Is this Coachella or a Tattoo Convention-ella...?

I recently read a review of Coachella that dubbed it “The festival of the beautiful people”....and by golly it certainly was. However, all the reviews and articles I can find about Coachella focus on the celebrities that descend upon the festival year after year. And sure, loads of celebs go, but all the pictures are of them at private pool parties off site or in the VIP area, of them in the evening when it’s not 40 degrees anymore and they look cool calm and famous. At the real Coachella that I experienced, everyone looks like a celeb...they’re all young, tanned, thin and toned. The outfits are incredible and my eyes were on stalks for the whole weekend, coveting the original street style on show. It’s such a shame the articles in mags and blogs done focus on these real people who don’t seem really at all and in fact seem straight out of a teen film about Manhattan’s elite. Also, EVERYONE was covered in serious art ink or whatever you cal it when you have a massive tattoo done by someone who calls themselves an artist, not a tattooist cos it’s really elaborate and you didn’t just leaf through a dirty old folder and point at a gecko and say THAT ONE. It really was incredible how many people had this body art. Dan and I started playing a game called “spot the worst tattoo”. And the winner was: man with 2 giant paw prints of a bear on his chest, one on each bald peck (the men were all really hairless btw). Oh and I also played "spot the dream catacher tattoo" cos I think every 3rd person had one. Obsessed.


So aside from making me feel fat old and flabby, what else did I think about Coachy? Beware: this review is basically a comparison with Glastonbury, the best festival on earth....I'll talk you through our experience.

We arrived after a 5 hour drive from a vineyard sort of near Santa Barbara where we’d stayed with this old hippy for the night. I did all the driving on this trip and no journey was less that 5 hours. This is added to the fact that I was driving in the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road on 5 lane freeways that have no overtaking system apart from please weave freely as you like at any speed.

Anyways. We got to Indio, California in the palm desert. Ooooo. And we drove right up to the site no problemo, no queues, nothing. Not like at glasto where you may be stuck in non moving traffic on a country lane with no food or water for 8 hours. No no no. It was easy peasy. Then we found the queue. 10 lanes of cars, 20 cars long to get into the campsite because the security guards needed to search every car, inside and out, inside tent bags, sleeping bags, coolers, suitcases, under the lining of the boot, EVERYTHING. And they had dogs sniffing for bombs too cos of the boston incident the week before. But really what they were searching for was glass and too much booze. You were only allowed in one case of beer per person to the camping site and NO booze into the main festival site. And so began the very odd logic and rules that determined Coachella.

So. You’re only allowed one case of beer each. but you’re allowed to leave the site and go to the supermarket in a shuttle bus as many times as possible in order to get more. but when you do you can only get one case. WHY????? What's the point? Oh yeah it’s so you’ll go into the main site and buy beer from the bars there that cost $9 each. NINE DOLLARS which is I think 7 pounds. That's quite a mark up.

But even if you do this, to actually get to the bar area is nigh on impossible. You have to have your bag searched and get a pat down to get into the site. You can't take any booze with you so the guards will sniff your sunscreen to make sure you’re not smuggling. You need to go to a special staff and get a wrist band to prove you are of drinking age. Then you have to go through 3 levels of security to get to the designated drinking areas. There, it’s an oasis of cool and calm and you will never have to queue for a drink. But when you have to leave cos there's no free water and you’re getting sun stroke or need the loo or want to go watch some music, you’ll go through another 3 security guards who’ll search your bag and make you throw away any precious water you may have on you in case you're smuggling.

But I'm getting lost in a sea of negativity. I just got frustrated by all these rules. At Glastonbury, the organisers essentially put 150,000 people in a field and let them get on with it. At Coachella, it was rigid and there was no trust that if you simply put the rules in place, most people will follow them; do you really need SO MUCH security checking on EVERYTHING?

To be fair though, the guards were usually a pretty friendly bunch and the bar areas were massive and you could get food and sit in the shade and they were always near the stages so we watched the XX from an amazing vantage point in one of them. They just needed to relax with the fear that people would smuggle booze. I mean, making me throw my water away is just dumb. IT’S WATER. SMELL IT.

Anyways, that was another thing I thought they needed to improve. I said you never had to queue for a drink which was amazing, but there wasn’t much free water and the queues for that were 20 mins long every time. They also needed more shade.

I'm sure they’ll do as I ask for next time.

