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May 29, 2012 · 11:01 am

Not all those who wander are lost

The British Library have these new posters all over London:

I love them, even though I usually am lost.

I spoke to my little sister last Friday. ‘I’m back,’ She announced. I hadn’t realised she had been away, but I’m socially flawless, so I quickly said, ‘From away,’ In an authoritative tone. My little sister ignored me (she is much less socially flawless) and told me how much she was enjoying Caitlin Moran’s book, ‘How to be a Woman’. ‘I’m seeing Caitlin tonight,’ I replied. There was a short pause. (Another example of my little sister’s difficulty in abiding to the normal limits of social politeness). ‘Why do you always do this?’ She whined. (See- I told you- no manners whatsoever. Luckily, I had the social graces to carry us forward). She’s one of the guests on Stuart Maconie’s event. It’s at the British Library. You can come if you want.’ ‘I’m in Manchester,’ My little sister said crossly. ‘I live here.’

Annoyingly, she wasn’t lying. She does live in Manchester, but like most snotty Londoners, I find it difficult to accept that there’s anything that really, actually exists outside of the tube map.

Ironically, the talk, entitled ‘The Boys Aren’t Back in Town’ was a discussion of place, identity and ambition and the women who were talking were Laura Barton, Grace Dent, Lauren Laverne, Caitlin Moran and Miranda Sawyer, all of whom moved to London from the mythical ‘regions’.

As expected, the talk was interesting, intelligent and entertaining- a particular highlight for me was Lauren Laverne explaining how her kids (born and brought up in London) have a different accent from her. ‘Why do you talk funny, Mummy?’ They ask. ‘Is it because you’re Sunderlish?’

I feel Lauren’s kids and I have the same, delightfully inclusive views on ‘away’- by which, of course, we mean anywhere we can’t locate on the tube map. Although, after Stuart’s event, I feel well-equipped to venture to ‘the North’- or at least as though I might survive my time there. Almost. Though perhaps I shouldn’t reply to what I am assured are ‘cheerful Northern locals’ who ask if I need help by telling them sternly, ‘Not all those who wander are lost’.

 

 

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May 22, 2012 · 3:48 pm

My picnic for One

It’s lovely and sunny today, so I have invited my friend over for a picnic.

‘Would you like to come over for a picnic?’ I asked him earlier today. He did not reply. Unpeturbed, I rushed out and bought as many edible delicacies as I could find. (One- a Feast ice-cream bar. Which I ate on the walk back from the shops. I will have to tell him that he needs to bring his own food).

We chatted amiably about other things once I returned from my quick ice-cream break. ‘So are you coming to sit on my lawn and eat delicious food after work?’ I asked him again. ‘Do you remember that blogpost you wrote about your neighbours ages ago?’ He asked in reply.

I knew instantly what he was referring to. An old piece, in which I explain that one of my daily pleasures is perving on my neighbours as they get changed.

I fear I have revealed too much about my charmingly odd home-life. Either that, or he wants me to invite the neighbours to my picnic. Which I might have to do, considering that at this moment the only confirmed guest is me.

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May 21, 2012 · 11:28 am

New wave hosting

‘Come to my house for lunch,’ I told some friends. ‘Come at 1pm.’ I was worried they might get the wrong end of the stick, so I quickly sent a follow-up email. ‘Really looking forward to seeing you all this Saturday,’ I wrote. ‘If you could each bring one of the following, that’d be great.’ I then casually listed every item one would need for a lunch.

My friends brought everything they were told to, and we had a very good time. I had a particularly good time, bathing in the ‘good hostess’ glow whilst having to do almost nothing. In my defence, I chucked an extraordinary and fairly unpalatable assortment of booze onto the kitchen table as soon as they arrived. I like to use my guests to get rid of things I can’t be bothered to pour down the sink/ chuck into the bin. I expect my ‘how to hostess’ reality TV show will soon be picked up by SkyLiving.

As my guests carefully loaded the dishwasher and wiped down the table before they left, I felt inordinately smug. I had clearly invented the new wave in lunch parties.

Today, my friend asked me over for dinner. ‘I have tomato, onion, lentil and chorizo soup. If you like that sound of that, bring bread.’

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I can’t help feeling I’m being taken for a ride. He better have some excellently awful alcohol he wants to get rid of.

