Food for thought

My friends and I are all big F1 fans. During the racing season we take it I turns to host a race and serve up some food. It is great fun. While the racing takes the centre stage other thing of course naturally pop up to. Most of the time we talk the same mindless bollocks just like everyone else but once in while something of merit is raised. This was the case a few weeks ago when the topic cooking raised it’s head. For me eating is important. Enjoying good food is a pleasure but more importantly I believe you are what you eat. The counter argument put forward to this was that not everyone has time to eat well. Is this true or is it really just laziness?

So just what is the meaning of life?

"There has to be more to life than this?" I asked my friend Bill the other day who in turned replied "No this is pretty much it". That then in two sentences is the world summed up. A desire to find more met by the realisation that there is nothing more. But is this true, is life really just an endless precession of repeating days played out to the tune of material desire? There has to be something more doesn't there? Let me explain.

Things you learn in your thirties

I have often said to Maz that the person you will be in five years time is not the same person that you are now. Things change and your view of the world adjusts accordingly. What once seemed important fades into the background as you are faced with new challenges and grow as an individual. By the time you hit your thirties many things in your life will have changed. People you love will have come and gone, you will have realised that you are not going to be a rock star and you might even have a partner, spouse or children of your own to worry about. This all got me thinking about what advice could I offer now that my thirties are upon me. Here are the results.

Children: To have or not to have in your thirties?

By the time you hit your thirties one subject that is bound to have raised it’s ugly head is that of having children. In my experience men find themselves under pressure to settle down, commit and start a family leaving the party years of their twenties behind them while women face the unstoppable ticking of their body clock. Only a few decades ago in the age of our parents things were clear, you married in your early twenties and quickly started a family but in this modern age the path to a family is anything but simple.

Coping with depression in your thirties

A few years ago now I was diagnosed with depression. I won’t bore you with the details but I got better and things are now pretty much back to normal. You may have noticed that I said “got better” rather than cured as there is no cure. Like many mental health related illnesses such as alcoholism and obsessive compulsive disorders if you have suffered from depression once it is with you for your whole life. I guess a good way of putting it is you don’t get better but instead you get better at it. You learn how to deal with situations which are likely to trigger it and use coping techniques to ride it out. Today is one of those days when mine came bouncing back and hit me in the face. Here is why.

Why teachers hitting children is not such a bad thing

Sundays in the UK usually means one, Sunday roast. A time to gather with family and friends and share chicken or half a cow covered in gravy with roasted potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. Yesterday we did just that. Maz and I paid a visit to see her parents. Sadly we got served up a sweet and sour rather than the full blown roast but I guess you should be grateful for what you get. Naturally polite conversation was made over dinner and for some reason the topic of whether or not a teacher can hit a child arose. Maz’s Mother who often works with children argued no they couldn’t while I strongly disagreed. So who was right? Can a teacher or anyone for that matter hit a child legally?

Me and a girl called Kate

I have a bit of a confession, there is another woman in my life other than Maz and her name is Kate Nash. For anyone who doesn't know Miss Nash she is a British solo singer and I have been bigging her up for the last few years. She broke into the UK charts a few years ago now and last year she released her second album. I however have been following and raving about her since she first appeared on the scene with her Myspace profile way back in 2007. In short I love her to bits (sorry Maz).  My love for Kate is not something that many people share with me though. Tom in particular doesn’t really get it and I have to admit that her singing voice and vocal style is a real love it or hate it affair. That all said I am firmly in the love it camp and if you are not or have never heard of her then here are my reasons why.

I have a heavy skeleton, it's glandular. Fuck off.

A few weeks ago I wrote in a post called Weddings, weddings, weddings. A man's view of the big day about how I had woke up suddenly from a dream and still half asleep I had a wonderful idea for a blog post. However I then promptly rolled back over and slept for another hour or so before waking up again and having no clue what that great idea was. Well it came back to me out of the blue. So what was this hot burning topic? The answer my friends is the subject of being fat.

