On Still Being An Inbetweener

Firstly I'd like to point out that the original series of The Inbetweeners started in 2008 when I was neither a teenager, nor male, however certainly identified with that late-teenage claw through life. Time was when everything was a potential embarassment or fuck-up and you really didn't know whether you were coming or going. Whether it was cringe-worthy encounters with the opposite sex, the endless quest for "cool" or the feeling of being slightly out of place in every possible situation.

I also identified greatly with the sentiment of the "Inbetweener", halfway between childhood and adulthood and not really sure if you want to be either. The thing is now in my *cough late twenties, I would have assumed that my "Inbetweener" stage was over and I'd be well into my adjusted adult phase where everyday life was a breeze and my problems were only important, real things like death and taxes.

I have since discovered that is not the case.

In Praise of Americana

Friday was the 4th of July, Independence Day, a celebration for Americans across the world. Generally as a fastidious cynical Brit there's plenty of things I like to criticise about our friends over the pond notably language, faux-positivity an geographical ignorance. However really the United States of America is a complex and astounding country that has given the world a lot of impressive objects, laws, celebrations and notable figures. In honour of the 4th July, here is my personal and current top 10 brilliant Yank things or people:

1) Attitude

Yes, yes, yes. Well done. You can. Congrats. The yanks are streets ahead of us in celebrating success. The clichéd and much maligned American dream is still woven into the fabric of the country. Every small town gal and guy can make their dreams come true and America praises them when they do. They're proud of their countrymen's success. 

Whilst there may be a lot to criticise about the American attitude towards various things, they rarely tear down and scorn the successful as we often do in Britain. Surely success should be encouraged (ungrit your teeth).

2) Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Country Music and Hoedowns

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, the man in black, drug addict, lover, prison reformer and epic songwriter and singer. I pine for his dark tones and languid lyrics. I do not recognise his world and yet I lap up the emotion he conveys. I want him.

Dolly Parton and her hoedown contemporaries are part of a genre that we will never have in GB, despite our recent bout of nu-folk bands. Oh how I yearn to journey to Nashville and dance in cowboy boots all night...

3) Denim

Levi's were the first, hard wearing clothing for the workers which have since become an international unform for hipster teens, weekend dads, chic oligarch wives and everything in between.

God bless America for making our lives easier...

4) Teen Drama TV

Not sure if I would have got through the relative vanilla-mess of my Home Counties adolescence without Dawson, Jen, Joey, Pacey, Ryan, Marisa, Brooke, Lucas, Chuck and Blair. Well in to my early twenties these kids had my heart and the wardrobes I wanted. Why did public school boys from Guildford not have the rippling abs of Ryan or the deft wit of Seth, the sexiness of Chuck. Why didn't we have jocks and keg parties and incredible vocabularys...

In "teen-drama" land if you drunk a few drinks every Saturday, you were probably an alcoholic, the boys next door were cute (they NEVER are) and it was quite normal for close friends to die or have sex with your boyfriends...I bloody miss them and their prematurely 30-year-old acerbic wit...

(*side note: also weird how the actors playing their parents were probably about five years older than some of them)

5) ScarJo

Yes, I know her parents are Danish and Russian or something similar, but she is seen as the modern classic American sex symbol, and she is. At the top of my #girlcrush list... there are little who rival that blonde bombshell look. She makes some good films too... but to be honest I just stare at her face.

6) Hollywood and Films

This could be seen to be a tad wide perhaps.. but the USA is the centre of the film industry, the championer of the Talkie, the location of the famous Hollywood Hills. Some of the best movies in the world ever have been made there.. and some more of the best have been funded by money that comes from there.

I can't really write too much about films without being terribly sweeping and I love too many. So I'm not going to, but you get my point.

7) Martin Luther King

 “You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”

8) New York City

  There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless. Simone Beauvoir

I lived in New York when I was 19 in 2005 for three months with one of my best friends. 

We had a tiny apartment in East Village that was infested with mice, we had no TV and lived on Chips Ahoy and Reeses Pieces. By day we interned at an advertising company and a photography studio. At night and at the weekend, we walked and shopped and explored. We only walked though, we had no idea how to use public transport.. occasionally at night we'd shell for a taxi. We blagged our way with terrible fake ids and the most British accents we could manage into clubs: Duvet, Marquee, Bungalow 8 and then stood silently staring at everyone, impossibly glamourous American everyones. And there we were in our peasant skirts and coin belts weighed down by beads, as was the way.

