My Top 5 ‘boot-filling-moments’ – ThoughtsThursday

Working a shift waitressing, my wonderful co-worker shared a family saying that I am shame-facedly stealing to share also with you…

 “Fill your boots with home” 

As a student dashing from ‘home’ to ‘home-home’ (this has been my abbreviation for ‘my real home when I am not at uni’, do let me know if a better word or phrase exists) the idea of actually filling ones boots is both exactly what I would like to do when away, and what I am blessed to be able to do when I am indeed at ‘home-home’.

My top 5 ‘boot fillers would include:
1) A cracking mummy-shannon roast. Beef, Yorkshires and please can we have roast veg?

2) Exchanging funny stories, anecdotes and hilarious ‘what if’ situations, with my family over a relaxed evening meal followed by…

3) …Singing hymns in the acoustically gorgeous kitchen with my Dad singing the harmony part while we wash up.

4) Making the time and brain space to dedicate to creating something.

5) Watching an old favourite of a film with my sister and profusely quoting it.

I would be very interested to hear any ‘boot-fillers’ you may have if you would be up for sharing them…

Turnips; and is writing this blog worth it? – WorkWednesday

My brother turned up early one morning to look for something in my (his old) room a few days ago. On learning I was giving blogging a bash promptly told me – whilst rummaging around beneath my desk – that I should write about turnips.

If his idiom isn’t clear, he was referring to the need to write to a niche and make the simple, beautiful. That or he is giving me far more credit for my green-fingered ability than is unquestionably fair.

However, as a newbie on the block, this bewildered blogger is very grateful to her growing audience.

But I am currently writing ‘all over the show’ so to speak from shoes and The Script to second cousins once removed and savoury taste detection.

I wondered if it would be possible for you to send me a single line to @rachelmshannon with what you think I should write about after my studently-long-summer is over.

In advance, I am most appreciative. Thank you.

The Piano Guys – TuneTuesday

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

I flippin’ love The Piano Guys.

Unfamiliar? Two musical geniuses and an incredible creative team put together a delectable and musically stupendous feat, served to ones ears at around about 4 minutes a piece.

One chap on a piano, one on a cello for the most part, they play with such an enjoyable vibrancy whilst wearing ridiculous grins of enthusiasm much of the time.

As a whole, the videos from ThePianoGuys channel on YouTube are borne out of hearts seeking to create works of art.

Some music is performed at a ‘wonder of the world’, some in the form of a music video with a sense of humour (Mission Impossible) and some using drone-helicopter shots in a near-ice-palace (Let it Go and Beethoven’s 4^th Mashup) .

I’ll leave you with this cover of Swedish House Mafia’s ‘Don’t You Worry Child’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gCulUDvALM&list=UUmKurapML4BF9Bjtj4RbvXw&index=9

Enemy of the State – MoviesMonday

Enemy of the State – ‘I get cranky when I don’t eat’ – the quote that started a debate of what film it came from, ensured this particular film got a recent re-watch.

As an action-thriller of ’98, it does feel pretty dated with bricks being heaved out of suit jacket pockets instead of phones and the only problem of a prearranged villain-good-guy-meeting is a ‘bug’ (that are the size of Minstrels).

Apart from a fair bit of swearing from a rather fresh-faced Will Smith, it does have a certain amount of charm to it and seeing the excitement of using satellites and lapel cameras the size of Smarties does bring a quaint smile to ones face.

But before it sounds like I am condemning it to be a 90’s relic, its underlying theme – public information safety – is more relevant today than ever.

As fast paced as anything currently in the cinemas, but with Will’s humour pleasantly found keeping spirits up throughout the course of the film.

I had forgotten how much appreciation I esteem to ‘clever twists’ towards the end of a movie and Enemy of the State delightfully delivers.

Definitely worth the 15 rating for violence and language, but a good Friday-evening-action-watch if you missed it or can’t remember who Brill is.

