LOCKDOWN PART 2: BACK IN THE HABIT

So it turns out a new species of male has emerged onto the dating scene in 2020. I like to call it, “Hot COVID Dad”.

Hot COVID Dad typically has at least two offspring, and tends to be either (a) still living with ex-partner (b) living in the office or (c) living in a caravan. He most likely broke up with ex-partner during NZ Lockdown #1, and has subsequently joined a choir, taken up jive, and decided this is the year to run a half marathon, despite his propensity for shin splints.

Guys, this phenomenon is not isolated to New Zealand. In the UK, divorce enquiries are reported to be up 42% since lockdown hit. The media are running articles on “how to avoid becoming a coronavirus divorce statistic”. Single ladies, our time is now!

I’m back on the dating scene after having a bit of a prolonged break since my enthusiastic start to 2019 “I’m going to ask someone out every month”. I had been inspired by that stupid TED Talk of the dude who decided to face his fears of rejection by undertaking 100 days of rejection ie doing something every single day where he could be rejected. My commitment to this lasted three months, before I completely lost interest in being rejected by someone every month and decided to focus my energy on something else. Obviously I can’t remember what it was now – it may have involved watching copious amounts of Below Deck: Mediterranean Series 2 – but regardless, let’s just say I went into hibernation.

Anyway, straight outta lockdown (part 1) and apparently NOT moving to America anytime soon (thanks COVID) I decided to try out the dating app Hinge, which is a bit like Instagram with swiping. My first dating encounter was… fine. We went for coffee. As soon as I saw him I thought, “no”. He had a very high voice, a slightly discoloured tooth and children ranging from the ages of 21 down to 3. When I got into the car after the date I realised that I had a “little friend” protruding from my right nostril. Feeling slightly hysterical with despair, I drove straight to the Warehouse where I purchased a onesie in the shape of a donkey, a pink fluffy blanket and a pink hot water bottle with a picture of a rainbow on it and the slogan “Today I am a unicorn”. I spent the rest of the afternoon lying wearing said onesie, collapsed on pink fluffy blanket, drinking hot chocolate and reading “The Unexpected Joy of Being Single”. What a great day that was.

The second Hot COVID Dad was an Irish bloke who seemed super keen, took me on 5 dates in the space of two weeks, texted every day before suddenly messaging to say that I was beautiful, funny and kind and that he had a lot of respect for me but that he had been on a second date with someone else and wanted to try things with them. What The actual Fuck. Note to Hot COVID Dads out there – if you’re keen on someone, give them a fair go which means not multiple dating and keeping your options open. If you’re not sure, don’t act like you are. It just messes people around. Capiche?

Onto to Hot COVID Dad #3. As we are now back in lockdown, we had a “socially distanced” video date, which can now go onto the Bucket List as the thing I never knew I wanted to do. The first 25 minutes of the date were spent trying to figure out how to set up a Zoom link, and the rest were spent with the video variously freezing and delaying. It’s also REALLY hard to work out if there’s a connection over video link. His daughters also joined the call at the end to ask him to hurry up. Another novel experience of a first date.

Here’s my other discovery of dating in your late thirties – everyone wants to discuss children very early on. In the last 2 weeks I have explained to three different guys why I haven’t had children (standard line: never met anyone I wanted to have them with; it’s something I’d be open to in the future). On one of my first dates Hot COVID Dad explained that he’d had the snip but “don’t worry, everything still works”. To be honest I didn’t actually think I’d be having conversations like this for at least another 10 years but there you go, vasectomies and why you’re childless are now apparently first date conversation when you’re (ahem) almost 40.

The final other new experience out of all of this has been sober dating. I have obviously been on sober dates before, but I’ve never exclusively sober dated. I quite like it. For one, I remember everything they said (and I said) and I can drive to every location. And also, there’s absolutely no Beer Goggles or 2 O’Clock Zone going on. They do not look any better (or worse) three hours later. They look – exactly the same.

Did I mention that I’ve now been sober for almost 8 months? I’ve almost been sober for 8 months! I actually quite like it. I will leave you with my top discoveries of being sober so far:

1. I’m addicted to the feeling of being clear headed. Even when I’m sad and I want to guzzle down a bottle of wine, it’s still better to know that nothing chemical is distorting my emotions.
2. The days get way longer. When you are sober ALL the time, there are no magic hours that get lost in being a bit tipsy.
3. Being at parties where everyone else is drunk is pretty damn dull.
4. I have read more books than I have in years. And I remember and enjoy them more.
5. My skin has got better. So much so that the checkout chick in Pak’N’Save recently commented on it.
6. I haven’t lost the weight I thought I would. But that might be because I replaced wine with Sweet As caramel popcorn.

