The Only Way is Desperate Christmas in Chelsea

We all know Christmas telly can be a bit hit and miss, but it seems that this year we’ve been bombarded with an influx of ‘reality’ TV Christmas specials faker than Amy Childs’s boobs. The problem with Christmas specials is that they are pretty much all filmed a good while before their airing, meaning that no one involved is remotely hyped up about Christmas a the time.  This fact has been confirmed by my mother, who shouts ‘KINGSTON ADVERT! KINGSTON ADVERT! At the Morrisons advert, filmed in Kingston market square during the mid-September heatwave. ‘Look how uncomfortable he looks in his coat!’, she yells at the television, as children flit about in fake snow. Due to the extensive time period between filming and airing these adverts, it is difficult to understand how a Christmas Special can seem remotely genuine, when filmed in mid-November.

Here is what will almost definitely happen in today’s most popular unreality shows: 

Let us begin with the mother of all reality junk; the Only Way is Essex. The BAFTA-winning series serves to be an indulgent guilty pleasure for the majority of us. The third series was admittedly a little strained – there are only so many times that ‘reem’, ‘shut up’ and ‘vajazzle’ can be said in an episode.  The series suffered in the absence of Essex heroine Amy Childs, meaning that story lines also significantly waned. The only big remaining rivalries were between Gemma and Lydia, who unconvincingly fight for the affections of a man who looks as though he is made of Playdough and sweat. But what does the Christmas special hold? Nanny Pat in another novelty outfit, Arg in Christmas jumpers and more twin-related puns from those two scary Greek men. Apparently a bunch of the gang including Joey, Mario and Chloe head to Lapland and stay in a log cabin – cue someone having to explain to Joe that father Christmas isn’t real.

Of course, who could forget the excruciatingly painful TOWIE ‘Last Christmas’ single. Christ knows why they were allowed to call this a ‘TOWIE’ single, when the only voices to be heard are those of auto tuned failed girl band member Nicola Wright and Playdough man James Argent.  The only other cast contributions are interjections of random dialogue including ‘hurry up James’ and ‘I can’t wait to get my Christmas vajazzle’ – contributions that truly add absolutely nothing to the musical prowess of this song.

Desperate Scousewives is offensive to the eyes, ears and brain cells. According the kings and queens of Scouse reality telly, Crimbo is a time to ‘flash your baubles’. Having only been able to stomach one episode of DS, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on, but from the Christmas episode trailer I can gather that most of the episode is going to consist of glass-eyed women glaring at each other and speaking too fast to comprehend.

Made in Chelsea, which is follow-able and occasionally engaging, also offers a Christmas special this year. If anything, it will be intriguing to find out what people who pretend to have lots of money give each other for Christmas. The episode looks to consist of women glaring at one another almost as much as those in Desperate Scousewives, except for these girls are far less likely to throw their drinks about. Expect a lot of suspiciously real-looking fur, arguments in floppy hats and painfully tasteful Christmas jumpers. Apaz the Chelsea lot jet off to Finland, so look forward to lots of husky-drawn sleigh rides amongst other things us peasants would never be able to afford. Plus, we find out the ‘truth’ about what happened with Hugo and Rosie (I thought we already knew this? Maybe it turns out nobody cheated on anyone, it was all just a misconstrued game of scrabble).

So if you’re on a Christmas break from university, college or work, I fully expect you to indulge in this brain-rotting drivel. After all, it wouldn’t be Christmas if there wasn’t brain-rotting drivel to drown ourselves in. Rubbish reality provides a much needed break from the true dullness of Christmas. 

Tall Stories

Jwoww, I feel your pain.

Wish to be the second ever female Prime Minister in the UK. Wish for longer nails. Wish that you could play the piano. Hell, knock yourself out and wish for a pet tiger if you like, just promise me one thing. Promise me that you will never wish to be tall. I recently discovered that the national average height for women is 5”4 1/2 , making me exactly four inches more than your everyday lady. My height is something I sincerely resent, although most people are confused as to why.

Despite the fact that Barbie would allegedly be 5"9 if she was a real human being, it doesn't change the fact that towering above most other women is hardly attractive. I have come to the conclusion that most high street clothes designers either hate tall girls or they just do not realise they exist. Surely this explains why 99% of jumpsuits result in a permanent wedgie, while a considerable amount of dresses barely cover my hips. 

