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Fresh New Look

/ Sam Siddique / Leave a comment

If you haven’t already noticed, my blog has undergone a slight change.

Firstly, I have a new domain name – I did think about using a creative and/or obscure title (I did title my blog as ‘The Toasted Brunette’ for a little while) but in the end I stuck with using my name… well, a shortened version of my name anyway!  Let’s face it, ‘Samaiyyah Siddique’ is a tad too long and I only have but 25 years of experience of just about everyone getting the spelling wrong.

Secondly, I have moved my blog from Blogger to WordPress.  No offence to Blogger, I think it’s a great tool for beginners to use and plenty of well known bloggers still use it but personally I feel that WordPress offers me more.  My blog now has a clean, fresh look to it which will hopefully allow my writing and photos to take centre stage.

Thirdly, you may have spotted the sub-title now reads ‘Lifestyle | Food | Travel’.  For a while now, I have wanted to expand the contents of my blog as I seem to have been concentrating on the ‘Lifestyle’ genre more than I originally intended to.  

I absolutely love to cook, especially if it’s baking.  I will be hoping to do more posts about the things I cook and bake (including any kitchen mishaps) along with the recipes and method I use so you can also give it a go!

In case you are wondering, the cake below was a 4 tiered spiced apple birthday cake I made – it smelled like Christmas ❤

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Another passion of mine will be to start blogging about the places I have travelled to in a little series called ‘Exploring Britain’ which I aim to start soon as I have been to some wonderfully lovely places this year right here on my doorstep.  It will be nice to share that with you all as people often tend to overlook the things nearest to them.

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Now that I’m feeling more confident about how my new blog looks and feels, I am looking forward to churning out a lot more posts!

In Which I’m Still Alive

/ Sam Siddique / Leave a comment
Right… so firstly I am alive and it has been some time since I’ve posted anything!
Looking at my last post in which I swear a lot about my BlackBerry I can’t but help feel a little sad about it.  A few weeks ago I had my BlackBerry nicked on the run up to the Christmas season, then I had a second phone taken which was my back up!  Not only that but my camera had gone mysteriously missing, it was on its way out anyway but still,  and furthermore our house was burgled…TWICE.  AND some idiot drove into my car when I picked up Len from the station.
The Burglary: Me and housemate Maggie were upstairs getting on with work when all of a sudden we hear Chris shouting “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE, I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!” so being extremely confused we came out of our rooms to find the front door wide open…I go down the stairs and stick my head out of the door to find Chris on the phone to the Police with a rather large umbrella in hand.
Suffice to say both robbers had been caught – in a way… I suppose you could say we’re helping catch these idiots.
T-Mobile… I hate them so much.  It’s taken them over three weeks to send me a claims form after two phone calls I had made… I JUST WANT A BLACKBERRY BACK!  I don’t understand the point of this claims form, I had given them all the details on the phone, couldn’t they have just sent me one!?  And what made it worse was that two weeks after mine got nicked, my friend’s BlackBerry had gotten nicked and he had a new phone TWO days later! He’s with O2… sigh.
And to top it off… my laptop finally kicked the bucket.  Yes I cried.
A friend asked me how I was still smiling – because I still have good friends to surround myself with.  After the death of the laptop Chris took me for a free painting lesson at (don’t judge) Games Workshop – what a darling 🙂
Oh and before I forget Maggie (who is Canadian) had opened the door to the Police, had a brief conversation with them before asking, “Wait, are you the Police?” – they had come over to ask about the guy (who we call Yomi) who had lived in our house previously, apparently he is on the run because of credit card fraud… Wonderful. THEN someone from the Council came and questioned about another person who used to live in the house… he’s being done for tax invasion! Jeeeeeez!

Also we’ve has several problems with the house because our landlord is rubbish – mould, an open drain in the kitchen, our windows not shutting properly, leaks etc etc etc… Rant over.

In Which I Call My BlackBerry Many Profanities

/ Sam Siddique / Leave a comment
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!
Is usually how I begin my conversation with my BlackBerry. Now don’t get me wrong, my BlackBerry is my LIFE. But I swear to Allah it pisses me off. Sometimes my BlackBerry Messenger* (*forward note: is from now on referred to as BBM) doesn’t want to work. I like to think of my BB as a small child. A petulant one which sometimes deletes the person I am talking to. Now I know how my own mother feels! It could be the other sides’ BB as well, as BB’s are not famed for their battery life or their ability to work properly because of the amount of energy it needs to stay running and work smoothly. I have a BB Storm 2, which if you know is a touch screen that almost feels as though you’re pressing buttons, which is something I love. It looks so snazzy. I hate you so much BB.
Len messaged me earlier saying that she’s featured so much in my blogs that she needs her own category. It’s true, I obviously don’t have much to talk about and she’s rather interesting to mention as she’s either doing something cool or something extra special.
In IKEA we have mushroom lamps… ok it’s just orange with clouds but we can look past that:
For all those Mario Fans 🙂
I sent it to Len to prove that such a thing exists and she sent this back to show her appreciation:
A squinty-moody model! I’m not allowed to apply as I’m far too happy to be their staff according to Len!
Look at his face… does it make you want to giggle. I mean, he is FIT.
I’m having to re-install BBM… FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!

