First, lemme give you a bit of backstory here. Last summer – the summer when I discovered my new addiction to the gym and so got so skinny I could fit into my favourite Anglomania pencil skirt again – I happened to help a friend/colleague out one day as she had a huge meeting going on and no minions around to fetch coffee and the like. Being the queen of caffeine, I stepped in with a couple of pots of the strong stuff and saved the day, and unwittingly caught the eye of a big shot producer whose path I had not crossed before.

Fastforward to November, and who should send me a message on MYSINGLEFRIEND.COM but the big shot producer???

Mortifying doesn’t quite cover it.

I staggered into the office in a whirlwind of despair,  demanding of my friend (the fool who couldn’t make her own bloody coffee for her own bloody meeting) exactly what I was supposed to do. She found it hilarious. I did not.

Together we composed a polite, but clear rebuttal, and I hit send and crossed all appendages that I would hear nothing more of it.

Oh my dears, perhaps this is the time to break it to the world at large that crossing fingers and toes really doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to the world, and one should really keep appendages un-crossed in these situations, since they may be needed for running away and reaching for wine.

His reply was equally as horrendous. OF COURSE he didn’t want to date me, I was soooooo out of his league after all (his words, not mine. Remember this man had only seen me on a particularly good outfit day) but he just wanted to bask in my presence and perhaps buy me a glass (read: bottle) of wine in a swanky exclusive members club and discuss my career.

OH. DEAR. LORD.

That was the moment I decided to stop paying my subscription and promptly disappear, never to be seen or heard of on mysinglefriend.com ever again.

And that was the end of that.

Or at least it would have been, if I didn’t work in the bloody theatre industry, where everybody knows your name (it’s like a sequinned version of Cheers) and so, dolled up to the nines at the Olivier Awards not so long ago, who do I turn around and almost soak head to toe in champagne? Yes, that’s right.

He emailed me, and he added me on Linkedin. Bloody Linkedin – why am I even on that??? Goddamn my amazing ability to network like a motherbitch.

As of yet, I’ve ignored both. Which is terribly unprofessional but what can I do? This man is twice my age, and not in a George Clooney kind of way. And I do not want to date him, nor do I want to ‘discuss my career’ with him. Ew.

And THAT, my friends, is why dating websites are the work of Lucifer.

Regards,

RitziCx

In my defence, I’ve been super stressed out with – oh wait, I can’t talk about that. Or that. Oh for feck’s sake, moooooving on…

One thing I CAN actually tell you about is my most recent adventure on the continent. I have a tendency to bugger off to Europe around this time of year, to get a little city break in before the horrendousness of the West End in May hits. You may also have noticed that these little jaunts tend to take place around about wherever the heck Maxie G is living at the time, which conveniently has been a different European country for the past 3 years running. First we had Vienna, then we had the little house in the south of France, and this year was the turn of Amsterdam. Hurrah!

Now, given the debauched youth that I had, you’d think I’d have been to Amsterdam at least once, but alas, it has so far evaded me. Mainly because Maxie hasn’t lived there before, and I only seem to visit places she lives…

BUT as luck* would have it, Dutch lost his job in France and without a regular income and with a tiny person to feed, Maxie, Baby G and he hightailed it over to the Netherlands and set up camp on the top floor of Dutch’s lovely mum’s house just outside the city via a dozen windmills, and so the scene was set for Ritzi’s latest European adventure.

Amsterdam is pretty damn cool. I wasn’t sure to begin with, as it’s very cool and possibly a little bit too cool for me, but since Maxie was so often sucked into recording studios making voiceovers for French TV (as one does) I was left to my own devices a bit and after a day of wandering, getting lost, confusing coffee shops with ‘coffee shops’ and not quite understanding why there seemed to be not one but THREE Van Gogh museums, I was so totally down with Amsterdam geography you’d think I’d lived there. Well, maybe lived there for about a month, a few years ago, and drank rather a bit since then so I don’t really remember where specific things are but I’ve got the general directions down. Cripes, I digress.