A common misconception among men and some women is that women wear high heels for the height. Oh deary me, you poor misunderstanding fools, evidently you have not noticed the shocking difference between a woman’s figure when she is wearing sensible flats and when she is wearing a towering platform heel. Not only do her legs look far longer, but they also look slimmer and more toned (probably because most of her leg muscles are tensed at all times to keep her from toppling over). A platform heel can make even the stumpiest legs go from tree trunks to bamboo sticks.

I suffer from something I like to call Jwoww Syndrome. Those of you who follow the fistpump-tastic Jersey Shore, you may have noticed a considerable height difference between three of the show’s most lovable girls. Yes, I am referring to 5”8.5 JWOWW, and 4”9 Snooki and Deena.

Jwoww Syndrome involves being 5”7 or taller, but having best girlfriends who are over four inches smaller. For instance, I measure in at 5”8.5, the EXACT same height as Jwoww, yet two of my best girl buddies are a diddy 5”2. No, our height differences are not of Jwow-Snooki-Deena proportions, but it still leaves me towering above them on many occasions. Things get even more ridiculous when I wear my favorite shoes and one of my smaller companions decides to remove hers.

Being small has so many benefits. You have an ultimate advantage in any limbo competition, more chance of getting away with a child fare and if worst comes to worst and you don’t get away with a child fare, you can squeeze into smaller hiding places. But the ultimate advantage of being tiny is that you have a much higher chance of men being taller than you. After a googling rampage, I was devastated to fid out that Simon Davidian is 5”6, Tom Felton is 5”8.5, Bam Margera is 5”8, Alex Day is 5”9, Ian Somerhalder is 5”9, Alex Turner is 5”9.5 and Penn Badgley is 5”10. Small men = no heels for me. How could I ever go out with any of these men if they couldn’t buy me Louboutins? You see my dilemma.

It isn’t all bad though; Paul Wesley is 6”, Bobby Sabel is also 6”0, Ash Stymest is 6”1, Johnny Knoxville is also 6”1, Josh Holloway is also 6”1, Julian Casablancas is 6”2 and Russell Brand is also 6”2. There is still hope for us, tall ladies.

And although I do hate being a giant amongst small, delicate girls, I feel as though maybe Jwoww and I are just being given a hard time. In fact I am pretty sure that we are actually a reasonable height, it's just everybody else in the world is really really abnormally small.

Hey fatty boom boom, want another cream cake?

Chubby. Obese. Chunky. Voluminous. Overweight. Plump. Portly. Wobbly.

Look in the dictionary and you’ll find a seemingly never-ending array of words, all of which can be whittled down to that one, unforgiving adjective.

They all mean the same thing.

FAT

‘Having too much flabby tissue’

When did the subject of weight put everyone on tenterhooks? At what time in the history of the world was it decided that calling an obese person ‘fat’ was as offensive as calling a mentally ill person a ‘nutter’? And why is it that the words ‘flabby tissue’ probably made your skin crawl?

The problem with fat is that it’s awkward. Fat is embarrassing – there’s no denying it. Whether it’s post-Christmas flab hidden beneath layers of bulky jumpers or admitting to yourself that yes, you were sucking your stomach in in all of those flattering pictures of you wearing a bikini. Fat just generally does not look nice. It wobbles, sticks out at odd angles and it generally just gets in the way.

Feeling uneasy about describing skin colour, sexual preferences and nationality is sort of understandable. But if you really think about it, there is no reason to tiptoe around the subject of weight

I’m not going to lie to you, I get the same shuddering cringe as the next girl when I hear the word thrown around. Some of us even have our own ‘fat radars’ – we can hear the word spoken miles away and automatically think ‘were they talking about me?!’

But why is it that we are all doing this bizarre dance of political correctness around the issue of weight?! If you’re fat, surely you know that you are fat and know that everyone else knows you’re fat. Calling a 30 stone person ‘cuddly’ just for the sake of being PC about it is about as logical as calling your mother ‘Dad’ so that she doesn’t feel oppressed by her gender (i.e. 0.00 sense whatsoever). What we need to do – particularly us girls – is embrace our fatness. I would like to live in a world where I can openly say ‘I feel all gross and fat today, I’m going to have a salad rather than a sandwich’ without being told that I have ‘body image issues’ and that I am ‘wasting away’. If we could all just answer the question ‘do I look fat in this?’ in an honest, frank and open way, we could save so much time, money and regretful purchases. Saying that someone is a little rotund these days doesn’t mean that they’re Beth Ditto, it just means they aren’t Paris Hilton either. Equally, saying ‘I feel fat’/’I am fat’/’I look really fat in these shorts’ doesn’t mean ‘I am not remotely attractive and am going to kill myself’. It simply indicates the observation of some unwanted podge, and probably means that those shorts were designed with other girls in mind, get back to your burger you fatty.

