Episode 112. In which I talk about X-Factor.

I freely admit I watch the X-Factor.  Start to finish, audition to golden confetti exploding out of the sky.  It’s either a really lame congratulatory shower for the winner of God thanking himself for having created Dermot O’Leary.

*sigh*

Anyway.

This year’s gone a bit wrong.  John and Edward.  I do not understand why they continue to appear on my TV.  Louis Walsh seems to adore them, wittering on constantly about “The Likeability Factor,” which to my mind proves the sparkly little leprechaun needs to lay off the rainbows.  John and Edward have the likeability factor, he says.  Danyl doesn’t, he says.  What Louis has forgotten is that this concept of The Likeability Factor is supposed to refer to how the general public might react, not Louis himself.  He’s fooled himself into believing that this is the same thing as what he likes.

Just for the record, Louis Walsh does not speak for me, he does not understand me, in fact his brain must be wired in a mirror image to mine.

John and Edward are lovely boys, they say, they’re sweet and warm and cheerful in the house shared by contestants.

I don’t really care.  They can’t sing.  They can’t dance.  I’ll stop short of saying they look awful for fear that a KitKat advert will kick in and they’ll go a long way.  But they’re not pop stars, and they never will be.

When they perform it feels like watching a really bad school talent show, the kind where everyone deserves a turn.  One of them’s always getting right in amongst it while the other flails around looking for a cue to where he’s meant to be, doing what move and singing what song.  I don’t even know which one’s which.  Or whether it’s always the same one flailing or whether they take turns.

I won’t deny they look like they’re having fun, it’s clearly a dream come true for them.  But not in an undiscovered genius way.  More in a Jim’ll Fix It way.

And what gets me the most about the whole thing, while fully grown men and women egg them on and vote for them to remain in the competition because they think it’s funny, is that people who are genuinely talented are being sent home into obscurity while John and Edward dance around like they ate all the blue Smarties.  I actually find it quite offensive.

The other week Miss Frank and Danyl were in the bottom two, and had to sing for survival.  Both of them had performed brilliantly throughout the competition and especially so on the night, and neither deserved to leave.

I like the X-Factor because I get to see talented people singing and dancing, people who can entertain.  But now it’s a popularity contest with no regard paid to what got the contestants onto the stage, it’s a farce, and a waste of everyone’s time.

That said, I could not bear Rachel and was glad to see her go.

Again, she was, apparently, a total sweetheart, kind and all-round lovely.

I wouldn’t know, I never met the girl, all I know is every week she got up on that stage and pissed me off.

She would squint her eyes in a way that I think was meant to look relaxed and sleepy, but it just looked like she was squinting.

She would sing a bit then look at the camera, wrinkly her nose and smile, like a diva in concert sharing a moment with the audience because they all know what’s coming next, and it’s her trademarked key change, or dance move, or 8-octave arpeggio in five seconds down.  But listen, Rachel, I don’t know you, you don’t know me, we’re not sharing a moment, and although I’ve no idea what’s coming next, judging by past performance it’s going to be more of the same.

I’m aware that all the guest judges loved her, and that’s great.  But maybe she wasn’t performing for them, but just singing for them.  Maybe her singing voice is spectacular.  I couldn’t get that far, I just wanted her to stop trying to nudge and wink me, she was like an intrusive old lady at the bus stop.  The kind that makes you start working out how long it would take just to walk home instead.

One week, Rachel wasn’t in the bottom two.  She got all excited and started talking like Stacey.

I love Stacey, I really do, I think she’s too ditzy to have a bad bone in her body, I think she sings beautifully and looks amazing.

But Rachel doing  a Stacey impression, it gave me the rage.  Maybe that was a genuinely excited version of Rachel.  But we’ve seen her through every stage of the competition, from audition to eviction, and I never saw her do that before.

Here’s what it all comes down to.  So is just so very, very contrived.

All her little trademark moves are moves she picked up off someone else,and quite frankly that’s both annoying and violation of copyright. Metaphorically speaking.

I wouldn’t care if she had no trademark moves.  I have no trademark , I’m dull as dishwater.  But everyone has one thing they cannot abide, something that just gives them the rage, right away, no build-up, no progression from mild irritation through consternation to frustrated ire.  What I cannot bear is people whose every move is contrived.

I don’t doubt Rachel is a sweetheart, I’m sure she did the dishes every day and ironed John and Edward’s hair for them and read Joe and Lloyd a bedtime story every single night.

But Little Voice has been done.

Next.

Diabetic moment of the day

Today’s diabetic moment is more of a temptation.  I wanted a doughnut So Badly this morning.  I didn’t eat one, of course.  But I wanted to.  Really, really wanted to.

