Oh Robin :(

I’ve come out of blogging retirement for one day only, just because I feel like I have to write this all down and get it out somewhere.

There aren’t many things that happen now days that make me feel like I just need to talk and talk and talk, or write and write and write.  There are bad things going on in the world, things that I feel strongly about and things that I don’t, but sometimes it’s hard to convey into words how something makes you feel.  Alas, there are certain times where the thoughts I have on a certain subject are so strong, I’m so sure of, that they are bubbling away inside me and I feel like if I don’t extract them from my head and put them into words onto a paper or a screen it’ll drive me mad.  So this is what I am doing, and this post is purely for my own benefit.

I woke up this morning to the news that Robin Williams had died.  I am ashamed to say that before this morning, I probably hadn’t thought about Robin for a longer than a few seconds at most, for years.  It’s always hindsight that makes you wish you had watched his films and laughed at his stand up and in a way felt more connected to him at the time when something like this happens.  It might sound like I am being dramatic, but Robin Williams was literally one of my childhood heroes and I didn’t realise how much of a loss I would feel  for someone I didn’t know personally. 

I grew up with his films, watching Ms Doubtfire continuously, LOVING the bit where he smushes his face into the cake so it looks like he’s wearing a face mask and secretly thinking it looked nice when the cream dropped into the coffee and wanting to eat the entire thing.  I LOVED Hook, undoubtedly one of the all time greatest childhood films.  I remember watching Jack the most, over and over again and even though I was young when it came out, the quality of his acting meant that I would sit there with tears in my eyes when Jack delivered his valedictorian speech, about how life is short and that you have to ‘make your life spectacular’.  How correct he was, and it’s a testament to him that he can touch a 10 year old in that way, move them to tears, when normally the deep and meaningful aspects of films like that normally go over the child viewers head.

I think the circumstances of Robin’s death are particularly hard to take.  Long battle with alcohol abuse and a history of severe depression.  It’s unfathomable to me that someone that spent his life bringing such joy and happiness to others, someone so mad and full of laughter was unable to see it for himself.  You could tell that Robin Williams was as wacky and zany in real life as he was in his films, and it’s wonderful to read all the stories that people are coming out with today about meeting him in real life and the funny things he did.  There’s also a thousand stories about how kind he was, a ‘normal down to earth’ person described by his neighbours, someone who desperately wanted to make other people happy but just couldn’t make himself happy.

Part of me wishes that something had set this all off a week ago, something happy had caused us all to share our mutual love of Robin Williams on twitter, talk about all his amazing films, share personal experiences of him, photos, things that he did and will continue to do through his films that will continue to have us laughing for the rest of our lives.  He wasn’t just a comedian, he was a joy to watch and every kid’s dream grown up.  I remember watching him in films and wishing he was friends with my parents or something, just because it would be fascinating to watch and interact with him in real life.  The thought of him dying alone and desperately sad in his house is heart breaking.  I wish he could have seen the entire world discussing how much he was loved, like we’re doing today.  Maybe it would have been different.

I truly feel like we're all suffering a loss today, so my thoughts go out to the family and friends who really knew him.  For just his admirers and fans it's a kick in the gut, so the pain they must be going through, I can't bear thinking about.

The world is a worse place today.

RIP Genie.  You’re free.

"but only in their dreams can men be truly free.. it was always thus and always thus will be"

Movember: Anything other than bad

Today marks the start of Movember, and those of you that know me will know how pleased I am about this.

I have had a moustache obsession for quite some time.  I have moustaches hats, rings, necklaces, a clock, a jumper, a t shirt – my friends sometimes even label it a Morshtache, because I love them so.  I love them on ANYTHING, but especially men.  Men with moustaches and beards, yes please.  You can imagine my delight when Movember then came along and suddenly the world became a brighter place.  Men were actively trying to grow moustaches, and not just for fun – for a worthy cause.  Fair enough by the end of the month the office looked like a criminal’s version of Guess Who, but people got sponsored and raised money for charity.  It doesn’t harm anyone, quite the opposite.

So you can imagine my surprise when I came across THIS douche worthy article from the Happiest Person in the World, Brendan O’Neill (who writes for the Telegraph).  After I had got over the initial shock of realising this controversial piece of drivel wasn’t taking pride of place on the Daily Mail homepage, I just tried to work out what Brendan’s aim was with this article.  I still haven’t worked it out 2 hours later.

There are a few lines Brendan has written that have just confused the actual fuck out of me.  Here are some of my favourites:

“God I hate Movember.  Not only because growing a ‘tache for cancer encourages men to make a big, hairy, public display of their caring, charitable side”

OH GOD FORBID BRENDAN, GOD FORBID MEN SHOULD PUT DOWN THEIR CLUBS AND STOP BEATING THEIR CHESTS LONG ENOUGH TO DO SOMETHING WORTH WHILE.  I have never heard of a men’s charitable, caring side being used as something negative.  How is it in any way shape or form negative?