One really great thing was that you drove in and parked and your tent spot was next to your car, so no carrying heavy stuff and when we left we just checked it all in and got the hell out of dodge (for a 5 hour drive to Vegas after it took us half an hour to work out which way it was to the freeway).
What about the music? Well we mainly saw British bands we’ve seen before! Blur, Stone Roses, New Order, Nick Cave, The XX. But we also saw Klaxons who were great, Grimes, Dogblood (a Skrillex/Boyz Noize collaboration), and some other stuff I can't remember. Everything was great that we saw, but the crowd were too cool for school and often I'd be dancing away while everyone around me stood still with their arms folded and nodded. Our camping neighbours were all a bit too cool too. I think they took one look at our square rental car, noted were on the wrong end of our 20’s, heard our british accents and thought “NO”. Cos everyone else was making friends with their neighbours but not us. To be honest, I do think we probably weren’t that open to it or it would have happened. One set of neighbours though; I would say hi and they would flat out ignore me. they had hard faces and never spoke to each other or smiled though so I don’t think it was me. The other neighbours were a massive group of about 12 people and I know when I've been in groups like that I didn’t even see who else was camping near us. This group was amazing. Like most of the kids camping, they came prepared. When we go to Glastonbury, we don’t take much in the way of food and drink. These teens rocked up in fancy black shiny pick up trucks with solar showers, coolers the size of my kitchen, cookers, propane gas, chairs, beds, ping pong tables the works. Actually they were ping pong tables they were “beer pong” tables and nearly every group had one..they’re obsessed. And once someone said, hey we’re playing some BP!! And I said, oh what's that and he thought it was hilarious that I didn’t know. Also, on on day everyone kept sayin “Happy 4.20!!!” and they had planes with signs saying it flying by and I asked and they thought I was joking and apparently on the 4th April it’s national weed smoking day. They couldn’t believe we don’t have it. I have to say they weren’t the brightest bunch. They were having fun ALL the time and laughing and smoking and playing beer pong and drinking at 7am...all fine...but I didn’t hear one intelligent comment or musing. I did feel like an old lady watching “She’s All That” though.
I have to say though, it was great experiencing something new and being warm and catching some rays. and being able to sit on the ground whenever you want and not worry about mud! Also, cos it was in the desert, the wind would blow desrt dust all over me and stick to my sun cream and made me look tanned! free fake tan it was great. and there were no crowds. no shuffling and losing people in throngs and throngs of people and i never queued for a toilet. and the toilets always had toilet paper and were clean too. oh and also there were indoor bits with air conditioning and free water or ice lollys (popsicles to you) and in one you could do your nails and hair and makeup at dressing tables. only thing was after day one they were one in one out but still. i liked the vibe. everything you knew about festival hair, you have to forget at coachella, cos people shower and keep clean and lots of people stay in the town at hotels and wear heels sometimes. but i didnt feel out of place with my dirt tan. i just washed my hair by pourung a bottle of (not free) water over my head. I was bathing in mineral water. FANCY.

Now. Here my festival highlights.......

Highlights
1. It was fucking hot in the desert and this meant I could centre all my outfits around avoiding weird tan lines and wearing as little as possible as opposed to at Glastonbury where your outfits revolve around “does this go with wellies”, “can I add tights”, “where can I stow a waterproof jacket and a hoody”??. And boy did I wear as little as possible. It’s so hot you forget your body worries and I could most often be found in bikini and see through dress which made it fun being patted down to get on site. Err. What do you think I'm hiding and where do you think I've managed to hide it sir?

2. They had these really cool fans with water being sprayed into them from behind so you could get a lovely sprinkling and fanning when you stood in front of them and it was just so lovely and when you felt so hot you could die or after a hard dance sesh they really came in handy. And in some of the bar areas they had water being misted onto you as you waited. And they had these water mist things positioned in other places throughout the site. They were so simple but ingenious! And on the 3rd day I was so hungover and dying in the heat and all I wanted to do was lie in the shade and pour water over my head, we found this fantastic area called the “do lab” which had tall cloth structures you could sit under and a dj playing really intense great dance music all day and while you danced, these worker type people sprayed you with water from a hose. Wonderful! So I'd go and have a little dance and get hosed down and then have a little lie down in the shade and then repeat.
3. Dancing in the silent disco, each and every song was about bitches and ho’s so I asked the staff to tell the dj he should stop playing such sexist songs. It’s really only a highlight cos I was glad I stood up for my beliefs when drunk as a skunk at 4am.
4. Blur were absolutely great and maybe the best show I've even been to of theirs. Mainly cos I can remember it I think.
5. The food wasn’t as great as glasto I'm afraid...not as much choice and not mainly health options. However one day I had such a delicious chilli dog that I got it again later. Chilli dog! I'm so American huh?
So that's my review people. I basically think there’s too much emphasis on the fact that celebrities go here and more effort should be put into improving the vibe and being a bit more free and easy. Dan and I were talking about it and he said yeah but Lar, Glastonbury has been evolving since the 70’s and Coachella just has happened. Maybe in 30 years it’ll have more of an organic festivally feel and I would go again but you know where my heart is. I'm not going this year cos it’s been holiday world but I'm already planning my outfits for next year (glitter hot pants with opaques and an admiral’s hat)

Now here's a picture of someone who represents the hotness on show. Also, I had an outfit very similar so if you squint you can prtend it's me with my desert sand fake tan.

Look into each others eyes by that bush

So basically I'm engaged!

It’s been quite a while since it happened...June....and I've had writer’s block ever since. In the beginning I was obsessed. All I could do was read wedding blogs and wedding magazines. I bought a scrap book so I could create mood boards. I started a pinterest so I could create an ONLINE mood board. I learned the names of the best dress designers. I found out that lace was actually quite expensive. Who knew?