So there you go. Hot COVID Dad and sober dating. 2020, what else you got in store?

THE SOBER LIFE

I have to a confession to make. When I made my decision on January 1^st to give up alcohol for 2020, I had no idea that 2 weeks later I would be made redundant or that a deadly virus would sweep the globe causing the entire world to go into lockdown for an indefinite period of time.

To be honest, had I known then what I know now, I might have thought twice about giving up my Friday night The Botanist with Fever Tree (Elderflower).

But here we are. Newly Freelance. In Lockdown. In the midst of a Global Pandemic. Completely Sober (102 days – but who’s counting?).

In a way, getting sober in January prepared me for lockdown because I suddenly realised how much more time you have when you’re sober, plus you get way more bored. I have read many blogs and listened to many podcasts now on the sober life and here’s a real fact about not drinking: you will be way more bored than you ever imagined possible, because you now have more time to fill and you are stone cold sober for every single second of it. Hence my newfound ability to cut my own fringe and make my own mayonnaise and blue cheese ranch dressing. As, no doubt, you will have just observed - the important things in life.

But you know what has really saved me from going completely insane in sobriety and self-isolation? Apart from Tiger King (obvs)? Drum roll please… MAFS: Australia.

For the uninitiated, MAFS is Married At First Sight. The premise is that a couple are set up by The Experts, they meet for the first timeS at the altar in front of their friends and family, and are then “fast tracked” through married life over a period of 8 weeks, at which point they then decide if that want to renew their vows. It’s manipulative, it’s formulaic, it’s painful to watch, it’s car-crash reality TV at its best. In short, it’s brilliant and everyone needs to get on board with it because at over an hour duration each episode - and 30+ episodes available – it will help you to survive lockdown (with or without wine). Even better is that fact that everyone has Australian accents. Despite having now lived in the Southern Hemisphere for almost 8 years, I still find the Aussie accent completely entertaining. Must be the Neighbours effect (which, did you know, is still going? Who the hell is still watching it? Add to lockdown list: must find out who standard Neighbours watcher is).

The best part is genuinely the parents-in-law. I have a sneaking suspicion that the producers actually cast the wives and grooms based on how batsh*t crazy their mothers are – there is nothing like watching a personal trainer groom (Seb) get grilled by a mother (Lizzie’s) who looks like she belongs in an episode of Secret Hoarders. You might think that coming from the BBC I would be a snob for “real British drama” but you, my naïve friend, would be wrong. This is genuinely the best drama I’ve seen in years. You can keep your Bodyguard and Apple Tree Yard, I’ll take Steve freaking out over Mishel trying to get him to kayak in 10cm of water any day.

I would like to leave you with my own personal experience of lockdown in New Zealand. I know that for many of you, you are in lockdown with your husbands or wives and trying to homeschool your children, but how would you feel about being in lockdown with a complete stranger, who literally moved in on the first day of lockdown?

Picture the scene: it’s Monday night. 8pm. The country has just been told it’s about to go into lockdown for 28 days and I have somehow locked myself out of my phone. I’m already in a heightened state of panic because who knows if I can get my goddamn phone fixed tomorrow before all of the shops close for 4 weeks? Plus I spent the afternoon wandering around the supermarket in a complete daze, stocking up on fettucine, toilet roll and cannellini beans and wondering if $180 is too much to shell out for a milk frother because can I cope without an almond latte for 28 days?... So I’m trying to calm myself down with a lovely escapist episode of MAFS (see above) when there is a knock at the door. I open it, and recognise the guy – he comes to my GRIT class and he’s also a friend of the owner. So I say, Oh hey, are you here to see Glen? And the reply is, No, I’m moving in! Did he not tell you?

No. He didn’t.

For all of my instructor friends out there – you know those members who come to your class every week and you really should know their name but you don’t know their name and now it’s waaaaaaaay too late to ask and normally it wouldn’t matter because you only see them for 30 minutes once a week which means you can totally get away with calling them “mate”?

Yeah. That member just moved in with you. And they are totally expecting you to know their name.

I was on the brink of picking a name and just saying it with confidence and hoping that if it wasn’t right he would correct me (my Dad’s tried and tested formula with many a forgotten acquaintance) but luckily after three days he mentioned it in a sentence.

