Round shaped vs. Egg shaped - The debate lingers on

Some of my readers (of which I presume not to have many), may recently have seen a tweet from ex-England rugby player, Ben Kay which has caused something of a stir in the sports media world. (Click here to see it).  Said tweet compared Arsenal footballer, Alexis Sanchez's nicked lip with Worcester Warriors' Nick Schonert's open cheek, as Kay asked which of the two rolled around on the floor clutching their face at the time of their respective injuries.  

According to his column in yesterday's Times, Kay's purpose of posting that tweet was not to decide whether Association Football or Rugby Football was superior to the other but merely to highlight the growing issue of gamesmanship in today's professional sport.  But of course, like the comic book geeks' DC v. Marvel or the more common Android v. Apple debates, the ever present rugby v. football superiority race lingers on!

I should preface my discussion on this by insisting, like Ben Kay, that I am both a rugby and a football fan (Harlequins and Chelsea, respectively).  It's fair to say that rugby plays a larger part in my life than football, in part, due to my role as Club Secretary for my local rugby club.  I was brought up in a predominantly rugby household and spent many of my formative years crawling along the bar at Basingstoke Rugby Club dipping my fingers in pints and pulling the beards of any forward I could find propping up that bar! Some things never change...  But there was always the presence of football too; both the 'rugger buggers' in my life (my father and maternal grandfather) had a love for 'The Beautiful Game' played with the round ball and via genetic and social osmosis, this wore off onto me.  

I've watched a lot more rugby in my life, both on television and in person, than I have football but I fully appreciate the nuances, the skill and the beauty in both disciplines.  But I can't help but agree with Kay's column title that 'It's crucial that rugby wins the battle that football has lost' with regard to gamesmanship on the pitch.  While watching Chelsea's FA Cup semi-final game against Tottenham last week, it really struck me just how much time is wasted in Association Football by players suffering, often, nothing more than a textbook tackle before dropping to the floor, clutching an ankle like a fallen hero in a war film!  Not only does it completely disrupt the opportunity for any fluidity in the game, it can make it bloody boring to watch; more enraging for those who've paid upwards of £50 to watch it in person.

Just as the game approached 3.5 mins, Spurs' Alderweireld went for a tackle on Chelsea's Pedro who flung himself to the ground making the best use of any school drama qualifications he may have, clutching both knees in, obviously feigned, agony.  Granted, this was essentially Alderweireld tripping Pedro up with both legs so worthy of the yellow card awarded by Martin Atkinson but surely, Atkinson's knowledge of the game is such that he knows an infringement has been made without Pedro's assistance?  Lo and behold, once the yellow was awarded, Pedro was up on his feet and jogging off to resume his position on the field of play; his disabling injury seemingly cured!   

'We have had some incidents of simulation in rugby and we cannot allow a situation to develop', Kay continues in his column and sadly, he's right.  During the Scotland/South Africa game in the 2015 Rugby World Cup at Newcastle FC's St. James' Park, Scotland's Stuart Hogg was admonished by legendary referee Nigel Owens for diving.  'If you want to dive like that again, come back here in two weeks and play [when Newcastle United are at home]!'  Clearly, Owens understands how commonplace the dramatic dive is in football!  Another recent instance is that of Scarlet's flanker, James Davies against Saracens in January this year.  Upon receiving a slap to his scrum-capped head from Saracens' Will Skelton, Davies raises his hand in shock before deciding to raise it still further to his face in an effort to claim a punch has been thrown. (See video here) Skelton was sin-binned for the offence and Scarlets lost anyway!  The seeming ease with which Davies fell to the pitch led to much criticism from the rugby community and the inevitable comparison with certain footballing tactics.     

Having mentioned Nigel Owens, this brings me to another commonly discussed topic in the rugby/football debate; that of respect for the referee.  The rugby community has long been proud of its players' unflinching respect for its officials, converse to that of many football players (see attached).  Your average premiership footballer, when faced with an official's decision they're not happy with, will whinge, moan, pull a face, follow the referee pleading their innocence before stropping off like Kevin the Teenager after being told his Fatboy Slim CD has been confiscated.  Most premiership rugby players in the same situation will not only accept the decision and walk away but continue to refer to the referee as 'Sir', something which died out in Asssociation Football at least thirty years ago.  But like Ben Kay, I do worry that backchat towards the referee is infiltrating into the rugby game, at all levels.  Take Dylan Hartley's decision in the 2013 Premiership final between Northampton Saints and Leicester Tigers to call referee Wayne Barnes a 'f**ing cheat'.  Disgraceful in itself but coupled with the fact he had already been warned earlier in the game by Barnes about speaking to him disrespectfully it becomes even more stupid.  Hartley, somehow, has since become the Captain of the England Rugby team but I'll save my views on that for another day... 

