More Chat

We’re going to have a break with tradition this week as my usual guest blogger is off being busy and important so it’s been left to me to come up with something. As I didn’t even touch on the true brilliance contained within Chat yesterday, I thought we’d have another delve into everyone’s favourite magazine.

I’m heading straight to the back pages as the most crazy stories are always contained there in the Blimey! That’s Bonkers! pages. Yes, everyone, they’ve called it Blimey! That’s Bonkers!

Hands up everyone who says that when they see something strange. You’re walking down the street, perhaps, and you see something strange, a dog sitting at a table eating a pizza, perhaps. Let’s say that’s what’s happening.

Would you:
a) pinch yourself to try and wake up?
b) get your phone out to photograph this crazy scene before you? or
c) stop, rub your eyes in a DickVanDykeInMaryPoppins type of way and go, in your best old-school Cockney accent, “Blimey! That’s Bonkers!”

In fact, you don’t even need to answer. I know it’s c), isn’t it?

So anyway, here we are, in the back pages of Chat. You’re Dick Van Dyke and the lady in the story is, well, she’s a skunk lover. She loves skunks. Loves them. Her pet skunk, Pepe Le Pew (I didn’t make that up, honestly, it’s all real) loves his hair being blowdried. Yeh, he stinks…

…but that’s not the point because little Pepe is just so ‘odour-able.’

Her friend also had a skunk and so what else was there to do but enter them into a skunk beauty pageant as Wayne and Coleen Rooney? I mean, duuuh! Obviously! (Again, I’m not making this up, it’s all real.)

Just to kind of finish the article off, we’re shown a picture of the skunk dressed as a bee.

Yeh, you want a peice of that action, don’t you? Well, don’t worry, I wouldn’t leave you out of this fun. Here he is, the little smelly skunk thing, looking a bit depressed (check out the eyes, there’s sadness there) and dressed as a bee.

And there you have it, readers. And blimey! Was that bonkers!?

Hot dogs, Spam and packet mixes

It’s Chat time again, everyone! These Chat days are my favourite blogging days. And there is much to love in this week’s magazine.

We start with a picture of a wet owl. The caption goes “You’ve heard of the Angry Birds game, well here’s an outraged owl!” The words “Too wet to woo!” are also mentioned. I imagine you’re thinking, what does she mean, ‘there’s a picture of a wet owl’? It turns out, that’s how random Chat is. They just have pictures of wet owls. Look.

Next up, a lady with a serious face does various poses holding phones or pointing at stuff or crossing her arms and tells a story about her boyfriend cheating on her and how she caught him. The pictures really are the best thing about the story. Check them out.

Now, we’ve just got to check out the Top Tips page because there is some amazing stuff here. The first one is ‘Put necklace beads on top of the soil in a potted plant.’ It’s that simple. Want to see what it would look like? Prepare to be amazed.

Amazed? No, me neither.

Next up, put a tea towel over a tennis racket and use it as a tray for your breakfast. Have a look.

And lastly, if you’ve got packet mixes or tubes, put them into a plastic container. Yep, that’s as complicated as it gets. Put your stuff into a plastic container. Why, thank you, Lucy Travell of Gloucester, I’ve been wondering for years what to do with all my packet mixes and tubes.

O wait, I don’t use packet mixes.

Cause they’re gross.

If we flip to page 31, we’ve got the infamous Bit On The Side section, in which we are given a little simple recipe. My favourite previous recipe was mushrooms on toast. That’s the kind of thing we’re dealing with here. And what might it be this week, you’re thinking, aren’t you?

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, that really is a recipe for hot dog spaghetti. And the instructions specifically tell me that in step 3 of the recipe, I must ‘thickly slice a pack of Jungle Dogs 6 Pork Hot Dogs.’ Was there ever a worse sentence in the English language? (Except perhaps ‘Fry the frozen chips in the lard.’)

The Bit On The Side on the following page has a picture of a tub of Spam Chopped Pork and Ham. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Spam. The caption says “We love Spam – and now it comes in a new lightweight plastic container.” Do we? Do we love Spam? One of the worse violations of food to ever exist. Spam. Do we love it? Do we love filling our bodies with processed crap? Do we enjoy foods more only when they have minimal nutritional value? We? Really?

