Pass the baguette, pass up the leather culottes
Baked tomatoes with baguette
Tomatoes baked with success
Denim is back
...but I don't think this is what they had in mind
Nice dinner last night. My lifelong most-hated foodstuff (not bread) came out a treat, much to my surprise. Friends can corroborate tastiness of this dish.
Today’s working day involved visiting a construction site. The dress code stipulated no shorts, which sadly meant I had to leave my leather culottes at home today. 500 builders breathe a collective sigh of relief. Another day, another set of mottled, hirsute English thighs ungazed upon from behind the safety goggles.
Last week’s Marks n Sparks swimming cossie arrived at work today. Looks pretty good, although have lingering doubts about mid-leg cut. Hidden bra support good news for wearing it as a body-con style top though. Time will tell all.
Not done much treating self to Measure-endorsed consumables so far this issue, but the week is yet youngish.
Work busy, mustache.
That old nemesis again (no disrespect or anything)
All ages
All abilities
This woman’s bone structure has now been haunting me for years. It might sound like I’m exaggerating but I’m not. I’d put some links in here but my lunchbreak is over so if you’re interested, click the ‘random post’ button on the right until you strike gold – there are very many photos of me attempting, and of course failing, to emulate her ex-ballerina glamour. Oh well, c’est la vie – I get to pick my nose and bite cheese straight off the block while standing at the fridge without it seeming out of character. Imagine if you caught her doing that! Her whole schtick would surely be ruined! Harrrrr, I clearly win this time, ole lady.
Incidentally my momentum for making cheese has definitely gone awry this week. If I wanted to faff about with hours of patience, muslin squares and thermometers, I’d just have a baby. Thanks for trying, Hugh, but you wasted your time and mine this week. You should think about it mate, you really should. Why you did it, how you’ll do better next time. Especially you should think about that rennet.
Cerebellend
The title of this post is a joke about a part of the brain called the cerebellum. It’s also a joke about what happens to your brain when you are having, or have had, a proper weekend.
Please find below some specific examples of things that can happen:
- You can decide that going to a music festival is better fun than staying at home straining milk and yoghurt to make artisan cheese that will probably taste of rotten yak skin.
- You can decide that going to a music festival dressed in a rough approximation of what you might want to wear is more fun than going to a music festival dressed like a rough approximation of someone you’d avoid on the first day of university in case you ended up being friends with them out of obligation.
- You can find, the day after the festival, that you’ve woken up at the exact same time you were supposed to be at the office because either your alarm failed to go off at all or you failed to be woken by it, despite there being at least one reliable witness of the alarm having been set.
- You can arrive at work in the outfit that was quickest to put on rather than the one most closely resembling a Guardian model.
- You can temporarily forget most words other than ‘thingy’, making bullet points seem more appealing than full sentences.
- You can discover, on the plus side, that THIS IS THE MAN.
- Anyway, here are some pretty lame outfit shots. Brain probably back tomorrow – see you then.
- x
Your wardrobe
Bored nematode
Join
Avoid
The denim brigade
The 'would you like to come to my really crazy burrito party I'm having with my flatmates on Saturday it should be really fun my friend Karen will be there I think you'll get on like a house on fire she's a bit crazy like you she can drink so much tequila !!!!!' brigade
“High summer” my hind quarters
It's high summer
It's a Big Issue seller
This guy is even more painful to compare thineself to than the female models.
I internet-shopped the M&S swimming cossie out of the Measure today, having decided it would actually be quite worth owning, although perhaps not exactly the nicest thing ever. I’m usually more of a bikini kind of lass but if the Guardian’s going to keep doing swimwear shoots, I may as well stock up. I am also a member of a gym with a swimming pool, although I’ve never been in it, probably because I’ve never been to the gym. Does anyone want my membership by the way?
Everything I was supposed to do lately apart from sitting on a street and buying a cossie, I haven’t done. I have successfully completed zero recipes this week, although I’m planning to try VV Brown’s Marmite scones as part of a spread tonight. Slacked off Tinie Tempah’s seafood linguine (?!), which I was supposed to cook for my lovely ex-housemate last night because I got put off by the torrential rain and ended up curled in a beanbag reading Getting to Yes courtesy of Oliver Burkeman’s recommendation. I’m hoping it might actually transform my life – or at least help me get into fewer pub brawls of a weekend.
Cola cake purveyors haven’t got back to me about how many millions of pounds I might have to spend on getting a delivery, thereby saving a trip to Soho to purchase a single cupcake.
Other things I’ve allowed myself to ignore: J Brand jodhpurs (expensive), Voyage Voyage (refuse to take music recommendations from the Measure, regardless of quality. Some things you do not let the Guardian dictate, and music taste is one of them.)
Conclusions:
- What rascal has run off with my Fine Young Cannibals CD?
- Sorry Nin. Self-help books and rain should not be impediments to human interaction. I miss dining wit’ ya.
