A Day in the life of a PA - Part 2

CEO is back from LA – he has been out there since two weeks ago for Oscar’s season and frankly, I’ve enjoyed the break (and used the time wisely to learn skills including InDesign, website building, and Photoshop).  I know  the moment he lands (his arrival time has been imprinted in my brain the moment I booked the flights) thanks to a barrage of emails and texts coming through from his phone. 11 Hours of thinking time can be very dangerous. Phone calls pour in for meeting requests with Him and thank you notes arrive in regards to our latest celebrity bash - and I know that up until Easter things are going to be very busy indeed. 

As central London is hit by torrential downpour, I sit back in my chair grateful that I was sensible enough to bring in homemade soup for lunch, and with CEO safely away at a lunch meeting I have no reason to venture outside. That is until I receive a call from him asking me to go over to the restaurant he is currently at and collect his bags.

Begrudgingly, I put on my (very sensible and very un-cool) ski coat which I have taken to wearing as it continues to amaze me that a thick coat can keep me warm AND dry regardless of the weather (I am no coat-wearer, much to the horror of my aunt). I power-walk over to the restaurant where I see him sitting at the counter deep in (French) conversation with his client. After repeating his name and trying to catch his eye, I resort to tapping his shoulder lightly – feeling like some crazed fan in an upmarket dining room with scruffy hair and an oversized ski jacket. He turns to me and points over to the corner to indicate where his bags have been stores, and there sit three large Fortnum & Mason bags containing CEO-esque purchases: champagne and books. He also rattles off a list of tasks, meetings and dinners to schedule whilst I stand desperately trying not to forget anything as I am without clipboard, notepad or pen. I grab the bags and head for the door when a waiter stops me and points to a table of an elderly couple who are looking very alarmed and almost choking on their food. And then I realise, as the waiter slowly reaches for the three bags clasped firmly in my hand that they are not CEO’s... and in fact I have just tried to leave the restaurant with someone else’s Fortnum & Mason shopping. 

The waiter then heads over to the other bar where he fishes out a battered leather satchel and L.L.Bean canvas bag in bright blue, which I recognise instantly. Despite my apologies to the couple, they still glare at me like I’ve just tried (and failed) to pull off a shopping-thieving heist in broad daylight, and I hurriedly leave before I can cause any more havoc. 

A Second Attempt at Arson

By the second night, Ollie had decided he wanted pancakes as well and I still had the jug of batter mix in the fridge from my failed attempts the previous evening. So after a successful session of cutting his hair without the loss of limb, he entrusted me to make some more pancakes without setting the kitchen on fire again. 

I used a large pan, and decided to make smaller scotch pancakes to avoid any disasters. Despite this, I still managed to drop a lump of butter onto the stove AGAIN, but was able to wipe it away before it caught fire. The pancakes survived, and Ollie was delighted with his stack of belling-style nutella and banana pancakes. I flicked the induction hob off and did the washing up and that was that.

Or so I thought! The next morning Ollie headed into the kitchen and suddenly I heard the same 'CONNIE' my Dad would growl when I was 6 and had stomped on a sieve. I leapt out of bed and dashed to the kitchen. 'You've left the hob on ALL. NIGHT.' he said. I just can't believe it... Apparently this had been the one time he hadn't obsessively checked all the hob switches before bed, and I'd gone and left it on. I can never tease him about his OCD again. In my defence, the hob switch had been resting between 9 and 0, so whilst it was still hot, I don't think it had been on really hot...? I hope. And the good news is I haven't 'burnt the element out' or whatever technical term it is. I think for not I'm just going to sit with my hands in oven gloves and rock in the corner of the sitting room, as far away from the kitchen as possible. I'm starting to feel like Edward Scissorhands with my culinary expertise rapidly going down the drain. All I can do is be thankful that pancake day is a year away and in the meantime I need to work on not setting fire to the kitchen! 

How Not To Make Pancakes

Hallelujah! It's pancake day again. I've been craving pancakes since I realised Shrove Tuesday was upon us again... yesterday.

I raced home this evening, dreaming of all the guilt-free Nutella I could eat, with bananas all chopped and folded up in a gloriously stodgy yet fluffy pancake. During dinner we had a small incident with some questionable pasta sauce, but I didn't let that deter me. After I'd tidied away I set about making pancakes, using the three vital ingredients that every cupboard has: an egg, plain flour, and milk.

I take pride in the fact that I do not require a recipe for a batter mix - it's all about getting the right consistency. If it's too thick, you add more milk; too sloppy: more flour. So I popped my penultimate Clarence Court Burford Brown egg into a pyrex jug, and started pouring out the flour. There were a lot of large crumb-like objects in the packet which I assumed were just larger clumps of flour, and among the noise of the butter sizzling in the pan and the extractor fan, I said to my boyfriend 'I didn't know flour had a best before date?' after seeing that the packet in my hand read '2012'. Then, after giving the nearly-empty bag a good shake and more 'crumbs' falling out into a heap on top of my beautiful (and expensive) egg, I looked down and realised that the flour was spotty... and had weird seeds in. All this was done with a narrative to my boyfriend, until I suddenly realised that these 'seeds' were grey and wriggling. In an instant, I shoved the jug into the sink and ran into the bathroom in terror to wash my hands and make sure I hadn't accidentally inhaled a whateverthatwas or had one crawling up my arm.

By the time I returned (in washing up gloves and outdoor boots) the boyfriend had disposed of the flour and egg contents, so I spent the subsequent half hour emptying out our food cupboard and binning anything in open packets or that we hadn't used in months (lentils, pearl barley, paella rice). I also interrogated the boyfriend who insisted that the rice, icing sugar, raisins and dry pasta would be safe as weevils (what a disgusting word) don't like dry or sweet stuff and they don't have the amino acids that flour has. I then phoned my Dad for secondary guidance who advised that if I got the pan hot enough I wouldn't have to worry about weevils - they'd provide extra protein, followed by a call to my mother for some sympathy - who suggested SIEVING out the weevils. Sometimes I think I'm adopted.