NICK.

Luckily, I was sober enough to remember it.

VIEW FROM THE DESERT

Guys, I’m on Day 18 of not drinking. And I’m not gonna lie, this whole no drinking thing is no walk in the park.

Alcohol and I have never really got along, as anyone who has been to a BBC “Doctors” wrap party with me will know. Our first altercation occurred back in 1995, when I discovered just how lethal Archer’s Peach Schnapps could really be. Similar arguments followed: In 1998 Matt James’ sister taught me how to stick my fingers down my throat to make myself vomit, after I had downed a pint (yes – from an actual pint glass) of Merlot somewhere in the deepest darkest depths of Solihull. In 1999, whilst on our post-A Levels holiday to Tenerife, I spent our first night throwing up Red Square vodka into the chalet fridge vegetable bin – and never even made it down to The Strip.

And then of course came my pièce de résistance – being stretchered into an ambulance at exactly the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve 1999. That’s right – I started the new millennium, decade and my 19^th birthday (New Year’s Day – yes, you missed it but I am still accepting presents) being given oxygen in a hospital bed before suffering the ignominious exit of being delivered to my parents’ car in a wheelchair. I know it was exactly midnight because Douglas Heard captured an image of me on the stretcher on his Nokia 3310, with “0:00” emblazoned helpfully across the photograph.

You might suspect that it would be at this stage that I would just give up. Accept that alcohol and I were doomed not to be friends and retire to a life of soft drinks, peppermint tea, and the occasional Big Night Out with a Baileys Coffee. But no! Little Sair is no quitter! I persisted with Jager Bombs, Dirty Martinis, Caipirinhas, Petron, Harden The Fuck Up (yes really – it was a shot at a bar in Darwin)…  all in an attempt find a drink that would suit me and hence why we are in the predicament we find ourselves today.

Because, while alcohol in excess has never suited me, I persevered with the very English-Middle-Class-Waitrose-Shopper habit of having a civilized wine in the evening and somehow found that, in my 39^th year, this habit has become one that that is very hard to break.

This is slightly niche, but did you ever see that episode of “Frasier” where Bebe explains why it’s so hard for her to quit smoking? In case you’ve forgotten – I’ll refresh your memory:

Frasier: Oh now, Bebe, tell me.  What is so wonderful about smoking?

Bebe: Everything. I like the way a fresh firm pack

         feels in my hand.  I like peeling away that little piece of

         cellophane and seeing it twinkle in the light.  I like coaxing

         that first sweet cylinder out of its hiding place and bringing

         it slowly up to my lips. Striking a match, watching it burst into 

         a perfect little flame and knowing that soon that flame will

         be inside me. I love the first puff, pulling

         it into my lungs.  Little fingers of smoking filling me,

         caressing me, feeling that warmth penetrate deeper and deeper,

         until I think I'm going to burst!  Then - whoosh! - watching

         it flow out of me in a lovely, sinuous cloud, no two ever

         quite the same.

Now take all of the emotions that Bebe feels towards cigarettes and imagine them with wine. I don’t want to sound like some kind of midget Brummy alco, but let’s face it: there’s nothing quite like pouring yourself a massive glass of Pinot at the end of a crummy day to make the world seem… a little more gentle than it did a few hours ago.

But anyway, I decided on the first of January (my birthday, do keep up) that I had had enough of (a) feeling that little bit extra tired in the morning (b) spending money that I don’t have on alcohol and (c) feeling depressed after drinking. Because, let’s face it, alcohol is a depressant, and it’s probably something my mental health could do without.

So yeah, Day 18. I can now tell you exactly which celebrities don’t drink (Kim Kardashian, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lopez, Matthew Perry and, allegedly, Donald Trump?!! Which means he is making all of those decisions completely sober. Which is, in itself, a sobering thought). I have replaced alcohol with popcorn so any dreams I might have had of losing weight because I am no longer consuming so-called “empty calories” have been completely quashed by the reality of consuming my own body-weight in sweet ‘n’ salted. I now have a Herbal Tea Drawer, and I have realised that there are three spiders living in the corners of my ceiling.

I am doing Dry January but I would actually love to manage to do the whole of 2020 sober. Which right now seems like quite the feat but then a few years ago we never imagined that Colleen Rooney would turn out to be Miss Marple in 2019 – so there you go.

18 days down, 347 to go. If you need me, I’ll be at T2.