“Movember has ruined the moustache.  In the past, men grew moustaches to demonstrate their masculinity, but now we are growing them to show we are “in touch” with our bodies and feelings and that we are “health aware”

I don’t get this at all.  First things first, last time I checked woman didn’t grow full on handlebar moustaches.  It’s not possible.  SO, growing a moustache is still showing your masculinity, as it’s something a male can do and a woman, physically and socially, cannot.  Next, I can’t see why it’s a problem to show that men are in touch with their bodies, feelings and being health aware.  Movember isn’t asking you to cellotape your nuts to your gooch and wear a pink tutu whilst crying over the Strictly Come Dancing eviction show.  It’s just trying to create awareness for men’s cancers, and hopefully raise a bit of cash towards it.  IT’S NOT A BIG DEAL.

“apparently blokes have a problematic “it’ll be alright” attitude which leads to a “reluctance” to openly discuss “health issues”

It’s not really what Brendan said at this point, it’s the way he said it.  All the quotation marks show that he is saying this in a sarcastic way, like he doesn’t believe this is the case at all, like it’s just something some vegetarian tree hugging woman came up with as a way to discredit men.  I would say 90% of males I have come across definitely have this attitude towards health problems, and do think things will be ok and just go away on their own.  Most men I know refuse to even take a bloody paracetamol when they have a headache, as it’s not manly to require assistance from medicines or doctors when feeling unwell.  So now, you are saying that Movember is taking away men’s masculinity, but also saying it’s a stereotype that men are too masculine to ask for help when ill.  Make your mind up please.

I am going to stop with the list here as I have just come across probably the most damaging sentence of the entire article, and one that I can’t believe he put in after everything he had written above it.  He actually wrote...

“What this uber-patronising campaign overlooks is that if young men really do have an “it’ll be alright” attitude, that’s because it probably will be alright”.

Wow.  Let’s hope Brendan never comes across anyone with any symptoms of anything more deadly than a cold, because his “it’ll be alright” attitude might just enable them to meet their end a lot quicker than nature intended.  You can’t go through life thinking “oh I have a massive lump in my balls, but you know what, it’ll be alright” or “oh this feels weird and I don’t know what it is, but I think it’ll be alright”.  Sorry, Movember isn’t patronising, it isn’t saying “OH HI LOOK AT YOU, YOU ARE SO CUTE COME AND GROW A LITTLE FURRY MOUSTACHE AND LET’S ALL TALK ABOUT IT AND THEN CARESS EACH OTHER’S NUT SACKS BECAUSE WE ARE ALL HAPPY WITH BEING FEMININE”.  Movember is saying let’s all have fun, let’s all do something easy and let’s all be more aware about men’s health.   There are women specific charities and fundraisers (the entire breast cancer awareness campaign is mostly aimed at women, even though this is something men can suffer from), but this is the only men centred charity.  I cannot fathom how this is a bad thing.

My final parting advice is to ignore Brendan.  If you want to participate in Movember, then do it.  If you don’t want to participate, then don’t.  It’s not the crime of the century if you aren’t interested, but don’t belittle other people that are actively raising money and awareness about men’s health.  I’d be interested to know if Brendan ever found himself in the midst of a situation where he does find a weird lump, or feel a bit like something’s not right, if he’ll just ignore it to save his masculinity. 

Remember Brendan, you might think this is all a load of stupid rubbish, but there’s no masculinity in death.

To learn more about Movember, check out their website here:  http://uk.movember.com/about/

If you are actively supporting Movember and would like to donate some money, a few of my lovely Twitter followers are participating.  Sponsor them here: http://uk.movember.com/team/556349

Miserable Monday :(

This weather is rubbish!  Rubbish Monday!

Aside form thatI am so excited, look what's arrived look what's arrived!  My business cards!  I have been umming and ahhing about getting some for a while but I finally took the plunge and I am glad I did!  I am so happy with them!  I know you are probably wondering why I need business cards (I don't want it to seem totally pretentious), believe me it’s not like that.  I have been invited to a few beauty shows and events in the past and when I have spoken to PRs etc, they have have asked about my blog and asked for my business card.  It’s a bit awkward when I don’t have one to give them as it can make me seem quite unprofessional and like my blog isn’t something I am particularly bothered about so I figured i’d bite the bullet and get some.  I only ordered 50 and I doubt I will be dishing them out often, but it’s nice to know I have a stash if I get invited somewhere I am going to meet people in the business and would like to contact them about my blog.  I think I am a bit weirded out by it because it’s not as if my blog is remotely important – I just talk about what I did at the weekend and what colour I have painted my nails so hardly putting a stop to poverty, but there are people in the industry that like recruiting bloggers for their brands and they do want business cards.  So I did it!

