Those of you who know me will confirm how much I love taking photographs.  So much so that I’ve gone pro.  I’ve been asked to take photos for people’s businesses and events and I’ve donated lots of pictures to friends of their precious moments like weddings and parties because I wanted to.  In return their kind words fill me with a lot of happiness and satisfaction and keeps me striving for more.

Unfortunately I’ve recently discovered that my photos are being used by individuals on their social networking pages.  What’s unfortunate is these individuals have cut off all ties with me (for reasons unknown).  I’ve accepted our relationships have ceased so why on earth are they continuing to use my photos for their profile shots?

Legally I own the copyright to these photos and without my permission they are not allowed to use my photos.  Worst still is their friends are complimenting them on how good they look.  Well it’s down to the art of the photographer, not the subject wholly but I get no credit for it and of course they won’t tell the truth on who took the photos.  I can’t decide whether I should tell them to take the pictures off the site or report them.  I don’t hate them at all, it’s quite the opposite in fact because I wasn’t the one to end our relationship but it would make sense that if they wanted to remove every trace of me, they ought to remove my photos too.

If you can’t stand me, don’t steal my work.  That said, they’ll be hard pushed to find someone else generous and patient enough to take their photos next time they’re craving for an ego massage.

Swine flu isn’t the biggest epidemic the world should be worrying about.  It’s the occurrence of this parasite plastered on the pages of newspapers and magazines.

Jack Tweed, for those who are fortunate to not endure his smug face lapping up press attention, is also the scummiest freeloader who’s had instant fame and easy-peasy fortune land in his lap after he came to our attention for dating the late Jady Goody (reality TV star from Big Brother).  Apparently he’s only 21 years old.

Seeing his horrible face makes my blood boil.  I never bought into him marrying Jade for love although I am glad he’s not entitled to a penny of her money.  It still doesn’t make up for the fact he’s milking every opportunity to sell his stories when he should be ignored.

Any negative press given to him is quickly turned around by his PR camp.  For example, some daft bints sold their story to a tabloid, claiming they had had a one night stand with this vile creature weeks after his wife died.  While I don’t sympathise with these slappers (because they too are after cash), it infuriates me his camp turned these scandals into ‘oh, Jack Tweed really regretted sleeping with these girls and cried afterwards, missing his late wife so much’.  Waaa, waaa, waaa, waaa! Those photos of him at her grave were all staged too!

Why must we put up with this repulsive thug?  He can’t even wear a cravate properly!  And who on earth would want to sympathise with him?  Who are these moronic members of the public who plead for his innocence and that he’s just 21.  So?!  If at 21 he’s capable of dipping his nib into random ink pots and beating up people for no reason whatsoever, he deserves no allowances.  I never thought I’d see the day when criminals like Jack Tweed would be heroes.

My emotional state at this minute is calm and collected.  I’ve devoured a delicious Malaysian/Indonesian take-away and I’ve also told an idiot who’d parked his car and blocked the ramp of my driveway to move it but half an hour ago, I was raging.

I only nipped out for 10 minutes to collect my food but when I returned, his vehicle was partially blocking my driveway.  Upon seeing me, he continued to load up his car and so I swerved (with great difficulty) and had to park my car in an awkward position.  Once inside, I kept pacing up and down to the window and checking if my appearance had prompted him to move his car.  Five minutes went by and no, he hadn’t.  Instead he was sitting inside a different vehicle on the opposite side, having a chinwag with three other people.  I flapped the net curtains a few times, I even took a few photos but no, the car was still there.

How very dare he...!

I was fuming while my food was getting cold but then I did something extraordinary that surprised me – I stormed outside and went straight to the car he was sitting in.  Before he could turn around, the passenger in the seat behind him noticed me and gestured him to open his window.

“Is that your car?”, I asked.

“Yes – I am going in five minutes”

“Er, I don’t think so.  Please move your car because I can’t park mine properly and the other space is reserved for another”.

Quickly he got out and moved his car.  I mean, how dare he park there in the first place?!  Cock!  Of course this doesn’t beat the time when a random woman actually parked her car ON MY DRIVE WAY and popped into meet my neighbour across the road during controlled parking in the week day. I kid you not.  Does my driveway look like a fucking free car park?!  Why didn’t I call the police then?  GAH!

