Birthday

Desperate Times Call for Christmas Measures

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Birthday, Christmas, Event, Friends, Humour, Swindon, Uncategorized , , ,

You know the feeling, you’re going about with the final touches on a birthday present. You’ve already got the gift (because you’re super organised like that) now all that remains is the wrapping up.

You go to your trusty roll of wrapping paper and, oh…

That amount of paper, well, that was not going to cover the item. Far too…rectangley.

But it’s okay. It’s not as if you’ve spent so much time on the present acquisition part that it’s now 18:30 and in 30 minutes you’re meant to be handing said gift over to friend. No one would be that much of a muppet…

*Cough*

This was around the time my improvise mode kicked in. Five minutes / mad rummage around later, ta-da! Present wrapping sorted!

(We will just ignore the fact that it came out as upside down on the ‘prettier’ facing side.)

I even made and effort and dressed-up the second gift.

*Whispers* It’s Pepsi Max.

There you go, birthday wrapping a-la Alice. Think of it this way, if you waited until the 25th December this would be perfectly normal.

That’s my argument and I’m sticking to it.

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Born on This Day: Lin Biao, Deputy Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, Anniversary, Birthday, British, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Economy, Event, History, Humor, Humour, job, London, Mellennial, Mermaid, News, Nonfiction, politics, Project, Prompt, Review, Swindon, Technology, train, Travel, Uncategorized, Work, Young Professional , , , , , , ,

Happy birthday Lin Biao! Born 5th December 1907

Lin Biao was the Deputy Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1966 until 1971 and was instrumental in laying the foundations for Mao Zedong’s Cult of Personality (fuelled by “The Little Red Book”). This Cult became a dominant feature underpinning the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76.

Ironically, the Cult and Lin’s subsequent rise in power deeply unsettled Chairman Mao, in fact Lin would later face severe criticism from within the ruling Communist Party for being the sole cause behind the reckless cultural destruction inflicted by the youthful Red Army in the 1960s.

By 1971 Lin had fallen from favour, putting him and close supporters at risk. After an alleged assassination attempt on Mao failed, Lin was in the process of fleeing China that same year when his plane crashed just off the Russian border, killing all those on board (including his family). It was reported nationally at the time that this was due to his plane running out of fuel, however due to the nature of Lin’s political decline and the secrecy of the Communist state, the true cause of death is still speculated to this day.

Huh, now we know. So, tune in next year for another edition of “Born on this Day”!

(Oh, and happy birthday to me too.)

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Woman on The Verge of a Birthday Breakdown

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, Birthday, Book Review, British, comedy, Coronavirus, Culture, Europe, Event, family, Friends, Humor, Humour, Mellennial, Mermaid, Nonfiction, Prompt, Social Media, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , , ,

Another novelty of lockdown – birthdays aren’t going ahead in the traditional way, so as part of a collective project I recorded a short video to celebrate my mate turning another year older.

Well, at least that was the plan. In reality, it was on a to-do list which I may have have let slip until the last minute, when it became a 1am scramble to get filmed. Which is inevitable when you get this:

Now, even though it was stupid o’clock in the morning, I felt strongly possessed to rerecord my message, again, and again…and again. Eight attempts later, I STILL was after another the perfect VT.

“I know! My background is too plain!” I exclaimed.

Initial hurdle, I don’t have any of those fancy bookcases the boffins on TV tend to have.

Must…promote company, but must also…show off intellectual status! Argh!
Ooh, a man with TWO Oxford dictionaries!

However, I thought I’d try something similar. Presently I don’t own many of the classics, over than those Dick King Smith story books from when I was a kid and The Victorian Celebration of Death. What can I say? I’m a girl of extremes.

Knowing that both wouldn’t really set a great tone (“Happy Birthday!! Did you know the Victorian aspiration wasn’t necessarily to save up for a nice house or clothes? Nah, it was to have a super expensive tombstone carved out and a burial plot decided on whilst still alive. Coincidentally, the male life expectancy was 40 so, you know…chop-chop.”)

Exactly…couldn’t fit that on any greetings card.

In the end I went for this:

Did you see it? You may need to re-watch the video a few times to spot the subtle message, it’s quite well hidden on my headboard. I went and sent that one over.

So yeah, I think that’s done the job in reassuring my mate in her ability to select friends.

(Oh, before I forget, I actually did write-up a five minute review on that book. Check it out…or not. It’s a free country, I’m not your mother.)

