A Brush With Death

Today I got my cheveux couped. That’s right kids, a haircut. Exciting times.

Now me and my hair have never been the best of friends, so spending an hour in front of a mirror being forced to look at someone else who’s being forced to deal with it is not one of my favourite things to do.

And then there’s the small-talk. And the challenging task of saying yes to a coffee (because it’s free) but then having to drink it without moving the position of your head, all before the hairdryer blows thousands of tiny hairs into the mug.

And now imagine doing all of that in French.

Yes. Exactly.

After 4 months here, my French is still basically rubbish. So I sensibly spent a bit of time researching the situation online. For your own sake, please never google anything remotely like ‘Paris hairdressers just a trim’. There is a very large, very dark part of the internet filled with horror-stories about trips to French hair salons. Most of which are variations on, ‘She just kept hacking away at it and refused to listen to me’ or ‘She did the whole thing with just a RAZOR’.

Apprehensive, I asked people for advice. My friend Kate just shook her head and jabbed furiously at the pony-tail she’s been sporting recently; apparently, a recent victim of the hacking-away treatment.

Then I asked my friend Steph, who’s lived in Paris for years. She’ll know what to do, I thought confidently. Not so. It’s very hit-and-miss, she said unhelpfully. You just have to go into one and hope for the best.

Then she added, Just don’t ask for a petit coup, because that means sex. Super.

And as an afterthought, she said darkly, And whatever you do, if they offer you a swan, say no.

And so this morning saw me nervously entering World Cut armed with a picture of Rose Byrne growing out a fringe, and a post-it reading ‘Trim = une coupe d’entretien. Stop = Arrêtez.’

Don’t worry. It wasn’t so bad. As the hairdresser pointed out, my hair is really very thick so all the hacking-away she did hasn’t left me scalped. But the experience was markedly different from getting a hair-cut in Britain. Par exemple:

1. My idea of what I wanted was incidental. The first 10 minutes involved Hairdressers number 1 and 2 umming and ahhing like speculating builders, shaking their heads about the chances of putting in an extension. My French might be pretty crap, but I could follow their conversation, which included some great phrases:

We need to put in more movement here.

You have quite a long face, you know.

You last had it cut when?

Did you know the top half is a different colour to the bottom half?

Oh look, here are a few little white hairs.

I helpfully contributed that there’s a certain part of my forehead that I don’t really like, but they weren’t really interested. Even the little old lady having her highlights done next to me joined in.

2. Turns out a swan is a soin, a conditioning treatment that costs an extra 15€. Pah, no thank you (merci Steph).

3. The add-ons didn’t stop there. If I wanted any mousse putting in, that would be 8 further euros. I opted for a regular blow-dry, un brushing, thank you very much.

4. And the brushing was the strangest part. The whole experience had been quite Edward Scissorhands throughout, blades and bits of hair flying about enthusiastically. But this was something else; I’ve never seen such violence expressed with a hairdryer. If she was Rod Hull, then the hairbrush with my head attached was Emu trying to attack her.

In fact, I presume this was excessive even by Paris standards, because the manager marched over shouting ‘What are you doing?’ and took over. She was equally brusque, but seemed less angry about the whole thing. I was just starting to feel part-proud, part-relieved that the whole thing was nearly over, when she said, ‘Hmm, frizzy. This bit’s very dry.’

And hairdresser number 1 chipped in from across the room something which I didn’t hear, but which undoubtedly meant ‘That’s what you get for not having a soin’.

Cultural acclimatisation rituals for the day = 1.

Soins = 0.

Celebratory pains au chocolat consumed = 2.

Relief at not having to visit the hairdresser for at least 3 months = priceless.

You Win Some, You Lose Some.

Things I learned today:

1. If the fire-alarm goes off in the middle of your lesson, you can guarantee it will be raining outside. And if you set a great example to your students by following official protocol and leaving all your worldly possessions inside, a feeling of righteous smugness won’t keep you dry.

2. If you try and fit in a visit to an underground shopping-precinct in the gap between finishing teaching and getting to your French class, you can guarantee they will be renovating both the Métro station and the shopping-centre so that you can’t find the shop you want. The shop being the strangely-named ‘fnac’, which you have no clue how to pronounce, so you can’t even ask anyone. (I think it’s basically the noise you make when a bug flies into your nose).

