NEW BLOG!!!

Oh, and also….

HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THIS….????

My alter ego, the smoking, drinking, no-bullshit “Dear Parenting Guru…”has been let loose on the Interwebosphere at last. Oh yes she has.

That’s her, above, in a picture drawn by the AMAZING Jo Fraser (http://jofraser.co.uk)

Dear Parenting Guru posted her first, erm, post, last week and everything went a bit completely and utterly mad in the Inbox department.

Twitter had a minor melt-down.

Facebook trembled.

And here it is!! http://dearparentingguru.tumblr.com/

All I ask is that you read it, and if you like it even a TINY LITTLE BIT (and also if you hate it), then please please spread the word about this blog.

Spread it everywhere!

Spread it like chlamydia at a teenage disco.

Tweet it. Re-tweet it. Re-re-tweet it. (Then stop. It’s annoying.)

Tell your mum. Tell your friends. Tell your hamster. Tell the person you occasionally have sex with. Tell the bloke in Tescos who fumbles about in his trousers a bit too much (unless he’s the same person, in which case maybe just the one telling is enough.)

TELL EVERYONE!!

There is talk of a newspaper column, and, frankly, if she gets that she will SNOG YOU ALL. With tongues. And maybe a quick grope.

Thank you. You are fucking GOLD DUST. Even those of you who are allergic to dust are like gold dust.

You can also follow her on Twitter: @Parenting_Guru, and on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/parenting.guru.7

I would LOVE to put some helpful clicky links for you but I’ve no idea how to do it, and I might break the entire Googlenet in one Control-Alt-Fuckup moment.

I love you all.

XXXX

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October 7, 2012

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Mumsnet Blogfest!

You coming???

I hope so, because not only is it going to be THE blogfest of the year, but also…..

Wheee!
I’ll be on a panel talking about the thorny subject of trolling (which has nothing to do with trolls who live under bridges in Grimm Fairytales, it turns out) and cyber-bullying.

Look, see! They even put a picture of me looking all serious and ‘conference-talky’ on their website:

http://www.mumsnet.com/blogfest/info/speakers#Liz_Fraser

So come along and join in! These events are a MINE of the most incredibly useful information, contacts, help, inspiration and business cards.

Miss out at your own peril. And peril is very bad, I’ve heard.

For more info and to secure your place, go to http://www.mumsnet.com/blogfest

See you there!

Let’s blog. Let’s fest.

Let’s Mumsnet Blogfest 2012. Oooooh yeah.

X

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October 7, 2012

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CLICK! I’m giving birth…

http://www.liz-fraser.com

So, to ITV I went again, this time to Lorraine’s show, only Lorraine has very sensibly decided to get out of town while the whole of central London turns, for the duration of the Olympics, into a massive car park with traffic moving as fast as the Head Honcho of G4S towards the Piss Up In A Brewery of the Year award.

This is a picture of a traffic jam, for anyone outside London who has forgotten what it looks like. I’m kind, like that.

So for today, Lorraine is called Nadia instead. It all makes sense, in a TV-ish way.

The debate this time, is this:

Would you pay a professional photographer to take photos of you during labour and, (brace yerselves, ladies – if I may use such an unfortunate turn of phrase given what follows) at the BIRTH OF YOUR CHILD?

I know.

It takes a while to get one’s head around it; which is presumably what the photographer would be trying to do as well, what it all the legs and birthing balls (not your husband’s – the ones you sit on in the delivery room) and amniotic fluid somewhat buggering up the picture’s composition.

Now, it’s all a matter of personal taste, of course, and I don’t know what’s on your mantelpiece.

But here’s what’s not on mine:

a tastefully framed 12”x10” black and white arty shot of……my ripped perineum, complete with the high-res matted crown of the head of my child emerging from my holiest of holies like a blood-and-mucus-enveloped basket ball ripping slowly through the centre of a giant oyster.

Childbirth is indeed a beautiful event.
Magical.

So magical, in fact, that I want any memories of it do magically disappear in a puff of afterbirth.

