Now this may come as a bit of a surprise to some guys, but most women still love a good old-fashioned gent. Having doors held open for you and being given a bunch of flowers every once in a while will have quite an effect on us girls you know! So if you thought the correct way of ‘wooing’ the fairer sex was to come on all tough and manly, you may want to consider changing your ways! Because the majority of ladies would agree that tenderness, thoughtfulness and kindness are far more attractive character traits in a man.
My friend Mike works at a banner stand company, lives in Central London and is just 21 years of age. 21 and he’s wearing a suit every single day, spending hours in meetings and generally being held in high regard. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but whenever I see him on the tube I get this sinking feeling…
Mike stands and talks and walks like a 35 year-old man. It’s actually quite sad. He even holds his phone in a certain way that looks unnaturally mature, and he even spends several seconds staring into space and musing things like no spontaneous 20-something should. Have I ever told him any of these things? Of course not. Mike wouldn’t understand it even if I did. His brain has been primed before its time and matured to a point that he probably doesn’t even know what the word Play means any more.
…that’s the part which holds the spark, isn’t it? In our twenties we shouldn’t necessarily have to know what we want…
I was watching Derren Brown the other night (not my choice – the girlfriend is a big fan) and although I was mildly impressed with his “trick” I couldn’t help complaining over the closing credits that “it’s not really magic, is it?” I grew up in the 1980s when proper magicians had prime time TV shows and were considered celebrities. For my money, a magic trick isn’t a magic trick unless it ends with the words, “And was this your card?” My girlfriend is quite a bit younger than me – I’m not showing off; it’s just a fact – and couldn’t remember a time when Paul Daniels and the lovely Debbie McGee were genuine stars and not just Z-listers on reality TV shows. So, I decided I had to educate her about real magic. And if you’re looking for a magician London must be the best place to start!
I love going on holiday. It probably stems from my very idyllic summer holidays when my parents, both of whom were teachers, would take me and my sister off in the car practically the second we left school. From there it would be a quick dash to the ferry port, the exciting trip across the Channel and then six long, happy weeks tootling around France in a series of Ford Escorts; for the first few years we were in a roomy but basic family tent, upscaling over the years until my last family holiday which was spent in a roomy but basic caravan! I had my first kiss on one of those holidays and my sister made friends that she’s still in touch with. But that’s for you girls ….
In those days, every part of the holiday seemed to be exciting; part of the adventure is going on holiday. Even the travelling could be made fun thanks to car games and, as we got older, the endless arguments about whose casette tape we were going to listen to next. It’s amazing how much time you can kill standing your ground when you’re into Nirvana and your sister like New Kids on the Block.
Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, or maybe travelling is really getting more frustrating, but nowadays I hate every second of the “getting there” and “getting home” part of the holiday. Passive-agressive PVC banners warning you about the upcoming security routine, the second mortgage you need to take out before you can buy a pint in the airport bar, even the now standard stampede for the gate as soon as your flight is announced. There is room for everyone on the plane, people! They’re not going to leave you behind! The sooner some smart scientist invents teleportation the better, as far as I’m concerned…
Being in my twenties and living in our great capital, London, I suppose you could say that I am a bit of a young, hip, trendy stereotype. You’d be right, I hate to say. I love my clothes and I love my fashion and I will not miss a party, ever!
So when my friend Fred invited me to his dad’s workshop – he’s a self-employed Sign manufacturer – I was a bit dubious. Here was a place where an old man lurked…a place where fashion had been dead for many years and there was no charging socket for my iphone! Disastrous indeed, but after some careful consideration I decided to be brave and go along with him. I might even learn something, I thought.
Arriving at the workshop, Fred was right: instead of being an old hovel inhabited by a bearded old man who never spoke to anyone and hated the real world, it was inhabited by Fred’s clean shaven dad. There he was, seated on his…seat, carving his wood away. And what he was making was, frankly, astonishing. I’d seen stuff like this on TV, but never in real life. Basically, Fred’s dad was a wood-working genius and that’s all there is to it…
…the relief when the first chunk of wood came away easily was amazing!
