Lily Unleashed

Call me little Miss Mundane...

Lily has no brain - its all pooped out. Its been a while since my last blog (sounds like a confession)... (perhaps it should be a confession) "What's there to confess?"

Let me see now - parties, work, party again, then some work - sun shining, so another party and then work and then one almighty party... "I confess, I think I have an alergy to wine! Gin, that's ok - Jack Daniels' oh yes, that goes down nicely - Pimms, lovely for this time of the year, but, WINE - drink loads, feel ok, then start jabbering on about crap, pass out, wake up and don't remember any of my jabber!"

I've bought rows of vins in a bloody vineyard for goodness sake and for some reason over the last 2 years, I drink it and pay for it big time. I love it - but it turns me into a washed up mollusc! It's not fair, I seem to have developed an intolerance to this heavenly juice. Perhaps I should start buying shares in JD instead.

This is a totally meaningless blog - I am ranting again...

...but, I like it

..Water, beer or just pee?

My body aches, feel as though I have walked miles and miles, and then a few more miles. I have a cough from breathing in huge amounts of dust and smoke and to top it off I have several large lumps on my head, and my arms, body and legs covered in bruises of varying degrees.

Do I feel sorry for myself? No – I feel knackered, but totally exhilarated. I had the most fantastic long weekend at Castle Donnington for the Download Festival.

I can see several blogs emerging as a result of the weekends experiences, but the first thing to address is the bottle throwing. Why? Empty plastic bottles are acceptable I suppose, but come on – half full bottles of some kind of fluid, lobbed with extreme force, really bloody hurts! And, you big guys out there have to remember that there are us smaller framed females out there in the crowd!

My first hit was at the end of the first night. Feeder were playing on the main stage and it was damn cold. One minute I was standing, actually getting quite bored (Feeder were not the best choice for headlining!) and then, whack, landing right in the side of my face just catching the corner of my eye. I quickly woke up and from then it was like attack Lily with a full on assault with bottles cracking the back of my neck, my head and the most painful, right on that boney bit of my wrist! (I was rubbing my head when it caught me).

Luckily it had been a long day – the consumption of beer, Jack Daniels, wine and gin made the pain quickly disappear.

The following day, this time on the snickers stage, more bottles began flying – this time with plenty of liquid spitting out as they flew through the air. Warm and slightly smelling droplets spraying unsuspecting victims from head to toe…

Anyway, thank you to those that soaked me in urine and hurt my head. I suspect, unlike you (who were probably camping with shit-stained, non-functioning showers), I had the pleasure of returning to my hotel every night to get clean!

Please don’t throw bottles at me next year!!

I feel good!

No, I haven’t had heaps or lashings of sex – I just stood-up and stood tall and had a very successful day. I damn well made sure I made those that needed to know plainly aware of how good I am… shocking behaviour really, but went down very well.

Now, off comes the suit, a quick change into something a lot more comfortable and back in the car to Castle Donnington. Download Festival here I come – I am going to have a stonking weekend and I hope all you fellow bloggers have a good one too!

Its so nice to end the week on a high note, don't you think?

You’ve been on hols, and now you are probably horribly healthier looking than when you were when you left…

Anyway, my dear “Hoto”, the 9th June is your birthday and although I am away rocking with ‘H’ I wanted you to come back home to a message from moi…

So, as this is a blogging community, please feel free to sit at your terminal and sing-along-to-yourself, and ‘D’ of course, also cannot exclude ‘G’ from this symbolic occasion:

“Happy birthday to you…
Happy birthday to you…
Happy birthday dear C:Bear
Happy birthday to you…”

We’ll catch up next week my friend! xx

I am so tired – had a really late one last night and up at the crack of dawn this morning. I wish I could say that it was due to the constant dedication to my career, but no it was pure and simple, slightly bonkers for a female, stress relief.

I had taken a walk into town during lunch yesterday with no plans other than a break from the legionnaire air-conditioning system in the office. Did a quick circuit of HMV and decided that this weeks DVD releases were not worth the spend. I then ended up in Game with no specific ideas other than looking at the latest Xbox releases.

This is the point when I saw the potential for a nice new toy. This light-gun was not just some silly little pistol – this is the mother of all gaming guns fitting more the arcade category rather than residential gaming kit. “Oooh, it’s so big” I said to the manager – he gave me an odd kind of look back, but then did force a smile.