Whilst the fight against gamesmanship is very much over in the world of Association Football, let's hope that those who can have an impact on the rugby game be they players, officials or fans, don't let the same things infiltrate to a point that rugby is simply unrecognisable from its gentlemanly, sporting origins.    

    

My Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs.  Whether you're familiar with the Radio 4 programme or not, you'll no doubt have had that conversation with your friends about tracks which changed your life or your top three songs of all time.  It's up there with the other questions we all ask after a few too many at the pub; 'Who would be your five dinner party guests; dead or alive?', 'If you could have one superpower, what would it be?'

The concept of Desert Island Discs (created by Roy Plomley, 1942) is that a  guest chooses eight records they would take with them to a desert island.  They can be chosen for sentimental reasons such as 'this was the first dance at our wedding' or more simply, 'it's a cracking tune which would keep me sane on a solitary island.'

As the child of two music obsessed and Radio 4 listening parents (a mother with a Led Zeppelin problem and a father who's probably spent more money on CDs and vinyl than on my education!), the quandary of what my desert island discs would be has long puzzled me.  However, after years of thought and collection, I think these are the ones (in no particular chronological or preferential order).

1) West End Girls by The Pet Shop Boys - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3j2NYZ8FKs
Anybody who knows my mum, knows she is a massive PSB fan so the first song I ever heard was very likely to have been a snyth laden, 80s floor filler from them but this song, particularly, is just amazing.  I have loved it since I was tiny and I think it's quite edgy both for its time and for PSB.  I once read that Neil Tennant took the inspiration for this song from Grandmaster Flash's 'The Message' so there's a slight hip-hop/rap influence in there.  As a lover of all things 80s (please see: my hair!), this song delights me and how sexy is that beat?  Seriously?  So hot!

2) Music Sounds Better With You by Stardust - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWCjHoIoUOI&nohtml5=False
We all know Daft Punk, right?  We all love Daft Punk, right?  Then you should know and love Stardust who were a French house outfit comprised of Thomas Bangalter (of Daft Punk) and Alan Braxe (he of 'Intro' fame).  I'm going to put this out there and say that this song is my favourite song of all time!  It really is!  It's been my ringtone on my mobile for about ten years (as anybody who was in the office on Tuesday this week will attest to!) and I get ridiculously excited whenever this comes on in a club.  I mean, ridiculously excited!
I once asked a DJ somewhere in Southampton to play this for me and he looked at me blankly.  I'm sorry but if you call yourself a DJ and purport to know your house music, then you will know this song.  I was very unimpressed and pretty sure I made him aware of my displeasure!
What makes this track so special for me is that I was only 8 when it came out and I heard it on TOTP that Christmas and fell in love.  My absolute obsession with house music has only continued to grow and this is where it all started and who doesn't have happy memories of being 8.
Another thing which makes this song so awesome is the Chaka Khan sample - sublime.
(N.B My mum hates this song and describes it as 'boring and repetitive'.  Thank God for the thick walls in our place)!

3) Welcome To The Pleasuredome by Frankie Goes To Hollywood - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVDC6kPCkWA
The title track from one of the albums which, literally, defined British music in the 80s.  Before I get into the personal reasons for choosing this, please give it a listen whether you're familiar with it or not.  It's got so much happening; so many different sounds, so many different instruments and it's composed of different phases which, when all put together, produce this incredible piece as the whole.  I don't think Welcome To The Pleasuredome was a concept album but it bloody should have been.  When you listen to this track, you create characters in your head singing Holly Johnson's vocals and the tribal chanting and the plot changes each time you do it.  That slicing sound which kicks in at 8m55s with the Spanish-esque guitar over the top?  How awful does that sound on paper but how amazing in reality!
This track, I have to say, was all my mum's influence.  She has had this disc (permanently!) in her car for as long as I can remember and it provided the soundtrack to my daily school runs, family holidays and trips to the shop as I was growing up.

4) Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJDnJ0vXUgw
That guitar intro.  The Rolling Stones.  That's, essentially, all that needs to be said about this track.  You may have noticed by now that I love a sexy sounding song and this song has sex by the bucket-load (if you'll pardon the image that has just created!).  Come on, it's Mick Jagger!
My earliest memory of this song is hearing my parents playing it with some of their friends after a dinner party at home.  It was long past my bedtime (and I'd probably long been asleep until this point!) but mum, dad and their guests had spilled over into that postprandial drunken haze when the ladies want a dance and the chaps want to play air guitar!
I was lucky enough to see The Rolling Stones live at The O2 with my mum when I was 17 and every single hair on my body stood on end when they performed this song.

5) I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor by The Arctic Monkeys - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK7egZaT3hs
I should preface this paragraph by telling you that Arctic Monkeys are my favourite band and that's not just because their front-man, Alex Turner is one of the most beautiful men on the planet.  Anybody who's seen my bedroom in the past decade will know that I have three huge monochrome prints of them on my walls as well as copies of every b-side they've ever released and every issue of NME and Q they've graced the cover of.  Mildly obsessive?  Perhaps but please, dear reader, continue...
This song came out during my last year of secondary school.  Indie music was huge, Pete Doherty was cool (really!) and every boy at school was 'in a band'.
I first heard this song when a boy in my science class was playing it aloud on his i-Pod during a 'revision period' for our biology GCSE.  By my own admission, I hated the song and thought it was just a load of thrashy guitar noise with nothing resembling a tune to follow.  It wasn't until about three years later that I fell in love with Arctic Monkeys (and Alex Turner's side project 'The Last Shadow Puppets') and their subsequent albums have provided the soundtrack to many a milestone in my life.  I was lucky enough to be at their secret gig at Brixton Academy in August 2009 when they were supported by the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures (I implore you to look them up if you're not aware of them!) and they blew me away.  I truly consider Matt Helders to be one of the greatest drummers of all time (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4RFpP5V1vY&nohtml5=False ) and Alex Turner is easily one of the best lyricists.

6) The Fight Song by Marilyn Manson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GFI6Rf-IkI&nohtml5=False
Take yourself back to summer 2001.  I'm eleven years old and starting to dabble in heavy metal.  Dad surprises me with a gift one day of Marilyn  Manson's 1996 album 'Antichrist Superstar' and, at the risk of sounding like a jaded cliché, my life changed.  From the minute I heard the opening thrash of that album's first track, I fell in love with Marilyn Manson and the band he once had and fully immersed myself in Gothic culture for about three years.
Marilyn Manson was an obsession for me and I collected every piece of paraphernalia I could get my hands on; books, action figures (yes, they exist!), lunch boxes, t-shirts, VHS cassettes (those were the days!).
What I, particularly, admire in Marilyn Manson, I think, is his intelligence.  The man is ridiculously clever and has made a career out of jeering at America and the more stupid parts of its culture; The American Dream, their gun laws, the American obesity crisis etc.  Take the video to this song, for instance.  Fight songs are used by American sports teams as their anthems and are performed before matches.  Here, Manson has taken the stereotype of the high school American football team, complete with obligatory cheerleaders in short skirts and proceeds to take the mick by 'gothing up' the whole concept.  See also the video for his cover of Tainted Love which is a very entertaining mockery of most hip-hop videos you've ever seen!

7) No Access by Michael Woods - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SbxxhnOlA8
This isn't the full length version of this song, obviously, but this video sums up many of the reasons why I've chosen this song as one of my Desert Island Discs.
2011 was a massive year for me, possibly the biggest yet.  I graduated with a 2:1 degree in Sport Studies, I was in ridiculously good shape, I turned 21 and had an amazing celebration and I had the summer to end all summers which involved going to my first proper music festival.  Ohhh what a festival!  I went to Global Gathering that year and was sent this launch video a few weeks before we went.  This song quickly became my song of the year.
Michael Woods was at Global that year and the minute he dropped this one, the whole crowd fell under some sort of spell and I just lost it.  I didn't touch a drop of booze all weekend (never been able to drink in the sun!) nor am I the drug-addled type but one of my friends thought I was utterly trollied when I started jumping around to this.  I must have looked like I was completely out of my tree and to be fair, I felt I was (see below!).
 