3. It doesn’t matter which queue you choose at the cash-desks, it is guaranteed to be the slowest. In which Parisians will demonstrate a huge inability to queue normally. By which, I refer to their habit of sending their small children into other queues to reserve a place, despite the children having no idea of their role in this activity. Or the tactic of the woman behind me, who expressed her unhappiness at the queuing-time by standing far too close to me while taking the art of audible tutting to a whole new level.

4. When you finally get off the Métro at 13.50, you will inadvertently run the wrong way down the street, away from your French class that starts at 2pm sharp. When you realise your error, an insane spoof of a James Bond film will ensue, whereby you get on a random bus, travel for 1 stop, panic and get off, and then chase the bus down the road for 8 full minutes. You will then arrive at your French class only mildly late, but unable to breathe for approximately 20 minutes due to all the running.

5. You will confidently approach the coffee-machine you were scared of last week, having studied the buttons carefully and worked out how to order a standard coffee. The machine will then ignore you, fill the cup to overflowing (to punish you for not asking for a tiny expresso) and will add extra sugar, when you asked for none. Standard.

6. The highlight of your day, visiting the boulangerie that has been declared vendor of the BEST BAGUETTE IN PARIS 1998 AND 2014, will be thwarted as it is naturally closed on Wednesday afternoons.

7. Despite writing ‘toilet-roll’ on your hand and accepting the fact you will get strange looks from people all day, you will forget to buy it at the supermarket.

Things that made up for all the shit things that happened:

I’m not working this evening. I’m watching Friends dubbed into French in my pyjamas. (Tap-dancing class is un cours de claquettes).

A shit day in Paris is still a pretty awesome day.

I got to take the tram home. Which tells you the name of each stop by announcing it in both a female and then a male voice. And each stop has its own little jingle, most of which seem to have been taken from the soundtrack of a 40s detective thriller.

Red wine.

Things that have changed since I moved to Paris.

Some changes I expected. Sure. Like I would develop an amazing instinct for recalling every detail of the Metro map. Or I would discover some kind of magic brain-portal which would bring back all the French I learned at school. Or even just the ability to perform a nuanced range of shrugs.

In reality, the changes have been rather more surprising and rather less useful. Here are some details about my life now:

- I inexplicably save all envelopes from the mail and use them for writing lists and notes to myself.

- I scour the cosmetics sections of supermarkets and pharmacies for products containing Argan Oil as Parisian water is doing something a bit weird to my hair, and then I get affronted by the ridiculous price of toiletries over here and refuse to buy them.

- I am totally au fait with Danone’s entire product-range, and am involved in creating a detailed ranking system for small desserts in pots.

- I buy a real actual TV guide again. Mainly because the writing in it is quite short, and I can usually understand it.

- I am never without a 1 litre bottle of Evian. Ever.

- It’s not got Evian in it though. I obsessively fill the bottles with tap-water and chill them in the fridge in a weird system of rotation, drinking and rinsing.

- All my shopping lists end with ‘Don’t buy cheese.’

- I watch a lot more television here. Usually US dramas dubbed into French. This week I have watched the same episode of House three times. Or as they call it here, Dr [H]ouse.

- There is a polar-bear who lives in my fridge. And he is basically my new best friend who I talk to more than I talk to anyone else at the moment. And he talks back. And it’s great if I can get him to ask, ‘What are you looking for?’ and sometimes he gets angry and shouts at me to ‘Shut the fridging door!’ 

And some of you think I’m making this up and / or I’ve actually gone mad. But those of you who know me but at all know that this is wholly and completely true.

#GM10

3 intrepid explorers ventured out early one Saturday morning. An important mission was afoot. They were armed with supplies (‘sacks full of snacks’ had been the brief), a bottle of Prosecco to crack open at the moment of victory, and a lot of bus-timetable print-outs.

The day of #GM10 had finally arrived.

Don’t worry if you aren’t familiar with it yet; we made it up.

In a reckless moment, about 6 months ago, I had said to my friend Emma, ‘Man, I want to say I’ve been to every borough of Greater Manchester. And I want to do something cultural in each one.’ ‘And have a drink,’ she suggested. ‘AND DO IT ALL IN ONE DAY!’ she added triumphantly.