Are you there God? It’s me, Guardian Girl
GOD: Hello? I don’t remember giving my blessing for any human child to be called ‘Guardian Girl’.
ME: I’m not actually called Guardian Girl, I’m called Jody. I have only referred to myself as Guardian Girl about three times, exclusively on this blog and always while clenching my buttocks. I can’t even remember why I called the blog Guardian Girl. It’s a bit embarrassing when I think about it, but I guess it’s quite catchy and a bit late to change it.
GOD: OK, so why were you writing to me anyway?
ME: It’s because I’m struggling again this week. Not in any ideological sense really – just because I’ve been busy. I went to a wedding on Saturday —
GOD: Oh good, I’m glad to hear that.
ME: It was wonderful. It wasn’t really your type of wedding though, God – they didn’t mention you at all.
GOD: No, that’s OK, I’m still glad they got married.
ME: Great. And so I was away all weekend, driving around Norfolk, eating loads of amazing foodstuffs and that. I couldn’t really start hijacking the hotel kitchen or turning up to a wedding in chinos, and I couldn’t really dye my hair grey or be booking myself breakfast at the Paris Ritz or anything either. And when I got back to London I didn’t want to rush straight home and start cooking Johnny Borrell’s salmon recipes and so on. I wanted to drink cider and eat pizza and watch the Apprentice (yay Tom!) like all the other humans. And this week I’m dead busy at work, and last night I still couldn’t cook Johnny bloody Borrell’s bloody salmon recipe because I’d lost the magazine in the pub and the stupid recipe is some interactive thing using Flash and I can’t get it on my iPhone so I just didn’t do any cooking at all, and —
GOD: OK, look, here’s what I suggest. You don’t need to say anymore about this, IMHO. Just upload the photos from last week and the one you did last night, and leave it at that.
ME:
Orange
Borange
Information: ‘Borange’ is a new word for someone who is both boring and orange. Many people who are the latter are also the former; a considerably smaller proportion of the former fall automatically into the latter. Don’t like it? Don’t use it.
Be a bright spark
Borange
You didn’t used to think it was a catchy new word, but now you see it applies to almost every situation. You’ll be saying it soon enough, trust me.
Sunny gym
Borange
I did write a different caption followed by a joke about jade eggs here but I deleted it because it make me feel uncomfortable (the joke, not the jade egg).
Conclusions:
- Tonight I will be home late, but I will slightly try to try Bozzer’s salmon
Textural failures
Take the step
Take the hint
Apricot mousse and apricot tuiles
Apricot slop and apricot stodge
I got the colours, I got the taste. I ain’t got the textures.
What can I say? I forgive myself.
There are 40 minutes left of today and I’m going to spend about several of them trying to buy Luxtural moisturiser online, as recommended by the Measure (and Paula Abdul by all accounts).
Conclusions:
- I could’ve waited until the mousse set properly, but if I’d done that, I wouldn’t have been able to spend the waiting time eating mousse. Catch 22.
- I also could’ve made the biscuits all dainty and tuile-like rather than cumbersome and oily, but the baking sheet still hadn’t been washed up after last week’s scones so I had to use a muffin tin. And who wants dainty biscuits anyway, apart from maybe Kate Middleton or the person who does Kate Middleton’s hair or the person who grooms the person who does Kate Middleton’s hair’s dog or some such person?
Who ate almost all the pie?
Yeh, me. This pie underwent a four-day gestation period in my brain while I mainlined Mullerlights and saved up for a better quality girdle. By the time the pie emerged from the oven at 22.04 this evening, I had serious plans for that glossy little tyke. And my oh my, it was worth all the aspartame in the world. Between the eating of the pie and the writing of this post, however, I have generally found myself to be pacing the flat distractedly while experiencing mild headache and nausea, and harbouring sinister maternal feelings about the pie. Why has this happened? Sugar is a powerful drug, I guess.
I know Hugh would argue that ‘a little goes along way’ and my Mum would say ‘oh lovey, couldn’t you just have one slice?’. In riposte, I would say ‘know thyself.’ Or more specifically: ‘know thyself to be a greedy tyrant who sees no virtue whatsoever in a little of anything going any distance at all if you could just yam a load of it in and see if that goes any further.’
Well, here’re the snaps. Whether I will pull my sooty little socks up another notch and allow myself to be photographed leaping about in a bodysuit tonight is anybody’s guess (tip: do not actually bother guessing, because I can guarantee it is not going to happen. Nobody needs it. Just leave me alone! Leave me to digest! Go on, naff orf!)
Conclusion:
- I said GO.
- Unless you can help me resize my photos properly.
Cherry and chocolate tart
Cherry and chocolate in dark
Addendum – two hours later:
- Boyfriend’s comment on tasting pie: “Holy shit. Fuck me. Is this a Lepard pie? This is in-fucking-credible. FUCK!”
