Fancy Things Friday: The IT Crowd

Welcome to Fancy Things Friday, where I talk about things on a Friday that I think are fancy!!

Okay, this week's Fancy Thing is an old one but a good one. It is four series of pure English comedy. I'm bringing it up now because I've started rewatching them on Netflix, so you can check it out on there. 

The Fancy Thing is a TV show called The IT Crowd. 

It's about an IT department in a big corporate company and it is all sorts of excellent. If you have ever worked in an IT department (like I have) it will be even funnier, as some of the jokes are massively accurate to the way these departments work.  

It consists of three main characters, two geeky guys and a their manager, a woman who has no clue about computers. It has stopped now, I think mainly due to the fact that Chris O'Dowd (who plays one of the geeky guys) is all sorts of famous in America now, thanks to the film Bridesmaids. 

As much as I love this show on a whole, and thoroughly recommend it to all people who read this blog, there are a few hit and miss bits about it, in my opinion. For example, in the first series, whilst they are finding their feet, there are some not so great or funny moments. But this is to be expected for a show that has only just started. Besides, they completely make up for it in the future episodes. Also, and before I say this next bit, I want to add a disclaimer that this is not an opinion that is shared by most of my friends, but one that I have nonetheless, I am not the biggest fan of the main lady in it. The character is called Jen Barber, and she is played by Katherine Parkinson. She's not completely bad and does have some good moments in it, but sometimes she comes across as a little over the top. Again, this improves as the series goes on, and I do like Parkinson in other things she has done (in particular, The Boat That Rocked). 

The thing that makes the show for me, is the character of Maurice Moss, played by Richard Ayoade. To be honest, there isn't really anything Ayoade has done that I don't completely adore. The other favourites of mine include The Mighty Boosh and Garth Meringhi's Darkplace. Both shows are cult British comedies that I have spent a part of my life obsessed over at one point or another. I'm not going to go into these too much at the moment as, especially in the case of 'Darkplace', I need a whole Fancy Things Friday just to get across the genius of the concept of the shows. 

In The IT Crowd however, he plays a very nerdy character who is your classic 'obsessed with computers and all things sciency' type. He looks like this, which in itself tells you he's hilarious: 

His storylines throughout the series are my favourites. I can't think of a single line that he doesn't deliver with complete genius, but then that is the amazingness of Ayoade, who always comes across as naturally a little awkward but in the most awesome way. We could all learn to be a little awkward like him. You might recognise him from the Ben Stiller film 'The Watch' but other than that, he's mainly done low key (but still freakin' awesome) shows and films. 

When I first started watching this show, I began working in an IT department of a hospital about halfway through. I remember sitting down at their helpdesk and listening to the people talking to the customers there. There is an ongoing joke throughout the whole series about how, whenever anyone calls down to IT, the first thing that they ask is "Have you tried turning it off, then on again?" Then there are a series of other fairly basic questions they follow this up with, if that hadn't worked. Everything I heard the helpdesk ask on that first day could have been a direct quote from the show. I remember hardly being able to concentrate on account of looking around for one of the cast to turn up. 

The show is cleverly written, albeit silly in places, but you learn to love that about it. I'm not really a fan of the overly silly "big" humour, in fact, I tend to run away from it, sprinkling holy water as I go, but this show manages to do it in such a way that it's just enough to be hilarious, before turning it into annoying. 

It is completely 2 dimensional in its characters and plots. There are no deep messages and no moments of real character development or growth, it is a comedy; simple as. And it does the comedy incredibly well. If you want something that will not require a great deal of thought and yet will cause you to giggle like a school girl, then watch this show this weekend. If you have already seen it, might I suggest a rewatch? That's what I'm doing and I can confirm, it's still as funny now as it was when it came out. 

That's all for today. Have an awesome weekend. I will be... didn't I mention? Ex-Housemate-Anna (remember her? From three houses ago?) is getting married tomorrow! How freakin awesome is that? MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Speak soon!

Peace out my lovelies.

Next On Netflix: Orange is the New Black

Oh yes, ladies and gents, I'm going there. I finished the second series last night and I am all ready to review the hell out of this programme, in a completely spoiler free way of course.

Okay, so a quick breakdown of the series and what it's about. It's based, as far as I can tell, on a true story of a woman called Piper who was sent to a low secure woman's prison for smuggling drugs across a country years before. She gets carted off to prison for (I think) 18 months (I've just finished series 2 but it's been a long while since I saw series 1).

The whole thing is therefore set in a woman's prison. It deals with everything; crime, drugs, racism, sexism, sexuality, back stabbing, oppression, depression, attacks, love, sex, mental health, friendship, segregation... and the list goes on. In fact, I don't reckon there's anything that they don't cover... Although it is technically based around the life of Piper, each episodes deviates to another inmate and her reason for being in prison. In fact, in series 2, Piper very much takes a back seat to the other characters in the prison.

It's not one to watch with the kiddies, let me get that out there immediately. Pretty much all the characters are completely screwed up in their own way, and yet almost all of them you find yourself loving. It's a very good series for making the undesirable look desirable and confusing the hell out of you at times when you feel like you should be disapproving of a particular person, but instead find yourself almost egging them on.

I remember being quite surprised that I enjoyed Series 1 when it came out. It's a Netflix original series, so only available on Netflix, as far as I'm aware. But, in true Netflix style, when they release a new series, they release all the episodes at once so there's absolutely no waiting time... except for wait between series 2 and 3... but I guess that can't be helped.

As I mentioned before, each episode tends to focus in on one particular character. When this happens, they then throw in flashbacks to their time prior to being in prison and what has happened to make them who they are or cause them to do what they have done to get thrown into prison in the first place. Sort of like how Lost did it. These back stories are what makes the series I think. Each series has one consistent person that you full out hate all the way through. Although, it's different for each series. I'm not kidding, both people they put in there to cause problems made me fall into a right rage. I can't even tell you how much I've screamed at the screen this week during these episodes.

