GLAMOROUS

Yeah so when I drink I'm obv super hot. Why do I chose to make these faces??

I wish I could maintain the level of cool that Jorge exudes.

I wish I had enough money...

... to buy some cat-eye specs, as currently my reading glasses are nice but, you know, normal. Whereas these bad boys....

Hello!

Then I'd get another tattoo. I want one on my arm or on the top of my thigh, which isn't somewhere I had considered before I went to Leeds Festival, when I saw a girl with a biggish, sprawling tatt peeping out from under her shorts which I found pretty cool.

Then I'd go to a spa.

Then I'd take some chums to Paris. Or New York. Or Auckland.

If they behaved themselves I'd bring them back as well.





Then I'd buy an old Land Rover, give BJR the Picasso, and then Darcy and I would go on some adventures.

And I'd probably take some lovely people and dogs camping.

Isn't that all rather sensible?

Actually, I just re-read it and it isn't that sensible. But I wasn't just all "I'd buy some Prada boots that I'd be too frightened to wear outside".

Disclaimer: This is if I had like £5000. Not, you know, Lottery or even scratch card money. Just like a few good runs at the bingo, or something. If I had Lottery money I'd pay off MR & Pigpen's debts and mortgate then buy a farm and live there with lots of adopted greyhounds. Also I'd buy a better graphics tablet.

AH-WHOOOOOOOOO

Darcy and I were up bright and early this morning, and headed out to Warrington town centre to meet up with the lovely staff and regular customers of Lush Warrington to take our dogs for a nice stroll in support of Greyhound Awareness Week.

The money we raised will be going to Northern Greyhound Rescue, who work to rehome greyhounds who have been either retired or retired from the track and need loving individuals to look after them.

It was a gorgeous day for walking and at the end of it there was tea, cakes and goody bags for puppies and people alike. The dogs were all very sweet and well behaved, no grumpy growlers or bawdy barkers.

Here's a few of the hounds;

IT'S TIME... TO FACE... THE MUSIC

I have never watched X Factor before. Well, I tell a lie. I saw the one last year when Jedward were Ghostbusters, but I've never watched a series of it. This year is the first year that I've been at such a loose end I have tuned for a few weeks on a run. I now see why I have not done this before.The above psychotic behaviour is after the FIRST WEEK I WATCHED IT. Why was I that involved?? What did it matter at all? Oh dear.

Either way, I watched again tonight (a decision I made before I knew it was eight days long) with my mum and tweeted alongside too from my BlackBerry. It was an incredibly long show (2 and a half hours, near enough) with so many adverts that we also watched Superhuman: World's Smallest on ITV4+1 quality) and didn't miss anything, there were so many ad breaks.

Here is a summary of my thoughts on this week's X Factor.

Reaction to 'Wild Card' announcements and far too excited about Diva Fever.

FYD: Better dancers than singers. Had literally forgotten them after the commercial break directly after their performance. Now, four hours later, I wouldn't even be able to describe any of them to the police if they assaulted me.

Matt: MR and I hated it. What is the appeal of this guy? And who let him put that fucking hat back on??

Rebecca: I was looking forward to her and found myself very underwhelmed. Fantastic dress, but very boring performance. I put 'Good advice, Simon." On twitter but can't remember what he said. No, I can! He told her to get over sad stuff and cheer the balls up. That must be why I added the 'Heroic'.

Storm: Amazed me by looking even more tragic and middle aged than he did already by dying his hair pink and wearing glittery Gaga makeup. His vocals were, you know, but him in general is an awful concept. MR's notes on the performance;

Bel Ami: All I could muster up was
and that is still all I have to say.

Cher:

Diva Fever: I was momentarily thrown by the hugeness of the hideous suits, but then it all made sense when I realised there was stripping involved. They were entertaining, and had surprisingly good vocals (well, the one of them that actually sang did).

Kati Wastrel: I hate her. I agreed with Louis, the song was too big for her. She made Freddie Mercury come back as a zombie just so he could kill himself again.

