To swipe or not to swipe, that is the question.....

So, observant readers may have noticed both a lack of posts of late, for which I truly apologise… And truly attentive readers, well-endowed in the memory department, may indeed recall a post about dating earlier this year. Well, the two may are intrinsically linked as I have *drumroll please* recently decided to join Tinder. I’ve dabbled a bit in online dating in the past as regular blog readers might be aware, but never with a great deal of success and never on Tinder. But following a not so brief hiatus from the world of online dating, I have decided to give it a second chance and get back in that saddle.

I am sure most of you savvy types out there know all about Tinder. Recently hailed by Vanity Fair as creating a ‘dating apocalypse’ (well that’s cheerful!) it’s a mobile phone app designed to facilitate dating opportunities/casual hook-ups through the easy medium of swiping on a profile picture. It’s right for yes &  left for no ta, not in a month of Sundays. All you have to go on to make such a momentous decision are a picture (sometimes several) and perhaps a brief description of who they are, what they are looking for, and witticism or two (if you’re lucky… you’re often not). It’s mildly addictive, swiping through profiles with the speed and proficiency of a *retro reference alert* 1980’s Daley Thompson’s Decathlon enthusiast. Searches for your ideal match can be refined by proximity and age, meaning if you cast your net wide enough, you have a veritable feast of mankind with whom to flirt. And I do loves myself a feast of mankind. If you have swiped right on a chap (or indeed chappess, let’s not be too sexist/hetero normative here) and they similarly have swiped right on you, then IT’S A MATCH and you can get down to the serious subject of a natter, with potentially a date/ casual hookup (as per your own preferences) in the offing if you play your cards right.  

Now, what with my living in London, and there being a vast pool of men into which one can dip ones toes (the pool, not the men. Ew), I decided early on that there ought to be some method to my madness, some science to my swiping. As such, I have applied some rules to my ‘swipe criteria’ all of which are guaranteed to get a left swipe from me: 

Nudity

There is a fair amount of nudity on Tinder…. and not always in a good way. Luckily I haven’t yet fallen foul of the dick pic, however in a manner similar to a silver backed gorilla seeking his primal (primate?) partner in crime, there is an awful lot of chest baring. Thus, one of my first ground rules is never swipe for a nudie. After all, if that’s the first thing they think entices a member of the opposite sex to swipe right, they have another think coming… for me at least.

 The selfie

Now, I don’t mind a selfie. I have been known to pop off a few myself, however if a man has not yet got to grips with the reverse camera phone switcheroo & can only snap a pic of himself, David Baileying into a mirror then I don’t want to know. Technology has moved on peoples, get with the programme. Oh, and while we’re at it, what is it with men taking pictures of themselves in the mirror of quite obviously public toilets? It only makes me wonder if they’ve washed their hands, and quite frankly, that does not a romantic moment make. As for the unfortunate chap that also included his obviously curious family members in said bathroom photo (mmmm sexy), I have no words.

The LOL

I dislike a LOL. More than that, I detest it. It sings to my grammar pedantry and hatred of pointless abbreviation. We’re not operating in 1998! We're allowed more than 160 characters per text nowadays y’know! *grrs* For these reasons a LOL infuriate me, however, the absolute worst thing about a lol is the insincerity of it all. A laugh out loud, did you? DID YOU REALLY? Or did you merely raise the glimmer of a smile??? A mere upward curving of a lip in response to a cat doing a weird thing on the internet or something. And don’t get me started on a ROFL. When was the last time you actually saw someone rolling on the floor laughing that wasn’t a squealing toddler, veering wildly between hysterical laughter and the ever present risk of incontinence? NEVER. That’s when! So when a LOL appears in a description, it’s swiping left they go, and good riddance too.

CAVEAT: Exceptions to the LOL rule include dearly loved members of family, friends, and those old enough not to know any better. None of whom I’m looking to date.

Tell me more…..!

My final, and perhaps most crucial ground rule is no describey, no likey. So many of these profiles have precisely zero to say for themselves, literally. All photos, no words. And while some of your carefully selected snaps may tell me something about you (Mr Man on the Overland with his freshly purchased loo roll, I’m looking at you), nothing says I can’t be arsed more than an absence of a profile description. After all, if you’re silent in your profile, I dread to think what you’re like on a date, and I’m certainly not looking to date a monk undertaking a vow of silence.

