Getting some offline interaction (getting a life)

Several years ago, when I was working for a small, very trendy web design firm, we were having a meeting with a 'big' client. I was brought in, as in my chameleon career, I had pretty much worked for everybody and done most jobs (I say most... No, I never got paid for that.. Read my book) A young pup, fresh out of 'uni' all white jeans and checked shirt, was giving us the 'heads up' on the market research that he had been enthusiastically carrying out.

"So we asked them about how they connect with friends online, and what social networking sites they use. We even asked them about their offline social networking".... At this point, I just had to interrupt,

"You of course mean REAL LIFE?... Like a proper conversation, on the phone, over a coffee a glass of wine??!!" I looked round the room with a conspiratorial grin.... (They were too cool and trendy to return my gaze) The young pup with his big brown eyes, looked at me, (whom I had worked out would be old enough to have been his mother, if I had got up the junction at age 18)

"Ummmm, yes, what they do when they are not online..." He looked troubled, as though a large big bad cloud had come into his personal night garden. I was bemused. So 'real life' to this clean skinned, tight bottomed lad was subservient to online existence.

This was six years ago. I am sitting here, typing away on my ipad at midnight, and I am asking myself, "God, do I really have to keep blogging away in order to exist?" I am sure my friends know who I am, I do believe they like me. I have a job, where I interact with people in an offline capacity (I teach). But, the truth is, I am a secret authoress and in the eyes of the reading public, I don't really exist unless I tweet, blog and publish more books. In fact, who am I kidding? My book doesn't really exist, it's an e-book, so why am I fussing?

I suppose it is because like all older generations before, I am dreaming of a simpler life. One where we didn't have to get our iPhones out in restaurants to share photos and post our status. In fact it would be lovely just to go on holiday, like we did in the old days, where, you really did cut yourself off from the world for two or three weeks. Don't you remember the feeling ? ..of coming back, and thinking you really had been on Mars for the previous fortnight.

But, as far as interacting and communicating goes, I do challenge those who say 'we don't talk anymore'. Complete tosh. We are talking and communicating too much! Tweeting, texting, emailing all day and all night. Gosh, your phone is even communicating with you when you sleep, mapping your sleep patterns! Perhaps, its the quality of communication that I am concerned with. Being old school, and having several thousand letters after my name (I exaggerate.. It's only 9) I always write texts in long hand, no 'c u la8r' for me. My emails have a title, a suitable greeting and an appropriate sign off. I believe caring about how you communicate by writing is respecting your audience and yourself. And if that means I am a lingua-snob. Good.

I was at the National Portrait Gallery recently, spewing out to my children the subtleties of Tudor propaganda in their portraits, (communication without words this time) when we stumbled across an exhibition of contemporary artists. One painting absolutely stopped me dead and it succinctly summed up my view about the kind of world we are living in. One full of noise and communications but on the outside, grey and introverted. This is the fabulous 'Shinjuku' by Carl Randall 2013 Oil on Canvas 650mm x 1300mm.

Seventy-five individual portraits were done for this superb depiction of one of the busiest rush hours in the world.

You can still see this work at the NPG until 15th September. What I love is that no one is talking to each other, everyone is in their own space, but most are communicating or being communicated to (by headphones)

We are no longer left with private musings or ponderings thoughts. We have the ability to tell the world every last detail of our daily lives. And yes, I do FB, (in my real life) and I do take pictures of my children wildlife, drinks and plates of food to share with friends. It makes me feel wanted, loved and let's face it, that I do matter.

We cannot ignore our genes, we cannot ignore our instincts. We are social animals, and the more efficient ways we can find to communicate to each other, the more we will do it! So a world of constant noise and communications is here to stay. Hurrah! I hear you text and tweet, I thought she was going to never shut up. Well, I am now, as I have to go and interact in an offline capacity, by making dinner and feeding my children who may have developed square eyes, extra large thumb pads and speak a language of creepers and diamonds but they haven't yet developed the ability to eat online.

 

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Yes to Chocolate No to Wine...

 

Well, I finally did it... yes I measured myself. Not in terms of height, that aint ever going to change. I have been 5ft 2in since age 11. No, I measured my 'vital' but somewhat flabby statisitics. I have put on 2 inches on my waist, bust, tummy (but not hips- which makes my tummy of course look even more ridiculous). ACTION is required...

Three years ago, I lost two and half stone (35lbs?), following a low GI diet, and it has basically stayed off since then. I have completely changed my eating habits and have exercised regularly ever since. So what has changed? Thinking about this as I faced up to the fact that my bra has not shrunk, nor have my jeans, I looked back over the last 6 months. I got a dog and have been regularly walking him, but I have also moved into a lovely big barn, which although makes me fit doing the housework, it also has a lovely range cooker. I have been baking cake A LOT. I have been eating cake A LOT. Also I had an accident where my knee collapsed (OK, I was dancing on a 'Mum's night out, and my knee collapsed beneath me and I tore all my ligaments) so running is now out of my fitness regime. However, when I really think about where the hidden carbs have sneaked in, its in the consumption of wine on a daily basis.