Mary: I actually loved her. I liked that the song, the hair, the dress, etc grouped her in with soul divas like Shirley Bassey, as opposed to making her into the new Susan Boyle.
Niccolo: Rubbish song choice, Danni Minogue. And poor Niccolo knew it about 10 seconds into his performance which rendered the entire thing really frigging awkward.

1 Direction: High expectations; and they were excellent. They didn't ruin Coldplay.

Wagner: It was really annoying me that Louis kept calling him WAG-NER. I wanted to give ol' Vaggy a little cuddle when he finally said 'IT'S VAG-NER'.

Aidan:
Treyc: After my rant on Facebook you would think I would have been amazingly excited, yes? No. All I noticed about her was that she looked really uncomfortable in her dress and her arse looked pretty huge. MR thought she was sat down at one point, which was making her look like she had back, but it was in fact allllll her.

I just looked back over this post to check if I had included everyone. I only counted four names and realised the two I had missed were John and Paije. Ironically, all I had put about John was;
Failed to make an impact there, buddy.

Paije: He was amazing, no idea why he was the only one I didn't post about. He was very, very good (not that I can remember his song), but the only distinct thing I remember about his performance was MR saying 'Why are his shoes so massive?? Look at the size of his feet!'

Double throwing off tomorrow. I reckon Niccolo and maybe Wagner or Bel Ami

You know who doesn't deserve to get thrown off any show, ever?

Read his blog post about potatoes here.

The Opthamologist

I went to the opthamologist today. I hate going to the opthamologist, it's really awkward and you have to answer questions like "Does red or green look clearer?" and there is no difference and you don't want to accidentally give the answer that makes them go "OMFG EYE CANCER".



It's very stressful.

However, it's a part of life, visiting the opthamologist's office. Today, I even laughed there.

I have laughed before at the opthamologist's, but before today I always assumed the funniest thing that could happen at the opthamologist's was this;



Or possibly this;

Possibly even this;

But that was before today, when this happened;

The most awkward, lanky and uncomfortable looking man dropped one of the goofy glasses lenses down my clevage. We both looked down to it, then he realised what he was doing, looked away, went bright red and mumbled "Sorry".

I burst out laughing and had a lady-like grope to fish it out. It felt a bit warm so that was weird. I did consider wiping it on my jeans or something but decided not to. There isn't anything gross all up in my boobs anyway.

Jorge Garcia

Thanks to my blog earlier today, I have now been researching Jorge Garcia for about four hours.

I love Jorge.

I love looking at him, I love reading what he thinks, I love saying his name.

HOR-HE GAR-THIA.

But yeah, I found out he has a blog! Click here to see it.

He also has an old one, from when he was working on Lost, which you can find here.

He is the album cover of my favourite band's new album, and he sang with them. Heroic.

I'm also really sad because I found out his little tiny dog died. Horrible.

I also found another photo of him proving he can do all the things big fat guys shouldn't do;

What would Jorge do? Some pretty awesome shit, I'd guess!

Simple Steps to a Better Britain

I think I should be in charge. Every time something goes wrong, I always think "I could easily fix that". Like global warming and the NHS. I mean, it was some old Welsh guy who came up with the health service, surely a young English girl can sort it all out.

As my duty to the UK, I have decided to make this blog an advice forum for David Cameron's secretary (Nick Clegg) to steal ideas from. However, this advice needn't apply only to the UK; people world-wide can start campaigns to have these simple concepts introduced to their countries*.

My first issue is fat people. Here is a fat guy:

Fat guys are great. They provide a lot of necessary comic relief and ease people's consciences, eg; "I'm eating this donut, but at least I'm not as fat as that guy.

However, sometimes fat guys ruin all the good they do for modern Britain by conducting themselves innappropriately. In order to help them live better, more productive lives I have compiled this list that I like to call; The List of Things Big Fat Guys Shouldn't Do.

Number 1: Big fat guys should not walk incredibly tiny, skinny dogs.

