Sheer delight
My organza jodhpurs are at the dry cleaners today so I had to make do with Primark skinny jeans. Seeing photos of myself in skinny jeans makes me think back to a time many moons ago (when I was actually a lot thinner but that’s almost irrelevant).
I was at a barbecue and I bumped into a guy I’d previously met at a party, at which I’d been wearing a miniskirt. He said: ‘Oh hi, you’re the one with the Robert Crumb legs’. I later gave him hell for this comment and he told me he’d meant it as a compliment. Instead of clipping him about the ear, I decided to believe him, since he is very much below-and-to-the-left of the mainstream in his tastes and since you may as well see the bright side of things. It’s always a good idea to find positive role models for yourself, making the most of what might otherwise be considered flaws (sod having Darcey Bussell as a hero). This way, when an old Jamaican chap shouts ‘Hey big legs!’ at you in the street, you are able to take it as a compliment. As I go about my daily business I constantly screen a playreel of stormin Russ Meyer girls, Robert Crumb drawings, Nigella serving nibbles and Marilyn wiggling around in satin in Some Like It Hot in my mind’s eye. I recommend this to any not-small lass who is vulnerable to the odd guilt pang about taking up too much space. Go girls! Anyway here’s the outfit:
Sheer delight
Sheer fright
Conclusions:
- I spent ages looking for skinny jeans that fit and Primark was the only place to come up trumps, which is a pretty dire state of affairs.
- I did try more with my pose today, can you tell? A little bit? I still look a bit haemorrhoidal don’t I.
Autumn glow
What is an autumn glow? A slightly paler version of a summer glow?
Maybe I’m a bad judge of such things but this make-up look appeared inadvisable to me. It’s not really going to fool anyone you’ve just come back from holiday, is it?
Nonetheless I’ve been faithfully recreating it on my own face every day this week. During The Break I was wearing a lot of heavy black eye make-up so it’s been quite nice in a way to see my face again. I do like the way that when you’re used to wearing quite a lot of slap and then you look in the mirror bare-faced, there’s a sort of honest look about your reflection.
I’ve been doing my make-up in the bathroom this week rather than the bedroom as I usually do. I can’t explain this phenomenon, it just came about. Fascinating isn’t it? The reason I mention this is that my bronzer remained in my bedroom for the first few days, and I couldn’t be bothered to walk across my enormous flat and get it, so I actually brushed brown eyeshadow all over my cheeks instead. Now I’m writing this I feel embarrassed about it but at the time it felt absolutely logical, like when I used to put all my chewed-up Trident gum back into the blister pack it comes in and keep it on my desk, so when someone asked for a piece I’d slide back the cover and they’d see half a pack of fresh bits next to half a pack of gnarled up spitty lumps in varying shades depending on what else I’d most recently eaten, and it was only when several people had reeled back in horror and disgust that I sort of looked at my behaviour from the outside. I suppose that was more revolting than the eyeshadow thing but it my head it seems similar.
I have remembered to use eyeshadow base about 50% of the time, which feels like quite an achievement, but even better is the fact that I’ve been using make-up brushes! Yes I have, because the friend and designer who puts my photos into squares for this blog, Michelle, who I’m sure you’ll remember from earlier posts, gave me the most brilliant present – a tiny box filled with make up brushes and an angled mirror.
I’ve had a bit of a turnaround on the lipgloss front too – it looks less Posh Spice with long fringey black hair, and is edging very slightly closer to Meg White (if I look at myself with my eyes so squinty as to be pretty much closed).
Here are the make-up photos then. Considering how horrified I was when I saw the original, the result is a relief.
Autumn glow
(I spilt water on the mag and photographed it at dusk, sorry Lozza)
Awful blow
Sadly I look like a monk here. Certainly not bronzed. I think this is because my bronzer was originally one of those double ones that has highlighter and bronzer in the same compact, and I went out having fun, dropped my handbag and smashed the powder blocks so they mashed up together. So what I’m now putting on my face is a mixed-up sheen about the same shade as my natural skin tone. It just makes me look a bit more pearly than usual – rubbish, especially on bad skin. I ought to buy myself some cheap bronzer I guess.
Conclusions:
- I look forward to discovering what a winter glow looks like before long.
- Putting a bit of lipstick on your cheeks to make them look flushed is one thing, but perhaps streaks of brown eyeshadow’s taking it a little far.
- Make-up brushes really make things easier.
- Nothing wrong with looking like a monk.
A pepper or two
Last night Adam and Thomas came over for dinner and I cooked ALL of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s aubergine/pepper/chilli suggestions in a sort of nightshade-family feast. Most of them were a bit disappointing.