I Guess This Is Growing Up

fifty points if you can find me. clue: I look like an assassin just pointed a gun at my head and said 'smile or die'

When you’re a child, eighteen seems like official, bona fide adulthood. Eighteen year olds LOOK old. They don’t have braces, they have facial hair, they’re all pretty tall, their acne has cleared up and they’ve grown out of any awkward early teen rebellions. Moving out seemed like the epitome of grown-up-ness – the necessity of cooking every meal, doing the washing and taking care of a broken boiler without an ever-present adult to supervise seemed to come with the package, along with going to bed whenever you please and eating the last avocado without getting a bollocking.

The reason I am breaching the subject of adulthood with this much loved but slightly abandoned (sorry, I’m working on blogging more, I promise) blog is because I am to tackle the adult lifestyle head-on when I finally fly the nest in a few days time. Do I feel like an adult, like I always thought I would/should? No, no I definitely do not. I own my own frying pan, toilet brush, ironing board, cheese grater and set of teaspoons, yet somehow I feel unworthy of such items – and not just because I am yet to successfully iron an item of clothing or clean a toilet. As excited as I am at the prospect of living an exciting, shiny new parent-free lifestyle, I am also apprehensive about finally having to act like a grown-up.

But this apprehension has lead me to ask this question – what does it mean to ‘grow up’? As far as I am concerned, I have grown up considerably in the last year alone. I have had my first proper paid job (and I have been promptly fired from said proper paid job), had a go at driving (not my cup of tea), drank in a pub without having to sneak in (although we always seem to end up binging on the profiteroles rather than the beers), been on holiday without sane supervised adults, discovered who my true friends are and, most recently, fully experienced the full pelt of heartbreak. Of course I’ve done your conventional things like voted, passed my A levels and got into university but I won’t bore you with that dire business.

The last item on that list, as I am sure you would assume, has been the most painful but also the thing that has helped me grow up the most. Learning how to be sans boyfriend is, and is going to continue to be the hardest thing I have ever done. Even harder than giving up fish for the sake of being a proper vegetarian, and that was difficult enough. Trying to be ‘myself’ without Him is like being someone else entirely. What makes this entire situation harder is the fact that I have to present myself as a whole, emotionally stable and likeable person to the people I will be living and studying with for the next four years in just a matter of days. All I can present to them right now is Fat Girl Eating Bread and Crying. I think that the biggest test of my adult capabilities will be having to pick myself up, find my feet and put on a brave face to the strangers I will learn to like, laugh with and rely on. Opening myself up while all I want to do is lock myself away will be hard, just as hard as being Me without Him.

I hope those of you who are also moving out and embarking on a new life adventure aren’t in my predicament. I hope you all have brilliant new cheese graters and enough teaspoons to host an egg and spoon race for your entire hall of residence. I wish you all luck in being adults, or at least more adult than we are right now. Now excuse me while I get back to my bread and sobbing, I’ve got a lot to get out of my system in five days.

Submarine: twee, awkward, amazing

It’s not often that a film can reach out and touch the inner awkward teenager within all of us. As someone whose inner awkward teenagers is still thriving and very much in her prime, Submarine’s hilariously uncomfortable dialogue and the cringeworthy actions of the protagonist, Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), came very close to the bone. After all, who hasn’t imagined their own funeral, complete with national shrine-building and hoards of mourners crippling at the nationally-announced news of their death? Oh, nobody else. I guess it’s just you and I, Oliver. Submarine is the brilliant Richard Ayode’s directing debut, and the film was a brilliant move for him, as it will undoubtedly become a cult favourite, along with his other works including the IT Crowd, Garth Marenghi and the Mighty Boosh. Set in dingy but somehow twee Swansea, Submarine follows the life of fifteen year old Oliver Tate, who sees himself as a tortured linguist but in reality is regrettably an adorable but unpopular social leper. Tate has a creepy crush on an exam-ridden and fire-obsessed classmate Jordana (Yasmin Paige), and after a few romantic sacrifices, they become involved in a cute but slightly awkward relationship. Although smitten with his lady, Tate becomes obsessed with the dwindling romance between his nerdy dad Lloyd (Noah Taylor)and MILFy mum Jill (Sally Hawkins), especially when an old spark Graham (Paddy Considine) moves in next door. As Tate’s romance with beautiful but strange Jordanna develops, he has to choose between intervening in the collapse of his parents’ marriage or supporting his girlfriend in her hour of need.

