Stuff I watched on TV when I was too young to watch it on TV

I first got a TV in my bedroom when I was 12, and I'm pretty sure that's where all of my life's problems started.

It was my birthday and whilst I was downstairs sitting on the sofa with my knees up to hide the fact that I had a bit of boobs from my family and opening cards (cards first, presents afterwards – that’s just good manners), my dad had crept upstairs to balance the 'ice blue' TV and Video Combi precariously on my chest of drawers. 

This in itself was unusual, because we don’t really do ‘big present reveals’ in my family but now that I am older and can 1) roughly estimate the cost of an Ice Blue TV and Video Combi at the time and 2)have a greater understanding of our financial situation at the time, I think that the 'big reveal' had more to do with the fact that my dad had most likely bought the TV second hand somewhere and didn't have the box for it. 

I loved it regardless. I could finally watch all of the stuff that everyone else at school was allowed to watch in the living room, alongside their parents, because seriously, how bad could it be?

Turns out, this bad.

Crimewatch

First shout out goes to Crimewatch, as it was because of Nick Ross and his merry bunch of E-fits that I was awake to watch all of the other stuff in this list.

I would like to start of by saying that I didn't even watch Crimewatch on my own tiny TV - this whole thing was down to irresponsible parenting, and a great display of anti-bedtime related cunning by me.

I used to do this thing where I would pretend to fall asleep on the sofa, just so that my dad would carry me to bed. I have tried it with boyfriends since and no, doesn’t work, so don't bother - they literally just leave you there, and go off to bed where they will lie diagonally across the mattress. Anyway, because I was so good at sleep acting, I would end up being left there for a while and my parents would watch stuff on the TV that they wouldn't have watched if I was awake. In this instance, it was Crimewatch.

Listening to Crimewatch once a week embedded in me the incessant, gnawing fear that we are all just one second away from something awful happening to us. When I was 12, and was only aware of one ninety-sixth of the bad things that could actually happen to us at any moment, my main concern was that were going to be burgled and my dad would be beaten with some kind of sporting equipment (cricket bat, golf club etc).

In my self-imposed role as house security, I would lie away for hours into the night (until approx 10:25pm, I would now guess), listening for any noise that

could suggest we were going to be burgled by Diadora wearing, but surprisingly well spoken, men who would punch my dad and take our stuff.

Never happened, of course, but I feel like it will now that I've written this.

Luke From Hollyoaks being raped

I'm pretty sure that 74% of Hollyoaks Late Night's audience was made up of children, lured by the naive title and the promise that Hollyoaks people would most likely swear at each other, as opposed to calling each other 'cows' or 'idiots', which was the most you could get away with at 6:30pm, even on Channel 4. With that in mind, I think the progressive and sensitively handled Luke From Hollyoaks gets raped story line was a little lost on most of us.

Not helped by the fact that I had most of the episode on mute because I was scared my mum would hear, I understood about 3% of what was happening. I remember actually thinking that this gang of men were going to wee on him, which disturbed me no end. Thankfully, this was before I had broadband and a computer that wasn't in the middle of the lounge and the innocence of Encarta kept me in the dark about what exactly 'rape' was for another two years.

The next day at school we covered all the big issues, with much conversation being devoted to the fact that you saw Luke from Hollyoaks' bum in the shower - albeit when he was manically scrubbing at this skin and sobbing, traumatised by what had just happened to him. 

Looking back, I think I had the same amount of indifference towards guys' arses then as I do now, but it seemed like something that grown up women would discuss on their lunch break (much of what we'd learned about grown up women being gleaned from snatches of Loose Women that we saw when we off sick), so we forced ourselves to talk about it in hushed but flirty tones, like we were in a highly insensitive Diet Coke ad.

Showgirls

I thought it was going to be a film about dancing, and by Jove, was it a film about dancing. I fell asleep before the end, but the opening featured about thirteen bare boobs, so I knew it was something that I shouldn't have been been watching, hence why I forced myself to watch it – this would provide great playground chat the next day. 

The most vivid memory that I have of watching that film is the pool sex scene.
I didn't understand much about sex at the time, and wasn't entirely sure that's what I was actually seeing, but I didn't question it. 