But mainly it was the wedding blogs I spent my time looking at. I'm only now just coming out of the wedding blog funk.   I didn’t even know that wedding blogs existed before but there are blogs on everything. Dan read a beard blog yesterday and learned the best way to keep it trim. A BEARD BLOG. About BEARDS.

Maybe he’ll join a beard club now. I heard about them. Loads of men who have beards meet up and talk about their beards.

Anyways, who knew there were SO MANY wedding blogs? At first it was fascinating and I read loads of them. They’re basically a website that mainly features “real weddings”. Which is nice cos you think...oh great that wedding looks like it might have been cheap...I’ll copy! The “real weddings” are sent in by fancy pants photographers who charge FIFTEEN HUNDRED POUNDS to take photos of your special day. The blogger will say hi, isn’t this a nice wedding, doesn’t she have a nice veil...and then it’ll have all the photos with little quotes from the bride. After a while you think...err hello Mrs blogger you’re not doing ANY work and also your blog is full of typos and you don’t have a real job and you make money from your blog.

The blog will also have a random article every now and then about abortions or debt management and you think...GET OUT OF HERE it’s like when there’s an article about forced marriage in Marie Clair and you have to skip it cos you’re reading Marie Clair for the clothes, not the political messages. Actually, I think I only read Marie Clair once. It DID have an article about forced marriages though. you know what I'm talking about. This reminds me of the  one and only time I ever watched Charmed and the main character was chatting about spells or something while putting some broccoli in a Tupperware and then microwaving it. I mentioned it to Hen one time and that was the only ever episode of Charmed that SHE had seen! Good times.

So yeah..the blog. Sometimes they also feature engagement shoots. Like that's a thing. an engagement shoot. People PAY a photographer to take photos of them in their normal clothes frolicking on the beach or a cliff. They're so cheesey and rank. But then I hate wedding photos altogether really so maybe I'm not a good litmus test.

Is that the right use of “litmus test” ?

The thing is....checking out those blogs every day started getting to be quite a lot to keep on top of. Like a chore. And then I started realising that the longer you spend looking at them, eventually the same cycle of weddings passes before your eyes. Country wedding with bunting. Art deco wedding with fur stole. Fancy hotel wedding. East London trendy wedding. Country wedding with bunting. Art deco wedding with fur stole.

And you start to feel sick every time someone’s got a Jenny Packham dress. Which, because of all my obsession and research I KNOW they cost 3 fucking grand.

And you stop coveting everyone else’s wedding and think...hey MINE is the best. And isn’t that the most important lesson of all?

Also...if one more person asks me if I'm a “bridezilla” I'm going to eat them.

Ciao!

Oh my. Grey is spelled with an E!

Well, people; never say I’m not one to jump on a bandwagon. Because I am. Although I often do it unwittingly. Which makes me think I’m just really in touch with the masses quite psychically. I'm not even trying! Or maybe I'm a follower. Who knows and who cares right? (I'm not a follower damn you!)

What I'm trying to get at is that I have read ALL THREE 50 shades books. But when I started, I'd never heard of them. I was tricked! 

But what are these books I hear you cry!

Well...do you remember when I wrote a blog about twilight? I read all the books and wrote a very angry blog about how much I hated all the characters and the plot and how I had done nothing but read them for 2 weeks and was obsessed, but that I categorically HATED them. Well it's like that. On acid. And with porn.

The 50 shades trilogy is a set of books that have taken the world by storm. The Scottish author used to write a blog which was twilight fan fic. Fan fic being the literary equivalent of dragons and swords type role play in the forest. You take a book you love and you write stories with the same themes and characters and stuff. So the author was writing this blog and it got really popular and then it got published as an E book and then it got published as a book and everyone all over the world is reading it and it tops all the best seller lists and they're making a film of it.

So what's good about it?

Well I really enjoy the twilight refs. Which is wierd seeing as I hated twilight. Or did I? I can't decide. I defo hated the main characters.

Twilight is about Edward and Bella. Bella is a self sacrificing goody goody and she falls in love with Edward who is a broody mysterious vampire type person who is really controlling and always fretting for bella’s safety.

They live in Washington state.

Their love knows no bounds.

In 50 shades the main character, Anastasia is a self sacrificing goody goody who falls in love with Christian who is a brooding, mysterious sexy freaky sadism and masochism sex addict who is really controlling and frets about  Anastasia’s safety.

They live in Washington state.

Their love knows no bounds.

Brilliant!

The making him a controlling fucked up bondage weirdo is great and I feel like the book kind of makes fun of itself in this way.

Just about.

And that's it!

There's NOTHING else to like.

The first thing that hit me straight away was how awkward the writing was. It reminded me of something. I quickly realised that it reminded me of my own writing as a teenager when I was really into sweet valley high and I wrote all my stories about teenagers in high school living in California. My own fan fic I suppose. Anyways, as a middle class English girl, I knew all the right language to use to make it Americanised, but it didn’t sound quite right. Like I could hear my own English accent saying the words. That's how I felt about 50 shades. Yeah she says “beet” instead of beetroot but I can hear it feels fake. Also, she makes loads of mistakes and says she's going out to get “trashed” and reaches for the “duvet”. COME ON DO YOUR RESEARCH!.

