In about a month time I’ll be 26… Which means that from now on I will tick the 25 + box, or even worse the 25 to 40 box… Getting older doesn’t really bother me. Wait. It does actually!

It terrifies me.

The other day, during my nightmarish trip back from France I was reading Cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitan, a magazine aiming at young women between 18 and 25 and of which my 23-year old colleague tells me: “Oh, I wasn’t even reading Cosmopolitan anymore at University..!” Ouch. So I was reading it and came across an article I really liked:

Am I really showing my age?

At what time are we stopping to be a young adult to just become an adult? I think it is more an attitude problem, you can be 16, 26, 29, 54, 76, you are old when:

• You spell all the worlds in a text message.
• You have to tick the 25 + box in every form you have to fill. And it hurts.
• When you pretend you are 22 for a laugh, and people really laugh.
• There are more and more people younger than you.
• Your best friend got married/pregnant/divorced.
• You don’t know who Miley Cirus is.
• The guys in the streets don’t say to you anymore: “Psst, shit, weed, x,..” when you walk by.
• Johnny Depp is a mature man.
• You”re too old to become top model, singer, ballet dancer or star.
• Your friends are all in serious relationships.
• So are you.
• You find babies cute.
• You think that babies who cry are moving.
• You express personal opinions in a plural: “Sweety and I, we love the X factor”. “Sweety and I, we don’t like George Bush.”
• And when he is there, you add: “don’t you Sweety?”
• You agree with him very often.
• When you go out from the lift, men let you go first.
• When you take the Tube, youths get up and give you their seat.
• You don’t know when are the school holidays.
• You say “youths” instead of “teenagers”.
• You think youths are very noisy.
• Dinner with friends have replaced going out and partying till the end of the night.
• When you’re asked for a last drink at midnight, you answer: “It’s not very sensible, I have a meeting/school run tomorrow morning.”
• In night clubs you find the music very loud whereas the DJ hasn’t arrived yet.
• The day after a night out you have rings under your eyes.
• The day after a night out, you stay home in pyjamas with herbal tea.
• You don’t claim to be anti-beauty surgery anymore. You even think Demi Moore is very well maintained.
• You can’t lose weight by downing back three pots of Nutella anymore. Now you have to eat fish and vegetables.
• You know where to find the vegetables in the supermarket, you even know their names.
• Your fridge is full
• You’re not asked for your ID when you buy cigarettes or alcohol.
• You are flattered when they refuse to sell you alcohol when you don’t have your ID.
• Same applies for night clubs.
• You prefer hotels rather than camping, it’s more comfortable.
• You think about the future
• You think about your pension
• Your banker starts considering you as a potential client, not a potential thug.
• You think your mother is actually right.
• When your mother talks, you listen to her.
• Physically you look more and more like our mother.
• And morally too.
• You have a dishwasher.
• You think it’s a shame getting up at 1pm on a Sunday, it shortens the day too much.
• Bands we used to listen when we were young are either vintage, worshipped, split, or dead. Or the four at the same time, like Nirvana.
• You think it was better before.
• You are obsessed with your age.

As you can see, I’m back. I hadn’t left really but I had no inspiration whatsoever. Nothing really funny or witty or even interesting happened those last three weeks or so. I was very busy at work, under a lot of pressure also, which, after thought was put on me by myself… {sigh}

I’m also back from a week holidays in south-west France. I had an absolute fantastic time!!

Women Power!!!

But I love you too Tonton

Anyway, this, just to say I’m back, and planning to post more in the coming weeks and months!

Take care.

* Title of an article in today’s Daily Telegraph.

Well, now, isn’t it a bit exaggerated? Everything, I think, has been blown out way out of proportion. Listen to that.

According to the Daily Telegraph,

Only the election of President Barack Obama to the White House eclipsed the death of the ‘King of Pop’ at the age of 50, research by Global Language Monitor (GLM) found.

Jackson’s death received more coverage than the Iraq War, 9/11 and the global financial meltdown, last year’s Beijing Olympics, Hurricane Katrina, the death of Pope John Paul II and the Tsunami.

The newspaper which is one of the two newspaper of records in the UK (the other one being The Times), goes on reporting that Michael Jackson’s memorial concert is one of the biggest Internet and television events ever. EVER.

That, I have to say really buggers me. Michael Jackson’s death received bigger coverage than 9/11? You must be joking me. This unfortunately shows very well the poor state our world is in. Pop Idols, singers, actors’ whereabouts are more likely to receive media attention than political crisis, revolutions, earthquakes and any major disaster in general. One thing though really made me laugh when today I read about “poor” Mariah Carey whose new album release made a flop – again, for the second time in a row, due to a bigger event happening. Her last album has been released on the day of Michael Jackson’s death. The precedent one was released on 11th September 2001…

I’m sorry but THAT is bad luck!

By the way does anyone know what’s happening in Iran right now?

I find the whole thing slightly gagging and indecent. And it was everywhere! Every channel had to cover it, there was no way of watching anything else, or escape the grotesque ceremony. Apparently the BBC received 473 complaints about its coverage of the Michael Jackson funeral and memorial service:

- 91 of the calls were specifically about the “excessive” coverage, 47 complained about the scheduling changes and the rest expressed concerns about tone of the reporting.

- BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC News channel and international BBC News World all covered the event at some extent. That’s not news cover anymore that’s called making profit.

And last week, the BBC received 748 complaints over its ‘wall-to-wall’ coverage of the death of the singer.

Now why don’t we focus on Sarkozy’s new law proposal. Should French people be able to shop on a Sunday? That, my friend is THE real question.

I personaly think that he should focus on getting the shops to open on a Monday morning! France must be the only country in Europe where you can’t get your baguette on a Monday morning…

I know it’s lame but I just can’t help it.

