The Day I Made Macaroons

The effect that the Diamond Jubilee had on our country was, quite frankly, amazing. One minute we’re busy going about our normal lives, moaning about everything from the weather to the recession. The next minute, Union Jacks flags are hanging out of windows, Gary Barlow is some sort of saint, and everyone’s talking about putting up the bunting. Apart from the fact that I still have absolutely no idea what bunting is, I have to say, it was a very good weekend.

I didn’t have any plans to do anything specifically for the Jubilee. However, Carla phoned me up and asked if I wanted to help her bake some red, white and blue macaroons for her mum’s Jubilee tea party. I’m quite possibly the worst cook in the world and so I was initially a bit hesitant, but eventually I decided that I would do it for my country.

Carla’s macaroons were, of course, perfect. Sweet, light and fluffy. They were everything a good macaroon should be. Mine were weirdly shaped, bright pink (there was no red or blue food colouring) and so hard, that I could barely bite into them without the risk of shattering my teeth.

‘What am I supposed to do with these?’ I asked Carla. There was no way she could serve these to the tea party guests. They were completely inedible. It would be like serving pebbles.

‘We could give them to the homeless’, she suggested.

‘What have the homeless done to upset you?’ I asked. ‘I guess you could use them to make a little rock display in the garden?’

I tried giving one of them to her little dog. He seemed to quite like it at first. However, two minutes later he started violently choking, coughing and farting (probably trying to do whatever he could to get rid of the macaroon).

‘Shall we make cupcakes instead?’ Carla suggested, throwing the rest of my macaroons in the bin. I knew that cupcakes would be much easier. All I had to do was follow the recipe exactly. No extra ingredients. No deviations.

When the cupcakes came out the oven, they actually looked quite nice. I even made a bit of chocolate ganache to go on the top. I couldn’t wait to see how they tasted. Took a big bite out of one of the cupcakes…it was basically a chocolate omelette!

Tamara and Jake both finished university this week. I’m ridiculously proud of both of them and also can’t believe that, after four years, the long distance aspect of my relationship with Tamara is finally over.

Went up to Nottingham Uni to visit Tamara after her last exam. I realised that this weekend was probably the last one I’ll ever spend in Nottingham (hopefully). It’s been a big part of my life for the past six years. One thing I won’t miss, however, is having a shower in Tamara’s house.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that a house of 8 girls would be clean and tidy. However, their bathroom is a disgrace! I refuse to take off my socks until I’m virtually in the shower in case I catch something from the floor that’s never been cleaned. There’s a dead wasp just under the radiator that’s been gradually decomposing since they moved in. Also, each girl has a bottle of shampoo, a bottle of conditioner and a bottle of body wash in the shower, so if I accidentally kick one bottle, all 24 fall over like dominoes. The most frightening thing, however, is the upturned plug in the corner of the shower. I don’t know who or what is wrapped around that plug, but on close inspection, it looks like it could be part of someone’s wig. 

Got home on Sunday and received an email confirmation from Procter & Gamble about the P&G Capital Clean Up this weekend. A bit of background: unless you’ve been on holiday on Mars for the past 7 years, you may be aware that the Olympics are coming up soon. Procter & Gamble (Proud Sponsor of Mums etc.) have set up an initiative to clean up parts of London before the tourists arrive for the Games.

I thought it would be a nice idea to get involved in the Olympics somehow, so decided to volunteer. My mum thinks it’s weird. She thinks it’s strange that I’ve never tidied my bedroom in my life yet I’m volunteering to clean up a city.

The problem is, I’ve been told that I’ll be placed in Barnet! I’ve just been on Google Maps and can confirm that Barnet is about 20 miles away from the Olympic site. It’s got nothing to do with the Olympics whatsoever! The only tourists who might set foot in Barnet are the ones who happen to have fallen asleep on the Northern line on their way home from the Games.

So this weekend, I’ll be in Coppetts Wood Nature Park ‘restoring natural habitats, clearing and improving pathways and removing unsightly litter that threatens local wildlife.’ I’m sure it will be fun. At the very least, I’m sure I’ll have something to blog about.

The Day I Saw The X Factor Auditions

Had a team conference at the O2 this week. As I walked towards the Dome entrance, I couldn’t help but notice a queue of tens of thousands of people. I say ‘people’, what I really mean is ‘freaks’. Multicoloured mohawks, semi-naked girls, people holding banners saying things like ‘Gary Barlow, will you marry me?’ Turns out we had booked our team meeting on the same day as the first round of the X Factor auditions.

The good news was that our meeting room was fairly well soundproofed, so the loud music, the terrible singing and the screaming audience weren’t too much of a problem. The bad news was that we had to share our toilet with the auditionees.

Walking into the toilets was like walking into a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. One guy was pacing around the toilets talking to himself (probably reciting his sob story); another was studying himself in the mirror, holding an imaginary microphone and singing the same line over and over again; one guy was being sick in the urinal; and one guy was even washing his mouth out with hand soap! Completely normal!

I do love the X Factor – mainly because of how seriously it’s taken in this country. You have 12-year-old girls saying things like, ‘I’ve been dreaming about this moment my whole life’. And the sob stories get more and more extravagant each year. Back in the Steve Brookstein days, it was things like, ‘I was bullied in school’. Nowadays, it’s things like, ‘my great great grandma’s dying wish was for me to audition for the X Factor’. To be honest, love, I think it’s more likely that your great grandma’s dying wish was for a large dose of morphine.

My favourite though, is when a contestant is voted off of the live show. ‘I promise you haven’t seen the last of me!’ he or she will cry out in a final desperate bid to hold onto the last iota of their quickly diminishing fame. Of course they’re never seen again, except for perhaps a brief appearance on Big Brother or the Eurovision Song Contest – or both, in Jedward’s case.

Oh yeah, the meeting! It was all going very well until we had to break off into smaller groups for a bit of brainstorming. Our group went into the cafeteria area, which at first was nice and quiet. However, a few of the auditionees had also discovered that the cafeteria was nice and quiet. So our brainstorm session was constantly interrupted by a girl singing ‘Tonight, I’ll be a naughty girl’.

At the end of the meeting we managed to sneak into the arena and watch a bit of the X Factor auditions being filmed. Well, to be more accurate, all we had time to see was the warm-up act – the world’s most unfunny comedian failing to make even one of the ten thousand people in the audience laugh.

Got home and felt really rough. I’m not sure if it was because of the muggy weather or just overexposure to X Factor contestants. For some unknown reason, I had a craving to use a face pack. Had a little rummage around my mum’s toiletries but couldn’t find anything. Of course, I managed to find something in Jake’s toiletries though – a large pack of Dead Sea mud.

‘This looks quite good’, I thought. I had a quick browse of the instructions on the back. It said that I had to use the whole pack at once or it would dry out. The thing is, I only wanted to put a little bit on my face. It seemed such a waste to throw away all of that Dead Sea mud, so I slathered it over my entire body.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I looked ridiculous. What really bothered me, however, was that I was beginning to smell like rotten egg. I quickly grabbed the empty mudpack from the bin. I started wondering if it could have been out of date, but then realised that the mud is probably thousands of years old anyway.

I looked to see if there were any warnings or side effects written on the pack. ‘May cause minor skin irritation’, ‘Keep product away from eyes’ – the usual stuff. Nothing about smelling of poo then. I didn’t want to leave the mud on for a second longer. I jumped in the shower and washed it all off.

Got out the shower and into bed. I felt much better. Clean, soft skin, and only the faintest aroma of rotten egg emanating from my pores.

Happy Jubilee Weekend!