Impossible Life-hacks

There once was a time, not too long ago, where my abhorrent arrogance was fueled by the steadfast certainty that I would, one day be a worldwide phenomenon. No particular field of expertise was favoured though I think I thought gobbing off in front of a camera, or warbling down a microphone would be sufficient a platform to launch me into the dizzying stratosphere of fame and adoration.
 I think from a very young age, I had not dreamed but was quite questionless about my sparkling future. I 'knew' a wonderful world of notoriety and congratulation lay ahead and I never really questioned what I might have to do to receive it.
Of course nowadays my abhorrent arrogance is fueled from a deep seated resentment in the rest of humanity for not recognizing my rightful place at the top.
It never really occurred to me that the walking deities of modern celebrity, have usually (and I am aware of the staggering number of contradictions) actually done, got good at, got really good at SOMETHING.
They may be exceptional actors or musicians or scientists or politicians, or they may well just have a massive arse and a millionaire father.
From David Attenborough to the deep-sea creatures of TOWIE they all have the canny ability to make us glaze over and spout unending arse-licking reverence. We get them to write their names on our shit, we follow them on Twitter and we'd probably let them spit in our tea.
So what sets them aside? And I mean the real ones. The Obamas, the Attenboroughs, the Hawkings, the Monroes, the Baumgartners, the Kiefer Sutherlands?. Ok not the Kiefer Sutherlands.
It's the feeling that they can just do stuff better than us.
But that got me on a very unusual train of thought. Are they good at everything? We imagine they are. They must be terrible at some stuff, otherwise they would be too powerful and the whole world would be run by Benedict Cumberbatch. I wouldn't complain.
Of course they get hacks. There are little minions that go around hacking everything for them. Little make-up and fashion elves. Word hackers that make sure what falls out of their mouth doesn't sound dumb. If you have enough money or power you can probably get somebody to make sure you don't even have to de-fly to have a piss.
It's the little bought cheats that give these people silver plated auras and make us plebs bend over and let them shaft us for every penny we have.
I have found a fun way to combat this because I know there are some things in life that can't be perfected. No matter how much skill or talent or money or unicorn dust you have, the baby Jesus has left around a good few reminders about who's boss.
Here is a few of the things in life it is IMPOSSIBLE to do well:

Running a bath to the correct temperature:
You have just had the first experimental hand dip and abruptly lost half the skin off your fingers. Logic would reason that you need to run a little cold for a while but even if you only slipped it on for a couple of seconds you will get in and immediately feel like you'd be warmer if you pissed your pants.

Cooking a frozen pizza
From raw to a blackened, unbreakable disc in the time it took you to shut and open the oven door again.

Eyeliner
Doesn't matter if you are Max Factor himself, you are still going to look like Thom Yorke.

Catching public transport
At no point in anyone's life have they ever arrived at a bus stop without either running and then flicking the driver the v's as he speeds into the distance or stood tutting and checking their phone every 10 seconds and generally staring at everyone like a crazed lunatic thinking about how mercilessly to murder the person responsible for stealing 3 minutes of your life.

Taking a well timed break at work
There is a super underground organisation tasked with sending people out to bother you at the precise point at which you need a ciggarette/brew/sandwich/toilet time.

Not pressing snooze on your alarm

Bringing the right quantity of booze to a party
You're  either going to be using a tea strainer to separate the dock ends from the last half can of Special Brew or that awkward twat the next day trying to decide whether it's au fait to ask the host if they 'don't mind you just taking half the crate back with you coz, well I'd normally leave them but you know, times are hard'

Stalking someone on Facebook mobile without getting found out
"Aharharhar, look how fucking ugly they were three years ago...oh shit, unlike, unlike"

Asking to pet somebody's dog without looking like a psychopath

So if like me, you become spontaneously overwhelmed with embitterment at the state of your current social standing, just try thinking about Katie Hopkins, sat on the bog, trying to do a nice big poo and Philip Schofield banging relentlessly on the door, pleading with her to come out and shout at a fat person.

