Well, how's everyone doing in the still unwieldy-sounding 2013? I'm tackling my annual 'no booze in January' health drive, with mixed results. Generally, I find this a breeze until about the third weekend of the month, where I crack and have a glass of red, then get back onto the wagon, and January slips by with little to trouble me, other than being penniless.
This year, however, it feels as though January has lasted for three months already and I can't believe there's another week to go. Every evening finds me gasping for a glass and gnawing at my own fists with boredom and pent-up irritation. I think the snow hasn't helped, rendering me house-bound for most of the weekend, due to a combination of transport being nigh-on impossible (surely in the Great Freeze of the 17th Century, when even the Thames was solid, no-one encountered this many problems traversing London? I'm tempted to revert to a horse and carriage), and my only sensible footwear, a pair of walking boots purchased to deal with Edinburgh's Arctic conditions, being in storage.
This week, for example has been taken up with: 1/ Trying not to fall over on suburban iced pavements (I have a morbid fear of breaking a hip) 2/ Deciding I'm bored of wearing trainers (only footwear approaching 'condition appropriate'); risking heeled boots, as most streets are free of hip-breaking hazards 3/ Buying more Uniqlo heat-tec thermals (I'm now the proud owner of 3 long-sleeved t-shirts, a vest top, 2 pairs of thermal leggings and 2 pairs of thermal socks; I should have some kind of Advantage card with them. I'm resisting the temptation to wear them all at once) 4/ Trying to distract myself from lack of booze by going to the gym or eating loads of carbs (one of those options is healthier than the other) 5/ Trying to work out finances by scribbling sums on backs of envelopes. How do I have so little money, when I think I live the life of a particularly ascetic nun? I'm also trying to avoid scoffing an entire Graze box the minute it hits my desk and to work out whether I really need a pair of hand-knitted bed socks in the Hush sale (only a tenner!) or whether I'm just hankering after them because I'm grumpy and cold and I feel like I could pretend I'm in Little House on the Prairie, rather than a very cold bedroom in Streatham.
I've also decided that I should replace sitting in pubs with Doing Culture, as then you can have a cup of tea afterwards instead. The start of the year has seen me race around The Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate (kind of a 'greatest hits' show, so very little I hadn't seen before, but some nice tapestries and stained glass at the end); a free Marilyn Monroe exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery (which was literally one room and not particularly inspiring) and I'm going to the V&A's Hollywood Costume on Sunday.
I've also caught a plethora of films, including Life of Pi (beautiful and finally a film where watching it in 3D actively enhanced my enjoyment of it); Seven Psychopaths (Tarantino-lite, but fairly enjoyable); The Sessions (brilliant - and I had a very cathartic weep at the end) and I've got Zero Dark Thirty planned for Saturday evening, and Les Mis pencilled in for Sunday afternoon.
The only good thing about January, really, is the array of good films, all being released prior to the Oscars. It's the ideal winter activity, going to the cinema: warm, comfy seats, uses up a few hours and you can discuss it afterwards, over a coffee. Well, unless you've seen The Impossible, which I imagine requires a very stiff drink, given all the talk of people fainting in it, which is one of the reasons I'm avoiding it. I think Film Club will be the new Book Club for 2013.
I've decided to avoid New Year's Resolutions this year, (other than perhaps not going to see every exhibition in the last week it's on - meaning that the only ticket I could book for the Hollywood Costumes is at 8.45pm on a Sunday, when really I should be sitting down with a nice cup of cocoa, waiting for the BBC's Victorian police-'n'-prostitutes extravaganza Ripper Street to air.) It doesn't stop you from being bombarded with information about bloody diets, though. This year's favourites seem to be the Paleo Diet (eats, shoots and leaves? Or rather leaves, fruit, nuts, occasional meat - whatever most closely approximates a Mammoth, so, bison? or yak? - and probably some twigs. And lots of running around in fur loincloths. You are a sort of human/squirrel hybrid); the Alkaline Diet (cut out anything fun, squirt lemon juice over whatever you're then allowed to eat, probably find yourself constantly wondering whether okra is OK and dates are damnable, or whether it's the other way round. You are a kind of Diet Scientist, and should probably be encouraged to cook all your food over a bunsen burner); and the 5:2 Diet, aka Intermittent Fasting. I saw the Horizon documentary that this is based on last summer, and it seemed to make some actual scientific sense, and to have greater benefits than just losing a few pounds in a challenging/annoying way and then putting them all back on again once you'd re-introduced burgers, chips and wine into your diet.
To wit - intermittent fasting helps to prevent cancer, reduce cholesterol levels and prevent Alzheimer's. Which I'm all in favour of, given how shot to shit my memory is. The idea is that you reduce your calories to 500 for 2 days a week, and then eat normally for the other 5. So, it's not technically 'fasting', it's just reducing your food to about a quarter of the recommended intake. Who decided, by the way, that all women, whether they be 5' with birdlike bones, or more Miranda-sized, should be eating 2,000 calories a day? It's always amazed me that we just take that as read - and equally that 'dieting' usually translates, in calorie terms, to about 1,200 a day. Doesn't it depend on how much you were eating in the first place? If you're generally stuffing down 4,000 calories (and you're not training for a Gold in the next Olympics coxless four), then cutting down to 2,000 would be a diet.
Anyway, I digress. I've tried doing this, but not in any sort of rigid way. It's just relatively easy on a weekend if you have no plans (there are tumbleweeds blowing through my diary, as all my friends are skint, so are staying at home). You can get up and go to the gym, and then you eat something for lunch, and then something for dinner. With a lot of tea, coffee and water in between times. It's pretty easy, it just makes you a bit over-focussed on calories and you generally eat a lot of soup and boiled eggs. And you feel weirdly sprightly the next day. Or, you do if you don't wake up at 3.00am on a Monday, can't get back to sleep, spend the whole day in a spectacular snit and then go home and chuff down a load of pasta and pesto and a tiramisu. But I think that was an anomaly. The other upside is of course that it saves you quite a lot of money, so it gets my vote, especially in January. Lots of people seem to be doing it, and strangely enjoying it - I think they like the challenge of working out what they can eat - and also the relief of being able to eat 'normally' the next day. Often it's the daily grind of a diet that gets you down and makes you chuck them in. At least this way, if you know what 500 calories looks like, it also makes you more aware of what you're eating the rest of the time, which should help with general health in the longterm.
Right, after all this talk of health, it's off to the gym where I shall be turned into a sweaty wreck by Geezerboy Mikey. At least the gym resolution is one that's stuck, for which I'm still clapping myself heartily on the back (though not volunteering for the Great North Run, as one of my friends is. Is she mad? Maybe she's just an uber-Paleo. I could dress up as a T Rex and chase her to help her along).
Thursday, 24 January 2013
Tuesday, 30 October 2012
Can a Cake be 'Too Cakey?'
It’s Tuesday evening, and I am bereft. Bereft, I tell you. For what is there to look forward to, now that The Great British Bake Off has disappeared in a flurry of icing sugar and showstoppers, a tsunami of tears over failed fondant fancies and with everyone flustered by frasiers and friands? Well, everyone apart from alarmingly calm Brendan, who finally cracked at the end, did some crying, and left an enigmatically unfinished sentence about what it would mean to him to win.
This seems to have been the year when everyone I spoke to was obsessed with Bake Off. We all had our favourites, and howled with indignation when they were kicked out. ‘AN ALL-MALE FINAL?’ I shrieked when Danny-the-NHS-Emergency-Consultant was unceremoniously shown the marquee tentflap. Bake Off madness! I had my worries that Mary Berry might be overcome with the testosterone – although given the finalists were John, James and Brendan, I figured she’d probably be able to remain upright.
I was rooting for James to win, as HOW many times was Brendan going to say it was his ambition ‘throughout’ to get to the final? He was starting to sound like he had designs on invading Poland by the end. Also, isn’t it everyone’s ambition throughout to get to the final? I doubt many people go into it thinking, ‘ooh, I’d love to get to week 4, then I’ll have to opt out because I’m shit at pork pies’.
Although I was only rooting for him to win because I thought John (my true fave) was too inconsistent to claim the Golden Bake Off Baguette. My friend Ed was of the opinion that James is totally the person at school who is all, ‘Whevs, hehehe, jokes and larks, I ain’t done no revision’ (the fact that he wasn’t a Cockney – or Russell Brand - notwithstanding), but secretly he was a total swot who craved star baker and that John was class. James’ crucial final bake was basically just a ton of cake with half of Tesco’s fruit selection on top of it. Which I could have made. (As a side note, I did love the idea of a cake being criticised for being ‘too cakey’, though.)
