Saturday 8 August
This week I was in good company for the grand moment of opening the Weekend magazine to see what magic was on its way – my friend Adam was up from Brighton for a few days. He’d already read the magazine that morning, lending the event even more ceremonial weight as he knew what was coming and I didn’t.
However the suspense was mainly in vain as this looked to be a pretty unremarkable issue.
So…First impressions
Fashion
Where’s the usual fashion story? There’s only All Ages to be seen this week. It’s quite a relief as these outfits tend to be much more wearable – not to mention the poses being infinitely more poseable. Plus it’s all black this week. What could be easier for the average girl? Adam had also very thoughtfully brought me a belt and geek-chic glasses frames so I could more accurately follow the fashions later this week… watch this space.
Wide, pale belts
No complaints – a nice Jigsaw belt by the looks of things, although doubtless not cheap.
Hiking…
…boots with heels? Insert retching noise here. I guess the ones in the picture aren’t that bad, maybe with pale-ish skinny jeans and a baggy vest or something. Oh, I dunno, I’m sure I’ll like them if I see them often enough, but whether these will ever make it to the high street is questionable.
The Rachel Zoe Project
I see, it’s a TV programme, which is why I knew nothing of it when it was mentioned before (no TV). While I think this woman is pretty and I sort of want to be her in the same unthinkingly ridiculous way I sort of want my bum to look how it did when I was seven years old, I fundamentally hate everything this woman stands for and think she usually looks like a doll in a dishcloth. I can’t imagine it being in any way healthy for me to watch this programme, so it’s a damn good job I don’t have a telly. And I think buying one for this purpose goes too much against my time-spending ethics. I’d far rather spend three hours baking the perfect meringue for my Cotswold Mess or chopping parsley into 3mm lengths than spend three hours sitting on my rump watching a shiny-haired vacuum in an off-the-shoulder dress parade up and down a shop floor, or whatever goes on in Rachel Zoe’s Polly Pocket world*.
*I’m sure she’s a really lovely person, though. I’m sure she is. Only slightly responsible for getting a generation of 14-year-olds hooked on laxatives. We all have our flaws, after all.
Brown legs in white dresses; sea views and bougainvillea
Enough! I used up all my holiday this year already so my forthcoming five-day break in Hamburg will have to do. But my god, those words, so evocative.
Dallas
I’ve only ever seen Dallas in 2-min clips on Youtube so I might actually break through the paper walls of my Amish lifestyle and buy a cheap DVD player with a screen inbuilt so I can watch this box-set in bed. Whoopeee – hairspray, lipstick, drama. Oh heck, maybe I should start watching Rachel Zoe after all.
Moaning
So from now on, each time someone asks me how I am, the answer has to be ‘AMAZING’. This will be interesting. I don’t mind losing a few pennies or my self-respect during the course of this experiment, but I hadn’t planned to lose all my friends…
“Overboard”
No worries – I don’t own no deck shoes.
Thigh boots. On men
Hooray for not having a penis – it would be impossible for me to get this one wrong.
Bulky rolled-up sleeves
Damn it. I have bulky rolled-up sleeves about 94% of the time as I’ve recently found myself to be consistently too hot and inappropriately dressed. Anyway I like the Duran Duranity of rolled-up sleeves. But this Warehouse blazer sounds nice so I’m willing to buy it in and give it a go if the rest of the week is relatively cheap.
Lauren Luke’s purple eyes
Yay! Those readers of this blog who bought the paper itself will know that Lauren looked really pretty with her indigo peepers this week, and I already have a fair amount of midnight-purpley eye make-up that I love wearing. So this is the only make-up look so far other than the Dita von Teese one that I’d naturally choose for my face. Thank the lord, it’s going to be a good week on the cosmetics front if nothing else. And talking of nothing else…
Hugh has aggravated me this week (boo hoo, I hear him sob) by spending far too much time boiling fruits and berries. I don’t like boiling fruit and berries for a long time! It makes me uneasy to leave an unwatched pot, plus it uses up lots of money on my pauper’s electricity meter. I predict from the off that I won’t be making proper preserves as they also involve sterilising jars and waiting months to eat things. If I can’t wait ten minutes for chocolate sauce to cool, do you think I can wait four months to taste a drop of homemade Ribena? Tsk.
Yum, yoghurt pie, mmmmmm.
Looking like something I’d love to eat and hate to bake. Is that most things? Possibly, but I’ll give these a whirl. Maybe they’ll be one of those things that fall into the category apparently defined by souffles (Nigella says so), whereby they seem tricky and impressive yet are basic to do as long as you follow the… oh, wait, you have to follow the recipe. That is tricky.
Quite reasonable, cheapish and easy-to-get-hold-of suggestions here.
