Category: August 2010

August 2010 · January 2011 · My Family and Other Animals · Photogenius · THE WORLD *head in hands*

“I think we should go and show Sarah; but I’m not actually wearing any trousers.”

Francesca18 Comments

  Good evening. Or is it the afternoon still? The clock says a quarter to five, but my curtains are shut. Discuss below.

  Anyway, here is the evidence of my weekend:

  There’s more, but I can’t get my mini SD card out of my phone to stick them on here. Also I can’t give away the reason Ellen, Isobel and I went out in the first place.

   I will say this, however: when leaving Costa Coffee, check all your Primark bags are with you. And if you want to buy a certificate 15 DVD in CEX but don’t carry identification, don’t bother. The lady at the counter will say, “Sorry we can’t serve you,” without looking up, then turn around and talk to a spotty teenager who works there on Saturdays.

  She will have karmic retribution though. Balance of the universe is something I wholeheartedly believe in. So will my Chemistry teacher when she sees that I have an A* in my module. That’s A*. Not D.

  Heheh.

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August 2010 · Holidays · My Family and Other Animals · Photogenius

Tea At The Ritz, Being Part One of Two Blogs, ‘In the Last Week Frank Has Left the House’

Francesca2 Comments

  Last Tuesday it was my mum’s fiftieth birthday (I’m sure she appreciates my informing the Internet of this fact). Because she is Mum, and a secret Mrs. Bucket, my immediate family plus one grandmother took a trip to London. To The Ritz Hotel. For afternoon tea… At half seven in the evening. Apparently you have to book a while in advance to actually get an afternoon cuppa. 

   

  Yeah, that’s Mum. Anyway, because I’m too lazy to think of descriptive words, here is what I wrote in my diary while sat on a posh sofa, in The Ritz:

9:00pm, The Ritz Hotel, London

  I’m writing from the freaking Ritz!!! There’s gold edging on the picture rails, it’s not considered the doing thing to clap the live band and the food was served on a triple-tiered tray. The toilets are called ‘powder rooms’, with SILVER TOPPED SANITARY TOWEL BINS, painted walls and flannels which you dry your hands on before disposing into a large wicker basket. There must be fifteen types of tea on offer, my glass of water wasn’t from the tap and there are lions on the teapots. Proper silver teapots. There are tissues with ‘The Ritz’ printed on them. I stole one as a souvenir.

  Mum kept saying I wouldn’t be allowed in because of my bloodstained biker-style boots, but I decided that if the porter tried anything I would simply say, “These were bought in Paris, don’t you know.” (They actually were.) Or, failing that, “Don’t you know who I am?” He didn’t even blink though.

  All the waiters are foreign, but I’m pretty sure their immigration status was checked when they applied for the job. We stopped at Covent Garden earlier, and everyone who served us was of the non-English variety, one of the waitresses at an overpriced coffee shop said “Shit!” when she dropped a fork loading a tray. In a Polish accent.

  By the way, I walked in here earlier and the ‘push’ sign on the revolving door was above my head. As the average height for a woman in the fifties was five foot one (my height), and this hotel was established in 1906, I can only say that the management discriminates against short people. [I have since found out that the average woman’s height in 1951 was five two. Wikipedia does not shed light on the height of man circa 1900. Lets assume that the bloke who built The Ritz knew that we would get taller, or invent platform heels.]

 

 

Part Two of ‘In the Last Week Frank Has Left the House’ will appear on Wednesday, 1st September, to commemorate the end of the summer holidays.

August 2010 · School *choke* · THE WORLD *head in hands*

Yo, Subscribers, Click the Link and READ THE WEBSITE.

FrancescaLeave a comment

  If I start this blog any more times I’m going to get carpal tunnel.

  A few years ago, I met this girl through a mutual friend. I’d heard her name on the grapevine, mostly bitchy comments, and when I met her I kind of thought “Is this it?” With a French plait and glasses, looking at me like I was some sort of shiny new object out of the box, she was more gangly than glaring. I think I thought she was weird.

  Next September, we had the same classes in a couple of subjects, and I learnt a few things very quickly: this girl talked. A lot. The teacher could have been discussing how not to set yourself on fire and she would have been turned around, whispering to whoever would listen about the time she really did set herself on fire. Next, she liked to be in charge. I found out later that she has two older sisters. The most important thing: regardless of your reputation or lack of verbal communication skills or pot habit, she would come up to you at twenty-five past eight in the morning and ask if you got your eyebrows waxed.