The baked aubergine/yoghurt/coriander dip with pitta was probably the best bit, and it’s translated into lunch the next day better than the pepper/tomato/scrambled egg dish, which was nice, but is a bit squeam-making to eat cold. The deepfried chillies were downright dangerous as one of them exploded in the pan, flying through the air and splattering my entire kitchen (if you could call it a kitchen, and if you could call it ‘entire’) with burning olive oil. Good job there were no newborns around. The battered aubergine and pepper slices were pretty much disastrous – soggy and mostly tasteless – but then I’ve never been much good at this type of battery. The stuffed pepper with beef and dill was bland in itself but very nice combined with the ultra-tasty pine nut, spinach and goats cheese one.
All in all aubergines and peppers aren’t my favourite veggies anyway and I remain unconvinced. I’m looking forward to trying the red lentil and coconut soup tomorrow for a bit of flavour.
Oufitwise I feel pretty OK in what I’m wearing today but the photo tells a different story (Captain Pugwash and the Gender Reassignment Therapy).
The return of my lovely silk FARHI by Nicole Farhi still fails to show it in a positive light. One day you’ll see its greatness.
This isn’t a good angle for me really. I’m crossing my fingers that the Guardian does a CCTV-inspired, shot-from-above fashion story soon. I’m getting sick of the sight of my underchin.
In style
On stile
My new day’s resolution for tomorrow is to really get some dynamism into the pose. Watch this space.
In other news, I’ve been umming and ahhing a lot over one of the Measure entries this week – the Shaun Leane jewellery. I checked out astleyclarke.com and I really love the collection – except the one piece I could vaguely afford, which is the cherry blossom pendant. The rest of it is all vintage-looking and beautiful and reminds me of a Flower Fairies drawing, which I’ve always had a residual young-girl love for, but that single cheaper pendant looks more Keepers. I’ve decided not to part with my cash. Keepers always seemed to cause bad blood anyway. (If you picked up on them, please excuse the feminine hygiene implications of that sentence – it wasn’t what I meant.)
Thanks
PS: I’d just like to say a quick thank you to Google for directing people searching for “harem pants on fat person” to my blog.
Dip/stick
Today’s photo is a self-portrait because I couldn’t leave the house in what I was wearing. Would you take me seriously if you bumped into me around the office wearing this?
If I’d only had a coral Margaret Howell blouse, some drawstring moleskin trousers and perhaps a tiny pair of hips, I’d be looking chic today. Oh, and a pair of clear-rimmed specs. But these garms are the closest I could get and, as you can see, tracksuit bottoms (Fat Face 1999 – not really Best Dressed material) an orange top, cropped Primark shirt and fancy-dress glasses do not a professional lady make. I changed into black h-h-h-harem pants and swapped the shirt for my beloved Farhi by Nicole Farhi covering-up mannish shirt thing so I looked less like I’d soiled myself, added a big scarf to make it look like I had some kind of intention for my appearance and headed off to the bus stop flowingly. I do look like a psychodrama workshop facilitator today but that’s probably better than looking like a plain old psychodrama. Today I’d like to add an extra dimension to my snap by providing the soundtrack that was going on in my head as I looked in the mirror. For those who have spotify: http://open.spotify.com/track/1Vchex0xowRj9k59RLvRfo.
Step out
Stay in
Dinner last night, on the other hand, was a steaming success. It was Hugh’s Muhamarra recipe, a very tasty affair involving walnuts, bread, olive oil, baked red peppers, chilli flakes, lime juice and caramelised onion chutney because I couldn’t find any pomegranate molasses. Once I was on Guardian Soulmates – why not, since I outsource every other decision in my life to the Guardian, let it choose me a lover as well? I met this guy and Jesus Christ was he a bore. He was even more smug than me. He was sick with the nation because it promoted cultural low-browism by celebrating Harry Potter. I unfortunately hit upon the subject of his difficult relationship with his father within ten minutes of meeting him – purely accidental – and the tense diatribe that followed was a terrifying to behold, and highly awkward to react to over a conversational pint of Strongbow. Anyway I went home after a while and shortly afterwards decided to choose my own menfolk. But the point of this story is that he harped on at great length about how amazing pomegranate molasses is, and how you can use it to add depth to any flavour, and how you can get it any Turkish shop. But I was in Sainsbury’s in my tracksuit (because I’m now running everywhere in order to maintain this experiment without growing out of the last remaining giantsize harem pants) and I couldn’t find any, so I just bought some Taste the Difference chutney instead. It’s a bit soapy to be honest. ANYWAY, the dip is stunningly delicious. You must make it. If you can’t be bothered to do the bits involving the peppers, the paste made with all the other ingredients is delicious in itself. Walnutty oily rich wonder with bread dipped in. I ate plenty of it before I added the peppers. Hugh told me to add the rest of the ingredients after the peppers but I rebelliously ignored him. I was wating for the peppers to cook so I thought I may as well get the rest ready.
