Three Things You Can do to Stave off the Hideous Depression of “Black January”

by Ciara Burke

Source: http://disneyetorlando.tumblr.com/

I wonder if there are parts of the world where January doesn’t feel this depressing. It’s possible, if not at all probable, that with increased exposure to sunlight and a distinct lack of that bitching, misty rain, everything feels fresh and achievable in the light of a new year. Perhaps I’m grasping at straws, but it’s nice to believe that if, someday, I were to come into enough money to get myself to one of those far stretched, vitamin D heavy countries, I might welcome January like the ghost of Robert Mitchum waving a sandwich in my face.

As it stands, Ireland and the UK in the bleak mid-winter is a furrow line on the forehead of a fat, sweating banker, and for those souls with little by way of employment, it can seem a bit like drowning in the Black Sea; the more romantic, and torrid of water-based conserves – more Heathcliffe than The Dead Sea – but much more cheerful owing to the fact that you cannot drown in it. Something to do with salt and body mass.

source: http://niccagetho.tumblr.com/

Having lived through twenty four of these beginnings, and at least six of them as a “functioning” “adult”, I’m starting to lose my wick with January. Christmas, if disappointing, has managed to depress you enough that it seems there is no hope of happiness in the warzone. If your Christmas was seasonal and comforting a la Culkin, it has managed to depress you equally if only by ending. BUT THERE HAS TO BE SOME HOPE.

I’m not going to patronise you with resolutions. They never work, and when the year is over all we’re left with is a checklist for all of the things we could have done to make ourselves more successful, but inevitably failed to even try. Instead, a list of coping mechanisms; light points amid the dirty rainwater that will clog through our ears and saturate our brains as the longest month with the stingiest of light pains us into a comatose state. Coping mechanisms, yes…

1. Public Libraries have a relative selection of escapist options for the unemployed.

You don’t even have to pay to immerse yourself in the lives of the fictional, and through distracting your brain with these characters you may forget how awful your own life is.

source: http://losemycool.tumblr.com

I am putting it out there that reading a John Green novel will probably change you. It will ruin you, yes, because his particular brand of making everything OK also involves bringing you through the harshest issues of adolescence; suicide, alcohol abuse, loneliness, terminal illness and generally disappearing so far up your own arse that you can no longer stand to live in the same town as anyone you know (see: Paper Towns, my particular favourite). But, like a good Hollywood cliché, there is always light at the end of the tunnel with Green. Someone will discover themselves. They will learn that misery is not optional, but happiness is a natural condition, too. I’m OK with John Green. I think he gets me.

2. Turning off your computer for at least five to six hours of daylight will make hitting your head off a wall on the hour, every hour, less appealing.

Although I couldn’t live without my computer, my daily connection to other lost souls, I am starting to suspect that I also cannot live with it. It’s a Catch-22, so the only possible way to survive it all, is balance. I’ve imposed a daylight savings ban on myself, which means that I cannot go online until the sun sets every day. This of course does not include the 25 tweets I will post before and during breakfast, which generally go “I’m awake. I slept poorly. I’m still alive. Send provisions”. But once you’re awake enough to be dressed in something other than a onesie, and feel you’re up to dealing with other human beings, you should probably go outside. Maybe even to the library. Where you can read some John Green. Just saying, no pressure, but god take the hint already.

source: http://d-e-s-e-n-h-4-n-do.tumblr.com/ -Don’t be a “Barney”. Geddit?

And then once you’re done with a productive day of walking around in the rain, drinking expensive and very, very, very bad quality coffee from the local caffeine-plex, then you can return home and feel really good about all of the Facebook notifications you have acquired by letting them build up and not hunting them, by the second, like Rambo in a forest of communism.

