Going for Gold, Ending up Burned.

They say that hindsight is a wonderful thing and indeed, when it comes to the behaviours of sun-tanning, my own hindsight is indeed filled with wonder. I wonder from what age and how we adopted the obsession with sun tans? I wonder how I physically survived the years of hardcore sunbathing in spf-free sun oils, never mind a teenage fixation of sunbeds? But, most of all, I wonder ...how is it, despite a modern society’s awareness of the harmful damage and the ease of non-sun alternatives to achieve an all over glow, this same obsession and battle remain unchanged for the youth of today?

Good wine may mature with age, and there is nothing as succulent as a well cooked aged steak but this week, as I watched the rows of sun worshippers sizzle in the European sunshine, I couldn’t help think…is our age an indication of our impatience and inexperience to cook up the perfect tan, regardless of the risk of burning or at what point do we pay attention to the smoke alarms?

My own Confessions of a Sun Worshipper has as many follies as bronzing oils - carrot, coconut, lemon, olive and any other oil that promised me to be a golden greek goddess from a fortnight on the Costas. But, accepting that nothing less than a full body skin graft would give me the 365 day olive skin of the Mediterranean, I soon found my niche in winter spray tans and summer spf that ensured I too could have a healthy glow from the sun that could still ensure my escape from the granny prune club.

Lined up like a row of sausages on the barbeque, I contemplated the spectrum of colours that rainbow from pink to golden to mahogany burned along the sun jetty and wondered….have we become so accustomed to quick-hit microwave dinners that nobody really checks the cooking instructions any more?  

The fresh skinned teens, a mix of pink from not covering up in the midday sun or day-after raw like a steak tata, coincidentally all harbouring the lemon, coco, olive oils in their beach bag beside the jumbo sized bottle of soothing aloe vera.

In the middle are the prime cuts - the succulent ones that catch your eye, a combination of seasoned steaks braising perfectly around the desired medium rare, turning regularly on each side, oiled with the perfect spf to create the desired golden finish to complement the origin of the meat, yet with room to cook for longer if the skin and the taste so desires.

And, at the opposite end of the grill, getting gradually closer to the left-over plate, the aged-steaks - dry and creasing from being too overdone yet, surprisingly, still layered in olive oil to cook some more, but little to no chance of looking succulent ever again.

So, as the buzzer sounds to call time to turn the meat and drizzle with oil once more, I consider how much better it is to go for gold with a barbeque that is so much tastier when its executed with time and effort and wonder...for those who quite simply ‘Can’t Cook, Won’t cook’….perhaps the booth is a better route to bronze?

‘Til next time, Pandora

The Trunki Junkies

I must admit, when I first saw the colourful quirkiness of the Trunki wheel pass me in London's Heathrow, I smiled. I think everyone does, they are bright and kooky and fun, so we all smile, in the way you smile at cute babies and fluffy toys. Well, before you remember that cute babies have not so cute lungs and fluffy toys have incessantly annoying built-in music.
 
And so begins the demise of my novelty for the aforementioned Trunki, as weeks pass by, and suddenly it  feels like every queue in every airport seems to have a Trunki gridlock as its epicentre and the kooky child carrier quickly morphs into the frequent flyers worst nightmare and I wonder...at what stage is it that natural loving parents all fall folly to post-natal amnesia that seems to forget that the average attention span of their toddler(s) is typically less than 10 minutes? 

As a frequent flyer I am all about convenience and travelling light, but I have pondered if there is some form of subliminal marketing messaging that accompanies the call of the Trunki? I wonder… can it be true that the USP (unique selling pitfall) is an instant parental sense of delusion that piling a child's must have toys and personal effects into another mini suitcase is, in fact, a weight offloaded?  

Even during the fun child-Trunki bonding (which last approximately 15 minutes) the entire family slows down to a vitual stop and, with that, a queue of restless airport commuters (or me). Perhaps it is the excitement of gleeful kiddie faces that means the general rules of  child safety are forgotten, but I wonder...where is it overlooked that children mounted on Trunkis cannot be pulled at speed, without it becoming a rodeo that inevitably ends in screams and occasional blood. Please note, crash helmets are not included

For older children the carnage takes a whole new format. More steady and better balanced than a wobbling toddler, they are capable of Trunki manoeuvring the departure lounge as if it were the Monaco Grand Prix. A whole new world of pain and tannoy announcements that also inevitably ends in delayed flights and buggies at security.
 
For the remaining 45 minutes of the hour, the remainder where the child-Trunki bond breaks when they have to actually trail it behind them, the risk of lost kiddie luggage can only be prevented when there is no other option but for it to be assumed the latest dad-bag. And a great look it is, too.
 
Admittedly not a parent myself, but I wonder....is it wishful thinking that our 3 year olds could be capable of carrying their own luggage, fending for themselves through a summer busy airport, or if they should get ‘lost’ at least they would have a night' s change of clothes and a squeaky toy?

