Push The Big Red Button ..

What pushes your buttons ? Can we narrow that down even further ? What pushes your work buttons and what pushes your personal buttons ? Are they the same ? I doubt it. Then again, how many of us are the same at home as we are in the office.

It is something I ponder, as I do believe I am myself as much as can be expected at most times. However this is the rub. No one knows you like your family right ? Then again, you spend more time with your work colleagues. So who knows you best, the real you, and do they know which buttons to avoid. My take on it is that the work buttons are quite well known, and your colleagues want to avoid them, so in most cases do their best to avoid pushing the big red button and watching the fireworks that ensue, although, sometimes, and I have to say it is rare, risky and sometimes doesn’t work. It is worth pushing the big red button to get something done, however the key to this is to light the touchpaper and retire, thereby the explosion happens somewhere else (hopefully where you had planned it) this as noted is risky and you could get caught in the crossfire. Just depends how much collateral damage you are willing to receive to get the desired end result.

That is where it gets complicated for my brain. For me pushing buttons at work is only worth doing if you need a specific result, an end a reaction that makes something else happen. There would be no good reason to do it otherwise, that’s just pointless and not harmonious for the workplace. The very point of teamwork is to avoid winding people up, working together and working out how others best work to get the best results. That’s the point. Or at least I like to think it’s the point.

Family, they can push the button for no reason at all, by accident, by design, by coincidence. There is a slightly less worrying edge to it, because you are family and it will get resolved, there is some level of sibling button pushing that is expected, without which we wouldn’t learn boundaries nor would we learn what’s important to us, our siblings. It is sometimes quite surprising to me what sets me off. That is a learning curve, the buttons you didn’t know you had, suddenly someone has flicked a switch and you realize that actually you are hugely offended, and had no sign that you might be.

Then you get to friends and partners, somewhere in the no mans land between family and work. Not family enough to just push the button and damn the consequences, that would imply a complete lack of care, thought and consideration. The very basics of which your friendship / relationship is built upon. As above these can be stumbled onto with complete ignorance, and at that point it is usually too late to stop the process. Best to just chalk that one up and remember it for the future.

Me ? I wont lie. I have many buttons. Some result in minor sparkler type fireworks and some the full C4. I am still finding them as I grow older, and also that some of the bigger buttons have somewhat decreased in size as I mature. Ask 8 year old Maxine about Fox Hunting and all hell would have broken loose, button deployed, stand back and watch her foam at the mouth. Ask 32 year old Maxine about Fox hunting and whilst I still feel extremely strongly on the subject, you would have to be going some, and be quite the ignorant fool to get me riled to the extent where I would lose my temper. However, insult one of my friends, or much much worse, my family and I will go up like the Atlantis hotel on New Years Eve. That’s a guarantee and quite an obvious one. My other major bug bear is inconsistency. If you are going to argue with me make sure you recall what you said. Make sure your story is consistent. Make sure you have a point and you can make it, make sure you are not going to back track or change your story or try to pretend you meant something different than what you said originally. If you are going to say something. Mean it. Mean it and back it up. I cannot bear to listen to half stories and explanations of, no I meant the total opposite to what you heard. No I didn’t say that. I said something very similar but marginally different. Another thing to add to the list. I have (currently as I have had no kids) an amazing memory. I can quote you back word for word. This comes from my days as a padless waitress. Sounds worse than it actually was. But, I can, and I will. I get immensely frustrated with people who cannot be true and truthful. People who disguise reality with half truths and smoke and mirrors. It is probably one of the worst offences. It implies that I am stupid, it implies I can be misled and it suggests I am easily fooled. I am not stupid, I am hard to mislead and I am no ones fool. These things are not hard to note.

I also have a long memory, which is totally different from holding a grudge before all the men pop up and start claiming they are hard done too. Women store up things like this. Not because we are mythical creatures who love to beat you over the head with past errors, but because no doubt the last time it happened, it hurt. Therefore it makes an impression. You do it again, it reminds of the time before that and the time before that. So we bring it up in an effort to show you (the idiot) that you are not learning. You are continuing to push the big red button. Over and over again.

They say the definition of a psychopath is a person who does the same thing over and over and expects a different outcome. Note to all of you button pushers. If you are having the same argument over and over again, the answer is why ? Change of behavior perhaps ?

At the end we all have buttons that can be pushed, bad ones like I describe above or good ones. The good ones are used to manipulate, the bad ones for reactions and the average ones in between are used for everyday life. Because everything you say or do elicits a reaction from another person, in some way. We push buttons all day long every day.  Stop and think about the next one you intend to push and the reaction it will get. It’s worth it in the long run.

About a Blog ..

A little cup of irony for breakfast rather than my usual strong cup of coffee today. Whilst I sipped it I realized that I may have changed. The old Maxine used to dash straight into things, without a thought or a care, sure in the knowledge that the fact that I was right was enough. That moral outrage would see me through and that the world was such a place that everyone would see that I am right and order would be restored.

Maybe I haven’t changed, maybe I have just learned that this world is not based upon the right thing, but cowardice and the easy options. The irony of this morning is that I am blogging about blogging. More specifically my distaste for certain bloggers. A blog is a blog is a blog. That is it, they are used for so many reasons, even as a business. More usual is that they are a diary, an online diary, a voice, interesting words written by people who want others to read them. Some have topics like weddings, events, photography and more recently, food. This is where I begin to lose my mind, and all sense of reason. There are many food blogs, of which I am a major fan. They discuss recipes, and tips on cooking, and foods and display a love of food in general. They have advertising, links to other blogs, and websites that are useful.  Then, and this is where I get frustrated, the reviewers. They are a different type of blogger.

I myself in the past have blogged about restaurants, usually when I have had a bad experience. I have blogged about hotels, holidays, the state of the driving in the UAE and Christmas cards and the lack of desire I have to write them. I write about my life and what’s happening in it.

I see a rise in Food Blogs that are actively e-mailing PR Managers of hotels and suggesting that they have a ‘reach’ or a ‘following’ and that a review by them, of the hotel restaurant would (if it is a good one) improve the footfall into the restaurant. How anyone has the balls to do this is beyond me? Dear PR manager, I think I am aces, I have loads of followers on twitter and if you don’t give me a free meal I will tell them that your restaurant is terrible, kind regards Food Blogger. It is mind boggling.  My main problem is these reviews are done not by a food critic who has discussed the finer ins and outs of the food itself, not by someone who knows food, not by someone who loves food with an obvious passion, but by someone who loves Social Media, and the power that it wields.

I happen to have, due to my 16 years in the country a large and varied network of people in the hotel and PR industry, and it still amazes me that people here forget that Dubai is miniscule. However, and this is my major problem, the ‘reach’ that these bloggers have is real, it is not as the blogger themselves believes to be, it is not an ardent following of ‘foodies’ who are hanging off every typed phrase and horrific photograph waiting to either rush out and book if the blogger says so, or to neatly cross of the list of potential outlets if the blog says no. Indeed it is not. The reach is that a hotel or outlet or brand can become hounded on twitter. They can be besieged by the blogger and the close knit group of people who follow. It becomes a witch hunt and then the word of mouth. Before a hotel knows it, they have been discussed on twitter and a few retweets later the damage is done. The reality of it is that the people who follow don’t enjoy it either, they just don’t have the balls to say so. I will no doubt be harassed for doing so myself. However, I care not. I have the many emails these food bloggers send to people to read through and laugh at.

If I hear one more PR Manager say to me, but if we don’t give them the free dinner they asked for they will come and give us a sh*t review, I will scream. Let them come. Let them review. The people who listen to them are not your customers anyway. If you would read a food blog and make a decision on a restaurant that you like the look of based upon one persons review then who would want them.  We live in a world of sheep, if one person has a blackberry, then it becomes the ‘must have’, if 2 sunglass clad fools spend 12,000 dhs at a nightclub, then it must be the place to go. Regardless of if everyone is standing about wondering what they are doing there. If I hear one more tale of emails about free hotel stays, free holidays, free samples I think I may have to resign from twitter. It isn’t how it is done. When you show me your statistics and what you can do for my company in black and white, in numbers then maybe I will entertain you. Until then ….

