This is why I’m embracing getting older

Time is a slippery old thing.

One moment you’re revelling in being able to use your garden furniture for more than two weekends on the trot, the next you’re overhearing the word “Christmas” pop up in conversations like the awkward dinner party guest who turns up half an hour early, just as you’re switching your hairdryer on.

Also, you become another year older. Or I did, earlier this month. And as a result I’ve been thinking about time passing and I guess, more explicitly, ageing.

Aged 19: Uncomfortable in my skin, uncertain of my future (Credit John Perkins)

But here’s the thing – I’ve been thinking about it in a positive way.

Some cretin stole my phone right out of my hands and it made me realise some things

My love affair with the on-hand digital world goes back a long time…

It happened this week and it shook me to my core. I’d just come out the underground and was looking at Google Maps to work out which way my destination was, when a man on a bike swiped my phone right out of my hands and rode off into the night.

It was almost graceful, the way he did it – like he’d done it a hundred times before, which he probably had. Not so poised however, was the way I shrieked and embarrassingly, pleaded, as I ran after him for a few hundred yards. But that was it. My phone was… gone. In a matter of seconds.

It’s raining cringe…

Last week I worked my last shift as a producer on a little show you might have heard of called Good Morning Britain.

The world of breakfast telly is bonkers. You can never quite guarantee what’s going to happen next – so I have a lot of respect for the presenters and how they do their thing live on air at stupid o’clock in the morning.

To celebrate my departure, I had a go at taking on the weather – and quickly realised it’s even more fiddly and confusing than it looks. Many thanks to Alex Beresford for patiently giving me some much-needed guidance – and the best of luck to him as he competes in this year’s Dancing On Ice.

I filmed myself putting on makeup inspired by Instagram – and the result was predictably hideous

I love makeup and always have, from that fateful day in the mid 90s when I came across my mum’s stash in the cupboard under the sink and decided brown lipstick was the answer to all life’s problems.

Back then, being a pre-teen into her slap basically meant owning Rimmel’s Heather Shimmer lipstick, at least one frosted eye shadow and a couple of Body Shop eau de toilettes.

As time went by, I started picking up the basics from J17 magazine and good old trial and error, enhancing my ability from choosing a foundation that didn’t make me look like a tangerine to learning how to achieve that coveted feline flick with a glossy black eyeliner.

These days though, picking up tips on how to put your face on is on a whole different level, thanks to Instagram. Most high street beauty brands now sell lines especially marketed for young people who want to achieve the perfect selfie and gone are the days of making do with a dusting of powder and a slick of gloss. These days, beauty queens go for full coverage and they make it an absolute art form. And I love it – but I just can’t get down with it.

I’ve lost so many hours of my life watching people putting on makeup on the internet. But it’s akin to the way we watch The Great British Bake Off. You appreciate the pretty cakes on your screen but like hell can you be bothered to go through the blood, sweat and tears of whipping one up in your own kitchen for the office bake sale.

But in a fit of experimentation, I did decide to give it a go and I filmed myself one rainy afternoon trying a few trends I’ve seen reoccurring on my feed (I may have been subconsciously inspired by Lady Dickson who recently made her own epic contouring fail vid).

Here’s what I attempted…

Sliding into my DMs like…

Being a woman who has frolicked on the internet for an undisclosed number of years now, I have seen many a case of what the cool kids call “sliding into your DMs”.

For those not down with the lingo, this has nothing to do with pulling on a comfy pair of Doc Martens – but roughly translates as “someone randomly direct messaging you in the hope of getting into more than just your inbox.”

Personally, I’ve had a lot of these across my social media accounts and I’m not deluded enough to think it’s because men see my twitter or Facebook page and decide I’m an alluring enchantress. I would put money on almost all women who spend a fair amount of time on social media having received an unsolicited private message from a complete stranger at some point. A lot of men too. And about half the messages received are probably not even from real people but so-called ‘bots’ created in cyber space and sent out in their droves to steal your identity, money, or soul.

Here’s a selection of  DMs I’ve actually received over the past couple of years:

Is this thing still on?

Well, it’s been a while. Four and a half years, to be exact.

When I first started this blog, I was fresh out of university, working my first ever journalism job in Derbyshire and writing under the pseudonym notontheguestlist. And things have changed a bit since then, as you’d expect them to over a decade.

A decade. Blimey.

So, I’m now a 30-something (who just about makes the dreaded Millennial bracket) living in London and working in television and have somehow today found myself tinkering with my WordPress account, changing the look of this blog and deciding to attempt to breathe some new life into it.

So why have I decided to come back after a five-year silence, this time without the anonymity and at a time when everything anyone says online is more open to scrutiny and criticism than ever?

Well, first of all, it’s not as though I’m Logan Paul. Thank god. And I like making people laugh, which is something I’ve been told I used to achieve here. Plus, it’s become apparent over the last few years that I have a thick skin when it comes to the internet – which is lucky because I’m rather prone to making a bit of a tit of myself on it.

Let me give you just a couple of examples.