There are VERY few advantages of being female where human reproduction is concerned. And when I say ‘very few’, I mean…one. So it seems strange to me that anyone would want to over-ride it. Here it is:
we are at the head end.

Thus we don’t EVER need to see the mess that lies at the Other End. This joy is reserved for our partners, who them have to erase the image as fast as they can or find someone else to sleep with.
Using a mirror to show me what I truly don’t ever want to see is bad enough; having a permanent record of it, should I ever wish to be reminded of The Moment Of Faint-Inducing Rippage once the ghastly memories of have thankfully faded, is tantamount to insanity.

I kind of understand the attraction of having some parts of the momentous event recorded in little pixels of blood, sweat and tears that one can pore over in years to come, when the children have grown up and there’s nothing left to talk about apart from the days when you used to have things to talk about.

But after three horrible labours, during which I was convinced for every second of the entire 37 hours of HELL that I was going to die ANY SECOND NOW, OH JESUS CHRIST SOMEBODY PLEASE GET THIS CHILD OUT OF ME!! , the reality would have been an album full of shots of:

• Mummy crying in the kitchen.

• Mummy screaming in the bathroom.

• Mummy throwing plates at Daddy, and making a mouth shape that would strongly suggest to any lip-reader or teenager looking at the picture that she is saying something about Daddy being a COMPLETE BASTARD for doing this to her, and why doesn’t he DO something useful… no not THAT ferchrissakes, something ELSE, like…like…..like Oh I don’t know, like FUCK OFF AND GO AWAY?? Hey! Where do you think you’re going….?

• Mummy biting Daddy’s shoulder until it bleeds.

• Daddy swearing, but not in such a way that it might look as if he a) is angry with mummy for maiming him or b) needs more sympathy than Mummy.

• Mummy puffing and panting like a blow-fish after a 400m freestyle.

• Mummy bursting all the blood vessels in her face from all the screaming and blow-fish impressions.

• Daddy offering cold cloths and hopeful words, like ‘Sorry’, ‘Is it getting any better?’, and ‘Sweetheart, did you mean to kick me in the balls just then?’, while trying to sneak at peek over Mummy’s shoulder at the cricket on the – oh man, is that the score….?

• Mummy trying to remember whether to breathe IN or OUT during a contraction, but not being able to open the Goddamned book due to the sweat pouring from her hands.

• Daddy crying, to make it seem like more of a joint effort but really because Pietersen just went out for a duck.

• Mummy throwing up into a cardboard bowl shaped like a jelly bean. (Quite why they are always this shape is one of the Great Mysteries of Modern Medicine.)

• Daddy trying not to throw up, even though it’s almost impossible not to throw up when someone in front of you just threw up.

• Daddy driving very fast down the M11 the wrong way, while shouting at the Satnav and looking nervously at the dropping fuel gauge.

• Mummy losing more blood from between her legs than you’d find on a plate of rare-as-hell steak in a top Parisien restaurant.

• Mummy with her legs in stirrups, losing her mind, manners, bowel control and, curiously enough, her sense of humour.

• Daddy wondering if he should perhaps leave, lest he never finds Mummy sexy EVER again, while maintaining a face that says ‘Well done, honey, you’re doing GREAT! I definitely don’t think this is NOT the most gruesome thing I’ve seen since the uncut version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and I don’t want to leave right now and go to the pub with my mates. No. Not at all.’

• Mummy, smiling limply, lying in a blood-soaked bed with a sticky, blotchy, squashed baby which resembles as an alien after a moose sat on its head for three days.

• A generic new-born baby that, frankly, could be anyone’s.

(Incidentally, the above should be printed out and given to all 14-year-olds as a form of contraception. It’s my contribution to lowering the world’s population growth problems. These blogs can change the WORLD, you know.)

Now then, to be fair, the shots of the birth that you’ll see in my Lorraine interview are actually very beautiful. Serene, stylish, and not-at-all-like-anything-I-recognise-as-real-labour.

