Do you ever want to run away from being grown up? I do. I do all the grown-up stuff - I have a Proper Job (with accompanying intensive study course to prove I'm qualified to do it). I rent a pretty spacious flat with magnolia walls and pine bookshelves. I pay the bills on time. I can't wear a short skirt without trying to pull it down over my knees approximately every 1.08 minutes. I get my hair done at the salon very six weeks, instead of roping in a mate for an evening where we dye all the bathroom sinks (and our ears) dark blue.
And yet, every so often, I look at my life, and feel kind of nervous. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for all the many good and lovely things in my life, but sometimes I feel that this is all a bit too grown up. A bit too much of the belted three-quarter length office coat, and a bit too little of the hoody thrown on over vest and combats. A bit too much of proper meals eaten at a table, and a bit too little of smoked salmon and fruit eaten straight from the packet while I read. A bit too much getting to bed at a sensible hour, and hardly any of the picnicking in Endcliffe Park at midnight witha bottle of Blavod.
And at those times - maybe it's springtime, I don't know- the sap rises, and I feel like doing silly and quite innocent things, like getting legless on a school night, just to prove that I'm still in control of my own life, not fenced out of my own freedoms somehow. Just to prove that it's still up to me what I do and why. A kind of teenaged instinct, but there you have it. A poor thing, but my own.
I haven't yet done it though. The nearest I've got so far is having one more drink than I think I should when I know I'm at work in the morning, spending stupid amounts of money on beautiful but utterly un-sensible shoes, or staying out too late. But even that I've done with that attitude of "ooh I shouldn't, really" which characterises middle-aged women treating themselves to a verboten tiramisu. God, even my rebellion's middle-aged. There's clearly no hope for me. I'm off to buy some sensible sandals and a beige cardigan, ready for my exhausted slump into the menopause years.
I might take a bottle of Midori and some lip gloss, too.
Monday, 4 July 2011
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Unlucky gym
I don't like blogs that are all rants, so this post will be approximately 50% rant.
Do you know what I hate? Gyms. God, they're depressing places, an atmosphere heavy with guilt and misery. Vending machines that only sell bottled water and the kind of muesli bars that are less a snack than an orally-administered punishment. The clientele an even split between people who use it as a religion, spandex saints with all the gear who go at least six days a week and really enjoy it, and women of all ages drearily doing their three times a week gym duty. It's written all over their faces that they'd rather be at home with Hollyoaks and a couple of rounds of toast.
The gym staff meanwhile, came straight out of the Nuremburg second eleven - dead-eyed sadists who hate the customers indiscriminately and whose overall air is "they won't be coming more than a month, so why bother with customer service?" The machines are essentially the tools of the Greek Hades. As Tantalus reached for succulent fruit he couldn't grab, as Sisyphus pushed his boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again just as he reached the top - so the gym is filled with neverending staircases and eternal hills to run up. I don't know why we put ourselves through it.
Nor do I like the packages you get tied into - pay £10 a month for the first three months (minimum membership duration seven years, whether you go or not), a forced "fitness plan" and "personal trainer." I.e., one of the sadists stops texting and picking his feet behind the desk, lollops over to look you up and down, and mutters, "Fifty on the cross trainer, Miss Flabby, until such time as I say STOP" and is silent until you are actually dead of exertion, having ignored your constant protests that every time the handles come back on the infernal machine they hit you in the boobs hard enough to make you bleed. And, between my day job and writing, it's very hard to find the time to gym it the required number of times per week without it beginning to feel like yet another obligation that I must find time for in my already packed life.
So, gyms. You sweat in front of strangers, exert yourself to coronary-causing levels and get ripped off to do it. Sadly, if you take no exercise (always my preferred option) you die of a heart attack at 35. And for the ten years before that, you've been too big to fit into anything other than ugly Bon Marche t-shirts and stirrup leggings.
Now, I want to live, and I don't want to wear stirrup leggings. So, I've started to explore the murky world of home fitness. Im pleased to see that it's moved on since I last did it. GMTV's Mr Motivator has long since hung up his migraine-causing leotard and ceased to shout cheerfully "I CAN SEE YOU FLAGGING THERE!' as you attempt to sneak off to your own goddamn kitchen for an energy-giving biscuit. No, I have found a wonderful thing.
