Not Enough Who In The What?

Detox til ya don't stop

2010-07-08T18:50:00.005+01:00

I'm on a detox. It's a ball-ache. The motivation for ruining my own enjoyment of life for a fortnight is straightforward - the quality of the flesh on my body is below par. My thighs in particular are distressing; the limp, lumpy fat under the pallid, thread-veined skin contorts into some almost admirably sickening shapes if I do anything but stand up straight in a room with no breeze.

If I hadn't found myself unexpectedly single, it wouldn't have occurred to me to banish meat, fish, dairy, salt, sugar, wheat, booze, tea and coffee from my diet, I just thought trying to get around these rules would give me something to do. Also, I hoped, I would emerge from the other end of the experience with a glossy coat, wet nose and thighs like nutcrackers so I could stop feeling judged by airbrushed women on posters. Them and their amazing postery lives, pfft.

My problem isn't that I'm fat, it's that I'm English. Or British, I suppose; the Scots, Irish and Welsh aren't famed for their toned and dusky skin. Fake tan on me looks like Tango vitiligo and smells like wet dogs, besides which, I'm too lazy to smear the stuff on, it's far easier to dye my hair red every other month. Redheads are supposed to be pale. I like to think that if I were tanned, my four arse cheeks would look beguilingly peachy, but - actually, no buts. I'm still totally happy to believe that.

I don't really want to do the detox anymore, what I WANT is a fucking great big scone with cream and jam. That's what's erotic to me at the moment. God, strawberry jam. Interestingly however - well, interesting to me - I have learned that my desperate and unrealistic desire to prance around in hotpants before it's too late is stronger, even, that my lust for a decent feed. Amazing.

If I blog in the forest and nobody reads, will anyone hear me scream?

2010-06-24T18:27:00.007+01:00

Why on earth don't I write on this blog anymore. Twitter. Seriously? 140 characters? Do fuck off.

As for Facebook, christ. The stress! Is my status update funny? Am I updating too much? The mortifying bingo wing pictures, the awkward status comment chats between my dad and that guy I know who went to prison for dealing cocaine. The endless fucking spastic fucking farm games. The rocketing number of ex-boyfriends in my friends list. 'You might know This Arsehole' - why yes, I do know That Arsehole! So, you're not dead yet then. Never mind! I NEED to know about all the lame club nights you're making flyers for, I NEED to. Let's. Be. Friends. SHOW ME YOUR FLYERS.

Really, once I'd accepted my entire family, my work colleagues, the dealer from university, a couple of under 16s I used to babysit, everyone I've ever had sex with, a pervy freelancer, a handful of Tory voters, some people I despise and an illiterate death-dog breeding chav who I apparently went to a school with, I found I was a a bit limited with the thoughts and feelings I could express.

So I think I'll just come back over here for a bit and talk to myself. And possibly Ingrid, if I'm still in her RSS feed thingumy. I'm 33, I've just been dumped for the umpteenth time and I don't really have anything else to do. Besides, I want to cut my hair off, dye it blonde and write an utterly outrageous and deliberately provocative chick-lit 'novel'. And I can't get my brain WD40'd up writing about Gwyneth Paltrow's bony bloody legs or Madonna's fucking hat. The best thing about having a very public blog out there in cyberspace full of ooh, slightly controversial swearing, is that no fucker will read it. Amen to that.

The Freaks Next Door

2008-10-18T15:19:00.002+01:00

I had thought we – or, more specifically, I - had a rather charming relationship with our next-door neighbours. Almost two years passed before I even said a word to the man, woman and surly teenage boy on the other side of the thin walls, which is fairly desirable, I think. All I knew, as my bedroom in our terraced house is attached to theirs, is that the boy gets up pathetically early for a so-called adolescent on the weekend to listen to some kind of all-over-the-place drum-machine tracks, or at least that’s what comes through the wallpaper. When I was his age, I wouldn’t think of subjecting the neighbours to Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy until at least 3pm. I fire back by cranking ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ up to 11 and go back to sleep. He’s pounding out some such drivel now, I don’t know how his nerves can stand it. I’m on the verge of setting the big speakers up in the garden and retaliating with a booming broadcast of The Afternoon Play.

I was also aware that they posses a vast number of extra large t-shirts, which require frequent, tireless laundering and line-drying. None of the family appears to be extra large so I’m drawn to the conclusion that they sit around in there all day making tents with their knees, or possibly take in washing from a lackadaisically-styled football team.

A few months ago, she helpfully came around to tell me that my son had noticed I’d left my headlights on and proceed to compliment me on our porch. I then ran into her a few times in the street and issued cheerful salutations, patting myself robustly on the back for our almost Good Life-like relationship. “She’ll be over turning her nose up at my piglets and complaining about the Surbiton Light Operatic Society in weeks,” I thought.

In hindsight, I should really have paid more attention to the fact that when she came over - at 7pm - and on every subsequent sighting, she was sporting giant cartoon nightdress (the type usually spotted on self-consciously chunky teenage girls at sleepovers) over tracksuit bottoms, with trodden-down, bag lady shoes and mad hair. It his since been pointed out to me that these clothes are peppered with tiny holes, which could be the work of particularly industrious moths or a savage washing machine but are most likely hot rock burns, given the pungent herbal aromas drifting out the door, which I had also missed.

A few weeks into the relationship, slightly before I planned to head over to ask if she’d swap me a jar of my damson jam for a bottle of Black Tower and a smear of lipstick for mine and Tom’s wedding anniversary, I saw the family wandering out of the house as I walked past on my way out. She responded to my cheery wave with a big grin. Meanwhile her husband, or whatever he is, fixed me with a look of intense loathing and hissed: “Don’t you dare talk to me. I’m not your friend. I don’t even like you very much.”

Which took me back a bit, I have to say. Particularly as she was still grinning and waving. I’ve since crossed the road to avoid them - her walking several paces behind, staring the pavement - on several occasions. I scuttle past the house in terror at night as he stands glowering in the doorway, silhouetted by a satanic red light, exhaling fumes from a smoldering fag and hating me. The other morning he was screaming at her about how, after all the years they’ve lived there, she still doesn’t trust him enough to tell him where anything is. Perhaps that’s why he’s so angry. Maybe all he wants is a pair of socks and some toothpaste.

I’d quite like to know what I did to offend him, but can’t come up with a thing. Maybe it was the night I came home pissed at midnight and drunkenly downloaded quite a lot of rather lively acid techno from 1998. Maybe he’s just jealous of my trainers. Who can say. Either way, it just goes to show – make eye contact with people in London and you’re on a hiding to nothing. The days of bonding over the fence - you in a pair of oversized but impossibly cute dungarees and she in pearls and swirling crepe - are over. Everyone’s awful.

You've had your oats, filthy they were

2008-10-15T18:58:00.001+01:00

A reasonable amount of capers have occurred since I was last able to access this blog – there’s been skiing, disco dancing, missing kids (not mine), Russian pop stars, a fair bit of jet-setting and more shelebrities than you could waggle a sparkly stick at. Where to begin?

I’ll tell you where. Did you know there are 92 calories in a milk chocolate HobNob? Ninety-fucking-two! That’s the same as a fried egg, and adds up 552 calories I’ve put away today in biscuits alone. All I’ve got to show for it is a slightly chocolatey keyboard and a mild headache. I hardly even noticed I was eating them, I just sat there, posting them in like some kind of biped cow grazing on buttery, sugary, biscuity filth. There’s a part of me that wishes I’d gone crazy and stacked up the five fried eggs instead.

Just where do McVitie’s get off cramming 92 calories into a HobNob, that’s what I’d like to know. Source of fibre, they said. Free from artificial colours or preservatives, they said. Ooh, they’re all oaty and only a naughty little smear of lovely chocolate as a treat for being so good and putting away what is basically a bowl of cereal in compact form. Such deception.

And what, exactly, am I supposed to do with the remaining eight? I can’t share them out with my colleagues, I’d feel like some kind of fat dealer, luring them in and getting them smacked off their faces on dodgy oats. I’m going to have to eat them, aren’t I. Sickening.

Ooh...

2008-10-15T17:29:00.002+01:00

I'm back! How thrilling.

I'm told nobody uses Blogger anymore and I can't really remember how to do this - I feel like a granny trying to have sex for the first time in 30 years, or similar.

Hmm, haven't posted for a few years so surely should have something to say... erm... nope. Just the same old shit. I'll get working on it.

Blog: out of order

2007-03-11T16:43:00.001Z

Out of order
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Oh, and Flickr is making me sign up to Yahoo, which I also can't use at work. So, thanks, Blogger and Flickr, for being so totally and uttering rubbish and spoiling my fun. Bah.

Apologies for the break in service!

2007-03-11T16:29:00.000Z

Blogger made me switch to a Google account which I can’t get onto at work, and quite frankly it’s all a bit of a disaster. I’ve even had things to say that weren’t about food or failed attempts to get fit. Forgotten what they were now though. So anyway, I just had some pitta bread and didn’t go out for a run. Might have some Boasters in a minute. Mmm.

I don’t actually have time to post now, hopefully I’ll figure out a way to do it soon but as anything Googley seems to be blocked and I can’t get in through Flickr any more, I’m not really sure how.

Any suggestions?

‘king internet. Pfft.

The Very Hungry Cat(t)erpillar

2007-01-23T16:20:00.000Z

I've started doing showbiz stuff again at work. This basically means late nights, no real social life, lots of standing around alone at parties looking like a stalker whilst waiting to ask celebrities inane questions, a disgusting amount of empty calories in the form of free Champagne and a very poor diet.

I worked at a premiere on Sunday and my food intake for the day went something like this:

8am-7pm:
Nothing (lie-in, followed by frantic outfit cobbling together and general lateness)

7pm-9.30pm:
One hastily purchased, soggy-bottomed cheese and tomato bagel from Snax at Embankment
One bag of popcorn and two bottles of water, kindly left on cinema seat by flunkie

9.30pm - midnight
Three mini wraps
One party-size duck pancake
Four tiny crab cakes
One small bowl of fish chowder
Two satay sticks
One novelty trifle in a shot glass
One novelty chocolate mousse in a shot glass
Another novelty trifle in a shot glass just to make sure the first one was as nice as I thought it was (it was)
One peach and strawberry tequila shot (in a strawberry salted glass, mmm)
About 700 Champagne top-ups

I'm not convinced that this diet is nutritionally balanced. I lived off it for a year before and didn't seem to die, but that's probably because I learned from my esteemed mentor Caroline that if you stand by the kitchen and flirt with the waiters, you get enough canapés to make up a dinner-sized portion.

Last night I dined on crab claws, miniature steak sandwiches, itsy-bitsy helpings of steak tatare, muscles and more Champagne, before going home to microwave some M&S veggies and wash them down with half a bottle of red.

How the hell am I supposed to detox and monitor my calorie intake when smiling youths in white shirts and black trousers keep forcing large china spoons containing unidentified garlicy, herby, fish flakes on small green leaves into my face? I've got no idea if I'm eating well or not. It's an absurd way to carry on. Then again, it doesn't involve any cooking or shopping and is free, so I suppose I'll just keep loitering by the kitchen looking for a convenient pot plant in which to offload my spent satay stick.

Ref: Seriously, Coldplay?

2007-01-02T17:15:00.000Z

Dear Amazon,

I read with interest the list of CDs and books recommended for me by you in the 'My Store' area of my Amazon account.

Usually, I would have already decided which items I was going to spunk up to £20 on this month. But after having over 500 random tracks unexpectedly turn up on my iPod, I was short on inspiration and so turned to your list.

Look, I understand that because I attempted to tackle my own ignorance by buying Great Expectations, I was bombarded with suggestions of GCSE level classic novels. And that as I am partial to a bit of dance music, you believed I would be interested in every remastered remix of every Global Underground album ever created.

But Jesus wept Amazon, I thought that after a relationship dating back several years, you would know me better than this. Coldplay? Do you seriously, hand on heart, honestly and truly believe that I would listen to Coldplay? I was under the impression that we had something of an understanding. This is clearly not the case, and quite frankly, I'm insulted. I may have bought Up All Night by Razorlight but this most certainly does not mean I would want to listen to X&Y.

And that wasn't the worst of it! What made you think I would even toy with the idea of so much as lingering on a radio station playing Keane, let alone purchase their Under The Iron Sea offering? I don't care if it only costs £7.76? God knows there is a vast and bewildering array of pop acts beginning with the letter 'K', but even I know that Keane are my least favourite of all those bands.

