Mermaid of Moorgate

No cash please, we're mates!

2012-01-04T07:36:00.000-05:00

Your friends will be borrowing £1 coins off you: beware

As we start 2012 with a whimper, carefully nursing our battered wallets back to financial health by not spending on anything except reduced lines baked beans and bread, let us not forget those whose friends are responsible for their penury.

Yes, friends. I'm not talking about lending money to friends - although I would no longer advocate this as you never know what situations may happen to prevent your friends from repaying you in full, in the time you needed. It can affect the dynamics of a relationship or, like Charlie Sheen's character Charlie in an earlier-than-Ashton series of Two and A Half Men, mean you get stung in an elaborate plot that involves you sleeping with your step-sister-in-law-to-be, lending her $50,000 and buying a Ferrari you didn't want.

What I am talking about is the Cash Converter friend. The friend who turns to another for all their coinage and notage needs. The friend who gets the bus with you and has not got £2 for the fare. The friend who does not have anything smaller than a £20 when it comes to paying tips. The mate who suggests getting a taxi but somehow does not carry anywhere near enough money to foot the bill.

According to a Capital One survey, Brits have been forking out £562 million a year as a result of ‘subbing’ friends.

More than 43 say they never receive a penny of this borrowed money back.

Now you have been warned. Next time you go out with friends, ask them to make sure they have some cash. Or don't carry any yourself and make sure you recoup your 2011 losses in 2012!

Capital One asked respondents which items they had paid for on behalf of others who did not have cash in the past three months:
Drinks in cash-only bars/restaurants	18%
Items bought in cash-only stores e.g. markets	13%
Tips in bars and restaurants	12%
Taxi fares	10%
Charity donations and fundraisers	6%
Items purchased with cash due to a minimum card spend	6%
Tolls and one-off/unexpected charges	6%

Muddlin' through

2011-07-25T07:59:00.000-04:00

This seems to be the mot du jour as the US continues to debate the finer points of cutting taxes and expenditure, the Tea Party continues its lunacy, Spanish people take to the streets without there being any young bulls to kill and the spectre of debt knocks at the door of M Sarkozy et Co.

Germany - the former 'sick man of Europe' seems to have shaken off his cold and emerged triumphant, standing tall through the sun roof of his VW as he zooms along the autobahns regardless of rising oil prices. What cares he? He has cash in the bank and the bank has cash in its own banks, and well, so on and so forth.

The UK too seems to have found its feet again, slipping and sliding but struggling ahead nevertheless, free from the encumbersome burden of the Euro and thankful for a nice stretch of water between the island and the continent, or else there would be more political force exerted upon it from Brussels to cough up for the Piigs and the next dominoes in the line should these all collapse.

FTSE100 keeps fluctuating between 5800 and 6000, bound in a range but buoyed by corporates putting out relatively good interims, while gold - ah, gold - shines like a star in the firmament for those canny investors who paid attention to my postings in 2006/2007 and bought it back then.

Too late now for the rest, perhaps, unless you can melt down your gran's old rings in a frying pan.

China is in for a soft landing and on the Eastern front, Japan's equity markets have not been as dire as one would expect, although exo-shocks to the region are still very much on the cards as we head into typhoon season.

As for me, well the money under my bed is now showing signs of strain as the bed itself looks like it is breaking. Depreciation of Norwegian wood stock after six years of wear and tear is having an effect on the resale value of my sofa bed in the secondary market. Home improvements and renovations may need to be a wise expenditure in this market, without being able to get off the first rung of the housing ladder and onto the second.

However, owner of the freehold might not like me adding decking onto the outside of the property and erecting a barbeque/half-covered seating area on the first floor of the flats in which I live. Therefore perhaps I should invest in shoring up the bed until the cash beneath it is safe enough.

Note: of course I've not put £ under my bed. I fear the eroding effect of inflation. Instead, I keep the ex-boyfriend's body under there. It is eroding by itself, but at least it keeps the bed frame from collapsing. The smell might be one of the reasons the resale of my flat is becoming more difficult.

Still - gotta keep muddling through.

Note: of course the ex-boyfriend is not under my bed. I'm not that cruel. I let him live in a cage in the garden.

Greece, Greece, Greece - and Harry Potter

2011-07-22T12:24:00.000-04:00

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down

Every single fund manager in the world is talking about Greek debt, whether or not he or she actually manages Greek debt.

UK equity investment managers are putting out statements about the situation in the Hellenic Republic; US academics are stitching together 19th Century political and economic history and the current situation in the Aegean.

This week we received about 30 press releases about Greece: manager comments on Greece, Forex traders' comments on Greece, Equity fund managers on the impact of Greece's debt on the Eurozone, Bond fund managers' concern about sentiment towards fixed income, Consumer groups lamenting the knock-on effect, SAY NO campaigners heralding this as yet another reason to stay well out of the Euro, Australian Farmers simply taking the proverbial out of the UK because they couldn't care less..

All week we have had missives of doom and gloom, such as this one, which interpolated normal text with BIG BOLD LETTERS ABOUT UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: "Despite politicians expressing their strong commitment to keep the Euro together through this new package, we continue to worry about the peripheral countries' capacity to deliver on their adjustment programme."

But when it becomes ridiculous is when fund management groups strive too hard to attract the attention of media pundits and financial journalists with their own take on Greece.

For example, one press release we received this week said: "This weekend’s family activity centred on the final film in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 10 years on from when we saw the first instalment of the magical film series in 2001. Meanwhile in the Monday to Friday muggle world, the markets are focusing on the modern classical tale of Greece, that also began 10 years ago in 2001 when they entered the European Monetary Union. How will that blockbuster story end?

"In the final instalment of Harry Potter, the story centres on the deathly hallows. Spookily, the three elements of the deathly hallows are comparable to some of the magical instruments Greece has at its disposal."

I mean, really, mashing together the last of the great Potter blockbuster films with the situation in Greece is going three Quidditch pitches too far in an effort to get our attention.

Expelliarmus Hellenicus Debticus!

Harry Potter and the Debtly Hallows

What has annoyed me today?

2011-04-26T15:11:00.001-04:00

1) People ringing me up at work on press day to tell me how their day is going. I do care, I DO. But I WORK. Send me an email, or call me after 6pm. Is that too much to ask? I WORK
2) Mum insisting on having a text conversation with me WHILE I AM AT WORK. I AM AT WORK. I cannot text or spell correctly when bashing out texts at speed on my BlackBerry Torch (TM)
3) People ringing me up at work on press day to ask me for directions to my mum's house.... WHEN THEY HAVE BEEN THERE FOUR TIMES BEFORE. I am NOT STREETMAP.com. Last time I looked, I was not a search engine, a map, a cartographer, a policeman, a community support officer, a local cabbie or the freaking A-Z. I WORK.
4) Being asked to buy London 2012 Olympic Tickets - not for someone to GO to the olympics, no, no, I have to spend my overdraft for a ticket FOR POSTERITY...

I WORK, people, I WORK. Do you understand the concept of full-time employment?

I also freelance in what passes for SPARE TIME. This means I work at home, too.

When I say I am busy, I am not saying 'I am busy filing the hard corny bits on my feet for a few hours so I cannot talk to you/come for a coffee/have a sleepover at yours despite being a fricking adult whose idea of a sleepover does not consist of staying on the mattress in the spare room of a newly married couple.'

Even if I WERE shaving the corny bits off my feet, I should have the freaking right to do so without being made to feel guilty for not pandering to your ridiculous requests.

So the next person who rings me to whinge or ask a bleeding ridiculous question that even an 11-year old would be ashamed to ask, I will collect my foot shavings, stick them in a freaking home-made cupcake and watch you freaking eat it.

YEAH.

Why I will NEVER eat at Strada again

2011-03-17T05:10:00.008-04:00

Strada restaurant

I'd remembered its prawns, you see. Delightful, light, juicily marinaded gambas in a sweet white wine and chilli sauce. I remembered them with fondness, which is why, when we were looking for a decent restaurant to eat at last night, Strada seemed like a good choice.

I don't really know what went wrong last night, other than the restaurant having no professional serving staff and hiring a shipping container of rabid chimps in uniform.

Don't get me wrong, the food was good. But it was just the wrong food at the wrong time, the wrong cutlery and the wrong kind of service. Ie, none. It was like being trapped in a Norman Wisdom spoof.

I'd already lunched well (at The Ivy, no less) so only wanted a light meal and no starter.

But it was a chore to get one of the waiting staff to take our order in the first place. My companion decided to pretend to cry like a baby, which disturbed the Yankee next to us.

Just at the point when I considered standing on the chair and doing a full-on belly dance, waiter One came up. The chap with whom I was dining ordered a plate of cured meats to start and spaghetti for main.

I said: 'Please may I have the prawns and a salad, but can I have these as my main course please?'

Waiter One said: 'You want this as your main?'

Me: 'Yes please, I don't want a starter, so please can I have the prawns and the salad as my main course?'

*DONG* (sound of Pavlovian warning that trained chimps cannot compute when the parameters of their training changes).

We waited.

Waiter TWO brought my companion's cured meats for starter, along with my prawns, without the salad.

I called him back. "Excuse me please, but I ordered these prawns as a main course to eat with my salad. Can they be put to one side please?"

Waiter Two started to take them away, whereupon I had visions of the prawns being left out in the meantime, or microwaved to keep hot.

Now, I don't mind diahorrea, after all, it's a good way to get thin quick without having to diet or throw up. But I don't like the feeling associated with bum curry, to wit, a pain akin to having a small, exoskeletal, fire-breathing animal driving a spiked chariot through your colon before developing into an intense burning sensation in the anus.

So I thought it expedient to eat the prawns there and then.

But I was not happy. And then, on the first prawn, I realised that they'd not brought me a bowl with lemon to clean my fingers. How was I supposed to shell the prawns? Eat them whole like an anaconda and hope that I can crap out the shell? That wouldn't be like the feeling of diahorrea - that would really be the pain of passing a small exoskeletal creature through my duodenum. I'm not ready for that kinda thrill.

I confess that I lost my temper and ranted for a good five mins while my patient dining companion just waited for me and offered me his napkin instead.

When we eventually attracted the waiter's attention - it was back to Waiter One - I explained that I had ordered a salad to eat with the prawns, and that I needed a bowl of water.

He brought me my salad and a bowl for finger-cleansing, and a menu so that I could order a main course as well - I wasn't going to sit there while my date ate by himself. I ordered a pizza from Waiter one.

Waiter Three came up and took away my companion's plate before he had finished eating.

Waiter One came up and put a long, thin jar of chilli oil on our table. I assumed this was for the pizza, because he didn't say anything when he put it there.

Waiter Two came with our main course, and tried to give it to the Yankees next to us, who had just paid their bill and were ready to leave.

WTH????

Waiter Two left the food on our table, but neglected to clear away my dirty napkins or the bowl of water, and didn't give us any cutlery with which to eat our food!

Then we had fun trying to catch the attention of a waiter - it was not that crowded by that time - there were many empty tables - so that we could eat our food without resorting to picking it up with our fists and ramming it into our faces like some retarded ape on amoxycillin.

Waiter Three walked past so we asked him for some cutlery so that my date could eat his spaghetti and I could have clean cutlery for my pizza.

Waiter Three went away.

Waiter Two came to our table. With ANOTHER salad.

I still had the original, untouched, beside me. When I explained that I'd only ordered one salad, he tried to take both away. I had to hold down the original salad. It was very hard to explain in one-syllable words that I only wanted one salad and to take his sticky fingers off my food before I sawed them off with a (dirty) knife.

Waiter Three came back with clean cutlery, which he then proceeded to lay carefully upon a very dirty prawn-sauce encrusted napkin.

He gave my date a knife and fork with which to eat his spaghetti.

Half-way through the meal, when the spaghetti was almost finished, Waiter Four asked him 'Do you want any grated parmesan on that'!!!!

Waiter One returned to ask if everything was fine - given the whole debacle that preceeded this, we just burst out laughing. I don't think he understood why.

Quite frankly, I am pleased that 'service' was optional as there were WAY too many cooks and they would have spoiled our broth, or would have brought us two bowls of it and then forgotten that we needed cutlery.

I mean, four waiters, one simple order and basic knowledge of things like: 'humans need cutlery to eat' and 'give the customer pepper and grated cheese before they start eating'.

Seriously, Strada is supposed to hire staff with basic skills and understanding of how restaurants work. This isn't a Butlin's-style self-serve canteen. Nor is it a tiny one-man band trying to operate on a skeleton staff.

To be honest, the only reason why I didn't complain was because my dining companion is such an affable, laid-back and good-natured person who finds humour in everything.

Otherwise, I would have stabbed waiter four to almost death with the dirty cutlery that waiter two had left behind, poured chilli oil into his still-bleeding, prawn-infused wounds, thrown dirty finger-water over Waiter one while screaming for "Shaved Parmesan, now, or the Yankees get it", and force-fed Waiter Three with all the salads I could find this side of the Southbank.

"Think I like Rocket that much, do you? DO YOU? Choke on that, you imbecile."

And that is why I will NEVER eat at Strada again. Prawns or no Prawns.

I just might not see the funny side next time.

Prawns

Dazed and confused

2011-02-05T09:16:00.004-05:00

The past month has been a whirlwind for the Merms.

I would like very much to explain why it has been so whirlwindy. Or Whirlpooly. But to do so would be to mention work, and that is a no-no on this blog. After all, some completely exaggerated imaginings that I released online a year ago - which had pretty much no basis in reality except that they had been triggered by a horrid situation at work - precipitated me into a terrible situation from which I had no energy or willpower to extricate myself.

So I can't write about work, nor any romantic entanglements nor any amusing incidents because they are all utterly work-related. Is anything uncomplicated anymore?

The only thing I can do is recommend some links to a fun evening that a few of us in the financial world did a few weeks ago, called glastonbury in the city. The mermins is the one crooning on the mike in the front.

Our Love Is Here To Stay

I saw him standing there

They can't take that away from me

Son of a Preacher Man

Learning early is the best way to financial health

2011-01-21T10:43:00.002-05:00

You don't have to be rich to be good with money. Being good with money isn't always about getting rich, which is why I get shivers up my scrawny spine when I see adverts for 'Rich Dad' or 'Prosperous Parents'. The idea that the unwashed masses can achieve stellar returns by following the tips given by some 'guru' is noxious. The only reason these gurus are rich is because they make lots of money off the numpties who buy their books.

That said, the value of early learning should not be dismissed. After all, if my mother had not taught me to read at 1, I would not have been such a quiet child at 2. If my father had not taught me how to fish, I would never have been able to sew crayfish into my friend's curtains at uni.

One of the above statements is true.

However, I digress. I don't often brag about my parents and, considering that they are both mentally unstable and have poor fashion sense (sorry Old Tarf, but it's true) it's understandable.

However, with all the press releases and surveys I get at work about how terrible it is for first-time buyers, having to borrow from mum and dad, I thought it worth giving a bit of praise to my maternal unit.

My mum - nothing short of a financial genius.

I have seen how she came back to the UK in the early 1980s - hardly the time of equal financial and employment rights for women - with less than £700 in her pocket, unable to return to teaching, and a small daughter to bring up on her own.

I watched as she raised herself up, pound by pound, by clever saving, saying 'No' when the man from the Pru tried to flog her an endowment mortgage, and making expenditure less than her income - Micawber would have been proud.

Was it tough? Did we go without a few luxuries? Of course! Yet this woman managed to put me through private school and buy a house of her own and pay off her mortgage. And, now a pensioner living on less than £8000 pension a year (yes, a year), she is NEVER in debt AND still manages to save, when she's not gadding off around the Bodliean looking at early Church documents.

Moreover, she's taken on Barclays over unfair lending terms and won. She's scoured T&Cs of various pamphlets that pour through the door from providers and written letters to them and the OFT and who knows who else over what she deems to be sharp financial practice.

It's because of her that I got interested in saving when I was 16. I never, ever thought twice about putting aside a few pounds each week into my then Abbey National account. I didn't question whether or not to join the pension scheme at my first job - a defined benefit scheme - even though I was a highly qualified post-graduate, earning just £16k in what I thought would be a temporary job before I got my dream position preserving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts at the British Museum Library.

I didn't go against her advice when she suggested I put my bonus and, later, redundancy pay-outs into an Isa and start saving for a deposit. Every time, I have benefited from her good advice and sound wisdom.

I have never gone to her for money - she could not afford to support me through university education, but I took out small loans, worked during the holidays in a pensions office, and got a scholarship from the British Council for my MA, which helped me pay off my loans by the age of 22.

Perhaps rather than young people going off to the bank of mum and dad to help them onto the housing ladder, or to save up for a car, parents should take on the responsibility of educating children about money from a much younger age.

This is why I welcome the efforts of the Opposition MPs who are pushing for more debates on the Child ISA and a reprieve for the Child Trust Fund. Such schemes helped to educate both parent and child and that education is priceless. No matter how much - or how little - you have, learning early about saving is the very best financial start that any child can have.

Oh my darling Clementine

2010-12-10T10:58:00.002-05:00

Oh my darling Clementine

I once put three small Clementines in my mouth at the same time.

I was doing this at a summer garden party, for the sole purpose of showing off to my then boyfriend's younger brother and cousin to prove I was 'cool'.

While I was Clemmed up, I heard a clipped female voice behind me calling my name.

I spun round - it was ... his Cheltenham Ladies' College mother standing there ready to introduce me to her family.

I froze with embarrassment for a second, and promptly ejected all three Clems out of my mouth into my hand. Before she could even blink in surprise, I tried to redeem the situation by 'splaining.

However, all I could muster was holding out the spittle-covered Clementines towards her in the palm of my trembling hand, saying "Clementines." Hurrr

The teenagers whom I (actually successfully) impressed were rolling on the floor laughing their EMO butts off.

Suffice it to say, I am no longer friends with the ex boyfriend, but his young brother and cousin are still in regular contact.

Quick Moment of Smugness

2010-11-21T17:54:00.004-05:00

So I helped my ex find some work before Christmas because he is always moaning on facebook about not having any money - and moaning all the while going out with me about it too.

In return, he bitched about me to some girl he was chatting to online, who then wrote a mean comment on his facebook page about me being annoying (what? Two texts and one phone call within two months since we broke up, all of which were about getting him a job?? How is THAT annoying?!).

Has he even bothered to email or text me to say thank you for getting him some work before Christmas?

HA!

Anyway he then goes and buys an iPhone - so much for being broke - and then drops it into the bath, part of me wanting to be snippy here says this may have been while sending more dirty texts to his female friends (one of the reasons behind us breaking up).

Now he has ruined his iPhone.

DOUBLE HA!

What goes around, comes around. Not that I'm gloating, but I was good to you despite everything you did to, and have been saying about, me. Evidently there's justice in this world, and you've just sucked on its bitter end.

Okay, I am gloating. Serves you right.

What would you do for a free £5?

2010-11-16T06:59:00.005-05:00

Free Fivers? Cor blimey, gov!

There are many things I would not do to gain £5.

One of these would be to sit in a bath of spiders. That, as Meatloaf might have once sung, I won't do.

Another thing I would not do for £5 would be to eat mint choc chip icecream. Oh no, the resultant endoscopy would be far more hassle than a mere fiver is worth.

However, if I were to see a chappy standing in the street, wearing a sandwich board saying: "If you want a free £5, stop me and ask: it's yours", I would happily shuffle over to him and hold him to his promise.

Of course, the initial shame as people see me begging for money would be offset by my demeanour. I would feign that I was merely bantering with him, saying something like: "Yeah, mate, what are you selling? You're having a lend" in a loud voice. I would look quizzically at him, pretending to be oh-so-cool about it, when really I would be doing a happy dance inside ...

"I got a Fiiiiiiver, I got a Fiiiiver, you haven't got one, your mom's on welllllfare"

...

After receiving my £5, I would then come back for more, changing my appearance by carefully-positioned hats, coats, etc. I might even wear a shawl like a hijab to maximise my money-earning potential.

However, I would be in just 0.5 per cent of the UK population. Oh yes, 0.5 per cent.

For when someone from money-saving ideas website Save.co.uk did just that - stand in the West End for a day offering £5 to people - more than 2,700 people passed by and only 16 people decided to take him up on this.

That's right. SIXTEEN.

Which begs the question, are we Brits too proud to take money off strangers? Or too sceptical?

Either way, 16 people who either 'had no shame' or were trusting enough to believe his statement went home £5 richer than when they started out.

If only 0.5 per cent of the population is really bold enough to take such opportunities when they arise, then it's no wonder that UK consumers are more than £3trn in debt (excluding mortgages) and only 24 per cent of the population have made savings in the past 12 months.

Amoxicillin and the edge of ageism

2010-11-08T08:27:00.005-05:00

The Big W - doesn't look quite so good in jpeg as it did on the night

I am not an old woman, apparently. And I know this to be true, for a 15-year-old girl told me this on Friday night as she badgered me to go on the Waltzers with her at the Crystal Palace Firework display.

When I say badgered, I mean, I was shamed into it by her assertion: 'What's wrong with you? You're not an old woman. You're not going to die.'

