Merry Christmas - UK Style

It's Christmas Day and saddo old me, I'm taking the time to blog rather than have a bit of Christmas pudding. Actually, I hate Christmas pudding, thus this blog entry. As a mancypino, I have obviously adopted quite a few British Christmas traditions and have decided not to take up a few others, too! After many years in the UK, I've observed a few unique British Christmas traditions, some of which I will outline below:

1) All those hideous Christmas songs! Not the classic carols like Silent Night or Jingle Bells, but the songs you find in compilation CDs: All I Want for Christmas (Mariah Carey), Wonderful Christmas Time (Paul McCartney), and my personal absolute hate, Cliff Richards' Mistletoe and Wine. From about mid-October they play these songs everywhere you go, it is simply impossible to avoid! Why does the general public have to be subjected to this kind of seasonal torture? Surely this is against human rights??

2) Manic food shopping. I went to the supermarket the other day just to replenish a few things I haven't got at home and my local Sainsbury's was a sight to behold. It was absolutely heaving! I saw one woman with a trolley filled with bread. A whole bloomin' trolley! It was as if the country was going to war, or everyone was feeding the 5,000 for Christmas. Supermarkets are only closed for one, two days, max? Surely there's no need to purchase 50 loaves of bread and 500 pints of milk for two days. It's utterly sinful!

3) Speaking of sinful, that's probably the best way to describe the copious amounts of chocolate given, received and consumed in homes across Britain. In the Philippines, where chocolate is crap, we don't have tins of 'Chocnut' or buckets 'Serg' in Filipino homes all over the country during the yuletide season. Over here, however, people are bombarded with Christmas edition tins of Roses, Celebrations and an assortment of Thorntons selections as early as October!

4) Christmas crackers. I love Christmas crackers! Not the ones you eat with cheese and wine, but the ones that you pull to get a cheap toy, a stupid joke and a silly hat.

5) Those unending sofa and furniture adverts. They are everywhere. If not on billboards on the street, they are all over the telly and on the radio advertising sofas so big, you'll need a mansion to fit one in your living room! There is no escape from it! If I see another advert in the next five minutes of writing this, I am going to throw this laptop at the telly!

6) And this last one is my favourite of all - The Christmas Sales. Nothing delights the senses of millions of women all over the world than that four letter word! I can't wait to get my bargains when the sales start on Boxing Day!

In the meantime, I'm off to watch the Queen's speech. Oh, the delights of a British Christmas!

'Tis The Season To Be Jolly! *NOT*

Right, I’m off for my usual rant. So just bear with me as I get on my soapbox.

Tell me, what is wrong with people these days? Isn’t it supposed to be the season of goodwill to all men? And yet, here we are, only a few days til Christmas, and everyone has a short fuse. Present company included.

I saw two people on the weekend, fighting over a hideously over-priced toy, with their kids in tow. What kind of lesson are they teaching their children? Who wants a stupid remote control dinosaur anyway? There is a reason why they are extinct!

And the queue-jumpers. Don't even get me started with queue jumpers.

I was in Comet the other day and some idiot just jumped in front of the queue pretending not to see me.

I was tired, and hungry. All I wanted was to get a stupid iPod and go home, so as you can imagine, I wasn't exactly in a charitable mood. Unfortunately, the guy picked the wrong day to be a tosser!

So I went up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and said, "I'm not stood here waiting to be abducted by aliens, you know!" He looked at me blankly and I said "Now shift it, mister, before I do sommit nasty." I said this in my most mancypino-Boltoney-Salford Scally accent. And it worked!

He moved away, and went out of the shop, leaving his intended purchases behind.

The cheeky beggar didn't even have the deceny to apologise. Then again, what did I expect from a sodding queue-jumper.

Bond...James Bond.

I didn't know what to expect, really. Casino Royale came out at the cinema a few weeks ago to mixed reviews. Everyone seemed to have an opinion - it was love or hate, and never the twain shall meet. As my taste in film isn't what movie connoisseurs would call 'sophisticated', I had no expectations. I simply wanted to watch a film to de-stress after a particularly busy day at work.

And what a film it was! To be honest, Daniel Craig isn't exactly my cup of tea as Bond. Apart from my terrible crush on the very dishy Pierce Brosnan, I just didn't think that a blonde 007 would work. But somehow, Daniel Craig pulled it well. He was dashing and debonaire, quick-witted and charming and right on the ball, even if he gets some of his 'bluffing' skills horribly wrong.