You're welcome

Ginge xxx

Politicks

So, it's been a while since I have tickled the alphabetic trout and although I'd like to say that's down to a calm and contented few months, it's really because I haven't really had five minutes to sit down and contemplate how simultaneously stressful and dull my life actually is, let alone forge it into a 500 word vignette of exquisite hilarity.
I have, however, garnered just about enough animosity around a broad subject, over the last year or so to erupt mildly into an incoherent set of analogies and so I will try and do that for you now.
So politics yeah? what a heap of old bollocky-wollocks yeah?
Yeah.
Well kind of...I think. Maybe, maybe not. Don't know.
It's all very confusing at the moment. I'm not sure whether politics is bad, or only some politics done by the politic people who we aren't supposed to like or whether all of them are lizard politic manphibians or we should just remember that politics doesn't exist and go down the pub or buy a new book on how not to vote for any of the politics and instead just have a big shag with each other.
I swear the whole issue used to be a lot simpler. We'd have a big look at all the ideas the different politic men said they liked doing and then we'd choose the ones we liked too and then write a big kiss next to the name of the politic party that was going to do them and put it in a box and then wait to see if everybody else liked the same ones. The worst that could really happen there was you could find out everybody else liked different ideas to you and you lost your faith in humankind and went off and lived in a hut by yourself.
But now another man has showed up and he's not a politic man and he has a thesaurus and he's saying not to put a kiss next to any of them and instead to find an "alternative to corporate hegemony" and because nobody has ever found out what that means and because he has a very Jesusy beard, he is probably the only person in the world who can tell us what to do.
Everybody else seems to be making his point, whatever that is, ten times more relevant.
David Cameron and his big posh boner party keep being meaner and meaner to everybody who hasn't got a massive house. Ed and the lads keep wearing massive big yellow and green trousers and filling them all with paint and falling off their tiny bicycles and crying every time someone asks them for a policy because they got custard pie on their copy of the Guardian and they have forgotten what people want them to say.
 Ukip decided not to go dressed as the Gestapo for Halloween and instead just went as a lightly blacked up Golliwog and so everyone thought they were a jolly good laugh but they actually have just put the Gestapo costumes in the cupboard ready for next year.
The Greens haven't said anything because nobody has let them have a go and there is no point in mentioning the Liberal Democrats because they have done the most amount of damage to the left of politics since the rise of communism.
I guess what I am trying to explain but making a big dog shit soup of, is the current disillusion with mainstream politics and the arrival of an apparent seismic division of popular policy caused by an array of social factors so dazzlingly complicated Russel Brand's thesaurus wouldn't have the words to describe it.
Those with right leanings are going more and more right and saying everyone who is poor or foreign is a bellend and those with left leanings are going more and more left and saying everything everybody is doing is wrong and stupid and, no of course I haven't thought of an alternative, I don't have to, I just have to say you're wrong and everybody just keeps shouting at each other and saying "YOUR IDEAS ARE RUBBISH EVERYTHING'S YOUR FAULT". And poor old Ed doesn't know which side to pander to so he's picking the worst ideas off everybody.
It's a bloody big mess and this is where The Messiah steps in and tell us what to do with his new book and everyone suddenly goes "WOW, SHAG-NASTY!" and then it becomes trendy to slag him off and then EVEN TRENDIER to post a link to somebody else saying people who slag him off are so last week and just don't 'get' him because they simply aren't cool or brainy enough and the cycle continues to the point where hipsters just explode because they found out about the new Cereal Cafe but they just don't know whether to read Revolution or a peice by Polly Toynbee over their fucking Fruit Loops.
I think really everybody just needs to calm down and have a little think, politic manphibeans and laymen alike and just sit down and go: "Right really, when you think about what's fair and reasonable and works out in the long run for most people for the best, what should we think about doing?" and stop trying to blame everybody else and maybe just try and apply a bit of their political ideology to everyday things and just see if it's a bit silly or over reactive.
Like say a driving test. Right wing driving tests would be almost impossible to pass and cost £4 billion pounds to take and foreign people wouldn't be allowed to take them and then left wing driving tests would be really lovely and everybody would pass them and be made to feel really special and get a lolly and then ram immediately into a wall upon exiting the test centre and then Russel Brand would just say "Fuck the tests!, we don't need tests, car crashes only happen because the government have secret technology to control the population"
It's an incomprehensible maze this politics debacle and it may feel overwhelming, or even rousing when there are cleverly worded and presented arguments flying around like brightly coloured turds, whizzing past your head and in your paper and on your Facebook and youtube and via the signals from your tin foil hats but please, just slow down, have a little think and a talk, without the aid of mind altering drugs or alcohol and preferably with people of opposing views and just try and come to some reasonable conclusion.
And for fuck sake, when you do, please don't turn it into a symbolic coloured poppy you can wear out in Shoreditch, with your fucking Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles t-shirt.

Much love
Ginge xx

Can I count on your vote?

