Fall in love with honesty

I just stumbled across this on Pinterest, and it's so beautiful it had me close to tears.

It is quite possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever read. Because it is so true.

Fall in love with honesty. Fall in love with people when they are real. Fall in love with the honest moments in life that are just about the emotion, not the front or the façade.

Have the strength to just be you, and to embrace those honest moments. Because that is more than likely when someone is falling in love with you.

Just as you are.

Olympic Dreams

Wow. The London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics are over.And I am actually really sad about it all.

It's weird, I spent the last 7 years bitching and moaning about them. Maybe it had something to do with living in the host borough, but all I heard was how busy it was going to be, how expensive it was going to be, and the all round general nightmare and disruption it would cause for everyone. If I had £1 for every time I said "I'm not going to be here....I'll bugger off to America for a month until it's over!" well....I might've at least paid for the flight to get there.

But when Olympic fever hit, I was really glad I was in London, right in the centre of it all. In fact I was sad to NOT be in the host borough, in earshot and sight of the fireworks during the opening ceremony.

From the day before, being in Stratford and seeing how BUZZED everyone was about the next day, right up until stumbling onto the train home exhausted after the closing ceremony I can honestly say I've been bitten by the Olympic bug!

Taking pictures of the opening ceremony on TV with my phone...uh. Yeah. 

It was amazing to see Stratford, Newham, where I spent my teenage years loitering about, dossing on the bus and kissing random dudes, turned into this place that people from all around the globe flocked to. Every nation on the planet were probably represented on those same trains that I take to work every day. Everything was cleaned up and shiny but still the same old East End that is Stratford, with the cinema and the bus routes and weird-ass car park that could be the set of a horror movie! But there was media and celebrities and PEOPLE everywhere - in MY home borough. Where I was born and lived and grew up. That was a pretty surreal feeling!

And now it's all over I'm really sad. I can honestly say I have never seen London so...happy! It's been like a month long party. No, not a party, because there's been no drunken punch ups and angry fights on the way home. More like a month long lazy BBQ in the sun, everyone smiling, having a good time and getting excited together.

I've seen families on trains that would normally be sniping at each other at the end of a long day, being nice! "Thank you for taking us to the Olympics Daddy!" "Thank YOU for behaving so well today" I swear to you I witnessed this - on the tube! ...in LONDON! I think that's a pretty good summary of the atmosphere that has taken us over this summer.

 

I saw and people watched at Liverpool Street at the height of the Olympic games. To see so many people wearing the flags of their nations, flicking through programmes, wondering how to get to Stratford (Eastbound Central line 3 stops or overground from platforms 15-18 FYI), chatting, laughing, smiling, clapping, dancing....it was inspiring. And that was even before watching records being broken, medals being won and best of all, those who have faced adversity show us just how "Superhuman" they are in the Paralympics.

I believe the sustaining legacy of the Olympic and Paralympic games is how much it has brought our city, our nation and indeed the World (as the games were originally intended) together as one. It's made the whole planet feel a little smaller, a little friendlier and a whole lot more exciting. Let's all try and take that forward shall we? Because  I really hope these beams of positivity, the inspiring athletes, the sense of accomplishment from pulling off something that no-one - including us - thought we could do, continue long into the future.

Maybe until the next games when I can say to my kids (or *eep* my grandkids) "I was there in 2012 - lets make 2044 even better!"   

50 shades of yadda yadda

Warning: Post contains spoilers

Did you know "50 shades of grey" was originally a Twilight fanfic called "Masters of the Universe". A few years ago, just after the Twilight hype, Twilight fan fics were storming the internet and boy did my Lexlings know how to find the best ones!  However I had already ploughed through Wide Awakes twice (still not reaching the end waiting for updates) and Clipped wings and Inked armour and I just couldn't be doing with another one - no matter how hot the BDSM scenes were meant to be.

And then it got published (I actually remember a couple of the Lexling's passing comment that she had found a publisher) and took women's lit by storm. I sat there adamantly refusing to be caught up in it. Until I was sat at Glasgow airport waiting for a flight and bought it on an impulse. 

I won't lie to you - I found it pretty hard to put down. Even as I was reading it and judging it harshly I just couldn't stop READING! What did they do, lace the pages with crack or something? 

So I finished the first one on a lazy Sunday morning and very nearly jumped on the bus down to the town to buy the next two! But that's where I made my stand - I refuse to give this woman any more money (£1million a week I read somewhere. Good grief who needs that kind of money!?) so I will wait patiently until I can borrow them from somewhere. Yes. Even when I walk into Sainsburys on a daily basis and there is a display selling them for £3 each. 

