On the benefits of not mixing drinks

Very enthusiastically, I started this post like every other post - with a title that will not at all be related to the contents of my writing - and then was stuck. Rather than bullshitting as I usually do, I meant to think about something very serious to write here, because, dear non-existent reader, it is about bloody time to get serious. The leaves are falling, the neighbours are refurbishing their house, the chavs are wearing hoodies, and the East is filled with the smells of the cold. A time to be serious.

App on water. Since I have no AppPhone, I am left
ignorant as to the nature of the App, but
as far as I can tell, it must be the key to the
Promised Land. The Promising Land at the very least.

But frankly, what to be serious about? The absolutely awful play I went to see yesterday? The fact that I'd rather spend my time on a building site? The app on my water bottle? That apple-cinnamon-cardamom-traybake I made a couple of weeks ago? The choice of potentially serious matter is overwhelmingly big. Gargantuan - to hit you with a good old French adjective for pretentious people. And in my experience form previous serious episodes, hardly ever worth the while. Dwelling in the Peter Pan twilight of 'not-wanting-to-grow-up', I face the fact that I have indeed grown up to be rather tall, and that, as much as I'd love to, I cannot hide behind other people. (please insert here online abbreviation to express dislike)

Traybake. Pre-bake.

Facing perfectly autumnal sunny, but freezing weather, I wonder, loony without shroud, if I can get away with it for another couple of years. Get away with the worry about my hair, when really, I should be worrying about the impending melting of the baby seals, or the state the ozone zone. These issues exist, whether I like it or not, and I alone cannot help them. However, I can make a fair deal of a difference to my hair; it's a direct reaction to a prevalent problem at 8am in East London, whereas anything else would be a second- or third-hand reaction to an long-lasting problem somewhere completely different, and far away from East London that cannot be solved by Battiste dry shampoo, and might in fact have been caused by the overuse of Battiste dry shampoo in the late 70s and early 80s. I am starting to get the hang of Proustian sentences. Woop.

In order to have some content relevant to the title, I must say that finally, I also have got the hang of not-mixing-drinks. It was about time. After an incredible amount of G&Ts in late September, and only G&T, I have discovered the joy of being completely off my face, without the terrible hangover of the mixed drinks. Granted there was a bit of an aftermath, seeing that I definitely had more than 8 (which is where my brain was left physically incapable of counting), on hardly any sleep, but I was able to take a shower, put on my face and be presentable in no time on a Saturday morning roughly two weeks ago. I think another woop is in order! Like the path to the Promised Land, I am on to a winner here. Knowing that I respond rather well to Gin in general, and that apparently I smell like Gin too, I shall leave my sausagey fingers from dry white wine in the future, and dedicate my drinking to G&T. In other news, I just hovered my shoes - because they are muddy/dusty from working on a building site. Technically, it is not a building site in the classical sense, it's a set-deconstruction site, but looks strikingly similar to a building site, and works very similarly: lots of strong, capable people, and me in the middle. Clumsy, loud and a bit useless, but totally satisfied, because somebody gave me a drill the other day. Aaaannnnd I carried wood, which is the sole most satisfying thing I have done in the past year, which includes my degree. Who would have known. I should have enlisted in a carpenter's course or something, where I could get dirty (not in the Christina Aguilera sense), and where I could work on years of stored aggressions without doing much harm to anybody. Three arts degrees and I find paradise on a building site. October, the month of discoveries. 

Take off your spanx, Fashion Week is over

I proclaim that forthwith, London Fashion Week is over. 

Finally, those brownies are brought back into the shop windows, and the streets of London are no longer littered with people who cannot walk in their shoes. I had to keep myself from offering food to passing models, who look no less starved than all these Somali children they keep showing on the telly. 

My personal highlight was a journalist's remark on Friday, who, standing next to me in Covent Garden, asked me 'So, are you one of the plus-size models?'. It took a while to seep in that he had insulted me, rather than commented on the effort I had made with my hair, or with my outfit. What. A. Wanker.

I spent the rest of Fashion Week wearing the same outfit, sporting my limp, lifeless hair out and about to make a statement. I just have to figure out what it was.

Hoozah, now that Fashion Week is over, which as every year marks the seasonal end of summer, I can progress into Autumn, and dedicate my waking hours to the consumption of sugar, and fat, and carbs. It is the Holy Trinity of nutritional crimes, but what do I care? I am proudly modelling plus-sizes, remember? 

There is however a fourth category that, every shopping, startles me anew when I am visiting my local Tesco's. Meat, the animal matter packed in plastic, is lying in its little white coffins, and in my book, this is where it is supposed to remain. Not that I am a vegetarian - I love steak, the occasional cremated bacon bit, and chicken - but I abhor buying the stuff, let alone cooking it. Meat has a weird effect, looking at me in the aisles, 12 meatballs staring with 24 greasy eyeballs into my basket, saying 'we're going to clog your arteries'. But it is not the health factor that turns me off meat - did I mention brownies? - it is not a moral choice either. It's an aesthetic choice. I may be quoting Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy here, but meat just does not fit into my bigger aesthetic picture. I shall not desert into the camp of vegetarians, because there are still aesthetically pleasing or disguised forms of meat around, available for purchase. Lucky Chip do an amazing job with their cheeseburger (meat concealed under cheese and pickle), or Gaucho and their steaks, who practise a vital simplicity with their cuts and presentation. But do not come near me with a beige pork chop, or an overcooked piece of beef. These are things I had to grow up on, that follow me like a bad, beige shoe sole nightmare.

Speaking of nightmares: an Ode to the Nightbus

Run, darling run, it's your bus

Waiting no longer than it must

Your bags weigh heavy, your feet even heavier,

Your mind the heaviest.

2am, a glory time. Outside in the cold air

Your knight in a red armour

Stopping off on Broadway where you

Find salvation in its cosy seats.

But, alas, what ho! Another passenger,

and there two more. Sitting on their comfy 

Arses, snoring, eating, snogging, ealing

Themselves in the heat of the Nightbus.

The stale air, takeaway and fart, and beer,

And old perfume, and stuffy coats, and no coats,

And the scars of the night before the morning 

After. Looks are all on you, your audience 

Welcomes you stranger with hostile eyes, but why,

Why hostility? Publicly transporting, the Nightbus

Winds itself around the corners of the Eastern Land, 

Through wafts of curry and cold fat,

The perfume of another world, to the one proclaimed,

Like a second saviour on the blind of your vessel:

Oxford Circus.

Reluctantly, a stranger is forced to free you a seat,

And you sit amongst the mingling night smells, so

Familiar, reproduced every night, in a continuing

Performance. The night. The Nightbus. Your stop.

Off.