Do you see that ominous, fleshy shadow on the horizon, bulging like an elephantine balloon full of half-digested cheesy-chips and flat Coca-Cola? That, my friends, is something called obesity, and one day soon it’s going to kill us all. We have one chance to avert this impending, chocolate-milkshake flavoured disaster. His name is Jamie Oliver, and he alone can hold back the tidal wave of mayonnaise that’s about to engulf the world.

This isn’t true. The reality of the situation is that some people are fat because they eat too much and then don’t run anywhere. This is pretty straight-forward. Do we really need a faux-Cockney to tell us this in a condescending tone? No, we really don’t. Here are some more things about the fat-tongued bore that annoy me.

His hair
I usually don’t care about what the top of your head looks like, but the reason Jamie Oliver is an exception is because it’s obvious he’s trying to do something with it. Thought and planning has gone into it. There’s been a meeting with a hairdresser at some point and someone has asked (presumably) for a shaggy almost-mullet that can sort of be spiked up into a quiff/mohawk. What is that? Does it even exist as a haircut? Whatever it is, it makes me wish it was possible to send people letters laced with contractible alopecia.

The hats
You’d think, given the awfulness of his hair, I’d be happy about anything that would cover it up. But no, it gets worse. Again, I feel there have been meetings about this and his choice of mock-shabby trucker caps is intentional. Covering up his hair with those hats is the equivalent of finding a dog poo under your sofa and hiding it beneath a thick layer of vomit.

The constant weeping
I’m specifically talking about his TV series, Jamie’s American Food Revolution. It was only marginally more successful (from our point of view at least) than the actual American Revolution, and that’s only in the sense that there weren’t as many fatalities in Jamie’s version. As far as damage to national pride goes, I’d say they’re about the same. Kids like chicken nuggets. Have a cry. A dinner lady doesn’t want to spend an extra three hours slowly sautéing garlic for tomorrow’s clam chowder. Have a cry. You haven’t seen your family for two whole hours. Have a cry. Just cut an onion. Have a cry. Geez. Think of all the droughts his tear ducts could have prevented if they’d only commissioned Jamie’s Ethiopian Food Revolution instead.

His public demonstrations
Imagine a quantity of sugar large enough to fill a school bus. That’s a lot of sugar, right? Oh wait… What’s wrong? Are you having trouble picturing that? Is it too much sugar for your mind to handle? How thoughtless of me to presume you’d understand that when I said ‘a school bus full of sugar’ I meant ‘loads and loads of sugar’. Thankfully, Jamie is on hand to explain this nigh incomprehensible idea. To demonstrate that a school bus full of sugar is A LOT of sugar he literally fills a school bus with sugar. To me, that seems like a big unnecessary waste of sugar and a school bus.
You see, if someone were to say something like, “That guy’s tongue is as fat as eight whales,” I don’t need a visual demonstration. I’m familiar enough with the number eight and the approximate size of whales to know this person is saying that this guy has a really, really fat tongue.

That he has the audacity to lecture people about healthy eating when he is actually quite fat himself
No one likes a hypocrite.

His awful, awful band
When Jamie Oliver was 13 he started playing drums in a band called Scarlet Division. They carried on for OVER A DECADE, touring and even releasing a single that got all the way to the heady heights of number 42 in the charts. If I’d stuck with things I thought were cool when I was 13, I’d currently have two complete sleeves of Tim Burton tattoos, the world’s largest collection of Warhammer Orcs and a room in my house dedicated exclusively to my N64.

I’ve just spent about an hour going through (hopefully) all of Scarlet Divisions’s videos on YouTube and now feel informed enough to have a valid opinion. And it is this: Jamie Oliver’s band, Scarlet Division, play the blandest kind of music there is and if Jamie were to make a soup that represented his band, he’d just fill a bowl with lukewarm water and call it a day. Obviously this would involve a lot of hand gesture acrobatics and spluttering, so by the end it would be more like a bowl of lukewarm water with a light drizzle of saliva. Yum!

Jamie’s Dream School
There was enough wrong with the trailer for this – let alone the actual series – that watching it made my blood pressure get so high I thought I was going to explode like Stephen Dorff at the end of Blade. Let’s break it down into the moments with the highest chance of giving me an aneurysm:

0.00 – That’s not a picture of a school. That building could be anything. It looks more like a textile factory. I guess that’s the point he’s trying to make, that normal schools are dull and boring (much like textile factories). Luckily, he’s written SCHOOL so there’s no confusion. Jamie hates confusion (see the sugar/school bus debacle above). Thanks for clearing that up for us, Jamie, because we are all thicker than medically brain-dead shit.