Mini exercise bikes. I bought one. It's beautiful. It cost less than a night out clubbing. It has a calorie counter (for seeing how many hours you have to sweat for to burn off an individual tiramisu). And for the last few nights, I have sat on a dining chair, pedalling frantically with the remote control in my other hand, watching Emmerdale while I lose weight. I've got a set of weights in pretty colours too, but the bike is my first love. It's the way exercise should be - in front of the TV and half a dozen steps away from the shower for when you've finished.
Have I lost weight? Well, the thing is, I got annoyed and threw out my weighing scales, so I've no idea. But this I do know; I'm pedalling fast away from the risk of a future in stirrup pants.
Do you know what I hate? Gyms. God, they're depressing places, an atmosphere heavy with guilt and misery. Vending machines that only sell bottled water and the kind of muesli bars that are less a snack than an orally-administered punishment. The clientele an even split between people who use it as a religion, spandex saints with all the gear who go at least six days a week and really enjoy it, and women of all ages drearily doing their three times a week gym duty. It's written all over their faces that they'd rather be at home with Hollyoaks and a couple of rounds of toast.
The gym staff meanwhile, came straight out of the Nuremburg second eleven - dead-eyed sadists who hate the customers indiscriminately and whose overall air is "they won't be coming more than a month, so why bother with customer service?" The machines are essentially the tools of the Greek Hades. As Tantalus reached for succulent fruit he couldn't grab, as Sisyphus pushed his boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again just as he reached the top - so the gym is filled with neverending staircases and eternal hills to run up. I don't know why we put ourselves through it.
Nor do I like the packages you get tied into - pay £10 a month for the first three months (minimum membership duration seven years, whether you go or not), a forced "fitness plan" and "personal trainer." I.e., one of the sadists stops texting and picking his feet behind the desk, lollops over to look you up and down, and mutters, "Fifty on the cross trainer, Miss Flabby, until such time as I say STOP" and is silent until you are actually dead of exertion, having ignored your constant protests that every time the handles come back on the infernal machine they hit you in the boobs hard enough to make you bleed. And, between my day job and writing, it's very hard to find the time to gym it the required number of times per week without it beginning to feel like yet another obligation that I must find time for in my already packed life.
So, gyms. You sweat in front of strangers, exert yourself to coronary-causing levels and get ripped off to do it. Sadly, if you take no exercise (always my preferred option) you die of a heart attack at 35. And for the ten years before that, you've been too big to fit into anything other than ugly Bon Marche t-shirts and stirrup leggings.
Now, I want to live, and I don't want to wear stirrup leggings. So, I've started to explore the murky world of home fitness. Im pleased to see that it's moved on since I last did it. GMTV's Mr Motivator has long since hung up his migraine-causing leotard and ceased to shout cheerfully "I CAN SEE YOU FLAGGING THERE!' as you attempt to sneak off to your own goddamn kitchen for an energy-giving biscuit. No, I have found a wonderful thing.
Mini exercise bikes. I bought one. It's beautiful. It cost less than a night out clubbing. It has a calorie counter (for seeing how many hours you have to sweat for to burn off an individual tiramisu). And for the last few nights, I have sat on a dining chair, pedalling frantically with the remote control in my other hand, watching Emmerdale while I lose weight. I've got a set of weights in pretty colours too, but the bike is my first love. It's the way exercise should be - in front of the TV and half a dozen steps away from the shower for when you've finished.
Have I lost weight? Well, the thing is, I got annoyed and threw out my weighing scales, so I've no idea. But this I do know; I'm pedalling fast away from the risk of a future in stirrup pants.
Monday, 13 June 2011
Questions, questions everywhere
When I became a mum, in the weird, slightly back-door kind of a way that I did (it's a long story. And, for that matter, doesn't involve my back door), I thought I had it taped. Like 99% of parents, I soon found out that I didn't.
And the remaining 1% are lying.
You see, my son was an easy baby. He did all the right stuff, at the right time. Crawled at eight months. Walked at fourteen months. Talked at fifteen months. Ate everything he was given. Did all that stuff. And now, as he approaches his sixth birthday, I knew - of course I did - that there would be awkward questions. I prepared. He has a rough idea of where babies come from, and how they get there, thanks to nature documentaries, and relaxed answerings of the inevitable questions. I thought, smugly, that I was ahead of the game.
I didn't know, dammit. I didn't appreciate the sheer range of childhood questions. I had an idea that there were only a few, and they would be asked at home or on walks or something, as opposed to at the checkout in Tesco.
