See you soon, princess!

I can remember the day Kerry Rogan and I met for the first time. We were eleven years old and it was our first day of high school. As fate and the future luck of tequila manufacturers everywhere would have it, we were both put into the the same house at school, Rathkeltair, which to be completely honest with you is totes the best house at Down High. Some of them, I'm not saying which ones, have a distinctly Hufflepuff-y vibe to them. No lie. 

Anyhoo, Kerry's surname is Rogan and mine is Russell, which meant that when it came to Miss Hopkins' Geography class, where everyone was seated in alphabetical order, Kerry and I were next to each other. It was magical, it was fate, it was the least productive table in the class. 

At that stage, I was at my physical peak - a podgy eleven year-old, with curtains and a posh accent. (Deffers did not help matters by being the only boy in the year to wear a scarf. But, oh well, everyone's wise with hindsight.) Kerry was a radiant being in blonde curls, with a fringe which we have mutually agreed shall never be discussed ever again and which she soon ditched faster than I ditched full fat Coke. I shifted in my seat to say hello to my new Geography partner, presumably resembling a baby killer whale in motion as I did so. "Are you Laura Bell?" I asked.

"What?" came the response.

"Are you... I think I sat next to you in Miss Patton's Maths class before break? Are you ... You're Laura Bell?"

"No," came the cold response. "I don't know who that is."

Conversation slowly died off. As Kerry turned regally to stare out at the classroom as if vaguely confused/irritated about the precise point of Geography or what role it was going to play in her life, I sat and cursed myself for assuming that in a class sat in alphabetical order I would be sitting next to someone whose surname started with "B." Actually, I probably wasn't that smart to realise why I'd been wrong. Knowing me back then, I was probably thinking about crisps.

Eventually realising that we would either have to talk to each other or face the dreaded prospect of listening to the teacher, Kerry turned back towards me and re-initiated convo. A lifelong friendship was born and, yesterday, she went to Australia for the year. It's the first time since that day in Miss Hopkins' classroom that we won't be with in travelling distance of each other. And, frankly, me no likey.

When you say goodbye to a friend, it's easy to put on rose-tinted glasses and pretend everything was always perfect. (Our friend Sarah's particularly good at this, literally. She once bought a £600 pair of rose-tinted Dior sunglasses because the shop assistant panicked her by telling her they were the only pair anywhere on the island of Ireland and if she didn't buy it now, she'd never be able to own a pair. This is the girl, after all, who, when her student loan arrived, ran up and down the corridors of her college halls squealing, "Free money!") But I digress. Just because Kerry is off on the other side of the world, there's no point in pretending everything between us was always a bed of roses. (The flowers, not the chocolates - I got thin.) For the first two years of our friendship she repeatedly called me "Gavin," because she preferred it to "Gareth." We were banned from group discussions in Geography because we were a) too argumentative and b) too stupid. We were sent out of Miss Gorman's GCSE English Lit class after we both took a game of slapsies just a little bit too far. I initiated the world's longest and most unnecessary fight when I claimed (wrongly) that only sick people were allowed to bathe in the water at Lourdes and when I found out that this wasn't the case, attempted to re-start the fight by claiming that what I meant was only sick people should be allowed to bathe in the water at Lourdes. And she (Kerry, not the Virgin Mary) once lied to me that she had been punched in the face so I would leave Oxford in the middle of the night and come up and see her in Manchester. She greeted me at the train station with a shrug: "Everything's fine. Just got bored." 

The night before Kerry left for Australia, we sat by the fire as she did her tan and nails (essential travel prep - much more important than the suitcase, which had yet to be packed), and watched Gone with the Wind. And I got to thinking (SATC ref - necessary) about the decade or so of friendship we've had. Kerry, my love, we are both shrieking banshees of human beings, at times utterly and entirely ridiculous/delightful; we are incapable of sticking to the vaguest concept of a budget and we live lives centred around naps, shopping and drinking. I haven't a clue what I'm going to do without you this year. I do, however, know that you're going to have an amazing time in Australia with Emma. And, think of it this way, Ken, we're finally doing the one thing I shrieked, screamed and hissed we were never going to do: growing up.