One would think that with a raft of deal breakers such as these, that the pool would be rapidly diminished (& we haven’t even mentioned how many potential partners’ rules my profiles has broken. Plenty I’m sure!), however this is not the case. I have a number of pre-Christmas dates set up, and at the very least it’s better than sitting on me tod watching Masterchef Professionals. However, if one of them turns up, fresh out of the loo, camera phone grasped in soggy hand, semi naked, interspersing a loudly bellowed LOL with utter silence, I may have to reconsider my views. But until then, wish me luck!

The mysterious case of the disappearing warm & fuzzies

So there I was the other day, gently pootling around in my kitchen with the telly on in the background, adverts running their subliminal messaging, barely disturbing my washing up reverie... That was until the refrain of Alicia Keys caught my attention. I turned to the black box of glory as a befreckled, curly haired ginger lass appears on screen. She’s looking at her sporting idol on her iPad, until her mum comes over, they share a moment as the mother introduces her to her childhood sporting idol, and they share a blissful 30 seconds of mother daughter bonding, celebrating fantastic women through the years, all brought to you by the power of high speedbroadband. Ahhhh. How lovely I thought, go on with your female empowerment and celebration, all brought to you by Virgin Media for only…. Wait. High speed internet?! Hang on there just a minute billy bob! They’re after my cash! My reverie was shattered, my advertising agency induced fuzzies disappeared, leaving me with a distinct sense of being had.

You see the thing is, I won’t disagree, female empowerment is to be celebrated, as is female sporting achievement. And mother daughter bonding is a great thing, as is the vision of women publicly & easily using tech. However, what I almost forgot in my advertising trance is that this is no warming scene of mother daughter bonding; this is a TV advert, hijacking my warm fuzzies in an effort to get my (presumably pink) wallet out of my teeny tiny handbag and make me buy something. Gah, I thought to myself, I was fooled! My warm fuzzies were manipulated! How dare you! I switched my telly off in a pique of feminist fury and on with my washing up I went… (and if any of you dare point out that irony, trust me, you’ll have more than just pique on your hands).

The thing is, this isn’t a new thing. It has name and everything…. FEMVERTISING. Ugh. It makes me shudder just typing it. The Dove beauty campaigns have been doing it for years, boosting our buying confidence by showing us proud Dove using women of all shapes and sizes. The Always advert hit the headlines earlier this year with the #likeagirl campaign, challenging people to take back the assumptions of what it means to do something like a girl, and reclaim it as a positive thing…. But let us not forget, they were still trying to get viewers to buy pantyliners and racking up 50m+ YouTube hits in an effort to do so.

I guess the thing is, I’m not annoyed purely by these adverts, they are after all symptomatic of further frustrations. It is a fantastic thing that there is a fourth wave of feminism crashing on the shores of the world, but advertising companies are using that wave to target the majority users of the product they are selling (whether that be tampons or high heels) and in the majority, the controllers of the household budgets. These companies have to make their money, and femvertising (there goes that shudder again) appears to be a good way of doing it.

However what would be better, and a massive step in the right direction, would be if there didn’t have to be these campaigns to begin with.  If companies didn’t HAVE TO induce the warm fuzzies when you see a young girl celebrating a sporting hero on the internet, because a female sporting hero should be celebrated in the mainstream anyways. Likewise, women being proud of their shapes and sizes ought not to be a novelty on our TV or movie screens, it should be our normality. And advertising more than just beauty products at a female audience shouldn’t have to make me turn my head in surprise, because guess what, we make up 50% of the consumer market out there, and we have money to spend too.