It's a good series to get your teeth stuck into. There are plenty enough characters to have you picking favourites, although these will ultimately change as the series goes on. There are a few recognisable faces; American Pie's Jason Biggs and Natasha Lyonne, as well as That 70's Show's Laura Prepon (those are the main one's I recognised but a lot of them have been in quite a few things).

I would say that Series 2 is better than Series 1, although don't think that this means Series 1 is not good, because it is. In series 2 however, the characters are more established and you get to see some awesome depth into some of their past that had only been touched upon in the first series. Lorna Morello's story in particular was my fav, (she's also one of my fav characters).

It's dirty and violent and all sorts, but it's also touching and funny and sweet. It's a very easy watch as well. I do recommend getting into this one, I think it's my top Netflix Original Series they've done so far... I know people normally say House of Cards, which I do like, but American Politics isn't really my bag and I tend to get bored quite easily. The same thing happened with The West Wing... The Green Wing however, is a whole other different ballgame of awesome, but I'll save that for another time.

In short, if you want something fairly hard hitting but fun, then this is the series for you. If you're easily offended, maybe not. Lots of nudity, sex, swearing, violence and all the other stuff that makes adult viewing required... Enjoy!!

Peace out my lovelies.

I've never realised how complicated and freakin' dangerous dieting is, until now

Up until this week, I always just assumed that to diet well you just needed to cut back on what you ate. I thought it was simply all about the calories, and as long as I didn't go over the allocated amount, I was officially losing weight.

To be fair, I was actually losing weight when I thought this, so I guess there's some truth in it, but apparently that will only take you so far before your weight plateaus and you need to start to get more creative.

It's no secret that I have been attending the gym lately. I'm nothing if not an obsessive girl, and this is my new obsession. I have been every day since last Wednesday, with the exception of Sunday. Last night I was set up with a cardio work out that lasts a couple of hours, and I was fully accepting of it. When someone gives me a set structure to abide by, I thrive. I work it into my own routine and I can do it until the cows come home. (Mental note: Come back to that phrase another time to fully explore why it is that cows coming home is an applicable metaphor for this sentence.)

What has completely flummoxed me however is the diet side. I do not understand that part of this whole 'losing weight' thing at all. You see, I found out last night that I wasn't eating enough calories but I also needed to be cutting down on the food that I was eating although I needed to eat more, just less of what it was... this cycle of conversation went on for quite a while with my trainer as I tried to get my head around it, and even longer with my work colleague today. However, after hours of feeling my brain smack itself against a brick wall, I think I've managed to work it out.

Basically, I need to be eating 1200 to 1400 calories a day in my diet. Anything under 1000 calories eaten will mean that the exercising will start to eat away at bits of my body that isn't fat as it won't have any of the correct things to eat away at. This will, apparently, result in my body weight plateauing and no weight loss happening. All well and good, except that I always thought I was eating well, but it turns out that I'm lucky to be consuming 800 calories a day, let alone 1200. Initially, this sounded like awesome news, as I do love me my food so maybe this meant I could go back to eating some of my old food favourites.

However, before I could get the word 'Mac' out after I uttered 'Big' I was given the most appalled look in the world. Apparently this was not an excuse to eat any food I'd like. This was an instruction to make sure that I ate better food. When I mentioned what it was that I was currently eating, I was told off once again. (Last night, there was a lot of resigned shaking of heads coming from my new trainer.) I had far too many carbs in my diet, although not enough food. This was about the time that my brain stopped working. And then when he began on the fact that I needed to buy steamers and food processors for the food I should be eating, I became light headed. I do not have the money to be spending on fancy tools for eating food. I have since learnt that I am able to buy high protein food without restocking my kitchen with gadgets and machines, and do this fairly cheaply as well.

I have the beginnings of a possible diet forming in my head, thanks to further explanations and help from my work colleague and Oldest-Friend-Cafrin, who went through this whole thing last year. But I am ultimately facing two massive changes/problems.

1. I need to find a way to add calories to my diet in a way that won't involve spending more money that I currently am on food.
2. I need to find a way of doing this with food that's good for me, which means that it's going to be lower in calories so I will have to eat even more of it in the day to make the calories up.

In summary, I have to find a way to eat more than I want to and not have it be fatty at all. Why are our bodies so complicated? WHY???

Also, salad without any mayo or dressing is the most depressing meal of my day, which is annoying as the dressing/mayo would have upped my calories to closer to where I need them to be for today, which would have been ideal except the diet police say that's wrong... you see the problem I'm having trying to get my brain around this?

It's actually got to a point where I'm terrified of eating anything. What if it has just a little bit too much carbohydrates? What if I eat it and don't reach my protein quota? I don't want my exercise to cause my body to start eating itself instead of the unwanted fat in it. And we all know that I'm an amateur cannibal as well as my body having a mind of it's own, therefore it will not need much convincing to go this way. What if, by cooking a pork chop the wrong way, I lose out on protein and then my body accidentally eats my heart? Don't look at me like I'm crazy! I was told that the body starts eating the muscles when there's not enough calories to work on, the heart is the most juiciest muscle in there! Of course my body is going to go for that first! Why do I feel like I'm dicing with death every day I try to lose weight? WHY WOULD ANYONE SAY THAT THIS IS GOOD FOR YOU??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aaand I've officially worked myself up into a frenzy now. Excuse me while I go and calm me down.

Peace out my lovelies.

I've found hell. I think it deserves its bad rep...

So I've been building this theory in my mind about the position of my chair at work. I have decided that this theory is now officially correct after a period of nonstop proof.

