It's Late

This is not a professional post.

This is me saying it's late and I've had coffee and I have exams soon.

I'm scared of writing because I don't like telling you what I think.

Every time I have a good idea it's on a bus with no wifi.

This is an excuse for me being lazy.

I'm trying trying trying trying because I want you to love love love me.

I'm tried. I'll be back soon. I want to finish this story first because I never finish anything. 

I'm Just A Woman, Standing In Front Of A Blog, Asking People To Love Her

It’s been a very, very long time since I did this. Not as long as it could be; it hasn’t been years, or decades. But it has been months, and I find that really bloody annoying. It’s been a long time since I’ve sit down and actually written, and because it’s been so long, it’s been much harder to start. I can count about twenty hours worth of bus journeys where I’ve sat and wracked my brains desperately for something funning, or interesting, or witty to write about and every idea I’ve come up with has then been shot down because I’ve been too scared, or didn’t think I could pull it off, or something equally shallow and vapid.

It’s been phenomenally irritating. As the stretch where I didn’t write became longer it became easier to come up with reasons why I shouldn’t. And it’s got to the point where I’ve just got sick of the inside of my own head being a lazy, scared prick, and I just want to do what I enjoy.

In the past, I wrote because I want people to like me. Wanting people to like me is the main cause behind the majority of the things I do, as I’m sure it is for many people. That’s still the main reason I write publicly, but that’s now tied in with the idea that I want to improve. Where I blog most of the time it involves having an idea for a title, or something that I found interesting/annoying, or stealing an idea from someone else, and then just hammering out 500 words on the topic blindly, without really thinking in through, and then not reading it back before I posted it. To be honest, that’s what this post is going to be. But I want to change what comes next. I want to be a better writing, and a better entertainer. This is going to be a learning curve for all of us. I want to plan properly, come up with proper ideas and arguments, and write real jokes. I love comedy, and journalism, and politics, and I want to be good at them. Mostly because I want people to like me, but also because I want to like myself.

I’m not going to read this back, because I know I’ll think I’m whining (I am) and I’ll bottle out. NO. JUST POST THAT DAMN THING. STOP BLOODY FRETTING.IT’LL BE FINE. Probably. Or I might finally start receiving the hate mail I’ve been suspecting is coming my way for years – but that just might be me being pedantic.

Okay. Don’t red it back. Just press send.

Four Trends Women HATE!

So I figured that after Six Trends That Men HATE, is was only fair to do the opposite, the four  trends that women hate. We women can be VERY picky, when it comes to what our men wear. Assuming we’re straight. Jesus, imagine writing a fashion article aimed at lesbians? It would be shit, wouldn’t it? They don’t know ANYTHING about fashion.

1. Body hair. This new trend has struck up recently of men not shaving their body hair. I know, GROSS? They think it’s okay to just wonder around with it all on show, but it isn’t. I don’t want a flash of stinky pit hair every time you hail a taxi. Thanks.
2. Going topless. So guys at the beach (and even on the streets in summer), have been going topless. Everything on show. In front of CHILDREN. Come on lads, no one wants to be having a nice swim, then catch a glimpse of nip. There are children around, jeez! Save it for your wives.
3. Pants on show. Having the top of your pants peeking over your jeans isn’t classy. It just makes you look cheap.
4. Obey snapbacks. Really?

Check out the Six Trends That Men HATE

Six Trends That Men HATE!

I’ve seen quite a lot of articles on variations of ‘trends men hate’, or ‘looks that turn men off’. Now, I know quite a bit about fashion, and even more about men. You have to feed them at least three times a day and always make sure they have clean newspaper.  So naturally, I thought I would lend you my worldly wisdom and tell you the six trends that men REALLY don’t want to see you wearing. And if you do wear them, you will never get laid again EVER.