What these bloggers don’t know, is there is a silent group of people who don’t barge onto twitter and share things, but email each other, from hotel to hotel, from PR to PR, from Journo to Journo, laughing. Laughing at you. Thinking to themselves that 1 dinner really isn’t the end of the world to just keep you quiet. That’s the problem. It’s easier to keep you quiet than to just put an end to it. One day. One day a PR manager somewhere will just hit print screen and this will all be over. Sadly it won’t be me.  I will keep the e-mails and I will re-read them and laugh.

The point of my somewhat rambling note, is that the concept of a mystery shopper is a brilliant one. If you get a free meal, you will be served differently. If you don’t get a free dinner, but you let them know you are coming, paying and reviewing  Same. Thing. They will treat you differently. The only way you can guarantee that you get a fair idea of a restaurant and how it operates is to just book and go. Then try writing about the atmosphere, the parking, the service and the food. Because a night out is an experience, not just what’s on your plate.

Because of their love ..

Sometimes you think of the sad things. I was reminded the other day about Mums and Dads and all the things we, as horrific children, inflicted upon them as we grew. We are, musically told to apologise, to say sorry for the hurt and worry we caused them.

I think, I do. However whilst I caused worry, and hurt, and broken hearts, and nasty words, which we all do, some more than most. I think of all the things I would like to thank my Parents. When you are grown, you forget the things your parents did to entertain you, to make you laugh, to keep you happy and to make you smile. These things fade from your memory, but you should remember them. These are the times that mean the most to me. These are the things that scream love, way more than presents, material things or saying the words. These are the things that shape a child. These are the things that have made me grow up and expect that everyone had the same as me. When I find, and I find it more and more that other people didn’t have the same life as me growing up, and by life I mean love and family. Then I am sad, sad that no one went out of their way to make a child feel the way I was made to feel, for it be effortless and ‘usual’.

I bought my mother a necklace, I loved it. It was beautiful, it was perfect for her, it was shiny, and it sparkled, and I chose it. The reality was that it was vile, plastic and made her look like she was going to a fancy dress party. But. She wore it, she put it over every outfit she ever chose to go out in. She put it on, she looked in the mirror and she told me how clever I was, and how much she loved it. She went out, hid it in the glove box of her car, then put it on again to come home. To tell me everyone asked about it, told her how beautiful it was and how great I am. That, is love. My Father, where to begin, he hid behind walls for hours to jump out and scare me. He patiently sat and helped me stick fake blood to my knee to scare mum with. He built me my own fairy princess cabin bed, and a dressing table just for me. He hung every rosette I ever won on my walls, and he let me know every single day that I could ask him anything in the world.

I have millions of stories like these, that make me think of my life with happiness, fuzzy felt, meccano, 3 hour round trips to school trips so that I could sleep in my own bed, but still join in the school holiday during the day. My father and I Christmas shopping for mum, our yearly trip to the Metro Centre where we shopped, and he, the maestro of shopping patiently listened to me and my horrendous suggestions (see above plastic bead story). My father, the big man, trailing the Metro looking for a suit for me, spending hours trying to show me the value of class and quality.

These things, these are the things that make a family. Not saying sorry all the time, not wishing you had done things differently, but the memories of how your parents went out of their way, over and over and over again to make you who you are.

My family let me grow up believing that this was standard. That a phone call at 3 in the morning for a lift was ok, because they were there for me. No. Matter. What. That I could go to them, with any problem, challenge or upset and it would be fixed, that we as a family would have a conference, and fix it. That nothing was insurmountable, and nothing couldn’t be achieved. This wasn’t drummed into me. Nor repeatedly reminded. It was natural. I grew up safe in the easy knowledge that this was standard. Its not. Maybe that’s why I demand so much from people. Expect that they will be the same. Expect that family is the most important thing in the world. Expect that your first thought is how you can make someone elses life easier and better. What you can do to make someone happy.

This is the gift they gave me, and whilst it means the realization that everyone isn’t like that is damn hard, and really tough. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Look at me and my brother .. but he is another story.

We Built This City on Rock and Roll ......

I love music, that is a well-known fact. It is also a well-documented fact, when I say documented I mean face booked, twittered and blogged. I have blogged about my love of music and where it started, I have blogged about how I believe people should be fearless in their love of music, not ashamed, not embarrassed but totally and utterly immersed in what they love, regardless of if people judge you for it. I certainly don’t care, if I did I probably wouldn’t be so vocal about my outright love of Michael Ball for instance.  However, and be warned this is a peril of the industry, you can make music your life, and then you can forget the point of music. Let me be clear, you can never really forget, because the instant you hear the opening notes of a song that means something to you, you are incapable of turning off the emotions that will flood through you. That is as obligatory as growing older. What you can forget is the all-consuming, passionate desire to sing and dance along to something. The inescapable sheer delight of abandoning yourself to damn fine music.

This whole blog has to be dedicated to Rock of Ages, it brought me back to when I was 18, when I could forget everything, the time, that my feet hurt, that I had to get up the next morning, that anything else existed. That is what live music is capable of doing to you. I can distinctly remember standing in a bar called 49ers, watching a band having so much fun, and putting so much into their performances that I danced and sang until my shoes broke and my voice was hoarse. That gives me the same feeling as I got when I stood in front Tom Jones at the age of 8 and realized what live music really was. This followed me through concert after concert and night after night in rockbottom. It’s what makes me tick inside.

I remember, and I am sure my Mother and Father remember very clearly, my first ever night out ‘clubbing’. I was to all intents and purposes at the cinema. Unbeknownst to my Mother and Father, I was in one of Newcastles dodgiest bars (the only one I thought my brother wouldn’t see me in) having a fine old time. The next day I was duly grounded, my brother and his all-seeing network of friends were a little concerned as to why on earth his 15 yr old sister was in a bar called Bonkers at the weekend. Cue 2 months of misery, a month of being grounded, then more weeks and days of being grounded for refusing to speak to my poor brother, who I blamed with a massive passion for being restricted to barracks. At the end of all the teenage kicking off and moaning, my Father asked me had my one night in a nightclub been worth all that hassle and I calmly replied that yes, indeed it had been. He looked aghast and I explained that I had danced, sung, danced, twirled around and had the time of my life, and whilst there were bottles of two dogs on the go, that wasn’t my main reason for being there. It was the music. A plan was formed, and my brother became my guardian, taking me clubbing and allowing me to dance my little socks off in such places as ‘planet earth and legends’, fast forward to Dubai, and bars with real life people in them singing music. Old school music, heaven.

From then until now live music has been a part of my world. However I haven’t recently found myself in any situation where I have lost the sense of who I am, where I am or what I am doing. That’s what a real live concert should do to you. I watched Rock of Ages and I watched Tom Cruise capture the old school Rock Gods with perfect sweat inducing, jack daniels drinking strutting perfection and it made me yearn for a wild night out. Watching the shots of people crammed in bars having the night of their lives, made me wish to be in a bar, sweaty and tired and smiling like a kid at Christmas.

