Scarlett Says

by Scarlett Moffatt

  For Mam, Dad and Ava Grace, my favourite people in the whole wide world.

  In memory of Grandma Frieda.

  Contents

  Introduction: Scarlett says . . . hello

  1: Scarlett says . . . meet the family

  2: Scarlett says . . . get glammed up

  3: Scarlett says . . . failing to prepare is preparing to fail

  4: Scarlett says . . . time to get ready

  5: Scarlett says . . . choose your clothes

  6: Scarlett says . . . cheers!

  7: Scarlett says . . . time to move on to the pre-drinks

  8: Scarlet says . . . choose a venue

  9: Scarlett says . . . taxi!

  10: Scarlett says . . . me head hurts

  Acknowledgements

  List of Illustrations

  Introduction

  . . . hello

  Alreet. If you watch the Channel Four show Gogglebox, you might recognize me as the one with the big hair who watches telly with me mam and dad and always sits forward in her chair.1

  If you don’t watch the show, you’re probably thinking, That Alan Carr looks all right in a wig.

  My name’s Scarlett Sigourney Moffatt.2 I’m twenty-five and I’m from Bishop Auckland in County Durham, which is closer to Inverness than London. I don’t go on red carpets. If a photographer ever shouted out, ‘Who are you wearing?’ I’d be like, ‘Me mam’s top, me mate Sarah’s jeans and some shoes from the Topshop sale.’

  But I do have this book, which I am very excited about. People where I’m from don’t tend to write many books, so I’m hoping it does quite well in that little Amazon chart Books>People from Bishop Auckland>People Called Scarlett Moffatt. By the way, my surname Moffatt is not to be confused with Mo Fat, Muppet, muffett or muffin.

  I’m mainly excited just to be able to talk about where I’m from cos no one ever has any idea. Round my way, there are lots of people with ponies in their garden and I had a mate come round who was like, ‘It’s dead posh round here, everyone has a pony.’ And I had to tell her, ‘Those are not posh ponies.’

  And no one wears coats either. The first time I went to London, I went into a River Island and I just wandered about amazed because there was a whole ‘coat section’. In the River Island near me there are two coats and nobody buys them anyway. If you wear an outdoor layer or tights, people know you’re from out of town. My theory is that it’s all connected to the pasties and tea. If you go down the local high street on a weekday morning, half the kids are covered in pastry crumbs. I call them the pasty kids. They’re eating pasties and drinking cold tea out of their baby bottle. I reckon that’s what gives so many of us superpowers that stop us from feeling the cold.

  Anyway, I can’t sing and I can’t bake, so the only time someone like me normally gets on TV is if I’m mortal drunk, flashing my tits, or my fiancé is really crap at planning a wedding. But instead I’m on this amazing show where they film my opinions every week. I mean, not everyone thinks they’re good opinions, but still. I think Gogglebox should get credit just for having people with accents you don’t normally hear on television. I can switch on the telly most nights and there’s no one like me on. That’s one of the reasons people seem to like the show, because it celebrates normal people.

  Loads of people on social media are dead nice and say they really enjoy what I say. And I think a lot of that’s because there just aren’t many programmes that listen to what young women from the north think.3

  Then there are a few men (it’s always men) who message me on Twitter to talk about the way I look – my hair, my fake tan, my weight – and I just think if they watch Gogglebox and that’s what they take away from it, I feel sorry for them. I heard a comedian talking about people being mean on the internet once and she said you just need to imagine all the men that write this stuff sitting in their pants in their parents’ basements, their fingers orange with Dorito dust, and you immediately feel better.

  There’s also a fair few people who assume that because I’ve got a fake tan, fake eyelashes and hair extensions I’m thick. I was on Twitter a little while ago and this guy just kept saying how stupid I was and how I could spell FUDGE with my exam results. I was like, ‘13 GCSEs, 3A Levels, a 2:1 degree and a job as an assessor for medical evidence.’ Then I just sent him two thumbs-up. What was worse was that he didn’t even have a photo for his profile, he was just an egg. I felt like saying, ‘Don’t fucking start with me, you haven’t even hatched.’

