She is…

She is a vintage ballgown bought in the sale in a charity shop
She is the cold National Express coach leaving Leeds at 8am
She is the long, lean standard lamp lighting the room
She is blue WKD and cider and shots until three
She is the dancefloor
She is exploding, fizzing lavender bath bombs
She is emerging from her room at four in the afternoon
She is the belting karaoke rendition of Dancing Queen

Office toiletiquette

Pointers on male toilet etiquette abound. Only look straight ahead, don’t make conversation – or if you do it must only be about sports – yada yada.

What though, of the lesser explored area of female toilet etiquette? And specifically, ladies’ toilet etiquette in the workplace?

You might think none is required. I mean, it’s all very straightforward. There are cubicles. Each person goes into a cubicle and locks the door. They do their business, wash their hands and leave. Simple.

Unless of course, someone throws a spanner in the works. Riddle me this:

I was in the (fairly small, two-cubicle) toilets at work on Tuesday morning washing my hands. A colleague who I know only vaguely walks in and asks me how my meeting was. I tell her yes, it was fine and she asks another work-related question.

So far, so what you might ask. BUT – between question one and question two, she has walked into a cubicle and locked the door behind her. I am thrown. Am I meant to continue normal workday chit-chat while she’s in a cubicle? All rules have gone out the window.

I answer question two and hope that signals the end of the conversation. I am wrong. She continues to chatter at me from the other side of the cubicle door. I mumble a non-commital closing remark and hastily exit the bathroom.

Is this normal? Are people in offices so used to a don’t-waste-a-minute multi-tasking frenzied approach to the day that they now conduct conversation while performing their routine bodily functions? What’s the correct erm, toilettequette?

(As an aside, it turns out I’m not the only one who has hit on the HILARIOUS! word, “toiletiquette.” Check this out. Perhaps someone needs to suggest a “No talking please” sticker.)

Mean Murmurings II

Another weekend, another celebrity wedding. Well, not actual celebrities getting hitched, but a celebrity wedding guest at a wedding also attended by me. And if you ask me, that makes it a celebrity wedding.

So, in true Mean Murmurings tradition, here is a dodgy photo with said famous person loitering in the background. Can you guess which former pop singer-turned TV actress this is? Oh, the excitement! I must go and have a calming cup of herbal tea.

Writers’ strike goes international

The writers’ strike in Hollywood may be drawing to a close, but could it have impacted writers in other industries?

Take a look at the two Chinese fortunes I received on Friday.

The first one was kind of lazy:

But the second was just sloppy:

Having said that, I guess fortunes found inside edible snacks have always been a bit grammatically dubious – just take your average Thai fortune roll.

Solution to casual attire catastrophes

Picture the scene. You’re on the way home heading towards a fairly casual evening event – maybe dinner with friends or the cinema. You step off the tube and you realise…oh no! My casual attire has a stain on it! Perhaps you’ve spilled your latte or dropped some soy sauce during your sushi lunch. What do you do? There’s no time to go shopping. It’s a casual attire nightmare.

Or so you thought.

Until the staff at South Kensington station installed just the thing to deal with the problem at the end of platform 1.

Important news from the Southern Ocean

The BBC has put one of its correspondents on board the Greenpeace ship Esperanza which is tracking the Japanese whaling fleet.

His name? Jonah Fisher.

Back to telling it like it is

You turn your back for one blog posting and before you know it six months have whirled by and lots has happened.

Still, that is all by the by, as my mission here – which I have woefully neglected recently – is to tell it like it is. And this I will endeavour to do from now on. It’s good for the soul (not yours, mine).

I will merely recap my past half a year in pictoral form. Here’s a selection of what went down:

That’s that – normal service will be resumed shortly.

Oops, I did it again

Another day, another Britney-ism. She really does just sum up “life” through the medium of song. We should never forget that.

Anyway, what I have gone and done is re-entered the world of the tax-paying, employed masses. Yes, sometime in the near future I will be oiling the wheels of the corporate machine once more. What all this means is that certain things will have to be put on hold, namely:

My career as the nation’s next Nigella. Just as my lemon drizzle muffins were set to take the world by storm.

My “relaxed” daytime attire. Goodbye to going to the shops at lunchtime in an “I heart Guam” T-shirt and Robinson Crusoe-style cut-off trousers. (Sainsbury’s checkout man: “What is Goo-am?”)

My rise to (near) the top of the Celebdaq charts. Does anyone still play this? I must have missed the boat first time round but have become a bit addicted recently. Also provides a very sound reason for buying trashy magazines and reading gossip sites.

The clock’s ticking…I’m off to get some Diamond White.

Recruitment consultant to stand as US presidential candidate

Have you ever seen a more unlikely headline?

OK, perhaps I am being unfair, but like Britney said, that’s my prerogative. Over the last month or so I have had the dubious pleasure of taking a peek into the wonderful world of the recruitment consultant (“RCs” – actually quite a fitting acronym).

Now, to put things into perspective for a second, what these people are dealing in – day in, day out – is a person’s livelihood, their career and the source of their fulfillment, motivation and moolah. So you would expect a certain level of diplomacy, tact and general care. Not always.

Here are two small examples by way of illustration:

• An RC sends an email including a link to a map of an office where I’m due to go for an interview the next day. Ah, helpful. I click on the link. A map pops up of the place I used to work, six months ago which is on the other side of town to where the interview is, with an entirely unrelated company. Hmm.
• An RC asks me to send through contact details for my referees. He notes in brackets that should the company decide to contact my referees, they will “respect the senility this situation demands.” Eh?

Anyway, judge not lest ye be judged and all that. I have dealt with some recruiters who have been very professional and helpful people. And my best friend is one. And I live with one who is very lovely. So they can’t all be bad, right?

A “positive connection”

Next time you’re in a London Underground station buying a Travelcard or topping up your Oyster using a credit card, take note of the instructions on the machine:

“Insert your card until you feel a positive connection.”

Eh?

So, don’t just shove it in as far as it will go and hastily type in your PIN – stand there and wait until you feel some kind of Zen-like affinity with the QuickTickets machine. How long will that take? Is that why there are always such long queues at South Ken? It’s someone desperately shoving their card in and out of the slot and looking longingly into the screen muttering, “I just don’t think we connect…it’s not you, it’s me…”