And so the plan was born. All 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester in one day. Caveats were added; one day became 12 hours, and we opted to only use public transport. We selected a date, and then roped our friend Ana in, because she bloody loves Manchester but now (sadly) lives far away.
                                                                 

We met a little after 9am at Trafford Bar tram-stop. The first words out of Emma’s mouth were, ‘Well, thank god we found each other in life, ladies, because we certainly wouldn’t find anyone else willing to do this.’

We had a rough outline in mind, but were prepared to, as Emma put it, ‘fly by the seat of our pants’ a bit if necessary. Like I said, intrepid.

I thought you’d like to live through #GM10 just as we did, and so allow me to present our adventure, chronological and comprehensive, from Trafford to Salford. (For true authenticity, you should be drinking a can of Alfie’s ready-mixed Gin & Tonic throughout.)

1. Trafford:

Cultural pit-stop: Statue of Frank Sidebottom, Timperley

Not the easiest destination to get to. Primarily because, until the night before, none of us had been able to find out where it is. Indeed, Ana googled it and the top result was Emma’s question to the Frank Statue Facebook group asking ‘Where is the statue? I’m visiting tomorrow and I don’t have a postcode!’ Meanwhile, in the staff room after work I’d had much better luck. Google Streetview shows no Frank statue, but some excellent detective-work from my colleague Ryan revealed it’s outside Johnson’s the Dry Cleaners (which had undergone rebranding by the time of Frank’s unveiling).

2. Manchester

Cultural pit-stop: Statue of Queen Victoria, Piccadilly Gardens

We took our second tram of the day into the city, and spent the journey comparing our snacks, like kids at a sleep-over. Emma waved a token apple at us, prompting a local Trafford lady to observe, ‘Because Saturday is the day to be healthy. Stick pins in your eyes the rest of the week’. Yes, quite.

Manchester was a quick interlude for us. No messing. Our adventure was more about the open road, the unexplored backwaters in the surrounding boroughs. Although it was the point at which I began my day-long quest to photograph council bins.

                                                               

3. Stockport

Cultural pit-stop: Hat Museum

This is a GREAT place. The UK’s only dedicated hat museum. ‘You’ll need at least an hour for Level 2,’ the front-of-house lady advised, ‘That’s where the hat-making machines are.’ She seemed disappointed when we broke it to her that we only had 10 minutes, and that included a visit to the toilet.

We thoroughly enjoyed our whistle-stop visit; we tried hats on, marvelled at the Hatting Info Lounge, and I’ll leave you with this informational treat: People stopped wearing hats when they started driving cars. Fact.

                                                                           

4. Tameside

Cultural pit-stop: Tameside Library and Art Gallery

Our first bus of the day took us to Ashton-Under-Lyne (the 330, 42 minutes, on which Emma uttered the immortal words, ‘I’m going to make you eat something with chorizo in it now.’ Sainsbury’s Chorizo Koftas, in fact. Very nice, but look remarkably like small dog poos).

Culturally, we had feared this would be the most difficult borough, but our worries were soon allayed, as we clocked up the (now sadly-derelict) Tameside Hippodrome and Tameside Library and Art Gallery.

And then, wonder of wonders, we braved a refreshment break at Fat Lenny’s Saloon. Picture a ridiculously kitsch collection of Wild West memorabilia in a Working Men’s Club, and then add a white buffalo head, a medieval chandelier and 3 types of Sourz (apple, tropical and cherry).

It was incredible; we drank halves of lager and relished in the knowledge that we were officially ahead of schedule! We rode the wave of success and accomplishment and got a bit giddy; I asked why they had so many UV lights. Ana suggested maybe it was to detect semen. Seamen? Emma contributed. Surely they only get cowboys in here. Ah, the hilarity.

5. Oldham

Cultural pit-stop: Oldham Coliseum

Another bus-ride and we were halfway through our mission. A wander through Oldham City Centre, photos at the Coliseum Theatre, and we were soon sharing a can of G&T at Oldham Mumps tram-stop. (NB. The name of the Mumps area of Oldham probably derives from ‘mumper’, an old word for beggar. And you thought this article wouldn’t teach you anything.)

                                                                    

6. Rochdale

Cultural pit-stop: Town Hall

Suggested by my friend Jackie, the Town Hall in Rochdale is simply amazing. Rumour has it, Hitler had his eye on it, and planned to ship the whole bloody thing to Germany. It is huge and Gothic; we were only sad it wasn’t open for us to explore inside.

