Free books!

When I was young, I prayed to be sent away to boarding school. It wasn’t that I was particularly unhappy at home but simply that I had fallen head over heels in love with the idea thanks to Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers and St Claire’s books.  I wanted to play pranks and have midnight feasts with a gang of friends.  Okay, so I also rather fancied the idea of swimming in a natural seawater pool and having my own pony in the school stables. At the bottom of it, I guess I just wanted to escape from the tedium of suburbia.  I was a lot younger than my siblings and I spent most of my time alone in my head. I wanted ‘chums’; I wanted merry japes; I wanted passionate friendships and drama and secrets.

The allure of the school saga has not diminished over the years. When my son first saw his school he muttered, with deep awe, ‘Hogwarts’.  And I smiled broadly when I saw that Lyn Gardner had written her own school series, starting with Olivia’s First Term (oh that title - so delightfully reminiscent of Blyton’s series).

I met Lyn when we both worked for the London listings magazine, City Limits.  Lyn was the theatre editor (I fixed the typewriters  – which says it all really).  Lyn went on to The Guardian (and remains there today) and continues to review theatre with her habitual insight, sensitivity and humour.  If anyone knows theatre inside out and back to front, it’s Lyn. Oh, and she has daughters so she’s the business twice over.

Now, you know me. I love dark and doomy and depressing. I inhale supernatural and overcast and heart-broken and wretched.  So how come I devoured a book about a bunch of kids at stage school, for pity’s sake?  Olivia’s First Term is about dancing and acting and singing; it doesn’t even have one vaguely creepy moment (though there is plenty of drama).  I hated High School Musical. I loathe Glee.  But, you know, this isn’t like that…not one bit.  It’s really got that old Malory Towers magic about it (though the writing is way better). I’ll let you into a secret – I even shed a few tears at the end.

Anyhow, if you have stage-struck daughters (roughly aged 8-12), they’ll devour it (and, fear not, it teaches valuable lessons about Not Being A Brat). I know a lot of you have young girls in the house and so I asked the publishers, Nosy Crow, if they could let me have some copies to share. They very kindly agreed and I have six copies to give away. So, if you’d like to win one, simply leave a comment and we’ll do the usual paw in the hat routine.

Oh, and talking about writing and young people, check out the Wicked Young Writers’ Award finalist entries, now published in an anthology by Headline.  www.wickedyoungwriters.com – some amazing stuff here.

Internet friends and lovers



Jeez, he looks grumpy!

Adrian is perplexed.  While he’s been in Moscow, I’ve been meeting my Internet pals.  He just doesn’t *get* my love of internet ‘relationships’.  Yes, he blogs, he tweets, he FBs – but only because he feels he ‘ought to’ for work.  He frowns at tweet-ups, he doesn’t remotely understand why I keep meeting people I haven’t, er, met.

‘It’s like online dating,’ he said, sitting on the end of the bed.  ‘Except without the sex bit.’ Shaking his head.  ‘I don’t get that either.’

‘Aha,’ said I, sitting up and adjusting the SP.  ‘Now, see, if I were single, I’d do that like a shot.’

‘God no.’ He shuddered. ‘It’s not natural.’

‘Oh come on.  It’s practical.’ I put down my coffee cup so I could wave my arms around. ‘Look. Imagine I don’t exist.  Nothing nasty – I haven’t died or anything.  I’m just Not Here. In fact, let’s take James out of the equation too and make it simple.  You live here. Alone. Who you gonna date?’

‘I’d move,’ he said briskly. ‘I’d go to…hmm….Bristol. I’d go to pubs and clubs…’

I raised an eyebrow.  ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

He shrugged.  ‘Okay, I’d go to pubs and museums. I’d stalk women in military museums.’  Dear God.

‘Right.  But say you couldn’t move.  Say you worked here?’  I named names. He looked alarmed.

‘See? It’s not easy once you’re out of your twenties.’ I keep saying this to my mate who just wants a nice man with a labrador.  She doesn’t buy it, the Internet dating thing – but then she doesn’t do Twitter or FB or anything other than the odd brusque email.  Maybe the world is divided into those who click and those who don't... ;)

‘And it’s the same with friends,’ I continued.  ‘I know lovely people here but I can’t always talk about the stuff I need to – about writing, about books, about mad spiritual/mystical stuff.  They’d think I’d gone bonkers.’  His turn to raise an eyebrow.

‘Hence online friends.’

‘Okay, I get that,’ he said.  ‘But then you go and meet them.’
‘Not all of them,’ I pointed out.  ‘But yeah, why not?’