I love that shit!! here is a little treat for the weekend.

and another one:

Enjoy your weekend!

Fitness.

Hmm. Fitness.

Somebody I won’t name convinced me to sign up to fitness classes. To be honest, I didn’t resist too much as I will be reaching 26 (too soon) and intend very much to keep smoking, boozing and eating as much as I was before without gaining any weight and while building myself a Goddess’ body.

Everybody has its dreams…

But those are not regular fitness classes, oh no! I’m talking Military Fitness!!

Yep.

British Military Fitness. Help..! I went to the first class on Wednesday evening. Today I still feel like I’ve been beaten up by a whole team of rugbymen.

The concept is fairly simple though: a military / ex-military instructor screaming orders and encouragements at about twenty people wearing blue numbers (blue because that’s the easiest level, the “unfit” level), sweating, running, rolling in the mud, doing press-ups, sit-ups, and loads of other very rude words I haven’t a clue what they mean.

Oh yeah, first thing first, half of the time I hadn’t a clue of what they were screaming at me. To my ear it sounded like barking. And to make matter worse, it was tough. Oh God it was so, so hard. I thought I was going to throw up, to die from a cardiac arrest, to fall on the ground and never get up again. But in the end I kept going apart from the occasional stitch and cramp, and you know what kept me running/jumping/rolling/crawling?

No. Not BF’s encouragements and advice…

Hatred. Pure HATRED. If I could have caught one of the two instructors (very, very unlikely to happen though), the thought of all the horrible things I could do to him/them made me go through the whole session. A good point, they know how to get the maximum out of somebody although I doubt my reaction is the standard one – I hope it is not anyway.

Results are there. I feel fitter! Well, at the very minute, I feel totally knackered, in pain, and even breathing is sore… but it was the first class. It can only get better from now!

Seriously now. It’s good. Even fun (yep!). And definitely worth a try. The classes take place outside, in our case at the Clapham Common, and it does make a nice change from stuffy gyms.

My dear friends, let me tell you something sensible today:

The Sun, thou shalt avoid.

Indeed it’s bad. I know what I’m talking about. Cursed by a fair skin I am no stranger to sunburnts. I got my fair share, I don’t think any part of my body has been spared during those last 25 (almost 26) years.

I know very well everything of its dangers but still I burn.

Last weekend however I’ve touched the bottom (if bottom there is) of the stupidity. From now, my relationship with the Sun will never be the same ever again. Last Sunday we went to Brighton – lovely town, and decided to sat on some deckchairs we found on the beach. Not for long, just for 10-15min because we were tired (we got up at 6am this morning). Hardly suprising, we fell asleep.

Yep.

Asleep.

How more stupid can that be?!?

As a result my dear friends, I woke up BURNT! I mean burnt, burnt, burnt. The face (of course), the arms, the neck, the legs burnt, the toes (ouch!) burnt.

I’m not talking about the pain here. It hurts. A lot.

I’m talking side effects. The very, pretty, original, striking, attention-grabbing side effects.

• The glasses effect. In my case even more striking because I was wearing mask-like designer glasses. I now have (and must live with) a big white mark around my eyes and accross my face while the rest of my face is red, red, red. My boss when she saw me on Wednesday literally burst into laughing… It is that bad.
• The scabbing (yuk) effect. My nose tip and my chin are so burnt that a brownish scab is actually forming…
• The pealing effect. And I’m pealing! I’m disseminating my DNA in the whole of London. It’s terrible, it’s terrible, I not only look like a leper but it’s gross!!

To those who say I deserved it, well yeah ok. I did. To the others, thanks for your support in those troubled times.

PS: One of my colleagues actually proposed to cut me a balaclava in a Nusa Soup paper bag so, I quote: “You can hide yourself and look innocuous in the Tube back home..“

{sigh…}

Let’s light the spirits up a bit.

A granny, a zebra cross and an impatient driver. Funny combination you think?

Well, not as funny as that video!

Why can’t everything be easy, understandable?

Why has everything to be so complicated and above all is it really worth all the hassle?

Why can’t a friend listen to you the same way you listen to her?

Why is the hole so deep and dark and cold?

Why isn’t your other one here, helping to pull you back up on your feet?

Why does it have to hurt so much and what if you were wrong?

What if you were just wasting our time, your effort, your strength, your joy, your soul and your freedom?

What if everything, life, love, death, eternity was just a joke, a big unamusing big joke?

What if you were alone?

What if you were giving up, would people notice, would he notice?

What if you were to stop pretending everything is ok and let the facade crumble? Would they sympathise with you, would they ignore you, would they ostracise you…?

What if you don’t care anymore?

What happens next? And if everything fails, would you be strong enough to start again?

You are weak and pathetic, a creep crawling in a big hole. A big dark cold hole. At the top the sun shines but it doesn’t reach you. There is no way out.

Now, eagerly expected by many, comes the sequel of What Women Think: What Men Think…

Let’s be fair. A Man is not as subtle as a Woman. That’s well-known and that’s also what ill-informed people might say.

When He says he’d like some crisps he does mean he’d like some crisps. For the rest however there might be some subtleties indeed.

Well, well, I hope this has been of some help. I’m open if anyone has any new suggestions…

From now on there won’t be any excuses for males not to understand their female counterparts. With what follows, any human being will be able to get an insight of what is in the other sex’s mind!

I mean it as a guide, a decipherer, an absolute must-have, the last step towards mutual understanding and World Peace. (What do you mean I’m slightly over the top? Me? Never! )

Over is the time when Men couldn’t make sense of Women. Admire the richness of the nuances:

And next time: What Men Think….