Now substitute ‘Friday!’ for ‘morning’.

Yeeeeaaah.

But on to business. Another week, another movie theme. Last Friday afternoon was a joyous one, as I went to the cinema (solo – a post to come about the joys of this method) to watch what is surely one of the movies of the year. I laughed, I cried, I laughed some more, I gasped, I laughed. This week’s post is a special edition in tribute to the fine work of the ensemble cast of the Joss Whedon movie, Marvel Avengers Assemble (ugh, clunky UK title). I have many, many feelings about this film and all end up with me slobbering and grinning. Yeah. Strap in, people. We’re taking this shit up a notch – Asgard-style. It’s The Friday Pretty!

TFP‘s first exposure (heh) to Chris Evans came back in 2001, when he did Not Another Teen Movie. Listen, there’s no shame in loving that film, it was hella funny. And Chris Evans put in a star-making turn as high school hottie/idiot Jake. He has made some clunkers since (Father Lord, remember The Perfect Score?), but he always pulls it back, this time as Captain America – solid, loyal and a straight arrow to the core (and what a core). What makes Evans so damn hot? Is it the grin? Is it the lower lip that you imagine tastes of watermelon and happiness? Is it the ridiculously built body? Or is it all just in dat ass? Judge for yourself:

And a more traditional still photo:

In a previous week, TFP mentioned that this next guy was very much the catalyst for a recent lightbulb moment in perving – the “Oh, shit! I love muscles!” lightbulb moment. As Thor, summoner of Mjölnir - and seemingly ladies’ underwear – from vast distances, Chris Hemsworth cemented his place on this week’s Friday Pretty. In addition to the ridonkulous body (remember how slight he looked as the doomed father of Capt. Kirk in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek reboot?), he has the goofiest little smile and a charming twinkle in his eye. He also looks a ton of fun. First a moving gif ::bites fist::

And now you’ve recovered, a still:

Robert Downey Jr had his ups and downs in the 90s, remember? Then he slowly picked himself up (remember his stint on Ally McBeal?), forgiven as men in Hollywood often are (*bitter little feminist laugh*) and became Iron Man. As snarky, uber-intelligent, fun and funny billionaire Tony Stark, a new generation of RDJ fans were born. For those in the know, though, RDJ had been a lust object for a while (it was Chaplin wot did it for TFP). Anyway. There’s always a place in TFP‘s heart for RDJ. Observe (no gif, soz):

Next up is Jeremy Renner, aka Hawkeye. He is… intense-looking. TFP appreciates that; it suggests a man who likes to focus on the task at hand - whatever that may be - and see it to a fruitful outcome. TFP admires a dude who you can rely on like that. Ahem. Via Tumblr, it’s become clear that the one noticeable aspect of Hawkeye’s physique is his, um, bum. Really. See here, here and here. TFP can’t say it noticed (that much). Anyway, here’s Renner aka the new Jason Bourne. And who, if you squint a bit, looks like Daniel Craig – he’s a two-fer!

Mark Ruffalo, man. The man is a fine example of people who just need to stop being so adorably, effortlessly sexy. He always looks so sleepy, so relaxed, so unruffled and unburdened. Which is why it was such a joy to see him as The Hulk. TFP won’t divulge any plot details (this is a fan-respecting, spoiler-free space) but Ruffalo did the previously un-doable and made TFP love the Hulk. Other places you should check out his manly hotness: The Kids Are All Right, 13 Going on 30 and Zodiac. TFP believs his mouth should be illegal across international borders. Look at it, FFS:

And at rest – look at this sexy beast:

Okay. We’re technically done with the Avengers, but it would be grossly unfair to not include the one guy who has generated the most attention on Tumblr since the film came out last month. Tom Hiddleston as Loki, the villain (and younger bro-godling to Thor) has ignited the loins of the Tumblr community like nothing – not even cats – has. And why not? He’s funny, he raps, does great impressions, speaks Spanish, and he reads flippin’ Keats’ Bright Star just to mess with your cycle. TFP would hit it like Evander Holyfield. He is a life-ruiner:

And standing still, smokin’:

Right, that’s your lot. (Go find ScarJo as Black Widow elsewhere, lone complainer!) See you next time.

PS: A little extra something for the weekend. Keep the change!

Cord’s commentary went as follows:

“Without Jon B. there would be no Drake. Belee dat.”

And that’s the exact moment I fell in love with Cord Jefferson. Because, word. I SAID WORD, CORD.

My love for Jon B has been growing exponentially since the 1990s – by the time I hit my 40s, I may well explode from the Jon B love I carry with me. I remember the first time I heard Pretty Girl – I was a teenager, helping out in the kitchen in our house in Lagos. My cousin and younger brother were in the sitting room, watching music televsion (not MTV) when I heard his voice. I wandered out of the kitchen and saw what looked like white Jesus wearing a white shirt and singing (to my ears) like a black dude.

Jon B - you all know how I feel about characterful noses...

Naturally, I had to find his album. I got it, on cassette (LOL, the 90s!), a few months later. Jon B was that dude. The 90s were a splendid time for R&B – and I was at the right age to enjoy its many delights – Jon B was a 90s delight. He sang (like many of his contemporaries) about feelings, yo. But he was also friends with ‘Pac. And he was filthy but, you know, romantically so. Srsly, listen back to Pretty Girl – pure dirt. (I could never watch the video or listen on my Walkman if my dad was in the room). He was the perfect white-boy-with-soul singer for me to carry over my crush to from George Michael (we’ll save my GM love for another post, guys). If George was American, he’d have been Jon B, trust.

By the time Cool Relax came out in 1997, I was a full-fledged member of the Jon B Appreciation Club. You want to know how good a record Cool Relax is? I still bump at least one track from it every week. In 2012, yes. It’s that good – just banger after banger. Between it, Joe’s All That I Am, and Mary J. Blige’s Share My World, 1997 was a stellar year for my Discman (I’d upgraded, obvs).

Jon B’s legacy is assured, you guys. Cord says ‘No Jon B, No Drake’? I would respectfully add the following to the list: You like Robin Thicke? Thank Jon B. Enjoyed the brief and wondrous career of Conner Reeves? Jon B paved the way. Rock(ing) Your Body to Justin Timberlake? You better pay homage!