  It’s more of a general thing, though, isn’t it? I don’t know who made these earth rules, but apparently you can’t be an intelligent woman and have a tan or get your hair done. Or, at least, if you are someone who gets your hair done, everyone assumes you can’t be intelligent.4

  And it’s not just nutters on Twitter who are more interested in what you look like. Now I’ve been on telly a bit, I get rung up all the time by magazines who are like, ‘Scarlett, we’d love to have you in the magazine.’ And then there’s always this pause. ‘So have you lost any weight, or gained any weight?’

  So in my book I’m not talking about weight loss, or diets, or any of that crap. And it’s definitely not going to be a book that’s all about lads. Have you ever heard anyone on The Only Way is Essex or Made in Chelsea talking about something that’s not a drama about a lad? It’s literally ridiculous. I’ve got a nine-year-old sister, and the idea that in the future all anyone will think about is what she looks like, what she had for lunch and who she fancies, rather than the amazing, clever, funny stuff she says, makes me feel so angry. And sad at what people would be missing out on.

  But that doesn’t mean I’m sitting here in a homemade wicker cardigan. I’m a huge fan of the drag queen RuPaul, and he has this great quote: ‘We’re born naked and the rest is drag.’ Getting fake-tanned is fun, getting dressed up and doing your hair and doing your make-up is fun. And if you enjoy getting really fit and find it fun, then do it. But do it because you want to, not because anybody else makes you feel like you have to.

  I say bollocks to bikini season, thigh gaps, thigh brows and all that rubbish. You’re beach ready when you’re ready to splash about in the sea like a nutter, screaming with your mates. The important thing is that you’re happy with yourself, not that you look like someone who hasn’t seen a biscuit for five years.5

  There are people I know who think you can’t be a feminist if you like clothes, which is ridiculous, but there’s clearly something important not getting through.

  That’s one of the reasons I wanted to write a book, for any girls that watch the TV and don’t see anyone like them on it. Girls that – gasp – want to feel like they look nice AND have people care about what they have to say. And who come from somewhere where they don’t have people listening to the things they say.

  The reason this book is called Scarlett Says is because it’s my book about what me and my mates talk about when we’re together. That’s not to say we spend our time debating politics. Mainly it’s stuff like whether your friends would still love you if you had no knees.6 Or what if you had nipples for eyes? We weren’t sure if you’d also have eyes for nipples, so there was quite a lot of debate about that one. There were two camps. You’d have to have peepholes in your bra to see and some people felt that was just taking it too far.

  I’m only twenty-five, so it would have been a bit ridiculous for me to write a full-on autobiography, beginning with me being born and filled with all my wisdom and stuff. I’m the first one from my family to go to university but my nine-year-old sister, Ava, is always saying stuff that makes me realize I’ve got no idea what’s going on. She also has a bet with me that she’s going to settle down before I do because it never really works out for me with the lads where I’m from. I’m just no
t sure how much wisdom I’ve really got to offer.

  So I wanted to write something that tells you a bit about me but without the boring parts, something that makes you laugh and is filled with the kind of random shit I like. (I love random facts. When I tell them to my mates, they look at me like I’m a nutter. But I reckon there’s always something new to learn.)

  I really love a night out with me mates, so in this book I’m going to take you along on one with us while I talk about everything from Snapchat fails to shiny tights and dodgy taxi conversations – and loads more. So get a brew on, sit forward on your sofa and get ready to go out on the town. It’ll be all of the fun, with none of the waking up in a bus shelter with doner kebab in your hair.

  Top ten random facts that are definitely true

  1) Bruce Forsyth is actually older than sliced bread. His mother would have had to slice her own bread until little Brucey was five months old.

  2) Margaret Thatcher was part of the team that invented Mr Whippy ice cream.