Episode 101. In which I fail to find a handbag.

I want a new handbag.  I have a lot of bags but I want one that’s more grown-up, that’s big enough to hold all my stuff (purse, book, insulin kit etc) but not big enough to be considered comically oversized.  I saw one in Monsoon that was quite nice but I didn’t buy it, it wasn’t in the sale.  And now I need to find something similar but affordable.

Today I looked in a few places but didn’t see anything that came close.  I saw a bag I really liked but then realised it fell under the comically oversized category.  I have a business lunch later this week so I might have a look around the shops near work on Monday.

I did have a really pleasant walk around today with My Man, the sun was shining and although it was a bit nippy it was lovely to be out.  I stayed in bed for a long time this morning, just for the sake of being lazy, I watched loads of Supernatural on my laptop.

Diabetic moment of the day

Not that I can think of.  I really want a bowl of ice cream though.

Episode 100. In which I make a good day happen.

First things first, I bloody did publish this yesterday, I sat and waited for ages while the little blue circle spun and then it told me that the post was published, and now it’s taking it back.  So screw you, WordPress, you’re really starting to piss me off.

And now for what I wrote yesterday.

I decided that today would be a good day.  I decided this a couple of days ago, but I really was pretty confident that I could make it happen.  And it turns out I was right.

We got up quite early and I went out for a pint of milk.  Then I spent a couple of hours pampering and preening, cleansing, toning and moisturising, and then I went out to the shops.  I just wanted to cheer myself up a bit, try on some pretty dresses, so I headed straight for Monsoon.  However, Monsoon happened to have a 50% off sale on at the moment, so I ended up buying a pretty dress.

This was quite an unnecessary treat for me so to make the day less selfish I went and got a load of cleaning products for the flat – we didn’t have a mop, and when we were cleaning the old flat before we handed back the keys I fell in love with the squeegee (?) so I went and got us one of those as well.

When I got home I just relaxed really.  Watched a load of telly.  Had a nice nap.  Watched some Supernatural and did a bit of paperwork, and then ate the gorgeous dinner My Man made for me and now we’re watching Bill Bailey.  V+ from last night.

And now I’m going to bed.  Nighty night.

Diabetic moment of the day

Not today, Josephine.  I’m all good.

Episode 97. In which the Pantene advert is rubbish.

I know it’s supposed to be Mylene Klass looking all sexy and sultry and brunette and everything, but every time I see it I just think, stop twatting around and play the piano, and also, she looks like her hair could do with a wash.

Jolly poor show, Pantene.

Diabetic moment of the day

I heard from the nurse.  I just need to bump up my Lantus.  I’ll be fine.  Although I am grumpy today.  Well, I can’t be docile all the time.  God I want some crisps.

Episode 95. In which the thing that makes dragons better than snakes is the opposable thumbs.

We watched a movie tonight.  A DVD that My Man bought today, presumably during his lunchbreak.  Apparently in a petrol station, going by the quality of the movie.

That’s not fair.  I mean, it’s totally a B-movie, of the type I haven’t seen since Lake Placid, but it was still brilliant.

When I say brilliant, I have to admit I don’t have a clue what happened.  To start with I had the excuse that I was in the kitchen keeping an eye on the meatball sauce while it was thickening, but from about 20 minutes in I was sitting right here in front of the TV and I have no clue what was going on.  Something about a girl with a birthmark like a dragon tattoo, and the guy out of Roswell had floppy hair and had to save her or something, while a massive snake was wandering round (I don’t even know what city it was based in) trying to kill her.  There was a Shredder character, and the Splinter character was Jim Rockford (AKA Daddy Petrelli).  I only saw him a couple of times, and I don’t know what happened when Splinter met Shredder, although I know they did meet cos there was a comedy moment when an old lady tried to follow Shredder through a wire mesh and just headbutted it.

Anyway, come the end, the big fight scene, the grand finale, there was a big Godzilla and Mothra style fight between two giant snakes.  The good snake was slightly paler with blue eyes, and the bad snake was darker with red eyes. Of course.  And the fight was really brutal, they were really tearing strips off each other.

Suddenly the girl somehow chucked her life force into the good snake, and it kind of shed its skin, and became a dragon.  But a proper dragon, not some big old dinosaur with wings, it was a snake but with arms and legs and antlers (yes, antlers), and when the bad snake bit it again it grabbed it (at which point I jumped up and shrieked “opposable thumbs!”) and threw it around.

Things continued on in that vein for a while and eventually there was one final clash.  Which culminated in me and My Man sitting in awed silence for a moment until I said “oh, I’d forgotten about the fire thing”.