Lastly, a pretty amusing story about a lady who had some chutney in her fridge which exploded and absolutely wrecked her kitchen! I liked that story. The lesson? Cover it with clingfilm so it doesn’t react with the air and cause a build up of methane.

So, actually, I’ve learned something here today. I hope you have too.

Bum parties, dustbins and babies

It’s time to take a peek inside our favourite magazine again. You’ve all been hanging on the edges of your seats, waiting for me to post about Chat, haven’t you?

Firstly, I like to flip through and have a quick look at the names of the people who write in, just so we can get an idea of what we’re dealing with here.

Sali (no common-or-garden Sally here)
Apryl (again, just too cool to spell in the normal way)
Danye (a girl, apparently)
Marketa (dunno)
Cerri (Kerry would just be far too ordinary)
Maddison and Summer (I guess mum Kim felt like her name was too boring so she made up for it with her daughters)
Jase (cause Jason is sooo last year)
Lorren (who wants Lauren when you can have Lorren)
Elin (cooler than Ellen by a mile)
Tucker (dunno)

Ok, let’s get stuck in. Let’s get straight to the lady with no hands and feet, which reminds me of my favourite joke when I was 18 – “Why did the girl fall off the swing? Because she had no arms and no legs.”

Apryl hated her ‘pancake bum’ we are told, wanted J-Lo’s booty, decided to go to a pumping party. For yes, that is what it is called. A pumping party. Dodgy doctors go to people’s houses and inject bathroom sealant in their bums, woop woop!

Crack open the champagne, put on some old school tunes and get this party started! Whip out your bums, everyone! Let’s stick some sealant in them!

Over the next few years, her bum skin blackened and got itchy and a hole developed in the right bumcheek. Mmmm, hot.

Anyway, the rest of the story is pretty much; gangrene set in, feet and hands got chopped off, she did a triathlon, she regrets the bum filler now, wants everyone to know they shouldn’t do it either.

Next story, a dog rips a lady to shreds and she dies.

Next, the baby page. There’s a picture of a baby in a bird costume. He looks pretty bored/tired. ‘My son Rhys loved dressing up as a birdie for the night!’ says the caption. Really, now. Ridiculous. He loved it?! How do you know? Did he tell you? Little 1 month old Rhys who eats, sleeps and poos and doesn’t know his face from his rear end yet? He loved it, did he?

Next up, the human dustbin.

Do I need to say anything or does the photo say it all?

And that, my friends, is quite enough for a Monday, I feel.

Surfing rats

Yes, you read it right. The post is indeed called ‘Surfing rats.’ And it’s that simple. It’s a post about surfing rats.

And you’ll never guess where I found this story… It’s everyone’s favourite, Chat magazine!

I know, I know! What an amazing front cover. It’s hard to know where to start. The lady in the top right with no hands or feet (the result of gangrene setting in after she had fillers in her bum from a dodgy fake doctor)? Raped in the car park? Human dustbin? And I’m told I will weep when I read about a woman hugging her mum after 36 years.

Now, I know I’m not typical of the Chat-reading public. Maybe most people will weep when they read it. But a) I hate being told what my reaction will be, I am not a performing monkey; and b) I never ever get teary and all warm fuzzy feelings in my heart when I see mothers and children reunited. It’s just not one of those things that makes me feel all emotional. If the end of a film is a mother and child making friends and hugging and being all lovey, I feel bored. I feel cheated that I’ve invested my time watching to get such a non-ending.

Anyway, of all those front cover stories, which one do you think I headed for? That’s right, the random picture in the top left of a mouse on a skateboard. You’ve gotta love a mouse on a skateboard!

“I started teaching them in the bath… Using a remote controlled boat, I towed them around in the water,” says Shane, 42, from Australia. We are told that mice take three months to learn new tricks. Do we think Shane has a girlfriend?

After months of bath training, he put them in the actual sea!

“Training the mice soon became my full time job,” says Shane. When it was cold over winter, he created some indoor fun for them…

That top photo is indeed a mouse on a skateboard flying out of a half-pipe!

“After a bit more coaching, they were flipping the board…. I also taught the daredevils to jump through a flaming hoop!”

O yes. Flipping the board. And jumping through flaming hoops. I’m just going to ask again, whether we think that Shane has a girlfriend.

On that note.. happy Sunday, everyone!