Tom Cruise looks into Alec Baldwins eyes and tells him he wants to set his club on fire, I get goose bumps, that kind of insane night out has eluded me for awhile, maybe it’s because I am no longer 22, maybe it’s a lack of the right kind of night out. It led me to think about todays music, and what will happen when I have kids. How I will apologise for our rubbish generation of music. My Father introduced me to Foreigner, Tom Jones, Hall and Oates, Doobie Brothers, Alexander o Neil, Def Leppard and many many more, that genuinely changed my life. Can you imagine the scene in my house in a few years, come on Redding Junior sit here and mammy will get you to listen to some music, this is Kylie, she spins around. This, right here, is J-Lo, she’s just Jenny from the block, very deep. Don’t forget this one here; LMFAO, he is sexy and he knows it.  Followed up by a little Beyonce, who suggests that if boys like ‘it’ they should put a ring on it. It makes me sad. You have to dig deep for the greats, the Alicia Keys, Oasis, Adele, who by the way is starting to get annoying. Stop over exposing her and let me enjoy her goddamn music. I will be telling my children to delve deeper, go back further and enjoy a time where Musicians wrote their own music, where they once upon a time had to carry their own instruments and gigged in bars for no money and lived on mates sofas. Unlike this nation of self-made, spoiled brats who wouldn’t know a snog lyric if it smacked them in the face. Call me maybe ? I’d like to call you something and it certainly won’t be ‘maybe’. You haven’t actually lived until you have owned and played an LP. This makes me sound old, and a bit of a wet blanket, however I don’t care. I just can’t get up the same enthusiasm for watching a man press play and play music he made on a computer to thousands of people, when I could don my boots, and go dance and listen to an actual musician growl into a microphone, telling me something about his life.

I will take songs, music, with depth, and history, and passion over One Direction any day. The new Beatles ? Please.

Hormones and Ovens ..

Is it just like being permanently pissed off ?

This is my darling other half trying to understand what it feels like to have your hormones de-rail. For your normal peaceful life, with a bout of PMS thrown in here and there. Not that we ever admit it, we just blame our men for being particularly irritating at the same times every month, you would think they would learn, to go totally off track. Here however I have to give him a huge barrel full of credit because he really does want to understand, and he really is a great support. Thankfully.

I tried to explain it, but it’s difficult, it’s hard to explain how your body can do one thing, and your brain another. How you can look down on yourself sitting on the floor in front of your new oven in tears and think ‘WOAH Maxine what on earth is your deal ?’.  The same way as when I have decided that a romantic meal, the night before my darling has surgery is the correct time to have a massive rant at him about things that aren’t exactly important at that moment. Whilst again, there is a small part of me tugging on my shoulder and telling me this is a) really not very nice and b) totally out of character. Back to the kitchen floor……

Oven in, shiny, working, marble intact and everything I needed and wanted, aside from 1 tiny tile. Easily fixable, and yet my usual go get them attitude totally deserted me, and my mother’s suggestion of popping to the shops to get a replacement was met with a rapid of tears so big you would have thought someone had told me that I could never cook again and that I could never eat chocolate ever. It was tremendous. My mother took one look at me, popped me on the sofa and called in for back up. An appointment with our GP, a woman who has the heart of a lion, the patience of a saint and the humour of Billy Connolly. Thankfully she is a whizz and I am now fully back on track and will not be crying over ovens in the near future, fear not those of you who have been invited for dinner.

Hormones are quite the things. They are so much in control of you and yet most people know little to nothing about them, they also know little to nothing about how they can be knocked off track, what affects you and how you can put them right. For me its progesterone, me and it have a shaky relationship, and when it builds up to high, added to my insomnia, a 3 hour commute, and 6 weeks of visitors and a house move, it means that all the walls come down and Maxines hormones have a party. The boss is gone, no one is in charge and they are willy nilly doing whatever they like. So therefore inappropriate responses become standard, new tiles = tears, end of a book = end of the world, no cable for a TV that I barely watch = rage equal to that of a wwe wrestler. However this hormone imbalance can affect more than whether I am a nightmare to live with or not. It can affect fertility, sexual drive, ovulation, headaches and can go on to other things. It’s something to note, something to watch for and then equally something that you need to fix. I caught it early, thanks to my family and my man having the ability to say to me, you are not yourself. This is not you, what’s wrong ? Albeit having to have a couple of goes at getting me to listen whilst dodging left hooks and proffering tissues. In all my long travels with my health, and my many issues and revelations, I have learned that the most important thing you can do for yourself is to listen to your body. Sounds easy ? It’s not. You have to learn to hear what its telling you, and why, and how you can placate it, or ease its pain. It’s difficult, but once you learn the language your body can tell you things you never dreamed it would say. I have learned, and it’s been the best thing I ever did. I talk about it with friends, or here in my blog because if I help just one person to get to where I am quicker than it took me, then it’s worth sharing my internal life struggles.

If your body is tired, and tells you so, then it is, listen to it, slow down. Don’t tell me you can’t, because I am the queen of the excuses. My job, my life, my world, I need too, I must, I have too. You don’t. You don’t HAVE to do things. You can change the things you are in control of. Take the right vitamins, ensure you eat the right way, feed your body right and it will help you out when you need it too. 4 hours sleep ? Come on body you owe me one, you need to man up and get me through til its home time. If you have been good to yourself most times your body steps up and helps you out. Me ? it took my body totally shutting down on me and refusing to work until I listened to get its message across. I am much better now. I stop sometimes, pop the ear plugs in and do what I want to do. My body just reacts by doing one of many and varied things to spite me. Bloating, migraines, restless legs, rashes. Just a little taster of what it could really do should you choose to continue to ignore the signs and notes it is leaving for you.

A busy few weeks, with not enough sleep and a fairly laisez faire attitude to the vitamins meant that my body was knocking on the door for me to sort myself out. So my hormones decided to fall out of sync. Major league. So for now its good food, sleep and a multitude of different vitamins and exercise to get me back into listening mode. Helped out with a few well-placed drugs along the way. What ? You thought I was a do gooder ? No way, I am never against some artificial help to beat the buggers back into submission.

Listen to your body though, most of the time you don’t end up needing to fight, you can get along perfectly well. Otherwise it’s just like being permanently pissed off !!

M

Noisy Neighbours

I don’t think it is too much to ask for a quiet nights sleep. It is something that is becoming ever further out of my reach, and it seems that unless I resort to sleeping pills and ear plugs it will remain unreachable.

The RTA seems to take a great delight in going silent around 5pm, the monotonous drilling noise that I am ever so attached to grinds to a halt, and normal everyday noise (noise that can be tuned out) commences. This, at a time when the radio is on, the TV is on, you are chatting with your loved ones, is nice. Not necessary at all though. However, the moment, and I mean the moment your little head touches the nearest pillow, they begin drilling. Not quiet drills. Not slightly in the background and can get used to them eventually drills, and not drills they may just have on for an hour at most. No, major, huge, beyond loud, drills. Drills that sound like they have taken up residence on your balcony if not inside your ear drum. They sound like they have brought some crystal tipped behemoth to drill through a mountain. On the Sheikh Zayed Road. They carry on this wonderful performance until you are so out of your mind that you are tempted to commit a murder. Then abruptly around 5am. Peace. Just in time for you to go to sleep and get little enough sleep that you then feel like a zombie all day long.

I appreciate that this work needs to be done. I accept that in order for me to get home 30 minutes quicker it’s a price I have to pay. I understand that they work all the hours that god sends, and I empathise with those that have to do it. What I don’t understand is a tiny little thing called humanity. It is a heavily residential area, why can’t you drill from 6am til 10pm, surely the project (and I know all your project planners will start whining about timelines at this point) wouldn’t fall behind that much if the noisy work is restricted during the hours of the night that are required by me to sleep in order to not murder anyone. Also, the Emirates girls live next to me, no-one needs a grouchy airhostess, they are too damn important to be tired, its tiring enough doing what they do, without you lot keeping them up all night. Me ? I have to drive up the long road to Abu Dhabi, as do countless other morons and tired people. The less people who are slightly tired and not at 100% the better as far as my safety goes.

It’s a boring moan, its nothing new, but its what’s making me grouchy this week, along with my event report, but I know we are all very sick of hearing about this, almost as sick as I am of writing the damn thing.