 

Pixar Stories – Scripture/StorySaturday

Stories I have a lot of time for usually come neatly wrapped in plastic and found on a DVD with a big Disney-Pixar stamp on them.

 

Master storytellers.

 

Taking the classic film themes of friendship and flawed-heroes and, in my opinion, genuinely work magic.

 

Where would we be with no Dory and Marlin, Woody and Buzz or Mike and Sulley?

 

I dare not think but am super glad their stories have been shared.

My Top 5: Tongue&Taste – Fam/Food/Friend/FreedomFriday

As an undergrad-physiologist I am now given a little more leash to be openly fascinated by the body and its reflexes, processes and general awesomeness.

Our taste lectures were left my brain baffled at something we take for absolute granted but here’s my top 5 on the Tongue and Taste:

1. Only when I accidentally bite my tongue do I appreciate my brain’s private chat with the intrinsic muscles of my tongue every time I fill my face.

2. The latest theory is that you do in fact taste everything everywhere on the tongue but you are better at tasting certain flavours in certain areas – like the old school ‘taste-map’ but better.

3. The ‘umami’ taste is a ‘savoury’ flavour that is linked to being stimulated by the food additive monosodium glutamate (MSG) and is umami is dumped with the blame for you overeating the last time you had a Chinese takeaway. A final word: Pringles.

4. Sweeteners like Aspartame work by binding to the taste receptors for sweet detection on the tongue, but are not an identical shape to standard sugar and therefore bind for a different length of time giving you the ‘sugar-free-aftertaste’.

5. We could get our daily nutritional requirements by chewing on a piece of cardboard but instead, the mind boggles at the variety, delicacy and downright-tastiness of food. From perusing menus with a special someone, whipping out your mum’s famous tray-bake recipe for an occasion, putting the world to rights over a pint or just cooking up a dinner after work more flavoursome than the sum of its parts… taste makes it.

Why I Don’t Want To Make YouTube Videos – ThoughtsThursday

Recently I wrote a poem encompassing the fear of creating for the consequences entitled: ‘Why I Don’t Want To Make YouTube Videos’. Which did indeed end up on YouTube… here.

Working through the creative process was more than a little ironic, picking through the reasons why, specifically internet-creating, often feels like it has more cons than pros. The poem works through why I believe, I and others, should ‘do something rather than nothing’ and I hinge on two great quotes that I wanted to give a little more air time to:

Bruce Lee thought that,

 

‘mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them’

 

and Teddy Roosevelt said,

 

‘It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed’

 

I wish as a society we had the bravery to live by these quotes more often.

Top 5 things to know before you next set foot in a shoe shop – WorkWednesday

Having worked in a shoe shop for my 6^th form Saturdays and gap year, allow me to share some of my shoe-spertise in my top 5 unisex shoe shopping tips:

 

1. Shoe size is just a number, just like different clothes shops have different sizes within their own brand, please don’t staunchly demand you will only try a 6 when the shop assistant is gently asking you to try a 5 before he orders it in for you. American/UK/European/World brands have a whole host of different sizes called different numbers but don’t freak out if the box you’re given has the ‘wrong number’ on it – look for your countries size before throwing a hissy fit.

 

2. Wearing shoes in is actually a thing. Hard leather and longer life go hand in hand… or feet together? Whatever the phrase, walk around the house like a wally with your ankle socks on to get the leather to mould to you feet before you hit the town in your new heels or a full day in the office in your Barkers.

 

3. Unless you have a rabbit-in-the-headlights-newbie, you can actually ask your shop assistant for advice. We often know more than you think and can give good suggestions on, for example, which brands which have wider fittings or if we know of something appropriate off the shop floor. Having said this, please don’t overly ask for fashion advice as it is our equivalent of ‘does my bum look big in this?’ and leaves everyone awkward. You may laugh but it happens. A lot.