In Which There Is A Surprise Motorway

/ Sam Siddique / Leave a comment
Len is a special driver. I mean SPECIAL. She offered to drive me up as she had to go and sign her contract and pick up her keys to her new flat. MY GOD her landlords are ANAL. I’ve never seen another landlord go through the inventory list and thorough as they have. They explained how to clean stuff, when to take rubbish out, not to be anti-social etc. They even have a neighbour who “talks”, her name is Betty. It’s like the Landlord Mafia with moles everywhere to keep an eye on business. Creepy.
So after what seemed like the entire morning, Len and myself indulged in a bit of charity shopping in which Len found some awesome buys to refashion for her Self Stitched September issue. We also founded a “communal jumper” that I unearthed from underneath the mass of the unwanted. If you take a look at Len’s blog, you will see her posing and looking pretty in her SSS clothes and the god-awful one of me, thumbs up, cheesy grin and no makeup. Ugh. I told Len that the picture isn’t half bad, it could be worse, I could be hideous.
Also a big congratulations to Len on getting her review on Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World published on http://alternativemagazineonline.co.uk/, it’s a great review, mainly because the film was awesome and that Len understood all of the Geek references! Check it out innit 🙂
By the way as I write, my face is full of Lush’s “Love Lettuce”. It is freakin’ awesome.
Ramadaaning is almost over and I get to go back to Swansea and do my Masters and catch up with the people who left me to go to Germany, France and America. It should be a great year filled with many a fun memory along with my 50,000 word dissertation (zoinks!) and let’s not forget all the 21 + 1 parties that we couldn’t attend for various reasons. Magic.

Scott Pilgrim is…

/ Sam Siddique / 2 Comments
How I wish my life to be. Seriously, I could make some quick cash defeating my enemies every other day! I cannot have been more excited watching this colourful-explosion-taking-me-back-to-my-childhood film! I really must check out the graphic novels as they must be epic. I am such a geek honestly, but the best thing was watching it with someone who appreciated all the little in jokes and splices of music from things such as Zelda just as much I did 🙂 So thank you Len! There’s nothing worse than seeing a film with someone who talks too much/texts/eats too loud during a film…
Len is fast becoming my new film buddy, wonder what we’ll see next! Hopefully she hasn’t purchased a giant hammer yet, God knows if she’ll attempt the whole turning people into coins attack during Karate tonight!
I also bought some Lush items today… and you know what, my skin has never felt so pampered! I didn’t go quite as far as Len on the spending (you know how much you spent AND after discount tut tut!) I will continue using these new products in the vain hope that my genetic dark circles will slowly but surely fade and I will look a little bit more normal and not so freakin’ tired and drug-faced all the time!

In Which I Drive a Mobile Glee Club

/ Sam Siddique / Leave a comment

So my 17 year old sister asks me late the other night if I could take her and her friends to Swansea to film something called “Hunky Dory” (apparently coming to cinemas soon), of course I agree as I miss Swansea and thought I’d at least get out of the house for a bit and check up on my Masters info… I didn’t obviously get round to the latter.

Me and Len have a new “thing”… talk about random shizz until the early hours of the unsociable morning, so after that it’s 5.30am and I had to get up and get ready in order to drive to Barry to pick her friends up first and THEN drive to Swansea to make it there for 8.  Probably one of the most interesting and loudest morning drives I have ever undertaken. Zara and her three friends Paige, James and Jack are theatre boffs like her and they can all sing… very well.  Blasting Glee tunes out of my car and out onto the open M4 sure kept me awake, what with some very strong singers belting along! These guys are so grateful that they try to pay me petrol money to thank me afterwards. I declined. I’m too nice.

Sure enough when I picked them up, my sister looked less than pleased. Apparently 12 hours of filming gets you £25 and no lunch… all for one major scene in which the 300 extras fill an assembly hall. The direction they were given? “Look bored”. No problem, these guys have had years of practice not listening in assembly. My sister didn’t want to discuss the rest and demanded I take them to McDonalds (that place seems to crop up a bit) And because I refused to take the petrol money, James insisted that he pay for my meal. What a sweetheart 🙂

I take them home back to Barry making sure I take them straight to their front doors instead of just chucking them out. I believe I forgot to mention that the morning’s topic of conversation included a screwdriver-wielding-stabbing maniac who will (I hope) end up going to jail. Where was he from? Why Barry of course!

Ramadaaning

/ Sam Siddique / 1 Comment
So tis the month of Ramadaan, which means 17 hour days without food or drink passing my lips until sweet sweet sunset.  It shocks people when they learn that I can’t even drink water, to which I explain that “of course not, it defeats the point and then I could technically cheat by filling up on it.” People give me the strangest of looks.
Then again, I’m not normal see! How many female British Asians do you know that love anime, independent films, gaming, comics, photo-editing, parties and writing scripts about really stupid things like kidnapping penguins from Bristol Zoo…? Yup that’s what I thought!
Just to clarify… “Ramadaaning” is not a word, just something Len made up because she could 🙂