My nemesis...

Now I'm sure many people have various frustrations in their lives. I have quite a few. These aren't things that are particularly important, but more just little gripes. My top 10 list includes people who eat too loudly (or with any volume level whatsoever), people who eat too loudly on the train, people who eat too loudly in the office, people who eat too loudly on their own at home on a Friday night... Ok, a bit too far on that one perhaps. Those stupid meerkats, anyone who declares friend culls on Facebook, anyone who believes that liking a photo will cure an affliction or save the world, people who can't use apostrophes... I'm thinking that this is probably going to be a post all by itself so will stop there, but you get the idea.

And as if the universe is determined to kick me in the imaginary nuts this Friday... As I started to write this on the train to London, a man next to me just pulled out an apple and has started to attack it in what can only be akin to a tiger trying to peel a banana with its molars whilst chomping down on a tennis racquet covered in glass. This usually causes instant (suppressed) rage in me, but I'll try and refrain from murdering him in cold blood as I'm pretty sure, as irritating as it is, that it won't hold up in court. But seriously. It's like someone's breaking legs over there.

Anyway... This post is supposed to be about my war with Starbucks. It's not, as you might think, an attack on the recent tax discussions, nor is this a post about me standing up for the independent retailer and condemning the coffee giant for killing small cafe businesses in my local area. No, this is about one thing and one thing only...

The names on the cups.

Now, if like me you have a fairly unusual name you'll be used to people spelling it incorrectly and will probably, genuinely, not be too bothered by this. I'll admit that I do get a little bit twitchy when people shorten my name from “Lynnette” to “Lynne”. We once had a game in our office called "Lyncognito" where my colleagues would try to get away with calling me it. My reasoning is that I wouldn't go into a meeting with a David and open up with “Alright Dave?” for example, but really it's not that big a deal and I even turn the other cheek in countries where it's culturally the 'thing to do' - shortening names. I know, I'm practically a UN Ambassador sometimes. However, I do think that most languages have been designed as such that it's possible to break down a word and usually get pretty close to how you spell it. Typos are fine. They happen. I don't mind a typo when people are busy and just getting some thoughts down in a quick email or note (I'm definitely trying to cover myself here) but if you try and concentrate on spelling something, usually you can work it out and get pretty close. It's how we learn how to read and write and talk after all. And if my 6 year old nephew managed it..? I think you get the point I'm trying to make.

For starters. Here's how it's supposed to be spelt. This was written by the lovely hands of Natalie in Times Square, NYC. She had a cousin with the same spelling. Not a day goes by when I don't dream of Natalie and thank her for restoring my faith in the ear to pen co-ordination of a Starbucks Barista.

There are a few discrepancies that I'll allow for. The one 'n' v.s. two 'ns', for example. My parents really were trying to test me when they decided to put an extra one in on the off chance of me wanting to be called “Lynne”. Thanks folks. But anyway. On this fine Friday when the sun is shining, the weekend is around the corner and all is pretty rosy in the grand ol' scheme of things, here are my top 10 Starbucks faux pas...

No. 10: Next to the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in Union Square, San Francisco. I blamed this one on the accent...

No. 9: Opposite Churchill Square in Brighton, England. The most common misspelling with the one 'n', but I'm not sure of many names that feature a “u” and a “y” together.

No. 8: Oops. Tripped up a little here so went back to correct themselves. Personally I'd have used a different cardboard sleeve and covered up the whole embarrassing situation.

No. 7: The opposite to no. 9. Overcompensating in its finest.

No. 6: This, to me, is just lazy. Conduit Street, London.

No. 5: Lingt? Linet? I'd like to assure you at this point that I don't have a verbal slur. I also have a Facebook share to blame for me now being in at least one of my friends' phone books as “LINGT”.

No. 4: Cobham Services, M25. That moment when you know something's not right, but you can't quite put your finger on it...

No. 3: Appreciate the love, Starbucks, but you're still wrong.

No. 2: I can assure you, I said nothing of the sort.

And my all time no. 1 so far... I Googled this immediately afterwards and no, it isn't a name.

So, there you have it. Not a big thing and arguably I should just try Costa Coffee or Cafe Nero or buy my own coffee machine and stop wasting money on having someone make it for me, but it's become a little amusement in my life and thought it might brighten your day. Have a good one.

Driving in foreign lands...

