Genius

I thought you might like to read a letter my colleague sent to First Capital Connect earlier this year....

As you may know I am a lover of all things sarcastic, and as such consider this to be the greatest thing written in many a moon....

-----Original Message-----
From: C, R
Sent: 09 January 2009 12:45
To: julie.allan@firstgroup.com
Subject: Enquiry

Dear Julie,

Happy New Year.

As a long-standing customer of First Capital Connect I feel obliged to enquire how much longer I will be standing.

I appreciate commuting from Haywards Heath to London on your 7.23 Bedford service is unlikely to be the highlight of any of your customers' day.

Nevertheless, I feel obliged to draw your attention to the following.

Firstly, to my untrained eye it appears this train is up to four carriages shorter than other London-bound services.

Whilst I suspect providing an extra few carriages might be something you've already thought of, I felt I should mention it in case you have forgotten about the promised phased transfer of 86 class 319 trains to this service, aimed at reducing overcrowding by 2008. That's last year.

Secondly, you may have noticed that the weather this January has been on the cool side. I am well aware of the implications this has on delays on your service - have no fear, as I mentioned, I am no stranger to this commuting business and I accept this will mean delays. I do not have unrealistic expectations of FCC. Just low ones.

What I think might help is when the train arrives, they have some form of on-board heating, other than that which has been naturally formed by the huddle of standing passengers themselves, reminiscent of how emperor penguins keep warm during the fierce polar winter.

I know the trains have heating that can be switched on and off. I know this because in the summer it is on. I therefore suggest that the phasing is studied, possibly with a view to perhaps turning the heating off in the summer and on in the winter. Whilst this suggestion does not represent a net cost benefit to FCC, it might be something you'd like to consider at your next AGM?

I hope these suggestions might slightly improve the situation and thus prevent more of your customers believing that the only 100% reliable part of First Capital Connect is the fares increase each and every January.

Were it not for the fact that this latest increase was, once again, to cover 'the cost of improvements to the service' I do not feel it unreasonable to enquire when I might experience some of these improvements in return for my ever increasing contribution.

Yours sincerely

RC

Here We Go Again, and again, and again....

As a firm follower and fully paid up member of the Slack Alice School of Procrastination – it should come as no surprise that I find myself with less than three months till Christmas, and my New Year’s Resolution list still not actioned.

I remember making the list. I even copied it onto some filofax paper, and stuck it in the diary section….

It went like this:

Drink 2 litres of water a day.
Drink less coffee.
Drink less Diet Coke (AKA The Juice of the Gods)
Walk more.
Ride the bike more.
Limit the bulky white carbs (flour, potatoes, rice…)
Swap white bread for brown bread.
Eat 5 a day every day.
Eat more veg.
Moisturize my hands and my lips more.
Take vitamins.
Exfoliate more.
Body brush more.

I’m quite sure I have written the same Things To Do list several times over. For several years. And yet. I still seem incapable of actually doing any of it. Shame on me.

Having slumped to a new all time low ebb, I feel compelled (again) to whisper the words “no, I’m trying to be good” when someone chucks a bun in my direction.

I refuse to call it a diet. Or a healthy eating/healthy living regime. I will not refuse ALL the goodstuff. Just most of it. Most of the time. And I will cross my fingers, and say a prayer that by The Season of the LBD I will feel better about my 17 1/2 stone bulk…

I should be so lucky...

I wish that over the years, I had kept a diary of all the fabulous people I have met and events I have attended through the course of my relatively new career in the book world (trust me, things were never this interesting in housing).

Some things stick out anyway – lunches with Jenny Colgan and Louise Candlish, getting to say “good morning Mr President” to Bill Clinton, afternoon tea’s with Marian Keyes and Lisa Jewell, a meal at the chef’s table at Rhodes 24 with Gary Rhodes, a “thing” in a private room at Charlotte Street Hotel with Bernadette Strachan, being insulted by Janet Street Porter, launch party’s with Sophie Kinsella, Mike Gayle and other members of The Board, giggling with Jojo Moyes and Veronica Henry at The Romantic Novelist Award ceremony, attending the British Book Awards, meeting and talking to Jackie Collins, dinner at San Lorenzo with Gianluca Vialli, rubbing my left breast up against Gordon Ramsay…

But there are a multitude of other really quite fabulous things that have kind of merged into one another – private rooms at Sketch, river boat parties, launches at The Ivy, meals at Roka and Mint Leaf and Moro and Kew Grill, preview screenings of The Devil Wears Prada and Bridget Jones, parties at St Martins Lane Hotel… and one day when I am older, greyer and with even less control over my bladder I will look back and say, how lucky was I!