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May 18, 2012 · 10:35 am

Showing my Mother that I’m a grown-up

I have invited my Mother to an event. ‘I would like to invite you to this event,’ I emailed her last month. ‘Let me know if you’re free- I think the tickets will sell out pretty fast, so I’ve already got our two.’ I sat back smugly and waited for the glory that was sure to ensue. See, the event is this:

http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event130829.html, and I’m pretty sure now that I’ve invited my Mother to it I have secured my place as the favourite. ‘This will be such a nice, bonding thing for the two of us to do,’ I thought as I searched my floor for some clean socks. ‘And now that I’ve generously paid for the tickets, I think Mum will finally see me as a proper grown-up. And possibly take me out to dinner.’

My Mother replied. ‘Darling, I would love to come. Can you get another ticket please? I would like to bring my gentleman caller.’ I robustly ignored this email, and called my little sister. ‘I do not want her gentleman caller to come,’ I whined down the phone in an exceptionally grown-up fashion. ‘This was meant to be a fun thing we did just the two of us.’ My little sister encouraged me to talk to our Mother. I took a more sensible approach, and ignored her.

The event is next week, and this morning my Mother sent me another email. It was titled, ‘the 25th May’, and read as follows:

Darling

1. Was this a real invitation?

2. If yes can ****** come? (she obviously didn’t censor his name, but I am. He doesn’t deserve any more attention)

3. What time does it start and end?

4. Will you require dinner afterwards?

Let me know

Love

Mum

It seems my excellent plan to ignore this problem has not worked, and I need to take a different approach. So, as a mature and reasonable grown-up, I have written this blogpost. I think you’ll all agree that this was the most adult thing to do.

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May 17, 2012 · 11:12 am

Go Cupid

My friend told me she was signing up to a free online dating website.

I hate to be left out, so I signed up too. (No, seriously. I often volunteer to accompany people to routine GP appointments and grocery shopping. You never know what might happen, and if you’re there, the possibility of missing it is greatly reduced).

I called my friend a couple of days later. ‘I’m not sure about this site,’ I told her. ‘For a start, my inbox is overflowing. I gave them my actual email address, so it’s becoming very annoying.’ ‘Oh,’ She replied sympathetically. ‘Obviously I gave a hotmail account.’

I swallowed my anger at her selfish organization, and kept talking. ‘I’m not sure the people on this site are normal,’ I said carefully. ‘Oh no,’ She agreed cheerfully. ‘They’re terribly weird. I would never date any of them.’ I wondered briefly why my friend had been so keen for us to sign up to this dating site, but continued bravely. ‘They keep sending me odd messages,’ I told her. ‘And the site wants me to fill out endless questionnaires.’

‘Oh yes,’ She replied. ‘I’ve avoided all that.’

I had not. So now a lot of very personal and highly sensitive information is floating around on the internet. I can’t believe I told the whole world my favourite wine gum flavour. Although such good questions have restored my faith in the dating site matching algorithms.

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May 15, 2012 · 9:19 am

How I fooled everyone

I’d like to talk about money.

Money is something that, until recently, I knew very little about. I still don’t have any money, personally, but I know lots of people who do. One of these people is my Mother. She invited me to a fundraising dinner. ‘It’s £90 a head,’ She emailed me. ‘Would you like to come?’ I wondered what to do. ‘Um,’ I emailed back. ‘It depends…’ (A normal person would now have put me out of my misery, and explained if I was to pay the £90 or they were. My Mother is not a normal person). ‘It depends on what?’ My Mother emailed back cheerfully.

It turns out she was paying, so I went. ‘It starts at 6.30pm,’ My Mother told me the day before the dinner. ‘I can’t get there til 8.30pm,’ I explained. ‘No problem at all,’ My Mother insisted. ‘You are on a table of young professionals. No-one will be there before 9pm.’ My Mother has very odd views of young professionals, the oddest being that I am one of them, but I couldn’t be bothered to argue, so I set about preparing to walk into a dinner 2 hours late.

I knew, what with my unacceptable lateness, that it was important that I made a good first impression. So as I sat down to my (full) table, I stuck my hand out to the chap to my left, and introduced myself. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I’m Lucy. I hope you haven’t eaten my food.’ Things were going swimmingly. I’m not a young professional, so I let the others talk about their careers and rents and aspirations while I got on with my own job- getting as much for my (Mother’s) money as possible.

I ate my own food, asked the lady next to me if I could have her leftovers, and convinced the waitress to shovel the rest of the shared dish onto my plate before she cleared.