As per, Maxie G was doing a play, cos she’s all actressy and whatnot. A couple of days into our adventure, Maxie and I were sipping beverages (she afternoon tea, me afternoon WINE) in a hotel just outside the museum district, when she was telling me all about the show and the cast, and her director, whose name sounded really fecking annoyingly familiar, but for the life of me I couldn’t place it.

A couple of sips into my second glass of clarity juice, I suddenly had a flashback to mostly hungover directionless days in a rundown garden flat in Peckham, when I (an out of work actress) had lived with my Hippy Housemate (also an out of work actress) amongst other waifs and strays, and occasionally her equally hippy boyfriend (you guessed it… an out of work actor). Said hippy boyfriend also happened to have the same name as the director of Maxie G’s play.

‘Hang on one cotton picking minute,’ I declare (possibly tispy, possibly high – who knows in Amsterdam?) ‘How old is this director?’

‘Hmm, not very old. Late twenties maybe?’

‘Is he very tall?’ I ask, scrolling through my memory banks,

‘No, not really.’ Ah, bugger. Mind you, I spent most of my time horizontal on a couch with showtunes in my ears and Friends on the telly, or passed out on the floor in a mild drunken stupor in those days, so his height may have been an optical illusion.

Since conversation proved inconclusive, instead I demanded Maxie text her director and ask if he knew who I was. His response was instantaneous and freaking mind blowing.

Oh yeah, she used to live with my ex-girlfriend. Who is actually flying in tonight to see the show!

Of all the European cities in all the world, my former Hippy Housemate (now a qualified therapist after locking herself away at Central for the past 2 years – who bloody knew?) landed in mine that evening, and blew into the Melkweg theatre bar like a whirlwind while the show was still on, landing in a heap on a chair in front of me and calling for wine, regaling the tale of her missing suitcase (fecking airlines) and squealing along with me as we caught up on five years’ worth of each other’s lives in the half hour that remained before the show came down.

Maxie and the director joined us soon after, and so followed many hours of theatrical hilarity and luvvie gossip – all of us glossing over the fact that I’m pretty sure I remember the last time I saw the director I may have thrown him out of my house for smoking weed in my kitchen, which is ironic if you think about it long enough – with HH and I planning lunches and evening drinks and general amusement to fill the hours when our creative counterparts would be locked away the other side of the pros arch. WEIRD COINCIDENTAL AWESOMENESS.

Ritzi’s brief guide to Amsterdam

Van Gogh museum – don’t bother while it’s in the Hermitage, it’s rather dull and you feel like you’re in the Tate, which is weird.

Museum of handbags and purses – I KNOW. Yes, it is as awesome as it sounds.

Pancakes – Pannenkoekenhuis Upstairs, Grimburgwal. Best pancakes ever, staircase right out of an Escher painting and a hundred antique teapots hanging from the ceiling.

Coffee/interesting cake options – Abraxas café. Not just because of the Harry Potter reference, honest. However, I would recommend giving said interesting cake options a good few hours and not wolfing down two of them in advance of getting on a plane to the UK. However, it does make the Van Gogh museum a heck of a lot more amusing.

Buskers – Rembrandt Square. I’m assuming the fitty busker who sounded like David Bowie is always there. Otherwise, meh, it looks like the kind of place attractive buskers hang out.

Cheesy butterflies – weird little pastry biscuit things from Hema. I was supposed to bring some back for my office but… well, let’s blame Abraxas for that.

And there you have it. I promise to try and be better at actually blogging, life has been crazy but hopefully it will settle down for a bit and I can breathe again. Fingers fecking crossed!

Much love dahlings,

RitziCx

*Bad luck is still luck

I had it all worked out – VDAY is imminent, and I live with one half of the world’s most sickeningly happy couple, both of whom will be in tomorrow ‘not celebrating’ Valentine’s day. They think it’s a ridiculous commercial holiday (of course) so instead of celebrating like normal capitalist sucker couples, they are instead spending hardly anything on buying each other ‘joke’ gifts, having a night in watching Finding Nemo, and probably ending with lots and lots of disgustingly smushy love making. Yes, love making. That doesn’t sound unbearable at all does it? Maybe I should take them up on their offer to join them, I’m sure the bitter single wench hunched up in the far corner of the opposite sofa slowly slitting her wrists with plastic thorns from tacky fake roses won’t be off putting for their true love AT ALL.