My theory is simple, my chair is situated on top of the gates of hell. My reasons for why I think this, I hear you ask? Well it's really only one reason, but it's a good one. If you walk anywhere else within my place of work, you are met with a nice cool breezy air. It makes you relaxed and comfortable, you find yourself smiling for no reason, so at peace are you that you begin to hug yourself and welcome in the neverending bliss that is a room that is neither too hot or too cold, but just right.

However, there is a little pocket of air that seems to be the exception to the rule. The only pocket of air, apparently, that exists within my workplace. This pocket of air surrounds my chair, my desk and anything within 5 feet of that area. Inside this pocket, it is a furnace. There is no cool breeze, regardless of the fan blowing directly at it, there is no freshness and comfortableness, there is only heat. Heat and sweat and the want to cry even though you have no idea why. Either that or strip down to your underwear in a desperate attempt to find yourself some relief from the neverending tirade of mugginess and bad bodily odours. But you can't because people have deemed it as "unprofessional" so you have to sit in it instead and spend your entire day trying your very hardest not to turn the uncomfortable feeling into a snappy mood. This is an action that, try as you may, you find hella hard.

Now, no one seems to be able to offer me an explanation for why this particular section of my office is so unbelievably horrible. In fact, the most that they have to say is to walk into said office and exclaim that it is unbelievably stuffy. I usually just nod my agreement outwardly, whilst thinking "Really? You think it's stuffy? Because I've been sitting here all day and I hadn't noticed." But I refrain from snapping these words and watch them longingly as they escape out of the bubble of heat and back into the beautiful air conditioned world. Because there is no explanation, I have decided that this must mean mine is correct. Somewhere, underneath me, there is a large set of gates being guarded by a dog with three heads or something. There are volcanoes and fiery pits, and people are desperately applying Aloe Vera to help with the burns they have sustained. And as we all know from our science classes, heat rises, so all of that fire is slowly travelling up further and further until it reaches me just as it hits the most excruciating heights of its heat... and that's what I'm sitting in at the moment. It is not comfortable at all.

Peace out my lovelies

An unfit person attempting to be a gym enthusiast... there are hours of material I can bring out of this one.

I'm definitely one of those people who finds a theme to talk about and sticks to it...

To say I ache at the moment would be grossly underplaying the pain occurring all over my body. Not to mention, there is a muscle in the back of my thigh that spasms every 30 seconds and the feeling is quite bizarre. My reason for all this pain? I am still doing the whole exercise thing.

Yup, ladies and gents, I have attended the gym for a total of 5 solid days in a row, with a small break yesterday where I nursed a hangover from a particularly dance orientated night in central London.

On Friday night, I attended a Legs, Tums and Bums class, thinking that it sounded like a fun and peppy title, so therefore the class would also be fun and peppy. However, five minutes into this class, I realised that not only was I drastically mistaken about the type of class I was attending, but in actual fact, this class might actually have been created by the devil himself.

Don't ask me how I did it, but I did manage to get through the entire class without dragging my pained body out the door. Sure, there were times when the rest of the class went ahead and squatted without me, whilst I pretended that my hair had fallen out of my clip once again, and so needed fixing, but I inevitably joined back in again, despite my body's many, many protests. Also, the instructor for this class was from the 'tough love' category when it came to her style of teaching. If you started to give up, she would scream at you about not falling behind, calling you out from the front of the class and saying over and over "if it's burning, that means it's working! Don't stop now!" It got even worse than that, if you stopped for a particularly long time then she would come and find you. Any time she came anywhere near to where I was, I found myself pulling some hidden adrenaline out from arse and using it just to make her turn around and not shame me in front of the rest of the class, I'm thankful to say that it worked... which was probably her plan all along.

I attended this class alone, but about halfway through, when I had well and truly changed colour to a shining red all over my body, and was, shall we say 'glistening' from head to toe, a girl in her 20s, no bigger than a size 10 came sauntering over to me in between exercises. I was, at the time, gulping down a gallon of water and trying to stop myself from falling into uncontrollable tears. I remember seeing her and thinking she was so lucky, she was completely pale faced, barely a bead of sweat on her and she seemed completely at ease. I knew I looked ridiculous next to her, which was confirmed when I glanced in the wall mirror in front of us. As such, I was torn between ignoring the hell out of her so that my envy wouldn't grow any more, and wanting to reach out to her and make conversation to A: find out her magical secret, and B: have a friend in this class. I decided to go for somewhere in the middle, and I offered her a friendly smile. She returned this smile with a pained one of her own and groaned.

"This has got to be the hardest thing I've ever done." She said. "I'm completely out of breath and don't know if I can do it for much longer!"

I rolled my eyes and muttered something like "Tell me about it", all the while thinking to myself that if this is what she looks like when she's completely knackered, then I don't even want to think about how intimidating she looks when she's not "completely out of breath." I caught myself comparing our looks once more in the mirror, my entire body had turned a shade of deep red and there were 'glistening' patches all over my top. My hair was matted to neck and my much bigger body type looked awkward and unstable next to hers. I resisted the urge to punch her in the face for being so naturally pristine in the face of exercise, realising that it probably wasn't her fault, if anything it was my fault for being so unfit to begin with. Before we could continue with any further conversation however, the screaming teacher pulled us back into another exercise routine and a further part of me died inside. However Perfect-Girl, as I'm now calling her, decided that exercising next to me for the rest of the class was a good idea, so I had that comparison to look at all the way through. One day, when exercise isn't so foreign to me, I might be able to get through one of those lessons without coming out looking like I'd spent 15 hours sunbathing with no lotion, and then I can intimidate everyone else with my relaxed face and normal skin tone... that's the dream...

Saturday, I went to an Abs attack class in the morning with One-And-Only-Daniela. Although this class wasn't nearly as strenuous, and was completely based on our backs, lying on the floor, there was something about it that I found even harder. One-And-Only-Daniela, on the other hand, being a gal obsessed with toning her abs, sailed through the class, whilst I usually got through about three of each exercise before collapsing spread eagled onto the floor and asking myself why the hell I was putting my body through this... then I thought of the bridesmaid dress, and a new push ran through me, forcing me back into the stretch the rest of the class was doing... at least for a couple of seconds before I remembered why I had stopped in the first place and collapsed once more.