There were a lot of nail-biting moments and loads of chases and punches thrown here, there and everywhere. It also had some of the most breathtaking sceneries ever filmed.

It may not win an Oscar, but it's certainly worth going to see. If you take the movie just as it is you are going to enjoy this action-packed blockbuster. Just a tip though...

Don't try to be too anal and stop nit-picking - you just might enjoy yourself. You're allowed, you know.

By heck, they're having an affair!

Since the beginning of spring, there's a couple who regularly canoodle on a park bench behind the building where I work. Being the nosey beggars that we are, a workmate of mine and I often look out our office window at the mysterious couple and discuss scenarios as to what they are talking about, analysing their body language and just generally making up outrageous stories about the unsuspecting couple who, for the purposes of this blog, will be referred to as Mr & Mrs Two-Timers.

Today, as they have many times before, Mr & Mrs Two-Timers were at it again, for all the world to see. This time, instead of engaging in our usual voyeurism we decided to take on the role of private detective.

Coercing another colleague to walk past the couple with me, we prepped ourselves to act as naturally as possible - just two people walking past on our way somewhere. But just as we were making our way towards the couple, we get accosted by two scallies asking for money, presumably for a few more cans of lager. At the corner of my eye, I see Mr & Mrs TT looking shifty, got up and started to make their way back to work. DRAT!

Instead of abandoning our mission, my workmate decided to follow them, pretending to be super-sleuths...and failing miserably. They clocked on to us, they weren't buying all the pretend non-chalance we tried to act out. Somehow, I don't think we will ever see Mrs and Mrs T again.

God Bless Manchester!

I've recently come back from my holidays and I am loving being back! People think I'm crazy being this excited after languishing in the California sun. But despite enjoying my holiday (I had a fab time, honest!!), I am happy to be back in the cold, dark skies of Manchester.

Why, you wonder? Well, these are at least 10 reasons why I'm happy to be back in Manchester, the heart and soul of the United Kingdom:

1) I'm back to shop assistants who don't ask how I'm doing in a sugary sweet, obviously false way. Brit shop assistants are for the most part friendly, efficient and know customers don't want to wait in long queues uncessesarily so they don't talk all sorts of crap to you pretending to be interested when they clearly aren't.

2) I'm back to eating in restaurants where I get served by people who don't expect a minimum 15% tip for the pleasure of serving you. They serve me because that's their job, and they actually like what they do.

3) I'm back to driving in smooth motorways, clearly signed junctions and slip roads, with drivers who know how to drive properly and know all about road courtesy.

4) I'm back to normal-sized food portions, where a small meal IS a small meal, and where a sandwich is less likely to have GM products that would turn me yellow.

5) I'm back to prices that are the same from when you pick them up until it gets rung at the tills. I hate it when I think I'm buying something for 99 cents, when it actually is $1.09 because of sales tax!

6) I'm back to 'Have I Got News For You', Brit soaps, The Royle Family, Little Britain, The Office, Shameless, etc. American telly is so full of rubbish!

7) I'm back to stylish yet affordable clothing. In America, it's either one or the other.

8) I'm back to fry-ups, beans, cheese on toast, fish and chips and a good old Sunday roast.

9) I'm back with a people with a dry, sarcastic sense of humour, and who don't take themselves too seriously.

10) And last, but not the least, I'm back to a proper cup of tea!

The 'C' Word

On Monday, I had the opportunity to watch Vagina Monologues at the Palace Theatre. To be honest with you, I didn't know what to expect - I knew that it was going to be about a woman's private parts (What gave that away, I wonder?), but essentially, I thought it was going to filthy, hyped-up rubbish. But hey, I got tickets on the cheap, so I went.

As six of us (four women and two either very brave or very stupid men) walked towards the theatre, we were witness to a sea of sisterhood buzzing in anticipation. The show was only going to be in the city for four nights, and a quarter of Manchester's female adult population was at the lobby of the theatre, ensuring they got to see it before it moved to the next city on the tour schedule.

We quickly got settled in our seats and I braced myself for the worst. And how wrong I was! The Vagina Monologues was fantastic - it was not only eye-opening, it was liberating and empowering. It was all about humanity, about women who for whatever reason, denied their sexuality, instead of embracing it. There were parts where I was laughing so hard I was crying, and other parts where I was crying because of women's harrowing stories.

