Verbal High Fives

Many people believe that Fridays are the best day of the week because they’re the start of the weekend. Statistically, Fridays are the best day of the week to ask for a raise and buy into the stock market. If days of the week were people, Fridays would undoubtedly be Chuck Norris. Typically the world is just a better place on Fridays – ‘Thank God it’s Friday’ right? But sporadically a rouge Friday comes along; a bad Friday who has been spending far too much time with insufferable Mondays... Last Friday was rogue. It was cold. So cold, that by comparison the inside of my refrigerator could be accurately described as “somewhat balmy.” And I had a job interview which meant I had to venture outside into the cold to catch the bus. It also meant I was heroically wearing high heels in public – footwear I generally reserve for dire emergencies like a date, or weddings, or death. My walking speed in high heels is drastically reduced. As a result I was running late. So I was scampering do...

Last week I travelled from Birmingham down to Kent to spend a week with my parents. When I booked my trip online, the website informed me that I would have to take 3 trains and a tube to reach my destination. In theory this seemed easy enough, however, when you factor in a rapidly-moving escalator and a ridiculously heavy shoulder bag, the result is a fascinating public exhibition of the human domino effect in the London Subway. Not to brag, but I have a degree of upper body strength rarely found in the living - outside retirement villages, that is. If I had to arm-wrestle an asparagus I would probably lose. Historically when it comes to me, the terms “upper” “body” and “strength” are never used in a favourable combination. So, it is somewhat ironic that I don’t own any of those nice suitcases with wheels; I only have big shoulder bags you carry. With my remarkably pathetic biceps in mind, I tried to pack light for this holiday by only including the “basic essentials” – a packing term...

New Year - the time of year when we, fuelled by expired Christmas leftovers, look within and make some substantial life-altering goals such as electing to submit our unsuspecting body to surprising bouts of unsolicited exercise and resolving to forgo delightfully staple food groups like carbohydrates, chocolates, and KFC in a quest to determine whether we truly can trim our waistline by consuming a mere lettuce leaf and 2 rice cakes daily without gnawing off our own arms out of sheer hunger.  We humans take this job of setting New Year’s Resolutions very, very seriously; after all we fully intend to stick to them for the rest of the calendar year (I am using the term “calendar year” here in the sense of “for at least the first 5 days of January”). Previously I made the rookie mistake of severely over-estimating my ability to rise to the challenge of a multi-pronged New Year’s Resolutions list, therefore this year I have made only one. In 201...