This column will change your life
Looks like another one where you read Oliver Burkeman’s article, think how very interesting it is, stare into space with a wry/wistful smile for a while and conclude that what you can best take away from it is to continue in exactly the same vein as you were before. The kind of advice I like, really. However I will try to put more into the practice the wisdom discussed here about the relative futility of turning over a new leaf – especially given that I am such an avid turner over of leaves I’m practically a strong breeze. Hmm, symbolic.
‘It was a bit of a pipe dream’
As interors features go, probably not much for me to do here but stand in a sleeping bag and have my photo taken.
So all in all, the conclusions are that the fashion and make-up will be much as I would usually go for, the cooking is largely going to irritate me and encourage me into improvisations so far from the original recipe as to be humorous, and I might get to buy a few nice bits of clothing. Pretty simple, pretty dull, pretty all right by me.
After first impressions had been harvested and shared with Adam, cider had been drunk and crosswords had been laboured over in the sunshine, we decided to get a few jobs out of the way so we could relax. The first tasks to tackle were a belt from Jigsaw, as seen in the Measure, above, and the commitment to start saying ‘AMAZING!’ whenever I’m asked how I am. I can tell you, as I’m writing this account on Monday, that it feels very much at odds with my character to gush in quite this way so early in a conversation, but the phrase sticks like mud on a wall or whatever the right phrase is. Adam and I ended up describing pretty much everything as AMAZING! all weekend, which was much less irritating for us than for anyone in our vicinity, expecially since the ‘joke’ increased in volume and horsiness as it did in frequency. My mum called up just now for our usual Monday chat and when she asked how I was, I told her I was ‘AMAAAAZING’ and she sounded so mum-pleased, which made me feel guilty as I don’t actually have much to report and am not particularly amazing after all.
But rewind to Saturday and the belt. We were in Dalston and Jigsaw was in Oxford Circus or Charing Cross. Neither shop was moving towards us at any great pace and we were unwilling to move towards the shops, so we went into an internet cafe and ordered a belt online instead. With P&P added I spent about 30-odd quid on this belt, and it was even in the sale, I think! I forget the original price. Nice, though. They only had a medium one left, which makes me nervous. Apparently the belt has been dispatched, so in a few days’ time we’ll discover whether it fits. I hope so.
I spent most of saturday in my weekend slobbing clothes but changed into the Guardian outfit ready to go out later. We decided I looked like Sharon out of EastEnders in this get-up. Witness:
Sloane Square
Albert Square
We were planning to go out to meet my bro at a night at which this outfit would, I reckon, have been very poorly received. Perhaps even dangerously poorly received. Luckily (although sadly in terms of not seeing my brother), Adam and I decided to lie on the bed and ask each other questions from my Brainbox quiz (recommended for ages 12-13) before we went out, which sent us to sleep, and the outfit never made it further than the corner shop to buy gin for that night’s recipe….
Blackcurrant
Abhorrent
-
Bit of an unexciting but restful-looking week – or is it just that I’ve been doing this experiment more than a month now and it’s wearing a bit thin?
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Black outfits are easy to copy.
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Purple make-up wins easily against green or blue.
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Liqueur is fun to make in terms of mixing, but the sieving and cooling and sterilising sound more like vet training vocab than cooking words to me. Stay out of my kitchen, vet training!
Friday 7 August
The usual end-of-week brevity is upon us, as Friday nights are for going out and having fun, so just an outfit for me to copy today.
I found it especially hard to do today’s pose and couldn’t work out why for a while. Then my photographing friend Claire and I realised it was because the model has such a swan neck, and I with my mallard scruff couldn’t even stand in that position.
The outfit was simple enough to get close to – grey dress, isn’t it.
I tried to get my hair into that cool twisty quiff using curling tongs this morning but failed dismally and had to straighten it back, making me half an hour late for work again. I suppose to be truthful twenty minutes of that was accounted for by me being in bed.
Conclusions:
- You’d need a fair bit of fringe length to get that quiff going on.
Thursday 6 August
Hehehe, check out today’s outfit. I don’t have a fur stole to hand so I had to make do with the tiger I’ve had since I was eight or so. I thought of pinning him to my shoulder but this might have been distracting for the others in the office, so I just balanced him there for the photo and then he went back in my bag. To be honest I removed most of the accessories – bar the belt – once the shutter had closed.
I quite like what the woman in the picture is wearing but if you’re going to go mad on accessories like that, they really need either to coordinate or clash properly, or you just look like you’ve gone mad.
Coordinate
Reprobate
The jumper is FARHI by Nicole Farhi menswear and is lovely for belting cos it’s made out of very soft, draping fabric.
I got the loopy bit of the hairstyle on the wrong side of the head. Before this project began I thought I knew my left and right, but I get muddled up between cameras and mirrors or something. It’s OK, I’ll pick it up eventually.
