in Starbucks.

However, if the coffee conglomerates don’t read my blog and pick up on this pussy fad, perhaps I’ve found my career plan B. You know, if presenting goes to the dogs.

And at least this meow, meow would unquestionably be legal.

Playing the Field… (and wannabe WAGs)

Up until about 5 years ago, I thought wag was what a puppy dog’s tail did.

I recently went to an England match at Wembley (apologies to my Scottish forefathers but I got free tickets!). As you would expect there were cheers when the home players came out of the tunnel, that is, for all those apart from Wayne Rooney, John Terry and Ashley Cole. When these three stepped onto the pitch, pantomime boos echoed round the stadium and I’m pretty sure I saw someone throw a tomato. I turned to the boys and said knowingly “it’s because they cheated, isn’t it” and felt secretly delighted at the predominantly male crowd’s scorn of the trio’s adulterous ways. Then the boys solemnly said “Nah, it was because they were rubbish at the world cup”. Oh.

However, there must be something in the amount of grief Rooney has got from the football crowd since his dalliances with a Granny stripper and more recently the £200 call girl. Even if their moral compass is slightly off (it may just be schoolboy banter – see the Inbetweeners for telly evidence) at least it is switched on. Us girls, however, don’t really seem to give a monkeys. In fact, there are hordes of girls vying for a play with their balls; practically scratching each other’s eyes out to be another footballers bit on (the) side. But, not only that, they also aspire to be the wife’s and girlfriend’s that are being cheated on in the first place. Eh?

I’m not saying that all footballers are rats nor that all WAGs are, well WAGs (Wanting Attention Girls) but the stories have now become so commonplace that it seems that the footballers not playing away are, in fact, the minority.

Louis Vuitton and some serious sparklers go along way to sweetening the appeal and of course there’s the fame, or infamy depending on your role. But is it worth it? It takes a whole lot of time and effort to become a WAG, I mean there’s even a special Facebook group dedicated to finding the location of potential players, or should I say ‘playas’. There’s the hair extensions, the frocks, the posh clubs… all to bag yourself a man whose beauty regime probably beats your own.

Then, once you’ve scored and you have had your celebrity wedding in OK! only to find out that your man has been caught out of his strip with a stripper. The shame. Or perhaps not, because this is when it get’s really interesting. The papers go crazy, the paps are on your doorstep and there’s the potential of a healthy settlement. You might even get your own perfume.

All that said though, even with a vague understanding of aggregates, I’m not sure anyone ends up the winner.