5 songs to update your Christmas playlist

If you’ve been anywhere in public for the last three months, chances are your feelings on the standard Christmas playlist have evolved from warm anticipation to mild irritation to tuning it out entirely. Put the festive fun back into the season of goodwill and mince pies with these lesser-known tracks.

For the ones glued to their phones

‘Text Me Merry Christmas’ by Straight No Chaser feat. Kristen Bell

If work schedules, family conflicts or an inability to adequately define the boundaries of your relationship in time to admit you’d like to spend Christmas together has forced you and your beloved/person you like more than most others apart, this cheesy tune will have you half smiling again.

In the tradition of lovelorn duets, Kristen Bell is trading texts and selfies with a long distance lover from Straight No Chaser. Also known as Frozen’s Princess Anna (that’s the one not letting it go), Bell’s Disney-sweet vocals contrast with the crushingly realistic scenario of spending Christmas without your other half. It’s spot-on in its melodramatic tone of longing, and may be the only festive song to contain the word emoji.

Best line: ‘I’ll be right here waiting/For my pants to start vibrating’

(American pants, people)

For the too-cool indie fans

‘A Great Big Sled’ by The Killers feat. Toni Halliday

Fair warning: I love The Killers. My favourite Vegas exports have released a Christmas single every year since 2006’s ‘A Great Big Sled’, with proceeds going to AIDS charity (RED).

They often go bittersweet rather than all out ‘YAY FOR CHRISTMAS!!!’ The ten tracks are like a chocolate selection tin. Some are better than others - the toffee finger or Malteaser of the playlist - but even the less exciting ones are by The Killers, and therefore more interesting than listening to 'White Christmas' again.

The band’s trademark indie sound is more evident in ballad ‘Joseph Better You Than Me’, novelty number ‘Don’t Shoot Me Santa’, wistful Hollywood homage ‘Christmas in LA,’ and in joyful Latin-influenced number ‘¡Happy Birthday Guadeluope!’, but ‘Sled’ contains the bells, whistles and festive references required in a cheesy festive tune. Brandon Flowers’ knowing vocals lend a mature, edgy glamour in this upbeat number, which also features vocals from Toni Halliday.

Best line: ‘The snowman is shaping up to be an eight but not out of ten'

For the feuding couple

‘A Christmas Duel’ by Cyndi Lauper and The Hives

For every loved-up couple trading mulled wine-flavoured saliva under the mistletoe, there’s a quietly seething duo trying to make it through another tinsel-laden season without googling ‘cheap divorce’.

If your ideal Christmas song is less ‘Little Drummer Boy’ and more ‘Fairytale of New York’, try this modern update on the ‘I really hate you right now but I can’t imagine life without you’ dynamic that comes with being told to be joyous and good-willed for the busiest month of the year.

Admittedly, the pair in this song have taken things quite far. It starts with him sleeping with her sister and spirals from there. There’s a drunk wedding, a hitman and a minor incident of arson. But don’t worry, its has a happy ending. Sort of.

Best line: ‘I bought no gifts this year/And I slept with your sister’

For Netflix and chill

‘FaLaLaLove Ya’ by Nikki Lane

Like taking off your high heels and tight party dress and sinking into the sofa to watch Love Actually in your favourite reindeer print pyjamas. If this song was a part of nature, it would be impossibly serene waves lapping on a white shore decorated with a tastefully twinkling light display. It’s all about ‘Yay the person I love is here’ but in a gentle, musing way. This isn't making out on a sticky dancefloor to a weird remix of 'All I Want for Christmas'. It’s shoving the furniture to one side for a slow dance in your living room.

Best line: ‘I got a secret and it's time that you should know/I wanna wrap you up in a big red bow’

For the wannabe glam rocker

‘Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) by The Darkness

Lowestoft’s finest delivered this glittery glam rock festive tornado in December 2003. Sure, it sounds like it was probably written by a group of 19 year olds who’ve just discovered Dad’s posh brandy during band rehearsal, but it ticks off a good number of the must-haves. There’s a yearning love story at its heart, references to snow (and, er, hell…), a children’s choir, non-stop bells and Justin Hawkins in sparkly gold Lycra. Apparently this was all a bit much for listless Brits listening over a decade ago. It was beaten to Number One by Gary Jules’ Mad World.

