It’s my way or Kellyanne Conway – a letter from The Truth

Dear America,

Hi, it’s me – The Truth. You probably remember me from the days of fact checking, local journalism and the difficult things you thought about yourself in your last relationship. You might be wondering where I’ve been just recently what with all this hullabaloo about a new American President and whatnot.

The truth is (see what I did there?) I’ve been taking a sabbatical because lately you have decided to give way too much attention to my nemesis.

Things came to a head when Kellyanne Conway was appointed as one of President Trump’s advisors. You may not know this but Kellyanne studied at Oxford University in the UK and guess who was also in her class? That’s right – me.

You would think that us being in a class together means Kellyanne Conway is no stranger to The Truth; not so. Despite trying to get her attention around campus, despite complimenting her on her super-straight American teeth, despite trying to join her debating team, she snubbed me. Each and every day in college I was snubbed by the popular girl and I’m still pissed as hell at her.

In the refectory (which she insisted on calling the ‘cafeteria’ – wrong!) she would regularly push in front of me, without the slightest acknowledgement, in order to steal the last few bread rolls. She would claim to the staff that she had a wheat deficiency and she needed bread to live. She both sullied my name by claiming this was the truth and, at the same time, deprived me of valuable carbs. Who does that?

In the debating team she would regularly argue that up was down, black was white and that Scrappy Doo was a valuable contribution to cartoons. All of these things sullied my name and I had no right of reply because she ignored my applications to join consistently.

Oxford is a small city with beautiful spires and well tended green spaces. I remember a sports club social one Saturday where we were on opposite teams. She never even made eye contact with me. Her team went on to win that afternoon despite the fact that my team had won more points. Apparently the ‘system’ meant victory belonged to her team. I swear I was in the mind to massacre her and her team right there on the bowling green but I didn’t. Despite her being odious, no one did because that would have been wrong.

When I came back to America after college I tried to reach out to Kellyanne several times. I just wanted to be accepted but Kellyanne couldn’t accept The Truth, even when I referred to myself in the first person. I invited her to a brunch I was having with my friends Charity, Empathy and Trust but she didn’t even have the decency to reply. (To be fair, Decency has been ill for a while and we are worried she isn’t going to make it.)

So I’m sorry if I’ve been in short supply recently but if the President appointed your nemesis, wouldn’t you fuck off for a while and leave everyone else to pick up the slack? This really was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I used to be valued. I was the one who enabled humans to walk on the moon because, guess what? The earth isn’t flat. I was the one who taught society that money doesn’t equal happiness. I was the one who exposed Watergate and led to the impeachment of a President. That’s the power I used to have. That’s the power I still hold should you wish to look me up.

So where am I now? I have a very beautiful apartment in Nottingham, England. It’s not too far from the statue of Robin Hood and we have gas lighting here (actual gas lighting in the street not the sort Kellyanne uses).

If you want me back then you will have to get rid of Kellyanne first. It’s my way or Kellyanne Conway. Never the twain shall meet.

Kindest regards,

The Truth

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How to break up with your real estate agent

It may be Valentine’s Day but there really is no good time to break up with your real estate agent. They are sensitive souls and they care so deeply about your needs. It’s hard to let them down when they care so deeply but are yet unable to sell your home at the reasonable price they said was right for the market.

Fear not; here are some key phrases that will help you let your estate agent down gently:

“It’s not you, it’s the market”
They are going to blame themselves no matter what you say. You know they are going to be hanging around outside your home for the next few weeks in the hope that you take them back. Blaming the market rather than them directly, allows them enough self-esteem to squander with pestering emails about ‘new ideas to market your property’ over the coming months.

“It’s my fault. I should never have given you a key”
Blaming yourself is another way for you to help rescue a crumb of self-esteem from your estate agent. Giving them a key means they felt special. They had a key to your home and you had the key to their heart – the prospect of money.

“We only said we’d be exclusive for 12 weeks”
Going multi-agency can hit them hard. You never said you would be exclusive forever but in the back of their mind, they always hoped for it. They will ask themselves questions like ‘do they do their viewings the same as me?’ and ‘are their room measurements bigger than mine?’. Your job is not to reassure them, it’s to let them know they are on the way out unless things change.

“I’ve been cheating on you with the rental market”
This is a last resort measure. It is going to hurt them hard that a letting agent might suddenly start feeling the love of your property. The thought that you could be making money too will probably break their fragile heart. Putting other people into the relationship will crowd them out and that is a pretty devastating when you have committed yourself to a property and its owner.

“You didn’t sell my fucking house”
So the needy texts and calls haven’t stopped and you’ve set up a rule on your emails so that messages go straight to your deleted folder but STILL they persist in trying to get back with you. Tell them you have a Rightmove log-in yourself and that the pictures you took on your iPhone 7 blow theirs out of the water. It’s harsh but it’s fair.

LA LA Land – non-spoilers

 

I love giving spoilers for movies and TV shows but I don’t have a huge amount of time on my hands to watch them. I’ve not actually seen LA LA Land as yet, but here are my spoilers based on what I think the plot might be like.

Ryan Gosling has a shower scene where he discovers that one of his abs wants to go solo. The ab sings a song about how it’s tired of being defined by the others. There is a lot of wordplay in the song.

The narrative takes a turn when evil genius Katarina (played by Idina Menzel) drowns in her own voice. This causes the plot to de-rail and never quite recover, despite Ryan Gosling’s abs.

The LA traffic and the resulting pollution end up causing severe asthma issues for all the characters and so all of them hire a dancing clam as a helper.

There is a huge group musical number performed entirely by clams.

The main love story is mainly performed by Eddie and Stacey. Both of them are clams.

Ryan Gosling’s remaining five abs get eaten by clams and there is a desperate clamour for them to be regurgitated quickly. There is wordplay in this scene.

The ab that went solo comes back to fight for its five ab-mates and a renegade clam helps free them.

There is a musical group clam-vomiting scene.

At the end of the movie the camera pulls back and we discover that we weren’t in Hollywood after all. The entire movie is set in the aquarium at a local seafood restaurant in Florida.

Lessons Children Can Learn From Brexit

1. It’s ok to lie to your parents providing the lie is on the side of a bus

2. Your toys are NOT for sharing

3. Your teacher is an expert in her field. Do not trust her

4. If just over half your class agree with you, you can shout over the others

5. When playing on your pretend cash register watch the British pound drop by throwing it on the floor

6. School meals will now only ever be fish and chips (NOT French fries). All other cuisine banned

7. You cannot be a member of a friendship group. All friendships must be negotiated individually. You may be part of a large friendship group now, but you will have to leave them and then speak to each individual friend separately every time you wish to make a decision. The rest of the group will probably still make collective friendship decisions without you but you don’t do cooperative working so quit hanging out with them.

8. Always cry like a baby when people disagree with you

9. Remember that a kid called America is going to copy all your mistakes