Tag Archives: London

Positive pandemic perspectives

Posted on April 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

Have been housebound and locked down in some form for nearly a month now. It’s become normal surprisingly quickly, and we’ve settled in to our new narrow world.

It’s not all bad.

For my lady friends

With all that handwashing, this is your chance to try many handcreams. Why not have a different one in every room?
Who needs make-up when you’re not leaving the house! Save time and let your skin relax. Note: If you are sitting in a particularly sunny room, then do keep up the broad spectrum SPF. You may not get sunburn (UVB is blocked by glass) but you will still get wrinkles (75% of UVA passes through …)
No-one can stop you using a foot mask while you’re on a conference call. Get your feet summer sandal-friendly!

For my parental friends

The kids are seeing us working. This is proper role modelling, although mine must think that I work in a call centre, as I am mostly on the phone and toggling (un)mute.
We can plan and research all sorts of educational craft projects and inspiring virtual experiences. It doesn’t matter if we never actually start them … at least we get Parental Points for thinking about it.
We legitimately need ALL of the television – Amazon Prime and Netflix were lonely until Disney Plus came along to keep us company.

For my clever friends

Data, data, everywhere… Am obsessed and alarmed by charts and curves. Is it time to join the Infographics Appreciation Society?
On social media, the scientists and analysts and medical professionals and journalists are actually more interesting than celebs and influencers. I’ve rediscovered the point of Twitter.
There is enough fact-checking of slightly suspicious warnings and statistics to keep us constantly busy and vigilant. On my local street WhatsApp group, I don’t even have time to rise up to a foaming rage against fake news, before the community has de-hoaxed us.

For my Chinese/Asian friends

Because we’re at home, we have reverted back to having one personally identifiable mug to drink water out of for the entire day. None of those inefficient and impractical water glasses that you use once and put in the dishwasher.
My kids are learning to understand some Cantonese again. This is mostly me ordering them to do housework, but it’s better than nothing.
Our respect of leftovers and fear of food waste are super powers. No one is laughing at my cupboards of food storage containers now.

Local lion demonstrating realxed social distancing and wearing a protective face mask.

Keep calm and carry on stockpiling toilet paper

Posted on March 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

Last night husband and I popped into the supermarket on the way home from work. It was a nice supermarket, where the bread is not rectangular, and the range of cheeses is comprehensive (i.e. Waitrose for those of you in the UK).

It was a strange experience with naked shelves, weary staff and politely annoyed customers with empty baskets. As we have slid smoothly into the unwelcome arms of a pandemic, I have been confused and bemused by the reports of stockpiling and a new obsession with toilet paper. Now I was experiencing it in person.

I was planning to buy:

Dried pasta
Salad
A few generic painkillers
Some cleaning cloths
Possibly some hand sanitizer as it seems useful right now.

We came out with:

The most expensive high-end Italian fresh pasta, as no-one can keep that in their food stockpile
Salad, as no-one can hoard that either
An electric toothbrush (50% off!)
Crisps, cheese-flavoured
A bottle of gin, because my husband needs it.

What else could go wrong?

In 2011 we moved to London from Sydney. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but since we arrived, we have seen ruthless government budget cuts (‘austerity’), terrorism attacks and Brexit. In 2020 we started the year feeling tired but almost hopeful. What else could go wrong?

But we’ve gone from punching each other and ourselves in the face over Brexit, to not being able to shake hands our touch our own faces because of a coronavirus.

With all the bravado and bullshit of ‘best of British’ or ‘British values’ being thrown around like fistfuls of racist confetti during Brexit, I wonder what qualities the COVID-19 emergency will bring out in people.

Keep calm and carry on? I hope so. I will join the orderly queue for my allocation of toilet paper, dried pasta and hand sanitizer.

Shiny. Oxford Street, London, March 2020

Getting comfortable

Posted on June 20, 2017 | 2 comments

Daughter: Mum, we’re learning about life cycles at school.

Me: OK. What stages are there in a life cycle?

Daughter: Birth, growth, reproduction and death.

Me: And what stage are you at?

Daughter: Growth!

Me: So what stage am I at?

Daughter: *Pause*

Son: Well, you’ve had us, so that’s past reproduction … death?

Daughter: I think there might be a bit between reproduction and death.

We actually had a good laugh about it, and the kids possibly looked embarrassed to have written me off so quickly.