What do you think of my cards?  They do actually have my real name on them as this is quite important for people that want to contact me, but I airbrushed this out as I like to stay I wanted to incorporate the look of my blog by adding my logo, but also to show what my blog is about (ultimately me, make up and nail polish) and I think that’s pretty obvious.  I also like that everything on the front is a picture of my own work – I did the nail art and painted my nails, I did my own make up, I took my own pictures and I went to the events featured too.  I ordered these cards from Moo and I am really pleased with the quality and the print of them – thanks Moo!

Today is a stressful day for me because I am trying to participate in Stoptober, basically not smoking from today until the end of the month.  Right at this very moment I have normally had 2, if not 3 cigarettes by now so I am dying for one, but I am chewing lots of chewing gum and trying to be good.  I have decided if I REALLY REALLY need one then I will allow myself because the more I can’t have one the more I want one – even if I manage to cut out 4 of the ‘habit’ cigarettes I have a day that’s something.  I don’t know if i’ll be able to go cold turkey, but for now I am proud of myself – I know it’s only one morning but it’s one more than I thought I could do!

To any other fellow Stoptobers, good luck and if you need encouraging words or someone to freak out with, you know where I am!

I ordered some MUA cosmetics the other day, as everyone on the blogs always talks about the quality of the products and how good they are for the price and i’ve never tried them before.  I’ll snap some pictures tonight but am going to keep a few things back for my blog giveaway I think, just putting the finishing touches to the beauty box over the next couple of days and then i’ll start banging on about it!  Are there any particular types of products you like to see in a giveaway?  I am trying to include products I like and use, but also want to give the winner something they would want – suggestions welcome! x

The Hangover 3 - London 2012

I have woken up with a big empty void in my life. 

London 2012.  The Olympics.  What I thought was going to be the biggest pain in the ass I have ever lived through, but actually turned out to be 2 of the most pleasant, exciting, nerve wracking and admirable 2 weeks of my life.

When I first learnt we had won the bid to host the Olympics I wasn’t arsed.  It was only within the last 6 months when the warnings of staying out of London grew louder and louder that I started to take notice.  As someone that uses the Underground morning and night, going directly through Stratford to Oxford Circus on the Central Line, I assumed I would be in the thick of the nightmare every day.  During the lead up to the Olympics arriving in London, I was dreading it.

Then something changed.  Everyone decided to embrace it and stop moaning about how bad it was going to be.  The Opening Ceremony was being talked about more and more and I actually found myself wanting to watch it, genuinely interested in how Danny Boyle was going to showcase London to the world, set us up for what was going to be surely at best a tempestuous 2 weeks?  We’d better not blow it on the first night.  I sat down with my friends and watched the Ceremony and was absolutely blown away.  IT WAS BRILLIANT.  With every segment I found myself genuinely amazed by the sheer volume of production, the people, the actors, the music, the volunteers.  The Opening Ceremony was outstanding and left me excited for the Games and with a big lump in my throat because I was so proud, proud of this country and proud of its history.  I had no idea of what was to come.

For the following 2 weeks I suddenly became interested in sport I had never batted an eyelid at before.  I was suddenly screaming for people that I hadn’t even heard of 2 weeks ago.  I was downloading Olympic apps, panicking when BBC iPlayer wouldn’t work.  I tweeted my love and admiration for this country countless times, something I hadn’t really ever felt compelled to do in my life unless we happened to have a particularly good game in the World Cup.  The Olympics is different.  The athletes that competed for Team GB (and every other nation when you think about it) are probably the best role models for children I could ever think of.  There is none of the loutish arrogance that comes with footballers.  Footballers are paid millions and hardly ever deliver.  They have fame that knows no bounds, but for reasons that are more often than not, bad.  The athletes in the Olympics are hard working, passionate, driven, ambitious.  They have worked their asses off every day for the last 4 years to be the best, to do our country proud, and they succeeded.   

Because of this I got behind them 100%, along with just about everyone else in the country.  I watched as much of the Olympics as I could, finding a genuine interest in it.  I genuinely felt a glow of pride when we won medals, whether they be Gold, Silver or Bronze.  The quality of the sport I watched in the last 2 weeks was phenomenal, and it wasn’t because it was backed by fat cats with big wallets or because they wanted promotional or advertising deals.  It was because the athletes wanted to do themselves and their countries proud and they had something worthwhile to fight for.  I got tickets for the first day of the Athletics at the Olympic Stadium thanks to my friend Hollie and it was epic.  It was brilliant to watch Jessica Ennis and all the other athletes in the flesh and the atmosphere in the Stadium was electric.  I met Alexander Smith, the Team GB Hammer Thrower – a genuine OLYMPIC ATHLETE who was a complete gentleman.  The park itself was brilliant;  clean, well laid out, big, impressive.  Our seats in the Stadium cost £20 each and we were ¾ of the way up so hardly near the front, but we could see EVERYTHING.  It was one of the most enjoyable days I have ever had, and it was so nice to go there and experience the Olympic spirit first hand and be active in such an important piece of British history.

