If You Don’t Go to 30, 30 Will Sure as Shit Come to You

It’s all kicking off.  And high drama is where I fit most comfortably, thank you please…

There I was this morning, having a wee wee, staring at the Daniel O’Donnell calendar and pontificating firstly on WHY THE FRIG anyone would believe this man to be a heterosexual, least of all find him attractive.  And secondly, (I wondered , after the wee was slowing to a trickle), why had he been superimposed onto a range of drab household backdrops?  Is that what floats the housewives’ boats?  A camp Bilbo Baggins masquerading as a ‘oh so loyal’ gingham-wearing husband (who has never so much as googled the phrase Rent Boy)?  There he is, just hanging out in the Schreiber fitted kitchen, quietly waiting for his food.  I love that he refused to go to the actual locations.  ‘Just blue screen me up bitch’s’.

Daniel with his wife Susan

But come midday…bloody hell, come midday I had bigger fish to fry.  I’d been stood up (the biggest of reliefs),  I’d handed in notice on my beloved flat of 6 years and I’d re-introduced the humble flip flop back into my wardrobe!  Cow-a-fucking-bunga!!

So…the date…the first and last date of my life.  He asked if we could rearrange, to which I replied with a hasty and daring silence.  To be fair, he was lovely and apologetic and sent me a bleeding heart email of how he simply ‘had to run a household errand most urgently’.  Let’s face it his politeness and good education were never going to rub well (oi oi) with my bare knuckle northern upbringing.  I just didn’t fancy it.  Not didn’t fancy ‘him’.  Just didn’t fancy ‘it’.  I don’t want to have to sell myself.  I’m ace.  And I don’t want to feign interest in a world that I don’t understand.  Call me small minded but knowledge isn’t power.  Knowledge is eye breaking.  Best to be ignorant.  At least that’s what the Loose Women keep telling me.  And they know everything.  They’re so clever and bright.

So, I’m leaving my beautiful and gorgeous Muswell Hill flat where there have been parties and tears, break ups, bitch fights, coming out shenanigans, cross continental bum love and mind blowing soups invented on the spot…it’s all been going on.  But the party is over.  It is like Charles and Diana when they were shagging everything but each other.

And in other news, me and my belly got tested.  And the good bit is that it’s not a baby.  Groovy times for the baby as it would be somewhat overcooked in there.  These are the things that I am intolerant to:

Mushrooms

Yeast

Sugar

Tourists

Yes, it is true.  The News at Ten was NOT shitting you.  The Lollmeister can neither drink or graze on cheese for three months.  THREE MONTHS.   My life is effectively over. Bottled water and steamed veg.  That is how I mother frickin’ roll now.  And while clearly sucking the fat one, I will most likely shrink to my former ballet bod size zero self, circa 1991.

And what caused this unholy rise in yeast that feasted like a gremlin upon my friendly bacteria?  The pill, girls.  The pill.  Be warned.  It eats into your good stuff like a stoner at midnight.  They don’t tell you that down at Retty Family Planning Clinic when you are 19 and in love with a ginger.  No siree. 

So it’s back to the olde Levonelle diet bloglets.  That or getting it awn with a eunuch.  I’ll get O'Donnell to pencil something in the diary.

BYE.

Dates and Big Bellies

Enjoying the one hour of sun we had this week, it didn’t last:

So…oh my god!   I have news….

I’ve got a date!  I’ve got a mother frickin’ date and I CANNOT HANDLE IT!!!   Quite how I’ve gotten to 30 without ever having been on a date is beyond me.  I’ve had around six relationships so I’m not fully sure how they began.  I mean there were some overlaps of course, as Jessie J likes to point out; Nobody’s Perfect but still…

It suddenly becomes clear why I’ve been on my own for two years…du du duuu…drum roll…THROUGH CHOICE!  Who would have funked it?!  Here was I…pleading desperation, declaring myself unlovable when the whole time, I just didn’t want to give myself to anybody.  I’ve been hanging on to my independence like that bird in Cliffhanger.  But the leather glove cannot stay on forever.  And I have to admit, being single is pretty cool: the whole bed to yourself, drinking shed loads without having to answer to anyone…er…being spontaneous.  I would never have lived in Berlin or bobbed around India had I been with someone.  And I would most certainly be fatter due to boyfriend sized food portions.  So why would I want to give up my slimmer more drunken lifestyle for stability and affection?  Although doubling my DVD collection is a little tempting…

But what do you talk about?  Oh shit…I mean, he’s a lawyer for frigs sake.  I’ll have to dumb down the accent, the hyper energy, hide the fact that I do regular nuddy runs (my highlights being the nuddy bike ride in Cardiff and  Hyde Park on the day of the Royal Wedding-I was highly papped, thank you please).  And what will the belly do on the day?  Will it be flat or ‘pregs’?!  Take a look at these two photos-taken on the SAME DAY.  Maybe I’ll just get a ‘baby on board’ badge and be done with it.

