How to combat the winter blues? EASY! ***HARRY POTTER!***

I love this!!!!

Valentine's Day Blues?

I actually quite like Valentine's Day. I can actually vow I have no reason romantically to love it, but I do like it. For the last few years now I have set up (with myself) "The Singles Club" where I will send out all my single girl friends a card just to let them know that I love them and spread the love & happiness. After all, Valentine's Day is about showing the love!

One word of advice though.... put your name on the card. You do not want your friend thinking that it is their secret crush. Epic fail on my part that time... :S

Other than that, my advice is always to spread the love!

Or, if you prefer not to subscribe to the commercialism, see here for amazing anti-Valentine's Day cards:

http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/the-funniest-anti-valentines-day-cards#image-rotator-1

(Link courtesy of Paddy Mayo!)

Happy Mailing!

Who Would Want to be a Writer?

Hands up? Well, me.

Although I do realise that I have a complete lack of discipline when it comes to writing, I want to be a writer and I often make notes of things I would like to write about, but I lack the will-power and the confidence to sit and write.

There is often a strong element of self-reflection when writing, and since I suffer from the worst case of head-in-sand-burying you have ever seen, I often fear what I would write. And in equal measures, I fear what someone would think if they read it.

This leads naturally to the question I ask myself: why do I write? Why does anyone write?

Often it is to fulfil an egotistical urge on the part of the individual who believes that what they write is of some importance, possibly even of intrinsic value, to society. Others do it to assuage their feelings and to see their thoughts in words to analyse their thoughts, feel a sense of release; it can be comforting. It is usually these latter people who rarely get published. And it is also difficult to know how many of them there are out there that do this, as it can be a secretive business.

I like to write. I am an old fashioned paper and fountain pen type embodying a Jane Austen-esque approach, but in a way that I would not want my letters read etc apart from the intended recipient. Like Cassandra burnt her letters, I would like to think the same. Perhaps it is this historical and literature precedent that I adhere to that terrifies me from writing more in my diary? On the other hand, what I think may be more accurate is the fear of writing what I actually feel and facing up to it. I feel that what I write is inconsequential because what I write is a facade of what I want myself to believe.

Then the question arises... why I am I writing on here? Egotism? Probably. Feel that what I have to say is important? No. Not really. Seeking reassurance? Most assuredly.

So writing is this self-illuminating and terrifying ordeal, often prescribed for those with mental and/or psychological issues.

The next question then comes- are all those who write writers? In my mind, yes. In some bigoted literary view, probably not. But as Margaret Atwood states: "Pen is Envy".

A mock on the Freudian phrase 'Penis Envy', Atwood in The Handmaid's Tale shows how the ability to be able to write, to transcribe one's feelings is a feeling inherent to the human psyche. We need to share feelings. We need to express ourselves. To take that away is to deprive ourselves.

Therefore, this blog, which I waffle so much on, is more of a build up to writing, privately, what I want to be able write. To write publicly on topics distanced from myself, like to write or not to write, can allow me a cathartic assuage of thoughts which will one day amount to me finding the truth within myself.

Over the top? Yes. Over wrought? Oh, definitely. Feeling better? I can honestly say yes.

Even writing about the unimportant things in life can be the most rewarding process. Just to order thoughts articulately and convey them = one of the best gifts that make us human. From Charles Darwin to Charles Dickens, they would be proud...

(By the way, the catalyst to this waffling yarn? See here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2012/feb/09/author-film?CMP=twt_fd )

Coldplay, Paradise

I am loving this song right now... It could represent me my life now, what i want my life to be and here I want it to go.

Can you not appreciate a song that can do that for you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8iVEtavOP0

"Feeling depreseed at all, Me? Why, yes, Me...." But it us a frickin' good song!

Am I a Moaning Ninny?

Hi Guys,

Welcome to Me after my first day working at the NALibrary, on a Saturday... now I have moaned a lot on Twitter and Facebook about my journeys to work and that I am unsure about that I made the right choice about leaving my job at WC. So, here I sit after a month saying what now... what now indeed?

