Courting controversy? Moi? January 31, 2009

the beans shall no more be spilt

You might have noticed that I took a blog post down. I’m not one to court controversy, but it seems that I certainly headed that way with a certain posting!!

 

Wanting an easy life, I didn’t fancy my day in court – put it that way…

 

BTW, thanks to all my blogger buds and media-savvy pals for the advice and support.  Some of you wanted me to adopt a more bullish approach than I have done.   Maybe I’ll muse over it all one day once the dust has settled…

 

Hat tip to my pal for the pic!

Professional/private – going public? January 26, 2009

I’ve been dabbling in social media for a wee while now, having a well established FB account, a relatively well developed blog and an active tweet-life.

 

I was musing this morning whether it’s harder to keep your professional life separate from your private life in this day and age of blurred online boundaries. My FB account is strictly for fun and only trusted colleagues are my mates on there. There’s no way I’d want the great and the good of my corporate world to see some of the pics on my profile!

 

My blog is more personal than professional, although I do put some media and PR related thoughts on here from time to time. I tend to use my mum as a moral compass for my blog.  I don’t post up anything that I think would offend or shock my mum – and although this kind of gives me confidence that my blog is not disturbing or potentially harmful to my reputation, I still hardly ever post links directing people to it from Twitter.  I love Twitter, but I’m not sure my professional contacts (of which there’s quite a few on Twitter) would appreciate reading in depth about me making marmalade, planning my wedding or slagging off a rugby ref.
Or would they?

 

My tweeting is the arena where the professional/private line becomes blurry.  It’s a complete mixture.  One moment I could be revealing that I am 33% fat (according to Boots machine), the next moment putting up a tweet about OU BBC programmes or a press release I’m working on.  Musing about it from a professional point of view, I kinda like to think that people following me (some journos, colleagues, PR people and then some randoms, including Will Carling) like to see a mix of my day job activities, plus a bit of detail which indicates what I’m like as a person. It can’t hurt to show fellow twitterers a bit of myself as well as using it for work related activities, surely?  In fact, I think going purely professional on Twitter can be a mistake, as journalistic tweeters then see you as solely exploiting it to push out PR puff. 

 

But you have to be mindful of what you are doing work-related on Twitter too – god forbid I ever end up on this site . Twitter’s a useful tool for keeping track of what your key journalists are up to and working on, which could give you some leads - but I can’t see journalists much appreciating tonnes of 140 character pitches from PR people in return; for that, I favour the old fashioned phone/email option.  I can see why companies use it too, as a customer service extension - it can be a cracking way to rapidly respond to a pressing issue.  I’ve signed up to twilerts for this reason, so at least twice daily I can see what references there are to the OU on Twitter.

 

So back to whether Twitter should be a solely professional or public thing, I did a quick straw poll,

 …one of the first responses, from @sclater was along my lines of thinking, that it should be a blend of professional, private and PR.  My buddy @alisonwaller thinks otherwise, that Twitter should be professional and facebook private.  @liamgh had a good point, that if you reveal your ‘private’ life on twitter as well as talking shop, people may be more likely to trust you – that’d be an interesting idea to explore more – and @guyweb noted that zero personality is not a good selling point on Twitter.

 

I think that gets to the nub of it for me.  In order to tweet with personality and keep your followers, you need to get interest in yourself as well as in your company/product etc.  Being human and having a conversation rather than pushing out information and PR materials is the way forward.

 

My followers can therefore expect more body fat updates in future tweets!!

The smell of septoplasty success? January 14, 2009

It’s now 9 days on from my nose operation, and the swelling – which was minimal – has all but gone.  I spent 10 mins last night looking in the mirror at my new nose, which I’m convinced is a bit more wonky than it used to be.

My nose was never perfect but it was straight-ish.  I’m sure it leans to the left now, possibly an upshot of the surgeon trying to correct all the deviated crap in my left nostril during the operation.  I still have stitches in one nostril so perhaps that’s skewing it a bit, but still  -  it’s a bit wonky.  The Boy says so too, but then I looked at his conk properly (for the first time?) and saw that his snozzer was well off a straight and even course.