Accompanied by the beautiful drone of Alex Turner, Submarine is essentially the story of a teenage boy trying to cope with relationships; be that of his parents, or his own. I would call this a ‘coming of age’ film, if I knew exactly what that phrase actually meant, but for now I’ll call it a tragic wonder. And I don’t mean tragic in an ‘Ian Curtis’s death was a tragic loss’ way, I mean it as in ‘that tragic woman who pushes cats around in a pram in Ashford’ way. Submarine is one of the few films with characters that really hit home for me. Although I expect very few of the audience monitor their parents’ sex lives, nor would take a date to sit in a bath near some train tracks, it is easy to relate to Oliver Tate’s comically intricate thoughts. There is something incredibly captivating about Submarine, whether you’re fifteen for fifty four.

A Sarcasm and Two Sugar guide to: Austria

It was with a heavy heart (and some horrible flu symptoms) that I bid farewell to rainy England and hopped on a two hour flight to Munich in February half term. I was leaving a potentially lively week of nights out and Come Dine With Me-e

sque dinner parties, but in retrospect I don’t regret spending my week away from college in beautiful, snow-engulfed Fügen. Having been to Austria twice before, I wasn’t expecting to discover anything new about the country, but this time I made some observations that I just could not keep to myself.

FOOD

There seems t be an unofficial law in Austria, dictating that every dish consumed must either contain copious amounts of cheese or meat. Austrians don’t really seem to grasp the concept of vegetarians, let alone poor vegans. Luckily I quite happily drowned myself in cheese for the entire trip.

Sick in a pan with herbs? This was the saltiest dish I have ever eaten. Looks rank, was delicious.

This looks suspiciously like fried hair. I think it was dumplings and onions but to be honest, I don't think I will ever know what I ate that night.

On my first visit to Austria we stayed in this odd, kind of cheap hotel where a huge red-faced woman served our food to us, and got angry if we didn't devour every morsel. On the night that all the meat-eaters got fried chicken and chips, the hotel staff saw it only fit to serve us veggies up the next best thing – fried cheese and chips. Otherwise known as a heart attack on a plate. I thought this was the only time I would have the honour of eating battered cheese but again this year it was served up to me. Oddly satisfying, but not quite worth the food coma that only cheese coated in batter with chips can induce.

BOOZE

My two previous trips to Austria were with my secondary school, so we weren't exactly able to go on a wild, aprés-ski rampage. We managed to somehow acquire a could of 6% beers, but this is all I saw of Austrian alcohol. How I was missing out...

Beer

Austrian beer is really really good! If you're into beer (I'm usually not because one glass kind of makes me feel like I ate a loaf of bread). It's much more bubbly and has a certain ZING to it (I'm not really up on the whole food/wine critic lingo, sorry).

Schnapps Tee

A shot of Schnapps and a mug of black tea. I wasn't really sure whether this was supposed to be consumed á la Jagerbomb, but this combination is supposedly good for a cold.

Jager Tee

This is the strangest drink I have ever consumed. It smells strong enough to knock a small child out and tastes a bit like nail varnish remover. My mum was unable to move after one small cup.

dad before consuming jagertee/after

ACTIVITIES

So, what to Austrians do for fun, I hear you ask? A lot of pretty crazy shit, I answer. You've got the conventional winter sports including skiing, snowboarding and that weird 'cross country' skiing on really tiny skis that I've never really seen the point of. As far as I have experienced, Austrian and German skiers and snowboarders are on another level of crazy when it comes to winter sports. There is no slope to steep, no off piste route too horrific and no velocity too speedy for these guys. But when they're off the slopes, traditional Austrian hobbies are also kind of baffling. I've played 'skittles' in Austria twice, on both occasions without much luck as the alleyways always seem kind of sloped and the skittles are attached to string and seem very reluctant to fall over. Apart from this, I tried tobogganing, which definitely goes in the top ten most terrifying experiences. A toboggan is essentially two mini skis stuck to a bit of wood, with a big of string for you to hold onto as you hurtle down a fairly steep path. There is no one to guide you or check you're not dead so I don't really blame my mum for dragging her feet and screaming like there was no tomorrow the whole way down. I would recommend tobogganing to those who don't mind the occasional near death experience.