Back to work it is, then back to the long road back to the long night of noise and pursuit of sleep. Ear plugs tonight.

To Change or not to Change

As we role inexorably towards 2012 we see the inevitable, good riddance to 2011,  heres hoping 2012 will be better comments. A lot of store is set by new year, people make fresh starts, new diets, new resolutions and make changes to their lives. I have never really understood it, aside from the human physche needing an actual push and shove to get them to do something that they could have done at any given point during the year. It has always confused me, and it is one of a few reasons why I don’t a) get excited about New Year and b) why I don’t make resolutions. This year I chose to lose weight, I chose to drop the kilos, and I did. It didn’t take a momentus occasion, or a special date, or a change in the roatation of the earth. I just woke up and decided to do something about it and I have. I am now over 17 kilos down and it didn’t require a calendar change, it did however require a wardrobe change.  This means that I walk into January with a smile, no long terrified to stand on the scales, and no longer scouring the back of the rails in stores to find clothes that will fit. It took me a long time to figure out what was wrong with me, and once I did I havent looked back. Except to look at pictures of my old self and think how sad it was that I hadnt found the key to my success earlier.

I wont be making a new beginning this year, I am making plans, but I do not want to brush 2011 aside and pray for a happier year. I would indeed hope that 2012 brings more of the same for me, in the sense that 2011 gave me a lot. It gave me a project that taught me a lot, and not just in work terms, it taught me a lot about who I am. 2011 brought me my family to the same building as me, strengthening a bond that was already unbreakable. It brought me my other half who in turn brought me a sense of calm and a sense of priority.

This year there will be no flippant remarks about ensuring that I don’t die my hair purple or drink too much, that is inevitable. The drinking, not the hair dye. Their will be more of what you have seen of the junior Redding in 2011, more music, more events, more working my ass off. Less ranting, less partying and less tears. I will remain at my desk doing what I believe I do best, working with some remarkable people to bring what is quite clearly one of the biggest loves of my lives, great music, to your doorsteps and to your ears. I shall also continue to be delighted by the man in my life, who has to be the most patient man alive, I shall remember how lucky I am to have him and to have the life that I do. I shall strive to be like my Father, who still to this day pushes boundaries and has vision and strength that men somehow lack these days, I shall celebrate my Mother, one of the most special and remarkable women I have ever known who is so much to so many but remains the most to me, and my brother, the man who quietly shines, and with no pomp just silently goes about being my brother in the best way he can, in a way that no other could.

New Year should be a quick pit stop, time for us to look back and note the things in our lives that we love, and want to continue to cherish, you don’t need a date, or a countdown or fireworks to help you make a change. If you want something badly enough, no calendar date will stop you.

I wish everyone a great New Year and I know I am looking forwards, and not back to what will be, I am sure, another great year.

Christmas Spirits ...

So its Christmas, a lot has happened since I last blogged, and so before the Christmas shenanigans begin and the New Year let down, as it inevitably is starts to loom, I thought it about time I put some of my wandering thoughts down on paper. So in no particular order, what’s new  in my world ?  Well the Boy is new. Well, he isn’t new he has been around for 38 years (he may kill me for that) but he is new to me, and new to most of you too, although I have done, in my humble opinion a rather fantastic job of trying to introduce to him as many of you as possible. The slightly terrified look on his face whenever I say the words ‘we have a dinner with some friends this week’ is testament to how many of you I have shown him off too. He also gets a massive gold star for remembering 99% of you. So he is what’s new in my world, he is also what’s happy in my world (cue sentimental ridiculousness comments here), being that he is quite unbelievably awesome. However this is what you should expect when your Mother orders your boyfriend off the internet. Don’t raise your eyebrows at the computer, no Pauline hasn’t worked out how to shop online at all, I am indeed joking. I do however believe that someone put a list of things that would suit me perfectly and then checked them off next to his name and then sent him my way. Sadly no one did the same for him, and he is left wondering how this happened to him. However we do hope he never works it out J

The Science Festival is over, and it surpassed even my own expectations, all the months of rages and tears and damn hard work paid off. Yes I was rewarded with a new scar on my leg where a small child was so desperate to get inside the Festival that he kicked me out of his way as he hurtled towards the door. Small child was wearing tiny little boots, that I believe had steel toe caps, and so as I was left bleeding (fact) he hurtled off into the festival, followed at a more sedate pace by his Mother, who occasionally yelled encouraging things such as, ‘quick before anyone else gets there’ and ‘Just ask for 2 of everything’ as he bounced off our theatre tickets desk. It was indeed a spectacle. Watching 3000 kids a day line up and troop into the hall, with excited little faces and their too big uniforms was a little bit sweet. Watching them leave not looking so tidy whilst clutching windmills and mini robots and frantically shoving cereal bars in their faces was practically heady. I did however get to meet the Boss. Yes, the main man himself H.H. Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, our Crown Prince. Not only did he shake my hand and pronounce it a pleasure (I always knew I had an awesome handshake, and we all know it’s a pleasure to meet me, so no surprises there), he requested a photograph, and then very nicely told me to enjoy my stay. My only worry out of this exchange is that he knows something I do not, I mean after all he is the man in the know, and he seems to think my time here is limited. I shall keep you posted on my movements, however I am avoiding blacked out trucks and people with bags. So the festival is done, with over 121,000 people through its doors I was quite rightly the most tired person ever. It is done though, and as I said I was so annoyed with the festival I was going to beat it into submission, I got very close, it came back at me for a couple of rounds, but in the end, and after a stewards enquiry I was declared the Victor. I cant tell you yet what my spoils were, but it’s an emphatic return to Music. Which whilst I am still the most tired person alive, is still making me grin. I almost am bursting with excitement and the need to tell people but as always my lips are not only sealed, but stapled and glued shut. I am however fully shouting from the rooftops about ColdPlay

I am fully in the Christmas Spirit, it took me a little longer, thanks to being felled, literally by a bug / virus / fatigue thing. Apparently according to the fully crazy Dr I saw ( the usual magician I see had dared to go on holiday) I had fatigue of the muscles as well as a virus. So on the same day that my poor Mothers Christmas tree crashed to the ground in front of her eyes, so did her daughter. That was a bad day for the Mothership. A cracked tree and a knacked Daughter. It also was a bad omen for my poor boy, who spent his birthday cooking me bacon sarnies and cuddling me while I cried. I manned up for the present giving, although it was done in my Pyjamas, and then dug deep and headed out for his Birthday dinner, which by any means was a resounding success. Red wine, steak and chips and a whole lot of laughter meant that the day was not lost altogether, plus I have a sneaky suspicion that the QPR football club cakes were a definite winner …. Many girlfriend brownie points gained there (swiftly lost again during the ‘please note your girlfriend is rubbish when ill’ period swiftly following the birthday).

So Christmas is now truly nearly on our doorstep and I for once am done ahead of time, I am being overly smug about this, and its not helping anyone, or making anyone like me very much. It is however making me feel much better about Christmas and the Redding Family tradition of ‘best present’ as ever we are competing, to see who gives the best gift. Not in terms of money or size but in terms of thought. I think I have this sewn up. Then again I think that every year. So let’s wait and see.

In the meantime I will be finalizing my event report for the Science Festival, and looking forward to the arrival of Chris and the gang, New Years Eve is going to be damn cold, damn amazing and I get to spend it with my damn fine boyfriend, and Coldplay (coldplay coming a close second) which I cant wait for, ringing in our first new year together to fireworks and live music, doesn’t get much better than that for me.

So on that note I wish you all a festive weekend and my wish is that you spend it wherever you are, with friends and family, and that you laugh and smile and forget all your worries for one day. For those of you who are my Kandora wearing friends, please excuse us while we all go a little insane, its like Eid, just with a tree.

Much love and festive sparkles

Bentley, it doesnt need anything else...