 

Vanity aside, as it’s probably only noticeable to me, I am now feeling the benefits of the surgery.  My sense of smell has really suddenly picked up.  In my best bud’s house the other day her hyacinths on the windowsill were nearly overpowering my senses, and the marmalade yesterday smelt intense – Fantastic!  That was, until The Boy ate a big veggie curry and the inevitable windy after effects kicked in.  Sense of smell not so good in that situation!!

 

Another benefit I’ve noticed is that I’m starting to breathe through my nose a lot more. Last night in bed I was reading with my mouth shut, breathing like a normal person, which is a complete change from my usual Darth-Vader sounding breathing.

 

Both these indicate that the op has been a success, even if I’m a bit wonky still.  I’m getting into the salt-spray as well, it’s very effective at clearing things out and a lady I know has kept up doing this months and months after the operation. I might follow suit.

 

Onwards now, I’ve got batch number 2 of marmalade on the go today so must go stir!

Is the economy biting – or just nibbling a bit…? January 13, 2009

I concur with my buddy Robyn’s view, that no news is good news – she’s a journo, so she should know.  Cocooned in my house for the past 8 days, I’ve had ample chance to devour the papers and tune into breakfast, lunch and 6pm bulletins – as a media relations officer, I probably should be as well – but I’ve barely managed to read T2 this past week and have positively avoided the tv news by sticking to my SATC dvd diet – the only time I have read a paper from cover to cover was whilst I was waiting to get the nod to leave hospital and desperately trying to avoid chatting to the man who wanted to talk all the time.  Deep breath – that was a long sentence.  

 

I’m not sure what my reason for avoiding the news is at the moment, usually I’m drowning in it at work with RSS feeds, daily emails and BBC News as my homepage, maybe I’m just enjoying the break and indulging in other things – like wedding planning and today, making marmalade! 

 

Through the haze of seville orange steam, I can see that the economy is all over the place, and yes although money and numbers and jobs are important, I’m kinda not *really* interested – maybe that’s a reason for my current news-avoidance. That sounds bad though – I am interested when it affects me, and this is how I’ve been affected by the downturn so far:

 - mortgage payments on all our properties have gone down – good times

- Nissan, who The Boy works for, announced job cuts  - bad times

 - Our honeymoon may now be a tour of the south coast of England in the camper van, rather than a trip to Ireland, cos of the Euro.  Or, it might be in a car park near the wedding, if The Boy doesn’t get it moving:

Trevor the van

 - Slight upturn in our thriftyness in the household, I would say (cheaper meals, less eating/drinking out, no weekends away for a while)

But, like Robyn, I haven’t yet been massively affected by the downturn.  I know of people who have lost their jobs and seriously hope that neither mine or The Boy’s are in real jeopardy yet.  But I remember my Dad getting redundant when we were kids (I loved it actually, because he was at home and had time to make our sarnies for packed lunch – important, cos he cut sandwiches into triangles, I tell you, not squares like Mother did) – we, as a family of six, survived that.  Recessions do end, jobs emerge, people get through it by not buying massive plasma tvs on credit and instead, scrimping a bit.  I may have a less postitive view if redundancy ever comes my way, but at the moment, I’m not too worried.

 

This is all of course in the context of spending a heck of a lorra cash on The Big Day later this year. We’re lucky, both sets of parents are chucking us a few quid, and we’re being creative and bargain hunting wherever we can (yesterday’s good finds were 150 candles for less than 50p each, and terracotta pots for table centres for £1.50 each, hooopla!!).  We’re also taking advantage of people we know with talents – Dad bakes cakes, mate does flowers, sister has a wine shop – all good. 