All in all, we will be watching this film again, in an attempt to work out what the hell was going on.  Probably repeatedly.

Diabetic moment of the day

Today I e-mailed my diabetic nurse because I’m worried about my blood sugars being consistently higher than they should be.  I don’t know whether it’s because of my cold or whether I’m just deteriorating and need to up my baseline doses.  However, I still don’t know, because she didn’t reply.

Episode 94. In which it just goes to show you can’t be too careful!

I read David Mitchell’s Observer column every week.  I watch Peep Show and, when I catch it, That Mitchell and Webb Look, I watch Mock The Week and QI and several other panel slows that Mr Mitchell appears on fairly regularly.

I can’t help it, I find the guy hilarious.  And by that I mean, I am a massive, massive fan.  Well, you know, I don’t write him letters in several different colours of ink, I don’t follow him round the country when he’s doing live shows, I don’t hang around outside studios hoping to catch a glimpse of him, but if I’m flicking through the TV Guide and I see his name, I’m going to watch whatever he’s in.

The thing is, the guy rants.  Not like a mentalist, just like as if he is genuinely astounded at the stupidity of some of what he comes across.  And maybe he gets a little bit het up about stuff.  But what I like the most is that his tolerance levels are pretty much the same as mine.  He is so much funnier than me, more eloquent than me, and better informed than me, but when he gets started I’m sitting at home giggling and going “YEAH!  YEAH!” at the screen.

Today’s column included a bit about how horrible people are about him on the internet.  And how, during moments of what he calls “drunken self-googling”, he finds some of the awful things people say about him, and, understandably, it’s hard to let them go.  Now, I’m not assuming he’s going to read this, but you never know.  If he does I’m sure it won’t mean anthing because the internet’s got just as many sycophants as haters (I hate myself for using that word but I can’t think of a better one, and I mean it in “people who hate people” way rather than the “you iz such a hater” way).  But anyway, he made a suggestion that I like the sound of.

A friend of Mr Mitchell has suggested that, wherever one might usually find comments that will end up on spEak You’re bRanes (see the links to the right there, just over there, see it?), we all post the phrase, “It just goes to show you can’t be too careful!”  Now I try not to comment on columns and blogs and things and really the internet in general.  I read David Mitchell’s column, and Charlie Brooker’s column, and Jeremy Clarkson and Dom Joly’s columns, through my RSS reader.  This is mostly because if I read the comments people leave on the pages themselves I get all ranty about how stupid they are.   My Man has specifically requested that I not read the comments any more, because he’s the poor bastard that has to listen to me point out the obvious.  Even if I don’t agree with what the columnist’s said, even if I’ve had a little rant about it myself, I reserve the right to feel massively superior to whatever twat thinks their half-arsed, illiterate sentiments are worth committing to cyberspace.

I freely admit I did once comment on Charlie Brooker’s column.  It was the one about finding a wife so that he could raise a little Sawney Bean style family in the borders, or in the mountains or something.  He commented (and it’s been a while so I may get this a bit wrong but go with me) that his favourite wife would be in charge of skinning passing tourists and making biltong out of them, whilst the rest of the family will be in charge of making signs telling everyone to stay the hell away from his land.  I felt the need to point out that if Sawney Bean had put signs up telling everyone to fuck off, his little cannibal family would’ve gone pretty hungry.  Sometimes these things pop into my head.  I realise it doesn’t matter, and wasn’t interesting, but if I had made such a glaring miscalculation in my plans for world cannibalisation, I’d probably be grateful if it was pointed out to me before I was resigned to vegetarianism.  God forbid.

Anyway, to the people who post the word “First” as if that means anything to anyone other than the rest of the morons who stayed up hitting refresh in the hope of being the first to say it; that makes you a cock.  Worse still, a cock who is doing nothing more than drawing everyone’s attention to the fact that you’ve got nothing to say, and haven’t even read the column you’re commenting on yet.

Diabetic moment of the day

Still can’t get stable.  Damnit.  I’m not even drinking juice any more, I’m drinking tea and water and diet coke, and I’m certainly not eating jelly babies and dolly mixtures (and oh my god do I want to eat some jelly babies and dolly mixtures).  I know it’s not my fault, it’s science, but still.  I used to be really good at this diabetes thing, and right now I’m shit at it.

Episode 92. In which I watch a TV movie.

I was channelhopping, basically I fell asleep on the sofa watching something we’d recorded on V+, so I had to find something to watch.  While I was working through the TV guide I became aware that in the tiny little box in the corner, Charisma Carpenter was sitting talking to Holly Marie Combs.  Being a huge fan of ridiculous TV I was immediately drawn to Cordelia Chase and Piper Halliwell chatting in a cafe, so I gave it a shot, while I was going about my business.

