Scarlett Says

by Scarlett Moffatt

  Cooking

  My signature dish is crackers, beans and cheese, which is what I always ate when I was a student. It’s like a cheap version of beans on toast. You get a cracker, a tablespoon of beans and put some cheese on top and microwave it.

  Cooking to me is when you use pans and shit, and I can cook soup and stuff in them, but that’s all I can do. Me dad bought a dozen eggs recently so he could teach me how to make a soft-boiled egg and it took me eight attempts to get it right, even though I was using a timer. I don’t understand it.

  People come into work with homemade lasagne and I don’t get that. Why not just go and buy one? Look at how complicated Jamie Oliver’s recipes are. Who has all that shit in their cupboards? Who has those spices? When I watch The Great British Bake Off and they’re making their own pastry I don’t understand why. Why not just go and buy some of the ready-made stuff? I’m basically mint at ordering food, but I’m not great in the kitchen.

  Call centres

  It stresses me out when I have to phone call centres myself. The other day our internet stopped working, which meant no Netflix. I started having a proper panic and it turned out that when me dad changed banks the direct debit didn’t get transferred over so they’d cut it off. He phoned to pay the bill and they started asking what his dog’s name was and what his email address from eight years ago was, and they were being really difficult. He was like, ‘I just want to pay. I’m giving you money!’ In the end he said he was going to change internet providers and all of a sudden they made it really easy for him. Why go through all of that?

  I have to get me mam or dad to phone call centres for me because I lose my temper. Sometimes it’s dead muffled and I can’t understand what they say and it’s so frustrating. Or when you phone and try and book tickets for something and it’s automated and you have to give your name, I’ll say, ‘Scarlett Moffatt,’ as clearly as possible and it’ll come back and say, ‘Carol Henderson. Is this correct?’ Nooooo! It’s bloody not! I would happily pay a company to deal with call centres on my behalf. Someone’s missing a trick with that. Maybe I should go on Dragon’s Den?

  My five favourite foods

  1) Beans on toast

  Yes, it’s simple and, yes, it’s probably one of the main reasons the French think we have zero culinary skills, but there’s nothing better than getting home, putting the TV on, making a nice cup of tea and having the dinner of champions.

  2) Sunday dinner

  This is not to be confused with Christmas dinner because that involves different meat and also has the added bonus of pigs in blankets. A proper Sunday roast instantly takes me back to my nanny’s house and the sound of people arguing about how much a Fabergé egg is worth on Antiques Roadshow.

  3) Chicken fajitas

  This is mainly because it’s the only thing I can make that doesn’t come in a tin. I also like food where you don’t have to use a knife and fork, and I have a slight addiction to jalapeños.

  4) Pizza

  I’m not even that fussy about what toppings I have, as long as it’s not pineapple. No one wants one of their five a day on their pizza.

  5) Chocolate

  Dark, milk, white . . . Any kind of chocolate instantly puts me in a good mood.

  My perfect TV night in

  One of the reasons I love being a part of Gogglebox is because I’m such a fan of TV. If I was staying in on my own for my perfect evening, I would watch EastEnders and at least one episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. As I’ve mentioned before, I also like Red Dwarf, Bottom and The Young Ones. I’m always trying to get my friends into those shows but they’re not having it. I know the words to all of the episodes.

  If I’m with all the girls, we’ll have to watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians, which I hate. They’re properly into it, but I think it’s shit. We tend to watch a film too. Magic Mike is a good one, and also Dirty Dancing, The Notebook and Ghost are ones we watch over and over again. Stuff we can cry to, basically.

  Five films I love

  La Vita è Bella (Life is Beautiful)

  It’s the only subtitled film that I love. It’s so amazing you forget about them. It’s about a dad who pretends a concentration camp is a game so his son doesn’t get scared. It’s so sad but so beautiful.