The dialogue is really clunky too. The main characters contstantly call each other "Mr Grey" and "Ms Steele". Ok maybe in real life you might have an in joke and do it occaisionally. But not ALL the time!

So the couple embark on this weirdo relationship where he wants to spank her all the time and she likes it, kind of and they have sex ALL THE TIME. She gives him a Blow Jay and 2 seconds later he flips her over and takes her roughly from behind. Then they go and have breakfast and have sex on the breakfast bar and then they go out on the boat and have sex in the cabin and then they go home and have sex in a car park and then they have sex in is kinky playroom and then sex again in the middle of the night when someone needs a wee. RIDICULOUS. Is he a sex superhero?

Before Anastasia meets MR CHRISTIAN GREY in his POWERFUL OFFICE, she is a shy, clumsy dork with bad dress sense and no money and she's a virgin who’s only had 2 snogs and apparently NEVER pleasured herself either. And she's 22. Yeah right. Anyways....she transforms into an assertive, sexily dressed and confident wonder woman by the 3^rd book (another good twilight link really, cos in twilight bella becomes a vampire and becomes really strong but enough about that). But along the way she has a sexual awakening and we’re party to EVERY thought she has. Every time any man looks her at her she blushes. If I had a drink, at one twitter friend’s suggestion, every time she “blushes furiously” or a slow blush creeps across her face, I'd have been trashed for the whole 2 weeks. She also says “oh my” a lot. Every time they do ANYTHING sexy she says to herself "oh my". In italics.What a loser.

This is one of the author’s greatest flaws. Repetition (says me who says anyways 15 times per blog..but...anyways). She's so bad for it. Ana constantly is blushing, saying oh my and biting her lip. Christian’s eyes are constantly darkening. She’ll use the same word three times in a sentence and she even repeats sentences.

It makes me think that she took the blog...used the find command on word and changed the names and then just published it. Without checking the writing or seeing if it flowed well. It has the feel of a book that was published in a rush because the author died and the family won't let the editors change a thing (hello girl with the dragon tattoo books, I'm talking to you).

But what about Christian? He's a massive fucking bastard who likes to hurt women. And control then and tell them what to eat and what to say and how to say it. If he asks Ana to do something and she says no I don’t want to, he tells her he wants to beat the shit out of her. If she forgets to eat lunch, he tells her she must obey him.

What gets me the most about this book is that all over the internet you hear that it’s a feminist book. That it’s empowering to women. What? Because it has a lot of sex in it? So what. So does porn but that's not empowering. So some dork is having loads of rampant sex? I don’t give a shit. Because this book is actually promoting obeying your man. Sure sure, in the 3^rd book SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT they get married and there's a small reference to the fact that she says she won't obey him in the vows. It’s so inconsequential because she DOES obey him all the time. She rebels every now and then but she moves in with him. She marries him after only a month of going out. And she wears all the clothes he buys for her, and eats the food he makes her eat. He BUYS the company she works for so he can give her an undeserved promotion and she goes along with after a small fight. He MAKES her change her name to his even though she doesn’t want to. He fucking BEATS her for fun. This book is anti feminist it’s just unreal. I can't understand how anyone can say it’s empowering. And the fact that anyone could find the book arousing and sexy and an escape from their daily grind makes me so confused. I was hysterically laughing at the sex scenes at first. Then I would read them stony faced and bored and eventually I just skipped them all. It’s too much, man. They're badly written and laughable, with stupid language like “he touched me..there!” and “I exploded around him into a million pieces just as he found his own release”. Just say you both came OK?

But worse of all..the worst possible crime is that Ana calls her vagina her “sex”. And I just can't get past that. No matter what you say. 

Souper weather for a bra top!

A few months ago I wrote a blog about how it was SUMMER! Obviously it wasn’t. About a week after that it started raining. And raining. And raining.

Every day it rained. I was so bloody depressed and damp and cold and my handbag was super heavy cos I had to carry around my umbrella all the time.

Then it was hot. Really hot. We all got tans. And sweated. And bought new sandals. And got sunburn. And said “wow, it’s like august!” and “wow, it’s like abroad!”. And anybody who went on holiday to Turkey that week when it was hot was totally gutted.

Then the rains came back.

Now it’s muggy.

What an ordeal!

But it’s not like this doesn’t happen every year. The weather in Britain is so ridiculous, but we’re used to it. Last year I wore summer clothes all of May April and June. It was a mixed bag in July and I wore tights for the whole of August. It’s totes depresso and it’s annoying but it shouldn’t be.

My bug bear, really, is that even though the weather is shit and unpredictable and cold basically all summer EVERY year.....the shops REFUSE to accept it. And this makes things hard for us. What I mean is that clothes designers and clothes shops ONLY stock summer clothes in summer. And they're so lovely and tempting so as soon as there’s a nice day you nip to H and M and buy some shorts and a boob tube and run to New Look for a pair of wedges and then they sit in your cupboard untouched for maybe a month. Now that FESTIVAL FASHION is in, you can probably buy a parka and some weird “fashion” willies but that's about it. And you don’t want to go to work looking like you're off to Glastonbury. In my case that means drawing a lightning bolt on my face and a leotard anyways. Totes inappropes.