So quite often when I'm travelling abroad it involves car hire. Particularly to the US (as the roads are made by giants, apparently, so taxis wouldn't be feasible), but also in Europe (where the roads are constructed by The Borrowers) when I've got lots of meetings to go to in remote places.

Over the past couple of years I've become accustomed to the usual challenges of driving in a foreign land... Being on the “wrong” side of the road, the “wrong” side of the car, having some maniac throw a gear stick in for a laugh..., but I still find it very surprising that car hire companies don't give local driving information or at least an outline of the rules to the person renting the vehicle before they hand the keys over. It's also the sort of question you hardly feel comfortable asking when you're declining the additional insurances and reassuring the person at the rental company that you're more than capable of working out how to change the GPS into English. That goes into my awkward situations box so is best left well avoided. But, I think it's important. Often when you're hiring a car in another country you'll have just landed from a long flight, been awake for a long time and the last thing you want is to be let out uneducated with a machine of death in your grubby little jet-lagged paws.

You may also be lucky enough to end up with a vehicle such as this one below. The Navy Nemesis, she was named. Pedro, the sat nav also got a bit of a verbal battering, but we made up shortly after and with the mutual agreement that he wouldn't try to send me the wrong way down a one-way street ever again.

For some reason I know that in the US you can turn red on a right and I've learnt the hard way in Europe that a flashing amber (or “yellow” to any Americans reading this) or two alternately flashing amber lights means that the driver has to use caution and give way if there's another car coming. To which direction, I'm still not quite sure. What I end up doing is driving super slowly, muttering a few wild prayers to myself and hoping for the best. I really hope the DVLA isn't reading this (I'm a very good driver, I promise). I find it quite surprising that you don't see more American drivers in the UK trying to turn left on red lights. I think it's a good rule, as it happens. Maybe we can swap them for a few roundabouts.

Also, in Spain (my most recent location) I notice that the lights are right on top of the stop line. In the UK they're usually a few feet in front (or both – fewer roads, more spare lights hanging around I suppose). What this means is that you'll stop on the line, see the lights in front of you at the next stop, and maybe... Just maybe, you er, might, er, think that the green light is for you. Trust me, you only do this once. Also, if you suddenly see an unbroken white line in the road (usually two parallel) make sure you stay on your side. This means that it's gone from a dual carriageway to a single carriageway. Again, I've never made the potentially fatal mistake of crossing over to the dark side, but it does make you jump the first time you realise it.

It's also a requirement to have two warning triangles and a reflective jacket in your car in lots of European countries and if you're going to snowy places, you may need snow tyres or chains in the winter. If it's a legal requirement then the hire car company should provide these, but it's best to check before you drive off. Or if you're in Geneva airport and you accidentally hire your car from the French side instead of the Swiss side, you'll need to pay for them. That'll be a rant coming up at a later time then...

Another thing, if you're driving on the right make sure you give way to the left at roundabouts. Sounds pretty obvious and no, I've never not done this. Touch something wooden. Quick.

In the US, it's all pretty simple. Big cars, big roads, automatic transition boxes usually. I find saying “RIGHT is RIGHT” to myself helps. Watch out for turning left, ever. You'll be tempted to turn into the wrong side. Look out for signs saying you're not allowed to turn right on that particular right. And if you're at a crossroads (a literal one, I'm not getting all deep on you just yet) make sure that you keep an eye out for people turning right on red lights on the other side of the road (into the road you're about to turn into). You have right of way because your light is green, but they might not be on the look out for you and this means that they will flip you off (a gesture I became familiar with on a recent trip to San Diego) and shout profanities in your direction when you both try and turn into the same lane. Usually the customary response from an English person is to shout “Sorry! I'm English!!” in your best Queen's and I believe this then clears the cards.

Also, for some reason I do not understand other than it being due to extreme tidiness, you have to park facing the direction of traffic on the roads in America. Otherwise you get a $75 fine. And lots of people in the B&B you're staying in will laugh at you over breakfast and tell you that you did it because “Italians just park on the sidewalk and roundabouts in Europe” and that'll make you sad and it'll be awkward for all involved.

If you're tempted to drive in Sri Lanka or China? Don't. Just stand somewhere safe by a road for a few minutes and you'll soon work out why.

Anyway, I don't claim to be an expert on driving in foreign places, but these are just a few of the things I've picked up. For more information and for actual advice that's legal and sensible I'd strongly recommend looking at the: http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/overseas/countrybycountry.html or http://www.rac.co.uk/travel/driving-abroad/ sites in order to not bring any damage to yourself or others.