Ed, a man of noted taste, decreed that John must win, and lo, he did! Even though he was clearly the best chap there, (excellent at baking, pretty, clever, seems totally sweet – what more could you ask for - AND I loved his accent! Sigh), I found myself shrieking, ‘WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!’ when the winner was announced. I was worried Brendan was going to kill him and put him under his (gingerbread) patio. It was all too exciting – my friend Claire pointed out the genius piece of editing when ‘Brendan realised James’ showstopper cakes had gone wrong. He looked over to John, in the manner of a man playing Cardinal Wolsley in a BBC drama, as if he were the only figure between him and total domination; cut to three ravens in a tree, one of which flies away. Amazing.’ Accompanied by shots of rain dripping off the bunting – mirroring Brendan’s tears of angsty ambition.
I loved John’s comment about how people thought bakers were all drippy housewives, and actually they were all control freaks who were desperate to be loved; couldn’t help thinking that he’d come up with that based on 10 weeks of hanging out with Brendan, The Macaron Machiavelli.
My only technical problem with the show is that I can’t decide whether you should win based on having been really good throughout (ie James was star baker 3 times, Brendan 2, John only 1) or whether it should all be down to the final push, as it were. Although surely John deserved the win just for using a hairdryer on his showstopper icing. I think Mary and Paul both fancied him, and he had a total flirtathon with Sue, which probably helped. (Can we have Sue and John presenting next year? Mel could do the ‘history’ bits?)
And another unanswered question was, when they all had a group hug, are John and James really tall, or is Brendan incredibly dinky, and he’d actually made that gingerbread house the correct size for him to have as a holiday cottage?
Anyway, I must confess, I’d got so over-involved that I got rather emotional about it - especially when John said he just wanted to make his mum proud and his family all seemed rather unsupportive (the subtext of which appeared to be: I am disappointed you’re gay. Why are you doing all this baking? That’s TOTALLY GAY). I wanted to shake his mum and go, ‘Why are you not proud of him? He’s amazing! The whole bloomin’ country loves him!’ AND HE GOT A FIRST IN HIS LAW DEGREE. WHILST DOING ALL THIS BLOODY BAKING.
I’m still bemused by this idea that James is a fox, though. He just wears funny jumpers and is a bit Scottish. Maybe people who like baking shows have more homely tastes. ‘Daniel Craig? Oh no, I bet he couldn’t make a profiterole to save his life – give me one of those baking boys any day’. I’d also be a bit wary of having him as my doctor, given his ‘I’m making Turkish Delight for the first time! It’s the final, why not?’ approach. I have a vision of him trundling into surgery, merrily burbling, ‘Appendectomy? Well, yeah, haven’t tried that before today, but let’s just see how it goes! Oops, I’ve dropped a crucial bit on the floor’.
As a special treat, and to save us all from withdrawal symptoms, can we have a special bake off challenge as part of this year’s Apprentice, just so we can have Mary and Paul back on telly again being judgy? I think Mary could try flirting with Nick Hewer, and I’d like to see Paul (whom Claire has dubbed ‘the Christian Grey of Baking’) face off with Karren Brady. ‘Go on, have some of this bakewell tart, it’s delicious’. ‘No, Paul, I can’t, I can barely fit into this pencil skirt as it is!’ ‘Come on, Karren, live a little! I’ve kneaded this dough over here for you specially’ *Karren blushes violently and goes a bit wibbly*
Or Mary and Paul leading teams of rival bakers for a Comic Relief Apprentice? C’mon LordSirAlan Sugar – the clue’s right there in your name…
This seems to have been the year when everyone I spoke to was obsessed with Bake Off. We all had our favourites, and howled with indignation when they were kicked out. ‘AN ALL-MALE FINAL?’ I shrieked when Danny-the-NHS-Emergency-Consultant was unceremoniously shown the marquee tentflap. Bake Off madness! I had my worries that Mary Berry might be overcome with the testosterone – although given the finalists were John, James and Brendan, I figured she’d probably be able to remain upright.
I was rooting for James to win, as HOW many times was Brendan going to say it was his ambition ‘throughout’ to get to the final? He was starting to sound like he had designs on invading Poland by the end. Also, isn’t it everyone’s ambition throughout to get to the final? I doubt many people go into it thinking, ‘ooh, I’d love to get to week 4, then I’ll have to opt out because I’m shit at pork pies’.
Although I was only rooting for him to win because I thought John (my true fave) was too inconsistent to claim the Golden Bake Off Baguette. My friend Ed was of the opinion that James is totally the person at school who is all, ‘Whevs, hehehe, jokes and larks, I ain’t done no revision’ (the fact that he wasn’t a Cockney – or Russell Brand - notwithstanding), but secretly he was a total swot who craved star baker and that John was class. James’ crucial final bake was basically just a ton of cake with half of Tesco’s fruit selection on top of it. Which I could have made. (As a side note, I did love the idea of a cake being criticised for being ‘too cakey’, though.)
Ed, a man of noted taste, decreed that John must win, and lo, he did! Even though he was clearly the best chap there, (excellent at baking, pretty, clever, seems totally sweet – what more could you ask for - AND I loved his accent! Sigh), I found myself shrieking, ‘WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!’ when the winner was announced. I was worried Brendan was going to kill him and put him under his (gingerbread) patio. It was all too exciting – my friend Claire pointed out the genius piece of editing when ‘Brendan realised James’ showstopper cakes had gone wrong. He looked over to John, in the manner of a man playing Cardinal Wolsley in a BBC drama, as if he were the only figure between him and total domination; cut to three ravens in a tree, one of which flies away. Amazing.’ Accompanied by shots of rain dripping off the bunting – mirroring Brendan’s tears of angsty ambition.
I loved John’s comment about how people thought bakers were all drippy housewives, and actually they were all control freaks who were desperate to be loved; couldn’t help thinking that he’d come up with that based on 10 weeks of hanging out with Brendan, The Macaron Machiavelli.
My only technical problem with the show is that I can’t decide whether you should win based on having been really good throughout (ie James was star baker 3 times, Brendan 2, John only 1) or whether it should all be down to the final push, as it were. Although surely John deserved the win just for using a hairdryer on his showstopper icing. I think Mary and Paul both fancied him, and he had a total flirtathon with Sue, which probably helped. (Can we have Sue and John presenting next year? Mel could do the ‘history’ bits?)
And another unanswered question was, when they all had a group hug, are John and James really tall, or is Brendan incredibly dinky, and he’d actually made that gingerbread house the correct size for him to have as a holiday cottage?
Anyway, I must confess, I’d got so over-involved that I got rather emotional about it - especially when John said he just wanted to make his mum proud and his family all seemed rather unsupportive (the subtext of which appeared to be: I am disappointed you’re gay. Why are you doing all this baking? That’s TOTALLY GAY). I wanted to shake his mum and go, ‘Why are you not proud of him? He’s amazing! The whole bloomin’ country loves him!’ AND HE GOT A FIRST IN HIS LAW DEGREE. WHILST DOING ALL THIS BLOODY BAKING.
I’m still bemused by this idea that James is a fox, though. He just wears funny jumpers and is a bit Scottish. Maybe people who like baking shows have more homely tastes. ‘Daniel Craig? Oh no, I bet he couldn’t make a profiterole to save his life – give me one of those baking boys any day’. I’d also be a bit wary of having him as my doctor, given his ‘I’m making Turkish Delight for the first time! It’s the final, why not?’ approach. I have a vision of him trundling into surgery, merrily burbling, ‘Appendectomy? Well, yeah, haven’t tried that before today, but let’s just see how it goes! Oops, I’ve dropped a crucial bit on the floor’.
As a special treat, and to save us all from withdrawal symptoms, can we have a special bake off challenge as part of this year’s Apprentice, just so we can have Mary and Paul back on telly again being judgy? I think Mary could try flirting with Nick Hewer, and I’d like to see Paul (whom Claire has dubbed ‘the Christian Grey of Baking’) face off with Karren Brady. ‘Go on, have some of this bakewell tart, it’s delicious’. ‘No, Paul, I can’t, I can barely fit into this pencil skirt as it is!’ ‘Come on, Karren, live a little! I’ve kneaded this dough over here for you specially’ *Karren blushes violently and goes a bit wibbly*
Or Mary and Paul leading teams of rival bakers for a Comic Relief Apprentice? C’mon LordSirAlan Sugar – the clue’s right there in your name…
Here be Dragons
So, I am still living in The House of Tiny Tearaways (we have also added mice, and moths in the kitchen cupboards, to the household which is not very pleasant). One of my housemates was visibly horrified when I bludgeoned a moth to death on the wall with a magazine the other day. When you see 'em, kill 'em, that's my motto. I'm not taking the same approach with the mice, mind.
Anyway, some new David-the-housemate gems.
1/ He took a girl to see Shame on a date. (Award for least appropriate date movie choice ever?) I asked him if he knew what it was about before he went and he said yes. It was a second date – they unsurprisingly didn’t make it to a third.
2/ I came home the other night to find him at the table in the sitting room, constructing a number of dragons (and a wizard) from small pieces of coloured card in a kit. I was so bemused, I couldn’t even form the question as to why he was making them. He mocked my choice of TV viewing matter (True Blood – I know it’s schlocky, but I like it), which caused me to retort, ‘I AM NOT THE ONE MAKING DRAGONS OUT OF BITS OF CARD, DAVID’. His reply, ‘I’m making the wizard now, actually’. He really is a genius. He’s just posted on our house FB page that we now have a MarioKart trophy. I’d kind of like to live in his head for a day, it must be quite an intriguing place to be.
