Breaking news! Ed Miliband is the first major party leader to live with his family out of wedlock, signifying a change in attitudes of UK voters.
This is the latest revelation in a long stream of banal journalistic reports, which have seen a significant rise in the number of Brits putting pen to paper to seal their future with a cross.
The voter turnout in 1997, which saw Major bow out as the Tory reign came to an end, was 71.4 per cent. Four years later and this figure had plummeted to a shocking 59.4 per cent. However, with 65.1 per cent of voters making the trip to the polling station last May, things are looking up.
Is this the result of the media’s “change in attitudes” as to how it portrays the importance of politics to a nation of dumbed-down soap watchers?
Spinning May’s General Election into a whirlwind celebrity showdown encapsulated the attention of a voyeuristic nation, which seemed more interested in who’s shagging who rather than who could deliver what.
Clegg, Brown and Cameron’s private lives were showcased for the media in what fast became the political equivalent of X-Factor. Sam Cam’s convenient pregnancy, following the death of Ivan, was certainly a clever move by David’s spin-doctors and a sob story so sad that would have tugged on the heartstrings of Ian Brady.
And this week’s exhaustive reporting of the trials and tribulations of the Miliband brothers should earn them the nickname “Deadwood.”
Sarkozy faces the aftermath of riots as the French workforce take to the streets en-masse to protest over their disapproval of pretty much everything.
At the other end of the spectrum, Cameron could commit murder on live television and we’d probably complain a bit, forgive him because he’s got nice hair, put the kettle on and flick over to watch Corrie.
Are people voting because the party leader has the cutest kid, the fittest wife, or was sporting the best tie during a recent appearance on Newsnight?
Straight, gay or a casual lay, as long as they act with the professionalism, integrity and intelligence required to deliver for the British public, does it really matter?
Thursday 30 September 2010
Being unfussy got me dumped by a boy in a tiger jumper
I have long been accused by family and friends alike of being too fussy when it comes to potential boyfriends.
Meeting men under the influence of vast quantities of alcohol, I regularly fall in unconditional, Stella-tinted-spectacles-aided love. On the first date I’m baffled at how lager can screw with one’s perception to such an extent - the man who laughed like a drain and had a voice so loud it could be heard by the deaf, springs to mind.
It is rare there is a second date.
Breaking the news to my gays, that the love has again died so soon, is always tough.
Through utter frustration one of my closest gays, Robert, recently subjected me to a verbal onslaught, of which the general gist was:
“It’s not them Ellie, it’s you. You will grow old, surround yourself with feral cats, children will fear you and the townsfolk will attempt to drown you as a witch.
“The stench of urine from your granny-flat will be so unbearable that a mile-round radius of the area will be cordoned off and not even the spotty carer from meals on wheels will dare to cross the threshold. Subsequently you will meet your end when the bin-bags, crammed full with the charity-shop clothes you have collected over the course of 60 years, tumble down and suffocate you to death.”
These harsh words scared me so much so that I agreed to a second date with the latest social degenerate I’d found myself acquainted with.
Despite the fact he was slightly shorter, slightly younger and was wearing high-top trainers suggestive of a secret boy crush on N-Dubz. But four pints later, we did sort of get on and so the second meeting was set.
To which he turned up wearing a bright green sweater with a picture of a tiger on the front, which was so small it would be better suited to a Build-a-Bear.
My first instinct was to make like Forest Gump, but I’d been spotted. So I stayed, and drank the pain away.
The next day, Robert’s onslaught still haunted me. So, attempting to overlook the fashion horrors that had passed, I considered the possibility of a third date.
Two days later, a text message: “Hello Ellie, hope you had a nice weekend. Just to let you know I don’t think we should see each other again, I’m not looking for anyone right now.”
Dropped
By a short boy
In a green tiger jumper
I had hit rock bottom. It was too late to reverse the years of relationship nonchalance and Robert’s wise words were already a self-fulfilled prophecy.