By the way, I abhor the house across the road on the right.  It used to be one house till the owner converted it into three flats and rented them out.  To unsavoury looking tenants.  The owner cemented the beautiful garden and knocked down a tree before painting the window frames instead of installing new double glazing and generally making the property look ugly.  Urgh!  It truly brings down the value of the street and I am itching to move.

Lies.  Everyone tells them.  Little white ones or big, fat fibs.  Sometimes it’s justifiable but not when it’s going to cause hurt and pain to those involved.

This past week hasn’t treated me well.  I’ve been crying most nights and people at work have noticed I don’t look my usual self.  The moment they asked, I had to hold back the tears and pretend everything was OK.  It’s not the time of the month either so I can’t blame feeling fragile over that.  I am just trying to make sense of why people I care about lie to me unnecessarily.

People who tell me they’re my friend have lied to me and the pain from it is horrible.  The truth comes out sooner or later so they are the foolish ones but I feel foolish for believing in them.  Do they think I’m a mug?  Am I too soft and nice? Are they so used to fibbing to everyone that they are immune to others’ feelings?  Clearly they don’t feel the same way as I do about them or they wouldn’t dream of hurting me in this way.  I also feel like our friendship is false because I can’t distinguish the truth from the lies.  Unless I’m told pigs can fly, I’ll pretty much give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

I wish I didn’t have a caring bone in my body but stupidly I do.  Most people can walk away from this and never look back.  I, on the other hand, just freeze on the spot, not knowing what to do next other than sob endlessly.  Unfortunately this isn’t something new as people I thought I could trust have deceived me.  You’d think I’d have wised up by now.

Being truthful doesn’t cost anything yet people treat it like it’s an expense of some kind.  Unless you’re at the receiving end, you won’t realise just how awful the consequences are to deal with.

Hello, loyal readers of my blog, bless you for stopping by.  What am I going to blog about today?  Incest.  Between siblings.  You must be wondering how such a topic has popped into my head.  Well for the last couple of months, I’ve noticed a worrying trend.  I know someone who keeps putting up pictures of his sister on his social networking page.

Pouting poses, cleavage-enhancing shots…yeah, I suppose they’re not pornographic but they’re not normal photos either.  One or two photos would go unnoticed but a dozen and in the same album?  And they’re just of her on her own!  Why?  It makes me feel uncomfortable, looking at some of these photos (like I need to see her ample bosoms popping out of a strapless top).  I can’t avoid it either  – they pop up in the news feed on my page. And she has the most number of photos to her name in this gallery of images.

I know another pair of sister-brother siblings who wish each other goodnight with kisses and tell one another they love each other on their respective pages.  Two sisters’ affection is different.  It’s sweet and cute.  Two brothers doesn’t been bear thinking.  You don’t get too many male buddies giving each other ‘brotherly’ love but a brother and sister is creepy!  I’m not implying anything further is going on but just what I’ve witnessed so far is wrong!  Especially the one who keeps sticking photos of his sister on the internet.

Apparently Victoria Beckham has had her breast implants removed.  The perma-tanned twiglet who emphatically denied having her boobs boosted has redeemed herself just slightly in my eyes for realising how stupid surgically enhanced tits are.

Breast augmentations must seriously be affordable because nobodies are having them done.  Of course you get what you pay for and it’s amusing to spot the cheap jobs from the ones who will have you fooled into thinking they are natural.  Dita Von Teese, I am specifically pointing my finger at you.  I really thought her breasts were natural but when she admitted they weren’t, I lost interest and respect in her.  She always struck me as a naturally curvacious beauty.  Unfortunately she’s a cheat.

Dita, you teese!

But pushing Dita and her quality pair of airbags, I find the superficial inflated mammaries repulsive and women who get them done, in particular, to further their ‘careers’ are pathetic.

