Apart from two recipes that are essentially cook pasta add stuff, didn't she have a proof reader or an editor? Looks like her publishers don't give a flying guck about quality. Maybe assuming that the Jackolytes will buy whatever vastly rushed out crap that she's produces.I feel like she is aiming for something like this... but missing the mark by a way. It’s how you use the words, not just showing that you know them, innit?
No prizes for guessing the author here I’m afraid.
Indeed. I often get the sense that the JackolytesApart from two recipes that are essentially cook pasta add stuff, didn't she have a proof reader or an editor? Looks like her publishers don't give a flying guck about quality. Maybe assuming that the Jackolytes will buy whatever vastly rushed out crap that she's produces.
Has anyone else noticed that there are multiple disparaging accounts that very clearly have been created by the same person? lots of digital breadcrumbs / a clear template of identity.
@lipsticktaser I think we might be the same person. I also had my eldest at 19 too. I totally get what you’re saying.
I’ve felt so judged throughout my life, even now I’m normal mum age and finally have proper mum friends which is nice but I do often feel insecure. Having to mature so early has such an effect on you mentally and emotionally.
Like Jack I also got into a financial mess for a brief period when my child was 1-2 years and things were admittedly shit. There was a lot to learn about money and life that I just wasn’t ready for but I survived and managed to turn it around with the support (emotional not financial) of my family. It’s scary how a brief period of time can have such a massive knock on effect to your life but you have to grow up and move on. I’m a year younger than Jack so we would have been struggling around the same time. Back then in 2008-2009 there was quite a fair amount of help available, more than there is these days. Yes it was horrible but it’s been years since, if I harped on about it every day it would eat me up inside. I can’t understand why she’s not evolved.
So much love for this, thanks @FlumpsHi Jack, I am fairly sure you check in here regularly. I am going to give you some unsolicited advice now, it is coming from a good place, but it is going to be of the 'take no prisoners' variety. While I'm sure you'll disregard it as I am an evil troll, it is well meant.
Shut up about your woes. What you are suffering from is a case of 'being a human'. I will not play misery top trumps with you, but I certainly could, and the truth is it's most likely that the person next to me, and the person next to them, and the person next to them (you see where this is going now, right) could do it too. Sometimes life is hard, sometimes life throws shitty things at you and you know what, that's just what it is. We have all got our baggage, and we could all be drowned in it. It really sucks.
But you know what, it also throws good things at you, all the fucking time. And you are not getting that. Sure, I've seen posts from you about the positives, but they don't ring true, and when the chips are down you always circle back to the bad stuff. You've got to stop doing that. For your own sake. And something else for free, all that bad stuff, there's things in it that are good. Firstly, and basically, pain teaches us things, even if it's just that we can cope with it, that it builds us, and strengthens us. It teaches us about human kindness when people show it to us when things are tough. It teaches us that, often, humour and laughter and smiles are to be found in everything, every day.
I will give you a personal anecdote here. I was once waiting for an MRI to assess the stage of a cancerous tumour. I was scared, so scared, I was not a big, brave person, I knew I had cancer, but I did not know how bad it was and I did not know what treatments I was going to have to go through, and I was *not* a good, strong cancer patient. I was a nervous wreck. There was a huge backlog for the MRI machine that day, as I'd been raced through to get it done quickly, so my mum and I were sitting for hours in a waiting room. She eventually got out a pack of cards (fuck knows *why* my mum had a pack of cards in her handbag, but she is a clever woman) and to the bemusement of everyone around us we started playing knock out whist. Then, eventually, we drew an audience, then a couple of random players, and the whole room was full of people connecting. You know what, I could choose to remember that day as an awful day, and it is my tendency to do that, but I don't, I choose to remember that hour or so, where everyone laughed and the world was ok for a bit. And the bit after, when my mum and I went and sat on a bench in the pretty hospital garden for a bit before we left, and just chatted about plants and gardening and medical students and made up names and lives for them all. The point is, I'm nothing special, I don't have a huge inner strength, or a particularly stunning personality, but everyone can choose to do this. Not be a Pollyanna, but there is always joy if you are prepared to pick that.
I don't see you picking joy. I see you doubling down on whatever sadness there is currently in your life. I'm truly sorry, but there will always be sadness, and it is ok to spend a few hours or a few days dwelling on that (though I would always suggest doing that privately and with people you can trust, the ideal would be with professionals who can guide you through it), but I have learnt, starting when I was so very young, that there is always a possibility for joy and laughter and, it sounds trite, but don't underestimate it, fun, to be had, even in the darkest of days. Fix on that, remember those moments and let the painful ones go. It's harder than I make it sound. I know. The pain will keep coming back, and you can let it in for short periods, but don't wallow, keep on going. Not manically, but calmly, just let the days happen until you wake up one day and realise that there is less pain. However, there's a problem. Pain can be attractive, having it bad can be attractive, you get sympathy, and love, and attention. I know, I've gone in for that too. It's so easy to endlessly recycle pain and never move on from it. I see you doing that and you should stop. Plus, it feels unfair, so you (generic you) focus on that too. 'Why me? Why is it always me?' I can help with that one though. It's not always you, or rather it is, but it's always everyone else too. There's always something, nearly always, and I think the best thing I can say here is that you have to accept it, maybe some level of pain (mental, physical, emotional) is part of the human condition and rather than rail against those parts, accept them (this is dull constant work for me and for most) and celebrate the days that are wonderful as shining lights in your life, rather than your right all the time. We are all of us both not special and incredibly special all at the same time.
