It’s Friday already, grab the chocolate digestives, and pull up a chair. There seems to be an enormous amount of doom and gloom around at the moment so with that in mind, I thought I would concentrate this weeks main feature on something light hearted that will hopefully raise a few smiles and lift spirits if only for a short while.

While I wouldn’t consider myself overly vain, like most people I like to look okay, & my idea of okay is the messy hair just stumbled out of bed look so it’s not too difficult to achieve. What is difficult to achieve however is stopping everything from going down South, in other words I need to shape up………Cue a burst of Grease  and the line “Coz I need a man” although  believe me I so don’t .

But as I was researching this weeks topic I couldn’t help but notice that the invention of facial toning products are big business on the Japanese market for men as well as women.

And  first up we have  “Rubber Lips” while wearing them you repeat your vowels and apparently it  repairs sagging skin and tones facial muscles eventually giving a natural face lift…?

                 Watford Observer:

Then we move onto …well…its like spandex but for your face, it holds your face tight supposedly helping to tone facial muscles?               Watford Observer:  

And even Ronaldo appears in adverts for the Japanese Face Shake Shaper:......

             Watford Observer:

Even funnier is American couples being  asked to try out some of these items, and you can watch the video here.  I defy you not to laugh?   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxkjjW9x1fg

On ME news this week I checked in with Jo Best from the Lets Do It For ME team to see how the March on a million challenge was going & she said there had been a brilliant response with one anonymous donor writing :

"We are so impressed by the LDIFME team and all their efforts to support biomedical research into ME with Invest in ME that we would like to donate £1000 for a matching donation effort in aid of the wonderful new March on a Million challenge. Please keep up the impressive and crucial support for the charity and for ME patients".

The LDIFME team share this very generous supporters hope that it might inspire others to offer matching donation amounts.                                                 

                   Watford Observer:

The matching amount (up to £1000 in total) will be added as an offline donation to the JustGiving page at the end of March.  Gift Aid (extra from the government for eligible UK tax-payers donations) will be an added bonus towards the £1million fundraising target,

There are various ways to donate, these are just two:

JustGiving (worldwide - minimum donation £2 - includes PayPal)

https://www.justgiving.com/ldifme

or  JustTextGiving  (UK only) Text: BMER99 - £1-£5 or £10 - to 70070

For more ways to donate: Bank, paypal etc just go to the LDFME PAGE:

http://blog.ldifme.org/2015/03/matched-march-donations-offer.html

In local news my insider tells me that a number of Watford market stall holders will be leaving before their contracts run out because they aren’t earning anywhere near enough to make a living. things have got so bad some aren’t even making a tenner in a week and even though they’ve been tied into contracts they can’t possibly survive like this, as one stall holder said  “The council could sue for breach of contract, but what choice do we have  when we’re not even earning enough to keep a roof over our families head”

Sad as it is, many watfordians predicted this outcome way back when talks of moving the market into storage units at  the top of the town begun….unsurprisingly nobody listened, least of all  mad Mayor Thornhill. Many Watfordians made another prediction, that when the market eventually collapses she will blame it on the people of Watford and their lack of support rather than take responsibility for not listening in the first place and making a huge error in judgement…watch this space.

Well that’s it from me for another week, & not a Japanese gadget In sight. I prefer   good old fashioned anti-aging facial yoga, just your face and a sense of humour required. I’ve even promised to teach a class at the elderly day care centre.

My mother said “What about teaching me?”

“It’s too late, don’t bother” I replied

Hence to say I may not be alive to write next weeks column.

                                 Til next week (hopefully?)

                           Stay Blessed, Back Before Elvis XXX

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