Typecast

I'm back over at The High Tea Cast  again today.  This post is about ' The Trilogy of Hair, Shoes and Bag '.  I'd love to know what you think. Find all my articles on The High Tea Cast here 

It's wonderful when children begin to become enthralled with science-based activities, even if they don't understand how/why it happens.  Here's my granddaughter, Amie, explaining how to stick a balloon to the wall. YouTube link For the real science bit, here is how it happens.  When a balloon is rubbed against the hair it becomes negatively charged.  When near a wall, the charged balloon is attracted to positively charged particles in the wall and can "cling" to it.   Source:   Wikipedia

It's a pleasure to welcome Kelly and her Soundtrack To My Life onto the blog today.  Kelly writes a blog called The Domestic Goddesque and explains that " some days there is finesse, calm and perfect baking and others there is chaos, shouting and a Gregg's sausage roll for supper. "  Sounds like the perfect balance to me.  You can find more about Kelly at the bottom of the post but, for now, it's time to listen to her tunes and read why she has chosen them. ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ Green Day - Good Riddance   It's a strange memory to have but this is a song that binds my mum, brother and I together in misery! Shortly after Dad left we had a particularly bad day. We were on the long drive home, it was snowing, we were all crying, and this song played over and over. Suddenly all the misery made one of us giggle, and a few minutes later we were all howling with laughter. I'll never forget that moment.   The Drifters - Save the Last Dance for Me   ...

Dear Me, First of all, note the paper I am writing on.  Your love of Filofax will never wane so embrace the YUPPIE jokes and stick with your instincts. I saw you walking down the street yesterday.  Well, the 'you' that would have been had you had long bleached hair.  The rest was the same; as skirt as short as you were allowed to get away with at school, white over-knee socks pushed down in wrinkles, headphones on, khaki satchel-type school bag slung over your shoulder covered in black marker style graffiti.  It is 2013 but it felt as though I had been zapped back 25 years. You have no idea how beautiful you are and it's easy to see that there are two of you.  The lonely, bullied, struggling girl at school and the vibrant dancer/runner thriving outside of the school setting.  I wish you would speak up and explain that you find school difficult to cope with for all the various reasons but that quiet determination will be such a positive q...

Blognonymous exists for lots of reasons.  It started out with six bloggers offering their own blog space when fellow bloggers felt they couldn't 'talk' in their own personal corner of the world wide web, for whatever reason. This contribution is from a blogger that many of you may know.  She originally wanted to say straight out who she is but we believe that retaining  anonymity  is important.  It gives you much more freedom to write.  However, in her own words, she doesn't want you to " just fuck off and get on with your day " - she wants to use this 'safe space' to interact with the people she misses.  If you comment, she will read and reply.   When commenting, if you prefer to remain anonymous please sign out of Disqus (if you have used it before), write your comment, click "Post as..." and you will see "guest" appear as an option. If you would like to contact any of the Blognonymous team please click on t...

I am trialing a new way to deliver updates to you from the Typecast  blog. The imminent loss of Google Reader has made me a little bit jittery with regards to Feedburner (also owned and powered by Google ) so I am going to use Mail Chimp for daily updates with effect from today. Please sign up for Typecast updates using this link   or the 'Subscribe' form in the sidebar on the main blog.  You will not be spammed and you will only receive one email when I update the blog.    I'd also love to hear your feedback and your recommendations for subscriber lists.   If you follow my geek blog, Geekalicious , you can get regular email updates using this link .

Today you can find me making my debut as a Feature Writer over at The High Tea Cast .  My first post is all about those ' Karaoke Klichés '.  Let me know what you think. Find all my articles on The High Tea Cast here 

Today Ryan is taking over the blog.  He has chosen an interesting subject, especially as I live in a house where my husband and I swapped 'traditional' roles a few years ago.   Feel free to share your thoughts at the end in the comments. ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ We've got a pretty old fashioned set-up in our household. I work and my partner looks after the home.  It’s not intentional, I’m just not there during the day time to do all of the chores. My partner does most (all) of the cooking too, plus a lot of other things that, if I’m honest, I've taken for granted for a long time. The reason this post has come about is because last night I actually cooked for the first time in ages and the genuine shock that it caused my partner got me thinking… ‘ I really am taking the mick here, aren't I .’  Sure, I’m a bit tired from a day at the office and I don’t get back until after six, but still, I shouldn't only be cooking once a year. Then...

Are annual celebration days a bit cliqué or are  you constantly surprised by the attention you receive from your loved ones?  We are all a bit traditional in this family with it comes to gifts to commemorate occasions such as Mother's Day, Father's Day and Easter and, as this infographic shows, we're not the only ones.   Have a read through of the fun facts and tell me if you're a stickler for tradition or whether you break the boundaries and amaze your family with thoughtful and unusual gifts   Or, dare I say it, do we spend too much on specific days to show our love when we should be saying it every day.  Let me know in the comments.   View full image This is a sponsored post. Please see my disclosure policy for more details.

When away from the office, my job takes me all over Lancashire.  The last two days have taken me to Lancaster and Morecambe on what have been gloriously cold, Spring days.   C is for... Castle Day one takes me to offices by Lancaster Castle.  The back streets of Lancaster are cobbled and my pull-along case full of all my paraphernalia makes a racket as I drag it along.  Almost all of the houses are marked with historical plaques or have doorways that would need me to stoop to walk through.  The lawn in front of the castle is covered in crocus and the open gates draw me towards them but there isn't time to explore. C is for... Coastline Day two takes me to Morecambe.  For once, I am not encased in an meeting in the grimy back streets but visiting a venture just on the beach front with a glorious vista over the coastline.  I remembered that I had featured Morecambe Bay once before in a Gallery picture  but the (n...