Lol jk - see you in Geog, principessa!

Diets and Dior

So, yesterday was the birthday of one of my best friends from school, Sarah, and unfortunately we couldn't celebrate with her in the style of days gone-by, because she's currently living in Manchester. Anyway, during our lengthy phone-call y'day we started taking a stroll down memory lane and Sarah reminded me of how ... well, "unwise" she used to be with money. This is a girl who, when she received the first instalment of her student loan, run up and down the corridors of her college halls, clapping her hands and squealing "Free money!" Although admittedly it's nothing compared to the time Kerry spent 10 minutes sheltering inside the Swarovski store from a storm and felt so bad for not buying anything that she emerged with a pink heart-shaped necklace. 

The high point of Sarah's early expenditure related disasters - which she once tried to pass off to her family as being an administrative error by the bank - came at the end of her first time at university, when she purchased a £600 pair of Christian Dior sunglasses. In the middle of December. She only bought them because the girl in the shop told her they were limited edition and the very last pair anywhere on the island of Ireland. Not just in Northern Ireland, but the entire geographical chunk. Sarah immediately panicked, took this as a sign from God and handed over the £600. (Next week, four more pairs were in that same shop.) To date, Sarah has worn these sunglasses twice. And announced on the second occasion that the pink lenses were too delightful to actually keep the sun out of her eyes. Not long after Diorgate, she spent £500 on a high quality handbag, which she told us was an investment because of the excellent craftmanship on the leather, before announcing two weeks later that it was too heavy to carry and was now purely for decoration. 

Good times.

Also, less Dior-related: something that has seriously annoyed me on Facebook/Twitter recently. Anyone who has read Popular will know that I am never going to be getting an award for being Mr. Politically Correct 2k11. I think mean humour is the height of hilarity, but there's a line between bitchy and bullying. I don't know at what stage people started finding things funny just because they use some low-end slur. It really irritates me when people think it's appropriate to post statuses with the word "faggot," "paki," "fenian," "hun" or anything else like that. What you laugh about in private is totally your own business, but what you put on a public social networking site is mine and everybody else's who you're friends with. It's extremely unlikely that your 700+ friends will all have the same sense of humour. And - newsflash, most people aren't very funny and if you use words like that, you belong with the cast of Deliverance not in clogging up my feed on FB or Twitter. 

Worst of all, last night when I read one of these oh-so-witty FB verbal spasms, I got to thinking about some poor 15 year-old kid struggling with an identity crisis who sees the word "faggot" and all the "likes" and the thumbs up for it on FB and therefore reaches the conclusion that there's nothing worse in this life than being gay. Don't be a good person, don't be smart, don't be ambitious, don't be an upstanding citizen - just don't be gay and you're doing fine! I think it's awful that this sends out a message that being gay automatically makes you somehow less than a full human being and your entire life is going to be lived as a punchline for some moron's sense of intellectually-underdeveloped humour. I mean, is it really worth making someone feel that way just for the sake of your stupid status? I don't think so, moron. And at what point should anyone have to feel that their religion or race makes them a target of public mockery? Never. It's just rude and unprofessional to post things that might be taken as legitimately offensive on Facebook, Myspace, Bebo or Twitter, unless you have a tiny pool of friends who all share your sense of, let's call it, humour. I don't know what happened to being witty and clever; when did this kind of nonsense becoming "ironic","cool" and funny? 

Idiots.

Anyway, rant over and I'm back to the gym to try and undo some of the damage done by Christmas. My sister Ashleigh and I got each other as Secret Santas this year and both pooled resources to give each other the world's largest collection of Jesus/Santa-themed chocolates. We wrapped them up in one giant parcel and put it under the tree with a note saying, "To Ashleigh & Gareth, We love your work. Happy Christmas from your Number 1 fans - Gareth & Ashleigh xx." We have a healthy relationship with narcissism in my family.