So, being given a Bentley for the weekend is one thing (she says casually), but being given the 2012 Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed is something else indeed. I learned this very fast. I screamed (like a girl) put down the phone and was met with a row of frowns. The boys of the offices were appalled. Why should someone such as me be given such a gift, I had no clue just what miracle of technology and mechanics was being given to me, I assured my boys I was worthy of this car and that I could drive it the way it should be driven. They shook their heads and walked away safe in the knowledge that I would be unable to appreciate such a beast. The joy of saying to people ‘oh yes I will be picking up the Bentley on Thursday’ was immense. I was in seventh heaven and I hadn’t even seen the car yet.

Off I went to collect this bundle of fabulousness, dressed appropriately in red soled shoes and massive shades, blonde hair as Lebanese big as I could get it.  I sat in the shop and watched as this car, I say car, I want to come up with another name for it as its too beautiful to be called a car, pulled up to the door. Being handed a suitably weighty key was the beginning. I was shown how to push buttons to make the engine purr to life, how to adjust my seats and how to get the touch screen to work. I have to say at this point I was fairly nervous.  As I rounded the corner away from the anxious looking man from Bentley who waved me out of the parking spot like I was a boeing 747 pilot, I thought I would see if I could go faster than 20kph. I nearly left the pavement. I honestly believed I was going to take off. Thus the first important lesson was learned. A Bentley does not require the same handling as a Ford Edge. I can see all you ‘car people’ shaking your head and silently mocking me. I don’t care. I am not a car journalist, nor am I hugely wealthy, I am a person who dreams of owning a car like this. I am also a person who was terrified I harmed it in any way.

By the time I was on Sheikh Zayed road and on my way home I was sold. The car was gliding and I was smiling like I had been told I have a lifetime supply of chocolate. Having been told I know nothing of cars I decided I would pay attention. That I would look at the car as if I was one of the boys. I did my research and it seemed that the one thing the new Bentley was being praised for was its new interiors, and its new ultra cool additions to the exterior. That, I thought, I can comment on. Easily.

The wheels of the Bentley have the trademark ‘B’ in the middle  Enough to delight any female, talk to me of alloys and I will yawn, talk to me of shiny silver wheels with a monogram middle, now you are talking. Add to that a key that is weighty, shiny and very very Bentley. It becomes your latest fashion accessory.  Forget the car for a moment, hard I know but humour me.  Walking into a boutique with that little number hanging off your finger makes a sales assistant look up and take you very seriously all of a sudden. I am thinking about buying just the key as I cant quite afford the car yet. You will see I photographed the wheel of my new favourite thing. I was becoming very fond of the Bentley ‘B’. The inside of the car was all cream leather and tan piping, I was utterly delighted I was wearing matching Tan Louboutins. I have to note though, that despite having paid a fortune for the leather keeping my feet from burning on the tarmac, they were in no way a match for the leather keeping my jeans clad bum comfortable whilst I nipped to the airport to collect the girls.

I can report back having finally found the button to open the boot (no chipped nails here girls) that I managed to fit 3 overly large suitcases in the very roomy boot.  Please note that this is 3 girls going away for 2 nights, the suitcases were indeed massive, (mine alone had 4 pairs of shoes) so for them to slide in amongst screeches of ‘watch the paintwork’ was very impressive. I have to note the cars first fault at this stage. There is a leather arm that raises for you to pop your iPod / lipstick / black amex inbetween the driver and passenger seat. However there is no real dashboard as such for a phone, you can leave it kind of next to the gear stick but it’s not a prime position. As I pointed this out to my two girls, it was suggested that this was a) a totally moot point as there is bluetooth and I just handn’t worked out how to use it yet and b) even if their wasn’t the leather was so soft it more than made up for needing a place for my blackberry. We then went on to discuss in detail how much we would pay if Bentley would make a handbag out of the leather of the seats. Please take note, if this happens I want a percentage, as it’s a fabulous plan. Make sure there is a heavy silver ‘B’ hanging from the side, guaranteed best seller.

We glided all the way to RAK, alternatively playing with the massive touchscreen dashboard, and listening to Little Maxine complain from the back that I should have brought her a DVD to watch on her screen, or at least a cup of tea so she could balance it on her little tray. She was having way more fun in the back it seemed. I love how people react when you pull up in a Bentley. It’s a sad thing to say, but the reaction you get from the Valet Team when you pull up in my blue beauty is vastly different to what I receive when it’s me and my Edna the Edge.  I handed over the keys, and was utterly sad to see her being driven away, not so much the Valet Parker who was grinning broadly.

I spent the next 2 days driving all over in the Bentley, it was a delight. I have noted a few things that come with a Bentley :

You don’t mind getting lost. It’s nice to have no idea where you are, but know that you are the most comfortable you can be, and that everyone wants to be you. You could use the GPS but that would be too much like logic.

You do mind parking. Your blood pressure is up and you spend the entire time away from the car worrying if it is ok, almost as if it was a child. An expensive child that everyone is looking at.

You don’t have to wait for it. Your car is ALWAYS parked on the forecourt when you valet, this means it is hotter than other cars, but everyone is still wishing it was theirs.

You do get treated differently when you step out of a Bentley. It’s a statement. A very bold and unique one. Even bolder when a 29 year old Blonde gets out of one. That’s the fun part.

I loved the Bentley. I loved it so much it hurt, it was like a little pre-trial for having a baby. Although if I had a baby I would never have a Bentley. I think it’s  a choice. I would also choose a two door, the 4 door is too hefty for a girl.

Congratulations on the Key though. Its spectacular, by far and away the best key I have ever seen. The car comes in a very close second.

7 Star Rules and Regulations...

Its 7.24pm and I am rushing through the doors of the Burj al Arab, it was surprisingly easy to get across the rampart and penetrate the sail, as the 35 minute booking process had somewhat led me to believe that it would be a tad more difficult. Being a girl who likes to do as she is told, I am clad in a very non Maxine like mini dress, and heels, and yes I like to think I somewhat resemble a girl. I arrived in a taxi, determined to enjoy some form of cocktail in the Sky View bar. I was delighted to open my own door, close my own door and walk across the cobbles in the heat without the aid of anyone at all. It would have been awful of me to expect the doorman to open my door, for two reasons, 1) he would have had to walk away from the cold air and 2) it was after all a Dubai taxi and not an Aston Martin. My fault entirely. In and half way up the escalators I finally get a nod from someone, having been utterly ignored by the date and rose water wielding girls because I eschewed the rotating doors for the side doors.

Standing waiting for my partner in crime to arrive, I remembered how much I love the Burj Al Arab, and unbeknownst to all the staff there I know more about the building than any of them. So when one of the guest services staff casually informs me that the fountain I stand beside is really amazing. I smile and ask why, the answer left me rooted to the spot ; ‘Because it goes really high sometimes when a VIP comes, hopefully one will come tonight and you might see it’.  Then smiled and wandered off leaving me wondering how he could have failed to know, that the man who designed the entire set of waterworld the film had designed that very ‘fountain’, that it was actually called the Hypershooter, and that it was able to play in time to music, that if need be it could shoot water up to the tips of the golden arches above my head every 6 minutes if it needed to. That when it did ‘shoot’ what was so remarkable was that it didn’t splash the floor on its way down. I stood smiling, wondering why he had been so delighted to share a piece on information with me that was entirely useless, and if I hadn’t have known better, left me thinking ‘well that’s not very good’. I daren’t even think about whether he knew that the ‘fountain’ was indeed intrinsically linked to the water feature in the lobby, or at the entrance, and I think the air fire and water link may well have astounded him. I wont even begin to discuss the type of flooring surrounding the hypershooter, and the clever way it had been laid. That may have resulted in me being removed from the Burj.

