Tag Archives: old

The Ultimate Guide To Clearing Your Clutter

Posted on by

Last year I became quite obsessed with decluttering. In fact, thanks to Marie Kondo I think we all did. I have never liked being surrounded by a lot of stuff. I have always hated clutter. Which is why I am feeling rather proud. My husband and I have got rid of thousands of things. There are still a few things earmarked to go, but we are the closest to minimalism we have ever been. The flat looks fundamentally tidy even though we have a toddler. Things are also much easier to find and we have even made some money selling things. Here is my quick, but comprehensive, guide to decluttering. It will change your life, trust me.

You need to put things into different bags,boxes or piles. The options are: Recycle, Sell, Keep, Mend, Give to Charity.

 

You don’t have to do it all at once so don’t get overwhelmed. You can do a room at a time, or even just a drawer of cupboard. Slow and steady is just as good as one full-on day.

My biggest tip is to keep a charity bag somewhere you can easily access. Put things in there you want to get rid of, and then when it is full you can take it to the charity shop. 

You can make decluttering fun by doing it while you watch your favourite TV show or listen to music. You can even get all of the family involved. Getting rid of old stuff always feels great.

Declutter for 5-10 minutes everyday. It all adds up.

Put the handle on the hanger in your wardrobe in one direction, if you wear the item, turn the handle around. Wait a certain amount of time, say, six months, then throw out everything you have not worn.

 

You can give away unwanted stuff while doing good for the environment via Freecycle.org

 

Get rid of all your old phones. Just remember to delete your personal information and remove the SIM card. There are plenty of good websites and companion websites which will give you the best price. I use https://www.mazumamobile.com/sell-my-mobile. Just make sure you check out their reputation on trustpilot.com

You can also sell old ink cartridges. The amount you can earn is so low that I would give them to chairty instead. Cash for Cartridges pay for old ink cartridges but you have to set up an account, the withdrawal limit is £25, and their prices are so low it would take an age to get there. http://www.cashforcartridges.co.uk/ink-cartridge-recycling-prices

Personally I think it is better to donate them to the British Heart Foundation. You can download their free post label here. https://www.therecyclingfactory.com/bhf/. Other charities that take old printer cartridges include the British Institute for Brain Injured Children, RNLI, Barnados, Sense, and the World Cancer Research Fund.

I have sold all of my old gadgets. After removing my personal data of course. I used eBay.co.uk as I found they had the best prices. There are other places of course. cashinyourgadgets.co.uk, musicmagpie.com and even Apple itself will buy your old technology. It is best to remove your old hard drive before selling your old computers. Note that Apple will give you a gift card in return. They also recycle things for free that they do not buy, including PCs.

Amazon.co.uk marketplace allows you to sell books, DVDs and some other stuff. They do take a huge fee however, a massive 17.25% commission. The good news is that it is free to list. They also give you a postage credit which does not always cover the cost of posting the book, then take it away in fees.

You can also sell by Car Booting. Car boot sales are not the best place to get the top price. I have never done it personally but there will be plenty in your area. Just do a search. They tend to charge a fee to pitch up your car and sell. I would mark your prices up a bit as people like to haggle.

Other good places to sell your stuff.

 

Facebook groups

There is even a sell option on Facebook. You can also join groups and sell your stuff on the group.

The best way I have found of getting rid of stuff is to give it to charity. You do good and give back to the community while clearing out your home. Win win.

You can donate pretty much everything. For instance, the RSPB, DHIVERSE and the World Owl Trust will take old stamps. Your old glasses and sunglasses can go to charity shops. Branches of Boots Opticians and  Dolland and Aitchinson usually have recycling bins for old glasses. You can donate your foreign currency. RNIB will take it. Help the Aged, Marie Curie and Age UK will even take old currency that can no longer be changed. Many charities will also take your old phones.

Take your old clothes to a charity shop or a local clothes bank. H&M, Uniqlo and Marks & Spencer’s all take old items of clothing.