I was extremely excited about getting home because I was making Dan Lepard’s rocky road rock cakes. Gahhhh, just look at the recipe! I’d been looking forward to this all week. My usual casual chopping style left mine looking more like Alpine goat-path cakes after a mudslide, but we know it’s what’s inside that counts. I was a bit more careful about my measurements than I have been before after Dan Lepard linked to my blog on his baking forum and a legion of po-faced bun experts came barrelling over the brow of a cyberhill brandishing rolling pins and admonishing me for using the wrong equipment and overcooking stuff. I think they were being helpful. So yes, I was more careful (more careful, not necessarily actually careful) about quantities. However because I used such big chunks of chocolate and walnuts, the dough couldn’t really be made into golf ball-sized scoops. This is where I used my initiative and made one big blobby cake in the bottom of the tin instead, which I then cut into smaller pieces after it came out of the oven. I couldn’t wait for the chocolate topping mixture to cool before I stirred in the marshmallows, which meant they melted into a marbled swirl. I’d just walked six miles in the bucketing rain, hadn’t eaten since lunch and was standing over a pan of hot, glossy, ribboning chocolate gloop to dot it with little-fluffy-cloud marshmallows. How was I supposed to wait for the thing to cool? I also tasted it liberally before it made it to the pouring stage, by which I mean I ate nearly all of it – along with the marshmallows and peanuts that didn’t go into the recipe. This meant that by the time I came to eating the rock cakes, I already felt slightly sick. But that didn’t matter because the cakes were so, so good. Eating a mouthful was like inching into a just-too-hot bath – a spreading feeling of semi-religious pleasure tinged with the slightly guilty suspicion that what you’re doing probably isn’t that good for your veins.
I put what I couldn’t eat in the freezer, but not before I had a second go at them after they’d cooled, thus making myself feel sick twice in one evening. Some people never learn.
Another great thing about these cakes was that they were easy to make, even for me, and the process was quick – except the whole palaver of getting things to this and that temperature (I hear in some places they call it ‘cooking’), which I could afford to ignore because I alone had to eat the result. Oh yeh, and also, if you make them, do put at least some salted peanuts in (I used a mixture of peanuts and walnuts) cos it makes them taste of Snickers.
I turn 30 in a few months and I might actually bake my own cake just so that I can have a whole mountain range of these. I could get in some real goats to climb around in this mountain range, as I love goats. It’d be like a budget version of the Arctic scene, complete with snow leopard, that I heard Jocelyn Wildenstein had in her house. And I could get some surgery for my birthday too, so I look more like my cat, George. My life plan is suddenly coming together.
Rock cake
Boulder cake
Conclusions:
- What a brilliant day! A tiger on the shoulder and the most enjoyable-ever chocolate cake stuff in the belly.
- The path to enlightenment isn’t a path after all, it’s a stream – of condensed milk, melted chocolate and butter.
Wednesday 5 August
I left the suggested hat and necklace at home today and went to work in a toned-down version of the below outfit, then got dressed up in the right stuff for my photo later. I just would have felt too stupid in a train driver’s cap decorated with a brooch and my neck draped with a golden snake (my closest bit of jewellery to the picture), walking around the office like some kind of beefed-up Bubble out of Absolutely Fabulous. Some stuff translates fairly well into workwear and people in the office are used to me looking very slightly odd so it’s usually no big deal. But there have been days when I’ve been nervous just getting up to go to the vending machine, and today could’ve been one of them. Plus I think it’s kind of rude to wear a hat indoors, unless it’s a baseball cap.
The problem with the toned-down version is that I ended up looking like a cross between a Bulgarian office worker and a ’70s psychology student. Not that I have anything against Bulgarian office workers. Some of my best friends are Bulgarian office workers. Not actually best, best friends, but I’ve been over to stay with them, had a wonderful time and loved everyone I met more than I do on the average trip. But you know that thing of wearing slightly odd, staid outfits like a pair of slacks with a matching turtleneck and then tying a scarf over the top? That’s what I looked like. But again, my workmate Cari liked it, curiously, so each to their own I suppose.
Here’s a photo of the proper attempt at copying the look, complete with hat blending into background. Witness the sweat patches, which I decided not to hide in the interests of documenting the realities of life. I was very hot walking home in the muggy air and I didn’t want to take off the jacket and scarf because tight grey jeans, a tight grey top and grey walking trainers? Bleurgh. I do sometimes bump into people I know on the way home from work. And buses filled with people I might half know from my area go past at a rate of about 20 per journey. Sorry, I realise I’m really waffling here so I’ll cut the crap and paste the photo.