Maybe you're not entirely to blame. Perhaps if I'd thumped the Not Interested button more vehemently, we'd never have drifted so far apart.

But right now, I feel like I just don't know you anymore.

Yours sorrowfully,
Empty basket of Raynes Park

My pod

2006-12-29T14:30:00.000Z

I've owned an iPod for about a year and three months and it has worked for a total of one of those months. It's not really the iPod's fault - first of all I had to find a computer fast enough to cope with the software (i.e. not my one, which was hewn out of twigs, string and scarecrow spit in the middle ages, is powered by a panicking sparrow in box and will no longer talk to the internet because we've upgraded to broadband).

Unfortunately, the computer I eventually cosied in on was dropped and broken, leaving me with just 103 of my favouritist ever tracks - all of which I now loathe. I moved house and lost my charger, the battery ran out. I got a new charger for my birthday. It doesn't work. The iPod has been living behind my bookcase in a child's sock since the summer.

Over Christmas, my technically capable little brother took the luckless pod into his care, hand-fed it electricity and backed its files up onto his computer. In the process of resurrecting it he somehow managed to merge our music, meaning he's now got my 103 tracks on his shiny new Nano or whatever it is, and I suddenly have 536 of his. Which seems a little unfair, as quite a lot of mine sound like this: mmm-tch, mmm-tch, mmm-tch, mmm-tch, douf, douf, douf, douf. They're all dance music classics, but I imagine they'd be pretty difficult to appreciate without nearly a decade of 'aving it experience. Mind you, he has been listening to them with a bemused grin on his face, perhaps we'll have him big-fish-little-fish-cardboard-boxing it on a podium yet.

I'm quite enjoying riffling though his record collection, so to speak. After years and YEARS of wandering into his bedroom to find my long-lost favourite albums (including the precious signed ones) cowering under a dirty sock/leaky biro/ashtray/beer can, it feels karmically correct that I should suddenly acquire a great number of his tunes. I listened to the whole Lilly Allen album on the way to work, I see what everyone has been going on about now. She is quite good, isn't she, the gobby little brat. I don't know who or what most of the others artists and albums are, so I'm just going to stick it on shuffle and see what happens. Hopefully I'll get though them all before the battery conks out again.

It was an unusually musical Christmas in the Catt household. My mum recently decided that she wants to get down with the kids by updating her music "collection" (which stood at at two pan pipe tapes). It was her 60th birthday yesterday, she has a new DVD/CD player so asked for lots of music and none of that "old people stuff - I want the Scissor Sisters". I got her their first album, as well as Alright Still, Robbie's greatest hits (for those not-so-edgy days) and Amy Winehouse. I know that most of these druggie, boozy, hedonistic artists write some rather racy songs but after a great deal of consideration, I've realised that you can't protect them forever. She's old enough to listen and judge for herself. I just hope I'm not there the first time she listens to Tits On The Radio.

All the chair's a stage

2006-12-22T17:05:00.000Z

Quote of the day from my friend Amy, who has taken voluntary redundancy and had her leaving do last night. She clambered onto a chair then couldn't think of anything to say, so made us all sing Kumbaya (and came in at twenty past THREE this afternoon):

Amy: "Were you there last night?"
Me: "Yes darling, I was holding onto you when you were giving your 'speech' so you didn't fall off the chair."
Amy: "Ah! It was a chair! I did remember wondering why the stage was so small."

Nights down at the Walrus aren't going to be quite the same without her.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-22T15:11:00.000Z

On the first day of Christmas
Binge drinking brought to me
Shame at the office party

On the second day of Christmas
A hangover brought me
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the third day of Christmas
Laziness brought me
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the forth day of Christmas
My flatmate brought to me
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the fifth day of Christmas
The last train brought to me
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the sixth day of Christmas
The nightbus gave to me
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the seventh day of Christmas
My doctor gave to me
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the eighth day of Christmas
Ocado brought to me
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the ninth day of Christmas
The high street gave to me
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the tenth day of Christmas
Pavement rage gave me
Ten rants-a-swearing
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the eleventh day of Christmas
Panic bought for me
Eleven rush-bought vouchers
Ten rants-a-swearing
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the twelfth day of Christmas
My mother brought to me
Twelve turkey helpings
Eleven rush-bought vouchers
Ten rants-a-swearing
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

Barcelona

2006-12-11T16:52:00.000Z

Aside from Clinique-swiping airport Nazis and an attempt on the world record for prolonged sexual moaning in the room next to ours, my trip to Barcelona with my mum was great. We went to celebrate our 90th birthday - her 60th and my 30th. I'm still quite startled that we actually made it - in my family, we have a tendency to come up with these brilliant ideas, fail to do anything about it and then feel guilty for years.

The start of the trip on Thursday night was an absolute disaster - freak storms, overturned lorries and gridlock around Heathrow meant a 20 minute car journey took nearly an hour and a half. My dad can't help himself from micro-managing everything and had checked us in online without asking, thank god, but we had every intention of waving him off then chucking our little cases in the hold. Bugger carrying heavy bags around an airport, shuffling up apologetically though the plane and wrestling the bloody things in and out of overhead lockers, that's what baggage handlers are for. Clue's in the name.

But by the time we got there, the check-in queue was too long, and the moronic, dipshit, retard, petty, nylon-wearing bureaucratic BASTARDS at Heathrow are STILL girling around like tits in a trance with the fucking security. When it comes to hand luggage, you can now take enough (utterly pointless) 100ml bottles to fill the world's smallest polybag, handed out by a sweaty little fuckwad who will then throw away anything not in a 100ml container - even if there is hardly anything in it. As the traffic was so bad and the endless security line so desperately, horridly mismanaged - half of the checkpoints weren't even open, despite the fact that the queue snaked back all the way through T2 - we had no choice but go straight though and bin almost everything in our washbags. This includes all the lovely things my mum had bought as a treat for herself that afternoon - she wanted nice, new products because her hair is finally growing back nicely after chemo, her skin isn't irritable anymore and she was really looking forward to a proper break after three really bloody awful years. So I hope that the evil, unsympathetic little twat who had a go at her and made her cry as he took all her lovely new things off her and hurled them into the bin after such a hideous journey gets eaten alive by maggots, then set on fire and kicked to death by particularly vindictive Shetland ponies. Wanker.

Heathrow is only a few miles from my parents house and should be convenient. But I am officially never flying from there again - unless it is on a very big aeroplane that will take me away from the UK for at least six months. My brother tells me the liquid allowances are a nonsense anyway - and the best bit is, nobody even asked to look at our passports until we got to Spain. Makes me want to blow things up. Like BAA's HQ.

We finally cleared security an hour and ten minutes after we arrived at the airport, and five minutes after the flight was due to leave. Luckily, it was delayed and we got on it, although at that point I would rather have stuck pins in my eyes and watched re-runs of Doctors for a week than carry on trying to have a holiday.

Thankfully, they do things rather differently in Barcelona. The weather was gorgeous, the city spotless, there was no traffic, cabs were everywhere, the hotel was lovely and all the food we had was absolutely delicious. My only complaints were that people walk soooooooooo slowly, in formation. It's not even walking, it's promenading. Everywhere. And in the shops - gah. I didn't know it was possible to drag a sale out for that long. Then break off for a little chat. Then carry on like a great big snail sales assistant of slowness.

But apart from that - wonderful. The Picasso museum is extensive - oh my god, is it extensive. It was like being trapped inside a particularly in-depth BBC Four programme where you daren't go to the toilet in case you miss something, but secretly are just praying it will end soon because you can't upload any more information and want to watch EastEnders. Brilliant though. We kind of hated all the Gaudi stuff and had to leave the Parc Guell because we couldn't stop laughing, but it was beautifully sunny and at least we got a picture of that sodding lizard.

I spunked stacks of cash I don't have in the shops in a bid to look like a trendy Spanish person, then did it again in the swish new-ish bit down by the harbour on Sunday. Our hotel, the Gran Via, used to be a posh house and had a terribly glamorous breakfast room and salon. The only problem was the uber-thin walls in the bedrooms - I really could have done without the overly-vigorous man next door attempting to pile-drive his wailing girlfriend, their bed and the metal bedhead through the wall and into our room between 3am and 5am on the first night. I think mum missed most of it, thank god, it's not really the sort of thing you want to listen to with your mother.

It was a bit of a crushing disappointment to arrive back in London last night, which is odd for me because I'm usually thrilled to be home - even if it's dark, rainy and cold and I've had a lovely time. I sort of hate London at the moment. I clearly couldn't put up with the slow walkers in Barcelona, and nearly kissed the girl in WHSmiths when she speedily flogged me the Sunday tabloids. But oh my god, it was good to get away. Hope it's for a hell of a lot longer next time.

Brit's bits

2006-11-29T18:23:00.000Z

I'm getting fed up with this barrage of exposed celebrity undercarriages. Lindsay Lohan's squished packet of wafer thin ham made my eyes bleed. And Britney? Good god. Is it possible for a girl's groin to look depressed?

If they insist on waving their startled bits around, could they not do it in Playboy? Surely it would be preferable to have sympathetic lighting, professional art direction and maybe even a little make-up, rather than just free-styling it out of the limo in the harsh, unforgiving glare of flashing cameras? Crumpled-in-the-car is so not a good look.

Tsk.

White-out

2006-11-28T17:27:00.000Z

I finally painted my bedroom at the weekend. It took three days of shoving a double-dunked paintbrush down the back of the pipes, but I eventually got rid of all the horrendous terracotta. Actually, there's still loads of it behind the massive wardrobe, but until three well-built young men wander into my room offering to move my furniture around, it's going to have to stay like that.

The fucking awful faux-glass and wrought iron lamp-thing full of dust and dead moths has also been ripped down and thrown out. You would have thought that changing a lampshade would be easy. It wasn't. We had to go at it with a hacksaw blade then take off the ceiling rose whatsit and rewire the entire thing. I say we, what I mean is, my flatmate Caroline did it and I helped by standing on a chair saying "ooh, that looks complicated". It was all terribly empowering and just goes to show that you don't need men as long as you live with a girl who has two tool kits and drives a van. I'm the one who isn't scared of spiders though.

I now have a rather minimal look in the newly-white bedroom after having a bit of a moment with the curtains and the curtain rail and throwing them down the stairs. Which would be fine - they're uneven, grubby, the crap plastic runner was dangling off the wall and I couldn't be arsed to wash them. But now I don't have any curtains or any means of hanging any up. I'm not being woken up by the sunlight though, the paint fumes are pretty soporific.

The whole process was made considerably more pleasant by - and I can't believe I'm admitting this - an almost compulsive looping of Girl's Aloud's greatest hits album. Seriously. It's brilliant. I would have Something Kinda Ooooh played at my funeral. I had to play it again and again as it's quite short when you skip though all the slow ones (ballads - eurghhhhh). And I should point out that their version of I Think We're Alone now is the biggest pile of skull-splitting drivel I've ever heard. The only place I can imagine it being played is at the S.L.A.G.S / Chill-Out on a Sunday afternoon at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, where the music of a seven-year-old girl's birthday party combines with 400 sweaty, bald, shirtless, sleep-deprived, bopping, spangled gay men feeling each other up and piling into the grotty toilets for more ketamine.

But apart from that, it is what I believe the lazier music reviewer would describe as a "cracking slice of pop music". I have listened to it so many times I'm almost word perfect. I'm about 700 trips to the gym, a stylist, an bout of body dismorphia, a Fantasy Tan, an assault charge and a go on Calum Best away from being the sixth member of the band.

The ungroomed bride

2006-11-20T11:51:00.000Z

There is something very jarring about Katie Holmes' wedding pictures. She was quite clearly stooping. She may well have been standing in a hole. But it's not the continually changing height discrepancy between her and Lil' Tom that bothers me - it's the spacky fringe-thing.

Since she arrived in Italy , there has been some very peculiar stubby fluff jutting from Ms Holmes' browline. It reminds me of the fringe my five-year-old babysitting charge Katherine hacked for herself with a pair of kiddie scissors. It also makes her look a bit like a monkey.