3. Watching teenage horror movies with as many clichés as sex scenes will make your insides bubble with glee.

These were mad popular during my formative years and seem to have lessened in quality as time has gone on, but there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from re-watching the classics like Urban Legend, I Know What You Did Last Summer and, of course, Final Destinations One through Five. You will learn important things, like how being pure, whiney and having bad bangs and class boobs will help you survive in life, being a jock will help you last slightly longer than being a nerd, but you will still die, and of course that THERE IS NO ESCAPING DEATH’S EPIC PLAN. Unless you figure out the loophole and then you’ll just end up in a mental institution with Ali Larter, so you’ll probably want to die anyway.

source: imageshack.us – Spoiler, this movie contains a butchered vagina…

I’m going to recommend that you watch a movie that you probably managed to miss on release, due to the fact that it’s so goddamned awful that no one involved in the production would ever want to advertise its existence; which of course makes it, simultaneously, the most amazing piece of film to ever be committed to celluloid. If you can get your hands on “Swimming Pool” from 2001 – also called “The Pool” and “The Pool – Der Tod feiert mit” and “Water Demon” – yeah, they clearly want us to see this movie –  then you will be happier this January. There is no other possible outcome. Featuring a younger Isla Fisher actually speaking in an Australian accent – bizarre accents and their documentation will be a strong feature of this viewing for you – and James McAvoy in some disastrous shirts, this movie, like John Green, will change your life. An extra tip, because I’m feeling generous, is that you should probably be drunk for this, which is another excellent way to get through January, anyway. Six cans of Bavaria and a fiddle on Piratebay – Bad Salad does not officially endorse illegal downloading or piracy, right? – will not break the bank, and boy will you be happy you chose alcohol and teenage promiscuity.

I truly believe that with good practice of the above, attention to detail, and a large quantity of cheap, Tesco vodka, you will survive this January. Nothing is as bad as you think it is. Genuinely. No jokes, you could be Jennifer Love Hewitt. So, really, it’s quite possible that in other parts of the world, Janurary is less depressing.

A pity-party playlist not featuring Morrissey

by Ciara Burke

source: http://we-live-for-celebrity.tumblr.com

I think the older I get, the less I feel that Morrissey has anything to do with my life. Or any kind of objective reality, really. Yes, I will always get a tingle in my nethers when I think about the video for ‘Certain People I Know’ – rolling in the sand, rolling in the sweet, sweet sand – but that’s just about where it ends. However, it’s a tragic fact that just about every teenage mixtape/cd/playlist of songs to weep to features an appearance from the bequifféd one in one of his many sad, sanctimonious guises – pretty much the same guy, give or take a neck like a tree-trunk and a mouth spewing toxic waste all over your genitals. This is usually followed by a guest appearance from Elliot Smith, just to make your pseudo-quest to a die a little bit more real. I blame Nick Hornby for everything.

It’s not that I’m not into the idea of a guy bleeding his heart out all over his guitar, as the cliché has it; in fact most of the music I listen to falls liberally under this categorisation, whether that is figurative bleeding or the literal kind. However, at the ripe old age of twenty four, I’m not sure I can stand another too-old-to-be-behaving-this-way guy moaning out of tune about the sad deal life has dealt him by making him so incompetent he can’t talk to other humans without shitting himself. Possibly because if I didn’t have a vagina, I would be that guy. Home truths are not best dealt with a Mancunian accent; I may not know much but I do know this.

Still, when you boil right down to the guts of the matter, when you’ve had your heart broken or are feeling so bad you could tear your skin right off with a potato peeler, all you want to do is listen to music so sad or weird or loud or grating that it makes you feel a bit less alone in the world, by virtue of being written by an even sadder sap than you. Or rather, if you’re as masochistic as me, you want to listen to music that makes you feel as alone as possible. The end result is usually the same, in either case.

So, here is a list of songs that I find perfectly cathartic when I’ve gotten myself into a “bad emotional landscape”. I hope they help you out.

1. The Fall – Barmy

It may seem weird, but I think being depressed out of your head is the perfect time to introduce your soul to Mark E Smith. Listening to The Fall sometimes feels, to me, the musical equivalent of sitting on your own at the bar of an old man pub, drinking Middleton and muttering angrily at no one in particular. This is always decidedly attractive behaviour to me when I’m feeling like a failure, so having Mark do this for me means I can hold on to my friends and dignity a little longer.

I think ‘Barmy’ from the BEST ALBUM IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, This Nation’s Saving Grace (1985), illustrates my point pretty well.

Amazingly, the song isn’t on youtube, so you can either skip to 4.29 or listen to the whole goddamned thing. Option two is the correct answer, but other opinions are available.

2. Sheryl’s Magnetic Aura – Everything Happens to Me

I need to meet someone who likes Sheryl’s Magnetic Aura as much as I do. In fact, I just need to meet someone who likes Sheryl’s Magnetic Aura, even just a little bit, at all. Basically, this is the band that Meneguar were before Meneguar were Meneguar.

