Presents? Check. Food and drink? Check. Festive tunes? Check. Good.
Now remember, your mission is to end the day like this:
A bit blurry, but you get the idea.
Merry Christmas one and all, now go forth and be me.
Europe
Beauty and the Beans
There are streaks on the old coffee mug. Lines of paling foam which dribble down the tarnished china, coving all but the crackled logo of its home and owner.
The ceramic piece has been washed a lot over its five vintage years, too many times to count. Half a decade of rich coffee and change. The changing of customers, of staff, of interior, the coffee mug has seen it all. And yet the humble object has remained immutable throughout. Sat above in pristine whiteness, looking down at the clientele one minute, lowered to the table with a soiling of fouling brown the next. Wash, stack, use, wash, stack, use. No one expects more of it than that. But now the cracks in the logo are beginning to show, it’s white youth has become tanned by the pseudo Mediterranean paintings that hang on the walls.
“The roads, they lead to Roma” mutters the old Barista as she passes the aged ceramic to a colleague. She says that a lot nowadays, either out of habit or misinterpretation. The fresh-faced coffee within the old mug takes the Barista’s comment all too literally however as it makes a break for freedom. It suddenly pours itself over the edge and, within seconds, brown streaks are wandering the side of the mug like the great Egyptian Nile, starting as a mass of foam, splitting into separate lines of individuality. The unsuccessful delta columns stop mid way, the successful ones pool on the thin napkin at the base. Regards of how hard each strand has tried, the liquid’s efforts have resulted in nothing but a sticky trail across the mug.
“They really must put less sugar in these things,” a disgruntled consumer complains as they place the old mug on one of the newer tables. “Or at the very least stop over filling the cups.”
Another drop of brown stops short of the mug’s base.
“I agree,” her companion replies, “the staff here really do nothing to help themselves. I’ll go and ask for a fresh one, you shouldn’t get your hands sticky over something so trivial.”
The companion waves flamboyantly at the old Barista behind the bar, as if the employee were blind and he were crippled. In no particular hurry she lowers the box of protein bar refills and meanders to the small table.
The customer points at the offending object. “Deal with it.”
Without emotion or word (for the staff here either cannot or will not speak the customer tongue) the Barista scoops the streaked mug and swiftly empties its contents down the drain. As she stares down the plughole stands of greasy black hair fall out of her loose bun for the third time that day, perhaps the only thing that remains of the rebellious nature that characterised former youth and beauty. That disobedient streak which took her away from there to here. There, she was a smart and charming girl who had everything going for her, here she avoids the stares of her English masters and the attractive panini delivery man. Even he is too good for her here. A fresh personality ground down to little more than six characters. “I clean”, mumbled as she scuttles past the grumpy man in the tight shirt. She quickly twists the hair strands behind her ear as she dashes away. “I’ll cut it tonight” she thinks to herself.
Throughout all this the old mug hangs off the bony finger without comment. Of all the changes the ceramic has seen, hers has been the greatest and least unnoticed. The human glances down at the crackled lines and thinks the same of the object as they both dive into the back room.
In the dull light of a kitchen that scrapes hygienic regulation, the streaked mug is ceremonially dumped into a vat of industrial foam, alongside numerous others that are stacked on the side. Under gentle washing the streaks on the old mug slowly begin to disappear, revealing in their place dark tan lines and chips stained with pale lipstick (or that’s what the Barista hopes). Dirt and age that no amount of washing will remove. The manager’s instructions are clear though: There’s logo, there’s use.
At this moment the mug turns in the bowl and lifts its fading logo to peer up into the droopy eyes of the Barista, as if were trying to convey a message or a plea. Outside there continues the crashes and bangs, the shouts and grinds of the daily, but yet in the backroom of nowhere, for just one moment, these two objects share a unexplainable connection. The sentient being nods at the weary object in what she considers to be mutual understanding, and drives the mug hard under the murky water with pale, delicate, hands and a scouring pad.
The old mug has never been seen on the high shelf since.
What Halloween Means to Me
To some Halloween means this…
Or this…
If you have too much time on your hands it could even mean this…
But for my sister and I the spirit of Halloween is more than just over the top costumes and expensive decorations. We see beyond the sugar coated antics of our peers, looking much further ahead, past the day itself. For after every Halloween comes the bit that really gets me excited – reduced pumpkins.
And that, that’s what Halloween means to me.
Pumpkin soup anyone?
