More Englishspeak

After I hit "Publish Post", on my last post, I thought to myself, 'hang on a minute - there are so many you forgot to include!'

So Englishspeak is going to be a work in progress. I will put up words and phrases I've neglected to mention and new one's as I encounter them.

This should be fun!

Englishspeak

It's not like I've lived in Britain forever, but there are words I've learned here that are now a part of my vocabulary - words I used to find very amusing the first few times I heard them.

pants & knickers – underpants

pernickety - picky, fastidious

rude - sexually suggestive

banged up - in prison

banger - sausage

tosser - stupid, badly-behaved person

make a pig’s ear of something - mess something up

snog - kiss

shag - have sex

bird - girl

suss it out - assess and understand a situation or thing

moreish - make you want (to eat) more

lose your rag - get angry

a different kettle of fish - completely different matter

afters - dessert

bollocks - rubbish

bobby - policeman

chuffed - happy

go pear-shaped - get ruined

lido - public (seaside) swimming pool

mac - raincoat

naff - bad (looking)

nosh - food, eats

posh - fancy

quid - British pound

take the mickey - poke fun at

take the piss - same as take the mickey

bells and whistles - trappings

yonks - ages

How could you not love the language?!

A Very Sorry State of Affairs

From a BBC news item today:

"President Musharraf is widely believed to have declared the 3 November state of emergency in order to purge the Supreme Court that he suspected was about to rule against his re-election, says the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad."

"The verdict was expected to go in Gen Musharraf's favour since he has appointed new judges to the bench who are considered more loyal."

"Meanwhile, President Musharraf has amended the constitution to prevent future legal challenges to his actions."

And they have the gall to call the elections that may (or may not) be held, 'free and fair'!

Things about me I hate to admit

1. I proudly carry all the baggage that comes with being an only child.
2. I wouldn't walk up to me and strike up a conversation.
3. I have a very confused fashion sense.
4. I am much too easily affected.
5. I want a job that requires me to wear a business suit and high heels.
6. I can generally do better, but I just couldn't be bothered.
7. I am not a 'people person'.
8. I am judgemental.
9. I am obstinate, especially if I know I am wrong.
10. I am, quite often, penny wise and pound foolish.

Joyeux Anniversaire Pour Moi!

Dot gave me a birthday present of a weekend away in Nice & Cannes on the French Riviera - he really does love me, sigh. I'll let our pictures do the talking.

There was food...



...Dot trying very hard not to look like the luxury-yacht-owner really he is,



... palms in Cannes (now you know where Palme d'Or comes from),



...pretty little terasses,



...still water,



...Dot on an ego trip,



...Dot with his flea-market, €5, hundred-year-old reading glasses,



...happy feet (with fat legs),



...happy nostrils,



...French accents,



...lots of loving,



...railway stations,



...le boucher miniature,



...beautiful windows,



...glorious pears,



...views to die for,



...more beautiful windows,



...little toy trains,



...crème brûlée,



...saucy and racy menu presenters,



...more food,



...wise men,



...a bad dye job,



...glamour on the beach,



...glimpses of heaven,



...fruit that looked like it could have been waxed perfect for a photo shoot (may be it was!),



...yours truly, trying very hard to look glam,



...spice markets,



...matrons with canes,



...solitude,



...sex,



...shoes and poodles aplenty,




...the compleat angler,



...forgotten treasures,



....money,





....strawberries,



...streets with no names,



....and then there was the wine.

There were Alexanders in America

The United States of America (the more you roll your 'r's and drag out your syllables, the better it sounds!) - the land of opportunity, dreams, plenty, and whatever else you want to call it. For me, it fit every cliche ever written about it, and still was very unique and wonderfully weird - quite 'aaawsumm', if you ask me! Dot, Nodot and I, spent 10 days across the east coast and south of America in September. We did New York, Boston, Provincetown (Cape Cod), Austin and Houston.