Steady Eddie

So I may have been a little hasty in bragging last month about being ahead of my goals for dating.

Although I am technically ahead (for March), I find myself already panicking about who I am going to ask out in April. I was so concerned about this that on Friday night (March 8) I found myself trying to compile a list of possibilities, desperately wracking my brain for future targets.

When I informed my sister of my plight, she was predictably unsympathetic. “You’re only three months in and you’ve already run out of people? You’re going to have to broaden your search, join “Plenty More Fish” or something. There’s still three quarters of the year left to go.”

I feel that perhaps the problem rests not only with me, but with the fact that New Zealand has a relatively small population when compared to the UK, US, mainland Europe etc. plus the fact that it just seems harder to meet people in your thirties. When I compared notes with a couple of uni friends back in London over Christmas, they agreed that everyone in our age group who is still single finds it difficult.

As we discussed who our peers had ended up marrying/ shacking up with, my friend Tania said, “Let’s not forget, Sarah, how many people simply settle.” I quite liked this comment, and was congratulating myself for not “settling”, when my other friend Melissa brought me back to earth with a thud: “Sarah, you’re just going to need to lower your standards. You might need to find a ‘Steady Eddie’ and be happy with that.”

Although at the time I was pretty depressed by this comment,  I have subsequently concluded that she may be right. This may or may not be after after at least one occasion where I have found myself staring adoringly at my cat, Kathy, whilst listening to Elton John’s Your Song, I have realised that she may be right. (In case you’re unfamiliar with that classic, the lyrics are “I hope you don't mind that I put down in words/ How wonderful life is, now you're in the world”.) (Which I totally stand by, by the way. Kathy is THE best cat in the world. Even though she won’t let me touch her.)

Anyway, changing the subject, does anyone else have someone in their office who has a fondness for “REPLY ALL” to group emails? And – do they know they’re doing it?

This week, poor Unnamed found herself The Most Famous Person In The Building when she unwittingly “Replied All” to the whole company (around 224 recipients) around an invitation to come to a workout. The chain went roughly like this:

9:34am

To: Central Office Staff
Subject: Re: No Sunday arvo plans?

Morning everyone!

We need some background extras for a workout happening this weekend.

Etc etc

Group Fit

9:36am

To Central Office Staff:

Subject: Re: No Sunday arvo plans?

Hey Group Fit,

 I can do it.

 Thanks

10:54am

To: Central Office Staff
Subject: Re: No Sunday arvo plans?

Hey Group Fit,

 I can no longer come so sorry 

12:35pm

To: Central Office Staff
Subject: Re: No Sunday arvo plans?

Hey hey I can come again if you need me :)

However the best email of all by far came from another colleague who replied…

12:58pm

To: Central Office Staff

Subject: RE: No Sunday arvo plans?

This conversation is almost as dramatic and suspenseful as a plot twist in Married at First Sight

Thanks for keeping us all on the journey.

J

This conversation was almost as good as when someone working at BBC White City in London sent an email to the WHOLE of the BBC asking if anyone had seen their Tupperware that they left on top of the fridge. My colleague Daniel at the Drama Village replied, “Sorry we’ve not seen it up here in Birmingham, but we’ll be sure to keep an eye out.”

On a final note - I was recently given a wonderful reflections journal called a ‘Panda Planner’, which requires that for each day you list your “big wins”. I would like to share my “big win” for Friday, which was the realisation that I finally understand marketing speak! I was passing through the kitchen on Friday and heard a conversation which involved ‘CTA’, ‘CTOR’ and ‘OR’ and I knew what all of these meant! I am so clever!

I have now worked in the marketing team for almost 12 months and I have to be honest, for the first three months (and possibly longer) I had no idea what anyone was talking about. They speak a different language up there. They use words like “granular”, “elevate”, “B2B”, “B2C”, “ROI”, and phrases like “ducks in a row”, “first cab off the rank”…

I suppose everyone goes through this when they start in a new team. I remember starting at the BBC and hearing words like, “DOP”, “pink pages”, “AD”, “turning”, “rushes”, “SA’s”, “recce”, “First”, “block” and so on, and having absolutely no clue what was going on.

In case you’re wondering…

CTA = Call To Action

CTOR = Click To Open Rate

OR = Open Rate

ROI = Return On Investment

B2B = Business to Business

B2C = Business to Consumer

DOP = Director of Photography

SA’s = Supporting Artistes

AD = Assistant Director

See! Now you can work in marketing and telly too!

