Right. That is IT. I have fucking had it up to here and, worst of all, it's all my own stupid fault. I have a date tonight, my hair is looking lank, and I thought I'd go and get my fringe trimmed. My usual Japanese hairdresser doesn't work on Fridays, so I had another Japanese hairdresser.
"Freenge treeem?" she asks.
"Yes please," I say. "I was growing it out but I've decided I don't like it. So I want a blunt fringe, very chunky, taking in more hair than it was before." I explain what I mean by pulling forward some hair from closer to my crown. She nods and gets to work, cutting with precision until it looks just like I want it. Then she pins about half of it back and starts thinning out what's there. I wiggle uncomfortably.
"Please don't thin it out too much," I say. "I want it to be quite chunky. Blunt. You know?"
She nods and smiles and keeps going. And I sit there. I sit there like I'm fucking paralysed, all the while knowing that what she is doing is RUINING MY HAIR.
"You ok?" she asks. "You hot?"
"No, I'm not hot," I say, "just please don't thin it out any more. I want it blunt. Straight across. Not thin. The whole point of taking more hair into the fringe was so that it was thick. I have thick hair. Why are you making it look thin? Are you deaf? Why the hell are you working here if you can't understand WHAT I AM SAYING? STOP FUCKING SMILING AND NODDING." OK, I didn't say most of that, because I am polite and pathetic and PC. I tried to make my point though, and she nodded and smiled and then busied away doing the exact opposite, and I couldn't move because I am a moron.
And now my fringe is lank and pathetic and I hate it and no one will ever fancy me again, and I paid her the £3 she charged to trim it and gave her £1 extra as a tip and I will never go back and I will never have my hair cut again by someone who can't speak English, and yes, that's probably an awful thing to say and I am a keen supporter of global migration and immigration into the UK and diversity and variety of services and melting pots and tolerance but THIS IS MY HAIR we're talking about and it is serious.
Showing posts with label Immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Immigration. Show all posts
Friday, 9 July 2010
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Tuesday melange
After a busy weekend, I woke up startlingly early on Monday morning. I tentatively opened one eye and was thrilled that my digital clock read 06:50 - another hour of snoozing before I needed to sit upright. A short doze later, I reawoke feeling strangely refreshed and knew something was amiss. I opened my eyes, and saw that my clock now read 08:29. My alarm had decided that it was going to sleep in, and didn't go off. And I don't know how I did it, but I made it into the office by 09:03, 34 minutes from bed to desk, unshowered and with bed remaining unmade, but teeth brushed, clothes donned, make-up applied, hair tidied and choir folder remembered. I briefly felt like a B-grade superhero.
Friday night I went to see L'Elisir d'amore at Covent Garden with Arabee. I'd never seen a comic opera before, and I really enjoyed it from our £8 standing tickets. I don't know if it was due to the opera being less well-known or the credit crunch, but there were large swathes of empty red velvet in the stalls and lower circles, and the boxes were almost all empty. All the cheap seats were rammed, however, so I think it says more about the financial climate than the popularity of Donizetti. We had a good ol' natter in the interval and over wine in a pub beforehand, and all in all it was a delicious evening. Saturday was down to Tooting with Em for bargain threading (Feroza is ditched) and then dinner with Kate at the delicious and very funky Village East in Bermondsey - will definitely be returning - and finally on to Shunt. It pains me to admit it, and apologies to anyone to whom I've lied and said I've been there loads, but this is the first time I've gone to this self-consciously cool underground lair beneath London Bridge train station. I've intended to visit for years, but this was the first time that good intentions and willing third parties combined simultaneously, and Kate and I set off for the gloom of the arches with excitement. It was every bit as random and cool as I'd hoped, although the clientele was definitely in their mid-twenties, on average, and it was a little unexpected to find that the guys we'd been chatting to were still at university and aged 23. I don't know if they were unusually mature, or if the loud music meant I couldn't hear how idiotic they really were. Still, it was a brilliant night, involving white wine, fancy dress, throwing plastic balls at the head of ska band guitarists and pretending to be usherettes in a screenless cinema.