Here are my random observations about America and about me in America:
- You replace the word 'please' with 'hey' or any other random attention-drawing word you like, before you ask for directions or for any help from a stranger - you then just leave and ignore him/her like they never happened.
- Your tip at a restaurant could leave you filing for bankruptcy - and the food needn't have been that good - you just empty your wallets.
- Bostonians have an accent that's a cross between Aussie and Southern American - and they take great pride in it. (This affects our family more seriously than we imagined. Dot gets a little bit carried away with the whole New England thing and keeps saying "Baaahstunn" every two seconds of our two days there. If that's not enough, he even gets a tee-shirt to remind us of it).
- Airplane stewardesses are too sincere and friendly for my (wannabe) snotty British taste and will tell you why their mother's sister had to look after them when they were young, all in the space between the plane taxiing to a halt and you stepping off it.
- Waitresses are also frighteningly friendly but have a rehearsed happiness and reel off the specials like only thambi in your local Udipi joint can (sending a little English hello out to Britney from the Joe's American Grill in Boston).
- The local Walmart is usually the size of England.
- You cannot buy regular whole milk, only a series of percentages.
- Texans may carry guns but they seem more genuine than New Yorkers.
- New York is over-rated.
- Boston is what I imagined New York would be like.
- Ashwin is an entertaining driver - never mind the fact that you could get killed. Seriously though, we owe him bucketfuls for showing us around. Thank you Ashwin - you're a star!
- I didn't ever think I would live to see a whole gay proud town in America - go Provincetown!
- Clam chowder (or chowda) is orgasmic.
- Nodot and me knew before everybody else that Frank Gehry's Stata Center looks very WRONG.
- I hate Sparkies or whatever that horrid place we went to for a Mexican breakfast is called. Their Migas (puréed beans) had me (and not to mention my two consorts) gassing for a whole day!
- I don't think the IHOP deserves the bad press it gets. At least it delivers a pile of pancakes with maple syrup at the unearthly hour of 11pm in a very ready-to-go-to-bed Austin.
- You cannot cross the interstate or any other road. Walking is not even a concept. We had to summon Nodot out of his working day to ferry us across to the other side.
- All the houses are chalet-style with wood slats on the facade - and boy do they fly the American colours (or should it be colors) with pride.
- Taking an Amtrak train from NY's Pennsylvania Station to Boston, was a great idea and the American countryside is lovely.
- I saw more SUVs in NY than in Texas - that said, the Texan ones were beasts!
- The NY metro sucks, but is the stuff of legends nevertheless. Where else in the world do you get a rastafarian singing out the next stop and doing a one-minute news capsule about the tourist attractions that go with it? Actually, probably only in Mumbai.
- It is not humanly possible to not get dazzled and be awed by Times Square at night. The lights, the people - fascinating!
- The view of the Manhattan skyline at dawn from aboard the Staten Island ferry is breathtaking.
- Clothes are cheap! Three pairs of Levi's for sixty quid!! Aaawsumm!
- Visiting the Johnson Space Center in Houston, being in an actual mission control room, being in a real astronauts' training chamber, seeing a real space shuttle made me feel very insignificant and yet very very proud.
- You can replace words in your vocabulary like 'good', 'okay', 'alright', 'yes', all with one exclamatory 'aaaawsum'!
- I like driving an automatic car - it's like go-karting.

Click on my Flickrama section for pictures.

Why do I not blog?

I have what Dot calls the 'magnum opus complex'. I want every single one of my posts to be clever and funny, and I want the whole WWW clamouring to read and blogroll me. Thank you to ye olde faithfuls who still bother coming back to check for updates. Since my last post, lots of exciting things have happened, a couple of those which were a new job and holidays in America and the South of France! I have a bagful of tales.

That's What Orkut Says

Today's fortune: You have an unusual equipment for success, use it properly

The moral of the story...go figure!

Context: I am looking to change mobile phone providers, and 3 Global Networks offers a range of phones called the X-Series, which are Skype compatible. Dot wanted to investigate the offer for me and logged on to a LiveChat tech support utility on the 3 website.

[aa] What are the x-series rates for India from the UK
[Nargis] Hi.
[aa] Hi
[Nargis] Are you an existing customer with 3?
[aa] Yes, but asking in order to recommend to a new customer
[Nargis] Could you pls elaborate on your query.
[aa] I just wanted to check what the rates were from the UK to India using the X-series phone using Skype out or any other means
[Nargis] If you have access to skype on the handset and also the other person has an access to it you would not be cherged then.
[Nargis] If you sign up online today we will give you a promotional code which gives you a free bluetooth headset
[Nargis] the code is bt10090719 and the code is valid till midnight today so you need to do it soon ok
[Nargis] The code is valid till midnight today. And you might want to write the code down, as the conversation disappears when we are finished talking …
To claim your free bluetooth headset, simply enter the given code in the Promotional Code box which is at the bottom of the Personal Details page
While stocks last, with every compatible handset, each customer will receive a free 512Mb Memory card.
[Nargis] Pls note this code down and give it to your friend.
[Nargis] I hope you have taken down the code.
[Nargis] Is there anything else I can help you with?
[aa] so otherwise it is the Skype rate to India?
[Nargis] It would be free.
[aa] That is Skype-to-Skype
[aa] What about Skype-to-phone?
[Nargis] It would be free.
[aa] You dont seem to understand my question I am afraid
[Nargis] If the handset supports the feature it would be free.
[aa] Are you aware that it is possible to call from Skype to a regular telephone (i.e., not another skype user). This is charged by skype
[aa] What I would like to know is what 3s charges for this are
[Nargis] customers that services accessed via Skype will use their megabyte allowance just like any other material they download. Skype's claim of 'free calls' is subject to this megabyte limitation. Remind customers that this is no different to accessing Skype from the office or on their home broadband connection.
[aa] alright...that makes sense...So it will be charged at the regular skype rates?
[Nargis] We provide you with only internet connection to skype for any further queries pls contact www.skype.com
[aa] Sure.. thanks
[Nargis] I hope you have taken down the code.