What I had planned to do, was disappear to the furthest corner of West London with Irish, split a pizza and watch Hyde Park on Hudson at the cinema, because what brightens up a Valentine’s day more than a hilarious period drama starring Bill Murray and Olivia Coleman? Not much. Irish got dumped two weeks ago you see, so it was perfick. Maybe not for her, but hey, misery loves company and all that shiz…

Today, however, I received a text that destroyed all my hopes and dreams (yes, I’m being dramatic. Indulge me.) Irish has only gone and double booked herself with a rehearsal tomorrow night because she’s so fecking dedicated to her craft and all. ACTUAL end of the world. I’m tempted to call Buffy and let her know the end is nigh and she’d better bring a stake.

So now what do I do? Do I sack off VDAY all together and remain resolute in my office until the latest possible moment, then race home and lock myself in my room and listen to Dido? Or do I hold my head high and go to the cinema in the sticks alone? I’m rather tempted to actually, I could quite happily sit on the back row and throw M&Ms at anyone whose pout gets too close to the pout sat next to them.

This lark was so much simpler when we were ALL tragic and single. Fucksake.

RitziCx

And then bloody Bridget had to go and get engaged, didn’t she?

I’d factored in budget for rather a lot of financial black holes this year. Lil Red had a pesky milestone birthday in January, the Rents have an annoying milestone anniversary in June, and Ma Cortez is turning… well… oldish… in September. It’s a milestone anyway. I won’t say which one. Bridget’s wedding is wedged somewhere in the midst of all these bloody irritating events, and while I’d carefully set aside a few hundred quids for the outfit, the hotel, and the gift (a bouncy castle – standard), I completely neglected to consider the hen do.

What a fucking fool.

How elaborate are these things these days? Seriously, if I ever walk down the aisle (read, run away to Gretna Green one weekend) I fully intend to skip this crap. It’s exhausting and pointless, because let’s face it, she’s going to remember less than half of it.

Before you write me off as a bitter old maid, let me paint you a little picture. Bridget’s maid of honour is a young mother of two from the West Country. Her old school chums all still live in said West Country town, with their husbands and their sensible houses and their sticky children. Here is a meeting of two worlds – and the fact that the first suggestion of location was ‘Bristol because it’s half way between the two and £10 return on the MEGABUS’ didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

Package hen weekends have been discussed. Are y’all aware of these? These are carefully crafted overpriced weekends of chain restaurants, vodka shots and ‘top night clubs’. If this sounds like your idea of an actual hell dimension, raise your hand.

Thankfully, Blondie intervened at this point (all I’d managed to do so far was declare I was not getting on a Megabus for love nor money) and suggested the more favourable route of a big old house in the country. That’s what we’re musing on at the moment and goddamnit that is what we’re going to end up with or I’m booking that strippergram for myself and Blondie, safe at home in civilisation.

Surely I’m not the only woman in the world who finds this concept completely abhorrent? Does every blushing bride really dream of puking her guts up one last time before settling into the monotony of marriage? Really?

I feel I need to put this in writing, as a kind of disclaimer, just in case anyone ever does crack this cold hard shell with cupid’s ice pick, that should anyone ever feel the need to organise a hen do for me, they should avoid all aforementioned terrible ideas. Please don’t invite my cousins and my old school chums – my cousins are stuck up rich bitches and one of them bit me when she was three, and my old school chums are most likely lined up in consecutive ditches with needles in their arms. Please stick to the present day gaggle of gals, the only ones who really matter if we’re honest, and life long friends you know I actually like. Please don’t make me get the Megabus, and please don’t make me drink a cocktail through a plastic penis.

Now that’s settled, I’m off to scour the net for alternative rural mansions just in case the Bumpkin of Honour doesn’t book this one in time…

Yours in trepidation,

RitziCx

After a month of peppermint tea, soda and lime and steamed vegetables, I am happy to report that Ritzi is rested, revitalised and ready to start the eleven month pickling process once more. This morning my coffee was two parts hazelnut baileys and one part caffeine. I can also have caffeine again (YAY!) in small (ish) doses, which has made me so happy I could dance.

