Jack Monroe #601 Replican't

[Lazarus]

Same as when her very close friends start dying in pairs; nobody ever pipes up to say: Paul was a lovely guy, we’ll miss him…
I think *all* of it is make believe. I think people who know her personally either read those kind of things on her social media and think:
‘She’s got a much wider circle of friends than I knew about because nobody else I know has mentioned this’,or they just know she’s lying.

 

[People-huv-tae-know]

This is such a guest thing to post, although she didn't.

 

[frostily]

Just to check…is guest, in fact, real? Or is this some black mirror thing? What if she’s just a hologram/AI & big media is all in on it?

 

[Whiffy McBiffy]

She already decided to tell 500k strangers he was in therapy a couple of years ago. I know some people here think the tales of trammies and blackout drunkenness are made up for attention (which is a reasonable assumption because she lies about bleeping everything), but regardless of how much did or didn't happen, it's clear that having such a narc nightmare for a parent has ducked the poor kid up at least to some extent.

I'm willing to bet my career that her stories about drinking a whole bottle of whiskey a day are horseshit. I'm a fifteen stone bloke, and put it this way, I like a drink. Just the smell of even the nicest whiskey burns the hairs off my a, and a couple of shots of something like Bells would literally make me puke.

Many years ago, I lost a very dear friend to drink. She was a very petite girl, and she didn't even touch alcohol til after she'd left university. Her poison was Southern Comfort, mixed with lemonade in social situations, out of a pint glass by herself. She was hardcore. She woke up at 6 o'clock like we all do, but instead of eating, she drank alcohol. She held on to her job, but her drinking ruined the rest of her life. She became a liability to be around, and a deeply untrustworthy and devious person in her pursuit of the only thing that mattered to her: Alcohol. By the time she was twenty eight she looked like a walking corpse, and was told by her GP to stop drinking or die. She weighed about six stone, she began to suffer from psychosis, and her liver had already given way to hepatitis. She died from a scarred liver aged just thirty. Her mum died a few years later from a broken heart.

Jack is an attention seeking fraud and buller, who thinks stories like the one I just told are cool and trendy. That's her speciality: Edgy bleeping stories that she's completely unqualified to talk about.

 

[Lazarus]

I also don’t believe she had an alcohol addiction or is in recovery.
what troubles me though, like a lot of the lies she tells:
If it’s true, it’s bad; if it’s a lie, it’s chilling.
This ^ applies to alcoholism, 40 tramadol a day, her son being dragged round streets in the rain wearing shoes that were too small whilst she was asking all and sundry for a a job, stealing food from bins, living rough, being a sex worker etc etc.

 

[StatusWoe]

She already decided to tell 500k strangers he was in therapy a couple of years ago. I know some people here think the tales of trammies and blackout drunkenness are made up for attention (which is a reasonable assumption because she lies about bleeping everything), but regardless of how much did or didn't happen, it's clear that having such a narc nightmare for a parent has ducked the poor kid up at least to some extent.

I'm not disagreeing with this, but it's possible that SB's problems are unrelated to Jack. Teenage years can be difficult and you never know what else might be happening in his life. Depression, bullying...all stuff that could be unconnected to Jack. And we don't really know what his dad's like as a parent.

I still can't believe she told all of Twitter about him having therapy. It's like that stupid tangent on Question Time where she told everyone about SB and his friends vaping. She's always tripping over herself to say something funny or shocking for attention, and ends up dragging other people into her stories.
---

Same as when her very close friends start dying in pairs; nobody ever pipes up to say: Paul was a lovely guy, we’ll miss him…
I think *all* of it is make believe. I think people who know her personally either read those kind of things on her social media and think:
‘She’s got a much wider circle of friends than I knew about because nobody else I know has mentioned this’,or they just know she’s lying.

I don't understand how Jack wouldn't be embarrassed being caught in a lie by IRL friends. She must be immune to shame.

 

[pumbilical cord]

These days I’d rather have a real fake.

Is that an offer to peripateticically, perpendicularly, pepperingly, picklingly scoop our smol pixie up and take her home?

 

[BeardyBap]

I'm willing to bet my career that her stories about drinking a whole bottle of whiskey a day are horseshit. I'm a fifteen stone bloke, and put it this way, I like a drink. Just the smell of even the nicest whiskey burns the hairs off my a, and a couple of shots of something like Bells would literally make me puke.

Many years ago, I lost a very dear friend to drink. She was a very petite girl, and she didn't even touch alcohol til after she'd left university. Her poison was Southern Comfort, mixed with lemonade in social situations, out of a pint glass by herself. She was hardcore. She woke up at 6 o'clock like we all do, but instead of eating, she drank alcohol. She held on to her job, but her drinking ruined the rest of her life. She became a liability to be around, and a deeply untrustworthy and devious person in her pursuit of the only thing that mattered to her: Alcohol. By the time she was twenty eight she looked like a walking corpse, and was told by her GP to stop drinking or die. She weighed about six stone, she began to suffer from psychosis, and her liver had already given way to hepatitis. She died from a scarred liver aged just thirty. Her mum died a few years later from a broken heart.

