The wonderings, ponderings and other 'ings' of me. Lifestyle, review, news and opinion posts. Chic with a hint of sarcasm... hopefully!

Monday 28 June 2010

IF...

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are concerned with how the budget affects me and you,
If you can trust it’ll work itself out when all men doubt it,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait out the queues, not be tired by waiting,
Being lied to by governments, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated for skin colour, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too cocky, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream of curing illness, not make dreams your master;
If you can think on terrors impact - not make thoughts your aim;
If you can watch a golfers truimph and Cricket's disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by Chavs to make a trap for fools,
Or feel your safety to travel broken,
Rebuild your courage with worn-out tools:

If you can make a heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of Poker’s hand,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
Never breathe a word of your lost grand;
If you can buy from a vendor, the big issue
Long after most of your wage is gone,
And pray with everything that is in you
This way his life won’t carry on.

If you can talk with politicians and keep your virtue,
Or walk with celebrities - not lose the common touch,
If both the evil and good get fairness from you,
If all want your company, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With Usain Bolts worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Copyright © Alice Toby-Brant 2010 All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: OBVIOUSLY Props go to Rudyard Kipling as we all know he wrote the original, I just gave it a little 2015 remix.
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Monday 21 June 2010

The Gingereveolution: CAUTION do not read if you are easily offended.

Pub: 21/06/2010

My husband made a comment the other day. I wasn’t even going to tell you, it’s a bit weird to say the least.  But I don’t think a blogger and her followers should have a secret this big, so here goes. We were out shopping and suddenly he uttered the strangest words "Y know I think this year is going to be The Year of the Hot Ginger".

I don’t think I could have been more gobsmacked if he had said ‘Y’know, I think I want to have sex with goats as well as you from now on’. With all due respect to the flame haired brigade, this is not something I thought I would ever hear, much less out of the mouth of my own husband.  You can get all PC on me if you want to, but even Gingers feel the same way about mating with their own kind.

Whilst I contemplated where exactly you send someone with this level of sexual depravity, the little 1950’s wife (complete with house coat, cosmopolitan and retro hoover) popped on my shoulder and reminded me that I had said for better or worse a few years ago.  As such I should at least try and see where he would get such an alien concept. So I womanned up, I turned my head in the direction he was looking and then I saw her.  6ft tall, slender, really pretty face and hair as red as the sole of a Louboutin (Okay maybe not that red but I had to get his site link on here somehow). It must be a one off I decided, a freak of her type’s nature but then I did a little digging... And I think I might I agree with him.

Something has happened in the ginger gene pool. Gone are the mass of freckles, straw-like consistency to hair and the translucent complexion. Now, much like that brilliant documentary evolution, they’ve become something altogether different from the redheads of yesteryear. I guess it was bound to happen eventually, any species that becomes aware of its own impending extinction is going to have to do all it can to keep going.  Look at the evidence if you will:

Debra Messing: As I see it, the First Lady of the Ginger People (once described by her Will and Grace co-star as a ‘groin moving woman’). Maybe it’s because she was funny and therefore caught us off guard but like a strawberry blonde Boadicea, she led the way for others of her kind to follow.
Nicole Fox: I guess it wasn’t edgy enough for ANTM to announce a plus size model as winner a few years ago; they had to go even further and announce a ginger winner in cycle 13.

Rachelle Lefevre: That berk who left the world of twilight to do Barney's Version. Okay not the brightest spark in the box but in this picture in particular she’s stunning by anyone’s measure.  I know I’m probably coming off a little gay here, but I’m not honest.

Deborah Ann Woll: This character isn’t even in the True Blood books but it seems the makers of the TV series are in agreement with me and have jumped on the ginger-approving band wagon.
Karen Gillan: Even though the Beeb have been in trouble for calling the latest Dr Who assistant ginger rather than redheaded, they insist they aren’t gingeriest – and with her looks who would be?
Unfortunately, for the heterosexual female, it’s mainly the women folk that have upped their game, but seeing as they are the ones that need to procreate it makes sense for them to have improved in the looks department.

So here’s to them. The ones that went and got all pretty – welcome to the human race girls.

Disclaimer: Oh don’t get your knickers in a twist, It’s called sarcasm. If you’re offended by this I am truly sorry, (but you were warned.)
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Sunday 13 June 2010

How you do solve a problem like the world cup?