This would seem heartless, but then again there were only two of us youth leaders and eight 'young people' and someone had to pay for all the rides while the other stood next to the 1960s fairground equipment and hold all the 'stuff'. Seven teenage girls = a lot of stuff to hold. I opted for probable death rather than standing around in the rain with a bunch of handbags.

Thankfully I lived to tell the tale - despite the best efforts of the shady mulleted travellers who were trying to dislodge the change in our pockets by spinning our seats around at an alarming pace.

However, my voice did not survive the night. I think it fell out of the 'Hellraiser' and I've not seen it since. In its place I have had swollen tonsils, a sore neck (which I claim is 'whiplash' but is probably just my advancing years) and £30 down despite only going on 3 rides and eating one portion of curly fries. Not sure how that happened - as a financial journalist I'm usually extremely good with money. I reckon it's still rolling around the Tunnel of FEAR.

Add to this the requisite Annual Release International conference on Saturday, where I was wedged into an old Salvation Army hall next to the most icy air-con unit; and the all-too-familiar 'Pizza Express, South Croydon' dinner experience with church friends in the evening, and by Sunday I had tonsillitis.

Could I rest? No! I am 'not old' and I am 'not going to die'. An EMO told me so, and therefore Sunday I was up early, making sodding cards for people and baking a Sticky Banoffee Cake for the dear folks with whom I was going to lunch that afternoon.

Skipping church in the evening was a good idea, although that meant five phone calls from the young teens at church, asking how I was and had I seen their latest photos of me on Facebook - apparently having lent them my camera 'TO HOLD' they managed to take about 20 shots of my jeans-clad BUTT in various poses at the Fireworks party and posted them on Facebook.

Now this is where child protection policies fail. If I had done that = disgusting perv and off to jail, no passing Go, no collecting bail. However, a bunch of 15/16-year olds can do that to ME and - presto! My posterior becomes public property in punishment for me missing junior church.

Those pesky kids!

The only upside to the whole weekend's debacle was the fact that, because actually I AM old, despite what the Yoof assert, I keep a medicine chest in my bathroom and I had some old Amoxicillin tablets left over from when I had tonsillitis last year.

This was a Godsend - I have now got my voice back and my glands have decreased in size, allowing me to be able to shout.

By the time I see the youth group next Friday, I shall be able to tell them all what I think of their mockery. And hopefully get my camera back from them.

Easy chilli chocolate cake

2010-10-25T07:01:00.002-04:00

200 grams of dark chocolate.

or 100g dark, 100g milk for a sweeter flavour

SAVING: You can get huge bars of lovely chocolate from Lidl for less than £1 that can make two cakes. Also, Sainsbury's basics offer 100g bars of dark and milk chocolate for about 30p each. Bargain!

150g of slightly salted butter

Melt the two above ingredients in the microwave or in a saucepan if you live in the Dark Ages.

When slightly cooled, stir in 5 eggs, individually. Stir well after each addition.

When even cooler, add a tiny pinch of chilli powder and one Tablespoon (yes, only one tablespoon) of plain flour

Stir, pour into a floured dish about 22cm in diameter, cook on gas mark 4 for about 20 mins and take it out when the sides are slightly spongy but the middle is a little wobbly (not runny, but wobbles).

Leave for 24 hours to set in a fridge, or for as long as you can without being tempted to dive in with a spoon.

Decorate with crumbled fudge pieces if you like or whatnot.

What is shampoo used for nowadays?

2010-10-19T05:37:00.004-04:00

I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair

Has anyone noticed a trend among shampoo manufacturers, whereby their product now claims to do everything except the primary function of shampoo - namely, to clean your hair?

Read the blurb on your bottles of shampoo and see if I'm wrong. You never see any shampoo bottle purporting to leave your hair clean. No bottles seem to think that such a use is worthy of note, despite it being the only reason that we wash our hair.

No, nowadays, shampoo seems to be marketed as if it is designed to do everything else:

'Leaves hair smooth and silky' (so the fleas can't cling on?)

'Hydrates thirsty hair' (since when can 'dead' protein growth be thirsty?)

'Makes hair luscious and thick' (like ice-cream)

'Leaves hair glossy and manageable' (I've given up with the sarky comments)

'For that nourished effect'

'Leaves hair swishy and smelling great'

Yes yes yes, all these things are nice side-effects but what I really, really want is to get a nice clean feeling after a sweaty night where the cat has been sleeping with his butt on my head. I. Just. Want. Shampoo. That. Cleans. Hair. Can you do that for me, huh, mr Shampoo Producer?

'Removes all trace of cat-butt'

That will be the day.

That will be the day.

Of dead barn owls and dodgy correspondence

2010-10-14T11:50:00.003-04:00

Not in my Freezer

I think I promised you all a story about a Dead Barn Owl and a passive agressive note.

Today's events have reminded me that this is owed to you. Today's events being of course an email sent by one person sitting near a printer on one floor of the 6-storey office, emailing the entire UK operation of our company and saying:
'Some personal correspondence has printed to this printer. Please let me know who you are and come and claim it'.

Which, if you are going to send to EVERYONE in the company, must of course ellicit a spate of ridiculous emails, one of which was sent by me:

'Dear XXXX' Thank you for your email. Is that my medication form? If so, please will you remove the details about the pills I take. My boss does not know I am on medication for serial obsessive disorder.'

'Dear XXXX. Is that the fake passport I was trying to print?'

'Damn! If it's the picture of the naked dog, that is my cat's. Sorry, he has an addiction.'

'Leave that photo of my wife alone please.'

Poor boy.

But he's not as overtly passive-aggressive-obsessive as that OCD fellow in one department of our firm, who five years ago decided to email everyone in the global company - more than 15,000 people - with the following:

'Dear White KitKat thief. I know who you are because someone saw you steal my white KitKat from the fridge. Please come and admit it to me.'

I could not resist the urge to REPLY TO ALL...

'Dear XXXX. I am sorry to hear about your KitKat. I had the same trouble last week. I put a dead barn owl in the fridge and when I came back the next day, it was gone. I saw some feathers around someone's desk, and I know who it is, but they have not apologised or replaced the barn owl.'

Immediately you heard a storm of laughter ripple across the office and then the emails started coming in.

'Dear Mermaid

I am so sorry for eating your barn owl. I was trying to resist but it looked so nice.' (this was from our CEO)

'Dear Mermaid

I had the same experience with a horse. When will this thievery ever stop?'

...and so forth...

Eventually, IT had to send out an anodyne email to all, requesting people not to send aggressive emails about chocolate bars and asking that people do not reply all.

Seconds after that email came in, the head of IT rang me.

"That email was not referring to you. We are killing ourselves laughing about the barn owl. Best email we've ever seen and the man deserved it."

I had forgotten about the incident until I returned to my firm, 3.5 years after leaving it.

From the chap in the post room, through to the sales guys and even the CEO, everyone remembered the dead barn owl and said it was one of their fondest memories of me.

I am still not sure whether that is entirely complimentary, but at least I can stash my roadkill in the fridges here without people stealing them again.

So... the stalker has been stalked

2010-10-12T06:54:00.005-04:00

Old viewers of my blog will have fond memories of my stalkingJeremy Paxman, Gary Oldman and that most wonderfully Byrnian-nosed Alan Rickman.

Snape in a Cape. My hero.

While that was all fun and no real harm came of that, apart from the time I broke into Paxo's North London house and shaved his cat - how we can laugh about it now! - it now seems that the Mermaid has herself been stalked.

Has been stalked? I meant, is being stalked. You see, a string of failed relationships saw Mermins take to the interwebs in order to find herself a suitable mer-man. And by suitable, she means one that stays. And by stays, she means one that a) puts up with her referring to herself in the third person and b) one that she wants to stay.

Anyway, reluctantly after my last relationship ended, I decided a) to stop referring to myself in the third person and b) get back on the sea-horse as it were. So I agreed to go on a date with some dude I'd been facebook friends with but had not had any contact with prior to one phone call arranging a 'date'.

BZZZZT! Wrong move, Mermaid!

From date one, the guy was telling me that he'd fallen in love with me and wanted to marry me. While this was of course very flattering, and I made allowances for the fact that he was American Italian - therefore pushy and passionate - I did not quite recognise all the signs of possessiveness, and so I took all his declarations with a sense of humour and went along with it.

Second date showed some weird traits. While again professing his love for me in a restaurant, he started talking about marriage. Our Marriage. In the SPRING. As a joke, I said: 'You've not even told your mum you're getting married and already you're planning the wedding?'

A few seconds later I went to the ladies' loo and while washing my hands, the door to the toilet swung open and shut. He was right outside, pushing the door.

"What are you doing?" I said, creeped out.

"I was hurt by you rebuffing my love for you" he said, explaining (explaining? Weirdo) that my comment about his mum had hurt him.

Now I know that you will all be saying Mermins, run for the hills. But you see I'd just come out of a relationship with a man I was wildly in love with. Suddenly having some guy for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE actually tell me he loved me was overwhelming. I could not get my mind in gear.

So I agreed to a third date. On this date, he was perfectly normal. So I put aside that growing feeling in my gut - exacerbated by about 10 texts and 6 phone calls each day from him - that I should head for the hills and run, preferably armed with a machete.

On the fourth date, when I went to his (shared) house and stayed overnight for church, the first thing he did was start shouting because I still had a photo of my ex on my facebook. He made me delete it, then immediately took a picture 'of us' for his facebook page.

I told him then that I was going to get up and get out but he apologised profusely and stupidly I stayed over (don't worry folks, I had the stubbornness to refuse to share his bed and stayed on an air mattress). During this time, he referred to his housemates as 'demons', lost his temper, ignored everything I said and generally annoyed me.

I didnt speak with him until Tuesday, during which conversation I explained that I wanted space and that he was being too intense. He agreed to back off.

Weds he explained that he was being intense because of things I was doing and, in some cases, I accepted a couple of his points and apologised.

Thursday we met up and I explained that I didn't want to go out with him unless he took it right back to square one and gave me my space. He agreed but actually didn't hear anything I said, because on Friday, he rang me to squeal about how I was taking a youth group at my church that evening and hadn't invited him, then how I had arranged to meet my best friend to take her to dinner to congratulate her on her engagement. As this was the first time I'd seen her since she got engaged in August, I wanted it to be just her me and her fiance.

Well he kicked up such a psychotic emotional blackmail rant about this that I dumped him - by phone.

But would he accept that? No! I had to spend more than an hour going round in circles on the phone while he insisted on meeting up with me the next day for a picnic! I had to get my friend to listen into the call so I could have some back-up!

Saturday he peppered me with texts because I'd removed him from facebook and cleaned my entire friends list (was worried that he'd try to send abusive messages to my ex, with whom I am still friends and who is looking more and more like Prince Charming next to this fruitloop).

Sunday he apologised for all of them and asked me if I was prepared not to be selfish and spend an hour with him to say goodbye!

Sunday evening he told me he still loved me and did I want a second chance before he started dating other victims - I mean, girls.

I ignored.

Monday he asks me if I want a massage and some soup. Again, I ignored his texts.

You may ask why I don't block his number. the reason is I want to keep tabs on this guy and have proof of his weirdness.

But if he does try anything, I intend to post the following letter to him:

"Dear Stalker

You are getting this letter because evidently you find it hard to accept the word NO.

I'm not sure what part of the word 'No' you don't understand. Is it the NNNNNN or is it the OOOOOOOOH?

Whatever it is, you are an absolute fruit-loop. What sort of baptism of the Spirit did you have? Was it 110% proof Vodka? Because it sure as hell wasn't anything like the Christian spirit of tenderness, gentleness, respect etc that we are supposed to show.

In fact, it's not even common sanity. Never in my life have I met anyone with such terrible emotional mental behaviour as you, outside of people who actually have diagnosed mental illnesses. And it's excusable in their cases.

You're probably still keeping your mother's umbilical cord in a jar somewhere in your room. Do you dress up as her at night? Because, Mr Whackjob Bates, you seriously have some issues to work out.

You accused me of having issues because I didn't allow myself to love you. Matey, that was not an issue, that was self-preservation. In addition to this, my friend Clare made me open my Christmas present early - it was a knife block - just in case you happened to wait outside my house, although because you are so wrapped up in your own pathetic gonad-driven self you paid so little attention to where I lived that you probably would end up in Scotland.

You also think that we have stuff in common so therefore we must get married. After two weeks of knowing each other you are so sure I'm the woman for you? Listen you gimp-sniffing freak-eyed loon, just because we like the same things does not mean I am your soul-mate.

For example, I love dogs, art and men in uniform, but I would not marry Hitler.

Because of your utter failure to realise that you have serious self-esteem issues, low social awareness, possible Aspergers and definitely some creepy, sperm-led emotional weakness that you think is love but which is just a sign that your corrupted little demonic spermatosa need to spawn the child of Satan in some human female and usher in the Apocalypse, you really are never never never never never never never never never never (etc) going to become my husband.

I would rather suck the toes of a flea-ridden tramp than kiss you. I would rather smear my face in the supporating puss-filled udder of a four-day-dead Mongolian Yak killed by an outbreak of the Bubonic Plague than ever, ever, ever see you again this side of Eternity.

And let me also get this straight: on the other side of eternity, there is an everlasting restraining order put upon you.

I'd say 'so bite me' but as you're too thick to realise that I am being rude to you and you'd take that as an invitation to partake of our enduring love, I won't. I will merely say that I am keeping my new knife set very, very sharp. And on me."

At least he loves me

Passive Aggression

2010-09-28T12:58:00.007-04:00

The modern office is the best place for passive aggression. We are no longer allowed to beat minions with jagged broom-handles, nor are we allowed to stand over a colleague and berate them soundly with a volley of fitting, if unhallowed, epithets.

However, passive aggression is alive and flourishing in every office up and down the country - notes on microwaves, snippy emails, post-its left on the computer keyboard.

Many of these can take the form of anonymity - post-its are perfect for this.

Two of my favourites include a post-it left on my keyboard by the cleaner/Facilities: "Please don't feed the mice".

This referred to my leaving a box of cookies on my desk.

The second was an a4 sheet of paper sellotaped to the fridge, which read:

"Dear 'Bounty' Thief.. you know who you are"... which you can read for yourself below.

BountyThief

It's a doozy - no doubt written by the same person who, four years ago, complained about the theft of a White KitKat, which resulted in the whole Barn Owl Incident. More on that in another post.

Pensions, loan sharks and mermaids

2010-09-16T05:45:00.002-04:00

My word! the Voices of Middle England have spoken. For shame! instead of bickering why not take the best ideas of both sides of the story and forge something positive, such as a solution to the problems of individuals not saving enough, the govermnent unable to bail people out and not having enough to live on in retirement.

We had a similar experience in Mermedonia a few years back. In the early part of the 19th Century, we had a massive power cut that lasted for 40 years. This resulted in a huge shoal of Merpeople being born - the highest for centuries - and, of course, 200 years later they're all coming up for retirement.

Working past 185 is not an option for many, as by now their fins require too much medical treatment and long-term care, as we know, is a hidden cost of retirement that many individuals and the goverment of the UK are not clear enough about.

Meanwhile the industry itself is proud of its high-cost protection packages but of course neither the State nor the average individual can afford to take out this sort of protection, let alone survive on their pensions - just as in Mermedonia.

So what did the Kingdom do? Simply this. Instead of encouraging Instant Gratification - allowing loan sharks to circle the waters with ever-enticing offers of buy now, pay later and hidden interest rate hikes - we banned such pernicious creatures from our media.

Instead, we spoke about delayed gratification - the need to put away those sand dollars now in order to enjoy life to the fullest after retirement.

Instead of making pensions boring, we spoke to individuals about what they wanted out of life, and helped them to see the financial reality of what they needed to do now in order to benefit later and to fulfil their dreams.

A pipe dream you may say. A mere fantasy. Maybe not. Sun Life of Canada has just launched its Sense Check at 60 - one of the most erudite and based-on-reality pieces of research that even those with basic fiscal literacy can understand.

If the government can encourage people to save more and to explain why in words and language that they can understand, and offer better tax incentives for savers, then we won't need all these clever products. People will be saving for a purpose and will be rewarded for doing so.

The Road Trip From Hell

2010-08-23T07:21:00.004-04:00

Google's Chinese Traffic Jam
Just imagine, you're driving cross-country for the weekend, a simple journey of 100km on a multi-lane highway.

You've packed some fruit and crisps, some fizzy drink and charged up the iPod, ready for the road ahead.

But as you hit the heavy traffic, you wonder whether you made a mistake. By the time you are ensnarled in a long tail of non-budging traffic, your thoughts are on escape.

At this point, many of you might want to turn around and head back. But in the case of these thousands of Chinese drivers, turning around is NOT an option - they have been stuck on the highway for more than nine days. Read the full story here: China's 100km long traffic jam

They have been caught up in a traffic jam since 14th August and it is expected to last until the END OF SEPTEMBER.

Of this such Hollywood movies are made. And insanity. And a fervent, pathological hatred of fruit, crisps, fizzy drink, your iPod and the stinking, sweaty friends you were travelling with.

Barclays Bank - Payrolling the Burmese Junta

2010-08-20T04:41:00.006-04:00

Augn San Suu Kyi

So it seems the unethical bank hasn't just been providing financing for Mugabe in Zimbabwe - it has been helping to line the pockets of the people who are keeping freedom fighter (and democratically elected president) Aung San Suu Kyi locked up under house arrest.

Now, it has been discovered that Barclays Bank has been providing money to government officials and businesses. In embarrassment and as quietly as possible, it has agreed to pay £190m fines for breaching US sanctions against Burma.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: 'It's a disgrace that Barclays has been violating US sanctions and doing business in Burma. Foreign financial services are helping Burmese generals to loot the country's natural wealth and to fund a military accused of committing horrendous crimes against humanity.'

General Secretary of the Federation of Trade Unions in Burma (FTUB) Maung Maung said: 'My country is the worst place in the world to be a worker. The regime uses slave labour, rape, and torture to stay in power. Unions are banned and the jails are overflowing with those who have dared to speak out.

'With sham elections happening in November, the military looks like being there for decades to come - especially if foreign financial institutions are keeping them afloat.'

This scandal must be a wake-up call for the UK Government. We already know that insurance syndicates within Lloyds of London have been doing business in Burma, and now Barclays. What else has the City of London been up to? Why is the UK government allowing its already fat cat bankers to get away with such appalling breaches of human rights?

The bank had been charged with breaking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act between 1995 and 2006.

Well, there was another multi-national corporation doing dodgy things in other countries, which also had an eagle for its logo:

The Nazis

Barclays Bank

Loose Change: Halifax backs up my earlier post

2010-08-09T11:09:00.001-04:00

Well folks, you mocked me for my "how to save £264 a year" post earlier this year, but it is clear from this press release from The Halifax that yours truly is not so silly after all.

£42.9million down the back of Britain's Sofas
New research from Halifax reveals that Brits are not looking after the pennies when it comes to making the most of loose change. Two thirds of Brits (65%) regularly find loose change in a variety of places which could be put to better use.

With the average Brit thinking they have £1.61 in loose change down the back of the sofa, we could literally be sitting on £42.9million across the nation*.

Loose Change League Table

Unsurprisingly, pockets top the loose change league table with two fifths (39%) of Brits regularly finding loose change in them. This is closely followed by loose change lurking at the bottom of a bag (36%), in the car (27%) and down the back of the sofa (23%). (See table 1)

The research revealed that the highest value of loose change is likely to be found in a desk drawer (£3.59), closely followed by pockets (£3.38) and in the car (£2.44).

Brits also estimate they have an average total of £17.69 floating around in these places. This amount falls to £15.43 for women but rises to £21.03 for men.

Bend it like Britain

When it comes to picking up money in the street, the average minimum amount Brits would pick up is 50p (£0.54) However, this rises to 61p for men, where as women will stop to pick up an average of 47p.

Younger generations will only stoop for higher amounts compared to older generations. For example, those aged 25-34 years would bend down for a minimum of 87p compared to those over 65 years who would stop to pick up an average minimum of 24p.

Out in the regions, stooping snobbery comes in to play with residents in Yorkshire and the Humber bending for an average minimum of 94p compared to their neighbours in the North East, who will pick up a minimum average of 24p.

However, two thirds of Brits (66%) said if they saw a penny lying in the street, they would pick it up for good luck. This rises to three quarters of women (73%) but falls to three fifths of men (58%). Residents in Wales are most likely to pick up a penny (78%) with those in London most likely to leave it lying in the street (53%).

Jam it in a Jar

It does still appear that Brits like to save their coins with three quarters (74%) keeping their loose change in a set place, such as a jar. For half (47%) of hoarders, the coins are mainly coppers, with a fifth (17%) storing mainly silver coins and just 5% reserving it for £1 or £2 coins. A third (30%) said they save any coins.

Flavia Palacios Umana, Head of Products, Halifax Savings, said: "These figures prove that we should no longer ignore our loose change but manage these small sums more wisely. The old saying 'take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves' continues to be firmly the case. We need to recognise this, instead of leaving our loose change languishing down the back of the sofa."