So back to square one, feeling traumatised and seriously considering living a gluten free lifestyle thanks to the flour fiasco. After deciding that I really did want pancakes and that it was worth using up the last posh egg, I dug out a Kilner jar of flour - probably even older but with a trusty seal to deter any creepy crawlies - and started again. Making the batter went smoothly this time, sans hiccups, and it was all starting to look quite promising... until I set fire to the kitchen.

I added some mixture to the hot, buttery pan and swirled the mix around. The first pancake came out quite thin and crispy, so I added a bit more mixture on the second go. As I was twirling the pan around - very gently - half the pancake suddenly stuck to the pan so I gave it a small nudge and before I knew it, the other half had slopped right over the pan and across the entire hob, like pancake vomit. I let out a short scream, prompting the boyfriend to check from the safe distance of the sofa if I was alright. So far, things were still under control if a little messy, so I replied 'no, no.. It's fine' whilst scraping the batter mix off with the spatula. Then suddenly, the melted butter used to grease the pan - which had also slopped onto the hob - set on fire in such a comical way, and all I could do was scream a bit louder and stand there waving an empty frying pan madly at the hob as the flames quivered on the glass hob - leaving me utterly speechless, and remembering something about using a damp cloth to put it out. Thank goodness the boyfriend had sense to take on board the seriousness of me becoming speechless with stifled yelps and rushed over in time to guide the pan directly onto the flames to put it out.

The pancake mixture lay in a horrible splatter across the stove and there was now a giant burnt crust forming on the stove and bottom of the pan. If you had been there at that moment, you would not have believed that in on a 'good' day, I am quite the talented chef. The remains looked like a pancake slaughter session or the aftermath of a food fight, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I ended up doing both. At the same time.

It took the boyfriend a while before he could see the funny side... He was more bothered about the glass stove, our security deposit, and scraping off the gloopy mess from the hob, whilst I was sad about wasting my last two Clarence Court eggs. We opened the kitchen windows for the first time in months to rid the room of the billowing clouds of smoke that would invariably set the fire alarm off (fortunately we were relieved of that calamity), and attempted to scrape the burnt batter off the hob ring which arguably made the damage look even worse. Boyfriend then got annoyed because I'd promised to cut his hair that evening and pancakes had taken priority (duh), and if I couldn't cook a simple pancake without setting the house on fire, why would he let me go near his head with a pair of scissors? (Like cooking, I am extremely skilled in the art of men's hair cutting... just not this evening it seems.)

Suffice it to say, there was no hair cutting this evening... And I ended up skipping the lonely cold and crispy pancake and having a banana with Nutella instead, feeling like I had the opposite of the Midas touch. I am also mentally scarred at the idea of any form of cooking now, thanks to the culinary catastrophes I experienced in the space of two hours, leading me to believe that maybe I should have given up and gone to bed after the pasta sauce debacle. There is a lesson to be learned here about flour, the importance of Kilner jars, and the dangers of making pancakes.

The remains of the second pancake.

A Fruitless Search: The Reasons Why Supermarkets are Failing

• I want to buy a can of soup and not worry that it might be half price at the next store. A pot of Tesco Finest fresh soup is £2.40 in one store, and 2 for £2 in another. What the hell? 

• All these silly offers. Cut the crap, and just cut pounds. I don’t need to be confused into whether it’s cheaper to buy peppers individually or in a pack of three or five, and I don’t need three packs of butter in my fridge. With the nation wasting 15 millions tonnes of uneaten food each year, don’t persuade me to buy more than one to get the best deal - just lower the price for one. Give straight discounts and show some self-respect.

• A trip round Tesco metro takes me 45 minutes so don’t get me started on the huge superstores. I want to nip in, find what I want and pay for it, without being led round each display counters, past the pyramid of Philadelphia cheese on offer, and zig zag up every aisle just to find ten items.

• Vouchers. Why on earth do I want a voucher for 5p off strawberry yoghurt? I don’t even eat strawberry yoghurt! They might aim to save you some money on your next shop, but I was really hoping on leaving and never coming back until your receipt machine printed off five different vouchers - money off my first online shop, bonus points for fuel, money off the next time I buy a 5kg bag of rice (just bought one and probably won’t need one for another year), and even more maddening, a voucher telling me how much I could have saved elsewhere. You get my point. 

• Staff who don’t know their aisle 2 from their aisle 32. ‘In the olden days…’ store staff would know your first name, and your ‘usual’ shopping items. They’d know that you came in to shop at exactly 10:30am on a Saturday, and how you like your ham carved. Now it’s just a generation waiting until they can clock out who don’t know much about the produce that they’re selling - I’ve had to describe okra and quinoa to hapless school drop-outs many a time. Waitrose actually succeeds in giving the impression that the staff actually quite like food.

• ‘Ripen at home’. Oh come on! I’d like to find one person who’s never bought a cheaper ‘ripen at home’ avocado and it actually ripened into a soft and creamy avocado. Selling ‘ripe and ready’ fruit at a premium is a joke. The fact that these bananas/plums/nectarines/avocados are 50p cheaper just so you can have it sitting in your fruit basket going from rock-solid to mouldy overnight is obscene.

• No one gives a shit about self-service checkouts. Whilst it was fun five years ago as a teen to ‘scan all your shopping yourself’, the appeal has severely withered away. Despite the fact I am young and tech-savvy, rarely are there any staff attending the self-service checkouts and usually I am stuck in a queue halfway up an aisle whilst the elderly jab at the screens, attempting to swipe a bar code without listening to the instruction that an item has been removed from the bagging area. I know, I know, the machines are over-sensitive and play up and I have been caught out several times, but why have them? You want us to do the job for you but you have to do it anyhow. When you could just be putting more staff on the regular tills. As for “ten items or less” it is “fewer”. Fewer!

Lose lbs, Save Pounds

Despite costly gym memberships, the price of a personal trainer, and waiting lists to get into the local Zumba class, working out doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Or any price for that matter! Stop blaming membership prices for your lack of exercise and start getting fit for free (and plenty more fun, too).

Fitness DVDs. No need to turn your nose up at Jane Fonda rolling around on a stability ball, nor a Z-lister weight-loss DVD. The Ministry of Sound does some good dance workouts, and for the serious fitness bunnies the Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred will soon whittle you into shape. Doing a range of workout DVDs gives you the opportunity to try many different routines and will stave off workout boredom. Push the furniture to the side and turn your lounge into a dance floor to work away your ‘wobbly bits’.

