Alcohol, my permanent accessory...

I like a drink. Hey, let's not be coy. I like a few. A lot. Too many. I'm not an alcoholic, I should make that clear, but I do drink too much. Way too much.

I should quantify that I suppose. It's not that I drink vast amounts; although it has been known. It's not even that I drink all the time; although days with alcohol in any given week will generally outweigh those without. But I drink too much for me.

I don't mean “I exceed the government guidelines of 14-15 units per week”. Although, clearly, I do. I mean: I'm starting to recognise my own personal limits, and there's no doubt that I'm exceeding those. And I don't like what it does to me.

I'm sure if I were to have my liver sliced up and analysed, it wouldn't be pretty. I know my skin isn't at its best. I'm dehydrated, generally, and I struggle to lose weight. All of these things are true. But they're not what's really bothering me. No picnic, granted, but not my major bugbear. No; what I don't like about drinking is who it makes me.

Generally, I'm a pretty genial drunk. Funny, relaxed, witty, honest, friendly and a little risque. (Or at least that's how it seems from the bottom of the bottle). I'm not often morose, or aggressive, or obstreperous. But I lose part of me too when I drink. I lose the ambitious, focussed, sensible part of me. I know that sounds rather boring and middle aged, but there's part of me now that doesn't mind that so much. Presumably the same part that now refuses to lie about her profession to insurance companies. I lose perspective. Not all sense of decorum, but certainly a smidgin, or more, of what my sober self knows to be “the right thing to do”. If a fool decides his scruples in a time of crisis (Aristotle?), it's an absolute moron who does so in a time of inebriation.

Take smoking. I don't like smoking. It tastes horrible, it smells horrible, it looks horrible. It's expensive. And deadly. All in all, it's bloody stupid. But, when I've had a few drinks, and all the cool kids are doing it, it suddenly becomes A Really Good Idea™. It is not. The same goes for the One Last Drink. Sober, I find it perfectly simple to say “I'm only going to have a glass or two”. Drunk, that becomes “Oh, yeah, I'd love another one, and hey, why not throw in a Jager chaser?!”. No good can come of this. Similarly, food – a sober resolution to eat more healthily and shift a few pounds too quickly becomes “I'm starving, and I can't be arsed to cook. Let's get some chips”. And let's not even mention the early morning run or career-enhancing dance class.

So, here's the thing. I'm coming off the sauce for a bit. I'm not going to pretend it's going to be easy – it certainly won't. I like drinking. And not because I like being drunk – I've never been one to drink to get drunk. But I enjoy drink. Good wine, chewy beer, prosecco, Hendricks gin – I love it all. And there's only so much lime soda a girl can take in an evening.

But I'm acutely aware that recently I've been drinking for quite the wrong reasons. I'm not quite 'drinking to forget', but I would go so far as to say I'm certainly drinking not to think. Which isn't healthy, to say the least.

I don't expect to become saintly, miraculously cured of all my failings, universally loved and without fault. But I do expect to be fitter, healthier, more productive and – in the long run – happier.

song credit to the fab BNL

xx

You Drop Dead.

We've long known that Hollywood has an obsession with 'thin'. The thinner the better. Where, as they say in The Devil Wears Prada, 0 is the new 2, and 2 is the new 4. And 6 is the new 14. But Hollywood is also the land of the saccharine sentiment, where they try EVER so hard to convince you that the important thing about these exceptionally beautiful size 0 people is that they're beautiful on the INSIDE.

So, when recently I saw an advert for the new series Drop Dead Diva, I have no idea why I thought something might be different. Why I thought that maybe this time a show about a woman who's clearly not a size 0 might actually be a sign of the turning tide of size- and image-obsessed television land.

The premise is simple: shallow, vacuous, very beautiful thin person dies, goes to the pearly gates, and through an hilarious administrative bungle is accidentally returned to earth in the body of an extremely successful, intelligent lawyer. Only, she's a US size 16 (a UK 20). Obviously this is the worst thing that could ever have happened to anyone. Ever.

I decided to watch it though. I was interested. What is this series trying to say? Are they going to tell me that beauty doesn't matter (bullshit)? Are they going to gradually makeover the 'fat' girl until she fits some Hollywood stereotype (good grief)? Or, dare I hope, that they might be challenging the notion that attractive has to equal thin (unlikely)?

Because the point, as I see it, is this. It does matter what's on the inside. But what's on the outside matters too. Everyone wants to feel attractive. And life is easier for attractive people, there's not getting away from it. They earn more, get better jobs, and are treated with more respect. So this “it's what's on the inside that counts” is, frankly, bollocks.

But beauty is not an absolute truth. There is no 'right' and 'wrong' of beauty. Beauty is entirely subjective. Because of this there is nothing to say that someone who's a size 16 can't be just as beautiful as someone who's a size 6. To one person, to different people. It depends on the beholder(s).

Drop Dead Diva didn't disappoint. Well, that's not entirely true. The cynical, hard-hearted, blogging side of me that sneers at everything saccharine and contrived was not disappointed, and promptly opened a large hessian sack to gather up all that extra grist to the mill. The soft, romantic, ballet slippers and love-at-first-sight side of me, however, withered up and died just that little bit more.

Because what Drop Dead Diva turned out to be was a glossy, patronising, pity-the-hideous-fat-person, vom-com wolf in a right-on, beautiful-on-the-inside, challenging-the-stereotypes sheep's clothing. While it swears blind it's overturning the Hollywood stereotype of fat=unnattractive, it shoots itself sharply in the Jimmy Choos by requiring the (attractive) larger actress playing Jane (imaginative name choice, people) to well up or wince every time she catches sight of her own reflection. What torment she must be going through. My heart bleeds.

What I don't understand, as an actress of a certain circumference, is how they ever got that past the table read. I can just hear the director now...: “OK, so here's the thing – she's intelligent, she's canny, she's smart. We love Jane. She wins all her cases. She really connects with people. She has empathy and brains. She drives a Porsche. She has an assistant. She's making it in a man's world. All in all, she really is a champion for the modern woman. OK? Great. Oh, just one other thing – she can't catch sight of herself in the rear view mirror or coffee pot without wanting to cry. OK?”

Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Perhaps the series gets better with time. But you know what, Hollywood? I don't give a toss. I've had enough of your patronising, condescending 'it doesn't matter if you're overweight, you can still be gorgeous (on the inside)' bullshit, because that bit 'on the inside' is the part of that sentence that gets me spitting bile in the general direction of the Atlantic.

You show me a programme where the lead character is bigger than a UK 14 (that's a 10, to you, Hollywood) and where her weight isn't an issue, isn't even mentioned, and then we might be looking at progress. By which I mean NO jokes about her wardrobe, no makeover scenes, no heartwarming comeuppances for airheaded high school jocks or vacant cheerleader bitches. No 'business' with the platter of donuts. No lines about her 'fuller figure' or her being lovely 'in spite' of her hips. Just take a part you were going to give to Halle Berry or Charlize Theron or Scarlett Johanson, and let someone with a real woman's figure play it, and don't mention a word about it. And then, THEN maybe we can talk.

xx