My brother came round for dinner, which was lovely, and on the menu for the evening was Yotam Ottolenghi’s tabbouleh. This led to my most rebellious act thus far, which was actually doing something I’d been told directly not to do. Terrible. I went looking for bulghur wheat in Sainsbury’s and I couldn’t find it anywhere. Maybe it’s hiding with the seeds. My brother was about to arrive and I had no time for trekking up to Fresh n Wild to look for the perfect grain so I started thinking what I could replace it with. And since Yotam had baulked at the idea of using couscous, of all things, I had couscous on the brain. It was like when someone tells you to Not Look Now when a very tall person walks past – perhaps taller than 6′ 7″ even. So I hit the big – shockingly big – couscous section of the supermarket and bought loads of Ainsley Harriot ready mixes and some cheap Sainsbury’s versions – plus a load of ready-made couscous salads, too. I wasn’t taking any risks as I’m traditionally very bad at cooking couscous (it has measuring in it), and I thought I’d rely on someone else’s abilities to make sure the whole meal wasn’t a damp, soggy, tasteless mush. Then I ate two of the salads on the way home. These are my problems, really. I’m so impatient and I have such an infinite appetite. But at least I wasn’t crotchety by the time Mark arrived and we had two other salads to serve up, plus a couscoused-up tabbouleh.
The other misbehaviours I did were a) not chop the herbs properly – again very much against the warnings of Yotam – and b) not wash the herbs properly enough. I thought I was thorough but I should know by now that my benchmarks for thoroughness are set at about half the strength of most people’s. I nearly broke a tooth on a bit of grit. Ech, I don’t even like to think back on it.
Luckily this was right at the end of the meal during second helpings, so it didn’t put us off. I think it was an isolated grit particle. Maybe it came out of Ainsley’s couscous. Better not say that; I’m sure it didn’t.
Again, I’m rambling like ze Wordsworth here so I’d better quit it and show you the pictures, then sign off.
Not bad, eh, but you can see the poorly chopped herbs there, looking like trees. In a moment of horror I realised I’d forgotten to photograph the dish but luckily there was enough left over to get this shot. I put the rest of it in the freezer to languish with all the other probably unfreezeable leftovers I reheat for unsuspecting guests these days. It is working out to be much more economical than expected, making the effort to cook each evening.
To be true to The Measure I checked out Proenza Schouler stuff online and discovered my suspicions were not only true but exceeded – the cheapest leather thing on Net-a-Porter was a ‘pochette’ (a small bag in which posh women keep their doubloons) for about fifty million (660) pounds. So I didn’t get it. I keep my doubloons in a mouse’s stomach I stretched and cured at the orphanage, which has lasted me all this time.
Conclusions:
- Take your hat off indoors, young lady.
- Chop proper.
- About seven promotions lie between me and the pochette.
Tuesday 4 August
I’m delighted to be back out of swimwear and into boys’ jeans and a jumper my granny knitted me many years ago. Although I love these clothes I have to admit that my interpretation of the model’s outfit is fairly weak – except for the hairstyle, which I’m getting much better at after weeks of practice. I still find it hard to get all the partings straight but I don’t have to look at them so nevermind.
Shoulders
Toldyer
It’s getting disheartening to repeatedly look so much less glamorous than this woman. She’s becoming my arch-enemy.
For din-dins it was supposed to be another of Hugh’s summer marinades – the final one, in fact. Again I didn’t get home until half eight or so and I really couldn’t wait another few hours to eat, so again I used his marinade ingredients to cook the meat without leaving it to soak. First I fried a bit of salmon in lemon, olive oil and the herbs, then ate it as a starter while I grilled some chicken pieces in the same stuff. It was tasty and moist and good.
Before I was allowed to bathe and bed myself (?) I had to attempt making my flat look like an Australian factory conversion – no small feat. I used to live in an old toy factory, which would have yielded so much more joy, but now I live alone, sob, I can’t afford wooden flooring and white walls and all that jazz. These interior design photos are going to become very samey very quickly as there are only so many angles from which you can photograph a small, dishevelled studio flat/large, luxurious cat litter.
Nonetheless I’ll have you know I put a great deal of effort and back-work into rearranging my furniture to meet the requirements. The resulting configuration means you have to climb over the sofa if you want to sit on it. But then the sofa is actually two chairs pushed together anyway, and those chairs are of such poor quality they are more like cheap dollhouse furniture that’s been zapped by that machine in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids sequel (was there one? Probably). The point is that I wouldn’t recommend anyone risked sitting on them anyway, so the amount of effort required to reach them is of little importance.
My cat, at least, was entertained by all this moving about of his usual landmarks.
Here are the results. I’m sure you’ll agree my flat now looks like something straight out of Wallpaper*:
Light
Dark
The cactus room posed problems, as predicted. I’m afraid I just couldn’t make space for one. So I took a photo of the closest thing I have to a let’s-eat-breakfast-in-the-cactus-room-this-morning-darling table, which is an old dining table piled with records and magazines. Chic.
Cactus room
Cacktus room
And finally, the adorable lift. At my home I have to go up the stairs like a regular pleb so I took a picture of me door instead, because it looks a little similar.
And that was that for the day.
Conclusions:
- I don’t have enough shoulders in my wardrobe.