The 22nd of May is fast looming and next year's General Election is scarily, next year. 

With the influx of general pamphlet based bollockery working it's way into our homes lately, some of us have been left dribbling with confusion at which bunch of bastards to vote for. Do we vote for the posh Bastards, to help mend the economy by taking a big shit on poor people? Do we vote for the other Bastards, who so far have managed to completely avoid creating a single policy? Or do we vote for the lying Bastards or the racist Bastards or the even more racist Bastards or the Hippies? A lot will say they'd rather not vote at all.

I decided that would be a waste of a hard earned choice so instead of listening to self-styled Messiah and full time flesh purse botherer Russel Brand, I shall set up a new political party and run for office, carrying hopefully some more sensible, agreeable, non-lobbied ideas to Parliament myself.

 The Party for the Raising of Individual's Common Knowledge and Sense, or PRICKS will be at the forefront of a campaign to enlighten Whitehall to the reality of actual life. So far they appear to have avoided it by having so much money and privilege they barely know how to get through a revolving door without asking who they were supposed to tip.

Here's a few of my proposed policies:

Education-

Absolutely get rid of posh schools. Nobody needs to speak Latin for fuck sake. Except the Pope, but he's only doing it to be flamboyant. The only thing these poor, rich little bastards actually learn is how to talk like they're auditioning for Blackadder. Stupid hairstyles are rife and up to 90% of privately educated students develop the life altering facial disfigurement known as 'fart-sniffers smirk'.

I suggest that everybody goes to school together like we're all human beings. I realise some of you may find that a bit far fetched.

Crime-

 Put everyone on a big island like in Escape from New York, then we can put cameras up everywhere and quench our insatiable thirst for torturing people on reality programmes. Or I mean we could try and kind of develop some kind of rehabilitation system, so that when people come out of prison they can get a job and all that and don't have to return to crime to survive? No? OK, maybe we can get Jason Statham to be the new Snake Pliskin then. FUCK THAT WOULD BE AWESOME.

Economy-

Give poor people more money. They can spend like a bastard. If you give rich people all the money they just put it all in a big box and stare at it till they go bloodshot and their teeth grow really big and they start marrying their relatives. Just think if you went round to all the toff's houses and took their money boxes while they were out shooting things and just gave it to everybody else, there would literally be 1 billion jobs created in a week, in the brewing industry alone.

Public services-

Our party is committed to not fucking over all the really good people who do the most important jobs ever.

We pledge to stop fucking selling things to all our mates. If we are successful we will bring in a new wages system whereby you get paid according to how important your role in society is. For example if you are Wayne Rooney, by 2015 you will be getting around about £6.60 an hour and if you are a nurse, you'll finally be able to go on a nice holiday in the Bahamas and buy a big car instead of scrimping together 30p to buy your 4 kids a tin of kidney beans to share for their lunches for the next two weeks.

 Teacher's will be afforded a new piece of legislation allowing them to throw old bananas and stale milk at Michael Gove in any public place.

Railways will be given back to people who know how to run them, we will pay for police and firemen and The Post Office will be returned to the people, with a special freepost delivery service available to citizens wishing to post their own 'leavings', sealed for freshness, to Osbourne manor.

Immigration-

...is good. If you think it isn't, you're a racist and all racists under our government will have to get on the Fourth Plinth as we read out their DNA results and explain to them, in public just how fucking stupid they are.

Those that refuse to acknowledge that we are all technically immigrants and that's what makes the world such a beautiful place will be made to stay with Nigel Farage in his massive house, drinking beer and being totally down to earth for the rest of their natural lives.

Welfare-

With a global recession on our hands I ask you to consider this analogy. If you were the headteacher of a failing school, in a county over it's public spending budget, would you A: rally round the PTA and the local community asking those that could give the most to do so or would you B: Revoke the poor children's free school meals until they had each spent a month cleaning the toilets with their mouths and go round the canteen, kicking all the kids in wheelchairs till their dinner money fell out.

Environment-

We would like to have one. Definitely more so than a Jeremy Clarkson. 

Europe-

Being out of Europe makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever. Except of course if you want to flout human rights to deport people we are claiming to be worse than us.

Remember kids, there IS an alternative. Vote PRICK this May for a more tolerable future.

xxxx

Two Days Left

Good evenin' folks!

 As many of you will know from my previous blogs, I have a giant slug living in my abdomen that needs releasing via surgery. Not one to put my own personal circumstances into perspective or indeed react to anything no matter how little it's level of severity without a total lack of rationality, I've been taking my upcoming operation with as little courage and dignity as is humanly possible.

