Make Mine A Happy Meal

I got into the taxi and sighed with relief. I had been almost in pain trying to keep my face from scowling over the past few hours and there was also the fact that I was absolutely starving – I had just been at ‘The Meal from Hell’. Pretentious overpriced food, combined with snooty yet inefficient wait staff AND that I was out with work colleagues I didn’t want to spend a second more than necessary with, this had all the hallmarks of uncomfortable dining before we picked out the wine.

I was in a very well known restaurant on Stephen’s Green. My boss was there to pay and the marketing witch was there to try and beat us into enjoying ourselves. It had been her idea, one that was met with rolled eyes and lots of grumbling, asking why did we have to go to dinner with people we barely put up with in work and who we most definitely didn’t want to go to dinner with. Everyone felt the same way, no one wanted to go as it was an unwritten thing that none of us liked each other and just accepted we had to work together. After one person dropped out with a pathetic excuse, the rest of us were told that no matter what we were going and that we were going to enjoy it no matter what. You can imagine how much I was looking forward to this then. Groan.

Sitting in reception, waiting for everyone to arrive set the scene for the uncomfortable silences that were to come. When at our table it started off with the horrible little annoying man, grabbing the wine list and arguing with the boss over which were the best wines and being told that he wasn’t allowed pick any bottle over £60 [this was a number of years ago]. And then the resident alcoholic slimy sales guy announced that he wasn’t hungry and didn’t want anything. The waiter that arrived merely added to the tension with his appalling attitude. Maybe our money wasn’t the same as everyone else’s eating there that night.

Pinchy Pinchy

‘Excuse me, do you have these in a size 6?’

‘Oh.. well, ok then, I’ll try the 5 if that’s all you have. I’ve a few pairs of shoes from this brand and a 5 was grand before.’

So starts My Summer Sandal Saga. I wanted needed a new pair of sandals a few months ago. I’m a bit of a hoarder in terms of clothes and shoes, once I find something I like I’ll wear it forever or until it literally falls apart. I have a certain style, a certain look and I really don’t find much in your average high street that I like, so I grab it with both hands when I do and then hang onto it! Having finally admitting defeat with a pair of fab wedge sandals with a row of black flowers as the single strap, I condemned them to the wardrobe in the sky and needed new ‘everyday’ sandals. You know, ones that would do for work and that I’d still get away with going out if the rest of me was a bit more dressed up.

By chance I happened upon a pair of such sandals in black patent with swishy crossover straps and they were even on sale at half price at a measly €35! What’s not to like about this? But they were the last pair left and they were officially a size smaller than what I normally take. Without so much as a second thought, I said to the sales assistant ‘I’ll take them!’ and next thing, me and my new purchase toddled off. Delighted with myself I was! So much so, I put them on and headed out again to meet friends 5 minutes after I got home. Now, these sandals don’t have much of a heel, maybe an inch and a half, practically flat for someone like me who loves how big, big  heels for the way they make me feel like a giant - I have 5inch Kurt Geigers that bring a tear to the eye. So they wouldn’t hurt, even though they’re brand new, right?

AAAten- shun!

Oh I do like a nice military jacket! I have to say, it’s one of my favourite looks – sharp, edgy jacket with skinny jeans and boots with a heel just begs for a ‘I know I look great’ attitude. Back when I was a teenager in 1842 and not exactly living near Camden Market or the Portobello Road, there was a distinct lack of the kind of clothes I wanted to wear available in Smalltown. I did once resort to buying a man’s blazer in a charity shop and then fashioning epaulets out of gold material and sewing fringing that was actually meant for curtain ties into the kind of thing I wanted. I also managed to somehow find a gold brooch that resembled a type of battlefield medal and I looped some different gold rope-y kind of stuff that I also found in the local haberdashery store between one shoulder and the collar. Oh, I loved that jacket! And you couldn’t really see the sewing stitches unless you were really, really close up!

Nowadays however, Military jackets are pretty much a staple of manys the A/W collection. Oh you young ‘uns don’t know how easy you have it! I particularly like this one, pictured. From Laura Whitmore’s Impulse Bodyspray Collection, available in all A-Wear stores, this jacket ticks all the boxes! Great shape, big shoulders as seen everywhere this A/W, fab button detail and a not to be sniffed at price of just €70!

