Double cream and champagne

Double cream and champagne
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

As I have been ranting a bit of late, I thought I should put something nice up. And this is about as nice as it gets - M&S strawberry cream.

It comes in a heart-shaped pot, it's got double cream, strawberry compote, two - two! - types of champagne and sugar in it. And most of it is now in my tummy. Mmm.

It is officially designed as an tasty accompaniment to fruit, but I ran out of raspberries about two hours ago.

Coke Zero - rubbish

Coke Zero - rubbish
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Congratulations Coke Zero, you have officially joined the list of things I won't buy. From the platform at Waterloo to the front door at work, my path was strewn with emptied silly little promotional freebies. Scattered down the escalators, wedged in tube seats, balanced on ledges, rolling along London Bridge, dumped on the pavement. If you're going to hand out zillions of poxy cans of your latest feral brown goo, at least hire people to clear up the mess.

The list of things I won't buy (so far):

Nivea
For making adverts that make women feel shit about themselves. I know almost all beauty companies (or all companies advertising to women) do this, but for some reason Nivea's piss me off the most. Believe it or not, silly, primping, flexing models in little white hot pants pulling cheeky faces from between their legs as they rub dollops of firming lotion into their tanned, toned, well-lit and professionally made-up thighs (before playfully wiping a blob of cream onto the nose of a gay male model) is not going to make me rush out and buy a bottle. I have refused to buy or use any Nivea products since I was about 18. Scumbags.

Yorkies
Not for girls? Really? Fuck off then.

Believes
I think I have made my feelings on World Cup merchandising perfectly clear in previous posts.

Coke Zero
For encouraging scruffs to hurl non-biodegradable cans around the city.

Coke Zero - rubbish

Coke Zero - rubbish
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Coke Zero - rubbish

Coke Zero - rubbish
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Coke Zero - rubbish

Coke Zero - rubbish
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Nerve-shattering nonsense

Why do people select ringtones that sound like a sonic interpretation of a nervous breakdown? Seriously, some of the many bone-judderingly hideous ring tones in my office are enough to turn your spine to jelly (the kind you get in pork pies, not the nice kind) and cause your skin to crawl off your flesh in order to hurl itself out of a nearby window.

And why do they turn them up SO LOUD? If you're not within answering distance of your phone, you don't need to know that it's ringing, do you? Bestest of all are the people whose phones phone them up three times to tell them that they have a message. Gah! Of course they have a message! They weren't there to answer the first time! Stupid, stupid people! Why do they persist in torturing me with their fuckwittery?

I think the problem here is old people. People who text in text speak because their kids do, but can't use predictive text. People who are probably a bit deaf. People who *slumps onto desk* think it is acceptable to have the Nokia theme as their ringtone. I KNOW Trigger Happy TV was a long time ago but HELLO? I'M IN THE OFFICE. NO, EVERYONE HATES ME.

Sigh.

The end of a dream. Unless you are Italian.

It occurs to me that the World Cup is just a fucking enormously huge disappointment for almost everyone who is watches it. Seriously, what exactly is the point? Apart, of course, from the entire world being continuously force-fed unpalatable shovelfuls of unwelcome advertising gruel for months until it dribbles down our collective chins, pooling in our super-mega-massive World Cup Big-Mac/"Believe"/Budweiser/Coca-Cola engorged laps, seeping into our shit patriotic high street t-shirts and dripping onto the one million pairs of Predator boots we bought. Well, you bought. Losers ;o)

It is a hateful affair, and I didn't win so much as a penny on the sweepstake (which was the only thing that managed to ignite even the weakest flicker of interest).

Wimbledon is equally tiresome, thank god that's over. If I have to put up with the sight of one more moronic, rain-hat wearing old biddy speculating cheerfully that maybe the Brits can win it this year as she clutches a tupperware box of jam sandwiches to her chest, I will be forced to go down to SW19 myself (and listen up old ladies, I'm only a postcode away these days) and beat the deluded old bint with a BBC microphone. It'll certainly make more interesting viewing than several ghastly, self-aware teens yanking a bloody rain cover on and off the court. Oh well, at least Pete Sampras isn't playing anymore. The sight of his stupid Labrador face with its lolling tongue made me want to batter him to death with his trophy.