Destined to a life of smug married women looking at me with pity, issuing such patronising phrases as “aw, you’ll be next” and “you just haven’t found the right person yet.”
Pushing 30, the dust is fast settling and the biological clock is drowning out even the guy who laughed like a drain. I can empathise with geriatric cats in catteries everywhere, who look out with longing eyes at passers by, screaming “pick me, pick me.”
But no one ever will.
It took me a day to get over the sheer horror of the situation.
When I did I took solace from the fact that, with the UK divorce rate rocketing, before long the majority of the aforementioned smug wives will join me, slightly damaged, back on the shelf after discovering hotel receipts confirming their husband’s sordid affair with Debbie on reception.
A shell of their former selves through many wasted years of trying to “make things work” with the man they settled for, they will spend a decade regaining some sort of self-identity.
In the meantime, I will long be over the embarrassment of being ditched by tiger boy and, lesson learnt, have reverted back to fussiness, met my perfect match and the tables will turn.
My verdict?
It pays to be fussy.
Meeting men under the influence of vast quantities of alcohol, I regularly fall in unconditional, Stella-tinted-spectacles-aided love. On the first date I’m baffled at how lager can screw with one’s perception to such an extent - the man who laughed like a drain and had a voice so loud it could be heard by the deaf, springs to mind.
It is rare there is a second date.
Breaking the news to my gays, that the love has again died so soon, is always tough.
Through utter frustration one of my closest gays, Robert, recently subjected me to a verbal onslaught, of which the general gist was:
“It’s not them Ellie, it’s you. You will grow old, surround yourself with feral cats, children will fear you and the townsfolk will attempt to drown you as a witch.
“The stench of urine from your granny-flat will be so unbearable that a mile-round radius of the area will be cordoned off and not even the spotty carer from meals on wheels will dare to cross the threshold. Subsequently you will meet your end when the bin-bags, crammed full with the charity-shop clothes you have collected over the course of 60 years, tumble down and suffocate you to death.”
These harsh words scared me so much so that I agreed to a second date with the latest social degenerate I’d found myself acquainted with.
Despite the fact he was slightly shorter, slightly younger and was wearing high-top trainers suggestive of a secret boy crush on N-Dubz. But four pints later, we did sort of get on and so the second meeting was set.
To which he turned up wearing a bright green sweater with a picture of a tiger on the front, which was so small it would be better suited to a Build-a-Bear.
My first instinct was to make like Forest Gump, but I’d been spotted. So I stayed, and drank the pain away.
The next day, Robert’s onslaught still haunted me. So, attempting to overlook the fashion horrors that had passed, I considered the possibility of a third date.
Two days later, a text message: “Hello Ellie, hope you had a nice weekend. Just to let you know I don’t think we should see each other again, I’m not looking for anyone right now.”
Dropped
By a short boy
In a green tiger jumper
I had hit rock bottom. It was too late to reverse the years of relationship nonchalance and Robert’s wise words were already a self-fulfilled prophecy.
Destined to a life of smug married women looking at me with pity, issuing such patronising phrases as “aw, you’ll be next” and “you just haven’t found the right person yet.”
Pushing 30, the dust is fast settling and the biological clock is drowning out even the guy who laughed like a drain. I can empathise with geriatric cats in catteries everywhere, who look out with longing eyes at passers by, screaming “pick me, pick me.”
But no one ever will.
It took me a day to get over the sheer horror of the situation.
When I did I took solace from the fact that, with the UK divorce rate rocketing, before long the majority of the aforementioned smug wives will join me, slightly damaged, back on the shelf after discovering hotel receipts confirming their husband’s sordid affair with Debbie on reception.
A shell of their former selves through many wasted years of trying to “make things work” with the man they settled for, they will spend a decade regaining some sort of self-identity.