0.14 – “What would happen if you could turn a school into a dream school?” I know I was giving him a hard time about over explaining the obvious earlier, but this is such a meaningless, vague question it makes me want to bite out chunks of my own arm. All the dreams I ever had about school involved surprising amounts of nudity on my part, and even more surprising amounts of disregard for said nudity on everyone else’s part. So in answer to your question, Jamie: I would come in everyday completely oblivious to the fact I am totally naked and then, perhaps naively, hope none of my classmates notice. And that little camp, self-assured wave at the end as if he’s just asked the most poignant question since Aristotle popped his sandals made me go into a four-day long rage coma.

0.19 – He got on the phone to the most amazing teachers he could think of. Like David Starkey, everyone’s favourite casually racist historian. Nice one, Jamie.

0.30 – Simon Callow I’ll allow. He’d be a pretty good English teacher. Better than the one I had when I was 16 at least. Mine had a toupee and once, he tripped up, bashed his head on a nail and had to wear a bandage on his forehead instead. For two months. Quite possibly the greatest two months of my life.

0.36 – “For some of these kids, it might be their last chance.” Whoops. How did this slip through? Jamie you said ‘kids’ when you meant ‘C-list celebrities’ (excluding Simon Callow, he’s at least B+).

0.39 – Ellen MacArthur? This is dangerous, Jamie. What if she can’t find her pen and you get a paper cut at the same time? You’ll both start bawling your eyes out and we’ll have a lot of drowned children on our hands. (More specifically, YOUR hands. I want no part in this).

0.45 – Next up to tell your children what to think is Alistair Campbell. I checked with the internet and it told me he was unequivocally evil (and a secret alcoholic).

0.55 – “Nothing to do with me, Miss.” Never a truer word spoken, Jamie. You’re just the chubby face of this terrible, terrible idea. What are you doing around schools anyway? Aren’t you a food guy? Maybe leave teaching kids to people who professionally teach kids.

JOE ILEY

If you planning to throw a party, I strongly advise you to follow the below instructions to guarantee a good time is had by all.

Make a Facebook page
Apparently this is “a great tool for promoting events” and is “the most important thing you can do before having a party”. Set up a page and then move on to sorting everything out. I’ve included an example of what this page will probably look like, if you’re struggling to picture it.

Do you know anyone?
Does anyone know you, more importantly? If you think that there are some people out there who are willing to spend their time with you rather than whatever it is they normally do, then try and get in touch with them somehow and tell them that you are having a party. There is a saying somewhere about crowds, which defines it as three people, so you will need no more than two friends to turn up. If more people come, that’s OK but don’t invite too many people because then bad stuff will happen and it will end up on the news (I’ve seen this happen many times in the past – it’s not nice).

Do you have a place to have your party?
The Raver’s Manifesto has the following to say on the subject:

“We continue to pack our bodies into clubs, or warehouses, or buildings you’ve abandoned and left for naught, and we bring life to them for one night.”

Not only is this very deep and extremely philosophical but it opens up a world of possibilities about where you can have your party. For example, I have a shed in my back garden, which has a BMX and some oily rags in it. This would be the perfect location for me to hold my party. If you know anyone who has a club, warehouse or abandoned building then get on the phone to them and ask to borrow it. If they get tricky then just build a place and abandon it. Sorted, as they say.

The right clothes
Fashion can be a quandary for a lot of people but luckily I can circumvent any issues you might have. A quick Google Image Search with the words “nice party clothes” comes up with the following results.

Guys, don’t worry about the pink shirt thing. If it’s OK for the mega-macho rapper Snoop Dogg (pictured above) then I think it’s fine for everyone else.

Alcohol and drugs
Now there are some serious issues of legality here. If you are planning to sell alcohol (you will have to do this to cover the costs of your decorations and hire of the disco ball) you will need to get a temporary events notice. These are easy to get from your local council and only cost £27.

If you are planning to have drugs then please let me know so I can inform the authorities, as drugs are very much illegal and I am not about to stand aside and let you break the law.

Decorations and lighting
How to DJ (Properly) by Frank Broughton and Bill Brewster (2002) covers this area succinctly and with some good humour.

“Darkness encourages dancing… Decorations: Hard work but worth it. Balloons, streamers, murals, fabric, hangings…”

I have enclosed a picture of my shed, which is decorated and ready to go for my party. Please note the darkness.

The best music
Music is not my strong point, as I don’t like it, but many others may ask for it so, again, I defer to a higher authority. This is Greg Harewood’s Ten Best Party Songs of All Time. Make a CD of these ten songs, play it on loop and everyone will have a really good time.