Best line: ‘Christmas time, don't let the bells end'

9 life lessons I learned fighting anorexia

I held many misconceptions about anorexia until I got it. I thought it was for supermodels and people who didn’t like food. All you had to do was look out for the person with matchstick legs moving a salad leaf round a plate in the pizza restaurant, and then force feed them a sandwich.

And then it happened to me. Long story short, I started losing weight and I couldn’t stop. It wasn't a diet or a life choice or a career move. It was lonely and terrifying.

After ten months of treatment, I’ve just had my last appointment with my incredibly patient clinical psychologist. Throughout this process, I learned a lot about this disease, myself and the complicated relationships we all have with our brains and bodies. Here’s the skinny.   

Translating what it’s like to be you is hard

To shamelessly bastardise a quote from David Foster Wallace, we are all marooned in our own skulls. You can’t climb inside my brain to see what it’s like, and I can’t do that for you. Which means trying to explain why we each think what we do is hard.

Here’s how I would describe my anorexia. So I guess a person without it would think, ‘I like burgers. You like burgers. Let’s go eat burgers and life will be glorious in our juicy, meaty, carb-heavy world of fast food heaven.’ Everything in moderation, right? When anorexia runs this ‘Let’s get burgers’ scenario through its mad machine, the result is that it starts shouting that if you eat one burger tonight, you’ll end up eating three tomorrow and every day for the rest of your life and you will never stop eating, resulting in a waistline to rival the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man. And everyone will hate you and no one will ever love you, even the cats you try to collect will reject you in favour of the bloke down the road who lets them piss on the sofa.

That’s a simplified version. As you go on, the machine gets extended, adding more foods that you can’t eat and more rules and an ever decreasing calorie counter. It also gets a power boost, so it shouts even louder. It’s powered by a lot of things, including body dysmorphia (that’s a whole topic by itself). I’m aware that it’s not me coming up with these thoughts, and it’s not something I built, but it’s something I had to live with and then take apart.

Fighting a mental illness takes courage

Throughout all this, a lot of people have told me that I was brave. I’m not great with compliments, but now I can look back as the version of me who got through it, I’m able to say, fuck, actually, I was brave. Since anorexia convinces you that putting on weight indicates a lack of will power, asking someone to help you stop it makes you feel like a loser who’s giving in.

Fuck that.

A wise man (Dumbledore) said that ‘It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.’ Let alone yourself. Anorexia was the bully cornering me in the toilets and telling me I was worthless, and I was George McFly landing a solid one on its jaw.

Admitting to yourself that you don’t have this in hand is hard. Admitting to other people that you need help is hard. Trusting them to stick around is hard. Getting through every single time you have to eat when something inside you is screaming to stop is hard. No question there are shittier things you can go through, but this was my big battle, my Minas Tirith. And I’m proud of the girl who took it on. She was brave.

It’s OK to trust other people

I’m not one for relying on other people too much. In my head, the anorexia made me proud of my immense will power, but it was embarrassing to admit out loud that I had this thing that makes even the simplest eating situation feel complicated. Also, as a loud and proud feminist, I hated the thought that other women would think I was judging them by the insane standards I held myself to. Why would someone put up with a person so seemingly judgemental and totally neurotic, let alone love them?

None of the people I told pushed me away. No one told me I was weak or pathetic or a terrible person who should stop worrying about my first world problems. Most made the effort to understand that weird machine in my head.

None of you will know what you did for me. Like Buffy and the Scoobies, I was the one fighting the demons every day, but you were the ones sharpening the stakes and hitting the books and giving me CPR. Even when I panicked and stressed and tried to run, you followed me and sat with me on that path to madness and uncertainty until I could get up and walk back. Trusting other people with your weird things, whether it’s small like needing to walk on the right, or big like anorexia, is hard but worth it.

People around you will make mistakes and that’s OK

It’s hard to get your head around what it’s like to have anorexia if you’ve never experienced it. You have to be as patient with the people who are making the effort to muddle their way through and support you as they are with you.

