Because I am a lazy person, I am still signed up to receive assorted useless job opportunity updates registered in 2008.
It would make sense if they ever sent me stuff I could do, but they tend to disregard my knowledge and experience. “Why not manage a shoe shop in Livingston for minimum wage?” they suggest, “or apply to be Communications Manager at an enormous finance company in Leeds?”
“Because I am not qualified to do either,” I respond. “Also I have been in steady employment since January 2009 and should have unsubscribed from these alerts ages ago. Delete, delete, delete.”
I receive these emails because I once ticked some boxes confessing to retail experience and an interest in communications. This does not make me manager material, as I’m sure a summary googling of the job description would testify. Still, it’s nice to be asked.
Having said that, Totaljobs have evidently got wise to the “get lost, I couldn’t go for that even if I wanted to” response, because this week they sent me an email urging me to complete a managerial qualification at the University of Liverpool.
They were always prone to sending me messages suggesting I consider improving myself, preferably through distance learning (they aren’t to know about my aborted attempt to do that CTJT course last year). But the courses they suggest are always totally inappropriate for my existing skillset (writing, journalism, drawing) and career aspirations (writer, journalist… drawer).
I’ve taken umbrage at the latest in the series for a couple of reasons. One is that I haven’t taken umbrage for a while and this seemed as good a time as any. Another was the content of the subject line: “Alison, stay ahead with a quality online degree.”
Quite apart from the fact they’ve apparently got Lee Nelson in to do their marketing, this sentence seems to imply my existing degree is somehow not of sufficient quality because I didn’t get it online. What kind of backwards technophobe gets a degree by reading musty old books for four years?! I’ll probably never get a job, and serve me right.
The other way to read it is that they know some people think an online degree isn’t as good as one obtained by attending actual classes and secretly they agree, so are trying to fool me into thinking this particular course is the exception to prove the rule. Don’t get one of those crappy online degrees you sometimes hear about, have this proper good one.
The other thing that grates here is that having a degree, online or print, is unlikely to put you significantly ahead in a world with bugger all job opportunities. A management qualification might help if I had even a passing interest in managing other people, but I suspect my lack of experience would show me up. Furthermore, given my main aim in life is to subsist as a freelance creative type, it feels like a strange way to channel my energy and time.
Then there’s the fact I already have a quality degree (2:1 MA Hons from St Andrews, thanks) deliberately chosen to help me get ahead. I’ve lost count of the number of journalists who advise wannabe hacks going to university to study a subject and work on the student press rather than going for a journo-specific course, which is exactly what I did.
In social terms this was fantastic, but in career terms all it’s done is get me rejected for some things on grounds of over qualification (although to be fair I get rejected from journalism jobs because there are only about three in Scotland at any given time, with hundreds of applicants).
The moral of this story is that I should unsubscribe, but if I do that the blog will be bereft of updates like this…
I’ll probably soldier on.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Top Austerity Tips
Yesterday everybody’s favourite child-faced millionaire, UK Chancellor George Osborne, announced that his super fun deficit reduction measures are going so well they are going to continue indefinitely – or at least for the next six years.
To recap, the British economy is screwed for several reasons, including:
- Gordon Brown single handedly bringing about global recession (which is sort of impressive, if you think about it)
- Last year’s Snowmageddon
- The knock on effect of the royal wedding
- The Eurozone Crisis
But it’s all good, because after six years of austerity we will be laughing. That or we’ll all have emigrated.
I’m sure I can’t be the only one who has been taking personal austerity measures for ages. To be honest, I was sort of hoping that by 32 (the age I’ll be at the end of this project) I might not have to anymore. Obviously I wasn’t expecting to have a secure pension or anything frivolous like that, but I thought maybe I’d be in a position where I’d be able to take the odd holiday / run a car / have a child.
Still, I’m pretty lucky to have as much as I do in the current climate and I wouldn’t want to take it for granted. There follows a description of the austerity measures I have been following since 2008, which should hopefully prove invaluable to any other unmarried, childless graduates earning the dizzying wages of 12-15k a year. Follow these simple rules and you too will manage to scrape by.
1. Rent a flat with a minimum of three other people. It’s basically like a considerably less interesting version of The Young Ones. You might think you want to downsize and live a little bit less like a student now you’ve graduated, but be realistic - you can’t afford it.