It is best to sell furniture on Gumtree.com, Facebook groups or other local resources. Furniture and homeware does not hold its value well. If you do want to get rid of your furniture and don’t want to sell it do not spend hundreds getting someone to take it away for you. We were quoted over £400 for someone to come and take our furniture away. I donated it to the British Heart Foundation instead and they came and took it away for free.

When it comes to donating furniture the Furniture Reuse Network will take your goods and then distribute them to a charity organisation in your area.  Oxfam and the British Heart Foundation also take furniture. You can also try Freecycle and Freegle where you offer your good for free to anyone who can collect them.

Gone For Good is a great social enterprise that puts people in touch with charities that will come and take away their furniture or anything else they want to donate. You use the Gone For Good app by taking a photo of your unwanted stuff on our phone and then one of the charities will come and take the goods away based on your postcode. The app is free to use and the charity will pick up your goods for free too. Great for people who don’t have a car.

When you give stuff to charity make sure you sign up for Gift Aid. This allows the charity to claim an extra 25p for every £1 you give and also lets you get some money off your tax bill. Don’t do it unless you pay tax though, you will have to pay the extra gift aid. To learn more about tax relief and gift aid go here.

My last tips are to get rid of old change via self services machines. No, the staff from the supermarket don’t like it but as long as you don’t overdo it I am sure it will be fine. I also find eBay.co.uk the best place for selling stuff. Even if there are some people on there that just want to steal your stuff. I send valuable things signed for. My other, and biggest, tip for decluttering is also the one that is best for the environment: stop buying so much crap. Seriously. I rarely buy anything these days other than food and it has changed my life. My sure everything has a place and goes back into that place. Everything else can be sold or given to charity.
Thank you for reading. Please add your own tips below.

Great decluttering books:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: A simple, effective way to banish clutter forever

Stuffocation: Living More with Less

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

The best place for us to eat in Oxford – the Old Parsonage

Posted on by

 

old parsonage oxford restaurant hotel

A good place for posh grub

We wanted to go to Oxford to see my daughter, who has just started a course there. And my mother wanted to come with us and buy us a nice lunch. So I started to look for somewhere nice to eat.

I did look online, but the internet was pretty useless: it provided us with a huge number of recommendations among which were a branch of Subway the sandwich bar and some suburban Indian restaurants with names like ‘Star of India’.

So I emailed my friend Andrew. Andrew is a professor who has worked at the university and still lives in the town. He emailed me back. ‘I’d suggest the Old Parsonage – I haven’t been for years but it’s always been good, traditional, on the pricey side and the sort of restaurant you’d imagine from all those films they set in early 20th century Oxford’. So I booked.

Anyway, we went along for a meal. The restaurant itself is about two minutes walk from my daughter’s college, which is very handy.

Old Parsonage Oxford restaurant

My children after a good meal

It is a lovely building, and is part of a hotel. It is made of old stone, and looks very rustic and historic. The dining room is hung with oil paintings – most of which appear to be from the first half of the twentieth century.

Now the menu isn’t cheap. Most of the starters are seven or eight pounds, while the mains range from £15 to £50. For starters my son and I had a wonderful French fish soup with aioli (garlic mayonnaise) and croutons. This was done really well done, very authentic – lots of great flavours of fish. My wife and daughter each had beautifully fresh smoked salmon.

The main courses were similarly good. My wife had some very good fish cakes, which were a relative bargain at £15. My mum and son had fillet steak – £32. I went absolutely mad and had a veal chop and kidney cooked in garlic and rosemary for £49.50. My chop was extremely expensive, but immensely tasty. It was cooked beautifully – and it was a big chunk of meat. OK, it wasn’t cheap, but it was a real treat. Oh, and because it was lunchtime, we didn’t drink very much. My daughter and I each had a very acceptable glass of Languedoc rose.