I thought the trains were going to be a nightmare getting to work, and this was the main reason I initially dreaded the Olympics coming to town.  Granted, the day I went to watch the Athletics at the Olympic stadium the Central Line practically exploded and I had to get about 18 different trains into Central London just to come back out again to get to the park, but apart from that it wasn’t that bad at all.  There were a few things I even ENJOYED about that trains!  On the train home if a member of Team GB won a medal, the nice little men and women that drove the trains told us over their little announcer microphone thing.  This made fellow commuters and strangers smile at each other – I even witnessed a conversation about a particular announcement strike up BETWEEN STRANGERS.  If you haven’t been on the Underground before you won’t already know this, but NO ONE talks to each other on the train.  If at any other time you try to talk to someone you don’t know on the train, you would probably be committed to a mental hospital.   My favourite Olympic Transport moment was when Chris Hoy won Gold in the Keirin.  Fuming because the race was scheduled to be at 5.50pm, just as I was in the middle of my journey home I managed to get BBC iPlayer up on my phone so was able to watch the race on the train.  A woman sitting next to me saw what I was doing and asked if she could watch it with me.  We both sat huddled over my phone, getting louder and louder until Hoy whizzed over the line and we both screamed our heads off.  The guy opposite us asked if Hoy had won and we spent the rest of the journey talking about it.  THAT NEVER HAPPENS ON THE TRAIN but I loved it.  It created a lovely atmosphere which made a welcome change to the normal unwelcoming atmosphere on the Underground.

The Closing Ceremony divided opinion a bit.  After Danny Boyle setting the standard so high with the Opening and the sheer success of the Games, I think everyone was expecting miracles.  I for one LOVE British music, I think we have some of the best musicians in the world and nothing makes me feel more patriotic then listening to it.  The Closing Ceremony was basically a big concert, showcasing the finest musical talent that has ever come out of GB.  Artists such as George Michael, Annie Lennox, The Spice Girls, Beady Eye, Muse, Jessie J, Emile Sandé, Take That.  Not every artist was to everyone’s taste but that wasn’t the point.  The point was to show we can do pomp and circumstance at its best, we can do Olympic Games brilliantly, and we can do music too.  I loved the very English parts of the ceremony, one of the highlights for me being Eric Idle singing Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.  Russell Brand coming out on a 60’s tour bus dressed like a hippy child catcher singing I Am The Walrus almost put me in a coma.  It was BRILLIANT.

By the time the ceremony came to an end and the Olympic Torch was extinguished, I was genuinely gutted.  Here’s something I NEVER thought i’d say, but I wish we could have the Games for two more weeks.  I woke up this morning with a hangover, like I had been out on one of the best nights of my life and had just woken up to it all being over.  I loved every minute of it.

The list of people that did the nation proud is ridiculous.  First up, the athletes.  They were inspiring, brilliant, emotional to watch.  We felt their pain, we shared their joy and we inwardly spurred them round every corner, through every lap and over every jump.  The workers at the BBC, Olympic Park, the Underground, Airports.  The people behind the scenes that made sure everything went to plan.  The volunteers who did it all just for the experience, not for the money.  The people that kept us safe; police, ambulance workers, army, the security guards.  They all deserve their own Gold medals for making an entire 2 weeks that every citizen of this country can be proud of.  Twitter was a great social networking site to use during the Games.  Hearing peoples opinions about every aspect of it was brilliant, and some of the conversations and banter I had on Twitter during this time was the funniest I’ve experienced on there.  The people I follow on Twitter made the experience of the Games that much better, as we all were enjoying it together.  The most surprising of all and in my opinion the best was the people in this country.  I have never seen one event lift an entire countries spirits before, but the Olympics did it.  Everyone was interested, everyone was involved and everyone stepped up to the mark and helped to make this one of the best Olympic games on record.  We should all be proud of ourselves and each other.

Stand on the Podium London.  You did it.

Grace Dent vs Mufadel - Hypocrisy at it's finest...

Freedom of speech and Twitter do not mix.  They should, but they don’t.

Lately there has been lots of stories about people getting into trouble for saying things over the Internet, particularly on Twitter.  The most famous example of this has to be the case of Paul Chambers who was involved in the Twitter Joke trial.  It all started when Paul Chambers tweeted regarding the closure of Robin Hood Airport due to the cold weather in late December 2009, leading to the disruption of flights – a frustrating time for anyone attempting to travel, i’m sure you’ll agree.   Paul was due to fly out of Robin Hood airport on 6^th January 2010 and after finding out about the closures, tweeted this message:

“Crap!  Robin Hood Airport is closed.  You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise i’m blowing the airport sky high!!”