Like thousands of others, I subscribe to the Moneysavingexpert email update and this week, I actually got time to read it properly and take advantage of some stuff.  Usually I skim read and delete as I know I won’t get time to get round to following his advice and leads.  This week, being incarcerated at home recovering, I’ve had time to research and write to my banks to ask for unfair charges to be repaid (only £30 from if.com – but better in my account than theirs – and awaiting info from Alliance and Leicester), and I’ve managed to get 90 photo prints free from Jessops as well, which I never would have done if I was on my usual routine of flying in and out of the house, stuffing food down my gob and then sweating it out with exercise (I’m banned from exercise for 2 weeks. It’s doing my nut).

 

Who knows what 2009 will bring?  The certainty, despite any economic doom, is that I’m gonna get a husband, hopefully a camper van that works, I’ll be tucking into home-made marmalade and will continue having great times with my good pals – now, that can’t be bad, eh?

Wedding Mission critical January 10, 2009

Last night I had a nightmare that it was my wedding day and I hadn’t confirmed the florist, or printed the orders of service. Or done the invites – gah!!

 

Woke up deciding that in my next week of sick leave I am going to do a critical path to The Big Day, noting all the time bound actions and every little thing that has to be considered. Then I will sleep easy!

the big reveal January 8, 2009

 

Operation Nose, Mark 3, was set for Monday just gone and finally, thankfully, it actually went ahead this time.  I hadn’t had long to dwell on the impending surgery, thanks to an action packed weekend of footie at Forest Green and a visit to the darts at the Lakeside (both brill), so I wasn’t too trepidatious come Monday morning.

 

The hospital didn’t have a bed for me when I arrived so I had to get changed into my nightie and green stockings and sit in the waiting room, where the anaesthetic and surgeon came to see me.  The anaesthetist was an Eastern European guy who seemed really sweet, but he did have a very small black moustache which, with his accent, immediately made me think he was rather like a James Bond villain.  The surgeon was a blonde blue eyed and very young guy, so a complete contrast to James Bond villain man, although he wasn’t quite a Daniel Craig lookeelikee. That would have been ultra weird.
Off I trotted down to theatre, and before I knew it I was in the villain’s hands again.  I was literally shaking at this point with nerves especially when he said “just relax…” but no sooner was the jab in, than I was out, and the next thing I knew I was in recovery.  Thank goodness, no “I woke up during surgery” stories to sell to Take a Break.  My first instinct was to touch my nose – still there. Excellent.

 

On getting back to the ward, I took a pic of myself on my mobile and found a very sorry sight with a large bulbous nose, packed with bandages, but gladly no black eyes so that was good.  Throughout the afternoon I dozed quite happily but it was at night time when the fun and games started.

 

I was in a mainly male ward and my bay was all blokes – a quiet chap who seemed sweet, a guy who’d been in there for a week and knew all the nurses and wanted to chat loads, and a chap next to me who’d swallowed his own denture plate.  He couldn’t talk very well, having had his two front teeth plus the plate down his neck, and sounded like Madge from neighbours, but a lot deeper and a LOT louder.  The highlight of his new vocal talents (unintelligable to many) was when at 9.30pm, he turned on his radio and started singing along to Take That.  I kid you not. I was laying there trying to sleep and listening to warped troll voice man belting out ‘Greatest Day’.  For godssake!!  He was also having some sort of vivid dreams if the rest of the night’s quips and shouting episodes were anything to go by.

 

This guy was accompanied by what seemed to me to be the International Snoring Competition for the male over 40 category, with many in the ward having a good shout at the title.  Wheezes, coughs, splutters, snores, shouts, we had a great variety of sounds to keep me occupied.  I was not a happy big nosed bunny.

 

Anyhoo, morning did arrive at last and the surgeon came round to see me.  Apparently my septum needed an awful lot of work, and part of it was dislocated as well as the gross deviation to correct.  Nice, non!!  He thought it went well and after a while I got my packs taken out (felt like the nurse was dragging my brain through my nostril, believe me it was horrid). A couple of hours later, I was on my way home again, thank goodness, with a nice bandage/bolster thingy strapped under my nose.  Amazing how you don’t care what you look like when you’re ill though – I wanted some fresh air so stood outside the main entrance with my lank greasy hair and bloodied bandage, waiting for my lift home.