Fitness Store Events. Many local running and athletic apparel stores offer running groups or classes led by certified coaches and trainers, including Sweaty Betty, Nike Training Club and Sweatshop Running. This is a great way to get expert advice and find new workout buddies. Don’t be shy - enquire and a store and give it a go.

Party in the Park. Get a group of friends together and plan a 5k round the park, or get doing outdoor circuits together. This could be doing tricep dips on a park bench, running on uneven terrain, or crunches and lunges on the grass. The more friends you take, the more fun you’ll all have. Wherever you live has to be more scenic than staring at the four walls of your gym from a treadmill.

Don't Take Shortcuts. All around us are short cuts and conveniences: lifts, escalators, trains, cars. Whilst they may make our life a little easier, they certainly don't help our waistline. Get off the tube one stop earlier, don't get the bus and walk instead, or take the stairs - find ways throughout your day to incorporate exercise and extra calorie-burners rather than taking the easy way. These little efforts all add up leading to a high calorie burn overall and trim measurements. 

Get 'Appy. There are hundreds of fitness apps available for smartphones. Couch-to-5k is a free and popular app for those who have never attempted running before, and will soon have you up and setting your own personal best records. Other ones include Adidas MiCoach which provides voice coaching and training plans, Office Yoga, for those workaholics chained to their desk through lunch breaks, Fitness Buddy offering over 300 exercises, and the Nike Training Club app so you can get down and ‘just do it’ with their audio guidance and video demos from top fitness trainers.

Think Drink. You don't need to guzzle sports drinks and fizzy pop to give you energy and keep you fit. H2O does the job perfectly, without the additives and fat-preserving chemicals. What you put in your body is just as important (if not more important) than what you do with your body, and can make all the difference. Substituting fizzy drinks for still unadulterated water is the single best diet, and won't spike your blood sugar levels like sugary drinks and lead to cravings and snacking. Unless you're a professional athlete and training for more than four hours a day, you shouldn't even need lucozade to get through a gym sesh - your body, a bottle of water and a banana at the end of a workout is sufficient without the need for chemicals. 

Scrub Up Well - The Benefits of Exfoliating

Give me a facial salt scrub and I'll scrape off a layer of skin like a sand-grinder. Whilst this is definitely not the method most optimum for cleaning your delicate skin, there are many benefits to a (gentle) regular facial exfoliation, leading to a younger-looking and blemish-free face.

Dermatologists have found that helping your skin with the removal of dead cells will increase cell turnover, revealing newer, healthier skin cells plus a decrease in blackheads, pigmentation and fine lines. Here are five reasons why picking up a pot of microbead exfoliator or salt crystal facial scrub with crushed coffee beans and shards of diamonds (okay, so I made that bit up) could transform your face and help you scrub up. 

Helps Clear Acne & Breakouts

 Exfoliation helps to reduce the occurrence of acne and blackhead breakouts. Acne-prone skin sheds extra skin cells more than other skin types, but the cells do not fall away. Instead, they stick to the skin, clogging pores and hair follicles. As this dead cell debris builds, the skin produces excess follicle oils—which leads to blackheads and blemishes. Regular exfoliation is like “taking out the rubbish”, reducing the likelihood of clogged pores and acne.

1. Improve Your Skins Texture

    Exfoliating the tired, dead cells also speeds up the skin renewal process, allowing new healthy cells to take their place. This process turns your complexion from dull and dry to bright, vibrant, and smooth. In addition, regular exfoliation reduces fine lines and wrinkles and keeps your skin much softer. 

2. Reduces Appearance of Large Pores

    Along with dead cells, exfoliating also removes the dirt stuck deep inside your pores. Washing your skin alone will not accomplish this. When pores become clogged, they appear larger, which is the last thing we all want. By “decongesting” your pores through exfoliation, they will diminish in size and allow your skin a healthy polished glow.

3. Exfoliate Away All Signs of Aging

    As you age, your skin becomes drier and loses plasticity (that magic word!), which can result in lines and wrinkles. You also may find your skin is more rough in texture than it used to be. This is because of the multiple layers of dead skin cells that accumulate of the years. Exfoliators containing renitoid compounds which are effective and safe options to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

4. Better Absorption

    Serum and moisturizers are better absorbed into skin that’s not blocked by layers of dead cells and dirt. Exfoliating allows your skin to be properly moisturized and stay healthy. Regular exfoliating of your face will aid a smoother application of makeup and will also allow your sunscreen to better protect your skin.

Three of the best.... Cleansers

Elemental Herbology Cool & Clear Oil Control Facial Cleanser - £29 for 100ml

This was given to me as a 'get well' treat from a friend. I love it! It smells gorgeous and is full of glorious botanicals and anti-oxidant ingredients like lavender, tea-tree oil and green tea to fight bacteria and soothe and protect the skin, making you feel like a floral goddess.

The pump action on the bottle ensures that I don't waste too much cleanser, but I do have to pump out 4 to 6 squirts of the stuff to get a 'clean' feeling and even lather over my face. It doesn't foam much but this isn't necessarily a bad thing - it's like a botanical gel for your face which penetrates your face, slowly doing you good. For someone with oily skin, this is great at balancing oil to leave the skin feeling clean and purified. I have taken to using this product as a 'treat' instead a daily cleanser just to make it last a bit longer. 

Boots Tea Tree and Witch Hazel Foaming Face Wash - £3.59 for 150ml

This is a clean-feeling and refreshing foaming cleanser infused with tea tree oil. Being the avid spot-squeezer, I often get into the shower with a red and blotchy face from where I've pinched and poked at my skin. The tea tree and witch hazel is very good at calming down my skin and cleaning out the holes I've made in my face. 

It pumps out as a thick mousse-like foam onto my hand, but as I rub it on my face most of the bubbles 'flatten' and disappear. However, it's very good at removing foundation, dirt and oil, so usually I use this first for my skincare regime. I also like this face wash as it's not too astringent, so I know it won't dry out my skin. Out of all my cleansers and face washes, this is the one that feels like it's ridding my skin of spot-causing bacteria and helping to unblock pores - I also use their toning lotion. 

