I bought It’s Not What You Think
by Chris Evans not because I was particularly interested in the life of the man, although I’m not disinterested in it either – that would just be rude! And rude I am not! No, the reason I bought it, is love him or hate him, the man is incredibly successful and I wanted to discover why.

Chris Evans, for anyone living outside the UK, is a very high profile broadcaster on both radio and TV. He is without doubt an key innovator and has had a hand in changing the face of modern broadcasting, but such genius comes at a cost. He has his good days and his bad days like everyone else… When he’s at his best he’s charming and funny, at his worst he’s an annoying tosspot. But frankly I can forgive him that.

It’s tempting to write him off as a big-headed gobshite but there’s more to the man and the book gives an insight into the person behind the larger than life public persona.

I was expecting him to carry this persona through to the pages of the book but was pleasantly surprised to find that Chris Evans actually comes across as a humble man, grateful for what he has in life. He acknowledges he’s made some mistakes and appears to have done what he can to make amends.

It took me a while to get into the book and I had to force myself to read the first few chapters without skipping over bits of it, but I’m glad that I did. The story of his early life is written well enough but his writing style doesn’t really come alive until he starts to tell us about his love for radio – after which point I couldn’t put the book down.

One thing I hadn’t realised is how successful he’s been with women. I was somewhat irked by this because it’s not like he even tries that hard. To be fair though, he doesn’t boast that he can’t beat them off with a shitty stick or paint himself as God’s gift, in fact he suggests that his success is something of a surprise to him.

Another thing I hadn’t realised is how hard he worked to get to where he is today. Until I read the book I had no idea how driven he was from a very early age. I’d always believed he was a face plucked from a crowd of young thrusters to be the next big thing – when the truth of the matter is he worked his backside off, took personal and professional risks and made personal and professional sacrifices.

As I said earlier, I bought the book to find out what makes him the man he is and I came to the conclusion that it was his winning mindset. A mindset that he cultivated right from his early days.

Here are just some of the things I picked up on (but there were many more):

• Do what you love.

• Be the best.

• Play to your strengths.

• The money is nice – but it’s not everything.

• Being grumpy is a waste of time.

• We’re only here or a short time – wring every last drop out of life.

This is only the first part of his autobiography so when I reached the end I was left wanting more, but then I suppose that was the aim. I’m definitely looking forward to the next installment.

It’s Not What You Think by Chris Evans is an amusing, enlightening and enjoyable read. He comes across as honest and sincere and as a result I have a new respect for the man as both a fellow human being and a broadcaster.

He’s still a gobshite though.

Selfish Blogger

Just in case you’re a man looking to buy the woman in your life a nice thoughtful gift like a steam iron, a washing machine, or a rolling pin so she can bash you round the head with it for being such a sexist pig – Don’t! Buy her something she’ll really treasure… A Dyson Ball Vacuum Cleaner! More specifically a:

Dyson DC25 Animal Lightweight Dyson Ball Upright Vacuum Cleaner for Pet Owners

Of course I’m joking about the sexist pig thing. Men just aren’t like that anymore. Misogyny belongs to another era. Besides men are too frightened to be overtly sexist these days in case the PC brigade come smashing the door down and threatening to tweak their nipples.

The solution? Buy the vacuum cleaner for yourself!

I’m serious, it’s brilliant. And here’s my first ever vacuum cleaner review.

Owing to my stay at home dad status I get to do the vast majority of everything, and quite right too – my wife goes out and works hard to bring home the bacon while I have it easy at home. I wish.

Fortunately my role reversal has given me a new perspective on how the other half live and opened my eyes to the delights of such things as quality vacuum cleaners.

Prior to the Dyson Ball Vacuum we had the DC04 and lovely as it was – this one is even better.

I’m 41 years old so I hail from a time when the phrase, “It beats as it sweeps as it cleans” was in common use, and ever since then that’s been my expectation of vacuum cleaners. Obviously some do it better than others, but my feeling of the 04 is it didn’t do it as well as it should. It’s not that I want to see a heavy groove mown into my carpet but I do want to see that it’s been touched by the brush. The 04 was disappointing in that respect. On the other hand the Dyson Ball fulfils that expectation nicely. As I run it across the carpet I can see where it’s been, and where it’s been is clean. (They should use that as a slogan!)

The absolute best thing about this machine compared to the 04 is that it gets further under the furniture. I’m especially thinking about under the beds. The 04 didn’t make it far under before you’d and up smashing the dirt collection cylinder thing into the bed frame. But the slimline cylinder on the DC25 combined with design allowing for a better angle, allows you get much further under.

And. The slimline ‘nose’, for want of a better term – you know, the bit at the front where the brush is housed and all the sucking takes place – is much more slimline and so it gets under sideboards and Shackleton’s high seat chairs (lovely) much better than the 04.

I like the ball. It makes for speedier manoeuvring and it makes it much, much easier to get in to the corners. It’s a bit heavier than I was expecting but actually that gives it a better feel in my opinion. My wife says it feels light but then she’s of Amazonian proportions. Even so, the ball makes the weight almost an irrelevance.

The waste collection tank, or whatever it’s called is slimmer and doesn’t have the capacity of the old cleaner but actually it doesn’t matter. One trip around the house won’t fill it (unless you’re total slobs and living like absolute savages), and emptying it on a regular basis somehow makes it more reassuring what with not having a ton of dirt stored in it.

Doing the stairs is easier with this model because new smaller dimensions of the hand held brush. The 04 had a lumbering great brush the size and weight of a house brick but the DC25 has a daintier version. It’s a big improvement.

We’ve got two stinky dogs in our house both of which moult. My wife loves the dogs but I think they’d be nicer as rugs. That would be a fabulous irony, don’t you think? Anyway, we have a two storey semi with a mixture of hard floors (wood/vinyl/tile), carpets and rugs. The Dyson DC25 works well on all surfaces. And even with the brush turned off (which is a really nice feature), this thing has a great pick up. The suction is much better than the 04.

I’ve got two problems with it.
1. The power cord isn’t long enough, but then the power cords on Dysons have never been long enough. It’ll do a room of average proportions quite nicely but if you want to move to another room you’ll have to unplug it. My wife tells me not to worry about the length of the cord. She’s says that length doesn’t matter and assures me I’ll learn to live with it, just like she has.
2. It’s a bit noisy. More than I was expecting and more than I’d like, to he honest. That is until you turn the brush off when you’re doing the hard floors and then it’s much quieter.

…As for looks, it’s butt ugly in my opinion. It’s a cross between a football (soccer) and a Cyberman but frankly who cares? It’s a bloody vacuum cleaner, not a work of art. It’s there to do a job of work, and a good job it does too.

Does the DC25 Dyson Ball Vacuum suck? Oh yeah baby! But in a good way.

The price tag is a little hefty but you really do get a lot of suck for your buck!

We’ve had the Dyson Ball for two months and we’re really happy with it. You could do a lot worse than this, but I doubt you could do any better. Highly recommended.

Selfish Blogger