Jack Monroe #54 Thank you so Matt much, Matt

[acca00]

Has anyone read Lowborn by Kerry Hudson? It's an excellent (but very harrowing in places) book by someone who really did grow up in poverty and has made good. I really recommend it.

I read it. I believed her, totally - but I found her to be manipulative. The way she spoke to people in the street, and the woman at the school (if I remember) was odd, to me. She used the book to attack her mother. By the end of it I disliked her, in that I didn't trust her. At least, that's just my view. And she left huge gaps - I mean, what was the story with her mother? The book kind of stopped in 1997?! What happened in the interim?

 

[Pocahontas]

Guys, just making the new thread. If you have any humdingers to post, save them!

 

[Captainmouse]

It's just like the equally awful EL James writng 50 shades on a blackberry. Plagiarism all round!

so merge el James and jk Rowling = R Jackie

 

[jenny2603]

I too, would love to know what work she’s been doing with families over the last few years in relation to poverty and cooking.

Anyone know what she’s referring to?

It's hard to say but if she'd been doing any serious work she'd know that her anecdotes about her gap year in poverty are so out of date they're useless and tell us literally nothing about what being on benefits in 2020 is like. The system back then, awful as it was, was actually better.

There has certainly been no in depth front line engagement of any kind, had there been she'd be able to draw on other people's stories to provide anecdotal evidence of the problems with the system.

I can see no evidence that her "work" on this issue involves more than being performing anger on social media. I suppose it's possible she might bore a few MPs privately with tales from her poverty safari but it's not really work is it?

 

[Don't @ admin]

No, but Miguel Barclay did. She's so over!!!

Off topic but I forgot to mention that last week I did Miguel Barlclay's mushroom risotto and his veggie paella and was really impressed with how simple and chap they were and actually tasted delicious.

 

[Lanie]

Also I still cannot work out how she couldn't have sorted something out with her family, kids father and or childcare so she could still work.

My mum and dad were entitled to no benefits when I was a kid( 90s) so my mum worked evenings and my dad worked days, so they could look after us, if in the odd occasion my mum or dad had to work extra or change shift my grandparents did it. ( And they were not the most helpful with childcare ordinarily, only for work and weddings.) Plus they also worked at the time. ( Before retired

 

[emmer_moans]

Id never heard of half GCSEs! My school didnt do them, we only had double awards as an extra.

Its weird to be hung up on GCSEs as an adult in their 30s. Like you say, employers wont care!

My school did half GCSEs in Religious Studies. Think it was a quick win to add extra points on school league table for minimal contact time. I think we had like 1 hour a week for it or something like that.

 

[Pocahontas]

Jack Monroe #55 Are you aware of my work, Barbara?

Congratulations to @Brian Butterfield for the thread title! 104 reactions at last count 🎉 You are now esteemed with an honorary double doctorate in thread titles. Well, here we are again 24 hours later. Recap of thread #54: After 114 hours and 47 minutes (four-and-a-half days), Jack Monroe...

tattle.life

New thread!

 

[Gentlemensrelish]

Id never heard of half GCSEs! My school didnt do them, we only had double awards as an extra.

Its weird to be hung up on GCSEs as an adult in their 30s. Like you say, employers wont care!

I know, it's like men in their 50s whose first fact about themselves is they went to Oxbridge. Like, has nothing happened in the intervening 30 years?!?

And we know that A LOT has happened to Jack. So much. Really. Most eventful.

 

[Toffee finger]

A Frau (apologies for not remembering who) suggested a JM glossary. I undertook this Herculean task this evening, quickly realising that it is far beyond the means of one lone Frau. I now understand how Dr Johnson felt writing the dictionary. This attempt only scrapes the surface....

Spoiler: Glossary

Bandwagon: for jumping on with emphatic abandon and the fire of 1000 suns. Abandon the
moment the social media likes start to drop off.
BUSY: JM’s usual status. For many of us, life is busy. The NHS is busy. Scientists trying to find a
Covid vaccine are busy. Working single parents are busy. Jack, though, is BUSY. See the
difference, mofos?
Body of work: usage - ‘read my whole’.
Buying followers: a mystical, sinister phrase which, when uttered by Tattlers, summons JM to the
thread like Candyman.
Cabal: a glorious, empathetic ray of sunshine.
Canal: an autocorrect of cabal which has been joyfully embraced. Think Venice, not industrial
shopping-trolley filled waterway.
Chaos: usage, ‘I did a chaos’. When you have been paid for a professional performance, duck it
right up and revel in it.
Chippy chips : shorthand for a quest that is impossible and will never be fulfilled. Think trying to
find the Holy Grail, in space while riding a donkey and chewing on a unicorn.
Churn: verb, used for the effortless production of best-sellers.
Cotswold Company, The: a cheap-as-chips vegan sideboard specialist.
Corned beef: grate it. Grate it like a goddamn motherfucker.
Cough up a lung: an action JM threatened to perform when Daily Kitchen Live was renewed as a
result of the Cabal’s contribution to the viewing figures. Reader, it was not renewed. All lungs were
safe.
Dishoom: an independent Edinburgh restaurant known only to born and bred locals, patronised
by JM on her recent trip.
Edinburgh sleeper: budget travel for the income-uneasy.
Five figures: a paltry sum.
Five Guys: a small, independent Aberdeen Angus-themed burger bar in a tiny, medieval
backstreet of Edinburgh, still run by the same kilted family who founded it 900 years ago.
Forearms: Matt off Daily Kitchen live has a fine pair, often noted by keen-eyed fraus.
Frau: a member of the cabal. A JM follower referred to Tattlers as ‘sad hausfraus’. We have owned
it.
Government adviser: a badge of honour you’re entitled to when you sign a 38 Degrees petition.
Groucho: a central London food bank
Grunking/Grunka’ing/Grunka Lunkering: frau GrunkaLunka is a legend on the JM threads and
viewed as a Dr Who figure. They once undertook an epic, time-spinning journey through all the
JM threads while simultaneously sending reactions to posts into the future, where fraus were
reading the threads in real-time. It blew all our minds.
Hair loss: when you shave off your hair.