  3) No words in the English language rhyme with ‘month’, ‘orange’, ‘silver’ or ‘purple’ (you’ll no doubt try and find some).

  4) In Disney’s Aladdin, Aladdin’s face was modelled on Tom Cruise’s.

  5) A law that still exists to this day in England is that you cannot operate a cow whilst intoxicated.

  6) More people died in 2015 from taking selfies than from shark attacks.

  7) In the UK, it’s illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas Day.

  8) Every human being starts out as an arsehole; it’s the first part of the body to form in the womb.

  9) The average speed of a Heinz Ketchup squirt is .028 mph.

  10) Charlie Chaplin once lost a Charlie Chaplin lookalike competition.

  1

  . . . meet the family

  I want to introduce you to my family first so you know who’s who if you read about them in the book. They’re such a massively important part of my life and I love them all to bits. I’m so lucky to have such an amazing family. My parents have been so encouraging about me doing different things and they really want me to go out and discover the world. Before Gogglebox I’d never been to London, but now I go all the time. Not many people go out of the DL postcode where I live, and I think me travelling about so much because of Gogglebox means that they’ve got a bit more curious too. They don’t get scared when I’m going to London any more and they’ve also started going to new places a bit further from home.

  Ava Grace, 9, sister

  The poor thing, she looks so much like me we could swap heads. She is a mini version of me – seriously, she’s seen photos of me when I was young and said, ‘I don’t remember going there?’ and I’m like, ‘That’s because that’s not you!’ – but she is much funnier. She’s hilarious, witty and very caring. She also knows a million random facts about life, including that strawberries are an accessory fruit and only girl wasps sting. When I go out with my sister, everyone assumes she’s me daughter. They’re like, ‘Ooh, she looks like you.’ We were at Disneyland and people took pictures of us and were going, ‘Smile for your mummy,’ and I told her, ‘Just go with it, it’ll take too long to explain.’

  Because she’s in year five now she has to start thinking about where she’s going to go to secondary school. When she went to her first open day recently me mam put her in white socks, black shoes and black trousers. I said to her, ‘You can get them off for a start.’ Me mam said it was cute but she looked like Michael Jackson. Me mam also put her hair in pigtails so I took them out and straightened her hair. I know she’s only young and I’m not trying to make her into something she’s not, but equally I don’t want her getting bullied like I did. I don’t want anyone to have an excuse to say something mean to her.

  Ava asks me loads of random questions all the time, about why we’re here and what heaven is, and I’m like, ‘Ummmm.’ I just sort of make shit up. She also asks me questions about the facts of life and I never know what to say. We saw two dogs at it in the park the other day and she asked me what they were doing. I didn’t want to have to go into the whole sex thing, so I said they were having a doggy hug. When we got back home she jumped on top of my mam’s back and started humping it and when me mam asked her what she was doing she replied, ‘I’m giving you a dog hug!’ I was like, ‘Nooooo!’

  Elisabeth aka Betty, 45, mother

  My best friend. She taught me how to speak fluent sarcasm. She has that superpower that all mothers have where you can ask them where something is in the house and they know instantly. She is very selfless, the best robot dancer I know and a top Christmas-present buyer. We have competitions to see who can write their name the neatest with their toes. I don’t know why we do that, I think we get bored. Me mam always wins. It’s just as if she’s writing with her left hand – that’s how good it looks, like. I go out drinking with her sometimes. Some of my friends find it weird but it’s my mam and she’s funny as. I don’t get it when people get embarrassed about doing things with their family. I love it.

  Mark, 50, dad

  A true gentleman. He has set the standard when it comes to finding me a man because he’s a legend. He’s funny without knowing it and always gets things wrong. He has given me my love of conspiracy theories and aliens, and taught me never to be anything but myself. And he’s the first person I’d want by my side in a zombie apocalypse.

  Me dad makes me laugh because he gets words mixed up all the time. I almost encourage him to do it because it’s so funny. He calls Little Mix ‘Mini Mix’ (I think he’s getting them confused with Mini Milks, those lollies you’d have when you were a kid) and the other day we were watching The Apprentice and he said, ‘Ooh, they’ve found a cliché in the market there,’ instead of ‘niche’.