The film was called See Jane Date, and it was a typical TV movie.  It was a bit lame, a bit predictable, a bit lovey-dovey, a bit “bro’s before ho’s” (albeit from the girl side, so what would that be, sisters before misters?) but Ms Carpenter (playing Jane) did herself proud.  Every time I rolled my eyes at the ridiculousness of it, Jane rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of it.  Every time I thought “Oh Come On”, Jane said “Oh Come On”.

I’m sure it helps that I liked her character in Buffy and Angel, and I probably assigned this Jane character with certain qualities that Cordelia had developed over however many years of the vampire shows, that Jane in her hour and a have TV movie would never have had time to develop, let alone demonstrate.  Ms Combs was very much a peripheral character, but again it was easy to infer qualities from her Charmed role, which made her performance likeable too.

In short, I liked it.

In other news, I’m stuffed full of the cold and my bronchii hurt, so I’m at home today.  That’s how come I get to watch TV movies.  I am keeping track of my liquids and let’s just say I’m surprised I have managed to find the time to drink so much in one day.  I’m not a huge drinker in general, I’m one of those people that can have two cups of tea over the course of the day and a diet coke in the evening, and be fine with that.  Today I’m making the effort, I’ve had about four pints of juice, a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, and a pint of diet coke and a big bowl of soup.  And any minute now I’m going to start on the fifth pint of juice.

Diabetic moment of the day

The aforementioned juice was diluted with vast quantities of diet lemonade.  Juice is sugary.  A girl has to think about these things.

Episode 87. In which I get a bit maudlin.

This week I’ve watched a few programmes in which couples have been split up by one of them dying.  In one case this was a very old couple, who did that TV drama thing of showing just how they’re still as much in love as they were in the twenties by kissing each other on the mouth  Of course you only do that after the age of fifty if you’re with your soulmate, or at least that’s what TV would have you believe.

The old lady had an operation, and had signed a DNR so that no steps could be taken to keep her alive if she wasn’t capable of staying alive on her own.  The old man seemed cool with this at the time.  Then, of course, she goes in for the operation, starts fading, and the old man demands that she be hooked up to every machine under the sun, because he’s not ready to lose her.  It was all quite a cliche.

Until the very end, when the old lady was gone, and with the music swelling they showed the old man being escorted to the door by the surgeon, who shook his hand and saw him on his way.  The old man tottered off on his own.  Presumably to eat whatever his ever-loving wife had left in the fridge for him to eat that night, and begin his new life as a widower in a big empty house all on his own.

This, of course, is a very sad thought, but for some reason it really got to me this time.  I got it into my head what would happen if I died, and how My Man would handle it.  Or if he died, how I would handle it.

I don’t mean to be gooey, I don’t want to make assumptions about his capacity to survive without me or anything, but I just thought, that looks like the worst thing in the world.  I wouldn’t know where to put myself, what to do with myself, I wouldn’t know where to look or when to breathe, I think some time would pass before I was able to function to any degree, I certainly couldn’t get in a car and drive, or get on a bus and navigate my way home, I probably wouldn’t get as far as calling a cab.

Sometimes my imagination gets the better of me, I’m not a fantasist or anything, I don’t just make shit up.  But sometimes I get a bit overly empathetic with things I see.  I’m sure this is what acting is all about and this is the reaction the programme-makers hope for.  But I saw this old man (who I recognised but I don’t know from where) and I thought, people go through that every day, hundreds of people every day, maybe thousands, all over the world, and they’re not all old, they haven’t all lived a life together, not everyone dies in a hospital and not everyone gets to hold hands with the ones they love as they slip away.  I thought, one day, if I’m lucky (by which I mean lucky enough to have someone with me to the end) then I will be on one side or the other of that situation.  I will either die and leave someone behind, or I will lose someone and be left alone.

And let’s be honest, thanks to my fucked up pancreas my chances of making it to average life expectancy isn’t that great.  That said, my paternal great granny lived to be 103 and my maternal grandad lived to 93, so my genetic life expectancy might be higher than average and I might be alright.  And I’ve no plans to fuck up my treatment to the point of multiple amputations.

Anyway, I don’t care if it happens to hundreds of people every day.  That doesn’t make it any less awful, and I have to slow my brain down a bit to even think about it now, should the situation arise I might just shut down altogether.  Maybe it’s something that you start to get your head around as you get older, maybe it becomes more bearable as you learn more about life in general.