Now that I am 24, I am questioning it. Despite what liars and bullshitters say, pool sex is terrible, and if you're lucky will end with underwhelmed smiles and if you're not will end in you fucking your data charges whilst Googling what Spanish is for cranberry juice is.  

The pool sex in Showgirls is really ridiculous pool sex. Like, literally no one working on that film even tried to make that scene in anyway realistic, least of all the actors involved. I mean, I’ve had sex- I’ve had good sex and I’ve had amazing sex, but I’ve never had sex that illicits the reaction that Elizabeth Berkley (who previously I'd only ever seen in Saved By The Bell, in which she was much, much more wholesome) enacts in this scene and I don’t think that I will, unless I ever sleep with a guy whose penis doubles up as an electric cattle prod, and I’m fine with that. 

Casualty

I have long suspected that once popular BBC hospital drama series, Casualty, is the biggest contributor to soaring diagnoses of anxiety within my generation. We all watched it because the fact that it was on past 9pm and we were allowed to watch it made it seem like The fucking Wire. The story lines from Casualty seeped into my brain at weekly intervals, and gradually worked away at telling my innocent, best-believing child brain to fear everything and that even the most benign household item could cause a slow, painful death. Laundry baskets, novelty bread bins on high shelves, a lone AA battery and that doe-eyed bastard Henry the Hoover - they will all result in a subdural hematoma. 

Casualty basically taught me to fear everything. I mean, I get it, Casualty writers. There is little drama to be found in realistic A&E scenarios; a doctor and a nurse who have engaged in an on-off relationship for the past three years are not going to be reminded of what really matters (that’s love, apparently) over a girl who cut the bottom of her leg after trying to cut the straps of her shoes with a bread knife as she was too drunk to undo the buckle. That won’t get you a second series, sure, but how about exercising a little responsibility, huh? To this day I am still terrified of curtain ties and of accidentally hanging myself with one after tripping over toys that my mum kept telling me to put away. 

Other things I learnt from Casualty were, 1) never hang up disco lights at your local community centre - at best you will end up in a coma and 2) healthcare professionals could not care less about you - they are just waiting for you to leave/die/their shift to end so that they can shag each other. 

Graham Norton

I have always loved Graham Norton. He is funny and bitchy, without being mean - a quality which I have yet to crack the ratio off. I would like him to adopt me - something that I'm quite convinced is going to happen at some point, as how can anyone be happy without children?

I stumbled across So Graham Norton one night and never looked back. If you could watch this show openly as an adult then stick a cigarette in my mouth and plonk me on a sunbed, because I was totally up for aging.

Most of what I saw on So Graham Norton has melted away over time, but I definitely remember seeing a woman play a flute with her vagina. It baffled me then and, despite having a much better relationship with my own area now than I did aged twelve, when it's mere existence mortified me, it baffles me now. 

I don't think I will ever be old enough to see that and not feel totally confused.

The One Where My Mum Trips Over In A Car Park And A Bone In Her Finger Comes Out Of Her Hand

Because my mum's shoulder-size and outfit here is hilarious.

For my dad’s birthday last year I wrote something super nice and heart-warming about all of the things that his death taught me (approx. four things) and for my Mum’s 60th birthday* this year I thought I’d write something nice about her – when your parents are divorced, equality is the key to a happy life.

The thing is, my mum is not dead. Thank god, but it makes writing stuff about her a bit harder. I thought about doing a humorous, yet heartfelt, list of sixty things that I love about her, but, again, that’s really hard. Not because she’s not great, but it’s difficult to find sixty things that you love about anyone, even, yourself; seriously, try it.

So, instead, I’m going to tell a story about my mum that I believe will tell you just why she is so great and hilarious. If it were an episode of Friends, it would be called The One Where My Mum Trips Over In A Car Park And A Bone In Her Finger Comes Out Of Her Hand.

In my darker, awake-at-3am-listing-everything-that-I've-ever-done-wrong-moments, I tell myself that the whole thing would never have happened if, five years ago, I hadn't been terrified of the tube. I'd only ever encountered the tube on school trips or whilst I was clinging to the arm of boyfriends. I was very untrusting of it; I thought it would just decide to change direction or destinations mid journey, just because I was on it, and I would end up in some shitty area of London where the bus numbers had four digits and I would have to start a whole new life as a waitress, sharing a damp flat with eight other people and, inexplicably for someone with a mobile phone, never be able to contact my family ever again.