Now there is somebody else in that family whose looks lean toward the chimpy (I'm allowed to say this, because although my junior crowning glory didn't quite compare to Suri's flowing locks, I resembled a baby monkey when I was born. My parents' friend nicknamed me "bog brush"). After all the speculation, it is obvious from looking at Suri that she is genetically predisposed to both moping around with Pacey AND playing beach volleyball with Goose. But as gorgeous and of unquestionable parentage as she undoubtedly is, the kid is more than a little fuzzy.

Maybe Katie is bravely trying to make her daughter feel more comfortable about her enviable barnet? Even so, it doesn't explain why she didn't bother doing the rest of her hair for the wedding. Aside from the spacky fringe-thing, it looks like she's gone straight from doing the dusting - a look that my mother disparagingly refers to as "scragged back". Good job Posh wedged her melons into a comedy frock to detract attention.

A brilliant smile

2006-11-15T18:03:00.000Z

I was standing around in Leicester Square last night while the Bond premiere was taking place. Not for fun - the Queen was there and I was under instructions from my employers not to leave until she was safely tucking into her popcorn "just in case she explodes or something".

Anyway, the bitch was over half an hour late and I was at least 45 minutes into cold-induced kidney shutdown before she zoomed up the red carpet. As she leapt nibbly from her pope-mobile and I turned around to race off and meet Andrew, I nearly ran smack-bang into this fucker:

Jaws! Gah!

He had all his metalwork in and was accompanied by Oddjob. When I was little, I was absolutely chuffing terrified of Jaws. Only the other night I cited him as the reason I'm scared to travel in cable cars. And there he was, mingling with the plebs Leicester Square for no apparent reason. I was surprised at the time that he didn't have any security with him, although I suppose when you are capable of smilingly chomping your way through people's limbs, there's no need for a bouncer.

Still, as nightmarish as Jaws is, he never freaked me out quite like this evil, mangy rotter:

Boom boom. Don't try to tell me that Basil Brush didn't eat babies. Pure furry evil.

UGGLY

2006-11-12T12:54:00.000Z

I can't f*cking believe Kate Moss is wearing Uggs again. What's wrong with her? Sweet Jesus. I really can't stomach another winter of wannabe Kate-a-likes dragging their feet around town in revolting, half-hanging-off, grubby cream fleece booties that appear to have been ordered from the Innovations catalogue.

I bet she's doing it on purpose.

Ooh, sexy - thigh-high versions! No doubt featuring in every fashion-conscious gentleman's steamiest winter fantasies. Thanks, Kate.

One of the dangers of eating gobstoppers as an adult...

2006-10-25T16:07:00.000+01:00

... is that you may have to answer the office phone.

They bloody work though. I'm afraid to speak in case I chip some enamel.

They taste a bit mank actually.

Left-overs

2006-10-24T17:34:00.000+01:00

Tell you what, I don't need nearly as much food as I thought I did. After a few days of boshing Finest sarnies and millionaire's salads on my poor dad's credit card, I guiltily eased off and having been living on charity, Kit Kats and crackers ever since.

Not only was I cooked for on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, but survived the following day at work on the leftovers. Does cracked black pepper count as a daily serving of fruit and veg?

I just wish John the Tramp would stop giving me bearded evils when I walk past offering nothing more than a good morning. I haven't got any actual change, let alone any spare change. I had to pick up the Quentin Blake Big Issue that I wanted off the floor of the train - and I nearly got shut in the doors as I scuttled off with my grubby scavenged treasure. I hope it hasn't got any pigeon dribble on.

Only a week until payday, hoo-fucking-ray. I am going to buy all the Nestle chocolate pumpkins in Co-op, crack them over my head and roll around cackling in a pile of orange-flavour mini-Smarties.

Month of Sundays

2006-10-22T17:59:00.000+01:00

I am working six Sundays in a row. This is, on balance, a bad thing. I get a day off in the week but, pfft.

I was pretty impressed with my efforts this "weekend". I spent the whole of Friday night sifting through the slag heap that was my bedroom, putting away birthday presents, untangling headphones from biros from press releases from t-shirts, doing laundry (two loads!), dusting and finally, hoovering at ten past midnight. It's fucking spotless. The chi is practically babbling. I even managed to fake tan (and now I look like I've been creosoted).

I had the lie-in I've been looking forward to since September, spent the afternoon eating crisps and drinking wine with Dee, bagged myself a heap of her cast-offs, took the rest to the charity shop (thereby freeing up the chi in her bin cupboard), and had a lovely lasagne at home with flatmate Cally and my friend Amy. Got a few beers in, and went to bed at 1am. Usually by that point in the weekend I'd have just surfaced and be thinking about maybe having some toast.

Now I'm off to Sharon's for roast chicken and a look at the wedding pics. All in all, not such a disaster.

Lo-hoOOoo-ser!

2006-10-20T15:55:00.000+01:00

Single
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

As I was sitting at my desk yesterday, innocently tip-tapping away, an envelope landed on my desk. It was shortly followed by another, also addressed to me, both bumpy and clearly containing some mysterious object.

"I do hope it's something exciting and not yet more random tat," I thought, as I tore into the first envelope. Inside, in a delicate little pouch, I found this pin. It's a tingotang (tm). Tingotang (tm), the accompanying press release informed me, is a funky new concept for single people everywhere. If you are single and looking for love, fun and new friends in 2007, it could be the perfect Christmas gift.

So. A PR company trying to encourage me to push their product has sent me a badge that I can wear so everyone who looks at me will know in an instant that I am single. Just a glance at my lapel (or phone small phone charm or larger charm that can be attached to a belt or jewellery) will inform them that I sleep alone, eat meals for (l)one(rs), have nobody to call at the end of the day and spend my Sunday mornings hungover, watching the Hollyoaks omnibus with the curtains closed rather than having smug couple sex on the Sunday papers.

Why stop at a tingotang (tm)? How about buying a big, black marker pen and inscribing the word LOSER on my forehead? Or why not stick a sign to my back that says NOBODY LOVES ME. A SPINSTER t-shirt might be nice?

And they sent me TWO!

Maybe I'm getting the wrong end of the stick. It does say at the end of the press release: "after all, being single can be more than satisfying!". Is it a slag pin? A quick and easy way of figuring out who's up for it? After all, they do men's accessories too - smart, discreet cufflinks for everyday and evening wear; a stylish and practical keying that you can carry everywhere, and a pin badge.

Is it a sort of hetro version of the old gay hankies thing (look it up)? Does the pin indicate a quicky in the car and the cufflinks/large charm tout for something more kinky? Nothing says "I'm desperate and slutty" like tingotang (tm)!

Anyway, I've pinned it on my coat. Ha ha.

Watch me starve!

2006-10-12T12:30:00.000+01:00

I can't say I didn't know it was coming. The wedding, the birthday, the binge-drinking, on my salary? Financial incontinence of the highest order.

Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce an all-time record - my whole tiny paypacket blown in just 11 days. Actually, it's worse than that, I'm eighty unauthorised pounds over my overdraft limit (plus fine).

The next 20 days are going to be rather interesting. The only way to deal with it, I think, is to view it as a fun, exciting, life-affirming challenge. Fun! Exciting! Fuck.

It's not as bad as it could be - my bills are paid and my travelcard is bought. My kidneys are on the blink anyway, the rest will do them good. And I'm working two of the remaining Sundays in October, which will give me something to look forward to at the weekends! Hoo. Ray.

I need to put my expenses in and get some invoicing done, the cash won't come through for ages but the idea of someone owing me money makes me smile.

Hopefully my dad will allow me to put some food shopping on his Access card (in addition to the £50 cash I had to take out last night. Should really tell him about that...)

Tragically, I've had to ask my flatmate to sort me out with some babysitting for her boss's kids. I'm 30, damn it! But they have kittens, Sky Plus and Green & Blacks. And there's always extra shifts at work...

I'm going clubbing tonight and I've already paid for the tickets, so I'm owed a few drinks. My friends from home and my sister are trying to arrange me a birthday present dinner party the weekend after next, and I do believe there could be a house party to go to the weekend after that.

I need to blag some white paint and sort out my goddamn ugly bedroom - the half caramel and half terracotta divided by a wobbly masking tape line makes me want to hunt down Laurence Llewelyn Bowen and batter him to death with a dado rail. And I should really sort out the slut's wool all over the telly and trapped in that fuck-awful faux-glass, faux-wrought iron... thing on the ceiling masquerading as a lampshade. That's going in the bin. And I should also hoover up those bits of that daddy long legs I was FORCED to slaughter with the drugs issue of the Independent. Which pissed me off for two reasons:

a) I hate killing insects and gave it numerous opportunities to escape, but I can not turn off the lights and go to sleep when it could hurtle into my mouth at any moment
b) I had to chuck the paper into the recycling unopened, transformed from a potentially interesting read to a grisly instrument of destruction whose presence in my bedroom brought on guilty pangs of remorse

Besides the redecorationg, I want to finish Great Expectations and watch series two of Spaced, then there are all those CDs I keep buying on Amazon (not my fault, it's too easy) to listen to. So hey, it's going to be AWESOME.

I thought I'd have one last hurrah last night and bought a dirty pasty from Wimbledon station. It was full of cubed swede chunks. God hates me.

These are a few of my favourite things

2006-10-10T18:38:00.000+01:00

Now I am old I don't seem to have too much to say for myself. Or maybe I'm still shagged out after the party.

So here are some pictures of lovely things that I like, to look at while I regroup my brain cells.

Han Solo

Fuck-off icy glasses of weissbier

Tuna sashimi

Pretty lights

and dancing to Digweed...

...at Space.

30 - and this much I know

2006-10-06T14:57:00.000+01:00

1. You can't escape from Lambeth Council
2. Look left as well as right at roundabouts
3. Use blusher*
4. Drink a pint of water after boozing - even if most of it spills onto your chests
5. You can escape from BT
6. You don't HAVE to take out insurance with your Lloyds TSB loan
7. Lloyds TSB are a shower of c*nts
8. Goldfish can survive for three days without being fed
9. Don't piss about waiting for life to happen...
10. ...but don't be keen. Everybody hates keen people
11. Put two eggs in your Yorkshire pudding batter
12. Men - they aren't like women
13. Drink JD and coke all day and you'll be as twitchy as you are pissed
14. If you think somebody is cheating on you, they are (the "you're not paranoid, you're right" principle)
15. It isn't true about black men
16. There really is no such thing as a free lunch
17. Delia knows how to poach an egg
18. You don't actually have to go to bed every night
19. Holidays suck. Go to Ibiza
20. Bikini waxing doesn't really hurt
21. There's no point thinking about what black pudding is made of, just eat it
22. Never pay the last month's rent
23. Love is rarely forever, but it's fun while it lasts
24. Foot on the clutch, second gear, ignition on, get someone to push, foot off clutch, hit the go pedal
25. Don't be shy
26. Lecherous men in bars need to be told to clear the fuck right off
27. It's never as bad as you think it's going to be
28. Be nice
29. Always send a card* (except at Christmas - fuck that)
30. If you can't understand why you can't get your contact lens out, it's probably in the pot and you're yanking at your eye skin

*Both of these points were drummed into me by Mernie. She is a wise woman

Schooldays

2006-10-04T15:22:00.000+01:00

When I was 16:

I went to an all-girls school called Surbiton High. I had Doctor Martin shoes, opaque grey tights with stitched-up ladders and a grey school uniform. I was always getting told off for having my shirt untucked, but how are you supposed to work a rolled-up a grey A-line skirt if you don't have the shirt untucked over the top?

I carried a packet of Marlborough red or Death cigarettes in my blazer pocket and was once sent to the deputy head after assembly for having one thumbnail painted black. She wasn't there so I successfully begged the chemistry teacher (Mrs Pettit, who had a small third front tooth growing between the big ones) to take it off with meths.

I grew my hair down to my waist because I wanted to be like my friend Jolene Rutter, who went to Tiffin Girls and caught the same bus. We listened to Appetite for Destruction on shared pink headphones whilst smoking the Death or Marlborough reds and waiting for the 216 in Kingston.

My alarm went off at 5.50am every weekday morning - the bus left Sunbury at 7.15 and I had a lot of hair to wash. In winter, I'd leave home in the dark and come home in the dark. I felt like a pit pony.

I had a massive crush on a half-Spanish bloke called David, who lived down the road from me and was at the sixth form college. He had long black curly hair, took acid and wore Robert Plant-style flared jeans. My passion was mostly unrequited, but I did get a snog in the alley by the old people's home when we sneaked off for a cigarette once.