One example is the apparently innocent sentence ‘You look well.’ To an anorexic in recovery, this translates to ‘You’ve put on weight’ which, of course, sets the machine off. I realised I had to take a step back and understand that what they were trying to say was that I’m moving towards being normal instead of this weird skeletal version of me. Which is the point, after all. I learned to remind myself that they’re coming from a different point of view, and once I’d accepted this I started to love hearing this sentence. It reinforced the sense that anorexia is not normal, which is what I needed to help me change my mind. Other stuff is more hurtful, but if you try and explain why something is unhelpful, people will know not to do it again. If they choose to, they’re a dick.

There are heroes in the NHS

Anorexia is an illness. It’s not an emotional state. It’s not something you choose. It’s not a phase. It needs a tailored and planned out treatment, like any other disease. The shame around mental illness makes it hard to find the courage to ask for help. The first time I told a GP that I was losing weight was at an appointment for something unrelated. Sitting in that chair, in the comforting clinical anonymity of a surgery, I suddenly blurted out that I had been deliberately not eating enough. When I told her it was because of stress, she calmly told me to join an art class. There was one down the road. Get out and make some friends and you’ll be fine.

So that was fun.

Luckily, just hearing my own voice saying this out loud gave the part of me who could see where this was all leading the power to shout back. It’s the first time I said no to the bully. I went back and I found the GP who would save my life. At the moment when I needed it most, the NHS stepped up (in a way). She listened to me describe what I was doing to myself, just as you would listen to someone telling you their physical symptoms. She made me do blood tests and come back just to talk about how I was doing, and to keep an eye on my ever plummeting weight. She treated it like a medical condition, not just some stupid shallow problem I would grow out of. I will always be grateful to the stranger who saved me.

The NHS needs to change how it treats mental health

Both of us knew that these visits were like putting a plaster on a wound that’s bleeding out. What I needed was counselling. Ultimately, it would have taken about a year from when I was diagnosed to getting to see an actual NHS counsellor who leads you through the ‘refeeding’ process (that phrase always made me feel like a cow waiting to end up in a Big Mac) and all the CBT. When you’re losing 2lbs a week, this is not time you have. I read a news piece that said more people are dying of eating disorders because they’re not getting treatment in time, to which my response is a loud and angry ‘Duh’. I was lucky enough that my parents were willing and able to pay for private treatment. And it’s infuriating that other people who don’t have that support are stuck with this system.

Your body is strange and amazing

The recovery process is a weird and terrifying and wonderful journey through how your body can adapt to look after you. From a totally cold scientific view, it’s actually very interesting. When you deny your body food, it goes into this weird setting called starvation mode that changes how you respond to things. Some stuff makes sense: your body’s priority is to keep your heart beating and your brain ticking and your muscles happy, so when you’re not getting much energy it’s going to use every crumb to focus on these, and be damned other stuff, like hair, hormones, bones and less important organs. The funny thing is that you don’t realise how shitty and worn down you feel until you start eating more. One day you stand up and the world doesn’t spin and it’s a revelation.

Other stuff that happens is totally random and seemingly unrelated. Scientists at the University of Minnesota did some studies on conscientious objectors in the '40s to find out about starvation and refeeding. Turns out not everyone in Minnesota is nice. It was weird to read about things and think ‘Oh that’s why I do that!’ For example, needing food to be very hot. Like burn-your-tongue-and-fan-your-mouth-like-an-idiot hot. And developing the urge to hoard things, like clothes and books and DVDs (yes, I will happily blame that on my eating disorder.) And when you do let yourself eat, you can’t stop. I would be so full I felt sick but still keep going. And that’s totally normal.

It’s hard adapting to your new body

When you first start putting on weight, your poor body doesn’t really know what to do with it, so it basically shoves it around all your organs, which are centred in your torso area. Sadly, this is the bit I get fixated on. Looking in the mirror and seeing your once concave stomach look huge and bloated can trigger that anorexic machine to go into overdrive and tell you to stop, stop now. This is why constant support, an objective voice, is so important. If you keep going, keep eating, keep listening to your therapist, your body will realise, ‘Oh, OK, that wasn’t a one-off burst of energy that we needed to store for All Of Time, we can start working with this extra bit of Us’ and it will move it to other places.