  

Nip+Fab Glycolic Fix Cleanser - £7.95 for 150ml

I just love Nip+Fab products! They're not overpriced, yet they claim (and seem) to do beneficial and scientific wonders to your skin. I hope to do a 'three of the best' on their other products, but I couldn't miss an opportunity to praise their cleanser. 

When you tip the bottle upside down it sort of pours out like water. I was dubious to start with because usually you don't get much foam out of watery cleansers like this. However, within seconds of hitting my face I was trying not to breathe bubbles up my nose - this is the foamiest cleanser yet, in a really good way. It has a delicate smell of hints of apple and grapefruit, and the 2% glycolic acid aims to exfoliate and retexture, whilst apple amino acids cleanse and purify. My skin feels so hydrated after using this and I feel like I'm doing something good for my skin - to combat the heavy scrubbing I do when I'm using an exfoliator. I always try to hold my breath for as long as possible so I can rub it round my face that little bit longer, before I have to wash it off or breathe the bubbles up my nose.

Party Fever - Beating January Flu's

The first of January is usually a day of starting resolutions with the gusto of Goliath: heading out on that 10k (even if you do come back home after 2k); abstaining from all foods which aren’t kale or beetroot; and putting your new Nutri-bullet juice extractor to good use. Despite all good intentions and insatiable willpower, sadly I spent next four days in bed - and this was not due to the NYE celebrations we had. Upon consulting Siri, I am told that I am not pregnant nor suffering from ebola; rather, I have flu. With symptoms of feverishness, chills, lack of appetite, fatigue, muscle soreness, back and stomach pain, headache, coughing and a sore throat, I can tell I’m in for a ride here - with the added bonus of beating New Year weight-loss resolutions in double time. 

During the fourth evening spent suffering and after another teary-episode about facing another sleepless night, I attempt a ‘vicks bowl’. I’d seen the boyfriend do it once, and if it weren’t for my slightly disturbing fascination with gruesome bodily fluids, our relationship may have been seriously traumatised. It’s basically creating a mini steam room - where, thankfully, no one wants to join you. The Vicks bowl appears to be something of a minor success. Whilst I still feel exhausted, my nose is as dry as the tissue box empty and everything below my chest still feeling below par, I can actually take relatively full breaths, I’m not clearing my throat every ten seconds, and my head feels slightly less pressurised. If all these symptoms return within the next five minutes, a good Vicks steam has shown to be very beneficial to the facial pores and has put me one step towards feeling rather relaxed. Sadly the symptoms do return pretty pronto (throbbing eyes and forehead, aching ears and I think my heart is actually starting to slow down due to regular overdoses of cough syrup). I should really start measuring doses out with a teaspoon instead of drinking estimated gulps of it… in the darkness… whilst half asleep… when looking for ANY solution to end this fix this. Please do not try this at home. I am by no means an advocate of guestimation, particularly when it comes to medication. Or cocktail making. 

The night before I return to work and I’m contemplating adding an extra pair of ski socks - on top of the sports socks and ski socks I already have on my feet - and crawling into the oven, both for warmth purposed and as a way to end this misery. My head feels like a tightly filled balloon, waiting to burst any second and I have a huge lump in my throat - and not because I keep gulping alarming amounts of chesty cough mixture. When I do get to sleep, my body goes into hibernation and I end up sleeping for 12 hours at a time. I am mentally and physically exhausted from this illness which no amount of sleep will cure. I am lucky that by day four of this my muscles and joints have ceased aching every time I move, lift something, or expend marginal energy on a meagre activity like making the bed. 

As a last ditch attempt to ensure a sound night’s sleep (who am I kidding) I slather Vicks VapoRub over my skin - including pointless places like my neck and spine in some vague hope it will penetrate and steam my insides - shove the nozzle of Olbas Oil up my nose like a crack addict, and bury myself under two winter duvet covers and a thick velvet throw, whilst wearing a giant fur-lined hoody. 

I am not usually an ill person, and this sudden knock-down in my prime is not due to my over attentive-ness to hand washing, wet wipes and a steady supply of anti-bac gel. I like to think I have a strong immune system and I always achieve my 5-a-day (and unlike my BF, I know this does not include Terry’s chocolate orange). When the landlord brought his coughing 10-year-old round whilst inspecting our boiler, within minutes of him leaving all door handles and light switches were sanitised to within an inch of their life. 

I blame London, and those infernal bus pillars and tube poles that the filthiest and most unhygienic commuters insist on wiping their noses over. Whilst I try and avoid such germ-havens, the regular jerk of the bus or race to get off may have me clinging onto these poles of death in a bid to stay upright. 

Yesterday we ventured over to Westfield shopping centre (20 minutes from our house) where I proceeded to cough over a Clarins' sales advisor, struggle to eat half a tortilla, breath into my scarf like a deranged psychopath and generally act and sound like a dying pensioner. Is this what dying feels like? Pass me my skinny jeans - I need one last piece of satisfaction before this kills me, whether it’s by chewy vitamin, severe overheating, or my head erupting (finally) over our White Company bed sheets. 

A Day in the Life of a PA

Recently I attended an evening for ‘influential PA’s in Mayfair’. This doesn’t necessarily mean I am influential on my boss (although I’d like to think it does), but rather that he is an influential person and I'm the one who controls his schedule. This isn’t the only thing I manage, however.

My morning starts at whatever early time CEO calls to ask me to pick up some medication for him or book a table at a certain place. Often these things require being written down and taking action immediately – not the sort I can put off in favour of a lie-in. My journey to the office takes 40 minutes, but getting out of Oxford Circus feels like hours! CEO is currently in America for a month over Christmas followed by a business trip causing a friend to say ‘that’s great! Don’t you have less work?’ Oh no. I have work but it’s running 5-8 hours behind UK time, so at 3am I’m getting calls from him to cancel a dinner reservation, add a trip to Mexico to his flight schedule and book a car for 5 minutes time. There are days when I feel like Andrea Sachs from The Devil Wears Prada, running around like a headless chicken whilst trying to locate an unpublished manuscript or help plan an A-list event without paying for any of it. At 6.30pm at the end of a long working day, in the same tone as Miranda Priestly, he might mutter from his desk: ‘Get me Patrick’.