Channel-hopping one Friday night, I came across a television channel called – ahem – Babe Station.  You know those dodgy ads in the classified sections of newspapers with the premium charged phone lines?  Babe Station is an extension of that except men don’t pay to hear a woman flirt and talk dirty to them, they get to see her too.  (I take the ‘men’ bit back – the type who probably phone into these premium charged channels are horny teenagers jizzing under their Superman duvets.)

Viewers are invited to dial up and pay up £1.50 a minute for a plasticated bimbo rub her beachballs whilst on all fours.  She flutters her false lashes, pouts with her collagen boosted lips, tosses her hair extensions and rolls around on the rug for as long as she can milk the caller.  It’s porn for the Nuts/Zoo generation and I expect the girls who appear on these channels pop up in those lame publications.  They are excrutiatingly ugly and their fake breasts are too.  Many don’t look above 21.  I wonder what their parents think?  I wonder if their brothers are proud of their baby sisters pushing their breasts together and simulating sex on national television? If anything, it is laughable and after the initial reaction of being gobsmacked at what they were doing, I was cringing at the gestures on camera.

Mainstream television is brimming with implants.  I only had to switch onto Big Brother and there is one girl in the house with boobs bigger than her brain.  How can you rely on making a career by pumping up your breasts and mutilating your body as a consequence?  They’re not even permanent!  Implants have to be replaced after so many years and think of how much the skin is stretched in the process!  Meg Matthews has a grotesque pair of breasts with saggy skin in the cleavage.  *retches*  One of them slipped out of place and she had to have surgery again.

Breast implants do not make a woman remotely sexy or beautiful.  How a woman dresses (tastefully) and carries herself with confidence is, no matter how big or small her breasts are.   Women who are influenced by using false methods to improve their appearance are weak and shallow.  And women who do it to please men or persuaded by their boyfriends are worse.  I was speaking to a man who was the first to support the idea of breast implants.  Most sensible men actually detest implants.  However, this one didn’t.  It soon became apparent why as he’d paid for his girlfriend to have her tits done.  I had to question what sort of a relationship they have for one person to force their opinion on the other and try to change their appearance.  Actually a better word for that is ‘control’.  God almighty, is there not anything else better to do?

Jo O’Meara (who used to be in S Club 7, then later embroiled in the race fiasco on Celebrity Big Brother a few years ago with Jade Goody and Danielle LLoyd – both of them had their tits done) recently had hers done.  She complained her breasts looked like (and she put it so eloquently), “a couple of saggy condoms” after the birth of her child.  I have news for you, O’Meara, your breasts are for feeding, you daft mare.  Also if you are allegedly strapped for cash after selling your £500,000 house and moving into rented accomodation because the nation hates you, why splash out on getting your boobs done, you insipid cow.  Yeah, buying shoes to cope with your unhappiness is fine – I do it!  But cosmetic surgery is plain stupid.  Argh!  I hate implants!  Girls, you don’t need big breasts for a man to be with you.  If you do, you’re only going to attract the wrong ones.  Besides, no man with an ounce of sense likes them fake.

This weekend I’ve had the joyful news that another cousin is getting engaged and very soon to be married.  In what feels like a conveyor belt, one by one they’re reaching the front of the check-out to have their barcode scanned and to be packaged into the next phase of their adulthood.

I’m the oldest amongst my cousins from my mother’s side.  Bar me there have been three weddings so far, which will now go up to four by the end of the summer.  Between my family’s Asian friends and acquaintances, the same thing is occurring – those older than me have said their vows years ago and those younger are trying on their wedding gowns as I type this.

Where I once had numerous suitors supposedly asking for my hand in marriage (I’m inclined to believe more my British passport), I’ve since passed that eligibility milestone and now I’m just rudely prodded as to why I am not considering settling down into a married life.  By people who know don’t know me.  And just for amusement, all parties known to me who have tied the knot have not had arranged marriages.

I can’t speak for those who have chosen to get married at 21 or 24 because I don’t know their reasons or circumstances.  I imagine they have been fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. I can’t say I was lucky to come across one eligible bachelor at university.

Some have made it their mission to find a husband.  It’s not unusual to see Asian girls dreaming of the glitz and glamour of a large-scale wedding where they have the excuse to be the centre of the attention, wearing the most exquisite wedding dress and guests turning green with envy at the sight.