Written June 2010

Really! Are we here again? Has it seriously been four years since we forgot about real issues like oil spills, third world debt and the sheer speed in which chavs are reproducing? It is really time to got ourselves all worked up over whether 11 men can come even vaguely close to ‘earning’ their £140,000 per week wage, and actually get the damn ball at the back of the net?

Yeah, yeah, I know. Typical woman, hates football, doesn’t get the off side rule thinks it’s ‘just a game’. But actually I used to get just as involved with shouting at the TV as anyone.  I've thought several times 'well that Rooney may be more closely related to monkeys than the rest of us but he sure can kick a ball' and got more jittery at the thought of penalties than a crack addict in the morning. Many times have I been seen to be swigging a bottle of Budweiser whilst pacing the lounge desperately hoping that if I just want it hard enough Steven Gerard won’t screw it up and we will at least get through to the semi’s.

But this time its different. With all the ridiculous salaries, constant spousal cheating and Edward Terry feeling the pinch of the recession so much that he feels the need to start dealing coke to make ends meet, I think I’m pretty much done with the world cup.

All the acting when tackled gets me going as well. You'd expect the shin bone to be poking through the skin for the amount of 'pain' that is showing across certain footballer's faces. And you know with the same attack, a 9 year old girl would have got up, dusted herself off and continued on her way. Why do we even consider it ‘the beautiful game’, it’s certainly not the majority of the players, (sorry Clancy, but you know your man looks a bit like a lanky horse-faced troll).

In my opinion, other than the fact that it means for those 90 minutes the roads, shops and supermarkets are all eerily quiet, the best thing to come out of the world cup is that the genius who goes by the name of Dizzie Rascal put pen to paper and recorded his version of a football song Shout for England. Even if it is backed by that flipping Cowell, another man who sees himself as a demi-god and gets paid more money than... well everyone I think.

Come on England we need to sort it out,
Put the champs down,
Pull your finger out,
Leave the wags alone,
Set aside your ego,
We're tired of bragging about 40 odd years ago,

My thoughts exactly Diz, never were truer words said.

I say Dizzie for the next England coach. Heck if it wasn’t already too late I would champion a movement backing Dizzie for Prime Minister.

Now, before you pick up your red and white scythes, start welding your pitchforks and prepare yourself for a lynching, try to understand. Football, for me, is like a badly behaved boyfriend, one who has cheated on me countless times and proven again and again he is only going to let me down. But every time he comes back and gives me that cheeky grin, I can feel my heart flutter and I wonder, maybe this time.

And therefore, we all know I am extremely likely to do a full 180 and get all excited about the hoopla should we reach quarter finals. If I think about it hard enough I can feel the prickles up and down my arms and the swelling of pride already.

Now if South Africa could just rid themselves of those stadium based giant mosquitos!
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Sunday 6 June 2010

Pretty F**king Dumb

So my husband has had to leave the room, not because we 've had a fight or that he has a pressing engagement with some mountain bike maintenance but due to my guilty pleasure, E! TV

I have only just got gotten over my fascination with The Hills as I can’t be bothered with the last series.  Watching Barbie and mental Ken and 'is she or isn’t she a coke head and really who the heck cares anymore' Kristen what'sherface is too dull for works now.  Unfortunately for him, rearing its ugly head is a programme that admittedly while a load of tripe I can’t stop watching. Pretty Wild.


Now obviously being sat here slagging them off at the same time as watching them reeks of hypocrisy, I get that.  However for sheer trash reality, their opinions and the way they are portrayed is laughable and inspires me at least to put something down in writing.

Lexy or Alexis (the criminal one) is my most likely to win stupidest person on TV. ‘Allegedly’ -and I say that with heavy sarcasm- one of the bling-ring (a group of stupidly rich kids in L.A who got bored and robbed a bunch of celeb’s houses) she’s more pretty superficial than pretty wild and genuinely unless she is a fantastic actor, I have never seen such a clueless girl in my life. From the first episode to the last comment she makes, she shows herself to have little in the way of life skills:

Exhibit A: When she went to Cabo it seemed she was more worried about enjoying a date with some guy and bragging about how great she is rather than concentrate on the fact that she violated parole and may get sent down for between 6 months and 6 years. According to her teenage angst cries the worst thing that happened to her was for someone to actually confront her about her alleged involvement with the little thieves which, if that is the case, just goes to show how spoilt she really is.