Tissue paper and jumper shavers

Now, readers, you know I never leave you with just one look into your favourite magazine. Yesterday’s laughing dormouse was just the beginning. It’s time today to visit everyone’s favourite section. It’s the ‘Blimey! That’s clever!’ section.

Check out some of these top tips. And boy, are they ‘top’!?

Firstly, put pegs on the greaseproof paper in your cake tin so it doesn’t rip when you pour the batter in.

What on earth is her greaseproof paper made of?! Tissue?! Who’s greaseproof paper rips when simply pour the cake mix in? Mine certainly doesn’t. It’s quite sturdy. It’s made to take the heat from an oven and then the weight of the cake as I lift it out afterwards. It wouldn’t rip just from putting the batter in.

Next up, shave your jumper if it’s got fluff on it.

Or just use cellotape? Quicker. And then you can throw it away.

No, wait, maybe it would be better to shave my jumper. Because it would be great next time I’m shaving my legs or Danda’s shaving his face, to have the added fun of fluff left behind on one’s leg/face. I mean, what fun! Right?

And last but not least, the fabulous too-much-time-on-your-hands, make-extra-work-for-yourself method of DVD storage.

So, let me get this straight – instead of just going to the DVD collection and looking for the one you want, instead you go to your list and find the name of the DVD you want and what raffle ticket number it is. Then you go to your DVD collection and look for the raffle ticket number.

If you love order and filing, maybe I could just suggest something to cut the workload down? Put them in alphabet order. Simple. That way, you just think of what the name of the DVD is, say it’s Conair, then you just look to the beginning of the collection and what do you know?! You’ll see DVDs beginning with C and there it will be.

My goodness, I’m a genius!

Laughing dormice and sock monkeys

Chat magazine was amazing this week. It really excelled itself. I hardly know where to start.

The first page has a picture of a dormouse…

And says ‘Perhaps someone just told him the joke about the chicken crossing the road!’ I mean, really now. That’s clutching at straws a bit, isn’t it? What would a chicken have to do with a dormouse?

I imagine this was written late at night and the editor was like, “Guys, what does this mean? Why would a dormouse laugh at a chicken joke?” And the others just went, “O, just let it go. We’re all knackered and dying to go home. Just put it in. Stop going on about it. Who cares if it makes no sense?” The editor, convinced by this persuasive argument, shrugged and let it pass, but not before adding “If you like our laughing dormouse, check out this video of a llama who also can’t stop chuckling…” and a website address. O, stop fussing. No, not of it makes sense. We know that. But it’s all animally so just, shh, just let it go.

Next up, the photos page and this…

Yeh. A ‘sock monkey.’ Who doesn’t love a good sock monkey, I ask you. Despite, the fact that none of this makes sense (maybe I should have read the issue they’re talking about), it’s just stuffed in there, amongst the other photos. Someone made someone else a sock monkey and they love it. Here’s a photo of it. Well, thank you Chat. Thank you indeed. Where would we be with these little essential titbits of information, hey?

Next up, a dog pulling tongues….

That’s it. It’s a dog. It’s pulling tongues. Fab.

I’m not going to dwell to much on the next story, suffice to say, it’s a couple who met on, wait for it, the Ian Beale Facebook page. For non-UK residents, Ian Beale is a character on a soap called Eastenders. Mandy knew Kieron was her soulmate, she says, because she could see he “was as obsessed by the Eastenders star as I was!”

It turns out he has gender dysphoria and is a virgin while she is a 30 year old living at home with her parents. When they decide to meet, her parents drive her to meet him.

Draw your own conclusions.

And then check out this photo.

I’ll say no more.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this advert for a Tweety necklace.

Let me know if you want one and I’ll send you the details. They’re only £90. Bargain.

A return to Chat

This is long overdue and I apologise to those of you who have been waiting patiently for it. It’s time to review this week’s Chat magazine.

It’s difficult to know where to start really. The cover has got some real gems. Check it out.

‘Fag-butt torture’?! Brilliant. There’s just something really catchy about that. The main problem with this title, though, is not its catchy tag line but the fact that, when you read the story, there’s not a fag butt in sight! They obviously edited that bit out but forgot to tell whoever was getting the front cover ready. There is literally no mention of fag butts in the story. None. And yet the front cover promised me some fag butts! Disappointing. I very rarely read a story unless it contains some fag butts.