The portions were big, so we weren’t really in the mood for pudding. My son had a very nice pear and apple crumble. Anyone can knock out a reasonable crumble, but what was particularly nice was the delicious custard, which was made of real eggs and was flavoured with fresh vanilla. Add a couple of coffee and the bill for the five of us came to £250.

It was a lovely meal. Not just because of the food – which was very good. It was just a nice place to sit, the staff was helpful and it was pleasantly busy – but not packed.

And in the front there is a sort of bar, which had a stone floor. As we were leaving we got talking to a very nice academic, who had brought his dog and was having a drink with a friend. We were just remarking what a lovely dog he had, when the animal produced a great spray of yellow diarrhoea. My daughter and I fell about laughing. I’m not sure that this is a regular part of the entertainment offered at the Old Parsonage, but it meant that we left with a smile.

 

see also Silk – a posh Indian food in a remarkable venue

Zoe Saldana: I Am ‘Expired’ at 36 Because of ‘Ageist’ Hollywood

Posted on by

Guardians of The Galaxy star Zoe Saldana has called Hollywood out on its ageism, saying that the same ageist standards are not applied to men.

Zoe said it is “f**king ridiculous” that she is considered “expired” at the age of 36. She told The Sunday Telegraph’s Stella Magazine that she was offered the role as a love interest of an actor who was 30-years older than her. “I said ‘Eurgh, no f**king way’, they said ‘But Zoe, he’s the hottest actor’. I don’t give a  f*** how hot he is, I’m not going to endorse that — not until the day I see more romantic movies with Diane Keaton, Sandra Bullock, Meryl Streep with young hot actors working as their sidekicks. Only then will I say yes.”

Go Zoe!

Zoe_Saldana_at_82nd_Academy_Awards_(cropped)

 

If you want to be an actor, check out our editors book on How To Be a Successful Actor here.

 

 

Famous People Who Became Successful Later In Life

Posted on by

It just occurred to me today that I have spent far too much of my twenties trying to fit a lot of stuff in before I hit 30. And I actually have no idea why. Nothing huge is going to happen when I become 30, I doubt any huge revelation will happen. I actually reckon it will exactly be like becoming 29 only with one more year added on.

Of course it matters to other people. And bitchy people too. The moment I turned 25 people started asking me how I felt about being 30 soon, I mean, calm down. But who cares what other people think anyway, especially when they are rude. Of course, these people will be 30 themselves one day and will probably have someone younger than them act the same way towards them. That is one of the joys of aging: it’s equality. Nobody escapes.

What I have realised is that, actually, the only thing that bothers me about getting older is feeling that I have not done enough to be that age. But even that goes out of the window when I read about the amazing people below. Success doesn’t have an age limit, and neither does talent. In fact, when I hit 30 I will be married, have a successful business and a few other careers, I will have traveled and have amazing friends. Life can only (hopefully!) get more amazing from this point.

 

Deborah McKinlay

That Part Was True book

Deborah is the poster girl for life beginning at 40: she had a baby, got a seven-figure advance and a film deal for her novel, That Part Was True, and went back to University. The University just happened to be Cambridge. She was pregnant when she wrote her thesis and says: ‘You never know when life is going to turn around.’ She truly is an inspiration.

 

Betty White

BettyWhiteJune09

Betty White was a jobbing actress for decades but it was her role in The Mary Tyler Moore Show that made her famous. She was 51 at the time. The now 92-year-old actress has won numerous Emmys and was also a Golden Girl. Still working: she stars in Hot In Cleveland and hosts her own show Betty White’s Off Their Rockers.

 

Leslie Neilson

LeslieNielsenOct08

It was his role in the classic 1980s movie parody Airplane! that made him famous at the age of 54. He starred in over 50 television shows in 2 years before that and worked for decades before making it big.

 

Hulk Hogan

Hulk_Hogan

After failing to find work in movies Hulk became a wrestler and found fame in his 40s. This strategy worked as, after finding fame as a wrestler, he got work in movies and became a huge star.

