My Broken Life Without A TV

Like all devastating moments in life, it hit me at the most vulnerable and unexpected of times.

Following the weekday routine of returning home begrudgingly late from work and setting the smoke alarm off with my meal for one, I was ready to let my brain decompose to the tune of Channel 4’s Dr Christian dishing out advice to an elderly man with a fungal community thriving inside his belly button.

I flicked between channels, greeted by a barrage of fuzz. Distraught that my fish finger sandwich may be getting cold, I picked a brief fight with the TV aerial socket, giving up just before the fuzz burnt permanently into my retina and switching the bastard off.

Apparently it wasn’t just the over 75’s, who think they can operate their televisions through their alarm clock radios, who needed help with the digital switchover. I’d overlooked the simple act of buying a freeview box, in favour of spending my last fifteen quid bulk buying fish fingers at Asda.

I’d ignored all those bus stop posters thinking they were adverts for the latest Pixar movies and I had fallen victim to the digital switchover.

Yes, I know. I am a new, never before discovered breed of fucktard.

Two months later I am still sharing my home with a snow machine. It’s no surprise that watching the squark box is the UK’s most popular past time, with about 96% of the population owning a TV (and the other 4% hiding theirs since they looted it from last year’s riots)…

People’s reaction to hearing that I’m telly-less is pretty consistent: through untrusting, narrowed eyes the inevitable question, “What do you do all evening then…?” will always arise.

Before answering, “I plug my nose with dried chickpeas and perform handstands and time how long it takes for each one to plop out” I always think: it’s shit not having TV.

Of course I never say this. Instead I list pleasant things which occupy my time such as reading and exercising and catching up with friends, all sounding ever so healthy and fruitful, but you’d be wrong to think that an extra 30 hours a week to dedicate to productive past-times makes up for being a televisual retard.

The following areas of life seem to have taken the hardest hit:

WORK

You will never realise how little you have in common with your work colleagues until an in depth discussion about the goings on at Albert Square is taken off the small talk menu. And there is nowhere for the conversation to go when someone in the office asks you if you saw last night’s Apprentice as they physically shake on their Alan Sugar high and you respond, “No, I don’t  actually watch TV.” They’ll instantly loose their telly boner and either a) continue with the above suspicious grilling or b) regale you with all the events of a program you know nothing about anway: leaving you unsatisfied like a selfish lover.

CULTURE

Magazines will isolate you too as they fill up their pages with someone called Snooki and clans of scantily clad people with jaundice from Essex. Browse the covers on magazine stands at your peril as you exclaim to the elderly lady next to you in Sainsburys: “Max did WHAT?! Did YOU know about this?!”

HOME

Dinner has become a painful activity which only reminds you of your long lost companion as you eat in silence, on a sofa which inexplicably faces a deceased television, just staring back at you symbolising the cultural black hole you’ve disappeared into.

FRIENDS

Going to visit friends can carry its casualties too for the televisual pariah. Once you’ve managed to hold a conversation that doesn’t involve X-Academy-Voice-On Ice- Strictly- Talent- Factor, you find yourself transfixed by the quiet telly which is on in the background. It might just be Nick Knowles spreading plaster, but to the visually starved this is pornographic sustenance. Your now former friend will understandably ask you to leave before your telly-comatose dribble hits the living room carpet.

Of course, there are always online catch up sites, but they are no worthy substitute.  No one likes hunching over their laptop in bed like a pervy fifteen year old watching Tulisca’s sex tape, and when your already dicky internet connection decides to freeze your stream of telly crack every two and a half minutes it can really ruin the punch lines on Have I Got News For You.

Twitter is probably the only other substitute for actually watching the television. Following an evening of hashtags is better than the box, as you see events unfold through pithy pisstake versions of everything from Made In Chelsea to Newsnight.

Of course to join in would be an absolute treat. Luckily I ordered my new freeview box from Argos online about four paragraphs ago, and finally my days as a TV wallflower are numbered.

What Britain Loves

I've been writing some ramblings for the brilliant T-Mobile blog What Britain Loves

Have a look, it's a great way to waste a lunch break!

Britian Loves A Crappy Car Accessory

That's Not My Name, Starbucks

Unless you were a) stuck under something heavy b) stuck in Bognor Regis or c) stuck on Mars, then you would have heard about the epic marketing ploy rolled out by Starbucks today involving free coffee.