Instead, we patronised the local Wetherspoon’s, The Regal Moon, where you can get a refillable coffee for 70p and learn about famous Rochdale-ean Gracie Fields from the wall displays. (If you’re interested, this famed music-hall star had 3 husbands and lived her later years on the island of Capri. She also started a children’s home in Sussex specifically for ‘children of those in the theatre profession who couldn’t look after their children.’)

                                                                  

7. Bury

Cultural pit-stop: World Famous Bury Market

Bury treated us nicely. A quick turn around the Market, where Emma found out what a Rag Pudding is, and we were on our final bus of the day (the 471, 29 minutes).

Memorable moments of the journey include a little girl caning a whole bag of sweets and doing a very good impression of a dog, me learning that Emma’s boyfriend freezes Tunnock’s Teacakes (say what?) and someone asking, ‘Do you think it’s possible to have too much pork in a day?’

8. Bolton

Cultural pit-stop: Town Hall

Here we experienced our one failure. We had hoped to visit Bolton Aquarium (trust me, it’s a real place), but we missed the 5pm closing-time. Instead, we settled for the lovely Bolton Albert Halls and a stroll past the elephant sculptures on Newport Street. Why elephants, I hear you ask. Well, they feature in Bolton’s coat-of-arms. Why, I hear you ask. Well, it’s because Bolton used to be part of the diocese of Mercia, and Coventry was the seat of the diocese of Mercia, and there’s an elephant in Coventry’s coat-of-arms. Why, I hear you ask. Well, because St George was born in Coventry, and he killed a dragon, and the elephant is the medieval symbol for dragon-slaying. Obviously.

                                                                              

9. Wigan

Cultural pit-stop: Wigan Pier

I didn’t know much about Wigan Pier before #GM10, other than that George Orwell went there and wrote about it. Turns out, he only wrote about it so he could describe the awful slag-heaps. Oh.

We found the bit of the railway used for tipping coal into the canal-boats, we found the Leeds-Liverpool milestone, and then we found the pub. Where we had a very cheap round of pints, there was a wedding reception and a Hen Do happening at the same time, and the bar-staff didn’t wear shoes.

And then on the train, a very very drunk girl had to get out at Hindley, dragging her friend Jane with her. ‘But I don’t live in Hindley,’ Jane said mournfully. Poor Jane.

10. Salford

Cultural pit-stop: Statue of Queen Victoria, Salford University

Success! Victory! Celebratory drinks in The Old Pint Pot.

                                                                                    

We did it! And all for the amazing price of an £8.60 bus-train-tram Day Pass (thank you Transport for Greater Manchester, it’s an absolute bargain).

We saw the house where Fred Perry was born, we went through a part of Bury called Jericho (who knew?), and Emma taught me the delightful ‘a cappella banger’ Kersal Massive, featuring Little Kev and Ginger Joe (or Skinny Pete, as she prefers to call him).

Above all, I had one of my most favourite days ever. Ladies, thank you; I had the best time.

As Emma observed so wisely in Fat Lenny’s, ‘Don’t worry about facebooking this. We need to relax. These are our moments for later. I’ll make an album and print it out and send you a copy for our 50^th birthdays.’

By then, no doubt #GM10 will be a global phenomenon. There’ll probably be a statue of the 3 of us for GM10ers to visit. I’d quite like it to be in Tameside…

Shooting the Bamboo Goes Continental

So, I moved to Paris. For a year. To live, and work, and (hopefully) learn French.

(The jury’s out on how that will go – yesterday, my brain refused to understand a lady charging me 29 cents for a bottle of water, to the extent that she was forced to point at my handful of change saying loudly, ‘The yellow one, the YELLOW one,’ until I managed to hand over the right amount.)

And so, in the interests of trying not to forget all the important life-altering memories that I acquire here, I think I’d better write them down. For posterity and whatnot. And to confirm that I didn’t imagine them when I look back on all this in years to come.

Yesterday I was up and about early to get to an appointment with a bank manager, and successfully managed to open a bank account! Anyone who has experienced anything to do with French banking will know this is much easier said than done. Anyone who has heard the story of the hoops I jumped through to try (unsuccessfully) to open an HSBC account before I left the UK will understand I was quite nervous about the whole thing.