Wondering where you know the name Laura Whitmore from? Recognise the face? Laura’s currently an MTV presenter – ah, now you know her! – this is her first foray in fashion as the face of the Impluse Bodyspray Collection for A-Wear. I think she looks fab in these pics, mind, you’d need an awful lot of Elnett to keep that hair in place in Whelan’s at 2am on a Saturday night, but I can see many of you trying anyway!

This collection has been available in A-Wear since mid August and Impulse have also set up a ’street blog’ where you can see pix of the more fashionable among us as they eh, wander down the street! Have a look and who knows, you might be posing for the blog soon!

Ah Crap

Everything I own is my stuff.. right?Just stuff I own. It’s my stuff, not anyone else’s and if I choose to actually put tacky fridge magnets from the town of my parents last holiday destination on display, well, I can stick them wherever I want to! And although it’s gone way beyond a joke at this stage and I don’t even try and refuse them, they’re not like my favourite things in the world, ok? They just make up part of ‘my stuff’, stuff you’ll find in my apartment.

Like anyone else, I can confirm that I’ve lots of ’stuff’ – you might want to refer to yours as crap. Ok, we all have loads of crap. The crap that sits in a drawer, hangs in a wardrobe, stands on a bookshelf or bathroom shelf. Chances are though, the real crap you have only ever sees the light of day when you’re convinced you’ve spare batteries somewhere, that you’re certain you have a picture of that ugly guy you once dated to compare him to your ex over a bitchy bottle of wine or when you’ve turned the whole place upside down looking for a particular lipstick you know you bought, never wore and now need. There’s also the crap you have kinda on display or at least in the top drawer in your bedroom/ bathroom, the type you know everyone else has but it’s also the type of stuff you shove further out of sight during the 5 secs you have to do a quick tidy up upon arriving home unaccompanied, if you get me.

It’s a little different from the ‘Me Casa, Su Casa’ situation, it’s more like a ‘My Crap, My Situation – so what? ‘ kind of thing. Put it another way, I’ve loads of books, very varied, from books on iconic magazine covers, to all of Candace Bushnells books, some Erica Jong, the complete stories of Winnie the Pooh, a few Douglas Coupland and an abundance of cat books. Many of the cat books are presents, I may add. I have hard back editions of ‘The Ultimate Cat’ and ‘Tales from the Animal Hospital’ from the BBC series years ago, for instance. Guys aren’t so taken with them, unsurprisingly and they leaf through ‘501 Must See Movies’ or my Brett Easton Ellis instead. Mind you, I’d rather the pisstake comments on my cat books rather than the time I was completely at a loss for words when a new neighbour invited me in for a welcome glass of wine a few years back – I’d never seen so much crap until that evening. Perhaps if I added that it resembled a sanctuary for chintzy china dragons and that floral plate things that were just stuck up against various walls and that this guy, yes guy had added a neon blue, neon blue, strip light around a window and odd looking Russian Doll type ornaments on every surface, you might understand why I was a little dumbfounded. Now, his place was really full of crap! I think what I was able to do was agree that he got great, ahem, bargains at the local auction house and thankfully got out of actually agreeing on how eh, lovely the place was now that he’d eh, done it up.

So.. I have stuff. Stuff.I prefer ’stuff’. Over the last few years I’ve thrown out loads of crap. You know the kind of stuff. The kind of stuff you know that you don’t need. Really don’t need, even if you might think you might want  it some.. eh.. time in the far off distant future. I’ve thrown out black bags full of clothes [relatively ok looking with jeans 100 years ago] and others just with either knickers [baggy gusset] or socks [mostly single]. I also love doing a big cull of various things that gather, like cards from certain people I now hate, buttons in dainty little envelopes from a swishy boutique when I don’t even know what item of clothing it belongs to. Take out menus! Crappy bits of paper with my horoscope from a day something great happened, cinema tickets, airline boarding cards - I collected loads of them over the last few years but they’re all gone now. Pens with glitter ink [cos they're actually very hard to read, I've always resorted back to a Biro!], they’re all gone. Cat stickers. Beer mats. Hair bobbins even though I hate my hair tied up. Soaps from hotels. Receipts. Sewing kits that only now have turquoise and lemon thread cos I used the 2 inches of black thread it came with but thought I might need eh.. lemon thread one day.