Like your boobs.

I’d pretty much bid mine farewell, and then suddenly, running across the street to catch a bus, I felt this vaguely familiar jiggle of protest. It was like an invitation back to the club of bras and curves and looking like a healthy adult woman. It was something to focus on when I was staring at the newly emerging bits of me. Putting on that much weight often makes you feel like an overstuffed sausage, so finding little glimmers and positives among that misery really helps.

Look for the humour in every situation

It’s a very heavy topic…

… Groan.

But seriously, the thoughts anorexia produces are so ridiculous you have to laugh sometimes. It’s probably not a good idea to initiate the joke, since you might not know how the person is feeling about it all at that moment. Thoughts on your weight change like the British weather – from sunshine to showers with no warning. My own sense of humour got me through some of my toughest challenges, and while people struggle when I break out these slightly sick jokes at times, I actually love it when they take my lead and join in. Learning to laugh puts things in perspective and reminds you that there are more important things going on than the calorie content of a muffin.

I wrote this to be read, so please share if you feel like it.

I never thought this would be something I would have to face all day, every day. I didn’t see it coming the first time, so I won’t pretend to be able to predict the future and say it’s never coming back, hand me that burger so I may toast my resounding and permanent victory over this weird machine. Truthfully, it will probably be something I have to keep dealing with. But I have the tools and the team and the life lessons behind me, so I’ll be ready to take it on and win again.

Why Keira Knightley should play me in the movie of my life

It's not that funny, Keira

My passion for indie dramas where not much happens but everyone learns a lot means I'm pretty sure my life could still inspire a movie. The final character list is unconfirmed, wardrobe could use a hand, and the plot is still a work in progress. But just in case someone pens a screen-ready version of my story up to now, I've prepared this pitch to convince the only person I want in the starring role...

It’s another chance to move away from period dramas.
Look Keira, I have to admit that I wasn’t sold on you in Pride and Prejudice. It’s not your fault that Jane Austen tends towards the dry, but all that mucking around with fans, silly dance routines and raised eyebrows over bizarre social etiquette was really underselling you. Atonement was better, if only because you and young version of Professor X did for libraries what Ghost did for pottery (and can we all take a moment for That Green Dress) but the character was still a little arch.

Forget playing it cool: my life story has you at your goofy, vulnerable, totally unhip best. The shy singer from Begin Again (minus the singing), the dippy pot-head neighbour in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (minus the pot and impending apocalypse) and the feisty footballer from Bend it Like Beckham (minus the football). You don’t have to be poised and witty and well-behaved. You can trip on things and laugh at inappropriate moments and have totally incoherent rants. Also, you can chuck all those corsets in the Thames and spend the entire film wearing Converse.

It would be nice to pretend I look like Keira for 90 minutes.
Aside from being talented, funny, charming and fabulously sweary, Keira is also beautiful. Her chiselled cheekbones make Everest look like an anthill, and those warm Galaxy chocolate-brown eyes just seem to simmer. She’d perfected the glamour pout before Kim Kardashian had even heard of Instagram, but also has one of those grins that makes you forget that the bus was late and you spilled coffee on your favourite dress.

So yes, the lady has looks. However, crucially for my movie, they are not of the big-boobed, blow-dried, blonde-haired beauty queen aesthetic. All power to the women blessed with these, but this is my life story, damn it, and we’ll save the make-up artist and prosthetic specialist a lot of time and tears by aiming for Keira's comfortable, no-faffs-given look.

If you take a badly focussed picture of me, down a few shots and close your eyes quite tight, it’s possible to think that it looks a bit like Keira when she’s having an off-day. We both have brown hair, skinny arms and features that could vaguely be described as ‘English rose’ (if someone was being particularly kind). Wikipedia also informs me that we're the same height. No one is going to come running up to me, autograph book poised, to ask what it was like snogging Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean a million years ago, but if Charlize Theron can pull off Monster, I think there might just be hope yet.