An absolute banger like this does very funny things to me and it's (what I imagine!) being high must be like.  I'm starting to sound like a real ponce now...  As well as Michael Woods, I saw some other incredible artists at Global like Underworld, Skrillex, Gareth Emery, Fedde Le Grand and Mark Knight - a feast for the senses!
Autumn 2011 was when I got my first proper, grown up, adult, office job (another milestone, possibly millstone!) and this song kept me going with amazing memories of the summer only a few months before.  I'm still taken straight back to that glorious July evening on Long Marston Airfield whenever I hear it.    

8) Who Do You Think You Are by The Spice Girls - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YriinrRGug
As a 90s girl who spent many of her formative years shouting 'GIRL POWER!' and begging family members to buy me a pair of Buffalo trainers for my birthday, I couldn't possibly leave The Spice Girls off my list, could I?
I was six when The Spice Girls' first album came out and it was played constantly on Dad's big sound system in our front room (much to his 'delight', no doubt!) and at every friend's party I went to, every sleepover I had and at any time I could possibly get away with it!
All women of this generation had a group of friends who would all pretend to be The Spice Girls when they got together, each one taking on a different role.  You'll no doubt be unsurprised to hear that I was always Posh Spice - just something about the black Gucci dress and stylish bob, I guess!
This has to be my favourite Spice Girls song.  I love the jazzy sax intro, the confident lyrics and the 'Swing it. Shake it. Move it. Make it.' chanting.  Highlight of the video?  Vicky B's fantastic chain mail bikini!  

If you've made it all the way to the end of this post, congratulations and I am very appreciative of your commitment.  I hope you've enjoyed reading it and if I've got you thinking about your own Desert Island Discs, I'd be delighted to hear about them.

The Quarter-Life Crisis

As you'll see, dear reader, from the dates of my previous blog posts, I have not been a regular visitor to the 'Blogosphere' of late.  I could sit here and make excuses about work commitments, hangovers, and affairs of the heart all keeping me from it, but I won't.  All that needs to be said is that I'm back and I'm going to do my damnedest to write something on here, regularly as the only way to be a writer is to write.

Currently, I'm at the tender/elderly (delete as appropriate) age of twenty five, with a view to turning twenty six in three months (if I want!) and I can't begin to tell you the pressures and juxtapositions I'm facing at this point in my life.  That is, unless, you're in your twenties or have passed, seamlessly, through that decade of your life in which case, 'you get me bruh'?  That's what young people say, isn't it?  Any clarification from my friends in their teens (you young, bas**rds, you!) would be much appreciated.

I think I'm going through 'the quarter-life crisis'.  I yearn for the heady days of my teenage years when I was making decisions which, although seemingly monumental at the time, have had very little impact on the life I'm leading now.  Exhibit A: Choosing one's GCSE subjects.  Thankfully, the British education system deems many GCSEs compulsory.  Had it not, I would never have chosen to study maths and would now be about as blind with numbers as Craig Joubert is with rugby balls and 'offside' Scotsmen (still not over it, dude!)!  To this day, I'm still delighted that I didn't have some huge career plan at fourteen and instead chose to study GCSEs which I enjoyed and knew would get me good results.  Unfortunately, ten years later, the career plan still remains elusive and at large...

Why am I finding my twenties so difficult, I hear you ask.  Yes, I am getting there but forgive me, I'm old now and tend to go off on tangents.  I consider our twenties to be perfectly summed up, naturally, by something I saw on the internet.  It described them as 'that age where half your friends are getting married and having babies and the other half are too drunk to text you back.'

Personally, I'm forever flitting from one side of that coin to the other.  One minute, I'm being invited to a school friend's wedding or buying something from IKEA for a college chum who's just bought a house with her boyfriend.  The next, I'm being told by my friends in their thirties how young I am and how I have plenty of time to do the 'boring things' like marrying Tom Hiddleston and giving birth to our children Tarquin and Allegra (yes, those are the names I've chosen for my first borns!).  One minute I'm considering increasing the monthly contribution to my pension and the next I'm doing shots at a bar with 18 year old rugby players (That sounds awful out of context!).

