Write Life

Write life
Write a diary.
Write a covering letter. 
Write to your family.
Write a love letter; how you can taste flowers when you kiss them.
Write a forgive me letter; how you're so messed up you don't who you are without them.
Write a break-up letter; how it's not them, it's you.
Write about change. 
Write about today's generation; how it's lost but can be found.  
Write about your dreams; how one day you'll make it and then write about how you did it.
Write to your friends; thank them for being there. 
Write about the good times; how you'd give anything to return. 
Write about the bad times; bury the memories.
Write about the future.
Write to your workmates; they helped you to the top.
Write about retirement.
Write about your kids; the story of their first word.
Write about strangers.
Write about singledom; the pleasures and sorrows of freedom. 
Write about travel, of seeing the wonders of the world.
Write about music.
Write about books.
Write about writing.
Write life.

All the nice ones are taken!

All the nice ones are taken, aren't they! Life gives some other young stallion the good fortune to meet (and hook up with or marry) that one person who really lights your fire. It amuses itself by giving you a good, hard kick in the nuts like that!

Of course, you don't always instantly know the object of your affections is attached. How many times have you asked someone out but been shot down in flames with a 'Sorry, but I'm already seeing someone'? Not quite the reply you were hoping for, so you stammer a little, blush a little, apologise and be on your way.

So today I'm here to point out a few signs that a guy or girl might be single, help you avoid asking out people who are already in a relationship and, into the bargain, transform you into sleuths of the dating world! 

1. Look and listen
If they work with you or are part of your social group, keep your ears open during conversation. Amongst the talk of sport or technology, or of shoes and shopping, and all the other stuff of interest to the opposite sex, there may be mention of 'the wife', 'the missus', 'my lass / my lad', 'my bird' or of having to pick the kids up from school. All clear signs they're off limits - officially, at least. 

Obviously, check for rings, too.  If there's light bouncing off their ring finger into your eyes and blinding you, that's a pretty good sign, I'd say, to stay away!

2. Check their supermarket trolley
You see them ambling down the fruit and veg section with their trolley, looking good enough to eat. But how do you know if they have an other half?

Check the trolley for tell-tale signs. Are they buying nappies, baby food or anything else that suggests they're a family guy or gal? If so. On the other hand, they could be just some kind of deranged pervert who enjoys wearing nappies and dines on baby food!

Now, my trolley, for instance, tends to be stuffed with crisps, chocolate, microwave meals and frozen foods such as fish fingers, crispy pancakes, chicken burgers or good ole Bernard Matthews's turkey burgers. Fairly indicative signs that a) I'm single and b) I have a penchant for eating crap. A girlfriend would have me eating healthy, wholesome food. Right now it ain't happening, so pounce on me, ladies!

3. Observe their clothes
This one applies more to girls seeking guys. You have a feeling there's a wife or girlfriend in the picture somewhere, darnit. How can you confirm it?

Check out his clothes. Does he look like he dressed in the dark? Do his clothes date back to the 60s? If he's dressed like a deck chair or one of the Famous Five, the chances are he has no lady by his side to act as a fashion consultant. So swoop in there!

Believe it or not, there are guys out there who know how to dress themselves. A rare breed, indeed, and maybe you've stumbled on one. Are, however, his clothes all creased and crinkled? I'm pretty lousy  at ironing. In fact, not pretty lousy... just plain lousy! I do my best, but if there's a lady willing to iron a shirt for me, then I'll seize that opportunity with both hands!

So if he looks like he's ironed his clothes with a sledgehammer, either he actually has or, more probably, he's single and just doesn't know how to iron. Snap him up, ladies, and also show him to iron!

It's all good 
If you've followed this blog for a while, you'll have sensed that single life is a long-running theme in it. Yeah, there are times when I'm less okay with it than others, but for the record, I'm finding it pretty cool. It allows me to write fun articles like this one. Oh and again for the record, if you should catch me peeping at your trolley, don't assume I'm analysing your status. I have a vendetta against Hob-Nobs.  