A brief Jon disco for your Thursday afternoon (the videos are often shockingly bad):

The one where I fell in love with his voice:

The one the world fell in love with:

The one with Sanaa Lathan in the video – and Jon B dancing really badly:

The big comeback hit for the clubs:

In 2012, Jon B came back with the most delightfully named album I’ve heard in a while: Comfortable Swagg. Bless – you can almost see the slippers (ermine-lined, natch) and comfortable armchair. He seems fine to be an R&B elder statesman, which is as it should be when you have the discography he has (take a lesson, Mr Brian ‘Let Me Show You How Your Pussy Works’ McKnight). Here’s the lead single, Only One:

Anyway. I love you Jon B. Bless you (and R&B) for existing.

My sister sent me this piece from the Wall Street Journal last week, and we had a short angry ‘WTF?’ conversation about five minutes after I’d read the first couple of paragraphs. This bit, from the event organiser Rachel Chan was interesting to me:

“For most guys, especially bankers, they say, ‘I’ve seen many, many pretty girls and I’m looking for a wife.’”

It made me think of an experience my friend J and I had when we visited Havana a few years back. We had saved and scrimped and (in my case) put some of it on credit, so we were extra thrilled to be there. We took a “we might never return to this place, especially as it is now, i.e. under Fidel Castro, so let’s just do everything we’re offered, yeah?” approach. This meant we went on car trips and took tours and put stuff on credit cards because, in the parlance of the internet today, #YOLO.

Anyway. One evening, on maybe our third or fourth day in Havana, we put on heels and makeup – we’re going to the bar at a five star hotel. This rooftop bar has been marked a must-visit in all of our guidebooks, and the few Habaneros we’ve spoken to in our broken Spanish have confirmed it. So we make our way over to the hotel, walking the few blocks to our destination in our short dresses (it’s a balmy September evening) and tottering on our heels, chatting and laughing. We walk into the hotel – it is surprisingly clear, not as busy as we had been expecting. We are a couple of metres in when we are hit by a torrent of fast Spanish.

A security guy comes up to us, hands flying, gesturing for us to leave the hotel. He’s speaking fast, but even with our limited grasp of the language, we know what he’s saying: “Leave, we don’t want your type here, get out”. Being black Britons and familiar with racism (o ho!) we know what to do: we pull ourselves to our relatively puny full heights and give imperious glares. But then we hear something else; something that makes us understand what is going on. Long story short: they think we’re hookers. They think we’re trying to get up to the bar to pick up johns. Oh. Oh. NO! we cry. We are not on the game, we tell them. Also, um, we are not Cuban, we are British – do you by any chance speak English? Our accents are not enough to convince them so we bring out our wine-coloured passports. See? Queen and country. They relent, wave us through with narrowed eyes.

With hindsight of course, I can see why they thought we were sex workers. We were two perfumed, made up, groomed young women. Most importantly, we are two dark-skinned black women, coming into a hotel/bar that is predominantly the preserve of tourists. Well, tourists and their ‘companions’. And we looked a lot like ‘companions’. We’d been seeing it all over the city since we’d arrived: much older European-looking gentlemen – speaking anything but Spanish – with pretty, substantially darker young women, their hands placed possessively on these women’s backsides and stomachs. We’d seen some of the women avert their gaze when they made eye contact with us. We’d felt the lick of eyes on our backs and the backs of our heads all trip; we didn’t look like typical tourists – were we somehow undercover?

No, we just looked a lot like the women who sell sex, is all. Our foreign-ness was not a factor – they saw a dark-skinned black woman, they saw a sex worker. I’d had this happen to me earlier in the year when I visited Rome, so I wasn’t even that surprised. And hey, it happens everywhere – at home and abroad – see?

In the end, we left the hotel without ever going to that rooftop bar the guidebooks had promised would blow our socks off. We were foreigners, but it wasn’t really free for us.

This week has been buffoonery upon apocalyptic rainfall upon buffoonery, so it’s fair to assume that the sight of a few very handsome men will do absolute wonders for the psyche, yes? Well, this post is here to service your needs. So lock your office door (if you have one), take a sip of the sizzurp you keep in the bottom drawer, and put your feet up on the desk – take a few moments to indulge in the wonder of The Friday Pretty!

Proceedings commence with a man TFP has been in crush with for several years now. You cannot begin to understand the depth of the intense crush-love. If he ever spoke to TFP, TFP would wet its pants, while making this face. Only a few nights ago, TFP lulled itself to sleep watching the Alicia Keys video he appears in over and over and over… you get the picture (the look on his face at 3:54, you guys. And then again at 4:51. Lawdt). It’s Mos Def, y’all:

TFP has finally caught up with all of Season 3 of Justified, which follows the adventures of US Marshal Raylan Givens and various supporting players in Kentucky. You don’t know about Justified? Girl, you better #axe somebody. For it stars Timothy Olyphant, a man so sexy, it makes TFP cry a little bit, on the inside. He wears a freakin’ 10 gallon and is often found in a Henley shirt (a Grandad shirt by any other name), which should be like applying pure kryptonite directly to a ladyboner. But he also wears a pair of jeans that fits everywhere it should, carries off a white vest like it was placed upon his body by doves and he can handle a gun. As a friend to TFP put it on Twitter only a few weeks ago: “I’m not sure I can trust a straight woman who doesn’t fancy Timothy Olyphant.” True say, lady. TRUE SAY.

TFP came across (tee hee) this next guy on Tumblr, which seems to be the forum for scoping out hot guys who would’ve never crossed TFP‘s radar otherwise (srsly, keep your eyes peeled in a couple of weeks, when there will be a CORKER). This chap is called Charles Michael David (three first names – argh!) but he is forgiven because HIS FACE. It’s like symmetry did a swandive off the 10m diving board and fell gracefully onto the space above his neck. Jesus, man:

It’s no secret that TFP is a fan of the silver fox: TFP believes that old can be gold (um, you get what TFP means). Having said that, in some cases, TFP has often wondered what some prominent silver foxes looked like when they were less long on the tooth, you know, in the days before colour television. Last week, TFP found a photo that made its way to every social media network at its disposal. Look at this picture of a young John Slattery and weep at his beauty [also, as pointed out by another friend to TFP onTwitter, doesn't he look a lot like James Deen? PS: don't Google James Deen at work. Please.]:

Finally, this week, we get to Zachary Quinto. ZQ is just plain old fashioned smokin’, you know? For no other reason than popping up on TFP‘s Tumblr dashboard, he makes it onto this week’s edition. Blame the bushy eyebrows (just how TFP likes ‘em) and the characterful nose (sure to garner TFP‘s attention). Plus he knows how to wear the hell out of some spectacles. TFP has a serious weakness for boys in glasses. Unf.