 It's a mere two days until I'm laid down on a slab and butchered, by cowards so utterly pompous they won't even allow me to breath for myself and my arsehole is getting twitchy to say the least.

I'm not even going to apologise for being self-absorbed, I've spent the last two weeks developing hives, stress rashes, indigestion, ulcers, and of course an unrivaled ability fidget like a toddler on crack.

Google has been a source of unending anxiety, but of course, like a freshly plucked tooth, I've been unable to stop prodding it to see what happens.

If you were ever struggling with inspiration for a new horror script, I recommend visiting a health forum

"I went in to have my wisdom tooth out and woke up with no face"

"What was meant to be an appendectomy turned into six years in intensive care. When I woke up, I had no family"

"When I was 12 I had my tonsils out and Jimmy Savile came round to visit us on the ward"

You get the picture.

I haven't helped myself of course, I am an incessant worrier, I was diagnosed with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) ten years ago. Unfortunately, I've never worried about anything useful, like exam results or creating a viable economic future for myself . I just tend to worry about hypothetical shite. You might have a panic attack because your mortgage is due or there's a brake light out on your car. Me? I start getting breathless and doom fills my stomach because one day I might be sat at a cafe next to the Eiffel Tower and choke on a Jambon Beurre or I might not get sleep for four days because I've just realised the potential danger in walking over manholes .As a whole, I don't let it stop me from doing anything, there is still a small section of my brain left that functions enough to tell me I'm being a bellend and to just get on with it but with the looming prospect of facing my lifelong worst fear (being put to sleep) that horrible heavy feeling of dread you feel when you slip a step on the stairs is pretty much a constant sensation for me right now. Somebody with my completely ridiculous mindset can think of a whole circus of catastrophic outcomes in a situation like this, I'm sure even the more mind-normal of you will understand this. Sat around for two weeks, contemplating your own mortality can become ever so tiresome though, so I decided to try and do something a little more pro-active. At first I thought I might make a mini-bucket list. Sadly it became almost immediately apparent that my current government wages of 70 quid a week wasn't going to cover a trip to Norway or a night in Caesar's Palace. Fucking Tories, they just don't give a shit do they?

So what could I do as a means of insurance? Surely I can't spend my potential last days on this slowly spinning orb, sat in my bedroom watching old episodes of QI and wondering where it all went so wrong?

I could write a whole bunch of letters to people I care about, I could resolve past conflicts and make peace with my enemies? I could peruse all my happy memories, like an internal slide show and walk smiling to the OR safe in the knowledge that I'd live a fulfilling life surrounded by love and privilege? Well I thought of something better, more poignant and ultimately more important...a full and comprehensive guide to crisps.

It might never have been done before, I could finally, posthumously receive the respect I'm due as a global commentator on the snack industry.

All views are my own...which equates to fact.

Pringles: The king of crisps. Synthesized from a mixture of potato starch and the healing tears of Jesus, these little sanitary towel shaped mouth-climaxers simply tower above all their closest rivals.

Kettle Chips: The black pepper flavour ones taste like how you would feel if your body was made out of clitoris's.

Hula Hoops: Gorgeous potato anus's that bring me eternal joy. Avoid the beef ones if you don't want to smell like a dog farted in your mouth.

Discos: Were only really good when they had them little extra sachets of flavour. The salt and vinegar ones used to make you cry. That's what I expect from a snack.

NikNaks: The cheesy ones were the best. The scampi ones taste like thrush.

Cheese Footballs: Sneaky little bastards mainly left around on tables at Christmas's in the early 90's. If you come across one of these AVOID unless you want to know what your boyfriend's gym socks taste like.

Salt N Shake: The most fucking pointless product ever invented.

'Root Vegetable Crisps': They're not crisps, they are little tiny middle-class medals awarded to people who've lost touch with reality.

Walkers: Shite.

Quavers: For people who have never experienced hunger

Wotsits: Taste great. Make you look like you've fingered an Oompa Loompah.

Ringo's (Onion Rings): The sign of somebody not to be trusted. The only person I knew who ate these at school, sat on his own and is probably now involved in a pedophile ring.

Twiglets: Great gift for a masochist. Can be stored in case of nuclear holocaust...still though, would you?

Space Raiders: Perfect choice for those bare chronic smokers out there. Current retail price-EXTORTIONATE.

