An English Girl On: Cake Triumph

Cake matters to me. Cake matters to me like oxygen matters to you.

I am a cake snob. I like my cake. Made by my own fair hands, with no modern technology but an oven (and if I’m near Daddy’s range then so much the beter).

But there is one thing I cannot create, and THAT my dear, is a cake with a pony on it. My sugar craft skills do not stretch to a pony.

I never knew that ‘a-cake-with-a-pony-on-it’ was the most important material posession my life was lacking. Until I saw one.

Oxford has a pretty impressive cake shop in the Covered Market. Their crazily skilled ‘icers’ (I don’t know the name for a professional cake icer) sit in the window and create pieces of magnificence.

Like this:

I’m sorry I can’t show you the whole cake, but it was completed by a lovely cute message from the man in my life, and the internet doesn’t need to see it. Gotta have boundaries and all that lark.

I have a cake with a pony on it. My life is complete

F Scott Fitzgerald rocks my world

A vote for UKIP is not a protest vote

The United Kingdom Independence Party are a divisive bunch, to say the least. Before I start, I will hold my hands up and admit I have often referred to them as “the acceptable face of racism” (usually when comparing them to the British National Party). It seems the PM agrees with me (Hi Dave) – having referred to UKIP as ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’ on LBC 97.3 back in 2006. However, they averaged around 25% in the wards where they were standing in Thursday night’s local elections. A significant number, whatever your opinions. 

For those of us who aren’t religious Question Time watchers, the UK Independence Party are right wing and led by Nigel Farage. They are forcefully anti-Europe; wish to slash immigration numbers; reduce taxes and increase public spending. (If it sounds too good to be true…).

They have also been in a fair amount of trouble with the press (I’m looking at you, Daily Mail) for having candidates in local elections who harbour secret racist tendencies. Most of these accusations have stemmed from things people have ‘liked’ on Facebook – and while that doesn’t make it okay, it’s not quite on the same scale as an active KKK affiliation.

Read the rest of this article on Six Out of Ten Magazine: here

Rehabilitation in a Vacuum: Why Chris Grayling is Getting It Wrong

 

The interview Chris Grayling (the new and, in my opinion, terrible Justice Secretary) gave with the BBC this morning said Sky Sports subscriptions and 18 certificate DVDs are the biggest problems facing British jails. Well, Mr Justice Secretary, congratulations. You’ve managed to find the perfect way to inflame public sensibilities so the average DM reader will feel outraged and not focus on the real issues.

You see, it’s hard to focus on real issues given no one mentioned them. To avoid boring you all to tears I’m going to highlight the major flaw in Grayling’s proposal: privileges in prison must be earned. Which is all well and good. But the thing is, prisons are expensive. And because we insist on increasing prison populations year on year, we can’t actually afford to run educational courses. They’re sporadic, often cancelled and enormously over-subscribed.

Read the rest of this piece (and other rants) on Six Out Of Ten, here.

An English Girl On: The Kelloggs Dilemma

Oh look, chocolate that makes you loose weight. Yeah. Right.

I have a problem with Kelloggs. Partly because they feed into the nasty social belief that thinness equates to beauty. Mainly because they tell people that Special K is healthy and a sensible way to loose weight.

Lets get one think clear. The SECOND ingredient in Special K is SUGAR. I’m not telling you not to eat it. I’m just reminding you that  its processed shite. As I type, I’m eating processed shite. I’m poorly, I wanted chilli to unblock my nose and I wanted to indulge in some serious stodge. I am under absolutely no illusions that I’m eating something good for me.

My problem with Kelloggs/Special K is that their utterly absurd and ridiculous ‘Two Week’ diet is based on starvation. You cut two meals down to less than two hundred calories. And it isn’t two hundred good calories, it’s two hundred calories of over processed, artificially sweetened rubbish. It will crash your metabolism and you’ll gain the weight back quicker than you’ve lost it. Which is fine – if you want to do that. What is not so fine, is the advertising campaigns that fool you into thinking you’re doing something that’s going to benefit your body and overall health.

I’m a big believe that all calories were not created equal, and nutritious food is better than processed food. Not everyone agrees with me. I know hundreds of people who love Kelloggs cereals and follow their diet plans. I maintain they are corrupt, money grabbers who will say anything to play on people’s insecurities. And to top it off their products are sudo-food, marketed as health food. And it makes me mad.