On Saturdays, I worked in Lloyds Chemist down the road from my parents' house. I rode there on my shopper and once put green eyeshadow under my eyes to feign illness, although I was generally very conscientious. The window display was my pride and joy, but the days spent there were an utter waste of time - all the money went into a savings account and I later lent it to a boyfriend to pay his council tax and never got it back.

I had a "glandular fever-type virus" for two years and missed a lot of school. It could well have been brought on by a pathological fear of my psychotic form tutor/French teacher, Miss Scott. She would either wear red sandals and green tights or green sandals and red tights with a green and red tartan skirts. She was utterly, utterly terrifying.

My mum signed me off games for the last two terms of school. Polly and I sat in the library, drawing on our bags. Sometimes we legged it over to her house over the road to eat biscuits.

In the days before the sicknote, my classmate Claudia taught me that if you wipe a bit of tiger balm under your eyes and tell Mrs Wilke your parents are getting divorced, you don't have to do PE.

I met my first boyfriend, Tom, at the Flamingo in Kingston. I had a fake NUS student card so I could get served and we would drive straight into the pub carpark on his motorbike without removing the crash helmets, thereby ingeniously avoiding the bouncers. The Flamingo was full of long-haired metaller-types but the music was supplied by DJ Pineapple, who used to do kids parties when I was at primary school. I have a vivid memory of hearing Agadoo for the first time, played by him at Elaine Forder's birthday party. I was wearing my polka dot ra-ra skirt at the time.

Tom and I went out for a year-and-a-half. He had long curly black hair (a theme was emerging) and was half Chinese. He played the guitar, taught me how to make roll-ups and would come to my house and sit in the front room, blowing smoke rings. I can kind of do it, but never as good as he could. Still makes me feel a bit dizzy.

My drink of choice was snakebite and black or bottles of £1.99 (regatta special) Figaro white wine. Even the mention of the word "Figaro" burns acid holes in my stomach.

I had a friend, Rob, who only ever had 6p.

The first time my parents went away without me, I spent all the housekeeping buying the ice-cream van man out of fudge-flavoured Pizzaz lollies (there was plenty of booze in the drinks cabinet).

I spent most of my time sitting on a log in the park with my best friend Amy. If we weren't in the park, we'd be drawing on her bedroom walls or walking each other home for hours. Amy's parents let us have parties in their boat house. We used to get alcohol from her big sister Alice's venture scout mates and try to kiss boys in frayed black jumpers.

My room was so messy, I had a pile of clothes at the end of the bed that could be used as a second bedside table.

The coolest band I liked was Pearl Jam. The least cool was Extreme. I still know that the guitarist from Extreme is Nuno Duarte Gil Mendes Bettencourt, born September 20 1966 and I imagine I could still draw their logo. I was hoping to go out with Nuno at some point, but it never happened. I met them twice. I also met Aerosmith and Soundgarden. I was totally right about Eddie Vedder:

Hot

For my GCSE art exam, I made a hat for Picasso and a huge pottery face with teeth and tongues in the eye-sockets and an eyeball in the mouth.

I wanted to be an actress or a journalist. I didn't really revise for my GCSEs but I got four As, four Bs and a C for maths, the most hateful subject on planet earth that I was tutored in every week for two years. I still couldn't work formulas and had to enlarge the triangle on my desk with a ruler during the exam.

I was still writing tortured teenage poetry. It was fucking terrible.

Eat my goal

2006-10-02T11:46:00.000+01:00

Cider and stickers
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Today is the last day of my twenties. God, that was hard work, I'm knackered. Ten years of ditching losers, growing up, living in hovels, getting my heart squished, sorting my career out, sorting my wardrobe out. It was fun and that but I'm actually quite glad to be at the other end.

If turning 30 means I swap a flat stomach, a face full of natural collagen, uncertainty, crap relationships and weird mates for a drooping eyelid, grey piano wires poking out of my head, wobbly bits, independence, confidence and the some of the world's finest people as my friends, then hooray for turning 30.

Dern der der der, dern der der der, dern der der der der der der der der der... (repeat)

2006-09-29T12:30:00.000+01:00

Dearly beloved,

We are gathered here tomorrow to celebrate the wedding of the chuffing year which shall unite Ian and Sharon in marriage.

Should there be anyone who has cause why this couple should not be united in marriage, then tough. Hold your peas.

As St Paul said in an email to the Corinthians:

Love is very patient and kind, never wakes you up when it comes in late, never takes the micky out of your car's name.
Love is taking away pizza and giving butternut squash.
Love does not strop if friends turn up on Valentine's Day. Love picks you up from the airport. Love does not hold grudges, even at 8pm on a Sunday.
Love never worries about clumsiness, but merely fetches the dustpan and brush.
If you love someone, you will always let them watch Charmed or the cricket, no matter how dull you find it. You will always make Horlicks for them, always expect the best gorilla impression from them, and will always tut at those who doesn't pay attention during their set.

Congratulations, you may kiss the bride.

I was young once too, you know

2006-09-28T15:01:00.000+01:00

Old pics
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

My dad just mailed me a load of old photos that we took, supposedly for my first proper CV, on the family's first webcam (still can't work the fuckers).

How could I possibly have been so bloody young and not noticed? Look at my idiotic face! Did I not realise the collegen was slowly draining away, eyelids losing elasticity, thighs getting sturdier? Sigh. The invincibility of youth. Can't wait to be 30 next week, woo! *sobs*

PS. Like my dad's Crazy Horse poster in the background? It's alright, cos it's arty.

World's funniest photo (fact)

2006-09-25T17:39:00.000+01:00

World's funniest picture (fact)
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Dee took this photograph of this utter pillock at DC10 and it is the funniest picture ever taken - that is 100 per cent fact.

He was a badly fake-tanned rich Russian (can you see the streaky rolls on his neck) who was dancing with exceptional violence far too close to my face. According to Mernie, he is wearing ladies Christian Dior sunglasses, which are, I suppose, in keeping with his distressed leotard.

I'm not sure if the icing on the cake is the pouffiest Euro-mullet ever sported, or the white man's overbite. But we got back well over a month ago now and it's still far too funny.

Ooh, and his girlfriend was wearing a furry animal tail around her neck.

I don't believe I've used the word ponce yet. What an absolute ponce.

"You have no power over me!"

2006-09-25T13:27:00.000+01:00

For some reason, I have been reminiscing about the muppet nightmare that was Labyrinth.

Cos there was nothing wrong with an ageing, slutty, be-mulleted glam-rock kidnapper (in an eye-wateringly impressive codpiece) popping an alluring underage babysitter into a saucy frock and whisking her around a ballroom in the "Goblin City". Nothing at all. Probably because it was Jennifer Connelly, maybe because it was the eighties. Still, interesting concept.

Dirty noodles

2006-09-21T17:24:00.000+01:00

I like Pot Noodles. They're brilliant after a night out - surely a better bet than a mechanically retrieved kebab. Whatever the hell they put in them seems to work magically against the after-effects of tequila - I went through a bit of a phase of waking up with Pot Noodle gravy on my cardie but a surprisingly tame hangover.

They're fantastic if you're desperate for hot food but too feeble to cook and too incoherent to order a full English. And they come in very handy if you're working outside and in need of warming sustenance.

Pot Noodles are many things, but one thing they are not is the way to five. Which is why I was mildly disturbed to hear this report from my sister's boyfriend Tim, who works at a university and has been showing new students around their accommodation.

Tim: .... and the laundry area is this way...
Student: Don't worry about that. I'll take my washing home to my mum every week.
Tim: Right then. Well, here is the kitchen...
Student: Don't worry about that either. I'll just eat Pot Noodles.
Tim: Ah. In that case... here is your... kettle.

I only hope his mother pours pureed broccoli straight down his throat every time he takes his Noodle gravy-encrusted clothing home each weekend. Sigh.

Frilly white leather

2006-09-19T12:26:00.000+01:00

Frilly white leather
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

My photo sadly does not capture the full glory of this frilly white leather... person upholstering device.

Hat woman

2006-09-19T12:24:00.000+01:00

Hat woman
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Apparently, this woman is at all the shows. Wearing hats.

Excuse me, your knickers are showing... (part two)

2006-09-19T12:22:00.000+01:00

Knicker bockers
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

I was sent out to London Fashion Week yesterday, and again today. When I arrived yesterday morning, the first person I saw outside the Natural History Museum was this lady.

I'm guessing she's an important fashiony person because:

a) she was sitting in the front row of one of the shows I went to
b) she's dressed like a complete idiot.

If you look closely, you will see that not only are her ribboned knickers - pantaloons? - dangling out from under her, um, skirt, I think that is, but also, her toes are poking out of her.... boot... things.

Ker-azy. More pics to follow.

Excuse me, your knickers are showing... (part one)

2006-09-19T12:17:00.000+01:00

Knicker bockers
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Sausages

2006-09-15T12:50:00.000+01:00

I was just dragged away from my work for a spot of "modelling". This entailed lending my hurriedly-made up face, dreary end-of-the-week-no-exciting-clothes-clean outfit and embarrassed grimace to the company.

A male colleague and myself were taken to a near-by pub and photographed "enjoying" an all-day breakfast (him), sausage and mash (me), and two fake glasses of wine. There were lots of flies in the pub, who seemed to have their little hearts set walking around on his bacon. Which was a crying shame, as that was the only bit I wanted to eat, it being 11am and me just having finished my breakfast.

I heroically ate one of my sausages cos it was free. It wasn't very nice.

Crocs rule!

2006-09-04T10:22:00.000+01:00

I can't believe Steve Irwin is dead. I know he was kind of asking for it, but still.

Crikey!

Aussie PM John Howard looked like he was going to start sobbing during his tribute and Queensland Tourism Minister Margaret Keech has described Steve as "a real Aussie larrikin", whatever that means. As his tearful friend said at the end of the press conference announcing his death, "Crocs rule."

Steve Irwin, RIP.

He should grow into it

2006-09-01T11:46:00.000+01:00

Where's me Pot Noodle?
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

I met my friend Clara's baby, Freddie, for the first time last night. Well, I say met, he was asleep the entire time. Here he is recreating the famous Pot Noodle advert. He's got a precociously developed sense of humour for a slumbering, 10-day old infant.

Clara is the first of my friends to have a baby (a gymslip mother at 29 and three quarters) and I still can't quite get my head around the fact that she actually made a person. I'm ever so impressed.

Star

2006-08-31T15:09:00.000+01:00

Star
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Star

2006-08-31T15:07:00.000+01:00

Star
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Star

2006-08-31T15:04:00.000+01:00

Star
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Star

2006-08-31T15:00:00.000+01:00

Star
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Just to prove that I can be creative even when I'm lying around on the sofa with a broken pair of comedy sunglasses and a crap camera phone.

Sex and The Inde

2006-08-24T12:37:00.000+01:00

I find the idea of a sex column in The Independent slightly horrifying. But for some reason, Catherine Townsend's Sleeping Around exists, nestled between recipes for organic cheesebread and comment on politicians' family portraits (Gordon Brown's kids are cuuuuute!).

Reading about sex in the Inde whilst on public transport feels rather like sitting next to an over-confident, Oxbridge-educated twenty-something, loudly discussing blow jobs on her mobile phone on the 08.32 to Waterloo while everyone else is trying to do the crossword. It's not hot, it's bizarre, bemusing and a little bit embarrassing. And, try as I might, I cannot - as I gaze at her half-chopped up self leaning out of the page in a staged "sexy" pose and black cardie - imagine Catherine Townsend lashing a lover to the bed or shopping for mouth gags.

I don't think it's her fault, perhaps it would be easier to take if the tone was more cheeky, less smug and the column was in More magazine. At the moment, it feels like the prettiest young writer in the office was marched to the keyboard and instructed to come up with something part Carrie Bradshaw, part Belle de Jour. Perhaps I am just the wrong kind of person to be reading the column. If I ever encountered a lover who tried to get me going by downloading an adult podcast onto my iPod, I may very well have to leg it.

Freddie

2006-08-22T17:23:00.000+01:00

Freddie Strike
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Look what my friend Clara made! In her tummy!

What will they think of next.

Elizabethan Trivia

2006-08-21T15:11:00.000+01:00

Blue
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Elizabeth is an alright name, I reckon, although I forget I am called it sometimes as nobody really uses it.