But….that’s what’s wrong with them, for me. They are TOO perfect. They’re a magazine shoot. A perfect version of the imperfect process of getting a human out of another human.

And I don’t want my life to be a glossy photo shoot. (Apart from all the glossy photo shoots I have to do. Those are allowed to be glossy; it’s in the contract, daaahling.)

In a world full of fakery and photoshop, I want a place reserved for REALISM. I want blood and guts and pain and beauty and fear and joy and sadness and maybe a sprinkling of multi-orgasmic thrown in there for good measure.

Quite apart from the safety aspects of having a photographer in the room checking light levels and composition, and could you juuuust tip your head down a smidgeon, Mrs Fraser, that’s it, a little more to the left….lovely! Beautiful….and give me just the hint of a smile…no a little less….hmm, too much now – can you split the difference? Oh sure, when the next contraction has passed is fine, if you like….oh that’s GOOD. Magic!

….quite apart from all of that, is the issue that EVERYTHING is photographed and recorded these days, and me no likey.

Why do people feel such a terrifying need to record, document, film, photograph, share, show and capture every nanosecond of their lives? Is it no longer possible to BE in a moment, enjoy it for what it is, and use that weird thing called MEMORY to remember it later?

Gigs, exhibitions, events, birthdays, nights out in the pub with a friend are now accompanied by a sea of iphones and cameras, recording and sharing the minutiae of our lives via social media within seconds, making everyone present nervous of looking like an arse for even one second because..

CLICK! Capture.

CLICK! Post.

CLICK! Share.

CLICK! Forget what it is you were just taking a photo of because hey, you have the photo now so you don’t have to remember or feel anything.

Of course I’ve done this too; my Facebook page is, like most people’s, evidence of some fairly vile, trigger-happy, self-promoting behaviour.
But I don’t want to be part of a show all the time, and I don’t need a photo album of…my entire life.

I certainly don’t need a picture of me giving birth, with the caption, “The saloon doors are open; come on in!” as my profile picture.

No, no professional photographer for me, in the delivery room thank you very much. I am very happy not have every second of my life recorded – especially the bits that Mother Nature has already gone to considerable effort to make with a special ‘This Memory Will Self-destruct In Three Days’ mechanism.

Having given birth to the whole of Humanity, this woman knows a thing or two so I’m inclined to go along with her.

Here’s the clip. Enjoy. I’m wearing the shortest skirt it is legal to wear on British television, which I hope distracted the viewers enough that they ignored what I was saying. Cunning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajqXtGPgFxM

X

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July 29, 2012

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Massive word-barf.

http://www.liz-fraser.com

Hello!!

I’m back.

I have been quiet of late.
Church mouse on a silent retreat quiet.
Contestant on Mastermind being asked a question they don’t know and are quite embarrassed about quiet.
Mute-button quiet.

Alas, this honey-sweet blessing  is about to end, as I have finally found my keyboard and my fingers, and connected them.

Allow me to make some WORD NOISE in the form of this blog.
It’s actually less of a blog than a huge word-barf catch-up of the last few months.

So just WHAT has La Fraser and her ever-shrinking skirt been up to, during this blog-o-break of EPIC (to use my son’s favourite word, which seems to have out-awesomed ‘awesome’ itself) proportions?

• Well, I’ve been on the telly a lot, doing telly stuff for ITV’s Daybreak, Lorraine and This Morning.  Anybody would think I go there so much so I can flirt with Dan Lobb and snaffle chocolate muffins.
  The very thought!

• and going to caffeine-laden meetings with Very Important Meedja People, which unfortunately I didn’t realise until I got INTO said meetings, wearing clothes better suited to a mud bath at Latitude.
  I also stole a banana at one of them. This is probably why they haven’t called me back yet.
  Yes, it was definitely that.

