The coffee table

Last weekend, S-Boy and I bought a coffee table. We’d been looking for the perfect coffee table for a while (read: a few days, but I got too impatient with looking) and after much unsuccessful online browsing, we decided to venture to actual shops (I know! They still exist!). As we walked down the high street, everything was too perfect-looking and too expensive. Bleurgh. Nobody likes perfect. So we went to a charity shop specialising in furniture for the perfect imperfect find.

After perusing the sofas (“Let’s get this!” “We already have a sofa...” “I don’t care!”), we got down to business. On first look, the coffee tables available to us were unimpressive. Glass top: big regrets, tiny table: no good for my mound of coffee table books. Then we saw it. Not shining like a beacon of hope among the dusty has-beens of yesteryear like you might imagine, but just sat there, having a well good time.

The oak table was sturdy, with thick chunky legs and worn away scratches in the corner. I liked it. No, I loved it. Here was a table that had LIVED. And not just as Grandma Doreen’s telephone table, but really lived. I bet this table had seen loads of important events. Like the first steps of a baby. Perhaps the table was the same height as the walking baby and therefore caused too much danger. Or maybe it saw the beginning of someone’s new career in jewellery making or wielding, which would explain the scratches.

To top it all off (as if it needed to), it had a shelf underneath. A quiet, well-meaning shelf that didn’t say ‘Look at me guys!’ but quietly nodded, ‘you can store that book just here, if you like’.

Pleased with our find, we asked the kind man behind the till how much it would cost. £25, he said. £25! We’ll take it! A child’s stool in Argos costs about £30, we’d be mental not to take it. We arranged to have it delivered the next Saturday in the afternoon, when we could answer the door and transport it safely into the warmth of our home, rather than let it sit outside the flat in the cold.

That week of waiting was brutal. I’d go home and look at our current, pathetic ‘coffee table’ and feel resentful. Look at you, sad, unfulfilling table. My impatience turned to scorn and I don’t know who was more relieved come Saturday when the table finally arrived, me or S-Boy.

We carried it into the living room and placed it carefully in our chosen spot. Perfect. We sat back on the sofa and admired it. Except, something was wrong. It didn’t look quite right. The room looked too...cluttered. There was too much furniture. Oh god, had we made a bad decision? We spent that evening moving the furniture around. Damn coffee table.

Phone stalker

The same rules apply for phoning up a company as asking what someone’s said. You can’t say ‘pardon’ more than twice, or it'll seem like you weren’t listening (even if they are mumblers and you're justified in shouting 'eh?'). In the same way, you can’t phone a company more than twice, unless you’ve warned them you’re going to do so. You especially can’t phone more than twice if you’ve already confirmed something and ended your conversation.

Last night I discovered a mysterious pain in my mouth. I was retrieving a seed (from a seeded bagel, if you must know) from my gums with my tongue, as you do, when a sudden jolt of pain ran through me. After some investigating (poking around in my mouth/logging onto Net Doctor) I discovered that it was a wisdom tooth infection.

Never the time-waster, this morning I rang a local dentist to register. I did it over the phone and the receptionist asked if I’d like to book an appointment. I declined, after all, I wanted to take some quality time to find out what this establishment was about before I put my dental care in their hands.

Upon biting into my apple slice, I realised that this was a bit of an emergency. I needed an appointment. No bother, I’d just ring back. After much day-bartering (‘No appointments tomorrow, or this week in the evening, or in the morning’) I secured an appointment for next Tuesday, the 14^th February at 8pm. Great, I thought as I hung up, I have registered, checked the cost and made the appointment.

Pleased with myself, I text S-Boy to let him know. It was only after I re-read the text I’d sent that I realised I could not be sat in a dentist’s chair, gripping the arm rests and inwardly crying on Tuesday 14^th February at 8pm. It’s Valentine’s Day! S-Boy and I had arranged to go out to eat and be romantic and shit. I shook my head at my disgusting oblivion to a National holiday (and secretly scolded S-Boy for not realising either. But he wasn’t the absent-minded monster in this circumstance. That would be me.)