Tonight, Blondie and I are going to fill our Big Joes with a bottle of red each, followed with a chaser of dairy milk (the 1kg variety). Tomorrow (after 4 hours in the gym, I’m not completely falling off the wagon) we will get ready with tequila cocktails before heading to Islington to watch Pout at the Devil, possibly the GREATEST worst 80′s tribute band of all time, with Irish, where we will down whisky and cokes and head bang to White Snake and Poison all night. On Sunday, when we emerge from our respective comas, we will cook up a storm (including dessert) and mainline series two of Downton on DVD, with (you guessed it) a bit more wine for good measure.

And on Monday morning, I will sweat all of this out in my boxing class, and finally be ready to face 2013 like a real human being.

Huzzah!

RitziCx

I am shocked and appalled to report that I’ve slacked for so long that I’ve come back to WordPress and it’s ALL CHANGED. Seriously. I have no idea where anything is anymore… come back old simple silver version! Oh dear. I did mean to blog earlier, obviously, but I just couldn’t work out how. Yeah… that’s right… it’s all WordPress’s fault…

But seriously, it has been shocking of me. It seems to be a bit of a pattern that by the time we get to December, the year has well and truly kicked ass and there’s just not enough time/energy/impetus (it that how you spell that?) to do anything other than eat, drink, eat, and not sleep. I barely recall December now that I’m here in sober silent January, it all seems a bit of a haze. I do have a vague memory of a week where I managed 4 gym classes, 2 theatre trips, 5 parties, 3 Christmas lunches and a breakfast meeting. Safe to say, I staggered to the end of the month and buggered off to the furthest reaches of the Irish countryside to recuperate.

I’ve got a few interesting dates to write up, so I’ll be getting nostalgic over the next few weeks and harking back to the hazy days of late November to update you on those. Here’s a few tasty hints… one contains ‘cream tea and scones’, the other includes a cape. Seriously.

But for now, let us content ourselves with the general good feeling and purifying joy of January. Out with the old, in with the new, down with the wine, in with the cranberry juice. Welcome to the most depressing month of the year – the month that I annually choose to make that little bit worse by detoxing my brains out.

January began as all January’s should, with a bit of a hangover and a naughty breakfast – it’s a universally known fact that the January detox should never start until after breakfast. You may recall last year, Blondie, Irish and I buggered off the the Shire and spent the day in a spa, ate too many sandwiches and partied in a village pub with Nana Cortez. This year, Blondie bailed because she’s too fecking happy for words with her Perfect Match (barf), so Irish and I flew off to her homeland with her other English friend (yes, Irish has English friends other than me and Blondie – I was shocked too) for a week of good food (read: potatoes), great wine, amazing views, and the odd spot of mountain climbing. We started in Tipperary, which actually is a bloody long way from anywhere, where highlights included Ritzi’s first Rugby experience (C’mooooon Munster! Though I have to admit the Ulster boys were a bit fitter… sorry Irish), discovering a pub in Two Mile Borris that stayed open til 3am AND had a trampoline in the carpark, and an educational video about the Plague and other such pleasant historial things at the Rock of Cashel.

Then, we went an even longer way, and journeyed for many many hours to the furthest reaches of County Kerry, where we basically adventured for days. Honestly, just take my pocket handkercheif and call me Bilbo – it was awesome.

New years was spent in a quiet pub, with an Irish band seated beside us, complete with tin whistles and accordians, where we befriended a small child named Delia, who had come dressed as Santa.

The obligatory burning of bad things happened back in Ma Irish’s cottage on the dunes, and I have to say, my list was not quite as hideous as last year. It included:

1. Turkey. Not all of Turkey of course but… well… this bit of Turkey.
2. I sucked at blogging. It’s true, I did. I failed y’all, and you’re so darn pretty too.
3. I did feck all with the 500 page manuscript sitting on my laptop.
4. I didn’t get my ass into gear and fictionalise Ensemble Bingo like we all know I need to for sheer comedy and commercial value.
5. I worked way too much.