Caddle Up

I am growing ever fonder of Colette Caddle. She has grown into one of my favourite current authors, and I am hopeful that her latest title to hit the UK in March next year, The Secrets We Keep, will secure her place in the hearts and minds of every other like-minded book reader.

I’ve just closed the pages of the trade edition (which we published in July for the export market) and I have a wee tear in my eye and flutter in my soul.

Colette is already a bestselling author in Ireland, but the UK has yet to jump on her with the same gusto they have with some other, more famous, Irish writers - but I have every faith that if the readers pick up her books, they will love her every bit as much as they do Cecelia Ahern or Marian Keyes….

New Work has done a cracking job on her new brand image….see….


and all it will take is one the big supermarkets to order 25k, get them on the shelves and start selling them and we will have a winner…

I have a couple of the trade editions going spare for anyone who fancies reading this latest story?

So another week has slipped through the fingers, and we are in a same old same old sticky wicket situation. One moment of note to report. My second date (well, not date in the true sense of the word) with Akram Khan was no less spectacular than the first. Bahok is just the most amazingly fantastic piece of dance I think I have ever seen. It’s not ballet, it’s this - “bahok brings together 8 dancers from diverse cultures, traditions and dance backgrounds: Chinese, Korean, Indian, South-African and Spanish. As such they resemble a present day version of the tale of Babel, speaking different languages both with their bodies and tongues. They meet in one of this globalised world’s transit zones and try to communicate, to share ‘the things they carry with them’: their experiences, their memories of their original homes, the dreams and aspirations that made them move. They are carriers. They are bahok.” and it’s fucking brilliant.

Another weekend, another birthday fandango. Kensington Place offers a delicious three course lunch menu and great cocktails; my chesnut and mushroom pasta with a sage foam, butternut squash and gorgonzola risotto and a pudding of peanut butter parfait, chocolate ganache and salted caramel icecream was one of the best meals I have ever eaten... happy birthday Lady Lynch, you rock!!

That has got to be the shortest Summer Reading campaign in the history of reading…what a bunch of arse.

I am ever hopeful of this so called bbq autumn we keep being promised to help me in my goal of finishing at least one of the huge piles of books that are cluttering up the lounge, before a whole other bunch of other good stuff starts being published, and the books literally start taking over the world again.

Anyway. Latest to be slapped down on the finished pile is lad lit author extraordinaire Mike Gayle, who found the back of the net with his last one The Life and Soul of the Party which tells of the lives and loves of a group of thirty something mates. There is lots of angst, some infidelity, a few kids, a bunch of drinking and dancing, lots of parties, some travelling, one or two pregnancies, and a terrible death.


One thing I’ve always loved about Mike’s fiction is that the people he creates are always very normal; they don’t have fancy lives, they aren’t part of the international jet-set crew, they aren’t singers, models or movie stars, they don’t drip with diamonds, or wear designer gear from head to toe. And I love them for those reasons alone.

Silk

Yesterday I went to see a workshop performance of Silk - a brand new musical drama with music and lyrics by Matthew Strachan and the script by my friend (and his wife) Bernie.

As before, when I saw their last musical Next Door’s Baby I was completely blown away and can not think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

The blurb on the website goes like this: Ruth Ellis and Albert Pierrepoint had only one, infamous meeting. But in Silk the two enjoy revealing conversations over tea and biscuits at a macabre parlour party, entertained by a louche variety bill including Albert’s predecessors, his family, Ruth’s friends and her lovers. Finally, as the clock strikes nine, it’s time for Ruth to leave. Albert is left alone with his ghosts. A psychological musical drama, Silk is teeming with half forgotten historical figures grateful for the chance to unburden themselves through a rambunctious score.

My blurb would go something like this: Bernie and Matthew are so incredibly talented and fabulous; it just takes my breath away. If I had a smidgen of their creative juice I would be smug and probably hateful. Silk has a brilliantly funny script, just the right touch of sick and wrong in places given the subject matter, and the score is worthy of a sell out season on any West End musical stage. If I was a producer person I would be beating my way to their door to snap up the opportunity of bringing this work of genius to a theatre…

Ticket to Rye....

Our long weekend by the seaside ended with a bump this afternoon, and four loads of laundry waiting for us back home...

Poke Off

I’ve only gone and done it.

I’ve done what I swore I wouldn’t do.

I’ve reinstated my facebook page…

I give it three days before I get poked off with it again and disable myself....

