Follow Friday #6: Three Blogs I have been smitten about

The American English translation for “smitten” is feeling of love or affection. The American’s guide to speaking British can give you some insight on following British blogs and enjoying the language as a whole. The last few days have been extremely busy for me at the work and quite often the stress can force me to “throw a spanner in the works” (an expression that means to wreck something).



If you want to enjoy British blogs, you must know the language, sometimes that language sounds rude or funny to us bloody Americans, but the British are my kind of people - straight forward and brutally honest. Watching the BBC America and shows like Torchwood (I miss Torchwood), Martha Jones, and Dr. Who gives you a great appreciation of brutal honesty and straightforwardness. And my favorite sentence enhancer is “bloody” as I find it to be one of the most useful words in British English. Isn’t it just charming to hear someone say "bloody marvellous" or "bloody awful". Could anything be more interesting? Well course, the British are interesting. If we had not send them packing in 1776, well, we would all be saying bloody marvellous or bloody awful with that amazingly bloody accent. Okay, well then, here are my Follow Friday Blogs I have been smitten about (read that with a British accent.)



Random Acts of Reality If anything could be more bloody honest, it would be our some what anonymous hero Tom Reynolds. A perfect name for a Brit, isn’t it? Reynolds is an EMT with the London Ambulance Service. Apparently, as Reynolds tells, his blog is “also, number one search result for ‘Womble porn’. All names have be changed to protect the guilty. This Blog was previously known as "Why I Hate Humanity" but the antipsychotic medication seems to have kicked in. All opinions on this website are mine alone, and may not reflect those of the L.A.S or other ambulance crews.” Yes, Sir Thomas is an interesting gent, isn’t he?



Read his latest post titled “Steve’s Office” and make sure you keep your British slang to English translator handy. Don’t forget you can always rely on google.

Sitting outside Steve’s office always makes me feel like a naughty schoolboy.



I’m guessing that it’s the old wooden panelling that makes me feel as if I’m sitting outside a headmaster’s office awaiting the cane. Not that I ever did such a thing when I was a child - after all in the school I went to the headmaster’s office had a PVC door.



But there is something about the dark wood, the smell of the varnish and the dim lighting that sparks some childhood memory that I never had. It’s something archetypal.



This feeling isn’t helped by Melanie staring at me over her computer monitor. She’s tapping away at something obviously far more important than me. When I arrived I tried to start up a conversation but she just told me to take a seat and that ‘Mr. Hughes’ will see me shortly.



I’ve never called Steve anything other than Steve. It’s a bit hard to call your boss ‘mister’ anything when you’ve gotten horrendously drunk in a Japanese bar and had to bail him out from police custody after he tried, and succeeded, to climb the outside of a church. The climb was impressive, even more so because he could barely walk at the time. During his ascent all I could think about was wether I should try to catch him if he fell. I didn’t want to break my arms trying to save him if it would do him no good.

For the rest of this bloody colorful post, you will have to venture to Tom’s blog.



Girl With A One Track Mind



Apparently, girls have a one track minds as do males. I leave you to guess what Zoe’s all one-tracked about. Zoe’s blog is filled with some of that brutal honesty that the Brits are famous for, more detailed information about her sex life than you dared to ask (aren’t you glad you aren’t Zoe’s mum?), and her views on anything and everything.

Here is Zoe in her own words:

Needless to say it's graphic, but then, that's shagging for you: it's a rather sticky thing, no matter how you approach it. I decided to write about sex in my blog because I felt that the feminist and female-centred perspective is missing from mainstream media. A sexist double-standard about male vs female sexuality still exists, and which chastises women if they express sexual wants and needs; I hoped my blog would provide a counter-balance to this old-fashioned attitude.

 Here is an excerpt from a July 14, 2009 post titled “Kiss.”

The first time I met him face-to-face I wanted to kiss him.



Actually, I had wanted to kiss him for some weeks; each conversation we had over email, IM, or Skype increased my desire, so that by the time I finally saw him in the flesh I was almost craven with my need to feel his lips against mine.



Ever present in my mind, though, was that the feeling might not be mutual: how can you know if there’s real chemistry until you meet offline? Not to mention, of course, the fact that he’d recently learned of my Girl with a One Track Mind infamy, and I was anxious to show him another side of me, so that he would be getting to know me, Zoe, not the obsessed-with-shagging ‘notorious’ sex diarist.



But I still wanted to kiss him, god how I wanted that.

Zoe’s taken a little hiatus, but I am sure she’ll be back soon embarrassing her parents and letting us know what we want to hear.



A Welsh View



Ah yes, the Welsh are such interesting people. Okay, the only encounter I have had with the Welsh is Gwen Cooper from Torchwood and my TV is not that big. However, if you are interested in creativity that will allow you to laugh your bum (butt) off, here is an interesting video on how to open a bottle of wine with your shoe.



And to think, all these years, I was opening all those bottles of wine wrong.



On an interesting note, my brother-in-law cracks nuts with his fists. It serves for an interesting and quiet evening with the family. Apparently, we are not really that posh (high class).



Well these are my top British/Welsh blogs that I have been smitten about. What are your yours?