Her accent is like a polished version of mine.
Especially if you’re an American Hollywood producer and have no grasp on the nuances of British accents (see Anne Hathaway in One Day). We both have voices that would let us blend nicely into the queue at John Lewis, but without slipping into the realms of polo shows, afternoon tea at the Ritz and opening Champagne bottles with swords. Our mouths fit neatly around the F-Bomb and we don’t always pronounce ‘t’ at the end of a word.

Having Keira giving voice to my thoughts would give them a certain refinement while still making sure they sound true to me. I recently discovered that I sound like a sarcastic kitten (a suspicion even my mum couldn’t quite dispel) but I reckon she could smooth that out, backing up my middle class stiffness with a polite firmness. Plus she can sing, which will make any shower scenes much more pleasant.

She'll be cool with the feminist angle.
Keira never let some nervous-looking PR shut her up about feminism, even before it became trendy for celebs to voice their opinion that women should maybe be treated equally by society. She’s called out the film industry on its lack of roles for women, pointing out that this needs to come from more females working behind the scenes.

She’s also commented that it’s a shame ‘feminism’ has become a dirty and misunderstood word, challenged the way women’s images are manipulated by the media, and spoken out against domestic abuse. And she’s done this without causing men everywhere to immediately jump on the defensive. Calling for female empowerment is not the same as saying men are bad and inferior and we should throw tampon torpedoes at them, and Keira somehow seems to have that balance.

Look, Keira: it probably won't win you an Oscar, there are no library sex scenes (well, not yet) and you will be spending a lot of time watching Netflix. But if you fancy something at a slower pace and with limited stunts, then the offer is always open.

See you for the read through?

I am not done with dungarees

'What, these old things?'

Every now and then I wake up with a sudden and absolute urge to buy a particular piece of clothing. This often leads to disaster, and explains why I now own alarmingly bright floral hareem ‘pants’ that get worn around the house when it's grey outside, and an elephant-print jumpsuit that made a single brave trip to Putney High Street before being buried at the back of the wardrobe with a pair of quad rollerskates and a hoola hoop. Ever the optimist, however, I still give in to these weird and wonderful ideas. The latest spontaneous fashion obsession has seen me become the proud owner of two pairs of dungarees.

Dungarees are having a moment. I was first alerted to this when the fashion editor at work rocked up to the office in a pair. Since she is the only woman on Earth to ever wear one of those coats that resemble Big Bird without immediately looking like she's trying to launch a sneak attack on an ostrich farm, I decided this was probably one of those trends reserved for people whose genetic codes spell out ‘FASHION’. However, it turns out that she’s not the only one looking fabulous in this totally unfathomable item. Soon, the other style queens of the office appeared in their own variations, working them with striped jumpers, polo necks, trainers, boots and the air of nonchalance such a decidedly risky trend requires.

For several decades, it's been an accepted fact that dungarees make everyone look like a hippy with a suspicious gardening obsession, a farmer, or a scruffy kid in Alabama about to be called in by Calpurnia for cornbread and a lesson from Atticus. Sure, Jennifer Aniston rocked a pair on the sofa in Central Perk a few times, but there’s reasonable evidence to suggest that you could march Jennifer Aniston through a hedge backwards into a pool of mud, and she would emerge, dripping slurry and trailing twigs, in a look snapped up by every magazine before the next Friends episode airs on Comedy Central.

I made my peace with the fact that this was a look I could only admire from the outside, like Charlie peering hungrily through the chocolate shop window. However, the desks and streets and images of dungaree-clad women must have seeped into my brain, because one day I found myself handing over my debit card to the assistant in Primark, purchasing my own pair of short dungarees in an almost trance-like state no doubt produced by low blood sugar and the power of advertising.

Fortunately, this unlikely arrangement has a happy ending, and we’re getting on very well. There’s something quite comforting about that little clicking noise the clips make: it’s a quiet reassurance that you are securely in your clothes – like a chunky zip, a solid popper or the hooks on a bra. They also remind me of being a kid, possibly because I haven’t worn them since I was one. There's something joyful about an all-in-one that makes you want to skip to the printer, or possibly dig out those rollerskates.  