I didn’t want to ring back again, especially having already called twice and spoken to the same receptionist (my guess? There’s only one!) but I knew I had no choice.

Avoiding giving her the reason why (‘I realised it was Valentine’s Day and intend on being soppy and disgusting and romantic. Ergo I can’t have a mirrored scalpel in my mouth and a man all up in my face at that time’) I changed my appointment to Wednesday 15^th February. Super, sorted.

Pleased I’d sorted it out, I got on with my work. But wait a minute, I’ll have to wait a whole 8 days to get my tooth agony sorted? I knew I couldn't last that long, but I couldn't ring the dentist again, could I? The same receptionist would pick up. She’d know that it was me again, because she’d dealt with my many queries up until this point.

Sheepishly, I dialled the number before I could talk myself out of it.

“Hello there! Me again!”

I asked if she had any appointment this week in the evening, even though she’d said previously that they hadn’t. I could hear her gritting her teeth as she tapped away at her computer but held my ground, knowing my teeth would thank me for this (though I’m not entirely sure how, they're not so good with the gifts). She gave me a free slot for this Thursday. I took it eagerly and promised that I wouldn’t be calling again. I laughed afterwards to show that this was a funny joke we could all laugh at. She didn’t laugh. I hung up.

I then realised she’d lied before, about there being no slots. If she had just given me the honest list of free slots at the beginning, I wouldn’t have had to make the last two phone calls! And she had the nerve to phone-tut at me?! I wanted to ring her back, to let her have a piece of my mind. But then I remembered that you can never call a company more than two times.

How to go away from the blogosphere and then have the cheek to come back

1. Give a good reason for leaving in the first place.

Unacceptable reasons include: snakes on a plane (this only happens to Samuel L Jackson and even if there were anacondas in the aisle of BA0151, you would still be able to type on your Smartphone, silly), finding better things to do (what is better than talking about the menial things that happen to you on a daily basis in the tiny hope that someone, somewhere might care somewhat? No, I couldn’t think of anything, either) and emigrating (everyone knows that Australia has good Internet access).

Acceptable reasons include: moving house, having lots of work to do and turning your hand to baking fresh treats for the whole family to enjoy. Not because I did any of those.*

2. Decide if you’re going to stay forever, or if there’s even a small possibility that you might go away again (NB: people might not care if you go away again but it’ll make you feel better to pretend that they do).

3. Worry about whether you’ll still have any followers if you make a comeback.

4. Worry about the comeback you’ll have to make.

5. Write something rubbish and delete it, feeling the pressure from your (un)interested, long-gone audience.

6. Shamelessly plug your latest creation, as if you’d never left. Christmas was such a hoopla that nobody will have noticed that it’s been over two months – they’ve all been caught up in hand crafting wreaths and forcing mini vegetable samosa's into their mouths.

7. Write a blog post about how to come back after leaving.

8. Feel relieved.

9. Realise you have to think of something good and funny and clever to say in the next one.

10. Contemplate leaving again. Stay and write something not that good or funny or clever. Continue.

* I did all of those.

Escalator Error

Now that winter is upon us, we can expect that all transport will fail in some capacity. Trains will be late, tube lines will be closed, cars will be slower and ultimately, we will panic when the glacial pace of the packed crowd doesn’t allow us to rush. Yay! Bearing this in mind, three weeks ago, when I was being barged around Victoria tube station, I was a little delirious. I’d had a rubbish night’s sleep, I was headachey from the soaring temperatures of the underground and I was also feeling a little dizzy from the constant Newton’s Cradling between other people’s shoulders.

Now we all make public errors, which is why what I did next was completely understandable.

As we all shuffled dismally towards the escalators, not quite relishing the almost-freedom we were faced with, I decided to perk up and take action. There were three escalators. Usually two of these go up and one goes down. Everyone seemed to be piling onto one ‘up’ escalator and completely disregarding the free one. Must just be this tube-coma we’re all in, I thought, maybe no one’s noticed. Always attempting to be the trend setter (...), I stepped out of the triple-file escalator queue and headed towards the middle escalator. Yeah, that’s right everyone, I’m not afraid of stepping out and taking the lead.