The good things, however, also outweighed the good things of last year’s list:

1. I took an Open University course. I did! And I was good! And it reminded me that I actually can form sentences and paragraphs and chapters about things other than my own exploits… and then I did nothing with it.
2. I got nominated in the Cosmo awards again because my followers are awesome. As previously mentioned, I sucked at blogging, so I did not do this nomination justice. Sorry!
3. I wangled 2 promotions and 2 payrises! So… although I may have worked a bit too much… it did provide me with the means to fund my Vivienne Westwood addiction.
4. BLONDIE McFABULOUS MOVED INTO CASTLE CORTEZ. This is the best thing in the world. Newly christened Blitzi Mews is where it’s happ’nin’ yo.
5. I got my ass skinny by becoming addicted to the gym. I now get up at 5.30am at least 4 days a week and bash out a doubler (pump and spin) on a Saturday morning.
6. I went on an actual holiday, with the aforementioned flatmate, and despite one little glitch which we don’t speak of ever, had a marvellous experience on my first ever beach/pool holiday in an actual hot country! Hurrah!

And so finally, we come to the resolutions. I’m usually pretty good with these. Last year my resolutions were to get my book published, be more sensible with boys, complete the OU fiction writing course, say no more often (to theatre and the like, don’t be base), to detox, and to get on top of my finances. WELL, aside from a few little glitches in the regions of Brighton and Marmaris, I’ve been much less of a twat about boys. Not sensible, I admit, but less of a twat. I didn’t mainline theatre every night of the week and therefore managed to make it to the end of each week and still manage a 7.30am body attack. And I consolidated all my drama school/world travel/high heels debt into one affordable monthly payment – ergo, on top of LIFE.

This year, I’m keeping it simple.

1. Sort out that bloody manuscript. I’m on it already – many an evening has been spent tucked up in Starbucks in the last 2 weeks with a tax dodging berry spritzy thing and my laptop, editing and rewriting and honing. I’m giving myself until my birthday (so 6 months) to get that bad boy in order. It WILL be published, and I WILL be a younger JK Rowling with a better ass.
2. Date. Better. I’m not wasting my time on this – either the love of my life is going to show up, or he isn’t. I shall apply the Lemon Law theory and bail if something seems fruitless in the early stages, and not lose sleep over a single manly soul. Internet dating is fun and passes the time (and gives me plenty of hilarity to impart to you lot) but my future husband is not an office manager from Croydon. He’s just not.
3. Save money! Eton Boy pointed out to me that I’m a grown up with a real job and the potential to get a mortgage once I have a deposit saved. I’d never actually considered this before. I’ve upped my loan repayments, switched to annual travel (good lord that saves you a packet) and bring my lunch into the office like a good little spendthrift, instead of forking out for a Whole Foods salad box at £12 a pop. I’m still buying my yearly pair of Roxanne 7 skinnies come pay day mind you… a girl’s got her limits.

And so there you have it. It’s 2013, and I think it’s going to be a goodun. Work is good (or it will be in approximately five weeks when a long term pain in my ass is out of my life forever), life is good, and I’m feeling positive. Or maybe it’s just all those antioxidants…

And so, I shall leave you with this. The only folk who mock new years resolutioners are the folk who lack the balls to look back in a year and face up if they failed. Setting goals is healthy, and burning mistakes in an open fire at the end of a long 365 day struggle is too.

Happy new year!

RitziCx

PS – I take no credit for photos, all goes (surrupticiously) to Irish and Irish’s English friend GI Jane.

In October, Blondie and I reached breaking point with 2012, and so turned our backs on gloomy England and headed off for a week of 35 degree sunshine and swarthy Turks. We had a very wholesome and sober holiday and absolutely noone lost their bikini nor their dignity. Anyway, when we got back from our chaste break away, forearms and ankles a glorious shade of mahogany, Blondie slipped easily back into disgusting happiness with her tiny boyfriend, taking a few days to shag his little socks off before declaring enough was enough and she was going to sell me on the interweb.

£28 and an agonising profile approval process later, I’d hammered the final nail in the coffin of hopeless single life and joined My Single Friend Dot Com. Can you bloody believe it?