SOMEONE HAS READ MY BOOK

2010-07-08T07:50:00.003-04:00

This woman in her post dated January 18th 2010

Barefootjax

Bless her!

Is the Queen racist?

2010-06-15T09:15:00.004-04:00

The Queen doing a Hitler salute?

WHY WHY WHY has the Queen invited Nick Griffin to her Garden Party, when she refused to host Robert 'Slasher' Mugabe the other year? (If you want to see the link, click HERE or if you are too lazy, I've pasted it below).

Just because Mr Griffin is an MEP does not mean that the Queen has to extend the royal glove of welcome to a notorious fascist whose respect for the Commonwealth only barely extends to a grudging tolerance of Canadian and Australian bartenders (provided that they don't have Aboriginal blood and that they leave these shores after a few years).

It also irritated me that Margaret Hodge (Labour) who was quoted in the BBC story said that it was sickening that Griffin had accepted the invitation! GROW SOME BALLS Hodge!!!! You can't blame the man for accepting an invitation - blame the Queen! After all, she invited him! As our monarch she is meant to be on the side of the people and of the Commonwealth. If Griffin were in number 10, there wouldn't be any Commonwealth nations represented in England. Say what you should say, Hodge, not indulge in Establilshment suck-upism. It's pathetic. And so is the invitation to a man whose historic links with Combat-18 have been well documented.

One would hope that Prince Phillip would be rude to Griffin, but one also suspects he would find much in common, not least a lack of respect for fat kids and 'slitty eyed' students (cf Prince Phil's best Verbal Gaffes

No doubt Prince Harry will don his famous party costume to give the man a warm welcome. No wonder we can't blame the kid for his lack of taste/respect when his own grandparents seem to forget the war. King George VI would be rolling in his grave.

So what can we hope for? That the Queen will give him the cold shoulder as she refuses to pass the ham sandwiches? Or that Prince Charles will throw an organic turkey at his head? I am hoping that Princess Anne will kick him in the gluteus maximus with one of her hooves.

ENDS

Read The BBC Story Here:

British National Party leader Nick Griffin has been invited to attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace this summer, royal officials have confirmed.

He received the invitation in his capacity as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) - all UK MEPs are asked as a matter of course.

Mr Griffin was set to attend a similar party last year but pulled out after an outcry over his possible appearance.

A Labour MP has described the idea of Mr Griffin attending as "sickening"

Mr Griffin failed in his attempt to win a seat at Westminster in last month's general election and the party's share of the vote fell sharply compared with its performance in European elections a year earlier.
'Stunt'

British MEPs get tickets to one of three royal garden parties held every summer. Buckingham Palace confirmed that Mr Griffin had been invited but did not say to which of the events.

It is understood the BNP leader asked for three additional tickets for guests which he has been granted.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who defeated Mr Griffin at the election, said she was dismayed at the prospect.

"It sickens me that Nick Griffin has used his position as an elected representative to secure an invitation to Buckingham Palace," she said.

"The best way to deal with the BNP is the way we dealt with them in Barking & Dagenham, which is to beat them at the ballot box."

Although Mr Griffin was not an MEP at the time, he was invited last year as a guest of BNP colleague and London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook.

The possibility of him being present prompted widespread criticism, with London Mayor Boris Johnson saying the BNP leader would use the event as a "political stunt".

Mr Griffin said he could have secured a "great deal of publicity" by attending but had decided against it - although he described political reaction to the issue as "hysterical".

The BNP, which has two MEPs, is accused of stirring up racial hatred but the party says it is standing up for Britain's "indigenous population".

It has campaigned for an end to all future immigration and for the "voluntary resettlement" of non-white British citizens to their country of ethnic origin.

BP oil spill: Don't sell shares in a panic

2010-06-10T04:19:00.006-04:00

BP oil spill - cleaning up pelicans

A dying seagull off the Gulf of Mexico

BP oil spill, dead pelicans, fat Floridans unable to swim. Yes it's awful and should have been cleaned up by now.

The ecological price that the planet is paying for the price of BP being unprepared is enormous. I'm not decrying that, before some left-wing eco-warriors start hunting me down and throwing organic fava beans at me.

I know that, together with that Icelandic volcano still chunking out ash, we're having a grand old time of cleaning up the water and the atmosphere and it looks like we're fighting a losing battle - the more we clean up the Gulf Oil spill and the ash cloud, the fact remains that China and India are blowing out carbon and polluting the Yellow River until it runs green with toxic waste.

Gulf of Mexico seen from the air

But I'm not here to preach a green message - go to The Ecologist for that. This is mostly a financial blog. So pay heed: despite worries of a slide in the FTSE on the back of uncertainty over BP, there is no need to panic.

Don't be a nancy and start fire-selling your shares in petroleum. Take out some options or covered warrants in BP to provide yourself a cushion on the downside, and ride out the storm. Remember - long-term prospects for oil:

Lack of supply (even less, now) = more demand.
More demand = higher share prices.

Woman changes name over Thomas Cook dispute

2010-06-07T11:37:00.002-04:00

From the news today, courtesy of Associated Press:

An angry holidaymaker has changed her name by deed poll because of a dispute with the travel agent Thomas Cook.

Austin Kettle from Ipswich changed her name to 'Mrs Lorraine Darla I Hate Thomas Cook And Its Associates Big Shot Company Treading On The Little Guy Leeks' after a row with the company.

The 26-year-old bride-to-be took the drastic action after being told that she would have to pay a fee to change her surname on the booking for her honeymoon.

Austin had made the booking under her future married name - Mrs Leeks - and was later told it would have to be changed because it did not match the maiden name on her passport.

When Thomas Cook told her she would have to pay a fee to make the amendment, she decided to change her name in protest.

Speaking about the name change, she said: "At first I was a bit upset but it was just a bit of a crazy moment and I decided to do it. I think my fiance thinks I'm crazy. The amusing thing is my fiance will have to say my new name during the wedding ceremony."

A spokesperson for Thomas Cook said: "All customers are advised that the name on their booking must match the name on their passport."

Mermaid comment:

Numpty. Austin Kettle? Should have changed that by deed poll many, many years ago.

Oranges and lemons

2010-06-01T11:55:00.004-04:00

So the government is removing child trust funds, proposing high CGT penalties on investors and failing to keep inflation at target levels while interest rates remain subbornly low.

And yet it still tells us that it is committed to protecting and encouraging the 24 million savers in this country?

If it weren't so laughable, this Janus-faced, double-handed political backtracking would send me so crazy I'd have to emigrate to a more sensible country to calm down.

Such as Canada, where interest rates are rising, quality of life is, on average, improving, and there are natural gold and oil resources. Admittedly, the beer is pretty noxious and there are some dodgy neighbours to the south, but there always has to be a thorn on every rose.

More Money Saving Tips

2010-04-22T05:23:00.002-04:00

Go Ahead coupons 30p off. Get them here

I've also realised that there is an option for them to post the coupons to you if you do not have a printer at home. Simply click on the 'print coupons now' button and when it takes you through to the next page, you will see 'Don't have a printer?' highlighted with a link through to a field where you can insert your postal address.

Happy and healthier snacking!

Ashes to Ashes

2010-04-19T08:22:00.008-04:00

Icelandic Volcano

He said: 'Eyjafjallajoekull', I said 'bless you'. Which was not the best way to prove to someone that you'd not been listening to a thing they had been saying but, instead, that you had been watching some students make a daisy chain collar for their dog.

'That volcano in Iceland' He sounded a little put out, so I feigned deafness and turned my full attention to the poor friend of a friend who had been telling us about the volcano in Iceland that had erupted.

That incident was last Wednesday, while about 5,000 of us Christians were at New Word Alive in Pwllheli, North Wales, enjoying uncharacteristically glorious weather and some fantastic, intriguing seminars and worship sessions, far far removed from the TV and from computers and from Twitter.

As events unfolded in the Nordic North, we eventually grasped the significance of this eruption: a giant cloud of ash mushrooming across to the northern shores of the UK, grounding all flights and causing chaos at airports. With many of our speakers - Wayne Grudem, Jerry Bridges and Rebecca Manley-Pippert among others - coming from the US, it was becoming a matter of prayer for them to be able to get their flights back home.

Still, so far, there has seemingly been more panic than particle formation in the atmosphere. According to the BBC the weather patterns are still potentially pushing this ashy formation towards this green and pleasant land; it does beg the question, however, whether some flights could have gone out already if they were heading on a southerly flight path.

Hence Gordoun Broon has flown to the rescue - bad choice of words, sorry - he motored to the rescue in his boats. The Great British Navy is about to be launched to rescue Europeans stranded in various countries. It's like Dunkirk, only without the jackboots and hundreds of ME 109s pummeling the beaches of Belgium.

Already one British destroyer is on its way, the not-so imaginatively named HMS Ocean, and one aircraft carrier, the more aptly-named HMS Ark Royal, are on their way across the Channel.

This put one friend on top investment humour form. 'Should we be investing in ships and shipping?' he asked me. Until I see the ash I'd not invest in anything else other than a good umbrella and a gas mask, I replied. Not that there is a dash of ash to be seen in the skies. I am to some extent disappointed.

Still, he has posed an interesting question. Should I have invested in Iceland on my EzXty investment market? This is a game that allows you to pretend to invest in the market and you can win prizes for moving up the leaderboard. Maybe I was too late - Iceland must be expensive now. Still, there is always the possibility that all my investments ahead of the game (s) this summer may pay out: not so much Ash but The Ashes. I've bought loads of shares in cricket clubs and in names of cricketers that I've never heard of or know anything about. Hopefully, either with the Volcano or with Middlesex County Cricket Club, I will get some points!

How to save up £264 a year without effort

2010-04-12T05:19:00.007-04:00

Pennies from Heaven?

There used to be a saying 'look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves'. Such a phrase seems incongruous this day and age, where an overly materialistic society ignores small change and prefers to build up enormous debts on credit cards.

But here is a brilliant way to save £264 a year without effort - something I have been doing for several years now.

Each January, I start putting aside all my small change, ranging from 1p to 20p coins. I bag it up each month and I'll generally have about £10 of 20p coins, £5 each of 10 and 5p coins, and £1 each of 2p and 1p coins. Each month, this works out at about £22.

I then put this in my rainy day account - which is effectively the account I use for my Christmas shopping or to pay off the lion's share of those dreaded insurance and ground rent bills that always crop up in December.

Over the course of the year, this works out at 12 x £22 - £264. For people like me whose income just barely exceeds the outgoings, trying to save anything out of one's income can be a daunting task. But even the smallest coins have a place - if we are not too proud to count them up and use them!

The thing is, we don't look after the pennies, so how do we expect the pounds to look after themselves? This is not about being miserly, but about being wise stewards of what we have.

So, how to kick-start this savings habit?

1) Be Not Proud!
Don't be too proud to collect the coins and bag them up each month before taking them into your bank/building society. Pride goes before a fall...

2) Clean your house
You'd be surprised at how much is lying around in jars, in the proverbial sofa cushions, in desk drawers, in pockets and handbags and generally scattered around. While I was clearing up on saturday I discovered £3.20 worth of small change lying around. Happy days!

3) Be disciplined
Rather than raking around your purse for coppers to buy a chocolate bar, why not actually decide to go without - you'll save money and your weight will benefit!

4) Ask for bags
Your bank can give you a ream of small coin bags to help you put things aside. It's much easier to add coins to small bags over the course of a week rather than to stick it all into a jar and then have the hassle of emptying that a year

5) Savings accounts
If you have a high-interest savings account (HAHAHAH! How we laugh! I remember those - just about!) then do consider adding your savings into that each month. Should the bank base rate ever rise, then you will benefit from the additional cumulative effect of monthly or quarterly interest rate rises on your account.

Just to reiterate, Mermaid is not sitting at home in a darkened loft, counting piles of coins and laughing maniacally to herself in Scroogish glee. But I do smile every Christmas when I have a good sum to spend on presents for my family and think it's worth passing on a good tip when I can!

The Mermaid and her Accountant

As for good tips, Pizza Express is doing another great deal on two-for-one main meals and pizzas in the UK up to the 5th of May. Free Pizzas - hooray!

Happy saving!

In that place, that special place, that undefined place, the place of no return...

2010-03-29T10:00:00.000-04:00

I shouldn't find it amusing but I do...

Having a conversation that ended up straying into danger territory about 'the place' should cause most women to tremble in their Jimmy Choos and feel sick in the pit of their stomach.

However, it just struck me with a fit of the giggles. I could not believe that I was starting to hear the same old routine phrases that I always hear. And for the first time in my life, I actually found it funny.

Why is it that its always exactly the same conversation, but just different people saying it each time! Do men use a secret script that's hidden somewhere on the internet or passed down from father to son, from uncle to goat?

Girls will know the usual phraseology and these age-old relational ripostes are about to be BUSTED. Guys, we know what you mean when you start trotting out these ridiculous lines.

So don't!

My Top Five Flake-out Sentences

1) "I'm not in a good place right now"
Surprisingly enough, neither am I. I'm currently on the toilet, trying to force the shy turtle to make his exit, while listening to your appeal for sympathy - an appeal that, ironically, is your lame excuse for breaking up. Well you try squeezing out that roast beef while listening to some whiny-assed muppet clutching around the Barrel of Bad Excuses to find a reason to break up with you. THAT'S called being in a bad place.

What's even more galling is that this 'bad place' is not really a bad place. It's not a frickin' metal shipping container secreted in the Eritrean desert, stuffed full of the carcases of rotting dogs. It's merely a place of some level of stress that is caused mostly because all your problems are swept under the carpet instead of being dealt with in a mature and grown-up way. Therefore, instead of sorting out these ongoing issues, you decide to break off a perfectly good thing because it's easier to cut and run than maintain a relationship and deal with your failings.

What you really mean: I don't fancy you any more.

2) "I don't want to hurt you but I am just so confused right now."

You're confused?!!! If you don't want to hurt us, then - don't! Seems pretty straightforward to me. Are you genuinely confused about whether or not to hurt someone? My advice would be - and this may be way out there, I know - that there is no real confusion. Either you want to hurt someone or you don't. If you don't, then don't talk such bollocks and push people away from you for no other reason than a weird sense of self-preservation.

If you DO want to hurt someone in order to break with them, then just do it. Don't be confused about it.

What you mean: I don't fancy you any more

3) "You deserve better than me"
Yeah.... You really don't believe that, do you? You've probably met some lady with quite big gazungas, and would really relish the opportunity to bury your head in them and go 'BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR' without feeling any guilt attached to the fact that you are still attached to another woman while treating yourself to some maraca action.

Either that, or you really have such low self-confidence that you can't accept the fact that some girl - ie, myself - has been dumb enough to say yes when you asked her out. In which case, yes, we really do deserve better, and you should snap out of your morbid self-pity and get a frickin life rather than drag us down to the lowly level of your martyrdom.

What you mean: I don't fancy you any more

4) "I think you and I want different things"
No shit, Sherlock!! Men and women want different things - WOAH, WOAH, WOAH, WOAH, WOAH.... Wait a minute... hold the PHONE! Men want different things from women? Wait? What the ... I have to completely change my whole world view about everything that I have ever known or believed or held to be true!!!

I always thought that we women also wanted to discuss in detail the inability of Johnny Wilkinson to convert a try in the Ireland v England Grand Slam Match, while scratching our bellies, drinking Stella and wishing that we could dive our heads face-first into an enormous pair of gnorks and go 'BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR' into that heaving, sweaty cleavage.

I always believed that men, in turn, thought about kittens more than 30 times a day, worried whether their shoes did match the handbag and needed to research the best type of conditioning masks that would not only protect the colour, but also enhance the strength of the hair shaft to prevent unsightly breakage.

AND NOW YOU TELL ME THAT WE WANT DIFFERENT THINGS????? Oh my gosh. I feel so stupid. How could I have been so visually challenged?

What you mean: I don't fancy you any more.

5) "I need to be on my own right now."
You're a self-absorbed computer geek who can't maintain a proper relationship with a real woman, and need to go back into the recesses of your room and whack one out to a picture of Lara Croft, naked.

What you mean: I am a serial masturbator.

***

When mentioning this to a male friend, he wrote: "Seems we've been busted, guys! No this script, it has been passed down through generations. It was shared when the Egyptians were building the Pyramids, when the Romans invaded Gaul, in the trenches of the Somme, broadcast on the wireless, when we sent rockets to the moon and now via the wonders of the Internet."

Saving You Money: Free Mother's Day Card

2010-03-03T05:53:00.002-05:00

Mother And Child

Hello folks

If you do this by 7th March, this company will upload your photo and post to you a free Mother's Day card

Get your free Mother's Day Card here

Teen bloggers

2010-03-02T13:15:00.005-05:00

Dear Diary
Today I saw my new tutor. He was SO fit! I liked the way his tie hangs.
***
Today SUX!!! I HATE MATHS (lol)!!! WANNA SLEEEEEEEEP
***
My tyre blew up on the way to class, I had to push my bike up the street
***

No, my dear bloggers, the Mermins is not regressing into childhood. For her teenage years were spent writing reams of epic poetry, fairytales and novellae. Not pouring out her soul in public angst in some cyber-medium that hovers between the very personal and the 'I don't care who knows about my menstrual cycle'.

Which is what the Merms is ranting about today. Teen bloggers. Bloggers who don't have anything real to blog about. Youngsters today are being encouraged by thoroughly irresponsible tutors to go online and tell the world about the music they listen to, the boyz they love and the girls they want to kiss.

It's appalling. While browsing on Homo Escapeons earlier, he first raised the spectre of this dire trend to vent among the illiterate younger class. Not content with Bebo or Facebook or MySpace, they have ventured into the world of blogging with personal pages that look uber-cool and yet have absolutely nothing to say of any interest at all.

Now that's not entirely true, some youngsters have a wonderful and wicked sense of humour, or a real concern about what's going on outside their pampered little lives. But the majority of teen blogs I've stumbled on have nothing more to say than "I love Edward" in various spectrae of text-speech.

If only the Cyberspace were not so capacitous that it could subsume all this blether and drivel. Why does it upset me so, you may ask? What harm could a teenyblogger possibly do by outpouring their emo-angst online?

Sigh. Life is so unfair

I'm glad you asked.

1) They're not EMO. At least the EMO have something interesting to say. The darkest moments most of these chastity-ring-wearing airheads have to say is their 'poetry' about death, candles and mirrors. Everyone who has ever been 17 has written poems about death, candles and mirrors. It's just not interesting to anyone but you!

2) They don't use proper words. Blogs are there to explore the power of the written word. How can you honestly fill a blog space with lol, strdy wuz gr8! <3 da 3 brgers @ Maccyd's! IMMD?

3) If it's not interesting, don't expect people to read anything. I read one poor soul's tedious blog where they write about a new song they downloaded off iTunes each day. The premise is very interesting - but they don't actually do a critique of the song. All we're told is what the song is and a new picture skiffled from iStoxx of a rabbit or a cat in a hat. If this were an exploration of virtual Dadaism, I would be impressed. As it was, I wanted to poke my eyes out with a spoon.

4) If it's not interesting, don't expect people to post anything. Another young female student was complaining that no-one wanted to post anything on her blogs. But they were so dull. "I went to college, I finished my dissertation (YAAAY) and then I had a pizza. Yummy." IS ANYONE LISTENING TO ME??? No, honey, you were given a $34,000 car for your sweet 16th and you have the mental agility of handcream.

5) If you're going to post such drivel, then at least put up pictures of yourself so we can mock you to your face, a la David Thorne, whose account has been temporarily suspended, but was arguably the best blog that has ever been, or ever will be, on the face of the internet. Although it was probably his mocking of people to their face that caused his account to be suspended.

6) All failing, stick up a picture of a kitten or George Clooney, naked. At least you will generate some mild interest from middle-aged women who tend to like both those things.

As it is, I am sick of having to wade through drivel when I am on the lookout for surprising and interesting new blogs. I have found that the best ones by far are not from students that have all the time in the world to be creative, but who don't actually do anything with their time. The best blogs are from real people who have seen and overcome real problems, who take the time to explain things in a level of detail that thrills, entertains and draws us in.

I'm not classing myself as one of these. Not by any means. But I do know that, if I were a teenager, my blog would be a heck of a lot more interesting. And If I could hack into anyone else's blogs, there would be carnage - delightful, beautiful, carnage conducted in the ether:

Today I saw my new tutor. He was SO fit! I liked the way his tie hangs. I want to hang it tightly around his neck until he DIES.

***

Today SUX!!! I HATE MATHS (lol)!!! WANNA SLEEEEEEEEP. Then sleep, my child, sleep. Drink this drink. It will make all the bad maths go far, far away.....

***

My tyre blew up on the way to class, I had to push my bike up the street and then the girl of my dreams came up to me. I stopped on a slight hill, which made me sweat even more as I tried to stop the bike from rolling backwards, although my weak and puny girly arms were straining every muscle. She smiled sweetly, grabbed my bicycle pump, and shoved it right up my////////// ACCOUNT SUSPENDED

Things I will not rant about this year: 4. THE MIXED METAPHOR

2010-02-24T07:01:00.005-05:00

Mix it up, baby!