Next week; French Fries VS Chipsticks. Which was the least satisfying break time munch?

xxxx

The Great British Bitch Off

In recent weeks my Facebook and Twitter have been swamped with a whisked and beaten, flambeed frenzy of Gas Mark 9 debate. The return of the much loved Great British Bake Off has inspired an endemic of terrible puns and uncharacteristically British fervor. I personally haven't been a viewer, due to my current obsession with apathy and a general unwillingness to engage in normal human activity. However I've been witness to the odd snippet when Mum's had it on in the kitchen.

From what I can gather the programme itself is a rather jovial romp through the world of cupcakes and innuendo. The presenters, Mel and Sue make light of the good-hearted silliness of the whole affair whilst the adjudicators, Bread-Man and that guy from Animorphs who turned into a hawk, step up to their allocated characters and bestow their incontrovertible judgement upon the contestants with all the farcical piety one might expect from such a show. It's a glorious TV pantomime executed to deliver the viewer with an hour of 'something nice to watch' and the only people who take this competition with any level of seriousness are the kind of people who might turn up in Bizarre magazine after having married a cupboard. 

With this is mind, it might prove shocking to some, the level of enthusiasm and in some cases ferocity with which the general public have taken to social media to vent their personal opinions.

Clearly one person is appalled by the nations reaction. Finalist, Ruby Tandoh took almost immediately to her bureau to discuss how nasty everybody had been about her and how it was probably all to do with her having a vagina. It was published this morning by The Guardian and within hours, hordes of bra-burning feminists and independent coffee house bothering uber-liberals were heralding it as the most important piece of social comment since Das Kapital.

The article itself was very articulate and clearly Miss Tandoh has as good a method of mixing words as she does eggs and butter. 

There are two major issues with it though:

Firstly, she assumes that the vitriol she personally and other contestants received is somehow exclusively a feminist matter. 

If there is one thing I deeply despise it is the misuse of gender inequality in a current affairs debate. I have no doubt in my mind that if Ruby Tandoh was a 6 ft 4 pectorally sculpted, fireman he would have received just as much online 'trolling' for taking a baking contest so insufferably seriously and generally being as irritating as his female counterpart.

I mean no ill to this woman whatsoever and I doubt anybody else does either, I am sure she is probably a genuinely lovely human being but to me she is a face from the TV. A celebrity, a kind of ethereal entity that's purpose is solely to entertain me, void of a soul and probably not really real at all. This brings me to my second and most important problem; Is it OK for celebrities to complain about people talking about them? Is it OK for somebody who willingly offers themselves up as entertainment to the masses to go on and dispute their own reception?

Well no, it clearly isn't. Could you imagine Sir Lawrence Olivier clawing back the curtain after a performance of Hamlet to demand that the audience clap harder? 

 Within hours of the final , Tandoh climbed onto her public podium, denounced us all as mean nasty sods and all but ordered us to never air our opinions of other people in public ever again. Ignorant to the fact that she was granted this public podium by us, the viewer and the reason that programmes such as this are so very popular is because of their ability to arouse opinion. Our price for this precious place among the elite is her soul. It may be an unusually cruel system but that's how celebrity works. She was never led into the stocks, she stepped voluntarily into the shit storm and then complained when she got some in her eye. The devil came a knocking and she signed the release form.

There are two ways to avoid the pain of being called a miserable bitch on Twitter.

 1. Don't go on TV and act like a miserable bitch

and

 2. Don't type your name into Twitter.

Clearly she ignored both and it reminded me of the scene out of The Young Ones where Ric interrupts the dinner table to ask everyone who likes him to put their hand up and when nobody does he threatens to kill himself with laxatives.

 On the one hand I feel for these types of reality stars. They may be inexperienced in the ways of the demon TV producer and how the goblins in the editing suite will do everything to pick out the contestants weak points and reduce them to a ridiculous caricature but it is unbelievably naive to appear on a prime-time slot and expect the world to critique you on your baking skills alone. Human nature is at it's very core a nasty, repugnant witch. Lets face it, the vast majority of people probably only remember Einstein because he had funny hair and stuck his tongue out. British people in particular don't like those doing better than us and so we naturally ridicule anyone and everyone we see being even slightly more successful. It must be an ancestral instinct. One day they'll probably find the perfectly preserved bones of a Homo-Habilis, sticking the V's up behind the back of a Homo-Erectus, presumably mouthing "Upright BASTARD!".