- Marinades are for the weekends, I’m now certain of it.
- There are limited ways of restyling the same small room. That sad truth of home styling should be enough to put anyone off committing a crime punishable by incarceration – then where would you put the cactus room?
Monday 4, sorry 3, August
Today was the last day of my bikini wearing and I’m afraid I chickened out slightly and wore a vest for my photo. Mind you that’s pretty much the closest thing I have to the ridiculous garment the model’s wearing. I imagine most people would just be slightly irritated if you walked past them in that swimsuit by the pool at your average all-inclusive. There might be the odd cry of ‘Borat!’ as well. If I tried to wear it I’d look like a cross between Linda Lusardi and a trussed-up chicken, which is rarely the effect I’m looking for. Never say never, though.
As a footnote, I didn’t go to work in this. I would be sent home and it’s a busy time. I put a little black dress and a jacket on. Know your limits.
Get a black swimsuit
Get a black cloak. Please.
I wasn’t really into the pose but I did kind of try, a bit. You can’t see it properly in the photo but I was holding a wooden owl who’s made a previous appearance in this blog. He’s my one ornithological prop.
And that’s it! No more swimwear. For the time being, at least, and here’s hoping.
The photo was taken by dear Liv, who came over for dinner. We had another of Hugh’s marinades, with lamb (a combination of chops and kebabs to try out both his suggestions) served with green salad that tasted as if Sainsbury’s had washed it in mould, pitta bread, hummus and tzatziki. By the time I met Liv I’d already eaten most of a packet of pitta bread, I was so hungry. I bought that and some wooden skewers from the Turkish supermarket but it closed its shutters mid-shopping list, hence my escape to Sainsbury’s. Sadly this is the power of the global conglomerate. It can afford to stay open until I’ve walked home from Paddington to Dalston.
Once home I polished off most of the dips while Liv chatted to a bus tour guide on the phone. I did save her some though. The eating of the dips meant we were able to wait at least haf an hour for the lamb to marinate but we had to eat and digest before bed and couldn’t give it much more than that. I could make these marinades and add the meat in the morning before work, but we all know that time is for sleeping and plaiting one’s hair into complicated styles.
The lamb came put pretty nice, if a bit less tasty than his other recipes so far (see the previous few posts). Also not sure about grated onion. I think it gave the yoghurt a bitter taste. The lamb was tender though. Not bad; not the best.
Conclusions:
- Thank the gods and goddesses for the end of beachwear week.
- Marinades probably do work better if you have time to leave them a while.
- Onions are made for chopping or slicing more than grating.
Sunday 2 August
Another day, another episode of ritual humiliation. I’m going to keep this brief and we can move on fast. If you’re new to this blog, please scroll down to the previous post and read the disclaimer in bold.
Want to be noticed on the beach?
Want to be banned from the beach?
I don’t have a bloody candelabra thing so I had to use a bloody walking stick, OK? Now let’s move on.
Dinner was very nice – ginger and soy marinade. I couldn’t get duck cos J Sains had sold out. So I used chicken. I had the time to leave it in the marinade as it was Sunday, and the chicken came out of the oven moist, flavoursome, garlicky and delicious.
My only complaint is based on the day after, when I’m writing this.
The below email exchange between my colleague Cari and I illustrates the complaint better than my words alone. Some of it appears in Outlook font and I don’t know how to change it:
Guardian Girl (obviously not my real name – how portentous would that be?):
Cari, if you eat a lot of garlic does it ever come out of your pores? I love garlic and don’t want to give it up but should my forehead really be smelling of a frenchman’s armpit the next day? I’m so ashamed.
Cari:
Of all the spices, that is the one that comes out of the pores the most. If I’d had a Moaz Falafel the night before, it doesn’t matter how thoroughly I brushed my teeth or how much mouthwash I’d use, I would sit next to mum the next day and she’d tell me I reek of garlic. My own mother! But, everything tastes better with garlic. I put it in absolutely all of my food. I think it’s worth smelling a little anti-social for that heavenly taste. How do you smell your own forehead?
GG:
Phew, if it happens to you, that’s officially OK, as you’re officially one of my most glamorous friends. I smell my own forehead with my proboscis. Only kidding, I wiped the gentle sweat from my brow after my 15th cup of coffee today and then rested my head in my hand and noticed a garlic odour. Then I wiped various parts of myself with my hand and smelt it (making sure all the hot men in the office were looking first). I basically smell of the marinade I cooked my chicken in last night. This is going straight in the blog.
Cari:
Ehehehe – it has to.
GG:
Alongside unforgiving photos of me in a bikini. Great.
Cari:
Question 2: how on earth do you know what a proboscis is? I have to Google words that you casually drop in an email conversation at least twice a week. When you write about the side effects of the garlic chicken, can you slip in the term ‘olfactory nightmare’? I nearly pissed myself the first time you said it and I’ve strangely wanted to come across the term again.