He had carved out about half the letters and was working on the second half. He’d talk to us about what he was doing, then hack away at the wood vigorously, all of it flaking off at the exact right place. Then, after we’d been watching him for half an hour, he asked me if I wanted to go. I gave Fred myPlease help me right now this is not in any way funny, face but nothing happened…Fred just covered his face and I could tell he was laughing behind his big annoying hands. Then his dad passed me a chisel and asked me to sit down. Slowly but surely – and with very shaky hands – I drew back the big wooden mallet and prepared to have a go at beating it down.
The relief when the first chunk of wood came away easily was amazing! Here I was, little old me, carving a sign! Partaking in a craft where no internet access was needed and no technology of the modern age could be found! OK, so I had done barely anything, but still – it was still something. I was really proud.
I’ll never look at old craftspeople in the same way, and to be honest, neither should you.
(Below is a video of a man cheating with a machine, but it’s still really good!)
Much as I adore London, and love gallivanting around it to my heart’s content – and my heart does get VERY content, especially when it’s immersed in museums and the like – there’s one thing I absolutely detest about it and that’s the Underground. Built way back when people still thought drilling into your head was a great way to relieve the pain of a migraine – turned out it wasn’t – it’s hot, exceedingly uncomfortable, and every so often someone hurls themselves in front of it and makes you really late for work. I’m not trying to make light of suicide here, honest, I’m just trying to prove how casual and ‘normal’these kind of events are in the metropolis that’s called London; the place they call The Big Smoke.
As uncomfortable as financial advice is just after you’ve lost a briefcase full of your life savings, travelling on certain parts of the Underground in the burning heat of summer is absolutely horrendous
My main issue is the heat, though – along with just about every passenger I sit next to each and every day. As uncomfortable as financial advice is just after you’ve lost a briefcase full of your life savings, travelling on certain parts of the Underground in the burning heat of summer is absolutely horrendous. Stifling hot to the point that you literally start to sweat the moment you walk into the carriage. Or should I say the chamber of doom…
When the air is only good for tropical plants and reptiles from Madagascar, you know that this is not suitable for English folk who live in a country where it’s cold or raining 90% of the time!
And don’t even get me started on the amount of money that we pay in Oyster cards — I have no idea how much it is but I know for a fact it has to be a fortune every day, 365 days a year. Surely all that cash has to go somewhere productive, right? In which case you’d have thought that the Underground, what with its numerous insulation problems, would be the very first place they’d start.
Still, on the upside, the Underground is efficient and good. I rarely have to wait longer than a minute to catch a train, and most of my journeys happen in relative comfort…as long as it’s not the SUMMER…
What’s also really baffling – that really is the only word for it – is the fact that some Underground lines are very hot while others are really cool.
Sort it out people! Come on, soon, before I’m too old to work anymore and I don’t see any benefit!
People may think that being in your twenties in London is a cool, hip thing to be. It’s not always (and sometimes it can be downright awful, I can tell you, and I should know!). It can be tough – there are pressures, like…
1) Looking cool. It takes an awful, awful lot of energy to look cool, you know. It’s just not something that can be done very quickly. The result is always worth it, but that doesn’t mean More
Uni rooms are, if you didn’t know, really small. Not only small but noisy. You live on a corridor next to what feels like hundreds of other people, and are woken up at all times of the night by the strangest of noises. In a way it’s good preparation for when you go out into the real world. Here are the things I have learned from living in such a confined space for so long. Believe me, anything more than More
1) Much less disease. For example, I can take a walk down the street and not bump into any rats, or have to jump over any puddles of vile scurvy and Bubonic Plague such. This is very good. 2) Galleries. In the old days it was better in a way, as there were loads of painters knocking about selling their work on the rat-infested streets, but now at least when I want to see art I can drop by a More
Being in your twenties in London is a tricky thing, I can tell you…It’s one half juggling act – trying to do your work and have fun, and there are LOADS of places to have fun – and it’s one half adjusting to the fact that you have left university, you are now a “graduate”, you are on your own. A chilling prospect indeed. More