Holmes, Eamonn: the Anglicised name of an Easter Island statue brought on as an unimpressed
backdrop to JM’s lingreenie segment on This Morning.
Home - variously, Edinburgh, Southend, Belfast, the lemon groves of Cyprus (to be continued….)
Howling: a generic term to describe pain. If you pitch it any less dramatically you’re unlikely to get
TV work.
Hyperbole: standard writing style used for writing about your hardships and wild, motherfucking
successes.
I’m not going anywhere: a phrase used when you’re about to go somewhere, generally Edinburgh.
Letdown Larder - the fraus renaming of the chaotic ‘Leftover Larder’ Hellmann’s paid a fortune for.
Maverick: a descriptor used by JM to describe her brain and carefree, smarter-than-you, off-the-
wall and generally special approach to life.
Maverick, Tom Cruise gif: the fraus’ most popular gif, featuring a twinkly-eyed Tom smiling and
putting on a pair of shades. This is the equivalent of catnip to many fraus and can multiply the
amount of time it takes to read a thread by 20 each time it’s used. This makes GrunkaLunka’s feat
even more impressive.
Michael Fassbender: the ultimate lesbian test
Mince, fat content: unknown, a mystery.
NOW: as in ‘I only have one cat now’. A time phenomenon, not unrelated to GrunkaLunka’s
warping of time, in which JM can only count or confirm elements in her life right NOW. Yes, she
may have had 3 sideboards 5 minutes ago, but she has only 1 that she is sitting on NOW.
Origin story: JM is a super-hero to the poor and society generally. She doesn’t have a biography
or a CV, she has an origin story. For God’s sake, read it.
Ouchy: a term used to describe the worst pain known to a living being. You can’t even imagine it
because, no matter what you’ve been through, JM has been through FAR worse. I mean, have
you even attempted to have lip fillers?
Passive aggressive lemon: JM’s social media strategy.
Patreon: a benefit any middle-class Twitter activist is entitled to by law.
Political prisoner: an overseas personage imprisoned by a vile, despotic government who is
wholly dependent on JM’s DMs for their chance of liberty. Just think how different Nelson
Mandela’s life could have been if JM and her Twitter had been around.
Putin: famously funds the cabal. If you’re a regular contributor but you haven’t been getting
sweet, sweet Bitcoin email [email protected] to rectify.
Self-employed: the lowest social strata.
Shed: a much-trumpeted outbuilding that had its transformation trailed on social media with more
fanfare than a royal wedding. Quickly abandoned due to lack of interest.

Shins: an anatomical feature of the classic pervert. Should you see a bearer of ‘shins’, you must
kick them immediately. You’re far too hot not to.
crappy bungalow - a lovely, light airy home with multiple bedrooms, a duck-off bathroom, big
kitchen, room for 3 sideboards, an additional floor and a garden big enough to lose wysteria in.
Sideboard: a highly versatile piece of equipment. You can build your biceps by shifting a 93kg one
of these bad boys into your house, pop onto it for a reclining photoshoot in your pants before
gamely grating a courgette on its shimmering surface.
Silver Linings: the archivist of the thread. The Rector of Receipts. The Cataloguer of the Cabal.
Widely-admired.
Single parent: when you have, by your own admission, a wonderful, caring co-parent to share
childcare with but he isn’t in the room with you NOW, thus rendering you a single parent without
childcare.
Social media break: the 5 mins you take off Twitter while you’re lugging a 93kg sideboard into one
of your reception rooms.
Thankyou: a sticking together of two words that are conventionally used to express gratitude in
order to shut down a Twitter interaction.
Thankyou very Matt much Matt: a variation on the traditional ‘thankyou’, this is a way to close off
an unsuccessful stint on a live cooking show, removing all gratitude for your co-presenter.
Tongue - appliance for taking selfies. Remember to learn how to use a camera timer, though, so
you can get a picture of the ‘tongue’ in action.
Triangulate: JM claims to have a particular set of skills that would make Liam Neeson’s kneecaps
implode with envy and she is not afraid to use it to knock on the front doors of the trembling
cabal.
Vegan (90%): a particularly hardcore sector of veganism where eating cheap hot-dogs is allowed
for 90% of the time, as long as the other 10% comprises bottled lemon juice
yes, absolutely x: this is the term you can roll out when asked for a professional opinion on
anything. See also: Father Ted’s ‘That would be an ecumenical matter’.

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I’m only on page 37 but just had to comment on how brilliant this is, well done!

 

[Veronicaaa]

Also I still cannot work out how she couldn't have sorted something out with her family, kids father and or childcare so she could still work.

I think she's said before that she felt this isn't why people become parents (ie she wanted to spend time with her child rather than, you know, work to to provide for him). Another example of her unthinking privilege.