Somewhere over Spain...

Ok, so it's official. I'm scared of flying. This is my 18^th flight in 13 weeks with a mix of short and long haul. I had a pretty rough flight out to Las Vegas back in January (honestly, and I'm not one of those girly girls either) – There was screaming (not mine), oxygen being doled out and sick bags being bandied around as if Woolworths was going into Administration all over again. I just sat there for 30 minutes with my fingernails in the armrests trying desperately not to be sick whilst ignoring the bloke next to me shouting “shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit” over and over. I used to really like turbulence. Enjoyed the adrenaline rush and secretly laughing at the other passengers. This is bastard karma coming back to get me, I know it. So here I am, on a flight back from La Coruna, Spain and at the mere mention of “slight turbulence” I find myself reaching for my Kindle, plugging my ears in and drowning out the plane's propeller (I'm not even kidding - PROPELLER) with Deniece Williams,' “Let's Hear it For the Boy.” Spotify's fault I might add, not mine. Actually, the bloke sat next to me on the Vegas flight (the one shouting “shiiiiiiiiiit” a lot) worked for Spotify. Maybe this is a running theme. Anyway, it seems to be doing the trick. I had to abandon ship (poor choice of words, I know) on the Kindle as my mind kept wandering ,so I thought I'd get down to what every other bloody bugger seems to be telling me to do and start writing a blog. I secretly think this is so that I stop clogging up their news feeds on Facebook. I guess this is like a status update extension for the massively self-indulgent. God help us all.

Here's a picture of this particular airline's sick bags. It made me laugh. It also amuses me a bit that my first photo on here is of a sick bag. You can take this as a sign of things to come if you like.

 

15:30 – Spanish time.

So it's not that I think I'm particularly interesting, but I seem to be one of those people that things just happen to (like planes crashing, for instance) and have been told that I have some sort of observational comedy thing going on. Which I then think, obviously, that I have to share with Facebook and this has resulted in me being banished to the (and I promise never to ever use this word ever again after this post)... Blogisphere. I actually just died a little. I'm also not sure how to spell Bloggersphere and don't have wifi on the plane to Google it and make myself appear intelligent. Bloggisphere? This is using up my lifetime output of arse-cringingly knobbish words (knobbish is also one) so let's just assume that you know what I'm on about and I'll shut up now.

No, I didn't mean shut up for good. Really? You got that from that? I've still got some not-plummeting-to-the-ground-at-'000s-of-miles-an-hour to do and my playlist just flicked on to Erasure's “Give a Little Respect.” - This bears no relevance to the post other than that when the tracks flick on I can hear the propeller again and that, once more, gives me the heeby jeebies. I strongly suspect that Mr Goatee next to me (yep, a goatee in this day and age) is starting to question my taste in music, but I'll continue with my rather tenuous blaming of it on Spotify and hope that no one points out that I must've put the Playlist together in the first place.

Soundtrack to the film, Signs. Er, maybe not. Chase & Status, “Time”. That'll do. In the fast bits I can imagine my iPhone powering the plane with its sheer bloodymindedness.

15:50 – Spanish time.

So I've no idea why I'm writing the time to each loose section of this post. I think some chapter-style breaks might help me to get a move on and not ramble too much (yes, I appreciate the irony that all I've done so far is spurt out words I always vowed I never would and promote Spotify for all the wrong reasons). So, let's pick a subject... I suppose the point of a blog is that it should give you a running commentary in some sense, so as I gave reference to Vegas earlier and I'm obviously on a plane again now, I'll tell you a little bit about that.

And, wonderfully timed, something to demonstrate my fantastic taste in music, Electric Light Orchestra, “Mr Blue Sky”.

I won't go into loads of detail about my job (as it's really not that interesting)... All I will say is that it's not as self-fulfilling as working for a charity or saving lives, but it's also not as bad as working as chief sweeper-upper in a peep show in Cleethorpes (I once read that the guy who has to sweep up after peep shows was voted as having the worst job in the world by some magazine, poor fella. I added Cleethorpes as it's my least favourite place in the United Kingdom). Oooh, nice segue. Las Vegas is my least favourite place in the US.

I hate Vegas...