No. My most awkward question so far has been: "Why do we eat meat? We are made of meat." Quite apart from sounding like an alien conqueror from 1952, this completely threw me. As I floundered through an explanation of the role of protein in the human diet, I could tell it wasn't washing. "But," he said, frowning, "we can eat other things. Lions can't eat other things so they must eat meat. But we must not eat meat." My son, with syllogism.
We continue. "Isn't it wrong to keep tigers at the zoo? They should be with their families in the jungle." He failed to be convinced by my discussion of endangered species captive breeding programmes, or by the fact that tigers are solitary by nature. "How long does it take to make a big cloud? Why must hyenas survive? If the hairdresser's mirror isn't magic, why can I see the back of my head?" It's like being interrogated by the information Gestapo. After a while I can only feel like collapsing exhausted onto a crate of yams, weeping.
But no. I must soldier on. For as long as I answer, he will believe I Know Stuff. And as long as he trusts in my superior intellectual ability, I can still insist that there is a law that says people under six have to be in bed by half past seven, and the world will be safe for another day.
And the remaining 1% are lying.
You see, my son was an easy baby. He did all the right stuff, at the right time. Crawled at eight months. Walked at fourteen months. Talked at fifteen months. Ate everything he was given. Did all that stuff. And now, as he approaches his sixth birthday, I knew - of course I did - that there would be awkward questions. I prepared. He has a rough idea of where babies come from, and how they get there, thanks to nature documentaries, and relaxed answerings of the inevitable questions. I thought, smugly, that I was ahead of the game.
I didn't know, dammit. I didn't appreciate the sheer range of childhood questions. I had an idea that there were only a few, and they would be asked at home or on walks or something, as opposed to at the checkout in Tesco.
No. My most awkward question so far has been: "Why do we eat meat? We are made of meat." Quite apart from sounding like an alien conqueror from 1952, this completely threw me. As I floundered through an explanation of the role of protein in the human diet, I could tell it wasn't washing. "But," he said, frowning, "we can eat other things. Lions can't eat other things so they must eat meat. But we must not eat meat." My son, with syllogism.
We continue. "Isn't it wrong to keep tigers at the zoo? They should be with their families in the jungle." He failed to be convinced by my discussion of endangered species captive breeding programmes, or by the fact that tigers are solitary by nature. "How long does it take to make a big cloud? Why must hyenas survive? If the hairdresser's mirror isn't magic, why can I see the back of my head?" It's like being interrogated by the information Gestapo. After a while I can only feel like collapsing exhausted onto a crate of yams, weeping.
But no. I must soldier on. For as long as I answer, he will believe I Know Stuff. And as long as he trusts in my superior intellectual ability, I can still insist that there is a law that says people under six have to be in bed by half past seven, and the world will be safe for another day.
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Me book, like!
I'm pleased to announce that my new book, BiOlogy, is now available! It's a collection of short stories themed around bisexuality, and if you'd like to buy a copy (which would delight me to yet unsurpassed realms of joy), you can do so via the link below. Thanks people!
http://clairelouisathomas.blogspot.com/p/my-books.html
http://clairelouisathomas.blogspot.com/p/my-books.html
Monday, 3 January 2011
Alas, soap justice
Once upon a time, soaps were the distributors of natural justice. Dirty Den only had to knock up his teenaged daughter's best mate to deserve being shot into a canal by a man hiding a gun in a bunch of wilting daffs, whereas Emmerdale's Bob Hope was punished for crimes against hosiery by being forced to shack up with Viv "The Quacking Mullet" Windsor for what felt like an eternity. Nowadays, soap stars get off lightly. Nobody's punished. Chester's favourite murderer, widemouthed Warren Fox has come back from the dead and is busy enjoying living his second life to the full, while Coronation Street's John Stape is continuing his career of rubbish villainy while wife Fiz is safely glued to the neonatal unit of Weatherfield General. Abductions, manslaughters, identity theft, underage sex with a pupil - John's criminal record is as long as your arm, and yet everything he does seems so hapless and weak-kneed that I just roll my eyes, like a sufferer of terminal Nintendo syndrome. Maybe the writers just can't be bothered to punish him, but I still don't see why viewers should be punished by his continued appearance on screen. And EastEnders! Normally the one soap that can be relied upon to dish out the grimmest, Victorian reformatory-style moral punishments, this has gone by the wall too, as Ian Beale, after a lifetime of grovelling, sidling, completely irredeemable awfulness, is still getting smart blondes to sleep with him. Honestly, Glenda. Surely you can do better than that.
