Improvability Blog

No, I’m not being rude.

I read this week that these ‘bags for life’ that we’ve all been exhorted to buy instead of using plastic carrier bags could be dangerous for our health.

Scientists from the University of Arizona did tests on shoppers’ bags which revealed half contained traces of E.coli, a lethal toxin which killed 26 people in Scotland in 1996 in one of the world’s worst food poisoning outbreaks. Plus they found many were contaminated with salmonella…

Oh, yuk!

I’ve written about this before.

OK, so I lie.

I published a fantastic article written by someone else about this and you need to read it right now.

Meanwhile I’m off to douse my jute ‘bag for life’ in bleach…

Hundreds of years ago, I needed to find a photo of both Neil and myself very quickly to post out to a friend abroad. As I absolutely loathe having my photograph taken, I had to search back through some holiday snaps from the previous year and finally found one that a kind passer-by had been coerced into taking for us.

I started scribbling a quick note to go with the photo trying to describe where it had been taken which, unfortunately, meant I had to take a closer look at it. And I was utterly mortified for, there, sticking out of my chin, were 3 enormous white hairs - each seemingly at least 6 feet long!

I was horrified that I had ever let my usually high standards drop so appallingly low. And there was no way that photo was going anywhere! I ripped it up right there and then.

I think this rather unnerving experience made me even more acutely aware of human facial hairs growing out of all sorts of nasty places. Even 5 years ago when I was writing my Colour Analysis training manual, I included this note in the ‘Presenting your Best Image’ section for consultants:

"I can’t believe I’m having to say this but…. remove noticeable facial hair.  Moustaches and hairs growing wildly from your chin, nose and / or moles will not increase your professional integrity!  Men have to shave daily – should you?"

Even further back in history when I was nothing more than a girl, I had to deliver some make-up products to a lady who had ordered them over the phone. I’d never met her before, I’d never been to her home, it was a wet, dark evening in late November, I got lost, I was cold and I had nowhere near the confidence I have now so I was totally unable to apply good social etiquette to the sight that met me when she opened the door.

Against a background of dark brown hair and pale porcelain skin, some idiot had just bleached all the once-dark-and-extremely-sturdy hairs on her top lip so they now stuck out like dazzlingly-neon-white fork prongs.

I felt my chin hit my knees as my jaw dropped open and I stared and stared, just like a 3-year old.

I know that, had she been there, my mother would have smacked me round the back of the ear because I just couldn’t take my eyes off these vile-looking protrusions.

I’ve never seen anything look so unnatural. How on earth could anyone think that bleaching dark hairs like this was in any way going to cover them up?

She may as well have stuck a sign on her forehead which said, ‘Look! I’ve got a moustache’.

I’m sure there must be some bleaching techniques that don’t produce such horrifying results but it’s probably worth asking your best friend for a down-to-earth diagnosis of whether your upper lip needs some attention.

And it’s not just me.

Do you know that one chap even started ‘a blog dedicated to making women all over the world remove their moustaches - soon’.

Amazing moustache facts

1. Swimmer Mark Spitz won 7 gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games while sporting a moustache when swimmers usually shaved all their body hair to decrease drag. Spitz claimed that it helped create a pocket of air to breathe. After the Olympics, many European swimmers began growing moustaches…

2. Mexican artist Frida Kahlo famously depicted herself in her artwork with both a moustache and a unibrow.

3. At the biennial World Beard and Moustache Championships in 2007 there were 6 sub-categories for moustaches:

• Natural
• Hungarian – big and bushy
• Dalí – narrow, long points bent or curved steeply upward. Named after Salvador Dalí
• English – narrow, beginning at the middle of the upper lip the whiskers are very long and pulled to the side, slightly curled; the ends are pointed slightly upward; areas past the corner of the mouth usually shaved
• Imperial – whiskers growing from both the upper lip and cheeks, and curled upward
• Freestyle – all moustaches that do not match other classes

4. ‘Movember’ is an annual month-long event involving the growing of moustaches during November. It aims to promote and raise awareness of Men’s Health issues, notably prostate cancer and depression.