I’m sure you’ll agree that in light of 9/11, the London bombings and other various terrorist attacks this wasn’t exactly the most intelligent thing to say, BUT I would also like to confirm that if that tweet was on my timeline I would have read it and then continued onto the next tweet without a second thought – I certainly wouldn’t have taken this tweet seriously as a threat.  An off-duty manager at Robin Hood airport found this tweet and reported it to the police, resulting in Paul’s arrest and ultimately being found guilty of “sending a public electronic message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character contrary to the Communications Act 2003”.  He had to pay £1,000 in fines and legal fees and he lost his job as a consequence of this conviction.  Everyone went mad saying that he clearly didn’t mean it – He had character references in court saying he would never do anything like that, blah blah blah, but the judge said the tweet contained menace and they couldn’t guarantee he didn’t mean what he was saying.  I think you’d have to be pretty stupid to tweet that... and then do it?

I am blogging this today as there is a new freedom of speech incident that everyone has gone mad about.  Grace Dent, the Guardian columnist and self proclaimed twitter addict got a massive cob on when some random guy called ‘Mufadel’ mentioned her in a tweet last night saying this:

“@gracedent reminds me of a girlfriend I once had.  By girlfriend I mean that time I accidentally made love to an ugly abhorrent horse”.

Grace then got the hump and basically questioned why he would tweet her saying that if he works for a PR firm that she is also involved with, then proceeded to claim she was going to get him sacked by 10am the next morning.  Despite Mufadel calling himself an idiot, neither of them have been on Twitter since and we don’t know what the outcome is. 

I find this totally hypocritical of Grace Dent and don’t like the way she has insinuated she can play God with this man’s life.  Yes it’s a stupid thing to say, but haven’t we all been called names before?  You don’t get someone fired because they called you UGLY?  I don’t know if it’s because Dent thinks she is a genuine famous person now, but why does she think she can stamp her feet and cry into the shoulders of the CEO of this PR firm and ruin this man’s life?  I have been called many names on Twitter before, normally by 15 year old kids that think they know everything – I haven’t attempted to get them sacked or prosecuted by the police?  You just take it on the chin and accept that on such an open, public forum, whether you are a in the public eye or not you get idiots like this.  Grace Dent isn't alone in receiving stupid messages – she’s just alone in how she thinks she can deal with them.

Dent has previously published an article on the Guardian website which was called “100 things about me and Twitter”, in which she says the following (bold lines):

“By July 2009 I had about 5,987 followers -  back then I said pretty much whatever I wanted on Twitter.  It was like spraying words on a fence in neon, foot-high letters and never, ever getting detention for it”

So Dent can get away with saying whatever she wants but no one else can?  Surely Dent must know how liberating it is to go on Twitter and have a massive rant or write whatever you want about anything and not get in trouble for it?  That’s the beauty of Twitter, it’s like an online diary that stops you from rambling too much, but other people can read and laugh at the good bits and tell you how great you are.  She just needs to remember that they can read the not so good bits and tell you how rubbish they are too – you open yourself up to this if you are on Twitter, it's an open forum.    I don’t want this to sound like Twitter bullying is acceptable, i’m just saying you can’t stop it, same as you can’t stop kids hanging around outside shops from shouting abuse at you as you walk in, or fights in nightclubs.

If that is someone’s opinion then it’s annoying for her but there is nothing she can do about it – IT’S THEIR OPINION.  I wouldn’t mind but judging from the context of that tweet he probably didn’t even mean it, he just said it for effect.  I have seen MUCH, MUCH worse on Twitter.  I have also tweeted things like this myself – not aimed directly at a celebrity, but if there has been someone famous I don’t like I have tweeted about it.  I'm sure i'm not the only person that has wished eternal silence on Jedward (to put it nicely).  The thing is NO ONE ACTUALLY MEANS THESE THINGS.  I don’t REALLY want that to happen to Jedward, i’d more than likely feel a bit guilty if it did - it’s just split second annoyance coming out in a tweet and an effective way of getting your point across of how you think of someone in only 140 characters.

Nine times out of ten the tweets like this that are sent are not even for the benefit of the recipient.  Tweets like this are the equivalent of a peacock showing off its feathers... the person in question just wants to make their followers laugh, not to cause massive offence or for these things to come across as a threat.  Dent also goes on to say...

“My teeth itch when people tweet me to tell me what i’m not allowed to say”

Again, very hypocritical.  In one of Dent’s latest articles regarding The Apprentice, she writes “the candidates still haven’t sussed out how to not resemble delusional, chest-puffing buffoons” and she says that “people probably refer to Azhar as that knob at head office with the shonky Bluetooth headpiece who reckons he’s Gordon Gecko”.  So within 1 article she has written horrible things about people she hasn’t ever met – sound familiar?  I wonder how she would feel if Azhar tried to get her fired from her position at the Guardian... she'd probably be absolutely dumbfounded that her comments were taken seriously, the same as I am SURE Mufadel is today.

I understand people being upset by unnecessary abuse on Twitter.  Terrorism needs to be taken seriously and so does harassment, bullying and general horribleness on Twitter, but I don’t think you can call Mufadel’s tweet that.  I’d just call it stupid.  Think of how much abuse Piers Morgan gets on Twitter – if he had to go through and get every abuser sacked, he wouldn’t have time to do anything else so he just ignores it.  Especially in Dent’s case, you don’t write whatever you want in national papers and news columns and then run off and get someone fired for calling you an ugly abhorrent horse.  Especially if you might look a bit like one...

