Some of the photos and posts that I wanted to write for My Housemate’s a Mermaid, but didn’t quite have enough material (pictorial and verbal) to fill.
Deleted MHAM Posts From the Cutting Room Floor
The time how, at the start of the pandemic, Mumma B spent hours cutting squares of old fabric to make laundry bags for NHS key workers
2. When I stayed up so late that I ended up watching a much younger Nicky Campbell presenting a Top of the Pops episode from 1990
Some people had more fun than others.
I continued to watch it, even when this was played from the UK top twenty for the week.
3. How very surreal my office was when I went back to empty my locker
4. My sister’s attempts with one of those packet face masks from South Korea
It ripped off a load of skin, but not a lot else.
5. Squeak, the cat, being rebellious
6. The time I saw my old/favourite History lecturer from University on the BBC and I absolutely lost my cool
Imean, WITH LUCY WORSLEY!!
7. The time I found this in a shop and it perked up my mood
(But not enough that I bought it.)
8. The generous gin measures down the local pub
9. The generous measures of lunch portions while living with family
10. The thinking behind this at the Travel Lodge Hotel in York
It was in the foyer for several days…
11. A post detailing the contents of my bookshelf
12. Everything about this account that started following me on Twitter
How did it take you to spot that’s a semi naked woman?
13. A post on me rekindling my creative mojo during the pandemic
14. The importance of good friends who call-out when you have really bad body odour
15. The ‘what the fudge-ness’ of this targeted advert
Yes, I did tap the link and yes, I am still getting adverts for werewolf fan-fiction as a result.
16. Lockdown birthdays
17. The large number of self-published books with Covid themes
18. The other strange things being self-published
Although I am still a bit in love with the title of this book.
19. My attempts to have a massive clear-out
…which were ultimately foiled by a mixture of procrastination / charity shops being closed / Bubble the cat.
So there you go, a snippet of how much gets filtered before making it onto this website. What can I say? You get what you pay for.
**
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Back when I was living in London I had the absolute pleasure of attending the Tate Modern’s critically appraised exhibition Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy. It ran between 8th March – 9th September 2018.
I didn’t attend “1932…” until late on, days before it was due to close. Why? Because I’ll be honest, Picasso had never really been my bag. I appreciated his reputation and there’s no denying Guernica is a masterpiece of political demonstration, but otherwise I just saw the man as someone who took a lot of credit for not a lot.
Don’t shoot me.
In the end, it was a little voice inside my head that urged me to go, that I’d only regret it if I didn’t. (Also, because at the time I could get in for £5. Minor detail.)
I’m so very glad I went. For one, turns out the man is just as trigger happy on the paint brushes as I am on my blog. In one year he produced over 100 works of art (mostly of his mistress). Secondly, some of his work isn’t too shabby.
Don’t get me wrong, I still had questions. Most of my secondary school art projects were on par with Yellow Belt.
And yet God knows, you never saw my Art teacher praising me as the Second Coming. I took a snapshot and sent it to my Mum, she still insisted I keep the day job.
So what has all this got to do with socks? Well, sometime after the exhibition I was browsing the wonderful world of Far Eastern shopping when I came across some socks printed with the iconic painting The Dream.
I’ll spare you my cobble-dash description on this painting but yep, the way he painted the face is intentional (classic playboy Picasso). More information here.
Short story, shorter, I found a pair of socks online depicting this masterpiece (or, as the sellers called them, “style #3 sleeping lady”). Don’t ask how or why, it’ll be easier for us both. Neither did I enquire as to the copyright, given the same people were also selling “magic man” socks of Jesus.
12 million months later my socks arrived, looking something like this:
First observation – no way in hell were these made for a ladies foot-size 5 (EU 38). Definitely men’s socks. But still, the print detailing was alright and the image had been flipped. Without disclosing the price, (*cough* 99p), you get what you pay for.
I couldn’t wait to try them on.
Then I looked down…
Because the socks were bigger in size than expected, I’d had to pull them up higher, and because my calves are the size of tree trunks, the print was stretched-out even more.