2. Walk or get the bus everywhere, even if it’s massively inconvenient and has you commuting 3 or 4 hours a day. The price of maintenance, petrol and parking are not worth it.
3. If you must have a holiday, make it once a year and confine it to a long weekend in the UK. Well, we did get a megabus to Belgium for a long weekend about two years back, but the recession wasn’t as deep then.
4. Nights out / trips to the cinema / gigs should happen maybe once every two months. It is far more cost effective to sit in the flat with a cup of tea and a crappy movie.
5. Dispense with aesthetic frivolities like haircuts, makeup, your tattoo obsession, etc. You have had the chance to experiment with your style, now you must eat.
6. Put off registering with a dentist at least until you discover a hole in your tooth the size of a thumb.
7. Do not under any circumstances attempt to heat your home. Wear a dressing gown over your clothes instead.
8. Replacement of old clothes and shoes is manageable within reason – although it’s best to keep everything because layering up will be necessary in winter. I have bought at least two pairs of jeans this year alone (2 for £25 in Dorothy Perkins, yeah), and up to four dresses in online sales. Confessions of a Shopaholic eat your heart out.
9. Food can be pricey, particularly if four years of student-hood has left you pining for a sensible diet. Worry not, sirrah - there is no real need to buy fresh fruit, veg or meat. Just have frozen or tinned.
If you stick to these rules you may even be able to save a little bit of money – although it might be best to stick it under the mattress, given the dubious morals of the banks. Obviously you’ll never have as much as Mr Osborne’s £4million fortune, no matter how austere you are. But it’s a start.
Monday, 7 November 2011
19.57 From Euston
On Saturday, this was doing the rounds on Twitter:
When I watched it, I thought ‘aw, that’s nice,’ posted it to Facebook and promptly forgot all about it.
This being the internet, a few people have reacted in a more considered way.
Natalie Dzerins (Forty Shades of Grey) finds it utterly cringeworthy, which is fair enough – but more than that, she thinks it is demeaning to women; a thought that never even crossed my mind until I read her post. The woman generally speaks a lot of sense so this prompted me to re-visit my initial reaction.
When I shared the vidjo on the book of face, I did so with the tagline “anybody remember the group ‘Disney Gave Me Unrealistic Expectations of Love?’ This guy clearly does, and said, ‘no more!’”
To explain, said group united those who had reached adulthood only to discover a distinct lack of perfectly coiffed prospective partners with freakishly straight teeth and talking animal pals. Where were the dragon slayers, the perky princesses, the lovers who unexpectedly burst into song at the drop of a hat?
Members bemoaned the fact love at first sight is not as common as Disney led them to believe, and that most people are pretty much the same – everyone gets a bit crabbit when they’ve not had enough sleep, wicked stepmothers are not especially prevalent, and most men don’t even own a cloak (excepting the more dedicated Noel Fielding fan, perhaps).
However, the occasional friend will find their own Prince Charming or Cinderella, you’ll be invited to a lovely wedding with a ceilidh and a bucket of stovies, and a collective sigh will go up for lo, there is romance in the world after all. Who doesn’t want a happy ever after in a castle full of talking crockery?
Well, I wouldn’t, to be fair. It’s one thing to enjoy a bit of schmaltz in a movie, quite another to deliberately inflict it on a loved one in a public space.
But I don’t speak for everyone, and I like to think there’s a possibility that the boyfriend in 19.57 from Euston made this ridiculously over the top gesture because they are madly in love, and he knew she’d appreciate it.
Dzerins concedes that it seems to have worked out for this pair, but: “all I can think when I watch it is "but what if she wanted to say no?"”
My instinctive my reply to that would be, she would have said no.
This sort of proposal puts a lot of pressure on the woman to comply, Dzerins argues, because it’s so public. Gangs of total strangers feel they have the right to stick their oar in and tell her to agree, and if she doesn’t he will become some kind of martyr for the romantic cause.
I take her point, but to be honest I’d have thought the emotional fallout between the couple is ultimately the same whether she rejects him in public or private. Yes, if you’re unlucky there is a possibility it goes viral for a week or two and people write some nasty comments about you on Youtube. But surely that’s the least of your worries when you’ve just discovered your partner knows sod all about you – for them to have misjudged your reaction so completely belies some serious communication problems.
