Now I need to start by making an admission- I hate fat people. No sugar coating that one, I can't stand them, I think they're unsightly, lazy and figures to poke fun at. Cruel but fair- If they have a problem with my open mockery/hatred of them they can go LOSE SOME WEIGHT and stop eating ALL OF THE TIME. So a show called "Fat Teens in Love" sounded like the perfect humorous documentary for me and my equally fattist friend to sit and guffaw at. We weren't disappointed, but it wasn't just because of the obvious comedy perks of seeing obese sixteen year olds attempting to star jump, oh no- It was actually an engaging and heart-warming piece that made me, just for a minute, question my prejudice against these chubby cheeked members of society. No mean feat for an ITV show.
The premise was simple- Following a handful of the teenage attendees at a summer weight loss camp in the Lake District and talking to them about their feelings, their self image, and- as the title suggests- their prospects and hopes for finding love. I think it helped that we were eased in gently with Katie, a girl who was on the smaller end of fat, and who was also VERY attractive. For a fat person. Despite her pretty face, Katie had absolutely no self-confidence or self-worth, believing herself to be an "ugly hippo". She was the main focuse throughout the show, alongside Leah- a very sweet middle-eastern girl with a slightly stomach churning story about her excess body hair- and Max, an American boy who really was clinically obese [a quick aside here: Why would an American choose to go to this sort of camp in the Lake District when as far as I was aware there are fat camps on every street in America; Empty ones if the average size of Americans is anything to go by, but plenty to choose from for sure].
The opening activity involved climbing up a giant log and crying once you get to the top and then jumping off. It also involved one of the most comedic and disturbing images I've ever seen, one which is now indelibly burnt onto my brain- A fat person in a harness. More rolls than a bakery doesn't even begin to describe it. Anyway, gang spent 8 weeks doing exercise, going for hikes and eating healthily- oh, and fancying each other. I always find it slightly disconcerting when I see two fat people who are a couple, it's a bit like seeing two ugly people as a couple, I always wonder how they can actually be attracted to each other, but then I remember that it's better for them to be together then to try and take away from the limited numbers of attractive people in the dating pool so I don't question it too much. Anyway, hormones are rife amongst teenagers and each of the group takes a liking to different people with mixed results. By the end of the summer they've lost weight, made friends and gained confidence. Lovely.
The fact is, I found these teens incredibly endearing- they were sweet, funny, self-deprecating and I really wanted them to succeed in their desire to lose weight, and not just because it would make them more aesthetically pleasing. All in all this was a brilliant mixture of comedy and charm. Who would've thunk it?
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Might as well face it...
It's time for me to come clean- I'm an addict. It started innocently enough when I began University, but now I'm nearing the end of my course my problem has kicked up a notch and what started as a bit of fun has become a full-blown, life consuming addiction. I, Lucy Chambers, am addicted to playing Minesweeper.
I need help, but I don't know where to turn. I was considering going to my doctor, but I can just imagine the conversation- Well, I say conversation, it'd be more of a laugh-fest, for her at least. It really has developed into a serious concern- Whenever I have an essay I think to myself "oh I'll just play one game", then before I know it I've been playing for two hours and have wrist ache from furious limp wristed clicking. I think I've managed to find the root of my problem though, the reason it has become such a major part of my day, and it's this video:
THIRTY SEVEN SECONDS. HOW does ANYONE manage to complete expert in that time?? So of course, I decided that *I* would be the one to beat this world record. All I need is to practise practise practise. I won't lie, it's not going well, my best time is 150 seconds and most of the time I'm trying to go so fast I just hit a mine and then my percentage of wins goes down and I get angry and shake my fist at the screen in the style of an old man who has been knocked into by a gang of unruly school boys who, full of sugar and excited about the summer holidays, weren't watching where they were going in their rush to get to the local grocers and shoplift chocolate bars and porn mags. But I figure the guy who holds the record must have been training constantly from the age of 0 to get that fast- His parents probably decided whilst he was in the womb "our son SHALL be the fastest mine sweeper in all the land" and home schooled him, and all of his lessons were taught in relation to mines, so for example his maths lessons were "if I plant 12 mines in a 10X10 square and a man steps on 2 of them after stepping of 11 other squares, what percentage of the area still contains a bomb?". AND I bet he has no friends, and has bad eyesight from staring at a computer screen too long, and a bit of a slack jaw so he dribbles all the time, so he'll never get a girlfriend, and even if he did he wouldn't know what to do because he has been so busy playing minesweeper he has never been on the internet and therefore has never seen porn and thus has no idea about sex whatsoever. Or something like that.