DÉCOR

The Austries might be pros at turning an innocent cuppa into a deadly lashing of booze, rocketing your cholesterol through the roof and doing anything death-threatening involving snow, but I am guessing all this left little time to focus on their décor. My particular favourite place was home to all of the following:

An ant on a casual plant pot adventure

w00000h it's like Hawaii in the middle of Austria! Somebody get me a pinna colada and a hula skirt

Hey my name's Sammy bear. My owners used to love me and my sad but kind of sweet pajamas and my stupid sleeping cap but eventually they got sick of me and stuck me up here to give the place a more 'homely' feel.

Just so that our customers never feel too at ease, we stuck a creepy golden cherub by every table to watch them eat.

We thought too much gold was too flash so in some cases the cherubs had to be marble. But don't worry, we made up for it by making sure this one was in a gollum-esque position for uptimum creepiness.

Although this one place was particularly... mismatched to say the least, most places ran along a sort of 'Christmas' theme all winter long, including lots of tinsel and sometimes fern trees too. Ah well, when you're eating a plate of deep fried cheese, the you kind of stop caring.

All in all, the whole trip was pretty successful. I'm glad we went away as it was probably the last family holiday I will have, until I have to start dragging the geriatrics along on my own family shenanigons (if I ever decide children are worth my while). Would I reccomend Austria to a friend? Yes, yes I would indeed. Although I'd suggest learning some German phrases - 'yes', 'no', 'please', 'sorry I didn't mean to ski into you, are you alive?' etc., although I managed to pick up a few phrases along the way - 'apfelsaft bitte' means 'apple juice, please' (it wasn't the wildest of holidays). Just bare in mind that Austrian people love to stare and you'll get a very negative reaction if you loudly say 'the only German words I know are 'volksgemeinschaft' and 'reich'.

Isn't Life Just Gr18?

-My first night out since the big 18. Tears, a lost phone, a very drunk friend and 30 pounds blown

It seems from the age of about fourteen, my entire existence has been spent waiting to be eighteen years old. I foolishly spent many a birthday praying for a remote so I could slice off a few years of the waiting game. There were sneaky uses of others’ Ids, even an attempt to order decent fake ones off the internet, and of course the brave trying your luck at the corner shop method, but usually laughed away by the shop owner. The novelty of having my ID checked and verified by a cashier wore off pretty quickly, especially as it has lead me to discover that many people these days don’t actually know what year it is, or indeed can’t do a simple sum and have to count pain-stakingly slowly from 1993 to 2011. Also the fact that I look like a fucking angry corpse or something doesn’t do much for my confidence in ID checking situations, I’m not about to march right in there and say ‘well hello there young vender sir, could I have a bottle of your cheapest martini’, and wack out the old provisional licence when I look like my face is melting in the photo which is supposed to represent my face.

Being eighteen has been a little disappointing. I’m not sure if I expected a some fairy godmother to pop up out the ground and give me a money-free makeover, a driver, loads of energy and tons of friends who are always up for doing anything the second I turned eighteen. The fact of the matter is I’m still sat in my house, Snooki slippers on, on Wednesday night with no offers to hit the town and approximately 2p to finance me even if I wanted to.

Even if I do go out on the rampage, I’m so used to having to sneak a five pound bottle of vodka out of the house, or downing someone’s mum’s wine, or just asking for a little sippy of whatever everyone at the party is drinking that I don’t even know what to ask for when I’m out. Beer is too manly and boat-y, wine just makes me want to puke/sleep and shots usually rinse my purse and really aren’t exactly a whale of a time. Even Jägerbombs, the only nice, cheap and tipsy-making drink I can think of, are a mystery to me. For those of you who live under a rock or something, Jägerbombs are supposed to be a shot of Jägermister, bobbing around in a glass of red bull. You’re basically supposed to drink both the shot and the red bull at the same time by tipping both into your mouth at once, but queen of the dumbasses over here can’t manage that, so I pretty much just tip the shot in the glass most of the time. Often this is met with remarks of ‘CLAIRE YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG’. Cool story bro. I really don’t care.

So on the month’s anniversary of my eighteenth birthday, I’m kind of disappointed to be sat in a sleeping bag staring at my computer, just like I have spent every other evening for the last four years. No fairy godmother here. Hopefully I’ll enjoy my new eighteen-year-old status more on Friday, when I finally stop being a hermit and brave the world again.