My other query would be why is it only the woman is demeaned by this show of affection? The man has spent a load of time and money sorting it out solely to impress her – isn’t that flattering? Couldn’t it even be said he is demeaning himself by reducing his personality to 2-Dimensional cartoon prince purely to satisfy the romantic streak of the otherwise level-headed, educated woman he fell in love with?
The notion that this type of proposal is impersonal, or designed to make strangers think you’re cool, feels overly cynical to me. Yes, it’s cheesy, and no, of course you don’t need to make a massive song and dance over a proposal to make a marriage work - but who says that’s why he did it?
I like to think he was motivated by a sense that his fiancé’s feelings of joy and being special would outweigh the embarrassment either of them felt.
It wouldn’t work for me but that’s OK, because it’s not about me - or my feminist principles, or any other stranger from the internet.
It’s about two hopeless romantics on the 19.57 from Euston.
Long may they be sick-makingly sweet.
When I watched it, I thought ‘aw, that’s nice,’ posted it to Facebook and promptly forgot all about it.
This being the internet, a few people have reacted in a more considered way.
Natalie Dzerins (Forty Shades of Grey) finds it utterly cringeworthy, which is fair enough – but more than that, she thinks it is demeaning to women; a thought that never even crossed my mind until I read her post. The woman generally speaks a lot of sense so this prompted me to re-visit my initial reaction.
When I shared the vidjo on the book of face, I did so with the tagline “anybody remember the group ‘Disney Gave Me Unrealistic Expectations of Love?’ This guy clearly does, and said, ‘no more!’”
To explain, said group united those who had reached adulthood only to discover a distinct lack of perfectly coiffed prospective partners with freakishly straight teeth and talking animal pals. Where were the dragon slayers, the perky princesses, the lovers who unexpectedly burst into song at the drop of a hat?
Members bemoaned the fact love at first sight is not as common as Disney led them to believe, and that most people are pretty much the same – everyone gets a bit crabbit when they’ve not had enough sleep, wicked stepmothers are not especially prevalent, and most men don’t even own a cloak (excepting the more dedicated Noel Fielding fan, perhaps).
However, the occasional friend will find their own Prince Charming or Cinderella, you’ll be invited to a lovely wedding with a ceilidh and a bucket of stovies, and a collective sigh will go up for lo, there is romance in the world after all. Who doesn’t want a happy ever after in a castle full of talking crockery?
Well, I wouldn’t, to be fair. It’s one thing to enjoy a bit of schmaltz in a movie, quite another to deliberately inflict it on a loved one in a public space.
But I don’t speak for everyone, and I like to think there’s a possibility that the boyfriend in 19.57 from Euston made this ridiculously over the top gesture because they are madly in love, and he knew she’d appreciate it.
Dzerins concedes that it seems to have worked out for this pair, but: “all I can think when I watch it is "but what if she wanted to say no?"”
My instinctive my reply to that would be, she would have said no.
This sort of proposal puts a lot of pressure on the woman to comply, Dzerins argues, because it’s so public. Gangs of total strangers feel they have the right to stick their oar in and tell her to agree, and if she doesn’t he will become some kind of martyr for the romantic cause.
I take her point, but to be honest I’d have thought the emotional fallout between the couple is ultimately the same whether she rejects him in public or private. Yes, if you’re unlucky there is a possibility it goes viral for a week or two and people write some nasty comments about you on Youtube. But surely that’s the least of your worries when you’ve just discovered your partner knows sod all about you – for them to have misjudged your reaction so completely belies some serious communication problems.
My other query would be why is it only the woman is demeaned by this show of affection? The man has spent a load of time and money sorting it out solely to impress her – isn’t that flattering? Couldn’t it even be said he is demeaning himself by reducing his personality to 2-Dimensional cartoon prince purely to satisfy the romantic streak of the otherwise level-headed, educated woman he fell in love with?
The notion that this type of proposal is impersonal, or designed to make strangers think you’re cool, feels overly cynical to me. Yes, it’s cheesy, and no, of course you don’t need to make a massive song and dance over a proposal to make a marriage work - but who says that’s why he did it?
I like to think he was motivated by a sense that his fiancé’s feelings of joy and being special would outweigh the embarrassment either of them felt.
It wouldn’t work for me but that’s OK, because it’s not about me - or my feminist principles, or any other stranger from the internet.
