Gemma’s blog

Dear vox...

I love you, I truly do, but the lack of HTML control has done me in. I will be using you for secretprivatestuff. But apart from that, I've moved...

http://www.gemmacartwright.com

Yep. I have my own domain. This officially makes me a loser, as if you didn't already know.

For the benefit of the poor people forced to buy me things I don't really need this Christmas, here's a wishlist full of things that are too expensive for you to buy me anyway...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/37EOK7PXXQ7RR

I'd particularly like the laptop. Thanks Santa.

At 6.15pm on November 7th, and an email with THIS as the subject header appears in my inbox...

"WHAT TO BUY YOUR CAR FOR CHRISTMAS"

I thought I must have been mistaken, but no, it really was a press release about buying Christmas presents for your car. The poor PR who resorted to this to keep their client happy deserves either a medal or a good beating. I'm not sure which.

Show us your favorite doctor.

Jd

I'm in the process - yet again - of trying to lose weight. This time last year I was lighter than I've ever been in my adult life. Now I'm back up the other end of the scale again. I'm not obese, I don't have major issues, but I'm a little big bigger than I should be to be both healthy and happy, and my clothes are all way too snug for my liking. I have a limit, and I just stepped over it.

This time I've refused to see it as a constant battle, though. I don't like being 'that' diet girl. I don't want to talk about it constantly, I just want to be consciously aware of what I'm putting in my body. I can't deal with a diet if it's something that stops me from having fun in the meantime. One bowl of greasy pasta here or pizza there is not going to kill me, but it needs to be far less regular than it has been.

Problem is, it's already proving difficult only two weeks in. I picked the worst time of year to do this, as all the parties and social events in the business are beginning already, and as much as I pretend that I can go to them and not drink, I know that's a big fat lie.

Fat being the operative word there, of course.

The problem with me is that I always have to be involved. I have a very difficult time saying 'no' to things. It's like I think if I miss one evening in the pub with a few work colleagues, I'm going to miss the moment something major happens. Of course I never do. All I end up doing is going home via [insert fast food joint here] completely ruining all my hard work the rest of the week.

So I've decided it's time to put my old 'rule' into place. This worked really well last time even if it makes me sound a bit like an alcoholic. For the next month or so, I have a 4 day no drinking rule each week. That basically means I can either drink at the weekend or in the week, but never both, because four days a week must be completely dry. And those three shouldn't be binge days, they should just be the odd vodka and diet coke to look sociable and wind down after another stressful day.

Its going to kill me in the short term but save me in the long term, I hope. I'm not happy being this big, but I have to make an effort to get slimmer -  and once I get there I have to continue to keep an eye on what I'm eating. The unfortunate truth is I'll never be one of those girls who can eat or drink what she wants and never go above a size ten. Inside of me is a fat girl screaming for KFC. I just need to keep her dormant.

Bruges doesn't count, by the way. It's a different area code...

It happened again today. Different boy, same story. Only the second time ever that I was feeling rough enough to rock up to work in my trainers with yesterday's hair (and mascara) and I found myself walking past someone who...well let's just say he's seen me with yesterday's hair and mascara before, so I suppose it doesn't matter all that much. I do wonder why I never find myself walking past these ghosts when I'm looking good, though. Sod's effing law.

Aaaaanyway, it's been quite an eventful week. On Tuesday Zara and I went to the Spectacle Wearer of the Year awards (oh yeah, I wear glasses now...only for working, watching telly, reading and going to Spectacle Wearer of the Year award shows), where I mostly spent my time mainlining champagne and annoying 'celebrities'. I use the inverted commas because we're hardly talking A list here. Look at this for proof...

Calum Best et Moi

Luckily I managed to persuade Zara against asking him if Lindsay Lohan is a natural redhead. I also managed to keep myself from going up to Noel Fielding and reciting lines from the Old Greg episode of The Mighty Boosh, so all-in-all the drunken idiocy factor was surprisingly low considering the bubbly was free. I've done a lot worse. There's plenty of photographic evidence of that, but I won't share.

Jetsetting Gem news! Jenni and I have just booked a weekend away in Bruges for the beginning of November, where I will undo any good dieting work between now and then by eating moules frites and chocolate exclusively for three days. It'll be lovely to get away though, even if it is only for a few days.

And then...hurrah! I'm off to Vegas at the beginning of January again for the Consumer Electronics Show. I wrangled it because I'm now a whizz at editing video and I'm geeky enough to understand XML and FTP. It'll be two days of shopping and drinking and five days of work, work, work, but it'll still be brilliant. Then a month after that it's back on a plane and off to Oz for just over three weeks with Jojo, travelling from Melbourne to Sydney and then Brisbane and Cairns. Amazing. I'm going to be broke by the end of all of it, but you're only young once!

So all in all, life's pretty damn good at the moment.

This recipe serves 3 - 4 depending on how greedy you are. Add more rice, chicken and peppers to serve more people.