• and going to a Lesbian Ball (hence the badge pic, above, which I shamelessly put there to grab your attention, you pleasingly filthy lot) courtesy of Tatler magazine.
  And no, I’m sorry to say I didn’t. But my GOD I was tempted. Several times. Cor blimey, what a lot of drip-gorgeous X-chromosomes all pulsating like over-excited nipples, in one heaven-scented room. See: http://www.tatler.com/bystander/events/2012/july/tatler-lesbian-ball#/7554/image/1

• and doing a screen test for rather groovy TV series (MASSIVE STRESS PANIC HERE. Aaaand breeaathe…

• and writing various articles about children-y things. Here ya go, here’s one…http://yano.co.uk/2012/07/should-you-pay-your-kids-to-help-at-home/

• and giving a talk about blogging at the Britmums conference in London (did you go?? If not….come next year. They have free manicures – HELLO – and samples of beer served in teeeeny little glasses but if you keep going back every 0.8 seconds, which is how long it takes to empty your glass, you can get merrily merry eventually and then waft about feeling lurvely, what with the new nails and half-pissed brain and all) ……which led to a rather strange and unpleasant Twitter experience that I’ll share with you some time soon.

  Oh, and there are men with bananas stuffed down their pants, but I PROMISE none of these were involved in the banana-stealing incident.

  

 

• and doing a chunk of media interviews in my role as panel member for the Centre for the Modern Family, http://www.centreformodernfamily.com/ExpertViews/LizFraser.aspx

• and interviewing the delectable and talented Kate Spicer about her EXCELLENT film Mission to Lars (DO PLEASE watch it if you can. It’s beautiful. You might cry. And you will laugh. And you’ll think, which is perhaps the most important of the three) http://www.missiontolars.com/

• and being a Mummy to my three children, one of whom is now so much taller than me it’s becoming impossible to think of her as a child. She is a GIRAFFE-child.

Oh. My. Gee!!

But I still love you.

Amidst all of this thumb-twiddling boredom and serenity I seem to have produced a chewy glut of telly related yada-yada and leg-baring of early-morning late, so here are some links. Get yerself a cuppa, and settle down for a Morning TV binge:

First, there was the debate on Daybreak, about being fat, or not being fat, and whether criticising someone for being fat, or not being fat, in a sort of “Oi, ya fackin’ fat slag/skinny bitch [shout as appropriate, while making oikish hand-gestures]” kind of a way, should be classed as a Hate Crime.

To which, really, one just wants to say ‘Er, like, WTF?’ as one would if one were born after 1998 and one’s thumbs couldn’t think of the letters that go in-between.

Because I’m not EPICally insensitive, I agree that abusing others for the size of their derriere, or devant, or any places in-between, is not OK.

It’s nasty.

And nasty things are generally not OK, unless the person you’re directing them at deserves it. Like, say Hitler, or Justin Bieber’s hairdresser.

We learned this in Kindergarten, at the same time that we learned the importance of grabbing the biggest flapjack on the plate the second it came within arm’s length, otherwise Big Susan took it every time.

Perhaps calling Big Susan ‘Big Susan’ was our first hate crime, only we didn’t know it yet. We just had four-year-old eyes, and could see that she was big. Just as Little Jonny was smaller than Tall Jonny, and Dave ‘Knob’ Dickson was a knob.

People say that children are cruel, but really they’re just honest.

Lying to keep everyone happy comes with growing up, until we go full circle and decide we’re old enough not to give a monkey’s any more what other people think, and start insulting them by speaking our minds again.

Aaaaanway……I can’t, can’t, supercan’t bring myself to agree that calling someone fat should be classed as something as serious as a ‘hate crime’. It’s nasty, yes. But it’s not quite on the same scale as, say stoning someone to death because of their Religion, or putting 300 hate-filled letters through someone’s door every day, just because they fell in love with someone who happens to have the same flavour of genitals.

THAT kind of behaviour, is EPIC badness and should be treated as a true hate crime, with all the punishment that goes with it.

Violence against a person for any reason, whether it’s because they are fat or wear glasses or tap-dance badly in the shower, is already a crime, as it should be.

