The Devolutionary Seven Deadly Man Sins

We have all made the unspoken 'promise' to our parents - the one to work hard and be a good person, settle down with someone with good prospects and who will treat us well. Keen words, but unspoken or not, it is the delivery of that promise which is the arduous task and, this week, as I checked off a busy list of social to-do's, i found myself unexpectedly submersed in a menagerie of social to-don'ts that made me wonder....have we somehow mastered the work-hard promise, only by over compensating on play-hard, to the point of being die hard?

Whilst there is no handbook to guide you in the fullflment of the aforementioned unspoken 'promise', my blog today acknowledges the changing behaviour of the local wild-life and the risk it places on its success. Is it a case that we are reverting to a nation of cavemen, suffering perhaps from the ecological impact of global warming or does the new neanderthal mean that social engagements have, in fact, become a social experiment?

As a self confessed social butterfly I have evolved the skill of  maintaining a flexible balanance of professional networking and crowd mingling (both dependent on the order of the day or night). This week, however, schdeuled in a week-long nocturnal tour of diary duty, I found my stamina challenged, willingly surrendering any interest or desire to flutter my eyelashes at even a fraction of the pace that I may have been fluttering my social butterfly wings and as I watched the beervolution of the male species I feared the survival of the social butterfly may be under attack from a Darwinian nemesis, and I wondered....is survival of the flirtiest at risk of extinction from a new male race for survival of the un-fittest?
In order to protect the female species and return our new millennium primal prowess, I reflected on the meanedering behaviours of our neanderthal bar-flies, and considered the guidance of the seven deadly sins as a solid mantra.

Gluttony - every pride of lions has at least one gluttonous male who takes on way more than he can chew, unable to say no to friends, but much more at ease ofsuch retort to his lioness. The best redress is to refocus energies on what really counts with a simple counter 'no' in all things carnivorous. Hunger will always win in the end.

Pride - It comes before a fall, so if there there are signs that your man holds higher concern on being the eye candy rather than reciprocating the flattery towards his arm candy, then that eye is definitely roving. Conversley, caution to a lack of pride, and if they can enter and leave the loo faster than they can say I forgot to wash my hands, this is a sure sign of long-term 'leave the eat up' syndrome.

Greed - any desire for material wealth can oftern lead to a non-desire to share the wealth and where you may need to specualte to accumulate, if this is anyway connected to horses, casinos or poker nights, you should probably get a pre-nup. Lust and excessive cravings lead to a lack of focus. Everything in moderation, and remember that absence can make the heart grow fonder. Unless the absence is addressing the excessive cravings, of course. Envy can come from the previous two, or standalone, but either way is usually related to insecurity whereas Wrath is a no brainer. Anger although not attractive, works both ways and, if honest, it is simply better to just never be the woman scorned, ergo manage expecations from the outset. Lastly, Sloth - an easy one where first impressions don't dress to impress, but my advice is to revisit this one a few weeks in. Frequent Friday night sickies, Saturday soccer sofa syndrome, or a general willingness to be lifted and laid by his mother - none of these, single nor combined, is a good sign.

So, as I stand aside and observe the devolution of the once crave-man turned cave-man, I wonder ...can to-day's dating game really ever become the mating game, or what is it you now need to to do to get engaged, if what you really want to do is, indeed, get engaged?

'Til next time, Pandora

The Early Bird catches the Worm..

This week I have had the opportune good fortune to add a little glamour to the daily humdrum of corporate plate spinning, A somewhat cheese puff to caviar experience, I swapped out the spinning of the corporate crockery of the boardroom by day, for a more refined and elegant fine bone china after dark, as I wined and dined with canapés and crudités at a number of oh so socialite London Fashion week private events.

Fashion Week season is one of frenzy. Well, weeks of frenzy really, as it catwalks from city to city on its global trend setting road-show that transforms the must-see into the must be seen in, the must-have to the must-wear. And so, duly accessorised with the must-have invite to the VIP 'IT' parade, I embarked on my champagne catwalk, let my Choos do the talking and socialised with the socialites…

Grounding me in my brush with the high-life, however, was the reality check that my real life is one of airport runways and not fashion runways and, I skilfully multi-tasked on blackberry as I sipped on elderberry, in the hope that at least my inbox wouldn’t suffer the morning after the night before. I was rather bemused to find a lack of schmooze, however, and to discover how other party revellers filled open hall ways and corridors to equally network with their handhelds. Fairly confident, though, that not everyone was harbouring the same secret life of pinstripe underneath the sparkle of Halston, Kane and Gucci, I wondered …in today’s socially connected real-world, just who has become the dedicated follower of fashion?