I’m not thirty yet, it’s natural for me to think of death as something inevitable but far away.  Maybe when I’m sixty it’ll be inevitable and more conceivable somehow.  I suppose thinking of death as a young ‘un it seems unfair, but then it would, I haven’t lived my life yet.  Maybe when I’ve done what I need to do, lived a life I feel happy with, reached as many of my goals as I have it in me to reach, death will seem, not less unfair, but less…

Maybe less premature.

I know life is short, I know death is inevitable, I have no illusions about immortality.  But perhaps having to be aware of it at this age is what’s unfair.  Surely it’s the sort of thing that the young shouldn’t have to worry about.  In an ideal world everyone would live until they had achieved and experienced everything that was in their power, they wanted to.  When I’ve achieved and experienced and all that stuff, the “but I never got a chance to…” factor will be vastly reduced.

I have had it shoved down my throat how I’m x times more likely to get heart disease than non-diabetics, I’m y times more likely to go blind.  However, these are all complications that come about because of elevated blood sugar levels over extended periods of time, so I’m going with the argument that as long as I stay on top of things, keep my sugars where they should be, I’ll be fine.

What worries me is that my diabetes type is unknown (seriously, I am officially semi-diagnosed) and therefore nobody can vouch for what is going to happen to me five years down the line, never mind thirty years later.

And that is what I mean by maudlin.

Sorry.

Diabetic moment of the day

I’m alright today.  I want cheesecake, but of course a) I’m not allowed it and b) there’s none in the house.  That is for the best.

Episode 80. In which we watch Rush Hour 2.

Rush Hour 2 happens to be on TV right now.  We just ate dinner and it happened to be starting as we sat down so it’s what we’re watching.  In the absence of anything better.

Here are the reasons I like Rush Hour 2.

• Jackie Chan films have great action, because you know it’s Jackie Chan doing all the stunts, and there’s as much slapstick as there is action.
• You know you’re going to get a load of excellent bloopers on the end credits.
• Rush Hour 2 has that girl in it that is quite scarily pretty but manages to look bitter enough to be a cold killer, which of course is what they want you to believe.  I do.
• The bit with the karaoke.
• The neck dancing (although I do prefer Rush Hour and War (What Is It Good For?))

That’s all I can think of.  But then this was a bit of a stretch to start with.

Today My Man planted some vegetables in our new garden, and did some laundry, and I continued to unpack, and watched loads of rubbish telly, and had a wonderful nap, and now the cat is asleep on top of a box.  He sleeps on a cushion on the armchair usually, but last night we had a friend round, so we moved the cushion (cat and all) to one of the cardboard boxes we still have lying around from the move.  To start with he was a bit put out but now he seems to have decided that the box is easier to get onto anyway.  It was great fun watching him leap up onto the armchair.  Anyway, if he’s happy sleeping on a box it’s fine with me, although I might get some kind of little table or something for his cushion to go on.  Just cos having a cardboard box lying around for ever and ever will piss me off.

Diabetic moment of the day

None.  Again.  Yay me.  I did have to find a place to keep my stuff though.  I’ve got boxes of needles, boxes of lancets, boxes of test strips, all that crap, and I needed a place to put them.   I’ve created myself a little dressing table on top of my chest of drawers, they have their own little corner.  Yay drugs.

Episode 79. In which I talk about science.

Last weekend we were at the pub, talking about gardens and allotments.  Our new flat has a little garden with it that we are intending to use to grow vegetables and some fruit maybe and we have friends with allotments, so we were talking about how to go about things.  Of course there were some comments made regarding manure and after one particularly inappropriate one someone mentioned that you can’t use faeces with meat products in it.  Apparently only poo from a vegetarian (person or animal) can be used as fertiliser.

My first thought, and therefore the first question out of my mouth was, what if you feed a horse a sausage?

Surely, if you feed a horse a sausage, its poo is no longer useful as manure.  But what I want to know is, what happens when the manure from that horse is sold on to a bunch of organic farms, does their crop fail, or do they just not grow properly, or do they mutate, or what?

On the subject of science, we are currently watching Deep Blue Sea, which is one of the best films ever.  Let’s face it, Samuel L Jackson rocks, and any film in which he gets eaten in the middle of giving an inspirational speech has something that most films don’t.  Also, LL Cool J hiding in an oven and the genetically engineered shark turning on the gas was quite spectacular.

Anyway, science is cool.

Diabetic moment of the day

I didn’t have one today, although I didn’t eat anything until after we’d finished cleaning the old flat (I went there at 10am and didn’t wear my watch, by the time I got home it was gone 2pm, that place is spotless) so when I checked my blood sugar it was at the point where if I’d gone much longer I probably would’ve gone symptomatic.  Timing, eh?