Oh, Dear Miss Laycock:

Oh goodness, my little dollymops.  Not a day goes by that I’m not unfairly targeted by holier-than-thou arseholes armed with truly awful costume jewelry.  I will say I find it rather delightfully amusing when someone speaks of bloggers creating “unrealistic lifestyles” in one breath while buying three pairs of Louboutins at a sample sale in the next.

Quite frankly, one’s entire self-righteous rant is automatically negated the very minute one begins narrowing one’s eyes at others in a public forum.  Thankfully, I’ve never claimed to be holy or righteous or anything other than -- well, better than you, so I’m under no such obligation to remain consistent.  About this, or about wearing fur coats as a veggie, but it’s okay as long as the animals were tortured sixty years ago and not yesterday.  Distinction, ducks.  It’s all about distinctions.

Don’t hate me for being able to eat deliciously fatty burgers while you have to spend days at a fat farm ingesting nothing but mushy peas and vitamin injections to stay thin for “exhaustion.”

And don’t expect me to create any sort of realistic expectation for anyone.  My lifestyle is glam and fab and if things are sometimes comped for me, who honestly cares?  If anyone is reading my blog strictly for the reviews, they’re barmy anyhow. 

Lastly, sweetie, go get a blowout.  Your hair is unspeakable. 

I’m off to go Christmas shopping.

Ta, 

J.

Several Small Things

I'll do this in list form, so you peasants can keep up.  Do try to comprehend what I say.  Part of the reason I no longer hang out with old Fi is 1, she kept insisting she wasn't watching what she ate, which, chuh; but also 2, she'd been stuck on level 23 of Candy Crush for like a week.  Level 23.  Darlings, I barely got through university, but even I'm on level 145. 

1.  I've had a few questions about why, when I recommend products to you peasants, I don't use affiliate links.  

     a.  They require you to post a certain amount per week or something, which, sod off, sponsors; don't tell me what to do.  and also, 

     b.  affiliate links are for the poor.  I don't request a commission every time someone buys a goddamn jumper from M&S because I don't need your meager coinage.  If you'd really like to do something for me, come see me when I'm out at the Box and buy me a whisky.  I'd go to Boujis but Fi's gross old boyfriend is the business manager or some such nonsense and they've barred me for life. 

2.  I plan to do a style post at some point in the future, but I'm running my ideas past my housekeeper to make sure I post things normal people can afford.  In a rare show of affection for you.  

3.  I may start an Instagram account at some point this year, but the plain truth is that the people I hang out with are far too good for you and sometimes like to be shielded from the prying eyes of the proletariat.  If you want to know what our lives are like, truly, I suggest you go view Rich Kids of Instagram, add about five years, and take away some of the bling because we're far classier than that. 

So terribly gauche, darling.  Though I do own most of these pieces.

4.  And lastly, if you want to turn your kitchen into the Swiss Alps, a recipe for macaroni and cheese won't do it, but six ounces of pharmaceutical "snow" certainly will.  You don't even have to misspell "envelop" to do it.  And you'll feel far more comforted without all those fucking calories. 

Added bonus:  Your old crone of a mother who unexpectedly shows up will think it's flour and  you
can laugh at her while high out of your mind as she tries to make cookies.

Ta, rustics.
J.

A Sojourn of Sorts

Once upon a time it was a Wednesday morning in London. 

Most of the city woke up and went to work, but there was one lovely, nubile young maiden who scoffed at such things.  “Fuck work,” she said petulantly, her perfectly-glossed lips pursing peevishly.  

Luckily, her wizened, old, wrinkled, hunched-over, Quasimodo, 25-year-old friend AJ was there to save the day. 

“Let’s go hiking, damsels!” he said brilliantly, brandishing hot mugs of tea and leaving me wondering just how in the blue blazes he managed to break into my flat.

And so we went. 

By “hiking,” of course, I mean we got all dressed up in appropriate hiking clothes and spent an hour at the bottom of a very small hill taking pictures that make my ass look good. 

Afterwards we spent a few hours at the Fox and Tassel pub drinking appletinis and eating kidneys on toast, and then had a lovely old afternoon photoshopping all the pictures inbetween threesomes with my newest best friend Victoria.  Who, aside from being far more attractive than old Fi, also brings to the table a large country house, two trust funds and remarkable double-jointedness.

TAKE THAT, FIONA.

Psst:

Only the poor are crazy, darlings.  The rest of us are just eccentric.  If you must make sport of the costume party I attended at the nuthouse, make fun of the hors d'oeurves, which were unspeakable; and my ex-friend Fi, who drank a Methuselah of Cristal and let Prince Harry's PR secretary do unmentionable things to her on top of the banquette.