In case you’ve not twigged, I’m nearing the end of my expiry date in the eyes of Asians.  I mean, God forbid, an Asian girl still single and 30?!  My parents are happy, why is it anyone else’s business that I’m not married?

I don’t stop to think about marriage and that is exactly what I think about.  I don’t wonder about the wedding or what dress I want to wear, or countless ceremonies in the run-up to the big day.  I take marriage seriously and my opinion has altered as I’ve become older and more sensible.  At 21 I hadn’t a clue, at 24 I wasn’t ready but now as I enter my thirties, what I have in sight is clear.

Yes, I’d like to get married.  I would like a family of my own.  No, I’m not interested in him having a large pay packet nor must he be an investment banker or someone of equally or a higher profession.  I’ve never been impressed by superficial things like that.

I aim to honour the sanctity of marriage wholeheartedly.  I don’t want a grand wedding with 500 random guests I have never seen in my life.  I don’t want to waste an extortionate amount of money on a dress I will wear for a few hours.  I don’t want to be dripping in 24 carat gold and I don’t want a sodding mendhi.  I am more interested in getting an Aga for my dream farmhouse kitchen than to fork out for a frock encrusted in diamantes.  I would like my nearest and dearest friends and family to be present on my special day, the figure I can probably count on both hands.  But most importantly, if or when I get married, it will be to someone I care about and love unconditionally.

I’ve had my fair share of cruel jibes from Asian men I encountered in my early twenties.  Some said I’d be left on the shelf if I didn’t hurry up and get married.  Wise words coming from control freaks.  Perhaps they feel intimidated by strong, independent thinking women.  I owe it all to my daddy for encouraging me to be the person that I am today.  And he knows he’s raised no fool.

As I write this blog, I worry about others much younger than me.  My cousin who’s just turned 17 is already grooming herself and practising her Colgate smile in pictures she’s plastered on her page on a social networking site.  I won’t be surprised if she’s the next one to walk down the aisle.

This time yesterday I was fuming.  Today my mood has swung to one of much relief after I put my blogging skills into practise with a complaint letter addressed to the CEO of a huge electrical retailer.  Dixons to be exact.

About a month ago I purchased a netbook (a mini laptop for the technological challenged) through Dixons’s website.  It was considerably cheaper than in-store plus delivery was included.  Besides, if my saviour John Lewis sold this brand, I’d have not hesitated about going straight to them.

The laptop was delivered quickly, I excitedly plugged it in and started to slowly build up its content with programs and ditching Internet Explorer for Firefox.  One day later and these horrible lines appeared on the screen – like dead pixels.  AFTER ONE DAY!

The only option was to ask for an exchange or a refund except it wasn’t as straight forward.  Dixons do not allow products to be returned to their shops if bought online.  It’s the reason why their online prices are lower in comparison to their store prices.  So I had no choice but to telephone their after sales number to arrange for the item to be returned. Argh!  A pain and half that was.

I was promised DHL would collect the laptop from an address of my choice – either home or work so I chose the latter.  This was arranged to take place 11 days ago.  When I called Dixons to find out when they’d be refunding my money (nearly £300), they couldn’t trace it.  Well, I wasn’t surprised when I found it was still sitting in the collections depot at my work place!   Cue me calling Dixons again and being forced to go through the same, lengthy procedure of arranging a collection again, which they promised to do on the same day.  Of course they didn’t show up again!

So I stormed home, fuming and instead of firing off a letter which would end up on some random person’s desk, I emailed the CEO of Dixons.  It saved me a trip to the post office, queuing up during my lunch hour and paying for a letter to be sent by recorded delivery.

Today I received a grovelling phone call from the head office, and coincidentally, my laptop was finally collected too.  A refund usually takes a few days but 20 minutes later, I received an email confirming my money had been returned to me.  Still, it’s taken almost a month to sort out and put me off buying from Dixons again.  Head office failed to explain why they employ such incompetent staff though.