I sit at my iMac imagining all the other PA's at the receiving end of my emails to be snooty and judgemental, in black sleek outfits, towering Louboutin’s (what else) and hair pulled tightly into a bun. I feel inexperienced with all I’m expected to handle - I’m trusted with insurance forms, car MOTs and tax renewal forms, when I don’t even do my own! This is how I’ve learnt to pay overdue road tax, fix an engine light after he forgot to fill his beautiful Bentley with fuel, sort mobile phone bills and pay daily parking fines. 

A dreaded call seconds before his flight takes off (literally, MOMENTS) and I fly into a panic. CEO is the sort to regularly miss his flights, and I immediately visualise my evening spent with my phone glued to my ear, liaising between our flight company and CEO, who will call me up in between the airline calls to check on progress, and then once a new flight is in place, announce he will stay in an overly-expensive hotel for another night instead and to move the flight to the following day. With a HUGE sigh of relief on my side, he instead tells me he has lost his kindle somewhere in Japan. The week before it was his iPhone in Milan, and his iPad in the magazine pocket on Eurostar Paris. And it’s my lucky self to call up every airline, lost property office, chauffeur, and hotel concierge to see if it has been handed in. In the list above, the only successfully returned item was the iPhone 6, which required verbally guiding CEO around the streets of Milan like a comedy spy escapade using the ‘Find my iPhone’ app on my computer to locate his other phone. It truly felt like a ‘Misson Accomplished’ once he was reunited with his phone. The story of his old PA receiving a baffled call from him one time: ‘Nora, why am I in Brussels?’ after boarding the Eurostar to Brussels instead of Paris quite by mistake - and without realising this error until arriving at the wrong destination - sends the office into hysterics each time it is recalled. I am still trying to come up with a way to glue CEO’s personal effects to his body… 

Plenty of times I end up rescheduling rescheduled meetings, and every so often - to keep me on my tippy toes - he creates his own agenda without my knowledge until he instructs me to cancel all meetings I have carefully manoeuvred into his tight schedule for that day - and often last minute. Other tasks include sourcing and wrapping up birthday and Christmas presents for family members, and keeping a steady supply of Badoit: the only water CEO will drink. 

Most evenings I am able to leave the office at a reasonable time (provided CEO has left the building), much to the annoyance of the 'sloggers' who find some form of satisfaction in staying in the office until 9pm. All I need is an internet connection and my Blackberry, in the event that CEO throws a crisis at me - without the need to be glued to my office chair.

I dream of getting mugged and acting terrified, whilst joyfully handing over my work Blackberry instead, and perhaps wine intake has increased since taking over as PA - something I aim to combat as a New Year’s resolution much to the disappointment of my gin-distilling boyfriend. I am learning to combat the trauma of this 24/7 job by regular blogging and heading off for an evening run where I can leave my Blackberry at home. Or just having reeeealllyyy long showers - I’m not so highly-strung that I take my phone into the bathroom with me. Yet. 

Three of the best… Taupe Nail Varnish

Tope, tape, tawp… I always struggle with the word. I shouldn’t, because it’s my favourite colour, and by the next sentence I will have researched, found and learnt its pronunciation. I am going by the Wikipedia entry of ‘taupe’ and will remember from now on that taupe [tope] rhymes with ‘goat’. Et voila. 

So, being a fan of the colour and the fact it looks really hot as a nail colour (natural, understated, elegant, chic), here are my favourite nail paints in the colour. For those of you who are unsure of what colour taupe is, it’s like a mushroom colour, or lilac-y grey and is absolutely beautiful. 

Models Own - Utopia 064
This one is like a really pale lilac. I love it, because it’s quite ‘pop art’ having near-white colour blocks on your nails - without going for the tippex look. Models Own polish dries rapidly and stays on well.

Nails Inc. - Porchester Square 213
Porchester Square is another favourite of mine and one of their ‘Hero Shades’ due to its popularity. It dries quickly and stays on for up to two days - and that's coming from someone who does a lot of hand-washing! The shade isn’t too pale - more like a pastel, and can appear darker in some lights than others. I’m looking forward to wearing this one with a nude/ pale pink blouse and black & white skirt tomorrow evening at a dinner party. 

Barry M - Cappucino 341
Usually I don’t go for Barry M as I’ve had bad experiences with it in the past. I always find it chips off extremely easily - it barely lasts a day. But the colour is deep and gorgeous, and if I’m not looking for a colour as deep as Chanel’s paradoxal then Cappucino does the trick for a night out or an event. 

…Other good polishes for mushroom lovers: Chanel Le Vernis Paradoxal 509 for a rich, darker and purple-ier tone; Christian Louboutin Zoulou for a chocolatey brown; or Rimmel Pro Beige Style 365 with the best nail brush ever (it’s about half a centimetre wide allowing for a smooth and bubble-free application to your nail). If your looking for a really ‘nude’ colour on a white-skin tone, then this colour makes it hard to see where your cuticles end and your nails start! 

A Big-Foot Problem.

So here’s the issue. I have big feet. Not ginormous, but big. Big as in, an 8.5 to 9... or in more universal terms, an EU 42. I come from a family of big feet, with my brother coming in at an astounding UK size 15.

I cannot go into a shop, point at a pair of shoes and know that they will have my size... or even that my size will actually exist. I will never be able to buy a pair of Kurt Geiger’s – or worse – Isabel Marant and Manolo Blahnik, as they only go up to an EU 41 (UK 7). When I’m buying a new pair of running trainers, there is no point going to the women’s section of Nike and selecting a pair of coral trainers with blue laces. It’s to the men’s department for me, to purchase some depressing grey and orange trainers (why can’t men wear pink?!) in a men's 42. There is some good news though... Jimmy Choo have attempted to accommodate for big-feet: they go up to a 42 AND they’re generous in sizing (I take a 41.5 shoe there). This has resulted in a wardrobe full of Jimmy Choos... and not much else!

