Tag Archives: marriage

2013 In Brief

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January

Rail fares rise by 4.3 per cent in the UK, It is revealed that Jimmy Savile is the UK’s most prolific sex offender, making a scandal that rumbles on for the rest of the year. Tesco, Aldi, Lidl and Iceland are forced to remove ‘beef’ products that are contaminated by horse meat. Barack Obama is inaugurated for his second term as US president.

February

The skeleton of King Richard III is discovered under a Leicester car park. He promptly wins hide and seek winner of 1485, Pope Benedict XVI resigns, the first ever pontiff to do so, The House of Commons votes in favour of legislation to introduce same-sex marriage by 400 votes to 175, Oscar Pistorius is charged with murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria. He says he shot her because he thought she was a burglar. Daniel Day-Lewis and Jennifer Lawrence win Best Actor and Best Actress awards at the Oscars. Argo wins best film.

March

After having cancer for over a year, Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, dies at the age of 58, After a nuclear test, UN Security Council passes strict new sanctions against North Korea, 76-year-old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio becomes the 266th pontiff, Amanda Knox is acquitted of the murder of Meridith Kercher on appeal by Italy’s supreme court.

April

Margaret Thatcher dies aged 87 after a stroke. She was prime minister from 1979 to 1990 and is still the UK’s only female prime minister, Nicolas Maduro becomes Venezuelan president. He is a former bus driver and remains down-to-earth, the 117 Boston marathon is bombed, killing five people and injuring a further 264. An eight-storey building collapses in Bangladesh. It kills 1,129 people and injures another 2,515. Primark and Walmart, are just two of the big brands it produced clothes for.

Angelina Jolie has breasts removed.

May

James McCormick is sent to prison for selling fake bomb detectors. The UN and Iraqi security forces were just two of his buyers, Amanda Berry escapes the clutches of Ariel Castro who had held her captive in his home in Cleveland, Ohio, since 2003 along with two other women and a child, Sir Alex Ferguson retires, Angelina Jolie reveals that she had a double mastectomy, A 295mph tornado strikes Moore, Oklahoma, killing 23 people, Lee Rigby, who was a Drummer of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, is murdered near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, Southeast London, creating shockwaves around the world at the brutality of his murder. His killers are later shot by the police but survive to be charged.

June

Details of the NSA surveillance programme are leaked and published. They show that Apple, Google, and Microsoft all allow the NSA direct access to their servers. The papers are published by The Guardian and The Washington Post. Edward Snowden later reveals himself as the source and takes refuge in Hong Kong, Charles Saatchi is photographed with his hands around wife Nigella Lawson’s throat, they separate and their divorce turns ugly, Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, is forced to step down, Protests across Egypt call for the resignation of President Mohamed Morsi.

July

Mark Carney becomes the new Governor of the Bank of England, President Mohamed Morsi is deposed in a military coup, Andy Murray becomes the first British man to win Wimbledon since 1936, George Zimmerman is acquitted over the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, Same-sex marriage becomes legal in England and Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge welcome their first child, Prince George of Cambridge.

August

Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos buys The Washington Post for $250m, Edward Snowden is temporarily granted asylum in Russia, Physiologist Mark Post creates the first bovine stem cells lab-grown burger, Supporters of disposed President Morsi are massacred by the security services In what the Human Rights Watch describe as “the most serious incident of mass unlawful killings in modern Egyptian history”, Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning is sentenced for giving confidential government information to WikiLeaks, he gets 35 years imprisonment, The badger cull begins in Somerset and Gloucestershire, Over 1,429 people are killed in chemical attacks in Damascus. Secretary of State John Kerry calls it a “moral obscenity”

September

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee backs military action against Syria, Greenpeace activists are arrested by Russian authorities in the Barents Sea. They become known as The Arctic 30 and a campaign for their release begins, Sixty-two people are killed and another 170 are wounded when Al-Shabaab militants attack the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi, Ed Miliband goes to war against the Daily Mail after it describes his late father as “the man who hated Britain”.