We snuck into gallery openings and drunk all the free wine. One time we stayed up all night dancing in the W Hotel basement and then later in The Coffee Shop with some boys from New Jersey who bought us club sandwiches and champagne. 

Us in NYC, 2005

We stalked the Olsen Twins, devouring US Weekly and the like to try and guess where we could run in to them. We bought so many clothes that we couldn't afford. We stared at ground zero sadly. We watched live music in little dive bars in Greenwich Village and skipped down the street at midnight singing Downtown by Petula Clark..

The thing is... we just weren't aware. We knew we were lucky, but we weren't aware how lucky.

New York is beautiful city, an impossible city, a city that deafens you and hurls you around. It is in your face you see, but it's also layered and witty and clever. And small enought to really know. And big enough to hide. And you can just walk everywhere, which I love.

9) F Scott Fitzgerald and His Contemporaries

20th Century American literature has always been one of my favourite eras. I just loved what they were searrching for, Fitzgerald, Williams, Salinger, Miller, Walker, Kerouac, Lee and then later, Palahnuik and Morrison etc etc etc. It was so different to everything I ever read before when I started reading it at 16. It was so about the now and the future and little to do with the past... It was so about the pressures of success and who belonged. What made one acceptable or a decent person. Racism, Sexism, Capitalism it was all so exciting it burned me up inside and kept me searching for more from over-the-pond.

This may be another too-wide reaching paragraph. But it's true.

10) Computers and Social Media

Bill Gates; Steve Jobs; Marc Zuckerberg; Jack Dorsey... I salute them all...

Mean, Mean Girl: Lessons Learnt

Two weeks ago was the tenth anniversary of Mean Girls, a film which defined my late teenage years. I remember seeing it in the cinema and laughing out loud at the aptness of the observations and admiring Tina Fey's fearless humour. I don't remember anyone saying vagina in a teen movie before. Lohan was pre-rehab and Rachel McAdams had yet to be obsessed over by Ryan Gosling (who was he), no one knew Amanda Seyfried could sing. 

At our final school "prom"  when some friends and I were escaping from the five boys that had turned up (#allgirlsschoolproblems) and having a cheeky cigarette on a bench outside, I remember a girl from our year coming up to my two friends and I and saying after a while "You guys are kind of like the mean girls". 

I took this as a massive compliment. Who wouldn't want to be likened to those sophisticated American, follicly-gifted stuff of teenage dreams. In fact I don't think she was trying to mean.. And I don't think I was that much of a bitch at school. The truth though is that I loved been likened to attractive and popular girls, because despite my above-average conscience for a teenager, those things are what I strived for. I would have a very different attitude if someone said that to me now. I just don't want to be a Mean Girl any more, however much I might try and get down with the youth by talking about "ma bitches", on social media.

In reality, my generation learnt and in some cases (age 28), could still learn a lot from the truths of Mean Girls and this is perhaps why, it has stood the test of time unlike so many other "teen movies".

Here are the lessons that I learned:

1) "Calling somebody else fat won't make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn't make you any smarter. And ruining Regina George's life definitely didn't make me any happier. All you can do in life is try to solve the problem in front of you."

An early lesson for me... in fact one that, without sounding sanctimonious, I never really needed to learn. Perhaps this was because between the ages of 13-15, I was a full-blown geek/loser. I liked to read, I liked to do well at school revelling in the praise and the As. 

Reaping the usual teasing from this, I knew I never wanted to make anyone else feel like that. Why would berating and bullying others make you feel better about yourself. It is a quick fix that leaves one sick and regretful and possibly more insecure once the buzz wears off. This however is still a common tactic employed by the world over and the media in particular, mostly towards women. 

We need to solve our own internal problems, not try to drag others down to the lowness we may be feeling inside.

2) "Janis: [reading list the major cliques in high school] You got your freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, J.V. jocks, Asian nerds, Cool Asians, Varsity jocks Unfriendly black hotties, Girls who eat their feelings, Girls who don't eat anything, Desperate wannabes, Burnouts, Sexually active band geeks,

[a picture of herself and Damian come on screen]

Janis: the greatest people you will ever meet, and the worst. Beware of the plastics."