The Colour of Me II

Pleased to say I solved a recent pickle I encountered as a single guy in a clothes shop and documented loosely on this blog just recently. Whoop whoop!

I chose a nice, burgundy tie to go with my navy blue suit and so looked just as smart as all the other wedding guests. Maybe I undid the hard work later with my lousy dancing... who knows, though I did refrain from tying my tie round my head Rambo-style!

At the time of writing that post, I remember thinking I could have done with the female touch to help me choose the right colour and tone of tie. A couple of days later, however, something happened that changed all that.

As I drifted up and down the tie section, sliding ties off of the rack to see if they went with the navy blue jacket in the shop, I noticed another young lad (my how I flatter myself, I know!) with his girlfriend. also looking for a tie. He picked up various ties, to which she commented, 'No, you need a darker tone if it's a grey suit', 'No, you're certainly not wearing spots with pin stripes' and, somewhat more brutally, 'Don't even bother with that one.'

Somewhat publicly reprimanded for his taste in ties, and looking slightly crestfallen, he hung them all back on their respective racks and left it to her to do the choosing. And in that moment, I suddenly realised I was grateful for my freedom as a single male, even though the circumstances that caused it had been unpleasant. If I want to dress as if I've done so in the dark, I can now (not that I want to, of course!).

It all reminded me that, even though it's been two years now, maybe I can still get used to this singles jazz after all.

I'll try.

Take me away!

Both friends and family have told me I need to learn to cook. No girl wants a man who can't cook, some say. And now that I'm back on the singles market, I guess I should - if not for a lady then at least for myself. No good two people starving. Besides, no woman wants a guy who's malnourished.... yeah yeah, we get the picture!

One thing I don't get, however...

Is is the (cruel) nature of the human appetite. Naturally, you can't eat takeaway day in, day out. For the record, I don't, but it doesn't stop me from having spells when I eat more than I normally would. Then I feel bad for eating so much junk and decide to cut down.

So I go to the supermarket, grab a trolley and go wild in the aisles. I pay for my shopping, then clear off feeling great. Check out the willpower on me!

But then something mysterious happens. The next day, despite having a fridge full of food, I feel like takeaway! All that lovely food and now I can't be bothered to prepare it. Before I know it I'm ordering a Texas BBQ in Domino's pizza parlour! Such is life.

Now, suppose I eventually master the dark art of cookery and, in turn, cut down on takeaway. Suppose that I also meet a nice young lady. Will I cook for her? Chances are I won't. Why?

Because I'll be too busy whisking her away down to fancy restaurants! And if not fancy restaurants, in an effort to spend quality time together, we'll probably be getting some takeaway in and curl up in front of a DVD.

Lessons

I think there are some valuable lessons to be learned from all this!

Lesson 1: Don't go shopping so often. The food in your fridge will only go to waste eventually! You can't fight the takeaway industry... nobody can. It's too powerful!

Lesson 2: People think you put yourself in an early grave if you eat takeaway a lot. But why waste hours in the kitchen, cooking, when you be done in 10 minutes and doing something else? Add up all those hours spent in the kitchen a year. Conclusion: you're wasting your life!

Lesson 3: Maybe you can dazzle a woman with your cookery skills, but it ain't necessarily so. I'll bet if you can recommend a good restaurant, or even a decent takeaway, you can just as easily be a culinary hero! 

And so we have it. Cooking and singles don't really go together, and takeaways weren't just for single people who can't cook! They're for couples who can't be bothered and singles who want to impress their suitors with their culinary knowledge!

The Colour of Me

No matter how much you enjoy your freedom, there are times when you realise how single you are: weddings fly straight in at no 1, followed by funerals, christenings and nights out with friends (if you're the wallflower).

You've probably guessed all of these already. There is, however, one other time when your single-dom hits you like a juggernaut: clothes shopping!