It’s about two hopeless romantics on the 19.57 from Euston.
Long may they be sick-makingly sweet.
Saturday, 5 November 2011
Living Dangerously
I have been neglecting this page terribly, and look set to continue a bit longer due to NaNoWriMo. I know, I am a terrible person; but undoubtedly I will be punished for these transgressions in the next life by being a vowel key on a massive old fashioned typewriter of pain. Or something.
However, in the back of my mind I have a plan, and I will now impart this plan to you to see what you think. My thought is, to write a weekly column on this here page. For you see, I recently did an interview for The Clear Minded Creative during which I was reminded of my long held ambition to have my own column in the style of Charlie Brooker, Caitlin Moran, Lucy Mangan, or myriad other broadsheet writers, and I noticed I have not been chasing this dream with appropriate chutzpah.
It wasn't because I'd forgotten so much as because I allowed other things to get in the way, but no more!
After all I need to practice; it's a competitive sort of market and I'm not getting any younger, me knees aren't what they were. So, I am aiming to start a weekly column on here starting Monday. It will likely be about something I see on Twitter, around 500 words a time (maybe a bit longer) and hopefully it'll be hilarious. So if you could greet it with rapturous applause that'd be fab.
OK cool, now have a photo of the sort of book I aspire to write some day:
However, in the back of my mind I have a plan, and I will now impart this plan to you to see what you think. My thought is, to write a weekly column on this here page. For you see, I recently did an interview for The Clear Minded Creative during which I was reminded of my long held ambition to have my own column in the style of Charlie Brooker, Caitlin Moran, Lucy Mangan, or myriad other broadsheet writers, and I noticed I have not been chasing this dream with appropriate chutzpah.
It wasn't because I'd forgotten so much as because I allowed other things to get in the way, but no more!
After all I need to practice; it's a competitive sort of market and I'm not getting any younger, me knees aren't what they were. So, I am aiming to start a weekly column on here starting Monday. It will likely be about something I see on Twitter, around 500 words a time (maybe a bit longer) and hopefully it'll be hilarious. So if you could greet it with rapturous applause that'd be fab.
OK cool, now have a photo of the sort of book I aspire to write some day:
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Today I want to talk to you about Twitter; or more specifically, hashtags (#).
On Twitter, hashtags help people who are all tweeting about the same thing to find other tweets about the same thing.
So, if you're watching something on TV and also tweeting about it (which is the main function of the site if you’re a comedian or arts journalist) you can put a hashtag at the end of your message, which then automatically becomes a link. Click on said link, and it takes you to a list of all the other tweets on the subject.
When loads of people are using the same hashtag to talk about something it becomes a trending topic, which means Twitter features it on the right hand side of the page. This can wind up being a funny mix of things, because people use the hashtag in a variety of ways.
- One way is to break or gather news stories. Today STV Edinburgh started the #whyedinburghrocks tag so they could put together a list of reasons using Storify.
- It can also be used to ask questions – the BBC are quite good at this, and often tell listeners or viewers a hashtag to use at the start of a programme so you can discuss it online. Similarly, this weekend I am doing an online Q&A with The Edinburgh Reporter about 12 books, where people can submit a question via Twitter using the tag #askaligeorge.
- You can also use hashtags to connect with other people of similar interests. When I tweet about the 12 books project I quite often use the #amwriting tag so other writers know it's a post that might be interesting for them. Similarly anyone attending the West Port Book Festival in Edinburgh over the next four days can use the hashtag #wpbf11 to find out what events are going on and what other punters will be at them.
- Another popular use is to play games (a recent favourite of mine was #hiphopgroceries - Will.I.Ham, for instance. Twitter is full of people who are overly fond of punning.)
- And some people use it to share advice. For example, at lunchtime today, one of the top trends was #arealboyfriend – aimed at facilitating discussion as to the best way a boyfriend can behave towards his partner. Some of these made me laugh a lot, although I fear that was not necessarily the intent.
I made a list of my highlights, anyway.
#arealboyfriend chase after you when you walk away
- That could be a boyfriend, or it could be a total stranger with mugging in mind. Just saying, boyfriends aren't the only people that give chase.
#arealboyfriend doesn't annoy you and make you cry.