There are always cliques, though perhaps less pronounced than at the archetypal movie-version of an American high school and there are always mean girls.

Just remember, the only person who can really define you is yourself. Some people are always going to place a ring around your neck and label you as "xxxx", whether that is good or bad, but you know the truth. Avoid the mean girls if you can, but more importantly, respect who you are and what you stand for and you'll be fine. 

3) "Ex-boyfriends are off-limits to friends. That’s just, like, the rules of feminism.” 

Interesting definition of feminism aside, this is about honesty when it comes to men and women. Relationship are hard enough without worrying that one of your "friends" is going to make it harder. Having said that I don't believe that if you have let some one go to fly off into the universe without any issues that you should ban them from any relationships with your friends or acquaintances. However we should always be mindful of others and honest from the beginning. This way drama and hurt is usually avoided.

If you have no interest in someone anymore, don't stop them from being happy with another. On the otherside, don't assume someone is fine with you moving in on their ex without asking them. Basically this is another treat others how you would like to be treated, respect people. Weirdness will pass.

4) "There are two kinds of evil people in this world. Those who do evil stuff and those who see evil stuff being done and don’t try to stop it.”

I was not brave as a teenager, I struggled enough to stand up for myself, having been haunted by a few years of being branded a geek, so when I eventually emerged from it, my whole being burned to be popular and accepted and so I avoided any confrontation. I was never the bully, but sometimes I ignored "mean girl" behaviour from people I was dying to impress. Nowadays this won't sit with me and I'm actually far more likely to defend someone treating another badly than myself even if that means saying something uncomfortable to somebody I love.Essentially this is also a selfish behaviour as I feel restless and upset if somebody I know is behaving in a way that I feel is cruel or unfair to another.

This is not an excuse to barge into anyone's business mind you, in a busybody fashion a la half the cast of Made in Chelsea, it is merely about listening to yourself and speaking up for what you know is right. This happens at work, in our social groups and in world issues. 

Note the famous Martin Niemöller quote re: the ride of Nazism and the German intellectuals who ignored so much:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

God Mean Girls is so intellectual.

5) "On Wednesdays we wear pink"

Don't ever feel you should wear something just because everyone else does. With my sizeable arse, I should never have worn Bolts (that's a noughties reference - they are basically massive men's mechanic jeans which one would tie chains to) for example. Nowadays I stick to this... eg you will never see me in a drop waist dress, no matter how pretty they are... They are made for the more boyish of figure ;) 

6) "I know having a boyfriend might seem like the only thing important to you right now, but you don't have to dumb yourself down in order for a guy to like you." 

As a teenager, I really couldn't talk to men (boys!) at all, I'd simply smile and stay quiet until I'd had enough cheap white wine that I might pluck up the courage to flutter my eyelashes enough that one might tongue me for an hour before I had to catch the last train home.

I'd like to think that at the ripe old age I am now, that everyone should know this, but I'm not so sure. I couldn't act "dumb blonde" anyway these days as I'm far too loud and opinonated and I couldn't shut up enought for a man who wanted a pretty ornament.

I also often refer to this article Give it up Giggly by the talented Sam Leith in Tatler, he writes:

"They are appealing to a masculinity that finds the prospect of female independence scary. The personality she contrives to display is all about him: she's there to adore him, to be completed by him, to orbit him like a giggling pink satellite...Yet, as I say, simpering still works on feeble-minded men. So, ladies, if that's the sort of man you hope to hook, knock yourselves out." 

Personally, I don't want a feeble-minded man and I'd rather be alone forever than act dumb to score one of them.

7)  "Well, I don't know who wrote this book, but you all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores."

I didn't comprehend the importance of this as a teenager. Calling someone a slut was a term of enderament or a jealous dig at someone who had probably had sex a couple of times when you were still a virgin. Again the all-girls boarding school didn't allow for any real "sluts".

Now I understand it as really being about the way that the entire world views women and trying to alter this with our own language. We shouldn't slut-shame or judge others or use derogatory language just because we may be having a jealous moment. If we do not know or care about the person involved then there's no need and we have no right to judge, if it is an acquaintance or god forbid a friend that we are calling this... we ought to accept that they are allowed to live their live however makes them happy even if we do not agree. And who makes you queen of the world. If they are not happy we should try to help them be happy. Walking around calling other women sluts, whores, bitches etc just affirms the ages-old female stereotypes that we work hard everyday to dispel. Think about it.