Anyway, the title basically says it all. Interestingly though, this song, although about the dirges of unrequited love, actually focuses on how much it sucks to have someone else be in love with you when you don’t really feel the same way. This brings about a far more complex spectrum of depressive emotions than the usual WHY-DON’T-YOU-LOVE-ME fare, including confusion, self-deprecation, loss of control over the situation, and general ill-ease with someone mistaking your horrible qualities for decent ones.

Since there is a plethora of songs out there that will make you feel better about being rejected – let’s be honest though, nothing kills that pain – I thought it would be nice to offer one that will make you feel loftier about rejecting other sad sacks.

I find it particularly entertaining because the entire lyric of the song is basically a massive justification for being an asshole, which is really the only possible way to deal with someone actually having feelings for you. Plus, this EP has a lot of sensitive but energetic kids doing shout-out, emo choruses and that is the true root of beauty in sadness. Good haul!

3. Felt – Dismantled King is off the Throne

I think one of the main reasons I like listening to Felt when I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself, is that all of their songs have miserable lyrics paired with ridiculously merry jangle-pop sentiments that make the unbearable pain Lawrence sings about seem really deadpan, ironic and hilarious – think Blueboy, but digestible. This is never as apparent as in Strange Idols, “Dismantled King is off the Throne” which by all rights should be about fulfilling first love in a Welsh holiday caravan park.

In summation, I think Lawrence is a far better symbol of misery, egomania and only having one name than Morrissey is. He’s far more enigmatic and batshit crazy, and his voice doesn’t make my skin crawl. His sense of humour – which I’m convinced I’m not just imagining – is also less wry and unbearable.

Also, has Morrissey ever been in Smash Hits? Well?

4. John Henry West – Shut Your Mouth

Being angry is way, way, way more fun and empowering than being sad. I like forcing myself to hit things when I’m upset, in the hope that the displaced physical pain will mutate into vitriol and I can feel a lot better about my life.

This is my current abrasive, emotional and cluttered tune of choice. You don’t really get more direct than simply telling someone to shut their mouth, and as a person that chooses passive aggression and the accompanying anxiety ridden stomach aches over facing their problems head on, I find this record a delightful exercise in the act of vicarious catharsis. Cory Linstrum’s voice is one of my favourite things today. You can’t be sad when Cory’s at your party!

5. Heavenly – I’m Not Scared of You

I think having one or two “you tore me down” songs on this list was inevitable, but I prefer the empowering way that Heavenly do it. Granted, it’s skipping a few seminal steps in the recovery process, but listening to 69 Love Songs – another band that will not be included on this list, despite my intrinsic belief that The Magnetic Fields were sanctioned by the devil to soundtrack my inability to progress from emotional teenager to balanced adult – and bemoaning the loss of the person who just pissed in your hair is too defeatist for my liking.

Instead, we can pretend that we are all high-functioning humans that welcome our release from the shackles by listening to cool twee punkers, and deciding that being dumped only means that you are free to fall in love with someone who doesn’t ignore you, wet the bed or make you listen to crappy mixtapes to prove they are more intelligent than you. Everyone hates that guy.

6. Nuzzle – If Left to My Own Devices

Part of what attracted me to putting this on my list was the title. The rest of it was probably the sounds of lads yelping with wild abandon, which is something I look for not only in music, but in life.

But back to the title. I think the absolute knife in the chest when you’re feeling pretty awful, is the completely misguided belief that locking yourself in your bedroom will do anything other than propel you into a mad cycle of crazy; Day One, crying loudly, fists in mouth and refusing to eat. Day two, crying silently, with presumed dignity at the general Weltschmerz of it all. Day three, a manic belief that selling all of your possessions and moving to Beirut to be a foreign correspondent and do something “that matters” will somehow make you less depressed. Of course it will. Sure, do it tomorrow! Check flights, check bank balance. Relax back into the unholy cult of fucking that shit.

That’s usually how it goes for me anyway. Around day four or five, I’ll realise that going outside and being with my friends is not the stifling and anxiety ridden experience I’ve tricked myself into believe it would be. In fact, people make you feel better.

On a more pragmatic note, Nuzzle are a great band that went absolutely nowhere for about ten years.

I THINK WE ALL FEEL BETTER NOW.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

by Ciara Burke

Source: ruthsippelpace.wordpress.com

I am cripplingly afraid of the dark.

