The Apprentice

The new season of The Apprentice started last night. A with it brought the two most annoying people IN THE WORLD (yes, even more annoying than Car Giant Man and Kerry Katona - combined. urgh.)

I'm talking about Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and Raef Bjayou. They've obviously been cast in the show to provide some 'good TV' - there really can't be any other reason. They're both pompous, arrogant, whiny mummy's boys, in desperate need of a haircut. Look:


Nicholas de Lacy-Brown


Raef Bjayou

Thankfully, Nicholas was fired last night - hooray! I really don't think I could stand watching two floppy-haired ponces every week.

I'm not just being mean, they really are a joke. Nicholas for example, was born Nicholas Brown. But he decided to add the 'de Lacy' bit because 'he felt it sounded more sophisticated'. He also listed one of his interests as 'reading in the bath surrounded by candles'. Wouldn't just 'reading' have been enough? It's The Apprentice not a lonely hearts ad.

And as for Raef. He used to be an estate agent. Enough said.

Find out more at www.bbc.co.uk/apprentice. For a run down of yesterday's episode, read Tre's Column (good old Tre, he's back!)

Bring back the milkman

When was the last time you saw one of these?



(it's a milk float)

This morning I was staring out my bedroom window in that glazed 'oh but didn't I just go to sleep?' kind of way - when I saw a milk float go by. Yes, a MILK FLOAT (caps make things seem more real). I think I may have even done a cartoon double take (and obviously the milk float was still there - they're not really that fast are they? aw).

I can't remember the last time I saw a milk float...maybe well over 10 years ago?! And then along came the Tesco type giants with their cheap pints of milk and it was bye bye to Mr Milkman (to the delight of paranoid husbands throughout the land).

But let's face it, supermarket milk may be less expensive, but it's just not quite the same when you have to go and get it yourself...

Stick Girl in Another City

I'm tired. (But still find time to blog. That's dedication for you).

Today I travelled, in total, about 8 hours. For a 3 hour meeting. Meaning my meeting wasn't even HALF the time I spent travelling. Humph. No wait - HUMPH.

But actually, I've accomplished quite a lot today on my return trip to Manchester:

1. I finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha.


2. I had a productive meeting.


3. I watched two episodes of Sex & the City.


4. I developed a muscle in my right arm from lugging around my MacBook in my handbag, along with all my other necessary bits (like my meeting notes, Sex & the City DVDs etc).

So all in all, a productive day.

Don't you just love John Mayer

Don't forget to visit www.youtube.com/mayermusic

Man presents

It's my dad's birthday this week - and that means picking out a 'man present' (I think it's safe to blog about this, my dad isn't too web savvy. The other day he referred to our wireless internet router as 'the box where the internet comes from').

Exciting man presents are really difficult to find, especially when they're for your dad. Especially when Christmas wasn't that long ago. Especially when you repeatedly ask him what he'd like and get the follow alternate answers:

a) "nothing"
b) "a new car"



That's really not helpful. Although I did follow up option b), but when asking what car he'd like, he reverted back to option a). Older not wiser as they say...

In the end I went for the good old trusty jumper. Not very exciting I know. But it is a silk/wool mix - which is preeeeetty exciting when it comes to jumpers!

Point made.

Facebook stalking

Ok I'm sure we've all done our fair share of facebook stalking over the years. Be it an ex, your other half's ex, your best friend's ex...pretty much, wherever there's some sort of ex involved. I think I was at my facebook stalking prime in my last year of uni - but that was mainly a result of my regular revision 'breaks'.



Facebook's really not that fun anymore, mainly because I keep getting invited to find out what type of flower/underwear/drink/desperate housewife I am (The Accidental Scientist tells it like it is). Luckily, I already know that I'm none of those things - so don't need to take the quiz (phew). But aside from that, I've found everyone I want to find. And if I want to know how someone's doing, I'd rather just pick up the phone or drop them an email - rather than scrolling down about a miles worth of application boxes and a funwall filled with obscene videos of obese people in the middle of sexual acts (why?) to write on someone's wall.

But anyway, every once in a while you'll stumble across an old classmate that you haven't seen in about 10 years, so will inevitably end up nosying around on their profile. Which is what happened to me today. Only to see this:



Yep, that's me, in an 'anti stalker' box, on the side of said classmate's facebook profile. Even though I wasn't actually stalking at the time (*ahem* my stalking days are long behind me), I can confirm that my heart did speed up a little, and I almost clicked the 'back' button out of worry that one of my facebook friends would KNOW that I was looking at her profile. SHOCK HORROR. Then I realised how stupid this actually was, and decided to find out what all this anti stalker malarchy is actually about.

Turns out, the Anti Stalker app is just designed to freak out your friends and can't actually tell people who has visited their page. Evil geniusness...

To be honest, the only people who need to be worried about facebook stalkers, are the facebook whores. And so far, the facebook privacy settings seem to the best anti stalker device out there yet...