As you can see it has become an unhealthy obsession- I've dreamt up a freakish but curiously alluring mortal enemy whom I must destroy by beating his minesweeper world record. I need serious help. I'll research it right after I finish this game.
I need help, but I don't know where to turn. I was considering going to my doctor, but I can just imagine the conversation- Well, I say conversation, it'd be more of a laugh-fest, for her at least. It really has developed into a serious concern- Whenever I have an essay I think to myself "oh I'll just play one game", then before I know it I've been playing for two hours and have wrist ache from furious limp wristed clicking. I think I've managed to find the root of my problem though, the reason it has become such a major part of my day, and it's this video:
THIRTY SEVEN SECONDS. HOW does ANYONE manage to complete expert in that time?? So of course, I decided that *I* would be the one to beat this world record. All I need is to practise practise practise. I won't lie, it's not going well, my best time is 150 seconds and most of the time I'm trying to go so fast I just hit a mine and then my percentage of wins goes down and I get angry and shake my fist at the screen in the style of an old man who has been knocked into by a gang of unruly school boys who, full of sugar and excited about the summer holidays, weren't watching where they were going in their rush to get to the local grocers and shoplift chocolate bars and porn mags. But I figure the guy who holds the record must have been training constantly from the age of 0 to get that fast- His parents probably decided whilst he was in the womb "our son SHALL be the fastest mine sweeper in all the land" and home schooled him, and all of his lessons were taught in relation to mines, so for example his maths lessons were "if I plant 12 mines in a 10X10 square and a man steps on 2 of them after stepping of 11 other squares, what percentage of the area still contains a bomb?". AND I bet he has no friends, and has bad eyesight from staring at a computer screen too long, and a bit of a slack jaw so he dribbles all the time, so he'll never get a girlfriend, and even if he did he wouldn't know what to do because he has been so busy playing minesweeper he has never been on the internet and therefore has never seen porn and thus has no idea about sex whatsoever. Or something like that.
As you can see it has become an unhealthy obsession- I've dreamt up a freakish but curiously alluring mortal enemy whom I must destroy by beating his minesweeper world record. I need serious help. I'll research it right after I finish this game.
Friday, 9 January 2009
New Year, New You?
So it's a new year. I'm running about a week behind thanks to too many festivities in the festive period, so my body clock is adamant it's New Years Day today. This is fine for now, but could prove troublesome when it comes to birthdays, essay deadlines and so on.
Anyhoo, we all know what a new year means- resolutions! I don't think there is anyone who doesn't subscribe to this yearly attempt to become a better person, an attempt that invariably leads to misery and self-loathing around the February mark when it all comes crashing down and you realise that you can't in fact exercise five times a week, diet, quit smoking, learn a language, teach yourself ballroom dancing, find the love of your life, adopt any abandoned animals you find on the street and clean your house every other day without giving yourself a coronery. So instead you sit on the sofa eating take-aways, watching reality television whilst chain-smoking and proclaiming that resolutions are a mugs game anyway.
This year, I tell myself, it's going to be different- I'm going to stick like glue to my resolutions, in a metaphorical sense, as I think most of my resolutions are concepts rather than tangible things capable of being adhered to. I am graduating from University in the summer and it is THE START OF THE REST OF MY LIFE, which means now is the perfect time to become THE PERSON I WANT TO BE. With this in mind, I have made a list of achievable resolutions which I feel I can stick to:
1. Graduate from University this year
2. Exercise in some form [this does include running for the bus, walking up and down the stairs instead of taking the lift, and buying Davina's exercise DVD and lifting it up and down off the shelf occasionally]
3. Eat sensibly [As in don't go to the 24hr shop on my way home from a night out and spend £20 on frozen pizzas, multi-packs of hula hoops, family size packs of profiteroles and Ginsters pasties]
4. Keep writing [Seeing as I have a dissertation to write this is more of a neccessity, as obviously I will be writing ANYTHING BUT MY DISSERTATION]
5. Move to London [A bit of a given once I complete number 1]
6. Find a job once I graduate [I hear McDonalds are still hiring despite the credit crunch, so I should be fine]
7. Keep up with current affairs [I have a new alarm clock which is potentially my favourite object EVER- it wakes you up by gradually getting lighter and slowly increasing the volume of Radio 4, so I am woken up to hear intriguing tit-bits; this morning it was in relation to the male/female readership ratio of the Beano, which is 3/1. Fascinating]
Not too difficult. I was going to add #8- watch every episode of Masterchef goes Large, but seeing as I managed to achieve that last year it's not really any sort of challenge. Wish me luck.