However, I also really love horror movies and being scared out of my mind, so there is a healthy mix of irony and masochism in the way I choose to live my life.

When I was a kid, my dad decided to buy me a night light in an attempt to counteract my fear of the dark. Trying to get me to fall asleep with the light on wasn’t working, and forcing me to lie in bed with the lights off was pretty much ruining both of our lives – so this seemed like the logical, tried and tested course of action. His particular brand of getting it wrong involved buying me a red light bulb, the kind designed for dark rooms; in theory dim enough to lull me into sleeping, but bright enough that I could make out whether my collection of stuffed animals – disturbingly, all named Jeffrey – had come to life to carry out some sort of “You were asking for it” torture plot. This fear-fantasy had me acting really nicely towards my teddies during the day, talking to them with extra animation, Jammie Dodgers at our tea parties rather than the usual Rich Tea, because I was convinced that if I didn’t play with them enough they would kill me in my sleep. But infantile neuroses aside, if you’re seven years old and find the prospect of merely lying in a dark room terrifying, then trying to sleep in a room that is illuminated only by pure red light is a whole new level of creepy what-the-fuck.

Source: Dario Argento’s bag of mentile crazy “Suspiria” via bannedinqueensland.blogspot.com

As a kid, your exposure to horror is always kind of messed up, though. Lots of it is through the grapevine – those enduring ghost stories and urban legends that the mean kids tolc you at school to scare the piss out of you. A girl I knew in primary school used to tell me stories about the Banshee and how someone’s uncle had heard the screeching and the three knocks on the door before he died. Her personalised addition was that because I didn’t sleep in a room with an older sister, like she did, there would be no one there to protect me if I found myself in such a situation. I was under ten and already pretty much at death’s door. So this, paired with an unfortunate early exposure to “Darby O’Gill and the Little People”, physically and emotionally terrorized me for weeks, with no farm-boy singing Sean Connery to numb the blow.

But the really haunting story that sticks with me is the one I’m sure you’ve all heard in its various incarnations; we called it ‘Drip-Drip’ and this is how we heard it: A sweet, defenceless old lady lives alone in her house, save for the faithful companionship of her lovable dog. If he had a name in the story, I don’t remember it. Every night after she’d gotten herself ready for bed, crawled beneath the covers and reached that special point just before sleep, when everything is foggy and nice, she would drop a hand to the floor, just beneath the bed where the dog slept. He would, with one sloppy lick, reassure her with his presence and she would drift off, safe in the knowledge that the universe was balanced, there was love in the world and everything would be okay in the morning.

Source: My favourite classic horror movie, The Haunting (1963) via http://jonthanpearmain.blogspot.com

So that’s the scene. Except in the minimalist but effective manner of eight year olds, it went: ‘So  this auld one has this deadly dog, right?’ Anyway, you know the story and you know it ends with the immortal, smack in the face style: HUMANS CAN LICK TOO. Damn right they can. But innuendos to the left, because this line genuinely petrified me as a kid to the extent that I would whisper to myself every night as I got into bed “you don’t have a dog, it can’t happen to you, you don’t have a dog, it can’t happen to you”, over and over, front to back, like a mantra. I would nitpick the points of the story that didn’t apply to me, wearing the deviations like a suit of armour to protect me from the man that licked a little old lady’s bare hand for reasons I can’t even begin to fathom. It doesn’t seem to have the same ring when you replace the lovable dog with a standoffish cat called George Lazenby with a tongue like a netted dart. He was about as reassuring and faithful as a ham sandwich.

Funnily enough, it wasn’t nightlights or leaving the room screeching “YES” when the title credits for “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” appeared on the TV that got me over the stomach aches that horror stories used to instill in me. Fact of the matter is I never quite got over it and I am still pathologically afraid of everything. What I did figure out when I was about ten or eleven, though, is that being scared can be really fucking fun. I started reading Goosebumps and Point Horror and pretty much anything by Edgar Allen Poe and read them with my bed sheets like a tent above my head and my fingers on my thumping jugular.

I didn’t really watch horror movies until I was a bit older, actually, and then it was Dario Argento, David Lynch, adaptations of Clive Barker – the good, the bad and the damned ugly, but with the Hellraiser series at the forefront – and particularly, sci-fi horror. I like horror movies that are also a bit dramatic and camp, because like Mark Kermode said, the space between fear and laughter is relatively minimal. I think there’s definitely something in that, and the best horror movies I can think of utilise both really well. I’ve only begun catching up with the classics like ‘The Haunting’ in the last couple of years, throughout and since finishing college.