GG:
Did I say olfactory nightmare? I know about proboscis from a kid’s book, I can’t remember which – possibly the hungry caterpillar.
Cari:
Yes – when your cat peed on your jacket and you didn’t realise until you arrived at work.
Saturday 1 August
First impressions
It’s a good job I made it to the pub before opening the Weekend magazine this week because my worst fear had come true remarkably early in the experiment. The fashion shoot this week is swimwear. I instantly thought of doing some Photoshopping in the name of magazine authenticity but I’m just going to shut up and get on with it. I’m here to represent those of us with meaty, meety thighs and no time to bake meringues for their Cotswold mess, and I ain’t going to abandon the cause now.
The All Ages fashion looks much the same as the past few weeks, as my Guardian-reading friend Shirley pointed out. Very grey, with lots of plaits and layered up garments. I guess the stylist, Priscilla Kwateng, has her aesthetic and that’s that. The shoulders are the main event this week – luckily we’ve been primed for this by The Measure. I wonder how carefully they plan all this. I don’t have many shoulder pads in my wardrobe – yet – but I’m sure I’ll be able to manage some weak version of these outfits by relying on the greyness and the plaitedness and the bunched-upness.
Paper planes bag looks nice and I have a holiday booked later this month, so I’ll have a chance to test how much more vacational the whole experience feels with the officially appropriate product on my arm.
Zoe report, Jimmy Choo boots and men’s Louboutins are all future releases rather than current, for which I’m grateful. The likelihood of me being able to afford anything leather by Proenza Schouler is very small, so I’m not counting on this working out either.
Hilfiger slim leg jeans – finally I’ll be able to buy some jeans in my new size.
I’m glad I don’t have to wear the two-sided leggings and I can’t even discuss the office air-con in the public domain as it’s too politically controversial, and I risk having my head price-tagged by a shivering colleague.
Lauren Luke’s make-up
That eyeshadow looks hideous but I’m a rehead at the moment (a result of my failed attempt to become a blonette) so at least this make-up look is aimed specifically at me. I feel special.
Hugh’s recipes look good, simple and tasty this week. Marinating stuff is usually a problem for me by the time I get home from work, but even cooking meat using these ingredients should be nice and at least I have two weekend days to spend macerating food.
Yotam does tabbouleh this issue, which is usually a problem for me due to the presence of the Evil Ones but as usual I’ll substitute sunblush.
How to bake: yum yum yum.
Wine. I won’t make it to Berry Bros but at least there’s a bottle here from Waitrose. Oh wait, it costs £55. Get lost then.
Oliver Burkeman. The advice I’m taking from this article is to continue with whatever I was doing previously and not give a damn whether or not anyone finds it interesting.
Aspects of love. Aww, reading about the sibling bond makes me miss my brother loads. I’ll arrange to see him this week.
Space. In theory I could probably copy this a bit, if the theory was quite a generous one that is. But hang on, what’s that, a cactus room? I don’t think I have a cactus room but I’ll ask my butler to check.
So enough of my first impressions and on to what I actually had to do today. The first thing was to wear a checkerboard-style swimsuit contraption. Luckily I was out for the day so had no opportunity to change into my bikini until that night, when the sun was as set as Angel Delight and I was as drunk as my house guests. I waited until two had gone home and one was asleep before getting my kit off for the photo.
I’d like to add a disclaimer here (and to each post about swimwear). The purpose of this blog is not that I find pictures of bikini models and paste them next to photos of myself copying their poses. What kind of masochist would do that? Not this kind of masochist. There’s a wider context (see What is the point of this blog?, right). I find the whole thing thoroughly embarrassing but if you’re in for a penny, you’re in for a pound. I believe that’s the right idiom for the situation.
So, here goes…
Maximum exposure
Maximum humiliation
Unlike most people I don’t own a chessboard swimsuit like the one the model’s wearing. I’ll have to join the crowd soon though, as that tan would be to die for with a nice set of lace undies on the first night with a new lover. Marriage proposals here we come!
Anyway let’s move on pretty quickly from that episode – only two more swimwear shots to get through before I can return to the suddenly reassuring task of being photographed in harem pants for the world wide web.
Next task for the day was to get me something from the paper planes collection by cloth-ears, mentioned in The Measure/above. I chose the travel charm because it was the cheapest thing and it’s pretty nice, although I can’t imagine attaching it to my phone, in all honesty. I usually recognise my luggage on the carousel anyway because it’s a ratty, falling-apart free gift from a conference held together with safety pins and tied with a yellow rag, among a sea of neat wheely cases from Debenhams or wherever you buy those things. I suspect most of them probably come from Beelzebub’s market stall. My mum always tells me how useful they are and I can believe it, but after a few years of following them down London escalators I have such negative associations I can’t even touch one without gagging. Anyway, my luggage charm is due to arrive at work this week, so that’s something to look forward to.