All perved out. We assemble (ooh, a hint?) here next time – have a great weekend!

Source

All the talk of Lena Dunham’s new show, Girls, has had me looking into the annals (heh) of popular culture, searching for the representation so sorely lacking in Ms Dunham’s HBO creation. So, a quick question: Do any of the names on the t-shirt above ring any bells for you? They should. For eight years, the women who bore those names were often funny, fabulous, sad, brilliant, awful and real. In a landscape where non-white women of every hue are still cast as ‘other’ rather than the norm – if cast at all – where little black girls are pronounced (by implication) to be ‘not innocent’, Joan&Maya&Lynn&Toni are very much missed.

The show was on the air for several of the years that Sex and the City was – in many quarters, it was called ‘the black ‘Sex and the City‘, almost as a ‘See? You have yours, now quit complaining!’. I’m a huge fan of SATC, and each season, I lamented the showcasing of a New York in which people of colour were relegated to service personnel and bit-part broad stereotypical caricatures (remember Chivon and his ‘angry black woman’ sister, Edina? Yeah.). So my options for ‘identifying’ were narrow – four skinny black chicks in LA? Or four skinny white women in NY? I loved both, but the winner by a country mile was Girlfriends.

Let’s start by playing the tiresome ‘which Girlfriend are you?’ game. With crushing inevitability, I’d have to say I am a Joan, with a dash of Maya, a soupçon of Toni and a smidgen of Lynn. *Sigh* I know. But it’s true. I recognised and identified with Joan’s foibles and worries with alarming ease; so many of her neuroses were my neuroses, dammit! Plus, following a disastrous first couple of seasons, fashion-wise (THOSE BAD WEAVES!), Joan’s style was the style I wanted to emulate, just as soon as I got my ‘serious career face’ on. So let’s break it down – below are the four girlfriends, each a magical unicorn doing rainbow poos, by virtue of their shimmering but brief presence on our telly screens before they disappeared into the pop culture ether.

Joan – the neurotic one

Joan Clayton (Tracee Ellis Ross) is the ‘Carrie’ character. In the first season, she was the one who did the breaking of the fourth wall by talking to the audience annoyingly (just like Carrie in early SATC). Joan was the mother hen, her home often the venue of the girlfreinds’ various adventures/discussions of their adventures. She was the obvious model of bougie success – up from a working class neighbourhood, goody two shoes with good grades, working her way up the career ladder in law. She had the nice house, nice clothes… But of course, as is often the case in telly shows, all her troubles lay in her inability to find and keep a man. Which would be fine (see Toni below), except Joan was really not pleased about it. Her friendship with Toni was the longest, and with that level of intimacy came the chance for the show to explore real, often uncomfortable issues in close friendships. When somebody knows you this well, the showrunners sometimes asked, how often does it tip from ‘brilliant/reassuring’ to ‘unhealthy/creepy’? (there’s a great Joan/Toni moment in this clip and another telling moment at 4:35 in this one)

Maya – the working-class-and-it-still-shows one

Maya Wilkes (Golden Brooks) – the woman who I invariably think of when I say to a fool acting up, “Oh, hell no!” – was very much meant to be the ‘hood’ one. She was the closest the show got to a caricature, but written and acted with enough sensitivity and balance to pull it off and not make her a mockery of ‘blackness’. She was the one who’d got pregnant in high school and married the blue collar Darnell (they would break up and get back together a few times over the course of the series). She was the one who was mocked by Toni (who always mispronounced her son’s name) for being poor and ‘ghetto’ (I hate that word) and unsophisticated. She worked as Joan’s assistant, accepted Joan’s hospitality when she and her son were near-homeless and she was the one to dispense no nonsense advice, wrapped up in common sense, ebonics and a tough hug. In many ways, she was the moral compass of the show (no coincidence she was the most obviously religious), often a cypher for the audience’s attitudes and prejudices, but with the capacity to learn and grow.

Toni – the straight up bitch

Antoinette Marie Childs – see what they did there? – (Jill Marie Jones) was a stone. Cold. Bitch. Selfish, un-self aware, unapologetically materialistic, snobbish, self-obsessed, a liar and a cheat when it suited. She was DRAMA in its unadulterated form, a force of nature with a sharp put down for you if you threatened her in any way. She was the one who never got her friend’s son’s name right, the one who excluded her best and oldest friend from her wedding. But she was also smart, funny as all get out, and worked and played hard. We loved her. And we loved to hate her. At least, I did. Toni was so damn freeing. A woman who didn’t give a damn about being liked (she was charming enough that people liked her anyway), and admitted to liking expensive things for no other reason than they were expensive – “if it ain’t front row, Toni Childs can’t go!” Toni was what white women characters have been and still are allowed to be without fear of typecasting or stereotype. That is to say, Toni was just a regular human being. Refreshing. PS: this is one of my favourite Toni scenes. And this clip helped publicise what black women have been doing since time immemorial – sleeping in a headscarf

Lynn - The over-educated bohemian

Hyper-intelligent, academically brilliant dreamer and love child Lynn Searcy (Persia White) was the ‘other’ within the group. She’s obviously over-educated (five degrees and counting), on the tab of her over-indulgent adoptive parents. She’s the fun one, the sometimes oddly naive yet sexually adventurous one (as a guest star, Common did spoken word about the filthy but never-expanded upon sex act, the  ’Lynn Spin’), the kinda loser-but-genuinely-happy friend. What you see is what you get with Lynn. For my money, she was the closest I’ve ever seen a black woman get to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope (except she wasn’t mega-annoying. Or an obvious hipster).

With it’s sort of crappy theme song (and what the hell were they thinking putting them in those pastel outfit things in the opening credits?), Girlfriends can still take me from a quick 10-minute session to hours long binges on YouTube. It was a complex show, hardly ever patronising; a rewarding watch for its audience, as it tackled big themes like religion, marriage, politics, class, money, alcoholism, therapy and race – amongst other things. It even featured Rev Al Sharpton as a guest star. REV AL SHARPTON! Above all, it was a comedy that was actually very funny, and not many ‘comedies’ that make that claim deliver.

Man, I miss Girlfriends.

This is me, with semi-permanent burgundy hair in March 2012:

And this is Janet (Ms Jackson if you’re nasty) all the way back in 1997:

*pause*

Yes, I’m giving myself the side-eye right now too.

Happy Monday, kids!

IT’S FRIDAY!