I do not want to go to the equivalent of ‘Jacamo’ for women with big feet - It's not that there aren't shoes out there. But I want to walk into Selfridges or the Shoe Heaven in Harrods, and walk out with a new box of beautiful shoes. Setting up my own brand of shoe is not the solution – but making brands and manufacturers more aware of the target market they are cutting out will be a step in the right direction. 

People’s feet are getting larger as each generation gets taller. The average height of women in the 40s was 5’2 with a 3.5 sized shoe (UK), and by 2012 women were on average 5’5 with a size 6 shoe. Please can we admit that by 2015 the average shoe size might have hit a size 7? And let’s just point out that by average, I mean the MIDDLE. The number expressing the central or typical value in a set of data. This does not mean that a UK 7 is the highest size – it is the middle size, meaning that out of all the people with feet smaller that a 7 – there are JUST AS MANY PEOPLE with a size LARGER than a 7.

So why are shops still refusing to order in shoes sized 8 or higher? I’ve got money that I want to spend on shoes. Shoes that fit, and where I can wriggle my toes in the inch of space at the end. Shoes where I can try on a larger size if need be – and not have to debate whether I squeeze my feet into a size 7 and risk a life of curled up, deformed hammer toes or to never own a pair of Isabel Marant Bekket Trainers, or Manolo Blahnik Tayler Pumps.

I almost considered surgery to shorten my toes by a centimetre until I read a woman’s personal experience of hearing surgeons sawing through her toes while on local anaesthetic. I think I’ll just stick to Jimmy Choos and handbags until designers realise that big feet aren't necessarily ugly.

The Imitation Game - The Story of Alan Turing

I was extremely fortunate to get the opportunity to watch The Imitation Game on a pre-release DVD in the comfort of my own home. It isn’t the sort of film I’d be particularly interested in, but starring Benedict Cumberbatch, one of my favourite actors, Keira Knightley and Charles Dance (AKA Tywin Lannister), how could I refuse?

The film is about the life and extraordinary talent of Alan Turing, a mathematician from Kings College, Cambridge. He achieved the job position at MI6 working to decode secret coded messages sent between the Germans, and deciphering their Enigma machine. He soon realised that with 159 million million various possibilities of codes which were changed again at midnight each day, the human mind was not a reliable method of working out the codes and within weeks of arriving at Bletchley Park he had designed a giant machine that could try out every code possibility within the course of a few hours. With this large computer, they were able to break the codes, save lives and shortened the Second World War by at least two years. 

He spent his life hiding his homosexuality as it was illegal until 1967 and when arrested and charged for it, he opted for a government-mandated ‘hormonal therapy’ (chemical castration) – as opposed to jail where he would have been taken away from his beloved computing machines (by this time they had won the war). At 41 years old in 1954 he committed suicide. Just think what else he could have done for the country. Scientists and technicians later studied and developed his ‘Turing’ machines, which today we call computers.

Cumberbatch fits the role perfectly, adding his ‘Sherlock’ personality - verging on Aspergers - to the character, giving blunt and abrupt answers, taking everything literally, with an exceedingly intelligent and analytic brain, yet lacking in any ability to make friends or participate in 'small talk'. If you love him in BBC’s Sherlock, you’ll love this. The Imitation Game is a gripping movie which made me sit on the edge of my seat and cry out in frustration at several moments. Keira Knightley plays a very interesting and likeable character right from the moment she purposefully enters the room full of men applying for the role of a decoder and is patronisingly told that the clerical candidates are in another room. Turing gives her a chance to pass his 6-minute intelligence ‘exam’ and she beats all the other men.

Turing had to constantly prove himself to a lot of people – colleagues, commanders, generals. When his idea of a decoding machine was ignored, he wrote directly to Winston Churchill to ask for the £100,000 needed to build the machine that would win the war. There’s a heartbreaking scene (sorry to ruin it for you) where they have just cracked the Enigma code, and have gut-wrenchingly realised that there is about to be an attack on a British passenger convoy, of which one of their colleagues with them says that his brother is on that ship returning from war. They are faced with the dilemma of alerting the ship and RAF and saving 500 lives – or keeping Enigma and their success in breaking the Germans’ codes a secret and going on to win the war.

After the war in 1945 he was awarded an OBE for his wartime services, and in 2013, Turing received a posthumous by Queen Elizabeth II. This film is an absolute must-see, and has catapulted its way into my top 5 films. It's a thriller cross with being a drama and biography with moments of thrills, triumph and sadness. Hopefully now, through this great film, Alan Turing will finally receive the recognition he deserves. 

Three of the Best... Lush Products

Mask of Magnaminty - £9.75/315g

This green, clay-like face mask contains bentonite gel for soothing and cleansing the skin, peppermint oil to stimulate skin cells and reduce spots and inflammations, and marigold oil and chlorophyllin to treat the skin. It is a mint green deep cleansing mud that smells delightful and is soothing just to plaster it onto your face. Prior to tweaking their ingredients, this clay mask used to dry up and crack once applied - leaving your face stuck firm until you scrubbed it off. Now their new mask stays fresh and moist on your face until it's time to rinse the rough textured clay off. It's supposed to yank out debris from pores while exfoliating dry skin and calming redness - it's a one hit wonder to address many needs. 

With evening primrose seeds and aduki beans inside to exfoliate the skin as you wash it off, this is an added bonus for me - I love to scrub my face raw to remove oil and blocked pores. It leaves my skin fresh and smooth, without the price tag of a professional spa facial. This one's a winner! It's also Lush's only fresh mask that doesn't have to be kept in the fridge or used in a set amount of days. 

 

Ocean Salt (Self-Preserving) Facial Scrub - £13.25/250g

Ocean Salt is like a martini cocktail for your face. It contains vodka, grapefruit, lime, and salt and the odd times a bit has gone into my mouth it's like drinking a tequila cocktail with salt rim! The giant chunks of sea salt are rich in minerals and excellent for scrubbing away dead skin, whilst the avocado butter, coconut oil and seaweed leave skin soft, smooth and conditioned.

I usually emerge from the shower with a bright red face after using this - only because it's so exfoliating and I do like to attack my face with a flannel covered in rock salt scrub. It is so refreshing, and will get rid of any stubborn spots or blemishes you may have lurking on your face. 

Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter - £6.75/50g

This indulgent cuticle butter contains shea butter, mango butter, beeswax and cold-pressed avocado oil which are extremely beneficial for the skin: especially the cuticles which are prone to dryness. I love the scent - it smells like lemon sherbet and will brighten up any day. Another great thing about this product is that a little goes a long way - just the smallest amount spreads all over.

This intense conditioning butter leaves skin soft and hydrated thanks to all the oils and specially selected ingredients, and can be applied to any dry areas including knees, elbows, heels, brittle nails and cuticles. It spreads like butter, and soaks into the skin pretty quickly. My own qualm with this luscious pot of lemon cream is that it's quite greasy (when applied liberally) - my colleague brought a pot of it into work and left oil all over the phone handset! 

I don't have dry cuticles, but this is also a great nourishing butter to combat any damage from nail polish over-use, or for an evening pamper.

An Evening at Brasserie Chavot and Alyn Williams at The Westbury, Conduit Street

Yesterday evening, I was invited to an event at the Alyn Williams dining room at The Westbury for drinks and canapes, followed by a three course dinner at Brasserie Chavot, next door. I was amongst ten other 'influential PA's in Mayfair', invited to see and experience both restaurants. 

A few people knew each other, but as usual I was starting from scratching terms of learning names and meeting people. Uusally this is the best way by far to network your way around as there's no 'security blanket' in the form of a friend that you can hide behind and stand chatting to the whole night. The Alyn Williams is a wonderful restaurant within The Westbury Hotel  (37 Conduit St, London W1S 2YF), with thick carpet, a serene atmosphere and big wine fridges that act as walls. With a Michelin star, the service and champagne were delightful, and the canapes that were brought out were artistic and delicious. The two dishes that stood out were these small deep fried balls filled with a delicious light prawn filling and a light, crunchy covering, and these little toasts with tomatoes on top. This actually sounded way better when they were introduced by the waiter - it's just that I've forgotten the ingredients so I'm relying totally on how they looked! Shameful, I know. Mr Alyn Williams came out afterwards to greet us and check that we weren't all choking on his bread-crumbed balls. They were seriously amazing. 

Afterwards, we were taken into Brasserie Chavot (41 Conduit Street, London W1S 2YF), a large French-style brasserie. Most or the menu was in French, and the Maitre D and waiters were on form, knowledgeable and efficient. I went for the Salmon Tartare followed by Veal Ossobucco which was divine. The starters were around the £11 mark, and also offered oysters, snails and soft shell crab. Mains were £25-30 and included duck casserole, seabass and a ballotine of Cheval (horse). 

   

The salmon was the tastiest salmon I've ever had, with little balls of cucumber and served on a bed of pureed avocado. I cannot emphasize how incredible this tasted. The veal was also a memorable meal - it was off the bone, and had been marinated and served with sauteed green beans, artichoke and potatoes. It was mouth-wateringly tender, and held so much flavour. We were also served side dishes of salty chips with the perfect ration of crunch to fluffy potato, and tenderstem broccoli. We had wine to match our meals - I drank a spanish white wine which was glorious, but sadly, once again I have no idea what the name or grape was. The waiters were extremely knowledgeable on wine and at deciphering all the French on the menu. 

 

It was a really pleasant evening and I enjoyed meeting various other PA's in Mayfair. I chatted with two ladies from the Belstaff office, a French girl from JAB Holdings who got a fabulous discount off their house brands including Jimmy Choo and Bally, one woman PA to a celebrity couple, and another PA to the managing director of Conde Nast UK and President of Conde Nast International. It was very interesting to compare notes, and see if PA-ing had been something they'd always wanted to do. For me, it's just stepping stone to where I want to get to, but it was fascinating to see where they'd come from, how they got into running someone elses life, and if they wanted to continue. Most of the ladies I spoke to had been doing the job for more than 5 years!

We all decided to have a pudding seeing as the meal was on the house - I opted for a chocolate and pistachio 'pot de creme' which looked very interesting, and the pistachio flavour really came through. Due to my emerging food baby, I dug down to the bottom and ate most of the chocolate leaving the cream and biscuit pieces.

The whole atmosphere was elegant and secluded, and the noise levels were relaxed and mellow. Overall this was a really enjoyable and stylish venue to dine at - I hope to go back on a romantic and issue-free date night with the Boyfriend, and I will definitely be recommending it to my CEO and team.

Too Many Utensils Spoil the Broth

I was thinking back to an English class during my time in Sixth Form, when we were discussing kitchen utensils. It was a medieval recipe which required a host of utensils – almost longer than the ingredients list – which sparked the discussion. The open question was: ‘do you need all these utensils to be a successful cook?’

My answer was, and still remains a stoic ‘no’. But there was at least one person who felt that yes, with all the bain-maries, boning knives, jam spoons and twizzling noodle forks, you could become the next Michel Roux. I have paraphrased (and possibly exaggerated) what she said at the time, but you only need a bit of common sense to know that a fork is as good as a whisk, and a paring knife will chop up most things from cheese to salami to broccoli. Scissors make a more than adequate pizza cutter when times are really tough, and all these ‘shortcuts’ can also save a LOT of washing up.

In my opinion (as I am always ready to offer), what makes a good chef is down to what you can make out of very little. Growing up with parents who are ‘creative chefs’, I learnt there was little need to rely on recipes, and observed many a night when there was nothing to eat, them somehow producing a different and very tasty meal out of leftover food and tins found at the back of the cupboard, none of which required a fork and a microwave, I may add. Obviously I won’t be giving up my electronic milk frother anytime soon in place of a fork, but I am trying to highlight the fact that you don’t need a kitchen filled with every pointless accessory in the world, from egg cutters, banana slicers, strawberry stem removers, avocado scoopers, meat mallets and asparagus peelers (I mean, really?) to cook delicious home-made food from scratch.

Whilst I admit there is a distinction between having the knowledge and skill to create meals or recreate recipes in the first place, and the requirement of particular utensils to achieve the desired effect – such as a griddle pan – generally, I believe you do not need much to be a successful cook. The additional items might make a task easier or less mundane, but they are only a ‘helping hand’ and cannot help you achieve more than you are capable of.