- Duh, yes he does. If he never annoys you then you either don’t care/notice what he does, or you’re a robot, or you’re deluding yourself. A good boyfriend likely doesn’t do these things on purpose, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t do them at all.
#ARealBoyfriend sees the pain in your eyes, while everyone else believes the smile on your face.
- This was from a man whose profile said he respecks females. I think he may be trying too hard. That or I have no soul.
#arealboyfriend kisses you on the forehead.
- So does your mum.
#arealboyfriend will give up his hoes !
- And other gardening equipment, the bastard.
#ARealBoyfriend will finger u ont bus
- LOL. How inappropriate.
#arealboyfriend plays an important role in the ecosystem as a pollinator, with larva considered problematic to vegetation in agriculture.
- Science wins again.
On Twitter, hashtags help people who are all tweeting about the same thing to find other tweets about the same thing.
So, if you're watching something on TV and also tweeting about it (which is the main function of the site if you’re a comedian or arts journalist) you can put a hashtag at the end of your message, which then automatically becomes a link. Click on said link, and it takes you to a list of all the other tweets on the subject.
When loads of people are using the same hashtag to talk about something it becomes a trending topic, which means Twitter features it on the right hand side of the page. This can wind up being a funny mix of things, because people use the hashtag in a variety of ways.
- One way is to break or gather news stories. Today STV Edinburgh started the #whyedinburghrocks tag so they could put together a list of reasons using Storify.
- It can also be used to ask questions – the BBC are quite good at this, and often tell listeners or viewers a hashtag to use at the start of a programme so you can discuss it online. Similarly, this weekend I am doing an online Q&A with The Edinburgh Reporter about 12 books, where people can submit a question via Twitter using the tag #askaligeorge.
- You can also use hashtags to connect with other people of similar interests. When I tweet about the 12 books project I quite often use the #amwriting tag so other writers know it's a post that might be interesting for them. Similarly anyone attending the West Port Book Festival in Edinburgh over the next four days can use the hashtag #wpbf11 to find out what events are going on and what other punters will be at them.
- Another popular use is to play games (a recent favourite of mine was #hiphopgroceries - Will.I.Ham, for instance. Twitter is full of people who are overly fond of punning.)
- And some people use it to share advice. For example, at lunchtime today, one of the top trends was #arealboyfriend – aimed at facilitating discussion as to the best way a boyfriend can behave towards his partner. Some of these made me laugh a lot, although I fear that was not necessarily the intent.
I made a list of my highlights, anyway.
#arealboyfriend chase after you when you walk away
- That could be a boyfriend, or it could be a total stranger with mugging in mind. Just saying, boyfriends aren't the only people that give chase.
#arealboyfriend doesn't annoy you and make you cry.
- Duh, yes he does. If he never annoys you then you either don’t care/notice what he does, or you’re a robot, or you’re deluding yourself. A good boyfriend likely doesn’t do these things on purpose, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t do them at all.
#ARealBoyfriend sees the pain in your eyes, while everyone else believes the smile on your face.
- This was from a man whose profile said he respecks females. I think he may be trying too hard. That or I have no soul.
#arealboyfriend kisses you on the forehead.
- So does your mum.
#arealboyfriend will give up his hoes !
- And other gardening equipment, the bastard.
#ARealBoyfriend will finger u ont bus
- LOL. How inappropriate.
#arealboyfriend plays an important role in the ecosystem as a pollinator, with larva considered problematic to vegetation in agriculture.
- Science wins again.
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Autumn
After the overwhelming response to my last post (which was roundly ignored by everyone in the world) I have made the executive decision to continue ‘beauty blogging’ at least until the end of September on the grounds it might be useful for book 9 of the 12 Books project.
Today, dressing for autumn.
Here in Edinburgh, the average woman on the street (or on the streets involved in my work commute, at any rate) completed the autumn change-up on September 1st.
I am vaguely aware from the style supplement of the newspaper that fashion goes in seasons, which are loosely based around the weather. Some of you may remember the good old days when there were four quite disparate seasons, which were called spring, summer, autumn and winter. These days, of course, we only really have two and a bit seasons: autumn, winter, and a fortnight of sprimmer which is spread out on odd days here and there between April and August.