Far from looking mellowed after a bit of artist lovin’, Marie looks genuinely pained from having her face stretched to that of a horse. And let’s not even go there with where that places Picasso’s perceived manhood.
Oh well.
I’m still gonna wear them though. I mean, Picasso socks! How cool is that?!
Minding my own business on emails (aka clearing out my junk folder, because, you know, what else is there to do right now?)
Anyway, I was doing that when something on the side bar caught my eye. This, the side bar which is always filled by random advertisements. For example, I’ve been invited to take out over 50s life insurance for far too long…a product of my enjoyment of Classic FM perhaps; other times it’s linked to the websites I’ve been loitering on.
Amazon, eBay, that Scientology website I once browsed at stupid o’clock. Even if the targeted adverts are sometimes questionable, it’s rare I look at these and go “where the Hell did that come from?” I’ve yet to take out the insurance, and last time I checked I hadn’t joined a cult…I think…
Right, so, what’s the point of all this preamble, you say? Well, despite all of the above, one day I got this in the side bar:
No, that’s it. Nothing more below, save the rest of the boot-shoe.
I mean…what?
First off, how are any of these items linked? Hosiery/half a mannequin (I’ll be honest, I don’t know which it is), a balaclava and two types of shoe? It’s honestly the most mixed-up selection of clothing items one could buy, let alone for a lockdown fatkins like me.
Secondly, and probably the bigger question I should be asking, WHY AM I GETTING THIS?
I’m a lazy sod who hasn’t had a need for football boots since I played hockey for the school team in 2009. Plus, I couldn’t give a rat’s patootie what my rat’s patootie looks like. (I’ve just revisited that image, it looks like shapewear in the first thumbnail.)
Ain’t no shapewear containing this level of awesome!
Alright Kim…
So, the million cent question, did I click on the link to learn more, or possibly even purchase some of these dazzling products?
No.
Am I however now racing to go back through all my browsing history and clearing out the tracking cookies. It has lead me to wonder though, have I been hacked by the Scientologists?
I mean, it would certainly explain the randomness of items (can you understand a word he’s saying?)
Also, Tom Cruise.
(I think I’m going to like inserting this sound effect into my work very much.)
Candles, erosion excitement and a scurvy-inducing diet, we’ve got all the reasons (and more) why I’ve quite possibly still yet to become one half of a “smug couple”.
Why Alice is Still Single…Probably
First Things First
I can’t help that a pandemic happened.
I don’t proactively choose to shun humans (Yeah, I’ll call up my insurance firm now. “Hello, I’d like to record my profession as ‘Aspirational Spinster’ please? What do you mean, that’ll increase my premium?”)
Although, for the benefit of reassurance, I am attracted to humans.
(But I am also attracted to that part of YouTube.)
I’ve Made My Memory Foam Bed, and it Serves me Well
I live where I live and do what I do. And before you give me that Sliding Doors baloney, “if only you’d taken that fictional job somewhere else, then maybe things would be different”, I mean, sure but…
A) Not God.
B) There are loads of amazing things I’d have missed out on.
C) I lived in London for a year and guess what? Despite getting my bag stuck in the Tube countless times and missing countless more trains altogether, John Hannah still didn’t show up and I’m still not Gwyneth Paltrow.
(But at least my accent isn’t that grating.)
My Cooking is Beyond Questionable
Case in point, I routinely eat leftover Chinese with pasta. I call it “East Meets West” (no, really, I do).
I know what you’re thinking and yes, I am the kind of girl who brings a stapler and a rack of business cards to dinner (and you thought the Chinese was hot stuff).
As a rule of thumb, the dishes I cook involve three ingredients. E.g. scrambled eggs: eggs (no milk), bread, butter for bread. Soup: tin of soup, bread, butter for bread. Chips, fish fingers, peas.
I also routinely snack on dry cream crackers.
#NoShame
I’m Not in the Market of Being Someone I’m Not
I’m so out of habit with makeup I barely wear it nowadays. The idea of putting all this stuff on my face to create something to satisfy everyone but me just doesn’t do anything for me (you can’t see your own face after all).
Looking at this from a positive angle, this is presently the worst I’m ever going to get:
*Well, excluding when I’m chilling out in the back of Shoreditch clubs.