See, I’m fascinated by people online and particularly by how online personae can be so different from RL.  I was talking about this with Jake and the lovely M (his wife) yesterday – how some people are exactly the same on and offline while others are, frankly, unrecognisable. 

‘Anyhow,’ said Adrian.  ‘If you were here alone, who would you shag?’ 

Shag?  Don’t you love the way women say 'date' and men say 'shag'?  He named names.  My eyes widened. 
‘Oh, I don’t know…’ I said with an evil smirk.

He lobbed his croissant at me. The SP neatly intercepted.  I grinned and picked up my coffee cup.

But, seriously…if you wanted to meet a partner, would you consider Internet dating?  Anyone tried it and a) loved it b) loathed it?

How many of your online friends have you met in real life? Were they how you imagined?   

And, before I go.  The ila competition.  I decided, in the end, that I couldn’t just give all that gorgeousness to one person. So I talked to ila and we split the prize.  The SP was the most fragrant creature I could find so he plonked his paw on these guys:  Zenandtheartoftightropewalking, Tiger Princess, Posie and Preseli Mags

Giving away the scent of Heaven

Scent is so very important.  It’s evocative, atavistic, often unfathomable.  Which scents do you love? Which do you hate? 
Does it matter how someone smells?  Oh god, yes! Some scientists even believe that attraction lies in our personal scents being compatible with one another.  No, sillies, not Lynx clashing with Prada.  J 
It’s the same with places – the smell of a space can colour how you feel about it. All that business about freshly-brewed coffee and baking bread when you’re trying to sell a house?  Okay, so it’s a bit hackneyed now but the principle is a smart move. 

Anyhow, I’m very picky about scent and I’m even more fussy about what I slather all over my body. I don’t hold truck with dousing myself in chemicals. If I can’t afford totally natural stuff, I’d rather not have anything at all – or pop a few drops of essential oil onto sea salt and bung that in the bath.  If you read this blog regularly you’ll already know that I have a fanatical crush on ila.  Ila is Sanskrit for earth and everything in these products comes from a plant or mineral – crammed full of loveliness so there simply isn’t any space for anything synthetic. 

Ila was founded by Denise Leicester, a qualified nurse who is also trained as an aromatherapist, yoga teacher and healer.  She believes in healing energy – in ‘a higher vibration capable of facilitating profound inner change.’  Well, don’t laugh, but so do I.  So much that I wrote an entire book yacking on about it. 

Denise spent a year researching, travelling and sourcing her key ingredients with huge care. ‘Each ingredient is chosen for its spiritual attributes as well as its physical and emotional benefit,’ she says. So that included Himalayan salt crystals, Rose damascena and argan oil (and you know how I love that). 
She wanted to find farmers and growers who shared her deep, sacred love of the earth and wanted to found a company on principles  of “spiritual light and multi-level reconnection”. She calls the range ‘beyond organic’ because she doesn’t think it’s enough for a product to be merely organic – she figures the purer the source and the process, the more suffused it will be with the earth’s healing energy. 

Have I lost you?  Are you scratching your heads and whistling quietly?  If so, don’t fret – just put to one side all this woo-hoo mystical stuff and simply luxuriate in some of the most divine high-class beauty products you will find. Forget that image that may be forming in your mind of the sticky gunk you find gathering dust in the far corner of ancient New Age shops.  Oh no, sirree.  These are absolutely top-notch, beautifully packaged and presented.  And, oh, oh, oh – the scents.  

If you’re wondering (and, let’s be honest, I would be too), no, this isn’t a sponsored blog.  I just adore this stuff and want to shout about it a bit.  I’ve bored you with my favourites before so I won’t go on about them again.  I want you to try them for yourselves. But I do realise they are pricey and times are tough.  So I asked ila if they could possibly give something or other for me to pass onto you.  And, bless them, they’ve come up trumps. 

I’m off to a spa in London today (shall report, never fear) but one of you, my lovely readers, can  have his or her (I would never discriminate – rose can smell very sweet on a man!) very own ‘ila-spa-at-home kit’...  This is pretty damn gorgeous and it comprises:

Inner Peace Bath Salts – apparently suited for anyone who needs ‘greater serenity’ and pampering – softens the skin and strengthens your aura. Not bad for a bath!

Body Scrub for a Blissful Experience (argan oil, Himalayan salt crystals, rosehip, jasmine, sandalwood and damascene rose et al) – I haven’t tried this but it sounds delicious –you massage it into damp skin and then bathe.
 