Whitney Houston - Death of a Legend

I was out on Saturday night, and if you follow me on Twitter you will be more than well aware that I was VERY drunk.  We were all having a good night, ended in a bit of drama but what can you do... anyway, we got in the cab to go home and our regular cab driver Terry told us the horrible news that Whitney Houston had reportedly passed away.  He didn't know how or when, but he claimed it was true as that's why all the radio stations were caining her music (as they are now going to do for the next few weeks at least)

I don't know if it was because I was drunk or if I just genuinely wasn't that bothered, but I asked the usual questions, "how", "why" and that was it.  We continued the conversation we were having previously, got home and didn't really think about it again until I woke up this morning.  I think the reason for this is because although it is a great tragedy, part of me just feels like it was something inevitable, something that was always going to happen.  I have thought about this a lot today, and I have spent most of the day comparing this latest celebrity death to the death of Amy Winehouse.

Clearly I didn't know Amy personally, but I was genuinely gutted when she died.  I loved her music and I think the greatest tragedy about Amy Winehouse was that not only did everyone expect her death, but when it happened it wasn't through the causes everyone thought it was going to be.  Everyone assumed she'd die of a drug overdose, or something drug related - hell, she consumed enough coke in her time to keep Columbia out of the red for the next 50 years... Regardless of this, the thing that killed Amy was the willpower to stop.  She was told she can't quit cold turkey. the shock to her body by doing this would do her serious damage - she ignored it, determined to get better for her loved ones but it did do her damage.  Permanent damage.

Whitney Houston's death is similar to this.  She has endured a well publicised battle with crack cocaine amongst other Class A Narcotics, and she had entered rehab a number of times, just to come out a reformed character before falling back down the slippery slope into hardcore drug addiction again.  The rumours haven't been confirmed yet, but it's reported that Whitney went on a binge, ran herself a bath, climed in and accidentally drowned.  I find it hard to conjur up the same amount of sympathy as I had for Winehouse, because this was the actions of a drug addict, someone selfish, all consumed with her next fix and not of her daughter, her career, her life.  Her security and management team shouldn't have left her on her own if she was back taking heavy drugs - even if she was having a bath.  But ultimately, Whitney created the perfect storm for her own death.

Sure it can be argued Winehouse did the same, but the reason I had sympathy for her is because she tried to change.  She knew the damage she was doing to herself, to her family and she attepmted to stop.  Whitney has an astounding career, fame, wealth, family, children.  Some could say she had it all, but this still wasn't enough.

I know that fame isn't all it's cracked up to be and just because she had all what I listed above doesn't necessarily mean that she was happy, but I liken deaths like these to suicide.  Although she didn't purposly drown, she might as well have.  If it wasn't for her own personal actions, she wouldn't be dead today (and again, I know the same can be said for Amy Winehouse but it's the action of trying that makes a difference to me).

I don't want any of my opinion above to cloud the fact that she is a legend and will be greatly missed.  I know that, I know that she had thousands of fans, a back catalogue of some amazing songs, great films.  I know her death is a huge shame, devestating to everyone that knew her, upsetting for her fans.  The world lost an icon, a legend, a diva and there is nothing anyone can say to change that fact.  As i'm writing this I am watching The Bodyguard (scheduled post, I wrote this on Sunday night - sorry!) and she really had something special, a gift.  It's good that she got to share her gift with the world, that it wasn't wasted - but her life was clouded by awful periods of darkness, hitting rock bottom on more than one occasion - drugs, marriage troubles.  The Whitney Houston story shouldn't have been about that.  It's the same for everyone, everyone would like to be remembered for the things they were good at, the things they did well, the differences they made to the world.  Again, it's not the way it happens, the bad always outweighs the good in the eyes of the media - until someone dies.  Now Whitney is going to be portrayed as some sort of saint in all the papers tomorrow.  Everyone paying tribute to the woman they love, the woman they either knew or think they knew.  Everyone will forget about the drug addict, the woman blighted with problems. 

If that's the way it has to be, then that's the way it has to be.  It's such a shame, and hopefully now she can rest in peace and not be tormented by whatever it was that drove her to her drug binges in the first place.  Rest in Peace Whitney, didn't you almost have it all...

Nicky Morgan

I’ve never been nervous about doing a blog post before, but i’m nervous about writing this one.

On Thursday 27^th October, my friend Nicky Morgan went for a night out with his work pals to celebrate a birthday.  Nick works as a bouncer in Nu Bar in Essex (as well as playing for Billericay Town FC as a Goalkeeper), and was out to celebrate one of the other bouncers birthdays.  Towards the end of the night a fight broke out and Nicky stepped in to help.  This resulted in Nicky suffering a neck injury, and now he’s paralysed and has been in Queens hospital in Romford for the last month.