Don’t know about you, dear reader, but it’s been sheeting rain, single figure temperatures and general April melancholy in these parts for the past week. Properly depressing stuff. Let’s just say, if it’s true what they say about a shit spring auguring a brilliant summer, then May to August will be ¡muy caliente! Speaking of caliente, this week’s theme is a tribute to a movie which has been pencilled into the diaries of a certain demographic for quite a while (the trailer caused a bit of a stir on the interwebs earlier this week) Is it something avant garde by a visionary director? Um, sure. It’s Soderbergh’s Magic Mike, y’all. Yes, that movie about a troupe of male strippers. That’s right – we’re perving on a cast of near-naked dudes on a Friday. Settle in, chums, it can only be The Friday Pretty!

We open the show with the eponymous Mike, and all the magic therein. Look. TFP makes no apology for fancying the (tiny) pants off Channing Tatum, okay? A friend recently described him on Twitter thusly: “… he looks like a ham with sad raisins for eyes. ” Dear reader, TFP laughed like a drain. But you know what? This love remains true and sure. Why? Because Tatum has lovely abs and big arms and a husky voice that makes TFP hum. And his face possesses a simple hotness that assures all who gaze upon it that sums and science are not relevant to his interests. And that’s okay, guys. THAT’S OKAY:

We move on to a man so pretty, he makes TFP‘s eyes water a little bit. Have you seen White Collar? Watch it – it’s frothy nonsense built on solid chemistry between the two leads, Matt Bomer and Tim DeKay. With no disrespect to DeKay, the truth is Bomer would probably have chemistry with the chairs, fans and the very air on set, he’s just that FAHN. In one episode, he wore a hat and turtleneck, an outfit which, on any other man, would be an instant ladybonerkiller. On Bomer however, it made TFP emit a low-pitched moan and startle the cat next door. Well, damn. [PS: imagine a film/TV series where Bomer played the brother of Henry Cavill and Timothy Olyphant. And they were topless. A lot.]:

Joe Manganiello is one of those dudes. You know the type; you never thought you were that into muscles until you saw him and had the lightbulb moment of “Oh, shit! I totally love muscles!” Yeah, we’ve all been there. Anyway, back to Joe. He is pointlessly, foolishly attractive. What is up with his handsome face and cut body? Ugh. *kicks down chair*

Many years ago, when TFP was a slip of a thing, it was introduced to Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused in a Media Studies class. It started a love affair with the director, but more importantly, it also planted a seed of affection for Matthew McConaughey. His turn as stoner creepster David Wooderson was a standout performance and TFP held high hopes for his emergence as “a shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament.” We now know this is not what went on to happen. He just wants to make mediocre films, play his bongos and take care of his kids, man. *bright smile* And that’s fine, cos DAVID WOODERSON. #NeverForget:

We end with Adam Rodriguez, a hottie with enough smokingness to be in the crapfest that is CSI: Miami and emerge relatively unscathed ((srsly, have you seen that?). That’s so hot, it’s practically magic. And with that one line, we come full circle – yup, this is not TFP‘s first rodeo. Witness the fitness:

Okay, shoo – show’s over. Rave safe, kids – see you next time!

*Eagle-eyed pervs may’ve noted the absence of Alex Pettyfer. TFP chose not to include him because of reasons. If you don’t know, you better #axe somebody. o_O

Paris was lovely. I got to do a whole heap of walking (I tried to use my hotel – 4-star in Montparnasse – for sleeping, storage and bathing only). London is a walking city, so I was ready to walk everywhere, and there’s a certain pleasure to be had in the urban trekking you can do in Europe. The only other European city I’ve spent any time in is Rome, and walking there was just as gorgeous. But back to Paris: what a city. It was my second time there – I’d been with a group of friends back in 2007 (!) but the memories of that visit had been dulled by time. The aim of this trip was to eschew the tourist path, as we’d done most of it back in ’07, but also because I was a lot broker than I had been back in ’07. Most importantly, this was to be a break for quiet rumination and ponderings. Yeah, I said ponderings.

Here are a few photos (indulge me, please):

On a walk along the Promenade Plantée, I saw:

Sleeping Man, Watchful Dog:

Standard graffiti shot:

A sticker for a band I suddenly really want to see live:

And this odd, vaguely Art Deco building on Avenue Daumesnil with statues based on Michelangelo’s The Dying Slave. Bonus fact: it’s actually a police HQ:

And yes, I went to Paris –  for four days - alone. Have you ever travelled alone? It’s amazing. I’m not one for grand pronouncements (I absolutely am), but it will blow your mind.

GUYS, IT IS A GAME CHANGER.

I’m a big fan of me – I live alone and I like to be alone - so it’s not exactly a massive leap to liking to holiday alone. But at the risk of being self-serving to a dangerous degree, holidaying alone is some next level shit. It is everything you’re used to, but with a dash of gay abandon, an extra level of autonomy. It’s intoxicating power. Ever since I discovered this power, I always holiday alone if I can help it. You never have to worry about anyone getting butthurt  if you change your mind. No need to compromise – it’s for wimps! Your owe nothing to anyone but yourself. Too tired for the Montparnasse Tower? Don’t go! Randomly decide to walk seven miles on your first day? Go for it. Want to go and have a gentle cry at Simone De Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre’s graveside? Hey, why not? Change your mind halfway through a Metro journey and head to a bakery on the other side of town? Sure! Have dinner somehwere along the Champs Elysees before popping into Sephora to buy mango bath salts to take a luxurious soak in the hotel tub (because you haven’t got one back home in London)? Don’t mind if I do!

I spent most of my final day in Paris with a British friend J, who now lives and works in Paris. Unlike me, he speaks French fluently (there is a thrill in seeing your friend being really good at something – we need a new word for it). Here he is, taking us round the lake in the park (I did no rowing, concentrating instead on not falling out and drowning in the waist-deep water):

He told me that whenever he visits a new place, he asks himself if he could see himself living there. “I DO THAT TOO,” I told him excitedly. And here’s the thing, I could totally see myself living in Paris. It didn’t feel alien or hostile and like Londoners, Parisians are busy and frowny until they smile (Parisians are flirtier, though. I got (uncreepily) hit on while on the Metro a couple of times – flattering). It’s a compact little city with great transport links and the food’s great. Also, it’s PARIS – what’s not to love?

I have this page, cut out of Marie Claire several years ago, which lists the best cities to work and live in; it currently resides in the space above my kitchen table/writing desk. For those not blessed with Kryptonian sight, the listed cities are: Dubai, Prague, New York, Toronto and Barcelona.