People tell me you can have a lot of success of MSF if you put the effort in – you know, if you send countless messages and trawl through pages and pages of losers and lower your standards to somewhere around knee height. Now, frankly I’m a busy woman, and don’t really have hours and hours to trawl the internet for much more than shoes or novelty Christmas products, so instead I decided to be one of those people, who just sit back and wait for their true love to find them. If you can tell where this is going already, you get a lollipop.

My first date courtesy of MSF occurred last weekend. A relatively good looking guy (you can never really tell from a carefully selected profile picture can you?) wanted to take me bowling. Cliché, yes, but I’m not really one for your standard sit down ‘dinner and a movie’ kind of date, so bowling on a Friday night in November was right up my street.

Unfortunately, about 5 seconds into said date, I realised that Mr Superbowl was so far away from my street that he paid his council tax to a different Borough.

In short? NOT 6ft 2 like his profile said (more like 5ft 10, ick), weird flathead haircut (if your head is flat, why emphasize this with a dodgy Bart Simpson haircut and partial Jedward quiff?), over-enthusiasm for motorbikes (and not in a cool way), zero appreciation of Harry Potter and a dislike of cooking for vegetarians. Also – and this is the vital part – BORING as hell. My god. A girl can only single-handedly select interesting conversational topics for so long before she succumbs to the temptation to smash her head into the table and end it all. What’s that? Oh, was the bowling part fun? Well, I wouldn’t know that because the genius thought there wouldn’t be any kind of need to actually BOOK a lane at Bloomsbury Bowl on a Friday in November. Brilliant.

Two glasses of Rioja in and I’d had enough. I made a lame ass excuse about promising to pop in on my friend on the way home, and hightailed it out of there.

Being in town at 9.30 on a Friday night, a bit pissed, and in my best smart/cas gladrags, I decided I just couldn’t waste my carefully coiffed hair, so I decided to pop in on The Guru, seeing as she did happen to live literally around the corner. God bless central London dwelling socialites.

‘Babe, come round for a cocktail! I’ve got to go and meet a bunch of bankers at The Box at 11.30 though, do you mind tagging along?’

Ah Guru. You always come through for me.

Ten minutes later, I was tucked up on The Guru’s couch with her gay lodger, sipping vodka and coconut (limited mixers available), and chuckling at things no sane human being should really chuckle at watching Heathers. If you haven’t seen that movie, rent it immediately. But maybe not if you haven’t gotten over being the unpopular kid at school yet… could be messy if not. The Guru spent about an hour trying to work out whether the Marc Jacobs clutch or the Ralph Lauren purse went better with her custom Manolos and Erdem skirt. I felt I should be having a similar crisis and so took thirty seconds or so to buff a scuff out of my Dune shoe boots.

I’d love to tell you what happened at The Box. I can tell you what I drank… up to a point. There was some champagne, and then a shot of something that may have been sambuca. Then there was some more champagne, and a jaegerbomb. Then there was some more champagne and some kind of sticky passionfruit shooter. Then there was something black. Then I was dancing on a table. And it was a rather good job I wasn’t picking up the tab because it came to three and a half grand. Srsly.

Saturday came round and I couldn’t get hold of The Guru all day. I was pretty sure she was dead in a loo in The Box. They light that place with candles for feck’s sake, it could days for someone to stumble across her. But then, in the hazy hours of Saturday evening as I was trying desperately to drag myself out of the house to Mr Producer’s housewarming party across town, she popped up on facebook chat.

‘Are you alive??’ I demanded.

‘…just.’ She responded.

‘Did we dance on a table at one point last night?’

‘You did. You were genius.’ Genius? That sounds like I might have done a little more than gyrate atop a table for forty five minutes. Oh lord.

‘Don’t tell me. I’d like to live in blissful ignorance.’

‘No worries. I lost my blackberry and somehow have to get three and a half grand out of my clients to pay the bill, and I shagged the blonde one.’

…there was a blonde one?

RitziCx

A lesson recently learned by Ms Blondie McFabulous:

Number one: Don’t leave Ritzi alone with men of ANY KIND when she’s had a drink. Even unattractive, slightly fat Essex ones.