October

A boat carrying migrants from Libya sinks off the Italian island of Lampedusa killing 359 people, The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons win the The Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Peter Higgs and Francois Englert for their discovery of the Higgs boson, otherwise known as the God Particle, There is a breakthrough in the cure for Alzheimer’s disease after the discovery of a drug-like compound which halts brain cell death in mice, The Royal Mail floats and shares are oversubscribed.

November

Storms cause damage all over the UK, Typhoon Haiyan hits the Philippines, killing over 6000 people, Former chairman of the Co-operative Bank, Paul Flowers, is caught in a sting buying crystal meth and crack cocaine by a newspaper, First members of the Arctic 30 are released, Lostprophets lead singer Ian Watkins pleads guilty to child sex charges. Ten people are killed after a helicopter crashes into the Clutha bar in Glasgow.

Nadezhda_Tolokonnikova_(Pussy_Riot)_at_the_Moscow_Tagansky_District_Court_-_Denis_Bochkarev

December

Nelson Mandela dies aged 95, Jang Song-Thaek, uncle of Kim Jong-un is executed, The UN makes a £4bn aid appeal for Syria its biggest ever appeal, Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs dies aged 84, The ceiling of the London’s Apollo Theatre collapses, injuring 92 people. The acting world mourns as Peter O’Toole and Joan Fontaine die. The Pussy Riots are released.

Managing MIL: You And Your Mother-in-Law – For Better, Or For Worse? Book Review

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mother-in-law- advice-bookThis book starts off with a joke: “My mother-in-law fell down a wishing well. I was amazed; I never knew they worked.” Les Dawson, this joke highlights that, traditionally, it is men that have problems with their mother-in-law. However there has been a rise in women clashing with theirs, and a number of my friends like to have a moan about their husbands mother. Marriage is hard, but even harder when there are three people in it.

Some of the real-life stories in this book are horrendous and shocking, and a few are nice. In fact the real-life stories are what I like most about the book. Learning about other peoples experience always make you feel less alone and helps to get through a rough spot. The best way to learn is from other people.

The book has rules and even suggests you start your own DIL (daughter-in-law) Club to unlock the secrets of a good mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship. Where you get a group of like-minded women together and all vent anger, or share experiences: good and bad.

This is a good book. A lot of the advice is common sense: be polite, decorum goes a long way, see things her way. The book is also intelligent enough to see things from the mother-in-laws view; sometimes she cannot do anything right. All in all I thought the book was great. There is also top advice from leading relationship experts.

The top tips for managing your mother-in-law are good and this is a helpful book. It takes the view of both the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law to make it fair. Full of good advice and highly recommended.

Managing MIL: You and your Mother-in-Law – for better, or for worse? will be released by Peridot Press. You can buy it in e-book form or as a proper book.

Does your mother-in-law drive you to distraction? Are you a desperate daughter-in-law? Who is to blame? It’s hard to know when you’re stuck on the inside.

Journalist Katy Rink looks at the best and worst of this frequently tricky relationship and provides smart advice for keeping your cool, your sanity and your family intact.

How do you survive a weekend with the in-laws? Should you ever go on holiday together? How do you manage a new baby and MIL? What are the dangers of accepting that friend request on Facebook? These are just some of the tricky topics tackled.

The author calls upon the experiences of fellow daughters-in-law in her home town – at secretive get-togethers that came to be known as DIL Club – to illustrate the highs and lows of dealing with his mother.

There are plenty of anecdotes to amuse and entertain, including the DILs who received engine oil, chin hair removal cream and paper knickers as Christmas presents from their MILs; the MIL who provided itemised receipts for ice creams and charged for petrol; and the MIL who greeted news of a pregnancy with “I can’t believe you haven’t had her sterilised yet”.

You can also try and recognise your MIL from a cast of hilarious caricatures including The Apologist, The Snob, The Manipulator and The Social Climber.

But amid the horror stories there are heart-warming tales of when (and how) it all goes right, and when peace breaks out.

 

Christine Bleakley Talks Marriage & Babies

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Christina BleakleyCHRISTINE BLEAKLEY FIGHTS ACCUSATIONS OF A CAREER CRISIS AND FINALLY REVEALS HER WEDDING DATE

In an exclusive interview and photoshoot with The Sun’s Fabulous Magazine on Sunday October 27, Christine, 34, sets the record straight on a whole host of rumours.

