(Just one extra thing)

Five (5) Things: Friday 8th February

1. 2 cold hard boiled eggs for breakfast and a tiny cup of milky coffee which was like a child's drink (if they are quite a sophisticated child). Had manly tea. 
2. A lot of snow for Toronto, which means not much if you are from Montreal or Saskatoon, but a fuck of a lot if you are from for e.g. England. Everywhere quiet, meetings cancelled, busses skating, a taxi catches fire and we see it (the driver is OK). 
3. Did a phone conference about Quebec. Said some things about average basket size, Catholics and Celine Dion. A great deal of talking happened, mainly out of my mouth. Had some water.
4. Did a personality test thing. Apparently my top 5 themes are Input, Individualization, Futuristic, Intellection and Learner. I do not know what it means, other than I like reading. (True.)
5. All planes being cancelled out of Toronto, apart from ours.  We take a punt, yes we do. We look the sky (black) and at the ground (40 cm of snow) and back at the sky again (snow is still coming out of it), and we decide it will never take off, so we take the (5 hour) train instead. The plane took off and landed in Montreal before we were out of Ontario. Trout that was not trout, brandy that was devil wee wees. Crying with joy at a picture of Sting in his under crackers doing yoga. Stopped at a station: "We may be detained here for an indefinite period" or similar; man refuses to eat his supper and stands around watching us eat. This concerns the hostess of the carriage who wishes to reheat his stew; he will not have it. Some fellow passengers find this funnier than I believe it is. The man opposite me snores. We will be home time time around midnight, I think.

Five (5) things: Thursday 7th February

1. Spend morning writing a presentation which goes from "quite shit" to "alright, as it goes" in a perplexing way that has something to do with a picture of two babies in hockey jerseys punching each other in a playful style. Find self saying "yes yes very interesting" out loud to myself about my own presentation whilst sitting in an open-plan office listening to Sufjan Stevens on a set of Sennheiser noise-cancelling headphones accidentally 'acquired' from my last workplace.
2. Decide not to go to Toronto tomorrow morning because of pending snowstorm but was told had to go so went tonight instead.  Forgot to pack undercrackers.
3. Got 90% of the way to airport, realize have forgotten ID required to mount a plane. Make taxi go back the other way, wait, then come back again. Was sure would miss flight but O happy day flight delayed by 2 hours: good (caught it); bad: 2 hours late, wasn't allowed to land, crammed in tiny seat for 90 minutes more than any living being should be next to two girls I can only describe as asinine. Read the WestJet magazine twice and two chapters of a book that includes the word "Measurebation".
4. Get in cab. Driver says, do you mind if we take someone else too, there are few cabs tonight in this (non-existent) Torontonian snowstorm. A man gets in who is tall and thin with a sharp face carved from cheap frozen cheese. He is a consultant and he travels the whole time. He has a baby and he thinks that ladies should stay at home and not work especially as childcare costs $3,000 a month. (If this is the case he is an idiot and living in the wrong place and probably sending his kiddy to an organic free range nursery of some kind). It is all a bit embarrassing. He gets out of the car. The driver (in cap) attempts analysis. I realize it is 10.30pm.
5. Am on bed in hotel. They always leave me free biscuits.

Five (5) Things: Wednesday 6th February

Day 2 of attempt to write down 5 "moments" (whatever they are) every day until I get bored. OK here goes.

1. Marvelled again at the Nespresso Aeroccino Frother.  I would not buy a Nespresso coffee machine ever, no way man, not even if I were paid to buy it (and despite the box of pods which has the same effect on me as a large tin of coloured pencils did c. 1976), but this this really is good. It is $99 so if you want one, ask for it for your birthday (unless you're rich).  It makes everything a bit fancier and compensates for mistakes involving goat's cheese before 7.30am.
2. Read quite a long report about something called "Millennials". There are 2.6 billion of them in the world and they are people who are between 9 and 30 years old. The report drew conclusions that worried me, e.g.:  25% of Millennials believe that they will earn more than their parents; 78% proud of their nationality (up from 66% in 2006).  The only conclusion I could draw from it is that 9 year olds have far too much on their plates nowadays. When I was 9 I spent most of my time pretending to be a horse.
3. Went to the pharmacy to get some shampoo (enough to wash 500 heads: $3.99).  A lady offered to rub her stick over my face to test my "obviously very dry and red" skin.  Stick didn't work. She went off to get batteries. Came back 6 minutes later. Put batteries in. Stick did not work. Skin still "obviously dry and red".
4. Went to a restaurant (known as a risstrunt to G. Ramsay) and ate cheese fondue with some friends.  Told story involving a tiny mouse asking a lion for an insight. Was hit joke of the night (in my head).
5. Doing burny cheese indigestion burps and looking at this for quite a long time: 

Five (5) Things: Tuesday February 5th

I needed a magazine the other day. They were out of Horse and Hound and  Harvard Business Review*, so I bought one with Oprah Winfrey ** on the front and read an article in which a lady said that it was a good idea to write down 5 'moments' you have had that day before you go to bed.