Number 2: Big fat guys should not drive tiny cars that they seem to fill, and which they certainly outweigh.

Number 3: Big fat guys should not sit in weak, plastic garden furniture.

Number 3 and a half: They should especially not sit in weak, plastic garden furniture with their shirt off, showing off their man bosom. Number 4: Big fat guys should not pretend to exercise.

Number 5: Big fat guys should not wear light t-shirts that are a bit too small, meaning you can see their pit stains and the shelf of fat-guy flesh that hangs down beneath it.

Number 6: Big fat guys should also not wear normal-sized jeans because they fit their arse and legs, but makes their arse crack and fat-guy flesh blossom over the top like a big muffin.

See? Simple!

The only exception to these rules is Jorge Garcia, should he ever visit our gentle shores;

The Worst Morning Ever

It had been a very early morning that had started with a miserable appointment at the doctors. His opening gambit was 'Didn't you sleep very well? You look awful' and things generally got worse from there. As I arrived home all I wanted to do was have a cup of tea, get in my sleeping bag and watch E4.
As I opened the door into the kitchen I realised it was cold; I had accidentally left the door to the garden open. Silently telling myself off I looked to my right and saw Darcy looking at me, looking incredibly keen to see me and tell me something... and covered in feathers.

Straight away I was annoyed at myself for leaving her with access to the big, feathery pillows in the conservatory, which she had obviously spent her morning ripping to shreds. I walked to the back of the house to inspect the damage. When I saw what Darcy had done I actually stopped in my tracks and gasped.

The feathers weren't pillow feathers. They were from a bird.

A bird. On the floor. With no head. Feathers everywhere.

It was a bird. A bird. A BIRD. THERE WAS A BIRD AND FEATHERS AND WHY DIDN'T IT HAVE A HEAD??

I realised she hadn't been excited and happy to see me when I came home; she was simply exhilirated and HIGH ON MURDER ENDORPHINS.

I looked at her again and screamed "DARCY WHAT HAVE YOU DONE??"
I shut her in the kitchen which sent her into a panicked frenzy and she started screaming and trying to see me through the hatch, leaping around near the worktops. I tentatively approached the bird which was now squirming on the floor. As it moved I realised it did have a head, it was just out of sight on the other side of the bird. I decided to use my best Famous Five skills and nurse the bird back to health. I started by gently stroking its wing.

I have to say this perked it up a bit. I'm not sure if it was out of fear or out of great gratitude that I had come to save it, the bird struggled to its feet and started to hobble about. That was when I noticed its back.

I don't know why I was so shocked. The feathers had to have come from somewhere. And now I knew where. The birds back. I leapt up and backed away from the hideous zombie bird with it's bloodied skin all over the place and ran to get the phone. With shaking hands, I hysterically called the local vet.

The vets were very kind (or couldn't understand my hysterical howls) and told me to box up birdie and bring him to them. I got a shoe box and cut holes into it before lifting Birdie gently into it wearing a pair of old gloves. As soon as Birdie was in the box he started rattling about and making me panic so I quickly ran to get in the car. I drove the mile to the Vets at two miles per hour, never once taking my eyes off the rattling box on the passenger seat, terrified that Zombirdie would leap out and start flying around.

I crashed into the vets shouting "I'm the one!! I'm the one who called about the bird!! I have the bird in here!" which seemed to alarm the elderly people sat in the waiting room with their asthmatic-looking dog. The receptionists took the box from me with an alarmed look in their eyes, and then I staggered back to my car.

I sat there for about ten minutes trying to get a hold of myself, and then eventually drove home and let Darcy out of the kitchen. I couldn't look her in the eyes as I picked Zombirdie's feathers out of her fur. She seemed suitably abashed.

So that's why I once spent a morning weeping while I hoovered the living room.

I so have a boner for Orange right now...

... as the internet is finally working on my Blackberry again :)

Goodbye, Orange customer-helpline staff. I enjoyed our daily conversations about how useless the service was. Bravo.

