Hilly Muswell Hill
I see that the haze has returned to lovely Singas, and as always, I am dreadfully soz for my Expaterati friendses. When I get all the guest rooms sorted, you must jump on a plane and come to stay.
Despite Singapore being soooooooo much better than England, and being a glamorous expat also being soooooooo much better than not, I don’t miss having the view outside my window obscured by smoke. The haze was, in de facto, my second least favourite Sing Ting, and I’m glad to see that it is finally hitting the world news as it truly is ridic and must be stopped.
My first least favourite Sing Ting was the plastic bag situation. You might not know this about me, given my many fascinating aspects, but I am a keen environmentalist and all round eco warrior – espesh now that I’m not flying thousands of miles several times a year, and can therefore thusly be more integretated in my environmentality (am planning a trip to Florida for Xmas, but that’s only a teensy pop across the Atlantic, and I’ll put the kids in Economy as that’s presumably more envo-friendo… why else would it be cheaper??). Also, there’s this truly wicked camouflage trend over here which I have whole-heartedly adopted as it looks fantastic on me, so dressing as a warrior is cool, and puts less strain on the earth’s resources because camouflage actually absorbs methane and greenhouse gases, according to an online study I read somewhere. SO, if I buy even more camouflage stuff to add to my suddenly vast collection which I won’t be wearing once it’s way passé next Spring, I’m actually supporting the desperately needy Asian economies (well, mainly China, but that’s fine because it has been lovely hosting President Xi Jinping this past week and it’s obvious that he totes <3 ‘s us and all things Britannia, so I’m happy to participate in the lurv), as well as doing my bit for the environment. Win-win!
I digress though because the point is is that in Singapore they positively throw plastic bags at you in the shops (not the high-end clothing shops, of course; they use a paper-based material that is related to trees and thereforely easily grown in forests), and when I did any supermarket shopping for myself (the help did tend to get the wrong stuff despite ample tutelage), I had to practically shout at the assistant, “No bags, lah!”, as they over-zelottedly packed my incrediblé expensive cheese and Veuve Click into damn plastics! What super annoyed me as well was seeing the customer before me and the customer after me accepting said plastic bags… for single items which could easily have fitted into their enormous LV handbags or the stout arms of their offspring. I gave those people some looks, I can assure you, but no one seemed to care nor have the leastest awareness that there are seals suffocating in the South Seas, and squirrels who’ve had their tails entangled in plastic due directly to this default handing out of unnecessary bags. It’s a disgrace. If those squirrels lose their tails, they’re basically done for. And how would you feel, as a squirrel mother or father, knowing that your little one had been taken down by a Singaporean plastic bag..? Not great, I would wager. Given that I am a big on making a difference where it counts, I did contemplate the initiationification of a campaign to tackle this issue (like, could the check-out person just ask, “Do you really really need a bag?”), but my Singaporean bestie said I shouldn’t as it might cause problems for expat vs local relations. In the end I was so busy juggling my life as a celebrité blogger/ rap artiste, with being an awesome wife and mother, whilst maintaining my rigorous health and beauty regime, plus my serioso hectic social life, that I didn’t really have time to make a difference. That said, I guess I have made a difference by sharing myself with you, dear readers, and I do not under-estimate the valuation therein.
Anyhoo so, in the UK (well in London at least… UK..? I’m not sure… where does that cover exactly, outside London?) they’ve just introduced a charge on plastic bags , which I think is amazebobs. I ventured to Muswell Hill earlier this week to see how things have picked up there – they so have!! A Sweaty Betty next door to a Le Creuset! Praise be!! – and I dashed into the new little Waitrose to get Max’s preferred brioche. I was just about to extract a cloth bag from my Burberry Prorsum Bloomsbury when I realised how tacky it looks now to not pay for a plastic bag. Argh!! Hashtag mortified!! Luckily my astute brain clicked in early enough to avoid social mortificato, and I got three bags: one for the brioche, one for the chicken sag masala (love that now I have to cook for myself), and one for the very padded loo paper. It felt wrong to put the input and output goods in the same bag. Just wrong.
When I got home I was faced with yet another layer of mortificationism as the cleaner had placed low-value detritus at the top of my recycling boxes… Outside the front of the house!! A woman’s work is never done, I thought to myself as I covered up the Sainsbury’s mild smoked salmon sleeves with Gucci online shopping packaging, and then a Nike shoe box to add a touch of Street. As if life as a single mum in London wasn’t hard enough without a cleaner who shows scant regard for recycling etiquette!!
I <3 gentrification!!