 

I wore this as a costume, which allowed for all sorts of interesting access.

 

 

 

Look, some might find the whole thing in poor taste; but like I said, only the proletariat can be truly crazy.  We are above such things.  For example:  Mum.  Someone should have locked that old Bertha in an attic long ago, but as she's wealthy we simply smile and dump Valium into her Scotch.

It's Just a Bloody Hat, You Ingrates

Oh, the peasantry.  Goodness, you little biddies are all up in arms over absolutely nothing these days.  Haven't you anything better to do?  Aren't you all too busy lazing about on the dole to bother with what the upper classes do? 

If you haven't been keeping up, apparently the world is all totally insane over this teensy, super innocent photo I posted on Instagram.  Darlings, it was a fancy dress party.  Chuh.  Naturally evil costumes are permitted.  Do not get all riled up.  Not only was it just fancy dress, it was clearly a very expensive and rare piece of memorabilia, because obviously I would not put just any WWII German hat on my shiny locks.  Also there may have been cocaine and prescription painkillers involved.  Might have been.  I admit nothing.  But if I did admit anything, you can be sure it was pure pharmaceutical and bloody brilliant.  I'm not saying there was, you understand.

But if there was. 

Also, I completely know Jewish people and they were not offended in the least by this photo.  My mum's accountant said, "What photo?", and the Hollywood agent I met that one time at Fi's house said, "Jonquil, I could not give less of a shit what you do with your time."  So there.

That said, I've decided it was probably in bad form.  I've come up with a new costume for the fancy dress party Hubert Von Hepplewhite-Blankenship is having Saturday next.

 

Fiji, Darlings.

The only thing to do when you're surrounded by negativity is to drop everything and go somewhere tropical, ideally on someone else's dime. 

I could post a million photos -- photos of how I interacted condescendingly but lovingly with the locals, how imperiously and without thought we donned sacred ceremonial headdresses for an amusing drunken romp on the beach, photos of Fi's truly unfortunate-looking boyfriend with the male-pattern baldness and the paunch but the magnificent bank account.

Instead, I'll leave you with minimalism.  This is really all you need to know, and all I'm really anxious to show you anyway.  Tell me how gorgeous it is. 

Back home this week, more's the pity.  Tarquin's going to dump Fiona because she won't dress up "like a native woman" or something, so I'm sure there will be lots of drunken evenings to clean up and lots of scary men to shoo out the door. 

Ta!
J.
 

Tales From the Trenches

Oh, darlings, I've missed you.  You have no idea.  Life is so terribly hard when people throw themselves and free things at you.  It's so difficult being this discerning.  But I do try. 


This is my demure face.

 Recently, you may have heard through the gossip mill that I've been to Cornwall.  I do love Cornwall.  Where else can you frolic like children on a beach in your £400 wellies, and two hours later show off your impeccable figure in a string bikini?  That is, as long as you're willing to accept the outrageous a la carte prices for such things. 

Look, truly, I am simply fabulous.  Do not get snippy with me simply because your hair is decidedly less-than, or because you cannot afford the best Brazilian cocaine, or because you have an actual drudgey job as opposed to something delightfully nebulous like 'web consultant.'  I cannot help it if generally speaking I just have things fall into my lap like glorious, perfectly-groomed dogs.

What I do find utterly unspeakable is when I'm invited to a hotel that looks delicious and find the accommodations -- well, rather like the equivalent of a shoddy blowout.  This is not to say that the proletariat might not find the place squeakingly upmarket; I'm only saying there are standards, cupcake, and if you live your life by a different set, it is hardly my problem. 

I do implore you, dear readers, to take opinions from the internet as -- well, opinions from the internet.  Should you suddenly require me to have things like journalistic objectivity, I should think this would become the most stodgy, dreary page on the planet.  Much like I presume that Liberty person's site must be.

When I write about somewhere I've been, it's me writing about somewhere I've been, you silly bourgeois sods.  And while I quite naturally assume my readers are universally staying at filthy little Travelodges the world over, you must understand that when I vacation, it is with the assumption that I will be informed of any additional charges prior to their incurrance.



Oh, dear God.  This Travelodge is like something out of a prison movie.  You poor sodding bastards.

 (And also the assumption that the night's catch won't cause me to spend the evening vomiting up everything I've ever eaten.  I did manage to lose a kilo, however, and am rather surprised I wasn't charged for the spoiled seafood as a spa service.)

In short, if you'd like to stay in Cornwall and lose some pesky weight, this may be right in your wheelhouse. 

If you'd like me to be more objective, or suddenly to begin revealing all my secrets, well, then, you haven't been reading carefully enough.  You don't get to know these things, you whiny little meat pasties.