The best feature of all, however, is that they have more pockets than everything else in my wardrobe combined. I’m still not over the novelty of being able to carry my phone, Oyster card, MP3 player, purse and emergency flare gun around hands- and bag-free at the same time. It's left me hoping that the next dubious trend to resurface will be those huge combat trousers from circa 2002, with the random bits of dangling material and a million pockets for storing plastic hair bobbles, Boots lip gloss and charity wristbands.

Like Eliza Doolittle after her elocution lessons, and Sandra Bullock’s Miss Congeniality post-totally pointless makeover, this tricky piece has gone from rough and ready cousin of the hippy jumpsuit and student onesie to Serious Fashion Item. So if you’ve been wondering whether you should try dungarees, give them a go. You can always retire them to the sofa – the pockets are the perfect place to put the remote while watching Friends re-runs.

High Heels: A Break-Up Letter

A messy break-up.

Dear High Heels,

We tried to make it work. We tried to pretend that it was worth the pain, but I can’t lie to myself or you anymore.

I’d had my eye on you for years – I saw you doing your thing on the red carpet, in movies, on proper grown-ups. When we first met, I was young, and you were this glamorous, sexy, exciting glimpse into adulthood. Like red lipstick, cars with actual engines, or a glittery mortgage form.

I’m older and wiser, and now I see you for what you really are. You’re just a drunken dream: like donner kebabs, pissing on statues and swimming naked, you’re best left for alcohol-fuzzied moments. And that’s great. But it’s just not me.

Then there’s the way you slow me down. I’m going places, and you’re holding me back. I see the road spreading out before me. Sometimes there are cobbles, sometimes there is mud, sometimes there are floors that have been buffed to resemble an ice rink. I need to be able to take these on, to get through anything I meet, and I cannot do that with you. You don’t have the support I need. I have to get my feet back on the ground, to stand on my own without stumbling.

And you hurt me, too. I didn’t even realise in the moment, but every time we parted, I saw that you’d been trying to change the way I am. I thought it would just take time to get used to you, but I’ve realised now that we’re fundamentally different. Look, it’s not your fault. We had some good nights, a lot of fun. Perhaps I should have made more effort, given you more chances, but I’m pretty stubborn, and my feet just don’t bend that way.

The other thing is, I met someone else who gets me. Who I don’t have to change for. Who’ll work with what I want to do, whether I’m running around the city, just relaxing in the house, wearing a dress, shorts, anything. They’re called flats. Sure, they don't have that edgy vibe that you give so effortlessly, but we’re comfortable with each other in a way you and I never could be.

You’re not the bad guy in this; you have so many fantastic traits I’ll miss. You’re uplifting, you put a power in my step that I don’t get from anyone else - and you’re really good looking. Other people are spellbound by you. There are books, movies, exhibitions raving about your charms. I’ve seen you with other women and you look so much better. Now you can find someone who truly appreciates your best qualities.

We had a good run (well, hobble) but we both need to move on. I wish you nothing but the best. I’ll smile when I see you on the red carpet, on another woman’s feet, and remember the times you made me sparkle too. But I’ll be doing it in shoes that love me back.

All the best,

Tasha

Five things I learned from travelling alone

Amsterdam... somewhere

Some people can’t even imagine drinking a coffee on their own, while others will eagerly send themselves to the other side of the world, phone off and backpack in hand. Going it alone isn’t for everyone, but there are definite benefits to taking the plunge and travelling solo. Determined to give my passport some use but without the patience to begin a lengthy dialogue about where to go, I said goodbye to London and Guten Tag to Berlin, hallo to Amsterdam and salut to Paris on my own. My language skills didn't take off much beyond this, but I did learn some other things along the way.  

Appreciate the brilliance of being alone

As David Foster Wallace rather gloomily pointed out, we are all of us marooned in our own skulls - we are all ultimately alone. We can either drive ourselves mad constantly scanning the horizon for the glimpse of another ship, or we can roll up our sleeves, hunt out a reliable water source, and get on with it Swiss Family Robinson-style. When you travel solo, chances are you will be on your own for at least some time, whether that’s on the flight over, for a long train journey, or even just lunch. This is actually quite fun. No, seriously.