1. Wings. Got tiny wings sprouting from your shoulder blades? Slice ‘em off, ladies. Being able to hover three inches off the ground will not help your posture. And they just make you harder to catch.
2. Acknowledging you have a vagina in any way apart from taking your knickers off. Accidently drop a tampon on the way to the loo? Carrying your new born baby? Ew, ladies, please. Guys don’t need to see that, your vagina is for THEIR PLEASURE. Keep your private life at home. Have some self-respect.
3. Cutting off one boob, in the manner of an Amazonian queen. Ok, well It’s great that you can easily fire a bow and arrow now, but that won’t get you a husband. It’s just kinda intimidating.
4. Floor length capes. They’re baggy and unappealing. If you got it, you should flaunt it. No one cares if you’re the Ice Queen of Narnia, honey. Aslan may go for the ‘great and powerful’ look, but he’s a lion, not the guy from the office.
5. Ram horns. Some say they show inner power, strength, and experience as a skilled warrior. We say you have bone growing out of your head, and that’s just creepy. No.
6. Over-sized hoodies. Because lord forbid you should actually be comfortable. 

Check out the Four Trends That Women HATE

A Moment Of Calm

I’ve been terrified of the dark since way before I can remember. I slept with a light on until I was thirteen. Until I was about fifteen walking down my road without a torch could reduce me to tears. Even now, being alone in the pitch black without my anti-monsters duvet is one of the worst situations I can be in. It’s not quite at phobia level, but it’s pretty bloody close.

Which is exactly why I went to sit on my own, on a cold, windy hill in the pitch darkness with a thermos of chamomile tea. Well, it isn’t the exact reason – but it did seem like a very, very stupid thing to do.  The actual reason I did it was to look at the sky. Stargazing Live is back on at the moment, and a solid hour of Dara O’Briain and Brian Cox begging you to go outside and look up is surprisingly effective.

Down where I live, there’s one hill which is particularly good for looking at stars, and that was my destination this evening when I set off with my camera, torch, tea and compass. I don’t own a telescope that I can use, so I was going off my own eyes and the awful exposure on my camera.

Getting there was bad – it’s a short walk, but I was stupidly tempted to just go home and never leave again. I didn’t. I persevered, and was rewarded. Sat on a cold hill, with two layers of socks and a bag shaped like a hedgehog, I saw the stars. Properly. I looked at them and said their names (but only in my head, in case any murderers were listening).  When I’d got mostly used to them, I turned off the torch, and shoved on my iPod. Halfway through Gypsy, by Lady Gaga, I saw my first shooting star.

I’m not having the best of times at the moment. I’m usually either stressed or lonely, but sometimes I have moments of startling calmness, where I become very, very proud of myself. That was one of them; sitting in the dark and not being scared, watching a shooting star fall from Orion’s belt.

If you live somewhere where the stars are visible, go and look at them. Properly.  I promise you won’t regret it.

Unfortunately, my camera isn’t good enough to get shots of the stars, but I got quite a nice one of the moon.

When I Am Prime Minister

I will...

1. Be able to spell Prime Minister on the first attempt
2. Be able to answer a question directly
3. Think if stuff that’s going on outside London
4. Only go to war if I really, really need to and not just because I'm bored
5. Stop letting America boss us about
6. Stop pissing about with ‘cigarette tax’ and just ban them (might be unpopular)

I will not…

1. Fiddle expenses
2. Use tax money to throw big parties
3. Build a big train from London to Birmingham un less I have made Birmingham much nicer
4. I will not make Birmingham much nicer
5. Give any extra money to other MPs just because we’re BFFs
6. Spill soup on any important documents, even if they’re bad (or leave them on trains)

Laws I shall make:

1. Any MP heard making an offensive remark shall get an egg thrown at them to show the physical manifestation of the metaphorical egg on their face.
2. Dress down Friday
3. If MPs must have a second home, they are regulated to a very small flat in Croydon
4. Crimes to be rated on a ‘naughtiness scale’ to decide punishment (not believing that I’m going to be Prime Minister is a 3)
5.  The mayor of London is not allowed to be better than me

Please vote for me

A Story

I went to the doctors last week. My ear was being funny, and there was this weird spot on my neck, and I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. He fiddled about with my head in general for about twenty minutes, while I thought about what cake would be available at work the next day, then booked me in for a blood test and sent me off. He prodded the lump on my neck one last time. "I think it's a blocked lymph node," he said. "Of course, worst case scenario it could be cancer. Right, bye!"

That's not a nice thing to hear. Naturally when I had found the lump in my neck, the word cancer crossed my mind, but never seriously. I thought about how cool I would be, so chill and relaxed. The cool cancer patient. Then a medical professional said the word, and then then I was crying on my mums shoulder while a nurse handed me some ear drops and tried not to look worried. 