You're welcome :)

Dear Mr Wahlberg

I listened to a TED Talk on rejection today. The speaker, Jia Jang, realised that the biggest thing holding him back was his fear of being rejected, stemming from an incident in his early childhood. To counteract this fear, he decided to embark on “100 days of rejection” – where he would ask for something every single day that may result in his being rejected. This ranged from asking a stranger for a 100 dollar bill, to asking for a “burger refill” in a fast food restaurant (as in – a soda refill – but for burgers). And at the end of the 100 days, he had made significant progress in conquering his fear.

Empowered by this story, I have decided to ask someone out every single month in 2019. That way, when it gets to the end of the year, even if I’m still single I may have add some interesting dates and potentially have been rejected 12 times.

So far I have asked out 3 people (so I’m already ahead of my own goals! This is a very new and unusual feeling). The first one – on Bumble – promptly disappeared off the face of the earth. The second and third both said yes, and so far I have had one meetup out of this strategy.

When I told me sister about asking people out and having a good feeling about it, she said, “Is this the same good feeling you had when you wrote to Mark Wahlberg asking for a job?”

Oh yes. I had completely forgotten about that, but obviously it is burned into my sister’s memory as one of my most ambitious (most delusional) moments ever. It was the summer I was working on the TV show “Hustle”, completely miserable and wondering how the hell I was going to escape my current situation. From the depths of my unhappiness, I realised there was only one thing for it.

I had to write to Jerry Bruckheimer and Mark Wahlberg and ask them for a job.

So… that’s exactly what I did! I typed up a very polite letter that started, “Dear Mr Wahlberg” and went on to enthuse how much I loved the show “Entourage” and would love the opportunity to work on the show. I did pretty much the same thing with Jerry Bruckheimer, but swapped “Entourage” for “CSI Miami”.

I never heard back. But, as my sister often reminds me, God loves a trier.

On the subject of Mark Wahlberg, are you familiar with his daily schedule? For the ignorant amongst you, it looks like this:

2:30am Wake-up

2:45am Prayer time

3:15am Breakfast

3:40 – 5:15am Workout

5:30am Post workout meal

6am Shower

7:30am Golf

8am Snack

9:30am Cryo chamber recovery

10:30am Snack

11am Family time/ meetings/ work calls

1pm Lunch

2pm Meetings/ work calls

3pm Pick kids up at school

3:30pm Snack

4pm Workout #2

5pm Shower

5:30pm Dinner/ family time

7:30pm Bedtime

Are thinking what I’m thinking? Mark Wahlberg spends TWO hours of each day in the shower and significant time eating snacks. Couldn’t he just get up at 7am like the rest of the world and eat fewer snacks whilst bathing less?

It all sounds rather hideous to me.

Anyway, before we go any further, I need to share something major with you.

I saw East 17 over Christmas – plus Mariah Carey tribute act – and it may just have been the greatest night of my life.

Granted, there may have been only one remaining member of the original line up (Terry) and it wasn’t in the O2 (as one might be forgiven for expecting) but in a dark dingy pub in Birmingham’s Digbeth area, but it had all the ingredients of an amazing night. Here’s why it was so awesome:

1.       For a mere additional £5, we got VIP entry – this entailed entry to the “VIP room”, a glass of a mystery brand of “sparkling”, AND we got to meet the band. (Nevermind that “meeting the band” turned out to be only TJ, who only joined the group in 2018 and frankly looks like he’s been rescued from a life of stripping and Class A’s. We still met a real live member of a East 17!)

2.       Remember the Artful Dodger? Re-re-wind… the crowd say Bo, SELECTA!? Yeah, he’s now in East 17.

3.       Nobody in the audience was trying to be cool. Obvs. I mean, we’re at an East 17 gig, that ship has clearly vamoosed. Therefore we had license to sing along with as little shame as you might expect to all the classics (Steam, Deep, House of Love, Stay Another Day… what do you mean you don’t remember?)