An English Girl On: Society Getting It Wrong

Today, whilst working on my Thesis ” The Implications of Previous Sexual History Evidence in Rape Trials” I came across this quote, which sums up nearly everything that is wrong with our legal system:

I feel very strongly that it’s a great waste of public money to prosecute the ex-husband rape or the ex-boyfriend rape unless there is extreme violence involved or it’s part of a sort of campaign of harassment…. People have still been sort of seeing each other after having a relationship, where he wants it and she doesn’t and it happens. Well she says it was a rape and probably, yes, it really was. But frankly does it matter?

To the unidentified FEMALE barrister who said this; YES. YES IT MATTERS. It matters because the vast, vast majority of rapes occur within relationships. It matters because violation hurts, who ever the perpetrator.  And it matters because my bodily integrity shall not be relegated beneath the need to conserve public funds.

An English Girl On: The Fear Of Sponsorship

Um. Or Not…

Somehow I have gone from never having run a real race, to be running two sponsored races in the next few months. This terrifies me. Not only must I now keep on the training straight and narrow, but I have taken hundreds of pounds from my loved ones to give to charities that I think are worthwhile. Which is quite a scary thought. A very scary thought actually. I may be entirely irresponsible with my own money, but I like to think I have a pinch of sense when it comes to everyone else’s…

And running isn’t really going so well. Last week I was struggling so much to get through my training sessions, everything hurt and I was feeling very sorry for myself. Since then I’ve sat an exam, got very, very drunk twice, been elbowed in the face and had my ankle stood on. My desires currently consist of: 1) sleep forever and 2) eat bodyweight in dark chocolate.

If anyone has a kick up the bum lying around, please send it my way!

An English Girl On: The Boston Marathon Bombings

As a current half-marathon-er in training, and prospective future marathon-er, I was avidly staring at twitter on Monday and being overwhelmed at the split times for the elite runners. All very impressive, very inspiring, I wondered if these were people or ultra speedy aliens. I digress.

And then someone blew up the finish line. They killed an eight year old boy, and took off his sister’s leg.

Six out of Ten published my thoughts on the Boston Marathon Bombings. You can read the rest here, should you be a kind sole, and so inclined. 

An English Girl On: If You Want To Touch Her, Ask!

If you don’t know who Shania Twain is, stop reading. And please never tell me how old you are.

Shania is a revision music staple for me. But I was probably five or six when I first heard this song, and it still makes me think.

There is an unrelating pressure to take relationships very fast these days. I know, I’ve done it. Sex on the first date? Been there, more than once. There’s always been a second date, so it has never completely screwed up my self esteem. But it does make me question my judgement when I wake up a couple of months later and realize what a complete and total chump you were. (Current relationship excepted. Don’t worry sausage, I still love you).

Most of my male friends have always laughed at the thought of asking a girl they were hooking up with if they wanted to have sex. Apparently it’s ‘obvious’ if someone is into them, and it would ‘ruin the moment’ to be so outrageously blunt. Without wanting to go on the mega rant that is currently inside me, I would like to declare that I want to have sex only with people who make me feel safe. This is partly due to some fairly horrific and graphically nasty past experiences. But I think I can make the generic statement that I’m far more likely to drop my pants if you don’t rush me, don’t pressure me, and don’t think that if I back off and think for five minutes that you’re going to miss out.

You don’t have to respect me, but please respect that I respect myself.

An English Girl On: Why I’m Here

 

I love to write. I like putting words on the page. It doesn’t come particularly hard to me, but I will no longer ever again call myself a ‘blogger’.

I am not a blogger. I am a writer. Apparently (or at least according to a few people on the twitter #lbloggers chat) being a ‘lifestyle blogger’ does not involve representing your life and thoughts in which ever way you choose.

Lifestyle blogging has too many rules. Apparently I HAVE to have a picture of myself at least every three blog posts. I HAVE to have a lengthy FAQ page telling you everything from my weight to my bra size. I HAVE to post regularly and I HAVE to use my own images and not stock images.

For the best part of the last year I tried to stick to these rules. And it made me miserable. Because I am not a materialistic and uninformed sheep who has to conform to what a bunch of  moronic teenagers inform me makes a ‘good’ blog. Harsh? Good. I’m pissed off with this so called community that does nothing other than bitch, complain and slag off other people’s attempts. Most of them can’t spell either.

So please don’t call me a blogger, because I don’t want to be associated with these games any more.

If the words are too much for you, that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to spend your evening looking at pictures of a size 8 girl asking you if her new jeans make her look fat. Actually, I’m lying. There is so much wrong with this that I can’t even begin to tell you how many issues you have.

To the bloggers I love: I will love you always and forever. To the hateful, preaching, sanctimonious, time-wasting minority that took all the fun out of it: please never darken my doorstep again.