back up blog

Randomly, whilst teaching 120 people how to be an English tutor: Boy: Are you afraid of snakes? Me: Urm. It would seem a silly thing NOT to be afraid of... Boy: You seem like the kind of girl that wouldn't be afraid of snakes. Me: Well, now I think about some of the guys I've dated...

The woman was old enough to find fortune in seeing in her next birthday. Her husband was even older. The dark-haired Italian Stallion lunged toward the white lines of the crossing where they slowly walked across, the van propelled by it's own weight. The woman looked up, fear in her eyes. The van screeched to a halt. " Arrrrree-a-youuuuuu-a-scaaaaaared? " said the Italian Staliion, laughing. I watched my knuckles turn white. Welcome to Italy, bitch.

I've not written about my time in the States enough, apparently. I've guest blogged at Pond Parleys here and my ego thinks that you should go and read it. (Please?)

Mum: Shall I just do a nice big salad as your last family meal before you go? I mean, rather than the fish and chips you were on about? Me: Is that a trick question?

I jumped around in time with the music, bobbing up and down to some unknown heavy rock tune that I wasn't cool enough to know the lyrics to. It was awkward. There were many dreadlocks and mohawks and split ends and sweetie. That just 'aint me. "We need some Cheryl!" shouted Calum's boyfriend, as he tried to headbang whilst keeping his carefully styled hair in place. He sort of threw his head down, and then put his hands to his forehead on the way back up and looked around self-consciously. We'd make eye-conatct, laugh, and then he'd do it again. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I was beside myself, then, when a song I vaguely recognised came on- I was all over it. " THIS MY SONG! " I cried. There was some changing of the lightbulbs, Internet, and feeding of the chickens. You know the stuff- shuffling here, spinning there. I won't lie. There was also some shopping trolley action (which, having tried to illustrate by way of YouTube I stumbled across th

For a minute there, life was on pause. Or at least in slow motion. Living with mum and dad for a month, no car, no money, nowhere to be... it was an abrupt stop to 2010, which has been filled with saying yes to life loudly and proudly and smoking too many cigarettes and spending money I haven't got- which suddenly clarifies exactly why I'm more destitute than Sarah York. Anyone fancy giving me half a million big ones if I introduce you to my dad? Ah yes, but wait. I'd have to pay YOU to come and hang out at Chez Loony-Ville. Got it. I'll continue to entertain myself, then. Thanks for your time. No. This month has been less JUST DO IT! and more, ahhhhh. Well alright then. There isn't much on the telly anyway and I've already cut my toenails. But suddenly, it is nearly time for the next adventure. I sort of fell asleep at the wheel, just for a hot second, and now I'm upturned at the side of the country lane that is Packing Panic and shit! Do I have enough co

It was my birthday on Saturday. And boy-oh-boy, was I dreading it.  The older I get the less mature I seem to be- I'm living my life backwards. At 19 I had a job that was destined to become (shock! horror!) A CAREER, a long-term boyfriend I thought I'd marry, a flat of my own, my own brand-new car and private health insurance. NINETEEN.  You think I'd let MY nineteen year old daughter shack up with her bloke? IF SHE IS ANYTHING LIKE YOU JUST TRY AND STOP HER, says Mama. I remember when I was in the same neck of the woods as my cousin and his new baby and stopped by to say hello. His baby-mama was lay in bed with the newborn, and when I walked in I said to her as way of introduction, "I bet you feel like a bloody giraffe in a zoo with everybody coming at staring at you both," and this new mother looked at me gratefully and said excitedly, "How many have you got then?" NINETEEN. I sounded like I had my own kids! I WAS 19! Then. The day before my 24th birth