5. Victorian writer Wilkie Collins created a mustachioed heroine for his mystery novel ‘The Woman in White’. ‘Marian Halcombe’s complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip was almost a moustache’ yet she still manages to inspire the extracurricular passion of the novel’s villain, Count Fosco…

George Carlin was a stand-up American comedian of the 70s and 80s. He was noted for his black humour and freely expressed his thoughts on politics, religion and various other ‘taboo’ subjects. After the death of his wife and 9/11 he wrote this:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.  

We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.

We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life.

We’ve added years to life not life to years.

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbour.

We conquered outer space but not inner space.

We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.

We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.

We write more, but learn less.

We plan more, but accomplish less.

We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait.

We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships.

These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes.  

These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill.

It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom.

A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctor worry about them. That is why you pay him/her.
2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever.  Never let the brain idle. "An idle mind is the devil’s workshop."  And the devil’s name is Alzheimer’s.
4. Enjoy the simple things.
5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it’s family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever.  Your home is your refuge.
8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it.  If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don’t take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, to the next county, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

• Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

If you don’t send this to at least 8 people….who cares?

George Carlin

Over the years, I have managed to kill off at least half a dozen perfectly innocent basil plants.

1. The first one died because I planted it in the garden.

A friend with green fingers told me that in cold, icy Britain that is tantamount to murder as even a light frost will kill off a basil plant.

So I bought a replacement and a nice pot and put it on my kitchen window sill.

2. The second one died because I forgot to water it.

Another gardening friend told me that basil plants need watering regularly.

3. The third one died because I overwatered it.

I decided to water the 4th just once a fortnight, regardless of whether it looked ‘a bit droopy’ or ‘absolutely fine’.

4. The fourth one died because I didn’t water it enough.

I decided to water the 5th once a week, regardless of what state it was in.

5. The fifth one died - need I explain?

I decided to water the 6th one when it clearly looked ‘in need of watering’.

6. The sixth one died because I had no idea what the difference is between ‘in need of water’ and ‘on its last legs’.

I didn’t buy a 7th.

I decided that I was utterly useless at growing plants, gave myself a good clip round the ear, and gave up.

Salvation was just around the corner

Then one day, I was saved from my own stupidity.

I called on a friend who lives, eats and breathes gardening. Her garden is so beautiful; she’s always digging this, pruning that, planting the other. If she doesn’t know the name of a plant or what to do with it, she gets out every gardening book known to man and researches until she’s found the experts’ answer to her problem. Consequently, her plants flourish because she knows just how to treat them.

This was the friend who had told me to grow my basil plant indoors and, true to her word, on her kitchen window sill was the most gorgeous, lush green basil plant I’d ever seen.

As she put the kettle on and while telling me about her latest purchase of a fabulous new winter coat, she began to water the basil plant. I watched transfixed as she gently grasped the stem of the plant, lifted it completely out of its pot, put a little water in the bottom and replaced the plant.

“So you don’t water basil from the top?” I asked, feeling a right uneducated banana whilst I said it.

“Oh no,” she said. “You need to feed it from its roots. Let the plant pull what water it needs up from the bottom of the pot and, in an hour or so, empty out what it hasn’t used.”

One tiny, simple tip solved my huge, unsolveable problem

All my plants died purely and simply because I didn’t take the time to find out how to water a basil plant properly. If I’d bothered to ask someone who really knew that, ‘Watering from the top kills it. Watering from the bottom makes it flourish,’ none of those poor innocents need have died.

I should be flogged from here to the moon.

Needless to say, my 7th basil plant is the healthiest I’ve ever had. We’ve been together for nearly 3 months now and he’s lush, green, happy and healthy. Last night his succulent, fragrant leaves helped transform our pasta supper dish into something quite heavenly and I’m salivating already at the thought of tomorrow’s lunch of mozzarella cheese and sliced beef tomatoes garnished with basil leaves - all from my very own, properly-watered plant!

And all I had to do was consult an expert

I’d have saved lots and lots of time, money, energy and guilt.

Funny but…

… this sounds a bit like what happened when I had my colours ‘done’ by an expert all those hundreds of years ago….