Oh yeah, I love fish in my tea

So after trotting home last week from London – I say trotting, it was more of a slump back as I got ill on the last day with the usual end of term cold/cough/deathlike feeling. It had managed to stay away for a week longer than previously, so you know, hats off to the immune system to lasting just that little bit longer. Anyhow, after trotting home with my bag full of goodies I was really looking forward to providing my mum with some ‘beauty tea’ which I had picked up on Friday lunch. I had thought ‘oh fab, some crazy sounding tea…mum likes things like that, I’ll give it to her’.

Now living in a house full of vegetarians, with everyone else not having dairy products either, makes us rather savvy when it comes to checking packets. I pride myself on the fact that I know the contents of the vast majority of random ingredients to watch out for. Now, despite this customary wariness to new food stuffs, I have never felt the need to check the packaging on tea. Because, well, it’s tea. Which is a leaf. Which is picked, traditionally, by hand and dried. Normally I do not have alarm bells ringing telling me that I need to be concerned about the animal products that may be contained within tea, but maybe, just maybe, this is naïvety which will become shattered as I turn old and grey.

Anyhow, I’ve managed to avoid drinking dead animals thus far and I don’t feel the need to change my habits now, so when I was given a box of ‘beauty tea: red tea with collagen protein, apple favour and honey flavour’ I didn’t think to check whether it was veggie, because, well it’s tea. So back home, with box in hand, I announced I had a gift for mother fresh from the office, which claimed to be beautiful. Or make you beautiful, I can’t remember which.

Taking the packet out of my bag, mum asked what sort of tea they used. I could only reply that it was red, so I turned to the back to find the ingredients, which as noted before I have never felt the need to do before. On noting that you needed to dissolve the content of the package in 100ml of hot or cold water, I decided that this wasn’t the tea that I was necessarily hoping for. This wasn’t going to be normal tea. So we decided to investigate further and in doing so discover that this tea contained Hydrolysed (fish)Collagen Protein…. FISH, FISH IN TEA. NO THAT’S JUST PLAIN WRONG. Also, whilst the makers of beauty tea felt the need to put in bold font that it was GLUTEN FREE, they didn’t feel the need to put in bold font CONTAINS FISH.

So there I was just a kettles boil away from downing fishy tea, without the makers of the product making it clear that it contained this random, strange additive. Call me old fashioned, but I think it is equally important, if not more so – to be completely frank – to make it clear that a product contains fish not just that it is gluten free.

Oh great, anyone who likes to avoid gluten will be happy but all those who don’t consume meat or fish products will be left with a sour taste knowing that they clearly aren’t considered equally by the beauty tea company.

So Merry Christmas beauty tea, you nearly took away my life long abstinence from fish products but never fear I noticed before it was too late. And now, rather than writing about how marvellous your product was, I am writing a rant about how you failed to package and label your product correctly. Oh, ’tis the season to be jolly.

The offending item

Hello, this is Asia Lambert from The Times

For anyone who is even remotely interested in journalism, I swear this is a real gold dust phrase, or at least when I get to say it it makes me feel special…like a 5 year old at Christmas. Slightly cringe, I know, but still, it’s true.

The reason I bring this up is because I spent some of my day ringing up stores getting to use these 8 wonderful words and in doing so I realised how much the Union has helped me. I used to be so afraid of the phone. I would actively avoid making calls if they weren’t to anyone other than my parents, and the only friend I could muster the courage to hold a conversation with was Jenny, my best friend of the past 8 years or so. Fast forward, I now spend part of my week working at the Cambridge Union ringing up publishers and agents and begging them to give me contact details and email addresses…pretty handy seeing as that was essentially what I had to do today, except it sounded slightly more authoritative and everyone likes publicity so they were much more compliant.

Today, on a slightly worrying note, marks my penultimate day at The Times this year. I don’t mean to sound up-my-self but I worked here last summer so I feel like I can pretend that this is going to be a tradition that continues on indefinitely. Whether or not this becomes a reality I will have to leave to the hands of the journalistic Gods, but for now I’ll run with it.

In addition to finding my voice today (unfortunately for the rest of the world I don’t mean this literally) I have learnt the true meaning of Christmas in the office. FREE GIFTS. So many winged their way to the desks today from companies wishing to best please the journalists who have pushed forward their brands onto the pages. Sitting on the fashion desk meant I saw personalised beanie hats from Whistles, shirts, scalves, books, sweets and, of course, a never ending supply of fancy chocolates. I was super lucky in being offered a load of tasters and feel like I’ve probably consumed my weight in macaroons, chocolate, nut and marzipan creations. They’ve all been amazing, and all provided simply as a company thank you for some kind words in print. I didn’t realise that it was such a strong practice, but looking over the office and counting the sheer volume of packages, bags and boxes under and next to desks, empty wrappers and cartons, I can safely say that the journalist wins at this time of year.

So, with a heavy heart (and stomach) I finish my Thursday, sign off and look forward to one last evening in London before returning to the normalcy of life in Norfolk.

I want to be a superfood scoffing powerhouse

I swear that this is what the London life makes you want to do.