And here is why, and I can only apologise in advance. It is a bad book! It's bad. It's so badly written. It READS like a Twilight fanfic -woman did you pay an editor purely to change the names from Edward and Bella to Christian and Ana? You could've paid me for that. It's called "Ctrl + F" for f's sake! 

Talk about repetition. If I have to see the words "Bite that lip" "Inner Goddess" and the worst... "Down there" one more time I may kill someone. Again - its called a thesaurus - buy one!

Next topic: Unrealism. (Is that a word? It is now) Please ladies, tell me now:

a) How do you get to the age of 21 never having held hands or kissing a guy? Is there really ANYONE this innocent?
b) Yeah...that's what first times are like
c) Yeah....women come on demand all the time
d) Yeah.....when you were that innocent and inexperienced you get the most phenomenal orgasms all the time, every time, 3 times a day. 

Give me strength...

And I'm almost tempted to say "Don't get me started on the BDSM crap" But to be fair, it has got people - women - talking about their turn ons, fetishes, desires etc in a way that we probably never have before. You can start a discussion about it simply by saying "Have you read 50 shades - what did you think of the 'red room of pain'?" "Oh I like the idea of the blindfolds and cable ties - not so much the whips and suspension" or whatever. 

Talking is a good thing. We British can be far too repressed about sex and our fantasies and its time we started being a bit more open. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about orgies in the street here but a simple conversation about turn ons can go a long way for us all to have a bit more fun on a Friday night. (Or a Monday morning...or Thursday afternoon. Heck y'know what I mean!)

But this is my word of caution: Ladies WHY do you want a man like Christian Grey? The man's a complete twat. Does it come down to this love of bad boys and the convictions that we can change them? (As I'm sure will no doubt happen in book 3) Why do you want to change a man? There are so many nice ones - or at least not "50 shades of fucked up" ones - out there! The irony is beyond me. We spend all that energy as girls looking for "Prince Charming" only to grow up wishing he would drive off on a motorbike saying "Later's baby". 

Think about this - truly think about this for a moment - really analyse Christian Grey and tell me - if there was a man like that in your life would you not be telling him to shove it? No matter how "good looking" he supposedly is. I know I would be! 

My biggest bit of advice - find the nice normal guys who are willing to do a bit of Christian Grey role play. Best of both worlds without becoming a pathetic shell of a woman who only exists for her boyfriend like Bell...sorry "Ana". 

In searching for images to include on this blog post I came across this which I think perfectly sums up my point. I doth my cap to whoever wrote this! 

Friendship

At the end of the day anyone can be fanciable. It can come down to the right outfit, makeup, posture, basic attitude but on the whole fairly surface level things.

Is this hot?
I dunno its what came up
when I Googled
"Attractive girl"

And sometimes fancying someone turns into something more. And that's awesome. But how often does that happen? REALLY? How much more often is it unrequited, or a quick crush, or a simple "he's kinda fit". Basic attraction isn't much more than chemicals and hormones after all.

But friendship - thats a whole other ball game. And nowhere near enough emphasis is placed on this.

True friendship is looking at another person and liking how they think, their sense of humour, their funny way they say things. It's getting into a heated debate but still respecting them afterwards, being driven damn crazy by something odd they do but then giggling like crazy at some in-joke. It's being able to talk until stupid o'clock and still having stuff to share the next day.

I suspect many people may say "But that's love! That's exactly what I see in my wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend!"

And THAT gentle reader is why the truest of loves are born out of friendships in my opinion. However don't be mistaken that every friendship means love. That's how to miss out on some of the best relationships you may ever have.

Don't ever underestimate being valued as a friend. Often there is much more value to be placed in that then there is in "you're so beautiful/sexy/cute".

But likewise don't bat friendship around too easily. It's an award all of its own. And Definitely don't ever offer it as a commiseration prize when love doesn't work out. Because if you were meant to be friends - you would be; either as partners who overcame difficulty, or as  actual friends because the relationship was never meant to happen or be on the cards. But if you can't make it work as partners that once loved each other, it is very unlikely you would then be able to be friends. And anyone who says otherwise is likely kidding themselves....or possibly were never more than friends to start off with? Who knows....

And so in a roundabout way, we come back to the age old question;

"Can a Man and Woman ever be friends?"

You tell me gentle reader.....you tell me....because I would love to hear your opinions.