In a nutshell, they've gone all fluffy and friendly on us by deciding to personalize our cups by scribbling our names on them, rather than our order descriptions. To ensure the word spread faster than nits at a primary school, Starbucks were dishing out free latte's til noon.

Genius - us Brits are obsessed with freebies - people who don't even like coffee were keen, 8 year olds got on the bus carrying Starbucks cups and women were joining the queue just for the fun of it just because queuing is the one thing we love more than a freebie.

Anyway, as much as I adore my local cafe (Caffettinos in Battersea, if you're curious) I wasn't going to miss up on an opportunity to get something for nothing. The only reason I can read is because I love the triumph of getting books for FREE from the library.

I managed to squeeze in two before midday and boosted my productivity at work by at least 28% (taking into account time away from desk for Starbucks runs)

The most entertaining part was the colourful mis-spelling of my name.. Suzie isn't the most exotic of names, yet after my first visit I managed to leave carrying a cup with 'Suizzie' written on it.. couldn't help thinking of the endless fun to be had making up names for unsuspecting baristas to scribe on my future cups. 'Madonna' would be fun. Or perhaps just good old 'Fanny'.

The marketing ploy has got me. So much immature game potential ...

Magazine Porn. (eye candy for magazine lovers... not a porno)

A lovely person gave me the French magazine 'Madame Figaro' this weekend, which they'd picked up on a trip lately. Being obsessed with magazines of all shapes and sizes and languages, I got pretty darned over excited.C'est tres bon! Well, that's the extent of my French so I'll just stick a load of pics on here...

It's a beaut of magazine so rather than photographing every page I took some snaps of the juiciest shoots using an artsy fartsy app on my phone...

...totally in love with the pixie-cropped girl below, but have learnt the hard way that I can't pull off a crop thanks to spending a whole summer looking like a ten year old chubby little boy when I had all my hair lobbed off. Bad, bad times.

Enjoy! ♥

Blue Cake: Stick That In Your Cake Hole And Eat It

Sundays are good for one thing: ingesting as many saturated fats as possible. To this end, I endeavored to waste my final day of freedom baking cakes, losing my Yorkshire pud making virginity, and mastering the fire alarm's worst enemy: the Sunday roast. (Ok, toast is arguably the fire alarm's worst nightmare, but then this was me cooking. In fact, forget the food, I am the fire alarm's worst nightmare. I sneeze and it goes off.)

Having rejected the usual routine of getting pissed up on Saturday night in an attempt at 14 days of sobriety *cue image of me comatose with tongue stuck in top of wine bottle by 7.15pm Wednesday evening*I instead went wild this weekend by dying my cake batter blue. OH YEAH. BLUE CAKE. whoop.

They were THE SEX, I put plum jam in the centre before I cooked them which is always a welcome treat. Unfortunately, just before sampling my blue creations I noticed my cool hued Victoria sponge had a remarkable resemblance to my dish sponge. Not Ideal.. 

Just to top off the whole bakery misadventure, I smothered them in my homemade blue icing, which was essentially aquafresh toothpaste: even the way I iced my muffins mirrored how it dribbles out of the corner of your mouth and then drips off your chin and on to your slippers. YUM. Cake anyone?

FRESH! And exciting cupcakes.

* Following upload of photographs I've noticed they're more of a turquoise/green... I simply can not be arsed to change all the text. Sorry.

After A Month Of Fashion Weeks: We Must Adore The Madness

The Fabulous Louise Gray AW12

Many mentalists end up in asylums, others manage to slip through the bars, escape and become fashion designers, which is the real reason why the majority of people in the fashion industry are skeletal.

This does not, however, mean the fashion industry deserves the bad rep it has been permanently tarnished with and in the wake of London Fashion Week I think it’s time we all made friends with what is assumed to be a ‘travelling freak show’ of twats who pass out at the sight of a shoe.