Tess (the adopted one) is completely self involved and has such a selfish streak, you can just tell she is used to being centre of attention.

Exhibit B: At the afore mentioned holiday to Cabo - What's that? it wasn’t a holiday.  It was a trip to host a charity event for Haiti was it?  Funny how no charity name was addressed and we know nothing other than ‘we raised a ton of money’ - eloquently put Alexis.  Anyway at the 'trup' abroad Tess managed to let it slip to the paps that she and Alexis were away from home when they had been told not to mention it to anyone.  And all just because she was jealous of being left behind when Alexis had her date. Alexis’s lawyer consequently found out and she got hauled back home.  Not that she shouldn’t have, but Tess’ actions speak volumes. No matter how loudly she professes to be in her family’s corner, something tells me that she will always look out for number one more than anyone else. Maybe it's because she has abandonment issues from being adopted or maybe it's because she too has been spoilt her whole life and we now get to see it for ourselves.

The third girl, Gabby, is actually a pretty good kid who opted to go to public school rather than deal with the ad hoc teachings her mum gives.  These are lesson based solely on the teachings of ‘The Secret’ a book that, while I believe holds some truth any moron can tell shouldn’t replace a normal high school curriculum. But as the youngest, looks up to the others and is encouraged to be a star anyway she can by her mother so honestly, how long is it until she’s arrested for thinking the rules don’t apply to her as well?  Maybe I’m being a bit harsh, I honestly have all my fingers and toes crossed that she can learn from the myriad of mistakes the rest of her family are making but its not looking likely.

The thing of it is, these are just kids and really the culprit is a mum.  A woman who cannot see passed her own desire to be rich and famous and actually give these girls what they really need to help them along the way to adulthood. Prone to the odd tantrum herself, Andrea Neiers has a real problem with trying to be these girl’s friends rather than their parent or guardian. She has set no boundaries for them at all, is timid when offering advice and says she is constantly proud of her layabout, non-educated, immature offspring. Just when I started to think she was getting the fact that she has screwed up as a mum and may actually turn it around, in practically the next scene she is taking Tess' naked picture to send them off to playboy (aided and encouraged by Gabby) and watching on as her eldest two show their first time dates how they play on their very own ‘stripper pole’.

Obviously, it's easy to comment when you are so far removed from the situation and appointing myself judge and jury over people I don’t know, probably makes me just as crazy as they are. But the difference here is I don’t have my own TV show (and thank God for that, have you lot know all my dirty secrets, no way!). 


If you put yourself and your family on a television programme and people chose to watch it, they are  then entitled to develop an opinion of your lifestyle and choices. It is also their right to express this opinion as long as its not slanderous, which I think this isn't.   Personally, it just feels good to get all this off my chest.

Now, if you will excuse me I’m just off to change my name before someone exercises their right to express their opinion of me all over the Internet
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Bike World Widow

I have a great husband, honestly. He’s thoughtful, funny, doesn’t mind that I’m full on woman crazy and lets me get my way a good 90% of the time. 

But it’s Saturday night and I am in, writing this and watching Sex and the City repeats, because he’s working on his bike.
Purdy aint it?

Now it is apparently a great bike (Orange 5) and it does have a sparkly black paintwork.  And true, I would rather he have this kind of mistress than a mistress kind of mistress.  But it does seem I have entered a world where rear derailleurs and cables rule and I’m a second class citizen because I have legs not wheels. 

Hearing the clack-clack-clacking of gears whirring in my kitchen means I know we are not going out to dinner. Not snuggling on the sofa with a glass and wine and definitely not doing anything else worth writing about. 

If I were being fair and balanced I would say I am so pleased he has a hobby. It’s healthy, it gets him out of my hair and means that when he blows £500 on a frame (seriously not even a whole bike, just a frame!) he doesn’t moan when I accidentally buy a £200 handbag. 

And though you may expect otherwise I do feel a bit angry at her when he gets home from a weekend away and find that the rear mec (is that spelt right?) hanger fell off, which means he couldn’t ride her anyway!

The treacherous tease!
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