So, for that reason, I was always nervous to travel home, to Birmingham, from university, in Brighton, and so my mum would often drive me there and back for the major holidays. This time it was Easter and she decided that when she dropped me off she would stay for a couple of days. We shopped and drank coffees in cafes that my mum would describe as quirky whilst wiping the cutlery with a napkin; all in all, we had a nice time.

The last day of her stay rolled around and she decided that, before leaving, we should take a drive to nearby Newhaven (somewhere I now know to be a bit shit) for a change of scenery.

Approximately 47 seconds after stepping out of the car at Newhaven, my mum tripped on a loose paving slab in the carpark and flew through the air to land in a heap in front of me.

I'm quite awkward when people trip over; I don't want to fuss around them too much and embarrass them, but equally it's quite dickish to just not acknowledge them totally stacking it and ask them whether they're alright.

First thing I noticed, there was blood on her face. There was blood on my mum's face! Mums aren't supposed to bleed; they are soft but ultimately impenetrable, like overcooked calamari. I tried to help her get up, but she continued to writhe around on the floor clutching her hand and was making a bit of a scene. A nearby man came over to ask whether my mum was alright, because I was clearly doing such a shit job of dealing with the situation, and offered to call an ambulance.

It's here that I'm going to change up the tried and tested appraisal tool 'The Shit Sandwich' and service it as an open sandwich, beginning with the shit - Mum, me not thinking to call an ambulance whilst you were clearly in the most pain you've ever been in is an indication of just how few life skills I had aged 19, and I'm sorry, but that is your fault.

I think it stems from a desire in my family to, whatever a problem is, and however valuable it would be to a person's character to let them figure it out on their own, to fix each other's problems. Yes, it's usually in a misguided way; like my lovely grandparents taking me for a cream tea at the garden centre when I'd been diagnosed with depression, rather than actually talking about literally anything that could be upsetting me, or my mum pretending to have immediately forgotten the name of any man who has made me cry, choosing only to refer to him as 'what's his name', even if we'd been together for two years. One of the clearest memories I have from the night that my dad died is sitting on my Grandad's lap, aged fourteen, and him telling me that he would make everything alright. Obviously, he was setting himself up for failure there, but he's done an ok job in the sense that he hasn't died yet and remains the only constant male figure in my life who, when I need someone to, will treat me like I'm eight again and will write off literally any man as not being good enough for me. Unless they're a member of Rotary Club.

But anyway, this is about mum, not dead dad. Here comes the soft, delicious bread bit of the feedback; my mum has handled being constantly upstaged by and compared to my dad by me and my sister brilliantly. When someone dies, you tend not to trash talk them and choose only to remember why you loved them so much. When you're a teenager, this loosely translates to "DAD WOULDN'T HAVE EVEN CARED ABOUT MY PHONE BILL" when your mum dares to question why you're £80 over. My mum has had to automatically be the 'horrible' parent, because in his death my dad rocketed to the top of the highest pedestal ever. As someone who was married to and divorced from him, and is therefore aware of all of his faults and shortcomings, my mum has never once shouted them back at us in anger or frustration and I love her for that.

Back to the car park crisis. I'd like to say that now that I'm 24 I am better at dealing with crises, but I can't. I am still shit in a crisis, but I'm great at tweeting about it. Luckily, I had a brilliant friend with me who had her shit together and decided that we should call an ambulance.

Once in the ambulance, in between making adorable, rubbish 'mum jokes' about having not even had a glass of wine yet (it was 10am), and breathing into an oxygen mask, my mum asked me to reach into her bag and…

...use her phone to let my grandparents know that we were having to make an unscheduled hospital trip and she would be late to pick up the dog?

...check her car keys were in her bag, as we'd had to leave the car abandoned in some unevenly tarmaced car park in an area that we didn't really know?

Because, ignoring her eyebrows, I know that she
likes this one.

To pass her lipstick.

In an un-aired ad for Maybelline's Colourstay, with a bone hanging out of her hand, three broken fingers and with dried blood on her face, my mum expertly applied liquid lipstick without a mirror and she has never looked more fabulous.