Then point out a hair the beautician (or the tweezers) missed.                  

  Fast forward two years. Well, eighteen months. Perhaps a year, but to be honest timekeeping went out the window half was through year seven. Anyway, this girl turned out to be really nice, under the thick skin and OCD. We chatted on the phone, I started paying attention to fashion after her fourteenth one-woman conversation about quiffs being two seasons ago (regardless of their newfound fashion in high schools).

  Then, c’est la vie, I screwed up. Big time. I learnt about feeling really awful for the first time… Also discovered that feeling shitty is worse when you brought it on yourself (Hear that kids? Treat others as you wish to be treated. KARMA EXISTS).

      

  Three months on, everything’s still a bit rocky. Okay, more like, ‘that’s a really huge mound of boulders, do we dodge or do we crash?’ Mostly we seem to crash. Well, I do. I call them learning curves.

 

  What have I learnt? Oh yeah. Honesty is key when one person in a two-way discussion offends the other one. Pretending not to care about hurt feelings and bringing it up two weeks later is not a smart move. Neither is having a hugely massive conversation via text. Thumb ache, dude. Also there’s no way to read expressions or interpret tones. So for anything more than a semi-important talk, leave MSN alone and talk the old-fashioned way. Face to face.

  In fact, employ honesty 99.999% of the time. More if possible. That way, nothing can bite you on the arse later on, there are no grudges. Plus, even if there is a screaming fight in New Look because one of you pointed out that the other needs a bigger dress size, you’ll laugh about it later. Three months of constant sniping is not so easy to giggle about.

  The moral to this story seems to be: don’t judge people on first appearances, judge them on how you react to the first appearance. And the second, and third, and ninety-millionth.

August 2010 · THE WORLD *head in hands* · TV

I Can’t Believe She Just Wrote That

Francesca1 Comment

  I finished watching House with my mother about half an hour ago, and they were treating a girl with cancer/liver failure/heart problems/facial bruising. The more distinguishing factors in the episode was that the girl in question, whose name was Frankie, was a serial blogger. She frequently fought with her boyfriend about the lack of privacy in their lives. Seriously, she spilled all… Except for stuff concerning her toilet-going habits. House figured that one out.

  Got me thinking; do I spill it all on here? Compared to a lot of people, I highly doubt it. There are a lot of bloggers who can and will write about everything in their lives, from the lip gloss they just bought (most of them seem to be girls) to arguments with their best friends to – shock, horror – where they live.

  I talk about being from Essex quite a bit, because, let’s face it, Essex is funny. Infamous. Filled with chavs and hoop earrings. A talking point, I’ve always felt. So you know I’m not American at least. I sometimes name names, I have no qualms about stating my opinions and I’m not averse to telling an invisible audience things I might not tell my actual friends. For example, Kylie Minogue is currently playing from my stereo.

  That is something I possibly wouldn’t mention in front of various family members who would go on to take the piss out of the ’emo kid’ liking Kylie.

  I won’t lie that WordPress has done a lot for my ego. Or that the first thing I look at when I log on here is the stats page. It’s usually quite a nice sight too, quite a few people click on this blog every day (a lot of them, admittedly, may have done so accidentally, but still).

  I also won’t lie that I spend a lot of time and energy improving this blog – I refer to it as my baby. A grumpy, rude, arrogant baby, but a loved member of the family nonetheless. I invented Indifferent Ignorance, I’m responsible for what I say on here, the links and pages. It’s a hobby and my way of stating my opinion when most of the time I’m ignored or told to shut up since I’m a wee child who doesn’t have to pay bills and doesn’t have a PhD, so clearly isn’t a valid human being worth listening to.

  One thing I definitely know is that some things that go on in my life will never go on the Internet. My diary, sure. It all goes into my diary. But it will stay there. If you wouldn’t say it out loud unless you were being questioned by police, don’t blog about it. And don’t verbally vomit on a comment section of someone’s blog or website if you don’t have the guts to repeat it to their face.

  This applies also to marriage proposals, stripping, swearing, bitching and fangirling.

  

‘Blog’ definition: Princeton University’s search engine,  Urban Dictionary

August 2010 · Holidays · My Family and Other Animals · Photogenius

Who Let the Dog Out? Oh Yeah. We Did.

FrancescaLeave a comment

  You all remember Fred, don’t you? I do, I live with him.