So, I was there for work. There's a massive electronics show called CES that's held in Vegas every January as a punishment for people who over-indulge on spirit at Christmas and need a bit of their soul taking away from them. This year was my second in attendance. 2012 was my first (you could probably have worked that out for yourself, but I thought I'd step in – you're welcome) and I really hated it. Not because of the show, that's actually pretty interesting and it's very good for meeting new business contacts, seeing new gadgets announced and catching up with old acquaintances, but the reason I hated it is because I didn't know what to expect and everything about Vegas is fake. It's smokey (and this comes from a smoker), claustrophobic, has a totally skewed perception on how many light bulbs is an appropriate number for a small city to house (and had me pre-fixing words with “totally” for a week) and if on the rare occasion you think you have managed to wander out into some fresh air and see some of Mother Nature's self-made beauty, you'll soon look up to realise that someone's actually painted the sky on the ceiling and that you're in fact still in Vegas's cruel clutches. What a bitch. So this year? I tried to go with a different attitude. Embrace Vegas. It is what it is. Enjoy it. The difference? I still hate Vegas, but was slightly happier about hating it.

The big man himself...

The best part of my trip was “meeting” Danny DeVito. There I was, sat on the grass with a colleague (I promise you, the Vegas/CES week is 16 hour days and you average 3 hours' sleep a night, but we sat on the grass for 5 minutes...) We'd been playing a game all week called “spot the celeb”. CES normally has a few in attendance, usually promoting their new range of headphones or talking about technology and various bits and bobs. Danny (to his mates) was there for an interview with one of the tech websites. Completely unrelated, but the girl from Weird Science was also there, much to my joy as I used to love that film. Anyway. Myself and my colleague had basically spent a lot of the week pointing out anyone who had even the most minor resemblance to a famous person and saying their name to each other, in an attempt to make the other person laugh (I told you it was a long week). For instance, woman walks past with a slightly big honker? Barbara Streisand. Black guy crosses the road in front of us? 50 Cent. So there we are, on the grass, and a really short man walks past to which I shout out, “Danny DeVito!” My colleague responds with, “shit, it's him!” and rushes over to ask for a photo. This, by the way, is something I would never do. I hate awkward situations. Despite all the different walks of life I see on my travels, and all the situations I get myself into and out of, I struggle to even ask for a wifi password in a bar or cafe. If it's work related? I'm fine. If it's anything for my own personal benefit? I'd just rather make do. So anyway, Danny agrees to the photo, calls me beautiful (I now LOVE him) and the rest is history. January 2013 and already I have the best photo of the year ever. 75 likes on Facebook. You just can't buy that sort of online self-esteem. The weirdest thing? I genuinely didn't think it was him as he was 'too short'. Really short. Half person height. I guess it's true what they say about the TV adding 5 inches...

Working away...

Now most of my friends (particularly the Facebook kind, the friends I see on a regular basis know better) think my life involves jetting around the world having meetings with this brand and that manufacturer and generally lahdihdahing about the place on my jollies. I'll be very clear... I am very grateful to have the opportunities I have. I didn't go to University. I fell into my “trade” accidentally on purpose and don't get me wrong, I worked hard to get here, but I could easily have ended up waitressing on Friday nights (that was actually the first job I turned down, purely because I didn't want to get pigeon holed by the temp agency). Not that there's anything wrong with waitressing – Jeez, this is difficult. I'm just going to continue on the basis that there's a strong chance I'm going to offend some people with this blogging malarkey, but hope that you will learn that I'm actually just a bit blunt by nature and not to take anything personally. Anyway. Travelling for work. Those who do will realise that in reality it just means lots of jet lag, tiredness, staying in hotel rooms and not always even seeing the place that you're travelling to. Like the past 24 hours, for example. Last night I landed in La Coruna, drove 10 minutes to the hotel (I'll get on to driving in foreign lands later) checked my email, did my day's work, went to sleep, woke up, went to a meeting, found a cafe with internets, worked for a bit, drove to the airport, got on a plane. Some trips are better than others; I particularly like going to California because I have friends there, but I'll get on to that later too.

Ok... we're coming in to land. Or we're about to crash. I'm not sure which. It's pretty bumpy and there's a man, I'm assuming the Captain, talking in Spanish. That reminds me... When we were about to take off he was talking and a distinctive “parp” sound came over the speaker. I'm not sure if this was an accident or an intentional inflection within the Spanish language, but everyone else seemed to find it highly amusing. RIght, there's my first fart joke. Time to leave I think. Sorry it's been a bit wordy for my first post. I do like a ramble, but as time goes on I'll keep them a bit shorter. Hasta Luego.