Hot And Cold

Determined to clock up more air miles than Richard Branson, I recently embarked on yet another whistle stop journey. This time it was Toronto for the Canadian launch of the AGA PRO+. I also had to do some promotional work for AGA MARVEL; the North American side of AGA, Marvel being refrigeration and AGA being cooking. All I could hear in my head was Katy Perry singing, “You’re hot and you’re cold…”. I’m proud to say that I have been chosen to be the AGA Brand Ambassador for North America, so it falls upon me to fly all over the world speaking about their products. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

A New Decade

So, it’s that time of year again, when everybody pauses to reflect upon the months gone by and mainly think about two things:

1. How quickly the year has passed and how quickly the resolutions I made in January were broken.

2. The Christmas holidays are all but over and it’s time to go back to work.

Neither of these is the most cheering of thoughts, so it’s probably best avoiding those topics for now, particularly as this evening most people the length and breadth of the United Kingdom will be heading out for some intensive partying.

Turkeys and Jetlag

I can live with a lot of things (cold snaps in December, congestion charges in London, traffic in London – for that matter, anything related to driving through London), but jetlag is one of them.

I predict a maggot, I predict a maggot….

The idea of being filmed sounds fine until you’re actually being filmed. You can fool yourself into thinking that you have perfect poise and clipped, clear diction, but that’s before you’re standing in front of a team of people brandishing cameras, lights and booms. You’re expected to act naturally, yet at the same time you’re receiving directions to do and say things you might not otherwise do and say. All of a sudden your legs become filled with jellied eels, your tongue swells to three times its regular size, and your arms become strangers, flailing and flapping about like those tall balloons you see outside car showrooms.

Lost in China

There is something undeniably exciting about travelling. I have racked up more air miles than Judith Chalmers, but I still get giddy-hearted jitters the night before I leave. I could pack my suitcase or kitbag in my sleep, but I always get wobbly-kneed at the thought of getting on a plane and flying off to pastures new and far away. I consider myself very fortunate in that I have seen most of what there is to see of the world. I have criss-crossed the continents, trotted the globe, and been pretty much everywhere you are told you should go by those articles in magazines which are titled “100 Places To Visit Before You Die”. If having a lot of stamps in your passport really was the road to contentment, I could die a happy man.