Tiens! Tea, Anyone?

In the Edinburgh office, we have to walk to the coffee cart to procure our own beverages. Yesterday, I heard some news that one of our London offices has a tea trolley.

A tea trolley?

Does this not belong to another era?

The only experience I have ever had of a tea trolley is Madame Cholet in the Wombles, who I am pretty sure had a trolley and a bell.

Thinking back, there was once an ill-fated trolley attempt at our Edinburgh office, when they built the Link Building and connected us to next door. Back then, I worked on the Lower Ground Floor. No-one from the canteen could quite work out the lift structure that would get them from Lower Ground Dundas to Lower Ground Fettes. Apparently it was complicated. So, the tea trolley remained a fabled legend known only by those on the upper floors.

However, despite feeling like a tea trolley is a mythical remnant of another age, I am reliably informed that the London office has one. It still has a bell. I am fairly certain that they also all wear bowler hats, but my contact refused to admit that.

I have determined that they need to be brought into the 21st century. The solution is obvious. Dispense with the bell, and create the Tea Trolley Tracker App.

Who says banking is old-fashioned?

Christmas is coming, along with an inevitable deluge of adverts.

It seems my post of yesterday, Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn, was mildly prophetic. After enjoying weeks of glorious sunshine, normal Scottish October service has now resumed. Cue a dreich, rainy day in which I got soaked on the way home from work, to ballet, and back from ballet.

We've started rehearsing for the Christmas show (before Hallowe'en!) and that got me thinking about Christmas. Christmas, of course, means the launch of seasonal adverts especially designed to sell you stuff you don't really need. 

And the worst culprit of them all? Perfume adverts.

I saw today that Brad Pitt is going to be advertising Chanel No. 5. Seriously? Honestly? And he gets £4m  to do it? I had to watch a sponsors video before I could even watch the teaser clip. Adverts for adverts? Brad Pitt advertising a woman's scent? This is a new low even for perfumery.

I hate perfume adverts. They bring out an unpleasant, vitriolic side of me who yells at the TV when I see a woman in a red cloak chasing a wolf or something equally fatuous.

I cannot even think of a caption. The idiocy of this picture speaks for itself.

Every year when Chanel, or Lancome, or whoever, launch a new campaign I just want vomit, but most especially their celebrity "featurette" ones, like Nicole Kidman pretending to be an actress who wanted to be a dancer. What? Huh? Who cares?

They don't describe the product, they don't tell you anything unique about the product. They simply peddle in the equally fleeting assets of beauty and popularity to associate their brand with an aspirational ideal of a lifestyle, which buying their product will in no way entitle you to or provide you with.

Obviously I see why they can’t sell the product in an advert. Describing a smell is not going to get you anywhere. I also see why they have to advertise. If they didn’t there would be no brand awareness of their particular perfume, and their sales would reduce. As long as a perfume industry exists, it makes good business sense to advertise.

It’s just they're so vapid, and vacuous, and unrelated to a smell. To me they epitomise everything about the fashion and beauty industry I absolutely hate. They’re linking their perfume to an ideal of beauty and a lifestyle that has no relation to what you will receive when you purchase the product.

This is not going to happen to you if you buy this perfume.

Andrew thinks it’s funny when I watch television at Christmas time and launch into a tirade about how buying a perfume isn't going to give me a giant, long gold neck, or let me wade through liquid gold, or enable me to dance through a field of meadows in a negligee or render me suddenly appealing to Brad Pitt.

I’m sorry I can’t be more cogent. It’s just perfume adverts. I hate them.

Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn

I've left it very late for a blog update today, because I've been catching up on the Strictly Come Dancing episodes that I missed at the weekend.

Ooopsadoodle.

Not much going on in Linzertorte land today other than the glitterball and lycra. Yesterday I was at Parent Teacher Consultation:

Josie accompanied me for the first time (they're allowed to in P4 onwards, if parents wish). She was desperate to come, but so so nervous. She confessed to me that she was worried she'd get a bad report because even though she was usually good, that day she and another boy had had an argument about finishing their work. They're certainly right about her being a worrier.

I didn't expect Lori to be perceived as so articulate and expressive with her opinions, but it's hard to see her as that when she has an older sister who is such a chatterbox. Must remember not to put preconceived notions onto second child. They are invariably warped by faulty memory and the passage of time.

Anyway, to round off a good couple of days, here's a picture taken on the cusp of autumn.

I hope it makes you smile as you remember the joy of getting an unexpected ice cream.

I was going to have a competition to see who could guess the two ice cream flavours, but I couldn't think of a prize. Never mind. You can imagine you won. Awesome prize, huh?