And that lipstick really does have unrivaled staying power, by the way, as after a record six hour wait in A&E, despite a fucking bone coming out of my mum's actual hand, it was still going strong. It did fade slightly after she vommed when the consultant told her that he would have to 'manually manipulate' (ooh-er) her broken fingers back into place, though.

They were going to move her bone around like when you try to plug a plug into a plug socket in the dark, and as someone whose default 'chill out' TV viewing is documentaries about trauma units in the North of England, my mum was terrified.

So, with a fantastic view of the whole sorry scene, I fought my natural urge to fuck the whole thing off and leave the room, and instead held my mum's hand and bit the inside of cheeks to maintain a, kind of, neutral expression; one that said, this is fine and totally normal, because it's then that you realise, or at least I did, that your mum has cleaned up your vomit and wiped your bum all with only her top pulled up to cover her mouth, like a spontaneous, under prepared criminal, and if you can't watch her get her bones pulled about like Meccano without anaesthetic (Yeah, consultant, don't think I didn't notice that) then you are a terrible child.

After we'd both left the cubicle, wide eyed and staring at mundane objects and signs, like we'd both been the victim of a sexual assault in Hollyoaks, we were told that my mum would be kept in overnight so that they could operate the following morning and she was moved to a ward in which she was the youngest person there by about 30 years.

It was here that I saw the old-aged vagina of the elderly woman in the bed next to my mum. She kept lifting her hospital gown up and it was right in my eye line. Like something out of an Ian McEwan novel, this was an unexpected but defining moment for me, I feel - it was where I thought “Vaginas - no big deal.”

I returned the next day with a bag full of all the items my mum felt imperative to a successful, happy hospital stay (e.g nail files and facial serum) to find her bed empty and freshly made. I'd seen enough episodes of Casualty to know what that meant.

I asked the nurse at the reception desk where she was, and after twenty long minutes of them not being able to ‘find her', she told me that my mum was now on the gynaecology ward.

"...she's broken her hand?"

"Oh. Right."

Once I had checked with every available doctor that she had not in fact been transferred because they had detected ‘WOMEN’S CANCER’, my mum and I exchanged brief goodbyes before she was ‘taken down’ for her operation.

I should have really learned my lesson from my dad’s sudden death, in that we left him to go and get a chicken bake from the Greggs at Wolverhampton Hospital and by the time we’d returned, our baked goods still molten in the middle, he had died, and therefore I should have told my mum that I loved her and was grateful for everything that she’d done for me and that it was me, not my sister, who kept using her perfume.

I didn’t though, and so I spent five long hours telling myself that I would never see my mum again.

A nurse eventually found me and told me that they were having a little trouble getting my mum's heartbeat back to a normal speed; that it was fine, just a little slow.

Anyone who knows my mum, or even knows me, will know that she is not particularly 'laid back', so I did not take her heartbeat as a sign of how 'chill' she was feeling about the whole thing and because I am prone to occasional bouts of irrationality, I convinced myself that my mum had died. I imagined making the phone call to my grandparents and to my sisters and arranging the funeral and picking the songs and going through all of her stuff and finding out stuff that I never wanted to know.

Because I think she looks beautiful here.

There is nothing like losing one parent to make you, on some level, always constantly permanently terrified of losing the other. I'm 24 and I am not, in any way, ready to be in the world without parents. Maybe, if my parents had done a better job, I would be, but they didn’t and I really feel like I'd make a right hash of everything without having one person around who is, if no longer legally, is at least emotionally obliged to help me when I fuck everything up.

When they wheeled my mum back into the ward, I was so relieved that I had to fight every urge to throw myself on top of her and mess up her hand all over again.
After that, everything was kind of fine. My mum learned to do pretty much all tasks with one hand for a few months; this includes buttering toast one handed, buttoning up shirts and snipping out the labels in every item of clothing I owned “in case it irritated” me. She engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the owners of the car park in Newhaven and won a tidy sum, which allowed her to pay off the ever-mounting debt that comes as an unwelcome bolt on when you raise two daughters singlehandedly through their teenage years and had been pulling the three of us, and all of our possessions, into a black hole for the last ten years. So, really, it all worked out for the best. Sometimes, I feel like she tripped on purpose to save us all.