According to Wikipedia, there have been many Elizabeths (and Elisabeths) of note, including John the Baptist's mum (well actually she was an Elisheva, but that's how all the kids were spelling it back then), four saints, several empresses, two queens of England, two Belgian princesses and future queens of the Belgians, and lots of other queens and princesses scattered around the world.

There's also a whole stack of famous non-royal, non-saintly Elizabeths. One of these was the late Elizabeth Hulett aka pro wrestling manager "Miss Elizabeth", who was known as the First Lady of Wrestling and was married to "Macho Man" Randy Savage. Personally, if I was called Randy Savage and was a professional wrestler, I'd probably just stick with the name Randy Savage. She died in 2003 after overdoing the Xanax, steroids and vodka.

And who could forget Elizabeth, Electress Palestine and Queen of Bohemia? Also known as the Winter Queen and Queen of Hearts, she was born in 1596 and was the daughter of James VI of Scotland/James I England and Ireland. The gunpowder plotters wanted to kidnap her stick her on the throne when she was nine, so it's probably a good job they all got their heads chopped off instead. The sods.

Then there's Elisabeth, an erotic actress better known as Sexy Miss Lizz, Queen of Farts - a five foot fart fetishism specialist (which is funny, because I have a strong dislike of fart jokes) who was once filmed breaking wind on a cake. I think the term "erotic actress" is probably pushing it a bit in this case, but far be it from me to piss on her chips. Although maybe she's into that too.

The First Lady of Wrestling, the Queen of Hearts, the Queen of Farts. I wonder what they shall call me when I am gone...

I'm so hip it hurts. I mean, my hip hurts.

2006-08-18T17:50:00.000+01:00

London postbox
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Attend Oxford or Cambridge universities and people will assume you are posh, clever, and probably a bit pleased with yourself.

Study at RADA and people will assume you are a talented actor, and probably a bit of a pain in the arse.

What does it mean to have gone to a university that is currently advertising its clearing courses (and yes, one of them is my course) on Popbitch?

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Eh?

I know Goldsmiths is trendy, the Independent described it only yesterday is "eternally hip". But advertising on Popbitch is pushing it a bit, isn't it?

I loved Goldsmiths. I'd go back if I could. The place is so fucking laid back its horizontal. With the exception of the visiting Japanese history of art students, who would get up at 8am to chop carrots into matchsticks then rush quietly off to the library, everyone was exceedingly chilled. I don't really see my friends from college that much and marvel at people who still do everything with "uni mates", I couldn't bear the idea of having to spend the rest of my life hanging out with people I happened to meet in 1996-9.

Goldsmiths was voted one of the coolest brands in Britain a while back in the Superbrands report, beaten to the top spot only by Selfridges, Dazed & Confused, Agent Provocateur and Hakkasan restaurant. It may not churn out prime ministers, but it has spunked up Alex James, Graham Coxon, Julian Clary, Damien Hirst, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. And Lucien Freud, my favourite painter.

New Cross was an utter, utter dive when I was living around there, apparently the de-diving squad has been in and tarted up the place up now. The tarting up, I'm told, includes the New Cross Tavern (The Tav), where the pool room was accessed by hopping from dry tile to dry tile through the permanently flooded gents' toilet. Julian Clary, Vic Reeves and the legend that is Laa-Laa the Teletubby launched their careers on the stage in the back room, but I never saw anything along those lines. Less Vic Reeves, more a slightly mad bloke with a lazy eye offering female students what he claimed was powdered amphetamines but apparently was glucose, cupped lose in his grubby palm.

There weren't any black-tie balls, I have yet to find occasion to wear a ballgown. Most people wore head to toe Carhartt - carpenters jeans and those funny hoodies that felt like they were made out of wetsuit. When I graduated (the same day Harold Pinter got an honorary degree, which was weird), there was a bit of a do on the lawn, they everyone went home for a spliff or took their parents to the pub. The reason I chose Goldsmiths is that it had no medics, scientists, mathematicians, no sporting teams or sporting culture to speak of, no braying, pearl-wearing idiots and because it was in London. Having lived just outside zone six my whole life, I was gagging to experience London properly. And my god, did I. It was fan-bloody-tastic.

But I was never aware of the university being achingly hip or any of that carry on. There's nothing achingly hip about mouldy, death-trap flats in Catford or spending 12 hours bunking off in the Union, drinking Jack Daniels and coke and eating Nik Naks. I'm not sure who would describe the Wednesday night Club Sandwich event as really fucking cutting edge, and I'm thinking in particular of the weekly Michael Jackson medley at the end. "Are you coming to Sandwich" was certainly not the rallying cry that had a hotbed of creative talent gelling its geometric fringe, yanking on its Peruvian yaks' wool booties and leaping on a skateboard down to the Tianamen building (seriously). It was more shit-faced female students snogging each other to get the boys to buy them drinks. I am not friends with any young British artists, actually the one girl I do keep in touch with works as a librarian for the civil service.

Perhaps the whole cool thing is a conspiracy by Lewisham Council to trick media wankers into moving to south east London? Maybe I was so busy reaching for the lasers that I failed to nurture friendships with shark picklers? Perhaps all the cool people hid when I was around? Or maybe I'm just SO FUCKING COOL, the coolness couldn't touch me. Yeah, that'll be it.

Please open immediately

2006-08-17T17:31:00.000+01:00

Please open immediately
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Seriously Revenue chaps, please tell me the self-assessment form you sent me is just a bad, bad, confusing dream and I will wake up soon to find that all I actually have to do is tell you how much I earned and at what point I earned it.

The first instruction was simple enough to understand: "Open immediately". Well, I've already got that wrong (although three months after I got it surely isn't too shabby).

But am I offsetting my claim against earnings outside of allowances on total pocket/birthday/Christmas money received in the tax year 1983-4? Where is the extra form in which I detail the poems inside the birthday cards? Did I sign up for gift aid? Would I like any tax owing to be assigned to Beryl Reid? Would I like to use my tax code to fund criminal gangs in Bolivia? If Lucy drinks .7 litres of water and Sam leaves the house at 7.42am, who gets the Scalectrix for Christmas? I don't know, tax people! I DON'T KNOW.

Clever flatmate Caroline Vorderman (not her real surname) has taken me through the Form of Fear and pointed out the bits that I need to fill in. Just thinking about it makes my throat close with terror. If she wasn't there to guide me, I'd probably end up accidentally donating my car to an orphanage and falling down dead on the floor with a stress-induced heart attack.

Hopefully, this will never have to happen to me again. The two months that I was shoved mercilessly out of the warm and cosy cottage of P.A.Y.E and into the icy wasteland of self-employment will, I believe, scar me for life. Thank god they heard the frantic clawing at the door and let me back in.

Canary Wharf

2006-08-15T18:23:00.000+01:00

Canary Wharf
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

I'm struggling for something to say today - I've had a few abortive attempts at humour but quite frankly, I was getting on my own tits.

So I have resorted to the camera phone, although all the super snaps of the regatta fireworks have, of course, come out SIDEWAYS.

Anyway, I've been meaning to fish one this out of my phone for ages. I took it during a very wibbly boat party but thought it had come out quite crisp - that's what it looks like on the phone screen. Turns out it looks like somebody's dropped some acid and started with photoshop, but I think I like it.

Bora Bora

2006-08-14T12:49:00.000+01:00

Bora Bora
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

I haven't been blogging because I've had the week off work, which was marvellous. I heartily recommend it, I actually feel refreshed today. Considering I spent the first half of the week in Ibiza with Marion and Deidre, this is no mean feat. We thought we might as well pop over there to celebrate the Deidre's recent 30th birthday and mine too, even though it isn't until October.

The reason this picture of the Bora Bora beach bar is sideways is that the "rotate" button on Flickr doesn't work on my computer. Slightly annoying, but it probably does convey the angle I was on when I took it. On our first morning, Marion and I innocently set off on a stroll to see Playa D'en Bossa beach. But when we were within ten meters of the sacred sands, the heavens opened and we were confined to a bar for, ooh, at least an hour. Luckily, our time there was not wasted as a kindly local bestowed ale upon us, and educated us in the local grappa-esque liquor... thingies of the island. So by the time the rain clouds (pictured) were buggering off over the sea, we were having a tremendous time at Bora Bora, swilling down half pints of Ameretto discussing how generally brilliant everything and everyone is and how much we love them.

Needless to say, it didn't last and we were back to hating everything and everyone following a short siesta.

After having a spankingly good time at Space, laughing at the ponces in DC10 (we thought "explosion in a c*nt factory" summed it up), circling the swimming pool on a misappropriated lilo, spending a cloudy Tuesday nibbling what have to be the most enormous Wotsits I've ever seen, and FINALLY getting our paella, we felt we'd been sufficiently mugged by the glowering gangs of murderous, espadrille-sporting, mullet-flicking villains that no doubt control every night club, family pub, Spar, bar and hire car on the island, and were ready to leave. Thank f*ck we made it back just before the airports went absolutely do-lally bonkers. I can just imagine the clammy, officious security types squirming with delight in their snug-fitting nylon suits as they forced miserable, rain-spattered, poly-poncho-wearing travellers to stow their potentially lethal air pillows, Opal Fruits and copies of Heat back in their suitcases. I probably would have had to mutter something quite strong. Terrible business.

Mad Mel

2006-08-01T14:49:00.000+01:00

Mad Mel
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

I know Mel Gibson's dad is an evil Holocaust denier and Mel himself is a sneering bully who thinks his wife his going to hell because she's the wrong kind of Catholic, but this comment from "influential talent agent Ari Emanuel" (whatever) about his anti Semitic comments really made me giggle. It sounds like a line from South Park The Movie:

"At a time of escalating tensions in the world, the entertainment industry cannot idly stand by and allow Mel Gibson to get away with such tragically inflammatory statements."

And Lo, as the bile-tinged drool of Mad Max didst hit the Malibu freeway, yea, the prophecy was fulfilled and Suri Cruise didst rip asunder from her Beverly Hills compound, striking terror into the hearts of God's children as she didst drag the souls of the righteous down unto Hell. And Him out of My Name Is Earl and Her out of Dharma and Greg didst reign down bombs on the Baldwins, and Shiloh Nouvel Jolie Pitt didst weep crystal tears into the hot dust for Paradise was once more lost and the Fires of Hell burned again the City of Angels.

Americans are idiots sometimes.

Double cream and champagne

2006-07-20T18:16:00.000+01:00

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

2006-07-20T17:46:00.000+01:00

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

2006-07-20T17:23:00.000+01:00

Coke Zero - rubbish
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Coke Zero - rubbish

2006-07-20T17:22:00.000+01:00

Coke Zero - rubbish
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Coke Zero - rubbish

2006-07-20T17:21:00.000+01:00

Coke Zero - rubbish
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Nerve-shattering nonsense

2006-07-17T16:16:00.000+01:00

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.

2006-07-10T18:03:00.000+01:00

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

2006-07-06T14:36:00.000+01:00

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

2006-07-05T16:54:00.000+01:00

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

2006-07-05T16:49:00.000+01:00

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

2006-07-04T13:22:00.000+01:00

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.

Hitler cats

2006-06-22T15:45:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd opt for something a a touch lighter today...

Although I suppose there's nothing all that light about mass murderers. Are cats who look like mass murderers funny? Probably not. I laughed though.

F***ball

2006-06-16T15:32:00.000+01:00

Everyone's leaving the office
I can't even be arsed to turn 'round
To watch men on TV
With names I don't know
Filing into the ground

They clutch the hands of small children
There's an endless supply, so it seems
Then they boot about
A white bag of air
At their feet, a nation's dreams

Except mine, could I say, I'm not bothered
I don't care if we win or we lose
I only know Becks
And that monkey
Who hurt his foot because of his shoes

I'm told I should fancy Steve Gerrard
Is he the one who has OCD?
What is so sexy
About washing your hands
Obsessive compulsively?

The last thing I want, if I'm honest
Is to be at one with the nation
They're all ghastly
With big wobbly tummies
Perhaps I'll support the Croatians

I can't take another four weeks
Of pissed-up twats breaking glasses
Wrapping their fat forms
In flags
And exposing their pimply arses

I got Germany and Spain in the sweepstake
If they win I'll get 34 quid
If England
Manage to win it
I'll wish that they never did

So come on then England and lose
For God's sake, don't string it out
No one wants to see
You crying
As you f*ck up the penalty shoot-out.

