The Beat That My Heart Skipped – A blog dedicated to daily design inspirations. By Rohini Wahi.

This week I am feeling organised with my review writing, as I am off for the weekend to see my Goddaughter who has turned the big ‘two’. As she is two, this means she is invariably impressed by nutty adults, so I have come to the conclusion I am sort of a free clown that her mother can pull out. ‘Look it’s Crazy Aunt Lauren!’, well it’s nice to be needed.

Broomball was an instant hit, I felt [with arm bands, crash helmet, bib and stick with a rubber flipper on the end] like I was on the Crystal Maze. So much so that I was humming the theme tune as I slipped around the ice. I did my best to gracefully jump around in defence and avoided ‘stick in face’ although I did get smacked by a ball in the head.  Typical.

At the event, there was quite an odd mix of people which I attributed to the fact they were all from banking… As is the norm with these sorts of sports, there were some manly girls who looked like they could squash me in my ‘special’ kids outfit, there was that one girl who always looks immaculate, even in a plastic day glo helmet [there she was full face of slap looking good on the ice] and an odd sort of French exchange student type chap who played in jeans.

On the whole I thought Broomball was a game mainly for those that are insane, and as I now double as a free clown on the weekends, why not also during the week? The worst thing is that we won, so I’ll be back. I do hope we get to jump around in a big crystal with a huge fan chasing after tin foil – now  that would be something!

After two hard slog weeks for you ‘my dear readers’ I thought we would head off of weighty classics and on to something more amusing.  Never Kiss A Man in A Canoe: Words of Wisdom from the Golden Age of Agony Aunts is really something quite special. It deserves some space on your light reading toilet bookshelf.

We have all poured over the ‘Problem Pages’ at school in our time looking for the juicy titbits but don’t they seem ever so, well, PC? Fancy something a bit more brisk to sort your life out? Well here it is.

Tanith Carey worked for the Daily Mirror in the days of Marje Proops and has never lost her fascination with our much loved Agony Aunts.  She has compiled a book of some of the best pieces of advice from about 1850 to about 1965 and it makes for hilarious reading. Whether it is sharp rebuke ‘Lavinia must be more retiring, think less of herself and learn to spell better’  or beauty advice ‘Washing your hair once a week Amie will dull the colour and stop the growth. Leave the hair alone for a month or six weeks’ the wives of old are here to tell us how to live our lives.

Sometimes you will be glad that we have moved on as in the case of the unfaithful husband ‘your bravest line is to make the best of a bad job… continue to conduct yourself in front of the whole world as a faithful and happy wife and mother, and smile while your heart aches. That shows the stuff a brave woman in made of.’, other times you will pine back to yesteryear for refreshing advice such as in the case of the fifteen year old paralysed with heartbreak ‘ Fiddlesticks! Stuff and nonsense! At Fifteen one’s heart is still green; it is made of gristle and does not break…bright clever modern girls would laugh at you…I think you are a goose’.

Broken into small chapters by subject, the book is a hilarious collection of short excerpts which will make you laugh out loud. The perfect gift to cheer someone up! The topics cover everything from sex, love and other taboos.  It’s a salute to manners from the past and a stark reminder of how times have really changed and what is acceptable. Ever wondered when men stopped giving their seat up to women on the tube? One young man is horrified after some time abroad at this lack of chivalry. Aren’t we all! This book is something you will head back to time and again for funny quotes and a little pick me up. – Lauren