Month: May 2017

The Hunt

Ready, prepared, weapons in place,
the fresh stench of aftershave fills the air,
a clean shirt buttoned,
wallet checked, protection an annoyance.

On the bus, eyes everywhere,
bodies chat and vodka laughs,
the vehicle vibrates week long sexual energy,
the weekend hunt is on.

She with the warpaint camouflage,
ready with her lures,
lurid nails on glowing screen,
there in 10, get the drinks in.

Pools of light illuminate busy tables,
empty glasses to catch vapid souls.
You have to shout at the bar staff over indie classics,
to order your next round of avoidance.

People congregate, merge and flock,
friends and colleagues bellowing at shared jokes,
while the hunters quietly circle,
waiting for the herd to break, weakness to reveal.

Across the room a separate herd moves,
pristine feathers shine on Instagram,
gaudy money reflected, tasteless bling,
they are our screaming false gods.

Avoid the vain, they expect to be hunted,
Target the approval seekers,
the ones with the quiet laugh,
the scanning eyes, desperate to be seen.

Elsewhere lipstick is slowly applied
and she sees a reaction,
eyes met and the hunter moves,
her prey static, silent in headlights.

Eyes roaming over downed drinks,
watching for a split in the pack.
The hunters are patient,
and praised in this ritual.

Chat up lines miss at first,
circling to land later in addled ears.
A smile, a touch, not my place, yours,
agreement willingly coaxed, doused in want.

Later they wake in quiet places,
and fake their way home.
All they have are empty sofas and the ritual ends,
still alone, still empty, unfed and unloved.

May 30, 2017

Breathe and stop


It’s easy to get swept along by life, to grab on to things and go where the current takes you but that’s different from choosing where you want to go, even if that means you have to let go of some things and work hard to keep to your own course.

Breathe.

The above sentence is a wordy way of saying that my counselling is going well and I’m learning more about my own personal motivations, behaviours, and drivers, and that I’m working on changing the ones which are in the ‘not happy making’ camp.

Stop.

Part of that is to stop. Congratulate myself on my achievements, big or small. Some days that achievement is not putting off the hoovering again, some days that achievement is brought by losing weight in the last week, and some days it is simply the fact I existed. I have my own set of rules, internalised, for how I believe (my) life should be lived, and whilst I am slowly picking them apart I’m also stepping back.

Breathe.

It probably started when I first went along to the guided meditation session. Being in that environment made the ‘pause, calm, step back and reflect’ process much easier to get to, but with some practice I’m much more able to achieve it myself these days, I just need to remember to breathe.

Stop.

Baby steps they may be, but I’m still learning more about my own triggers, about the ways I sabotage myself and how my critical self is always waiting on the wings to point out my failures, and slowly I’m finding ways to keep that voice much quieter these days.

Breathe.

On weeks like the one I’m in the midst of this week – from Monday to Sunday I have something on every day and evening – when I get tired and my ‘not happy making’ behaviours creep more and more to the forefront of my mind (for those are the behaviours I’ve been using for a LONG TIME to function in the world) it’s telling that I am much better able to cope without getting (too) stressed.

Stop.

Breathe.

Continue.

May 25, 2017

Why I am not quitting Facebook

Sometimes when I’m writing for this blog, it feels like there is a conspiracy going on to make me think about, and write about, a particular topic. So with that in mind I will happily concede that this post was inspired by Lipstick Lori (who is writing some great stuff at the moment!) writing about How I Quit Facebook, Sort Of, my own ponderings around the question of Which Tech Giant Would You Drop?, and this piece by Jason Kottke (uber-blogger) My Social Media Fast.

It’s a slow pull, a subtle trick. It starts with a brief desire and is soon a constant drain. They know what they are doing, they’ve spent a long time designing it to be this way, to game you, to manipulate you, and as it gets larger and larger so it becomes harder and harder to fight.

My Facebook account currently gets the most usage of all my social media accounts. Granted a lot of the things I post are pushed from Instagram, but more and more I will share things into my timeline from elsewhere on Facebook, trapped in the bubble. I find myself idlly scrolling through post after post after post, hardly pausing to digest, a stream of stuff that amuses, annoys, adds to the FOMO, or makes me smile.

I do not like the amount of time I spend using Facebook.

I have books I want to read, TV shows I want to watch, and on sunny days I want to disconnect and enjoying being alive and being present with myself.