Since then I've spent time with two members of my extended US relations, had a day at work, gone to the gym, bought some scales in Boots, gone to choir, been reluctantly gobsmacked by Tim's impromptu magic display at the pub afterwards, woken up on time this morning, weighed myself, and enjoyed another half day at work. The scales and the weighing are on account of my decision, post last Friday, to try Weight Watchers for a few weeks. And the past 36 hours since I began, under Laura's beady eye, to count calories and calculate point allowances, have been shocking. My quantities weren't too bad, I knew that - but it appears that my main dietary treats, including smoked mackerel, halloumi and Pret's yoghurt with berries and granola, healthy though they sometimes are, are also so high in points that it is a miracle I haven't been recruited by Sumo UK for their summer extravaganza. One medium mackerel fillet, a staple part of my lunchtime diet, counts as 10 points, the same as a Big Mac. I am allowed 21 points in an entire day. A 40g block of halloumi, the size of a small matchbox, is 3.5 points, which sounds OK, until you realise that the average halloumi salad probably contains around 150-200g of grilled cheese. Oh. That may explain why I haven't lost quite so much weight as I expected in the past six weeks since I went on my pre-holiday diet.
Don't get me wrong. I am not crying into my Ryvita, feeling like a social outcast. I am generally a happy lass, and I do believe that I'm attractive and healthy as I am. But there's no denying that I'd like to shift a wee bit of weight before I have to prance about in my bikini in just under three weeks - so this seems like a fun thing to do between now and then. Call me odd, but so far, I'm enjoying it.
I went on this website last week to try and firm up my allegiances in advance of the European elections in June. On many issues I was confident that I had a fair bit of information in my filing cabinets, and I felt confident that I was clicking the right buttons. But on a few topics, namely EU integration and immigration, I felt pathetically ill-informed. I know what my gut tells me about these topics, but if there's anything my three weeks of politics course have taught me, it's that your instinct is all well and good, but if you aren't able to see or explain how these proposals can be practically implemented, then you're just a fantasist, which is nice for you and fun escapism, but really doesn't help the situation much. I'm now waiting for this book to arrive from Amazon; I saw the author speak a year or two ago and he was impressive and really quite fanciable. For some insane reason, due in part to the fact that I was feeling a bit needy having had a sweetly romantic but unsaucy dream about some total stranger on Sunday night, I ended up stalking him online yesterday and sent him an email asking him out for a drink. This morning, I received his reply saying that he was in New Zealand, which, as far as excuses go, is pretty solid. I almost imploded with cringe, deleted the email and have resolved to think no more on't.
Friday night I went to see L'Elisir d'amore at Covent Garden with Arabee. I'd never seen a comic opera before, and I really enjoyed it from our £8 standing tickets. I don't know if it was due to the opera being less well-known or the credit crunch, but there were large swathes of empty red velvet in the stalls and lower circles, and the boxes were almost all empty. All the cheap seats were rammed, however, so I think it says more about the financial climate than the popularity of Donizetti. We had a good ol' natter in the interval and over wine in a pub beforehand, and all in all it was a delicious evening. Saturday was down to Tooting with Em for bargain threading (Feroza is ditched) and then dinner with Kate at the delicious and very funky Village East in Bermondsey - will definitely be returning - and finally on to Shunt. It pains me to admit it, and apologies to anyone to whom I've lied and said I've been there loads, but this is the first time I've gone to this self-consciously cool underground lair beneath London Bridge train station. I've intended to visit for years, but this was the first time that good intentions and willing third parties combined simultaneously, and Kate and I set off for the gloom of the arches with excitement. It was every bit as random and cool as I'd hoped, although the clientele was definitely in their mid-twenties, on average, and it was a little unexpected to find that the guys we'd been chatting to were still at university and aged 23. I don't know if they were unusually mature, or if the loud music meant I couldn't hear how idiotic they really were. Still, it was a brilliant night, involving white wine, fancy dress, throwing plastic balls at the head of ska band guitarists and pretending to be usherettes in a screenless cinema.
Since then I've spent time with two members of my extended US relations, had a day at work, gone to the gym, bought some scales in Boots, gone to choir, been reluctantly gobsmacked by Tim's impromptu magic display at the pub afterwards, woken up on time this morning, weighed myself, and enjoyed another half day at work. The scales and the weighing are on account of my decision, post last Friday, to try Weight Watchers for a few weeks. And the past 36 hours since I began, under Laura's beady eye, to count calories and calculate point allowances, have been shocking. My quantities weren't too bad, I knew that - but it appears that my main dietary treats, including smoked mackerel, halloumi and Pret's yoghurt with berries and granola, healthy though they sometimes are, are also so high in points that it is a miracle I haven't been recruited by Sumo UK for their summer extravaganza. One medium mackerel fillet, a staple part of my lunchtime diet, counts as 10 points, the same as a Big Mac. I am allowed 21 points in an entire day. A 40g block of halloumi, the size of a small matchbox, is 3.5 points, which sounds OK, until you realise that the average halloumi salad probably contains around 150-200g of grilled cheese. Oh. That may explain why I haven't lost quite so much weight as I expected in the past six weeks since I went on my pre-holiday diet.