I thought that I love books, I love history, I love people, I love art, I love culture, I love libraries.... so why do I feel so out of the loop here? I am not sure. Previous workmates say it is just purely a matter of settling in. Something I wish I could do.

I am naturally an outspoken person, one with many opinions that probably ought not to be aired but thanks to the Castle and a sense of assertiveness, I have many an opinion that ought not to be aired too freely, but I do wonder whether the life of me as a librarian is for me. I love the idea of what I do as librarian... but I do wonder whether it will fulfil my love of history, art, culture, music, life... In fact I wonder often whether it will kill the best part of me that I had cultivated healthily at the Castle. I am a people person. And the people at the library prefer not to be working on the public side?!

Still, I feel that I am moaning a lot... I dunno what to say... am I just being grumpy?

Yes.

OK.

I will shut up.

Gawd, an answer would be so gratefully received. X

Unsurprisingly it has been a while...

Well, what can I say? It has been a while.... AGAIN.

I will make no promises to blog into the void anymore, but only sporadically at best... and at worst, which as it so happens is more likely, when I feel like it.

I often think of being a writer but I think I lack the discipline to follow through my thoughts and certainly lack in writing them down, which I am sure I know is an epic fail in attempting to be a bit of a writer.

Anyhow, no blog of mine is incomplete without a bit of an excuse as to why the blogging void on NotSoSpotlessMind.blogspot.... so here it goes...

Well I have a new job. At the V&A.... go woooo-ooooooh. But it is taking some settling into. I have been here over three weeks now and I am as confused as I was when I started. There is very little structure in what I am expected to do, since my job role seems to move its boundaries depending on the need. Then there is the lack of banter. From a job where they bossed me around to one where I now am a ringleader and have to herd the troops into action. And by the way this is soooo out of the remit of my job description.

I have also witnessed the worst public speaker. Worse than me. And trust me I have been bad, but there is something about working as a tour guide for two years that just shocks that shyness and fumbling awfulness as a public speaker out of ya. Either that or it cracks ya. For me, thankfully, it was the opposite! still this poor bookbinder was hosting a talk on her exhibit and if she rifled that through that pamphlet one more time for an answer or what to say next I would have cried.

It is not her fault. But it was one time in a lot the past three weeks where I just feel slightly... I dunno... I wanna say superior, but that denotes a sense of harshness that I just don't feel. They are no worse or better than me. They just need to be trained.

Still, I am just waffling here... Needless to say, I have had a rough transition of being in the world of crazy eccentrics, tourists, banter from fellow wardens and great laughs...

Still enough bemoaning my status. It just takes time as everyone keeps telling me. I actually like what I do. Not taxing but quite good fun! Plus I get to stroke old and priceless thingies :)

Now I am watching Harry Potter 1 and harking back to my year 8 class when we tried watching it in French. I tried setting this one in German but it wasn't having it, which was a shame. Hearing Hermione say "That thing has a name" in German is classic... "Das Ting hat ein Namen?!" The French just sounded very swish and unfunny. Shame.

Anyhoo that is enough waffles from me after a a near two-month absence! :)

TV & Book Review: Game of Thrones

Well, as a bit of a backwards person, I watched the HBO series first then began to read the books!! Well I need to make a little post here just to put out into the Bloggosphere out there that I am a huge fan!

Medieval fantasy at its best with great characters, a onderfully convincing fictional world full of gods, politics, culture and society that doesn't bore you to see or read about...

George R. R. Martin has made a truly fantastic piece of fiction. And some of the best characters to date...

Ayra- the youngest daughter of the House of Stark from the Northern town of Winterfell... a tomboy with such resilience. It is nice to see a female character in a fantasy novel with some gumption. To young to be made into a sex object which can happen a lot in the fantasy genre and this series is not without its sexualised overtones that can dominate some parts, she is the perfect age to come into her own and be herself. Daenerys is older and is more sexualised but comes to override the constraints that has put on her and shows a determined if flawed resilience of her own.