I woke up this morning at 4am, wide eyed and completely sober. I got up, went to the loo, and was slightly confused to find that I had no underwear on. Considering I’m sharing a bed with Blondie, I thought that rather odd. I shuffled back to bed, and lay there for some time trying to piece together the previous evening, to no avail. Eventually, it was bugging me so much that I poked Blondie awake.

‘Blondie,’ I say. ‘I can’t remember getting home last night, what happened?’

‘You showed up four hours after I last saw you, without your bikini.’

…

Yes folks, Ritzi Cortez still has the ability to be an absolute twat when she’s had too much to drink. Then followed an hour or so of cringing apologies, when I discovered that I had not only come home completely naked (in a towel, thankfully. Though not my towel, so I’m not sure where that came from…) and out of my face, sans ipod, shoes, JK ROWLING BOOK and dignity, but I had then proceeded to drop said towel (which is when Blondie discovered I had lost my bikini) and pass out, spreadeagled. At some point I put my giant Ritzi t-shirt on. Apparently.

After discovering this, I did a bit of downstairs recon, and announced to Blondie that I didn’t exactly feel like I’d been buggered by anyone.

‘You walked through the door and told me you’d just shagged a fat Essex man.’ Blondie informed me. Oh. Alright then.

You might think the worst part of this story is done. That discovering you’ve potentially flashed your foo foo at small children while staggering back to the apartment you can’t even find when sober in the daylight so feck knows how you managed that out of your face in the dark, then stripped for your best friend and passed out legs akimbo, is probably the most mortifying experience that a single stupid person can have. You’re probably feeling a little bit sorry for me, because it sounds like poor Ritzi might have had her drink spiked and got date raped by an Essex builder, but in actual fact - don’t.

Because the Essex man in question only hunted me down the next day, gave me back a bag of ALL of my belongings (including ipod, JK book and my actual clothes) and sheepishly said he hoped I got home okay.

And then I walked into the Mediterranean and drowned myself.

I honest to god do not remember a single thing after 4pm yesterday afternoon. I went to the bar, Blondie went to Skype her Jewish boyfriend, and then 12 hours later I woke up. I don’t remember going to anyone’s appartment, losing my clothes, getting home to my own appartment, flashing Blondie… absolutely none of it. I’m actually quite relieved the truth of it hasn’t come crashing back to me at any point today. I think my brain has just decided it’s better to let me carry on in ignorance.

I’ve now decided I’m an absolute liability and the need for some kind of perfect steady boyfriend is greater than ever before. I simply cannot keep getting pissed out of my face and shagging randoms, especially not in places with pools and Oceans and rock formations I can fall off. I can’t die of stupidity before I’ve tracked down my one true love, that just won’t do.

And so, I shall live out the rest of this week in a series of cunning disguises and extra large sunglasses, running a mile in the opposite direction at the mere hint of an Essex drawl, and then I will go home and we will NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN. Got that? Good.

Yours most ashamedly,

Ritzi “I’m a tool” Cortez

x

Katy Red, of All Sweetness and Life, and I tottered along the streets of Marylebone toward the Rose Bar, chuckling all the way at the myriad of blatant fashion bloggers ahead of us in their sky high (not very nice but supposedly fashionable) heels. At the crossing we were accosted by Emily Dubberley of Cliterati, a woman who has written 25 (yes, 25) books about sex. The woman knows her shit. The three of us in varying degrees of LBD (Katy had gone for skin tight wiggle dress and I had channelled my inner Marilyn with cleavage galore) shuffled into the Rose Club, with a convenient neon sign above our heads that kept flashing ‘SEX BLOGGERS’ on and off – just in case the classic black dress (as opposed to animal print and studded shoulder pads), killer VW pumps (as opposed to imitation armadillo shoes) and neatly styled hair (as opposed to block fringes and beehives) wasn’t enough.

The thing that just kills me about the Cosmo Blog Awards is that it really is a bloody brilliant PR ploy. Get a bunch of influential bloggers in the room, give them endless (weak) cocktails and free products to review, and guarantee your hashtag airtime for at least six weeks pre and post the event at minimal cost because you’ve got a drinks sponsor and a magazine full of products to promote. Genius. I should do that with theatre.