I also tried watching the much-hyped Girls on TV and then Tiny Child Ben walked in at the beginning of the second episode when they’re having very noisy sex. I don’t think he believed me when I said it was ‘the new Sex and the City’, especially as I was so flustered that I tried to turn over to Newsnight… Living with 6 people does have its drawbacks.
Bonding with Daniel
What did you do with the extra hour on Sunday morning, then? I, of course, woke up at 7.40am (so, in theory, I’d had a lie in, if I was assuming it was 8.40am Old Time), my brain having amused itself by creating another Weird Celebrity Dream. This time, I was going out with Daniel Craig. Yes!! I’ve upgraded from having awkward chats with members of Take That in the back of a taxi and I’ve got a celebrity boyfriend! And not just any Celeb BF, actual JAMES BOND. Wow, my psyche is really upping the ante here, I thought. Before wondering, in the dream, (not unreasonably) what on earth Daniel Craig was doing going out with me (see, even when unconscious, I’m realistic about my place in the pecking order). And then having the terrible realisation – on top of not feeling A-listy, beautiful and interesting enough to go out with Daniel Craig – and once I'd stopped giggling wildly like a nervous chimp at the idea that he fancied me, that, um, we had nothing in common. And that actually he was quite dull.
No offence to the real-life DC, by the way, who by all accounts is charming, lovely and a jolly good bloke.
The dream culminated in Everyone’s Favourite Blue-Eyed Bond inexplicably throwing those little paper cups (you know the ones that you get jam in when you have a cream tea in a Cornish cafe? Those) at me and making me catch them. He’d filled them with honey instead of jam, though (no doubt as part of the numerous Skyfall product placement deals, 007 isn't allowed to have jam on his toast of a morning and has to have honey instead). Of course I was failing miserably to catch them, because my hand/eye co-ordination is non-existent. ‘You have to WATCH IT’, he kept saying, lobbing another one at me from a different angle. I got the hang of it just as I woke up. So, hey, maybe we could’ve made it work after all. I am now even more keen to check out Skyfall to see if JB woos a lady by throwing small paper cups of honey at her to test her reflexes.
Thursday, 2 August 2012
If I Could Turn Back Time
I know in theory every year elapses at the same rate, of a day at a time for 365 days, unless it’s a leap year. But this year seems to have shot by with Usain Bolt-like speed. Thus it’s nearly eight months since I moved back down from the wind and rain-lashed streets of Edinburgh to the wind and rain-lashed streets of London. The weather has given me a sense of continuity, but pretty much everything else has changed.
Viz:
Employment – I’m now officially referring to myself as a freelancer again, as, praise be! I’ve managed to get a couple of contracts under my belt, after a very shaky start. Having not been unemployed for a very long time, I can confirm that being without a job, in a recession, is a dispiriting business. I found myself wandering the supermarket aisles, looking for produce with yellow ‘reduced price’ stickers on them and scrutinising the price of everything in order to shave off a few pennies here and there. It’s like being a pensioner, but with a smaller cardigan collection and fewer pairs of sensible shoes. Despite this, the minute I had an office to go to every day and a monthly wage packet, I was once again frittering cash on fancy Finest pasta, spending crazy amounts of money getting my hair dyed at the hairdresser instead of doing it myself and drinking horribly overpriced cocktails with my friends. How is it that you can charge up to £12 a go for just mixing together a couple of spirits and some fruit juice and sticking on a bit of ‘garnish’? People will look back in years to come and say, ‘No wonder entire economies fell apart, when they merrily spent a tenner a go on a perfectly ordinary drink’.
Cocktails are the new designer handbags: we buy them because everyone else is. I think, after years of finding them glamorous, I might finally be finding them unconscionably profligate. It may be time to just congregate round the telly at different friends’ houses each week with a bottle of Merlot and a DVD.
I’m hoping the contract work keeps appearing, as I’m enjoying doing a Littlest Hobo routine round different publishers, dipping in and out of things and catching up with lots of friends in the process.
Fitness – once I had the luxury of an ongoing cashflow, I decided to get myself a new Personal Trainer. I kidded myself that I was doing sterling work in the gym, whilst knowing that my natural tendency is still to give up the minute I get bored or tired and that any workout I undertake is generally at about 1/3 of the effort of a PT session. A sentence I never thought I’d be writing two years ago: I missed being turned into a sweaty, exhausted wreck once a week through the medium of exercise. And also, when you’ve had what amounts to an ersatz boyfriend for a year and a half, you kind of miss that too.
So I requested a new trainer (from my favourite receptionist at Regents Park Virgin Active, who knows my name and greets me merrily every time I see her. Again, I say, the receptionist at the gym knows my name. That would never have happened pre-Edinburgh). She suggested Geezerboy Mikey (that’s not how she referred to him, of course). I have now got over the feeling that I’m cheating on Cheerful James (much like when you change hairdressers, you feel guilty for ages afterwards), as I huff and puff my way around the gym, even into the ‘weights room’ where I am surrounded by grunting men with necks as wide as my thighs. I have done boxing, I have done skipping. I have done biking, rowing, running on a treadmill and throwing a variety of weighted balls at Geezerboy. He calls me ‘darling’, ‘love’ and sometimes even ‘sweetie’. We have progressed from a formal handshake at the end of each session to a formal handshake and a kiss on the cheek. I bloody love him.
The other week I attempted a PUNCH class (gym’s capitals, not mine), as it turns out I really like hitting things. I wouldn’t say my technique is in any way good, but I’m certainly enthusiastic about it. I got paired up with a really tall German girl, who’d never done it before. I ended up feeling like David Haye when he had to fight that 7’ 6” Russian bloke, whilst she ended up punching pads that were roughly level with her waist. My shoulders were killing me for three days straight. I can’t imagine she felt any benefit whatsoever.
I really miss all the walking I did in Edinburgh, but have been trying to force myself to leave the house early enough each day to get in at least half an hour’s walk to work. The diet is faring a lot less well, given that the return of my social life has also meant a return to drinking too much wine and an over-reliance on chips as a food group. I knew it was too good to last.
Home – I have moved house three times since December. I am fucking sick to death of moving house. All my stuff is now in storage, apart from six pairs of jeans, a few dresses, a huge number of stripey tops, five pairs of shoes (two of them trainers), a DAB radio and a laptop. Plus a really random assortment of books.
There has been a lot of faffing about with my Streatham flat. My tenants wanted to move out. Then they didn’t. Then they were applying for a visa for Australia and would definitely move out. Then they got turned down, so they wanted to stay put again. It’s been like the hokey fucking cokey all year. Annoyingly, they can ask to be let out of the (18-month) contract early, but I can’t give them notice till the end of the year.
So I decided that I’d take the radical step, after five years of living on my own, of moving back into a house share, as I can’t afford to live alone. My criteria were: Streatham; about £700 a month – the irony that I used to have an enormous 2-bed flat all to myself for that amount of money was not lost on me – and a bathroom of my own. With bills preferably thrown in, and definitely a dishwasher. I hit up Spareroom.com and found a likely place which had a nice tiled hallway, a bay windowed sitting room, a garden, and… six housemates. Six! That’s practically a sports team! (Well, it is if you’re playing five-a-side). I emailed the landlord, and fixed up a visit for that night. A chap showed me round and I said hello to three housemates (there was another chap, and a couple, moving in the week after me). The house was massive, my room was fine (up in the eaves, so apart from the potential for a lot of non-rock headbanging, quite atmospheric, and quiet) and my en-suite shower looked perfectly presentable. Dishwasher? Tick. Cleaner once a week? Tick. All bills, including cleaner, Sky and Wi-fi? Tick. ‘I’ll take it’, I said. Job done, moved in five days later. Moving this time consisting of putting all my remaining possessions into a variety of plastic and canvas bags, throwing them in the back of my friend’s car and then throwing them on the floor of the new room, where 85% of them remain unpacked.
Living with six other people feels kind of like being in an episode of Fresh Meat, crossed with an episode of This Life. My house mates are:
Chris – a very tall and affable Northern Irish man, who is keen on most sports, but especially cycling. Thus, I am now fairly au fait with the Tour de France, and why Chris Hoy is built like a tank, whilst Bradley Wiggins is built like a pencil with all the wood shaved off.
Asha – a petite South African girl who is keen on Holby City and cooking very elaborate meals for her boyfriend.
Kim ‘n’ David – an insanely good looking couple. Kim luckily leaves for work at 6.30am, meaning that I don’t have to feel spectacularly ugly when faced with her in the kitchen of a morning. Which is a relief. David is Canadian and has the best tan I have ever seen. Kim is a fan of Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model, which means that I can forgive her for her beauty, in favour of bonding over shit telly.