As Laura Bates of the BRILLIANT Everyday Sexism campaign says “while I applaud progress, wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where we didn't have to celebrate ad campaigns that give children equal access to toys or don't present women in a sexist way -- because [those things were] just the norm?". And to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t agree with her more…

All groan up

Take a seat peeps, for surely these are momentous times. It’s the anniversary to trump all anniversaries, because you’ve guessed it. It’s the 20th anniversary of the birth of HOLLYOAKS! Yes. folks, it really has been around THAT long. You see there was a time, way back in the shrouded mists of 1995 where the British youth were crying out in one voice – bring us cheap TV, set in Chester! Bring us the early incarnation of scouse brows, tight lycra and implausible plot lines! Bring us…! Ok, we didn't want anyone to bring us any of the above, any more than we wanted platform trainers, hooch hard lemonade and Robson & Jerome, but it came nevertheless… and as witnessed by the anniversary, it has stayed.

Just your average day at Hollyoaks High

And I concede, as an anniversary it’s hardly worthy of a Great British Menu banquet, but to me this Hollyoaks-ary IS significant. I’ve not watched Hollyoaks since about 1998 (who would? All the orange skin, wobbly sets and even wobblier acting is enough to put you off Channel 4 forever), plus I’m hardly the demographic they are seeking in their ‘just back from school, but racier than Blue Peter' time slot. But that’s the nub of the matter you see. There WAS a time when I was that demographic, and today’s momentous news has just hammered home to me one rather depressing fact…. I’m getting old.

I’ll be honest, this is not the first time I’ve had to come face to face with my own decrepidity. I seem to have been steadily ticking off the checkpoints of age with alarming regularity, not least my recent 35^th birthday. But while someone whose name I can’t remember (it’s the early onset Alzheimers dear) may have said that age aint nothing but a number (glossing over the double negatives), I’ve noticed that there are a few other ageing milestones I’ve been ticking off with alarming regularity, most notably:

 - Realising I make a certain grasping, creaking noise whenever I stand up after being sat in a comfy chair

 - Realising I make the exact opposite noise when I sit back down in said comfy chair

 - Getting excited to cook a roast dinner, not because of the roast itself, but because I can make a good stock afterwards

 - Being mildly perturbed by the hairstyles of 99% of the xFactor contestants (except the 'Overs', natch)

 - Claiming Thursday night is the new Friday night, then spending both on my sofa snarking at the telly via Twitter

 -  Considering my Sunday morning hangover before I've started my Saturday night drinking

 - Shouting the answers (often incorrect ones at that) at the TV during university challenge

 - Having at least 2 bottles of wine in the fridge at all times, and one bottle of port in the booze cupboard

 - Actually having a booze cupboard… and a well stocked one at that!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not hitting pension age just yet. I still love my festivals, gigs, nights out with mates, house parties and all the rest. It's just I like to know there's comfortable seating wherever I'm doing it. Definitely a sign of impending creakiness I think. 

But of course the classic sign of getting older is realising you’re showing all the classic signs and not really caring, so that’s where I’m now at. Happily ensconced on my sofa (or in my kitchen making stock), not raging it up as I used to & raging at the TV instead (or children playing noisily outside my window) and keeping the noise level low. Basically, I’m turning into my mother…. Except slightly more annoyed it seems. Am I happy with that? Well a 15 year old, Hollyoaks watching me would be furious at the idea of it, but the 35 year old me is much more accepting of the idea, which perhaps is the biggest sign of growing old of all.

The perils of a glossy box

First of all, a warning to those of you easily terrified by use of the V word (you wusses!), there’s a lot of it here, and if you don’t want to hear about them, look away now. Your delicate disposition may not be able to handle it, so go get a cuppa tea, do some gardening or entertain yourself with thoughts of anything non nether region, because you have been warned. And now, on with the show…!

*****

So. Vaginas. Who’d have em? Well, I would mine and frankly, what a way to start my latest blog. But something of the lady garden has enraged me and I can’t help but write about it.