Calling someone fat, or four-eyed or whatever one would call someone who tap-dances badly in the shower (‘Liz Fraser’, for example) should not.

It’s just mean.

So here’s the TV debate. It was…..an experience. It was also a TV first for me because….I wore HEELS. I teetered to the sofa, I tell you. Teetered and wiggled my bum. All the way.
And then tried to sit like a lady. And failed.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzHRgE4blsE&feature=relmfu

This next part made me laugh particularly hard, when I was informed that I was ‘totally ignorant about issues to do with size.’
Yes. As most recovered anorexic/bulimics are. Indeed. Thank you for pointing that out, kind lady who doesn’t judge people. Hmmm.

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qZMM7kg_Rs&feature=relmfu

Oh goodness all this watching and reading is tiring.

Here’s a picture of a cake that my daughters baked:

OK good, now back to the TV splurge.

Another day, another Daybreak (which for most of this summer has meant another grey, vile morning of pissing rain, sodden shoes and eyeballs being poked out by umbrella spikes, but HEY at least we’re not getting sun damage, right? RIGHT?? Pause for crying….)

This time the discussion was about childcare and whether we should be having ever more and more and more of it.

As ever there is FAR more to say on the subject, but here’s what we crammed in to 3 minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diJThTG1RlE&feature=youtu.be

Picture break:

Here’s me running in the Race for Life, Cambridge. If you’ve not run a Race for Life yet then DO sign up for next year. They’re fun, you get to walk/jog/run around a park, and they raise money for cancer research. WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE?? Do it.

(I’m the scrawny one on the right. The girl on my left beat me. By a long way. And she has MUCH sexier legs. And is 20 years younger. Damn and double damn.)

Oh, and here are some knitted bicycle covers that I spotted in town. Nice, huh?

Finally for now, another Daybreak on the subject of swearing and football, following the John Terry Lipreading case, and the Bizarre ‘Choc-ice’ Debacle that followed on Twitter.

Should swearing be banned both on and OFF the pitch? Is it OK to take your children to a match and then stand there shouting ‘The REFerEE’s a WANKer!” throughout?

Having a conversation where you can’t use any of the key words involved is quite a challenge, especially when your mouth has a tendency to be as filthy as cow-shit laden field in a soggy English summer, but it was one we embraced gamely.

Oh fuck yes, we did.

It was a conversation of two halves, a couple of lovely word crosses, a beautiful chance to clinch it in the third minute…but it wasn’t to be. We done our best, and TV was the winner at the end of the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWv_71QR5F0&feature=relmfu

There are a whole lot more debates on my YouTube channel thingy, including:

• free parenting classes for under 5s – good idea or waste of taxpayers’ money?
• Should we tell our children if they are overweight?
• Is it selfish to have only one child? (??? Yes, anyway….)

…..and many more, all here, for your televisual enjoyment. ‘Ere it is:

http://www.youtube.com/user/lizfraser1?feature=mhee

I’ll be back to my normal blogs from here on, but I leave you meanwhile with possibly the worst photograph ever taken of a gig. I blame the cocktail of cocktails consumed earlier in the evening at Ladygeek’s Remarkable Women event. Somewhere in this blurred mess of coloured lights and people who dress far ooh-la-la-ish than I do is the band Maverick Sabre, playing to the adoring, glistening crowd at the St Pancras Hotel in London for their first (of many, we hope) RLifeLive events.

Photojournalists, you may start quaking in your rock-star boots now. This is PHOTO GOLD, I think you’ll agree.

Thanks for popping by. The next one will be shorter, I promise.

X

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July 27, 2012

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Running Woman…

http://www.liz-fraser.com

As you know, I spend much of my time sitting in studios doing this:

In which I find a microphone the size of my head...

As you also know, I spend other times on sofas in TV studios, doing this:

http://www.youtube.com/user/lizfraser1?feature=mhee

But as you may not know, when I’m not doing all my meedja stuff, dahling, and pretending to be all important,

I run.

A lot.

