Lifestyle

Lifestyle

July 4th with Three #makeitright

July 7, 2015

Last Saturday was July 4th and while that may not mean a lot to most people, it means something to anyone who has friends or family in the US. If you’ve watched enough films and TV series you will know that this is one of the big holidays in ‘Murica! Unfortunately, it’s not easy for everyone on this side of the pond to quickly nip over to the States to celebrate and this is where Three comes into the picture, to #makeitright. Three was the first company to provide Skype-to-Skype calls on mobile phones here in the UK, and knows how important it is to stay in touch with everyone on the other side of the world, so they organised the #July4thWithThree party, for a little taste of Americana fun, with bbq, star spangled banners, a photobooth, Skype call stations and the opportunity to try out the new Samsung S6 phones. The Blogger Douchebag Crew #BDBcrew was invited and this is what went down:

art, Lifestyle, London

The best of June – in London and on the Interwebz!

June 30, 2015

June has gone in a flash. Am I the only one thinking the same? I don’t know why I get this feeling, maybe because the weather has shown some signs of improvement, with some pleasant sunny days thrown in for good measure. Also the fact that I have been super busy with my trips to Berlin and Lisbon as well as family and friends visiting. Here’s a bit of a rundown of some of the exhibitions I have attended, recommend but couldn’t take photos at, along with some random pics I took around London!

During these visits I was a bit of a tourist in my own city and went to Kensington Palace, where you can visit the Queen’s Chambers, the garden around it as well as two very interesting exhibitions: Fashion Rules and Victoria Revealed. Fashion rules shows a few gowns from Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana’s wardrobes and show why their style was so influential. Victoria Revealed shows us a collection of objects and artifacts that display a more human side of Queen Victoria. Both are worth visiting!

I also attended the Shoes – Pleasure & Pain exhibition at the V&A, which I thoroughly recommend, for obvious reasons. The shoes and boots on show are not only a dream (the majority of them) but also great testimonials of human history. Personal favourites were the David Lynch/ Christian Louboutin fetish ballet flats. Unfortunately photos were not allowed, so you’ll have to go and take a look yourself!

Another exhibition worth visiting until the 31st of August is Fashion on the Ration, at the Imperial War Museum. I took a couple of photos with my phone until I was asked to stop. they weren’t all that good, so I’m not sharing them and will admonish everyone who is in London until that time to go and see it for themselves. My friend Jasiminne from Posh Broke & Bored did a good write up on it, so you might as well go and read it there!

These are my news of the month and as always, I’ve found some nifty morsels of interestingness all over the interwebz: crazy cat lady conventions, catvertising and how to tell if your co-worker is an asshole, among other equally amusing things. Have a look after the jump!

Lifestyle

#lightscameracurrys – A photo workshop with #photocoachuk

June 29, 2015

A couple of weeks ago I attended yet another great event organised by Joe Blogs, this time a photography workshop sponsored by Currys and Canon. The idea was for us to step out of our comfort zone and start shooting in manual.

I definitely needed something like this, as I feel that I have yet to explore all the possibilities of my Canon 600D and sometimes it’s difficult to find the time to read a manual or watch all the tutorials. I had used a point and shoot for year and years and only got a proper DSLR a couple of years ago. It was an old Canon Rebel XT I got second hand and even though it had its limitations (it’s around 10 years old), it was great to start practising. Now I have a much better and more modern camera that eliminates some of the issues the older one created, so it’s about time I learn how to make the most of it. Being a kinestetic learner (I know this because I took a test at work, you know, important stuff) I learn better by doing and a workshop was the perfect way to go about it – having the chance to experiment and ask questions as we go is great! Paul Hames was there to be our teacher and photo mentor and we all had a great time (and hopefully will start taking better photos). We had a few pointers and technical advice given and then were set free in the city, to go out and explore with our cameras.

What were my main takeaways from this? There were a few more technical bits that I wrote down but I feel these are the main ideas anyone needs to remember to be a better photographer, regardless of skill level and equipment:

Lifestyle

Hayfever blues – how do you deal with it?