I can't remember why this was a good idea - something to do with understanding that life is made up of good days (e.g. finding a Rolo down the back of the sofa) and bad days (you realise you are going to die one day and haven't decided on CofE service inc. Lord's Prayer, Morning Has Broken and Once In Royal David's City even if it isn't Christmas OR wicker box that you put on the BBQ then bury with the cabbages), but that normally you just keep on going and things are OK.

I don't know what a 'moment' is, exactly ('moment' gone into the same pot - labelled Words That Don't Mean The Same Thing Anymore - as 'connected' and 'meaningful'), but I thought I might try it for a while and see what happens.

OK here we go. First things that come into my head. Day 1. 

1. Had a bit of old salmon that was a bit dried up on the edge in my scrambled eggs. Spent quite a long time thinking that the egg would rehydrate the salmon then got a bit of salmon stuck in the tooth that needs a new crown, which led me to think about the ambitious 'endodentiste' and his spats.  
2. Had to lie on bed with legs in the air to get on boots.  Took them off and wore something else instead.
3. Went to sales conference where "Edge of Glory" was the theme tune and people with headsets made shampoo salesmen clap.
4. Sat in a car with a heated seat and was accused of being in love with a marketing director and going HA HA HA HA HA at all his jokes really loudly like I loved him.
5. Ate a blueberry yoghurt with a long spoon.

*  In truth, I only subscribe to one of these publications.

** I do not know what has happened to Oprah Winfrey since her TV station broke, but she must be quite poor if she has to lend her voice to this fuck-awful piece of advertising.  It is the sort of shit that a) gives advertising a bad name; b) makes anyone with ill-informed prejudices about American sentimental nationalism think they may in fact have a point.  

2013

Things I hope will end this year: 

1. People 'curating' things. Curators curate. You there with your antlers and your jars, you are just collecting stuff and arranging it. Desist.
2. All this chitchat about 3D printing. Either we are all going to be printing out new puppies by 2015, or everyone will have forgotten about it (see "QI codes").  On the other hand I do confess to finding it strange and terrifying in a way I can't quite articulate. 
3. The end of posters or cards or whatnot in letterpress saying inspirational things, e.g. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU DID SOMETHING FOR THE FIRST TIME?, or SNATCH AT THE TRUTH BEFORE IT KISSES YOU ON THE BUM-BUM*
4. Wedding photographs with balloons in.
5. Kimchee.
6. Food as hipster hobby (see Brooklyn Flea Food Fair).
7. That Laughing Cow TV ad (view it at your peril). The laaafing cow. The laaaaaffffing COW.

Things I hope will continue this year: 

1. Making quilts. I do that now. All the time. If anyone is interested I will write more about it. All the time buying cutting sewing cutting sewing cutting sewing. Strange, like bolt from blue. Quilty bolt from blue. Perhaps that's what happens when you are 43, like what happens to your eyes when you are 42. (80% of people see a decline in vision at 42; 25% of women take up quilting at 43).  NB: I went to the sort of school where Home Economics was replaced by Ancient Greek (which left us woefully under-equipped for real life, but very well equipped for pub quizzes), so the fact I can even turn the sewing machine on is a miracle.
2. Enjoying the job I have now. It is 2 minutes from home (this is not to be underestimated; it is life-changing shizzle) and all the people are super. It is not full of people in tight jeans and mysteriously ugly spectacles & grown-ups are in charge. And if my computer breaks I call someone in New York.
3. Game of Thrones, Borgen 3, Fresh Meat.
4. Looking at the cat licking her bum.
5. BB cream. I use the Garnier one. It's really good and it's not expensive.
6. Seattle. I visited it for the first time this year. I really liked it. Nice people, sprawly and interesting. Approved.
7. Putting things in Pinterest, which I like a lot. Here are Vital Informations, here are Items of Simian Interest. So much faster than writing about it, and so much more interesting for you, adoring reader and/or fan. (If indeed you are even there anymore, for it is likely that you have stopped reading blogs so much because everyone is Curating and Tweeting and Pinning and watching BBC iPlayer instead of reading blogs these days.)

*only one of these is real

A warm greeting to the reader from Oshawa

I have admired your enthusiastic reading of my web-blog over the last couple of days, and hope you are enjoying it.

You may have noticed that I was much funnier before I moved to Canada. (No connection.)

Sun's out, not much going on

What ho everyone. What is new? Not much is new with me, except I can't remember how to write a web-blog anymore. That is because I am 'Instagramming' pictures of graffiti, cats and babies, and looking out of the window a lot.