1. “Get The Party Started” – Pink
2. “I Gotta Feeling” – Black Eyed Peas
3. “Jump Around” – House of Pain
4. “Come On Eileen” – Dexys Midnight Runners
5. “Whoomp There It Is” – Tag Team
6. “Walk This Way” – Aerosmith and Run DMC
7. “Celebration” – Kool and the Gang
8. “Sweet Home Alabama” – Lynyrd Skynyrd
9. “Y.M.C.A.” – Village People
10. “Love Shack” – B-52′s

You can refer to the original and excellent article by Greg here.

Cleaning up
So your party is over and everyone has drank, danced and been merry. Now that’s all well and good for them but who is going to pick up those ruddy Pringles tubes?! Your guests are, that’s ruddy who! Turn those lights on and pass round the dustbin bags, marigolds and cleaning products and tell your fellow ravers to get to it. This doesn’t have to be the end of the fun though. Make a game out of the process by playing a little something I invented myself called Musical Clean-up. This is just like the once popular Musical Statues but with more movement and disinfectant. The game ends when everything is exactly how it was when you found it.

Now if you’ve timed this properly everyone should be able to get that last tube home after the night of their life! Good luck!

TOM O’NEILL

When I look in the mirror – which, contrary to what many of may believe, doesn’t happen all that often – I no longer see Lizzie Grant, daddy’s little girl. No, I see Lana Del Rey, a cross between Tupac Shakur and Zsa Zsa Gabor. The baddest bitch – but also a very sensitive soul. A delicate flower that is wilting under the unforgiving spotlight of unwanted attention. A scared newborn kitten drowning in the fame drain where it tumbled forth from its mother’s womb.

No one will ever know how hard my life was growing up in a trailer park. I long for the memories that haunt my pitiful existence to disappear like a swiftly retracted allowance. Back then, I used to wonder if it was God’s plan that I should feel so sad and alone for so much of my life. Sometimes I’d go out into the yard and climb in the cage with our dog, Felicity, just to see what life was like from a different perspective. Daddy would take out with his cane and rattle it against the metal bars to try to force me to come out. I’d bark and hiss at him and Felicity would cower in the corner. I could sometimes appear very menacing, even though I didn’t mean to. Eventually, I’d come to my senses and realise I was in the wrong and then do nice things for Daddy to say sorry. Sometimes me and Felicity would perform a tap dance routine on the linoleum kitchen floor to try to make Daddy smile. He never did. But I loved that man.

If home life seemed tough, let me tell you it was pure bliss compared to what I went through in the living hell that was school. The other girls used to single me out. They’d write bad words on my Hermes bag in Tippex. We were poor so Daddy couldn’t always afford to buy me a replacement the very next day, no matter how much I sobbed and made myself vomit. I just sucked it all up – the torment, the abuse – and let it out through the words I wrote. I used to leave messages in the lockers off my fiercest foes. “Everyone you know is going to die one day”, “Let me remind you, emotional pain hurts more than 15 bullets in each of your eye balls”, “Your nostrils are extremely wide”. It didn’t take long for my teachers to figure out I was responsible – I had a habit of changing my o’s to love hearts. They said I was weird and psychotic – but who could blame me after what I had been through?

One day, me and Jonny – a kindly truck driver I had met just hours before – took off in my pink Cadillac to go in search of a better life in the Bronx. It was ride or die time, and I wasn’t about to die (even though it was something I often dreamed about). When we arrived I still felt sad – but it was a sadness that was slightly more bearable. Jonny had some money but he wasn’t a millionaire. We struggled. We did what we had to just to get by. I sold stuff – poems, homemade cookies, family heirlooms, crack cocaine. These kinds of things happen when you’re on the road and you’re on the run. The Mob never did catch up with us. It was just a life. I don’t like to talk about it. Please don’t hurt me. I love you. Fuck all y’all haters.

The 16th of October, 1980. That was the first day that word was thrust in my face. I remember it clearly because it was the day after Gentleman Jim Callaghan, my then idol (and also the name of my first pet gerbil), was ousted as leader of the Labour Party. I was ten years old – or should I say ten years young, since I certainly wasn’t old, considering I was only ten – and, unable to suppress my anguish any longer, I sobbed uncontrollably throughout a 55-minute afterschool recorder lesson at Primrose Hill Primary School. Griselda Thirion was the culprit. “You look incredibly ugly, Edward,” she spat, as tears dripped down onto the sheet music for “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. David, standing by my side, didn’t prevent himself from chuckling at me, as he so often did back then, leading others to follow. Who’s laughing now, Dave?