My trainer Allan has suggested I keep a food diary now that I'm serious about like getting back on track with the gym. Unfortunately, I haven't read anything more depressing than this food diary since The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Honestly, it's like reading the schedule for feeding time at the zoo! Seriously. I eat like a rugby player and exercise like a debutante. This is where it all went wrong. 

Still, "good" to see it all written down and I actually do feel so much better about myself when I'm regularly gymming. New year's resolution was not to become a better person (practically perfect to be honest, as it is), but just to keep up gym schedule. Seems better to be realistic, rather than say something stupid like be nice or give up drinking. 

Anyone else have any new year's resolutions they've managed to keep by the end of January?

Hidden Jewels and Gin

It has been delicately pointed out to me that I haven't been updating this blog as regularly as I had originally planned and so the age of snippets of life columns is upon us. This week, I was very very excited to read Liz Hoggard's interview in the Evening Standard with one of my favourite people in the world, Emerald Fennell (above), who recently completed playing Lady Lottie, the first wife of the main character in Channel 4's four part television drama Any Human Heart, based on the novel by William Boyd. Emmy and I did a lot of drama together at Oxford and I'm still at the stage where seeing her on television or in the newspapers makes me achieve kid-going-to-Disneyland levels of hyper-excitement. Ultimately my plan is to acquire a sort of Simon Cowell-Dean Martin levels of louche sophistication about the whole thing, but that is still some way off! I'll provide a link at the bottom to read the full interview and also earlier blog posts about Any Human Heart.

Anyway, the last couple of weeks have been ones of triumph and humiliation. (I refer you to my earlier article, "Embarrassing much, ice?" for my humiliation.) The triumph came in the form of finally being able to figure out what Skype is, after several years of pretending I understood it (i.e. nodding wisely when it was mentioned, much like when I decided to use the phrase "credit crunch" and "recession" at random points in conversation) and generally assuming that Skype was some weird sort of thing you did on MSN chat. Either that or a type of phone I couldn't seem to find in shops. The push over the edge came when my friend Joel said "We should Skype," to which I initially gave the usual BS about what a great idea that was and let's do it some time next week. 

And that's when I realised that Joel has a horrifying tendency to figure out when I'm lying and then wait until we're surrounded by mutual friends to announce it and point out in excruciating detail how I managed to embarrass myself. (National Anthem-gate being high on the list of examples.) This raised the stakes and I knew I had to figure out what Skype actually was. Luckily, after a mere 57 minutes in which she was forced to resort to sending me articles from Google, Wikipedia and finally to telling a parable, Alexa managed to explain the entire thing to me and it turns out that Skype is not only a delightful invention, but also one astonishingly easy to use. So, to all those friends over the years who I promised to Skype with but didn't because I was lying, I sort of apologise. Sorry Lucas, Will, Coco, Kitty, Sophie, Noah, Alexa, Amy, Tom, Matthew, Andrew ... etc.

Another high was attained when I shimmied round to my friend Natalie's for a quiet evening gin. Natalie (left) is one of my favourite drinking partners, if for no other reason than she and her mother have taken to serving me gin in some sort of novelty pint glass and Natalie thinks regular measuring cups are "for dwarves." We managed to discuss all the important things - how she had decided to insure her Chloé handbag for far more than she ever would her boyfriend, how for some reason The X Factor isn't that exciting this year and why is it that so many people are so ugly? Also, Queen's University students who flounce around the city centre wearing a glorified version of your pyjamas - you disgust us! Wash you hair, clean your clothes and remember that, right now, there are some well-heeled dogs in Malone who are better groomed than you are. Sort it out.