So, being very truthful, there was very little I threw out when I was moving. All the crap had been thrown out during various booze fuelled culls after yet another guy had let me down. Honestly. I just have grown up stuff now. I’ve only had grown up stuff for ages now. The tiny Elmo was a present and well, he likes living on the bookshelf… and well, the red ladybird moneybox goes with my red living room… and ok, the purple handbags, especially the one with the flowers aren’t exactly the most practical for actually carrying things around in, given they’re rather small size.. but they go with the main theme of my bedroom…  and em.. ah, you’ve got to give me the Elmo! Everyone needs an Elmo!

Can I Tempt You With… ?

For the past two nights I’ve been risking life and limb to stay alive. Ok, that’s not strictly true but I have been taking a risk by giving in to one of my all time favourite pastimes, eating Jelly Snakes. Jelly Snakes are quite possibly, the most fab, sugar filled, cute yet probably evil, gelatinous creations ever well, created! I had to take a break from eating Jelly Snakes a few months ago. There was a ‘2 For 1′ promotion on in practically every shop I was going into including all the supermarkets and I was stuffing myself silly with bags of, not singular, Jelly Snakes. I knew I was in trouble and so tried to fob them off in a rush of guilt to people in work after I’d purchased.. only to buy more on the way home.

And then I came out in weird hives on my arms and chest. They remined me of the time I was 5 and I came out in hives after eating a whole punnet of strawberries in one go and a few months after that I came out in hives again when I ate half a box of Sugar Puffs – so it wasn’t that hard to put two and two together and blame the Jelly Snake sugar mountain on why I’d suddenly come out in hives again. So, I had to stop eating Jelly Snakes.

This week the same promotion was on again in my local supermarket and I was just too weak to resist. I munched my way through a packet on Wednesday night and then again last night. Oh the shame of not being able to resist chewy, gooey coloured sugar. But no more! I can be that person that will walk past the Jelly Snake point-of-sale- stand! And sure while dreaming of Jelly Snakes [probably] I remembered this little jpeg that popped into my Inbox a while ago;

‘If this is what happens to a Gummi Bear after sitting in water for 24hrs – imagine what would happen if you put it in vodka!’

Oh I think I have an idea for ’snacks’ at my housewarming party!

A Bit Ahead of Myself

This moving apartment lark comes with a lot of ’stuff to do’ [as mentioned below]. I’m now no closer to moving, in any way shape or form despite numerous phone calls trying to organise the ’stuff’, but of course, I’ve already decided on colours for each room and have a fair idea as to how each one will look.

The bathroom is going to be blue, well have blue accessories, the bath/shower/basin/toilet are all white, and I already have a really nice clear shower curtain that has blue flowers on it, so hence the choice. I put blue towels up the other day and I plan on having things like blue toothbrush & holder, blue soap etc. The huge mirror is nearly the width of the room and I think some of those squishy stickery things that go on glass or mirror in the form of fish and shells etc is called for as well.

The living room will be red. This choice has kinda been made for me as there’s a fab red leather with chrome legs couch arriving in the next few days, an unwanted cast off from the landlady. My couch is taupe/beige so a red throw will be going over that. The room is really bright and sunny and from experience, light muslin material thrown over a curtain rail can really work, so I’ll get some of that in red. The walls are white but I think white cushions would be asking for trouble, maybe I’ll do a bit of mix n match, a few other colours strewn about will do and I’ll paint my bookshelf red and keep the vase I have with the big bunch of bright yellow fake sunflowers.

The kitchen is all white but again, I couldn’t leave it like that so I’ll def be adding in lots of splashes of colour. I’ve a bright yellow kettle and toaster, I’ve multi coloured cutlery [chunky plastic, go with anything!]  and crockery, so I might end up just using lots of bright colours against the white. I’m fairly decided on pink/purple for my bedroom – mind you again, that’s mainly cos I’ve now two redundant purple throws that have kept my beige couch beige and some matching cushions that are past their best so I wouldn’t care if they spent a lot of time on the floor rather than the bed. And the fact that lots of ’sheet’ sets are pinky/purpley in colour will make purchasing easier. Paint my big set of drawers to match, get some purple muslin for the curtain rail and that room with it’s white walls is done!