Don't get me wrong. I am not crying into my Ryvita, feeling like a social outcast. I am generally a happy lass, and I do believe that I'm attractive and healthy as I am. But there's no denying that I'd like to shift a wee bit of weight before I have to prance about in my bikini in just under three weeks - so this seems like a fun thing to do between now and then. Call me odd, but so far, I'm enjoying it.
I went on this website last week to try and firm up my allegiances in advance of the European elections in June. On many issues I was confident that I had a fair bit of information in my filing cabinets, and I felt confident that I was clicking the right buttons. But on a few topics, namely EU integration and immigration, I felt pathetically ill-informed. I know what my gut tells me about these topics, but if there's anything my three weeks of politics course have taught me, it's that your instinct is all well and good, but if you aren't able to see or explain how these proposals can be practically implemented, then you're just a fantasist, which is nice for you and fun escapism, but really doesn't help the situation much. I'm now waiting for this book to arrive from Amazon; I saw the author speak a year or two ago and he was impressive and really quite fanciable. For some insane reason, due in part to the fact that I was feeling a bit needy having had a sweetly romantic but unsaucy dream about some total stranger on Sunday night, I ended up stalking him online yesterday and sent him an email asking him out for a drink. This morning, I received his reply saying that he was in New Zealand, which, as far as excuses go, is pretty solid. I almost imploded with cringe, deleted the email and have resolved to think no more on't.
Monday, 29 October 2007
A Few Lessons
Management-speak seems to find that the noun ‘lesson’ is inadequate and has replaced it with a new bastardisation of the verb ‘to learn’, as in ‘What learnings can we take from this meeting?’ It drives me mental and I have previously felt very superior to such office gimps – but then I caught myself almost titling this blog ‘A Few Learnings’ and then felt suicidal. How quickly it seeps in…
I’ve had an interesting few days and feel like I’m on a strange new path. In a good way. On Saturday I went to The Institute of Ideas’ third annual Battle of Ideas – a weekend of talks with a broadly liberal theme. Assuming you didn’t fork out £45 to attend, I’ll give you the choicest nuggets from each of the four talks I attended.
Talk 1 was ‘Demonising Parents’ about how mummy and daddy are on the receiving end of a lot of blame, from lunchbox contents to story time, and how crippling this can be. My favourite comment from this session was on a grammatical issue when one speaker pointed out that ‘parent’ is a noun. The verb form (ie. ‘parenting’) is a relatively recent development; the verb used to be ‘child-rearing’ and the speaker made the point that the focus has largely shifted from the child to the parent – a lexical example of how language echoes our culture. Gripping?
Talk 2 was Eat, Drink and Be Merry: Banned, all about how everything is too regulated and we’re victims of a nanny state who won’t let us smoke or have any fun. The arguments usually run that healthy, clean living types shouldn’t have to pay their taxes so that irresponsible libertines can go to the NHS to have their problems solved. But really, where do you draw the line between self-inflicted illness and the other? The ‘learning’ here was that, before any new legislation is passed, we need to ask ourselves, ‘Is this law worth the loss of freedom that will occur as a result?’ – the implicit answer being, of course, ‘No.’ What was interesting was looking throughout British history and seeing that there were clearly defined periods of libertinism versus periods of dramatic self-flagellation and we’re obviously firmly in one of the latter. Can’t wait for the tide to turn – hopefully I’ll still be able to walk.
Talk 3 was The Resurrection of Religion: Moving Beyond Secularism or Losing Faith in Politics? And weirdly, even though this is probably more my ‘area’, I slightly flagged at this point. I think the highlight for me was the discussion of faith schools – one speaker made the point that if one were to insert the word ‘politics’ in place of ‘faith’ and imagine an institution where one political leaning was espoused and all others were demonised at worst, barely tolerated at best and where certain texts were banned while others were held up as unassailably true – well, we’d never allow it. Religious followers on the panel held that religion and politics could not be equated but I’m not so sure… Ooh, the other gripping thing was that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in blood transfusions – and don’t allow their children to have them. As a liberal atheist, that’s pretty hard to take – but should we step in or is it their right to make such decisions on the part of their children? Surely the latter – if only because legislating on such an issue would open a vast can of worms that could only end in Big Brother disaster.