Then I remember that I, myself, am turning thirty in four years (that's, usually, when the vodka shots come out!) and that I really should have my life sorted by the time the big three-zero comes knocking.  The horrific thing is that I am now closer to 30 than 21.  Forgive me but, when did I put this baby into gear and slam down on the accelerator?  And who's cut the brakes?!

We're all influenced by media, friends and family into producing a blueprint of what our lives should look like at certain ages.  These blueprints vary for each of us.  Person A may want to be married by 28.  I don't.  Person B may want to have had children by 32.  I don't.  If we can so easily dismiss someone else's life plan and targets like that, why do we make it so difficult to dismiss our own?  I wanted to have a career as an award winning journalist by the time I was 25... I don't.  I wanted to have a life partner by 30... I might not get that.  But I'm living my life they way I want to and reaching the 'milestones' when and if I choose to.  Whether you're twenty five, forty five or eighty five, if the life you're living gives you joy; mortgage, marriage, maternity or not, then crack on, son! Crack on!

Do you have 'the fear'?

As I'm now, technically, a 'blogger', it's fair to say that I am part of the digital age.  I know my Facebook from my Twitter, my memes from my trolls and my Instagram from my Pinterest.  This means that I also know of 'FOMO' - Fear Of Missing Out.

FOMO is a modern day psychological phenomena which is destroying the enjoyment of Friday nights out at perfectly good parties and nights in at home with a perfectly good film for thousands of people, young and old across the globe.  And it's all to do with social media.  There you are having a perfectly enjoyable Saturday night in watching Dad's Army on iPlayer when you check your Facebook home page and are bombarded with status updates such as 'Amazing in Oceana tonight! Best night ever!', 'Definitely just saw Prince Harry in Babble!' or 'So glad I didn't stay in tonight!'  Instantly, you feel like the loneliest, saddest person on the planet and want to replace John Le Mesurier with a few 'measures' (sorry!) of vodka.   Or perhaps you're at a great house party but a Tweet from a friend at another party makes you wonder if you're missing out on a better time.  You make your excuses and head to the other party only to find that, like The Coalition Government, it's not, actually, as good as it sounded.

I like to think that I'm not a FOMO sufferer but, good God, that has not always been the case!  When I was younger, I was in attendance at every club night that my local city had.  Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, you'd spot me in Pitcher and Piano doing my best to get through as many of the cocktails on their '2 for 1' menu before the offer ended at 11pm and then I'd be hitting the dancefloor in one of the city's clubs with my fellow FOMO sufferers until the small hours.  If my friends weren't available one night, I'd frantically text, call, smoke signal and telegram anybody I could think of to accompany me on my quest for 'social fulfilment' and to ensure I didn't miss out on anything that night.  This routine continued for about 18 months until one Saturday night when no amount of texting, persuasion or semaphore would provide me with a chum.  As I so often do when things look bleak, I went to my mum with the quandry.  What happened next was one of the most useful lessons I have ever learnt in my life.

Mum looked at me and said, 'You've done your best and a night out just isn't happening.  The chances are, if you'd gone out tonight, something bad may have happened.  Why don't you go and sit down, relax and do something that you really enjoy like watch a good film or read a good book.'  And so I did.  I was forced, by circumstance, to enjoy my own company on a Saturday night and I loved it.

Since that night, I've found it far easier to succumb to quiet nights in and have now, some might say, gone too far the other way.  I seem to have FOMO related to my bed or my sofa.  If I go out tonight, will I wish I'd stayed at home?  Will I miss out on my dog doing something amazing or my cat acquiring the power of sppech?  Gradually and with help from family and friends, I have learnt to make decisions as to going out or not and stick to them.  It has also made it far easier for me to say no to things I don't want to do which, quite often now, includes going out to bars and clubs.  If only I could find some way to say no to that chocolate bar!

 'Muuummm?'

The Sugar's Apprentice

It's that time of year again.  That annual, televisual feast which sees the 'greatest' business minds on this sceptred isle pitted against one another in competition to see who is first to get cherry blossom poisoning from licking the boots of 'Sralan'.  Herein, lies the greatest downfall of The Apprentice - the Sorcerer himself.    Lord/Sir/Mr/Lord of Darkness/Alan Sugar, whilst being a fabulous pantomime villain who, by default, makes fabulous pantomime television is not the sort of person I would wish to have as a mentor in the cut-throat world of hard and fast business.  Please don't misunderstand me here.  I am not disputing his razor sharp business acumen nor his in-depth understanding of markets and their rollercoaster nature but rather, to use a well coined business phrase, his 'people skills'.