Wine has become synonymous with middle class living. Alcoholics at University, heavy drinkers in our twenties, and then as children come along, wine, sofa and TV is seen as an acceptable end to a stressful day. A moment of feeling like we are the irresponsible adults we used to be. A little bit of 'me' time, a little spoiling, a little naughtiness. Now, as you know, I like a bit of naughtiness on occasion, but looking at my wine consumption in terms of health benefits and moderation. It is seriously slipping, especially as the nights draw in. So from Monday (I have two open bottles in fridge that will need to be consumed before then) I am saying 'No' to wine. I have worked out that my 2-3 glasses a day, which have crept up from my one glass a day 3 months ago are not only responsible for my weight gain, but at my age (2 weeks before my 41st birthday) are a serious issue to my health too. So 134 calories in 175 ml glass of wine, so that means I am consuming 400 calories sitting on the sofa (AHHHHHHHHH) that is more than a chocolate bar!! Do you know, writing that down has suddenly made me feel really ashamed and embarassed that I have let it get to that level.

Of course, you could replace the wine with spirits, a gin and tonic, using low-cal tonic is a 1/4 of the calories, but my issue with spirits is that is it is spectacularly easy to drink to excess, as your home made gin and tonic is probably 3 x the standard measure you get in a pub. So, I think its a no to alcohol on a regular basis. When I have done this before, I find it easy, feel better, sleep better and then think, "Why do I drink?" However, when I give up chocolate..well life is not worth facing. Considering I only eat 85% chocolate, and average aound 40g of the stuff a day (212 cal) I think its a better vice. Plus, all the health benefits of very pure chocolate, (magnisium, serotonin etc) its good for me!!

Christmas is 7 weeks away. I am going to try really hard between now and then. Allow one "drink day" a week (I have three birthdays -including my own between now and then) and perhaps only drink a gin or vodka mixed drink.

Will report back soon!!!

 

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Food Shopping (or advanced project management for domestic engineers))

As I am currently not in the 'real world' but wallowing in what my husband refers to as 'leisure time' (you can imagine how that goes down with yours truely..).I thought that I would share the advanced skills that the domestic engineer is required to have when planning the weekly shop for a family of four. Having been a senior project manager in a big PLC, I know the pressures behind any project. The three limiting factors: time, money (or budget) and scope creep. The latter is when as the project begins, requirements start to increase, which then puts pressure on the other two limiting factors.

So initially, one needs to see what resources already exist within the area covered by the project (which we will refer from now on as WS project - Weekly Shop) This requires a look within cupboards, fridge, freezer, and treat cupboard. Now if you are of a certain type of managment style, (a 'reflector' or team player) you might make of note of what is missing and what you need more of. However, if you are of the 'shaper', or risk-taker ilk, you will not bother to take a note and rely on your amazing ability to retain only the information that you think is a priority. So for an example, remember there is no chocolate for you, or cereals for the kids, forget the corned beef for the husband. If you are a 'plant' or a creative, you wont bother to take a look at all, as you will be looking for inspiration once you get your shopping destination. If you are a born entrepreneur, then you have no time to think about shopping and have already either ordered it online, or got someone else to do it for you. Life is too short to worry about such trivialities when you have the world to conquer. Having had my management style assessed several times over the years, I have been red, green and yellow, a shaper, chairman with plant tendencies and the latest was a working-dog crossed with guard-dog. So I apply what I know of my personal strengths and weaknesses in a quick SWOT analysis in my head, and decide what is required. This does mean sometimes that I do forget things. The big win, is, that it saves time and I can head out of the door preety sharpish (therefore on time). Of course, like with any project, there are left-fielders that come in. This morning it was youngest son saying he had run out of toothpaste, and husband after some beers, as I never remember to buy him any drink. (I always remember my wine, though..)

The next thing is to think about budget. Now last week, was record-breaking. I was under budget by £30 and have no idea how I managed that, but at the management meeting (dinner, Monday night) I shared the good news with the Non-exec but nosey director of our domestic establishment (my husband). "Well, perhaps", (his response was,)"we could be under-budget every week". Of course, these statements are meaningless. It was the end of the month, and I was hiding the turnover figures of the last 4 weeks, so I did cut down...