Ingredients:

200 - 250g Paella rice (most supermarkets now sell this. Buy Arborio rice if there's nothing labelled 'Paella')
1 - 2 chicken thighs chopped into small pieces
1 onion, chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 small peppers, chopped into small chunks
1 pack seafood cocktail. Always check mussells for beards!
1/2 pack king prawns. Shell-on are more authentic, but peeled are fine too.
1 fish stock cube
1 chicken stock cube
1 tbsp Paella spice OR mixed herbs, oregano & paprika
1 pinch turmeric (to colour rice - it's cheaper than saffron)
Soy sauce
Olive oil

Method:

1. Heat a small amount of oil in a large frying pan or (if possible) hob-to-oven casserole dish. Add the chopped onion and crushed garlic and a couple of teaspoons of soy sauce. Fry until onion is soft.
2. add the sliced chicken, half the spice and stir in in half the chicken stock cube (add a splash of water if needed to stop it sticking) and fry off until the chicken is cooked through. Make up the fish stock.
3. When the chicken is cooked through, add a dash more oil and stir the rice into the mix, coating it in the oil.
4. Add the fish stock, and crumble what's left of the chicken stock cube into the mix. Add the spices, including turmeric.
5. Reduce to a simmer and cover, leaving the rice to absorb the stock. This will probably take about 20 mins but keep checking it. If you need to, add more water. Try not to stir it too much as this turns it into more of a risotto than a paella.
6. When rice is almost ready and almost all the liquid has been absorbed, stir in the seafood and the peppers and allow them to heat through while the rest of the liquid burns off.

Serve with white wine and crusty bread. Yum!

This is a fairly healthy dish anyway depending on how much of it you actually eat, but I do a healthier version by substituting the chicken thigh for turkey breast, and using low-fat cooking spray instead of olive oil. If you do this make sure you have a good pan or the rice will stick. The soy sauce is my little secret, I always cook onion in it because it's a good way of adding a bit of saltiness to a dish in a slightly healthier way. I also find the best stock cubes to use are the waxy, rectangular ones (Knorr or Tesco's own) rather than the standard Oxo style crumbly cubes.

Tada! Next week I might share my bacon, tomato and mascarpone pasta recipe. It's killer, trust me! 

There are loads"of things I do online when I'm bored. I look at pictures on the IMDB and Getty. I browse YouTube for blooper reels. I read people's blogs. I post on various forums. And, when I'm really feeling down, I amuse myself with the singles ads on Craigslist and Gumtree.

Now I have no issue with people who've met online. If you can shop for shoes online, why not shop for boys? I've dabbled in online dating and had a good time with some of the men I've met, but on the places where it's free to put up a profile, the weirdos do come out in full force, as these examples confirm. Enjoy!

"An attached Daddy would enjoy taking care of your occasional "special needs." Do you need help with your homework? Did you fall down and need your booboo kissed? Do you need a stern hand to guide? Did the boys at school make fun of you? You can be my special "little girl" who loves to please her Daddy."

"Take you to the edge of the cliff and keep you there for half an hour until you explode into the most amazing orgasm. Interested?" (this one was apparently a tantric sex teacher)

"I want stuffing for Christmas.........................................and two nice plum puddings with brandy sauce. Please be my Lady Santa." (over-zealous elipses: writers own)

""He is the best man I have ever known and will ever know"
"He made me laugh so hard I choked up a grape"
"If I had one wish, it would be to see him one last time"

Okay, so those quotes might be from my mother...But that's not the point. Actually the last quote is from Ariel, the Little Mermaid about Sebastian. But that's not important right now either...." (I actually love this, but he's obviously still a nutter...)

...and so it goes on.

It appears that I am ill. As I've said many times before, I do NOT deal well with being ill because it happens so infrequently. This is a particularly bad case of 'ill' because I only have myself to blame. See, I'm pretty sure this sudden attack of severe lethargy, aches and pains and fever is my body's way of saying 'STOP GOING OUT AND GETTING DRUNK, FILLING ME WITH JUNK FOOD, NOT GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP AND GENERALLY ABUSING ME'.

Either that, or it's the worst case of period pain I've ever had in my entire life.

This is the payback for a month of excess (or maybe, um, three months of excess). All I know is I've been terrible recently - the wine, the junk food, the late nights, the lack of exercise. I'm looking and feeling like shit and it's really my own fault. I suppose, if nothing else, this has been a wake-up call. I can't afford to take time off but I had to take a sick day today and I'm pretty sure I'll have to do the same thing tomorrow. I feel like I'm about to collapse, and I'm flushing hot and cold more often than a woman going through the menopause. The thought of even leaving the house is a bit much at the moment, and as I type this I can feel the headache starting up again.

Grrrr. Time for a lemsip, I reckon...

Which runway show at New York Fashion Week do you wish you could attend?

Any other year it would be Matthew Williamson but - hurrah - he's back in London this year and - double hurrah - I INTERVIEWED HIM ON WEDNESDAY so I'd have to say this time around it would be Marc Jacobs or Anna Sui. Perhaps more Anna Sui since Marc makes people wait two hours.

Bet the goodie bags are good, though!