Pleb's Countryside Highlights

I recently took a trip to the Lake District for a bit of fresh air and nature frolicking and it was incredible. There’s something about being out in nature that gives you a wonderful sense of calm and contentment, which, if you've read this blog much, you’ll know is not my natural state. If like me you’re a little tightly wound, here’s my top 5 reasons for ditching the sofa and heading out in to the wild for a few days.

1. Advertising

Ahhh nature, advert free since ‘83 (actually advert free since forever, but that doesn’t rhyme). Advertising is huge pet peeve of mine and if it’s not one of yours, let me tell you why it should be. 1. It’s relentless: it screams at you from billboards as you commute to work; it lurks at the side of every website; it rudely interrupts you viewing pleasure as you watch tv – there’s no escape in the modern world! 2. Advertising consists mostly of condescending, idiotic nonsense. By way of example, the current Müllerlight Desserts advert drives me crazy. You know the one, "If I had 3 wishes, I'd wish for a bubble bath, a fireman and for this [mousse] to be 99 calories." Why would she make such insubstantial wishes?! And if she must, why would she not wish for zero calories?!? Or even negative calories like celery?!?! 99 calories is not even low, Aero chocolate mousse is only 94 calories. And don’t even get me started on Nicole Scherzinger faking a "müllerlicious" mouth-gasm, again in the name of flogging us yoghurts. Luckily, as yet, the bastards have not taken to stamping ‘EAT THIS FUCKING YOGHURT’ on the rolling hills of Cumbria, and so a brief spell in the Lake District offers much needed relief from the constant barrage of mental abuse.

2. Exercise

I work in an office, which means the most exercise I get all day is when I get out of and then back in to my car. By the time I've finished my eight hour sit-a-thon and completed the forty-five minute drive home, stretching my stiff mannequin-like frame out in to a standing position seems like a Herculean accomplishment. The idea of then going to the gym or for a run just seems insane. I've already sat in a place I don’t want to sit all day, I'm now going to a different place I don’t want to be for a run?! No thank you, fitness freaks. However, heading to the picturesque hills of the countryside for long treks, hopping across river stepping stones and clambering over styles like I'm fucking Heidi or something, now that’s something I can get on board with.

3. Wildlife

There must be something about being an office drone that makes me more prone to outbursts of unexplainable excitement but there really is something about seeing an animal in its natural habitat that makes me crazy happy. I once saw a shrew, this was my reaction: ‘A SHREW! A FUCKING SHREW! DID YOU SEE THAT SHREW! IT WAS RIGHT THERE! OHHH MAAAA GAAAWWDDD! A SHREEEEWWWWW!’ I guess I need to get out more, but as you can see, I'm working on that.

4. Clean Air

For forty hours a week I sit under an air-conditioning unit that hangs there just sucking in everyone’s germs and then spewing them back out at me. If you can relate, I can promise you that there is other air out there. Air that hasn't already repeatedly been inhaled and exhaled by all of your virus-riddled colleagues before reaching you. That air, my friend, is out in the nature. Go get some, it’s sweet and fresh and probably even has magical powers… (unless it's ‘muck spreading’ season and then it just smells like shit).

5. This…

 Sure you can see views like that on your tv, but trust me, it’s nowhere near as satisfying. 

I Bet I Can Make You Miserable

I haven't written anything for a while because, well, because "I am completely miserable, San Diego!" Don't worry, I'm not dying, I'm not even clinically depressed, I’m just miserable. I'm one of those lucky, lucky chicks who gets hit by PMS like a train and all of a sudden I can hardly do anything. Not always, but a few times a year. And when it happens I pretty much turn in to a walking talking mess of profanity and blind hatred. I hate work, I hate people, I hate inanimate objects, I really hate mirrors and I probably even hate puppies. I don't want to leave the house and if you make me you better make damn sure you hold my hand otherwise I may well jump in front of a bus.

I'm slowly coming through the other side and have decided to get the hell back to work, blog work anyway. I don't write when I'm grumpy because I'd probably just write "Oh please just fuck off world" over and over and over again and the internet deserves better than that. Not much better, but definitely a bit better.

So, what a week to miss! Russia is totally invading the Ukraine but no-one's really talking about that, I'm sure it's okay though and they'll probably totaallllyyy behave once they get their way just this one time. I mean if History has taught us anything it’s that… oh, actually… wait. Also in the news, uppity prudes everywhere took to the media to tell female celebrities that if they don’t want their naked photos stolen then they should just NOT TAKE NAKED PHOTOS. Also burglary victims could help out by just not having houses and in fact victims of all crimes should just not exist because existing is just asking for trouble and if y'all could go ahead and juuuust kill yourselves, that'd be super and the world would be a much safer place.

In news yesterday, Prince William has blown his royal load in to the royal vagina and knocked up Princess Kate again... I assume in a desperate attempt to evoke some national pride and woo Scotland in to not leaving us in that little referendum thing they have coming up. Because nothing says, “We understand you’re pissed off about being minimum wage slaves for rich tyrants,” like bringing yet another freeloading Overlord in to the world for them to curtsy to. In seriousness, if there are any Scots reading, please don't leave us. We know you're angry and we know we've let you down, but please, give us another chance. If you leave, you abandon us to a Tory Government for, well, the foreseeable future until the end of days. I know we did bad at the last election, we didn’t mean to, we thought we were voting Lib Dem, we didn’t know that meant we were voting Tory. Please, give us another chance and I promise you that will NEVER happen again!

In other news, Islamic State and...... Oh who cares, we're all doomed. DOOMED I SAY!!!