Having no one else to worry about means you can do whatever you want without worrying about seeming rude or inattentive. Want to stare out the window aimlessly for four hours? Or listen to a podcast without seeming antisocial? Or just catch some sleep? No one can distract you or complain. Or post photos of you mid-nap on social media.

I think many struggle more with this around meals, but eating alone can also be something of a relief. Not only can you use a fork instead of chopsticks without judgement, but there’s no one to argue with over where you eat, no small talk, and all the time in the world to people-watch, eavesdrop on conversations (like eating off the floor, we’ve all done it, so don’t get high and mighty) or just to read. I’m not saying we should all seal ourselves up inside one-person-only cells for the rest of our lives, but learning how to spend a few hours or days on your own is good brain training.

You will meet awesome people

Getting out of your comfort zone gives you the chance to meet people you would otherwise never have crossed paths with. Whether it’s for a dinner, a day, a weekend or the rest of your life, taking the opportunity to get to know someone else's point of view can only teach you more about what's outside your own little bubble. Not everyone you meet will be your new best friend, and you're lucky if you find someone like that, but it's still worth talking to them.

However, the caveat is that to find these fantastic fellow wanderers, you also have to put the effort in. Luckily, it’s easier to be brave when you’re in a place where no one knows you, plus being deprived of conversation will make you more keen to take a chance when the opportunity arises. Strike up a chat with the person on the plane, say hi to that person in the park who caught your eye. You never know, it could be the start of an interesting discussion or a beautiful friendship (or just really fun). 

More practically, you also have to put yourself in social situations, which probably means hostels. Do your research before you go, and make sure other solo travellers have ticked yours off as a good place to meet like-minded people, rather than couples and groups of friends who are more likely to stick in their own little circle. No one is saying that sharing a room with 10 strangers and all their various smells, snores and nocturnal activities is glamorous. However, in between cursing the guy two bunks over for his persistent tractor imitation, and silently begging the couple in the next bed to just hold off for one night (both true stories), this is the place to meet people. Finding a hostel with a bar and/or communal area is another good tactic. Even if you don’t drink, this is a great place to meet people open to making new friends. This works even better if some big sporting event is on. Who cares if no one there has anyone competing in the curling: pick a side, place a bet, and get ready to cheer.

You can go wherever you want

Forget being dragged shopping for four hours, or to the Chair Museum, or to slowly roast on a beach in the sun all day. You’re the boss and you set your own itinerary. You can be selfish and not have to waste your time doing things others in a group might love but which bore you to tears. Want to go to another museum? Go ahead. Feel like a long wander through the city? Sure. This can actually be a bit scary, as it means that if you don’t take responsibility for filling your days, you won’t actually do anything. Get some guide books and a map before you go, and highlight the stuff you want to see, then work out a sensible way to get round it. You can do this on the plane, if you focus (not that anyone would leave it that late). Even if you don’t see it all, this will make sure you get to the crucial bits. You can also book tours and activities once you’re there, to make sure you drag yourself out of bed and at least do something vaguely holiday-like.

Arriving is the worst

No matter how excited and prepared you are, it’s normal to experience a feeling of being completely overwhelmed by everything around you when you first arrive, as well as by everyone else seemingly knowing where they’re going. Knowing that this ‘small fish in a big sea’ feeling is coming should make it easier to handle. It might be tempting to hide in a corner and rock on your knees while wondering when the next flight home is or testing out the 'No place like home' heel clicks, but you’ll feel much better if you force yourself to get out and do something in your new environment. It will go away, so don’t worry about it: just focus on your day.

You will get lost and it will be fine

I spent much of my time alone in varying degrees of being lost. These range from, ‘I know I just have to go left down this street somewhere,’ to ‘I’m sure I’ve walked past this desolate Soviet-era building/quaint bakery/sex shop at least twice already,’ to ‘It’s getting dark, I’m not even on this map, and I’m pretty sure those are vultures.’ 

As I've recorded on this blog several times before, I can’t read maps, so if you also suffer from this, a bonus tip is to learn how to read maps before you go. Also, always read the full name of the street, as it turns out that evil city planners really like to give very close roads similar names. And map-illiterate people like to totally ignore them when they do. If you plan nothing else, make sure you know where your hostel is from the station or airport. In my experience, locals know when you’re lost, and they will try and help you – at least they will if you’re a 23-year-old woman.

