All it takes is the word TONIGHT, dramatically proclaimed in a thick Scottish accent, to conjure up nostalgic memories of virusless times and summers gone-by. Forget England and the football and the coming home, we all know that Love Island is the event of the summer.
It’s a ritual that takes me back to different seasons of my life, different houses, different people, different drinks (whiskey and ginger ale in 2018, vodka and cranberry in 2019, Malibu and Lemonade in 2021). As you can probably see, when it comes to standards of sophistication, my choice of drink demonstrates a progressive erosion of my taste level and mental wellbeing. Just like the Love Island format, I too become trashier and trashier every year.
As I wrote in this piece from a couple of years ago: “Love Island is the glue that’s keeping this fractured country together and preventing it from drifting into the North Sea and make an actual geographical exit from Europe.” There is something so freeing about embracing frivolity. What? You think you’re too smart to spend your nights watching hot strangers with extravagant dental work attempting to land a Bohoo deal under the false pretences of finding the love of their life? You’re too high-brow to watch a 22-year-old semi-professional footballer sucking a stranger’s toe on a dare? Then I’m sorry but we can’t be friends.
Anyway, this year looks promising, with some stand-out contestants - for all the wrong reasons. I’d like to start off with Sharon, who thinks she’s smarter than everyone because she worked as a civil servant at the Department for Transport for about five minutes.
Now, based on my experience with some of her colleagues, both in a professional and personal capacity, I’m going to have to reject the notion that working for the civil service equals being smart.
I chose to give her the benefit of the doubt, however, so I conducted an independent investigation. One of my DfE sources revealed that while she actually did work for the department, she was “just a temp”, which given my source’s dismissive tone I can only assume to be an insult in Whitehalland. My whistleblower also added that “most DfT employees reject any association with her now that she’s on the show”. I actually feel that the link between Love Island contestants and civil servants would cause more reputational damage for the former than the latter but far be it from me to rain on their parade of snobbery (just kidding I love you guys xx).
Other notable mentions: Brad, the snake of the season, who lives with his nan and hasn’t had sex since 2019 (I wonder if the two things are linked) and the recently-departed Shannon, eliminated after less than 48 hours after quarantining for two weeks to enter the villa. She was very unlucky to be dumped so early but she’s hot and has a remarkable head of hair so ultimately we know she’ll be ok.
But the real star, in my opinion, is Miss Faye, the 25-year-old lettings manager who looks like a 49-year-old divorcee from Babbacombe. I am absolutely positive that she’s going to give the people exactly what they want: sex, violence, intrigue and DRAMAH. I expect she’ll become engulfed in some controversy by week three but I am not worried, because people like Faye always bounce back - *insert joke about breast implants here*.
So get your ITV hub log in details in order, for this will be a summer of fire. A year in the pandemic has made us hornier and meaner, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned is that horny and mean makes for very, very good television.
Bad Hair Month
Who knows me knows that my hair is the source of my power, the gift with which I rule the lawless lands of East London, the crown without which I’d be a king without a kingdom.
So here’s a short, sad story. It all started last week, when I realised I had a very heavy, contaminated aura. I decided to go get a haircut (a ritual with proven healing properties) in an attempt to clear my head.
My usual barber was too busy and I immediately went into ain't-nobody-got-time-for-that mode and blindly walked into a random Turkish barber shop on Roman Road without doing my due diligence (check Yelp). Bad move.
The barber, Mr Ikash, had very hostile energy. I pleaded to the Gods of toxic masculinity to provide me with at least one talking point to break the ice. So I cracked on with some Euros related banter, which backfired as soon as he realised I was Italian, since Italy absolutely annihilated Turkey last month. I wanted to say something to make it better, but he was holding a pair of scissors dangerously close to my neck so in a very uncharacteristic move I chose to keep silent, lest I angered him any further.
See, I went into the barbershop with uncultivated yet luscious-looking hair and came out of it looking like a fucking pineapple. I am ugly, a feeling I have so rarely experienced in my life that I am at a loss at how to handle it. I was also ID’d for the first time in a long time at the corner shop, possibly because of my haircut, possibly because I was buying a medium bottle Malibu, a notoriously puerile choice of drink.
I paid the £20 and pretended I loved the haircut because even though I didn’t particularly enjoy Ikash’s company, I felt the overwhelming need to be liked by him. This whole story is made all the more painful by the fact that I now find myself having to incorporate a baseball cap into every outfit for the next two weeks. Cheers Ikash. Enjoy your money. I hope it makes you very happy.
I Think We’re Alone Now
After a particularly tiring shift at work this week I decided to randomly treat myself to a movie in an actual cinema. I wanted something that would distract me from my life or at least make me feel less bad about it, which is why I decided to watch a horror film because whatever is going on with me can’t be worse than being impaled with a tennis racket by a serial killer who wears denim dungarees and mask made of human skin (at least he wears a mask! even serial killers have a more developed sense of civic duty than covid-deniers).
When I walked into the room I realised I was the only one there, which was not ideal considering I was watching a scary movie after all. I decided to just go with it. It can’t be worse than the time I was literally the only person in the Paris catacombs (story for another day).
Then boom. A guy walked in and sat right behind me. So close I could smell the Lynx Africa. What's worse than watching a horror movie alone in a cinema room? Watching a horror movie in a cinema room with one other person you don’t know and who happens to wear Lynx Africa.
Also, it was clear that I was in the company of a sociopath because he ate a KitKat bar the way you would a sandwich by literally biting into it. The whole experience made me deeply uneasy, so I proceeded to get white wine drunk, which resulted in me having an inordinate amount of fun watching hot teenagers get slaughtered. I thereby suggest to everyone who wants to remove themselves from the painful realities of modern life to buy a bottle of Echo Falls, head to the nearest Vue and just forgettaboutit.
Art Radar: Camilla
I went to see my friend Camilla the other day in her beautiful Covent Garden flat. At the end of the evening, moving in the haze of a prosecco-induced fantasy, we sat on the floor to look at some of the artwork she produced in the past, carefully hidden in a massive folder under the big white sofa. I was really impressed by her ability to mix the mediums of painting and photography, while carrying out such personal and well-defined aesthetic visions to a professional standard. She did most of these when she was a teenager, and I for one can’t wait to see the way adulthood has evolved and changed her creative vision. Here are some examples of her work:
What I watched
Freaky. The aforementioned horror film I went to watch alone. A modern take on the Freaky Friday concept, but it’s a nerdy teenage girl swapping bodies with a violent serial killer. Genius. It’s quite camp and superficially self-aware in the way that movies like Scream and Final Girl are. It’s not going to win any awards but it was a fun thing to watch on a Thursday afternoon.
What I read
This Atlantic piece about burnout, an informative explainer of the ways in which “the pandemic has stripped our emotional reserves even further, laying bare our unique physical, social, and emotional vulnerabilities.”
What I listened to
Fireflies by Fleetwood Mac. A previously unreleased demo as part of their new deluxe edition of their classic 1980 live album ‘Fleetwood Mac Live’. Stevie’s voice is a safe place where we keep on returning for comfort and to be reminded of who we are, and how we ought to be.