To summarise: I love my mum and I don't know what I'd do without her.

Apart from know what size jeans to buy.

*I'd like to make a clarification here that I think my mum would appreciate; yes, my mum is sixty, but she is not, and never has been, an 'old mum'. Sure, she did once say "Well, maybe I've just bought one that doesn't have wifi, then!" when she couldn't connect her iPad to the internet instantly, and does say "With a nice thick pair of tights?" in answer to whatever item of clothing I hold up to her across a shop, but that doesn't make her old, ok?

The Most Painful Break Up Of All

If you are an ex of mine who just clicked onto this thinking it was going to be about hard it was for me to get over you then, really, fuck right off. I know at least two of you will have done it and you’re the two who I feel the most cold towards.

This isn’t, for once, the emotional pornography that I am prone to writing but rarely publishing after I’ve just been chucked. In fact, for once, I haven’t been chucked.

I am the chucker. The dumper. The cold hearted evil bastard of all that is dead inside who dumped someone a week before Christmas - that’s me.

And, exes, if you ignored my instruction to fuck off (and I’m assuming you did, because why break the habit of a reasonably long relationship with only four days to go before New Year, eh?), then I broke up with someone much, much better than you.

That’s what makes it so painful - he was perfect. Looks wise, he was Jamie Dornan. Voice wise, let’s say Jamie Dornan again. He was hilarious and kind and intelligent and held the door open for men, as well as women, and was super nice to all bar and waitstaff. He would let me read a book and not keep asking what it was about and would watch shit tv with me, happily taking the piss out of it with me and ignoring the fact that I am quite clearly emotionally invested in the characters.Also, not that I ever expected it, but he would buy me nice stuff from time to time too.

I was fifteen when we met, and my best friend and I were hanging around, killing £6 at the local shopping centre. We were being pursued by two boys that wore caps and three quarter tracksuit bottoms and after trying to lose them in the aisles of HMV, they caught up with us. Just as things were getting a little awkward and, for a girl who until that summer was only used to boys talking to her when they wanted the answer to question in French, a little scary, there he was - “Sorry, I have a boyfriend.”

We’ve been together ever since. Sure, his face has changed (from Orland Bloom, to that guy from The All American Rejects, to Gosling, of course and even, for a short period of time, skull-faced ITV detective drama actor, Laurence Fox) over the years, but whose hasn’t?

Recently, though, things started to get tough. I resented him; resented his...presence. His necessity. A guy who I’d politely chatted to for 7 minutes on a train would ask me out, or a guy in a club would find it appropriate to keep touching my waist whilst asking me if, as a copywriter, I had a law degree, before asking for my phone number, or a guy would GET HIS DAD TO COME AND ASK FOR MY NUMBER WHILST I WAS ENJOYING A QUIET MEAL WITH A FRIEND,  then I’d get all awkward and, before I knew it, Imaginary Jamie Dornan boyfriend would show up. Then, as is a pattern with most of my relationships (real or imaginary), he would make me feel bad about myself; I’d sit and brood and add to my mental list of why I didn’t have a real one of him. Or why real one’s of him had left. Or cheated and then left. 

Last month a guy who works at the wardrobe-sized coffee shop at the train station asked me out. Sometimes, I get asked out. Or asked for my number. It happens occasionally and, if I’m having a blue day, I spend the rest of the day walking around like the Sex and the City theme is playing from all speakers everywhere ever. We hadn’t really spoken, other than, you know, literal shop talk and so I was a little taken aback. 

“I was wondering if you were free this weekend? To do something? Maybe a country pub?”
I could see imaginary Jamie Dornan boyfriend approaching.

“That sounds lovely, but I can’t. I’m sorry!”

“Oh, how come? Maybe in the week, then?”

I turned my back on imaginary Jamie Dornan boyfriend. I was done.

“I don’t really think I can. Thank you, though. Sorry!”

I boarded my train feeling like a patronising bitch, but alighted it feeling ok. I’m not just going to wheel out an imaginary boyfriend that makes me feel lonely and insecure and blue just to spare an ego. I’ve asked guys out before and have been rejected -  it’s shit but I was fine. You will be too, men. 