  He said to us recently that diaries can make you go to the toilet a lot. We were like, ‘Eh? How does that work?’ Then he went, ‘Oh, no, I mean “dairy”, not “diary”.’ How does his mind even work like that? His brain has written out a sentence with the letters wrong and he just comes out with it. I told him he needs to go to the doctor’s or something and get his head looked at.

  Nanny, 61

  Me mam’s mam. She’s given me any of the wit I have today. She introduced me to Norman Wisdom, Will Hay and Carry On films at the age of seven. She’s the top quiz maker at Christmas and she taught me how to dance to Jive Bunny. Plus she keeps chocolate in her knitting cupboard. Me mam and me nanny had both had kids by the time they were my age, so I’m basically the spinster of the family. Me nanny has a ring waiting for me as soon as I’m engaged. I’m thinking of staging an elaborate Ocean’s Eleven-type thing, so she thinks I’m engaged and I can get my hands on it.

  Pappy, 66

  My granddad is the top Christmas dinner and Sunday lunch maker. He loves a good laugh and his key catchphrase is ‘Never in the bloody wide world.’

  Aunty Kirsty, 36

  She’s mam to me cousins Joshua, who’s nine, and Noah, who’s two. They only live five minutes away from us and I always pop round for a brew. Kirsty introduced me to make-up as a child, for which I am forever grateful. She’s the top host of our monthly family tea parties. Joshua and Noah are hilarious. Joshua can read a Harry Potter book in a day, and Noah gets us to take him to Currys because he’s obsessed with Dysons.

  My friends

  My friends are mint and they’re so important to me. I went to primary school with my best friend Sarah and we even went to uni together. I helped her to get together with her fiancé. I would trust her with my life. When I was younger I thought friendships were all about quantity, but now I realize it’s much more about quality.

  My other best friends are Sam, Hannah, Billy and Kelly. There’s a little group of us who do everything together. They don’t care that I’m on telly and it’s important that they were my friends before I was on Gogglebox. They watch it but it’s not a big deal, and they’ll phone me afterwards and say, ‘You don’t know what evaporated milk is? Seriously?’

/>   They’ve all got really good jobs but no one takes themselves too seriously. Sam is an accountant, Sarah is an occupational therapist, Kelly is the sales manager for a bathroom store and queen of the fun night out, and Billy used to be an STI nurse and she’s got some stories. Honestly, sometimes when we go into a nightclub, you can see someone recognize her and their face is priceless. She’s always really good at never saying anything because of confidentiality, but you can just tell from their face when they see her. Hannah speaks three different languages and works for a hotel chain, but as soon as we’re together we’re like kids again.

  When it was Easter last year, we were out in town and there were loads of decorations up of like eggs and bunnies and stuff, and there was one of Jesus. And Billy was really confused, saying, ‘What’s Jesus got to do with Easter?’ She thought it was Christmas when he was born and died. I let her know that wasn’t true but then we were talking about how unfair it was that Jesus had Christmas and his birthday on the same day, because he’d only get one set of presents. But then we thought, to be fair, he did get loads of presents from those kings and the shepherds so it all evens out.7

  My friends and I are really supportive of each other. There’s no jealousy there whatsoever and part of the reason your friends are your friends is because they make you feel good. If someone is feeling shit because a lad hasn’t texted them back, that lad is instantly a knobhead, and if someone has been bitchy about someone in the group, we’re there to make them feel better. Lads come and go, but if you’ve got good friends they’re with you for life.

  We stick together through everything. None of us are just into how we look and all we want to do when we go out is have fun. I can totally be myself in front of them. Even if I’m talking for ages about metal detectors they listen to me. We’ve got a proper girl code too. If one of us has been out with a boy, the rest of us have to stay away from him, and we have to like everything each other likes on social media.