I don’t need reminding of my rock-solid middle age status. The possibilities that were ahead of me decades ago are being slid across the John Lewis dining room table to my kids. I’m still hoping that one of them will be entrepreneurial and/or creative. My own youthful ambitions included:

Private detective and also an international spy
Science fiction writer in a light-filled attic
Boutique paper shop owner in Florence.

Instead, I have a sensible digital marketing career and I live in a regular suburban street.

We will be moving to a new regular suburban street soon. After years of renting, and despite Brexit and bombings, we’ve bought our own place. Our new home looks very much like all the other ones in the street and I’m now OK with that.

I propose to insert Comfortable between the Reproduction and Death phases of the life cycle.

My view of the suburbs.

Here’s one I wrote earlier

Hype cycle of life. I’ve had a few days recently when I’ve been without my phone. This made me realise how I use social media to fill all the little gaps in the day when I’d rather scroll than think or look or talk. (Introverts unite!)

Kids – sorry the grown-ups broke your EU. Dear kids, Yesterday some grown-ups broke your European Union. Sorry about that. They didn’t really mean to. I hope that you can fix it when you’re older. Remember to vote 🙂 Love, mum

2 Comments

Posted in About me, London

Tagged brexit, cycle, home, house, kids, London, middle age, moving, moving house

Kids – sorry the grown-ups broke your EU

Posted on June 25, 2016 | 6 comments

Dear kids

Yesterday some grown-ups broke your European Union. Sorry about that. They didn’t really mean to. I hope that you can fix it when you’re older. Remember to vote 🙂

Love, mum

Post-Brexit, I’ve been doing some metaphorical soul-searching. Rummaging around in my drawer of tidy private political opinions. Well, I’ve tipped that drawer on the kitchen table and this is what’s come out. (Some swear-y bits follow below. )

This kids’ guide to the EU recently appeared in our kitchen. Great timing.

Age-appropriate socio-economic context

I explain the world to my kids with a pinch of age-appropriate socio-economic context. Mentioning background, life opportunities, education, bad luck. I follow up with: “In our house, dad and I think [*insert appropriate liberal metropolitan educated employed opinion*], but there are people who don’t agree. That’s OK.”

Today, a day after Britain voted to leave the EU, bollocks to that nuanced ‘two-sides’ approach. I think that 51.9% of the voters made the wrong decision about the EU referendum. I’m telling my kids that I voted Remain because I wanted them to have the same opportunities that British kids had before them.

Unfortunately, more scared, confused, mean (sorry), arrogant (apologies), wrong (not sorry) people voted Leave. They probably damaged the economy for a lot of us, and they definitely stuffed up the European future for my kids.

More immigrants? No thanks, I’m full.

I’m telling my kids that a lot of nasty people supported a Brexit because they don’t like immigrants. (Of course, not ALL people who voted to leave were bad. Aaaaah – can’t help myself … Sorry.)

Our family is stuffed-full of immigrants. We like to get around, so I’m horrified and disappointed that this debate was so racist and fearful.

The Leave campaign was supported by famous arse-hats. Farage, Trump and a dirty pile of right-wing European leaders talking up the anti-immigration bullshit. These are not my people.

My reactions on Facebook yesterday

1. First thing in the morning – unfiltered emotion.

Went to bed in the United Kingdom and woke up in land of hate and glory. I slept badly, hopefully dreamed that the Remain side would ‘edge’ ahead… Instead I’m now living in Little Middle England.

This morning I had an unexpected cry over politics and unexpected need to share my sadness on social media. I’m not angry. There are apparently enough angry haters out there already and more of them voted. Just sad that being moderate and reasonable and compassionate isn’t good enough anymore.

I’m still glad I supported and voted for Remain. I can tell my kids that.

2. A bit later – after too much information, emotion and social media

My knee-jerk metropolitan liberal elite post-Brexit strategy: combination of stay within safe bubble of left-y urban multicultural suburbs + make sure our kids give a fuck.

Smiling daughter within the European Union.

Here’s one I wrote earlier

Keep the water in your mouth Yesterday I found a Post-It note in the kitchen with these words of wisdom: Keep the water in your mouth.

Where do you go when you press Home? Does your life have a ‘Home’ button? I’m back home (Sydney) after a brief visit to London (new home). My old house is empty and my new house is waiting for me.

6 Comments

Posted in About me, London

Tagged brexit, eu, europe, kids, letter, London, mothers, mum, parents, referendum, Travel, uk

My Last Night of the Proms

Posted on September 14, 2015 | 1 comment

My Last Night of the Proms

Last night I went to the *Last Night of the Proms. I didn’t realise that the evening included two world-class opera singers leading a full Royal Albert Hall audience in a jolly singalong. For me, even more remarkable was the range of nationalities represented at such a traditional British event.