This is it, I thought, my moment to be brave and consequently smug when everyone follows me. Those sheep. I strode towards the rolling escalator and felt heads turn towards me. That’s right, watch this, folks. As soon as my boot-clad foot reached forward onto the first step, I felt a surge of accomplishment. Here I was, leading the confused people of London to the ticket barrier in less time than they had originally planned when they joined the massive queue. It was only when I was a few steps up that I realised the problem. I wasn’t going up.

In actual fact, I was going down. This should’ve been the moment where I realised my terrible blunder and quickly amended it, but no. I decided that no pesky wrong-way escalator was going to take my moment of heroism away from me, and tried to climb up a few more steps. Everyone was looking as I conducted this unintentional comedy sketch show. After far too long, I let the escalator take me on its natural course, back down to the ground floor. The sham still wasn’t over though. There was still a massive queue to join so there would be no slipping onto the up escalator and running away.

I stood in the queue, acutely aware of everyone, including the balding Indian man next to me, staring. To shy from the pressure, I did what any self-respecting 21st century citizen would’ve done; I got my phone out and pretended to be reading something really interesting, for a really long time. When I reached the ticket barriers, I ran. The moral of the story? Never try to be a hero (or outsmart an escalator).

The Girls from Flat 5

When we moved into our building, we became aware that the girls in Flat 5 liked to play their music loudly. This was no problem for us, for we were over ten flats away. No biggie. However, one night within our first few weeks of living in the building, we were awoken by heavy bass beats and screaming. In a huff, I got up and opened our front door. As I bent over the banister, I heard the girls from Flat 5 screaming, with a hoard of their deep-voiced friends guffawing. This kind of behaviour continued every few weeks.

From then on, I had a grudge against Flat 5. Not the flat itself, in fact it was quite spacious from what we could gather, but rather, its occupants. S-Boy told me to get over it: “they’re just having fun” he’d say. Well, they can go and have fun in university halls if they insist on squealing like banshees and playing an unlimited amount of drum and bass songs that serve no other purpose but to create awkward moments (you can’t dance to it, you can’t talk over it).

A few weeks ago, we got a knock on the door. We never got knocks on the door. Dubious, I made S-Boy answer it. He swung open the door to reveal one of the girls from Flat 5. In a babble, she explained that she needed a hairdryer because hers had broken, and by the way she was a hairdresser so if we wanted free cuts, ‘just knock’. I let her borrow my hairdryer, all smiles and ‘us girls, eh!’.

Me: So she’s a hairdresser but she doesn’t have a hairdryer?
S-Boy: She does, she said it broke
Me: So she’s a hairdresser but her hairdryer broke? You’d think she’d have a fancy one.
S-Boy: Maybe she doesn’t.
Me: Mmm no. Maybe not. Her hair wasn’t wet, just then, when she knocked on the door.
S-Boy: Wasn’t it?
Me: No. It was dry. I wonder what she’s going to do with my hairdryer.

37 minutes later and my hairdryer hadn’t been returned. I’m not one to get possessive, but 37 minutes is an awfully long time to dry your hair, unless you’re Samson, from that Bible tale. Maybe she’s gone out and forgotten about it. That singular thought riled me up. I asked S-Boy to go and ask her for it. He left the flat, but emerged merely moments later. Sans hairdryer. He said that he’d heard them using it. 39 minutes later and they were only just using it!

Eventually, she returned the hairdryer, along with some hair products as a thank you for letting her borrow the hairdryer. She blatantly just wanted to flog them, having been given so many freebies at work. I accepted them happily anyway.

S-Boy: That was nice of her. See they’re not so bad.
Me: It was nice. I don’t think they’re bad people, they’re just extremely loud. And inconsiderate. But maybe now they’ve met some neighbours, they’ll keep the partying to a minimum.