The product in question

Let me take you back to my recent birthday. Some very dear friends cheered that woeful day with the kind gift of a subscription to the beauty website GlossyBox. A website which promises to send a monthly selection of 5 ‘surprise’ beauty products tailored specifically to you, as determined by an online beauty survey. So far, so good. I do love a good survey…. So I filled out said questionnaire, responding to queries on my skin & hair types and regimes. Lo & behold 5 days later my box arrived, containing my said surprises, namely: an eyelash primer, a lip crayon, a cleanser, toner and brunzer. It was a fabulous gift, if one can put to one side (and I do) the fact I knew nothing of the very existence of two of these products. After all, who knew eyelashes needed priming? Apparently they are now now the ocular equivalent of a wardrobe in need of upcycling. As for brunzer? Get outta town! But I digress…. The products were nice, and posed a new shakeup to my beauty regime, meaning I was much pleased with said gifting… or so I thought until I inspected the items more closely. Such examination revealed that while the toner tones the face, and the crayon paints the lip, it turns the cleanser is intended to cleanse & ‘purify’ (their words, not mine) THE VAGINA! And not any ole vagina, MY vagina! Oooh I got mad, real mad, and not to say more than a little confused, after all I’m pretty sure not one of the questions posed in the ‘beauty regime survey’ pertained to the freshness of my foof. But mad? Why so?

*mutters angrily to self*
Remember the historical
context

Well first of all, there is the rage inducing fact that this product was sent to me under the banner of ‘beauty products’. BEAUTY I asked myself, how is this beauty? A spurious assertion I raged! It could at best be described as hygiene, but even that is a pretty dubious, as experts the world over (or should that be under?) seem to agree that our VJJs do quite well without the need for such chemically products, thank you very much. The ingredients often upset PH balances, and frankly I can think of nothing more distressing than an upset vagina. A 2013 study even revealed that upsetting such balances with the use of ‘intimate cleansers’ (as they describe them) runs the risk of an increased susceptibility to sexually transmitted diseases! All this in a quest for a ‘pure’ pussy! If you’re looking for that love, get yourself to a nunnery I say, don’t come at me with your deodorisers, cleansers and purifiers, all marching under the banner of 'beauty'.

It must be said not all cosmetic companies are the same. I very much admire certain players in the beauty & cosmetic industry, namely those that are supporting ethical campaigns, fighting animal testing, veering away from rainforest reducing palm oil, and supporting ethical sourcing. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that beauty products can often empower women, giving them a well needed boost of confidence with a sexy scent or made up face. After all, there’s nothing better to use when facing a bad day, than a coating of confidence boosting war paint), however there are some companies whose marketing tactics & reflected attitudes towards their consumers are far more disreputable, and whose claims I fear are more dubious. A fear which backed up by a 2015 study which found that just 14% of claims made in 289 cosmetic adverts in the previous year, could actually be described as ‘acceptable’. Not even true, just ‘acceptable’! So those companies of fanny fresheners & confidence denters, don’t go peddling your intimate wash to me, saying it’s ‘gynaecologically approved’ and 'dermatologically tested’ like it should be an integral part of every woman’s daily routine, I’m quite happy with some mild soap and water thanks (as recommended by the experts).

Yep! Men are 100% odour free
*nods head wisely*

And that takes me onto the sexism. OH THE SEXISM! Gargh! Women's self-esteem is under attack enough as it is with the from companies using photoshopped unreals gazing out from every advert, Instagram page and beauty mag, alleging that our pores are too large, our hips too wide, our skin too greasy, our hair greying (I could go on, but I won’t… mostly cos I’ll run out of space!). And now our lady gardens are under attack too! It’s infuriating! And a realm only preserved from us here women, after all when was the last time you saw a ‘scrotum sanitiser’ for sale? Or a ‘penis purifier’? Or even a ‘bollock brightener’? NEVER! THAT’S WHEN! Only ever to the ladies is such twaddle (or in this case twattle) peddled… and has been for quite some time according to some of the advertising I’ve stumbled across. And at a time where young women are growing up with unprecedented levels of plummeting self esteem, rocketing self harm and increasing mental health suffering, the cosmetics’ industry manufactured worry of issue of having a mildly musty muff is one concern they do not need piled atop! This stuff should be outlawed! Or at least banished to the back of the bathroom cabinet, to stay there forever, gathering the kind of dusty disuse that the product vows to do away with.

I think a 'cool wind' down 
there is an entirely 
different problem...