"Why aren't you guys READY yet?!" he yelled just before a night out.  "Urm..." I said, looking to the computer screen.  "Well..." said my partner-in-crime, looking to me.  "Were you google-ing naked pictures of that guy from Prison Break again?"  Caught red-handed. "How's you gay friend?" Nanna asks me frequently.  "They have names now you know," I reply. "You mean Calum?" "That beautiful one that I met once." I'd have placed him quicker if she'd of said, "That one you watch porn with". Because that'd be Calum. Calum with only one 'L' thankyouverymuch. (he's going to hate me for posting this picture. He says it makes him look like a retard) Calum likes Kylie Minogue, cocktails with an unnatural blue hue, and looking at photographs of naked celebrities online. He'll tell you it was me who started it. To be honest, what with "Can't Get You Outta My Head&

Can we all just take a minute to observe something truly wonderful? Please?  It's important to me.  More important than the time I saw Joss Stone in the lobby of The Dorchester and she told me that she QUOTE really loved UNQUOTE my Indian wedding skirt.  (It feels prudent to point out that I wasn't at the Dorchester getting married. To an Indian. In an Indian wedding skirt. Although after a few shots of bottom-shelf own-brand tequila it's entirely possible that this has indeed happened within the realm of semi-consciousness and somebody, somewhere, is laughing at the fact that I parade around all hoity-toity, nose-in-the-air loudly declaring to anybody who will listen, "I'MMMMM not going to get married anytime soon. I've got adventure to be had before anybody tries to tie ME down! Marriage is for love after 30, and for idiots any time before then." I could actually have been married for four years already. I could have consummated the marriage. In fact, I

Like I've said before, this month I'm living at mum and dad's whilst I am between adventures. I'm back from the USA, and just waiting for the end of the month to wave hello at me so that I can get on a flight to Milan and go and teach Italian children important things, like how to compare Pamela Anderson's breasts to fruit . In fact, I've just been telling Mama and Papa over supper about how this last summer one of the only things I managed to teach one of my six-year-olds- t hose six-year-olds that need to be bi-lingual for all the undercover Interpol work that they do that takes them to English-speaking nations, and for all those English-speaking hotties on the playground they must learn to woo; the six-year-olds that sometimes can't even write their own names or wipe their own asses after taking a sloppy dump  - is how to clap his fricking hands together. After every merenda,  or snack break, I would shout "Penguins, ATTENTION!" and my kids woul

I received an email asking me if I wanted some free stuff. Free stuff? I thought. Like, d'uh. TOTES. Turns out the free stuff was from Reebok. I furiously googled to see if by some small chance Reebok had started manufacturing raspberry-vodka or kittens. It didn't seem that way. Yeah. BUMMER. So I got a big package in the post. My job was to try some of those fancy trainers that tone your bum when you walk. I've seen the advert once, and that was enough. I imagined walking around my own kitchen in see-through Victoria's Secret knickers and silver trainers. My brother called recently to say he had seen the advert for cream to stop the top of the legs chafing. I'd probably be better suited that ad. He had called because it reminded him of me, he said. Thanks, Jack . Anyway, the trainers aren't what's important here. Reebok were very lovely and sent me some clothes to wear whilst testing the trainers. I've never owned proper sportswear before- there was a

"Just so that we are clear- this is a quick in and out job, right? Take it back and then OUT. No hanging around." From the passenger seat of the car I wagged my finger at Mama. "I'd just die if anybody knew I was there." I shrank down in the car seat just thinking about it. "I know, I know," Mama said to me. "You don't DO Primark. I won't tell anybody you were there," she looked at me, "If you buy me a coffee." I should have know- nobody keeps a secret without payment anymore. "Fine," I told her. "Urgh. I can smell the chav-i-ness from here." I shuddered. "I can't believe you bought something from there in the first place," I droned, "How can you stand to shop where a million others do? Aren't you worried that you'll see somebody in the same outfit just walking down the street?" I cradled my head in my hands as I remembered the morning I saw one of the 'Hollyoaks' g

It was a conundrum. On the one hand, Verbose Auntie had not been seen all morning, by any of us, and she wasn't answering her phone, or her door. On the other hand, she is of course a grown woman and entitled just to have a moment to herself without reporting to head office to have any 'me' time signed off by the general. Or Nanna. But you see, we're a close family. Mama is one of five, and my Nanna lives just down the road, so as a member of this Mafia  "clan" it is sort of part of the deal that everybody else knows your business. Often my Nanna, three out of four aunties, at least two cousins AND the post woman will know when I've farted before the noise has even left my chocolate starfish. Everybody will swear blind that they can keep a secret, but nobody in the family considers a) passing on 'information' to a fellow clan-member to be defying the rules and b) certainly not if it is done in a whisper, even though there is only you and her in the

