The Best Thing About Today #2

This dance:

Happy Birthday JC

Happy Christmas!







I hope you have all had a really great day.

Today I went with my mum to help out at a meal that her church organised for people in the area who would otherwise be alone on Christmas. We helped serve the roast dinners, and my dad hid himself in the kitchen furiously washing up. We were there for about 5 hours, and even though I was really sceptical about going and was miserable for the first hour due to a combined cold and bitterness about not being at home opening presents, it was a great experience. There were lots of old people there that would otherwise have been without anyone, so I was pleased to be a part of something which seemed to celebrate a real spirit of Christmas. Getting old and lonely is such a scary thought to some people, so it was really lovely to see that people weren't on their own and could celebrate with other people and meet some new people. It made me realise what I actually have, and so I really appreciated everything after that, which made the day alot better!

It was a quiet Christmas for the rest of the day, but tomorrow it will be busy when all my family are coming to our house. I had several epic fails at the dinner table including pouring almost an entire bottle of wine over the parsnips, then dropping a load of carrots so they spilt all over the table, and then when I tried to cut a roast potato in half it flung across the room. My mum was convinced I was drunk and so sighed alot, probably not helped by the fact that I just couldn't stop laughing at all my stupid little fails. I got some lovely presents including a book and CD about this new project called CompassionArt which is a music related idea from Martin Smith of Delirious fame to raise money to tackle global poverty. I find him slightly irritating, but the project is wicked and the book looks great. Oh and today I also called the potatoes tomatoes. What a knob. After presents and food, I spent the rest of the day listening to this little beauty:





Which is the new Coldplay EP, Prospekts March. This I feel, has gone toward making up for the bitter disappointment that was Viva La Vida. It's got some really lovely songs on it.

Anyway, I digress. Merry Christmas all! And God bless us, everyone!


(NB: Not me and my dad after a couple of glasses of wine.)

The Best Thing About Today #1

This song:

Injustice.

Ignorance is such a killer in our society. Closing doors to things we don't understand or can't comprehend or don't know how to solve. Costing lives, and encouraging people to be foolish and uneducated about the world's issues and despair. Life is such a wonderful gift, such a massive privilege to be a part of and to experience, but a part of me wonders how many of us really know what it is to truly live. I am so guilty of focussing my attention on the self, and on what my ideals and goals in life are, and I too can't see past my own front door, or my own town or my own selfishness. I watch videos like that and I sigh and I think I can't do anything practically and I forget about it. But perhaps a part of doing 'something' is just being aware of it, not taking poverty and injustice as buzzwords but taking them seriously. Realising what we have, how lucky we are, being grateful. Maybe then the practical stuff can flow, people can begin to show love to the needy, take a real interest in current affairs, become educated about what is going on in the world. I wish I was profound enough to suggest a way that even I could make a difference to peoples lives who struggle with poverty and unclean water and disease and desperation. But maybe it starts with something smaller, something that is taken for granted and a word that gets thrown around to describe how we feel about the latest CD or film or website or celebrity.

Maybe it just starts with Love?

Massively Great Quotes #4

image from google images

"It does not do well to dwell on dreams & forget to live."
-Dumbledore, Harry Potter

Photo Post #1

Living On The Edge

image from Daily Mail online

Today I mainly watched the entire series of Living On The Edge. If you don't know what that is, then congratulations to you, you're a better person than I am. It's basically a very poor British imitation of 'Laguna Beach' or 'The Hills', 2 MTV 'reality' shows that center around the lives of hideously rich teenagers living in Orange County in America. In this version though, it's about a load of British rich kids living in Alderley Edge which apparently has alot of millionaires and I think is in Cheshire. See what they did there with regards to the title of the show? EDGY. I really don't know why I did this to myself, but somehow found myself truly sucked in to their lives, coveting their care-free walks by the sea and wondering how it is possible that they could all be so ridiculously attractive human beings in a 'we-are-rich-and-thin-and-need-a-haircut-real-bad' kind of way. It's quite clearly the most scripted thing in the world, just like the American version, yet strangely inviting for an unemployed twentysomething living in rural Dorset.

Things I found out from my highly educational day:
It's easy to get a part in Hollyoaks if you're on an MTV reality show playing a warped version of yourself being a 'struggling actor'.
It's also easy to get an internship at Glamour Magazine if you're on an MTV reality show wearing alot of Topshop clothing.
It's also easy to get a meeting with a top record company if you're on an MTV reality show and happen to be in a band. You could also be a model if cameras follow you around and you look a bit like Paolo Nutini.
Money doesn't buy you happiness, I mean these kids face all kinds of issues including having too much money, having fit boy/girlfriends, and getting all As in their A-Level results. Also, don't you think that getting a part in Hollyoaks or having your band 'discovered' or going to indie festivals is easy, because it is clearly not.
Oh yeah... Ugg boots are still fairly bad.

And that was about it.