My grandchildren are polar opposites.  Amie throws herself through the door, takes her shoes, coat and cardigan off and launches herself at the toys talking nineteen to the dozen.  Megan keeps her coat and boots on (and her backpack when she has one with her), screams at the dog to stop licking her and launches herself onto the settee. Megan (age 3):  Can I watch Peppa Pig on your laptop, Nana? Nana :  Yes, let me find it. ( open YouTube, search "peppa pig", pick random episode, one happy three year old ) Megan :  Ben and Holly.  Ben and Holly. Nana : There's no Ben and Holly here.  Only Peppa Pig. Megan :  BEN AND HOLLY Mummy : She's seen it in the sidebar.  ( Mummy puts Ben and Holly on ) Megan and Amie in unison:  " Somewhere, hidden amongst thorny brambles is a little kingdom of elves and faries... " Nana :  * bemused face * Amie (age 4):  Is that the dog's bed?  ( points to the dog ca...

A slight sidestep from the traditional Soundtrack To My Life today to bring you this video which deserves to go viral.  This encapsulates everything about growing up in the 80's and is absolutely GENIUS.   Enjoy then share!  (thanks to  Steve from Philofaxy  for the hat-tip - and you can read  his STML here ) ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ You can find the original video on YouTube .  Normal Soundtrack To My Life service will resume next week. If you want to join in with Soundtrack To My Life you can  complete this form  and I'll be in touch when your feature is due to go live.  Click on the mix-tape to the right to read all the " Soundtrack To My Life " entries.

Sometimes... just for a split second, I move to pick up the phone to call Mum with some news about the family, what I’m doing at work or just for a little cry.  But then I stop. I get used to her not being here but then something reminds me of her and I feel guilty for going such a long time without the memories.  There is so much I could say about her and then I’m lost for words. I want her patience and wisdom.    She is my inspiration and my guide.   Today is a celebration in her memory.

I'm not the most photogenic person in the world and will take extreme measures to avoid my picture being taken. However, I fondly remember (many many many moons ago) my sister-in-law saying that I looked like Demi Moore in her 'Ghost' era.  I have clung to that comparison for dear life. Then I read Toni's post about famous people who look like her and I remembered this website where you could upload your picture and it would tell you which famous person you resembled.  It was Saturday night and I'd had the best part of a bottle of wine... you can guess what's coming, can't you? Attempt 1 I upload this photo and get these results Yes... thats  Justin Timberlake Orlando Bloom Matt "Joey From Friends" le Blanc John Travolta (channeling 'Enda Turnblad' from Hairspray, maybe?) So I presume there's something wrong with the algorithm (good excuse, huh), check the settings and I try again...

I ranted about Amazon's "Rape" t-shirts over the weekend and within a few hours of my post going live, the Blognonymous team received an email.   If you heard about the t-shirts and wondered what all the fuss was about, this puts it all into perspective.  Forget algorithms... what about the victim?   When commenting, if you prefer to remain anonymous please sign out of Disqus (if you have used it before), write your comment, click "Post as..." and you will see "guest" appear as an option. If you would like to contact any of the Blognonymous team please click on the Blognonymous image  for more details. ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ You're a young man, a young woman, an older woman, an older man. You're single, married, gay, straight, drunk, sober. A party, your house, office drinks, a walk home. Somehow, you're alone with a friend. Maybe you flirt a little, maybe you don't. You never think about being alone with th...

Soundtrack To My Life took a slightly different turn this week because I had the opportunity to try it out on the radio.  I occasionally pop into Preston FM to join Will on Chat City and I have finally found my spiritual home.  As is well documented on this blog, I adore being behind the microphone and Will very kindly lets me gatecrash co-present from time to time. Will finds it as difficult as myself to narrow his choices down to just five tunes.  On his crib sheet for the show he had a total of thirteen songs that he wanted to talk about and managed to pick a few more whilst we were queuing them up for airing.  Also, as he said in the show, if I asked him to do this again at any point in the future he would probably choose different records.  Here are Will's final five choices. ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ "Tennessee" Ernie Ford - Sixteen Tons The first music I can remember is Freddie and the Dreamers who were the One Direction of their time.  I alway...

If you had £15 to treat yourself with, what would you buy? A couple of magazines, a bottle of wine and a bar of chocolate? A few books for your Kindle? A couple of CDs or Blu Ray movies? A " Keep Calm And Rape Me " t-shirt?   Oh yes, that's an available option on the  Amazon UK site, at the time of writing , in a choice of colours and varying tones (rape me, rape off, rape them, rape us, rape a lot), natch.... As I sit here, poised as "Outraged of Blackburn", it's obvious I'm not the only person who is gobsmacked at this.  The link is being shared across social media networks and people are emailing the Amazon UK Chief Executive ( Christopher North : cnorth@amazon.com )   to complain albeit the individual retailer, Solid Gold Bomb , is equally as guilty as far as I'm concerned because of a breach of seller terms and conditions.  At what point of their sale process (idea, design, creation, printing, stocking, marketing) did they ...

EE has added a brand new handset from HTC to its range of 4G mobile phones. The company now has the HTC One SV LTE available free on 4GEE 24-month plans from £36.00 a month. So what can potential buyers expect from the new, mid-range handset? Well, its equipped with a pretty decent set of features, including great photo, video, audio and processing capabilities, which should overall make it a pretty attractive addition to the network’s line-up. The HTC One SV LTE has all the usual bells and whistles  of a modern day 4G smartphone ; all packed into a rather stylish little shell. You’ll find a five megapixel primary camera with face detection on board that also has an LED flash and auto focus that will give you high quality photos while out and about. In addition, there’s a secondary forward-facing camera that will have you covered should you want to make video calls or mess about with your face using hilarious apps that make you look fat or old – or both. If you are won...