White vans

White vans – everyone loves em’ don’t they? They definitely make my journeys more interesting, lol. Vans that try to run me off the road - always fun. They always have a number on the back asking “How am I driving?”, well not very well usually... you just tried to run me off the road. The funny slogans written on in the dirt always make me giggle. Some more funny than others, some are just plain rude.

The white van man himself can be an evil guy that tries to potentially kill you. Sleazy guys that make lewd comments/ offer sweets as you try to get from one end of the campus to another –sweets?! What am I, 5 years old? Or extremely lovely guys that let you pull out into the road and do karaoke in the driver’s seat oblivious to the world around them. The karaoke drivers are my favourite, lol :)

Iifa Weekend

The Iifa awards finally came to Yorkshire. Did I go? Of course not! But I managed to attend every other related event within the region, lol.

The charity cricket match at Headingly Stadium in Leeds, which I attended in the sweltering heat. It was a good event; combining my love of Cricket, Bollywood and fabulous weather. Took plenty of pictures and enjoyed the atmosphere immensely. Got to see quite a few stars; Saif ali Khan, Salman Khan, Jay Sean, err Shilpa Shetty etc. But who was I most excited about seeing; No, not Salman Khan one of my favourite actors... it was actually Nick Knowles – the guy from DIY SOS. Sad I know! Jay sean was stood right next to him but nope... Nick Knowles is what I saw, lol. I think my cousin Saba was in such shock that she almost lost the ability to speak, lol.

The dance show on in Bradford was also a good laugh and very entertaining. A good effort made by all involved and it clearly showed! The Mela at Roundhay park, Leeds, had plenty of fun rides, some good food and the rumour of Bollywood stars milling about. Did I go just to meet the stars I hear you cry? Perhaps to begin with but nope, I got distracted by the numerous stalls, (shopping is always safe bet to distract me) and I was having way too much fun on the fairground rides with Arooj, lol. The day of the actual awards, the event was watched on the big screen in the town centre, surrounded by most of my friends.

All in all I had a fab weekend; good weather, food, company and a good excuse to catch up family and friends. It was nice to see people united via the asian community, regardless of creed and colour. I’m not saying that Bollywood solves problems of racial equality but just that it was nice to see everyone having a good time in a fun and nicely organised regional event. Let’s hope there are more of these to come :)

The Apprentice 2007

Sir Alan Sugar with series 3 winner Simon Ambrose

The 3rd series of The Apprentice and still a big fan. This year’s winner was Simon Amstell, typical public school boy but hilariously sweet guy and was my favourite to win out of the ones that were left. Characters that stood out this year are Tre Azam who was similar to Syed Ahmed from last year, but less idiotic and much more business minded, although the dishonesty gene did rear its ugly head at the beginning of the series, which did not please Sir Alan.

Token asian girl Ghazal something (her surnames escapes me at the moment), didn’t show much business initiative just very out spoken, but perhaps the only key skill required in her business? Simon’s finals rival was Kristina from Harrogate, who was a single mother and also a very business savvy lady. However she also spent a lot of her time battling it out with the manipulative (and maybe evil) Katie. Another guy that constantly got attacked by Katie was Adam, though he did look a bit of a fool at times, he certainly didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of Katie’s evil tongue. An interesting twist to this series was when Sir Alan was deciding on the two contestants for his final and it was between Simon, Kristina and Katie. Sir Alan actually picked Katie as one of the final two; only for her to turn around and refuse his offer! No one ever does that Sir Alan and it also begs the question whether she was really serious about the whole competition in the first place, when there were others that were more deserving in my opinion. Also as a little side note and a bit of a girly rant; I so didn’t like Katie’s (err eye-catching?) eye make-up or her love of pure white trouser suits in a sea of black coloured business suits. I know how that sounds but I feel like she was separating herself from the crowd though she achieved that through her deceiving nature and acidic tongue, which were more than sufficient.

I normally don’t bad mouth people, but Katie seemed to rile a lot of people this year and screwed over a lot of her fellow contestants. Not a nice thing to do, tut tut tut. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the tasks and the series was still as entertaining as ever. Looking forward to the 4th series!

New job

I got a new job working as a Pathologist as part of a clinical group based in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Daunting to say the least, my first graduate job but the staff seem friendly enough and Harrogate is actually quite a picturesque place. It also helps that Abbey (from uni) already works there and it’s always nice to see a friendly face :) The only thing that slightly shocked me was the vast contrast between the towns. Going from the Leeds/Bradford area; which does have a fairly few asian people milling about, it has to be said, to the Harrogate area, which is predominantly white. Spotting an asian person is like spotting “Where’s Wally?” lol. Also the one hour drive to and from Harrogate kills me, especially in the morning. But thankfully car sharing with Abbey doesn’t make it so bad, I get to catch up on my sleep on the way there... obviously when Abbey is driving.