Ah. Now this is a good one. When looking for my favourite magazine on the shelf, I spotted this funny, oddly proportioned face and something about cement and knew I’d found Chat. O, the perils of using a dodgy unqualified plastic surgeon.

I love how the inference here is that she arrived in Florida, in the airport or whatever, and she got off the plane, passport in hand, to have a lovely beach holiday. But when she got to passport control they recoiled in horror at her weight, disgusted by the thought of her on their beaches, flaunting her overweight body for all to see and psychologically damaging children for life.

“Too fat for Florida”. That’s what I thought I was going to read. Those Floridians can be harsh, I thought to myself. Poor woman, being told she can’t come in because of her weight.

And then I read the story, which really should have been titled, “I Couldn’t Fasten My Seatbelt On A Ride In Florida And A Man Had To Help Me.” Yeh. That was all. Of course that was all. She just couldn’t fasten her seatbelt on a ride.

At first I didn’t know whether the two things were connected – “Turn your hero into Lego” and “Win a life size statue of your child.” It turns out they are, implying that one’s hero is their child. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that as such, but your average six year old is unlikely to have achieved the things an adult of fifty probably has. I mean they’re barely getting to grips with their times tables. They’re still punching their friends in the playground to settle disputes. And giggling at the word ‘boobs’. Personally, my hero, a man called Clive Stafford Smith, has got a lot more going for him than any child I know.

And yet, I am invited by Chat to turn my hero (my child) into a life sized Lego statue. I mean, really? Really?

Surely by the time you’ve built it, it’s no longer life sized because children grow quickly? And why, why on earth would I want a Lego statue of my child. I already have my actual child. I don’t need a Lego body double.

Check out the Lego family! Now imagine it just chilling in your front room. After the initial novelty of having a Lego family watching TV with you, I imagine it’d be a right pain. And a bit scary if you went downstairs for a glass of water in the night.

Wow, guys. That was just the front cover! I’m going to stop there and let you digest everything that’s been discussed today. Tomorrow we’ll delve inside the magazine to find what treats await us there!

An imaginary conversation with the star of this week’s Chat

Imagine the scene. You’re at a pub, let’s say, with some friends. It’s one of those things where you’re all sitting around, you’re comfortably tipsy, people start name-dropping, you know the type of thing I mean. One person mentions their brush past a local politician ten years ago and soon everyone’s at it.

“Well, yes, of course Brad Pitt’s always around town now because he’s bought that house down the road.”

“O really? You know, I get the same thing when I serve Ian McKellan a coffee every morning. Yes. Didn’t I mention? Yes, he gets a cappuccino, no chocolate.”

“I totally saw Gary Barlow the other day on the train. I said hi to him. He seemed really lovely.”

“Well, my cousin’s mum’s nan is Cilla Black so we’re always seeing celebs. Yeh, totally.”

And then…. The claim to beat all claims…. One of your gang pipes up with, “I was in Chat the other week.”

Wowzers. Everyone is floored. What better claim to fame is there than that?!

“Amazing! What were you in it for?” you ask.

“O, I was the fat bloke on the front cover with a massive hangy fat section where my skin was all loose and stretchy.”

“O. Ok. And what did you talk about in the story?”

“All about how I had low self confidence so I started to eat more and then I had no-one and nothing and thought ‘what’s the point’ and hated myself and couldn’t even look at myself in a mirror. My sister was in the story too, talking about how her boobs are just flaps of skin that she rolls up and puts inside her bra to try and make it look like proper boobs.”

“Great. Uh. So what did you do about it? When you hated yourself and couldn’t stand the sight of yourself and felt really self conscious?”

“O, I went straight to Chat, of course. I told them all about it and they printed a really super massive picture of me with no clothes on and told my story.”

“Did that help?”

“I dunno. But that’s not the point is it? The point is that Chat is always the place to go with all your woes. And also, now I’m famous. That’s my life’s work, right there. I am an achiever. I have done things and achieved things. I am The Chat Man.”

“Good one…. *aside to other friend* your Cilla Black story was better.”

And now imagine that that man is you. Imagine that’s the single interesting thing you have done in your life. Depressing.

Chit Chat

Ok, here it is. The long awaited next installment of Chat. In this latest offering, I’m going to concentrate on the Top Tips, which are absolutely phenomenal. Fasten your seatbelts because it’s going to be a rollercoaster.