Now, if you shop online, or scan your shopping, you have a pretty good idea of how close you are to budget, but I am a 'risk-taker' and I enjoy the thrill of taking a bet, once its uploaded onto the conveyor, of how much I have spent. Of course to get to this point I have gone through numerous permutations, calculations, the recipe book in my head, the social committments for the family that week, and the latest fads and dislikes of my two children. Of course, there does tend to be scope creep when thinking about what meals you are to plan. Sometimes a good piece of fish, or meat can turn my plans on their head, or there is an offer and I can't refuse it. I obviously do shop for four, and as we don't eat out and the kids have sandwiches, that does mean that I am responsible for providing nutritious meals with some choice three times a day, seven days a week. It works out at eighty-four meals. The dog and cat are easy, they eat the same thing all the time. Now, you may say, that if I cooked the same thing for everybody, then I could cut down my meal variations. Yes, two or three times a week, we eat as a family and have the same food. However, my children's palates are not as evolved as mine, and occasionally I want food that is not boring and has taste. My husband would live on nursery food, if he was allowed a choice, but he isn't as I do the shopping and the cooking, so he has to indulge me with eating healthy, Low GI, tasty concoctions and not just pie and mash every night. Breakfasts are good at the moment, eldest son eats the same thing every morning, and for a change so is younger son. This is novel, as when he was little, he hated breakfast. Under pressure as a mother, he then got the biggest choice of breakfast delights, so that he would just eat something, and so, like all habits, they are fixed and I have to keep a smorgasbord of delights so that he will eat something. Yes, I am the fool, but sometimes, life is just too short to be perfect mother all the time.

Scope creep does kick in around the drinks aisle. There, I have said it. A lovely fizz on offer, gets my vote, as does a really good pinot noir. Sometimes an extra bottle gets put in, in case we have guests who pop over. The worst type of scope creep is when you are dawdling around the aisles and you remember that you are out of dishwasher tablets or washing powder. Its expensive, it eats into wine and nice meals budget, but it needs to be done. Having tried cheap dishwasher tablets, they are a false economy, so like any project I have been involved with, if you pay peanuts, or go for cheaper quality, you end up paying the price somewhere down the line.

Anyway, having just read what I have written, I am going to stop here and get a life (well walk the dog) Perhaps I am obsessing too much? Or perhaps, all us domestic engineers just need a rant now and then so that those in the 'real world' realise that our skills are not wasted or dormant and if given the chance, we could run a PLC or INC as good as anyone who is in the job at the moment!!!

 

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'The Dog's B******s'

'The Dog's B******s' is a funny phrase. In colloquial English, it means something is fantastic, the best it could be, it's 'pukka' or 'kosher'. Its easy to see where the last two descriptive words came from, and how they relate easily to something that is excellent or as good as it could be, but how could something, that as humans we value so little, can be considered the same? According to the Urban Dictionary

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dog's%20Bollocks

It has the meaning of 'creme de la creme' (another adopted foreign phrase) because as dogs spend so long licking their testicles, they must be very tasty. Ummmmm. Well anyway, as you can tell from the picture above, my puppy no longer has that pleasure. They were removed yesterday at my command. This got me thinking about hypocracy. There I am, espousing sex being the most basic human instinct and we ignore it at our peril, but at the same time I am denying my dog his most basic instinct and urge because it doesn't suit my lifestyle. How can I justify my decision? Well, I turn to the expert in dogs, Caesar Milan, the 'dog whisperer' whose excellent book, "How to raise the Perfect Dog through puppyhood and beyond" (Hodder, 2010) gives some excellent context on this procedure. Where he grew up in Mexico, dogs were everywhere, and were 'at it' all the time, so there was a real problem with the numbers of stray dogs. However, when considering their behaviour, they were never agressive (on the whole) and were mostly laid back and lazy, when not 'on the job'. These dogs were fufulling their natural urges and were sated and happy. However, the results of their lifestyle choices were too many stray dogs, spread of canine disease and a public nuisence, in terms of excrement, scavaging and noise.

In Western culture, we don't encourage our dogs to procreate at random. In fact we actively stop any behaviours associated with it, 'humping' legs, tables, toys, you name it! According to Caesar, in sexually mature dogs, denying this natural urge through behavioural methods means that their natural urges are then redirected in other unwanted behaviours. In some dogs this can be pent up agression. In others, its running off. In others its plain hyper-activity. In his view, the earlier that you neuter a dog the better, as then they have less chance of developing these unwanted behaviours and the dog does not miss the hormonal rush that comes from sexual maturity. In fact, according to him, it is much crueller to keep a dog who is sexually mature but not allowed to procreate than it is to neuter him, so he doesn't know what he is missing. Caesar is all about training dogs by working with their natural instincts, and having read several books on the matter and regularly attending Kennel Club approved training, his advice and insights have been by far the most true.