  Edward Scissorhands

  The fact I still find Johnny Depp attractive when he’s got scissors for hands, a penchant for PVC and scars all over his face probably makes me a bit odd, but I want a boyfriend like Eddy. You’d always have a decent haircut with him around.

  Beauty and the Beast

  I feel like it teaches us the dangers of going out with a ’roid-head like Gaston. But the scene when he gives Belle the library is one of my favourite ever. Plus you can sing along.

  Pitch Perfect

  This is amazing. Fat Amy, nerds singing and a riff off. What more do you need in a film?

  Bridesmaids

  This film changed chick flicks. It reminds me so much of my friendship group it’s scary, but I’m definitely not the one who shits herself in the street.

  Downton Abbey

  One show I cannot stand is Downton Abbey, and we’re so happy as a family that it’s ending. We hate it. Me mam’s bought some champagne to celebrate the end of it.

  Nothing ever happens in it! It’s so boring. Surely back then everyone would have been getting frisky? It’s so crap.

  I know I’m probably alone in this but I think people only like Downton because everyone else does. They just jumped on the bloody bandwagon. It’s a bit like when Adele did her big comeback with ‘Hello’. You daren’t say you don’t like the song in case people have a go at you, but it wasn’t that great. I also think Sam Smith is really overrated. I think he’s all right, but he’s not the world’s greatest singer ever, is he?

  The Great British Bake Off

  Oh my God, I love TGBBO. Pies and tarts week is my favourite. Mary Berry is like my adopted grandmother – I just love her. The hosts’ innuendos are brilliant and I’m always tweeting about them. I like their ‘deep cracks’ and ‘big buns’. I also think it’s great because it’s encouraging people to bake (I’m not one of those people, mind).

  It’s Ava’s favourite programme and she’ll shout, ‘It’s meringue week,’ and get really excited, and I’m like, ‘Calm your boots.’

  Sometimes some of the baking looks like dog shit on a plate and the judges will eat it and say, ‘Eee, that’s delicious,’ which really makes me laugh.

  Some of the things the contestants make are incredible. When that man made a lion out of bread it was genius. A lion! Out of bread! They’re like Gordon Ramsay crossed with Van Gogh.

  Talent shows

  There seem to be more and more talent shows every time I switch on my telly, but I do like them. Well, most of them.

  I used to like The X Factor when it was just four judges in a room with no music and no audience for the auditions. That’s when it was funny. Now it’s all about what people are wearing and it’s all really posh. What happened to it being simple? I miss Louis too. He balanced out the judges and stopped Simon looking dead old compared to the others.

  Simon has turned into a bit of a sap since he’s become a parent. He did get tougher later on in the last series but early on it felt like he was censoring himself. I liked it when he was really honest with people and told them they’d never make it in showbiz. I mean, I know he was shattering dreams, but at least he was being kind not wasting their time.44

  I do watch some people and think, Why are your mam and dad not telling you you’re shit? Don’t they like you enough? My parents would definitely tell me I can’t sing for toffee, and I’d much rather they did. Although having said that, I tried karaoke for the first time the other night. I did ‘Let it Go’ from Frozen and I felt like I nailed it, but I’m pretty sure if you asked the other people in the room they wouldn’t agree. Some people just need to realize that there’s some things that are indoor things and not for public consumption.

  T
he X Factor does shit all over The Voice, though. Where do the winners of The Voice go? You literally never hear from them again. It’s like they’ve been kidnapped. Maybe Tom Jones has got them locked up in his basement for entertainment?

  The best thing about The Voice is the swivelly chairs, but they need more crap contestants. Everyone on there is too good. I think you need a mixture on a talent show. You need to have some funny, awful people to provide some humour.

  I do love Britain’s Got Talent too. I think it’s a really good representation of what the UK is about – eccentricity. If someone came to Britain from another country and you wanted to show them what we’re all about, you could show them an episode of BGT and they’d get it. It’s full of the odd bods and shows you everything that’s good about the UK. Who doesn’t want to see someone playing a flute with their nose? Yes, it’s shit, but it’s funny.