Later that day:

Clearly I am allergic to something.  I’m being tested tomorrow and these are the prime suspects:

Wheat

Alcohol (please no, just kill me now)

Poverty

Hymen re-growth

Boredom

Milky Way Magic Stars

Gluten

Pollution (sack Boris)

Trackers

I am not sure which it is but I’ll let you know.  (You’re engrossed obvs).

Also, watch this space regarding the lawyer.  Ha ha, can you imagine me with a lawyer?  Hilar.  I’ve turned down people for much worse.  Just last week I ended an e-mail exchange because the guy had gone to a party dressed as a fox.  Bad that you done it pal.  Even worse that you be bragging about it.

And what if I like him?  Could I actually commit?  I’ve done it before but it’s always ended badly.  I mean, Tom Hanks didn’t necessarily need Wilson but he sobbed his little heart out when he drifted out to sea.  Time for a new volleyball my friends.  Time for a new smudge of blood…Boo-ya!!!

Check Out the Video of My Time in India...

The Inevitable Rise of the Indie Kid...

The blonde is back bitch’s:

Oh how I’ve missed the humble pip of the white van, the gentle whistle of a work man. Phew. And relax. It’s on, it seems. Although as per usual, the calibre is somewhat disappointing. (And I'm not looking for Brad Pitt, my target is more Bradley Walsh).

I joined Match.com after the wanky pretention of Guardian Soulmates, where it seems a Post-Graduate Diploma juxtaposed with a double F cup size is not enough to draw in the punters. But on Match…bloody hell, on Match it is a free for all. Although they really should consider renaming it ‘Fugly dot com’ and charge considerably less for membership. This is one email that I received:

 " I'm thinking about making you arch your back, stretching your neck and shivering and breathless... ...I'd love the chance to tell you more " x

Er…WTF? Apart from the fact that the sentence is grammatically incorrect, these words are normally saved until AFTER the crème brulee. No thanks.

And where as on Soulmates, every second picture is of a guitar being strummed, (oh you’re so poetic and interesting) here every other picture is sans shirt. I am not a gay man. I do not care what your chest looks like. And I do not care if your salary is large or whether you consider yourself to be romantic. I care about one thing and one thing alone; your ability to grow a full man beard.

The problem is thus. The indie kid was all well and good IN THE 90’S. But our generation of women has seriously lucked out. The indie kid never grew into the man he was supposed to. They swapped DIY skills for skinny jeans and stupid hair. Yes. Unless you are Morrissey (both Stephen Patrick and David), that quiff looks stupid. And as a result women have become skinnier to accommodate the bicep-less man. I’m a size 14. I want a man who makes me look petite and feminine. A man who grunts when he’s hungry and can see to my plumbing.

In a completely unrelated incident we need to talk about the headache to the eyes that is Boris Johnson.

Well done London on being a bunch of right wing, predictably spineless bastards. I love the broken hound dog that is Ken. I only knew one other Ken in my life and he had it all, running my entire harem of lesbian Barbies. Not Red Ken though. Red Ken is flawed and hopeless in love and a little lost but he has spirit and gall and he gives a shit about this cruddy city that we call our home. And even if he is a little inept, as Sonia once crooned ‘Better the Devil you Know’. (Eurovision might not have liked it but the scouser had a point).

When our forefathers fought for democracy (did they? I don’t know, probs), they had faith in our intelligence. They shouldn’t have. ‘Who actually votes Tory’? is now just another rhetorical question such as ‘who would download a Keane album’? There are no answers. Time to get all Arab Spring on their ass and fight AGAINST democracy. I don’t think they learned K’baddy at public school. The blue collar’s would take The Strand and the northern peninsular. Your country needs you. If Live Lounge has taught us anything, it is that the right song in the wrong hands can be disastrous.

I’d love to stay and chat but I’m off to arch my back and stretch my neck ‘shivering and breathless’. Ha.  As if.

Let Loose in Kerala

KOCHIN

It was like the beginning of a dodgy Miss Marple or a juicy Murder She Wrote set on an exotic island in the middle of a storm. I'd been the only non-Indian I'd encountered in a number of hours and as a result I was quite the 'bearded lady' at the circus down at the old boat jetty. Nothing that a waft of the poo hand couldn't sort out.

So boarding a ferry in torrential rain under a fog light sky of rumbles and cracks, I found myself once again thinking 'well done dick head'. Having made it across by the skin of my perfectly aligned teeth, I found myself stranded at a powerless jetty sans tuk-tuk, taxi or public transport. Just muggins up to me calfs in water, an ill thought through Matalan dress clinging to my bones and a voice in the darkness:

"Hello friend..."