Source: RL Stein’s Goosebumps series, via thatsglitchy.com

Anyway, I think the reason horror movies and literature worked so well for me in this respect, is because it gave me a weird outlet for my fear, and an outlet that I was sort of in control of. The things I lay in bed and worried about at night didn’t have to bother me as much, because I had a place for them and a box to put them into and close when it got a bit too much. Yet putting all of the monsters in a box only made opening it and getting them out to play all the more tantalizingly fun. Stuart Fischoff calls it a “safe threat”, and I think that about sums it up better than I would have. When I had only vague impressions of things, overheard stories, snippets and images, the real horror is what I did with my imagination. And heck did I have an overblown one, as a child. Now, when I think of all of the things that scared me as a kid, I’ve got a movie reference. So I’m not afraid of vampires – I used to have to sleep with the blanket right up to my chin, as though that would somehow stop me getting bitten – monsters, werewolves, zombies and so on. Which is not to say I’m not obsessed with them, because essentially they can still make me laugh.

What I am still afraid of, however, is the dark. Being afraid of the dark is like not knowing what you’re afraid of but being terrified anyway. I know its pretty lame for an adult of 24 to be afraid of the dark but it is what it is. Hemingway, like many of his characters, was afraid of the dark. So was Thomas Edison, and I like to believe that is why he invented the light bulb. I’d be interested in finding out how many famous horror directors are achluophobics (there’s a word for you). I reckon it would be wonderfully ironic – not to mention reassuring – to find out that the people who fill the dark with images of horror are also the ones who fear it most.

An ABC of Autumn…

by Frida Magnusson

As we are well into October already, let’s get it all out in the open. Why is it that so many people despise the autumn months, while so many others find so much pleasure in them? A simple ABC of autumn will reveal all…

Autumn tip: Build a tree-house!

Austerity

Apart from the official seasonal hangover in January, few times of the year are harder on the wallet than those dark months leading up to December. First you pay for your flight back to the parents at an extortionate rate, as expected. Then there are of course, the many Christmas presents to purchase for family, dear friends and the unnecessary Secret Santa you ended up with at work. On top of all that, either your limbs or your utility bills will need to be appropriately hidden under a pile of knitwear, because it’s getting cold.So, quite a large pile is required.

Yes, autumn is surely tough on the old purse and that is a particular kind of pain that tends to sting badly.

Absorbability

With no more hope of enjoying a BBQ or a picnic outside, you will often find yourself simply longing for a calm and warm night in. ‘Staying in is the new going out’ you’ll tell your friends in hopes they’ll think that you aren’t just being a loser, but maybe in fact a trend setter.

Well, whatever they think, you have already made hopeful lists of all the books you want to get through and of the films you plan to watch, preferably on YOUR sofa accompanied by a bottle of red and some home-popped popcorn. Naturally, there will be blankets and candles too. Once in a while, you will take yourself to the cinema or a museum, maybe even the theatre for a real treat. So enjoy your time and just relax, for autumnal chill is the key to the good life.

Escape…

Bye-bye daylight…

…Hello darkness, my old friend!

It always comes as a shock to us, doesn’t it? We can’t seem to recall that it happened in the exact same way last year. ‘Can you BELIEVE how dark it is already?’. It’s true, there is actually such a thing as autumn depression and it doesn’t take a psychiatrist to work out how it develops – getting up and setting off in the morning, in the dark and clocking out in the evening, again, in the dark… No, its just too harsh on the human soul! We need light! Don’t keep us in the shadows!

Indeed, the cure here, if there is one, is clearly lots of hot baths, an open fire and the occasional piece of cake. Well, for those of you who can, go on holiday for a week to the other side of the world. The rest of us will have to embrace our dark side.

Boots, coats and scarves

It would be hard to deny that autumn offers so much more in the ‘dress to express’ department than summer does. Summer seems so generic with its plain denim shorts accompanied by simple printed tops and flip-flops. Yawn. In October you are allowed to cover yourself from top to toe in tweed, knitwear, patterned tights, fluffy things, large hats and even larger scarves that almost bury your face. Colourful or in greyscale, it doesn’t really matter! Your rosy cheeks will provide the colour, if nothing else.