Moving on…
Everything Excites Me…But Men
Things like having David Nicholls, author of One Day, like my Tweet:
(Reason .5 for staying single – I like using words like golly)
I also like seeing the effects of coastal erosion on tiny pebbles:
I didn’t even care they only were available in a men’s size. Why? Because I’m now the proud owner of Picasso socks. Duh.
It doesn’t take much to get me excited, but on the downside, it doesn’t take much to get me excited. I don’t need a guy to be the *sole* provider of my joy…unless you have Picasso socks. And yes, pun intended.
I Have Awesome Friends
Doesn’t everyone bring hand sanitiser and a banking card reader to their girls’ night in calls?
Granted, things are a smidge surreal at the moment, but I still have my girl (and guy) friends. And if I can’t meet up with them in real life, I still can connect with them digitally.
Dressing up and dancing around my bedroom, it’s like the teenage years I never had. Back when I was too busy wearing jeans and playing about with hair straighteners and knives.
Oh, Cotswolds, you do crack me up.
Nb, that was taken on my eighteenth birthday. Disney need to do a rerun of that film, 13 Going on 30.
We’ll call it 30 Going on 13, and it’ll be 90 minutes of me struggling to comprehend water installations in urban environments:
Ten years on and I’m still trying to work them out.
Hmm, I think we’ve gone a bit off topic somewhere around here. What were we discussing, again? Oh yeah, why I’m single.
Me, Myself and I; We’ve got Our Own Thaang Going on
I Already Have an Interim Solution, and it’s a Candle
I can’t quite fathom how Glade have done this, but I swear this candle smells like a ‘best of’ man collection. It’s kinda musky and has a nice cologne-like secondary smell. I think it’s a honey and chocolate combo.
I can’t share the smell, but trust me, it’s solid. And no, I’m not backing down on this.
And Then There Are the Creeps
Ooh! Bear with, just got a new match.
Right, let’s open this up…
Ah.
In Summary
Your best bet is to cook me something with four ingredients, invest in quirky socks and dip yourself in molten wax.
Guess what? I’m eighteen years old in that one too.
I need to get into teen movies. Where is my non-existent agent?
**
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This post has been sparked off my Mumma B, who only the other day asked me about this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert.
The thing is, she comments about the lack of visibility, but at the same time records everything on her YouView box purposely to skip all the adverts. You see the dilemma here?
Basically I’m posting all the Christmas adverts for the main UK players so that my mum can see them in one place (and once only).
I’ll add to the list as and when any additional companies release theirs (please do also poke me with a metaphorical stick in the comments). Otherwise lets get to it! In no particular order…
UK Christmas TV Adverts (2020)
John Lewis / WaitroseSupermarket
Aldi Supermarket
Lidl Supermarket
Walkers Crisps
McDonald’s
TK Maxx
Argos
Barbour
Very.co.uk
Amazon
Tesco Supermarket
Asda Supermarket
Morrisons Supermarket
Sainsburys Supermarket
Boots
Lego
Dreamies Cat Treats
M&S Food
Disney
Coca-Cola
JD
Ralph Lauren
(Disclaimer: All videos above have been lifted from YouTube via the URL. I don’t own any part of these videos.)
**
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A video that perfectly sums up the state of my feet post Christmas party.
They’re ruddy nice shoes mind. I don’t think Swindon’s karaoke bar knew what hit it when I rocked up looking like this.
(Me with a work colleague – excuse the slightly psychotic look, I was blinded by the world’s brightest flash in Wiltshire’s darkest room.)
Forget an alcoholic hangover, shoe hangovers are now a thing in my world!
The shoes!!
Whichever way you choose to spend your New Year’s eve, have a good (and safe) one. I’ll probably be spending mine in a pair of fluffy slippers, a glass of Baileys and a sharing bag of kettle chips, stopping only briefly from writing to shout “is it 2020 yet?”. Literally, New Year’s Eve is my least favourite day of the year.
Anyway, anti-climaxes aside, happy New Year everyone! Here’s to 2020!
