My mate Joss

Joss and I hate a lot of things and we like some things. These are combined lists of some of our top hates and few loves.

HATE

Lorries; people who stop in the middle of the path; the colour yellow; the saturdays; x factor; torys; me to you teddys; fluffy pens; jeans shopping; people walking slowly; people walking, stopping and getting in the way throughout the entire length of Oxford Street; people walking slowly hand in hand admiring stupid things like street signs; pigeons; the way electric toothbrushes make my nose itch; ringing phones; tony blair; tony benn; terry bloody wogan; the crazy frog; halloween; people dressing up and running around screeching "I'm a vampire LOL" at halloween; TWILIGHT; vampires, generally; reggie yates; boring people; onomatopaea; bad spelling; bad grammar; people who yell 'I'd fackin bang all of yerz' from car windows at my friends and I; Excel spreadsheets; flies; recycling; heat magazine; doing grown up stuff; red nose day; maps; people that maintain that there is still a distinction between the 3 main political parties; Glee; sticky notes; people who believe horoscopes; football; checked shirts; photoshop; tom cruise; cctv; msn; when you catch your fingers with bulldog clips; the england football team; john terry; channel 5; simon cowell; the evening standard; the daily star; cyclists; people who take ages at petrol stations; all you can eat chinese buffets; screaming children; hippies; people who don't shave their armpits/leg hair; babies on flights; mosquitos; smileys; the word 'lol'; the tube in rush hour; a badly made cup of tea; off milk; peppers; fish; oysters; jagged rocks; clubbing; foam parties; location location location; daytime tv; prams on the tube; the cheeky girls; Nuts magazine; grey squirrels; screaming girls; roller coasters; tall people who stand in front of you at gigs; people who don't drink and are self-righteous about it; text flirting; hangovers; small ratty dogs; Justin Bieber; annoying alarm tones; people talking on their phone on the train; people trying out different ring tones on their phone on the train; being honked at whilst driving; running out of toothpaste; getting shampoo in my eyes; worrying that I'm going to be murdered in a hitchcock psycho esque way every time I'm showering.

LOVE

Wine; eating; sleeping; animals dressed in little person outfits; gin; David Mitchell; Peep show; awkward situations; sarcasm; twitter; dinosaurs; the word 'fnar'; spotify; cake; Britney; Fleetwood Mac; asparagus; broccoli; saying something stupid and pretending its ironic so that i can get away with it; tea.

Future me V Past me

Don't get me wrong, this isn't going to be rambling, snotty and largely incoherent post about how I hate myself and no one has ever understood me. None of that. I went to boarding school remember, any hint of an emotion and my brain goes into code red: EMOTION. OPERATION SHUT DOWN.

I've learnt about feelings the hard way. Not so long ago I posted a tweet about them on Twitter to my largely (spam based) collection of followers. If you think I'm exaggerating re: my spam followers I closed my eyes and picked one at random. Apparently she loves her job because she gets to fuck on film. Case and point. Anyway, so I am largely followed by robots/porn on Twitter and yet when I tweeted about feelings, they actually engaged with me! That is, they engaged enough to unfollow me. Gutted. It wasn't even that full of sodding feelings, to be accurate, all I said was: "Feelings, what are they all about?" and I got unfollowed by like 3 of my dedicated spam accounts. Bastards. Where is the loyalty?!

So lesson learnt: Never tweet about feelings. Even the spambots don't like it.

The point which I am - laboriously - attempting to get to, is that despite the title of this blog post, I am not going to bang on about I hate myself and I have so many feelings about all the hating. I'm not like this chick:

Nah mate. None of that. But regardless of this, sometimes I do hate me. To be specific, I hate past me. Past me is a pain in future me's arse. Present me is always being screwed over by past me and similarly usually about to reap brutal vengeance again on future me. As I type this, I am feeling sorry already for future me who will have to proof this bullshit, convince myself it's vaguely amusing and then face the crashing reality that actually it's a bit shit and rambly. Present me doesn't care, I'm just enjoying the sound of typing right now, I've gone rogue! I've got nothing to lose! Do you know why? Ah, because future me can deal with that. Ha ha ha! Gutted. 

The inspiration behind this blog post came after my first wedding. If you know me you'll know that I have had a number of weddings this summer. All of which have been awesome. Sadly I haven't met or married Hugh Grant which is frankly, disappointing, as it was high on my agenda; but I have got to see some awesome people get married and bust some serious dance moves on various dance floors up and down the country. As far as I'm concerned, this summer I have achieved. 