  I refuse to watch shows like Flockstars. I watched about ten minutes of one episode and I couldn’t understand what it was all about. I thought it might have been a joke but it really was about people herding sheep. That, in my opinion, was a step too far.

  Eternal Glory

  The one I really can’t believe is the one with all the former athletes. They have rounds like standing on one leg. It’s just ridiculous. I watched it the other day – I’m not kidding, the first round was a staring competition, the next round tiddly-winks. And the third round was a very intense game of hopscotch. I’d be more impressed if they were all standing up somewhere for a nine-hour shift.

  Drunk posts

  I like to watch as much TV as possible on a hangover Sunday, but for some reason, usually when I’m watching Antiques Roadshow, I’ll start remembering all the things I did the night before and it’s awful. I’ll think about the people I texted or the photos I posted. I have to check my Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook in case there’s anything I can’t remember, and I delete anything I need to. It’s weird because sometimes I don’t worry about it, but every now and again I’ll get one of those hideous panicky hangovers and I feel like I need to do some proper deep-breathing exercises.

  You should never drink and post, generally. It never works out well, does it? It’s almost as bad as drunk dialling an ex. In fact, why doesn’t everyone just leave their phones at home on a night out? Ah yes, that’s right, because they’re like our third hand and we’d have a meltdown.

  Hangover cures

  I think hangovers are God’s punishment because he believes binge drinking is a sin. While you’re drinking you’re loving life, but then you have the fallout. I just don’t really understand why it was OK for Jesus to encourage binge drinking but it’s not OK for us to do it?

  How the hell has no one come up with a hangover cure that works yet? Or a drink that doesn’t make you feel like someone is drilling inside your head the following day? I don’t understand how we can send people to the moon but no one can make you feel less shit after a night out.

  The only thing that sometimes makes me feel better the following day is a big pack of Haribo and some orange Lucozade. A couple of my friends will have wheatgrass shots but that would make me vomit. I have tried it but it literally tastes like you’re eating grass, and I’m not a fucking cow, like.

  Hangry

  I think this is a really important new word. Sometimes you’re furious at someone and you don’t really know why and then you realize it’s because you need to eat and that explains it, I reckon.

  Abstinence

  Of course, when I feel really bad I swear I’m going to stop drinking for a while. I did stop for a month once when I did Dry January in aid of Cancer Research. It was for a good cause so that side of it was great, but it was proper torture. It’s tradition that on New Year’s Day me and all the girls go on a pub crawl in our home town. Everyone was so drunk and I was drinking water. I knew if I started drinking Coke I’d want to put a vodka in it, and I ended up having to go home early.

  I felt really ill for the first couple of weeks, so I went to the doctor and she said it was because my body was used to drinking. How bad is that? All the toxins were leaving my body like a mini detox. But by the end of the month I had more energy and I’d lost weight, even though I was eating more, so it did make me think I should carry on. But then I thought, Nah.

  Come 1 February I had my first drink for thirty-one days and I got drunk off about two Jack Daniel’s and Cokes. At least I know I can give up for a month again if I want to. Which I don’t.

  My top ten hangover foods45

  1) Orange Lucozade

  2) Scotch eggs with Nutella (sounds awful but it’s amazing)

  3) Crackers, beans and melted cheese

  4) A dunk, aka a cup of tea and biscuits. Preferably hobnobs because they’re sturdy

  5) Chips and garlic sauce

  6) McDonald’s breakfast sausage and egg McMuffin

  7) Leftover pizza

  8) Any takeaway containing carbs

  9) Bacon sandwich with lots of tomato sauce

  10) Black Pudding

  Moving out

  My mam and dad make jokes about the fact I’ll still be living with them when I’m sixty, but I know they don’t really want me to go. I do want to move out, but what will I do when I’ve got a shit hangover? I’ll have to go home and get looked after.