Obviously when everyone who knew Nick heard this they were all devastated.  I don’t want to bang on about how much of a great guy Nick is as the sheer amount of people that are willing to help him recover  in any way is proof enough, but he just genuinely IS a lovely bloke.  It’s a shame when this happens to anyone, but Nick was so active, so full of life that it’s hard to imagine him being restricted like this and hardly anyone being able to help him.  The recovery will be long and Nick will have to work hard, but he’s determined and persistent so we all know one day he’ll get there and he’ll be back to his normal self.  Unfortunately for him to be able to do so he is going to need some help, and this is where you lot all come in...

As I stated before, Nick is currently in Queen’s Hospital in Romford.  A few days after the incident Nick had a major operation, whereby he had 2 plates and 8 pins inserted around his spine to relieve the pressure.  He now has slight movement in his arms and he can feel his toes being touched and last week achieved slight movement in the backs of his legs.  Obviously all of these factors are huge positives for Nick and it’s succeeded in giving everyone hope that he will get better.    Queen’s hospital have provided him with a wheelchair but he is currently waiting for a specially adapted one due to his size.  Regardless of all this, what Nick really needs is to be moved to a specialist spinal unit called Stoke Mandeville so he can start his rehab.  Unfortunately Nick’s surgeon presented his case at a seminar on Thursday, but the relevant representatives didn’t attend – Nick’s family hoped that they would be there and ‘cherry pick’ him for admission to their rehab program.  He’s an ideal candidate as he’s young, fit and willing to work hard but as things didn’t go to plan the people that needed to listen to Nick’s case weren’t there to hear it.  Nick’s surgeon has suggested everyone kicks up as much fuss as possible to get his case heard – local MP’s, contacting the media, everything.

I know a lot of you reading this blog post won’t know who Nick is, but it doesn’t matter.  It’s not clear whether Nick fell accidentally or was pushed.  Nick was involved in this fight because he was trying to help.  He wouldn’t have been throwing punches, he wouldn’t have been continuing the argument when it was nothing to do with him.  Nick’s JOB is to stop people from fighting, and at a height of 6ft 7 he probably didn’t have much of a problem with this before.  Unfortunately the CCTV has still not been analysed by the police as of yet so we do not know the exact circumstances surrounding this fight.  All we know is that we want him to get better, and we are all willing to do whatever we can to help Nick and get him admitted to Stoke Mandeville. 

I know I bang on all the time about RTing tweets and helping me with random rubbish on Twitter.  All of the things I had asked for your help with before are irrelevant when it comes to this.  I almost wish I hadn’t asked anything of you all before, just so this request would have more impact.  I genuinely mean it when I say this next bit:  If you only ever read 1 of my blog posts, if you only ever RT 1 of my tweets or you only ever listen to 1 thing I say then please, PLEASE let it be this.  Everyone that knows Nick is willing to do anything they can to help and this means spreading the word of Nick’s case as far as we can.  I’ve put some links below to newspaper articles, donation pages, his personal blog that keeps everyone updated on his progress, but I’m not necessarily asking for your money.  I just want you to take 3 seconds out of your daily routine to push this around Twitter and spread the word about what happened to Nick.  If enough people read about Nick’s situation, soon enough someone who will be able to help will get to hear about it too.

If you want to buy tickets for the Charity night, the link is below.  The tickets are £6 each or 2 for £10, and Nick's family have said that if you wanted to attend but can't, still buying a ticket means you will be supporting Nick on the night.  

We are also collecting items to auction off to raise money at the charity night.  If you know anyone or have any celebrity contacts who could provide us with something signed or something of value to auction off that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading and if you help in anyway, thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.

Nick's Blog

Donation Page

Link for Charity Night Tickets

Appeal for Witnesses

Online Security

I wasn't sure what I was going to end up blogging about today.  I haven’t been too concerned as I am leaving work at 4 (yippee) and I have been blogging like a mo’ fo’ lately anyway, but then I stumbled upon a blog post by someone I follow on Twitter that really caught my attention.

Everyone reading this is probably reading it due to social media.  I post a blog and then I tweet the link or I put it as my facebook status encouraging people to log on and read it.  I try to be careful with my Facebook, but probably to my detriment i’m not as careful on Twitter.  My private Facebook account is strictly kept for people I know through old jobs, childhood friends or current friends and family.  If you are not my friend on Facebook then you can’t see anything other than my current profile picture.  Twitter is different, and it’s probably not a good thing.  There are a lot more randoms on Twitter.  I have over 1,000 followers now and I never really think about it that much, but they could literally be ANYONE.  I have been careful to not disclose my real full name on Twitter, but to be fair I probably haven’t done enough to keep my identity private.  I have my profile picture as a real picture of me.  I have links to my blog that is covered in pictures of me with my real friends.  I tweet about what train station i’m at, what venue I am going to that night.  The only thing I have never done is disclosed my work place to my followers, or the name of my company.  Again, this isn’t for any other reason than if current or prospective employers were to try and find me they would only have my real name, and therefore my Twitter account and blog wouldn’t appear.  Hopefully.

