London lights and yuletide musings: Festive tales from the capital

There’s something about returning to London around December that fills me with delight. I love the subtle and understated Christmas lights in Soller and the lack of hysteria and bustle at Yuletide but there is something gloriously buzzy and exciting in the capital. The reason I was back in London was because I’d been voted one of ten winning crime authors in a film competition with a large online audience. We were all invited to a film show at which a short video was shown with our interviews and books, and then a drinks reception was held at which I met some fascinating industry bods. While in London I took the opportunity to meet up with a gaggle of good friends and wondered at the spectacular Christmas displays in stores such as Waterstones, Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason.

The streets around the West End were packed to the gills and if you hadn’t booked a table weeks before it was virtually impossible to find a place to eat. Thank heavens I have efficient friends.
Although the temperature was icy, I was bowled over by how many women were wearing skimpy attire and leaving their coats and jackets at home. They must have warm blood or had already knocked back a good number of cognacs!

The heavenly angel Christmas lights in Piccadilly proved to be my favourite. Simple, classy and without hideous sponsor names twinkling before your eyes. Long may the Christmas spirit and sparkle continue in the Capital.

The office party

Several of my friends lamented how they were having to turn up for multiple Christmas office dos in the city and elsewhere. I remember that period just before the festive season and loving it mostly. Mind you, I was considerably younger then and relished the idea of free food and drink. According to a lot of my friends, the whole thing is much more boring now. Gen Zers apparently dislike going and don’t drink or communicate much with other colleagues and can’t wait to escape. They slip off as soon as they can and see it as a tiresome duty. No one is allowed to be silly or make inappropriate jokes or get drunk.

The idea is to celebrate the season is a wholesome way. Good God, how dull is that? In my day, it was a full-scale riot and the next morning, hangovers aside, we’d love to get into the office early to sit around the kitchen table gossiping, giggling and discussing the worst colleague behaviour from the night before! We’d of course make their lives hell when they did appear the worst for wear, but it was all good-humoured fun, and everyone was the closer for it. Sadly, office friendships and fun misbehaviour seem to be in decline as po-faced corporate rules are the name of the game now. I thank my lucky stars I worked in offices at a time when society was liberated, happy, and full of energy and many colleagues and associates were frankly crazy, outrageous rule breakers. I fear I’d not survive long in the current structure. Insubordination, insanely creative and risky strategies, practical jokes and pranks would find no place in the board rooms of today.

New Year no-cheer

Something in London I picked up on in the light of Rachel Reeves’ disastrous budget was the sheer number of business contacts about to axe workers or freeze pay. This is of course in response to the huge hike in company national insurance contributions. One friend said that the best she could do was to take on no new staff and freeze the pay of existing employees for the next year. The only other choice left to her was to make redundancies. Another was about to take on a new member of staff but desisted, and instead will only take on freelancers so they can sort out their own contributions. Reeves can huff and puff all she likes but she’s brought this colossal headache on herself. As more poor souls find themselves in dole queues, inflation rates continue to rise and businesses begin a steady exodus from the UK, poor old Blighty better steal itself because as sure as eggs are eggs, a recession is merrily on its way.

Botox Babes

I’m at that age where half my friends are fervently anti-tweakments, and the other half are only too keen to suck it all up! In London, I met friends with perfectly lineless foreheads and cheeks, who were devoid of eye crinkles or lip lines, while others had a good amount of scoring all over their faces. Did I feel the smoothies were much more youthful looking than those who’d spent no money on enhancements? It’s hard to say. I always feel with tweakments that people look fresher and less haggard but not necessarily younger in appearance. Eyes age women more than they might think and there’s no tweakment for that yet.

If tweakments are carefully administered, they can look very good but if overdone, yikes! The biggest issues are inflated, shiny hamster cheeks which have been syringed full of filler and lips that take on a duck like appearance. Subtlety is the name of the game. I have no issue whatsoever with friends having such treatments. If it makes them happy and they genuinely feel more confident and at peace with themselves, then it’s a win win.

There are of course two big downsides, cost and of course what to do if something goes horribly awry. All the same, countless men and women have fillers and Botox globally and luckily, if administered by a qualified medical expert, things rarely go wrong. When they do, the situation can be life threatening – such treatments carry risk of blindness and strokes - among other things. But life is full of risk and so it is up to the individual to weigh up the pros and cons and find the best of best practitioners before taking the plunge or considering going under the knife.