So now my ranting is complete, what have I done about it? Well natch, I grumped online to GlossyBox, after all a modern day gripe is nothing if not manifested online. The response was long coming, informing me that beauty (there it is again) can be found from tip to toe, signing off with a suggestion I should have a ‘fannytastic day’ (PAH!), and so I took my revenge out in the way best I deemed appropriate… I used said product. Not in the location advised by the manufacturers, but in a fit of bathroom based pique, it was slathered everywhere but there just to prove a point. My box is quite glossy enough as it is thank you very much, you can keep your intimate cleansings to yourself you quite literal douchebags.

There's only one dodgy twat in this marriage...

Bad case of the birthday blues

Ahh, the 12^th August, it’s that time of year again, namely my birthday, known to some as the Glorious 12^th. Alas not known thus for being my birthday (contrary to my childhood assumptions) but instead for the opening of the grouse shooting season. Though to be fair, I have my doubts… I mean, it’s not that glorious for the poor grouse as they get shot out of the sky, undergrowth, or wherever it is the wee sods try to hide every year as summer rolls round & the toffs get out their shotguns. But hey ho, I’ve digressed already and it’s only the first paragraph.

Happy birthday me

So yes, the 12^th, and this year in all of its ingloriousness I was definitely with the grouse. I’m pleased to say that despite an absence of Scottish landowners chasing me round my house with some of the finest firearms in the glens, this birthday was distinctly sucky. Now, I’m not by nature that much of a maudlin person, I’m usually quite chipper on the whole, so I don’t want you to read this as a self-pitying blog heralding a headlong slide into depression as my body and mind decline immeasurably on their annual depreciation of value. But it must be said, this year was not a good one. There’s been a lot of change in my life over the last 18 months, primarily work wise as I switch to a new career and all of that which comes with it (primarily a lack of cash), so when my birthday came around, having got back on my feet and rolled with all the punches of recent times, I was ready to celebrate. However, like most Big Occasions, it was overhyped (or at least minorly hyped, gotta keep these things in some kind of perspective), and I was let down worse than worse than a 10 year old girl at an episode of Jim’ll Fix It.

I mean it wasn’t all bad, but certainly several factors combined to provide a meteor storm of ‘waaahs’ from Sophington Towers, namely:

1.       A  unfortunate  & unexpected series of no shows at my birthday drinks, & me sat with just 1 mate for 2 hours, at a pub table reserved for 15 until my trusty comrades in booze turned up – not so much billy no mates as billy one mate for a while (& to my mates that made it, especially the one that stuck by throughout, I am ETERNALLY grateful)

2.       A row with my dad following a long standing family difficulty

3.       My new colleagues at work only remembering my birthday at about 2pm (in their defence I am relatively new, and rather were very few of us in the office, thus heaping unfair pressure on 1 or 2 people to remember)

     And I think this one is the most crucial to the ‘waah’ inducing

4.  My one PMT day of the month which made me blub like a baby at all of the above. Lets be honest, it was mostly this really.

Not sure which one is Spanky
& which one is Dickie,
but not sure it makes a difference 

Now, after doing a quick google, it turns out that this previously unknown (to me) ‘condition’ is pretty common. It’s the birthday blues, and if you won’t blow me down with a feather, I’ve never had it before. Interesting side note, The Birthday Blues is also a 1932 film featuring 2 characters called Spanky & Dickie, and if that’s not reason to smile, I don’t know what is. But I digress… again. But apparently the birthday blues are a genuine thing, certainly according to a recent scientific study which suggested that men are prone to committing suicide on or around their birthday (certainly statistically more prone than women). And furthermore, birthdays are pretty dangerous as a whole, as out of the study of 2 million people, it emerged that people are 14 per cent more likely to die on their birthday. Woohoo to that, someone get out the candles! The study didn’t mention cause, and whether it’s the stress of organising birthday parties, or the inevitable consumption of a large amount of alcohol at such events that has such an impact, but certainly it appears that the annual birthday rumble makes for pretty dangerous times!