For the remainder of the evening, we only had happy thoughts for our neighbours, the girls in Flat 5.Then, 2am rolled around and we were woken by, what sounded like, an Asian, camp, male diva screaming. Following this, we heard the girls. The girls from Flat 5.

London Fashion Week Encounters

Last week I attended London Fashion Week. Having been to the shows for the past two years, I remembered what to expect and understood the protocol (e.g. look cool, don’t eat etc) but I wasn’t prepared for the strange encounters that I was involved in.

As I arrived at Somerset House, I pulled my camera from my bag, ready to pap any amazing-looking creatures. As I did so, a twenty-something guy caught my eye. Well, posing Vogue-stylie all up in my grill was bound to draw some of my attention. Keen photographers were snapping away at him as he posed in ways that people only do when they’re mocking models. I watched from afar, but after his impromptu photoshoot, he strutted up to me and said AT me: “The *John Evans.”
Startled by his excitable disposition, I replied: “What?”
“The John Evans. That’s my Twitter name. I’m a presenter, you know. Yeah, so. Do it now.”

Unfortunately my phone was already in my hand, provoking ‘The John Evans’ to reach for it. I rambled that I’d add him later. He seemed pleased with this response; well either that or he just couldn’t wait to pose for his next load of optimistic, oblivious photographers. I imagine it was the latter.

Merely minutes after this situation, I was stood next to a well-groomed Indian man in a queue; let’s call him Ray as I think that might actually be his name. He was complete with sunglasses, bow tie and entourage. His photographer and PR man were right by his side. When introducing said entourage, Ray turned to an 18-year-old guy complete with man-bag and purple tinted fringe and said: “this is my...date” and then laughed awkwardly. Later, the very same young guy took my business card. So was he his assistant or...ah I see, one of those ‘assistants’.

Ray also had some girls from a London uni with him, filming a documentary for a project. They were filming us having a conversation, when suddenly Ray said: “my Dad once said that if you can’t do anything well, at least be good at these three things: living, working and f***ing. Do you do those?” Cue awkward moment on camera.

Me: “Er, definitely the first two.”
He seemed outraged: “What about the last one? The most important?”
Oh god. “In moderation.”
Ray replied: “No moderation darling, never in moderation!”

After hypothetically dying on the spot, the queue finally started to move and I managed to escape. In the show, Ray and co were sat front row and papped until the lights went down. Well that’s men for you, perhaps more gossip-worthy than IT girls. Watch out for those male diva’s.

* Names have been changed to spare fame-junkies the satisfaction.

Party In My...Brain

After what felt like a lifetime of suffering from migraines, I was sent by my doctor to the hospital. I saw Dr Sharma, who hit my knee with a little tool and stared right into my eyes with a light. After two minutes of assessment he sent me on my way with pieces of paper and absolutely no clue of what just happened. I detected that I was scheduled to have a brain scan. Bit extreme, I thought, but then I’d rather know now if there’s an uninvited guest having a party on my brain.

Two days later, at 8:40am, I entered the scan room with a man who, despite his friendly face, seemed to have just woken up. I came face to face with the big machine in the middle of the room, whirring away and was asked to lie down on it. What followed was some sort of children’s sci-fi ride akin to No Way Out at Thorpe Park; you know, flashing lights, rotating machine parts and whizzing sounds. Poor brain.

I asked Sleepy Jim how I would find out the results. He said something at me that I didn’t understand and then opened the door for me to leave. At the reception desk I asked the receptionist if I could find out my doctor’s number. She pointed me towards a phone on the desk and told me to type in a random help number. I didn’t want to call my doctor at that point, I’d only just had the scan, like two minutes ago and I thought it was taking the piss a little bit to try and find the results out now. For some reason I still walked over to the phone and smiled at her, before waiting until she became preoccupied, at which point I ran away. Smooth.