Like Callaghan, I liked to look on the bright side of life, so the words did little to me. However, I certainly wasn’t about to let the bastards away with such a callous public attack. I grabbed Griselda by her soft, warm arm, stared into her beautiful, ferret-like eyes and sternly replied: “I have a very strong inner belief that you are wrong. And although you may not see it now, I am convinced that one day you will come around to my way of thinking.”

Turning to my left, I met David’s cold stare. “As you well know, David,” I barked, “mother has repeatedly told me that I am very handsome, and that is concrete evidence which proves I am not ugly.“ Throwing my instrument to the floor, I shouted, “Your laughter was therefore both reckless and provocative,” as I galloped out of the classroom to stand under my favourite tree, Caroline. She would be my closest companion throughout the myriad dark days that followed.

A vegetable-themed fancy dress party at Harriet Harman’s flat in 1993 was my most harrowing encounter with ‘the U-word’. (I went as a leek, by the way. The frolics we had back then!) I knew the occasion would turn sour when David arrived, arm in arm with a brunette. He was obviously never a patch on Tony Benn in his prime, but the prettier half of our species tended to favour David, for whatever reason. This particular lady – Susannah – gave the outward impression she was quite taken with him, but I knew what would be best for her. After slipping three sleeping tablets into David’s Martini and apple juice, there was soon a snoring aubergine on the sofa.

I wasted no time in making my feelings known to Susannah. I closed my eyes and stuck out my tongue, as I slowly moved across the kitchen towards her, just like the instructions on Teletext had said. “Get away from me, you hideously ugly creature,” she shrieked, slapping me around the face. “I’m alright… I’m alright… I’m alright,” I screamed back at her with a wide grin, mimicking Neil Kinnock’s disastrous General Election speech at a Sheffield rally the previous year, in the hope of evoking pathos from her cold heart. But it turned out she was not aware of the speech. She was definitely a Tory, I tried to tell David when he began speaking to me again 14 months later. “Blue Sue”, I referred to her as I wrote my diary entry in bed that evening. “Boo hoo for Blue Sue. I hope David gives you the flu. Moron!”

And it was boo-bloody-hoo for John Humphrys this week when he had the cheek to imply that I was not handsome enough to lead this country. That one really backfired. A “gaffe” the Mail called it. Here bloody here. I’ll have you know that I have since had dozens of letters – mostly from women – telling me how incredibly attractive I am. I will yet be John Major and I will yet have my Edwina Currie. Oh no sorry, I meant, er, er, John Prescott and Tracey Temple. Oh no, hang on…

We’ve just been passed the front cover image for Lana Del Rey’s debut album. Check it out!!!

Ed Sheeran and Rocky Dennis

Arg from TOWIE and Ed Miliband

Lana Del Rey and Katie Piper

James Righton from Klaxons and Warwick Davis

Danny Brown and Missy Elliott

Carey Mulligan and the Psammead from Five Children and It

Justin Bieber and Ellen DeGeneres

Gervinho and a purple jellyfish

Thom Yorke and Simon Weston

Ollie Locke and Alice Dellal

Jessie J and Hilary Devey

Little Mix and a parliament of stuffed owls

The cast of Made In Chelsea and the characters from Disney’s Lion King

The crushing reality of Christmas has hit once again. Check out some of the, erm, special and heartfelt gifts we were given by loved ones this year while we go to the bathroom to gently sob.

Bruno: I know I’m breaking the rules straight away – because I didn’t actually receive this – but this is too good not to include. This is a chainsaw my dad got for my mum. She is making him take it back.

Ted P: This is what my mum got me. It’s a photo book on garden gnomes.

Ted L: Continuing the garden theme, here are some shears I was given by my mum. Not sure why – I don’t do gardening (I’m in my 20s).

Rhys: “But, Mum, that’s exactly my point: YOU think they are ‘funky’. I don’t have the taste of a 50-year-old woman who lives in Plymouth.”

Ted P: My sister – who is, like me, half-Jewish – got me this jar of Ghanaian hot sauce. We’ve never been the closest of families.

Juliette: I got a tiny colander from my mum. I didn’t even know mini sizes of these were useful… it looks like it will hold four or five new potatoes.

Sam: Pepperami socks! I can’t believe they make clothing. What next: Pot Noodle Snap-backs?

Jose: My ex got me the sexual violence-suffused video nasty Straw Dogs. Bit odd as she knows I have recurring nightmares about kidnap and murder. If you’re wondering, I got her a nice candle from Liberty.