I love Ned Stark's bastard son, Jon Snow- he is a lush to look at and is a nice character full of torment and trying to prove his worth. I also love the bad-ass Tyrion, the dwarf of the Lannister family- enemies against the Stark family... he is both a hateful and endearing character... He is cleaver, hated by other characters, yet keeps proving his resourcefulness and worthiness not to be shunned for his disabilty which is constantly used to mock him!

So my tip is watch, read and enjoy for a complete transporting experience into a world of make-believe!!

Film Review: Glorious 39

InternetMovieDataBase's Film Summary: 1939 is set between present-day London and the idyllic British countryside in the time before the beginning of the WW2. At a time of uncertainty and high tension, the story revolves around the formidable Keyes family, who are keen to uphold and preserve their very traditional way of life. The eldest sibling Anne is a budding young actress who is in love with Foreign Office official Lawrence, but her seemingly perfect life begins to dramatically unravel when she stumbles across secret recordings of the pro-appeasement movement. While trying to discover the origin of these recordings, dark secrets are revealed which lead to the deaths of some of her friends. As war breaks out Anne discovers the truth and flees to London to try to confirm her suspicions, but she is caught and imprisoned and only then does she finally begin to discover how badly she has been betrayed....

Disappointment, disappointment, disappointment.

It had so much promise but it failed to deliver...

A film about one family's involvement in the pro-appeasement lobby in the lead up to the Second World War is a unique topic rarely explored in films, but something that could have been given a long distance but which failed to explore its full range. Seeing how the upper classes were trying to achieve peace at all costs, something only touched on in films like Remains of the Day, and here this film does little to further the exploration of this theme...

Now all the underhand goings-on are uncovered by the eldest daughter (who isn't really their daughter?! No real solid reason given as to how she ended up in their family- just one of the many unanswered questions!!) Anne Keyes, played by the totally wonderful Romola Garai, is that daughter and she is captivating. A stella cast of Bill Nighy as Dad, David Tenant as friend of the family who died/murdered during the course of the pro-appeasement and Hugh Bonneville (also murdered) are also wonderful. So what is the problem?

Well, the plot for one. No ends are tied up. The many references to Winston Churchill by the anti-appeasement people in the film and the feeble attempts to try and contact him to tell him what has been going on never come to any fruition, although no reason is given as to why. The biggest plot hole is the end. After locking anne up for ages, they let her escape and escape she does until she returns as an old lady to confront her brothers and her prisoners, they thinking she is dead... No mention is made of what she did in all those years... Stephen Poliakoff the director and scriptwriter could have just honed this into a really spectacular and seminal film, but falls way short of the mark... such a shame because the cast were amazing and the theme ripe for the picking...

***

How times don't change... yet it flies by?!

Well, I am sure there is much being said out on the blog-go-sphere out there, and I doubt I would add much to the analysis and critique of it. Still, it merits a mention only to say how utterly shocked I am about the widespread criminal activity across England. "Shocked" is a word that is being used, and has subsequently become cliched. In truth and without meaning to be cliched, I am horrified, disgusted, angry, sad and just blown away by the recent events. How did this happen? What makes people want to do it? Questions that have all been asked more than I could imagine, but just what the fudge is going on this week?

Is anyone else just bloody embarrassed to be English today? My mate text me from Africa and is like "I am ashamed to be English" and he is hardly visiting the most peaceful place on earth... I have a cousin in the Met, I have friends and family in London and Manchester, I have had fires in my village (not even the dodgy town side, Slough, but in my village!!)

With the three mindlessly motored... I cried when one of the fathers of the murdered men was speaking. I will own it- I sobbed. How can this happen?! I am so upset by this.

A good and trusted friend once told me that I am a simple soul. I see good things that many don't and I miss many bad things... but now I see and I can't see the good things in this. Let it end.

What a post to start on after a nine month absence from blogging... but a worthier post I don't think I have written.

So I put it out there to the void: LET IT END. NOW.

Still, this is not the first time we have riots (btw I really hatethat word... it is criminal activity) and I doubt it will be the last we will hear of this. So, it makes me wonder how much times do not change....

I cannot believe that it has been 9months since I last blogged!!! So much has happened, how so much as flashed by and how times don't change... what has changed for me?