So, considering my puppy is living in a human setting and is a domesticated animal, he will, in the end be a happy more contented animal living in a non-natural environment, than if I kept him 'intact' where his sexual urges completely dominate his every waking thought and behaviour. (According to Caesar, their urge to procreate takes over their urge to hunt once they reach sexual maturity, especially if they don't have to hunt for their food.)

So my mind is salved, my conscience is clear. Whether I will get over the guilt I feel about putting a cone on his head, I don't know but it is something that I will have to live with.

Just as an interesting criminlogical aside. There was in a the past, an experiment of castrating male violent prisoners, to remove their agressive tendencies and also to assist them (or more likely their gaolers) to cope with being cooped up. Unfortunately, forced human castration has far more reaching effects on the personality of males, and was ultimately considered an abbuse of human rights. Of course, in history, castrated males have held symbolic roles and positions. In the Chinese Han Dynasties, they were an essential part of court and would carry their testicles around with them, as a symbol of their position and purity. Castrato singers achieved their unique voices through being castrated before sexual maturity. The last castrato was Alessandro Moreschi born in 1858. There is a recording of his voice on You tube.

One thing, though which is a truth, male testicles are directly linked with their sexuality and their personality and although as women, sometimes we think we would all be better off if they were chopped off, would we really like the results? Once they are gone.. they can never be replaced!!

 

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Coffee, Liqueur Chocolates and Guilt?

It's that time of the morning, near 11 o'clock. My feet automatically hot foot it to the coffee machine. There is something comforting about being middle-aged and having these small rituals every day. When you complete the ritual, then all the world is at peace but sometimes, when work or activities interfere with that ritual, there is a feeling of something jarring, something not quite right. I have the same thing about listening to 'Women's hour on BBC Radio 4'. I love knowing that at 10 o'clock, I will be able to switch it on and get on with housework, or writing, or some such nonsense. When I miss it, or only start listening, at, say, 10.20 am, I feel cheated. Sad but true. Thank goodness for iplayer!! So this morning, to shake things up a bit and not get too complacent, I decided to live a little and have a liqueur chocolate with my coffee. There was an initial thought of 'liqueur chocolates are just for Christmas' but then I silenced this voice by saying to myself, "well at £1.19 for a packet of them, it can be Christmas every day". It was a Whiskey cream one, so by shoving that in my mouth and then a sip of coffee, it was like liqueur coffee heaven! It was naughty, but it was so very definitely nice. Sometimes, you have to force yourself to get out of the rut. The older you get, and the more comfortable the rut gets, the more difficult it is. In my book, I say that sex needs to be a two-way street. Comfortable with the status-quo is fine, but eventually, comfortable can become boring. One or the other starts looking for the 'treat' for the liqueur chocolate, something a little bit special, something perhaps like making love on a school night, and not just Sunday morning when the kids are downstairs watching TV..... I wont be having a liqueur chocolate every day... but Monday morning was certainly more special because of it.

 

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Chablis, Chocolate and Downton

So, it's out there! My first baby (in books that is). I can't believe how exciting it is. I have never checked my sales so often as I have this weekend! Its doing well! As I write this, I am No 1 in the free 'sex' category (ummm that sounds a bit naughty) What it really means is that I am No.1 in the free Amazon books 'sex' category. Never have been top of the charts in anything, so fabulous! The most exciting discovery is that I am downloaded in all countries apart from France... Perhaps that is because, as I say in the book, the French have a certain 'confidence' in the bedroom so they don't want or need to read the memoirs of anyone else!!

Of course, once the 'free' promotion is over, perhaps sales will tail off, but I hope that they won't. I put my heart and soul into this book, as all authors do....

I was absolutely thrilled to receive a 5 star rating, especially as none of my friends know I have written this book. I am relying on the great 'reading public' to give me their views. It's all very cloak and dagger in my real world. There I am going around my business as normal, but with this naughty book that only I and less than three others know about. Two of them are proof-readers!! However, there are all those people around the world who now know my story, and it's a really weird feeling, not unpleasant, (why publish a book, if you don't want someone to read it??) but still weird. I suppose because I can't share my excitement with anyone apart from my husband, who of course, gave his permission for the book and it's subject matter but does not wish to know the details!!

Anyway, it's Sunday night, it's raining, dog is asleep at my feet, and the house is quiet. I love sitting on the old sofa in the kitchen, IPad in hand and TV on in background. Now that Downton Abby is back on out screens, an extra glass of wine is allowed, even though it's a school night, and two pieces of Lindt 85% chocolate. Bliss!!

Anyway, free promotion of book finishes tomorrow, so if you still want to download it for free, you better get to it! Just type in 'Sex, Love and Chocolate' into Amazon and the rest is magic..

 

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