That's right... It's the awkward moment when you're by yourself, you're in a clothes shop and you don't know which colours go together, so you have to ask the (good-looking) shop assistant to help you coordinate them.

Then there's the solitary process of trying the clothes on in the changing cubicle. You take them on and off a million times, trying to decide a) if they fit and b) if so, do they suit you?

While the other guys pull back the curtain for their wife or girlfriend's opinion, you peep out shyly from behind the curtain to see if the pretty shop assistant is nearby hanging up clothes or something. Affirmative. Only then do you draw it back and ask  'Are the sleeves too big or too small?' - the male equivalent of asking 'Does my bum look big in this?'.

She says no, then asks if there's anything else she can help you with. You say no, and as you walk to the counter to pay for your new clothes, you realise you need a woman's touch. We men may learn how to dress ourselves when we're kids, but we'll be learning dress sense forever!

The witty Mark Twain famously said, 'I never let schooling interfere with my education.' So if someone should lift me off the singles market this year, then, having chosen my own clothes and learned to coordinate colours a little better, I can at least wear a badge with 'Zara -Class of 2012' emblazoned on it.

Ticket for One, Please

Just the other day I was curled up on one of Costa's mightily comfy sofas, when I overheard the group of girls next to me chatting. One of them stated that she felt less and less like getting into a relationship as she got older.

I'm sure we've all joked about being single by choice, and some people I know truly are. I always thought it was the opposite, though: that as people grow older, they're more likely to want a companion on life's journey. So the girl's comment kind of opened my eyes.

Earlier this week, I read an interesting article in a Men's Health-style magazine about how summer is the perfect time to be single:

• You can soak up the warm summer weather in a beer garden  - if we get any, of course... but this being the UK, summer was last Thursday, so if you were working that day then I'm sorry, you missed it.
• You can 'appreciate' members of the opposite sex
• You can generally relax and do as you please.      

So being single and in my early thirties, I thought I'd have a companion for life by now. But not just yet, as it turns out. 

I'm still learning to embrace being single. Now I see others who are embracing their own single status, though they probably have different reasons to my own, and I see it's not so bad. Freedom and the warm weather are taking the sting out of things. And they will do for some years, I imagine.  

So I'll keep:

• drinking lots of coffee and burying my head in books for hours at Costa
• eating lots of chocolate (there is a connection between sex and chocolate, by the way: eat too much and no one will want to have sex with you!)
• going to concerts by myself and loving it (as long as the music's good, what else do you need?)
• and doing whatever I feel like.

Then, as the temperatures start to drop, the nights pull in and we turn to winter, maybe I'll think about looking for a partner again. 

But only maybe.

Definitely maybe.  

Love is the Drug (that you might think of!)

Never mind listening to your partner's needs, going to relationship counsellors and all that jazz! Such a sensible approach to saving a relationship is too old hat in this day and age, so it would seem. 

According to experts, you may now be able to cut out the middle man or women and do it with a new 'love pill'. These magical pills would contain some of the same chemicals that our body produces during different stages or emotional states in a relationship. 

These would be, then:

• oxytocin and vasopressom - hormones that surge in our body at the start of our relationship
• pheromones - the chemicals which spark emotional response and attraction (not in a relationship right now, so I might be interested in this one!)
• testosterone - do I even need to explain this one?
• corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH) - this little beauty generates the fear of separation
• entactogens - create the desire for closeness and improves sociability and connection.

The odd once or twice I've come across strangers in nightclubs who, eyes bulging, and unable to sit still for more than a second, were in love with the world and everybody around them... Different kind of pill, of course. 'Eccies' or something, I think they called 'em.... !

But what if...?

What if they were to bring out such a pill legally? Would you use them, or is your relationship rock solid? Kind of funny to think that if you go through a patch in a relationship, you can have it all sorted by the time the kettle's boiled! No need for your emotions to go through the mill anymore! And you'd finally be able to turn that spare room into your Xbox room or whatever - or Narnia, as one of my relatives calls their computer room. 