(I don’t know why I picked that photo, I had a browse through my WordPress image library/achieves and the memory from Cyprus in 2015 made me happy.)
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You may wonder why my owners would give a name like Bubble to a male cat. Well, my sister is called Squeak (Bubble and Squeak, get it?) And all the stupid humans thought I was a girl until the vets confirmed differently. It’s not a name I’m particularly fond of and, as a result, I have spent my entire life in a constant sulk, excluding the times I shout at the humans to feed me.
Like a lot of men I like to work out, only I can’t get to the gym on account of being a cat so spend most of my free time doing the next best thing; sleeping in a gym bag.
And trust me ladies, it shows.
I’m sexy and I know it.
Anyway, this human thing called Christmas is coming up and while I’ve tried to hide from it…
…it has finally caught up with me. I wasn’t even going to do presents this year (thinking about the environment, y’know?) But then I walked in one day and found my sister had already started wrapping up gifts.
So really I didn’t have a choice. Luckily I don’t have many others to buy for (my advice if you’re looking to become a self-reliant, anti-social git? Become a cat). I just needed to get something for my annoying sister, even if she does always steal the best sleeping spots in the house.
I took inspiration from my humans and first went for a dig around the cupboards, see if there was anything from past year’s of Christmas shopping I could give her.
But had no joy. Then I took to the online shops but kept getting messed up suggestions like this:
There was no other option, I’d have to hit the high street. I hopped on the roof of the next family cab into town and away I went.
The first thing that struck me was the weird customs humans have for celebrating what is meant to be a happy time of year. If they’re not advertising surreal…
…Then they’re hanging and impaling little elf people in some kind of pagan ritual.
It’s no wonder you’re all fat alcoholics. You actually decorate your homes with these!
Then again, after seeing this I have a new found respect for the miracle of the Virgin birth.
And why is this woman’s face all over bags of crisps? Is this what you humans would call ‘the height of your career?’
(And if you think I’m being mean just remember, I’m a cat. It’s what we do.)
When it came to shopping for Christmas presents, I didn’t know where to start. Luckily, many of the shops displayed their wares in a way that was perfect for the average bloke applying a scatter gun/panic buy approach to gifting.
A little bit too generic female for my sister who happens to like her fur coat very much. Instead I went to the male default #2, a nice new perfume.
Or maybe not.
I popped into a book shop because I know Squeak the cat likes to read a light weight novel or two. I was instantly drawn to a title that looked like it could have been written by the human in my family who writes for that blog, the one they call Alice. It just screamed her style of writing.
And then I read the blurb and felt less convinced. I mean, the average writing quality was on par with Alice’s, but the plot development was anything but.
I mean it’s completely unbelievable…it’s obvious that Daisy is sleeping with Greg (that’s why he keeps vanishing) and the Goose is mad because it’s Greg’s jilted lover. I’m a male cat and I can see that. Humans don’t half write some rubbish when they’re trying to pull sales or views.
In the same shop there was also this book:
(One of the humans I was with said to Alice, “hey, Alice! They wrote a book about you trying to get a life!” And she said, “hey, India! They wrote a sequel where I hit you with that very book!”)
To be fair to the human called India, Alice does have a tendency to hang out in coffee shops by herself and woman-spread everywhere.
She likes to think it makes her look smart, I think it’s just to cover up the fact that she’s constantly spilling good coffee.
Like a lot of humans, she’d buy just about anything that’s coffee-branded.
(If you had to look twice before spotting it, you’ve got a problem.)
On another note, I’m not sure what image you big humans are trying to suggest to little humans when you give them dolls with drugged up eyes.
In the same way that I don’t fully get the need to take the Every Love Matters campaign to the extremes of inanimate objects.
(I did try to tell her that her companion didn’t seem interested, but she told me to tinsel off – hah, and you thought Cats have no sense of poor humour…)
And as for this…
…You humans are alright with making your spawn think they’re being spied upon but I just happen to walk in on you taking a shower and suddenly it’s completely unacceptable? Your species is seriously messed up.
But then I saw this and I restored my faith in the tat you humans gift each other:
I’ll have ten please…for myself.