Now, to the toughest love part. You're being ungrateful, everyone is sometimes, but you are being especially ungrateful in my, obviously not so humble, opinion. I will compare you to me now, and to millions of other people, I have pain, I have a lot of pain, I also have very limited opportunities. I have to work in a job that I find often dull, it's certainly not what I thought my life would be. I have to do it, because I have bills to pay, on my own, and a child to support. I live in a small house, I struggle often, I don't have any *big* chances to do good. I would like to do some good, but I am short on time and energy to do that once I'm done with the business of living and staying alive. But mostly I have no platform. You, though, you have choices. You have a platform, you have opportunities (please don't tell me that you don't and that you are too much of a maverick, you've written in newspapers, you've been on a daily TV show on BBC1, you have sold many, many books). You have a voice and a career doing something that you apparently love. Those are such huge gifts and I feel like maybe you have lost sight of them, because they are somehow normalised to you now (that's not a criticism, that's just the way of people, we get accustomed to what we have). So, stop using that platform to explain to everyone that your life is hard, I'm happy to accept some of it is, because, as extensively covered, it is for us all. Use it to bring joy, to lift the world up a little bit, and celebrate that good fortune (that, ironically came out of some of your pain, as a lot of good fortune does). Well done on managing that, by the way, now stop cycling back to the pain, and move on. Focus on people having a worse time than you, that helps me, and lift them up. Stop being thirsty, you don't need any more validation, follow that need up in therapy, not online. Stop misery top-trumps, they are awful and they drag *everyone* down. Crack on and be better. Talk about this in therapy. Not what has gone wrong, but how it's made you who you are, and what positives and negative there are from that. Resolve to fix the negatives (even if it feels unfair that you have to do that, I'm afraid it's only you who can). Good luck. It's hard, but you're obviously an intelligent woman, you could do this if you chose to. If you feel you are at rock bottom, then I know it seems unfair to have to do more work, but when could there be a better time to start? Don't recycle behaviours, find new ones.
Ok. That is an essay.
TLDR - Jack. Shape up. You're just experiencing life, not some exquisite form of torture only inflicted on you. Make better choices. Go back to therapy. Celebrate your gifts and your opportunities. Stop looking for external validation. For god's sake STOP PLAYING MISERY TOP TRUMPS FROM TODAY. Best of luck.
I’m from Essex as well and would say cover teacherIs it a regional term? I'm essex and say supply teacher
She needs to sit her middle class, white, poverty-cosplay arse down
Unfortunately tahini is a lot more expensive than peanut butter and a lot harder to find. I'm happy to use cheap basics peanut butter in hummus, but my husband whines about it so once in a while we will splash out on tahini.MILK?!!! Also is tahini really that much more expensive than peanut butter anyway? Hummus is the most wonderfully simple recipe why does she have to ruin everything
I’m from Essex as well and would say cover teacher
FUCKING THIS!!!!!Appalled that she’s trying to muscle her way into Marcus Rashford’s achievements
He’s a young black man from a poor, single parent family who has achieved something amazing against the odds. She needs to sit her middle class, white, poverty-cosplay arse down
Well... I'm going to sit here and not take offence at this.An age thing? Used to be Supply Teacher back in the dark ages when local councils employed permanent supply staff to send out to schools.
I’m <40 and I say supply. Also, a bread roll is a .....bap.Well... I'm going to sit here and not take offence at this.
Or put on your too big sports bra and girdle and straddle a sideboard? Go back 10 pages.CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
You've slept for two and a half hours after those morons on Twitter failed to cure your insomnia. Episode 4 of your Instagram Live "show" is going out in a few hours. You've remembered to delete all the posts you made about how awful your ex is, but you still have time to kill.
If you REHEARSE YOUR SHOW AND TRY TO RELAX, turn to page 18.
If you START HAVING BEEF WITH STRANGERS ON TWITTER, turn to page 27.
I think this is a really good point about her arrested development. The single mum living in poverty is the thing she comes back to as it made her name. I honestly think it's the only thing she feels she can comment on with any gravitas because she lived it and 'literally wrote the book.' However, she fails to see that it was 10 years ago and she's still telling the same story. I work within the welfare system and see these issues day to day-they absolutely are still there but she is not. I'm not trying to take away the fact that she went through a difficult time but recycling your story and shouting at people on Twitter doesn't make you an activist. It's not going to change much. Marcus Rashford has shown over lockdown what someone with a platform can do.She really is exhausting. We know she reads here. I mentioned Marcus Rushford a good few threads ago, she had ample time to get involved. She’s proven time and time again she’s all mouth when it comes to campaigning. I really think she thinks bunging a few cookbooks over is enough.
We’ve mentioned other charities she could work for (chefs in schools being one I mentioned). Perhaps she thinks her recipes are enough. But again, as we’ve discussed, food bank users really aren’t going to try mix 4 cans together, when one can be a meal.
I think she’s stuck at the age and point she came into the limelight. For a long time I felt emotionally stunted at 19 as it’s when I got pregnant. I went on full on mum mode and didn’t work on myself or mature. It’s taken me a long time (and therapy) to get there. I think JM might be in a similar predicament, but she just uses ADHD and autism as an excuse.
I flew off the handle at a cyclist who cut me off the other day. I’d had a bad few days. I shouldn’t have done it. Could of blamed my BPD for lack of impulse control and anger outburst. Reality... I was just being a cunt.
Ah I suppose my Brighton bubble is showing here - there are plenty of Turkish shops where you can get massive jars of tahini for a couple of quid but appreciate that’s not the case everywhere. I think I’d be more inclined to not use any tahini substitute in that case and maybe just add some extra chickpea water and a handful of sesame seeds!Unfortunately tahini is a lot more expensive than peanut butter and a lot harder to find. I'm happy to use cheap basics peanut butter in hummus, but my husband whines about it so once in a while we will splash out on tahini.
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