During sprimmer, a lot of women do their level best to pretend it’s nice enough outside to justify cotton dresses, sandals, and even a day or two of bare legs – although for the intervening days it’s necessary to supplement these items with cardigans, leggings, and mackintoshes. This is because sprimmer is unpredictable – a day will start off with blackened skies and thunder in the air, and by lunchtime it will have morphed into the most beautiful sunny day since records began.
Autumn is different. This is a season where you know what’s what: it might look nice outside but it definitely won’t be warm; if it looks like rain it’ll probably snow; and either way you’ll want waterproof shoes and an industrial strength brolly. Preferably adamantium.
As a result, the women I see on my daily walk to work are now clad in knee high boots, wool coats, scarves, jumpers and so on. They look fabulous.
Having said that, I haven’t conformed to the autumn change-up myself. Well I have a bit, but not really so as you’d notice. My main concession was to buy a pair of jeans that fit, because gale force winds are likely to be commonplace between now and next April so I won’t get away with wearing skirts every day.
What I tend to do in lieu of buying lots of new things when autumn hits is go to my bottom drawer and come back with another layer to add to the clothes I wear all year round. So for instance if I’m wearing one of my four dresses, I’ll have a long sleeved T-Shirt under there instead of a camisole. Either that or I’ll wear a cardigan over the top. Not both, though – that’s wintertime layering, baby.
The reasoning behind this is pretty exclusively financial, although there are elements of sizing tied in. Since I reached the dress size 16-18 mark (about...oh, 6 or 7 years ago) I have avoided buying new stuff where possible on the grounds I’m going to lose a bit of weight any day now, so there’s no point. My inner accountant claims this is canny, and the part of me that wants to indulge in retail therapy compensates by buying books I don’t have time to read; and occasionally updating the tech in my life under the guise of it being useful for freelance journalism purposes.
It’s probably just as well I’m conditioned not to update my wardrobe correctly, though, because have you seen what’s in for autumn? Neither had I until I looked it up just now, and I can tell you its high necked, 20s style dresses of the sort that only look reasonable on ladies the shape of Kiera Knightley; ponchos to give the impression you have no shape at all; and snakeskin.
Snakeskin? Really? What is this, 1972? Seemingly that rebirth of tastelessness originates somewhere in the vicinity of Jimmy Choo and Kate ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ Moss. Years of replacing food with Class A drugs will do strange things to a person’s perception of what looks good. I think I’ll take my chances with my 8 year old polo neck from the British Heart Foundation charity shop...
Today, dressing for autumn.
Here in Edinburgh, the average woman on the street (or on the streets involved in my work commute, at any rate) completed the autumn change-up on September 1st.
I am vaguely aware from the style supplement of the newspaper that fashion goes in seasons, which are loosely based around the weather. Some of you may remember the good old days when there were four quite disparate seasons, which were called spring, summer, autumn and winter. These days, of course, we only really have two and a bit seasons: autumn, winter, and a fortnight of sprimmer which is spread out on odd days here and there between April and August.
During sprimmer, a lot of women do their level best to pretend it’s nice enough outside to justify cotton dresses, sandals, and even a day or two of bare legs – although for the intervening days it’s necessary to supplement these items with cardigans, leggings, and mackintoshes. This is because sprimmer is unpredictable – a day will start off with blackened skies and thunder in the air, and by lunchtime it will have morphed into the most beautiful sunny day since records began.
Autumn is different. This is a season where you know what’s what: it might look nice outside but it definitely won’t be warm; if it looks like rain it’ll probably snow; and either way you’ll want waterproof shoes and an industrial strength brolly. Preferably adamantium.
As a result, the women I see on my daily walk to work are now clad in knee high boots, wool coats, scarves, jumpers and so on. They look fabulous.
Having said that, I haven’t conformed to the autumn change-up myself. Well I have a bit, but not really so as you’d notice. My main concession was to buy a pair of jeans that fit, because gale force winds are likely to be commonplace between now and next April so I won’t get away with wearing skirts every day.
What I tend to do in lieu of buying lots of new things when autumn hits is go to my bottom drawer and come back with another layer to add to the clothes I wear all year round. So for instance if I’m wearing one of my four dresses, I’ll have a long sleeved T-Shirt under there instead of a camisole. Either that or I’ll wear a cardigan over the top. Not both, though – that’s wintertime layering, baby.