The Gamification of Life

Today, walking home from dancing, I noticed a poster for Weightwatchers.

It didn't say, "Join Weightwatchers" or "Come to Weightwatchers".

It said, "Play Weightwatchers".

It's not like a fruit machine, people.

"Ooooh....3 eclairs today, step on the scales and what will I roll? Will it be a lose, a hold, a gain?"

I'll have an e(clair) please, Bob.

Um. It'll be a gain. It's not a lottery. It's a fairly simple equation. More in than burned off? Gain. The reverse? Loss.

However, sarcasm aside, I decided to check the website. It is like a competition! They do win things!

I suppose I'll just shut up now. That's what I get for being smart.

Weekend Notes and Some Fun in the Autumn Sun

I've started a new venture writing for Weekend Notes. To begin with, I was just doing it for writing practice, but it's jogged me onwards at the weekends into new activities and fun with the children.

They're certainly feeling the benefit. One of my first reviews was of Stockbridge Market. We've just finished one of the pots of jam we bought. I say we...Lori was the prime consumer of the jam. It was blackcurrant. She loves anything blackcurrant, but especially juice and jam. How much do you think she enjoyed it?

I will show you.

What? I'm meant to be finishing my porridge first?

But my tongue is much better than the spoon.

Never mind. All finished now.

 She likes it a lot? Yes, you'd be right. To quote the little blackcurrant monster herself:

"A very, very lot, Mama."

We've also been out and about to local parks, Inverleith Park was one, George V Park another. That one's still to be written up, but I rather like the selection of pictures to go along with it, especially because it was another beautiful, golden autumnal day. Perfect for playing on the slide. Here's a taster of what's to come.

Yes, I am at the top of the slide.

Yes, I am about to slide down it and take a picture while I am doing so.

Yes, it was brilliant and you are all invited next week.

No, I have never really grown up and having children is an excuse to go to playparks without people looking at me funny.

Yay! Sunny autumn days are just my best.

Bide a wee

My little girl is growing up. Today, she announced,

"I used to love the Singing Kettle when I was little."

I thought you were still little, Josie Posie.

Lindsay was confused by how quickly Josie seemed to be growing.

Last year, she told me she never wanted not to walk to school with me. I told her she might change her mind when she was a bit older. Three days ago, she asked to walk home on the other side of the road. On Thursday, it was walking to school over the road. And now on Friday it was a super, mega-sized teenage huff, because she was sent to bed before Strictly Come Dancing.

I watched this with sweaty palms and my heart in my mouth. It's only a climbing wall, for goodness sake!

It's by turns lovely and horrible to watch her growing independence.

Little Miss Muffet

A spider just descended from the ceiling onto my keyboard. I can't see him now. I'm presuming that I'm not clattering him to death by typing this, but I think he's going to be very confused by the earthquake right about now.

I watched him descend with some shock. As I didn't expect something to enter my field of vision from above other than my hair (which does that ALL THE TIME) I almost brushed him into oblivion (behind my ear).

This might have been my reaction, or not. You know, not that I would scream at a spider or anything.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to try and extract him from the arachnid death trap that is my keyboard.

A couple of useful hints that will serve you well in life.

Mornings are always compressed around here. I get sick of the sound of my own voice.

"Lori, eat up."
"Porridge, have you eaten your porridge?"*
"Josie, stop reading, and get your shoes on."
"Josie, stop reading, and brush your hair."
"Lori, remember to drink as well as eat."
"Josie, while I'm glad you're reading, please don't do it while you clean your teeth."
"Josie. Put the book down!"

I'm sure you can sense the theme with both my children. One won't eat. The other won't stop reading. Both of these things cause our mornings to stretch interminably towards the 08:30 deadline, by which time we have to be out of the house, or we will be late for school.

My own routine sometimes gets a little side-tracked, and distracted.

Does yours?

If it does, then have two very handy and helpful hints for you:

1. Carefully inspect the aerosols that you pick up. Shaving CANNOT be substituted for deodorant. It will set you back quite some time in your morning routine.

2. Carefully inspect your make-up bag. It may be that a child has put something in it that will not work with your look. Like a glue stick, instead of lip gloss. Take it from me. This does not work, not even for constructing an on-trend high-shine glitter look.

Lindsay's workmates were impressed with what she could create using only the children's art supplies.

*One of Lori's nicknames. We used to call Josie, "Josie Posie, and then just "Posie". When Lori arrived we called her "Lori Pori", and then "Lori Pori Porridge", it ended up as "Porridge". Why? Who knows.