Check Please!

Why I get lukewarm shoddy service, at best, from Indian waiters at any Indian restaurant I go to, outside India, I have never understood. With a few exceptions, I have found that generally, you will have a menu shoved into your hands on your way to the table, will have to do everything short of stand on your chair to draw their attention, your order will be dumped unceremoniously in front of you, your plates will get cleared before you've finished, and from start to finish you will have to contend with a surly, moody maitre'd and his similarly mannered retinue. It's particularly weird because you'll have a table next to you with non-Indian customers and the same lot of wait staff seem to be falling over themselves to please, and whether the restaurant is fancy and pricey, or cheap and cheerful, the same observations hold.

All that said, I probably haven't been to a multitude of Indian restaurants outside of India. It's a vicious circle for me. I anticipate the poor service and I don't want to go. I know that stellar service can more than make up for average food, but if the service sucks, the food had better be seriously good.

And to the mother ship they went...

We made the 'pilgrimage' to Southall this weekend - a shrine to India in the heart of London's suburbia. We came back amused, entertained and stuffed to the gills (Punjabi pun intended)! The place is a smörgåsbord of all things Indian or rather north Indian. You have the 'Glassy Junction' pub where the signs urge you to 'maujan mannoo', several 'Gold Factory'-ies, the 'Chaudhary Express', dahi puri at 'Chappan Bhog', dental surgeries where the list of practitioners reads like the who's who of Chandigarh, a marriage introduction and welfare advisory service, and shops selling nylon-polyester-sequinned thingummies for £700 (down from £1450 - definitely one for Swast Ani Masta), among other delights. My poor very South-Indian bedfellow was not impressed with the near absence of South-Indian representation until he found his poison - very sweet, very Punjabi lassi - heaven!

This picture sums up our experience, and yes, we will go back for more!


P.S. More pilgrimages to come, especially to East Ham, to our South-Indian roots. More pictures here.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig!

I went home (or what 'was' home), to Mumbai, to surprise my ma on her 60th birthday, and boy was she surprised! For me, it was a mixed bag - it felt fantastic to be back in familiar territory, surrounded by familiar faces, spending time catching up on the changes since I was there last. Strangely, though I do love the big bad and mad city, this time around, I found it intimidating and quite grim. I don't know why, but I feel the need to disclaimer here. I went back this time after little over a year, but the circumstances of my trip last May were different, so in reality, it's more like a year and a half since I've been back. I am not sure the city has changed much, but I think I have. I was always the first to scoff at the nouveau NRIs coming back with thick foreign accents and grumbling about the crowds and filth. Yet here I was, scared to cross the roads, not wanting to take an autorickshaw because it left me exposed to the elements, and complaining about the heat! I even actually missed being 'home' in Oxford!

It has been a very interesting journey for me. I never quite understood why Dot didn't instantly fall in love with Mumbai. After this trip, I think I am one step closer to understanding. I think when you live in Mumbai, you train yourself to shut out the squalor and hordes - it's a survival mechanism. You learn to see only the good stuff, like the 'development' and the 'economic growth'. You know you can grumble all you want but the problems are bigger than ever and are only getting worse. So you force yourself to look at the bright side, make that seemingly endless journey to work every day, spend most (or even all) of your waking (and or sleeping) hours there, and trudge back, trying very hard to enjoy the ride. The salaries are headed skyward and money makes a great insulator. As Nodot once wisely said (among other wise things he usually says), "tinted (car) windows seem to make the hovels and street-crapping urchins seem almost endearing". But what lurks under there is real and not going anywhere.