  We took him out for walkies down the field yesterday, same as ever and he started to sneeze on the way back. I’m not kidding, they were proper sneezes complete with Fred bashing his paw over his nose, like, “What’s happening to me?!” When blood started to appear as well as snot we decided to walk him rather briskly down to the vets.

  Yes, I said snot. Dogs, in case you didn’t know, have mucussy stuff in their throats, same as humans. Trust me – I got some on my jeans when I tried to tickle him.

  So we sat in the vets for half an hour (apparently you need appointments…), finally being told that Fred had  inhaled something in the field that had lodged itself in his nose.

  Yeah, really?

  Being the kind, thoughtful people we are, my mum, Maxim and I abandoned Fred at the vets to get knocked out so they could tweeze out the incriminating object. He didn’t seem best pleased, but by that time the sneezing was starting to drive us crazy. There was Fred-snot all over the waiting room floor.

  When we picked him up a few hours later, Freddie could hardly stand. Or walk. Or remember where he was. If fact, he was so doped up on anesthetic he sat still long enough for me to take photos.

 

  And you have to admit, he’s cute. Especially when we had to move his back legs as he wasn’t sure what to do with them. The whatsit which had got stuck up his left nostril, by the way, was a spiky grass seed. We got it given to us in a plastic tube, complete with doggy blood, as a souvenir. I didn’t take photos.

  Fred is now fine and seems to forgotten his ordeal entirely, apart from the odd sniff at the shaved bit on his leg where they injected him with anesthetic. If he does remember anything, it’s probably the chihuahua in the vets which got carried in in a cat holder. If he’d have been well, he would’ve died laughing. I almost did.

(All Hail) Creation · August 2010 · Colour · Holidays · Photogenius · School *choke*

Happy Sunday Evening. Unless You’re in California.

FrancescaLeave a comment

  I’ve been having a discussion with a certain someone about pages on this blog, and what should be added to it.

  I guess I now owe her lollipops because there is a guest book here. In case you feel the need to sign it twice, go to Talk to Frank, then click on the bit saying ‘Drop Me a Line’. It won’t let you put in just Essex. Every time I tried to I got told I live in California…

  So I put London.

  Here is some of my summer holiday so far:

  Elizabeth chose the colour, but I’ve had to get my nan to undo so many stitches I’m starting to wonder why I nodded when she went, “That one,” in the shop. The colour is so… So… lilac. Then again, if it was violet with red patches and sparkly bits I’d hate that too.

  I think I’d hate violet with red patches and sparkly bits anyway.

  I had a very intelligent thought earlier, while pondering on the existence of hell. A lot of people say that high school is hell. I have decided that I would school would indeed be hell if I had no friends.

  Which makes me very glad I do… Even if there’s only five of them.

August 2010 · Colour · Comics · Music · My Chemical Romance (get a category) · Photogenius

I Want What He’s Smoking.

Francesca3 Comments

  I was going to write about something completely different. Then I found this picture on DeviantART, from San Diego Comic Con 2010.

  Figured I haven’t ranted about the elder Mr. Way since February when he contracted throat cancer, so since he’s holding a fag, it’s time to state some opinions.

  When I first saw this picture, I thought, ‘Gerard has had a midlife crisis at the age of thirty-three. Los Angeles has warped his mind so he wants to become a surfer.’ I was half expecting to see Mikey with a surf board and wetsuit instead of his wife.

  Thankfully, the sun has not gone to his head.

August 2010 · Colour · Holidays · My Family and Other Animals · Photogenius · THE WORLD *head in hands* · Zakynthos

Skinny Jeans and a Hoodie. The Tan Fades Rapidly.

Francesca13 Comments

  I guess no one liked the Greek title of my last blog. It meant ‘good afternoon’, though I can’t remember how to pronounce it, I lost my phrasebook. The hits counter has gone way down since I started exploring foreign languages.

  Having returned home yesterday evening after eternity on the M25 thanks to a lorry fire and oil spillage on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge that no one bothered to clear up, I am home. Sitting amongst junk, considering going next door to see Maxim and Isobel, and ask Maxim why he sent me an email with a picture of spam and  the repeated words ‘i like carrots!!’ Then again, he was jabbering in an Irish accent earlier…

  I will get to typing up The Zante Diaries 2010 and sorting out numerous videos and pictures, and should have the soap opera up vaguely soon. Vaguely.

  Until then,

  Home (away from) sweet home.

  I have just noticed the sign is missing. Both of them are. Clearly taken before my time…