But it was fine. The lovely heavily-pregnant bank adviser was super-helpful and nice and, more to the point, spoke quite a bit of English. I even managed to say some useful things in French, such as ‘Is it possible to have a cheque-book?’ and ‘Which ATMs am I allowed to use?’

It was all going swimmingly.

And then I whipped out my useful list of important vocabulary and questions from my filofax to impress her. Only to find that I had inadvertently whipped out the wrong piece of paper. I was brandishing one of my ‘ideas pages’ for a writing project. More specifically, I was showing her a line that said ‘GRAPEFRUIT – forbidden if you’re on statins! WHY?!’ 

Let’s hope she didn’t look too closely.

Anyway, after my triumphant bank visit, I spent the day wandering and exploring the areas north of the Seine – Les Halles, the Marais, Bastille and then the Louvre gardens. Lovely. I took photos and sat in parks and did my best to be observant and good at noticing things.

Here is what I noticed:

1. French women wear a lot of perfume. And they’re really good at sweeping past you and leaving a cloud of it in their wake. French shops seem to pump out clouds of it from their doorways too. Not sure how they do this.

2. Place des Vosges is my new favourite place. It’s got lovely fountains and gardens for sitting. And I got to watch a troupe of 8 Dutch women elaborately set up a self-timed photograph about 12 times before they got one they were happy with.

3. I saw a man clearly unhappy with the signs that said he was not welcome to walk his dog in a particular park. He neatly stuck labels over the crossed-out pictures of dogs on each sign he came to, and then proudly marched in with his dog. A subtle protest.

4. The glass pyramid outside the Louvre would make a lovely backdrop for wedding photographs. Ah, look how happy they are, I thought, as I watched a bride and groom lovingly gazing at each other while the photographer snapped away. And then I realised the only spectator was a grumpy-looking assistant, and that it was some kind of photo-shoot. Not quite so romantic.

5. Great idea to use my friend’s Paris Lonely Planet guide to help me with my explorations. That way, I found out about some of the more obscure things to go in search of, such as the Défenseur du Temps (pictured), an elaborate clock where the eponymous Defender of Time battles a crab, a phoenix and a dragon on the stroke of the hour. I was especially excited to be there at midday, when ‘particularly lively combat’ apparently happens. 

Shame that the Lonely Planet guide is now 10 years old, and the clock doesn’t actually work anymore. Shout-out to the nice French lady who explained this to me and the other mugs waiting patiently while a posse of local pigeons smugly looked on.

Bigging Up Daisy

We do like to obsess about horrible people, don't we?

This week, the front pages invited me to consider MeatMarketMan, a cannibal nurse who pursued a teenage girl with designs of cooking and casseroling her. I don't even know where this took place, as the lead-in made me too sad to read any further.
And I can't get through the phrases 'Jim'll Fi...' Or 'Animal Ho...' before having to stop because it’s just too depressing. What's with all the awful people?
 
Today, folks, I want to talk about one of the best people in the world. My very good friend Daisy turns 30 today, and I would like to take a few minutes to remind you that not all humans are shit.

Here are just a few reasons why she's one of my all-time favourites:

She’s an achiever. In the run up to her birthday she’s been checking items off her 30 Before 30 list. Things such as running a 10k, painting the shed, getting something pierced. Tangible, noteworthy things. I got equally enthused about life-goals at this juncture and wrote my own list of objectives. Except mine are more like buy more lipsticks; watch The Sopranos; get a globe.

She keeps it real. Her favourite drink is cider. And not fancy Somerset pressed-apple stuff either. Strongbow. And black. Old skool.

She knows the difference between right and wrong. And she’ll stand up for her beliefs. She once had a mad lodger who said a very not-PC word one evening. I winced and was just settling into the awkward horrific silence I expected to ensue, but Daisy didn’t miss a beat. ‘We don’t say that word in this house,’ she said smoothly; mad lodger quickly apologised, and we all moved on. The world is less racist and infinitely better with Daisy in it.

Sometimes she forgets that she's been to Brazil.

She’s resourceful. I’ve witnessed Daisy make toast in a saucepan. Fact.

She dreams big. So far we've made pacts to go on a cruise, visit Budapest and meet at 10pm at the Gare du Nord on my birthday. Never let it be said that Daisy sets the bar low. My personal favourite is that we're going to visit all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester in a zany 24 hr-challenge this August. And you know what; I have no doubt that we'll succeed.

She once fed me daiquiris until I passed out.