I mentally crossed off Dubai and added Rome a few years ago. And now Paris makes the cut too. So if any fabulous French editors are reading this and looking for an English-speaking writer (I KNOW), snap me up – I will learn French, move out there ASAP and write beautiful flowing prose for you. Call me!

*Unexpected commision money is the best thing ever. It’s responsible for things like holidays, much needed but hitherto unaffordable winter boots, and M&S cheesecake.

It’s been a week of sunshine and showers, a four-day week after a three-day weekend; it’s all been a bit much. Frankly, we’re all in need of some man-toast. Well, never fear. Today is Friday, and this post will be all about that speciality toast – as well as a selection of tasty preserves, jams and jellies. Also, peanut butter (this makes no damn sense). Get that butter knife ready – it’s The Friday Pretty!

We open proceedings with German actor Ken Duken. TFP had never heard of him until a couple of weeks ago, when it discovered he had been in a movie – My Last Day Without You – with TFP lady-crush, Nicole Beharie (her out of Shame). The film looks life-affirmingly cheesy and the Wikipedia plot synopsis reads: “On a one-day business trip to New York, a German business executive falls in love with a singer-songwriter who exposes him to her Brooklyn world and emotions he has never experienced before.”

Yeah. Srsly.

But look how cute he is!

Like many Brits, TFP has become chained to the telly every Sunday night at 9. Why? Because Homeland, that’s why. Because Claire Danes is starring as Carrie Mathison, a badass bipolar CIA agent with issues (a Twitter friend calls it ‘My So-Called Career In Counter-Terrorism‘). Because Inigo Montoya (the incomparable Mandy Patinkin), retired from the Revenge business, is now playing Saul Berenson. Because Damian Lewis, with his thin lips and quiet intensity and red hair – which only serves to inflame TFP‘s well-recorded Gingerlust™ – plays Brody, the American POW who may’ve been ‘turned’. Because look at him, FFS:

This next guy wandered into TFP‘s life via Tumblr quite serendipitously a few weeks ago, and boy… A brief Google search tells TFP he’s called Tiger JK (grr, baby), is something fairly big in the K-pop/Korean hiphop scene and is married to another big player in the game. That all sounds great. But to be honest, all TFP really cares about for now is that face. That hair. Sweet Mother of God, those abs:

TFP has finally caught up with How To Make It In America, the HBO series which was exec produced by Mark Wahlberg, following his success with Entourage. It was cancelled by HBO after only a couple of short seasons, but that’s okay. Because it delivered a cast of all of TFP‘s favourites. They’ll all turn up in future Friday Pretty editions, but this week it’s the turn of Victor Rasuk, who plays charming, super-flirty Cam Calderon. TFP would like to go to the bodega with him sometime ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkyoudo:

We close proceedings with just five simple words: Henry. Cavill. With. A. Puppy. (Here are a few more words: TFP would drop kick that puppy through the goalposts of lust to switch places. Not proud. But honest.)

That’s it for this week. Have a lovely weekend – play safe and be considerate of your neighbours’ feelings about your volume control.

Me: *munching on a hot lamb pattie* (ooh, vaguely topical!) *Freezing*
Stranger: *makes fleeting eye contact, starts to wander over*
Me: *eyes darting wildly, looking for escape routes*
Stranger: “You look like you’re enjoying that.”
Me: Mm hmm. *does universal gesture of ‘can’t talk – eating’*
Stranger: “Waiting for the 133?”
Me: *nod*
Stranger: “Going to the Elephant?”
Me: *discovering I can’t chew forever, swallows* “Nope. The whole way.”
Stranger: You look West African – Ghana?
Me: *internal sigh* No.
Stranger: *with look of triumph* Then you must be Nigerian.
Me: *tired nod, unwilling to encourage further conversation*
Stranger: “You’re certainly not Ibo or Hausa. So Yoruba. ”
Me: *wishing he was wrong, wanting to claim Ijaw or Urhobo* Yup. You got me.
Stranger: *pleased smile* I knew it!

Internet strangers: different to strangers in the wild

After listening to him for about 30 seconds, it hit me. He was a ‘normal’, a friendly stranger. Just an older gentleman, wanting to strike up  a conversation with an unknown woman at the bus stop as we both waited on an unseasonably cold night. That’s all. Oh.

I often say – with pride – that I am a keen and excellent user of the ‘London face’. It’s similar, I imagine, to the ‘New York face’, the ‘Mexico City face’, the ‘Lagos face’ or the ‘Any Big City face’. My London face is a snarl at half-mast, a knitted brow, a pursed mouth, inside which a forked tongue is waiting to unleash hell on a foolish stranger who tries to interact. It is pre-emptive and forbidding. It is a signpost saying a succinct ‘Fuck off and don’t look back’. It is a mask, an invisibility cloak, a warning and a lesson (“my face is stuck this way – because some other idiot tried to talk to me. Approach at your own peril.”). It is a deterrent, a symptom and a cure.

In the end, we waited about 20 minutes. And me and this strange man spoke for almost every one of the seconds of those minutes. We covered my career – him: “A writer? Hmm. Why not law or medicine?”, the foolishness of British youths when the sun comes out – me: “they’re young and therefore they’re required to dress foolishly, even if that means freezing to death.”, money over happiness, how to go about seeking happiness, philosophy and of course, more weather chat.

It didn’t change my life or anything, and my hackles were still semi-raised even after 20 minutes of conversation. But it was nice. We got on the bus when it finally arrived and our chat ended when we hurried out our goodbyes: “Nice to meet you!” “Have a good night!” and waved. He stayed on the bottom deck and I climbed to the top. By the time I eased into my seat, my ‘London face’ was back on. It felt a little tight, that half-snarl, but we’re taking it one day at a time. Let’s not get too hasty.

Sometimes, people are specific – what tools do I use on a daily basis? What’s always in my bag? Well, this post is for you. And also for anyone who likes to look inside other people’s bags; I know I do. Here are the contents circa April 3, 2012:

See how neatly arranged everything is on my gleaming kitchen table/work space? That’s not how it looks inside my curiously-smells-of-fish handbag. A breakdown below.