(P.s. See how much fun I am when I'm PMSing?)

GBBO #Bingate - Is nothing sacred anymore?!

Outrage Level: BOSS

I was in a rare good mood yesterday.* So much so that I resolved to avoid the news and it’s unceasing doomsdaymageddon BS for a single day and focus only on shiny happy nice things for a change. So, what did I do? What EVERY sensible British person does at this time of year, yup, watch the Great British Bake Off ('GBBO'). My first ever episode, in fact! I bought cake, I had a friend over, I made us tea. The evening was set to be downright delightful, like something out of a Beatrix Potter book but with less talking animals and more giggling at silly food names (“Massive spotted dick” – teehehehe).

For those who don't know, GBBO is a cooking competition set in a white tent in the beautiful grassy green of the English countryside. It's hosted by Mel and Sue, two daft women who pull funny faces and delight in terrible food jokes. The judges, Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood are so sweet and charming that their criticism gets about as vicious as, "Well that looks, er, interesting." Call a spade a spade, guys, it looks like something a virus-riddled vulture vomited up. But no, they never would, because this is GBBO gosh darn it! GBBO is light-hearted fluffy fun, it's a nationwide cake break from all that is wrong with the world.

Until last night, when doddering old lady/super-villain Diana took fellow contestant Iain's Baked Alaska ice-cream cake out of the freezer and left it on her bench to melt in to a puddle of broken dreams. Upon finding the dripping dairy disaster and realising his hopes for the show were lost, Iain slammed the ice-cream cake in to the bin and stormed off set. And who can say they'd have done differently under that amount of pressure? It's a timed competition, you can't just start over. So... how did the judges respond to what appeared to be a blatant act of sabotage? THEY. DID. NOTHING. In fact, they voted Iain off the show because he hadn't been able to produce a cake for the final round. And did they deal with Diana? Nope, not even a slap on the wrist as far as the viewers could see. 

Lady Justice lay down on her floor and she wept.

I’ll take a minute to address those of you who may be thinking, 'Jeeez, this bitch is crazy, why is she so upset about a baking competition, it's only cake for God's sake!' WELL IT'S NOT JUST CAKE! IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE THE BASTION OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND RIGHT AND SWEET WITH THE WORLD. IT'S A BEACON OF HOPE IN AN OTHERWISE GREY AND DISASTER FILLED EXISTENCE. If I wanted to see that life is unfair and horrible, I'd be paying attention to real fucking life, okay?!? 

What the hell were the producers thinking when they included the #bingate footage but failed to have the judges comment on it? I can only assume (with my now completely cynical mind that may never trust again) that maybe the show needed a bit of a ratings boost and the producers decided to fabricate a bit of controversy to get us talking? Well GBBO, if that's the plan then why stop there? Why not make the competition more interesting by taking the bakers loved ones hostage and threatening to cut off their nipples should you come in last. And why not bring in Gordon Ramsey to start asking the bakers what the fuck they were thinking when they presented a plate full of toxic waste disguised as cake? And hey, instead of simply voting the bakers off, why not line them up and have an ex-marine kick them face first in to a puddle of bile and faeces?! This is all golden if we're changing the format of the show to make it more Twitterageous. If not, maybe sack off the controversy and stick to cakes so that we poor fools have one thing we can cling to that doesn't make us totally lose our shit on Twitter?

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*Why was I in a good mood? Because the lovely Eric over at Opticynicism had given me some much appreciated blog-loving. It’d be bloody lovely regardless but the fact that his blog is hilarious and waaaaaay more established than mine made it extra special. You should definitely check him out here.

My Image Revamp Advice for the Nasty Party: Don't Mention Anything You've Actually Done

Dear Tory Party,

I read in the Guardian yesterday that you have hired some fancy new "election strategist" who has been fielding advice from fellow Tories on how to avoid the 'Nasty Party' image at the upcoming election. I'll be honest with you, I don't think 'not attacking Ed Miliband' is really going to cover it. People don't think you're nasty because of your campaign tactics, people think you're nasty because of your abhorrent policies. People have killed themselves and starved to death as a direct result of YOUR policies. But hey, maybe us feckless plebs will forget all that if you just don't mention it.

Oh and while we're on the subject of things to avoid, maybe don't mention how you provide slave labour to companies like Tesco and Primark that could easily afford to pay workers, thus taking paid jobs away when paid jobs are already pretty fucking hard to come by, as evidenced by the number of people needing job seekers fucking allowance.

The Desolate North - Fuck that place!

Or that time you trebled tuition fees, claiming that only a few institutions would charge the maximum anyway... oh and now they pretty much all are. But that's ok because you only want the rich to be educated anyway, heaven forfend the fucking proles will learn a thing or two and realise Satan himself couldn't damn them worse than you have.

Oh and definitely don't mention that time you sold off "half the country" for fracking to the highest bidder for what experts suggest will be a pitiful amount of gas anyway because fuck "the desolate North," am I right guys?!

If you really think you're going to need to actually mention some things then maybe you could just jump up and down screaming, "Hey you guys! Remember the Olympics? Good times, huh? Goods times brought to you by The Tories, no less!"

This maybe hasn't been the sort of helpful advice you were looking for but don't worry your fugly little heads about that because I have more chance of winning the next X-Factor with my arm-pit farting routine than you do of winning the next election. But by all means, don't let that stop you from using your inflated campaign budget to shine up Cameron's bloated gammon-face and smear it all over billboards again.

Sincerest regards,

Pleb