If a keen eye and a sharp mind can keep you top of your game in business and a step ahead on the corporate ladder ...to be really in the know (and known) on the fast pace of the social circuit, does it take a little more than a mean Manolo?

Several nano-second tweets and shrieks of excitment later, I became reliably educated that, to be really seen on social scene, you not only need to be the follower but the followed and, as fickle as I abandoned last seasons lace for leather, I discarded my satisfaction with next-day news and had my passport stamped for Twitterverse….

So, as the kind of person who most definitely likes to be on the front foot and well used to new journeys, the only question now remains….to tweet to who?

'Til next time, Pandora

The Stupidity of Cupidity…

I have felt somewhat of a moral obligation not to write this blog until this week, or at least not until the fragrant scent of eternal love has had a chance to truly blossom from is entwine with St Valentine. But, now that the novelty of romance has passed us all by, I feel I can comfortably rant without the risk of Cupid blasting me with his full quiver of arrows, for reasons not related to his search for unrequited love.

It may seem strange that I choose to relate the avarice of cupidity to the innocence of Cupid’s arrow. I mean how could there be a correlation between uncontrolled greed and chubby baby with angel wings that we associate with St. Valentine's Day? But, as unserendipitous as it may sound, this week as I have joined the drowning masses in a sea of love movies on TV, subliminally reminded to remember who I love and commercially encouraged to demonstrate my caring at a cash register, I have come to wonder….is there really such a thing as love at first sight, or is long-term love dependent on the price tag being right?

At the risk of bordering on hypocrisy with my anti-valentine advocacy, I will openly admit my own penchant for a posy. Indeed, had Valentine decided this year not to be mine, there quite possibly would have been a bigger price to pay than cupid’s stupidly over-priced bouquet of roses that were delivered anonymously to my door.

However, as I scrambled to duly return my obligation to bestow appreciation I wondered ... if love is really blind, then why are we so fixated in paying over the odds to be kind and what does love really say when delivered on Valentine’s Day?

Can the Cupid who covets extravagance really mean romance, or is it done because he needs a second chance? For the Cupid with a curfew, only able to be thine up to nine, is it because he has a significant other Valentine? And is the Cupid on a budget not worth it because he waits to the day after to show his love at half price, or is he the real true love, because he can in fact show his love twice for the same price?

So, before you see red for not being surrounded in red this Valentine’s, consider how the stupidity of cupidity might actually send a shiver through our real true-love Cupid’s quiver and think ….is being stalked by the SWALK really just all talk or what does it really mean to turn the act of love into the facts of love?

‘Til next time, Pandora

The Metamorphosis of the Bag Lady – Trolley to Oh Golly!

It is said that the shoe doth maketh the man. Ok, perhaps I have said that myself, but I add jeans to that refrain and a great suit, and most definitely the watch. Get these right and we are already at Clooney standards. For the lady, well we promiscuously fleet from the heels to bags, sunglasses to scent, according to the call of the season. The portfolio of ‘IT’ accessories is a rapidly growing one, where past seasons join the vintage wish-list and new trends are urgently the must-buys...

There are certain cities and countries, however, where people just get this right and style is in the DNA – they see the value in authentic and they know the mistake of going fake. Asia, without a doubt, leads the way and, on my recent travels, I found myself scrutinising the statement-item scream of style that adorned the arm, foot, wrist of anyone who was anyone in the coolest of bars, stores, malls and…..airports.

Yes, the 'IT' bag has grown up, had kids and sent them to college. The family shopping list has expanded to having cool luggage and, as I peered above my over-sized shades at the cool collection to walk the reclaim carousel catwalk, I could see the big names were all there…Rimowa, Tumi, Mandarina Duck and old favourite, Samsonite (spinner-full set-alu, of course), and I wondered….was the secret of suppressing the recession in any way related to the mass purchase of over-priced suitcases?

We have all had that moment - hop off the plane, wait in the faceless front row queue for the carousel to start, hoping your bag is the first out to make it through customs and step straight into a waiting cab. 