The Perils of Retail Therapy
A memo to the wise; if you do too much of this:
…you’ll end up with an ankle looking like this:
Ok, granted I wasn’t posing in that exact same fashion when my ankle went, but when it started to ache during a shopping trip I decided to ignore the pain and carry on walking on it. I’d decided to venture to the fair Welsh capital of Cardiff and I didn’t want to turn back before I’d even got properly stuck into my needed dose of retail therapy.
As well as the blinking obvious (walking on a duff ankle) there were other things I didn’t fully factor in whilst hobbling around the city centre on a Sunday in mid-late October. These ‘things’ feel into three categories:
- The impact of a particularly bad cold virus.
- Excitable children on school holidays, pumped up on sugar and in want of Halloween ‘stuff’.
- Super eager women, pumped up on caffeine and hell-bent on obtaining Christmas wares before anyone else.
The result was pure shopping chaos, particularly when I became caught up in the shopping centre at peak time. Quickly I found myself bent and morphed into shapes usually reserved only for the most brutal of Twister games. Grunting the pain away like a reindeer on Christmas Eve, I kept my eyes straight and aimed my cold-filled, Rudolf Red, nose towards the nearest exit.
Out of nowhere they came. Turning out of a shop and charging toward me at speed came a group of teenage girls. Dressed in clothes that liberated their pre-pubescent figures, the young women clutched their semi-empty milkshakes in one hand with a firmness that was nearly as strong as their grip on the pre-ripped, bloodied, shirts that were slung over their backs.
“We’ve got the dead look covered this year girls!” One of the party exclaimed triumphantly, as she pored over a small bag of purchased make up. The others nodded in mild agreement, slupping on their milkshakes and scrolling through void blocks of information. At the command of their leader, the group circulated around a black screen to appease the tiny dot before them. The first snap failing to satisfy, they posed for another photo, and another. The look of death had a time and a place, and as far as the camera holder was concerned Snapchat wasn’t one of them.
Upon realising that my collision with the party was both inevitable and likely to write off my foot (for which I felt quite sure the girls lacked any sympathetic insurance), I decided to change my path. Like a Shakespearian character my persona as flipped into a Hellish beast as I gritted my teeth and turned on the sore ankle to walk around the female cluster.
As I hobbled on, dragging my bad leg behind me, I saw bitter sweet irony reflected in the eyes of all the ghoul clad staff who regarded me with confusion and unease. Coffee stands decorated with bloodied bandages and skulls, shops festooned with beaming figurines and tinsel, each environment looked down at me with a soulless attitude that clung onto those who dwelled beneath. Of all the shopper types it was only the husbands and boyfriends that took the crown for being more out of place than I. Loaded like a Biblical Donkey, acting like a Hollywood Zombie, the men of the city took pity and avoided my half dead shape, whilst their respective partners walked in window-display bedazzlement across my path. I gave a half smile of encouragement to these brave men and pressed onwards.
It was a circular pattern of discomfort and disinterest that punctuated the day. The simple pleasures; the reading of a book undisturbed, discovering a nicely styled boot, these glimmers of joy were hard won and so easily lost. A noisy patron in the neighbouring seat, a swollen foot rebelling against a test environment. A reminder perhaps that no one can be a God in the world of the Godless. This thought whispered around my brain in mockery as I slowly staggered towards the bus station. A hissing that ended with the slamming of doors and screeching of the brakes as I departed the capital once again for English soil.
Life, sore ankles and seasonal shoppers; nothing lasts forever.
A Crumble by Any Other Name
I’m looking at an apple crumble made by Mum, complete with a dollop of clotted cream on the side. Because it’s homemade I have no idea when it’s use by is or, indeed, was. Because it’s me I don’t really care. It’s sweet and sugary and has fruit somewhere deep inside and in my world that’s all that matters. (Well, that and not being poisoned by it, of course.)
I debated whether to take a snapshot of the squidgy, crumbly, goo but then opted against. “The world will not judge my diet today!” I triumphantly thought, before typing up my eating habits for the world to read online.
I momentarily stop in creative passion to return my attention to more pressing matters. The beast calls for what it cannot grab from its imprisonment within. Like a puppet dancing on strings my hands respond to the master’s call. Ten twitching digits grab the faded bowl which had been lain on crumb-covered sheets, the dirtied spoon lifted from a used yoghurt pot beside.