I asked the chap next to me if I could borrow a pen, and didn’t return it. I collected all the young professionals’ business cards- business cards are the perfect size for flashing pithy little insults at people when they are on the phone. (You write the insult on the white bit at the back of the card, obviously).

I feel that I am now in a much better position to talk about money. You can tell who has money by how they act at a fancy fundraising dinner. I’m pretty sure I fooled everyone. After all, the rich didn’t become rich by not getting their money’s worth, did they?

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May 10, 2012 · 11:40 am

My Lady Gaga worries

Lady Gaga is to be featured on an episode of The Simpsons. I have often wondered how I, personally, would cope with being Lady Gaga. ‘Would you come on tour with me?’ I asked an ex-boyfriend. He was confused, because we were at McDonalds and I had not explained that in this scenario, I was Lady Gaga.

I soon realised that I would become very weary with someone on my tour bus who needed to have everything explained to them. Also, he was eating all my chips. ‘I think I will get a tour boyfriend,’ I told him abruptly. He was less concerned about this than I would have hoped. ‘Why are you not concerned about this?’ I asked him shrilly.

(McDonalds is an excellent setting for a furious row. Its yellow and red colour scheme really helps to inflame things, and the Happy Meal toys are perfect for lobbing at other people’s heads). ‘Well,’ He explained carefully. ‘You’re not Lady Gaga.’

He was right, but that hasn’t stopped me. Here are some of the things I worry about (when I am Lady Gaga):

1. My The Simpsons character will be bested by Lisa Simpson.

2. On tour, I will come onto the tour bus late, be forced to sleep on the top bunk, roll around and fall out.

3. Just before I go on stage, I will have the same urgent need to go to the loo as one gets before long movies and exams, and my back-up dancers will start the dance routine without me. Then when I finally get on stage, I’ll be horribly confused.

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May 4, 2012 · 9:47 am

Ask Jeeves

I was awake at 6am last Sunday. I didn’t want to be awake. I didn’t even really want to be alive. I lay in the dark, wondering what I had done to deserve such punishment. ‘All I want,’ I thought to myself feebly. ‘Is someone to bring me a glass of water and a cold flannel.’ I wondered who would be kind enough to help me. ‘No-one would be kind enough to help me,’ I moaned to myself pitifully. ‘But I would give someone every penny I had for a cold flannel on my aching head.’ Which is when I finally realised. ‘All I need,’ I whispered softly into the silence. ‘Is a butler.’

I would like to take this opportunity to advertise for a butler.

This is a very good job. Your day will begin at 9am (but you only need to be awake, and certainly not dressed or coherent. I am an equal opportunities employer). It would be nice if you brought me some breakfast, but any food you can locate will suffice. The rest of the day will vary, but most of the time, you will be treated to lightness and whimsy, as I try out new comedic material on you.

(Some of this will be offensive, and it will be part of your job to tell me which parts are. Ironically, this will not offend me in the slightest). In the evening, I will cook. If I go out for dinner, I will leave you some money so you can order a take-away. (I do not want a skinny butler. I do not trust them).

Your only real responsibilities begin at bedtime. During the night, I have a habit of kicking off my sheet, duvet and pillows. I would like you to retrieve these for me. But not in a scary way. Try to make yourself as unobtrusive as possible. No-one wants to wake up with someone leering over them holding a pillow.

On Saturday and Sunday mornings, I would like you to pop into my room from 6am onwards with a cold flannel and a promise that ‘this too shall pass’. There is no need to do anything else on the weekend- I’ll scarcely remember you exist.

At present, this is an unpaid position. However, with such an excellent method of overcoming my hangovers, I imagine my productivity will soar. I would not be at all surprised if a few weeks down the line you are earning in excess of £14 a week. Obviously, as this point I will stop leaving you money for take-aways.

 

 

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May 2, 2012 · 11:02 am

Shoe the Keyhole

‘We’ll be at your house about 5pm on Friday,’ She said. ‘Bring booze,’ I told her. But it didn’t start there. We’d been at the same party, although I’d only bumped into her on the stairs as she was leaving the toilet. But that wasn’t when it started either. We met for the first time at a very nice restaurant. Perhaps it started there.

I had made fairy cakes. I had gone to Sainsburys (the big one, up the road, not the little Tesco express around the corner) and bought those little coloured stars made of sugar to sprinkle on top of them.