EXTREME SOCIAL TERRORISM

I have got post traumatic stress syndrome. I feel like I have just returned from a service in Afghanistan. I am going to start going to support groups and sit, looking dead behind the eyes, and be unable to talk about it. It is a marvel that I am even able to sit here typing, what I really want to do is sit on the sofa wrapped in a blanket, rocking back and forth and staring into space.Miss D and I had gone for a lovely little chat and some burgers at the local to catch up, as we hadn't had our usual Friday night meeting of minds over Jagerbombs. Miss D had already told me that she'd had an exhausting phone call off a mutual friend, wittering on about coming home from holidays.

We'd been sat talking while I minced about with popadoms for about half an hour when in she walked, bold as brass and carrying a Corona; Miss F - the local answer to Jeremy Kyle. It was only last week that I had drunkely spent half an hour doing an impression of her matter of fact way of talking at you and we were staggered to see her swanning in.

Meeting for a laugh and a snack is something Miss D and I like to do quite regularly, we bitch and make a plate of chips last an hour and a half. All of this stopped, however, when Miss F walked in. She launched into a baffling rant about how her appetite had changed and chose to demonstrate this by listing everything she had eaten over the last 24 hours.Miss D and I had no idea what to do. We had not invited this situation and we did not know why this was happening to us. Without drawing breath Miss F then ploughed straight into a tirade about how she'd had an argument with her parents about money. She continued from that straight into how she and Little J are going to Amsterdam where she'll pick him a 'brass'. Without pause she then explained how hilarious Little J is as he goes to all the cafes in the area and rates their full english breakfasts out of ten. He has apparently been doing this for three years.

Neither me nor Miss D knew how to escape this and there were no gaps in Miss F's speech to suggest it was meant to be a dialogue; she was just talking and talking and talking. All we could do was stare awkwardly at one another trying not to laugh while inhaling our food.

When she eventually stopped talking (long after our meals were finished) she suddenly started going on about how she had to go to a candle party. I do not know what a candle party is. I started saying "What is a candle party? What is a candle party?" in the frantic manner of somebody who had not been able to talk for an hour. She explained. And then carried on explaining.

And then Miss D and I were going to the candle party.

We arrived at a pub outside which a man was screaming at a woman in a car to get out. She was laughing, either hysterically or in hysterics. We had no idea what it was about. We awkwardly walked into the pub to see four people sat in the shadows with about 50 candles in the corner.

Miss D and I ran into the toilets.

"WE CANNOT STAY AT THE CANDLE PARTY!" I announced.
"I know," she replied, "I literally cannot sit there and look at all those candles, what are we going to do? WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO???"

Eventually I remembered that I actually had a fairly legitimate reason to escape; I needed to get some sandwich fillers for my mum. We staggered back to the candle party and I blurted out to Miss F that I needed to leave. To my horror, she said "Oh, nevermind... shall I give you a lift home, D?"

I am a good and loyal friend and therefore would have been willing to say almost anything to make sure I did not leave Miss D at the horror of the candle party. I was on the cusp of just shouting "SHE LIVES WITH ME. AS OF NOW. WE'RE GOING." When Miss D firmly insisted she wouldn't stay and then we ran off.

As soon as we got in the car I pressed the lock all doors button and we sat in a stunned silence.
"D," I tentatively began, "WHY DID WE ALLOW OURSELVES TO GET IN THAT SITUATION??"

We blathered on about it in horror as we drove to the supermarket. Even when we got there we were still shocked about it and ended up staggering through the aisles like we'd just been released after ten years in a nuclear bunker.

I have now turned to blogging. I will have to become very famous and excellent and rich at it so I can afford the necessary plastic surgery to completely change my appearance and therefore enable myself to hide in plain sight from Miss F.

PS. As soon as I got home I decided to consult my lifestyle guidance counsellor- not that she knows of her title- Allie at Hyperbole and a Half, to see what she would have done in this situation. As is clear by her post "The Awkward Situation Survival Guide", she probably would have ended up at the candle party too.