"I'll be honest," I told her as I slurped from a cuppa. "I was a bit of a shit to him." She looked me right and the eye and without missing a beat replied, "Yes. But then," she wagged a finger at me, "often, you can be." There are some people in this life who revitalise your very soul, the core of your being. They understand you, accept you, and aren't afraid to call you out on your crap. They will look you right in the eye and with confidence tell you that yes. When you don't like a boy that much you are mean, and that meanness it isn't a becoming trait. "Actually," she decided eventually, "You are quite like a man when it comes to sex." Urm, thanks? Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Olivia. Olivia is pint-sized, never pays full-price for ANYTHING, and forever tells you that if you are having a bit a problem it's probably because Mercury is in retrograde. Again. She is part PR, part director and part Tarot-card

So there I am, trundling along in daddy's Saab, in the middle of bumble-fuck-nowhere, picturesque churches and Georgian dwellings galore, wearing an ACTUAL Alice band. With my worn jeans, old riding boots, corduroy jacket and pearl earrings I looked a fat Kate Middleton. And honestly, as I handed my best friend Carla a bottle of something and sparked up a Marlboro Light, then cooed over the pear-cut diamond ring on the third finger of her left hand I just had this overwhelmingly debilitating WAM! BAM! feeling of SHIT. IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE.  I felt like I needed to get an 18 year old between my thighs just to calm myself down.  You see, I suddenly realised that I might be on the cusp of becoming an adult. And an adult dressed as a Tory at an Election Night Party at that. AN ELECTION NIGHT PARTY. If that isn't bloody grown-up then I may as well buy a Volvo, get a Labrador and head off to God's waiting room right now.  I think it's called Harrogate.  I know, I

It's funny, she SAID , "I've got some black linen trousers that are too big for me- size 14, short in the leg. Do you want them?" But. What I HEARD was, "I've got some black linen trousers that fail to fit my svelte limbs because I'm a skinny bitch- do you want them for your squat, rounded shape instead CHUBSTER?" So I replied, with all the love in the world, "Oi. Do me a favour. Fuck off."

"God," I said to my Auntie who isn't really my Auntie, but who I call Auntie because she is Mama's best friend and pretty much family anyway. "Try this. I'm a bit impressed with my choice, even if I do say so myself." I handed her a glass of crisp, chilled Macon Villages. "They only stock American shite in their own stores. What a relief to be home and able to enjoy a proper glass of wine! I can't stand their rubbish. It's like drinking cat piss! Horrible, just horrible!" I took a gulp from my own glass and sighed contentedly. "Bloody good, this. Lovely. So much better." Dad tapped me on the shoulder. "Just put this in the fridge will you darling?" he asked me. "Your Auntie brought it for us." "Yes," Auntie-who-isn't-really-my-Auntie said. "It's a Californian white." Naturally I couldn't speak after that. What with my stuck-up and pretentious foot in my mouth and everything.

Look. I know what you are probably thinking: girls with tattoos are in the same league as girls who wear their thong above the waist of their low-slung skinny jeans. The same league as those girls who own patent white stilettos, but not in an appropriate, ironic, Like A Virgin  way. The same league as that chick in the second year of university who gives hand-jobs to the graduating class in the same way that 'nice girls' hand out signed memory books with pictures of that lovely picnic they took by the river when OHMYGOD they all sooooo totally went swimming IN THEIR UNDERWEAR. It was wild! Don't tell anyone though! Girls with tattoos have ruined the perfection of their female form, grafittied God's work, tried too hard to be noticed. Well. Sod that for a tuna sandwich. I got one. I'd thought about it for a really long time. And for a really long time I thought to myself how I won't just wake up one day and be 80 and wrinkled and full of tattooed regrets. Well.