Jack is an attention seeking fraud and buller, who thinks stories like the one I just told are cool and trendy. That's her speciality: Edgy bleeping stories that she's completely unqualified to talk about.

Sometimes a bottle and a half. Swapping whiskey for vodka if she was ‘working’.

Like you, I lost a friend at around the same age. In fact, his doctor told him that it was because his heavy intake stopped abruptly (having turned to religion, ironically) that the damage was done. Clicking online sideboards it was not.

See also her “I went sober a week ago and I feel wonderful!” article

 

[Cookiecookie]

It's the way she likes to make out they lead such a wholesome life. Jack hun, according to you you let your child go cold and hungry. Then in more recent years you've admitted to being permanently off your skull on drink and drugs. Wholesome, I don't think.

And the more she tries, the weirder it sounds. No child in the history of the world has ever acted like Jack's version of SB. They just haven't.

 

[Five hundred dogs]

I also don’t believe she had an alcohol addiction or is in recovery.
what troubles me though, like a lot of the lies she tells:
If it’s true, it’s bad; if it’s a lie, it’s chilling.
This ^ applies to alcoholism, 40 tramadol a day, her son being dragged round streets in the rain wearing shoes that were too small whilst she was asking all and sundry for a a job, stealing food from bins, living rough, being a sex worker etc etc.

My feeling is that her alcohol issues probably fell into a middle ground between regular but not problematic consumption, and true dependence. A position a lot of people find themselves in at some stage of their life. Some people can cut down or give up alone, while others need some outside help. It’s nothing remarkable or out of the ordinary, but with Jack’s tendency to elevenirife everything she turns her average experience into the worst, most severe evah. It’s the same with the tramadol. I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure forty a day would either kill a person or leave them with long lasting damage. I can believe however that she had a short term addiction to prescription opiates. She doesn’t seem to realise that exaggerating and lying about stuff to try to make yourself look as edgy as possible actually makes you look ridiculous.

 

[Onestorytoomany]

I believe she is a binge drinker. She may not be reliant on booze but she is definately drinks to the excess and makes a massive tit of herself. I know someone who makes up tit to sound interesting but literally rattle around on her own most of the time. I do no believe jack has friends but acquaintances who talk to her when they see her out and about, but cannot be arsed with her other than that.

 

[Lobster Johnson]

The trainers are real ones. I'm just happy to have some trainers and some socks. Don't care where they come from (just as long as they're black )

I have a bad Jordans habit since I got divorced, because nobody is over my shoulder asking where my own money is going.

 

[bracrumbs]

I’ve always suspected that Jack’s alcoholism was an elevenrife production.

I imagine she drank as most people do, it turned up her worse traits and she embarrassed herself or a partner. Probably a partner. Partner threatened to leave because it was so hideous, Jack said ”nooo, don’t go, I’m a fool when I drink, I’ll never drink again!”

Hence the burglar Bill pictures after a week to prove she was a changed woman. And that got lots of lovely attention so she threw herself into ‘recovery’.

I think the chips to show sobriety she showed were bought off eBay but I think she probably did go to AA. Again, it’s trapped people, they have to spend time with her, they have to listen when she honks on. It would have appealed to her hugely - self reflection is very important in recovery but she could just navel gaze at a surface level about herself all day.

and to go to rehab? She would have loved that. What a way to show you’re not like the ordinary plebs out there, you’re special and most importantly, you now have an out for all your terrible behaviour.

of course, i apologise to our fraus and herrs who have suffered from addiction because none of the above is how it works. But it’s how a devious smol pixie would use it to her advantage.

 

[Carefree]

I have a bad Jordans habit since I got divorced, because nobody is over my shoulder asking where my own money is going.

Good for you! Mine is Adidas Original and Vans. But I've also never been married or with a kid to support. Your one, guest, acts like the money is never ending.

 

[Lobster Johnson]

Good for you! Mine is Adidas Original and Vans. But I've also never been married or with a kid to support. Your one, guest, acts like the money is never ending.

well, she did get the whole house in the divorce and there are no kids. So my outgoings are very limited these days. Apart from trainers

 

[Phillipa78]

I've been listening to radio 4 all day cos I'm FANCY.

It was all about the Shipping Forecast.

A bit of it was about King Cnut....which made me think.... have we had "Queen Cnut" as a thread title?

Probably

She certainly believes she can hold back the tides of public opinion.

 

[Limey]

Good for you! Mine is Adidas Original and Vans. But I've also never been married or with a kid to support. Your one, guest, acts like the money is never ending.

I'm Adidas all the way! I earn the money to pay for them, though, just like you.

On Guest's bottle of whisky a day habit. If she was drinking that much, she would be dead, end of story.

I continue to believe she claimed that (and the later Tramadol balls) because it's a lot harder to justify a raging coke addiction if you're claiming to be a poor starving smol pixie. People are slightly more sympathetic to alcohol addiction, because most people know or have know someone affected.