  Mam keeps trying to convince me that getting my own place is a bad idea and saying, ‘Think of what you could buy with the money you’ll be spending on rent.’ She even worked out how much I would be paying for all my bills and she converted it into how many pairs of shoes I could buy each month. She literally said to me, ‘If you keep this money in a pot, by the end of the month you could buy all of these things. You could even go on holiday!’ It did make me see things differently, to be fair.

  My dad always says that I don’t have to pay board and he also comes up with reasons I should stay but I will have to go eventually. Hopefully within the next couple of years I’ll do it. I may have to pack one day while my parents are doing the food shopping and leave them a change of address card and a housewarming invitation.

  I think they would miss me and I would miss them loads too. Although I lived by myself at uni for three years and I really liked it, even though our place was an absolute shithole. It was hard work at times, having to do our own cleaning and shit, but I liked it.

  I think when you reach your mid-twenties you start to feel like you should be more independent. You see everyone on Facebook posting photos of keys, saying, ‘Moving into my new place,’ and you think, Maybe that should be me. Even when I do move out I’ll still take my washing back home. I’m not buying a bloody washing machine. I’m not made of money.

  Roman re-enactments

  We do some really random shit as a family. There’s a place called Binchester Roman Fort near us and they do Roman re-enactments. I won’t lie, my family and I have been known to go along and join in. It sounds proper sad, but I have dressed up as a Roman soldier before.

  Sometimes we go metal detecting around there as well, although you have to give back everything you find. My dad properly loves it and it can be fun. Some people once got a Roman mannequin and put an ‘I Heart Ibiza’ top, some leg-warmers and a visor on it. It was mint.

  Yes, you do look a bit like a wanker, and I’m not going to meet the man of my dreams down at the fort because most of them are old with long, dirty fingernails and they remind me of the blokes off Time Team.

  I felt brave once so I posted a picture of meself with a severed head wearing a full suit of armour on Facebook. My friends were like, ‘This is why you’re single.’ But if a lad can’t see past a severed head and a metal outfit, he’s not the one for me anyway.

  I don’t often tell my friends when I do it. If they ask where I’ve been, I’ll say I’ve been for lunch with my mam and dad and Ava. I don’t want it to be like, ‘What did you do today?’ ‘Oh, I took part in a Roman re-enactment.’

  Christmas

  Christmas is all about f
amily and I love it. What is there not to like about it? If you don’t like it, I think there’s something properly wrong with you.

  Me mam is a Grinch. She loves buying presents but she hates decorations. We once had a black Christmas tree – a black Christmas tree – because we had a new black leather couch and she wanted it to match. It was pissing awful.

  Me dad is the total opposite and he would have the whole house covered in tackiness if he could. We stick crap up everywhere and it drives me mam mad because all the baubles have to match. She has a festive battle on her hands.

  Ava loves Christmas too and I want to take her to Lapland one day, but I’m so sad she’s cottoned on to the fact Santa’s not real. (Sorry if I’ve ruined that for you.) She said to me recently, ‘Santa is just your mam and dad,’ and I was nearly crying, going, ‘No, it isn’t!’ I’m gutted.

  At Christmas there are usually about sixteen of us around the dinner table. My nanny and granddad’s house is tiny so we’re all sat on different-sized chairs and by the time the roast potatoes make it to the other end of the table they’re stone cold, but no one gives a shit.

  We always play bingo at Christmas, and we have quizzes. My nanny always does the quiz and every year it’s about Carry On films. I’m sure she uses the same one year after year. She always joins a team even though we moan about how unfair it is. Funnily enough, her team always wins. It would be a real worry if they didn’t.

  Jesus

  My family and I had a long discussion about Jesus the other day. It was a bit heavy for a Friday afternoon like, but it was interesting. After all, this is the man who gave us the gift of Christmas.