‘Til next time, Pandora

Up Pompeii

Before you read this blog it is important to know that it is not intended as a call to to bring back dictatorship or an way an accolade for Frankie Howard. In fact I cannot attest to being in any way near knowledgeable on any of the above subjects, and can categorically confirm to having no interest of any form in the Carry on genre at all.

No, this week my random wanderings have taken me on a visit to the ancient city of Pompeii and with it an insight to the tumultuous history of events that saw its creation by the Romans, destruction from a volcano in AD 79, its belated discovery in the 17th century, rebuild by the Italians, and semi re-destruction by earthquakes in 1980 and 2009. As I embarked on my historical education it occurred to me that the hard work of mankind was constantly at the mercy of something more powerful and I wondered....to what point are we really in control of our destiny, or merely hamsters on the wheel of life that has a pre- determined outcome that we cannot avoid? 

Admittedly there have been countless natural disasters since the eruption of Vesuvius so many hundreds of years ago, all of which have caused tragic loss of life but as I explored the remains and artefacts from the excavation of this lost city I wondered ...if the ‘censorship’ of the modern world really provides as compelling an insight to human loss today, or are we protected from living the power of the possible that the natural world has over us?

Despite the speed of the Internet and live TV footage, I was never more moved than by the compelling artefacts (if you can call human form such a thing), as the plaster casts that were created from the ash protected ruins, despite Pompeii laid lost under ash for so long. A city created in AD, intricately designed with all the comforts we have in modern society with bars, bakeries and a Roman spa – the pain of the demise of our same day to day activities are captured powerfully through a bust of a twisted dog chained in his home and unable to escape, a pregnant lady holding her unborn child as she faced death...long before HDTV.

Years later, and re-tumbled in part from earthquakes, Vesuvius remains an active volcano that has a scientific question of certainty that says ‘we don’t know when, but it will erupt soon’. Yet, for the Italians living in the new Pompeii, and there are thousands, including those with child and with dogs, there is a sense of acceptance that one day this will come, that life will be lost, but life will be rebuilt.

So, as I left this incredible creation I wonder.....does the belief that we shape our own destiny allow for a more fulfilling life of the things and time we have, or is the sense of ‘more’ gained from working harder and having more give us the false escapism that we really need to survive?

 

‘Til next time, Pandora

Embarking on the Tourist Trek…

Its somewhat ironic that after a June that was abnormally busy with business travel spanning continents, my eventual time-out to return to blogging should begin in an airport! Well, they do say there is no place like home and, given my regularity with inter airport transit, as always it tends to be a common source for my blogging muse, if not on this occasion, amusement.

Travelling à la tourist tends to mean travelling with an airline of less familiarity (the ones that pack in as many holiday makers and their beach gadgets as possible), and with them the unfamiliar territory of the pre-flight wait without an exec lounge. As much as I may be guilty of lounge snobbery, as a result of more time spent chez terminal than chez home, as I wander in search for solace and a socket in a rapidly filling departure lounge, I wonder ….what it is that brings out behaviours of the infrequent flyers, than those of us who start red-eye and end the 9-5 on the last flight home?

I have numerous previous airport writings, all openly admiting my self confessed impatience in a terminal which, by the time a Friday business flight is called, is quite possibly insensitive to the fact that not everyone spends their morning and evening rush manoevering check in and security. However, looking around, although I recognise familiar pinstripe suits from the frequent flyer club lounge, I am surprised at the usual lack of control and precision displayed, now as glaringly absent as the colourfullyclad neon Bermunda shorts and I wonder….does a summer vacation automatically mean mayhem for even the seasoned traveller, or does the switchover to travel with the 2.4 children and boarding with more than a brief case and a blackberry call for a mental switch off of all things controlled?

The disciplined precision of time, pre-security planning and minimal hand-luggage is quickly little more than a distant postcard from Corporate as the family holiday commences and the proverbial Brits on Tour begins – security queues get longer with prams and groups, trays are overloaded with kiddie coloured ipods, family-sized mobile phone collections, teenage jumbo headsets and the inevitable  Nintendo DS ('cos it really wouldn’t br right if the electronic puppy died of starvation in the 2 weeks away, would it?...)

Once into the common room departure lounge, I watch as the travelling masses separate like the parting of the waves – ladies and children to the WH Smith mecca for the obligatory stock up of boiled sweets, full collection of weekly magazine issues, flight pillow and '3 for 2' book offer, whilst the non 2.4 owners (and the odd escaping husband) prop up the closest bar to top up their 6am tequila shots with beer and bacon sandwiches – and I wonder…does our holiday brain exert a certain vacation endorphine that pre-programmes us into a pre-defined airport itinerary, and indeed, at what point did my travelling maturity leave either, or both, of these tourist traits behind?

Notably however, I wonder if in all of this chaos it is just I that is panicking to find the socket to charge my blackberry, and if the last minute business is the real start of the non-business? So, flight called and ready to join the vacation nation, I wonder ....what is it that will really make the perfect holiday - tourist-topped up hand luggage packed with a giant sized duty-free Tobelerone or simply the will power to switch off my mobile phone?

‘Til next time, Pandora