Best Things About Spring

25 Feb

images by photoeverywhere.co.uk

I’ve had coffee outside in the sunshine, been for a walk in the park, and just installed a pink blossom design into newly downloaded Firefox (not that re-downloading had made it open Yahoo, but hey). It must be spring (hopefully) so here is my top 5 things about Spring.

1) The smell of it. It smells fresh, not in a crisp wintery way but in green and pink, things growing sort of way. And the air is softer so you can fill your lungs with it instead of protecting yourself from it with a scarf like you do in winter.

2) Daffodils. Not the only spring flower, but the best. They brighten up hills, parks, and my hall table, and they even smell bright! They’re such an amazing shape, so that they’re associated in my heat with brass-heavy Easter songs (see point 4). In York in the springtime, the banks up to the old city walls are covered with daffodils. It’s worth going for that reason alone (although there are many other reasons to visit York, as it happens).

3) Blossom. This post is really straying into Disney territory, isn’t it? But think about it: trees which are usually either green or brown suddenly turn pink! It would be astounding if we weren’t so used to it. In Albania the blossom we got in Spring was orange blossom, which also smells amazing.

4) Easter happens in springtime. As a Christian, Easter is actually more important to me than Christmas. It’s solemn but it’s also joyful – declaring “He is risen indeed!” on the Sunday with a group of other happy, believing people is a good feeling. There are some brilliant songs which only come out at Easter, like My Song is Love Unknown and Thine Be the Glory (which has to be played with trumpets!). And on top of all that, you are encouraged to eat loads of chocolate!

5) The fact that summer is on the way. I’m fond of spring (I like all the seasons, actually), but if I had to choose I would take the sizzling sun and long, warm evenings of summer. Not long to go now!

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Company Policy on Screaming

31 Jan

She wants to scream. She wants to scream so often that she doesn’t notice when, finally, she does. She is asked to speak to the HR Manager.
“It was just a scream. Screaming’s not against company policy, is it?”
It turns out that it is.
“What about sighing?” she enquires, carefully holding it in.

 

 

This piece of flash fiction is available to download as part of my collection of short stories, Office Life (and Death).

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Consuldictation

22 Jan

Consuldictation (noun): A process whereby someone or some people (usually in management) dictate a change (usually negative) which is about to take place whether you like it or not, but present it as a “consultation” so that your frustrated opinions can be heard, though not acted upon. It seems to be happening a lot these days.

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Good Dreams

13 Jan

I woke up this morning with the title and basic premise for a story in my mind. It’s nice when that happens, and even nicer when you can write it down before you forget it. It’s called “Cheque 100” and … Well, I’m not giving the rest away because it hasn’t been written yet, but suffice it to say that it has a beginning, middle and end and some tension. Hopefully it will turn out well, but I won’t know for a while because, obviously, this stroke of luck came when I’m much to busy to do anything about it. Never mind, it’s sitting in my wee book of scribbles and ideas and will see the light of day someday. And then I’ll start the long slog to try and get it published… Oh well, at least the inital idea was easy!

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Lies

3 Jan

“The average person tells three lies a day,” she read.
She resolved to tell only two.
“Morning,” said a colleague, “How are you?”
“Fine,” she replied.
“Good weekend?”
“Not bad.”
The rest of the day passed in silence.

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Songs to Which the Answer is “No”

26 Nov

1) Jerusalem William Blake
“And was Jerusalem builded here in England’s green and pleasant land?” No, I think you’ll find it’s in the Middle East.

2) Isn’t it Ironic? Alanis Morissette
Traffic lights when you’re already late? That’s just life, dear.

3) Do You Think I’m Sexy? Rod Stewart
Sorry, Rod, but much as I like your gruff singing voice, seventies skintight style doesn’t do it for me.

4) Football’s Coming Home (Three Lions) The Lightning Seeds
It didn’t seem likely to start with, and so it turned out. No, it wasn’t coming home.

5) Temptation Heaven 17
Because you need five in a list, and you should always say no to this one 😉

Jamie Oliver’s New Glasgow Restaurant

23 Oct

View of the outside of Jamie's ItalianI was lucky enough to be treated to dinner at Jamie Oliver’s new Glasgow restaurant.  It’s very new, and everyone was asking me what it was like, so here’s the answer:

First of all, it’s huge.  Cavernous.  It could probably seat 150 people comfortably, and more when they bring out the extra chairs (strange, bright red, school-like things).  The toilet is therefore far, far away (depending on where you are sitting) and down some stairs, across another floor, down a corridor, through a wardrobe… (Ok, I exaggerate.)

The décor is a little weird.  The building, on the south side of George Square, is a lovely 18th century blonde sandstone building, all fine proportions and clean lines, with columns by the door.  The inside is sort of retro-modernist, with exposed pipes, unusual lighting (cool glass pipes) etc.  Both fine on their own, but together?  And then a bit of Italian deli is thrown in for “authenticity”, with random loaves of bread in strange places and the larder outside the kitchen so everyone can see it.  The Italian deli / bistro thing at least goes with the menu, if not with anything else.

The seating is mainly in booths, which means that you can hear the people at your table and not at the next, which is nice.  However, it was very difficult for the staff to serve the people nearer the wall.  The staff were great, by the way – efficient, friendly and plentiful.

But none of that is the point, is it?  The point is, was the food any good?  Yes, it was.  There was a good range of starters, split into “nibbles” and “antipasti” for no very obvious reason.  There were seven of us, so instead of getting individual starters we got a selection and shared.  The whitebait were cold and not battered, which was a bit weird for those of use who were used to them hot and crispy, but they were nicely marinated, and were officially the fishiest fish I have ever tasted.  Olives stuffed with tuna suffered a bit from an excessively thick coating of breadcrumbs, but it was a really good flavour combination.  Stuffed chillis (looking like cherry tomatoes) were excellent – intensely flavoured, and not at all nippy.