There’s also something to be said for smartphones. Everyone is glued to these anyway, and since I didn’t use one, every time I pulled out the last remaining paper map of Amsterdam in existence (which was, on average, every two minutes and eighteen seconds), everyone around me could see I was a gullible tourist with no idea where I was. Everyone except for the couple who asked me for directions, despite the loud and proud ‘I <3 Amsterdam’ t-shirt. (Oddly I actually knew where I was at that moment; is this what you people feel like all the time?) 

Luckily, getting lost can actually lead you to places you wouldn’t otherwise have found, like the art studio in Paris run by a charming and talented guy from Portland delightfully named Buzz, and the colourful neighbourhood in Berlin dotted with the types of gypsy caravans Enid Blyton wrote about, as well as bits of the Wall. That said, the relief at getting back home and knowing where you’re going without having to pull out a map every two seconds makes you want to run down the well-known street, tearing that frustrating bit of paper into confetti and screaming 'I'M HOME AND I KNOW WHERE I AM!' Until you take a wrong turn.

The Hot List: Alex Vause

Fictional or flesh and blood, waiting in the pages of a book or splashed across your screens, some humans send your personal mercury reaching just that little bit closer to fetch-me-the-smelling-salts. The Hot List is a celebration of the totally unattainable, the ones who just wouldn't ever work out even if you could swing a cosy candlelit meeting. Up first is Alex Vause, a bad girl who proves that you can have killer taste in specs but still be totally blind when it comes to love. 

Vause-some

For the still uninitiated, Alex (played by Laura Prepon) is the heroin-dealing love/hate interest of lead inmate Piper in Netflix series Orange is the New Black. If you haven’t seen it, cancel your life plans for the next 26 hours, and go and binge. It’s fine, the rest of us will wait…

It’s great, right? To recap, Alex’s dodgy dealings land her and former girlfriend Piper in Litchfield Prison, where our anti-heroine is sent to clean up her act and the inmates’ underwear in the laundry rooms. Sadly her smart humour is grossly underappreciated among her ‘colleagues’, a bunch of homophobic evangelists who display an unusual amount of imagination with the nickname Lurch.

Alex is far from a Frankenstein, even if that super glossy hair could give Elsa Lanchester’s Bride a run for her money in the fabulousness stakes. (Seriously, is there a black market in conditioner in that prison?) Pasty people everywhere are now looking at shapeless beige PJs as a very real fashion option, thanks to that no-shits-given attitude with which Vause pulls them off. Even more importantly, she may have single-handedly proven to every vision-impaired girl watching that while Hollywood would have us all believe glasses should be snapped, chucked and replaced with contacts before you can say bi-focals, it’s absolutely possible to look smokin’ in specs. Already broken your glasses in a fit of rage? Make like Vause and accessorise with tape. Move aside, Potter, the DIY fixer-upper has never looked so good.

However, behind that wry sense of humour and permanently raised eyebrow, you know that Alex does care what people think. The character hits viewers a bit like Marmite’s supposed to. Some would describe her as a self-centred, heroin-dealing, manipulative narcissist – but you get the feeling that she would be one of them. After being abandoned by her father and living through the standard high school bullying everyone without the right brand of trainers gets, Alex has known all along that she’s far from perfect. That often brutal honesty reveals not just a keen observation of other people’s issues, but a self-awareness, even if she’s powerless to change. Her ambition to keep going in the heroin trade comes from her sense that she has to work extra hard to get people to love and respect her.

She might be tougher now, but we still get flashes of this insecurity. Perhaps it’s remembering this need to fit in that explains why she’s so taken with Piper. Suddenly, a rich, blonde, spoilt brat is drawn in by the mad lifestyle and awkward differentness that once marked her out for isolation. It makes it all the more powerful when she turns Piper down. Sorry, Pipes. Be less annoying.  

Not everyone gets Alex’s blend of devil-may-care charm, sardonic humour, blunt and swift honesty, and heart melting vulnerability. But you get the sense that she’ll probably get over it.

Specs appeal..