And this made me laugh:
It’s a physical chocolate replica of Bitcoin, but Bitcoin isn’t physical, it’s a virtual currency! Sadly however no one in the store seemed to get the joke. It’s as if people shopping in Poundland for Christmas presents don’t dwell on that level of humour.
God, you humans don’t have produce some weird looking babies? At least kittens are fluffy, but you guys decide to put the strangest looking ones on jigsaw puzzles! Why?
And what the hell is this?!
Have people literally turned to gifting c**p to each other? No wonder people have started donating money to the Slippers for Donkeys campaign or whatever far out animal charities exist nowadays.
When did the Grinch get sold into human-creature trafficking? Asking on behalf of a friend.
It’s a niche market, granted, but humanity really has lost its heart if it can’t cough up £1 to help.
Jesus Christ! What is this?!
Why would you even entertain the thought of inviting this into your house? It’s flipping scary!
It was around this time that I gave up with Christmas shopping. The final straw came when, after hours of searching, the one and only thing I thought I could gift my feline sister, a nice new outfit, well it turned out to be out of stock in her size. Typical!
I give up. I knew I should have picked something from the National Trust’s Christmas store when I had the chance.
All this shopping for Christmas presents just takes too much time!
Sod it, this year I’ll just wrap myself up and be my sister’s Christmas pressie, because lets be honest, family is the best damn thing you can have.
Great, so that’s Christmas settled. Now I can crack on with watching some high-quality festive films, ones which in my view were robbed of Oscar nominations…
…And deal with more pressing matters. How do I get this human to move out of my spot?
Meowy pawmas everyone!
(Special thanks to the members of my immediate family for making this post possible by constantly spamming my WhatsApp feed with cat photos.)
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I was watching The Great Hack the other day. In essence it’s a documentary looking at how third parties, specifically Cambridge Analytica used data on individuals to shape public opinion, even going as far as having an influence, if not complete control, political votes and elections across the world. See the full trailer here. It’s unnerving stuff, mind Facebook and social media aside, thanks to the growing popularity of my blog a Google search for my name (which used to pull nothing linked to me at all), now gets this:
(Contrary to some of the images in the top 14 I am still alive.)
For the most part these are images coming from this blog (public), Twitter (public) and LinkedIn (public). Further down my Instagram profile starts cropping up (public by choice, my account is a laugh a minute). Seeing a theme? I don’t have a problem with it, but it’s interesting that Facebook doesn’t seem to factor when it links to my very public Facebook page for this blog.
Watching The Great Hack I felt fairly confident that Facebook or other sites couldn’t possibly be harvesting my data or at least not harvesting it to any great use. During the run up to the Brexit referendum in 2016 I saw no specific content linked to the vote and right now I’m getting a number of adverts for razors, shaving foam (a bit harsh Facebook) and Laughing Cow cheese. I didn’t like Laughing Cow cheese when I was five years old, why would I like it as some kind of snacking cheese now?! Hand me the brie, real girl’s gotta eat.
So I went to bed that night thinking I was safe, only to have a weird dream…
**
Dream squiggles
It was a sunny day in Stratford (Upon Avon), I think it was a Saturday. I came across two European school kids with a Tesco trolley down Henley Street. And we were outside a Costa and WHSmith (which is nuts because Costa and WHSmiths are no where near Shakespeare’s birthplace which happened to be a couple of doors down from where we were). The kids wanted to find a Boots store so I told them to try the Costa instead(?) for whatever it is they wanted, I think it was souvenirs. And I told them they had to cover the shopping trolley in fake tan(?!) so the three of us were desperately trying to cover this Tesco trolley in fake tan, but oddly enough the tan kept spilling through the gaps.
Then my sister, India, said “Alice, we need to photo this trolley” in a really aggressive way, like I should have known this already. Suddenly we’re on a South Devon cliff edge, facing into Coleton Fishacre gardens (which is nuts because their box gardens are located no where near the cliff edge, duh Alice!) But we needed to photo the trolley and get one of the kids in shot as well (the other child I think went off to Starbucks in the meantime). And then the child said he was going to push the trolley, with the fake tan, off the cliff and he started dancing around the edge even though there was a skull and cross bones sign right there. I was yelling to India to hurry up and photo the trolley because the sharks were coming and I didn’t have the right insurance(?)