And what if it was your turn to be a 'nutty professor'?

Imagine some mad fool let you loose in the scientists' lab and let you invent a pill for anything in the world. What kind of pill would you invent? Here are just a few I might want to make for myself:

• a pill that made me dance better (a man has to know how to cut some shapes!)
• a pill that allowed me to coordinate my colours easier
• a pill that allowed me to read text books in seconds and absorb every single drop
• a pill that could transport me from place to place in seconds, a bit like 'Beam me up, Scottie' but without the technology
• a pill that could make me instantly dashingly handsome. (Oh... already had that one, have we? Okay then....!)

I put it to you....

In the name of good content, those are just a few daft, minor insecurities of my own. Like Lloyd Grossman used to do on Masterchef, deliberate, cogitate and digest them. Then get back to me with your suggestions for a wonder pill. What would you like to be better at?

Do roses have thorns, or Fridays are you in love?

Being a linguist as well as a copywriter, this morning I had a few songs from the Spanish-speaking world on my MP3. I was listening to Julieta Venegas, one of my favourite artists. Dearest Julieta was singing about how she was leaving to find a better love. And she knew the very kind she wanted too: 'the type that makes salt sweet and the sun come out'.

A lovely lyric from this Mexican heroine of the accordion, and one of the reasons I love her so much.

Having somewhat ecclectic tastes - or outright weird, some might say! - Poison's Every Rose Has Its Thorn came on a little later. Possibly one of the best rock ballads ever written, the song features heartbreaking lyrics such as:

Instead of making love, we both made our separate ways...

And now I have found somebody new...

And that I never meant that much to you...

To hear that tears me up inside... 

And to see you cuts me, like a knife... 

A few songs on and it was the turn of the Cure with their uncharacteristically happy Friday I'm in Love. Great song! How can you not love joy-joy lyrics including Thursday - never looking back, because Friday I'm in love... Dooey-dooey-doooo!

Which all brings me to the subject of today's entry: which type of feelings inspire the best lyrics? Do people who 've had their heart torn out and tossed into the grinder write better songs? Do the truly brilliant songs come from people who life has mercilessly chewed up, spat out and then spat on?

Or do they come from people who life smiles upon with unbridled happiness, instead? Maybe they come from happy-go-lucky types who fight for their dreams but, though they never come true, never lose hope either.

It's a tricky one. Probably best if I sit it out and let you decide! Whaddayasay?

What a Feeling!

Can you remember your first day at work and how you felt?

Tomorrow is my first day with the company and I'm rearing to explode out of the starting blocks. I have several songs in my heart - to go with the usual spring in my step- and bucketloads of enthusiasm. I feel great.

But what's the greatest feeling in the world for you? 

A few weeks ago at a barbecue, a friend was telling me that becoming a father was the best feeling in the world.

Of course, there are so many other good feelings out there, as well:

• Success - the feeling of being the best
• Love - can anything compare to being somebody else's world? Or even to just having such pleasant feelings for someone else?
• Laughter - is there anything else like sharing good times with friends and family, knowing you'll look back on those moments and cherish them forever?
• Exercise - healthy body, healthy mind! 
• Warmth - is there anything better than sitting in front of a fire or with a steaming hot cup of tea on a cold winter's evening?

For me, love comes storming in at number one. There's nothing like that feeling of flying... of waking up with warmth in my soul. But even if the feeling isn't mutual, I still enjoy it: unrequited love can be just as sweet, you know! 

Maybe some other feeling tops all this for you? If so, you're welcome to share your good vibrations with me! 

PS. I'm not a love junkie!

The Great Kiss Off

Did you feel lots of love in the air yesterday, but don't know why? 

Well, that's because it was National Kissing Day. Millions of lucky Brits -no, that's not a euphemism!- locked lips for the occasion! Either with a loved one or with a complete stranger - people are less fussy these days!

Now you're in on the secret, who would you have puckered up to? Don't be shy... even humble bloggers like me can keep a secret! She or he can be famous or they can be the girl/guy next door. It's your fantasy, so you decide!