One word to describe Wiley’s past year would be ‘mental’. But the same could be said about any of the years the grime granddad has been in the public eye since he is, without question, insane. His current weapon of choice for unleashing his schizophrenic stream of consciousness is his Twitter account, which he uses to bombard anyone who’ll listen with his own incomprehensible brand of half-baked witticisms and increasingly surreal threats of violence, often sounding like an old drunk bloke on the back of the bus who tries to grab at your groin. Regardless of his foibles, he’s definitely our favourite man ever, and to celebrate, here are his best tweets of the year.

1. If i went down on mz bratt her toes would curl up trust me
2. Big up cliff richards ……i wonder if cliff will release a xmas song this year
3. curry and tits is nasty you stink you chicken jalfrezzi
4. RADIO 1 in the house royal wedding style mistajam and nihal having a chat whilst eating pigs in blankets on a tooth pick
5. if you dissed me while i was in jail i wiil run up to ya old gran in the super market and say boo so loud she will shit her codweb knickers
6. and hitler fuck you too even tho you had good mics to record with neumans still fuck you bro
7. I wish Liverpool and London was one place liverdon or londerpool
8. i will throw Bombay potatoes on you
9. Downton abbey lol
10. When Wiley has got his thinking cap on it’s dangerous what he can make happen
11. im tryna invent the 1st flying car and airmotorway so there wont be accidents
12. I’m more reckless than your mums African shoes at the bottom of the stairs
13. Big up Harry redknapp tell the tax man to fuck off as well ….lol
14. im not 40 u dusty tramp go tell ya mum i said your house smells of mash potato
15. If you a big fellow take care on jet ski’s

JAMES EDWARDS

PS. If you want some more Wileyisms, we dug up some more crazy from back when he used to fight kids on the RWD forum here. Bless him.

A week last Tuesday I was at the checkout in Whole Foods – the Kensington branch – when something very much awry occurred. I’d like to point out at this juncture that I was just going about my very normal, everyday life – I was even wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses to appear as inconspicuous as possible. Everything seemed fine until I handed the middle-aged lady at the till my Coutts Gold Card and I noticed her suddenly glancing at a message that had flashed up on the computer screen in front of her. Then she asked me the most bizarre question. “Would you like cashback, Mr Grant?” she said, trying desperately to effect an air of normality.

Now, I’ll tell you why this came as such a shock: Just 15 minutes earlier, while sat in my very normal Mercedes people carrier in a nearby underground car park, I’d had a conversation which directly mirrored the intrusive query from the – reasonably foxy, actually – checkout lady. My baby’s mother (who, at my behest, had remained in the car, under a blanket on the back seat for the duration of the incident so as to avoid detection by the paparazzi) had asked me if I would kindly withdraw £40 to give to her as a loan. We are very good friends so I, naturally, agreed and said I would ask for cashback in the store.

As I skulked out of Whole Foods after the shocking, intrusive incident, responding with a terse “fuck off” to the security attendant who wished me a good day, the penny dropped: my car had been bugged. I cannot, for the life of me, think of any other conceivable reason why the husky-voiced checkout lady would have asked me such a leftfield question. She had clearly been asked to deliver the message from her bosses as a spiteful little “we’re watching you” gesture.

The next morning, once I had collected my thoughts and spoken to my lawyers, I sent my assistant and two other representatives to covertly scour the store for any evidence that could implicate the offenders. The cunning staff on the shop floor were on to them in no time, attempting to oil them with free samples of quinoa and star fruit soup, and an offer of 15 per cent off some sour dough bread. Unsurprisingly, they came back empty-handed – aside from an arugula and strawberry salad (which, I have to admit, was very nice).

I knew at this point it was time to play hardball. I knew I had to put myself in the crosshairs in order to expose the callous intrusion into my private life. I stormed into the store, eyeballing every security camera I passed, and walked straight up to a buxom lady stacking some shelves. I began to quiz her (while wearing a wire, of course – I needed hard evidence) to see if she would crumble. I told her about the surveillance, I told her about the cashback incident. “I’d love to hear what your explanation for that is,” I said. She seemed startled – shocked that I had the effrontery to challenge the system. I’ve had to deal with harassment my whole life, but this latest intrusion felt particularly savage on the part of Whole Foods – whom I had never, in any way, crossed before.

The following morning there was a mention of my brave crusade on page 17 of the Metro. Naturally, the tale was contorted beyond recognition and filled with misreportings, untruths and outright lies. But I have to say I was quite pleased. It was proof, if any were needed, that feathers had been well and truly ruffled.

This weekly column also appears on Vice.com