Google image search I'm too hot special

2006-06-12T13:36:00.000+01:00

Too damn hot

This is the front cover of a book advising ravers how to avoid carking it from heat exhastion whilst off their tits on mash-up pills. The cartoon clubber you see is called Peanut Pete, and apparently, there's some bad language in the book. Crazy!

Boiling alive

Roasting heat

And just for fun... geek

It's always too hot to be a geek.

Oi! Neo! Go and buy me some fags!

2006-06-06T16:16:00.000+01:00

I don't wish to speak ill of a new-born baby, but seriously, what the hell do Shiloh Nouvel's parents think they're playing at? This child has been billed as the most gorgeous creature ever to skim gracefully out of a lady and onto the scorched Namibian earth. Well, the manicured lawns of a five-star resort somewhere near some scorched earth and maybe even some poor people. POOR AFRICAN PEOPLE, D'YA HEAR? Angelina LOVES them.

Anyway. Shiloh Nouvel does not sound like a beauteous, gurgling child, poised to heal Africa with one heart-breaking blink of her ethereal blue eyes. Sounds like dusty bottle of £1.49 warm, rancid white wine that one might chance upon in the "reduced to clear" bin at on outlet of Bargain Booze. Why do famous people think it's OK to inflict these f*ck-awful names upon the planet? It's not the celebrity sprogs that concern me, they're hardly going to get beaten up at school when (a) they have truckloads of cash (b) their dad is Brad Pitt, and (c) all their classmates are called Gossamer Dew, Warrior, Arizona Pie and Storm-Biscuits. It's the putting up with the chav mums screaming at their kids in the supermarket: "Oi! Shy-Lo, you little twat! Get your sticky mitts off that Jade Goody workout DVD and help me carry these crisps out the car!"

It can only be a matter of time before the first round of Trinities and Neos come of age and join the workforce, followed by the Apples then the Suris, then the Shilohs.

Update Woody Harrelson and his wife Laura Louie have announced the birth of their third daughter... Makani Ravello *sigh*. Their other two are called Denni Montana and Zoe Giordano.

I used to love him but I have to slag him off on the internet

2006-06-02T12:04:00.000+01:00

Today, I would like to pose the question: what the F*CK happened to Axl Rose?

Well, obviously, there were the mountains of narcotics and the oceans of booze, no sleep, an inner twisted evil and no doubt a veritable dirty bomb of STDs carried by a tiny crab army, but still. Ginger dreadlocks? That look more than a little plastic? He reminds me of my Barbie after a heavy session with the hair mascara and the two-speed twirler.

His lips appear to have been smeared across his mug by a rather unprofessional cosmetic surgery practitioner, and are those cheek implants? He looks like Carol Vorderman FFS. I'm not even convinced that this really is a picture of him. Has he been at the chemical peels? It's either that or his face has nappy rash.

Over the years I've realised that pretty much everyone I know was at Guns 'n' Roses' Wembley Stadium gig in 1991 - the girls preying the roving camera wouldn't stop on them, requiring them to flash their blossoming assets to several thousand people, the boys screaming the words to Paradise City through mouthfuls of ham sandwiches that their mum made them take. A couple of summers ago, a group of friends and I were reminiscing about our G'N'F'N'R days and ran off to Woolies to buy the Welcome To The Videos DVD. Back at our friend Dom's house, we gathered around the television and pressed play... the first song begun.

Minutes passed.

Eventually, I broke the silence.

"Sharon?"
"Uh huh?"
"You know how we used to think Axl Rose was hot?"
"Yep."
"He was just a nasty ginger pikey, wasn't he."
"Yep."

It was a hurtful realisation, but perhaps one that was needed. A rite of passage. What did I really expect from a man whose name is an anagram of oral sex? Needless to say, I will not be attending this year's budget Guns 'n' Roses 'gigs' starring Braid Me Axl and a bunch of people I've never heard of. But no matter how vile he was back then, and no matter how much he now resembles a cheap Jafakin' Jocelyn Wildenstein, it is a small comfort to me that occasionally, around about 1989, Axl could just about manage to pull off hotness.

As for Slash, well. He was cool then, he's cool now, and he was hot when you couldn't even see his face.

Love/Hate

2006-05-24T15:59:00.000+01:00

Rain in May - you are evil. I know this happens every year, but I had to put emergency tights on. 60 denier! FFS. Why do you have to turn the seas upside down every time I set foot outside? I'm typing in my coat, huddled over a cup of tea, with a hot dinner in my tummy, wearing soggy boots. In summer. Raise your muthaf*cking game, weather. Go and rain on the football or something.

Dark chocolate Bounty Bar- you were worth every calorie. Who cares if you have the highest calorie count of all the chocolate confectionery? You so know how to work it.

Football Mars Bars - It is not a "Believe", it is a Mars. I refuse to purchase another until the correct name is reinstated on the wrapper. Remember what happened with the Yorkie "not for girls" campaign? Yeah, well I STILL haven't bought one, and I never will.. The only good thing to come out of this whole sorry mess is you have FORCED me back into the arms of the very naughty dark chocolate Bounty.

Madonna - you're a twat. Go away, and take your Abba-leotarded camel-toe with you. It's embarrassing.

New Look not exactly what I had in mind

2006-05-22T17:11:00.000+01:00

My new New Look brown linen skirt is falling apart at the seams after two wears and one wash. I know it was only £18 and I'm not really very surprised, but I was going for smart/floaty/legs under wraps, not Victorian peep-hole thigh slut. Sigh.

What you get if you Google image search...

2006-05-22T16:45:00.000+01:00

Babycakes

Cutie pie

Snuggles

Hate hate hate

Die, bitch

Told

2006-05-17T15:55:00.000+01:00

"You know, I quite like Chantelle. She always flashes such a big grin when she sees the camera, like she still can't quite believe she's famous. It's sweet."

"She's probably just smiling because she's criminally thick."

"True. I don't like Preston though."

"Oh god no. I hate his cardigans."

"I hate his band."

"I don't like his ears."

"I think he's on make."

"His name is ridiculous."

"I hate his tattoos."

"I really hate his eyebrows."

"Pillock."

Happy

2006-05-15T17:41:00.000+01:00

Someone at work put the TV on to watch something earlier and has not realised Neighbours has started. Sadly, it is on mute but Susan and Toady are having a heated debate at what could be an outside area of Lassiters (or whatever it is these days) - he has his suit on which means he is in lawyer mode - and I managed to lip-read her saying: "Whose side are you on?", which was pretty exciting. Is she talking about Karl, or that man with the kids?

There also appears to be a new family of broad-faced chavs, or as I believe they are known in Australia, Bogans. Or Westies, but I think that's just Sydney. I recognise the matriarch, from the "fish" clan (Toad, Stone, Tadpole etc)? It appears the whole lot of them have finally bowled in from the countryside with their jolly crim ways to rock the boat in Ramsay Street.

Spotting a gay man in the age of civil partnerships

2006-05-15T15:32:00.000+01:00

The train's just trundled out of the city. The man sitting to my right is around 40 and lightly tanned with expensively coiffed sandy hair, his face pulled taught by a slightly superior arch to the eyebrows. His hooded eyes scan the pages of an inoffensive newspaper. His suit is well cut, his briefcase looks pricey, his shoes are curiously unbuffed.

Under normal circumstances, he would be off my amateurish gaydar - he could be a snobby, sophis power-gay (the kind I used to hate working for when I was in PR - utterly immune to and disdainful towards the eyelash-fluttering that got me out of trouble with my other clients). Or he could be a snobby, sophis straight city twat. It wouldn't usually cross my mind.

But this gentleman was sporting on the third finger of his left hand a most staggering hunk of bling. An absurd, bulging thing that anchored his arm to the seat, with strips of what appeared to be platinum wrapped around the outside and a diamond the size of a child's front tooth hammered into the centre. It was MAHUSSIVE. I may be wrong, but if he wasn't in the gays then I'm Cheryl Baker.

Ten green bottles

2006-04-28T15:43:00.000+01:00

I knew that if Mernie and I went over to Dee's house for dinner, I would come home with something to blog about.

And it was this:

Dee: "I want to join the Virgin gym down the road."
Mernie: "They're bloody expensive, how much is it?"
Dee: "It's seventy quid, which even if I don't go, is seventy quid not spent on drinking."
Me: "How many calories would you get for seventy quid?"
Dee: "Well, seventy quid would get you, what, ten bottles of wine?"
Mernie: "Ten bottles of good wine."
Dee: "So that's ten bottles of good wine..."
Mernie: "750 calories per bottle... 7500 in total. You need to eat 3500 over your base rate calorie intake to put on one pound, so ten bottles equals two pounds."
Me: "So you can join the gym and lose two pounds a month, without even going?"
Mernie: "Correct."
Dee: "Excellent! Who wants cream on their sticky toffee pudding?"

That theory again, broken down by Dr Mernie
Cost of gym: £70 per month
Drinking saved: 10 x bottles of quality white wine
Calories in said not drunk wine = 7500
Number of calories over base rate needed to put on 1lb = 3500
Therefore, £70 spent in gym = 7500 calories saved = 2lb lost without even getting off armchair and watching telly
Snag: Sitting on armchair in front of telly boring without wine

Ankle biting

2006-04-27T13:37:00.000+01:00

It's getting to that time of year when bobbling opaque tights are pushed to the back of the knicker drawer, leather boots migrate under the bed to hibernate snugly beneath a thick layer of dust and long-sleeved jumpers sink down to bottom of the ironing basket until October. Socks are no longer required on a daily basis and the cardigan comes into its own as whispy clouds over the sun send mercury plummeting in seconds.

This is also the time of year when I find myself wishing constantly for legwarmers. Clearly it is too warm to struggle into ridiculous nylon tubes and encase the lower leg in leather, but the sudden blast of hostile April wind and relentless puffing of overly-optimistic air con up the linen trouser leg is a twice-annual misery that I wish there was a solution to.

There is an answer, but I just don't get on with pop socks. The time I have ever worn one was on my head when pretending to be a burglar as a kid. I don't know why I hate them, my mother thinks they are wonderful. Even my old flatmate - gorgeous, pouting, stylish and Corsican with eyes far bigger than her overdraft when it came to fashion, loves pop socks. I got her drunk once and made her ceremoniously burn them in a bowl. But within the month, I caught her sheepishly slipping out of her heels after a day at work and propping her pop-socked feet on the pouf.

I think I may well resort to stealth legwarmers under the trousers. I've done it before when shopping at the weekend, although smuggling 80s dancewear into the office is a whole different kettle of badgers. When I used to ride horses, we'd wrap carrier bags around our legs under our boots and that worked a treat, that might do. Or I could just sit and shiver until summer, when I can finally complain about being too hot.

Death to unhealthy people!

2006-04-25T13:17:00.000+01:00

Anonymous said...

in response to wrong un, the reason you shouldn't be able to get your teeth fixed for free is cos it's usually entirely your fault that they're messed up and need fixing!unlike most diseases, dental decay is entirely preventable. If you snack on sugar, knowing full well the harm it's doing, and don't bother to brush your teeth reguarly, why should other people pay to fix your mess?

12:55 AM

So I "snack on sugar" and "fail to brush my teeth regularly", do I? And there's me thinking I ate pretty healthily, flossed, cleaned my teeth for three minutes at least twice a day with an electric toothbrush and went for regular check-ups. If I'd REALISED that I was a sugar-shovelling, plaque-toothed, floss-dodging freak, I would never expect to receive the dental care that I hand over chunks of my salary to pay for in national insurance contributions! I admit it, I had a Creme Egg last week and totally didn't clean my teeth for, like, four hours afterwards! *blush*

If you think about it, lung cancer victims who smoked should probably pay for their own treatment, and as for fat people! Let 'em keel over in the streets! Pah. Keep the NHS for the healthy! Hurrah!

PS. I am only teasing ;o)

Toothache

2006-04-19T14:12:00.000+01:00

I have toothache.

I've had a toothache for a few days, and was hoping it would go away - the hurting tooth has been drilled and filled before, and sometimes it has a little twinge for old time's sake. I've cleaned it, flossed it, poked it, swilled Corsodyl around it and prayed vaguely to anyone/thing that the pain is just transferring from my bank account or something. But five days later, it's starting to look grim.

