Add to List - #57
Sickness, Subway Takes, Belle Gibson, and the anticipation of Bridget Jones
Hello, thank you, and welcome. I love you for being here!
Add to List is my Sunday round-up. It’s the small things that brought me joy, evoked an emotional reaction or became some short-lived stability in the past seven days.
Obsession
Scrolling and Subway Takes
I’ve been very under the weather this week. I spent Thursday in bed with flu and still feel like I’m recovering. As a freelancer I am now learning about taken-for-granted paid sick leave, that thing I used to always push through and rarely chose to take!? WTF Michaella.
But, on Thursday I allowed myself a total day off. I used my time sleeping (and scrolling.) I went underground, and on to the platforms — webbing my way through HOURS of Subway Takes. I particularly liked one gentleman’s: we should switch off the internet globally for one day a week, maybe a Sunday. It means you lot wouldn’t get this newsletter for another 24 hours, but honestly? I have to 100% agree.
I’d love to know — what would your ‘Subway Take’ be?
Confession
Last week’s rude typo.
Last Sunday, I was coming down with a flu. I didn’t know it at the time, but I couldn’t understand why everything felt so hard — my brain felt like it constantly had the pin-wheel of indecision whirring in multi-colour. [Insert alternative windows software visual if you prefer.]
I returned from working a long shift on my feet in the cold and finished this newsletter. Normally, I read it on a different device to spot any errors with the text in a different format/structure before going live. Then, amend changes. Instead of hitting ‘pre-schedule’ — something I usually do with a three hour window, even if publishing on the same day — I hit PUBLISH on Add to List #56.
But, nope. Last week, my zealous fingers hit publish before my brain wanted to. So, maybe some of you spotted it, but there was a funny old typo in a sentence about the Better Man biopic: ‘He’s an arsehole’ to ‘He’s nan arsehole’.
Fixed it pretty sharpish but apologies to anyone who saw it. Especially Robbie’s nan.
Shook
Apple Cider Vinegar.
The Netflix show about the early Instagram-days wellness blogger, Belle Gibson, who claimed she cured herself of brain cancer through a healthy lifestyle.
I read the book years ago in the height of Deliciously Ella’s clean-eating boom. At the time, I was shocked at Gibson’s fraudulent trajectory. Watching this now, some time on, the story seems even more shocking. The most scary thing is not her lying, but the lack of rigorous questioning. Apple endorsed her app. She had a book deal with Penguin. Was it because she claimed to have cancer? Was it because they felt sorry for her? Was it because they all wanted a piece of her bogus pantry? Or, was it because nobody could ever fathom making something like that up?
Perhaps this is an area where I could make a case for cancel culture. I’m not saying let’s start doubting every single thing we read online; I believe we should always assume good intentions. Yet the show highlights how the internet can allow people’s own poor mental health, on all sides, to perpetuate faster than it might in the real world. Popularity can pull the wool over even the largest corporations’ eyes. The show shows brilliantly how she was unstable and needed help. People who start spending elongated time with her quickly notice that some things don’t quite add up. Humans are much smarter than we often give ourselves credit for. Yet we are also incredibly stupid when we want to be too.
All of us tend to do more online research these days (all you have to do is find the new girlfriend of a fuck-boy’s damaged ex to help you) but it doesn’t mean that we are safe from deceit. People are suggestible when they are vulnerable. They are equally, if not more suggestible in other ways when they are determined to prove a point.
Look
Scarves.
I have felt nothing but cold this week. Specifically around my neck. I refuse to where these strange snood devices. I do not need to be hooded up like a clitoris in public. I also don’t like when scarves they could double up as a sofa-throw. I want them in a normal size in a normal shape please.
This burnt orange one has my eye. It’s also a B-corp, sustainable brand and I’ve bought from them before. Really good quality.
Cook
Online shops.
Can I just say how much money Tesco online shops are saving me? This week I treated myself to chicken, chicken mince, salmon AND prawns — and didn’t even vomit at the price tag. As I was under the weather I tried to keep things plain and simple: grilled protein, warm leafy greens. But most recipes had a spoonful of turmeric even if not listed (just for anti-inflammatory luck).
Plus, I planned to but was too sick to make this: warming, soulful tom kha gai. Something to look forward to this week.
Book
Nada.
Too much brain fog this week. But, I’d recommend the book, The Woman Who Fooled the World if you want to probe into the Apple Cider Vinegar story further.
Can’t Stop Scanning
Boys do periods.
I am loving this viral post with girls asking men what they know about menstrual products. It’s incredibly hilarious. (If we don’t laugh, we shall cry.)
I’d hazard a guess if this quiz were for the grils pertaining to male problems — we would still get full marks.
Forward Planning
Well I absolutely have to go and see Mad About the Boy the minute it comes out. Come the fuck on, Bridget! How can you not?
One of my best friends had me read Bridget at her wedding ceremony this summer. It was an honour, a joy, a perfect cocktail of my attention-seeking, performing-monkey singledom. I also went full Bridget-style: I nearly missed the boat to the ceremony — cue me running down a pier in heels and a rain poncho while waving my hands in the air. But, I didn’t — and my blow-dry survived a speedboat thanks to my chic plastic hood. Not the luck our loveable protagonist would have had. Then again, I was wearing much smaller knickers.
So happy to be have been a tiny cog in their smug-married celebrations. And aptly, I am going with her to see the film this weekend. Cannot wait.
I’ll also probably be listening to