I had made fairy cakes, and washed my hair. They were coming at 5pm.

At 2pm I panicked, and forced two of my girlfriends to come over. ‘You’re doing what?’ One asked. ‘Look,’ I replied crossly. ‘I can’t talk about it. Are you in or not?’ My first girlfriend arrived at 4.45pm. ‘I can’t get the front door to open,’ I said urgently. ‘Just let them in the back door,’ She suggested. ‘Are you mad?’ I asked shrilly. We went up to try to force the lock. ‘What are you doing?’ My second girlfriend asked as she arrived. ‘The bloody lock’s jammed,’ I told her. ‘You two must fix this.’ They didn’t. They were coming at 5pm, and I was going to have to let them in through the back door.

‘Stop eating the fairy cakes,’ I snapped at my friends. ‘They’re not for you.’ I opened the fridge anxiously. ‘And drink less juice,’ I ordered them. ‘I’m going to run out.’ I started peering nervously through the window. ‘There’s a man out there with a camera,’ My friend pointed out. ‘Shut up,’ I snapped at her. ‘No, but honestly,’ My other friend chimed in unhelpfully. ‘You should probably let him in.’ At this point I’m near hysteria. ‘I am not letting a random chap with a camera into my house through the back door,’ I shout at my friends. It occurs to me that he can see me. I stop waving my arms so flamboyantly. They were right of course. It was 5.15pm, and I should probably have let him in. Because the director arrived pretty soon after that, and I had to let them both in then.

We were filming a spot for www.javari.co.uk the new shoe and handbag site from Amazon.com. They had hand-picked a selection of influential, fashionable people to do little ‘Shoe The Keyhole’ video spots, talking about their own shoe collections and how they had accumulated them. ‘And they asked you,’ My friend added helpfully. ‘And you made fairy cakes and let them in through the back door.’ I wondered if I were now famous enough to ask her to leave. ‘Talk about that time you thought you could walk in slingbacks,’ My friend prompted me as we started filming. ‘Or when you bought those ‘sex heels’ for a dirty weekend. And fell over seductively in the middle of Selfridges.’

As my friend continued jabbering away during my shoot, I realised why www.Javari.co.uk is going to be so successful. People can buy the shoes they want, for any occasion, without having to go out shopping. And they never need to tell anyone about it.

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April 27, 2012 · 11:40 am

How I defied Su (no ‘e’)

I have a new personal trainer.

(I get some sessions with her as part of my excessively expensive gym membership- a fact I was only recently made aware of. Unfortunately, my gym membership runs out next month). My new personal trainer is called Su. (That’s not a typo. There’s no ‘e’. Don’t ask, I have no idea).

I met Su (yes, there’s still no ‘e’. Please get over it) a few weeks ago. ‘What are your training goals?’ She asked me sharply. I panicked. ‘I’d like to look good in my bikini,’ I said nervously. ‘OK,’ Su replied. ‘We have a lot of work to do.’ ‘Oh,’ I said sadly. ‘I thought I looked quite nice.’ This was the wrong answer, and Su ignored it entirely.

We started with a nutrition plan. I had to tell Su everything I normally ate and drank, and she had to stop wincing and sighing for long enough to write it down. It was all terribly stressful, so I was delighted when I was free to leave her and pop off to lunch.

‘I’ll be very good,’ I told myself as I sat down in Cafe Spice Namaste (http://cafespice.co.uk/).

‘Ooh, curried venison puffs,’ I noticed. ‘Well, Su did say she wanted me to eat protein…’ I quietly plowed my way through barbary duck tikka and saag prawns, with a side of chicken tikka makhani (I care not for your bourgeois constructs on ‘what constitutes a side dish’).

It was the pudding that undid me. I had to try very hard not to dig into my neighbours once I had finished mine.

‘You know,’ I said thoughtfully to my sister later that day. ‘I’m not sure this new diet plan Su’s got me on is going to be that fun.’ ‘Really?’ My sister replied sarcastically. ‘A diet which only allows you to eat grilled protein and green vegetables might not be that interesting? Have you thought this through at all?’ I hadn’t.

And I enjoyed my (forbidden by Su) meal so much that I’m off to see Cyrus, the Cafe Spice Namaste chef, at next week’s Foodies Festival. (http://www.foodiesfestival.com/). Which looks absolutely nothing like the nutrition plan I’m meant to be following, and everything like a rollocking good time.

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