Danielle de Niese “was born in Melbourne to Sri Lankan parents of Dutch and Scottish descent, and grew up in Los Angeles.” She led us in a joyful Sound of Music medley. This is an American film set in Austria with the very British Julie Andrews and her excellent diction.
Jonas Kaufmann, a German tenor, belted out (in a top class opera sense) Rule, Britannia! This is a traditional patriotic anthem from 1740, celebrating Britain’s naval dominance. The original poem describes a ninth-century British king defeating Danish invaders. It felt oddly exhilarating to be singing “Britons never will be slaves!”
Marin Alsop was an electric conductor. She is an American who divides her time between Baltimore and Sao Paulo. She chose to teach us an old American children’s song by Copland called ‘I bought me a cat’. One of the lines was “My pig says ‘Griffey, griffey'”. Weird. [Aside: at the end of the concert she swapped her baton for a selfie stick! Read her guide to taking concert selfies...]

I had expected the Last Night of the Proms to be awash with Union Jack flags. There were a lot, with a few novelty waistcoats too. But there were also flags from all around the world, and a very large, simple “Refugees welcome” too. Story via The Guardian, obviously http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/13/refugees-welcome-banner-steals-show-last-night-proms-royal-albert-hall

My Italian friend and I felt rather pleased to be part of this charming event. We even stood up to sing Jerusalem. This was absolutely the musical equivalent of a warm ‘upper body only’ British hug, with a firm back pat.

*Use of capitalisation as per the official programme.

The view inside Royal Albert Hall.

Here’s one I wrote earlier

Where do you go when you press Home? Does your life have a ‘Home’ button? I’m back home (Sydney) after a brief visit to London (new home).

Happy Chinese Australian New Day Chinese New Year and Australia Day completely passed me by this year. Instead, we surrounded ourselves with cheese, mountains and snow in France.

1 Comment

Posted in London

Tagged british, London, music, proms, uk

A funeral from afar

Posted on March 2, 2015 | 2 comments

A couple of weeks ago we went to a funeral service in our pyjamas. Thanks to the power of the internet, at 2:30 in the morning (UK) we sat in our dark bedroom, and tuned in to a webcast of an early afternoon funeral service (Australia).

I normally associate webinars and webcasts with work-related learning. “27 reasons why you should horizontally integrate your on-boarding data with your digital marketing ROI leverage opportunities”.

In contrast, this webcast was a fond remembrance of a loved uncle. We listened to the gently amusing, achingly sad and warm-hearted tributes to the unfamiliar other facets of this man – father, brother, friend. All from the comfort of our suburban bedroom, cradling mugs of tea, with a light scattering of pretzels over the duvet.

Technical issues

There were some technical issues. At first, although we could hear the service, the video was mostly an old-fashioned test pattern of bold coloured stripes. The experience of listening to the voices pausing and wobbling with emotion, in the silent dark made the eulogies even more moving.

Later on, as the service began drawing to a close, we lost the audio, but gained video. We saw the people rising and falling and shifting and singing.

I don’t work for you

As interesting as this was, we thought that we would enquire about the simultaneous transmission of audio AND video. We called the funeral home and then it got a bit weird.

INT. BEDROOM. NIGHT.

The funeral home reception person has put us through to the ‘technical people’. A very efficient man listens as we describe the issues – what we previously could or couldn’t see or hear. He performs some technical jiggling at his end, asks us some brisk questions, and we duly report back on what we can or cannot see or hear.

IT MAN: (businesslike) Right. OK. Seems to be some kind of issue with the cabling at (‘name of funeral home location’). I need you to get on to that straight away before the afternoon service.

US: (Baffled silence)

HUSBAND: (quietly) We don’t work for you…

(Pretzel packet rustles slightly. Mugs of tea are silent. )

ME: (confused) We’re calling from London, trying to watch a webcast of a service …

(Uncomfortable micro-pause.)

IT MAN: (mortified) I am SO SORRY. I thought you were calling from the venue. I didn’t realise … etc etc

US: (Speechless with laughter.)

FADE TO BLACK.

I’m not sure if the tears in my eyes were from the strangeness of this last conversation, or the moving stories of a great man.