Dismissing claims that her long-awaited wedding to footballer fiancé Frank Lampard is never going to happen, the Northern Irish presenter reveals exactly when she’s going to tie the knot. And talking about her very public departure from the doomed Daybreak she says: “I don’t think I was ever as down as people thought I was.”

Derry-born Christine, whose new travel show starts on ITV1 next week, also hints at her future baby plans.

She says: “Children would be a complete and utter blessing. I just know I’m not 18 any more, so I’m always wary about talking about it too much because I don’t want to tempt fate. It would be a lovely thing.”

Fabulous magazine is available free in The Sun every Sunday.

Is Getting Married An Achievement? | Weddings

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wedding diary, engagement, engagement ring, getting married, planning a wedding, marriage, engagement,I feel I am about to kick up a feminist hornet’s nest. Or maybe just a hornet’s nest generally. As marriage is now far from being the done thing it has become something else: controversial. Marriage used to be common, most people did it and to not be married was frowned upon. The face of marriage has changed and it may have taken until 2013 for same-sex marriage to be legal in Britain, but finally it is. (For same-sex couples marriage really is an achievement)

But let’s get back to the case in point. Is getting married an achievement? It is certainly one of life’s milestones. A marker for growing up and going into the next stage of your life.  In the current issue of Red Magazine (November 2013) writer Emma Barnett wrote in an article titled, ‘Who’s Afraid Of The F-Word’, that at a mentoring morning at The London Eye she was asked to say something cool about herself. She spotted her soon-to-be wedding venue and said,”I’m getting married in that building next month.” Glowering from a fellow mentor ensued and she reprimanded Barnett for using ‘getting married’ as an inspirational thing for young women. “How was that a good example?” the woman hissed. I am with Emma Barnett on this. Some lightheartedness is needed. It is completely okay, and completely feminist to personally think that getting married is inspirational.

At an event recently I was in a circle with lots of other women. We all had to list our achievements and say what we wanted in the future. Most of the women wanted to be married with kids and have their own business. So maybe this is a gender thing. Women still want to have it all.

Let’s use work as a metaphor: you go on dates (job interviews) and meet people. After the preliminary stage you start to date (the trial basis) then you become girlfriend and boyfriend. If both are compatible and work well together they become a partnership (marriage). If marriage isn’t an achievement, then finding someone to marry certainly is. After all; the dating industry is worth over £2 billion.

During the hype of The Royal Wedding it is fair to say that I, along with my female friends, were looking at how happy Kate Middleton looked and wondering when our boyfriends would propose. After all Kate had waited years for William to propose, gaining the nickname ‘Waity Katy’ by the press during that time. Everyone felt sorry for this long-suffering royal girlfriend. But didn’t she have the last laugh? Beaming in the engagement photo, you can’t say she did not have a look of achievement on her face, and a wedding watched by billions of people which cost millions. (Taxpayers millions but that’s another matter) It is fair to say that 2011 was the year that women stated to rethink marriage. Almost as a lifestyle aspiration. Or at least their feet dragging boyfriends. Who wants to be someone’s girlfriend when you can be their wife? Quite a few people I am sure, but no female I actually know. To be fair to my now fiancee, in 2011 we had only been dating for a year.

For the cynical and anti-marriage of you I will make it easier to not to get annoyed. After all of the bad dates, dodging of wandering hands, tears over inappropriate men (or women. Whichever is your ticket) what I will say is that finding someone to love and who loves you back is an achievement, and finding the love of your life even more so. Which brings me on to my main point: When I asked my friends whether marriage was an achievement this is what they had to say:

Paul Harrison Dakers; Staying married is an achievement – getting married is easy . . . . .

John Nelson; Depends on how smooth, fun and enjoyable the experience of the wedding vs. going through the ritual and the costs creating stress. Also, I would argue that the getting married part is much easier than keeping the marriage healthy and happy ’till death do you part. Now THAT is the challenge

Shimelle Laine ‏@glittershim: @Balavage my biggest wonder about it all has been that I spent 28 years of my life thinking I would never want to marry. Never say never! I love being married but can’t think that *getting* married is the achievement. Staying happy forever, perhaps that.