I'm rather disenchanted generally with soaps at the moment. The constant recycling of characters and plots is getting me down. Squawking tart Kat Moon has dragged her hapless Alfie back to haunt my viewing, and now cousin (and ex-shag) Michael is set to hove into view. Michael is inoffensive to the eye, wears suits and is described as "having his eye on a few Walford ladies". So, not at all like Nick "Every Five Years Like Halley's Shitbomb" Tilsley returning to Corrie with a new face, then. Michael will do the same tired old rounds as everyone else - Kat, Janine, either slapper Roxy or Ronnie the Mucus Queen - then settle for a while with someone. That's what they all do. I'm just praying that this time it will be St. Tracy the barmaid. She's well overdue for someone to put a smile on her face.
But there is good news. Troublesome middle-class Maisie Wylde is set to depart from the Dales with younger brother Will in tow. Maisie can't see further than the end of her Babyliss curling wand, and the ultimate illustration of this is that she accepts, then rethinks and declines a proposal of marriage from Nikhil Sharma before she goes, silly bitch. Nikhil is tall, elegant, wealthy and has an independent income that he has amassed from confectionery. Confectionery, Maisie. I know you're a size eight, but even you ought to be able to spot that you might have been onto a good thing by shacking up with the Sweetie King.
But, as ever, as one soap waxes, another will wane. Maisie may have lightened the load of Emmerdale, but down in EastEnders, pin-eyed, tomato-faced Phil Mitchell is still alive and breeding.
It's like I said. There's no justice in soap any more.
I'm rather disenchanted generally with soaps at the moment. The constant recycling of characters and plots is getting me down. Squawking tart Kat Moon has dragged her hapless Alfie back to haunt my viewing, and now cousin (and ex-shag) Michael is set to hove into view. Michael is inoffensive to the eye, wears suits and is described as "having his eye on a few Walford ladies". So, not at all like Nick "Every Five Years Like Halley's Shitbomb" Tilsley returning to Corrie with a new face, then. Michael will do the same tired old rounds as everyone else - Kat, Janine, either slapper Roxy or Ronnie the Mucus Queen - then settle for a while with someone. That's what they all do. I'm just praying that this time it will be St. Tracy the barmaid. She's well overdue for someone to put a smile on her face.
But there is good news. Troublesome middle-class Maisie Wylde is set to depart from the Dales with younger brother Will in tow. Maisie can't see further than the end of her Babyliss curling wand, and the ultimate illustration of this is that she accepts, then rethinks and declines a proposal of marriage from Nikhil Sharma before she goes, silly bitch. Nikhil is tall, elegant, wealthy and has an independent income that he has amassed from confectionery. Confectionery, Maisie. I know you're a size eight, but even you ought to be able to spot that you might have been onto a good thing by shacking up with the Sweetie King.
But, as ever, as one soap waxes, another will wane. Maisie may have lightened the load of Emmerdale, but down in EastEnders, pin-eyed, tomato-faced Phil Mitchell is still alive and breeding.
It's like I said. There's no justice in soap any more.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
My other half, who Does pop culture, has been wittering on about the upcoming Thor film for, ooh, ages now. For the uninitiated, Thor is a comic book character based on the Norse God. He's a blond bodybuilder who wanders round in his pants carrying a hammer, a bit like a stoner trying to put together a flat pack bookcase, or a hard-up porn actor looking for work. I found this faintly risible, so had no interest in the film, until Other Half was looking at some preview pictures online, and I saw the actor whose name has figured prominently in these discussions.
And then it clicked.
The name of Chris Hemsworth was not one I knew from Hollywood. Rather, he did three years in a little town called Summer Bay, as Home and Away's Kim Hyde, son of sub-Fisher school principal Barry. (He was a shirtless tearaway who argued constantly with his over-strict dad.)
Suddenly my interest rocketed. This film is going to be great. I'm particularly looking forward to the scene where spoilt blonde Nicole Franklin, she with the A-level in flouncing, transmogrifies into Thor's wife, the goddess Sif. Or the one where Thor parks his goat-drawn chariot in the disabled space by the diner, causing Irene to eye her cooking sherry longingly before she goes for a moody walk on the beach in the hope of seeing Aden with his abs out. Or the scene where Alf Roberts calls Thor a flamin' great galah for leaving his hammer Mjolnir at the caravan park.
That would be a seriously great film.