4.       By 1030pm, the “merch” girl had only sold 2 East 17 tee shirts and was looking really quite depressed.

5.       The bar was selling Smirnoff Black, Hooch and Blue WKD. I was so excited I almost ordered a pint of Snakebite and Black (but then recalled a fateful night at ‘Liquid’ discotheque in Norwich circa 1999 and thought better of it)

I feel that I did ruin one guy’s life right before the concert commenced by informing him that Brian Harvey wasn’t going to be performing, and he then interjected wherever possible during the gig by shouting, “Where’s Brian?” (Remember how Brian Harvey ate too many jacket potatoes than ran himself over? You just can’t make that stuff up…)

What a time to be alive! Not only did I have the joy of experiencing East 17 (OK, Terry plus 2 others) LIVE in concert, but the Bros documentary, “After the screaming stops” was also aired over the silly season. It followed the brothers being reunited before their first concert in 20 years (they actually did play the O2) and featured just the most amazing quotes from Matt Goss.  In case you missed it, here’s a selection of some of the best…

On the classics

“Rome wasn’t built in a day. And fuck me that’s true… But we don’t have the time Rome had.”

On childhood

“The best toy we had growing up was a dart. No dart board, just a dart.”

On everyday heroes

“One of my songs is called ‘We’re All Kings’. Which is about a man sweeping the road – he’s one of my kings because I’m thankful I don’t have to sweep the road.”

On home

“The letters H.O.M.E. are so important because they personify the word home.” (No, Matt, they just spell it.)

On the media

“I’m obsessed with the news, it ironically relaxes me, if I don’t see the news, I don’t feel informed, then I can’t go about my day properly. CNN is the thinking man’s reality show.”

On the ancient game of conkers

“Please can we start a petition as Bros for this ridiculous thing where you can’t even play conkers, you have to wear goggles. That is the biggest problem…You can’t play conkers in England.”

On superstition

“I made a conscious decision because of Stevie Wonder not to be superstitious.”

On linguistics

“Epitome, which I believe is Latin for abstract.”

On creating

“When I’m writing songs I write so fast it’s just scribbles. But we have unique telepathy – you have to have telepathy to keep up with me, because there’s maybe a hundred tracks of backing vocals and it’s all me. We call it The Matt Goss-pel Choir.”

On philosophy

“I think hindsight is the philosophy of fools. You learn nothing in some way, because sometimes you have to do the same again.”

On teamwork

“Everyone has to be on the same page otherwise you don’t get to turn the page. Because somebody gets left behind otherwise and then somebody has lost the page of the story which may be the key to the ending.”

On geometry

“I was a rectangle and [Luke] was a rectangle and we made a square that became a fortress.”

On worlds colliding

“If there was ever 15 one way streets and one solitary two way street where me and my brother got to meet in the middle – you helped [us] find that one street. We’ve met in the middle. Two worlds definitely collided. When two worlds collide, two things happen: Destruction or the genesis of new beginnings, and you created water on a new planet, mate.” 

I just don’t really think I can follow those quotes up with anything.

East 17 on tour, Bros reunited… what a time to be alive!

What do Hanging Pomegranates Look Like?

Am I the last person on earth to discover the meaning of happiness?

“Aha!” you might be thinking, “Young Sarah has at last seen the light and found her faith! She has embraced her Jewish roots and decided to move to Israel to work on a kibbutz with Abraham and Gavriella. She has forsaken the false joy to be derived from material goods and will dedicate the remainder of her days to helping others and living off the land.”

Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve finally found Love Island and podcast My Dad Wrote a Porno.

For the unenlightened, Love Island sees a group of hot 20-something boys and girls put together on an island where they “couple up”, share beds, and try to find true love. And win £50K. The show’s producers regularly introduce new “fresh meat” so there is a constant sense of unease amongst the contestants and they desperately have to form alliances (sexual or otherwise) to assure them of their place on the show. My favourite contestant is Marcel, who used to be in the early noughties hip-hop group Blazin’ Squad (yes – I did just Wikipedia that). Nobody recognizes him, so he takes pains to take each member of the island aside to tell them, “hey, it’s no big deal, but I kind of used to be famous. I was in a pop band, you might have heard of them, Blazin’ Squad…?” The best reaction comes from the people who clearly have no idea who he is even after he tells them, but pretend to be impressed, whilst obviously trying to memorize the name of the band so they can Google it once they are back on the line.

And then there is the genius that is My Dad Wrote a Porno. It’s basically exactly that – this guy’s Dad wrote a series of (really bad) erotic fiction, and in each episode he gets together with his 2 mates to read a chapter out loud and provide a critique of the material. The book is called Belinda Blinked and is written under the pen name Rocky Flintstone. The lack of any real story or character development is more than compensated for by use of terms such as “vaginal lids”, “private pussy area” and “her tits hung freely, like pomegranates”.