There are great aspects of Mumbai living I know I won't experience anywhere else in the world, but I'm not ready to go back in a hurry.

The Lifestyles of the Very Wet and (Therefore) Famous

Look what you get when you mix 'pissing down' weather and a hot-shot journo friend!

Be very careful of what you ask for...

... you just might get it!

In the context of the current flooding situation in England, the title of my last post is almost eerie!

Just Water Please

There's an ad that runs currently on British telly, for Oasis, a fruit-flavoured still water (though I'm not sure it really is water) which has a tag-line that reads "for those who don't like the taste of water". Pray tell, how can one not like the "taste" of water? I guess you could (by some elaborate stretch of the imagination) not like the fact that it has no taste. Other than that, I see little or no trouble with it. I can hear the collective groan from all hardest-water-in-the-universe sufferers from the south of England, but that's easily remedied by using a water filter (which I think should be something that is dealt with at the municipal corporation/district council level, but that can be the subject of a whole new blog).

It doesn't add up - all the millions of taxpayers' pounds spent on health promotion material extolling the virtues of plain old water, talking about it as being central to keeping well and fit, and on the other hand, conflicting messages coming from advertising like this. It is hard to believe that all a fruit-flavoured drink contains is fruit and water. The thing is, I am apathetic to Oasis itself, it's just the thrust of the advertising that makes me very uncomfortable.

Ruddy Stunner

Therapy

Dot got himself some new local office space and that left us with a room that looked like a tip after the office furniture had been moved out and the remnants dumped in a pile on the floor. Call us sad but we spent virtually the entire weekend going through the papers, books, CDs and various other strange-looking bits and bobs (I will post pictures to illustrate 'strange'), and I am very proud to say we now have a clean room and a blank canvas. We hope to make this a 'den'. Hope is the word. We'll see how we go. Oh, I must say we didn't spend the entire weekend cleaning - the latter half of Sunday was spent lying horizontal on the couch watching live coverage of 'The Concert for Diana'. Yes, I can see our being-sad quotient going through the roof!

It is therapeutic - cleaning, and watching pretty-young-things-in-tiny-outfits, boys-with-underwear-and-bottoms-hanging-out-of-their-jeans, and has-beens (or should it be have-beens) perform live - you should try it.

On an unrelated note, we have pinky spiky poppies in the garden now!

The Way We Were

In addition to the usual must-see touristy bits, Oxford has some gems tucked away that we have been introduced to (thank you Keith). The University of Oxford's Museum of Natural History is one such fascinating place. The interior is awe-inspiring with tall iron pillars and cross-beams framing a glass roof that lets the light in. The exhibits take you back eons, and you get the feeling of being part of a bigger plan. Dot and I have been here several times and we make it a point, time and walking capacity allowing, to bring our visitors here. We learn something new every visit. The majority vote is "love it!" If you do swing by these parts, I promise to take you there.

The Stars of The Show

... or the reason you will find me peeping out of our bedroom window every so often.

Aren't they absolutely gorgeous?!

A Quick Refresher in Logic

Girl cousin is expecting her T.Y.B.Com (final year, Bachelor of Commerce) results today. Mumbai University has made available a website on which people can check results - in theory that is. All I have been getting for the last four hours is "the server at www.mu.ac.in is taking too long to respond" and mostly blank pages with a few scattered broken links to images.

Fact 1- Tens of thousands of students took this exam.
Fact 2 (resulting from Fact 1) - All of these students will have some result or another.
Fact 3 (resulting from Fact 2) - Almost all of these students will, in this day and age, have access to the Internet, and if they don't, may even make special arrangements for access, to log on to a given website and check the results - and yes, this will all happen at the time the results are declared.

Isn't it then only logical that there will be tens of thousands of hits on the given website, all around the same time? I wonder what it takes to realise this and make sure the website is up and running (well) at the time it is needed the most. This is India we are talking about - the globally acclaimed technological superpower. Why?

Can you stop the bombs please?!

This is not about Iraq.

It is about bombing my mailbox with forwarded e-mail that goes 'this-is-so-bloody-funny', 'you-will-die-or-rot-in-hell-if-you-don't-send-this-to-millions', 'you-are-a-heartless-bastard-if-you-hit-delete', 'you-are-my-mostest-bestest-friend-in-the-whole-galaxy' and tons of other tripe. I will not have it. I am a sucker for funny, and I do appreciate the odd tidbit from friends, but I hate people picking up my address from someone else's list to send me arbitrary mailings or just hitting 'forward' because they don't want to die because they didn't. Hate is the word. I will tell you (and badly) that your unsolicited mass mailing is not appreciated. I know you think of me and it makes me very happy. It would make me much happier if you didn't hit 'forward' every time you did.