Well, little has changed in my life. I am still in the same job, same lovelife status, still live at home with rentals, same old car, same likes/dislikes... however, I am having a good spurt of social life which I enjoy... although my bank account less so....

Still, here follows the ten things that have recently (or not that recently) occurred:

1) I graduated on 14th July from Royal Holloway. I now have a Masters in Gender and Women's History. Hell yeah! Eat my shorts!

2) I am a Round Tower Tour guide... less exciting, more hardwork, but enjoyable nonetheless...

3) There have been interviews for jobs wooooo.....

4) I am trying to teach myself German- it is surprising how much I remember and it is handy that BBC have pretty handy language pages!

5) Kate and Wills got hitched. Mam and I got merry on champagne, cheap wine and scones with strawberries and cream... gawd that was a fun day! Just chilled at home...

6) The final installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released.... this should be further up my list!! This was amazing, and I cried for a good 50% of the film! I am so impressed with the entire film except for the last scene which made me feel very awkward!

7) I got tickets to see gymnastics at the Olympics--- wooo yes, I am one of the elite few!!

8) I have started cycling again having de-cobwebbed my bike, washed it down and made it all sparkly! I have also taken up tennis again... good times...

9) I played in the Mens vs Womens cricket match at work and the Queen came- that was super fun although by the time I went to eat, hungry peoples had eaten most of the food which made me mad!! But we had photos with the Queen and everything.... good times!

10) I have been accepted as an early member of Pottermore.com :) this makes me very happy!! lol!!

Anyhoo... watch this space... I shall be hoping to keep this updated (so to with my Twitter account!!) Go the marvels of technology!!

After so long, how to blog now...

177 posts, published 30 April 2010.

So, from that, how do I write this post? The first in seven months?

It is a toughy.

I could write about Remembrance Sunday, which like every year I cry when watching the Cenotaph highlights, as they are called- almost making them a football game that everyone has a huge lure to watch- it both disturbs me and uplifts me. It also has the ability to make my tears seems heartfelt or just overemotional. I find, however, the ability to both remember with empathy versus the almost media-frenzy need to watch it cheapens it. I could also write about the enforced social obligation to wear a poppy. As an aside, I wear it because I feel I want to, not because I feel the social pressure to do so. I wore it on Thursday and Sunday (an accidentally Monday because I had forgotten to take it off- was reminded at 9:30am to take it off, so no biggy.) As yet another aside, I like working Remembrance Sunday at work- the soldiers on guard as living proof that there is continued need for the armed forces, which thereby means death of yet more people in war. I also like it (possibly in a morbid fascinated way) that the whole castle bar a few people (namely unaware Oriental people and also loud American teenagers calling it "that Poppy Thang" and saying, "Naw can't be bothered, let's find the toilet....") ground to a halt. That is the whole place on a Sunday (albeit at a quiet time of year) ground to a halt. People bowed their heads, people thought. There was no falseness to it. Just pure thought. AND THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT IT WAS MEANT TO BE ABOUT!!!

Well, I said what I would start my blog about and wondered whether it should be about that, and thus it has begun with a mini-rant.

It was unintentional, but obviously it has stuck in my mind.

There are many things to catch you up on. Hardly as important, nor significant, but news of some sort in the life of Not So Spotless Mind.

1) I found out five days ago I passed my Masters. I got a "good pass"- essentially 63% I think it was. It is the equivalent of a 2:1 at undergrad level. It would have been a merit had RHUL not continued with the 65+ rule, which means that is a merit rather than most university with 60+!! Still I am more than chuffed. I did become very disillusioned with academia and thought I would barely achieve above 50! Still hasn't made me want to contemplate a PhD after it though, I am glad to say!!

2) Today I dyed my hair black. I was not going to do it for a variety of reasons. Mainly I was too scared. Secondly, my mam would tell me off- 23 and yes, I am still scared of my mother. Thirdly, I have never dyed my hair before and thought I ought to give it a go and I always wanted jet black hair. It turned out alright. It went bright purple for a while in which case my initial fears were first confirmed, then after washing it out it has turned out alright. I told my dad, who hadn't noticed, though had looked at me funny for a while. My brother had not noticed, though asked if I was going out. Some five hours later, asked if I had sprayed my hair black with the can of Halloween stuff I had used (and had consequently taken me approx.45minutes to comb out.) My mother still has not noticed.