This is coming from me who, during the first few weeks au-pairing in Paris, had to mash enough potatoes for five people with a bendy fork and make cakes without scales or mixing bowls – I think I settled for a salad spinner.

 

 An 'Egg cuber' and an avocado scoop. 

A Condensed Dissertation on Neurolinguistics and Aphasia

For my dissertation I wrote about Aphasia and language processing in the brain. It is in this post that I will try and shorten a 13,000 word thesis into a 600-word blog post for the 'everyday blog reader' - with all the boring bits (like referencing) taken out. 

Neurolinguistics is the study of how the brain ('neuro') processes language ('linguistics'). While neurologists study the brain and nervous systems, linguists generally study the way human language is structured. It is neurolinguists that have a particular interest in human neurology and the changed relationship between brain and behaviour proceeding damage to the brain - with specific focus on the precise location of brain damage or lesion (damaged brain tissue). I found this entire topic hugely interesting, and I hate to sound a teacher's pet but I LOVED reading up on this for my dissertation. 

First top fact. Instead of language areas in our brain being ordered into activities such as speaking, writing, and listening, it is organised into hearing words, speaking words, seeing words and generating words. Below is a really cool image of brain activity during a PET scan. The patient would have been asked to repeat words, read aloud, form sentences etc. This shows that different functions are controlled by different areas in our 'language centre'.

Second top fact is that no two brains are alike in the precise pattern of gyri and sulci (all the wrinkles and knobbly bits you see on the surface of a brain), although neurologists have identified a series of 'landmarks' common with all human brains. Landmarks refer to particularly large creases or folds in the brain and have long Latin names which I won't bore you with, and refer to the various areas of the brain's surface, names in the diagram below. It's a bit like a big mountain - all the rivers and streams running through it are named, but all the cracks in the dry earth are different and unique.

And a final fact, for all those GCSE psychologists studying Kanzi the talking ape (who only achieved a string of three words); Ever wondered why monkeys - our primates - haven't conquered the ability to speak? The frontal part of our brains are almost double the size of a monkey's, meaning we have enough room for a 'language centre'. Mind=Blown.

This diagram featured A LOT in my dissertation. #Landmarks #Gyri 

In most people, our 'language centre' (like a switch board for various language activities and processes) is in our left hemisphere - about 96% right handed people, and 70% left handed people. My paper focused on the effects of damage or injury to that particular part of the brain. Even with our brain encased in a skull of bone, this is not enough to protect it against impact. There are many ways someone can injure their language centre, or left hemisphere, causing an inability to speak or difficulties in particular language activities. This could be from an accident - a fall down the stairs, a collision, penetration, an attack or blow to the head; or an internal injury including blood clotting, stroke (when blood is unable to reach a part of the brain) or a lesion caused by infection or disease (e.g. meningitis). Resulting problems will vary depending on the extent of damage, and the location of damage. A particular injury might leave the individual exclusively with visual problems, or difficulties in moving particular sets of muscles. I focused on the injuries that leave individuals with language deficits, such as the planning, articulation and fluency of speech, and the various categorisations of aphasia - as not all aphasics (people with aphasia) suffer from the same linguistic and grammatical features. The largest single cause of adult language disorders is stroke, where blood flow to the brain is disrupted by a blood clot or a ruptured blood vessel. 

Much of our knowledge around certain brain areas and their relationship with our language abilities has come from studies of aphasia. Aphasia is the partial or total loss of language abilities following damage to the brain. Interestingly those with aphasia will not have suffered the loss of cognitive faculties or the ability to move the muscles used in speech, suggesting that there is a specific region in the brain used for speech.

The rest of my dissertation is very long and goes down several paths of study (clinical distinctions, plasticity, communication, epilepsy and split-brain patients, various neuro-scanning techniques etc). If you study Aphasia, you’ll learn about two important figures in your first lecture – Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke who provided crucial evidence for the localisation of language function to a specific region within a cortical hemisphere. This means they identified an area in the brain which controlled language by making several observations based on patients with language disorders and their subsequent post-mortem inspections in the late 1800s. It was pretty tricky and time consuming, as they had to asses a patient with communication issues (very slow and laborious speech with difficulty stringing two words together, or in Wernicke’s case, fluent speech that was complete jibber jabber and held absolutely no meaning) and then when they died, slice open their brain and see what area was damaged. They only had 2 or 3 patients each, but it was enough (at the time) to see a correlation between the damaged area and the subsequent language issues.

I really really want to say something about plasticity (I’m 400 words over my ‘limit’ already) as it was this phenomenon that got me interested in neurolinguistics. Neuroplasticity, or 'cortical remapping' is the brain's ability to change or adapt itself through the process of cell reorganisation, axon growth and synapse formation. When you learn a new thing – take playing the piano – your brain creates new pathways, and each time you practise or perform that task these synapses are strengthened. You may have heard of ‘muscle memory’ which is picking up a bike and being able to ride it, without having to remind yourself how to do it. This is because of the repeated practise, and strengthened synapses. There's an incredible paper by Thomas Munte which explains that musicians have a greater level of neuroplasticity and grey matter in their brains than non-musicians. Each fact just gets better and better.

Neuroplasticity, in my opinion, is the future hope for aphasics. Sadly there is a ‘cut off period’ where your brain becomes much slower at learning new things (which is why learning a new language becomes more difficult after age 13), and explains why a child with a trauma to their language centre has a greater chance of re-learning their language skills than a 60 year old. If we can find a way to kick start the process of neuroplasticity again in adults, perhaps this could help them recover particular language abilities. There is also debate over whether the right hemisphere has the ability to take on the language centre if the left is too traumatised (it doesn't, for various reasons).

A final note on hemisphere dominance: don't be fooled by those online tests: 'Right brained? Left brained? Take the test', plastered all over Facebook. Just because you're creative and artistic does not mean you're right hemisphere dominant, and similarly, if you're into maths and have an analytic brain, this does not automatically make you left-hemisphere dominant. Trust me, the way to find out your hemispheric dominance is a lot more complex than 'which colour appeals to you most'.

If somehow I've motivated you enough to read further, then the best book by far to dip your toes into is ‘Language and the Brain’, by L. Obler and K. Gjerlow (1998: Cambridge University Press).