I don't really mind the whole jaw-cracking, injecting, dribbling, scraping, poking, whirring, clamping, sucking, drilling, crunching, prodding and polishing (now wash around and spit please) dentist experience. In comparison with having half my face crumpled in raging agony, it's a fun day out. As the nerve pings and wriggles, I'm getting kind of desperate for my nice lady dentist to shove a needle into my gum and plunge the biggest drill bit into the offending filling. So I phoned up yesterday to make an appointment.

But they're not doing NHS anymore. A check up is £22 and a filling is £45. I can't afford it. NHS dentists are oversubscribed as it is, and one in ten didn't return the unpopular new contracts due back in April, meaning they've effectively left the service. So, in a nutshell, it looks like I am going to have to try to find a new dentist, whilst working, when I'm about to move house and don't know the new area, with toothache. And the chances of finding a new NHS dentist who will take me on are pretty slim. So what am I supposed to do? Wait until the tooth rots and falls out? Hope it gets so bad that I can be admitted through A&E?

Apparently there's a walk-up place in Angel with fit Aussie dentists that I can try, so jangling nerve-endings crossed.

I've never really had much of a cause to really hate the Labour Government. I haven't forgiven them for the tuition fees thing and the blowing the shit out of innocent Iraqis sucks the big one, but they didn't seem to be doing any terrible thing that wouldn't have been done anyway if another party was in power.

However, as I sit here with a throbbing ache pulsing through my jaw and into my eye and ear canal with little hope of anything being done about it because I don't have enough money, could I just say that YOU sir,

yes, YOU. You are a c***. Shame on you

Queen of darts

2006-04-07T16:08:00.000+01:00

Queen of darts
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

I'm having a bit of a slow afternoon....

Blurry clebs - Kylie

2006-04-04T14:39:00.000+01:00

Kylie
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

I think this is my favourite.

This was taken at the same event as the Cate Blanchett one, but Kylie didn't even get paraded around the velvet rope to spill forth her shimmering pearls of wordy beauty into the waiting, trembling microphones. No, Kylie came, Kylie stood on a box and said something, and Kylie went away.

I don't think any of the blur in the photo is even actually the tiny songbird herself. But rest assured, even if it isn't, she was somewhere quite close to one of the edges.

Blurry clebs - Cate Blanchett

2006-04-04T14:31:00.000+01:00

Cate Blanchett
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

This is one of the clearest photos in the collection. I have to say I am very proud of my technical achievements with this effort. You can almost actually tell that it really is her. Amazing.

The photo was taken at an awards ceremony where I was forced to sit outside in a tent, watching the "action" on TV screens. Not only did we not get to go inside, we also got packed lunces instead of canapes. Even the ethereal presence of Blanchett could not warm my cockles. Also, I thought she was a bit sniffy.

Blurred clebs - Joanna Lumley

2006-03-30T17:03:00.000+01:00

Joanna Lumley
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Can you see Joanna Lumley?

Is that her, in the centre, looking unusually bloke-ish in jeans and a t-shirt?

Nope.

Is that her little pink face, lurking at the left hand side of the stage curtain?

No, it is not.

See the black shadow topped with an illuminated white blob on the very left hand side of the photo?

That's her. That's Joanna Lumley. Wearing a cape, and reading the last bit of Romeo and Juliet. As you do.

Blurry clebs - Hugh and Jemima (part II)

2006-03-30T11:56:00.000+01:00

Miserable git-face Hugh Grant
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

If you look closely, you can almost see him saying "Raaah!".

She is the tall blonde blob on the right. Probably.

I think this is one of the more focused snaps in my collection.

Blurry clebs - Hugh and Jemima (part one)

2006-03-30T11:53:00.000+01:00

Hugh and Jemima
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Hugh Grant placing a protective arm around rah beanpole girlfriend Jemima Khan.

Doherty a fake invented by the KLF?

2006-03-29T16:24:00.000+01:00

Love this

Happy birthday to you! (and you)

2006-03-29T14:54:00.000+01:00

Nast... yawn
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

This is not a blurred celebrity, this is a picture taken in a darkened corner of myself and Mernie, whose birthday it is today. Happy birthday!

It was also Sharon's birthday the other day, happy birthday to you too missis lady!

Blurry clebs

2006-03-29T11:42:00.000+01:00

Blazin' Squad
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Staying with the art theme, today sees the start of an online art exhibition of my own work.

Part of my job a while back involved going to events where celebrities (I use the term in its loosest sense) would be in attendance. I would then hang around, eating free food and waiting to natter with these celebrated public figures.

This sounds like it could be quite good fun and sometimes it was. Most of the time, it involved missing EastEnders to stand by the venue's kitchen door hoping the canapés would come out, then being snubbed by someone like Jodi Marsh who I didn't actually want to talk to in the first place.

As I was unable to sit on the sofa engrossed in Dot's driving mishaps or Sharon and Mini-Den's spats about whether or not to settle in Walford (don't do it, Mini-Den! Oh, too late), I had to make my own fun. So, as I loitered in the esteemed company of our nations finest soap stars and pop acts I attempted to capture candid shots on my bag-scuffed, blurry, fish-eyed phone camera.

And now I would like to share these works with you.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first in my collection. I call it "Blazin' Squad (backstage at the Big Gay Out)".

Blinded by the light

2006-03-28T16:40:00.000+01:00

On Sunday, Drew (don't bother clicking through, I'm sure he hasn't posted recently) and I are off to the Hayward to see the Dan Flavin retrospective. Well, that's if he doesn't blow me out and go to Horse Meat Disco or something.

Sunday, of course, is the last day of the Dan Flavin retrospective. I have been meaning to go since it opened but never quite managed to. At one point, I nearly went even though there were only 25 minutes left before closing because I'm so terrified I'm going to miss it. I'm pretty certain, even though I've called to check, that when we turn up on Sunday there will be nothing but an empty gallery and blokes in brown coats carting lifeless neon tubes into a waiting lorry.

I went to see a tiny Dan Flavin exhibit at some poncy gallery off the Tottenham Court Road last year. I don't know what possessed me really, I think I saw an article about it on Londonist and forced myself to get out of bed, step away from the O.C. and gaze lovingly at light tubes. I like light, you see. I have been accused of being 'a bit funny about light'. This is grossly unfair, I just don't like sitting under a naked 100 watt glare when I could be bathing in the glow of a soothing 60 watt peach bulb, muted and cosseted by a heavy cream shade, while friendly opaque yellow fairy lights illuminate one corner, a string of mini purple lamps another and the ceiling basks in the twinkling reflection of a chain of fluffy stars while a mini multi-coloured disco ball rotates cheerily under the bed. Oh fine, I'm a bit funny about light. But you should met my sister, man. She can name a bulb at 100 meters. She's MAD.

So, yes. Dan Flavin. Liked it. LOVED it, actually. Got dragged out of the gallery by my hair, crying and clinging onto a complex geometric form. I don't 'do' galleries, but if I miss this, I will have to burn my eyes out with a fluro tube. I wonder if it has anything to do with obsessively rewatching Star Wars as a child?

Whoppers

2006-03-27T18:03:00.000+01:00

I'm only 29, yet it seems somebody has already penned an unauthorised biography.

The blurb reads: Lizzie Learns about Lying Lizzie the lizard tells whopper after whopper. When Happy hawk ends up in the lake, Lizzie learns the truth about lying.

Yeah, lying is funny and hawks are stoopid.

Pete Doherty - arrested - car

2006-03-24T12:10:00.000Z

Annabel thought she saw a smacked-up Pete Doherty driving through Hoxton this morning, and emailed me to see if I knew (perched, as I am atop the pumping heart of our nation's news media) what make of vehicle the oily little spot-farm drug-drives to his dealer's in.

I entered 'Pete Doherty - arrested - car' into our library system at work. Imagine my surprise when nothing appeared! Could the moon-faced wastrel really have managed to keep his nose (and crack pipe) clean for a whole month? Could he finally have taken a look in the mirror and decided to invest the cash he earned flogging stuff he stole from his bandmate's flat in some Clearasil, Head & Shoulders and a few barrels of Touche Eclat? You could get a year's worth of dirty washing to the laundrette in just one of those eyebags.

No, turns out I spelled his name wrong. There have been 17 articles mentioning the words Pete Doherty, arrested and car in the last month. That's more like it.

Drew in an elevator

2006-03-23T11:06:00.000Z

Drew in an elevator
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Every time I go to put this picture up, the computer crashes. I'm not sure why, look how cute Drew is! How mischievous! See how he drinks Champagne like a fun person!

And I'm sure I've posted it before, but I can't find it on the blog - could it have escaped from the archives and be running wild through the untamed planes of the interweb?

BTW, he isn't actually in an elevator, I am. But 'Drew from an elevator' isn't as snappy, really, is it.

Me, him and Camilla Barker Bowles

2006-03-20T12:06:00.000Z

£350
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Saturday marked the first official event in the countdown to The Wedding of the Year - when Sharon waltzes up the aisle and into the arms of Ian.

In honour of the impending nuptials, seventeen ladies wot lunch descended on an unsuspecting London restaurant. The youngest guest was 21 and the oldest 87. Can you guess which one turned up with a garter for the blushing bride-to-be? Old people are cooool.

Before the lunch, us bridesmaids piled into a few of Oxford Street's department stores to wrestle ourselves into several potential frocks, stuff our faces with massive pastries and ponce about trying on hats.

I have, in the past, given a certain someone a bit of a hard time for expressing a desire to own a Philip Treacy hat. I must now issue a public apology, for although I maintain that any bloke mincing about in a designer titfer would look like an utter pillock and be righteously dumped/mocked, I did fall madly in love with this thing of beauty, created by the very same Philip Treacy. I'm sure it'll be on my (imaginary) hatstand soon - a snip at a mere £350.

I never thought I'd be craving the designs of someone who makes hats for Camilla Parker-Bowels.

I even went to Mr Treacy's website this morning but was quickly reminded that I have no place looking at fashion sites as I clicked through to the homepage and saw the message: "If you cannot see the Unicorn, either enter the None Flash Site or Download Flash."

Heh. Unicorn.

Bitch bitch bitch bitch

2006-03-16T19:15:00.000Z

This morning, as I was trying to board the tube, I noticed a woman get up from her seat and shuffle through the throng to the doors with a big bag.

As the train pulled out of the station, I tapped her on the shoulder and said: "Excuse me, are you getting off at the next stop?"

She whirled around, fixed me with what I can only describe as a steely sneer, and said: "No, actually, I'm not."

"Oh, OK." I said. "It's just it looked like you were, and the first set of doors don't open there."

"I KNOW," she grimaced, horribly. "I get this train EVERY DAY."

And with that, she whisked back around and stuck her witchy nose into her mindless old-people's novel.

Perhaps I should mention at this point that she was painfully plain, middle-aged, had terrible scrappy, nothingy dark brown hair and was attired in a ghastly purple raincoat and matching hat that made her look like a ridiculous, past-it Ribena Berry.

It would have been infantile of me to mutter something along the lines of "Fine, I'll never help anyone again then," physically shunt her out of the way at Bank and push in front on the escalators whispering "bitch bitch bitch bitch". But I did it anyway.

And as I exited the station, a nice man working for the Hilton gave me a goody bag containing toffee popcorn, some vouchers and samples of two kinds of washing powder.

Consumerism: one

Good manners: nil

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome

2006-03-15T19:17:00.000Z

It has come to my attention that there are about four more people reading this blog than I thought there were. I reckon that makes about eight of us, including me! Hiya! *waves*

So thank you for, you know, reading all the stuff, and helloooo!

UPDATE
As stupid blogger won't let me post comments on my own ruddy blog:

Good to virtually meet you Crispin and Mare, and thank you very much, blush blush! I will return linky favours as soon as I get on a PC that allows me to do so.

Spike, bots love our work. They love it.

And hello Mark! I promise I'll actually make an effort now!

Hating the dream

2006-03-15T18:51:00.000Z

The problem with living the dream, as oppose to, oooh, say, working as a lazy-arse temp in a college in Wandsworth, is that it's actually quite tough sometimes. I never dared hope I'd get to do what I love to do for a living, but one day, my fairy godmothers wiggled her wand, jiggled her tiara, shimmied her bustle and... *sparkle-shimmer-POOF!*... I found myself with a fabulous job beyond any ridiculous day-dream ever dreamed during those long, lonely hours spent pretending to order stationery.