First and foremost, any multi-billion pound industry inspired by lunatics who survive off caffeine and class A’s deserves to be heartily celebrated: they’re running financial circles around every economist in Europe. They must be doing something right. I struggle to even open an email after a heavy night: John Galliano was pissed and high for two decades yet still wowed the most influential players in one of the largest industries in the world whilst helping to define possibly the most fantastically tacky sartorial era so far, even if he did end up outing himself as a racist Nazi and falling from grace in a cloud of coke and pinstripes and feathers…

I can understand how from the outside it all seems horribly pretentious and bizarre but even Queen Vivienne herself doesn’t really expect you to wear head to toe PVC just because the ‘next big thing’ new designer chose to send twelve doped up models down a runway looking like extras from a Britney video circa 1999. Besides, if that is a look you fancy rocking then you can buy far cheaper alternatives from a range of X-rated sites which will gladly infest your C drive with a plethora of viruses and, should you spend over £25 on an entirely wipe clean two piece, will throw in an appreciative tube of courtesy lube too, which is always a nice gesture (it baffles me why Sainsbury’s haven’t tried this tactic yet – what the fuck are nectar points..?)

I can see that the eye watering price points of high end fashion don’t do much to help the cause. When you see a dress that costs more than a deposit of a two bed semi sashaying down the catwalk hanging off a starved Russian sixteen year old it can be hard to see where the credibility is hiding under all that fabric, but in much in the same way that I can enjoy watching films without bursting a blood vessel in outrage over the how far-fetched it is that Tom Cruise can still run like a Duracell bunny and Harrison Ford can still move (at all) I’m able to take it with a hefty pinch of salt and happily indulge in the fantasy.

Jamie Oliver When He Was A Hot Young Piece

Of course there will always be unsavoury aspects to an industry which revolves around the way we look, but judging each other is a human condition which cannot be cured simply by choosing the most dull-as-arse shoes possible in the M&S sale. Look at Kate Middleton: she’s worked her dull duchess derriere off to ensure she’s dressed as inoffensively as possible, and is now worshipped by every bland-as-soup woman in the country, taking pride of place next to Jamie Oliver at the altar of annoying British people whom such plebs idolise because they think ‘they must be just like me and you’. They’re not like us. In fact I have no doubt Jamie bathes in his own branded elderflower presse and uses fifty quid casserole dishes embossed with his logo as makeshift bedpans to take midnight shits in just because he’s Jamie Fucking Oliver and is far too tired from being a superhero who rescues kids from dodgy school burgers to bother walking to the toilet at night.

Well, the high priestesses of the fashion world are not like us civilians either. Indeed, those who choose to indulge will have no reservations about spending hundreds, thousands even on a mammoth ball of fur to place on their head like a feral cat escaping a flood, but to steal a phrase from the fash-pack themselves; isn’t it all just bloody fabulous?

Normal life can be balls. We trudge around trying not to dress too slutty for the office and avoiding wearing anything bright enough to get us mistaken as extras from 80’s musicals on the tube, but perhaps if more people embraced the absolute lunacy of high fashion, even just a tad, then the world would be nothing but a brighter, more entertaining place.

Oh To Live Like Mylene Klass....

I have granted myself 4 days off work. Which means (including the heaven sent weekend) I have 6 whole days straight of not wanting to lynch myself with my office PC mouse cable. Hoooray.

The first day I spent in a dream, sleeping until 8am - 8 I TELL YOU!! - and then eating a leisurely bowl of branflakes and drifting around my tiny flat making small contented 'Hmm' sounds every time I wafted into a different room and did nothing at all. By 11am I had itchy feet so upped and left to do something similar around the foodhalls of Harrods. I took some snaps of my venture into the yuppie quarter, and made them into a mini collage to celebrate my day of bugger all. Oh to live like Mylene Klass. Marvellous.

Lady Gaga Proposed To Her Fella: Should You?

If the showbiz rumour mill is to be believed (AND IT IS. ALWAYS.), Lady Gaga was one of the women to step up and make herself an honest woman this leap year by proposing to her Vampire Diaries lover, Taylor Kinney. But ladies, before there is stampede to the nearest H.Samuels in loyal, blind following of the Gaga’s freaky footsteps, remember that this is a woman who also didn’t think twice about donning a sirloin as a dress and a crustacean as a hairpiece. What’s more, it wasn’t until her third music video featuring her wearing nothing but bondage knickers that the world actually began to believe she didn’t have a ‘gigantic donkey dick’: so whether she’s followed the gender reversing leap year tradition, or is in fact just another dude in love, we’ll never know.