While I was using the internet at my friends’ flat to order the charm (I live in the Amish style with no computer, television, kettle, toaster, microwave or CD player) I also took the opportunity to order some Hilfiger jeans, as I didn’t fancy making the mission into town to buy them on a saturday. I highly unrecommened the experience. I found the Victoria jeans mentioned in The Measure and thought they looked pretty horrible but I’m fast learning to suspend my disbelief in the name of compliance with the mass media. I then discovered they were only available up to a 32in waist, which isn’t big enough for me. My waist is considerably smaller than 32in but the bum, thighs and associated body parts (not quite sure what I mean by that but I’ll leave it in just in case anyone else does) that cause the problem, so I have to buy at least a size 14 or sometimes 34in waist men’s jeans in order to get a fit I can breathe in. This always does my head in. I mean, look at the picture of me in my bikini above (hard to believe I’m encouraging this but I have an important point to make and will always sacrifice my dignity to make a point). Fair enough I have a double chin and substantial thighs and all that, but all in all I’m no great chubber, am I. I’m a fairly normal-looking, well-rounded, healthy girl. I eat a lot of pastry and so on, but then I walk about 11 miles most days and I’m not a fool – I know roughly when to stop. So is it right that I’m considered too big for most designer jeans? I think it’s preposterous.
The skanky black colourway of Victoria jeans comes in a 33in waist though, so I decided to take the risk on those even though £80 is an expensive gamble. I was sure I could send them back if needs be.
The stupid online form and password system confused me and meant I had to re-enter my information FOUR times, after already having been made to feel like an ungodly whale. I tried to process the whole thing twice before i realised they only accept American Express, Visa and Mastercard or something anyway. So not only does this company penalise you for having good, strong, warrior’s thighs, it also penalises you for not being in enormous amounts of debt. OK, I’m exaggerating a bit now. In fact it was a happy outcome because I didn’t much want the jeans anyway – check out the unpleasant distressed effect at the ankles. But really, freedom of choice!
Another task for the day was attempting the green eyeshadow monstrosity of a look recommended for redheads by Lauren Luke this week. I so want to like Lauren Luke as she’s a ‘normal girl’ and she obviously knows her stuff, but some of the make-up just doesn’t look too nice to my eyes.
I copied it the best I coud anyway, using the usual eyeshadow primer to be really diligent about it. I don’t have any very bright green eyeshadow, for perfectly good reasons. If you have reddish skin, the last thing you ought to be doing is splashing the complementary colour of red all over your face. I know it works if you use it as a cover up, but this is different.
It would be impertinent not to mention at this point an incident that happened when I was a teenager under the influence of magic mushrooms (sorry Mum). I’d been laughing so much at nothing much (tall people, fences, people of a normal height who somehow appeared very tall, etc) that I’d gone very flushed. I looked at my face in the pub mirror and saw red, red, red. At home I had one of those green colour-corrective primers to cover up my spots but I’d forgotten it that night, so i took out my Collection 2000 eyeshadow palette and spread my whole face with pearlised green powder, thinking it’d do the same job. My best mate then came into the loo and found me standing there gazing at the mirror with a full-on, glinting layer of glittery green all over my face. Infinite hilarity ensued – so much so that the next woman to walk into the bathroom thought I was crying hysterically in distress and that my friend was bent over comforting me. She fussed over for us for god knows how long before realising the sad truth of our state. We later spotted a stray piece of toilet roll on a doorframe, which caused another hour or so of unbridled hysteria, but that’s another thrilling story for another thrilling post. All in all the point is this: I don’t tend to use pearly green eyeshadow much anymore.
Here are the pics:
Redhead
Blackheads
Marinated squid
Fried chicken
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Where do I even start today? First, denim companies need to design jeans for women who are bigger than a 32in waist. Evans and all that novelty fat-people’s clothes stuff just doesn’t do – it needs to be normal clothes in bigger sizes. Or else.
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Cloth-ears has great customer service. Hilfiger ought to take a leaf out of that book and throw away its copy of Thin in A Fortnight or whatever it reads at the moment.
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Green eyeshadow gets the thumbs down, just like blue eyeshadow did.
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Marinating stuff may be great, but almost as great and much quicker is simply frying food in the marinade.
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The quicker this swimwear phase is over, the better – and may it never return.
Friday 31 July
Tonight the harem pants will make their second appearance when I’ll be dancing about in trainers and a muscle vest, which I’ve decided is a good idea although I’m not sure why and suspect it may be a thought planted by the ghost of Jason Orange past. I didn’t fancy doing the stomp of shame through the office again today so I substituted them with jeans for day (I think this is this what fashion people say. ‘For day’ and ‘for evening’) .
