Verbal High Fives

There are certain words that can strike fear into the hearts of the most courageous adult. Words like recession, war, Tsunami, cellulite, paisley, and telephone pole. I used to live in a world that did not include any strong feelings regarding telephone poles but then something happened on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Shropshire and I now seem incapable of restoring a state of mind in which I can walk down the road, look at a telephone pole and not fearfully crumble into the foetal position. It all happened on a weekend work retreat that included team-building activities. If you haven’t been traumatized by these before, they are basically random scenarios designed to help you “face your fears” by subjecting you to bizarre situations that you could never realistically expect to encounter in your normal, everyday life without being a professional stunt person. The first thing we had to do was put on a crash helmet in order to protect our brains from the inconvenience of being ...

This year I’ve found myself engaged in a lot of home-improvement type activities: you know - painting walls, constructing lamps, potting plants, and successfully building an Ikea flat-pack chest of drawers and matching wardrobe without burning the incomprehensibly ridiculous cartoon instructions in a blind rage. Last Saturday I was at a dinner party with 3 other women when someone suggested we attempt to re-mount a fallen curtain rail in the main bedroom. Now we didn’t have the benefit of a ladder, or tools, or even a man  with a Swiss Army knife on the premises (I would be lying if I didn’t admit that wine was a factor in the decision-making process) but I was not deterred because even professionals will tell you; when it comes to DIY, the most important thing is not technical ability but to appear confident . And my confidence was at an all time high because I had a pretty impressive DIY track record inasmuch as I have never been trapped inside a flat-pack wardrobe I myself w...

I recently broke one of four fundamental rules that govern my adult life: 1. Never leave the house without antibacterial hand sanitizer. 2. Never listen to Kenny G. 3. Never watch a musical unless being forced to do so at gunpoint. 4. Never go camping after 1997. I broke rule Number 4. Camping is widely promoted as an outdoor recreational activity which offers the participant a "wonderful" opportunity to get close to nature. As a nature-lover myself, I thrive on engaging with nature in its various untamed natural wilderness states - as long as it is on TV or located within 5 feet of urban sprawl and plumbing.  So, it was with a certain amount of apprehension (and a statistically alarming quantity of antibacterial hand sanitiser) that I recently found myself camping in a muddy show-ground in Shepton Mallet for mandatory - by which I mean “work-related” purposes.  We were camping because, even though mankind has developed perfectly adequate towns and cities ...

It’s the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee which, for those uneducated plebs out there, means that the British public just had a long weekend in which to pay tribute to their Queen and celebrate her incredible 60 years of Royal service. Q . How did the British public go about accomplishing this important task? A. They toasted Her Royal Highness until they became inebriated to the point of not knowing who the Queen even was.  Just kidding, the British public would never do that! They showed their appreciation for the Queen by turning out in their hundreds of thousands to attend 4 days of Jubilee events, stand in the rain for hours, and wave their British flags until they got tennis elbow. My family and I decided to attend the Thames River Pageant to watch the 1000 boat flotilla, by which I mean we sat in the rain for 6 hours. After all, the origin of the term “British support” comes from the West Germanic phrase for “to be rained upon in a patriotic manner.” We ...

I have not been able to operate heavy machinery for the last 10 days, nor the 30 years before that - but especially not in the last 10 days - thanks to Labyrinthitis. It’s an inner ear infection with a range of delightful symptoms that include Vertigo, nausea, and a pressing need to lie down at all times. Technically speaking, Vertigo is the light-headed, off-balance, out-of-sorts feeling you would get if you ascended too quickly when Scuba Diving in jelly, only it sadly doesn’t come with the fashion awesomeness of flippers or snackable environment. Consequently, balancing has lately become a full-time occupation for me. Just getting out of bed and remaining upright seems like a strange new skill that requires a preposterous level of focused intent. I’m so vertically challenged that my single greatest personal achievement of recent days has been heroically bringing the spoon to my mouth with the cereal AND milk still in it. I reached my lowest point...