Ben – goes to the gym a lot, and is very well turned out (but has an annoying habit of going to the gym without taking his keys, meaning I have to let him back in the house. Take your keys! I am not your mum!) Although, as he only left uni two years ago, I am, indeed, old enough to be his mum. He is the slowest eater I have ever encountered. And it was, of course, Ben who I had to beg for help when my bedroom door locked itself yesterday morning when I went for a shower. Thank God I go to the bathroom in my PJs, not just a towel. He very kindly phoned the landlord for me, who turned up with a spare key half an hour later. It was all mortifying.
David. David is, I think, my current favourite, for his all-out weirdness (he does coding for some IT company, and plays a lot of computer games. Enough said). Conversations we have had so far:
David: Hi. I think there are masses of mosquito larvae in a load of stagnant water in the wheelbarrow in the garden. Do you want to see?
Me [spluttering slightly]: Um, OK.
[After we have gazed at about a million wriggly black things in the wheelbarrow and discussed whether we should use bleach or petrol to get rid of them. PETROL?!]
David: Do you want to kill them?
Me: No! You spotted them! Also, you're a man! That's your job!
[David potters off with the most toxic bleach we can find in the kitchen cupboard]
I return to the house and am about to put my key in the door. The door magically opens. Behind it is David, looking a bit lurksome.
Me: Oh, hi! Er, thanks!
David: Well, I was on my way to bed, and saw you coming up the drive, so I thought I'd open the door for you.
[It was, at this stage, 8.30pm, so I’m not sure if 'going to bed' is a euphemism].
I had nicked a bit of mirror from the utility room that looked as though it'd come off a wardrobe that David had dismantled, as I had no full-length mirror in my room. It'd been there for a few days, so I assumed it was surplus to requirements.
David: What are you going to use that mirror for?
Me: Umm, looking at myself?
David: I'm going on holiday tonight.
Me: Oh! How nice. Where?
David: Ibiza.
Me [goggling at idea of David in Ibiza]: Really? Who with?
David: On my own. I'm going to a yoga retreat.
Me: Wow! What kind of yoga do you do?
David: Well, the bendy, stretchy kind.
This then offered up my favourite exchange in a long while, in the week when David was away between Chris and Ben.
Ben: Have you heard from David?
Chris: No. Which means he's either having fun, or he's dead. I honestly have no idea which.
This morning:
David: Heard you got locked out of your room yesterday. In a towel. Hur-hur-hur
Me: Um, yes. Luckily the landlord came round quite quickly, otherwise I’d have had to spend all day in the house, like an invalid, in my pajamas.
David: You could have kicked the door down!
Me: That’s a rather expensive way of solving the problem. And I think I’d have broken an ankle.
It's kind of like being back at uni, but with a TV that's three times the size, and better quality booze. Well, also I have my own bathroom and am listening to Xfm and Radio 2 instead of Radio 1, but otherwise little has changed. I might start writing essays on a Sunday night for the full effect.
Viz:
Employment – I’m now officially referring to myself as a freelancer again, as, praise be! I’ve managed to get a couple of contracts under my belt, after a very shaky start. Having not been unemployed for a very long time, I can confirm that being without a job, in a recession, is a dispiriting business. I found myself wandering the supermarket aisles, looking for produce with yellow ‘reduced price’ stickers on them and scrutinising the price of everything in order to shave off a few pennies here and there. It’s like being a pensioner, but with a smaller cardigan collection and fewer pairs of sensible shoes. Despite this, the minute I had an office to go to every day and a monthly wage packet, I was once again frittering cash on fancy Finest pasta, spending crazy amounts of money getting my hair dyed at the hairdresser instead of doing it myself and drinking horribly overpriced cocktails with my friends. How is it that you can charge up to £12 a go for just mixing together a couple of spirits and some fruit juice and sticking on a bit of ‘garnish’? People will look back in years to come and say, ‘No wonder entire economies fell apart, when they merrily spent a tenner a go on a perfectly ordinary drink’.
Cocktails are the new designer handbags: we buy them because everyone else is. I think, after years of finding them glamorous, I might finally be finding them unconscionably profligate. It may be time to just congregate round the telly at different friends’ houses each week with a bottle of Merlot and a DVD.
I’m hoping the contract work keeps appearing, as I’m enjoying doing a Littlest Hobo routine round different publishers, dipping in and out of things and catching up with lots of friends in the process.
Fitness – once I had the luxury of an ongoing cashflow, I decided to get myself a new Personal Trainer. I kidded myself that I was doing sterling work in the gym, whilst knowing that my natural tendency is still to give up the minute I get bored or tired and that any workout I undertake is generally at about 1/3 of the effort of a PT session. A sentence I never thought I’d be writing two years ago: I missed being turned into a sweaty, exhausted wreck once a week through the medium of exercise. And also, when you’ve had what amounts to an ersatz boyfriend for a year and a half, you kind of miss that too.
So I requested a new trainer (from my favourite receptionist at Regents Park Virgin Active, who knows my name and greets me merrily every time I see her. Again, I say, the receptionist at the gym knows my name. That would never have happened pre-Edinburgh). She suggested Geezerboy Mikey (that’s not how she referred to him, of course). I have now got over the feeling that I’m cheating on Cheerful James (much like when you change hairdressers, you feel guilty for ages afterwards), as I huff and puff my way around the gym, even into the ‘weights room’ where I am surrounded by grunting men with necks as wide as my thighs. I have done boxing, I have done skipping. I have done biking, rowing, running on a treadmill and throwing a variety of weighted balls at Geezerboy. He calls me ‘darling’, ‘love’ and sometimes even ‘sweetie’. We have progressed from a formal handshake at the end of each session to a formal handshake and a kiss on the cheek. I bloody love him.
The other week I attempted a PUNCH class (gym’s capitals, not mine), as it turns out I really like hitting things. I wouldn’t say my technique is in any way good, but I’m certainly enthusiastic about it. I got paired up with a really tall German girl, who’d never done it before. I ended up feeling like David Haye when he had to fight that 7’ 6” Russian bloke, whilst she ended up punching pads that were roughly level with her waist. My shoulders were killing me for three days straight. I can’t imagine she felt any benefit whatsoever.
I really miss all the walking I did in Edinburgh, but have been trying to force myself to leave the house early enough each day to get in at least half an hour’s walk to work. The diet is faring a lot less well, given that the return of my social life has also meant a return to drinking too much wine and an over-reliance on chips as a food group. I knew it was too good to last.
Home – I have moved house three times since December. I am fucking sick to death of moving house. All my stuff is now in storage, apart from six pairs of jeans, a few dresses, a huge number of stripey tops, five pairs of shoes (two of them trainers), a DAB radio and a laptop. Plus a really random assortment of books.
There has been a lot of faffing about with my Streatham flat. My tenants wanted to move out. Then they didn’t. Then they were applying for a visa for Australia and would definitely move out. Then they got turned down, so they wanted to stay put again. It’s been like the hokey fucking cokey all year. Annoyingly, they can ask to be let out of the (18-month) contract early, but I can’t give them notice till the end of the year.
So I decided that I’d take the radical step, after five years of living on my own, of moving back into a house share, as I can’t afford to live alone. My criteria were: Streatham; about £700 a month – the irony that I used to have an enormous 2-bed flat all to myself for that amount of money was not lost on me – and a bathroom of my own. With bills preferably thrown in, and definitely a dishwasher. I hit up Spareroom.com and found a likely place which had a nice tiled hallway, a bay windowed sitting room, a garden, and… six housemates. Six! That’s practically a sports team! (Well, it is if you’re playing five-a-side). I emailed the landlord, and fixed up a visit for that night. A chap showed me round and I said hello to three housemates (there was another chap, and a couple, moving in the week after me). The house was massive, my room was fine (up in the eaves, so apart from the potential for a lot of non-rock headbanging, quite atmospheric, and quiet) and my en-suite shower looked perfectly presentable. Dishwasher? Tick. Cleaner once a week? Tick. All bills, including cleaner, Sky and Wi-fi? Tick. ‘I’ll take it’, I said. Job done, moved in five days later. Moving this time consisting of putting all my remaining possessions into a variety of plastic and canvas bags, throwing them in the back of my friend’s car and then throwing them on the floor of the new room, where 85% of them remain unpacked.
Living with six other people feels kind of like being in an episode of Fresh Meat, crossed with an episode of This Life. My house mates are:
Chris – a very tall and affable Northern Irish man, who is keen on most sports, but especially cycling. Thus, I am now fairly au fait with the Tour de France, and why Chris Hoy is built like a tank, whilst Bradley Wiggins is built like a pencil with all the wood shaved off.
Asha – a petite South African girl who is keen on Holby City and cooking very elaborate meals for her boyfriend.
Kim ‘n’ David – an insanely good looking couple. Kim luckily leaves for work at 6.30am, meaning that I don’t have to feel spectacularly ugly when faced with her in the kitchen of a morning. Which is a relief. David is Canadian and has the best tan I have ever seen. Kim is a fan of Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model, which means that I can forgive her for her beauty, in favour of bonding over shit telly.