Daisy helps you to be the best you can be. Her encouragement and faith in other people knows no bounds. This year, she’s the reason I’ve done a journalism course and said yes to far too many social invites. Because, you know what, I told myself, that’s what Daisy would do.

Of course, sometimes this backfires a little. Her exuberance can verge on over-zealous. As, for example, when she really wanted me to stand on the top of this gargoyle, because it was a Croatian tradition and she’d had so much fun doing it. It ended up with me shouting, ‘SHUT UP. I’m not climbing on the fucking gargoyle.’ Our first fight. Don’t worry, we got past it. Or, when Daisy really wanted her friend Claire to let the water pummel her face in a European spa. ‘Pummel your face Claire, pummel your face.’ Claire didn’t shout; she just laughed and ignored her.

Once she thought she saw a unicorn in a field.

I've had some of the most fun times of my life with Daisy. Don't believe me? Let me refer you to earlier episodes of this blog:

1. Kendal Calling: in which we festival it up big-style, find ourselves fashioning trolley wheels out of kirby grips and eat a lot of free Alpro products.

2. Croatia: in which we holiday with backpacks on the Dalmatian coast, Daisy falls off a cannon and impersonates Marlene Dietrich in the background of someone's wedding photos, and we get fed spiked Rhum cake.

3. In which we invent Prosecco Thursday, enjoy some live music and learn that a bazooka is also a kind of trombone.
 
So Daisy, happy birthday, yeah? Well done on being awesome. Now let's get shitfaced.
 
Xx

Smell Pictures

Big news, guys. Richard E. Grant has released a scent.

Not like a skunk. Don’t worry; there will be no talk of glands here. No, I’m talking about the world of CELEBRITY FRAGRANCE. Think White Diamonds by Elizabeth Taylor, Paris Hilton’s Fairy Dust, Intimately Beckham courtesy of David, and the intriguingly-named Unforgiveable Woman from Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs.

Richard E.’s eau de parfum is called Jack (as in Union), contains marijuana and, in his own words, is ‘unisexy’ and ‘lickably more-ish’. Jack has been 50 months in the making and will have cost Grant (one imagines) an awful lot of money. ‘Launching [his] signature in scent’ has been a lifelong dream and he is, quite rightly, inordinately proud of it. Smelling things is his absolute favourite.

Which got me to thinking. Smells are pretty incredible. And with that, I shall launch into a few musings about smells. Enjoy.

1. Of course, there are your classics. Everyone knows the giddy childhood excitement and prospect of a 6-week summer holiday that comes flooding back at the slightest whiff of suncream or just-mown grass. And estate agents the world over love that the aroma of fresh coffee or bread practically make people reach for a cheque-book. Smell equals sell, people!

2. New stuff. Mainly cars or carpets. And it’s fine that I can’t afford to buy new cars and carpets all the time (in fact, I’ve never bought a new car or a carpet), because the good people at Magic Tree (or Little Trees if you’re American and Wunder-baum if you’re German) make New Car Scent. Well done them.

I’m not on board with all of the Magic Tree flavours, mind you. Why I would want my car to smell of a Margarita or a Piña Colada is beyond me. And some of the names piss me off – Peachy Peach? Silly Citrus? Vanillaroma? Ugh. I don’t even know what some of them could possibly smell of – Strength? Black Ice? Powder?

And those people who have 3 or 4 different Magic Trees merrily swinging away on the rear-view mirror all at the same time. What kind of multi-fragranced devilry are they messing with?

3. Rain. I’m not entirely sure why or how it smells, but it does, and it’s great. Before, during, after; drizzle, thunderstorm, torrential; slight variations on a theme, but all scentastic. I read once it’s something to do with ions in the air, so it’s basically chemistry and therefore FACT.

4. Nostalgia. It’s amazing that certain smells can transport you to the past. As Richard E. Grant says, it’s because ‘smell is the shortest synaptic leap in the brain to our memory’. Yes.

For example, if I smell Tommy Girl, I am immediately back in the gym at high school doing my French GCSE exam (‘Oh my god, what is recycling in French? Oh my god, who even cares?’ – It’s le recyclage, if you’re interested). And Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue takes me right back to Washington DC, the 2006 World Cup, a lot of hotdogs and Bud Lite, and going to Tai Shan the Panda’s first birthday party (but that’s a story for another time).