I had the blood test done, and after they didn't ring me after two days, started to relax. Eventually, I rang them, and they said I was anemic but could I come back and give them some more blood please. I did, and it was fine, and I wined at the lovely new doctor until she said that my white blood cell count was fine and that I should probably chill out now. 

I knew cancer was very unlikely. It's at the end of a very long list of things that the lump might be - I'm still not actually sure. Even if it was cancer, it would almost certainly be curable. Even so, when he said cancer, there was a space of roughly six hours where I genuinely thought I was going to die. In hindsight this was dumb, but it's kind of inexplicable when someone throws that word at you.

It was surprisingly telling. Not once did I think of the wedding I would never have, or the children I'd never know. I thought about how I would never be prime minister, I'd never break Hollywood, I'd never have anything ever published by the Guardian. Which was awful. And also very good. Sometimes I worry that I'll grow out of the "I don't want kids" phase, and now I know I won't. I know that's not for me. I want adventure and ambition, and I'm proud of that. Thank you mister doctor man for not mincing your words. 

Sorry this isn't written very well. It's nearly 1am, and I stopped making my bed because I had some words in my head that I wanted to put out before I went to sleep. I'm not going to spell check anything, I just wanted to tell you the story.
Funny posts soon, about waitress and growing up. All the best to you, whoever reads this x

How I Plan My Blog Posts

I thought I'd show you how I plan my blog posts today. I wish I could say that it's a time consuming process, that I put a lot of effort into. Here's a picture of the plans I've written in the last six months;

That's it. That is literally it.

It's not even spelled right.

I Love Science, But Sometimes It Makes Me Sad

Science is great. Before I went to secondary school and found out the science teachers were awful and the English teachers were divine, I always thought I would go into some branch of science when I grew up. When I was four I wanted to be an archaeologist. By the time I was nine I wanted to do forensics. When I was about ten I briefly looked at physics, and then quickly shut the door again. I still do like science a lot, just not in an academic sense. It's no secret that I have a bottomless pit of love for Brian Cox. Indeed, when the trailer for his Science Of Doctor Who lecture came up on my telly box, I squealed so loudly that my mother left the room.

But sometimes science does bad things, and that makes me sad. This afternoon while out adventuring in the Welsh countryside with my dad, we came across a fish farm. We didn't think it was a fish farm at first, because it looks like a front for a shady James-Bond-villain type operation. We googled it, and it turns out it is in fact, a fish farm. Which is fine, it itself. It is in fact the only producer of sea bass in the UK, so there we go. They're very proud of themselves because they use fancy, fishy technology, which means that the fish grow faster. They also keep them very densely stocked, so the fish hardly have any room to move freely. Under normal circumstances the fish would suffer very high stress level from these conditions, so to compensate they put extra oxygen in the water to calm them down. 
I kind of think the fish would be better off with just a bit more space. Although the company website claims they're happy, I'm not entirely sold. They were very cramped. It's like a massive fish shopping center near Christmas when people are running out of time do do the shopping, only instead of getting some new shoes, you get eaten in the end. 

The other thing, which I think is a little bit worse, is the 'cockroach backpack app' which the BBC reported on today. I know the BBC has to maintain an even view and stay on the middle ground, but luckily, I don't. I can be as biased and annoyed as I like. And I am very, of both.
It's a horrible idea. In an attempt to 'encourage children to take an interest in neuroscience', an app has been developed which links a mobile phone to a chipboard glued to a cockroaches back, after it's antennae have been removed, and part of it's shell sandpapered off. Two little needles are pushed into it's head, which allow whoever has the app to control in which direction the insect moves. There's a small plethora of issues with this. For one, no, I don't care that it's only a cockroach. The idea that humans should be placed in a position of importance over all other creatures is both mean, and creepy. Just because it's  gross, does not mean we should be permitted to go around wildly torturing it. If someone did the same operation on a human, a horse, a dog or a hamster there would be outcry, and the RSPCA would be sent in lickedy split, on the double. So be nice to cockroaches, yeah? They're ew, but they've never shoved a mind-controlling circuit into your brain. Another point is is the reasons the manufacturers have for making it.   They say that it encouraged kids to develop in interest in neuroscience. No it doesn't. It says to kids "here, you like hurting small things, hurt this one WITH AN IPHONE, BECAUSE THOSE ARE COOL AS WELL!" No child will be piloting a cockroach thinking "This is great, I'm going to try and cure depression when I grow up." Not any child that I know, anyway.