Is it all over now? Can we please return to a normal summer schedule of endless, mind-numbing, head-in-the-oven repeats? I had a day off the other week and I COULDN'T WATCH NEIGHBOURS BECAUSE OF THE TENNIS. I can't even begin to put into words how furious that makes me.

14 years

As a long-term relationship ends, so grows the list of traits unacceptable in a boyfriend.

Relationship 1
1. Must not live with parents
2. Must not pretend to be Indian when actually Chinese
3. Must not wear hand-woven waistcoats or like Yngwingie Malsteim
4. Must not poke out tongue whilst playing guitar
5. Must not use my scrunchie

Relationship 2
6. Must not resemble a daddy long legs/rabbit hybrid
7. Must not have car that requires push starts
8. Must have proper double bed (not two single ones pushed together)
9. Must not write songs with me then get new girlfriend to do the vocals
10. Must not throw spaghetti bolognaise at the wall
11. Must not take three years of Saturday job money for council tax and not pay it back
12. Preferably, would not work in and smell like a kitchen

Relationship 3
13. Must NEVER wake me up on a Saturday suggesting a trip to the gym
14. Must not start patronising discussions about the direction of my life
15. Must not have bunny boiler ex-wife
16. Must not have cat hair on duvet or put chili sauce into baked beans
(otherwise, well done Chivers. You were one of my favorites)

Relationship 4
17. Must not hail from Bexley Heath
18. Must not resemble a daddy long legs
19. Should have an arse
20. Must not smell vaguely of imitation KFC
21. Must not allow friends to leap all over our bedroom playing records
22. Must not be a spineless, cheating, lying, emotionally incontinent, pasty-faced heartbreaking lowlife scumbag with more issues than Mariah Carey

Relationship 5
23. Must want time alone with me
24. Must not have secret double life, secret children, or sleep with secret double wife after being forgiven for the whole thing once already
25. Must not be mad

The ghosts of a thousand smokes

The ghost of a thousand smokes
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Why do I always take pictures of such grim things?

This is the floor at Blackfriars station, where the tiles along the wall in the foyer bear the scars of a thousand hastily-puffed ciggies.

Summer in the City

Summer in the city
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Summer in the City and the air is... really steamy, and kinda seedy. It's like a gay sauna out there, I wouldn't be at all surprised to walk past a naked fat man, reclining on a low wall and leering casually at passing boys as he poured another ladle of amyl nitrate onto the hot coals. Or whatever it is they do in these places.

Last night was too damn hot. Even though I was lying ON the covers, they were absorbing my body heat and then waking me up with it. Thanks for that, duvet, pillows, you treacherous little sods. I thought you were my friends. Now in typical British summer style (two days of sun and a thunderstorm), it's misty, humid and intermittently pissing down. Oh Ibiza, how I long for your sun-drenched shores... good job I'm going in, ooh hurrah, one month exactly!

Walliams

I'm getting a perverse satisfaction from knowing that as I write, David Walliams is struggling across the Channel, covered in grease and eating food from a stick whilst traversing busy shipping lanes. It's not that I don't like him per se, but he creeps me out a bit in Little Britain and I'm pleased that he's swimming off his comedy sins.

I met him once and he was actually very nice to me, so I suppose I should say that you can sponsor him if you text "DAVID" to 82125. I don't know how much it costs but I've done it. After spending £1.50 on a hate-fuelled bid to evict Sezer and a further pound to be rid of that head-topped ironing board bitch Grace, I suppose Walliams deserves a few pennies for shedding that ridiculous not-funny frock and hacking his way through the freezing sewer that is the English Channel. It also warms my heart to know that he's doing it all for Sport Relief. I'm not sure what they do, but I imagine it is some kind of vigilante group working to liberate kids from the misery of athlete's foot-drenched changing rooms, ill-fated, face-splintering dives off the springboard into the box and the annual ritual humiliation of Sports Day.