Being the hardcore exercisers that we are (at least that we've been this week), One-And-Only-Daniela and I came back to the gym later that day and spent a whopping 2 1/2 hours doing cardio. This, I liked. I saw an instructor who briefly showed me around and booked me in for a proper programme (happening tomorrow), then told me that I should be doing cardio for an hour and a half, at least four days a week, in order to reach my target. However, after that, he left me to get on with it and that I did. One-And-Only-Daniela and I then spent the next few hours doing some hardcore cardio and, now that no one was yelling at me or looking over my shoulder, and there was a TV built into the machines so I was able to watch Big Bang Theory whilst exercising, I was able to do it all easily. (Side note: I also watched some show about a bunch of American girls all competing to marry Prince Harry, only it wasn't actually Prince Harry because Prince Harry would never do a show like that, instead it was a look alike, only none of them knew that and all thought they would end up as princesses. It was the most bizarre and riveting TV I've ever watched. I'm going to find that show properly and watch the hell out of it, then you can be sure that I will talk about it here. I mean, seriously? There's so much A: wrong and B: amazing about the whole concept.)

To end everything off, One-And-Only-Daniela has gone and got herself a gym membership at my gym, which is amazing as she lives on the other side of London and it's such a trek for her. But, as we both need other people to spur us on when a new trend of ours starts to fade away, we realised the necessity of being each other's wingmen in the gym. She's meeting me after work today and we're going for a session. Which is excellent as, considering the way my body feels right now, I would have totally chickened out and gone home instead... you watch people, I will become an exercise God... and that bridesmaid dress will fit me so perfectly, people will write songs about it.

Peace out my lovelies.

Fancy Things Friday: If you're on the fence about Doctor Who, here are three episodes that should convince you

Welcome to Fancy Things Friday, where I talk about things on a Friday that I think are fancy!!

Today's Fancy Thing is something I've talked about in the past. However due to the sheer level of awesome it has to it, I chose to only speak about a certain aspect of it, mainly because I knew that I would want to bring it up again in another Fancy Thing Friday when I rediscovered yet another part that I love. 

Yes, I am of course talking (once again) about Doctor Who. The last time I brought this up in a Fancy Thing, I was referring to the awesomeness that was the 11th Doctor's speeches. They are still just as awesome as they were when I initially wrote this, so go ahead and click on the link to get a taster. 

This time, I've been on a rewatching hype as Oldest-Friend-Cafrin has finally given in and began watching the show. Her links to the episodes got me all in the mood for them, and then I watched an awesome Doctor Who Parody and suddenly all I wanted to do was watch it again. In particular, the Donna Noble Series. 

It is one of the better parodies I've seen, and I'm one of those obsessive people who watch a lot of them. Check it out. 

Anywho, my Doctor Who focus this time is on three of my favourite episodes in the current Doctor Who collection. There are others that I probably put up there with these three, but I'm limiting myself so that I don't end up writing for days. My other reason for picking these three episodes is that, if you haven't ever watched a Doctor Who episode, you can quite easily watch these as stand alone episodes, as they really have nothing to do with the overall storyline and don't hold any spoilers. They are excellently written and give you a quick taster to the genius that is Doctor Who. So if you want to try it out to see if you like, give one of these a go. They're all available on Netflix, which I reckon everyone should have by now... if you don't, come on guys, get with the programme.

Series 4, Episode 10: Midnight

Reason for excellence: Such an immense script

Now, before I get into this, yes guys, I am fully aware of the many other episodes that are written superbly, and I do fully understand that Series 3, Episode 10: 'Blink' is still one of the best episodes scriptwise, but my reasons for picking the above episode is that it never seems to get much praise when people talk about some of the best episodes. I therefore wanted to give it the recognition it deserves. 

It's from the David Tennant/Catherine Tate (plays Donna Noble) series, although Donna is only in the episode for the first and last couple of minutes. Those of you who are British TV fans might recognise two of the guest stars in this episode, in particular; Merlin's Colin Morgan (plays Merlin) and Eastenders' Lindsey Coulsen (plays Carol Jackson). It's written by Russell T Davies, who was the head writer before the great Moffat took over. 

The whole episode happens in one place. They are all locked in on a shuttle bus on a planet far away which doesn't have any kind of breathable air. There is an attack on the shuttle bus. Not an obvious one, but rather a unique and interesting attack that allows all the characters on the bus to act their freakin' socks off. It is an episode completely reliant on dialogue and needs strong actors in order to pull it off. David Tennant is simply amazeballs in this episode. You are hooked from the moment of attack to the end. It is also an episode that has you empathising with the characters one second and then hating them with a passion, the next. Not to mention you get frustrated with them, but in a really good way that means you can't take your eyes off the screen for fear of missing anything. 

What I love most about this episode is that it gives off this air of massive amounts of things happening, but in actuality there is very little that really does. The suspense is in the script entirely. To me, that is my favourite thing about a good story. If a writer can accomplish this, they immediately go to the top of my 'will lust over their talent' list. I lust ridiculously all over this episode. 

Series 5, Episode 7: The Unicorn and the Wasp

Reason for excellence: Doctor Who comedy at its very best

I've mentioned before that I love Donna Noble as the companion so much because she provides humour into the series in such an awesome way, I just want to lick her face. We're still in the David Tennant/Catherine Tate series and this episode well and truly epitomises the genius comedy of this duo. It's written by Gareth Roberts, who is a recurring writer throughout the many series of the new Doctor Who. His episodes are usually pretty good and quite fun. For those of you who have seen the series before, he has written both of the James Corden episodes, as well as a few others. 

