New blog…

….. http://lisaansell.posterous.com/

Final Blog Post.

I started this blog because I didn’t know what to do. I had just left work,  for the first time since my daughter was born, I was at home with her. I had never put pen to paper before in my life. I didn’t think anyone would read it. When I started keeping this blog, I didn’t realise life was going to get quite so tough, and I certainly didn’t realise I would get so much out of it.

Rachel is at school and my life has moved to a new chapter. New business, new house, and I get to return to the world.

This blog feels like it’s done.

Thankyou to the many thousands of you that took the time to read it. Thank you for the comments, the discussions, the guest posts, the commissions, and for being very kind about the commas. Most of you.

Take care.

PS- you know I’ll probably start another one as soon as I have time, right?

September 11th

Well…We handled that well….

Yet another blogger’s thoughts on William Hague. Brief.

Guido Fawkes. Guido Fawkes does a certain type of blogging. It isn’t a site I enjoy. But he does what he does, and it is slightly weird that  this is somehow worse than the rest of the vileness on there. It isn’t. Bloggers like Guido serve a purpose.

Christopher Myers– why has he lost his job exactly?

William Hague’s sexuality: Who gives a toss? It is bad enough that men who look and sound like that actually have sex. I don’t really see how their choice of partner is anyone’s business. I certainly don’t want to think about it for prolongued periods of time.

The media obsession with Hague’s sexuality. Andy Coulson barely makes the front page, yet I now know where William Hague buys his baseball caps.  Hmm.

Memo to media. THe reason ‘outing’ fell out of favour, is because it is homophobic shit. Most people think it’s shitty. Dressing it up as an expenses/staff costs scandal, does not stop it being shitty.

NB Additional Memo to David Laws- Chief Secretary to Treasury being asked to resign after defrauding the taxpayer of £40k is not homophobia, however much you spin it to be so.

And finally…

If my husband  used my grief  as political capital to deflect attention from rumours about his sexuality. I would render his sexuality an irrelevance. I would fucking kill him.

Fertility is evidence of heterosexuality now? Eh?

PS. Christopher Myers is quite hot in a weird way.

Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms.

Why they don’t convince me!

What have I been up to?

It’s been a while. Last time I spoke to you, I don’t think I had anywhere to live yet. In fact, calling this year one of the most difficult I have had in a while, would be the understatement of the century.

Anyway, while I was househunting, I did a lot of wandering about. I spoke to a lot of people- ostensibly to figure out what we were going to do next. Then out of the blue, a house came up. A week before we were due to leave our old house.

An affordable house. A house five minutes from Rachel’s school. And we moved in. And it is wonderful.

Heating that actually warms up your house. Heating bills which don’t rival the debt of a third world country. Fixtures and fittings that stay where they are supposed to, and don’t snag your daughters skin if she trips over. A slight snag when I realised why you shouldn’t mix friendship and money..but hey ho, you live you learn.

A funny thing was happening while I was househunting. I was looking around, and thinking about the economy. (As you do?) and a plan started to form.

I started to look at the copywriting work I had been getting, and this plan developed.

While I was moving, I started to seek advice. Lots and lots of advice. My embryonic idea turned into a vague business plan. A friend offered to rent me an office. Business Link turned out to be one of the greatest government initiatives I have ever come across.

My vague business plan turned into a living document, gradually fleshing out into a plan to get this thing off the ground. People started to approach me about what they could do.

If unemployment is going to hit us hard round here, and the public sector cuts mean there is an ever expanding pool of skills. If businesses need support that isn’t going to bleed them dry- then surely there must be a way of bringing together those skills, with the businesses who need them?

And Calder People Ltd was born

So we launch on the 21st of September.

I have moments of sheer panic. I can’t quite believe I am doing it. Then I look at the people around me, and realise they are doing most of it. I am just bringing them together.

Is more fun than I have had in ages.

So thanks to all those people. In particular, James Howard, Richard Roberts, Lucy Tatum, Jason Elliot, and Peter White! And thank you to all those people I have harrassed for advice. Here is hoping next year is more fun than the last.

Short break from blogging…

I am moving house and have no net for about a fortnight…..will be back soon.

Flipper

Flipper could have sorted the BP oil leak. He would have dragged a cap down, fitted it, cleaned up, saved a kid,  and eaten a fish. He is probably busy coughing up tarballs though. Bugger.

The Janus faced coalition.

For weeks I have been trying to write a post, expressing how I feel about this coalition, and the difficulties in opposing them. Anyhow- Jonathon Freedland does it way better.

Rachel’s first theme park.

I took Rachel to a theme park yesterday.  I have to say, it was very British. Peeling (occasionally creepy) fibreglass animals, animatronic dancing snowmen,  staff who could have been dinner ladies at my school, and a cafe selling cups of tea in polystyrene cups that reinforced the drizzle and chill of a British summer day.

But there was no uberselling, no overpriced crappy merchandise targetted at kids- no ‘we have you hostage and now we are going to make your purse bleed’-whole day cost £20.

If you are 3, enormous indoor play centres, houses from your favourite fairytales, a real pirate ship, fibreglass lollipop castles, tractors you feel like you are driving and rocky road trains…awesome. If you are there with everyone from your nursery AND your mum- AMAZING.

By the time I had deposited Rachel unconscious into bed at her dads, I felt like I had been clubbed over the head, and may have fallen asleep before the take away I ordered arrived. I might eat it for breakfast.