Knit your own, grab your parents’ retro style or buy something new – go all out or stay classy. Boots are of course needed, but thankfully you don’t need really snug footwear like in winter, so the choice is wide open to pick the pretty ones. Don’t deny yourself this joy, enjoy your wardrobe this autumn!

Snug as a bug in a beautiful rug…

Cold

So, the idea of the temperature already heading in a downward curve is especially painful this year as our summer only lasted 3 weeks – This is my own estimation, not the BBCs.

The thing is, when we haven’t stocked up on enough sun rays, it’s the equivalent of a mobile phone that hasn’t been plugged into the charger for long enough: you can only press the ‘Dismiss’ button so many times. Why was this summer so short, anyway?! Can we blame an Icelandic volcano or some horrendous Bond villain?

Although, in perspective I think we are OK: in the miserable year of 535, they didn’t see any proper sunshine at all and as a result ALL of their crops failed. Major crop fail. Later, in 1816, the temperature was so disastrously low that they even saw snow in summer! So let’s wrap up and shut up, the sun will shine once more.

Change

My very favourite autumn feature is the tangibility of change. It’s everywhere. The air goes crisp and lovely, leaving you looking ridiculous as you try to breathe it in with your whole face – it makes you feel utterly free. Then there’s the yellow, red, orange and brown leaves that make the world look magical, and the sound as they rustle along the street becomes a real life soundtrack. People slow their pace and treat each other to hot chocolates in cosy cafes, taking their time to enjoy the little things. On a quiet day, I adore taking long autumn walks in a park or a favourite borough with a great friend, both snugly wrapped up in yarn and talking nonsense until our noses freeze. Maybe I just live in a fairy tale world, but is there anything better than watching the world transform before your eyes, in an instant and feeling that you are really part of it, too?

Signed, an autumn kind of girl.

And that’s how its done

Five 90s Icons that made me who I am today

by Ciara Burke

1. Claudia Kishi  

I bet if I’d had friends as a young girl, we would have had a really cool gang with a clubhouse. We would have sat around, cross-legged like a team of angry Buddhists, drinking bottles of 30p score coke and eating Roy of the Rovers bars and we would have said cool, girlish things like “Oh my God,” (did kids say that in the 90s?), “you are such a Mary-Anne!”.

Okay, so I actually spent my summers solo, still cross-legged in the library, eating as many young adult fiction and Wordsworth Classics I could fit into myself. My clubhouse was a shed outside my bedroom window which my father had intended to be used for his tools, but which I carpeted, notice-boarded and sat in on my own telling myself that I was “oh my God, such a Claudia!”.

Okay, so the beginning of that story is really kind of sad, but it is undeniable that Claudia Kishi is a cultural icon, and unequivocally, without contest or opposition, the best member of the Babysitters Club and the only girl I wanted to be so much when I was eight years old that the yearning actually hurt me. OK, so she’s beautiful, creative, personable, fiercely independent, messy and relished in letting her freak flag fly. I was two to three of these things at a maximum and the only one that was a dead-cert was the messiness, but in my head she was everything I wanted to be. She was the misunderstood babysitter, pushed by her family and constantly compared to her annoyingly astute older sister, Janine, when all she wanted was to MAKE MEANINGFUL ART. And lest I forget she was basically a literary  fashion icon. Check out this ahead-of-the-hipster-vibe outfit from Abby the Bad Sport:

…she was in a little crop-top muscle shirt that she had batikked green and blue. She’d sewed a bunch of buttons up the front as if it were a vest. She also had on skinny black shorts, one blue sock and one green sock, and black Doc Martens with one blue shoelace (on the foot with the green sock) and one green shoelace (on the foot with the blue sock). Her long black hair had been gathered into a single braid. A blue ribbon with more buttons attached to it was woven into the braid. Her earrings? Buttons, naturally.

She also ate a truckload of junk food AND MADE JEWELLERY FROM THE ENTRAILS. I don’t mean to descend into hyperbole, but truth is, I still want to be her.

2.  Fran Fine

‘The Nanny’ has had something of a Renaissance in the Bad Salad HQ. It happened incidentally when I asked Emy what she was doing one evening and she said, sort of offhand like it was “no big deal”, that she was watching ‘The Nanny’. I kind of stopped in my tracks, because prior to this I hadn’t thought about this show since I was about ten. I remembered it being funny, visually iconic, but I wasn’t prepared to come back as an adult and actually find that it was pure, unadulterated perfection.