I'll never condone threatening or violent abuse aimed directly at a celebrity and that sort of thing is a criminal matter but what we must remember is that when people voluntarily give themselves up for scrutiny in the public domain, it is not only egocentric and sanctimonious to expect to receive no scrutiny at all but it diminishes the very point of fame itself. The mystical status that differs you from the common man. I like most others I suspect, would love to see this modern concept of the instant celebrity demolished. It has become not a status attained at the merit of the individual and more about being famous just for being famous. The more possible celebrity becomes, the more immediate it's effect takes hold and the less you seemingly have to do to get it, the less the general public will respect those that have it and the less they will hold it in regard. 

So as sad as it is that this is what we do with our evenings. Sat there eating crisps and spitting unfounded bile at people we've never met, it's human nature to discredit others, in particular those on an elevated platform. Qualified or not, we as a species have been passing judgement since the dawn of time. Lowly serfs, probably spent their evenings chewing parsnips staring wistfully at the palace and calling the current monarch a 'malodorous witche' or a 'Bile tract' or whatever.

The message has always been there, it's just with the rise of social media the alarm bells are louder; If you hanker so badly for the attention of the world, please be prepared for the fact that the majority of it won't be very nice.

Ever seen Aliens? Yeah it's probably a bit like that.

So yesterday's offering was a bit of a wry, tongue in cheek funscapade, prodding at my own personal swath of misery. As a creature of habit, today's post follows suit but with perhaps more of a BLOODYFUCKINGYOUWHATNOW? to it.

Now I have never been one to shy away from a taboo and indeed I think it positively unhealthy to do so. With that in mind and a possible sense of shit got real loneliness, I have decided to be forthcoming with my own current health, catastrofuck. (catastrofuck is a bit strong but I do like the way it rolls of the tongue).

Now as most people will know I am a qualified GP. Not in the normal, been to med school, done all the hard work, actually know what I'm talking about way. That's dull. No I have in fact graduated, with honours, from the University of Google . I'm basically the modern day version of the old village witch, sitting in my hovel doling out medical advice and pseudo-diagnosis to all in sundry, particularly myself.

Being an incessant hypochondriac has it's down points. Constantly believing you have an ailing organ or another and living in the fear, no knowledge, that you are going to keel over from a massive heart attack any day soon, has a pretty detrimental effect on your every day life. I have to actively avoid that little smiling twat Dr. on GMTV for example, in case I suddenly start convincing myself I have testicular cancer. There is, however a less obvious advantage of this utterly ridiclous and time wasting affliction. The ability to be totally aware of your own body and notice things going wrong quicker than the average shmuck.

Perhaps this is why I am so completely, gob floppingly shocked that the only real thing that has ever been wrong with me has utterly evaded my roving eye for possibly years and were it not for my poor suffering boyfriend, begging me to shut up and go and see a doctor, I would have continued to rule out as 'nothing to worry about'.

Basically, it turns out I have a giant alien entity billowing around in my abdomen, waiting to burst out of me like Jean Claude Van Damme punching his way through an elephant seal and I didn't even realise.

Now I'm used to grey, indistinguishable images, having been the owner of a Nokia 5320 for the past three years but an ultrasound is a whole new level of 'fucks that? As I laid there, contented with warm jelly and a smiling sonographer wiggling all over my belly (just the picture stick in her hand, not the sonographer) I was blissfully unaware of the horror about to be unveiled to me. The large black blob, that was first mistaken for my bladder was later explained to me as a 13cm ovarian cyst.

 I have called her Bertha. I find it helps to be anthropomorphic and besides, Bertha has a better ring to it than Potentially Life Threatening Glob of Internal Fluid.

Now ovarian cysts are very common in women of my age group, they can form naturally as part of ovulation, are usually harmless and disapear of their own volition but Bertha is one big ass mother fucker. The Dwayne Johnson of the of the vesicle world, you might say. And just like Dwayne Johnson (Sorry Jack), she is completely benign but ultimately a nuisance of the highest order and must be eviscerated . This means surgery and that means general anesthetic. Just as I was enjoying being made unemployed and confined to my hinterland prison cell, I'm now faced with my biggest life long fear. Cheers God, you massive invisible wanker.

I think most people who aren't dribbling, feckless, horror-movie inbreds are afraid of going under the knife and for many, the very thing that scares us most is the thought of being put to sleep like a foul breathed old farm dog. I am probably lucky in never having to deal with this before but in escaping it's dark velveteen grip for so long, general anesthetic is held in my mind as a dangerous and mysterious threat. I don't like the idea of being unaware of what some guy is doing in my abdomen. Poking around, losing bits and what not and I especially don't like the vision I have in my head of being put to sleep, resembling the dreams I have had in which I'm dying (not the best I've ever had, regardless of what Tears For Fears think). A warm hand of darkness stubbing me out, perhaps never to see the glow of life again. Forever floating, numb in a black sea.