My first wedding was possibly the most drunken out of all of them so far. This is largely down to the fact that I droned on at a waitress for so long that she literally handed me a bottle of wine so that I would go away. I then bravely, heroically, you might even say, took it upon myself to drink this entire bottle myself. I made a pretty good dent and was therefore in a state appropriate for someone who has drunk most of a bottle of a wine after what had already been a pretty heavy evening. 

I can remember very little about getting home, but I do remember finding a bed which wasn't mine and as I lay down in all my wedding finery (earrings, makeup etc), on top of the covers at the wrong end of this bed I distinctly remember thinking...

"shit I probably should go to my own bed and get changed"

AND THEN WHAT DID I THINK? Exactly this: "Fuck it, future me can deal with it"

And then I passed out, dribbled and generally looked hawt. 

So Future me wakes up, with literally no idea where I am, wondering if I was in contention for breaking some kind of record for "longest time spent wearing the world's most uncomfortable strapless bra ever", feeling like I'd drunk enough red wine to fill a small ocean and feeling the effects.  

Eventually, after I'd found my bearings and established that I was at least in my own house (thank GOD), I believe I spent the rest of the day, hiding my hangover from my parents (I failed) and, with the fiery passion of Mount Doom, hating past me.

And yet. Despite all of this hatred, I owe past me a lot for having an awesome time at all these weddings. And frankly, who has the time for hating? Not me. So despite everything, past me, you can be up there with Glen Coco. Four for you!

Heads up: my next post will probably be me drivelling on about how Mean Girls is just the best film ever.

Road kill - Chat kill

When I was about 15 years old, I was at drinks party of friends of my parents. You know how it is when you're that age, you get dragged along to all sorts of events and you take the opportunity (at least I did) to drink as much free booze as possible and then pretend that you weren't really that hideously embarrassing drunk teenager in the corner chatting up a pot plant you'd named Colin.

Happy memories. HAPPY MEMORIES. Anyway, this particular drinks party stands out very clearly in my mind, mainly because the incident I am about to regale happened before I had gotten drunk enough to start finding plants attractive.

I found myself talking to an artist and I remember our conversation very clearly. It went something along the lines of this:

Artist: So what's your talent?
Anna: I don't have one. Really I'm pretty useless at everything, unless I can count that as my talent?
Artist: Everyone has a talent my child, (he didn't actually call me my child, but he could have). Tell me what is yours.
Anna: Well... I guess I'm quite good at croquet.

A sure fire talent for succeeding in life. Be quite good at a "sport" which approximately 0.2% of the world population has ever played, and the reason you deem yourself "quite good" is largely because all other competitors you have played have drunk more Pimms than you.

If I was to be asked the same question today I would give the same answer, with one small alteration. I'm quite good at croquet, and I'm not bad at small talk.

I say not bad because I have in no means got it down completely, and I proved this to myself quite extensively at a wedding I was at last weekend. I mean when you say you're making small talk, really you're just making slightly awkward conversation about incredibly neutral topics. I may have inadvertently stepped up the "neutral" conversation topic to another level with my latest attempt at small talk, when I found that I couldn't stop talking about roads. Bloody roads. Who wants to talk about roads? Me, apparently. Roads which I referenced included: A13, A34, M25 and the South Circular in London. Really, quite a lot of roads. This wasn't even just one conversation. I talked about roads...to more than one person. I must have..*ahem* driven them crazy.

I won't bore you with the details of my road chat. To be honest, I think on each occasion that I started talking about a road, I realised what a terrible path I was on, and that there are really only a few things you can actually say about a road (e.g I took that road, I like that road, I hate that road etc) so I really have no logical explanation as to why I kept going back for more. The only silver lining I can cling onto and that the poor recipients of my chat no doubt clung to was that I didn't get quite as far as to start banging on about junctions. Next time though. Junction 11, M40, I'm going to give you a big shout out.

I'd say I am averagely keen on roads, I admit to having my favourites (M40) but not enough that I talk about them to strangers. I have no idea what was in the air or the water at the wedding, but it brought out my inner road lover. But then, we're British after all, we bloody love roads. And we love complaining, what gives you more opportunities to complain that a road! I am somehow managing to create a blog post about roads. If you're reading this, you're reading about roads. Everyone is now thinking...about roads.