...No no no no no no no. Do not attempt to talk to me here on this dark, empty road. I do not think Jessica Fletcher has even arrived on the island and we all know that she has to make friends with the victim before they are poisoned in their sleep.

'If he asks where I'm from, I will begin drop kicking people' I mused.

"Where you from"?

In these instances when trying with your might to avoid violence, I find that answering any question with 'your mum' usually deflects sentiment. Silence.

"Where you from"?

"Your mum".

"England"?

"Your mum".

"What is your good name"?

"Your mum".

Silence.

I trundled off into the dark, the rain and my guaranteed future as a crime statistic.

KOLLAM

What a difference a day makes. 24 little hours. You can be sat crying in a piss stenched hovel, in your pants, crying into your egg fried rice that you are eating with your fingers and thinking how you made a mistake, that you weren't strong enough, that you could not, absolutely could NOT have sharted three times in a week and then ...then you can be serenaded by Kerala's very own answer to Kenny Rogers. Oh yes. Cue cruise ship keyboard. Cue (in Indian accent) "my next song will be Achy Breaky Heart" and cue the best disco tracks of the 20th century mumbled in the style of Country and Western. Oh, oh my. The very next day I was hanging out the window of a bus like a shaggy dog, listening to Snow Patrol on volume 10 and lamenting on how brilliant I am.

AND TO CONCLUDE...FORT COCHIN

I have hated some things about this country. Many many things. For a nation that flouts every health and safety law and views road markings as a mere inconvenience, they really do adhere to some STUPID rules. Who does all this senseless paperwork? Who?? And needing to show your boarding card when leaving an aircraft? Here's an idea: it's called a BOARDING card dip shit. Not a disembarking card. What are you going to do? Hold me on the tarmac? Send me back? Wouldn't I need another boarding card? Shall I fill in all my details with my age and religion and sexual preference to get one?

That is only slightly less stupid than the many fruit stalls that don't sell fruit. "Three oranges please" I proffer, pointing at the plethora of oranges beneath bananas and next to something that is probably a guava. "I no sell madam". "What? I can't buy these oranges that make up the contents of your shop"? "We no sell oranges here". Oh obviously. My mistake. How incredibly short sighted of me.

And so my love/hate relationship with India continues. I am currently sat in the breezy bliss of a tea shop in Fort Cochin, basking in my memories. This place was a tip from a girl I met in Delhi, right at the beginning of my trip. She was right. It's chilled and lovely and I am at peace sipping my cinnamon tea waiting on my honey pancakes. The British have definately been here. Children are playing hockey in the village square next to pastel coloured Colonial houses. But getting here was the usual nightmare, every tuk-tuk stopping. "You want to take my Ferrari today madam"? No, no I do not wish to take your 2 miles an hour 'Ferrari'. Thank you very much for stopping anyway and for registering your concern.

And off he roared into the morning. Rude bastard didn't even ask me where I was from.

Let Loose in Karnataka

SOMEWHERE ON A TRAIN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SOUTH OF INDIA I THINK...

Three weeks in and I'm still making terrible decisions; stinking out my backpack with bananas the day before visiting a monkey temple. The stupidest, perhaps was a string of 8 hour benders after full on days in the sun. Turns out a tanned ass is not worth your guts exploding every which way for days on end, leaving you unable to eat, breathe or swallow. Good work Loll.

And so I hobbled my way onto the Howkah Express like a creature from the deep. A beast like form Noel Fielding could only wish to dream up. Limping from the open would on my knee; a victim to the Goan sea and what I can only assume was an evil seashell graveyard. My newly ginge hair creeped apologetically across my wizened face (I'd eaten one banana in three days people, put that in your slimming video Davina)...I found my way to another set of right wing couples, 15th in line to the throne. Great. One's potty language stood out like my lack of eyebrows in Vasca-da-Gama. (Judi Dench I am sure suffers this quandry. A result of a life spent with actors inhabiting the same vernacular as pirates. How can one help it if it rubs off on occasion)?

In these couples, the blokes are always the same. Seemingly Beta with an arrogant bloodstream, alpha soul and inherited kingdom. They have those long legs like the boys in school who were good at Maths. But it is their girlfriends that are the worst with their perfectly straight locks (even in humidity), quiet voices and Hilary Clinton-esque trouser wearing status. Talking down to their beloveds in gross animosity. Thank God for the sound couple I latched onto in Goa who used the *C-Word like oxygen.



*I am not chickening out with the absence of the profanity. On the contrary, I don't want to discount myself from the bloggin' awards season. Word.

HAMPI

Hampi; a land littered with Indiana Jones style rocks (they must be Papier-Mache, come on people), monkey temples and ancient ruins. It's like an old fashioned Bedrock.

