Still Undecided

The election’s the hot topic of the moment. But with the three main parties trying to pull you in three different directions, what’s a first time voter to do?

To be honest I actually have no idea who to vote for today and speaking to friends it seems like I’m not the only person who feels this way.

The race feels like a popularity contest and because of the live TV debates, we seem to be judging the candidates more on stage presence, attractiveness and body language rather then their policies. My problem is that I don’t feel any of them represent me and I certainly don’t feel connected or inspired by any of them. I know that the outcome of the election affects me, but the candidates make me want to switch off from politics and leave the voting to other people. I feel disconnected from the parties and I don’t feel able to relate to any of them.

I know women fought tirelessly for mine and others right to vote but I don’t feel right just voting for the sake of it. If I did go to my local polling station today it would be a case of me closing my eyes and just picking at random out of the three major parties, and that’s not something I feel comfortable doing.

With the race so close and the polling stations all open, I'm still undecided. In my attempt of finding which party's policies fit best with my own opinions I found and completed the LBC Election Computer questionairre and I came out as Liberal Democrat (http://www.lbc.co.uk/which-party-agrees-with-you-election-computer-22796).

Although interesting, I'm not going to vote based on an online quiz and I will stick with my original decision to wait and see...

Speed Flatmating

A few months ago I had the bright idea of moving from my one bed in to a more expensive two bed flat. This wasn’t because I suddenly came into more money and just wanted a nicer, bigger flat. It was for the purpose of cutting costs and sharing the rent and bills with a third person.

However, a month on I’m still missing the perfect flat mate. In my mind I thought I’d meet loads of lovely girls beating down the door fighting to and have a really hard time deciding which one to choose to move in with me.

The reality is hours spent every day sending messages to any and everyone on websites like spareroom.co.uk and easyroomate.com. My evenings are arranged around viewings, 90% of them cancel last minute and I’m baffled when people ask me for a viewing and then ignore me when I reply with a really nice message asking them when is best for them to come see it.

Not everyone has cancelled though, but the girls who have showed up haven’t been the type that I’d want to spend an evening with never mind a few months. Am I being bitchy?

We had friends in mind for the spare room but when they fell through, we decided to explore other options. We stumbled onto Speed Flatmating, which is an event run by Spareroom.co.uk. Don’t know what that is? Well I had no idea either! I had visions of small desks, name tags and egg timers but according to the website Speed Flatmating it’s “the perfect way to find your new flatmate.” Wanting to see if they could walk the walk, I signed up.

We arrived at the bar called Sway in Holborn and made our way down the dark staircase to a room full of nervous looking people awkwardly mingling. I realised I wasn’t far off my vision when we were given white labels with ‘I HAVE A ROOM’ (white labels are for people with a room to rent out and pink labels mean you are homeless and need somewhere to live) to write our names, the rent amount and closest tube station on. We then put our best smiles on and dived into the crowd to seek out potential flatmates.

It’s not unusual to have men staring at your chest as they walk past but after 5 minutes in Sway I realised that all the men and women in the room were interested in was my label, which I had

Naively I stuck my name tag on my right breast!. It didn’t seem like a big deal at first but I noticed that the men were using it as an excuse not to focus on my face so I had to move it to my shoulder. After talking to a few other women we all agreed that unless you were looking for a room and needed something to barter with, the shoulder or arm was a much better place to stick it.

We spoke to some really nice people but they were usually looking for a really specific area to live in. There were also some people who seemed to think that it was a nice place to pick up girls and a few people who just seemed weird. One girl wouldn’t tell me her name and mumbled her way through our entire 5-minute conversation. The up side was that I could make an excuse and walk away from her, without having to go through the whole drawn out process of going back and forth with emails only to have her arrive at the flat, not like her and spend 10 minutes showing her around.

I came away from the evening with mixed feelings, Speed Flatmating is a strange, awkward experience, but it’s a good way to save time and get to talk to loads of people in one evening and to wean out the people who you can’t see yourself living with in your wildest nightmares. It eliminates having to waste hours of your life showing viewers around your flat out of courtesy, despite knowing as soon as you opened the door to them that you were not going to get along. Which is why I’ll be spending the next Wednesday evening there again.

The Street Fighter Spell

I used to think my boyfriend was a one off (nut case). I'd lived a sheltered existence far away from the clutches of the gaming phenomenon that is…Street Fighter.