I am the queen of writing complaint letters but I hate doing them to begin with.  It’s a crutch ache to plan, prepare and write one, and include evidence to back up your argument plus you have to remember not to be rude and aggressive but firm and polite.  If retailers pull up their socks and provide a high quality service, it will save me so much bother complaining about when they bodge things up.

Some don’t have a clue about treating customers well.  I had a bad experience with online clothing site ASOS.com who sold me a duff coat which was cream coloured with red lining.  The label’s instructions said it could be washed in the machine so I did and the coat turned pink.  ASOS requested I return it to them for a refund but it took an eternity to get my money back.  ASOS claimed they never received the coat and yes, I obtained proof of postage.  I wrote several emails to the rude prick representing ASOS and eventually sought advice from Consumer Direct before ASOS turned around and miracuously discovered the coat was with them all along and swiftly gave me my money back.

This was about two years ago and I’ve never bought from them since.

…since I’ve posted a blog but fear not, thoughts are bubbling away.  I have been blogging on another site – one which I share with a lovely lady called Helen who shares my dislike of the Apprentice candidates and has had her fair share of run-ins with shit celebrities (see the group on  Facebook!)  If you’re a girl and you like all things girlie, you will love this blog.

Now if you don’t mind, I need to get some shut eye before a 5am wake-up call for a flight to the south of France.  Ooh!  Get me, why don’t you?

I am disgusted at girls who can’t be discreet about their underwear.  Is it laziness or are they living life through an imaginary lens in a Vogue cover shoot?  In spite of more lingerie retailers on the high street offering a spectrum of colours and a variety of solutions to your supporting cast’s needs, some girls are still dumbing down the act of wearing underwear correctly.

Pet hate number one: bra straps on public display.  Simply grotesque!  For example under a sleeveless top like this young girl ordering her portion of chicken in Nando’s.  Funny how her chicken wings were bulging out of this ill-fitting top (ugh!).

Because of the cut of the garment or if it’s one of those vests, the straps can’t be hidden and it’s not always advisable to go without.  Fair enough.  The solution to this?  Wear a bra with removable straps that can either be taken off or criss-crossed over thus being concealed under your top.  It’s not rocket science.

Unfortunately my example has shown to all the customers in Nando’s that she wears a polka dot bra that is more than likely the wrong size (the bra is hooked up too high).  Of course the ghastly top adds insult to injury but had she chosen a more appropriate item of undergarment, she wouldn’t look so trailer trash.

Pet hate number two: mis-matching underwear, namely wearing a twin set which don’t match but clash, which also ties into the point above if they’re visible to the naked eye.  Lingerie makers don’t manufacture colourful bras for fashionable reasons, they’re for your own good so try to match your clothes to the closest colour you have.  Matching underwear is not for the priority of others to see or ahem, for special occasions but to be prepared for every eventuality whether it’s a strip-search at airport security or being treated by paramedics after you’ve been run-over will work in your favour.  Don’t take a chance and think it’s acceptable to wear grey knickers (which used to be white) with a knackered old bra.

So this is coming from a girl who has every colour in the rainbow in her drawers but essentially you should have the basic bra colours – black, white, nude and red.  Oh yes.  Don’t wear a white bra under a semi-sheer black top for example.  Lots of women do.  It’s cheap and you look like a gormless, colour-blind numpty.  You’re supposed to ooze class.

If you are clueless as to how to keep your unmentionables in their original vibrant shades, use this Godsend of a product called Colour Catcher, which prevents the colours running in the wash plus your underwear will last longer.  Look at me giving you useful tips here!  Pay attention!  And no, I’m not Bree Van de Kamp/Hodge.  She’s a fictional character.

Pet hate number three: thongs are wrong. Good God, whoever decided they were fashionably acceptable is hopefully out of a job.  Just what is so comfortable about a cheese grater up your arse?  And letting it casually stick out above your jeans is not sexy, it’s awful!  Women still do it!  So what if you saw it first on a hip-hop video and decided to mimic Missy Dollar Sign from the Bronx?  They’re high up on the scale of looking like tits in a trance, do you care to go the same way?  There is a very good reason why underwear is called precisely that.  It’s supposed to remain under your clothes.   Keep it hidden and keep it classy!