I've been getting a raft of poorly-written features from various financial freelances. Now this is surprising, because financial journalists are usually much more restrained in their use of vocabulary and what my former English teacher used to call 'purple prose'.

Compared to the political commentators in the national press, whose articles are more self-congratulatory than informative, or the fashion writers, who mistake criticism of the famous for investigative reporting, financial journalists usually provide you with a record of what has happened, combined with (hopefully) informed analysis of why.

Usual formula:
Banks have raised their dividends to XXX from XXX, because they want to do XXX. Sum Expert says: "XXXX".
The end.

Which is how it should be. But recently, I've been getting copy riddled with inaccurate information, plenty of Warren Buffets and - horror of horrors - mixed metaphors.

Given that the market is not great for freelancers at the moment, you would think they would show more determination to produce great copy and therefore secure repeat business.

Not so.

Here are some howlers for your delectation and amusement, and for my rantification:

The Three-way mixed metaphor:

"The investment and asset management world has been turned on its head and we are now charting unknown waters, but Elizabeth is confident that AGI has a winning strategy."

"Markets are good and investors are being urged to dive right in and bite off the top of the cherry."

And my favourite, a six-way mixed metaphor from someone whose writing many of you will read in the national press:

“Beating the herd to the punch can sometimes be the best recipe for success, and JPMorgan’s Indian Investment Trust is proof of this particular wisdom. While the rest of the world has woken up to India only relatively recently, JPMorgan’s Indian Investment Trust has been quietly beavering away there for years.”

HOWL!

Neither a buyer nor a seller be

2010-02-22T07:28:00.004-05:00

Cast thy bread upon the waters

After having had a look at my share account on etrade I've got several bones to pick with my own self for getting involved with an online service. It's not that my account has done badly; in fact, my punt on beer and the rise of alcoholism post-crunch has paid off handsomely.

What does disturb me is that it costs just so much to make a trade. Given the proportion of money-to-fee that I have the online site, it means that any sale I make will result in my paying far more in fees than I will have made up in profits.

The resolution to this is, of course, to invest more into the site. But that is going to prove to be a false economy: the UK version of the site is moving across to Waterhouse, whose fees are even higher than those I am paying on eTrade. The higher the amount that is in there, the more likely it is that I will have to shell out a higher transfer fee if I don't want to go with Waterhouse.

So if I wait, I will get stung in the transfer; if I transfer now to a different provider, I get stung for commensurate fees and if I sell, any profit I made on the back of the depressed drunks of the UK will be evaporated.

What remains for me is to grin and bear the loss and sell out now. I may be able to get a paltry double-digit return back after all the fees.

Which brings me to my main point: even if you think you know how to trade, don't unless you really do have a lot of money to invest in stocks and shares and can absorb any trading fees; b) you have the time to trade frequently - more than 5 times a month - and therefore will benefit from lower transactional fees.

Otherwise, you might as well write it off as a good idea at the time.

harrumph! The good book says to cast your bread upon the waters and in seven days it shall return unto thee. I don't think it was referring to online share dealing sites as far as skinflints like the mermaid are concerned.

Things I will not rant about: 3. The Citizen Reporter

2010-02-03T10:31:00.001-05:00

Now I'm no fan of daytime TV, nor do I advocate GMTV as a medium by which intelligent information is disseminated effectively to the nation.

However, latest shock! Horror! claims (excessively hyped up in The Mirror) reveal that an angry public has prompted an investigation by Ofcom. You can read the story here: GMTV blasted again after expert claims breast milk is as ‘bad as cola’ - mirror.co.uk

Quite simply, what was expressed by a professional midwife as a genuine medical opinion about not letting your children drink breast milk after the age of two has been jumped on by the great unwashed as a terrible thing to say.

Why? If all the people who wrote/phoned in to complain were all medical professionals with experience in paediatric care, then yes, I think Ofcom should complain. But they were nearly all mothers who have let their children breastfeed well into toddlerhood. One panellist admitted that her four-year-old still breastfeeds. (Psych).

Seriously, that is weird. Let the child grow up, woman. Do you want it to have an Oedipal complex? Do you want it to turn into the character from Little Britain?

Back to the theme. this brand of citizen journalism really bugs me. Why do we have to listen to the voice of Mr Joe Average about the state of the economy? Why do I care that Tracey Shadwick, 22, of East Finchley, thinks that John Terry should still be captain of the England football team despite his philandering? Why is it important that Jane Doe of the Home Counties believes the midwife's comments were reprehensible? Is Joe Average an economist? No. Is Tracey a renowned sports commentator? I don't think so. And Jane Doe's children are locked up in Thailand for smuggling hash on their year out from Oxbridge.

Let's get this straight: I pay a licence for my TV, and despite this, I have no control over the content that is beamed into my living room from any of the channels. What I do want is informed, intelligent opinion that will help me make informed, intelligent decisions about where to invest, whether to sell my flat, how to feed my children (if I had any, that is).

I do not want 15 minutes of my precious time taken up with the half-baked rants of some lonely people who need to voice their opinions on every single matter on which they have no proven authority. All it does is preclude freedom of speech, as was the case with the midwife on GMTV, whose comments are being investigated by Ofcom. As a result of which 'citizen reporting' by the great unwashed, GMTV will have to make a grovelling apology - especially as its weather reports are sponsored by Nestle (or were) - and no doubt the midwife will be held to account for giving her opinion.

By treating this professional woman like a social pariah in this way, the public has reacted to her in exactly the same NIMBY-istic, Voice of Offended Britain, way that they reacted to the BBC showing the BNP Leader Nick Griffin on Question Time before Christmas.

PLEASE

STOP giving opinionated people the right to express views publicly when they have no professional experience to back up their view.

This is how the next GMTV - or even radio phone-in (don't get me started on radio phone-ins) should go.

Lorraine Kelly (for it is she): "Now we go to Lucinda Kirby of High Wycombe. Lucinda, what's your view on whether policemen should carry tasers?"

Lucinda: "Well I have to say..."

Lorraine: "sorry Lucinda, can I just ask if you've ever been arrested? Or a member of your family? Are you or a member of your family in the police force? Have you studied the effects of tasering on the public? Do you work in the medical profession? Have you ever used, or seen, at taser?

Lucinda: "No, I'm a teller for Ladbrokes."

Lorraine: "I'm going to have to stop you there. Thanks for calling in, Lucinda. That's cost you £3 on our premium rate phone lines."

Lorraine Kelly

Things I Will Not Rant About This Year: 2

2010-01-22T07:25:00.004-05:00

Human Bedwarmers

This is the second thing that I will not rant about this year: idiot inventions that should have been thought through before being given a massive marketing campaign to the general public.

I refer, of course, to late-breaking news that Holiday Inn is using 'human bed warmers' to warm up your bed before you sleep.

Telegraph story here

This is an utterly moronic idea, no doubt dreamed up by a half-wit village idiot who managed somehow to turn on his TV and successfully watch a session of Dragon's Den on TV.

Propelled to actually engage his cranium in something other than wall-banging, he began to form the dusty vestiges of some images in his head.

"What's happening?" He asked himself. He was thinking. For the first time in his what barely passed for a life, his limp brain began to work. "I could come up with an idea and get some money!"

He looked around his room for some inspiration, although he didn't know what that word meant. Kettle... he could invent a kettle that filled itself with water... no, that would take too much knowledge. His cat... he could invent a cat that fills kettles with water - no, no, cats hate water.

His eyes smarted with the pain of trying to think for more than 11 seconds. He closed his eyes and decided to get into bed, exhausted by the mental exertion.

His sheets were cold. Then it hit him! The cat had thrown the kettle at his head. "Owch" he said, rubbing his forehead with his cold hand. "My bed is so cold! Why can't I warm it up?" There was one warm patch on the bed where he'd wet himself, and a dry warm patch next to him. It felt good. "this is where the cat was sleeping! If only I had lots of cats to warm my whole bed." he mused.

Eureka! "My cat could warm up people's beds for them. Wouldn't they be pleased?" And in his excitement, he ran around the room wetting himself.

He rang the BBC. "I've got a great idea for Dragon's Den!" he shouted.

"The time sponsored by Accurist will be 3, 45 and 6 seconds precisely... beep beep beep".

After four hours of waiting for the lady to stop telling him the time, he decided to write to them instead. He found a crayon and a piece of paper and managed to remember to address it and put a stamp on it. It was a day of firsts.

Some time later, he was faced by the Dragons.

"You're a bleedin' lunatic. I'm out"

"As a woman, I like cats, but I don't want a bed full of cats. Does your cat have fleas? How would the cat stay in the bed? Have you thought this through? I'm out."

"I, too, will be out, but first I want to humeeeliate you publicly for several minutes."

"Sounds cheap. I like that. Cheap is good. But I'm allergic to cats. Could you yourself warm up the bed?"

"I suppose so..."

And the dream was born. With Peter Jones' career advertising cheap car insurance on the rocks after being caught with a snow leopard and a line of coke in the Holiday Inn, he needed to find something to get himself back in the game. He rang up Holiday Inn.

"I've found a way to repay you the loss of your reputation. Human bed warmers".

****

Is there anything more dunce than getting people wearing all-in-one body suits made of towels to roll around in your sheets for 5 minutes?

There are so many things wrong with this I'll just have to list my top five:

1) The point of going away is so that someone else makes your bed and you have fresh, clean, cool, ironed, unspoilt linen sheets to slip into.

2) Hot water bottles

3) ROHYPNOL (drink this while we warm your bed - I don't think so)

4) Who farted? Wasn't me... "All part of the warming service, sir."

5) This wasn't what I expected from room service.

JUST NO. NO NO NO NO NO. Holiday Inns, your bed warming service is the biggest waste of PR money you will have ever spent. You are foolish beyond all foolishness. Someone's head (rest) should roll for this.

And you are very lucky I am not ranting about anything this year, or you really would have known what I think.

How To Get Free Stuff (Part 2)

2010-01-13T05:56:00.004-05:00

Philadelphia

For those of you who love a cheesy snack, there are TWO fabulous offers on the Philadelphia website Click here

You can get 50p off a normal-sized tub of the stuff if you do a very short survey; you can also get 30p off a tub of splendips - a great snack or lunch-on-the-go.

They both work well on PCs, but if you are on a Mac, they will work best in Safari as Firefox won't print them out on the MaCoupon downloader.

How to Get Free Stuff (part 1)

2010-01-12T10:16:00.003-05:00

Broke?

Can't afford to feed the cat, let alone your teenagers?

Then don't worry!

There are so many excellent offers out there in the wide world, so if you are feeling the pinch after Christmas - and like me, you won't get paid until the end of the month - then take a look at these offers to get Free Stuff.

For many of these, you will need to install the MacCoupon Printer software, but this is free. It means the bar codes will print out properly so you can use them in stores.

Free 100g Milka chocolate bar
Milka Chocolate Bar
You have to play a little game online, but if you go to the website and stick with the game (it takes less than a minute), you will get a voucher for a free bar of chocolate. The birdsong and buzzing bee noises are a little annoying, so best do this at home!
Click here for details: Milka

Things I Will Not Rant About This Year

2010-01-11T07:50:00.004-05:00

Angry old woman
Things I Will Not Rant About This Year (part one)

1) Slow women who leave it until the last possible second to search down their voluminous handbags for their travel passes, thereby clogging up the ticket barriers during rush hour.

2) Slow women who have no spacial awareness when walking on the underground/going up stairs/loitering at the bottom/top of escalators, mouths half-open, catching flies.

3) Women who read the two above posts and decided to get on their feminist high horses and ride off in all directions. Let's face it, I am a woman and I notice that 90% of all corporeal delays in traversing the underground are caused by women and their lack of spacial awareness. Men are not so slow, nor do they lose their passes in great big handbags.

4) People who watch you running for the bus and, instead of holding the bus, merely smile and say 'shame' when you get to the stop.

5) People who ask me 'is that your cat?' just after I have called him, he has come running towards me, and has climbed onto my back.

NO, this is some random cat that for some reason likes the smell of my tuna paste deodorant, and can't get enough of it. Sometimes it takes me four hours to unpick his claws from my neck.

6) Men who cannot commit to a relationship. (This might be one resolution I have to break)

7) Random phone calls from PRs asking if I've received the press release. If I were interested in any way, shape or form in the fact that your poxy little Midlands-based trading firm has hired a new information technician, then a) it would have been the slowest news week on record b) I would have called you. If you need to talk to someone, please, call the Samaritans, because they care a whole lot more than I do.

8) People who ask a question, and interrupt you half-way through with a 'so what you're saying is'... before telling you something completely different from what you were going to say. LISTEN AND LEARN, people. LISTEN AND LEARN.

9) People who make false judgements about something you have said or done.

10) People who tell you 'you need a break, you need some "you time"', before asking you immediately when you can next come round and see them/when they can come round and be fed by you etc etc. IF I WANTED TO SHARE MY 'ME' TIME I WOULD GO ON BIG BROTHER. Any free time that I get to myself I want BY myself, without having to answer the phone 24/7. If you want to see me, book me in advance (this might also explain why point 6 is going to be increasingly difficult for me).

11) People who assume that just because you have a cat, therefore you hate dogs. This was a reason why one bloke did not follow up on the first date, because he liked dogs. I love dogs!! I live in a flat in the middle of a city, dumbnuts. Might that be the reason I don't have an Irish Wolfhound? Loser.

12) I will not call people 'loser'.

13) In addition, I will not rant about:
Clusters of foreign exchange students clogging up the streets at lunchtime, gazing in Oxford Street shop windows and preventing me from enjoying my 32-second lunch break;
Old people who push in front of you to try to get on the bus before 9am;
People who don't add up their shopping and get to the queue in front of you and then can't pay for a couple of items (I've usually paid for them, unless I recognise them from the time before. Losers);
People who think washing is optional;
People who gossip;
Big Brother;
Any reality TV shows;
People who moan about the weather;
Hollyoaks (is there ever a day when it ISN'T on?);
People who think using a guitar in church is akin to slaughtering a goat on the communion table and daubing the walls of the creche with its warm blood;
People who slaughter goats on the communion table;
People who ask my advice, then ignore it to their detriment and I have to restrain myself from saying 'I told you so';
People who say 'I told you so';
Avocado sneaking its way into sandwiches and salads;
Rocket Leaves - EVERYWHERE, on EVERY MENU.

I've reached an impasse, but this list is no means exhaustive.

Happy new year.

RIP Baby Girl Patches

2010-01-06T05:20:00.004-05:00

Patches

I remember when you were just a wee kitten, bossed around by two older female cats. You snuck into my room each night and slept on my bed. Last time I saw you, you were playing 'boo' and having a great time of it. Sleep well, little girl. I'll miss you x

Wither the arrows?

2010-01-04T09:19:00.002-05:00

Andy Brough

There are so many headlines about which way the markets will go. '2010 will be a volatile year'; 'UK deficit warning from City economists'; 'Europe's chief executives see sluggish 2010'; 'Optimism rises for recruitment'... and so on ad infinitum.

I am reminded of a sage City fund manager, one Andy Brough, who had evidently had enough of personal finance journalists ringing him up to ask him his take on the market (this was back in 2004). His comment still stands in the annals of FT history:

'Look, we believe the markets could go up. But then again, they could go down. If not, they might go sideways.'

Quite.

'Twas the night before Christmas

2009-12-24T07:23:00.003-05:00

'Twas the night before Christmas
And all of my flat
Was awash with old papers
And toys for the cat,

The aftermath of baking,
Washing up in the sink.
A half-opened bottle
Of very strong drink

(Used for the pudding)
Was still on the side
Next to piles of work:
Poor Mermins cried.

With brows that are beaten
And nagging at home
No wonder I pen this
Unseasonal poem!

I turn to the future
(in a manner of speech)
Where's my silver lining?
Is it just out of reach?

I'm not looking forward
To pretending it's fun
Eating and jesting.
I'd rather just run

Away from forced laughter
And boring family tales
And stay in my duvet
Until Boxing day sales.

Christmas dinner? Bah humbug!
All the presents are trite
And there's no Disney feeling
And the Christmas ain't white.

Oh I know of the Reason
- Good news of great joy -
So despite all the moaning,
I hope you enjoy

But if you're feeling gloomy,
Just about all done in,
Join with me at 6:30
(I'll be hitting the Gin).

Bottoms up! And your chin, too.
We'll drink til we moan
2009 may have been dreadful,
But we're never alone.

Good luck for this Christmas
God bless you as well.
2009 was a scoundrel,
But 2010 will be swell.

the Banker's dozen

2009-12-14T11:45:00.008-05:00

The New Economics Foundation claims that banks are socially useless, as, unlike cleaners and care workers, they have no benefit to society at large NEF.

Evidently there is some political pandering to the masses with this report. Without banking, cleaners could not get loans to buy houses. Without banks, care workers would not have hospitals or homes to work in.

This is a glib response. The arguments against banks being socially useful are plentiful: while some bankers have lined their own pockets, they have contributed to the economic woes of the poorest nations, lining their coffins (well, they probably don't have coffins, but there had to be some element of thoughtful prose). Banks have racked up their own debt, gearing their balance sheets within an inch of their lives, and created a situation where not only are banks in debt to the taxpayer, but the taxpayer is faced with a higher tax bill as a result. Great scott! Our debt is being used to pay off the debts of the banks, so that we can start borrowing from them again. What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to receive...

But are banks morally bankrupt? Certainly, the policy of chasing that last nickel at the expense of the customer is immoral. The policy of making consumers pay for a bank to manage their deposits, just so the bank can get out of debt - that, too, is immoral. Banks recalling loans to schools, charities, small enterprises and community concerns is, also, immoral - they could, if they wanted to, recall loans from other, larger, private and public companies although this might create relational problems with potentially profitable long-term clients. A charity might not have a lot of money to repay, but it will never be a high earner for the bank.

In that sense, banks are morally reprehensible and have displayed little social usefulness.

However, leaving aside the obvious 'some banks good, some banks bad' argument, banks in general have an important part in society, one which is part of the very woof and fabric of our being. They oil the wheels of industry. They provide the loans for hospitals and similar organisations. They provide mortgages for millions. Without a place to put money, even the smallest depositors would have to bury their money in the backyard or stick it in a cookie jar under the bed.

Thanks to the recklessness of a few, we're all affected: decent mortgage rates are harder to come by, MPPI comes with a higher premium, our jobs are tenuous and our interest rates, zero. But what choice would we have if there were no banks? Who would give us a loan, provide us with a mortgage, cover us for holiday accidents or supply us with cash-in-hand when we're out and about?

I'd challenge the good folks at NEF to try to live for a year without using anything to do with a bank: ask your employers to pay you in cash (and tell them that they cannot take that out of a bank). Don't use credit or debit cards for a year. Refuse to write, or to accept cheques. Put your money under the mattress. Raise a mortgage - and your children - without any loans. Pay for your expensive private healthcare using copper coins. Send your children to a school that has not been helped out by any bank loans.

Without banks, we'd be trading in beads and corn, or heading down to the wharf to find a nice money-lender who will charge an extortionate fee without any security or means of redress. He'll then launch into a diatribe about how 'sufferance is the badge of all his tribe' or climb a tree because he's short. No, wait, I'm getting Shakespeare and the Bible mixed up again - it was bad enough the last time that happened. Fake Scottish accents, witches and a talking donkey? Shrek has a lot to answer for.

Anyway, the banks may have shown little moral fibre, but by golly the economy needs whatever fibre it has.

Isn't this just so cute!?

2009-12-07T04:59:00.000-05:00

Amazing pictures of Tube fox on London Underground escalator | Metro.co.uk

How to conquer the pre-Christmas budgeting blues

2009-11-20T12:34:00.000-05:00

Looking forward to a frugal Christmas?

Who said the world of budgeting could ever be simple? Who said it was an easy task to set your mind to and create good spending and savings habits? Well, actually, that person was me. I plead ‘guilty’ for saying this sort of thing in various articles, reviews and even in my cookery-on-a-budget book (which I saw going for 1 copper penny on Amazon the other week – I was both mortally offended, and highly pleased at the bargain price I subsequently paid for an extra copy).

The truth is, I have never found budgeting easy. Oh, I check my bank statement every day online, and I set up clever direct debit and standing order payments into various savings accounts, so that a little bit goes into my untouchable ISA and into my ‘rainy day’ cash account. So that’s a big tick. Yaay me.

I also make sure that, every month, I pay off a set amount of whatever’s outstanding on the mastercard – you know, the card that you only use ‘for holidays and pay it right back as soon as you get paid’. Which as we all know, is excellent advice and total rubbish. What a ‘for holidays’ mastercard actually means is, I’ve lost my bank card and this will do. Or, I’m going to get AirMiles if I use my mastercard in this store (regardless of the transaction charge I know I’ll get hit with or the high interest rates compared with my bank card).

What actually has happened the past month is that I’ve been shellacked by my own inability to budget and pay attention to anything.