Face Oil for Glowing Radiance: this is a bit of a cult product and I know exactly why. I keep a bottle on my desk and anoint myself with it probably far too often throughout the day. It makes my skin smile and cheers the heart.
 

Body Cream for Glowing Radiance (argan oil, shea butter, damascene rose and tuberose) – this stuff is pure heaven (ask Lulu).

The prize is worth just shy of £200 and I think I can only offer it to readers in the UK...(I'm checking) - but the products are available in the US and parts of Europe. 
 

To stand a chance of winning, simply tell me which scent (it could be anything) you find the most evocative – and why.  I’ll find the most fragrant member of The Bonkers House (hmm, that might take some doing) to pick the winner when I come back next week.  Also, do make sure I have a way of getting in touch with you (if you don’t have a blog). 

Oh, and if you're reading this on Facebook, you will need to comment on the actual blog, not on FB....

Free coffee and £100 to spend in Tesco

So, in the last post I thanked all you dear adorable people who clicked for me over the Christmas Next promotion. You did me proud, you really did. If you didn’t read that post, I’ll save you the bother (and, seriously, I wouldn’t recommend it as it’s one heck of a self-absorbed dirge) and recap here: basically you made this the winning blog (out of the 100 in the promotion) and so it’s all thanks to you that we, the sorry denizens of The Bonkers House, will no longer smell rankly offensive and won’t die untimely deaths through inadvertent electrocution. My gratitude is deep and enduring.


So deep and enduring that I figured I ought to offer something in return. So, when a very nice, very polite PR said: ‘Would you like to offer your readers the chance to win £100 of Tesco vouchers?’ I said, ‘Tell me more.’ Trying not to sound my usual cynical, suspicious self.
‘Along with some free coffee,’ he said.
‘What’s the catch?’ I said.
‘No catch,’ he said. ‘Honest, guv.’ Well, okay, he didn’t say that, but he did in my mind’s ear.
‘It’s just it sounds like you have a pretty busy schedule and we thought you might like to try some coffee to give you a bit of a boost.’
Yeah, right. Like coffee, however nuclear, could sort out my deep soul sickness, career suicide and severe writer’s constipation (block doesn’t even touch it).

Anyhow. Turned out that Douwe Egberts, the Dutch coffee company, are launching a new ground coffee product on 14th February (why does that date ring a bell? Ah yes, my lovely agent’s birthday) and, in order to launch it with a swing, they’re offering one of you lot £100 of Tesco vouchers. So, basically, you can have your next food shop on me (or rather on Douwe Egberts).  Oh, and they’ll even throw in two tins of the coffee.  See, I said he was a nice guy.

So I said yes. Well of course I did. But I did warn him that we take our product testing very seriously chez Bonkers and that I couldn’t guarantee a glowing report. Bless his heart, the PR gulped manfully and said, ‘Okay, go for it.’

So we did. Now I don’t drink a lot of coffee. I love coffee-flavoured things but neat caffeine just sends me slightly ga-ga (okay, more ga-ga than usual). So it was down to Adrian and Lulu (who was staying) to test.

‘Ewww,’ said Lulu. ‘It looks like a tin of Whiskers.’
‘I think it’s supposed to look sultry,’ I said.
‘It looks like Whiskers,’ she said, firmly. ‘What’s it called?’
‘Aromettes,’ I said.
‘What? No!’ She snatched the tin from me and peered closely. ‘Shit. I thought you were kidding.’
‘Why the surprise?’
‘It sounds like some kind of sanitary product.’
‘Mixed with essential oils,’ I added helpfully.

I tore off the lid. ‘Well, it smells nice,’ I said.
She dug her hand in the tin and pulled out an “aromette”. ‘Ooh, neat idea!’

Lulu, btw, is a marketing guru so she knows about this stuff. And, lo and behold, the ground coffee had been squished and squeezed into coffee bean shapes (coffee beans on serious steroids, it has to be said).  I reminded me of something but I'm not entirely sure I want to recall exactly what it is...

Basically, you bung one bean (let’s not say aromette, it’s starting to disturb me) per cup desired into your cafetiere or filter machine, bung on the hot water and lo and behold. No mucking around with measuring; no need to clip the top of the packet or bung it in the fridge or whatever (and yes, I know all that doesn't work anyhow).