Ok, top tip number 1….

Store your special crockery in plastic bags, we are told. Just go and bloody do it, alright! Put your crockery, the special stuff, not the normal stuff, this is important. Put it in plastic bags. Why? you may ask. Well, isn’t it obvious?! When you usually get the special crockery down to use and you give it a quick rinse before using it then dry it off and put it on the table, don’t you ever think about how irritating that thirty second process is? O goodness, that was the longest thirty seconds EVER! I wish there was a way to cut down on that rinsing and drying time. Dah, dah! Chat to the rescue! By wrapping your special crockery in plastic bags, you will be able to unwrap it and use it straight away, without having to wash it first. Wow, what a revolutionary time-saving idea.

Next up, the non-flowering plant solution.

Ever had a plant which wouldn’t flower? A cactus, perhaps? Ever had some artificial flowers hanging about the house, no longer of any use? Well, you can do what this woman has done and snip the heads off the flowers and simply glue them to the plants which are being naughty and not flowering! What a marvelous solution! The keen eyed among you will notice that this helpful reader has even glued some big plastic ladybirds to their naughty unflowering plant too. There’s nothing I like to see better than a real cactus with artificial flowers and ladybirds glued all over it. Such beauty.

The next unbelievably good tip is as follows: “Drawer stuffed with tops that crease? Attach small hooks to your wardrobe door and hang them up.” Now I’m not one to point out the obvious but, just this once, I think I’m going to speak up. Is this reader in fact suggesting to us that we attach small hooks to wardrobe doors to enable us to hang our tops from them by the straps? And is that, or is that not, the basic premise of a clothes hanger? Have they in fact suggested, a rudimentary clothes hanger-esque device which, actually, is less convenient as it is attached to the door, whereas a clothes hanger offers the versatility of being able to transport the top around, still hanging straight, to whatever destination the chooser should see fit? Is that what’s happening here? The top tips section has given itself over to the ramblings of mental patients who’s best offerings are rubbish versions of things that already exist?

I despair.

Hobbies I will take up in my old age

Got a slight emergency this morning as Danda’s got a gammy elbow so we’re off to A&E to see what’s wrong with it. So I shall just give you a little post today about something I’ve been debating over the past few days – the hobbies I will take up in my old age.

Music
I’ve always played piano. It’s in the family. My mother and grandmother both played. I got lessons from my grandmother for a while. And then from the music teacher in school. I can still play everything I learned from memory. I don’t have a piano now and there’s no space even if I did want one. But when I am older and can give myself over to things of fun and jollity, I will forgo my dining table, my sofa and my television so that I can fit in a grand piano and I shall become the most talented 90 year old piano player the world has ever seen. Just you wait. Perhaps I’ll play piano at the assemblies in the local primary school and they’ll all call me Grandma Laura.

Gardening
Not really proper gardening actually, as that requires skill and dedication and I shall probably forget what to water and when. Something quite straight forward. Maybe a vegetable patch. Carrots and onions and broad beans and the like. I think tomatoes aren’t too hard but they take over a bit. Anyway, I mainly want things I can either eat, or sit and look at on long summer days.

A regular contributor to Chat magazine
This speaks for itself. I will dedicate myself wholeheartedly to falling in love with inanimate objects, contracting odd diseases and photographing myself doing nothing at all and sending it in.

Knitting
When I lived in Namibia, the sun would set at 5pm and we had no TV and we had read all the books in the apartment and had run out of evening activities. Lucy had learned to knit years ago so we got some wool and knitting needles and took up knitting. In quite a serious way. In fact, we had so many scarves by the time we left that we had to give them to people as presents because we couldn’t fit them in our bags to take home! I loved getting into The Zone and just knitting the hours away. When I am older and work less or not at all, I would like to take it up again as I will have more time to learn patterns as all I can make is a scarf. I might even make some fingerless gloves!

Wordsearching
I used to be a master wordsearcher when I was younger. I never went anywhere without a wordsearch book on me. I could take it up again in my old age and maybe attend the Wordsearching World Championships?! I’d definitely win if I did so maybe I shouldn’t go, you know, give the others a chance.

On the other hand, I might just jack it all in and run off to India, a la The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel….