Brave New (Digital) World

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?  You know, sometimes when daily life is running on an even keel, it’s become very easy to just leave the internet and general methods of communication completely by the wayside. It could even be considered therapeutic. At times, it seems, only in times of a certain type of necessity does one need to spill ones guts over the Information Superhighway.

Now isn’t especially one of them but hell, sometimes inspiration strikes.

I work in the mobile marketing industry- It’s all about communication, engaging customers/users/anyone really, using the most personal medium that exists- the mobile phone.

Some might say that the advent of mobile communication has revolutionised our way of life…. Has it? When I was 11, I remember seeing a bloke with one of those giant mobile phones and thinking “That guy looks like a w*nker with that massive brick-like contraption held against the side of his head”. (Of course, I didn’t know the word w*nker at the time, for I was young and innocent). I also didn’t know at the time that that ‘contraption’ would become a large part of my livelihood 15 years later.

Of course, mobile phones have come a long way since then: No more bricks but small, stylish handsets that reflect the owner’s personality and contain  whole manner of features, making a phone more like a pocket computer than something you talk into. And that’s the thing, isn’t it- people don’t talk anymore, they TEXT…

I write SMS copy for a global FMCG brand’s mobile marketing campaigns so I can txtspk with the best of ‘em but if the non-abbreviated version of the word fits within the 160 characters I have at my disposal, I use it. Many people do not. Even if they have unlimited characters available, they will still type ‘wot u up 2 2nite? (“What are you up to tonight?” for you old people) or other ridiculous abbreviations. Can people actually write English these days? Am I getting old and cranky?

It’s not just the death of the English language that bothers me: It’s the death of verbal communication. I admit, I’ve fallen head first into the trap as hard as the next 28-year-old-going-on-60 office worker: I’ll email someone instead of picking up the phone in case they ask me something I can’t answer on the spot, I’ll write an SMS to say hi, rather than calling; Facebook, Xing, LinkedIn, Twitter are all in my ‘most used sites’ and sometimes, I’m ashamed to say, I find myself Skyping my colleague, who sits directly opposite me. If Darwin was alive, he’d be talking about our vocal chords becoming obsolete, so lacking will be our ability to verbalise.

Not only verbal communication is on the decline: Remember the good old days when you had to know when and where you were going to meet your mates before you even left the house? People were mostly on time because they had to be, otherwise they were left behind: There was no way they could text/call to tell you they were running late and if something happened to make your buddy late, you’d have the patience to wait for them rather than texting “Where r u?! (angryface)”. Patience, punctuality, even face to face communication are slowly being altered by the brave new digital world. I mean, why even have friends IRL (that’s ‘in real life’ for the old folks)- you’re only going to get swine flu from them.

Must dash, I need to send my boyfriend an SMS on one of my 3 mobile phones to tell him that I love him. Oh yeah, and we only ‘cyber’- I’ve never met him IRL.*

(*anyone who knows me will know that this is a blatant lie but it’s believable, isn’t it?)

Idiots on a Mutherf*ckin Plane

One of the many things that irks me is ‘people on the move’. Get a person standing still and he’s a very nice man, get that same person in a car, on the train, on a plane and he becomes a complete and utter asshat*

Human Beings travel A LOT compared to even 50 years ago. Our Global Village means that there are few places that are unreachable and in particular, budget airlines have heralded a new age of travel. This basically means that almost any w*nker can jump on a plane and get his ham and eggs in Mallorca/Mumbai/somewhere else beginning with ‘M’ or any other letter of the alphabet for that matter.

There’s nothing like loud, leary tourists in the airport bar at 6.30 in the morning, drinking themselves into a stupor before getting onto the cattle cart that is an Easyjet plane, molesting the perma-tanned airhostesses with matching orange uniform and entertaining the other passengers with loud renditions of “Who ate all the pies”…

Worse still could be the self important *ssholes that are business travellers. Turn off ALL electronic devices- that includes your Blackberry/iPhone, f*ckwit and just because you’re wearing a rip off Armani suit doesn’t make you an exception to that rule, nor does it entitle you to recline your seat into my personal space, cutting off the circulation in my lower leg. There is no business class on Easyjet? Oh yes, and while you’re at it, why don’t you unfasten your seatbelt, stand up, open the overhead lockers because YOUR 9am meeting in central London is SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than mine? The chorus of seatbelts being unfastened before the fasten seatbelts sign is switched off makes my blood boil: Hey d*ckwads, didn’t you know they have to attach some kind of exit to the plane to allow passengers to disembark or were you planning on using the emergency slides there to get to your EMERGENCY MEETING?

What happened to obeying instructions, given by someone who blatantly knows better than you; respecting your fellow wo/man? Do the basic rules of the society in which we live get left on the tarmac at takeoff?

*credited to joonzmoon, the only person I know with such a colourful repertoire of expletives

Nutty Neighbours #2

The drama llama came out to play again on Wednesday night and it was neighbour-shaped.

Remember this? At least this time she didn’t try to raze us all to the ground. Instead, she chucked a bunch of stuff off the balcony, hitting cars parked below and 4 police cars and lots of noise later, her door was broken down (again) and she was taken away. Where to, I do not know but I don’t doubt she’ll be back.

Which begs the question, WTF? Why is nobody taking care of this obviously disturbed woman’s mental health?

And while we’re on, what about the people who are left to put up with her actions on a daily basis? I admit, I’m afraid of her and what she might do and I want her to go away for both our sakes. What to do…..

Acceptance

I read a very interesting book recently. Ok, so the website in the link isn’t the best- looks a bit like it’s trying to sell you some magical American weight loss solution. Actually, it is. The magical solution is ACCEPT YOURSELF THE WAY YOU ARE and that’s certainly not just ‘American’- it’s a universal truth.

This reinforces what I said in a previous post.

I don’t want to be fat – I want to look like Angelina. The question is, why do I want to look like Angelina? Obviously because the way that society has conditioned me and everyone else means that I equate her thinness with beauty. And there, my friend, is the rub. What about Rubens’ paintings? Was he taking the piss when he painted the untoned Adam and curvy Eve? And no self-respecting artist these days would create his Venus with a belly and child-bearing hips a la ‘Venus and Adonis’! Flat stomachs, snake hips and toned thighs all the way! Oh, and don’t forget the unrealistically pert tits!

The point is that something happened between chubby meaning fertile, rich and attractive and now, where ‘overweight’ (whoever decided what ‘overweight’ is in the first place?) is considered lazy, unhealthy and undisciplined. What that something is, I don’t know and I’m not in the mood to theorise but I do know that it needs to change.

I’ve spent 28 years being ashamed of my body. So many times, I’ve not done something I wanted to do because of my shame. I’ve been ridiculed and made to feel like a failure by myself and others and in many ways, I’ve become bitter because I’ve spent so much time grieving for the shape I’ll never have. It’s not like I haven’t tried: The cabbage soup diet, Weightwatchers, Slimming World, Atkins, starvation, fasting, detoxing; I’ve done it all but the results were temporary and my misery was compounded each time I gained weight (more than I lost, sometimes more quickly than the time it took to lose it).

So that’s it, it ends today. Saying that fills me with fear- my identity as a ‘fat person trying to lose weight’ has been with me for such a long time that I’m afraid that if I let it go there’ll be nothing more to me. I hope that’s not the case.

A Tribute

Two years ago today, a very dear friend of mine died suddenly and I want to dedicated this post to his memory.

Andy, you miserable Scottish bastard.. I’ll never forget your insane text messages with today’s complaints about humanity, nor the speed at which you cycled. The nights we spent drunkenly headbanging in Jilly’s, the staggering home (you with your spaghetti arms), the discussions and general bitching over copious amounts of alcohol will stay with me forever. You’re gone but not forgotten.

This would never happen in MY country!

The sun’s started to shine more often- anyone notice that? And despite having a wardrobe (and several suitcases) full of clothing, I decided to head out to the shops to see if I could find some bargain warm-weather clothes.

What I came back with was 2 pairs of tights and the desire to either wring someone’s neck or get out of Berlin long-term.  In short, the service here is SHITE. I have many examples but let’s take the one that stands out the most (and the one I’m going to use when I get around to being a stand-up comedienne): Standing in a queue, waiting to pay for the tights (that’s stockings to anyone who doesn’t speak the English made in England), I witness a pregnant woman in front of me, 3 different kids shoes in her hand, politely informing the cashier that the shoe department is in chaos and that she cannot find the right shoes in order to create 3 PAIRS of shoes (because, funnily enough, her kids happen to have 2 feet each). What is the cashier’s response? ….

a) “Oh dear madame, ever so sorry about that. I’ll just serve this lady and then I’ll be right over to assist you”,

b) “I’m very sorry- let me call a colleague to assist you”

OR was it c) “What do you want ME to do about it?”

YES, ladies and gentlemen, we’re in Berlin so it could only be c) “What do you want ME to to about it?”

Rather than beating the cashier to death with the shoes in question, the pregnant lady asks if perhaps she could help seek the mysterious missing shoes (perhaps they weren’t stolen by a one-legged pixie afterall) and the cashier’s reply is that she cannot, under any circumstances leave the till. The response to “Is there not a colleague here who can help me” is an equally unrewarding “No, maybe you can come back tomorrow when that area has been tidied and you may find the shoes”.

My blood, it boils but being the typical Englishwoman that I am, I didn’t intervene, I simply paid for my tights (stockings) and left the shop, tutting and shaking my head and vowing to leave Berlin to rot in its own putrid impoliteness.

Most people say that you can’t get a leopard to change its spots- i.e. shite service has been perfected over generations here and it’s simply an accepted part of every day life in Berlin. Some people are pumping money into making Berliners more polite. I don’t really have much choice other than to stay in Berlin and try to come to terms with the fact that the rules are different here- maybe I need to learn a few choice phrases to cover those situations like “This would never happen in MY country!” and “Politeness costs nothing, LADY/MR.!”

Fighting the Fat

A friend of mine recently posted on Livejournal that she’s started to go jogging, using the Couch to 5k plan. This, in addition to the fact that my best friend and one of the most exercise-phobic people I’ve ever known goes jogging before work, forced inspired me to put on my running shoes for a 20-minute ‘jog’ around our local park.

Today, despite not being able to walk without my thigh-muscles telling me they’re there, principally by hurting like buggery, I managed to meet up with some friends for lunch, which ended up being outside by the river due to a power cut in the restaurant in which we’d arranged to eat. The riverside was covered in a thin layer of semi-clothed people, soaking up the last of the sun before the holidays end and they’re forced to return to their boring desk jobs tomorrow. And in that sea of bodies, I started to feel the first niggles of summer body shame…

It was only on the U-Bahn on the way home that I realised that most skinny people are just as miserable (if not more miserable) than fat people.

Fat people say “If I was thin, I would be happy” (I am one of them) but when they actually reach that goal, are they really happy? Then there’s the skinny people who deprive themselves because putting on that extra pound means that nobody will love them so they get wrinkles, worrying about getting ‘fat’. And the flat-chested people who think they’d be happy if they had bigger airbags- believe me, supporting those babies is hard work!

I think the point I’m trying to make is, the people who are happiest are those who are at peace with themselves, regardless of their shape/size or whatever they consider to be a flaw. You are your own worst critic and until you call a truce with yourself, you’re going to be fighting for the rest of your life, only to regret it when you’re immobilised by old age and ill health.

Remember the words of Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Suncreen’….

Enjoy your body,
use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people
think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever
own..

Now where did I put the Easter eggs…?

Mallorca

I want to go and live on Mallorca. It’s the perfect melting pot of my three favourite cultures, the weather is superb and you’re never more than an hour from the sea!

It’s life Jim but not as we know it

Since I got back from the (fantastic) holiday on Mallorca, I’ve been consistently dreaming about home. A couple of times I’ve had to make a real effort to remind myself how far away from home I am, my dreams warping my sense of distance.

There are so many things that I miss about home – the smell of one of my parents ironing in the conservatory, laying the table for Sunday lunch, spending the evening in the pub with friends, going to visit people in different parts of the country… Those things don’t and can’t happen more than a few times a year now that I’ve made Germany my home.

But let’s face it, many things have changed- not just my parents moving house but people moving away, getting married, having kids and generally moving on. So maybe I’m not pining for home but simply for how life used to be.

I guess maybe I’ve been thinking so much about things passed that I’ve lost concentration on building my life here. Ho-hum.

Holiday

For the next 2 weeks, I’ll not be at work. That’s because I have taken HOLIDAY. We’re going to the sunshine paradise of Mallorca, where our respective languages are quite widely spoken and I can attempt to brush up on my fading Spanish.

Our TV broke and so did our PC. Send electronics!