Jesus, see, I go well fucking Tim Burton just thinking about it.

I am struggling to see a future in which I am walking voluntarily into the hospital and lying down voluntarily on the bed whilst some blue hatted psychopath, sticks a tube into my hand and creepily lulls me into the ether, promising definitely not to stick a finger up my bum or play Buckaroo on me whilst I'm out. I mean who the fuck would actually voluntarily do any of that? So I'm being forced to do this, through my own fear of mortality, because I've been advised not having this great big fucking lump of fuck taken out of me could eventually lead to sepsis, cancer or death. Led from the slaughterhouse to a smaller room where they just take bits off you instead.

I mean it's nuts right? Why haven't they invented something better? Like a tiny spaceship, like in that film where they go in the body and it's like a big sing song and the patient is like watching them travelling down his brachial artery doing old show tunes, on a monitor on the side of his bed, whilst exotic, be-sequined women feed him wine and pate.

 Paralysing people and strapping them to a cold blue table, whilst people in futuristic religious attire blow gas under their skin and prod big metal claws into every orifice they can? Bloody perverts. So much barbarism, where's the Hollywood sparkle?

I am totally appreciative to those of you sat here right now thinking 'shut up you fucking drama queen, a laparascopy? Keyhole surgery? pah, I had a triple heart bypass and six ribs removed without anesthetic' or whatever. For some people, this is just me whining like a little shitty five year old. You're probably right.

But I wanted to talk about it on here because I am shitting myself and it could mean all manner of complications, like me being infertile or having to piss in a bag for the rest of my life and those sorts of things shouldn't go unmentioned. Especially, seeing as I am super sensitive to my body and didn't pick up on it. So on a positive note, it's not cancerous and it is relatively simple surgery but bitches please, check your bits. If you notice any unusual pains, a hard swelling etc. go and make your doctor check you out. Most will go away and you'll be free to populate the land with your ungrateful screaming bastards as much as you see fit, but just on the off chance, better safe than sorry.

I'm probably going to document my journey into the NHS as best I can. From hilarious gynecological mishaps: 

"While you're down there doc!" *canned laughter*

to side-splitting anxiety anecdotes:

"Get the fuck off me, I'm not going anywhere near that fucking operating table, you blood lusting maniac" *Jerry Springer style OOOOOHHHH*

I'm going to aim to share with you my horrible and dignity stripping experiences from step 1 to my imminent death, sorry recovery.

On a plus note I now have a VERY valid reason for being fat.

*cries into Snickers*

The Woes of the Employed VS the Unemployed

Unemployment has been a much chattered subject of late, with politicians scrambling all over each other to think of new and more horrifying ways of punishing the disadvantaged. With the prospect of totally failing to find a job and the Tories new and effective method of getting me one (taking away my benefits) being tantamount to removing a patient's medicine to encourage them to get better, you'll forgive me for feeling a little hopeless.
 As I sit here in the dark grasp of unemployment, like most, I am of course struck by the terrible feelings of woe it yields. I've not been unemployed too long and being a creature of misanthropy, I have not forgotten the woes of the slightly better off, or indeed way back when I was a student, the woes of the blissfully unaware.
So who is the least joyful? Who's having the shittest time? Because it seems to me, when I speak to everyone else, we all think we are.
 I guess unhappiness is completely subjective and can only really be put in to perspective once you realise how shit things can actually be.
I have decided to compile a list of the complaints of both the better and the worser off, for your amusement and possibly enlightenment. Hopefully some of you may read this an become instantaneously struck with a sense of your own sickening, cosseted petulance.


Employed: "I'm so sick of the office calling me on the weekend, I mean come on, give a guy a break here!"

Unemployed: "MY PHONE'S RINGING, MY PHONE'S RINGING!!! YEAHHHH MAYBE IT'S AN INTERVIEW...nope, it's just Debt Express AGAIN."

Employed: "I hate Sundays, that feeling of knowing you've got to get up in the morning..."