En route upstairs in the panoramic lifts, my hair do took a bit of a battering thanks to the distinct lack of AC, but the welcome was just as warm as the airless lift. We were escorted to our table, and regardless of the reservation being in my name, so began the evening of calling my friend Mr. Redding, when he is neither my brother nor my father nor my husband. The mistake can be understood once, granted, but it gets a bit wearing after time. The view is as always spectacular, and the service lovely. We were welcomed by the manager, and despite saying we didn’t want to look at the Al Mahara menu’s were presented with them. Turned out to be a great touch, and the ease of which our bill was transferred downstairs and the genuine smiles of all the staff are what makes Al Muntaha a fantastic place. Skyview bar I love. I especially love their blue cheese and cheese quiche. Genius.

Al Mahara, having had so much conversation about the dress code it was a shame that it wasn’t being upheld by all the diners that evening, and the evening wouldn’t have been quite the same without the family next to us who took photos of each meal, each course and every fish in the tank, the click of that camera became quite the accompaniment. The manager was obviously quite liberal with his ‘discretion’ that evening. The most used phrase of the evening had to be ‘sorry for interrupting …’ I don’t think I have ever had so many waiters enquire as to if we are having a nice time before. I was tempted at this point to create a sticker for my dinner date with his name on it, in an effort to get the staff to talk to each other and let them know that calling him Mr. Redding was going to elicit me sighing and telling them for the 3^rd time that I was Miss Redding and he was not actually a Redding. Something which may seem a little pedantic, but in this day and age, discretion should be top of the list at a 7 star hotel. Thankfully I am not an undercover spy or indeed having an affair, or cheating on a non-existent husband, so it all it caused was mild amusement rather than an international incident, although it would have been great if I wielded enough power to have gone that route. The food itself was great. What I wanted to have was food I wasn’t going to get anywhere else, the kind of food that leaves you raving about it, you know the heaven on a plate, how on earth did you do that kind of food. A great example is the black cod in Zuma. I can see you all nodding, or the roast pork in Gary Rhodes mezzanine, bliss indeed, or the ribs in Billy blues, or the fish and chips at the Rivington, all the things that make you smile and forget everything else. The fish and chips in the Rivington can literally make me forget anything else except them and how cold my wine is. The food in the burj was great. Very nice indeed. Well mine was, I can report back that my opposites plate was cleaned both times, although as he had Lamb I cannot comment (hate the stuff) although it did look raw enough that a good vet could get it back on its feet without too much hassle. Having asked for it medium, the response was that it was ‘painted’.  The wine was exceptional, 10 brownie points to J for choosing wisely and a million brownie points to the Burj for actually serving it cold enough to stop me having to ask for ice cubes and reveal my peasant like attitude to wine.

We retired to the Juna bar for drinks, which revealed one of the worlds worst designed bars, watching our waiter have to duck into a 2 foot hole in order to bring our drinks was highly amusing for us, but less amusing for him. I do hope that Jumeirah pays for his chiropractor.  A few classic whiskies and a few more freezing cold glasses of wine and we called it a night.

I have to say it was a great night, but that I have to say in all honesty that is down to the company, the kind of company that means you could have fun whether you are in the Burj or in an cardboard box. The key things we learned were that :

-          You too can have Al Mahara style menus at home by popping to Dragon Mart and buying the same oyster shells for 5 dhs a go.

-          The submarine is never mentioned when it is being ‘serviced’.

-          That one day I want to be able to order a 5000dhs martini.

-          That dwarves were involved with the design of the Juna Bar

-          Moray Eels are ace at hiding and the Fish tank is not the same without Wally

-          You have to have your restaurant on its own island in order to charge those kind of prices

-          If you are having a special occasion be sure to go to the Burj, they ask you at every opportunity if it’s a special day for either of you, but don’t plan any surprises

-          The ‘taxis’ to take you home are ace, they make you feel very special and aren’t really very much more in cost than a dubai taxi, quality move BAA.

The Burj Al Arab was once the pinnacle of modern cuisine and luxury and I went expecting it to blow me away as it always has throughout my time here, I adore the Burj, I love it, I stick up for it, and I believe it is great. However in the Dubai we now live in that has restaurants that are of such high quality, and that has upped its levels of service, the Burj has remained the same. Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen. For me though, the Burj as the place to go to experience something you cant get anywhere else is a myth. The Burj is a place to go and look, because you will never see anything like it anywhere else, the carpets, the gold, the attention to detail, the opulence, the luxury, the downright arrogance of the building makes me smile. If only the restaurants were the same.

Is It Time For Something Drastic ?

Being as far from an adrenaline junkie as you can get, I sometimes wonder about myself. Then I wonder about that statement, and realise its bollocks. You dont need to be addicted to fast cars, diving with sharks and a permanent need to try and kill yourself to be addicted to adrenaline. You can be addicted to different kind of high. I recently discussed life in general with a new friend, we were comparing things we had done that we consdier noteworthy, interesting or extreme and so on and so forth. At the end of the conversation he looked at me, and said 'ok, we get it, you win every time, what a hell of a life you have'.

It got me thinking, I would never bunjee jump, because thats for mentalists, and I cant dive because everytime someone puts a mask on me and puts me under the water I hyperventilate and cry. That in my head made me fairly wimpy. Then I realised that not many people can say they went to the North Pole, not many people have crawled on their hands and knees through a glacier in the pitch dark, little to no-one I know has stood at the bottom of a slippery icy tunnel to the outside of a cave and believed they might not make it up without needing to call in the helicopters. The actual number of people who have done that is two, me and the woman who stood behind me and literally willed me out the top. I have detoxed in Thailand (mild in comparison) for 7 days, of fasting and colonics. I sit at my desk and wonder what next ? What should I be doing next to push the limits ? It makes me think that alot of my achievements in life come from pushing boundaries, and testing limits. My limits, other peoples, mostly mine.

It also makes me think what next ? What next indeed, half of me is done and wants to go lie on a beach and drink cocktails, the other half of me wants to do more, do something that isnt about me potentially. The North Pole was about Breast Cancer, but when I got there I realised it was about me, it was about something I needed to do for myself. Yes thats all very deep and reflecty, however it wasnt designed to be. But if you put me and my own thoughts in a room together with nothing else to do for 8 hours a day, you do tend to reflect. Thoughts bounce around the inside of your head until they bump into each other and you end up with an epiphany of sorts. I tried to drown out the incessant chatter with music, but -32 degrees tends to fuck with the electrics somewhat. My brain wiring as well as my iPod. Again the fasting I did was for my body, but it ended up being about my mind too. A clear out indeed.

So it seems that the clutter of my life, and the millions of thoughts that are thought, stored, spoken, deleted, saved, shared on a daily basis need me to take myself away from it and push myself to the limits in order to be able to come together at their own pace and form actual coherent ideas. It seems that some of my thoughts were designed to hook up and then reveal their point to me, but in order for that to happen I need to be not looking. If that makes sense.

I think that I shall refrain from anything drastic this year, potentially the Science Festival is enough to tick that box for me for 2011.

Cliche's, Over Estimating and Finding Someone Like You...

Its been an interesting few weeks, and I have been painfully reminded recently that life is not simple, it isnt easy and sometimes it isnt nice. However in a cliche to end all cliches, life is what you make of it. 

To the beginning and a jaunt to the UK, to spend time with the girl I refer to as my big sister, I do this not as a throw away term but because sometimes in life you meet people that go further than friendship, that have a place in your heart that makes them family. I have heard the phrase ‘friends are the family you choose for yourself’ over and over again my whole life. I have always questioned it, because given the chance I would pick my own family ten times over, well my immediate family anyway. I always wondered what it meant until I met Rachael. I have a brother, who is my world, who proves that blood is thicker than water and who I would lay down my life for without question or hesitation. You are supposed to be able to be yourself with your family in a way that you cant with anyone else, ever. Another great phrase just re-iterates that ; ‘Maxine you are my family, this means I will ALWAYS love you, but I wont always like you’. It took me many years to understand that sentiment. I strive to find that with friends, and in relationships. Understanding that you cant like someone every minute of every day, you are going to be annoyed, irritated etc but that love remains, and trying to remember that. I digress.