I also want to talk about last night when I went back to my old high school, Down High, to see their annual school play - this year a production of the musical The Sound of Music. I was back in Down High about two months ago to do an after-school talk about Popular and I got to meet some of the drama students there, all of whom seemed really nice and it was great chatting to them afterwards. My old drama teacher, Pamela Mills, (we plan to make her part of my celebrity posse) sent me two tickets to come and see The Sound of Music on its closing night. Thank you, Pamille. 

I invited my friend Aisleagh to come along as my plus one. Aisleagh is only back in Northern Ireland at the weekends for the next six months, because she flies over to London during the week to be a high-powered lawyer. Very useful to keep Aisleagh on side, considering I will almost certainly need one of those before I turn thirty. Which will be happening in about fifteen years, give or take. Aisleagh was a big participant in Drama in our days at Down High, both curricular and social, and she also loved music, so I thought she was a sure bet for TSOM. Plus, I haven't seen her properly in ages and we used to share a flat together in Oxford, so it would be good to catch up and revisit La Mills.

However, half-way to Downpatrick, Aisleagh turned to me in the car and said in her most dread voice, "Just so you know - and I'm just putting it out there - there is no musical in the world I hate more than The Sound of Music." 

I glanced at her, in shock and fear, "Seriously? How do you hate it? Which songs do you hate the least? Climb Every Mountain?" 

"If I told you I didn't like any of them, would that make it clearer?!"

Part of me was mortified, but the other half quietly pleased, because there is literally no-one in the world more fun to sit next to than Aisleagh when you're watching a movie, play, show or production that she hates. She is hilariously vicious.

We arrive at the school and things don't get off to a great start when the people collecting tickets at the door are my old Biology and Maths teachers, neither of whom exactly saw me at my academic best. I still live in fear that the Maths department will one day figure out that Sarah-Jane and I are not cousins and we did not therefore share a permanently ailing grandmother, who conveniently relapsed every time our coursework was due. 

Aisleagh and I swanned in and chatted with Miss Mills, before curtain-up and I have to say that both Aisleagh and I were pleasantly surprised. I was a bit worried that having met and liked so many of the drama students back in October that they wouldn't actually be amazing on stage, which is always really upsetting, I think, when someone is nice to talk to but doesn't measure up in the talent stakes. Aisleagh, naturally, had settled into a mood of merry bile, prepared to hate everything except the sight of her own name on the board of old Deputy Head Girls and her cunning plan for us to storm the stage half-way through and launch into our monologues from our final school production of The Canterbury Tales. I don't exactly remember mine, but that's OK - I didn't remember it when I did it the first time round, either. Luckily, as the sick grandmother shows, improv was not something I ever had a problem with. 

The show was sensational and half-way through, Aisleagh clutched my hand, tears in her eyes and sighed, "How could I ever have hated this? It's the cutest thing I've ever seen!!"

Firstly, a word of praise for the girl who played Maria: I've never met Poppy, but she was so, so good! She's only a Year 10 (i.e. about 14) and I hope that doesn't sound too patronising, because she was sensational, both as an actress and as a singer. Also I was literally staring open-mouthed at how good the Reverend Mother's singing was. Wow. The entire cast was really excellent and whilst I may have queried the dramatic decision that led to several of the junior school being dressed as machine gun-carrying Nazis, the whole thing was superb. I really, really enjoyed myself and I'm so glad we went. Aisleagh, needless to say, had some sort of spiritual conversion half-way through and was actually singing along to Edelweiss at the end, a euphoric expression on her face.

So, anyway, huge congratulations to Miss Mills and Mr O'Hara and to all those involved and especially those I met when I spoke at Down High and who were in The Sound of Music - Ruth, Michael, Lydia, Charlotte, Louis and Robbie - thanks so much for a great show and I hope the cast party was riotously inappropriate. 

GR

For the full interview with Emerald Fennell, click here and for this blog's post about Any Human Heart, click here. 

For last week's less than delightful ice-capade, click here.