I always find funny women attractive so, celeb-wise, I have a raging soft spot for Jennifer Anniston (back in her later Friends days!) and Lauren Laverne. As a northern boy like me would say: they're class!  

On a non-celeb level and every bit as elegant, there is a girl I'd have liked to whip out the mistletoe half a year early for (and happily leave it hanging there!). But now's not the time and she'll probably be the one that got away.
 

In the meantime, I'll thank the world for my marvellous family and friends, good health and my job. I'm a single guy.

For all of that I can kiss Life!

L-O-V-E Spells Coincidence!

Have you ever seen that film High Fidelity? The one where John Cusack meets up with his ex-girlfriends to find out where he went wrong with them, why his relationships keep breaking down.

I'm sure we all have reflexive moments like this from time to time. Not so much stalking our ex-girlfriends, no, but maybe just a moment in the day, week or month when you think about the past... try to learn from it. In fact, I've just got an email from a friend who was doing this in their message. 

Just yesterday evening, I was thinking about loves I've won, lost and never enjoyed in return, when I came to a curious and equally random conclusion: the name of nearly every woman I've been attracted to begins with either M or L!

Only three haven't. Even then, two of those have both begun with C (the other was an A), so maybe I can throw this into the mix as well!

I love a woman with dark hair and a sense of humour. But if you like the cut of my jib and have neither of them, or just one, fear not. According to life's plan, love may still blossom as long as your name begins with L or M! And you can just imagine what L and M in the same name would do to me! (LM or ML, I'm not fussy!)

Okay, so it's all coincidence and I'm just having some fun with this post, true as it is. But I'd love to hear the amusing coincidences (unless you consider this post completely sad!) you've identified in your own life.

I'm going to leave you with one-hit wonder Lou Vega while you have a little think. He likes a little bit of... Well, enjoy the track and see for yourself! What did her say her name was again?

Born to Write?

27/08/2008

Some people, when they put pen to paper or sit themselves down at the keyboard, convey the impression that a high register and complex vocabulary make for good writing. Almost certainly you can't write 'good' and 'bad' for every single negative and positive. That much is true.

But personally, I've always felt that good writing was simple but colourful, words with a voice, elegant phrases. Never should the choice of adjective, noun or expression alienate the reader. I can't tell you the number of times I've put down a book, feeling I was somehow beneath the writer, and too stupid to be reading the book in question in the first place. Am I or is it just poor writing?

In his book Like the Flowing River, the international best-selling author and one of the giants of reflexive literature, Paolo Coelho, recalls his investigation at the age of 15 into what being a writer is. His young mind of then drew, amongst other things, these conclusions: 

• that writers have interests in topics no one else does
• that all writers are fans of James Joyce's Ulysseys
• that all writers understand concepts that would scare others
• that what they're reading at the moment is a book no one else has heard of
• that writers express themselves in a complicated fashion
• that writers impress women at dinners by stating their profession, then following it up by writing a poem on a napkin, which always works for them.

So I find myself now asking if writing was something I was meant to do or not. In terms of my interests, I'm a fairly regular guy: keep fit, literature, music and sport. And I've read Dubliners, but not Ulysseys, and would by no means consider myself a fan. As for concepts that would scare others, that's not my style: if it's too complex for me, I don't absorb it and I certainly don't discuss it with others! Complicated expression - I'd like to think I get to the point. Impressing women by writing a poem on a napkin; well, the romantic in me once wrote an invitation to dinner with me in my finest Italian to a girl with Italian blood. The outcome? - a request to explain what the invitation itself said, followed by a swift but polite and excruciating rejection. You were saying, Mr Coelho?

I look back on that last incident and remember it with a smile! Maybe that idealism, that romanticism suggests a potential of sorts. My own style is based on my own theory, but is it the right one? Does it have colour? Does it have a voice? And is it one you want to keep on hearing? Or just background music in print?

How I need to know.