‏@threestain @Balavage: it is an achievement to get through the planning. And a blessed relief to be married. And fun :)

So it would seem that finding The One is an achievement and staying married is an achievement and so is planning and getting through the actual wedding. But just getting married is just getting married.

Personally, to me getting married is an achievement. I never thought I would find The One. I never used to even want to get married, too much of a career girl. But I am now older and wiser. I know that you can have a career and a personal life, and more importantly, I know that the latter is much more important than the former; while women thought for years to have our place in the workforce, this doesn’t mean we have to forsake everything else and see marriage and babies as old fashioned things our mothers did. A career will never keep you warm at night. But this is just my opinion. Everyone is different. For me marriage is like sex: you don’t want to do it just for the sake of it, only with the right person at the right time.

What do you think?

If you are getting married then check out my wedding planning book. It tells you all you need to know about planning weddings.

 

Lisa Snowdon Talks Boyfriends, Marriage And Babies

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In an exclusive interview and photoshoot with Fabulous magazine on Sunday September 8, Capital FM presenter, Lisa Snowdon, opened up about the future and reveals that she’s not that fussed about the whole ‘marriage and babies thing’.

The 41-year-old breakfast show host and former model says: “I’m definitely not planning to have a baby. I have so much respect for mummies, but you have to give everything to your children and I guess I’m not that kind of girl. Your hips stretch out and I see friends with their nipples falling off.”

Lisa Snowden on babies, marriage and boyfriends, george clooney

She says, though, that she’s not ruling out marriage in the future: “I want the amazing party at the end of it. But that’s probably the wrong reason… I’ve never been that close to sharing my life with someone.”

Fabulous magazine is available free in The Sun every Sunday.

Should You Change Your Name After You Marry? | The Wedding Diary

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We live in modern times and tradition is something ever-changing. Some traditional things last, and some just don’t. Others, like a woman taking her husbands name after they marry, actually become controversial. My favourite motto to live by in life is, ‘live and let live’. But, yet, it seems we can’t.

Some woman see submission or sexism when a woman changes her name. But where did that woman get her name? And where did her mother get hers?, and her grandmother? To stop it now feels like closing the stable after the horse has long bolted.

All of this does make me sound pro changing my name, I know. I am in a bit of a muddle with it to be honest. Part of my thinks it is something to do if you have children, so you can be a family ushould you change your name after you marry? wedding, weddings, name change, marriage, wedding diarynit, the stories of woman being stopped at airports because they have a different surname from their children are common. If I have children I certainly don’t want to have a different surname than them. It would just be too weird. This means I have to take my fiancee’s name, he has to take mine or we have to double-barrel our names. That is if we have children. If we don’t, does it really matter? Part of me thinks not.

There is a part in The Crucible when John Proctor has two choices: change his name or die. He chooses to die, “It is my name”, he says; “I cannot have any other”. This is a pretty extreme example but I remember watching TV with a friend. There was a woman with a very long double-barreled surname. My friend commented on the ridiculousness of her name; “Oh, just lose your ego woman!” But it is not just ego is it? It’s your identity. My name is me. Well, actually, my name is a stage name, albeit one that I use for everything now. It belonged to my grandmother, a Lithuanian who died when she was only 40 of kidney failure. Not surprisingly, I would like this to live on. I am only a handful of people in the world with the surname ‘Balavage’. An Anglo take on ‘Bullovich’. You see? Surnames, they change. As does identity. I even pronounce my surname differently than she would have: Ba Lav age, with a quiet ‘V’. At my friends Nick Cohen’s book launch, the amazing writer Francis Wheen complimented my on my surname, ‘Like a glamorous French actress’. I have pronounced it the way he said it ever since.

So when I marry I have a few choices: change my real name and keep my stage name, change my name completely and just keep Balavage for acting, or double-barrel my name. I have until next year to decide, but I am already in a pickle. What to do?