It set me wondering what other soap characters of the past could get a new lease of life in the rash of hyperinflated-budgeted comic films Hollywood is currently spawning. And there are loads! Think about it...
Ex-EastEnder Amira Shah is a strong contender for Wonderwoman. Surely the hair-tossing Amira in her crippling heels would adore bullet-proof bracelets. And with the Lasso of Truth, she could have saved herself a lot of heartache by forcing the truth out of her sexually confused, tousle-haired husband months back, instead of accepting all his rubbish excuses because she was too busy doing her nails to think for herself. ("No, honestly, Amira, Christian's just giving me bodybuilding tips. Naked bodybuilding tips behind the Masala Masood bins," Never was denial so painfully unconvincing.)
And Fred Elliott? Poor lost Fred. I say, surely he could carve out a new career as intergalactic slaphead the Silver Surfer? I say? Or Kim Tate as Elektra, complete with the famous mirror in which she checked her lippy after ensuring it could no longer be misted by Frank's irksome habit of breathing. Kim, the original stilettoed assassin, saw to that. In fact, now The Bill has gone west, I'm seeing that comic book films could be the next soap graveyard. Bets are on now that Ashley Peacock ends up as the Punisher. Twelve to one and under starters' orders.
And then it clicked.
The name of Chris Hemsworth was not one I knew from Hollywood. Rather, he did three years in a little town called Summer Bay, as Home and Away's Kim Hyde, son of sub-Fisher school principal Barry. (He was a shirtless tearaway who argued constantly with his over-strict dad.)
Suddenly my interest rocketed. This film is going to be great. I'm particularly looking forward to the scene where spoilt blonde Nicole Franklin, she with the A-level in flouncing, transmogrifies into Thor's wife, the goddess Sif. Or the one where Thor parks his goat-drawn chariot in the disabled space by the diner, causing Irene to eye her cooking sherry longingly before she goes for a moody walk on the beach in the hope of seeing Aden with his abs out. Or the scene where Alf Roberts calls Thor a flamin' great galah for leaving his hammer Mjolnir at the caravan park.
That would be a seriously great film.
It set me wondering what other soap characters of the past could get a new lease of life in the rash of hyperinflated-budgeted comic films Hollywood is currently spawning. And there are loads! Think about it...
Ex-EastEnder Amira Shah is a strong contender for Wonderwoman. Surely the hair-tossing Amira in her crippling heels would adore bullet-proof bracelets. And with the Lasso of Truth, she could have saved herself a lot of heartache by forcing the truth out of her sexually confused, tousle-haired husband months back, instead of accepting all his rubbish excuses because she was too busy doing her nails to think for herself. ("No, honestly, Amira, Christian's just giving me bodybuilding tips. Naked bodybuilding tips behind the Masala Masood bins," Never was denial so painfully unconvincing.)
And Fred Elliott? Poor lost Fred. I say, surely he could carve out a new career as intergalactic slaphead the Silver Surfer? I say? Or Kim Tate as Elektra, complete with the famous mirror in which she checked her lippy after ensuring it could no longer be misted by Frank's irksome habit of breathing. Kim, the original stilettoed assassin, saw to that. In fact, now The Bill has gone west, I'm seeing that comic book films could be the next soap graveyard. Bets are on now that Ashley Peacock ends up as the Punisher. Twelve to one and under starters' orders.
Monday, 20 September 2010
The TV Diet - Five Swaps to Drop Your Pop-Culture
Magazines are always telling you to swap stuff. How you can save £800 on a beautifully cut belted black coat that makes you look like a cross between Lauren Bacall and Joan Crawford by buying a ratty one stitched by weeping peasant children from Primark (belt not included.) How you can save 600 calories by swapping a sextuple-chocolate muffin topped with a Mars Duo for half an After Eight mint, which isn't going to quieten anyone's raving PMS. How you can drop a dress size practically unnoticed by swapping the Pizza Hut blow-out plus Star Wars DVD marathon for a piece of carrot peeling and a brisk run over to Buenos Aires.
And it's all bollocks, isn't it? So I thought I would contribute by suggesting my own top four pop-culture phenomena, why you should swap them and what you could swap them for. It's just a bit of fun, so if you want to lynch me, keep it verbal. We're all adults now. Allegedly.