Unemployed: "I hate Sundays, that feeling of knowing you have nothing to get up for EVER"

Employed: "I hope my boss doesn't find out the reason I didn't get that report out on time is because I've been trying to beat my best score on Solitaire for the past half an hour"

Unemployed: "I hope the wider world doesn't find out the reason I haven't washed in two days is because I have been awake for 48 hours trying to beat my best score on Spider Solitaire"

Employed: "How am I going to afford an outfit for this wedding when I don't get paid for another two weeks and I accidentally spent last month's wage on getting pissed and having a great time, generally"

Unemployed: "How am I going to afford washing powder for this wedding, to try and take the gravy stain out of the one dress left that fits me because food is the only comfort I have left in my life"

Employed: "Oh my god, oh my god, I shouldn't have taken out a Wonga, how the hell am I going to afford that mini-break in Paris next month now????"

Unemployed: "Oh my god, oh my god, I shouldn't have taken out a Wonga, to pay off that Quick Quid I got out to pay off that Payday Express I needed when I couldn't afford the bus to an interview, how the hell am I going to afford to eat?"

Employed: "I wish people would stop getting mad at me for not making it round at the weekends, I am a busy girl, I can't please EVERYBODY"

Unemployed: "I swear I used to have friends"

Employed: "It's totally unreasonable them asking me to work the day before, the day before Christmas Eve, I mean Christ  it's supposed to be the holiday season, how am I supposed to enjoy it knowing I'm basically the only person in the world still working that late"

Unemployed: "I wonder if Poundland pay you extra to work Christmas Day"

Employed: "I don't pay my taxes so that you can sit around on your arse, leading the life of luxury"

Unemployed: "I can't believe a moron like you has a job and I don't"

Employed: "I think it's totally unreasonable that the council only collect the recycling bins every two weeks, it's starting to look like there's been a party in Threshers in my garden"

Unemployed: "I wonder if I Sellotape the top of this half-drunk can of Skoll, it'll be fresh enough to take the edge off tomorrow?

Employed: "Classic night before payday tea: Beans on toast. #lol #retro #hurryupmoney"

Unemployed: "Classic night before dole day tea: Glass of water and a docker re-rolled from the ashtray"

Employed: "I wish I could afford to buy ALL my shopping from Waitrose, but I just nip there for my 'bits'"

Unemployed: "I wish I could afford my shopping"

Employed: "Yeah, so I'm thinking of going back to uni to retrain. Anything is possible if you really want it"

Unemployed: "I was thinking of going back to college to retrain but the Job Centre said they'd take my benefits off me"

Employed: "Excuse the mess, I'm no domestic goddess, I always say: a clean house is the sign of a wasted life"

Unemployed: "A clean house is a sign of someone with too much self-esteem"

Employed: "Was that the door? Yippeeeee, my ASOS has arrived!"

Unemployed: "Was that the door? Shit, hide. I hope I locked all the windows. Bailiffs can't break an entry right?"

Employed: "I am so unhappy with my phone contract right now, I'm going to kick off with Orange, I mean how am I supposed to play Farmville all day with only 1000mb?"

Unemployed: "I haven't had a text message in 3 weeks. I guess people got fed up of me not replying"

Employed: "Yah, so I'm going on this no meat diet because like the rain forest or some shit is dying and like we all have a responsibility and I mean that's what it said in the Guardian and anyway I need to lose a few pounds before we go off to the Maldives. #bikinibody #savingtheworld"

Unemployed: "There is only so much plain rice you can eat before you seriously start considering butchering your own pets"

Employed: "I really need to get myself a winter wardrobe, I mean I have like two coats for the whole season, and don't even talk to me about jumpers, I shrank my best one in the wash last year, it was from Topshop, what an idiot"

Unemployed: "Those clothes bins in the car park. How hard do you reckon it would be to reach into that weird scoop thing and pull out a pair of shoes?"

Employed: "I have been up all night worrying about bills"

Unemployed: "I have been up for 3 days worrying about there not being a meaning to life"

Employed: "What I really need right now is some 'me time' "

Unemployed: "Does anybody have the number for The Samaritans?"

Employed: "It's total bollocks that there's no jobs, my Dad found me one in like A DAY"

Unemployed: "I think my email is broken, maybe I'm a ghost. I mean even a rejection letter right now would help, just so I know I'm not actually dead and this is some sort of cruel Limbo, where I'm forced to spend every waking minute knowing my existence is seemingly of no use to anybody anywhere. Only really leaving the house every two weeks to go to the Job Centre, to lose any scrap of encouragement I have left from the many other spectres, loping around in abject misery"

Happy Teatime guys xxxxxxxxxxxxx