Class phwoar: Kleenex Collection Cubes

I feel a little bit silly for getting so excited by some boxes of tissues, but seriously, these limited edition Kleenex are the loveliest, most exciting tissues available to humanity right now, and they need to be brought to the attention of team MC. The tissues themselves are nothing for your nose to get inordinately excited about. It’s the boxes – sorry, “cubes” is what they’re calling them now. There are three main things that push these into Class Phwoar territory:

• They come in a variety of limited edition designs. Who doesn’t love a limited edition version of a really boring item? Feels like you’re really living for now, doesn’t it?
• The designs are generally seasonal and/or on-trend. It’s always satisfying to live by the seasons, and why the heck should that stop at your veg box?
• The designs are actually really nice and interesting – and genuinely add something to the home especially if you get a few and stack them up artfully somewhere. There’s a Mondrian one going at the moment. Catch it before they refresh the designs for summer.

But there’s a hidden extra level of phwoar on offer here. If you order them online with your grocery shopping, which I’ve been doing, you don’t know which design you’re going to get – it’s not necessarily the one shown on the website at the time you order. It’s like a lucky dip. Too exciting!

Is it too late to put a stop to “Can I get...”?

I’m ashamed of myself. The other day, I said to a barista, “Can I get another cappuccino?” – a turn of phrase I’ve been vociferously fighting against for I don’t know how long. I’ve thumped tables with outrage about it, rattling out my same old argument about “Can I get…” being a horrendous modern alternative to the correct, much more gracious “May I have…”, and laughing at the imagined scenario in which the barista or waiter retorts with “Sure, get it yourself!”

It’s a truly ugly expression, “Can I get...”, with its hard consonants and emphasis on getting instead of being given something, but it seems to have settled in so comfortably that now, “May I have…”, which makes more sense and is immeasurably easier on the ear, rings out as the less common and slightly old fashioned form.

So, I think it might all be over. If I’ve started saying it, and I’m supposed to be one of the opposition, I can only imagine that plenty of others like me are also losing their own battle, and therefore contributing to the overall loss of the war. 

Flickr: journeyscoffee

A complete middle-class guide to using a coffee shop as your office

Many more of us are setting up our own businesses or going freelance these days, and something that has come with that is a rise in numbers of us using coffee shops as our occasional or regular offices. The perks are obvious: generally free and stable wi-fi, good coffee, heating, light and power all paid for – and most importantly, the element of sociability you don’t get if you work constantly from home. Even though hardly any of us actually talks to other people while working in a café, it’s somehow good enough just that they’re there. 

But, it’s not all rosy. Coffee shop culture can be awkward, noisy and distracting. Here are five tips to help you establish a latte and laptop lifestyle.

1. Pick a friendly local place
Get to know the owner and staff – it’s good to support a local business, and means you can trust them to watch your laptop and table if you need to pop up to the counter or go to the loo. 94% of the people you see working for hours on end in Starbucks are desperate for the toilet but don’t want to lose their table or have their stuff stolen. That’s probably a fact.

2. Check for plug sockets
Before you attempt your first session working in a new place, check there are enough tables that are close to plug sockets for your laptop. Very annoying to discover later that you can only work for as long as your battery lasts.

3. Think about work, not sandwiches
Eat something at home before you go to a café to work. Otherwise your eyes and mind will constantly wander to the sandwiches and cakes.

4. Don’t talk on the phone too much
Nobody in the café wants to hear your calls with clients. It’s irritating and tedious. Stick to email as much as possible.

5. Order enough. And tip.
Make sure you’re don’t take the mickey with your ordering, especially since your friendly local coffee shop is doing you a favour by letting you spend five hours here using their wi-fi. At least one coffee or tea per hour is advised. Do tip properly as well.

Flickr: reubenaingber

How to be MC: being appalled by bad grammar in song lyrics

I can’t listen to that song ‘Chasing Cars’ by Snow Patrol for many reasons, the main one being its intolerable whininess (could we please move on from weedy music that’s basically young men crying into microphones), another being the fact that the grammar’s all over the place and it infuriates me. “If I lay here, if I just lay here…” For pity’s sake, it’s LIE not LAY. Lay is a transitive verb, meaning it has to have an object. You lay something, like an egg. Lie is an intransitive verb, meaning you just do the action without an object. Every time that song comes on in a café or wherever, I am just appalled.

And what the hell happened in the writing of ‘Live and Let Die’ that led to “in this ever changing world in which we live in” being accepted as a lyric? I applaud the attempt at correct grammar seen in “in which we live” but then the extra “in” is just ridiculous. Either end a sentence with a preposition or don’t! Covering all bases because you don’t know what you’re doing is something up with which I will not put!

Does anyone else care or are you all just listening to the music and not getting so wound up?

“Yes bois, it’s going to be sick”: how to talk like a Made in Chelsea character

Another season of E4’s staged reality show Made in Chelsea began last night, so now's a good time to take stock of the language this peculiar microcosm has given us and make sure we’re all up to speed.  There are a few words, phrases and pronunciations common to boys and girls, such as pronouncing party as “pardy”, and the oddly childish expression “going on dates” instead of “dating” or “seeing each other”. But there are also elements that are specific to the male and female characters. Here’s a little run down so you can have a go and perfect your Chelsea patter.

Boys

Use oddly 1990s slang such as “sick”, “jokes” and “safe”
Your male friends are your “bois” (spelt like that). Say this as much as possible, “yes bois, how are we bois?”
Less close male friends, and those you’re feeling a bit hostile towards, are “brothers”
Every conversation needs to end with an awkward handshake, high five or quick touch-hug
Women are “girls”. Use this collective whenever there is more than one in front of you. “How are you girls? What have you girls been up to?”
Girlfriends are, amazingly, known as “birds”
If nothing to say, hug or just say “yes bois!” a lot.

Girls

Affect a 40-a-day croak
Combine with babyish tone
End every phrase with a question intonation or a drawl
Call your female friends “bubba”, “bunny”, “babs”, “babby” and variations thereof
Call your thinner, more petite friends “little one” with thinly veiled contempt
Mix up your vowel sounds. Spencer becomes “Spancah”, Andy becomes “Undeh”
If nothing to say, just stare and pout
If staring goes on too long, smile coyly and say “this is awkward”.