Ben – goes to the gym a lot, and is very well turned out (but has an annoying habit of going to the gym without taking his keys, meaning I have to let him back in the house. Take your keys! I am not your mum!) Although, as he only left uni two years ago, I am, indeed, old enough to be his mum. He is the slowest eater I have ever encountered. And it was, of course, Ben who I had to beg for help when my bedroom door locked itself yesterday morning when I went for a shower. Thank God I go to the bathroom in my PJs, not just a towel. He very kindly phoned the landlord for me, who turned up with a spare key half an hour later. It was all mortifying.
David. David is, I think, my current favourite, for his all-out weirdness (he does coding for some IT company, and plays a lot of computer games. Enough said). Conversations we have had so far:
David: Hi. I think there are masses of mosquito larvae in a load of stagnant water in the wheelbarrow in the garden. Do you want to see?
Me [spluttering slightly]: Um, OK.
[After we have gazed at about a million wriggly black things in the wheelbarrow and discussed whether we should use bleach or petrol to get rid of them. PETROL?!]
David: Do you want to kill them?
Me: No! You spotted them! Also, you're a man! That's your job!
[David potters off with the most toxic bleach we can find in the kitchen cupboard]
I return to the house and am about to put my key in the door. The door magically opens. Behind it is David, looking a bit lurksome.
Me: Oh, hi! Er, thanks!
David: Well, I was on my way to bed, and saw you coming up the drive, so I thought I'd open the door for you.
[It was, at this stage, 8.30pm, so I’m not sure if 'going to bed' is a euphemism].
I had nicked a bit of mirror from the utility room that looked as though it'd come off a wardrobe that David had dismantled, as I had no full-length mirror in my room. It'd been there for a few days, so I assumed it was surplus to requirements.
David: What are you going to use that mirror for?
Me: Umm, looking at myself?
David: I'm going on holiday tonight.
Me: Oh! How nice. Where?
David: Ibiza.
Me [goggling at idea of David in Ibiza]: Really? Who with?
David: On my own. I'm going to a yoga retreat.
Me: Wow! What kind of yoga do you do?
David: Well, the bendy, stretchy kind.
This then offered up my favourite exchange in a long while, in the week when David was away between Chris and Ben.
Ben: Have you heard from David?
Chris: No. Which means he's either having fun, or he's dead. I honestly have no idea which.
This morning:
David: Heard you got locked out of your room yesterday. In a towel. Hur-hur-hur
Me: Um, yes. Luckily the landlord came round quite quickly, otherwise I’d have had to spend all day in the house, like an invalid, in my pajamas.
David: You could have kicked the door down!
Me: That’s a rather expensive way of solving the problem. And I think I’d have broken an ankle.
It's kind of like being back at uni, but with a TV that's three times the size, and better quality booze. Well, also I have my own bathroom and am listening to Xfm and Radio 2 instead of Radio 1, but otherwise little has changed. I might start writing essays on a Sunday night for the full effect.
Medalling with the Olympics
So, how are we all feeling about what I insist on calling (in homage to Siobhan Sharpe from the sublime Twenty Twelve), the Jubilympics? Since we unexpectedly won the bid seven years ago, I spent six years railing at the mad expense of it all, and furious that, if there is actually all this cash swilling around the country, it couldn’t be used to fix the whole of Britain (and then buy some Greek islands, so we could all go on a free holiday). Instead of hosting a really glorified sports day, which apparently only eighteen people and William and Kate are permitted to attend.
Then, during the last year, I resigned myself to the pointless expense, the terrible mascots, the awful font they’ve used for everything, the garish colours and the inevitable disappointment when we don’t win all the things we’ve been assured we’re dead good at, and thought, ‘OK, fine; I shall tolerate this sports day, and just moan a lot about how difficult it is to get around London’. Then, of course, faced with a year-long barrage of articles about sports people, who are, let’s face it, in general tremendously easy on the eye, my Wall of Sporting Disinterest was dismantled, brick by brick.
And then it happened: the broom came to sweep away any lasting cynicism. The opening ceremony. ‘What will it be like?’ we all wondered, impressed by everyone’s adherence to ‘save the surprise’ and not instantly take to Twitter the minute the dress rehearsal had finished. We’d been told there’d be a load of farm animals, and some stuff about the Industrial Revolution. It sounded… weird. Weren’t people supposed to dance about and wave some flags in formation, or something? And then just blow all the remaining cash on fireworks?
Instead, what we got was a global advert for British eccentricity. A show that started off in Hobbiton, then morphed into an industrialized SF epic creating The Rings, followed up with hallucinogenic dancing nurses, the whole of Top of the Pops from 1965-1999, mashed up with an episode of Hollyoaks, culminating in The Hunger Games. I totally expected all the Young Torch Bearers at the end to come on in chariots, with flaming capes, then try to kill each other. Or kill Seb Coe for the world’s dullest speech. You’ve had SEVEN YEARS to write a speech! Danny Boyle’s just thrown in bits of Kes, winged cyclists, a giant baby and the Arctic Monkeys! Come up with something more entertaining! They should’ve got Boris to do it. And it’s not often I think that. People around the world who’ve never been to Britain must think we’re all certifiable. But what bonkers fun. And credit to everyone involved for just going along with it – not least the Queen, who finally proved once and for all that she’s got a brilliant sense of humour.
I watched it at my friend Claire’s, who’d done us a British menu of shepherd’s pie, jelly and ice-cream and patriotic red, white and blue M&Ms. I was totally sold on the Glorified Sports Day from that moment on.
I’ve always been a huge fan of acquiring random snippets of knowledge about sport, and the Jubilympics is absolutely ideal for this. No idea who anyone in swimming is, other than Michael Phelps and Rebecca Adlington? Spend an hour glued to Mark Foster and Clare Balding on the Beeb, and you’ll find yourself name-dropping all of the British men’s team and their World Record-beating efforts; debating whether or not a fifteen year old Chinese girl can swim 50 metres faster than an American man under her own steam and cheering on one of our chaps (Liam Tancock) for studying ballet in order to improve his backstroke.
And of course, following on from the Tour de France, which I chose an auspicious year to take an interest in, I now know at least five cyclists, when previously I only knew Chris Hoy and Mark Cavendish (the latter of whom I have actually met, when he came in for a book pitch meeting. Very nice chap, as I recall, albeit a bit bemused by the idea of doing a book, I think). But now, there is swishy-haired, intriguingly neurotic Victoria Pendleton. There is Chris Froome. And of course there is the all-round cycling colossus that is BRADLEY WIGGINS. He is a ginger twig. He has amazing sideburns. He is hilarious. (Standing in front of a wildly cheering crowd, having made history by winning the Tour de France, he blithely announced, ‘Right, now we’re going to draw the raffle’). Best of all, he seems bemused by a nation’s sudden adoration and our desire to give him a knighthood. And probably a gold bicycle, and an array of unlikely advertising deals and a spread in OK! And a massive hug. And loads of pies (if ever there were a man who looked as if he needed feeding up, it’s Bradley Wiggins). Gold pies! Yes.
I can only imagine how excited I’m going to get when there’s a bit of athletics action and I can suddenly know about discus throwers and pole vaulters. Do we have any good javelin throwers nowadays? Why was it that we used to be really good at the javelin? Perplexing.
The only downer is that, as many people have pointed out, despite the fact that we've paid for it all with our tax dollars, none of this is ours. I’ve referred to it as the Jubilympics not merely because I like it as a word, but also because LOCOG get in a massive huff if you use the word ‘Olympics’, and team it with, well, nearly anything that could be vaguely sporty, or medally, or summery, or even 2012-y (apparently Twenty Twelve the TV series had to be called that because LOCOG wouldn’t allow them to call it ‘2012’), if you’re not an official sponsor.
A few weeks ago, I was doing copy for a book with a Jubilympic theme. This is, honest to God, the email that I got telling me what I could and couldn’t put on my ad:
The Olympics are coming around fast and LOCOG are monitoring all advertising and digital comms to see if anyone is using any of the following combination of words.
Not at all
Olympics
Paralympics
Category 1
Games
2012
Twenty twelve
Two Thousand and Twelve
Category 2
gold
silver
bronze
London
Medals
Sponsor
Summer
If the unauthorised party has (a) used two words from category 1 (e.g. ‘Games 2012’) or (b) used one word from category 1 and category 2, a Court is likely to find it has infringed LOCOG’s rights. This means that some surprising combinations are banned – e.g. ‘Summer 2012’. It has not been tested but you may be in trouble if you imply any association with the Olympics to promote your service/product eg. ‘David hopes to run in 2012’.
The same rules apply to any business which is not an official sponsor of the Olympics or have not already sought permission from LOCOG to use such terms.
Apparently, LOCOG own ACTUAL SUMMER. So if I announce any sporting intentions in a public place for the next few weeks, I shall be restricted to non-Olympic endeavours only, such as darts. Or croquet.