This episode takes the Doctor and Donna back to the 20s, where they end up at an overly posh and British garden party, where the main guest is none other than Agatha Christie. They stay the weekend and a series of murders begin to take place... I know right? Irony!! The whole episode is silly in the best way possible. Donna dropping hints about Agatha's future books and copywriting them etc. My main reason for loving this episode is the dynamic between the Doctor and Donna all the way through. Also, my single most favourite funny Doctor Who moment happens in this episode. I won't say much about it, but there is a certain moment that takes place between Donna and the Doctor in the kitchen. You'll know it when you get to it. 

And finally (for now)

Series 6, Episode 0: A Christmas Carol

Reason for excellence: Of all the Christmas specials, this is the most magical

This episode happens just after Matt Smith's first series as the Doctor. It's a Christmas special that guest stars Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins. It is written by Steven Moffat, and we all know how I feel about that man... 

Okay, so the concept of this is that Amy Pond is on a spaceship that is about to crash. There is a planet nearby that can help. However, in order for this to happen, the Doctor needs to convince a Scrooge type character to help; Kazran (Gambon). He won't, so the Doctor decides to go back in time and manipulate his past 'A Christmas Carol' style. 

It is a Christmas story at its best. It has romance, magic, redemption, humour and happiness all rolled into one beautiful bundle. Not to mention, the Doctor Who composer; Murray Gold knocks it out of the park with a song  sung at the end that is completely stunning. Want to hear it? 

I know it's not Christmas at the moment guys, but I watched this episode again last night and I have decided that, regardless of the time of year, you can never not need that kind of magical optimism in your life. Additionally, Matt Smith, who is the king of the comical one liners throughout his reign as the Doctor, has some absolute corkers in this episode. Trust me on that. 

So there are my three little stand alone tasters of the series we all know I am obsessed with. If you are still on the fence about whether you would want to watch this series, just try one of the above out. Alternatively, Series 3, Episode 10: 'Blink' is also AMAZING but every Whovian talks about that episode so I won't be going into it now, except to say that it is also written by the Moffat, which should be enough to convince you it's worth a watch. 

Recommendations for this week done! Have a great weekend. Enjoy these episodes! 

Peace out my lovelies. 

A Plum's guide to the 'can't be arsed' brain versus the 'productive' brain when it comes to the gym

Okay, so this week has been very 'losing weight/exercise a lot' orientated in my posts. I'd like to say that I'm going to deviate from this now, but I'm not. Sorry. I have more to say on the topic.

For those of you not caught up, I came to realisation last weekend that I am, in fact, gaining weight instead of losing it, which was the opposite of what I was trying to do. I am very much on the 'curvy' side, putting it delicately, at the moment. This is something that I've normally been too lazy to sort out, but Older-Brother-Glyn is getting married in two months and I have a Bridesmaid dress that currently doesn't fit me. As such, I panicked and decided to do something about it.

As a result of this, never have I had to implement my previous CBT skills, learnt last year (click here for background on that), as much as I've had to this week. The long and short of it is that, upon having this realisation that I need to lose weight and quickly, I was overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work that would be involved in getting me down to my needed weight. Immediately, 28 years of habit kicked in and I began to shut down. I knew I had to do it, in order to ensure I didn't end up with a serious wardrobe malfunction on the day of the wedding, but I found myself habitually pushing the problem out of my mind and ignoring it completely.

This, ladies and gents, is the exact reason why I haven't really achieved all that much in my 20s. Any time I'm faced with a challenge to better my life, I tend to just go ahead and sabotage it instead. If this was the situation this time 18 months ago, I would have pushed the problem away and not thought about it again until I reach the point of morbidly obese and am suffering from heart problems (which kinda is what happened...).

However, my ignoring of the issue this time only lasted for a couple of days. I kept on getting waves of adrenalin that told me I should be doing something about this issue, and then would squash this down with all the reasons why I couldn't do what needed to be done, such as "I can't really afford to join a gym" or "If I'm really good at the whole not eating thing, then I should do it on that alone... oh look, a KFC! Oh go on, just this once." However, after I posted about the whole swimming idea, I spent the next 48 hours executing every CBT technique I knew to make sure that it actually happened. And then, once I had been, I realised that, with the right amount of budgeting for the month, I could actually afford a membership at the gym. So I joined yesterday. I went back last night and used their gym facilities instead of the pool, I only lasted for about 30 minutes before I collapsed into a heap, but I had started what I needed to do.

How did I do this? Well, putting on my CBT hat, I felt the 'can't be arsed' attitude kick in and immediately challenged it. I asked myself why it was that I was having this reaction? Was it a justified reaction to be having? What if I thought about it another way? So I did.

I looked at the cost, which I had previously decided I couldn't afford and worked up a budget, only to find I could afford it. Reason for not doing it no 1 was eradicated.

I thought about the embarrassment I'd feel being in a gym at my size, also what if I wasn't exercising right? I called the gym, they set me up with three sessions with a trainer, which happened to be included in the membership price, and I have my first one of these on Saturday. That trainer will give me an exercise plan to get what I need and if I keep to it, I won't look as flabby and unfit as I do right now.  Reason for not doing it no 2 was eradicated.

I looked at past experiences with gym memberships and how they never lasted because I eventually just give up. Do I really want to commit to a membership if I'm not going to use it? So I looked into their membership and saw that I didn't need to give notice for cancelling the membership, I can do it as soon as I don't need it anymore, therefore it won't be binding me to them. In terms of making sure I continue to use the gym... this is where my techniques became less CBT and more trickery, and this is also where the title to this post comes in. I have put into place the following tricks to ensure I attend the gym.

1. Avoid any chance to crash out of an evening before I go to the gym. 
I have invested in a gym bag and I have kitted it out with everything I need for the gym. I take it with me to work so that I can go straight after work before going home. So far this technique has fooled my 'can't be arsed' brain for two days in a row. I am feeling silently confident for future foolery.

2. Make preparations for when the novelty of going to the gym begins to fade (usually at around the two week mark).
My 'can't be arsed' brain is usually overpowered by my productive brain for the first two weeks of any gym membership. For those two weeks, I am the exercise God. I exercise the shizzle out of all gyms. However, at around 2 weeks, my productive brain is so knackered from all the productivity, it passes out in a comatose state and suddenly my 'can't be arsed' brain has all the power. It never fails to happen, no matter what.

However, this time round I am entering into this membership expecting this to happen. Therefore, I have put plans in place to combat it when it does. Mostly, these plans involve getting as many people as possible included in my gym activities. I have already made plans with two friends for separate occasions of swimming, I'm going to look into classes and invite the shizzle out of anyone else who wants to come.

Additionally, I have Oldest-Friend-Cafrin, who is by far my most experienced gym friend, instructed to send me regular pep talks at certain points to spur me on. Most importantly, I am using my biggest quirk to my advantage; that is my OCD for sticking to any routine I create. For something to end up qualified as a routine in my life, I have to have been doing it regularly for about a week. My plan is to make the 'go to the gym every evening straight after work' routine embedded in my psyche by the end of next week. Once that has hit my OCD radar, I am all good to go. The only way this can happen however is that I need to make sure it is a similar plan every evening, I can't deviate, otherwise it becomes sporadic and won't register on my OCD levels as a verified new contender for my neuroses. Yes, I do have some borderline mental problems, but the important thing is I know how to manipulate them to get what I want... I am totally in control of that shizzle... for now.

3. Create a realistic goal that doesn't sound so daunting but still has enough pressure to make me competitive about it.
Although I have joined gyms in the past, this is the first time that I have done it with such a short term goal in mind. I have a deadline I need to reach and so, at the moment, I am only considering my gym membership until then. Most of the time, when my brain's gone all 'can't be arsed' in the past, it's been because I've had nothing to motivate me and the task of losing all the weight I need to just seems like too much work. However, this time it's different. I'm not trying to lose weight to a model level (I do actually like having curves), I have just one goal, I need to go down one dress size. That's it. That's all I'm focusing on. And on top of that, having a due date gives it just the right amount of edge that has my competitive nature kicking in. Now, I might very well decide that exercise is the thing for me after the wedding and keep at it (pigs could fly), but right now I'm not thinking about that. I have until the end of July. That's all. Lose one dress size in two months... It's going to happen people, I just know it.

If I end up writing on this thing in a couple of weeks' time, saying that I gave up because I couldn't be arsed, you all have my permission to slap me round the face hard. Then throw me over your shoulder and march me back to the gym, screaming at me until I finish the exercise I need to do. Seriously, do it. It needs to be done.

Peace out my lovelies.

A plum's guide to swimming.

Last night I became a woman on a mission.

You see, I have this habit of making large sweeping statements when it comes to exercise, and then never seeing them through. It's basically what I've done my entire life. So after I posted yesterday's post about my plan of starting back up with swimming again, I inevitably started to feel the classic "Can I really be bothered?" feeling that usually swiftly follows any plan I have that involves physical effort.

By the time I had left work, I was tired and irritated for no apparent reason. The last thing I wanted to do was to go about trying to find somewhere to swim which would then lead to having to wash my hair afterwards, which I'd only just done and that was even more effort to add to the list of tasks for my evening, when all I really wanted to do was to curl up in bed and watch me some Doctor Who.

However, as my train pulled up to my stop, a flash of the bridesmaid dress I had to fit into (in less than two months) went through my mind and I knew that this wasn't just something I could do that was good for me, but actually a necessity that needed to happen. With that realisation, I felt another wave of determination and I wasn't going to let it fade away this time. In order to keep this determination alive, I had to put into place a series of tricks to keep my mind on point and not let my laziness take over. These tricks all amounted to one important thing to ensure that I went swimming last night: Under no circumstances was I to go home first. No matter what, I wasn't to step foot in my front door, as to do so would definitely result in my crashing and not wanting to get up.

So I went straight to Primark, bought the cheapest towel, hairbands and hairbrush available and then to Sports Direct to buy the cheapest Swimming costume. All bought, all complete. I now had everything I needed for a swim, and with each purchase, I had felt my determination grow. I couldn't back out now, I'd spent money on the cause. So I googled my closest swimming pool, got on a bus and headed off; feeling very pleased with myself.

When the bus arrived at the local community pool, to say that I was underwhelmed by the whole look of it would be an understatement. It was a run down looking brick building that, if it hadn't had the graffitied sign on the front, announcing it was a pool, I would have assumed was condemned. I got off the bus and tried not to think about the many diseases I was going to get, or the amount of pee I was going to ingest. Instead, I once again pictured my bridesmaid dress and figured if I got some form of stomach bug from this whole experience, it would only help my cause. Having said that, my enthusiasm for the whole swimming thing was beginning to waver, and I forced myself into the building.

The first thing I noticed was the amount of parents hanging around and the screaming sound of kids coming from the pool area. I snuck a look at the pool and saw it full to the brim of kicking kids with floats. They were obviously having a class and therefore the pool was shut to anyone else... I'm not going to lie, I was fairly happy with this news. I had found my out and it was completely not my fault. If anyone asked, I would be able to say that I had tried but that other things had got in the way, I was guilt free.

I checked the timetable, fully prepared to justify my not swimming by finding a time when it was free and rescheduling my exercise for then... the only problem was that this particular pool seemed solely designed for kids and no one else. There was only 'break of dawn' adult swim sessions and there was no way I was going to be able to drag my arse out of bed for that shizzle.

I left the pool and began my search for my bus stop to take me home. Thankfully, I had a 15 minute wait until my next bus... as such, this gave me enough time to once again remind myself of the bridesmaid dress and the need for my exercise to happen. So I called around the next nearest pools to me, only to find that they needed me to be a member before I was allowed access... by this point, my competitive nature had kicked in. I had wasted most of my evening on this search, I was not going to fail now. I was kitted and ready to go... and then I found one. A sparkling leisure centre who were elite enough to guarantee a clean and pretty pool, but not so elite that they don't allow non-members like myself in. Huzzah! I found the place and I went to it...

Things that I have found from my swimming experience:

1. Swimming costumes really aren't as unflattering as one might think. In fact, they're more the other way. They suck everything in and holds all flab under it in place... so impressed was I, that I'm considering fashioning one to wear underneath my dress on the day of the wedding.

2. Remembering how to swim again after a while of not doing it is no problem whatsoever. Having the stamina to be able to swim to the extent I used to 14 years before, is going to be more of a problem. Just because I was once the queen of the 50-60 laps without breaking a sweat, does not mean that I am capable of this feat now. Apparently, I have become less fit than I was at that time. Apparently, my youthful exuberance and energy is not quite as strong as it was when I was 14. As such, what ended up happening was I would swim one lap and then award myself myself with a little rest of floating in the water. Also, even with this regime, my leg cramped up after 45 minutes which apparently wasn't going to get any better if I "swam through it" so I had to get out after that.

3. I've never been a fan of goggles. They hurt, especially on the hair when you have to take them off and the rubber strap gets all tangled in. Also they're another expense that I'm trying to do without. However, once I had come out of the pool, I soon remembered why it was that I had always reluctantly wore them anyway. To say my eyes were bloodshot doesn't even cover it. There was no white left in them. I looked possessed by some form of demon. Also, when my eyes get wet, they change colour from 'sort of green' to 'the greenest green you have ever seen'. This is something that I am generally proud of, and it's a shade I wish I could have all the time, but with the red surrounding on this occasion, all it did was aid to the 'possessed by a demon' look I had going on.

4. I had been joking yesterday when I said that I would invest in a nose plug for the swimming pool. After last night, I'm beginning to think about it seriously. Yes, I will look ridiculous with them on, but no more ridiculous than I look when I dunk my head under the water and then come scrambling back up with arms flailing, stopping mid swim, and gasping because all kinds of nasty feelings were shooting up my nose. Chlorine may keep that water clean, but it is a bitch on my facial regions. Also, I then ended up sneezing all the way home as my body rejected the chlorine that had somehow managed to stay hidden in my body. Twas most annoying.

5. Trying to go back into swimming as if nothing has changed in 14 years will resort in my underarms feeling like the world's strongest man has grabbed me from under my armpits and yanked me into the air. This pain is a good thing, it means the swim wasn't a complete waste of time and I did in fact workout in some way, but man do my arms hurt now. Also, although the front crawl was an easy one to pick up again, when I tried to attempt the breast stroke to give my armpits a rest, I struggled a lot more. Mainly due to the issue in point 4 and the fact that every time my head dunked under the water, it was faced with another shot of chlorine right up the nasal passage. I'm going to have to get used to that experience again.

I left that place, feeling fairly pleased with myself. I had managed to force myself to swim again and I shall continue to do so and it will be glorious.

Peace out my lovelies.

I have a weight loss plan! I shall not fail!

I'm gaining weight people... I have a bridesmaid dress to fit into and I'm gaining weight. Needless to say, the past couple of days has led to a fairly freaked out version of me desperately searching for something my budget will allow me to do that constitutes as exercise and doesn't involve any outdoor stuff... I'm very much an indoorsy type of girl. I've researched gym memberships and have found one fairly cheap near me, although once I worked out how much everything would cost after I bought some workout clothes to go with that gym membership, I soon gave up that dream.

Then today it hit me... in my teens, when thigh gaps were a way of my life and I used to stroke my flat youthful belly with pride, I was a pretty kick arse swimmer. I am 100% a waterbaby... in the literal sense, I was born on a tiny island just off England called Guernsey, and spent my first years living on an even tinier island next to it, called Alderney. For an idea of scale, here's a map.

You might not be able to read it, but that teeny dot above Guernsey and Sark? Yup, that was home for me for the first 3 years of my life. I genuinely believe that my first years being surrounded by all that sea has had some kind of deep seeded effect on me. There is nothing more soothing for me than listening to the ocean and being anywhere near the water, despite the majority of my life being spent in our Capital city and away from the coast.

Seriously, when I was little and we used to go on holidays to Devon and Cornwall (both coast based places), I used to spend ages sitting in front of the ocean and convincing myself that I could control the waves. Yup, I was that special child who would sit on her own for hours and be able to entertain herself. In these instances, I would call out to the ocean things like 'make the waves large' or 'make the waves small' and, the way I remember it, 9 times out of 10 the waves did exactly as I asked. Now, I appreciate that this probably wasn't the case and my memory has warped it over the years, but whatever happened, it happened enough times to mean that I well and truly convinced myself I was in charge of the ocean... which, of course, led to my believing that this meant I was secretly a mermaid and that King Triton was waiting just under the surface of the water for my return home, which then led to my insisting on swimming with my feet crossed over for about a year, so that I could get used to the feeling of swimming with a fin... I'm sure none of you will be surprised to know that I spent my childhood obsessed with the movies The Little Mermaid and Splash. I scared easily as a child, but water was never one of those things that scared me. I freaking loved the stuff.

When I got older, and my parents had to work over the weekend, they would drop me and my brothers off at our local swimming pool for a couple of hours and I would swim lap after lap. Then I got older still, worried about what the chlorine would be doing to my hair, knowing that if it dried it out any more than it already had 'I would just die' and packed in the swimming.

