In The Thick Of It

It's a Saturday. I'm vaguely hungover. 6 Music is on and I've consumed three cups of tea so far today. After the kerfuffle of Christmas and New Year, it's funny how the treadmill of the banal just flings you right into another routine. It just happens to be in another decade.

That being said, January has been interesting so far and we're only sixteen days into it. There's something in the air this month, I think it's transition. Obviously, there's always transition since we're all victims of that unstoppable bastard time, but I just get this feeling 2010 is going to be a significant year. Friends are switching jobs, getting married, expecting babies, moving in together; all sorts of life-changing events are already marked in the 2010 calendar.

Nothing has really changed for me in January so far, I know I am going to remain in London for another year. I've already spectacularly defied my New Year's detox and gym resolutions, and the one about being generally sensible and grown-up. Though I have achieved one, which was about me stopping making a tit of myself in front of someone - I successfully handled their presence this week with no falling over, no squeaking, no accidental booting under the desk and generally came across as a fairly normal and competent person rather than the babbling teenage idiot which sometimes possesses me. In your face, resolution!

What has been excellent so far in January is the music I've already discovered. Suggested downloads:

Local Natives Airplanes - OC band, big harmonies, thudding drums and elating strings. S'nice.

Beach House Norway - ethereal, dreamy, lush. Good late night track

Vampire Weekend Contra album - Brilliance. Outdone their debut. Mad Afro meets NYC preppy with smart arse lyrics and insanely catchy riffs. If you spend only £8 on music this year, make it this. Start with Cousins, go onto White Sky then just rinse the rest of the album.

Animal Collective What Would I Want? Sky - more layered, electro, blissful loveliness


I've also been enjoying geeking out with a rather lovely iPhone app called Hipstamatic: adds great vintage effect photo filters and it's made to function like an old camera - nice interface and even nicer results. Let's face it, the iPhone camera is quite frankly a let down so anything like this is an improvement really.

One brand new thing I did today for the first time ever, was tried out my new Pax Vita accupressure mat. Lying on a mat containing hundreds of really quite sharp points probably shouldn't be pleasurable, but genuinely was. Perhaps it's just me that actually enjoys a low level of pain? After a few minutes adjusting, with some good tracks playing, I relaxed and afterwards felt genuinely warm and fuzzy. It's my new obsession. Apparently you can use it on your face too, so if you encounter me and I've got little marks on my face, it's just the magical mat and not me coming off badly in a fight with a hedgehog or anything.

Gym: Reasons for & against

The gym.

The 21st century necessity.

The antidote to our hectic, stressful, indulgent lifestyles. The counteractivity to sitting on our arses all day at work.

Ahhh, the gym. Or as I like to think of it, the place I pay an obscene amount of cash to every month, to feel inadequate and get physically punished (but secretly like it.) It's like a socially acceptable, corporate S&M dungeon. With less leather. (Saying that, I was working out recently behind an old man who clearly was sporting a thong underneath his white shorts. I was a bit sick in my mouth. Anyway, I digress.)

Reasons to go:

To get fit, obviously.

To get strong.

To tone up and slim down.

To be able to smoke cigarettes and drink wine on a weekend and at least feel I am doing the tiniest thing to balance this out.

To work off some of the massive stress I accrue every week.


Reasons not to go:

It's really expensive and on top of the hard-earned wedge I pay every month for the privilege of smelling other peoples' sweat; they expect me to pay more for towels and water. Outrageous.

You get sweaty. In front of other people. Mainly City traders.

It really hurts sometimes. Squats aren't my friend.

I have an innate fear of slipping gracelessly backwards off the cross trainer or treadmill. It's inevitable. Apart from possible injury, I am going to look a right twat when this happens.

I go a bit patchy when I get hot. This is also not a good look.

Hyperventilating after about four minutes on the cross trainer also makes you look like an asthmatic geriatric....



This blog is a distraction technique to not be on the cross trainer right now. No'rn Ir'on is introducing me to the Power Plate shortly. I am intrigued. And more than a bit scared.

Right, let's go and do some lunges.