I started running when I was about six when everyone else was watching Crackerjack, and came last in my Primary Sports Day 100m dash;
I ran for my Secondary School when everyone else was getting stoned behind the chapel, and came last in the County Cross Country Championships;
I ran for my University after 3 years of training in the college bar, and came last in the 1500m of the 1996 Varsity Match at Iffley Road in Oxford.

Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile there.
I broke my toe kicking the toilet door open when it got jammed.

These are running shoes. I use them to run in. I'm clever that way.

Since then I’ve done my level best to trash what was left of my knees, hamstrings and Achilles tendons, by running various 5kms, 10kms and hill races. My mission has proved so successful that, now approaching the age known as That Which Renders One Unable To Drink More Than Two Glasses Of Wine Without Having A Hangover For A Week, I now struggle to run more than half an hour without some part of my body falling off and rolling into a ditch by the side of the road.

I’ve had Achilles problems for a year, my hamstrings have long since gone on strike, and my knees have launched a counter-attack, subtly codenamed DISINTEGRATE.

But I still run. Because I LOVE IT. And because, as you also know, I’m an idiot.

Today was a special and happy one in my running life, because I ran my first half marathon.

I’ve never considered doing anything as idiotically long as this before, but the short story is that when I was out running recently, a group of extremely good-looking, fit young men started running with me, and told me I was so good at running (= ‘would you like to sleep with me?’) and so fit (= ‘I would like to sleep with you.’) that I should definitely enter the first Cambridge Half Marathon, because I’d do awfully well, what with being so fit and all (= ‘I really think you should sleep with me.’)

I played hard to get and entered the race as soon as I got home.

And thus it came to pass that, after a month of injury, ice packs, Ibuprofen, sitting on my bum, stretching and sitting on my bum again, this time with wine, I took to the start line today.

And WHAT A DAY!!!!! The sun was out, Cambridge sparkled, 3000 runners had the time of their lives, thousands more lovely spectators cheered us on, and a great time was had by all.

I smiled while running:

Stop, smiling, and RUN!

Blew kisses while running:

All top athletes blow kisses. It's a well-known fact.

And beat lots of men:

C'mon gents...faster!

This, of course, is 90% of the reason why I run. But you knew that already.

I hit a massive ‘wall’ at the 8 mile mark, but once I’d realised it was easier to run on the path, and not into walls I was fine.

Between eight and ten miles was at least 8 on the International Pain Scale of 1-10, and I thought I’d have to stop. By ten miles I could literally barely hobble or bend my knees, let alone run.

11-13 miles was the most pain I’ve been in since the last time I squeezed 9lbs of human out of my holiest of holies, but at least after the race I knew I would get a free massage and some Cheese and Onion crisps. This is the sort of incentive they need to offer in delivery units….

The sprint finish was GLORIOUS, and unexpected, as was the snog I got from a sweaty, hairy gentleman who finished at the same time as me.

All in the name of Sport, obviously.

I finished in 1 hour 29 minutes. I’ve no idea if this is any good, but as it’s my first half marathon it’s my personal best. My BEST! HURRAH.

Tomorrow I won’t be able to walk, but I don’t care. It was a fantastic day, and I give my hugest thanks to the organisers for what was an unforgettable, brilliantly organised race.

May there be many more Cambridge Half Marathons to come. If my knees can take it…

MEDAL!

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March 11, 2012

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The joy of meetings…

 www.liz-fraser.com

One of the main reasons I chose to do the job I do, apart from the obvious ones that it isn’t really a job at all, I can work in my pyjamas and I can look at rude pictures any time I want to, just, you know, IF I wanted to, say….. is that I don’t have to go to board meetings.

Ever.