“They cannot judge what they can’t see” I uttered to myself once again. A scoop of dessert piled high with cream onto the small tea spoon, the perfect combination of dry and moist. Each component would be lost without the other, and yet under the strain of such a mass the teaspoon could almost be heard squeaking for mercy. I happily donate my charity to the plea as I inserted the mixture into my mouth, eyes closed in anticipation.
Suddenly the relaxed, drawn, eye lids sprung open to reveal a very different emotion.
“The cream’s gone off.”
(Written in response to the prompt of the day: Crumb )
North Korea – a Very British Take
I don’t know about you, but I aren’t half irritated by all this talk of North Korea and the like.
There’s no easy way of addressing the rather sticky topic of a country that has barely two sticks to rub together but a tonne of bombs ready to light. Even the utterance of the word ‘Kim’ nowadays makes people shudder. (I feel for anyone of the same name, it must make office discussions a nightmare.) No longer is “Hitler” deemed the ultimate buzz kill of conversations, no, that title now falls to the bomb-drop (pun not intended) of “so…North Korea, eh?”
Drop the mic and never pick it up.
Maybe the dictator is threatening to blow us all up because he tried Instagram and realised that he’s not Kim Kardashian?
Me personally I’ve got to a point where I’m a bit fed up of hearing all about it. Personally I always considered myself to be akin to Cypher in The Matrix. Sod all the misery and slavery in the real world, give me an amazing life in the fake one. As such it doesn’t half frustrate me when I keep having to watch news about increasing tensions, followed by relaxations, then changed up to tensions again. If I wanted to watch a little fat man in a suit I’d have put on Thomas the Tank Engine.
(And we can all get covered in falling pails of milk and it’ll be hilarious and harmless in equal measure.)
As a British person I’m presently faced with three equally delightful prospects of the future: a) death by war, b) death by global warming or c) death by lack of French cheese and wine through Brexit. It’s all water off a duck’s back now, in fact I’m probably more likely to complain to the BBC if the news report does not feature at least two of the above. Unless the article features tea, I’m super hopeful that we’ll get all of that tea China promised us some 150 years ago. I’m going to ask Father Christmas for it this year, that or duct tape for Boris Johnson, whichever suits.
In truth I feel more frustration and sadness over the people who live in North Korea. There is nothing for them there but poverty, misery and worse. No one reports on them, no one thinks about how sanctions hit the citizens who have done no wrong. I’m no politician or John Lennon, but it just seems like such a screwed up country and people are treating it, on the surface, like it’s one naughty child and shouting at it for long enough will calm it down. But since when does that work with normal children? Or Trump? You take away their bacon and they get more irritable.
If we learnt from past mistakes I swear the world wouldn’t be in such a mess right now.
People just need to calm down, and someone needs to give Kim a girlfriend or a new hobby. Has anyone thought about introducing the dictator to cross stitch for example? Or maybe the satisfaction of a well maintained allotment? Just thoughts you know (and considerably cheaper than a world war – sign him up for one of those monthly magazine kits for sale in WHSmith.)
The issue of North Korea isn’t great, I get it, but when I get home from a long day at work can you perhaps not tell me I’m going to die from an exploding bomb or the after effects? I’ve just cleared a backlog of admin and health and safety e-learning and with the greatest of respect Trump I really, really, do not want to know right now. Don’t tell me that the hour spent learning how to position my monitor screen is about to go down the drain. Because seriously, I do not have time for it.
In a nutshell then I’ve basically explained the problems in North Kora through use of Instagram, a children’s TV show and a kid with a bacon addiction. I guess some writers are just born with it.
*FYI – all views are mine (because what other crazy fool would write the above?)
7. A Surreal Settlement: Mortgage Conclusions
Disclaimer: names of individuals/financial institutions marked with * have been changed.
Same bank, same branch, same waiting room with the same generic music. The only difference was the day. Yet another meeting with BankUK* and advisor Katie*, yet another week in mortgage limbo.
“I should be in work now.” I thought.
At this point it’s worth noting how lucky I was to still even have sniff of the house I’d set my hopes on. The offer had been accepted by the seller in November, yet here I was in January with nothing more than a Chamberlain scrap of paper to suggest the funds were in place to buy the property. Since then there had been no requests for updates from either my solicitor or the agent which suited me to the ground. To tell the truth would be buyer suicide.