"Stop being so bloody lazy and write your blog", said my friend Charly. It was her birthday on the 9th of September and I can't think of a good present to give her that doesn't involve yachts or private Zumba lessons with Bruce Forsyth, so this post will be a sort-of birthday present until I see something good that I think she would like. (NB she gave me a brass chip fork on a chain and that is hard to beat, so finding the good thing may take time.)

Anyhoo, here's what's going on.

Doing a bit of work

I am doing a part-time freelance thing that is extremely interesting, and I am a) learning a lot and b) working with people I like. It is pretty good and if I can keep this up I may do it forever.  The main benefit is not having to be in an office all day. Other benefits include:

- not having to do conference calls;
- not having to worry about anyone's 'performance review';
- not having to pretend you like people who you wish dead;
- etc, with the "etc" being all the things I have written about before.


Signing up for courses

WTF etc.  I have signed up for 2.

1. Intensive One-Day Course In Interactive Marketing And Advertising;
2. How to Sew.

I am looking forward to the second one more, but the first one will allow me to nod more sagely when people are talking about for e.g. internet pricing models.  This is the problem with being old and working in the marketing: you have to keep on top of all the channels otherwise the young people (who couldn't write a strategy, build a fee proposal, talk a hyperventilating client off a cliff, spell or make a TV ad if you paid them) will be clicking their fingers in your face and calling you 'Daddy-O' when you happen to comment that getting 12 'likes' on a Facebook page is not going to contribute much to an objective of for e.g. increasing unprompted awareness by 12% or increasing value sales by 23%.

Watching TV

I really like TV. Here are my favourites:

The Great British Bake-off.  If Mary Berry ever said "Oh you CLEVER girl" to me I would cry for 12 days.  I want to touch Paul Hollywood with my pastry brush and I'm not going to wear surgical gloves when I do it.

The Real Housewives of New York.  I will not hear a word against this programme. It is terrible and glorious all at the same time. Anyone who watches it will agree with me when I say Carole Radziwill is fantastic and LuAnn de Lesseps is a massive pikey with a man's head who is not French (as she claims); her mother was French-Canadian. It is not the same thing (not better or worse, just not the same thing).

The Real Housewives of Vancouver. Anyone who thinks all Canadians are nice just needs to watch this programme for 2 seconds. They are terrible people (apart from the one with the weird accent who likes boys).

Downton Abbey. I haven't watched the new series yet but I know it will be good. Won't it?

The Thick of It. I mean really:



Also, wasn't 2012 good.

Going to the Gym

Not doing super-well on this front yet, i.e. twice a week, but better than before, i.e. not at all for two years. I have a 'personal trainer' who I think will be better than the hapless Anuja. The reason I like her is that one year ago she weighed as much as me (i.e. far too much) but had surgery to get thinner and makes no bones about it. I am not going to have surgery but I am going to do her devil programme 3 times a week and we will see if I can lose 20lbs by Christmas.

Making jam

A lot of jam.  This is about 1/10th of what we got out of the plum and apple trees:

Enjoying this excellent coffee pot cosy, designed by Hazel of Amsterdam: 

Going to Toronto, which even the dogs wish they could escape from: 

Finding Isaac "Figgy" Newton in the garden

And using the wood burning oven we (and 15 friends) built in the garden. That's a whole other post, but here it is before the roof went on:

And now, to the gym, where I will sweat like a killer and do unladylike situps.

Pip pip !

NWM

I am going to England (and the Netherlands)

"I will go after the Olympics is over.  It is bound to be terrible. Everyone will be depressed because we will lose everything, the busses will be broken and breakfast in even the most rubbish places will be over 50 British Pounds".

As it turns out, only the last was true, and I was wrong.  It has been brilliant from where I am looking (in Canada) and from what I can gather from all friends in London (which is where I am from and was born), it has been fantastic and not that much bother in terms of cycle lanes and Belgians clogging up the tube.

In fact I have watched the Olympics from Montreal and cried my face off for nearly two weeks. Crying episodes included:

1. All of the opening ceremony, non-stop welling OH THIS IS SO LIKE US I DO NOT CARE WHAT THE REST OF THE WORLD THINKS I AM SO HOMESICK give me the wine"

2. Anyone trying not to cry at their national anthem (all countries)

3. Anyone crying at their national anthem (all countries)

4. The first notes of the National Anthem (ours)

5. Roger Federer letting Andy Murray win

I did not cry in the closing ceremony, but I do think that Danny Boyle should have done a BOGOF.