Rachael came along, and stole a little piece of all the Reddings hearts. She is dear to us all for different reasons. To me I gained a sister, one that I can swap shoes with, who I can laugh til we have to pull the car over with, that I can cry with, that I can tell anything too because she loves me, and would never judge, and because I feel the same about her as I do about my family, I would protect her with everything I possibly could, with anything I have. I can be in her kitchen making dinner and I can be at a black tie function and it makes no difference.  So I went to the UK to spend time with her, and drink endless bottles of wine, laugh until even we hurt and cry and gossip and laugh some more.

Aside from Rachael though, there was another important part of the trip. Michael Ball. The months had stretched interminably and then it was there, mere days away. You can imagine my distress the day before to hear that the 4 tickets I had bought for my mother, auntie and Rachael had not been delivered seamlessly as promised. Indeed there were 2 tickets only and not even in the post code of where we were supposed to be sitting. Cue major tantrum. Believe me there was much foot stamping, flicking of hair and shouting. That  was just at the laptop. Help was delivered to me in the form of the great man himself. Michael Ball via the power of twitter alerted the evil puppet masters that are ticketmaster to my plight, and within nanoseconds the worlds campest man, don’t think I am exaggerating here, think Paul O Grady melded with Boy George and a dash of Alan Carr thrown in for good measure, rang me to reassure me.

Reassured but with no physical tickets, at 2.00pm on the day of the show, I head off to do the only thing appropriate at that moment, have afternoon tea at the Carlton. With champagne. More phone calls from the worlds campest man and still no tickets, and we are rapidly approaching the actual show, I now have two new pairs of Louboutins to choose from, Rachael is incoming with great speed from work and I am thinking I may need to breathe into a brown paper bag at some point soon.  More Tweets, more ranty phone calls and Matthew (worlds campest man aka WCM) has rung to say he is working on it, my front row tickets are a thing of the past, some evil bastard has them and I won’t be getting them back, however I am within 2 seats of where I should have been. Now WCM just has to get these 4 little beauties to my hand prior to the show. WCM enquires as to how much I actually love Michael Ball as he is very impressed at the level of detail in which I have quizzed him, and how many managers he has telling him to ensure I am fixed. I assume he meant in regard to tickets, but who actually knows.

Tickets received, Louboutins on I went and promptly had the best night of my life. That is not blowing it out of any proportion whatsoever. I cried, I laughed and I sang my little heart out, much to the joy of the people behind me, if you have ever heard me sing you will sympathise with them.  I have spent 2 years trying to find a song that meant so much to me emotionally, and for many reasons which I will not share with you all, after all some things should remain precious (this one isn’t its just painful) I couldn’t remember the title, I searched everywhere for it to no avail, and then there he was, my hero singing the song, better than I have ever heard it sung. I cried buckets. He followed it with my Mother and Fathers song, cue more tears from a usually non emotional Maxine. It was amazing, and worth every frantic phone call, penny, tear and laugh. He was magical and that’s why I will always defend him, every person in the Royal Albert Hall felt like they had met him personally by the end of the show. My thanks have to go to Matthew, the worlds campest man, he is also a bit of a hero in his own camp way.

I spent the next night in London with some awesome people, having a night that ranged from the extreme, 23 pound vodkas, to the hilarious, Gay Eastenders cast members trying to impress me and Simon, to the genuinely awesome, meeting Sayed finally and chin wagging on my favourite subject for quite some time. To the expensive, 400 quid leather jackets which you just HAVE to have. I adore London when you can afford to enjoy it, that sounds arrogant and showy offy, but London is best enjoyed from the back seat of a black cab.

Back to Newmarket and the Sofa or more accurately the wine bar, and there began and ended my trip to see my Sister.

Being back is always difficult, back to work on a project that for the first time in a long time is proving difficult to harness, tricky to beat into Maxine style submission, and having spent weeks not being able to get up the interest or passion for it, it has beaten me to a place where I now need to get it right because I am downright furious. I will show it, and them, and it will be amazing, and I envisage weeks more of nasty facebook ranting, shouting at my friends and family about it, and then it will be over, it will have been achieved, and hopefully done well. Then I can breathe a sigh of relief and get back to normal.

I lost my Grandmother this week, which is something that I wont delve into, as some things are not for public discussion  I believe, however I will say that it makes you look at your family, and you do imagine what life will be like without them. I have learned that even my creative mind cant do it. There is no where in my mind that I can dream a world that doesn’t have my family in it. They are moving into my apartment block soon, and I am the luckiest girl alive to have them so close by, but with 4 floors between us, so I can have a 5 minute arrival warning !!

In the midst of all of that I have my lovely Victory Heights Family Dinny looking after me, trying to ensure that the sparkles are back in my life and I am smiling. They succeed every time they pick up the phone, or send me to a rat infested hotel with practically no booze for a weekend away. I have had a strange year so far, and its already July, some new things that creep up on you and surprise you, some things you thought you wanted and when you get them you don’t anymore, and the things that you find you can wait for, because without being sure, you feel they may be important.

I think that on the route to my 30^th birthday I may have finally learned to keep some things to myself, and not expect people to behave the same way you do, but that when they do you should enjoy it, and treasure it.

Because notes are invisible....

I have been told, repeatedly that 'notes' on facebook are not the place for writing. People constantly ask me about my love of music and where it came from, what I believe in etc. So this is an old blog, transferred here for easy reading purposes .... Enjoy, hopefully.

This last month has been a learning curve. Learning that some people view music without passion, which I have had to learn to just accept without understanding. That is a concept that is as alien to me as to why people like U2. That however is a different story. Music for me is tied into passion. Music is memories and reminders, and music is life and love and tears and laughter. Everything in my life has some kind of relationship to music. Those who know me, know that nothing is better to me than live music, add an impossibly cold glass of Sauvignon to the mix and I will literally be smiling from ear to ear (that is a good note for potential date ideas).

I find it is damn near impossible (unless you are sticking pins in your eyes, and that would be a tad drastic) to be unhappy when faced with good live music. I can chart my life by music. I blame my Mother and Father, my father slightly more if I had to be fair because he fed my ‘habit’ as a youngster, giving me shiny LP’s of people like Hall and Oates, Buddy Holly, Alexander O Neil and Tom Jones to name but a few. He also managed to pass on an uncanny ability to pick a winner out of a bag of rubbish, we can see a hit at 20 paces. It may or may not be the only one your band is going to have, but a hit it will be. If you haven’t heard of it, I can bet you money right here and now that you go listen to it and you will hear a hit too. Living in a box, by living in a box. Classic song. Will forever remind me of Papa T. He also taught me to love all kinds of music. One minute we can listen to Luther Vandross, and then flip over and throw some ACDC into the mix. My Father still does it to this day. He pointed out Flo Rida to me months before I had heard of him. He pronounced an unknown black singer as a potential up and coming, and so Toni Braxton was born. He took me to see Tom Jones when I was 8 years old, he forked out money for me to see Alexander O Neil, the Buddy Show, Luther Vandross to name but a few, he spent a small fortune in the name of teaching his little girl to love music as much as him and my mum do. It was money well spent. Not only is live music my love, it is my work and my escape. How lucky am I ?