I’m wrapping up the week here. No recipe tonight cos I just went out for bruschetta followed by calzone to fill me up for later – you can never have too many elliptical baked dough products in one meal, particularly on a Friday and especially when you’re going out later.
Here’s the photographic evidence – of the outfit, not the food. Note yesterday’s jacket making a proper appearance.
Conclusions:
- I’m getting into the plaited hair and have banned myself from the snooze button so as to improve my hairstyling skills. It’s good to get hairdo ideas from magazines, I think. It seems less sad than copying clothes.
Thursday 30 July
Today was a very special day for outfits. My dear friend Cari had given me some navy silk hareem pants in order to keep up appearances with this ‘being current’ endeavour, and today they were the most matching thing I had in my wardrobe – or the most matching thing I could still fit into, rather – so it was time to look like the office clown.
Cari liked them, and my friends Adam and Thomas liked them when I did a catwalk show for them the previous evening. The girl I sit next to at work graced me with a “You can just about pull them off” while wrinkling up her nose and talking about how much she dislikes people who wear hareem pants, but no matter.
Unfortunately the below photograph would, if it were to be used in court, likely fall into the category of ‘evidence against’, but that’s partly because I’m standing as if I’ve shat myself. Plus the angle is a bit unflattering.
Since I’m being a bit crass today I’ll admit that I’ve always thought hareem pants look like their purpose is to disguise elephantiasis of the labia, and I’m not sure if I’m yet convinced, especially looking at this picture, but I really like wearing these, comfort wise. I almost think they’d be better in the sunshine with a pair of flip flops and a vest, rather than dressed up. But what the Guardian says, I do. Sad when you think about it in the cold light of day.
Trousers
Pants
Looking it it again, I’m retching a bit. They honestly don’t look this bad in real life. Or in mirror life, anyway, which is not real life, which is always a perturbing thought.
The jacket over my shoulder is an amazing garment – another of Evi’s FARHI by Nicole Farhi creations. It’s a shame you can’t see the detail because the shoulders have cool rosette-ish bits on them. Wearing a navy and white outfit with a navy and white jacket, I felt very matchy – far more than I would ever naturally be. I also felt a bit like Andy Pandy but that’s fine with me – we have much in common.
For dinner I made Dan Lepard’s blueberry almond bars. It could be my measuring problems but this was so sweet and sugary it was like eating an enormous boiled sweet out of the glove compartment of a hot car. Or out of Wonka’s river, even. IT stuck to my teeth (I’ll leave that typo in because the idea of getting information technology stuck to my teeth while eating dessert is better than the idea I’m trying to say) and made me feel sick (I did eat about four portions though, so we’ll leave that aside) and it actually hurt my tongue, i think. I put some cherries and blackberries in it too. My baking tin was a bit bigger than the 20cm square one he suggested (20x30cm was the best I could do) so it was a bit thinner than it should’ve been. You know I feel bad blaming the recipe because Dan Lepard has such a nice, smiling face and he’s a cake expert, whereas I’m a girl in a small kitchen who can’t use a measuring jug properly. I got the feeling it would’ve been great had it been less sugary. As I was pouring in more and more of the stuff, rubbing in an enormous chunk of butter and stirring in the nuts I was seeing the calories clock up in front of my eyes like the pennies on a petrol pump. I am not one to worry about calories – I only really found out what they were a couple of years ago and I never count them unless I’m looking for a more urban version of sheep to clock up when I have insomnia. I’m more of a magical thinker when it comes to food. I judge it by size and emotional significance, so a massive plate of salad is often the same as a massive plate of cake, unless I really like the salad ingredients or don’t like the cake, in which case the cake is probably healthier. Well, you know. Anyway despite my nutritional ignorance, this cake did scare me a bit. And trust me when I say it really takes a lot of sugar to scare me. Once I got a dud packet of Tangfastics and they all had wormholes through them where the sour stuff had eaten them away, and as I ate them they started to do the same thing to my mouth, but I polished off the whole packet anyway, and now I charge cavers £4.95 a piece to look for the Witch of Wookey in my tonsils.
I am tough.
Blueberry and almond bar
Cavities and obesity
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Harem pants are better than I suspected but your office folk must be pretty progressive to accept them without sniggers/second glances.
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I spell hareem two ways, because we should exercise freedom of choice or we might lose it.
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Cookery conclusion remains the same as ever: one must measure, measure, measure darling! And when will one ever learn?
I've always found it funny when people write letters to the Guardian's Weekend magazine complaining that the recipe ingredients are too middle class and the fashion only looks good on thin people. After all, it's just a magazine. Or is it? I decided to follow its recipes, fashion and lifestyle advice as closely as possible, to see if the aspirations promoted therein can really be achieved by the average reader who is not especially wealthy, not necessarily model thin and is obliged to work regular office hours. This blog has no affiliation whatsoever with the Guardian but I link to the Weekend magazine website for the purposes of illustration. 
Guardian Girl 
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