After a week of waiting, I phoned the hospital. Trying to even locate my doctor was hard work in itself.
Me: I saw Dr Sharma last week in the neurology department.
Hospital Fool: Which Dr Sharma?
Me: Whichever Dr Sharma works in the neurology unit? He didn’t tell me his first name.
(At this point I felt sad that we weren’t close enough to have a first-name rapor)
H.F: Two Dr Sharma’s work in the neurology unit.
Me: Right. Well he was Indian, as I imagine the other one is, and sent me for a brain scan.
H.F: I’m sorry; I don’t know who you’re looking for.
Me: Dr Sharma.
H.F: Right, but which one?

My free fist was so tightly clenched that I started to get hand cramp so I hung up in a rage. I called a switchboard the next day and was given my doctor’s secretary’s number. I phoned her and she merely said: “we haven’t got results yet,” before hanging up. A week later I tried again. She said that he’d “err write up a report.” I didn’t really need a full blown analysis; just a one-word answer to the whole ‘is my brain wasting away?’ would’ve been sufficient.

The hilarity of the story is that I still haven’t had the results. You may think this signals good news, ‘you’re in the clear, wahoo!’ but having tried to even get a prescription out of the hospital, it seems that they suffered from a hideous case of disorganisation. I’m pretty sure that if an intruder IS taking a dump on my brain, I could sue the hospital for a fat sum of dollar. With that in mind, perhaps I should cut the calling...

Tube Etiquette

It’s an unspoken rule that you should let a elderly person or pregnant woman have your seat on the tube. Those who don't abide by this easily digestible decree get frowned upon, or they're subject to some not-so-quiet tutting and other angry British-isms, at least.

Last week, I got on the tube and headed North West, a direction I rarely grace. I had a date with a train at Paddington Station and didn’t want to be late, so jumped right on, even though it was sardine city. I rarely do this, I usually tut at those who push their way on like bardy dogs. I quickly nabbed a free seat on the train, mostly because I was suffering from a hideous bout of kidney infection. All I wanted was a sit down (and some slippers. But that would just be for my own personal pleasure).

Seated and as perky as one with wilting kidneys could be, an elderly man stood next to me. Oh god. I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to offer this old man my seat.

“Excuse me, would you like my seat?”
“Oh no love, that’s okay.”

Now I know what you’re thinking, ideal, right? I followed the rules and I still got to keep my seat. Except I hadn’t followed the rules, because even when nice old men protest taking your seat, you're supposed to badger them into doing so because you know they’re just being polite and DO want to sit. I didn't badger him. I didn’t even offer again. I felt disgusted with myself, but admittedly my kidneys were pretty cushty.

He started telling me about his bus driver friend who used to hide his arm inside his coat so passengers would think he was driving one-handed. He laughed a lot. I laughed with him, partly out of guilt and partly because, well it was quite an amusing little tale. Every time there was a silence I yearned to tell him that it was my kidneys, that’s what this situation was all about; I wasn’t a selfish youth from a horrible misinformed generation. Only, I couldn’t seem to find an appropriate way to start the conversation. I missed many chances to tell him that usually I berate elderly people into taking my seat. Nicely, of course.

With every anecdote he told, I could feel his disappointment with my poor choice. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity of being judged by old man (as part of the young generation I feel I have to show elders we’re not all looters with crowbars in our bags), the train got to Paddington. Elderly man was leaving here too. Neither one of us was closer to the door than the other so I stood up and insisted he go in front of me. Due to the packed train and minimum foot space, I was holding onto the rail, swaying about in the air as elderly man took his time to decide.

He gestured to me, saying, after you. So I went. If I had hung around the rails any longer I would have most definitely fallen onto the face of the lady next to me. I arrived at Paddington feeling guilty and sad, but then I saw Krispy Kreme and perked up. The moral of the story is; always give your seat up unless you have kidney infection, as that’s a valid reason to stay seated.

The People's Elbow, or something like that

Seeing your partners parents can be a bit of a nervy time. I get along with S-Boy’s just fine, we’ve met up several times happily but I still worry that I'll say/do the wrong thing.

