Cocktails and Records

Knowing that we are thinking about doing some ‘home improvements’, our next door neighbour kindly lent me some of her vast collection of interiors magazines to inspire us.

One of the magazines (called Inspirations for Your Home) has a feature on ‘ways to declutter your home’, and knowing some of the interests of readers of this blog, I’d thought I’d share a few of them so you too can be inspired:

1. Edit your CD collection as your taste changes. You probably don’t listen to the same music now as you did at 17, so get rid of those old tapes and records.
2. People think that books are trophies that show how smart they are, but that’s not true! If your shelves are too full for new ones, then give away or sell your old books.
3. Keep one photograph of an event and delete the rest. Get rid of anything that makes you look bad.
4. One of the most important things is to reward yourself for having a clear out, whether its taking a bath, enjoying a glass of wine, or inviting friends round to see your decluttered rooms.

Right, I’m off to get rid of my clutter then. When I’m done, I’ll invite you all round to look at the lovely, neat spaces where my life used to be.

I don’t particularly like ITV’s celebrity reality show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!. This is for a number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with me being hugely adverse to ‘reality’ formats – I’d be the first to admit that I’ve had my moments of serious addiction to Big Brother, Celebrity Big Brother, Wife Swap, Faking It, The X Factor, Pop Idol et. al. (and thankfully, I’ve been able  to successfully recover from all of them).

I’m a Celebrity has always irked me though.

Allow me to come over all po-faced for a moment, but Australia and Australian wildlife really doesn’t deserve to be associated with useless B grade celebrities.

The centrepiece of I’m a Celebrity is the bush tucker trials where viewers vote to submit the celebrity kicking-bag of the moment to torture via native animals. So we have celebrities wading through swarming angry insects, eating live wriggly worms and being covered in curious creeping beetles. Of course, we’re meant to laugh at the hapless celebrity, but I’m guessing that the animals don’t particularly like it either.

Obviously I didn’t grow up in a rainforest (or an ITV jungle filmset in Queensland for that matter), but I did spend my formative years in a typical Australian country town. At school, on TV and in first-aid classes we learnt about our country’s insects and animals, including some of the nastier ones. We discovered how they sustain an fascinating and distinctive eco-system, how they’ve provided a food source for Aboriginal people for thousands of years and exactly what to do when a box jelly fish decides to attack you.

There is a peculiar populist British media view of Australia as a land of non-stop sunshine, where blonde-haired, BBQ loving, lager drinkers constantly risk being eaten by sharks and crocodiles as they go swimming during their lunchbreaks. And with its portrayal of Australia’s wildlife as something to gleefully torture celebrities with, I’m a Celebrity isn’t really doing much to help the cause.

Yes, Australia does have lots of creepy crawlies, but apart from a few notable exceptions, they do mostly keep to themselves and are a vital part of what makes the country unique. They deserve better than being eaten by Robert Kilroy-Silk.