Did my testers like them? Well. Hmm.  Put it this way – they’re the kind of coffee snobs who think Starbucks is a dirty word. Who buy fresh beans to grind – only after lengthy discussions about the very field in which said beans were picked and the precise humidity level of the day on which they were picked. So we'll gloss over that.  Instead I offered them to normal people (a random selection around town) who reckoned they did the business very nicely, thank-you.

Anyhow...don’t take this lot’s word for it – try ‘em for yourselves. You can buy them from Tesco only from 14th February and they come in two varieties – Smooth (strength 3) and Intense (strength 5).

Anyone who comments before February 14th will be entered into the draw (sadly, you have to be a UK resident and I will need to be able to contact you in some way other than mind reading). Simply tell me what your take is on coffee – love it? Hate it? Uber-snob or anything goes? Oh, and give me a reason why you'd like to win (go on, make me feel better about my crap life - gimme your sob stories!).

Rules? Not many. One entry per person. Winners will be notified within 28 days and prizes will be sent out a further 28 days afterwards.

 
btw, if you want to read more of Lulu's reviews, check out her blog.... (in which she also relates her views on the Bonkers House and its inhabitants). Lies, perfidious lies!

Sorry for myself blog plus a heartfelt thank-you

Why do I wake at 2.30am precisely, nearly every night? Why? Last night I just lay there and hurt. It felt like something malevolent were scraping my bones. I tried meditating; tried amplifying the pain to find out what it meant but it wasn’t playing ball. It just settled in my hips and started screaming. So I switched channels; tried listening instead and all I could hear was the clock ticking louder and louder: time crashing in. And then an unsettling arrhythmic scrape from somewhere in the room. Scrape. Then nothing. Then a couple of scrapes. And so on. It bothered me. Okay, I’ll be honest, it scared me the way strange things can sometimes do in the dark of night.


The SP started to shift and I figured he needed to go out but no. He just moved himself so he lay right along my hip, as if to warm it, to heal it. Dear little dog.

When the light came it was measly, half-hearted, as if really it couldn’t be arsed. Grey, overcast, gloomy. And today I am trammelled, constrained, held in the grey no-man’s land. I am waiting for a delivery that needs a signature so cannot take the SP for a long walk; cannot go to the gym. My parcel is going to be delivered by Hermes apparently which, I confess, did bring a smile to my face. The image of a glowing Greek god with winged sandals knocking on my door was rather delicious, if madly incongruous.

Anyhow. I checked good old Louise Hay over breakfast – well, James’ breakfast. I had a glass of pomegranate juice in good Persephone fashion. She says that hip problems are ‘fear of going forward in major decisions’. Okaaay. She also reckons that perfect balance is an issue. Hmm, can’t argue with her on that. Apparently I should be affirming ‘Hip Hip Hooray – there is joy in every day’. Well, Louise, love - sorry, but today you can shove that little thought where the sun don’t shine.

But I did think about the balance bit. As always, I’ve gone a bit extreme again. First the food (or no food) thing; now exercise. No wonder my poor body is in shock. Maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t race out and pummel it again today. So I did my Tibetan exercises which get pretty well most muscles but aren’t harsh or cruel. And then I thought about what Lulu had said about the laundry room being a bit iffy and needing a good smudging. So I whipped off my furry boots and socks and lit up a smudge stick and gave myself a good going over and then smudged the laundry which is, indeed a pit and a total feng shui nightmare. The SP followed me, looking approving, so I carried on and, before I knew it, I’d done pretty much the whole house. He nudged the door down to the Staircase of Darkest Despond.

‘Are you sure?’
He nudged it again. So we went down, my feet rapidly turning into small iceblocks, and threw smoke all down the SoDD. Opened the door to the Siberian freezer aka the Loo of Doom and gave it a blast. Then took a deep breath and walked briskly into the Cellar of Despair. Whoah! This place really could feature in a Poe short story. So I gave that a bit of a whoosh and retreated. By now the entire house was swathed in smoke (and I'd burned a series of small holes in my sweater) so I just hoped Hermes wouldn't choose that particular moment to flutter in. 

Looked in the mirror and thought my mascara had also been smudged before I realised I didn’t have any on and it was just huge blue-black circles round my eyes. Had a good cathartic sob. Got some damn good advice from some damn good friends. Pressed a few acupressure points.  Sobbed again. Got angry with myself for being pathetic and faintly ridiculous. Will I ever fecking grow up?



those aren't my fingers, btw



Then Hermes arrived, not fluttering, more plodding:  stout, unwinged but with the sweetest smile. And my iPod is SO small. How can something so tiny have been so expensive? Now I sound like my mother. Anyhow...I am not going to download any music today because this iPod is supposed to life my mood, to soothe my tattered soul. I already have plenty of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and SoulSavers and Nick Drake and Ray Lamontagne and Mark Lanegan and Jeff Buckley and their ilk. I need uplifting, purposeful, inspiring. Suggestions?