 

So a few days on, I’m feeling quite good. The nose is going down gradually and is being well behaved. I’m not allowed to blow my nose for 6 weeks which will be weird and no exercise or anything strenuous for 2 weeks in case of bleeding.   I am sitting on my backside all day reading books and eating Christmas choccies – bad news for the B2B beautifying campaign! Ho hum.

 

So how do I look?  The nose at the moment I think looks a bit off centre, but maybe it was always like that? I can’t quite remember what I looked like. It’s slightly freaky that it looks like a bigger version of a normal nose - it would have been a bit less weird if it was hugely inflamed with loads of bruising but as it is, I just look like I’ve stumbled into Pinocchio and told my first lie.  I’m having to put salt spray up my nose three times a day, plus nose drops three times a day which isn’t too ardous, although the salt spray makes my eyes water.  

The worst thing I’ve found, so far, is yawning. A big yawn seems to move my nostrils around which can be a bit painful.  No sneezes to contend with yet and I intend to keep out the way of anyone with the lurgy – the nurse advised me to sneeze with my mouth open if I feel the need – so that’ll be nice for anyone nearby!

 

Ok, seeing as you all wanted it, here’s a pic of me and my nose – not as exciting as I’d anticipated and I can’t get the photos off my phone showing the immediate aftermath, so this one is one day post surgery and really not that dramatic – see what you think…

 

Festive highlights January 2, 2009

Nothing deep and meaningful to say in my first blog post of 2009, (I don’t normally go deep and meaningful either so no change there).  However, here’s  a few of my festive highlights:

- Spending time in Gloucestershire (Nailsworth) with The Boy’s family: very quiet, very relaxing.  Attempts to sing high-pitched carols on Christmas morning at the Convent = fail.  Mother-in-law’s attempts at charades and other quick-witted games = comedy gold.

- Sporting outings:  Boxing day game at Bristol Rovers.  Despite high-octane “Aaarrrs” from the crowd, it was a boring game.  It’s looking up for  this weekend though – we’re off to Forest Green tomorrow, followed by Darts at the Lakeside on Sunday.  Let’s!! Play!! Darts!!

-  NYE games were tops, with the gang meeting up for a house party involving charades, rapidough and my fave, the string on a spoon game.  Nearly cried with laughter at the spoon getting caught and dragging my underwear up out of my trousers.  I was glad to be amongst friends at this moment of dishevellment!!

- Good telly: 39 Steps was ace (Rupert Penry-Jones, a blond boy I find hot – who’d a thought it?!), as was Wallace and Gromit-fest on Christmas day, and the Heroes of Telemark, on yesterday.  My Frankie Boyle DVD didn’t go down so well with Mother-in-law to be, though…

- Wine tasting.  Christmas was quite dry this year (drinking lots with cold/coughing going on is not good. Benylin it was, gin it was not) – but Sis made up for it with a wine tasting session for our wedding, being our designated booze supplier. She’s the owner of Corkscrew Wines in Carlisle along with her other half, and they brought down 9 wines, plus 2 fizzies for us to try and pick for the wedding.  Oof it was nice. We’ve gone for 2 chilean reds (both from Norte Chico), a lovely Chardonnay (I’m not a chardonnay drinker and I love it), a sauvignon blanc, a merlot rose and then a prosecco for drinking on arrival, with a Cremant for the toasts.

And for 2009? Well, plenty of highlights to come, I think.  The year started well with a new baby boy coming into the world, belonging to two good friends of ours.  Then there’s seven weddings to celebrate, including our own, and other grown up stuff that I’m excited about like growing more veg (butternut squash and kohl rabi on this year’s seed list), decorating the hallway and not least – finally getting my nose operation. It’s scheduled for Monday 5 January so fingers crossed it’ll go ahead – New Year, New Nose.