Actually..a little aside about shops stocking clothes in the FESTIVAL FASHION section. I hate it. Don’t tell me how to dress at a festival. The whole point about festivals is that you go mad and let your imagination run wild. At a particular festival, you’ll notice trends, like that year everyone was into cowboy hats. Normal fashion rules go out the window and you can literally walk around in tights and sequin knickers with a jumper and an admiral’s hat on and feel like the coolest chick in town. It is NOT about going to Topshop and picking out an outfit that was spotted on Daisy Lowe LAST YEAR at Coachella and recreated. SO FUCK OFF DAISY LOWE. Not really, it’s not her fault and I like her bum. But you know what I mean.

Anyways, back to the shops being dicks.

Shops need to get wise to the fact that the weather is rubbish and stop convincing us that we can wear bra tops and knicker shorts all summer.

But you can always count on British girls to keep it real. They WILL wear knicker shorts. But with tights and DMs and a massive cardi over the bra top. Actually...no one would actually wear a bra top with knickershorts. It’s like that old wise saying....”tits OR legs...never both.” (this opinion was brought to you courtesy of @realslimjaney). but what I'm trying to say is that we all have to adapt these fashions that are foisted upon us by shops that think they have to stock the sort of clothes you wear on holiday in Arizona. I don’t know why I picked Arizona but I know it’s pretty hot there. I saw a film once called Bully. It was really good and gory and horrific and it was American and it was summer and there was a girl in it who had on hotpants that were so short they showed the cheeks of her bum and a boob tube so skimpy, she had top cleavage AND under cleavage. I imagine that's how they dress in Arizona. NOT LONDON EVER.

When you’re in a hot country, you can get away with dressing skimpily. What is a very short skirt here, isn’t considered too short in the med, for example. Cos your legs are so boiling, you don’t have a choice. SHOPS NEED TO GET WISE.

But it’s not just clothes shops. It’s food shops too. Do you know, that on the 1^st of May ALL the shops stopped stocking soup? That's not really true. But the marksys in Hammersmith did. And yesterday I went to sainsos and they only had 2 flavours. I NEED SOUP I'm COLD AND WET. Stop making me salad all day. I love salad as much as the next person but sometimes I need a winter warmer in summer. BECAUSE IT IS RANIING AND I'm WEARING MY WINTER COAT.

Also, can offices stop thinking they need air conditioning? This is not the south of France. I'm not hot. Stop being an idiot.

And there you have it. I'm putting the world to rights once more cos shops and offices are idiots in denial.

Donde Este Barcelona?

So me and my friends went to Barcelona for a long weekend and I thought I'd write a review for any budding minibreak weekenders. I'd actually been before with Hen a couple of years ago. It was my birthday and we went for 2 nights. It was a really fun trip and eventful. The morning we left, we realised that our Ryan air flight was NOT flying to Barcelona, but to some shitmuncher town a 2 hour coach ride away. Probably as disappointing as a foreigner booking a flight to “London southend”. Anyways, it meant that with all the travel time, we got to Barcelona at about 9pm Friday and left 9am Sunday. But we managed to wonder about drunk for enough time and had a hurried pit stop to the massive cathedral thing that's been built for the last 150 years. Took a photo and scrammed. We were really into drawing on our faces in those days too. The photos are pretty hilair.

Anyways that was then and this is now. This time it was my good friend Chris’s birthday, the first of the group to turn 30 really. Wow. And on this trip, we had 4 full days and nights to absorb the city and do cultural things. And there were NINE of us. And we stayed in a fancy apartment instead of a grotty hostel. FANCY! and the sign of getting older. I might have to go to Reykjavik soon and just rock up in a minidress, a fur coat and a smile and see what happens. To prove I'm not old yet.  But I digress. 2 of the group could speak Spanish and decipher the menus and pint us in the general direction of good food and wine. Cos that's really I wasn’t on holiday. With maybe 3 cultural events so that I deserve to be drunk 100% of the time.

So here are my 5 top observations about Barcelona

1.       Don’t order tapas in large quantities. They will think you’re an idiot.

On the first night we got this really amazing type of tapas called “pinxos”. I knew what it was cos they have it in Brixton. It’s basically bits of food with sticks through them. And you just order it as you go, like at Yo Sushi. We kind of didn’t realise this and tried to order enough for 9 people  to have a full meal in one go and the results were disastrous. No one knew what anything was and I accidentally ate some cheesy fish thinking it was a sausage. But wow oh wow we ate some amazing stuff in there. And the wine came in tumblers which is basically my most favourite thing ever. So European! The highlight was a piece of very rare beef on a piece of toast with some melted roquefort on top. And don’t forget the stick through the middle. SALTY!