PS – I owe the iPod to you, dear readers. Remember that Next campaign before Christmas? The one where I asked, cajoled, begged you to click the little icon? Well, get this – you done good, so so so good, because this blog won. Yup, came top out of the 100 that took part. And so I snaffled a shitload of Next vouchers.

What have I bought? Okay, don’t laugh – this part is really sad. Did I buy a whole new wardrobe? No. I’ve ordered a washing machine (one which hopefully won’t make clothes smell of public lavatories); three bedside lamps (so we don’t have to risk electrocution every night); two BRIGHT PINK (don’t ask – they flirted) bath sheets (when Lulu came to stay she remarked that every single towel in the house has some form of branding on it!).
And then my hand wavered over the PSP (James’ went kaput ages back). My finger was ready to click; it really was. But then I saw the magic word iPod and for the first time ever I gave in to total wanton selfishness.
Please God, don’t let James see this post.

Win an XBox Kinect and YourShape

I’ve never got computer games. Never even went on Space Invaders or PacMan. Just don’t get the fun of fiddling with knobs (so to speak). I’ve watched a succession of consoles wander in and out of the house and never felt remotely tempted to pick up a joystick and join in. Okay, so once I let James persuade me to wield a light sabre in Star Wars and actually I did alright – mainly by adopting a wild spinning and slashing action.


I thought I’d like the Wii Fit but it fell short somehow. I didn’t like being confined to the balance board and coordinating nunchuks just got on my nerves. James loved it of course: mainly because he got a kick out of topping me in everything. Except for Zazen. Seems I can sit without moving a single muscle for a very long time. Who knew? 100% every time. Ker-ching.

Then along came Kinect. Some of my mates had been over to LA for the launch of this last year and had raved about it but, even so, it didn’t really register. But James had one for Christmas and I watched him play. No controllers. Just him in front of the TV.
‘You wanna have a go, Mum?’
‘Hmm, mebbe.’ (nose deep in my new Kindle)
‘C’mon. Even you can do this.’

So I stood up and it scanned me. Plotted out all my bones. Shit, do I really look like that?

You know what? It’s huge fun. We played all sorts – ducking, diving, jumping, sliding. My favourite is the one where you wave your arms to fly up to the ceiling (been trying to do that in real life for years).

Then we tried Your Shape and that was a bit of a revelation too. I’ve done aerobics classes for years, absolutely years, and I thought I had pretty good technique. Wrong. Because the Kinect is tracking your actual skeletal structure (actually I don’t want to think about how it does that too much) you can see exactly where you’re going wrong.

Is it perfect? No, of course not. But it’s damn good. I broke a serious sweat on the cardio class and the trainer is kickass on muscle toning – the squats were an absolute killer. Loved the cardio boxing and I’m impressed that it tries to persuade you to end each session with a Zen stretch.

Now, if they could just find a way to get Assassin’s Creed running on Kinect, I might really be a lost cause.


What? Oh, the competition....sorry. If you have an Xbox and would like to try out Kinect, here’s your opportunity. Ubisoft, the game developer, has promised that one of you lovely lot will win a Kinect and a copy of Your Shape. Read on....and good luck.

Here’s the official blurb bit...(not written by me - how did you guess?) 

Diary of a Desperate Exmoor Woman has teamed up with game developer, Ubisoft, to give readers the chance to win an Xbox Kinect along with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved.

Your Shape's groundbreaking camera tracking technology completely changes the fitness experience, providing users with an unprecedented level of accuracy and efficiency. Unlike other games, Your Shape’s proprietary Player Projection technology puts your body into the game for the ultimate fitness experience. You will physically interact with virtual environments in ways you’ve never seen before and you’ll be captivated by unique and exciting visual effects that respond to your movements and impact.

To be in with a chance to win all you have to do is view the Your Shape Discover Your Shape (‘Toned Body’) video clip on their home page at http://yourshapecenter.uk.ubi.com/ and then come back here to answer the following simple question:

Question: How many new classes does Your Shape’s Cardio Boxing Platinum offer?

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Post your answer in the comments below...

Please note that the Xbox 360 console is NOT included in the prize bundle.  Also, sadly, the prize can only be sent out to a UK address.  The competition will close on 10th February.