All I Want for Christmas

Today I got caught short! That's to say I was standing on Euston Square platform with the knowledge that the coffee within me wanted to come out very quickly. So I rushed up to Euston station only to find that I had not got 30p in cash to use their facilities. (30p!!!) ((I know 30p!!!)

So I nipped across the road to Friend's House, thinking those Quakers may be quiet, but they may also have a loo! And they did and all was suddenly better. (I'm trying not to be too graphic for those of a nervous bent)

Around the same time I received a text from my sister asking what I wanted for Christmas, and pre-Friends House, it was that I would have loved a free pop-up toilet to use! So I started to think about the simple things in life.

I remember going on an evening with the Scouts when I was about 12, I think I lasted about 4 weeks, and those that know me really well will know I was in the Brownies for a fortnight!!! As a hayfever sufferer I was generally snotty nosed, but we went for a BBQ in some woods and it must have been the season for the pollen my nose likes the least and it became sniff city for my nose. I searched for tissue or hanky to no avail and had to sniff for hours, finally racing home and delving my nose into a handful of Andrex to relieve the stress.

So two examples of when the simple things in life were what I really needed, so I'm going to text my sister back and say what I'd really like is a bit more time with her, we see each other not very often, you see. What I really like is the kind of chat we used to have as kids. I don't need anything glittery (I am gay, so have all the glitter a boy needs) what I really need is some quality time with my big sister.

I hope you can look beyond the gloss of Christmas and find the wood. Maybe what you really need is some time with friends that you have been too busy to see this year, or maybe you just need someone else to do the ironing! Simple can be best.

Get it up

I admit I like to get it up as early as I can! It might need dusting down after spending so long in the cupboard, but I say get it up and put it near a window if you can.

Yes the tree is going up tonight! I love advent, the shops have been telling us since Harvest that Christmas was coming and I'm already tired of buying Christmas biscuits to save for the big day and then scoffing them early, but the tree is something else. The tree is one of the biggies of Christmas.

I remember being allowed to 'do' the tree when I was little and that was the most special things ever, my older sister didn't get a look in! And for me it still holds that magic, but I like to do it by myself, with no one else telling me I've missed a bit... there's time for that at the end, when I will lie on the floor, sofa, table, to check that I haven't got too much of the same colour together or there's a big blank space.

I say take your time over the tree, mine is not real, as it wouldn't last the almost two months it is up. Twelfth night...I laugh in the face of Twelth night ha ha ha...if the tree's still up on Valentine's Day that's good enough for me.

So put on the Christmas music, have a little drink or two, although don't over do the Bailey's or you'll have a tree looking like a dogs' dinner. And as you unwrap each decoration remember where they came from and what they mean to you. I've collected decorations over the years and it's a bit like going through a photograph album with the old,oohhhh I remember buying this at......

So there you go, relax, take your time, and get it up early.......

P.S. Tinsel is so 80s...and is best worn round the head when you are drunk and not put on a tree.

Advent - Something big is coming this way!

DON"T PANIC!!!!!

Christmas is just around the corner and unless you've written all your cards, purchased the entire food section of Waitrose and spent £500 or above on everyone you know then you have failed. It's all over, your Christmas will be rubbish.

Deep breath. Today is Advent Sunday and a time when Christian should be slowing down, that's slowing down and preparing for the coming of Christ. Imagine that slowing down!!!!

Christmas Cards

Where I used to live, for eight years, I received a Christmas card each year to the people who lived in the house before the people I purchased the house from!

So if you haven't spoken or visited some people on your Christmas card list during 2009, should you really be sending them a card. If you wouldn't ring them for a chat, why send a card?Cull the list and reduce the burden! You might get fewer cards next year, but at least the ones you get will be from your friends, and fewer cards means less cardboard... so you could be saving the planet at the same time

more Christmas thoughts soon.

Rights and Responsibilities

I've got a part-time job writing out MPs' expenses; it was either that or working on the next Harry Potter. I'm kidding of course, but as unemployment rises and the number of people facing redundancy increases is it really fair that MPs are claiming for their food, beds, bed linen and even dog food. It's in the rules they scream, but is it really in the spirit of those rules?
Are these people not elected by us to attempt to make the country a better place.
Keith Vaz has a second home in Westminster and a family home in Stanmore, some 12 miles away, I would willingly give up my seat on the tube for him and save the tax payer quite a few pennies.