My work here is done.

To all my "ones"...

A bit of context to the title of this blog. Basically, I seemed to have developed quite the habit for calling people, "my one". It started off harmlessly enough - I took my guidance from my TRUE one, the (sadly) fictional Mark Corregan, who also thinks that anyone who bears even the slightest resemblance in interests to him must be his one.

Annoyingly I couldn't find a link of him thinking someone could be his one, but this is an absolute classic instead. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZSIMwZaZ_A

I think I can actually pinpoint the origins of this disastrous habit. I was out at a power ballads night called "Ultimate Power", which is as awesome as you suspect. I believe I'd just finished a particularly moving sing-a-long rendition of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and feeling the spirit of Bonnie within me, I went to the bar and got chatting to the bloke standing next to me.

I can tell you literally, nothing about his man. I think he was wearing a red t-shirt. That's it. Anyway we got chatting, and he was pleasant enough (he was wearing a nice enough red t-shirt for it to stick out in my memory) and he made a Peep Show reference. In my drunken and power-ed (geddit) state, I took this as a sign that he was a) potentially my one and b) would definitely get the reference as in a Mark Corregan way of calling someone your one.

Predictably, he didn't. Sadly I can't remember how our conversation went from this moment on, but given that I'm not currently married with children to this bloke, I'm going to take a guess and say not brilliantly. I subsequently have blurry memories of charging about this club in London, taking breaks between ballads and screech along singing to get more drinks etc, and I saw him a couple more times around the club. Each time I spotted him for whatever unknown possessed reason, I would start pointing and shouting "hey it's my one! HEY ONE!!!". He definitely fled each time, I mean really the dude would like gallop away. Great start.

So that was the beginning, and since then, it has escalated. Many many experiences have taught me that, NO ONE GETS THE PEEP SHOW REFERENCE, literally no one. I really must start to take this on board. It has gotten to the point of being almost totally out of control. Some of the people I have termed as being "my one" have included:

My optician,
David Mitchell
Stranger on Twitter
Colleagues
A friend's Mum
A friend's Dad
Potentially, a zombie
Anyone who comes within a 5 yard radius after I've had "a few"

That doesn't mean that each and every one (excluding perhaps the zombie) aren't/weren't special to me. Sure I'm pretty generous with my labeling, but there's always a good motivation behind it. Apart from when I'm drinking, then really everyone is at risk.

So to all my "ones" out there, it's been special. And to all my future ones...it's going to be ace. Big love.

Some thoughts on a zombie apocalypse

As well as dinosaurs, I also love zombies. Zombies make the best films. Not that you need reminding but just in case:

Shaun of the dead
Zombieland (the intro credits are not for the squeamish)
28 days later
The Walking dead (tv series)

It is actually because of the Walking Dead that I've been thinking so much about zombies recently. And also the reason I've not slept properly in a week and am therefore beginning to resemble a zombie myself. Brief introduction: Simon from Teachers/the guy in love with Keira in Love Actually, is not really pathetic and whiney (aka Simon from Teachers), nor forlorn and in love with his best mate as Love Actually might lead you to believe. He's actually a Sheriff  from Georgia and he's pretty badass. He's also ace at taking out the odd member of the undead which wanders into his life having mistaken it for the canteen.

It's pretty straight forward stuff, end of the world, zombies everywhere fight for survival etc, but I would highly recommend it. The writing is excellent and there's the odd moment of black comedy to keep one's spirits up (although these do become few and far between as it goes on).

So zombies have dominated my chat of recent days, and it got me thinking about what I would do if, heaven forbid, I was to suddenly find that the end of the world had happened and everywhere I went people kept trying to eat me as one of their five a day.

I've spoken to a few friends about this and the responses have varied hugely. I have a pretty gung-ho, ridiculously optimistic attitude, which mainly consists of, ride it out, have some tea and it'll all blow over. Worse comes to worse, go to France and live out the rest of my days on a vineyard. Hell, it won't even take a zombie apocalypse for me to do that, I'm about a month of unemployment away from doing this already.

Others, however, are much more pragmatic. One's attitude, was basic.

"Well if you can't beat them...join them."