What never occurred to me in all my day dreams is that if I wanted to become, you know, good at stuff, I would have to work at it for a quite considerable amount of time. This is where fantasy wins - clearly I would rather be an undiscovered genius, a diamond in the rough, whose amazing talents would have caused flabbergasted colleagues to gossip excitedly about me in hushed whispers, possibly before breaking into some kind of all-singing, all-dancing routine entitled something like "I Think She's Got It! (We've Never Seen Anything Like It Before)".

Yeahhhh. So.

The problem with pursuing the dream is accepting the fact that most people at work with more experience are far better at the job than me. Of course, they are all lovely, helpful and patient and hopefully I will be as good as them one day. I don't know why I didn't learn my lesson in Ms Casey's class - I dreamed then of shimmying up the rope in gym, back-flipping across the playground like Maxine Poulter (bitch) and scrabbling up the apparatus to the roof of the school hall like a leotard-clad little monkey. In reality, I couldn't even make it onto the box with the aid of a springboard and dangled desperately on the end of the rope before plopping pathetically onto the plasticised foam mat half a meter below.

Of course, I didn't bother trying to be a gymnast and I'm glad, because quite frankly puberty took long e-bloody-nough to find me as it was. If I'd spent my youth hurtling madly over big planks of wood, I'd probably still be sitting here in my BhS 30AA "god chest, will you get on with it" bra.

But I want to be good at this, and I've realised that in order to totally rock and have awe-struck juniors running to save me a seat in the canteen (stop it), it is necessary to feel stupid, get it wrong, sit and watch others pull my work apart and tell me why I didn't get it quite right. It's not the greatest feeling in the world, but it makes it all the sweeter when someone says: "Well done, you did a good job on that."

"By the way, you spell storeys with an e-y."

Bugger.

This morning

2006-03-08T11:34:00.000Z

Sleepy, bored and too ashamed to unfurl my copy of the Daily Hate Mail (I HAVE to read it for work, OK, and I keep it rolled up with the sports page on the outside when in public) on the tube this morning, I took to reading a brochure that was perched on the lap of my temporary public transport neighbour.

She was a pretty lady with fabulous earrings and all her make-up on before she'd even got to the office, which always impresses me. Personally, I leave it until I see myself reflected in the ghastly blue mirrors in the building's lifts and if it's so bad I can't bear the thought of people looking at me at thinking - ew, pasty - all day, I might smear a bit of foundation and eyeshadow on at about 12.15pm.

Anyway, this young go-getter was reading an executive report about business opportunities in West London. Using the covert diagonal stare required for tube reading material piracy (hurts the eyes, easier to just bring a book really), I joined in on a paragraph about the economy of the area.

"Employment saturation is high in the transport and communications industries," the report instructed me.

"This is enabled by the sub-region's extensive transport links and aided by the presence of Heathrow airport."

Why do people need to use language like that? What a load of absolute drivel and tosh. Aided by the presence of Heathrow airport? Extensive transport links? FFS. What I believe they meant to say was:

"There are lots of tube drivers, bus drivers, ticket inspectors, call centre workers, mobile phone salesmen and trolley dollies in West London.

"This is because the area is carved up by the pollution-pumping Chertsey Road and god-awful North Circular, cursed by the ancient, terminally confused District line and the maddeningly badly-connected Piccadilly line, and constantly scattered with blue ice, frozen illegal immigrants and toxic fumes which tumble from the toilets, wheel housings and engines of the roaring jets that skim endlessly over the chimney stacks."

It upset me that the well-groomed lady was nosing into all that nonsense. Clearly I was not distressed enough whip out my hate-rag of shame and read about how smiling gives working mothers ovarian cancer, but still. I wish people were allowed to write proper like what I do.

Oh, oh no.

2006-03-03T11:26:00.001Z

Like Jessica at Go Fug Yourself, I too had a MASSIVE crush on Christian Slater when I was a young teenager. I had Pump Up The Volume posters on the wall and cut little faces out of mags to stick to my pinboard, the lot.*

I briefly interviewed him last year and could hardly speak, even though it was my job at the time to chat to celebs and it seemed that he was floating on a cloud of Prozac/ was a bit of a tool. Yes, he was older, rather strange, receding and a bit of a shortarse, but if he'd groped me on the street, I probably would have just giggled and blushed.
But this... this... HAT. Gah.
The dream is over.

*I have a feeling that Drew is going to totally misinterpret "stick to my pinboard"

Sliding trays

2006-02-17T18:38:00.000Z

The Winter Olypics - the history behind the sport.

From the official website.

Biathlon
Olympic sport since 1782
ABOUT
Biathlon was originally a tactic of survival rather than a sport. Northern Europeans used ski to Netto for when they ran out of own-brand toilet paper. They also skied with weapons to defend their grandmothers. The word "biathlon" stems from the Greek word for slidey sticks. Today it is interpreted as a joining of two sports: sock skidding and shooting at seagulls with pellet guns.
In 1960, Biathlon joined the Guildford Womens' Guild (GWG). But in 1993, an agreement was made to retain the Guild as an umbrella body under which the GWG and the Guildford tea rooms could act autonomously. It took effect in 1998, but Mrs Berrymore retains control of scones.

Bobsleigh
Olympic sport since 1924
ABOUT
Bobsleigh racing was developed in search of the ultimate thrill by crazy 19th century Eurotrash trustafarians.
Considered the world's first sliding sport, "skeleton" originated in the English town of Hemel Hempstead in the late 1800s. The first competition was held in 1987. Riders raced down the road from the High Street to the Rec, where the winner received a bottle of hair oil. It wasn't until 1988 that riders began competing in the featel position used today. The sport took its name in 2006, when a new sled made mostly of pipecleaners was introduced. People thought it looked like a very silly and dangerous thing to do.
The sport's governing body, the Federation Internationale de Sliding (FIdS), was founded in 1923. This competition has been part of the official programme since the 1st Olympic Winter Games in Watford in 1492.

Curling
Olympic sport since 1924
ABOUT
Curling originated in the 16th century in Scotland, where games were played during winter on soapy kitchen floors. The earliest-known slidey stones came from the Woolworths on Perth High Street and date back to last week. The earliest reports of sliding the slidey things across the kitchen floor came from Loch Cold Primary School in 1541. In the early days of the sport, slidey stones were taken from the headmaster's back garden. In the 1600s, slidey stones with handles were manufactured by Mr Stirrup and the third year CDT class, allowing a delivery style similar to what is used today.
The key developments in the sport in the 20th century have painting the slidey thing red and the indroduction of industrial strength Fairy Liquid.
Curling for men was included in the programme in 1924, but everyone laughed at them so they stopped.

Ice Hockey
An Olympic sport since 1920
ABOUT
The word “hockey” comes from the old French word "slidee", meaning "slidey". The origins of ice hockey are unclear, but it is widely accepted that the British marched into North America on skates, wielding hockey sticks. In 1879, a group of stoned college students at McGill University in Montreal thought thought it would be really funny to stuff pillows down their trousers and skid about on the pond. It wasn't.

Luge
Olympic sport since 1964
ABOUT
Luge is the French word for "tea tray", and historical findings point to the existence of sleds, as early as AD 800 with the Vikings in the Box Hill countryside near the sewage works. The Vikings are believed to have had sleds with two pointy horns, which resemble the modern Madonna's bra. The first international sled race occurred in 1883 in Davos, Switzerland, with 671 competitors from Bognor, Shepton Mallet, Middle Wallop and the United States. This race took place over 100m and was won by Edith Biggs, a dinner lady from Bolton.

How do you eat yours?

2006-02-06T17:08:00.000Z

So, Easter.

Great for many reasons, one of which is pancakes. Hot, cheap, delicious pancakes. Personally, I like mine with a little lemon juice and sugar, a smearing of nutella, or occasionally, rolled around a selection of finely sliced celebrations. Without wishing to toot my own horn, I kick ass at pancake flipping and would no doubt wipe the floor with any of you losers in a pancake flip-a-thon.

Another reason for loving Easter is the family turkey dinner - just like Christmas, but without the horrifying lead-up and crippling stress. Also, any enforced "gentle stroll" after dinner (translation: "for the love of all things holy, get your sodding father out of my goddamn kitchen for ten minutes or I swear I will run him through with the carving knife") does not involve frostbite.

Four days off work is always a bonus and my mother's increasingly insane Easter displays are a wonder to behold - last year's wonder featured real grass and a host of not-real fluffy chicks. But the best thing about Easter has got to be... Jesus! Only joking. Although I do like that song that goes "And it's hard to dancewiththedevilonyourback...", and without Good Friday, we would not have that hymn. No, the very best thing about Easter is egg-shaped chocolate. I'll wager that the pagans of yore did not realise when they picked the egg as a symbol of new life that in the year 2006, there would be such an array of egg-shaped confectionery.

The Cadbury Creme Egg is of course the daddy of them all.

I nearly died when my mum first bought me one of these...

... but was deeply saddened when I realised the giant chocolate egg did not contain a litre of white and yellow-stained fondant. Which was probably for the best as it would have killed me. But it's not really the giant eggs that make Easter great - it's the little ones which hit the shops a ridiculous four months early. Creme eggs, rolo eggs, mars eggs, truffle eggs, smarties eggs, double cream eggs, caramel eggs and any mini versions. I don't know why, but egg-shaped confectionery is so much more satisfying than the regular sort. Perhaps it has something to do with the Easter Sunday egg hunts we used to have in the back garden. I will never, ever forget the crushing disappointment of finding an egg with my foot when I was about seven. The brief resistance and heart-breaking pop as the hollow chocolate caved into the flowerbed under my weight stalks me through my adult life. Devastating stuff.

I'm sure religous types lamenting the loss of the Christian messgae at Easter time frown on the cynical peddling of chicken ovum-themed chocolate delights. They're probably not too happy about the hijacking of Shrove Tuesday by the Jif Lemon people either. I hope they can console themselves with the fact that all us sinners shooting into the firey depths of hell on a slick of hot, smoking fat enjoyed a few brief moments of base pleasure at the expense of their Lord and Father.

When I think about my posting options, the word "insipid" springs to mind

2006-02-06T12:43:00.000Z

Things I can't blog about because people may read about it and get their collective knickers in a dirty great twist:

My job
My relationship
Certain family situations
Various projects I'm involved with
Some friends (who are doing things that are interesting)
Basically, everything I do/say/think

Things I can blog about because nobody cares:

How much I hate generic stuff
Eating (as long as it is not undertaken with anybody "sensitive")
How much I like generic stuff
Sleeping
Non-touchy friends (who aren't doing anything interesting)
My low-energy mission to get fit

Sometimes, blogging is a real bitch. I could, of course, start a secret blog and write about lots of secret things, but that would be a bit horrid. So. Check back later to find out just how much I like egg-shaped chocolate *sigh*

Main Entry: insipid
Part of Speech: adjective 1
Definition: dull
Synonyms: anemic, arid, banal, beige, blah, bland, characterless, colorless, commonplace, dead, drab, driveling, dry, dullsville, feeble, flat, ho hum, inane, innocuous, jejune, lifeless, limp, loser, mild, milk-and-water, mundane, namby-pamby, nebbish, nothing, nowhere, ordinary, plain, pointless, prosaic, prosy, slight, soft, spiritless, stale, stupid, subdued, tame, tedious, tenuous, thin, tired, trite, unimaginative, vapid, watery, weak, weariful, wearisome, wiped out, wishy-washy, yawn
Antonyms: interesting

Smokin'

2006-01-31T17:59:00.000Z

Bill shambles back into the office after a week's skiing. His short, stocky frame is enveloped in a long winter coat which he shrugs off to reveal a sloppily-knotted tie and a frayed white shirt with a missing button. His balding head and face are red, still radiating the snow-reflected Alpine glare.
In his hand, he clutches his first - or maybe second - Nero's cappuccino of the day. Milk froth flecks his lips, or is it leftover sunblock? Sunburned skin? Impossible to tell.
He smiles into his scarf.
"Morning," he mumbles.
"Look what I just found in my coat."
He reaches into his pocket and produces a round and battered seventies-style ashtray, along with a strong stench of stale smoke.
It's still full of ash.
"Where did that come from?" I ask.
He smiles again, bemused.
"I dunno!" he says, plonking it on the desk.

Five minutes later, the smoky smell is muted.
"I got rid of that ashtray for you," he says.
I like sitting next to Bill.