I Am the Queen of Excess

Where would you like me to start?  With the wardrobes full of clothes in every size, every colour, every style? With all the food I've eaten over the festive period?  Or with the piles of diet books and magazines I've accumulated over the years?

Although I aim for it, I'm not very good at the 'happy medium.'  In fact, I am the Queen of Excess.  Don’t ever offer me the box of chocolates with a casual, “ Would you like one?” 

I will smile at you and turn away virtuously, whilst a loud angry voice inside my head is yelling, “ONE?? ONE?? ONE’s no good to me! Go away, and leave me with them all.  Come back in the morning for the empty box!” I’m afraid it’s all or nothing.  And judging by the tightness of my jeans since Christmas it’s been an ‘All’ kind of season.

I don’t often do dinner parties these days, I’m too lazy, but when I did I would buy and cook enough food to feed at least twice the number of guests (even the greedy ones).  Now I’ll have informal suppers, but I’m not happy unless I’ve got back up food filling the fridge and freezer – and at least half a dozen bowls of snacks before we even start to eat a proper meal.   I've watched friends stagger down my front path at midnight, clutching their stomachs.  At least two have had accidents requiring A&E, although I suspect the liquid refreshment might have been to blame, and not the abundance of food.

For about the past thirty years I’ve cooked Christmas dinner (with a few reprieves).  This year we were having dinner cooked for us, which meant no festive entertaining other than a small gathering on Christmas Eve.   I heaved a great sigh of relief.  No frantic food shopping for me in the run up to Christmas, I thought smugly.  An unprecedented calm settled around me. I looked on sympathetically as people raced past me in town, clutching huge Iceland bags, their faces reflecting worry and exhaustion. I felt sorry for these poor saps, filling their fridges and cupboards (and ultimately their bellies) with all sorts of over indulgences.

That feeling of calm lasted until I found myself in Sainsburys at 8.30am a few days later, desperately hurling food into my trolley.  I knew then I was a lost cause.  Extra large packs of peanuts, huge jars of pickled onions, giant boxes of Quality Street, enough milk, cream and cheese to open a dairy, and for some reason, a family size packet of frozen chicken gougons and sate strips – what was that all about?  I didn’t come up for air.  Like a mad woman I barged my way past sweet old couples cooing over chocolate Snowmen for the great grandchildren, frazzled looking mothers trying to remove Christmas baubles and selection boxes from their over excited kids, and a single man carrying a basket containing a mini Christmas pudding for one, a single chicken breast and a small Toblerone.  I envied him but I did have to wonder at the sort of person who buys a SMALL Toblerone. 

You see, that’s not my style.  If you’re buying one, go straight for large; if you’re buying two then you might as well have half a dozen.  If it’s a BOGOF that’s even better.  I’ve only recently realized that my obsession with buying things in even numbers is just that – an obsession.  I don’t know when it started but I do know I feel very uneasy if I just buy one and not a pair.  I have been known to leave my shopping on the conveyor belt and hurtle back down the aisles to collect another jar of beetroot to accompany its partner by the till.

Pondering on this blog earlier today, I began planning meals for the coming week, opening cupboards and peering in the fridges and freezers (note the plural – more excess, I am ashamed to say: two fridges, three freezers).  It dawned on me that we could probably survive, in the event of a nuclear explosion, for at least a few months without shopping, feeding ourselves on meals that would continue to be healthy and nourishing but no doubt become more and more bizarre as time went on.

Now, please excuse me while I count how many pairs of black jeans I possess.  Don't wait up for me, I could be some time. 

A Greedy Person's Haiku 

by Jill Reidy

Just one chocolate

Eat it slowly, savour taste

Sorry, no way, mate!

Thanks for reading      Jill 

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Ex-cess

Excess! Woo hoo, what a topic. This could be an opportunity for your Saturday Blogger to throw caution to the wind and go completely (metaphorically) overboard, diving right into the shaming pool to stir up a few murky secrets and send revelatory shockwaves rippling towards the blogshore. Could be fun.

But no, it's an opportunity I'll have to pass on, because being diplomatic and discreet is second nature to me - and I don't want to get sued. (They know who they are though - and they know that I know.)

So if not whistle-blowing about the excesses of high-profile individuals of my acquaintance, what then? How about pollution in China?

I was horrified to see the newsreel footage of the smog cloud that rolled into Beijing this week. Having arrived, it stuck around - and not for the first time. It is just part of a bigger problem, for the smog blanket currently extends some hundreds of miles along China's eastern industrial corridor cloaking major cities in a foul soup of carbon dioxide, lethal particulates and hydro-carbons (see the image below).

This is not cloud, it's poisonous smog.

Last week I was bemoaning the 5,000 poor migrants who were drowned in the Mediterranean in 2016. By way of comparison, smog in China is supposedly responsible for 4,000 deaths per day - that's 3 every minute, or a staggering one-and-a-half million people every year! Unbelievable. The immediate culprits are the coal-fired power stations underpinning China's industrial revolution and the exponential increase in road traffic, especially in the cities. It's a chronic situation for the millions exposed and at risk on a regular basis: excess levels of mortality triggered by excess levels of air pollution. On the larger stage, it is state policy that allowed this to happen and greedy Western capitalism that has catalysed the catastrophe.

That's my first rant of the year concluded. On to the first poem of 2017.

The idea came to me when I couldn't help overhearing (okay, listened in to) an animated conversation between a group of likely lads in a pub discussing the nature of their relationships with their ex-girlfriends... who understand them so much better than their current squeezes! Breaking up clearly isn't what it used to be.

This may not be the poem's final form, as I can't quite hit the right tone of insensitively foolish laddish swagger, but it will do for now.

I must stress it is tongue-in-cheek and pure fiction. It bears not the slightest resemblance to my own life or views and any similarity to any persons living or dead must be spookily coincidental.

My Ex And Me
My ex and me we get on famously,
much better than we ever did
in pre-ex days.
Back then,
if we weren't at each other's throats,
we would wear each other down
with our constant niggling pre-ex ways.

Ex gratia, the hex is lifted -
post ex, she no longer vexes me.
That's some relief.
In fact I think
she understand me
better than my current squeeze.

My exposition moving forward,
this, in brief:
I reckon my ex and me
we could enjoy some great ex-sex together.

The lads agree.
What's not to like
if it's all done on the QT?
No ties, no grief, no expose.
I'll text her now,
ask her not to expostulate,
just try it out and see...

Thanks for reading. Keep smiling and have a good week, S ;-)

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