[– In memory of PJ –]

Here’s one I wrote earlier

Love is not dead, it’s just resting. How often do you tell your loved ones that they are loved? On a sliding scale, I think the most romantic medium are (with 1 being most lovely) …

2 Comments

Posted in About me, London, Technology & digital

Tagged audio, australia, family, funeral, London, video, webcast

Gluten-induced homesickness

Posted on April 13, 2014 | 1 comment

Fresh sourdough toast with jam and ricotta has made me ponder moving back to Sydney. A fig Danish pastry has triggered layers of crispy homesickness. A pork and fennel sausage roll has almost brought me to tears.

Love is a fig danish

I have been overloading on gluten and memories at Bourke Street Bakery. I am remembering the loss of these sights and smells and sounds, at the very same time that I am soaking them up. Equal parts happiness (I’m back!) and sadness (I have to leave.)

Daily London life is so solidly full and interesting that I rarely pine for Australia. So after nearly 3 years away, this visit has been surprisingly interrupted by ‘in situ’ homesickness.

I am missing the thing as I experience it. That doesn’t make sense. But a dark chocolate and sour cherry cookie as big as my hand does. In gluten we trust.

Here’s one I wrote earlier

1 Comment

Posted in About me, Food, Travel

Tagged australia, bakery, Bourke Street, family, home, homesick, London, pastry, Sydney, Travel

Get out of my house

Posted on May 18, 2012 | 3 comments

[Warning: This particular blog contains no humour, or wit. It is just me complaining.]

There are strangers in my house.

Well, it’s not really mine because we are renting it. That‘s the problem. The landlord is selling the house, and strangers are potential new owners.

Once again, we are boxing up and moving out.

The ‘For sale’ sign appeared a few days ago, and a steady stream of smug, anxious professionals is coming through. They want to buy ‘my house’.

My son’s face crumpled slightly when I told him that we have to move, so I talked up all the positives. New = good. It’s exciting. Woohoo…

I could write something thoughtful about having a sense of place; connection to physical structures; belonging in a community; the need to ‘nest’… blah blah blah. Instead, I will just say that I slightly want to vomit at the thought of moving house again.

[Insert wise words “At least you’re not moving overseas.” or sensible comments “You’ve done it so many times before, just get on with it.”]

Our local squirrel has offered to help me pack.

And here’s one I wrote earlier…

Where do you go when you press Home? Does your life have a ‘Home’ button? I’m back home (Sydney) after a brief visit to London (new home).

3 Comments

Posted in About me, London

Tagged home, London, move, moving house, packing, relocation

The sound of one glove clapping

Posted on January 4, 2012 | 3 comments

Lonely gloves

It will be ...

... lonely this Christmas ...

... without you by my side

3 Comments

Posted in London, Pictures

Tagged christmas, fence, glove, gloves, London, park, photos, pictures

The best Steve Jobs tribute merchandise. Ever!

Posted on October 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

So, I was walking around M &Ms World in Leicester Square, when I started thinking about Steve Jobs.

[Note – I was only there because my young child-free cousins were using my kids as an excuse to not look like weird tourist-LOSERS. ]

M & Ms World is an evil 4-floored pit of colourful, candied consumerism. I chose not to buy an M &Ms tie, basketball or pack of underpants. But, I did start thinking about what kind of Steve Jobs tribute merchandise I would create …

We all have too many mugs and t-shirts. Steve Jobs was an Innovator. So if I could turn M & Ms World into Steve Jobs World, I’d have floating chrome shelves full of:

iJetpacks. Affordable jetpacks for the common man. Because jetpacks are cool. And once we strap one on and press ‘Go’ , we won’t be able to remember why we even bothered walking to work.

iWalnuts. No more messy wrinkled shells. No more nutcracker hassle. Just smooth, polished orbs of nut, with pressure sensitive opening and soft-close concealed hinges. Delicious with iCheese (due out in 2012)!

S & Js candies. Little apple-shaped chocolates in a colourful crisp candy shell.

iWheel. A new generation in wheel design. Four distinct corners have been added to the boring old circle to give it a modern, sharp look. The four corners represent the corners of the earth and unity of North, South, East and West. It’s a subtle design tweak to create a new design classic. [iWheel-compatible roads are currently only available in USA, but are global rollout schedule will be announced very soon.]

Do you have any other suggestions?

Tag Archives: London

Keep calm and carry on stockpiling toilet paper

Getting comfortable

Kids – sorry the grown-ups broke your EU

My Last Night of the Proms

A funeral from afar

Gluten-induced homesickness

Get out of my house

The sound of one glove clapping

The best Steve Jobs tribute merchandise. Ever!

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