It was pointed out that this would, sadly involve a) turning into a zombie, and that unfortunately research has shown there's not really a pain-free way of doing this and also that b) once you've made this traumatic and excruciating transition...you will then largely be spending your time charging about, trying to eat your peers. Sunday mornings spent watching TOWIE and eating Pringles will no longer be an option.

Friend x then revised her views, and announced confidently that she'd be fine. She would cycle to Wales.

I'm putting down that as an option for survival 1: Cycle to Wales 

At this moment I'd just like to clarify an important point about what type of zombie I'm imagining my zombie apocalypse will feature. To be brutally honest, 28 days later zombies are like the scariest freaking things ever, so they're out. The Walking Dead ones are also pretty vicious, and nippy, which is not something I'm keen on. So I'm thinking, this is England, we're all pretty slow and casual about how we do shit, and Shaun of the Dead reflects that pretty well. Sure, en mass, they're a pain and if you're Dylan Moran, gutted. (Warning: Gory clip). But, you can also stroll along next to them moaning with an arm sticking out and you're fine. So, I'm electing them.

Ok, so they're pretty slow and a bit dopey. Still, other's aren't keen. I had a long text conversation with my friend H about this and she, frankly, rained all over my "ride it out and it'll blow over" attitude. She did, however, wisely point out that having zombies roaming all over the shop, would be something of a kill joy. Even if you did somehow manage to sit around watching TOWIE and eating Pringles, the fact that at any moment you could be eaten alive would, I suspect be a bit of a dampener. H put things into context with the following anecdote:

"A spider once dropped into my lap when I was on the toilet. I screamed and hit my head. I can only imagine that a zombie attack whilst having a wee is like a bajillion times worse."

Valid point. So, what's the solution? A: Head to an off license and drink.

Think about it though. What do we get like when we're drunk? Stupid, and over confident. Chuck into the mix some flesh eating undead and I can definitely forsee a situation in which I declare my love to a zombie, call it my one, hug it, and it eats me. Gutted.

OR - with this drunken confidence, we track ourselves down some bikes and begin the epic 45 minute (approx) cycle to Wales, singing Bohemian Rhapsody. Either way, I think booze is definitely a pretty good shout.

(Possible) option for survival 2: Booze.

Option number 3: Eat macaroni cheese. Nothing bad can happen to someone eating Macaroni Cheese (disclaimer: this theory has yet to be thoroughly tested).

Other thoughts for how to, not necessarily survive, but perhaps make things a little more bearable include:

• Attempt some stand up comedy - don't let the lack of laughter get you down. Zombies can't laugh - but I'm sure that every snarl / menacing groan is their attempt to.
• Head to a beach. It may look like the zombie in the surf is chasing you down, but equally, they could be frolicking. Also, sandcastles.
• Obvious one: arm yourself. Right now, all I have which could be of any use is a ukulele and a squash racquet. I am however, working on my record collection. 
• Make puns. The apocalypse is rife with punning opportunities, chin up, it's not the end of the world, ETC.

Anyway, I have clearly spent far too much time and energy thinking about this. I think I need a good dose of reality to calm my frazzled nerves. Bring on Geordie shore, ha'way! 

Things I need to stop doing (part 1)

I've optimistically put "part 1" in the title in the hope that this will inspire/encourage/tap into my pride and force me to write another post sooner rather than later. We shall see.

Anyway, this is an easy one as it really is ridonkulous. (NB - a later post will no doubt feature, "stop making up and using stupid words. Like ridonkulous).

But really, small talk. Particularly, determined small talk. I used to think I was ok with silences, but really, I'm not. Ask any of my long suffering friends and they will no doubt be able to think of a number of occasions when I've broken a slightly awkward silence by saying "awkward". Or, even worse, "AWKS". Jesus I need help.

But I really go into determination overdrive with regards to poor, innocent, unsuspecting strangers who I will never see again, but with whom I usually manage to leave a lasting impression.

Some of my terrible choices of topic have included:

1) Crack
2) Reading "The story of O" on the tube
3) Telling a stranger sitting next to me on the tube about how I had overheard two, other strangers, talking energetically and enthusiastically about someone called "Bang Tidy". Included the quote "he's no Bang Tidy".

A particularly bad one was when I was having my blood taken by a very friendly nurse. I'm totally fine with blood being taken, I don't have a thing about needles, I wasn't trying to distract myself from someone shoving something into my vein, sadly, not. No, I just am unable to have a silence.

