Category: Journal
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Is breastfeeding offensive?
I’ve written a bit recently about how sometimes I just want to tell someone to “get over it” when they claim to be offended by something. Breastfeeding is a great example of this. Apparently a flashy London hotel has asked a breastfeeding mother to put a napkin over her baby’s head while breastfeeding. This has sparked…
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A deliberate deception
I have a confession to make. It was the school fair recently and we were asked to contribute some home baking to sell. I bought a lemon cake from Marks & Spencer, took it out of its packaging and then wrapped it up in cling film to make it look like I’d made it. Then…
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NatWest: tearing marriages apart
Ok, I’m not being serious with my title. I just want to make this clear that I’m exaggerating slightly here. Quite a bit actually. But I am pissed off with Natwest and so this is going to be a bit of a rant. A little while ago I wrote about the problem I had trying…
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Snow!
No, it isn’t snowing in Aberdeen. Not yet anyway but hopefully it will soon. However it is snowing on my blog because I’ve just switched on the snow effect which is available for all WordPress.com blogs over the Christmas period. Go to Settings > General in your Dashboard and scroll down to Snow if you…
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Vegetarian haggis: Take 2
Another week, another vegetarian haggis to sample. This one is made by Macsween and was bought from Sainsburys. I liked this one even more than the last one. It was delicious. Not too dry, not mushy, just perfect and with a lovely texture and flavour. It was also very filling. I got the ingredients off…
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If there’s a car in the fridge …
I’ve never understood how someone could have a box of chocolates in their fridge for more than a few days. How do they do it? Give me a box of chocolates and the whole lot is gone in about 24 hours. Then what usually happens is I get a headache and feel sick and swear…
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A gaudy shirt and feminism
Ok, I promise not to write about this topic again after this post but I have to get this off my chest one more time. I got some thought-provoking comments on my last post about the gaudy shirt worn by scientist Matt Taylor on international television. Thank you. I appreciate all the comments. I even changed…
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The Rosetta shirt
I can’t resist writing a post about “shirtstorm”, the drama about the Rosetta guy and his shirt with cartoons of scantily-clad women. Humans have just landed a robot on a comet! This is an incredible achievement and yet everyone is so obsessed with someone’s choice of clothing that we have failed to appreciate the significance of what has just happened. So…
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Sexism, carnivorous plants, and cycling
I sometimes have problems spotting the more subtle forms of sexism. I’m not sure if this is because I’m a woman and I just don’t notice, or if it’s for some other reason. Fortunately I’m married to a feminist so I’m unlikely to be taken advantage of for being so naive about this. What constitutes…
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And the diagnosis is …
An ocular migraine. This is just as I thought but a nice relief nonetheless. And the cure is ……. menopause 🙂 Apparently an ancestor of mine had a baby at the age of 50 and in a time before fertility treatment was available so I’ll probably just have to be patient with this. I went…
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I’m still alive!
Thanks for all the lovely comments on my post yesterday and the emails, tweets, and text messages. I’m completely fine today. I was just over-reacting which is not so unusual for me. I’m pretty sure the vision loss was migraine-related. I was just confused because it was unlike any kind of vision impairment I’ve had before…
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Welcome to the NHS and banking in Britain
A strange thing happened to me this morning: very suddenly a grey cloud descended halfway into my vision on one eye. I could still see below this grey cloud but from about halfway across my vision and up, I couldn’t see anything. After about a minute, it vanished as quickly as it appeared. There was…
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Butt plugs, deadly nightshade, and hookers
Apparently a large, green, blow-up Christmas tree in the centre of Paris is outrageous and humiliating if you’re of a right-wing political persuasion. The sculpture, which was part of an exhibition of modern art, was vandalised by right-wing protestors. Why? Because it looks like a butt plug. I have to confess that I didn’t even know what a butt plug…
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The Fly
My children were fighting over dead flies yesterday. They came charging into my office arguing over why Elizabeth should have three dead flies and Daniel only one. I looked at them in disbelief and with more than a little exasperation said, “Children, you’re fighting over dead flies!!!”. Daniel immediately realised the absurdity of the situation and…
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Hard or soft?
We’ve got a new home: a rental but a really, really nice one. We got the keys yesterday but there are no beds here so I ordered some mattresses for the kids from an online store with the name MattressNextDay. Apparently mattress next day = mattress three days later. I also ordered a luxurious latex mattress…
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Nappy days
When our babies were in nappies (nappies = diapers) we used cloth nappies. I rarely bought disposables: they’re way too expensive and not very biodegradable so we invested in some good-quality washable nappies instead. I have a tendency to get obsessed with things and I got very obsessed with cloth nappies. I look back on this now and…
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An apology and Scottish independence
I retweeted a tweet earlier that I thought was funny but was criticised for tweeting foul language. I actually regret retweeting that tweet now (and have removed it from my feed), not so much because of the language – I do have a bit of a foul mouth – but because I can see that some might find…
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Panic mode
It’s time to panic and freak out. Less than two weeks to go before we leave for Scotland. Our house will be auctioned next week. We haven’t started any packing and I’ve only just listed our car on TradeMe today. How does TradeMe know more about our car than I do? Admittedly I know very…
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The 10 album challenge
Inspired by Denise’s post over at Listen Watch Read Share, I thought I’d try to compile my own list of top ten albums. It’s not such an easy task because music preferences change over time, so I’ve tried to select music that I’ve loved for years and that I never tire of. This is certainly…
