❄️ Snowflake Jack Monroe / Melissa "Mel" Hadjicostas / Jack Xatzinikolas / @BootstrapCook - Spaghetti hoop rinser who wants to live like Common People, the face of poverty in Britain, literally can't lie

[keytar]

Now I think about it, her unhinged-ness reminds me of a Brit version of Kindness. The personality disorders, the substance issues, the munching, the troonacy...but tempered by being a somewhat well-known public figure. At least Jack isn't posting her asshole on Twitter (that we know of)

 

[Ghostie with the Mostie]

I’m so glad this lying bitch has a thread finally. As a Brit bong I will say she’s definitely not as prominent in the media as she used to be thank fuck. If you search her name on Twitter it’s 99% people ragging on her.

 

[InsulindianPhasmid]

Really glad Monroe’s finally got a thread on the Farms and the OP is excellent and very comprehensive.

Re: Monroe’s Groucho membership mentioned in the OP- I’ve googled and it seems Monroe was nominated for a Groucho “Maverick” award in 2013, which granted her membership, at least for a time, gratis. This doesn’t mean the drinks were free once she was there though, but given the wealth of her exes Allegra (founder of the Leon restaurant chain and a millionaire) and Louisa (Head of Channel 4 news), it’s feasible she was drinking there on their dime.

 

[Ethics Gradient]

To borrow a statement from someone else interested in this - JM is:

A perpetually online, uber woke, gender hopping perma-victim who is scamming their way across our timelines using their (made up and/or self diagnosed) handicaps as both a weapon and shield.

I found some reviews of her latest book amusing. Tells readers of the Thrifty Kitchen, (RRP £20), that if they cannot afford a tin opener to use a “small sharp knife that you are not particularly attached to, a hammer or mallet, a bit of vigour, some patience and a very steady hand.

Great way to speedrun a trip to A&E.

Also, £20 for a handbook on 'how to maim yourself in your own kitchen' or 50p for a basic tin opener? Difficult choice....

The book probably has a disclaimer at the end blaming Tories for any injuries sustained as a result of being too poor to own a tin opener.

 

[East_Clintwood]

I found some reviews of her latest book amusing. Tells readers of the Thrifty Kitchen, (RRP £20), that if they cannot afford a tin opener to use a “small sharp knife that you are not particularly attached to, a hammer or mallet, a bit of vigour, some patience and a very steady hand.

While that was probably the most egregious one, and infact was so bad the publisher had to fucking remove it, all of the tips in her book are just plain retarded. The ones that aren't dangerous are just flat out patronizing, and seem to assume the readers are 0 IQ mongs (although frankly anyone who unironically pays for this shit, or listens to this cunt probably is tbh)

 

[Adrenochrome Dreams]

Now that you said that, I think I might agree... I mean looking at it now it's obvious she's exaggerating the quantities of alcohol and pills. The way she talks about it seems like she's bragging about it, trying to impress you with how horribly severely she was addicted, so please gawk at her tragic life. And the more severe her addiction, the more awesome strong warrior she is for having overcome it, of course.

And obviously there is no way she has overcome any addiction, just based on her mentioned flagrant personality disorder and complete lack of any self-awareness.

Addicts tend to instinctively minimize/hide the extent of their usage or at least exhibit some appropriate amount of shame about it, rather than flaunting it for attention like that. So it doesn't make sense to me for her to be talking about her drug and alcohol use like she does. Her shopping habits, though, she does seem to try to minimize, so that probably is her central problem.

And I mean either
a) she is minimizing her usage and has been taking care of a small child while drinking far more than 122 units per week, which is more than 17 units of alcohol daily or
b) is willing to lie for attention about having taken care of a small child while drinking 17 units of alcohol daily, not feeling an ounce of the crushing shame that any other person would experience if other people thought they had done that.

Which are both incredibly terrible and also make her my new favorite cow. I think she may have a brand new personality disorder that no one's discovered yet.

I never thought of her minimising shopping vs flaunting substance abuse, you're absolutely right. More evidence that this is her true addiction. She definitely minimises her shopping with the most ridiculous lies, including that she found her Burberry scarf in a muddy puddle, one of her Vivienne Westwood jackets (I think) for 50p in a charity shop, and that her two pairs of £1550 pearl Tiffany earrings are cheap Etsy dupes.

Even though she appears to have very few friends, she is always claiming that "a friend" gave her whatever expensive item she is talking about, while pretending she can't afford butter, shampoo or lightbulbs. Why don't these imaginary friends ever gift her food or shower gel?