My mother on the other hand taught me to be fearless in my appreciation of talent. I can hear a good voice, or spot a talented musician with a blindfold on. That’s her doing. She taught me to see talent in any shape or form and not be scared to love it. I have spent my life being annoyed by people who ‘conform’. I have been to see Michael Bolton numerous times, I would sell my liver (if anyone would have it) and quite possibly my left hand to go and see Michael Ball again, once just wasn’t enough. I say this out loud, to people and they are stunned. How can someone who works in ‘music’ dare say that she loves Michael Ball. That’s embarrassing. Really ? I find it more embarrassing that you so called music lovers and artists cannot see the talent that one man has. To have been the Phantom of the Opera, to have been Andrew Lloyd Webbers darling, to have been our Eurovision hope, to have over 10 albums that have sold into the millions. To have possibly one of the best voices of our time (acknowledged by king of cool Simon Cowell), is that embarrassing ? Because he doesn’t fit into what is ‘cool’. Amy Winehouse thinks he is the coolest guy alive. Does that make him a little cooler ? I hope the answer is no, because she to me is everything that is wrong with the music industry, in one woman. 

I have been taught by Mama bear to watch those DVDs of mine and be proud of the fact I adore his voice. I said out loud that Brandon Flowers cant actually sing, people look at me like I just committed a crime. Madonna, one of the most successful artists alive. Cant sing. Talented ? Yes, vocally ? Nope. I admire her for her ability but not for her voice. I look at people like the sugababes and feel sick. I look at local talent (yes you guys at players and all of you who I champion) and could cry that you aren’t seen. Talent. That’s the key. Someone asked me what music I like and I asked a friend how the hell do I answer that. He said its simple in your case, if you didn’t write it yourself, play it yourself or sing it yourself I am not interested. Talent. Its what it always comes back to, like a fat kid to cupcakes and like a dog to a bone. Talent. This is why I cant stand Mick Jagger. He has the ‘it’ factor but the bloke cant sing. Rod Stewart another shining example of a man with ‘something’ but not talent.

Music is a mixture, for me it charts progress and memories. Today for example in a quest for artists I have been playing on my iTunes and also on youtube.

David Grey, flipped me right back to an apartment in London, sitting on a yellow sofa waiting for my then boyfriend to come home from work on my first night visiting him. Makes me happy (even though he was a douche) because it was a beautiful day, and a great glass of wine and I was super happy.

Train, drops of Jupiter, takes me back to being one of the first people to ever play them on the radio in the UAE, sat in a studio, earphones on, overlooking the back of Sheikh zayed road at one of my first ever evening shows, feeling nervous and happy to be a radio DJ at last.

Rob Thomas : 3am, I was 17. I had just met my first real love and I used to play this and it drove him insane, reminds me of laughing at him in one of our rare moments outside of his restaurant.

Toto – Rosanna – Smokey bar, wooden floors, short hair and my first taste of live band music and this song takes me to the night my mum requested this. My boyfriend played it and she loved him almost as much as me that night. My mum had her 2 best friends with her and we laughed and danced and laughed and danced. Awesome memory.

Oasis – Champagne Supernova – Amie Gibbons house, her bedroom, getting ready to begin one of our many many adventures. We listened to it religiously and although I am not the biggest Oasis fan this song transports me back to being a happy teenager with my best friend. There is a lot of music that takes me back to Amie, nirvana puts me in a maroon blazer standing in our form lines listening to on shared ear plugs. Its raining men takes me to a hilarious drunken night in a bar called strawberry moon, the list goes on.

Robbie Williams, Jesus in a camper van, directly to Nathalie Cockaynes old apartment, do not pass go and do not collect 200 dhs. Weirdly hearing him doesn’t take me to the concert, it takes me to her flat, Vodka and cranberry juice and hoi sin chicken pizzas.

This is my point, you don’t have a lot of control over what music does to you. It can move you in a million ways, your feet, your voice, your heart.

It can make people laugh, cry, fall in love, fight. Its magic, it should be treat as such.

It’s a multibillion dollar industry. Don’t become part of the wheel. Love whatever moves you, regardless of what it is. Don’t be afraid of music and don’t be afraid of what people may think. Try new things, listen to others ideas of ‘great’ before you dismiss it, you never know you just might make a discovery. I did, I hated Jazz all my life until I sat on a cold stone floor, tired and grumpy in the middle of New Orleans in order to ‘humour’ my man. I will be eternally grateful that I did. He gave me a gift that night that is very precious, a memory, and some of the best music I have ever heard played, he reminded me to push my limits and because of that a whole host of music takes me right back to him and what he taught me about music, at the age of 25 when I thought I couldn’t learn anymore.

My Father is still learning and listening and my Mum is still not caring (her pan pipes CD is testament to this) and my brother is still trying to get me to love Oasis. Keep pushing, keep exploring, but always remain true to the memories, they like to be visited now and again.

Fox Hunting, Prime Ministers and Lawyers..

Funnily enough, all things that were on my agenda as a child. I asked someone the other day what they had wanted to be when they grew up, I got a wry smile and a great answer. We forget, we forget the dreams we had as children, the dreams we had when we literally believed we could do anything at all, and that our mums and dads wore super hero outfits under their normal clothes (I still believe that). I wanted to be all sorts when I was little, depending upon the day, and the activity I was doing.

One thing ran the entire course of my life and that was to be a singer, as we all know, I am not, some of you are thanking god, and my Mother is shaking her head and saying 'you could be, if you tried'. Mothers, they are the best. However when I think back to some of my wishes its kind of funny to see what my little crazy mind thought back then.

My first big cause in life, and we all know I have had many many 'causes' that I get passionate about, was Fox Hunting. I came across it thanks to my horses, and in school we were asked to write about something that means alot to us. I put pen to paper to explain my horror and sadness at Fox Hunting. Dont worry at this point, I am not going to don a bunch of leaves, and start waving a placard whilst scaring horses, thats not my style. As much as I would like to hit a few of the huntsmen on the head with said placard. The pen is mightier than the saboteur and so I wrote off to my local paper, safe in the knowledge that this would ensure that they would print my letter and I would make a difference. I was 10. My belief in the world was utterly unshakeable, even though the irony was lost on me. The world would do the right thing, even though here I was campaigning against something I believed was wrong. Go figure, my 10 year old self couldnt see it. Then again, my 10 year old self couldnt see much past horses and well, horses. The newspaper did want to print my letter, they in fact rang my home to speak to me about it, and this is the part where I get to think my 10 year old self was a clever little smart ass, they also thought I was an adult. Yes indeed.

That started my desire to be a politician, I did concede that I would have to be a politician first and then of course I would be Prime Minister. Natural upgrade of course, I would be the obvious choice. I may have to wait a few years, but my first act would be to ban Fox Hunting. I never really thought much further than that, I have to be honest. My next act was to write a poem about Fox Hunting, that will show them. God my 10 year old self was awesome and fairly ridiculous.

I got a little older, and realised that potentially being the Prime Minister would be fairly hard work, note I still didnt see this as being out of my grasp, and if the truth be known, I still now believe if that had been the road I had chosen I would have made an awesome Prime Minister, with much better hair than any of them to date, thats a fact. I then moved naturally on to becoming a Lawyer. That was the next step. Not because I was interested in the nitty gritty details of law, or of justice, but because I believed that I would make unbelievably brilliant closing statements, and that all my cases would be won because no jury could possibly rule against me and my superior oratory skills. It was then pointed out to me that I was not American, that I also wasnt on TV and that being a Lawyer was possibly the hardest job ever. This put me off somewhat, not the hard work, but the lack of being able to stalk around a court and be fabulous.

I went on to various desires throughout that time, TV presenter, all round famous person, teacher amongst others, all of them really just came back to one thing, I liked to talk, and I liked it when people listened to me. Quite simple. Therefore Radio was the place for me. Why hadnt I thought of that before.

Really though, we should all spend a moment and try to remember what we wanted to be, back then when we had no troubles or worries and our dream job wasnt based on degrees, how clever we were or how much money we needed, when we could have done ANYTHING, what did we choose ?

I never even dreamed I would do what I do now, and yet this is my dream job....