Anyway, I am going to London tonight.  Here is why:

1. To see some headhunters and see if I am unemployable (should we decide to move back to the yewkay);

2. To see some headhunters who, although they are in London, are in charge of International and therefore may be able to tell me if I am unemployable (if we stay in Montreal);

3. To see the finest hairdresser in the universe - a man who is also a stand-up comedian and is doing fewer and fewer haircuts as his comedy writing gets more and more famous;

4. To see a man in Harrow-on-the-Hill about my ankles;

5. Most importantly, to see people and have a nice time.

I will go from London to Hastings and back, and to Amsterdam and back, and then I will go back to Montreal after two and one half weeks.  In the meantime, please continue to send in your questions and I will answer them (with enthusiasm) when I am back.

Pip "Blighty!!!" Pip

NWM

p.s. this is how I feel when I think about going to England

I begin to answer reader questions

Good news, loyal readers and fans! My inevitable return to some kind of money-making enterprise will be delayed a little longer, for  following yesterday's excellent post, I now have a new (albeit unpaid) occupation: answering your questions with the help of Spons' Household Manual (1897) and/or Every Woman's Enquire Within (1938). 

Here goes: 

Is there a remedy for insomnia?, writes Jane. 

There is a lot of advice in Spon, but it boils down to a point of view along the lines of:  if one weren't such a wetsy, it wouldn't be a problem. For e.g.: 

 "The difficulties about sleep and sleeplessness - apart from dreams  - are almost always fruits of a perverse refusal to comply with the laws of nature .... If only he would get up and do a full day's work, of any sort, and not dose during the day, when next the night came around his 16 or 20 hours of wakefulness would be rewarded by a sleep of 9-10 hours in length."

If that doesn't work, Spon recommends having a wash in carbolic soap, a short walk of 20 minutes, staying off tea and coffee, hop pillows, and not eating for an hour before going to bed. Last resort: "common raw onions raw, but Spanish stewed onions will do".  

Not a last resort: "Recently, the dangerous and lamentable habit of promiscuously taking sleeping draughts has unfortunately become very prevalent, entailing misery and ill health to a terrible degree". 

Let that be a warning to you all.

"Do either of these excellent manuals have chapters on travel? Having just spent two days cursing my way through three airports I think I need some remedial packing training", writes Megan. 

"Having prepared your luggage" (which takes WEEKS and a lot of polishing), "we come to the packing itself". Familiar advice follows, including tissue paper, folding, hats in hat boxes and rubber corks in bottles sealed with candlewax. But this, it seems, is all you need to know: 

"Pack tightly - this is the real secret of success, for when everything is wedged together, nothing will shake about and so get crushed." (Every Woman's Enquire Within, 1938). 

Spons is no good whatsoever; perhaps people didn't travel in 1897, but there is one piece of advice that I'd like to pass on, namely that you should "never take white petticoats for rough travelling; a striped coloured one is best. Take black lace neck scarf and gauze veils."

DES asks: "Is cleanliness next to godliness? I have such a suspicion that standards in these matters have been raised absurdly high in these germophobic times, and that your experts might have a more reasonable view, along the lines of having a bath once a week whether one needs it or not, except for houses, if you catch my drift."

There are entire chapters - huge ones - in each book about cleaning.  No God chat, but as far as Spon is concerned, being clean/cleaning is essentially the answer to everything. I am not a medical historian etc but I have the feeling from reading it that they had just found out about germs and quarantine and what-not; there is an entire chapter on the different types of chemicals you need to dispose of medical waste (from poo to snotty handkerchiefs).  I have however looked up "Infant bathing" and here's what he says: 

"Never put a child to bed dirty.  The whole body should be washed every day.  Young babies and infants should be bathed and well washed every morning in warm water, and thoroughly dried afterwards....young infants are best washed after their first meal, older children before breakfast."

No shirking for you, young man. Get in the shower immediately.   (Also, there is no chat about 'fallen ladies' etc., if my inference is correct.) 

What are the foremost duties of my servants?, writes Special K. 

Every Woman's Enquire Within was written in 1938, and this is a written for the post-war housewife who, likely as not, didn't have servants at all; as far as I can see, there's no mention of them.

I can't find anything in Spon about how to manage servants, but they clearly exist as there is all sorts of chat about where they should sleep, eat and sit: 

"Servants' beds should never have valances round them, as it encourages a habit of keeping boxes and rubbish under the beds." 

It is mysterious. I sometimes think Spon is writing for a Mr Pooter type of person - there is a great deal of advice on plumbing - but then he'll throw in a recipe for lark pie, which makes me wonder who he's writing for. Perhaps there is no advice on duties of servants because everyone just knows how to do it. Strangely, I can imagine Lady Redesdale might have had a copy of this book. 

That's it for now.  There are a lot of good recipes, parlour games, beauty advice and medical  bits and bobs in both, by the way. HINT HINT.

Pip "Keep 'em coming otherwise I'll have to find a job" Pip

NWM