Ta,
Jonquil.

Total Shite; or, How to Effect a Cleanse With Grace

Darlings, when you spend as much time as I do simply indulging yourself in all manner of hedonistic/fetishistic endeavors, eventually it does catch up to you.  At some point, there is within you a buildup of toxins that nothing can cure.

At those times, I turn to an old friend.

Gwyneth Paltrow.

No, honestly, I'm taking the piss.  I'd never turn to her for anything, not since I was at a party at Camilla Tamblin-Gogginsworth's and had Gwyneth Paltrow quite bold-facedly tell me something was "bollocks."

So let's leave Gwyneth to her piss-poor excuses for cleanses, shall we?

This cleanse of mine will have you sparkling new again in a matter of days, peasants, guaranteed. 

Ingredients:

Condensed essence of oat bran, 2 cups

7 ounces pharmaceutical-grade Brazilian cocaine

Raw kale, 2 bunches

Syrup of ipecac, three drops

4 packets Normacol Plus laxative

Orange juice, for taste

Mix all ingredients in the blender.  Pour into a chilled glass, and garnish with mint.  You should really wait to drink this until you're sitting down, comfortably, in dark-colored clothing on top of a rubber sheet no more than four steps from the loo. 

At first it will seem awful; but you will learn to love that desperate, ominous rumble and the giddy the-world-is-fucking-ending adrenaline simply pouring through your veins. 

If you can get out of the ladies' in the next three days, you will find you are several pounds lighter, several sizes smaller, and possibly a bit pruny from the severe dehydration.  Sip some water and slip into something fabulous, darling; you are ready to hit the streets for some eggs and streaky bacon.  And remember, it's not a diet.  I call it the Un-Diet.  It's a lifestyle.  Embrace the horror.

Love,
Jonquil

Happy New Year, Darlings!

Oh, I've so much to cover.  It has been a whirlwind of gin and tinsel, my lovely peasants, and I'm only now beginning to sober up. 

Naturally, I spent the hols at home, with Mum and Dad.  It's so quaint to cuddle up next to the homey old Christmas tree.



Isn't it too sweet?  This is the informal family room.

 Christmas at our house is low-key, we just exchange little things and enjoy each others' company.  This was my haul this year:

Then we all played drinking games and tried not to notice when Fi hit on my brother, my mum's friend's son, and my father, respectively, as she became more and more inebriated.  I may or may not have overheard her propositioning the chef who made the bourgeois mashed potato and parsnip dish.

New Years was lovely.  I'm SO not a party girl on New Years, so I decided to keep it low-key.  You know, darlings, like staying in and watching Love, Actually on the telly.  Or, rather, squeezing myself into one giant smacker of a bandage dress, hiking up the old girls, and partying all night long at a nightclub.  Low-key.

The next day, inbetween calling the local constabulary to rid my apartment of Fiona's gentleman caller from the night before and emptying said gentleman's pockets of my watch, wallet, and two serving spoons from Granny's silver chest, I spent some time thinking about the past year.  Do you do this?  Reflect on the year past as a way of staving off that insatiable nausea/hunger that happens after you've drunk four bottles of champagne the night before?

And really, 2012 was a delightful year.  It began so terribly, with the dissolution of an unspeakable relationship.  Never, ever date a reality television star, peasants.  Truly, I should have listened when Niles informed me that Spencer Matthews looked like a Hobbit, even if Niles was simply jealous. 

I remember Mum pulling me aside one night last March, when I was feeling especially bereft.  She brought me into the keeping room and sat me down on the expansive leather divan.  And in front of the fire, she affectionately tucked my hair behind my ear and gently said, "Jonquil, my love, stop being such a goddamned cock-up, you're depressing my houseguests."

It was truly then that I knew things had to change.  I mean, aside from my living arrangements; Mum kicked me straight out that night until I learned to be more cheery.

So I packed my bags and traveled the world.  Spencer called in mid-May, and I told him to sod off and called him a foul-chested, stumpy wanker.  I found solace and ultimate heartbreak in the arms of Cousin Niles, in whom I had confided the previous Christmas and who proved to be a most ardent comforter.

In short, 2012 began in shambles, and ended, as things always do for me, in glittering, brilliant perfection.  I'm like a miniseries, darlings; the road may be long, the cast may be B-rated -- but in the end, I'm purely untouchable.  And nothing stops me from having lovely hair.

Happy 2013, my little rustics.  I adore each and every one of you, even if you are rather dirty and unkempt.

              Love,
              Jonquil

               P.S.  And darling, especially you -- do not ever doubt your
                       muchness, regardless of what your mother says.