It’s no wonder our medals tally isn’t what it should be and apparently we're the least active nation in Europe when it's this hard to even talk about sport.
Right! Time for some judo. Apparently Gemma Gibbons has won a semi-final with a 'golden score'. No, me neither.
Then, during the last year, I resigned myself to the pointless expense, the terrible mascots, the awful font they’ve used for everything, the garish colours and the inevitable disappointment when we don’t win all the things we’ve been assured we’re dead good at, and thought, ‘OK, fine; I shall tolerate this sports day, and just moan a lot about how difficult it is to get around London’. Then, of course, faced with a year-long barrage of articles about sports people, who are, let’s face it, in general tremendously easy on the eye, my Wall of Sporting Disinterest was dismantled, brick by brick.
And then it happened: the broom came to sweep away any lasting cynicism. The opening ceremony. ‘What will it be like?’ we all wondered, impressed by everyone’s adherence to ‘save the surprise’ and not instantly take to Twitter the minute the dress rehearsal had finished. We’d been told there’d be a load of farm animals, and some stuff about the Industrial Revolution. It sounded… weird. Weren’t people supposed to dance about and wave some flags in formation, or something? And then just blow all the remaining cash on fireworks?
Instead, what we got was a global advert for British eccentricity. A show that started off in Hobbiton, then morphed into an industrialized SF epic creating The Rings, followed up with hallucinogenic dancing nurses, the whole of Top of the Pops from 1965-1999, mashed up with an episode of Hollyoaks, culminating in The Hunger Games. I totally expected all the Young Torch Bearers at the end to come on in chariots, with flaming capes, then try to kill each other. Or kill Seb Coe for the world’s dullest speech. You’ve had SEVEN YEARS to write a speech! Danny Boyle’s just thrown in bits of Kes, winged cyclists, a giant baby and the Arctic Monkeys! Come up with something more entertaining! They should’ve got Boris to do it. And it’s not often I think that. People around the world who’ve never been to Britain must think we’re all certifiable. But what bonkers fun. And credit to everyone involved for just going along with it – not least the Queen, who finally proved once and for all that she’s got a brilliant sense of humour.
I watched it at my friend Claire’s, who’d done us a British menu of shepherd’s pie, jelly and ice-cream and patriotic red, white and blue M&Ms. I was totally sold on the Glorified Sports Day from that moment on.
I’ve always been a huge fan of acquiring random snippets of knowledge about sport, and the Jubilympics is absolutely ideal for this. No idea who anyone in swimming is, other than Michael Phelps and Rebecca Adlington? Spend an hour glued to Mark Foster and Clare Balding on the Beeb, and you’ll find yourself name-dropping all of the British men’s team and their World Record-beating efforts; debating whether or not a fifteen year old Chinese girl can swim 50 metres faster than an American man under her own steam and cheering on one of our chaps (Liam Tancock) for studying ballet in order to improve his backstroke.
And of course, following on from the Tour de France, which I chose an auspicious year to take an interest in, I now know at least five cyclists, when previously I only knew Chris Hoy and Mark Cavendish (the latter of whom I have actually met, when he came in for a book pitch meeting. Very nice chap, as I recall, albeit a bit bemused by the idea of doing a book, I think). But now, there is swishy-haired, intriguingly neurotic Victoria Pendleton. There is Chris Froome. And of course there is the all-round cycling colossus that is BRADLEY WIGGINS. He is a ginger twig. He has amazing sideburns. He is hilarious. (Standing in front of a wildly cheering crowd, having made history by winning the Tour de France, he blithely announced, ‘Right, now we’re going to draw the raffle’). Best of all, he seems bemused by a nation’s sudden adoration and our desire to give him a knighthood. And probably a gold bicycle, and an array of unlikely advertising deals and a spread in OK! And a massive hug. And loads of pies (if ever there were a man who looked as if he needed feeding up, it’s Bradley Wiggins). Gold pies! Yes.
I can only imagine how excited I’m going to get when there’s a bit of athletics action and I can suddenly know about discus throwers and pole vaulters. Do we have any good javelin throwers nowadays? Why was it that we used to be really good at the javelin? Perplexing.
The only downer is that, as many people have pointed out, despite the fact that we've paid for it all with our tax dollars, none of this is ours. I’ve referred to it as the Jubilympics not merely because I like it as a word, but also because LOCOG get in a massive huff if you use the word ‘Olympics’, and team it with, well, nearly anything that could be vaguely sporty, or medally, or summery, or even 2012-y (apparently Twenty Twelve the TV series had to be called that because LOCOG wouldn’t allow them to call it ‘2012’), if you’re not an official sponsor.
A few weeks ago, I was doing copy for a book with a Jubilympic theme. This is, honest to God, the email that I got telling me what I could and couldn’t put on my ad:
The Olympics are coming around fast and LOCOG are monitoring all advertising and digital comms to see if anyone is using any of the following combination of words.
Not at all
Olympics
Paralympics
Category 1
Games
2012
Twenty twelve
Two Thousand and Twelve
Category 2
gold
silver
bronze
London
Medals
Sponsor
Summer
If the unauthorised party has (a) used two words from category 1 (e.g. ‘Games 2012’) or (b) used one word from category 1 and category 2, a Court is likely to find it has infringed LOCOG’s rights. This means that some surprising combinations are banned – e.g. ‘Summer 2012’. It has not been tested but you may be in trouble if you imply any association with the Olympics to promote your service/product eg. ‘David hopes to run in 2012’.
The same rules apply to any business which is not an official sponsor of the Olympics or have not already sought permission from LOCOG to use such terms.
Apparently, LOCOG own ACTUAL SUMMER. So if I announce any sporting intentions in a public place for the next few weeks, I shall be restricted to non-Olympic endeavours only, such as darts. Or croquet.
It’s no wonder our medals tally isn’t what it should be and apparently we're the least active nation in Europe when it's this hard to even talk about sport.
Right! Time for some judo. Apparently Gemma Gibbons has won a semi-final with a 'golden score'. No, me neither.
Friday, 29 June 2012
Not Tom Hardy, Not Russell Crowe
It’s ‘summer’ (as in, it’s June, I’ve only just turned off the heating and we’re alternating between blinding sunshine and uncomfortable heat [yesterday] and floods [today]). As a side note, next year, can we just segue straight from spring to autumn? They’re both nice seasons, which I like and feel comfortable dressing for. I still haven’t bought any summer clothes, as I’m working on the assumption that I won’t need any, as the only holiday I’m going on is to Edinburgh. Where, as we’ve established, there are many weather conditions, few of which involve sun or extremes of heat. I’m also assuming that as Britain is staging a monster sporting event, for which we’ve been preparing for years, it will piss it down with rain for most of July and August. Ergo, I can stick with my customary jeans-and-Uniqlo-top combo and avoid the sales and buying anything new to wear till autumn. ‘Dressing for summer’ will merely involve either carrying an umbrella or leaving it hopefully at home.
I digress. It being ‘summer’, the film studios assume that our brains have gone melty in the heat, and we can only cope with effects-heavy blockbusters. Which is fine, but why do they all have to be such a monumental waste of time, money and effort?
First up, I bought into the hype (the PR and marketing team deserve a massive award for creating so much expectation and desire for something so dull) and went to see Prometheus. I wanted to go and see it at the Imax, as I’ve never seen anything there, but it was sold out, so Tottenham Court Road Odeon it was, with 3D specs which they now charge you extra for! As well as charging you extra because it’s in 3D in the first place! And then they offend you further by showing that bloody advert about how cinemas might die if we all download films, or watch DVDs or something and just turn into huge sheds with seats and cobwebs in. Stop doing this when I am a/ IN A CINEMA, THEREFORE SUPPORTING CINEMA and b/ you have just fleeced me massively for doing so. It does rather make me want to watch a DVD with popcorn I’ve made myself and no-one either kicking the back of my seat, talking through the film, or constantly checking their texts and emails on their phone, lighting up a surrounding area of at least four foot as they do it, all of which is immensely annoying. Make adverts about that instead, please, it would really increase my enjoyment of spending too much money in your ‘multiplex’.
Anyway, back to Prometheus. I have the dubious pleasure of having seen all four Alien films (yes! Even the one with Winona Ryder in it). I think I’ve even seen Alien Vs Predator on TV (which, for the record, was schlocky fun). Prometheus is an event because it’s the first time director Ridley Scott has ‘returned to the Alien universe’. Even though he’s spent the last six months protesting that, really, this film has bugger-all to do with Alien. I’ve no idea why he bothered with that, given that IT IS AN EXACT REMAKE OF ALIEN. Albeit with nicer effects and scenery, but made by a man over 70 who has clearly forgotten how to make a film that makes any sense in terms of plot or characters.
So, when you decide to make an homage to Alien, here are the things you need to include:
Big spaceships!
Robots being creepy and having their heads torn off!
Sticky substances that will probably corrode your clothes!
Unpleasant things either going into, or out of people!
Shadowy people doing things for nefarious means!
A tough woman running around in her underwear for quite a lot of the film!