• Spray bottle. I have natural hair, innit. This spray bottle contains water and a leave-in conditioner, plus a little glycerin. Makes my 4b hair pop while I’m out and about.
• Superdrug Vitamin E Illuminating Moisture Cream. I bought this last year, thinking it’d be a good illuminator. Instead it makes me look like I’ve fallen face first into a vat of glitter. No es bueno. Now I use it as a moisturiser for my legs and a shiny hand cream. Waste not, want not.
• Rubber band ball. Self-explanatory. Still in its infancy, but we have high hopes.
• Spectacle cleaning cloth. I don’t wear contacts and I don’t carry a case as my glasses are always on my face. I use this when the edge of my scarf or my cuff won’t cut it. Free from D&A.
• Metal card carrier. I don’t carry a wallet; all my plastic lives in here. I also pop receipts and business cards in here. Get a similarly pretty one at Paperchase.
• 2012 Diary. Vital. I can’t do electronic diaries; I need ink and paper. Stops me from forgetting where I should be/what I should be doing.  Also, allows me to say to people, “Hang on, let me just check my diary…”

On top of the diary are:

• Pantyliner. Yes. I am a woman. This one (Carefree) has the gentle scent of a spring nosegay.
• Sony Walkman. Model NWZ-S639F. I do not, and have never owned an Apple product, though I am a proficient user. This Walkman is ancient and the battery life is much diminished, but I love it. Also, a handy way of storing audio files when you want to make room on your dictaphone.
• Dictaphone. I use an Olympus VN-5500PC, which is ace. With it, I use Maplin own-brand rechargeable batteries (AAA), which saves money in the long run. I use a dirty old Motorola RAZR pouch to haul it around. It smells a bit.
• Paloma disposbale hankies. Incredibly sauve when you offer one to a sniffly interviewee. Helpful for my chronic hay fever.

Also:

• Smartphone. I use a Samsung Galaxy SII, my first ever touch screen, which took some getting used to. It’s superb, great internet capability and with an Android OS, Gmail is quick and efficient. Also, it has a voice recorder app, which acts as a handy back-up if your dictaphone batteries are dead, or you’re on a sudden and unexpected deadline with no recorder.
• Sleek Twist Up Lip Pencil. Yes. I am a woman. This one is #651, Currant. It is gorgeous.
• Clinique Superbalm Moisturizing Gloss. Yes. I am a woman. This one is #09, also called Currant. Got this in a goody bag ages ago. And yes, they spell ‘moisturising’ with a ‘z’. Cuh, Americans.
• Pens. I have four writing pens, two red, two black. I don’t like blue ones. Why so many? Because people steal pens and there is no polite way of saying, “Hey, get my pen out of your mouth!” or “Um, famous-person-I’m-interviewing? Put. My. Pen. Down. And. Walk. Away.” I favour gel pens because I like they way they look on paper. I also have two Sharpies in black and red. They make capitals look official and menacing, innit.
• Notebook. I use an embossed leather paperblanks notebook, a gift from my friend, N. It has a little pouch in the back for loose papers and is well hardy. I tired of my reporter’s notebooks coming apart at the spiral binding, so this is ideal. I use it for recording everything – ideas, pitches, commissions, shorthand notes, phone numbers, addresses, to do lists… Most important thing – along with my pens – in my bag.
• Fiction book. This is a proof of The Spider King’s Daughter by Chibundu Onuzo (I met Chibundu recently, and she’s lovely, as is her book). Never leave the house without reading material. Great for commutes and/or waiting for events to start.
• Chewing gum. Because I don’t like Smint or tic tacs.

And that’s it!

Aspiring journalists – get yourself a notebook. Seriously consider learning shorthand. Prepare for constant rejection. Then pitch your ideas. Pitch like a crazy person.

The woman turned to me. “You’re funny!” she said. “When are you going to update your blog? I’ve been waiting!”

If that sounded like a humblebrag, I apologise.  Really.

I know I’ve been crap at the blog this year. Total crap. And I’m sorry. For the people who have been reading YGD since Day 1 (or close enough to Day 1), you will know that the blog often goes through peaks and troughs, situations where posts come about either every couple of days or every few weeks. I ain’t regular, folks. Sorry.

I aim to write more, and do better. Please forgive, and don’t leave.

This is my apologetic 'so sorry' face

Thanks, everyone.

“PAPA!”

“Nicole!”

“PAPA!”

“Nic–”

You can see what’s going on, can’t you? Of course you can. This is the exchange between Nicole and her papa in the inexplicably popular Renault car ads of the 90s. What’s the relevance? They’re French; this week,  we’re coming to you from the land of Nicole, her papa, Thierry Henry, Amelie, baguettes and Joe Le Taxi. The home of the croissant, the insouciant shrug, macarons, Gauloises and hazy, lemon incest. It’s all-French everything, in honour of TFP‘s current residency in the city: The Friday Pretty is on tour, y’all!

So come on a figurative journey on the Eurostar: kick off your shoes, relax, and take in the view. TFP promises it’s even better than the one you get from the top of the Sacre Coeur. Honest.

We kick off proceedings with Mr Halle Berry, aka one Olivier Martinez. You may remember him as the smokin’, vaguely menacing piece of hot French ass in practically every movie he’s been in. He’s now engaged to Halle Berry (hope those crazy kids make it!) and looking adorbs with her daughter. But for TFP, it was his turn as Paul (!) in 2002′s Unfaithful that really struck a chord. If by ‘chord’ you mean ‘ladyboner’. Remember that scene after their first encounter and Diane Lane’s character is on the train home and starts almost laughing aloud? TFP totally gets that. Ahem:

We move swiftly on to Gaspard Ulliel, who stars in that insanely moronic Chanel Bleu perfume ad (“I’m not going to be the person I’m expected to be any more.” - Eh?). TFP enjoyed very much his performance in Paris Je T’aime, in which he wears a grey vest and leather jacket extremely well. TFP admires the way his face is both delicate and yet so terribly cruel. TFP is not even ashamed to say it would like to nibble on the hollow of his neck. *Kanye shrug* Ladies and gentlemen, he makes TFP want to weep from his beauty, so much so that he gets two photos. (Incidentally, could any French readers please share in the comments what the diminutive for Gaspard is – Gas? Gasp? Spar?):

And once more, with feeling:

TFP has a pulse and is as God made it, which is to say it fancies the very (probably tiny) pants off Vincent Cassel. He has been in the ‘Would – French’ file in TFP’s ’365 Days of Perving’ folder for several years now. Look at him doing some fancypants capoeira in the atrocious Ocean’s Twelve. But he is at his glowering best when he just stands there, smokin’ hot. Look at this Prince-like figure, FFS:

Guillaume Canet – incinerator of pants, trembler of knees – needs no introduction. Know why? Because his face, that’s why. TFP likes that he is making it work with Marion Cotillard (TFP loves her) and their son Marcel. Awww. But more pertinently, LOOK AT THIS FACE:

The most charming Frenchman in Hollywood of recent years is also smokin’ hot. It certainly helps, Jean Dujardin:

Romain Duris is that guy. TFP would giggle every time it walked past the posters for Heartbreaker. So freakin’ apt:

And no list of hot French dudes could be complete without a little Thierry Henry. TFP‘s football knowledge was much, much sharper during his Arsenal years. He stays ridiculously attractive. Damn, T:

Alright, that’s it. TFP has some real life perving to do before boarding the Eurostar back to England. Have a great weekend!