It made me understand the bondage women feel about not being able to break from conformity and culture, and made me appreciate the power of the human body and the human mind. In the end, we all want to feel freedom and satisfaction in whatever we do in life; it is unfortunate that so many women lead a life that deny them these rights.

The only thing I detested about the show was when Nikki Sanderson (who played Candice in Coronation Street) started talking about the 'C' word. I never liked the word, and no matter how excellently she executed that part of the monologue, I remained tight-lipped (no pun intended!) as she cajoled the audience to say the word out loud.

Call me a prude - but there are just some things I'm not going to compromise. I was free to do so, but I choose not to excercise that right. I guess sometimes, you just can't have it all.

Political Correctness Gone Mad!

In last night's news, former Home Office Secretary Jack Straw was accused of all sorts - racist, misguided, ill-informed, insensitive. All this - simply because he prefers to see the face of people he speaks to.

Mr Straw has written an article in his local newspaper, the Lancashire Telegraph, about how he requests Muslim women who visit his surgery (that's political office for you non-Brits) to take off their veil when speaking to him. He believes it to be "a visible sign of difference" which could create difficulties in community relations.

In today's climate where everyone is on edge and suspicious of Muslims, you would've thought the Muslim community would try to ease the tension and Islamophobia. On the contrary, any time anyone says anything at all about Muslims and the Islamic faith in general, it is always misconstrued and the ensuing outcry is swift and tremendous.

Whatever happened to integration? Have people not noticed how Filipinos are slowly taking over the world? We are, but no one has mentioned it. That's because we adapt to the way of life of our adopted country. We share our culture and heritage to others, but never insist on them. Can you imagine us demanding everyone to eat rice instead of potatoes?

Mr Straw simply makes his request when Muslim women are in his presence. It's not a prelude to a new law to be passed in Parliament. If hoodies have to take off their hoods when entering a shop, or motorcyclists having to take off their helments before entereing a bank, then why should it be different for any other face covering? It's not about religion, it's about human relations. Think about it.

Fusion Food

The last time I went back to Manila in 2004, Fusion food was all the rage. Fusion Filipino and French (Eh??), Filipino and Thai (Hmmm, yeah, I suppose), Filipino and Mexican (That sounds like the makings of an upset stomach!), Filipino and...you get my drift. I don't know about you, but for me, I would go to a Thai restaurant because I want to eat Thai food - and not an amalgamation of cuisines. I have an innate hatred for anything fusion. So imagine my anger when, while perusing the menu of my favourite noodle bar Tampopo, I come across our national dish, adobo, bastardised beyond belief to include a variety of veggies and served with sweet potato chips! WHAT THE ?!?!? It's a crime, I tell you! I suddenly lost my appetite.

Is it my imagingation or is that the sun out in Manchester?!?

- This was originally posted on my Friendster blog, 06 Aug 2006. -

For the fifth day in a row, the sun's shining in Manchester.

Big deal, some of you may say. But for those of us who are residents of the UK's second city, the sun actually peeking out of the thick grey clouds is a massive deal indeed.

Manchester has the great privilege of having 3 distinct seasons:

• pissing it down in rain;
• dry, overcast and cool; and
• bitter cold combined with rain.

When Mancunians see the first sign of the sun, the city turns into a nudist colony - the clothes get taken off, the barbeque's grilling sausages and burgers, and a supermarket's monthly stock of beer and alcohol gets sold out in 45 minutes (okay, I exaggeerate, 15 minutes!).

Just across from my office is Grosvenor Park. And today, instead of flowers, the park was littered with people. And more bloody people! People sunbathing, blokes playing footy, office workers eating salads and cold sandwiches...it's a sight to behold.

For someone like me, who grew up most of my life in the tropical climes of the Philippines, this heatwave is not a welcome respite - it is simply pure punishment!! I have always shied away from the sun - she (or he - not sexist, me!) doesn't like me either. Let me tell you the sun and I, well, we're never going to be best mates. Actually, one of the things I love about Manchester is the fact that it's bitterly cold most of the time (not Moscow cold, but cold enough). Unless I'm playing sport or in the gym, I'd rather not sweat, thank you very much!

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind a bit of warmth; but I do struggle with anything hotter than 23 degrees. Today, I could feel my pores opening up like golf balls and I must've finished a whole can of deodorant to make sure I didn't smell. Unfortunately, not all of my workmates are smell-conscious!

The weatherman just said that it's about to get even hotter over the weekend - oh dear! Better head to Boots for a few more cans of Sure, then.