 

[Watchkeeper]

So the latest seems to be Mel flounced after being red handed with coke coins, just in time to move house with the proceeds of a decade long grift, and when challenged about the new gaff will say she found it in a skip, but on the bright side she's lost a shitload of fans on twitter who are finally starting to wake up and smell the grift, Patrons are heading for the fire exit, her self harm manual has been pulped, no fucker from the media, food or charity sector will touch her with a bargepole and even her imaginary cyber friends have fucked off and left her to move in alone, ripping radiators off walls and ordering new sideboards as we speak. Have I got it about right?

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

I found some reviews of her latest book amusing. Tells readers of the Thrifty Kitchen, (RRP £20), that if they cannot afford a tin opener to use a “small sharp knife that you are not particularly attached to, a hammer or mallet, a bit of vigour, some patience and a very steady hand.

Or you know, instead of risking a medical emergency and destroying a useful kitchen tool in the process, you could just...get a can opener? That ubiquitous, insanely cheap, nearly indestructible item that will allow you to access high quality, cost effective, nutritious foods that don't require a refrigerator for storage and practically never expire?

It is unbelievable at how bad this women is at LARPing poverty. The US publishing industry is full of ivory tower birdbrains but I'm pretty certain even they would see shit like this and immediately conclude the writer is retarded. What is going on with Bongs?

 

[lightswitchdoll]

Or you know, instead of risking a medical emergency and destroying a useful kitchen tool in the process, you could just...get a can opener? That ubiquitous, insanely cheap, nearly indestructible item that will allow you to access high quality, cost effective, nutritious foods that don't require a refrigerator for storage and practically never expire?

It is unbelievable at how bad this women is at LARPing poverty. The US publishing industry is full of ivory tower birdbrains but I'm pretty certain even they would see shit like this and immediately conclude the writer is retarded. What is going on with Bongs?

Britain's full of retards (send help plz) but I don't get this either - the only people who will buy her book are people who don't need it. It's absolutely bizarre - a £20 book about being resourceful written by someone with no resource skills whatsoever.

I was trying to explain this woman to my husband last night and came to the conclusion that it's the most middle class guessing at what being poor is like that we've ever seen. She's treating poverty like it makes you completely isolated when the opposite is true - there's LOADS of help available, without having to resort to grifting for money online.

She has a kid, right? So if you've got a kid and a bunch of tinned food that you need to feed that child but no tin opener then what you do is ask to speak to the family support officer at the kid's school privately and explain the situation - they'll probably just give you a damn tin opener.

And a bottle of shower gel. And they'll probably get you some help with other stuff as well. She's not too embarrassed to ask for help if she has no qualms writing about it all in national newspapers, books and on twitter so what's her excuse for going full Council Estate Bear Grylls instead of making sensible decisions? No one in their right mind would follow her advice (unfortunately, however, read my first sentence again).

 

[Geranium]

I don't get this either - the only people who will buy her book are people who don't need it

Monroe and Bookshop.org did a promotion before publication, where they would donate a copy to the Trussell Trust food bank network for each copy bought through them. "Bookshop.org in drive to donate Jack Monroe’s latest book via food banks" (archive)

Really smacks of "We middle-class people know what's best for you, plebs."

As mentioned a while back in this thread, the Trussell Trust had to put out a statement saying they wouldn't distribute any of the original versions of the book through their food banks. "The Trussell Trust on Twitter" (archive)

The safety of people who use food banks is our priority and food banks aim to help people access essentials such as tin openers if needed

Ouch.

 

[frap]

It is unbelievable at how bad this women is at LARPing poverty. The US publishing industry is full of ivory tower birdbrains but I'm pretty certain even they would see shit like this and immediately conclude the writer is retarded. What is going on with Bongs?

Britain's full of retards (send help plz) but I don't get this either - the only people who will buy her book are people who don't need it. It's absolutely bizarre - a £20 book about being resourceful written by someone with no resource skills whatsoever.

I was trying to explain this woman to my husband last night and came to the conclusion that it's the most middle class guessing at what being poor is like that we've ever seen. She's treating poverty like it makes you completely isolated when the opposite is true - there's LOADS of help available, without having to resort to grifting for money online.

It’s because the publishing industry is full of middle-class midwits who have no idea what poverty actually looks like. Jack is a palatable idea of what they think poverty is, with her rustic twee DIY solutions to problems no working class person would even consider something so essential it needs fixing. Like eggs being perfectly round.

