The first day of a new job is always awkward, but can you beat this scenario where you curl your toes?
A few years ago, I started Day One as the new editor of a magazine. Among the many faces grinning nervously at their new boss, I saw one that looked familiar, but expressionless.
It took less than a tenth of a second for me to smile in recognition, excited to see someone I knew from… somewhere. I couldn’t quite put my finger on who they were at first…to a chilling realization.
Oh. Best. God. She was the wife of a man I had ‘let go of’ in a previous job. I felt like I had been touched by Elsa, the princess from Frozen whose fingers turned everything into ice.
I felt the color drain from my face as I managed to stammer, “Oh. Hi.’
The reason I’m telling this story is because something tells me that Angela Rayner won’t be so cool with her boss Sir Keir Starmer after he fired her partner, fellow Labor MP Sam Tarry, from the front seat of the opposition because he ignored warnings not to do it. join pickets
Usually we can start a new job and enjoy a few weeks before someone gets to know the real us and maybe decides they don’t like us. But it’s pretty safe to assume that this woman already had some ‘views’.
To her credit, she was never anything but friendly and professional with me. She may have sincerely wished I had no ill intent, or more likely realized that killing me with kindness was more powerful than hissing at the sight of me.
The nicer she was, the more I wanted to die and I wanted to leave my own body when the two of us were in the elevator.
The reason I’m telling this story is because something tells me that Angela Rayner won’t be so cool with her boss Sir Keir Starmer after he fired her partner, fellow Labor MP Sam Tarry, from the front seat of the opposition because he ignored warnings not to do it. joins picket lines.
I recommend Sir Keir to stick with stairwells rather than elevators in the future.
Men should listen to the roar of lionesses
You could have knocked me down on Tuesday night when I saw on my phone several male friends filling our WhatsApp group with chats about our “Lionesses”.
This was unprecedented. They burst with lavish praise as they watched the England women’s football team.
My friend Bobby’s comment summed up the mood: ‘There is no whining or arguing from the players. It’s just a joy to watch. Men have something to learn – how to play the game.’
I’ll leave it at that without further comment…
You could have knocked me down on Tuesday night when I saw on my phone several male friends filling our WhatsApp group with chats about our ‘Lionesses’
Vanessa will have the last laugh on BBC
Last weekend I was invited as a guest speaker at a festival hosted and presented by TV presenter Ruth Langsford.
It was two days of talking about everything: fashion, beauty, fitness and general life advice for us women of a certain age.
They were two glorious days, but the breathtaking climax was when Vanessa Feltz made the crowd in London’s Billingsgate Hall cry as she shared her hard-won wisdom about making lemonade from the lemons of life: in her case courtesy of the ex-husband who disrupted their marriage and broke her heart by having an affair.
It was a mix of brutality, self-mockery, inspiration and a healthy dose of well-timed filth that nearly gave the poor sign language interpreter a heart attack.
Rarely have I seen anyone holding a crowd so enchanted with such uneducated charm and hilarity. Vanessa has since broken a few million hearts with her shocked announcement that she is leaving her two BBC radio shows after more than 20 years.
From what I saw, the BBC’s loss could turn out to be stand-up comedy’s biggest gain.
Never mess with the evil emu
Hot on the horrific heels of an emu turned social media sensation for stealing the spotlight on her owner’s TikTok videos, another emu has made headlines.
When a man crashed into a shop window in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, a man tried to flee but was chased in vain by a local chef.
It looked like the driver would evade capture, but events took an unexpected turn when he had the misfortune of crossing a mother emu.
Fearing her young, she pecked and kicked him into submission and he was eventually apprehended.
Hilarious yes, but as an Australian I can tell you that any confrontation with an emu is a true horror story.
For reasons I’ll never understand, in our childhood petting zoos and wildlife parks—which are otherwise filled with adorable koalas and adorable wallabies—there are also these towering prehistoric hell beasts, roaming free and doing as they please.
This would invariably mean picking food from your hands and mouth, pushing their beaked little faces into handbags, or into your top or trying to peck the eyes out of your head. With violence. All the while kicking at you with those reptilian, claw feet.
Ruthless and bizarrely strong, they are dead-eyed feathered terrorists. We should be very thankful that they can’t fly.
Who wants a kiss from a caveman?
Now for some sexy news, and the discovery by scientists that our present-day herpes virus originated in the Bronze Age.
Apparently, our 2022 cold sores first appeared 5,000 years ago, as a result of a mass migration of Indos who introduced their European cousins into the practice we now know as kissing.
Here’s my question: how did kissing—with tongues—get off the ground in an era before oral hygiene?
Never mind, sweet 16 and never kissed, I’d have sat it out all my life.