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McDonald’s, You’re Missing A Trick!

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, alcohol, Birthday, Book, British, Christmas, comedy, Culture, Europe, Event, food, Holiday, House, How To, Humor, Humour, London, love, Mellennial, Mermaid, Nonfiction, Prompt, Social Media, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , , ,

It’s my birthday and I’ll have wine with my McDonald’s if I want to! A quiet in ahead of the Christmas craziness – new blog posts coming soon!

I’ll also bake for my team if I want to, even if ‘baking’ means staying up until crazy o’clock the night before to get it made to my demanding standards.

(The team valued it, I made two batches and they devoured both on a day. I was even told it posed a risk to productivity because it was so good.)

So yeah, go me. Go me and my baking and my wine-sipping awesomeness. Whoop.

This Could Be the Best Homemade Video Since Charlie Bit My Finger…*

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(* – no promises made)

What does one get a family member who has everything? More to the point, what does one get a family member when one has no money, no time and has a terrible habit of writing in the ‘one’ tense? That’s right, she makes a truly amazing video featuring Phil Collins (obviously).

It seemed such a good idea to make a video for lil bub Bennett’s birthday, but then in truth I think I may have really just wanted to pay tribute to Phil Collins and feed my middle age condition (the one where people are born liking The Archers and consider staying up to watch the BBC News at 10 to be a ‘crazy’ one. Yeah, that one.) Anyway, I thought the video would be a nice thing to do for her.

20 hours later…

Brain dead, caffeine overdosed and fed up of seeing my sister’s face more than my own, I finally created a masterpiece. “She better love this” I thought, before dashing into Lush the next day to buy a back up present. Safe thing too, when I first presented her with the gift she seemed less than amused at the offering.

“Right. Ok, well that’s a very nice memory stick Ali, thank you.”

“No you donut, it’s what’s on the stick.”

“Oh right!”

“Did you seriously think I’d give you a cheap USB stick for your birthday?”

*Silence*

“Just play the video.”

Luckily, she loved it. And now, for your viewing pleasure, I have added that same video here. Enjoy! (Well as much as you can given you know nothing of my family and it’s in-jokes…if nothing else watch it for Phil.)

 

 

Written in response to the WordPress prompt Dancing

Happy 100th Birthday, Sorry, Blog Post to Me

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Birthday, Humor, Humour

When I found myself sat in the non descript office of a finance advisor, sipping on tepid water and discussing my death it did cross my mind that I’d had more upbeat birthdays. The situation was made all the more bleaker when he asked me how I planned to spend the rest of my day. With a Christmas brass band playing outside the window, I said half-humouredly “oh, you don’t understand, this meeting IS the highlight of my day”. He laughed out loud, I cried a little inside.

Actually, tell a lie, birthday festivities began on Thursday when I was talking to a nice man on the HSBC care line (long story). He told me it was his birthday on the 5th as well, with the ensuing three minutes being probably the most excitable conversation over a mundane topic which ever existed. (Our shared birthday with Walt Disney gave us fodder for a good minute.) Sadder still, if he called me up tomorrow I’d happily have the same conversation all over again.

When did I get to the point when any of this constituted as a birthday? When did I get so desperate that I start roping random men into my celebrations? More to the point though, when did I get so mature? I mean ruddy heck, I’m (soon to be) only 24 years old. Maybe I should save my generation the bother and switch the digitals round, become 42. I think I could quickly adapt to a middle aged pace of life, after all I am partial to hummus and will happily tune into Desert Island Discs. Give it six months and I’ll be shopping in Edinburgh Woollen Mill for shortbread.

Saying that, this is how birthdays make me feel:

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Maybe I spoke too soon.

So it’s happy birthday to me and happy 100th blog post. It’s one of the few 2016 New Year Resolutions I’ve been able to achieve this years but one I’m pretty chuffed with (making it to 100 blog posts that is, not the whole 24 thing. We’re not in Victorian England anymore).

Now let’s all hold hands and join in wishing me a wonderful birthday. Happy birthday to me (tomorrow), happy birthday to me (tomorrow), happy birthday to Walt Disneyyyy, happy birthday to me (tomorrow).

Oh yeah, and also happy 100th blog post to me. So that’s happy 100th blog post, Disney, man from the HSBC care line, and personal birthday to us, happy 100th blog post…