Banksy in Brentford?

Numbers

I’ve had 7014 visitors to this page since I added the widget that counts for me…

I have 4 books currently on the go...
My Bathroom Read is The Sister Diaries from New Work.
My Kitchen Read is Economy Gastronomy that I got suckered into buying after seeing the dude make some rather gorgeous looking brownies on TV…
My Lunchtime Read is Silent Scream - my first ever Lynda La Plante, shame on me!
My Bedside Read is The Secrets We Keep also from New Work that is coming in April next year.

I weighed in at 17 stone and 4 pounds this morning.

I left the house this morning at 7.04am precisely.

Me and Mr Husband have both the 4th and the 7th of September off… there will be kissing.

Is the universe trying to tell me something significant about the numbers 7 and 4?

Waterstones.com are running a rather fabulous competition to win a stay at Blakes Hotel in South Ken to celebrate the launch of what looks like a cracking little title by sexpert Kate Taylor Domestic Sex Goddess - a book for couples in long-term relationships that answers all those rather sticky questions like: how to still fancy your partner when you've just spent 10 minutes picking his socks up off the bedroom floor? Count me in.

That’s me that is.

I mean, that was me. I was one of the Coven. I wasn’t however the interesting one with the Hugh Laurie stories…

That’s also me.

I was one of the Feet gang… I also had smooth, soft and silky appendages. Not any more, let me tell you.

I finished it on Friday on the way home. As ever, the authors’ words, characters, story and sentiment took my breath away. Buy it and read it.

To celebrate the launch of brand new bonkbuster DIVAS New Work is giving away £100 to help you host your very own DIVAS night out.

With designer labels, luxury Manhattan penthouses, hot men, sizzling scandal, glitz and glamour, DIVAS is set to be this summer’s bonkbuster and the ultimate accessory for every girl’s handbag.

Just click on this to enter the competition, and drop me a comment below if you wanted to get your hands on a copy of the book. Look - it's all pink and sparkly. How lovely.

I started it last night, and am totally engrossed and intrigued and obsessed already. It is just so beautifully written and I am completely absorbed with what happened that Summer between Olivia and Richie, and what will happen now...

I finished a “been-on-the-pile-for-over-a-year” book over the weekend (whilst watching the mighty Chelsea and the outstanding Usain Bolt).

The Love of Her Life is gorgeous, it’s funny, it’s incredibly sad and I loved it.

That’s a three out of three so far from me for Harriet, as I equally loved Going Home and A Hopeless Romantic . I even adore the gorgeous branding and packaging she is given by her publishers – all sparkly and pastel colours.

So, imagine my excitement when I spied on Amazon today that her brand new book will hit the shelves in hardback in October. Me! Me! Me! I want one...

Since we last spoke, my Husband and I took ourselves out of the rat race for a week, and sat on the sofa looking at one another for 72 hours before popping off for an overnight mini-moon in a rather splendid four star hotel housed within a medieval building right on the river in 30 acres of glorious Oxfordshire countryside. Bliss. We even had a meal in the restaurant, together, at a table, and spoke to one another. Wonders will never ceace.

Then last Saturday, whilst enjoying The Mother’s hospitality and minted lamp chump chops, and neither being drunk or chased by demons, I fell up her garden path, twisted, sprained and hurted my ankle. Like really really. Have been relying on a crutch (that was CRUTCH) ever since with a big old swollen hurty ligament, and am now exhausted by the whole debacle.

It has scuppered my week’s cycle schedule, and a lovely trip I had planned for this weekend to see The Sister, The Brother in Law and The Niece. However, it is some compensation that instead, we are going to the flix this afternoon (bless Summer Hours!) to watch G-Force which I am reliably informed is about secret agent guinea pigs. Exactly.

See you next week chaps, have a good one.

Oh, I do SO like to be beside the seaside...

Yesterday morning at 10.30am two cars full of extremely excited ladies set off for some B&B birthday fun.

Despite the 5 hour miserable journey, we were drunk within an hour of arriving and despite the rain and staying in the Bournemouth equivalent of Fortey Towers we had cake with candles, we had fizzy falling down water, we had a gorgeous posh fish dinner, we were told off by the hotelier for being noisy (yep, nearly 40 years of age and told off by an ex-surf dude whilst wearing my pj's at 2am) and by God there was dancing... today there was a paddle in the sea, a go on the pier, a Mimosa for breakfast, and beer on the promenade and a curly icecream on the beach. Heaven. Happy Birthday Mrs Darling - you are a scream.