5. Innovation. I spent the weekend with my parents recently, and thoroughly enjoyed the new Spanish plug-in air freshener my Dad had purchased. It was quite simply one of the most beautiful scents I have ever encountered. The fragrance was Moonlit Serenity. I don’t know what regular serenity smelled like, but the guys at the Spanish air freshener factory did absolutely the right thing by adding some moonlight.

6. Parks and Recreation. The names people give their perfumes are fascinating. They're so damn aspirational. You’ve got Pure Brilliance by Celine Dion. Minajesty by Nicki Minaj (like what she did there?). Mariah Carey has given us Lollipop Bling. And Britney Spears is the queen of this game: she’s got Fantasy, Circus Fantasy, Island Fantasy, Midnight Fantasy, Hidden Fantasy and Fantasy Twist. Quite literally fantastic.

One of my favourite things about Parks and Recreation (and there are many) is famous fragrance-maker character Dennis Feinstein. His creations are marvellous; highlights include Coma, Itch, Thickening, Spasm and Butterface. I’m hoping to get Richard E. Grant involved in making one of these a reality for his follow-up fragrance.

Prosecco Thursday

 

Last night my friend Daisy and I created Prosecco Thursday. It’s like a normal Thursday, but you add Prosecco to it. And in our case, due to a long-winded saga involving an unredeemed cocktail class voucher, most of it was FREE. A ridiculous amount of Prosecco and an inordinate amount of nachos for a tenner? Sign me up.

And that’s sort of as far as we imagined the evening would go. Fancy drinks, bit of a catch-up in the dim lighting, and tall bar chairs that are quite hard to sit on.

Until, that is, we became aware of an innocent-looking microphone stand nearby. We were witnessing the preamble to an OPEN MIC NIGHT. We were so close to said preamble, in fact, that I was basically sitting in the performance area.

Now Daisy bloody loves live music. Especially if it’s men with guitars; she has a theory that there’s a scientific link between men’s ability to play guitar and women’s desire to have sex with them. Through the evening, she became increasingly rhapsodic, swaying along and proclaiming how youthful she felt. At one point, she said the word 'gnarly'.

I’m a bit more wary of the whole live music thing; I like the idea of it, but the reality is often tricky to navigate. I get preoccupied with ridiculous problems: Are you allowed to talk if someone’s singing? When should you go to the toilet? If anyone really tanks it, should we all do loud appreciative clapping to pretend we didn’t notice the musical car-crash? Or will that be really obvious pity clapping and make it even more awkward?

Now I can’t begin to imagine how brave you have to be to get up there in front of people and sing your heart out, and I have the utmost respect for all the singers and players who performed last night. They were great, and I had a lovely time.

Here are a few of my personal highlights:

~ One performer seemed to be called Fat Panda (excellent name). His performance style involved some very intense jerky movements, rather like he needed a wee. In fact, if you’re familiar with Jeff Goldblum’s cameo in Friends, as a director who makes Joey act when really needing a wee, you’re pretty much there.

~ One of the boy performers clearly really loved one of the girl performers. Daisy and I know this because he spent an actual 5 minutes holding the microphone, offering it to her, pointing it at her face and adjusting it for her. Er, hello? Freudian much?

~ Two hilarious middle-aged women proceeded to get incredibly drunk, incredibly quickly. They propped up the bar, did floaty weavy folky dancing to all the music, and fawned tearfully over the singers. “I loved it. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve heard in my whole entire life. [Hic].”

~ On a serious note, John Atkinson did some lovely tunes, and you should listen to some of his stuff straight away. John Ainsworth was also excellent, despite an early finish due to a bad throat. He got more noises out of a guitar at the same time than I’ve ever heard before. And our unanimous favourite of the evening was Sobi. Her singing was simply enchanting. Check her out immediately. In fact, when we mentioned how much we had liked her to the compère / guy-in-charge, he uttered the immortal words, ‘See, didn’t I tell you. She’s a chicken-dinner. She’s an all-day-breakfast with extra bacon. Return of the Jedi.’ You heard the man.