2.       Croquetas are NOT potato croquettes

I fell in love with croquetas. I probably said the word at least every 5 minutes. They’re basically these gooey breaded things with ham in them. I was on a strict diet on Barcelona of as much ham and cheese and bread I could eat and at least 4 portions of croquetas every day. And 2 bottles of red wine. Me and Laura split off from the group one day and I was seriously hanging and feeling all the excessive drinking in my soul. So we headed for a quiet square and ordered 2 beers. “no food?” asked the waitress? “non grazziass” I said. Then we decided to order croquetas. And shouted “dos croquetas” across the square in English accents. Then we ate them and looked at the empty plate for about 5 seconds before Laura caught the eye of the waitress and pointed to the empty plate and held up one finger.  No. We weren’t very confident linguists on this trip. In one shop I said “merci” in a perfect French accent by accident before running away in shame.

But...the whole time we were stuffing our faces with these delicious treats, we thought they were potato and we thought they were cheesy. Of which they were really neither. No cheese nor potato features in a croqueta. I guess we just assumed and our tastebuds trusted us wholeheartedly.

3.       You NEVER have to go without beer, even for short walks

Our theory is that they banned 24 hour drinking licences or booze licenses or something. So some clever people decided to just hide picnic coolers all over the city and sell cold cans of people to ANYONE walking past. We NEVER had to go without beer. It was really cool. Leave the apartment to walk one block. Buy a beer for the journey! Brills. On one occasion we paid upfront for 12 beers and then the man ran away and EVEYONE thought he was doing us over. We all started panicking and then he popped up from behind a bin with our drinks. On one night we had been told about a clubnight called “bitch” and we really wanted to go. We were walking from one bar to another discussing that we weren’t really sure what the name of the club was or the address and it wasn’t looking very hopeful, when Laura stopped one of the beer sellers and said clearly and loudly, in a perfect English accent “donday esta BITCH”. He wasn’t very helpful. But that was the highlight of the whole trip. I'm laughing quite hard now even typing.

4.       Spanish people must have amazing metabolisms

We were living opposite a supermarket and the whole place was basically bread, cheese and ham. So much ham. Ham everywhere. And cheese. So much cheese. In chunks as big as me. And ham legs hanging all over the place. it was like that everywhere. And every restaurant had delicious tapas and stuff on the menu. All cheesy and hammy. And fried. And ice cream shops on EVERY street. And weird fast food joints. Lining every street were loads of fast food places selling. Fast food chain specialising in pitta bread. Fast food joint specialising in pasta. Any kind of pasta you like. Fast food joint specialising in eggs. And with ALL this fattening food everywhere you turned, I didn’t spot one fat person. Well obvs there were some fat people but every time they were British, not Spanish. How do they stay so thin? Is it a massive ruse? What would they gain from such a ruse?

5.       Whatever you do..DO NOT ORDER PATATAS BRAVAS

Before this trip, I was trying to recall all the tapas dishes I knew from trips to La Tasca and my previously blurry trip to Spain. All I could come up with was patatas bravas. Which I vaguely recall being potatoes of some kind in a spicy tomato sauce. Or something. But when you order it, it's SO disappointing. It's just chips with spicy ketchup on top. And everywhere we went we kept ordering it. Probably I the hope that we’d just been unluckiy in the last place and maybe THIS eatery would get it right. But no. DON’T ORDER IT.

So there you have it. Barcelona for dummies. Go forth and be merry. By that I obvs mean drunk and incoherent. In an English accent.

Vamenos! 

A trip to the cini

So. Titanic is being re-released in the cinema BUT IN 3D! Wow.
When I was 14 I went and saw it 3 times at the cinema. There are a lot of films I saw 3 times at the cinema. 10 things I hate about you. Never Been Kissed. Err....Star Wars episode 1. There was a particular summer when I had an 8 week cinema pass and I basically went every day. I was really thin that year cos I wouldn’t eat breakfast or lunch, just drink massive pots of coffee and have 2 squares of pick n mix fudge.

Anyways, I saw Titanic 3 times. I was in love with Leo and I had lost and lots of posters and I bought all his videos. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape where he plays a boy with special needs. Gritty. The one where Robert Ne Niro is his dad and or his stepdad and there's a scene where he's having sex with the mum DOGGY STYLE. Rude. I can’t really remember anything else about that film apart from halfway through it cuts to 10 years later and they’ve tried to make him look older but it's really lamo. I've just googled it , it was called This Boy’s Life. It was pretty gritty.  And there was another one called the Basketball Diaries and I THINK Juliet Lewis was in it as a crack whore which is funny cos she was in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape! They’re probably friends. Anyways, in Basketball Diaries I think some boys get sexually abused by their basketball coach and Leonardo Dicaprio had to give some bloke a blowy in a toilet to pay for his drugs. Actually, I might be getting confused with Boogie Nights. But anyways, Basketball Diaries is really....gritty. And the twins from Sweet Valley High are in it and they have a threesome with Leo. That's pretty gritty. Actually it’s disgusting. I don’t understand twin fantasies AT ALL. I don’t have a sister so maybe I just don’t get it. But I don’t want to get naked and have my sister see me do sexy things. It’s like incest. Why is incest ok? It isn’t! Apart from this episode of Midsomer Murders I saw once where there was a brother and sister in love. I felt sorry for them. The whole world was against them and they were driven to murder! And also in these Virginia Andrews books called Flowers in the Attic. They're really good. This brother and sister are locked I an attic for many many years and they end up falling in love and having sex abut it's not their fault ok cos their mum locked them up and they only had each other. And while they live in the attic the sister learns ballet and becomes a world class ballet dancer when they escape and in the end they get married. It’s spanned over 5 books I think. So incest was OK then. And when Dirty Den Jr and Sharon Watts got it on that was OK. Although they weren’t really related cos she was adopted. So sometimes incest is ok and sometimes it isn’t really incest. I think that's what we’ve learned here today.