The reasoning behind this is pretty exclusively financial, although there are elements of sizing tied in. Since I reached the dress size 16-18 mark (about...oh, 6 or 7 years ago) I have avoided buying new stuff where possible on the grounds I’m going to lose a bit of weight any day now, so there’s no point. My inner accountant claims this is canny, and the part of me that wants to indulge in retail therapy compensates by buying books I don’t have time to read; and occasionally updating the tech in my life under the guise of it being useful for freelance journalism purposes.
It’s probably just as well I’m conditioned not to update my wardrobe correctly, though, because have you seen what’s in for autumn? Neither had I until I looked it up just now, and I can tell you its high necked, 20s style dresses of the sort that only look reasonable on ladies the shape of Kiera Knightley; ponchos to give the impression you have no shape at all; and snakeskin.
Snakeskin? Really? What is this, 1972? Seemingly that rebirth of tastelessness originates somewhere in the vicinity of Jimmy Choo and Kate ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ Moss. Years of replacing food with Class A drugs will do strange things to a person’s perception of what looks good. I think I’ll take my chances with my 8 year old polo neck from the British Heart Foundation charity shop...
Saturday, 3 September 2011
Anyone Still Here?
Hello, patient readers. Several apologies for neglecting this blog for an entire month, I am most embarrassed about it - especially after going down to one post a week, which ought to be pretty manageable.
The excuse, as you might expect, is the 12 Books in 12 Months blog, which I have been comparatively successful in updating every day should you be interested... there's stuff about the Fringe and Edinburgh Book Festivals, an interview with Mr Gum author Andy Stanton, and this weekend I'm embarking on THE GREAT KINDLE CHALLENGE where I read a book or two on the kindle to see if it can turn my head away from traditional print.
Other than that I have been bumbling away as usual, not quite managing to fit in all the things I want to do but getting around to some of them in a haphazard kind of way. Last week I actually made myself a timetable, which I mostly ignored, but getting so close to that level of organisation was pretty exciting. Today I hope to tidy up a bit and perhaps timetable next week in a more efficient manner. Said timetable will include scheduling a post on here, although I'm not sure what about yet - I will cross that bridge when I come to it.
Although having said that, maybe you can help. If you would like to read some more beauty blogging in September, let me know in the comments - but if you found that dull and crappy (the hair one wasn't very inspired, I know) also let me know that too. I will take your thoughts into consideration, then do whatever the hell I want.
In the meantime if you want to hear from me on a properly regular basis (yo), click on 12 Books in 12 Months. September's genre might be entertaining because it is humour, which is a wide ranging and frightening choice. I haven't started the book yet, but I'm thinking in terms of a novelisation of Confessions of a Jobless Graduate... Some of you may remember that once upon a time I was going to blog about that for The Skinny, but it never quite happened. I believe it's high time The Unusual Handyman was immortalised in fiction.
The excuse, as you might expect, is the 12 Books in 12 Months blog, which I have been comparatively successful in updating every day should you be interested... there's stuff about the Fringe and Edinburgh Book Festivals, an interview with Mr Gum author Andy Stanton, and this weekend I'm embarking on THE GREAT KINDLE CHALLENGE where I read a book or two on the kindle to see if it can turn my head away from traditional print.
Other than that I have been bumbling away as usual, not quite managing to fit in all the things I want to do but getting around to some of them in a haphazard kind of way. Last week I actually made myself a timetable, which I mostly ignored, but getting so close to that level of organisation was pretty exciting. Today I hope to tidy up a bit and perhaps timetable next week in a more efficient manner. Said timetable will include scheduling a post on here, although I'm not sure what about yet - I will cross that bridge when I come to it.
Although having said that, maybe you can help. If you would like to read some more beauty blogging in September, let me know in the comments - but if you found that dull and crappy (the hair one wasn't very inspired, I know) also let me know that too. I will take your thoughts into consideration, then do whatever the hell I want.
In the meantime if you want to hear from me on a properly regular basis (yo), click on 12 Books in 12 Months. September's genre might be entertaining because it is humour, which is a wide ranging and frightening choice. I haven't started the book yet, but I'm thinking in terms of a novelisation of Confessions of a Jobless Graduate... Some of you may remember that once upon a time I was going to blog about that for The Skinny, but it never quite happened. I believe it's high time The Unusual Handyman was immortalised in fiction.
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