~ Said guy-in-charge had initially promised Daisy and I a man who would play a bazooka. Somewhat perturbed by this, I ventured cautiously, ‘A kazoo?’ No, he was adamant, ‘A bazooka. You know what that is?’ Of course, we nodded sagely, not wanting to appear deficient in the latest open-mic lingo. Later, a performer took to the stage-area with a questionable-looking guitar, and it’s the first time I’ve ever turned to someone, raised my eyebrows questioningly, and asked ‘Balalaika?’ NB. I’ve just googled ‘bazooka musical instrument’ and apparently it’s some kind of insane trombone affair. We definitely did not see one last night.

~ My favourite thing about the evening was listening to how people introduce their songs. You expect the usual ‘This is a song about someone who broke my heart’ or ‘This song was inspired by my summer living with shepherds in Northern Italy.’ Not so last night. Here is genuinely what moved these artists to create:

• “Here’s a song about watching American TV.”
• "This is a song about being in a storm somewhere.” (This actually moved Daisy to heckle in the hope of finding out exactly where the storm was. Sadly, it’s still a mystery).
• "This is a song I wrote about working in a café stroke restaurant.” Amazing.

The venue was Cord in Manchester, and apparently we’re going again next week. See you there? It’ll be gnarly. With extra bacon. Revenge of the Sith. Or words to that effect…

Games on Phones

Happy New Year, all. I hope you had some lovely festive times, and enjoyed seeing 2013 off or seeing 2014 in, or maybe even both. I thought I would start the year with an insightful and fascinating rundown of apps for games you can play on your phone. You’re welcome.

1. Dots. This is my friend Daisy’s latest game of choice. Like all good games, the concept is alarmingly simple. Your screen is filled with different coloured dots, and all you need to do is link dots of the same colour. For exciting big scores, make squares with them. It’s worrying that I can while away an hour doing this, and yet I’m apparently unable to get a score above 200.

2. Candy Crush Saga. I think by now everyone’s been through the Candy Crush tunnel, yes? The hatred of the cubes with little black nets on them, the dread of having to do a high-score speed round, the sadness when you reach a ‘get the fruit and nuts to the bottom’ level, the sheer joy of finally passing a level you’ve been stuck on for a literal actual month. My affair with Candy Crush happened in the Spring of 2013; every second of my train commute, and a good deal of my working day was spent feverishly swapping the candy around or desperately waiting for time to pass so I could earn another life. Disturbingly like some kind of crack addiction. Eventually, I had to go cold turkey and delete the app completely. Life is just too short.

3. Candy Crush Knock-Offs. It seems everyone’s trying to get on the Candy Crush success bandwagon. And to be honest, fair play to them. Jelly Splash looks exactly the same to me, except the creators have cleverly set it apart by giving the coloured blobs eyes. Genius. And now there’s a new game, the Papa Pear Saga. Again, the concept seems identical, except this time we’re apparently ‘bouncing around a wonderfully wacky world of fruity pegs’. Excellent. My main problem with this one is that Papa is a green ball in a helmet; he’s clearly not a pear. Oh, and for a long time I thought it was called Pop-A-Pair Saga, which, to be honest, might have been better.

4. The Simpsons Tapped Out. This one is my favourite. I’ve never actually played it, but it sounds mental. Essentially, you build Springfield and then you run it, a bit like God or some kind of dictator. You start off with Homer and gradually find more characters, and you make money by building things like the Power Plant and the Kwik-e-Mart and then sending people to work in them. Cletus Spuckler the Redneck also seems to play a major role.

The best part is the updates. So while your phone will beep to inform you that you’ve been tagged on Facebook or that something newsworthy and important is happening in the world of real life, you’ll also be getting things like:

“Cletus has finished brewing moonshine.”

“Homer has just finished a 12-hour shift at the power plant.”

“Sideshow Bob has been spotted in the area.”

“Cletus has helped Brandine give birth to another Spuckler.”

And my personal favourite:

“Apu has finished relaxing in the Brown House.”

Now I just need someone to invent an app that will let me relive my favourite Amiga Commodore 64 game Bubble Bobble, and my life will be complete. You know the one; you had to build bubble towers so the little dragons could reach the top of the screen. Genius.

PS. I sort of thought the title of this blog sounded a bit like Game of Thrones and was ergo mildly amusing. Then I thought it sounded a bit like the 1981 Duran Duran smash-hit Girls on Film and was therefore definitely mildly amusing.

I now feel it doesn’t actually sound enough like either to be mildly amusing and is therefore basically just shit. However, after all this thinking, I can’t be arsed to think of a better title. Bet you’re glad you read to the end, aren’t you?