- So, quite a successful pie.
- The only fitting end to the evening was to head into the garden and get this other thing over with:
Wise one
Wide one
Any number of options would’ve worked for the caption tonight.
Pie comedown just setting in. Off to bed. Nighty night.
Last week’s outfits
I went on a little holiday last week, which made it impossible to do any cooking. I did, however, stay true to the cause via what I wore.
Here’s the evidence:
Danger
Minger
This one actually could’ve been far worse, and the outfit was perfect for attracting the attention of many species during a trip to the zoo. The make-up, which you can’t really see clearly in the picture, was another matter. I looked like I was trying to pick up business – not the natural choice when spending the day among French school groups and pygmy monkeys. The pygmy monkeys, by the way, were the most perfect thing I’ve seen in a long time. They are everything you could want from a being. That’s pretty high praise.
High voltage
Low IQ
If you go down to the beach today
You're in for no surprise at all, just a woman in a bland outfit. Although I guess the stain on the skirt is kind of mildly interesting. Christ.
We actually did go down to the beach on this day, but I changed into jeans. It was pouring with rain, and I know from excruciating experience that a white skirt is not the right thing to wear in the rain. Note the Clarks Tibetan Art sandals, which I was instructed to buy by last week’s Measure. Very nice actually, and comfy. A good result.
Be sure to look cool
Be sure to look a fool
Again, I had to put jeans on for this one. We had graduated to quite a posh hotel by the last day of our trip and I saw no real need to go down to breakfast in my bikini.
A quick note on the poses – I forgot this week that the Guardian online people like to use different shots of the models for the web version of the All Ages shoots (does that make any sense to you?) The result is that my poses end up being wrong because I am still doggedly copying the ones in the magazine, the pages of which photograph very badly, hence my preference for pasting the online pictures here. This might be the most boring paragraph of the blog so far but I really feel the need to point that out lest anyone should think I’m so stupid that I can;t tell the difference between standing with my hands in front of me or behind my back. Although to be fair… etc etc etc, blah.
To return to the reality of this week, after several days of back-to-back fry-ups and a not exactly frugal approach to accommodation, I bought Saturday’s Guardian with some sense of trepidation, and rightly so: this week I am due to fork out for a perm, bake various chocolate/cream/pie recipes and flash either my bum or thighs or both or something even more embarrassing in the daily photo.
Forgive me Father, for I have slightly been pretending not to be doing the blog ever since I saw this latest issue. I conveniently forgot to mention the perm while at the hairdresser on Saturday, then somehow didn’t quite get around to cooking the chocolate pie, and ‘couldn’t’ track down the Eastpak rucksack. I have yet to attempt to force my boyfriend into a cocktail trousers and rhinestone get-up, and am experiencing a certain amount of hesitation in asking my employer if I might paint a sunlight trompe l’oeil effect on the office ceiling.
I am clenching my fists at this point and willing myself to continue bravely in the face of my doubts.
Oliver Burkeman’s column might help me.
Perhaps I will be able to face the cherry and chocolate tart/swimwear shoot combo tonight…
Mmmpppphhhh.
It will all be OK.
Conclusions:
- My capacity to switch overnight from thinking this project is the most hilariously fun, horizon-expanding, life-improving idea I have ever come up with to thinking it is in fact the most ridiculously irritating, horizon-shrinking, ruinous idea I have ever come up with is astonishing.
- This project is surely the most ridiculously irritating, horizon-shrinking, ruinous idea I have ever come up with. And that includes the time I tried to replicate seven days in the life of Bruce Forsyth while I was a student. All those back massages nearly bankrupted me.
- Feel the ‘ugh’ and do it anyway.
Non merci
THE HIGHEST FORM OF NO.
Totally tropical
Totally horrible
Conclusions:
- What further conclusions does a person really need to draw? This is a time for being kind.
- Hugh’s sage and cheddar scones were incredible – really like eating the feeling of getting in a winter bed – and only took half an hour to make, all in. Everyone should give them a go (and you too could look like a model!)
High-maintenance fashion, low-maintenance food
Reading palms
Bleeding palms
Today I spent so long trying to recreate the glamorous look of the Guardian model that I missed my friend’s entire birthday picnic in Lewes and ended up spending six hours on public transport in return for one hour of celebrations. By the time I got there, all that heavy-duty Sam Fox make-up had dripped off my face anyway, so I may as well have turned up fresh from my bed. Oh well, you live and don’t learn.
Dinner wasn’t much of a looker either.
Pasta with brown butter, sage and capers
Maggots with brown butter, sage and capers
Today my friend Sarah described the food photos on this blog as looking like a “wetter, less well-photographed” version of the Guardian’s recipes. I’d like to add “wan” to the list. Why does all my food look so damned wan? Why, for that matter, do I always look so wan? It struck me that actually that’s exactly what life is, really. A wan version of a magazine.
Happy Sunday!
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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