But India was too busy debating the colour of jelly fish with some National Trust members in the shop. And I kept yelling “the pirates will take the trolley!”
I woke up at that point and spent the next two minutes convinced that the whole thing had happened and that the National Trust were going to send the police to my house. Nothing screams a woman who is old before her time more than someone genuinely concerned over the wrath of the National Trust.
Interpret that dream analysts!
**
(And this is why data harvesting doesn’t spook me, because I just hand personal, unnecessary, insights to the world on a plate.)
Things Escalate Quickly When you Buy From the Chinese
With this in mind I was on Wish the other night. Wish is a shopping app, owned by an American firm, but a site which is filled with sellers based in China offering items for sale at supposedly lower prices than UK shops. The catch? Delivery takes forever and additional postage charges hike up the overall price.
On Wish you can buy clothing…
…building materials…
…Cat harmonicas…
…And this…
It really is the ‘anything and everything’ shop of the internet. Never do you go onto Wish looking for a specific item because nine times out of ten you won’t find it and the tenth time you’ll have also bought an aquarium tank for fish you don’t own.
I was having a scroll through when a particular image made me stop abruptly. I opened it up to get a better look at the product.
Now those who see me often enough will know I like my dresses, I wear them pretty much every day. If you’re wearing dresses in the United Kingdom then you’re going to be getting through a lot of tights. But never have I stood in a shop and found myself wondering “hmm, will these stand up to having a cat thrown at them?”
And then, because I’d opened up one listing which featured tights, Wish quickly directed me to another.
‘Tights’ isn’t even mentioned in a product which opens with ‘Pineapple socks’. Again, I’m not really sure if the Chinese know what people are looking for in hosiery.
Then Wish went a bit mental. Because by now the data harvesters of the web had clocked on that I was looking at a particular type of product but not buying. Never had I been bombarded with so many options for all the things I could do with (or in) a pair of tights.
This one:
…this one reminded me of a classic clip from the mockumentary Summer Heights High where Mr G delivers a performance to his class dressed in a bag (skip to 1:17).
And then the concept of hosiery tights translated into something a lot darker than I expected. I mean, with ‘pineapple socks’ at least the app understood part the requirements of tights, that they were everyday items. Mind, I don’t know what kind of algorithm I would think I’d class this as ‘everyday wear’…
My feed was suddenly full of things which, quite frankly, I didn’t want to be seeing whilst watching Antiques Roadshow on a Sunday night with my dinner.
And I’ll be honest, this was the tamest screen shot I could get. The terribly photoshopped cat says it all:
I showed my friends what my innocent click had brought about. “Sure” they said, “sure you accidentally got these kind of tights as recommendations…”
Needless to say the app has now been very much deleted and left me defaulting back to the safe and security of making purchases from places where the website/shop assistant won’t instantly suggest I visit Ann Summers. That said, given the products from Wish are coming from Asia it now means governments now have more than enough information to completely own my soul and do goodness knows what when I’m a mega famous superstar (why are you laughing?)
Me posting this I hope will prevent that, after all you can’t blackmail what’s already common knowledge, err, I mean what’s already fake knowledge.
Ruddy Chinese.
Bonus Content!
Want to read another crazy dream I had? See the screenshot below from the first draft of this post. I kept it because I found it rather amusing how the dictionary function on Chrome suggested the correct spelling of Zuckerburg was Beefburger.
Originally drafted in August 2019 for later publication.
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(Wait, you’re telling me this wasn’t top of your playlist?)
As we enter into the final furlough of Christmas shopping it felt only right I put fingers to keyboard and compose a seasonal post of what the UK consumer markets are trying to flog this year. And boy, has the High Street really invested a lot this year into our well-being.
Kicking off with that point, designers and retail buyers across the land have made a sterling effort to make us more aware of our health this season. It’s good to see decision makers moving away from chocolate and fast food related puns and products. That’s because this year there’s a new fad in town; alcoholism.