I did manage to wean myself off Facebook pretty well a while ago, right up until my niece was born; my sister posts pictures and videos of her almost every day, and oh my heavens she is as cute as a button and fills my heart with joy and love and that gorgeous little thing was the gateway, the lure back into the Facebook universe. I tried to tell myself I was only gonna check it to see if there was anything about her, you know just a little bit now and then, and then I could totally give it up later. Yes, that’s right, I’m blaming my Facebook addiction on my 1 year old niece, what of it!

I have tried to maintain some level of discipline. I had previously uninstalled the app but it’s snuck back on to my phone now BUT – and this is an important BUT – it sits deliberately in a folder on the second screen, right next to its time-sucking sister Twitterific. The thinking was that would remove the urge to ‘just have a quick look’ and for the most part it’s starting to work, which is just as well.

I know what some of you might be thinking, social media is fun! So say the adverts at least, but as always there is a deeper, unadvertised, cost.

There are many meme-able acronyms that surround Facebook; but it is the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) being the one I most associate with it, after all it’s so obvious that everyone ELSE is leading lives far richer than mine and whilst seeing people I care about having a good time is totally awesome and happy making, it can be not to compare and contrast; my lonely sofa to the photos of an afternoon out, all laughter and spilled drinks. And there’s the rub, the mixture of joy and sadness, happiness and melancholy.

And yes, I am well aware that social media is a but a filter, and the most people post the best of themselves, not the worst, but having that knowledge and sensibly processing that knowledge are two very different things. And that’s before you consider that I do this as well, contributing to the very problem I’m trying to avoid. Ironic, isn’t it? (shut up Alanis).

I honestly do love reading, seeing, and hearing, the wonderful things my friends and acquaintances get up to. You lot (I’m presuming, dear reader, that we are connected on some platform or another) are wonderful, quirky, funny, thought provoking, attractive, heart warming, caring and just down right good peoples. But, as Lori points out, that comes at an emotional cost. It’s not always a negative sum game, but emotions need to be processed regardless and it can be tiring.

I’m not completely away from Facebook or Twitter, but it feels more manageable. Instagram remains front and centre though, as I find it so much easier to scroll photos than dodge the diatribes, crap adverts, and all the other noise that Facebook adds.

The flipside to all of this, for there is always a flipside, is that I will have fewer chances to see things that others post. Fewer chances to like or comment on their achievements, fewer chances to laugh with them (or at them if the moment warrants). And to all those people I wanted to echo the sentiment of a wonderful message I recently received (the irony (again!) of having received this message on yet another social platform is not lost on me).

I enjoy seeing what you post, and I see you around on various social media channels. I may not like or comment as often but I see you, and I care about you.*

There is joy to be found in social media, and for me that joy and delight has been found in the connections it has allowed me to make, I have met people I genuinely call friends (for they are not acquaintances) thanks to social media, and there is no doubt that it’s very useful for keeping in touch, however remotely, with many people.

For those connections, those new friendships that I wouldn’t have made any other way, I will always be grateful to social media (ht: this blog of mine which started it all for me) and I can’t see a time when some form of social media or another won’t have a place in my life. It’s just not on my homescreen.

* the person who sent this knows, but wanted to call this out again, it was a simple message that had a big impact on me, and gave me something to strive for in my interactions with others, to make them meaningful, not just another LIKE.

May 23, 2017

Six by Nico: Childhood

Six weeks have past, and it’s time for a new menu at Six by Nico!

They announced this menu the same night we visited last time, and after such a stellar start I was keen to get back but a little nervous in case it wasn’t quite up to the same standard. Mind you, it’s tricky to judge a restaurant when they’ve changed their menu, although I’m still not sure if I was being overly critical or more lenient given that the entire premise of Six by Nico is to do just that, regularly change their menu. This is their idea, but would it measure up to our previous visit?

While the menu hints at what was to come, on this second visit I at least knew that it would be the cooking, presentation, and overall execution of what is on offer that would make, or break, the evening.

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A post shared by Gordon McLean (@gmclean)

And yes, this ice cream lover was excited to see TWO ice cream dishes on offer!! (sort of).