A crew who, whilst they only number 17, you only get to know 5 of and there are a suspicious number of deaths! (Are some of them dying more than once?)
Shit apparently being blown to smithereens, without actually killing the one guy you want/need dead!
For Prometheus, you will also need to rip off the costume department of much-derided hot sci-fi mess The Fifth Element, and have supposedly feisty heroine Noomi Rapace running around in what is effectively a bandage boob tube and a pair of bandage pants, for about 20 minutes. Having just given herself a pretty hardcore abortion/caesarean. Because having your heroine run around in a skimpy vest and some pants was, like, sooo 1979 and repressive. We couldn’t even see her abs! Practically Victorian. No, in the future, female archeologists will feel so body confident that they’ll want to take off nearly all their clothes and dash about, covered in blood and trying not to faint with the horror of it all for ages, rather than, you know, making their first post-operative priority finding an intergalactic dressing gown or something.
You will also want to include a diverse mob of crew members who have apparently never met each other before they’ve been shoved on a massive space tank and put into cryostasis for two years, (other than nearly-naked Naomi and her boyfriend, who was obviously supposed to be played by Tom Hardy. But he either had ‘scheduling issues’ or read the script beforehand, and so didn’t do it. So they’ve hired a man who looks exactly like Tom Hardy. But isn’t him. Shame, as I always fancy Tom Hardy). The crew also haven’t thought to ask what mission they’re being recruited for. Or even where they’re going. Was it like a press-gang thing, and Charlize Theron just came up behind each of them, banged them on the head and then stuck them in a pod, after taking all their clothes other than their pants? If you can be put into cryostasis for two years, why do you have to just be in your underwear? Why can’t you wear something proper? Another of Ridley’s unanswered mysteries.
The crew includes a geologist who is admirably straightforward about why he is there (‘I just fucking love rocks’), which also, of course, means that he is doomed, despite his ginger Mohican and intriguing tattoos. One assumes, despite his appearance, that he’s one of the clever ones, as when they go explorin’, he has some laser gizmos for mapping the large construction that they’ve wandered into. However, despite the fact he controls the mapping gizmos, he manages to get lost trying to get back to the Mothership from the large construction. Call the gizmos back and make them show you the way out! Or, the large construction being revealed to be, essentially, a giant interstellar croissant, would you not just go back the way you came?
But we need him to get lost in a Scooby Doo way, because then he can be killed off along with the film’s most annoying character, the biologist, played as a Shaggy-style stoner dimwit, by Rafe Spall. I have no idea why they cast Rafe Spall, and then made him do a very unconvincing American accent. There are tons of American actors, employ one of them instead. Whilst Noomi is supposed to be English. Just make her character Scandinavian, it’s fine. No-one cares. If you’ve spent a trillion dollars, even on a seemingly really vague mission, I fail to see why you’d employ the universe’s thickest biologist. Rafe bimbles about doing nothing much, until faced with, them being on a planet two full years away in a spacecraft from where he lives, a lifeform that’s, well, alien. Ergo, he knows nothing about how it’s likely to behave. I’d be standing well back, or at least have my helmet fully up for protection. Not Rafe, though. No, he decides that the alien – which looks, if you’re being kind, like an albino cobra with the underside of a stingray grafted onto it; or, if you’re a feminist film critic pointing out Ridley Scott’s apparent issues with women, like a vicious fanny on a stick – is very beautiful. And goes towards it cooing as though he’s just found a big basket of kittens.
Naturally, the fanny on a stick attacks Rafe for being an idiot and he falls victim to the first ‘unpleasant thing going into or out of someone’ episode.
It was a bit unclear to me whether it was him or the ginger geologist who then randomly got reanimated as an Alien zombie (which no-one in the film really comments on, despite the ensuing spat having taken out about 7 of the crew’s members. It’s fine, we hadn’t been introduced to them, so we needn’t worry that they’re dead). We also don’t need to worry about who/what killed off Not Tom Hardy (probably because he’s not Tom Hardy); why they’ve travelled two years in a spacecraft, yet choose to park it about a mile away from their chosen spot, thus meaning they have to commute back and forth in some not very high tech-looking space golf buggies, getting caught up in sand storms, etc. But not seeing Zombie Rafe Spall approaching from a mile away, thus giving them time to shut the door and stop him taking out half the crew. And why, when faced with a huge, crashing spacecraft falling vertically on top of you, you don’t, if you’re Charlize Theron, run away to the side instead of straight ahead. Or why, when you’ve driven your really-tiny-in-comparison-with-the-Engineers’-ship ship into the side of the latter at great speed, there is still loads of it left afterwards, and it’s all working perfectly well, thanks.
You’ll also need to reference your original 70s classic by including a sequence that makes viewers of a certain age think not, ‘ooh, that’s a lovely effect’ but, ‘ooh, someone watched a lot of Jean Michel Jarre spectacles back in the day, didn’t they?’
Oh, it was all exhausting. And lacking in suspense, or shocks, or intrigue. What will happen when they wake up the Engineer? Well, he’s been asleep for over 2,000 years, or something (I’d given up caring about the timeframe ages ago; it could have been two billion), so of course instead of waking up and going, ‘ooh, some lovely chums to chat to! At last! Let me tell you the secrets of the universe!’, being eleven foot tall, built like a marble tower block and feeling like a bear that’s been dragged out of hibernation, he’s really bloody grumpy and snaps everyone’s heads off. So, by the end of it, they hadn’t answered any of the questions they’d set up and were clearly angling for a bloody sequel. However, Michael Fassbender does ‘creepy robot’ brilliantly and is still acting everyone off the screen even when he’s reduced to being just a head in a bag.
In other news, I went to see Avengers: AGM, or whatever it was called. Again, boredom on a stick, just with loads more explosions, and I’ve now decided I fancy Tom Hiddleston a bit. And that it’s the law that everyone, regardless of gender, has to fancy Scarlett Johansson. The film also stars Chris Hemsworth, who, as Thor, is equipped with a massive hammer.
Hemsworth seems to be building a career around raiding the tool shed. He lost out on wielding some tools in The Hunger Games to brother Liam (perhaps bows and arrows aren’t strictly ‘tools’), but within the month, there he was in Snow White and the Huntsman, clutching an axe. Also doing battle with: a drink problem; depression because he was a widower; a Scottish accent; trying to make people care about Kristen Stewart; the fact most of the film was ripped off from Lord of the Rings; a load of famous dwarves in an unconvincing Technicolor fairyland complete with CGI badgers and foxes (just film some real ones!) and a big stag that spent all of its screentime projecting, ‘I AM NOT ASLAN. NO, I AM AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT GOD-LIKE ANIMAL BEING. ALSO, I AM NOT THAT STAG IN HARRY POTTER.’
Anyway, it is diverting, if, like me, you enjoy watching a woman deranged by her own beauty and power turning into a flock of crows, and being a bit like a fantasy version of Loose Women (ie constantly bitching and raging about other women being younger, prettier and nicer than you).
It does make me worry about what Chris Hemsworth’s next film will be, given that it will have to include a/ an accent that is not his own (heavy Australian) and b/ tools.
Chris Hemsworth’s Agent: Hi Chris!
Chris Hemsworth, Wielder of Tools and Accents: G’day, mate!
CHA: Er, g’day! Yes. Hi! Anyhoo, I’ve got a lovely new job offer for you! It’s got all your favourite things in it! It’s got an unwieldy title, you’ll be doing an accent, AND it’s got tools! It’s soooo you!
CHWoTaA: Ripper! What is it, cobber?
CHA [brightly]: It’s Avengers Self Assemble: The Ikea Story! You’ll be playing a character called Bjorn! There’ll probably be a sequel, which will involve the pun ‘Bjorn Again’!
CHWoTaA [raising Aussie eyebrow quizzically]: Sounds good, but what are the tools, mate?
CHA [quietly]: A really big set of Allen keys.
CHWoTaA [with a heavy sigh]: Where do I sign?
I digress. It being ‘summer’, the film studios assume that our brains have gone melty in the heat, and we can only cope with effects-heavy blockbusters. Which is fine, but why do they all have to be such a monumental waste of time, money and effort?
First up, I bought into the hype (the PR and marketing team deserve a massive award for creating so much expectation and desire for something so dull) and went to see Prometheus. I wanted to go and see it at the Imax, as I’ve never seen anything there, but it was sold out, so Tottenham Court Road Odeon it was, with 3D specs which they now charge you extra for! As well as charging you extra because it’s in 3D in the first place! And then they offend you further by showing that bloody advert about how cinemas might die if we all download films, or watch DVDs or something and just turn into huge sheds with seats and cobwebs in. Stop doing this when I am a/ IN A CINEMA, THEREFORE SUPPORTING CINEMA and b/ you have just fleeced me massively for doing so. It does rather make me want to watch a DVD with popcorn I’ve made myself and no-one either kicking the back of my seat, talking through the film, or constantly checking their texts and emails on their phone, lighting up a surrounding area of at least four foot as they do it, all of which is immensely annoying. Make adverts about that instead, please, it would really increase my enjoyment of spending too much money in your ‘multiplex’.
