I love the Brits’ obsession with top-ups. It’s no longer just pulling the lever at the fuel pump till you can smell the fumes pouring from your ecstatic little car, which has spent weeks sucking at dirt. No, it’s so much more; top-ups refer to everything under the sun now because you always do want a little bit more. Of everything! Now there’s the attitude! Come to Britain, where you can top-up your Orange phone, tuition bill, television choices, prepaid credit cards, vouchers, your pedicure, your sex life, your beanbag chair… the possibilities are endless. If only all top-ups involved one stroke of the MasterCard. (Well, who says they can’t.) Needless to say, top-ups are here to stay. Ah, gluttony’s trendiest definition. No wonder it feels like the U.S. is just across a little pond.
Another quick rant: I was down at Fitness First today, and I can firmly say there is no cultural difference when it comes to feeling like an awkward, voluptuous tub beside a peppy, gleaming muscled, smooth-talking Australian twenty-something. That £208 flew out of my bank account faster than that time I had to top-up my UNESCO Travel Fund last weekend in Amsterdam.
That is all. I’ll be here all weekend – within a careful15 minute walk of South Kensington, courtesy of that sexy ball chained to my ankle as an RA. Let’s see that sucker turn some heads on the treadmill at Fitness First.
Happy Valentine’s weekend! 