Finally, I'll end on a slightly petty note, because I do that quite well. According to the creators the backpacks "allow students to do graduate level research early in life". THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING. GET GRADUATE STUDENTS TO DO GRADUATE RESEARCH. STOP TRYING TO SHIFT IT ONTO KIDS SO YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH BULLYING TINY INSECTS, YOU NASTY, INSUFFERABLE, MISPLACED ELECTRICIANS. I hope the kids pilot the cockroaches into your soup.


PS, I'm doing a re-haul of my blogroll. If you have a blog you want me to promote then leave a comment with a link and I'll have a look. Triple chances if I know you. 

My Vagina Is Not Your Income

Disclaimer: If you formally employ me, or are a relative, it’s probably best if you don’t read this. It would just embarrass both of us.

People spend quite a lot of time talking about vaginas these days. Lord knows I do. I tried to think about something else to blog about for a change, realised I only know about feminism and lesbians, and gave up. So vaginas it is.

I find it quite alarming how they seem to have developed monetary value within the last twenty years or so. To have a vagina worthy of modern, media standards it has become necessary for women to effectively pay rent. At minimum women are now expected to at least ‘spruce up’ their downstairs, whatever the hell that actually means, and while the cost of razors totted up over a life time may not exactly purchase a house, it could probably buy you quite a few more fancy dinners and tickets to see Westside Story than you would have had otherwise. For the slightly more hardcore who fancy waxing, it becomes vital to fork out roughly once a month to employ someone to hot glue strips of fabric to the single most sensitive area of your body, and then violently rip them off again. Which is painful both physically and financially. For the ones who have signed a contract to the Fancy Genital overlord, vajazzling comes into play. The singular and ancient art of paying someone to stick rhinestones and bits of glitter to a place where there should be fluff thankfully seems to be losing the sudden burst of popularity it had, and personally I think we’re better off for it leaving. If I remember rightly, there were about two weeks in 2011 where everyone turned round and shouted ‘pejazzle’ (vajazzling's male equivalent) at each other, screamed and never, ever mentioned it again.

I still don’t really know what the point is in the ripping and the hot glue and the glitter. Some people seem to think it’s nice for someone you’re having sex with, but if your partner won’t sleep with you unless you have diamonds stuck to your foof, I think you might be sleeping with the wrong people. Frankly they should be grateful that they get to sleep with you at all, without kicking up a fuss about whether or not a grumpy beautician has tidied up for them first.

Speaking of Lady Ga-gardens, Lady Gaga apparently stripped off in London’s G-A-Y club last week. Some gay men witnessed her bottom. It was big news. Just like the time every female celebrity ever got into a car at a funny angle while wearing a skirt, or wore something chiffon based under bad lighting. Do you know when I last read an article about a bloke accidently showing a bit too much skin? Never, that’s when. No one gets paid for writing about men having a touch too much champagne before getting into a cab badly. No man has ever thought “Jesus, I possess pubic hair, something both men and women have had since the dawn of time. I should probably RIP IT OUT ON THE OFF CHANCE SOMEONE UNEXPECTEDLY TRIES TO HAVE SEX WITH ME IN A VERY BRIGHTLY LIT ROOM.” We have developed a culture where we pay people make sure our vaginas look good enough, on the off chance someone else is being paid to write about it. You might as well keep a small till in your knickers, just in case.

Unless you like doing all that, which is fine. If you want to, please be my guest. But just ask yourself first if you’re doing it because you like having genitalia that doubles up as a handy disco ball, or because you’ve just been told you should like it by someone else. If it’s the latter, I suggest you either ignore them or have a very lengthy chat. If it’s the former, please come to parties with me. At the end of the day, vaginas were meant to push out screaming humans, and give birth (ooh, satire). Do whatever you like with yours but make sure you do it for you and not to attract sexual partners with the brains of magpies.

Cheers.