Power to the ladies with the help of fairy cakes

Regular readers of my blog no doubt know that I love to cook. Since I am not working at the moment it usually means that I am responsible for doing most the cooking throughout the week. It makes sense really since Maz is busy at work and I like the fact that I have diner ready for her when she gets back. For us it is just a practical solution to our circumstances but recently a bit of debate has arisen here in the UK as to whether cooking is a woman’s job and more to the point it should be considered a feminist activity.

Ha Ha you're ginger. No wait a second you're hot. Hot and ginger. No way.

Being ginger or at least a redhead here in the UK often means that you are mocked. Most of us went to school with a redhead or at least know of one and no doubt they have suffered the endless torment of being called carrot top or another similar insult at some point in their life. It has been said that insulting redheads is the last form of socially accepted racism in this country. Well I disagree with the idea that redheads are a figure of fun. I happen to think that redheads are kind of hot and after reading this maybe you will too.

My vote counts but what for?

So today in the UK we go to the polls as we get to vote on local elections and on whether we should adopt the alternative voting system. I always vote in the big national elections but rarely in the local ones. This year however I thought I would make the effort. Maybe it is because I am unemployed and so I have more time on my hands than usual to take a good look around the area where I live or maybe it is just because I am getting older and have more of an opinion about my surroundings. Either way I figured that before I headed off to put my tick in the box I would look to see what my local parties had in mind for the next few years. A task that proved easier said then done.

Weddings, weddings, weddings. A man's view of the big day.

About eight o’clock  this morning I woke up suddenly from a dream and still half asleep I had a wonderful idea for a blog post. However I then promptly rolled back over and slept for another hour or so before waking up again and having no clue what that great idea was. It has been bugging me ever since. You know what it is like when there is a memory at the edge of your brain but you just can’t recall it? It is a bit like when you put something in a safe place so it won’t get lost and then can’t remember where that safe place was. I am sure it will come back to me at some point but for now I guess I am just going to have to write about something else and so here is a post about weddings instead.

Bring on the conspiracy theories

Although this blog is pretty much about me and stuff that happens in my life sometimes world events are of such historical importance that it is only right that I should express a point of view about them. Take for example the recent royal wedding this last weekend (see here and here for posts about it). Well not to be out done the USA has also grabbed the headlines over the last few days with the shock news that they have not only found Osama bin Laden but killed him and buried him at sea already. The news came completely out of the blue and just like the Transformers toys of 80’s it has left many people wondering if there is “more than meets the eye” about the whole thing.

My face is up here: Why men love breasts

I am a bloke which means that sooner or later this blog was always going to get around to talking about breasts. When it comes to the whole are you a breasts, legs or bum guy I am firmly in the breasts camp.

Lets be honest breasts are fantastic things. However before you shoot me down as some sort of pervert take a moment to read a bit further. For anyone looking for some sort of gallery full of pictures of exposed breasts then you are in the wrong place. The web is already full of that sort of thing and I'm not about to add to it.

Instead I am going to try and answer that age old question, why are men fascinated by breasts?

The royal wedding. Who cares?

As if my average day of disappointingly searching through job sites, playing poker on the Xbox 360, cleaning up, cooking and watching daytime television was not exciting enough today an electrician came round to put a new light in the bathroom. As is the great English tradition I offered him a cup of tea and as he sipped it we made polite small talk about that other great English tradition; the weather.  After ten minutes of chat about how unusually hot it was our rather difficult conversation turned to the subject of that latest all encompassing news story of the moment, the royal wedding.

Now unless you have been living under a rather large rock for the last month (and even then I doubt you would have escaped from the news) you will be aware that Prince William is getting married to his university sweetheart Miss Catherine Middleton (there is even an official website just in case you missed it). Well good luck to them I say and I hope it all works out for them. Providing the young Kate doesn’t piss the Queen off and stays out of Paris all should go well. But as the country and even the world whips itself up into a mad frenzy I can’t help but ask; who really gives a shit?