The hitch is the sex bloggers. We’re a different breed to the fashion and beauty lot. We don’t review products, we’re usually rather scathing and cynical, and we know a non- alcoholic cocktail a mile off. However, because of the target demographic of Cosmo magazine, they have to invite us. Therefore, we become the naughty kids at the table, propped up at the bar ordering (and paying for) real wine as opposed to cranberry juice, and chatting amongst ourselves about the pros and cons of girth. For this reason, Katy Red almost missed the fact that she came highly commended (read: second place/runner up/silver medal – we tried rather hard to come up with a term that sounded a bit more impressive so she could tell her Parisian lover all about it). It may also have been because, just like ripping off a band aid*, they like to get the sex bloggers out of the way nice and quick, and we’d barely managed to order a drink before Katy had to hurdle her way to the stage to pick up the certificate she would leave in a taxi a mere two hours later.

After a couple of circuits of the room, and a giggle with our new favourite DIY bloggers (yes, DIY bloggers. They exist) from Trends With Benefits, Katy and I deemed it time to scarper back to the safety of the West End for actual decent wine. Goodybags in hand, we hopped in a cab to Cafe Koha in Theatre Alley where everybody knows your name (or mine at least. And my preferred bottle of red) for several bottles and a cheese platter with Katy’s Parisian lover.

I rather like Katy’s Parisian lover. He’s tall, dark(ish) and handsome, knows just enough English to get by but not enough to be annoying, and he picked up the tab. I requested that the pair of them find me a Parisian lover of my own. I may have to remind them of that now we’re sober.

And so the Cosmos is done for another year, and once again ended with too much wine in the West End and a good old rifle through the goodybags. They do the goodybags very well, I must say. My personal favourite this year has to be the sensible ankle socks. Thanks Next! They’re padding out my too-large-but-so-fabulous-I-bought-them-anyway boots as we speak!

Coincidentally though, no promotional material for the sex bloggers. Really? No multi-flavoured condoms? No glow in the dark lubricant? Not a single vibrating bullet shaped trinket? Cosmo, you disappoint me.
Ah well, there’s always next year…

RitziCx

*the plasters, not the tragic Christmas single.

Some of you (those of you who don’t pay that much attention to my whinging on twitter) may not know that I’ve been slowly dying of a mysterious incapacitating illness for the past few months (yes, months. You’d whinge too) and despite their best (read: crap) efforts, the NHS has utterly failed so far to find out what’s wrong with me.

Rather generic symptoms have plagued my life, seemingly forever, the worst of which being bouts of daily stomach cramping, the likes of which Aunt Flo has never inflicted upon me. I’ve had so much blood taken for testing that I’ve had to top it up with red wine just to stay on my feet. And yes, I am aware just how dramatic I’m being about this, but wait for it. You’ll understand in a minute.

After the n’th completely useless doctor’s appointment, I decided I wasn’t dragging myself down the road to the surgery any more just for them to tell me ‘nope, sorry, it’s not that’ so instead I took to calling in for various test results, and one particularly genius (read: pure evil) nurse, while sympathetic to my frustration, came up with a plan that would prove catastrophic.

‘You know, you do seem to drink a lot of caffeine’ the Spawn of Satan commented, as she perused my file (which by that point included a fair few weeks of food diaries and shizzle). ‘You might want to try cutting it for a few weeks and see if that makes a difference.’

I explained to the Devil Woman that simply ‘cutting caffeine’ for a bit was just not an option unless it was for my January detox, when I’ve had 11 months to prepare myself for the withdrawal, seeing as I work in the West End dahling and frankly depending on the time of day, you cut us and we bleed coffee or wine.

Never the less, after another day of relentless misery (yes, I’m hamming this up, but my guts have been tied in a knot for three months, it makes a girl a tad loco) I decided I’d humour her, if only so I could ring her up and tell her the good news that she’s a fool and should stick to the day job. As a result, I haven’t had a cup of coffee or hit of diet coke since Sunday.

And I feel 100% fine.

Oh fuck.

RitziCx