Hopefully, anyone reading this blog has NOT had the other moment….the one where the ‘What were you thinking?’ bag comes out of the carousel. The multi-coloured, neon bright, floral chintz bag that may have seemed as the best bargain of all time but has haunted you ever since. Or the makeshift, time to dig the grave and bury the antique bag, that comes out with its contents strewn behind it on view for the public giggle. And the 2 people that are waiting at the very end of the carousel, no rush whatsoever to start their holiday….they own those bags, happy to be at the end of the taxi queue, wishing they had thought ‘Accessorise’ and not ‘Bargain’

So, as I sign the mortgage papers for my next fashion victim addiction, I wonder...how much I will need to spend to stay on travel-trend or what is the cost not to be disgraced by your battered suitcase?

‘Til next time, Pandora

Home, James!

It’s a fair assumption to share that, for those of us who lead a life of travel, we would get accustomed to the highs and lows that this entails and get used to the distinctive public transport systems that keeps every city in motion – the fights for a New York yellow cab, the queue turned squeeze on a London double-decker bus, the faceless efficiency of the Tokyo bullet train, the mexican-wave payment up a Jeepney in Manila... Well...no. Not quite. Not I.

As with every proverbial pleasure in the world, there closely follows a proverbial pain and, just as I embrace life in the skies as my daily commute, my pain factor is administered in full dosage on the ground. This week has been a double dosage and, as I cringe yet again at the wave of perspiration that surrounds me in another train station, I wonder...is the pleasure of a sky-life-high-life doomed to be a go-slow-low-life when back commuting on terra firma?

Most of my friends will attest to the fact that I am not a great one for public transport. In fact, being frank, I rarely succumb to its economical charm at all.

I will happily share a plane with a few other hundred people (although I do much prefer to be up front where the purse strings permit it….who doesn’t?).

Rail makes me frail - trains I just can’t explain, bewildered from the moment I enter the station, worse when I am on a seat facing reverse to the direction I am physically travelling in.

Fuss over a bus? I won’t even waste words - buses just don’t happen and haven’t done since I passed my university entrance exams and left school...

Already this year I have been on 17 flights and, by the logic of my travel math, 17 flights in 41 calendar days equals at least 34 cab rides. Allow a ballpark 20% uplift for casual back and forths, and we can safely call it a round 40.

Yes, taxis are my guilty pleasure, maybe my innate need for speed, but today as I switch on my air-con I really do wonder….is there anything to warrant the bus chase with a suitcase, or isn't it just better to leave it to the experts to flap about maps and get stressed over GPS...?

‘Til next time, Pandora

Creatures of Habit...not Habitat

With the time demands of travel at the start of my New Year, it has been a few weeks since I have dipped into my electronic inkwell to share my thoughts and observations of my changing time zones. As such it is somewhat coincidental that my returning rhetoric has randomly progressed my thoughts from my last blog, which pondered the folly of abandoning our cultural heritage when we opt to place our roots in new territories, far away from where we are born...

Today, although somewhat related, my new random soliloquy ironically reflects on where our habitual actions may not in fact change from place to place…

Regardless of our intrinsic cultural identity (or transient, for that matter, if you have had the pleasure of reading the preceding blog of the Culture Vulture...), it is the whole-hearted consistency of our behaviours at the table that has repeatedly caught my attention in the last few weeks, as I crossed cities and continents. So this week, as I make yet another morning elevator ride, across the hotel lobby to yet another hotel breakfast buffet, I cannot help but constantly recall the scene from The Jungle Book where the animals rush to their watering hole to strategise on the bear-necessities of life...

For me, one of the true joys of travel is to embody the local customs and cuisine wherever I roam but once more, as I float past the queue-less breakfast noodle bar each day to squeeeeze through the pack of wolves that hunt by the bacon and egg factory line I have come to wonder…when it comes to feeding time at the zoo, how many of us who live ‘global’ actually do eat ‘local’…?

The feeding pattern for the local wilde-life is never-changing and, as I fast forward to another morning re-run of this Discovery Channel, it is perplexing to see how set we have become so set in our ways, perfectly developed creatures of habit, totally unaffected (or enriched) by our surrounding habitat...

...Early sitting (pre 6am) is busy with the eastern menu offering, just in time for piping hot noodles, rice and breakfast fish and sushi.