P.S. You could shout the title of this post in the manner of Richard O'Brien in Crystal Maze - "Can you start the fans please?!" (Ping me if you need a crash course in '90s television appreciation.)

Talking Dirty

The one big difference I find between job advertisements here and those in India is in talking about money.

Let's face it - how much we get paid has a lot to do with why we're doing that job. Here, when a job is advertised, you are told clearly what the grade of the job is (for sectors like government, university, health), which corresponds to a predefined scale, or you are told what the salary offered is - plain and simple. This may be a generalisation, but from experience, I can say it is largely true. In India, however, other than government jobs where the grade is advertised, every other posting reads "salary will not be a constraint for a deserving candidate", "a compensation to match the best in the industry", "salary will be commensurate with experience", or better still, "apply with expected salary", or no mention of salary at all!

The talk of money is considered dirty and unnecessary, and that makes me raving mad! All the subjectivity and airy-fairyness (sic) in discussing wages is a waste of the advertisers' and applicants' time. Is 'deserving' not a subjective attribute? What are the best salaries in the industry? Is 'experience' perfectly commensurable? I could 'expect' the world - would you give it to me? It is hugely unfair to keep applicants in the dark about what the salary set aside for a position is. You could either sell yourself short or be seen as expecting too much and thus not be considered favourably.

I remember looking for a job when I got back from doing a Masters' degree in Australia. As usual, the ad had no mention of a salary. I applied, got called for the interview, and was offered the job, all without any mention of what the salary was going to be. I tried hard to be diplomatic and introduce the delicate subject. They asked me what I 'expected'. When I replied appropriately, I was promptly asked what my last salary was. I was a bit cheeky and asked whether they wanted my last Australian salary or my last Indian one. They didn't think it was funny at all and said "Indian". I told them and they said "we'll offer you four thousand rupees more than that". I lost it at that point. I said, "it's been a year and a half since I earned that salary, and I have since got a Masters' degree, worked the whole time, and I am much better equipped and skilled than I was a couple of years ago. They turned around and said, "but you can't go to a very high salary just like that". Needless to say, I didn't take the job. This wasn't very long ago and I don't know how much it has changed. If the job ads in the Times of India's Ascent supplement are anything to go by, it's still not looking good.

I am older and wiser, and I am all for talking dirty!

Forgive the Silence...

I (we) have had a full house and full lives for the last whole month, and have only just begun to breathe. I'm sorry I have neglected you. I am back. You know you love me.

In the Presence of Greatness

"The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I'd figured out, I have to learn again"
- 'The Heart of the Matter', Don Henley

Listening to Amartya Sen, on "What Theory of Justice?", at OU's Sheldonian Theatre, was an enlightening and a humbling experience. I am not ashamed to say, there was a whole lot I couldn't quite grasp. I have never been a reader of economic theory and have always been intimidated by numbers (I can see you shaking your head, going "whoever said economics has to do with numbers?!"), but I did listen and learn at the lecture, and I feel a tiny bit more informed and therefore, I daresay, enlightened. And yes, I paid for the enlightenment with a very numb bum! I know I risk public damnation, but I wasn't very impressed with the Sheldonian Theatre. I do see and value it's place in history though, and I know it is almost hallowed with all the great minds it has housed.

This makes for an interesting argument (for those interested). How can you objectively evaluate something that is known to be 'great' without running the risk of giving it too much or too little credit? What if it really is mediocre and lives in the bubble of global media hype? What if it really is brilliant, but you just don't know enough to see the brilliance?

Dot and I (yes, we have a collective philosophy, for some issues, that is usually hotly debated and then agreed upon) believe that history and dominant public opinion count for something. They cannot, simply, tell you though - yes, this is good, or, no, this is bad - but can give you something to start with.

If you still haven't got my drift, these conversations might illustrate the point I'm trying to make:

Conversation 1
Us (Dot and I): You have to hear the Christ Church Cathedral Choir perform; they're brilliant! Some say, one of the best in the world!
BoyCousin (after hearing the choir perform): They were okay. My choir at St. Paul's sounds much better than them!

