Typecast

...and maybe some things I learnt in April, May and June too because it's been a hella long time since I wrote one of these blog posts.  But what I do is collect little articles I find and thoughts that have and when I get ten minutes to myself I try and pull them together into a half decent blog post.  So here's a few things that interested me and I hope they interest you too! ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ If I lived on Mars I'd only be 24 years old but if I lived on Venus I would be 79 years old. This cute little sub-website from Go Compare gives you a number of facts and figures about planet Earth since you were born.  Give it a try ! I fell in love with Lady Gaga's version of Your Song from the album, Revamp , which reimagines the songs of Elton John and Bernie Taupin.  But when I shared it on Twitter, my friend  Toni sent me this article about why we tend to sing in an American accent because she thought Gaga sounded as though she was putting on a B...

If my Soundtrack To My Life series was building up to anything, it was probably going to be this blog post.  The album compilation series, Now That's What I Call Music, has reached it's 100th release - a concept that started back in 1983 and one that I can honestly say "I was there at the beginning" because the first album was one of my Christmas presents that year. It's interesting to hear how the Now! series was created (it was an idea from Virgin Records to showcase the best songs of the year. It turned into a collaboration with EMI - the first time two record labels had joined forces in this way ). The series took it's name from a 1920's poster that advertised Danish bacon and the pig in the same advertisement became the iconic image of the album series for the first five issues, although it's probably only us old heads that remember it properly! I loved receiving the latest Now! album for my birthday or Christmas, or even sa...

I shut down my work computer, picked up my phone to check for messages and a Facebook post appeared in my news feed.  One that I never ever thought I would read... I walked out of work and drove home  in silence, trying to process the information. Me and Kate go WAY back.  She's one of the 2010 OG's... or OB's as I like to call us - the "Original (Mummy) Bloggers".  We started our blogging journey at a similar time, wrote about the same family trials and tribulations, met at conferences and blogging events and she's one of the first people I message when there's something bugging me blogging-related so I can have a bitch or a moan or just see if she's got the lowdown on something.  In fact, I messaged her TODAY to see why she'd not responded to a YouTube link I'd sent her at the weekend related to our shared hatred of vlogger schmaltz.  We were also always musing about how we could encourage brands to properly tap into the +40...

Image Credit If your immediate answer is yes, then you’re clearly a Potterhead that would relish the opportunity to get up close and personal with your favourite Harry Potter creatures . If the answer is no, however, consider Warner Bros Studio Tours as a day out to the zoo, but with a difference! Why are magical creatures so much fun? Why aren’t they? While the antics of Harry Potter and his friends are exciting, they wouldn’t have defeated Voldemort and his Death Eaters without the help of some furry and winged friends along the way. Of course, not all of the creatures featured in the books and films are good at heart, but that’s all part of the fun! Which are the good creatures? With the exception of Ron Weasley’s rat, Scabbers, who turned out to be the nasty Peter Pettigrew in disguise, the animals owned by Hogwarts students, as their familiars, are all loyal and good-natured. Harry’s owl, Hedwig, is chief among them, but sadly dies when protecting him in a...

Today - 5th July 2018 - the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK is 70 years old .  There have been plenty of celebrations to mark this milestone of one of the nations most loved institutions, the role it plays in our everyday lives and to be thankful for the extraordinary staff that guide, support and care for us, day in, day out.  But tonight, whilst reading some of the media reports about how the NHS was started, and how far it's come, I realised that I most definitely have had my money's worth out of the Service... Photo Credit : NHS England Without The NHS... I couldn't have been mended after getting run over in Lytham after work in August 1988 I couldn't have had any of my babies, surrounded by the best medical team, top-of-the-range equipment and a back-up system if any urgent attention was needed during the birth My daughter wouldn't have had her cancer diagnosis , the initial early treatment, life-saving operations and 15 years of af...

I can look back at my first half marathon with hindsight and see where I went wrong.  I chose one of the toughest local races and rushed into a decision after training for a different distance. Post-race, it took me a while to get back on my feet properly but aced a course personal best at a local parkrun, took the trainers to Tenerife for a bit of a holiday jog and managed to score a 10k personal best time at a mid-week race. I also started mixing in a bit of off-road trail running just to liven things up a bit - nothing too extreme but short, sharp shocks to the system, and huge hills to work the thighs!  Running was fun again so I was ready for another challenge.  Enter, stage left, the Southport Half Marathon. Now, I wasn't going to make the same mistake again, and I'd already started to put in some long(er) runs with Claire even though we didn't know what we were training for yet so it was just a case of upping the mileage each week and taking it fro...