My shameful secret...

Reader, I have something to confess. It's an unpopular view these days, one that others may sneer at or turn away from in righteous disgust. It might cause me to get shoes thrown at my head. The thing is....

I love Valentines Day.

I know what you're thinking, 'It's alright for her though, she's stonkingly in love!', well yeah, that's true, but I loved it when I was single as well.

Here's the thing. Being in love on Valentines is amazing-this year my Partner In Crime and I spent the whole day together, just the two of us, which sounds fairly simple but given that we both lead such busy lives, it was complete heaven. We went to the cinema (no, not to see 50 Shades of Grey, we were all about Big Hero 6!), we ate bacon, we danced around the living room and drank wine while we cooked an Italian meal from scratch, we accidentally made each other the same present...it was without a doubt the best Valentines day I've ever had. But even when I was single I loved the day. When I grew out of the idea that Valentines had to be just for couples, I started spending the day doing things for myself. One year I treated myself to lunch at a cafe I'd always admired when walking past. Another year myself and curly one wrapped ourselves in duvets and watched When Harry Met Sally with a bag of doritos, diet coke and packs of cigarettes (I was still a smoker then). Last year we ate Chinese food and watched The Slipper and The Rose (best Cinderella adaptation EVER) and laughed our socks off.

Heading towards PIC's the other day, it occurred to me that the only time I've ever been unhappy on Valentines day has been when I was unhappy in a relationship. Whenever I've been happy it one it's been grand (although this weekend definitely topped them all) and when I've been single I've loved it too.

Maybe it's because my expectations aren't huge-at the ripe old age of 26 I've never had an anonymous Valentines day card, and I've never really been that materialistic. The concept that someone would have gone to the effort to make something or organise something for me is far more touching than any bunch of flowers or shiny bauble. Valentines cynics might say that the festivities encourage us to only show our love for someone on one day, but I disagree. I show my love for my partner as often as I can. Valentines is just another excuse to celebrate it-an excuse to turn off mobile phones, refuse plans and jobs, lock the doors and just be. Those days don't come round particularly often when you have busy lives, so we need to celebrate them while we can and use them as an excuse to indulge in having a real, honest to goodness day off.

Hope your Valentines was wonderful Reader, whether your were single or taken for it!
Ash
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p.s. if you don't already, you can follow my vlogs here: https://www.youtube.com/user/magenta/videos

Fifty shades of flipperty-jibberts...

Ok Reader, so I read the book that's had the literary world in a bit of a flap of late. The book that's being hailed as the new big thing in the world of erotic literature. The one with spanking....

The thing is, Fifty Shades of Grey was a bit of a surprise. A friend's mother gave it to me, describing it simply as 'acceptable porn'. Now, this could have covered a multitude of areas. It could have been about cake or really good food given my love of cooking/eating. It could have been a bit Madame Bovary, all sexy but subtle. It could even have been like one of the Agent P. Short erotica stories. But it wasnt't. Reader, Fifty Shades of Grey is essentially Twilight with less vampires and more S & M dungeons.  A ridiculously good looking millionaire with commitment issues decides that a somewhat ordinary twenty something who interviews him for her uni rag needs to be his submissive (if you don't know what that is, look it up: explaining the ins and outs-Haha-of sado masachism isn't my job dear) and begins pursuing her with all guns blazing.

STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS!!!!!!

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...you still with me? Good. So, she's also a virgin. Not just a virgin, a virgin with pretty much no interest in getting spanked/whipped/having things done to her bum/being clamped in awkward places. And yet still she's like 'ok, let's give this a go!'

Right.

So she's saved herself for 21 odd years, just to give it up to the first S&M sex god to turn up, even though she's not that fussed about all that malarkey. Suddenly she starts referring to being f****d. After doing the dirty roughly once. With someone she barely knows. Fair enough. But then why bother saving herself for all those years?

Also, she sort of falls at the first hurdle. He spanks her and she nearly has a fit about how awful it is. Dude. Seriously. What did she imagine might happen? Then whenever he suggests anything new she gets all scared and prissy about it. Surely she knew this sort of thing may be par for the course with a S&M enthusiast? And she's supposed to be intelligent...

The other thing that annoys me a bit is that the novel really panders to a 'chick lit' readership-it's not enough that they have great sex, they also have to be in a relationship and her parents have to like him. Ooh, and he has to be really rich and gorgeous. Right. Realism. The novel (?!?) needs to make up it's mind. Is it erotica? Is it chick lit? Is it literary fiction about sex? At the moment it seems to be a mish mash of all of the above. If you liked Twilight you might enjoy it but to be honest I found all the characters turgid, one dimensional and generally intensely irritating.

Bleh!
Ash
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