With the exception of the odd holiday, I haven't really done it since. Therefore, I have discovered my solution to my losing weight problem. I shall swim, I shall swim and swim and swim some more, and it will be glorious. I shall become an olympic standard swimmer the likes of which will make Michael Phelps look like a beginner. I have found a swimming pool near me and I have located a swimming costume that is cheap and cheerful. I shall try to ignore the fact that it is a public pool and therefore likely to be pee ridden, I shall just keep my mouth closed and may even invest in one of those nose plugs, and then I shall look at myself in the mirror and laugh at how ridiculous I look in said nose plug. This is the plan. The glorious life changing plan that will save me from having to resort to going to my brother's wedding naked for lack of dress that fits. Tonight it begins, straight after work... I should probably shave my legs first, thinking about it, but straight after that!

Plan made!! Wish me luck!

Peace out my lovelies

A weekend without the internet... it went a lot better than I thought it would. Does this mean I'm growing as a person?

I don't know if people have heard, but this amazing thing is happening in August... The Doctor is returning to our screens and everytime I think about it, I vomit a little from excitement. Since finding out the news, I have been on yet another kick of going through the Doctor Who series on binge watch, this time starting with Season 4: AKA The Donna Noble Series. She is my second favourite companion of all time... I know you didn't ask for it, but the list for favourite companions goes as follows:

1. Rose Tyler
2. Donna Noble
3. Amy Pond
4. Rory Williams
5. Clara Oswald
6. Martha Jones

What are my reasons for loving Donna so much? Apart from the fact that I simply adore Catherine Tate, her series also has some of the funniest doctor/companion moments ever. These include the "Doctor: I just want a mate. Donna: You just want to mate?? I don't think so sunshine" moment, the "mime across the room on meeting for a second time" moment and, what has to be my most perfect and awesome Doctor Who moment of all time... The Unicorn and The Wasp episode where the doctor gets poisoned and Donna is trying to find him the anecdote ingredients in the kitchen... pure amazeballs.

Okay, this actually wasn't meant to be the point of this post, but more as a way of introduction to what I actually wanted to talk about, somehow I deviated... it always happens, it's like I'm physically incapable of just mentioning the show in passing... I'm sorry. I'll get back on point.

So, my intention for the weekend, as I said, was to watch this series and continue until I'd seen them all... obviously not all in one weekend, there aren't enough hours available for that, but at least to start this process. However, just as I finished the first episode (I was totally about to go off on a tangent about the Adipose in this episode, then reeled myself back in. Feel free to congratulate me) my trusty netflix, which I was using for the watching of the series, suddenly stopped on me. Long story short, our internet went down. It went down and it was not coming back up again, no matter how many times I closed down and reloaded both computer and firefox.

Now, the way our house is set out, the wifi box is located in one of my housemates' room downstairs. I knew that all it would take to get the internet up and running again, would be to reset this box. However, the housemate in question was not around and suddenly the access to this wifi was restricted. Upon realising this, I retreated back to my room, sat down on  my bed, looked around me, and realised that I had created a world within the confines of my house where there was very little I could do without use of the internet. I don't have a TV, a fact that I had previously been proud of  as I thought it meant I had become one of those people who wasn't reliant on TV to live my life. However, this weekend showed that all that really meant was that I didn't watch TV by the normal means, but rather substituted it with the internet and still managed to watch all my favourite shows. I had been living a life of denial and now that I had no way of accessing TV through the internet, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with myself.

I know there might be people out there who would suggest I could have just spent a day out or read a book, or done something that didn't involve fictional storylines and make believe, to these people I say... hindsight is 20:20, but at the time none of those options even came into my mind. Instead, I devised a game. It was an awesome game. I would watch my collection of films on DVD via a marathon, only there had to be a link between the film I was currently watching and the one I would watch next. This link was that the two films had to share at least one of the same actors. This was the day I realised that I have a lot of films with the same actors in it. There need to be more actors in the world, I feel. I mean actors do a lot of films. It's almost like they're trying to make a living out of it...

Anywho, I embarked over Saturday and Sunday on what turned out to be the best marathon ever. So awesome was it that, even though it's not a Fancy Thing Friday day, I'm going to give you these film recommendations anyway. Yes peeps, I'm whoring them out for free. You are most welcome. Feel free to use my marathon list/game. People have probably been playing it for years, but now that I've discovered it, I'm not going to be able to stop playing it. I might try it via netflix... My marathon went as follows:

1. I started off with the last couple of episodes of Parks and Recreation Series 1. (I think I like this show, I'll let you know if this turns into love)
Link: Amy Poelher
2. Mean Girls
Link: Tina Fey (Fey and Poehler should glue themselves together and never detach. They are my heros)
3. Date Night
Link: Mark Wahlberg
4. The Other Guys (seriously amazing film, by the way)
Link: Eva Mendes (Disclaimer: This one is very tedious, she cameos for about 5 seconds in the next film)
5. Knocked Up
Link: Leslie Mann
6. Change Up
Link: Olivia Wilde
7. In Time (not that great a movie, I will admit)
Link: Justin Timberlake
8. Friends with Benefits (it has its moments, but also not that great and has the most awful cheesy ending)
Link: Emma Stone/ Patricia Clarkson (bonus points for getting two actors! I awarded myself with a high five)
9. Easy A (quite simply one of the most amazing films of all time, if you haven't seen it, you haven't lived)
Link: Stanley Tucci
10. The Devil Wears Prada (freakin LOVE that movie)

I then planned for a:
Link: Anne Hathaway
11. Love and Other Drugs

but the internet started working again so out went that plan. Instead I curled up in bed and watched a series of Doctor Who I have not only seen before, but I have seen so many times, I can quote almost every line of most of the episodes... having said that, I still managed to refuse to go to bed until I had reached the last episode (before the specials begin) just because I needed to see the Doctor and Rose again, thus meaning that I didn't go to bed until about 3am this morning, which brings me to the comment that I wanted to make for this post, and that is:

I'm tired, so I probably won't have much to say today.

Peace out my lovelies.