 

[InsulindianPhasmid]

I actually have a copy of Jack Monroe’s first cookbook (A Girl Called Jack) which I bought years ago when my family were on a low income and unaware of her grift. We weren’t poor like Jack pretended to be (we could afford a tin opener and shower gel) but we had no savings and were living with young 2 children, paycheque to paycheque.

The recipes were… not good. There was a banana and tea curry we tried once out of morbid fascination (“it can’t be that bad if it made it into a proper cookbook, right?”) that genuinely defied description- it looked like something you’d find floating stubbornly in the bowl of a train toilet. The recipe for peanut butter and jam cookies resulted in horrible little dry pellets topped with chewy burnt sugar that disintegrated into powder in your mouth.

I’ve made better, cheap recipes my family will actually eat by just adapting recipes in other books (usually by That Man) to use cheaper ingredients.

Having read this thread and the Tattle wiki I’m convinced the reason for Jack’s success is because she is a kind of fantasy version of a poor person the lefty media dreamed into being.

Jamie Oliver is a bit of a cow in his own right at least he has actually attempted to make life better for people.

 

[AirdropShitposts]

You guys are all dismissing the possibility that they're poor because they keep having to buy knives because they're wrecking them all trying to open their canned goods. And having to buy new beds and furniture because they stuffed their previous ones full of moldy cardboard they found near dumpsters. And buying processed food and then washing it or removing parts rather than just getting the cheaper basic form of it to use as an ingredient. (The funny thing to me is that Sandra Lee was wildly mocked for these same "tips" over a decade ago but her excuse was almost always being a time saver (and stuff like buying prechopped mushrooms) rather than a money saver which made slightly more sense if you squinted.)

 

[Aunt Carol]

You guys are all dismissing the possibility that they're poor because they keep having to buy knives because they're wrecking them all trying to open their canned goods.

So many people on a budget are wasting money on imported Canadian cocaine when the domestic stuff gets you just as high.

 

[everybody in Portugal]

Finally worked it out. Dis bitch reminds me of a more successful (at grifting) slightly more media-friendly Kittenbread. Physically not so much (even though both are the same basic flavour of genderspecial idiot), more in the 'fake Letter Person/muh disabillytees/grifting, entitled middle classer LARPing as a hapless, exploited Poor all the while unconsciously revealing all their own gross class prejudices' kinda way.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

That book title A Girl Called Jack annoys me so much. Your name is Melissa!

 

[CaptainRockall]

I only skipped through the video - what did she say? (Can't bring myself to watch it because Brexit Derangement Syndrome is perhaps even worse than Trump Derangement Syndrome.)

Spoiler: OT election sperging

But yes, voting in the UK is largely a doddle. Local authorities (councils) are responsible for voter registration and organising elections but, unlike the state-by-state situation in the US, election law is set centrally. Applying for postal and proxy votes is straightforward.

There was a change in 2013 that put the responsibility for registering to vote on the individual (rather than the "head of the household" as before), which prompted some to argue that it was likely to lead to a decrease in voter registration. That hasn't been borne out, with 2019 seeing the highest ever number of people registered to vote.

There's going to be compulsory Voter ID for forthcoming General Elections, if Napoleon Fullofshite (Sunak) gets his way.

 

[MiniMuffin]

You guys are all dismissing the possibility that they're poor because they keep having to buy knives because they're wrecking them all trying to open their canned goods

As a dumb teenager in my boyfriend’s house alone, I couldn’t find a can opener so opened a can with a knife. His roommate, who owned the knife, was furious cause it was a high quality knife and I had just ruined it.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

(The funny thing to me is that Sandra Lee was wildly mocked for these same "tips" over a decade ago but her excuse was almost always being a time saver (and stuff like buying prechopped mushrooms) rather than a money saver which made slightly more sense if you squinted.)

Semi-Homemade was never about "how to cook if you're poor," it was more like "how to entertain if you're a suburban housewife and want to impress people but are too intimidated/strapped for time/drunk to cook from scratch." She was basically Ina Garten's evil twin from the other end of Long Island.

 

[AirdropShitposts]

Semi-Homemade was never about "how to cook if you're poor," it was more like "how to entertain if you're a suburban housewife and want to impress people but are too intimidated/strapped for time/drunk to cook from scratch." She was basically Ina Garten's evil twin from the other end of Long Island.

Yes, it was different but it had some similar absurd recipes. I think Food Network took it off their website but she had a "Chicken and Rice Soup" recipe that started with three cans of Campbell's Chicken and Rice Soup. The washing spaghetti rings reminds me of that kind of thing.

For those unfamiliar with Sandra Lee here is an unedited clip to give you a further idea of her show: