Little Miss Sunshine is a low budget film about a dysfunctional family taking a road trip in a yellow VW van through the least glamorous parts of the USA. It’s the opposite of a Hollywood blockbuster, yet it grossed over 100 million dollars at the box office and won two Oscars. What’s so great about it? Let me explain… LMS has a cast of characters … Continue reading Films that shaped me: Little Miss Sunshine
I had dreams of working in the publishing industry and it turned out to be different from how I imagined it. From 2007 to 2018 I worked in b2b publishing, at a company that used to publish over 100 magazines. It was a chaotic time for print media. ‘Print is dead!’ everyone said. The writing was on the wall. People were buying magazines less and … Continue reading Print is alive
The Midlands – By far the best part of England. <BBC Midlands today> 1. A fictional place in Britain because no one knows where it really starts or finishes. 2. Re-named to Birmingham to disguise its poor identity and reputation. This didn’t work. … Continue reading Made in Stoke
On Saturday 20th October, I was on the streets of London at a peaceful demonstration to call for a second referendum on Brexit. It’s being called ‘a people’s vote’, a chance for us to vote on the issue of leaving the EU with full awareness of what that would mean for people in the future. Along with almost 700,000 who attended, I believe that the … Continue reading Activism reactivated
When I read Emma Gannon’s excellent book the Multi-Hyphen Method, I was struck by a page describing different generations. Gen X is labelled as those born in 1961 – 1980 whilst Millennials are those born in 1982 – 2004. Having been born in 1981, according to these brackets I am in neither category. Yet according to some definitions, I am a Millennial. Though perhaps a … Continue reading Geriatric Millennials: my generation
New York. Concrete jungle. It’s the third time I’ve been here. Both previous trips were limited to a few days and I didn’t really get my head around the city. It felt like…London’s bossier cousin. Now I have more time to explore. I’ve decided not to buy a data package for my phone because despite the strong temptation to be guided by the Internet, I … Continue reading New York without data
Killing Eve is a TV series written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. And it’s amazing! I haven’t been hooked on a TV program for a while. The latest BBC dramas seem so predictable that my attention span is rarely able to last an episode. But Killing Eve is a very different proposition and commands attention. For a start, it has the best, most disruptive female characters ever. … Continue reading TV obsession: Killing Eve
A survey was released showing how non-Londoners perceive the capital city. Comparing the raw data to its reporting in the media is a topical reminder of how data can be manipulated to tell a sensationalist story. Many of the headlines are aimed at fuelling the divide between London and not-London. Here is the real deal. The results show that: 38% visit London once a year or … Continue reading The complicated love of London
Growing older is something we don’t talk about enough. We live in a society that prizes eternal youth. So we must stay quiet about it. Beyond a certain age, to be mistaken for being younger is a huge compliment and a personal victory of sorts. (I got ID’d in Waitrose – yay). But to be mistaken for being older than you are, well…that’s embarrassing. We … Continue reading Acting our age
I once found myself at a PR event called Regent Tweet. I later found out it had the aim of promoting the businesses on Regent Street in London. I ended up there because I worked in tech and was part of a ‘girl geek’ networking group. Most of us had blogs and social media accounts on the side of our day jobs, which we used … Continue reading The business of influencers