Also I used my hand blender! If you’ve been reading from the start you’ll know this is a great thing as it marks my triumph over the emotional scars I earned during an egg white incident.
Here are the photies:
Muhamarra
Muhm-muhm-ahhh
I know it looks kind of like a feline production here but that’s just any ungarnished dip for you isn’t it? I added extra chilli flakes, chutney and cumin so it’s got quite a kick. It’s making me mildly perspire as I eat the remains for lunch while typing this.
Conclusions:
- I’m taking a long moment to appreciate the fact that I changed out of that heinous outfit before coming to work.
- I strongly recommend trying the dip.
- Peeling red peppers is pretty tricky even after doing the oven/plastic bag trick but the dip doesn’t appear to have suffered by having skins in it.
The end of the road
After much cogitation, conferring and a liberating trip to Hamburg involving no shopping lists, recipes or posing, I’ve decided it’s the end of the road for Guardian Girl. I discovered some great things along the way, largely involving pastry, but the path has been rocky indeed.
My conclusion is that following the kind of lifestyle advice peddled by The Guardian does not lead to an apex of sophisticated lefty living involving wandering across polished floorboards in finely cut clothing to help oneself to a bowl of homemade soup, glance at the reclaimed maritime clock on the wall and lean out of the French window to remind one’s handsome husband lovingly that it’s nearly time to pick the kids up from Montessori.
At least not for me.
For me it meant picking my way through piles of discarded, increasingly tight Primark copies of catwalk classics to reach the fourth slice of leftover pie before texting another ex-friend to apologise for my two-month disappearance from the public arena (bar Sainsbury’s) before ignoring my bank balance for another couple of hours.
Most people could probably have predicted this outcome, but it never hurts to try something for yourself. I always thought I was pretty media savvy, but it turns out I wasn’t at all. Just like pretty much every other woman (even a good thirty years after Fat is a Feminist Issue was written) I’d unconsciously absorbed the idea that I ought to look like Jess Cartner-Morley, cook like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, arrange my belongings like the finest warehouse space stylist and adopt the arch wisdom of Oliver Burkeman. I’d also helpfully picked up the underlying assumption that all this should be done somewhat effortlessly. Now where did I get that idea?
I’ve helpfully proved to myself that no matter how hard you (kind of ) try, this just isn’t possible. I really don’t know why I bother even reading any magazine with ‘lifestyle’ content anymore. So I’m going to stop.
If you’re one half of a highly paid childless couple living in Stoke Newington/a village with good broadband access and no time-consuming hobbies, I highly recommend you follow the Guardian Weekend to the letter. I’m sure it’ll serve you well.
Here are my ultimate conclusions:
- Harem pants ain’t that much of a big deal, and neither is plaiting your hair across the top of your head, but tucking your scarf into your belt is going to look dickish for at least another six months.
- If you cook from scratch every night, try to limit cream-containing recipes to once a week if you want to be able to buy Tommy Hilfiger jeans.
- Don’t bother buying Tommy Hilfiger jeans.
- Presentation is probably pretty important, but then so is leisure time.
- Stand up straight.
- All you really need is foundation, powder, red lipstick and some good mascara.
- Generally speaking, don’t look at models.
- Write about what you do and sometimes take pictures of it – it makes foolish decisions seem worthwhile.
- Foolish decisions are worthwhile.
Love
GG
Bye bye
X
Hamburg
I am currently out of the office with limited access to the Guardian Weekend magazine, cooking facilities and computers.
I will recommence my experiment on my return to London.
Kindest regards
GG
Sunday 9 August
An unsuccessful day in terms of staying true to the Guardian lifestyle.
I got the outfit pretty close:
Welcome to the dark side
Welcome to Moss Side
But when it came to cooking the evening meal, I was so reluctant to spend 12 hours baking fruit leather (how much effort for how little reward?) that I went to the pub with my pals instead. In my defence I did buy the ingredients for the fruit leather, it’s just that when we all got back to my flat I felt so sad about the prospect of actually doing it, and the jam cocktail thing was sitting there from yesterday ready to be drunk, and we put some music on and it was fun, and you just shouldn’t stop having fun with your friends in order to make healthy, fruity snacks. You should take your fun to the pub.
Earlier that day Adam and I had trawled Kingsland Shopping Centre looking for high-heeled climbing boots, but surprisingly enough there were none. Looks like they haven’t made it to the budget shops yet. I don’t think this proves anything, but it does suggest that if you have lots of money to splash around you have the luxury of being more fashionable (or quicker to conform, as Adam said).
Conclusions:
- The world of not-so-rich people is not yet ready for heels on its climbing boots.
- Baking fruit leather of a Sunday evening is just taking things too far.
- I now have lots of unleathered fresh fruit to make use of.
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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