Can't we get rid of them all and turn the House of Commons into a youth centre, whilst most of us cry over Secret Millionaire and the generosity not just of the millionaires, but of those 'ordinary' people who give time and money to those less fortunate, it's a sad country when those elected to help us cost us more than they shuld. What are they doing with their salaries????

What do you call 50 Mps at the bottom of the sea?
A really good start!

Lost Connection

On Wednesday my phone died. This maybe due to the fact that I was using in the bath whilst wet shaving, and I may possibly have washed it, mixing up my left and right hands. It's a wonder I didn't shave my ear off.

Now I've never been tied to my phone and if you send me a text I tend to treat it a bit like a letter and I'll reply eventually, but suddenly with no phone all of my friends disappear, becasue it's also my address book. I didn't even know my home phone number!!!

Now the phone is back and those lovely people at Orange have sent me a new one, but all the number I saved to the phone and not the sim have gone!!

So when I get a text I usually have to say and you are???????

So save you numbers to the sim and try not to save with your phone and you'll be fine.

I've done my back in.

I only bent down to pick up a pair of pant (my own, on my own floor) and the pain went through me like butter through a knife. I can't even stand u long enough to iron a shirt, and am still sitting in my dressing gown at a little after two in the afternoon. 

But it's good to take a step back from the world every now and then. 

I have sent various emails to workmates and I've even put the washing machine on, although carrying one item at a time to it was arduous. I seem to have lost what little strength I have in my arms; at this rate I'll not be able to open the Baileys!

It's a beautiful day and i've got all the windows open and the breeze is blowing through, remember still in dressing gown.

I might shuffle to the kitchen to make a cup of tea in a moment or I might just sit some more. In this age of laptops with wireless and 24 hours TV we can miss just sitting about and doing nothing, but I heartily recommend it, and suggest you try it before you body says, "Here mate we're stopping now, cos you keep rushing about and we've had enough."

he he turned out nice again innit

All Change

It seems like it's al change at the moment for many of my friends. Some have fallen out of love and found new love; one has come into money and have been jetting off round the world and still more have changed careers and moved into one of the 33 boroughs that we call London.

Change can be a bit scary for some people, you think that you are on solid ground when you suddenly notice that the sands have been shifting and you're a bit further down the beach or in fact closer to the see. You can, of course, try to fight this movement or try and recapture your misspent youth, and with the latter you are certainly well catered for.

Facebook's series of top 5 best records, movies, toys from your youth etc; all help you remember this and as my school friends turn 40, I could spent more time with them than I ever did when when we went to Coppice High School; it wasn't a performing arts school in our day.

I've done some big changes over the last few years, and some have been good and some not so, but I'm sure the wind that the brought them didn't mean me any harm. So if some frigger has moved your cheese, then pop down the shops and get  some more!

Popping into the Bank

Today, thousands of protestors have decended on London, and converged on the bank of England. You have have heard that some have already managed to get on the roof of RBS, and you'll hear lots in the press and on the news about this as the day wears on.

Many bars and shops are boarded up and there are thousands of police here, but what was it like to be there.

Well, my workmate and I popped up to have a look, along with the press and lots of tourists.

For those of you that have ever been to an outdoor concert or to Pride it was rather like that. There was a brass band and music and the sunshine was glorious and if we'd been in Hyde Park I'd have taken out a picnic.

We'd walked through lines of policeman and women on our way in and after ten minutes of so we decided to come away, only to find our path back to work barred.
Each policeman we asked gave us the same advice to keep going left and we had done half a circuit of this cordoned off area, before a more senior police officer told us that we couldn't get out and to watch out for a funnel of people leaving that would let us know which exit had opened, we took this on board, chilled and stood around. However, not everyone was getting this advice and other people around us were becoming stressed and annoyed as they couldn't get back to the office, or to St Paul, depending on whether they were a worker or tourist.

It is strangely very frightening when you are told you can't go where you want to or that you are surrounded by a circle of police officers. Some of you may know that I lived with a policeman for many years and have a lot of respect for the profession, but on all the Pride marches and Section 28 demos I have been on I've never been trapped.

I know the police have a heard job and are trying to control a situation, but if anything is ever going to make me 'kick off' it is the feeling that I am being caged in.