I don’t really understand doing up a room in ‘neutral’ colours, but sure you’ve already guessed that!  Now all I need to do is figure out where the kitten basket is going to go….

The Naked Truth

I saw this piece recently, just the headline, a few words and I was a bit taken aback. It’s actually been bugging me whether it was true or just a prank or some kind of publicity stunt, so I’ve gone and read the article.

Much to my bewilderment, a company in Newcastle, England, did actually have a ‘Naked Friday’ day in their office and everyone spent the day at work naked. In the nip! No clothes on. At work. For the day. It was an idea from the MD that prompted this in order to boost team spirit and morale – Lord knows I hope it was the only thing ‘boosted’ during the day in the mixed office, ahem…

I just don’t get it. Why on earth would you want to spend a day in work, naked? And neither do I get that even though I’m sure it was greeted with perhaps more than a little hesitancy from co-workers, somehow they were persuaded it’d be a good thing to do - makes you think that getting away with a 10% reduction in salary in order to keep your job mightn’t be the worse that could happen, huh? It was done to boost morale, in these difficult times and I’m sure the company has been hit hard as it’s in the Design & Marketing industry, but what about seeing fat Freddie or stick thin Tracy in the bare naked flesh as they type or make phone calls at the desk beside yours could possibly be appealing? I think it’s great if you’re very comfortable with your body, but very few people are and then the flip side of that is if you’re comfortable showing it off, there’ll always be people that don’t really want to see your bits and pieces. In the run up to ‘the day’, people were encouraged to photocopy their eh, bits and pieces to get more comfortable about what would be on show and the company brought in a nude model so that employees could do a bit of sketching and ask questions.

I’m still not convinced. I would not like to see a parade of willies in front of me as I try to talk a client into spending some money with my company. Nor would I like to be hit in the eye by some wayward boobs if someone leaned over my desk to borrow a stapler. Oh God! I’m getting all kinds of visions now! Toilet paper stuck between someone’s arse cheeks, skidmarks on the chair in the kitchen. Huge skin moley type things, all uneven in colour and shape or a bit of sagging skin akin to a turkey don’t seem anyway as bad in retrospective – but I’m still not rushing to see what my colleagues have underneath their clothes yet!

And just in case you’re wondering, it has all been filmed as a documentary to be shown on the Virgin satellite channel.

My Sister Went on Holiday….

.. and all I got was this T-shirt!

I was presented with this the other evening. My sis and her boyf are just back from Italy and last year she got me some Hello Kitty stuff as well as Italian biscuits and chocs, bits and pieces for mom and some fancy pasta, naturally. I can’t remember where she was the year before, but I’m fairly certain she got me some Hello Kitty stuff then as well.

You see, I heart,  heart Hello Kitty. Handbags are my main HK vice, at the last count I’d over 20 and sure I’ve had HK everything at one point or another. I’m fairly easy to buy presents for in that regard, but perhaps I should really have grown up just a bit by now.

So, when I looked at this t-shirt, a very familiar character instantly came to mind. And I smiled. And then I was slightly taken aback and with eyes like saucers when I turned to my sister, all she could say was ‘I know!‘ and we both squealed with laughter.

So, would you wear this?

Boo Hoo for Jordan.. Not!

I’ve reserved writing about this piece of trash for some time now. In my aim to present both sides of the argument, on one side, I will say unashamedly say that Katie ‘Jordan’ Price appears to be a very clever and astute businesswoman. Well, she’s worth something around the £30m mark and she’s only in her early 30’s, is a self made, one woman operation that has diversified and multiplied the brand name that is Katie Price to become one of the most well known ‘celebrity’ figures around right now.