I’ve been to two board meetings in my life, and both of them went like this:

• Wait an hour for everyone to turn up.
• Decide not everyone IS going to turn up, so start anyway.
• Spend ten minutes writing down who is missing, changing it every three minutes as more people stop being missing, and turn up.
• Spend a further ten minutes discussing whether to have still or sparkling water, based on potential bloating issues and something someone read that morning in the Daily Mail about deadly flesh-eating bugs and bubbles.
• Realise that not everyone has brought a pen that works. Or anything to write on.
• Spend twenty minutes finding paper and pens.
• Talk about what we talked about in the last meeting.
• Talk about what we’re going to talk about in this meeting.
• Break for coffee.
• Reconvene.
• Spend five minutes remembering where we were before we stopped for coffee.
• Start talking about item 1.
• Realise we can’t discuss Item 1 because the person who knows anything about item 1 is on the ‘missing’ list.
• Move on to item 2.
• Realise item 2 doesn’t make much sense without having discussed item 1.
• Break for lunch.
• Reconvene.
• Try not to look drunk.
• Doodle a bit on the (still) blank paper.
• Send a rude text or two, from under the desk.
• Realise we are almost out of time.
• Make some very hasty, bad decisions.
• Summarise what we just talked about, underlining why the hasty, bad decisions are actually ‘sexy and innovative.’
• Write down all the things we didn’t have time to talk about because we were too busy talking about what we were going to talk about, and then not talking about them.
• Agree when we can next have a meeting to talk about all the things we didn’t talk about, and the next things we need to talk about.
• Leave.
• Weep.

The sum total of the progress made in these meetings was zero.

Zero, as it turns out, is exactly the amount of progress made in 99.8% of board meetings, according to a survey done by some people who sat in a board meeting to discuss the survey.

The other 0.2% of board meetings didn’t turn up.

It is thus no wonder that, despite the BILLIONS of pounds spent on advertising, marketing, pens and sparkling water every year, the following can still make it onto a billboard, shop front or supermarket shelf near you:

(The word ‘bites’ in French, translates as ‘cocks’, just in case you hadn’t spent any time in a French playground recently.)

Another favourite, is this one fromOsaka, inJapan. It has apparently since been removed, presumably after another board meeting:

And finally, I spotted the product below in Boots today.

Gentlemen, if you want a silky smooth scrotum, you know where to go….

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February 25, 2012

4 Comments

Arty Farty…

I once went to the London Art Fair, where I learned five things:

1. Contemporary Art is, like, really expensive and shit. (That’s ‘ ‘n’ shit’   not,  ’and it is also shit’.)

2. Much contemporary art actually IS shit. And expensive.

3. It is best, when visiting art fairs, to leave your credit card at home. With your debit card.

4. It is also best not to drink alcohol, lest you accidentally buy a piece of green plywood with polystyrene bird droppings stuck to it, representing the suffering of Nature in Man’s hands. For example…I STILL say the upstairs toilet looks better for it. I say this every day. Usually when I am making my own bird dropping, and wishing I still had the £200.
Oh all right, £250.
Oh sod it, the £300! Happy now?? I was DRUNK, OK????? It felt DEEP and MEANINGFUL to me at the time.
And I SWEAR there were two of them…

5. Don’t go to art fairs. Everyone at art fairs is WAAAAAAY more stylish, attractive, loaded, successful, witty, and sexually fulfilled than you are. Everyone. Even the people who clearly aren’t.
You will thus feel rubbish within ten seconds of walking through the door, and compensate by buying expensive, shit stuff that you don’t even like, but you think makes you cooler.
It doesn’t.
It just makes you have less cash in your bank to spend on eye creams.

Having been to an art fair once, I seem to have got myself onto the World’s Longest Art Fair Mailing List, presumably in case I ever drink Sambucas in the middle of the day again, and then feel the need to buy more polystyrene bird droppings.

This year, however, my invitation to the London Art Fair didn’t arrive. I thought I might at last have been removed from the World’s Longest Art Fair Mailing List. I thought they might FINALLY have twigged that I am in fact not an international art collector.

But today I discovered that I was wrong. I am still on the list. It’s just that my daughter got to the letter first, drew on the envelope, and hid it in her drawer. Where I have just found it.

It’s sums it all up so brilliantly, I’m going to frame it and hang it in the upstairs toilet:

 

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February 23, 2012

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