"Whatchu talkin' 'bout, internet stranger?"

Top 10 “But Why?” Search Terms Of The Last 12 months

1. stevie wonder without glasses
2. beautiful ovary
3. what happens if you drink lots of supermalt
4. david duchovny sightings 2012
5. underground nipple
6. how do book shelves break
7. “in denial about his” “older women”
8. “the inevitable” tattoo
9. you suck at flirting
10. spanking implements

The second reason is – and I realise I may as well paint a target on my back and wander blithely through a shooting range – I am really okay with my body. Really. This is God’s honest truth. I like my body. I like my arms and legs, which are longer than they need to be for a person of my height. I like my torso, which is short and makes my legs look even longer. I like my high waist, I like my boyish hips, and I love my bottom. I love my size 5-and-a-half feet with their stubby little toes. I like my thighs (slightly less so in the summer when the friction caused by their rubbing gets hot enough to light a fag) and I like my back, even though a part-time job stacking shelves as a teenager has warped it forever. I like my breasts, for which I wear a 32E bra (I wrongly wore a 34C for years – ouch), like that they are naturally high – it made wearing v-necks indecent for a while but I have high (heh) hopes for their potential should I make it to old age. I like my neck, which is not elegant, but does its job well enough. I like my small scarred hands, with their wrinkly fingers and irregular nails. I like my shoulders – with their even, smooth brown skin, they make spaghetti strap dresses look amazing. I like my stomach well enough. In the days before my period, I retain water like a rainwater butt and it swells to ‘smuggling a swimming doughnut’ proportions, but at other times, it folds comfortably two or three times while I sit and doesn’t disrupt the lines of dresses too much when I stand. I like my wrists, which are tiny. In the largely sunless winter months, you can see the network of thin greenish veins just under the skin when you turn them over. I like my knees, scarred and in the words of dodgy estate agents everywhere, ‘full of character’ after five years with hard labour of Nigerian boarding school. I like it all. And honestly? I’ve never ever hated it.

Objectively (!) speaking, I was probably at my most uncomplicated loveliest around the ages of 19 and 20. Sure, I’m more confident now. And I have learned the necessary lessons about dressing to suit my body etc. but for sheer, eye-pleasing reasons, you can’t beat 19 year old Bim. She was so lovely: slender, largely carefree and happy, with none of the thin, spidery wrinkles which are beginning to form from my hairline, casually changing my face for the next stage of life. I think back to myself then and can barely recognise what I was. Strictly speaking, I am not that different now, but life’s experiences have a way of colouring the filter through which you view yourself. What I know now, what I have done and seen and been make it very clear: I was so pretty. And crucially, like most girls, I didn’t know it.

My mother once told me I was the least beautiful of all her babies. It sounds mean, but it wasn’t meant maliciously; it was just the truth. I wasn’t ugly, you understand, but compared with my sister and brothers I was clearly the least attractive baby. (gosh, that looks bad written down – who wants an ‘attractive’ baby?) There are photographs – precious few, as I hated the camera with a passion, could smell a photo op and ruin it at three paces – which show me as I was. I was placid enough, my mother says, but every time the camera was near, I would cry, fuss, glare and object. The photos show a grumpy looking toddler, usually next to my far more accommodating older sister, who was always eager for her photo to be taken. No records seem to remain between my first birthday and my fourth, where I am smiling in a white dress and grey leather boots with a white fur trim. No two ways about it, I look cute. Chubby cheeks, hair in a bun atop my head, a small smile playing at my lips and my palm cupping my face. I look happy and calm. I am loved, and it’s clear that one of the people who loves me is holding the camera – probably my mum.

A poor attitude towards archiving family photographs means they taper off again for a few years. I remember we each had individual photo albums growing up, but somewhere between living across two continents, they’ve disappeared somewhere. There are images from when I was four, in a blue cardigan with a lace collar, knitted for me by our downstairs neighbour, Aunty Ellis. Every birthday we received the same gift from her: a hand-knitted cardigan, plus a bottle of bubble bath. There’s one of me in a beautiful ankara dress (I loved that dress), fussing over my baby brother, and looking like an officious busybody. There I am aged five, at the Notting Hill carnival, dressed in a stripy short set, holding a balloon and eating an ice cream cone, the baby fat showing signs of beginning to fall away. There exist very few photos after this point because once again, I got camera shy. More importantly, I also got very, very thin.

There was nothing physiologically wrong with me. I was healthy, I was looked after. But life was changing. We moved to Nigeria in early 1988 and I decided that I wouldn’t eat very much of anything if I could help it. If I dust off my two years of psychology at college, I’d suggest it was a route to control, via a tangible thing, because I had lost whatever measly power I’d had prior to the move. I insisted on baked beans, though. Baked beans weren’t as widely available in Lagos back then and would’ve required my parents to travel into the big Lagos markets to get some. Of course, they tried cajoling, bribing and threatening, but my father assures me I remained firm, growing pathetically thinner while my parents held whispered conferences about negotiating with five year old terrorists. They gave in. My mum called me ‘The Little Rebel’. Considering how flaky I would become, I’m a little surprised I toughed it out. But hey, I got my baked beans.

By the time I went off to secondary school, I was still almost comically skinny and long-limbed. I wasn’t tall– just thin and small. For me, there existed the Yoruba word, ‘janjala’, a sort of catch-all word meaning gangly and slight. In what I realise now to be a deeply politically incorrect move, my dad nicknamed me his ‘little Rwandan refugee’. It was a term of endearment – right before he hugged me goodbye on visiting days, he’d look into my eyes and say gently, “I think you might have an iron deficiency.” We checked almost every summer holiday – I wasn’t anaemic. I was just extremely thin. My mother said I took after her father, my grandfather, who was six feet tall and lean as a whippet. We – everyone – called him ‘Chief’. It felt good to know I looked like someone. My mother had been very thin for a very long time too – we found a photograph of her taken in 1979, when she was pregnant with my older sister. She is wearing a pair of flared jeans and a long-sleeved  t-shirt. She is very slender, save for the beachball of a bump she’s sporting. She told me, in one of those “Ew, TMI!” moments, “Only my breasts got larger when I was pregnant – your dad always missed them when they went away.”