Anyway, back to Prometheus. I have the dubious pleasure of having seen all four Alien films (yes! Even the one with Winona Ryder in it). I think I’ve even seen Alien Vs Predator on TV (which, for the record, was schlocky fun). Prometheus is an event because it’s the first time director Ridley Scott has ‘returned to the Alien universe’. Even though he’s spent the last six months protesting that, really, this film has bugger-all to do with Alien. I’ve no idea why he bothered with that, given that IT IS AN EXACT REMAKE OF ALIEN. Albeit with nicer effects and scenery, but made by a man over 70 who has clearly forgotten how to make a film that makes any sense in terms of plot or characters.
So, when you decide to make an homage to Alien, here are the things you need to include:
Big spaceships!
Robots being creepy and having their heads torn off!
Sticky substances that will probably corrode your clothes!
Unpleasant things either going into, or out of people!
Shadowy people doing things for nefarious means!
A tough woman running around in her underwear for quite a lot of the film!
A crew who, whilst they only number 17, you only get to know 5 of and there are a suspicious number of deaths! (Are some of them dying more than once?)
Shit apparently being blown to smithereens, without actually killing the one guy you want/need dead!
For Prometheus, you will also need to rip off the costume department of much-derided hot sci-fi mess The Fifth Element, and have supposedly feisty heroine Noomi Rapace running around in what is effectively a bandage boob tube and a pair of bandage pants, for about 20 minutes. Having just given herself a pretty hardcore abortion/caesarean. Because having your heroine run around in a skimpy vest and some pants was, like, sooo 1979 and repressive. We couldn’t even see her abs! Practically Victorian. No, in the future, female archeologists will feel so body confident that they’ll want to take off nearly all their clothes and dash about, covered in blood and trying not to faint with the horror of it all for ages, rather than, you know, making their first post-operative priority finding an intergalactic dressing gown or something.
You will also want to include a diverse mob of crew members who have apparently never met each other before they’ve been shoved on a massive space tank and put into cryostasis for two years, (other than nearly-naked Naomi and her boyfriend, who was obviously supposed to be played by Tom Hardy. But he either had ‘scheduling issues’ or read the script beforehand, and so didn’t do it. So they’ve hired a man who looks exactly like Tom Hardy. But isn’t him. Shame, as I always fancy Tom Hardy). The crew also haven’t thought to ask what mission they’re being recruited for. Or even where they’re going. Was it like a press-gang thing, and Charlize Theron just came up behind each of them, banged them on the head and then stuck them in a pod, after taking all their clothes other than their pants? If you can be put into cryostasis for two years, why do you have to just be in your underwear? Why can’t you wear something proper? Another of Ridley’s unanswered mysteries.
The crew includes a geologist who is admirably straightforward about why he is there (‘I just fucking love rocks’), which also, of course, means that he is doomed, despite his ginger Mohican and intriguing tattoos. One assumes, despite his appearance, that he’s one of the clever ones, as when they go explorin’, he has some laser gizmos for mapping the large construction that they’ve wandered into. However, despite the fact he controls the mapping gizmos, he manages to get lost trying to get back to the Mothership from the large construction. Call the gizmos back and make them show you the way out! Or, the large construction being revealed to be, essentially, a giant interstellar croissant, would you not just go back the way you came?
But we need him to get lost in a Scooby Doo way, because then he can be killed off along with the film’s most annoying character, the biologist, played as a Shaggy-style stoner dimwit, by Rafe Spall. I have no idea why they cast Rafe Spall, and then made him do a very unconvincing American accent. There are tons of American actors, employ one of them instead. Whilst Noomi is supposed to be English. Just make her character Scandinavian, it’s fine. No-one cares. If you’ve spent a trillion dollars, even on a seemingly really vague mission, I fail to see why you’d employ the universe’s thickest biologist. Rafe bimbles about doing nothing much, until faced with, them being on a planet two full years away in a spacecraft from where he lives, a lifeform that’s, well, alien. Ergo, he knows nothing about how it’s likely to behave. I’d be standing well back, or at least have my helmet fully up for protection. Not Rafe, though. No, he decides that the alien – which looks, if you’re being kind, like an albino cobra with the underside of a stingray grafted onto it; or, if you’re a feminist film critic pointing out Ridley Scott’s apparent issues with women, like a vicious fanny on a stick – is very beautiful. And goes towards it cooing as though he’s just found a big basket of kittens.
Naturally, the fanny on a stick attacks Rafe for being an idiot and he falls victim to the first ‘unpleasant thing going into or out of someone’ episode.
It was a bit unclear to me whether it was him or the ginger geologist who then randomly got reanimated as an Alien zombie (which no-one in the film really comments on, despite the ensuing spat having taken out about 7 of the crew’s members. It’s fine, we hadn’t been introduced to them, so we needn’t worry that they’re dead). We also don’t need to worry about who/what killed off Not Tom Hardy (probably because he’s not Tom Hardy); why they’ve travelled two years in a spacecraft, yet choose to park it about a mile away from their chosen spot, thus meaning they have to commute back and forth in some not very high tech-looking space golf buggies, getting caught up in sand storms, etc. But not seeing Zombie Rafe Spall approaching from a mile away, thus giving them time to shut the door and stop him taking out half the crew. And why, when faced with a huge, crashing spacecraft falling vertically on top of you, you don’t, if you’re Charlize Theron, run away to the side instead of straight ahead. Or why, when you’ve driven your really-tiny-in-comparison-with-the-Engineers’-ship ship into the side of the latter at great speed, there is still loads of it left afterwards, and it’s all working perfectly well, thanks.
You’ll also need to reference your original 70s classic by including a sequence that makes viewers of a certain age think not, ‘ooh, that’s a lovely effect’ but, ‘ooh, someone watched a lot of Jean Michel Jarre spectacles back in the day, didn’t they?’
Oh, it was all exhausting. And lacking in suspense, or shocks, or intrigue. What will happen when they wake up the Engineer? Well, he’s been asleep for over 2,000 years, or something (I’d given up caring about the timeframe ages ago; it could have been two billion), so of course instead of waking up and going, ‘ooh, some lovely chums to chat to! At last! Let me tell you the secrets of the universe!’, being eleven foot tall, built like a marble tower block and feeling like a bear that’s been dragged out of hibernation, he’s really bloody grumpy and snaps everyone’s heads off. So, by the end of it, they hadn’t answered any of the questions they’d set up and were clearly angling for a bloody sequel. However, Michael Fassbender does ‘creepy robot’ brilliantly and is still acting everyone off the screen even when he’s reduced to being just a head in a bag.
In other news, I went to see Avengers: AGM, or whatever it was called. Again, boredom on a stick, just with loads more explosions, and I’ve now decided I fancy Tom Hiddleston a bit. And that it’s the law that everyone, regardless of gender, has to fancy Scarlett Johansson. The film also stars Chris Hemsworth, who, as Thor, is equipped with a massive hammer.
Hemsworth seems to be building a career around raiding the tool shed. He lost out on wielding some tools in The Hunger Games to brother Liam (perhaps bows and arrows aren’t strictly ‘tools’), but within the month, there he was in Snow White and the Huntsman, clutching an axe. Also doing battle with: a drink problem; depression because he was a widower; a Scottish accent; trying to make people care about Kristen Stewart; the fact most of the film was ripped off from Lord of the Rings; a load of famous dwarves in an unconvincing Technicolor fairyland complete with CGI badgers and foxes (just film some real ones!) and a big stag that spent all of its screentime projecting, ‘I AM NOT ASLAN. NO, I AM AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT GOD-LIKE ANIMAL BEING. ALSO, I AM NOT THAT STAG IN HARRY POTTER.’
Anyway, it is diverting, if, like me, you enjoy watching a woman deranged by her own beauty and power turning into a flock of crows, and being a bit like a fantasy version of Loose Women (ie constantly bitching and raging about other women being younger, prettier and nicer than you).
It does make me worry about what Chris Hemsworth’s next film will be, given that it will have to include a/ an accent that is not his own (heavy Australian) and b/ tools.
Chris Hemsworth’s Agent: Hi Chris!
Chris Hemsworth, Wielder of Tools and Accents: G’day, mate!
CHA: Er, g’day! Yes. Hi! Anyhoo, I’ve got a lovely new job offer for you! It’s got all your favourite things in it! It’s got an unwieldy title, you’ll be doing an accent, AND it’s got tools! It’s soooo you!
CHWoTaA: Ripper! What is it, cobber?
CHA [brightly]: It’s Avengers Self Assemble: The Ikea Story! You’ll be playing a character called Bjorn! There’ll probably be a sequel, which will involve the pun ‘Bjorn Again’!
CHWoTaA [raising Aussie eyebrow quizzically]: Sounds good, but what are the tools, mate?
CHA [quietly]: A really big set of Allen keys.
CHWoTaA [with a heavy sigh]: Where do I sign?
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