I walked into a different meeting room, this one blander than the others. The other rooms had photography with inspirational sayings on, this one had a single thank you card in the small, square, window which faced onto next door’s brickwork. The only ounce of personality in a white-washed cube. I half wondered if I was living in the Truman Show, that the same utilitarian chairs, desk and room was also used by dentists, consultants and middling management. As if at any moment a forklift truck would lift up the confined box and move it to different location, to film another character in an ongoing Soap which I was part of.
Such ponderings were brief, Katie walked through the door swiftly with all the relevant paperwork for signing.
“Before we sign the formal documentation for your mortgage, I’d like to sort out this business with your complaint.” Katie opened with.
“Ok,” I replied, “what’s the situation with that then?”
Katie went on to explain in detail the nature of my complaint, that the comments in the subsequent letter sent to head office had been fed back to her. She understood my frustration but told me it was something none of them could have predicted or prevented against, that their policy was underpinned by UK law. In other words, “our hands were tied, what could we do?”
In equally “I don’t give a stuff fashion” I nodded through her comments until she got to the bit we all cared about, what BankUK were going to do to shut me up. It was clear that I wasn’t going to let this drop easily, I’d already threatened further action on the phone and in my letters. I was looking forward to a big settlement.
“So, in light of all this, we’d be prepared to offer you a cash amount to the value of the administration fee on this mortgage. Given your original application was for a different mortgage at the same interest but fee-free, we believe this settlement to be fair. We are prepared to offer you £99 today. If you accept this now, we can close the complaint and move on with your application.”
Kate slid a prewritten cheque across the desk, signed by an unknown individual, presumably the branch manager.
Silence. I looked at the cheque and then up to Katie, then down to the cheque, then to Mum who was sat beside me for support. Her face was a mirror of mine.
“And the rest?”
“Sorry?” Katie blinked twice.
“Well, this can’t be the entire settlement. Given I’m not getting the full mortgage amount I was promised and after how much I’ve been messed about. I’m meant to be at work right now, not here. Besides, I should have got the fee-free mortgage in the first place. Thank you for this opening offer, but I reject.”
I handed the cheque back to my advisor. My response to what Katie, her manager and BankUK had assumed to be a fair offer stunned the former who once again returned to the same nervous state witnessed in our first meeting.
“Urm, can you give me a moment? I need to talk to my manager.” Katie requested.
“Sure,” I said, leaning back in my seat. “Take all the time you need. I’ve got all day.”
She returned a short while later to after apparently speaking to the invisible bank manager which we weren’t allowed to meet.
“My manager wants me to ask you if you had a settlement figure in mind.”
“A figure?”
“Yes, something for us to work with. What would it take for all this to go away?”
“Can we meet the manager?” Mum chipped in. “I believe my daughter requested this on a previous email which you agreed to.”
“I would, but she’s in meetings all day today, but if you feedback to me I can pass any messages onto her.”
That was it, I decided. I’m officially banking with the mafia.
“Well I’d have to go away and carefully put a figure together. There’s money owed for transport, time off, stress of a house sale almost falling through and so forth. I think it’s best you tell your manager that I can’t be expected to pull out a random figure out of the air without some thought and analysis. It wouldn’t be very professional or fair to BankUK.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“But that said I would like to get this sorted today. So, in light of that, I propose that I take the £99 today (as this is money you owe me anyway) and I sign the mortgage documentation so I can get the ball rolling on my house purchase. Meanwhile, I want to keep that complaint open for me to take this further with your regional managers.”
In my head all I could hear was Aretha Franklin singing Respect. Part of me wanted to flick my hair storm out of the cube room right there and then.
“Let me speak to my manager.”
Those six words marked the end of face-to-face negotiations with the white collar mafia. They accepted this temporary deal (more than anything to get rid of me). I signed the paperwork and finally secured a mortgage. Not the mortgage I’d originally wanted, but a mortgage nonetheless.
After another month of further discussion via letter and email a more reasonable settlement was agreed. In digging about to prove they were in the right, BankUK discovered that Jack*, my first advisor, had actually been in the office for several days prior to his accident. Several working days where he’d forgotten/put off contacting me about my failed mortgage application. Coupled with the birthday card and Katie’s admittance that they’d failed me, BankUK had little to use in their defence. They’d have to give out more than £99, either through the imposing financial regulators or one woman and her persistent emails. They went for the logical option, firstly by offering the higher mortgage value I’d originally applied for, followed by a request for a final figure to close the complaint for good.