...Central Europe filters through, in pockets, unrushed for perfectly proportioned pickings from the fruit and charcuterie bar and slowly savoured over the morning paper with a sugar-rush Danish and very strong coffee.

...The smell of waffles and pancakes then rise and shines the Americans out of their pyjamas in time for juice, but the choice here is as varied as the lifestyle of the visitors – carbs and eggs for the busy business man, smoothies and fruit for the accompanying wife, coloured cereals and lots of half-eaten leftovers for the so clearly not waste-not-want-not kids.

And lastly, unsurprisingly and like a flashback to a summer holiday on the Costa del Sol, the British gentry appear, finely timed to glide past the carnivore's carvery for a 'one of each' hot breakfast build up, washed down quickly with filter coffee (whatever is brewed) and an indigestion pill, for a record breaking exit to showcase with the customary drop of ketchup on his tie.

So, armed with my chopsticks and ready to continue my battle to keep up international appearances, I consider what buffet menu might be purveyed along my next flight path or indeed….do I need to reset my alarm to ensure I’m not late for my next feeding time at the glocal zoo?

‘Til next time, Pandora

Culture Vultures – We Are Where We Eat?

This week my travels have me back in the Philippines, a place that I truly adore and am only too happy to return to, with frequency. Regardless of where you go in Manila you may very well experience every shade of the social greyscale and cross between historical to uber-modernisation but, despite being one of the most populated cities in the world, as soon as you step off your plane it is a place that resonates kindness, courtesy and hospitality at its most genuine, without being subservient.

I find Manila a humbling experience for this very reason that the same hospitable behaviour is not one that can be guaranteed in so many other cities across the world. But as I consider how so many people leave one country to build a life in another, or to travel and tour new places, I wonder…. how much of our behaviour is really to do with our heritage, or are our core values and behaviour, in fact, actually influenced by our surroundings?

Travelling near or far, I meet and build friendships with so many people that are orginally from other countries and are now living in another and, as I understand their past and present I wonder ....does our DNA define who we are and how we treat others, or are we conditioned by what goes on around us and where we decide to live?

For example, can the kindness and caring nature that I so applaud in Manila survive the busy pace of London or New York, or does western city living smother this characteristic warmth and desire to help others, to replace it with a coldness for self-survival and a blinkered and introspective single-vision?

Does a travelling hub like New York exude a service mentality only because of the transience of so many other cultures that walk its streets every day, or does everyone really wish that everyone else has a nice day?

Is there perhaps a reason why there is always an Irish Bar on the corner of every major city, busy every night, celebrating a carefree top o’the morning, or is it that everywhere needs an escapism for some luck of the Irish?

In today’s world of fast paced living and cross-border travelling it is questionnable if multi-culturalism is even possible, or is it in fact at risk of becoming de-culturised as we advocate a lifestyle and behaviour based on where we decide to live versus being home-grown and true to what we know from our roots and where we were born? Is it really a case that we are what we eat, or more true that we are where we eat…?

 ‘Til next time, Pandora

Old Classics or the New Jurassics?

They say that what goes around, comes around. Trends, fashions, fads. Everything is cyclical and, whether a few years or a few decades, everything reappears for a new generation with a new modern twist.

Now, normally I find myself logging onto blogging as a result of some form of inspiration that has triggered my thoughts from a random observation, conversation or event. This week, conversely, my thoughts have provoked contemplation, if not concern, following one said random conversation with a fresh faced teen, who chatted to me about her weekend plans to curl up with her boyfriend to watch some old movies and escape the cold....

The concept of her plans, I whole-heartedly agreed with. I couldn't better depict the perfect lazy weekend, with the heat of a log fire and an old movie…you know the ones – Casablanca, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, It’s a Wonderful Life. Or, moving to technicolor modern classics with the genius of Scarface, The Godfather trilogy, all of Rocky (maybe with the exception of V).

Unless, that is, you are under the age of 21.

Old movies, according to Miss Teen, referred to the cinematic masterpieces like Matilda, Speed, and anything Hugh Grant circa Four Weddings and Funeral. I didn’t dare remind her that colour TV did not always come in 3-D and via download but, as I stopped to think of my own rainy day DVD (and, for that matter, VHS) favourites, I wondered ....had time passed me by so quickly that iconic had unwittingly transitioned to archaic, or when exactly did classic suddenly mature to Jurassic?