I used to naively think that my boyfriend enjoyed spending a normal amount of time playing computer games. But that was before we moved in together! I was completely unprepared for what was to come. Hours spent in front of the TV practicing, friends over going at it all day, advanced tactics videos on youtube. I mean come on, It must get boring after a while!

During the first few months at our new flat, I came to question if given the ultimatum, would Street Fighter 4 would take priority over me? I've learned that while he's playing Street Fighter (or pretty much any game for that matter), any attempts at conversation are a waste of time. I've also learned not to ask “What’s wrong?” when I hear grunts of anger from the front room.

The other day, I came home from work to find six guys who looked like they would never hang out together, all gathered round our TV playing the game. It looked like a Benetton ad was being filmed in our living room. They were Chinese, Japanese, Jamaican, African and plain old English. After I got over the initial shock, I thought it was amazing how SF4 and games in general bring together geeks from all around the world. I’ve seen him spend hours quite happily with Japanese people who don’t speak a word of English!

Our homepage on our iMac used to be the Guardian website, where I would keep up with all the latest news but now it's www.shoryuken.com (Street Fighter forum) and it’s always up or in the background. I tried to understand the appeal, but I just don’t have a love (or even a passing interest) in games. I’ve tried getting into a Nintendo game called Zelda (it was fun at first) and Street Fighter (way too many things going on for me there), but I just don’t have the patience to play them for hours on end.

As much as SF4 can get on my nerves though, I’d love to have a hobby that I’m so obsessed with (or dedicated to depending on who you ask). It got me wondering if there’s something that I can do or play which allows me to immediately strike up a conversation with someone from anywhere in the world about? I don’t mean the obvious things like shopping or going to the cinema and meeting up with friends.

So my new mission is to find a proper hobby. Suggestions would be very welcome!

He's just started to play less which I thought was fantastic. Now I find out that he's "resting" in anticipation of a new Street Fighter which is coming out next month… great.

Chinese New Year In London

Hi Guys,

Last week marked the start of the year of the Tiger. And this time, for the first time since I was about 10 years old, I dragged myself to China Town to join in with the celebrations. Arriving at Trafalgar Square at around 1.30pm, after aiming to arrive in time for the dotting of the dragon’s eyes at 12.30pm, we were greeted with Chinese dancing on a big stage. This was all lovely until the presenter came on. This winey, high pitched voice boomed out from the speakers and I’m sure everyone within a 5 mile radius was reaching for ear plugs. Myleene mustn’t have been available. Oh well the presenter was probably cheaper and just a little bit less annoying.

It was nice to see that China Town was jam-packed full of people, but doesn't everyone know that all of the restaurants in C-Town are full on Chinese New Year? I mean, even the ones which scream "I need a visit from the health inspectors" have queues. In my opinion, there’s no point going to China Town to eat on Chinese New Year, unless you’re prepared to stand outside in the cold for at least 40mins to get a seat. Then, once you're in, you're rushed through your meal and ushered quickly out the door, in less time than it took you to get a table.

So we gave this torturous ordeal a miss and followed the sounds of the beating drums hoping to catch some of the action. Now one thing you have to know about me is that I do not cope well with crowds. A 10 minute stroll down Oxford Street is enough to send my blood pressure sky high, so I was quite surprised at how relaxed I was. On a normal day I (like any self-respecting central London commuter) can envision myself smashing through the crowds, kicking and pushing anybody who dares to push past me.

I wouldn’t actually do this, because I’m not (that) crazy and I’m not one for starting fights I’d struggle to win. If some hefalump pushes me out the way then I usually seethe with anger, stick out a foot and send them on a little trip.

We fought our way calmly through the crowds (of mostly English people I observed, Chinese Londoners must know of some other better celebrations which are a secret to everyone else) to a group of drummers and a dragon with two small boys in it. This was great but I was a little bit disappointed by the size of the dragon. My memories of China Town are of huge scary dragons dancing and winding through the crowds. I remember being in awe of the show and this time I have to say it didn’t live up to my memories. Maybe the big booming drums and intimidating dragons were saved for later when the kids have gone to bed, or maybe they were the same size, but just seemed huge and intimidating to a 4ft tall 8 year old…

On the way to take my boyfriend's little brother to Forbidden Planet (a huge comic shop) we passed the fire station which was having an open day. We stopped to take some pictures of the firemen and the kids in the fire engines, and it seems from the excitement plastered on the kids and mums faces that men in uniforms are appreciated by not just the young, but their old horny mums as well!