Don’t you find it a little patronizing for me to assume that, without presenting a faceless boyfriend as the reason for rejection, you’ll crumble into the fetal position and give up on the quest for love entirely? If you do then, I’m sorry, you’re wrong - men are spectacularly shit at taking rejection. Not because it’s me in particular who’s rejecting you, and I’m so great, I would like to highlight, but just because you feel so...entitled? It must be very comfortable to think that the only reason I’m not going to go on a date with you is because I’m exclusively dating someone else - if it hadn’t been him, it would have been you. 

I won’t act like I’m in a low budget American high school drama and tell you to your face, by the lockers, the long list of reasons why I won’t go out with you; it probably isn’t that long at all (you’re fine, seriously, you’re doing great), I’ll just tell you that I don’t want to and that will have to be enough.

And girls, there is nothing more liberating than, when a group of guys have completely interrupted a night out with your girlfriends, and one of them asks you for the third time why you won’t give him your number, saying “I don’t want to.” Granted, he’ll call you a stuck up bitch but he’ll leave, and you can get on with your night. 

A few weeks later, when I thought it would be a good idea to buy a strawberry flavoured aloe vera drink from the wardrobe-sized coffee shop at the train station, the guy behind the counter asked me out again.

I told him I was really busy with work.

You have to choose ladies, and when it came to a choice between my imaginary boyfriend and my imaginary career, I chose my imaginary career. Even in our own heads, we can’t have both.

Curiosity Killed The Cat That Sexually Assaulted A Woman, Whilst Someone Else Was Being Racist Literally All Of The Time.

I watched CBB tonight and came away feeling, very much so, that pretty much everyone is shit.

Prefixed by the disclaimer that this episode contained ‘language that viewers may find offensive’ as well as ‘unwelcome physical interactions between housemates’, I knew that I was going to be cross at some point, but didn’t expect the show to unsuccessfully tackle more issues than a late-night episode of Hollyoaks.

It was an uncomfortable episode, which can best be summarised as The One With Totally Horrible Behaviour Bingo. It really was just a shower of shit right from the start. More so than usual.

Ken Morely, the man who shouts about double glazing, began the show by saying that he was off to the showers, like he’s at fucking Butlins, because you get to see ‘the most women’s arses in there’ - only to then repeat his comment to the two girls in the bathroom, just so they didn’t miss out on all of the feeling creeped out. Michelle smoothed the whole situation over though, by reminding the housemates that it was only the ‘young girls’ that found the remarks not okay. Well. She’s going. On. The list.

A little while later, after some face-to-face nominations that were the most boring (if racism and misogyny are your Breaking Bad) part of the show, Ken was chatting to Alexander O’Neal, I don’t know what it was about, but he used the word ‘negro’ (a word that I’m not entirely comfortable typing, let alone saying) so I pressed my face into my hands pretty fucking hard. Ken seemed a little taken aback by Alexander’s offence, possibly because he’s been operating under the misguided thought that saying the word with a Southern American accent makes it all playful and Michael Fassbender in 12 Years A Slave - it does not. But, it doesn’t get you kicked out of the CBB house either, apparently.

With Jeremy Jackson puking up his guts in the bathroom after a few wines, it was time for the much, kinda-grossly, hyped super offensive thing that producers spent the whole of the day making sure everyone was aware of. Ex Ex On The Beach cast member (contestant?) Chloe Goodman entered the bathroom to help Jeremy, only to flee in tears when he thought it acceptable to pull open her dressing gown and expose her breast.

Half man, half oversexed Rockhopper penguin, Calum Best helpfully reminded everyone to calm down, and that Jeremy thought that Chloe was wearing a bathing suit underneath her dressing gown - like that was at all relevant. I’m not sure how to say this in a way that Calum Best would understand, because I don’t have any crayons handy, but I don’t care if she had a suit of armour on under her fucking dressing gown - do not open, undo, tamper with a woman’s clothes just because you think you can.

Whilst Chloe had gotten to that stage of crying where you have to take a gasp for air after each word and was victim-blaming herself in the diary room, dickheads over on Twitter were accusing her of ‘milking it’. One arsehole tweeted, “In hockey, when someone fakes an injury, they get penalised too.”
Couple. Of. Things.