1. Glee
Some people enjoy watching anything between a dozen and a gross of identikit Americans leaping around in outfits that fell out of Bring It On. It troubles many of my dear friends not a whit that these wide-eyed teens all have teeth like an orthodontist's wet dream and a choice of three noses between the lot of them. Apart from the teacher whose acid one-liners are so often claimed to be "the only reason I watch it, honestly", I can only presume the cast were ordered wholesale. Personally I find it frighteningly surreal, depressing, vacuous, giddy and...I could go on. Swap for the Truman Show, which at least acknowledges the sense of constant surrealistic nightmare. Or Brave New World. Gleeks (I shudder as I type) are oh so many Lenina Crownes, ultimately greeting my horrified face with a blank look and an offer of yet more visual soma. No offence.
2. Twilight
You may be Team Jacob, your pubescent sister may be Team Edward, I represent Team Get A Frigging Life. Death-heavy romance or psychological abuse with fangs, take it your way. With marketing using the same colour scheme, poses and font as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's cynically pushed as cutesy paranormal for the impressionable generation. Instead, watch Twinklight, a low-budget cinematic treat which consists of two over-made-up, skinny teenaged lads getting grubby while wearing crappy pound-shop plastic fangs. It doesn't pretend to be anything it's not, and at one point I think that one lad catches a fang in the other's foreskin. Fun for all the family.
3. The Inbetweeners
For a show so lauded for its insightful realism, it holds no resonance for my own teens. Four irksome posh lads from Guildford try and fail to get some sex. Think Carry On with A-levels. They are not real teenagers. None of them ever order a butter pie in a chippy because it's the cheapest. None of them have ever bought a pint of milk off a milk float at six a.m. on a Saturday morning while they waited with a raging hangover for the first bus out of Huncoats. They never eat their own weight in Dairy Milk, gloomily pondering why their legs are so huge. Swap for Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, which contains fag-cadging students, people with ordinary jobs, and a concept of upmarket socialising as drinking in a pub where the staff occasionally scrape the sick off the floor. It's like coming home, I tell you.
4. X-Factor
Sub-pub karaoke sung by risible human vacuums desperately clawing at the cliff edge of potential fame. Swap for real pub karaoke, which at least involves leaving the house.
And it's all bollocks, isn't it? So I thought I would contribute by suggesting my own top four pop-culture phenomena, why you should swap them and what you could swap them for. It's just a bit of fun, so if you want to lynch me, keep it verbal. We're all adults now. Allegedly.
1. Glee
Some people enjoy watching anything between a dozen and a gross of identikit Americans leaping around in outfits that fell out of Bring It On. It troubles many of my dear friends not a whit that these wide-eyed teens all have teeth like an orthodontist's wet dream and a choice of three noses between the lot of them. Apart from the teacher whose acid one-liners are so often claimed to be "the only reason I watch it, honestly", I can only presume the cast were ordered wholesale. Personally I find it frighteningly surreal, depressing, vacuous, giddy and...I could go on. Swap for the Truman Show, which at least acknowledges the sense of constant surrealistic nightmare. Or Brave New World. Gleeks (I shudder as I type) are oh so many Lenina Crownes, ultimately greeting my horrified face with a blank look and an offer of yet more visual soma. No offence.
2. Twilight
You may be Team Jacob, your pubescent sister may be Team Edward, I represent Team Get A Frigging Life. Death-heavy romance or psychological abuse with fangs, take it your way. With marketing using the same colour scheme, poses and font as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's cynically pushed as cutesy paranormal for the impressionable generation. Instead, watch Twinklight, a low-budget cinematic treat which consists of two over-made-up, skinny teenaged lads getting grubby while wearing crappy pound-shop plastic fangs. It doesn't pretend to be anything it's not, and at one point I think that one lad catches a fang in the other's foreskin. Fun for all the family.
3. The Inbetweeners
For a show so lauded for its insightful realism, it holds no resonance for my own teens. Four irksome posh lads from Guildford try and fail to get some sex. Think Carry On with A-levels. They are not real teenagers. None of them ever order a butter pie in a chippy because it's the cheapest. None of them have ever bought a pint of milk off a milk float at six a.m. on a Saturday morning while they waited with a raging hangover for the first bus out of Huncoats. They never eat their own weight in Dairy Milk, gloomily pondering why their legs are so huge. Swap for Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, which contains fag-cadging students, people with ordinary jobs, and a concept of upmarket socialising as drinking in a pub where the staff occasionally scrape the sick off the floor. It's like coming home, I tell you.
4. X-Factor
Sub-pub karaoke sung by risible human vacuums desperately clawing at the cliff edge of potential fame. Swap for real pub karaoke, which at least involves leaving the house.
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