Where Did the Good People Go?

I'm a Scottish Highlander, born and bred. So I'm more used to rolling hills, and vast lochs than busy motorways and any kind of building that has more than four floors.

When my family heard that I was moving down to Glasgow to go off to university, I got a lot of "Oh, you'll need to be careful down there..." But I was going to be a sophisticated student, I didn't really need to worry. Nothing bad was possibly going to happen to me. 

Given that I was raised by two police officers, that was probably a stupid way to think.

The Thing About Karma...

It's January, with all the usual post-Christmas blues and unwanted food babies. Well, you can't just leave all the chocolate that you got in your selection boxes, and the sooner you eat it, the sooner you can start the big healthy eating kick. Right?

Right.

The 3 Reasons You Don't Want to "Fine Dine".

Like most people, there's always a deep, dark part of myself that wishes I was rich. It's the same part of me that wishes I didn't have to do chores or think too hard. You probably know what I mean - the little evil voice in your head that says you don't really need to go into work today or that the dirty dishes can wait until tomorrow...

When I begin wishing that I was rich, I begin thinking about what I would do with more money than anyone really needs and I came to the conclusion that I would like to go to fancy restaurants and eat fancy foods.

So you can imagine my excitement when, this week, I was given the opportunity to go to a fancy restaurant and see what all the fuss was about to write a review. I'd set my sights high - five star dining, exotic cocktails, and well-connected clientele that would spot me, quiz me about my writing and immediately send me to one of their publisher friends.

But like all deep, dark wishes, what you get isn't normally what you'd hoped. So I've made a list of reasons to avoid overly fancy restaurants to try and prevent anyone else experiencing the disappointment I did. 

Is the Magic Really Gone?

Yesterday, as part of my boyfriend's birthday celebrations, me and a few of my friends all went to the cinema. We were especially excited because we went for the new DBOX seats for a second viewing of "The Hobbit".

These are seats that move with the film, like a simulator at a theme park. 

Awesome, I know.

The film was great, and the seats didn't even make me want to hurl like rollercoasters so often do. What really bothered me though, was the company of the public sitting around me.

Here I was, sitting with my bottle of Dr. Pepper and bag of Werther's Originals (if I buy chewy sweets or chocolate, they don't last through the trailers), hunkering down to enjoy Bilbo's adventures when the couple behind me starting having a conversation. A loud conversation. As if they were standing in the middle of Buchanan Street.

So I went with it for a little while because, you know, it was the very beginning of the movie and sometimes it takes a while to get into the swing of the cinema.

But then it carried on. And on. And on.

In the parts of the film where there's thoughtful silences or long panning shots of New Zealand's lovely landscape, they sat laughing and sniggering to themselves. When something remotely cool happened that could never occur in real life, the man would be all "What the $*%&! was that!".

Dead gangster.

I tried to follow the unspoken cinema-goers etiquette. You ignore it for a little while. Then you get mad. Then you tell the person you're sitting next to that you're really mad. Then you give the absolute turd sitting behind you a dirty look over your shoulder.

It was after this dirty look that I saw how much bigger than me the man actually was, so my reign of fury ended there.

To make things even worse than all that, a woman sitting down in front of us, who had also paid the extra bit of money for the DBOX seats WAS SITTING ON HER PHONE FOR THE MAJORITY OF THE MOVIE!

...

It took a great deal to contain my rage at that one. Sorry but I don't want to be kept up to date on your Facebook status or Twitter followers when I have paid good money to come and see a movie! 

So it got me thinking. What happened to the thrill of cinema? Going to the cinema for me was always a treat, as we lived in quite a rural area and couldn't get there all the time. It involved an hour drive, so getting to see a movie was a big deal for me. I don't know if people living in cities felt the same awe at the big screen, but for the sake of my argument, let's say that they did.

You go to the cinema for the magic of the cinema. There's something exciting about having your popcorn on your lap, your fizzy drink in the cup holder in your chair and the lights going down around you so you can watch the trailers, which only get you excited for coming to the cinema again.

But now that I'm older, I'm getting the feeling that most people have just stopped caring about the cinema experience. Maybe tickets are cheaper now than they used to be, so going to the cinema isn't so much of a day out anymore? Or maybe because so many movies are coming out every week, a new movie is no big deal because the next blockbuster hit is out tomorrow?

No matter what the general consensus is, I still love cinema. Maybe if everyone reading this would join me in a NO TOLERANCE policy on movie-wreckers, we might save the magic?

I do believe in cinema, I do, I do!

The New Year.

I love New Year. Like every cliche you've ever heard about New Year, I love the chance we all get to start again and try to make our lives a little better than the year before.

This year, my Hogmanay was relatively quiet. I was at home, with my boyfriend Kieran and some friends and we drank, played board games and watched TV. Hardly the rock and roll night that is expected of students in Glasgow. Instead of hitting the party circuit, we brought in the bells with Jools and his Hootenanny and I loved it.

What's most significant for me on this New Year though, is my resolution. And yes, I am one of those people that makes a resolution and never keeps it but continues to make resolutions anyway. Believe me when I say that it's taken a long time for me to get to a point where I can admit I never stick with my resolutions.

My resolution this year is to take my writing more seriously. To stop putting everything off and actually get pen to paper. Writing is what I love to do, and if I want to do it I'd better get my act together...

So here is my informal, one-sided contract with you. Don't panic, you don't need to sign. 

By the end of 2013, I want to have a novel completely ready to send off to publishers, if I want to.