1. Unless they’re a girl in Year 8, no one plays fucking hockey.

2. What is an appropriate response? “Chloe, this is Big Brother. Do you know why we’ve called you in here? At 11:32 you were sexually assaulted by Jeremy. It’s now 00:02 and you’ve had your allotted time for feeling aggrieved. Chin up, love.”
The time I a guy pulled my top down and grabbed my breasts in a nightclub, I cried and stormed off to walk home alone. The time a man put his hand up my dress in a club I cried for two songs and then carried on with my night, getting more drunk than I have ever been in my life. The time a man honked my breasts in the street and tried to kiss me, I went home to sit in a hot bath and cry until the water went cold, like I was in a shitty drama. The time a man forced his hand between my legs on a date, I vomited and cried all weekend until I had to go into work on Monday morning. Which reaction was correct, pray tell?
When called to the diary room and asked, by an annoyingly calm and rational voice, to explain his actions, a now very sober Jeremy kept using the phrase 'curiosity killed the cat' - like he was a cheeky scamp in a children's book, who just had to know what was behind that robe. Once Jeremy had been removed to a separate part of the house, Ken then proceeded to tell Chloe to be careful, as Jeremy was a “big Jewish director” and she wouldn’t want to fuck things up for herself in “certain circles”. Ding ding ding - get your big felt tip out if you’ve got anti-Semitism on your card.

Tonight’s CBB was basically offensive behaviour packaged up as entertainment - and not offensive in the Geordie Shore, ‘Oh God, they’re being sick into their own hands’ way, but like, properly offensive, wrong stuff.

Spandau Ballet sofa salesman Martin Kemp even reviewed the show like it was an episode of Broadchurch, seeming to forget that it all actually happened and it bizarrely provoked a weird Twitter fight in which people debated which was worse - racism or sexual assault. Given that only Jeremy was removed from the house, and forgetting that our values aren’t intrinsically linked to those displayed in a MDF house in Elstree, the conclusion on Twitter seemed to be that producers viewed sexual assault as worse - BUT THEY ARE WRONG AND IT’S OBVIOUSLY RACISM, DUH.

Do I even need to say that both are wrong? That both should not be being done? That the examples shown on CBB of both brought out views and opinions that I don’t like from people who I thought I did, and left me wanting to watch Parks & Recreation for six hours in order to eradicate the bleak feeling that a late night, cheaply produced Ch5 show left me with?

Good.

Also, Ch5 - you say potato (unwelcome physical interaction), I say potato (sexual assault). Let’s call the whole thing off. Please.

Gift ideas for the five people who work in everyone’s office

I work in an office now. I am an office worker. I’m not sure how it happened, but the other day I found myself annoyed at someone for hoarding staples and it dawned on me then, as she counted out fourteen staples and handed them to me, that I work in an office now. I am an office worker.

Whip-rounds are an integral part of working in an office, I have noticed. They happen all of the fucking time and even though Sue says not to worry about how much you put in and that obviously, she’ll put in a bit more because she’s close with Sally but that it really doesn’t matter how much everyone else puts in and that a bit of change is fine, the rest of your life in that office will be determined based on how you deal with that big blue envelope being placed on your desk. In general, I’ve found that the only change you should use is pound coins and fifty pence pieces. Twenties at a push. If you put in a fiver, Sue will remember and your present when you age/get married/have a baby/still work there at Christmas/leave will be good.

Of course, the annoying thing about a whip-round is that no one but Sue has a say in what the present is, so it’s always rubbish.

Well, Sue, you can fucking do one.

I’ve spent forty minutes coming up with a list of possible presents for the five people that work in every office ever and each gift is from Ali Baba, so it’s guaranteed to be much more fun, high quality and down-right useful than the set of decorative measuring spoons that you bought from TK Maxx on your lunch break. It is as follows-

For the colleague who’s busier than you
By taking a job in an office, you are automatically entering yourself into a competition with the rather catchy title of ‘Who’s the most busy’. I did not know this. I was like Harry Potter in the Goblet of Fire when his name gets spat out by that cup (also known at the Goblet of Fire, I believe), except with better hair and, you know, not a smug little prick. I naively assumed that there would be weeks when I would be busy and weeks when I wouldn’t be that busy and that would be ok, but it’s not – it’s not ok at all. Now, I have weeks when I’m busy and weeks when I have to pretend to be busy and am constantly shown up by this colleague.