I mean, if this isn’t literature at its finest, what is?

In other news - Ellen Riddolls will be delighted to hear that The Times has confirmed – I am too old to be a millennial.

I have spent the last couple of years indignantly claiming my status as a hip, happening, down-with-the-kids millennial. (That sentence alone should have told me that I'm not). I was reassured by various reports that it’s those born from 1977 onwards that qualify as so-called millennials. And so Ellen and I have argued – frequently – that I am part of this group (just), despite my refusal to use Snapchat and inability to add to MyStory on Instagram.

Anyway, apparently I actually belong to a sub-generation of millennials known as xennials.

Here’s what makes you a xennial:

You must have been born between 1977 and 1983. You’re not quite as cynical as generation X but pride yourself on being less entitled and optimistic than millennials. Apparently our defining feature is that we were the last generation to grow up before the digital age.  We enthusiastically embraced Myspace, MSN and mobile phones in our 20s while still remembering what it was like to organize our first date as a teenager using the landline. We can remember all of our best friends’ landline numbers off by heart and probably still have a Hotmail account. We spent our formative years watching Party of Five and My So-Called Life (I still have the box set. It was a crime when they cancelled that show after one season).

To add insult to injury, the Giant From Upstairs made the following accusation last week in a health and safety related email (bear with me). He said, “Sarah, young grasshopper, you are old and past it. You’re MySpace….. I’m young and current – I’m Facebook.”

And now I find out that the fucker was right.

I recently returned to the Motherland for Best Friend’s Wedding and man it feels good to hear the Brummy accent. I eavesdropped to an entire conversation between three 24-year olds who are planning to go into some kind of (frankly, quite dodgy sounding) business venture – purely for the joy of hearing that melodic whine that makes relating even the best of news sound like the apocalypse is nigh.

Things have changed though. For one thing, Mr Egg is no more. I know!!!! A staple of my adolescent years, Mr Egg was the greasy spoon where you could “eat like a king for £1.50” with the pleasure of having a giant fried egg suspended from the ceiling above your head. The Dome (II) has also gone, another relic of my teenage years where you had to order all the ingredients for Snakebite and Black - separately because they refused to mix it for you at the bar - and they regularly had those 1990s ubiquitous foam parties. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of attending a foam party, imagine a dance floor covered entirely with a white sticky cloud that conceals groping hands and leaves your hair in tangled rats tails and your Maybelline running in rivulets down your face. The first one I ever went to was particularly memorable as Kirk Bennett’s contact lenses produced an allergic reaction, turning him into a privately-educated 16 yr old version of Dracula, then Sarah Williams – wearing a red dress - sat down right next to me – wearing a white dress – and turned one side of my dress a lovely shade of pink so I resembled a human Fab ice-lolly. Good times indeed.

On the plus side, there are still a few things you can count on to remain the same. Like the fact that Saturday night is always the busiest night at the bar but Chameleon still only chooses to have 4 of the slowest bartenders in the history of uncapping Peroni behind the bar. There are still gangs of sleazy 50-something year old men in suits trying their luck with the girls who've definitely pre-loaded on Smirnoff Black before they came out. And the Bouncers still look like they hate everyone.

I’m going to end right here after 3 people informed me, on reading my last post, “I really liked your blog. I haven’t finished reading it yet, but I will.”

Uh huh. For those of you who have made it to this point – I love you and I will give you a million pounds to reward your dedication.

PM me.  

#ThingsThatLeaveSarahReeling

So – apparently - Uggs are not a fashion statement in New Zealand.

(Allow pause for shocked response).

I know! WTF! Clearly, as a catwalk-savvy Brit with my finger on the fashion’s beating pulse, I know style when I see it. Plastic pink faux snakeskin pencil skirt withstanding, it’s not often I’m wrong in my choice of getup (it was 1999 and I was experimenting with a new look. From New Look). Dare I say it, I like to think of myself of Birmingham’s answer to Patricia Field. And, until I moved to Auckland, Uggs had always been a staple of my winter fashion attire. After all, if it’s good enough for Kate and Alexa, it’s good enough for me.

You can therefore imagine my surprise when, sporting said Uggs, my friend stopped me and said, “What the hell have you got on your feet? You look like a total bogan!”

bogan¹

Australian/NZ informalderogatory

noun: bogan; plural noun: bogans

1. an uncouth or unsophisticated person regarded as being of low social status.

