Actually Kinda Fuckin' Awesome: Helena Bonham Carter

Less Awesome Than Advertised: Dubliners

From her "knee-jerk list of things in life that irritate":

People-particularly men-saying with surprise, “You’re still drinking caffeine?” as if I’m performing a criminal act on my unborn as I tuck into my treasured one-a-day cup of tea/coffee. Yeah. You try nine months of gestation and self-abnegation before you start censoring my diet. Your mother was probably on vodka, and do you have three heads?

Dude, my mum didn't officially quit smoking or drinking.* So, y'know, I don't think caffeine is really that big a deal. Of course, the rather crazy woman behind me in Tesco's this evening went on for some time about what the hell I was fed as a child to get this size.

Double-U Tee Eff, mate - seriously, I've been around Dublin for a few months now - I am Not. The. Only. Fat. Person. In. The. City!!!! Why the constant commentary?

I am, however, growing inured to it: I smiled wanly and said that m'mummy had always been a really good cook. Her opinion, however, was unequivocably "cabbage". And "sliced carrots".

No, really.

Now, the fact that is I've eaten cabbage (not including sauerkraut) two whole times in my life... seriously, cabbage? Like I'm Popeye the Sailor-Woman only it's my ass that got large instead of my forearms (speaking of WTF, ever taken a moment to think about Popeye and his spinach habit)?

So maybe the problem isn't my weight (which is less than it was but not less enough - I am not actually swimming in these jeans, so there's plenty of scope for improvement, bum knee and all) but that I attract crazy people. Maybe it's a Canadian thing. Obviously, I need to stop making eye contact with people. Or going to Tesco's. Nothing good (save cheap pasta and canned tomatoes) ever came out of a trip to Tesco's.

*Full disclosure: mum tells me she didn't actually do much smoking or drinking after she got pregnant because mostly she didn't feel like it. She also tells me that she never had that much morning sickness. But she also told me that the Easter Bunny existed, so I consider both propositions to by hypothetical until I have the opportunity to do empirical fieldwork of my own.