For example, I have several cardinal rules to budgeting:

1) Bring food to the office, don’t buy.
For the past two weeks, I have forgotten each day to bring my lunch with me. I’ve left gorgeous home-made pies and pasta in the fridge, then not eaten when I’ve got home. This is because party season is upon us, and, while I’m scouring the room for canapés at various press parties, I forget that I’ve got a potential, and far healthier, dinner waiting for me next to the milk and cold meats. By the time I get home, it’s too late and I’m too full. And the next morning, I am too tired to remember to bring it in with me. Hence, I have spent a LOT of money on my card popping to prêt-a-minger or Make Mine.

2) Always remember to have some cash in your wallet
FAIL. Why use cash when taxi drivers take cards?

3) Always use public transport
But… the teeteringly high heels… the long nights partying with London’s financial elite… the rain… FAIL

4) Always pay off any online orders immediately
Stupidly, I saw a lot of craft material (cards and beads, not the witchy type) in a 24 Studio magazine, which would be great for the craft fair I am going to do. I estimated that the relatively low prices of these (cheaper than most craft stores) would mean the margins I would get on my products would be higher, and, consequently, the profit would be greater.

Epic fail: I did not read the small print, namely that I had to pay the balance in 14 days from receipt of the letter. I did not READ the letter, as I did not GET the letter until two days after the deadline had passed. Thank you, Post Office. Thus, what had been a £27 bill became a £47 bill – 100% interest in the form of a ‘Failure to pay’ fee. If I hadn’t paid it when I did, it would have gone up to £67.

Of course, in this case, I would advise you all to ring the provider immediately and explain the situation – the postal strike, the promise to pay the original amount at once by phone if they will waive the fee this time… but I’d actually read the letter in disgust, and, having come back from a late-night press party, thrown it down on the bookcase with a nonchalant ‘meh’ and only realised two weeks later that I’d better pay up, and fast.

5) Never admit that you struggle to budget
I have to admit that I’m actually usually very good with money. But there are times when budgeting just seems to go out of the window, and November-January are those times.

I guess my advice to anyone feeling a little blue about their excessive spending and insubstantial saving over these months is – ‘don’t feel guilty’. Guilt will make you feel hopeless about saving, and hopelessness will lead to budget fatigue and any efforts that you have made will go out of the window completely.

I suggest that you make a list of all the ‘extra’ things that you have spent over the three months – things you would not be spending on throughout the rest of the year. Add that all up, and think to yourself: “That’s my one-off spending for the year. It’s not a hole in my budget – it’s my additional expenses budget for these months! I planned this and I can manage it. I’m going to save that much during the other months next year and make myself feel better when Christmas 2010 comes around.”

Then treat yourself to another slab of organic turkey. You’ve earned it.

One Giant Leap for Squirrels!

2009-08-18T08:47:00.005-04:00

Seeing as everyone else in the UK has been having fun playing around with Crasher Squirrel, I thought I would have a go.

Apparently a cheeky little fella popped up in some couple's honeymoon pictures in Canada, as reported in that august publication, The Metro. Read the Ridiculant article on Crasher Squirrel Since the media whirlwind of publicity that ensued, he has become an internet star, appearing now in photos with Michael Jackson (may he rest in peace), Kim Jong-il (may he not) and also on the Obamarama tour train.

But did they know he also was the first being on the moon?

I think the world should be told

Crasher Squirrel

All Hail the FTSE100

2009-08-12T05:39:00.006-04:00

Tim Hynes photograph

So the FTSE100 has been crawling its way back above the 4000 mark and the pundits are a-plenty. "Green Shoots"; "Signs of protracted recovery"; "Positive earnings estimates coming out of the US are driving growth" "Case-Schiller index proving US house prices are rising again"... I am sure all this is true, and statistically, there does seem much reason for celebrating the fact that stock markets have been hauling themselves higher.

But for those who invested 10 years ago, they are still significantly out-of-pocket. With 5,000+ insolvencies in the UK, rising unemployment, pay freezes and low interest rates, it seems unlikely that the real economy is going to feel any positive effect from the rising stock market indices for several months yet.

I am a believer in that bearish of fund managers, Hugh Hendry of Eclectica, who has often quoted Mark Twain: 'If you have to swallow a frog, swallow it in the morning. If you have to swallow two, swallow the larger one first. We're still swallowing the large one."

Weird Facts

2009-07-30T14:54:00.002-04:00

Weird Facts

Shared via AddThis

The layout of this blog link is pretty naff, but the facts are amazingly weird. And I'm not talking the boring kind of 'polar bears are left-handed' or useless trivia such as that. I mean, really weird and true... For example, did you know that:

In 2008, zoologists were using NASA satellites to count the population of kangaroo rats?

That a Wisconsin woman allegedly brought a rat into an upscale restaurant, claimed it was in her meal and then sought $500,000 to keep quiet.

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second. Not a brown padded parcel bag.

Enjoy!

Dairy Queen!

2009-07-23T12:02:00.002-04:00

Warren Buffett

Yes yes yes, I know, this is a picture of Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett. But he is more than one of the most famous investors of all time.

He is a part owner/investor of IDQ - International Dairy Queen - and therefore, one of my favourite people of all time. He is single-handedly bringing down communism by opening up a rash of Dairy Queen outlets in China. Who can be mad at the world when you're holding a peanut Buster parfait? How can you crave total world domination when confronted by a lip-smackingly small, dipped cone? Or desire to cripple the economic output of several small Western nations when your business gurus are holding their Brownie Batter Blizzards upside down to prove that the ice-cream don't melt easily?

I have yet to try this delicious treat

No-one can fear the man who craves the sugar rush that is DQ soft scoop. Hot fudge sundaes? Send them to North Korea! Middle East problem? Open a DQ on the Gaza Strip.

And please, for the love of all that is good in this world, Warren, baby, PLEASE open a DQ in London... preferably near Moorgate...

In other news, eating ice-cream has always had a kind of Eddie Murphy effect on the Mermaid. As soon as a DQ sign is sighted on the horizon... It's all IIIIICE CREAAAAAAAAM!!!!! IIIIIIICE CREAAAAAAAAAAM!!! And then, many sugar shakes later (where the whole body shivers and freezes while at the same time, weirdly, my whole body is alive with the rush of sugar and trans fats), I start to sing "I had an IIIIICE CREAM" before falling over on the sofa in a semi-comatose state.

On second thoughts, Warren, perhaps it's best if you keep DQ for the nations that really need ice-cream cocaine. I dread to think how my financial advice would turn out if I got high on your triple fudge, chocolate-dipped Reese's Pieces waffle cone. Sub-prime woes would be remembered with wistful fondness. Still, if it's good for the Man himself, it's gotta be good for the Mermaid?

Warren with a Blizzard

Cuba Take One: Flight of Miracles

2009-05-04T17:19:00.011-04:00

Well I have finally managed to work out how to make my Flickr account visible so that you can all see the slideshow. You will see the first slideshow above this post! As mentioned in an earlier post, there will be MANY Cuba Trek 2009 updates for you to plough your way through, but don't worry - I won't do them all at once! Here is Cuba Take One: Flight of Miracles (and Bus of Despair).

Day one: Wednesday 18th February, 2009.
Clare and I have stayed in a hotel right next to Heathrow airport. It has the slowest service in the world and the coldest air conditioning in the room that I have ever encountered. However, thanks to the best plexi-glass double-glazing we heard nary a plane the whole night through. That cold morning, donning our MIND t-shirts of the brightest blue (using the left-over colourant from the old artificially blue Smarties that used to render our tongues an alarming shade of turquoise and send us children skittling off the ceiling), we headed to the airport to meet the rest of the MIND team.

I'll be honest. Things did not look good at the start. But before explaining why, let's introduce the team.

When Clare and I arrived, at the unearthly hour of 5:15am, we were met by a tanned young lady from Mind, to whom the word 'svelte' applied most aptly. This would be RT, who had organised the trip. We were joined by a young woman called JK, who seemed very quiet and who hails from South London.

Two ladies in their mid-40s (so we thought - they were actually in their 50s but looked AMAZING) came shining up, smiles and song, while a few of us drabbed around, cold and still tired. Instantly we forgot which one was Mary and which one was Sally. Eventually, thanks to me not thinking before speaking, I nicknamed them the Golden Girls, and the name stuck.

A young, tall man came gangling up at this point, bags all askew and dropping items out of his pockets/everywhere. This was RP, whose penchant from losing/dropping/misplacing or just taking off his trousers and shoes to go for a swim and leaving them on the forest floor, on the stairs of a hotel, right in front of where you were standing or, indeed, anywhere where they would be in the way/get lost was remarkable.

Another tall chap with a long black beard and glittering eye, and a lucky pink scarf, joined us. Thanks to the modus networkandi that is Facebook, we knew him to be Dave, aka 'Boomerang Jones'.

An older couple (Mary and Richard) appeared and stood quietly in group with Ron White (Ron Bianco) talking doctory stuff, while RH, known to us through Facebook, got together with an Essex chick called Liz, who declared: "I haven't trained since last year. I've not been to the Gym for three months. I need a fag." And they trotted off to partake of the nicotine stuff before the ten-hour flight precluded them from indulging in the New World leaf.

It was at this point, while waiting for Grace and Emma, the remaining two members of the team to arrive, that Libby the tour leader appeared, ethnic silver jewellery and glam hair-do included. Immediately I rued listening to Clare who had dug me gently about putting my make-up on that morning, so that I had neglected my eyeliner. I fished it out of my bag.

But the eyeliner was not to be lined on my eye, at least not yet. For Christianly Action would soon need to be called on. And this was made evident by young RP informing us loudly that 'We are not booked on the flight'. Let me explain a little about him. He is a super chap, and has a certain condition (more of that later) which can mean he sometimes finds it hard because of the condition to adapt to sudden or unexpected changes in the situation. This is made worse if the times that he takes his medication are altered for reasons of time-difference or illness.

Libby took him off to one side to deal with the situation. And returned to tell us that indeed, KLM had informed us that there was NO FLIGHT TO CUBA FROM AMSTERDAM THAT DAY.

Which was impossible, our tickets had been booked since the previous July.

No, said KLM. We do not fly to Havana on Wednesdays from Amsterdam.

This is when Christian Action kicked in. I texted some people at church and asked them to pray. I then told the group: 'WE will get to Havana today. My church is praying." They looked. What they thought of me at that moment I dare not ask. But Emma moved away a little and a group of them went off for another fag.

Half an hour and much waiting around while all we could hear was the irritating whizz-whirr of the electric advert spinning around in its infinitely rage-inducing loop, we were informed:

"Oh, actually, we ARE going to Havana today. KLM made a mistake." Evidently, as we were flying MartinAir to Havana, not KLM, which, had the assistant noticed at the first, would have prevented a panic attack.

BUT things were not to be so smooth.

Clare, who had arranged to travel straight back to Leeds, had not been registered on the flight out at all. So she had to be booked on which took nearly forever.

FINALLY we managed to get 15 minutes to get through security and buy some breakfast before rushing into the departure lounge for a flight that was an HOUR later than the one originally booked, thanks to KLM's stupendous mistake.

Then: 'LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE ARE SORRY TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE 9am FLIGHT TO AMSTERDAM HAS BEEN CANCELLED OWING TO A FAULTY ENGINE"

This caused consternation, but Libby was wonderful - she made us all sit together in our Mind shirts (16 fruit loops rocking to and fro without a flight could be dangerous, as RH whispered to me), while going to the information desk on our behalf and trying to sort out whether we could all get on the next flight out - the one at 10.

While she was there, I got out my moby again. I texted the prayer team. 'Flight to Amsterdam cancelled. Hundreds of people vying to get on next flight at 10. Please pray that we can all get on that one.'

Libby returned. We can all get on the 10am flight. HOORAH!

But we will miss the 11:45 plane to Havana (boo).

"No we won't" I say. I feel Clare cringing as she knows what's coming next. "We will get to Havana today. I have people praying that we will. So we will." More looks. Richard (p) enjoys my confidence.

Inwardly: 'Ok, God, I'm staking your reputation on this one. Please make good!'

Dave Cook the KLM representative comes over to us again with Libby. "Please rip up your transfer tickets to Havana as you won't be going to Havana today."

"Don't rip them up!" I say. "That plane might be delayed - transatlantic flights often are. Ours might get in early. We still might make it."

Libby looks at me and tells the rest of the group: "Good idea. Don't tear up your tickets just in case."

Dave Cook also looks at me. "You're an optimist aren't you? Well I'm a realist and you know what a realist is? A pessimist with experience." He laughs at his own joke.

I reply, without raising my voice or batting an eyelid: "I am not an optimist. I am a Christian. And I have experience of miracles. We will get to Havana today, we will get on that plane, and when we return, I will find you and take £5 off you."

Dave Cook is taken aback at this assertion. He muntles off (my word for muttering and shuffling off at the same time) and leaves Libby to tell us what our options are when we get to Amsterdam. Apparently she has worked her wiles and got us into the best hotel, with all expenses paid by KLM, plus all travel, and they will have to shell out for the whole group to stay an extra day in Amsterdam.

I could see the £££ signs flickering in KLM's eyes already, not in a good way.

"That's all very well, I mutter to RH, International Woman Of Mystery. "But, we will be flying to Cuba today. I have the prayers of my church backing us up."

"But the next plane to Amsterdam gets us in 10 mins after the Havana Plane is due to leave" says Clare.

Does she know me so well!?

On the flight to Amsterdam I am seated next to a young black woman and to Clare, but Clare and RP swap places half-way through. RP is loving the way I dealt with Paul Cook at Heathrow and is still laughing about it.

"SO you're a christian? What does that mean exactly?" (that's not the first thing RP tells me, the first thing he announces when he sits down is that he has Paranoid Schizophrenia. I am sure there was an intake of breath from some of the passengers around). How little we know about mental illness. This trip is really going to open my mind about a lot of things.

I tell RP about the verse in Matthew's Gospel - "Take no worry for tomorrow"... and speak to him about my faith in this God who knows when the sparrow can take off and fly, and who will make sure we all take off and fly.

I look next to me. The lady has taken out her bible and is looking up the same passage. RP is stunned at the way this lady and I get on although we've never met each other before. She is on her way to her mother's funeral in Uganda. She is praying also for us to get to HAvana! Judging by the two folk in front who are also turning around now and then, they are also christians, and also praying for us. There are now about 20 or more people praying for us to get to Havana.

RP is really heartened by this. As the plane draws into the runway at Amsterdam, all of us MIND people are stuck at the back of the plane. A set of steps are drawn alongside the rear of the plane. A voice comes over the tannoy.

"Will the group going to Havana today please disembark from the back of the plane where you will be taken to your connecting flight."

A shout of joyous disbelief from the Mind team. "We're going to Havana!" The couple in Front and the lady next to me give us smiles and hugs. "I told you so" (I allowed myself a few of these). RP is overjoyed. "Dave Cook is going to be so gutted! You were right and he was wrong". "I told you God would get us there!"

So we get to the embarkation point for our connecting flight with MartinAir. We are told that our luggage will not be arriving that day. "We don't care" is the happy answer. "Our luggage will arrive today" I say, having made ANOTHER hasty text to the prayer warriors at Thornton Heath Evangelical Church.

NOW people are asking me to get prayers for their luggage.... interesting, isn't it?

I suspect another member of the team, Dr Ron, might be praying too. I'll have to ask him if he's one of 'My People'.

We get on the flight. Our seats have been changed. Instead of being booked onto the flight, they took us off it and gave our Standard Class seats to some other people instead.

So the only option is for them to give us... FIRST CLASS CABIN SEATS!!!!

GET IN THERE MY SON!

We are travelling in Luxury on a flight they said we would never get, on the day they said there were no flights.

HAHAHAHAHA. My God is a Great Big God. He did not want a group of charity workers stashed in the cramped cabins at the back, but arranged all the flight worries so that we could all have two or three seats each in first class. Don't tell me I don't get Romans 8:28. YEAH BABY!

This isn't the end. As we wait for our luggage at Havana Airport, it becomes increasingly obvious that there is nothing coming around the carousel. Even my optimism is waning but I can't believe that God will let me down now, especially as I staked His reputation on the line. Emma says: "Even your optimism must be running low - we're not going to get our bags." I am about to doubtfully agree with some compromising platitude, when one of the Golden Girls cry out...

Our bags are here!

They have been lined up along the wall, sent 'Special delivery.' It seems our bags, by some miracle, have got to Havana before us... not a single piece of luggage is missing or ruined.

Now that is a flight of miracles.

JK (and others) come up to me. "Please thank your church for praying that we will get here." RP is still on a high about the look on Dave Cook's face when I demand that £5. The power of prayer has got us to Cuba in the face of obstacles, and the trek itself is going to be a FANTASTIC TREK, full of more miracles, self-revelation, breaking through fear barriers and meeting amazing people....

MY VIDEOS NOW WORK

2009-03-31T11:40:00.010-04:00

So here is a very cute video of little Monty when he was just a wee kotteb, playing Fetch with a chocolate wrapper...

Red Nose Day... or Red Mist Day

2009-03-13T13:45:00.011-04:00

Red nose day 2009

Well, you can't have escaped the fact that, in the good ol' UK, we're celebrating Comic Relief for charity - aka, Red Nose Day. Ostensibly a day for sporting silly red noses and watching comedians making special shows to help raise money for children in Africa. Today already, I have seen The Pink Panther paw his fluffy way onto the Victoria Line. I saw a herd of schoolchildren perform a percussion noise pollution type thing outside Oxford Circus Station. Many people were wearing specially-designed Comic Relief t-shirts.

But I am not here to talk about the billions of pounds this will raise for children in Africa. I am not here to celebrate the wonder of a nation coming together in a united and charitable cause. Nor am I here to extol the virtues of laughter and the bond it creates as a social cohesive.

No. I am here to talk of a tale of failure, murder, death, feathers and 3am shrieks in the night. All in the name of Comic Relief.

IT ALL STARTED ON MONDAY, when a friend rang to ask if I could make hot cross buns for his charity sale in aid of Comic Relief.

At this point, I should have, could have, said, 'not this time'.
Stupidly, I have a habit of saying:
"Yes of course!"

And that set me on the path of doom, failure, murder, death (doesn't murder intrinsically involve death?), feathers and 3am shrieks in the night....

Thursday night, after GCU, I went to the big Sainsbury's in Streatham to buy yeast and strong bread flour. It took ages to find the yeast - a motherly older lady came to my rescue - and finally I was home, bags bursting with food and ingredients. And a good Jamie Oliver recipe for 'easy' hot cross buns, buns which are supposed to look like THIS...

Nice Hot Cross Buns

HOWEVER
The '15 minutes' that pounding the dough into a proper consistency was more like 45 minutes, during which I got cross and hot. I had to resort to singing hymns to stop myself thinking murderous thoughts.

Then I got fed up of pounding, so I just rolled it in some dry flour and put it back in the bowl.
FOR ONE AND A HALF HOURS.

OH YES. You let it stand for 1.5 hours. (by then it was already 10.30). So by 12 it would be DOUBLE in size and ready for me to make small buns out of it.

Okay, I could cope with that, although I was already knackered beyond thought. I dozed off and set the alarm for midnight.

At midnight I looked into the covered bowl. The dough had NOT doubled in size. It looked exactly the same size. It WAS the same size.

Well I made the balls out of it anyway and glazed them with egg.

I looked at the recipe. "let the buns stand for another 1.5 hours". ANOTHER 1.5 HOURS? That would take me up to... 2am.

Great.

I dozed off to sleep again. 1.5 hours later, there were NO risen buns. They were the same size. GRRRR.

I piped the crosses onto the flat buns. The cross dough just rolled off. Oh well. By then I couldn't care less, I just wanted the buns to cook.

But, just as I was getting ready to put them into the oven, the murder happened.

For Monty-The-Cat suddenly jumped in at the window from the still darkness of the 2.30am morning, with a mothering pigeon dead in his mouth. He'd waited up a tree until he saw a nesting pigeon. Then pounced and killed. And brought it in on the side where I was glazing my buns.

I screamed. He dropped the pigeon on the windowsill and ran under the bed, dropping downy grey feathers over the side and floor, a soft, delicate dusting of death. But my scream had scared two women outside who also started to scream. Lights went on around the houses. Lights went on in the police station behind my flats. Monty came out from under the bed and lay on the floor, bloodied paws stretching and wiggling in murderous, tired joy.

I slammed the buns into the oven and gave up even trying to make anything of them. If I had left the dough out or in the fridge it might have been okay. But I had given up. I knew by then, of course, that there was no way I would be taking in those buns, comic relief or no.

I then betook myself to cleaning the flat, putting the pigeon into a bag and clearing up the feathers. I then had to wash the cat, who was covered in evidence. So the poor thing is in the bathtub, being showered down, trying to crawl up the tiles (or me, eliciting more screams). During which time the buns burned. They were NOT buns at all. These buns were dead, deceased, no more. The buns were non-buns.

3:10 am I finally get to bed, with a poor, wet, bedraggled and confused cat.

It's a rare old world!

HOLA!

2009-03-10T07:04:00.003-04:00

Dear all,

Well, it's been a while since I was able to write anything online. Thank goodness I keep a diary! I've missed blogging and I've missed catching up with all my blogging friends. But there is great hope on the horizon - I may be given the luxury of time back very soon. There are exciting plans ahead for me which will entail me being able, at least for most of the week, to work from home. This will give me back 2.5 hours of my day otherwise spent travelling. An extra 1 hour to add to this will be the lack of me having to get dressed and cleaned up. Nice. Smelly Mermaid. Mmm... arome du home-working writer. Nom de Fume.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anyway, I want to thank you all who kindly sponsored me in my walk in Cuba, and who sent me kind wishes and thoughts. It was a fantastic success, and really life-changing. I will tell you more about Cuba in Cuba part ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE AND SIX. AND SEVEN.

Believe me, there are LOADS of photos for you to snore your way through. So be prepared for an onslaught.

PS. Oh yes, the mermaid has also found a mer-man.

Snow

2009-02-04T15:41:00.002-05:00

It apparently did. Some bother with transport, a school might have closed early. £10 lost at Primark.

I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary though. Did any of you?

iShuffle - and iLove it!

2009-01-21T10:05:00.003-05:00

I love my iPod nano. I know it's not the latest one, or the most technologically capable iPod out there, but it's revolutionised my gym and travelling sessions.

Now, instead of using the gym for thinking-about-important-stuff time, I listen to music
Now, instead of using travelling time to read and expand my mind, I listen to music
Now, instead of buying 50 cds a year at sale prices and uploading all the songs (probably about 1,000 songs), I buy individual tracks for $1. If I were to buy 1000 songs for my iPod over the year, I would be paying $1,000.

Ain't that brill? The best bit, however, is the potential for humorous juxtaposition of songs.

I've downloaded the entire Messiah as I love the music. But when you stick songs on shuffle, the best combination of music is possible.

Here are two recent juxtapositions which made me snort with laughter publicly (once at the gym, once travelling). I might get arrested for this one day.

The Messiah: 'And he shall stop their mouths'.
The section ends: 'And they shall shake their heads, saying.........."

"Caught in a trap/There's no way out/Because I love you too much baby...."

And then:
The Messiah: 'And suddenly, there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying....

"Can you feel it? Can you feel it? CAN YOU FEEL IT???"

Snort!

Nein!

2009-01-02T12:32:00.001-05:00

One of the stories I have been editing today is about a fund manager who does skydiving in his spare time. One particular paragraph really set me about laughing, however, as I felt my editing skills put sorely to the test in the face of very inappropriate humour.

The paragraph ran thus:

‘Eric has jumped with people of all ages. “The youngest was my daughter, who I took up for her 15th birthday. The oldest was a man aged 82 who had landed on Normandy beaches during D-Day. It was very emotional for him as the jump was onto a Normandy beach.”’

I really want to edit it to read:

‘Eric has jumped with people of all ages. “The youngest was my daughter, who I took up for her 15th birthday. The oldest was a man aged 82 who had landed on Normandy beaches during D-Day. It was very emotional for him as the jump was onto a Normandy beach and we had arranged for a German soldier to be waiting for him with a Schmeisser.”’

Oh well something had to make me laugh this miserable new year.

Mermaid's got the new shoes blues

2008-12-30T15:45:00.008-05:00

Here's a perfect illustration of my latent stupidity... I blame being blonde, but I suspect that most women have a similar tale, and probably some men as well...

This is the story... cast your minds back to a warmer time (May), when the sun shone and the time for little kitten heels and bright yellow shoes was just what the fashionistas ordered.

There was Merms, standing on Streatham station platform in her new bright yellow shoes, with matching top and her best jeans, ready for a first date in London with some chap she met online.

Anyway, there was Merms, waiting with her best friend, Paddy's mum, who had stayed chez Mermaid overnight after a concert.

The train rolled in... and Mermins realised, to her chagrin, that her cute yellow kitten heel was caught in a trap, there was no way out, because she'd stepped onto a drain grating, baby. As she struggled to free herself, the train pulled in to a hissing stop. The doors opened. People got on, all the while looking at Paddy's Mum and the Mermins desperately attempting to set my foot free from its griddled metal prison.

The train driver got out of his carriage.

'You alright miss?'

'It's okay, I'll get the next train, thank you,' quoth I.

The driver got back into his cab, and continued to watch us from there.

'Why isn't the train moving?' I asked myself. By this point, both of us were kneeling on the station platform. I had taken my foot out of the blasted darn yellow piece of leathery overpriced crap, and was twisting the shoe this way and that while Paddy's Mum was kneeling down trying to hold the metal grating down.

At this point, I glanced up at the train. From somewhere in the train came a wispy tannoy announcement, too faint for me to hear. Was it a warning about baggage? A travel update? No no no... it was evident what the driver's message was to those passengers.

For, as the train slowly pulled out of the station, every person on our side of the train was standing up, or sitting right next to the window, watching the spectacle and videoing on their mobile phones.

I wandered lonely as a cloud... until I saw a host of golden shoes!!!

Merry Christmas one and all!

2008-12-28T15:42:00.002-05:00

Well my darlings, I have been a neglectful mermins, not wishing you all a wonderful Christmas, or swimming onto your blogs to pass on seasonal tidings of comfort, joy and watermelons.

However, blame the busiest season for Christians, together with being in hospital with a burst ulcer, yucky yuck, as well as a lot on at work... you get the picture... mermins not lucky enough to get the opportunity to even see her own blog and the lovely comments you posted. Thank you.

I do hope you have all had a lovely Christmas; I was thinking of you all on Christmas eve at my mum's, wishing I could get onto the internet and post yuletide greetings to you. So I hope that the Christmas week was lovely for you all.

And I do wish you all a fantastic New Year. Whatever the New Year may bring. I know that whatever trials await me (including an endoscopy on 20th January and a 98k hike in February, My God is able! I can trust that I won't have another dull year this coming year. Whether redundancy, or ill health, or - no, I am sure this year will be mermin's year for love - or the loss, then, of my sanity completely, that 2009 will be a year of growth, comfort, fellowship and new opportunities.

So every blessing to you all for 2009 and beyond. And May the Mermin of happiness throw plenty of fresh fish your ways.

Mermaid, formerly of Moorgate

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Modern-day parable

2008-11-12T04:55:00.002-05:00

I was standing for an hour in the cold, collecting in Piccadilly Circus station this morning for MIND. Of course I was there to raise money for charity, but it certainly was an interesting social experiment.

As I stood there, watching all the well-heeled people with jobs pass me by, with very few stopping (and the vast majority of those who stopped were middle-aged men in suits) I was aware of someone shuffling up to me: an old man, matted hair, very shabby clothes, crawling slowly along on crutches. But he wasn't trying to pass me by like the rest of them: balancing on one crutch, he reached into his dirty pockets, pulled out all the change that he had and put it into my collecting tin.

The Lord Jesus Christ was once standing in the temple in Jerusalem. His disciples watched people walk past the treasury box. A poor widow - no welfare state then - came and dropped in two small, copper coins. Jesus turned to his disciples and said: "You see this poor widow? She has given more than all the others. They gave out of their vast wealth, but she, out of her poverty, gave all that she had." (Mark 12:41-44)

This is the link to my fund raising site: Simoney's Mind Sponsorship Site

Thank you for stopping by

Think of the children

2008-11-04T06:25:00.003-05:00

lolcats

Mermins should not be allowed near them. Children, that is.

Yesterday, Merms had been in a three-hour meeting, including lunch, at a clients HQ and then had to cram onto a late late train back to office. At Holborn, a pikey family or three with lots of small schoolchildren, pushed onto the already packed train and stood encircling me, pressing their heads into my bladder with every twist and jolt of the Central Line.

Given that matter (ie my digesting lunch) exists in three states: solid, liquid and gas, something had to give.

But I waited until it was time for me to escape the train before I farted in their general direction, head level. Some of them even had their mouths open.

Was that mean and unchristian?

What has the Mermaid been up to?!?!?

2008-09-27T05:31:00.002-04:00

EVERYTHING!

Working, freelancing, doing notes for her mother, dating, putting her flat on the market, becoming the first woman editor of a christian publication, back to her youth groups and charity card making and jewellery making and in training for a 98k trek to Cuba to raise money for MIND! (because I'll need their services one day no doubt!)

EEEKY!

How does she do it, you ask? Well, easy - dating goes out of the window! But the window is still open he he he he. Merms has a fishing rod.

Anyway here's some of the exciting stuff I am making for a charity craft fair (again to raise £ for MIND - the mental health charity). And here's my fund raising page!

If you have any ideas about how to help us get our target Id' be grateful - at the moment I'm auctioning myself off on facebook, doing a cake bake, collecting at stations, holding a fund raising party, my best friend is holding a charity raffle and book sale and my old school is having a Cuba day - how cute is that?

Some days...

2008-09-07T16:55:00.005-04:00

I know this is cheating - I have not really written anything of great social or political import... but some days you just need to laugh at another's misfortune...

This is almost my favourite one

This looks like Monty!

Poor pup

My personal favourite. I will marry the man who came up with that caption.
Basement cat
Opussy bin Laden
We are the knights that say MEW!
Watch out before you sit down

This will be me

My kind of cat

Ha ha ha!

Poor fat beggar

You just have to have a laugh... or you'd cry

Why I Love Ben Ainslie

2008-08-15T09:47:00.005-04:00

Ben Ainslie
... by someone who is now definitely over Alan Rickman

I LOVE Ben Ainslie.

I spent an hour alone with Ben in a room. Sadly it was for the purposes of interviewing him about his sailing career and finances, but I can say that I interviewed our Olympian gold medalist! Totally down-to-earth, self-effacing, quiet, modest - and totally gorgeous, er, I mean, totally worthy of respect... um...

You can read the profile wot I wrote here The beautiful Ben Ainslie

Or you can just look at his website and feel proud of our home-grown sailing hero! Our hero!

Paris Hilton's top 10 tunes

2008-08-14T07:44:00.004-04:00

Guido's fabulous post on the presidential candidates' 10 favourite songs Guido is here has got me thinking how great it would be if Paris became president. Let's face it, under the American constitution and Bill of Rights, it is more than possible that she should be a candidate. Presidential precedent even suggests, nay, demands it:

Ronald Regan was an actor, and Paris has been in a movie (I think it might still be on YouTube).
Bill Clinton was caught in an impassioned er, situation, as has Paris (YouTube comment still stands).
Nixon stank, and Paris has launched her own perfume.
Bush is verbally challenged; Paris is verbal and challenged.
The Kennedys were shot - there's hope for a bright, but brief, political future for her.

So what would her top 10 hits be?

I venture

1) Money, Money Money (Abba)
2) One Toke over the line (Brewer and Shipley)
3) Because I got High (Afroman)
4) Love Shack (the B-52s)
5) Honky Tonk Woman (Stones)
6) Blow, Gabriel Blow (Marti Webb)
7) These Foolish Things (Ella)
8) Love in an Elevator (Aerosmith)
9) Gangsta's Paradise (Coolio)
10) Californication (RHCP)

???????????????

Decapitated alien foetuses

2008-07-31T17:49:00.001-04:00

Adopting six teenage girls is one thing. Training them to be ninjas is another. And removing decapitated alien foetuses from dormitory ceilings after Da Cardiff Crew left them there for a legacy is quite beyond being another thing.

But I am safely returned from camp and have a lot of reading to catch up on before I tell you about the aliens.

Love,

Mummy
Chinese Wisdom Master
Chief Ninja
milkshaker extraordinaire
Sinezza of Da Crew
x

Cockfosters

2008-06-20T08:34:00.006-04:00

London Underground

Cockfosters

Is a station on the Piccadilly Line, taking people into Barnet. Ooh look, how interesting, a map of Cockfosters
It is also a happily-named station, providing me with an august-sounding, euphemistic verbalisation of my frustration.

For I am frustrated. I have no time to do anything I actually like. I like to watch TV, eat, sleep and maybe even tidy up. But no, every second of my day is clamoured after by people, and not even people who are the closest to me. My closest friends and family know how cockfosterly busy I am and are patient and gentle and forgiving. People who don’t know me – or who don’t care – just demand more and more of my time. This makes me want to staple their heads to the front of a train pummelling its way to Cockfosters.

I also have not had any time to catch up with you all, to see how you are, to read your latest blog posts and email you and find out what's been occurring in your lives-outside-of-blogsville. I do hope you are all well and I aim to carve out more time to splash on your blogs.

I’ve also not had time to write up some rather amusing happenings in the life of Mermaid. Stories I would like to write:

• The chipmunk wot ate out of my hand
• The day my heel got stuck in a train station grating
• The man who just doesn’t get it
• Wings
• Two toads, two frogs, three spiders, one pigeon, one mouse and a small cat
• Mutley still needs to send me an invoice.

I can’t be motivated enough to write them all, so please choose your favourite one and I will write that first.

Except for the last one, that’s a lazy reminder to him that I owe him £ for services rendered.

Willesden Green!

Waterhouse

2008-05-16T08:20:00.005-04:00

Mermaid by Waterhouse
I was searching for an image of a knight, a picture I had in my head of La Belle Dame Sans Merci (Poem: John Keats, Painting: Waterhouse) and I stumbled upon this. It was then I remembered that, 10 years ago, I went though a phase of collecting postcards of fine art, particularly Romantic and late 19th Century pieces based on scenes from Classical Literature and from the canon of English Poetry. I wondered if this mermaid was behind my persona in some way - she was one of the postcards I had collected - wistfully looking out to sea, alone, pensive...

But thinking about my collection reminded me of The Wanderer Above the Mists. This was a picture that had such an impact on me as a student. It was at the epicentre of my collection, posted in the middle of my room and surrounded by the other paintings. It is a powerful portrait of a man who looks like he has been transported to an unknown place, to a situation for which he was not prepared (his clothing is hardly that of an intrepid explorer!)... a man facing a task unfinished, a path unseen, yet he is not shirking from his challenge. He will go into the great unknown, he will venture into the mist though he cannot see the dangers, because he trusts in the One who does know the way, who will guide him through the paths of his life.

Wanderer Above The Mists

For me, this is how I have always seen life. I am not really the pensive mermaid sitting around, combing her hair, waiting for a mer-man. I am the traveller, the wayfarer, the journeyman and the lone crusader. I am a lot stronger than people think, even if I have to pour out my siren songs from time to time.

Yet I have never had a 10-year plan, or a 5-year or even a 1-year plan. I know not what the future holds, but I know who holds the future and I am confident that I, too, can face the future with its trials and with its joys, because I know where my ultimate destination is, I have a shepherd to guide me and I have been given the key.

"I know who holds the future
And He'll guide me by the hand;
With God things don’t just happen
Everything by Him is planned.
So as I face tomorrow with its
problems large and small
I’ll trust the God of miracles,
Give to him my all."

Another one bites the dust

2008-05-02T07:06:00.003-04:00

Disappointing night for Labour

Did anyone catch the blethering idiot from Southampton, John Denham MP, trying to blame the Conservative victory on the fact that "The Lib Dem vote completely collapsed".... Have a look at his BBC interview here.... Denham blames the Lib Dems! what a loser! When David Dimbleby pointed out that, in fact, the Labour party lost four seats compared with two for the Lib Dems, Denham's reply was (roughly) thus:

"David, David, David, David, David... I not trying to pretend it's been a good night.... am trying to explain to you what happened. The Lib Dem vote completely collapsed. And our voters said they were not going to vote."

"But you lost more votes than the Lib Dems. How can you blame them for your failure"

"We didn't fail David. Our voters stayed at home."

What a turkey. He should be ashamed of himself.

What to get the Old Tarf?

2008-04-29T16:18:00.006-04:00

It's the Old Tarf's birthday today and I have struggled to know what to get him.

I thought about getting him some booze, but realised he's got enough of that.
drink!

I considered getting him some plants, but the only thing he can water now is his jumper when he drools
watering can

So I got him what every man wants... a luxury bath from a beautiful geisha girl.

See how happy he is?

oldest man in the world

Moron in the sky with custard

2008-04-25T09:29:00.008-04:00

custard

While eating delectable chocolate and amaretto cake the other evening at a family friend's house, enjoying some fine sweet Australian white and gazing at the glorious spring sunset over the Nova Scotian countryside, I happened to be recounting a tale of travelling woe.

For the Mermaid of Moorgate does not always swim everywhere; no, indeed, she often takes the flying machine and hence increases her likelihood of heart attacks by still flying with British Airways. Death by Stress. What Mermaid hates is people who arrive late for things. She used to go out with someone who was always late, leaving at the last minute, unable to get ready on time. Lovely chap, but infuriating to go anywhere with as, with three minutes to go before the train/coach would leave, we'd still be on the underground because boyo wasn't ready.

Well one time, Mermaid and aforementioned boyo were due to fly out (with British Airwazzocks) to a European destination. The plane left at 2:30 from Heathrow. We needed to be checked in by 1:45. It takes 1 hour and 40 minutes from boyo's house to the airport. Mermaid was all packed and ready to leave by 12. Boyo enticed her round to his with the kind proffer of breakfast. I arrived. Breakfast was not cooked. Boyo asked Merms if she would kindly cook it. I started to do so, under the misapprehension we would have time to eat it. It was on the plates. Boyo was eating, but there was not sign of activity. Merms got suspicious.

At 12:30 she peeked into Boyo's room. He had only just decided which suitcase he was going to take. He had not packed. Had only just started to get his clothes ready. And there he was, trying to decide whether to put brown sauce or ketchup on his second piece of bacon.

It was the last straw. Each time we'd almost been late for a plane and he'd promised to sort it out. No more broken promises

"WE HAVE TO LEAVE NOW" I thundered.

"I'm eating"

"NOW".

"We have to leave NOW!"

I've never seen anyone with apoplexy. I think I approached an apoplectic state however. I think my tail even turned black.

Boyo, boiled egg in one hand, pair of socks in the other, proceeded to pack his case with a dervishly frenzied manner. I think he was sulking.

He ran into the kitchen, put lots of food into a plastic bag.. sorry, he did not RUN, that would convey the impression that he was now starting to hurry up. The more I hurried, the slower he got. It was now almost 1. We managed to get the tube and change for the Piccadilly line to Heathrow.

Now you must remember that this is in the days just after the bombings at airports. We were allowed just to take our credit card, money and passports on board. Nothing should be taken on. Airports were in a whirlwind of confusion - lines everywhere, baggage missing for months, planes delayed - chaos.

It was into this chaos that we descended at nearly 2 pm. Although it was past original check-in time, the flight had been delayed by 20 minutes. We had EIGHT minutes to CHECK IN, PASS SECURITY AND BOARD OUR PLANE.

Merms kicked into action. I found a worker who put us through immediately at the front of the queue. "Good luck" he called, as he told us to cut through the first class/executive flight security point.

The security guard at the railings told us to go to the back of the queue. Again, Merms took to work and flirted with him outrageously and explained the situation. Immediately he unhooked the rope and let us through the fast track. Or would have done.

"Excuse me sir" I heard him say.

I turned.

There was boyo, with a big plastic Tesco's bag of cold breakfast.

Boyo was drinking Custard.

DRINKING custard.

"You can't take that in there" he said to Boyo.

"But it's food. I'll finish it before we get to security."

"I can't allow you to... what are you drinking? Custard?" The security guard looked like he'd been hit in the face with a kipper.

"I like custard. It's a waste to throw it away."

"Boyo" I said, "There are bomb scares everywhere. There are massive signs up saying not to take any liquids or bags onto the plane. you can't get through security with that food, you have to throw it away!"

"But it's only custard" Boyo said, continuing to drink from the container as if it was the last food he would ever eat in his life.

"Is he with you?" the security guard said. I almost died of mortification. "Is he your boyfriend? And he's drinking CUSTARD?" He called his security guard friend over.

"This kid is drinking custard from a carton. Look."

"THROW IT AWAY NOW!"

"I've almost finished it" he pleaded, glugging away at the cardboard opening. I pulled it from him, threw it into the bag and tossed all the food into the nearest bin.

"We have three minutes to get our plane and you're worried about bloody custard!!!!!!!!!" I was so angry.

The security guard patted me on the shoulder. "Good luck" he said. By now there were three guards, all pointing and laughing. People in the queue behind were taking photos.

By some fluke, we made it to the plane with literally seconds to spare. everyone else was boarded and sitting down, glaring at us. I hardly dared to look up.

As we put on our seatbelts, Moron turned to me and said: "See, I told you we'd make it."

I wished he'd choked on his custard. I mean, really, which moron eats custard in public anyway?

Moron

Duetto Buffo di 2 Gatti

2008-04-21T10:05:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Paddy's Mum for this one....

There's always one...

2008-04-13T10:31:00.006-04:00

I dedicate this post to Mutley, who gave me the idea, and to Electro-Kevin who has to put up with such people every day...

There is always one weirdo on the same mode of public transport as yourself.

You know what I mean - the man with the crazy eyes (one eye lookin' atcha, one eye lookin' for ya). Or the woman with rats up her sleeve who HAS to, yes simply HAS to sit next to you even though there are 100 seats free in the carriage, or the deaf old lady who feels the need to ask everyone how old she is.