Anyhoo, we all know what a new year means- resolutions! I don't think there is anyone who doesn't subscribe to this yearly attempt to become a better person, an attempt that invariably leads to misery and self-loathing around the February mark when it all comes crashing down and you realise that you can't in fact exercise five times a week, diet, quit smoking, learn a language, teach yourself ballroom dancing, find the love of your life, adopt any abandoned animals you find on the street and clean your house every other day without giving yourself a coronery. So instead you sit on the sofa eating take-aways, watching reality television whilst chain-smoking and proclaiming that resolutions are a mugs game anyway.
This year, I tell myself, it's going to be different- I'm going to stick like glue to my resolutions, in a metaphorical sense, as I think most of my resolutions are concepts rather than tangible things capable of being adhered to. I am graduating from University in the summer and it is THE START OF THE REST OF MY LIFE, which means now is the perfect time to become THE PERSON I WANT TO BE. With this in mind, I have made a list of achievable resolutions which I feel I can stick to:
1. Graduate from University this year
2. Exercise in some form [this does include running for the bus, walking up and down the stairs instead of taking the lift, and buying Davina's exercise DVD and lifting it up and down off the shelf occasionally]
3. Eat sensibly [As in don't go to the 24hr shop on my way home from a night out and spend £20 on frozen pizzas, multi-packs of hula hoops, family size packs of profiteroles and Ginsters pasties]
4. Keep writing [Seeing as I have a dissertation to write this is more of a neccessity, as obviously I will be writing ANYTHING BUT MY DISSERTATION]
5. Move to London [A bit of a given once I complete number 1]
6. Find a job once I graduate [I hear McDonalds are still hiring despite the credit crunch, so I should be fine]
7. Keep up with current affairs [I have a new alarm clock which is potentially my favourite object EVER- it wakes you up by gradually getting lighter and slowly increasing the volume of Radio 4, so I am woken up to hear intriguing tit-bits; this morning it was in relation to the male/female readership ratio of the Beano, which is 3/1. Fascinating]
Not too difficult. I was going to add #8- watch every episode of Masterchef goes Large, but seeing as I managed to achieve that last year it's not really any sort of challenge. Wish me luck.
Thursday, 8 January 2009
Deja Vu?
I was awoken this morning by Radio Four delivering the interesting news that a national billboard advertising campaign found at sites around the country which asks passersby "do you want longer lasting sex?" has recieved over 400 complaints from disturbed members of the public and may be taken down by the Advertising Standards Agency after the company which [sorry in advance] erected the posters refused to removed them. I say that this is interesting because during my recent festive jaunt home in London these posters STALKED me; I couldn't go anywhere without seeing one of these visions in yellow and red staring back at me. It got so bad I had to take a photo of one of them just to prove they were real and ALWAYS THERE- Look at it:
And it wasn't just this one, no no- I went shopping in Spitalfields and BAM! "do you want longer lasting sex?"; I was out for the night in Old Street and KAPOW! "do you want longer lasting sex?"; every day I was confronted with this bizarre vision until I became convinced that I was the sole target of this sexual crusade. Turns out it's an advert for a prescription only nasal spray for men, which shows how wide of the mark my delusions were, and that you should always read the small print as the sign does mention the nasal technology and my passages are clean as a whistle thank you very much. I now hope they remain plastered across the country in all their garish glory, if only to remind men of their hopeless inadequacies. Haha men, you need to spray something up your nose to improve your sexual performance, and somehow I don't think Vicks Sinex is a suitable substitute. Gutted.
And it wasn't just this one, no no- I went shopping in Spitalfields and BAM! "do you want longer lasting sex?"; I was out for the night in Old Street and KAPOW! "do you want longer lasting sex?"; every day I was confronted with this bizarre vision until I became convinced that I was the sole target of this sexual crusade. Turns out it's an advert for a prescription only nasal spray for men, which shows how wide of the mark my delusions were, and that you should always read the small print as the sign does mention the nasal technology and my passages are clean as a whistle thank you very much. I now hope they remain plastered across the country in all their garish glory, if only to remind men of their hopeless inadequacies. Haha men, you need to spray something up your nose to improve your sexual performance, and somehow I don't think Vicks Sinex is a suitable substitute. Gutted.
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