I recently moved to a country that (alarmingly!) cherishes wearing fancy dress. I was faintly mortified to realize that the average, hard-working, reasonably rational British citizen will seize every opportunity to embrace the Fancy Dress dress code; eagerly jumping into fancy-dress outfits for New Year parties, Halloween, church socials, staff parties, hen nights, weddings, lunch time, dentist appointments, filling in a tax return etc. This is unfortunate because I believe fancy dress is an outrage against humanity and strongly recommend that anyone suggesting fancy dress themed parties should either be (a.) quarantined or (b.) extradited to Australia. You see, fancy dress violates one of the two fundamental principals that I live my life by: 1.) Never run with a chainsaw 2.) Never look directly at any Lycra-clad area of the human anatomy Because everyone in the business of seeing (including guide dogs) cannot deny the glaring reality that fancy dress places far too high a ...

Historically I’ve never been all that flagrantly “sporty.” I once managed to successfully fall over and injure myself on a school sports day in the 100 meter hurdles… on the flattest part of the field… right at the beginning of the race... before I even reached the first hurdle. Ahem... I do not know where my unwavering aversion towards sports first began. Perhaps it’s rooted my synchronized swimming years (I so wish I was kidding right now). But I’m probably not keen on sports because the only physically demanding activity I ever excelled in as a teenager was “falling” - my personal best is 3 storeys.  So in my vocabulary, the terms ‘fun’ and ‘sport’ have only once harmoniously coexisted in the same sentence and that was in the summer of 1993 when I asked my school netball coach, “Can’t we just stop playing this sport now and rather do something fun?”  Nevertheless, I recently found myself voluntarily engaging in a sport of sorts. I went Clay Pigeon Shooting. Not b...

Last weekend I went away to Symonds Yat with 24 of my closest friends:– a group of people who are still desperately trying to remember my name. We went away for some much needed R and R – which I believe is an acronym for 'Romping Reindeer' or 'Risky Recreation' because we almost killed ourselves in our outdoor pursuits and I’m certain I heard reindeer prancing on the barn roof at night. On Saturday afternoon I elected to go abseiling in the Royal Forest of Dean which was a little scary because some idiot -- the Symonds Yat Great Outdoors Authorities should really look into this right away -- had placed large quantities of gravity right at the bottom of the 500 foot vertical cliff face! Real abseiling (and I know this information may shock those of you who have never been abseiling before) takes place mainly in the environment which consists primarily of “dirt” and “nature” – a lethal combination that can easily kill you if you do not remain alert and correctly ...

I am one of the many commuters who make use of the United Kingdom’s public transport system every day. Sure, it sounds somewhat tedious and a tad dull but using public transport – particularly the D bus – recently became a bit of an extreme sport. On Wednesday this week I boarded the D bus outside my office which, unbeknownst to me, was being driven by a fairly "enthusiastic" bus driver (I am using the term "enthusiastic" here more in the sense of ‘slightly unhinged’). He was in his early 20s, wore Oakley sunglasses and had no hair on top of his head. That was because it was all growing out of his ears; he had so much ear hair it looked like he’d snorted a Persian cat. And h e drove the D bus that afternoon with all the passion of a man who had a disgruntled Persian cat in his trousers. I knew the ride home was going to be something special when he floored it before everyone was seated. This resulted in a human pile-up towards the rear of the bus. T ...

Today I started my new job. I was merely one of forty eager recruits beginning the company’s 3 week induction course. First, we got our employee photo ID badges on lanyards which we need to wear at ALL TIMES least we forget how good looking we are or how to spell our names. This employee ID badge is pretty powerful. It not only gives me FREE bus rides in town but, if swiped correctly, it also gives me access into the building, the company elevator, the toilets, my office floor, and it enables me to moon walk. If I swipe it incorrectly it locks me out of the building/ my office/ the elevator/ all toilets for 3 minutes while simultaneously transporting me into an extra terrestrial space craft. Therefore I swipe it with utmost care. Part of the induction course is to do extensive in-house training (and by ‘in house training’ I obviously mean that they 'try to break our spirit.') We spent the morning discovering the reasons why group ice breakers were originally invented; to m...