So perhaps I should be grateful, I mean, my mates DID turn up, my Dad and I DID make up (& he was suitably chastised), my colleagues DID realise their error, subsequently loading me up with chocolate, tart and cava in an effort to make good (they succeeded), and my mum and I had a lovely meal where I introduced her to the joys of hibiscus margaritas. So not all was bad. And furthermore, contrary to the above mentioned study I DIDN’T DIE! And surely that’s got to be a good, and dare I say, a pretty glorious thing. So this week I’m chipper. I’m celebrating the fact I’ve turned one year older, and my mortail coil still remains very firmly attached, wherever it might be. Unfortunately, I’m not sure the same can be said for the grouse.

Duck & cover grousey!

Two strikes and I'm not out

Now as we all know, there’s nothing a Londoner likes to do better than grumble. And if there’s one thing they ALWAYS grumble about it’s the transport. Despite having one of the most reliable transport networks in the world, one can always hear a faint ripple of disapproval echo up an tube platform when we find out our next train is going to be A WHOLE MINUTE delayed. What is this? 1986 East Germany?? PAH! And don’t even get me started on the grumbling induced by the discomfort of having ones nose pressed up into a businessman’s sweaty armpit once one eventually crams onto the minutely delayed, crammed train. However in recent weeks there has been a fair bit to grumble about regarding transport, specifically tube strikes.

Now, I’ve grown up in London. Lived here the vast majority of my life in fact, so let it be said I have known many a transport strike. Back in the days as a child, attempting to catch her not so reliable 221 part way to school, (and kids, these were pre-oyster card days, imagine that, we had to pay actual money! IN COINS! You freebie oyster riders don’t know how good you’ve got it), strikes seemed as common as they are now, ie not actually all that common but always generating a huge amount of media coverage, mistrust and the previously mentioned disgruntlement. And while I may have aged, and my hair may have grayed (who am I kidding – may??) one thing that has more radically changed over the years is my slightly more considered thoughts about transport strikes.

Back when I was starting out, nothing enraged me more than a strike. Who did these people think they were? Damn trade unions disrupting all my plans for school/early career/ nights out on the razz*. How dare they? Then my feelings changed… I won’t go into the whys and wherefores of it (is far too dull, trust me), but needless to say I once had need of a trade union rep, and in addition to proving their worth to me they also showed to me their worth to workers as a whole.

Obviously board of catching the bus,
this chap tried another way into the office

Let us look at this strike specifically. Yes, those striking have the city by it’s short and curlies, because they offer a vital service to this great city of ours, but they also have a very valid point to make, all hidden under the rhetoric we see pumped out. Put it like this, if your employer wanted to radically change the terms and conditions of your contract under which you joined the company, without your agreement, wouldn’t you be a little pissed off? Don’t believe those muttering about tube strikers wages and holiday allowances being better than they deserve, what that most often translates as is that tube driver’s holiday and pay isn’t as much as they’d like for themselves and they’re annoyed they have to get up an hour earlier, cramming onto a bus that is more tightly packed than a French veal truck. Because what tube workers are taking action about in this particular strike, is their right to have a life dictated not by their bosses, but by themselves and their own considerations. What’s so wrong with that? Essentially tube workers don’t want to have their jobs radically altered without even a by your leave, let alone a proper consultation, and who can blame them? If your boss demanded that you suddenly work night shifts, weekends, and whatever the heck else they wanted as they are stomping over you and your employment rights in their size nines, wouldn’t you be a little annoyed and want someone to stick up for you? Of course you would!

A penny farthing for your thoughts
on the transport disruption? 

So while the rest of the country looks on, 20% part reveling in our discomfort and 80% in their own smugness for not living in ‘that there Lundun’, remember this, we work to live, we don’t live to work. And if we live by that maxim in our own lives, surely we can’t demand any different from the man or woman who drives our train, offers assistance in the ticket hall or clears up our sick if we’ve had one too many before hitting the Victoria Line on a night out (NB that was definitely not me). The thought may not have given me much comfort on my 3 and a half hour round trip commute to work today, but at least it gave me something else ponder on instead of the aroma emanating from the armpit in front of me, and quite frankly, I consider that a blessing.

* delete as appropriate but most often the latter.

p.s images wholeheartedly appropriated from the Guardian website, apologies: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2015/aug/06/tube-london-underground-strike-live-updates