 

Steve Carrell

Steve_Carell_2010

Made his name with The Office when he was 43 after sharpening his skills on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart for 6 seasons. He is now a movie star in his own right.

 

Morgan Freeman

Morgan_Freeman_Cannes

Became famous at the age of 52 after starring in 1988 film Driving Miss Daisy. He was Oscar nominated for his role. Morgan has starred in over 90 films and paid his dues for decades before finding fame.

 

Vera Wang

success later in life

Vera Wang only started designing wedding dresses in her 40s after failing to make it on the US Olympic figure-skating team and then being passed over for the editor-in-chief position when she was an editor at Vogue. She is now an incredibly famous and successful designer. So there you go.

 

Burt Reynolds

Loni_Anderson_and_Burt_Reynolds

Became an actor after an injury sidelined a professional football career. Burt Reynolds has starred in over 70 movies. His breakthrough role was in 1972 film Deliverance. He then became famous and has his own star on the Walk of Fame.

 

Steven Seagal

seagal

Steven Seagal starred in Above The Law as a favour to a student from his dojo. He was a martial arts teacher before that point and Under Siege became a box-office hit a few years later making him an action hero at 40-years-old.

 

Samuel L. Jackson

success after 40

A former crack addict and alcoholic, Samuel decided to turn his life around in his 40s and is now one of the most famous and hardest working movie stars with over 100 movies under his belt. His breakthrough role was in Spike Lee’s 1991 film Jungle Fever.

 

Julia Child

Julia Child, Miami Bookfair International, 1989

Published Mastering the Art of French Cooking when she was 50 and then got her own show The French Chef which was successful. She discovered French cuisine after moving to Paris with her husband in 1948 when she was 36. She enrolled at the famous Le Cordon Bleu to learn how to cook. The rest is history.

 

Alan Rickman

alanrickman

Got his first film role in his mid-40s after plugging away for decades.

 

Feeling inspired? Have any thoughts? Comment below.

 

Spring Clean Your Beauty Bag

Posted on by

There’s nothing like a good spring clean, but it’s not just your house that may need a good clear out; how long have you had that blue eye shadow in your make-up bag? What about that body lotion lurking in your bathroom? A lot of people keep skincare and makeup way past their use by date but old products are a breeding ground for bacteria which you are then transferring to your skin.

springcleanyour beautybag

Follow Skincare Expert & Facial Therapist Amanda Elias’ DO’s and DON’Ts to ensure a clean beauty cabinet this Spring.

  • DO use a marker pen to note the date you’ve open the product. Most skincare products only have the months in which they should be discarded after use rather than an actual date. By noting the date you’ll know when to discard it if left unused.
  • DON’T keep make-up or skincare “for best” because there’s a good chance they’ll pass their expiry date before you use them. If you’ve splurged, reap the benefits by using your products regularly and while they’re at their optimum.
  • DO wash your hands or use the end of a spoon as a spatula before scooping product out of a jar to prevent the spread of bacteria.
  • DON’T use product which has separated, changed colour, changed in smell or has started to irritate your skin; take this as an indication to replace it.
  • DO follow the life expectancy of cosmetics;
  • Mascara – 3 months
  • Liquid foundation and concealer – 12-18 months.
  • Lipstick and Gloss – 2 years for lipstick and 1 year for gloss. A good sign that a lip product has gone off is that it can leave the lips irritated or tingly.
  • Nail Varnish – 2 years. If the product separates and doesn’t combine when you shake it, it’s time to replace it.
  • Eye and lip pencils – as these are sharpened you are constantly removing any bacteria so they should last for at least 2 years.
  • Powders such as Eyeshadow, Blusher and face powder generally last 2 years, if you notice the product is dryer than it used to be, replace.
  • DON’T ignore your make-up brushes; these should be cleaned once a week. I like to clean my foundation brush daily as bacteria can grow quickly. My tip is to clean my foundation brush and an extra brush every time I put my make-up on, which guarantees all the brushes I use are always clean and free from bacteria.