So I hope that the protests pass off peacefully and I hope that those who need to listen do, but it is worth remembering that in many countries of the world you still do not have the right to protest and can be imprisoned for your beliefs, that God or goodness or common sense that it doesn't happen here....very often

I know that Pride is a deadly sin, but whatever happen to pride in your work?
Pride for your company's name and proud to work for an outstanding organisation.
Some of you may know that I've been having a few problems with British Gas.
I have waited in on six occasions now and had to deal with such issues as; not being in when I was, the engineer coming with the wrong part and their continuing issue with the time space continuum.

This is the main problem with British Gas and their lack of understanding seems to mean that no approximate time of arrival can be given to the customer. But surely if you are the first job they can estimate a time between their depot and your house and they must know what time the person starts working hence "work time start + time to get to your house = approximate time person will be at your house."
I appreciate that this might not be so easy for the second call, but at least one person a day wouldn't be waiting in all morning.

The other problem is, the contact centre dies not seem to have the ability to tell the engineer what you want doing, and even the engineers can't communicate with each other. So every single time I have to explain what has happened so far and get asked many questions that I have no idea the answer of.

I am thinking of employing a number of retired people, so that they can come and sit in your house for you and wait for a delivery, an engineer etc; Mrs Scoggins could watch your telly in the warm and maybe have a lovely meal you would buy her, and maybe even make you a nice pie for when you got home. I'd be quite happy if she had her mates round for a knitting circle or even naked ludo!

Come on Britain, we've got rid of manufacturing, we've closed the pits, we've completely f***ed up banking, surely service is something we can manage.

and on the fourth day

If the devil has created the world, rather than God or some explosion in outer space, then after he'd invented poverty, hunger, injustice and intolerance I think he'd have turned have come up with the open plan office, then he could curled his tail around himself and known that the Western world was doomed.

Doomed because some people love to make a lot of noise and some like complete silence and some can tut across a distance of two hundred metres.

I like a bit of noise in the office, a bit of a buzz, a laugh and a joke as we all muck in together. Other may prefer the silent treatment and my office has adopted this as the housestyle. It has resulted in an atmosphere that is best described as drowning in cotton wool, there are some occasions when I take my own pulse just to check that I'm alive!

As today is Red Nose Day there should be lots of jolly japes, we don't need a sponsored silence!

Reflective Learner

I'm a reflective learner, which means I have to go away and mull something over before I get it, and that's never been more true than over the last few weeks.

A few weeks ago I went back to the land of my fathers, well my mom and dad and travelled up the M1 and M6 to Wolverhampton. (and no it isn't in the Black Country) The purpose of my visit was a school reunion!

I left school quite a few years ago and had never been tempted to attend this kind of occasion previously, but the people organising it were people that I actually remembered and I think as all of us turn 40 this school year there was the need for a milestone to be tapped.

And dear reader it was a great night, or at least what I remember of it after 7 double brandies, and it was like we'd only seen each other the day before and at any moment I might be asked for my maths homework!

So back to the reflected learner bit, well these old school/new facebook friends hadn't seen me in over 20 years, but welcomed me back like I'd just popped down the bottom shops and got them a 20p mix!

So no need for facebook envy when you have real mates, and to the mate that said he envied me, you can't really say everything that has happened in your life in a few lines on facebook, let's share a sofa and a bottle of brandy and I'll fill you in.

Facebook Envy

OK I admit it, I'm addicted to facebook. I really can't turn on my computer, whether at home or at work without checking it out, or am I just checking other people out.

So is Facebook Envy the newest of my demons?

I have some friends that seem to load hundreds of photos of themselves with their new guy in New York or on holiday surrounded by bronzed hunks, while I've spent the day at work and the most exciting thing I got to do was pop round M&S in my lunch hour.

It's not to say that my life is dull, maybe I just don't carry a camera with me all the time, but are other people really having a better time than me?

Worst of all is checking what the ex or the non ex is up to. The ex of course is understandable, I think, if you have managed to stay friends  - surely, as a friend, you should check to see if he's found a new bf, redecorated the house that you decorated for him, or if he is going on holiday to places better than he took you too. That's all just being friendly isn't it?

As for the non ex, these are the people that you almost went out with, but either didn't because you found someone else or they did. One of my non-exs seems to have a very nice bf, has purchased a new house and went to New Work for Christmas and I can't help feeling a little bit miffed. He was the one who decided not to go out with me.

It's not that I'm unhappy with my life, but I have discovered a new deadly sin. I'll keep you posted on whether or not I can control it.