There are so many things to love about this show: the ridiculously attractive should-be-fake-English-actually-real-English Charles Shaughnessy with his decidedly unattractive wardrobe (such long blazers! Why so long?), the gloriously deadpan, Freudian woman-child Grace, the scene where Niles the Butler goes Risky Business in his boxers and blows my pre-pubescent mind, every single thing C.C. says, does and drinks, GRANDMA YETTA…

I could go on and on and on and on, but really we all know the thing that makes this show not only the thoroughly excellent success that it was in the 90s but a cultural anomoly that stands the test of time, is Fran Dreschner’s autobiographical Aphrodite, Fran Fine. She is ballsy, opinionated, at times philosophical, caring, hilarious and has the most insane family that she loves without condition. She does not let ANYONE walk all over her, she’s ambitious and lets face it, has the most amazing wardrobe I’ve ever seen -particular props to the rainbow waistcoat, which we at BS have been trying to emulate ever since. Above all though, my favourite thing about Fran Fine is that she constantly proves everyone wrong. For every instance where someone writes her off as a loudmouth bimbo, Fran has gone out of her way to prove that she is not only an impressive set of ten foot legs, she is an intelligent woman in her own right. She is a godforsaken ICON.

3. Daria Morgendorffer

Tailing the late 90s, but still catching me in that pre-teen period before my the introduction of my “monthly visitor” (as my mother still continues to call it) made me into a Real Woman, Daria was an iconic MTV creation when MTV was still really cool and not just one long infomercial for mediocrity. Who knew her favourite TV show Sick, Sad World would basically pre-empt  the cultural media trends we know and love today? Who knew MTV would basically turn into the joke-like cesspit it so acutely satirised in the 90s?

With her glib but somehow soothing monotone, Daria helped drag me through that  metamorphosis from vulnerable, pink cheeked power ranger, to angst ridden teenaged-something that hated everything and everyone with punctuation and style. Bangs, thick nerdy glasses, black stompy boots a la Ghost World, ridiculous crush on ridiculous guy in ridiculous band, inseparable other half/best friend/artist bad ass sidekick, Jane – gotta say, Daria had it going on. It also had the best theme-tune ever:

4. Cher Horowitz

On the surface a bit more Quin than Daria, Cher is none-the-less one of the most memorable female icons of the 90s. I’m already a massive fan of Jane Austen’s Emma and this is perhaps my favourite modern adaptation. One of my favourite things about Cher, aside from that amazing computer of hers that chooses her outfits, is that she is not perfect. Like Emma, she can be superficial and cliquey.

image: thefashpack.onsugar.com

She is however not your standard american prom queen; she is  always good natured and well intending to a fault and genuinely tries to help people with some of her hare-brained schemes. Sometimes it takes her mistakes for her to see that her intentions are not always for the best, but she always comes good in the end, and importantly is humble enough to learn from her mistakes. As it happens, she also happens to bag man-of-my-dreams Paul Rudd, even if this incarnation is a bit Radiohead for my liking. He does get infinite props from young Ciara for reading Nietzsche with a burgeoning beard. He may have set the mold there.

5. The Spice Girls

Did you think you’d get through this without them? They basically invented 90s Girl Power in some form or another, and quite unlike most of the pop stars we have to put up with today, they genuinely had an amazing message for young girls. Some of the many lessons I learned from Scary, Baby, Posh, Sporty and Ginger that I still utilise today:

• If you wanna get with me, you gotta get with my friends. Because when your friends tell you that someone is not good for you, be it romantically or otherwise, they know what they are talking about. It also says a lot about a relationship when someone does not try to get with your friends. It says that your world is not important to that person, and that is not OK.
• Smilin’, dancin’, everything is free, all you need is positivity. Ain’t that the truth. This is a mantra to live your life by no matter what way you look at it. We’re stuck in what can only be described as the culture of not-giving-a-fuck and it seems like some good old fashioned positive thinking is pretty much what the world needs right now.
• Giving is good as long as your getting. Genuine, perfect, flawless relationship advice to take to the bank.

I could go on you know, but essentially the message of the Spice Girls is proper, in the face of it all BEING YOURSELF.