Of course, the second most important thing about new toys is all those nicely listed key features down the side of the box. (The first is of course, size and stature – and this was / is a whopper!):

Motion activated scope
Removable stock, barrel and scope
Pump action re-loader
Realistic linear kick-back
Normal, burst, auto-reload, auto-reload auto-fire
Xbox Live / memory card slot
oh, and of course, the rubberized ‘BUTT’ on the stock…!

Got home, gun & game under my arm. Boxes were ripped open and away I go. Now, although I do like to pride myself in being an intelligent person I do have the inbuilt stupidity that tells me not to read instructions unless I can’t get it working. One hour later, I read the instructions! Finally, after much fine tuning got the gun calibrated and proceeded to hit the training ranges. There I stayed until about 1.30am this morning – trying to perfect the art of jumping up from behind the sofa and shooting the shit out of my telly. I have not had some much fun on my own in ages.

What did I learn from this experience? To close the curtains during more social hours as the neighbours now think they live next door to a total lunatic.

What ever your background, experience and career, have you ever met those individuals that progress by ‘riding off the back of…’?

I have never been a person that has been comfortable with boasting and telling those that need to know what I have achieved, and what and why I am just so damn good. My methodology has always been that results demonstrate individual capability. Surely that makes sense?

However, with maturity and lots of experience I am now questioning whether my somewhat honest and naive behavior has really paid off over the years. In conclusion, I don’t think I have quite mastered the art in putting myself forward as the creator and generator, the thought leader and the deliverer. I have always been too eager to sing the praises of my people, my teams (those that report into me and those that support me and my teams). That’s surely a nice way to manage – isn’t it all about succession planning and developing people?

I have surmised that lack of own confidence is a major contributor. I have always been branded with the phrase of ‘hard to manage’. Not because I am a difficult person – and it took me years to not be sensitive that that comment. This is more because of the issues revolving around managing creative types. I am a quick thinker, I have technical knowledge that is diverse across our industry sectors – I don’t mind challenging those around me and I understand the fundamentals of a sound business proposition. I have been told that these qualities are daunting for some and welcomed by others. However, the welcoming committee is never as large as the opposition.

So, while I always feel I have to justify my existence, my competence and salary – there are those that just fly by the seat of their pants, and excuse my pun, but at the same time cream their knicks! (By this mean reap the benefits both financially and with extreme kudos).

There is now a transition phase taking place. Very exciting in an odd sort of way! For some, they are growing and achieving financial and credibility awards that are well deserved. For others, I am now seeing the foundations of their pedestal crumble. A few have fallen off, and some are now standing like the leaning tower of Pizza!

Why does this seem exciting to me? Am I sick or even odder than I care to think? No. I really feel that for the first time in many years I am growing in my own self-confidence and ready, able and competent to start standing on that pedestal. I have a solid foundation, sound credentials and industry recognition evidenced by publicised documentation, features and articles. All I have to do is just take one step forward without any pretence and present myself for what I am…

Gosh, this is going to be so easy! I know it is… 

The morale of my blog: Be sure to have 100% confidence in your knowledge and experience before promoting micro / macro expertise because one day you are likely to be demolished. (P.S. Don’t tread on people to get to where you want to go)

Now, that is a question?

I know what I think, but what do you boggers feel about people registering to slap their commercial crap all over place?

The definition of ‘Blog’ is as follows:

Main Entry: blog
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log
Example: Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author. Etymology: shortened form of Weblog
Usage: blog, blogged, blogging v, blogger n

I don’t see anything there that suggests that to blog means to promote, advertise or try and sell anything…

Can you tell, the shark has got on my nerves!

Just logged on after a gin-soaked weekend - thought I'd unwind before getting ready for one of those days at the office tomorrow. Why would someone want to use blog to promote loans, and why also on a Sunday evening would someone want to post at least 17 blogs all related to loans in the space of very little time. What a load of shiite!!!

...and I will be letting my hair down at the Download Festival! Nice to have something wild to look forward to

Visit: http://downloadfestival.co.uk

Oh, and if you think the lineup looks good and you fancy it -too late, its sold out! Harsh, am I not...