They’ll ask you what you did last night, just so that they can respond with “Oh, I’d love to go to the cinema/go to Jamie’s Italian/read a book/have a bath, but I don’t have the time, I’m too busy.”

Next time they reach a milestone in their working life, throw this inflatable laptop float at their head, but wrapped, so that it’s a bit like a present and not a weapon.

Now they can have a bath and be busy. They’ll either get the company laptop wet (they don’t have the time to get their own fixed) and have to explain themselves to the boss or, alternatively, they’ll electrocute themselves. 

For the colleague who ruins every group meal
I’m not going to go into detail here, because we all know who I’m talking about. They’re the person who snaps at the bill like a hungry fucking hippo and says “Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got a calculator on my phone!” like that hasn’t been a basic function on a mobile phone since 199-bloody-8.

Get them an A3 sized red calculator. Not the weirdest gift, sure, and you definitely don’t have to buy it from Ali Baba, but if this doesn’t make them realise how ridiculous they’re being by trying to work out the individual price of a sharing platter (“Well, I only had a couple of olives, so that’s like, what? £1.20? Didn’t you have one of the mozzarella sticks, though?”) then nothing will. Nothing.

For the colleague who likes expensive stuff
This week I heard The Colleague Who Likes Expensive Stuff in my office say, when asked what the time was, “Well, this Rolex says it’s 11:40”, rolling his arm up from under the table and holding it firmly beneath his nose like he was in a Steps video.

The only scenario that permits a person to say “This Rolex says” is if they’re doing a Leonardo Dicaprio in those fucking Tag Hueur ads and are actually wearing two Rolexes at once, and need to specify which Rolex they’re looking at.

The thing with The Colleague Who Likes Expensive Stuff is, the stuff is never as expensive as it should be. The sunglasses are always Giovanni Almalfi, or whatever, and the Rolex makes the same noise as a cartoon bomb.

So, buy them an iWatch from Ali Baba. Yes, the iWatch isn’t out yet, but they won’t know that.

For the colleague who’s not funny
They send round Buzzfeed articles about offices on a group email, oblivious to the fact that everyone else just Whatsapps each other because you all exchanged numbers ages ago. They make you crowd around their computer to watch a 3 minute clip of a goat on a see-saw and make jokes about self-service checkouts.

It’s hard to buy a ‘joke’ present for this person, because your idea of a joke is not their idea of a joke. You have to go basic, and what’s more basic than a little figurine (think those Power Pod Micro Star things from the nineties) depicting the act of defecation? A caganer, as they are known within Catalonian culture, is that; it’s the shitting figurine thing, and there are, er, a shit tonne of them on Ali Baba.

Pretty much all political figures are covered, so if your colleague knows who Angela Merkel is, which they won’t, then they can have a figure of her shitting sitting on their desk. There’s also one of Spiderman, although the figure implies that the spidey-suit is a two piece, when I’ve always been under the impression that it was an all-in-one; a body-stocking, if you will. I’d always taken comfort in the fact that, after gettin’ the bad guys, Peter Parker had to peel the whole thing off, right down to the knee, to go to the loo, sitting their shivering a bit in the cold, like girls do every single time we wear a sodding playsuit.

There’s also one of David Guetta.

For Julie
Julie brings an insipid looking salad everyday in a Tupperware box, but you found half eaten Curly Wurly’s  in her top desk drawer when you were looking for staples.

Julie brings her Tupperware into work in a Little Brown Bag from Macy’s, or one of those bag shops that pops up in your local shopping center and is gone by the end of the week.

Julie ‘s glasses case is leopard print, with little handles, so that it looks like a handbag.

Julie’s had a go at nail art.

Julie wants to have a nail art night at her house – girls only!

Julie‘s Swarovski covered phone sits in a little Samsung-sized deck chair on her desk and plays Fergie’s Big Girls Don’t Cry whenever anyone rings her.

What. To get. Julie.

How about a little car for the Muller Light that she brings in for breakfast every morning?