Tumbleweed times

Lately I've felt lucky if I can blog once a week. Enter tumbleweed:



I feel like I'm wandering around like a bit of a stick girl zombie. It's getting serious, I don't even get that mad on the tube anymore. The other day, the two people either side of me were BOTH leaning over the armrests into my seat, and I didn't even let out a tut. And if that's not worrying enough, I settled down the other night to watch my Sex and the City DVD box set - AND ONLY MANAGED ONE AND A HALF EPISODES (although it was season 6 which isn't that great).

Maybe it's because our winter has been dragging on for about 3 seasons now. In case you didn't know, it's officially spring. I'm really hoping that global warming starts kicking soon.

On a brighter note, we have a four day weekend coming up soon - hooray! It really makes me have second thoughts about the whole 'work 5 days, take 2 days off' thing. Who came up with that bright idea anyway? I mean I know God made the world in 6 days and then rested on the 7th - but I bet he didn't have to go shopping and do the laundry and clean the bathroom - so it's really not the same is it?

Mean Photo Booths

As far as I'm concerned, renewing my passport comes around much sooner than I'd like. I'm sure I was about 15 or 16 when I got my last passport photo done...and well, let's be honest, I just look the same (stick girls generally don't age that much). So you see it's really not fair that I had to brave the photo booth today...

Nonetheless, along I popped to the Post Office to confront [cue: scary music] The Photo Booth. Where I had to give up 4 precious pounds to receive a set of four terrible photos that on average make people look far worse than they do in real life.

Plus, no matter how many times I kept spinning the seat, it wasn't getting any higher.

And that's just mean.

Beware of dentists with 'too perfect' teeth

Don't you think there's something not quite right with dentists? Aside from the whole disgusting, 'looking in peoples mouths and having a good old dig around' thing - dentists with too perfect teeth always set off little alarm bells in my head.

Yes, I went to the dentist today. An annoying young 'up and coming' dentist with too perfect teeth and a spring in his step. I remember my old dentist who I used to go to when I was small (ok, smaller) refused to go private and stayed with the NHS all the way. Now that's true dedication to the cause.



But not only did this new dentist not give me any stickers of giant teeth with smiley faces (hum), he also tried to charge me for absolutely every little thing you can think of. Like trying to sneak in an expensive hygenist appointment at the end, or getting me to cosmetically whiten one (yes, just one) little tiny tooth that no one can even see (and I have pretty white teeth to begin with, but I think it's genetic), or trying to get me to spend £70 on a white filling instead of £40 for an NHS filling. The sneaky, sneaky bastad.

All while smiling at me with his creepily white and unusually straight teeth.

No wonder the last time I went to the dentist was two years ago. Don't be fooled, you don't need to go every 6 months (unless you can't commit to brushing twice a day - but let's face it, you're just a bit gross if you don't), they're just trying to make more money out of you!

Stick Girl's official new look

So after not being entirely satisfied with the pink, but being unable to live amongst the dark - Stick Girl's gone for a combo of the two.

What do you think?

(You better say you like it because it took me far too long and I can't change it now. Er, but don't let this sway you.)

That's my head, not an arm rest!

It's bad enough to be around armpit level when travelling on the tube (I'm a pretty short stick girl) - but today I experienced added insult.

I got elbowed in the head, not once, but twice - by the same man!

Fair enough, it's a packed tube, there's not much room to breathe, yada yada - but stop fidgetting and elbowing my head!!

Eventually my deathly stares managed to squeeze out an 'oh, sorry dear', but only after the second elbow.

I turned into this:

The Kite Runner

First I read A Thousand Splendid Suns and thought it was amazing. Then I read The Kite Runner, and thought it was amazing too. Although I can't help feeling cheated somehow. I have a feeling that I didn't get to experience the full impact of The Kite Runner, having already read one of Hosseini's equally devastating other books. I think it left me desensitised.



Both books are horrifically violent and desperately touching, in equal measures. They're eye openers to Afghanistan's history, and have definitely come at the right time. But if you're going to read them, maybe start with the Kite Runner first.

Next on my list is the movie. Although don't watch this trailer if you want to read the book - there are far too many spoilers!



I think I hate the movie already. Sorry, but the epic American voiceover just doesn't do it for me (kind of like how Aladin and Mogli (Jungle Book) somehow ended up with American accents in the Disney movies). And what's with all the spoilers?!

It seems as though the movie has taken a different focus compared to the book - which I think is a massive shame. But then, I guess that's the inevitable curse of turning a novel into a film...

Leaving the dark side...

I think I've been suffering from writer's block (or probably more correctly, blogger's block) of late.

I couldn't quite put my finger on it - but then I had an epiphany - it's the pink! Ever since switching to the dark side, I just didn't feel like writing on my gloomy blog.

So the pink is back, hooray! (that is, until I find a less bubblegum type background...watch this space)