On the other hand, she’s a slapper. She started off making money from glamour shots of her taken from every angle and for a hefty sum, these pix made it into every type of rag magazine that feature such ‘glamourous’ pix. She did the Playboy centrefold. Morally, you judge where this lies against say, the girl that sat beside her in school that’s now a policewoman or an accountant. The humongous and plastic and attention seeking Jordan wanted more, so she forced her double F’s or whatever into people’s faces and nothing was beneath her as she embarked on a quest for fame and money that sent the most hardened paparazzi into a spin. No nightclub was too trashy for her to fall out of at 3am, no male not worthy of being groped, no brand name was giving her too little money to plug, no one was going to get in her way. And just when we thought we’d seen it all, Brand Jordan went into overdrive. 

It’s literally staggering how much stuff you can buy with this slag’s far-too-made-up face, false hair extensions, false eyelashes and false fingernails emblazoned all over. I did say she’s clever, she knows how to and when to make the money [Well? What on earth will she look like in 15 years time when she's literally the oldest slag on the heap]. And then there’s always the several installments long of her ‘Autobiography’ so far….

I actually don’t feel like I can type about yer man Plastic Pecs the soon to be ex Mr Jordan. We’ve seen them together. They met. They made us cringe. Then they made us vomit when they got married. And now they’re getting divorced. And SHE’S the one doing all the wrong things. I don’t begrudge her a ‘holiday’ but this happened to coincide with her writhing all over an Ibiza beach shooting for her new calendar. And sure the light wouldn’t be great after dark, so she ‘went on for a few drinks’ in between wearing the various wee bits of string she posed in for the calendar and took off some clothes to relax in.

Or as we’d say in this part of the country – she went on the complete batter, fell out of every pub and club, made no bones about the fact that she’d a grope along the way and no doubt she also threw up into her designer handbag [that the luckiest  nearest fella in the previous 5 minutes got to carry for her] at some point along the way. A fine example of a Mom of 3 in hr early 30’s, no?

The blabbing or blubbing to Piers Morgan last weekend in a finely crafted interview did her no favours. No favours what so ever. I don’t feel sorry for her that she was dumped [dumped by Peter Andre, oh the shame!]. She pissed me off by forlornly looking over her false eyelashes claiming how it was breaking her heart, but it took her all of 5 minutes to claim that ‘Pricey was back on the market! Look out boys!’ And I certainly don’t feel sorry for her that she miscarried a few weeks before the separation was announced – she admitted there were a lot of problems in the marriage, they’d had counseling etc, eh, not exactly the right time for another kid, love. Hopefully that little soul will go to a stable family. She’s hates the paparazzi! Newsflash! She wishes they’d leave her alone! Oh. My. God. How pathetic, like that’s going to happen when you court them to such excess that even the late Princess Di would’ve been embarrassed. And rumour has it that she was paid £100,000 for this latest tell all interview.

Oh! Those poor kids! Being touted out for more pix every time they’re passed from Malicious Mommy to ‘Destraught’ Dad before each parent can resume their normal jobs of seeking attention while the nannies take over. We can only hope that when Princess Tiamii [Jesus! That poor, poor child] and Junior grow up that they use their trust funds wisely to stay as far away from Mommy and Daddy as possible. I presume Harvey, Jordan’s eldest and profoundly disabled child will no longer be ‘cute enough’ to parade for the cameras and he’ll be in a 24/7 care home.

Have you guessed which side of the Love Katie / Hate Jordan debate I stand? And finally, just how easily did ‘Katie’ slip back into being ‘Jordan’, with most Press referring to her as such now? For a while she was ‘Katie’, she nearly had us fooled but a string bikinied, pneumatic boobed slapper won’t ever change it’s spots.

Pic via Perez Hilton

Take That Shameless Girl Home!

Iosa Chriost people! Just watch this video [if you can turn on the sound, the comments are hilarious!], taken from someone’s apartment window in Glasgow, right beside where the recent Take That concert was taking place.

This wan is clearly plastered – oh watch her struggleto get those jeans back up *cringe* – and she doesn’t seem to have a care in the world! She clearly isn’t at all phased by the fact that she’s peeing up against a lampost with absolutely nothing to hide her considerable arse, there’s no cover, no semblance of anything to hide behind, she’s just peeing in full view of anyone walking past. Watch this for the sheer laugh out loud moment when she falls over and can barely get up! Oh. My. God.