In the meantime, I will long be over the embarrassment of being ditched by tiger boy and, lesson learnt, have reverted back to fussiness, met my perfect match and the tables will turn.
My verdict?
It pays to be fussy.
Monday 13 September 2010
Guys with guitars are infinitely hot, except for Newton
Last Friday’s Busking for Cancer boat party aboard HMS Belfast rekindled all the burning questions surrounding an unfathomable phenomenon, which has haunted my existence since my early teens.
Give an average man, kitted out with average clothes and an average personality, a guitar and immediately they are transformed from wallflower to Adonis so fine they plummet Casanova to the ranks of Quasimodo.
And as a hot-blooded female, I have an inbuilt and overbearing desire to straddle each and every one of them. Even the new wave of plaid-clad social degenerates, who have so far come into contact with only one vagina, and that was from the inside out.
However I have discovered the exception to this steadfast rule - the one and only glorified cover-singer, Newton Faulkner, whose head looks like a pre-school pupil has hollowed out a lump of wax, carved a face in it and lit it up with a tea-light.
Complete with an ego big enough to eclipse the sun, not even a vintage Fender Stratocaster once strummed by the late Jimi Hendrix can inject as much as a hint of mojo into this ginger lovechild of a mutant pumpkin and a Playskool Gloworm.
Delivering a painful rendition of Massive Attack’s Teardrop, he defied the unwritten law of the unconditional attractiveness of “man with guitar,” producing not even a faint tingle in the nether regions. And that’s coming from a girl who would have had a pop at Jarvis Cocker in his prime.
After three years on the scene Newton should be at his peak and aiming even higher. Instead he is still lost amid a line-up of part-time musicians who’re just out for a bit of extra-curricular Friday-night fun.
But he doesn’t let this deter him. Playing to a 100-strong audience he made failed attempts to emanate an air of arrogance reminiscent of Jagger and Morrison, but without the talent or charisma to match. The crowd, comprising has-been rockers, the friends and relatives of preceding acts and one prune-faced woman who claimed to be 33 years old, fuelled Newton’s unfounded egotism by demanding he play covers of other well-known classics. And so he did. Badly.
The time will come when the failings of Newton are realised, and he must sell his Argos-bought guitar down the local car boot sale, along with all his compact discs and make that long-overdue trip to the job centre.
Give an average man, kitted out with average clothes and an average personality, a guitar and immediately they are transformed from wallflower to Adonis so fine they plummet Casanova to the ranks of Quasimodo.
And as a hot-blooded female, I have an inbuilt and overbearing desire to straddle each and every one of them. Even the new wave of plaid-clad social degenerates, who have so far come into contact with only one vagina, and that was from the inside out.
However I have discovered the exception to this steadfast rule - the one and only glorified cover-singer, Newton Faulkner, whose head looks like a pre-school pupil has hollowed out a lump of wax, carved a face in it and lit it up with a tea-light.
Complete with an ego big enough to eclipse the sun, not even a vintage Fender Stratocaster once strummed by the late Jimi Hendrix can inject as much as a hint of mojo into this ginger lovechild of a mutant pumpkin and a Playskool Gloworm.
Delivering a painful rendition of Massive Attack’s Teardrop, he defied the unwritten law of the unconditional attractiveness of “man with guitar,” producing not even a faint tingle in the nether regions. And that’s coming from a girl who would have had a pop at Jarvis Cocker in his prime.
After three years on the scene Newton should be at his peak and aiming even higher. Instead he is still lost amid a line-up of part-time musicians who’re just out for a bit of extra-curricular Friday-night fun.
But he doesn’t let this deter him. Playing to a 100-strong audience he made failed attempts to emanate an air of arrogance reminiscent of Jagger and Morrison, but without the talent or charisma to match. The crowd, comprising has-been rockers, the friends and relatives of preceding acts and one prune-faced woman who claimed to be 33 years old, fuelled Newton’s unfounded egotism by demanding he play covers of other well-known classics. And so he did. Badly.
