The New Girl

If you like to keep up with mainstream but kind-of-quirky comedy, you’ll have noticed, and probably tuned into Channel 4’s new series, the New Girl. Just in case you haven’t been bombarded with adverts, here is a link to the trailer. The premise of the show is that beautiful-but-quirky Jess catches her man in the act with some bogey-green vest wearing hoe and thus needs a new place to live. Cue Nick, Schmidt and Winston, three relatively attractive twenty-somethings who share an apartment and are looking for a new flatmate. Of course, they wouldn’t fit the paradigm of ‘three men living together’ without oodles of Witty Man Banter, taking their shirts off and not really knowing how to talk to women. And why do they let Jess move in? “I’m tired of living with my friend! She’s a model. All her friends are models”, she explains to the three gawping men as they review her as flat mate material. And through some crazy co-incidence, after sharing this nugget of information, Jess is accepted into the shared apartment.

Although the New Girl certainly has a comedic upper hand compared to other prime-time entertainment (it is far more LOL worthy than the Big Bang Theory, lacks the cringe worthy sexism of Two and a Half Men and not as over-quoted as Friends), there is still something incredibly jarring about the show.

Just as Disney gives women unrealistic expectations of adult men, Zooey Deschanel gives men completely impossible expectations of women. Just to confirm – when women have been upset by men they do not lie on the sofa in painstakingly cute plaid shirts and skinny jeans, sporting perfectly tousled hair and tastefully natural makeup. Yes, we lie on the sofa repeatedly watching depressing films, but I think it’s fair to say that most of us look a little more Jeremy Kyle participant than Jess. The part in the pilot episode where Jess throws on a pair of dungarees and explains ‘I was going for a Hot Farmer’s Daughter type thing, like “ooh, I’m going to go milk my cows”’ was particularly off-key. She clearly did not just find those dungarees in H&M and bought them for casual wear. Hell no. She meticulously picked them out in Beyond Retro, probably mentally integrating them into her wardrobe, to be worn with a relatively-unknown band t-shirt and espadrilles.

The writing is admittedly very funny. It is riddled with comedy gold moments and looks like it has characters who can develop worthy storylines. Is it worth watching? Yes. Enviously watching Deschanel glide around in perfect fitting size 6 vintage dresses whilst still passing as ‘kooky’ and ‘clumsy’ may be painful, but it’s worth it for a fair few decent comedy moments.

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.