So back to Titanic and my love for it and Leo.

Seeing the film in the cinny 3 times made me quite obsessed. And on invicta fm they played the single ALL THE TIME but with little snippets from the film all the way through. To really bring the magic into your home. One particular quote was “Last week I was sitting under a bridge and now, here I am, on the greatest ship in the world, having dinner with you fine people”. When I heard those words I could picture him sitting there in his tux while all the snobbos turned their noses up at him.

Other memorable scenes included the one where they have sex in a car (a car on a ship? OUTRAGEOUS!) and it gets all steamy and one them puts their hand on the steamy window. PASSIONATE! That sex scene is so weird and intense. I suppose it’s meant to convey just how much they want and need each other but in fact they look constipated. The scene where her mum is doing up her corset is good too. And SYMBOLIC.

Aside from going to the cinema and seeing it 3 times and having Leo posters and videos, I also got a book all about him and bought the soundtrack. And I would sit in my room listening to the soundtrack and crying. Crying because I wanted to be a famous actress just like Kate Winslet. And she's from Reading! If she could do it, I could do it (in case you were wondering I am NOT now a famous actress). I also cried because I loved him and I wanted him to be mine. Which is really quite pathetic. Do teenagers still do this? I feel like they're all a bit too cool for school and have sex with other instead of pining for movie stars. Although, to be honest, at the time, I think a lot of my peers were having sex with each other and ignoring the film stars. I was a massive Geek and Loser. But who’s laughing now eh? I live in LONDON yeah? LONDINIUM.

But back then I was a massive geek and loser and one day my dad walked into my room to make me hurry up for school and I was crying and listening to Celine Dion very loudly while I stared at a poster of Leo and stroked his face. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? That's the second most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me. The first was when my colleague walked into the work kitchen to find me standing in front of the fridge with the door open, having just dunked a full block of cheese into a large jar of mayo and about to take a bite.

I was very upset that day and needed comfort food.

The thing is about Titanic though, and I think you’ll all agree, is that's it is SHITE. Just a few months after seeing it in the cinema and all the crying etc, it came out on video and I was all excited when I pre-ordered it from Woolworths. By the time it actually arrived, I was now in love with Johnny Depp (and quite handily already had the What’s Eating Gilbert Grape film on video). But I dutifully watched it and wow were those special effects bad. Most of the people on the ship are just CGI’d in and look like puppets! What had I been thinking? How did it win so many Oscars? I was only 14 OK? Of course I thought it was good. But those big wig film dudes should know a shit piece of sentimental, historically inaccurate claptrap when it bites them on the bum. SURELY?

But no no no they didn’t. And now...15 years later..they still haven’t cottoned on and it’s being allowed into the cinema again. In all serious. IS THIS A JOKE? There’s a big billboard for it at Hammersmith tube and every day I see at least 3 people laugh and then take a photo. IT’S A JOKE RIGHT???

That said, I kind of want to go and watch it. Although I hate 3d. And really the only bit where it’ll be worth it is when the ice berg looms up and kills everyone (obligatory joke and spoiling the end of titanic lolz).

Right, well I think I've had my say on the matter. I now have some cheesey mayo dipping to do and a poster to stare at.
 

Summer Time and The Weather is Freezing

It’s SUMMER! For the past week, the sun’s been shining and so you feel like you need to wear sandals and pedal pushers (lol), t shirts and summer cardigans. I’ve been clinging to my favourite woolly cardy though cos it’s actually bloody freezing in the mornings and in the shade and I've felt quite guilty about it. The whole situation has been one confusing mess. There’s this pressure to ENJOY THE SUNSHINE and GO TO THE PARK!!! We did go to the park on Monday for a picnic and a beer before meeting a friend for her birthday drinks. After about 5 seconds I was shivering and literally lying ON my boyfriend to try and get some of his heat. I also have a streaming nose. On the plus side it’s time for summer nails and that's always fun.

Last weekend, my fella went off for some male bonding time with his cuz, and I had the flat to myself. YES! I punched the air when I found out. And I decided to stay in and eat weird noodles and watch the entire final season of Dawson’s Creek. That was quite a marathon. I started to doubt myself though when people were talking about going to beer gardens and walks and tweeted about having sunburned faces. I'm glad I sat on my sofa all day though. I mean, I opened the balcony doors. It was a bit like sitting on a cruise ship. Probably. A little bit about the Dawson’s creek final season.