On one of our previous meetings, I dropped curry in my lap, sprayed it on the walls and managed to get some in the tiny white checks of S-Boy’s shirt. That anecdote gets mentioned every time we meet. I could live with that, just one harmless story that would be told to family and friends afar for the rest of our lives. No biggie.

Apparently the Gods, or whoever’s in charge of this joint, didn’t think that one awful story was enough. This bank holiday weekend, S-Boy’s parents stayed in a hotel in London, so they could see the sights and spend time with their son (and his zany girlfriend). Upon meeting them at the hotel, we all hugged and kissed cheeks (my number one most hated social ritual.) I was hugging his Dad hello, when it appeared our cheek-kissing ended up more on the lips. Hideous, I know, but it happened.

We didn’t make a fuss of that blunder, after all, silly things like that happen all the time (don’t they?). It was waiting for the lift in the hotel lobby that really did it. His parents had booked into a fancier suite than the generic economy rooms, so therefore got to use a special lift that only went to their floor.

As we stood and waited for, what I assumed was just the one lift, a lift nearby opened up. As S-Boy headed towards it, I went to say that we couldn’t get in any old lift. As I did so, I reached my arm out and pointed my finger at the sign above. During this time, S-Boy’s Dad walked straight into my arm and I elbowed him in the face. I even felt his facial features touch my grainy elbow. It was all extremely mortifying.

To make it worse, as we walked into the lift (which, by the way, WAS the right lift after all) I said aloud: “So I just punched your dad in the face and now we’re getting into the lift.” I have no idea why I said it aloud, but it was heard by all.

That lift ride was a quiet one.

I am sure this will be the new ‘curry story’ that will be told at countless events and occasions from now on. That’s what happens, I suppose, when you kiss your boyfriend's dad and then punch him in the face.

Singing Lessons

Last night S-Boy lured me into participating in a Singing Lessons DVD. I kid you not.

S-Boy is a musician and a singer. In a bid to perfect his vocal chords, he rented this DVD, hosted by American Brett Manning, apparently the world's best vocal teacher. In a bid to unleash my Broadway dreams (watch this space. Keep watching. Rome wasn't built in a day, jeez) I decided that this might be beneficial. In the first section we were talked through vocabulary. Inevitably I got bored and urged S-Boy to move onto the next section. Begrudgingly, as if he was going to miss some sort of magic trick that might transform him to new realms of vocal wonder, he clicked 'next'. I jumped with glee as I heard Brett's nasal tone say: "Vocal Exercises". This is more like it!

I was wrong. They were not the backstage dressing room warm-up exercises I had imagined. No stood at the piano repeating 'ah' in an ascending scale and hitting it note perfect. Instead, I found myself sat at the table imitating a horse whose genitalia had been given the chop. 'Nay nay nay' I sang in a high pitched voice. After repeating 'mom mom mom' for what felt like an eternity, we moved onto a different exercise.

Keeping with the horse theme, Brett told us to do that thing where you blow air out of mouth with your lips touching, so they vibrate and make the funny noise that my dad used to make when I was a child. Apparently age has nothing to do with its comedic powers, as hearing Brett create the 'pissed-off horse' sound turned me into a hysterical idiot. Welling up with the force of my uncontrollable laughter, S-Boy paused the DVD, irritated.

"Oh for God's sake, stop being silly," he scolded, part amused part annoyed.

As with everything you're told not to do, I did the exact opposite. Note, I was not shrieking with laughter purposely, just hearing the S-Boy make the noise sent me into some sort of hooting oblivion. He had to pause the DVD another three times. I was so entertained I took a photo of S-Boy during this exercise so he could see how Mick Jagger-esque his lips looked. You can see that at the top of this post.

A few exercises later, S-Boy suggested that we put the DVD away. Truth be told, I was a little disappointed but I understood his concern. I didn't want to learn too much too soon, you know, become too good. I made a promise to myself that I would still use the DVD with S-Boy, no matter the amazing new vocal planes my voice might soon reach. And let's be honest, that's a given.