You may remember that some time ago I made a series of posts about the appalling quality of service which is offered by Cross Country trains between Birmingham and Leicester. If you don’t remember, you can read about it here and here. Well, it’s time for a long overdue update… (more…)

Working in a corporate environment, you get used pretty quickly to the idea that nobody actually cares. That’s fine, that’s fair enough; no one is being paid to care. But what annoys me, and I mean really, really annoys me, is when they start *pretending* to care! (more…)

Once upon a time I had a very annoying friend who, whenever we fell out, used to admonish me with the phrase, “Clare, du bist immer so inkonsequent!”. At the time, this used to annoy me considerably, but with the benefit of several years distance I am able to admit that he did have a point. “Inkonsequent” is a very good word to describe me. My dictionary translates it rather inadequately as “inconsistent”, which is a translation I don’t like. In English, inconsistent is a word I would only tend to use in mathematics or logic. A set can be inconsistent if it gives rise to a paradox, and any logical argument I have the misfortune to attempt to forumulate generally ends up being inconsistent too. “Inkonsequent” seems to me to have a much richer meaning than this. It implies that I don’t know my own mind, which is regrettably true. (more…)

I was horribly depressed all today, and for reasons outside my control ended up being subjected to the vast majority of the Sound of Music. This was a film which I hadn’t seen since I was about nine, at which point it reduced me to floods of tears. It reduced me to tears today also, although I would like to point out that I don’t normally cry in films and it was my personal situation which caused me to feel somewhat weepy. That said, despite all the cheesey singing and dancing it *is* a rather depressing story. I feel especially sorry for the oldest girl, whose boyfriend turns out to be a Nazi and stops speaking to her I enjoyed seeing the footage of Salzburg actually, which I think is the most beautiful city I have ever seen, although I am a little confused as to how one can climb a mountain from there and end up in Switzerland. (more…)

Today I finally finished a novel which I have been spasmodically reading for the best part of three weeks – Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott. Having somehow missed Walter Scott out of my childhood literary education, it would never have occurred to me to pick this book up at all had it not been a sort of gift, but I am very glad that I did and will hopefully get around to reading some of his other works in the future. I probably didn’t do it justice at all by reading it in such a disjointed fashion and over such a prolonged period of time, but nevertheless I enjoyed it immensely (more…)

How many people, I wonder, were as sad as me and spent all week looking forward to that most fantastic of all comedy shows – the Eurovision song contest? I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening, although it was a little sad that for the first time ever I wasn’t able to watch it with my sister. She kept in touch throughout the competition though to be updated on what Wogan was saying and to give us a flavour of the German commentary. The German presenter was apparently taking things quite seriously, and after the UK entry announced in surprise, “What is happening? The British have actually entered a decent song!” (more…)

In the interests of avoiding further confusion, there is a further issue I would like to point out; namely, that a couple of hours ago, my boyfriend and I decided to split up. Whilst it is perhaps better to avoid washing one’s dirty linen in public, I mention this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because it means he will no longer be doing anything to my website. Not being terribly technically minded, it may be that I will at some point accidentally delete my website, or at least unintentionally turn it bright green or something, now that I will be taking responsibility for it myself, and so this is your advanced warning not to be surprised The other reason for mentioning it is just that it would seem a bit rude not to, seeing as it is a relationship which has been an important part of my life for the past year or so. (more…)

Anyone who read my blog yesterday will have seen a rather depressing sounding post in which I mentioned the idea of throwing myself under a train. This post has now been deleted as I did not feel it added very much to the overall content of the blog. I would like, however, to make several points in relation to it in case anyone was confused. (more…)

Being in a mood where I have lots of important things to do and am anxious not to do any of them, I decided to conduct a survey of my Facebook acquaintance. This was prompted by the fact that yet another person who I would never have expected in a million years to add me as a friend, just did. My policy when someone adds me as a friend on Facebook is to click yes, even if I dislike the person intensely. This is partly because I have an insatiable curiousity to read about what people are doing with their lives, and partly because I don’t like being consciously rude. (more…)

How do you read the following sentence?

Opportunityisnowhere. (more…)