Basically it was amazing. Because it was so shit. It was really badly written, like the writers were confused and having an argument about where the show should go. One episode it’s going in one direction and then next episode, it’s like a different writer got control and would undo everything. Dawson was barely in it, but that's no bad thing obvs. And some story lines and characters just got forgotten and abandoned with no explanation. It was weird. And traumatic. Cos Joey and pacey got back together again YAY, even though it was really out of the blue and unexpected. And then broke up again, one episode later BOOOO!!!

Then it all sort of came to an end and Joey finally went to Paris and everyone got a sort of happy ending apart from Grams who got breast cancer. Then came the finale. Set 5 years later. Which is just bloody LAZY. Because they knew how they wanted things to go but they weren’t sure how to get there so hey ho magic, it’s 5 years later. So they’re all meant to be 25 but Joey is already a Junior Editor at a major publishing house in New York and drives a really big boring car and wears reading glasses. And she sits around in the evenings drinking half a glass of red wine, editing stuff with her reading glasses on. Oh yeah and her boyfriend is Elton from Clueless. Took me hours to work that one out.

So she finished uni at 22 and in THREE YEARS she has that job. No way it’s not possible. Plus she's going to skip a really close friend’s wedding cos it’s her anniversary with her boyfriend. Not even a wedding anniversary. What a bitch. What a boring bitch.

And Jack McPhee, last seen doing quite badly at uni, is now an inspirational and established teacher who drives a sports car. So he finished his degree at 22, then did a course to become a teacher, finished that at 23 and now earns enough (after 2 years of teaching) to own a sports car. I don’t think so. Also, he has a boyfriend! Well that’s nice for him isn’t it but who is his boyfriend? Oh yeah it’s Deputy Doug, Pacey’s older brother who loves musicals and who Pacey always said was gay. Well look! He is! Basically that's quite offensive because the writers of Dawson’s Creek basically think that if you love musicals you must be secretly gay. Also it’s lazy because they needed a boyfriend for Jack but they couldn’t be bothered to write in a new character. Also, you know, I'm not a square, it's meant to be funny hahahaha, but then it makes a bit of a mockery of that fact that SPOLIER ALERT I'm GIVING AWAY MAJOR PLOT POINTS Jen dies.

Yeah. She's perfectly healthy and getting drunk and then BAM she's dying and then she's dead. The scene where she actually dies is weird and I wasn’t actually sure if she was asleep or dead. And you’re not sure if the funeral is a funeral or just a busy lunchtime at Pacey’s restaurant. Oh yeah cos Pacey OWNS his own restaurant. Now the whole time that Pacey was becoming a chef in season 5, I was quite sceptical and how fast it all happened because I have read Kitchen Confidential (the tell all, behind the scenes honest look at life in restaurant kitchens by Anthony Bourdain that I highly recommend) and I've also read Gordan Ramsey’s autobiography “Humble Pie” (which I suppose is his tell all story of how he is actually quite humble but the front cover picture, and ALL the content, say otherwise). So I KNOW how touch it is to make it in the restaurant biz. I also know that restaurants are money pits. So when Pacey became a talented head chef in 6 months, took a year off to be a scum bag stock broker and then became a head chef again, I thought...HMMMM IMPLAUSABILITY ALERT! But then lo and behold 5 years later he OWNS the place and is doing really well and everyone’s like “aww, look Pacey finally achieved great things like we always knew he could”. Which is nice cos obvs I fancied Pacey and wanted him to get together with Joey again. And apart from the way he became a chef, it is quite plausible that he could own a restaurant at 25. Gordan Rammo did. But he was a chef from 16 onwards with no breaks. Maybe I'm getting bogged down in these details. Or maybe I should become a detective. I'm pretty good at stalking people.

But anyways, at the end of the episode, you can see that Joey and Pacey want to get back together YAYAYAYAYAY, but they  don’t write it in. They just cut to a new scene months later and it shows them living together and sharing half a glass of wine. And that's it. That's the end. It’s SO DISSATISFYING!

I ended up rewinding it and watching it again though and afterwards I felt lost and alone and confused.

I really overloaded and I feel sick to the teeth of telly. I can only watch about 4 hours a day at the moment, instead of my usual 8. Maybe I've changed? I also gave up booze a few weeks ago. Cos I had this terrible hangover followed by another one the next day. I couldn’t handle it. I was a broken woman. This must be what getting old is. So I decided to take a few weeks off the sauce. I'm really enjoying it! I'm spending less money and consuming less calories and sleeping really well. It won’t last obvs. And I can only do things in extreme. Ie booze all the time or no booze. I suppose I'm like Johnny Lee Miller in Trainspotting. He could give up heroin any time he liked. I'm like that. And I can only watch tv programmes if I watch the whole series in one day and then emerge, blinking in the sunlight, unable to accept reality.

But what this means is that now that summer’s here, I won’t be pining for the characters of Capeside and instead can sniffle and snivel and shiver around parks, while huddling for warmth.