In fact, it is my hope that the majority of sane women of the world have had slightly more pressing things to occupy themselves with this year than hopping about with their matrimonial legs crossed, trying not to piss themselves in hope that their boyfriend will one day put them out of their singleton misery and seal the god damn deal. The tradition crutch which marriage lamely hobbles around on these days may suggest that any single woman older than Miley Cyrus is a desperate spinster who sobs snot bubbles over My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and licks images of Kate and Wills in Hello magazine in hope of ingesting some good romantic fortune, but it’s my suspicion that most are too busy cackling over their fifth bottle of Prosecco on Thursday evenings and joining the cougar-crew by taking advantage of Harry Styles lookalikes on the weekends to actually give a flying fuck about the naked state of their wedding finger,

However, ladies, if you do want a good reason to cram in a last minute proposal, let it be this: a law passed in 1288 in Scotland decreed that, should the lady be rejected, she should be entitled to fine the unlucky object of her commitment starved affections to the value of anything from a kiss to £1, to ‘the silk from which to make a gown’. Amazing. A man proposing on any other day of the year is left with nothing more than his penis protracting back inside him in brain bleeding embarrassment. Personally, I couldn’t wait to propose to my bewildered Post Man this morning, only to frog-march him down to John Lewis to compensate me with twelve pairs of lambskin gloves which I will use to spank his balding head for the remainder of the year, as per the Dutch reimbursement folk tale (minus the noggin spanking). Now surely, when ambitions and opportunities are endless and you could be out glove shopping with Posties and sipping £1 shandies over half drunk compensation kisses, there is suddenly a lot more to life than planning a wedding?!

So, men, as much as you may have enjoyed teasing the woman who toils next to you in the office about stocking up the kitchen cupboard with enough Gin to drown their impending marriage rejection: BEWARE. For she is likely to 1) knee you in the jugular until you SHUT THE FUCK UP or 2) trick you out of an easy quid. As men across the world pruned their pubes in pant wetting anticipation of some post-engagement celebratory sex, perhaps they should have considered that not all women are foaming at the mouth with one-sided marriage hunger. In fact gents, there’s probably a better chance of Britain winning the Olympics than you winning a wife this leap year.

January. Like December, but without the good stuff....

NO, SANTA IS NOT IN REHAB: THE FOUL McCRIRICK

Tis the season to miss the past month like your first true love and weep inside whilst salivating over steaming crusty baguettes and hunks of alluring cheesy golden goodness sitting pompously on the discount 'Festive Food' shelves as you avoid it like HELL whilst darting through M&S Food at full speed because it is the quickest shortcut to the high street and it is pissing it down with rain outside.

Without a shadow of a doubt, January is the Beelzebub of all months. If December is David Tennant (warm, sparkling with joy and too impossibly cheerful to be sober) then January is John McCririck (engorged, repugnant and full of the discontent which comes when you realise you'll have to wait another eleven and a half months until it will be acceptable to pop a bit of Bailey's into EVERY drink you consume and pour over every meal. Ice cream and Bailey's? Um YES PLEASE. Chocolate cake and Bailey's? HELLO SIR! Mash potato with Bailey's stirred in.... I THINK SO!)

THE AWESOME JOY OF TENNANT

If I had a quid for every person who voiced hopes of reforming their post 2012 eating habits and instead fuelling themselves as if they were taking part in the forthcoming Olympic insanity then I would be showered with such wealth that I could quit my job and live every day as if it were the holy, comforting month of December. I'd sleep on a bed cushioned with Ferrero Rocher, could employ (but inevitably sack after an awkward personal space issue) Cliff Richard as my very own Christmas Carol serenader and would dress only in chains of tinsel wrapped tightly around my bulging, festive and joyful rolls of fat.
Sadly, the likelihood of this happening is pretty dim. And, to add insult to injury, I too have wheezed and clambered on to the New Year health kick bandwagon. At the very least I'm trying to avoid the company of cheese and chocolate for a while - I did attempt to round it off to a nice group of three 'ch' foods to wean myself off, but could only come up with cherries (not so sinful) and Chinese (I can't quit the food of a whole country. That would just be racist.) So here I am, four days in and my cheese radar has gone into overdrive. That pair of soggy shoes I left on the radiator to dry out this evening? Not such a bad stench after all. At least gnawing on one of my many hole-ridden Primark pumps will be a cost effective solution to actually eating. Because, as well as being a bit chubs, I am of course nearly completely skint after the eye-wateringly expensive revelry of Christmas. Every last penny squandered on potatoes and Bailey's. Happy Sodding New Year....