"some bogans yelled at us from their cars"

It’s pretty much the equivalent of Kerry Katona shopping in Iceland in her onesie. As we like to say in Edgbaston – what a chav.

This little incident illustrates just one of the many differences between New Zealand and the UK. In England, warm sheepskin footwear is completely acceptable to wear outside of the Lakes. In Auckland – you’ll be accused of looking “council”.

I wonder if it’s because they have so many sheep.

Speaking of national differences, can we take a moment to consider Donald Trump’s attack on the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan? I refer of course to Trump taking Khan’s words completely out of context, and alleging on Twitter that he told the citizens of London not to be “alarmed” over the London terrorist attack. As the BBC’s Jon Sopel wrote, “This is extraordinary. Can you imagine after 9/11 a British Prime Minister going after Mayor Giuliani like this?”

I’m reminded of David Cameron’s infamous quote during a radio interview: "The trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it – too many twits might make a twat."

(I guess Trump missed that memo.)

On the subject of the London attack, I enjoyed the British response to the American media’s use of the word “reeling” as in the New York Times headline “The London attacks hit a nation still reeling from the shock of the bombing in Manchester almost 2 weeks ago.” This naturally invoked a patriotic rebuttal in the form of hashtag #ThingsThatLeaveBritainReeling (as in – things that ACTUALLY leave us reeling) and they included…

• ·         When you see someone making a cup of tea and they put the milk in first
• ·         Someone holding a door open for you when you’re an awkward distance away so you have to jog a few steps
• ·         People not using there, their and they’re correctly
• ·         People who sit next to you on the bus
• ·         People who make tea in the microwave
• ·         Choosing the wrong items for a meal deal and having to pay 10 quid for a bottle of water, a sandwich and a Twix
• ·         A pause of longer than 4 seconds on Radio 4
• ·         Not catching someone’s name and having to spend the next three decades avoiding introducing them to anyone
• ·         When people jump a good British queue
• ·         When someone stands just that bit too close to you in the queue
• ·         When someone doesn’t apologise profusely for doing nothing wrong
• ·         Spilling your pint
• ·         Somebody getting a guitar out at a party

My favourite part of the national response was that: “The photo of a man feeling the scene of the terror attacks while also drinking his pint has become a symbol of London’s resilience.”

Well, quite, have you seen the price of a pint in the city?

I also enjoyed Sathnam Sanghera’s tweet in the aftermath of the attack that “Some twat in his café is complaining loudly about the quality of the almond milk, so think it’s safe to say London’s way of life continues”.

In other #BreakingNews, I have just perused Heat Magazine on the World Wide Wide – known to the rest of the world as “reading Heat” – and there was not a single story about Katie Price AKA Jordan. NOT ONE!!!! WTF? I leave England for 5 years and Jordan disappears under a rock? What has the world of (D-Class Celebrity) come to? There were lots of taglines about people I DIDN’T know: “Things KICK OFF between Lotan Carter and Hannah Agboolah in tonight’s Big brother”… “Bellad Hadid liked a picture of The Weeknd on Instagram (AND THEN UNLIKED IT)” (Sheer journalistic brilliance that one.)

Every time I read the name, ‘The Weeknd’, I wonder – was that a mistake? Did he mean to write  ‘The Weekend’, accidentally missed out the second ‘e’ – and then just decided to own it? I have visions of him receiving his contract and going “oh shit! I missed the ‘e’! They’re going to think I’m a total idiot if I go back to them… let’s just roll with it. It looks kind of cool. Mysterious. Nobody is gonna know how to say it properly. That always helps things. After all – look at Symbol.”

On a different topic, they have recently redecorated one of the rooms at the gym and filled it with various fitspo quotes to keep everyone motivated when they are secretly looking for a way to run out of the room as soon as the Instructor’s back is turned (you know who you are). You know the theme: change your game. You vs you. Don’t give up. Pressure makes diamonds. Etc. I was walking through the gym at 7am this week and heard this gem from one of the Instructors:

“I don’t care what they write up on these walls. Listen to me. FAT. NEVER. SLEEPS. You got that? FAT NEVER SLEEPS!”

#Amazing

#ThingsThatLeaveSarahReeling

I am totally stealing that one.

OVERHEARD AT THE MILL

Group Fitness Instructor: You back on Tinder?

Me: No. I hate Tinder. It’s full of weirdos. Are you on it?

Group Fitness Instructor: No. We don’t need Tinder. That’s what our classes are for.

Sometimes I wish I was a man.