Talk 4 was my favourite. Rethinking Immigration: The Unheard Debate covered a huge and persuasive area – kicking off with a statistic that surprised me: apparently only 3% of the world’s population live outside their birth country. One of the speakers put a convincing case for opening all borders and allowing totally free immigration worldwide, something that, in my ignorance, I’d never even considered before. They also argued comprehensively against using a points system to predict who will be a useful addition to a country, citing the examples that Barack Obama’s father was a goatherd and that Sergei Brin, the founder of Google, was a first generation migrant to the US from Russia.
As a bonus, I also caught the tail end of Age of the Metropolis: What is the Future of Cities? and heard this gem: ‘If you would dare to know, live in a city. If you would rather be known, but not know, live in a village.’ Brilliant.
I had planned to go to a triple bill of French films at Riverside Studios last night but felt so virtuous after Saturday’s knowledge-fest that I ended up watching a video of the X Factor and eating Skippy peanut butter off a knife. You win some, you lose some.
I’ve had an interesting few days and feel like I’m on a strange new path. In a good way. On Saturday I went to The Institute of Ideas’ third annual Battle of Ideas – a weekend of talks with a broadly liberal theme. Assuming you didn’t fork out £45 to attend, I’ll give you the choicest nuggets from each of the four talks I attended.
Talk 1 was ‘Demonising Parents’ about how mummy and daddy are on the receiving end of a lot of blame, from lunchbox contents to story time, and how crippling this can be. My favourite comment from this session was on a grammatical issue when one speaker pointed out that ‘parent’ is a noun. The verb form (ie. ‘parenting’) is a relatively recent development; the verb used to be ‘child-rearing’ and the speaker made the point that the focus has largely shifted from the child to the parent – a lexical example of how language echoes our culture. Gripping?
Talk 2 was Eat, Drink and Be Merry: Banned, all about how everything is too regulated and we’re victims of a nanny state who won’t let us smoke or have any fun. The arguments usually run that healthy, clean living types shouldn’t have to pay their taxes so that irresponsible libertines can go to the NHS to have their problems solved. But really, where do you draw the line between self-inflicted illness and the other? The ‘learning’ here was that, before any new legislation is passed, we need to ask ourselves, ‘Is this law worth the loss of freedom that will occur as a result?’ – the implicit answer being, of course, ‘No.’ What was interesting was looking throughout British history and seeing that there were clearly defined periods of libertinism versus periods of dramatic self-flagellation and we’re obviously firmly in one of the latter. Can’t wait for the tide to turn – hopefully I’ll still be able to walk.
Talk 3 was The Resurrection of Religion: Moving Beyond Secularism or Losing Faith in Politics? And weirdly, even though this is probably more my ‘area’, I slightly flagged at this point. I think the highlight for me was the discussion of faith schools – one speaker made the point that if one were to insert the word ‘politics’ in place of ‘faith’ and imagine an institution where one political leaning was espoused and all others were demonised at worst, barely tolerated at best and where certain texts were banned while others were held up as unassailably true – well, we’d never allow it. Religious followers on the panel held that religion and politics could not be equated but I’m not so sure… Ooh, the other gripping thing was that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in blood transfusions – and don’t allow their children to have them. As a liberal atheist, that’s pretty hard to take – but should we step in or is it their right to make such decisions on the part of their children? Surely the latter – if only because legislating on such an issue would open a vast can of worms that could only end in Big Brother disaster.
Talk 4 was my favourite. Rethinking Immigration: The Unheard Debate covered a huge and persuasive area – kicking off with a statistic that surprised me: apparently only 3% of the world’s population live outside their birth country. One of the speakers put a convincing case for opening all borders and allowing totally free immigration worldwide, something that, in my ignorance, I’d never even considered before. They also argued comprehensively against using a points system to predict who will be a useful addition to a country, citing the examples that Barack Obama’s father was a goatherd and that Sergei Brin, the founder of Google, was a first generation migrant to the US from Russia.
As a bonus, I also caught the tail end of Age of the Metropolis: What is the Future of Cities? and heard this gem: ‘If you would dare to know, live in a city. If you would rather be known, but not know, live in a village.’ Brilliant.
I had planned to go to a triple bill of French films at Riverside Studios last night but felt so virtuous after Saturday’s knowledge-fest that I ended up watching a video of the X Factor and eating Skippy peanut butter off a knife. You win some, you lose some.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)