If you’ve bought make-up and skincare within the last 6 months that you don’t like or use, why not have a swapping party with your friends? There’s a good chance they’ve also got recently purchased, unused products in their make-up bag or beauty cabinet.

For any skincare or make-up products or accessories that are in great condition but aren’t being used, why not donate them to this worthy cause? http://www.giveandmakeup.com.

Highly experienced within the industry, Amanda Elias is the brains behind effective yet affordable skincare brand, Bravura London – a business founded following Amanda’s own skin problems and subsequent discovery of using AHA, BHA and Hydraulic Acid for troubled skins.

 

Science meets Art at the Enlightenment Cafe

Posted on by

An exciting and unique new theatrical project will be taking place from 31st May – 4th June in the vaults of the Old Vic Tunnels.

Presented by LAStheatre, the Enlightenment Café combines the beauty of science with the power and imagination of immersive performance in a place of exploration, where people from all walks of life can debate, play and laugh the night away.  Only the tedious will be off limits as The Enlightenment Café aims to provoke imagination and intrigue; scientists will demonstrate their art and artists will demonstrate their science.  Scientists in residence include Tim McInerny, Stuart Clarke and Alex Bellos.   This is an interactive adventure where new theories can be mooted as to why things are, how they got there and what will happen next. The Enlightenment Café will delve into topics ranging from astronomy to paleontology, from My Little Pony to zombies and from art to invention.

Doors to the Old Vic Tunnels will open every night at 7pm, and the evenings will be split into three sections: firstly, a period of immersive theatre and free exploration; secondly, stage pieces and panel discussions; and, finally, live music and entertainment. Each night will have a different theme and aesthetic but will all inspire, breaking away from the idea that science and facts can only be learnt in a lecture theatre or laboratory.

Times and tickets for all events at the Enlightenment Cafe can be found at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3487295595. Tickets are priced at £15 with a booking fee of £1.55.  For more information about LAStheatre visit www.lastheatre.com.

Choose for Yourself

Posted on by

Excellent Choice by Eye Saw Theatre
The Vault Festival, Old Vic Tunnels

On entering the studio, the audience was greeted by the ominous sound of a loud ticking clock.  Each seat was adorned by a cork, labelled with the credits for the show, which was written by Rob Hayes and directed by Ned Bennett.  The performance area was delimited by wine bottles.  The space was clearly a wine shop.

At first I wasn’t sure whether this was a black comedy or a dark play with comic elements: as time progressed it seemed that the latter was the case.  Although right from the outset there was very funny dialogue (“Are you open?  Yes.  I hate secrets”), the suspense was built from the beginning with some uncomfortable pauses,.  However, the comedy was also present, with Benjamin Dilloway (the customer) putting me in mind of David Walliams in those Little Britain sketches where he enters a shop to buy a very specific item (eg,.pirate game, David Baddiel outfit), and Jeff Rawle (the proprieter) reminiscent of Ronnie Corbett at times.  Nevertheless, as the show progressed, the tone got darker, until the audience realised that something very disturbing was going on.  Both actors played their roles very well, having the confidence needed to take their time with emotions and motives ranging from desperation to dread to deceit.  The play culminates in a perturbing ending which is as unsettling as it is ambiguous.  The audience is, in essence, asked to make the choice for themselves.   We leave, as we entered, to the sound of the ticking clock.

Excellent Choice was billed as half an hour long, but I think it ran slightly longer than that, as I was not aware of it starting significantly later than its 6pm starting time, and it didn’t finish until 6.45 – which was a good thing.  Prospective audiences should be aware that there are a couple of items which may cause offence to some (I won’t detail them for fear of spoiling the plot – but they did cause a slightly sour note), and which perhaps could be toned down without causing any reduction in the effectiveness of the piece.  That said, I am glad I made the choice to see this startling and original play.

23 – 26 February 2012.  More information at www.thevaultfestival.com.
Photograph by Natalie Lindiwe Jones