June 25, 2015

If you are one of the many people to be lucky to have been given hayfever when some divine entity was out there dishing out punishment, you will know exactly what I’ll be talking about. Hayfever is a very common allergic reaction to pollen, more prevalent in Spring and when the weather is warm and dry, as the trees will be setting them free in hopes of reproducing.

These miraculous particles will sometimes land on our noses instead of the stems of other pretty flowers and create havoc by causing our noses to itch, run and our eyes to get red and equally itchy, all topped with a tendency to sneeze like we’re trying to expel the devil from our noses. Flowers are pretty, but boy, they are evil!

There are a few ways of avoiding or dealing with these symptoms, which include:

– Not leaving the house or opening any window for the course of a few months (or at least when it’s not raining).
– Using a saline nasal spray for washing the nasal cavity and getting rid of allergens that might be stuck up there.
– Taking anti -hystamines which can sometimes be drowsy and leave you in a state of drugged confusion.
– Use a nasal guard gel, which is something I’ve only discovered existed this year.

The first option is not really possible, unless you:

a) enjoy being seclusive

b) work from home

c) are retired.

When it comes to treatments, the second option is actually quite good, as it really relieves itchiness and make your nose feel refreshed. Third option is also good and you just have to be careful with taking the non drowsy pills during the day. The forth option I have just tried and it’s really good because it’s a drug free option.

Lately I’ve had the worst and most violent hayfever reaction I can remember. I was alright, until I went to Berlin. I don’t know what kind of trees made it flare up but boy, talk about a sneezefest. My head was permanently full of snot, which also gave me the impression that my brain was trying to escape my skull through my nose. My eyes got a bit swollen and had a massive permanent headache for a few days. Back here in London, it’s been a bit better but only on a few days. I’ve been doing the combination of drugs and nasal guard gel that works during the day but I always find it that I’m worse when I wake up in the morning.

I’ve been trying mostly everything and I’ll try anything that helps deal with this flowery curse. Have you tried anything else that worked?

PS: I received a sample of Allergie Block, words and opinions (and the amazing graphics, haha) are my own.

Lifestyle

Wordy rappinghood

June 23, 2015

Language is a funny thing. I would even venture to say that it might be one of the most exciting things you can learn. By learning a new language and grasping its specificities you not only gain a new way of communicating with more people, but you also gain a new worldview.

As a non-native English speaker (but having acquired a good level of proficiency), it’s fantastic to be able to express myself in different ways and having a choice in which language I want to express myself. There’s a funny story about the way I’ve learned English – we had Sky TV and unlike English language shows on Portuguese TV, there were no subtitles, so along with what I learned in school, Sky was was my second English teacher. Also my friends Linda and Ira gave me books in English, and that also helped a lot with spelling. During Uni I befriended a few foreign artists that were living in Lisbon at the time and that was when my conversational skills started evolving. Then there was the internet and writing on Livejournal back in the day helped consolidate all of this. And the rest is history.

As an avid user of social media platforms such as Twitter or Instagram, I get also to learn a lot of new slang expressions all the time. Some of them can be really funny and even though might not be necessarily useful in my day to day life as a copywriter for enterprise software, they sure make life more colourful. It’s by learning slang and keeping up with whatever is being said out there that you really acquire and understand a language and a culture. It’s all well and good to know all the grammar and where all the apostrophes go, but when it comes to day to day convos, slang is where it’s at.

Slang, as pointed out in this interesting round table debate hosted by McCarthy & Stone, is not necessarily a bad thing, even if inappropriate in certain situations. In fact, slang is the motor that makes languages change and evolve and in today’s world, the internet has a lot to answer for. I can say that one of those sad people that spends too much time online and ends up speaking in memes… Ermahgerd! Yes, I am one of those idiots, but what can I do? I’m just too immersed in it sometimes and use the following on an almost daily basis:

Such wow, Stahp it!, LOL, QT.

It’s fun and silly and it makes me and other people smile, so it’s all good in my book.

What are your favourite slang expressions?

PS: This post has been done in collaboration with McCarthy & Stone. Words and opinion are my own.