3) I have mixed feelings about something I did today. Some girl has been playing around with my brother and his mates for the last year and today she rocked up at our house unannounced with her lil baby boy. Now whilst I loved children, I made her stay outside the front door in the freezing fog whilst my brother come to deal with her. I had just woken up, was groggy, grumpy and definitely pissed off generally with her. Whilst being the complete boob he always is with her, he let her, apologised for me and in return she smirked and simpered at him. He ineptly flirted and I felt awkward whilst buttering my now cold toast.... still, I felt really bad because she did have a lil'un on her hands who was so unbelievably cute and whom I had left outside, yet at the same time, I am just fed up of my brother being the doormat, however willing he is to be one. ARGH- I am ranting again. However, I wish to divulge some of my guilt on the interneting-void out there. I am sorry for her baby boy, but not for her. I should have acted differently. But as my primary school headmaster say, like you can never scrap toothpaste back into a tube, you can never take back what you do or say once they have been squeezed from the tube. I have remembered that since I was 7. Still haven't learnt anything from it.

4) Will and Kate Middleton have announced their engagement. A work colleague and I were discussing this yesterday and we said we should put money on it being announced in the next week. We should have done it because we would have been rolling in it now!! Still, CONGRATS to the pair!! I am dead chuffed plus it means uber royalist trips to various royalist camps a la Britain!! Whoop whoop!

5) My sunroof is leaking. Not amazingly tragic news I know, but honest to God it is p*ssing down like a rain forest INSIDE my car!! I couldn't see where I was going and had to pull over to try and block it up with a pair of tights I always have spare in my handbag in case of an emergency and also a small beech towel I have carried in my car since someone left it at our house after a house party. I am unsure as to why I put in my car... Still the other day, it was cold and frozen outside. I spent ages scraping ice from my car windows with anti-freeze. I got into my car which should have been heating up nicely and discovered that it was still fairly chilly. After waiting ten minutes.... still nothing. Couldn't see out of my windscreen. I lent forwards to scratch the condensation to found half a centimetre thick ice on the inside of my windscreen. Ten minutes later and all five of my windows de-iced and my car smelling a lot like de-icer and now being some twenty minutes late for work, I left (slightly high from the de-icer fumes) for work! Lesson to be Learnt: Get up earlier on frostier days to de-ice both INSIDE AND OUTSIDE of my car. I bet Kate Middleton doesn't have to deal with these sorts of dilemmas!!

This blog has been a mixture of rants and thoughts. I hope to get this blogging ball rolling and not to leave it too long again.

Having watched Julie and Julia, or is it Julia and Julie? Well, either way the film with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in- it has galvinised me to blog, and also simultaneously give French cooking a go. I thoroughly enjoyed the film. It is about a 21st century American woman cooking all the dishes from Julia Child's first cookbook within a year and blogging about it whilst trying to find herslef, whilst simultaneously storytelling Julia Child's life in post-World War Paris (etc). It made me inwardly chortle, giggle, laugh out loud and exclaim at the inanimate TV screen! It is an almost ChickFlick in parts, drama in others, modern historical drama in sections... It is definitely worth a watch. It is on Sky Movies now!!! Be there or be Square!!

So yes, a brief and almost definitely obscured and linear view of some aspects of my life since 30th April. Surely more will come thick and fast now I have got that stubborn fountain pen to flow with bootifully clouded dusk-blue ink....

Adieu for now...

PS. Song of choices of the moment:
a) The Writer- Ellie Goulding

b) Hit the Road Jack- Ray Charles- partly inspired by Strictly Come Dancing and Scott Maslen's (from Eastenders and The Bill) Jive on Saturday, which was amazing!! Great song choice and great dancing- made me place it higher on the playlist!!!

c) Anything by Skunk Anansie- anything sung my her can be amplified by fifty- she was wickedly amazing at V Fest 2010!!! I fell in love with her then!