 

4. If your assistant is taking a while to return with your requested shoes from the stock room, don’t pass a snide comment even in jest. We may serve 50 customers that day and if everyone does that… that sucks. Instead bide your time thinking of an encouraging comment to leave with that does not reflect the persons looks, this will most likely make someone’s dull day. We will return having balanced 3 boxes of shoes on one knee while clinging onto a step ladder reaching a fourth box for another customer while writing a special order ticket, answering the phone and letting the delivery in. Also, sorry to burst your bubble but the stock room does in no way resemble the storage found at the end of Indiana Jones…

Indianna Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

 

5. As you leave, it doesn’t hurt to just check yourself that you indeed have the pair and size you want. Saturday-sale-rush can take our eyes off the ball but we will get in serious hot water if we sell something wrong. If you’ve had half the stock room out strewn over the floor as sales assistants ferret around you picking up shoe-stuffing and your discarded shoes please have the decency to check you are buying what you want and not blaming us for your ignorance later… and check you are ok with their returns policy… please… I am using cyber-ink for this for a reason.

Horror – MoviesMonday

Horror?

 

I can’t stand it.

 

Why would anyone voluntarily subject themselves to having the wits scared out of them? Be it nightmares re-interpreting the gore or finding yourself twitching at every corner in a quiet house because it messed with your head – I do not understand it.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I am a massive adrenaline junkie, but the thing with big rides is they’re just fun! Imagining you are going to fall off at any given moment or go (literally) hurtling into a large quantity of water…

 

But aside from the obvious contradictions in my thinking, I respect it as a genre but just as I’m not thrilled to the bone on salty popcorn, I guess it is just not my flavour.

 

Wait.

 

Did someone say something about a new Disney-Pixar?!

#Superheroes – TuneTuesday

With big musical appreciation and respect for these guys for a good while, today’s tune has got to go to The Script – Superheroes.

The Script – Mark, Danny and Glen

For some background music for as you read… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y7ygEDRpSo&list=PL30DC226EE516ECB8

 

This ‘Man Who Can’t Be Moved’ band haven’t lost their Irish charm and in a recent interview it was apparent that haven’t lost their enthusiasm for good music and appreciation for #TheScriptFamily around the world either.

Pleasant watching also, to see people who have fought tooth and nail to get where they are, but who don’t seem to have changed as much as debatably others who may have had the same success over 8 years.

A tiny part of me did wonder if they would have sold out or tried to reinvent themselves, but on hearing a few snippets that they have circulated on the interweb (Man on a Wire, No Good in Goodbye, The Energy Never Dies, for the keen amongst you) the new album ‘No Sound Without Silence’ is set to be a much awaited treat for the ears.

Despite themselves quipping that they are ‘the break up band’, I find their honest and deep-thinking lyrics and clever use of language makes their music connect much more, surprising as that may be, than much-pop-stuff that just sings about superficial rubbish.

The exploration of the idea of where indeed is ‘the good in goodbye’ and jokingly deciding that the only thing that would make a man walk a wire between the twin towers has got to be a gal, all the while being musically interesting, is a Script fan’s dream. There’s some sailing-strings surging around in the backing and what we have been allowed to hear thus far is topped off with some energy-full-art-work by an artist they were keen on but who I have thus far been unable to Google or the identity of.

 

The lyrics –

‘When you’ve been fighting for it all your life
You’ve been struggling to make things right
That’s how a superhero learns to fly’

 – do have a certain resonance to them that scratches below the throng of Avenger-esq movies we are being fed and does bounce the ball back into the court of the ‘single mom’ and those for who step up to life’s challenges.

 

With further anticipation I look forward to seeing the music video, filmed in Johannesburg with local people, the heroes of the song.

I am excited at the prospect of more music of good sing-a-long-ability, less ‘Blurred Lines’ and more ‘National-Anthem’… but one to which you actually know the words.

Well, here’s to Superheroes. Go storm the charts and I’ll be watching to see you fly.