This latter one, coincidentally, was my grandmother, who had a habit of asking random strangers to guess her age.

"Guess how old I am?" she would yell at some long-haired hippy student minding his own business.
"I couldn't possibly"
"Oh, go on, go on. Take a guess."
"I really couldn't"
"Just a little guess" (sorry, that should have read)
"JUST A LITTLE GUESS"
"Er... 64"
"Oh you flatterer, you, I'm 82 next year."
"So you're 81 now then?"
"Pardon?"
(turning to my mother) "We need to get off the bus now, this young man is talking to me and I think he's going to steal my pension book".

Anyway, when Grandmother Merms finally popped her fins, Merms was left facing the uncomfortable prospect of having an Unknown Weirdo on the bus... and realising that I am indeed that weirdo.

I AM THE WEIRDO ON THE BUS. One day I was sitting by myself, enjoying my seat at the front of an EMPTY bus, just listening to the Stones on my iPod, when Merms espies at the approaching bus stop a young lady with several shopping bags.

Merms does not have a crystal ball, but immediately Merms knew that, of all the 82 empty seats on the 133, that Bag Girl would come and sit right next to her. Now Bag Girl was not a weirdo, let me get that straight. But Merms was not happy. Puffer jackets should be banned in the interests of public safety. Bag Girl also put her shopping up on the shelf in front so that Merms could not look out of the window. Bag Girl also took out a newspaper too big for her to manoeuvre and flicked it in the Merms' face.

So I decided to be THE ONE. I decided to be the Weirdo on the Bus. I texted three friends to ask their opinion; they all told me to go for it. So I thought of my options:

1) The Alexi Sayle "Do you like sponge? I am only allowed Sponge. They won't let me have anything sharper than SPONGE" approach, which was not just Weird, but possibly dangerously creepy
2) The "I like dogs, but not brown ones" approach, which is weird, but also has the endearing effect of her perhaps thinking I am autistic, which might make her feel the need to stay next to me and talk to me out of the milk of human kindness
3) Chickening out

I decided on a mix of 2 and 3. Turning towards her suddenly and staring not at her, but at her jugular vein, I adopted a Yorkshire accent and said:

"Do you like Streatham?"

She turned to look at me. "S.................?"

I froze.

"You're S.............. aren't you? You went to school with me. You were a couple of years below me."

She eyed me strangely as if to say: "You always were weird and I guess nothing has changed."

I had no idea who she was. I guess she recognised my tail. I was mortified.

I have decided that I will never again try to be weird. My life is strange enough without trying. Anyway I have to go now and milk the hippo.

So I want to bet on the markets?

2008-03-12T11:52:00.004-04:00

Mermaid's Fantasy Portfolio

All I am saying is that natural resources are going to rebound so don't question my highest allocation to the fund! We can't go over 20 per cent in the fantasy portfolio otherwise I'd back Ian Henderson 100 per cent. Ian Henderson is a genius.

Here's a picture of him below so you can see his geniosity. And I have many stories about him, including the lobbing of a bread roll at New Star during an awards dinner many years ago. Ah that was a good one!

Ian Henderson

The broken Cisterns

2008-02-28T16:06:00.008-05:00

Question one: Who can tell me from whence cometh that saying re the broken cisterns?

Question two? Who wants to hear about the toilet-that-broke-on-a-date? YOU do? Okay. Here it is.

Last year I went on a couple of dates with a lovely young chap. It didn't go anywhere - there wasn't "that spark", but the lady who gets him will be a lucky lady indeed. And it is just as well that he has a calm character. Because I hit his house like a whirlwind of destruction.

Here is what happened.

That day I was very nervous because he said he would cook for me at his place. Being a good Christian girl, I was not sure this was entirely appropriate for a third date, but him being a good Christian lad and all that, I thought, well, it can't go wrong. But I was still nervous about how the evening might proceed. For one thing, I wasn't feeling that I wanted to kiss him, after all, we'd not even held hands, and I am quite a slow starter when it comes to all that romance malarky. So with that and all the other pressures (ie not telling my friends because they'd all be ultra nosey and want to interfere), I was unable to perform during my regular morning slot of 7:25 to 8:10. Believe me, I am so organised that even my bowels operate in synch with my diary. My bladder has a filofax. Actually, no the little beggar has a blackberry which keeps going off in meetings.

But I digress.

As a consequence of not indulging in a bout of deep-sea otter chasing, I was feeling a little bloated during the day. Merms is not a fatty by a long wave, but I certainly did not feel like swimming much that day. I nibbled a salad for lunch, thinking that I did not want to get to his house and not eat anything he'd cooked.

However, the salad worked a wonderful release for me. At 7:25 to 8:10 that evening the fact of the matter became clear to me. I needed to go.

I was at his house.

Dating Rule 101: Never go for a dump in a friend's house if you can possibly help it, and NEVER go for a spell on the porcelain throne the first time your date asks you to come to his house. MEN - this really applies to you, but ladies, do not be complacent. The Mermaid of Moorgate succumbed to the pressure. The Mermaid of Moorgate was on the verge of doing the turtle.

I excused myself.

I followed the laws of toilet etiquette. I carefully laid a barrier of Andrex upon the water, and started to run the sink tap to hide any noise. I performed. Rather beautifully and noiselessly. I ....

Have you ever seen Dumb and Dumber? It's one of the best films ever.

If you didn't do so, the video below is what you should watch NOW before continuing to read this post.

The toilet didnt flush.

I tried it again.

Nada

I tried it a third time.

Zip.

By now I am panicking. There's no window to open, and I can't find any air freshener.

I layered some more bog roll over the top of the log.

I sprayed my perfume into the air and tried to flush again.

It started to flush
...and flush
and flush...

"Mermaid, are you alright in there?"

"Yes! Just looking for my ... er... comb! There's so much trash in the bag I can't find it."

Where is the toilet brush?

Stab at the log! Stab the pig! Stab the pig! Down, Tarka, Down! Swim for your life down the china tunnel....

I finally got it to flow away, but the water kept rising. The flush came down and the floods came up, looking a bit like a bulemic's dinner.

By now the lid of the toilet was off - YES HITCH AND OLD TARF I HAVE BEEN FIXING MANY TOILETS IN MY HISTORY - as regular readers of this blog will know (if you click here you will see what I mean: Toilet Seats)and I was trying to stop the ballcock from sinking. But the plug was broken in any event.

After about 10 mins the water had run clear and it was flushing normally.

I exited, victorious but badly shaken by the experience.

Two hours later, during which time he burned the salmon en croute and a fox ran into the living room and just stood there looking at us, he went to the bathroom.

"I think the toilet is flooding. It keeps on flushing."

I took out my cheque book and grabbed my coat. Being a gentleman, he refused to accept my cheque. Being a lady I refused to stay any longer.

and that was the last date we had.

The broken cisterns

2008-02-28T15:34:00.002-05:00

Question one: Who can tell me from whence cometh that saying?

Question two? Who wants to hear about the toilet-that-broke-on-a-date? YOU do? Okay. Here it is.

Last year I went on a couple of dates with a lovely young chap. It didn't go anywhere - there wasn't "that spark", but the lady who gets him will be a lucky lady indeed. And it is just as well that he has a calm character. Because I hit his house like a whirlwind of destruction.

Here is what happened.

That day I was very nervous because he said he would cook for me at his place. Being a good Christian girl, I was not sure this was entirely appropriate for a third date, but him being a good Christian lad and all that, I thought, well, it can't go wrong. But I was still nervous about how the evening might proceed. For one thing, I wasn't feeling that I wanted to kiss him, after all, we'd not even held hands, and I am quite a slow starter when it comes to all that romance malarky. So with that and all the other pressures (ie not telling my friends because they'd all be ultra nosey and want to interfere), I was unable to perform during my regular morning slot of 7:25 to 8:10. Believe me, I am that organised even my bowels operate in synch with my diary. My bladder has a filofax. Actually, no the little beggar has a blackberry which keeps going off in meetings.

But I digress.

As a consequence of not indulging in a bout of deep-sea otter chasing, I was feeling a little bloated during the day. Merms is not a fatty by a long wave, but I certainly did not feel like swimming much that day. I nibbled a salad for lunch, thinking that I did not want to get to his house and not eat anything he'd cooked.

However, the salad worked a wonderful release for me. At 7:25 to 8:10 that evening the fact of the matter became clear to me. I needed to go.

I was at his house.

Dating Rule 101: Never go for a dump in a friend's house if you can possibly help it, and NEVER go for a spell on the porcelain throne the first time your date asks you to come to his house. MEN - this really applies to you, but ladies, do not be complacent. The Mermaid of Moorgate succumbed to the pressure. The Mermaid of Moorgate was on the verge of doing the turtle.

I excused myself.

I followed the laws of toilet etiquette. I carefully laid a barrier of Andrex upon the water, and started to run the sink tap to hide any noise. I performed. Rather beautifully and noiselessly. I

Have you ever seen Dumb and Dumber? It's one of the best films ever.

Here's what you should watch NOW before continuing to read this post.

Cat-ion competition

2008-02-04T15:03:00.001-05:00

What is this Cat doing, and why?

Is it pleading for its life with Dennis?

I think we should be told

Well??????

2008-02-03T08:34:00.001-05:00

I know you are itching to know how it went...

I refer to Tolkein...

"Gildor was silent for a moment... At last he said: "...The Choice is yours, to go or to wait."
"And it is also said," answered Frodo: "Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes."

The answer is yes, with also a no, and a definite wait-and-see.

The Mermaid of Moorgate is not unhappy to bide a while, flicking her tail and singing her strange songs to the wind and the rain and the rocks. If it is worth waiting for, which it most definitely is, Merms will wait, even wait forever. At least she knows.

MONTY SPEAKS

2008-01-31T17:13:00.000-05:00

lunatic
Sorry about mummy's last comment on her previous post.

I called the nice men. They've taken her away.

I should be sorry, but she's already cooked me enough chicken for a week.

Besides, she drank milk straight from the plastic bottle. What a chav.

Nehemiah - funniest book in the Bible?

2008-01-29T06:30:00.000-05:00

Mawkish Victorian Image of Nehemiah

Looking at the thread of comments in the last post reminded me of my favourite and potentially the most lary character in the Old Testament (or, for my Jewish friends, the Testament!). In the eponymously-named book of History that is Nehemiah, the protagonist, a high-ranking Jewish servant/exile in the house of the Babylonian King Darius, pleads for the return of Israel to Jerusalem, to rebuild the House of the Lord, the walls and palace gates of Jerusalem which had been demolished 70 or 80 years previously.

He returns and, together with the scribe Ezra, they rebuild the walls and the spiritual lives of the people. He's a great character - at one stage, the people of Israel are under physical attack from the nearby tribes - and so they work to rebuild the walls, men and women, with one hand they are building and in the other they are ready with their weapons. While the men load the stones into place, the older men and women stand behind with spears and lanterns so they are ready for any attacks.

But Nehemiah is so funny! I always laugh out loud in church whenever they read the following chapters:

Chapter 6 vs 8: he tells a bunch of big-wigs: "You are just making it up out of your head."

But the best bit is in Chapter 7, where he catches a lot of the Jewish elders going round nicking wives from the unbelieving tribes and doing naughty things they shouldn't be doing with various ladies of questionable reputation:

"(CH 14 v 7): I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair."

ha ha ha ha! Chortle! Every time I see this in my head I think of TEACH from the Beano, jumping up and down and pinging chalk onto a kid's nose, while snorting in rage and yelling: "Nincompoop! Imbecile! Moron!".

And when I see this in my head and they're reading this passage out in Church, I always laugh out loud. If more ministers of the cloth so rebuked their recalcitrant congregation, the world would perhaps be a much better place. I'd love to see The Archbishop of Canterbury labouring about some minor clergy's head with an advent candle for some misdemeanour. It would amuse me greatly to witness a pastor slam-dunking someone's cranium into the collection plate for smoking on the church step.

After all, if the Muslims can wreak religious punishments, surely Christians could do it better, with more panache and possibly with a wry sense of irony.

Ah! Nehemiah! You have much to teach us today. Just leave my highlights alone.

four jacket potatoes and a tub of coleslaw

2008-01-21T14:24:00.001-05:00

Mermins had a better day, thanks for all the prayers and positive thoughts.

Mother has filled mermaid's fridge with Good Things To Eat today. How lovely! Had a lovely supportive email from a certain nick-named person who shall not be even referred to but YOU all know who I mean! Plenty of cheery phone calls over the weekend, from a certain nick-named person, Paddy's Mum, Old Tarf, Mermaid's mum and other friends has boosted the merms, not to mention all your kind and sweet and positive thoughts me-ward. THANK YOU xxxxx

And now - a dilemma. Tonight I left work early to run a monthly bible study at my house for two GCU students and another leader. I had already rushed round like a maniac at M&S this lunchtime to buy all manner of stuff for jacket potatoes AND spent my lunch-minutes preparing the potatoes ( I dont use microwaves at home) etc.

I got a text while almost at my house saying the meeting has to be cancelled due to illness.

Does anyone want to come round and help me eat four jacket potatoes, two tubs of coleslaw, some extra mature grated cheese, tuna and sweetcorn, baked beans and salad?

Because otherwise Mermaid will be so fat that if she sits on a rock this evening combing her hair, Greenpeace will have to be called in to try to roll her back out to sea.

two cautionary tales

2008-01-16T17:12:00.001-05:00

These hail courtesy of my friend James. If you don't like farting, poo or McDonalds, look away now.

The rest of you - I present to you: Tale of the Unexpected, Part one.

James's friend Dave and his two brothers often used to have Fart Wars.

Dave, when still a student, came home late one night half-cocked after drinking cheap cider. He saw his brother steve lying in front of the TV, glued to the screen, with his back to the doorway.

Silenty, silently, Dave backed up, legs apart, until his butt was directly above Steve's head.

HE CROUCHED!

He RIPPED ONE OFF!

It was his mother.

She was so offended, she punched him in the face.

**************************************************

Tale of the unexpected: Part Two

Aforementioned Dave did not learn his lesson. A few years later, while in the US with his American friends, got a little ... merry... one night.

The group decided to "press ham" against a window.

This, for the uninitiated, means to stick one's bare posterior up against clear glass - "pressing ham". A nice concept.

They passed a McDonalds, and decided to press ham. Dave pressed his butt up against the window.

"I've got a really nice one brewing" he thought, as he imagined a cloud of white gas steaming up the glass for extra effect.

He did not expect to follow through, and ended up pooing all down the outside of McDonald's window, down his legs and all over his trouser bottoms.

A lady sitting in McDeaths, munching on her Freedom Fries, saw the spectacle and was so revulsed she projectile vomited on the other side of the glass, as Dave and his friends hitched up their pants and made off hell for leather, Dave still squelching them out as he ran.

Who, me?

2008-01-15T14:39:00.000-05:00

The phone rang chez Mother Mermaid this morning. She picked it up, believing it to be yours truly, and said:
"I'm not in"
A male voice (unknown) replied: "Oh? Well, Mrs Mermaid, would you please tell me when you will be in so I can call you?"
"Oh - well I am in but I'm soon going to be out. I'm just not all there yet." (wittering)
"I see, Mrs Mermaid. I think I'll call back in two hours"
"Okay" gasped my mother, still trying to recover from the embarrassment.
*click*

PS - for those who have questioned my politeness when passing breath (dennis, hitch, tuscan and the rest of you lot), it runs in the family - The Proper Rules to Follow

WARNING!!!! NEW SCAM IN THE UK

2008-01-12T10:13:00.001-05:00

I dont often forward things on, but a warning to you: if a man comes to your door and says he is conducting a survey, and asks to see your bum, do NOT show him your bum.

This is a scam. He only wants to see your bum.

Please take a second to forward this to your friends. I wish I had known this yesterday. I feel so dirty and cheap.

Australians ARE funny!

2008-01-07T19:00:00.001-05:00

This is worth watching all the way through!!!!

The Scarborough Fair Fiasco

2008-01-07T12:29:00.002-05:00

red lolly, yellow lolly

I promised y'all this gem - I am sure the parents among you will enjoy this.

When visiting my dear friend in Scarborough last October, we happened upon a delightful (!) establishment called Yates's Wine Bar. It being raining, only 2pm and me needing to kill an hour before heading home to London-Town, we were stuck for a warm and dry environment to while away an hour. So don't judge me.

Anyway, after a blackcurrant and soda (favourite former tipple of us when we were impoverished students) or two, I needed to visit the ladies' powder room.

As some of you may know, whenever I have an occasion to visit a public convenience, something untoward usually happens. Or rather, I do something to embarass my friends. This time, however, I was behaving myself impeccably. While washing my hands, a young Northern mother came in and was patiently trying to get her three children of various ages to go to the toilet, flush, wash their hands etc. She had sucessfully managed to get two of them cleaned up but the youngest, a girl of about six, was not so amenable.

"I want an ice lolly!"

"You cant have an ice-lolly right now darling" said her mother.

"yes I can! You can get them from the machine", she said, pointing to the wall behind us.

Her mother and I smiled at each other, as we mentally envisaged her pointing erroneously to the condom/aspirin/toothpaste machine. Our smiles turned to horror, however, as we actually looked at the machine.

It was not for condoms, aspirin or toothpaste.

It was for £3 handbag-sized dildos. And the little girl was vigorously pointing at a picture of a saucy woman licking a great big red "Ice lolly".

Licking

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T16:15:00.000-05:00

Dear Blogging Friends/Fiends (delete as appropriate)

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!!! May God bless you all richly in 2008, and if you don't believe in Him yet, may you find Him to be true and kind!

Sorry I could not wish thee all festive greetings over Christmas. I have had the flu quite badly. As I write this, I am still ill - cough cough - and weight has dropped from 8:6 to 7:12. So I guess I can strike off number one on my Resolution list -

1) Lose weight

as I've basically done that one already. Sometimes diahorrea has its benefits. Even if it is too difficult to spell when you're ill.

2) Take more care of myself

3) Dont be a potty mouth.

4) Remember that a soft answer turns away wrath

5) Always give others the benefit of the doubt

6) Keep in touch more with my older relatives

7) Do something romantic

8) A folded newspaper is not a weapon with which to part the crowds of commuters at Oxford Circus station

9) Farting is not an acceptable form of communication in an office-based environment

10) Use my powers for good, and not evil

All the best folks, happy blogging in 2008 xxxxxxx

Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question

2007-12-17T12:33:00.001-05:00

I will tell the story of my trip to scarborough another time. This is a christmas present for you. It made me feel a lot better about my recent interviews.

jingle cats singing white christmas

2007-12-13T10:16:00.001-05:00

This is madness gone mad

Tree In Progress

2007-12-10T07:03:00.001-05:00

Full Tree

Just to show off what I think is going to be a fabulous tree, here is the Tree In Progress in my leeeetle flat.

close-up

And my latest Card Creation - the Box Card, which is a box, but opens out into a multi-faceted card. I've had several orders already (hint hint). Sorry Dad, you ain't getting one of these this year but an equally original one is heading your way across the Atlantic as we speak!

Is it a box?

Or is it a super card?

Order.

2007-12-06T17:41:00.000-05:00

My tree is up and decorated.

I have bought nearly all my presents.

My flat is nearly ready for the hungry hordes.

Most of the party food is already in the cupboards.

But oh oh oh oh oh I need to sleeeeeeeeep.

My theme is gold and purple this year. What are you lot doing?

Lambeth's loony bin

2007-12-03T07:36:00.000-05:00

I have a weird relationship with Lambeth. I hate it, and yet keep returning to live there like a dog returning to its own vomit. So I guess I must love it. I do - I love St Leonard's church which has stood there, more or less, since 900 AD. I love its graveyard full of famous Victorians. I love the Rookery in Streatham, the Brixton Academy, the old gateposts at St Matthews, Brixton which still say: "Carriages to London 2d".

What I don't love particularly is that Lambeth is home to all of the UK's village idiots. Saturday morning, at 9:30, if you venture out upon that stretch of the A23, you will find the loonies. Bless them, it's not their fault, but really! It's like Shaun of the Dead.

There's a 7'2" unsuccessful transvestite who strides, bejewelled and under-dressed, along the high road, his tight leather skirt barely coping with his ginormous gangly gait.

There's a tiny little mad woman, skinny as a rake, with long flowing grey hair and one arm decked in enormous, thick, heavy chains. She keeps her head down (and does not seem to mind the cold) and supports her arm with her other hand because of the weight of the chains. Once as I passed, she looked up and I smiled at her. Her entire face lit up and her child-like blue eyes looked so happy at that slight human interaction.

There is a hunchbacked elderly Jamaican woman who struggles slowly, slowly up the road with about eight bags stuffed full... of kitchen towels. She just buys kitchen towels. Her name is Bag Lady.

There is a mad shouting man, always with some cut or blood on his face, who sits and puts the world to rights at various bus stops.

There is Mad Raspberry Man, who the other day got on my bus and, because the windows were fogged up, he got upset and started blowing raspberries at them. "I can't see. PLAAARRRRT. Can't see. PLAAAAART... Rasp raspy rasp rasp."

