Sunday Social (54)

Linking up with Neely and Ashley again

1. What is your biggest driving pet peeve?

Happily I don't drive anymore. As I can't feel my feet I decided it was probably not safe. I do get driven a lot though. My pet peeve is cyclists and motorcyclists. In London there are constant adverts "think cyclist" and so forth... but watching the way they behave in traffic I'd like an advert "think cars". The way they weave... well it is scary sometimes.

2. What is your biggest blogging pet peeve?

I don't think I have one. The only time I get annoyed is when Blogger sometimes goes a bit mad and misbehaves.

3. What is your biggest general pet peeve?

I think it is probably best not to get me started (!) - generally I have quite a lot. Oh dear. I am trying to change my mindset to not let things bother me. Right now, we'll go with the fact that when my laptop died the new one that I got had to have Windows 8 which drives me insane (and had already bugged me three times this post).

4. What is your most irrational fear?

I have done very well on getting rid of most of them. The only thing left, flying. I know that other transports are more dangerous, but I hate flying. I am terrified. I generally like to fly in the evenings so you can have a drink in the bar before take-off. If I'm going further than domestic short flights I have to have Valium. Twenty years since I first flew, so I don't think I'm getting over it anytime soon.

5. Name 3 celebrities you'd want to have dinner with.

Living or dead. As dead wasn't stipulated I assume that they have to be living. OK, I'm going to go with: Charlie Brooker (English journalist and TV show host), Nathan Fillion (follow him on Twitter he is very amusing) and Eddie McClintock (also follow him on Twitter, also very amusing) - they'd make a good mix.

All types of font

I sit here typing on what is my fourth laptop. This one had a 3 year life (which is what I would expect) they have not all been so useful. 

Every time I change machines I have to transfer documents, photos and music (less of a chore now that a large portion is backed up in the cloud). I also have a clean slate of installing programmes - I start with the ones I use regularly and my creative collection on disk (Serif WebPlus and PhotoPlus).

The thing I forget every time is the fonts. Over the years I have amassed quite the collection. The play-by-mail (play by email) football game I play SoccerStar had a fashion for teams having web pages; and this meant badges. I was the 'go to' badge maker... and the amount of fonts that I downloaded just for this purpose!

Then there is my own artwork; from TV show badges to random posters and inspirational quotes - more fonts required. My iPhone has a helpful app called 'What the Font' so all you meed to do is point, photograph and upload. It meant that when I was doing some promotional material at work I could (almost) match the typeface of our company logo.

Most work done by graphic designers uses professional fonts that cost money; happily there is a huge community of artists who make free fonts (some very similar to the professional fonts). My favourite sites are 1001 Free Fonts‎ and Da Font

So this morning I have been going through the 1500+ files trying to work out which ones came with the computer and which ones are my 'finds'. I'm still annoyed that the first computer (which died) had some fonts that  I never copied off including one based on my handwriting, can't find the site that did that for me now!

So the fonts folder has 200 more items than when I started... but now I have fonts like these - and Lucida Sans which I thought was a standard... and I didn't even have to add Comic Sans which still is a standard!

My week in pictures

Monday

 

 

Tuesday

 

 

Wednesday

 

 

Thursday

 

 

Friday

 

 

Saturday

 

 

Sunday 

Sunday Social (53)

Linking up with Neely and Ashley again

1.  How did you come up with your blog name? 

I've always loved the bit in the Eurovision Song Contest when they go to each country for the votes; "Hello Dublin, this is London calling". I thought it was as great name for my blog as it is a miscellany of different bits; stuff about my life, things that pop into my head, my cat, my family, working and living in London and bits about my favourite city. So "London calling" (to the blogosphere) worked for me.

 

2. What is your favorite thing about blogging? 

I get to write about whatever crosses my mind! Sometimes just what I've been up to, sometimes little nuggets about London, and sometimes link-ups like this!

 

3. What is one thing you have discovered because of blogging and now can't live without? 

Pinterest. My blogging friends introduced me to it; and although I go through phases of high use/low use I wouldn't be without it!

 

4. Facebook or Twitter? and why? 

I can't choose. They totally different in what I use them for. Facebook is for keeping up with friends and family, watching their children grow and sharing celebrations and the other stuff life is made of. Twitter is my endless conversation, if I'm awake at 3am, or stuck waiting at the Doctor's there is a conversation to join.

 

5. If one celeb read your blog who would you want it to be? 

Charlie Brooker. We seem to have quite a similar life view!

 

6. What is something you want people to know about your blog?

It isn't an only child! If you go to the 'Pages' on the right hand side you can meet all its siblings!

 

 

 

Nevermore

Nevermore...

Mindfulness

I've been reading a bit about mindfulness (ever since a study told me I was too mentally well balanced to participate).

One of the suggestions, to keep perspective, was to have a globe or map at your workplace... when something annoys or vexes you at work you look at the planet and it gives you perspective to deal with your feelings.