8) “Don't let the haters stop you from doing your thang."

Aside from the fact that Kevin G is a complete cult figure for the mean girl generation, along with the legendary Glen Coco, this final quote could be the most important. 

Teenagers are so led by disapproval, insecurity and the crowd mentaility. You have to learn that in life, not everyone is going to approve of you or help you or like you. Accept that. There will be those who criticise and mock and sabotage, get over it and get on with your path. Don't be a hater yourself either, don't be jealous or bitter or condescending.. move forward with your own life.

There will always be mean girls in the world.. and the ones that won't change will just get older and meaner and more bitter, so just breathe and ignore. You'll get further and be happier than they ever will.

Channelling Americana at Earlham Street Clubhouse

I spent most of the early noughties wishing I went to an America High School. I wanted the geeks and jocks and cheerleaders, I wanted the peppiness, bitchiness and drama and football games in international sized stadiums. I wanted to vote for Prom Queen. I wanted to hang out in dive bars with jukeboxes, eating pizza and discussing crushes and life with flamboyant syntax and wordiness. I wanted all the boys I knew to look at least 25 with abs-ful bodies and apparent sexual charm and confidence or be nice guys with abstract, intellectual interests. Why did no one I know have keg parties?

Pacey: "Ever stop to think about how much hormonally charged energy you put into the quick quips and biting banter? Your life would be considerably more productive if you took some, what's that word again, oh that's it -- action." - Dawson's Creek

Alas, I was neither American nor in a faux TV show/film reality. Yet I yearned for a taste of this American dream that was so different to the boarding school, books and inexperienced fumblings that was the reality of my early-mid teens. Drinking Bacardi Breezers on a bench whilst my friend snogged a Goth from the local boys boarding school just didn't seem like livin' the teenage dream to me.

The Entrance

So, when I heard about Earlham Street Clubhouse opening in Covent Garden back in November, I knew I had to go immediately, if only to indulge my teenage self. So I trekked my fave drinking pal there on the first Thursday we both had free.. Promising a 90s Beverley Hills teen crossed with East Coast clubhouse(!) vibe and a cocktail menu with such delightful names as Stifler's Mom and Sweet Valley High, I knew it would not disappoint. 

Ceiling Menu

It did not. The cocktails are delicious, (I tried three different ones and they were all good) the barmen are hot and chatty, you can buy pizza by the slice (!) and the retractable menus pull down from the ceiling; practical and kitsch.

(c) ESC

Obviously. there's a jukebox WHICH you can change with your phone after downloading an app - it's usually playing American rock of all eras.. AND if you're lucky enough to get a table (we weren't), on some of them you can flirt with likely gals and guys on other tables with the lickle burger phones (I didn't actually see any of these). LOL. Seriously go there now... Here's a few more crap photos soz...

The décor is uber trends and it's underground.

Serious cocktails....

V & I

Obviously after all those yummy cocktails, we ended up drunk and dancing in Soho... Here's the swilled #selfie...

By the way you can book; we thought you couldn't hence no table, but apparently you definitely can. 

Earlham Street Clubhouse

35 Earlham Street

Covent Garden

London

WC2H 9LD

020 7240 5142

info@esclubhouse.com

www.esclubhouse.com 

PS:

Here are the menus: (I had Rollin' With the Homies & Beauty School Droppout - both delish if you're a wine/champagne fan. Unfortunately we didn't try the pizza - but all I spoke to said it was gooood)

Drinks:

Pizza:

Throwback Post 1: Blue WKD - TB* ASAP

Many a night in the early noughties was spent surgically attached to these things... 99p they were in some places, two or three would get the teenage-girl in question well on her way to inhibition. Medicating by WKD had varying results from the very good: succeeding on "pulling" a spiky-quiffed boy in the middle of Yates's, one hand, crunching his hair, the other still clinging on to the sticky, blue bottle - to the very bad: blue vomit, enough said.

WKD's were around post-crates of Bacardi-breezers; drunk in the park or at house parties aged 14-15; collecting the multicoloured tops for our school diaries. They were pre-Reefs, the "healthy" alcopop - I drunk these at uni when I couldn't afford much more and some bar in Newcastle had them five and five apple sours for a fiver... Ahhh the North.