And now there is BAD SPOTS.

The other day I was going to a craft fair with all my cards and jewellery, and had been getting very stressed in my flat trying to sort everything out and price each item. As a consequence, I had gone red. When I go red, I get patchy. It goes away quickly, but if I have spots or any hidden blemish on my face, the red heat makes them prominent. Hence I always wear makeup in case I blush.

Well I had not put make-up on my face because I was too busy. And I must have looked slightly spotty. As I exited my flat, I noticed a really dirty man in glasses staring at me from the bus stop opposite. His brown hair was matted, his beard was dirty, his glasses did not fit his grey face, and his shoes were unlaced and barely there.

As I passed him, he shouted out: "BAD SPOTS! BAD SPOTS!"

"Coming from you, that's a compliment" I snapped back. But his comment had a cathartic effect on me - I had a grin on my face for the next hour every time I thought of it. So his name forever more will be Bad Spots.

Another stunningly embarrassing moment for the Mermaid

2007-11-13T05:05:00.000-05:00

So I was sitting on the bus home last night.

It being a very crowded bus, the only seats left were at the top, right at the back. You know the ones I mean... they were the hard grey plastic seats opposite the row of seats that line the very back of the bus. This means that you are forced to eyeball whoever is squished into the seat opposite you.

In my case, this was two Polish builders, who were very polite and moved their bags to give me more leg room.

However, the traffic being stop and start,
the seats being very slippery
and my coat being of a non-stick material

... I found myself ending up with my head in the guy's crotch when the bus jerked suddenly and I shot forward. Putting my hand out to steady myself I ended up pushing him hard in the chest before I slid off into a kneeling position, face-first, into his groinal area.

He was shocked, to say the least; his friend was laughing so hard everyone was turning round to see what had transpired.

All I could muster, between laughter and profuse apologies, was: "Well, I've not done THAT before."

A poo story

2007-11-06T05:10:00.000-05:00

At the risk of being labelled a public school product, which of course I am, I have to confess I do enjoy the odd poo story.

This is not exactly about poo, but I hope you enjoy it.

Last weekend, I went to visit Paddy's Mum and we spent an enjoyable weekend chillin' and chatting as women do. Saturday evening we went to the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds to watch a comic rendition/stage adaptation of Noel Coward's film Brief Encounter.

Great film by the way, I advise you to watch it and try to understand what Celia Johnston has actually said in that fast and clipped English voice of hers.

So it's the interval, and we're being jostled by several coach-loads of upper-class Saga tourists. A young man pushes past us: "Father! Father!". It was like being stuck at Twickenham.

We went to the ladies. Clare dived in first, I found an empty cubicle at the end of the room. Plenty of posh twittering outside the doors by the sinks. I'd already flushed and was ready to leave.... when the Evil Thought arose.

Something I used to do to Clare many many years ago but have not done for several years...

I stayed in the cubicle and started to groan.

"FFFFNNNNNNYYYYEEEEEEEARGH"

the room went a little quieter, enough for me to hear clare start to laugh. She was evidently by the sinks.

A little louder: "GGGGRRRRAH! AAAAAARGGGGGGHHHH AAARRRRGGH"

By now, clare was laughing aloud and was at the hand-dryer, which was just outside my cubicle.

I prepared myself for the grand finale.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH AAAAAARRRGH AAAAAARGH NOOOOOOO FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATHER! ARGH! OH. AH. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh."

I flushed quickly and came out, giving a really hard stare at the cubicle next to me, and looking shocked. The genteel ladies by the sink raised their eyebrows. Clare and I were laughing. I nodded my head in the general direction of the next cubicle, shook it in mock horror and left, just in time to see this behatted, unwitting old dame exit aforementioned cubicle to be met by a host of stony glares.

I've never laughed so much in public in my life.

The aftermath

Leave Heather Mills Alone

2007-11-01T05:31:00.002-04:00

Heather Mills

I have not always been nice to Heather Mills. I have labelled her a gold-digger, a celebrity-hungry wannabe without a leg to stand on. But I am taking it all back after reading the interview stories following her appearance on GMTV.

Firstly, my friends in the media have completley misrepresented her interview, producing spurious headlines with no regard for accuracy. None seem to have actually received and read and understood the full broadcast transcript of that interview, so they are misquoting each other in a bid to out-do each other in their villification of Heather Mills.

What she actually said, if people can be bothered to look past their own preconceptions and prejudices, is that she hates the fact that ordinary people feel they have a right to come up to her in public and swear and shout abuse at her in front of her 4-year old daughter. And the reason for this is because a lot of middle-aged blokes who are afraid their wives will screw them for a lot of money, and who also grew up with The Beatles, have portrayed all her bad points in such a way that we now all believe she must be evil and therefore must be destroyed.

Furthermore, she NEVER said she was like Diana or Kate McCann. She said: "What sort of society are we living in when it becomes acceptable for the media to intrude into every part of our lives and feel they have the right to hound us and to judge us... look at what they did to Diana. Look at Kate and her husband. They've lost a daughter and it is so very sad, but on top of that they have to deal with all the media intrusion."

They have also made it acceptable for us to take the piss out of people who have a disability because, well, if we don't like the person, then it's okay to subject them to cheap jokes like the one I started this blog post with.

For 20 years Heather Mills was the media darling who had overcome a horrific accident and who had devoted her life to charitable causes. Then she married Paul and for a while all was well. The trouble is, we were't over Linda. We all loved Linda McCartney and could not forgive Paul for marrying so quickly. Suddenly we started to applaud Stella McCartney for her distaste for her father's marriage. In fact, all the kids quickly took arms against Heather.

If any of you have been a step-parent you must know how hard it is if the kids dont like you - especially so when the children are all celebrities, adults and have resonance with the press. Heather was doomed and so was the marriage. Even when she gave up all for-profit appearances and became a mother, it didn't do her any favours - she had no income of her own. If I were a wife and mother for four years and had given up my income to run a household, I would expect that, if the marriage broke down, I would be entitled to a share of that income for the duration of my stay. Her problem was that she asked for more.

MORE?

OKAY, perhaps given the sums involved it could be greedy. To people like you and me, who dont have that kind of money, it is obscene. But that does not give us the right to judge.

Also it's HER, not Paul, who wants to look after the child. Paul doesn't want to take any responsibility for the upbringing of his legal offspring. So what does that say about him? That he's more concerned about his own music than about his children. After all, he never consulted his children before he married Heather, and he doesn't seem to care about his 4-year old otherwise he would make public moves to stop all this public villification of the mother of his child.

Some more points of contention

1) Paul McCartney has had so much facial surgery that it must have taken a lot of love to wake up to that each morning. Look at his latest photos. The man draws his own eyebrows on. That is simply scary.

2) Paul McCartney was responsible for THE FROG SONG

3) John Lennon was the creative genius behind the Beatles. Paul McCartney was not brilliant without him. Look at his recent stuff. It's like watching your granddad do karaoke at a family wedding.

Oy, Granddad, NO!

stars and stripes

2007-10-29T16:29:00.000-04:00

So I was at another wedding on Saturday, which was wonderful. But I'm not going to bore you with stories about dancing queens. No, instead I shall tell you about my journey there and back. After all, was it not Sterne who once said: "To travel is better than to arrive?" Or was that someone else? No matter, he was talking balls.

THE JOURNEY THERE

Waiting for the taxi to arrive chez moi, I thought it expedient to ask the operator what colour car would be picking me up. "A white peugeot". It was a blue skoda.
Then the guy got lost. A 20-min drive took nearly an hour. He should have driven me to south croydon. He took me to West Wycombe. Then he almost lost the entrance to the Hotel and Golf Club and nearly crashed into the wall...

The Journey back

I know - once bitten, twice should be shy. But it was nearly 1pm, I was sharing with a couple of friends, and the taxi firm is cheap. I also naively assumed that, having already driven there, the driver would be able to find his way back relatively easily. But the first conversation with the taxi firm operator went thusly:

"Please may I have a taxi to Streatham"
"Where is that?"
"You ARE streatham vale taxis?"
"Yes"
"Well, Streatham is where you are"
"Oh yes okay ma'am thank you very much okay where you want go to?"
"Streatham"
"WHere picking you up from tonight"
"The Selsdon Park Hotel"
"Where is that?"
"In Selsdon"
"What is the name of the place in Selsdon"
"The... Selsdon... Park... Hotel"
"I will send him...he has a silver peugeot. What is your name?
I lied: "SAM"
"How do you spell that madam pliss"
"S - A - M"

Of course by now I should have been worrying. But I did not start really worrying until 45 minutes later when my phone rang and a croaky foreign voice creaked out: "Hello lady? I am ringing to say that I am not the same driver, I am the different driver"
"Right... so do you know where you are going?"
"I will be there in 15 minutes. Where is it?"
"Selsdon Park Hotel. It has an exclusive driveway"
"I will drive into the Park"
"Um... not the park, don't drive it into the park, it's going to end up in the playground... it's called the Selsdon Park Hotel and Golf Club."
"You at the golf club or at the park?"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Breathe...1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10...

"No dear, let's take this from the top. Drive down the A23 to Croydon and on the flyover, take the A2022. Continue down towards Sanderstead, and then you will find a BIG BIG BIG Sainsbury's on the roundabout. The entrance to the SELSDON PARK HOTEL AND GOLF CLUB is right next door, the very very very first entrance on the LEFT. DRIVE UP THE DRIVEWAY. IT HAS YELLOW POSTS AND TYRE MARKS IN THE FLOWERBED FROM YOUR LAST DRIVER"

"yiss yiss I have I know - I three minutes, maybe three, maybe 10 minutes away"...

By now it was half one and I wanted to cry. Miraculously... it was a silver peugeot -and he knew the way back home. However, he did not seem to believe me that I lived on a one-way street. I ended up having to walk up my road simply to stop him reversing several times into the Police Station in the road adjacent to mine. What a croc!

IN OTHER NEWS

I saw a shooting star! It was travelling extremely fast, and almost completely horizontally across the horizon! How cool is that? And no, it was not a firework. And yes, I did make a wish.

Mermaid on the rampage

2007-10-25T05:09:00.000-04:00

Mermaid and Major General Lobby the Lobster

The other night I was woken up by the sound of what I thought was a pair of drunks singing. It was about 5:30 but I was so soporific I could not actually wake myself up properly, but I remember feeling very afraid and vulnerable so I prayed about it. Usually I would have just called the Royal Guards of Oceana - the great lobster army, led by major-general Lobby the lobster (pictured, above) - to go and investigate, but I realised that Lobby lives in Canada.

The next morning I read that two men had been shot, one fatally, at the top of my road. My road is almost as famous as I am. Streatham is becoming dangerous and the Mermaid is at the end of her very patient tether.

When I first moved in, on the first week of my residence down that road, two robbers dressed as cleaners cleaned out the barclays bank at the top of the road. Given that it was my mum's bank, this was disturbing. Two months later, the road was cordoned off one evening following a "gun incident". Several months later there was a fatal stabbing after a domestic row, and now this double shooting.

Some people may say this is an unnatural coincidence, as they have heard of the mermaid's propensity for stapling things and stalking celebrities Mermaid is Healed! but I assure you, these events are all unrelated to me, and besides no-one knows about the disappearance of several postmen whom I have captured and forced to make endless supplies of staples to satiate my insane craving for them. Oh no, that is our little secret. Mua ha. Mua ha ha.

But now the mermaid is at the end of her tether. She has already started kick-boxing training at her local gym and is paying far too much attention to X-men films. I am worried about myself, that I might turn into an urban vigilante, haunting the streets of St. Reatham to hunt down and nullify threats to the safety and honour of our streets. Except I would be bad at this for several reasons:

1) I am fast with a staple gun, the fastest paper-clipper in the West. But a bullet is still faster
2) I couldn't kick-box my way out of a wet paper bag
3) If I were able to staple a felon to the ground, I'd be distracted too easily by anything cute and fluffy... "Hand over those stolen goods, you charlatan!"
"Look over there"
"Where?"
"There - I think it's a kitten"
"Awww... here, puss puss puss..... darn! He wouldn't have gotten away with it if it were not for you pesky cats...."

So there you have it. A frustrated wannabe vigilante. In addition to all my other problems of the heart. But be warned I WILL be watching my road. And if I hear any strange noises again, I will be ready and armed with my biggest, bad-ass stapler. Failing that, I shall simply throw Monty at them. He can be a bit of a demon...

Pounce

poo.

2007-10-19T18:51:00.000-04:00

1) I have broken my toilet again. IT WONT SCREW UP PROPERLY
2) Monty sicked up on my Duvet. My winter duvet. With my most expensive embroidered white egyptian cotton duvet cover. Its now in the bath as it is too big to wash
3) I am finding that old feelings are being stirred up again. Which I find very confusing.
4) I have spent four nights this week playing... TETRIS. AND I suck at it.
5) I hate the Independent on Sunday. Although I love the Telegraph
6) I am not eating properly.
7) Men suck
8) Cats are my only friends
9) I have a permanent headache
10) I feel sick
11) Life sucks
12) There's no chocolate in the house
13) The Independent on Sunday Sucks
14) I keep thinking about someone
15) That sucks
16) I need a holiday
17) I dont want to spend it playing Tetris
18) I missed off the apostrophe from don't in 17) and I'm not even bothered
19) I went a whole day without checking my blog
20) I have 20 reasons to be miserable

20 reasons to be happy:

1) My cat loves me
2) My friends love me, but most never call me, and if they do, only one (Clare) actually calls me just for a chat. the others call me because they are blue and need to vent their feelings and I listen like the mug that I am.
3) Geoff Ho proposed ( I said no)
4) I have broadband
5) I've lost three pounds
6) The telegraph wants me to write some stuff for it
7) Someone bought a card off me today ( I make cards)
8) People think I'm funny
9) My hair looks great since I got it done on Tuesday
10) My cat loves me
11) I have broadband
12) I stayed alive for a whole day without checking my blog
13) Geoff Ho proposed (and I said no). Actually 3 and 13 are not reasons for him to rejoice, but at least I will die knowing that someone wanted to marry me, even if it was by kneeling down at a press party and giving me a weightwatchers calculator instead of a ring.
14) I have a weightwatchers calculator
15) I know how to use apostrophes
16) My cat loves me
17) I have spare duvets
18) er
19) that's it...
20) David Hasslehoff

Chip off the old female block

2007-10-11T16:14:00.000-04:00

There are so many people in the world, all of whom have business to do, managing their own affairs and helping their own families.

Then there are some who do so well at managing their own family affairs that they have to start managing their own.

Take my mum’s next door neighbour, whose loud-mouth brother often decides to irritate my mother. Once, when my kitten was in her front yard, the Fat Baldie came out and hissed at the cat, then proceeded to launch a tirade to the trees and parked cars about how much he “hated that cat.” The fact it was the first time that Monty had ever visited mum did not seem to register in his dinosaur-like brain (pea-sized and extinct).

The next time mum chanced upon the SOB was when she caught him lobbing fag butts over her fence into her dahlia bed.

Mum is usually shy around strangers and who, in the typical English way, won't do anything because “I don’t want to make a fuss.” Instead she usually mutters and moans sarcastic epithets aloud hoping he will get the message.

But the worm turned the other day. Having discovered a wasp’s nest under her bedroom window eaves, she was talking to the neighbour on the other side about how to get rid of it. Now she has had a small hole in her roof for about six months and has patched it up on the inside, rather than getting someone to fix a new tile on. “It’s on the to-do list.”

While discussing with nice neighbour about the nest, she said: “I don’t know how they got there, we removed a nest from the shed last year and I thought they had gone.”

Suddenly the SOB popped his head over the fence: “They will come in if you got a bloody big hole in your roof, that’s how they bloody well get in, through a bloody great big hole.”

“In that case they’ll be nesting in your mouth next year,” replied my mum.

Score!

Terracotta Worriers Bite Their Nails

2007-10-09T05:45:00.000-04:00

As mum said: What a day.

It started out so well- a lie in, nice sunny weather, got to mums at 11:30 (1/2 hour earlier than 12 deadline)... and then things started to go wrong. We were intending to go to see the terracotta warriors, well, they'd been inviting us round for ages but we were always too busy. We expected to have to queue up for tickets to get in, hence we wanted to leave before 12.

1) by the time we got to the bus stop, I noticed mum's shoelace was undone. I knelt down -in a massive swab of gooey lung cookie and without thinking, went to wipe my knee with my finger, thus ensuing much panic and overuse of baby wipes. Yuck yuck yuck.

2) Victoria station underground was closed. We got on a bus

3) Bus got stuck in traffic for an hour near Piccadilly

4) The Terracotta warriors were booked up. Until JANUARY

5) We booked January but the lady got the date on the tickets wrong and so we had to wait again in the queue to get the right ones

6) Too jaded to look round the b-mus, we decided to get a bit of food. Although we were nearly the first people in the restaurant, EVERYONE was served before us and the brie in my "gourmet sandwich" was tasteless and salty. French cuisine, my foot.

7) The tube on the way back home caught fire. As soon as we got on at oxford circus I could smell burning rubber. I asked anyone if they were slightly perturbed by this. The couple opposite said: "if there is smoke, that is when you have to worry." Three tube workers were in my carriage, I asked them if they knew why there was a really bad smell of burning rubber. They just shrugged. By now mum was getting embarrassed by my harrying. Thankfully I was proved right when, at pimlico, the tube driver announced with characteristic understatement: "ladies and gentlemen, I have been informed there is an apparent defect on this train. Please get off here."

As we got off, there was billowing smoke from a few carriages up. "Apparent defect?!" I yipped, a little like a Westie, it has to be admitted. "The ruddy train is on FIRE."

The tube workers just laughed.

Mum and I decided to get the bus - but NOBODY else left the platform. Are people IDIOTS? There's a ruddy train on fire, there is no way it is suddenly going to open the doors and let people on again. All trains are going to be held up for hours to come, so WHY were they all (and I mean, at least 100 people) standing there gormlessly looking on? Are they complete and utter gooseberries? Did they drop out of the silly tree and hit every branch on the way down? Were they all at a convention for the protection of total plonkers? When they were born, did the doctor squeeze their heads a bit too tightly?

What if it had been a bomb? I cannot express my utter disbelief at this sorry batch of humanity. What morons. They deserve to have been blown up to prevent the gene pool being further diluted by these brainless imbeciles. Really, the case for involuntary sterlisation gets harder to argue against each day. When we exited the station, there was a worried-looking mother who came up to ask us whether there was a train on fire as she could smell the smoke from the foyer and was worried about her son, who she was meant to be meeting. I said: "Yeah, its on fire, but everyone else decided to stay down there and watch instead of coming up." It's like those horror films - people hear a creepy noise, the lights go out and they go to investigate to see where that unearthly shrieking and running water is coming from. Not me, matey. If I heard a scary noise I'd be out of that house like a shot, running hell for leather until I was in a crowded place, most likely a police station where there are lots of strong men and women with guns and things to protect me. "He who lives to run away, lives to run away another day." Curiosity will not kill this cat, no siree.

8) We finally get home and nip to Sainsbury's, where mum forgets to get cash back and then goes back for a second try. After which she is convinced that the dopey man serving her has memorised all her card details because she can't find her bill, so even though she actually has her card, she cancels it in case the man has stolen her identity. If he were really able to memorise all the numbers on a card in less than 20 seconds, he would not be a 30-year old Sainsbury's till assistant. Yet somehow it is MY fault for giving mum a nectar card and I have to listen to a whole saga about why he would not have given her a bill (my suggestion - that he just forgot - was considered "parochial" and "missing the point").

Seriously, you can't make this up. Mugabe himself could not imagine such torture for me. All because I cursed the person who swabbed on the ground. I bet that person has been having a wonderful day. I would damn him again, but I can't deal with any more bad karma. Seriously, Old Testament dudes cursed people all the time and they were blessed. Elisha was mocked by loads of asbos for being a baldy, so he curses them and a bear comes out and mauls 42 of them. I curse a pavement spitter and it's me that gets a shoddy day. Why couldn't a bear have come out of the sideroad and bitten that gobbing chump on the rear, just to assure me that there is retribution on this earth? Well, maybe not a bear, but perhaps a dog? Even a pigeon. Just anything.

9) At last I get home, with my Tiffin, hot chocolate drink and double-bill of Friends. I get a phone call from mum, where she informs me that she was chatted up by a local shopkeeper, but when she left the shop she realised her fly was open. It's not really retribution but it helped.

At the time of writing, it's 11:10. I don't think anything else can go wrong, but just in case I hear a creepy noise, I've got the police station right behind my flat. I take no chances.

And they called it Puppy Love

2007-10-03T05:18:00.000-04:00

QUESTIONS TO ASK GEOFF HOON

2007-10-01T05:07:00.000-04:00

Hello all! I am interviewing Geoff Hoon at 1:30 today at Downing Street.

I will be asking him questions about his role as City Minister and Chief Whip, what Labour's plans for London are (business, Finance, Crossrail) etc.

If you have any questions (sensible ones) please post them here and I will ask them for you!!