So, browsing my Twitter timeline today, I stumbled across a tweet from @the3rdgirl promoting her blog.  In there I found a blog post explaining why she was deleting her Twitter account and taking some time out from it, posted about a month ago.  Her post is explaining the various reasons, but partly calling out the internet ‘trolls’ she had the misfortune of experiencing in the weeks leading up to this post.  I can’t say I blame her for taking a break, but I am pleased to say she is back.  While reading her blog post she directed links to two other blogs, one detailing serious experiences of stalking and another that advertises the frankly brilliant Twitter account set up to track worrying or obsessive tweeters contacting vulnerable people, and a bad experience with one tweeter that lead to it's creation. 

I’ll start with GrumpyHatLady’s blog, which you can read here.  (I’m aware that all 3 of these people are concerned with their online security, so I have contacted them all to check they are ok with me linking their twitter accounts and blogs here).  I read the whole thing and was frankly AMAZED at what she had gone through at the hands of a stalker, but unfortunately I was not shocked.  Unfortunately her stalking experience ended up consuming much more of her life than just on the internet, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that you might have some sort of weirdo following you on Twitter, someone that isn’t just up for a chat or a discussion about a random topic.  This poor lady had been stalked before when she was 15 and then experienced this twice more further down the line, and the worst case was because her stalker found her on the internet.  This wasn't because she was giving away her details enabling him to find her, but he was persistent and ended up using the internet against her, to find out all of her personal information.  She goes on to say this is why she doesn’t have a facebook, use LinkedIn and doesn’t reveal her real name or any details about herself on the internet.  She explains this isn’t because she’s got something to hide, but just a matter of preference, to protect herself from any sort of trouble she might get just for the sake of telling someone her name.

The second blog, ‘The Blog That Peter Wrote’ unveils the disgusting behaviour of a tweeter called BertieWWooster, and you can read it here.  BertieWWooster sounds like your average troll, gaining trust from women on the internet, stepping things up a notch by trying to get them to engage in ‘cybersex’ or the like, and then turns nasty when they decline.  He has claimed all sorts of ludicrous things, from having contacts within the FBI to knowing someone’s full house address, work address, name, phone number etc.  Peter launched a campaign against this guy and at the very bottom of this blog post states that through his hard work he has managed to get all 4 of these rogue accounts deleted (BertieWWooster was only 1 of 4 accounts this guy used to terrorise people). 

Reading both of these posts, you might think that the experience @the3rdgirl had was a bit tame.  Fair enough, it might have not been full on stalker mode like @TheGrumpyHatLady, but it was still bullying and I just do NOT understand why you would bother to do that online?  Most people have a Twitter account because they want to socialise, but there are some people that sign up just to verbally attack people that have done nothing wrong, and 9 times out of 10 haven’t come into contact with this troll through any fault of their own?  I will forever fail to see the point in that and can only come to the conclusion that the people that do this have underlying 'issues'.

Anyway, I wanted to blog about this because although I personally have never experienced anything of this sort (and I think I would be totally petrified if I did), their blog posts have totally made me think long and hard about my ‘online life’.  I have never had a stalker but there was 1 guy on Twitter who started off sweet and lovely and I spoke to him a lot, but as the months passed he got weirder and weirder and kept DMing me saying he wanted to meet me etc.  It got to the point where I panicked and basically found an excuse to unfollow him without trying to wind him up (next to impossible).  After that I was left alone so he wasn’t a major threat but even experiencing that made me feel uncomfortable when I logged on.

We all hear the news stories about there being bad people online and the things we should do to prevent ourselves getting caught up in any sort of online trouble, but if you are anything like me you don’t really think of it that much.  It's always one of those “it’ll never happen to me” situations.  After reading these blogs I went onto Facebook and double checked my security settings.  I then logged out and checked what my account looked like to someone that wasn’t friends with me.  I checked my Twitter information, and I went and amended my ‘about me’ section on this blog.  All that’s left for me to do now is make sure I am careful with the things I tweet to people and blog about.  I'm not saying you have to suddenly be suspiciouis of everyone on Twitter, but where they might seem really nice and friendly, you never atually know what goes on behind closed doors, or people’s computer screens.  Keep your personal information safe, and just be wary of people.

I would just like to congratulate Peter (@PME200)  for sharking out the bad eggs on Twitter and working that little bit harder to make everyone feel safe.  I’m glad @GrumpyHatLady is now clear of any trouble and is looking after herself online, and i’d also like to express my pleasure that @the3rdgirl is back on Twitter and enjoying herself.  The account Peter set up to warn women of Bertie is @SexPestWarning.  I have linked their Twitter accounts here so if you would like to contact them regarding their blogs or experiences you are able to.  Clearly no trolls allowed.