My friend EHJ - Totally Loving It

My friends and I were extremely over-excited recently, when we found a bar that served WKD's in - of all places - Bognor Regis. And with one tip of the cold blue liquid, a casual clink and a shout of "Strawpedo!"... we regressed ten years.. from the dancing to Breathe by Sean-a-Paul and Blu Cantrell (really?!) and Where is the Love, to seeking out a crunchy quiff amongst the best boys of Bognor...

So like totally TB* yah...

*TB = text back, in-case you weren't familiar, yes in the early-days of the mobile when we didn't really know the etiquette, we used to ask for a text back ON.EVERY.MESSAGE. Absolutely no game, but simpler days as you knew you were pretty much dumped if the message did not say TB at the end.

PS: Before social-media, I think I'd said throwback once in my life.

A Nineties Christmas...

So technically I was born in 1986, but I spent my more formative years mostly in the nineties and early noughties and my heart is very much in this period. Bring on the paper hats, tacky tinsel, smock dresses and Vicar of Dibley Christmas Special, I say. 

We spent our advent practising for nativity plays with no political correctness issues, blasting out Mariah and East 17 watching Miracle on 34^th Street for the umpteenth time. Our Christmas lists included Sticker books, Polly Pockets and Pogs and, the Puppy in my Pocket Hotel. Tinies Tim and Tears wet themselves- that was enough for us. Later we just wanted the Spice Girls album and a subscription to Shout magazine. As the nineties drew to a close, it was all about skater gear and owning umpteen CDs which invariably got scratched on our favourite songs from overuse. We would record the Christmas Chart religiously with the cassette drive of our Ghetto Blasters, trying our best to cut out the DJs voice and just get the tracks. 

The actual day consisted of crappy stocking presents, board games and watching our parents sing drunkenly to Slade whilst we pilfered Quality Street. We never had any batteries for any gift that needed them, we could never get into the excess of pre-green-consciousness plastic, nineties packaging and we also fell asleep on the sofa. A simpler time.

I've seen many, many wonderful posts by far more prolific bloggers on Christmas and Christmas gifts and I am fully aware that I cannot match these. So instead I will provide a nostalgic look at how to rekindle a little of that nineties spirit and what presents to buy the nineties kids in your life...

FASHION

Nowadays, Christmas jumpers are back in.. and they sort-of-cool and festive. However, style-wise they are more seventies-eighties in era. A nineties christmas jumper looked like this: 

Jumper, ASOS Marketplace, £19.99

In the early nineties our parents loved a patterned waistcoat:

Waistcoat, Etsy, £9.39

Know some kids to kit out? Why not try the nineties staple, the smock dress. (I actually love these still and would buy myself this if in my size.)

Smocked Dress, Etsy, £9.39

ATMOSPHERE 

First, decorations and all hail, the classic paper-chain and paper snowflake. You actually need nothing for these except coloured paper, white paper, scissors and glue (who doesn't have a Pritt Stick hanging around at home?). 

So metallic paper is cooler....

Remember these? Circle of paper, fold in to sixths and cut funny patterns in. You have to know how to handle your scissors to make them this good.

If you can't remember how to do these, there is a guide here - for kids so you should be able to manage.

Here's your playlist:

CD,Amazon, £16.95 or iTunes

And these are a must: (all Amazon or iTunes)

GIFTS

If you know some nineties kids, I'm sure they all like these.. 

Truffle Shuffle t-shirts, all £19.99.

Ladies Playdays T-shirt

Ladies Roald Dahl's The Enormous Crocodile T-shirt

Mens Jurassic Park T-shirt

Mens Bert and Ernie Sesame Street T-shirt

Personalised Converse, £54.00

Whaaaatttt. They are the same converse but full customiseable...

UNO, £2.99 

Ebay

Jellyfish Lamp, £60.00

Because some people still miss their lava lamps and these are way more beautiful... they sell them at Selfridges if you're based in London or in their online store as well.

Nintendo iPod Charger, £22.54

Because.. why not..

Finally- top of my list:

ASOS Backpack, £28.00

Ummm, it's tartan and it totally Cher...

That's all for now. Merry Christmas Kids...