Monday - Things you didn't know about me (3)

BOOKS

You probably do know that I like to read. I like to read a lot. I started reading at a preciously young age - although given how loved some of my childhood books were there is some debate to whether it was reading or reciting! To this day I can still recite 'The Nickle Nackle Tree' to my god-children and others who have received it as a must have gift!

Nat's bookshelf: young-childrens



More of Nat's books »

Having started reading before I started school I had worked my way through most childrens' books before I left primary school... from Beatrix Potter to the Little Grey Rabbit books (who I was convinced lived in the woods behind my grand-parents cottage); the American authors such as Louisa May Allcott, Susan Coolidge and Eleanor H Porter; other books that had belonged to my mother as a girl and classics such as Enid Blyton and Noel Streatfield.

Nat's bookshelf: childrens



More of Nat's books »

At this point I became fairly indiscriminate about the genre I read, still reading childrens' books if I came across ones I hadn't read, but until I started secondary school and met Young Adult, also reading adult books that were found in our house; such as 'Gone with the Wind', James Bond and my favourite that travelled everywhere with me, 'My Family and Other Animals'.

Most of the Young Adult books in my list I actually read later in life. I did read hundreds of books at secondary school; we had to keep book journals, and I remember hitting a hundred in a year alone... those loose leaf files have long since be thrown away and the books mostly forgotten.

Nat's bookshelf: young-persons



More of Nat's books »

My love of reading has followed me around ever since my childhood. Wherever I have lived I have joined the local library (indeed when we stayed with my Grandparents as kids we belonged to their library).

Enthusiasm for reading requires being exposed to books from a young age. My parents' house was full of books and there were never any restrictions on what you were allowed to read.

My late-grandfather and I particularly shared a love of reading (my gran gave me all his sci-fi books!) - he was strict that once he started a book he finished it. I try to do this, although sometimes that reading span is measured in years! I've always been one for reading more than one book at once. Before the advent of the Kindle when I had books from the library (or indeed my own books) I'd just leave them all over the house, with one in my bag for out and about. Now I just have about 90 books in the 'queue' on my Kindle... waiting and waiting for me to read them.

I adore science fiction and fantasy books, I'm quite fond of historical novels or novels that span a generation of a family. I don't mind biographies; I went through a depressing phase of those "I survived..." books which I blame entirely on the library and its display by the door. I used to read a lot of 'chic-lit' but once I got to the stage of working out the chap the heroine would end up with by the second chapter they mostly lost their charm. I sometimes read classics, although I'm afraid I mostly find them over-rated; I loved 'Les Miserables' but I hate Bronte and Austen; and I've been stuck somewhere in 'David Copperfield' for about 18 months!

I'll try reading almost anything... and usually I'll eventually finish it. If it's free on Kindle I'll download it and if it is good I may well buy the sequel!

Well, at the moment I'm working my way through Sherlock Holmes... so back to it!

Sunday Social (52)

Linking up with Neely and Ashley again

Celebrating one year of the Sunday Social!

1. What is your favourite social media outlet?

I'm torn on this one. I like Facebook because it keeps me in touch with friends scattered around the globe, I can see their kids growing up and generally keep in touch. I love Twitter because it is an endless conversation (day and night) and I have made some lovely friends there.

2. Do you subscribe to any daily new reads? If so, which ones?

No, I don't have time... and then things pile up... and then I spend my entire weekend attached to the internet. Quite often my day to day email account (the one that receives offers and newsletters) has over a hundred emails by the end of the week... and right now there are still about 50 unread blogs in my Feedly (oh dear). 

3. What is your favourite magazine to have by the pool?

I am just not a magazine girl. This surprises me, given my amazingly short attention span! I don't really follow celebrities doings (so that rules about 50% out) and the women's mags I'm either too old, or too scruffy. I do read BBC Focus on my iPad and skim through Web User and SFX (but only because we have subscriptions). Is it bad that my favourite magazine these days is Good Housekeeping?!

4. What is your favourite summertime song?

I'm not sure I have one. I've just been looking over my iPhone's playlist and nothing stands out as 'summer'. The only one seems to be the official song of the 1998 football world cup (which is very summery) Carnival De Paris.

5. What is the best summer concert you've been to?

I am not really a concert goer. I don't like crowds and crowded places. Having said that in 1995 (which was the 25 anniversary year) I went to the Glastonbury music festival. We arrived on the Friday and left on the Monday... the sun shone (with a bit of a grey morning on the Saturday) the entire time. I'd never been anywhere like it before. It was the height of 'Britpop' and Oasis, Pulp and The Cure were headline acts... Dreadzone and The Prodigy were also there... and on Sunday morning when everyone else was still asleep there were the Bootleg Beatles. I went again, two years later... it rained the whole time, the mud could take your wellies off; the only act I remember was the Chemical Brothers. So Glasonbury '95 was my golden concert/festival moment.

Glastonbury 95, a set on Flickr.