It's unfortunate, really, that this programme has become such a breeding ground for what, in any real work place, would probably be seen as bullying.  Lord Sugar seems only ever to attack the contestants vying for his affections and I cannot recall one occurrence of him ever giving praise or any sort of positive reinforcement.  Whilst Nick Hewer's disco dancing eyebrows and sarcastic facial spasms do provide some comic relief and Karren Brady's mere presence does more for the feminist movement than Katie Price ever will (sorry, dear!), the programme still comes across as quite simply, 'The Alan Sugar Show'.  His sarcasm, lame metaphors and Cockney patter making him the Del Boy of Canary Wharf.  If I had a business mentor like him, I'd be awfully confused as to whether or not I had any business talent and would be seeking alternative employment (and perhaps therapy!).  Quickly.

So to the 2013 contestants (well, a handful of them)!

Leah Totton strikes me as interesting televisual fodder, not least because of her 'Page 3' blonde locks and pouty chops but because of her current career.  The woman's a doctor!  She's a practicing GP, having spent years studying, we assume hard, at university only to jack it all in for a place on The Alan Sugar Show.  I would be interested to know her reasons behind this decision.

And the winner of the 'Not Helping Women get Ahead in Business' award is Luisa Zissman who says of her business abilities 'I have the energy of a Duracell bunny, the sex appeal of Jessica Rabbit and a brain like Einstein.'  Yes, Ms Zissman, you may well think you have the same sexual attraction as the Kathleen Turner voiced Jessica but quite what this has to do with your real boardroom talents, I don't know.  Please don't start putting polyfilla on that glass ceiling when we've worked so damn hard to smash it!

Every series of The Apprentice has a 'sweety'.  A young chap who is probably still wearing the same suit he wore to his university interview and of whom your mother would remark 'he's a lovely guy but you'll break his heart!'  This Series' 'sweety' is Jason Leech, historian and property entrepeneur.  From what is said of Jason in his 'blurb', he seems like a fine example of middle class British stock, citing croquet as an interest and John Lewis as an admired brand.  And in the true spirit of middle class, public school arrogance, Jason blows all his warming traits out of the water by mentioning his 'effortless superiority'.  

I should probably take this opportunity to mention that I don't even watch The Apprentice.  I gave up on it about 5 years ago, roughly the same time that I gave up on television as an entire medium, partly because I couldn't believe that the people being paraded through London's Square Mile to Prokofiev's 'Dance of The Knights' were truly the cream at the top of Britain's milk jug of business!  Having trawled through the reviews of tonight's episode and the inevitable 'ranting' on Facebook and other social media, it's not just me who sees it like this. As one broadsheet's reviewer put it, 'They should rename this, 'The Git'!'

The Opening Verse

I've always enjoyed writing, the arts and being creative.  But despite this, from the age of about two years I was convinced that my vocation, my calling in life was veterinary science.  I was going to read Veterinary Medicine at Cambridge University, graduate with a First and become the female equivalent of James Herriot in some sleepy Sussex village.  I envisaged myself snaking down country lanes in a Range Rover and spending my days at the business end of calving heifers and sewing up puppies' paw pads.

No, if you are wondering, I'm not a vet, nor did I go to Cambridge and nor do I live in Sussex.  I'm a Sport Studies graduate from The University of Southampton with a B in GCSE Biology and a crippling aversion to blood and needles.  Was it John Lennon who said 'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans?'  Well, I was busy making other veterinary related plans whilst life (and perhaps hereditary traits and genetics) made me appalling at maths, science and... blood related careers.  My Year 11 science teacher even remarked that 'Alexandra could always spell scientific words, even if the meanings were less memorable.'

So here I am, hoping that one day, my dream to write for a living will materialise and that is why I have decided to compose this blog.  I see it as a soundboard for my musings, occasional rants and comment on world events, people, places, anything which gets my linguistic juices flowing.  Hopefully, people other than my mother may even read it!