The morning tube trek, sat – or let’s be honest, more often stood – next to suit-clad men and women, immaculately groomed; the lunch break search, staring at salad boxes and smoothies; the office chatter from surrounding desks of new-fad diets and the latest holiday destinations and culinary explorations… Suddenly my undergrad work, high-street bought office attire, free Waitrose coffee and homemade lasagne look uninteresting, amateur and, if I’m being completely honest out of place.

It seems that in this city of shiny metal, high rise buildings and 24 hour living, you must forever be moving with the tide of fashion, power-driven and hungry for the top. It’s almost paradoxical: in aiming to be individual and perfectionist you become part of the machine, one of the many, and the normal – I mean, bog-standard normal – becomes the stand-out, odd one out.

I wish I could say that I have avoided falling into the trap but I am not immune. I want to wear the snazzy clothing, be able to dine on superfood and smoothly integrate with office chitchat. Instead I’m left looking at my Eat Natural bar (my choice was dark chocolate, popcorn and peanut filled despite it being my vague attempt at healthy eating) with slight frustration.

I looked up flats in Hoxton today because I heard someone in the office talking about how that was where she lived. I’ve got no idea about what is affordable in London but there were some places that didn’t look as if they’d kill you for around £300 a week. I cried a little inside considering how this is double what I currently pay in Cambridge, except at least there I have the luxury of only paying for 30 out of 52 weeks a year and a government loan to foot the bill until eventually, if and when the day ever comes, I earn over the £21k threshold and start paying it all back…plus interest. Yet I know that this is probably a rarity and in reality I would have to spend far far much more when I move to the capital in a few years time.

Funny that. ‘When I move’. God, I really have set my future in stone, at least in my mind anyway, regardless of whether I’m ever able to turn these dreams into reality.

But back to the grindstone…for the while at least I’ll stick to what I know, i.e. cheap eating and dressing and an avoidance of gossip magazines and fad-dieting, and hope that hard work might just get me to where I want to go in life.

My sleepless Cambridge nights turned good

I used to spend my Wednesday nights not sleeping but instead sub-editing The Cambridge Student newspaper. People used to think I was absolutely bonkers staying up all night and taking just an hour or two long nap before my first lecture of the day at 10am. Yet now I am putting all that I learned to good use, reading over copy of the weekend pull-out for The Times and spotting any errors that may be there. If I had known that this would have been the case, I’d probably have gone more often, or tried to keep doing it even with rowing outings at 6am the next day.

It’s a great lesson to take away from your time at uni, no matter where it may be…every opportunity you have to engage in something outside of your degree should be taken with both hands. You never know where and when it might come in handy.

My view at lunch. Pretty cool, right?

Aside from my reminiscing about how I’ve managed to get lucky in transferring past exploits into future career helpers, today’s been pretty cool as I got to try some fancy-pancy chocolates that had been sent in as a sample. They usually cost about £150 a box, apparently. I’m sorry, that’s just mental, like stupidly over-expensive – I really don’t care how good your chocolates are I’m never going to understand why someone would, or should, pay so much for the privilege of eating them. Now, don’t get me wrong, it was a damn good chocolate…but I’d probably be just as happy scoffing through a terry’s chocolate orange alone in a corner than being out of pocket with a tiny box of about 10 pieces.

I’m next door to The Shard….THE SHARD!

So if this is the life of those who write features and more specialist articles then I definitely want in. I’d be quite happy to receive numerous packages a week to sift through and sample the best of what an industry has to offer; who wouldn’t? I may not have experience writing about how things taste, whether make-up covers smoothly, or judging the speed of some new gadget trickery, but if I can stay up all night reading over script looking for that one error that makes a page look sloppy then I can certainly try. And you know what, if I can have the view that I have right now whilst doing it then I’ll snatch your hand off at the opportunity.

Well hello there, London

Although I’m facing a computer screen I am well aware of the fact that behind me sits The Shard and the rest of the London skyline. I am such a massive fan of the capital that I’m not sure I can put into words just quite how excited this makes me. London has been my dream for as long as I can remember, so whenever I have the opportunity to go there I accept before those little typing dots you get on Facebook have disappeared. If you don’t know what I mean by that, then basically, I’m very very quick to say yes.

This week I’m working at The Times which has the most amazing office on the 11th floor of The News Building which is next door to The Shard. You really don’t get much better than that. I was lucky enough to work there a few summers ago when they were based near Tower Bridge so it’s a strange mixture of familiarity and the unknown.

Journalism has quickly become my chosen field, or at least it seems that this is the direction that my future seems to be headed. I honestly feel like I’ve been incredibly fortunate to meet some lovely people in the field who have been happy to help and show me the ropes. Coming back this summer feels like a strange coming-of-age: for the first time I’m working in the Capital on my own two feet without someone alongside me who I’ve met previously. It feels pretty great actually, I’m not worrying about whether people think I’m there because of who I know rather than my own ‘talents’; lets be honest, whilst it’s great having someone to support you, all anyone really wants is to receive their own recognition.

So here I am, typing away at a keyboard that seems strangely clunky in comparison to the rest of the surroundings, in an office block full of journalists whom I admire and aspire to be. I’ve had my take-out noodle soup for lunch and I feel suitably in-tune with the smart-casual vibe they have going on here. I don’t think I look too much like I’ve just stepped out of school – for a change – and it’s fair to say I’m keeping up to speed. Looks like I’ve got a busy, but nonetheless enjoyable, week ahead. I really can’t wait.