It's pretty ambitious, I know, but I've got to start somewhere I guess?

And I'm thinking that if I actually tell people of my plans, I will feel more obliged to stick to them...

Hopefully this New Year will get me closer to where I want to be and will be more beneficial than a fad diet or self-help book. 

I hope that your New Year was as good as mine, wherever you are and if you have a resolution, then we can set out on 2013 together. I guarantee you'll probably be more productive than me!

Christmas: Round One

It's become a kind of informal tradition with me and my friends, over the past couple of years, to have our own little Christmas together before going home. Since we're all at university, the likeliness is we won't see each other until the New Year, so we like to have a good old knees up!

Last year, we all huddled into our little Student Halls kitchen, trying not to bash each other's knees too much as we had at the turkey and the presents...

But this year, we're almost-but-not-really grown ups, and we all gathered in my flat for the feast. My boyfriend and I had planned it for weeks, bought in the food and wrapped the presents. This was the first time that I had ever even attempted cooking a Christmas dinner, so I wouldn't be surprised if everyone was a little nervous.

Everything was from frozen, most of it was cooked at the wrong temperature, and you know what? It tasted great. We all sat with food in our laps, and while I cooled off from the heat of the kitchen, we all had a great laugh.

So I'm going to take a minute to say thank you to everyone who came and made it such a great night. Thank you for all the lovely presents, and your company was a treat.

Merry Christmas (round one)!

An Unexpected Treat.

Today, like many people across the UK, I'd imagine, I went to go see "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey". And like many people, I'd imagine, I was quite nervous about entering the theatre. 

Have a look at the trailer here!

The book is definitely one of my favourites, and with how many films turn out to be shoddy imitations, I knew that I didn't want my beloved Bilbo to fall into the ranks of Edward Cullen or Eragon...

I had my Monster Munch crisps. I had Galaxy chocolate. I had Cherry Tango. But even they couldn't ease the tension that built when the lights went down.

But I needn't have worried. From the very beginning, The Hobbit blew me away.

Acting? Brilliant.
Soundtrack? Superb.
Special effects? Amazing.

It scores ten out of ten on every level.

To be honest, I came out of the cinema and a part of me really wanted to go back in and watch the whole thing all over again. 

And I probably would have, if not for the crazy queue waiting for the next screening. I'm all for fan-girling over a movie, but dwarf beards, wizard hats, elf ears and hobbit feet are a bit far...

So tonight I can curl up with the last of the Christmas presents I need to wrap, maybe a small tipple, and relive what I'd be tempted to call the best film of the year, followed closely by Skyfall.

Have you seen The Hobbit yet? Was it your 2012 film highlight?

The Goose is Getting Fat!

With two weeks until Christmas, I think I could be forgiven for getting all excited about getting the family together for a good old knees up. Hopefully the past few weeks of stressing, spending and stressing some more will be worth it.

But while I was on the magical internet, I found a story that made me grin a little. Normally seeing outrageous amounts of Christmas lights makes me shudder - just think about the wasted money and noxious gases filling the atmosphere... And when I say outrageous, I don't mean people who put up the occasional decoration, I'm talking about houses like this...

It's just not something I've ever understood. I didn't understand the appeal of smothering your house in what should be on your tree. But then I heard about the Richards Family all the way over in Canberra, Australia. Have a look at the story below:

The Richards Family

They set the World Record for the most Christmas lights on their house. I got halfway through this article and started sighing to myself "WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING?".

Here's the numbers: 331,038 lights; 97,211 feet of LED strings; 15,000 cable ties; and a 59-foot tree.

But I'm incredibly glad that I read on. It turns out that the aim of this family is not only to put "a smile on people's faces", but to raise money for a charity that's goal is to save the lives of babies by eliminating complications in birth and help families through the loss of losing a baby.

Needless to say that when I think about what I thought when I read about the Richards' at first, I feel like a noob. 

I reckon there are still probably a great deal of people who believe fairy lights across their roof will somehow make them better than their neighbours (there's always one). But maybe there are genuinely people out there who put up their lights to make other people happy?

Maybe I'll even put up a token string of lights this year?

Leave a comment. Are you a Christmas light enthusiast?

Only in Texas.

Whilst trawling Youtube today, instead of doing the millions of other things I should probably do, I came across a video that made me so mad that I finally got around to making a blog. Here's the link, so maybe you can get an idea of why it got to me so much.

Westboro Baptist Church on The Tyra Banks Show

In short, Shirley Phelps, a member of Westboro Baptist Church, Kansas, Texas, believes that all people who are gay, or support the rights of gay people are sinners and will burn in Hell. She goes further, saying that 9/11 was an act of God, punishing America for their 'gay ways'.

Now, I could go on to say really horrible things about this woman (stuck in the past, bigot, etc.) but I think my time would be better spent on other things - like saying that there is nothing wrong with being gay. Nothing at all. Sometimes the Bible's messages are used to justify hatred like this and while I'm not a Christian myself, I know that one of the central messages of it all is love. Love your neighbour, love the people that wrong you, forgive, and don't judge others - let God do the judging.

Which part of all of those messages says that it's alright to judge gay people who obviously love each other enough to stand up against so much controversy to be together? 

It's my opinion that love as vast and as strong as that should only be admired.

Jeremy Kyle concurs:

Westboro Baptist Church on The Jeremy Kyle Show


Leave a comment below letting me know what your thoughts are? Do you believe that being gay is wrong?