Conversation 2
UndergradIndianBoy (outside the Sheldonian, after the Amartya Sen lecture): This lecture was f***a***! He didn't give any solution - only mentioned the problem! That even I could do. I knew the answer to who should get the flute. It's very simple. I was not impressed at all!
UndergradIndianGirl (same place, same context, not listening to the boy, while she is busy unlocking her bicycle): Yaa, I agree with you ya!
Us: Sigh!
Dot: I've heard this somewhere: if you're not communist at 18, shame on you; if you're still communist at 30, shame on you.

It would've been a very happy birthday Papa...

...had you been here. I am told you're in a "better place" and you probably really are. It's just that it's bloody hard getting used to you not being where I thought was best - here with us. I had a long hard think about it yesterday, watching the news filled with depressing stories about death and loss, and I see how hard not knowing is - for the parents waiting for news of Madeleine McCann, their little baby abducted in the Algarve; for Becky waiting for news about Ken who was on that Kenya Airways plane. After what happened to you Papa, I also see how hard knowing is - for the family admitted to hospital with food poisoning being told that the children didn't make it, for the six people whose car broke down on the M25 and whose rescue vehicle subsequently collided with a truck killing all of them. Just when you think everything will be alright, it all comes to naught. Like you used to say so often and so wisely, "man proposes, God disposes".

I love you Papa and I miss you very much. I just wish you didn't have to go away.

I found Mr. Happy Squiggles

The background track to the Orange advert on telly is my current favourite sing-in-bathroom-sing-randomly-sing-loudly-when-the-ad-comes-on song. I googled the lyrics this afternoon and they are lovely. Here they are, with my favourite bit highlighted.

Little Yellow Spider (Devendra Banhart)

One, two, three, four

Little yellow spider, laughing at the snow
Well maybe that spider knows something that I don't know
'Cause I'm goddamn cold

Little white monkey, staring at the sand
Well, maybe that monkey figured out something I couldn't understand
Who knows?

Well, I came upon a dancing crab, and I stopped to watch it shake
I said, "Dance for me just one more time
Before you hibernate and you come out a crab cake"

And hey there, little snapping turtle, snapping at a shell
Ah, there's mysteries inside, I know
But what they are I just can't tell for sure

And hey ya, little baby crow, you're looking kind of mean
I think I oughta spit before you start letting off your steam
For sure

And hey there, little sexy pig, you mated with a man
And now you've got a little kid with hooves instead of hands
For sure

And oh, all of the animals
All of the animals

And hey there, little mockingbird, they sing about you in songs
Ah, where you been? Have you broke a wing?
I haven't heard you in so long

And hey there, little albatross, swimming in the air
Ah c'mon, you know I can't fly
And I, I think we really oughta play fair

And hey there, Mr. Happy Squid, you move so psychedelically
You hypnotize with your magic dance all the animals in the sea
For sure

And oh, all of the animals
All of the animals

And hey there, Mr. Morning Sun, what kind of creature are you?
I can't stare, but I know you're there
Goddamn, how I wish I knew

And hey there, Mrs. Lovely Moon, you're lonely and you're blue
It's kind of strange, the way you change
But then again, we all do too

(Note: I have been singing Mr. Happy Squiggles and now see that it should be Mr. Happy Squid. I stand duly corrected.)

Do you have a girlfriend? (also the title of a very annoying Billie Piper song)

I need to find someone who is at the same place in life as me, shares my angst, bitches with me, shops with me, gets mad at me and with me, laughs at me and makes me laugh, who doesn’t make me feel ashamed and weak when I cry, hugs me and likes being hugged back, and who can be on my speed dial. A proper ‘girlfriend’ is what I miss more every day since finding the love of my life, marrying him and moving to another country – lovers can be friends, but it helps to have friends you’re not sleeping with, to keep you sane.

P.S.1. Here are the lyrics to the song - you know you want them.

P.S.2. I am not sure a 'boyfriend' will do, though that's what I've had for most of my life.

Ditto

They say pets look like their owners, or vice versa, given time. They also say couples look like each other (may even be in the same sort of way as pets and their owners), and here's proof picked from people I know very well.

(All (almost) the photographs have been used with the permission of the subjects. P.S. Sue & Vidhya, please holler if you're unhappy about me using your pictures - I just got bored of waiting for you to check your inbox and get back to me...sorry!)

1. Marika & Keyur - Married 2005 2. Freddie & Suzanne - Married 2003

3. Rakhi & Kunal - Married 2007 4. Diago & Vidhya - Married 2005

5. Anil & Faye - Married 2005 6. Jardin & Avril - Married 2004