People are less sympathetic to you sniffing a load of gear in the Groucho with your posh multimillionaire girlfriend, who ends up having to send you to rehab. Booze and Trammies sounds much more like something The Working Classes would do, doesn't it?

 

[nothanksbabes]

I'm willing to bet my career that her stories about drinking a whole bottle of whiskey a day are horseshit. I'm a fifteen stone bloke, and put it this way, I like a drink. Just the smell of even the nicest whiskey burns the hairs off my a, and a couple of shots of something like Bells would literally make me puke.

Many years ago, I lost a very dear friend to drink. She was a very petite girl, and she didn't even touch alcohol til after she'd left university. Her poison was Southern Comfort, mixed with lemonade in social situations, out of a pint glass by herself. She was hardcore. She woke up at 6 o'clock like we all do, but instead of eating, she drank alcohol. She held on to her job, but her drinking ruined the rest of her life. She became a liability to be around, and a deeply untrustworthy and devious person in her pursuit of the only thing that mattered to her: Alcohol. By the time she was twenty eight she looked like a walking corpse, and was told by her GP to stop drinking or die. She weighed about six stone, she began to suffer from psychosis, and her liver had already given way to hepatitis. She died from a scarred liver aged just thirty. Her mum died a few years later from a broken heart.

Jack is an attention seeking fraud and buller, who thinks stories like the one I just told are cool and trendy. That's her speciality: Edgy bleeping stories that she's completely unqualified to talk about.

I'm sorry about your friend. One of my best friends lost his mum in similar circumstances, and although older than your friend, she was only 53 and it was a long, slow, horrifying decline.

I don't believe any of her drinking stories. They sound like what they are - stories, concocted by someone who has little to no experience of real life (much like her Dickensian-poverty stories).

She chose whiskey because it sounds like some sort of traditional hardened drinker's drink based on whatever American TV or tit crime novel she's into. I too like a drink and I have gone overboard with substances I should have left alone, and I'm 100% certain she's full of tit.

 

[StatusWoe]

Again, it’s trapped people, they have to spend time with her, they have to listen when she honks on.

I've often wondered about the poor, stuck people who have to listen to her at meetings. I don't mean to make light of a serious thing, but you'd think an afternoon listening to the incessant honk would make it harder for them to stay sober.
---
A Guide to Jack Monroe's 'The Poverty'

Dickensian Pov:
''More jam, mamapapa''
''We shall have a feast, SB''
Soot-covered children (with or without rickets)
Evil landlady
Yuletide Eels

WW1-WW2 Pov:
Military around the edges
Forces' pin-up
Angry strangers yelling 'should have kept your legs shut!'
Rosie the Riveter aesthetic
Lots of tins
Catherine Cookson

1970s Pov:
Retro desserts
Butlins
Caravan holidays
''That'll do''
Pretending to be from a Northern pit village
Aunty Pat aesthetic

1980s Pov:
Same as 1970s pov but includes -
Shoulder pads and big hair
Punk, failed attempts at
Thatcherite obsession with home ownership

Irish Pov:
Saoirse
Secretly approves of Orange Marches.
Dire potatoes

American Pov:
Coffee store
Prison tamales
Attempts to be 'discovered' for her singing talent
Hole (Courtney Love's band)
Free spirit biker

Please feel free to add anything. I've missed a lot of important Jack lore.

 

[rage naan]

I've said this before but I think her real addiction is shopping and almost everything else is to cover that. I'm sure there was/is problem drinking and other substance abuse and so on but personally from the things she posts I got the impression that it was all to excuse/ cover up the shopping.

Because almost everyone has sympathy for a single mum and a lot of people have sympathy for substance addiction and see it, rightly or wrongly, as more of a physical illness than something like gambling or shopping.They don't take into account the dopamine etc that goes with those things . And I imagine our Young Tory guest has similar prejudices. I think the word ashamed here is as much about that as it is about anything else. She's ashamed of spending too much/ failing to save money. That's something her parents would really disapprove of.
Plus of course no one's gonna donate to pay the rent of someone who shops excessively. Let alone take them seriously as a poverty campaigner. It's vital for her image and career that she not be seen like that.

yeah, that's her realest fear right there. See also Sue Lee. The tantrum she throws when people suggest she has money is of a different intensity I think.

The relief of being able to blame it on booze, yeah. That's how this reads to me. He let her put it that way and she was so happy about that.

And it's harsh to say this is just an excuse, but over two years after

it sure sounds like one.

so yeah. All the hoarding and decluttering cycles and the constant reshuffling and rearranging of her stuff - including the ludicrous quarter hack - it's all about her relationship with her stuff. And I know she says it's about having nice things when she can after having "nothing" but I don't buy that.

ETA I'm so sorry to those who have lost loved ones. I've lost a couple to alcohol; I understand the specific kind of complicated sorrow that goes with that. love to all.