The time will come when the failings of Newton are realised, and he must sell his Argos-bought guitar down the local car boot sale, along with all his compact discs and make that long-overdue trip to the job centre.
Friday 3 September 2010
The only way to look younger is to be born later
Flicking through any glossy magazine, you will find endless advice columns, tailored towards those women (and men) on a quest for their body beautiful.
Every day image conscious readers scour newsagents’ magazine racks nationwide in an attempt to satiate their addiction for feature after soulless feature containing new “secrets” to achieving that sexy skeletal physique.
Needless to say 10 minutes later they will pass McDonalds and the temptation of munching their way through a burger comprising of lips, bumholes and a soggy gherkin, served up by an acne-ridden youth, will see the wise words of the journalist become yet another faded resolution.
Sandwiched between these features you will discover magnified shots of celebrities’ unjustifiable flaws, which are undoubtedly in the public interest. A bra-strap on show, a chipped nail and, worst of all, a stray pubic hair poking through their bikini bottoms as they sunbathe on a private, isolated beach, far from civilisation.
This nip-tuck trend is seeing an increasing number undergoing breast enhancements, botox injections, starvation and countless facelifts, to transform the relatively normal into a race of melted, anorexic Barbie dolls.
Sadly the only person obsessed with that dimply bit of cellulite burrowed away at the top of their thighs is themselves. Men, for example, are far more interested in the hole in between.
So many people in their 40s and beyond are doing everything in their power to look 20. But sadly no matter how much plastic surgery they have, they cannot escape the fact that, scratch the surface and their age is undeniable. Rude bits dry up, rude bits slack up, limbs freeze up and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Sadly these victims of jaded media pressure won’t be remembered for the botox-ridden fitness fanatics that they are, who sacrificed their lives in a futile attempt to deny the laws of Mother Nature. They are pointless, failed to make an impact on this rock and won’t be remembered at all.
We all die, and no one gives a shit what you look like in your coffin. So go out, drink, smoke, eat, do whatever you want to do so that on your deathbed you can look back with no regrets, safe in the knowledge that you had a fucking good time on the way.
Every day image conscious readers scour newsagents’ magazine racks nationwide in an attempt to satiate their addiction for feature after soulless feature containing new “secrets” to achieving that sexy skeletal physique.
Needless to say 10 minutes later they will pass McDonalds and the temptation of munching their way through a burger comprising of lips, bumholes and a soggy gherkin, served up by an acne-ridden youth, will see the wise words of the journalist become yet another faded resolution.
Sandwiched between these features you will discover magnified shots of celebrities’ unjustifiable flaws, which are undoubtedly in the public interest. A bra-strap on show, a chipped nail and, worst of all, a stray pubic hair poking through their bikini bottoms as they sunbathe on a private, isolated beach, far from civilisation.
This nip-tuck trend is seeing an increasing number undergoing breast enhancements, botox injections, starvation and countless facelifts, to transform the relatively normal into a race of melted, anorexic Barbie dolls.
Sadly the only person obsessed with that dimply bit of cellulite burrowed away at the top of their thighs is themselves. Men, for example, are far more interested in the hole in between.
So many people in their 40s and beyond are doing everything in their power to look 20. But sadly no matter how much plastic surgery they have, they cannot escape the fact that, scratch the surface and their age is undeniable. Rude bits dry up, rude bits slack up, limbs freeze up and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Sadly these victims of jaded media pressure won’t be remembered for the botox-ridden fitness fanatics that they are, who sacrificed their lives in a futile attempt to deny the laws of Mother Nature. They are pointless, failed to make an impact on this rock and won’t be remembered at all.
We all die, and no one gives a shit what you look like in your coffin. So go out, drink, smoke, eat, do whatever you want to do so that on your deathbed you can look back with no regrets, safe in the knowledge that you had a fucking good time on the way.
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