Aged 15, I returned to London. I was still thin. And I was returning to Year 11 in an inner city state school. I’d left my Nigerian boarding school a prefect, popular and well-liked (and winner of the ‘Hottest Legs’ Award two years in a row, thank you very much) and arrived in cold, grey London to classmates who laughed at my accent, teachers who marvelled at my Nigerian-bred politeness and the misery only available to teenage girls. I was bullied, not overly and not for a very long time, but enough for me to smile wickedly and wish evil upon my tormentor when I saw a photograph of her on Facebook years later.

Coming from an all-girl boarding school in Nigeria and starting at a mixed gender and largely black secondary school in east London was not wildly different, but there were a few stark changes. I’d never been so close to boys on a daily basis before; it was exhilarating. I’d watch my classmates, seasoned pros at co-education nonchalantly share textbooks and chemistry equipment, lend pencils and protractors and think, “Wow! Boys! EVERYWHERE.” Unsurprisingly, I developed crushes on a daily basis – crushes which fizzled out when they opened their mouths and said something foolish, which in Year 11 was practically a law. All the girls I hung out with came in a variety of sizes and hues – tall, short, thin, chubby, cute, spotty, pretty, whatever. Most of us in my little group were black and almost exclusively of African descent. We all did the ridiculous hairstyles of the day: gel-encrusted ponytails with elaborate shapes swirled into the baby hair at our temples, tonged ringlets, fan-like structures atop our heads… I often feel like my mid-teen years should’ve carried the banner: “Sponsored By Elasta QP Glaze”. We looked ridiculous but felt fabulous, and really, isn’t that what life is all about? We modified uniforms the way several generations of girls had done before us and wore the highest chunky heels school regulations allowed. Looking back, I see young women impossibly confident about their bodies, women who had no qualms assuming and believing they were beautiful just as they were. It seems crazy when I think about it now, but it honestly was the way things were. I look at the teenage girls of today and feel bad for them. The focus on girls’ and women’s bodies has only grown exponentially since I was a teenager – I can’t imagine the daily pressures they must be under.

For college, I left east London and ventured into Essex to attend a sixth form. I made new friends, most of whom I count as my best friends today. We were all Eastenders, and would make the journey further east every weekday, chatting loudly in an attempt to assert ourselves, to prove to the world that we were present and alive and here, right now. These days whenever I get irritated at a bunch of screeching schoolgirls on the top deck of the 254, I try to remember my time as a teenage idiot and bite my lip. If singing along to shocking lyrics or talking about “that time Jason tried to feel me up, yeah” is how you need to work through your teen hormones, go for it. I loved Sixth Form. It became clear I’d chosen the wrong subjects, but I had a blast, not least completing the Duke of Edinburgh Award – a scheme where young people learn new skills and give back to the community. I did it because I thought it would look good for university applications. It was largely useless in the end, but one camping trip gave me the funniest diary entry I have ever recorded, and so for that alone, I’m grateful.

I took a year out after, as I knew my predicted grades would see me rejected from pretty much all the universities I wanted to apply to. I decided to take myself to America. I worked two jobs to save the money needed and when my visa arrived, I was over the moon. I ended up working on a Girl Scout camp in California as a camp counsellor. It remains one of the happiest times of my life and because of the nature of it, there are lots of photographs from this time. Here I am as part of the ‘Spice Girls’ at one of our campfires, and there’s me pretending to be a TV chef in an attempt to make the homesick children laugh. There I am in Mexico, tanned to a shiny ebony after a summer working outdoors and there’s me outside the Flatiron Building, wearing ridiculous bowling shoes (all the rage in 2002).The photos of me towards the end of my time in America show a very dark, slightly plumper young woman. Fed exclusively on American food – and American portions – I’d shaken off the ‘Rwandan refugee’ look. My cheeks are fuller, my thighs rounder, my body more tightly packed with muscle. When I returned to London, my mother exclaimed, “You’re black! And big!” prompting bewildered looks from strangers at Heathrow.

I started university a mere two weeks after my return to England. My time in America meant I’d put on the Fresher 15 before I’d even been down to the Student Union. I moved into a house with two other girls and three boys, each of us first year students allocated random housing. I felt like a grownup – I was a grownup. That would be the first time I’d step on a weighing scale outside of a doctor’s office. Both of my female housemates were if not obsessed, then certainly… very aware of their bodies. They knew how much they weighed, how much they wanted to lose, where they wanted to lose it from and how quickly, and they had methods of doing so. On a purely anthropological level, it was fascinating. But as I lacked the specialist training of Margaret Mead, I could not avoid observer bias. Before long, I was on the scales too. Ultimately, the new focus on my weight didn’t last – I wasn’t built for it, and I am inherently lazy.

When I look back at my childhood, I realise that my mother was, surprisingly, not the first feminist I looked up to. That was my dad. He was obviously feminist – constant positive reinforcement on the legality and necessity of our opinions and ideas. Always fair and consistent, an insistence on equality at all times, that was my dad. My mum was less vocal about these things – like many African women before her, she just did. She was and is still awe-inspiringly confident. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more assured woman than my Ma. Never arrogant, just quietly sure of her worth. When it comes to body politics and my mother, all I remember is we never discussed weight or our bodies in a negative way. In fact, we barely discussed our bodies at all, beyond basic biological functions. It just never came up. I never heard her moan about her body, not once. She was never on a diet. We had an ancient weighing scale in the bathroom, but that was only used to weigh luggage (Naija Brits will know what I’m talking ’bout). My mother’s response, whenever we said she looked pretty (usually as she put on her makeup at her dressing table) was “I know, right? We all are. God made something beautiful here.” And that was the end of it. Every time. No bells and whistles, no “love yourself!” streamers, just a casual, shrugged off acknowledgement – “Yes, yes. We’re all good. Now, lunch?” I never realised how lucky I was in that regard until I was a grownup. My mum, the undercover feminist.

Nowadays – as described above – I’m no longer than skinny girl with the prominent clavicles. I sometimes struggle to fit into clothes that were fine only a few months before. When that happens, I try to walk more, maybe stop that third helping habit for a bit. I don’t weigh myself. I try not to compare myself to celebs (too much). I never talk about how some actress “needs to eat a sammich!” I like my body. Not everybody will or does. But that’s okay. Because I do. It’s alright, you know?

I like my body.