It is not about feminism or inequality. If a woman wants to take her new husbands name, she should be able to, if a man wants to change his, he should and if a woman wants to keep or double-barrel her name, she should be able to without rudeness: it’s her identity after all: Live and let live.

 What do you think? Will you change your name?

 

The Wedding Diary Part One: Engagement

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wedding diary, engagement, engagement ring, getting married, planning a wedding, marriage, engagement, Well I finally did it. I managed to find someone who will put up with me for the rest of my life. Most little girls dream came true when my boyfriend of three years whisked my off to Paris on the Eurostar for our anniversary and proposed. I ecstatically said yes and upon our return bought far too many wedding magazines, and realised just how hard planning a wedding was going to be. Don’t get me wrong. I am not exactly fazed by planning big things. I planned the launch party for Frost Magazine and had over 300 guests. It went off without a hitch even though the venue canceled on us a few days before. I have also made a full length feature film. I have the skills and the staying power but what I don’t have is £21,000 to spend on a party. Only one person has mentioned the outdated thing of the women’s parents paying, all of my friends paid for their own wedding and I am not asking my parents for money. I am the editor of this magazine, a freelance writer and actor.

Somehow this is not even the issue. Neither my fiancee or I think it is reasonable to spend that amount of money on one day of your life. Other difficulties are that my family live in Scotland and my fiance’s family live in England. Getting all of these people together in a convenient, reasonably priced venue doesn’t feel like the easiest thing.

Also as a half catholic, half protestant agnostic I have found out that I cannot even get married in a church because I was not christened as my parents, quite rightly, wanted me to choose my own religion. If I want to get married I will have to attend church or do a course. Neither of these seem appealing and I don’t have a lot of free time.

So join my on my journey from engaged woman to bride. I will be writing lots of wedding articles and advice to go along with my personal experience. Please comment and tell me your thoughts and give any advice. We are planning to get married in June of next year so we don’t actually have much time to get everything done. It is all quite exciting and scary.

We have a brillaint article on buying the perfect engagement ring if you want to send it to your boyfriend to drop some hints.

Until next time, enjoy the sun.

 

Should You Get Married In Your Twenties?

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In the past few decades relationships have changed. While my parents generation tended to get married young and have kids. These days people are told to focus on their career and live their life first. My mother was married with three kids by the time she was twenty-three. I was acutely aware of this from the moment I got past twenty-three. Not because I thought I should be in the same situation, just because finding The One and possibly having children with them is a big part of life. In the 1980s women got married at twenty-six. Now the average is thirty-three.

I was twenty when I first moved to London. I knew no one, had no job to go to, no place to live and no family anywhere near the city. It was a brave move that has paid off. But the entire time there was something missing: someone to share my life with. I had a series of first dates with unsuitable men, and the occasional second. I managed to fit in one unsuitable non-serious boyfriend before meeting my fiancé. Fiancé? Yes, you read that right. I am getting married in my twenties. My fiancé is also in his twenties and it was our third anniversary when he whisked me off to Paris and proposed. When we get married next year we will both be in our late twenties.

Too much too soon? No, I don’t think so. Who knows when you should get married. I am sure there will be people who say I am missing out on things but I don’t agree. Let’s run though them.

Sex: erm, I can do that with my fiancée. Sex with random men has never interested me.
Career: No one is more supportive of my career than my fiancée. He drives me and supports me. My career is better with him in my life, not worse.
Putting myself first: It is overrated. The day you realise the importance of putting other people first your life improves considerably. That being said; we don’t hold each other back. If you love each other you will always make it work. I am doing some travel writing next week, going to France on my own to write a piece on Toulouse.
Finding Myself: Already done. I know who I am and what I want. I am completely secure in myself
Social life: I still go out both with and without my fiancée. We have a great social life.
We both still have good friends outside of our relationship that we see as regularly as we can.

What else is there? To be honest I cannot think of anything bad about getting married in my twenties. The fact that I have found the love of my life also means I can tick off a major life event. I am secure, I am happy and I am in love. What could be better than that?

What do you think? When do you think is the right time to get married?