I remember back to the days when my mum would inform me that the cool new clothes I shopped for were just like the ones she wore in her day, and how I cringed that she suggested her style was just ‘coming back around’. And my dad feeling disturbed that my pop star idols had ruined the ‘original’ version of tune that everyone was singing to and playing in their car.

Even the word vinyl feels vintage these days, ironically saved only by the fact that retro is actually the new cool. But, as Generation MP3 gradually devolutionises the humble CD to extinction and 3D movie screenings in cyberspace threaten the closure of the multiplex, I wonder ...is the modern age really growing up too quickly, or have I assumed the role of my parents of the ‘second time around’?

For those of us who grew up 'analogue' and have just more recently made the 'switch' and joined the cloud ...is it simply the case that we are spending too much time looking back, being cool with the retro, that we cannot actually move forwards…?

‘Til next time, Pandora

Cheese Bored and Fromage Frail….

It has been said before that I do not suffer fools gladly and, by my own admission, I may sway to the lower than average levels of tolerance for certain and many things. Randomly, milk is one of those things.

There is no medical proof to my intolerance of calcium fortified commodities. My name is Pandora, and I am a self-diagnosed lactose-intolerant.  

Perhaps it is my vague recollection, or suppression, of being forced to drink warm curdling milk through a straw at school as a child that serves as the trigger to my lactose-overdose and which I hold fully accountable for my abhorrence to the white stuff, but by default it includes everything else that would appear to derive from the under belly of a cow.

It is with despair, therefore, that despite setting out to enjoy an evening of gastronomic delight this weekend I was, in fact, served up with delight-turned-fright-night as I watched my fun-undo in a cheese fondue -  cheese breads, cheese sauces, cheese toppings, cheesecake, cheese crackers, cheese boards.

One by one every plate destined to annihilate my palate. Turophile, I am not.

I have no doubt, however, that there are many of you that think there is nothing better than some feta - even my own uncontrollable shudder with the udder has a few unexplained exceptions that permits a semi skim dash on my cereal, an occasional peppermint mocha, a Bailey's over ice and, controversially, I have acquired a somewhat novice cheesetolerance via pizza. That, however, is as much calcium as I can attest my bones have been grown from. I am by no means a reformed cheesephobic. For me and my olfactory receptors, in fact, this cheese fest was not goudha…

So, as I continue to play Houdini with the haloumi I wonder…from where have we derived our obsession with Camembert and the glee with Brie? Is cheese the new social canapé, or am I pre-destined to be the one who is cheesed off, going crackers and truly on the whine?

‘Til next time, Pandora

New Year, NOT New You

I have never been one for New Year’s resolutions. I call it realism. Realism and a fairly solid recurring drop-out rate from my peer group that would suggest that, unless some form of miracle accompanies the 12 chimes of the New Year countdown, then 80% of your life in one year is fairly certain to continue just as it left the year gone by. 

It may be worth contemplating that and considering that it may be somewhat of a challenge to find the time to climb Kilimanjaro, call home every week twice a week, get to bed 1 hour earlier Sunday to Thursday, develop the perfect six- pack or, if truth be told, to hibernate long enough on bread and water to successfully eradicate your debt, especially when the chances of staying tee-total and non smoking for more than 5 days is relatively slim. Just a hunch….

According to Freud, the keystones to our existence are work and love yet, as I marvel with friends on their new year plans for perfection, I am conscious how few of the many promises of self improvement actually involve anything work related, or doing more of what they are good at?

Work-life balance is so-called because, controversially, it is in fact meant to have both in the mix. I wonder, however ...have we become impervious to what is good in our lives that we prefer to spend half our working day dipping in and out of Facebook to tell the world how difficult it is to function on a banana and 2 oz of brazil nuts whilst the guy down the office aptly grabs the promotion you could have so easily achieved?

It would appear that a happy New Year can only be awarded through some form of purgatorial cleansing.  An unspoken rule of being entered into punitively, whereby you can only truly achieve success by suffering, intermittently falling off the corresponding resolution wagon and ending up miserable by the time you inevitably come full circle, back to square one.

Call me old fashioned, but there is nothing that breeds success more as success itself so, as we enter into the second week of this New Year, I wonder is it perhaps perfect timing for the grand opening of the Second-Chance Saloon to swap the diet for hard work? I mean...why settle for being good, when you can so easily be great?

‘Til next time, Pandora