I could still smell the storm on my arrival and homes were being further dismantled due to an eviction order on residents. Somat to do with World Heritage or some bollocks. I am observing this from my guesthouse rooftop as I suckle upon fresh mint tea and scribble in my moleskin. I am troubled by their plight, sure. And yet I am just as alarmed by the mug they have served my brew in. It is blates the one they gave me for breakfast. It hadn't been washed then and it most certainly has not been washed now.

I am also perturbed by the nob-ends on a table to my right. The guy of 'ooh' about 19 who has taken a mere mini break into the depths of India. Do you know what? If you are not here to find yourself then you can just fuck off pal, alright? Anyway...he is throwing caution to his genetic make up by chatting up a bird who talks through her nose, asks too many questions and snorts at her own predictably mediocre jokes. Miaow.

What is wrong with me? I haven't had to answer a call for myself or any other bastard in over a month, I am sipping FRESH MINT TEA whilst overlooking a beautific temple and yet I am enraged by the wannabe travelers on their year out.

Oh God. She's just said that her favourite place is Varanasi. I'm going to have to change my favourite place now. Awesome. That's exactly what I wanted to happen.



Here are a few more observations about this wondrous country that do nothing to reveal that wonder or satisfy your appetite for a blog jam packed with culture. It's basically @lollydoeslondon abroad:

*A hard boiled egg is NOT a soft boiled egg. No matter how much you shake your head and tell me that it is. My soldiers did not enlist for this. Bad times.

*The sun rising to reveal hundreds of people taking their morning shit on the other side of my train window. Good times.

*Rogue cows/monkeys/dogs/goats/pigs/chickens. Bad times.

*The irrational fear of dogs subsiding. Good times.

*The regret at foregoing a rabies shot. Bad times.

*Random black bits in my food and drink. I did not order vanilla pods. And worse, these are not nor have they ever been vanilla pods.

*Evading the American tourists at the train station with my traveller stealth and wit. Good times.

*Said travellers arriving at my hotel and inviting me to join them. Bad times.

Poirot would have a bloody field day here. I could slip poison into many a lassi. Murder on the Shantabadi Express...the Christmas Special yes?

Let Loose in Maharashtra

TUBE ETIQUETTE - MUMBAI STYLE





Bloody hell. I would love to see the Clapham elite take on the Mumbai suburban train system. Hanging out the open doorways on a wing and a prayer.

It was rush hour. Everyone else was Indian in the women only carriage. They hated my face even more than my humongous rucksack. I don't understand the language but it sounded vicious and rude. It almost made me crave London.

I roared on with a 'come on then take me bitch's' attitude. Standing in their way like a stolid rock in a rapid. "Can you get off?" they yelled in English. "No bitch's", I slammed, also in English. Slam dunk da funk. If you get that feeling.

But then it got me thinking. You take me at rush hour on the Victoria Line when all I want is to get back to the heating and an M and S ready meal and I am enraged by tourists. I got their angst and I breathed it in.

You see Boris trained me. I learned from the best. You can judge but there is no crushing me slags. The bag is here and it is here to stay. So is the rucksack.

GOA



There are better times to rip the stitching in your crotchal area than at the beginning of a yoga class. Those lotus positions aren't half as dainty when exposing your see-through heart speckled Matalan panties. No siree. Especially when one is groaning and cracking one's way into every position, lifting a beef hunk leg into something excruciating. I'd also have felt better about the whole affair had the annoying German toddler not riled up the campsite cat into acting the vicious predator and also if the yogi wasn't missing a toe. You may want to re-think your marketing strategy on that one cowboy.

So...Goa baby. Yeah, well this is the India I craved. And it's not even really India is it? With cornflakes and alcohol and bared flesh. I'm sure the North is the bit I'll remember (it usually is). For all it's hassle, lies and dust, it WAS infinitely beautiful. A kingdom on deserts, dunes, ancient trade routes and myths and Gods. But the South is great for living in the 'now'. Yeah, I got the hippy virus. Mash that up in your swede.

It's just out of season in Palolem which is great for two reasons:

1) Less people. Even in Paradise, people get on my tits. Right now I'm drinking black tea next to the palms and the transparent ocean but I am raj'd by the only child watching loud cartoons on her fat dad's I-pad. AND she's styling out a better tan than me.

2) It's all beginning to close down which has given it an ethereal, broken, faded quality. I think this should always be attributed to places by the sea. Blackpool, Skeggy. Need I say more?

I've found some drinking partners too. Waifs and strays I picked up along the way: on a train, in a bar and in an internet cafe. We had an 8 hour bender yesterday and are due to start again at fourteen hundred hours. Should anyone wish to join, we'll be in Cuba bar until the sun goes down and then comes back up again. Laters.