  1. ICE CREAM ~ Chicken liver parfait / Spiced pear/ Ginger bread
  2. EGG & SOLDIERS ~ Smoked haddock / Asparagus / Confit yolk
  3. FISH FINGER ~ Sea Trout / Sesame / Avocado / Radish
  4. MAC & CHEESE ~ Summer truffle / Sprouting brocolli / Glazed chicken wing
  5. HAMBURGER ~ Pork cheek / Brioche / Charred gem / Burnt onion jus
  6. VIENNETTA ~ White chocolate parfait / Rhubarb / ā€œPick n Mixā€ toppings

Ohhh and it was good, very good on the whole but we all agreed it didn’t quite hit the same heights as the previous visit. I’d still recommend it

As well as the six courses there is also the option for a ‘snack’ starter which obviously we took. It included truffled popcorn, a chicken nugget, and beans on toast. Not a fan of popcorn, and the beans on toast was ok but the start of that plate was the single chicken nugget made from tender chicken thighs (I think) with a lovely spicy tomato sauce. On reflection this set the tone for the meal, it was all tasty enough but I wasn’t WOW’d by some of the courses.

The first course was definitely a hit. Arriving in a thin pastry cone, smooth whipped chicken liver parfait was complimented by a thin smear of spiced pear, just enough to cut through the rich creamy parfait. And then in the first little moment of ‘ohhhh that is clever’ the bottom of the cone has crumbs of ginger bread, instantly transporting me back to those childhood cones when the bottom is nothing but wafer. Clever and delicious.

The next course arrived in a little toy soldier egg cup, with a little spoon attached. A whispy foam flecked with smoked haddock and crumbs of confit yolk was our egg, with accompanying asparagus ‘soldiers’ . The egg was wonderful, each mouthful revealing different flavours and textures, and whilst the asparagus was perfectly cooked, the dish felt a little disjointed. Should we ‘dip’ the asparagus (which was cut into small bite sized pieces) and where did the little side salad fit? Wonderful ingredients, great cooking and presentation but a not quite as ‘fun’ as it purported to be.

Fish finger time! And this, for me, was the stand out dish. Marinated sea trout covered in mixed sesame seeds, on a bed of brown quinoa, with an avocado puree, radish slices and wonderfully sweet pickled onions. The sweet sour combination was perfect, the sea trout was wonderfully fresh, and whilst the quinoa was a little out of place, the entire dish was perfectly executed. Heaven!!

Who doesn’t love Mac and Cheese? I’ll be honest, I enjoy it but it’s never my first choice so I was hoping to be swayed! The Mac and Cheese portion of the dish, two small cubes worth, was delicious and perfectly unctuous and cheesy, the glazed chicken wing pieces were tasty as well, the bbq sauce helping pull the two components together. The broccoli and pea puree helped keep it fresh and light but it didn’t have quite the range of flavours to keep my tastebuds guessing.

It’s just as well the portions are small because next up was a hamburger! Made from pork cheek, topped with cheddar, on a circle of brioche with celeriac coleslaw and charred gem (and a sneaky bit of tomato too!) it looked very tasty, and the hamburger itself certainly hit the mark with the tender, almost pulled, pork cheek that melted in the mouth. Alas the burnt onion jus didn’t really have enough oomph to join the party, and the celeriac coleslaw was… well if they hadn’t told me it was celeriac would I have know? Probably the weakest dish of the night then (but that pork cheek though!).

As a dessert and ice cream fiend, I was excited to see what they did with a Viennetta and I was not disappointed. Definitely an ‘in the spirit of’ style dish, the white chocolate parfait was accompanied by a wonderfully sharp passion fruit foam, a thin slice of meringue textured white chocolate, and a hidden surprise underneath, little chunks of what tasted like the inside of a mint Aero! I think with out the surprise element this may have been a little sweet and cloying but the hit of mint really made it sing.

Overall six great plates of food, and whilst it fell slightly short, it was still worth every penny (and yes we are booked up again for the next menu, which has yet to be announced).

There is something giddily thrilling about dining like this. You don’t get to choose from a menu, so you are never quite sure what will arrive and whilst that can mean that some of the dishes aren’t quite to your own tastes, it is still a wonderful adventure!

May 18, 2017

My First Kiss

The names have been changed to protect the innocent

I was eleven when I had my first kiss. Eleven going on eight, as all boys are at that age, our childishness thrown into stark relief against the maturity of the girls in our class. Eleven going on sixteen as we faked our way to maturity.

There were a few of us who lived in the same area, played together in the streets and parks, visited parental homes on sunny holidays in a carefully coordinated route to get the most bang for our (invisible) buck. Some evenings we used to sneak into the local football ground through a gap in the fence. If you were careful, and avoided Dick the groundsman on his final rounds, you could get into the old stands. Long since bulldozed to the ground, even then it was a flaking concrete and rusted iron affair but we liked it cos you could swing or sit up on one of the bars. No seats were available back then (why do you think they called it a ā€˜standā€™?) but it was a place to hang out.