Other starters were more miss than hit – the mushroom and cheese bites were unremarkable, and the ravioli “nachos” were just too dry (there’s a reason why they don’t make nachos out of pasta) – but on the whole they were great.

The main courses were enormous, with some options noticably bigger than others when they arrived, although you couldn’t tell from the menu.  The special was a fish soup, which seemed to have every type of seafood you could imagine thrown into it, and was served with amazing sourdough.  My prawn linguini with chilli and garlic was SO good!  Really garlickly, with plenty of firm prawns and just the right amount of chilli.  Fear not, there were options for people who don’t like fish, like carbonara.  The main courses are tilted in favour of fish lovers, however.

The puddings also varied dramatically in portion size.  Not a problem, but it might be nice to have an indication instead of having to guess.  The sorbet was three teeny weeny scoops, while the chocolate brownie and the lemon curd cake were enormous.   I had espresso and ice cream, something I hadn’t had since years ago in Greece.  It was perfect.  The ice cream was sweet enough, the espresso bitter enough, and they gave you the coffee in a tiny jug so you could pour over just as much as you wanted.

Despite not being able to make a reservation, we were in and out in under three hours.  That might be different at a weekend – this was a Tuesday.  The prices were reasonable – better than reasonable considering the portion size of most options.  The menu’s not hugely different from a lot of other Italians, but as Italian restaurants go it’s pretty good, and fairly priced.  I wouldn’t rave about it, but I would recommend trying it out.

And that’s what it was like.

View of the inside of Jamie's Italian

Googling Myself

22 Aug

I discovered something funny while googling myself the other day. I know googling used to be seen as vain, done only by people who wanted to point and shout “Look, that’s me, ME!” but I think that’s an idea that’s out of date, like the idea that a man isn’t properly dressed without a hat, or that using olive oil is pretentious. If you have an online presence, it’s a good idea to type your name into a search engine once in a while to check if you are being misrepresented or plagiarised (and of course so that you can go “That’s me, me!”).

The funny thing I discovered is that one of my article for Suite 101, “Aristotle’s Golden Mean“, is required reading for the Art Institute of California’s Ethics course!  It’s not the first time someone’s used one of my articles (usually as content on other websites), and it’s freely available, so there’s no problem there, but this is first time I’m aware of that students have been forced to read something I’ve written.  It’s only about 500 words so it’s no great hardship for them (compare that to the Nicomachean Ethics the article is based on), and this in itself may be an indication that it’s not the most in-depth ethics course on the market, but I’m not going to criticise the Institute, because I’m very flattered!

When I rule the world…

10 Aug

It’s not going to happen (which is undoubtedly for the best) but here’s what would happen if I suddenly found myself in charge of the world – or just the country.

1) Car culture would be a thing of the past.  You’re not getting one unless you have a good reason, like living in the country or having limited physical mobility.  I am sick of almost missing my train even though I live two minutes from the station, because you can’t even cross the road in the morning.

2) Anyone who let their dog foul and didn’t clear it up would have their dog taken off them.  Of course, this would be less of a problem than it is now because…

3) Private dog ownership would be seriously curtailed (you’d have to have the time and space to look after it properly), and there would be a quota for cats so there weren’t too many in each neighbourhood.  Sounds harsh, but think how many more songbirds there would be.

4) Tomorrow wouldn’t start at midnight which is clearly the evening, not the morning.  Instead it would start at 6am, which, if you’ve stayed up all night, is about the time you start to think “oh no, it’s tomorrow!”

And finally,

5) There would be a law against starting Christmas advertising before November.

Don’t worry, I’m not thinking of going into politics anytime soon 😉

Five Things That Are Annoying

7 May

In no particular order.

1) Getting spam from a company you’re already a customer of. Spam is annoying enough anyway, but when they only have your address because you’re already a customer it’s doubly annoying. I can’t tell you the number of times my bank has sent leaflets asking me to open a current account with them. And how do they have my address? Because I have a current account with them!

2) Online surveys that tell you you haven’t qualified after you thought you’d nearly finished the survey. If it were one or two test questions just to see if you’re a suitable subject that’s fair enough (e.g. “Do you have a car? No? Then you haven’t qualified”). But when you spend the best part of ten minutes typing away thinking you’re going to get some reward, and then they tell you – that’s really annoying.

3) Deceitful returns policies. See when they get you to buy something by saying “Of course you can bring it back for any reason at all!” and then when you try to return it it’s all “there’s no defect” or “you’ll have to speak to the manager”, that’s deeply annoying. You feel deceived. I bought something from the gadget counter at Hamleys (“Of course you can bring it back!”) and I had no end of trouble getting them to take it back even though the instructions were in gibberish and the product didn’t actually work!

4) Swearing on public transport. Everyone gets annoyed, but some people think it’s fine to utter an expetive every second word even when surrounded by complete strangers. The thing is, although I believe in freedom of speech, you have a captive audience on public transport and they probably don’t want to hear it. Save it for somewhere that people can escape if they want to!

5) Drivers who don’t signal for pedestrians. Grr! I know there’s no point in signaling when there’s no-one around, but a pedestrian is not no-one! We also need to know whether you’re turning right (and we can therefore cross the road) or left (and will therefore knock us down). Of course, cyclists often don’t signal for drivers or pedestrians, but to start on them would require another list!

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