So the nurse is searching for my vein, hurrah! she's found it and just as she's about to impale me, I ruin the moment with the classic opener of:

"So... syphilis eh?"

There was no real precedent to this, I'd seen something on the news about how it's on the rise (joy) but omitted to preface my opener with this as would have been the sensible thing to do. Full credit to her, she took it in her stride. We had quite a pleasant chat about it and I learnt a few things such as that it's easily beatable with penicillin, but it's becoming immune to that (fear).

I think things would have finished normally and I could have left and probably would never have written this blog. Alas, it was not to be. No, I had to go on to tell her that I'd feel a bit like Lord Byron if I was to get syphillis. Chortle chortle. She gave me a wry look and just muttered "fingers crossed" to herself. I left without a plaster for my arm, a small sacrifice.

Back to back

Be careful what you wish for, I have been taught in the last few days. I wished for...falafel, instead I got a compressed nerve in my already very damaged back. BRILLO.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I hobbled to the bus stop at my average speed of 0.1 mph. When your average speed is VERY SLOW you have a lot of thinking time. It's also important to try and give distraction from the pain of not lying down and being immobile. So I was thinking about how I should write a blog post about my back.

It's unlikely that this post will be funny, feature quotes from my now legendary mother and her attempts to get me a lover, nor in all likelihood will it be very interesting. However, seeing as I know my long suffering and excellent friends are the main readers of this blog (although according to blogger stats I have quite a fan base in Russia), it's also partly a long and rambling thank you.

I'm fairly sure that everyone is aware of the problems I have with my back. Admittedly, there have been a few awkward moments when I've encountered one of the few people in the world that I haven't. I dropped a packet of pitta bread in Waitrose yesterday and was left expectantly staring at the man in front of me, excpecting him to automatically drop down and pick it up for me as obviously I can't bend. He didn't. I gave him a look, he quelled and picked it up for me. It was rather odd actually, I must get this look out more often, I have great power!

Anyway, I digress, stories of young men in Waitrose...my mother will be thrilled.

So yes, I've had real trouble with it for about 18 months now. I've had problems in the past with my back, but mainly that's been down to stress and has never lasted more than a few days. So when I started having problems a while back, I put it down to stress. I was organising a big event at work, was under pressure, and I cannot handle pressure, I flap and panic and when my back started hurting I didn't think much of it.

Unfortunately, it got worse and it never got better. I think the worst thing has been how long I had to wait for a diagnosis. I have seen GPs, consultants, physios, osteopaths, strange sports therapists you name it and it was only when I eventually got an MRI a few months ago that they told me I had a bulging disc. The consultant cheerily told me that "it's bad...but it could be a lot worse!" which was a huge relief of course. He did however shatter my dreams of just shoving the fucker back in by telling me that couldn't be done. Nor could poking it, prodding or encouraging it back. He full on shot me down.

I can't really describe what it's like to have back pain because how you describe what pain is like? With me, it's pain which changes and affects different parts everyday. At the moment I'm having real trouble because the disc has become inflamed and is therefore trapping the nerves. Because of this I have a sharp ache continuously in my lower back (where the disc is) and also going down into my leg and occasionally into my calf. So that's fun. This is a new problem though, usually I just have to live with a very stiff and sore back with occasional pain which feels as if someone has stuck a knife into me.

What I hate most is how much it has affected my life. I feel like I am a different person now I live with this affliction. I can no longer do whatever I like, whenever. I can't go to gigs because I can't stand for too long, I can't concentrate at work like I used to because the pain numbs my mind and is all I can think about, I can't walk for long period of time and I can't be happy and care free. If it stopped me from doing things like skydiving and off road mountain bike riding, I reckon I'd probably be ok...but this can stop me from being able to get out of bed in the morning and getting the tube to go to work.

I'm naturally of quite a cheery disposition and my incessant desire to make small talk keeps my mind distracted. Obviously I have dark moments when I feel down about the fact I'm 25 and I get overtaken by packs of pensioners in the street, but really thanks to the support of my friends, family and colleagues I manage to stay pretty cheery. All are phenomenally tolerant of my inability to sit still for 5 minutes, my consistently grumpy to the point of demolition moods in the morning and my repetitive and monotonous chat of "my back hurts".

So a huge, Horsley style sensationalist thank you to you all. I bloody love you. When I get this sorted, we can go for a long walk and have a pint.

Thanks for reading.
H