Somewhere along the line, things started to change as we made invisible transistion from friends to boyfriends and girlfriends. Crushes were formed and lost, and getting off with someone was all part of the formative ritual soon captured in playground conversations.

ā€œHave you got off with her yet?ā€
ā€œAye of courseā€, we all lied.

There was a hierarchy at play back then, an unspoken categorisation of the popular and not so popular and so it followed that the most popular boys and girls paired off, and the rest of us followed in their wake, frantically trying to catch up and ride the tailcoats of their burgeoning puberty.

And so it was that our little group found ourselves lined up at the back of that ramshackle old football stand, dusk slowly falling as we paired off. Alison and I stood facing each other. I can remember feeling nervous, feeling unsure, what if I did it wrong? And then she leaned towards me, eyes half-closed, and I followed her lead. Our lips met, our bodies touched as we moved closer. Weird butterflies in my stomach and some other stirrings further down kicked in.

The kissing style back then was a full on ā€˜this is how we saw it in a movieā€™ style, open mouthed affair. We had all heard tales of lockjaw, such was the longetivity and ferocity as we mouthed each other for what felt like hours on end. It was not romantic. Or subtle.

But ohhhh my god it was fun.

After that we were, kind of, tentatively, ā€˜going outā€™ purely because that way you always had someone to get off with when, inevitably, the sychronised moment arrived and we stopped talking and started kissing.

Playground conversations around that time veered between football, and teachers, and then snippets of conversation of ā€˜slipping the handā€™ started to emerge. For the last few months of Primary School it seemed to descend into a free for all, almost as if we all realised that Secondary School was approaching and that was our last chance to claim innocence. Everyone was getting off with everyone else, especially when it came to birthday parties.

We didn’t have parties though, we had record nights. They were, literally, where youā€™d take your records (vinyl LPs and singles) to the party and take turns playing them. There would be the usual pre-teenage moments, those who were paired off could be easily spotted, with girls awkwardly sitting on boys laps, as we all waited for spin the bottle. Two circles were formed, two bottles spun and the chosen girl and boy pushed into a cupboard together with strict instructions that they had to get off with each other, no matter what.

These memories are blurry now, the crushes long gone and unrealised, but fond reminders of a happy time.

May 16, 2017

Bits and bobs

AKA stuff that should probably be tweets.

The restorative powers of hanging out with a toddler should not be underestimated. Even is she is currently, essentially, a tiny drunk shouty dictator. She is also as cute as a button.

Since moving to a flat with a west facing living room window, I seem to have become a little obsessed with sunsets (as those on my Instagram can attest). This is a good thing. A gentle reminder that we are all just dots on a massive spinning ball of carbon, that every day has an end, and a new day will arrive soon enough. Calming moments.

Anyone else have/remember the shooting gallery game Magic Shot by Ideal? And when I say game, I mean hardware based, magnets and ball bearings! Peeeoowwww! (This memory was brought to you by random nostalgia).

Tattoo thoughts continue. Trying to be a little disciplined and keep to my plans (Paul Talbot gets my left thigh, for example), but a new idea and an unplanned spot to fill looks the most likely. Although tattoo care in the middle of your back is gonna be tricky!

Gorillaz are coming to Glasgow! Pricey but Iā€™ve liked them for too long to miss it. Gig wise thatā€™s KT Tunstall, Weezer, War on Drugs, and Gorillaz lined up. No doubt a few more to come.

Iā€™m seeing more and more cars on the road with matt paint. I think itā€™s wonderful, saves me having to figure out from the brand or model if the driver is a self-obsessed twat (top tip, most of the ones Iā€™ve seenā€¦ Audi and BMW).

Speaking of cars, I bought a new car last week. A Mazda 3. Itā€™s blue and goes fast (and slow). Cue ALL the Baader-Meinhof moments AKA suddenly I’m seeing them everywhere.

A random message received from a friend, full of love and care, reduced me to happy tears. Reach out to those you care about, you never know what impact it might have (and if said friend reads this, again, thank you!).

Bootcamp continues. Healthy eating continues. Will soon be a thin, muscled, sweet potato. No YOU’RE having weird dreams.

May 11, 2017