I collected all my receipts and carefully justified every penny of compensation but in the end no hard evidence was required. To say they handed me a blank cheque would be over selling it, but to say they cared deeply would be false. At the end of the day they’re a bank who would be taking interest payments from me and millions others in the years to come. They weren’t short of money then and they aren’t short now. The figure on the cheque wouldn’t make the slightest difference to them, but it would to me. Was it the greatest victory in the world of small claim settlements? Nah, of course not, but it was a victory nonetheless. I’d taken on the banks and won.
The icing on the cake was my demand to sign the settlement paperwork in no other location but Swindon. Previously an unthinkable request, BankUK shoved Katie in a car with a cheque and sent her packing to Wiltshire.
I signed the documentation, took the cheque and wished her well in life. It was the closest thing to a thank you card she or BankUK were ever going to get from me. After all the stress and frustration, I finally had a mortgage and could start formal proceedings on my house purchase.
This post is part of The First Time Buyer Diaries. To view the full series (so far) click here.
Theatre Review: Titus Andronicus @ The Royal Shakespeare Company
Theatre Review: Titus Andronicus @ The Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-Upon-Avon
Alice Bennett (for The National Student)
In the Royal Shakespeare Company’s recent production of Titus Andronicus (currently showing in Stratford-Upon-Avon) all the foulest deeds of mankind come to roost. Murder, affair, execution, rape and even cannibalism are unashamedly showcased in Shakespeare’s bloodiest play. As I found myself watching execution after execution I found it hard to believe that this play could have possibly been penned by the same great man who also wrote about fairies dancing in the wood and young lovers coming together in merry song.
Titus Andronicus, a great general who has fought greatly and lost much, returns home to much praise from family and supporters. However the decision to refuse his nomination for the throne, coupled with his backing of the weak Saturninus for emperor, starts a chain of uncontainable blood and devastation for all sides. Formerly persecuted by Titus, the empress Tamora and her lover Aaron sees to the destruction of the general by inflicting increasingly gory and brutal punishments on his family. As the bodies started to pile up on stage, I was left on the edge of my seat, wondering not who will survive, but how will they die.
This 21st century adaptation of the Roman-based play sees actors in hoodies climb graffitied fences in the opening scenes, crying out for justice only to be swiftly beaten down by armed police officers. From my comfy seat I was witnessing a society falling apart right in front of me, knowing that there was nothing I could do to stop the pain and misery. It’s that feeling of helplessness, that visualising of a dystopian future that is more relatable now than ever before. That sadness that what I was seeing on stage was, is, happening around the world as I type this very review. The language changes, but the darkness of human nature always prevails.
This classical play is attributed with a suburb acting cast, headed with the great David Troughton. I cried with Titus as he cradled the head of his son, felt rage at the sight of his raped daughter and felt a sick, twisted joy from witnessing the execution of the perpetrators. In under ninety minutes my civil nature was swept away in the rivers of blood that flooded the stage, I was hooked from the very start until the very end.
Forget notions of concealed knives under armpits and melodramatic deaths, watching this adaptation you will be forced to absorb some of the most difficult and painful scenarios known to man. The stage will be covered in more than just the spit of the actors. There’s the closest thing to a real-life public execution, scenes of female empowerment which you’ll loathe and outright racism that you cannot shout out against. Leave your political correctness in the clock room, this is an Elizabethan play like no other. More blood please!
Rating: 5 stars
For more information, including showing times and tickets, visit the RSC’s website: https://www.rsc.org.uk/titus-andronicus/
Facebook: The Importance of Unfriending
I recently did a feature article for The National Student on the notion of Facebook friends and why a clear out of them every so often is nothing but a good thing.
Check out the article here: Facebook: The Importance of Unfriending
What are you thoughts on friends on social media? Do we have too many? Are they damaging or do you see them as harmless numbers?
(PS, this is really a more in-depth, more wordy, less bullet pointy version of an earlier blog post There’s a Reason Why I Unfriended You. However these guys wanted something more informative – don’t they know who I am?!)
Monday Motivation
If you’re feeling like nothing is going right, like your everyday diet is not on par with the rest of the world and your place on the humanity scale is (at best) questionable. If you’re feeling any of these things then just tell yourself; it could be worse, I could the person who said this in the office…
“Gruel: if it worked for Oliver Twist then it works for me.”
Alice E. Bennett, 2017.
My Housemate's a Mermaid 