(You get the idea.)
Course, if gin isn’t your bag there are still a scattering of animal puns to be found in shops, however they haven’t charted so well so have found themselves relegated to the tea towel isles of TK Maxx.
And if tea towels or traditional animal puns aren’t your bag then there’s always toilet paper that features a rabid rabbit that looks like an extra from Watership Down.
(All I’m saying is that it’s a couple of Bright Eyes plays from…)
And that’s available all year round folks! (The loo roll, not Woundwart.)
Marketers struggling for new and original way to market often take a step back and return to the basic principles. Red is good, bells are better or if either aren’t possible from a branding perspective just stick a hat on it.
“Yep Jimmy, that’ll do the trick”
Even better though, you could always put a hat to something that’s already a symbol of Christmas. Because if you stuff up the colouring of a traditionally seasonal bird in the factory, chances are a comical hat (that said bird would never wear), well that will entirely baffle and charm consumers into a needless purchase.
I’ll take ten.
Now although a number of High Street stores have been making an active effort to advert public attention from certain political disruption (chiefly a UK event beginning with “Brex” and ending with “It”), unfortunately some shops just couldn’t overlook it. I found one bargain outlet stocking what I can only assume to be the retailer’s prediction of what a Post-Brexit banana will look like.
I think it’s supplier’s decision to put it in a “Jokes and Gags” box that really does it for me. Brexit will impact you too China!
Speaking of China, I don’t find this assumption that British people only wear one sock funny either.
What are we paying our taxes for if not to have Foreign Ministers dispel these ridiculous rumours?
You know what, come to think of it I think Europe and the wider world want done with us. I mean, even Denmark (Denmark!) are flooding our stores with what look like neck crackers.
This is a very different take the the traditional Nutcracker tale I remember as a kid
Ok, ok, enough political stuff. Lets get back to the high quality gift giving, such as these fish slippers.
You know you’re onto a winner when I don’t have to add any dry wit
Or an overpriced toothbrush?
Getting that unique taste twice a day? That’s the flavour of bulls**t
Course, many people struggle to buy presents who those who may have been somewhat challenging throughout the year. When it comes to particularly ‘difficult’ presentees then I’d always recommend purchasing something that seeks to improve relations between the two parties. Something to subtly tell the recipient to lighten up or shut up.
Just be prepared for backlash from the recipient and their crew.
Why do I feel like I’ve had a dream like this?
You know what, this year I think I’m going to revert back to the basics. It’ll be chocolate gift giving all the way with me. At least with festive chocolates everyone knows where they stand.
Is that Father Christmas or a slightly squidgy Christmas pudding?
I’m going to stay in, have a glass of wine and watch a festive classic on TV.
Have you ever woken up and thought ‘damn, yet another morning and I’m still not Alice E. Bennett? Heck I’m not even Alice Bennett and there are thousands of those, including this deceased bae…’
Well fear not because below are a few simple things you can adopt in your life to be less like you and more like me. And a world with more Alice would be a fudging sweet one.
Make this your new backing track:
Or this:
Listen to Classic FM on lunch breaks whilst reading solid literature. Bonus points for adding an amused/coy smile when you have no idea what you’re reading about.
Make the same sad cheese sandwich for lunch everyday. Own the saved pennies, disown the taste!
Play the game ‘new mole or just melted chocolate?’
Walk so fast you forget to look where you’re going, trip and smash your head into the pavement. Is that concussion or are you feeling sassier already?
Spill tea or coffee. Just because.
Dresses need to become a thing in your life.
Either look adorable…
…Or honest.
Drink wine knowing almost certainly what it will bring.
Read books in coffee shops – initially with the pretence of looking sophisticated but then because you enjoy the experience.
Explore/visit things by yourself and be perfectly happy in doing so.
Work hard, write harder.
Love your family.
Mock your family.
But most of all, never forget your humble beginnings as a pair of 90s curtains.
…Or a bin bag.
Do that and you’ll be right on track to being more like Alice E. Bennett. Just don’t come knocking round my door asking for tea bags, you can spill your own tea.
My Housemate's a Mermaid 